Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Something Sacred

There's something so pure about opening a book written almost eighty years ago by my great-grand-uncle and finding the following on the first page: "Dedicated to the memory of my revered father, Benjamin Sarachek". Benjamin Sarachek is my great-great grandfather on my mother's side who came to America from Russia at the turn of the last century. And his son wanted the world to know that this work was in part a testament to the connection they shared. And he probably never imagined that his great-grand-nephew would find this book in the library at Northwestern University and feel included in that same familial bond, but there it is, nevertheless. 

What is most powerful is that he dedicated the book to the memory of his father, and that I now stand as one of the few living carriers-- if not the only carrier-- of that memory. It is only because these two are my family that that memory stays alive. And in truth, I have very little I can do in the way of keeping Benjamin Sarachek's memory alive. All I can do is appreciate that he was revered by his son and bear witness to the fact that it is the love of family-- and the ability to widen that notion of family while keeping its intensity-- that always brings light into the world. 

And I can also recognize that Joseph, my great-grand-uncle considered his contributions to the world of Jewish thought to be in some way a perpetuation of his father's legacy. And that legacy, which represents an ancient and ongoing familial chain, and which was lost for two generations, is now restored and carried on through my Jewish observance. Maybe this is the ape in me, articulating the inner impulse to protect and preference my seed, but that is just too empty to believe. I'm carrying on a pure legacy-- of love and redemption, of true social justice and heroic self-overcoming and I cannot abandon this eternal task.