Passing the Torch--a Jew responds to the Holocaust lesson.

From the time you are a child, you are told to remember.
Remember the six million--.
carry the torch--keep them alive.

But the torch is too heavy.
It flickers, sputters, dies in your hands.
You want to live for yourself--not for them.

If the world were all one.
If religion were gone.
No Catholic. No Muslim. No Hindu.
No Jew. If.
You say.
A much better place, then.
Why not?

So, you drop the torch.
And walk with your head held high and your arms swinging
at your sides.
Unfettered teenage self, you smile and breathe, and talk, and love.

But they will not let you go.
Their eyes are huge and unblinking in all the photos.
They seem to look at you and ask you, "Why?"
The pits where their bodies lie yawn from the books, gape from the screens, and
you feel as if they will swallow you whole.
It does not matter that you have turned your back on it.
On them.
For they will not turn their back on you.

You fall in love and no, he's not a Jew.
And it's the craziest thing. It makes no sense.
You insist on a Rabbi, a chuppah, a glass to break.
And when you are lifted in the chair you look down
on their faces, eyes huge, and unblinking and smiling in
the faces of your mother, your father, your grandmother, your grandfather.

And the child comes.
He is a boy. Benjamin--Jamie Owen.
Son of my Right Hand, Happy Prince.
And the doctor marks him as a Jew.
You can hear him cry in the nursery on day two,
when it should have been day eight (you think).
And you wonder would it have been easier
if he had tasted wine on his tiny tongue ;
if he had been at home, held in the bosom of his own
while their eyes, wide and unblinking filled with tears.


And the girl comes.
She is the second. Tessa--Hannah.
Fourth Child--Favored Grace
And you kindle lights on Fridays and
watch them dance in her eyes--wide and unblinking
and you can't deny who she is--yours and his--
so you create a prayer for her to say at night
and she does.

When she reads about them in school, she tells you
and you listen with eyes wide and unblinking, biting back
the words you want to say:

"Remember them."


They are with you when your boy
steps on the bema
and is wrapped in a tallit,
when he carries the scroll
and reads and chants and is
claiming a heritage, for now,
at this moment.

The Ark doors are flame and he reaches in.
Whether he would have chose this on his own
you do not know, but there he is.
Reaching for the past. Unrolling identity and finding a voice.
It is his father's and it is yours.
But only part.
It is his.
It is sweet and rich and strong and fine.

And from his place he must see you,
eyes wide and unblinking,
taking him in.