My boys are camping on a remote coast in Northern California right now, far from any town, phone service, electricity or community. I'm not worried about bears (they have a dog with them), or strangers (it's pretty difficult to steal kids if you have to hike in and out of a location - and one of the kids is 6'4"), or tsunamis (although this has definitely crossed my mind.) There is an adult with them, but that adult is not religious. I am a mother, and I have to worry about something, so I worry that my kids will take all the Jewish values that I have worked to promote within their souls and, because no one is watching, forget them.
I wake in the middle of the night and think, "Did my son tie tefillin? Did they wash? Did they say their morning prayers? Do they have something to eat for Shabbat?" I am sure that when they return and read my article, they will be insulted. "Ima!" they will protest, "how could you think I would forget?"
I guess I am not really worried about them forgetting. Forgetting is not intentional. Forgetting is accidental and forgivable. What I am worried about is "disremembering". I wish I could take credit for the word, but Alice Walker, in a chilling story of African-American indifference, coined the word. Disremembering, Walker explains, is intentional and conscious forgetfulness. Disremembering is an active process of replacing one value or memory with another because it is easier or less painful or more convenient. Kids can be forced to disremember easily through peer pressure or embarrassment, or just plain laziness. Although, I don't really think that my children will disremember their values during their trip. At least I hope they don't.
But my faith in the power of moral righteousness, and in the power of teaching children right and wrong is constantly shaken. Not by my children - they are away camping - but by the newspapers and the magazines and the radio shows that I listen to. I turn the channel, but it doesn't get any better.
If it isn't the popular songs that deny all moral laws, or the TV shows that promote physical beauty and style as the value system of our culture; then it is the newspaper articles about politicians who have sold out their people for a few votes, or articles explaining the personal lives of messed-up celebrities as if they were normal people doing normal things. I think to myself, "Didn't the parents of these people teach them to live moral and upright lives? How did they get this way?"
I see movies where the final "happy" scene is of Jewish boys and Jewish girls marrying non-Jews. I see newspapers spreading the lie that the Temple Mount is a Moslem holy site - without mentioning Jews at all. I see the prime minister of Israel and many rabbis condoning the evisceration of our country in the name of "disengagement", and I see Jewish police and soldiers in videos beating Jewish men, tearing Jewish women from their homes, and pulling crying children and babies from their parents' arms.
What did the parents of these people teach them? Do their mothers lie awake at night, too? Do their grandparents call them and ask if they will say Kaddish for them when they die? Do their fathers worry that they haven't tied tefillin today? What good is the teaching of our children when so many are disremembering so actively? How can I, one mother, expect my children to keep the laws when it seems the entire world has forgotten what their parents taught them?
People are beginning to notice the dark circles under my eyes, my short temper and my quiet manner. They ask, "Michelle, are you okay?" I answer in the accepted fashion, "Yes, I'm fine, thank G-d. And you?" They answer in the expected and automatic way, as well. What am I to say? Can I blurt out, "No, and neither are you! The world is crumbling before our eyes and we are exchanging nice words!" Such an outburst would be unseemly, impolite or, worse, true.
And we have so much invested in refusing to see. We have become accustomed to the face of a liar in our own mirrors. It is easier or less painful or more convenient to disremember who we are and what we were supposed to be when no one is around.
Perhaps it is better that my children are camping in a place far away from the newspapers and television. Perhaps, surrounded by the creations of G-d, with no one around, is actually a good thing for them. Perhaps they will have, for a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days, listened to their own Jewish souls in the wilderness. Maybe it isn't really my children that I am worried about -- maybe it is myself.
What do I do when no one is watching? Do I remember my own values? Can I live up to what I have taught them?
I realize that this is really the source of my worry. Maybe, if I do something today, if I replace the activity of disremembering with the activity of a mitzvah, then I will sleep better tonight.
I wake in the middle of the night and think, "Did my son tie tefillin? Did they wash? Did they say their morning prayers? Do they have something to eat for Shabbat?" I am sure that when they return and read my article, they will be insulted. "Ima!" they will protest, "how could you think I would forget?"
I guess I am not really worried about them forgetting. Forgetting is not intentional. Forgetting is accidental and forgivable. What I am worried about is "disremembering". I wish I could take credit for the word, but Alice Walker, in a chilling story of African-American indifference, coined the word. Disremembering, Walker explains, is intentional and conscious forgetfulness. Disremembering is an active process of replacing one value or memory with another because it is easier or less painful or more convenient. Kids can be forced to disremember easily through peer pressure or embarrassment, or just plain laziness. Although, I don't really think that my children will disremember their values during their trip. At least I hope they don't.
But my faith in the power of moral righteousness, and in the power of teaching children right and wrong is constantly shaken. Not by my children - they are away camping - but by the newspapers and the magazines and the radio shows that I listen to. I turn the channel, but it doesn't get any better.
If it isn't the popular songs that deny all moral laws, or the TV shows that promote physical beauty and style as the value system of our culture; then it is the newspaper articles about politicians who have sold out their people for a few votes, or articles explaining the personal lives of messed-up celebrities as if they were normal people doing normal things. I think to myself, "Didn't the parents of these people teach them to live moral and upright lives? How did they get this way?"
I see movies where the final "happy" scene is of Jewish boys and Jewish girls marrying non-Jews. I see newspapers spreading the lie that the Temple Mount is a Moslem holy site - without mentioning Jews at all. I see the prime minister of Israel and many rabbis condoning the evisceration of our country in the name of "disengagement", and I see Jewish police and soldiers in videos beating Jewish men, tearing Jewish women from their homes, and pulling crying children and babies from their parents' arms.
What did the parents of these people teach them? Do their mothers lie awake at night, too? Do their grandparents call them and ask if they will say Kaddish for them when they die? Do their fathers worry that they haven't tied tefillin today? What good is the teaching of our children when so many are disremembering so actively? How can I, one mother, expect my children to keep the laws when it seems the entire world has forgotten what their parents taught them?
People are beginning to notice the dark circles under my eyes, my short temper and my quiet manner. They ask, "Michelle, are you okay?" I answer in the accepted fashion, "Yes, I'm fine, thank G-d. And you?" They answer in the expected and automatic way, as well. What am I to say? Can I blurt out, "No, and neither are you! The world is crumbling before our eyes and we are exchanging nice words!" Such an outburst would be unseemly, impolite or, worse, true.
And we have so much invested in refusing to see. We have become accustomed to the face of a liar in our own mirrors. It is easier or less painful or more convenient to disremember who we are and what we were supposed to be when no one is around.
Perhaps it is better that my children are camping in a place far away from the newspapers and television. Perhaps, surrounded by the creations of G-d, with no one around, is actually a good thing for them. Perhaps they will have, for a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days, listened to their own Jewish souls in the wilderness. Maybe it isn't really my children that I am worried about -- maybe it is myself.
What do I do when no one is watching? Do I remember my own values? Can I live up to what I have taught them?
I realize that this is really the source of my worry. Maybe, if I do something today, if I replace the activity of disremembering with the activity of a mitzvah, then I will sleep better tonight.