All The Children

by E.B. Daniel

Submitted by: M.R.

Jewish legend has it that when G-d revealed Himself at Mr. Sinai laying out the first installment of our spiritual heritage in His own Voice, the Jews who were there that day were a physically perfect bunch – not a deformity or disability in the lot. Things have gone downhill since then…

The recently completed Simchas Torah holiday was the spiritual crescendo of the holiday symphony – the third three day holiday in as many weeks. For traditional Jews of course, that meant no work, lots of prayer time in the shul, heavy meals, company, you know the drill…

My wife is the Michelangelo of Jewish holidays. In a former life the municipal caterer for Sodom and Gomorra, she is never satisfied just plain doing something when it can be overdone. If you’re expecting ten, you have to cook for fifteen. Napkins have to match and be folded into swans. Why have four courses if you can have eight? One dessert is never enough. Why make pudding if you can make éclairs? Simple is simply insufficient. Why buy challahs when you can bake them yourself? Dozens of them. Why have one or two of your son’s friends from camp over when you can have an entire camp reunion right there in your house. And not just any camp…

Our number three son is autistic. He spends every summer at Camp HASC in upstate New York where every form of disability is represented by the campers. And every form of perfection is represented by the counselors. Those counselors are the carefully chosen cream of the American Jewish society. These college age kids of the ‘90s become the hands, feet, even the minds of those who are not so perfect. Each summer at HASC. Sometimes on holidays…

So she invited ten of the counselors and seven of the campers from Wednesday afternoon ‘til Sunday morning. Gourmet meals. Two dozen challahs. A third refrigerator rented for the occasion. Commemorative T-shirts (I told you she overdoes it). Three dozen 2-liter bottles of soda. Stuffed veal and stuffed chicken. And pastrami. Etc etc. And napkins folded like swans. It’s part of the pleasant pathology which afflicts her that everything she serves must be homemade. On of our friends who knows her well said, “Big deal – you bought the soda.” I suspect that if she’d have the time, she’d have made her own root beer.

I wouldn’t want you to think this is all about food. The food was exquisite, but our guests were extraordinary. Autism. Down syndrome. Fragile X (just like Autism, but more hyper). Two little kids in wheelchairs whose strange disease destroyed their muscles and retarded their brains.

And then there were the two brothers…The older brother is 21, a graduate of Yeshiva University, pursuing a masters in Psychology while he studies for the rabbinate. The other one is 5 or 10 or 19. It’s impossible to tell. His stunted, shrunken body feels as if the bones have melted together. He can do absolutely nothing for himself, but oh, what he did for us…

He can move his eyes, he can blink and he can smile. If your self expression was limited to a smile, what could you communicate with it? His smile is his hello. His goodbye. His thank you. Its absence says “I’m hungry. I’m wet. That hurt.” Screaming out through that gentle smile: “I am here. Deep inside me there is a spark of humanity. If I am incontinent, if I choke on every mouthful, if my diaper must be changed don’t draw the obvious conclusion.  My humanity is well…just like yours. Talk to me. Touch me. Help me. And the more you do for me, the more I’ll do for you. Teach me and you will learn. Share with me and what you have will grow.”

His name is Simcha, the Hebrew word for joy. By any objective standard, what could he have in this world of mobility? In this fast paced, Reebok, Nike, JUST DO IT world? Well he has his brother, who patiently, lovingly, gently, endlessly performed every tiny function that meant comfort and cleanliness and whatever enjoyment there is for a boy who can blink his eyes and smile in a world where there is so much to do. And none of the people in the shul, none of the friends and relatives who dropped by, none of my children, could escape the conclusion that we have tons to be grateful for.

One night, the wheel broke off his wheelchair, but the next morning in the shul, the first person I asked said, “Sure, you can borrow the wheelchair I keep in my basement.” So another person, along with the friends and neighbors who had opened their homes to these special souls, one more person got the opportunity to participate.

The custom exists on Simchas Torah to give every member of the congregation an opportunity to be called to the Torah. Toward the end of the service, all the children are gathered under the canopy of the large blanket-like talesim. An adult is called to lead them in the blessing over the Torah. In Hebrew, that particular segment is known as “all the children.” Ordinarily the honor of being the adult who leads the children is a special one. This year, with blatant disregard for the traditional standards and in deference to our guests and my incredible wife, I was the one called to lead the assembled children. My own children were there under the canopy, too. Part of the crowd overflowed into the aisles. And, right in the center of the group, lovingly cradled in his brother’s arms, was our joyous guest Simcha. When I said the blessing, he uttered a sound…a sound that G-d certainly heard as a blessing too. One of my friends told me that a great rabbi in prewar Europe had the practice of jumping to his feet whenever a wheelchair passed with a disabled child. “Because,” he would say, “these are undoubtedly special souls watched over by G-d.”

The last night they tried to sleep on our living room floor. But most of us didn’t sleep. Nobody wanted to miss our 5 a.m. airport departure.

In the pre-dawn darkness, the van was crammed with people and equipment. Simcha was strapped into the front seat beside me. As we neared the airport, I reached out and touched his arm. “Thanks for coming,” I whispered. “You made it great.” His eyes fixed on mine. The face that his brother had washed shone. The teeth his brother had brushed sparkled. His blue eyes flashed with the fire of life. And he smiled. A dazzling smile. Through my tears, I smiled too.