My son Noah is very fond of his metal Tonka truck. He drives it around the yard and up and down the driveway everyday. I often park it in the ditch on the way back from the mailbox because its little driver got a bit tired. It was a very sad day indeed when the meter reader from the power company accidentally ran it over. Well, actually, he turned it into a flattened pancake truck.

I was a bit surprised when the driver not only apologized, but promised to replace it. His boss even came out to pick up the “pancake” so they could match it. I was hopeful, but holding my breath at the same time. Would they actually come through or secretly hope that we would forget?

One week later I was startled with a knock on my door at nine o’clock in the morning. On the other side of the door was the guy from the power company, bearing a beautiful yellow Tonka truck! He even apologized for taking so long because they wanted to match the green windows! One week was certainly not too long! I thanked him profusely and then proceeded to make Noah a very happy little man.

But it got me to thinking. Am I as conscientious in my dealings with people? Do I keep my word? Do I do what I say I will do? Torah tells us that our yes should mean yes and our no should mean no. I should be particularly careful to keep my word to my children. Because they are little people, it is often easy to overlook them, when we would have never dreamed of breaking our word to an adult. If I say we are going to have a special snack then I better make sure that it happens. After all, the power guy went to great effort to find green windows for a two year old that doesn’t even know his colors! This is definitely a Torah command we need to be mindful of, particularly with the young ones in our lives.

Not sure what all the Torah commands are? Be sure to watch for my next movie review about a DVD set featuring the 613 commands!

You may also enjoy my book on parenting, titled, “The Children’s Ketubbah Project.”

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