It has been an intense week! The outpouring of care, support, and also some sadness has been incredibly moving and meaningful to me. We have many months before we need to begin to say goodbye but I thank you for the many ways you have communicated your love – it has only further confirmed my already solidly held perspective that the JCC is an extraordinary community and that I am truly fortunate to have had the privilege to work here for these past 12 years.
Over the past week I have been thinking a great deal about the impact of parents on their children. On Sunday I marked the 15th anniversary of my mother’s death and groped to find ways to honor her memory and share her legacy with my children, nephews, and sister-in-law, who never knew her. It is challenging to share a person who is no longer alive – we have photos, we have stories, we have memories and we have artifacts, but a person’s impact and essence is so much more. Last Sunday, as I was feeling adrift, uncomfortable, and unsure of how to pass the day with some semblance of normalcy, we rented The Lion King with my 8-year old son. He had somehow never seen this movie and asked if we could watch it. I knew that a movie that included a young cub, Simba, losing his father in a heartbreaking scene might not quite have been the perfect medicine for this sort of day. But then again, having the chance to pass a few hours snuggled up in bed to watch a Disney classic with my son was hard to resist!
There is a dramatic scene in The Lion King that takes place years after Simba’s father Mufasa dies, when the estranged, adult Simba is reintroduced to the wise monkey, Rafiki. As Simba looks despondently into a pool of water he begins to see a resemblance to his deceased father in his own reflection. With a little encouragement the wise Rakiki points out, “You see? He lives in you.” Those moments when we feel connected to our parents or our grandparents, like a link in a larger chain, are powerful moments. When we lose a close relative, or feel their vulnerability with the arrival of a scary diagnosis or accident, we often feel the strength of that connection. Sometimes we experience a connection to generations before us – when we arrive in Israel for the first time, when we visit the concentration camps, or when we first celebrate Shabbat in our own child’s nursery school classroom.
For me, as I age, I am told more and more often that I look like my mother. And I feel more and more that my own path has been paved by her courageous spirit. There are moments when I do a double-take as I see my own reflection in a mirror or in the window of a storefront. And as I begin to more closely approach the age when I last remember her (she died when she was 52) it is not surprising that the resemblance grows. But as strong as our physical resemblance may be, I know that this is not the way (or at least not the most important way) that I am going to “pass on” my mother to my children. I will not primarily pass on my mother through my telling my kids stories about their “savta” (grandma), either. I will, however, pass on how she lives in me. The fullest way that my children will know my mother’s legacy is through me: through my expressing the best (and sometimes the worst!) of her in my life, in my choices, and in the way that I conduct myself.
But then I wonder, what does it mean for us as parents? If we know that we will live within our children long after we are gone, and certainly long after we have left the daily routine of reminding them to zip their jackets and eat their vegetables, what is it that will echo in their futures? Or said another way, what do we want to pass on? I don’t know all of the ways that we communicate who we are. And I don’t really believe that we can plan it on this end so that our children only remember the great stuff about us and only learn from our positive examples. What I do know is that our legacy is not primarily transmitted in the long-winded lectures we give. It is much more powerfully communicated through the way that we live our lives – the ways we succeed and also the ways in which we handle failures and challenges. Our children are taking it all in. And our children will provide mirrors of some sort for all of us. Even while we are alive, our children are showing us both who and where they come from, and what lessons they learned. Sometimes the temptation is to blame ourselves (or our spouses or our own parents) for our children’s faults but instead we should shift our focus to recognize and honor those parts of our children that look familiar but also nurture their individuality and unique spark that belongs to nobody but them.
This Shabbat I am deeply aware of my strong connection to my mother, who was an enormous force of nurture, support, empowerment and love. And I am also deeply connected to the amazing web of our JCC, and look forward to watching it continue to grow, flourish, and develop for many years to come.
Shabbat shalom,
Ilana received her B.A. from Harvard College and a Master's Degree in Education from Bank Street College. She was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her husband and three children.
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