My life in six words

Tablet Magazine asks people to write their Jewish lives in six words. Six passports, basement bar-mitzvah,  lamedvovniks  

Six passports

 I have (1) Romanian Laissez Passer, (2) Israel expired passport,(3)  Rhodesian expired passport of a country that no longer exists (Zimbabwe replaced it), (4) Venezuelan passport (5) Canadian Passport and now (6) US passport. If this is not the wandering Jew, I don't know what it is.  I was not a tourist. I was a citizen

Basement bar-mitzvah

 My Barmitzvah in 1958, while my father languished in a Romanian communist prison, and all our furniture confiscated, took place in the basement of a house, with exactly ten men to make a mynian. No signs outside that house. The Barmitzvah started at 7:00 a.m. and lasted thirty minutes. Not even my sister attended . Just my mother and my uncle Aurel, Milian's father, who paid for the  tutor. The tutor was a modern  man who played soccer for Maccabi Bucharest until 1947, when the team purged of Jewish players became Dinamo Bucharest 18 times Romanian soccer champion.  It was a  crime to celebrate anything religious in Romania of those years. We had a double Bar-mitzvah, Milian (my first cousin) and I.  Milian  said Baruch, then looked at me. I  said Adonai. "Adonai", he repeated. Then looked at me again. "Eloheinu", I said. Milian repeated "Eloheinu" A  basement bar-mitzvah is not part of your life in America. Yet it is part of my life.

Lamedvovniks also called Tzadikim Nistarim

According to Jewish folklore there are at least 36 (Lamed vav) hidden saints, called in Yiddish lamedvovniks, were responsible for the fate of the world and one of them is considered to be the Messiah.  

The two Hebrew letters for 36 are the lamed, which is 30, and the vav, which is 6. 

The lamedvovnik was unnoticed by other men because of his humble nature and vocation. Lamedvovniks figured in kabbalistic folk legend of the 16^th–17^th centuries and in ḥasidic lore from the end of the 18^th century. At times of great peril, however, the lamedvovnik makes a dramatic appearance, using his hidden powers to defeat the enemies of Israel, after which he returns, as mysteriously as he came, to his wanted obscurity.

So in spite of hardships, I look at each man or woman around me, it does not matter if he looks like an enemy . Any person we are in contact can be a lamedvovnik.

I had a few encounters with lamedvovniks. Last one was a Social Security employee.  

More from Wikipedia

The lamed-vavniks do not themselves know that they are ones of the 36. In fact, tradition has it that should a person claim to be one of the 36, that is proof positive that they are certainly not one. Since the 36 are each exemplars of anavah, ("humility"), having such a virtue would preclude against one’s self-proclamation of being among the special righteous. The 36 are simply too humble to believe that they are one of the 36.

The Tzadikim Nistarim exemplify a mode of leadership that differs from the notion of the visionary public leader that scholars suggest is overvalued in modern culture, but is well encapsulated in the aphorism that Presidents Truman and Reagan cited, "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit".