I stand in shul, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, trying to ignore my unhappy stomach. I flip through the machzor to see how many pages still remain until the end of the service. My mind wanders; I am transported back to another Yom Kippur, years ago.

In my daydream, I am a child again and my grandparents have come to spend the High Holidays with us. My grandfather is in his early seventies, although to me, with his long white beard and bushy black eyebrows, he looks at least a hundred years old. That Yom Kippur I tried hard to stay in shul instead of running outside to play with friends. I sit in my seat trying to follow along. Suddenly, my ears perk up to a familiar voice ringing out– it is an old voice, but powerful and steady. It is my Zaidy saying the mourner's Kaddish for his father, whose yartzeit is Yom Kippur.

My thoughts shift to another Yom Kippur in Communist Russia. Rabbi Aryeh Leib Kaplan arranged a minyan in a private house in Chiali after being exiled there for maintaining Jewish observance in his hometown of Kiev. The ever-watchful KGB, infuriated at Aryeh Leib's persistence in his "crimes" even in his place of exile, send a goon squad to beat him up on his way home from the clandestine Yom Kippur prayer group. Aryeh Leib's friend is beaten unconscious and Aryeh Leib manages to drag himself to the nearest Jewish family to tell them about his injured friend before he collapses and dies. He leaves a young widow and four orphans. One of them is Zaidy.

Yet another Yom Kippur flashes through my mind. Zaidy is young and strong. He is surrounded by ruthless criminals in a dingy prison cell, locked up, like his father, for the heinous crime of practicing Judaism in Communist Russia. In prison, each inmate receives one piece of daily bread. Zaidy knows that he must save that bread for after the fast or he will die of starvation. But if the bread isn't stuffed into his mouth the moment he gets it, it will be grabbed by others’ greedy hands. Zaidy approaches "The Chief" of the cell--a hardened criminal whom the other inmates fear and respect. Zaidy presents his dilemma, and miraculously, The Chief decides to help. The Chief puts the bread on a high ledge and warns the inmates that he'll kill anyone who touches it. Hungry eyes stare at the bread, but no one touches it.

Later, Zaidy needs to know when the fast is over, but there is only one small window high up on the wall of the cell and there is no way to tell time. Zaidy approaches The Chief again and explains his dilemma: he needs to know when it is completely dark to break his fast. The Chief gives orders and a human pyramid is formed - one criminal on the shoulders of another until they reach the window. The inmates repeat this pyramid every couple of minutes, reporting on what they see, until Zaidy confirms that the fast is over.

The cantor’s voice breaks through my reverie and brings me back to my machzor. Resuming my prayer, I think of Zaidy and my great-grandfather and feel them smiling down on me.

My dear Zaidy, Moshe Binyamin Kaplan, o.b.m., passed away this year at 87.