Family
A year later, we entered into a legal marriage.
My parents were against it, because they were afraid that Luba, with her sick heart, would not be able to give birth to children. They talked to me a lot, pressed me. They even called her, and not quite politely demanded to end our friendship.
It didn't put us in a good mood.
The wedding was celebrated in the apartment of Nina Zakharovna. When we arrived from the registry office, I carried Luba to the fifth floor in my arms. Her father, Mikhail Markovich, arrived. My father did not come under the pretext that he was supposed to leave for Leningrad. Mom was at the registry office and at the celebration. But her face was mournful.
I didn't understand much, and it didn't bother me much.
Luba, of course, was worried. But she was so glad that we would finally live together and build a family that grief receded far into the background.
We lived on Ryazansky Awenue in a one-room apartment, which my parents, by hook or by crook, obtained for me in a cooperative. It was a rarity at that time - a separate apartment for a young man.
A year before I met Luba, I graduated from the Institute of Electronic Engineering. I found something that suited me: I taught physics at the Faculty of Biophysics at the Veterinary Academy.
Luba, who was prompted by someone to make sure that I had a higher salary (this is not her own idea, such thoughts were not characteristic of her) and she herself had a place to work, got me a job at the Pedagogical Institute in the computer processing laboratory data. And she started working there. There were many Jews in the working group.
A year later, our daughter was born - Maria, Masha, who a few years later became Miryam.
Luba wanted a girl. I wanted her to run through the puddles in white socks.
Since Luba had a heart condition, she was examined before she was allowed to give birth. She was admitted to the hospital two weeks before delivery.
I was in a state of constant search, of course, shared it with Luba.
Luba took care of the house, of our daughter, she was an ideal hostess. The diapers had to be washed. In order to avoid unnecessary microbes, they were ironed.
After spending many evenings in the historical library, where I fraudulently (sorry) received books forbidden for issuance from the vault, I came to the conclusion that all the ideas that develop the world, determine its progress, are taken from the Torah. I began to read the Torah in Russian, then found someone from whom he could learn Hebrew, which at that time was considered both a non-existent and forbidden language.
1977: One night, when we were with my dad in "Akademy Town" in Pushchino, I came up with the idea that all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet have their own meaning. It was at night. I sat down at the Shapiro dictionary and after four hours I already knew more or less the meaning of all the letters and imagined how they determine the meaning of the word they enter.
For me it was a shock. I realized that such a language could not arise as a result of the development of human speech, but only as a Divine creation. I came to the conclusion that everything that is written in the Torah must be observed. I found my school friend, Roman Kaplan, a little younger than me, who already kept the commandments, was connected with circles that study the Torah. I asked him how to start observing.
He replied: "Do you want everything at once or gradually?"
I replied: "All at once."
Now it was necessary to talk with my wife.We went outside to walk and talk. The conversation took half an hour. Luba agreed to keep all the commandments.
It was kind of a miracle. People quarreled for years, divorced. And it is impossible to say that this was a concession, was insincere, or only a desire to see what would come of it. No. It was a leap of a person of atheistic upbringing and consciousness, who was in a state of spiritual search, to what is unknown, but close from birth. Many years later Luba complained that everyone began to observe gradually: a few Shabbat laws, a little kashrut ... We started to keep all at once.
Roma Kaplan came to us before the first Shabbat (Saturday).
Luba asked him what he needed to get ready for Shabbat. He said: "Just clean the house and dress nicely." It stuck in my memory for the rest of my life. And she did just that. On that Sabbat she was wearing a red dress she had worn at the age of sixteen. She looked like a young girl. This impression was strengthened by a long, almost to the waist, black, thick and dense braid.
On Fridays Luba baked Challahs. I, sinfully, was angry that the house was hot from the gas stove, but she did not give up. The Challahs were wonderful, and how else.
We quickly started to keep the Sabbat. "Kabalat Shabbat", prayer - everything is in the kitchen. "Lecha dodi" in the family circle - how wonderful. The nearest synagogue - a large choral, was on Nogin Square - forty minutes by metro or two and a half hours on foot. So at Saturdays I was at home, without a minyan, but always with Chumash and discussing comments with your beloved wife.
Kiddush was made for bread after washing hands. But this is if there was no fault. Where could you get wine if the store a priori is not suitable for consumption. Even Daniel in Babylon forbade the use of wine, which a non-Jew moved, as he feared that it would be dedicated to idols, and become a sacrifice to foreign deities. And then? Then this ban was preserved so that Jews would not sit down with strangers at the table.
So, our wine was made at home, we made it from raisins. Sugar and a little water were added to a three-liter jar. It was real wine.
After we started to keep Kashrut - getting food became difficult.
Gradually we abandoned one kind of food, or the other. It was not entirely clear what to feed Masha. At the beginning of our journey, there were thoughts of buying meat for her in a store, but these thoughts quickly disappeared. Our main food was buckwheat and potatoes. Milk could be bought. In the store, I had to stand in line for an hour, and sometimes more.
Luba began to learn Hebrew and quickly mastered it. Her teacher was the same Roma Kaplan, who lived nearby.
Roma often had nowhere to celebrate the Shabbat, as his parents, members of the party, did not welcome his new passion to Judaism. Roma often came to us on Friday with a backpack containing the necessary things. And of course - two loaves of bread.
I had passed a circumcision.
Circumcisions in Moscow was done by Dmitry Borisovich Liflyandsky. He was a head of the department at the Bakulev Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery. I was one of his first "clients". We became friends. He helped Luba - he brought her to the hospital for examination and walked with her from office to office all day.
Faith and love for the Torah from the very beginning were inseparable for us from love for the land of Israel and for the country in which your people live, which you can be proud of. Wery quickly we decided to leave for Israel. We began to look for ways to collect all the documents and arrange all the affairs. For two years we waited for a call (without an official call from relatives from Israel, certified by a notary, we could not accept a permission to leave).
Luba's father, Mikhail Markovich, who moved to Pyatigorsk long ago, visited Nina Zahrovna with her daughter for many years. He loved Luba very much and worried when she got sick.
On one of his visits, he brought some dishes with him. Luba asked him: "What do you have". He replied: "Pesach dishes". How Mikhail Markovich, a lonely man, not inclined to communicate, approached the observance of the laws of the Torah, remained unknown. How he came to the conclusion that he needed to go to Israel is also unknown to anyone.
Mikhail Markovich left for Israel in 1979.
In a new country for him, things did not turn out very well. He did not send us a call, because Nina Zakharovna told him before he left that he had no right to call their daughter Luba to come after him to Israel. He accepted her moral postulate, although, of course, we should not be in charge of our fate.
In Israel, he did not receive a pension, because he said that his sister, Aunt Lisa, who received reparations from Germany, left him an inheritance. This, of course, did not make his existence easier, since the inheritance was very small.
He lived on holy land for only three years. Lyuba was very upset when he passed away.
1978: By then I had learned Hebrew. I knew the language, of course, not well enough, but he could well read Rashi and other commentators. Young people began to come to us, and I read with them commentaries to the "Parashat Shavua" (The weekly chapter of Torah).
At that time, Nina Zakharovna was a frequent guest in our house. She tried to help Luba with Masha, whom she loved very much. But at the same time she tried to listen to what I say and what I discuss with those who come to the house. Apparently, already at that time she wrote a denunciation to the KGB or visited one of the reception rooms of the state committee.
I did not understand this and was not careful in my statements. I must say that my parents, despite the fact that they really did not want us to leave for Israel, signed a document on the absence of material claims for us, which was required to apply for departure, immediately, without any conversations.
