Don't Forget to Call Home: Lessons from God and Grandpa on a Life of Meaning

At a hundred years old, Holocaust survivor Wolf Gruca turned to his grandson, Rabbi Aaron Starr, and asked, “Where was God?” Don’t Forget to Call Home is a grandson’s attempt to respond to a weeping grandfather, and it’s a clergyman’s effort to help the modern person deepen a relationship with the Divine. With warmth and wisdom, Rabbi Starr sets out to answer the question, “Where is God, and what does God want of us?” Perhaps God is no longer the Law Giver or Judge, the Warrior or even the Miracle Maker. Perhaps God is an Empty-Nester Parent, expecting us to live with gratitude, obligation, joy, and hope. Perhaps, like a loving parent whose children are now grown-up, God desires us to act like adults by emulating our Heavenly Parent. Perhaps, too, God and Grandpa are reminding us: “Don’t forget to call home.”

Aaron L. Starr serves as spiritual leader of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan, and he is a senior rabbinic fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Rabbi Starr is the author of two books: Taste of Hebrew and Because I Am Jewish, I Get to... A Child's Celebration of Jewish Life. Rabbi Starr and his wife, Rebecca, are the proud parents of two sons.