Inside the Song Series #9: Pass the Dream
I recently rediscovered a photograph of four generations of women in my family: my grandmother at 90, my mother at 60, me at 33, and my daughter at 3. My grandmother would go on to live to 102.
We are gathered around a walnut kitchen island. Two candles are lit, and our hands are moving toward our faces as we prepare to cover our eyes. Beside the candles sits a miniature challah, the traditional Jewish bread, that my daughter baked in preschool. It looks as though she has already taken a few bites.
We are reciting the blessing over the candles and other Hebrew prayers to welcome Shabbat. My mother made sure we observed this ritual together on Friday nights throughout my childhood. As a teenager, I sometimes resisted because I didn’t want to miss the social scene, but she insisted. It became a landing place for our family—a way to close the week of school and work, pause, pray, reflect, connect, and eat.
My mother learned this ritual from her mother, Dorothy, who learned it from her mother, Rebecca, who learned it from her mother, Chaya Sarah—and so on, through the long line of Jewish women from whom I come.
I have often wondered about the countless hands that lit candles before ours, passing this tradition from generation to generation (in Hebrew; l’dor v’dor) for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.
My grandmother in 1918 (second from left)
Looking at the photograph, I began thinking beyond my own family. I thought about all the mothers and fathers from whom each living person descends.
Behind every life stands an almost unimaginable multitude of ancestors. Without their endurance, choices, sacrifices, and improbable survival, none of us would be here.
My great-great-grandparents and their children in Russia, before members of the family fled persecution and pogroms. Some of those pictured were later murdered in the Holocaust.
And I began to wonder whether our ancestors might still be asking something of us: that we carry forward the dreams they were unable to complete.
Which of their dreams were unfulfilled? What did they hope for?
I invite you to take a breath and call your own lineage to mind. Think of your grandmothers and grandfathers, your great-grandparents, and then continue farther and farther back.
Now, imagine your ancestors placing their dreams into your hands. Close your eyes and let the song carry you into the stories of those who came before you.
Have a listen to Pass the Dream here:
Listen on Spotify:
** Song Notes: The outro chorus brings together the voices of my grown daughter, my 11-year-old niece, and friend’s voices, along with my son on drums and a violinist—creating a multigenerational celebration! The song closes with a recently discovered recording of my grandmother offering a blessing in Yiddish.
Writing prompt for your journal:
Think of a ritual, recipe, prayer, saying, object, melody, or habit that has traveled through your family.
Describe it through the senses. What does it sound like? What scents, tastes, textures, gestures, or voices accompany it? Imagine all the hands that carried it before it reached you.
Free-write for ten minutes. Then write three verses beginning with:
The hands that held this before mine…
If you feel inspired, hum the words and allow them to become your own ancestor song.