Religious Coercion

Lately I've been having little conversations with Yonah, our four-and-a-half-year-old son, about some of the fundamentals of making blessings (called 'brachot' in Hebrew). 

For those not in the know, Judaism has blessings for pretty much everything (even for the Czar!).  I'm not going to give a long lesson on the types or structures of the various blessings, but suffice it to say that observant Jews view brachot as one of the main things that separates us from the lower life forms; specifically, our ability and willingness to acknowledge a higher power for the things we experience and enjoy... before (and sometimes also after) we enjoy them.

One of the things about making brachot is that you need to teach kids early on that one should try to minimize the time between making the blessing and doing whatever it is you are making the blessing on.  For example, one shouldn't speak between reciting the blessing and eating something since unrelated speech would constitute an interruption.

Yonah is famous in our home for washing his hands before eating bread... reciting the blessing... and then chattering away about everything under the sun before actually eating the bread.  Since bread isn't really high on his list of priorities, no amount of explaining has had much of an effect on his inability to remain quiet between blessing and action.

So yesterday in shul (synagogue), I decided that maybe I could use something a little more attractive in order to see if I could get the message across.

I'm not the shul candy-man, but I usually keep a bag of saltwater taffy with me so that I can give Yonah a little treat wen he's behaving nicely.  I did this for both Ariella and Yonah, too, when they were younger... and (I hope) it gave them sweet associations with coming to pray.

After Yonah had been in shul for a little while and had said his morning 'Shema' prayer, I took out a taffy for him.  But before I let him have it I explained once again that once he made the blessing he couldn't talk... he had to put it in his mouth right away so G-d would know what he was saying thank you for.  I also explained about taking G-d's name in vain, and that it wasn't nice to make a blessing without actually doing whatever you were talking about in the blessing since that was also bound to be a bit confusing (not to mention disrespectful) to G-d.

[Ed. Note: Before anyone steps in to correct me, first go try talking theology to a four year old.  Nuff said]

Yonah nodded dutifully (keeping his eye on the taffy only slightly less intensely than our dogs watch me when I handle chopped liver), made a nice blessing, and popped the taffy into his mouth without the slightest hesitation.

So far so good.

A while later when he came back inside from a short play session, I decided to check to see of the lesson had been retained.  I took out a taffy and asked him if he wanted it.  After receiving the obvious answer I asked him what he needed to do before he ate it.  Without missing a beat, he made a beautiful, clear blessing (...'shehakol') and held out his hand urgently to indicate that he needed to put it in his mouth without delay.

I had actually been expecting him to simply answer that he needed to make the blessing, but seeing that he seemed to have gotten the message I dutifully popped the taffy into his mouth.

Yonah rarely stays in shul for very long so I wasn't surprised to see him leave a few minutes later.  But within two minutes he was back... this time with two friends.  They lined up in front of me, and without hesitation recited a loud clear 'shehakol' blessing and started urgently pointing at their mouths as if to imply that if I didn't hurry and give them each taffies, the sin would be on my head!

Somehow I think Yonah has taken the wrong message from this particular lesson.