Tonight, Let’s Also Tell Our Family Stories

One of the running themes in these pandemic times is that everything has changed — from how we approach life to what we talk about to how we practice our Judaism.

So, how should our seders be different tonight, besides the fact that they will be significantly smaller?

For most of us, we will continue to recount the master Jewish story in the haggadah, we will ask questions and discuss meanings and draw lessons for our own lives.

That is all well and good, but we do that every year! What can we add this year that is different?

My suggestion: Let’s add some of our own family stories.

If we are going to go deeper and higher during these unprecedented times, we need to get more personal, too. We need to dig deep and share the stories of our bubbes and zeides, as well as those of their parents and grandparents.

I know, many of these stories have been lost. But which ones are still in our memory banks, lying silent and dormant, just waiting to be told?

We’re all living through an epic crisis, when we need to hold on especially tight to our human connections. Our family stories can provide that much needed nourishment.

The seder table offers a unique opportunity for storytelling.  As we go through the haggadah, we can enrich the collective Jewish story with our own. What is the collective Jewish story, in fact, if not the accumulation of millions upon millions of individual family stories?

On my podcast this morning, the CEO of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Rabbi Hara Person, shared the story of her great-grandmother, who suffered hardships when her family immigrated to New York and eventually became a feminist and social activist.

I shared a story of my grandfather who left a thriving tea business in Casablanca, moved to Israel in the early 1950s with his large family, and, despite living in a ramble shack home, kissed the ground in gratitude that he had come home.

In his remarkable cover story in the Journal last week, my friend Noam Weissman reflected on the kind of stories that build resilience.

There are three kinds of narratives: Ascending, descending and oscillating. It’s the latter, he writes, that builds resilience:

“The oscillating family narrative vacillates between the two previous narratives. That’s when we say, ‘Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family.’”

In other words, the power of real, authentic family stories is that they include the good, the bad and the ugly. They give us a framework by which to handle life’s ups and downs.

Considering we’re going through one of humanity’s biggest “downs” right now, our family stories can be a valuable asset to help us weather the storm.

So, what are your family stories? You may think you know them all, but are there any hiding in someone’s memory? If you’re blessed to have a grandparent or great-grandparent at your seder, live or on Zoom, give them a chance to share their stories.

May we all see better days, and may we all continue to contribute to the great Jewish story.

Chag sameach.