FEATURED JOBS
Yesterday, my wife called me at work. Normally, in the crush of deadlines, she knows better. But this was different.
“Your cousin from Long Island left a message at home,” she said. “Sounds like you should call her back.”
I immediately called back my cousin, who is named after the same person as I am (our grandfather) and to whom I have not spoken in about 17 years. She was calling to inform me that her mother—my 85-year-old ailing aunt—had passed away suddenly. The funeral was held only a few hours after her passing, so I was too late to attend. I hadn’t talked to my aunt in about five or six years, and hadn’t seen her since the early ‘90s.
My cousin, who is an Orthodox Jew, wailed over the phone lines. She and her sister no longer speak, for reasons that she says are generally beyond her comprehension but (she contends) most likely stem from her sister now being “ultra-Orthodox.”
“Why does this happen in our family? She wouldn’t even come near me at the funeral,” she cried. “I barely know you and you’re my first-cousin. We have the same blood coursing through our veins. This is ridiculous. Life’s too short.”
Of course, she’s right. Life is too short for such pettiness and animosity between family members.
But what comes up between us all to cause such coldness, insensitivity and thoughtlessness? Why do these little cold wars crop up?
For many families, it’s money issues. In other cases, some people feel slighted or hurt over an incident or two – “You snubbed me at Bobby’s bar mitzvah,” “I was seated next to the kitchen at Susie’s wedding,” “You never visited my mother in the nursing home,” “You didn’t invite us for Pesach,” etc.
In my family’s case, it just about always came down to one thing—religion.
You know, the `Who is frummer than who?’ syndrome. Who uses the elevator on Shabbos. Who ate what at “that restaurant.” Who drove to where on what holiday.
We’re talking about the kind of one-upmanship that often goes on about who’s the richest or has the nicest house or biggest car in a family. In this case, it’s about who’s the most observant and dots all the “right” i’s and crosses the “right” t’s. Maybe you have a similar situation in your family.
So many times, as a kid, I saw my late father with tears in his eyes when he called my aunt—who he was crazy about—only to learn that one of his nieces had just gotten married and we hadn’t been invited. Or letting her know that we were in New York, only to have her say she wasn’t interested in a visit from us. As if we were going to bring over a bushel of crabs, or would spread our heathen germs.
How do you forgive and forget such callousness, such lack of humanity and familial bond, especially when it’s in the name of so-called faith, spirituality and “Yiddishkeit”? It’s not easy. But I guess you try. Somehow.
I realize that my cousin who called me is in deep pain. She just lost her beloved mother (may she rest in peace), and she feels a deep void in her life.
“This is religion?” she shouted to me on the phone, alluding to the chasm between her and her sister. “Where people don’t talk to each other, because one thinks that she’s better than the other? This is being a mentsch? This is religion?”
No, it’s not.
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