First and Most

Teaching kids about the Lord is intimidating. What if we get the theology wrong or mess them up somehow? Kids are like little sponges and soak up everything... and it seems, especially, the wrong things. How to focus attentions in the right directions can seem tricky.

For a time, I spent time helping the 3 and 4 Shabbat School at our congregation. One of the things, that I quickly saw was that these kids picked up on short phrases, repeated over and over and over again. If you want to tell a child of that age, "God is love," you don't say it just once. You say it again and again and again and again, ad nauseum.

Yeshua pointed us to first and greatest commandment in Matthew 22:

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  

Boiling that down, we need to “love G-d first and most, and love others.”  This is something kids get.  It's not a story over their heads about an adult conversation they don’t think they need to hear or pay attention to.  It also gets straight to the point.  It is easy for me as a parent to repeat over and over and over… and in so doing, helps to keep my brain and heart in the right place.  

Love G-d first and most.  Love others.

But what is love?  And how to teach that?!  Surely it isn’t just being nice to others.  While I firmly believe in boundaries, the first thing we need to ask is truly “What does G-d say love is?”

“Love is patient, love is kind…”  1 Corinthians 13:4

Love is an action and a choice.  It is intentionality, moment by moment, day by day.  Repeat.  

The body learns through repeated activity.  It grows neurons in the direction of those choices we make repeatedly day after day.  And we can make those neurons stronger by making those choices day after day.  These habits are good or bad habits but they are still grown into our minds.  And we can help our children to learn to walk according to the laws of God by helping them to remember what we are called to.  Daily.  Every choice.

Love God first and most.  Love others.  

Love is patient.  Love is kind.  

May we all learn to love a little better today. 

In Messiah’s love,

Kim