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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.
Good morning, the month of Iyar is sponsored by the Kram family le'ilui nishmat their aba whose yahrtzeit is today: נחום שמעון בן יצחק אריה, תהא נשמתו צרורה בצרור החיים. By the Silver family in memory of בתיה פייגא בת ישראל. Yeah, there is more pages for whoever needs. And anonymously in memory of all the holy chayalim that give their lives and the ones who are working tirelessly to protect us in the land.
The week is sponsored by Miriam and Avram Deutsch le'ilui nishmas Avram's grandparents אברהם אבא בן זכריה ושרה בת יוסף and other family members that perished in Auschwitz on Kaf-Dalet Iyar which is tomorrow. Also the week is sponsored by Mindy Barad, refuah shleimah for the chayal hakadosh ישראל אליהו בן סמדר who was injured badly this past Shabbos in Lebanon. Okay, that's it for today, yofi. So we have, we always have, does everyone have the pages? Everyone has, that's enough, right? We always have this inyan when it comes to parenting methods.
There's an inherent need to humble ourselves whenever we approach something that we're learning because we may meet a scenario in which we're shown that we're doing something that maybe the kavanah is really, really holy and good, but the result can be off. And that's very hard because we take such pride in our parenting because we work so hard. It's the thing we put most effort in. And then when, and especially in a certain inyan when you have a certain shitta and then someone shows you and says what's the lashon כוונתך רצויה מעשיך לא.
Your kavanah is wanted, it's desired, it's good, but the actions that end up coming from it is not so much. So we have to just, just like a little, it's like a little hachanah for what we're going to see today because this topic is very, very interesting. It's one that's close to my heart that if I had a month of, of absolutely no, like nothing to do besides just hang out with my kids in a park for a little bit and then have hours to write, I know what I would write, I know what I would daven over and then write over, and that's the whole concept of kids in shul. I would talk about, I would like pour out, like kids in shul in every context, from every single angle.
And here we see in the sefer, he comes here and he brings up a very interesting chidush, not about anything that's, I don't think it's anything that's going to be too foreign to us, but it's a way of looking at something in a new perspective. Very interesting angle. What we've been learning in this Sunday morning shiur on parenting has to do with chush hatam. You remember this? Chush hatam, the taste buds, where we have to be very open to see what do our kids like.
We were talking about that in the context of food. Just food, just food. Here we're seeing that it's, the tam aspect is not just about food, it's about a lot of different areas. There's going to be two examples of how this is developed, but buckle up, it's going to be interesting today.
So you see in the middle of daf Samech-Zayin that you have: התמודדות עם הקושי לכוון כראוי בתפילה. So this is the difficulty of having, this could be for kids, for adults too, right? The dealing with having a hard time having kavanah during davening. This is clearly not just for kids, but since this is a book on children, it's in the context of children.
ננקוט דוגמא נוספת של דברים מצויים מחיי היום-יום שבהן ניתן לשלב את עולם הרגשות ובאמצעותן נשתדל להעמיק יותר בדברים.
We're going to give another example of things that we find in our day-to-day lives where there must be some type of involvement of the world of feelings and emotion, and through this, we'll be able to deepen everything we've said until now. Kol av ragil. Now you can if you want add in here kol em regila. Just remember the circles that he's writing from is generally that the father would take a child to shul.
The mother doesn't go to shul that much in the circles where the rav is coming from. But let's say like this: כל אב רגיל לקחת את הילד עמו בשלב מסוים לבית הכנסת. Every parent at a certain point takes their children to shul.
כל אחד כפי שיטותיו ודרכיו.
Each person in accordance to their own shittot. Be'eizeh gil, at what age, l'kamah zman, for how long, ובאיזה תפילה או חלק ממנה. And for which davening or which part of whatever davening and each person it's different. There's no halachos here, right?
את הבחירה בנושא סבוך זה נשאיר למומחים בדבר.
Choosing exactly the perfect thing to take your children for, we'll leave that to professionals. But We just know that this is something that every parent at a certain time decides to start taking their children.
לאחר שהחלטנו בדבר המועד הטוב ביותר עבורו, when we decided what would be the best time to bring the child, הילד מתלווה לאביו בשעה טובה, the child escorts the parent in a good time, נמצא לידו בבית הכנסת, it's hopefully by its parent in shul, ולאחר מכן הוא חוזר הביתה, and then after a while the child comes home.
כעת האמא שואלת את הילד, after the kid comes home, "Nu, היה טוב בבית הכנסת?" Was it good in shul?
ונניח שהתשובה היא חיובית, let's say the answer is positive, yes.
האם זאת תשובה מספקת? Is that enough of an answer? Is that really a satisfying answer? I'm gonna say this now out of the text. Kid comes home after it was brought to shul for a certain, it could be five minutes, it could be half an hour, it could be for five minutes during kriyas haTorah, it could be for an hour that covers Shacharis and kriyas haTorah, it doesn't matter. That's not the point. The focus here now is that when the child comes home and the mother says, "How was shul?" and if the answer is "Yeah, it was good," is that really tending to the purpose and the point of what we're trying to mechaven by the child when the answer is just a general yes? He's going to explain this better.
כמובן שבגיל הקטן יותר, when the child's younger, כאשר הילד אפילו אינו יודע לקרוא כדיבעי, when the child doesn't really know how to read yet, אין טעם לשאול אותו ממה הוא נהנה. There's no point in asking him what exactly did you enjoy in shul?
שהרי ברור לנו שכל ההנאה או חלקה הגדול הנה מעצם כך שהוא מרגיש גדול בזה שאבא לקח אותו because a child probably feels good because they feel like they are bigger, they've become bigger. Ow wow look at me, I'm at an age that Abba takes me to shul or that Imma takes me to shul. They they feel whenever a kid, I remember a specific memory, I'm like seven years old and I remember the moment that I first ate a beef stew that my mother made that my father used to love, that when I was mamish sitting as a little kid in LA and feeling so cool that I'm sitting at the table with my father eating a dish that none of my younger siblings ate yet because they weren't, they were too young, but I was big enough now to eat.
I don't remember if I liked it or not, lo meshaneh. What the point, sorry Mom if you're listening, the point is that I felt privileged because ani gadol. Whenever a kid is young and they feel big, that's the greatest thing in the world, right? So when the child's little and they don't know how to read, they don't know what's really going on in the siddur or whatever and the question is like, oh how was shul? So when they don't know how to read and everything, so the answer is positive, great. But when the older they get and you ask and you want to find out what really was good for you in shul, that's the question that this mechaber is making us ask.
We're in the bottom paragraph on the fourth line.
ואף כאשר הילד גדל, even when the kid gets older, והוא כבר בשל להתחיל לקרוא את מילות התפילה, and the child now could start to read the words of davening, ברור לכולנו שכמעט אינו מבין אף מילה, it's clear to all of us he barely understands a word, שהרי די בכך שהילד למד את אותיות האלף-בית עם ניקוד והוא כבר יכול להתחיל לדקלם. Sometimes for olim parents they make us feel very embarrassed that our children are able to read Hebrew much better than us at a much younger age and at a much faster pace. It's a beautiful thing, it's nachas, it should be a good thing for you for those that have ever come across that thing.
So he says, okay, kid gets a little bit older, now they could read even though they don't understand anything.
ובייחוד שחלקם של המילים קשות להבנה והם למעלה מתפיסתו, especially since some of the words are very hard to understand and they're above his ability to chap, ואף את החלק שהוא מסוגל להבין במקצת, and even the part that the child's able to understand a little bit, המציאות מוכיחה שבקצב ובמהירות שזה נאמר אין לו אפשרות להתרכז כראוי ולהבין כמעט אפילו מילה אחת. So even if a child's able to read, because of the pace of shul, they can't really understand what's going on and what's been seen from here. U'vechol zot nonetheless next page.
אם נשאל את הילד, if we now, this is where now it starts to open up. If we ask the kid לאחר שהוא כבר התחיל להתפלל מתוך הסידור, after he already started davening from the siddur, האם הוא נהנה בבית הכנסת? Do you enjoy shul?
בדרך כלל תשובתו תהיה חיובית. Like a kid's generally gonna say, "Yeah, it was good." Ulam hava nitbonen, but let's take a deeper look, מהו הגורם של אותה הנאה? What causes the enjoyment that the kid says he enjoyed himself? What is the reason behind his enjoyment? Now, why is that important? Can't we just leave it alone and be like, "Yeah, the kid had a good experience, he said good"? What do you think he's getting to? Why is it important to try to understand what exactly the kid enjoyed in shul and not be satisfied with just the question of was it good, was it a good experience? What do you think? But not everybody at once. Yeah, so what do you think? Why is it important to ask a child what exactly did you enjoy in shul? What's the danger in asking such a question? Getting response like the candy.
Right, which I hate to break it to many of us, that is their enjoyment in shul, and guess what? That's actually, they're not doing anything wrong by that. They're a kid. So, of course, if a kid goes to shul, they could barely keep up with reading, maybe they even start to read, but they know that they can get a candy or a few candies and they come home and they're honest and you say, "What was your favorite part of shul?" and they say, "Candies," at least, at least we know what's making them happy. Chushatam, going back to chushatam.
But they expect a kid that's five or six or seven years old to come home from shul, you ask them, "How was shul?" and they say it was positive, it was good. What, what was it? Well, I really, when the chazzan chose the niggun for mimkomcha, I really felt elated and elevated, right? Now, each kid, each age, it changes by the ages. It's never, this doesn't stay stagnant. This is always changing.
It never—this is a very interesting thing by the child, it's like from the age I would say of like seven till their bar mitzvah, there's a huge shift that goes very fast in terms of their relationship with the experience in shul and with the siddur. And then, hopefully, it continues to grow after that. But these are not things that stay stale; they change fast. Now let's see how he continues to build this up, the second paragraph.
בחלק מהמקרים התשובה לכך היא שאותה הנאת ילדות שנגרמה לו מעצם ההרגשה שהוא גדול והולך יחד עם האב נמשכת אף עתה. It could be when the kid was five and got really excited that Abba is taking me to shul or Ima is taking me to shul and they felt big, is the same sensation that they feel also when they're seven or eight. I think it dies down earlier, but sometimes, he says, that could be the thing that they feel big, that they feel, they feel mature, they feel special, they feel like they've graduated somewhere.
ובחלק מהמקרים האמת הפשוטה היא שהוא אכן כבר לא נהנה ללכת לבית הכנסת אולם מכיוון שהילד ברוך השם אינו מרדן ואבא או אמא מבקשים ממנו ללכת לבית הכנסת הוא קם והולך אפילו אם אינו מרגיש טעם מיוחד בכך, which some of you may think that that's still good chinuch.
I'm not saying yes or no. He's going to show us that that's actually not. But what did he just say over here? Sometimes the simple truth is it's clear the kid doesn't like going to shul anymore, but since the kid in his nature is not a rebel, and Mommy and Daddy, Abba and Ima are asking to keep on going to shul, so he goes, even though he doesn't feel any special ta'am, but he just keeps on doing it. So now he asks a very good question, Mah hi hatoledah mikach? What is, how do you say toledah? Results? Result, outcome, like the eventual outcome.
Like literally toledah means offspring, right?
אלה תולדות יצחק בן אברהם, but like what, what happens from this afterwards, after a while. Hayeled gadal, the kid grows up.
הוא נהיה בן עשר, בן שתים עשרה, בן חמש עשרה. Our boys and girls then are ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, ועדיין אין לו טעם בתפילה, and they still have no ta'am, ta'am.
They don't, they don't have any special taste in the davening. Ve'im nevakesh mimenu... vaya'aneh lanu bechinut and if we push them to be honest with us, הרי שאף כאשר הוא יהיה בגיל עשרים או שלושים, they could reach the age these children of being twenty or thirty.
ויתכן אף כשיגיע לגילאי ארבעים חמישים, they could become forty years old and fifty years old.
כאשר הוא כבר מביא את הנכד שלו לבית הכנסת, again this isn't from Kiryas Sefer where maybe this happens more common that fifty year olds are already grandparents. hu yodeh, the person will admit, if they're real, שהטעם שלו ושל נכדו בתפילה שווה, that his feeling and his grandchild's feeling in davening is equal.
ואף יתכן שלנכד יש יותר טעם ממנו, could be the grandkid even has more of a taste in davening than he is.
שהרי סוף סוף לנכד יש את עצם ההנאה מכך שהוא גדול והולך לבית הכנסת, because the grandson has some kind of enjoyment that he's a big boy and he goes to shul.
But the older person that's now forty or fifty that still goes to shul, I see this all the time, not everywhere, it's all over the board. When the kid was younger, no one ever tried to focus them on what's your ta'am of shul? Like what is special for you in shul? The inyan was chinuch, a child goes to shul, zehu. So they grow up with that and they just keep on going to shul. So they're forty and fifty and they're still going to shul, but there was never any discovery of what's your ta'am, what's special for you, what do you taste when you go to shul?
ואף לא דאגו לפתח אצלו את הטעם לאחר מכן.
And because parents never asked the question what was special for you, they never bothered developing what they would if they would get an answer, they never bothered developing what they would hear, an answer they would hear. Give another example. Kids come home from school. How was school? I was just thinking.
Right? It's a good, it's a nice question. How was school? Good. Really? What? What was good? So in parenting classes they actually say not to ask that. Not to ask what was good? What did you experience anything? What was good? So that then you could develop based on their response, oh this is where you're holding? This is what touches you? Ah let's develop this.
It's the same thing. Same exact thing. Or you can go through the whole process of a kid's not a rebel. Some kids are not rebellious, I know it's a chiddush, but some kids are actually not rebellious and they do the right thing, but the chush hata'am, meaning what talked to them in learning, what talked to them in a relationship with the teacher was never discussed.
It was just a general question of how was shul, how was school. So I never find out the chush hata'am. And the reason why you have to ask it really is he's saying over here because then you have the beauty, the beautiful privilege to develop it, to work on it, to then focus in on their chush hata'am, on their sense of taste.
ואם נשאל אותו בגיל עשרים, אם כן מדוע הוא הולך לבית הכנסת? So why are you going to shul?
תשובתו תהיה כי חייבים ללכת, because you have to go to shul.
אכן ודאי שחייבים ללכת. He's not trying to discourage us from sending people to shul, אבל לא חייבים ללכת בלי טעם. And this is a very important statement. There's no obligation to go to shul without a ta'am.
Like in our minds of chinuch, what's more important? This is very interesting. The way that things present themselves in our heads, in our hearts. What's more important? That our kids go to shul or that our kids go to shul and discover a ta'am there? And let's say they may not discover a ta'am there but they let you know that there's no ta'am in where they're going. So what would be more important al pi chinuch, what do you think? It's a catch-22, right? It's a tricky thing.
If you say something that is not speaking to them, right so a parent might say failure, then it's a failure in your relationship with them. Nachon. Much more important. Yeah.
And ta'am is one piece of it. I know that my kids with ADHD and sitting in shul in most of their young life, two, five, eight, and ten, had an Abba as a Rabbi and didn't necessarily have someone to sit in shul with, but what we decided was that the access to davening later. Like for them to have grown up frum and at twenty-five years old they're like okay I'm ready to be in this spiritual amazing davening experience and for them not to have the skills was not worth it. We want them to like push them because because one day they might.
They can't get that ta'am if later they I don't know what that means. So it was ta'am no I want to I think I understand so it seems like it was ta'am-based. It's ta'am-based but in the future. Right it's going through like I'm going and hopefully it'll come.
It'll it'll eventually right and whether and then they'll have the access to the tefillah because they'll they'll know the words they'll know the process of the shul they'll know how things go as opposed to being like okay you're fourteen we give up find your ta'am we're gonna just let you find it later. It's like no you're just we're not gonna I think yeah I think I understand yeah. Anyone else have any cheshbonos yet or everyone's scared to say how many how many times they messed up in this? No not yet. I'm we're but I mean just from the speaker I don't think he's saying that if there's no ta'am then you're then you don't have to go.
He's saying you just don't have to go without ta'am meaning find the ta'am. Nachon. No no he's not he would never say that. He would never say that nachon nachon.
He's not saying that. See look how he he continues to develop this.
הורים רבים מנסים לגרום לילד באמצעות מחמאות וכדומה שיהיה לו רצון להמשיך ללכת לבית הכנסת. Oh you davened so nice.
The kid sat there didn't move bored out of his skull right? And the you come home wow you didn't move you didn't talk to anybody. Wow what a kol hakavod. But there was no ta'am there was no discovery of ta'am wonderment in the kid's experience in shul but they're being fed a bunch of compliments in order that to get them to keep on wanting to go to shul. And he says ואכן ברוב המקרים הם מצליחים בכך.
This actually works quite often.
והמחמאות מדרבנות אותו להמשיך ללכת ולא להרפות. And these compliments oh my parents said I was a good boy so I guess I should keep on going. Again this is the non-rebellious child he's speaking about over here right? Medarbenot is like medarben encouraging yeah yeah ledarben.
So he's saying quite often they'll be matzliach and these compliments encourage him to keep on going and to not let go.
אולם הבה נתבונן מה קורה כאשר הילד גדל ומתגבר. But what happens when the kid grows up?
מכיוון שהמחמאות משמשות רק כשלב ביניים. When do compliments work? At what age do compliments really work on the kid to keep on going? It's a shlav beinayim.
It's a it's a very I don't know I don't want to give an age because I I think it's different for every kid. But it doesn't really work as long-term it's a very short-term thing that keeps a kid going by by giving by giving compliments.
מכיוון שהמחמאות משמשות רק כשלב ביניים בכדי שיתרגל ללכת לבית הכנסת ואינם תכלית בפני עצמה. It's not a purpose on its own.
הרי שכאשר הוא יגיע לגיל ארבע עשרה. When the kid reaches the age of fourteen.
כמובן שאף אחד לא יחמיא לו על כך שהוא הלך לבית הכנסת. No one's gonna stand up and say wow you came to shul today.
Why? It's expected already by then.
ואם כן מאחר שלא ניסינו מעולם לפתח אצלו את הטעם בתפילה. Since we never tried to develop by the child the taste of in his personal taste in davening כמובן שלא תהיה לו אפשרות לחוש את החוויה המתבקשת מהשהות בבית הכנסת ומהתפילה. That means he'll never really have the opportunity he or she will never ever have the opportunity to sense the real experience that we know that the davening and a relationship with Hashem through tefillah is really offering because we were fine with just making sure in the name of good chinuch in the name of right chinuch that a kid goes to shul.
We go to shul. Jews go to shul. There's so much to say on this be-emes there's so many ways we could we could go here I'm trying to stay strictly with the text today because it could really unleash things unless something's really burning at you to share. I'm just trying to stay really with the way that he's building this up.
The way that I'm understanding it is as follows. It's a big catch-twenty-two. It's a huge catch-twenty-two. We could say this about the whole world of Torah and mitzvos it's just that shul is something that's in our lives all the time so people that all of us could relate to.
But the question is always what's the balance between getting our kids to do what's probably the right thing versus trying to discover what's and how much to put emphasis on. What's their experience, how are they feeling it, and what would happen if chas veshalom they don't turn out the way that we envision good Jewish children turn out. What happens if their chush hatam is very different than your chush hatam? At what point in parenting do you realize that you shouldn't get too startled if your kid is not you? Or sometimes you daven for your kid to not be you and actually have a chush hatam in davening, I don't know. Yeah, Sarah.
Maybe some of us here are thinking about our husbands and not our children at this moment. What do you mean? Maybe, I don't know. Explain. About going to shul.
So what do you mean? No, I really, I'm trying to understand. About their chush hatam. Meaning our children are not old enough to have this thought yet about their chush hatam so we're thinking more about our husbands. You're saying something but you're not saying something.
Say it. I don't know. I'm not gonna... I'm not gonna tattle.
Wait, wait, what do you... you're saying that sometimes our husbands, your husbands go and they don't have a chush hatam so much. Or that then they don't go. Or then they decide not to go.
So then the child says, oh, so you have a chush hatam, so maybe I don't have to go either. Is that what you're saying? That they'll come to that conclusion? No. No, we're not even talking about kids here. Adults.
100%. Adults. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't connect, lo ba li, Corona you lost your shul, and then you don't connect but you go sometimes because you have to.
100%, it's not just about kids. Right. Oh, this is much... for me, I connect to this much more with the 40 and 50-year-old examples than kids, you should know.
100%. Betach. But I hope they would admit it too. You're saying they probably wouldn't.
No, but this whole thing of encouraging them to go. That a wife should encourage her husband to go. He's saying encouraging your kids to go to shul. Even if they haven't yet discovered...
right, so it could apply to husbands also. But also in similar is if you bring your children with you, your kavanah is not even connected to the children, I'm saying. No, no, I know, but I'm saying... if a person...
yeah, if you bring your kids with you and they're wanting any sort of attention, your ta'am is also sacrificed. Nachon. Unless it's... I think stam, it's...
depending on the age, a very fixed time and no expectations for them to sit through, you know, long... I never understood that, that parents get angry at their children for being children in shul. It's the weirdest thing in the world for me. The whole mahalach of...
now this is a whole another topic of expecting shul to be what it could be with bringing children to shul also doesn't really add up. The whole thing is a whole balagan. And yet, there's still a mitzvah of chinuch and part of the mitzvah of chinuch, what falls under it, a child should know what it's like to walk into shul. 100%.
You know in the more Chareidi circles they don't, children, no children come to shul until they're able to actually sit and daven. The kids do not go to shul at all. Which means the wives don't go to shul. Right, but the wives also don't go to shul.
The wives... okay, but don't kill me, the wives do not have the chiyuv of davening like men do. There, I said it. It's a little bit...
it's okay. Nachon? Well? So we're still trying to discover our chush hatam. Dina, you had your hand up before? Oh, sorry. There's so much to...
there's so much to say. Even if they have the chiyuv, לא חייבים ללכת בלי טעם. Even if they have the chiyuv but they don't have the ta'am. No, it's a...
okay, let me explain this.
אכן ודאי שחייבים ללכת, of course you have to go to shul, but no one said that you have to go without a ta'am. That's what he means. Meaning find your ta'am.
Yeah, meaning figure it out. Figure it out, but don't fall under this thing of... children belong in shul. Children don't belong in shul.
Many adults that come to shul don't belong in shul either. Bemet. Everyone always asks me, what do you think about kids being in shul? I always say, well, how come you're not asking me about adults? It's the same exact thing. But he's saying here something interesting.
It could be that adults that really don't have a ta'am in shul, it's because no one ever asked them, like when they were kids, what spoke to you when you went to shul? And then no one built upon that to mechaven them to that which touches them from a young age, but they got involved in the whole this is what we do business, and it keeps on going with them until they're older. Yeah. What I think Netzer is bringing up is a really important point in this because if we're, you know, starting to bring our kids to shul, but the adult... Adults who are bringing them, the parents who are bringing them don't have really their chush ta'am, like how could they possibly lead by example for their children of their own excitement of being in shul? Like a child who's young, they don't, unless they see something, they're not going to, like you said, they're not going to come home and be like "oh my gosh, that was the most beautiful tefilla, I feel so close to God now." But if they see that their dad or their abba feels excited about being in shul or davening, then they have something to go on.
But if they're not getting that from their abba or ima, right, then I feel like it is hard because how are they even going to know what that means to have a chush ta'am for sure, you know? Like what are they going off of? And then how do we expect them to develop that if we're just going because we have to go? It's a great question. Well, I'll tell you a story but first answer the end of what you just said. Because you could say in the name of chinuch, we don't always do things, we have to do things sometimes that we don't want to. But to associate shul with that is the worst thing in the world for a child to have that type of a chinuch given over regarding meeting God, regarding be'emet it's a horrible thing.
Save those "we do things that we don't always want to do" for other times, not when it comes to shul vechulu. And I'll just share with you something, I'm going to give you in a second, but I'll just share with you something very interesting. That there was a person that used to come here and bring his kids on Friday nights. And I knew and he knew that I know that this davening is bichlal not for him.
So I asked him one time, I said אחי מה אתה עושה פה? be'emet beineinu.
לא חסר פה אנשים. Like, it's not your... you know, why are you coming here? He said "Look, it skipped a gene, the whole feeling bug skipped a gene from me." I hope he meant regarding Hashem, not regarding feelings in general, right? But he said "the whole feeling thing, that skipped by me.
But you know, the davening is so beautiful here, maybe it'll just bounce off into my children." I said "Achi, but when you're here you're talking the whole time to the person next to you." He's like "Yeah, but the niggunim will echo into them, like it'll go into them." It's exactly what you're saying. I said to him, "achi ein sikui.
אתה סומך על נס.
אתה סומך על נס.
You're relying on a miracle. You're relying on a total miracle." Now, it's always be'emet taluy bechesed Hashem whether these things actually go through, but in the world of hishtadlus, that won't work. It's also so right, it's so important for us to hear and for the abbas to hear because let's say somebody hasn't found their joy in shul, but learning about this, knowing that like, oh, you're starting to take your kid and we want that for our kid, maybe it can give us like motivation to like delve a little deeper to find it for ourselves so that we can be an example for them. Nachon.
Nachon. Halevai. That's the tefilla that's coming out of here. Yes, Sarah.
I think that also, like we were saying, encouragement and wanting for our children, but for every age or stage it could be different positive reinforcement that you have for your children. Like at first it's "oh you were able to sit quietly in shul," or now like I have a son that's going to be bar mitzvah soon, that it's "oh you're getting to shul on time and you're participating and doing what else..." Like at every stage, I can't talk for spouses, but like for your children, it's encouraging them or again the positive reinforcement at any age. Like it's not lost only when they're very little. Well, I think this relates to what you said in the beginning about compliments or that positive reinforcement only works for a very limited amount of time.
At a certain point it's got to be on the kid. Right? So this, it's interesting, you're saying that your son's twelve, so at this shlav, definitely it would be... there's a boy that just started putting on tefillin and every day people are coming up to him... Right, so at this shlav it is very essential.
But then it goes away. Then the question is what do you do when like machma'ot don't work? Then it really is on the parent to have a very, very personal relationship with davening, but not... I think it means to not push it on the kid that "this is how we do it." You say "no, this is how it works for me. I don't know if this is exactly how it worked for Saba, but that's the beauty of Hashem and Yiddishkeit and our Torah is that different things work for different people and this is how it works for me." But to go back to the beginning here, parents that think that they're doing good chinuch by bringing their kids to shul when they're three and they're four and having any expectation for them to act like they're 16 is insanity.
It's pashut insanity. Or bringing your children when they're three or four or five and expecting the whole kahal of people to be okay with kids acting like they're three, four, or five is also insanity. Sorry, a little bit a little we're trying to figure out what that is. And it shifts like you said with every age.
It shifts, it shifts all the time. It's always shifting. Kids are go we reach like I don't know 35, that's it, we're 35 till we're beezrat Hashem 120. A child when they're 11, they're mamash 11.
When they're 11 and a half, they're mamash 11 and a half. When they're 11 and three quarters, they're completely different age. When they're 12 and it goes fast, fast, fast, fast all the time. Basically, I don't know if this is exactly what you're saying is that if you don't discover your own chush taam, don't think for a second that you could give this over to your child.
Yeah, or it'll just be really, really hard because they'll have to also look around. Relying on miracles. Or on somebody else. Or on somebody else that's not you.
Which is also like sad as a parent. Like I don't know, I would want it to be like... Listen, you're touching upon a very sensitive thing. I don't know if you remember this, but when I was driving by Neve Daniel the other day for something and I was with my oldest and she was she was born when we moved to Neve Daniel she was about a year old, I think o mashehu kaze, and she started going to her first maons and gans there.
She came home from this amazing gan that had just opened up there, gan Shula, and she said, when I picked her up or when she got home, for the first time ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו and I was mortified because it wasn't she learned it in gan. I remember this and I this should be every parent's tzaros but that it didn't come from me and it came from somebody else. So here you're saying like in shul when they're already older to get that experience and vibe from someone else is very it's true, it's a very big beaya. I mean we're so lucky that we're surrounded with people who like are wonderful examples for our kids and they should learn from they should learn from other people.
Our kids are mamash zoche, you know. Coming from someone who grew up in a different yishuv, like this is a game changer. I am jealous of my kids' childhood right now. Because of all the exposure that they have and the shuls they get to go to and choose from and Sfat Yeladim and Imuloch and all the people, all the different people that live here.
100% mamash in the whole area, in the whole city. Amen. Yeah, Aliza. So I'm I think because I have, you know, a three-year-old as my oldest, like I'm not connecting to the shul example, but like taking it a step back, I think he's talking about this tension between like giving like religious chinuch to your kids, like that tension between making them do something because it's the right thing to do but also allowing them to build a personal relationship with it, which like you were saying is very I don't know.
The example like I'm thinking of is like netilat yadayim with my daughter, like we keep we don't want to like force it but we also kind of want her to do it. But like do I have like a personal relationship with the mitzvah of netilat yadayim? Like no, like I probably do it because like you're supposed to do it and that's what I do in the morning and like maybe once a year I think about it, which is like really doresh from us like a lot to... What can I say? Yes. Meaning it's true.
It's listen these things come up all the time. The more your kids get older and you'll see it and they'll ask or you can even see the way they look at you, the way they observe you do things and the way that they look at you or when they verbalize and say why. Those are the those are the hardest ones, you know. Those are but those are the that's when things come to that's when chinuch really happens like that that's a hard thing, it's true.
It's true. But to sit back and say until I discover a chush taam of everything that I do I'm not doing any of it is also not our not our shita. That's not our derech either. And it's finding this balance, it's finding this middle ground, and it's also cutting ourselves slack and realizing we're doing as hopefully as well as we can while trying to, how do you know you're doing as well as you can if you're actively trying to do it better? If you're just not trying to do anything better but you fall upon I'm doing as best as I can, you're also a work in progress.
You're also trying to develop your chush taam. So you have to cut yourself some slack then I don't think anyone else... beseder. We'll get there, but as long as my kavanah is to get there and want to have a deeper ta'am with the mitzvot that my kids see me do, let's start with that and also the other things they don't see me yet do.
I really am on this path now. Okay, okay. I couldn't tell. One thing that you haven't mentioned is just like honesty, like just being really straight up with our kids and like even having that conversation of like, it doesn't come so easy for me.
Like going to shul is like a struggle, you know, but I go anyways, or I really hope when I go to beit knesset that like when I see other people singing that like that does something for me, like that's something I want, and so like sometimes I'll try this beit knesset or sometimes I'll try that beit knesset or sometimes I'll stay for like 10 minutes and sometimes... but like, I feel like having that conversation is also... Meaning saying exactly what you said to your children. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It could be exactly what they need to hear. Every child's different, 100%. Definitely, but we were told when you know, we were told to never talk like that. Like why? Because that could lead a kid to mixed dancing.
That's the joke. You know, and that could lead a kid because if you talk like that to a kid, what's the chashash? What's the fear? That they have a choice, that you're giving them choice. Yeah, that's the... so with children, that davka you...
this is only the radar that your inner mama knows, no one can tell you. With every child it's so different that there are children that that's actually the way to get them to be open to discovering their chush hatam. And there are kids that when you tell them that it may actually bring them to this place of atzma'ut, of total independence, and then throwing the whole thing away. So it's such tefillot to know what, which kid needs to hear what.
Yeah, I feel like, yeah, I don't know exactly, I can't remember who exactly was writing this, but I could imagine my hashkafa looks a little bit different in terms of my connection and way of raising children and I feel like what I felt also last time we came together to study this is like, I feel there's so much fear, like I feel like and there is, like that's there, you know what I mean? But I feel like when it comes from a place of love, it's so different. Like I feel like the underlying feeling here is like what if they don't? And that's felt. nachon, nachon. And so not, so we can't, it's as if like we can't have this honest conversation because what if? 100%.
I'm trying to point it out to show how much that's actually sheker. Operating from that place can destroy your relationship with your child. 100%. But I do feel like that's quite understandable, you know what I mean? And it's also it's real.
Like I feel like that's what's stopping us from having honest conversations with our children is like there's so much fear, like what if? nachon. What if mixed dancing? What if they decide? I was kidding about the mixed dancing. Yeah, yeah, I was mamash just saying. But that is the people that he's talking to, people that do operate from that place of fear like very much.
nachon. I think like as religious Jews, I'm not to speak for all religious Jews, I'm saying like it does feel like the underlying feeling of it all is like if we have to... it's like there's a feeling of like we have to operate from fear in order to keep this thing going. So therefore I think that this is where he really touches my heart because if he felt that that was the emet, then he wouldn't be spending so much time discovering, like focusing on chush hatam.
Because in those circles, who cares? That's not such an important thing. ma zeh meshaneh?
יהודי קם בבוקר הולך לבית כנסת, right? And he's davka addressing a world that's not used to thinking or talking like this and saying what about did you ever try to develop, did you ever try to discover what makes your children move? What makes them feel? What talks to them? And if you never ever invested any time in it, then don't expect them to have the same feelings that you've been pretending to have for 30 years. Hundred percent. I think that he's davka looking at the fear factor and saying it's not gonna, that will not work.
That won't last. Vezeh lo yelech. It won't be enough. What's that? It won't be enough.
It will never be... That's what he said like in the beginning. Right. It won't be enough.
He said האם זו תשובה מספקת meaning when a kid comes back from shul because they did the right thing and you ask them how was shul and they say good, is that really satisfying you? He's saying to the parent, האם זו תשובה מספקת? Don't you... do you really... don't you want more than that? It has to be more than that. I was...
this morning when I dropped off our fourth kid, so I always say to her something that I thought "Oh, she gets me, it's so deep" and after like a year she's like "You know, Abba, I never understand what you say". I say it should be a day full of wonder instead of saying wonderful. So she's... so recently she admitted, she said "You know, Abba," you know, she gets like "I don't really understand what you say whenever you say that".
I'm like, and in my heart I'm like "A whole year of dropping her off and while going to shul, my kid's going to be full of wonder" and she had no idea what I was talking about. But today I thought about Isidor Rabi for some reason. I mentioned his name before. He was a Nobel Prize winner, I don't remember what it was exactly, I heard from Rabbi Jacobson one time that when he was awarded his Nobel Peace Prize, so he said that all children when they come home are asked "Did you have a good day?" and he said "And the answer is always yes".
He said "But my mother said", this guy, he's a yid, Isidor Rabi said, "My mother asked me, Izzy, did you ask any good questions today?" And it's so... it's so deep, it's so important. This is discovering chush hatam. A question like that, that's discovering chush hatam.
It's about if a kid comes home from shul and you say to them, you say "Did you feel something today in your heart that you've never felt before?" And if they say "No", and then you continue the conversation and say "Well, did it bother you that you didn't feel anything?" Meaning, this is the honest conversation you're speaking about.
כן והם מסוגלים לזה, they're open for it. The only thing is, so what's... so what do you have to do when you realize the answer becomes more and more "No" and "No"? You have to build a shul, you have to build a community that you believe can give the children the opportunity to lefateach their chush hatam.
I pray about it every single day. I pray over it every single day. Every single day. Of course.
Alavai. Alavai needs such siyata d'ishmaya for such a thing. And it doesn't mean that you change the shul to become a kindergarten because "Oh, this will be the way that they'll lefateach chush hatam".
זה גם לא זה.
It's a big tefillah. It's something, you know, I don't think that this has been figured out, the code's been cracked and now there's a textbook for it. There isn't. Because every place is different, and every place has its own chiyus, its own nature.
But as long as we're opening up this conversation and understanding that good chinuch cannot only mean that I figured out a way to encourage my kid to go to shul. That maybe shlav alef and at the right time and right age, but to then be interested in trying to figure out what is it about their experience touched them, or being open enough to hear that the experience didn't touch them, now you could start to really... now you have something to work with. Now Sarah, we could get to what you brought up.
It's a whole 'nother world. It's good, I won't say anything. It's very, very, what you bringing up is like zeh chashuv me'od, zeh chashuv me'od. At a certain point, I'm sure that many of you have seen your husbands go through syndromes of...
in the name of authenticity, not going to shul or not wanting to go to shul, lo yodea mah. And it's... I always wonder, I always wonder if I didn't have to come to shul all the time, would I begin to allow myself to explore the notion of the breather, you know, like there's these mountains here gevaldig on Shabbos morning, just going up there. I'm not going to pretend here to tell you "No, my nature is I was always a minyan-goer", mah pitom.
We lived in Neve Daniel for two and a half years. I couldn't find anywhere to, I mamash, I pashut lo matzati. Shabbos was a Chabad, I loved it. It was quiet in the back.
I loved it. I could get there a little bit early, learn some Chassidus because they start so much so later there. It was great. No one knew who I was, and then Baruch Hashem, a friend of mine ruined it.
I would have stayed in that shul forever, a friend ruined it when he came one time and he went to the gabbai and he said, "You know, he could be the shliach tzibbur," Yedidi Jason Rouseman. He said, "You know," he went to the chazzan, "you could be a shliach tzibbur." And then he comes to me and I told him, "I'm not. I don't know what he told you." And then he said, "No, no, no, I actually remember seeing you somewhere. You are a chazzan.
You could be a chazzan." And he says to me, "And you hear us, we're all, we, you know, you hear the davening here every Shabbos. What are you doing?" And then we had to move to Efrat. Yeah, yeah, Baruch Hashem. Okay, we'll pause here.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think that there's like this syndrome that I see in Modern Orthodoxy where like you're one person in shul and then you're a whole different person at home and everywhere else in your life. And I think that if there's no like consistency between the experiences that you have while you're in shul and while you're in your other social whatever opportunities, like for kids, they're not going to recognize, you know what I mean, it has to be a familiar good feeling. So like there has to be like something that you felt, maybe your neshama at your Shabbos table or even just taking a walk with your parent or whatever other experiences where you felt your soul, and then if you feel it in like little doses in shul and you're like, "Oh," to be able to connect the dots between different experiences where you feel that soul and you feel connection with Hashem.
You can't just expect it to be shul, boom, yeah, Shabbos table, Hashem. Yeah. Yeah, nachon. I don't know, 100 percent, 100 percent.
Something along the same lines, Rachel Polin via her new book, she's been sharing a lot about her book and also just different backstories of her relationship with Hersh. And she was saying, it's so sweet, he used to call, Hersh used to call his Abba Dada. It's so sweet. And so she was explaining how his path, Hersh's path, was very different than their family's, but something that he always did was walk to shul as a family with Dada.
And he'd sit next to his father and it was this beautiful, it was like this beautiful thing that always, there was so consistent, happened every single Shabbos. And I think they even asked him, like, "What is it? What's keeping you going?" He's like, "Just this thing of like, I know how much it means to you." So I feel like our connection with Hashem, our relationship with Hashem is all about our relationship with our own parents, and I feel like it really just does start there. Like I feel like it doesn't even just start there, I feel like it might even end there almost, you know? Is her book out already? Yeah. I didn't see it yet.
Yeah. And one of the stories, I don't know if that story is in there, but like hearing her talk about the book. Yeah, he said, "Should he sit alone in shul? I have to sit next to him." That's what he said. "Should Dada sit alone in shul? I have to." Nachon, nachon.
I know. And they mention how Jon sits in a different seat completely and just... Wow, it's interesting that maybe wow, and now I, he does, you know, we have the minhag that when an avel, that's so deep right now. I can't believe it.
I just think about it because Chaim David's our friend here had to change his makom twice the last two years because he lost his father and he lost his brother. You're supposed to change your seat in shul when you get up from shiva, when you come to shul. So now I'm thinking, yeah, well now based on what you're saying, I always wondered like what's the pnimiyus of it and I really, and this really touches deeply is that that seat in shul is not just you alone, it's you and your family, it's you and the memories, it's you and the experience, it's you and the ta'am. Yeah.
You and the ta'am. And now that that was, that you've experienced this loss of something that was, a ta'am was shared with, you have to go and develop a new ta'am somewhere else. It's very deep what you just said. Oh man.
Unfortunately, you know this, you know, some of us don't know this yet, so nachon, nachon. Okay, thank you. Thank you everybody. We'll continue be'ezrat Hashem this shiur next week.
Unfortunately, you know this, some of us don't know this yet, so nachon. Nachon. Okay. Thank you everybody.
We'll continue bezrat hashem this shiur next week. Okay, so today we're beginning a new sefer, Sefer Shemot. And the parasha starts off with the words ואלה שמות בני ישראל הבאים מצרימה את יעקב איש וביתו באו. And these are the names of the sons of Israel that came to Egypt with Jacob, each man and his household they came.
Now, Rashi immediately on the first pasuk asks a question. Why do we have to count them again? We already counted them at the end of Sefer Bereishit. We know their names. We know who they are.
Why does the Torah have to repeat the names of the shevatim again? And Rashi explains אף על פי שמנאם בחייהם חזר ומנאם במיתתם להודיע חיבתן שנמשלו לכוכבים. Even though they were counted in their lifetime, God counts them again after their death to show his love for them, because they are compared to the stars. Just like the stars, המוציא במספר צבאם לכולם בשם יקרא, God brings them out by number and calls them all by name. This idea of names, of shemot, is very central to the sefer.
In fact, the sefer is called Shemot. What is the significance of a name? A name in Lashon Hakodesh is not just a random collection of letters. It's the mahut. It's the essence of the thing.
And as we go through the sefer, we're going to see how names play a critical role in the development of the Jewish people.