Rabbi Brad Artson was in his mid-30s when he and his wife, Ilana, began to notice some behavioral anomalies in one of their twin children.
It started with little things: At two-and-a-half-years-old, Jacob wouldn’t participate in the preschool play. He didn’t stand and sing with the other kids. He tended to wander off during storytelling.
A perceptive congregant finally approached Artson and his wife and suggested they have Jacob tested for developmental delays. The diagnosis came back as PDD, Pervasive Development Disorder, which at the time was scientific euphemism for a more feared, bewildering and mysterious condition: Autism.
Nearly three decades later, Artson describes the moment of that shocking realization as “a fog.”
“It was pretty devastating and pretty overwhelming,” the Vice President of American Jewish University and Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies said of his son’s diagnosis. “We didn’t really know what it meant.”
In many ways, Artson has spent every moment since making sense of and deriving meaning from this shape-shifting experience. Because while no parent is immune to the challenges of child rearing, parenting a child with severe autism requires a different order of energy, patience and generosity. It requires Herculean soul. There is no corner of Artson’s life or his rabbinate that is untouched by his role as Jacob’s father; it has impacted his teachings, his self-understanding, his concept of God.
“There was no way to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing God who is totally in control without betraying my son,” Artson said of his theology, which is influenced by process theology, a philosophy that teaches that God is not a separate being but a process that works through human beings to make the world better. “I could never say ‘It’s all for the best.’ I couldn’t say ‘He did something terrible in a past life for which this is payment.’”
Nor could he accept, as one religious Jew suggested, the idea that his son was a Tzaddik in a past life and therefore need only live a kind of half-life in this iteration of existence.
“I thought, if this is the best God can do, God’s not really working hard. It forced me to give up what I thought I had to think about God and lead with my heart.”
Artson speaks in near reverential terms about Jacob, explaining how much he’s learned from his son and praising Jacob’s courage in confronting his own disappointments. He is equally praiseful of his daughter, Shira, Jacob’s twin, as well as Ilana, who have been his partners in the beautiful, taxing journey that has defined their family. But Artson does not pretend it’s all been a blessing. “I’ve gone through times of depression,” he said. “There’s no way not to.”
He is frank about the difficulty and the emotional toll of raising a child who had to rely more heavily on the assistance of his parents in order to make his way in the world. And he said there were times he fell short of his own ideals in how he parented.
“I don’t think I was always the best parent I could be,” Artson said. “Or maybe the best parent I could be wasn’t always good enough. Sometimes my own limitations prevented me from giving Jacob what he needed and I will always be sorry for that.”
It’s likely most parents feel that way. I ask Artson how great is the divide, really, between parenting a child with special needs and parenting a “typical” child?
“Everybody is somewhere on some spectrum,” Artson said, “and the temptation to divide the world into neurotypical and neurodiverse is just a sign of our defense against our fears. Everybody has areas of strength and areas of struggle.”
Parenting Jacob liberated Artson from what he described as a “false consciousness” — the idea that life supplies a black-and-white binary experience. “Your best life isn’t going to be a simple transcript of your yearning,” he said. “You’re going to have to accomodate a reality that you didn’t order up. But within that reality, you can have a great time and touch lives and let lives touch yours.”
Parenting Jacob liberated Artson from what he described as a “false consciousness” — the idea that life supplies a black-and-white binary experience.
Even with all the real and wrenching challenges, Artson recounted “glorious” moments as a family that obviated any wish for an alternative reality.
“We can choose to live our lives as victims or we can live our lives as blessed and it’s a choice,” Artson said. “To not sink into the pity party victim story, that takes work; because there’s always plenty of evidence to push you in that direction. Everybody is fighting in the great struggle.”
I gather what he means by the great struggle is the struggle to be loved, to feel worthy.
“I do think that people are saddled with a sense that they have to earn their dignity,” Artson said. Which he admitted is ironic in light of the Jewish view that every human being is created in the image of God, that the soul is pure.
“Jewish tradition tells us that we’re loved with an everlasting love,” Artson said. “But nobody really believes that, not about themselves.”
The genius of Torah, he said, is that the love story between God and the Jewish people is based on the simple fact of chosenness, not merit. “Torah is entirely a book about unearned love in every direction.”
Perhaps unearned love is the ultimate love: All we have to do is exist, and God loves us.
Fast Takes with Rabbi Artson
Danielle Berrin: What’s currently on your night table?
Bradley Artson: “This Is Happiness” by Niall Williams. It’s the most beautifully written novel I’ve ever read in my life.
DB: Last show you binge-watched?
BA: Well there’s the one I want to tell you, “Ted Lasso,” and then there’s the embarrassing one, “Black Lightning.”
DB: Your day off looks like…
BA: Mondays I’m home and I do scholarship, reading, writing, a workout. Sundays I often take a walk on the beach with Jacob and then Shira comes over and we barbecue.
DB: Favorite thing to do in Israel?
BA: Every year my dear friend, Rabbi Judith Edelman-Green picks me up at the airport and we immediately go for a hike somewhere in the Judean Hills and then we go to Darna, a Moroccan restaurant in Jerusalem, and we order The Sultan’s Feast. It’s the best meal of my year.
DB: Something about you most people don’t know?
BA: Growing up I had a pet octopus named Ichobod.
DB: Most essential Torah verse?
BA: Lo tuchal le-hitalem — you shall not remain indifferent.
DB: Biggest challenge facing the Jewish world?
BA: We define our greatness by external standards.
DB: Guilty pleasure?
BA: My mom is a psychoanalyst. I don’t have guilt.
DB: Favorite Jewish food?
BA: On Pico, there’s a Persian-Chinese restaurant, Kolah Farangi. I love their chicken koobideh and zereshk polo. I’m always the only Ashkenazi person in the place.
DB: If you weren’t a rabbi you’d be…
BA: A rabbi. One of the great things about being a rabbi is it blends so many things I love: reading, helping people, counseling people, rituals, holidays, community organizing, politics. It’s all of that.
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