וְחַיֵּי עוֹלָם נָטַע בְּתוֹכֵנוּ

When I was little, tucked in among the shelves of books of biblical commentary, theology Biblical archaeology and other books of use to a congregational rabbi in my father's knotty pine basement office was a collection of photo albums. I spent hours sitting in my father's Naugahyde reclining chair looking at the lives my parents lived before I was born. After my parents died, I inherited those beloved albums.

There were rifts in the family so there were many faces in that album that existed for me only as people in theory rather than living and breathing human beings. As decades of hurt and anger have flowed under many bridges various segments of the family have re-connected.

Perhaps twenty years ago my sister saw a death notice for one of my father's cousins in the New York Times. My parents happened to be in town so my father reconnected with his cousin Carole-Lee. My cousin has a life filled with children and grandchildren, art making  and all of the many obligations one has in life. We don't see one another often but when we do it's always filled with delight.

Carole-Lee called me not long ago because we showed up as relatives on 23and Me. Neither of us was surprised. We know that we are cousins. Carole- Lee's grandmother and my great grandmothers were sisters,  but it was a nice opportunity for a chat. Carole- Lee mentioned that she had been at my parents' graduation from the Jewish Theological Seminary.  I told her that I had photos of the event filled with relatives that I didn't know.

Carol-Lee mentioned that when her widowed father remarried, his second wife threw away all of the family photos. Carol-Lee had lost all of her childhood photos. I know, it's awful. It isn't quite a death but it is a terrible erasure.

Yesterday, Carole-Lee came by to see my father's old photo albums. When she got to this image she gasped.

There is Carole- Lee all the way to the right, standing next to her mother, Yetta, who within a few years would be dead. Next is my beaming father, holding both his cousin Yetta's hand as well as my mother's hand. Within a week they would be married. Next to my mother is Carole-Lee's father, Irving and finally her little brother Stephen who is currently at the end stages of dementia.

There are primitive people who are terrified of being photographed because they fear that photographs somehow capture the soul. Even supposing that there might be some truth in that fear, seeing this photograph more than sixty years after it was taken you receive a gift of seeing a glimpse of those souls once again.