The Adorable Children at My Shul

I'm Jewish, and I belong to a Conservative congregation that has both a traditional and egalitarian minyan and no rabbi. I try to go to shul every Saturday, but this mostly doesn't happen, and I only end up going to shul once or twice a month. But each time I do, I reminded or another reason I love it.

During the service, my dad will often discuss the week's parsha with me, and explain certain aspects or histories of the prayers. I also spend a lot of time just thinking. Shul has become a place where I can attempt to reach clarity on my thoughts. It is also a place that holds a truly amazing community. There are people at my shul who have memories of me before I could walk, and there are also people who are new each week.

One of the things I love the most though are all the children. There are so many, and they are so adorable. Some will just prance around during the service, others will cry (well, only the really young ones), and some will cling tightly to their parents. There is this one girl who can recite almost every word of the service (off-key, of course) and she's only like 3.

Towards the end of the service, before the Aleinu, whoever is leading the service that day will call up all the children and give them a piece of candy. The belief is that prayer should be sweet. It's a tradition that was instilled by our late rabbi. He also loved the kids, and really showed his love. His favourite thing to say at the end of services was "Come more often, bring more friends." Anyways, so today there was this little boy, probably about 2, with his little payot, and he's running to get up to the bima, and he manages to trip over his own feet. Immediately, several people run up to him and try to calm him down, while everyone else looks on sympathetically. Eventually he must have realized that if he didn't stop crying, he was going to miss his chance to get a chocolate kiss. So he gets out of his mother's lap, and his face still wet with tears, runs up and sticks his hand out for the candy, which he promptly receives, along with everyone's laughter.

The kids at my shul are so adorable, and they are one of the things that I really love about going to shul.