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By Moriah Tenenbaum, Beis Moshiach Magazine

One normal weekday, a little girl finds herself in a very bad mood. It’s not clear, nor does it make much difference, what brought this on – fighting with her older brother, a drawing that got torn, a bang from the table, or her younger brother taking apart her wonderful Lego creation. The bottom line is that we have here a little girl with a sour expression on her face. She appears totally dissatisfied with herself and everyone around her… However, when she joins her mother going out to the grocery store, something unexpected happens.

A middle-aged woman smiles at the little girl and offers her a candy. The girl asks if she’s allowed, looks for the hechsher, then makes a bracha out loud, and eats the candy with much enjoyment… Standing nearby, the woman looks on with enthusiasm and praises the little girl…Suddenly, a smile comes to her lips, and our little girl now feels better about herself, and she returns home satisfied.

Even the older children have their mood swings. And when one of them gets entangled in a series of quarrels with his siblings, after a long and hard day in the Talmud Torah; his messy room together with the difficult test he had that day, and the punishment – unjustified in his opinion – that he received from his teacher, no one seems to understand him. One misunderstanding leads to another, and the unsurprising result is a frustrated and annoyed child, surrounded by unpleasant feelings for him and all those around him.

Only in the evening, when he goes to daven Maariv in shul, does he start to get out of his bad mood. This happens when he meets a neighbor, who expresses his appreciation and admiration for a boy not yet bar-mitzva, who is still stringent about davening word for word, and in a siddur… And no one seems to understand how the child returns home a little calmer and a little happier. He just went through a very powerful experience…

The approaching end of the week has one mother tired and exhausted, a little under pressure and frustrated – from the burdens of the past week, the unending list of tasks, and in particular, over the coming Shabbos, when guests are expected to come, a baal teshuva family at the start of their spiritual journey. Time passes quickly, but not in relation to what remains to be done. She tries to make progress in her Shabbos preparations while thinking and worrying about how they will get through Shabbos with such important guests. It’s imperative that they should leave with a good impression. However, in truth, she doesn’t feel particularly good about this past week. There were a thousand and one unexpected things to do this week. The baking is missing some of its most basic ingredients, the purchases took longer than usual. The Shabbos cooking progressed slowly with intervening disturbances by the younger children. As for the older children, from whom she might have expected a little assistance – they didn’t really offer much cooperation, as expressed by the state of cleanliness and order in the house… It would seem that the children don’t attach much importance to the impression made upon the guests, and they continue about their own business, even on a Friday afternoon. Perhaps the overall stress of the moment is what’s contributing to the unruly conduct, even fighting… How is it possible to take in guests this way?

She tries somehow to complete what is required while giving the house a generally reasonable appearance. And so, they come – a lovely family, for whom this is one of the first times they are seeing up-close and in real life – a Shabbos in a home where Torah and mitzvos are observed. The hostess gathers up her emotional and physical strength together, and then…

It was hard for her to put her finger on exactly when she realized that her guest was watching her with tremendous admiration. Their standard Shabbos meal was suddenly revealed to be a most special and inspiring event. It soon became clear that the table set with matching plates and napkins, with covered challos, a bottle of wine, and a Kiddush cup – was a uniquely charming design. The characteristically simple Shabbos foods for any Jewish home aroused a genuine sense of enthusiasm. The foods you prepared – “How diligent!”, and the things you merely took out of the freezer – “How well organized!”, and even the ready-made food you bought, due to lack of time, suddenly came as proof of an organized homemaker with a proper set of priorities. In general, an enriching menu including fish, chicken, salads, even cake for dessert – did not seem obvious to the honored guest…

In the presence of the guests, the children were naturally more restrained, at least at the beginning of the meal. It wasn’t all that pleasant to fight in front of the guests, or to start running wild in the middle of the Shabbos seuda… However, once the ice was broken, they went back to their normal mode of conduct. In any case, the guests were most impressed. They felt that the children were just very energetic, filled with Chassidic vitality and a healthy sense of humor. Even the arguments over who sets and who clears the table, why one child got a larger portion of dessert than the others, were suddenly revealed as delightful and integral components in a family blessed with many children, as if someone was watching from the side wearing rose-colored glasses… Throughout that Shabbos, those same glasses were worn by the baalas ha’bayis…

And when the Shabbos comes to an end, and the guest proclaims that Shabbos had charged her battery to the fullest – she doesn’t understand why her host replied: “Mine too.”

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The magazine can be obtained in stores around Crown Heights. To purchase a subscription, please go to: bmoshiach.org

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