Tag #110185 - Interview #78196 (leon solowiejczyk)

I remember how, after his death, everything, stools, were turned upside down, water was poured out of buckets. All pictures, all mirrors were taken down or turned to face the wall. And they all sat there. The closest family members were there: the children, wife, brothers. There had to be someone there to help. They couldn't greet anyone; they couldn't go out on the street for a week, so they wouldn't meet anyone. It was a ritual. All these were signs of mourning. For a year they would all say prayers at home, three times a day. We would gather for prayers. There had to be ten people, to form a minyan. There's even a saying among Jews: ten rabbis don't make a minyan, but ten scoundrels do. So there had to be ten people, so we'd always be looking for the 10th one. When I came and said that we needed a 10th one, no one would ever refuse.