Raising The Bar

I finally got the kids on board with the whole Shabbat thing. They are addicted to the raisin challah. That's what did it. Hamin has been good for the past few weeks. My youngest is the only one who will eat it, though. But he loves anything that Daddy cooks, so that isn't exactly fair.

And now Kiddush is implanted in their brains, and on Erev Shabbat my oldest asks, "When is it we do that thing with the bread?" I have to toe a fine line there, as my younger son gets the general idea, but my oldest is still programmed to believe that anything that involves wine is bad. We've been in the habit of getting the wine and what not for Shabbat on Friday, on the way home. But that also cut into Shabbat. This past weekend, it cut into it by a full hour.

I had explained to my wife (who is getting very knowledgeable on these things) about how once you get something into your head, and you begin to perform at least a decent amount of mitzvot, that Hashem raises the bar on you. Things you would get away with as a newbie are simply unable to let slide later on.

My hamin was in the crockpot. It was good. Very good. Then, with my wife on the other side of the kitchen, and everyone else in the living room, a heavy vase shifted six inches off of the fridge, and fell at a perfect angle onto the edge, splitting the ceramic dish into three pieces. All of the liquid drained out onto the floor.

The message was very clear.

Needless to say, we now have a new crockpot. And now we are doing the shopping for Shabbat on Thursday.