November 21 is a very special day in our lives. It’s not our wedding anniversary or the birthday of anyone in our family. It’s National Adoption Day. This is important to us because both of our sons are adopted. The older one was adopted domestically when he was one day old; the younger one is from Russia – we met him when he was 5 months old and he joined us at home two months later. We are the luckiest parents alive to have two healthy, happy children who are shomrei Torah and mitzvot.
In Hebrew the word “adopt” is leametz (lamed, alef, mem, tzadik). In gematria the total of these letters is 161. In Parshat Bereishit (1:28) it says, “vayevareich otam Elokim vayomer lahem Elokim pru u’revu umil’u et ha’aretz — And Hashem blessed them, and Hashem said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Lahem elokim (with the correct spelling of Hashem’s name) equals 161.
Why am I telling you this? Because there is not one place in that pasuk that says how we should be “fruitful and multiply.” It doesn’t mean that we must give birth ourselves but rather that we are charged with the responsibility of Jewish continuity.
A major controversy concerning adoption is whether to tell the child that he or she is adopted, and, if yes, when? To us, adopting a child is another beautiful way for a child to join a family, and there was no question hat we would tell them as soon as they could understand. We chose to buy each of them a Cabbage Patch Kid because these dolls come with adoption papers that parents and/or children can fill out. When I bought the doll for my older son I actually found one with the name Asher. Both the hair and the eye color matched my son’s perfectly. When it was time to buy one for my second son I couldn’t find one with a Jewish name, so we named him Moishy when we sent in his adoption papers. We referred to the Cabbage Patch Kids as our sons’ adopted babies and when they would ask questions about adoption, we explained it on a level they could understand.
We wanted our children to view adoption as a natural, positive thing. Even in our supposedly enlightened day and age, too many people are still quite uncomfortable with the whole subject.
I will never forget a troubling incident that occurred when my younger son, who is now 15, was in 3rd grade. One night, I got phone calls from two of his classmates’ mothers who told me he was going around school telling kids that he was adopted. Laughingly, they asked why he was angry with me. When I told them he was adopted, they were shocked. “You mean he’s not embarrassed to talk about it?” they asked. “Why should he be embarrassed?” I answered. Both mothers admitted that they had never thought about adoption that way before.
Unfortunately, I have heard so many horror stories of kids – and some adults – who found out about their adoption by accident or from someone, usually a family member, who hadn’t realized that the child in question hadn’t been told. The reaction is often one of devastation. The person now feel that adoption is a negative thing that should be hidden and that he or she is not equal to the biological members of the family.