“Ironically, because you have been blessed with such good fortune, your struggle in life becomes even harder. Your struggle is not to get but to be. To be is harder.”
By AHARON E. WEXLER‘I READ everything from Stephen King to Soren Kierkegaard.’(photo credit: JOHN ROBINSON/FLICKR)
Dearest Itamar, Shma bni mussar avicha v’al titosh torat imecha (“Listen, my son, to the teaching of your father, and do not neglect the Torah of your mother”).You are now a bar mitzvah, a full-fledged member of your people. You now represent a fully formed link in a chain that connects you 80 generations back to the destruction of the Second Temple and 130 generations to the encounter on Sinai. There on Sinai, you entered into a covenantal relationship with God, and on your eighth day your blood was shed as a sign of that covenant.It’s been 13 years since that the day of your brit and your young soul might not be ready to hear what I have to tell you now, but I hope you will read these words in the future and understand them then.You have been incredibly blessed. You are so blessed that you don’t even understand how lucky you are. Not only do you live in a reconstituted sovereign Jewish state; but you are healthier, wealthier and have more opportunities than 99% of human beings on earth. In fact, you have it better than 99.9999% of human beings who have ever lived.And you have literally done nothing to deserve this.All of this is a happenstance of birth, a quirk of DNA; a gift from God on high.Your Grandma Mona once wrote me a letter over 30 years ago, saying, “Materially you have everything.Most people spend a good part of their lives trying to accumulate all of the material items they can think of.This is not your struggle in life.
“Ironically, because you have been blessed with such good fortune, your struggle in life becomes even harder.Your struggle is not to get but to be. To be is harder.”Mommy and I will always be there for you, but we can never be for you. The things that are really important in life we cannot give to you, because you must give them to yourself.You must use your incredible head start in life as a tool to make your own way in the world. The best path forward is to be a man of faith, integrity and kindness.What else can I say to you? The Master of the Universe has blessed us with an amazing son. A jewel! A star! An Itamar! There are many smart and nice kids around. But you are truly a remarkable young man. When you are called upon to be better than you feel like being at any particular time, you rise to the occasion.You are kind, mature and giving. You are perceptive beyond your years. Evolutionary biology has decreed that I would automatically love you, but you made me actually really like you as well! You are a pleasure to be with. I actually value your opinion and really enjoy your company. You are sensitive and wise way beyond anyone else your age.Once, when you were four years old I told you the story of the sun and the moon and how originally they were created as equals. When the moon complained to God that there cannot be two kings in the sky, God said “You’re right! Make yourself smaller!” When the moon accepted upon itself the decree, God created the stars to help it illuminate the night. After hearing this story you incredulously asked: “Is that true?” To which I replied, “Of course it is!” You quickly exclaimed: “But moons don’t talk!” I replied back that you were right and that the story was true in the lesson it teaches. I thought I had dodged a bullet when you seemed to have accepted that answer.Two years later when we were learning how to read the Book of Genesis, we came across the section talking about the exaggerated ages of the early men in the Bible living for hundreds of years, and you quickly asked: “Is that true or is it like the story of the sun and the moon?” It was then I realized that I had someone very, very, special in front of me.You have a deep relationship with God. Never give up on that. There is one thing that all my philosophical journeys never let me abandon: the belief in a personal God that takes an active interest in us.There is one failing you have. You do not read. Everything I have accomplished in life was because I was able to take the raw good fortune that my parents and God gave me and refined them through 40 years of books.The greatest gift your grandmother gave me was when I was seven years old, she took me to the NYC Public Library in Staten Island and signed me up for an Adult Library Card. She took me every Friday to the library and I came home with a stack of books.I read everything from Stephen King to Soren Kierkegaard.I read Dosteyevsky and Jeffrey Archer. Trashy novels and academic literature. Science fiction, fantasy, Faust and Harav Soloveitchik. Through these books, I discovered Judaism, Zionism and Jewish history. And it is because of books that we now live in Efrat in a beautiful home with your amazing mother and your four wonderful siblings.It is a gift I have tried to give to you, but you are unwilling to receive it. The stupid YouTube videos you watch will not broaden your horizons, they will only deaden them. They will not expand your imagination or give flight to your soul.Please start a relationship with the printed word! Along with the universe at large, those words hold the keys to the kingdom of Judaism. Your natural religious instincts will have nowhere to go without the written guidance of the Sages that preceded you. Think of each book as in invitation to take their hands and walk through the Garden of Eden with them and let them share with you and show you the particular wonders only they perceive.One more thing I want to share with you is an idea I heard from David Plotz: “The two traits that best define good character are empathy and self-control.”I am going to repeat that because I want that to sink in: “The two traits that best define good character are empathy and self-control.”The rest is commentary; go read!The writer holds a doctorate in Jewish philosophy and teaches in post-high-school yeshivot and midrashot in Jerusalem.
