Two weeks ago, I attended my Zayde’s funeral. I’ve written about him before, but Zayde was a simple and pious man. He was notorious for his fiery personality, witty one-liners, and an impeccable attention to detail which he incorporated into his life stories. Snippets from those last few months of stories are now branded family folklore: fighting for his right to be a Sabbath-observant hospital orderly; the possibility that we may have a long-lost relative in Argentina; the time he punched out a ranking army officer for saying Hitler should have “finished the job.” And then there’s the one that I was around for: At a recent family bar mitzvah, Zayde, a cantor for many years, was getting irritated. During the mussaf service, a pretty standard revue of centuries-old Shabbat prayer melodies, Zayde, hard of hearing in his old age, angrily turned to us and shouted, “Who chose these nigunim [melodies]? It sounds like an Irish wake!” Turns out it was our cousin, the bar mitzvah boy. Classic :~)
In memory of Zayde, who loved Jewish music, here’s a Jewish-Yemenite melody for havdalah that actually does sound a little like an Irish wake. Yehi Zichro Baruch.