Unhappy Homes
DEBORAH GLANZBERG-KRAININ
Jcelebration, education, comfort, and sustenance. But we would be remiss to
ewish homes are many things: places of
mythologize the Jewish home, or to suggest
that all spaces that Jews inhabit are characterized by an atmosphere of joy or security. Our
kitchens are full of delicious food but we also
have daughters who starve themselves, or
struggle with other kinds of disordered eating.
Our dining rooms host celebratory meals that
flow with wine while some of our uncles fight
substance abuse in secret, ashamed to bring
their truths to the table. Our bedrooms are
places of powerful intimacy but also sites of
physical and emotional abuse — including the
tragedy of incest. We are flawed, complicated,
and messy people; why should the homes that
shelter us be any different?
This is not easy to write about. As a nation
of wanderers, the idea of home has captured our
imagination, informed our theology, politics,
and artistic expressions. We are a people whose
ancestors literally built a home for God in the
form of the first and second Temples; indeed,
our holy place might have been the world’s
most perfect home. And then that home was violently destroyed and we found ourselves redefining the place where God lived, learning to
foundational myths — are of great and profound
importance. Indeed, much of our religious genius can be found in our textual narratives of
loss and longing, renewal and redemption. But
we cannot get so caught up in mythic ideals that
we fail to acknowledge that the “Jewish home”
is millions of Jewish homes, each filled with
their unique joys, sorrows, and afflictions.
In fact, it is the particular distinctiveness of
our delights and difficulties that will inform the
texture of what we add
to the ongoing saga of
the Jewish people.
Though painful, if we
are honest about our
Jewish homes, if we
tell the truths about
our imperfections and
our struggles, we will
not endanger the sacred and compelling
narrative of our people
but rather enliven that
story; we’ll keep it
fresh and real, not idealized and frozen by
nostalgic longings for
something that might
have never been.
Because the truth is, of
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JUDITH MARGOLIS
live as a people without a land to call our home.
So perhaps it is not surprising that we have such
high expectations of the contemporary Jewish
home — encompassed as it is by millennia of
hopes, fears, and iconic images.
The stories we Jews tell ourselves — our
course, that Jewish
homes were never perfect. There was strife in
Abraham’s tent, violence in the house of David;
the Talmud is full of stories of domestic strife. If
we acknowledge this, it might help illuminate
the pain, suffering, and ugliness that can be hidden in our own homes. Shining a light on these
dark corners brings every part of the Jewish
home into our conversation; it recognizes the
complexity in and the differences between our
many Jewish houses.
Rabbi Deborah Glanzberg-
Krainin, PhD, is the project
director for Tzey U’lemad,
a Continuing Rabbinic
Education Initiative at the
Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College. She makes a home
with Rabbi David Glanzberg-
Krainin and their children
Eliana, Klielle, and Noam in
Elkins Park, Penn.
This is an invitation for all of us to think expansively and critically. If we face the notion
that anguish and trauma are in the air that some
of us breathe at home, we can more honestly
embrace the fullness of what home is. We can
pour the wine, eat the food, and retreat to the
bedroom knowing that we are not perfect; we
are messy and real. And in that fact, we can find
the joy and security for which the “Jewish
home” is rightfully known.
Dollhouses by Judith Margolis,
an Israel-based American artist
whose paintings and drawings
have been exhibited and
published internationally
( www.judithmargolis.com).
June 2009/Sivan 5769
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