MAISHE CHAYIM, WE DARE NOT MAKE FUN

I was bullied.

Pudgy. Clumsy. Momma's boy. I was an easy target for the taunts of bullies who knew that I was more likely to run home crying than to stay and fight. Tough guys have a knack for meting out brutality on kids like me who are the most vulnerable.
I read about Phoebe Prince bullied into suicide, and I read it with an empathy that surmounts even my anger at the bullies. Perhaps . . . I think, it might have been me. Perhaps had I been a teenager, and not a ten-year-old, and there had been Facebook, and I’d been even a bit more vulnerable, and . . . and . . . and . . . Perhaps had it not been for the serendipity of birth – my time, my place, my mother – fate would have been so cruel to me as it was to Phoebe.

You see, one day in fourth grade, the moment arrived for me to test the hypothesis that it being the persecutor was sweeter than being the persecuted: There came Peter, plodding kid who limped. I accosted him in the schoolyard.
"You’re a bowlegged pig with lumbago!” I crooned. How I chose that particular jeer, I will never know.

I stood for an eternal second outside myself, stunned by the discovery of my untapped reservoir of cruelty. I watched Peter crumple. I will never forget the panic that twisted his face. He loped across the yard like a bewildered puppy to his mother's embrace. I chased behind, not knowing how to dispel the enormity of his hurt. I cowered as I surrendered to a mother's wrath.

But his mother simply shook her head and whispered a few words at me in a voice I now recognize as war-weary, "If you only knew how many tears we have cried . . . “
Mortified, I ran the eight blocks home, knowing as only a child that I could gain atonement only by confessing to my mother. She listened impassively as, between sobs, I choked out the story of the pain I had inflicted and my ensuing contrition.
"Maishe Chayim," she said, reverting to the Yiddish with which disappointment and counsel were dispensed, "M'tor nisht oplachen. We dare not make fun."

However many wrongs I commit with my errant life, I will forever be haunted by the image of panic-stricken Peter, his mother's whispered lament and my mother's wisdom. I pledge that I will haunt my kids with them, too. We dare not mock the differences and adversities of others. We dare not rejoice even when our adversaries stumble.

Why?

Because we were not put on earth to hurt. Because if I laugh in the moment of your distress, I have bequeathed to you the right to delight in my misfortunes. Because a society that luxuriates in hardship is on the road to being a society that is systemically heartless. Because a downfall, even when it is deserved, is not an occasion for intimations that we are above reproach.

Thus, we must teach our children even in their earliest years not to make fun of the child who limps or stutters or who can't catch or throw as well as the rest. We must teach them what vicious weapons words can be, how there has never been any act of treachery that did not begin with the abuse of speech.

Our children learn best when we show them that we live by the lessons we teach them: We must not toss off racial epithets. We must not grab a cheap chuckle from the sight of morons wearing tee shirts that extol hate-talk. “Just joking,” will we tell our kids? I think not, for Dr. Nietzsche’s wisdom will prevail: “A joke is the epigram on the death of a feeling.”

And, we must assiduously resist the impulse to gloat self-righteously over of public personages who have been scandalized, even when it is coming to them. For, if their excesses are to leave any ennobling lesson, it will never be found through our own hypocrisy. "M'tor nisht oplachen.” Evil is to be condemned. But, we dare not revel, for then we will have learned nothing.

So, that day I tried out the theory that it might be tastier to deliver the blow than to receive it. Peter, I will never forget the terror that crossed your face. I will never forget your mother's look of anguish, nor my mother's admonition that sealed the memory forever: "Maishe Chayim, we dare not make fun." Please know, Peter, that even if you do not remember, I will never forget and will forever beg your forgiveness.

As for you, Phoebe, now God be with you and rest in peace.

A LETTER TO A SON WHO IS JUST LIKE ME

Dear Ben,

Over the last days of Passover, I had plenty of time to think. It made me want to tell you where I am with my life, the peaks and valleys -- and tell it especially to you, since you are truly my child in your passions and gusto. You and I share a joie de vivre and lust that never tolerates anything halfway. You are not only religious, but Chasidic. When I was in the rabbinate, it wasn't "a job," but 24-7, often, I confess, to the neglect of you kids and mom. We like our steaks big, thick, and rare, our l'chayyims from the best single malt, our beer the most esoteric. Passion, lust, joie de vivre, man.

Thus, you have likely assumed that there is a reason that I spend most of my time rattling around an empty house. Sure, I learn some Talmud each day, do a little organization work, read, write. But, I guess I learned an ethos from Poppa and Opa that without a job, a man will never be complete. "They" say this is called "retirement," but in fact, it is really "an empty house."

The reason I am "retired" is because "they" say that I am disabled. Health, particularly the remnants of the stroke and the atrial fibrillation, have screwed up my equilibrium, prevented real exertion, and require that I rest at least an hour or so every afternoon. No, I do NOT have one foot in the grave. Everything I have is manageable, and I plan with God’s help to live a long life, at least to dance at the baby’s wedding! 99.9% of the time, my attitude is great. But I am missing just enough health to not enable me to work. I also don't do too well with being bossed around.

But, here is the cautionary part of the tale that relates to our profound similarities. My problems likely started out about 20% genetic. Unavoidable. But, 80% came simply from not taking care of myself, going back to my twenties. I can show you a handful of 13 pills I take every morning and night that keep me alive from irreversible damage caused by arterial blockages, arrhythmia (hence, pacemaker), diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke. (BTW, had it not been for an undeserved Divine intervention, I should have been dead from pancreatitis, had to have my heart zapped twice, and would have been deprived of ever seeing any of the grandkiddies.)

A lot of it has had to do with my weight fluctuating so radically -- definitely a function of the lust for food and drink that the two of us share. I have again gone to obese. Now, after a couple of recent health scares, I am back on a roll (bad metaphor), losing 30 pounds with another 20 to go, no goofy diets this time, just counting calories.

I am feeling so much better, clothes fit, can even walk up the hill to synagogue again. I am already so much healthier, even though I will still always have these chronic problems hanging over me, the ones that forced me to "retire" at the ridiculous age of 60.

None of this was intended to alarm or to be a bummer. I just thought you should have a clear perspective on where I am with things. AND because you are so much like me, I don't want you to have to face what I do in my relative youth.

To the contrary, I am a happy guy. I have a wonderful wife. I have a sense of peace with your mother. I have the best kids in the world. My stepkids honor me. And I have more delight than any ten grandparents deserve from my grandchildren. I have respect in my community and am known for being a catalyst for good things. I've made my peace with the synagogue and can even attend and get a little inspiration.

Yes, the health will always be a concern. Mine and yours. I think back on my life, and look forward even more hopefully to yours. I never want you to have to say, "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been' ... " (Whittier)

Always be the good boy you are. I love you.

Dad