Mitzvos & Middos

The mitzvos a child can keep today, and the middos behind them. 52 stories, each a printed book starring your own child.

• Saying Thank You - Noticing what someone did for you and saying it out loud. A child learns that thank you is not just manners - it is seeing clearly.
• A Helping Hand - Carrying the bags, holding the door, sitting with someone who is alone. Chesed is small and it is constant, and anyone can do it today.
• Always Telling the Truth - Telling the truth even when a small lie would be easier and nobody would ever know. Hashem's seal is emes, and a child learns why it is worth the hard moment.
• Honoring Parents - Getting up when a parent walks in, doing what you were asked the first time, speaking to Tatty and Mommy the way you would speak to a king. One of the Aseres HaDibros, kept at home.
• Waiting Patiently - Waiting your turn, waiting for the food, waiting to be answered - without whining and without grabbing. Patience is a middah, and it is learned by practising.
• Making Peace with Friends - Two friends, one argument, and someone who decides that being right matters less than being friends. Aharon HaKohen chased after shalom, and so can a child.
• Giving Tzedakah - A coin in the pushka before the licht are lit, and a child who understands that what they have was given to them so that they could give some of it away.
• Learning to Share - The hardest toy to share is the favourite one. A story about giving someone else a turn - and finding out that the game is better with two.
• Saying I'm Sorry - Saying sorry properly - not mumbled, not with a but. The moment a child learns that admitting it is what makes it right again.
• Good Middos & Manners - Please, thank you, good morning, letting someone pass. Chazal say derech eretz came before the Torah - the way a Yiddishe child is known.
• Guarding My Tongue - Words can help and words can wreck. The Chofetz Chaim's mitzvah, brought down to a playground: what to say, what to leave unsaid, and what to walk away from.
• Loving Every Yid - Loving every single Yid, the one you know and the one you do not, the one just like you and the one nothing like you. Rabi Akiva called it a klal gadol baTorah.
• Visiting Someone Sick - A visit to someone who is sick - a picture drawn, a chair pulled close, a tefillah said with their name in it. Hashem Himself visited Avraham Avinu.
• Welcoming Guests - The door open, a place set, and a guest treated like the most important person in the house. Avraham Avinu ran to his visitors in the heat of the day.
• Standing Up for an Older Person - Standing up when an older person comes in. A whole mitzvah in one small movement, and a child learns to see the years someone is carrying.
• Never Taking What Is Not Mine - Not taking what isn't yours - not the big things and not the small ones, not from a shop and not from a brother. One of the Aseres HaDibros.
• Returning a Lost Object - Finding something that belongs to someone else and giving it back - putting up a sign, asking around, holding it until the owner is found.
• Being Kind to Animals - Feeding the animal before you eat, never causing a creature pain for nothing. Hashem's rachmanus reaches every living thing He made.
• Shiluach HaKen - Sending away the mother bird before taking the eggs - a small, strange mitzvah with one of the biggest brachos in the Torah attached to it.
• Never Embarrassing a Friend - Never making someone go red in front of others. Chazal speak about it in the strongest words there are - a joke that costs someone their face costs too much.
• Judging Favourably - He didn't answer, she didn't wait, they didn't invite you - and there was a reason you couldn't see. Judging favourably, before deciding what happened.
• Keeping a Promise - Saying you will and then doing it. A Yid's word is worth something, and a child learns that a promise is not a thing to make lightly.
• Modeh Ani - The very first words of the day, said before getting out of bed - thank You for giving me back my neshamah. Twelve words, every morning of a life.
• Netilas Yadayim - The washing cup by the bed and by the table, twice on each hand, and the brachah - starting the day and the bread with clean hands.
• Making a Bracha - Nothing goes in the mouth until Hashem is thanked for it. A child learns which brachah belongs to which food, and why the food tastes different afterwards.
• Bentching After a Meal - Bentching after eating bread - the one brachah written in the Torah itself. Saying thank You when you are already full, which is the hard time to remember.
• Saying Shema - Eyes covered, six words said slowly, and the last thing a child says at night. The declaration a Yid has carried for three thousand years.
• Davening to Hashem - Talking to Hashem - in a siddur and in your own words, for yourself and for someone else. A child learns that He is listening, always.
• Answering Amen - Answering amen to someone else's brachah - a whole mitzvah for saying one word at the right moment, and meaning it.
• The Mezuzah on Our Door - The parchment in the doorpost with Shema written on it, touched on the way in and on the way out - what makes a house a Yiddishe home.
• Wearing Tzitzis - Four corners, eight strings, five knots, and a reminder tied on all day long. A child counts them and remembers what they are for.
• Putting on Tefillin - The shel yad by the heart and the shel rosh on the head, wrapped seven times around the arm - the mitzvah a boy grows into at thirteen.
• Wearing a Yarmulke - The covering on a Yiddishe head that says there is Someone above me. The first thing on in the morning, and it does not come off.
• Learning Torah Every Day - Learning every single day, even a little - a passuk, a Mishnah, a Chumash with Tatty. The mitzvah that is worth all of them together.
• Respecting Holy Seforim - Not putting a sefer on the floor, kissing it if it falls, keeping it the right way up on the shelf. Respect a child can see and copy.
• Behaving in Shul - How a Yiddishe child behaves in shul - where to sit, when to answer, when not to run. A mikdash me'at, and a house with rules of its own.
• Hashem Sees Everything - Nobody is watching, and someone is. A child learns that Hashem sees in the dark and in the empty room - not to be frightened, but to be honest.
• Trusting in Hashem - Leaning on Hashem when things are not going the way you hoped. Do your part, and then trust Him with the rest.
• A Bracha on a Rainbow - The brachos for the world's big moments - a rainbow, thunder, the ocean, a tree in blossom. Learning to stop and notice instead of walking past.
• Birkas HaGomel - The brachah said in shul after coming through something dangerous - a journey, an illness, a rescue - thanking Hashem in front of everyone.
• Lighting the Shabbos Licht - The candles lit before sunset, hands over the eyes, and the quiet tefillah a mother says. The moment the whole house changes.
• Making Kiddush - The becher filled to the brim, everyone standing, and Shabbos said out loud over the wine - the mitzvah of remembering the day in words.
• Havdalah - Wine, besamim, a braided candle held high, and the line drawn between Shabbos and the rest of the week - said in the dark, on Motzei Shabbos.
• Keeping Kosher - What a Yiddishe child may eat and what they may not - checking the hechsher, keeping meat and milk apart, and the reason it is worth it.
• Taking Challah - A piece of dough taken off before the challah is baked and separated with a brachah - a mitzvah kept in a kitchen on Erev Shabbos.
• Giving Maaser - A tenth of what you get, set aside for tzedakah - even a child with pocket money. Learning that giving is a cheshbon, not a mood.
• Guarding Shabbos - The melachos, the preparation before, and the things a child learns not to do for one whole day - keeping Shabbos rather than only enjoying it.
• Dressing B’Tzniyus - Dressing and behaving b'tzniyus - the quiet dignity of a Yiddishe child who knows that what is precious is not put on display.
• Loving Hashem - V'ahavta es Hashem Elokecha - loving Hashem with your whole heart. A mitzvah of the heart, and a child learning what that even means.
• The Korbanos We Are Waiting For - What was brought in the Beis HaMikdash, why it stopped, and what we are asking for three times a day when we ask for it back.
• Aliyah LaRegel - Three times a year the whole nation went up to Yerushalayim for Yom Tov - the roads full, the courtyard packed, and everyone singing on the way.
• Bringing the Bikurim - The first ripe fruits carried up to Yerushalayim in a basket, with music and a declaration said out loud - giving Hashem the very first, not the leftovers.

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