During our trip to South Africa, we took the kids to Cape Point about two hours outside of Cape Town, at the very tip of the Cape Peninsula—the most south-east corner of the country.
It’s scenic and mountainous, and unique to South Africa’s rugged beauty. The hike up the cliffs is absolutely worth the effort, and the views from the lighthouse are truly breathtaking.
When we were ready to leave, I took one of my sons to the restroom, while the rest of the kids went ahead to wait in the car with my wife.
We were gone for all of three minutes, but when we returned, an entirely new scene greeted us: a whole troop of wild baboons! They had descended on the area and were ransacking the garbage cans like they'd been waiting all day! One large male had claimed a pile of trash as his own and was baring his teeth at any of the other baboons who dared come close.
Then I noticed a woman standing nearby with her back to the scene. She had no idea what was going on! One of the baboons crept up behind her and grabbed her handbag (fortunately, he didn’t try too hard, and she was able to hold onto it!)
We walked towards our car and that’s when I saw it—a wild baboon had made itself quite comfortable atop our vehicle.
So there I am, my wife is inside, my children are inside, and I’m standing about twenty feet away, doing the only truly heroic thing a father can do in a moment like this: filming it.
The doors and windows were closed and locked, so everyone was safe. But the baboon was climbing onto the hood, peering through the windows, as if deciding which tasty snack to go for first.
Inside, some of the kids were losing it. One of my daughters in particular was terrified. She couldn’t stop shaking.
But I loved every second of it.
I grew up with these baboons. And here were my own children getting to experience the exact thing I lived as a boy.
As much as I wanted to stay and watch them, soaking in the nostalgia, as soon as the baboon climbed off the car, I jumped in and drove off to try and calm my daughter.
I wondered why she was so afraid. The baboon didn’t do anything to her. It couldn't. They were separated by glass and steel.
But the baboon looked dangerous, and so that’s how she perceived it. That perception was powerful enough to make her scream, and powerful enough to make us drive away.
And she’s not alone. Much of what scares us isn’t actually dangerous, it just looks that way. And that perception is strong enough to keep us shut away, missing the very experiences that could have been the best day of our lives.
But the baboon was never going to hurt my daughter, and the thing you're afraid of isn’t going to hurt you either.
Afraid to start keeping Shabbat? That makes sense! It looks like giving something up. But if you let go and dive in, you’ll discover that it adds so much more to your life than it takes away.
Scared to start keeping kosher? It looks complicated and restrictive. And it definitely is a big step! But once you take the first step, and then the next, it will become a lot less overwhelming.
Anxious about walking into the daily minyan for the first time? Makes sense! It’s intimidating walking into any unfamiliar space. But if you let go and take the plunge, you’ll soon wonder what you were ever afraid of.
We're standing at the doorway of a brand-new year, the perfect time to stop trusting the perception and start taking the leap.
It’s not as scary as it seems!
P.S. I still have the video. My daughter has since watched it roughly forty times — from the safety of our living room couch, where no baboon has ever once appeared. Funny how brave we all get once there's an ocean between us and the thing we were afraid of! Give her a few years and she'll be telling her own kids that this was the greatest day of her life.