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“Know Your Children with Rav Shlomo Katz” is a series about the everyday holy work of raising children with heart, patience, and honesty. Join Rav Shlomo in learning from the sefer Da Et Yeladecha by Rav Itamar Shwartz, author of Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh, and explore how Torah and Chazal guide us in building a healthy, loving connection between parent and child.
This isn’t about perfect techniques or quick fixes. It’s about creating a foundation of truth, learning to really listen, and finding the right “funnel” so that what we want to give actually reaches our children. Each shiur is meant to be practical, gentle, and encouraging, and something you can take home and live with.
Good morning everybody. Learning in the month of Teves l'ilui nishmas Levi ben Yosef and באסי פייגל בת ישראל. This week is sponsored by Yael and Avi Miller לרפואה שלמה לכל חולי עם ישראל by Rabbi Michael and Tova Miller in memory of Tova's brother and father מרדכי נחמן בן חיים מאיר and חיים מאיר בן יעקב נחום by Joan and Robert Kaufman in memory of Robert's grandfather, grandmother, slicha, חיה בת אריה לייב whose yahrtzeit was this week by Jodi and Zev Stender in memory of Jodi's abba Mickey Wall upon his 10th yahrtzeit, יוסף חיים בן יחיאל הלוי and by the Deutch's in memory of Avram's mother שרה רייצא בת ציון בת אברהם יעקב whose yahrtzeit is this week on the 17th of Teves. Okay, Baruch Hashem, we have a lot to get to and a lot to cover.
I'm very excited that we began last week's shiur. We just did the l'chaim, we just did the dedication.
ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen.
Okay. So we're on daf chaf in the second perek in Da Es Yeladecha, Know Your Children. The question that came up last week is why do you need to love your children, which sounds like a stupid question or it sounds like a very ridiculous question, even. But when we look at the, when we kind of think about it, the way we unfolded it last week, we understood that not giving love to your child one morning may be okay, it's like them missing breakfast.
Them not giving love to your kid one afternoon and one evening and they missed three meals a day, כבר קצת יותר מסובך, that's a little bit more complicated, but that can't continue. And we likened love that a child receives from parents to mazon ruchani, to spiritual nourishment. And when we look at it like that, it changes the way that we approach this whole concept of giving love, showing love, expressing love. But it's much more than that.
It's not just that, that was just the beginning. And what we're going to be seeing today as you see the topic in front of us is חיוניות האהבה עבור חינוך הילדים. The word in Hebrew chiyuniyut means essentiality, essential, chiyuni. Something that's chiyuni.
That love is essential for the chinuch of children. Not just that we have to love kids, but if we want to believe that we are responsible and conscious mechanchim and mechanchos, people that are giving over chinuch to our children, now we have to understand that without love then it's very, very difficult to bichlal give over chinuch to your children. Now when I say the word giving over chinuch, when I say the phrase being mechanech your children, to educate them, give me the first few adjectives that come to mind when I say the word chinuch for your children, education. What would they be? Academic, okay.
Love and neshama. Okay, correct. Correct. What else? Values, 100%.
What else? Gentle. I would have thought I was waiting for discipline. Discipline, right? It's a women's shiur, I forgot. How to make your way through your day, the basics of life.
The basics of life like teaching them the ropes, k'ilu the things that we're told of how to make it in this world and all those things. And yet while all those things are true, tying it back to the beginning of this series, without the mashpach, without the funnel system which must first be created through love, all those good things, essential things and important things we want to give over to our children, they won't reach them. You could have the greatest ideas. You could have the greatest ideas.
You could have the most amazing strategies. You could have the most amazing personal stories about what you went through in life. And I remember so many times when I was younger and I would hear from friends how their parents would say to them, תדע מה אני עברתי כדי להגיע לאן שאני צריך להגיע. You know what I went through in order to get to, you think that I was pampered like you're pampered? Like those things don't help anyone.
They don't help any kid finding out that their grandfather was beaten twice a week in order to make them a tough strong man out there in the working system. These things don't work. Hem lo ozrim. They don't do anything for us.
Actually, they Actually, they do something for us. It's the opposite. It's actually the opposite. So, we're going to see today and it's very Baruch Hashem this Lashon, the language we're using today it's a very simple flow.
It shouldn't be too complicated and if anything comes up that's not clear please let me know. Chiyoniut or in daf chaf.
חיוניות האהבה עבור חינוך הילדים.
סיבה נוספת שבגינה ההורים צריכים להעניק לילדיהם אהבה היא סיבה חינוכית כפי שיבואר לפנינו.
Another reason why parents must give love to their children is a is an educational reason, Siba Chinuchit, as we're going to be explaining today.
במסגרת הדברים שההורים צריכים להעניק לילדיהם קיימים שני מימדים. There are two there are two worlds that we have to speak about when it comes to what we want to give over to our children. Meimad echad chomri, a materialistic concept, שחלקו נובע מכך שהילדים נולדים חסרי ישע.
A kid that's born into this world is whether we like it or not on a very materialistic level, they're born Chasrei Yesha. You know what that means? Helpless. Helpless. They they mean they come into this world, they don't have they don't have anything, they just come into the world.
And that's one thing that we have to just be conscious of always that they come into this world with nothing, Mamash nothing.
ועל כן עול הגידול שלהם מוטל על כתפי ההורים עם כל הכרוך בכך מבחינה גשמית. Which means that the yoke of raising them that's placed on their on the shoulders of their parents means that you gotta supply them with just about everything. You'll be the deciding factor as to until what age that's true.
Okay, I mean I I once was speaking to friends of mine, friends of mine we're discussing Chinuch of children and they came to a very clear, it wasn't a Hefker decision, but a very clear decision that said listen we're giving our children everything till they're 13. From 13 on they gotta start owning up for it. So I was like wow, that's that's pretty I didn't know what to say when when they said that to me and to my wife and we were both just sitting there together. 13? From 13 on it's kind of on them.
להבדיל אלף אלפי הבדלות. But what's on them? Well, that's what I wanted to ask I asked them too. I said, well what's on them? Is like food? Like no no food will just you know we'll have in the fridge and everything but all those other things that kids expect from their parents they gotta earn it. I said, like what? Like money? I'm like 13 year old like well you gotta earn it.
I'm like what so what's the earning like what do they have to do in order to get it? Lehavdil, you know I have this whole Mishugas with NBA, right, with with basketball? They it's more and men's come up in the men's shiurim much more. Whatever, I'm from LA so it was very easy and fun being a very avid NBA basketball and baseball and everything other fan, but but growing up in the LA in the 80s my team always won so it was very easy to like the team that I was around and get into it very much. You've heard of Shaquille O'Neal, right?
להבדיל אלף אלפי הבדלות. Can't believe he's coming up into a shiur on Sunday morning in Shul in Efrat, but weirder things have happened here.
He once said, huh? He's the one that you taught? Who did you teach? Oh, you remember that? No, no, no, no, that that was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Yeah, that's another shiur. We'll do another shiur. But no, this is not a personal story with him.
It's just I saw an interview once where he said he has six kids and he told his kids if you want to touch the cheese earn two degrees. So what is the the interviewer had no idea what that meant either. What's the cheese? The cheese is the gelt, right? If you want to touch the cheese they have to have each of his kids has to have two they have to get two degrees, a BA and an MA. Yeah, pretty interesting that anyway, he's very chazak in this.
When a kid is born, you imagine telling a kid at the moment they could understand English or Hebrew or whatever language you communicate with them, if you want to earn the cheese earn two whatever, it won't work. Zot omeret, as much as we forget this at a later stage in life when us, when we came into this world, when our children come into this world, it's all on us, everything. That kind of doesn't leave us for the rest of our lives. As much as we'd like to build them up in everything, there is a part in us that if it's healthy, and everyone and every child should find their You know how painful it is when I get to speak to parents, children are older and the parents are in such a dire pain because they can't give to their child all that they want to give them.
That's a very heavy sugya. And what a blessing and what a blessed thing it is when a parent is still alive and able to still give to the child, you know to give to the child everything that they that they want to give them. It's not pashut. It's not a simple thing.
So first of all I just want to give us a bracha that we should be able to give our children everything, everything that we're able to kol yemei chayeinu while we're building them, not instead of building them, while we're building them. And the emet is and the biggest joke is is that you know that they're build they're totally building us, you know every time they enable us to be able to be that which we were sent down to be in this world like like like great parents, they're building us. It's very clear. The illusion is is that we're mashpia they're mekabel but when they allow hashpa'ah to come in they totally are enabling us to be to grow and they're giving us back more than we could ever ever or want to admit to them.
Okay, so that's so the first thing he says over here is that you have to they come in helpless and then you got to give them everything. Now we're in the third to bottom paragraph on the fourth line.
מעמד נוסף שקיים בהורות says the Bilvavi another element that exists in parenting הוא החובה של ההורים לבנות ולהעצב את אישיותו של הילד the obligation on parents to build and to design the character of the child. Ma shemugdar bileshoneinu that's already what's called in our language chinuch.
ועבור מעמד זה נצטרך את אהבה בין ההורה לילד כפי שיבואר לפנינו if you want to mechanech your child you need to be able to have love. If you want to just supply your kids with all the materialistic needs that they have, do you need love? No. That's the distinction of today's shiur and we have to understand that because many parents are under the assumption and also many spouses are like this as well but but today we're speaking about chinuch, they're under the assumption that if I'm supplying my with my child with everything, if I'm giving them everything they need, don't they know that that's love? No. Not at all.
If I give my wife everything she could possibly ever dream of and more, isn't that love? Ma pitom. And if I'm making meals for my husband every single day and I'm telling my children to stand up when he walks into a room and all those things, is that love? No, it's certain things that are maybe essential but that's not love. That's not love. That's not what's going on over there.
And now he explains why this is so essential when it comes to chinuch that if there's no love, if there's no real love there that's felt, that's expressed, keep on mechaneching for fifty gilgulim it won't change a thing. It won't do anything. Again, it'll do something, not what you're thinking. It'll do the opposite.
ידועים דברי הפסוק במשלי, Shlomo HaMelech says in Mishlei את אשר יאהב ה' יוכיח, it's a hard one. Those people that are loved by Hashem, Hashem will mochi'ach them. What does lochi'ach, what does that mean? To rebuke. It doesn't mean to prove.
But lochi'ach, tochecha, you've heard that word before, right? Yochi'ach, they'll be rebuked. Now listen to these words.
כאשר אדם משוכנע שהמוכיח אותו הוא אוהבו, when a person is convinced that the person that is being rebuking them loves them ברוב המקרים הוא יקבל בקלות רבה יותר את התוכחה, not always, but most of the time it's safe to say that the person that's receiving the tochecha will be able to receive it.
לעומת זאת אם האדם משוכנע שסיבת ההוכחה היא קנטרנות שנאה קנאה, if a person is convinced that the reason that the person in front of me is mochi'ach me is rebuking me it's coming from kanteranut that means like to make fun of to tease or there's hatred or there's jealousy ישנו סיכוי קלוש שהוא יקבל את אותה התוכחה, there's rarely a, yeshno sikui kalush means there's a very little chance that that person will receive that rebuke.
Nimtza, we see from this שללא אהבה בין ההורה לילד הילד יתקשה לקבל את תוכחת ההורה והדרכתו. Without the love that's shining bright between the parent and a child, the child will have a very difficult time to receive here calling it tochachat ha-horeh, but most people really you have to just give another word for that. What's the tochachah of the horeh? What else would we call it? Just chinuch. Ve-hadrachato and guidance.
Now, in every family these dynamics work differently and that's why I don't want everyone to think oh this is true across the board. It's not. The way that it happens in each family is very different. So that's why there are no, if someone shares something now, it doesn't mean that you're disproving what he's saying, it just means or that you're disproving how someone else it works in someone else's house.
But there has to be a machaneh meshutaf. That means a common goal. What's the machaneh meshutaf? That we know we have an obligation to mechanech our children. You have an obligation for it.
There's not like, no one's exempt from it. But there's a thing that has to come, there's a prerequisite in order to enter that realm of obligation and that is love. And without that you can't fulfill this incredible awesome amazing and holy obligation of mechaneching your children. Yes.
I'm asking about my experience only. If a child is oppositional, is that ipso facto that I'm not showing a love or maybe I don't have it or I don't have enough or the mashpiah is wrong? Like is that an indication that something's wrong? If the kid is oppositional is something wrong with the parent? Yes, only you because whenever we discipline it always works perfectly, Mindy. So really it's your problem and you should seek help. You know the answer, come on.
I was just wondering if he had any kind of generalization here. No, because he keeps on saying, it's interesting. Whenever he gives over a Torah he says be-rov ha-mikrim. He says generally.
Right. No, he's very careful here and that's what I like this very much. It's not this approach that says and this is how you do it. He's saying generally speaking this is how it will flow through.
But to go back to what Mindy's obvious question that I'm sure each of us now without joking has experienced. I'm certain that I love my child and that they know that I love them and then when I tell them something that's like not lovey-lovey but it's more chinuch it doesn't flow. What's wrong with me? So aleph, nothing. You have to just nothing wrong with you.
There's nothing what could be better about that specific situation. Kol mikreh legufo. We could discuss each thing. You may be certain that the mashpiah is working.
Like you may be to you may be clear like oh the funnel system's working and I don't know why there's mitsido there's a clog. Maybe I don't know maybe you have to relook and reexamine the funnel system that was built in order for them to receive what you're trying to give over to them. Further, I would say even something else: are you sure you understand what you're trying to give over to your child? Not you, Mindy, anybody. Now that happens quite often.
Like we're sure we're telling them something they don't understand it like do I have to say this till I'm blue in the face? Well maybe you have to change the wording, maybe you have to say the same exact concept but in a different way. So there could be a million different things. But love can never be optional. That's the point he's trying to make here.
Love can never be optional. The child that's sitting there hearing your voice must know that this is emanating from a source of love. And without that even if the child ends up doing what you're telling them to do that's not really chinuch. That's discipline and that's like learning in a school or you know trying to get a job and learning the ropes of how it works there.
Now this sugya just to make it clear to everybody, obviously this is touching on a lot of very sensitive chords because I mean how many people today could really say, and some can but some people can't, that could say listen I know what it's like I know what it's like to taste love and receive guidance from a parent. That's how I grew up. And then you wonder how am I supposed to know how to do this if I never if I didn't receive this from home? So I just want to say something about that. The fact that you chalilah unfortunately painfully may have not received it from home in a healthy way which is basically 80 percent of the last generation just to make everyone feel calmer okay.
You sometimes have some rare occasions where it was just flowing and it was good. Until today you see it. It's still taking place, are you kidding me? Yeah, we, yeah, we, Auschwitz, end of chapter, right? So the world has been in a state, especially the Yiddishe, the Yiddishe velt, the Jewish world was in a complete state of frenzy. No one really knows like on a chinuch level how the love is supposed to be there and everything.
So all of us are kind of sharing this question mark of like okay so if I didn't if it wasn't really embedded in me properly the way that I believe it could have been from home do I have a chance of discovering that on my own now and starting from scratch and then giving that over to my children? And the answer to that is no yes. It has to no no that's okay that's okay no one knows who you are I don't know who you are I don't even know what you're doing here no I'm kidding. The answer is yes. Just because you didn't receive it from home that does not mean chas v'shalom that it's not in your kochos to figure this out because Rebbe Nachman says Ha'ikar taluy baratzon.
Everything is dependent on how bad you want something. And if you want something bad enough even if you wouldn't receive it so it didn't come naturally you'll get there. It has to be. I believe this is a principle of faith this is an ikaron emunah.
Maybe a little bit more difficult because it's not something you grew up with. It's not maybe your mame loshon right? Your mame loshon is not that love that we're speaking about but to create it to learn that language is possible. He will explain to us obviously a parent that's not in constant dialogue with Hashem over the chinuch of their children will have a much more difficult time learning this loshon learning this language definitely but it's still beheseig yad. That means it's reachable for anyone that really really really wants it.
And I don't know anyone especially people women that are coming to a Sunday morning shiur week after week that don't really want it. We would want anything we would want if we could jump to the future right now and interview our children or hear an interview that someone does with our children. And the question that our child is asked in their thirties and forties and fifties is tell us do your parents they knew what they were doing at home? So they may say you know they didn't really know exactly they were just they were like discovering it themselves but we saw how much they wanted to do it right and and what was clear to us is that love was in the air. Who wouldn't want to hear those words? Don't kid yourself you want to hear your kids say my parents they know exactly what they were doing.
No I don't know anyone that that could really say that. But to hear your child say when they become parents to say they were trying and they tried really well and did everything work? Obviously not. But was love there when they were talking to you? Yes. That's everything.
That's a tefillah that's everything in the world. It should be our zchus it should be of our chelek that we're old enough to hear that interview B'ezrat Hashem like when you know when our kids are some of your kids are like mamish how old is your latest one? Imagine but imagine already going there and saying yeah that's already what I want to hear. That's what I would do anything to hear. So that the love is there and therefore when it's times of chinuch and I have to say something a shtikel strong okay so obviously Hashem should bless me with the right way how to say it going back to what Mindy brought up.
But if they know that it's all love then even if they're showing that they're being rebellious and they can't hear it if you trust the funnel system then what they hear is love. It really is. And it lasts for them. Okay so now bottom paragraph.
אכן עניין התוכחה הובא כדוגמה בלבד. This concept of a tochachah which really means just stark chinuch it was brought as an example.
אולם אהבת ההורים נצרכת עבור כל הכרוך בחינוך הילדים. But love that parents need for their children is needed in all realms of chinuch not just when you have to say something chazak not just when you have to be a little bit tough.
The love is needed for everything. You want to give over a minhag to your child you know in our home the girls... My girls, I don't know who else does it here, my girls light candles since they're three. Anyone else do that? Yeah, it's such a beautiful, such a gevaldig thing.
Now, I didn't grow up like that. My sisters didn't light when they were three, my mother didn't light when they were three, but we felt very connected to that minhag, it's a beautiful thing. Now, there's two ways of going about it. That can become the most, the most horrifying Friday afternoon experience.
Something that's supposed to be so beautiful can become such an ugly thing. How? Get down here! Mommy, I'm four. No, get down right now and you have to light your candles. Then it's completely, anything beautiful can be completely flushed down into something that becomes כל כך לא לא לעניין, you know? So love is needed in all realms of chinuch, not just when you're trying to, not just when you're trying to say something chazak to your child, but also when you're trying to give over something beautiful to your child.
If love isn't the story behind what you're trying to give over, even those beautiful things may have a chance of fading, chas v'shalom.
וכפי שהארכנו למעלה לבאר, like we explained above, עצם החינוך הנו שלב שני. We already spoke about this. Chinuch is secondary to the relationship between a parent and a child.
קודם לכך חייבים לייסד. Leyased comes from the word yesod. Yesod means foundation. You have to concretize, you have to make a foundation, השלב הראשון שהוא הקשר והאהבה ההדדיים בין ההורים לילדים, which is the connection and mutual love between parents and children, shemehavim k'gesher beineihem, because that serves as the bridge.
That serves as the bridge for anything to be met, for anything to have a way of getting across to anything. And he gives a beautiful, simple mashal here.
משל למים הנמצאים בכנרת. Everyone drank water this morning, b'ezrat Hashem, you're drinking water now.
Where does this water come from?
משל למים הנמצאים בכנרת, mikdei sheyagiu l'beiteinu. In order for it to reach our homes, אנו צריכים לבנות צינור שדרכו יעברו המים. We need to build a pipeline through which that water could reach our homes. Uvanimshal shehu hachinuch.
This parable is of course teaching us about chinuch.
כאשר הורים מעוניינים להעניק לילדיהם חינוך, when parents want to give over chinuch to their children, תחילה עליהם לבנות אהבה כלפי הילדים. So they first have to build love towards their children, כדי שתשמש כצינור שדרכו יהיה ניתן להעביר לילד את החינוך, so that it serves as a tzinor, as the pipe through which chinuch can also be passed through to the child. And now he brings such a beautiful, beautiful Torah.
This is an amazing thing. Look at this. This is taking us to Parshat Terumah where Moshe Rabbeinu is building the Mishkan.
כאשר משה רבינו רצה לבנות את המשכן, עלה בדעתו לבנות תחילה את הכלים ולאחר מכן את המשכן.
Moshe Rabbeinu first wanted to build the utensils, the vessels, and only afterwards to build the Mishkan. Amar lo Betzalel. Now who was Betzalel? What was his inyan? What do we say about Betzalel? Chacham lev. He is, the wisdom of his heart was beyond, surpassed everyone's.
So Betzalel comes to Moshe Rabbeinu and he says to him like this: אם נבנה את הכלים קודם המשכן, היכן נניח את הכלים עד שתסתיים בניית המשכן? Hear how beautiful this is? Where are we going to place the vessels until the building of the Mishkan is finished?
תחילה יש לבנות את המשכן ולאחר מכן לבנות את כליו. So first you have to build the Mishkan and only afterwards you build its vessels.
ואכן משה רבינו הסכים עם דעתו של בצלאל ואף שבחו על כך. Moshe Rabbeinu agrees to what Betzalel said and he praises him for it.
What's going on over here? What's the mashal going on over here? Well, what's the Mishkan? The house. Yeah, but in the context of our shiur, what is the Mishkan and what are the vessels? Just so it's clear to everybody. The foundation before everything else. The foundation is the bayit, the home, the Mishkan.
The vessels are... chinuch, instruction, like the guidelines, it's zot omeret. What's that? Literal tools? Literal tools, like literal tools, exactly. So Moishe Rabbeinu it's interesting, of course he's going to say well we need vessels first so that so therefore when the house is built then we could just use it right away.
No, it doesn't work like that, it's the other way around. The yesod, the foundation has to be built first in order for then the vessels that you learn and develop have a place to be placed inside right away. Is that clear, the mashal that he gave? Is that clear to everybody? Did anyone ever notice that that was an argument between Moishe and Bezalel in the parshiyos that deal with the, yeah? Because the Rebbe speaks about that, that's probably how you know that. I asked my class, I asked my five year olds which they would do first.
And what'd they say? Took a poll. Build the furniture or would you build the house first? What'd they, do you remember? Everybody makes sense, you're gonna build a house, you're gonna go out and buy furniture, where are you putting it? It sounds like Moishe Rabbeinu was slow when you say it like that, it makes sense, what are you gonna do? It's very cute though, but no, but think about the other way. Why do you think Moishe Rabbeinu had this desire to actually build the tools first, the vessels first? We're like that by the way, we're much more like that. Hashem, when he was creating the world, well the truth is, he did what Bezalel did.
He did what Bezalel did. But why, I'm saying, going back to the question, why did Moishe Rabbeinu think that you should really build the vessels first, only then build the Mishkan? Think about it in your own life. He was excited? Maybe, but he could have been excited to build the Mishkan, the actual home, you could say that about excitement. He was all about the Torah from small to big.
So it's easier. Right, it's easier to learn listen, it's easier to learn some tool and technique in parenting. It's much easier. He was all about Torah, that's what he was, that was his job.
Nachon. So that's how he thought. No, this isn't, listen, this is not a Moishe Rabbeinu bashing shiur, chas v'shalom, ever. It'll never be, we're never bashing anybody.
We're just learning and when the Torah presents for us something that's a very clear distinction between two gedolim, it's aleinu, our our zchus and our and our obligation to extract from what the Torah puts in front of us to learn it l'maiseh for our lives. But Sarah, I want to go back to what you said, you said it was easier or more accessible, it's right there in front of me. It's baby steps. It's baby steps.
Mishkan is what? It's the foundation, it's the love, it's the whole, it's the whole point and purpose. And sometimes I think that if I don't build it right immediately, I'm doing a churban to my children. So this is I want to address this for a second. Sometimes we think we have to go more with tools versus focusing on love because of a fear of building a Mishkan that's not as beautiful as I know it needs to be for our children.
You know there's something that's called shipputzim, right? You know what shipputzim, I know it's for many people it's a very triggering word. Even for Americans, you were about to embark on this olam called shipputzim. Shipputzim, Ruth you've been there, it's not a gevalt. It's at the you get there, but then there's more shipputzim, once exactly when you think, but that's the same exact concept when it comes to the Mishkan.
Shipputzim means construction. It actually means ripped off being ripped off in modern Hebrew. Shipputzim means someone's ripping you off, it's always. No? Makes sense it's called shipputzim.
Construction. That's really what it means. Yeah. Who says that the final thing that the thing this is what's so amazing, Bina really points this out to me very clearly.
Who says that that that image that you had of what you thought would be the most ideal structure, once it's up there, you maybe maybe you'll change your mind, maybe you'll think, you know, this could actually look differently once you have a picture in front of you. What holds again, what holds us back from admitting that the ideal picture of what we thought love would be needs a tweaking? What midah holds us back? Ga'avah. Again, again, pride. I had a picture of what it should look like and I get to it and I'm operating from there with that love that I thought this is what it means and it's not clearly, Mindy this is really going to address you again, it's clearly not the ideal situation for what's needed now at this moment.
Ga'avah comes in my way again and says listen, don't mess with this, this is ideal, don't you know, but it's not ideal. No, it's ideal and this keeps on going back and forth. So I'd rather focus on utensils and vessels because those are small things that I could just pick up and try on because the gaiva doesn't mess with me with those things. Smaller, I'm starting with small, small to big, it's easier.
But it's not true, it's not like that. What's that? Also fear. They're so scared. Betech betech.
100% all those things are rooted in gaiva. Fear is rooted in gaiva. We had a whole shiur on this one time. Mamesh the whole inyan of pachad is actually rooted in gaiva because somehow someone told us that when something doesn't end up the way that you think it should be then the whole world has been destroyed.
Everything's wrong. No, it's a nekuda. It's a sensitive nekuda. Your hand was up, yeah.
Yeah, I was just thinking that having children and you have this sense of the small things like my kids are going to love learning, they're going to love davening, all the things that I would have loved to do if I was a boy. Want to stay in yeshiva all the time. And my kids are not that. So if I see small this is what I expected, this is what I hope, those are the small things I expected but be-gadol their neshamos are amazing and they're good people and they're wonderful and they are filled with love.
Tova. But it's the day-to-day, refusing to go to school, disrespect, things that are the details don't really matter when you pull back. And it's really hard to pull back. Oh, it's torture.
It's torture. It took me four kids but it was after four girls the boy came. So I already decided I am not putting any instrument in front of him. I'm not talking to him about anything about kehuna.
All these things that kivayachol are right? And then my heart melted this morning I saw a video that I guess Kiki posted, maybe Ellie took I don't know, about the boys in Lamplighters with Rav Shloime and he was pulling out tzitzis but talking about it as spaghetti and Nachman was talking to me about it all Shabbos and I didn't know what he was talking about then I saw a video of him running to kiss the tzitzis that he was holding. And for those of you that have been in shul he's kind of into his kehuna. Kind of? Big time. You've never been bentsched, you've never been duchaned until you've heard Nachman do birkas kohanim mamesh.
Right? But I always think if he was born as the bachor, right? Oh my gosh I can't even imagine how many how off whatever this is all be-geder this all falls under what do we know but I do think about these things all the time. Trust me there's plenty of mistakes I'm sure I'm doing with him too but these nekudos of what you're saying be-gadol these are big neshamos, these are beautiful neshamos and that's how first I look at them. That's what I see when I look at them. That's what I see when I think of them and it's an amazing thing what you're saying.
That's the Mishkan and that's clear to me. That's there and that has to be embedded in me the way that I even think about my child. It's very hard and not less here in chutz l'aretz when your kids are older. What are your children up to? Imagine one of your children was in an Ivy League school and they were acing it but their neshamos were drawing them to something that's not that.
And then how easy it is to proudly tell your friends whose kids are basically eating Jack's cheese if you know what I mean from the beginning of shiur. They got the BA, they got the MA, to tell your child with pride, no my child I'm so proud of them. They followed the pulse of their own the beat of their own drum and they're visiting they're tasting different things but I'm so proud of them that they're listening to their neshamos. Really, what are they doing? Right now they're actually not doing so much but they're in a very good place of searching and they have their parents' haschama.
Even more than haschama, encouragement even, yeah yeah. A child that feels love from the home will do that. The bridge is intact. The bridge is intact, the bridge of love is intact.
Kids that don't feel that can be led to very immediate and dangerous rebellions because they're gonna look for love in all the wrong places. We know this already. This happens all the time. Okay.
כן הוא אף בעניין החינוך. This is the same thing that we just said about Moshe and Bezalel. The same thing in the world of chinuch.
אם נבנה את תכולת הכלי ללא הכלי הרי שלא יהיה לנו מקום להניח את התכולה.
If we build the, how do you say tchula in English? Content. Yes, the content of the vessel without the vessel, then there'll be no place to place the content.
ומכיוון שהכלי דרכו אנו מחנכים הוא אהבה. And since the vessel through which we educate is love, barur hadavar, it's gotta be clear, שתחילה אנו צריכים לבנות ולייסד את האהבה.
that first we have to build and make the love the foundation, ורק לאחר מכן נוכל להעניק את התכולה שהוא החינוך עצמו. Only then can we give over the content which is the actual chinuch.
כאשר החינוך אינו מוענק בכלי של אהבה. But when chinuch is not given over in a vessel of love, domeh hadavar, this is likened, לאדם השופך מים מקנקן ואין כוס תחתיו שסופם להישפך לארץ.
It's like someone that's taking a cup of water, whatever, you want to pour it into another cup and there's no cup beneath you and it just falls onto the ground. That's mamash what it's like.
אף חינוך המוענק ללא כלי קיבול של אהבה. Chinuch that's given without the receptory vessel of love, sofo laredet letimyon.
That means that chinuch will go down the drain.
ואף על פי שיש בחינת שמאל דוחה וימין מקרבת אולם גם השמאל דוחה צריכה לנבוע מתוך אהבה. He's saying, but listen, we know that sometimes you have to be heavy, you have to be harsh. He's saying, yeah, that's fine, but even that harshness has got to emanate from love.
Like he said, את אשר יאהב ה' יוכיח. What Shlomo Hamelech says in Proverbs, in Mishlei, that the one that Hashem loves, he's mochiach. The obvious question I have to so many of us, including myself, is, is it ever too late? Did you hear that? The answer is no. We have to believe that though.
Is it ever too late when my kid's already 20? When my kid's 40? No, you're 50, you've got to give up. What?
אין יאוש בעולם כלל. No, no, no. I can tell you.
Oh, okay, if you mean 50 with Alzheimer's, you shouldn't. Yeah, but if the parent is 80 with Alzheimer's and the kid is 50. Right. Right, so the parent with Alzheimer's is not osek in the question of.
Right, I know. But let's say you're still holding cup, you know, to a certain extent. So, forget 50. I would go even much, I would go younger.
I would actually say like, I would say 15. I'd say like 15, that's a good, that's a nice number for right now. Kid's 15. I did everything wrong until now.
So the foundation, the home they grew up in is not one that I could that they know for sure they feel this is it's all love. And then, let's say I learn a shiur like this or something happens to me and my drive now is, cause obviously this is a much easier shiur for people that are about to become parents or parents with toddlers or with kids that basically don't talk back yet. Gevalt, they won't feel like, oh they have it all, you know, you walk out and then we have the perfect recipe, we know what we're going to do. What about children that are 15, that are 18? Right.
This is a real, real deep shayla. This is a real, real deep shayla. But even I'm 43, I know I still need love from my mom. It's like, we all know we still need that love.
So that means our kids obviously will always need that. And the question is, and I'm not, I love your mom, I don't want to get personal, she's gevalt, but I'm saying, I don't want to make it about her, but let's say anyone, let's say that wasn't the story growing up, right? Let's say... But kids always need the love, even if they don't get it. So, because the need from the child is always there, even if it wasn't like that in...
if the need is still there and there's a ratzon from the parent to now say, let's make this happen, so Rebbe Nachman was right, אין יאוש בעולם כלל. Not that we need this to justify Rebbe Nachman, but you understand what I'm saying, there's no despair, because you're 100% right, a child, and even though we don't want to admit that and it's very, I'm very happy you're saying that, you know, I'm a parent, I have a life, I don't need love, I need acceptance and don't bother me too much and send me money. That's what I need from my mother at 43 or 45 or 50, no, it's not true, it's not true. A child's ratzon to receive love from the parent is eternal.
It's eternal. Yeah. Is there ever where there's too much love and there's not enough discipline so it kind of goes awry? Of course, of course, of course. We spoke about it a little bit a few months ago, and we're gonna get to it again a little bit later on, 100%.
But b'ezrat Hashem, let that be the issues that we deal with as opposed to the other way around. Yeah, Elisa. I don't mean this cynically, but when you ask the question of is it ever too late, I was thinking like, too late for what, meaning I don't think it's ever too late to build something beautiful and new in the relationship between a parent and child and that doesn't necessarily mean that you can undo what's been done until now, like that experience is still there and doesn't mean that things are gonna be rosy and perfect, but it's never too late to l'chadesh and add something new into the picture. A million percent.
I think when I said is it ever too late, I have to be a little bit clearer with what I meant. Is it ever too late to build a foundation? Yesod, l'yased, that's the word that he used here. That's more where the question came from. But I still think the answer is the same.
Just taking these two ideas, I'm thinking like I know there were so many people that I worked with that I kept hearing the theme of people that had horrific childhoods and stories and things that happened to them and they said if today and they're in their 40s or maybe older, my parent would call me and say I acknowledge what I did, I see how it affected you, I want to start anew, like so many people talk about how that would just change everything, like even though everything's there, you're right, it's like imprinted on us, it also completely optimizes the experience of a kid at the end of the day is always ready and available, yeah, that child right inside them. Nachon. That approach is a mature approach. When they're a little bit younger in maturity, the answer would be it's done m'tzad the child, would say I've heard that also many times there's nothing they could do, it's done, damaged goods, but the emes is not like that, the emes is what you said, or what you heard from different people, and what Leia was really saying right now, the emes is a child is always, always looking for that love which means that to a certain extent to build the Mishkan is possible at any given age and it's true it doesn't remove everything, but somehow in the child's experience of this world, they come to an understanding of like for some reason I had to go through this, and there's a level of acceptance m'tzad the child as well, resentment chills out a little bit, a little bit, the resentment goes down, and then there's openness for a new foundation.
So foundation doesn't mean something that was there from day one. Foundation can mean a new perek in life, a new chapter in life where now this is how we're going to be meeting each other, all based on love and all based on trust, which can happen mamash at any given, b'ezrat Hashem we should believe it could happen at any given moment. What were you going to say about the 15 year old though? That can they exactly, it's about them. Do you have a 15 year old? Yeah.
I have a 16 year old so I was 15 last year. What'd you say? I'm not gonna say that. I thought weed would be good for our 15 year old. For the 15 year old or the parent? I think that it's very, very kol mikreh l'gufo, every like each kid at its own, today's 15 year old what they have access to and where their imagination can take them to in terms of what love is is far more...
Intricate, yes, the atmosphere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Who was the Rav who said that Sdom is just a push-button away? Him. Oh, he said? Yes. He didn't say Sdom, he said three generations. He said the generation of the flood, the generation of the Mabul—sorry, the generation of Dor Haflaga, the Tower of Babylon, and Sdom are all showed up together in this dor right before Moshiach.
He said that? Yeah. He said it in a different—in a different sefer we learned. I forget which one it was, was a while ago. Yeah.
And yet look at us. Chasdei Hashem, we're still—we're still very strong. So just the last—I'm going to do two more lines here. Nimtzeinu Lmeidim.
So we see here שישנם שתי מטרות עבורן נצרכת אהבת ההורים לילד. So there are two purposes for which love is needed between parents and children. Aleph: האהבה היא כעין המזון של נפש הילד. Just spiritual nourishment.
Child needs love to exist, like food. That's one. Two: האהבה נצרכת ככלי להנקת החינוך because you will need and want and are obligated to educate them, but without love, you can't really educate, you can't really discipline, you can't really give over to them all that you dream to give over to them and all that you're discovering along the way that you want to give over to them. Those are the two reasons he explains over here why love is essential.
Spiritual nourishment just to keep them alive, and also for really what we discussed more—much more in depth today is for the world of chinuch that we want to give over to our children. B'ezrat Hashem we're going to take this to the next level next week. Should be a week full of good news.