The Choosing: A Rabbi's Journey from Silent Nights to High Holy Days

4. The New Year for Animals

4 The New Year for Animals Because No One Is Allergic to Butterflies On the first of Elul is the New Year for the Tithe of Cattle (Rabbi Eleazar and Rabbi Shimon say: The first of Tishrei). —Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1 Who gives us more knowledge than the beasts of the earth, makes us wiser than the birds of the sky? —Job 35:11 Risky Raccoons and Nut-Free Cats Dear Kindergarten Parents, Today while the students were at the park, the teachers saw a raccoon walking around the play area. While the raccoon did not show any evident signs of disease , they believed that it was prudent to keep our students away from it. As soon as the raccoon was spotted, the teachers had the students line up and everyone left the park quickly and safely. Many of the children saw the raccoon and may talk about it tonight. We did talk to the children about how they were all safe and you should know that none of the children touched the raccoon. If you have any further questions or concerns about what happened, please do not hesitate to contact us. 39 40 The New Year for Animals Thank you, Your Child’s Jewish Day School No book, magazine, or childrearing guide could prepare a parent for this email. There is no What to Expect When Your Child Encounters a Raccoon in the Park. In the YouTube of my mind, I imagined this raccoon sashaying through Central Park, not dissimilar from a kindergarten child. Both are playful scavengers who are too often nocturnal, with prehensile thumbs, prone to loitering near the sandbox. I envisioned the encounter between the species: the mutual curiosity, the heightened interest, the wondering whether the other either has—or is—food. The battle over turf. The little noses sniffing in the air. The inevitable parting of ways. I wondered whether the raccoon went home to tell its family about the excitement as well. My first reaction was relief that everything was fine, and the realization that I would in fact kill a small animal with my bare hands if it threatened my child. For a brief moment, I felt a spark of connection to my grandfather, sitting with a BB gun pointed out of his bedroom window and monitoring the street below. I also felt a sense of gratitude that the school clearly was on top of the situation. Local newspapers had reported a recent spike in incidents involving rabid animals in Central Park. If the school took such precautions with a raccoon, I could only begin to imagine the other ways they protected my child. Then I grew excited. “Many of the children saw the raccoon and may talk about it tonight.” Maybe tonight would be the night our daughter would tell us something when we asked her about her day at school. If nothing else, I now had what the teachers called a “prompt,” a topic to start with in my attempts to elicit information. Next, I started to wonder how many ways this encounter could have ended. If there had been a class from a culinary Because No One Is Allergic to Butterflies 41 institute or a cultural academy, instead of a kindergarten class, would the raccoon have ended up as dinner, in honor of some heritage day? I imagined the free-range raccoon on a platter, with essence of a locally sourced vegetable sauce on the side. What would the reaction have been from my own elementary school teachers and class? Where I grew up, on Long Island, animals were less worthy of note. My primary school was not quite 4H, but there was a fair amount of contact with the animal world. There were class mealworms and class mice, quail that were raised by one student’s family and warranted a field trip to their house. Class animals went home with children on a rotating basis. My family was notorious for killing them. Whenever it was our turn, something died. Two adult mice, a number of baby mice, and one gerbil met their end within our walls. As far as we know, they died of heat exhaustion due to the Amish absence of air conditioning in our suburban home. Looking back, the fact that they were always kept on my bedroom dresser, in a large patch of sunlight with a mirror behind their cage...