A neighbor gave my two-year-old granddaughter Faigy something
very special. It is a doll stroller almost identical to the
one at the gan that Faigy attends. I say almost
identical because there is one tiny, but important,
difference...
As soon as she received the new stroller, Faigy placed her
dolly in position and got, as they say, read to roll. Then
she stopped, with a serious, "What is wrong with the picture"
look on her face. The doll was sitting straight up in the
stroller.
Faigy fussed for a while with the stroller and finally made
one minor adjustment. She slipped one side of the material
seat support off its hook so that the doll half slid off the
seat. With a look of satisfaction, off went "Mommy Faigy" and
dolly for their walk.
My daughter-in-law automatically fixed it. Faigy was appalled
and pulled it right off. This happened a couple of times.
Various members of the family adjusted the seat and Faigy
insisted that it go back to the lopsided mode.
A little investigation solved the mystery. It seems that the
doll stroller in the gan has one hook broken off its
seat support system and therefore, any doll placed on the
seat finds itself in a diagonal position, leaning to the side
that is missing the hook. To Faigy and the other children in
the gan, this is how dolls ride in doll strollers. In
other words, this is `normal.'
The Hebrew word ragil has several meanings. My
dictionary gives the first use as "usual, regular, ordinary."
The second meaning is "what one is used to." My granddaughter
and her friends are used to the broken stroller. It bothered
Faigy to have the doll sitting upright. By a little clever
manipulation, bypassing the hook, she was able to get the
stroller she owns to function exactly like the one in
gan, thereby rendering her stroller `ragil.'
A few years ago, an American company that manufactures potato
chips invested a great deal of money and time into procuring
the latest state-of-the-art packaging materials. The new bags
sealed the chips to a greater extent than any other container
had. The chips got to market and consumers started
complaining. "These chips don't taste right."
What was wrong? The chips in the new bags were totally fresh.
Consumers were used to slightly rancid potato chips. A
certain degree of rancidity had become associated with the
`taste' of commercial potato chips. The fresh chips lacked
this element and therefore, were rejected as not being
`normal.'
This lesson in human nature has much broader applications.
We sometimes find in today's society that a family living in
a particular neighborhood for many years is suddenly
investigated by a social service agency and found to be
dysfunctional. The children are removed from the home and
taken to live with relatives or foster parents.
When a wide range of problems that had existed within that
home becomes public knowledge, the neighbors are astounded.
How is it that the children managed to grow up in such an
environment? "Why didn't they say something? We could have
helped!"
The answer is simple. Just as the toddlers in the gan
think that dolls in strollers are supposed to sit at a 45
degree angle, and potato chip noshers feel that chips have to
be rancid, the children in dysfunctional homes think that
anger, violence, abuse and other destructive behavior is
normal in the sense of "the way things are supposed to be."
Sadly, that is all that they have ever known.
In the Torah world, we have in general escaped the rampant
rate of family problems, often leading to divorce, that
plagues secular society. Whether it is through our Torah-
oriented education, the good role models we saw in our
childhood homes, or the frum world's emphasis on
family values, we are able to give our own children a
nurturing environment.
But we should not rest on our laurels and be too content.
There are some fine Jewish homes which can use a little
improvement. Perhaps we should consider the following
points:
"It seems to me that my children shout at each other when
they could be speaking more quietly. Could it be that I yell
at them too much?"
"My pre-teenage daughter constantly asks for nice clothing,
hair ornaments and cosmetics. Is it possible that we are
showing her a too materialistic lifestyle?"
"One of the boys seems to be taking his work at yeshiva too
lightly. Maybe he needs to be shown that studying Torah is
more important, in our home."
In a child-safety class that I took when my children were
young, the instructor told us to go into each room of our
house and do the following: First, sit down on the floor
in the middle of the room and look around. You will be seeing
things exactly as they appear to a 2-3-year-old. Now lie down
on the floor and look around from there. That is how your
infant and toddler see things.
When we tried that approach, we were able to see the exposed
electrical outlets, the dangling appliance wires and all of
the other dangerous things that attract youngsters.
If each of us takes the time to observe our own family in its
ragil or `normal' state, we will see what our children
are exposed to on a daily basis. Is it an environment of
sholom bayis or is our home somewhat of an obstacle
course? Are our children thriving or just hanging in
there?
It is crucial for us to keep in mind that the milieu in which
we raise our children will most likely set the tone for the
homes they will establish when they are adults.
For the time being, the children in my granddaughter's
gan may be used to the lopsided stroller seat and the
half-in, half-out position of their dollies. But the
important thing is that each of these precious children is
growing up beautifully in a wonderful home where she
is seated in a fine upright position, growing in Torah,
mitzvos and good deeds.
Our job as parents and teachers is to make sure that the
image I just portrayed is our children's concept of
`normal.'
[Ed. Just an aside: ragil and `regular' are another
example of a Twist of the Tongue, where the root word is
certainly in Loshon Kodosh, where it denotes habit or
regularity, like the three-times-a-year festival.]
