On friday I flew up to San Francisco in the morning on a quick turn around trip to perform a bris in the city. Every aspect of the ceremony was beautiful. The home was in a lovely picturesque area of the city. The mother and father spoke meaningfully about the baby's name and the family history. The guests were all visibly engaged in the entire moment. When the ceremony was over the father called a taxi for me so I could get back to the airport in time to make the early flight back to LA for shabbos and chanukah lighting. I was extremely anxious to make sure I wouldn't miss that flight. Even though there was plenty of time, I had to be concerned about luggage cut off times. As I am sure is obvious, my bris equipment is not able to be taken as a carry on. However, once I was in my taxi I ceased being in a rush. I will remember this taxi ride for some time. The driver, who's name is Gabriel, asked me right away if I was coming from a bris! I asked him an almost assumed assessment if he was Jewish which he was indeed. He then proceeded to tell me that he was brought up with virtually no Judaism and had almost no connection at this point either. We then embarked on a rich discussion about meaning and identity and living a life unexplored.
After telling him the story of Rabbi Akiva, I encouraged him to realize that it is never too late to begin exploring his own identity. Ironically, it is only now that I see an interesting tie to the bris itself. The grandfather of the baby and I had a discussion about keeping one's mind active in later years by learning new ideas. Gabriel told me that he didn't believe in God and that he chose to live his life by the "Golden Rule". What was most fascinating to Gabriel was when I told him that the only reason he believes that he should live by the notion that we should be kind to one another was because his people taught the world that notion. Besides the fact that without an absolute arbitrator of right and wrong the notion is ludicrous because the very idea of right and wrong would be so subjective I wanted Gabriel to understand the sheer joy of knowing that his identity as he sees it now is directly a result of his being Jewish. At first he was shocked. He wondered wasn't it the Greeks that taught us about empathy? Interesting, not if one looks at what Aristotle thought: "There must be a law that no imperfect or maimed child shall be brought up. And to avoid excess in population, some children must be exposed. For a limit must be fixed to the population of the state." (Aristotle, Politics, Book VII: ch.16) I encouraged Gabriel to begin a new journey in his "explored" life and uncover the richness of his heritage. Too often our "enlightened" society convinces us that because we are so cultured and advanced we don't need those backwards ideas of religion while in the same breath glorify the ancient civilizations that molded our world. Yet without the influence of our ancient religion the world would never have embraced our accepted "golden rules". Thank you Gavriel for being an angel of a driver.
After telling him the story of Rabbi Akiva, I encouraged him to realize that it is never too late to begin exploring his own identity. Ironically, it is only now that I see an interesting tie to the bris itself. The grandfather of the baby and I had a discussion about keeping one's mind active in later years by learning new ideas. Gabriel told me that he didn't believe in God and that he chose to live his life by the "Golden Rule". What was most fascinating to Gabriel was when I told him that the only reason he believes that he should live by the notion that we should be kind to one another was because his people taught the world that notion. Besides the fact that without an absolute arbitrator of right and wrong the notion is ludicrous because the very idea of right and wrong would be so subjective I wanted Gabriel to understand the sheer joy of knowing that his identity as he sees it now is directly a result of his being Jewish. At first he was shocked. He wondered wasn't it the Greeks that taught us about empathy? Interesting, not if one looks at what Aristotle thought: "There must be a law that no imperfect or maimed child shall be brought up. And to avoid excess in population, some children must be exposed. For a limit must be fixed to the population of the state." (Aristotle, Politics, Book VII: ch.16) I encouraged Gabriel to begin a new journey in his "explored" life and uncover the richness of his heritage. Too often our "enlightened" society convinces us that because we are so cultured and advanced we don't need those backwards ideas of religion while in the same breath glorify the ancient civilizations that molded our world. Yet without the influence of our ancient religion the world would never have embraced our accepted "golden rules". Thank you Gavriel for being an angel of a driver.
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