had when the train came into the station
and we saw both Batya and my father were
on it. Without telling anyone, he’d boarded
a train to Germiston, surprised Batya at
the station there, and rode together with
her back to Johannesburg!
My father often made us the most delicious sandwiches for school. Everyone
wanted to swap with us. We often forgot
to take them, so the next morning before
he went to shul, he left a little note on the
sandwiches: “Forget me not.”
My father took all his male grandchildren to visit the Rebbe for their barmitzvahs. They had such fun, even having
cushion fights in the hotels! When my son
Yossi and my father were in New York,
they were in a museum in Manhattan in
December and didn’t realise how early
Shabbos starts in winter in America. They
had to empty their pockets at a police station and walked three-quarters of the way
back to Crown Heights in the snow. My father kept telling my son, “If only Bobbe
WHEN HE WAS ALREADY AGING AND MY CHILDREN
CAME TO VISIT WITH THEIR CHILDREN, HE WENT TO THE
SHOPS AND PICKED OUT THE GIFTS HIMSELF, DESPITE
FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO WALK.
would know what I’m doing to you she
would be very angry.” But it was a lot of
fun. He took them everywhere and they
have wonderful memories.
When my children went to yeshiva and
seminary, my father wrote all of them
beautiful, long letters. They got beautiful
rhymes for their birthdays and lots of surprises. I even remember when I was 19
and teaching in Bloemfontein, my birthday happened to fall at the same time as
Winston Churchill’s birthday. The papers
were full of “Happy birthday Winnie.” My
father bought lots of newspapers, cut out
the “Happy Birthday Winnie” headlines
and pasted them all over a large envelope
that contained his letter to me.
My father very seldom disciplined us. I
only remember two occasions. He once
spanked my sister when she was quite
young. Afterwards, he couldn’t sleep that
night until he woke her to apologise! And
once I must have misbehaved. I don’t remember what I did, but he looked at me
and all he said was, “From you, I didn’t expect such behaviour.” The shame I felt
stays with me to this day.
When he was already aging and my children came to visit with their children, he
went to the shops and picked out the gifts
himself, despite finding it difficult to walk.
He never drove a car and got a kick out of
being able to go on a bus for nothing when
he became a senior citizen. But, he never
got the opportunity. The minute he came
to a bus stop, a car would stop and someone would ask, “Rabbi Aloy, where do you
want to go?”