On the street below my house, large groups of boys are working in perfect unity. Not a single parent is involved. Their activity creates no mess in the house, doesn’t cost me a penny, and keeps them happy and busy in the fresh air and sunshine. They won’t bother me at all until they come in for dinner, starving and exhausted. They’ll be so hungry they’ll probably eat anything I give them, and they won’t have to be threatened into bed.
It gets even better.
I don’t know where on earth they found that 45-foot klutz (central pole), but I saw six boys working in perfect cooperation for an entire afternoon to transport it. Getting it to stand upright is going to take just as much teamwork, but they’re bound to manage it.
They’re preparing the shul’s Lag Ba’Omer bonfire, and their naturally good middos are shining.
To get a glimpse of how good our children can be when left to their own devices is to get a taste of utopia. It’s fascinating because it’s so unexpected. Nobody has to beg the big boys to take the little ones along with them. No adults are reminding the fifth graders to be nice to the first graders.
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