9yo was born at Mount Sinai in Toronto and has been there for other medical events and the thing he remains most impressed by is the Shabbat elevator. It’s his primary association with the hospital, for some reason. An absolute joy for him if he ends up on it.

He was telling me tonight that it’s nice that Women’s College Hospital lets in people who aren’t women, and nice that Mount Sinai lets in people who don’t need the Shabbat elevator

I really cannot overemphasize his interest in this elevator

I think it’s a holdover from when he was attending a technically secular daycare in a very Jewish neighbourhood (read: all the holidays) and I was very casual about religion and then he had a very devastating week when, as a 4yo, he learned he wasn’t one of the Chosen People

My take on it was that it was good for him to be exposed to a diverse religious landscape as a matter of course! His take on it was that he’d been lied to (technically, he had not) and it sucked that he wasn’t of the same faith tradition as his classmates

(The daycare was run out of an old Anglican Church, but, again, supposed to be secular, very Jewish neighbourhood, he did a strong rendition of “I’m a little latke” for the Chrismukkah concert) (part of the problem was that it was a daycare teacher who told him he wasn’t Jewish)

(In my defence, I hadn’t realized he thought he was Jewish)

Anyway, here is a very cute video of him as a toddler singing a classic Chrismukkah tune

I was not really practicing any religious stuff at the time and also am firmly of the mindset that kids should be given space to make up their own mind, so he felt very unmoored to discover that he wasn’t of the same faith tradition as most of his classmates

Choice quotes from that evening include “Rosie said that I’m not Jewish, but I AM JEWISH” and “if I’m not Jewish, what am I???” and finally “but I JUST want to be Jewish for Passover!” (It was during Passover)

(I told him he could convert as an adult if he wanted to and he is still deeply uninterested in Christianity, so maybe? Although his sympathies tend to lie more with pagan traditions. Religion and kids is an absolute trip)