~ It’s Complicated ~ Danny Maseng

My ancestors are Vikings and starving Hasidic Jews. My ancestors braved the North Sea and the Ocean of Torah. My ancestors taught me insane bravery and the unrelenting pursuit of wisdom. My ancestors left me the gift of courage in the face of impossible odds.

My ancestors left me with impossible examples to follow.

Standing on the shoulders of my Viking father and my Hasidic grandfather, I straddle two worlds. I am forever bifurcated. Forever striving to live up to the bravery and the wisdom, forever trying to reconcile my grandfather’s shtetl with my father’s long boat; the Yeshiva with the Storting; Lithuania with Norway; Jerusalem with the Ostfold.

How to live up to such a legacy?

Standing on the shoulders of giants from two extraordinarily different worlds, I see a vision I can never capture. I am simultaneously astounded and confounded.

Perhaps that is what my father and my grandfather wanted me to understand well: that I will never feel ready, never feel worthy, and yet never be free from the obligation to try and live up to what I have inherited.

This fear of utter futility is precisely what the Kaddish prayer teaches us: to praise, laud, bless, thank, and uplift God, who is completely beyond all praise, lauding, blessing, thanks, and uplift.

So, I thank God every day for giving me such ancestors whose gifts are beyond my reach, whose achievements are beyond my grasp, on whose shoulders I stand and glimpse eternity.

Danny Maseng is an Israeli born composer, singer, actor, teacher, and writer. www.dannymaseng.com