Elul Day 24 - כ"ד באלול

Dear Elul Writers,

Of the many things that I admire about my dad, I love that he drives around with a plastic bag full of rocks in his trunk. He has, for many years now, looked after the Jewish cemeteries in Shreveport, Louisiana, where I grew up. He keeps these rocks to place on the headstones and grave markers of those he has known and loved, and those he continues to care for beyond their life. It is a type of work that embodies the idea of chesed shel emet, a true loving kindness. It is a characteristic that I aspire towards.

With this as a backdrop, it should not have surprised me last year that I found myself, my parents and my three children in the Jewish cemetery in Donaldonsville, Louisiana. We had begun a road trip from New Orleans to Cajun country only hours earlier and, instead of listening to zydeco music or tasting hot sauce or riding around in an airboat, here we were walking around gravestones from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Only with my parents, would this be the start of a family road trip. 

Those who arrived in Donaldsonville in the latter half of the 19th Century were primarily from Alsace-Lorraine, the geographical region that famously pinballed back and forth between French and German control. Their gravestones mention both the names of Alsatian towns where they were born and the community that they sought to build here in a French-speaking, sugar-cane-growing corner of Louisiana. My dad reached into his ziploc full of rocks and handed each of my three children a handful of stones and sent them out into the cemetery to place these little remembrances on the grave markers. These weren’t our family members, and yet I felt a sense of connection with these immigrants who uprooted their lives in hopes of building something better abroad. We could have read about this community or visited a museum, but somehow walking amongst the graves offered something more immediate and more powerful.

DAY 24 PROMPT

It is customary during chodesh Elul to visit the graves of our loved ones. In drawing near to those who are no longer with us, we seek to see ourselves as they saw us. And, drawing upon the merits of those who came before us, we ask the Holy One to guide us on the path of teshuvah. Though we may not all live close to the physical places where our loved ones are buried, perhaps there is a way that we can draw near to their memory (to read a letter written in their handwriting, to sit facing a favorite photo). Considering their impact on you, how can you honor them through your life this year? What memories or stories or reflections can you carry with you like little stones, to be placed down gently in the year to come?

Shabbat shalom,

Jordan

BTW, we did make it to the Tabasco factory and had plenty of fun!