Fear Not, My Child

I’m not gonna be kiddin’ myself. The American Dream whistles my name. It tempts me. Y’know, the big private house on the manicured lawn in a sunny-all-year-round state, the college degree, the double income, double garage. The great escapes ‘round the world, the well-tended women, the rowdy li’l mistah, the half-undressed teenage smartass….

Not the dog. Take that dog away from here.

And the cats too. Or any other haunting specie for that matter.

Come to think of it, it's probably because the Satmericana Drim is lacking in that respect. The over-populated apartment: Check. the B&H job: Check. The Ben Torah: Check. The overpriced, fourth-hand minivan... The road trip to the Arlington in the summer... The woman hidden somewhere under all the tsnuis, the little boysss, the little girlsss, the bochurim that do not teenage….

Check, check, check.

Where’s the cow? You know, a nice soft mooing cow. Or any other Kosher animal that can take the place of a pet.

Hey, maybe we could even get a chicken for every kid in the house.

Sure.

Why do we really fear animals so much? It’s not animals exclusively, it’s more than that. We’re afraid of looking at people with disabilities, my kids are afraid of goyim, hell, we’re afraid of anything unfamiliar.

I sat in the kitchen last night, drinking something warm at 4 in the morning, wondering why we, The Jews, the people I was taught are above all forms of nature, are awfully afraid of cockroaches.

A couple of hours earlier I was having this wonderful dream when my subconscious mind detected some tugging. I turn the other way, but the tugs continue. I'm tired, leave me alonnne. I finally stirred with a voiceless, lifeless “Voos iz tsadikle?” and continued to dream on my distorted story.

He held his pillow and started to cry, hushed and desperate pleas. “Seiz doo a doggy in mine room”.

Oh no, not again. “Crawl into tatti’s bet, his is way bigger than mine”.

I think I was too tired to turn that thought into words, because I heard little feet shuffling at the foot of my bed. My cover began moving about, and in no time I was left with just a wee little piece of blanket in my fingers.

It was cold. Rubbing my eyes, I tucked him in and stumbled out.

Whereever he took the dog idea, I'm not worried. \ What does bother me is the array of objects that can evoke fear.

When everything unfamiliar is scary, familiar must at least vary. Otherwise we risk scaring our children from growing up. It's such a big world out there and there isn't always a mother's bed to climb into.

Eech hub nisht keyn moira noor fin daym heiliga boyrah.

Yeah, sure.