Tradition

"Who must know the way to make a proper home,A quiet home, a kosher home?Who must raise the family and run the home,So Papa's free to read the holy books? The Mama, the Mama! Tradition!" --From "Fiddler on the Roof"

I'm a Broadway fanatic. I inherited this trait from my mother, who took me to see "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and "Hair" before I was five years old. I came out singing and dancing, and completely in love with musical theater. Before I would return to school each year, first as a young girl, then as a prep school student, and finally as a college student, Mom and I would go to New York and have a two day Broadway Buffet: we'd fit in as many shows as we could. Between matinees and evening performances, we'd try to do some last minute shopping, and to try a couple of new restaurants. But, the goal of our trip was always the theater. If it was Labor Day, then Mom and I would be in the audience of the St. James, the Gershwin, the Majestic, the Minskoff or any one of a number of auditoriums that sound like a litany when said altogether. Going to the theater, for my mother and me, was our tradition. It was something that never changed, that always could be counted upon and that felt safe and right.

The first time I saw "Fiddler on the Roof", I knew it would be different from other performances I'd been to. For one thing, my mother already knew all the songs, and I had seen the movie version. More than these foretastes of the show, I was also aware that, in many ways, "Fiddler" told my own family's story. This was not just a fantastical voyage come to life; this was a recounting of my own ancestry, and that of many people like me. "Fiddler" wasn't a fairy tale come to life. It was my own sense of learning about where I came from, who my people were, how they did their very best in oppressive conditions, and finally, why they left. I grew up with wonderful parents in a loving, intellectually stimulating home. However, our sense of belonging was very much rooted in the present. I had long had a fascination with the past. "Fiddler on the Roof" gave me that clue to who I was, not in this very moment, but from where I had come. Because my family was not religious, I knew very little about the faith based traditions of our people. And yet, seeing the small actions in the theater characters, little comments they made to each other and telling bits of dialogue, I felt completely at home in the small Russian town portrayed on stage. The quips made between the women of the theater family could easily have been made by my grandmother, cousins and mother. It was as if someone had written down our own family's traditions, placed them back in time, added in religion and voila! My family!

One thing continued to bother me: why didn't we have the exact same traditions as the family in "Fiddler on the Roof"? My parents were simply not interested in religion. My father, a very wise man and a very pragmatic one, said that religion did more to divide than it did to heal. My mother was very comfortable in her cultural, and secular, form of Judaism. I felt sad to be left out of such rich traditions. And yet, as I grew older, I began to see that traditions don't just include lighting candles on Friday nights: they include the small, special ways we relate to one another and the rituals we developed over the years. Our family had a lobster bake with our closest friends at a nearby beach each June and we always watched the fireworks from the boat on the 4th of July. As we decorated our Christmas tree, my mother and I would laugh when one of us would pull out a ratty pompom duck ornament (that I still have). My grandmother and I would wrap up the same tambourine elaborately every year, and give it to one another...each time trying to disguise the packaging a bit more, so that the other would not suspect a thing. While my father would not admit to laughing about this tradition, we would absolutely lose one hard boiled, colored Easter egg, each holiday, someplace in the yard, and would discover it months later. These were all traditions...secular, yes, but meaningful, also yes. The rituals were not written down, nor were they in any way dogmatic. But, they created a connection from one year to the next for us.

The arm of Yoga that I teach is Ashtanga Yoga. Some yoginis feel that this is a very rigid discipline because Ashtanga tends to have a set routine and follows the same plan, roughly, from week to week. I take great comfort in this sense of continuity. I believe my students are pleased to anticipate what asanas are coming next in our series. This doesn't mean that I never challenge my students with new asanas, or encourage them to move more deeply into a familiar one. This also doesn't include room for self-expression. However, as we begin class in the familiar way, we move through our exercises, always knowing what will follow, and end class in our customary manner, my students are able to focus more on their own practice, and less on trying to figure out what I'm doing. Having attended many classes in which the instructor shakes up the dynamic from day to day, I have come to value the tradition of my own class: in which my students can breathe, move and explore, without constantly looking up to discover a completely random, and unfamiliar, asana. By keeping our 'new poses' to a minimum, and by keeping them in the same spot in our routine, I'm able to run an efficient, informed class. We have developed our own traditions.

Traditions don't have to be positive. There have been numerous human rights violations that have been done in the name of 'tradition'. Yet, when respecting the sanctity of human dignity, traditions, whether long held or newly formed, can create a meaningful framework for people. Many of us like to know what to expect; we enjoy remember our days in a string that connects them. If a tradition has meaning, if it makes one happy and it creates its own magic, I believe it's worth holding onto....and that's why I still have the unbearably raggedy duck ornament. When my daughter and I hang it up each year, we say the same silly words I did with my mother, and I know the circle is complete. I just hope he lasts long enough to make it to Caroline's tree in her own home someday.