Batki

Ann Appelbaum, and her husband Rabbi Borovitz, are two of the best troopers I have ever met in my life, not to mention a fairly decent set of parents.

My parents recently completed an 11 day sojourn in Ukraine, a trip that has been in the planning since I got my official letter of invitation to join the Peace Corps some 20 odd months ago. Obviously, I had some trepidations about the parental visit. I am used to a certain lifestyle in Ukraine, one that involves overnight train rides and youth hostels and outdoor toilets. My parents are accustomed to a slightly different lifestyle of their own, one that consists of airplanes and fancy hotels and toilets with automatic flushers so as not to unnecessarily spread germs.

Compromise is a part of life, however. So I gave my parents nice hotels in exchange for a pair of overnight train rides, and I secured an assurance from my neighbors that my parents could dabble in their toilet.

From the time I met up with my parents in Lviv, the trip was nearly flawless. From the Ukraine’s west to Odessa in the south back up north to Kiev with a quick jump to my village in the middle, I couldn’t have planned a more fluid or enjoyable excursion.

My parents really met me halfway. Upon reading that in an infusion of Jewification I have begun donning my tefillin and praying every day, my father brought his set with him, as well. While my father is a very religious man, Tefillin is not necessarily his path towards connecting with God. But he knew it was a part of my path, and so he donned the Tefillin in order to better connect with me.

On the first full day of our trip, we took a day long trip to Rohatyn, a small town (or large village, depending on your perspective) from whence my father’s grandfather, David Nagelberg, once came. Rohatyn also happens to be the Peace Corps site of my good friend Abe, the daydreaming philosopher king of PC-Ukraine. While visiting the site of the old Jewish cemetery, under which ground my ancestors once laid (and perhaps remnants of which still remain) my father and I donned our Tefillin and we began to pray. And as the words left our mouth and enriched the soil beneath, as we recited the EL Maleh Rachamim, the Jewish prayer for the dead, I felt something wonderful. Not so much because I was connecting with God or my deceased ancestors, but because I was connecting with my father.

Probably the most hilarious part of the trip occurred on the train ride from Odessa to Kiev. I had ordered a four bed train car for my parents and I, along with my comrade Kevin who tailed us on our visit. As many of you may or may not be aware, my father suffers from sleep apnea, which causes him to snore excessively. After years of my mother suffering from massive exhaustion, my father eventually purchased a machine to help him breathe while he sleeps. It cuts down on noise, and the whole lot is better off.

Except the machine requires an electrical outlet, and those aren’t always so easy to come by on a Ukrainian train. The good news: our train compartment had an outlet. The bad news: it was near one of the top bunks of our train car. The top bunks of a Ukrainian train are not the most accessible place in the world. But through a combination of the massive might of Kevin and myself, we were able to lift my father into the bed. Of course, our efforts were in vain, because two hours into the train ride the electricity on the train shut down and the snoring most certainly did commence.

The two days we spent in my village were an experience, to say the least. Lots of the locals were very excited to meet my parents, and wanted to tell them some small anecdote about my time in my village. It was hard for many of them to understand, however, that my parents didn’t understand what they were saying. Probably my favorite of these interactions was when one of my neighbors looked at me and said “how is it that your parents have such a smart son and yet they aren’t smart enough to learn ukrainian?” I didn’t think it was necessary to add that, you know, we speak a different language in America. Then there was my other neighbor, who had knocked back a few or four, and was so excited to see my parents that he kissed my mother. I can only imagine how much she enjoyed it.

My mother, however, was the true champion of the trip. For all the family chatter about my outdoor toilet, my mother did not hesitate to give the ol’ fortress of solitude a whirl. Sure, she used my neighbor’s bathroom a few times. But her perseverance was remarkable, her lack of complaining heartwarming.

There is a Ukrainian word, Batkivshina, fatherland. On the one hand, it happens to be the name of the political party of Yulia Tymoshenko, the embattled and imprisoned former Prime Minister of Ukraine. But it also expresses a specific emotion, a certain yearning, a connection to our ancestors and our past and our families.

I hadn’t seen my parents in some time. And our roles were most certainly reversed. I was the parent, the one communicating with the world at large, the one leading the way, the one with an idea of how the world worked. But the most amazing part of our trip was how nothing had really changed at all.

David ben Gurion one said that we can change anything in this world. We can change our name, we can change our country, we can change our religion. But we can never change who our parents are. I couldn’t be happier I’ll never have to change mine.