He wanted it spelled ‘poppa’ not ‘papa.’ \u00a0He was definitive about that, but not about much else. \u00a0I always wondered why. It seemed anachronistic, that spelling, but maybe that’s the point. He was from a different era. How could he not be? \u00a0Maybe the word \u00a0‘poppa’ made him feel warm and fuzzy, and maybe \u00a0‘papa’ sounded \u2014 well, I don’t really know what.<\/p>\n
But that’s neither here nor there.<\/p>\n
Poppa was her protector.<\/p>\n
He intervened, without getting in the middle. \u00a0He intervened secretly, for he could never protect her openly. \u00a0Even Malkah realized that explicit protection, verbal defense for example, was just too dangerous. And it was bound to backfire.<\/p>\n
He kept secrets. And not just Malkah’s secrets. \u00a0He kept the secrets all over the place. \u00a0And not once was he tempted to reveal or exploit them. \u00a0He never threatened either, not once, to reveal a secret. He never said things like, “it’s for the best…” and tell you something you didn’t want to hear. \u00a0I think he knew it wasn’t for the best at all.<\/p>\n
He was not, in other words, one for transparency.<\/p>\n
But for that, Malkah loved her poppa. She could trust<\/em> him.<\/p>\n Well, up to a point, anyway. \u00a0For while he kept things to himself, he was also somewhat unreliable.<\/p>\n He couldn’t, for example, maintain a car to save his life. \u00a0And his lack of attention to such mundane details as car maintenance led to some near misses in the so-called protection department. \u00a0No. He couldn’t be counted upon for the ordinary stuff. But for the extraordinary, he was magnificent.<\/p>\n When I think about it now, however, his parenting skills were fairly rudimentary.<\/p>\n Let them be.<\/em><\/p>\n That was it, really. \u00a0Nothing more. He was a minimalist when it came to intervention. \u00a0Never direct confrontation, Never direct caregiving. Benign neglect, he had down really well. Never gave an allowance, for example, in keeping with his motto:<\/p>\n anybody can do it with money<\/em><\/p>\n try and do it without<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/em>Never gave a present that wasn’t used or broken or both. Never occurred that she might not be okay. Never occurred that she might need medical attention. \u00a0Surely she could regenerate all by herself? Never occurred that she might not be able to solve most things on her own. Nope. She’d be fine. \u00a0And why not? \u00a0That worked.\u00a0For most things.<\/em> \u00a0But not for everything.<\/p>\n Let them just be.<\/em><\/p>\n And so. Malkah grew up autonomous and competent, and solitary and as secretive as he.<\/p>\n But one day, (not the only time, I might add) he called her in distress. This was the time that he told Malkah that he loved her.<\/p>\n Actually, that’s not what what he said at all.<\/p>\n It was one year during the Jewish Film Festival. And a family friend had made a film all about how damaged she was because her father never said he loved her. It wasn’t the best film on the planet, I might add. But it upset him.<\/p>\n And so the tzaddik called his Malkah.<\/p>\n “Did you see L’s film?” he asked. “She thinks he didn’t love her \u00a0because he never said those words.”<\/p>\n Malkah grunted.<\/p>\n “Do I need to say it?” the tzaddik asked. \u00a0It was clear to Malkah that he was very very upset.<\/p>\n “No poppa,” she said. “You don’t need to say it.”<\/p>\n He sighed in relief. He wasn’t about to say it.<\/p>\n Malkah grew up thinking words of love were pretty stupid. \u00a0The whole point was to show it, not to say it. \u00a0People said love-words like that all the time.And then they’d beat the crap out of each other, both verbally and not. \u00a0And sometimes words of love were just a tyranny. A form of entrapment. Words to bind you. Words to obligate. Words that weren’t true. Words you were expected to reciprocate. Words that put you on the spot.<\/p>\n He never said those words. He didn’t need them. Instead, like a soldier, he put his body on the line. He showed<\/em> her. He did<\/em> for her. He took her with him. He kept her secrets. \u00a0And so, as time went on, she did the same for him.<\/p>\n He took care of things. He could make things happen. He could make things not<\/em> happen. \u00a0He could make bad things disappear. He could keep things to himself. He kept an eye out just in case. He’d go to the ends of the earth to prevent someone else’s disaster. He took things upon himself. He didn’t share the burden.<\/p>\n People resented it.<\/p>\n People whispered terrible things into Malkah’s ear.<\/p>\n “Do you know your father this<\/em> \/ Do you know your father that<\/em>?”<\/p>\n They were wrong, of course.<\/p>\n It’s just that he never explained. Not to anyone. He just took care of things himself.<\/p>\n And Malkah imprinted on that. Don’t ask. Don’t tell.<\/em> \u00a0It’s like the tzaddik invented that.<\/p>\n How did he say ‘I love you?’ How did he say how much he loved, and why?<\/p>\n He didn’t have to.<\/p>\n He didn’t have to say anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He wanted it spelled ‘poppa’ not ‘papa.’ \u00a0He was definitive about that, but not about much else. \u00a0I always wondered why. It seemed anachronistic, that spelling, but maybe that’s the point. He was from a different era. How could he not be? \u00a0Maybe the word \u00a0‘poppa’ made him feel warm and fuzzy, and maybe \u00a0‘papa’…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[250,216,222],"tags":[226,346,334,174,773,1020],"class_list":["post-3826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-kaddish-in-two-part-harmony","category-tzaddik-stories","tag-dads","tag-love","tag-malkah","tag-parenting","tag-secrets","tag-tzaddik-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3826"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3843,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826\/revisions\/3843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}