The God of Gummy Fruit Slices
How much do you have to believe in a religion to pass it on to your children?
This week, I did something I said I would never, ever do. I walked into my local Jewish supply store, “Afikomen” (a great name, but nothing close to the GOAT-Jewish-store, the LA-based “Schmulie’s Judaica Outlet, which happened to be right next to a Honeybaked Ham Store), and I purchased a box of Kosher-for-Passover rainbow gummy fruit slices.
If you are Jewish, Jew-iiiiiisssh, or Jew-adjacent, you have probably seen these nasty little bastards at a Passover seder, or in the aisles of a grocery store in a very Jewish-leaning neighborhood. You may, like a child first encountering Play-Doh, have had the very natural idea that they tasted good, being bright and colorful, of the “candy” variety of things, coated in sugar, and seemingly beloved by all Jews everywhere, at least once a year. But you would be wrong. So wrong. And if you made the fatal mistake of actually trying one, you would be greeted not by the toothsome, satisfying flesh of, say a Haribo gummy bear, but by a mealy, grainy, overly-sweet mess of a confection for which only the very youngest or very oldest of any gathering return for seconds.
Why would a fully-grown adult use her own hard-earned money to purchase such garbage? I asked myself that question as soon as I left the store, as I tossed the slices, along with some toy frogs (of the “plague” variety) and paper plates made to look like matzoh, onto the passenger seat. If I had looked at myself in the rear view mirror at that moment, I could have had some kind of Jewish-mom-married-to-a-gentile, Dirk Diggler pep talk with my reflection. I may not be a “great big shining star,” but I’m certainly the only show in town.
I was raised Jewish. I read “Number the Stars” on the edge of my seat, like it had happened to me. I went to “shul” for the high holy days, danced the teddy bear dance with Gabe Munitz at the after party for my Bat Mitzvah. I went to Jewish after school where, after years, I amassed the Hebrew language skills of a golden retriever. We weren’t as liberal with our Judaism, as, say, my friends who thought “Inch by Inch Row By Row” was a religious anthem, but we also weren’t as devout as the kids who kept kosher or went to Jewish sleep-away camp. We still celebrated Christmas and Easter, as my dad was raised to do, and even, at some point, as liberal Jews are wont to do, had a Buddhist ashram in our basement.
As a child, I was ambivalent about the whole thing. Like every child ever in the history of modern religion, I loathed being dragged to religious services, though as a parent I think the extreme boredom I withstood was character building. I knew early on that I didn’t believe in God, and went through a rebellious phase where I wouldn’t speak God’s name out loud when reciting the prayers (take that, Adonai!). But there were things I absolutely loved about being raised Jewish, that stuck with me even as I tried on new identities and moved across the country from where I was born.
I love the music. The somber dirges (almost all traditional Jewish music sounds like you’re at a funeral). The joyful stuff (this has mostly been invented by modern Jewish singers who are trying to keep everyone from feeling like they’re at a funeral). I loved the instant community. Over the years, I could go into any number of synagogues anywhere in the world, or find a few Jews any Friday night, and know all the tunes we’d be singing, the words we’d be saying, even if I had no idea what they meant and wouldn’t have believed much of it if I did. When I studied abroad in Prague, the four other Jewish students and I accompanied our Jewish history professor into the old Jewish quarter on Passover, where the Jews of Prague miraculously still lived, to negotiate a few boxes of matzoh from the head rabbi, whose operation was not unlike the mafia, but who let us through his extensive security simply because we said we were Jews.
I love the intellectualism, the self-reflection, which our Rabbi at Temple Bethel in Sudbury, Massachusetts (we drove 45 minutes out to the suburbs to catch his act) wove masterfully into his talks. Hearing him give a Yom Kippur sermon was like watching a Steve Kerr post-game interview. You went in thinking you were going to hear the same old platitudes and came out with a finer grasp on humanity. I love “tzedakah,” the ladder of giving that culminates in sustaining and empowering others with less opportunity. I love the food, the roast chicken that was the only thing my grandmother served other than Fiddle-Faddle. The matzoh balls, the latkes, even the godamn gefilte fish.
I loved, especially when I was younger, having “a people.” Since being white in America is less of a culture and more of a means for oppression, being Jewish felt like a reprieve - a chance to be a part of something, of the struggle (certainly romanticized, and tangled up in a history of being folded into whiteness) of making it in America.
For years I have gone to religious services on my own. My husband is one of the Jew-ish, and though he grew up around Jewish culture, his agnosticism and distaste for organized religion led to his making the choice, around the age he would have been Bar-Mitzvahed, to “quit the church.” I don’t know how I imagined I would pass Judaism on to my children, but I didn’t comprehend that it would involve so much intention, so much work, entirely on my part.
In his not-to-be-missed book, “Far From the Tree,” Andrew Solomon talks about “vertical identities” (the ones parents almost always pass on to their children) and “horizontal identities” (the ones that come from peer groups or random epigenetic events or life circumstances). We expect our children to look like us (if they are biologically-related) and have similar religious and political leanings, and we are slammed when they are differently -abled or -minded than us, when they fall “far from the tree.” But especially in an age where children are, thankfully, exposed to many more options than what their parents present to them, and being given more and more consent in developing their identities, I can’t take for granted that Judaism is vertical. I tell my children they can choose their gender (my five-year-old proudly exclaimed "I’m cisgender! I was born with a penis, and I feel like a boy!”) why wouldn’t I let them choose their religion? In fact, I have told them so far, that I am Jewish, and that they will get to choose if they feel like being Jewish as well. But my heart sinks a little in saying it, much more than it does in accepting that they might not be the gender I assigned them at birth, or that they might not, gulp, fully appreciate the musical catalogue of Outkast.
In our family, Passover is the epicenter of our Jewish life, the time where each new generation is inducted into our particular brand of Judaism. For decades, despite having the smallest home of most of our friends, we have hosted a seder for those who are Jewish, Jew-ish, and Jew-adjacent. Our Haggadah (seder program) has notes in the back about the first time my 18-year-old niece read the first questions, about the marriage engagements and pregnancies that were announced around the table each year, about the wayward Jews and non-Jews who found themselves seated there, sometimes without really knowing anyone, because in our Judaism, there is always another seat at the table. For the 20 years that I have lived in California, I have flown back to Boston for all but one Passover seder. It is everything I love about Judaism - a good story, a great meal, a lot of corny jokes and spoof songs about Moses played on the ukelele. Singing, laughing, drinking shit wine, reflecting on life and remembering that the whole point of religion is to create and spread hope, joy, and decency.
This Sunday will be the second seder in a row that we’ve attended on Zoom. This seder, which I had been relying on to carry the weight of so much of my children’s Jewish education, will now be a thing I argue with them about and bribe them to attend for all of five minutes. Hence, the orange slices. When I saw them sitting there on the shelf, flaunting their synthetic hues like some ancient mosaic, I thought “at least they can have this.” My children may not feel the spirit of God or not-God or whatever you want to call it this year, but at least they can engage in the Jewish tradition of continuing to eat the same disgusting food item because of an unspoken, communal bond to pretend you like it.
So this year, we will eat the fruit slices. We will meet a few friends at a park, the sweet little Jewish crew I have wiggled my way into here, who I have also missed dearly during the pandemic. There will probably be a guitar and a spoof song about Moses and a general feeling of hope and decency. We will have our Zoom seder on Sunday, with all of its old traditions and fresh, distanced-disappointments.
The part of the seder that our family has been assigned is the singing of “Dayenu,” which translates to “it would have been enough.” The song celebrates the Jews being delivered out of slavery, given the Torah, and led to the land of Israel. I don’t know if I believe this whole story, and I am deeply ashamed of what “my people” have done in the process of reclaiming what they feel was their homeland. But I love the tune, I love the feeling, love looking around at the table or, screen, rather, and seeing people new and familiar give praise to freedom, and ask for freedom from oppression for all. I don’t know if I have what it takes to pass everything that being Jewish means to me on to my children. But perhaps this, creating spaces with whatever you have, and inviting everyone who wants to join in, will be enough.
I will leave you with this phenomenal Jenny Slate bit about Hannukah songs versus Christmas songs. Chag Sameach!
Have thoughts about religion and kids? Leave a comment below!