
I was raised with a very strong anti-materialist mindset. Growing up in Morocco, my mother had this Arab expression she would use any time something broke, even something as valuable as expensive china.
“Something bad had to happen, and it happened to the china instead of to you,” was the gist of the expression.
I’ve used and abused that lesson more times than I can remember. It’s in my genes now that I can’t get too worked up over broken things.
I have found, however, that there is one material part of our lives that is absolutely worth stressing over– our homes.
It turns out that during the LA fires, I was in my mother’s home in Montreal and receiving texts from friends in LA whose homes had burned down. Some were close friends. I had been in their homes.
Somehow, the expression that “something bad had to happen” wasn’t working so well. Yes, our lives are the most important things, but what is it about a home that didn’t fit so easily into my mother’s life lesson?
Maybe it’s that a house is not just a material thing but an emotional repository of stories and memories.
Those little apartments where we lived as immigrants in Montreal were not just apartments. They were mini sanctuaries where my siblings and I had our favorite play areas; where my mother would set up a glorious Shabbat table in a tiny kitchen; where a Middle Eastern three-piece band played for my brother’s very crowded Bar Mitzvah party; where my father would help me on the kitchen table with a class project on Napoleon after returning from his night classes in the middle of winter.
Our homes, whether mansions or studio apartments, are places where we create memories. That’s where the warmth comes from.
It’s true that we all have things that are priceless—photo albums, kids art projects, family heirlooms and jewelry, and so on. Those mementos carry their own memories and have an emotional value no insurance policy can ever replace.
The memories inside a home are different. These are the living memories connected to space– the ones we create when we sit around a kitchen table or hang out on a deck or schmooze with friends in a living room.
When I see our messy dining room table on a Shabbat morning, it’s not the table I’m seeing. It’s the laughing and singing from the previous night; the stories and Torah discussions that moved us; the surrender to joy that comes after a little too much wine.
As I was following the LA wildfires from Montreal, thinking of those who had lost their homes, I became especially aware of the memories inside my mother’s home. Everywhere I looked were memories of parties, family gatherings, Jewish holidays, visitors from out of town, synagogue goers popping in after services, sitting for my father’s shiva and on and on.
When a home is lost, we lose that specific place where those fondest of memories emanate from every corner. Yes, we can remember moments, but we can no longer experience them in those spaces.
I can’t pretend to know what it would feel like to have one’s house burn down. I have commiserated with friends who’ve lost theirs. For now, I can only reflect on why homes have such a hold on us, based on my own life. I see a home as a refuge that anchors us in memories that belong only to us.
In the Jewish tradition, a home is seen as a sacred space where values are both practiced and handed over. The weekly Shabbat rhythm makes that day the centerpiece of that sanctity, the instrument of holy memories.
We have a human tendency to idealize those memories. With time, we like to remember only the good ones. This is especially true after we lose something.
So much was lost in the LA fires. Lives, homes, neighborhoods, faith in our leadership, even faith in our future.
But let’s not forget the endless stories and memories that were embedded inside the homes that no longer stand. Without those kitchens and dens and family rooms and worn-out sofas, these stories may live on, but only in our minds, soon to fade away with time.
All we can ask for is the chance to create some new memories, and hope that only the china will break.