From Heaven's Gate

When he was a child, he heard a song on the radio about an absentee father who loved his son but never had enough time for him. He listened to that song and vowed never to be like that. He particularly felt the pain of the son who was never fulfilled by his father and he decided to never do that to his children when he grew older.
Years passed and this child became a young man. When he went off to university, he remembered how he felt about the song and how he wanted to be able to give his son everything he wanted. He studied business and then did a second degree in business to assure he would have enough money to assure his child would have all his wishes fulfilled.
While he was in the university, he met a woman who he felt very close to. They dated for several years but didn’t marry until he was sure he could support her and a family. She felt the same and worked hard to become an independent person who could make a life for herself, even though she wanted to make her life with the man.
When they both had degrees and jobs and money to show for it, they married. Their wedding was big and beautiful. There was a rabbi to please their parents, and an open bar to please their friends, and good music and dancing and much more. After the ceremony, they did the traditional things that all good Jewish couples do at a wedding. The grandfathers said the blessing over the challah, the parents made speeches and everyone danced the Hora.
After a year of living together as a couple and settling into their home, they decided to start planning a family. They decided to have two children; one to replace him and one to replace her. “Zero population growth” was their motto, and they were sticking by it.
When it came time to send the children to pre-school, they joined a local temple and enrolled the kids. Every year they came with their parents to synagogue on the New Year and Yom Kippur. They even came once in a while to a family service at the synagogue where they made friends with some of the parents of their children’s friends.
When the children wanted a new toy, their mother always went out to the store and got it for them. When they wanted ballet lessons and little league baseball, their father always signed them up. Soon Mom decided to reduce her hours at the office and help shuttle the kids to activities and play dates. She hated schlepping from place to place but did it for her kids with a smile on her face.
The father worked a lot so he could provide for the family, but he tried his best to be around when he could. He loved baseball and, every now and then, would get the best seats his firm had to offer clients and take them for himself and his family. When the family’s team made it into the championship, the mother bought everyone matching t-shirts with the victory logo on the front. Everything seemed wonderful until one day the father got sick. He fought for months and paid for the best doctors in the city, but it was a loosing battle.
When he arrived in the next world, he was greeted by his father. His father took him home and dressed him in white. Soon it would be Rosh HaShana and God would be opening the gates of heaven and he wanted to get a seat close to the gate so he could look down on the world. The two of them, dressed in white, brought chairs to the gates of heaven. They found a spot with a good view and took their seats.
The angels were very busy looking through ledgers and writing down names. The father took his binoculars and watched carefully as the son asked what he saw. “That is the book of life and people are being inscribed in it. In ten days, on Yom Kippur, the book will be sealed.”
“Are my wife and children in the book? Why was I not inscribed?” asked the son. “Have I done something wrong?”
The father looked at the son and explained, “The book is a metaphor for the work of a king who sits in judgment. I cannot tell you if this is the way God thinks.”
“And what about my family? Will they live another year?”
“If they remain healthy and safe, I imagine they will.” said the father.
“Then my being here is just not connected to my behavior?” asked the son.
“I cannot answer this either.” said the father, “I’m still pondering my own existence.”
Then the son looked down on his wife and children. He watched the way his family continued without him. They continued to go to activities and play dates and get toys and presents when they wanted. Life continued without him even though everyone knew that something was missing.
For the next several years on Rosh HaShana, the father and son would dress in white and bring their chairs early to the gates of heaven and sit and watch the son’s family, until one year they noticed that a new man had joined the family. He supported the kids and loved the wife and didn’t mind that she worked part-time and drove the kids to play dates and activities. Everyone looked happy, so he was content.
The next year on Rosh HaShana, his father didn’t join him in white clothes with chairs and binoculars at the gates of heaven. After a long day of watching his family, the man went to his father’s house where he found him tending his garden.
“Where were you? It was Rosh HaShana and I missed you at the gates.”
“My son,” said the father, “Last year I had a revelation that made it possible for me to not need to look down from heaven any more.”
The son was very hurt. “You had a revelation and couldn’t share with me?”
“My son, not everything is teachable with words. This is something you will have to learn on your own.”
When the son left his father, he returned to the gates of heaven and continued to stare down. The gates would be open until Yom Kippur, and he knew his father’s revelation came to him while staring down on his family.
As he sat there, he saw his family return from the synagogue after the services. The kids played with the numerous toys and gadgets he and his wife had provided for them. The next day, they went to school and then to activities. They seemed happy, but he could sense that something was missing. While they were consumed with having fun and doing their baseball and ballet and working hard at their homework so they could get into a good university so that they could make a good life for their kids, they had forgotten that in the village next to them there were other children in other families who didn’t have everything that they had.
Of course it was hard to know this because from where they where, they could only see their own world. The father, however, looked down on the whole world and he could see everything below him.
Soon Yom Kippur came and the gates of heaven closed. The man went home and planted some seeds and started tending a garden of his own. He worked very hard, and while he toiled, he thought to himself, “If only I could have seen what my father saw, and what I have just seen, while I was alive.” Then he continued to plant his garden and brought the fruits and vegetables he grew to his neighbors in hopes that he could pass forward some of what he had learned.