What a Toddler Taught This Rabbi About Holiness

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Gut Yontif. It is altogether fitting that on Yom Kippur, I, your Rabbi, need to make a confession. I have become … THAT GUY.

You know, the one who just happens to have his phone in plain sight, featuring a photo of his first grandchild. Hoping and, yes, praying that you will notice it, so that the swooning and bragging can begin.

I mean, c’mon…

Can you blame me? This is Ruby, Michelle and my granddaughter, now a beautiful, brilliant 16-month-old toddler.

After Ruby arrived, I began wondering what I wanted to share with her. After all, when our three children were young, I wrote an ethical will, trying to pass on values I hoped would guide their lives. So, what do I want Ruby to know? What stories and values do I want her to carry? What wisdom, passed l’dor vador (from generation to generation) might I plant within her heart?

Then, Michelle and I spent a week helping care for her. Somewhere between the bottles and diapers, the highchair and stroller, the laughter and tears – hers and ours – I discovered something extraordinary: Apparently wisdom travels in both directions. I began collecting "Lessons from Ruby."

The first: Always bring a secret something. When you take the kids somewhere, you will bring the familiar toy, the favorite toy and the toy that her parents promise always works. Always bring one more. Keep it hidden. Because eventually something overwhelms her. And that’s when Papa reaches into his pocket and pulls out that secret something. Suddenly, she’s calm. She's laughing. Everyone’s relieved.

I’ve begun to think that we adults need a secret something too. Something tucked away inside for when life overwhelms us. A photo. A prayer. A melody. A person we can call. A piece of Torah that reminds us where we came from. Something that helps us find our way back to ourselves.

I learned that from Ruby too.

Sometimes she cries and Papa picks her up. We walk. We bounce. We sing songs. And she settles down. And I take enormous pride, channeling what the OG Papa, my dad, did with our kids. At other times I can employ all my accumulated wisdom and she keeps crying. It turns out thirty-four years of pastoral experience cannot reason with a crying baby.

And isn’t that life? We want so badly to make things better for the people we love. To remove the fear, repair the hurt, relieve the grief. We want the right words. The right answer. The right embrace.

But sometimes nothing makes the moment better. And so, we offer our presence. We stay. We sit beside them. We hold them if they’ll let us. We remind them that even now, they are not alone.

Sometimes love heals. And sometimes love simply holds. That’s something I want Ruby to know someday. And that’s something I think we all need to keep remembering for ourselves.

Now Ruby’s starting to talk. Sadly, no matter how many times I channel my dear old dad and repeat to her: “Say Papa. Say Papa,” her first words were “All done!” and “Bubbles”.

She’s beginning to use her words now. Although back then, when she needed something, she cried or pointed or made a sound, and we adults engaged in a fascinating game I called: W-DRW: What does Ruby want? Water? Diaper change? Something to eat? Mama? Daddy? … Papa?!?

And it occurred to me that we grown-ups often play the same game. We have words. Tens of thousands of them. Yet with the people closest to us, we sometimes refuse to use them. “You should know why I’m upset.” “You should know what I need.” “You should know what you did.” So sometimes we withdraw, or sulk, or shout.

Yet we really can’t expect the people who love us to also be mind readers. Maybe growing up means learning, again and again, to use our words: “I need you.” “That hurt me.” “I was wrong.” “I’m frightened.” “Thank you.” “I love you.” “Forgive me.”

Come to think of it, isn’t that what we are doing today? Yom Kippur gives us words for what we spend the rest of the year struggling to say. Ashamnu. We have done wrong. And I’m ashamed. Chatanu. We have missed the mark. And I’m sorry. Selach lanu. Forgive us. Help me begin again.

Which may be why the special Torah portion we will read later this morning – Leviticus chapter 19 – feels so significant this year. We will hear: Kedoshim t’hiyu. You shall be holy. Followed by holiness, not in grand theology, but in ordinary life. Be holy in … How we speak. What we take and what we leave for others. How we honor those who came before us. How we offer critique kindly. How we care for the vulnerable. Holy living, Torah seems to say, gets worked out in the everyday. Maybe even while babysitting.

I’ve learned, for example, that holy living sometimes means saying no. You see, Ruby likes rocks. She used to love putting them in her mouth. And the world says YOLO. You only live once. But Torah occasionally responds, NoGo.

Our world says: Do it. Buy it. Say it. Post it.

Torah says: Not everything you desire is good for you. Not everything you think, needs to be said. Not everything you can do, should be done. Leviticus 19, called the Holiness code, is filled with boundaries: Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t gossip. Don’t stand idly by while another person bleeds. You see, holiness can be found in saying yes. And sometimes, Torah reminds us, it’s found in saying no.

And sometimes, apparently, holiness is found while eating avocado.

I learned that one at the Lemon Tree restaurant. Our first solo meal out with Ruby. We ordered Ruby yogurt and fresh berries. She loves that!… She wanted none of it. Not even the berry coulis, which apparently is what sophisticated babies eat. Then she pointed at my avocado. So, I gave her a small bite. Then another. And another. Until it was gone. Then she devoured Grandma’s orange slices. Then my poached egg. We fed her. She ate. And we sat there completely transfixed, kvelling over little bites of avocado, orange, and egg.

Suddenly we understood something from long ago.

Papa and Lala, my parents Ken and Linda Kipnes, and Michelle’s Grandma Ruby, our Ruby’s namesake, would feed our children and watch them eat, as if they were witnessing something extraordinary. I never understood it. Until the Lemon Tree restaurant outing.

We can experience such joy nourishing the people we love. Can this inspire us to want to nourish also the people we don’t yet know to love? That’s why in the weeks after Yom Kippur, Congregation Or Ami collects food for the SOVA Food Pantry. Beyond feeding our own, we are supposed to find joy in feeding God’s other children too.

And then there are the walks.

Walks help. Fresh air. Movement. Trees. Sky. My mom knew about walks. “Paul, go take a walk,” she used to tell me that all the time, when I was cranky, frustrated, stuck. I think I was well into my fifties and mom was still telling me: “Paul, go take a walk.” So, when Ruby became fidgety, I heard my mother’s voice… “Paul, go take her for a walk.”

Funny. What once was annoying has become the mantra I most wish I could hear again. What I wouldn’t give to hear my folks say: “Eat something.” “Call when you get to the Bridge.” “Paul, go take a walk.” The ordinary language of love. It sometimes irritates us. Other times we hardly notice it while it’s being spoken. Until one day we would give almost anything to hear it again. Those words. Those voices.

So, everybody, go videochat the grandparents regularly if they're still around. And FaceTime your parents. Call the people you love. Even for five minutes. Those five minutes will matter even more later than we realize right now. Let them see your face. Listen to the story they’ve told you a thousand times. Ask them questions. And share your life.

Because Yom Kippur asks us to confront something we spend much of our lives avoiding: We do not have forever.

There will be a last phone call. A last meal. A last “I love you.” A last, "Paul, take a walk." And usually, we won’t know it’s the last one when it happens. Maybe being holy means treating this one as though it really matters: This meal. This conversation. This embrace. This person. This “Paul, go take a walk.”

I thought I might stand before you this Yom Kippur and preach about the state of our world. About our beloved Israel. Our beloved America. About antisemitism and war. About cruelty masquerading as strength, and people pushed aside in the pursuit of power. All of that matters.

But lately I’ve been wondering whether beneath it all lies an even more fundamental question: What kind of human beings are we becoming?

Because a society becomes cruel one human choice at a time. And a society becomes compassionate the same way: One word. One restraint. One person fed. One phone call made. One apology offered. One hand held. One decision to stay when walking away would be easier.

Maybe that’s why Torah says: Kedoshim t’hiyu. You shall be holy. You. Me. All of us. And perhaps that is what we are really doing here on Yom Kippur: Trying to become the kind of human beings who might make this world a little more holy.

There’s a song Ruby’s parents sing to her. She loves it: “What a Wonderful World,” made famous by Louis Armstrong. She even mumbles along with her parents.

But these days I want to argue with the song. A wonderful world? Really? This world? With its violence and war? Its hunger and hatred? Rampant partisanship and surging antisemitism?

And yet, maybe “What a Wonderful World” isn’t a description of the world as it is now. Maybe it’s a promise of what the world could be. Jewish tradition teaches: M’lo chol ha’aretz k’vodo. The whole world is filled with God’s magnificence. This world. Our wonderful, wounded world. Filled with magnificence, if only we begin the repair.

(Singing)

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom, for me and you

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world.

Well, I also see: The person whose voice, we can still hear today. The one whose voice, has now gone away. And I pray to myself – for them – let’s make it a wonderful world.

I began this year wondering what I wanted to teach Ruby: Use your words. Share. Know when to say “no”. And when someone is hurting and you cannot make it better, stay… And, of course, “Say Papa!”

But Ruby’s taught me something I hadn’t considered: The first responsibility of a grandparent isn’t just to leave a legacy. It’s to live one and to make memories that last.

That’s not just a grandparent’s responsibility. It’s all of ours.

Someone is learning from the way each of us lives: Some child. Some neighbor. Some friend. Some stranger. We are always showing someone what it means to be human. Until one day we hand this world over to them.

Maybe we can hand them a world that’s a little gentler than we found it. A little more generous. A little more just. A little more holy.

My dear Ruby, someday I hope you will remember that your Papa tried to teach you about how to be holy. For now, you are teaching me: Kedoshim t’hiyu. How to be holy. How to see the sacred hidden in the ordinary. And while we still have time, how to help transform this into a truly wonderful world, for ourselves, for you Ruby, and for everyone, including the newest members of our Or Ami family…

Sing with me…

I see skies of blue and clouds of white

The bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces of people going by

I see friends shaking hands, saying, “How do you do?”

They’re really saying, “I love you.”

I hear babies cry; I watch them grow

They’ll learn much more, than I’ll ever know

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world.

Yes, I think to myself,

What a wonderful world

Oh, yeah.

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A note: just before I delivered this sermon, Ruby said “Papa” — clearly, three times.

My own ideas about grandparenting have been shaped by four remarkable role models, Michelle and my parents — the OG Papa, Ken Kipnes z"l; Linda Kipnes (Lala) z"l; Grandpa Murray; and Grandma Teri November z"l — and by the extraordinary work of the Jewish Grandparents Network, which is doing some of the most important work in Jewish life today helping grandparents pass on Jewish values, memory, and connection to the next generation. (Full disclosure: I’m honored to serve on their board — but I’d be singing their praises either way.)

We also reflected significantly on the role of parents and grandparents when Michelle and I wrote our book, Jewish Spiritual Parenting.