Stormy weather in Washington threatened to get worse and to move east. Feb. 8, 1994, was a cold, gray day in the nation's capital, a day when my breath steamed out like cigarette smoke. The forecast was for "snow or icy rain," just treacherous enough to scare me away from travel in a small plane.

I sat alone in a comfortable aisle seat, a copy of a book, Schindler's List, on my lap, when the irony hit me. I would be meeting my long-lost rabbi in the same place I had left him years ago: 30th St. Station in Philadelphia. Once again, the train would connect us, full circle.

The train sped through ominous urban landscapes: a dump for old tires, crude brick buildings, huge cemeteries, all surrounded by cyclone fences and razor wire. Graffiti marked concrete pilings and bridges. On one, a Star of David, painted in red, was next to a sign that said "Vultures."

Snow flurries fell as we passed by woods and frozen creeks near Delaware. By the time we pulled in to Philadelphia, we were in the midst of a ferocious blizzard. I prepared myself for a disappointment: Haim would not be able to make it through the storm to meet me.

But there he was, standing patiently at the information booth in the central lobby. He was shorter than I expected, but in every other way faithful to my memories and imaginings. He wore a broad wool cap, a herringbone coat, a plain tie and old-fashioned tie-clip. He wore rubbers over his shoes. A warm smile shone from under a dark mustache. He looked vaguely Italian to me, as he had years ago, a slight resemblance to my mother's brother.

We couldn't go back to his house. The storm prevented that. So he ushered me to a coffee shop, bought me a cup of tea and a sticky bun, and urged me to eat a sandwich. He said this in the same cajoling tone of my grandmother long ago. "Go ahead," she'd say, "eat it. It's good for you. You're so skinny. Go ahead and eat."

So, with the blizzard raging outside, we relaxed at a wrought-iron table with a decorative umbrella on top. Harried travelers raced past us for the next 90 minutes, but it was as if we were on an island.

I gave him Legends of Our Time, the very book he had given me years ago, but now inscribed by its author, Elie Wiesel.

"It's very precious," he said.

He then explained that "our word of greeting is our word of meeting. They tell you the word shalom means 'peace,' but it's also derived from the same root as shalem, which means 'complete, put back together.' And this book represents a way of showing how it's possible for people, whose lives have crossed, to find each other more whole as a result. The giving and the giving back, the reciprocity that creates a bond between people."

The idea he was expressing turned out to be at the heart of his beliefs, as both a rabbi and psychotherapist, specializing in the care of Holocaust survivors and their families.

"People survived because they survived," he said. "There was untold bravery in the camps among the victims. There were untold horrors inside. Being a victim doesn't necessarily bestow virtue on somebody. But the mechanics of survival are less important than what is happening now."

We leaned forward toward each other. "The survivors have had a hard time, for, after all, to survive it meant for you to turn off your feelings, and how do you turn them on again? Just because you're liberated? It took some many years, and some never quite did it. And that created problems for the next generation. Because how can I be whole if my parent is not whole? I can, but with a special struggle."

His voice became quieter, but more intense: "You see, there's a huge, dark, silent hole. When you sense there's a black hole there, then you're investing more and more in the hopes that you can heal your parents."

"Our culture encourages people to be independent," I said, "to be their own person."

"That's such a pernicious lie," he said. "It's at the core of so much craziness that's going on."

"I see my grandmother as a great connector," I told him. "She's one of the three or four people who appear to me in dreams. I've almost come to think of her as a life force." I had told him the story of how my Jewish grandmother, Sadie, had married my Italian grandfather.

This precious photo was preserved from an old snapshot. My daughter Alison, her blonde hair blazing, sits on the lap of her great Grandma Sadie. You can see the sores on Sadie's arms from protracted hospitalizations, but time did not eclipse her bright smile, especially when she bounced children on her knee. Taken in 1974, this may be the last photo of Pete and Sadie together. She died in 1975, and Pete two years later. Alison keeps this photo in her bedroom and keeps Sadie in her thoughts and prayers.

"One of the things I'm most grateful about," I said, brimming with emotion, "is that my oldest daughter Alison remembers her. We have one old, aging photograph of Alison sitting on Sadie's lap. Alison feels that connectedness. She feels Jewish in a way that's quite clear."

"You didn't really have to discover Sadie," said Haim. "She was always there."

"I had to discover her Jewishness, if I can say that."

"That's part of her."

"Absolutely, a profound part."

"There must be some connection there. To see her as a whole person, your rediscovery of her Jewishness is going to fill in that piece that's somehow missing."

He said he thought I wrote my article, and began my search for him, not just for human interest, or to make a religious or theological point. "It was a way of connecting somehow with your grandmother," he said.

"That's how us human beings should be. For as we find out our indebtedness to those who have given to us, then we can pay back by giving something better to the next generation. As you so touchingly said before: Your hope comes through for your daughter."

He repeated what Elie Wiesel had told me: "Technically, according to Jewish law, you're Jewish."

He then asked, "How do we pay back this wonderful grandmother?" he said. "By validating. I hear the struggle. I can hear it loud and clear. To validate her life so you can have an even stronger handle to explore the Jewish component of your life. A stronger handle on who she has been so that you can give something even more potent to your children."

"I feel what you're saying very profoundly."

"Your grandmother's ghost is very much alive, and you're connected, and you're saying in a way: 'Grandma, every part of you is OK.' Aren't you?"

"Yes."

"It's another way of finding out what part of you is her."