I remember learning the Hebrew causative tense and thinking it both clumsy and clever. There's a certain pleasing symmetry in the fact that 'batach' is to trust and 'bitiach' is to promise. When is a promise meaningful? When it _causes_ you to trust the promiser. To teach is lelamed, to learn lilmod. How do you really learn something? Teach it. To teach is to _cause_ yourself to learn. The only part I didn't like was the recycling of verbs for so many uses. Didn't each concept deserve its own unique word?
I am fortunate to have a wonderful real-life bubbe looking after my toddler in the mornings while I work, and while she teaches him to eat 'like a mentch' and to put his right shoe on before his left, she teaches me how to deal delicately with people. One particular technique I didn't notice until today.
We were driving home in the car when she asked me, apropos of nothing, how long we keep newborn babies in our bedroom with us for. Since I am expecting, and have arranged that she will stay on to look after the newborn, that's not such an unusual comment, and I would have gladly chatted about newborn sleep patterns in general and my experiences in particular quite happily for the next few minutes if I hadn't already had precisely that conversation with her the day before. And she's not the forgetful type.
The first time she asked, I had thought it an unusual opener for a baby conversation, and just ever so slightly the wrong side of personal, for so sensitive a lady as her. And for some reason, the second time, it triggered a memory of various other unexpectedly specific, impromptu comments, all unrelated to what had gone previously. Enquiries as to what I plan to do with my leftover chicken, while discussing which I realised I had left it on the counter; casual requests for a detailed report of my husband's morning schedule, the relation of which highlighted a yichud problem that would arise later, and a catalogue of other prompts via which she had caused me to realise myself, rather than simply told me, of a problem - and in so doing, to solve or avoid the problems in advance and build my fledgeling home management skills.
All of a sudden the causative tense came into its own! To cause me to realise something on my own is so much better than simply to tell it to me! I would feel belittled if my helper sensitively pointed out my omissions and errors. But I am empowered by my advance realisations of problems she saw first. Even now that I realise she was doing it, I still feel empowered. I must apply this to my children!
I'm thinking...how will I do this?.....
"Are you ready to leave the house" - causes her to realise she needs to put her shoes on.
"You've caught the sun - look in the mirror" - causes her to realise she's done her hair wonky.
"Oh dear, I've run out of baby wipes" - causes one of them to realise they could run and get me some.
"What did your teacher say about x?" - causes him to remember his homework.
And now I realise why the causative form of verbs is so closely related to the root form in the Hebrew. I might be making a different set of noises when I do this 'cause to realise' thing with my kids. But what I'm actually communicating, my true meaning, is very nearly the same as saying it straight out, with a subtle nuance of how the person on the receiving end feels. And Hebrew, with which the world was built, and whose words are truth itself, of course reflects this reality.
To cause to know. The possibilities are endless!!
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