We have not been a family to undertake the blessing over the children on Shabbat. I don’t really know why. There was fuss when we tried, and it never felt that it quite fit. Or perhaps when they were little I allowed myself to become too aggravated over the chores involved just in getting us all to Friday evening in one piece.
Now they are all older, and moving on to places and lives more away than around. Some days I almost fail to recognize them, surprised to discover they are no longer the children of my imagination—the ones ever in the amber of my favorite family photographs.
I don’t know whether I have been an especially good parent, though I have some confidence that I have not been a bad one. As we send them off during these coming years, I find myself a bit nervous, sometimes even secretly wishing they weren’t growing up or going away, always hoping they will remember occasionally to look back, and that when they do it will be with the knowledge of the abiding love we have for them.
There are many blessings in the Jewish tradition. For rainbows, for new beginnings, over food, over wine. I think especially of the beauty of the priestly blessing that God told Moses to teach Aaron. And yet, I don't feel I know one for the time in life when we want to launch our kids and also keep them with us. As a former child of the 70’s, I do find particular resonance with the words of Bob Dylan at this time of our life as a family:
May God bless and keep you always/May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others/And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars/And climb on every rung
And may you stay forever young
May you grow up to be righteous/May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth/And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous/Stand upright and be strong
And may you stay forever young
May your hands always be busy/May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation/When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful/May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young*
The rock stars of my own youth are in their 60's and 70’s now. They couldn’t imagine themselves as anything but young, yet grow up they did. And so too, while I might wish my own children forever young, I also look forward to the time when those children of my imagination catch up with the fine young adults my actual children already are in the world. And that will be a blessing indeed.
*Copyright (C) 1973 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram's Horn Music
