Fathers and Sons (adapted) from Stamford Advocate, April 1991

I’d known all along that my father would never abandon me, but never did I realize it more than on the day my first child was born.

What I’m going to write here will sound sexist to some, but I beg my female friends to indulge me on this one.  My training in religious traditions makes me take special note of the unique complexity of the father-son relationship.  For Jews, the primary command of the Passover Seder is to tell the story to your son (which in many modern translations has been expanded to include daughters too).  In Islam, the Quran is to be memorized and recited, with special care given toward its transmission to sons.  And for Christians, the story of Jesus revolves around the most theologically complex father-son relationship imaginable – complex yet so very simple.

For it all comes down to one thing. Every son needs a father, a close father to love and teach him, one who is present and caring, whether the father be the simplest of men – or God.

For twelve years, I had been searching for my father and, in one magical instant, I found him.

For twelve years I had been continually driving around that block, refusing to allow myself to be drawn into the light of my home, to the finality of my father’s death.  For twelve years I had been orbiting.

When Mara went into labor, I felt myself turning the corner of that street once again.  And then, when my son Ethan was pulled from his mother’s womb and his face turned toward me, I know that my eons of roaming aimlessly around the block had ended.  My father had returned.

The face was too serious and calm to belong to an infant – even though the lungs were crying like crazy – and too focused on one object in the room: me.  “Your journey is over,” the face seemed to be saying.  “You can leave the car and come back in the house.  It’s OK now.  I’m back. 

The hair, the lips, the nose, the all belonged to Ethan.  But the eyes were my father’s eyes.  And in a single moment the distant past became the present, out of death came new life, and the clock that had stopped on that New Year’s Day twelve years before started ticking again. Halftime was finally over.

I’d known it all along; my dad would never abandon me.  He was a rarity for his era, demonstratively affectionate and involved with his children, day and night.  Unlike all those TV dads of the Ward Cleaver era, mine actually took me to his office – often. (How often did Fred Flintstone and Barney bring Pebbles and Bam Bam to the quarry?)  While he worked, I filled coloring books and traded corny riddles and knock-knock jokes with the secretaries. 

In his early ‘90s best seller “Iron John,” Robert Bly writes of the phenomenon of the resolute and absent father, the dad who, on those rare occasions when he is home, has no idea which cold remedy to take or where the diapers are hidden.  Citing the work of a German psychologist, Bly argues that if a child does not actually see what his father does during the day, a hole will appear in his psyche, “and that hole will fill with demons who tell him that his father’s work is evil and that the father is evil.”  It was the absent father of the Ward Cleaver era that led directly to the student protests of the ‘60s, Bly suggests, as the students’ fears regarding their own fathers were transferred to all male figures in authority.

As I looked at Ethan, I thought of how present my father was – and how I wanted to be a present father too.  When the boy cries, I thought, I want to hold him every time until the cry becomes a coo.  And I want to hear every cry and coo, be there with him every waking moment, and if that is impossible, which it is, I want him to have such vivid memories of me that he’ll feel me there even when I’m not.

The father who is present for his child is never remote, I’ve discovered, and the father who is remote is never present – even when he is in the same room.

In the book of Genesis, Abraham’s words to Isaac were never recorded, but between the lines of the text one can guess what must have been said by one about to die at the hands of his father.  Isaac’s silent scream was a cry filled with the horror of the ultimate parental abandonment, one equaled in intensity only on rare occasions throughout history – perhaps only in Egypt, or at Golgotha.  Or Auschwitz.  “My God, my God,” echoed the pleas of the enslaved Israelite, the suffering Jesus and the brutalized European Jew.  “Why have you forsaken me?”

These cries to a common Father were often heard – and often not.  Many of us are still waiting.

Meanwhile, I discovered something quite astounding in February 1991.  My father was back, all right, but he could no longer be detected in the face of my son, though those eyes did continue to look strangely familiar. 

Instead, my father chose a most curious yet appropriate place to make his presence known – in my own presence.  Inasmuch as Ethan’s dad has been able to be the kind of present father every child deserves, a child of any age, Ethan’s grandfather will never be very far away.

Shabbat-O-Gram for May 1

Shabbat-O-Gram 

The Shabbat Announcements are sponsored by Jill and Alejandro Knopoff in honor of their daughter, Morgana, becoming a Bat Mitzvah.

  

  

A Parent’s Blessing

As many of you know, next weekend my family will be traveling to Washington for Dan’s college graduation (there will be no Shabbat-O-Gram next week).  While everyone has been thrilled for Dan, as they should be, (and if you know anyone in the think-tank world, Dan’s specialty is international relations, with a focus on the Middle East), the instant reaction I’ve gotten from most people is a mazal tov to me on having paid the final college tuition bill.

Since, as we all know, every event of a child’s life is all about the parent, I’ve given some thought to this sacred moment in the life of a family, the graduation of the youngest child.  As of a week from Monday, for the first time since Ethan skipped off to nursery school precisely twenty years ago at the age of two, not a single Hammerman will be matriculated at any school.   Now I have heard of this animal known as graduate school, so we may not be completely out of the woods yet.  But still, this is a real watershed moment for all of us.  And since I’ve chronicled and assessed prior rites of passage for Dan, including his bris and bar mitzvah, why stop now?

So what would be an appropriate blessing with which to mark the college graduation of a youngest child?  Should we break a plate, a custom sometimes done by parents at weddings or engagement ceremonies?  Maybe burning a mortgage would be more appropriate.

Here’s a prayer I found on Beliefnet, written by a minister.  I like it a lot and it needed to make very few edits for it to be appropriate for Jewish families. It points out the anxiety all parents feel - or should feel - at a time like this, especially notorious helicopter parents like me.

“God, another rite of passage has come and gone. The child you have given has taken another step into the world. I am thankful, proud, delighted, relieved, and yet more than a little apprehensive. It’s a familiar mix of emotions, one I’ve known all the years I’ve shared this precious child with you. Today, I know you share many of these feelings, for you are a parent of great passion and joy. You share all perhaps except the apprehension. You never fear, because you are love, and perfect love drives out fear. You are a parent who knows no fear! I need that today. I need some of your parental boldness. As my child walks out now into a new season of responsibilities and challenges, in a world of struggle, I once again choose to release him/her to you. I have had to do this many times already: the first day of kindergarten, when the driver’s license came in the mail, on that first date, at high school graduation, when we drove off that first day of college, and now, when that journey is completed and they step out into the world as we know it, full of tough, dog-eat-dog battles. All we can do it pray for your hand, which reaches to protect when ours cannot. I say in faith, ‘God, bless and keep him, make your face shine upon him and be gracious to her, and look on her with favor and grant her peace.’”

Or maybe we should simply repeat the traditional blessing done by parents at a bar mitzvah:  “Praised is God, who has relieved me of guilt for whatever becomes of this child.”

Historians trace this Baruch Shep’tarani blessing back to the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, brothers whose post-adolescent lives took dramatically different tracks. Although Rebecca and Isaac were hardly exemplary parents, the blessing validates their unavoidable helplessness in opposing Esau’s wayward ways. In instituting this prayer, the rabbis were implying that there comes a point where parents simply have to let go.

My two kids’ lives have also taken very different tracks, though, since of course it’s always about us parents, they’ve pursued some of their parents’ passions in different ways.  I can see a little of me in each of them - but both of my boys are far greater than the sum of their ancestral parts.

Most of all, they have turned out to be menschen, who love and support each other and really care about others.  No parent could ask for more and Mara and I are very proud of both of them.

And since their entire childhood took place within our little village, an extreme rarity for P.K.s, especially rabbinic ones, but an advantage that this P.K. also was lucky enough to have as a child, we’ve got to share the credit with all of you.

Which means we get to share the nachas as well (for an interesting discussion of what “nachas” means for the contemporary Jew, click here).  So, Mazal Tov to everyone on Dan’s graduation - and think of us at Sisterhood Shabbat next weekend.

And while you are at it, let me know if you would like to see Dan’s resume...

Tattoo or Not Tattoo: That is the Question

On Shabbat morning, we’ll be discussing a topic that I occasionally bring up when we reach this portion of Ahare Mot-Kedoshim and there are teens in the room:  tattoos.  You can find the relevant verse in Leviticus 19:28

You shall not make cuts in your flesh for a person [who died]. You shall not etch a tattoo on yourselves. I am the Lord.

וְשֶׂרֶט לָנֶפֶשׁ לֹא תִתְּנוּ בִּבְשַׂרְכֶם וּכְתֹבֶת קַעֲקַע לֹא תִתְּנוּ בָּכֶם אֲנִי יְהוָֹה:

The topic has been trending this week with the news that the new Apple watch has trouble functioning correctly for those with tattoos (thankfully, my tefillin work just fine).

Perhaps more relevant to the topic from the Jewish perspective is this article from Ha'aretz from a few years ago.  The article details a moving account of how the adult child of a survivor wanted to keep the legacy of his father alive by walking into a Tel Aviv tattoo parlor and asking to have an exact copy of his father’s Auschwitz number branded on his own arm. Since not we are reading Kedoshim, right on the heels of Yom Hashoah, tomorrow’s discussion is a “natural.”

And it’s a discussion I often have with teens, especially in light of the growing popularity of body art.  A survey released one year ago indicated that 40% of Americans said that someone in their household has a tattoo, doubling the result of a similar survey in 1999.

 

Why are permanent, indelible tattoos considered so “unkosher?” (Yes, I know that tattoos can be reversed, but it’s a painful, difficult and imperfect process).

A good, quick response can be found on Hillel’s website. Essentially there are three reasons that have been posited through the centuries: 1) that tattooing was originally a form of pagan worship; 2) that the human body is a holy vessel, a creation “in God’s image,” and who are we to desecrate a gift from God? The mutilation of the body isn’t entirely prohibited, though. Earrings are permitted, for instance, and anything that enhances or saves life, such as autopsies, organ donation and, yes, even some plastic surgery. If the Elephant Man came into my office and said he wanted “a different look,” I don’t think I’d chase him out as a vain narcissist. While he could have technically lived without it, his self image may be so low that in fact, such surgical enhancement could in fact keep him from taking his own life.

I must add, however, that the worship of the body should have its limits - and if such physical enhancement also causes a serious risk to health (e.g. tanning salons or breast implants), we’ve got to wonder if it isn’t just another form of pagan worship. Some have made the claim that circumcision is mutilation, but the prevailing Jewish view is that it is a finishing touch to the miracle of birth, symbolizing a partnership between parents and God. And in fact, in Greek times it was the painful operation to reverse circumcision that was considered the most reprehensible form of body mutilation, since it was done in order to assimilate into Hellenistic society, which was so focused on the exposed - and exalted - human body.

So it’s a complex subject, but the third rationale, he most recent. is the most relevant here. One reason I advise teens to avoid the temptation of tattooing is precisely because the Nazis did it to us. (It’s similar to the argument that I make against cremation). The Nazis did it to dehumanize human beings, to brand them as they would brand cattle, to take away their individuality and freedom of choice. Some claim that in the current context, tattoos are freely chosen and are a means of expressing that very freedom and individuality. But the very indelibility of a tattoo demonstrates the opposite. If it cannot be reversed, we forfeit the choice to not have it! And if the only permanent choice we should be making is to devote our lives to God, rather than a lesser object of devotion (read: idolatry), then that explains why circumcision can be the only indelible bodily change that is granted blanket approval.

But what of this survivor’s son, who wishes only to preserve the memory of the evil - itself a mitzvah (“zachor”) - rather than to perpetuate that evil form of dehumanization.  Is this a fitting tribute to a generation that will soon be gone? Or is it a clumsy distortion, a visual aid that may succeed in shocking people but can’t come close to duplicating the real thing?

I tend to think the latter. There are many avenues of remembrance out there. Why choose to imitate the evil rather than stamp it out? The son’s desire is well intentioned, but if it didn’t even bring comfort to the father (who lived his whole life hoping his children would never have to live in such shame), how is this act not more than an example of the very self flagellation and mutilation that the Torah prohibits.

The Torah implores us to choose life. When we leave a cemetery, we wash our hands. Why, as we leave the smokestacks of Auschwitz behind us, should mark our hands so that the stain will never come out? Auschwitz will never fade from history. It is seared into our consciousness. The pain will never completely go away. But that doesn’t mean that we have to wear it on - or inside - our sleeves.

Shabbat Shalom X2 for this week and next!

 

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Sparing the Rod? (Hammerman on Ethics)

Sparing the Rod?

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
Friday, April 22, 2011


Q - I was shocked to read recently that corporal punishment is still legal in 20 states. I also know the famous quote from Proverbs, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” But on Passover we are taught to answer a child’s questions with patience. Is it ever acceptable for a parent or teacher to hit a child?


A - It is never appropriate to hit a child, at school or at home. Period.


As a youth, I was spanked from time to time. I learned nothing about being a better person from it, and certainly nothing about being a better parent. Effective punishment can be meted out in other ways and the line separating discipline from abuse has gotten too easy to cross. I’ve long felt, in fact, that responsibility to circumcise is placed on the father precisely so that he will inflict upon his child a ritualized blow so intense as to make him recoil, yet so controlled that no damage is really done, to signify that this will be the worst the child will ever know from his parent's hand.


This month, New Mexico became the 31st state to ban corporal punishment in schools , though it is still allowed in American homes . Dozens of other nations, including Israel, have abolished corporal punishment in the family. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said: "We want (children) to learn every day in school, but to do that, they must feel safe first. You cannot do your best or concentrate academically if you are scared."

OK, so let’s begin by banning hitting American children, anytime, anywhere.

Even the author of Proverbs itself seems somewhat uncomfortable with that infamous “spare the rod” quote. Elsewhere in the book he says, “Train a child according to his way.”

Did you notice as you sat around the Seder table that nowhere does the Haggadah speak about whapping the Wicked Child into submission? On the contrary, the sages were supremely uneasy about hitting kids, and the Talmud counters “Spare the rod” with gems such as: “Anger in a home is like rottenness in fruit”; “Never threaten children. Either punish them or forgive them”; and,” If you must strike a child, do so only with a shoelace.”

Remember the notorious commandment in Deuteronomy to stone to death a stubborn and rebellious son? According to the Talmud, it was never carried out, as the rabbis went to almost absurd lengths to legislate it out of existence.

So we’ve evolved since biblical times, but we still have a long way to go. Rabbi Mark Dratch points out that many Jewish children, like children everywhere, are the victims of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Our chief problem is no longer in how we mete out punishment, but how we abuse children even when reprimand isn’t on the agenda. In the Abraham story, the Torah sent a strong moral message opposing the prevailing practice of child sacrifice. Now, parents have found far more subtle ways to humiliate and torture their kids.

Where there was once "the strap," now we have the college admissions process.

Last month my synagogue screened “Race to Nowhere,” a devastating indictment of our achievement culture that has spawned a movement to transform education and safeguard the health of young people. As I watched this sobering film, the troubling questions kept coming, and they’ve been gnawing at me for weeks.

What are we doing to our kids? Are we literally killing them by piling on the homework and constantly demanding more, forcing them to poison their bodies with stress, stimulants and sleep deprivation? Are we killing their souls by giving them no choice but to cheat in order to keep up and by viewing their accomplishments solely from the prism of a college resume or GPA? Are we denying them a real childhood or preparing them for the pressures of the real world? And is all this "teaching to the test" actually robbing them of the ability to think, to intuit and to explore? Are we robbing them of curiosity and creativity - and in doing so, are we robbing this nation of what it says it wants, a generation of young adults who know how to innovate and think for themselves?

We are grinding our children through numbers machines, turning them into little walking computers, squeezing the humanity out of them, willingly sacrificing quality at the altar of quantity, always asking them for more (or as one girl in the film said, she hates the word "and" because no matter how many accomplishments she can rattle off, the response is always "and???")

The Talmud suggests that parents are obligated to teach their children basic survival skills, like how to swim. Instead, too many of us are throwing them to the sharks. So, while your question is well taken, the problem is far deeper than corporal punishment. The moral issue of the moment is not about whether it’s OK to use the paddle on kids in classrooms. It’s that we are forcing them to row upstream without one.

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Stamford, CT. Read more Hammerman on Ethics here. Read his blog here

Jewish Education, the Seder and "Race to Nowhere"

How can the Seder save our education system? See this parsha packet for a collection of articles and information about the roles of parent and education system, the film, "Race to Nowhere" and how it all relates to the Passover Seder. (Also see in another posting my reflections on "A Race to Nowhere")

Why is the Seder so educationally sound?

1) It is multi-generational

2) NO TESTING, therefore, no teaching to the test. The lessons are learned through annual repetition and experiential activities.

3) It is done by the family - at home - and not at school. The parents are fully engaged as educators

4) Participation is individualized, according to the needs and abilities of all students (the Four Children)No child is ever left behind.

5) Through dramatic reenactments and visual aids (seder plate and those plagues bags), the lesson comes alive. We are THERE 6

) Food - 'Nuff said

7) It is decidedly low-tech. No distractions

8) A little wine can't hurt - but all is done in moderation

9) Games and rewards - bribery is a good thing. 1

0) Time Management skills are taught. It's a long lesson but you have to finish eating by midnight.

11) Music always helps. S

ee the packet for more details.

"Race to Nowhere" - Jewish Sources

“Race to Nowhere” - Jewish Sources

The Talmud delineates certain obligations that a parent has toward a child (they are stated in the masculine, but, aside from the obvious, we can extrapolate to females too):

"A father is obligated to do the following for his son: to circumcise him, to redeem him if he is a first born, to teach him Torah, to find him a wife, and to teach him a trade. Others say: teaching him how to swim as well." (Kiddushin 29a)

What does this mean? Parents must:

- Give their child the chance to take root in the Jewish community through the rituals of initiation

- And to gain proficiency and literacy in Jewish ethics and culture, through the study of our sacred texts (so that they will become good people and comprehend the Jewish vision of the good life)

- In sum, a child has a right to a Jewish identity.

- In obligating a parent to find a child a spouse, the Talmud indicates that parental responsibility extends beyond childhood, until (at least) the children have the means to live fully independently. For some kids, that time may never occur. - But in the hopes that it does, parents are obligated to teach the child a trade. The Talmud states “Anyone who does not teach his son a skill or profession may be regarded as if he is teaching him to rob.” (Kiddushin 29a)

- As for swimming, parents are obligated to provide their children with basic survival skills, so that they won’t drown, either literally or figuratively. In our time, time management skills could be considered survival skills. If kids are staying up all night and gulping down stimulants and pulling all nighters simply to get their homework done, we parents and educators are failing our job.


Some more pearls of wisdom from the Talmud on education:

• Never threaten children. Either punish them or forgive them. (Semahot 2:6)

• Denying a child religious knowledge robs the child of an inheritance. (Talmud Sanhedrin 91b)

• Every parent is obligated to train his/her children in the observance of mitzvot, for it is written: "Train a child according to his way." (Proverbs 22:6)

• Mothers should introduce their children to the Torah. (Exodus Rabbah 28:2)

• A father should be careful to keep his son from lies, and he should always keep his word to his children. (Sukkah 46b)

• If a small child is capable of shaking the lulav correctly, his parents should buy him his own lulav. (Sukkah 28a)

• Anger in a home is like rottenness in fruit. (Talmud Sotah 3)

• Rabbah said that a parent should never show favoritism among his/ her children. (Talmud Shabbat 10b)

• A parent should not promise to give a child something and then not give it, because in that way the child learns to lie. (Sukkah 46b)

• The parent who teaches his son, it is as if he had taught his son, his son’s son, and so on to the end of generations. (Talmud Kiddushin 36)

• The parent who instructs by personal example rather than mere words, his/her audience will take his/her counsel to heart. The parent who does not practice what he/she so eloquently preaches, his/her advice is rejected. (Commentary to Ethics of Our Fathers)

Source: http://www.madrichim.org/contents.aspx?id=2244

Jewish Parenting Website, with a Twist

Here's a Jewish Parenting website for today's parents, one that goes way beyond the old formats, beyond the recipes for Lokshen Kugel. It's called Kveller.com, a website for those who want to add a Jewish twist to their parenting. For many of us, this is no simple matter. There is no one way to parent Jewishly, and Kveller isn’t out to change that. Whether you grew up observing Shabbat every Friday night, or had your first taste of matzo ball soup when you married into a Jewish family, the ways you can incorporate Judaism and Jewish culture into your parenting style are diverse. Kveller is here to give you ideas for your children’s early years--ideas for first-time parents, interfaith parents, queer parents, adoptive parents, and everything in between--with the hopes that you can find information and inspiration that is right for your family.

It's for grandparents too! You can even learn how to be a Tiger Bubbe.

I recommend it.

'Twas the 8th Night of Haunukkah

This week I received my annual plea from parents on what to say to a Jewish child who wants a Christmas Tree at home.

I'll begin with a poem....

'Twas the 8th night of Chanukah and all through the shul
Not a word was included of a holiday called Yule
It's not that we're trying to defy old Saint Nick
It's just that it's now time to go and Bensch Lick!

OK, a little poetic license was taken. Bensch Licht, BTW, is Yiddish for lighting Shabbat candles. My point is that we have so much love and warmth and light in our own Jewish rituals that having a Christmas Tree should not be an issue. At least it should not be for the child whose ENTIRE YEAR is filled with those worthy Jewish substitutes. We just need to spread the wealth around. We can't fight this battle in December alone.

Shabbat is a weekly chance to "gather around the tree," albeit a tree of wax, for a moment of reflection and a warm hug. And the day is bookended by candles, with the multi-colored multi-wicked havdalah candle accompanied by sweet smelling spices at the end. Then throw in the Sukkah and the family festivals of Passover and, most fun of all, Purim, and you've got more than enough to compensate for the tree.

We also have Hanukkah, but if we are lining the two holidays up against each other, Hanukkah will never win. So if it's a one-on-one, fahgeddabout it. See this video from the Daily Show if you need more proof. And this week's issue of the New Yorker has some amusing "tips to help the sensitive Christian make everyone, no matter what they’re wearing on their head, feel at ease."

I particularly like #9: Change the words to popular Christmas songs, as in “Frosty the Orthodox Rebbe,” “Deck the Halls with Photos of Your Many Beautiful Grandchildren,” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Our Accountant.”

In the end, the Christmas Tree is a religious object, "pure and symbol." (click here to see a terrific comprehensive listing of the Christian symbols involved). Anyone who calls the tree a secular matter is simply, well, barking up the wrong evergreen. Want a secular symbol in your school? Fine. Tell the principal to leave the tree up an extra month and use it to celebrate Tu B'Shevat!

So what is the best response? I've always felt that kids need a firm grounding in one faith and, if that faith is to be Judaism, it is best to keep the tree out of the house. However I see no problem in helping Christians celebrate their holiday in other houses, hospitals or homeless shelters, as my family has done at Pacific House for years.

And then, as much as possible and all year, long, we need to light those Jewish flames. This is especially true in this era of mixed identities and the blurring of lines. For kids, the response is to affirm the values, warmth and joy of our tradition.

Now if it's the adult who wants the tree, that's an entirely different question.

As I wrote a few years back in an article entitled, "The Litmus Tree,"

I suspect that our Evergreen Envy began to rise concomitantly with the dimming of the Shabbat candles in our homes. As Jews became less secure in the glow of their own rituals, they became more fearful of succumbing to the ways of our neighbors, subconsciously recalling the warning of Psalm 106:35: "They mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. They worshipped their idols, which became a snare to them." What’s nice is that, at least in some quarters, this is leading to an upsurge in observance of Jewish celebrations. People are recognizing that a Sukkah is really a Christmas tree that you can eat in, and that the warmth of Shabbat comes not once, but 52 times a year.

Happy Hanukkah to all
...and to all... Laila Tov!