A few years ago I had been working as a babysitter in Hasidic family in Brooklyn. Hasidic people is a group of religious orthodox Jews, whose mission is to serve God by being happy and expressing joy with singing and dancing. They have very tide community and they live with limited values which they keep like treasure,they are very proud of and very loyal to. They have big families and most people are alike; they dress alike, they eat the same food, they say similar things. Of course, I don't know what is in their thoughts. But small children are different. So, I want to tell a story about a small Hasidic boy that I worked with.
His name was Eliezer.
He was 6th from 7 children in the family.Then it was 4 more. He was 2.5 years at that time. Hasidic people don't cut their boys' hair until they are 3 years old. So, Eliezer had curly gold hair and the mother took care of them only once a week, before Sabbath, so he always had huge golden mess around his head and very cunning look. Eliezer loved pranks and jokes. He always had something in his mind. Thanks to him I managed to change my sense of humor from heavy sarcastic to more easy, lighter and kind. We spent a lot of great time together.
Surprising thing about him was his language. At that time I was learning English with American tutor and, of course, I copied the way Eliezer spoke. The tutor would often warn us: "This is too exquisite, this is bookish language, don't use it in the kitchen."
It was strange, because nobody in his family talked like him. There was no TV to pick up the language from. The boy was always full of life, joy and smile. At the same time he was full of different fears. Contradictory nature
He was afraid of dogs till the point he didn't let me read any books about dogs. "Don't read it, dog can come out!" He was afraid when his mom opened a hole in bathtub bottom, because he was afraid to disappear along with water. It was a lot of fun to spend time with Eliezer, answer his endless questions about everything, participate in his pranks, share his fears.
When he turned 3, his parents took him to Israel,to a big famous rabbi for haircut. 3 years old is an important event for Jewish boys. They start to go to school to learn Torah and they start to practice their religion. I saw a lot of boys who went through this, but I've never seen such a transformation which happened to my little friend. He came back from Israel , and it was an another person. The remaining of his hair was dark now and his eyes didn't shine any more. They expressed sadness and deep thinking.
There was no more jokes or pranks. Whenever there was only two of us, he started asking me religious questions. "Do you believe in this or that?" I felt that my answers were important to him. As I couldn't share his beliefs and I couldn't lie to him, I felt very uncomfortable being around him and started to avoid staying with him alone.Gradually we almost stopped to communicate.
Now he is a big,nine y.o. boy. His eyes are dull and sad. When we meet, it seemed to me that he wants to tell me something important, but doesn't do it. I'm not sure that I'd like to know that. He seemed to me like a stranger among his own people. We are not friends anymore, but I come back to this story again and again.