Happy Birthday, David

June 2 was my brother David’s birthday. He would have turned 44. David died 10 years ago in January in a skiing accident. Every June I think about my brother David and what the world has been like without him and what it could have been like with him.
It is now summer in Cape May County and summer was the time my brother and I would contemplate on so much of the world. We grew up in Phoenix and summer in Phoenix is quite an interesting experience.
The temperatures often reach over 110 degrees and you can literally fry an egg on the sidewalk. It sounds extreme but that was one of our summer experiments. One July we put foil on the sidewalk in the middle of the day and fried an egg.
My brother and I would sometimes compete with each other over how long we could play tennis in the mid day when the temperature was over 112. It was stupid in hindsight but David always had the ability to push so many of us around him to the extreme.
As we grew older I often asked him why he liked to push himself so much, whether in sports, academics, or so many aspects of his life. He used to tell me he liked to find his core, the place that he felt was his edge that he could not reach and then surprise himself when he passed it.
I am two years older than David but sometime in our teens he seemed to pass me by in so many aspects of life, (academically, athletically, etc.), but summer became our equalizer. This was the time when we would be shuffled off to camp and swimming was something I could always do better than him. He was fast but I could hold my breath longer than him. It is something I am proud of to this day that when we went swimming I could go farther than him and dive deeper in the water.
Summer was something special to David because June 2 was his birthday as well as the beginning of the summer. This was our time for adventure, to go off to camp, challenge ourselves, and start the new school year a different person, our bronzed and toned bodies so full of life.
Now, every June 2 my mother goes to his grave and places a rock on the headstone as is Jewish tradition, a rock that signifies something unique and special. David was my hero so much in life and on his birthday it’s a time I miss him even more.
June is the period when we Jews read about siblings Aaron and Miriam and the struggle of the Israelites in the desert. The story in this week’s Torah reading is about sending spies to scout out the land of Canaan that the Israelites will settle.
The 12 spies are to observe the land and determine if the Israelites had the strength to capture the land from its inhabitants. The story goes that eventually the men came back but 10 had negative reports that the inhabitants were too strong for the Israelites to conquer.
The spies mourned that they did not have the ability to settle the land. The nation was punished because of the mourning of the 10 spies and the reaction of the people who saw it.
Why were the spies punished and castigated? What wrong did they do? They reconnoitered the ancient land of Canaan as they saw it and reported in good faith.
Our tradition itself grapples with the question of why the Israelites were punished by having to wander the desert for 40 years before it could enter Canaan. It comes up with various understandings.
The section quotes their report as saying, “We were as grasshoppers in our own eyes.” They were castigated because they underestimated themselves. They spread negative talk regarding the land of Israel and in the end these children of God, blessed by the holy one at Mount Sinai only saw themselves as grasshoppers in their own eyes.
They wanted to return to Egypt and avoid the difficult struggle of settling the land. They were castigated because they preferred security over divine mission but most importantly they were castigated because they did not believe in themselves and their ability to be worthy to settle the land. Not having faith in themselves was a great sin and spread to the whole community and thus that generation was punished for lack of faith, not lack of faith in God, but in themselves.
My brother had so much faith in his ability to conquer difficulties that he reveled in the challenges of life. He told me once when we were eating lunch in NYC about the time he first arrived in the city almost overwhelmed by its size and its importance.
Now here he was starting his job at Forbes magazine as an online reporter, launching its website 15 years ago, proud that he overcame the challenge that he put before himself in life. He went on to become a great writer and reporter both for Forbes and Smart Money magazine and many other great newspaper outlets slaying so many dragons that came before him. I was so proud of him that June 2 I miss him even more.
This year both my boys get to go summer camp. I am so excited to see them begin their adventure. This year as I drop them both off I will tell them the story of their Uncle David, about the challenges we fought together every summer and how, no matter how successful he was at everything else, I could still hold my breath underwater longer and swim farther than him when we went away to camp.
Happy Birthday, David, I miss you.
Rabbi Jeffrey Lipschultz is the spiritual leader of Beth Judah Temple in Wildwood N.J. He welcomes your comments at dvjewish@rof.net