The stories we tell

Over the last few weeks, we have watched multiple, long and detailed interviews with hostages who have returned. Through those interviews, we have learned about the stories they told themselves in captivity to stay alive and the narratives they have since developed around their ordeals.

Eliya Cohen, thinking his long-time girlfriend, Ziv, had been murdered, still chose to believe he was going to survive, have children and build a family. Gadi Moses held imaginary conversations with loved ones and, once released, has made it a top priority to restore his devastated Kibbutz Nir Oz. Sagui Dekel Chen released a video singing with his wife, children, and friends, where he describes the way he sang to himself all day in captivity and would even dance alone in a corner imagining himself with his wife.

Eli Sharabi shared his surprising perspective that “contrary to what people think, I am not angry. I am a man of good fortune that I had Lianne for 30 years. I am a man of good fortune that I had incredible daughters for many years. I am a man of good fortune that they did not kill me. I am a man of good fortune that, after 16 months, I have returned to my family. I am a man of good fortune.”

The stories we tell ourselves and the meaning we give to them ultimately shape us into who we are. The way we choose to remember and frame events is often more significant than what actually happened. The narratives we share both impact us and live on for others.

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My grandmother did not have an easy life. As a young girl, she fled Poland in the 1930s on train tickets that had been sent for her and an older sister by a brother who had already made his way to America. She was forced to leave behind her parents and the rest of her siblings, and my grandmother would often cry when she recalled her father running alongside her train, screaming “Sasha! Sasha!” as he bid her a final goodbye.

That image was clearly imprinted on my grandmother’s mind, and yet, even with that memory and so many other painful ones, my grandmother always ended every story she shared with us with the line: “but I live for the living”; and, indeed, that is how she is remembered. Despite the tragedies she experienced in her lifetime and the heavy tears she sobbed every time she said Yizkor, she lived life to the fullest and took pleasure in everything that she could.

That is the story she told, and that is the story we now tell about her.

I thought about her earlier this week, as I spoke to my daughter at her bat mitzvah about the great-grandmother whose name she carries. And it left me contemplating what stories we decide to tell ourselves, and how they influence how we will be remembered by others.

I then thought about it again, the very next day, at the funeral of my cousin’s 93-year-old mother, as he magnificently both told the story of her life and brought her back to life through colorful tales.

With Passover just around the corner, storytelling is on our minds.

In the opening essay in his Haggada, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks writes:

The seder is, of course, more than a ritual. It is an act of remembering, the telling of a story – the Haggada – and none has been more lovingly sustained…Through the Haggada, more than a hundred generations of Jews have handed on their story to their children. The word haggada means “relate,” “tell,” “expound.” But it is also closely related to another Hebrew root that means “bind,” “join,” “connect.” By recounting the Haggada, Jews give their children a sense of connectedness to Jews throughout the world and to the Jewish people through time. It joins them to a past and future, a history and destiny, and makes them characters in its drama… More than the Haggada was the story of a people, Jews were the people of a story.

The seder is a time to sit down with our families and talk, not only about the story of our people, but also about our own families’ origin stories. It is an opportunity to discuss our parents and grandparents – where they came from, the lives they led, and the Judaism that they passed down.

It is also a great time to speak about where we see ourselves in that story.

More than an opportunity to discuss the commentaries of others on the Haggada, the seder night gives us a chance to discuss and reflect upon who we are and what role we would like to play in the story of our people. A story that is very much still unfolding.

The Haggada tells our story. It tells of many years of difficult slavery, of hard work, of suffering and of enemies that rise up in every generation to destroy us. The Haggada also chooses what to emphasize. It tells us about God, Who has saved us from the hands of those enemies time and time again, and about a people who continue to look toward Jerusalem and maintain hope in a better future.

What we choose to focus on when we tell a story can change the very nature of the story itself.

It is my hope that, one day, when our own chapter of Jewish history is written for all eternity, it will capture not only the pain, fear, sadness, anger and mourning of this last year-and-a-half, but also the story of a people who never let go of hope, faith, trust and gratitude. This is the story I want to tell. The story I want the next generations to read.

It is the story of a nation of ordinary people who, in the midst of difficult times, have learned to live life deeply and with resilience, to be fully present in and savor each moment, to bask in the company of beloved family and friends, to see God in the small, everyday miracles, to not take anything for granted, and to recognize the greatness of the those who live all around us in this amazing country.

This is our story. How we choose to tell it impacts us, influences others and will ultimately shape its next chapter.