My Nana Evelyn needed to go to the kosher butcher. Passover was approaching, and she was about to do some serious cooking. I offered to pick her up at eleven o’clock and take her shopping. I arrived at her Brookline apartment fifteen minutes early, and the smell of chicken soup filled the hallway. Nana Evelyn opened the door wearing her ruffled apron. “I can’t believe it!” I said. “You went without me!” My grandmother shrugged.
“I was up early. The nicest cab driver took me. And he carried all my bags. I gave him a dollar. Such a lovely man.” But why couldn’t she have waited? Nana Evelyn waved her hand. “Oh, get on with you! Come into the kitchen. We can chat while I grind the liver.” After I gave assurances I’d eaten breakfast, Nana Evelyn turned her attention back to the meat grinder. I sat on a kitchen chair while she asked the usual questions. “How is work? Have you met any nice boys lately? No? My friend Lillian’s grandson is a gem. Can I give out your number? Oy. What do you know. You look thin. Let me fix you an omelet.”
We discussed the latest movies and television shows, then the conversation became philosophical. After a while, I sighed. “I don’t know, Nana. I really thought once I turned twenty-five, I’d have it all figured out.” I expected my grandmother to equate being twenty-five with being an infant. Instead, she nodded.
“I know what you mean,” she said. “I’ve felt that way every time I had a big birthday.” I asked when that feeling stopped, and Nana Evelyn looked up from the meat grinder. “Stopped? Is it supposed to stop? I might not worry like I used to. But it’s never too late to take stock and figure out how you can become better on the inside.”
Nana Evelyn was ninety-one years old.
I never forgot that moment in her small, white kitchen. (How could she cook so much in a kitchen that size?) Passover was a few days away, and Nana Evelyn’s message was clear.
No one is ever too old to improve.
How appropriate the best-known Passover song is “Dayenu.”
“Dayenu” consists of fifteen stanzas that refer to particular gifts from God. The “dayenu” at the end of every stanza means each gift by itself “would have been enough.” Every one of the fifteen blessings provides a reason to rejoice and be grateful. There is no need for God to take it further.
But the “it would have been enough” does not mean we should stop wanting. If that were the case, “Dayenu” would end after the first stanza. “Dayenu” understands people are always going to want more. But we should seek more from ourselves rather than making demands of others or God. “Dayenu” might emphasize contentment; it does not condone complacency. We are incomplete and that’s okay. But let’s keep going. “Dayenu” is about the importance of taking that next step. We can’t allow the past to hold us back. Nor should we be so afraid of the future, we fail to act. The more self-aware we become, the more we can imagine an improved version of ourselves. Then we can take practical steps to achieve our goal.
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said: “If you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need have you for tomorrow?”
We can be better people. Better sons and daughters. Better friends. Better parents.
I sat in Nana Evelyn’s kitchen all those years ago while chicken soup simmered in a vat the size of a bathtub. Onions for the chopped liver crackled in a skillet. Nana Evelyn was a whirlwind. Perhaps this was partly due to her belief we are never too old to grow. “Dayenu” encourages us to be grateful and keep moving forward. Even at ninety-one, my grandmother still hadn’t found the perfect resting place.
But she appreciated the journey.
This article was published in The Jewish Advocate on March 30, 2018.
