What Do We Say To Our Children?

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
October 18th, 2002

 

Parenting has never been as challenging a responsibility as in the past thirteen months. We have had to explain twice to our children the devastating attacks of September 11 th, first when they happened, and then on the anniversary. While television brought the images into our homes, the distance from the Pennsylvania field, the Pentagon and New York City allowed some buffering of the pain. We could also shield our children by saying that these were aimed at specific locations, and since they did not frequent such places, they were more protected. That is a relative argument.

I bought our Chrysler van from a dealer just past the Exxon station in Massaponax and often stop there for a good cup of coffee to make the last hour drive home to Richmond. We all frequent malls. Our children go to school. We buy supplies at Home Depot or other such places. We all buy gas for our cars, standing besides the pumps. The people murdered did not belong to any group, were not doing anything inherently dangerous, and were not in places of intrinsically higher risk.

So at this moment, I rhetorically pose the question: What do we say to our children?

We tell them:

We your parents will do everything possible to protect you and guard you. Our obligation is to make our children feel as safe and secure as possible. We do that by saying these words to them, articulating and not assuming that they understand. The most important phrase in the Torah is "And God said to Moses…" God continually assured himverbally. We make our children more secure by giving them more hugs and kisses. We do it by reading good stories with happy endings. If need to, we look under the bed and assure them that nothing is there.

We tell them:

God loves us and also wants us to be safe and sound. There are many Judaic images of God. One of them is that of a mother bird whose wings are spread over the baby birds in the nest. For most people, most of the times, in most of the places, this image is true. We make this feeling present in our lives and that of our children by praying with them, particularly the "Shema Yisrael shel mitah," the Shema and other prayers recited at bedside. It includes Birkat Kohanim, the Priestly Benediction which ends with the blessing for peace, and the sweet, mystical statement, of "the angel Michael at our right, Gavriel at our left, Uriel before us, Refael behind us, and above us, God". Recite Psalm 23; careful to stress "I fear no evil because Thou art with me." And don't stop saying it when this danger is past. I do not usereligion as a band-aid or a crutch. It needs to be lived as the solid, unshaking ground upon which we always walk.

We tell them:

There have always been evil people in the world. We will defeat them. While it doesn't seem that way right now, in the big picture, good triumphs. Obviously the words we select and how we phrase them and how we frame them depends on our children's ages. But even young ones can understand the moral of the story of The Big Bad Wolf.We assure them that the right way in life is to live morally and ethically. In whatever language necessary, it can be explained that there are prisons for people who do bad things. Our society affirms the difference between right and wrong. Right gets recognized and respected, even if not always rewarded. Maybe there shouldn't be any reward for doing good. We do good for goodness' own sake. Bad gets punished. Make them secure in the values of our faith and of our society. It is positive value to be a law-abiding citizen.

We tell them:

Respect the police and law enforcement officials. That is not a statement of blanket protecting everything they do from scrutiny. But it is a statement that most of the people in the departments and the FBI most of the time are good, decent, hardworking men and women whose job it is to protect us from harm and catch the bad guys, especially this one or these. Show them honor and respect. Be a good citizen and phone in tips if you really know something.

We tell them:

The world is mostly beautiful and wonderful. Maybe you have to taken them outside to look at beautiful flowers and watch the squirrels and listen to the birds. Sure there are bad things happening, hopefully far, far away, and may no one be harmed. Yet here and now there is beauty. I can't remember the song exactly but one has the refrain, "When you walk through the storm hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark. Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart…" In the Wizard of Oz, the sun does finally shine. If you go in a plane and take off in bad weather, the sun is shining up above. They and we need the attitude that the cup is half full and the day is partly sunny, and not the reverse. It is no mistake that the morning and evening services both have a prayer referring to the beauty of creation. The world is mostly exquisite and divine.

We tell them:

Most people are good people, even if they look different or sound different from us. It is easy for us and our children to be afraid of every stranger we meet or see. Especially in dangerous times, it is commonplace for us to fear"the other" who is different. While our children need a heavy dose of recognizing never to be involved with strangers, when they look out at the crowds in the mall, on the street, or at the ball park, they should be filled with awe and amazement at the grandeur of humanity and want to embrace it. The Rabbinic midrash is so appropriate: while a minter of coins uses the same mold to produce identical coins, God uses the same mold and makes them all different.Most people are good, law-abiding, beautiful people of whom we should not be afraid.

These are scary and upsetting times for all of us. If it isn't one thing it's the next: economy, foreign affairs, jobs and drought. Maybe the six statements, which I have outlined, are not only for our children, but for us as well. We need faith to see us through these difficult days: faith in God who loves us and teaches us right from wrong; faith in our country that we will stand strong together; faith in our neighbors, who are overwhelming righteous and peaceable; faith in a beautiful world; and, faith that truth, righteousness, and goodness will prevail, while the evil will be caught and punished. And we need to instill this positive attitude in them so that they will be healthy and wholesome boys and girls now and as adults when they grow up. We owe it to ourselves to have faith in God, in our country and in our neighbor. We owe it to our children to instill this faith in them.