Send this to a friend Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The house is back to normal. The flock of children and grandchildren which descended upon us for the start of the new year left after Yom Kippur. It was not the entire Schorsch family this time, but enough to thrill us and exhaust us. Missing were the Berkeley contingent with their brood of three children, just returned from two years in Israel.
Visits have a way of turning cousins into friends.
Holidays should bring families together. When our three children were young, we would head for Vineland, New Jersey to spend the yom tovim with my parents and my sister's family. The meals after shul passed slowly in conversation as good as the food. Unobtrusively, Judaism framed and informed everything we did in those tranquil and intimate days. And the pattern, thankfully, continues to unite the generations.