The traditional Jews see her that way, while all the other people think she has to change. Early on, she falls for the rhetoric of remaking yourself so that the past is erased. When she comes across the Bialystokers, they look for the essential core within her. She moves beyond the pilgrim side of her and becomes a doer, a mother, a daughter. So it's a picaresque book that is against pilgrimage, finally.
Some people take longer than others.
These are individual paths. There is something very American about that, the richness of choice. They are bookends, then, for the variety of American Jewish experience. I think she stops asking that question, moves past that. She was always looking for a quick fix, a lightning bolt, hoping she would be transformed, would never have to worry about whatever pain she might have caused others in the past.