New Jewish Traditions
Every Friday morning, I open my tattered, old bread book where the spine has cracked in two places; one on the bagel page and the other on the challah page, and I start separating eggs and measuring flour. After years of making challah, I've got this down to a science, but I still open my bread book where I've written notes in the margin. The book is a habitual comfort; I don't need it there, but when I open it, I can see why this weekly tradition is so important to my family.
"Finn made his first challah today!" reads one note. "I made two batches to deliver to friends...this virus is awful." reads another. "After watching the same YouTube video 50 times, I finally figured out how to make an eight-strand!" reads another with an emphatic underline. And in pencil, along the stitched seam of the center are a handful of Hebrew words, stained with drops of egg white and olive oil.
"Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hafreesh challah min ha'eesah," it reads. I sing these words into the kitchen as I hold up a small piece of the dough and light it on fire.
My Jewish practice is filled with traditions like this one that may be new to me but that date back thousands of years. Practices that my family has no roots in because Judaism, for us, has started with me. I often feel like an outsider at my synagogue, where families have been attending services for generations; they know each other in ways that I envy. And although my little, small-town Jewish community has welcomed my family and me with open arms, I still get sad that I lack a shared history of knowledge and heart.
"But you're the root now for hopefully generations of [Jews,]" my friend joked one day. He and his family have been pivotal in helping my family learn and practice Judaism on our long journey of conversion. He was trying to cheer me up when we talked about what it is like to lack tradition and history. But then he said, "You're taking up for people with roots that didn't make new Jews if you think about it." And that struck a chord with me. The traditions I am starting in my home aren't trivial things I am making up on the fly; they are part of something much bigger than us, something we love and hold dear.
But as much as I love becoming Jewish and slowly learning to be intimately aware of the ancient words and the motions of the lunar calendar, that doesn't mean my children are always on board.
"Mom, why can't I just stay home and play the PS4?" my teen grumbles one Saturday morning. "It's not like I'm missing anything; we literally say the same words every week...c'mon, please?"
Getting my children excited about this newness was initially awkward and challenging. So, I didn't push it—I didn't force them to go to Shabbat service with me. And I didn't require them to read the Torah with me or observe all the rules of Shabbat, like turning off gadgets and not touching light switches. No driving, shopping, or cooking. No ordering pizza or watching movies. Just 25 hours of relaxing and resting together.
They hated it.
Gil Marks, a Jewish cookbook author, once said, "to know a community is to know its food." History, culture, humor, and humanity are all found in food, and for my kids and husband, it turns out that practicing and observing Jewish traditions starts with our plates.
My middle schooler—the pickiest eater I have ever met—loves canned fish. He'll gobble up kugel (he calls it Jewish mac and cheese), eat an entire jar of pickles, and thinks smoked salmon goes on everything. My oldest fist pumps and yells "YES!" when I make matzo ball soup or chocolate babka. And my youngest wants to know why we can't eat cheese and blueberry blintzes every day instead of on Yom Kippur and Shavuot.
Food became the lightning rod for introducing Jewish culture and history to my children. They want to eat bagels? Perfect. We open that tattered bread book and start the two-day process of making proper Jewish bagels. But they also get a history lesson about how bagels got invented because Jews weren't allowed to bake bread—they were forced to use malt and boil it. Thankfully, they found a way to turn a nasty, antisemitic law into a new tradition of eating.
In my quest to bring Jewish tradition into our home, I began to borrow books from my local library through their interlibrary loan program. I found a rare and difficult-to-find copy of The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook, written in Yiddish by Fania Lewando in 1938. She owned a thriving vegetarian restaurant called Dieto-Jarska Jadłodajnia in Vilnius, Lithuania—the very same area where most of my local Jewish friends have their family roots. Lewando served celebrities like Mark Chagall and Itzik Manger. She was a beloved chef and well-known in her time. But sadly, she wouldn't survive the Nazi occupation, and she died in 1941. Then, to add insult to injustice, the Nazis burned her cookbooks. They were banned and thought to be destroyed, except that someone who understood the value of her work smuggled one out of Lithuania, and it made its way to the US, where more were published, and a single copy landed in a small synagogue in coastal Maine.
The day I got a copy of that book, I felt moved to tears knowing the history of how it got into my hands. Its art is stunning, and the recipes are incredibly humble and simple. I went to my friend's house to show them the book and see if they recognized any recipes. Of course, they knew plenty of them—who doesn't know what a latke is? But they also pointed out how hilarious old-school Jewish cooking can be and advised me to appreciate the art and history of the book but maybe don't eat a recipe that is 80% butter.
My children embrace Judaism in ways I wished for, but worried would never happen. My oldest is beginning his bar mitzvah studies, and my youngest is learning the stories of the Torah in Saturday morning Hebrew school. We have our favorite Jewish recipes—and ones we don't like so much but still make during the holidays (chopped liver, anyone?)
I had spent too much time trying to shoehorn ancient traditions into our family's way of life without fully grasping why these traditions matter. It took time for me to understand that the way to pass on traditions to my children (even if they are new to us) isn't about strict adherence (although that helps) but about finding the magic spark that ignites a feeling of comfort and belonging for us. We observe Jewish traditions because they feel right to us. After learning so much about the history and culture of these traditions, we can see and feel their value. And after practicing them for as long as we have, they've become a vital part of who we are as a family.
I am the root of my family's Jewishness. That feels like a mighty and bold idea to hold onto because it also feels like hope. Our traditions are growing in our home, and with them, my heart swells.
