B”H
“Herbert, when was the first time you knew you were Jewish?”
“What? I mean, have always known I was Jewish…”
“No, but when did it first click inside you? When did you first feel
Jewish?”
An interesting question I was posed not too long ago, and I must
say I was quite stumped. To answer such a question required mental digging
through decades of memories.
My first inclination was that my connection with Judaism must have
surrounded food. After all, we Rosenbaums are not short on food…just in stature.
Almost yearly pilgrimages to Baltimore’s Suburban House (before the terrible
fire) with the gantse mishpokhe could epitomize the meaning of l’dor
vador, as could the tradition of sharing creamed herring and whitefish
salad with my Bubbe (z”l) and Great-Aunt Esther (z”l) to the laughable, utter
disgust of my cousins. But, one must consider also Bubbe’s famous mandel bread
(mandelbrot) and Cousin Carol and Sima’s feasts for various holidays; that
kugel is the stuff of legends. Or, maybe it was that one time my mother
and I failed miserably at making latkes for Chanukah.
But, how could I have appreciated Jewish food culture without understanding
tradition and customs? Chanukah again poses a great contender for an
answer to the question, for I have known the blessings over the chanukiyah
candles as far back as I can remember. Or perhaps Pesach with all the additional
dietary restrictions and our family’s seder in the loosest of definitions.
Surely, it was learning about the Jewish tradition of naming children, learning
about my zeyde, my namesake, and learning to say Kaddish with my
family when we visited his gravesite.
Something, still,
must have instilled in me a desire to learn and embrace these religious and
cultural elements. My Bar-Mitzvah is a good first thought, but I think I
had established my faith long before thirteen years of age. I suppose Sunday
school religious courses provided the fundamentals for various Jewish topics du
jour, but I was not the best behaved child in those classrooms (primarily because
I was assigned instead to babysit my younger, wild-child of a brother). My
memories of the rare occasions my family went to shul
(#RoshHashanahYomKippurJews) were marked with unneeded, multiple bathroom
visits and staring off into space at the top of the temple dome. And trying to read
the prayers in Hebrew with all the adults was a challenge, because I read the
letters so slowly and carefully as they whizzed through tefilah. Oy, do I
especially remember my childhood guilt and embarrassment in my inability to
read Hebrew alongside my Jewish brothers and sisters as I was always the last
to finish Shmoneh Esreh (I still am often the last to finish, come to
think…)
But, aha! I have
found childhood guilt! I must be close in my mental archaeological excavation
to unveiling this mystery. There must be something in the Hebrew!!
I have always had
a love for languages since I was in diapers, starting first with Spanish television
kids shows (special shout-out to my homegirl, Dora). To this day, there
are some words I know only in Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Russian,
or some other language I studied formally or informally at some point in my
life. Accents come naturally to me (somewhat problematically when I
accidentally imitate a person in the middle of a conversation). Hebrew was,
notably, the first language I learned with non-Romanized letters. I also think
it was in Hebrew, before English, that I comprehended “roots” of words and
derivations. Perhaps my favorite part of Sunday school was learning a new word or
phrase in Hebrew – to say it with a non-American accent, to understand its
rooted meaning, and to write the Hebrew characters with care.
And suddenly, the
dust from my childhood memories finally settled. I remember so clearly my first
time feeling Jewish. It goes back to the Hebrew for sure, but also to a
lesser-discussed holiday and, what else, my height.
As a young child, I was fascinated with the Torah: its
various ornaments, its antiquity from the appearance of the parchment, its size
relative to my shrimpy status. (Am I allowed to use the word “shrimpy” when
talking about the Torah? Oh well.) But, I remember being troubled in not
ever seeing the physical text from which all the people on the bimah read.
Children weren’t usually on the bimah, spare the B’nei Mitzvah
who were in transition to adulthood. Sure, the rabbi would have a
lengthy sermon about the weekly parshah, and I could glean the gestalt of
the lessons from the English translations, but the Torah is the most holy
of works in Jewish faith in its direct connection to G-D. What did the original
text look like? What is the appearance of the divine calligraphy?
OK, maybe I wasn’t
quite so eloquent as a kiddo, but dammit, I wanted to see the Torah!
For a reason still unbeknownst to me to this day, my family and I
attended services for Simchat Torah when I was five or six years old.
Simchat Torah (שמחת תורה, literally “Rejoicing of the Torah”) is a holiday,
during which time the annual cycle of public reading of the Torah is completed.
Jews read the last section of Dvarim (דברים,
Deuteronomy
– the last Book) and started again with first section of Bereshit (בראשית, Genesis – the first Book). A particularly
happy occasion among the Jewish people which this year starts Monday night, Simchat
Torah is a holiday of merriment, drinking, and dancing in the streets with
the Torah as we celebrate the Torah’s presence and the blessing to learn
from it every day. It’s not as well-known in popular media as Chanukah,
nor as religiously compelling as Yom Kippur, but it’s a holiday nonetheless.
Anyway, I did not know it was Simchat Torah at the time, or
if I somehow did, I was unaware of the customs and significance of the holiday.
Like most kinderlach in shul, by the end of the service, I was spaced
out and eager to finally hear and end to the rabbi’s long-winded speech, when
suddenly, all the adults stand up. It is utter chaos, and not the expected “quickly-head-to-the-parking-lot-to-beat-everyone-in-traffic”
post-service chaos I have come to love. Several people ascend the bimah,
and my mom and dad instruct me to stand in the aisles with them. The Torah scroll
was unwound in its entirety like the infant who learns to pull toilet paper in
one, long chain throughout the house. The congregation gathered through the aisles
and out through the main doors of the synagogue, carried in their hands the
parchment of the Torah by its edges, and the longest strip of text I
have ever seen in my life continued to be fed to congregants all the way into
the streets.
“This is it! I will finally see the Torah!” I remember
thinking, as the parchment found its way towards my family…and right over my
head…and away from me. WHAT?! NO!! The adults were holding the parchment of the
Torah well above me, and despite jumping up and down and my very best
tippy-toes, I could not see anything! My dad yelled at me to “be careful!!” For
did I “not realize this was the Torah?!” I was utterly distraught to
have come arguably as close as ever to seeing the holy text and be denied once
again. One congregant, a man I know not from Adam, must have seen my vertical
struggle, and asked the adults around him holding the parchment to lower their
stance so I could have a look-see.
My eyes beheld the sight of the Torah for the first time that
day. It was but for a second, but so beautiful were the inked letters, some
long, some anointed with decoration! I had no idea what any of it said, but the
connection was made. I was finally a member of the Jewish community respected
enough to view G-D’s beautiful word, close enough to the Torah to
appreciate its contents, and inspired so greatly by the sight of the text to
listen intently to the reading of Bereshit. From there blossomed my
interest in Hebrew, my attention to traditions, my faith, and my identity.
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