A Yid told me the following:
My seven-and-a-half-year-old son had to undergo a complex medical procedure. We, along with his reb- bis in cheder, spoke to him about what he was going to go through, how to deal with the pain, and what he would do in the hospital. We did everything possible to make it pleasant for him and to prepare him for the treatment, but nothing succeeded in calming him – and to be honest, nothing succeeded in calming me.
We got to the hospital, and they brought us into a room and showed us where to wait for our turn.
“Look what they sent you from cheder,” I said to my anxious son, and I took out a bunch of letters from his classmates. It was so nice to see the drawings with wishes for a refuah sheleimah and a speedy recovery. Looking at the letters took his mind off what was coming for a short while, but soon I was looking for another distraction for him.
I told him, “It’s not nice that no one wrote me letters. I’m also staying here to sleep in the hospital.”
“Abba, they’re not doing anything to you,” my son explained, “only to me.”
“It only seems that way,” I explained to my son. “I am your father, and I care about what you’re about to go through. What about writing me a letter to make me happy?”
The child accepted the suggestion, took a paper and markers, and wrote the following words in childish scrawl with various misspellings:
“Tatty, don’t worry about what they’re going to do to me, because Hashem is with me.”
He gave me the letter with a smile that conquered all my worries, and those pure words melted away all the fears I had. What was I worrying about? Why was I so perturbed? Hashem was with him (and with me)! It was so simple and such a comfort, so exciting and encouraging.
My son’s letter remains in my memory, so that whenever worry besets me, it reminds me of Who is with us and Who takes care of everything.
(The letter, and an interview with the boy, will be in the Nissan Hashgachah Pratis Magazine.)
Halachically, there is much import to the words of a child. If in middle of krias haTorah there is a question about a letter, we bring a child and ask him to read what it says. If he reads the passuk correctly, the sefer Torah is kosher; if not, it is pasul.
This is because a child says the truth according to the way he sees it.
And this is the letter my child wrote me, a genuine letter from a genuine child in real time: Abba, don’t worry; Hashem is with me.
Gut Shabbat
Pinchas Shefer
Parshas Beshalach -Yitro 5784 ■ Issue 157
