Questions About God, Answered and Unanswered

Dear Peanut,

I have one basic rule with you—to always answer your questions as honestly (and age appropriately) as I can. I hope that by being open to your questions now, you’ll always know that every subject is safe for us to discuss, even those subjects (especially those subjects?) that were off limits when I was a kid, namely sex and death. And God.

God. I had some awareness of a unifying presence in the world from early on. I recall being about your age and twirling on the springtime grass of the front lawn. Suddenly I stopped and looked up, and as the world spun around me, I noticed how the sunlight sparkled through the green leaves of the trees. Somehow, the radiance of the light, and the newness of the air, and the freedom of my body led me to feel that God was present. How I even knew who God was, I don’t know.

As Daddy and I raise you, I’m conscious of bringing God into our conversations. This is a break from the way I was brought up. My parents were of the generation of Jews, molded by modernism and rationalism, who didn’t talk much about God, nor, I suspect, thought much about God. The lack of information about God intrigued me enough to want to explore religion and eventually lead me to the rabbinate. I wonder sometimes what kind of impact our God-talk will have on you as you grow older.

For now, you certainly show a keen theological awareness of your own. One day, when you were just past two, we were eating breakfast and you asked, “Mommy, why do men have beards?” Following my rule, I answered truthfully: “Because men and women have something inside them called hormones that help them be men and women. So men have beard hormones that help them grow beards.” You pondered that for a while as you ate your cheerios, and then shrugged a little as if you understood, saying, “Well, I guess that’s the way God made them.”

Another time, you asked me what prayer is. I answered that prayer can be many things but for most people prayer is a way we can talk to God. Again, you gave it some thought, and then said, “But Mommy, you said we all are God, or have some of God in us, and so aren’t we speaking to God when we speak to one another?”

I think in recent weeks your moral development has surged forward and you are now struggling with some perplexing theological ideas. You’ve been talking a lot lately about life and death and the dividing line between the two. You immerse yourself in movies, and the movies you love the most are the ones that make you cry the hardest because of loss or fear (even as you know the characters will live happily ever after). You’ve also had some bad dreams lately that jolt you awake in the middle of the night.

In your own way, you are wrestling with theodicy—how can the good presence of God allow suffering and pain in this world? This is one question for which I simply do not have the answer and it breaks my heart. I can live with my own unanswered questions, but yours…they haunt me. All I can do is hug you and let you know how very much you are loved.

It is not an answer but it is a response. I hope it is enough.

I love you,

Mommy

The Blessing and Curse of Being a Rabbi's Kid

Dear Peanut,

I've been confronted with the first challenge of this blog. A very dear friend, someone who knows our family better than almost anyone else, asked me a question that haunts me a little.

She knows how private Daddy and I are, and she knows how sensitive children can be when their parents reveal too much about their lives without permission. And so, she asked: is it possible that Daddy, you, or I will come to regret the public nature of this blogged ethical will?

So here's lesson #1 of this blog: In life, find friends you trust enough to know the entirety of who you are. People who will not shy away from your flaws and who will love you all the more for them. People who will read a few hundred words of your writing and know exactly the right questions to ask you. If you can also get lost in gales of laughter with them, then you know you've found a friend of spirit.

The reason this is blogged, and not just a private document between us is because you have the blessing and the curse of having a rabbi for a parent. (A subject I'm sure we'll explore here.) As a rabbi, I'm a teacher and a communicator—a door-to-door salesman, really—for Judaism. My hope is that somehow in the details of our lives together, I will be able to communicate the intersection of Jewish values with parenting and life.

In the particular the universal is revealed. Maybe, by sharing my real concerns and desires for you, I can connect to other people’s lives. Maybe this will guide others as they try to shape the moral lives of the next generation or discover new ways to bring an appreciation of the sacred into their secular experiences. Maybe this will help me grow in my own Jewish and spiritual life. At the very least, it will accomplish the goal of beginning an ethical will for you.

Still, our friend's question remains in the air. So I promise to try to maintain the balance between discretion and openness. I will try not to reveal any names or personal details that may invade our privacy. And, I’ll expand my entries beyond the experiences of our family from time to time.

In some sense, the epistolary nature of this blog is a little 19^th century, but it works as a device, allowing me a focus to my reflections. Thank you, Peanut, for being that focus, and for bearing with the blessing and curse of being a rabbi's kid.

I love you,

Mommy

A Hannukah Gift for Peanut

Dear Peanut,

It’s the last night of Hanukkah. One more evening of latkes, gelt, and cheesy Hanukkah music and then we have to put all the Hanukkiot away—your doggy one, the one with Noah’s ark, the one you made in Pre-K, Daddy’s crystal one, the one made out of blue Jerusalem glass which, when all the candles are lit, looks like fire upon the water. 

At four years old, I'm in awe that Hanukkah has actual meaning for you and that you have, in your own way, absorbed the holiday messages of the few against the many and the power of living freely. It's hard to believe that a brief time ago Yolanda, the baby nurse who guided us through your first days, swaddled you so tightly that you looked like the longest, skinniest little peanut in a shell. From that moment on you were my peanut.

Back then, when you were eight days old, we welcomed you to our family, to the Jewish people, and to the world. As I was overcome by wonder and emotions and the surge of hormones, I shared these words with our closest circle of family and friends:

"We don’t know who you are yet, but this your father and I pray for you: that along with all of the elements that make for a secure life—love, shelter, health—you will also have the fortitude to live uniquely. We hope that as each day unfolds, you discover resources within yourself to forge a life of fulfillment and meaning. Your father and I want to guide you, but we do not wish for you to conform to our own self-interested needs, or society’s sometimes misguided norms, or any other pressure that will thwart your ability to live exceptionally."

I believe I saw those words as the beginning of what our tradition calls an ethical will—a document passed down from parent to child that describes the values we pray will endure. And here’s where this, your Hanukkah present, comes into play.

For a long while now, I've thought that I'd like to document reflections, values, and memories as a gift for you. Maybe some of these jottings would provide guidance as you grow older when I may not be here to assist or comfort you. Maybe others will answer questions still inchoate in that fertile consciousness of yours. And maybe still others are (selfishly) for me, to give me some sense of security and permanence as I throttle full steam ahead, the end of my life always coming closer into focus.

My thought is that, like an ethical will, I'll try to capture only those thoughts that have a kernel of value or meaning for you, Peanut, and maybe for others, too. Yet, the beauty of this 21^st century technology—the blog—is the open-endedness of it, the fact that we don't know where it will lead, given this expansive cyber-world we live in.

And Hanukkah seems like the right holiday to begin this endeavor. On Hanukkah we go from one lone light on the first night, to a blazing Hanukkiah, all candles lit, on this, the final night. I hope this blog will also increase the light that shines upon your world, making the path a little brighter and a little easier for you to journey down.

Hag orim sameach, Peanut—like this holiday, may your life grow in radiance and joy.

I love you,

Mommy