This piece is part of our Wit­ness­ing series, which shares pieces from Israeli authors and authors in Israel, as well as the expe­ri­ences of Jew­ish writ­ers around the globe in the after­math of Octo­ber 7th.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives.

I had an epiphany in the mid­dle of ser­vices the oth­er night; I’ve been keep­ing my Judaism locked in a box in my attic. A box I’ve nev­er opened. After a few days, I decid­ed to climb up and get it. I need­ed to know what was inside. But stand­ing there, in the attic, I didn’t open it. I was afraid; it’s old and I didn’t want to dam­age it. I didn’t even touch it. Know­ing it was sit­ting there ate at me. How could I know myself if I didn’t know what was in the box?

I do know this box was car­ried over from East­ern Europe by my great-grand­par­ents and their par­ents, on boats and on their backs. Though they didn’t have much, they had this old box. For as long back as any­one could remem­ber, it had been passed down, each gen­er­a­tion as famil­iar with the con­tents as the pri­or. They knew with­out hav­ing to look. It was sim­i­lar to the ones their neigh­bors had, here and in the old coun­try. Long before I was born, whole com­mu­ni­ties had box­es and, as a com­mu­ni­ty, they tend­ed to them. 

I was not actu­al­ly hand­ed our family’s box until I was a teenag­er, but they’d been prepar­ing me to receive it from the jump. Lit­tle tests and tri­als, rites of pas­sage. I found the whole thing dull and point­less. I was entire­ly dis­in­ter­est­ed. My fam­i­ly made it clear they only cared because they felt oblig­at­ed to. ​“Do it so we can give you the box and move on.” 

I was glad to get it but didn’t care at all about the object; I stashed it away gath­er­ing cob­webs, glad to know it was there but not know­ing or car­ing what was inside. I knew one day I would dust it off and give it to my chil­dren, whether they want­ed it or not. Yet now, I’m curi­ous about the con­tents. Maybe it’s because my kids are start­ing to grow up, lit­tle by lit­tle. Or maybe it’s because I am, lit­tle by lit­tle. How can I give them some­thing that I don’t ful­ly possess? 

Beyond this, I’ve been wor­ry­ing about what this box means, not for myself or to my fam­i­ly, but how hav­ing this box places us in the world. A world that has and con­tin­ues to try to define me sim­ply because of it. I don’t know what to do with it all; I feel spun around, ill equipped, con­fused, curi­ous, wor­ried, and, more recent­ly, angry. Because this box is quite per­son­al to me, even if I have been stor­ing it up some­where in my attic.

I also feel exter­nal pres­sure about how I’ve han­dled my box, from folks with box­es and from folks with­out. The box-havers love to share how much more dili­gent­ly they care for their box than I do. They very pub­licly fol­low ​“the rules” for how one should pol­ish, oil, and dis­play their box. Non-box peo­ple feel com­fort­able shar­ing a wide array of opin­ions about the box­es and box-keep­ers for a num­ber of unin­formed rea­sons. I’m not sure if I’ve heard any sug­ges­tions from either that res­onate with me, but I do know I don’t like that sug­ges­tions are being made in the first place. Through all this, I start to wor­ry that I don’t actu­al­ly know any­thing about this box at all. I won­der if we are talk­ing about the same sort of box, but they seem so cer­tain. Either way, it’s con­fus­ing. Cer­tain­ty is always con­fus­ing, I think. 

I start­ed to fix­ate. One night I dreamt of the box and what it con­tained. I climbed the stairs to my attic, I opened the small wood­en box, and dust and sand slid off the cov­er as it revealed its con­tents, shin­ing as if wait­ing for me. My dream-self start­ed to unpack this tiny, old box. 

On top were nine half-used Hanukkah can­dles and then a piece of art my mom had hang­ing in our house with the Star of David and the words of the She­ma. Under­neath was a yarmulke from my parent’s wed­ding. Then a joke book. Then a children’s copy of the Four Ques­tions from the 1950s with my Great-Aunt’s (pareve) recipes for brisket and kugel scrib­bled on the mar­gins. Clink­ing kid­dush cups and can­dle­sticks and crum­by chal­lah cov­ers crammed along­side one-hun­dred gen­er­a­tions of Yahrzeit can­dles and hand-frayed copies of the Kad­dish. Prayer books in Hebrew and lit­er­a­ture in Yid­dish. A thread­bare tallis with frayed tzitz­it waft­ing a com­fort­ing rem­i­nis­cence. A thick and daunt­ing tome titled ​“Rules.” This tiny box kept going and going, lay­er after lay­er, as if there was no bottom.

Two glass jars with slosh­ing water inside, teth­ered togeth­er like the scales of jus­tice. The first, full to the brim, dat­ed 1948 and labeled ​“tears of joy.” The oth­er, only half-full, with no date, labeled ​“sor­rows.” And though the lat­ter seemed much old­er, it wasn’t as heavy or full, as if to say, don’t despair, nev­er let this jar weigh you down. A weath­er-beat­en world map — hand-writ­ten on every stretch of land,there were ques­tion marks penned by hope­ful hands, crossed out with firm ​“Xs.” Not here, try again. A two-ton wax-sealed con­tain­er labeled, Par­ents’ prayers for sleep­ing babes. 

I rum­maged fur­ther and even­tu­al­ly climbed in, this tiny box cav­ernous. The halls of the box were lit by a ner tamid, illu­mi­nat­ing a maze of rooms, going on as far as I could see. Door after door. I was drawn deep­er and deep­er, peer­ing into rooms as I passed them. A Room of Laugh­ter, echo­ing with sounds of joy, giv­ing way to a Room of Ques­tions, with a thou­sand curi­ous voic­es in a thou­sand lan­guages over a thou­sand gen­er­a­tions. A Room of Debate, where I couldn’t hear myself think over the cacophony. 

I could feel the veil of sleep thin­ning, myself wak­ing. I pushed on faster, not let­ting my curios­i­ty dis­tract me; I need­ed to know what lay at the bot­tom of the box. 

Final­ly, there stood one last room, bar­cad­ed off by a thick, wal­nut door. Large and unmarked. Closed with no win­dow. I dared not try to turn the daunt­ing brass knob.

I knew what was in that room. It struck me with the force of a shout and washed over me as effort­less­ly as a whis­per. I stored my Judaism in a box in my attic because I didn’t need it. Only to real­ize that at the bot­tom of that box, behind that last door, was myself. I stood on the oth­er side. Undis­cov­ered, unknown, atro­phy­ing, in a tiny dusty box in my attic. 

How could I know any­thing if I did not know myself, hav­ing been sequestered off in a por­tion of my attic? And how could I ever real­ly be lost if I’d had this above me the whole time? I reached my hand out to meet myself.

As I reached, I wor­ried. Wor­ry, thus far, is the only rela­tion­ship I’ve had with the box. The peo­ple who passed it down to me made sure to impart a sort of wor­ry about folks who don’t like the keep­ers of box­es. And I’ve been taught, through expe­ri­ence, to feel a nuanced shame brought on by oth­er box folk; they deval­ue mine, say it’s worth­less, not real, not gen­uine, that I should give it up — or that I haven’t earned it, I’m a fraud with no right to it because I left it unac­com­pa­nied for so long. And I’m con­di­tioned to hem and haw when con­front­ed by their legit­i­ma­cy lit­mus test; I am tat­tooed and not kosher and use elec­tric­i­ty on Shab­bat. I don’t real­ly know what the prayers mean. Because my con­nec­tion to a coun­try half a world away is too strong or not quite strong enough. Because I enjoy cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas with my father. Because I don’t know all the cus­toms or how to cor­rect­ly per­form them. And even the ones I do, I’m prob­a­bly just repeat­ing oth­er people’s ges­tures and intonations. 

I touched that wal­nut door and woke up in a sweat. I jumped from my bed and went to my attic to open the box. Before I picked it up, I wor­ried that this weighty box would be locked with this large, unbreak­able lock. A thou­sand gen­er­a­tions strong, and I don’t have a key.

Then I picked it up. Light as a feath­er. No lock. Was there real­ly noth­ing inside? 

I opened it. It was emp­ty. And I cried. First because I knew I failed. If my iden­ti­ty is so indeli­bly linked to my Judaism, and my Judaism is kept in this box but the box is emp­ty, what am I? Who am I? Am I just a Jew adrift, too sec­u­lar to be Jew­ish, too Jew­ish to be sec­u­lar? But then the tears turned to relief. This isn’t some labyrinthine box filled with con­fus­ing rid­dles, meant to obscure my iden­ti­ty from myself. This is mine and it is meant to be filled. 

As I learn how to fill it with an enrich­ing Jew­ish life of my own design with a com­bi­na­tion of tra­di­tion inher­it­ed and my own dis­cov­ery, I hold one truth absolute; this box will not and can­not go back into my attic.

The views and opin­ions expressed above are those of the author, based on their obser­va­tions and experiences.

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