The Son From America Analysis

The Sabbath is a ritual in the Jewish faith celebrated as a day of rest once every week. The other six days of the week are considered workdays and revolve around the Sabbath. But the Sabbath is only a small part of the Jewish faith. Many other aspects of Judaism impact the lifestyle of people like Samuel and his parents, Berl and Berlcha who practice the faith. Based on the reading The Son From America and the research I did on Judaism, I can conclude that Samuel’s Americanized way of life conflict with his parent’s simple Jewish lifestyle. As you may have noticed from the story, Judaism is a very strict faith. They have many guidelines to follow and rituals to celebrate, the Sabbath being one of them. The word Sabbath comes from a Hebrew word meaning rest. (Chapter 24: The Sabbath Day). The whole point of the Sabbath day is to rest,

You can tell that Samuel is shocked by how simple it is in Letshin when he says, “Nothing has changed here.”(Singer 164) Samuel seems to almost feel sorry for his parents as he comes with all these ideas on improving the town, but he doesn’t realize that his parents don’t want anything new because of their Jewish lifestyle. He even had been sending his parents money in the mail, but Berl simply hid the money in a boot under the bed. After being gone for so long, Samuel had forgotten much of the Yiddish language, and struggled communicating with his parents. “The son talked a lot, but Berl and Berlcha understood little. His Yiddish was different and contained foreign words.”(Singer 165) Even Samuel’s overall appearance seemed strange to his parents. “She gazed with surprise at this strange man- his height and his bizarre clothes.”(Singer 164) At the end of the day, Samuel realized that the town did not need any of his money or new modern presents. They were happy with just enough to get by, no more, no