Rafi was in the midst of a wonderful dream, involving peppermints and chocolate, when he was awakened by his brother Yoni shaking him. "Wake up, Rafi," he was saying urgently, "Daddy and Mummy are both not here, and Mrs. Samuel from next door is sleeping downstairs, and it's only 6.30 in the morning!"
This certainly sounded very unusual and Rafi got out of bed. As the boys crept down the stairs they heard a noise at the door, and their father came into the house, looking tired but happy.
"Mazel Tov, Rafi and Yoni!" he said with a big smile. "You have a new little sister!"
Yoni was the first to react. "Can we see her? Now? Oh, I can't wait to tell all my friends!"
"Me too! What are we going to call her?" Rafi added excitedly.
Their father told them that they would go to visit their mother and the new baby after school, and that the baby would receive her name at the Torah reading on Shabbat morning. Rafi was so excited he could hardly sit still that whole day. In fact this was not so unusual, there was always a reason not to sit still, but this time it was his baby sister.
When his Hebrew teacher, Mr. Waldman, came in Rafi told him that his mother had just had a baby.
Mr. Waldman said "That's wonderful, Rafi, and I think you will pay special attention to my lesson today since I was planning to teach you the Parshah Tazria-Metzora, which, at the very beginning, tells us about what happens when a Jewish child is born. In the time of the Temple, when somebody had a baby, the mother would bring a special offering to the Temple in Jerusalem to say thank you for this marvelous gift of a child which G-d has given her." Later on that afternoon, Rafi and Yoni were sitting atop their mother's bed in the hospital, admiring the tiny bundle of pink cheeks, blue eyes, and what seemed to be a huge amount of dark hair for so small a person. "Mummy, guess what!" Rafi exclaimed. "My teacher told me that if we were living in the time of the Temple, you would bring an offering to G-d to thank Him for giving you a baby." His mother smiled at him. "Well, until the Temple is rebuilt, which will please G-d be very soon, we can thank G-d in other ways for this beautiful little baby." Their father said "I know, we can give some money to charity in honor of our new little girl. How about that?" "That's an excellent idea," Rafi said approvingly. "And I can give something from my pocket money too!".
