Facebook Post by Rabbi Perlin in the Time of Coronavirus (3/19/2020)
Thursday’s Post: Patience/In Hebrew “Savlanut”
by Rabbi Amy R. Perlin, D.D. 3/19/2020
In the summer of 1984, Gary and I went to Russia (actually at the time it was the USSR). We had no kids and we wanted to help the Refuseniks, so we got trained by some local Washington office so we could smuggle High Holy Day (Russian-Hebrew) paperback prayer books (machzorim) on our bodies. Someone heard that we were traveling by cruise ship to St. Petersburg, then called Leningrad, and asked if we would do this mitzvah.
No kids. We were young and idealistic and far more courageous, I suppose. We literally taped the books to our bodies, prayed the authorities wouldn’t check us as we went through for tours, left our tour, made a phone call to our contact, and then took a taxi out to some apartment complex, never telling anyone on the ship what we were doing. (There is a point to this story…hang in there with me.)
When we arrived we had a little trouble finding the home of the local Hebrew teacher, but we did. He wasn’t home, but his mother was and she indicated that we could come over.
Every man in a trench coat we saw made me shake, as I kept asking Gary what would happen if the KGB found us out.
We knocked on the door and an older woman answered. Looking back now, she was probably my age. OLD?! She sat us at a table covered with a piece of velvet and offered us a cup of tea.
The apartment was tiny and she motioned to the phone in sign language that someone was listening so we should be careful. She spoke no English, a few words of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian. We had a dictionary and thanks to my Bubby, I understood her Yiddish better than I expected. We exchanged pleasantries. Trying to explain where we lived in Virginia was too hard, so we got down to business. We removed the prayer books from our bodies and she quickly understood why we were there. We said nothing, so that those listening in wouldn’t know what was transpiring.
And then she said that her son hoped to go to Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, but she didn’t know when. I remember my response as if it were yesterday: “Savlanut, patience,” I said, as we looked the word up in our Russian-English dictionary. Here I was preaching patience to a woman who lived it every day! Boy, did I have chutzpah. But, she smiled generously, and signaled that she understood. Eventually, we couldn’t wait any longer for her son, because we had to leave to catch our ride back to the ship. We greeted each other with “Shalom” and went back into the dreary, concrete world we were visiting.
PATIENCE. In Hebrew, Savlanut. I find that my patience waxes and wanes these days. Some moments I am filled with it, as I am with my beautiful grandchildren when we are together (just a memory now that we are isolated from each other). But, today, I just couldn’t seem to have the strength it takes to listen to some people. Stress does that. Patience seems to fail us. That is when I ask God to give me some patience, because God has an abundance. God puts up with us, after all.
If you open your Hebrew-English dictionary, you will find that the Hebrew word for patience (SVLN), though not related by root, comes three words after the verb SVL (Saval), which means “to carry a burden, to endure, to suffer, to bear.” How fitting! We need patience most when we are pushed beyond our comfort, when we are burdened beyond our daily cares, when we are suffering. We need patience when we are least equipped to have it.
So my gift today is that I will give you what patience I have, virtually. A gift of support during these trying times. I wish I could smuggle some into your “shelter in place” to replenish your stock of patience. For now, know that I am sharing your burden, and your stress with love and my whole heart. With love, RARP