“ . . . TO ALL WHO CALL UPON HIM . . . “

Even if you have read this column before, I implore you to read it again through eyes that are refreshed, as mine are, in the recent birth of my first grandson, Simeon Isaac Wilson, son of Joey and Jessica, named for my late dad, may he rest in peace:

The birth of my first grandson, Simeon Isaac Wilson, named in memory of my dad, again transports my spirit back to the summer after my Bar Mitzvah, 1963, and to a lesson that has taken a lifetime to learn . . .

I returned from Camp Ramah that summer wildly pumped up on Judaism, under the hypnotic influence of a beloved counselor, Jerry Mann. Jerry Mann had Paul Newman’s eyes and a persona that vacillated between the Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch and a carnival barker. His avowed purpose was to target a camper or two each summer and charm them into religious orthodoxy. Jerry was very good, even magical. I was overweight, bookish, awkward, a ready receptor for his charisma.

So much for summer. Translating newfound piety to my parents' household became an inch away from total disaster. My mother and father did not take kindly to the idea of their science-and-math prodigy son spending the rest of his life hunched over the Talmud or never again tearing toilet paper on the Sabbath. I gave them good cause for distress, for at the tender age of 14, I suffered grievously from the ravages of the newly converted. I reeked of that typical adolescent arrogance and intolerance that disdains anyone who did not see Jewish practice exactly way that Jerry Mann had taught me to see it: Whose prayer shawl was longer? Who would not trust the reliability of whose observance of the kosher regulations? Having raised their son in a home full of compassion and liberal thought, my parents panicked that my newfound inclination toward self-righteousness might not simply be a passing phase.

My mother was usually the designated moralizer and disciplinarian. Ironically, though, this time my dad intervened. To the casual observer, my dad appeared to be an amalgam of Dick Tracy and Ollie North: an army colonel, director of a federal crime laboratory, expert marksman. Those who were closer to him knew better. I most remember the fragrance of his Old Spice that evening as he forced to a head the issue of his son's sanctimoniousness masquerading as religious conviction. I sat fidgety on the naugahyde couch as he lectured me in carefully measured words and tones: "You will be whatever you choose to be,” he said. “But when you say Ashrai (Psalm 146) three times a day, think about the words: 'The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him sincerely.’"

How I would like to tell you that I hugged him a now-I-see-the-light hug and swore to be self-righteous no more. Nevertheless, I can say that he planted a seed. The seed went dormant, sprouted a little and required considerable fertilizing. But, slowly I have come to cherish the lesson enveloped in the fragrance of Simeon Wilson the Elder’s Old Spice. I know now that it has led me to seek companions who saw a world in which people might find different, yet equally consecrated, ways of drawing near to God. It ultimately pulled me away from rigid orthodoxy, because the world too easily mistakes mindless, mechanical ritual for sincerity and largely ignores the larger issues that confront humanity in the specter of mobs when they are incited to fanaticism. Then, blind obedience to manipulative, self-serving authority becomes a convenient, but malevolent, substitute for real piety, humility, compassion and basic human decency.

Serendipitously, this story took one more turn: Shortly before my son Joey’s (Simeon’s dad’s) Bar Mitzvah, I chanced upon a long-forgotten, tattered slip of paper. I did not recognize the handwriting, but the date was my own dad's Bar Mitzvah, 1928. It then dawned on me that this was my Grandpa Julius's handwriting. He had inscribed to my father that very same verse from Ashrai with which my father had lovingly admonished me in the year of my own Bar Mitzvah: "The Lord is near to ill who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him sincerely.”

So, a generation passes, and words come full circle from father to son and then back again, not so much as theological doctrine, but as practical advice:

A flowery show of outward piety, or shrewdness in business, or eloquence of speech, or the color of one’s clothes or skin, does not determine the real worth of a human being. The real worth of a human being is determined solely by the sincerity by which s/he lives his/her life. No shortcuts. No fancy tap dances to obscure the truth that one cannot buy God off with flashy externalities or demagoguery.

Thus, we are obliged not to sit over others as exalted judge-and-jury, not to confuse pious bluster for enduring substance. We are not to divide the world into a foreboding place “of us versus them,” in which the "us" is all-noble and the "them" is the damnable source of all evil.

And, a quarter-century later, to my great sadness, a new Simeon Wilson is ushered into a world that is too easily suckered into show-religion as a flimsy mask for arrogance and intolerance. Yet, this new, wondrous Simeon Wilson still irresistibly takes me back to my own innocent days, his namesake’s tenderness, and a pivotal moment when a holy spark bonded to my soul and shaped my life's sojourn.

Shall we leave our kids to inherit a world in which spiritless edifices, pulpit-thumping egomaniacs and the misanthropic agendas of tyrants wreak only oppression and pain? Or, might we, too, leave them visions of a world in which we cherish each other for the sincerity by which we live, not for the label in our outfit, or the building at which we worship, or the power of our position?

With God’s help, I will certainly be there to teach a new Simeon Wilson the sacred verses of Ashrai. And my dad’s spirit will also be by his side. And, little Simeon will know that each Ashrai we recite will be recited in memory of the man who left him his name and his legacy. Please God, let it not take this new wondrous creation quite so long as I took to get it right.

Oh, and that tattered shred of paper dated 1928? It is now in Joey’s hands, waiting for Simeon Isaac’s Bar Mitzvah day, when please God, he will receive it as his own legacy for generations yet to be born.