In The Stars Will Be My Nightlight, a little boy asks his mom if they can read his bedtime story in the sukkah. Of course, she says yes. But when he asks her if they can sleep in the sukkah, she says nothing, because she doesn’t want to.

That mom was me, about 15 years ago. And I really, really didn’t want to sleep in my backyard that night. So, just like the mom in the story, I tried talking my son out it. I pulled the oldest parenting trick in the book and tried to make the fun idea sound not so fun.

I said, “You know, we couldn’t keep the lights on all night,” not so subtly implying that it would be dark outside and maybe a little scary. But my son was onto me. Just like the boy in the story, he said, “But the stars will be my nightlight.” Not surprisingly, we went inside to get the blankets and pillows. When it started to rain a little while later and my son started to cry, I explained that the sukkah would protect us just like it had our ancestors, we said the Sh’ma . . . and the rain stopped.

It was magical.

My son had reminded me of something I’d forgotten. I’d been too distracted by the thought that I might be physically uncomfortable to remember that for a four-year old, there is no greater joy than sleeping out in the backyard. He didn’t need modern conveniences to feel happy and content. He just needed me, and the shelter of our sukkah.

The sukkah, for all its temporary-ness, is meant to reflect our home. It is where, for one week every autumn, we make a special effort to eat and play and rejoice, with friends and family, in a shelter we have built and decorated just for the occasion. It is both time and place. It is parents saying to their children, “Yes. Let’s do all these things together. Because we love each other. And it is Sukkot. And this is what the Jewish people do.”

Had it been any other night, I probably would’ve said, “No, we can’t sleep outside tonight” and given all sorts of reasons why. But it was Sukkot. And to live a Jewish life is to live life joyfully. And so I said yes.

Originally published in Contemporary, a publication of Congregation Olam Tikvah of Fairfax, VA, September & October 2022.

Next month we will start reading the Torah from the beginning. The first book of the Torah, Bereishit, is also the name of the first parsha. The stories in Bereishit are the ones everyone knows: creation, Noah and the flood, the Tower of Babel, and the journey of Abraham and his family.

We'll also read about Adam and Eve. God creates a paradise for them but warns them not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Curious and tempted, of course they eat the fruit. In that moment, they become aware of their nakedness and lose their innocence.

I've always thought that this story is a beautiful metaphor for parenthood. We want to provide our children with everything they need to be happy and healthy and safe. We want to shelter them from the harsh realities of the grown-up world. But, ultimately, we can't. Our children grow up, explore, take chances, make mistakes. They become their own people and -- eventually -- leave home. It makes us sad, even though we always knew it was inevitable, because (let's be honest) we lose a bit of ourselves when our children grow up and grow away from us.

I've always seen God as the model parent here. God realizes God wouldn't always be able to protect and shelter the human souls God had lovingly created, and therefore God lovingly lets them go when the time comes for them to start living their own lives.

Letting go of our children, whether it's to attend preschool, go to sleep-away camp, leave for college, or join the Army, is tough. But it's what we do because we love them. And it's the hardest thing a parent will ever do.

The second hardest thing a parent will ever do is let their children fail, but let them fail we must. Letting our children make mistakes, letting them take risks, and letting them fail along the way is how they learn what it means to be an adult. Did God allow Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit? Or did God just know they were going to eat the fruit no matter what God said? Does it really matter? They ate it. They weren't supposed to. And there were consequences.

I think the lesson to be gleaned from this story is that parents have to accept that their children will make mistakes. They have to accept that their children might even disappoint them by making choices the parents wish they hadn't. And that's ok. We're going to love them anyway, no matter what.

A version originally published on Morah Jen's preschool blog, October 4, 2019.