This past Shabbos, I was walking to shul with Tikvah. About halfway there, she asked if we could take a rest. The yard we stopped at had two large rocks we could sit on for a few moments. Tikvah asked me which rock I wanted to sit on. Suddenly I sang "I wanna ROCK, BAM!!!" Tikvah looked up in alarm, and asked me what that meant. I told her it was an old song that daddy used to listen to (by Twisted Sister), and since she had asked about the rocks, it just popped into my head and out of my mouth before I even thought about it.
We continued on to shul. Just as we arrived in the parking lot of the shul, Tikvah asked me why some people drive on Shabbos, and some (like us) do not. I explained how some people observed the mitzvah of keeping Shabbos more than others, just like some people keep kosher at home, but not outside the home, and some don't keep kosher at all, but we were still all Jews. And I said that in my earlier days, I used to drive to shul, but now I walked. Then again, the singing bug bit me, and I sang "Walk like a man, talk like a man..." (by the Four Seasons) Tikvah gave me another one of her looks. Oy. But more alarming, a shul member passed me on the ramp up to the shul. I could have sworn no one was around me before. How much of my singing did he hear?? Oh man, I need to muzzle myself before heading to shul again!!
That night I was curious; I went on YouTube and searched "I wanna Rock." Cool, they had the whole video on there. Tikvah climbed up in my lap and wanted to watch. Ahava either didn't like the music, or the video, and retreated to the kitchen. After watching that video, I also wanted to see "We're not gonna take it." Tikvah said the woman dressed very strangely. I had to tell her that Dee Snyder was a man, not a woman. She took it pretty well. But then at the dinner table I noticed that she kept singing "I'm not gonna take it..." Uh oh......
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2 comments:
Hey JDMD,
You don't need my approbation, but kudos on your straight answers to Tikvah about people driving on Shabbat, etc. Straight and truthful (age appropriate, of course) is the way to go.
Years ago I lived near the road to Ramot, which was a trouble site with people driving on Shabbat and others actually throwing stones at them! My upstairs neighbour simply told his little boy that the people driving on Shabbat were Arabs. Terrible way to educate a child. I told him so. Just skip all the grey and colour, and pretend it is all B & W.
Your teaching your children respect for Torah, and baseline respect for all people. Good job. ;-)
Thanks Mordechai. One reason I need to be straightforward with this is that I'm the only person on my side of the family who is observant. The kids see my parents driving on Shabbos, and they know my parents don't keep kosher. They even know that my brother's girlfriend isn't Jewish. Tikvah also remembers back when I wasn't Shabbos observant and had the TV on during Shabbos. At one point Tikvah said that grandma and grandpa weren't Jewish. When I asked why, she said because they didn't keep kosher. I clarified the concept to her, but that's why I make sure that she knows about the full range of Jews.
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