Torah Tidbit

When children call their parents in the middle of the night, they just cry. They don’t even call, “Mother, Father….” They just cry. How does it feel when your baby cries at night? It’s a taste of how G-d felt when the High Priest was calling His Name on Yom Kippur.

attributed to (Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach)
Receive a short teaching of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach posted on your facebook wall once a day. Sign up to www.facebooktorah.com I'm not gonna tell you I'm promoting this site cause I don't know anything about it and it could be spam bots or otherwise annoying. Just ask my dad. His name and email recently got sold from a list he was on that he donated once to the Sierra Club - I'm sure my Earth Science teacher mother probably wanted the poster that was the free giveaway with the donation for her kids :)  Since this kind of thing is generally annoying and particularly so for the one who lives in front of the computer, I refuse to add more spam/junk mail to the system. Off my soapbox for now...Then again, one man's trash is another man's treasure - but that's how hoarding starts and that's a WHOLE other soapbox post.

What I really wanted to say was this:
This tidbit really spoke to me today, especially since I have not had a full night's sleep (in several years, probably) due to one or another of my kids crying at night. Of course I wake up to comfort them and sometimes I wake up and find them in my bed even if I didn't hear their cries. Most nights it is one of the toddlers that doesn't have the words to ask for comfort for what really bothers them. They cry outright and start to wander the house looking for me if, for example I haven not yet made it to bed and/or am crashed out on the couch. Other nights it is a whimper from my daughter's bed that has me running to check on her especially since she is usually so stoic and only has meltdown and crying fits when she is REALLY tired or upset about something. And some nights I don't hear anything at all, but wake up to find my oldest has wrapped himself around our legs and did not cry out, but still searched us out for comfort. I don't usually mind the sleeplessness until it is a culmination or I am fighting off an illness. It seems like the least I can do for these kids who spend most of their waking hours away from me, so at least I can comfort them in the still of the night. And since it is never completely dark in my house, I always leave the lights on somewhere, they will always be able to look for me.