On my first visit to London, my friend and I spent an afternoon in the British Museum, admiring all the lovely artifacts they've stolen on various conquests. I had two goals: to visit the library where Virginia Woolf wrote and to see the Rosetta Stone.

In my high school library in Texas, there was a big copy of the Rosetta Stone mounted on the wall above the circulation desk. Beside it was a placard that said the original was in the British Museum. Now I was there and I wanted to find and photograph the real one.

I found it in a large empty room with other Egyptian artifacts scattered around. It sat exposed in the center of the room—protected, I assumed, by some sort of wireless alarm. I took a photo of it and admired it.

It was beautiful—white stone with little etchings I couldn't decipher. I focused on the stone, thinking of the fake in my hometown, which had never touched me this way, and of this real stone, which had seen so much history. I focused on the moment at which it had been discovered, and how it had been used to expose the secrets of a dazzling ancient culture.

A British couple walked by.

“Look Alan, the Rosetta Stone!” the woman said.

Her husband looked bored.

“Of course, it's not the real one.”

“Isn't it?”

“Nah, the real one is in the room across the hall. This is just a copy.”

Abandoning what had moments before been the object of my admiration, I walked over to the real Rosetta Stone, and took a picture of it—behind the glare of a glass case, squeezed between the crowds of people pushing to get closer.

Wow, I thought. The real Rosetta Stone.

A few months ago, when my grandmother passed away after a brief illness, my mother, two aunts, and two of my sisters spent the shiva (first week of mourning after a person's funeral) going through all of her belongings.

Ordinarily, this task would be left until after the shiva ended. But none of us lived in her town, so we felt pressured to sift through her things immediately. Each book, scarf, and piece of jewelry was handled with care, passed from person to person.

“Do you want this?” “I'll take it if no one else wants it.” “Julie should have it.” “Are you sure you don't want it?” “No really” “Well, okay then, I'll take it, but only if no one else wants it...you're sure you don't want it?”

My sister Elisheva eventually began to make fun of the way I reverently regarded such artifacts as tea lights from the grocery store and blank envelopes.

“That pencil is not an heirloom,” she said.

“Not yet,” I replied.

I was probably one of the worst when it came to books. This is my grandmother's book, I said to myself. This is her name on the corner of the title page. This is her handwriting. This is the dust of her hands as she held the book.

It didn't matter what the printed text said (which is perhaps how I ended up with “The Mikado and Other Plays”). It only mattered that it had been hers. She had selected it or been given it or made it and it had meant something.

Now, these objects meant something to me, but not for the same reason they had meant something to her. The blue orb-shaped candlesticks I carried home were pretty, but their value was not in their function. It was in knowing that my grandmother had owned them and loved them. This history gave them value.

As a child, my mother made my siblings and me a felt book that told the story of our family's kiddush cup (ritual wineglass). The kiddush cup had belonged to so-and-so in Europe, who baked it into a loaf of challah, and carried it across the Atlantic, and brought it to New York, where it was passed on to this-or-that person and then finally through a string of hands to my parents on their wedding day. The felt kiddush cup was held on by Velcro and moved through the pages of the book as the genuine article had moved down through history.

I was awed by the kiddush cup's illustrious history. As far as I had known, the cup had emerged from our kitchen cupboard around the same time I had gained awareness. Now, I knew it had seen my family's history. It had been cupped in hands and been enveloped by the lips of my ancestors. Perhaps they too had noticed how cold it became when filled with chilled wine.

Actually, my mom made up the thing about the kiddush cup being baked into a challah to hide it. And I clearly can't remember which family members carried it to Ellis Island. Yet despite the gaps in the kiddush cup's history, these little connections enrich each time I use it.

Why does knowing the history of an object—however fabricated that history may be—make it more precious?

Perhaps no object in Judaism more clearly demonstrates this than the Torah scroll.

The Torah scroll is made with the intention of creating an heirloom. It must be perfectly copied onto parchment by a trained scribe so that not even a letter changes over generations.

After it is made, it must be treated with care. We often pray facing it. We are instructed to rise when the Torah is taken out of the ark in which it is stored. The Torah is dressed in a velvet or silver cover and decorated with a silver breastplate, as well as bells and crowns for its “feet.”

When young people become a bar or bat mitzvah, it is a tradition at many synagogues to physically pass down the Torah. The Torah is passed from grandparents (in my case, I was lucky enough to have a great-grandparent begin the chain) to parents to child. (In fact, one of the precious objects I took from my grandmother's house was a piece of paper where she had handwritten her speech for this moment.)

The message is clear: this object is treasured. It has been treated delicately and with great care in every generation. So, you know, don't drop it. (In fact, dropping the Torah not only carries severe punishment under Jewish law for the person who drops it, but also for the people who see someone drop it.)

It is not a very far leap from ritual objects to the rituals themselves.

Recently, I was telling my boyfriend about the one time I have consciously chosen to eat unkosher meat (that makes it sound like at other times I have drunkenly chosen to eat bacon cheeseburgers).

He was pretty shocked that I had ever done that, and frankly, I was, too. I had almost forgotten it.

Of course, it was in college and I was going through a time of exploration and yada-yada. But it seems like a pretty big deal from here to say, “hmm...no thank you, only vegetarian option on the menu, I'll have the chicken.”

I think a lot of people who keep kosher but don't believe that God really cares if we keep kosher go through moments of “Okay then, so why do I do it?” (This is not to say that I'm sure God doesn't care if we keep kosher, okay God? I'll try not to speak in absolutes. Let's just say I'm agnostic about it.)

There are a lot of ways people rationalize keeping kosher. It sets me apart and reminds me that I'm Jewish. It's a more humane way to kill animals. I've been doing it for so long, I don't think I could stop. I'm a vegetarian anyway. The smell of bacon makes me sick and I don't like eating animals whose shells I have to crack.

But I think the most honest reason is “My family does it. And if I stopped, it would be a huge deal.”

What I'm getting at, I suppose, is not so original (but you didn't know that when you started reading, so sucks to you). These decisions to participate in Jewish rituals are hallowed not (only) because of something intrinsically valuable, but also because of the connections we make between them and the people we have loved.

It may not even be clear what our ancestors' or immediate family members' feelings about these rituals were and are. It's hard to know if they really “believe” in them or not, even if you ask them point blank.

But it's what they did and do, and somehow following their example connects you to them in a complicated and sweet way, like an old tallit around your shoulders, like a hand tucking you into bed. It makes you feel like you are less isolated, like your life is lengthened by this connection backward and forward, perhaps even that you can prolong their lives by participating.