The plot of Bread Givers revolves around Sara Smolinsky's efforts to build her own life, free of the restrictions and norms which ruined the happiness of her sisters and made her whole family miserable. Seeing the consequences of her father's actions, who first leads the family to the brink of poverty, and then forces his daughters into unhappy marriages, Sara is no longer able to accept the traditional way of life of her father and community and flees home in order to study and get a job. I believe Sara managed to become her own person, and the attempt at reconciliation with her father by the end of the novel is a proof of this rather than indication Sara is still influenced by the restrictions and prejudices of her childhood.
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But I will argue that this is, on the contrary, the major indication that Sara is, in fact, free. Her readiness to reconcile with Reb is not a doing of the obedient Jewish daughter, following the religious prescriptions, but rather a conscious and thought-out move of an independent young woman, who faces the reality of her parent being impoverished and oppressed. Sara’s readiness to help her father is a prove that she is no longer forced to flee the old ways of life and is confident enough to embrace the elements of it without losing her identity and sense of self, sense of her purpose. The fact Sara is ready to live under one roof with her father indicates that she has become an adult, free both of blind adoration and the disappointed hatred she felt for him. Letting go of this hatred means she is stronger than that. Admitting that Reb is still her parent, despite all his shortcomings, means Sara comes to terms with her past, with her origins and background. She no longer needs to reject everything the Jewish community and her father stood for in order to be free from those norms and restrictions she finds suffocating and to find her own