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“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.
Okay everybody, שבוע טוב ומבורך. We're learning the month of אלול, and this is sponsored by the Silver family in memory of יוסי, פייגא בת ישראל, the Aron family in memory of לוי בן יוסף, by מינדי ברד for the רפואה of שרה בת רחל פייגא and by שירה ויונתן ויזן for the רפואה of לאה שושנה בת מלכה, she should have a רפואה שלמה בעזרת השם.Okay, perfect timing, יופי.So we're embarking on an absolutely beautiful journey this morning. A beautiful, beautiful journey. Just want to start with a תפילה, please God, that השם should guide us in such a way that it's שייך to each of our individual family dynamic in its own way.
Because we're going to be discussing things that may sound like it's לכאילו, like this is how you do it, and there's no such thing. This is how you open your heart maybe, but not this is how you do it. This is a world of that I've wanted to do for many years. This ספר has been on my shelf for probably, I could actually tell cause I write the date all the time when I buy a ספר.
This ספר, this ספר has been on my shelf for about seven years, six, seven years. And I always look at it, it's one of these ספרים, you walk, I think I said this last week, you walk into your room and you either feel like, ah, it's so beautiful you have the ספרים around you, or the ספרים are looking at you like, you know? מה יהיה? What's going to be? This is one of these ספרים. It's, מה יהיה? What's what's what's going to be?But השם runs the world, ואתה נותן להם את אכלם בעתו. השם gives us what we need when we need it.
And of course, when it comes to the concept of חינוך ילדים, who could say, yeah, well that really wasn't שייך for a year ago or, you know, two years ago, three years ago. And this is שייך really for any parent at any given age and every child as well. So I just wanted to open up with a תפילה that השם should see how his קינדרלך are coming to him and trying to open their hearts and take the most advantage of the blissful privilege of being a parent, of having a child. Should be a סגולה for those that need to have children as well.
That should be very important.And together we're going to embark on a journey from the ספר that's called דעת ילדיך. דע את ילדיך, דעת ילדיך. The author of the ספר, like I wrote in the notes, I wrote in some some group or something, the author is רב איתמר שוורץ. רב איתמר שוורץ is the author of the בלבבי משכן אבנה.
And we learned בלבבי for a long time. It was a ספר, I think actually it was the first ספר we started with the woman's חבורה maybe nine, ten years ago. And that ספר kept us really unified together with a הכוונה. And the לשון of the בלבבי is very, very clear.
It's very clear. It's very straightforward, very, very thought provoking, but definitely demands of us to really stretch ourselves, stretch our imagination of who we could be, our imagination of our perception of what what could be in this world, what could be for us. And his words are בנוי, they're built and מיוסד, they're built in a very מסודרדיק way. It's very, there's an order here, there's a שלב, there's a סדר.
It really goes in a beautiful way. Any conversation I've had with any of you or that I'm sure I will have with any of you, half of the stuff we speak about are things that are going to be coming up in this ספר.I don't know how long it's going to take us, but again it doesn't matter to me. It it doesn't matter if, you know, some they'd say about, I'll explain to you. Sometimes about דאוונען people ask, oh so you guys דאווען really long? I said I always say I have no, I don't know what that means, long.
I don't know what that means. It's like, yeah, but if, you know, and sometimes maybe דאוונען is much shorter than what people expect. Who cares about length of it, it doesn't matter. If something gets in, it could take sometimes an hour, it could take three, three, not that this שיעור is going to take three hours, I'm just saying in general, it could take longer.
אין זה משנה, these things don't matter. What matter is is that we take from the יסודות that is brought down in this ספר למעשה. That it should be למעשה, this shouldn't be theoretical. Everything we learn in here should be למעשה.
I'll say one more thing. I have a very, very dear friend. I've said his name many, many times, bless you. His name is Cliff.
Who here has heard of Cliff before in this room? Cliff Notes. Cliff is, he's and he's a cliffhanger. Cliff is a very dear friend. About 30.
13 years ago, 14 years ago, I told him I can't teach. It was a certain something we were going to learn. He said, I can't teach this. He said, he said, why, why can't you teach this? I know you know how to give this over.
I said, I know, but I'm not I'm not there yet. I can't. I can't give over things that I myself am struggling with. And he looked at me with such eyes of basically saying, you think that what you said was holy right now, but that's ממש such a wrong thing to say.
Why? Because sometimes the יצר הרע comes when there's something so potent to learn. The יצר הרע comes and says, until you've mastered this and until you are the תורה that you're giving over, who will have the, where do you have the חוצפה to say such a thing? How could you give over? What a גאווה. So I'm saying over here that this is something, you know, we're learning, my wife and I are learning together with you. This is, this is a ביחד.
This is together. And I believe that with the right just approach and the ביטול to the words that the צדיק has to tell us over here, בעזרת השם not just our children will benefit, not just our home will benefit. כלל ישראל, the community, everyone's going to benefit from it. Everyone will benefit from it.
I will be working on purchasing the ספר. I haven't gotten to that yet, I apologize. But for now I'm going to be making copies on Sunday mornings. And we're going to we're going to dive in, we're going to jump in over here.
And I thank you all for coming.Okay, so many people, many, many people, many, many, like the majority of people are always looking for when it comes to חינוך, what are they looking for? They're looking for, you know, people to explain to them what to say, what not to say, how to teach good habits, how to, how to respond or not respond, how to teach children how to do כיבוד הורים. I'm sure that's why you're all here, right? You're all here to figure out ways how to teach your children how to לכבד you. That's not what's happening in here. And how to deal with when when children go through different stages in maturity וכולי.
But this ספר כמעט doesn't deal with these types of things because the point of this ספר is to basically that to expand on the on the notion that aside from all the right things, כאילו, that you're supposed to do, we're trying to build a בנין רגשי. We're trying to make a, we're trying to build a building here, an emotional, stable building that should exist between parent and child, a healthy emotional building that should exist between between parents and children. And to also לחנך our children that they themselves should have a בנין מחשבתי. They should have a a thoughtful, skillful, מחשבתי, really thoughtful approach in themselves, that we put in them some kind of בנין saying, you know that you ממש made out of something incredible, you can build something absolutely incredible as well.
That's what we're trying to do to do over here. So as we see, first, we're going to start slowly slowly in in חלק א', in פרק א' over here, as you see the first chapter is called אופן יצירת התשתית לחינוך הילדים which means how we create the infrastructure when it comes to the world of חינוך. Just the infrastructure. We're speaking ממש basic concepts over here that I believe will be דברים השווים לכל נפש, things that are equal to everyone where they're at.
אחד הנושאים היותר מעניינים את הציבור בדורנו הוא חינוך ילדים. These are one of the topics obviously that are most interested by, people are most interested by when it comes to חינוך. כאשר ניגשים לעסוק בנושא זה יש לדעת כי למעט הלכות בודדות בשולחן ערוך שנוגעות לכך, אין סימן העוסק בהלכות חינוך ילדים בשולחן ערוך. Anyone ever come across הלכות ילדים when you're learning הלכה? Anyone ever stumble upon a משנה or a מסכתא in the גמרא that's called מסכת ילדים? No? Well there's a, I heard Rebbe Shlomo say the most beautiful thing.
He said that, you know, we say about אליהו הנביא, it says, והשיב לב אבות על בנים ולב בנים על אבותם. אליהו הנביא, משיח, the really, really, the מסכתא called מסכת ילדים is the מסכתא that משיח is going to be teaching us. But if our whole ענין of what we're trying to do here is usher in the day of הגאולה and the and the period of time of redemption, so as much as we're focusing on big things like בנין בית המקדש, dwelling the, you know, dwelling the land, abolishing all our enemies, וכולי, that are all things that are very, very much part of the גאולה process, learning and beautifying and intensifying our understanding of what it how the world of חינוך is is a huge, huge piece in the context of גאולה itself. But when you look in חז"ל, you barely see anything.
There is no הלכות ילדים. There's no מסכתא ילדים. That's because it's waited for this דור to be דורש it, to demand it, to ask of it, to ask of it. One time I think it was the name of רבי צדוק הכהן, I don't remember who was it says, all all all it will really take for the גאולה to come is one father or one mother that will stand before the ריבון העולמים and say as much as I know you believe in me, and I know how much you've given me, and you've blessed me with all the good זאכן, all the good things, באמת לאמיתו, you and I know, ריבון העולמים, only משיח can really reveal to my child how much I love them.
Only משיח, a world of משיח, could reveal to my children how much you love them.So גאולה is a key is a core of how of it's not a it's a core that's a it's a silent core. It's in the background of everything that we're going to be learning because חז"ל, it's not so clear. It's only הלכות בודדות. There's only a few הלכות and I guarantee that if you actually found that certain הלכות that you saw that speak about חינוך, it wouldn't leave you with the greatest taste in your mouth either.
Does anyone know what I'm referring to? חוסך שבטו שונא בנו. כן. Yeah. Basically, there there're there there are certain הלכות that that that have some kind of context of hitting children.
These are not the things that we this is not what we're looking Oh, I found it. Finally, I found the חז"ל I was looking for. That's not what it's not going to not only will it not satiate our souls, it may leave a really sour taste. So what are we supposed to do? If everything we're supposed to be doing, if our approach to everything is supposed to be, supposed to be על פי חז"ל and על פי תורה, ריבון העולמים, what'd you leave us for the wolves? Like what, what'd you leave us? What what what are we going to do with anything?זאת ועוד.
Second paragraph. על אף שבספרי חכמי הדורות הקודמים ישנם נושאים רבים שדנו בהם, מכל מקום לא מצאנו חיבור בספרי קדמונינו רבותינו העוסק בחינוך ילדים, ואף לא מאמרים קצרים יותר שעוסקים בהם. Forget about הלכות. Forget about שולחן ערוך.
Forget about מסכתות. Even ספרים, when you look back, even actual ספרים that that that would be so helpful if they were basically like, you know, אהבת הילד, אהבת הילד or something like that, we also haven't found, or מאמרים or discourses.ומכיוון שאין מקורות ברורים בנושא הזה, לכן הפרצה בזה רבה היא. Since we lack the text that we generally need in order to learn things, therefore the פרצה, right? The the the פרצה you really means the the opening, but but in the context of here, it means this is the reason why people mess up so much in the name of the תורה, in the name of the תורה of חינוך. That's why people mess up so often.
ורבים הם אשר ניגשים לעסוק בנושא זה ללא תשתית בנויה מן המקורות. And many people approach the whole concept of חינוך without a תשתית. תשתית, any of you have been on the line on the phone with בזק or with internet, that's really how we know this word. תשתית, the infrastructure.
That's why there's no infrastructure. Without an infrastructure, a clear infrastructure from the מקורות, from the sources, what are you going to work with?ומאחר, however, ומאחר שדרכנו כדרך יהודים, we're Jewish people, שבכל נושא אותו אנו ניגשים לברר with every single thing that we're going to try to refine and get deeper clarity about, איננו עוסקים בו מכוח ההיגיון הפשוט והניסיון של אנשי המקצוע בלבד. Which basically means it's not enough to read every parenting book in the world that exist that may be good for our holy brothers and sisters that are not from עמך בית ישראל in order to know how to parent. But that's obviously we're dealing with יידישן נשמות, Jewish souls.
That's a different זאך. So even though there are plenty of books on parenting that I'm sure many of us have. אלא אנו משתדלים לדון בו מכוח מסורת אבות. We have to figure out a way even though the text is חסר, we have to go and look at it through the מסורת, through our tradition of our mothers and fathers.
ומתוך בירור המקור והשורש שנעוץ בתורה הקדושה. And by verifying the source and the root that is etched in our holy Torah. החל מהדברים שכתובים בחומש ועד דברי חז"ל הקדושים והמפרשים. We're going to, and that's what I love about this ספר, this ספר is obviously not another parenting book.
We will be developing ideas and deepening our understanding of things when it comes to the topic of חינוך, but really it is all built through the stories of חז"ל, the stories in the Torah and the מפרשים. שהרי שאף בסוגיא זו של חינוך ילדים באנו עוסקים, ננסה עד כמה שניתן ללבן את הדברים על פי דברי חז"ל הקדושים. Do you know what that word means? ללבן? Oh no, not לבן. No, ללבן over here means to clarify.
It means to clarify. ללבן את הדברים על פי דברי חז"ל הקדושים, שבאמצעותם נזכה להגיע להבנה כיצד עלינו להתנהג בחיי יום יום. It'll give us an understanding of how we act day to day, day to day. This is just the intro.
But now we're going to get a little bit to the meat of it. Then we're going to start easy, very, very smooth. This is a סוגיא that I know each of you in this room cries over every single day. I have no doubt about it.
Each of you has cried over this סוגיא every single day. And even when things are good, you're crying for it to be better. And even when it gets better, you're crying over it for it to be more exact. And even when it's more exact, you know that it could always be better and better and better and better.
This whole פרשה. What are we trying to establish over here? You see the subtopic of the next, the subtitle of this next topic, גשר בין מחנך לחניך. We're trying to build a whole, the holy, proper and exact bridge between a מחנך, an educator, and a חניך. Do you know what a חניך is? Apprentice, yeah, a student, כאילו, on the receiving end, so to speak.
So now we're starting to learn it inside. כלל ראשון ויסודי הוא שלעולם החינוך מורכב משני צדדים. חינוך, always, it takes two to tango, basically. It's always two sides.
מצד אחד יש את המחנך. On the one hand there's the one that's כאילו educating, ובצד שני ניצב החניך, the one that's on the receiving end, the student, the apprentice. מכיוון שכך, ברור הדבר שחייב להיות גשר שדרכו יהיה ניתן להעביר ולהשפיע מהמחנך לחניך. There must be a bridge through which things can be passed over, given over, from the one that's standing on the world of being a מחנך to the חניך.
I know what you some of you are already thinking, that at a certain point in our lives, the orders get reversed and I don't know at what age, for each person it's different, that we become the מחנך and our parents, my mother's not here right now so I could say it, and the parents become the חניך. It's just me that thinks like that sometimes? No? Am I the only one that actually thinks that? No, okay, okay, no. Yes, Mindy. Can you give this class to משרד החינוך? משרד ההורים, משרד החינוך.
It's a two-way street. It's a two-way street. There has to be a bridge. Now I want to say like this.
What's probably the most famous words of רבינו הקדוש רבי נחמן בן פייגא, זכותו יגן עלינו? כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד, והעיקר לא לפחד כלל. Thank you, good. We're doing good. להתפחד כלל.
Not לפחד, והעיקר לא להתפחד כלל. And I'm thinking about this line more and more because of this שיעור. The whole world is but a narrow bridge, but the most important thing is not להתפחד. That's what the word that רבי נחמן said, he didn't say the word לפחד.
That just fit better. I actually, truth is, every year I say that I'm finally going to approach the composer of this ניגון, because I know him. Rabbi ברוך חייט. You know Rabbi ברוך חייט? He also wrote מי האיש and many, many other great, great, great, great, the greatest ניגונים.
And I have his number. You know what, I should just call him today, just ask. what's the ענין besides it maybe שטיימען better in the, in the, והעיקר והעיקר לא להתפחד. You have to like smudge it in.
Instead of לא לפחד, right? But רבי נחמן, you look inside ליקוטי מוהר"ן, רבי נחמן says להתפחד. It's a world of a difference. להתפחד means, לפחד means we know. The most important thing is don't have fear, don't be scared.
להתפחד means don't cause yourself to get freaked out. It's a completely different world. The world is משוגע enough, don't, don't cause yourself to get more משוגע and freaked out from it. Ah.
So when it comes to parenting, כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד, and you have this, this, this micro world in, in your, in the big world that you live in called parenting. And it feels sometimes that it's such a narrow bridge. Oh my God, everything is so delicate. One word that I say can, you may, you may have heard a שיעור once that someone said, you know, you can make that one comment to your kid at the age of seven and when they're 43, a mother of five, they're in therapy over that one word.
You said מעשים שהיו. It's not, I'm not making this stuff up. These are things that I've spoken to people about this. So you hear these stories, like, oh my God, this is insane.
This is להתפחד, and you make yourself משוגע. Every, you know, not only about not saying harsh things, even like the way I say I love you, you start doubting. Wait, if I say I love you, have a good day, they may hear like something completely different and you start freaking yourself out over that too.But the reason I'm bringing this up is because רב נתן מברסלב gave a name to the bridge. He says this in ליקוטי הלכות.
We just know it's called a narrow bridge. רב נתן gave a name to the bridge. And he says if you walk, if you know what the name of the bridge is and that's how you cross it, then it may start off as צר, but it gets רחב ורחב ורחב and more רחב. What's the name of the bridge? אמת.
Truth. Truth is the name of this bridge. It's true. The world is but a narrow bridge.
But when I understand that the way to cross this narrow bridge is to identify it by its name, אמת, therefore then I'll be able to cross it and I won't cause myself להתפחד. I won't cause myself to freak out more and more and more. In the context of the שיעור that we're going to be learning, we are not declaring here, bless you, we are not declaring here, this is the אמת of חינוך. And no real שיעור ever opens up like that about anything in the world that says, this is the אמת.
What we're trying to מכוון to over here is to understand that in order to build things, there's an אמת way of building things and there's a שקר way of building things, of building infrastructures. That is דבר השווה לכל נפש. Building a תשתית can have an אמת. How it then gets interpreted between your personal relationship with your child, well once you have the infrastructure to do it, it's yours.
It's your אמת. It's your אמת. Your אמת is different than this person's אמת. Obviously what works for your child will not work for that child.
And they're both אמת because it's different אמת. But the תשתית is the same. And the infrastructure that we have is חז"ל. And that's what we're trying to to plug in over here.
And חז"ל are going to explain this over here, that we need to develop the גשר. We need to understand the גשר has to be אמת. The bridge between parent and child has to always be אמת. What does that mean? Let's, let's see what the מחבר takes, let's see what he takes us to.I'm going to read it again, this first paragraph on the bottom.
כלל ראשון ויסודי הוא שלעולם החינוך מורכב משני צדדים. מצד אחד יש את המחנך ובצד השני ניצב החניך. מכיוון שכך, since on one hand there's the מחנך, the other hand there's the חניך, ברור הדבר שחייב להיות גשר שדרכו יהיה ניתן להעביר ולהשפיע מהמחנך לחניך. Since that's the case, there must be a bridge through which you can pass and inform and משפיע from one to the other.
But there's a certain way we have to do this to in order to give over, to be a מחנך, to educate. משל למה הדבר דומה? What's the parable over here? אדם הרוצה להעביר משקה מבקבוק לבקבוק אחר. I mess up with this all the time and our tablecloths are עדות to this. A person that wants to pour liquid from one bottle to the other, אם הוא ינסה להעבירו ישירות מבקבוק אחד למשנהו, if you're going to try to pour directly from one bottle into the other, בדרך כלל התוצאה תהיה שחלק מן המשקה יוזל החוצה.
It's it's laws of nature science, meaning it's not like you're doing anything wrong. If you're going to take a bottle, you're going to try to pour into the other bottle, directly from bottle to bottle, it'll cause a mess, there'll be spillage. ולכן, המעוניין להעביר את המשקה בשלמותו, but if you want to make sure that you give over the whole thing and the whole thing goes into the bottle and doesn't pour out on the outside, חייב לעשות זאת באמצעות משפך. It must be done through a משפך.
A משפך is a funnel. We're creating funnels in this שיעור. Hopefully, בעזרת השם יתברך. It's funnel making.
That's really when I you know, I was going over this especially the beginning of the ספר, that's really the the עיקר נקודה. If you want to, like someone says, \"What are you guys doing in that שיעור?" you could really say funnel building. It's it's it's a, you know, sometimes we say these line these say these words and it's like it sounds funny but like, sometimes actually like one word defines the whole מהות of what you're trying to do and it gives us a better approach to to to grasp what it is we're trying to do here, what it is we're trying to learn, what what it is we're trying to create. And it may sound funny to the outside, obviously, but to the inside, whatever.
I I I've shared this many times that that Toby Kram and I were one time together in somewhere in the States for שבת. And it was it was a by big, big בעלי בתים, okay? A dining room that literally, literally, I think one or two of well, you were there and someone else in this room was there, where the the living room, the dining room table started here and ended past that wall. One of those types of dining rooms, you know? Or you don't know? You don't know. You don't know.
It exists, okay? It exists. So a lot of מאכרים were there, וכולי. I had to do a טיש there on Friday night. And I was there with Toby who who's you know, ברוך השם, he does so much for עם ישראל, for כלל ישראל, for our community.
And he's a very serious job, obviously. So, you know, before that before שבת, I told him, you know, everyone obviously, you know, the society we live in is that when you meet somebody, they ask you, what do you do? This is like the first thing, not who you are. Who are you? No one says, hi, שלום עליכם, hi שלום, who are you? What do you do? Question. I have one friend, made עליה from Boston.
I asked him that also when I I was a guest in his house, and he said to me, it was so beautiful. He said, \"Listen, I'll tell you the truth, you're I'd rather ask a different question,\" because I asked him what does he do? He said, \"I can answer, I can give you an answer that defines how I make money to put food in the fridge, but that doesn't define who I am at all. I'm gonna tell you about, let me tell you who I am.\" We're very good friends. I saw this guy last night.
We're very good friends till today. So I told Toby, I said, \"Listen, the חבר'ה, it's obvious the חבר'ה are gonna ask you what you what what are you busy doing? Like what do you do? And I want you to tell them that you're you're a soul circumciser, you're a a heart circumciser.\" ערלת הלב, you open, you you you're you're opening your heart. You're working on opening your eyes. I said, \"you're crazy.\" I said, \"Listen, you're gonna see.
You're gonna see how you feel afterwards, too.\" כמובן, we go to the table, the טיש begins, people are coming storming in. This is my חבר, Toby Kram, מארץ ישראל. Um and no one there knew him, so they asked him so and then it came, \"What do you do?\" I kicked him under the table. And he's start, he's like, I was like, I can't, like, listen to me, you got to do it.
And and it was so amazing 'cause he he he said, I wish the only time I wish it wasn't on שבת was that Friday night, so I could have it on recording. He's he he said, \"I'm I'm a I'm a soul, I'm a, I think he said a heart, I'm a heart circumciser. I'm I circumcise my heart,\" something like that. Just imagine what the room looked like when he said it.
It was an unbelievable moment, right? However, in the אמת לאמיתה, in the אמת, in the world of אמת, obviously it sounds funny, it's not the way we speak, but in the world of אמת, you know, if we could answer. that question of who you are and what do you do or what do you, what are you working on and not answer it based on how much on what what you do to make money. Because not everyone is blessed to be involved in a מקצוע that that which brings them money is really what they, what defines them. Some people are, but some people aren't.
But in a world of חינוך, to be able to define and say, listen, as a first שיעור, what would you say like this שיטה is? Okay, so he's, so we could say, Rav Schwartz is telling us that what's the world of חינוך? It's understanding how to funnel, how to create a funnel. ממש a משפך. It's to create a funnel between what you want to give, what you believe needs to be given, and make sure that it goes inside. Because quite often, we just pour, we just pour, we just pour on what we think is the אמת and, you can't understand, how could this be? I put it.
It's the same thing like bottles. That's why he brought that משל. And we have to visualize this while we learn this. You have to internalize it, think about it in our own lives and see and notice these things happen quite often.
Back inside. ולכן, the top line. ולכן המעוניין להעביר את המשקה בשלימותו, חייב לעשות זאת באמצעות משפך. אותו כלי, what's a משפך? Now what does a funnel look like? אותו כלי שראשו הוא בעל פיה רחבה, שהולך ונהיה צר כלפי מטה.
A funnel, its opening is, its mouth is wide, and the more it get, the more you go with it, the more it gets smaller, the more narrow it becomes. בדרכו, it's through the משפך, שניתן להעביר את המשקה בשלימות מבקבוק אחד לחברו, and you can then proceed to then transfer what what you're trying to transfer in a more מדויק way, in a more exact way. מהנמשל. So that was the משל, that's the parable.
Obviously, what's the נמשל? What are we learning from this משל? ההורים הבוגרים הינם בעלי פיה רחבה. Adults, parents, the the ones that are on the older, the ones that fall under the מחנך status. He says over here, they're the, they're the opening of the משפך that's open and wide, right? לעומת ילדיהם שהם בעלי פיה צרה. As opposed to their children that their פיה, their opening is much more, is much more narrow.
You could say they're the deepest, and it's true, וכולי. But really their פיה is צר. It's narrow. ובדרכו, פיה צרה.
ובדרך כלל, listen to this. Usually, הפער שקיים בין גילאי ההורה והילד אינו משפיע רק על רמת התפיסה השכלית, אלא אף על רמת התפיסה הרגשית. Generally speaking, the פער, you know what פער means? The gap. The gap that's between the age of a parent to a child doesn't only affect the level of mental perception, but also affects the level of emotional perception.
He says בדרך כלל. I'm going to say that line again. The gap that exists between the ages of a parent to a child doesn't only affect the mental perception, התפיסה השכלית, אלא אף על התפיסה הרגשית, but also the emotional perception. ולכן יש הקצנה.
Therefore there is a הקצנה. That comes from the word קיצוני. הקצנה means extremism. בין רמת התפיסה המחודדת של ההורים לזו של הילדים.
You ever catch yourself and say to your child, or think, hopefully you just think this in your mind, or hopefully you don't think it in your mind, but if it happens to be, it comes across, you think it in your mind, you're saying, how could you not understand what I just said? How could, how could it be that what I said wasn't clear? How was it possible for you to not absorb what I just, I think, said very clearly. I was very clear. I was very clear. And you're wondering, how could it be that it didn't go through? Right? So, you see I'm I'm, you should you, those of you that we've been learning together for a while, you see that I'm really working hard on avoiding tangents right now.
Like, I'm trying so hard because it can go, you know, we can go anywhere over here right now, right? Also you're in the, Ilana's in the room, I'm petrified to even speak about these things in front of you. You're our home's רבי of חינוך, so I'm trying really hard to just stick to a שיטה over here. here. But this is very important to understand that the effect, the age differentiation affects all רמות, all levels of perception that we have between parents and children.
And therefore, sometimes there's such, you feel like you're living on two completely different planets.I have a one time, a tangent that's שייך. A father came to speak with me and he said to me he's having a very hard time talking to the ריבונו של עולם. I said, \"Why?\" He said, \"Because he knows that his child is very special.\" He knows his wife is amazing. He knows his child is special.
But he said that he thinks the ריבונו של עולם is has stuck it to him. I said, \"Why?\" He said, \"Because he can't understand how it will ever be possible to convey to his child anything because they're so different.\" He doesn't see himself in his child at all. He has other children. He sees himself in his other children.
He doesn't see himself in this child at all, nothing. And it drives him crazy all the time. And it's not that things are so bad at home. We're not going to a דוגמא קיצונית.
It's not an extreme, he just he sits in a situation where he's, where he feels that he's paying for עבירות from, I don't know, חטאות נעורים, a previous גלגול or something because he feels that there's simply no funnel that could that could that could exist because the, אין, there's no, it it doesn't, there's not the proper, it's like he uses a C chord instead of a, and his son uses a, the regular iPhone chord, whatever, you know what I mean? Like there's a פשוט לא, זה לא מסתדר.So it's easy to knock off a person like that and say, \"You think the ריבונו של עולם made a mistake by giving you this child?\" Right? And we we we hear, we hear an example like that. Do you know how many people feel like that? You know how many parents feel like that? Not that really it's a mistake, but that they just, they're in what's called חוסר אונים. חוסר אונים means helpless. Like I just, we're so different.
The way what we like is different, how we express ourselves is different, our hobbies are different. Our whole מציאות is different over here.In this ספר, we're going to be, we're going to be showing that each each person that exists in this world that was gifted with a child was also gifted with the deep, deep ability to dig deep enough to understand there's a funnel that was created, that will be created for each child. And what the funnel that works for the older child may be a completely different funnel that works for number two, or number three, or number four. That's obviously the בקיצור of חנוך לנער על פי דרכו that a person has to realize.
When the חז"ל said, חנוך לנער על פי דרכו, that if you understand that each child needs something else, then the rest of the פסוק really makes sense. Because the rest of the פסוק, everyone knows the beginning, חנוך לנער על פי דרכו. Anyone knows the rest of it? גם כי יזקין לא יסור ממנו. That also when they get older, they won't go astray from that funnel that was created just for them.שער היחוד והאמונה, the אלתר רבי, the אלתר רבי goes deep into this in שער היחוד והאמונה, the beginning of שער היחוד והאמונה which is the second portion of the of the ספר התניא, the אלתר רבי goes very deep in this.
גם כי, see, what do we care more about? That they listen to us now or that the funnel that we create for them lasts with them forever? גם כי יזקין לא יסור ממנו. That's what we're trying to create. That's that's the type of funnel we're trying to create. And we'll describe this more in detail as we go along.There's one more paragraph.
הרי שחייב להיות כאין משפך. There's got to be some type of funnel שיגשר בין המחנך מצד אחד לחניך מצד שני, שיסייע להעביר את הדברים מהמחנך לחניך. that will help the father, the mother, be able to give, to understand how to give over to their children. וברור הדבר, what's clear is, שכל תכונה, הנהגה או מידה טובה שאינם קיימים אצל המחנך, לא שייך להעבירם לחניך.
He's making, it sounds funny, but it's actually very important. I'll translate this. Don't be a hypocrite. You can't be a hypocrite, meaning it's impossible.
Because that's not אמת and the bridge is because the bridge is אמת. But this is such an important thing to harp on because what he said over here is like, there are a lot of things you know that you want your child to have, that you know you want your child to understand, and you'll say, \"Even though I didn't get it, my children's going to have it.\" How many times have I heard that? Okay, I didn't get this, but at least my children will have it. That, you know what ends up happening with those situations? A lot of entitled children. Entitled children, or you have this, the famous מציאות of like, you definitely did not make the same mistakes your parents did.
You were right. You just made completely new mistakes that never existed before. Right, it's true, and you're not going to be your mother, but then your child's basically going to say, \"Oh, I'm not going to be my mother either,\" meaning you can't give over to someone something that you don't have.We said it on שבת. The פסוק says in in in תהילים that we're going to be saying a lot now, אל תשליכנו מלפניך ורוח קדשך אל תיקח ממנו.
Don't cast us away from before you, and don't take away from us your רוח הקודש. What did you basically say with that statement? That we have רוח הקודש. Because if you're saying, \"Don't take away from me your רוח הקודש," what am I basically saying? Well, you can only take away from me something that I have. That means we're it's like דוד המלך sneaking in some type of deep self self-consciousness and awareness.
It's sublime. It's very it's very deep how he does it. Bless you, אל תשליכנו מלפניך ורוח קדשך אל תיקח ממנו. היכי משמע, this means, right? In the גמרא, maybe you'd say מכלל לאו אתה שומע הן, which means from pointing out what we're asking השם not to take away from us, we're also aware of what we have.
It's just too weird if we got up and we said, \"We have רוח הקודש. Don't take it away from us.\" That's that that's too bizarre.Here he's saying quite often parents are adamant on giving over things that they know are of value and important to their children, but how could you give over to your child something that you don't have? It's not אמת. Even if you give over things in the level of information, it's still not the גשר that we're speaking about. The גשר that we're speaking about is called אמת, and therefore it has to go through real a real identity, a real הזדהות.
How do you say הזדהות? No, no, there's a word. הזדהות is אני מזדהה. Align. I'm sorry, maybe מזדהה is not the right word.
I'm aligned with it, but it's even more than aligned with it. I have it and I can give it over to you. Authenticity. Yeah.
So he says over here again, ברור הדבר שכל תכונה, הנהגה או מידה טובה, all the good זאכן, all the good things you want to give over to your child, שאינם קיימים אצל המחנך, that you don't have, לא שייך להעבירם לחניך. You can't give that over, what you don't have.ואם כן, therefore, he said, \"I should have written a different book.\" Why? תנאי קודם לחינוך הוא בנין הנפש הפרטי של המחנך. Really, a prerequisite, a condition for anyone learning a ספר like this should be, \"Well, I have to build a בנין הנפש of myself.\" But he did. ברוך השם, he wrote many books like this that build the נפש.
And we're constantly learning this stuff anyway. And he says, אלה שבמסגרת זו איננו עסוקים בכך. This ספר is not character development for the parent. That's not what this ספר is.
Things will come up. You will you will learn things about yourself as you learn, but that's not the עיקר of this ספר. We have מסילת ישרים. We have דרך השם.
We have plenty of ספרים that build the בנין הנפש by the parent. This ספר is not addressing that. This ספר is more addressing a parent that may have the most incredible בנין הנפש and may have no idea how to properly funnel that to their child. Can you imagine such a thing? You could be a very put-together person.
You have a בנין of your נפש, and yet you may still not be able to give that over to your child. Because it's a whole עבודה. It's a deep עבודה, a very deep עבודה. Not just the בנין of the נפש, but then the the ענין של חינוך, that's the that's a whole other world.
וכל דברינו הם לאחר התנאי הראשון. והבסיסי. All the words we're saying we are saying right now are after this first prerequisite, שהמחנך יוכל יכול לחנך ולהעביר לחניך רק את הדברים שהוא עצמו השתלם בהם. You can only really give over to your child things that you could say you're holding in.
You're holding in. או עסוק מאוד להשתלם בהם, which is basically what will bring you back next שיעור if you're real. Meaning if it stopped before the comma, none of you should come back here next, none of you would feel like you'd want to come back to next שיעור. I was just going to ask if what if your kid is seeing you work on something.
That's why he, and that thank God he added that. Yeah. 100%. What's that? 100% effort is 100% success.
Thank God, that that's really the comma. That's after the comma. If he stopped by the before the comma, he, how can anyone come to a שיעור like that? How could I learn this? How could I teach? How could any of us do this? But he said because he says in the beginning, the מחנך can all of our words in this book is only in is only when a מחנך can give over the things that they have השתלם בהם. השתלם means are holding, they're fully in.
Mastered. Yeah. No. Or, thank God he added, or, things that they're very, very busy putting a lot of effort in.
Which I know that most of us are.And for me that's the היתר to continue with a ספר like this. And that's why I was so petrified of this ספר. For the last few years in חודש אלול and חודש אב, I would look into this ספר. And I probably mis- skipped over this paragraph because it was in parentheses, which many of us feel like, oh, those aren't important.
Sometimes the most important things are in there, right? And I was thinking, who could, אפשר, right? How could we, how could we be, how could we learn such תורה? He says, no. How do, what's the proof that you're, that you're עוסק, that you're, that you're busy putting the effort in this type of עבודה on yourself of the בנין of the נפש? What's the proof? That you're here. That you show up. So, what we're going to be explaining next week, please God, is what is this funnel? Now we know we have to create a funnel.
But next week we're going to be describing, going more in detail of, so what is this actual funnel through which basically all of our dreams for the home we want to live in and create are based on? And that's a, it's a beautiful journey, ממש, and I find this to be so שייך also for חודש אלול, like we're starting right now. This is ממש like יסודות work. This is real תשובה work as well. And please God, we should get, we're going to have a lot of הצלחה as we embark on this journey.
And I thank you all for showing up, continuing to show up like you do. And I give us a ברכה to be to be vulnerable enough that there there's there's places in this ספר it's going to touch some very sensitive chords, I'm sure if they haven't already this morning. I don't know. For me at least it has.
So I could just imagine for you as well. We'll get through it together בעזרת השם בשמחה.