The book deals with Jewish history during the Spanish Inquisition when Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism, but many continued to practice Judaism in secret.  The book and the excerpt are such a powerful message of what it means to be Jewish and what people have done to maintain their Jewish identities and traditions throughout history.

We are going to read it at the beginning of the Seder to set the mood for the night.


"At the threshold of my memories there is a dark, taper-lit staircase.  I skip down it quickly, unafraid, as I hold my mother's hand.  She is not smiling but I see an indefinable pleasure in the lift of her head, a gesture distinct and positive beneath the heavy, festive head dressings.

 I am four years old, perhaps even younger.  Strangers call me by my Christian name...But amongst my family, I am called Gracia, the equivalent of the Hebrew name Hannah, meaning charm.  

How I long to tell everyone that this is who I am.  Yet I know I mustn't.  I know that no one must call me by my real name.  

At the end of the corridor, a pillar of light stands blazing from ceiling to floor like some knightly sword.  As I come closer, I see it is merely a slightly open door.  

My mother pushes through.  For a moment, my eyes are blinded by an explosion of dazzling light from a hundred candles.  When the piercing shards recede, I see a long table laid with white linen at whose center are many small dishes arranged in the shape of a six-pointed star.

When I look at my tall father....I realize again how low the ceilings are and how thick the walls. And although no one explains this to me, I understand why:  No one, I perceive, must see or hear us in this place, doing these things.  

I do not know how I know this.  Perhaps it is the sudden realization that we are in a room with no windows, whose walls and ceilings enclose us like treasures hidden in a box, or like prisoners.    This is a secret thing we do, secret and dangerous.  

...as I return to my seat, I see my grandfather rise abruptly.  He throws a napkin with a piece of hard, flat bread in it over his shoulder and leaves the room.  When he returns...he looks like a wayfarer.

Everyone shouts at him: "Where do you come from?"
And he answers: "I have come from Egypt."
And then they ask him:  "Where are you going?"
And he answers: "I am going to Jerusalem."
"Why do you cry?"  I nudge my mother, terrified.
"Sorrows enter in a flood and leave drop by drop," she answers me, wiping her eyes.  "But all the waters of Babylon cannot wash the Jewishness from my soul."

Tomorrow we will celebrate Easter Mass.  We will kiss the foot of the Holy Virgin and take communion, drinking the wine that is the blood of Christ, and eating the host that is His Holy Body.....in the great cathedral where my parents received the sacrament of marriage and I myself was baptized.

(Today)  we eat the hard, flat bread and burning, bitter herbs.  I gag and my mother tries to wash it from my mouth with the sweetest of wine.  She does not succeed.

The bitterness and sweetness remain, one never canceling the other.

This was how I first understood that one can lives two lives: one above ground, surrounded by fragrant gardens, a place where one's family sits in the first pews; the other below ground, in secret cellars lit by Sabbath and holiday candles."   

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