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Home Presentation for Yom Kippur Symposium 5765, September 25, 2004
How can I say in 10 minutes what a heritage of over 5,000 years has meant to me? But a funny thing happened on my way to the Temple ---- I went back in my mind over 75 years, and I would like for you to picture with me a little girl in a small Bible-belt town, an only Jewish child in a consolidated school where taunts and anti-Semitic names were very common things. There was no rabbi, a small Temple with only lay readers on Friday night, no religious school or Sisterhood or Safty --- just a strong, committed family who knew first and foremost that we were Jewish, and a community that never let you forget it.
On that mental journey back, my life passed in front of me with memories primarily of family and friends and travels, beliefs and careers, marriage and commitment, and loss and the Temple and the peace that a Friday night service can bring and the joy of seeing our children and grandchildren become successful, carrying on the traditions of Judaism in their lives, too.
Although I was born Jewish, if there had been a choice, I would have chosen to be Jewish. To me, it is a way of life that I want to follow. The words that I read on Friday night, the lessons I have learned in classes here at our Temple, the practice of Judaism answer, for me, the way I want to live my life.
I have always felt that Judaism reflects our desire for peace, our aim to love our neighbor, our values for helping those in need, tradition for learning, and for life itself. It speaks so strongly to me that I could never follow any other path.
Possibly, this path was set for me from childhood by growing up in that small town with a strong identification of being Jewish and the only Jewish student in the school and entire community. My children often asked how I had any Jewish identity when there wasn’t another Jewish child for at least 10 years older or younger in my town. I suppose my Jewishness came from the inherent feeling inside my home even though we didn’t celebrate holidays other than to go to Hillel at the college for Passover or attend the High Holiday services at the small Temple in Bryan.
I was always taught that you should never do anything to reflect badly on your family or upon the Jewish people. It was a time, as our prayer book says:
“When right was always right and wrong was always wrong.”
One of the lessons learned from my mother, who never preached to me but rather set an example, was that she was grateful every day for every thing that she had. I have tried to pattern that, and sometimes I am grateful for what I don’t have (such as illness, hunger or pain) as well as for what I do have.
Lessons I learned from my father were those of having integrity and honesty, a sense of humor, the ability to keep your chin up in spite of adversity. He often said, “Let your word be your bond”, and I value those words today.
Study and knowledge – the need for an education and the power of words was reinforced in our home over and over. We are the People of the Book, and it has strengthened the Jewish people over and over and has certainly influenced my life. My grandmother and I spent many hours in the Carnegie Library, and on many evenings our family played anagrams and word games – maybe I was lucky that that was before television.
Although there was no rabbi in Bryan, Texas, it was important to my parents that I should have some Jewish training, so we frequently drove to Waco, Texas, to the rabbi who had married my parents, Rabbi Wolfe Macht, and later married Sylvan and me.
After reading many assignments each week, followed by themes summarizing what I had learned, I was confirmed by correspondence --- a unique experience, but one whose words and impact remain with me still. Possibly, the three (3) values I remember the most are "To do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God."
It has always been a source of pride that my parents cared enough about Judaism and about me that they encouraged and made possible my confirmation.
Because I was an only child, family has always been even more important to me, and I was fortunate enough to marry into a large family that was involved in community service and Jewish and civic activities. Sylvan and I tried to continue that pattern in our lives. I always felt that when one of us committed to work on a project, it was a ‘package deal’. Fortunately, we both had the same values and we worked together in these efforts.
My family interests extended to much genealogy research. From being that only child with few cousins, it became a world-wide search aided by computer and an Israeli Lauterstein cousin who was equally interested. This developed through our travels and e-mails into a booklet of over 1,000 names from three (3) branches of my family. My search began after reading a review in the N.Y. Times of a book written by Ingeborg Lauterstein. Lauterstein was my maiden name, and so I wrote to her to ask if she could possibly be related. Her answer came a few weeks later saying she wasn’t related, but she would give my letter to her brother-in-law who was interested in family history. His reply revealed that his grandfather and my grandfather were brothers!
On a later trip to N.Y., Sylvan and I had a fine visit with him. He was a Harvard graduate and chief counsel to the Metropolitan Opera. I have corresponded with many more, met a few, and thankfully….all are people I am proud to call ‘my family’.
And so our heritage continues --- one of the best outgrowths and obligations of this for us, as grandparents, is to try to teach or model for our grandchildren the heritage of Judaism, compassion for those less fortunate, and to maintain our traditions and also an awareness of all the civilizations that have passed through time and history and have disappeared --- but the Jewish people remain! It is truly a way of life that we hold dear.
And so, my wish for the New Year for each of you is that you will have the peace and happiness that this heritage and this Temple have brought to me.
God bless us all.
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