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SHELACH: CATCH ‘EM DOING
SOMETHING GOOD
by Rabbi Joel R. Schwartzman
I don’t know too many parents who aren’t proud of their kids…that is,
after those kids have reached a certain age! You know that I haven’t
chosen to say much about my own kids over the years I have been
rabbi’ing here at B’nai Chaim. Although Ilana spent a few very short
years attending Cherry Creek
High School, we really haven’t
raised
either Micah or Ilana in Denver.
They have been rare guests here in this
city. Their histories aren’t connected to or informed by Morrison,
Colorado, or Congregation B’nai Chaim.
Tonight, I want to drop the veil for a few brief moments and talk about
both kids. I say “kids” advisedly because Micah is turning 31 on Sunday
and Ilana is 27-and-a-half. So, although they may
be “kids” to Ziva and
me, they are really adults now in every other way.
As you may have heard, Ilana was ordained a
Reform rabbi this past
weekend in Cincinnati. And
before Bev Stromberg
and Sherrie Dormann have
their chances to recount /their /experiences of this weekend, (Ziva and
I are still bowled over and deeply touched by their wanting to schlep to
swampy Cincinnati and witness
all these goings-on), I wanted to give a
rabbinic father’s perspective. So before I actually get to the kids,
permit me a moment or two about my own journey.
Unlike Ziva who preceded me in flying to Cincinnati
so that she could
help Ilana arrange the various receptions for the
35 or 40 guests she
had invited, I arrived late on Thursday night. I had many mixed
emotions. I grew up in Cincinnati.
My father had been a professor of
Religious Education and Homilectics at the Hebrew
Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion. He, in fact, was the sole professor on that
faculty, then, to have had any real congregational experience. He had
been a beloved rabbi both in Augusta, Georgia,
where I was born, and in
Nashville, Tennessee,
where he both rabbi’ed for the largest Reform
congregation in that city, (a more than full time job) and concomitantly
got his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University…no
small feat, indeed. My
father taught /me/ at the Hebrew Union College during those last brutal
years of the Vietnam war…and the student body, like those at any
institution of higher learning during the 60’s and early 70’s, was no
fun to be around. So I was returning to the city of our Rabbinic
School,
and to all those memories. This weekend raised up in me many long
dormant memories of my own time at the College and Ordination ceremony
when my father blessed me and we embraced in a congratulatory bear hug.
But this was /Ilana’s/ ordination. Ziva and I didn’t have all that much
to do with her five year-post graduate, seminary experience. Of course,
there was the constancy of our encouraging her to /hang in there/ and
the reminder that the goal was to get done...just get done. Therefore,
having studied Modern Hebrew, Midrashic Hebrew,
Biblical Hebrew,
Mishnaic and Talmudic Hebrew; having studied Jewish
history, ancient and
modern; having invested herself in 500 hours of Clinical Pastoral
Education, some other counseling and social work classes, homiletics,
and Jewish Philosophy classes; having written and delivered both a
Junior year and Senior year sermon and written a Rabbinic thesis on the
figure of Lilith as she appears in the Midrash; having served
congregations both in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and Marian, Indiana;
Ilana processed, with 19 others of her
classmates, into the sanctuary of
Plum Street Avenue Temple in downtown Cincinnati on Shabbat morning, and
was duly ordained, as the President of the Hebrew Union College, Dr
David Ellenson, brought her forward before the
open ark, put his hands
upon her shoulders and blessed her. As Dr. Ellenson
stepped down, I then
ascended the stairs to the Ark,
almost tripping, but never actually
falling, on my father’s too lengthy rabbinic robes, as Ilana
guided me
up and steadied me to stand before her.
What a rabbinic father says to his daughter at the hour of her becoming
a Reform rabbi are words which will remain private. But the pride of our
family---my Rabbinic uncle, Allan, my father’s younger brother by 12
years, standing in tears, and the memories of both my parents and of
Ziva’s father were distinctly part of the moment.
Looking back, I do not remember the presence of the congregation other
than that it was big. I do remember Bonya Shur’s wonderfully and moving
Shabbat liturgical music, some of which /we /sing on Saturday morning.
But most of all, I shall always treasure the moment of seeing Ilana,
draped in my Grandfather’s tallit, glowing and
smiling as she literally
transformed into a rabbinic persona before my eyes.
Our daughter is a rabbi. Our son, Micah, is beginning his Law
School
professorship at the University
of Virginia. He is engaged to
another
soon-to-be UVA Law
School professor; that is,
after Leslie finishes her
clerkship with Supreme Court Justice, David H. Souter.
I am tempted to
pinch myself and ask how these kids managed to turn out so well? Is it a
question of nature or nurture? Surely they both inherit genes from very
good, grand-parental stock. But along with this, Ziva
and I seem to have
hit upon some truths in traveling down our own road of child rearing.
The most important lessons I can impart to you tonight, actually
reflects the Torah portion this Shabbat. In */Shelach/*,
Moses sends
forth those twelve spies. You remember that 10 of them bring back
reports which are frighteningly negative. Only Joshua and Caleb return
with descriptions that are encouraging and positive. Although the ten
win out over the two, the lesson is not lost on us that looking for the
good is a far superior way to live life and
inspire others. The
application of this lesson to raising our children is for us /to be
there/ for our kids and /to try to catch our children doing things
right/. Just as the spies only dwelt on what terrified them in the land,
parents tend to be so critical of their kids, especially when they are
in their teenage years. I cannot believe that incessant criticism
doesn’t drive a negative attitude deeper into the psyches of our teens.
Absorbed as they are in a search for their identities, teens need
encouragement more than they need derision. Yes, it is also true that
they need boundaries, but these do not have to be barbed-wired fences as
much as they need to be gates that encourage them to pass through and
enable them put their potentials to work in useful, productive and
creative ways.
I am more and more convinced that Bar and Bat Mitzvah, when approached
from a deeply spiritual and uplifting point of view, establish positives
that can carry young and not so young Jewish souls into a better, more
amicable future. Encouragement, effort, directed positive energy and
enthusiasm all wrap themselves in this ceremony to produce moments of
pride and feelings of accomplishment.
Having absorbed some of Denis Waitley’s
Psychology of Winning, and
having been raised in a home that was very demanding and competitive,
and which too often attempted to motivate through negative criticism, I
tried very hard, when I became a parent, to couch what I had to say to
both my kids in positive ways. Believe me, there were and are always
times when this can be the day’s biggest challenge. Just as importantly,
if not more so, was the need to determine what they liked to do and what
their strengths were and, then, to have encouraged them in those
activities. We therein wound up doing a lot of driving to debate
tournaments, theatrical plays, choir rehearsals and forensic meets.
I also believe that Ziva’s being there for the
kids, even to this day
and moment, was critical for their senses of
security and for having
their immediate questions answered and needs met.
Positive motivation and being present in their lives means so very much
in the development in our children’s lives. These factors help to shape
their self images, telling them that they matter, that they have
significant, God-given talents and that they have a contribution to make
to their society, a society, in fact, which is in desperate need of
productive, self confident and upstanding members.
In his address to the ordainees on Kabbalat Shabbat, my friend,
colleague and teacher par excellance, Dr. Richard
Sarason, spoke by way
of a charge and a blessing to the graduating students. His blessings
were a tri-fold approach which included: *Learning*…that they should
both relish the need to be involved in a life-time of Jewish learning;
and fulfill “their obligation to model, to mentor, to assist people who
also wish to follow in that path—just as [their] teachers at HUC, have
tried to do and to be for [them].”
The second charge was, of course, *to lead*. It could just as well have
been directed to Micah as a professor as Ilana in
her rabbinate...or,
for that matter, to you and me…because it is up to us to create a clear
and positive vision in our lives and for those we live and work with;
but most especially for those we love. It is upon us to walk the talk of
Judaism and to promote in ourselves and others a decent and righteous
way of living life.
Dr. Sarason’s third “L”, his last point which
also will be mine, was
that these ordainees should now go *live*. This
was not, however, a
“/l’chayim/,” but, rather, a directive to go and
live as Jews, as models
of what living totally Reform Jewish lives can mean, embodying a
commitment to Jewish belief, observance and caring. It is the most
valuable blessing of the three because it is essentially what the life
of a rabbi is all about.
Our daughter is a fully ordained “rabbi in Israel”…the
third generation
of Reform rabbis, and she now begins her rabbinic journey. Her mother
and I /sheb nachat/. We
are, indeed, very proud. We are also cognizant
of all the positive efforts, as well as genetic material, we tried to
instill in our kids. From this point forward, to a great degree, their
destinies are in their hands and in God’s.
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