From behind closed doors, I listened to my daughter demurely sing as her tutor led her in the Hebrew prayers. To my right, behind a glass case, stood three Torah scrolls. Precious and worn, swathed in silk and suede, I stared at them. Silent. Curious.
"Mom. Mom. MOM!" my son stood beside me, poking me out of my reverie. "You said you'd update Pocket God for me."
Funny. The God, the religion, that I longed to know better was of absolutely no interest to my son. The only God he desired was electronic, palm-sized, and responded to his every button-pushing whim.
Minutes before, our Rabbi had explained to us that our role as the parents in the upcoming Bat Mitzvah ceremony would be to literally hand the Torah down to the next generation - to do our part to ensure the carrying on of the ancient Jewish stories and traditions that resided within the text of the sacred scrolls.
So, as the game was updating, I put down the phone and pointed out the Torahs to my son. I explained to him, hoping to elicit an appreciation in our next generation of Jewish adults, how it took over a year to carefully, hand write each page of the Torah and how the scrolls were made from animal skins just like they had been over 3000 years ago.
"Yeah, yeah, great, Mom. Is the app loaded yet?"
I'm not sure my son is who the Rabbi had in mind.
*photo courtesy of google images
3 Comments:
HRH starts CCD (Christian Catholic Doctrine aka Sunday School) at the start of the school year and it's going over - excuse the pun - like a fart in church...
At least your trying. I feel so frustrated, like I'm letting my kids and my religion down, but I was barely raised with these traditions and they seem destined to be secular.
I hope the ceremony is beautiful.
We have a bar mitzvah coming up in November and are at the stage in the preparations that involves a lot of nagging on my part.
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