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Shalom, my son, where can I find you?
Hidden in your new black beard, black suit, black hat
Ensconced for the last two of your twenty-five years
In a yeshiva
Deep in Jerusalem
Praying, chanting, studying
Ancient texts and rabbis' thoughts
Deciphering how they'll guide your journey
To G-d

From board games, dance clubs and student government
To Abraham, Moses and Maimonides,
Gathering strength from the Holocaust
And from swastikas on our neighbors' fences
Probing, stalking, wrestling, grasping
Yearning to trust the urgent beckoning
That pulls you from within

Where can I find my son?
Whose one dimple still peeks out above his beard,
Who led other preschoolers in sandbox games,
Who wasted months watching TV and rarely opened a book
But whose Bar Mitzvah tutor confided:
Adam is going to be a rabbi
He simply doesn't know it yet

Great, great grandson of a Hasidic Jew
With a black beard, black suit and black hat
Son and grandson of men without even a Bar Mitzvah
Citizen of a country that makes X-mas a legal holiday
And of a town that holds elections on Shabbos

Where can I find my son...and my great grandfather
And Maimonides and Moses and Abraham?
Perhaps, just perhaps, deep in Jerusalem
Praying, chanting, studying,
Under a black beard, black suit, black hat
Reaching out his hand for me