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09/30/2000 Archived Entry: "You Don't Have To Be Jewish"

I met Marcy Goldman through her work. She is the author of A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking and the host of www.betterbaking.com, a great website full of recipes, information (lots of links), and good writing. Because Marcy is based in Montreal, where French is the second language, the site is also known as Baker Boulanger.

Marcy and I have become personal friends over the last two years, not just colleagues, and so she shared the following with me. It’s a piece she wrote for herself, not the website or for a book. It so touched me, however, that I asked her permission to publish it on my website. I am running it apropos of the Jewish New Year, but you certainly don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate it.

THIRD GENERATION
By Marcy Goldman

Sadly, but not unalterably, I came a little late to my Jewish roots. While growing up our home shared its backyard with the parking lot of our city's most illustrious Conservative synagogue, although my parents declined to become members or participate in any synagogue activities. An early, now forgotten dispute over something minor (at the time, major), created a rife. This rife grew further as my parents decided that organized religion held little appeal for them. They were unusual people and my mother in her quest for universality kept a warm and welcoming home, but one wherein Jewish customs went by the wayside. My father disliked anything that had a label and staunchly maintained that all groups, Jewish, Catholic, most clubs and fraternities were all indeed one sort of segregation or another since each included or excluded on an arbitrary basis. "People should just be people and accept each other without segregating".

To a certain extent, albeit in a perfect world, he was right. I rarely went to shul as a child and regrettably, when I did, all my peers, and even some adults, expressed incredulity at my presence. I could have come from another planet. I experienced Passover on a regular basis through the gracious invitations of my aunt who made sure all were welcome at her Seder table. My only Hebrew words were Shalom and my own name, Marcia, after Moses. But when I was eight life changed a little. My grandmother came to live with us. She was blind since her late thirties. Getting used to sharing my room with her was no problem.

I was just young enough to still be delighted to have a room-mate and one who never tired of my after school chatter at that. More traditional than anyone I had ever experienced, and truly spiritual, she was a strong influence in my life -- only it took thirty years to figure this out. Although generally she was a most undemanding, peaceful sort, she did insist that I light her Sabbath candles, a poignant, pathetic gesture between a blind Bubbie and a reluctant granddaughter. I would watch her intone the prayer in this house of seafood-eaters, her see-nothing eyes gazing into history. "Marcy, she would ask gently, "please point me toward the light". I obliged, gently holding her shoulders and pivoting her slowly to face the solid brass candlesticks. We usually were alone - no other adult to even ask why I was allowed to light matches, unsupervised although divinely blessed, no doubt. She sang the blessing. I had no idea what she was saying but in spite of myself I found her mystic, and in spite of her blindness I knew she had a unique vision, although I was not yet ready to share it. Sometimes she said, despite her blindness, she could just barely make out two pin points of light, the flicker of the two candles as they glowed.

My grandmother has been gone some time and it is a lifetime ago since I was someone's granddaughter. In these parts I'm known as "Mom" -- big time. But the intervening years had an effect, proof that time is not just quantitative. Just to let you know, Bubbie, I came back. Now a parent of my own three sons, I have made a decision not to live on the outside of Judaism but approach the inner side. And each year, I layer on another coat of my own Jewishness. I no longer pick apples on Rosh Hashanah or mark other holy days simply by baking a larger brisket. We no longer gear up on Friday nights, we quiet down. There are Hebrew lessons to drive to, yeasty challahs to be pummelled and baked, Jewish history and stories to read to myself and my sons, succots to build amid the nippy, drizzly days of autumn, endless potatoes to grate as Chanukah draws near, and a host of people, my community, to meet at shul and pray with and pass on heartfelt, holiday sentiments.

It is not easy finding your way back to a heritage that did not get its chance to develop, as you developed, at the outset. And like many other slightly marginal Jews of my generation, I feel awkward with my lack of knowledge of shul protocol, Jewish rituals, and the Hebrew language itself. I fumble even as my young sons are certain I am guiding them on a well-charted course. Sometimes I almost give into my feelings of discomfort and stray from the mainstream Jewish events and activities. But then I think, is my discomfort sufficient to forfeit yet another generation? Can I look my sons in the eye as the years roll on and excuse myself from denying them such basic Judaic traditions simply by saying "I was never the religious type?" I figure they can always reject things later on. But it is easier to divest extra baggage than load up on what you're missing at a later date.

So I sit in shul and sometimes squirm, trying to find patterns in prayers and songs that alternately elude and mesmerize me. I take heart that my sons are blandly comfortable and my eldest kindly points out to me where we are in the prayer book - beaming with his mastering of the simple Hebrew words. I see a black and white blur on the page - he sees letters that make up words that have a meaning. But I am fortified, that often, another synagogue member, will whisper what page we are on, motion something, and guide me, as I guided my grandmother towards some sort of light. What comforts me is the final realisation that while one needn't be religious to be spiritual, a little ritual is necessary to modern living.

At our home on Fridays, the candles are lit, the keepahs are on, and all is (relatively) serene. And I think of my grandmother and my days as her resistant lighter of the Sabbath tapers. Bubbie, I wish you could see us now - how you would adore my boys and they you. How gratified you would be to know I am no longer a reluctant outsider but clumsily attempting to be a full participant in the whole tapestry. But I am sure the scent of the fresh baked challah finds its way to paradise. Sometimes I think the candles glow extra bright and that's when I know, wherever you are, I would no longer have to turn you toward the light.