CHAPTER 1
Toward the Light

The rabbi appeared from behind the Ark of the Covenant (Aron Ha-brit). At that precise moment, the congregation fell silent in response to the sound of a small voice.

"Is that G-d?"

The mother tried to contain an anxious laugh as she quieted her son. For a four-year-old, his response made sense. It's not every day that you see a man enter a room in black robes with an embroidered white scarf (tallis) around his neck in G-d's house.

When I recall this moment from a Sabbath morning at the synagogue, I suppress the urge to blurt out: "No, that is my father!"

The boy didn't get the fuss; he probably never had seen a rabbi. If you didn't know that my father's office was immediately behind the Ark, his appearance was dramatic. The simple architectural design of the sanctuary highlighted the Ark. It was centerstage. My father, the rabbi, held a role of prominence in many people's eyes. At his funeral, with several thousand in attendance, state troopers led the procession through our city. Most days he was just my father; I'd seen his rabbinical gowns so many times. They were my idea of normal. Except when my father's status was called out, I didn't pay much attention to his prominence in our community - and even region.

FAMILY PROMINENCE

To this day, decades later, I struggle to laugh off this experience. Wasn't the whole scene, the mother's reaction, the boy's comment, cute? The boy's small voice, "Is that G-d?" pushed my buttons: If my father is G-d.bigger than life, who am I? Do I really matter?

Before handing me a handkerchief or taking pity on me, you should know that being a rabbi's kid had its perks. I grew up like most suburban kids of my era in the mid-twentieth century. In the moments when I had free reign of the synagogue, my father's spiritual residence, I could do no wrong. At least I thought so. Let's face it, everyone thought I was cute.

As a curly-headed staff brat at the Jewish camp where my father was a founding rabbi, life was also pretty good. Even at three years old, I followed the song leader as he led songs for the entire camp. Strumming my toy guitar, I thrived on being the center of attention.

Over the years, I shared vicariously in the heroic moments of my father's life. His victories were my victories. When the first Black family moved into Skokie, Illinois, USA, my father, along with other clergy, met to figure out how to quiet down the community unrest. In a town hall meeting, the owner of the home next to where the first Black family were to move challenged my father.

"It is easy for you to say, you have nothing to worry about," the homeowner said, "you aren't going to have to live next to them."

Behind the scenes, my father had offered to switch houses. Knowing my father, it was passion, not fury, that led to his response. I only heard the story when he came home. Confronting racial hatred in Skokie was my first direct experience with the role my father played in our community. My father's efforts to build bridges, towards unity, was something that at the time caused me to feel proud, even though I didn't understand the origins of his zeal for social justice.

With that same quiet manner, my father, the rabbi, had taken a central role when the Nazis threatened a march into Skokie. This Chicago suburb, an active Jewish community with Holocaust survivors, experienced a range of reactions - from concern to outrage. For those who remembered the concentration camps, the memories were just under the surface. My parents weren't survivors of the camps, but their lives were turned upside down by Hitler's reign. My father was instrumental in organizing the clergy of all denominations. An alternative gathering was organized as a relatively small band of neo-Nazis marched through the center of town.

My idealized vision of my father was elevated by these events. Unfortunately, these incidents predated my understanding of how personal these issues were for my parents. If I had known his struggles, he might have become more human to me. Instead, my father seemed bigger than life. Only later in life did I fully grasp their anguishing decision to leave Germany in 1939, their chances of escaping the atrocities that followed diminished daily. As an adult, I stood on the ground where both grew up in Germany, and suddenly the stories I had heard about my parents took on new life. They were both deceased at the time, so I have none of the color associated with the story. But to this day, I still try to decipher their passage out of their homeland to our home in Skokie. From others, I learned that my parents watched friends from school in Germany transform overnight into members of Hitler's youth. In an age long before helicopter parents, youth movements in Germany were formed and run without parent supervision.

IF I HAD KNOWN HIS STRUGGLES, HE MIGHT HAVE BECOME MORE HUMAN TO ME.

My father was a prominent religious figure in our community. It's in this context as the son of a revered rabbi and Jewish community leader that I struggled to find my own sense of legitimacy, not unlike children who come from other types of storied families, whether the prominence arises from wealth, business, or other kinds of perceived power.

CHILD OF A GIANT

Every Saturday morning, Shabbat, my father delivered a sermon or told a story. I spent a good deal of my childhood convinced the messages were meant for me. I admired my father's ability to turn to a group of children and ask the rest of the congregation to focus their eyes on him as he began to speak. For someone who could be quiet and unassuming when we were alone, as a rabbi he had a unique ability to connect.

During a weekend trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, with my family, my father asked, "Would you like to deliver the sermon next Saturday morning?" Without hesitation, I said yes. I didn't think twice about stepping into my father's Saturday morning shoes. I was only 11 years old, and I had not yet grasped the stature of my father. The weekend in Cincinnati included dinner at the house of a famous archeologist, Nelson Glueck, the president of Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC). The president shared artifacts, fragments taken from archeological digs, that were evidence of the accuracy of biblical stories. He talked to me as if I were a colleague and could appreciate what I was seeing. At least that is how it felt. As we toured his presidential mansion, I was astounded that Dr. Glueck's library was even bigger than my father's. And while Dr. Glueck was the host for the weekend, I remember my father as its central character.

My dad was the first rabbi not born in the United States to receive an honorary doctorate from the college. Dr. Glueck looked up to my father, who had been ordained from a rabbinical seminary in Breslau, Czechoslovakia. That weekend, I heard some of the details of the story behind my parents leaving Germany and finding their way to the United States through Palestine, then through India, and later by boat, though much of the story remains untold.

When we arrived home, the only moment from the trip that mattered was when my father had asked, "Would you like to deliver the sermon next Saturday morning?" For a brief moment, I was no longer a child in a world of giants, I felt significant, important. I was honored (at least as honored as an 11-year-old can be). I was no longer just a curly-haired kid along for the ride.

I imagine the week passed slowly for my parents. Would I ask for help? Would we even talk about it? My father, however, said nothing about the sermon all week. When my father prepared, he would retire to his large office. I think he was waiting for me to prepare. As always, he was hesitant to say anything, and I didn't ask.

When the morning arrived, I rose to the occasion. In my talk, I captured the experience of that weekend in Cincinnati. I recalled some of the findings from the archeological digs that Dr. Nelson Gleuck showed us. It was clear (at least to me at the time) that I had caught the significance of what it meant to have a reformed Jewish seminary in the center of our country. For a young man, I did (I think) a bang-up job. At least the congregation seemed to think so. It was a brief moment when I felt I could walk amongst the giants.

IT WAS A BRIEF MOMENT WHEN I FELT I COULD WALK AMONGST THE GIANTS.

In the years that followed, however, I would learn about the larger world of rabbis and preachers. Or as I have heard it called affectionately, RKs and PKs, rabbi's kids, and preacher's kids. Growing up in such an esteemed profession with a larger-than-life, iconic rabbi-father caused me to wrestle with my own sense of legitimacy as I started out on the quest to find my place in the world.

WHO AM I OUTSIDE THE BUBBLE?

The existential question: Who am I outside the bubble?

The world in which we are raised serves as our foundation. Our observations of how those closest to us work, play, form connections, and make decisions over time become embedded within us. Whether we're conscious of it or not, the world we grow up in lives on in our head. As we begin to separate from the family, we step outside of the bubble...