Dear Chocolate Lover [Martele]:
It’s not true that I learned all I need to know about Judaism before kindergarten. My greatest growth didn’t begin until about age 23, in the year I read The Diary of Anne Frank and Exodus continuing until today, with the most intensive learning between 1972-78 when I was most estranged from “organized” religion but deeply engrossed in Biblical and comparative-religion studies at Trinity College.
But yes, it’s true that RRM was my first and best teacher. And with her death (and the nearly simultaneous arrival at my synagogue of two young, dedicated, intelligent rabbis), I am back on what feels like my spiritual path, saying Kaddish almost daily and involving myself in a new synagogue group, a Grief Support Committee.
My journey to Judaism is remarkable to me because my mother and father were totally opposite in their approach, beliefs, and observance. Memories: my mother cried and stormed twice a year – on Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur because my father wouldn’t go to shul, in fact worked. And on Passover, when my father would arrive in the middle of the seder, and then needle my grandfather (and later Uncle Bob) to “hurry it up.” Another: one Friday night my cousin (on my father’s side) from Claybank VA came for dinner. He was in his 20’s, very sophisticated and worldly as a UVa graduate and a NYC resident. He had seen my mother light and bless the Shabbat candles. As dinner neared the end, he leaned over and blew them out. My mother got up, walked over to his chair and slapped him up side his head with the flat of her hand. “Don’t you ever do that in my house again,” she said with cold fury.
Which is to say that, with the adoration I had for my father (until I was 20 years old), I could have gone in a totally different direction. Why didn’t I?
This will be worth exploring because, of course, my mother is the key to the answer.
Another part of the answer is Beth-El where I had two “religious experiences”. The first was the service of my Confirmation. The second was Yom Kippur Day 1950, after my graduation from college. In between those two “epiphanies” I threw off as much “Jewish” as I knew how to get rid of. And what is Beth-El, if not the creature and creation of our mothers – and fathers. But mostly, our mothers.