Letter to Our Future President…

Dear ???,

Our daughter is one month into pre-kindergarten as our nation is one month from this historic election.

She will turn five as you prepare to mark the one-hundred-day mark of your new administration.

Her birth was one of the first as our community hospital in suburban Maryland grappled with COVID-19.

It seemed only fitting to give her a name loosely translating from Hebrew as “my wave of divine light”.

Yet, as we now witness a seemingly global pandemic of Jewish hate, we wonder if only divine intervention can restore a bit of light during these dark times. Will our elected leaders play a role in ensuring the safety of their Jewish constituents?

These United States feel less united than ever before in our lifetime. Too few of our fellow Americans and our elected leaders seem committed to forming a more perfect union.

Our daughter’s babysitters, first time voters, tearfully debated whether to pack their Jewish star necklaces as they prepared for their first college semesters. Others – who just one year ago were feverishly focused on applying to our nation’s top schools – have lost enthusiasm and are reevaluating their post-high school plans.

This month our holiest days are known as the Days of Awe.

For you as candidates “awe” takes on a different meaning as you evaluate metrics from your finance and field departments in this final sprint.

Indeed, your volunteers strengthen our democracy as they brave the deserts of Arizona and the early frost of Wisconsin having conversations at the doors of perfect strangers. This is an awesome testament to the resilience of our country.

Our daughter is filled with awe watching the size and energy of your sign waving crowds and gets most excited when red, white and blue balloons are involved.

Yet, she is also filled with awe passing the heavily armed county police officers and private security contractors at the front door of our synagogue and her school. Revolvers, body cameras and Kevlar vests are not only new terms, but also new concepts for her four-year-old lexicon.

As the Jewish electorate marks our new year, my resolution is that when the dust of this historic election settles (and I pray it settles soon) you and your administration have the courage to stand up to hate – be it from the extreme right or the hard left.

Our country is great because of our freedoms.

Beyond arguing over bedtime and breakfast choices, our daughter does not understand the freedom to protest. She has no concept of offensive flag burning and graffiti in the streets or Holocaust revisionist history and racist replacement theories.

Like any toddler, she thinks her father has an answer for everything. Her favorite word is “why”.

I am bracing myself for when her questions become more sophisticated and I do not have an answer.

“Why are they mean to us?”

“Why is everyone using this word ‘hate’?”

Perhaps in a few years after she learns about Anne Frank we’ll discuss on our Saturday morning walks the famous observation… “Who knows, it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason only do we now suffer.”

Perhaps when she gets older she’ll learn our ancient texts. These are the writings of the Talmud. Yearning for a return to their home in Israel, our ancestors developed this in the early days of Christianity and before Islam.

She might reference the debate amongst our Sages about why we received our holy Torah on a mountain called Sinai? We’ll discuss the Hebrew root of the word Sinai is “sinah” — the Hebrew word for hatred.

Our faith has been tested this year. This holy month our tradition reminds us that G-d places moral demands upon us and that we are created in His image.

I am just an independent voter and a confused father. I am in no place to make demands on you as a candidate for President.

As Dr. Martin Luther King dreamt, I will “not wallow in the valley of despair.” I dream that our nation and our Jewish community will “face the difficulties of today and tomorrow” knowing that my family and my community will have a partner in the White House.

I hope this time next year there is a real freedom to worship across our country in houses that are not guarded like bank vaults.

I hope there is a restored freedom for high school babysitters to dream of college.

I hope that our daughter grows in her understanding of the concept of patriotism.

For the time being, in a toddler way, she does understand leadership.

On a Sunday drive a year ago, before your campaign ads enveloped south central Pennsylvania, we traveled to Gettysburg. With her napping in the back seat on the way home dreaming of our time with horses, I found myself pondering the words of our nation’s most tested President.

As I finish my letter to you, I think of his leadership. His vision then resonates now.

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

This sprint to Election Day will test you as candidates, but the real leadership test will be next year as you build your administration and execute your vision.

G-d willing, with your leadership, the year ahead will present a new birth of freedom which ensures my daughter’s optimism and her nascent patriotism will not perish.