Question 15: What do we say to our children?

For those who don’t know, I was blessed to welcome my first child in December. This is a raw, unedited letter to him. Please take care of yourselves and your children, dear ones.

Dear Nathaniel,

I’ve started and restarted this letter to you so many times since your birth 11 weeks ago, wanting to get it right and not knowing what words I can possibly offer that capture the state of the world you live in. Maybe this will be yet another half-written attempt abandoned because I need to feed you, or send an email, or call insurance. But I’ll try. For the children of the United States, and of Israel, and of Palestine, and of the globe, I’ll try.

Moments ago, I put you down in your basinet for a nap. It’s been a cheerful day for you so far, with lots of smiles and coos and exploration of the many ways to stick out one’s tongue. When I look at you, my sweet son, my heart is full in a way that I can’t begin to describe but I hope you’ll get to experience one day.

I have so many hopes for you. That you’ll get my sense of pitch and Dada’s sense of rhythm, my hair and his eyes. That you’ll share some interests with us we can help you to nurture, and that you’ll find passions all your own that we’ll have to learn about just to keep up. That the tiny sparks of personality that you’re starting to show Dada and me these days will grow into a unique flame brightening our world. That you’ll grow. That you’ll live.

In the beginning, life is really all about growing. All Dada and I could do for your nine months in the womb (and before that as an embryo, since you’re an IVF baby) was hope and pray that you’d grow. Now, on the outside, there are weigh ins at the pediatrician’s office. Timing nursing sessions and measuring out pumped milk and wondering if we need to give you a little formula to top off. Watching with delight as your cheeks grow chubby and your legs get the hint of a first roll. My greatest hope for you is that you’ll have the chance to grow into a toddler, and a child, and a teen, and an adult.

Nathaniel, right now too many children aren’t getting that chance. Yesterday, we learned that two little Israeli boys— older than you but not by much — were murdered by terrorists after being kidnapped around the time we started IVF. It’s unfathomable, really, the idea of willingly killing a toddler and a baby. It speaks to a type of life that is meaningless, because anyone who cared in the slightest about their own existence would never be able to justify stripping an innocent child of theirs. And all children are innocent, no matter what their ancestors have done.

Ariel and Kfir Bibas were innocent. They were not soldiers or future soldiers, colonizers or occupiers. They were children. And they were two of thousands of children killed in this war who should still be alive. Israeli children. Palestinian children who were also not soldiers or future soldiers, terrorists or infidels. Children playing soccer. Children at school. Children being treated at hospitals. Children parroting what their elders say about how the enemy is less than human. Children freezing to death in tents and burned and pummeled to death by bombs. Children slaughtered in their beds and safe rooms. Children shielded by their parents and horrifically isolated from them. Children.

Ariel and Kfir were killed because they were Jewish children living in Israel, the place where Dada was born and where Safta has lived for many years. You are also a Jewish child, although you live here in New York far from this war. There aren’t many Jewish children in the world. There aren’t many Jewish adults either. When one Jew is killed, it hurts all of us.

Last night, I held you extra tightly. I sang to you with even more gratitude at your existence (and I’m so grateful for you, every moment of every day). Tonight, you’ll experience your first every Tot Shabbat and I want to cry with joy thinking about the tradition that you’re entering. I love being Jewish so much, with everything in my being, and I love that I get to raise you to love it in your own way. The idea that Ariel and Kfir will never again get to say Shabbat Shalom, will never light candles or drink grape juice or ask for challah, breaks my heart.

Ariel and Kfir were killed because they were Jewish children living in Israel. Thousands of children were killed because they were Palestinian children living in Gaza, even if I might not know their faces and stories in the same way. When one child is killed, it should hurt all of us. It hurts me. I hope when you grow up it will hurt you. A war won through the slaughter of children, however many children and adult civilians may be living among terrorists, cannot be called a victory.

The child of the one who hates us is not our enemy, Nathaniel. The child of the one who hates us is a child.

I don’t know when I’ll show you these words, little sweet one. Maybe when you’re a teenager. Maybe when you’re an adult. Maybe never. I hope that by the time you’re old enough to ask me about this war, about Israel and Palestine and antisemitism and racism, that things will be better. I pray that things will be better.

For now, you’ve just woken up. I’m watching on the monitor as your face goes from delighted to cross and you experiment with coos and cries. You need your mother now, and so I need to stop writing. Just know, Nathaniel, that whatever I can do to make this world what it should be for you, and for all children, I will. Because even as bad as things are in so many ways right now, there will always be good people doing good things too. I hope you’ll grow up to be one of them.

Shabbat Shalom, sweetheart. I love you.

Mama