FYI: I was asked to give an address for our synagogue on Kol Nidre, and Isaac provided the inspiration:
Shabbat Shalom and Good Yontiff—
First off, I’d like to welcome those here worshipping with us for the first time. Second, I’d like to apologize preemptively for the ostensible subject of my talk, which is my son Isaac and his struggle with sleep; like most new parents who talk to you about their kids, I’m presuming that we all share the same high level of interest in the doings of Isaac. However, if that’s not the case, I promise that what at first appears to be mere personal anecdote will come around to the real theme of my talk, one more relevant to this evening.
As many of you know this past spring, my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our son, Isaac. Many of you were there three weeks later as he (thankfully) slept through his naming ceremony. Like any proud parent, I could happily share with you some of the many lessons I’ve learned over these past five months—lessons practical (how to change a cloth diaper on the dirty floor of a Starbucks bathroom) and existential (how changing said diaper changed me). But I’m going to share one with you now that for me continues to be both pragmatic and profound.
This lesson came about when we began sleep training. It’s an odd phrase, but one no doubt familiar to some of you here tonight, you who were once desperate, drowsy, first-time parents, scanning the parenting section at Barnes and Noble for that one perfect book with a title like the No-Cry Sleep Solution that promises that your baby will sleep through the night and you will not feel like a monster. (Incidentally, the No-Cry Sleep Solution does not promise that.) Eventually, we settled on a book recommended by Anique’s sister, entitled the Sleepeasy Solution. During Isaac’s four-month checkup, we told our doctor that we were sleep training and he smiled and nodded, holding his tongue. At Isaac’s two-month appointment, in which we lamented the fact that he woke up every hour, that same doctor, himself a father of three, told us to get Isaac out of our room and into his own crib. “It’s time for Isaac to man up,” he said. At the time, Isaac sat in Anique’s lap, sucking on his fist, seemingly unaware of the directive he’d been given.
But our doctor was right, even if his wording differed from that used by the authors of the Sleepeasy Solution. By placing Isaac down awake in his crib, and leaving him alone in his room to ponder the ceiling, we were forcing him to man up. That first night, we gave Isaac his bath and dressed him in his jammies. We switched on his ocean sounds. He nursed, we sang to him, and then we placed him in his crib and left the room. While Isaac soon adapted to his new bedtime routine, there was crying. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. And so, on that first night that Isaac woke up crying and we didn’t immediately rush into his room, Anique and I held each other in our bed and cried right along with our son. That night, I pictured Isaac alone in his crib, unable to sit up, struggling to understand why we couldn’t hear him. Perhaps if he cried a little louder. Why wasn’t anyone coming?
In that moment, separated from my son by no more than a narrow hallway and a cracked door, I felt his vulnerability. In that moment, I felt vulnerable, unsure if we were making the right decision, uncertain if I was being a good father.
It seems to me that this shared space of vulnerability, in which Isaac and I both struggle to find solace, offers us a fitting metaphor for this space tonight, on Kol Nidre. The experience of Yom Kippur is often a deeply personal one. On Yom Kippur, and perhaps only on Yom Kippur, we must leave the comfort of our lives and enter a space in which we are vulnerable. It is a space from which our cries, though they may be heard, are not answered by the physical comfort of a parent’s touch.
On the benefits of experiencing God as Mother, Reb Zalman writes, that, “As adults, and children before that time, we are sometimes in need of the help that we got as children.” This help to which Reb Zalman refers is most evident in the love and warmth of a parents’ embrace, but I think it is also evident in those times when the parent must temporarily leave the room. As a member of B’nai Or, I’ve often felt this community’s warmth and love up close, during Friday night services, practicing with Selah, the B’nai Or band, at tribal gatherings and at potluck dinners. Though we have only been members for three years, a relatively short time compared to most of you, I feel that B’nai Or is my spiritual home.
However, tonight as we prepare for Yom Kippur, it is that other kind of warmth and support to which I want to draw our attention. That is, the way this community expresses love from afar. When asked to describe what makes B’nai Or so special, I often begin with a description of our services: “there’s meditation and singing and dancing—well, many of us dance, but you don’t have to, etc.” Yet, I think what makes B’nai Or so special for me is what happens out of services, when I am alone. The still-palpable excitement that so many of you expressed when you found out we were having a baby; the emails you sent us upon the announcement, on the listserve, of Isaac’s birth, blessings, congratulations punctuated with ten exclamation points, offers of help, reminders that we are connected. Most recently, it is evident in the beautiful work of the bereavement committee as it rallies around those most in need of our loving thoughts.
In the middle of the Sleepeasy Solution, in a section titled “Why Can’t I Hold My Crying Child?” the authors offer some suggestions for what we, desperate parents, can do while our child struggles to fall asleep. “Send your child calming, loving thoughts, envisioning her sleeping peacefully.” This is what B’nai Or does best and it is what I ask from you and for you this Yom Kippur. Framed one way, it is the help we need to “man up”; framed in a slightly different way, it is the help we need to sleep easy. On this Yom Kippur, let us strive to provide that safe space for one another, so that as individuals we may each feel the gift of being vulnerable while knowing that we are loved.
Kein yehi ratzon
