A teachable moment

Sometimes I am aware enough to see a teachable moment unfold and sometimes they sneak up on me and have a ripple effect like tossing a pebble in a still pond.

Last night we had both.

The big kids and I went out to celebrate a friend's birthday at a fancy restaurant and some of the food that arrived at the table was not kosher. This is obviously a big deal for them since we walked out of a restaurant not so long ago. But these were people they know and respect and it was a bit of a conundrum.And a bit embarrassing to me that they would judge the adults for the choices they made and in such accusatory tones. Yikes. But upon relating the story to my husband, he was proud that his message had made such an impact. I have to agree. They ordered cheese pizza and were fine to skip the lasagna when they found out it had meat and cheese together.

Then, since Eran had stayed home with the twins and had been doing a massive cleaning and rearranging for Pesach, he requested that we bring him a schwarma on the way home from the fancy restaurant. I was happy to oblige even though it added more time [at least a half hour] and not an unconsiderable expense [about another $25] to the outing, and especially since he truly had a yen for this taste of home from just down the street.

The story of my Hebrish conversation that made the fresh off the plane from Israel waiter (if you can call him that - the guy that built the lafa for my husband) could be a whole other post so I'll save it except to say that I made him chuckle when I told my kids that one of the ingredients lined up to add to the sandwich was charif. My exact sentence was "No that's not Amba, it's charif." Does charif even have a word in English? Spicy sauce or schug is just not strong enough. Here are some of the schug ingredients, start with some hot peppers, and adding garlic is never a bad thing...see a story and recipe here

The teachable moment in this case was when Yael saw the line of pushkes (tzedah boxes) [can you see why this guy must have thought I was the schizophrenic one?]

She asked for a few pennies to put in the tzedakah boxes. Normally I wouldn't oblige, but I knew I had a few coins, mostly quarters, and so I pulled out the wallet and handed them to her. Then of course Yoni wanted to make his donation too, so I pulled out a few more coins. So Yael says that she needed another penny to add to the last box and so did he. I pulled out the wallet for the third time. This was all taking place because the kiosk is so small that he can only do one order at a time and there were several orders that were before ours. I should also mention that it was hot as blazes in the small store even after the sun had gone down on what was a pretty cool day. The schwarma spit put out lots of heat as did the beverage coolers that offerered Prigat next to their coke and bottled water and dr pepper. Last week as a treat and on a whim I bought a liter of strawberry banana juice for the kids and they were hooked. When I saw that he had some cans of it there in the cooler I indulged my son who I normally don't get to indulge.

So as we were waiting for the food and they were sipping on their juice, I explained that I was happy they were enjoying the outing and that the reason I "let" them give tzedakah is because they were fortunate enough to be able to have that drink when they wanted it just becuase they wanted it and that some people weren't able to do so and that is why we give tzedakah to help those who need it more than us. And just for good measure to drive the point home I reminded them that sometimes we park a little farther away because G-d gave us good legs to carry us those extra steps to the door and that is not always the case (and that it is ok that they park closer when Bubbie takes them places)