This past Elul, when I was planning my annual pilgrimage to New Haven to visit my parents’ and grandparents’ kevarim (graves), I decided to do things a little differently. My first cousins, Morty and Elayne, who heard that I was making the trip, extended to me a very warm and open whenever-you-want-for-however-long invitation to stay at their Connecticut beach house, which was only about a half-hour drive from the cemetery. At first, I politely refused the offer, thanking Elayne profusely for her graciousness. Within 24 hours, after giving it much thought, I called her back.
“Wouldn’t it be great if, when I come to New Haven, we could pull together a first cousins reunion at your beach house?” I asked Elayne. “We could eat a bring-your-own picnic dinner on the beach, and in case of rain, eat indoors,” I offered, so as not to take advantage of the invite. The idea of a reunion was welcomed with the same enthusiasm and excitement with which I proposed it, despite the fact that Elayne was beginning her hectic first week of teaching. I told her I would invite the cousins and get back to her.
Mind you, I am the only frum (observant) cousin, among eleven of us, despite the fact that our common Bubby and Zaidy were frum. But being the “black sheep” in the family did not deter me. All our parents were all close when we were growing up in New Haven. They regularly got together for “family circle” meetings and, each summer, took us kids on fun barbeque outings at the lake in the beautiful, mountainous Connecticut countryside. The feeling of family closeness was so strongly infused in all of us that I wanted to replicate that feeling. It was so long since we had been together; we were all in mid-life now. But I wasn’t going to let our separations of age (there is a 20-year difference between the oldest and youngest cousin), geographical distance (we are now scattered in five states), or religious philosophy divide us.
The closer it came to the reunion, the more excited I became. In addition, I couldn’t help but see it as a perfect opportunity to bridge any gap, be it imaginary or real, between the Orthodox and secular worlds. After all, I was still on a high from the inspiration I got, just weeks before, when I watched Project Inspire’s Tisha B’Av kiruv video. I eagerly anticipated the Sunday, August 30, reunion. Perhaps it would provide the perfect setting to try out my newly acquired kiruv skills.
As I approached the tiny southern New England town of Milford, Connecticut, my mind and heart started racing. The excitement and anticipation mounted, as I asked myself lots of questions: What will it be like to get together for longer than the five minutes of small talk I usually participated in at one of my family simchas? Given two or three hours, what would we talk about? Old memories? Our present lives? Would we talk about our common grandparents, or ourselves as being grandparents? What would we walk away with from this first-time reunion? Would we want to repeat the experience in the future?
I brought my son’s wedding pictures, shot just three weeks prior to the day. My sister brought pictures of her latest family addition, her six-month-old granddaughter who lives in California. We sat in the living room of this quaint, cozy New England beach house, with the Yankees game on the widescreen TV acting as a familiar, comforting backdrop, for some. Elayne put out an assortment of fresh veggies and kosher-certified chips and dips, which we nibbled on while sharing our pictures and the explanations of who is who (and what they are now doing) that accompanied them. Intertwined, were a few simultaneous cross-conversations – all discussions focusing on the present, rather than the past.
Only as I noticed a couple of my cousins getting ready to leave, did I intentionally steer the conversation to the past and our point of commonality: our Bubby and Zaidy. I suppose I so badly wanted them to remember from whence they came – a Zaidy who learned in the Mir Yeshiva in Poland, of whom people would routinely ask shailos and eitzas (Torah questions and advice), who packed up his family (and his Yiddishkeit) for America during the turn of the last century and never worked on Shabbos, even during the Great Depression!
Some of our fondest childhood memories began to emerge from the deep recesses of our minds and hearts – and our taste buds! The tayglich and honey cake that Bubby made for Rosh Hashana (and year round!), and the canning and pickling she did on her back porch; the Pesach seder that we all attended at Bubby’s and Zaidy’s, held at their long dining room table; driving Bubby and Zaidy up to a Spring Valley resort in the Catskills, each summer; and how Bubby came to live with our family, after Zaidy’s death, just a year before her own petira (death).
As I write these recollections of what I deemed to be a meaningful reunion, I look out the window of my guest room overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and wonder if my relatives feel the same. For me, it was the optimal way to conclude Elul, prior to visiting my parents’ and my Bubby’s and Zaidy’s graves, and move on to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I decide that their heartwarming smiles and goodbyes meant that the feeling was mutual.
Since we ended up eating inside, when the last cousin left the reunion, Cousin Elayne insisted on showing me the stairway down to the beach, directly across the street from her house, so I would have no trouble finding it in the morning. It was on that short walk that she pointed out all the Jewish houses on the block; it was a surprise to me. It was also then that she told me just two years ago she finally did something she had been wanting to do for years: She put up a sukkah, the only one in her neighborhood! I will never forget the look in her eyes and the excitement in her voice as she told me how much she enjoys eating with her several guests in her – as she put it – “magical” sukkah.
Yes, this Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur will be especially meaningful to me. I only hope that, in the new year, I will feel the magic of the mitzvos, just as Elayne does!
© Margie Pensak-2010
