It is an important value to treat and speak to others with respect and not with rudeness or chutzpah. This is especially true when speaking to those older than we are. After Passover we enter a semi-mourning period called Sefirat Ha-Omer, in which we commemorate a great catastrophe that once took place at this time of year because the students of Rebbe Akiva didn’t treat each other with enough respect. A person who avoids the negative trait of chutzpah and treats others respectfully brings peace to the world and also shows that he respects himself.

In our story a kid discovers the value of respect.

Wising Up

“What, do you think I’m your slave or something?” Dana shouted into the phone.

Greg, her married older brother, had called to ask her to babysit for him and his wife that evening.

“Pay me? You bet you’ll pay me. It’s going to cost you, and cost you big!” she went on. “Okay, I’ll be there in 20 minutes if you’re lucky.”

Dana banged down the phone with a smile on her face. It always gave her a buzz to tell off her big brother or any other adult, for that matter.

“Thanks for coming over, Dana,” smiled Ellen, Greg’s wife. “We’ll be back by 10 P.M. The kids just need to eat supper—I have it ready in the microwave—and then to bed. Is that okay?”

“I guess so, if I have to. And don’t be a minute late!” Dana snapped.

“Dana, could you please speak a little more respectfully to Ellen?” Greg said. “She’s an adult, you know,” he added.

But Dana just shrugged. She didn’t buy any of this respect for your elders stuff and instead made it a point to make sure they respected her.

Greg and Ellen left and Dana got ready to make some easy money. She figured the little kids would be fed and in bed within half an hour and she could spend the rest of the night raiding the refrigerator and catching up on her chatty phone calls.

“Okay kids, come sit down. It’s time to eat,” she said pleasantly, expecting them to come running to the table she had set. Instead, the three kids ran the other way.

“Hey, I said come here!” she repeated.

“Who’s gonna make us?” one of them burst out laughing, joined by his two siblings.

This is ridiculous,‘Dana thought. How could they just talk back to a babysitter like that?’ She was sure she’d get them under control soon enough, but after chasing them around the house a couple of times, Dana gave up on supper and decided to skip right to bedtime.

But that was even worse. Each time she would catch one and put him into bed, the other two would dart out. “Catch us if you can!” they would taunt and jump around like monkeys.

By now Dana was getting really upset. “Listen, you guys, you have to do what I say!”

“Why?” squealed little Billy with a mischievous grin.

“Because I’m the babysitter and I’m more than twice as old as you, that’s why!” But this only evoked more laughter and Dana finally just let them run around until they fell asleep on their own and then carried them to bed.

Dana heard the key turning in the door. Finally! Boy was she going to give those two a piece of her mind! Greg and Ellen had hardly gotten in the door when she let them have it.

“Boy did you sucker me. You must be the world’s worst parents to have kids like that!”

“What happened? “asked Ellen, looking upset.

“I’ll tell you what happened. Those brats of yours, they spent the whole night talking back to me and not paying attention to anything I said. What’s wrong with them? Don’t they have any respect for people old…”

“Respect for people older than they are?” Greg finished her sentence with a wry smile.

Dana was about to answer her brother sarcastically, but then stopped herself short. Wouldn’t mouthing off to them be doing just what she accused the little kids of doing to her? Respecting elders never seemed important to her before, but now after seeing how ugly and wrong it was the way the younger kids treated her, she realized it really was important and right to speak respectfully to older people – just because they’re older – and wiser.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I guess it’s not so easy to be respectful and,” she looked at Ellen, “I’m sorry if that is how I’ve been treating both of you.”

Dana took her pay and silently went home. She had had a tough night but had come out of it with a big lesson.