Hanukkah is coming, and winter vacation is just around the corner. Imagine a father comes home from work one day, goes over to his son, and says, “A.B., guess what?” “What, Daddy? What?” “Mommy and Daddy are taking you to Disney World.” “Oh, wow, that’s great. Thank you so much. Oh, that’s so wonderful. I can’t wait to go there.”
“Well, you know, A.B., it’s not so easy to get there.” “No, why?” “Well, you know, you have to pack all your suitcases and take all your clothes, and we pack our books and our other things and everything. It gets all squashed and put into different luggage. It’s a big hassle going to the airport.” “Yeah, and then you have to wait for the luggage when we finally get to Orlando. That was another part of it. I can’t wait to do that.”
“Oh, don’t forget you have to go through security. You have to take off your belt. You have to take off your shoes. You have to empty your pockets. It really is a big hassle, and it sounds terrible.” And the kids are looking back at Mom and Dad: “Do I really want to go?” And you know what happens if you’re going through security and you set off the alarm. They call the security guards, search you, and put you through X-rays, and you’ve got to go through everything. And that’s really scary.
And the mother says, “You know what? When we get on the plane, we have to make sure that we’re all sitting together. Remember the last time? Remember the last time, when you booked online? You and I were sitting in different rows.” And the father says, “Oh my gosh, I remember. That was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe the people were sitting next to us.” And the boy’s looking back, and A.B. is looking at you and he’s looking at him, and he says, “Mommy, Daddy, do we really have to go?”
“No, don’t worry, A.B. It’s not so bad. It’s not so bad.” And the mother says, “Wait a minute. You know, we get to Disney World. You remember the whole Syrian community is going to be there, and the lines are going to be... unbelievable.” And the kid says, “Daddy, that’s really a hassle. I don’t want to go there.” “Don’t worry, A.B. It’s not so bad.”
Could you imagine talking to your kid that way? You’re going to Disney World, and you’re telling the kid everything bad that’s going to happen. There are some parents who do that. Could you talk to your kids that way, really? When you talk to your kids negatively, that’s how they look at things. You can get negative. If you always look at the glass as half empty, they will look at life as if it’s half empty. And that’s the way they will grow up. You wouldn’t talk about the greatest joy, the gift of winter vacation, that way. Why would we talk about life that way?
When we face our children and talk to them about how wonderful everything is that we have, like when the woman talks to her daughters and says, “Come on, girls, we’re going shopping,” and the girls go, “Yeah. Let’s go shopping,” or when the father comes on Shabbat and says, “Come on, wake up. Got to go to shul (synagogue),” it’s a very different way. When we approach everything with our children in a positive manner, they will look at life in a positive way. That’s our job. If we wouldn’t talk negatively about Disney World, we shouldn’t talk negatively about Hashem’s world.