Tikkun Leil Shavuot on Turkish Tuesday, and Kids: People, or property?

    This thought hit me early in the morning some time ago, and had to be shared, as it  was so pertinent to the reasons that I used to review Sihirli Annem on Turkish Tuesdays (and hope to get back to those reviews once I have more time).  And yes, the title of this post does refer back to a show from the early 1970’s called “Kids Are People, Too!”  This contrasts with the way many people treat their kids, or even their grandkids, as if those kids were the personal property of the parents.

Tonight is the night of Shavuot (or the 1st night of Shavuot in the Diaspora…), and my favorite night of the year, as it is the Tikkun, or Repairing, of Moshe/Moses’ letting the people sleep in on the day they were supposed to get the 10 Utterances!  So, we the people who struggle with the divine now get to stay up all night learning Torah, helping also, hopefully, to repair that breach, or at least to have a little fun getting to stay up all night studying!  I taught a class at 3am which I had previously taught at the DC Beit Midrash, wrapping in community and intergenerational agreement, ok, kids getting a say, into the traditional idea of “Na’aseh ve Nishmah” that means doing and then learning.  Not to forget, of course, the traditional caveat which says that all of the souls of every one of the people, past, present, and future, were there, and voluntarily said “Naaseh ve nishmah” or “we will do and then we will learn,” by way of agreeing to this inter-generational compact. (The handout for that class is here, in PDF format…)

I was moved to think of ways that the generations are forced to cooperate, sometimes against their collective wills, as the idea of the mountain being held over the heads of the people is used.  One show, Hakan:Muhafiz (reviews also available at the link up above, for Sihirli Annem reviews), has a pertinent scene in which an older woman tells a young woman that the girl’s father raised her precisely for that moment, to be a leader, and of course the young woman is trying to run away:

“Baban, bu günlere için seni yetiştirdi.”   /   “Your father raised you for these days.”
-Azra, Hakan:Muhafız’dan,

and then there is also the Greek grandmother and the Turkish grandfather,  in the 2008 Turkish TV show Yabancı Damat who are ironically united in their opposition to the marriage of their grandkids (a Greek boy and Turkish girl).  That goal is shared by the father of the protagonist, Arman, in Netflix series Yakamoz s245, and poor Cem pays the price, in that case, Cem being an adult kid, essentially.  /   Hem de Yunan Anne Anne oyundu, Yakamoz s245‘ta,  aynı amacın, tıpkı Armağan ‘n babası gibi, Yakamoz s245’inda, yazık Cem.

As the song Esos Locos Bajitos, famously sung by Joan Manuel Serrat says,

“We work to direct their lives… Load them down with our gods and our language, our hatreds and our future..”  /  Como dice el cancion: “Nos empeñamos en dirigir sus vidas… Cargamos con nuestros dioses y nuestro idioma, nuestros rencores y nuestro porvenir…”

Essentially, all of this striving by parents and grandparents, is the exact opposite of my beloved show Sihirli Annem.  That is why I love it so! / Yani, tam tersi Sihirli Annem den. Bu yüzdan bu diziyi o kadar seviyorum ki.

Shira

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