Can You Believe? Becoming a Great Grandparent

 My dear great grandson Shai,

It is truly miraculous to me that I have now lived to see and hold a  great grandchild!

My own children did not even know either of their grandfathers, my father and my wife’s father having died before we were even married. Now I have been able to see eight grandchildren born, two married, and now the first of – who knows – my great grandchildren!

I doubt that my parents or their generation ever saw or knew a grandparent, let alone a great grandparent. In Lithuania, where my grandparents were born, nearly all Jews lived in closed religious’ communities—ghettos—most of them in extreme poverty, subject to pogroms. My memories of my grandparents were of elderly, sickly people who spoke in a foreign tongue – Yiddish – and never shared stories of their past. I never knew, until just a few years ago when I started dabbling in genealogy (with 23andMe) that my paternal Bobbe Gitel had many siblings, several of whom perished in the Holocaust as part of the Nazi’s final solution plan to the “Jewish problem.” 

Shai, you know what was the “problem” our people posed to the German regime? We bothered them because our very existence haunted them.  Mark Twain, a non-Jewish writer in the late 1890’s, admired our people and marveled at the secret of our longevity: “The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind.  All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains.”  

What is the secret of our immortality? The Torah emphasizes the connection between generations in terms of Jewish tradition, and perhaps even more importantly, in terms of Jewish destiny. “Know from whence you came” is, so to speak, the call to arms of Judaism. Knowing one’s family, its history and traditions, its accomplishments and failures, warts and all, make up the stuff of Jewish life and the secret of Jewish survival. The ability to span generations, to know of the past and of one’s own heritage and lineage, is a necessary Jewish trait of resiliency. 

Rabbi Berel Wein beautifully explained that great grandparents help to provide social capital, the transmission of learned knowledge: “The merit of previous generations is the bank account upon which later generations can draw sustenance and strength. But that presupposes that one knows the name of the bank and the account number where that treasure is being held. And that can only be known through the personal bond between generations in a family.” 

My dear Shai, I hope you will see me as a part of the memory bank for your generation, a sturdy safe-deposit box, if you will.  I want you to know that your namesake was the role model par excellence, the Fort Knox of Jewish memory banks.

I held you while you were being named after the late Rabbi Shaya Kilimnick, ZTL, who passed away last year. At age 23, he was the youngest pulpit rabbi of an Orthodox congregation in America. He was an extraordinary man who was blessed with a once in a generation magnetic personality. He had a natural ability to converse or banter with anyone, Jew or Gentile, from the most brilliant scientist to the smallest child.  Rabbi Shaya was a joyful transmitter,  a rabbi who loved his role and lived to pass on Jewish beliefs and values. Possessing a terrific sense of humor, he was fun to be around. He had a genius for making everyone feel valued and special, for bringing a smile to people’s faces. In the last two years of his life, Rabbi Shaya, sadly, was a broken man after a brain aneurysm left your great grandmother Nechie in a vegetative state. But you know who brought a smile to Rabbi Shaya’s face just before he passed away? You did! You see, it was at that time that your Zeyde Yosef told his father the good news that your mom was pregnant. Rabbi Shaya died shortly thereafter, and Zeyde Yosef couldn’t help noticing that his father passed away with a smile on his face - thanks to you! 

When I entered this world, the US was at war. Pearl Harbor had taken place months before I was born. World War II was in full force, and the Nazis were daily exterminating tens of thousands of men, women, and children. 

The front page of the papers in the day you were born talk about the world mired in another war, a war against a worldwide pandemic. Now, as in the 40s, there are stories of survival and triumph, of people like Edith Eger who rose from the horrors of Auschwitz to become a fabulous mental health expert; I hope someday you will read her marvelous book The Choice. The state of Israel, which I have been blessed to visit numerous times, also materialized right after the war; in 1948,  a 2000-year-old dream became a reality. And this past year Israel has for the first time entered into the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations with several Arab countries in the regions.

Speaking of Abraham, you have followed the example he first set and have been initiated into our faith in the circumcision ceremony. This was painful to say the least. Our tradition believes that to pursue what is holy, we will, without question, incur hurt and disappointment over and over. Much of our history is precisely that – immense physical and emotional suffering inflicted on people who dared to dream with God. Blood has been drawn for and from our dreams far too often; the rite of circumcision reminds us of that with painful poignancy. At the same time, we are reminded of the ecstatic joy of dreaming God’s dreams, being partners in the world so desperately in need of healing and unity.

In my own lifetime, Jewish life has changed drastically, a result of the horrific experience of the Holocaust, the establishment and flourishing of the state of Israel and the accomplishments of North American Judaism. I was born in 1942, 78 years ago. Shai, if you live “ad maya v’esrim”  for 120 years or more, I hope, then you will be well into the 22nd century. Taken together, my life and yours add up to close to 200 years. My own father was born in 1909. Who could have imagined two world wars, the internet, computers, cell phones? Equally so, it is nearly impossible to envision the world 80-90 or more years from now. You will live to experience this nearly unimaginable future.

I wonder how your life will be impacted by your genetic past, including mine and that of Great Grandma Annette? I dream that you might love science, literature, music and arts, that you might become a businessperson, a scholar, a health care professional, that you might find love and community, be strong and kind, warm and determined. What kind of a Jew will you become? I want to live long enough to observe your growth and, even in a small way, influence the person that you become.

The world into which I was born and even today is a cacophony of conflicting and confusing convictions and raw realities. It is easy to become cynical, pessimistic, and disillusioned. I hope we are interlocked in an eternal symbiotic relationship, and I hope I can serve as a reservoir of direction, knowledge and inspiration for you as you embark on life’s adventures.

As you grow older and wiser perhaps you will also read my copious publications. I started writing articles each year around the time of my parents’ yahrzeits to help me cope with my sense of loss, and this has grown into a family tradition. Through Newsletters, Playbills, poems, and story books, I have become the auditor of your family’s milestones, the chronicler of the people and events that define our Jewish identity and heritage. In those many pages, I write about things I wish my grandparents and parents had shared with me, such as births and deaths, marriage proposals and weddings, bar and bat mitzvot, vocations and avocations, retirement and recreation, courage or lack thereof, and dreams and values. As a psychologist, I also share my thoughts on handling stress and finding authentic happiness. All of these archives may surprise and possibly enlighten you. One can always hope, can’t one?

  My blessing is that the Divine presence will always dwell near you as you embark on the marathon of your life. My dream, little man, is that you will pass the baton of responsibility and covenant to children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, who will do the same.