Dear Next Generation: ‘All of Life Is a Ceremony’
Join the Social Game!
Many believe we should be frank and outspoken, to get right to the point without phoniness or too much “bull.” In the real world, however, this can be a problem when we need to win over another’s respect, whether a customer, girlfriend or boyfriend, and so on. That is when no matter how we really feel at the moment, we should put on that happy, friendly face.
One word for this response is “ceremony.” Ceremony is very important in our dealings with people. We can’t isolate ourselves from the world although we’d often like to. Ceremony is shaping an “atmosphere,” as when dating a girl bringing flowers, or being especially charming and protective.
Jewish Woman Sees Numbers Tattooed on Uncle’s Arm; on Hearing the Story Behind It, She’s Shocked
Joseph Sedacca’s own children could tell that their father wasn’t a normal man. Emotionally, they could see that there was something wrong with him.
A Sephardic Jew born in Turkey in 1916, Joseph came to America after the second world war. He always seemed suspicious of others, as if threatened; he spoke very loudly and yelled often when his kids were young; his nieces and nephews, as children, were afraid of him.
Stories of Joseph were told around the dinner table over the years, of how he was in the concentration camps where Jews were sent to be exterminated by the Nazis. “Did he work in the ovens?” some pondered. It must have been horrifying, they knew.