I would like to share with you a short story I wrote about 7 years ago: My parents had a friend called Rachel Kostof who lived all alone a house in Ramat Hasharon. She was already passed the age of 90, and I recall how in each of our encounters I would have the strong feeling that I was in the presence of a goddess of some sorts. Rachel would always have a line that would stick in my head, and she indeed had a good one during a short phone conversation a few minutes ago.
Rachel played the piano. She was lamenting during our conversation the fact that her granddaughter who had become a piano teacher took one of her favorite scores - Bach's Preludes and Fugues from the well - tempered clavier. Incidentally, her family was in fact comprised of no less than 350 members since her 3 children turned to religion and each had over a dozen children of their own. Rachel has 35 great grandchildren - some of whom have decided in recent years to become secular Jews!
A week after the phone call, I happened to meet Rachel at my parents' antique store, and again she talked about the missing score and how she missed it so. Rachel was the manageress of a reform synagogue that had recently received a new piano, and she longed to perform on it her beloved Bach pieces. Since I had my own score of the preludes and fugues at home, I told her I would gladly make her a copy. Rachel's eyes shone excitedly, and she said: I would gladly play those pieces nonstop until the day I die!
Today Rachel and I agreed on a date for me to hand her the music during her next visit to my parents' store. (Rachel still drives a great deal, especially to visit her grandchildren who live in Jerusalem!). This was how she put it:
"I am having a love affair with a man who lived 200 years ago!"
(Rachel quoted another pianist from her family called Rosalyn Tureck)
