Cold Paris winter teaches kids a lesson about survival

In Eastern Europe Jewish communities there was a saying: "In Paris, even the door knobs are traif." Adhering to a devout way of living within a community where everyone does it is easy. When we moved to Paris, we did not live in a Jewish neighborhood. My mother had to do her food buying from neighborhood stores that were not kosher. Except for the meat. Somehow a kosher butcher was in a covered market where she shopped.

The kitchen in our first apartment in Paris had a cabinet-top gas stove and a big coal stove for cooking in the winter as well as heating. Lighting a coal stove in Paris is difficult. Kindling is purchased from the grocery, not always dry enough, and there is no space to store a supply of it.

The first cold winter day falls on the Sabbath. Small children are in bed, but must come out and be warm. In our home village, there was a "Shabbos goy," a gentile doing Sabbath chores for Jewish people. Now there is no Shabbos goy, and my mother has to light the coal stove. This is the first time in her life that she lights a fire on Sabbath. She cries. After succeeding in getting the kindling barely burning, her tears quench it!

The apartment is getting colder. My mother cannot stop crying, but she must light the fire. Her example taught us a lesson: We live by the laws, but we do not die by them.