Rabbi Friedlander shakes my hand.”You know your
Berakhahs and Haftorah?” I nod and he smiles. “He’s
going to be a solid man, I can tell from the eyes,
don’t worry, he’ll make you proud,” he tells Mother.
Then to Father, “You understand after he completes
his first Aliyah you go up to recite the blessing – Barukh
She’pturanee May onsho shel zeh, which means ‘Blessed
is the One Who has freed me from the punishment due
this boy’…which means two things: with this blessing
the father is no longer responsible for his son’s sins and
the father’s failures no longer burden his son…understand?”
Father nods. “This calling up is a passage to adulthood,
your blessing his awakening, his liberation…from you!”
I shake as Rabbi Friedlander puts his arm around me.
“Be frightened. Today you begin to respect your fear.”
- from the book length poem, Living in the Past, by Philip Schultz









