Page 199 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Old age and the future

checks to the doctors, nurses, etc. I could see in her a spark of
happiness, that she was able to write a check, and I felt proud of that.
Oh, how she would have suffered if the children had to borrow
money, or, as the doctor told me before the operation, I had to sign a
note which he would deposit in the Bank of America to be collected
in payments. She realized in the end that I was not a miser, that I did
not spend our few dollars because I loved money. I would have given
my last dollar and my right hand if there was a chance to save her, at
least for another few years. All those friends who told me to enjoy
myself, to take a trip here or there: will they help me in poverty and
old age? Only with advice, or at best, a meal now and then.
The ordinary Jews today in this country, who have drifted away
from the teachings of our sages, have contempt for anyone who
quotes a good passage or expression from the Bible. They presume
that the Bible and all our mass of literature accumulated for centuries
deal only with religion. That opinion is like so many paradoxes in life.
The very ones who dislike the Bible because they despise religion are
the kind who go to the Reform temple murmuring some prayers to a
personal god for a dead father or mother or son, or receive the
blessings of the rabbi after a religious ceremony with bowed head,
expecting the blessing to drop on their heads; whereas the Bible deals
mostly with human behavior, relations between man and man, justice
and human rights. While speaking of friends and friendship, I want to
quote from a paragraph in the second chapter of Genesis. After
Adam received Eve for his partner, it says: “Therefore shall a man
leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and
they shall be one flesh.”
I found a friend in my late wife and so does every intelligent man.
The longer they get along in life the stronger becomes the bond of
friendship, and when death separates them the one who is left feels
as if half of his being is gone. A wife may sometimes admonish her
husband or insult him for doing the wrong thing, but the truth
wounds—and then brings healing. I have ordered a stone for the
grave of my late wife, with an inscription in the Hebrew language.
My children did not like it; they preferred English, which they could
read, but those few words that I put in Hebrew came from my heart,

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