I can’t get the word out of my
head.
TRADITION.
It is what lays at the root of
Pesach. From the menu to the melodies
and the chumrot (stringencies) to charoset, so much about the
Festival of Freedom comes down to tradition.
How strongly we are anchored to
tradition can make all the difference in Jewish identity and continuity. (This is going to be long, so please bear with
me.)
A few months ago, I read an
article in the Washington Post entitled “The
Foreskin and the Hindsight” written by Jim Sollisch. Sollisch, a creative director at an ad agency
in Cleveland, describes the American Jewish experience using his family’s
example. He describes his own feelings
of Jewish identity, how his children experience their Jewishness, and comments
on what it means to be an American Jew today.
The American identity is taking over.
I read the article and commented
to friends and family: This could the saddest thing I ever read.
Here are some excerpts:
Sollisch is married to a
non-Jew. He describes the bris of his
first son - which was conducted in a ritually Jewish way, but it was a little
nerve-racking. So his second son had a
hospital circumcision on the third day of his life.
The attending physician played the role of mohel
while I muttered the prayers. There was not a bagel in sight.
And that’s how the death of Judaism proceeds, one
accommodation at a time. I didn’t feel bad about it. I agreed that this made
sense. Compromises always make sense…
Sollisch may not feel bad about
it, BUT I DO!
I am absolutely not judging him
or anyone. For me, though, an
appreciation for and dedication to tradition is the lifeblood of Jewish
continuity. It is one thing for Jews
to be observing less or for assimilation and intermarriage to be on the rise,
but when Jews don’t even feel bad about the weakening of the Jewish part of
their identity, I feel like tearing keriah in sadness and mourning.
A few other highlights from the
article:
These future grandchildren of mine will not be
Jewish.
Some days this knowledge
makes me sad. Most days it doesn’t…
Although I am the most secular of Jews, my Jewish
identity runs deep…Without my Jewishness, I would be only an American, vague
and sort of soulless, like a strip mall or a tract home in a sprawling suburb…
I am glad Sollisch’s Jewish
identity runs deep, but his attitude is one that is destroying the Jewish
people on so many levels.
To be a Jew outside of Israel
means to be hyphenated.
To be a Jew means to be burdened –
I prefer privileged - by Jewish history.
To be a Jew means to be chosen
and, yes, sometimes persecuted.
To be a Jew means to know that
there is anti-Semitism – even personally.
To be a Jew means not to aspire
to be insiders or members of the club if the price of admission is to give up
even a small piece of one’s Jewish identity.
Sollisch should not be happy
about that. I know I am not.
We live in complicated times when
Jewish identity cannot be taken for granted and the connections to tradition
are unravelling. It’s been that way for
over a century.
Still, it is important to speak
about, teach about, share stories about, and keep repeating the basic truths of
who we are.
We are Jews.
We believe in God, Torah, and the
mission of the Jewish people to be a light to the world.
There is plenty of interference
with this message in contemporary society.
We should never allow ourselves to stop articulating and reinforcing the
basic truths of who we are.
The Pesach Seder must be about more than retelling a story. It is about reinforcing the core values at the center of our Jewish identity.
Here is the story of another Jew
and his family and the Seder he experienced.
It is one of the classic Chasidic stories which can often (especially in
our more cynical times) be dismissed as outdated or silly. I find great meaning and power in it. It is the story of Moishele the water
carrier’s Seder as told by Reb Shlomo Carlebach. (Text below from The
Night That Unites Haggadah.)
After one Seder with Rebbe Tzvi
Elimelech, the Hasidim got together and said, “Rebbe, there is nobody who makes
a Seder as holy as yours.”
Rebbe Zvi Elimelech said, “Let me
tell you something. Do you want to know
whose Seder reached the highest in heaven?
It was the Seder of Moishele the water carrier. His Seder was the best in the world. I’ll have him tell you tomorrow in his own
words what he did.”
The next day, after prayers, the
Hasidim came to Moishele the water carrier and said, “The Rebbe would like to
see you.” Moishele came to the Rebbe,
and he began to cry bitterly. “I am so
sorry. I don’t know what came over me,
Rebbe. I promise you I will never do it
again.” The Rebbe replied, “Moishele,
just tell us what you did.”
The poor water carrier said, “Rebbe,
you know I’m so poor and I have so little joy in life. The only joy I have is that sometimes I get a
little drunk. But everybody knows that
on Passover you can’t drink vodka since it’s made from grain. So I had a great idea. The night before Passover I would drink all
night, and then I would be drunk for the whole holiday. So that’s what I did! I drank, and I drank. And soon I was out cold.”
On Seder night, Moishele’s wife
came to wake him for the Seder. She said
to him, “Moishele, it’s really not fair.
Everyone is having a Seder. How
about us? We have little children, and
they are waiting for their father to start the Seder!” Moishele said, “My dear wife, I wish I could
suddenly be not drunk, but I can’t. Please
let me sleep a little more.”
By now, Mosihele regretted
drinking so much before Pesach. “Oy, how
I regretted it! I would have done
anything not to be drunk, but I couldn’t do anything about it. Every fifteen minutes, my wife came in and
said, ‘Moishele, please! The children are waiting for the Seder!’ But I couldn’t move. Finally, I said to my sweet wife, ‘Please
wake me up in an hour, and then we can start the Seder.’
“My wife came back in an hour. Then she came in another half hour. Then she
came in and said, ‘The night is almost over! Please, we must have a Seder for
our children!’
“I was so broken. Here are my precious children, and I am such
a lousy father. I am not even giving
them a Seder on Pesach night! So I said
to my wife, ‘Please call in the children.’
“She called in the children. I asked them to all come and sit next to me
on the bed. And this is what I said:
I want you to know, children, that I am so sorry that
I drank. I will never do it again! Now, I know that it is Seder night. I know that we didn’t eat the matzah or the
marror together as a family. But, at
least, even though I am drunk, let me tell you the story of Passover.
Children, I want you to know that God created the
world in seven days. I want you to know
that there was Adam and Eve, and they didn’t listen to God so they were thrown
out of the garden. There was a flood,
there was the tower of Babel. But then
came Abraham and Sarah, and they began fixing the world again. Then Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Rachel
and Leah, and their twelve holy sons.
But then came the evil Pharaoh who made us into
slaves. And tonight, God took us out of
Egypt. So I want you to swear to me
right now that you will always know that the same God that took us out of Egypt
is still alive. It’s the same God. Our ancestors were slaves for two hundred and
ten years in Egypt. They were crying,
their lives were so full of pain. It was
unbearable. They prayed to the one and
only God, and the Master of the World heard their prayers.
Please remember, my dear children, that whenever a
Jew cries to God, God always hears our prayers and takes us out of our
troubles. Children, swear to me tonight
that you will never forget that there is one God who listens to our prayers. Children, make sure you never stop praying.
Moishele turned to the Rebbe and
said, “Rebbe, I am so sorry. I couldn’t
say anything more because I was still drunk.
I turned over and fell back to sleep.”
The holy Rebbe Tzvi Elimelech was
crying. The tears rolled down his
face. He turned to his Hasidim and said,
“Did you hear that? I wish that once in
my life I would have the privilege to give over belief in God to my children
the way Moishele the water carrier gave it over to his children on Seder night.
Mamash, a gevalt!
Now, I know there are lots of
questions about this story and that, obviously, Moishele is no model father nor
was the Seder halakhic.
But this is the message I will
tell my children, my family, my guests, and myself at the Seder. God created the world. He took us out of Egypt. We are Jews and have a responsibility to stay
Jewish.
It’s not everything, but it is a
powerful start. If this resonates, the future
will be bright.
The complexity of the Jewish
experience should not deter us. It
should not lead us to hope for a time when we or our children will have
non-hyphenated identities and be insiders and members of the club. We already have such identities and are
members of the club.
On Pesach, we remember that God
took us out of Egypt to become a holy nation.
It’s that simple. We're Jews. Tradition!
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