\”All Jewish stories have a deeper meaning,\” reflected Judy Aronson, a graduate of Brandeis University and Harvard Divinity School. \”It\’s the community that makes the latkes, the people that create the celebration. If nobody had contributed anything, all they\’d have was an iron nail. Because everybody cooperated, they not only had a feast, they had peace of mind forever more.\”
This year, 5763, Rosh Hashana falls on Shabbat, the weekly observance that Sen. Joseph Lieberman calls \”a sanctuary to put the outside world on hold and concentrate on what\’s really important — your faith and your family.\” And although Lieberman, who was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2000, will experience the same joy he feels every Friday night as he takes off his watch and prepares to get into the Sabbath mood, during Rosh Hashana all activities are heightened — the prayers are longer, the conversation more intense, the urgency to evaluate the past year and make resolutions for a sweet New Year more palpable.
My mother is 85. But she doesn\’t look a day over 70. She takes no prescription drugs, no hormones; her memory is razor sharp.
Of all our family traditions, the Passover seder is the one we look forward to the most. We all fight over who will host it, but no matter, everyone pitches in with the cooking, making sure the seder plate is appropriately filled, the multicourse table properly set. My father and brother, Dennis, share responsibilities for hiding the afikomen and rewarding the lucky child who finds it. Although my father leads the service, with Dennis by his side, all generations participate, down to my 6-year-old granddaughter, Tiara.
Because my ancestors were from Eastern Europe, specifically Latvia, Lithuania and Vilna, I am Ashkenazi. Just as I thought all Jews spoke Yiddish, a language I delight in because it\’s so colorful, I grew up thinking Jewish cooking was my mother\’s brisket and carrot tzimmes, my Granny Fanny\’s chopped liver and my Aunt Dorothy\’s blintzes with sour cream. That\’s not to mention the dishes my brothers and I used to giggle about because their names were so amusing — knaidlach, kreplach and knishes.
At sundown on Monday we usher in the happiest day of our calendar, Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. For the next 10 days we\’ll be called upon to reexamine our lives — to wake up and not only smell the roses, but plant them for other people to enjoy.
This month, just a few weeks after the High Holy Days, Theodore Bikel will begin a national tour of the bittersweet musical, \”Fiddler on the Roof,\” reprising his role as Tevye the milkman. \”Everyone is a fiddler on the roof,\” he\’ll explain in his 1,600th performance of the part, \”trying to scratch out a simple tune without breaking his neck. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!\”
When I was a child, too young to understand the difference between the Days of Awe and the Day of Atonement, my only clue that the High Holidays were coming were the religious smells wafting out of our kitchen.
The Chicago-raised Mandy Patinkin is something of a poster boy for the warm, extended Jewish family — the children and grandsons and granddaughters of Eastern European immigrants who came to this country early in the 20th century to seek their fortunes and raise their families.
Although I\’ve been attending Passover dinners from the time I was knee-high to a scrupulously set seder table, there\’s something I\’ve never really thought about until recently: how does all this storytelling relate to me?
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