What is it about Bedtime?

By Rabbi Menachem Creditor. Printed February 7, 2012, SeventyFaces.com

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

What is it about bedtime? On the one hand it's an in-between moment: Daylight is fading, eyelids are drooping - a gentle goodnight seems natural. On the other hand, there is the "simple task" of getting a child to bed, tucking them in, and finally going to take care of "grown-up stuff." How difficult it is to preserve this escapable sacred experience.

And yet, if we rush we miss the very first "I love you too." We miss seeing in our child's eyes an emerging understanding of the world. We miss the blindingly holy uniqueness of this independent person if we look away too quickly. And it's so easy to be distracted.

What roots us in the moment? Ritual. A hug, the Shema, a shared story. The gift of saying Shema with a child is inestimable. No ringing cell-phone is worth answering when you and your child are truly present with each other. There is nothing to accomplish, no way to fail. All there is is wonder. Grandeur. Love.

And why limit this practice to parenting? Imagine the power of looking into the eyes of a loving partner, a beloved friend, and saying the Shema. So intimate, and such a relief from the tumult of the world. It's just easier to talk about seeing Infinity in a child's eyes, perhaps because they haven't come to feel limited by the burdens of adult life and a challenging world.

Every one of us, old or young, has the same eyes we did as children. They've just seen more. Internalized a world that is so much, too much, with us. We miss the sunset because it feels so far away. Not the child. Childhood is a time when we can draw an elephant being swallowed by a boa-constrictor, give the moon a hat for a gift, delight in an echo, and know for certain that wisdom lives inside ourselves.

In that moment when we say the Shema, we are children once more, effortlessly testifying to the infinite oneness as we bid each other goodnight.

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Joined: September 20, 2007

A prolific writer, musician, and leader in the Conservative Movement, Menachem Creditor’s rabbinate has taken him from coast to coast. For the first 5 years of his rabbinate he served as the assistant Rabbi of Temple Israel in Sharon, Massacusets. His work within that community lead to meeting Rabbi David Paskin, with whom Rabbi Creditor created Shirav and recorded two albums. Their album Deeper & Deeper contains the track Olam, which has become a spiritual anthem in the Renewal, Reform, and Masorti world. Rabbi Creditor's first solo album "Within" was released in 2011. Described as “a vocal proponent of gay and women’s rights”, Rabbi Creditor co-founded Keshet Rabbis, the alliance of gay friendly conservative rabbis and recently, Rabbi Creditor became the international co-chair of Rabbis For Women of the Wall. Since becoming Rabbi of Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, CA in 2007, the synagogue’s membership has swelled, the participatory nature of the synagogue has flourished, and the outreach programs generated, including Bay Area Masorti, which Rabbi Creditor currently chairs, have achieved regional, national, and international recognition. Rabbi Creditor currently serves on the Executive Council of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Board of Trustees of the UC Berkeley Hillel, and on the Rabbinic Advisory Committee of Shalom Bayit. Rabbi Creditor’s writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Forward, The Jewish Week, J. Weekly, The Jewish Advocate, The Boston Globe, Kolot: Voices of CJ, JewsbyChoice.org, Conservative Judaism, and in several Jewish anthologies, including the recently published Paths of Torah. Rabbi Creditor has been called a "power-blogger" and his rabbinate is a constant vehicle for Jewish connection within social media. He blogs at rabbicreditor.blogspot.com.