John, I have only had the honor to attend a few Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah services but they are among the most moving religious ceremonies I've witnessed. Watching the Torah being handed down the generations always leaves me in tears.
Transylvania, Holland, Alsace, Poland, England, Germany, Lithuania and Texas all contain soil upon which ancestors dwelt; Farmers, beekeepers, shepherds, tailors, blacksmiths, salesmen, clergy, judges, and doctors.
As I research ancestral lines I discover some ancestors celebrated Hanuka, others Christmas, and still others the Green Corn Ceremony; Jewish, Methodist Episcopalian, Puritan, Christian Scientist, Mennonite, Choctaw, and Cherokee.
I shall never find the records for my distant ancestors who either came to this continent by crossing the Land Bridge, or originally emerged from the Nanih Waiya in Mississippi.
I delve through obituaries, microfilm depositories, internet databases; I interview relatives, and rummage through attics.
What I find doesn't alter who I am; It illuminates the divergent, yet still intersecting paths of my ancestors.
5 comments:
Great photo. The image of writing on the scroll was instantly recognizable even before reading the label "Jewish".
How interesting, (A young John Hancock.) I'd love to know what he's signing Happy WW
Awwww -- he looks relaxed!
Mouseover text has been expanded. That isn't a pen in my youthful hands.
John,
I have only had the honor to attend a few Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah services but they are among the most moving religious ceremonies I've witnessed. Watching the Torah being handed down the generations always leaves me in tears.
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