Are you a perfect promise keeper? Jewish tradition has some great wisdom to share with us about making and keeping big, important promises. This week we learned from your amazing kids how that wisdom plays out in their lives.
On Tuesday we dove into the third commandment, don’t make a promise using God’s name unless you’re going to keep it. We talked about promises that we make and why they’re sometimes difficult to keep. Here are some highlights from our conversations (real quotes from your brilliant kiddos!):
What happens if you break a promise?
- The person you made the promise to might get mad.
- People’s feelings might get hurt.
- The person who didn’t get what was promised might be mean to the person who made the promise.
- People won’t trust the person who broke the promise.
Who gets hurt if you break a really important promise?
- Both people involved in the promise.
- The person who broke the promise gets hurt because they might be called a liar.
- The person who was promised something might also be called a liar if they tell other people about the promise and it’s broken.
- The person who broke the promise because people might get mad at them.
- The heart of the person who was promised something.
The Boker group concluded their conversation by starting a brainstorm list of promises we can make at Makom Community. They continued to add to it during Shulchanot Avodah (learning centers). We’ll be using this list later in the unit as we build a final version of our brit (two-way promise). Here are some of the ideas they came up with.
At Makom Community, we promise to:
- Be good.
- Keep promises.
- Follow all the rules.
- Help our friends.
- Clean up.
- Don’t hit or kick.
- Be nice.
- Take turns.