“RABBI SANTA”

And in despair, I bow’d my head. “There is no peace on earth,” I said, “For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men . . .”

So wrote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of Christmas Day, 1863, deep in the most depressive shadows of the Civil War. Prophetic of our own times? Or, a timeless commentary on the melancholy that creeps into even the most optimistic mind when it ponders the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between shining ideals and morose daily reality.

Who would deny the melancholy? A fool? A saint? Since I am neither, I confess to an edge of holiday depression that neither Miracle on 34th Street nor Paxil could resolve. Worse this year than ever? Perhaps. 9-11 certainly has taken its toll. Kissing goodbye to my new granddaughter Sophie left a tremendous void. And, as the precarious roller-coaster of the congregational rabbinate goes, this has been a season of careening personal descent.

Hence, the afternoon that I had been ordained to play Santa Claus to 30 homeless children in Anderson County, I was in the foulest mood. I knew that there was no escaping. I do, after all, have the natural gift of girth and full, almost white beard. And, my wife was running the program, so the wages of failure would be painfully high.

Thus, a lot of muttering about “How did I get myself into this?” That, and knowing deep down that every “ho-ho-ho!” I would emit would be the shallowest playacting, so as not to disappoint kids who had suffered enough disappointments already. The spirit was “the show must go on”; joviality was way beyond expectation.

And then I walked in to the sparse community center. Radiant light shone from 30 sets of widening, innocent eyes: Santa! Santa! Look at my new shoes! Santa! Santa! I’ve been a good girl! Santa! Santa! Can we sing “Jingle Bells”? Santa! Santa! Do you have a present for me? So, I “ho-ho-ho’ed,” and asked each his or her name, and repeated it again and again, and told each one how beautiful or handsome she or he looked, and let them hug me and kiss me and cling to me as long as they wanted. Santa! Santa! You are a funny Santa! Santa! Santa! You are a nice Santa! Santa! Santa! I love you!

Each one sat on my lap and posed for a picture and got some presents. Most remarkably, each child was perfectly delighted by the teddy or dolly or little paint-by-numbers kit that I produced from my sack. Even the inevitable socks and underwear, so welcomed by their parents, met with little childish whining – certainly far less than I have ever heard among the children of the jaded upper middle class.

Oh, their luminous eyes. Oh, the innocent simplicity. Oh, the sweetness of their souls. Oh, the spontaneity of their joy, so free of self-consciousness. Oh, the purity of their spirit. I found myself, quite unexpectedly, awash in being their Santa, perhaps the only embodiment for these homeless babes of a world in which a warm swaddling of all’s-wellness enveloped them. Lifted from me, at least temporarily, were the nadir of cynicism and self-doubt and disillusionment that had laid me so low. For one sweet, sublime moment, I lost my mind and regained my sanity.

Let me tell you, dear friend: It should happen to you. You behold the radiant joy and sheer innocence of homeless babes reveling with their Santa. In a second, tears uncontrollably well up your eyes, and every ounce of your rationality melts away into an overwhelming wave of delicious compassion and love for God’s most fragile gift to an otherwise cold and ruthless world, the gift of life untarnished. And, for a blessed moment or two, your prejudices also melt away, as you partake in a crystalline vision of the world at one with itself, no us-versus-them, no slayers, no slain, no masters, no slaves, no rich, no poor, no oppressors, no oppressed, a common hope, a common destiny.

Oh, those kids did a number on me. In exchange for a couple of teddies and a few games, they gave me back the innocence of youth, the simplest joy of childhood, the passion and compassion that midlife and cynicism too easily extinguish. They blessed me with a sense that “peace on earth, goodwill to men” might one day become more than just an iridescent dream. Who could ask for more?