Menu
Menu
December 4, 2021
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
December 4, 2021 – 30 Kislev 5782
Finding Great-Grandma Becky
with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
At the beginning of Thanksgiving, my dad and I spent hours combing through genealogical records, trying to find his grandmother. During the pandemic, I read Dani Shapiro’s book The Inheritance and had opened a subscription on MyHeritage.com trying to uncover my own family history.
My dad remembered that he called his dad’s parents Grandpa Loui and Grandma Becky. But he didn’t remember his grandmother’s maiden name or where she was from. He told me that when they visited, they always showed up without announcing themselves and his grandma would prepare more food than anyone could eat in a week. But strangely, you can’t search for a Grandma Becky who cooks too much and sometimes shouts in Yiddish on MyHeritage.com. I found countless Grandma Becky’s in countless historical records but couldn’t find enough information to claim any one of them as my own.
Together we scoured census records and cemetery logs to no avail. By the end, we had ruled out every lead I had found leading up to the trip and I had given up hope of every finding her full name or anything more about her. As we turned off the computer, we talked about how challenging it is, that often once you realize you have questions about your ancestors, it’s too late to ask. There’s no one alive in the family who remembers. And without those memories, it can be impossible to learn more.
I went upstairs to my childhood bedroom and was stacking books and old childhood journals to bring back to Boston, when a packet of handwritten papers fell onto the floor.
It was an interview. Carefully written questions and answers in what looks like my 11 or 12-year-old handwriting with occasional pages written in my mother’s neat hand. There are pages about my grandfather’s time in the army, about his work intercepting codes and transmitting radio messages during the war, about how he met my grandmother, and most astonishingly there is a whole page about his parents. Their names. Their families. Their birth and death dates. Where they are from and where they died. What they did and where they lived. And my favorite question and answer: “how did your parents punish you?” answer: they yelled and slapped tooshie.
By the time I reached the end, there were tears streaming down my face. Somehow, in my desperation that I would never find anything about my great-grandmother, the universe conspired to drop an interview with my grandfather about her into my lap. Questions that I didn’t remember asking and answers that I didn’t remember receiving just appeared as if my ancestors had reached through time and space to deliver them.
I felt, in that moment, as if I were living a Chanukah miracle. I had a glimpse of what it might have felt like to stand in the desecrated Temple, sifting through debris, mourning the loss of what was, knowing that the holy Temple would never be the same. And I had a glimpse of what it might have felt like to find that single cruet of oil—not enough to bring back the Temple as it was, but enough to feel like all wasn’t lost.
I raced down to the computer, shouting with excitement to my dad as I opened the screen and fired up the genealogy software. I plugged in my great-grandmother’s name, sure that it would populate new records and connections, sure that I would find more of her story. But that’s all there was. A name. A birthplace and a death place and dates and a name.
It was both more than I expected to find and not enough all at once. I realized that when I started all of this research, I didn’t just want to know names, somehow to reach through history to meet my ancestors. I wanted to know who they were and what they dreamed of. I wanted to learn their stories and to channel their strength. Now I know my great-grandmother was Rebecca Gershenoff, but I still don’t know her. I still don’t know what she loved or how she met her husband or what she dreamed about for her future. It turns out the things that matter most are the hardest to preserve.
Each one of us lives a life where we matter to the people around us, a life in which we are known for who we are, for our dreams and our setbacks, for the foods we love and the jokes we can’t stop telling. We are known and then we die, and within a few generations, our stories are lost and forgotten.
But what if we could preserve a bit of oil? What if we could write down the stories that are most essential to us? What if, in the next generation, a curious granddaughter could pull out a cruet of stories that would allow her to hear her great-grandparents voices? What if, in the next generation, a great granddaughter could discover the yearnings that animated her ancestors travels and travails, what if she could find comfort and strength in their struggles and successes?
This Chanukah, I want to invite you to dive into a different experience of the holiday. Chanukah isn’t just a festival of light, and it isn’t just a celebration of an ancient military victory. Chanukah comes from the word chinuch, the word for education. In a time when Antiochus and his cronies wanted to prevent our ancestors from transmitting the wisdom of Torah, they crafted games and schemes to make sure the essence of Judaism wouldn’t be lost to the corrosion of time. In a time before cell phones and voice recorders, our ancestors memorized phrases and teachings, preserving entire conversations and interactions to make sure that we, in a future time, would be able to access those insights. Because of the vision of our ancestors, we can look back and join in on those conversations preserved in the Talmud. Because of our ancestors, we know where we come from and how we should live.
But Chanukah is more than an ancient celebration. This year, I want to invite you to take some time. Think of eight stories. Eight stories that define you. Eight stories that you want to make sure your grandchildren and great grandchildren will know about you.
If you’ve picked a career and have worked in the world, what inspired you to pick that field or to take that job? How have you defined success?
If you moved from one place to another, why did you move? What did you love about living where you did and what do you like about where you live now?
If you fell in love, how did it happen? When did you know you had met your partner? What enabled you to stay strong together through the years?
What did you admire about your parents? About your grandparents? What did they teach you?
What’s the funniest story you can remember from your childhood and what’s a moment that defined you early in life?
And don’t forget the silly things. What are your favorite foods and your favorite way to pass a Shabbos afternoon?
Don’t just share these stories aloud. Filter the oil. Pack it away. Write it down in a journal or record it on your phone and put it in a safe place that your family members can find. Not because you’re going to leave this earth tomorrow or the next day or even the next, but because it’s worth making sure your story is told. Often, by the time we realize we need to ask for stories, it’s too late. And besides, wouldn’t it be nice if our great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren felt like they got to know us?
Your story really matters. If you don’t share it with the future, who will?