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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, good morning everybody. We're going to get started because we have a lot to do and we don't have that much time, but I wanted to just make sure that we're learning לעילוי נשמת בסי פיגא בת ישראל, לוי בן יוסף, לרפואת שרה בת רחל פייגא, לרפואת לאה חנה בת מלכה. The week is sponsored by מרב קרוצ'י in memory of רבי דוד בן חמו. May his soul rest in peace.
And also for the רפואה שלמה of of יוסף בן לאה.
יוסף בן לאה is מנחם's אבא, Ruth's father-in-law. He was taken to the hospital this morning, so we have to ממש just pour out our hearts and souls בתפילה ובתחנונים that we should hear good news for one of the sweetest men in the world. Okay.Okay.
On the pages that you have in front of you, we are, we are on the bottom of דף ה. I think it's the second page that you have, the bottom of דף ה. And now we're going into a chapter, into the part of a chapter that's speaking about what happens before this thing called חינוך. What, what world are we tapping into before actual education and messages and the giving over of things takes place? What's in this תשתית? What's in this infrastructure? Now, one of the things that happens to many of us when we're bold enough to catch ourselves when we're with our children and it's not שטימינג, it's not really flowing in the way that we want it to flow, we'll find ourselves sometimes late at night looking at baby pictures of them and starting to cry.
And we start wondering, how in the world did we get to where we are now if that's what we once, if that's what was ממש once what was being felt and what was being transmitted? Like, what, what happened over here? Where's the, what's the distance? And for many people, this is very, this is actually very, this is traumatic. This is a very weird thing. It could be a very scary thing, like, מה קרה לנו?
רגע, שניה. When they were this little, little tiny פוצ'יס, we were like, oh my god, my life is complete.
This is the most gorgeous thing in the world, and I feel so much love. And then later in life, everything is קשור to seeing different things about them and also seeing things in us that we don't necessarily like so much. And we wonder where, where did that, where did that original most מושלם love go? Where, where is it? It's, it's, בעזרת השם, it's still there, נכון? It's still there, but where did it, where, where is it right now? Like, where is it right now? So this is something, this is not a, this is something I just want you to know, some of you are, some of you have these eyes of like, oh my god, how does he know that's that's that's me, right? That's all of us, okay? Unless you're the, what are those, that family that always sings, what's their names? The Von Trapp family. Von Trapp, yeah.
And even them I'm sure they have their, you know, they have their עניינים too, right? But all of us, all of us are in this פרשה. This is again one of the ways השם designed and created the world. It's a very beautiful thing. Now I also think this is such a השגחה that we're learning this ערב ראש השנה.
And you'll see why as we go along.So on the bottom of דף ה: אהבת טבעית ואהבה מותנית לילדים. Natural love and conditional love that is given to children. And we're going to see a famous line in the גמרא on מסכת פסחים.
על דברי הגמרא במסכת פסחים: לעולם ישנה אדם לתלמידו בדרך קצרה.
That a person should always teach his student בדרך קצרה, which means in a short way, and we'll, we'll unfold this, we'll unpack this.
אומר החזון איש זכר צדיק לברכה, החזון איש says, שאף בזה חל הכלל שישנה דרך ארוכה שהיא קצרה, ויש דרך קצרה שהיא ארוכה. Anyone who's learned תניא has seen this. Well, he's saying it in the name of the חזון איש, but this is, this is ממש תניא.
That there's a short long path and a long short path. A long, right again, there's a short long path of giving something over, and there's a long short path. You, I don't expect anyone to understand yet, I just want to make sure the לשון is, is clear. The גמרא says, says a person should always teach his student in a short way, in a short path.
We'll try to understand what that means. And the חזון איש and the בעל התניא says this too, there's a short long path and there's a long short path. What does this what does this mean? The בילבובי, רב Schwartz is going to explain it על פי שיטתו.
ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו.
אמן.
כלומר לפעמים הדרך בראשיתה היא קצרה. Sometimes the path in the beginning is very short, is very fast, very exact, very direct. Now listen closely to what he says over here.
כאשר האדם אומר את דבריו במילים קצרות. When a person says his words with short words, very much to the point. I want to get a point across, I'm going to say exactly what it is right away.
אולם מחמת שהם סתומים וחתומים but since your words are really a mystery, no one really knows what you're saying besides you, הם קשים להבנה.
They're hard to understand.
ולכן עדיף לנקוט בדרך שאומנם בתחילה היא נראית ארוכה, therefore it's much better going through a path that in the beginning seems long, אך לבסוף היא קצרה, but at the end it's short. Which means, עדיף להסביר את הדברים בארוכה ובאופן ברור. It's better to take your time to explain something in maybe you would say extra words than what you would normally just say, and clearly, clearly, על מנת שיובנו בקצרה ובקלות.
So that they can be understood fast and easily. Okay. Are we with his words? Yeah? This is very, very important. I'm going to explain this again outside.
There are two paths of חינוך he's saying over here.
דרך ארוכה כשהיא קצרה ודרך קצרה כשהיא ארוכה. Sometimes we want to just say something, right? We just want to say it. And you better understand you basically you're not really giving a lot of explanation to what's going on, but you're basically saying, well, you it's on you, you got to understand what I'm saying.
And what ends up happening is that you're forming a דרך ארוכה מאוד of הבנה. On the level of reception, on the level of understanding, the kid is stuck there and is wondering what does mommy really feel about me? What does she really Sorry, or אבא. What is אבא really saying? What is he really feeling? What is he actually saying to me? And the the reception, the הבנה, to understand what was just said can take forever. Why? Because for you it's important to make a point.
That's the חינוך, you have to make a point. It's on the kid to understand and figure out what you actually meant by what you said. That is called דרך קצרה in terms of speaking, שהיא ארוכה which takes a long time to understand what the father or mother just said. Then, there's another world that's called דרך ארוכה that you take your time and you're very exact with your words.
And it may take more time than usual to say what you're trying to say, what you want to say, but the reception is קצרה וקלה. To receive what was said is much faster and also much easier to absorb. These are the two worlds that we're speaking about right now. Okay, so now next page.
Now we're going to explain this, he says. That was like a דרך קצרה statement, what he just said. And now נשתדל אפוא להסביר את הדברים באופן ברור ובארוכה. So he's saying right now, we're about to talk about that thing we said in the beginning of שיעור, which was that love that we know we had when we first looked at our בייבילע.
We first look at our baby, and I don't know how long that lasted. And then they grow up and then that that feel me you completely gets gets very much mixed up with, now I have to tell you how to walk the streets of the world. Now I have to tell you how to do this. I don't know if you're hearing me, I don't know if you're listening to me.
Oh my God, you have a diagnosis, you have this, you have that, all these בלאגאנס, you start running to משפיע and then all that unconditional love that existed in the beginning, we're trying to retrace it, we're trying to reclaim it or we're trying to renew it, I don't know, whatever you want to whatever you want to call it. But now he's going to explain this thoroughly, this whole פרשה.
נפתח בדוגמא. Let's open up with an example.
Does anyone know what this ראשי תיבות is?
יפה, בשעה טובה ומוצלחת. In a good שעה, בשעה טובה ומוצלחת.
נולד לבני הזוג תינוק או תינוקת. I should just let you know, this is a ערב ראש השנה, to learn this is very special because we on יום כיפר, we say that one of the תפילות of the כהן גדול is שנה שאישה לא תפיל פרי בטנה.
It's a very big thing in the תפילות of יום כיפר, בשון יום כיפר, that it should be a year that all women should be זוכה to bring forth their fruit, that they, everyone should be able to give birth and bring children into the world in however השם enables it to happen, it should be in a healthy way.נפתח בדוגמא.
בשעה טובה ומוצלחת נולד לבני הזוג תינוק או תינוקת.
כפי שכולנו מכירים, בימים הראשונים, as we all know, in the first days, ואף, I hope it's מעבר לכך, ואף מעבר לכך, and also after the first few days, oh well actually, I know what he means, sorry. You'll see.
כמעט שלא קיימת הבעה מהרך הנולד להורים. Your kids don't really give you expressions. They don't express, huh? Six weeks. For everyone.
Six weeks.
פחות או יותר. I say take it till they smile, till you get something back from them. Right, with we with each of our kids, we figured out exactly that tickling spot whatever, that forms a, right? And they're like, oh look.
They're like, like 70 hours old and we figured out how to get them to, you know? Okay, נכון, but but generally, okay, but generally there's no real like, a look like a baby looks up at you and says, and you have that moment, oh, we're one, we connect. It's more the connection is something different. But it's not coming from the an expression that's being expressed by the child. That's not what's happening.
כמעט שלא קיימת הבעה מהרך הנולד להורים.
ואם נקצין את הדברים, now if you want to get a little bit, you know, very raw over here, הרי שמולנו קיים גוש בשר שעושה תנועות ופעולות מינימליות בלבד. All we have here is a chunk of flesh that's doing very minimal activity. I know we all know נפש, חלק אלוק ממעל, it's all שטיקל אלקות, but למעשה, what you have in front of you, I never said I never, I never saw anyone say it like this.
מולנו קיים גוש בשר. There's like a chunk of flesh that's in front of us that's doing very minimalistic movements, right?So now but he says now let's look at what what's going on at that moment.
הבה נתבונן.
האם בשלב זה אין אהבה מצד ההורים כלפי ילדם? But there's no love that we feel toward towards our kid? At that moment when there's no expression coming from the גוש בשר?
מה פתאום?
התשובה ברורה היא: בוודאי שקיימת אהבה.
Of course there's love. There's unexplainable love. There's love, there's love that comes, I think it comes from like אור הגנוז, from like the concealed light. We can't, it's not light, it's not love that we could explain, but it's for sure there, 100%.
And I just want to add, even when a mother is in a situation of postpartum, that love is still there. And I, whatever, learning a lot about it and I think one of the things that takes place in the very different the difficulty of those first few months is that the love is there and the mother wants to feel it. She knows it's there and that's what causes a lot of, sometimes a lot of stress is that there's no access to that which she knows is there. And that just builds up a lot more intensity and hardship, but the love as an as a unit is is 100% there.התשובה ברורה היא בוודאי שקיימת אהבה.
והמסקנה המתבקשת מכך למתבונן, שהבסיס הראשוני של אהבה מתחיל כדבר סתום. The beginning of the love we have for our children begins as a דבר סתום. What's סתום? Clogged, closed, it's it's shut. You you don't it's not revealed.
סתום וגלוי. It's it's not revealed. It's concealed.
ואיננו נובע מהחלק הגלוי אצל הילד.
It's not coming from something that you see in your kid, even though you could swear they're looking at you and smiling at you and they look like your great-great-great באבי or something. All those things are not really what's drawing out this innate feeling that we have inside. It's not coming from the kid, ללא כל קשר.
לרמת הכישרונות שלו, with nothing to do with their levels of כישרונות, of talents.
There's nothing I know you could swear they know how to do all these things and but באמת they don't. It's nothing that's coming from what they're doing in this world.
כמה הוא נחמד, כמה הוא חביב, כמה הוא מצליח, how likable they are, how successful they are.There was a ברית, I have a lot of videos of רב שלמה being סנדק at בריתים. There was one ברית of the son of one of our dear, dearest friends, Miriam Futterman and her husband נחמן פוטרמן, עליו השלום.
And רב שלמה said a ווארט like this. Why do we say כשם שנכנס לברית, כן יכנס לתורה, לחופה ולמעשים טובים? Right? Just like he came into the ברית, he should also come into the תורה, חופה, מעשים טובים. There's a funny, I once said this in שול. It's a שטיקל not appropriate, but if it's appropriate if you understand the point.
There was a בריסקער, you know, in בריסק, they learn everything is כפשט. You derive things very direct, okay? So one day there was a wedding for this בריסקער חתן and everyone comes to the wedding hall and no one can find the חתן anywhere. My brother told me this joke. And they're looking for him all over the place, and finally they see him in a side room next to the חתן'ס טיש.
He's wrapped, he's not wearing a thing, he's wrapped in a blanket or in a סדין, in a sheet. Nothing. They come to him, they say, "משוגענע, you're getting married right now. You're a 24-year-old man, what's wrong with you?" כשם שנכנס לברית.
Just like I was when I was put on the on the ברית, כסא של אליהו, כך יכנס לתורה, לחופה, right? So that's על דרך צחוק.In the deepest, deepest place, רב שלמה said like this, כשם שנכנס לברית. Just like this baby is coming into a ברית מילה, and what's he causing? What is this baby causing? What is this baby bringing and creating?
דביקות, אהבה, שמחה, תענוג, dreams. Just like the way that you came to the ברית and you're bringing so much love and light in the world, so too, whenever you engage in תורה before you even did anything with it, but you approach תורה, what you do in the world should bring light and love and שמחה to the world. You understand? When they're a baby and they're just nothing, their existence brings so much light and love, and we can't explain it.
Later in life, when it comes to תורה, how good of a student is he? How much do they know?
חופה, what kind of girl did he marry? Is she from a good family? Everything is conditional. So he said, כך יכנס לתורה לחופה ולמעשים טובים, that just the mere things that we do, that we engage with, just by approaching it should bring about such love and שמחה, just like it was when they just were existing in the world and they're eight days old. So this is, I feel this is what he's going to be bringing us back to a little bit.
לעומת זאת, that's when a baby is born.
Baby's born, they don't bring out anything, just by their existence, they're bringing things up.
לעומת זאת.But, however, כאשר אדם נושא בנו ובבת זוג, when you get married, when does the love begin?
בעזרת השם, האהבה ביניהם מתחילה לאחר שנערכת הכרות. Love begins once there's הכרות, once there's getting to know each other.
ורק לאחר שהאחד מכיר ומוקיר את תכונותיו ואישיותו של השני, הוא מחליט להתקשר עמו.
And you decide to connect to someone after you've gotten to know certain quality traits and different things about them. That brings about the love. It's a different love. And I know that many of us, many of us grew up on in the עולם of love at first sight, which does not, it's a very big danger.
Very, very big danger because there's also, there's, and then there's love at first sight and heartbreak at fifth sight. And disgust on seventh sight, but there was love at first sight. So we're not, that's not so much our our world, right? But generally speaking, the way that we choose to connect to something and love begins when it comes to finding your soulmate is only after there's what's called הכרת הרגשות, understanding, getting to know the person that you're with and the the quality traits that makes them them.
בשונה לגמרי from the love that there's a baby.
So the love, the love for the child is אהבה טבעית and the love for a spouse is, at least starts off with, in a healthy way, אהבה מוטנית, conditional love. It hopefully then forms into unconditional love. But in the beginning, it's based on certain things that we see in each other.הרי ש, next paragraph, הרי ש האהבה הטבעית של ההורים לילדיהם שאנו מכירים, this natural love that parents have for their children, שהיא רצויה, it's wanted, חשובה ומוכרחת, it's important, it's it's a must.
אינה מתחילה מהכרות עם הילד.
It doesn't begin with getting to know your child. Now, of course, a mother מכירה את הילד, ילדה שלה. Of course they know their child in such an intimate way, in such a powerful way from the moment it's born. It's true, but that is not the reason behind the love.
And that I want to make sure it's very clear. I'm certain that the way that a mother knows its child, יש שמה הכרה. There is הכרות, even if they're not expressing so many things. I'm sure there's הכר that happens much more by a mother than a father.
But that still doesn't explain the love that you have. That's just a byproduct of of the closeness. The love that exists is nothing to do with getting to know the child.Perfect timing.
אלא, היא מתחילה מנקודה גולמית.
You know what חומר גלם means? It's the little plastic the little pellets that you use to make plastic. Oh, yeah? No, חומר גלם Yeah, yeah, because the place I used to live on makes the plastic for the חממות and they use חומר גלם. Right, but חומר גלם means like raw material. Raw material.
So it's raw material placed on these things, right? Raw material. The love starts from a from this raw material, בשלב שעדיין איננו מכירים את תכונותיו ונקודת האופי שלו. From a place we don't really know what's this kid, what is this kid like?You know, my father, I think with my father and with someone else who used to always look. No, it's interesting.
My אבא told, my mother told me that when I was born, the first thing my, maybe this is an old European זאך. The first thing my father did was that he counted my fingers and toes. Anyone else have this? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah? Yeah. The ענין to count like to make sure. So I always thought it was because he wanted to make sure I could play piano. But before like, before these things take place, there's something he's just speaking about about this raw, this raw material.
We don't know. We don't know if you're going to be that or you're going to do that. We we know nothing. All we know is you are.
You exist. That's it. That's all we know.You know, sometimes when we when we learn Torah like this, I in my heart, I was sharing with you, I started דאווענען that like at a certain point today, I'm going to look at one of my children and I'm just for a second going to be like, all I know is that you are, right? And then what can happen from there? Carpool, this, you know, it's not the עבודה isn't, and I just want to say this, you know, I don't believe the עבודה is to figure out a way to be with our children the way that they were when they were born, because they're not there anymore either. There's a נקודה there, but they are also not in that place anymore.
They're in a world, they're they've absorbed so much, they've they've grown so much, there's so much going on with them. However, once in a while, it's not a reboot button, it's just a reminder of what the whole זאך is all about, what the whole thing is all about.And I'm reminded of of, you know, reminded of last year, first day ראש השנה, in the דרשה I quoted a long piece of Rachel Goldberg Polin's הספד for Hersh. And she said something that has never, has left me. She said, Hersh wasn't perfect, but he was perfect for me.
Like that's a very, that's like, honestly, it's this whole ספר in a, you know, like a in in in a one-liner. However, we do not want to rely on eulogies to figure out how to, how to, how to internalize the Torah that's in this ספר. So again, we're in the third line of this paragraph.
בשלב שעדין איננו מכירים את תכונותיו ונקודות האופי שלו.
We don't really know the character of our babies, of our children.
לעיתים ניתן להבחין מעט במראהו החיצוני ומכוח כך לחבבו. Sometimes you could look externally at a child and be like, oh, it's such a, that brings out like liking the baby because of this cuteness.
דבר שפעמים רבות אף הוא משתנה בבגרות.
But quite often that that that that changes as the kid grows up. You know, you don't look at them anymore in that and just looking at them makes you feel good. You look at them and you wonder, are they eating enough, are they not eating, are they eating too much, you know. We start, that kid? Huh? Or who is that kid? Right? Or who is this, where did this kid come from בכלל?
ואם כן, זהו בסיס של אהבה שמותבע בנפש ההורים לילדיהם.
We have to be מקבל something. This is the basis of love that is embedded. On the Thursday morning שיעור with the women's דאווענען שיעור, we're talking about all these different things that are innately embedded in the, in the רגש and in the כח התפילה of a woman which is so elated and the world depends on. The world depends on.
Over here what we're speaking about is this, this basis of embedded love that's in our souls for our children.
וזהו שורש האהבה של ההורים לילדים. This is the source of love.
אהבה עצמית ללא קשר לתכונות כלשהן.
We love our children. Why? What's the answer? Because they are. Just because. It's not even an, it's not even a question, meaning, we love our children.
And if you have to try to דרשן why, it really means that there's a, there's a נתק, there's a disconnect in the משפך, in the funneling system that we've been speaking about. There's holes in the צינור. We, we, we love our children. Why? Because that's the way השם created the world.
That's the way, that's the way השם designed the world. And acknowledging that, if you want to like talk about, we're about to crown the king. Crowning the king also means accepting the way that השם naturally chose to to create humanity. And one of the ways that השם naturally chose to create humanity is that we have that love.
It is there from the moment they're born and it is always, always there. The only ענין is is that it gets very cloudy. Very, very cloudy and confusing. Like I said before, how much are we supposed to go back and be like, go home and just look at our kids and be like, you are.
And I'm gonna operate from there. That's not, that's not what we're working with. At least not in this מהלך. You have your hand up? Kind of.
It's like this. Go. Part of our kids like, in order for us to supply our kids emotional baseline is actually unconditional giving, which sounds insane because a mother is constantly doing it. But this is actually going back, it's doing something above and beyond to just put a smile on your kid's face just because they are.
It's like bringing them back to when they were a baby. You didn't do it for any reason just because they were there, because you love them. And they need that forever. It's not just when they're babies.
Always. It's like a big part of older kids emotional cup. And that יכולת is באמת, the ability to do what you just shared is always possible. This is just a lot of עבודה that we have to get to to remember that it's possible.
It's a shift of whatever. It's a whole בנין.
נכון. That's a very important נקודה.
And then when we do it, huh, when we do it, and we let go of all those other מחשבות that say, no, no, no, no, no, they have to be taught a lesson, you know. When we, when we rid ourselves of that and then end up going to that place, and it's a vulnerable place, there's, there's a שלמות in the heart that is connected to the שורש of אהבה that exists. It's connected to the root of love that exists within all of us. There's a whole, there's a whole world of reasons why we don't go to those moments of unconditionally causing them to have a smile right now.
There's all these מחשבות that come in the way that's saying, you, it sounds crazy, but it's like many of us are under the assumption that we didn't buy into the concept of tough love. But it, it, it actually infiltrated into many areas of our psyche and many areas of the way that we are. There's so many reasons for this, obviously. This is nurturing the child that still exists within that never got it, what they needed.
And a million other reasons. But in the שורש, which is what he's talking about, in the root of it all, it is אהבה ללא תנאי. It is unconditional love that you yourself can't explain. You yourself can't explain it.
We can't explain this.מה קורה כשילדים גדלים? But then what happens when kids grow up? Now what happens is ההורים מתחילים לאט לאט להכיר אותם. He's basically saying, now you're starting to date your child, in a holy way. Meaning on the level of getting to know them. You started off with love, pure love, unconditional love, then they start to grow up and now you're starting to get to know them.ההורים מתחילים לאט לאט להכיר אותם מהגיל הקטן עד שהילד מתבגר יותר.
From the youngest age to the whatever age.
ובשלב זה כל הורה יכול להכיר את הדברים הטובים של ילדו, את תכונותיו השליליות, כישרונותיו ונטיותיו. At this stage, every parent can get to know the better things about their children, the less good things about their children, their כישרונות, their talents, נטיותיו, their tendencies. Like what makes them tick? Why, you can start to understand why do they act like that, why do they act like that.והנה ישנה תופעה נפוצה, and this is a thing that happens quite often, כאשר יש לאדם כמה ילדים בבית, when you have more than one child at home, לעיתים קיימת נטייה של התחברות ואהבה מצד האב או האם כלפי אחד מהילדים יותר מאחיו.
We swear we don't fall into this. Our children, in my house it's always like this. My children are sure that they know who my favorite is. Like certain who my favorite is.
And no matter what I do, it doesn't matter what I do or what I say. It's like I have this thing, they always say, אבא, we know that she is, right? Or that, I mean if I say he, you know who I'm talking about, I only have one boy. Right? You know, we know it's her, right? So, and then I'll always say, no, are you crazy? And then I'll go like this, right? It's you. Then one of the other kids will see and I'm like, no, really, it's you, right? But but he's saying underlyingly, like, there there's sometimes because what? What would bring about like having a favorite child? That connection, that חיבור.
Seeing things about them that you could להזדהות with, right?
נכון. One of the most painful things in the world is when a father sees or a mother sees their children in them and it scares the daylights out of them, right? Now I want to say גוואלד תורה. Okay? I haven't said this in many years but it's feels so שייך right now. According to the זוהר הקדוש, God created many worlds and He destroyed them.
הקדוש ברוך הוא בנה עולמות והחריבן. God created many worlds and destroyed them. If you learn פרשת בראשית and you take out the last פסוק in פרשת בראשית, that's exactly what's going to happen with this world as well. The last few פסוקים in פרשת בראשית talk about God regretting that He created the world and that God's heart was sad.
ויתעצב אל ליבו. He's looking at humanity. I mean, think about it. The first two brothers, one of them is a murderer.
The first two parents are bereaved parents. It's not exactly ששון ושמחה after that either. So the end of בראשית seems to be the end of the world. What kept the world going? So then there's a פסוק that keeps the world going.
What's the last פסוק in פרשת בראשית?
ונח, ונח מצא חן בעיני השם. Okay, it's גוואלד. There's something about נח, נח keeps the world going. What's the letters נח and חן? It's the reflection.
So I want to say, I said like this many years ago, that the ריבונו של עולם when he looked at נח, he saw, he saw God, he saw himself, כביכול, the reflection of him in נח.
מצא חן בעיני השם. And when נח thought about השם, he saw, he he also thought about himself when he looked at הקדוש ברוך הוא. And this reflection game keeps the world intact.
Again, for some people when they see a reflection of themselves in their child, they they they call off all therapists to be on hold. You know? Get ready for this one. Get ready for this one. Oh boy, right? But somehow, sometimes when we see it, it's a beautiful thing, it just can get a little dangerous, that when you when you have that favorite, it's because they they remind you most of the nice side of you or the side of you that you accept and love and are happy with how it came out.
Now he's gonna go, let's see what he says.
והנה, bottom paragraph, והנה ישנה תופעה נפוצה שכאשר יש לאדם כמה ילדים בבית, לעיתים, sometimes, קיימת נטייה של התחברות ואהבה מצד האב.
כלפי אחד הילדים יותר מלאחיו. The siblings can sense that's אבא's favorite.
ולכאורה, it seems, אם האהבה לילדים הייתה נשארת תדיר כפי שהיא הייתה בשעה שהיה ילד, הילד נולד, אם כן תופעה כזו לא הייתה קיימת. You know when this תופעה, this phenomenon, would never have happened? If what? What did he just say? If our love for them wasn't based on any reactions or כישרונות or anything like that, and there was this world of you are, therefore I love you, there wouldn't be world even a space in the mind of a child to think that there's any competition going on because they'd be so surrounded and feel so safe and so nurtured and so not threatened in that world of love. However, this is the way the world works, right?אלא אם כן היו סיבות חיצוניות כקשיים שקדמו ללידת תינוק. We're not going to get into that.
Let's look at the next page.
ומכיוון שתופעה זו נפוצה כל כך, since this is such a, he says this is a very common phenomenon.
אם כן לכשנתבונן בעומק, when we look deeper, נבחין we will see שאהבה שלנו לילדים מתחלקת לשני חלקים. Our love for our children gets divided to two areas.
כאשר הילד נולד, האהבה של ההורים אליו היא אהבה טבעית. The love that the children have for a child is טבעי. I just want to remind you all why are we, this sounds very redundant, נכון? It sounds like he said this already. This is called דרך ארוכה שהיא קצרה.
This is exactly what it is. This is the long path in order to have a shorter and easier time to receive the point of it. So the first one is love, natural love that parents have for their children, כיוון שהוא הבן שלהם, כיוון שהיא הבת שלהם. This is my daughter, this is my son.
That's all I know. That's all I know. This is my fath- this is my daughter, this is my son.
ללא כל קשר לתכונותיהם, disregarding any connection to their traits, to their character.
לאופיים ולכישרונותיהם, to any of their talents, אלא אהבה בסיסית לילד כמו שהוא. Basic love for a child the way he, the way they are. And you know, we have an example for this in the Torah, על דרך הרמז והסוד.
פרשת תולדות begins like this: אלה תולדות יצחק בן אברהם, this is the offspring of יצחק בן אברהם, and the next פסוק, in the continuation of the פסוק is, אברהם הוליד את יצחק.
Abraham begot Isaac. Begot. Abraham he had birth to Isaac, right?
מפרשים are saying, what did you just מחדש to me? I know already.
אלה, I know that he is יצחק בן אברהם.
How do I know that? Because it just said אלה תולדות יצחק בן אברהם. What are you adding to me, אברהם הוליד את יצחק? And רב שלמה, רב שלמה says like this, when you asked אברהם אבינו, tell me something about your son. Who is he?
אברהם אבינו said, I can't tell you anything. All I know is that this is my child.
And that is the highest, the moment you start to talk about the good points, it's almost like you're putting them into these categories of in this they're good, and you don't mention other things, which is like, oh, if I'm not mentioning it, that may mean that in this area, they're not. But really this אהבה טבעית is, tell me about your children. I don't know, I just I'm blessed that, I was just such a blessing that השם chose me to be their parent. This is אהבה טבעית.
In the, in the אמת of it all, when you break it all down, that's what, that's the most, that's the purest, that's where it begins. And part of it is always there. Always there. And then the way that we have to, it's a חוב on us to nurture them, to take care of them, to educate them, that's where things get more complicated.
ובשלב שלאחר מכן, and in the, in the, in the level after this, נבנית אהבה נוספת. There's another love that gets built. But it's different.
שהיא אכן מבוססת, it's based on, גילוי אישיותו ותכונותיו של הילד.
It's based on the revelation of a child's personality.
כתוצאה מכך, as a result of this, כאשר התכונות שמתגלות הן חיוביות, when what's starting to develop and be revealed are positive characteristic traits, הרי שגילוי זה, this revelation, גורם לקרבה נוספת.
אל הילד. This brings about a more closeness, an additional closeness to the child above the אהבה טבעית.
Now there's something else.
וכאשר התכונות הן שליליות, but then when you start to see, wow. Never thought it'd happen to me, but I ממש have a ווילדע חיה. Then what happened, that means wild animal, right?
גילוי התכונות, revealing these, you see these things, עלול לגרום לריחוק ממנו, without you even noticing.
You love them, you love them, you love them, but you're there and I'm here.
שהרי כידוע, because we know, התכונות שמתגלות, that which becomes revealed once you get to know the child, הן לא תמיד רק הצד החיובי. How dare you say that about my child? Yes. That's also the way השם designed the world.
And crowning the king is accepting that. That there'll be things that we see in these precious נשמות that aren't the most חיובי. They're not.But the fact that that has something to do with our love for them is what gets confusing, and that needs צריך תיקון, צריך ביאור.
ולכן פעמים רבות, הם אינן תורמים לקשר עם ההורים.
So quite often, this ענין, this whole world of getting to know our children and seeing certain things in them, if we already know in the beginning that not everything we see about our child is going to make us so happy and proud and בשמחה, you're already doing great. It's just that what happens to us in our psyche? What happens? If I tell you you're going to, as you get to know your child, you're going to be not always going to see things that you're going to want to post on social media, just בכלל a whole another פרשה, which we're not even getting close to.What, what happens to us when we start to get to know our child? Let's get as vulnerable as we could be. What happens? We start to, we start to get to know our child, they get older, we start to see certain things about them. We forget that we didn't create them, by the way, that we didn't create these תכונות.
It's a whole another thing, right? But what happens to us when we see things that we're not, it's not like, oh my god, you're a מלאך. So what starts happening to us?Where did I go wrong? Okay. One is, one could be where do I go wrong? You start taking a step backwards. From what? From the relationship, from the...
You start feeling like your job is to fix them instead of to love them. You start thinking, okay, צריך תיקון. So you start working on fixing. Sorry? You feel guilt.
Expand on that. Yeah, that's a, it's a very deep... like you failed. A guilt, right, so.
Look what I did.
נכון. What else? Anything else going up? Everyone goes through this. It's not like, everyone has this.There's a lot over here, okay? It's a lot.
It's not, you can't, you can't unpack this in a few minutes on a Sunday morning, ערב ראש השנה. But ברוך השם we'll have all year for this. But these are very important יסודות. What does it say about the love of the אהבה טבעית? That's what I, what what what interests me.
When I start to see these things, what does that say about that embedded natural love that I have for my child? We doubt it. What does it really say about it? Nothing. And yet, it absorbs me. But in the אמת, in the אהבה טבעית, what does it say about it? Nothing.
It actually says nothing.Now we have to figure out a way how to bridge these two loves, because they're both real. They're both real, but there needs to be a bridge between them. And he's going to help us develop this bridge between them, because I know that if there's one תפילה we have to be as parents, it's for sure, for sure, הקדוש ברוך הוא, please, please, please, of course, everything should be, forget about all the wishes we have for our children and everything, but that they should always feel that אהבה טבעית their their whole lives. Like what more would we want than than than just our child knowing that by us there's there's endless, infinite, unconditional love? There's nothing more we want to give over to our children.
With all the good חינוך and stuff and everything and השקפות. Those are all still, those are outer things. The inner realm, that's what we want.בדרך כלל, last paragraph, ככל שהילד הולך ו...
מתגבר.
Generally speaking, as much when the kid matures, החלק של אהבה המותנית תופס את מקום נכבד יותר. What basically catches more space as the child grows up, the first type of love or the second type of love? The second, because we're constantly involved in it. We're constantly going back and forth with it.
לעומת האהבה הטבעית שמקבלת באופן יחסי הדחקה מסוימת.
To a certain extent, we kind of push away the first level of love. There are many reasons for this. Naturally, this is what happens over time.
היחס של ההורים לילד מזוהה עם הדימוי שלו בעיניהם, והאהבה הגלויה כלפיו מותנית בכך.
So he's saying over here the relate, the יחס that children, how would you say יחס? The... not relationship, but the... Connection? Involvement? Yeah, the יחס is like what the child feels that he's getting from his parents is very much identified with what they must think of me from his eyes, as opposed to what they must still feel for me, what they think of me.
והאהבה הגלויה כלפיו מותנית בכך.
But the love that's revealed to him is is now it becomes something that's conditional.Yeah. Please. Another one of, another way to fill our kids' emotional baseline is that we start having these positive and negative things, thoughts about them as they get older, but to take the time to just think about them. We fill our kids' emotional baseline by just thinking positively about them.
And that's exactly what he's saying. Right, exactly what he's saying.
נכון מאד. Because that's what they end up understanding that we feel about them.
The שאלה is, how do you catch yourself? How do you catch this before it happens? Or it's gonna happen anyway, but the שאלה is what... Take the time. A single day.
נכון.
Think positively about your kid. Just think. I just think. It's not even עשייה yet.
It's not like you're doing something. Isn't that crazy? We're filling our kids' emotional baseline by just thinking about them possibly. Right.
נכון.
נכון. It's the deepest. It's unbelievable.אכן, האהבה הטבעית עדיין קיימת בפנימיות. The natural love is still there, deep down inside.
שהרי היא הייתה קיימת אף בתחילה ללא קשר לתכונות האופי. The love existed before I showed who I am, things about me.
תכונות אופי, things about me. Me just being in the world brought about an amazing, amazing love.
Just existing brought about an amazing, amazing love. It existed before the things that are nice or good about me, right?
היא הייתה קיימת אף בתחילה ללא קשר לתכונות האופי, אולם היא נדחקת למעמקי הנפש. But it gets pushed to the depth, depth of the soul. Why is it so such a blessing to learn this ערב ראש השנה?
ראש השנה is not the day of the creation of the world.
That was a few days ago on כ"ה אלול.
ראש השנה is the day of אהבה טבעית. It's the day of celebrating the creation of man. You know what else happened on the day that man was created? You know what man started to do? He started to hide.
He started to hide. It's amazing. The first, the day that man was created, he also started to hide. What is the Torah telling us from this? Like, that's first day דרשה of ראש השנה already, I'm spilling the beans, but this is a very deep thing going on over here.
We're learning right before זה יום תחילת מעשיך. This is the beginning of a whole new world of, based on this שיעור, what's ראש השנה?
ראש השנה is an opportunity again to tap into the אהבה טבעית that has nothing yet to do with אופי, תכונות. Just קיום, just existence. And we belittle that quite often because we think you can't really do that much with it.
You can't do much with that if that's all you stay in all the time, it's true. But if you don't remember that that's there, you really can't do anything else besides that, nothing. So, I want to give us a ברכה. First of all, I want to say יישר כוח.
This is not, these are not easy things to learn, because it brings out, at any stage of our parenting, it's always gonna bring up a lot of stuff, and לב, obviously, a lot of guilt comes up with with learning a lot of... happens all the time but, we're here to learn about all these things through חז״ל, through the צדיקים. And we always have to feel good about that. Like that's a good thing, that we're choosing to go to places that are most raw and vulnerable and say, well what, how does the, how did the Torah think about this before I came to all the conclusions on my own, or before I incorporated a lot of different worldly opinions about the matter.
That's just a beautiful thing and it's a big יישר כח to all of you. Just want to give us a strong, strong ברכה to realize that the ריבונו של עולם already knew that we would go through everything we're going through in this, in our, in our lives, in our parenting. It's not shocking. You're not surprising or letting השם down and this is all part of the whole, of the whole program.
But the התחדשות of the new year of ראש השנה, the the renewal that's going to be taking place in all galaxies, in the whole universe on, not really tomorrow night, more on, it's really Tuesday morning with the blowing of the שופר is when it actually really comes in. It's like a twilight zone between Monday night and then the first שופר blowing. It's always this very, just got to lay low. You have to lay low, all the צדיקים speak about this from the time יום טוב comes in until the blowing of the שופר, it's really בכסה ליום חגינו.
Everything is concealed.
חסידים, you know, a lot of חסידים don't even speak. Very interesting first night יום טוב meals, you know. Just got to lay low, there's a whole new rush of energy that's coming to the world.
גיוואלד, do we need it so badly. And to trust the ריבונו של עולם that he looks at us, רחמנא ליבא בעי, he sees our hearts. Our hearts have never wanted more closeness to השם than ever before. To trust these emotions and go into יום טוב בשמחה and ביטחון, that we're going to נשמע ונתבשר בשורות טובות on all fronts.
אמן. And obviously, the front that matters most to us is our home front. And if we could just continue to משקיע in it with ביטול and הכנעה and openness and love and a real רצון to understand השם dreams for us, we are going to be living good news and we're going to bring נחת to our children. Our children should never work on bringing us נחת, ever.
Sure. We should bring נחת to our קינדערלעך בעזרת השם. Alright. A good יום טוב.
Good יום טוב.