To My Son on the Occasion of his Bar Mitzvah

A letter to my son before his special day this past weekend.

My dear Sam,

On this, the cusp of your Bar Mitvah, I wish to impart what words of wisdom I can summon to mark this occasion. You prepared diligently for this day for years. I planned for it for years.

For all the work and planning that has gone into the event, however, I know it will pass in the blink of an eye.

I hope you take a moment as we head into this whirlwind of a weekend to slow down, breathe, and take stock of everything it means to you and everything you mean to me.

My darling boy, my first child, my own heart - this is your moment. I know you will shine. You never fail to do so. You never fail at anything. And yet, I know that that is the fear that most consumes you as you drift off to sleep.

The fear of failure.

Please do not fear it. In fact, I would venture to say, welcome it. Failure is the antidote to perfectionism and the greatest teacher life can offer. It will never make you less loved or loveable. It can only enhance your already glowing self. So the fact that your greatest fear can only serve to enhance you should it come to fruition is a blessing itself.

There is very little you do that you do not do well. You are one of those unfair souls who combines EQ and IQ, and yet no one can hate you because you are just so damned nice and likeable.

Try to slow this weekend for yourself whenever you can. As it speeds by, try to pause and soak in the love pouring in from all directions. You will find yourself in one of those unique moments where you stand before hundreds of people, all of whom want what is best for you and are 100 percent in your corner. This type of moment may truly never come again. They are so rare, they must be relished like a medium rare filet mignon cooked table-side at Le Continental in Quebec.

The full meaning of this day may wash over you in vague waves without taking coherent form, but I will try to articulate what it means to me as your mother and your greatest champion and fan.

You are smack in the middle of an alarming physical growth spurt as you become a man in the ritualistic sense in our community. Your life is changing at a rapid clip, and this is a day when we can all pause the runaway train to celebrate who you are, where you have come from, and where you are going.

Change can be scary. There are few people who can wholeheartedly embrace it without trepidation, and yet here you are, changing daily. It can be a lot to handle. Just remember that, as you explore your broadening world boundaries, you will make mistakes. You will make many of them. Mistakes of minor consequence like putting your pants on backward in the dark and mistakes with greater impact that affect your relationships with friends and family.

You should know by now that almost any situation can be turned on its head. You have seen it first hand. There was a time when you had to zip up your sister’s uniform in the morning and open the bubble bath for me. You carried the chairs to the little league field and opened every jar for me. You held my hand to climb the stairs instead of the other way around as it should have been. You had to grow up faster than I would have liked.

All of that feels like a distant, fading nightmare, but it left its mark upon you in the best way. It made you compassionate and understanding beyond your tender years. You matured at an early age, but you also developed kindness and patience toward people who are different or are suffering.

I hope you take away from that time the understanding that anything can change. Even in your darkest moments - and there will dark moments in everyone’s life despite our fondest wishing - I hope you can summon the memory of how quickly life can reverse direction. Nothing is permanent. The horrible moments are just that - moments. The beautiful ones are just as fleeting. If you can keep putting one foot in front of the other and power forward, you are winning at life.

And what a time to be coming of age. The very ground seems unstable beneath our community. You will know harder times than your parents. You will face challenges beyond what we imagined possible again. You will feel the hot breath of hate on your neck in way we never did.

That is why this day matters so greatly. You know who you are, and today you are cementing your identity publicly and proudly. As you take your first steps into your Jewish adulthood, know this: Life is bigger than yourself. You sometimes ask me why I spend so much of my free time writing or volunteering or fighting antisemitism when I do not get paid for it.

For you. I do it for you and your sister. I do it to make the institutions I loved safe for you because it pains me more than I can express to think that we are moving backwards and losing ground. The wins our grandparents achieved for our benefit are disintegrating. You will have fewer open doors, not more. It infuriates me in a way nothing else ever has.

I hope as you now mature, you will join with me in howling against these injustices. We do not do it for ourselves. We do not do it for money or fame or glory. We do it for those we love and for those who are not yet even born. We do it for those who are gone from this world who struggled to made inroads that we will not concede lightly.

My son, take my hand. And when my hand is no longer there to hold, hold my spirit in you as you carry on our traditions, values, and fight.

Mazel tov, my love.