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| Adults (old, young, singles, couples & teens) yes, but what about children? |
“Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalms 127:3). These words express the precious place our children hold within Jewish tradition. Children give us faith in God and confidence in the future. That is why the sages taught (B. Talmud, Shabbat 119b), “The world endures only for the sake of the breath of school children.” Indeed, the school of Hillel ruled that parents must bring their young children up to the Temple itself, in order to witness the Temple sacrifices and the prayers. The school of Shammai went farther, saying even children too young to walk were to ride on their parent’s shoulders so that they could be present. Young children were brought to this holiest of places even during the most sacred times in order to instill in them a familiarity and a reverence for God and a love of Jewish tradition. The practice derives from the experience of revelation itself. At that holiest of all moments, as God revealed the Torah, the Talmud records that the children were present with their parents.
Like the children who were at Sinai, or on their parent’s shoulder’s in the Temple courtyard, or in our synagogues for centuries, a child brought regularly to services will develop a familiarity and comfort with synagogue, a love of prayer and Torah and faith in God from an early age that will have lasting impact on their lives as Jews. Without the modeling of their parents in prayer, many children never make the transition to seeing synagogue services as a part of their adult religious experience.
The book of Proverbs teaches that children are a crown to their parents (17:6). At the Little Minyan, every child belongs to all of us, and they are indeed our crowns. We do not worry about a little noise here and there. At times little ones even run onto our bimah during prayer. At such moments, a look into the congregation finds many smiles. There is an innocent beauty to a child being drawn to the bimah and the Ark. Far from being a distraction, their presence should remind us why we are in shul.
--Adapted from the bulletin of Rabbi Stephen Weiss, B'nei Jeshurun, Cleveland, Ohio | 
