The four children
Each year at Pesakh, I tell this story:
For me, the four children represent the four generations of my family coming to America, and the transformation into Reform Jews. My great-grandfather was born on the shtetl, and was "wise" in the ways of Judaism. He came to America, and lived a quiet, Jewish life. He had seen the pogroms firsthand in Russia, and knew that one day, "they" would come to get him. His daughter - my grandmother - was raised in a house where Yiddish was spoken as freely as English, yet with every breath, she was taught to hide her Jewishness; to turn away from it. While smart in the ways of being a Jew, she was "wicked", and turned her back on her heritage. My mother - now the third generation of American Jews - was raised in a Jewish neighborhood. She attended a public school which virtually closed for all Jewish holidays. She could not, however, attend any Jewish events, for her grandfather would warn her, "Do not be marked out, for one day, they will come for you". So she became a simple Jew. She knew that she was a Jew, and the only Yiddish she knew was, "Kleine Kinder hogn groise oiren." - Little children have big ears. On to my generation. There are three of us, and I am the youngest. We did not even know enough to ask. We grew up in a house with a Christmas tree and a menorah. When I was 11, I decided I wanted a bar mitzvah, so my parents dutifully selected a synagogue, and off we went. Of my brothers, one still lights the menorah next to his Christmas tree. The other has recently fallen into (and back out of) evangelic Christianity, and is now a Methodist. And me? I'm a Jew. And may my children be wise.
But today, I was discussing Meryl's post with my mother; and the tragedy in Seattle. And she said to me, "Maybe my grandfather was right."
