May 2000 Danny And Debby Are Engaged! By Rabbi Alvin Kass Danny and Debby are engaged! As far as I know, Tom Brokaw didn't mention it on the TV News nor was it cited on CNN. That's their problem, because the intention of these two young people to travel through life together is far more important than planetary exploration, economic globalization, or miniaturized computers. To be sure, as a rabbi with a keen interest in history and philosophy, I often find myself thinking, speculating, and sometimes pontificating on the big picture. What's life all about? What does it mean? What possesses ultimate significance? When will the Messiah come? Will there ever be world peace? Will the wolf ever dwell with the lamb? I don't mean to denigrate concern over these major questions. No one knows better than I that all these gargantuan issues have momentous implications for each and every one of us. Nevertheless, when I think of Danny and Debby, I am inclined to respond along with Samuel Beckett: "Nothing to be done." Please forgive me if I confess that at this moment the sheer overload of cosmic quandaries forced me to take stock of what really matters to me and what does not. The more I try to wrap my mind around the universe, the more I find my thoughts hewing toward the very personal. Danny and Debby are engaged! There couldn't be a more beautiful or ideal couple. That two such remarkable people could find each other is calculated to convince even the most hardened skeptic that there must be something after all to that midrashic notion that after God created the world, He devoted Himself to shadchanus, "matchmaking." They first met each other at Camp Ramah. What initially attracted Debby to Danny was the way he davened. That single fact speaks volumes about her and about him. We were fortunate to have Debby on our staff at the East Midwood Jewish Center for two years, charged with the pivotal responsibility of training our youngsters for Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah. In the short time she was there she won the hearts of the children as well as their parents. Her capacity to establish an astounding rapport with the young enabled her to bring out the best in her students. They in return rewarded her with prodigious bonds of admiration, affection and love. Her fellow congregants at the Park Slope Jewish Center, where she is a member, absolutely adore her and profoundly appreciate the indispensable role she has played there in fashioning a synagogue at its very best. Her perceptiveness, insight, and caring make her chosen field of psychology the perfect discipline for her. As far as Danny is concerned, every moment of his life has been sheer joy for Miryom and me. There could never be more loving siblings than Sarah and Lewis who together with Danny perfectly personify the principle of "one for all, all for one." I will always cherish Danny's first smile at 5:00 A.M. on August 3, 1973. To be sure, my wife insists that it was only a gas bubble because Dr. Spock claims that children who are 13 days old cannot smile. But no one will ever convince me that that precious child didn't smile for the first time in my arms on that unforgettable summer day as the sun began to rise. I remember visiting Danny's nursery school in Astoria, Queens for an event known as "Daddy's Day." It is an annual part of the nursery school schedule and one that is eagerly anticipated by both the youngsters and the fathers alike. I know that, in my home, discussion of "Daddy's Day" began almost two months before it actually took place. The children prepare for the day by drawing pictures of their fathers and relating data about them to the teacher who transcribes the information on the children's pictures. The daddies then come in and try to figure out which picture is of them. I had no problem identifying the picture of me. It was the only one of a man wearing a police uniform draped with a tallit! Even on those rare occasions when Danny got into trouble, the experience became transformative in nature. Take that time, for example, when he was in the eighth grade of the Rabbi Harry Halpern Day School and was punished along with some of his fellow students for getting into a food fight in the school lunchroom. The penalty was to scatter the chastised students by having them sit with other classes at mealtime. Danny had to sit with first-graders. Instead of nursing his wounds, he developed a remarkable empathy with them, tested them in math and perceptively arrived at meaningful insights about the process of maturation. As a young physician, it is evident that he possesses a real love for medicine and an authentic commitment to healing. His teachers, his peers, and his patients speak of him in the most glowing terms; because he is a 100% mensch. For the moment, the universe will have to take second place to my nachat and joy. Miryom and I just want to focus on what is near and dear to us at this very moment in our own family and in the Gillman family with which we are delighted and privileged to be a part. Stephen Sondheim is right when in "Pacific Overtures," his characters intuitively recognize that the microcosm is far more real and relevant than the macrocosm. "It's the fragment, not the day. It's the pebble, not the stream. It's the ripple, not the sea that is happening." Danny and Debby's engagement may be but a fragment, a pebble, and a ripple in this vast cosmos of ours. Nevertheless, for Miryom and me, it's all that is really happening.