It’s a year today since we voted on the anti-marriage amendment. This time last year we were at a stopping point in a long, difficult, involuntary journey. It was a nervous 18 months, leading up to a horribly scary day.
” There was this crazy thing where grown-ups were behaving badly, but MORE of the grown-ups were doing the right thing, and he will remember that.”
As we unpack the Passover boxes, I know there will be items I will find myself holding in wistful silence. And I will shed more than a few tears preparing for another Passover without him.
We set out to find positive lessons he could learn from being targeted by this hateful anti-marriage amendment. Then what could be a lesson in the scary parts of life could become a positive lesson in the power to make the world a better place.
When I said the bracha and wrapped myself in my Tallit I was no longer an observer. I was not on the outside looking at others but feeling the embrace of my own tallit. And each time I run my hands through the fringe and wrap the tzitzit around my finger, I am transported back to being 3-years-old in shul, sitting next to my dad.
As the teacher explained the horror of the Holocaust, the words I remember running through my head over and over were “I think I’m too young to know about this.” But I didn’t say them aloud.