For What Are You Compensating?

Just a few days prior to Halloween I drove through a very Jewish neighborhood nearby.  As I drove through the streets i was struck by the extreme Halloween decorations.  Some focused on the timing of the day- jack o'lanterns, fake webs.  Others, on the gore that has come to define Halloween.

That there are decorations does not surprise me.  The decor helps to create the mood.  I wonder instead about the neighborhood.  This area is 90% Jewish.  With the passion and creativity thrown into the decor for Halloween- "It's too make it special for the kids," a parent once told me, what do these same families do for the Jewish holidays?  I wonder- for what are you compensating?

With the (not surprising) results of the Pew study in the US, questions are being re-asked about Jewish continuity.  As a Jewish professional I can tell you honestly that I cannot make sure your children and grandchildren will be Jewish.  Only you can.  It's not really about intermarriage (although that's certainly a factor).  It's about creating a connection to and love for Jewish life.

I wonder if those same families put as much passion into Sukkot, Shabbat, and Purim.  I know some do.  I grew up in a family that did.

(You're about to hear a lot about my mom-  As the artisticly creative parent, she was a real mover and shaker when it came to getting us kids involved in the days)

I have wonderful memories of my mother pasting large paper hearts to a streamer for a Valentine's Day party I wanted.  When I wanted an "Indian" (that's American Indian) Party.  She designed sand paintings, macaroni beading, and bought me a great head dress.  (I wanted to be an Indian when I grew up.)  For my Sweet Sixteen Toga Party (Yes, I actually said toga party.)  she made a full size gladiator and a full size Roman maiden to greet people as they arrived at our home.  She also made may poles for the center pieces at my bat mitzvah.  Halloween was observed with fun and elaborate costumes.  In addition, every Shabbat was lit by candles.  When my mother went back to work, and returned home after Shabbat began, I lit, and she was greeted by their soothing light.  Shabbat dinner was sacred.  We could invite whoever we wanted (sometimes there was quite an eclectic crowd), and we could go out after, but we were to be home for Shabbat dinner.  We never complained.  Shabbat dinner meant the good china, my mother's crystal kiddush cup and our silver ones.  It meant a special meal, even if it was a Shabbat special picked up at the kosher butcher.  Rosh Hashannah meant eating lots and lots of honey.  Mom had us make mobiles of bees and honey jars, apples, and bee hives.  We collected cards to display, which would later be hung in the sukkah.  We made "stained glass" pictures with autumn leaves and crayon shavings.  Yom Kippur meant breakfast with the Scolls, close family friends.  It also meant chocolate milk.  A Scoll family tradition that my family has adopted and embraced.  Mom and I baked mandelbrot.  The recipe we used is framed and hangs above my cookbook bookcase.  It's not the greatest recipe ever, but I still make it every holiday (except Pesach), and everyone gobbles it up.  It's the taste of holiday, of family, and of memory.  Sukkot brought a barn raising to our home.  We trekked to the local canal to harvest reeds for the schach.  (Unfortunately transplanting snails a mile north into our neighborhood.)  We sat and strung popcorn (eating much more than we strung) and cranberries.  Every year mom had a new idea for a decoration.  The sukkah was precariously built and had to be tied to tent pegs or the house to keep erect, but I ran home to sit in it every afternoon.  Hanukkah brought Maccabee themed mobiles and decorations.  One year a large Judah adorned the table with Shimeon and an elephant.  My mother was the first to teach me about the elephants in the Maccabee story, which I thought was the coolest thing.  We ate lots and lots of latkes, and sat in front of the fireplace while my parents read stories.  Tu B'shevat meant eating dried carob known as bokser, which we all hated (although we ate it anyway), but look back on fondly.  We started seeds.  This was often the time when my Dad would start planning his garden and even starting a few seeds.  Purim brought homemade puppets, great costumes, and hamantashen baking.  Pesach was celebrated with family.  I remember the year my cousin broke the basement window (where we were having seder) trying to climb in when we opened it for Elijah.  My Aunt said if Elijah could make it around the world, he could figure out how to get in the window.  At my other aunt's & uncle's home it meant Grandma's special chicken soup, kneidel, and chopped liver.  I have those recipes.  As the kids aged it meant large care packages packed of of these delicacies to take back to university.  Shavuot filled our home with greenery and flowers.  Some years it seemed every surface was adorned with bikkurim.

Additionally, my Mom helped me celebrate these days in my doll house.  I collected miniature furniture. For each holiday we'd create a scene for the living room with homemade seder plate or latkes, maybe a lulav and etrog.  One year my scenes were featured at the local library.  My parents bought me a silver hanukiyah for my doll house that now sits in my dining room.

Writing about this it seems almost exhausting that my parents did this.  But I think of these things every holiday.  It's what makes my go outside with my kids on cold evenings to hang sukkah decorations because they think we should hang them at night as soon as we can.  It's what causes me to add to the sukkah each year.  It's the reason we have beautiful wooden Shabbat Hanukkah, and Pesach foods, play table cloths, candlesticks, and challah covers.  It's why my kids all had special kiddush cups at an age when they could not appreciate them (although they do now. Yes, Sean they do.)  My did it out of love, love for us and love for Judaism.  It worked.  While definitely on different paths, my brother and I are both committed Jews.  I expect the same from my my children.