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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.
בוקר טוב, good morning.
שבוע טוב. We are learning all the שיעורים in the month of חשוון לעילוי נשמת בסיא פייגא בת ישראל, לעילוי נשמת לוי בן יוסף, and for the רפואה שלמה of עליזה חנה בת נעמי and שושנה יונה בת איילו.
You don't mind just if someone can close the door. Thank you. All right, so you have the pages in front of you. And what's very important is a brief reminder, a שטיקל reminder about how we ended last week's שיעור, what was going on.
And I also just want to say יישר כוח for whoever, whoever did this לכבוד ממש רחל.
תרי"ג and the Gingi Paz? The one who did the קוגל for the רב on פורים. Mufi ישראלי. Elad.
Oh, Elad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
לכבוד ממש רחל. Okay, so I want to, I want to remind us all, and also just to say something בגדול about these classes is that even if something small מתחלחל פנימה, even like if one הברקה of one moment of thinking of attempting to look at my relationship with my children in a fresh way, in a brighter way, even if one moment of it went inside, telling you אשריכם, אשרינו.
Like one little turn towards one direction for one second can really מעורר things in a in a really big way. So hold on, even if things haven't been completed yet, hold on to the to the things that are going in subconsciously.The last thing we learned is about when people, people are clearly under the assumption that when it comes to relationships between husband and wife, when it comes to those relationships, of course it's דו סטרי, which means it meets each other. You got to always meet each other, you got to see each other. You got to work on that קשר נפשי.
Remember, it originated with a קשר נפשי. And with a child, it didn't originate with a קשר נפשי, even though you may feel you connected to the soul of your child and you know them really well. It originated by just you giving and the child receiving and that lasts for a very long time. By some it's longer than others.
Now here's why it's a little bit, here's where it gets a little bit complicated and a little bit confusing. We need to really put a lot of כח into understanding the following notion is that when a couple struggles, לא עלינו, they have some kind of base, they have some kind of a base to to to resort to. Because they remember, remember when we just saw each other for who we were? You know, remember when we first met? A husband and a wife when they're going through trouble. Remember when we first met? And back then it was just like we saw all these things in each other.
And all we wanted to do was to know it, to know to know each other more and to connect more on that. That's when it comes to a couple that has a, may have an issue, so they can resort to that. Imagine if parents are are having a fight with their child or vice versa. So it doesn't make sense to say that a child says to the parent or that a parent says to the child, remember when we just fell in love with each other? Can we go back to that? No.
Why? Because the parent fell in love with the child way before the child began to notice or to realize or to acknowledge the parent. So it doesn't work the same way. It doesn't work the same way. But reminding you all that every child is a תולדה.
This is the word we said last time. Every child is a is a product of a קשר נפשי. Right? That remember we were learning that last week? Every child's a product of a קשר נפשי, and therefore, it's in there too. This second level of relationship has got to be in there also, because the kid's DNA is composed of a strong קשר נפשי that existed between the parents.
It's like the stamp on their on their נשמות that lasts with them forever. Yeah. If this is, I think it's directly related but it's off topic for this morning's learning, but I was thinking about your question of why you said he didn't start the תורה with the relationship between a parent and child, like with קין and his parents. We started with אדם וחווה.
But then over this week I was thinking, well, but doesn't the תורה really start with our relationship with השם? So like, I wasn't sure like what's the The the Jewish relationship starts with a person and God, אברהם אבינו, yeah. But humanity doesn't, necessarily. So humanity you're saying begins with the, with אדם. I think you would agree that humanity starts with אדם וחוה, no? No? Of course you do.
Everyone does, yeah. Okay, we'll get back to it if it comes up again. It's simply a moment where where אדם and השם are in existence together before חוה is, there is a relationship. It's something that gets missed and messed up very fast, also.
So it's it's not really on topic of this, but I hear, yeah. That's okay. It's good, it's good.Now a קשר נפשי, like we're saying right now before we go back into the text, is a relationship that's built based on הכרת הנפש. You can't have a קשר like you could say, oh I feel so close to that person.
But if you don't get to know that person, what you're saying is not really holding that much. If you say I feel connected to something, don't kid yourself and say, that must mean that our souls are intertwined. Or that must mean that I know, this is better. That does not mean that, oh, I must really know that person.
Because a קשר נפשי is when you invest to get to know that which you feel so connected to. And many people stop. I don't know where, at what point they don't push themselves to say, I'm going to go and get to know that which I feel so connected to and so drawn to. But a parent doesn't have that luxury.
And we're going to learn today about what happens when you're basing your קשר to your kid, you're under the assumption it's a קשר נפשי. Right? But nothing has ever driven you to say, let me get to know the נפש of my child. Because in your mind you're saying, I know them, I know them. Right? I know them.
And when a person says, oh I know them, I know them, that's usually when a lot of משוגעת begins to erupt between children and parents.And we're going to see this is this is really fascinating today. So on דף י"א that you have in front of you. By the way, I'm working on getting copies of the ספרים. It's not so פשוט, but I'm working on it because some of you were asking about this.
Okay, so דף י"א that you have in front of you.
חשיבות הקשר ההדדי עם הילדים.
המציאות מורה שמגיל 12, 13 והלאה, אפילו אם יש לילד דעת להבין שהיחס של הוריו אליו נובע מחמת אהבה, לפעמים הוא אומר לעצמו, טוב, נכון שהם אוהבים אותי ומעניקים לי, אבל לא זה מה שאני צריך.
הם לא מבינים מה אני רוצה.
ובלשון הכוזרי, כוונתך רצויה, אבל מעשיך אינם רצויים. This is a classic statement that we say a lot. When someone means well, but their actions aren't really what we need. What did what did the מחבר say over here? He says approximately from 12 to 13 years old, sometimes even later.
Even if a kid has the דעת to understand that he has love for his parents and that they love him, they'll come to a conclusion and say, it's true they love me, they're giving me things, but they're not giving me what I need. They don't understand what I need.The old school would say to a parent in, you know, our grandparents' era, if a kid said, you don't understand what I need, right? What would be the response? Been there, done that. You don't understand what you need. I know what you need, right? Who are you to say? First of all, there'd be a פלאק, depending what country you're in, a belt as well, but they wouldn't ever come and say, oh, you're so, באמת, you're right.
Let me work on trying to hear you and understand you. But in today's era, the things have shifted, things have been shifting, and there's this amazing opening that's we see that for a child to tell their parents in a כבודיק way to talk like this is a massive פתיחת השערים. It's a massive gate opener. If when there because there's, I don't know, I feel like there's newfound humility by certain parents.
I'm not talking about those that everything is הפקר. I'm talking about those that are really humbled and open enough to realize, you know, you're the greatest gift in the world. The children coming down before משיח is coming are the most refined נשמות. Maybe there's something that I really can only come by you sharing with me about you and not me speculating and thinking and being sure that I figured out who you are and what you need.I feel like that's much more in the air these days than it ever was.
Does anyone disagree with that? It's okay if you do. But you, does anyone, can anyone else attest to the fact that this is in the air more than definitely when we were children or when our parents were children? Yes. I want to just לחזק it. Yeah, because you can everyone said, oh, how are we going to win this war? They're all spoiled brats going into the war.
And and they became superheroes. Not just heroes, but superheroes. Right. Well, that's the thing is I don't think they became, I think that they always were.
Yeah, that's what I meant. And then it came out בדיוק, and then it came out the the ביטוי, and then it became expressed. 100%, correct. So נשוב, sorry.
The only issue is a 12 or 13-year-old will say you don't understand me, but often they don't even know what they want. They're just so confused trying to figure out who they are and what they're, and that's where some of the ציצוחים come also. Listen, it could be, but if you're going to leash back at them and say, even if they really don't know what they want and you say, you don't really know what you want, you killed it. Yeah.
No, I agree with you. I'm just saying that a lot of times they throw it out because they're בסדר, but guess what? And when you're 40, you really know what you want? I don't think you ever know what you want. I think you get closer. You have a better idea, but you have to be open to the fact that things can evolve and things could change.
As we said in שול over שבת, the world has never been moving in a faster pace. So there's this shifts and there's movements all the time. So it's never, I don't know if you could ever say, you know, and then when you reach the age of so-and-so, you're finally ready to explain to yourself and to your and those that love you, this is what I want. But definitely, the child needs to hear that there's interest, whether whether you believe they know what they want or not, the kid needs to see אכפת לה?
מעניין אותך, מעניין אותכם.
Not just אכפת לכם.
אכפת לכם means, oh, you care to let me feel heard.
מעניין אותכם is a much deeper level, which means I'm actually interested to find to hear what you have to say. Not, I'm going to show you that I care and give you space.
I'm really interested in this. That's a high high level, that's a very high level. You know, you could teachers fall into this a lot also.
אכפת לי לשמוע מה אתם חושבים, מעניין אותי לשמוע מה אתם חושבים.
And a kid as well as a student could could could kind of find out based on the יחס that's happening in the in in that relationship, is this for real or are they trying just trying to make me feel good? So we have a lot to work with with what we just said right now. But we have to remember something. And he and he he reminds us here in the second paragraph, נשוב ונדגיש. We're going to come back and emphasize.
במסגרת זו, איננו עוסקים כלל בהורים שאינם אוהבים את ילדיהם כדבעי. Meaning, we're not speaking here about children that the parents that don't really love their children like they as they should.
אלא, בהורים שאכן אוהבים ומשקיעים רבות בצאצאיהם. We're speaking about parents that love and invest so much in their children.
ודווקא משום כך עליהם לדעת, it's דווקא because of this they must know, שהאהבה כלפי הילדים אינה מהווה תחליף לבניית קשר נפשי כפול בין ההורה לחניך. I know this was a lot of Hebrew but this last sentence is crucial. He said over here like this, we're actually speaking about parents that truly do love and invest and their heart is fully in it. But they must know that love for their children that they already have is not a substitute for building a קשר נפשי that should be back and forth between parents and children.
It's a very profound statement. Does anyone not understand what he just said? Not at all? What do you mean? Love is not a תחליף, but it it's a building block. Let's call it that. So what he's saying is that you could fool yourself in thinking, not you, I'm saying anybody, that you God forbid no one personally.
What he's saying here is that you could fool yourself into being under the assumption that you really have something with your kid that is what they need and it's back and forth and the love is there, you see each other, you understand each other, you connect to each other, all based on what?
אהבה טבעית, the first type of love that we spoke about. And he's saying here, that is a big danger. So what kind of parents are we talking about? The ones that are the most beautiful ones, amazing ones, loving ones, like really amazing exceptional people. But to be under the assumption is a is a is a is a big miss, בוא אני אגיד ככה.
He's going to say it's not just a miss, it's not just a miss. It could actually mess things up tremendously. Because what happens to the person that thinks that my kid knows I love them, they know they know I love them. What happens to that parent when eventually that kid says, all you wanted was for me to know that you love me? Didn't you, were you ever interested in like finding out who I am or I'm just a product of your actions and thoughts.
So קשר נפשי is not a luxury, it's a must. You understand?
קשר נפשי is not a luxury. It's not, "Oh, some are lucky to have it." קשר נפשי, without that, the kid is gonna have look for love in the wrong places, which is our greatest fear as parents. That our children will look for love and affection and being heard and understood in the wrong places.
And then we wonder, well how could it be that they made the same mistake? Well, the kid didn't receive a קשר נפשי growing up. How could they now go out and marry someone that is not giving them that קשר נפשי that they need? They love me, they understand me, because that's all they think they need. And it's crazy and it repeats itself all the time. Till there's got to be one דור that says, let's make it clear.
Let's build this like as clear as possible and say, every parent must understand that at a certain age, and he's bringing here the years, the ages, 12 and 13. Maybe it's different. It doesn't matter, whatever it is. This is our time now to, to ממש flip over everything.
And I think that this is very משיח'דיק because the נביא says, והשיב לב אבות על בנים ולב בנים על אבותם. That's, that's the sign of משיח.
אליהו הנביא is coming to tell us משיח's coming.
והשיב לב אבות על בנים ולב בנים על אבותם.
What does that actually mean? What does that mean?
והשיב לב אבות על בנים ולב בנים על אבותם?
קשר נפשי. That's what it means. It means קשר נפשי. This is a sign of גאולה, it's a sign of משיח.
Yeah. He talks about like young children, but I mean some people in this room have older children and it's like those children, I mean I have a 40 year old son. So it's not like you get to a point that it's only that age. It could be, it's not like you're trying to perfect it, it's just to 100%.
100%. It's just that when you're able to do this work when they're younger, it's easier. I'm not going to be, yeah. It's just a little bit easier.
But אין יאוש. 100%. We said that in the first שיעור. That even though this may be a שיעור that you may, it may sound like, oh this is more for adolescents and all this, all the Torah we're learning is really שייך when you could catch them before they've seen the world and everything.
The, the, the עקרונות of how it works are true for all ages of parenting. 100%. Listen, there's people in the room that are parents of 40-year-olds, 4-month-olds, 20-year-olds. Like, it's כל הגילאים.
And I'm, it's funny, as I'm learning this, I'm thinking both, both as a father and as a son. I'm seeing it's like, it's a very interesting experience. It's a very interesting experience. Okay, so let, let's he enhances this point that you could love your kid as much as you want, but if there's no investment in קשר נפשי, that's a danger.
Now look what he says in the bottom.
ישנם אנשים שקונים מתנות כאות על כך שהם אוהבים את מקבל המתנה. There are people that buy each other gifts. You buy someone a gift as a token of, of, of the love that, that the receiver of the gift, that you have for the receiver of the gift.
דבר שמצוי אף בין בני זוג. This is found by couples.
ולעיתים מתברר כי אף שבחירת המתנה שנעשתה לאחר שיקול דעת של הנותן, אולם הבחירה נעשתה לפי מה שהוא סבור שחסר למקבל בשעה שהמקבל היה זקוק לדברים שונים לחלוטין. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable if this happened to you in your life.
But either on the receiving or the giving end, but you could feel so good about yourself by that you purchased a gift or an item or whatever, a present, towards someone that's on the for the receiving end. And it's true that the concept of buying a gift came from you, but the בחירה of what the person needs also came from you where it should have come כביכול through thinking about them and what they need. You hear the difference? Not raising hand times for a שיעור, but this is definitely something that happens, right? At the, like you were so excited. Like I bought, I, I, I got this for you.
It's like one time this happened to me after a year of teaching in a certain institution and the kids that I thought like were connecting with me, I could tell like it's okay, they, they got me, they got me something at the end of the year because that's what you do, right? But when I looked at the ספר they got me, I looked at them and I, and I said, you really weren't with me all year. Right? I don't know, I had this moment of, it's like, you really, I thought we were somewhere and we were בכלל, we're not, we're not on the same, we're not on the same place. Huh? Coffee mugs. Or like whatever, when a friend buys you a salt and pepper shaker for a wedding gift, you know, things like when somebody you thought was like so.
So what is he, what is he saying over here? Even when we have good כוונות, that's what that's the point here. Even when we had good כוונות, we're still kind of unaware or are not or assuming that that whole piece of, let me find out with the love that I have for the person, let me invest more in what they need and stop thinking about what I think they need. Let me find out more what they need. So in, listen, in פנימיות התורה, what is this called? There's a concept for this.
It's called בירור הרצון, which means to clarify the will. That the will of השם should become clearer to you and that you should become clearer to yourself as to what you want. Now when you know what the person wants because they know what they want and they're able to express it, and you find out and you give it to them, that's גן עדן. It's also called the reality that was in the בית המקדש.
Why? Because in the בית המקדש, there was a concept that's called הארת הרצון. That means that the will was illuminated. The רצון, when you walked into the בית המקדש, the רצון was crystal clear. It was very clear.
Whose רצון was clear? And? And you. You knew exactly what השם wanted, but it came through finally understanding what you want from life as well. And therefore, whatever, this week is ר' שלמה's יארצייט, so these תורות are like popping up more. Therefore on שבת we say, like שבת is the time that we have this עניין of מקבל, משפיע and מקבל, like exactly what we're speaking about but in like the closest we'll get it till משיח comes.
And on שבת we say והנחילנו השם אלוקינו that השם give us our נחלה. What? What's our נחלה?
באהבה וברצון.
השם, show me what I really love and show me what I really want. That's what ר' שלמה explained based on רבי נחמן, that that thing we say every single שבת.
Right?
והנחילנו השם אלוקינו באהבה וברצון. All a parent wants to give over to their children is that they feel love and they feel a רצון from their parents to get to know their kid. That's all a child wants. This is everything.
And you can't fake it. Right? You can't fake, this doesn't mean by the way that this means that you should let everything go as long as the kid knows, מה פתאום. I'm talking about מתחת, לפני השטח, like beneath the surface. What's lying beneath the surface of all this קשר נפשי talk? Yeah, Sarah.
It's not so on topic, I'll ask it later. Okay, if it comes back later, that's fine. question, but it's מאה אחוז. Now look at the second, end of the second line over here.
האם קניית המתנה שנעשית מחמת אהבה מוכיחה שיש לנותן קשר נפשי כפול עם הצד השני? Does the purchase of the gift which originated from love, does it prove that there's a קשר נפשי with the other side? No?
התשובה ברורה היא לא, שהרי ילד שקונים לו מתנה כאשר הוא בגיל שנה וחצי, כמובן שאין זה מורה על כך שיש כאן קשר נפשי כפול. It's not a both. You buy a kid a toy when they're 18 months old, that doesn't prove, and they enjoy it, that doesn't prove that there's a mutual קשר נפשי going on at the same time.
כאשר אדם מעוניין לפתח קשר עם חבר חדש.
When a person wants to develop a new relationship with a new friend, תחילה הוא עורך עמו היכרות. So first you get to know the person.
וככל שההיכרות הולכת ומתחזקת, the stronger the getting to know each other goes, האהבה ביניהם הולכת ומתחזקת. The love they have for each other goes and gets stronger.
ואם כן הבסיס של ההיכרות הוא המוביל לאהבה. So the base of getting to know each other is what leads to love. That's true not by parents and children necessarily. This is true by friends, by relationships, other types of relationships.
לעומת זאת, הקשר עם הילדים נבנה הפוך. The relationship with children is built opposite.
תחילה יש את האהבה הראשונית שמוטבעת בנפשם. First there's that initial love that's embedded in their soul.
ואף שאהבה מצד even though the love from the parents will always be greater, skip the next thing, אולם אף לילדים ישנה אהבה טבעית כלפי הוריהם, but still there is natural love children have for their parents. But only afterwards, ולאחר מכן עליהם לפתח קשר של היכרות. It's only after the love is there, do they have to, the love coming from the parents, there's then a need for a development of a קשר נפשי. And this is something like we said before, makes it much easier for later on in life.
דבר המקל משמעותית בבניית קשר נפשי המבוסס על הדדיות בין ההורים לילדיהם. This is something that makes it much easier to build a soul connection which is based on mutuality between parents and children.
עם זאת כמובן שלהשגת תוצאות חיוביות בחינוך, it's clear that to reach positive and good results when it comes to education, אין די בקשר של היכרות בלבד. It's not enough just to know each other.
אלא רק כאשר הוא משולב עם האהבה. How do you say משולב? Intertwined. Intertwined, yeah. When it's intertwined with love, בכוחו לסייע בהעברת המסרים והתכנים כדבעי.
This is amazing.Every parent will always have a lot that they want to give over to their children. He's saying over here, the goal over here of developing the קשר נפשי is not just to rely on, oh, connecting to each other by hearing each other's interests and by caring about each other, but that that which you wish to truly give over to your child, when it's combined, when it's intertwined with love and a קשר נפשי, that's the way that things that you want to give over to your children will go in. And maybe this is what the פסוק really means when it says, חנוך לנער על פי דרכו, גם כי יזקין לא יסור ממנה, which means that when you're able to develop a קשר נפשי with each child in accordance to what, to where they are and what they need and what interests them, and there's love in it, because there's the natural love that's combined with the קשר נפשי, that which gets then transferred to the children through teaching, through educating, through examples, גם כי יזקין, even when they get older and they get out of the house, לא יסור ממנה, they'll never go astray from what was received in such a pure, beautiful way of receiving. They'll always stay with them.
Always.That's the dream. What's that? The funnel, and it all went in. But it's amazing that you're saying that because it's like, he used that word so much in the beginning to ingrain into us that you need a funnel. Then he dropped it, and he's talking about this קשר נפשי.
Maybe he'll say at the, you'll see here, he will say later on that this really is the funnel. The קשר נפשי is the funnel for that which you know, not just you want to give over to your children, you're חייב to give over to your children. This is a מצוות עשה. This is not like, it's nice if it works out.
You have to keep שבת. Yeah, you also have to educate your children.
ושננתם לבניך ודברת בם. Without getting into all the מחלוקת between men and women and parents, you know, mothers and fathers in teaching children.
It's on all of us. This עניין is on all of us. And I'm sure that even if it wasn't a מצווה, this is something we would treat as קודש קדשים anyway. But of course it is.
This is the funnel. It's called the קשר נפשי. The בלי זה, it'll be very hard for things to really seep in.Now this doesn't guarantee anything right now because you have to figure out how this works individually with each child. And it's sounds exhausting, but it's really worthwhile.
And it can be even very fun at certain times in life too. Very, very fun. Because you don't feel if you're a teacher and you hear this, you're like, you mean I have to basically teach my whole life and all day. No, because it doesn't, it's not like a teacher in a classroom.
It's you, you go into this place of a קשר נפשי with children, and the way of teaching becomes so organic and natural and received. Before you know it, the receiver wants to hear more of what you have to offer. And it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Okay, let's continue a little bit.הוכחה לדבר.
So here, מחילה from the shrinks in the room. Okay? Are there any, are there any therapists? Yeah, yeah. Yael, this, I wonder, I wonder how you'll take the next paragraph. No, no.
He's not bashing, this is not a bashing. It's just, it's interesting how he puts certain things into context. I'd actually be interested in what you think about this. I'm always, I didn't mean that.
I mean I'm always interested in what you have to say, just here definitely because of the next paragraph.הוכחה לדבר. A proof.
ישנם יועצים פסיכולוגים שיושבים עם המטופלים שלהם, כמה עשרות פגישות ומכירים אותם היטב. You have psychologists that sit with their clients.
Clients is a bad word. That sit with people that come to them for help, for, for a number, he says עשרות, tens of meetings, and they get to know them pretty well.
ובכל זאת אינם מסוגלים לסייע להם לצאת מהסבך הנפשי בו הם מצויים. And even though they know them, they're not able to take the person out of the סבך.
סבך means like the mess, the inner muddle that they're in.
מדוע? How come?
מכיוון שאותם פסיכולוגים, not all פסיכולוגים, he says those types of psychologists we're talking about right now, הם אנשי רוח שכליים קרים. This is interesting. How would you say this?
אנשי רוח שכליים קרים.
Cold intellectuals. But there's one more word. Spirits. Yeah, so there's like, it's interesting because if it was just cold intellectual, I'd understand, but because he says they're אנשי רוח שכליים קרים, But doesn't that mean like full of air? Yeah, it could just be philosophical.
It sounds more like they're following the textbook. I have to do A, B, and C, and they're not listening to the patient, they're just following the steps. And they know, but the point is is that they've also gotten to know the person. They're not talking to some, to a stranger.
They've gotten to know. So here he says like this: שאומנם ברשותם ידע רב והבנה בנפש האדם. As a, as a כלל, they've learned the anatomy of the brain, right? Or even the anatomy of the soul. They've learned the נפש of the אדם, like בגדול how it works.
ואף יתכן שהם יכולים לחלק עצות שונות. They could even give different pieces, words of counsel and advice.
אולם אין להם רגש כלפי המטופל. But they don't have רגש, they don't have an emotional sense of the one that they're treating.
Now in some schools of thought, they would say that's actually healthy. They they shouldn't have. You can get too sucked into it like that, and then it'll blind you. He's not saying what's right or wrong, bad or good, he's describing a reality.
Okay?
ולכן אין די בידע שלהם לסייע לה. So therefore it's not enough, they don't have enough in their knowledge. Their knowledge can only get them so far so they can't really help the person that's that that needs a certain type of help.
לעומת זאת, on the other way, right? on the other flip side of the coin, לעומת זאת אצל הורים רבים המצב הוא הפוך.
By many parents the situation is completely opposite.
יש להם אהבה ורגש כלפי ילדיהם. They got so much love and emotions for their children, אבל אין להם קשר נפשי והבנה אמיתית של צרכיהם. But they don't really have a true and real understanding of what their children need.
ולכן אף שודאי יש להם בסיס חיובי איתן ויציב. Even though they definitely have a positive and rock solid base for their love for their children, אולם מבסיס בלבד, with only with going with what you have as a base which is natural love, לא ניתן לבנות את אישיותו של הילד. So now he just revealed what he feels is one of the עבודות of parents. And what is that? Character building.
Character building. This is a very interesting מהלך that some would say, that's not, you're here to help your kid develop the way that they're, they'll naturally do and everything. I don't think that he's saying over here it's on you to create what your what your child looks like. But השם trusted this child to grow up in your arms.
And השם didn't make a mistake. And this is what we have to always come back to when we're learning these things. You can learn all the different שיטות of what works or what doesn't work, but you, we, I say you, we, I'm a parent. All of us have to always come back to the אמונה שלמה that השם did not make a mistake by giving us the children that we have.
He also didn't give us the children that we have so that we mold them to our perfect mold of what makes sense to us as a מוצלח kid, as a successful child. And I just want to say, I credit my my mother a lot over here because none of us turned out the way that not that they they didn't try to mold us at all, but my mother always says is that each of us came out very different and also not necessarily what the home could have molded us to be like, if that makes any sense. But she but that's actually she loves that, sincerely. I think she always did, actually.
I don't remember like I would bring home my God, in in Los Angeles, I would bring home people that if I didn't bring them home, they we would have crossed the street if we were walking down the same street. Okay? Some of this חבר'ה that I'd meet in like on the beach in in Venice Beach or in campus in Santa Monica College and all this חבר'ה, right? I wasn't bringing home חבר'ה that like would be we'd be proud to have them join on family vacations, you understand? But it was like it opened up something and then my brother with his דרך opened up something, and my sister's כמובן. And that's a and that's a wonderful thing. It's a beautiful thing.
השם doesn't, by giving you the child that השם gave you, אלף means it wasn't a mistake, but בית it also means it doesn't mean that they're going to come out looking like you, nor should they. But see what it, I think it really means from all this is that in all cases, קשר נפשי must be in order for what? For this child to have the best chance at life. When we say being the best version of them, that means reaching full potential in their character, in their אישיות. And you see kids that have characters, that their character, right? Everyone wants to be around them because they have something about them.
And the more that you get to know that, the more that you show interest in the אישיות of that child, the more the child almost also is with you and being is like, "Wow, maybe it is כדאי to get to know me. If my if the vice of God, which is my parent, is interested in knowing me, maybe maybe it's כדאי that I should get to know myself as well." But if that's not, and again, that's resulting from קשר נפשי, but if that's not going to be something that we put energy in, it's not just that we miss out, it's that חלילה, bad stuff start happening. This is not to freak anybody out or to make anyone feel guilty.
תורה היא וללמוד אותה אנו צריכים.
This is learning Torah. So, take a deep breath with the next paragraph, okay?
הורה שאינו בונה את החינוך של ילדיו על בסיס קשר כפול, התוצאה תהיה שהוא לא יבין את צרכיו האמיתיים של הילד, ולכן בוודאי שהוא יחטיא את המטרה. He's saying over here that a parent that doesn't build the the world of חינוך of their children on the basis of a קשר נפשי, the result will be that you will never come to understand what your children really need. And then what will be the end result of you as a parent in the form of like shooting a free throw? You miss.
Doesn't mean you didn't shoot the free throw. Shooting the free throw means you tried something. You had a kid, you tried something.
אבל יש החטאה.
You missed it. You missed the point.
ובעומק, deeper, הורה שמחנך את ילדיו הבוגרים על בסיס אהבה ורגש לבד, הרי שהוא מתייחס אליהם בדרך שמתאימה לגיל הינקות בלבד. And if you don't tap into this קשר נפשי and you say my kid just needs to be pampered and loved, you're going to end up treating them like a toddler when they're 14.
And it's not what they need. That's not what they need either.
כמובן שלא שייך להתייחס לילדים בוגרים כפי שמתייחסים לתינוקות. And he's saying of course you don't treat, you know, we don't treat kids at an older age in life the way that they're treated like a baby.
Sometimes I do this with with some of my older kids and I'll start talking to them like I'm talking to our baby. But she'd stop. It's not cute. They don't they don't...
But I'm thinking of because it's exactly what he said. It's like not even as funny, it's not even they're looking at you and it's like this is not arousing anything needed that that anyone in this room needs right now. It's not my need, you know. We think, no, a kid still needs to, like a 12 year old still needs to feel like that kind of unconditional אהבה טבעית like like her baby sister.
No, they don't. They need to feel that on the level of where they're at right now in life, but not like... The, sixteen month old, no, sorry, fourteen month old baby sister.
הורה שיש לו קשר נכון עם ילדיו, a parent that has the right קשר with his children, הרי שיש לו דו שיח עמם.
That means you have a conversation. A דו שיח.
שיח means conversation.
דו means two way.
שבאמצעותו יקל לו לחנכם בדרך הישר. Through this two way conversation it'll be easier to be מחנך your children on the right path.
אולם כאשר הקשר אינו בנוי נכון, המצב שנוצר הוא שההורה מחלק כאין הוראות מלמעלה, והוא אף מגדירם כחינוך. what happens when the קשר is not built properly? The situation that's created is that a parent is like giving out orders from above and it's falling under the category of חינוך.
Now, in our minds, or in our parents' minds, that was the way. I'm here, you're here. That's the way השם created it. I'm saying what's going to be.
This is חינוך. Then you had a, then you have this דור of חצפה of סטרא אחרא. Not the חצפה הקדושה.
חצפה that completely rebelled with that world.
And they just dropped loads of acid and moved to Berkeley into San Francisco in the sixties. It was coming from a very righteous place to get as far away as possible as this horrific relationship between parents and children. And then their children, where many of them are my friends, are kind of coming back and saying, you know, it doesn't have to be the other extreme. It doesn't have to be the extremes.
Yeah. Doesn't have to be the extremes. Bottom paragraph. Now, look what he says here.
This is very special.
ישנם, he, he, he, he speaks about the חפץ חיים a lot through his ספרים. We would see the חפץ חיים a lot when we were learning בלבבי משכן אבנה. I don't know, whenever I see something about the חפץ חיים, I I always feel better right afterwards.
ישנם זכרונות שכתב רב חיים לייב, בנו של החפץ חיים.
אגב כאשר, we have we have memories that רב חפץ חיים's son wrote down about what it was like to grow up in his house.
אגב כאשר נרצה לבדוק כיצד נראה אדם גדול, when we want to learn what a big person looks like, נוכל ללמוד זאת מהנהגותיו השונות. We can learn from his different attributes, different ways of behavior.
אולם כאשר נרצה לדעת את היחס והקשר בין גדולי הדור לבניהם, when we want to know about the relationship of גדולי and their children, אפשר לשמוע זאת מילדיהם. You could hear from the children. The parents aren't gonna talk about it, right? The kid will talk about it. And he said ושם הוא מספר שהיחס של החפץ חיים לבניו היה יחס של חברות.
חפץ חיים's son said this, that the relationship was a relationship of friendship. That's what the kids grew up feeling from חפץ חיים.
הרי שרק הקשר ההדדי שבו הילד מרגיש כידיד עם הוריו, בנוסף לכך שהוא מרגיש את הוריו כהורים מלשון הוראה, הוא המתכון להצלחה בחינוך.
מתכון means recipe.
He says the recipe for a success in the world of חינוך is when the following happens: when a child feels both חברות and feels these are my parents. And in Hebrew the word for a parent is הורה. He's saying that comes from the לשון of הוראה, which means to teach. And when they're both there and they're working in harmony and simultaneously, he says this is the מתכון.
This is really the proper recipe. So, what we need to do is to continue to develop the proper recipe as we, as it's amazing. This is a very small ספר and we're at the beginning of a very small ספר. He has a lot here, a lot of very, I would say, they're thought-provoking ideas.
And they're, again, it doesn't have to be that everything he's saying is either like for sure yes or for sure no. But as we're on the מהלך to try to refine that which is most important to us, which is our relationship with our, with our קינדערלעך, at any age that they're in, things start to take a צורה, things start to take a form. Cause I'm sure that you've had, I'm sure, you don't have to raise your hand, I'm sure that over the last כמעט hour you've had so many thoughts. about different children.
you've had so many thoughts about yourself as a child. These are this is the type of תורה we want to learn, תורה that's going to make us think about in my life, where is it in my life? with the רצון and ביטול to get over all the how could you do this to me God, to remove ourselves from victim consciousness and be right now חדשים, feel fresh and believe that we could overcome any previous handicap that prevented us from from thinking new, from feeling new and having a new approach and attitude. Just יעל, not we're good, right? Because he didn't, right? Because he he wasn't giving a הכללה. He says, ישנם.
There are those. Okay, שבוע טוב everybody, only good news.