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As water flows downward it fills in and covers everything in its path. It fills all of the open places, cracks, crevices, and as mentioned above cannot be contained.

And yet it is a life giving source.

It was, in fact, the result of observing the effects of the steady and constant drip of a drop of water one drop at a time that brought Rabbi Akiva to realize the greatness of Torah and as a result he decided to convert and become a Jew.

Rabbi Akiva observed what an enormous effect the steady and constant dripping of one drop of water at a time would have upon a rock over a long period of time.

The drops in question had actually worn a hole in a rock over a very long period of time. This slow methodical and very concise activity made Rabbi Akiva realize that in order for the Torah to have an effect on him he would have to dedicate himself to the Torah by beginning to slowly but steadily make a dent in his rock so to speak. He also realized that it is never too late and at the age of forty he set out to become one of the greatest Torah leaders of the Jewish people.

Rabbi Akiva began by learning the Alef Beis and through consistent and constant learning became a great Torah scholar. A real giant of the Jewish people.

Rabbi Akiva taught that among the five things that a father is responsible to teach his son is the skill of swimming. This is accepted Torah Law.

But why? What is it about swimming that should be held to be as important as for example teaching a child a vocation.

Rabbi Akiva realized that the face of the world was covered fully by a significant amount of water and the rest was a variety of land formations. So wouldn’t it have been easier to have made a ruling that everyone must be careful of the water and avoid it and thus keep everyone safe?

However the pitfall to avoidance would mean that each person would need to avoid successfully 70% of the earth’s surface. Rabbi Akiva realized that this could be an impossible task given the nature of travel and migrations, etc.

The requirement to teach a child to swim is a ruling whose purpose is to teach our children how to properly confront the tides, whirlpools, and challenges of our lives fully equipped to properly negotiate life’s foreseen and unforeseen hazards and pitfalls. This was a survival skill.

When we are confronted with a significant life challenge as opposed to life’s routine challenges we always hope that we were properly equipped to negotiate these obstacles.

Having a child born with Down syndrome is to most people a significant life challenge.

However, depending on how well we were taught to swim will determine whether or not we will sink or not. The variable is the preparation.

On several occasions fathers who themselves were orphaned at birth came to me pleading with me to assist them in ridding themselves of this child who was born with Down syndrome.

The logic to all of this always eluded me. Wouldn’t it seem that if they themselves were abandoned at birth and never knew who their own biological parents that they would want to keep this child no matter what.

The truth is that we, all of us, want to believe that this child that we have had is a reflection of who we are and where we come from. Having a baby is our way of shouting to the world that we can produce the likeness of ourselves in some small way that will reflect the best that we are and can offer.

Usually we can look at the family around us and come to the conclusion that this was simply a reflection of what G-d wanted and we can eventually come to accept it and move forward. We don’t ever come to the point where we like it and we would certainly never daven to have such a child but we will get to the point where we can accept that this is something that G-d needed to do.

When you yourself are adopted there is a hidden agenda that arises and that is this. Since the person themselves was abandoned they have nothing but imagination and fantasy upon which to base their own history. And in the absence of any real set and subset of relatives and distant relatives upon which to base these necessary comparisons there exists a need to cut and run.

After all the sum and totality of this person’s entire biology is now revolving around a child with an extra chromosome. And that is one of the most difficult challenges to face.

There is a lady, Mrs. Rosenstein, who lives in Detroit who many years ago had twins. Both children were born with problems and she was informed that neither one of them would live and not become attached to them.

Mrs. Rosenstein, to her credit asked which of the two babies was the most critical and asked to hold that baby which she did for several hours until that baby passed away.

She then turned her attention to Chaim the second twin who was also supposed to be in critical condition. Chaim today is a real Torah scholar and while he had some difficult years in the beginning one would never know it today. He is sweet and gentle and kind. He just finished his Smicha program and we now must refer to him as Rabbi Chaim.

Mrs. Rosenstein to this day says, “whose to say that first baby didn’t come into this world just for a few hours of a mother’s love?”