By Rabbi Ben Kamin
TEL-AVIV–At last, after the long and cramped flights, and the heady anticipation, my older daughter Sari and I arrived in Tel Aviv this past Monday afternoon. Within hours, I was enfolding my twin granddaughters in my arms for the very first time.
Tears filled my eyes and tickled my throat, like the salty waters of personal peace and uncommon redemption. I heard my departed father’s Semitic-tinged voice speak a line of his vaunted Hebrew poetry about the days of Israel’s hard-won independence. I saw my late mother gathering her day school first-graders and teaching them the Jewish blessing for life.
I remembered my long-gone grandmother teaching me from the Book of Samuel as we sat on her back porch looking at the Samarian Mountains—when the world was young and Israel was poor and filled with dreams.
When my daughter Debra was born, I was present (as I had been for her sister Sari). I distinctly recall her emerging from her mother’s womb like a moonrise. Now, 33 years later, Debra has given birth to twin girls and the stars are all lined up in reflection. Leela Mor and Anora Aviv have emerged into the world from our ancestral family home, Israel, and I look up at a clear Judaean sky in the autumn of my life.
My granddaughters, Leela and Anora, replace two of the innocents who never saw the light of day during the genocide that would have would turned our people into a rumor not so long ago. But I just want these two babies to feel that they are the beloved children of Debra and Yehuda—two American Jews who chose Israel in a better world that did not force them to flee there. My children and grandchildren are people who can choose—that’s the promise we all extracted from the ashes.
The arrival of Leela and Anora, in a shining medical Tel Aviv medical center, at the hands of a Hebrew-speaking medical team using cutting-edge technology, represents two more indicators that the Nazis did not win. These two pure little lives are stronger than all the brutality that has failed to shut down motherhood across this planet.
Beyond that, Leela and Anora bring meaning to my inner existence. I am 63 and well-acquainted (like anybody else) with the vicissitudes of life. I have buried both my parents, seen two marriages end, won and lost jobs, and I have certainly made my share of mistakes. I have become increasingly aware of my insignificance in a world moving past me at cyber-speeds and am thoroughly unimpressed with my paper bio. I actually know that it’s not about what I have; it’s what I feel.
Debra and Hudy, Leela and Anora, I find myself, sentimental and grateful, yet without any major proclamations. I don’t require any special recognition; life itself is my homeland. You sweet and first grandchildren of mine—I’m not concerned about what you call me and how you are raised are your parents’ purview, not mine.
I just want to make mention that you make all the crooked spaces straight for me; that you fill the holes in my heart put there by my own narrative; that you assure me that my life has not been lived for anything more important than to thank you for showing up.
*
Rabbi Kamin is an author and freelance writer based in Oceanside, California. He may be contacted via ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com. Comments intended for publication in the space below MUST be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the United States.)