Masha Mednikov

July 27, 2007

D'var Torah

My name is Masha Mednikov. I am a Russian-Jewish immigrant.

Today’s Torah portion is VaEthanan. This portion begins with Moses pleading with G-d to allow him to cross over to the promised land, and when G-d refuses him and forbids him to ever speak of it again, Moses does what a good leader, a good teacher, and a good parent does – he prepares his people, his students, and his children to enter into the unfamiliar territory without him. He does it by instructing them of the laws and rules to live by, he commands them to  “observe them faithfully” to “take utmost care and watch themselves scrupulously,… so they may learn to revere G-d as long as they live on earth, and may so teach their children.” 

Moses’s teachings contained in this Torah chapter have all of the main founding principles of Judaism – love and fear of one all powerful all-loving and wrathful G-d, all of the prohibitions, the Ten Commandments, all about being the chosen people, and all of the laws and rules to follow… In other words, this chapter contains all of the instructions of what it means to be Jewish.

This chapter of the Torah brought up for me the question of what it means to be Jewish for me, and about  the development of Jewish identity in children and adults, and especially the part of “teach their children.”  From an immigrant’s perspective, this fundamental question of identity is a very complicated one for me, as I am sure it’s complicated for some of Russian- Jewish immigrants, sitting here today. What it meant to be Jewish in Russia , in my land of birth and culture, is different from what it means to be Jewish here in this country, where I found my home, and where I am raising my family.

In Russia , being Jewish for me meant some wonderful things as well as some very painful ones. I was in my late teens when we left, so of course my experience is limited. I know that things changed quite a bit in Russia today, and the Jewish experience of people there today is very different from what mine was, so I would like to offer only my personal experiences. I remember my Great-grandmother lighting Shabbat candles and chanting some strange words, which sounded scary and mysterious to me, with my grandmother making sure that none of our next door neighbors in our communal apartment saw or heard her mother. I remember coming to school the day after Passover (a very secretive gathering of my old relatives with odd tasting foods, and strange chanting) and proudly telling my friends that I had found the hidden matzos, only to realize total lack of comprehension and the look of fear in their eyes, as if I had said something repulsive. I remember my physics teacher telling my class about running to watch how the Nazis were shooting the Jews when she was a child during the war, and me feeling so scared and vulnerable that I could not raise my eyes to look at her. I remember the same teacher looking at me, and calling me by the name of another Jewish girl in our class. I knew that it was not “just a mistake.” I also remember my grandparents singing beautiful songs in Yiddish, the songs that warm my heart every time I hear them sung. I love the sound of Yiddish, even if I only learned to understand it to the extent that my grandparents wanted me “not to understand” speaking it to conceal something from the child ’s ears. I also loved my father’s pride in Israel ’s victories in all the wars, he would listen secretly to “Voice of America” and would be singing “Aveinu Sholom Aleihem” for days at a time. I also knew that I should study harder in school than any of my gentile friends, because I would not be able to go to college if I were not an A student. I also knew that I should marry a Jewish boy, because “my uncle who married a non-Jewish woman had all his marital problems because of it.” I also chuckled at my parents being so proud of anybody who was anybody, if the person had a Jewish-sounding name.

Even as a child I knew that I was Jewish in Russia without any knowledge of how Jews are supposed to be. In some ways my Jewish identity was formed for me, mostly by the outsiders, and by my sweet and protective relatives who were fearful themselves having lived through some pretty scary years of the Soviet regime. Judaism, VaEthanan chapter of this week’s Torah teachings, Moses’s problems of crossing over to the Promised Land, laws and rules and commandments were not part of my vocabulary, as they were not part of my Jewish identity before immigration.

In America I am not afraid to be Jewish. My gentile friends use Yiddish slang and tell Jewish jokes, and I don’t ever consider them being anti-Semitic in the slightest. My brother married an Irish girl, who converted to Judaism, and their children know more songs in Hebrew than me or my son. I bring Passover foods to my work as part of our “cultural competency” trainings. We have all of the traditional dinners for all of our close friends and their children at our home; we even have our Haggadah books in Russian. We have Mezuzah on our door post, and all sorts of Jewish chachkas proudly displayed over the fireplace mantel. Sure, for the last few years we have been participating in Shabbaton at Beth-Am, and we have learned a lot of new information, we have been coming to all the High Holiday services for the last ten years, and we ache for Israel as much as all the other Jews in the world. But I am still not sure about what it means to be Jewish in America , or what it means to teach my child to be Jewish. Something is missing. It might be that I have not been taught as a child to love “the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,” and I don’t know how to do it as an adult. It is hard to become involved in something which does not have emotional charge or personal meaning and to embrace something just because it makes sense or is logical. It certainly makes sense and is logical to become members of the synagogue, have the kids learn Judaism, have them become Bar and Bat-mitzvoth, light Shabbat candles and send money to Israel . But I want more from my sense of being Jewish in America .

Maybe I am not allowed to cross over the invisible but very palpable line between me and the Americans who grew up with a different sense of Jewish identity. But I know that this identity is what my son will have. Maybe the choice was made for me twenty nine years ago at the Veinna airport, when my family among other Russian immigrant families who just crossed over into the “free world” were asked by the Joint representative “Where do you chose to go?” and my father said quietly, “America…” Maybe I long to feel more of what people felt listening to Moses’s instructions and commandments before crossing into the promised land. And maybe I just miss my Grandmother’s singing in Yiddish.