Our Children, Our Food

To begin with, notwithstanding the title, this essay has nothing to do with Jonathan Swift's proposal. Now that that's out of the way I'll proceed with some food for thought. Note as well that this essay and “Our Children, Ourselves” are a unit totally unrelated to other discussions of parenting and written at a later time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Crediting Hashem for our children and the way they turn out, a friend of mine wrote, “I am a firm believer in that what you get in the nursery after they are born is what you get. If you are lucky, you can move them maybe an inch, but that’s it.” I'm not quite sure I fully agree with it, but I think my view needs a little expansion.

First of all, as I mentioned in a previous essay, I'm sure the child will develop along the lines he learns from his parents and friends, and from his teachers. But even that needs to be clarified. It's more than I said before. I'm comforted by the knowledge that, according the Jewish teachings, there are three who contribute to a child's birth, the mother, the father, and Hashem. But it's not over with that. What comes next is of great importance, not only to them, but to the society, and the world, in which they live.

There's an old, and bad, Jewish joke – a chestnut as it were – that claims to express the meaning of our holidays and our celebration of them. It boils down to “They tried to destroy us. We won. Let's eat.” As I said, it's a bad joke, but in its own way it explains a lot of what we understand about our children and our religion. All references to food and Judaism begin with the “Jewish mother” who is forever trying to feed us – to stuff us – no matter the circumstances. She is our first teacher. We get our initial education along with our mother's milk. It may start as simple comforting and feeding but, sooner or later, leads to the simple stories and ideas of our people. And later on, as the parents set the table for Shabbat dinner, they are preparing their children for the Shulchan Aruch. Certainly the bentching following the meal does so.

Those considerations, however, raise the question of how are children are fed both physically and spiritually. Before Sinai the Jews wailed for food and water. Perhaps, however, they sought Hashem's laws which hadn't yet been revealed. Perhaps their hunger was not only for physical food but for the Torah that revealed to them how they were to live. It would be from the Torah that learned both of their heritage and their future. That was the mahn and the water. And the quails as well. And there they would learn other lessons as well. They'd learn, along with all the other mitzvot, that, according to the laws of kashrut, they should not be eating whatever they want, but what Hashem wants. And they would learn from what they ingested into their mouths and minds, both the physical food and the message it transmitted.

They would also learn, after being instructed to “love the Lord thy G-d with all they heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might,” that if they turned aside from Hashem … the land [will] not yield her fruit.” The words come as part of a paragraph which deals with reward and punishment and, equating “fruit” with Torah and the halakhot, it tells us that if we do not follow Hashem's laws, they would not be ours. A meet punishment.

The same prayer, the Sh'ma, tells “And these words … thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children.” In the end the goal is “That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, upon the land that the Lord swore unto your fathers.” Both we and our offspring will be rewarded if what we feed them is not only food for their bodies but for their spirits as well.

It is interesting to give thought to the excesses of learning, for that can be understood to be the transgression of the rebellious son mentioned in D'varim (Deuteronomy). His gluttony can be understood to be the eagerness to go beyond the Torah and learn false teachings. “They [his parents] shall say unto the elders of his city: This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he doth not hearken to our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard.” That is how his parents might describe the behavior of a son who has strayed from his tradition. He has ingested words and ideas other than those of Hashem, and it is as if he had eaten of foreign fruit.

As parents we have a responsibility, along with all the others, of feeding our children nourishing food for their souls as well as their bodies.

My friend accepts the idea that children are unchangeable. It's possible that we have the same view, only that when she believes “that what you get in the nursery after they are born is what you get” she is presuming that the development that we teach and encourage is already built into our offspring no matter what we do. Perhaps, but I think it's our responsibility to help them along even if they don't need help. We learn that Hashem's omniscience is compatible with our free will. Similarly proper training of our children does not interfere with the development He plans for them. It is an aid not a challenge. After all, all three of us participated in his (or her) creation.

Let's eat. Spiritually. And let's feed our children the same.

August 31, 2017