He continued for years to go through the motions, the candles on Friday night with the traditional meal, and the ritual marking the symbolic end of Shabbat. “Blessed are you, Lord, who distinguishes between the sacred and the secular."Passing around, and smelling the spices in their small silver container and concluding with the loud hiss of the braided candle dunked into the red wine.
“Why? “I asked him one day.
“There is a story,” He said after a long pause. “It is about this Rabbi who used to go to a special place in the forest with his followers light a fire, sing and dance. When he died his students would still go to that place and dance but did not know how to light the fire. When they passed away, their ancestors would still dance but the place was forgotten and the fire was long dead. What was left you ask? The story is left, of this Rabbi who used to go to the forest…”
“Is it about keeping one’s faith?” I asked, feeling put off like I did many times before when we had this talk.
“It’s about holding on, relentlessly, to an old story that over the years became a pale shadow of itself.” He said, his voice brimming over with bitterness.
“They could have been saved, most of them, if they were willing to let go,” he added softly as if talking to himself but I knew what he was talking about.
He showed me their pictures in a falling apart album, the man, dark haired tall and good looking, his young wife next to him, holding their year old baby. It was during the war, he said. In the face of the world crumbling around them and the facts he gave them, of Jews being taken away and killed, they refused to listen. They would not leave their home town and hanged on, hoping against all odds that it will never get so bad. They were devout Jews and believed god will protect them.
“I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. And even if he tarries, even in the face of that, I still believe.” He muttered the known tune and I knew the conversation was over. There was no need to repeat the words, I heard them many times, I could repeat them in my sleep.
I knew I could never fully understand this dichotomy, never resolve the ambivalent feelings, not his nor mine.
I still can’t
So I continue to hold on to the old story, trying to breathe new life into it. Like my father before me I go through the rituals, like my mother I braid the challa and when the smell fills up the house I light the candles. Looking at the two small flames dancing in the candle sticks I feel every Friday like I begin at the beginning.
_______________________* The story - Inquiring of god - Yair Caspi
Very carefully wrought piece--the legend and then the way it played out for your father, for you, and for the Jews who wouldn't see what was happening. Very literary, very subtle.
ReplyDeleteFor a reader like me, a Jew in name, but completely deracinated, assimilated, and uninterested in my Jewishness, there is one further permutation of the legend: when even the story is no longer left to be told.