{"id":6967,"date":"2013-05-03T07:49:27","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T13:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=6967"},"modified":"2013-05-03T14:56:34","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T20:56:34","slug":"shavuot-a-holiday-for-seven-year-olds-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/shavuot-a-holiday-for-seven-year-olds-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Shavuot: A holiday for seven-year-olds too"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the Scribbler on the Roof<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

I tell her stories. I even ride her around the yard on my riding mower.<\/p>\n

This child\u2019s mother is a loving, dutiful daughter who calls her indulgent father weekly and occasionally remembers his birthday with
\na pair of socks only a size or two wrong or, maybe, a box of hankies
\nthat always fit.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I describe this granddaughter as admirable. For example
\nshe knows almost all the Jewish holidays. \u201cSarah,\u201d I say, \u201ctell me
\nabout Pesach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe eat matzoh and bubbe makes canadlach.\u201d Right on the money.<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, Sarah, here\u2019s a hard one – Purim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, that\u2019s easy. Hamatashen.\u201d Excellent.<\/p>\n

\u201cChanukah. What about Chanukah?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLatkes and applesauce.\u201d<\/p>\n

An admirable child. She knows as much about the holidays as my adult friends, except for Herbie, who knows that latkes are also delicious with sour cream.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t want to embarrass her with questions about Shavuos. I was afraid she\u2019d flunk the quiz. So I sat her down at our kitchen table and told her the story of the holiday. The \u201cGonza Megellah\u201d as my own Zayde used to say. I told her all about the tribulations her ancestors suffered on the trek to the Holy Mountain.<\/p>\n

Specifically, I mention the absence of ice cream, candy, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and ballet lessons. I tell her that little girls of seven
\nhad to leave their doll babies back in Egypt. And I remind her that
\nautomobiles and buses were three millennia away and most little girls
\ndidn\u2019t even had a donkey to ride on.<\/p>\n

Then I tell her about the epiphany on the mountain – the Ten Commandments and the Torah.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you imagine our good luck, Sarah? He gave it to us. He could
\nhave given it to a lotta other nations. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo why did he give it to us?\u201d she interrupts.<\/p>\n

Hmmm, tough question. I don\u2019t want to taint her Jewish pride with arrogance, but I also don\u2019t want to make an ethical equivalence between our team and the hairy heathens that inhabited that corner of creation: the\u00a0 Philistines, Hittites, and Amalekites. If you gave a Torah to an Amalekite, he\u2019d use it to prop open the wine cellar door!<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a fine line to walk between pride and arrogance. I\u2019d like to build a little ethnic pride, but I don\u2019t want her wearing a \u201cI hate Hittites\u201d T-shirt. Nor do I want her to spend her life in court defending herself from litigious Hittites. (You can\u2019t call \u2018em Hitts, ya know.)<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a little more chocolate ripple,\u201d I suggest. Then I explain that
\nthe joy of Torah brings with it heavy responsibilities obedience. Honor and obedience go together just like when the teacher chooses you to be hall monitor.<\/p>\n

I try to explain that the divine book is an encyclopedia of regulations, history, and poetry. Those regulations are especially important because rules make civilization. Nations and Zaydes and seven-year-old, ice cream eating little girls all need rules. Not a terribly chic notion for the modern era.<\/p>\n

Every year at Shavuot my explanation contains another layer of\u00a0 understanding. Maybe next year I\u2019ll give her the \u201cwhat if\u201d hypothesis. What if no Torah? No Commandments? We might be dressed in wolf skins full of fleas and carrying a sharpened stick to protect ourselves from our neighbors, who never heard of the Ten Commandments.<\/p>\n

And the year after that I\u2019ll explain that the holy book shaped Christianity and Mohammedism as well as Judaism. You could say, without hesitation: No Torah – No Western civilization.<\/p>\n

And without generations of Torah study, who\u2019d have the intellectual
\ncuriosity or mental muscle to discover refrigeration for fudge ripple
\nice cream?<\/p>\n

\u201cHow \u2018bout that, Sarah? And did you ever read about a Hittite lapping up a bowl of fudge ripple? Well, there!!\u201d<\/p>\n

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