A few years ago, Rabbi Wayne Dosick was at the airport when he witnessed an unusual scene. A police officer approached a mother and her small daughter. Someone had filed a missing-persons report on a little girl of the same age and appearance as the little girl in the airport. The officer was asking the mother to prove that the child was actually hers.

First, the officer tried questioning the toddler, a technique that proved to be futile. He asked the name of her father. She replied, "Daddy." He asked where she lived, "At home." So the officer then asked the mother to produce some form of identification that would prove that she was really the child's mother. After some time, the police officer was satisfied and left.

But this encounter disturbed Rabbi Dosick. He began to think, "How wou…