No Children Allowed

This past Rosh Hashana I davened in a large well-known yeshiva in Jerusalem. When I came to daven the first night I immediately noticed a sign in Hebrew and English in large bold letters firmly requesting that no children be brought to shul unless they are old enough to daven. Imagine my surprise the next day when someone sitting one row in front of me brought five children with him, ranging in age from 4-10, equipped with bags of nosh! They were not especially noisy but nor were they davening or just sitting quietly. After going through half of shacharis with a bit of annoyance, I realized that on Rosh Hashana of all days, when we ask Hashem to judge us favorably, I should do the same. So I thought for a few minutes before coming to the conclusion that probably their mother wasn't feeling well - maybe she even had a high fever - and so this man had no choice but to bring the kids to shul with him. But the real solution didn't take long in coming, when at the end of mussaf, after aleinu, the children all stood up to say kaddish for their mother who had passed away a few months before.

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