This page is still under construction.
One of the greatest blessings that G-d has given mankind is the ability to forget.
A woman may go into great detail explaining the agony, difficulties, problems, suffering, and medical issues that she faced when having a child. The child itself may be difficult to raise. However, give her just a little bit of time, not really all that much, and the woman will be ready to do it again. She'll be ready to go through the same agony, the same problems, and the same resulting difficulties in order to have another child.
This is the blessing. It is the blessing of forgetting.
Well, the woman does not really forget, but she still has the same craving to, the same need to have another child. She forgets about the difficulties and problems that she had.
Perhaps this can be compared to some teachers who have a craving to go with their students on overnight class trips. they might go on a trip for three or even four days with a bunch of children, children that they even enjoy or like. Those same children might make the teacher suffer.
It's fascinating to listen to these teachers. A teacher who suffered a great deal with a class will describe in great detail what the children did to her to make her suffer.
Yet, not much later, if you ask her to go on another trip, it is very likely that that teacher will say yes, yes. I would look forward to do it. I want to go with the children on the trip.
Now, we can understand why the teacher wanted to go the first time. The teacher saw the fun and pleasureable part of the trip so she asked to go with the children. The question is why the teacher would request to go with the children again on the next trip. She just suffered a great deal. Why would she want to do it again?
Maybe it's like childbirth, and neither one can really be understood, but it's something that some teachers need to do despite the consequences, despite the difficulties.
There may never be answers to these questions, but the questions remain:
If you suffered so much, why do you need to do it again?
Read more articles about motherhood
Read more articles about parenting
Find out about the Jewish Parenting Forum
Find out about other Jewish and Hebrew forums
Are you required to read this webpage for a course? Do NOT print out the article. It is copyrighted.
Your exercise for this article is as follows:
Copyright © David Grossman. World rights reserved. This article may not be printed, forwarded, reproduced, or copied in any way or in any medium without written permission from David Grossman.
