Thread by @bentziavtzon

We sat in his office, him looking into the camera, me at him and the Hong Kong skyline as background. First time I'd seen it from this vantage point.

I asked him for a memory of Chabad Hong Kong that came to mind.

"There's this story your father said every Shemini Atzeres..."

The story is about my paternal grandfather, R' Meir Avtzon, who was exiled by the Soviets with a colleague, R' Leizer Nanes, for counterrevolutionary activities ie spreading Judaism

They were off in a far east province, and Sukkos was approaching

(KGB pic of my grandfather)

They were under the close watch of KGB to whom they had to report weekly, and so you'd think building a sukka while serving a sentence for practicing Judaism was out of the question

But they had a card to play

Their landlord was a Muslim who hated the KGB as much as they did

He agreed for them to build a tiny sukkah (seven tefochim by seven tefochim) in the corner of the yard, so small it could only fit one at a time crawling in and eating underneath

But they were overjoyed, and kept the mitzvah of sukka for seven days

Then came Shemini Atzeres

Out came a bottle of vodka and with that out went their paranoia

Before they had rushed in and out of the sukka to keep a low profile, but now they began to say lchaim, celebrating the holiday and the fact they'd been able to celebrate it at all

Then they began to dance

My father said this story every year in the Sukkah, and I remember everybody listening at this point, aware something either very good or very bad was going to happen

And every year he'd say it the same way

"Then they heard footsteps"

My father would knock softly on the table

They turned around and to their great fright, their KGB parole officer stood before them

Their life in his hands

He smirked

"Fellows, we knew about your sukka from the moment you built it, and exactly when you went in each time and when you went out."

They feared the worst

"My boss sent me over today to..."

My father would pause.

"tell you he respects your chutzpah and wishes you a happy holiday. You can skip this week's check in.

See you next week."

Every year my father would finish this story telling everyone what happened to those two men.

R' Leizer in Siberia for many years and would never have children.

Reb Meir spent more years in exile and would marry and go on to half fifteen children, "of whom I am the tenth."

There would always be the same sounds at this story ending reveal from people who hadn't been there the year before.

Growing up I loved the story, then I got used to it, but I never thought the audience "got" it. None of them were Chabad with grandparents running from the KGB

Which brings me back to this interview in the Hong Kong skyscraper

Jonathan grew up in HK, started coming to Chabad only as a young adult, I'd have thought this story for him was a curiosity, a Chabad relic

"You ask me for a meaningful moment, it was this story"

"But why?"

"What began with your grandfather in the Soviet Union putting so much on the line to keep this mitzvah is what led one day to your father coming to Hong Kong and building Yiddishkeit in this city for over forty years

and always with a focus on the pintele yid"

I looked on to the Hong Kong landscape behind him, one that I had grown up in but haven't lived in for decades, and I wondered what my grandfather might have thought about in that sukkah, how far away he was from this metropolis, but how close he was to the two of us talking

My father was there as well, we took a picture (at top of thread) and I began to pack

I realized this was the closest I had felt my grandfather's presence in a very long time, maybe ever, and I wanted to thank this friend, but he was gone, onto a meeting about jewish education