Where’s the Final Child?

I sometimes think of those penguins when I speak to students who tell me that while their parents used to light Chanukah candles when they were kids, “now that we are grown up and gone, they don’t anymore.”

“Why did they light candles when you were young?” I ask them.

“So that we would light Chanukah candles when we grow up.”

“And do you light Chanukah candles now?”

“No, but when I have children, I will.”

“Why?”

“So that they’ll light when they grow up.”

This conversation always reminds me of the famous story of the Kotzker Rebbi who used to ask people to show him “the final child.” People neglect so many things in their lives so they can provide for their children — “I’d love to learn more, but I have to put aside money for my children.” And where is that child when he grows up? Busy as a bee putting away for his child’s future. So where is the final child who is going to make this all worthwhile? If we’re living only in order to produce the next generation, why don’t we all just get off the train right now?!

If the purpose of lighting candles is to ensure that the next generation light candles, let’s all stop lighting candles now and save a lot on oil and wicks.

Interestingly, if I light Chanukah candles not because I want my kids to but because of my personal relationship with Hashem, then there’s a good chance that they, too, will light when they grow up. I came here to do a job. At the moment it requires Chanukah candles, and it may also require putting my heart and soul into being mechanech my children about Chanukah. But Jewish continuity is not the goal here; it’s the byproduct.

The goal of the past and the bedrock of the future is the present. This moment, as I stand before Hashem, is the purpose of it all. I am the most important child I will ever raise.

This obviously does not mean that I run off and abandon my children in pursuit of my own “spirituality.” In fact, if I’ve been blessed with the awesome gift of children, it could be that my spirituality will be fulfilled by devoting 99.9 percent of my time to them. My relationship with Hashem requires that I be a good parent, that I make sure that my inner world spills over into theirs in a way that they can appreciate. But the motivating force is Hashem and what He wants from me. Being a responsible parent is an expression first and foremost of being an eved Hashem.

Appearances can be deceiving. If a woman has a big family, it might look like her entire identity is tied up with being a mother and wife. But not being a penguin, she has a higher goal. She’s a human being created in the image of G-d who was sent down here with a mission. If she’s lucky, her mission might involve having children. And once she has them, the significance of building a Jewish home and raising developed human beings might take up the bulk of her time and energy — but ultimately, she has a totally separate identity. She is here to create herself in whatever situation she finds herself.

This explains why the navi Yeshayahu promises that Hashem will give childless people “a name that is more eternal than children and that will never be cut off.” (Yeshayahu 56:5) If the goal was Jewish continuity, if all we wanted to do was perpetuate the species of candle-lighting Jews, then a childless person would be out of the game. And someone whose children had grown up would be put out to pasture as not having much to offer anymore. But this is not about the next generation. As we know from Parshas Noach, one’s good deeds are one’s most authentic offspring. The most important child I will ever give birth to is myself, and raising me is a mission that encompasses every second of my life.

How Does My Garden Grow?

I remember an older, secular woman at a bris expressing her sympathy for a young, frum woman who was juggling several young children and didn’t have a chance to sit down for a minute. “Isn’t it sad that she has to work so hard?” she muttered to her companion. “And so young! She never had a chance to develop herself!”

Interestingly, if the goal is “developing oneself,” of all the pursuits a person could engage in — career, talents, hobbies, volunteering — it is usually parenting that gets us in touch with our deepest selves. Parenting touches us in our most vulnerable spots and reveals parts of us we may wish we never knew about.

I have a friend who ruefully says, “I always thought I was a nice person, until I had children.” Our children know us when our defenses our down; they mirror back to us our true selves, and not necessarily the image we want to portray to the world. Parenting requires that we expand the borders of our constricted self by continual giving. Parenting helps us to become a person to whom “what do I want” is not the most important question. The home is the workshop where Judaism is produced and where it remains a vibrant, creative entity.

Ironically, it’s often specifically in the areas touted as the ones most conducive to “self-development,” in which we get to hide ourselves the most. What we are good at usually comes easily to us, and we get positive feedback for our talents with little effort. In a world that lauds achievement and accomplishment it’s easy for there to be a thunderous clash between our public and private persona. We always run the risk of creating a caricature of ourselves where certain skills are honed while our inner selves remain in kindergarten. The young woman at the bris may have been tired and worn out, but if the goal is self development, she was at the head of the line.

A Fingerhold on Eternity

For some women it might be helpful to get off the grandstand and resist bombastic proclamations of “ultimate tafkidim.” The tafkid of every Jew is to be an eved Hashem wherever he finds himself. Children need a mother, and if you are lucky enough to have children, it’s clear that your tafkid is to be there for them. Perhaps it isn’t necessary to rhapsodize about it. It’s okay if there is a part of you that, given your druthers, would prefer climbing mountains, singing a sonata, or writing an epic novel, to reading bedtime stories or helping a child do long division. Children need quantity time, and like with many crucial things in life, the wrappings can be less than enthralling. But eternity is there for everyone who makes the effort to touch it.

Recently, at the bar mitzvah of the youngest son of a friend who’s the mother of a big family, I had a moment of epiphany. Watching my friend hold court over this vast and growing kingdom, I remembered how she had told me that her grandmother had fought the doctors who wanted to abort her pregnancy, and had succeeded in carrying her baby (my friend’s mother) to term. That one little baby had resulted in the streams of humanity peopling this hall.

As one of her little grandsons toddled by, socks falling and pacifier drooping, I was struck by the fact that this little boy would likely be oblivious to his great-great–grandmother’s struggle. And yet here he is, full of life, with a future no one can predict ahead of him. He, too, will have his ups and downs, his moments of angst and ecstasy — and his own private and very personal relationship with Hashem.

Was raising children fun for that great-great-grandmother? I imagine that occasionally, yes. Was it comfortable? Perhaps more often not.  But this descendant will be able to continue the perpetual dance of humankind — his struggles an extension of hers — because she allowed her passion for life to spill over into the next generation.

In an ultimate sense, this is what life is all about. As avdei Hashem, we fight off finitude by grasping for a fingerhold of eternity. But an eved doesn’t always get to set his own agenda. Wherever we find ourselves, whatever life circumstances Hashem gives us, we are not the role we play, but what we make of ourselves.

On Seder night the eyes of the Jewish nation rest unwaveringly on their children. The Mah Nishatanah, the rituals which need to be explained, the question and answer format — all put our children at center stage. Yet we’re told (Pesachim 116a) that the question-and-answer format is preserved even if a person is all alone on Seder night. What point could there be in asking oneself questions and giving oneself answers?

If Seder night is when history meets destiny, then every Jew, alone or happily surrounded by boisterous family is a microcosm of the history and the destiny of our nation. With or without children, I, as an eved Hashem, am the past and the future.

Miriam Kosman is a lecturer for Nefesh Yehudi, an organization that teaches Torah to over 6,000 Israeli university students.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 334)