Last Friday I went to Friday night services at the synagogue we recently joined. This was a special service for me because it was the first service I attended as a mother. I’ve been away from prayer and ritual for a long time yet certain of a connection binding me to the Jewish faith and people. While the need to be a practicing Jew lay dormant, a deep love of heritage and culture simmers below the surface seldom expressing itself except to lay claim that I am and my daughter are Jews.
My daughter’s second grade assignment is to write a Heritage Report. While helping my daughter I began to think about what she will learn from this report and what she is not yet ready to hear. The world war that brought her great grandparents here is an unknown history to her. The anti-Semitism and persecution Jews have experienced throughout history is unknown to her. Family left in Poland is lost… and this is unknown to her too. In fact what she learned for her Heritage Report has really nothing to do with the Poland her great grandparent’s came from.
I am fascinated that it was not that long ago my grandparents came to America. When I was growing up I felt that my family was pretty American but my grandparents were from the old country and their faces, accents, clothing, and Orthodoxy gave away that our history in America was recent. We attended the Conservative synagogue while my grandparents attended the Orthodox synagogue in Squirrel Hill. My grandparents were the bridge between centuries of Orthodox prayer and life that spoke before actions and choices and the more contemporary Jewish world in America where life and Jewish ways could meld together and be accepted. There is something about the old ways that resonates with me.
The memories of my grandparents are poignant and touching. I wish beyond wishes that I could reach out and touch my grandparents and hear their stories of how they came to America, of how they found each other, of how they acculturated and assimilated, of how they kept their Jewish heritage alive during a time of intense anti-Semitism that shaped their world views and lives. I see in my mother the traces of fear and silence that come with persecution. While my sister experienced anti-Semitism I somehow wasn’t aware of it. My parent’s attempts at protection were successful.
I joined a reform Synagogue with progressive views, rich in family activities, groups, lecture series, a vegetable garden, memorial garden, state of the art kitchen and a contemporary sanctuary. Friday night services are known as No Shush Shabbat. What does that tell you? There is no trace of old or old world. Having a female Rabbi and Cantor is a new experience for me. Sitting there with my daughter is a new experience for me. How my grandparents would have loved her, been proud of her, adored her. She too, is tied to centuries old tradition, faith and culture. The lines between old and new are washing away. My grandparents could not have imagined the life their great-granddaughter lives or the world she lives in but because she came out of love and lives with a loving heart they know her and she knows them. Sitting there with her I knew I had come home.