This Toldos Aharon Chassid is carrying his 3-year-old son in the streets of Meah Shearim, Jerusalem. The boy is about to start attending Cheder, and so he is brought to the Rebbe for a blessing. But to keep the little one from being exposed to forbidden sights, he is wrapped, head to toe, in a tallit.
A commendable strategy, if you can keep it up. But it makes the eventual, inevitable exposure that much more enticing, like all forbidden things.
Do you remember the expression on your baby’s face the first time he or she tasted ice cream? A smile spreads across their face, the sign of a delightful discovery. Oh my God, they seem to say, these things exist? Hey, life is worth living!
I shudder at the thought of how one might react if they’re first exposed to ice cream at, say, age 18…