Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
There is a special prayer we are accustomed to saying the day before the new month of Sivan and six days before Shavuot, the festival marked by the giving of the Torah. The words of the prayer were written by the Shelah, Rav Yeshayahu ben Avraham Horowitz (1555-1630), on children's education and they are especially significant this year. They are requests that mothers and fathers have made of Hashem generation after generation up until our own time.
But this year parenting has been much more challenging than usual. In every living room, a home school opened up and suddenly there was no bus taken or bell sounded to begin the day. We saw our kids up close all day long, fighting and making up, getting up and falling down, together with us. We discovered that the flexible, not the strong, survive and that personality and character traits at this time are more important than the number of pages we finish this year in a math book. Now our kids are returning slowly to school but it seems we parents have learned that we, in fact, are their most important educators. Here is one segment of the Shelah's prayer:
"May we, our offspring, and the offspring of all Your people, the House of Israel, know Your Name and study Your Torah. . . and grant Your children health, honor, strength, and give them stature, beauty, charm, and kindness, and may there be love, brotherhood, and peace among them, and may they serve you with love and with reverence . . . that they should be only peaceful and truthful and good and straight in the eyes of Hashem and in the eyes of all human beings".
Amen.
