The Four Generations

An Adaptation of "The Four Children"

This was the interpretive reading we used the Passover that was the last one we had with my mother-in-law. I wish I could remember where I got it, but I don't. I hope you find it as thought-provoking as I do.

The Torah commands parents to tell the Passover story to their children. The traditional Haggadah talks about the four types of children, with different questions and attitudes about Passover and Judaism.

Tonight, as we share our table and our tradition with generations of our family, we have adapted the questions for four generations.

The future generation asks, “What will I inherit?” While each future generation will have to make its own commitments, if we could speak to them, we would say, we will preserve the Order of the Seder and the wisdom of our fathers and mothers for you. We would say to this generation, “We will keep alive the message of the Haggadah about the nature of freedom and justice, and about the need to act to make the world a better place for generations to come.”

The children’s generation asks, “What does all of this mean to me? What of myself will I bring to the Seder? How shall I maintain and add to my tradition?” In doing so, this child commits himself or herself to our community. Say to this child, “We are thankful that you are fully here. Be assured, because you sing and read and drink and eat with us, you will know and you will add to the meaning of the Seder. Take confidence from your presence here.”

The parents’ generation says, “Where have we come from?” We have merged from the ashes of the Holocaust, seen the birth of Israel, the release of Jews from Russia and Ethiopia, the shattering of the Communist empire, the re-emergence of hate and bigotry in a hundred forms. We have struggled with our own concepts of Judaism.” Tell this generation, “You are celebrating and learning because you are now free. Because you have struggled with your tradition and have enriched it with your selves, it will last as a gift to your children and your children’s children.”

And what about the grandparents, whose question is almost too difficult to ask? “What have we accomplished?” To the grandparents, you shall say, “Look around the table. All of this…. and more.”

“And the old shall dream dreams and the youth shall see visions
And our hopes will rise to the sky
We must live for today, we must build for tomorrow
Give us time, give us strength, give us life”
~Debbie Friedman

Pesach is Coming!

Update: Since this was written, in 2004, both children have graduated from college. Our Seder table is filled with friends we’ve had seder with for almost 20 years – and their grown children; with cousins who live in town; and adult friends of our kids’ who come to learn and to share. In re-reading this one more time, I’m struck again by my in-laws’ generosity in welcoming me in to their family, in sharing their rituals and customs so lovingly, and in supporting and sustaining us through the difficulties we’ve faced. We’ve been blessed.

Pesach is coming! Pesach is coming! The mantra in my mind begins shortly after Tu B'shevat, when I walk into grocery stores and see the first boxes of matzah stacked in the aisle. "Oh, no," I think, "Pesach is coming. I've got to get ready."

When I began to explore Judaism, Pesach was the most overwhelming of all of the rituals or practices. My husband-to-be took me home to his parents' in '78 before we got married. I'd been there often enough to recognize the pervasive changes in his mother’s kitchen. I panicked -- I knew I could never "keep Pesach" the way she did.... I suspected you had to be "born Jewish" in order to know all the rules... I had no intention of converting at that point. We had decided to raise our children as Jews and maintain a Jewish home -- and it would be my husband’s responsibility to pull those pieces together.

We continued to "go home for Seder" for the next couple of years, when we could. The holiday became more familiar, but no less overwhelming. By this time, I was studying with Rabbi Gene Lipman, z'l, and (although I had not yet decided to convert) knew that to "do Pesach" would take more than just my husband’s efforts -- it would have to be a family affair. I asked my mother-in-law how she ever managed to remember everything. She shared with me her “secret for remembering details" when she showed me her manila folder labeled "Pesach." Huh! I realized that meant we wouldn't have to remember everything -- just where we put the folder. Maybe this was possible after all.

In 1982, the emotional content attached to Pesach struck me with full force. That year, my mother-in-law greeted us at the door with outstretched arms as she took her grandson from me. "Pesach is coming," she crooned, "Pesach is here!"

Our son had been born 8 weeks prematurely the preceding fall. His English names remembered three out of his four great-grandfathers. But when it came to the name he would be called to Torah, I flat-out refused to name him "Fishel." "No son of mine is going to be called Little Fish," I sniffed to Rabbi Lipman. Gene grinned, as only Gene could when he knew he'd stirred up a storm, and suggested that we consider a name beginning with the "pey" sound. He made some suggestions. Finally, I settled on "Pesach" thinking, how appropriate it was for this child who had been so at-risk. My husband concurred: our son became Pesach.

That year, my father-in-law read from the haggadah (Maxell House, of course -- was there any other?) the mandate to tell the story as if we ourselves had been saved. I watched that little baby being passed around the table from person to person and the full impact began to sink in. For the first time since his birth six months earlier, I paused in my busy-ness. My son -- by the grace of God and modern medicine -- had been saved. The Angel of Death didn't stop by his crib in the Neonatal ICU. No sooner had I begun to grasp that reality than another one struck. By our decision, he would be Jewish -- no, that wasn't exactly accurate: by my decision he would be Jewish.

I could have said, "no," you see -- I could have said to my husband when we were courting: "Gee, I can't agree to raise our kids Jewish." Or "Gee, if that's what you want, I can't marry you." But I had agreed -- and the emotional import of that decision was beginning to make itself felt. By agreeing to raise our children as Jews in a Jewish household, I had also agreed not to raise them with the meaningful traditions I had grown up with. The holiday rituals, the life cycle rituals, the ebb and flow of the annual calendar, the sense of spirituality and the Divine -- all would be from his tradition and none from mine.

So along with the sense of redemption came a sense of loss. And I was struck again by how "in sync" I felt with how I imagined the Israelites must have felt -- leaving the familiar (even if, in their case, it was so bad) for the unknown must have involved a sense of loss as well as excitement, relief and liberation. How could it be otherwise?

When we went home that year, I bought a manila folder and inserted in it my mother-in-law’s recipe for chicken soup with matzah balls and my father-in-law’s recipe for matzah brei. It was a beginning.

Over the next few years, we made many decisions: when to clean and how much; who to ask to seder; what haggadah; separate dishes or not -- and did that mean pots & pans, too?; which foods to serve; who gets the afikoman prize; to sing or not (traditionally, my husband’s family didn't -- we do, but not a lot!). There was the year that Pesach only ate Cheerios (before the Kosher for Passover substitute) -- that was the year I declared Cheerios were "kosher-for-Passover-but-only-in-the-kitchen." My orthodoxly-raised mother-in-law rose to the occasion: she kept a spare box in the laundry room! Pesach was coming, you see.

Or the year that both my kids were eating only peanut butter. I was *not* going to spend 8 days in food wars -- that's not my definition of freedom. So peanut butter (a new jar untainted by bread crumbs) was declared "kosher l'pesach" by Rabbi Mom. (It was interesting to note that the Conservative Rabbis followed suit four years later!)

There was the year my daughter begged me to buy extra boxes of sugared fruit slices because all her friends kept snitching hers. And the year, my father-in-law and his brother-in-law grated horseradish root in the kitchen -- and the fumes were so intense their tears flowed freely -- and the rest of us were in gales of laughter for hours. (My father-in-law got a horseradish dish for Chanukah the following year -- and the laughter began all over). Or the year that I put symbols of the plagues on the table and challenged the kids to figure out which symbols represented which plague -- my kids were disdainful: they were too old for such nonsense. But next year, they searched until they found where I’d stashed the toys and insisted that they be on the table.

Or the year -- the one that ended up being our last all together -- when against familial protests, I inserted an adaptation of "The Four Children" entitled "The Four Generations." That reading ends: "And what about the grandparents, whose question is almost too difficult to ask? To the grandparents you shall say, "Look around the table. All of this and more." That was the year my in-laws schlepped chicken soup and pot roast on the plane from Florida – and my father-in-law again commandeered my kitchen to make matzah brei. The following year, we cried our way through seder: my mother-in-law had died unexpectedly right before Purim.

This year, Pesach is coming home early (spring break doesn't coincide), but he's asked to take Grandpa's matzah brei recipe back for his dorm mates. It will be our last Passover with our daughter home. I'll dig out my folders (they've grown to four), find my recipe for Passover granola, and decide that closets don't have to be cleaned, since we don't normally eat there and what would chametz being doing in the closet any way...

Tears and laughter; laughter and tears. Over time as the journey unfolded, the rituals have become as familiar as a favorite sweatshirt. Truth be told -- I find the preparations for Passover still almost overwhelming. But there is familiarity in the overwhelming-ness. I enjoy the Seder, and take comfort that it's finally become familiar -- but it's not my favorite part.

My favorite part of Passover? When I sit at the kitchen table on the first morning of Pesach -- crunching my matzah, watching the birds, rediscovering all my favorite Passover accoutrements. My house is clean, my menus planned for the next eight days, the office is closed. I pause. And remember. And feel connected to the generations of Jews who have gone before us. And I thank the Eternal for both life and freedom -- and the gift of being able to choose and recommit.

Pesach is coming! Pesach is coming! Excuse me, I've got to get ready!

It's Almost August!

There’s something about the approach of the beginning of the school year that gets my juices flowing.

I find myself wandering the aisles at office supply stores. A new calendar …. (Wait. You use a PDA now, you don’t need a paper calendar). New folders – and they’re on sale, too! (Stop, you have a whole shelf of multicolored folders already in the closet… you don’t need any more) Cute new containers to store my ever-expanding office “stuff” … (Wait. How will this work with what you’ve already got?) New binders … (Stop! You just took all your materials OUT of binders and put them into files because the binders take up too much room on the shelf.) New notebooks … (What about the three half-used ones from last year?)

I pour over the teacher supply catalogues, pausing briefly at the whiteboard/easel combination units and chart paper stands (You already have some from when you were teaching/directing -- even if they're not as fancy as these.). I look longingly at the organizers – the hanging file holders and schedule charts and lesson plan books – and sigh. (You’re out of the classroom, now. Remember?)

There’s something about new beginnings and hope and optimism. New materials – crisp, clean, bright and colorful – remind me of that hope and optimism. This year, I think, this year, I’ll make a difference. We’ll soar to new heights…. explore new vistas…. learn together. This year will be GREAT!

Notebooks and folders and clean calendars and pristine lesson plan books… wouldn’t it be great if it were only that easy?

One of these days soon, I’ll indulge my inner child just a little bit again. And I'll leave my inner mother at home ::grin::


[UPDATE: Well, I did have to go to the office supply store because I needed to print some more business cards..... and I did leave my inner mother at home. My inner big sister came instead -- still put brakes on some of my impulsivity, but she's a little easier to talk into things than my inner mother is!]

An Unveiling

This weekend, my husband’s extended family is gathering for an unveiling. In Jewish tradition, an “unveiling” is held approximately 11 months after someone has died. The tombstone is unveiled, the mourners gather again, and one more milestone in adapting to life without a loved one is reached.

This weekend’s unveiling is particularly difficult, because the loved one committed suicide at age 35 last summer. He was the same age when he died as my younger sister was when she died (of a chronic illness twelve years ago). Both he and my sister shared the same birth month, an interest in art and creative endeavors, and both struggled with mental health issues.

My sister’s death caught me unexpectedly – as did the suicide a year ago. Although she had been ill for well over ten years, she had seemed to be “doing better.” She was seven years younger than I; I did a lot of “motherly” things for her. We were closer than siblings – she felt like my first-born.

I am a convert to Judaism. My sister’s death was my first direct experience with Jewish mourning rituals.

It was strange – the funeral rituals I grew up with were more familiar than Jewish ones. As a member of a children’s choir over forty years ago, we had often been called on to sing at funerals. I knew the liturgy, music, customs, and things that people would say to us mourners. However, as familiar as they were, those practices no longer fit the person I had become.

Our Jewish practices allow for a “shutting down” period between death and the funeral – mourners are not expected to attend to the details of everyday life. I found it off-putting to help arrange for out-of-towners arriving for the funeral…. and downright weird to go to the grocery store.

I found myself resenting the well-intentioned “She’s in a better place right now.” I didn’t want her to be in a “better place:” I wanted her at the other end of the phone so I could talk with her. I didn’t want to be consoled – I wanted to express my grief and anger at a life cut too short.

It was hard to leave the cemetery before the casket was put into the ground. I felt we were leaving her body exposed, instead of tucking it in – as I used to tuck her into bed so many years ago.

But the hardest part was returning to my parents’ home after the funeral. We had only just begun to adjust to my sister’s absence – to begin to say aloud the unspeakable words – and suddenly there was no one there to listen, to mourn with us.

So I came home to a community that was willing to allow me to mourn in our Jewish way. We sat shiva for three days. I shared my grief and pain and silly memories with friends who were content to “just listen.” I went to minyan for 30 days to say Kaddish. When I visited her gravesite 11 months after she died, I searched for a pebble to put on the tombstone. I explained to the younger brother who accompanied me, that it was a Jewish custom, to mark that the person was remembered and the gravesite had been visited. The custom provided us both with a sense of comfort. He took to carrying a box of pebbles in his car, since it was so difficult to find them in this well-cared-for cemetery. It comforted me, knowing that he found comfort in one of my Jewish rituals.

This weekend, I’ll remember both: my husband’s relative and my sister, and think about lives cut too short. May their memories be for a blessing.