Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
“Know Your Children with Rav Shlomo Katz” is a series about the everyday holy work of raising children with heart, patience, and honesty. Join Rav Shlomo in learning from the sefer Da Et Yeladecha by Rav Itamar Shwartz, author of Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh, and explore how Torah and Chazal guide us in building a healthy, loving connection between parent and child.
This isn’t about perfect techniques or quick fixes. It’s about creating a foundation of truth, learning to really listen, and finding the right “funnel” so that what we want to give actually reaches our children. Each shiur is meant to be practical, gentle, and encouraging, and something you can take home and live with.
Boker tov, good morning everybody. Shavua tov u'mevorach. Thank you for coming. I'll pass these pages around.
The month of Sivan is sponsored by the Silver family in memory of בתיה פייגא בת ישראל, anonymously in memory of all the holy chayalim that gave their lives and the ones who are working tirelessly to protect us in Eretz HaKodesh. Also by the Wiesel family, Refuah Sheleimah for אתל שרה בת חנה, יעקב שלמה בן ביילא, and a zivug hagun for Esther bas Bracha. By the Miller family in memory of their beloved Abba and Sabba, Rabbi Abby Warhaftig, in honor of his twenty-first Yahrzeit, that's Yael Miller's Abba, zichrono livracha. By the Finns, davening for a nitzachon gadol for Am Yisrael and for the refuah sheleimah for the chayalim patzuim, דוד נתנאל בן איילה אהובה, Eliyahu ben Chava, רואי חיים בן מירב, David ben Ziv, and the refuah sheleimah for אברהם יעקב בן דבורה פייגא.
The week is sponsored by the Katz and Reinitz families in memory of our beloved sister and aunt, חוה יטא בת חיים זליג יצחק הכהן, in honor of her second Yahrzeit. That's my aunt who our precious Chava is named after. Yeah, it's two years. All right.
We, this is basically the towards the end of our year of learning from this sefer. And I had to choose really what to focus on as we go into the last few weeks of our learning of the year and to focus b'ezrat Hashem on things that really mean the most to us. And this concept that we're going to be learning today won't be a chiddush to anybody. And it's not going to be a surprise to anybody.
Whereas in the past few chapters when we were dealing about chinuch, there were very practical, like tachlis guidelines and ideas and thoughts regarding how we relate to our children's worlds of emotions, their feelings, their machshavos, their ways of thinking. But the gisha that we have to now remember, and I'm sure we remember the whole time, is a little bit different and it's the distinction between how we Jewish people go about the concept of chinuch as opposed to the non-Jewish world. And it's not to say that there isn't a lot of—there aren't a lot of great things that we could pull out of non-Jewish hashpa'os regarding how we relate to our children, how to do a better job and how to be open to a lot of different concepts, but the bottom line at the end of the day is that we're dealing with Yiddishe kinder, we're dealing with Jewish children. Are Jewish children different than non-Jewish children? Everyone's so scared to say yes.
I'll say it. Yes, they are. They are. It doesn't mean God forbid, it's not the whole inyan of superior or not, and that's a whole topic of אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים.
We're not getting into that at all, but when it comes to specifically to learning and chinuch, this concept of the difference, the distinction between how I approach going about chinuch with our Jewish kinderlach has to be much more precise and the obvious has to be mentioned a little bit more. So how do we say this, I'm—we're going to try to say it in a way that b'ezrat Hashem we can—we can do something with it because just saying okay it has to be different, it doesn't help us too much. I just ask a controversial question. Non-Jewish children they also have a soul, but they are not the same soul, but different connection with—it's not Hashem in their soul, I mean they're—they also have souls.
Let's let's see let's see how let's see how the author develops the idea that obviously he will touch upon but what you're saying. Because for someone to come out of the shiur to start looking at non-Jewish children with a chalila, a you know, lesser kavod or a lesser—that's not the point of the shiur at all. It's the point is for us to understand the type of precious gem that Hashem placed in our midst. It's not about looking at what isn't, it's looking at mamash what is.
And that's—that's the focus. The page you have in front of you is kuf-lamed-ches, right? kuf-lamed-ches. So you see where it says HaMakor HaYehudi. Okay.
So this is a very interesting topic. The Jewish source, לחובת הזהירות בכבוד ילדים. I'll never forget this, actually it's so interesting that you're here this morning. Maybe you were there, I don't know, but at the bris of our dear friends Nachman and Miriam Faruman's child.
Now, I don't remember if it was their son Yehuda Eli or Pesachya. It's a long story, I've shared with you a little bit about it in the past. In the middle of the bris, I never saw Reb Shlomo get angry like this. It was in the Carlebach Shul, early 90s, and something happened that basically caused Reb Shlomo to stop everything and have everyone be quiet.
And he said, Chevre, I don't judge people, he says, but when I do, it's only when I realize and I notice who doesn't have kavod for Yiddishe Kinder, who doesn't have kavod for Jewish children. Right now, a Jewish child is coming into the covenant with God. Who could dream of talking right now? If we were aware of what was going on right now, we wouldn't be able to open our mouth. And he stopped and he just, it was like, and I'm saying it lightly.
He gave it, he was like, it was chazak, a rare moment of mussar. And it had such an impression on me, it had such an impact on me that, you know, we're trying, we're trying, it's a whole shift of culture here that we're trying to implement that when you come to a bris, usually it's schmoozing, schmoozing, schmoozing until people try to get close to hear the name and then it's back to schmoozing. The moment of a kid going into the covenant, the bris of Avraham Avinu where we know that Eliyahu HaNavi is also there present at the bris and that all the gates are open at the moment of a bris. And also when a girl gets her name at the aliyah when the father gets an aliyah to the Torah.
These are really, really strong moments where all the Tzaddikim say all gates are open for all of Klal Yisrael. So when he said that I only judge people based on the amount of kavod they have or don't have for children, that was a big eye-opener for me. And in fact Nachman once told me, alav hashalom, he said, he attributes his whole parenthood to this, my dear, dear friend of mine, I've been thinking about a lot lately. He passed away a few years ago.
And he said he attributes his whole way of parenting only to like that type of statement that he heard and that way of thinking. Kavod for our children. Kavod for our children? The world says, what do you mean, kavod for our children? The whole inyan is to mechanech them so that they have kavod for us. That's what the world kind of says in the world of how are you raising your children, to be kavod-dik children.
The only way that we'll be able to really raise them in a manner that projects kavod for their elders is if they feel that they have kavod too, not that they're looking for it. Children don't look for kavod, most children don't. But it's this, it's in the air. It's something that they could sense growing up if that their presence is welcomed in the world with honor.
That's why I always find it insane that the way it's set up at least here is that you throw one teacher that's usually tired because she just gave birth a few months ago into a room with 30 kids and it's supposed to be a kavod-dik experience. We really rely on miracles, mamash somchim al nissim, and we shouldn't be relying on miracles. What the answer is to that I have no idea. But I'm just, you know, it's very easy to point out what's wrong.
Halevai we should figure out how to give also the proper k'neged zeh. Okay, so look, now let's learn inside from the author. We have a very chazak, focused, directed shiur today which will continue for at least another two weeks, be'ezrat Hashem.
בפרק הראשון הרחבנו אודות חובתו של כל הורה שתהיה לו כלפי ילדיו בחינה של VeAhavta LeReiacha Kamocha.
Months ago we were speaking about the topic that each parent has to develop this relationship of VeAhavta LeReiacha Kamocha with their child. And we learned that even though that sounds funny, why should our children be excluded from the commandment of VeAhavta LeReiacha Kamocha? And it's not for now, we spent a lot of time on that.
אמנם ברור שאם נתייחס לילדינו כפי המבט הרגיל שלנו על המבנה הקיים בכל בית לפיו ישנה היררכיה ברורה יש את ההורים מחד ואת הילדים מאידך שאמורים לגדול בצילם הרי שיקשה עלינו מאוד לקיים מצוות VeAhavta LeReiacha Kamocha klapei hayeladim.
וזאת מכיוון שבאופן טבעי ההורים מרגישים עליונות על הילדים אף שרגש זה הוא נכון ואינם מסוגלים להתייחס אליהם כאל רעך.
He's going to explain this whole paragraph outside. In a healthy home with hierarchy, in the right, implemented in the right manner, it makes it very difficult to have this concept, this mitzvah of VeAhavta LeReiacha Kamocha displayed and placed onto our kinderlach because he says over here a very important... There's gotta be some level of this in a healthy home. If there isn't, you have total anarchy and you have a world that you have a bayis afuch.
So it's very difficult. v'hinei kaydua - but now let's I think what he's going to explain to us now is how to re-approach this subject of v'ahavta l'rei'acha kamocha.
והנה כידוע נשמתו של האדם הינה חלק אלוקה ממעל. Every person's soul - every now here like I'm gonna say, obviously the Baal HaTanya teaches us this is nefashos yehudiyos, Jewish souls have a shtikel elokus.
They're made of a shtikel elokus. They have a they're part of a chelek eloka mima'al. There's a godly soul that's within them. We also know there's a nefesh bahamis.
uk'lshonos hapsukim v'chazal, like God said in Sefer Bereishis when he thought about creating man, he turns to what's interesting, it's not exactly clear who he's saying this to - but he uses a very interesting word: נעשה אדם בצלמנו כדמותנו, which means Rabbi Twersky has a great book with this title: Let us make man.
נעשה אדם בצלמנו כדמותנו in our image. And then the Torah continues there: בצלם אלוקים עשה את האדם. That's in Parshas Noach.
And in Maseches Avos it says חביב אדם שנברא בצלם. Most of you thought maybe that's Ishay Ribo lyrics, it's not. It's from he got it from Pirkei Avos.
חביב אדם שנברא בצלם - right, that - he has a song like that.
חביב אדם נברא בצלם. So this thing of tzelem elokim, tzelem elokim. That man was created with some type of godliness in him. When we read these psukim, we think about them, the avos, the imahos.
The whole chapp of Yiddishkeit and chinuch is to read these psukim when your children walk home from school, you pull out the sefer and you say בצלם אלוקים עשה את האדם. Not in no. Not with the question mark, meaning בצלם אלוקים עשה את האדם. Or חביב אדם שנברא בצלם.
No, חביב אדם שנברא בצלם. You look at your children and you attach these psukim to your children. You understand where he's going with this.
ומעתה הסתכלות זו הינה נכונה רק על פי תפיסה של גוף אולם אילו המבט שלנו יתמקד בנשמה החבויה בתוך הגוף וכאשר נהיה מודעים לכך שכל אדם הינו נשמה שמורכב עליה גוף ונפש בהמית כי זהו העיקר הרי שנוכל ליישם זאת ביתר קלות.
What did he just say right now? If we look at our children and less pay attention or less focus on all the physical attributes which include grades, which include social norms and all these other things that are projected on the outside, but we look at our children and we say these are neshamos that have bodies on top of them. mashu acher. We I just want to share - we had an amazing moment yesterday. We were walking to lunch and our four older girls were walking ahead of us.
I was thinking about it all night and this morning. And it's like suddenly you have these moments where like you you snap out of the every second what needs to be done. It's just like okay we're walking to lunch. We're eating - baruch Hashem for a simcha.
And our four girls didn't notice but they were walking in a row like mamash next to each other - and - and each one different height, looks different, v'chulei. And the way I was experiencing it was like: wow, these four neshamos that - baruch Hashem happen to be beautiful and they should be beautiful and healthy kol yemei chayeihem were walking ahead of us. It's like these just four pieces of Hashem walking in front of us. It struck me so, so deep.
And - and it's not always I'm not saying this is how we live our lives every single day. And of course this we wake up what at 3:00 a.m. What a neshamah is waking up - oh my God. You ever see me not tired? Us not tired on a Sunday morning? Obviously all of us are tired, right? What a world it would be if everything we learned in chinuch, which is we're not negating any of it, but that really it stems from a place of saying... And to say it about them and then take all the etzot we've learned until now in the world of chinuch and say there's no stira, because they are neshamot tehorot and they have to go through their tikun in this world as well, which we can't ever fully be in control of, because at a certain point they have to figure it out.
I'm sure you've had this, either at your own weddings, meaning that you've had for your children, some of you that have married off kids, or you've seen it or it happened to you or you see it by other people. Last week I was at a chuppah and the band was already starting to play all the intros and everything, I needed to listen to a voice note or something so I walked inside the hall. And as I was listening to the message then I opened my eyes and I saw the father and the mother of the chattan putting their heads and their hands on the choson's head. And it's the moment of them sending this kid off and saying, okay, we did our best, please forgive us if we didn't do as good as we can, and then give him the koach and be like, now it's you, now it's you.
At that moment do you really think they're thinking about the size pants that they bought him for the wedding or all the other things that have much more to do with the way that a lot of the stuff that we get very consumed with? For the right reasons. We're not saying chalila they should be neglect, but when it matters the most, when it matters the most at that moment of sending your kid off, you're not wondering, do they remember manners or do they remember all these other things that we work really hard in chinuch? Our whole investment, everything about us at that moment, and I give you all a beracha to be there with your children at that moment and to the right people bezrat Hashem building healthy Jewish homes with their loved ones. You have to say amen right now, if not it's really weird. Yeah, you have to say amen davka now.
Like that if you were asked in Shamayim like what was the highest moment of being a parent, many people would say it was that moment. It's that moment. So he says that once we start looking at things from that place that the focus of looking at our children as neshamot and not just making sure I'm giving them everything that they need on the level of nutrition, which we're not neglecting but we're saying that cannot be the underlying focus of how we look at our children, then we'll be able to actually mekayem the mitzvah of veahavta lere'acha kamocha better. Because sometimes it's very hard for me to like people based on what I see, but I love them because they're neshamot, my brothers and my sisters, and we're part of the same neshama klalis.
So if you look back in the second bottom paragraph הרי שנוכל לעשות זאת ביתר קלות שהרי מצד הנשמות כל ישראל אחים ואם כן על פי מבט זה אנו נשמות המופקדות לחנך חלק מנשמת עם ישראל שנמצאים אצלנו בבית שבמקרה הם ילדינו. He's just so cute how he's saying it. At the end of the day the Ribono shel Olam trusts us. How does he know? Because he gave us children.
And if he didn't trust us he wouldn't give us these children. And like we say every single week, never ever be under the impression that Hashem made a mistake. I would never think such a thing. Really? Not that it happens here, but so often there's parents be like מי זה הבהמות האלו? Who are these vilde chayas? Like מה זה מה זה זה? And then over here he's saying, don't you understand that Hashem gave you a pikadon? You know what a pikadon is, right? A deposit.
Remember the story of Rebbe Meir and Bruriah in the Gemara? Very painful story with that they had two children, two sons I think that they died. And it happened on Shabbos I think and Bruriah, the wife of Rebbe Meir, covered them under a blanket and she didn't know how to tell her husband that their two sons died. So she said to him after Shabbos I think, she said, my husband Rebbe Meir, stam halacha k'Meir. We have Reb Meir, we hold as one of the greatest Tannaim that ever existed.
And she said to him, "Tell me, my dear husband," and she was a big Rebbe, Bruria. It's a lot, a lot said about her. She's one of the few there are Rebbetzins in the Gemara that she gets mentioned a lot and she has all these drashas. It's very interesting.
So Bruria says to her husband, "Tell me, in dinei pikadon, in the laws of deposit. When someone places a, gives you a deposit, and then they come back to take back their deposit. So what are we supposed to do?" So he said, "Well, of course, you're supposed to give back the deposit in the best way and shape possible that we could bring it back to them. That's the din." And then she said, "Exactly." And then she took him up to the bedroom and lifted the sheet and showed him.
"We're giving back, we were asked to give back the deposit." So it's a heavy, heavy story. But our children, our kinderlach, are, this may sound cheap, I'm trying to actually make it be, because if it's a deposit from Hashem, it's the holiest thing in the world. Obviously when you cheapen the concept of a child to a deposit, but we mean it in the holiest, holiest way. Hashem's pikadon, God's deposit that he gave us.
That's why we have to cry our eyes out every day and every night saying, "Hashem, thank you for allowing me to do as good as I've done till now and please forgive me for not doing as good as I know maybe I could or as much as you believed that I could. But please make sure that I continue lishmor al hapikadon, to watch over this deposit, meaning to really learn its value. To really learn its value. That does not mean let me really see how talented they are in so and so and so and so.
That's the outer realm of it. The inner realm of it is please, let me see the neshamas of my children every single day and not just lehistapek baze, oh, of course I know their neshamas, they're my children and we're so connected and we look alike even, of course we're connected. No. This is an avoda, this is a tefillah, a prayer every single day that must be part of all the other stuff we've been learning in this perek of parenting.
Zos ve'od, bottom paragraph.
כאשר נקודת המוצא של החינוך מתחילה כך, when the nekudat motza means the starting point of chinuch begins with this, והילדים אכן יבחינו כי הורים מעניקים לנשמה מקום וחשוב מרכזי בחייהם, and children notice that their parents are placing for their soul a very important and central part of their life, הרי שכל החיים שלהם יתנהלו אחרת, their lives will be run differently, meaning the children's lives later on will be run differently if when they were from a young age realized that our parents put neshama in the center of whatever was going on at home. That's very hard. That's very hard.
Now he's going, I'm going to give you a little bit of a, I'm just going to jump ahead a little bit just to obviously say the obvious. Someone that doesn't do that to themselves cannot do that to children. Ze kashe. You cannot fake this.
You can fake arts and other things maybe you are not so good at but you say, "I'm going to give it to my child." But this inyan of the neshama being the merkaz of your life, you cannot fake that and give that over to the next generation. He's going to say that first, that's why the real avoda of parenting has nothing to do with parenting. Nothing to do with parenting. Parenting means I'm going and I'm working with something outside of me.
באמת בפנימיות של הדברים, in the deepest depths of it, unless I am standing before Hashem and I realize and I say about myself, אלוקי נשמה שנתת בי טהורה היא. You can't say to Hashem, אלוקי הנשמות שנתת לי טהורות הם. You just can't. Won't work.
Lo yelech. It won't work. It just won't go unless you, or the actual prayer, "My God, the soul that you placed within me is pure." It's from the morning birchos, right? The morning blessings. You just can't say that.
Yeah. You're not going to be happy with my question. We've talked about the older people in the room having been parented, okay, by a generation that was sort of lost in a war. We have a lot of people...
What can a kehila do to help people? Maybe I don't like your question, I just don't understand it. When the older people in the room have complained about having been parented in a ridiculous way. Right, because younger people in the room are so happy with their parenting. Right, right.
I'm talking about the older one here who is double questioning my. Kidding me. Mindy, you think that only people born in the 50s and 60s so they're farfallen, meaning they're. But all of us that were born in the later part of the 20th century our parents knew exactly what they were doing.
And we know exactly what we're doing too. And our kids would come in here and say yeah this is all stuff don't worry this is not shayach for now. It's not that I don't like the question, it's just that it's not. No because you had talked about the pressures of people who parented us because of the war.
I mentioned that that's a global thing, nachon, that after 1945 it was very difficult. And there's obviously what do you call after an earthquake? Aftershocks. Aftershocks of that happening for generations. The aftermath of that, of course, that make the feeling of oh we're bringing souls into the world.
No, you brought souls into the world, honestly, for survival of the Jewish people. So it's a little bit different. There I'm sure there were some that was just mamash love and like oh my god let's bring more of this like godly images into the world. But to a great to a certain extent it wasn't that and rightfully so.
My listen my father I always say this like it's the biggest pele in the world my father just found he just sent us these documentations of my grandparents' teudat zehut when I think when they got to Argentina after the war. And it must mean that we don't know exactly how old my grandfather who I'm named after was. Did you see these pictures? I never saw it before. I never saw it was mamash heveluti a little bit.
How could a person whose wife and two children were killed marry someone whose husband and son were killed and then get married and have children at a much later stage in life bring it out of the way we're speaking about it so of course it's much harder. But it doesn't mean that because we're further away from the Shoah that we've perfected our parenting skills and that now children come into the world as neshamas and remain neshamas in their parents' eyes till they're thirty five. It doesn't. Every generation has their inyanim with these things.
Everyone. Every one of these. But the nekudat motza but what we could do right now is that the nekudat motza and maybe this is where yes even when there's no tafkid for you to parent your child at this age. That's not there's no chinuch you don't have to mechanech your children that mitzvah's not on you at this age once your kids are out of the house and they themselves become afarkert it's actually the opposite.
If you try to parent your child at an age when they're already out of the house you mamash mess things you could mess things up tremendously. I'm in the middle of a parsha like this of someone that's in their fifties that is traumatized, be'emet, from a parent still thinking that their tafkid is to mechanech their child. But you can look at your child as a neshama at any age that they're at. And maybe that would still have some type of a ripple effect.
We don't know. Well kamuvan the text that we're learning here has much more to do with people that are dealing with bringing children into the world now or that still have children living at home. But the nekudat motza the starting place for all this if it starts like this he says the children will ze yovil otam that this will lead them to the worlds that they build for themselves. When they grow up in a home that neshama was central, soul was central, so you'll say to me well how do you do that? Ah, that's the greatest question, that's the question I like.
There's the catch-22 here and it's a little heartbreaking because I feel like it's actually a lot easier to look at our kids as neshamot than to look at ourselves without having issues but if you're saying that we can't fully do it similar to v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha I think we've learned this before. Nachon. How can you love someone if you don't love yourself and how are we supposed to do that for our kids if we can't do it for ourselves because we weren't treated like this. Nachon.
It definitely is. But you have to believe something. Even though everything you said is true, it means nothing about what's possible. It may mean it seems further...
It just seems farther away and it seems more difficult because... Nachon. You don't want to wait until they're 35 till you fix... Nachon.
Nachon. You don't want to wait bechlal, 100 percent.
אבל אין דבר העומד בפני הרצון. Nothing stands in the way of ratzon.
And that doesn't mean we're taking away what you said. Full acknowledgement. And most people here probably feel the same as you. Aside from those that are sitting next to their mothers in shiur who would admit it right now, but besides that everyone would say the same thing.
No, you know I told you this story that happened. I used to do this targil that I stopped doing after a while. Did... about ve'ahavta lere'acha kamocha.
I learned this from Reb Sholom Brodt. I haven't done it in a few years bechavana. He said he used to do this targil. How did it go? Close your eyes and think about...
Right. Close your eyes. I would do this in a lot of settings. Close your eyes and think about someone that you have love for.
And then open your eyes when you thought of two people. Okay, so it would take sometimes a little bit longer but sometimes it was right away. And it was amazing how mamash, I'm not exaggerating, at least 100... put it like this, 100 percent of the times when I...
I'd ask... sorry, I'd ask the following question: I would say like this, who here thought of someone that's in the room right now? Right? 100 percent of the times the percentage of people that raised their hand was between two percent and five percent. So do you understand what we're working with? Kimat 100 percent... no, no, 100 percent of the times, the percentages of people that would raise their hands that they said they thought about someone in the room was minimal, two to five percent.
This happened in groups of seminary girls, avreichim learning, people not affiliated at all... No one thought of themselves. No, no, not about themselves. Who thought about other people that were in the room, right? What am I trying to point out? What was I trying to point out? That when we think of love, we're still in this galut concept of love, that love means...
love is not next to me, love is I have to go out there. Oh, I love them, I love them. I just asked who do you feel love for? I didn't say in the room, not in the room, but our minds go far. But I stopped doing it when we did a tish in our house one Friday night with a certain yeshiva and I asked that question and mamash kimat no one raised their hands when I said who here is thinking about someone in this room.
And then I realized it got very uncomfortable because there were two fathers and two sons in the room too. Oh boy. You, of course, weren't there. It was just for the guys.
It was... I haven't done it in a long, long time. Or if I've done it, I've been much more like... I ask.
First I ask like, who's family here? Like, just get a sense of it first. But Danielle, to get back to what you're saying is that Hashem didn't make a mistake. It goes back to that. Hashem did not make a mistake.
Every person goes through their own inyanim regarding dealing with their parents at every stage in their life in different ways. Everyone has issues. Some are more aware of it, some are less aware of it. And that's the way Hashem designed it.
Does it make it easier? Obviously not. But is it part of that person's tikun? Believing in Hashem means yes. It doesn't mean it's easier but it's part of... and when you put that into that perspective...
So yesh koach, koach ha'emuna that we're working with. And it's a different way of looking at things. Koach ha'emuna, not koach hasechel and not koach halev. Because the heart can still be wrapped in emotions that are torturous.
But it's this different koach, it's koach ha'emuna. And through that strength of emuna, I have to approach it. Okay, let's continue because here we could get stuck for a long time. Third line on the bottom: ואף כאשר יתחתנו בסייעתא דשמיא ויוולדו להם ילדים.
Even when these kids that grew up in a home that neshama was the merkaz, veyivaldu lahem yeladim and they'll have children bezrat Hashem.
היחס שלהם לבן או בת זוג ולילדיהם יהיה בהתאם. The way that they look at their children and the way they look at their spouses is that yes, there'll be issues because we're different people and getting... getting along and figuring things out is always going to be an avodah.
If it wasn't avodah, you wouldn't have to be in this world. But the overlying theme of things is that you're conscious and you're aware that you're dealing with another neshama. And when that happens, it'll be behet'em. It'll be proper.
והם יבינו בעצמם כי עליהם לכבד אותם. And they'll understand by themselves that you have to give kovod to your spouse and kovod to your children. Why? And this is the bottom line, tartei mashma.
מכיוון שהם נשמות של בורא עולם.
You don't own your kids. Your kids are pikdonot. They're deposits, the holiest deposits in the world that are meant to be bezrat hashem nurtured. They're meant to be honored.
That's the word. Because they are neshamas of hashem. And they have hashem in them. Without getting into the whole Jewish non-Jewish thing, right now it's not a sugya.
And therefore in the school of parenting, in this endless school of parenting, which never ends, this has to be, he says, the nekudat motza. It needs to come from here. So therefore the question is, so why didn't you start the sefer from here? Why are you starting with this dealing with our kid's emotional state and all the other things we're learning? He's going to address that. He's going to address that question.
So look what he says here in daf top of kuf lamed tet, the next page. We're going to do a little bit more.
נושא נפוץ שהעוסקים בחינוך הילדים מרבים לשוחח אודותיו הינו הזהירות בכבוד ילדים. So people do speak about this, honoring children.
But the way they speak about it is אודות החובה להימנע מלזלזל או לפגוע בהם. And the way they speak about it is the obligation to not hurt them and not belittle them.
כידוע בהרצאות ובספרים רבים מנמקים זאת בכך שמבחינה פסיכולוגית הזלזול בכבוד הילד עלול לערער את כל התדמית העצמית שלו. So in the books of psychology they also speak about this inyan in a different way and they say the reason why you have to make sure not to degrade, belittle, lezalzel, these words a child is because you may, this is an interesting concept, le'ar'er.
How do you, what's the right word in English for that? Le'ar'er. To awaken? Sorry? To awaken? No, no, that's a different word. It's, you're finding it? Le'ar'er? Appeal? No, that's not it. Make it like shaky.
Yeah, yeah, but there's, there's an actual word. Le'ar'er. To put into question? Yeah. I guess so, it's to insert doubt into a child's tadmit atzmit.
What's tadmit atzmit? Self-esteem? Self-image? Self-image. That's where that's where a lot of the books are coming from. They're saying listen when you do this and you're and they're operating from that place saying that's what it's about. That's the difference between Jewish and non-Jewish chinuch and parenting.
Of course that's true but that's not why you give kovod to a child. And you have to be very clear about this. Of course that's true factually speaking. But that's not the reason that we're so makpid on giving kovod to children.
At a bris, are you nervous about what he just said right now that I may shake up the child's self-image if I'm talking while he's having a bris? No one's thinking like that. I'm dealing with a piece of hashem right now that's coming to the covenant with God. I'm honoring the neshama that's in front of me.
כמובן שאיננו שוללים מסקנה זו.
We are not revoking this maskana which is true.
אולם צריך לדעת שהסיבה בגללה צריך לשמור על כבוד הילד אינה נובעת מכך. That's not why we give kovod to children.
אלא השורש לכך נובע ממבט שונה לחלוטין.
Our reasoning of giving kovod to children comes from a different root. Kefi sheyivo'ar lefanenu as we will deepen this inside.
הורה שמתייחס לילד שלו כגוף הרי שיתכן כי הדבר היחיד שישכנע אותו הוא אותה שיטה פסיכולוגית שמזהירה מפני הפגיעה בתדמיתו העצמית ulam.
כאשר ההורה מרגיש בשעה שהוא משוחח עם ילדיו שהוא מדבר עם גוף שמאחוריו מסתתרת נשמה שהיא חלק אלוקה ממעל בודאי שהוא לא יוכל לפגוע בכבודם.
Rabbi Schwartz is saying over here and this could be a great try this at home moment. It doesn't mean you have to change anything. It just means you have to change one thing in your mind when your kids come home from school. And what's that change? Like what are we shifting? We're basically it's a shifting of consciousness of being realized being open to the notion not being open to the notion of implementing this awareness of while I'm talking I'm asking my child how was it in school today? I'm asking Neshama how was your experience of going through this world today? And the more that I attune myself to thinking like that when I'm looking at my child the more that it becomes impossible for me le'ar'er al kevodam.
It becomes impossible for me to put any doubt into how much kavod I have for this child. It's exciting. It's actually an exciting thing. You actually you know what's so funny about you? You do this all the time.
You and your husband do this so often already. It's like Shkoyach. So this is an amazing thing. Obviously when this is the way that you're looking at your child you can't come to a place of zilzul bakavod.
It's just going to heighten more and more the honor that you have for this neshama that you're in touch with. Nekudat hamotza of kol horeh Yehudi. The starting point starting point's not the right place not the right translation for this. Nekudat hamotza.
Nekudat hamotza means the place from which you're operating from. Okay that's better. The place from which every Jewish parent is operating from who desires to give their children the proper Chinuch must be צריכה להיות אני נשמה בן זוגי הוא נשמה והילדים שנולדים שלנו הם נשמות. Ka'asher nizkeh lezos I'm sorry I'm going to explain that.
I'm this is the starting point. This is where you're operating from. I'm a soul, my spouse is a soul, and my children are souls. And only then everything else comes on.
כאשר נזכה לזאת תדיר הרי שלא תיתכן סיבה טובה יותר שבגללה אנו צריכים לכבד את הילד. There's no greater reason why you should honor a child other than this emes other than this truth that's in front of you. Now maybe some of you are thinking how do I relay this to my one year old or to my two year old or to my four year old? Hashem didn't make a mistake. What do you mean by relay? Relate.
Meaning how do I oh did I say relay? Dafke easier with younger ones than older ones. Every time you see a baby doing something you're like it depends. Not with four year olds. Four is the limit.
12. I hear you. Well because when they talk back and when they answer back and when they're pushing back that's when it's harder. I guess for a man it's easier to wonder about younger ages than older ages for obvious reasons.
Yeah. Nachon. I totally hear what you're saying. To wonder? Meaning to maybe for a man it's more like how much could I connect on a soul level to you know things that be'emes in the teva this is the way Hashem created the world the mommy has a more of a of this you know how am I going to tell you I actually feel weird saying this but inner connection.
But it's the way it's supposed to be. Yeah no it's this is unlike the progressive systems of the world this is what it was supposed to be because Hashem designed the world like this you know. But this is where this is the starting point. I'm a soul my spouse is a soul and my children are souls.
Now look at this next paragraph.
הורה שיתייחס לילדיו כאל נשמות. A parent that treats their children like souls בודאי שעל כל צעד ושעל ההתנהגות שלו כלפיהם תהיה שונה. Everything will be different.
The way you speak about the mundane will be different because the mundane won't be the ikar. It'll be a prat that needs to be addressed but it's not the ikar. It doesn't become the focal it doesn't become the innermost important thing in the world. The soul remains.
the most important thing in the world.
וכגון כאשר הוא יחשוב להרים יד על הילד. Okay, so I know that for some of you the next paragraph, this is going to be very hard. Remember the worlds that he's living in.
This is a completely different world than we're used to, but we're big enough to hear this.
וכגון כאשר הוא יחשוב להרים יד על הילד, when a parent even thinks of lifting their hand on a child, ויזכור כי הוא מכה ילד שיש לו נשמה שהיא חלק אלוקה ממעל, and then they stop for a second like, I'm going to hit a piece of Hashem?
ללא ספק קבלת ההחלטות שלו תהיה אחרת. He'll make his decision-making will be obviously very different. Skip down to the, skip now.
ישנו אדם שמתעסק עם עפר עם נחושת עם כסף וישנם יחידים המתעסקים עם זהב. There are people that deal with dust, some deal with silver, some deal with, sorry, nechoshet is copper, and some deal with silver, and then there are those that deal with gold.
כאשר אנו מגדלים ילדים עלינו לדעת she-ein zeh tachviv, it's not a hobby, או מקור לאהבה טבעית, or a source for natural love, אלא יש בכך עומק גדול יותר שאינו משתווה לשום דבר בעולם. Raising a child is incomparable to anything in the world.
בכל ילד חבויה נשמה השייכת לבורא עולם. There is a soul, a godly soul, in each of our kinderlach, and it's a pikadon, it's a deposit that belongs to Hashem.
ולכן אנו כהורים צריכים לכבד אותם מכוח כך. And from that place of being aware and conscious of the fact that there's a presence of a neshama in our midst, a piece of Hashem, our kavod becomes much more apparent and real.
וממילא כל הגישה לחינוך תשתנה לחלוטין. Then our whole concept of chinuch changes, ונשתדל להכניס נשמה בכל מה שהם עושים. They'll try to put more and more soul into everything that they're doing, into everything that, into all other activities in life, right? Now a person can learn what we learned today and be like, get with the real world, like a kid needs to have sandwiches, a kid needs to have parents that know what are their greatest strengths and talents, and a parent needs to know how to detect if a kid's on a spectrum and all these other things. They're all true, but that you can learn from all the non-Jewish books on parenting.
You don't need this. You don't need this. You can learn all those things, maybe even better actually, from non-Jewish sources. And that's why we're not saying here to throw away the non-Jewish sources on parenting.
There's a lot of very, very important insights that come from that world. But at the end of the day, that's not going to satiate your soul, and it's not going to satiate your child's soul, because with all those other things that we need to be on top of with our children, the most important thing we need to be on top of with our children is the starting point from which we're operating. And that is to really be conscious of the fact that we're dealing with pieces of God. We're dealing with shtikel elokus, little pieces of Hashem that He placed within our midst to take care of.
Once that becomes the starting point and the source from which I operate, all those other things that I still need to take care of, they get taken care of, but there's neshama in there as well. So you can ask me, how do you put neshama in a sandwich? How do you put neshama in a doctor's office? This is not for me to tell you. This is your stuff to figure out. This is your own Torah Mi-Sinai that you're going to figure out.
It's not for me to tell you how to do it. This is your gilluy. This is yours. This is your revelation.
And it's different for every person. That's why I don't want people to start giving examples, because it looks different for every Shabbos table and it looks different for every relationship with a parent and a child. Yeah. I was going to add something I'm thinking about and how I could actually do this at this point in the day, but like I think for myself if I thought about what I was saying in Modeh Ani, that I'm like receiving my soul back from Hashem, or at the end of the day, beyadcha afkid ruchi, that could really help pave that pathway toward like remembering my own soul and therefore remembering my child's soul.
Doing it when you're like exhausted at the beginning of. This is going to be the topic of next week actually, exactly what you're saying because you're 100% right. We touched upon it today where we said and Daniella spoke about it as well, that okay, it's great that we know that this is what our kids need, but there is this prerequisite and that is exactly what you said. And that's the reason you guys come to all these Shiurim about soul stuff, because that's what it is.
That's the bottom line of it and we're going to definitely continue from there. Yeah, Efya. This is making me think of this concept of how when our children or even sometimes ourselves when we're behaving in a way that is or they're behaving in a way that makes them very unlovable. What's that like? I know that doesn't happen in most people's houses.
But when they're behaving in a way that makes them very unlovable is the moment when they really need the most love. Neshama. And this I feel like gives you sort of like this anchor point of where to pull that energy and like motivation for that love that sometimes feels hard to give in that moment, but like this piece of Neshama, this piece of Hashem, this is all they got and they're doing the best that they can with the piece of Hashem that they are and like trying to use that to pull the love out when it's not so maybe not so easy to give in that moment. Like a nice motivator, reminder.
Right, I agree. And it's constant what you're saying. Like don't wait, this is an Ikkar here you're saying, don't bank, like don't wait for that to happen. Like Lehavdil, but I always quote Leo, Reb Leo's line that he said at one of the funerals, I don't know if it was for Lucy or the girls.
But he said there that he was speaking on such high level Emunah stuff. He was saying these things where like most of us were sure that he was just jacked up with pills or something because how can you speak like that after witnessing, after going through such Choshech Mitzrayim. So everyone that was there remembers that he actually quoted, he said he learns, he says I know you're thinking how could I talk like this, he says because I learn Emunah every day. And he quoted Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, one of his things of Emunah and he also quoted a very close friend of ours, Rabbi David Sacks from LA, that he's saying it's only because I'm constantly learning Emunah all the time that I can even think like this right now and act like this.
It didn't lessen from the tragedy but enabled him to have the Keilim to deal with the tragedy. Until today he'll say the same thing. So too when I'm saying exactly regarding what you're saying, like this is true because our kids as much as we're going to be in like this new oh my god walking Neshamas, they're still going to give us a lot of Nisyonos. They will, I will guarantee it, they will.
Let's not wait until we have to remember oh yeah, they're Neshamas. It's that the general Avira, atmosphere is of Neshamas and then when it seems like I just have a crazy Guf acting in front of me, it doesn't scare me so much. I don't get too riled up. Like building a muscle.
That's why he says Emunah comes from the language of Lehitamen, to Imunim. Exercising a muscle. Bediyuk. Bediyuk.
All right, we have to stop today. We'll continue next week Bezrat Hashem.