My wife went out one night this week, which meant I was running the show alone. No backup, no reprieve. Just me, eight kids, and … bedtime.
We’re spending our summer in the mountains, which means the kids are outdoors from morning to night, soaking up every glorious ounce of freedom. So just rounding them up and getting them into the house proved a herculean task!
I managed to get the triplets settled with a story and a few bribes—success! At least, I thought it was a success until the next morning, when one said to my wife, “Can you get a new Tatty? I don’t like this one! He’s mean. He puts us to bed too early.” Oops.
Next up: my 9-year-old.
“Tatty,” she said sweetly. “You have to lie with me.”
Of course, I agreed. That’s what fathers do.
So I lay beside her, we whispered for a few minutes, and after lying quietly for another minute or two, I gently rolled out of bed and tiptoed toward the door, feeling pleased at getting another one off to sleep. Or so I thought.
Before I was even halfway across the (small!) room, Musya leapt up like a jack-in-the-box.
“No! You can’t leave!”
“Why not?” I asked, startled.
“Because I didn’t fall asleep yet. You can’t leave until I’m sleeping!”
So back I went.
Five minutes later, she was quiet again, breathing softly, surely asleep.
I slid out of bed as stealthily as I could, barely making a sound.
But then—BOOM—up she popped. “You left again! I felt it!”
And so I went back. Again. This time, I was so careful to be quiet and motionless that somewhere in the process I actually fell asleep myself!
I had no idea how much time had passed, but when I eventually crept out, I was convinced this time was the one …
How wrong I was! She popped up again like a bolt of lightning. “You still can’t leave! I haven’t fallen asleep yet!”
“This is crazy!” I thought to myself.
When I asked my wife about it later, she said, “Oh, yeah, that happens every night. She always insists one of us stays until she’s sleeping.”
The cycle continued. I stayed. I waited. I tried to escape. She felt it. Back again.
Eventually, finally, she fell asleep. And I was free.
Later that night, when the rest of the kids were asleep and the house was quiet, I started thinking about what lesson I might uncover from this very long bedtime experience.
What did Musya really want?
She didn’t need to chat. She wasn’t asking for a story or a song or a snack.
She just needed me to be there. She needed my presence.
And really, that’s all we ever want, too.
We may be adults, but we’re also still children—children of Hashem. And just like Musya begged me not to leave, we beg Hashem to stay close.
“Don’t leave me, don’t disappear,” we beseech Him. “Be with me in my pain, in this confusion, in the quiet moments before I fall asleep.”
And at this time of year, we feel that yearning all the more acutely.
We’re currently in the annual three-week period of mourning for the destruction of the Holy Temple—one of the most painful times in our collective history.
G-d’s home, the place we were closest to him, ransacked and set afire … our people exiled in chains. And 2,000 years later, we still await the rebuilding of the Temple, the Final Redemption, and our return from exile.
But we haven’t forgotten or become distracted. We know what we want! Presence. Specifically, the Divine presence. We want G-d to hug us and be with us. We want to lie close to him and feel the security of his presence. We don’t want to feel that he’s tiptoeing away … that’s when we jump up and beg, “Don’t leave! Stay with us. Hold us. Reassure us. Soothe our pain. We want to be near you.”
And, unlike me, he is not trying to tiptoe away. He wants to stay with us. We just need to ask Him: “Tatty … don’t leave.” And He won’t. Ever.