The wonder of being a child – Tazria
Tazria often falls just before Pesach; the sidra begins with the child, whilst Pesach, for all its adult philosophy, fascinates children more than anyone else.
A child who has never known the excitement, the colour, the aroma, the sheer physical taste of Pesach is, spiritually, a deprived child.
That must be why when people begin to have children, they become far more committed to Jewish life and practice. Their instinct tells them they have to give a child a chance. Not only a chance to know what Judaism is, but to experience it through a child’s eyes.
The point is illustrated by Francis Thompson:
“Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today.
“It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowliness into loftiness; and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul; it is to live in a nutshell and to count yourself the king of infinite space.”
That is one of the reasons to give a child Pesach – to let him or her believe in beauty and believe in belief.
