DOWNSIZING A TRADITION

Any and all family tradition that I am capable of remembering goes only as far back as my great grandfather, Aaron......a man known and loved by my family as Zeide (Zay-da)........the family patriarch. The guy from whom we all took our cues when it came to life's negotiation. Aaron came to this land from Russia in 1905, bringing with him his wife, his 14 year old son (my grandfather) and enough friends (and their families) to run a farm and start a small Jewish community in Ellington, Connecticut, a land where the belief still held that Jews came complete with horns. A belief he was able to successfully counter by wearing a hat. A hat that, for the entire time I knew him, he never took off. Zeide was born in the Ukraine, in the rather large town of Ekaterinaslav, now known as Dnipropetrovsk. He was a woodsman about whom very little was known before he just sort of appeared, one day, at the lumber yard owned by the Levine family. Word had it that he wielded a pretty big ax, which was, apparently, enough to impress the young Eda, the woman who would become my great grandmother, Bubba. They wed, had a son and then, with as many of their brethren and sistren as they could round up, proceeded to escape the Tzar's pogroms, organized massacres of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe, and headed to the good ole' U.S. of A. to find some of that opportunity that had eluded them while they were busy fending off Cossacks swords, an activity they heard they could find some relief from in the new world. Oh......and he needed enough guys for a minyan - a quorum of ten men over the age of 13 required for traditional Jewish public worship. So, off they went to a new world where they could practice their traditional way of life without fear of persecution. This was the point in my family history where a tradition was born that lives on through me, my brother and, ideally, our children and our children's children. Zeide began preparing for the arduous journey, by himself, with very little money but big plans to find his Eden. A spot to bring his family and others to finally establish the safe and secure Jewish community that had always seemed so elusive except in their imaginations. Before he got on the boat, Aaron's father. Who would be my 2X great-grandfather, handed him whatever the Russian equivalent of our silver dollar was. He was told to keep it on his person for good luck and a safe journey but, when the trip was over, to pay it forward to someone else about to travel. Over the years, the coin became an actual silver dollar and morphed into a good luck gesture for traveling, medical procedures or any other precarious situation one might be facing with instructions that, once you come through whatever it was in one piece, you are to donate the money to charity. When I left for Vietnam, my mom gave me a silver dollar. When I came home and moved to Puerto Rico, my mom gave me a silver dollar. To the day she died, she cherished the role she had grown into and inherited by default: Family Matriarch. She always kept silver dollars nearby and dutifully kept the tradition alive. I'm the old guy now and I have to admit, I have not been anywhere near as diligent or mindful as my mother or, for that matter, any of my ancestors. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the tradition came to an end with my generation. It wasn't that I didn't want to continue but, honestly, when's the last time you saw a silver dollar? When I went into a bank, recently, and asked for a silver dollar, I had to explain to the teller what it was. My family tradition has become a study in obsolescence. I can't find any silver dollars. I don't even think they make half-dollar coins anymore. These days, the best I can do for someone about to face a perilous situation is to flip them a quarter and tell them to,”Have a nice trip.”