Dei'ah veDibur - Information & Insight
  

A Window into the Chareidi World

3 Av 5764 - July 21, 2004 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
NEWS

OPINION
& COMMENT

OBSERVATIONS

HOME
& FAMILY

IN-DEPTH
FEATURES

VAAD HORABBONIM HAOLAMI LEINYONEI GIYUR

TOPICS IN THE NEWS

HOMEPAGE

 

Produced and housed by
Shema Yisrael Torah Network
Shema Yisrael Torah Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home and Family


Education Towards Ahavas Yisroel
by Sue Shapiro

Once, I took a cab ride with a driver who appeared to be far from Torah and mitzvos. Along the way, he started talking about his brother who had moved to America. "He moved to California and became religious," he murmured. After a pause, he added softly, "If I lived in California, I'd also be religious."

And he started to explain, "In California, everything is more open. Here, either you are religious or you're not. If I started keeping Shabbat and wearing a kipa, my secular friends and relatives would laugh at me. And the religious wouldn't accept me at all. They'd say, `He keeps Shabbat but he doesn't observe everything. He keeps kosher but not to our standard. He prays, but not with a minyan all the time.' No, I'd rather stay secular; this way, nobody criticizes me or says I'm not sincere or serious. When I want to pray, I close the shutters in my room and do so without anyone knowing about it."

I was shocked and saddened. Here, in Eretz Yisroel, there are Jews who close the shutters when they pray? I tried to reason with him but his mind was made up and soon we arrived at my destination.

Years later, whenever I need to explain to my children why those people over there don't dress like we do, or why that man with a kipa in the restaurant didn't wash or bench, I remember that cab driver. On the one hand, we need to impress upon our children the importance of maintaining our standards in halocho. We need to instill in them an appreciation for the beauty and the tremendous value of each and every mitzva and the importance of constantly trying to improve.

On the other hand, we need to be very careful not to exclude Jews who are not holding by those same standards, at least not yet. If each mitzva performed is like a precious jewel, then we must focus on the adornments of the people with whom we come in contact. We can raise children who look around and instead of seeing a world of people who are inconsistent, hypocritical or insincere, see a world of people gathering the precious jewels. True, some are gathering them slowly, some are just beginning, some are passing by far more than they are picking up, but we are all Jews and every mitzva is for the good of Klall Yisroel.

Children can be taught from a young age that not everyone grows up in a strong religious family, not everyone gets the chance to learn in a place of Torah. How fortunate they are! They should never take these things for granted. These privileges bring with them responsibilities -- to judge favorably those Jews who did not benefit from the same background, and to be a good example which brings honor to the Torah.

In Pirkei Ovos 1:6 it says, "Make for yourself a Rov and acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every man favorably." Perhaps the order is meant to teach us something important. It is important for a family to have a Rov and a derech, first and foremost. Then the individual and the family can acquire friends who are positive spiritual influences. Finally, with that firm spiritual grounding, the individual and the family can judge every man favorably, including those on another sidepath or those at other points along the same path.

Within the Torah world, help your children to appreciate the customs and lifestyles of different communities. Focus on what we all share and the strong positive emphases of different communities and their cultures/customs.

If you have opportunities to do Kiruv work, involve your children in hosting Shabbos guests who are far from Torah or on the way back. When the children see you are investing a lot of effort into ensuring that a total stranger experiences a Shabbos atmosphere, they will have an even greater appreciation of the holiness of Shabbos and the mitzva of loving every Jew.

Bring honor to the Torah. Explain to your children that when they are out in public or traveling in non-relgious areas, they are walking advertisements for the Torah way of life. Let them be the kids on the public bus who don't push and shove, who get up to give the older people a seat, who smile at the driver and thank him. The whole bus is watching and maybe someone there will decide he also wants to raise wonderful children like those.

Sadly, many secular children grow up with the feeling of `us' and `them.' They feel a permanent division which separates them from the religious people they encounter. A religious child, on the other hand, can grow up with the realization that these divisions among the Jewish people are only temporary. Please G-d, we will soon be redeemed and all united in the service of Hashem.

 

All material on this site is copyrighted and its use is restricted.
Click here for conditions of use.