Dear Jonah,

This past Friday night, your synagogue celebrated the 12th grade Graduation. I’ve always loved religious school Graduation and this year was no different. Except that last year, you were there. Which means that this year at the prayer Mee Khamokha, I felt you playing “Redemption Song.” When the Torah came out, I felt you reading your verses. And when I blessed the class, I felt you standing right beside me.

Interestingly (though not surprisingly, because you always loved to take the unexpected path), you would not consent to reading your Graduation Statement (summing up your Jewish journey thus far) or to even have it printed in the service. I have the only copy. Here’s a bit of what you had to say but wouldn’t:

Jonah and “the Dreskin kid’s Dad” … Bar Mitzvah, Confirmand and Graduate (2003, 2006 and 2008)

A lot of people these days don’t really understand what it’s like to grow up in a Jewish home. Lets just say, the Jew-to-other-people ratio in my house is very unbalanced. The long-term damage done to my sick little mind was helped along by middle school. I came to the conclusion that being Jewish was bad. And where I would normally spend my Friday nights at temple and learn diligently in religious school, I began to order and ingest ham sandwiches during lunch as my way of “sticking it to the man.” My Jewish identity returned to a positive state in my high school years when I met a guy named Scott. He was big, he was smiley, and he taught at Academy. One of the first things we did in his class was watch an Israeli movie. It was in Hebrew, and there were boobs. This guy knew how to win over a class of 9th grade boys. Judaism was improving. That summer, I attended the URJ Kutz Camp NFTY Leadership Academy. I think that was when I found the path I had long-since abandoned. It’s hard to find cool Jews these days, but I did it there. I also met my first Canadian. Two summers later, it was time to return to the URJ Kutz Camp NFTY Leadership Academy. Unfortunately, someone had torn down all the red buildings, replaced them with beige buildings, and changed the name to NFTY’s Campus for Reform Jewish Teens. So I went there instead. I believe it was at that point that my Jewish identity came together: I am Jonah, and I am Jewish. That’s my identity. What else do I need? I’m no longer known as “the Rabbi’s son.” Rather, the Rabbi is now known as “that crazy Dreskin kid’s Dad.”

As with all three of my children, Jonah, you had to figure out for yourself what part of being Jewish was foisted upon you by your rabbi-and-cantor-parents, and what you had come to value and to love as your own. Kutz Camp, WoodSY, and NFTY-NAR meant the world to you. As did lighting Shabbat candles at our dinner table, begrudgingly accepting your parents’ Shabbat blessing and kiss, and even your work with the little ones in religious school. Flipping the definition you’d felt others had thrust upon you as “the Rabbi’s kid” served as the most significant confirmation that you’d made Judaism your own. In the months since your death, I’ve heard so many young people describe you as the person responsible for their comfort and successful integration into NFTY/Eisner/Kutz/WoodSY. I couldn’t be prouder to assume my new title, “that crazy Dreskin kid’s Dad.”

Addressing the graduates this past Friday, I told them about my words to last year’s class, in which I reflected on God’s promise of blessing (in parshat Behar) if we live by the mitzvot. Back then, I had asked your class, “Blessing can’t possibly be granted all the time, even to the deserving, right?” My answer then was, “Yes and no. Life can hit us hard, and it will. But pain, even suffering, doesn’t necessarily end the blessing. It’s going to depend on how we look at it.”

Those of us who knew and loved you wonder at the irony of last year’s message. This year, we’re asking, “When someone we love dies so young, where’s the blessing in that?” Perhaps it’s in the verses we’ve read from Behar for this Graduation – the commandment to leave land fallow every seventh year. This mitzvah comes with another promise from God – that if we take the year and we don’t farm our land, we won’t starve to death.

Sometimes life hits us hard … really hard. And the pain is so great, we may think we’ll never feel joy again. Our land lies fallow and we fear we may starve.

My dear sweet absent Jonah, your death reminds us that, eventually, we all get hit. By disappointment, by failure … by tragic loss. Some of the hits will be terrible. But they can’t be helped. We’re human. We’re vulnerable. We don’t get to suspend the laws of physics.

But we mustn’t let that stop us. Despite the worst life throws our way, the land will return to full bounty again someday. And during the times it lies fallow – those times we feel our deepest sadnesses – even then, there will be enough to eat. We won’t starve. Love and companionship, and life’s continuing beauty … will eventually get us through.

Your life has ended. My sadness is vast and penetrating. But as I watched this group of young, bright, eager and idealistic 18-year olds, I understood that the future is still a bright one. Blessings still abound. And for those of us traveling in the valley of the shadow, the promise of blessing in our own lives has not disappeared. Even if it feels that way.

Life’s blessings will be tempered by loss, to be sure. But like your eternally radiant (if not incorrigible) spirit, they will endure.

Love you forever,
Dad