What is The Lesson Here?

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  • #588353
    feivel
    Participant

    i stumbled upon this on the internet:

    “Rav Tzvi Meir tells a story that goes something like this. A person meets his friend after Rosh Hashana and asks him “Nu, so how did your Rosh Hashana go?” He replies “It was beautiful. The baal tefila didn’t leave a dry eye in the shul. The meals were full of divrei torah and zemiros. The afternoons we learned straight without dozing or schmoozing for a minute. The kids behaved like angels” “Wow! Gevaldig. Sounds like it was perfect” his friend replies. “Well almost perfect. The kid next to me in Shul couldn’t stop making noise during Musaf and the father the “Groisse Tzaddik” was so busy shukling away that he didn’t do anything besides keep shuckling. I had to shissss the kid half of Mussaf. Besides that it was perfect.

    To this Rav Tzvi Meir says, “Fool! That was your whole test of Rosh Hashana. Maybe your whole year depended on your reaction to the kid. The rest of Yom Tov was not your Nisayon!” This Rosh Hashana don’t decide for yourself what Rosh Hashana is all about. Submit yourself to what the King of all Kings decides is your particular avodah. Gut Yom Tov!”

    im not sure what the lesson here is. i have maybe a vague idea but not really sure. for some reason,though, i feel it is a powerful lesson, but i cant quite grasp it.

    can anyone bring some light here?

    thank you

    #622517

    I only hope that if this should happen in your shul you would motion the child over to you put your arm around him and daven with him – show him the beauty – point to the words that you are saying in the siddur/machzor

    How powerful it would be for this child to grow up and remember so warmly that instead of being shushed he was welcomed, loved and shown REAL yiddishkeit!

    #622518
    Joseph
    Participant

    I second what smalltowngirl said.

    #622519
    feivel
    Participant

    that’s beatiful smalltowngirl.

    im not sure if that would be permitted in Shmoneh Esrei

    but maybe the Ribbono Shel Olam would get Nachas from such an act anyway.

    i like how you think.

    #622520
    oomis
    Participant

    I also like what Smalltowngirl said. It shows compassion and love. BUT….

    This is a particular hot-button issue with me. I really get upset by parents who shuckel away, oblivious to the fact that their little Soraleh or Dovid’l is disruptive to the rest of the people who are trying to daven. Too many people think of Shul as a babysitting service (i.e. moms who send the little ones with the father, so they can get some much-needed rest). One cannot do a mitzvah such as davening, on the backs of other mispallelim. I never brought or sent my children to Shul to sit there without zitzfleish and be disruptive. I took them to Hakafos, and when they were old enough, to the Megillah Leining. Then I brought them to Shul for short periods of time to acclimate to being in Shul, until they were old enough to actually daven. My neighbor either blew shofar for me, or I went to a specially-arranged shofar blowing after the davening, when my husband could watch the small children who were not old enough to be quiet during the shofar blowing. It seems so obvious to me, that this is what young women should be doing nowadays. Understandably they feel confined to the house and they want to get out, so they go to shul. But on whose cheshbon? What mitzvah are they getting? More important, what aveira might they be getting for preventing other people from davening? Some children are too young, too immature, and too antsy to be “shown the beauty of davening” until they are much older. And that is not a crime. They are, after all, little kids.

    I believe that the test of Rosh Hashana is not how tolerant we are of other people’s wrong behavior, but of trying to make this world a better place. Maybe the FATHER of the child was the one being tested, to see if he would use the opportunity to teach his child derech eretz in front of the Aron Kodesh. It is so amusing and a little sad to me, that when someone is clearly in the wrong, it is always the OTHER guy who is supposed to be changing HIS behavior and reactions. And noch di tzee, he is further accused of failing to pass the nisayon! Put the responsibility squarely where it belongs, on the errant father and his ill-behaved child. If the child is too young to understand and behave, he is too young to be in shul,and that is NOT his fault, it is his parents’ faults.

    #622521
    feivel
    Participant

    well

    ive been that guy being annoyed by the kid

    and ive shushed him too

    heres what im thinking:

    when it comes to me, my shushing was really not directed at the child

    i was thinking, directed to the father:

    “how inconsiderate of you!

    you bring a child, for YOUR benefit, to the Bais Kneses, and you dont care if he disrupts the davening of the entire Shul (meaning me!)

    well you have no right.

    im angry….shush, shush.”

    so here is the person in this story (if he is like me)

    speaking directly to the Ribbono Shel Olom

    on a most Holy day

    and what is he doing:

    1. ignoring the Ribbono Shel Olam

    2. ignoring Him to nurse his anger

    3. JUDGING his fellow Yid, at the very moment he stands before the Bais Din Shel Maila

    4. and judging him NEGATIVELY, to boot!

    heres a quote from the story:

    “don’t decide for yourself what Rosh Hashana is all about. Submit yourself to what the King of all Kings decides is your particular avodah.”

    i think that means that at the time the Ribbono Shel Olam has commanded him to appear before him, he must ignore all else, though it’s hard, and make every effort to do this, not to follow his own sense of right and wrong and worry about the behavior of others.

    something like that.

    but i think smalltowngirl had a better pshat

    #622522
    feivel
    Participant

    oomis

    that is not the point that Rabbi Meir was trying to make,

    however

    you certainly have a very good point as well

    #622523

    oomis1105 this is your quote…

    “It seems so obvious to me, that this is what young women should be doing nowadays.”

    Should indeed, and I too stayed home for many years. Unfortunately too many either did not benefit from the type of appearant upbringing that you and I were Blessed with or maybe they can’t handle their lives-it can get overwhelming, and we all handle things differently.

    oomis, you are so right in your feelings but once the children are already in shul they need to be trained appropriately, it is NOT their fault if they don’t know the protocol.

    In a perfect world the little ones should indeed be cared for at home, but as I understood feivel, the child was already there in the shul – we could make the most of this opportunity even if the parent can’t/doesn’t.

    #622524
    lesschumras
    Participant

    I agree with smalltowngirl. In my old shul im Brooklyn we had a “tzaddik” who sat in the front of the shul and davened with unbelievable kavanah while his SIX kids ran wild in the rest of the shul preventing others from davening with kavanah. It’s easy to say, just block it out, snd I’ve tried. But the effort I expend to block out the noise takes away from my davening. As a moshel ,let’s say you had to be on the 20th floor of a building for a minyan, but you’re forced to take the stairs, not the eevator. Sure, with effort, you can climb the 20 flights, arriving huffing and puffing just as minyan starts. Do you think you can put in the same effort if you had taken the elevator?

    #622525
    shindy
    Member

    If someone is greatly disturbed by children not behaving in shul, perhaps they can go to a hashkoma minyan so they can concentrate on their tefillos.

    This past purim, I was surprised that many mothers brought babies and newborns because the shul had a party to break the fast and have music afterwards. I asked one mother if she was concerned that she might not hear the megillah if her child makes noises or cries and she shrugged and said I don’t really care, what I hear, I hear. I was very miserable during laining because the kids did make noise. I also never brought little ones to laining until they could be quiet, but it seems like today it is a different generation.

    The end of this is that I decided that next year I will attend a different kriyah for megillah where I can be sure I can be yoetzai the mitzvah.

    #622526
    oomis
    Participant

    “If someone is greatly disturbed by children not behaving in shul, perhaps they can go to a hashkoma minyan so they can concentrate on their tefillos.

    This past purim, I was surprised that many mothers brought babies and newborns because the shul had a party to break the fast and have music afterwards. I asked one mother if she was concerned that she might not hear the megillah if her child makes noises or cries and she shrugged and said I don’t really care, what I hear, I hear. I was very miserable during laining because the kids did make noise. I also never brought little ones to laining until they could be quiet, but it seems like today it is a different generation. The end of this is that I decided that next year I will attend a different kriyah for megillah where I can be sure I can be yoetzai the mitzvah. “

    I copied your entire post because it struck so many chords in me. It would not help me to daven in Hashkama, because in my Shul no women daven then. Some men go home so their wives can go to shul at the regular time. Very commendable of them. Others daven early and then go learn. Their wives bring ther small kisd to shul and let them run amok. For Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we have only the one minyan, no Hashkama. We pay several fine (non-Jewish)women who work in pre-schools, to watch the children during the davening both days of R”H, for Kol Nidre, and all day Yom Kippur. Several women refuse to avail themselves of this free (to them) service, and their kids come in and out all day, and on Y”K it is especially annoying because they rbing food into the main shul and ezras nashim. One woman in particular brought her five children, including an infant, and the little ones were crawling under my seat, as she stood by and beamed. I couldn’t speak, it was during Shemonah Esrai, but I guarantee you my davening was worth nothing, because ALL I could think about was “be quiet, already, and get your kids out of here!” That is not how I want to approach Ha-Shem. This is NOT chinuch, all it does is teach the kids that they can do what they want and mommy and daddy will smile with pride. One mother,who had the grace to look embarrassed, actually said to me after Shul, “I couldn’t do anything, I was in the middle of davening.” DUH…..!

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