[todaysdate]
By Hyphen Parent
“Us humans have always been as made up of stories as we are of blood and guts and bones. From the very beginning, people have told stories. They sang them and danced them and spoke them and painted them on the walls of caves and carved them into living trees and etched them onto bones, so that their children and their children’s children would remember them and use them to find meaning and purpose in their existence. To this very day, almost all religious texts are stories, because we don’t learn how to live or why we live from lists of rules or lengthy sermons. We figure out our truths by stretching ourselves across other people’s fictional worlds. We test our boundaries, we process our own personal moral codes, we try on different vocations, we examine our sexualities, we summon courage, we dig up hope, we ask questions we’re too afraid or unallowed to ask in real life. And yeah, sometimes we escape to other worlds, because our world can be cruel and unyielding and our spirits need a safe place to rest.”
You are the closest I will ever come to magic.
I painted you a picture with that, but you didn’t understand. So let me take this rare occasion of complete silence and your rapt attention to explain.
Girls, you are made of blood, and bones, and love, and stories.
There was a time when we feared your stories may be far too short.
Lily and Ellie were born two months too soon. They were the tiniest babies we had ever seen. During their time in the The neonatal intensive care unit, Ellie’s weight fell to under two pounds and Lily was down to three pounds. When they were born, the doctors immediately recognized Lily had problems with her lungs and whisked her away. Ellie’s heart problems, however, wouldn’t be diagnosed until later, so their father was allowed to carry her to the NICU. Her entire body fit in one hand. That night, the doctor terrified me when he said of Lily, “If she makes it through the night.” She made it and continued to improve steadily. Although, as Lily improved, Ellie weakened. Ellie suffered a number of complications. She was so covered in wires and monitors and in such danger that we weren’t even able to hold her until she was more than a week old. We nearly lost her.
Never forget that your existence is a miracle. You are here today. You are the great granddaughters of Shoah (Holocaust) survivors. You are Jewish girls standing on the bimah (altar), davening (praying), reading Torah. Bubbe (Bubbe is Yiddish for “Grandma.” Our children call their great grandma “Bubbe”) never could have guessed 80 years ago that this would be a part of her story. To listen to the family stories that came before you and even your own early story is to recognize that you should not exist. Yet you do. This is the story G-d, Bubbe, Daddy, and I have given you. Where your stories go from here is entirely up to you. While you have the privilege of elements of a shared story, yours is entirely your own. Through Bubbe, your grandparents, your father, and I, you are blessed with the tradition, the words, the ethics of the people of the book. “Torah is meant for everyone. It is a living, breathing document – the lifeblood of the Jewish people.” It is as much yours as it was your great great grandfather’s. Yet the life experience you bring to your study of Torah—the ideas, the creativity, the voices are uniquely your own.
This weekend, your great great grandfather’s Kiddush cup (wine glass used in ceremonies and on Shabbat), taken with him when he escaped Nazi Germany is up here on the bimah because that is part of your story. We blessed then poured the wine from his into your cups because what continues is all yours.
We marvel at your artwork. We listen to your plans. We read with you. We debate with you. We look at you and are in awe of your beauty. We turn away in happy tears when we watch you stand up for someone else. Your empathy, your intelligence, your beauty, your voices, your very existence is proof there is something more. You are the closest we have come to magic.
You exist because of the struggles, the dreams, the hopes, the faith, the stories, the love of family members—some here today, some far away, and some lost to this world long before you were born. As a child, I groaned when my father shared family stories with me—often the same one over and over and OVER again. Yes that story about cousin Etienne was funny the first two times, Dad, but by the 30th or 40th, not so much. But you know what, girls? I tell you those very same tales because through those stories, I came to know and understand relatives I hardly knew or never even met. My family stories have helped give me an identity as a part of a whole. May our family stories help give your story a beginning.
You were each given a soul, a family, a history, a free will, a heart, an inquisitive mind, and so very many stories. Our hope is that you carry these with you through your lives.
Let them guide you, not define you. Your stories are intertwined with your father’s and mine, with your grandparents, your aunts, uncles, cousins, your brother, sisters, and friends. You are a part of their life stories and they are a part of yours. Yet never forget you are your own storyteller. Your stories will be shaped by your loves, your losses, your travels, and so much more and they are yours to tell.
Thus far, the stories of Lily and Ellie have included chapters on ballet, Irish dance, books, family, Torah, singing, debating, tikkun olam (Lit “Repairing the World”, social justice pursuits), and far more dialog than should be humanly possible.
We have tried to give you the gift of stories from books, Torah, and family lure. G-d has given you the pen.
Your lives are your own stories. B’H (Initials for the Hebrew for “Thank G-d”) we have been blessed to be supporting characters in them. G-d, your father, and I have supplied the “Once upon a time.” Now we and so many others–your family and friends, are so very excited to see what you will write of the story of your lives.
