Each week at Sunday morning minyan, members take turns giving the d’var. While this is ostensibly a word about Torah, we have taken the wider view that everything is torah. So the words — the d’varim — that come in may be someone’s thoughts on the weekly torah portion, but they also may be a poem or a political piece or a historical document.

Last week, for the d’var, one of the minyaneers brought in a book from the Temple library, When the Chickens Went on Strike. This is a retelling of an old Sholom Aleichem talk about the chickens of a shtetl going on strike in advance of the high holidays because they refused to be swung over villagers' heads to atone for sins, an annual ritual called kapores.

We sat in a circle. Audrey read aloud. She did voices for the villagers and chickens. She showed us the illustrations before turning each page.

I was swept back to my childhood Sundays, hearing the tales of Sholom Aleichem and other Yiddish writers while we sat on an old carpet at Workmans’ Circle. We hung on every word as our teachers as they read and recalled tales from their own childhoods. They slowly moved the books so each of us could see the illustrations, bringing these stories to life. 

As an adult, I tend of be skeptical about the religion of nostalgia. I too often scoff at the sentimental, preferring to think about the Jewish present and future — let historians focus on the Jewish past. Like Tony Soprano said, “‘Remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.”

But hearing Audrey’s voice(s), it was all I could do not to move off my folding chair and sit “criss cross applesauce” on the floor in front of her, like a preschooler. I was rapt at every word, a large grin taking over my face with each yiddishism sprinkled throughout the book … Boychik … Nu. 

The story was seasonally appropriate just days before Rosh Hashanah with a moral about how we try to be a little better each year. And as Audrey noted, it was also appropriate for our Reform minyan, speaking to the idea of what traditions we keep, what traditions we alter, and which we discard. 

But it wasn’t these themes that had my eyes glistening by the end of our storytime. The story was a time machine — a Delorean transporting me back to my childhood. I heard my own Bubbie’s voice. I saw my Zaydie slowly walking across a room, bringing one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books to read to me before bedtime. I sat on the stairs during Sunday School. I sang Yiddish songs. My mouth watered with the anticipation of apples and honey just days away.

By the end of When the Chickens Went on Strike (no spoilers), I was reminded that while Judaism cannot be a religion of nostalgia alone, we each bring to it not only 5,000+ years of communal history but, in my case, 46 years of personal history. Our personal Torah is not limited to words on a scroll; it encompasses the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes that we have accumulated over our years. And by evoking the affection we hold for beautiful memories of past days, nostalgia can be a gift that connects the past with the new year of 5786.