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Parent's Guide to
The God Around Us
Volume I and Volume II
By Mira Pollak Brichto
Discussion Guide written by
Deborah Niederman
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Jewish Learning at Home
It's a tough job to be a parent. There is much you have to do; so much you hope to share and to teach your child. Schools and books do their part to impart knowledge. Still, not everything can, or should, be learned in a school or through a book. Certain kinds of knowledge are best gained through experience, or through modeling. For Jewish parents, it can be particularly difficult figuring out how to share our rich heritage with our children. Perhaps at times you feel that you don't even have adequate Jewish knowledge to be a teacher to your children. But, whatever your level of knowledge or comfort, the fact is, you are the primary educators of your children. You are the ones who provide them with the experiences that will become the foundations of their childhood memories.
The key to successful Jewish parenting lies in creating memories. Whether you are rich in your own memories, or you are just starting to create your own Jewish memories as you create them for your children, the place to start is by connecting to God.
This may seem like a daunting place to start. The idea of connecting to God may seem foreign, uncomfortable, or even unnecessary. But the core of Jewish experience is centered around connection to God, even while Judaism encourages questioning and struggle with this concept through prayer and study. At the same time, on a practical level, Judaism provides a structure for this connection through the system of blessings. Each blessing begins with the words, "Praised are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of the universe…;" these six simple words, in Hebrew or in English, help us to stop, take a breath and, in uttering the above words, allow for the possibility that there is a power beyond ourselves, whether or not we understand it, and that this power has impacted our life in some small or great way at that moment.
In many ways Judaism is all about making separations. Each time we say a blessing before we complete an act, we are making that act holy by separating it from whatever ordinary activities we were engaged in before. Each time we say a blessing after experiencing something awesome in nature, something special, or something new for the first time, we make that moment holy, while acknowledging that we did not arrive at that moment alone.
These books by Mira Pollak Brichto, The God Around Us: A Child's Garden of Prayer and The God Around Us: The Valley of Blessings, help introduce a child to the structure and world of blessings through simple poems. Each book also contains a short explanation at the end of when each blessing is traditionally said. What follows are suggestions for parents on how to incorporate these blessings into your lives so that you can create holy time and in so doing, make memories with your children that will last a lifetime.
Ideas for both volumes of The God Around Us:
- Plan ahead so that, using the books are guides, you are able to turn what might otherwise be an ordinary family moment into a extraordinary, shared moment of experiencing God's presence or seeing God's handiwork.
- Teach your children the standard blessing formula - Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melekh haolam- Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of the universe. You can say this part of the blessing in Hebrew, and the rest in English.
- Using the blessing formula, write your own family blessings, in Hebrew or English, for things for which your family is thankful.
- Become comfortable saying the blessings yourself. Say them in English or Hebrew, whichever is most comfortable. Then practice. Go for a walk and look for beautiful flowers or seek out fragrant spices. Then you will also be able to tell your children how taking time to turn an ordinary moment into a holy/extraordinary moment felt/feels for you.
- Together with your children, discuss Jewish experiences you would like to share. Consider adding a prayer at dinner or before bedtime, refraining from eating non-kosher meats, baking challah once a month, or shopping for a new ritual object and learning to use it. The first time you do any of these would be a time to say the Shehecheyanu blessing and learn the appropriate specific blessings for the action.
- Make every day holy by establishing wake up, meals and bedtime as Jewish time. Bracket these moments with blessings-though it may seem strange at first, soon it will become second nature.
- Make your own set of flashcard blessings to take on family walks or trips so that you are prepared at any moment to turn an ordinary walk into an extraordinary moment of recognizing God's presence. Wallet-size blessings cards can also be purchased from the URJ PRESS. [make link to blessing cards]
- Selina Alko, the artist who illustrated both volumes of The God Around Us, used the technique of collage along with paint. Try your own hand by using photographs and illustrations from magazines to make collages that express the ideas behind the prayers; for example, lightning, thunder, the ocean, plants, or going to bed.
- Make a photo album of your family experiencing the moments marked by these blessings, like when you see a rainbow or a mountain. Write the appropriate blessing under each picture.
- Make a family album of poems and blessings. Use the poems as jumping-off ideas for your family to write their own stories or poems related to the blessings. Make sure everyone in the family helps to write and illustrate the album.
- Keep a blessings diary in which you document times you said the blessing: What did you see, how did it feel when you said the blessing, which are your favorite blessings to say or your favorite moments to experience? Which were the most difficult? Talk to your children about your experiences.
- Create a blessings calendar to chart different times of the year when you would say different blessings. Invite your children to illustrate the calendar. Be sure to include Hebrew and English dates. You can find these, and information on the Jewish calendar, on-line at http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm.
The God Around Us: A Child's Garden of Prayer
Being Aware of God's Handiwork
- Ma'aseh bereshit - Being aware of God's handiwork in the awesomeness of creation.
Ask your children: What are the greatest signs of God's creation? What are the largest imprints of God's work? What are the brightest signs of God's work? Learn the blessing, then take a nature walk and look for signs of God's presence.
- Ilanot tovim - Being aware of God's handiwork in the bounty that comes from trees and in the change of the seasons that cause trees to bring forth new blossoms
A midrash tells us that one of the ways Abraham knew there must be some greater power in the universe was because he was aware of the orderliness of the universe-how day turns to night, how fall turns to winter, then winter turns to spring, and then to summer, and then to fall again. Suggested activities related to this blessing are:
- Take a walk together in the springtime and look for trees in bloom. Begin your walks as early as it is comfortable to take walks outside and chart which trees bloom first. Which trees bloom last? What kinds of flowers come up before the fruit comes on the trees?
- Look for new and exotic fruits to try in your grocery story. In the winter when we don't usually have great fruit, all kinds of interesting things are growing in the Southern Hemisphere.
- Ask your children to think about what we get from trees. What would our lives be like if there were no trees? Follow up your discussion by drawing pictures about what we get from trees, or by making a collage from magazine images.
- Hatov vehametiv - Acknowledging God's presence in our moments of happiness
Teach this blessing to your children and ask them when they think they might say it. Instead of saying "yay!" or "all right!" or whatever else might come naturally, challenge yourselves to spend a week looking for occasions to use this blessing. Then keep track of when you said it during the week by writing it down and sharing it on Shabbat. This can become a lovely Shabbat ritual, in which each family member shares something good that happened during the week.
- Hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz - Being thankful to God for food
- Make mealtimes special. Don't begin the meal until everyone is quiet and ready. Think about one thing, besides the food you are about to eat, that you are thankful for, and go around the table giving everyone a chance to voice their thanks.
- Make a commitment to celebrate Shabbat as often as possible. Make a point to be together as a family for Shabbat. We learn from the prophet Isaiah that to celebrate Shabbat means to take time out from the ordinary. Do something different that you don't do every day during the week, whether it's lighting candles at the dinner table on Friday night, saying blessings together, attending synagogue, or whatever you together deem is appropriate celebration for your family. (See the resource list that follows for recommended Shabbat resources.)
- Meshaneh habriyot - Appreciating the diversity of God's creation
Using magazine or catalogue photographs, make a collage of people who look different and come from all different parts of world. Learn to say this blessing.
- She'asah et hayam hagadol - Acknowledging God's power as the creator of the seas, and thanking God for the gift of water.
- Plan a family trip to the ocean and set aside time to say the blessing together. Ask your children to reflect on whether saying the blessing made the experience feel any different than it would have felt without saying the blessing.
- Look at a globe or a map of the world. Ask your children to find the areas that are covered in water. Ask them to think about why seas and oceans are important. What would the world be like if there weren't seas and oceans? Ask them to list three reasons why they are thankful for the seas and oceans, and say the blessing together. This would be especially appropriate on a rainy day when you're stuck inside.
- Vekayam bema'amaro - Remembering God's promise to never again destroy the earth, and our commitment to care for the earth.
- Learn to say this blessing on a rainy day. Spend the afternoon, or the next day, looking for a rainbow. Remember that it's not just a pretty sight in the sky, but a reminder of God's promise to us.
- Read the story of Noah, found in the Torah in Genesis 6:9-9:19, or check out your temple's library for stories of Noah's Ark.
- Dayan ha'emet - Remembering that at all times, through the good and the bad, our lives are connected to God.
When the need arises, this blessing can provide comfort. Discuss this blessing with your children. Ask them what it teaches us about God. We often want to blame God for the death of loved ones. Discussing this prayer can be a helpful way to talk about God's role in death. This blessing emphasizes God's role as a provider of comfort. Sometimes the very fact that Jewish tradition provides a blessing to say upon hearing about a death is comforting, in that there is a ritualistic way to acknowledge such news.
- Borei peri ha'adamah - Acknowledging God as the creator of the fruit of the earth.
To teach your children about God's role in bringing forth food from the earth, plan a dinner that focuses on this category of food. Invite your children to help plan the menu, discussing which foods grow from the earth, which from trees, and so on. Potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini and broccoli are just some of the foods your meal could feature. Make sure to say this blessing before the meal.
- Shekocho ugevurato malei olam - Ackowledging God's presence in the forces of nature.
Teach your children the blessing, then have them try to copy the sound of thunder. Give them pots and pans, and other loud things that might work. Recite the blessing, then be ready when the next storm comes! This blessing can be used as a way to ward off the fears caused by thunder.
- Borei isvei vesamim - Acknowledging God's gift of good things to smell.
Teach your children the blessing, then go on a smell hunt in your house. Start in the kitchen and have your children open up different spices. What unusual spices do you have? Where else in your house can they find interesting smells derived from nature? Search together. With older children, you can have them hunt separately, throughout the house, then report on the most unusual, natural smell they found. Discuss why having good things to smell is a gift. Ask your children what it would be like if there were no good smells. What would it be like if there were no smells at all?
- Mechayeh hametim - Taking the time to appreciate being reunited with loved ones.
This is a wonderful blessing to learn before grandparents come to visit. Many of us are not lucky enough to live near grandparents, so traveling to see them is a big deal. This blessing can give your children a heightened sense of the how special a visit from grandparents is. Being able to say this blessing upon seeing their grandparents helps to create a special Jewish memory for children to share with their grandparents. Perhaps this blessing will become their traditional greeting, so your children will always be aware of God's handiwork in bringing them together with their grandparents.
The God Around Us - The Valley of Blessings
Connecting to God Through Our Actions
- Hama'avir sheinah - Connecting to God when we wake up.
Ritual is important to young children. It provides them with a sense of orderliness in a world they don't completely understand. Rituals that revolve around bedtime and waking up can provide beautiful and meaningful ways to end and begin the day. If you already have a special morning ritual this could easily be added into it. This prayer may be used interchangeably with Asher natan lasechvi - #5.
- Al netilat yadayim - Connecting to God as we prepare to eat.
This is another way to help make mealtimes special and to create rituals to make them less stressful, as well. Gather at the sink before you eat to wash hands and say the blessing together, then together walk to the dinner table. This gives everyone a moment to calm down and come together. It is a tradition that one is not supposed to speak between reciting this blessing and reciting HaMotzi, the blessing over the bread. You could try this, even making it into a fun game.
- La'asok bedivrei Torah - Connecting to God through the study of Jewish texts.
Torah can mean specifically the texts known as the Five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), or more broadly, Torah can mean any Jewish texts. This could encompass both texts like the Talmud, or picture books with Jewish content. When you share a Torah story or a holiday story with your children, make it clear to them that this story is not just any story, but part of the story of our people. Saying this blessing before you begin reading will help identify those stories as special. (For suggestions of Jewish stories, see resource list below)
- Borei p'ri hagafen - Connecting to God through the fruit of the vine
Conduct an experiment with your children using grape juice (remember: white grape juice doesn't stain!). Ask them to take a sip of grape juice, and then describe their reaction to the juice. Was it good? Was it sweet? Did it make them less thirsty? Did it make them think or feel anything else? Then teach them the blessing. Ask them to say the blessing and then take another sip of the juice. Now that they've said the blessing, does drinking the juice feel any different? Did they think about God when they drank the juice? Explain that sometimes saying a blessing is a way to say thank you to God. When they say the blessing over the juice they are thanking God for creating grapes, and for making special times.
- Asher natan lesechvi - Connecting to God through the changing cycles of the day
This blessing can be used as an alternative to #1 above, to be said upon waking. It can also be used to acknowledge the way that nature has its own internal clock that helps us. Teach this blessing to your children. Ask them why it's important to be able to distinguish between night and day. Then ask them how they distinguish between good and bad, between right and wrong. These kinds of distinctions are difficult, but explain that God can help us make good choices about right and wrong, just as God helps the rooster know the difference between night and day.
- Shechalak meichachmato lirei'av - Connecting to God when we share wisdom
Teach this blessing to your children, and then ask them to whom they might want to say this. Help create a special moment for them to share this blessing of appreciation with a rabbi, teacher, older sibling, or grandparent. You can also make a card with this blessing which your children can decorate and give to grandparents or favorite teachers.
- Shelo asani aved - Connecting to God through the gift of freedom
This can be a difficult blessing for younger children, but as soon as they begin to understand the Passover story, you can teach them this blessing. In fact, having them share what it means to them can be a wonderful addition to a Passover seder. Ask them to act out what it would be like to not be free. Provide them with concrete examples, like not being able to play with their toys, not being able to go outside and play, and not being able to choose who they want to play with. Now have them act out how it feels to be free.
- Shehecheyanu - Connecting to God through special moments
- Make a holiday scrapbook of your family celebrating the first night of each holiday - and share throughout the year. This is a way to teach about the holidays and to reinforce that Shecheheyanu is about special times.
- Make a Shecheheyanu scrapbook that shows experiences your children have for the first time-first time they walk, first trip, first time celebrating holidays, first time they go to school, tie their own shoes. Invite your children to suggest pictures they think belong in the scrapbook.
- Help your children connect the saying of the Shecheheyanu to special holiday moments through the use of ritual objects.
- There are certain ritual objects that are used only on one holiday. Take a walk around your house looking for these kinds of items. My husband's mother has special china with turkeys on it that is used every Thanksgiving. Each year we look forward with anticipation to the turkey plates. Similarly, your children will look forward to the special tablecloth for Shabbat, the beautiful bowl that you use for honey on Rosh Hashanah, or your family menorah used on Chanukah. Explain that these are all occasions on which the Shecheyanu blessing could be said.
- Using ritual objects also opens your children's eyes to the rich artistic tradition of our people and helps them to become familiar with the symbols of our heritage.
- Ritual objects that children make in religious school are especially wonderful to use when teaching them about ritual objects. Use those handkerchief challah covers and plastic Kiddush cups.
- Borei p'ri ha'eitz - Connecting to God through the eating of food that grows on trees
Participate in a Tu BiSh'vat seder. Tu Bish'vat, the 15th day of the Jewish month of Sh'vat, is the New Year for the trees. It is a time to celebrate the beginning of new growth and the change of the seasons. Although it generally falls in January or February, in Israel this is the time when the first signs of spring are seen in the blossoming of the almond trees. You could also host your own Tu BiSh'vat seder! (for Tu BiSh'vat resources, see below).
- Hazan et hakol - Connecting to God by giving thanks after meals
This blessing just might help you end a meal with quiet and a moment to focus. Rather than everyone running off to do their own thing, take a moment to thank God for food, just as we thank God for providing us with food before the meal.
- Notei-a betocheinu chayei olam - Connecting to God through the ongoing cycle of nature
Learn this blessing together, then take a walk in the springtime and look for signs of new life. Take pictures, or make notes about all the things you see, so you can share them later.
- Hamapil chevlei sheinah - Connecting to God at bedtime
Bedtime can be a scary time for young children, but creating a ritual provides them with a sense of regularity and comfort. Ending the ritual with this blessing lets them know that they are not alone as they sleep throughout the night. This blessing can be copied, decorated by your child, and hung over the bed. You can also accompany this with the saying of the Sh'ma, a traditional bedtime prayer. The Sh'ma can be found in any prayerbook.
Recommended Resources for Parents
Appelman, Harlene Winnick. A Seder for Tu B'Shvat. (Kar-Ben Copies).
A complete Tu BiSh'vat seder for young children and families.
Elkins, Dov Peretz. The Shabbat Reader: Universe of Cosmic Joy. (URJ PRESS)
Rich anthology of Shabbat-related essays and readings.
Fisher, Adam. Seder Tu Bishvat, The Festival of the Trees. (CCAR Press).
Tu BiSh'vat on an adult level, with history, readings, and everything you need to create your own seder.
Perelson, Ruth. Invitation to Shabbat. (URJ PRESS).
Everything you ever wanted to know about Shabbat in an accessible volume that assumes no prior knowledge.
Rauchwerger, Lisa. Chocolate Chip Challah and Other Twists on the Jewish Holiday Table. (URJ PRESS).
This interactive cookbook for families is filled with a variety of delicious holiday treats, as well as information about the various holidays. It is designed for parents and children to use together.
Stern, Chaim, ed. On the Doorposts of Your House. (CCAR Press).
A prayerbook for home use, with inspirational readings and liturgy for home-based celebrations and everyday occasions.
Syme, Danny. The Jewish Home. (URJ PRESS)
A user-friendly overview of Jewish holidays and life-cycle events in a question-and-answer format.
Washofsky, Mark.Jewish Living: A Guide to Reform Jewish Practice. (URJ PRESS)
The essential guide to Reform Jewish living that covers holiays, life cycles, and everyday life.
Recommended Jewish Stories for Children from the URJ PRESS
Biers-Ariel, Matt. Illus. by Esti Silverberg-Kiss. Solomon and the Trees.
A midrashic story about King Solomon and his connection to nature. Great for Tu BiSh'vat.
Cohen, Barbara. Illus. by Shoshan Mekibel. Here Come the Purim Players.
This classic story about Purim is a great one to share at holiday time.
Cone, Molly. Hello, Hello, Are You There God?
This anthology of short stories focuses on our connection to God and is perfect for bedtime or other quiet family times.
Cone, Molly. Who Knows Ten? Children's Tales of the Ten Commandments.
Each story in this book is connected to one of the Ten Commandments. This collection makes for some great family discussions.
Heymsfeld, Carla. Illus. by Vlad Guzner. The Matzah Ball Fairy.
Ready for a rolling good time? Using humor and whimsy, this delightful story teaches some important aspects of the Passover seder experience.
Manushkin¸Fran. Illus. by Rosalind Charney Kaye. Come, Let Us Be Joyful!: The Story of Hava Nagila.
An inspirational story about the young boy who helped make the song "Hava Nagila" into the old standard we know today.
Rossel, Seymour. Sefer Ha-Aggadah: The Book of Legends for Young People.
Volume 1 of this collection of read-aloud stories features Bible legends, while Volume 2 features stories from the Sages.
Schram, Peninnah. Illus. by Jeffrey Allon. The Chanukah Blessing.
A Chanukah story about blessings and generosity.
On-line Resources:
http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday8.htm
http://urj.org/educate/parent/0405/
A Note to Parents from Mira Pollak Brichto
Author of The God Around Us: A Child's Garden of Prayer and The God Around Us Volume II: The Valley of Blessings
This is a book for parents who, like me, in any given week find themselves to be agnostic on Wednesday, theist on Friday and atheist on Sunday. It is directed towards adults who are struggling with philosophical, psychological and theological concepts concerning the nature of the universe, the existence of God, the meaning of life, adults, who, perhaps beginning to know that doubt, perplexity and uncertainty may indeed become their permanent philosophical-religious stance.
?Curiously, and despite our misgivings and doubts, we desire, many of us, to teach to our children the traditional Jewish reverence for life, to have them participate in what we like to call the "ethnic Jewish values," as distinct from the religious. In the very face of our own philosophical doubts, we feel an insistent urge to bind up our children's lives with the lives of our mothers and fathers, our grandmothers and grandfathers. Varied though our religious and educational backgrounds may be, I suspect many of us share the pain, the shame, the guilt, even the sometimes humiliating sense of dishonesty that we experienced in the course of our religious maturation. I have in mind that fairly commonplace experience of the early adolescent: the realization that a personal God may not have been listening with a physical ear to heartfelt desires and prayers. It is this realization which often leaves the painful wounds in sensitive young people that leads to the firm adult resolve later on to spare children the painful discovery that religion is not magic. Having earned this difficult understanding, we then proceed to impose upon young children the wisdom that we gained as adolescents and honed as young adults. We hesitate to introduce the concept of a personal God and are reluctant to introduce personal prayer into the lives of our children. We forget that the child who prays does not share our mature adult theological pre-occupations.
Children respond in a natural way to the very stance and posture of prayer, the bent knee, the lowered head, the clasped hands. Fixed and ritualized attitudes of the body, formalized repetition of specific words, are comforting and reassuring on a level far removed from adult conceptual concerns. Deeply imbedded in our language and thought is the stance of prayer. Quite natural is the poetic imagery in Thomas Moore's 18th century lyric:
"As the sunflower turns on her God when he sets
The same look that she turned when he rose."
The child who is taught to pray with mother, father, sister and brother, is at first learning to imitate gestures and strings of sounds, which later, perhaps only much later, will serve to release the aesthetic, psychological and philosophical capacities which are the ground for mature religious thought and feeling.
This is a book of personal prayer, in contrast to the communal prayer which children are likely to learn in religious school, day school, or synagogue. It is personal prayer of a select kind which is called beracha, benediction. It is a form of praise of thanks to God for a specific aspect of the universe. We express appreciation because it makes us feel good to do so. We acknowledge our sense of joy, of unending wonder and gratitude for the design in the universe, for the power that makes that design, and for the capacity in ourselves to emulate that power, contributing to the supply of goodness and beauty in the world. We pray because to do so is to express the grounds for our own sense of security. We would not bring children into the world, unless on some level we trusted in our own capability for conveying to them this sense of security in the universe.
The prayer modes introduced here need never be unlearned, none are based on motifs of petition, a concept which children, and early adolescents, reduce to a quid pro quo with God, e.g.,
Let me win this baseball game and You exist.
Prayers of petition have a very respectable place in our liturgical tradition, but as adults we come to realize that such prayer reflects more our human need to pray, than an assumption that our words can magically effect a recovery from a serious illness or a change in the weather. To be sure, life situations arise which seem to require or demand petitionary prayer. In such cases, the child who has developed the habit of prayer, who has cultivated the frame of mind necessary for addressing God, may more readily find it possible, with adult guidance, to utter a silent, wordless prayer. But he will know full well that the expression reflects his own need to pray, and that the efficacy of the prayer lies in how it makes him feel, rather than in its objective effectiveness. A medieval monk wisely advised:
"Learn your prayers before you understand them, for you are unlikely to be in a mood to learn them when the need for prayer arises."
Even when we assent to the need to teach our children prayer, we reveal our painful self-consciousness and doubt. Our first impulse is to let someone else do it. We forget that parents are ultimately the only authentic teachers of children, that in farming them out for their spiritual quests we are conveying to them that we are afraid, lazy, or indifferent. We are, some of us, content to let the schools provide our children with sex education. Well-trained physical education or biology teachers take on this task, provided with visual aids and effective peer group settings. Which of us, however, would settle for having our children learn about love in this setting? We quite naturally distinguish between facts concerning sex and reproduction and the values we assign to these facts.
Similarly, we dare not surrender the opportunity to be the spiritual, religious teachers of our own children. No two families are exactly alike and, as the narrative of each family is unique, so too the religious sentiment in each family's life possesses a uniqueness of place and tone. The parent who may have misgivings about the specific prayer formula of praise, "Praised Are You, Adonai Our God, Ruler of the Universe," will do well to remember that the child who is introduced to the awesomely majestic Ruler of the Universe by a loving parent will retain the impression of the love, and thus perceive that love and authority are not antithetical. Another concern-and a proper one-of parents is the question of making the prayer process obligatory, rote or mechanical, when, by common agreement, that process should be spontaneous, creative and original. The answer to this perplexity is once again to be sought in an analogy from the family child-rearing situation. We teach our children toilet habits long before they understand the principles of hygiene. Table manners and play rules are internalized long before the understanding of the socialization process is identified or conceptualized. We know that the early "blind training" will yield to later understanding and self-imposed controls. We understand that certain skills must be mastered before more elaborate ones can be developed.
The prayers of praise selected for inclusion here represent a spectrum that allows for the variations in religious style that our liberal tradition encourages. It is a tradition characterized by its attempt to see religion as a natural and rationally appealing stance towards the universe. The prayers, though based on centuries-old formulae, are meant to teach our children about the miraculousness of everyday living.
In a personal vein, I must acknowledge my own adult theological formulations are in some aspects far removed from those my parents held to be true. For all that, I can only be grateful for the lifelong sensitization which they afforded me by teaching me to pray when I was yet a child. My own children may likewise find themselves at a far remove from their parents' peculiar, idiosyncratic mix of religious temperament and thought. But because we have all prayed in the same words, a chain has been forged between our generations that cannot be broken.
Each of the prayers, the berachot, are introduced by a four line verse, the purpose of which is to evoke for both child and parent the life situations which may elicit the specific prayer. The range of the formulas is broad, their having been selected from ancient traditional sources. Indeed it is this very broadness of range which emphasizes our awareness of God, even in the commplaces of daily living. Despite new words and seemingly difficult concepts, children will enjoy the mood and fancy of the verses. These are designed to challenge and stimulate the growing mind, to encourage the natural childhood predisposition towards internal dialogue. Often it is our own problematic approach to the prayer process that leads us to an insistence upon instant comprehension for our children. We tend to insist upon the kind of verse and prayer language that provide immediate meaning. We forget that the words and the thoughts they reflect are dynamic and not static, that they will grow in meaning, and change as the child develops, as his thought and language increase in complexity. The best instruction is that which marches ahead of the child's development, indeed, that self-consciously leads it. Instruction in religious thought, feeling and expression must be oriented to the future, not the past, not so much at the ripe as at the ripening functions.
The well of spiritual life is infinite. The prayers offered in both volumes of The God Around Us are a single bucket. The thirst is there. When the bucket is drained your child will know how to search out the springs.
Mira Pollak Brichto
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