Anne or Simi?

Around three years' ago, at the height of my attempts to be 'really' religious, I banned all secular books from my house. We didn't have a lot of them left, as I'd already chucked out my own massive collection of secular novels. But my oldest daughter was an avid bookworm, and after reading through all the biographies of Rashi and Moshe Rabbenu, she'd started to take an interest in Enid Blyton and Anne of Green Gables.
 
I got extremely hardcore – "This is a home where we want the Shechina to be!!!" – and chucked them all out. It was two days' before Rosh Hashana. That year, we had a relative come for Rosh Hashana, and she arrived bearing gifts for my children: Anne of Green Gables, in Hebrew.
 
My daughter was ecstatic. She spent the whole of the holiday reading and re-reading the book cover to cover, and then discussing plans to have her Bat Mitzvah in Avonlea with my relative.
 
I, on the other hand, was completely flummoxed. She got the gift five seconds before I lit my candles, and I'd just learned how important it was not to get into fights or arguments with anyone on Rosh Hashana, especially the first day.
 
So I stayed silent, and fell into a pit of despair. What was G-d doing to me, giving my daughter that book, in that way, when I couldn't even get it off her for three days without risking a massive spiritual judgement upstairs?
 
Sigh.
 
For a couple of months after that episode, I gave up trying. Then, I spoke to someone who suggested that instead of trying to take away the 'bad', I should be adding in the 'good'. It sounded like a great idea, so I rounded my children up and took them off to a good Torah bookstore that had lots of frum novels for kids, written by observant Jews.
 
The little one was not such a big reader, so stuck to the comics. But the older one was ecstatic: carte blanche, to buy whatever books she wanted! (she can easily go through a couple of books a day, when she's in the mood.)
 
This continued for six months – until we ran out of money and I had to stop buying books. My oldest one went back to the local library, and Enid Blyton came back with a vengeance.
 
Yet again, I fell into the pit of despair. I mean, we already didn't have internet, movies, radio or TV in the house. I knew if I clamped down on the books as well, I'd push her over the edge.
 
I tried to accept the new reality. The more I tried to let go of it, the more I could see that my daughter was actually policing herself pretty well. We talked about not reading books that were bad for her soul, and she actually had some very profound things to say on the matter. She also told me she'd stopped reading books a couple of times, as soon as she realized they weren't suitable.
 
I started to cheer up, that maybe it wasn't all as bad as it seemed, and that G-d was protecting my children from all the secular rubbish out there, after all.
 
Then, we moved to Jerusalem, and as I've written elsewhere, my attempts to get my kids to go to Beis Yaacov schools and to morph into 'properly religious' people who wear socks and shirts ALL THE TIME completely back-fired on me.
 
Once all the dust settled, I asked my daughter why she'd been so 'anti' the idea. Her response shocked me: she'd read about the charedi world in all the 'frum' books I'd bought her, and they'd painted a horrible picture of snobby, judgemental, hypocritical people who were more interested in your ancestral pedigree than in your good heart.
 
For once, I was speechless.
 
Later on, in my hitbodedut (personal prayer session) I actually had a hysterical giggling fit about it all. These days, it seems to me like the yetzer (Evil Inclination) is holding all the cards, and there is very little I can do about it all except keep throwing it back to G-d to deal with.
 
Who knew, that Anne of Green Gables was actually better for my daughter than novels about 'Simi the amazing mitzvah girl'.
 
It's so mixed up these days, isn't it? I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if not for my hour of hitbodedut every single day, I would have cracked up a long time ago. As it is, I'm still hanging on. When Moshiach comes he'll sort all this mess out, and find me some genuinely good books for my children to read. And in the meantime, I've eased off my campaign against Enid Blyton. As Hashem is showing me, it could always be worse.
 
 
* * *
You're welcome to visit Rivka Levy's personal website at http://www.emunaroma.com