Happy Belated Birthday!
This past Sunday we made a birthday party for my seven-year-old son, Tzvi. In reality Tzvi is now 7 ¼ because his birthday was in the summer. However, because so many of his friends were away in the summer we postponed the party.
Originally we were only going to postpone it for a few weeks but then came along the blitzkrieg of Jewish holidays which didn’t exactly leave extra time for hosting 20 seven-year-old boys for a party at our house. Hence, we only got around to the party this week.
Despite his initial disappointment when we canceled his party in the summer, Tzvi was thrilled to have his party now. After all, as he understood correctly, had we held the party in the summer when only a few friends would have come he would have gotten a lot fewer presents than he did now. And if there is one thing that makes or breaks a birthday party for a kid, it’s the presents that he receives. For all intents and purposes, Tzvi’s “birthday” took place in October instead of the summer.
This incident brought back a memory I have of when my son asked his young cousin how old he was. The youngster replied “I am four years old.” My son then asked him when he turned four years old to which he replied “when my friends came to the ice cream store for my party!” In other words, in the mind of a child, what is significant is not the actual date of one’s birthday but rather when (and how) it is celebrated.
This thought process is not exclusive to toddlers and younger children. Many a bar or bat mitzvah youth will tell you, when asked when they are becoming a bar mitzvah, the day that they are actually hosting the celebration. In reality they have become a “bar mitzvah” the day that they turn 13 (or 12 for a girl). In fact, I once had a visitor to my congregation when I was the rabbi in Canton, Ohio who was 55 years old. He began to cry to me that he “never became a bar mitzvah”. I pacified him by telling him that he in fact became a bar mitzvah on the morning that he woke up as a 13-year-old. The only thing he may not have had was the bar mitzvah party.
Finally, this obfuscation of facts is something that most people do many times throughout their lives. For instance, ask most people to tell you who they are or what they do and they will inevitably reply by stating their profession or what their job is. A man was once asked by a great rabbi “What do you do?” His reply was “I am a shoemaker.” The rabbi retorted, “A shoemaker is what you do to earn a living, but that should not be your response as defining who you are or what you do as a person.”
A week ago we concluded the holiday of Sukkot. One of the many lessons of Sukkot is that we leave our comfortable, solid and sturdy home to go into a flimsy and temporary shelter to spend the week.
The rationale behind this mitzvah is that we are to leave the accumulations of materialism that we are steeped in throughout the year and focus on what is important in life. We truly only need the basics and the rest is gravy. We sit in a sukkah and look through the makeshift ceiling towards the stars. We contemplate G-d’s existence and our relationship with Him. We surround ourselves with our family, truly our most precious of all our possessions, and bask in the knowledge and comfort that G-d provides us with all of our needs, if not all of our luxuries and incessant desires.
Sukkot is a time for reflecting on priorities in life.
After spending a week in the Sukkah we are supposed to be fortified to carry us through the long and harsh winter knowing that G-d has and will continue to be there with us. Too often we lose sight of what is really important and confuse it with what is trivial. We are NOT defined by our profession; that is only a means to a livelihood. A bar mitzvah party is NOT what makes someone a bar mitzvah, rather the coming of age and commitment to now keep the Torah to the best of his abilities does. And a birthday party is NOT what makes us become a year older; it’s only a means to having friends over, eating cake and opening presents.
Let’s all work on refocusing our shift on our true priorities in life.
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Yosef Koval
