Fellow Readers:
You are constantly being watched.
Listen to this, I was at a friend’s house Shabbos afternoon. Shabbos afternoons these days are nice and long. The house was packed with kids. Inside, outside, they were all over the house. The bored older kids (seventh graders) decided to run a mini Shabbos Color War with the younger kids. The first activity was to put on a Shabbos skit. I was sitting on the living room couch.
(which happened to be the audience section, apparently I got front row seats). Center stage was the living room. I haven’t been to a play in a while (COVID 19) so I was excited to be entertained. The first group got up. It was two girls, ages seven and eight.
I’ll give you a play by play:
Costumes: Big Shabbos hat, long neck tie, oversized jacket.
The setting takes place in a Shul, where you see two men finishing davening. As they close their Siddurim and head out, one “man” turns to the other.
Man 1: Hey brother, (slaps him on the back) You want to come over to my house for some Cholent and L’chaim?
Man 2: Sure, that sounds good! Let’s go!
They walk a few steps and are now in Man 1’s house.
Man 2: Yum, this Cholent is so good, here have more L’Chaim.
They both fill each other’s cups up with more L’chaims (grape juice). They keep drinking until they start singing, then dancing and then spinning in circles, and then bumping into each other, and then rolling on the floor and laughing.
Man 1 and 2: We’re drunk (laughing) ha ho, we’re drunk.
The two “men” scramble to their feet, take a bow and say together:
“The END!”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Yeah that’s the end of our skit,” they both giggled.
That was their whole skit.
Their message was very clear. Wow, was it loud and clear.
FATHERS! (and Mothers) Is this what you want your kids emulating? Is this what you want them exposed to? Your children see and absorb everything you do. You are their biggest role models.
Please please stop the Kiddush clubs, stop the drinking, stop, stop, STOP!
It’s not just drinking, children pick up everything we do. How we speak to our spouse and others, how much time we spend on our phone, how we speak to and about others and our comments we make about ourselves or others.
They see everything. Let’s make a conscious effort to be positive role models for the most impressionable segment of our society, our children, our future.
I agree
Okkk
I thought it was going to be worse…
Oy
This comes from the same parent which goes to ‘plays’, you mean broadway shows.
“I haven’t been to a play in a while (COVID 19)”
C’mon, you have your own problems, stop going to ‘plays’, your kids should have a chassidish home, not the opposite ch”v
what ever happened to being Dan Lekaf Zechus?
a Play can mean anything, who are you to assume based on someone you don’t even know that they go to a broadway show?
There are many kosher frum Yiddishe plays such as school productions and others that come to town every chol hamoed.
I completely agree with the writer here on every level. You would think that through the awareness brought to our attention by Neshamos, and the Rebbe’s Takana people would be a little more conscious of drinking. Its time to stop enabling such non religious behaviors
Also not only the le chaim that i could be ok on the proper setting . The arrogant and aggressive behaviors . Also schools are in crisis . Kids can memorize all Mishnah and Tanya but if they don’t act like mensch they demerit their achievements.
Please, tell us more about all the problems. This is so important.
Wow!
Too true!
Honestly thank you for sharing!!
Why don’t people consider the fact that fathers have hard and exhausting weeks, and shabbos is the day where they can unwind and let go with the assistance of alcohol? It’s therapeutic for them.
I remember as a kid, if my father didn’t “farbreng” with his buddies on shabbos, the following week was one dreadful experience.
With respect that sounds precisely like an addiction mentality, if someone*needs* alcohol or any substance to have a good day/week it’s really not a good sign
Don’t confuse people farbrenging with people stam drinking
Let’s not pretend there’s a difference. Having a Yiddish word doesn’t justify it.
Yeah, it’s just some girls playing with a word that they probably don’t even know the meaning of.
Sounds like a pretty good play to me.
Keep on keeping on
I am not familiar with these “lchaim and cholent and dancing” that you are describing which leads me to need to say that what feels to me, as the reader, is your feeling ok to kinda call out that this is generally what is going on in the community, is no better than the situations you are saying was described by these children. You are right that people should curb or completely stop alcohol consumption (depending on individual interaction with it), and be present in their childrens’ lives but how though do you feel so comfortable to assume and conclude… Read more »
This is your problem?? BH, Every one is where they should be in Shabbos, home, Shul, guests. Do you know that young kids today in our community can’t be bothered with any of that? And your issue is that these kids were mimicking some kind of kiddish? You should make a cheshbon hanefesh, or maybe better CH may not be the place for you.
I know I will get a lot of dislikes for this but mothers and I’ll underline MOTHERS are encouraging this by their heartless behavior towards their husbands. And the only way for men / boys to relief themselves is through drink and smoke – to “fly” a bit, from the insane mentality. MOTHERS / WOMEN NEED TO STOP!
I’m not sure what goes on in your home but that is completely rude and disrespectful. Please don’t blame someone for your own problems. The husbands and wives are teams ok, don’t blame one side.
Kiddush club happens during the prayers, here they ‘finished’ the prayers then went to sit and farbreng as many chassidishe yidden do. nothing wrong with that at all.
also they go to a mans house, so at least one woman has her husband home, so thats better than some that sit and farbreng in shul and the woman and kids dont see the men. so count youself lucky these kids are being educated so well
“Live, and let live” a little.
L’Chaim!
ph
They’re kids. My kids have done similar and they have never seen their father nor anyone else drunk. They think the concept of a drunkard is funny. There are definitely negative behaviors kids pick up from the adults around them, but I think this is a poor example as it doesn’t necessarily speak about anything other than child fancy.
You wrote a whole article because two little girls pretended to get drunk? Really?!? My girls (older than them) beg me to get drunk every week because they think it’ll be funny. The ones you saw probably don’t even know what the word “drunk” actually means!
To clarify my comment: just as my kids don’t know what the word drunk really means because they never see drunkenness, I doubt that the girls in tbe article know what it really means. It just sounds like fun to them. My kids think it means that I’ll mach a kula (tumblesauce).
A play, especially coming from children, is something that is supposed to entertain! Some boring routine won’t do it, and so an innocuous, silly scene will get the funny reaction from the adults watching, which is what they crave.
Don’t be a Karen, and have a laugh. Let kids be kids.
My name is Karen. What’s your issue with this name?
Case in point.
My teenager goes to a lchaim and tells me he was offered a shot. How can he refuse? is this something we want our children becoming accustomed to?
There’s an old yiddish expression: shikor vi a goy.
Not “Shikkur iz a Goy”
Rather “Shikkur vi a Goy”
Implying there is both a desirable and an undesirable way to get drunk.
and that’s not 7 oz cups
drunk is not for a Yid
having a lchaim to open you up to hear things you may not hear otherwise and you are NOT acting inappropriately is not “getting drunk” for most people, for those that can’t have just one, or two, or three, or four….they should simply refrain
Good point! If they would drink a small amount of L’chayim not to the point of being shikkur, it would be an ok sitch.
All kids should try emulate a chasideshe farbrengen and the writer should go to shul more often or go to more chasidesher farbrengens.
I know a lot of little kids who never saw a real drunk person and they do the same thing, they do what these little girls did. Do you think they were really watching there father, or just doing what we all did as little kids. Kids know you get drunk from mashke, this is normal.
and wat about kids seeing how u daven like a speeding race car, hoping to get done and out asap!?