Call me Zayde — maybe

Two seemingly unrelated bits of family information. (But see below.)

First item. I married into a musical family. My wife and her three siblings were all blessed with beautiful voices. They loved to sing, usually in perfectly pitched harmonies, whether around the Shabbat table or in chorus groups such as Zamir and Shirah. And this family tradition continued horizontally and vertically, in that two of Sharon’s siblings had spouses with sweet voices, and a nephew, great-niece, and great-nephew were members of Zamir and HaZamir, incidentally making the Penkowers the only three-generation Zamir family. My voice is, shall I say, not quite as good. But don’t feel bad for me. They let me sing too  in the shower.

Second. I called my grandparents Zayde and Babee, and to differentiate maternal and paternal ones, we added last names. My father continued that tradition, but since Sharon’s father was Grandpa to my kids, my father was just Zayde — no first or last name needed. (My mother chose Grandma.)

I broke ranks, though. Having spent my junior year in Rabbi Yeruchum Gorelick’s RIETS gemorah shiur, which was given in Yiddish, a language I really don’t speak or understand beyond a few words and phrases, that language lost any allure it may have previously held for me — just imagine sitting in a five-credit physics course given in Latin. I therefore opted to be Grandpa to my grandkids (like I was Daddy and not Abba to my kids). In one way, though, I’m like my father, with no first or last name modification, because I share grandkids with a Zayduh (Eric, my son-in-law Jason’s father) and a Pop (Ray, son-in-law Allen’s).

You’re probably now asking the famous question Rashi askes toward the end of Leviticus, mah inyan shemitah etzel Har Sinai, which, loosely translated, means “what the heck do these two things have to do with each other.” The answer can be stated in words that I never thought I would ever use. Ever. They’re connected because I’m starring (well, some might think starring is a bit strong but, hey, it’s my column, so I get to decide) in a new Chanukah music video that just dropped this week, starring (this time for real) the well-known Jewish a cappella group Y-Studs.

Now, a non-Rashi question: How does someone like me, with a singing voice that is best used softly, get to play a role in a music video? It begins, interestingly enough, with the trip Sharon and I took last summer to Provence and the Riviera with Torah in Motion. It was led by Marc Shapiro, Jewish scholar, professor, writer, and tour leader extraordinaire, who is also the father of Josh, a wonderful young man who was on the tour as well. I always enjoy meeting young people and learning what they’re thinking about and how they view things that I’m thinking about, so I made it my business to chat with him during the trip.

Fast forward to Saturday night, November 15. My WhatsApp pings, and there’s a voice note from Josh, who reminds me that he’s a member of Y-Studs, which, he adds, will be filming its Chanukah music video that Sunday in Teaneck. And they need a Zayde. Knowing I live in Teaneck and am the perfect age for the role, he asks if I’m available. I don’t hesitate; quickly putting aside any aversion to Yiddish, a Zayde I immediately decide to be, if only for an afternoon.

The next day, Sharon and I spent a delightful few hours in the nearby house, coincidentally owned by one of my daughter’s former classmates, where the Zayde part of my video (see how possessive I’ve become about it) was being shot, and where we learned a bit about video-making. Although most of the singing was recorded earlier in a studio, with just a few scenes shot in Teaneck, it took much longer than I would have expected to set up the house for those scenes, with great attention paid to the smallest details. Also, even though my scenes total only about 14 seconds — 14 crucial ones to be sure (there I go again) — they had to be reshot time and again until we (read I) finally got it right. Not as easy as I thought to throw a clock or knock over action figures. Sharon’s cameo (yup, she was in it too) was, of course, done in one take.

The afternoon, though, was more than just an immense amount of acting fun. Rather, for someone with my predilection for meeting and getting to know younger people, especially those in my Modern Orthodox community, this was a not-to-be-missed opportunity. And so I chatted with Josh, of course, as well as with my “grandson,” Jordan, whom I met again this past Shabbat in Rinat; he’s from Toronto and was visiting his roommate, who lives in Teaneck.

I also had a long conversation with a very outgoing fellow who I wasn’t surprised to learn was the president of the Yeshiva College student organization. We spoke about a number of YC issues, including a sensitive one that YC has been dealing with for a number of years.  Though we didn’t quite see eye to eye, hearing an intelligent young man discuss it thoughtfully helped me see another side to an issue that I had pretty much made up my mind about. No, he didn’t change mine, nor did I his. But it made the picture more vivid for me, as well as more complex.

And I had another discussion with one of the older singers, a teacher in one of our local schools, who is on the brink of getting smicha from RIETS. As almost always happens when I speak to teachers, I was impressed with how seriously he took his job and his students, and the fact that he had already thought about every issue that I raised with him. His students and school are lucky to have him.

I spoke with others about classes, teachers, rebbe’im, and differences between my YC of the 1960s and theirs of the 2020s. And we chatted about backgrounds, jobs, graduate school, careers, home communities, current events (though just a tad), and the women in some of their lives (either in reality or hopefully) — you didn’t think I was going to pass up that opportunity. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose — the more things change, the more they stay the same — except, of course, when they don’t.

My regular readers know how much I love Jewish geography, and it played a role here as well. After I finished this column but before I submitted it, I learned that (video grandson) Jordan was the rosh edah in Camp Moshava of the division in which (real grandson from Toronto) Ezra was a madrich. Plus, they know each other from the high school they shared, and my daughter Raquel, Ezra’s mother, and Lisa, Jordan’s mother, know each other from Toronto. Small Jewish world.

You can google the video; there’s a hyperlink in the Times of Israel version of this column. Enjoy! And beyond appreciating the great singing, be careful not to miss the Oscar-worthy performance by the Zayde with the bowtie, about four times older than everybody else, who, without singing a note, is clearly having the best time of all.

Happy Chanukah!

Joseph C. Kaplan, a retired lawyer, longtime Teaneck resident, and regular columnist for the Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News, is the author of “A Passionate Writing Life: From ‘In my Opinion’ to ‘I’ve Been Thinking’” (available at Teaneck’s Judaica House). He and his wife, Sharon, have been blessed with four wonderful daughters and five delicious grandchildren.