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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.
בוקר טוב everybody, thank you for coming. שבוע טוב. We're learning the month of אלול, לעילוי נשמת בת שיינה פייגא בת ישראל, לעילוי נשמת ליבי בן יוסף, לרפואת שרה בת רחל פייגא, and for the רפואה of לאה שושנה בת מלכה. And this week is sponsored by Sophia Bina Krizner לרפואה שלמה של אבא, יידל בן רחיל.
Okay. ברוך השם we got off to a really strong start last week in this new ספר, דע את ילדיך. Know your children. And what we had begun discussing was the whole story of a funnel, that we have to create a funnel from us to our to our קינדערלאך if we want to feel like there's a chance for something to get in.
If we want to feel like we can we can give something over to our children. Obviously, every single person, every everyone wants to give something over to their children. But we spoke about the type of a funnel that needs to be created in order for things to go inside. And we spoke about the different types of funnels, ones that start off very wide and the פיה, the פיה is very wide, openings very wide, and the end of it is very, probably more narrow, because in order for it to reach our children, there must be a way for it to go in, as big as we may think we are, to put it inside, and then for something small so that they could feel like they could accept something.
And it's also like this also with parents and with our teachers. I see this a lot. I used to have a רבי in ישיבה that I remember the biggest, the most, he was such a big תלמיד חכם, so smart. ממש so smart.
And the painful thing was for him to was to do was to create a funnel. And I remember that that was like a very big, it was a very big הערה for me at a young age to see that you could know the whole תורה and you could really be a צדיק, and you could really be a תלמיד חכם but you can't go into חינוך voluntarily, right? Parents also kind of voluntarily go into חינוך when they bring children into the world, but you can't really go into חינוך voluntarily, באמת לאמיתו for real, unless this art of understanding how to create a funnel for students as well is also in place and just as important as all the תורה that you want to give over to them. Many of you that have been in education know exactly what I'm talking about. You know exactly what I'm talking about.
So therefore, we established the ענין of there needing to be a funnel, right? We we established that. I also just want to say before we continue learning that there's certain classes that we go to, certain ספרים that we learn, that it's okay to not דאווענען while you're learning. It's okay. And it's okay to just have these things as thoughts, as a מחשבה.
But there are certain שיעורים that we go to that unless we're דאווענען while we're learning, it hurts, because I know that all of you, myself, what we, this is תורה we want more than anything to implement. This is the תורה we want to implement. And the way that ידישקייט works, especially when we're dealing with things that are more קשור to פנימיות התורה, unless they're דאווענען over while they're being learned as well, it's limiting. So I just pushing you all to, as we're going along, to not just understand the Hebrew, right? And and it's not the most complicated Hebrew in the Schwartz's ספרים.
It's actually quite simple. But that we're ממש דאווענען while we're while we're learning. We're דאווענען while we're learning. I told the new חבר'ה here in the כולל, this this coming year, this cycle, that they should know they thought, you know, they're here to learn, they're here to grow, they're here to be משפיע, but I think one of the hard, one of the not hardest, but one of the most, I would say, interesting things that they have, one of the tasks that they have is that they have to write תפילות, not just send out דברי תורה in booklets.
But for this type of learning and this type of השפעה that we want in עם ישראל, they're going to have to write תפילות after every subject that we learn. So at the end, we'll have one big, hopefully, a big ליקוטי תפילות going around from these guys that are learning, and I think that's very special. I can't believe I'm saying this, but can someone turn down a little bit the air conditioning? I know, it's I didn't turn it on. I'm just saying, unless someone's unless unless you're שוויצן.
Not not down in in temperature, meaning. Less, yeah. You thought I meant colder. No, no, no, no, no.
הפוך, הפוך. before you start, so I have a question since you brought up חינוך. Does he anywhere along the ספר talk about how to work together? Because if you think about it, I've been thinking about it. When I was the principal of school, I'd say בוקר טוב to the boys at 8:15 in the morning and say see you tomorrow anywhere from 4:30 to 6:30.
So I spent more of their waking hours than their parents. Of course. So the קשר is so חשוב to work together. בטח.
Well, this story, this ספר is not called דעת הוריך. Meaning it's not a ספר on the kids that they have to know their parents, it's דעת ילדיך. But I think that what you're bringing up is very important, that hopefully all of this is addressing what you said, that this is not a ספר to just be like, I'm here, they're here, let's keep on figuring out how how much better I do this. But let's figure out through the funnel how we could start בעזרת השם meeting in the place that we can meet at and grow from there.
So, yes. The answer is yes, 100%. Okay. Yeah, yeah, of course.
I was just thinking about how the funnel starts, it's wide and then it obviously has to go narrower. And then the whole idea of that is to get to the path of אמת, which starts narrow and then becomes wide. And then maybe that can help us to to use the funnel that we have to make it narrow, but we know we're going to that wider place. A wider place while we're going on that path.
בטח. בטח. But that's not a question, that's just that's that's. Well it's just a thought.
Yeah. Well the question is how? That's the שיעור. I'm just thinking, just thinking where, just a thought that there's a significance in that. The child's significance in it you're saying? As us knowing our, knowing our child or as a teacher, as a parent, if there's significance in that to help us.
בטח, but you just said the key word, and that's the name of the ספר. You cannot create, there's no standard funnel. That's why it's called דעת ילדיך. That's why it's so important here that you can, we can, we can create, we can make statements, we could, we could make proclamations on the importance of everything we're saying, but without learning how to know our children.
And even that there's no ספר that could tell you exactly how you can know your child, you could have the most beautiful funnel that will have no שייכות to your child, חס ושלום. And each one, and each. Exactly. And each child individually as well.
נכון. נכון. Alright. There was a משפחה, this woman who had a large family and every Thursday she let one child stay up late and help her prepare for שבת.
So that she had this special time with each one that they could talk about anything. Well that's a very special thing. I have a thing with my kids, is that I take them to, I take them to concerts individually throughout the year. But then I realized, and they all, because the little kids hear, oh you went to his concert, I want to go to his concert.
That's not going to create the funnel for that kid. That kid needs something else. Maybe it needs, I don't know, if Barney was coming to town for, you know, something, I don't know. Barney.
Whatever it is. נכון, that that special one on one time is very, very, very חשוב. Very, very חשוב. Very, very, very חשוב.
נכון מאוד.Okay, let's let's begin. We have over here, now we're continuing exactly where we where we stopped off last time. תשתית והעברת החינוך. An infrastructure in order to give over the חינוך that we want to give over to our children.
The האור האמור, as we based on what we said before. שאלת השאלות היא, מהו אותו כלי משפך שבאמצעותו נוכל לחנך את ילדינו. It's wonderful. We came up with a great word, a catchy word, a funnel.
What is that funnel? What what does that mean? We're using it, but what does that, what does that word? What is that word? What does that mean? It's like we sometimes feel good because we come up with a sophisticated word that will make us feel better and more mature about our approach to parenting. But what does that word even mean? What does a משפך in this context, what is the funnel, right? He's not letting, I'm telling you. is not letting us off the hook this ספר. He's not just telling us very smart words.
He's going to say, great, now we know a word, now we have to understand what that actually means. Also, now I'm going to dig in a little bit deeper. So in in קו' מ"ד it says, מה הוא האדם. What is man? Man is the question what.
In other words, animals and nobody else can ask questions of what or why or any of those. So that's the משפך has to be connected to that what. In other words, we are this kind of family, we are these kind of people. Right.
And so the what has to be actually very specific to the משפך, the family, the wife, and the kids. 100%. 100%. נכון.Okay.
בהסתכלות פשוטה נראה, when you look at it pretty simply, it seems, כי מכיוון שבאמצעות מחשבה גרדה, לא ניתן להעביר לילדים מאומה. By thinking alone and coming up with nice, with a lot of thoughts and there and thus making you feel very responsible, very חזק, זה לא מספיק. Just by thinking. אם כן, I remember one time Reb Shlomo was invited to a symposium on a three day, like like a three day gathering on on prayer by by like somewhere like deep thinkers from Eastern thoughts up in Northern California in the 70s.
And for and they were, he was the last one invited to this three-day festival. And he asked the people that picked him up in the airport. They they were driving him to the retreat. What have what so what have you been doing since the beginning of this retreat? So they they were talking about all the different seminars, all the different classes and lectures about prayer.
So then he said, okay, but when did you guys pray? So he said, we didn't yet. It was a three, three day seminar on prayer. He said, so but when did you actually pray? So saying, you could think and think and think, but למעשה there's got to be, well, he's going to explain, what the למעשה has to be. Because we can discuss and discuss and discuss, and I do encourage you.
We had this a few years ago. One time there was enough holy חצפה by the woman to to do this on their own, is that after after the שיעורים there was his own internal WhatsApp group because that's what everyone needs is another WhatsApp group right now. And they were discussing how למעשה what we had learning, it was a Rebbe Nachman שיעור, what we had been learning inside, what למעשה they they were able to draw into their lives. Here it's ממש ממש ממש חשוב.
That there's a למעשה. So therefore he says, אם כן נשארו שני דרכים בלבד להעברת הדברים מהמחנך לחניך. There are only two ways to pass over, to give over, to give over things from the מחנך to the חניך. א, על ידי מעשה.
One is action, כלומר, באמצעות דוגמה אישית של המחנך שהיא עשייה. We all know this, personal example. Like coming into a room and saying, "There will be no screaming in this house" is exactly the opposite of what he's speaking about. It's always דוגמה אישית.
We all have tasted that once or twice or 3,000 times in our life. That's one. So it has to be a מעשה of דוגמה אישית. But ב is באמצעות הדיבור, שהמחנך מסביר את הדברים לחניך.
To explain to your child in a way that they can hear your שיטה. Your שיטה to actually verbalize it. Now, quite often we say, we think, they're not, they can't hear, they can't understand, they're not on the level. Well, it's, it depends on how you're saying it.
It's true. If you're going to come to your children and and give them a whole שפיל על פי על פי דיבור, explaining what you learned in a שיעור and then taking it to the next level. Of course not. But really, we know that one must believe that your your kid חאפטס way more than you realize.
They understand much more than we think they do. Of course they pick up on things much more than we realize as well. But even the דיבור, they can hear. If if there's a, if there's סיעתא דשמיא, they could also actually hear not to justify your actions, but to be able to explain to them, you know why we're doing this? Do you know why we're acting like this? But quite often, we really are under the assumption, they they א, they can't hear, they're kids.
ב, it's not for them to know. They have to be on just, it's not for them to understand why we do what we do. And he's going to really, really take a stab at that, ממש. Because there's a big opening when a parent realizes that if with the right תבונה, with the right תפילה, the right דאווענען, and the right סיעתא דשמיא and רחמנות from השם, that I can actually give over to my child verbally how we're choosing to build our home, how we're choosing to have our relationship.
It's an amazing, amazing thing. Parents that are privileged to have tasted this, children that are privileged to have tasted this, they grow up with something completely different. Their experience of the home and the things that they then take on have a much more grounded, grounded תשתית, infrastructure, for their lives. It's as if they they they could actually חווה, actually understand why they how in the rhythm of their own life.
The rhythm of their own life.אולם. But we still have to remember there's a פער, there's a gap. You don't come to your child and say, I really would like to explain to you exactly how I learned the שיטה, and now I'm going to give this over because in שיעור we learned that you understand much more than I think you do. That that's not going to work either.
Not to חאפ either. That's the משפך. You understand? That's the funnel. That that's that's the translation of it into למעשה with our children.
ומכיוון שקיים פער בין התפיסה הרחבה של ההורים לתפיסתו הצרה של הילד, there is a gap between the perception, the wide perception that a parent has to a more narrow perception that a child has, אם כן, עדיין נותר לברר לנו, לנו לברר, מהי הנקודה המקשרת ומגשרת על פער זה. What is the point that he says connects and bridges the gap? What is it exactly? What is this thing that connects the gap that it's not a gap that something wrong that there's a gap. That's the way השם created us, in terms of our ages and in terms of our life experiences. However, the עבודה is to figure out, what is the נקודה over here that I can that my child and I can meet through that really brings this big gap that's a result of age, that's a result of experience, life experience and bring it closer to together.
What's the גשר? What's what is that place? He's going to explain this a bit more. כלומר.אילו התפיסה של האב והאם הייתה דומה לתפיסת הילדים, if the perception of parents was more or less similar to a child's perception, once in a while it's like that actually. That's not a good thing. Wait, what was that? I missed the word in English.
Which one? Which word? If the perception was more or less what? Similar, דומה. דומה. Thanks for asking. Similar.
If it was, that's what I that's why I said it's sometimes you go into a house, say it's a young mother that had a kid at a young age, and sometimes you don't know who the who the mother or daughter is. Did it ever happen to you? I'm talking about in the שיחה level. In our house? Oh, you? This is it's all open here, חבר'ה. It's all open, right? If the the the perception of a perception of life of of that a parent has is similar to what the child has, then there he said there he says, הרי אנו צריכים גשר צר יחסית.
Then we would probably need a more narrow bridge because you don't have to you could be exactly what it is, and that would be enough.אולם ככל שהמרחק בין ההורים והילדים גדל, but the more that the distance between parents and children is larger, בייחוד כאשר מדובר בהורים מתבגרים, הורים מתבגרים over here in this context means older parents, שברמה מסוימת הם מנותקים מתפיסת הילדות. They're disconnected from תפיסת הילדות. What do you think that means? What are they disconnected from? They've been so far away from being a youth that they don't understand. I can come back as an educator, very often tell when a child was of older parents because the parent the way they interacted with the child.
But it doesn't necessarily mean that every time there's a parent to a child to older parents it's like this, but just because of it it's nothing bad that they necessarily did. It's just life what they've been through in life and how many years that they've already not haven't been around children and the distance in in that also is משפיע on things. Right, the said with עולים mentors really. Explain, what do you mean? I don't know.
I feel like sometimes, I mean I'm not such an old עולה, but I feel like sometimes my nine-year-old comes home with songs or different things that I have no clue and I have to ask him, is this appropriate? Is this good? I don't know what's going on really. Or I'm not reading every book before she reads it because it's going to take me two months, you know? Just ask, is this author good? Right. נכון. When they're young.
When they're older it's, can they sleep on the beach? Right. You're asking your child to do all the Israeli Hebrew work for you. For you, right. That's already another level.
Because they've become parentified because... נכון. Yeah. You know, sorry, you're bringing up a very, a very important point.
I remember when we made עלייה, I was nine, nine, and I grew up in an area in Los Angeles that I probably would not have been allowed to be outside the house by myself past 5 p.m. till I was 15, right? Not that it was a shady, shady area. It was just the general way of life was not to, like outdoor, right? We come to ארץ ישראל, my friends come and pick me up my first Friday night for what's called פגישת שבט, by the סניף, by the בני עקיבא סניף. What's פגישת שבט? All the kids meet at a certain place, right? When do they come and pick me up? 9:15. My parents, what what is what's going on over here, right? And what's the curfew? My parents said 9:45.
The other kids that I were, they were old עולים, they were already in ארץ ישראל for two years. I remember one specific friend, so when we left the house, I said, I have half an hour. He looked at me and started laughing. I said, what, שלמה? We we, you know, we we, it's fourth grade.
He said, 11. So there's a, so this could be a whole separate parenting שיעור of the משפך of the, right? The funnel that, you know, it's it's, we're we're laughing, but it's actually, there's a lot in what you're saying. It's a very important thing. You know, it's a very important thing.
And then we'd go back to visit in the States and it was like it went back to like, you can't, you can. משהו כזה, right. It's very, I don't know if it was like this in other areas and where you grew up in the States, but it was kids at night, there wasn't a thing, it wasn't this, right? The student who came in grade 11 to our school in ירושלים from South Africa where you didn't walk anywhere. Anywhere, yeah.
Even during the day, you were driven and all of a sudden he's going to take a bus from בית שמש to ירושלים, he was like in panic mode. It's true. It's true. Listen, when our kids started taking buses on their own, that was the equivalent of like when parents give their children the keys to the car for the first time.
It's a, it's a whole, you know, whole different thing. Nothing, I'm not even talking about חלילה, terrorism, I'm just saying בכלל that freedom. It's a, it's completely different מהלך in חינוך.הרי שבאופן טבעי, naturally, ישנו נתק כמעט מוחלט. There's, there's almost a complete נתק, disconnect.
between what? בין תפיסתם הבוגרת לתפיסתם הילדותית של החניך. Between just the perception of life, between an older parent and and their, and the perception of a child. Now, it's not only by older parents, okay? It's not only by older parents. He doesn't, he's סתם, he's he's pointing out an עניין that may be שייך, but it's not, it's בכלל.
It's like, it could be this across the board, really no matter what the ages are. Our kids think we're from the olden days. Exactly. And right, and I'm, I I always think like, like we're if you only you knew how much we're not.
But they're right, actually. Well, me, not you, I'm saying.ברור לחלוטין. Therefore, it's totally, totally clear, כי הורים, now listen to this. כי הורים אשר ינסו לדבר ולחנך את ילדם בשפה בוגרת יחטיאו את המטרה.
They mean well, but parents that choose after misunderstanding this חוק and they will choose to speak to their children on their level, of their language, like their level of שפה, they'll be missing the point. מכיוון ששפה זו היא למעלה מרמתו. It's just the language, you could give over the, you could say, you could say the same thing in two different ways. You can say the same exact thing in two different ways.
But what do you want? You want your words to be מתקבל or not? You want your words to be heard and understood? Forget respected for a second. We're not there yet. Do you want there to be comprehension? That's what we're talking about. We're not even talking about how do I instill within my children כיבוד אב ואם.
We're not there yet. We're not there yet. We're just speaking בכלל in order for there to be the talkage that that needs to happen, how are you choosing to speak? Weinberg once once once said on a, I remember a שבת afternoon שיעור and he was talking about these these ענינים. He said, yeah, I was speaking about this ענין of of learning how to speak to your children in a in a way that they can hear, but not just to not just to sound like a like a professor, but in a way that they could really understand.
So he said one guy came to him afterwards, he said, רבי, you wouldn't believe it. I I went on the ground, I went on the floor, and I was also like my my child was having a tantrum, and I also was, you know, pretending to have a tantrum and I was talking to them like the words that I want to tell them while we're both throwing balls at the wall. And he said, that's not what we're talking about. There's a, that's not the funnel.
That's not the funnel. It has to meet at a certain place. It's a very big עבודה, but you have to understand השם believes that you could have that because otherwise he wouldn't give you this child. There's no way.
השם doesn't give us children that I have to be someone else in order for them to receive what I want to give them over. Like השם believe every child that השם trusts us with is that השם believes the funnel for this kid and how they need to hear what they what what what we're hoping they they will hear can be found. It's just a matter of doing an עבודה, that's the work that we're here for. Yes, חווה.You're talking about like the different like generation like age gap, or maybe it doesn't have to be an age gap between parents and children.
But I remember as a young mother, the only age gap is like 22 years between me and my oldest daughter. And but being the 22-year-old, okay, I would like tell her, don't touch this, don't touch this, right? The little, not knowing that the child doesn't understand the word don't. So all every time I would say like, don't do something, all they heard was do something. Like even just like maybe I don't think it's an age gap thing.
I think it's just understanding how a child understands things in order to be able to choose the right words that you want to say so that they can understand what you're trying to tell them.נכון. But each child has that one word that they don't understand. For each you could have, you know, ברוך השם many children, and each child misunderstands one word. That's why our kids are our our school.
Through each child you learn a new language almost. Right. But you're you're bringing an example of the don'ts, right? It's also, no, but it's also with the do's. That's just as important.
I think when we speak about חינוך, we quite often we always we tend to naturally speak about the warnings that we're trying to get over to our children. But it's also the beauty that we want to go over to our children. It works the same way. I want to give over to my child the absolute bliss of the שבת of of the beauty of שבת, right? Also there, there's words that they may they just don't understand what you're saying.
They could understand it if the right word was found. What what what מידה do you think you'd need in order to find out what are the words that they need to hear? From all the מידות that we have, what מידה do you think?ביטול.That's that by the way, that's always the right answer for anything. I'm just saying. That's always the right answer.
Always. And I'm not saying you're wrong, 100%. ביטול.Humility.שפלות, yeah, yeah, humility is, humility before what? It's also the, it's also the right answer all the time, but in this context, what what does humility mean?I really think that it's important to, your children need to trust you as well as as a teacher or as a parent. They have to trust you and they have to know that you respect them.
Because when you respect them and trust and they then and you show them that they can trust you, then they're open. Right. Then they're more open. נכון.
Before you have that, that's like everything as a teacher. As a parent, I think it's everything also. And it's the same thing I always taught my children. I want to, I'm going to respect you and who you are and try to understand what you need, and you in turn need to respect me.
Right. Then we have, then we have the funnel to... Right. So recently, I'm just going to start up on this.
Recently our, one of our daughters asked my wife and I the same question, and I couldn't tell if it was a trick question or not. I like because she's so she's so deep and smart. So I was I was... answer.
I was avoiding the answer for a little bit, and then I said something and I wasn't sure. I'm still not sure what it is if I was מכוון right. She said, what's the one thing in the world I could do that would, what was the לשון? That would that would disappoint you. And I couldn't sense if she was basically asking if she did something and she wanted to know if it falls under that category or not.So my whatever, my answer was a little bit I I I want to go back, I want to go back to with her because I don't know if I've been thinking about it a lot.
I said that if you didn't believe in yourself, that would disappoint me, right? But that actually, I don't think I'm not so שלם with that answer because I said because I trust you. I trust you. And if you didn't trust yourself and if you didn't believe in yourself, that would disappoint me. But yours was much better, I think.
You said something much better than me. It was more מכוון. But I want to go back to the question I asked. What's the מידה that you think you need in order to discover how to talk to your children in a way that they can understand more than you would generally think they could understand? On a מידה.
Just a מידה, it's a good word. You need to listen. What's that? You need to listen to them. Active listening.
Yeah. Active listening, okay. I think, for me, I think it's אמת. The מידה of אמת.
Yeah. Ah, very חזק. Because I was once advised by Rebbetzin Zuckerman. I think I know her husband, he's a big רב, yeah.
I had the privilege of having her as my high school high school מחנכת. And she told me the kids know more than you think they do. Right, right. So you don't even have to say anything.
They're watching you. So I think that if you do things out of a place of אמת, of שמחה, then their message is going, getting across. So the funnel is just created by what he said, מעשה. That's the first one.
Remember he said over there? There's two ways for the funnel to be created. So that's very deep because... So מעשה and שמחה, that has to work together because if you're doing it and not בשמחה... If you're doing it, they're not going to follow you.
Oh, 100%. I always say, if you want to give over to your children the excitement of שבת, can you, you don't have to say a word, but is this what you look like on Friday afternoon? And that, that is the first thing that he said, that's על ידי מעשה. And then he says, okay, there's also דיבור. So by מעשה, so you're saying, you're saying the מידה is I don't know if you're saying אמת or שמחה but...
Both together. They're like, like, yeah. Yeah, together. חזק מאוד.
נכון. נכון. I mean children that have the children that have all the עשירות of learning a lot of תורה, but the soundtrack of Friday afternoon was was not, שבת is coming. It's a different, the funnel, the funnel that's then going in, you know, and you're saying to yourself, I don't understand.
I show them how how much we dedicate ourselves to שבת and how much, like, they have, they're learning dedication and מסירות נפש. Like, that didn't go over? A kid will pick up much more on excitement towards something that parents display than than the than more the fear and trepidation that I'm חס ושלום not going to make it in the 18 minutes. It's the same thing when it comes to ראש השנה, סליחות. יום הדין, these things are also, like, do your kids grow up with a vision of the סעודת of יום כיפור being like this, this, look what we're privileged to do, or more like, okay, did I, you know, drink, drink enough water, grapes, watermelon, you know?What's that funnel? What, so the funnel of אמת and שמחה.
That's why a יידישע מאמע, a parent, a father, has to be plugged into the אמת of יידישקייט, to the אמת of יידישקייט, to understand the פנימיות of what יידישקייט is all about. And from there, go and act or then speak. And the child חאפט that amazingly.Anyone else want to say a word of a certain מידה you think that might be essential here for discovering the משפך? Patience. Patience.
Yeah. in the same second. מידה of סבלנות. I feel like we're very quick to pounce on teaching what we know is right.
Right, fast. If we stop. In a parenting class with Liba, she said, pause before you reflect, reflect before, just stop for a second and see what's going on. נכון.
Okay. So, let's let's let's continue inside. We're on, we're on the top of the here. ברור לחלוטין.
כי הורים אשר ינסו לדבר או לחנך את ילדם בשפה בוגרת יחטיאו את המטרה, מכיוון ששפה זו היא למעלה מרמתו, ודומה הדבר למי שלוקח כוס קטנה ושופך לתוכה כמות מים יתרה מגבול הקיבולת שלו. What ends up happening is that you're basically taking a small cup that's the child and you're pouring in what is in your cup and there's such an overflowing of everything. The kid, nothing's, nothing can really be put kept in that cup because there's no, there's not a כלי קיבול. כלי קיבול means a a vessel of reception that it can't be put inside.
Nothing can stay in there. And there's just an overwhelming feeling of this is overflowing, and then what happens? Check out. You checked out לגמרי. Check out.
Why? Not because there's nothing in there. It's just the way that it's going in there, it's overflowing, not in the כוסי רוויה kind of way, like, wow, so much. I'm getting so much from my parent. I'm getting nothing.
I'm checked out.In my school, when they had a meeting once, and they, they gave an example of a kid who comes to his parents and he says, אבא, מה זה gay? Right? So the father, perhaps, started explaining and started, how am I going to, what words am I going to use and how am I going to say it? And after he gives this whole spiel about it, the kid says, מה זה צום תענית? And you're like, oh my goodness. Like really you have to be in the place where your child is.It's interesting, 'cause when you said it, what he doesn't need, I kept thinking curiosity. It's not one of the ספירות, מידות.No, I didn't mean ספירות, מידות. Yeah, yeah, oh, 'cause I didn't say.
Sorry. I didn't mean that. Yeah, yeah. I didn't mean ספירות in נצח.
So to ask, so what what what made you ask that question? Right. To try to find out where they're coming from. Right. But that is such a great example.
צום תענית. Right, that's that's the context.But what happens also when you talk to your child ברמה מעליו, he doesn't know how to communicate with his peers because that's the language he's getting and it's not their language. Mhm. נכון.נמצא.
שההורים חייבים לבנות מעין גשר בינם ובין ילדיהם. There's a bridge that needs to be created between you and your child, שבו יוכלו להעביר את החינוך באמצעות מעשה ודיבור בכדי שיתקבלו אצל הילד כדבעי. Do you know what that word means? כדבעי? כדבעי in Aramaic means כמו שצריך. בעי means צריך.
כדבעי. ומפאת... the way the Lubavitcher Rebbe sent שליחים and he had a very clear message to them. I think we said this last week.
He said, you're going to go out, you're going to do שליחות, you're going to go to places no Jew has ever stepped on in order to share Torah. And there were two words the Rebbe said to all of them, and he keeps on saying it when you listen to how to how to carry on his message: באופן המתקבל, באופן המתקבל. The Rebbe was saying this to שליחים that were going to turn people on to יידישקייט. So if you're not going to say the words באופן המתקבל, someone knows Torah, someone knows הלכה, they'll go somewhere, what are they going to say? They'll say exactly what they know, how they know it, and whoever wants to be part of this, fine.
The Rebbe was not interested in that. באופן המתקבל, in a way that can be received. So the real שליח would then say, Rebbe, please teach me the art of learning what that means. How do you know, how do you develop the trait of of discovering what באופן המתקבל is? Right? It's not just enough to know, oh, the way they need to receive.
Okay. Now that that that word, that statement צריך עיון גדול. So if that's true about שליחים, a parent has the same עבודה as well. השם, what is, how can they receive it? How can they receive what I want to give over to them? How can they receive what you want me to give over to them? is even a much better question.
We have a lot of things we want to give over to our children. It may not be what השם wants us to give over to our children. So how... How do we give over to our children what you want us to give over to our children that you entrust us with? How do we give that over to our children?That's what this means, this paragraph?The last like that's just because of the last word, כי דבעי, בכדי שיתקבלו אצל הילד כי דבעי, כמו שצריך.
ומפאת חשיבות העניין, and because this is so important, נוסיף ללבן את החשיבות הרבה של אותו גשר. We'll continue to clarify the importance of this bridge.בדרך כלל כאשר אנחנו עוסקים בנושא החינוך. Usually when we speak about חינוך, הנטייה היא לעסוק במסרים ובתכנים של החינוך. So we generally are dealing with messages and content of חינוך.
ואכן, אף העיסוק בנושא זה חשוב מאוד. And of course, this is very important. אולם כאשר מעבירים מים ממקום למקום באמצעות צינור שיש בו חור, הרי שהמים לא יעברו ליעד בשלמות. ואם אין צינור, המים כלל לא יעברו.
What did he just say here?It's like without a kid getting the real line and talking from beginning to the end, the message is totally different.A broken telephone, yeah.You have such a מסר that you want to give over.That's why he's saying here, don't, let's we will we will worry, we will we will deal about the messaging. We will. But if you're playing broken telephone, meaning you have to figure out how to play fixed telephone or whatever it's called, right? Isn't that what it's called? Is that what you're talking? Yeah, yeah. Somehow the מסר gets lost a lot of times.
So you're saying forget about the מסר for a second because you may be under the assumption, oh, the מסר isn't strong enough because it didn't go through. He's saying the מסר, התוכן של חינוך is important. What's more important than that? Figuring out a way to make sure that the funnel, that the tunnel, that the pipe is intact. That's more important.
You could have the greatest, I always say this to artists, to musicians. Whenever they whenever they they're called to discuss about how to how to how to be מצליח in music, like a general, just how does it work? And I always tell them that you can have the greatest album. You can have the greatest recorded material in a in a studio, the greatest. But if the funneling system, זאת אומרת, if the link towards getting it to the world is not שייך, it's not there, or you're using technology that they used 20 years ago, which is how he relates to the parenting stuff, then you may have the greatest תוכן.
You may have the best album, and no one's going to hear it. So I always tell them, I hate to break your heart, but how much money did you pay for the studio? So, you know, to to to really put out a a strong album, like a good album, unless you really like really figured out a way to to minimize cost, but it's it it's probably like 40, $50,000 for like a really strong album, 60 maybe. I said, I hate to break it to you, but at least two-thirds of that money has to now be put on promotion, on on that. Like, what, are you crazy? I said, well, let me ask you a question.
Did you go to a שיעור על חינוך that you know the better way? This is the equivalent, right? Or did you go to a שיעור על חינוך in order to figure out how to give over what you're learning? Did you go and record an album that you can enjoy in your house? If so, אין בעיה. But it can't be. If you have a burning desire to share something with the world, it can't be that you're going to be happy just sitting at home enjoying and your heart will be so filled knowing there's such good music being recorded here. And that's why at least two-thirds of the budget that you put towards the actual album has to be put also into getting it out into the world.
But that's what here we're referring to, the גשר. So what is Rav Schwartz telling us? We could have the greatest tactics. We could have the מסר and the תוכן of of חינוך תורה. But and and this is something we don't, people just don't put as much attention to because they think that being a good parent means that I have the knowledge to do, to like of a of in terms of content of חינוך.
We'll get there, he's saying. But this is first. If there's a hole in the צינור, it's the same thing as an album. If there is something like a glitch in the promotion, then אז לשם מה היה כל? What was it all worth it? So you were home, you're enjoying your knowledge, you're enjoying your music, and it could be amazing, be so smart and divine, but everything in this business is about giving over.
And how do we know this? פרקי אבות begins by saying משה קיבל תורה מסיני. And what's the next word? Most important word in תורה שבעל פה. ומסרה ליהושע. The greatness of משה רבינו was not so much that he received the Torah.
The real greatness is that, and it's not and it's not that he was a good teacher either, because then it should have said, משה קיבל תורה מסיני ולמדה ליהושע. Rather, what is it, what's said? ומסרה ליהושע.By our חברה, we always say you want to give over some Torah, not you want to teach Torah. Do you have something strong to give over? So that means that doesn't just mean do you have something smart to say, it means do you have a way that you can give over the smart thing that you want to say.And what do we know about their relationship? About who? משה and יהושע. They were very, very close.
Like a זיווג. Right. Like a זיווג. צינור is a relationship.
Absolutely. Not necessarily the תוכן. נכון. ומסרה.
Giving over. We don't teach יידישקייט, we give over יידישקייט. You don't teach love, you give over love. All the things we want to give over, all the things we want our children to have, have to be funneled through the art, the art of giving over, of ומסרה ליהושע.
And then what does it say after that? Then that was the שיטה of חינוך. Because then what does it say after that? יהושע לזקנים, וזקנים, meaning then it was able that that initial relationship was was right, healthy, receptive, fire. And then afterwards, everything kept on flowing. And this, and we're sitting here thousands of years later, not because משה רבינו was a smart teacher, but he was he was a brilliant, humble, patient, talk about patience, the most patient educator who understood that it's about giving over.
And if you want to give something over, you make sure before you have all the חכמות to say that the צינור is intact, that there's no holes in the צינור. And that's going to be a big עבודה here. How do you find, how do you figure out if the צינור has holes or not? That's a big עבודה. You patch it.
Well first, how do you figure out if there are holes? That's first. And then, if there are holes, how do you patch it? Right? You don't want to לכתחילה put a patched, you know, put a put a hole, a צינור that has holes. You have to you have to look at it, you have to understand what you're dealing with, and then when you discover that there are holes, and guess what? There there will be. But then the עבודה is, so then is it patching holes or is it creating a new צינור, which we'll see.
Let him, he has a שיטה. We all, everyone here has a שיטה, but I'm saying he also has a שיטה, right? Whose hand was up? Yes.Yes, so I actually have the privilege that my kids told me, "You're not giving it over right." Wow. Yeah, this was after their father wasn't giving anything over anymore, and I just want to explain. That's because he wasn't in this world.
Not because he was a bad person. And I finally said to them, "Look, you guys know me. I'm not אבא, obviously. I said, I want you to presume that I'm giving it over from the heart, even though I sound more scholarly and academic." And I really tried to get them to understand it's a different צינור, but the message is actually still the same.
The love is the same. And thank God. But it was That's very, very deep. That's very special.
But they told me. That's פנימיות הדיבור. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. But that they could say to you, That's right. That's a very big עניין. Right.
And it takes That's because they felt safe in the relationship. That's because they felt safe in the relationship, and they know that the מדה of humility is found by their mother because in old European Jewry, if a kid said that to their parents, it's a, but that but that's part of the דור. Meaning it's not like, let's let them be מחוצף. No.
No, that's not what we're saying. Where you have that today and this there's this there's a voice in the world of חינוך that says just have to accept the חוצפה because that's the דור. No, no, it's not what we're saying. Back then if a kid said that to a parent, sometimes you meet you meet חברה, they have something from the old דור that's really, really beautiful.
There are things from back then that are beautiful. I'll give you an example, but then I'll go right back to this. We did a שבע ברכות last week for my cousin married off a son, ברוך השם. So we did שבע ברכות here.
And the, all the it's a very rich, cultured ספרדי family. My cousin is Yemenite and he married a, I think they're, I think they're תימני, right? I think he married a Yemenite girl. And my cousin's Yemenite cause our my my aunt, my mother's sister married a תימני. So the father of the כלה was here for שבע ברכות.
And he he came up to me after the שבע ברכות and he said to me something so, it was so beautiful. Like some people will hear this and be like, oh, that's so, it's so not, it's, who does he think he is? I thought this was the highest thing in the world. There was such trust between the daughter and the father based on the statement that he said. He said to me, cause I said to him, wow.
אני בטוח שהבת שלך היא פשוט זהב, כי הבן דוד, הבן של הבן דוד שלי, הוא צדיק, הוא זהב טהור. Right? I'm sure your daughter is gold. I don't know her, but I'm sure she's gold only because my cousin's son, the חתן, is ממש, his kid is so refined, he's so beautiful. And he says, אתה אומר לי, הרבה רצו אותה, he says, אבל אני בחרתי אותו.
So you can, you would say, you know, in today's 2025 brains, how could you who are you to choose for now? I'm sure she also had something to do with the choosing, obviously, right? But the way that he said it was like, that that's something beautiful from what we once had, right? But back in the day for a parent for a child, a child to feel like they can tell their parent, I need you to, I need you to change the way that you that you want to be the best at what you want to be at, right? That's really what their kids are saying. Like they're saying, Mommy, I this is more important to you than anything and I I want it to work. Therefore, I need you to give it over to me a different way. Back then, the the old school would never hear such words.
The דור that we are in, it's a beautiful, amazing thing. If that's the establishment and like you said, it's because what you say cause they felt trust in the, right? Safe, right, because they're they're they're saying this we're we're on the same team here. We're trying this is teamwork, this is communication. They want to hear this.
Like my my mother wants wants to be able to hear this. But you can only do that from from creating this environment of safety, נכון? Okay. נמצאנו למדים. We're just gonna finish up over here.
I I very presumptuous of me to give you four pages, but I'll I'll take the pages back afterwards unless you want to hold on to them. נמצאנו למדים שהעברת התכנים של החינוך לילד הנה שלב שני. Content giving over, right? Is is the second שלב. קודם לכך חובה לבנות תשתית מסודרת.
But before that, there must be a תשתית מסודרת, an an ordered, orderly infrastructure to build upon שעליה נוכל לבנות את השלב הבא that we could build upon that, שהוא ההעברה מהורים לילדים. וזוהי נקודת הגשר בין המחנך לחניך. This is the bridge talk we're talking about. לאור הדברים האלה, ברור הדבר שתחילה עלינו להסביר ולהגדיר מהו הגשר בין המחנך לחניך וכיצד בונים אותו.
We're going to learn how to build this bridge. ורק מלאחר מכן נוכל לדון בחינוך עצמו. And only after we'll talk about actual חינוך. ואם כן בדברים להלן נעסוק בדברים שהם בבחינת טרום חינוך.
You know what טרום means? Pre. Pre. חינוך. כיצד נבנית התשתית שתהווה לאחר מכן כלי לחינוך.
How we will build that infrastructure which will be a vessel for חינוך. Now, I'm I'm going to ask the obvious question which is the elephant in the room. Is this a ספר for people before they become parents? I was just gonna say. I was gonna say we got nowhere.
I got no bridge, I can't do חינוך yet. You know? I just I have a picture. That's it. Okay, well, we're starting with starting with starting with something, huh? So so why, I mean most of you are parents already, so.
Before and during because we're gonna make mistakes. I think you need to learn the ספר one up again and again and again. So I'll tell you something. You know who buys books on knowing your children? Parents.
So I just wanted to remove the חשש that you all are, you know, that that that thought that you all are screwed. I was just going to say that. I'm sorry, I'm always going to be that person. I know.
You have to learn to drive before you drive. You have to learn, you know, we take all our classes and think. Right. But I want to say something, we also have maternal instincts.
So like, we're not we're not starting from zero. No way. השם gave us instincts and like a deep, like a deep, you know what you're saying? knowing. A deep בינה.
עשני כרצונו. Yeah. So like when we have a baby, the same way like animals have babies and they know what to do, like we, even before everything, we're still, we know how to be parents. And that's still there in every שלב of parenting, זאת אומרת, you can't, it's I just wanted to, that's why I wanted to call it out.
You could come out of this and think, you're going to start, we're going to start learning about things טרום חינוך? My kids are teenagers, or my kids are seven, or I already wrote like 30 books about all my mistakes. Now I'm going to, now I'm going to learn about.There's something inherent, innately in, in, in, and it's not just, also אבות have something too, you know. I know, I know. It's in parents, right? In the, in our נשמה.
The אלטער רבי speaks about this in the תניא. Wow, the way he speaks about this in the תניא. I hope we get to it. We have, we're there.
This is not the שיעור to, to walk out of here and saying, wow, I blew it. Hopefully I can make it better for my children's children. מה פתאום. מה פתאום.
זה בכלל לא הכיוון. All the things we're learning are available to us this moment, right now, ממש right now. So just to remove that, that, that חשש that maybe, maybe someone's thinking, זה בכלל לא ככה? And בעזרת השם as you could see, the topic of the next, of the next subject, אהבת טבעית ואהבה מותנית לילדים, that's something you could pick up on in the moment at any age, which means natural love versus what's אהבה מותנית? Ultimate love. Conditional love.
That's, and that's where things begin. And that can be, that can be conditioned, מותנית, like תנאי. That can be plugged into at any שלב of parenting. It may be harder for certain people that have already created a world of conditional love for their children, even though they'd never admit it, or they'd blame the, they'd say, well, that's what I got from home.
Okay, so we're here to stop that, that, you know, מהלך.Okay, so we'll continue. Wait, when's ראש השנה? Okay, the kids are in school next Sunday? ברוך השם. Okay. Okay, well, well, well, well.