Bring them with you

Every seven years, the Torah commands the entire Jewish people to gather in Yerushalayim for Hakhel:

“Gather the people—the men, the women and the small children.”
הַקְהֵל אֶת הָעָם, הָאֲנָשִׁים וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַטַּף
(Devarim 31:12)

The Gemara asks why everyone came. The men came to learn, the women came to hear, and the children came “to give reward to those who bring them” (Chagigah 3a).

But the small children could not understand the Torah reading. Why, then, did the Torah insist that they come?

The Gemara’s answer is brief: “To give reward to those who bring them.”

Behind these few words lies a deeper message about raising our children:

Bring them with you.

A child does not begin life by understanding everything around him. He begins by watching, listening and absorbing. He sees his father open a Gemara. He hears Kiddush and zemiros. He watches his family prepare for Shabbos and Yom Tov. He sees his parents put aside what they are doing to help another Jew.

Long before he can explain what Torah means, he learns that Torah is part of life. He learns that it matters. He learns what a Jewish home looks like.

We find a beautiful example of this in the story of the mother of Rav Yehoshua ben Chananya. When he was still a baby, she brought his cradle to the Beis Midrash so that he would hear the sound of Torah. He could not understand the words, but his mother understood something very important: what a child hears and absorbs in his earliest years can remain with him for a lifetime.

That was also part of the message of Hakhel.

The children saw their parents leave their homes and travel to Yerushalayim. They saw the entire nation gather. They saw the king reading the Torah, with thousands of Jews standing together and listening. They may not have understood all the words, but they understood that this was important. They saw Torah at the centre of their family’s life and of the life of the Jewish people.

There is another important point here.

At the end of Moshe Rabbeinu’s life, when Hashem commands him to write the Torah, He calls it a shirah:

“And now, write for yourselves this song.”
וְעַתָּה כִּתְבוּ לָכֶם אֶת הַשִּׁירָה הַזֹּאת
(Devarim 31:19)

The Torah is called a song.

A song is more than words that we understand. It enters the heart and stays there. A person can hear a melody in childhood and, many years later, that same melody can bring him back to the Shabbos table, to his childhood home, to his grandparents and to memories he thought he had forgotten.

Some things remain with us not because we understood them at the time, but because we lived them.

That is how Torah should become part of our children’s lives.

Of course, we must teach our children Torah. They need to know Chumash and Mishnah, Gemara and halachah. They need to know what Hashem asks of them and how a Jew is meant to live.

But alongside the learning, they need to feel that Torah is the great privilege of our lives. It gives meaning to our days, kedushah to our Shabbos and direction to the way we live.

They need to see what Torah does to a Jewish home: the happiness of preparing for Shabbos, the warmth around the Shabbos table, the excitement of Yom Tov and the quiet satisfaction of doing a mitzvah.

When we face a difficult question or decision, they should see that we turn to the Torah for guidance. They should learn that Torah does not remain inside a sefer. It shapes the way we speak, the way we treat other people and the way we conduct our lives.

But there is another lesson we need to give our children: a sense of belonging to Klal Yisrael.

At Hakhel, it was not one family or one community that gathered. Men, women and children from throughout Eretz Yisrael stood together in Yerushalayim around the Torah. Each person came from his own home and with his own traditions, yet they all stood together before Hashem as one people.

Our children should know their family traditions and treasure the mesorah they have received from their parents, grandparents and the generations before them. They should know where they come from and be proud of the Torah they have inherited.

But they should also understand that their home is part of something much greater:
Klal Yisrael.

We have different minhagim, different communities and different ways of serving Hashem. Not every Jewish home looks exactly the same. But we are one people, bound by the same Torah and standing before the same Hashem.

This is an important message for our children. As they grow up, they will encounter many different opinions, influences and challenges. We cannot control everything that will enter their lives. We do not know what difficulties they will face or what choices they will make when they are older.

But we can give them deep roots that will remain with them even when we are no longer beside them.

And the days ahead give us a special opportunity to do this.

As we enter Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, we have a wonderful opportunity to show our children what these days mean. Bring them to shul and to the tefillos. Let them hear the shofar. Let them experience the special atmosphere of the Yomim Noraim and the joy of Sukkot. Let them take part, even when they are still too young to understand everything that is happening.

A young child sitting in shul beside his father, standing with his mother to hear the shofar, or sitting in the sukkah with his family may not yet understand the meaning of every tefillah or mitzvah. But he knows that these days are different. He sees that they matter to his parents, to his family and to all of Klal Yisrael.

So we should not wait until our children are old enough to understand.

Bring them now.

Take them to the Beis Midrash and to shul. Take them to visit grandparents, to family simchos and to places where another Jew needs help. Let them sit beside us at the Shabbos table and hear the zemiros. Let them see us learn, daven and do mitzvos with simchah.

These experiences become part of a child’s inner world. The sound of Torah, the atmosphere of a Torah home and the joy of Yiddishkeit can remain with him for many years.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest messages of Hakhel. The Torah did not tell us to wait until our children were old enough to understand. It told us to bring them as they are and to stand with them, together with all of Klal Yisrael, around the Torah.

We want our children to see that Torah is not only something they learn. It is something they live. It is their mesorah, their way of life and their connection to generations past and to the generations that will come after them.

And when difficult days come, what they absorbed at home can give them strength.

The Navi says:
כִּי בְשִׂמְחָה תֵצֵאוּ
“For you shall go out with joy.”

With Torah in our hearts and simchah in our homes, we can face difficult times, stand strong through our challenges and continue forward with emunah.

This is what we want to pass on to our children—not only knowledge of Torah, but a deep connection to Torah; not only its obligations, but also the joy and privilege of being part of Torah and of Klal Yisrael.

Bring them with you.

Rabbi Eliezer Simcha Weisz