New Beginnings
One week after moving to New Orleans and beginning Avodah, I got a call from my family letting me know that my grandfather passed away. That day, some of my housemates put together a lunch bag full of food for me to take on my flight back to Michigan with me. They signed the bag, “Love, Your Avodah family.” In the face of death, I began to think not only of death, but life, family, and Judaism as well.
My Papa was never one for organized religion. Regardless, he was always proud of being a Jew. He grew up in a household where Yiddish was spoken and socialist ideals of equality were as much a part of life as Judaism. He used to joke that the shorter the shiva, the better. Unfortunately for him, shiva is not for the dead, it is for those left behind. When my housemates put together a bag of food for me, it reminded me of the tradition while sitting shiva of bringing food to those in mourning. It is a tradition to help those in need.
Before my Papa retired, he and my Bubby were in the real-estate business. They were selling houses to black families in white neighborhoods before anyone else would. As a response, they had rocks thrown through their windows, and received physical and verbal threats. I have no doubt that this act of morality was rooted in his Jewish upbringing and values. I believe that where he found value in Judaism, are many of the same things that have brought me to where I am today. Specifically, to Avodah.
In the Avodah bayit (house) we talk and talk and talk and then talk about how we talk about community, but I am not sure how I would have made it through that day without the support group of my Avodah community. Similarly, I cannot image what it would have been like to return to New Orleans after the funeral and shiva without knowing I would have a community there.
After the Israeli author David Grossman’s son was killed in Lebanon, in a longer piece on writing, he wrote, “…death is not only the absolute and one dimensional negation of life.” My Papa’s passing was in no way a negation of his life. In the literal sense that I am his posterity, he lives on. And in the metaphorical sense, I hold his memories and moreover, his values. As I lost one member of my family, I felt that in returning to New Orleans, I was returning to a new family that I was just beginning to build.
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