Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, it means that the dead are living.
~Harold Macmillan
As I was looking through old recipes, I found a piece of family history. It was my mother’s recipe for the caramelized sweet rolls that she’d traditionally made for Jewish holidays. She had written it in pencil over thirty-five years ago. Although it was faded, I could still read parts. No one made schnecken like Mama did. Nobody ever tried more than once.
My mother was immersed in Jewish culture, but she never seemed to know the origin of her customs. That really used to bother me. Why do something if you don’t know why you’re doing it? When I was growing up, we kept kosher, which included not eating shellfish.
“Why can’t we eat lobster?” I asked Mama when I was a kid. She didn’t know, so I found out. I self-righteously told her, “According to Jewish law, scavengers are forbidden.” To me, it was pointless to keep kosher if she didn’t know why she was doing it. But my mother knew why. She just had her own reasons.
At age thirteen, I stood in front of the congregation one Friday night for my Bas Mitzvah. For months, I had rehearsed the Hebrew prayer I was to sing. I learned it phonetically from a recording, so I had no idea what I would be singing to hundreds of people.
“What’s the point?’ I said to Mama, as she listened, in rapture, to me singing my Bas Mitzvah song. “I don’t even know what I’m saying!” It was always hard for her to answer my rebellious questions. She answered, “Because that is what we do.”
That response always aggravated me, but it also gave me the impetus to find my own answers about Jewish practices. I’d arrogantly announce the results of my research to my mother. And it amazed me that she wasn’t enthralled.
Every Passover, we put a glass of wine outside the door for the angel Elijah — sort of like putting out cookies for Santa. Once, I put adhesive tape at the level of the wine. In the morning, I showed Mama that the wine was at the very same level as it had been the night before. “Elijah is a myth,” I declared victoriously. But in spite of my proof, she kept putting the glass out every year for the angel.
“Why Mama?”
“Because that is what we do.”
Every Friday, at sunset, she lit two candles and said, in Hebrew, the Sabbath prayer. In the darkness, her hair covered in delicate lace, she’d move her hands in a slow sweeping motion around the trailing smoke of flames so that it wafted around her. She never knew that this beautiful gesture symbolized the welcoming of the Sabbath. With closed eyes, she’d recite the blessing, not knowing what it meant. But that didn’t matter to her. What mattered was that our family was together as she kept alive this ancient tradition. She was fulfilling a sacred vow to teach us by her example. She was our matriarch — the officiator of the ceremony. And she welcomed her powerful mission.
Did it matter what the Hebrew meant? Of course not. Now I understand it was all about family. “That is what we do,” meant, “That is what we do to provide a continuous thread of connection linking families past, families present and families yet to be.”
My parents are both gone. On the anniversary of Mama’s death, I decided to recreate her schnecken. They were good, but nowhere near as delicious as hers were. I realized that didn’t matter. In a surprising moment, my heart was touched by a profound connection with my mother I hadn’t felt for decades. It was such an odd sensation — almost like she was there. And you know what? I bet she was.
I vowed to re-establish the tradition of making Mama’s schnecken once a year for my birthday and I will ask my family to do the same on the date of my birth after I am gone. Perhaps their children will pass it on. Even though Mama’s penciled recipe will continue to fade with time, from this day forth, it will be truly everlasting.
Generations from now, someone may ask, “Why do we make these every year on this date?” No one will know. But that won’t matter. What will matter to me, as it did to Mama, is the continuation of connection that the schnecken will provide — between families past, present and families yet to be.
And therefore, I pray my successors will fully grasp the rich significance behind Mama’s answer, “Because that is what we do.”
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