Children and Faith

All three of my children fasted this year.  Two are now of age, and Keren is within a year.  At 16, Jesse just accepts that this is part of Jewish life, and deals with it.  By lunch Gavi & Keren were complaining. Keren started a food chant.  It seems goofiness helps. Gavi was my whiner (an unusual position for him).  By Mincha the two of them were squeezing me between them, tired, hungry, and cranky, it was not fun.  Finally Keren settled into a book, maybe not the point of the day, but it kept her from complaining.  Gavi was inconsolable.  I told him that the fast was between him and God.  I was not going to stop him from eating, but neither would I give him permission.  Interestingly, he did not eat.

B'nei mitzvah is the beginning of a hard time in your life.  Parents still tell you what to do, except when they don't.  They must give permission for things, except when they won't.  Had I given permission, Gavi would have definitely eaten, but left between him and God, he had to really think about hid actions. He's not the most accepting child.  He is stubborn.  He wants explanations for everything, including the explanations.  However, Gavi also has a purity of faith that is special and will serve him well and carry him through life as it did through Yom Kippur.