I am declaring a ceasefire in politics for the next 6 hours. Why? because it’s my column, and I can. It is rare that something occurs that is more important than what I see on the news, but today God has taken his beautiful light and brought something fabulous into this world…a new baby boy, with the proud father being a local Rabbi who is a dear friend of mine.
Yes, like many good Jewish Rabbis, this fellow is a liberal, which means his child will mostly likely be as well. No, this is not a tragedy. A real tragedy is when a child is brought into this world without parents as wonderful as this young boy. He is too young to understand gambling games and game theory to know that he hit the jackpot in the parental department.
I have sat across from the Rabbi many times over dinner. Yes, he allows republicans into his home. We have debated the issues of the day, and while those debates are spirited, there is no acrimony. The others join in, some on my side, some on his side, and the evening ends with handshakes and hugs. On rare occasions, we are even on the same side, which we would never have found out if we did not engage each other in conversation.
I am not going to minimize politics. It is important. The disagreements are valid, and healthy. Yet those disagreements are the means, and the ends are the same. The goal is to make the world a better place. We want our children to grow up in a better world than we did.
Yes, there are bad things, and bad people, out there. The toughest job a parents has is balancing the appropriate level of paranoia. Parents worry every second of the day about their child, but they do not want the child to live in fear. Even as an adult, when I call and ask my dad how he is, he says he is fine, and that he is more worried about me.
This Rabbi took time to pray for my dad. He takes time for many people who need things from him. Whether it be a student complaining about how oppressive final exams are, or how their student romance is going, he listens and counsels. On the holidays, he might have an 85 year old congregant that has every ailment under the sun, and has been dying since 1937. He listens patiently. I know I would not have the patience. Yet this amount of patience is nothing compared to raising a child, because even the toughest congregants eventually leave his office. The family is always there.
This Rabbi has a healthy sense of balance. His child will not fall victim to the syndrome expressed beautifully by the late Harry Chapin (or for you young kids, rock band Ugly Kid Joe) in the song “Cats in the Cradle.”
“My child arrived just the other day…he came to the world in the usual way…but there were planes to catch, and bills to pay…he learned to walk while I was away.”
I have a deep respect for parents who have to be able to be away from their children in order to feed them. However, those who are there have the advantage. Showing up by itself is not enough, but it is a great start.
Parents are often powerless. They cannot make the schoolteachers be better. They cannot make every drug dealer in the world go to other neighborhoods. They certainly cannot improve the quality of television. They cannot prevent war.
Yet parents can play a vital role in making sure children are emotionally healthy and happy. My father and grandfather were both Holocaust survivors, yet when I was growing up, the biggest worries they expressed were my grades and the length of my hair (it is still too long for dad).
Even hiring a babysitter can be nervewracking. What if she turns out to be a CIA operative (stole that from an episode of “Falcon Crest,” another reason to watch television back then)? Every person that enters the home could be a potential threat. I mean what if they leave me alone with their child for five minutes while they answer the doorbell, and they come back to see me teaching the kid Reaganomics?
The most precious gift we have is life. It is not republican or democrat, but it is overwhelmingly beautiful. Newborn babies do not know how to hate. They only know how to return love, when that love is given.
This child is going to be well educated, well fed, and most importantly, given a set of values that would make any person proud. The child will be taught to love their neighbor, and they will be given beautiful religious traditions, all the while respecting others who hold different traditions.
As I said, I doubt I will agree any time soon with this Rabbi’s prescriptions for improving society. Yet this Rabbi has already bettered society by bringing children into this world. Some will say until the children are raised successfully, that society has not been improved. Given this Rabbi’s track record, I suspect society will be just fine.
May God Bless this new child that has entered the world. May his parents have many years of happiness and blessings. May the child be happy and healthy. Besides, who knows? When he becomes a teenager and rebels, he can always become a republican. I would be fine with that, provided he becomes the fine person I expect him to be. With parents like his, he is already off to a great start.
eric
[…] May God bless the newest liberal to enter the world […]
mazel tov? i think….congrats and good luck to your rabbi friend
nice piece of writing…enjoyed it
Congrts to the rabbi. And congrats to you on writing a very nice piece.
I liked the piece, but resent the premise that most rabbis are liberal – I was at a convention of about 200 rabbis the other day, most of them from campus towns whose primary clientèle is the students and staff of the universities, and nary a liberal among them…