Every seven years, the Torah commands the entire Jewish people to gather in Yerushalayim for Hakhel:

“Gather the people—the men, the women and the small children.” הַקְהֵל אֶת הָעָם, הָאֲנָשִׁים וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַטַּף (Devarim 31:12)

The Gemara asks why everyone came. The men came to learn, the women came to hear, and the children came “to give reward to those who bring them” (Chagigah 3a).

But the small children could not understand the Torah reading. Why, then, did the Torah insist that they come?

The Gemara’s answer is brief: “To give reward to those who bring them.”

Behind these few words lies a deeper message about raising our children:

A child does not begin life by understanding everything around him. He begins by watching, listening and absorbing. He sees his father open a Gemara. He hears Kiddush and zemiros. He watches his family prepare for Shabbos and Yom Tov. He sees his parents put aside what they are doing to help another Jew.

Long before he can explain what Torah means, he learns that Torah is part of life. He learns that it matters. He learns what a Jewish home looks like.

We find a beautiful example of this in the story of the mother of Rav Yehoshua ben Chananya. When he was still a baby, she brought his cradle to the Beis Midrash so that he would hear the sound of Torah. He could not understand the words, but his mother understood something very important: what a child hears and absorbs in his earliest years can remain with him for a lifetime.

That was also part of the message of Hakhel.

The children saw their parents leave their homes and travel to Yerushalayim. They saw the entire nation gather. They saw the king reading the Torah, with thousands of Jews standing together and listening. They may........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)