Several years ago, our son Yaron embarked on a semester in New York. Looking for an apartment, he scanned websites and newspaper ads – all to no avail, until a friend put him in touch with the manager of a building. The man looked at Yaron’s name and asked, “Are you related to David Elcott?” “Yes, that’s my father.”
“I attended a conference of his many years ago. What I remember is a walk I took along the beach where I saw him playing with his son. It was clear to me that nothing else mattered to him – not the conference or the sessions – only that little boy. I thought that if I ever had children, I would want to be a father like that. I have three kids now, and I think about that afternoon almost every day.”
That little boy was Yaron – the tall man who had just crossed this manager’s threshold. Yaron couldn’t wait to tell his father the story.
David remembered the conference. “It’s the worst thing I ever did. Sometimes you think your real work is here – when your real work is actually someplace else.”
The beginning of faith is to know that beyond the fragmented pieces of our lives, there is a whole – a pattern where all the pieces fit together and become one.
Shma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad
Hear O Israel, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One.
Rabbi Shira Milgrom is the Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains, New York. www.nykolami.org
