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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 everyone Shavuah tov u'mevorach. Amen sheyeiyeh shavuah tov whatever that means. Whatever that means. Tof gadol.
Tof gadol. You know that there's everyone that there's a very annoying statement that everyone says all the time that definitely has triggered me many times. Everything Hashem does is good. That's not what Chazal say.
They say כל מה דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד. So listen closely letav avid. So that doesn't it's a big difference between saying everything Hashem does is good versus saying everything Hashem does is for the good letav avid and it's like a world of differences. So כל מה דעביד רחמנא לטב to good.
To good is being is taking place right now. Letav avid. So we're still in the month of Nissan for this week. It's sponsored anonymously by if it's anonymously it's not by anyone I could tell you because I don't know who it is.
In honor of all the open miracles that we're seeing daily. Emet. By the Silver family in memory of בתיה פייגא בת ישראל and by the Cram and Miller families לעילוי נשמת רייזל בת רב דוד דוב רב יצחק אריה בן נחום רב עזריאל בן רב יוסף טוביה and מנוחה בת אפרים זלמן ורחל. And the week is sponsored by Paul and Devorah Grosse.
Now that's a very special thing because if you were in shul yesterday I mean most people aren't women definitely minchah yesterday we gave a Hebrew name to Debbie. To Debbie Grosse because she realized she never really had a Hebrew she never had a Hebrew name. So I told her which is? Devorah. But I told her you could you know you could choose like Eliana Shimshona if you wanted to.
It doesn't matter it's your it's free. But we did a naming for her yesterday and it was very very chazak. It was very special. Okay we're going to jump back right back in into the sefer that we haven't learned in a very long time due to life circumstances beyond our control.
And this is the third perek in the sefer of Rav Schwartz on da'ati le-yadecha. And I'm going to be just sharing to you a little bit outside the text for at least five minutes before we go back before we go inside and I'll explain why it's just there's an there's a topic that we're going to be covering today after we've spent the last perek speaking about the need to understand that the olam ha-regashot that the emotional world of our children is just as important as making them sandwiches. We spent a lot of time on that.
עולם הרגשות שצריך להיות בנוי היטב.
That a successful child the definition of a successful child is one whose olam ha-regashot their world of emotions the structure of it is banui heitiv that it's thoroughly built built properly in a healthy way. Today's shiur and probably next week's shiur will be surround will be focused upon the most difficult difficult question that mainly mothers fathers sometimes have to deal with but it's one of the most difficult questions that I'm sure has has brought a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety and hardships and you know questioning if you're a good parent or questioning if this child is worthy of anything. It brings like so much trauma. And that is the question what to make for dinner? No? Anyone else have that? What to make for dinner? I think you're revealing...
No it's not us! It's other families too! Now kamuvan I'm not trying to make fun of this question at all. It's it obviously it sounds cute but it actually holds within it contains within it yesodot. Yesodot of parenting yesodot of a healthy home and we could discover through this simple question of what to make for dinner a lot of a lot of different things for the whole world of parenting and the whole world of our relationship with our children. So you know obviously I'm sure this happened that you come you bring to the table a few different dishes and obviously if you have more than one child so everyone's tastes are...
buds are different everyone wants things they like things they don't like and there's different ways of approaching how to deal with it what's the best way of going about such a thing? So there are homes that say that you have to give the kid exactly what they like to eat and according to this shita then you have to make if you have three kids you have to make three gourmet shpitz individual meals that cater to the needs of each child and you want to satisfy everyone you want everyone to feel good about it you want everyone to feel like they're enjoying. There are also homes where it is completely the opposite where you say this is what's for dinner like my parents would say that sometimes to us because in their time if there was dinner this is what was for dinner vezehu and everyone has to eat what's there and you also can't leave even a crumb you can't leave anything on your plate you have to make sure that you have everything consumed that's on the plate and according to this approach then no one's personal preference takes any sort of elite status and if you don't like what even if you don't like what you're being served you must eat what Ima prepared right right I'm being nice but beseder Abba makes what eggs maybe pasta so we have to understand we have to discuss the difference between these two shitas because it seems like it's a simple question and it's not it's actually when I was learning this perek this opens up a whole gateway to understanding how we look at what our children needs and how we want to give them what they need and what they versus what they want and a lot of other things so if you look now in the page that you have in front of you in daf samech so you look at the third paragraph הבה נעמיק בדוגמה דלעיל let's look at the examples that I just set out a page and a half of what he opened up with I just wanted to save some time and get to the heart of the issue of what we're speaking about right now so first let's speak about this a bit more in depth techilla yesh ladun האם זהו דבר חיובי לפתח דיון בבית סביב הנושא של טעם המאכלים is it even a positive thing to open up a discussion at home regarding the tastes of different foods ומידת החביבות שיש לכל ילד כלפי אוכל זהו או אחר and how much each kid likes this versus that lechora seems to be could be התשובה הראשונית לכך תהיה שעדיף לא לפתח דיון בנושא זה don't open up the conversation a conversation regards something שכל כולו חומר וגשמיות what are you opening up a whole conversation about things that are just complete materialism this world things וזאת מלבד החשש הילד יצא מפונק כתוצאה מעצם העיסוק בכך or also could say you're going to raise spoiled children with if you say let's open up a discussion and let's know exactly what each kid would like and how they would like it and at what time they want it served as well you're not sitting in business class on a plane where you give them timings and exactly what you want and don't want ולכן עדיף לחנכו שיאכל את מה שיש it seems the healthy the right approach would be you mechanech the kid to eat what you have גם אם הוא סבור שאינו אוהב את האוכל even if they say I don't like what's being served to me and we have the reasons behind this like we just said right now these are there are and these are legitimate reasons to say don't open this for discussion you understand the reasons he said over here right now you could produce spoiled brats and also this is not should be a thing a topic for discussion shouldn't be delving into such a chomri gashmi topic but now he says parents sorry lechora sorry beram beram right הבה נשאל את עצמנו let's ask ourselves parents האם יש אחד או אחת מאיתנו שאוהב את כל המאכלים באותה מידה do we like all foods the same do we are we like whenever we go to someone's house or whenever we go to some anywhere are we always just whatever's on our plate that's exactly what we want to eat and should eat we also have our preferences כמובן שהתשובה המוחלטת לכך היא שלילית לחלוטין of course we don't we don't live like this now what I love about this sefer is that he always roots this in the Torah in Chazal so he says sharei klala this is a curse שהרי קללה זו נאמרה לנחש בלבד what was the snake told what was the result of cheit Adam Of of chet etz hadaat, so the snake was cursed and it was told ועפר תאכל כל ימי חייך. You will eat dust all your life now. Could be like, well, that's that's where the snake is anyway.
He's on the floor or he wasn't walking anymore after the chet of etz hadaat. So we know that it seems like it's a bracha. Oh, he has whatever he needs at any given time because all he needs is what's in front of him. But it ends up being a klala: שכל אוכל שיכנס לפיו יהיה בטעם עפר.
Anything that goes into his mouth will be in the taste of dust.
אולם אנחנו כבני אדם ואפילו שאר בעלי חיים. We as people and even the animal kingdom. Now, this next phrase is what this shiur is all about: יש לנו חוש של טעם.
Hashem gave us taste buds. Hashem gave us a sense of taam, of taste. So liking something more than something else does not mean that you're mefunak or you're spoiled or there's something wrong with you or you're not makir tov for what you have. Hashem created us with a certain sense of taste.
יש לנו חוש טעם, through which שבאמצעותו אנו חשים בכל דבר מהו טעמו. Through this sense that Hashem gave us, we sense through everything what its taam is, what its taste is. Now, he says over here, he adds in the brackets: אכן ישנם אנשים שחוש הטעם שלהם מפותח יותר מאחרים. There are those that their sense of taste is more developed than others, ulam, meaning that they are really exact and know exactly what they really really want and what they don't want.
אולם לכל בני האדם ללא יוצא מן הכלל יש חוש של טעם. But every person, no matter where they are, has chush hataam. Pause here out of the text. Before he takes us on this trip, where do you think he's taking us with pointing this out? What do you think the mechaber here, what is the author, what is the rav doing here by pointing out the obvious that each person has a chush of taam? And he's saying, and you parents that have a hard time with trying to please all the children, you also have a chush shel taam.
So what does he want us to open up our minds to? Jenny? I think it's important to see that it's from Hashem sof sof. That what's from Hashem? The chush taam. The chush taam which each person has, they didn't create it. Nachon, that's a very big one.
Now, how but how would that help us with chinuch? Well, I guess it would help us be more in tune to each child. Each child, we have to remember each child's from Hashem, each child comes with... well, no no, let me rephrase my question. How would this help us with making the decision about dinner? Can't hold them to higher standards.
Than who? Than yourself. Than ourselves. We do the same thing with a lot of things. So does that mean that the answer should be that you should make a gourmet for each kid based on what you said? There's a middle ground and there's more understanding.
There's gonna have to be a middle ground here, but it's important for us to acknowledge that preferences of children is not their own way of telling you, "I want to make your life even harder." Or spoiled. Or bediyuk, or stating about themselves that they're spoiled. No, yesh lahem mashehu. Each kid has their own thing.
Each child has their own thing, their own chush hataam, their own sense of taste, which would make them feel more inclined to that versus that. Jenny? I think about this in a way to subjugate your own physical desires and maybe we're supposed to say, maybe I have a taste for that because my family drives me crazy about food, all of them. Just yours. And maybe they're supposed to use this as an opportunity, the adults, to set a model: I'm going to eat things I don't have a taste for, say it's not about the physical only.
Like, I'm wondering if that's where he's going. I mean, hers is all acceptance and love, mine's gevurah. It's okay, it's the week of gevurah, it's fine. Yeah, Mindy.
Well, taam has another meaning. I'm wondering if he's going to the other meaning of "what's the point". Yeah, taam in Hebrew means taste and also reason. Yeah.
Is he gonna put those together possibly because this is far too superficial, much more superficial than any... he hasn't said anything superficial till now. Right. I think it's a like you could see it as a bracha that it's an opportunity to be able to make your kid feel seen and special when you cater to their personal preferences.
So, so are you saying bet, like meaning that it should be specifically for each child what they want? No, but I think once in a while. Not everyday, but once in a while. So we're talking middle ground. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I feel like this is a shtick of Ve'ahavta lere'acha kamocha going on, like you wouldn't want someone to be... you wouldn't want to be fed the same hamburgers and mashed potatoes, although I wouldn't mind that, every night, so you don't want your child to either. And that could be spread across like what Mindy is saying be'chol, all kinds of things. What you talk about on Shabbos.
And then somebody has ten kids and he said he really works very hard to accommodate the one who wants to talk about politics, and the one who wants to talk about parsha, and the one who wants to talk football. Like, it goes across. Yafeh. Yeah.
Do you remember what you said weeks ago? I don't remember how long, but you said about not only catering to the essentials of a child, but having that talk with them is actually good, because I brought it up over Pesach with my children. Having that, you know, real talk to, you know, as a grandmother, I see it in a different way also, and having that talk. So having that talk, my son said to me, "No, you might not have that time to have that talk". But having that talk kind of like puts you out there to be able to have that consciousness.
So that's maybe shayach for older children, but when they're four and they're six, seven, ten... Also you can say, "Well, what do you like?" You could maybe, you could develop some level of sicha, could be. I don't know. Yachol lihyot.
Yachol lihyot. Anyone else want to say anything over... yeah. Only the place to do it that I found was in the supermarket.
You have to talk anyway. So when they're babies you teach them the names of each vegetable and then... Okay. Yachol lihyot.
It's practical but it works. And if they want the gummy candy and you don't want to buy them... Okay, let's go veiter. Now, the bottom paragraph here really brings us to the point of why he davka chose this example, which is much more than just talking about solving this issue of what to make for dinner.
Obviously he's developing, like you said, Mindy, it's much more deeper than the surface. He's saying what is the inyan of ta'am anyway? What is this hush hatam that each person has, that each kid has and develops at a very young age?
מהו העומק של חוש הטעם?
ראשית חוש הטעם הוא ביטוי למה שהאדם מרגיש. The sense of taste is an expression of what a person is feeling. Now he's saying over here something, he wants to make sure that we know what we're dealing with, what we're not dealing with.
כמובן שאיננו עוסקים כעת בעולם הרגשות הפנימי אלא בעולם של הרגשות כלפי אוכל שהוא חיצוני מאוד. It's also the world of feelings, but it's the outer world of feelings. We're talking about food, but it's still feelings. Don't take that away from a kid.
They feel something towards this dish and they don't feel something towards that dish. But it's still coming from the world of olam haregashot, of the world of emotions.
אולם זו הרגשה שהיא קיימת ומוכרת בכל אחד מהבתים וצריך להיות מודע לה. This world of emotions exists within every single home, and you must be aware of such a thing.
Daf Samech Aleph on the top.
ומעתה אף שאכן צריך לחנך את הילד שלא יהיה מפונק ושיתרגל לאכול גם את מה שאינו אוהב. Of course it's true that you shouldn't teach a child how to be spoiled and they should be accustomed to at times eating things that maybe is not their first choice and it's not something that their inner olam haregashot is saying "this is what I want", because we don't want to produce rotten spoiled children that only eat exactly what they love.
אולם אין לעשות זאת באופן של התעלמות מוחלטת מהדיון אודות הנטייה שלו לאהוב אוכל זה או אחר ולהרגיל אותו לאכול בלי לשים לב להעדפות האישיות שלו.
What he's saying here is you should try to accustom, try to create some type of a manganon. What do you say manganon? Mechanism. Mechanism, thank you. Mechanism.
of where a child is eats things that are less likely likable to him or her without noticing it all the time. But he said something very, very important here. They're not supposed to notice that they're eating things that they at a certain point it shouldn't be even like something that they're conscious and aware of each time, that it becomes less of the power struggle. Yeah, you're helping them mask their feelings.
You're helping them through this to mask it. Right. If you're forcing them always into one thing then they're becoming less and less in tune to themselves. Well, but it starts somewhere else in what he said over here.
He said you shouldn't this thing, this shita of making sure that they're not just spoiled kids eating exactly every single thing, you can't ignore what? That's what he said, like the second line.
אין לעשות זאת באופן של התעלמות מוחלטת מהדיון אודות הנטיה שלו לאהוב אוכל זה או אחר. So what's the word that he's saying must take place in the acknowledgement? Acknowledgement. I acknowledge it's not like saying you're going to be a spoiled brat and end up just like, no, you must acknowledge and take into account, don't just say in your mind foods that they like, but now internalize it.
What are you really acknowledging when you're noticing and you take into consideration that which they like? Them. Their feelings. Their feelings. Their own personalized chush hatam that Hashem gave them.
Acknowledging it. Now, this is true across the board. Ochel is just a very easy example because it's devarim shebechol yom. But what he's going to take where he's going to take this whole world of chush hatam, chush hatam is not just about food.
It's about clothes, it's about music, it's about hobbies, sports, chugim, across the board. He said to acknowledge what they like, not necessarily acknowledge what they don't like. Both. He leaves it open, but if I had to guess, it would be both.
Because diyun is bringing up both. Yeah, diyun means like everything, you know. Yeah. Someone had their hand.
Did you have? Yeah, but my kids are older, so it might be a little bit different. On the contrary, you could probably share more. In our house it's like, you may not like what's for dinner, but like we'll go through your day. Like you didn't have any protein.
Sorry, you have to take three bites. I don't care what, you can make scrambled eggs for yourself, but like protein has to be added today. And that other component is not just taste, but there's another component. And also it's just food emotional.
Just like my son only wants schnitzel at home. So I told him before we were going out for guests, make schnitzel at home, you'll come home, you'll eat it, you'll go home and eat it. And we went somewhere where they had schnitzel. And he like refused to eat it.
I said, you'll take it, you'll put it on your plate, you'll take one bite and. But I thought that's what he wants. Well, because it's not what he wanted. Why? Home.
To have guests at our house and all these things have nothing to do with schnitzel. It's because you're so much more there's so much emotional issues. Like so like I see my middle also like my kid he's like oh I used to like salmon, I don't like salmon anymore. That's also just teenagers being teenagers.
Okay, let's work with this for a second. Where's chush hatam in the example that you gave us? Chush hatam, where did it show up right now in the example with your son? Schnitzel? That's what it seems like. What's his real chush hatam? Being home. Okay, so that's why this is why this is and I'm so glad you brought this up.
One of the reasons why he's bringing this as an example is that quite often it's really just a mask or it's covering for other things that are really the chush hatam of what's going on inside. It's not only the food, it's a whole world of emotions regarding their comfort at home versus versus somewhere else. But it always needs to be acknowledged. Not when you say acknowledge, let's just be clear, acknowledgement doesn't mean submitting.
Acknowledgement doesn't mean I acknowledge and therefore it will be exactly like you want. That's not what acknowledgement means. Acknowledgement means I'm holding space for your chush hatam. I'm holding space for your chush hatam.
Now Alex, your hand was up. Yeah, I just want to share. So I work at Shalva and I specifically do a sensory therapy and just even even the way he's approaching this it's just like amazing because he's saying like just talking to people it's just like, okay, let's go. but it's really, it's so much deeper, but it's like okay, let's start at the base level, let the whole general people who don't know so much about sensory input and things, just get that sense, and then it's like, okay, but now that we're all on the same page and we're understanding that we're talking, we're talking about like their preferences and this, like now everyone can understand at a deeper level like the way with this conversation just opened up, that it's not just about what food they want or don't want, but it's, it's their emotional state is what we're really talking about, but it's like, we're talking about it on an external level, but it's...
Well, that's the way to go, that's, it's usually the way to go in with an example that is very tangible, and then realize that you go inside quite often. With like books, I've seen some, someone once brought me a book on parenting from a non-Jewish author, and it was a book that helped them in a lot of areas, but there was one grey area, without getting involved in that grey area. And I looked a little bit around the book, and the whole thing was never going into the... it was just eitzos of like, what's the best thing to do that has long-term good, positive effects, but it was never addressing, like what he's doing over here, saying "but what is khush ha-ta'am really all about?" What's the khush all about? Where is it really coming from? What are they really saying? What are you really portraying when you act in this way? What are they getting from you? What are they receiving from you? So it's very good that you picked up on this, yes.
And that's why it's so important to allow them space to give their negative, discuss their negative taste. Well, in a kavodik way. I just want to say, as a rabbi of a shul, it's always healthy for people to be able to in a kavodik way. Yes, always.
Yeah, but it's not always. That's the thing is that you have to be very clear that the, and I see this mamash just with where I'm at, where the angle through which, the view, my view, is that to create the space, say, like a parent and by, of course, like, tell me this is what you want. But with home is different than shul because a shul really should be a dictatorship. If it's a healthy shul with leadership, it must be.
Otherwise, it's ein lekha klum. A holy dictatorship. But with parents, it's, it's acknowledging in a kavodik way that it should all be done, not like the kid throwing the dish back at you. "I'm so glad that you're, I'm acknowledging your..." No.
Even, even the ability to, even the space for them to be saying what they're saying, also in a certain way. In a certain way. That's a whole 'nother topic, that's a whole 'nother topic to iyyun right now. But let's see how he continues to develop, yes.
I just want to add something because it's me'od noge'a to what I'm studying right now, רפואה טבעית על פי תורת החסידות. And I think that khush ha-ta'am, the deeper meaning of it is that it's also a khush rigshi. It's a feeling there. Meaning the body knows what it needs and what it doesn't need.
But if we take a child and we force it to be in a certain way, they lose that khush of what they need, and then they lose themselves, and we all know where that mitpateach ba-atid. Nakhon. And a person really needs to, they have to learn how to tap into that feeling of what the body really needs. Because that's what food is.
Food is just feeding the body. Nakhon. And we turned it into way more than that, but, and we masked it. And by, and like us as adults, we don't know any, we can't feel anymore what we need.
We really have to be able to get down. You should know that's like all Chassidus in one sentence what you said. To know what I need, not what I want. To get a sense of what I need.
To strip away everything and go back to what's the, what does my neshamah need. And we were born that way, like we just... Nakhon. Nakhon.
Learn how to tap back into that. Yes. I feel like it's two conversations that I have with my sons, like in the morning I'll say "what's for dinner?" and my sons will probably be like "I have no idea, like I have to see what's in the freezer" or whatever. But this morning one of my sons specifically asked for something, like "can we please have" and he calls it "breakfast-dinner," like "omelets and French toast and cut-up vegetables, fruit, whatever." And I feel like that, like, has an emotional component.
Like he clearly is making an association with this dinner, so like if I don't make this for dinner, like it's going to be a letdown for him. And not that I'm just trying to please my children, but like it's not that he's just asking to ask what's for dinner, but like it'll be like, almost like when something happens and you're so happy and like you're like "oh Hashem gave me a hug," like this would be like a hug from a parent if he comes home and that's what's for dinner. And if not? It's an easy dinner tonight. Yeah.
You did give a relatively easy example, but what would happen if that's not what was waiting for him? Well, good question because sometimes you just can't. That's an easier example, but what happens if let's say your other kid doesn't want that? And that's going to happen because this is my daughter, older children are going to want. So how many times have the mothers in this room made three different dinners at dinner? Four? I mean like two. I could make like a child-friendly.
You'll make salmon and salad and rice and fish sticks. You're going to start getting... That's my child and then otherwise, that's as far as I go. But I'm going to know what everyone's going to.
That sounds like plenty of options. Yeah, that's much nicer than... Very nice. Very nice.
Now, one of the things that we're going to see from him here is that one of the big avodas of parents is that when sometimes you have to do that what you just shared, that you don't feel like you're a failure. Because that's a big trick here is that you think that the natural me, the mami, the me, the abba, let's say when he does it, what they're providing isn't what the kid wants, and then you're not sure if it's already wants or needs, you're confused about it, but to withhold your own sense of accomplishment versus failure regarding a dinner or a lunch or whatever it is is also a very big avodah, which I think he's going to get to towards the end of this perek. I'm just putting it out there now. I know both back and forth, but many months ago we discussed about, you know, talking about buying gifts or buying things for your children, not based on what you want, but what they really want.
Tying in, but again it's different because a gift is not a devarim shebechol yom. It's not a thing that's... But even like even buying something like you know a child likes, they'll say, "Oh, you know what I like." Not like "I thought you'd like that," but "You know me." I'll give you an example. Right, but then we have to listen.
One time someone came, aleinu hashalom, they're not in the world anymore. They came over to our house in Avidan Ya'akov. I don't know if you remember this, to the Monday night shiur. And this person bought me a gift.
And the gift was Midrash Iyov. Do you remember this? Very particular. It wasn't Shloshah Shevuos, it wasn't Sefirah, it wasn't the three weeks. You would be at those shiurim.
And the person came, you were there, of course you were there. Mindy, you were there also, nachon? This was a long time ago. It was a good class. And Ruth was there.
Ruth would be there too. So this person came over, said I got a gift for you. And they brought me a whole sefer on the Midrash of Iyov. I would never buy someone I think unless they're doing a doctorate on Iyov a Midrash.
But the person wanted to give me a gift, right? I don't know. But in my mind, I'm starting to go to a place of what is he saying about me? What is he actually saying about me, you know? Or what is he maybe he's Ruach Hakodesh and he's chas v'shalom alluding to what I'll need to... I don't know what he was saying. It was just bizarre.
So I'm just bringing that as an example in terms of with gifts, what people want versus what you think they need. With children, it's much more complicated. With much more complicated. Did we give in to guns yet or not for Nachum? No, right? I didn't yet.
A gun showed up at our house. Not a real gun, a Nerf gun. Yeah, mashehu kazeh. Okay.
I feel like it's also a fine line between feeling like a failure and trying not to take it personally. Like what do you mean you don't like what I made? I thought of you. Or last week you loved it. Or your sister asked for it and you didn't.
Nachon. And how not to get furious at them? Well, that's a whole other topic like was saying over here, how not to get furious, how to hold back, how not to internalize. This consumes your whole... Nachon, nachon.
It does. Why he started off with food? Because it's a daily... Like you said, it's a daily thing, but it's also time-consuming, it's brain-consuming. Nachon.
Okay, let's go a little bit more forward. Let's see. We're only scratching the surface. There's a lot more to talk about over here.
So keitzad im kein, second paragraph, כיצד אם כן נחנך את הילד שלא יהיה מפונק באוכל. Okay, we want the middle ground. We want the acknowledgment of their khus hata'am as well as not creating spoiled children. So how do we educate our children? they shouldn't be spoiled with food.
Now, I just want to remind everyone, this sefer is one option. This is not halacha l'Moshe m'Sinai this sefer. It offers different eitzos, different approaches as to what could be, what could work for you. It doesn't mean it's going to work in every home.
כיצד אם כן לחנך את הילד שלא יהיה מפונק באוכל.
ראשית ניתן לילד להחליט איזה מאכל הוא אוהב במיוחד ואיזה מאכל אינו אוהב. So first let's discuss with the child what dish do you love and which do you really not love. V'aderaba, נעודד אותו לדבר על כך באופן גלוי.
And the kid maybe no no I don't want to tell you Ma and like you realize the kid doesn't want to say that that which you've been giving me like every day is the one that I least like. No no no speak about it, talk about it, say you know talk about it.
ורק לאחר מכן נחנך אותו. I'm sorry, I'm tangent, there was a kid in my high school in Los Angeles who was a tzaddik that he never, he always used to bum off of other kids.
I was in this school for just a few months in 11th grade and he would bum off other kids, some of their food. And we always thought that's because his parents, that he was poor and that the parents didn't have anything. It wasn't. It's just that he never, he felt so bad, he was such a mama's boy, he felt so bad to tell his mother that what she makes for him every day from since God knows when it's just like the last thing that he wants.
That's where that's what just jumped out over here. So he's saying v'aderaba, neoded oto ledaber. Now you're all thinking is this something my kid does, right? Chas v'shalom. Neoded oto.
My kids would never not say. Right. This generation is way too honest. Right.
V'aderaba, encourage them to speak about this openly.
נעודד אותו לדבר על כך באופן גלוי.
ורק לאחר מכן, only after we encourage them to speak openly about the fact that all they want is the last thing that you'd want to give them, let's say.
ורק לאחר מכן נחנך אותו שעלינו להתרגל לאכול אף דברים שאיננו אוהבים.
Then you start to speak about it's true, you have a chush hatam. 100 percent. But you know what? Hashem created us in a funny way, that not everything that we have a chush for is good for us. I'm not not acknowledging that this is what you like.
I'm acknowledging that this is what you like and I understand that you could come back and say, and if this is what I like it must mean that this is what I should have cause why else would Hashem create me like this? If they're a little bit more advanced and they're learning pnimiyus from the age of six or something like that. You know, chush hatam. Didn't you go to a shiur and you learned there that Hashem said that everything, you know, that basically chush hatam is something... You're not, you're explaining, he's saying over here what must in the chinuch world must come to be like, you know, giving your children this understanding that sometimes we do do things that we don't like to do because we have to.
So too with food. Sometimes we have to eat things that maybe we wouldn't love to, but we have to. I mean, the case of protein talking about protein versus carbs could be one level but that's a little bit of a more older level like you said about you know that's a bit more of a mature approach understanding. Yeah.
I have one kid that survives on spirit and just happiness and not food and we're working... Survives or thrives? Just lives on it. She doesn't eat. But we're working with the doctor and the rule is that you have to have four bites of dinner then you can have anything else healthy from the fridge which is usually cereal milk or yogurt or like something else but just like tasting four bites that you have to have of whatever it is and a lot of times she actually ends up liking it the whole thing of kids like not liking things like sometimes you just have to try it.
Nachon. Daniel Tiger has a rule. Sorry? He's a bite per age. So three years old he has three bites.
Oh yeah I actually love that. Because some of it is be'emess, it's an inyan of just trying and opening up your taste buds. Like I'm wondering what ages this works for. Well he doesn't say yet but the purpose...
Because there's a stage where they get picky and then the stage before that they're like open to trying. No but the purpose of this exercise is the end of this paragraph because look what he says here וזאת בכדי להתרגל לא לאכול רק את מה שנוח לי וערב לחכי. Meaning, what is he saying over here? Chinuch is showing your children how Everything you're feeling is legitimate. Meaning what you're feeling is legitimate because you're feeling it, because you're feeling it and that is the dagesh.
This is the emphasis of what he's saying over here. All the shittos and everything maybe will be helpful, maybe won't be helpful. And I'm davening so much as I'm reading this because obviously personally obviously this is so much, you know, constantly at all ages. We have a, you know, wide range from sixteen till one.
So and it some people here have something similar or maybe even wider. So it's at all ages this comes into play always, you know, with everything. Like you're reading this and you're talking about food. A hundred percent and I totally read this whole thing and was talking about the baseball practice today.
Like everything because that's also a food. It's an emotional food. Right so the question, the question that I think that we should have is Rabbi Schwartz, can you please tell us how? How do you mechanech? Okay I understand the importance of it, but how do you give over to people that even things they don't feel like doing, or even things that aren't the most, doesn't taste the best for them, also needs to be taken into account? And then I'm saying can you explain to me Hashem how the things that I don't love doing either I have to do them even though my chush hatam which you created in me is not craving the healthiest things or the right things. The question of how.
Don't you deal with this everyday when the kids say they want to go to school? They don't say they want to go to school. When you tell them they want to go to school well I don't like my teacher well I don't like that. It's okay but you have to. With each one is different.
Yes it's the same exact thing. Like you have to teach them that there're things that gonna come across in their lives that they're not gonna want to do. But okay but he's saying there's a prerequisite for that. We focused not we the last generation focused so much on saying you have to.
But he's saying something else. Listen to every listen to what they're saying before you know what you're going to tell them. And maybe what he's saying over here maybe is that if a child sees and senses acknowledgment of what where they're at maybe that's the real gate opener for being able to then implement the chinuch of showing them and we also now I've acknowledged and now I want you to try something and now I want to show you how there's a there's another methodology of living, there's a way of life where we do things. And now I don't think the following example I don't think is good.
Do you think I enjoyed getting woken up early from you this morning? But I still did and they'll think that is not good. The guilt-driven ones are not good. The guilt-driven only you. It's only you.
Everyone falls into this. The guilt-driven ones are not the ones where you like the examples you want to give in terms of things that we have to do that we don't enjoy doing. A lot of there could be a million examples of this because our lives are made up of these things. Yeah.
I think I'm finally figuring out and I think this is the title of everything today is ללמוד דבר מתוך דבר. Because when the kid says they don't like something or when a kid says they have a stomach ache okay like my kids had stomach aches that meant they were fighting with someone in school. Nothing to do with their stomach. Always? Yeah because I actually took her to the doctor how many times you take them to the doctor and it's nothing.
No no no I'm asking that because I've also heard of that for parents that that was what they did when they were younger then when their kids had stomach real stomach aches the parents said you don't have stomach aches you have but I guess in your case it really was. At some point you took them to the doctor just in case but mostly it was like who are you fighting with? Okay so ללמוד דבר מתוך דבר which was not in my generation at all. You ate what you ate and you did what you did and it doesn't matter if you fought with the kids in school or nothing mattered you just do what you're supposed to do. Nachon.
Me too. This is a new dor Baruch Hashem. Mamash. This is a new dor.
As they in Alabama say you get what you get and you don't hit your fit because get and fit rhyme.
מה שיוצא אני מרוצה. Right right right. I hated that.
I hated that line. It's a hard I hated it I used to hear it when I was a kid.
מה שיוצא אני מרוצה. Yeah yeah yeah.
Okay so let's let's sharpen just just a few more minutes. Nechaded et hadevarim third paragraph.
ישנה גישה הגורסת כי בכדי לחנך ילד שיאכל גם את מה שהוא לא אוהב צריך לדכא.
לדכא את חושת הטעם.
You know ledake means to suppress? I told you how my father learned how to write with his right hand? Yeah, because they suppress his left hand was tied to a chair. So he was and that wasn't considered something bad or wrong in that era because iter, the lefty, was considered shvach, more more weak.
מה זה לדכא את חושת הטעם? Wait one second. He says להרגילו לאכול אף דברים שאינו אוהב בתקווה שעם הזמן הוא יתרגל לטעמים נוספים.
zot omeret, yeah, forcing, suppressing the things that he likes, so not not giving the kid access to the taste buds that he or she feels is what they want, and over time they'll just get accustomed and used to eating other things. Were we supposed to do that or not? No no no no no. He's saying there's a mand'amar, meaning yesh girsa hagoreset, there's a school of thought which is much older that says this could be a shita that can work. Ulam, however, hore shemeunyan lefateach and you know what? He's also saying and it does work.
But what's the result of that? That the kid ends up eating different things. What didn't happen? The kesher between a parent and a child had zero zero effect or if it had any effect on the relationship it probably is only a long term negative. It also numbed the kid. Well it also numbed the child, exactly.
It also numbed the child. So does it work? Well it works if the goal is that they just stop eating bad things. But now he says, and this is the point of why he wrote this sefer, אולם הורה שמעוניין לפתח כראוי את עולם הרגשות של ילדיו, but a parent that wants to properly develop the world of emotion of their child עליו לדעת שגישה זו אינה נכונה. What we said about suppressing the chus hataam is not correct, it's not right.
Even if it works, it's not right.
אלא תחילה כל אדם צריך לדעת מה הוא מרגיש. Every person needs to first know what they feel.
ולכן הוא צריך לברר לעצמו איזה מאכלים הוא אוהב ואיזה מאכלים אינו אוהב.
How are you gonna know what you feel if you don't have the opportunity to express or voice and find that which you like and that which you don't like and giving space for that.
ורק לאחר מכן נוכל להרגילו לאכול אף דברים שאינו מחבב במיוחד. Therefore, again, he's sharpening the point. He's sharpening the point.
He's not saying over here that when you give the child the luxury or the opportunity to point out what they like versus what they don't like it ends there. No, it's giving that space, noticing it and acknowledging it, and only after that's being taken into account, the love that can be there, that can be expressed through decision making will actually shine brighter within the act of then giving the child what they eat. And you know what their chus hataam will taste? Much more than the food. They'll actually taste the love.
Is this recent? Him writing these books? The last ten last ten fifteen years. This would never fly. Never never no.
לא היה מקום לילד.
Right, לא היה מקום לילד.
לא היה מקום לחבר between your feelings of what you want to eat and what I'm making. This is I'm just looking at the year. What if in the long run it's even more time consuming than just...
No, it's the last it's probably the last I got this sefer. It's gotta be, acheret it wouldn't be ash... Yeah, I got it like seven years ago, much closer, eight years ago. Yeah.
I'm impressed Mindy you're all this one here. But I'm impressed that you're here and you're listening and you're part of it because my mom would probably leave this class and be like, ani lo mevina. Or there would be a whole generation that would read this and feel so bad. Like guilty that they didn't? Yeah, some reframing everything.
Cuz I meant well. Of course you did. And by the way, you did good. We're not saying guys, listen, there are people sitting at the table that are very good products of their parents' chinuch.
Meaning it's not the whole generation, but the tone... The tone. The tone of the generation maybe we could say was more like this. Nachon? Because the older parent...
the parent from that generation would say, well what's the point of acknowledging, of letting a child acknowledge if it's just gonna entice them more to want that which I'm not gonna give them anyway? And it's so much more than what you give your child to eat, it's how they receive it and what they're feeling through the experience. And ochel is just one example, it's only one example. It's just an easy one. To everything.
Yeah. As we talk about food, there's a word in Hebrew that le'achil, like achalah. We're talking about emotional support of an encompass, looking up what it, it doesn't actually have a word so it's emotional support. So we're talking about it a bunch of us and what is achalah like achala like le'achil? But it's really to be able to encompass in a way but it really comes from the word le'achol.
So it's this thing that that word is emotional, has emotional base but it still has the base of eating. Nachon, nachon. Right. Just one more paragraph and we're going to finish for today.
עם זאת כמובן שאין הכוונה להפוך את נושא טעם המאכלים לנידון תמידי בבית. He's saying, don't don't take this topic what you learned today, be this is how every day is going to be in the house. Every day we do acknowledgments. This process is every single time, every meal, three times a day we do first an acknowledgment session, right? And then we end up giving what we give.
או להפוך את הילד לתאבתן שאוכל כמויות גדולות של המאכלים אותם הוא אוהב. Or to also say, okay, kid, we're connecting you to your chush hata'am and giving you loads and loads of what you're just lust and desire, olam.
כאשר הנושא עולה לדיון על ידי הילד. Now, usually we'll bring this up as a point of contention.
It's not you, it's the kid that's maybe not happy with what they're receiving.
אסור לנו בשום אופן להשתיק אותו. This is such a chiddush in the world that he's coming from. It's amazing.
He's saying it's absolutely forbidden to silence your kid, אלא אדרבה עלינו לתת לו לברר עם עצמו. This is very deep. He puts a lot of faith in the child. He's saying we have to let the kid do a berur with themselves את עולם ההרגשות שלו.
It's not you that's doing the berur for the kid. It's creating the atmosphere that you're giving the kid the space to do the berur for themselves as in terms of what they really want and what they don't want.
בכך שניתן לו לבטא אלו טעמים הוא אוהב ואלו אינו אוהב.
ולאחר מכן נוכל לחנך אותו.
Only afterwards we can educate them lenatev. I love that word. It comes from nativ. Nativ means lane, right? What's that? Like a channel.
Like a channel. Lenatev means to direct and set up the path להרגלי האכילה שלו בצורה הראויה for their eating habits in the proper way. This is just the beginning of obviously a much more important topic that can only come once after we established after last perek that binyan olam haregashot of a child needs to be replenished all the time. Just like you we pack your kids' bags with food every day, so too is olam binyan haregashot of a child.
And have siyata d'shmaya with this and no interruptions please from Hashem and continue, we'll continue with this next week be'ezrat Hashem. Amen.