Let My Peephole Grow

By Judy Gruenfeld

As Pesach approaches we are all busy cleaning our homes from top to bottom, ridding it of all chometz.  But equally, if not more important, it is a time to remove the “chometz” from our hearts and from our souls.

Mitzrayim can take many shapes and forms.  Being enslaved does not necessarily mean there is someone literally standing over us with a whip, forcing us to do back breaking labor.  Indeed, when our bodies are free and our hearts and our souls live in a land that is “killing us with kindness” the threat to our existence is incalculable.

When my grandparents came to this country from Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century they were, for the most part, frum Yidden.  They did not know any other way.  But, they wanted to be “Americans” so most of the old country ways were shed in pursuit of the “American Dream”.  Little by little old customs and practices were substituted for new ones.  My grandfathers worked on Shabbos.  My grandmothers maintained kosher kitchens only until my aunts, uncles and parents became teen-agers.  At that point, the influences from their Gentile and even Jewish peers could not be ignored.  My grandmothers relented and for the first time in the history of either family treife food was brought into the house.

By the time I was about eight years old, only two customs remained.  One, on Shabbos morning my cousins and I would put on our “Shabbos clothes” and go to shul with a friend whose father always went for Shachris, Mincha and Maariv; and two, when my cousins and I came home from shul, the whole family would get together for the afternoon meal.  On a nice day we would walk.  On a nasty day we would drive.  The freestanding radio in my grandmother’s living room was on the opera station and the conversation usually revolved around politics and the arts.

I was very conflicted as a child.  My parents preached Agnosticism, and even though I always felt the presence of G-d within me, for a child, the parents must be right. That is the basis for the child’s entire emotional security.  So, I pushed my feelings down into the deep recesses of my subconscious where I wouldn’t feel as though I were “leaning on a crutch for weak minded people” as articulated by my parents.  And, it wasn’t their fault.  They didn’t know any better, either.  They, themselves, weren’t taught differently.  I saw the world through the narrow purview that was presented to me. 

I attended a Workmen’s Circle School for a short while where I learned Yiddish and some customs but no religion.  It did not fill the hole in my soul, which was aching for Hashem.

Fortunately, I married a nice Jewish boy and though we did not raise our children to be frum, they are proud to be Jewish.

But my discontent and my search for meaning in my life continued.  I looked into eastern religions, Transcendental Meditation, holistic healing, a vegetarian diet, EST, and a host of other “isms” that didn’t amount to anything.  It never occurred to me to look into my own religion as, by then, I had fooled myself into believing I had adopted my parents’ point of view and thought it to be shallow and meaningless.  Fortunately, I didn’t look for meaning in anything that would be harmful to my physical well-being.

I became very depressed and discouraged, when an incident occurred that opened my eyes and allowed me to pursue my own beliefs. 

We were at my parents’ house for dinner one Sunday evening about fifteen years ago.  When I selected a piece of roast beef that was a little pink, my mother said, “You don’t know what’s good,” as she has told me all my life when my opinion differed from hers.  Mom likes her roast beef very well done, which is fine for her, but not for me.

The proverbial light bulb lit up.  I realized that I had spent my entire life trying to please my mother, whose approval I desperately needed.  And it wasn’t working.  Here I was, in my mid-forties and I still wasn’t getting it right.  She was wonderful and supportive with most things but she, too, has her insecurities, and those insecurities interfered with her parenting on occasion.  Also, as adult children, we have to forgive our parents for being human and not the super heroes they seem to be when we are small.

The rest, as they say, is history.  I could no longer quell my yearnings for Yiddishkeit.  I began learning with a fervor that I didn’t even know I possessed.    My scope widens every day.  To my amazement, I found that all those “isms” I looked into have their origins in Torah.  Now, I am always discarding “chometz” as I continue to learn and grow.