The Jewish home is a creative center. Everything of value
begins in the home. By uplifting the level of creativity in
the home, we can add to our families' happiness, enthusiasm
and well being. Let's look at ways we may not have
considered, with Rebbetizin Altusky, teacher for many decades
of girls, seminary students and women.
WHAT IS THE CREATIVE JEWISH HOME?
A happy home is a creative home. It is a beautiful thing to
make a home a happy one. That is the most creative thing of
all. Where there is an air of joy, everything seems to work
differently and is enhanced. Happiness is the natural
background for creativity; people feel freer, less hampered
or inhibited. With a light hand, everything is more open.
A house should be a pleasant, beautiful place. This is
expressed through simple touches, like pretty napkins
decoratively folded on the table, growing plants, pictures on
the wall. A tasteful environment encourages children to see
the beauty in many things and to create it themselves. And
beauty is not necessarily in the pocketbook: creative women
can transform an old table with a remnant of material and
matching curtains etc.
Everything one does can be done with charm and flair, with a
bit of thought. Food can also be creative. There are
children's cookbooks, or simple recipes that a child (boys
included) can learn, and work her way up to more complex
things. Girls can get together and prepare a festive table
for some occasion, or plan special Shabbos dishes through a
joint cooking club, learn vegetable/ cake/ table decorations
from their mothers.
Even cleaning can be creative -- rooms can be reorganized,
chores like laundry set up differently, furniture polished
and even varnished, paint or contact paper applied to old
areas. Sewing is certainly a domestic art to be used
creatively, whether for clothing or the home. Whether it is
the eye, the smell or the taste - all senses can be used
creatively to enhance a room, the home, and personalize
it.
CREATIVITY IS AN AWARENESS
You can read articles or borrow ideas from more creative
people and adapt them. Creativity is not something that
cannot be learned. Everyone has a potential in some sphere or
other. When you introduce creativity in the home, it is
picked up by the children. Being less rigid and set in their
ideas, children can be much more creative. Bais Yaakov
schools often have class decorating campaigns with marvelous
results. Girls take rooms with very little eye appeal and get
to work, painting, cleaning, varnishing, decorating. The
results are spectacular. Perhaps an occasional contest can be
made in the home, too.
There is something about creativity that you can't put a
finger on -- something that makes people put two things
together to create a third, to take a nothing and make it
into a something -- dynamic, vibrant, beautiful. It is adding
a dimension, personality, character.
THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF CREATIVITY
There are tapes that enhance the spiritual side of home life,
be they lectures, children's stories or music (selective).
The bookcases are certainly a spiritual focus that can be
enhanced and highlighted in the home. Children can dust the
seforim, arrange them according to topic and then
according to size or color within the topic area. They should
become familiar with handling them. Parents can tell
interesting family histories about certain seforim,
especially old ones that have passed down through
generations. "Who lived one hundred years ago? Who touched
these seforim?"
Children should be encouraged to take good care of their
books and of the family seforim, to paste a loose
page, even to learn elementary bookbinding. to learn how to
make plastic book covers. Benchers should also have a
special place and be taken care of: crumbs brushed off, torn
pages pasted or put away in geniza after periodic
inspection.
There are many home skills that children can learn, boys as
well as girls. There is nothing wrong with a boy being handy,
if it does not interfere with his study. Repairs or carpentry
can be a healthy, very creative outlet, if done within
specified time limits and boundaries. Many of our own
Talmudic sages were craftsmen, like blacksmiths, goldsmiths,
carpenters, etc. And they were not ashamed of being
identified by their skill.
You may have ideas on enhancing the creativity in your boys'
study through special projects, field trips. Rebbes may
appreciate your ideas if presented respectfully, as
suggestions. We want our children to be motivated to learn
and feel a zest for knowledge.
Creativity is being alive, appreciative, sensitive, thinking
broadly, enjoying the big and little things in life and
utilizing them to their fullest. Creativity is very Jewish;
it is one way of saying thanks to Hashem: "This is my G-d and
I will glorify Him."
