If you’re a regular listener to this show, you know I’m not one to rag on Jewish tradition. We love Torah and Jewish life here on Soulful Jewish Living.
But I will confess that the starting point for our episode today can appear to be a bit of a head-scratcher. It’s a blessing traditionally recited by parents at their children’s bar or bat (or b-) mitzvahs. It goes like this: Baruch shepetarani me-onsho shel zeh: Blessed is the One who has exempted me from punishment for this child.
Wait, what? We’re supposed to be celebrating this happy, festive, joy-filled occasion. With a party and balloons and a kid up in a chair and all that. And this is the blessing we say?! Thanks, God, that I’m no longer on the hook for this kid’s mistakes?
Go ahead, rabbi: make sense of this one.
To which I say: Challenge accepted.
This is the sixth episode in our miniseries on family, and today I want to focus on the relationship between parents and children as the kids grow up. And against that backdrop, I’m here to say that I think this blessing is perfect.
Why? To answer that, let’s think about what the blessing is really saying. It starts with a presumption that parents are responsible for their children’s behavior. And, you know, that’s not such an unfamiliar idea: If kids are being unruly or acting inappropriately, I don’t know about you, but I expect their parents to be part of raising them, setting and enforcing boundaries. That’s one of the core duties of parenting as far as I’m concerned.
But at a certain point in the growing up process, the burden of responsibility shifts. And the significant thing is not so much that the parents are off the hook as that the child has matured to the point where they can take responsibility for their own actions. That’s actually kind of the entire point of the parenting enterprise: To bring kids into the world who, we hope, become contributing adult members of society. That’s what we mean when we say that blessing.
But of course this is far from a simple thing. For starters, no matter what a thirteen year-old boy may say standing up there on the bimah, today he is not yet a man. More independent than at age 3? Absolutely. Someone you would entrust your valuables to? Not on your life.
The journey of adolescence and early adulthood is a long process of parents and children evolving into a new relationship. Yes, there will be bumps along the way, some of which can be painful. As a dear family friend told me once, when your kids are in high school they desperately need you around—so that they can ignore you. It’s actually a really important thing.
This whole journey can last well into adult relationships between parents and children. And a root, I think it’s a lot about something we talk about a lot on this podcast: Holding on and letting go. Or, in the words of the great rebbe Kenny Rogers, “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” That is so frequently one of the key issues in our mindfulness practice and in our spiritual lives. And, in my view anyway, it’s kind of the essential issue in maintaining healthy relationships between adult children and their parents.
So here’s a meditation practice that can help. It focuses on holding on and letting go.
As usual, find a comfortable position. It should help you feel awake and aware, present.
If you like, gently close your eyes or soften your gaze.
And now take a few good deep breaths. Allow your body to arrive. Allow your mind to settle.
All I want you to do is stay present with your breath. Notice how the air comes in, how it travels through your body, how it leaves.
Notice how your belly and your chest rise and fall with each breath.
At the top of the inhale, hold it a beat, and just notice the natural desire that arises to exhale—you can’t hold it forever.
The same at the bottom of the exhale: There’s a natural tendency to breathe in.
Nothing stays the same. It’s always in motion, a river always flowing.
Rather than trying to stop the river, see if you can just ride it. Or even be it, like a piece of ice that’s just melting away, changing form, becoming one with the water.
See if you notice where some desire for permanence shows up, and, if it’s there, see if you can soften it, let go of it.
This issue of permanence and impermanence is deeply tied up with holding on and letting go. We can’t hold onto kids as they grow up, just like we can’t hold on to the river as it passes. And the reverse is true too: We can’t hold onto a our parents as they grow older—they’re also part of the river.
So the practice is to hold gently, and to let go gently. Or maybe even better, to caress. A gentle touch—firm when it needs to be, but never falling prey to the illusion that we can actually hold on.
See how that feels in your body, in your mind. I hope it helps you soften your grip, that it it opens up a little more spaciousness, that it brings a little more peace of mind, and maybe even some more stability, to your experience of this stage of family life.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.