Religious awareness in six-year-olds

[rhu]

On the bulletin board outside of Tani's classroom they often post the kids' collages, which are often about religious themes. Twice now I've been very proud of Tani's response. (Forgive me, please, this outburst of parental pride. Consider this post a "baby book" page. Or just don't click on the lj-cut link.)

The first one was for the assignment "I feel God's presence when.../ I feel close to God when..." Most of the kids related it to sports achievements such as "...when I make a basket at basketball" (gosh, it starts that young, huh?) but Tani's was "...when I create things like this collage, because God created everything in the world." I can't find it quickly, but that answer is actually in the Talmud (well, not the collage part) in that the rabbis infer a creative duty from the principle of imitatio Dei.

So today they had collage portraits of Abraham, on the subject of last week's Torah reading, Lech L'cha. Specifically, the assignment was to express how Avram felt when he received God's command to "Get yourself going from your land and from your father's house; go to the land which I will show you." All but two of the pictures were of a sad Avram, with captions along the lines of "Avram is scared," "Avram is sad to leave home," and "Avram is upset because God is bossing him around."

But Tani's was "Avram is amazed and excited because he doesn't know what will happen next. He's happy because God spoke to him." (One other child had a similar answer.)

Yes, it must have been difficult for Avram to uproot himself from bet Haran. But I am proud of my son for having internalized the sense that to serve God is a source of amazement, excitement, and joy.

Comments

[cellio]

Yes, it must have been difficult for Avram to uproot himself from bet Haran. But I am proud of my son for having internalized the sense that to serve God is a source of amazement, excitement, and joy.

Wow, that's great!

Do you know the parable about the birah doleket?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I do not. Please "enlighten" me.

[cellio]

This is from B'reishit Rabbah. I only have this passage in Hebrew, so my translation is a little rough. That said...

The mashal: One day a man was travelling and he saw a tower "on fire" (or "alight" -- "doleket"). He said: this tower has no owner? A man looked out and said "I am the owner".

The explanation: the traveller is Avram, who said: this world has no owner? And HKBH made himself known and said "I am the ruler of this world". So, according to this midrash, Avram had to take the first step -- "lech l'cha" didn't come out of the blue, but only after he inquired.

If that's so, then "lech l'cha", while possibly a litle scary or intimidating or whatnot, would have to be just about the most exciting and positive thing that could have happened to him. Your son's explanation made me think of that. He gets it.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

That would be one of those days when you think, "gee, we must be doing something right."