Why I? THIS IS MY COVENANT

THIS IS MY COVENANT

THIS IS MY COVENANT WHICH
YOU SHALL KEEP

"You must come," she insisted. "I, the grandmother, want you especially to come. Since we came on the Magic Carpet this is our first Bris Milah" She wrote down the address, Rhov Akibah, Shikun Daled, Kfar Saba. We wanted to go, too. Fourteen years in the country and this was our first invitation to a Yemenite Bris Milah.
Once we got out of the center of town, it wasn't hard to find Shikun Daled. Swarms of children surrounded the car when we stopped to ask for the street.
"Rehov Akiba?" they imitated my American accent.
"Yashar, Yashar," they indicated with their hands, their payot and laughing eyes.
And yashar, yashar, it was. We knew the house from the brushed, shiny children outside the door. "They're in there," they pointed.
We found no mother reclining in neglegee.
We found no mother propped and pillowed.
We found no mother lipsticked and bejewelled. The room was full of women from eight to eighty and the baby in his crib just eight days old.
I wrapped my shawl more tightly around my naked arms. I hadn't thought enough. Mine was the only uncovered head among them. Devorah wore a silly hat, sillier here among the white flowered scarfs that carefully covered their hair.
We were the only Ashkenazim there. "Mazal tov," we said and walked quickly over to the crib to admire the baby.
"How sweet he is!" we bleated, laughing to ourselves at the symbol of Western culture half covering his tiny face. Such a little face and such a big pacifier.
Two chairs came out of somewhere.
"Sit down," they invited us.
We sat down. We looked at the faces surrounding us. the clocked ticked.
"Fadyabuiau!"
"Lo! Lo!
"Fadyabuiau."
"Kain! Kain!"

It was an argument. In Arabic. There was gesticulation. There were angry frowns, there was impatience. There was authority. The old lady won. She took the baby and handed him to Esther who gave him the breast.
"Sooo," we said to each other, "that was it. Should the baby be fed before the Bris or after?
I couldn't remember what happened with my Julie. How could I? My baby was taken from the hygienic infant's room in the hospital by a white-clad hygienic nurse while I was biting my nails in my hygienic hospital bed wasting maudlin pity on my poor threatened hygienic son.
No hygiene here. Just twenty women managing one baby and each an "expert". I thought of harem. It must be like this when a baby is born to one of the twenty wives of a sheik.
Again the clock ticked. I looked around, trying to fathom
the bright brown eyes. Devorah's had never looked so blue. My eyes roamed over the maple-looking clothes closet, the green copper knicknacks, the drawer-bottomed crib, the two new pictures on the wall. "Nothing here from the old country," I whispered to Devorah. "I wonder what their thing at home were like. Was the crib on rockers? What kind of diapers?
"And," breathed Devorah back, "bathroom training, and thumb sucking and feeding problems. Who is their Dr. Spock?"
I giggled but it wasn't funny. Fourteen years in the country and I had never discussed anything -- anything at all with a Yemenite. What was their feeling about Yossele? Whom did they blame for their troubles? How did they "like" Israel? Did they feel threatened by Cuba?
"Did anyone hear the news today?" I asked out loud in Hebrew. "Do you know the latest word from Cuba? I stuttered a bit on Cuba. It sounded so strange to me for them. The lady in the print dress answered quickly: I listened to the five o'clock news, "Nothing new yet! The boats haven't met"
"What do you think will happen?" Devorah pursued the topic.
The lady in the print dress did not hesitate. "There's a God in heaven and He takes care of us," She meant it. The topic was closed.
And Yemen? What's happening there?
"Salal is not dead," she was positive. "You can be sure of that. He was always a "chevraman" He's surely alive somewhere.
"Is he good?" Devorah was surprised by the admiration in the word "Chevraman"
"Good?" the word fell like a broken dish. "Today none of them are "good". The only good one was the old king."
"How was he good?" I took up the theme. "I thought they were all bad as far as the Jews were concerned."
"Oh no! Yemen was wonderful for Jews. Only when the fighting in Israel started was there trouble. then the Arabs started killing Jews in Yemen. But the old king took our side. "These people are not the same Jews, he told his Arabs "Jews speak English. These are our people. They are Yemenites. In the end he got killed but first he helped the Jews get out. That was why he was killed. He was a good man.
I hadn't known I had somehow thought of Yemenites as "slaves in Egypt". I had seen them coming in on the "wings of an Eagle" in Lud and they were an "oppressed" people to me. "were you able to take your things with you?" I asked thinking of the "old world" character of the room.
Her fingers danced denial, told of wealth uncounted left behind. "Just Sifrei Torah. They let us take the Sifrei Torah. The Arabs were afraid of us with them."
My mind jolted with other memories. The Germans hadn't been afraid of Jews with Sifrei Torah. The Germans hadn't been afraid of any moral power, They were modern, scientific. They knew a bullet goes through anything and we Ashkenazi Jews knew it too. I liked the Arabs who were afraid of Sifrei Torah and I liked these Yemenites who believed they were.
The door opened then and a very little old lady came into the room, the great grandmother. She looked whatever years they might have claimed for her. She held a straw-basket-looking thing in her hand. The old lady was given a pillow, a diaper, a big yellow shawl, and the baby. One after the other she put those things on the bed. Then she hoisted her wee self up behind them. There she sat like an elf out of an Andersen fairy tale, sitting up against the headboard, feet stretched out straight before her, busily undressing the baby. Everybody watched her. No one helped her, This was HER job. All the separate pieces became one bundle. She slid off the bed, lifted down the straw basket with pillow, yellow shawl, baby and all. The Chacham had come. It was Bris time.
We followed her through the kitchen. Pittas were piled up high on the table, pails full of chicken were standing on the floor and the sharp whiff of curry covered it all. We stood in the hallway while the men crowded the living room. The voice of the Chacham came through loud and clear. the tune was in an odd key, but the plaintive lilt stirred ancient fibers. For thousands of years on thousands of square miles of the earth's surface, the words have been the same though
the accent varied. It was strangely familiar and familiarly strange.
The baby cried. The ceremony was over. Someone had a bottle of eau de cologne and showered us all, women, children and men with a goodly dose.
"What's the meaning of that?" we asked
"Eliyahu Hanavi"
But why? It deemed odd to us.
We asked someone else - a young man this time.
"Elyahu Hanavi", we were told again
"But why?" we persisted.
He shrugged. I knew that shrug. I had used it myself just the day before at a U.J.A. dinner at the Sheraton. The speaker was telling a story. Someone asked me. "When would Israel no longer need the U.J.A.?"
"One week after Mashiach comes!" I told him. the lady sitting opposite me from Columbus, Ohio turned to her husband and asked, "Who is Mashiach?" I looked at my husband. He looked at me. We both shrugged. It was the same shrug.
We were led back to the baby's room. "Sit down" Esther gave us two chairs. We sat down expecting the others. Esther brought us platters of fruit, peanuts, popcorn, cake, brandy, chicken, rice. She poured us a drink. "Lechayim", she said. "Eat!" just the two of us at the table. We were embarrassed, "Where are the others?" She waved a vague hand. The clock ticked on.
The door opened. It was the great grandmother -- alone -- carrying the basket with the baby in it. We watched her again fascinated. Up on the bed with the basket. Up on the bed with her whole self. She undressed the baby, revealed the wound, began winding a long bandage around it and the baby. She bandaged its feet together, its hands together, winding, winding, winding. We looked our amazement.
"She's an expert. She's brought a thousand babies into the world" said the new mother, matter-of-factly, unconcerned. It was plainly true. The old lady smile at us seeking approval for her skill. Esther supplied us with popcorn. Babies bound hand and foot were perfectly alright with her. I swallowed the popcorn with difficulty. The purposeful activity of the great grandmother and the binding that never finished horrified my western concepts.
Where were the others? This intensity of attention was getting more uncomfortable. I nudged Devorah, "Let's go." I said.
On our way through the kitchen we saw the others. They were in an off side room on sofas, on chairs. on pillows chatting gaily, enjoying the Brit.
We wondered as we drove away, had we been entertained
in lavish but splendid isolation? It was our Bris, too. For "This is My Covenant Which You Shall Keep" is every Jew's.
For two thousand years on different soils is not to be washed away in fourteen. And the core that makes us one is covered by coatings of many colors. East will linger on being East, and West will linger on being West until obtrusive differences surrender to basic similarities.
I wonder how a Yemenite feels at an Ashkenazi Brit.

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