Crown Heights is intriquing, home to both the largest West-Indies immigrant community and the Chabad-Lubovitch Hasidic Jewish community, every excursion to the market is worth taking a notepad and recording. Bearded Hasidim and vividly dressed Caribbean-natives make for a colorful experience. I am surprised by how comfortable I feel around black men and men in black hats and even more surprised that I am the one who stands out on the street.
I have made some interesting observations about the two groups, who share a lot more in common than first meets the eye.
- Both speak a barely intelligible English, interspersed with Yiddish or a Caribbean dialect
- Both full of pride for their roots and brazen to show it, assimilation not a word in their vocabulary
- Both are slightly distrustful of the powers-that-be, there is only one allegiance, and its not to the US
- Both stock grocery stores with food products that are unidentifiable to the average shopper
- Both always muttering something under their breath, whether a hip hop song of a psalm of David
- Both speak of a promise land flowing with milk and honey
- Both don’t move out of the way when you are jogging down the street
I get a kick out of the dready and the chasid chilling outside the bodega smoking stoges together. Only NYC! There is a nice harmony that pervades this area. It’s a spicy and flavorful bowl scooped out of the melting pot soup that is New York City. Tasty! I am enjoying the experience. Plus there is no where else that jerk chicken and gefilte fish are so abundant.
The last blog post was written in a coffee shop in Jerusalem, and boy have I come a far way since then. I am now sitting in an apartment in Brooklyn hundreds of miles, breaths, waters, and prayers from Tzion. Since coming back, I have been meeting up with lots of friends and family who have spoiled me with decadent amounts of love, hugs and enthusiasm. It’s invigorating to sit across the table with a friend whom who feel such affection towards but, due to circumstance, have no idea about what is going on in their lives. After an hour or so, over drinks and snacks, you fill in gaps of time with juicy details; divulging, embellishing, and reliving adventures - sharing moments of inspiration, revelations, ups and downs, and life perspectives. Story telling plays an important function in the history of mankind and is unique to our species. It connects us to our friends and family. What’s that all about? This topic has been on my mind quite a bit, especially with Passover right around the corner. The entire point of the seder (the traditional Passover meal) is to sit around the table and ‘tell the story’.
There are two sides to every story; the teller and the receiver.
From the perspective of the receiver, I have this to say:
“Please please tell me a bedtime story” I used to whine to my parents every night before going to bed. Better than any toy, I still carry these pearls with me, never outgrown, stored away in my mental jewelry box. A story is an inheritance from our parents and friends more precious than gold, everyone can share in them equally without diminishing the value. Also, stories enable us to learn and grow from others experiences, rather than reinventing the wheel each time around, we are lifted onto the shoulders of historical experience. That’s why it’s so important to remember history. Based on two truisms: History always repeats itself and There is nothing new under the sun learning and retelling history is a building block of civilization and wisdom. Intelligence is a highly valued trait in our society- weaning valuable information from stories is the ultimate skill in my opinion, it should be part of standardized testing.
On the flip side, once you get a story, it becomes your own, imbued with personal meaning, filtered through the lens of our experiences. It is impossible that two people can tell over the same story. A quintessential transformation takes place from hearing and retelling a story, it’s called ‘comprehension’. Relaying an event to others requires the storyteller to take an active stance and become personally invested, to understand the events in the larger scope. The key word is retrospection. While in the middle of an experience, it’s impossible to make sense of it, its only after wards, in the retelling of it, that we fill it with ethical lessons learned, comedic twists, dramatic pauses, a narrative voice and an outsider perspective. It is only in hindsight that stories can come to an end...and hopefully with a 'happily ever after'
Speech is the thread that binds us to each other. Stronger than twine, more durable than hemp – speech comes from deep within our throats and penetrates into the mind of the listener. A story shared between friends ties them together, when two minds have the same piece of knowledge you essentially become one. I suspect that is the secret of speech, perhaps it is why G-d spoke the world into creation.
Today we have accelerated the sharing process, through twitter, facebook, texting, etc we can tell our thoughts, experiences and dreams to one another, creating a constant line of communication. Tragedies, hardships, exoduses, births, and deaths become universally experienced. These bonds are tying society together and breaking down past barriers that separated tribes, states, cultures, and continents. Speech is unifying.
Passover is a time of story telling, of creating bonds and strengthening one another for the trip ahead. Please take this time to share and listen, a garner tools for the challenges that confront us in life.
I hope everyone has a meaningful Passover.
