Write To Life     by Elana Horwitz

The Candy Man

Originally published in Hamodia

To the editor:

In Who Is the 'Candy-Man' Anyway?  (Readers' Forum, 15 Adar I 5768/ February 21, 2008) the author writes that we look for heterim for the prohibition against bringing young children to shul because we love our children more than we love G-d, and we look for kulos (leniencies) because our loyalty to our children is greater than our loyalty to the Torah.

While not an expert on halachos that may bar any particular segment of Klal Yisroel from attending shul, I believe that this reasoning is faulty. Loving our children is not in competition with loving G-d - there is enough love to go around, and I don't imagine that G-d is jealous. It is not possible for our loyalty to our children to be greater than our loyalty to the Torah, since the Torah teaches us, above all, to love our fellow Jews. Our children are also fellow Jews.

Who is the Candy-Man?
1.  A Yid who loves and desires to fulfill mitzvos between himself and his fellow Jew (even at shul)
2.  My father

Elana Horwitz
Raanana