Montreal, Memory, and the Myth of the Good Jewish Boy

I was a good Jewish boy. I talked too much. I asked too many questions. Not the tidy ones about why this night is different, but the sideways, spiraling kind. The kind that made teachers pause and rabbis sigh and relatives say,

“Such a smart boy, but why can’t he just…”

I couldn’t. Not just sit still. Not just follow. Not just be quiet. There was always something firing — questions about God, time, sugar, injustice, death, the Holocaust, the way my grandfather folded his napkin before yelling. I asked questions even when I didn’t want answers. I asked because I couldn’t stop.

Montreal gave me the words. Judaism gave me the rhythm. ADHD gave me the remix.

When I think of it now, I see myself in the basement of our synagogue after services, cornering the rabbi with one of my infamous follow-ups. Not the parsha-related kind, but questions like,

“If God is outside of time, why did He need six days?” and “If Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, was it even his fault?”

I remember the rabbi blinking slowly, reaching for coffee, and saying,

“Mark, maybe some things aren’t meant to be answered all at once.”

But my brain never liked that answer. Not then, not now.

So, when I see Israel today, in all its heat and tension and heartbreak, I feel something familiar. Not in the politics — but in the noise. The questions that don’t stop. The contradictions that won’t resolve. The arguing, the aching, the trying to hold too many truths at once.

And I think — maybe that’s the most Jewish thing of all.

Maybe we’re not supposed to be still. Maybe we’re not built for simple answers or smooth headlines. Maybe being a good Jewish boy, or a grown Jewish man in Montreal watching from afar, means letting the questions be messy. And holy. And loud.

I do feel something torn — not between loyalty and criticism, but between love and despair. Between the Israel I was raised to believe in and the one I’m watching wrestle itself in real time.

I want to believe we can argue without destroying each other. That the questions can still lead us somewhere redemptive. That the noise is part of the covenant.

I don’t know where this ends. I just know that I still care enough to ask. And that has to count for something.

Chag Sameach.