by Marge Eiseman

Last week, at the Yom HaAtzma'ut celebration, I was busy selling my wares in the little shuk. When the concert started, all the people left, and I finally got up to take a break, I looked over at the little food court that was next to me, and all the bistro tables were left dirty - even though the garbage cans were five feet away.

A couple of days later, I saw a woman with a child in the backseat carefully place her empty Starbucks cup on the ground outside her car door, because she had just bought another drink to put into her cup-holder. I asked her, "Don't you want your cup?" and she said, "No." and drove away, leaving the empty cup marking her parking space.

A moment before that, I had walked past a HUGE car with a very young child sitting in the front seat - he looked at me, and I looked at him, and then I noticed that his mom had her seatbelt on, but he didn't. I've been a mom for a lot of years, and I know that a child that age and size should have been in the backseat, in a carseat, buckled in carefully.

Perhaps the last straw in this stream of inconsiderate behavior occurred when I went into my backyard, and picked up months worth of dog waste from my neighbor's dog. When I walk my dog, I make sure to take a bag along with me, and clean up after her. My neighbor's kids just let the dog out, and don't pay attention to where she does her business. Apparently my yard is the dumping ground of choice!

Every single one of these made me ask, "What are we teaching our children?" The Torah teaches that we have to be mindful of our actions, to do the right thing (check all these Leviticus teachings) in the right way, and sometimes the only reason is that we are to be Holy because God is Holy. With all the craziness in the world right now, is it too much to ask people to be holy and considerate? Actually, I think we should demand nothing less.

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