Let me count the ways.
While I've answered this question in the past, I am now going to elaborate on reason #2
It is because of stories like what I heard at today's bris.
The parents of the baby are not American-born. Spanish? Russian? I got a mix of different cultures - all of which led me to give a different kind of speech than the one I usually give while explaining the ceremony... about Jewish strength and survival, and doing what we do because we are proud to be Jews... and about the strength God should give parents who are given the enormous task of raising a baby.
As I was about to leave - bris was great, baby resting peacefully - the baby's grandmother walks into the room where her daughter is holding the baby, and she essentially tells me that she's riding on top of the world.
I asked her why? This is her daughter's first child, but she seems even more elated than other parents of first-time parents.
So she tells me her story.
"Five years ago, my daughter had an autoimmune reaction. She was dead on a ventilator. DEAD."
