How fast time passes… It's almost a month now since you, my first grandchild, were born and I acquired the exalted title "Bubby."
Born a week before the yahrtzeit of our Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, wife of the Rebbe, you were named Chaya Mushka. Chaya means life and as I hold you in my arms, I think about how to me and our family you epitomize the torch of life being passed from one generation to the next. I feel blessed to see you—and even more so to witness my own parents, your great-grandparents, seeing you—the beginning of a new chain in a circle that holds within it our four generations of precious life.
The attention that a newborn draws is quite amazing. Strangers stop to coo and smile, incredulous at the miraculous gift of life contained so compactly in this beautiful little wonder. Tiny fingers and toes…such a perfectly small nose and delicate mouth…such a wondrous miniature replica of every part of a full-grown human being, contained in a mere seven-and-a-half pounds.
My dear granddaughter, as I stare at your perfectly formed tiny self, I think that just as you have all your physical features—ten tiny fingers and toes and beautiful little eyes—how on another level you also already have within you all your inborn, innate characteristics and talents. True, they need to be nurtured and developed, refined and directed, but in their rawest state, they are there, just hidden within you.
And similarly, on another level, you already have within you all the strengths and qualities that you will ever need—still veiled and buried, but the potential very much alive inside of you—for any and every sojourn that your soul will encounter in this world.
None of us knows where life's turns will lead. But wherever your destiny will bring you, know that you have within you all the tools to become the best possible "you."
My sweet Chayale, such a short time ago, I held your own mother, my firstborn, in my arms, with a lot less experience and confidence than I now hold you. I would never have imagined then that in what feels like the blink of an eye, I'd be holding my daughter's own daughter—little you.
When I looked toward the future then, at a time when twenty years ahead seemed like an eternity, I imagined our world very differently. I would have liked you to have been born into a better world—that world that I dreamed of as I tenderly cuddled your mother.
I envisioned that there would be no want or need, no struggle or conflict. It would be a world where we are not so tenaciously caught in the grip of self-centeredness, but rather a world where our individual purpose and meaning is as bright as the sun's rays. In such a world, inexplicable tragedies, shattered dreams and sadness have no place.
Disappointedly, this is not the world which I can gift to you. Nor is it my gift to give. But what I can hope to provide for you instead, my sweet granddaughter, is a faith that there is a purpose to everything, even when we cannot see it. An optimism that our world is becoming better, even if too many days it feels like the opposite.
A wisdom to seek light, and a desire to give, to accomplish and to bring more goodness into our world. A clarity to know that you are making a difference and the confidence that you have the strength to overcome and thrive in all of life's situations.
And a belief that personal, global and cosmic struggles will soon end in a great climax that heralds a beautiful new beginning.
My sweet, little grandchild, welcome into our family. Welcome to our world. Our world has the potential to be such a wondrous place.
And you, my sweet baby, within your tiny self, you represent so much hope in all that can be.
