Hyggelig and Neshama

My dad's mother, my Farmor, asks me to try and say a few Danish test words

“gulerulod” carrott, and “Rødgrød med fløde” berries and cream.

I stumble over the glottal “ær”, but come pretty close.

She loves me, so she smiles, chuckles heartily, then kisses me on the forehead,

but her eyes are sad.

Grandma, my mother's mother, insists that I be bar mitvah'd,

“Your Grandpa would've wanted it”

she says in her thick, half-Slavic/half-yiddish-new yorker cadence.

Regardless, I stand firm,

“I don't think it'd be right”... “I never really went to schul and I'd feel like a poser”.

My grandmother turns to my mom and asks her, in Yidd-laden English, what a “poser” is.

“You're a Jew.” she states, turning back to me. Her face smiling,

but her eyes voicing the same sorrow as her Danish counterpart.

I am Erik Olsen – Dane: first Viking, then Sailor, then Soldier/Translator/Accountant.

I am Humlizer – Jew: first Wanderer, then Farmer, then Tailor/Cab-driver/Translator.

Now I am a Student.

Can I be all of these people? Can I honor these varied aspects of my ancestry without turning my family's culture into fast food?

The Hebrew word “Neshama” roughly translates to “Soul” but in another use of it, it is viewed as the goodness of a person, the quantity of goodness housed within everyone.

I don't speak Hebrew or Yiddish.

The Danish word, “hyggelig” doesn't translate to English, but it connotes a coziness, a good-times-with-friends-and-family sort of vibe. The picture that comes to my mind is the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings, singing songs and drinking together.

I don't speak Danish either.

I don't speak any of the languages of my ancestors. I don't know their culture.

But I do understand Hyggelig and Neshama.

My parents were raised in Danish and Yiddish.

They learned to sound like Americans from the other kids.

My parents raised me in English.

Taught me to speak my language,

but think in theirs.