Know Your Children with Rav Shlomo Katz

In this week’s shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz continues our journey in Know Your Children toward a deeper parent–child bond—נפשו קשורה בנפשו / kesher nafshi—a two-way soul connection modeled by Yaakov and Binyamin. We review the “personalized funnel” of chinuch for each child and revisit the two loves that start every home—ahavah tiv’it (rooted in existence) and ahavah mutenet (shaped by traits)—then ask: how do we grow beyond one-way love into a shared inner bond without slipping into favoritism, enmeshment, or blurred boundaries?

Together we learn:
  • Why every child demands a unique funnel from our heart to theirs—and why it begins with knowing ourselves.
  • The limits of one-way love (newborn stage and trait-based affection) and the promise of two-sided connection.
  • What “kesher nafshiisn’t: dependency, replacing clear expectations, or making our child responsible for our feelings.
  • How to model kibbud av va’em, set invitations (not ultimatums), and keep the family as the first lab for reciprocal relationships.
  • Seeing our children inside Nishmat Kelal Yisrael—love that holds the individual and the bigger picture.
Practical takeaways:
  • This week, offer one “invitation without expectation” for connection (walk, note, shared task) tailored to that child’s language of love.
  • Before correction, ask: Am I speaking from ahavah tiv’it or from my need to feel loved? Adjust tone accordingly.
  • Name and protect boundaries that keep closeness healthy (sleep, devices, respectful speech), so kesher can grow safely.
L’ilui nishmat Batya Feiga bat Yisrael, Levi ben Yosef; for refuah sheleimah of Aliza Chana bat Naomi—tachat sha’arei shamayim.

For more Shiurim and Music from Rav Shlomo Katz: https://ravshlomokatz.com

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What is Know Your Children with Rav Shlomo Katz?

“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.

Alright, good morning everybody.

בוקר טוב. We're gonna pass these around. We're learning in the month, we're still, we're still in תשרי.

We're still in תשרי, ברוך השם. And we're learning the לעילוי נשמת בתיה פייגא בת ישראל, לוי בן יוסף, and for the רפואה שלמה of עליזה חנה בת נעמי, תחת שערי שמיים. The gates of שמיים shall open. And there should be a רפואה שלמה.Okay, we are, we are back with with our very special learning about about parenting, for all ages, any age.

Once you're, once you're a mother, once you're a father, you're always a mother or a father, as you know. It doesn't matter what what the ages are. Because we're always, ברוך השם, once that title happens, it's, it it lasts forever, בעזרת השם. And also should be an עת רצון for those that it should happen to them, בעזרת השם.

That they should have the זכות. And also, I think later on, we'll be seeing also that this also has to do with the נשמות that come in, thank you so much, that come in contact with their parents through adoption also, through how it's a whole סוגיה בפני עצמו. But there's so much here to to unpack and unwind and I want to quickly, quickly, quickly give a little bit of a בקיצור of what we were learning before the יום טובים because it seems like it's centuries ago. It seems like a long, long time ago.And what we were speaking about is, is, is something that I know that many questions came up from from the learning that we've been doing until now, because this פרשה of parenting doesn't have one formula.

And that's very important to remember. There's not a formula here. We're not developing a, necessarily a formula that says this works. As long as you're a better person, this works.

That doesn't, that's not, that's not the מהלך either. But what we are trying to do is to give it our best shot. Is to give this world of parenting our best shot by knowing who our children are.

ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו.

אמן. But by, like most things that are very important, don't think you could know who your children are, don't think necessarily that there's this tremendous benefit or even the availability of for you to know who your child is if you don't know who you are, obviously. And that's a whole other פרשה.

זה לא פשוט.

That's not simple, but all the Torah we're learning in our בית מדרש here is working on that. You know, there's, there is a ספר, this is called דע את ילדיך. There is a ספר called דע את עצמך also, know yourself. I don't know, maybe I feel like we should have done, we should have done that one first, but I feel like our whole year, all all the years we're learning here is all about, you know, knowing yourself, דע את עצמך.So the first thing that we spoke about was the need to have a משפיע, to have a funnel, to create a funnel between us and our children.

What we want to give over to them, the way we want to give it over to them, the way that they can receive what we want to give over to them, we need every child, their being in this world demands of us to create a personalized, unique funnel that comes from our hearts, from our minds, from our beings, into our children. Praiseworthy are those that are able to understand that, to relate to that, and to create that even more. And through this funnel, everything that we, all our dreams come through this. Now, the type of love, and and the funnel will get back to a little bit later.

The type of love that we spoke about in the last few שיעורים has to do with two types of love that we have for our children. One we don't want to admit it, but one is pretty natural. One is called אהבה טבעית. When a child shows up on the scene, when a תינוק shows up on the scene, when a baby shows up on the scene, there's an immense, there's an amazing amount of love.

Ari Postin walked in with his like one week old to שחרית today, not even one week old. This little baby that you couldn't even see it, it was covered in like this one of these new, you know, fancy baby carriages, right? So you don't even, you don't even, you couldn't even see what was in there, but you knew that something that brings about a lot of love was in that little baby carriage. What did the child do? Besides be. Nothing.

And yet, it arouses this amazing, incredible, immense, אהבה טבעית. Later on in life, when kids grow up and we get to know them better, what starts to unfold and unravel is something that's called אהבה מותנית, אהבה על תנאי, love that's called conditional love. Now, it's not something we're proud of at times, but it's something that naturally, it's a very natural instinct to to tap into this, to go into this world of like אהבה מותנית. Now אהבה מותנית, conditional love is something that we see between people trying to find their better half.

When they're looking to when they're dating, that's what we're learning when you're looking for your זיווג, you know, you don't have if you have אהבה טבעית, that's that's wonderful and that's beautiful. It doesn't necessarily mean that everything will שטימען. I remember a very dear friend of mine in Los Angeles, I said to him, I said to him, "How did you know? How did you know that she was yours? How did you know she was the one for you?

באמת, how did you know?" He said, "I can't explain it, but when I saw her, all I wanted to do"—this was like couples that are like 20 years older than me and I was I was like a kid. I wanted to understand, "How did you know?" He said, "I don't know what it was, but when I saw her, all I wanted to do was just take care of her." לא יכול להסביר את זה.

So you can't, you don't bank on that. It's not like שידוך advice is like, "Okay, how do you know she's the one? When you go out with her, do you just want to take care of her?" That's not how it works. When if that happens, it's great. And if that's a תולדה, if that's an if that if that is a, say תולדה, an offspring, if that what if that's what is birthed out of the relationship, that's beautiful, and that's incredible.

But generally speaking, dating, it should be the most selfish experience you go through while you're looking for your זיווג. Why? Because the rest of your life is selfless. But in order to make that choice to be selfless, you have to be selfish in terms of, is this good for me? Not, does this work for them? I think, how's it going? It's great. I think I'm great for them.

Wow, really? Yeah. And for you? It's whatever. Not not so, no that doesn't work. That's not.

There's no there's no ענווה, it's not holy, it's not humility. It's טיפשות. It's not it's stupidity.But that אהבה מותנית, the conditional love, that's a type of love we know of, we know that it exists. And sometimes that interferes with the way that we understand the love between parents and children.

אהבה מותנית was the last thing that we spoke about. But now we're speaking about another another level of love, which we have to see if it's שייך over here. And that is based on the love that is brought out in the Torah, a beautiful, beautiful relationship between יעקב אבינו and בנימין and his son בנימין, his youngest son. Now, this is a third area of love that exists that we're going to we have to put it on the table because it'll play a very, very big role in our understanding of parenting.

I'm going to share with you a quick story that I just saw to to understand this. There is a big צדיק, his name was רבי נחום נחום of Chernobyl, the the the the Chernobyl רבי, the מאור עינים. The מאור עינים, Chernobyl, the Chernobyl רבי was a תלמיד חבר of the בעל שם טוב, and he was by the מגיד of Mezritch. He was a big צדיק.

And one שבת, he had such a beautiful שבת with his חסידים that came to travel with him. And on מוצאי שבת, they bid farewell to each other. And the רבי was sitting there on מוצאי שבת, and he was pretty צעבראכן. He's pretty sad because they weren't there anymore with him.

And while the חסידים were traveling, they also started feeling a heartache in their heart, like, we're not with our רבי anymore. It's horrible. And they started to turn back. They couldn't they couldn't they couldn't continue the journey back to wherever they had to get to.

They journey back. They come back to the רבי, the Chernobyl רבי. And the רבי sees them, and he realizes, "Wow.

ונפשו קשורה בנפשו." That each of their souls were connected to each other.

That means there's love. Well, you know, I'm not going to let's see how the מחבר now explains this third level of love of ונפשו קשורה בנפשו. And we're going to spend some time on this because not just to get to to get a little bit raw. At one and and don't raise your hand, okay? This is like one of these questions I I put out but so I forget to say, don't raise your hand and then people raise their hands and it gets really weird and awkward.

So don't raise your hand for this, okay? But did you ever have a a did you ever really were you ever embarrassed, were you ever embarrassed or were you ever shocked that you caught yourself needing your kid to love you in order to love them the way you want to? I'm going to say that I'm going to repeat that question again. Did you ever catch yourself feeling this innate need for your child to express their love to you in order for your love for them to feel justified.בנפשו קשורה בנפשו is gonna open up a window for us to understand things about ourselves and about the way that the Torah speaks about proper love. And obviously, everything here is in the context of healthy love between parents and children.So you see on the bottom of דף ז. You see it? The bottom of דף ז.

ברם.

ישנו אופן שלישי של אהבת הורה לילדיו, כפי שיבואר לפנינו. There is a third way where love is displayed between parents and children. Remember the first level we spoke about was אהבה טבעית.

We referred to a child like חומר גלם. That was the wording, right?

חומר גלם. That was like raw material. There's nothing there yet.

They bring out so much love. They grow up, you get to know them. Certain things about them, I see myself in them. That could either freak the daylights out of me, or it could make me very proud.

I don't know, I don't know which one. It depends on where you're holding, right? That's called more אהבה מותנית, this conditional type of love. Now we're going to a third level.על היחס בין יעקב לבנימין נאמר בפסוק, ונפשו קשורה בנפשו.

כלומר, נפש בנימין היתה קשורה בנפש יעקב, ונפש יעקב היתה קשורה בנפש בנימין.

דהיינו, אהבת דו סיטרית ולא חד סיטרית.

דו סיטרית, what does that mean?

דו סיטרי. Two way approach, as opposed to חד סיטרי, a one way. That's what we see, that's how he explains here, this love that existed between יעקב and בנימין.

ונפשו קשורה בנפשו. Just as a side note, where's the בית המקדש? In whose חלק is the בית המקדש? In בנימין.

בנימין, נכון? There's something much bigger than just like a פסוק that says, "Oh, יעקב loved בנימין, בנימין loved יעקב." There's something going on over here. When the, when the love is ונפשו קשורה בנפשו, that sets the, that's the setting for the holiest things in the world to be built.

The holiest things in the world to be built, which is what we want. And it's not סתם that later on in life, בנימין's חלק, that's where the most incredible things happen.על היחס, okay, so next, sorry, next paragraph.

כעת נשאל את עצמנו, now let's ask ourselves: האם קשר נפשי כזה שייך לשני סוגי האהבות שנמנו לאל, או שמא זהו קשר מסוג שונה לחלוטין? Would you put this relationship between יעקב and בנימין in the first type of love we spoke about, or the second, or does it stand on its own? What do you think? After we've discussed the three different levels of love. What do you think? Does this go in אהבה טבעית? I think it's a different league.

Meaning? No, neither of the two. So you're saying no. So he's saying no, מאה אחוז. Anybody else have another opinion?

מותר.

We're very democratic here. No one, everyone agrees that this is, everyone thinks this is something else?Okay, let's see how he says it. Let's see how he says it.

הבה ונתבונן, let's take a deep look inside.

כאשר אנו עוסקים באהבה טבעית של ההורים כלפי הרך הנולד, when we're dealing with natural love that parents have towards their newborn. Example A.

האם נוכל להגדירה כקשר נפשי של נפשו קשורה בנפשו? Is this... I...

sorry, please. You're sitting right over here, it's fine. Right? He paid me enough for this. We talked, she's my neighbor, we spoke about this before this morning.

Is this, can we define this, what's going on... can we define what's going on over here as a קשר of נפשו קשורה בנפשו, אהבה דו סיטרית? So, as much as we would be amazing if we could right now X-ray the נשמה of the רך, right? You, of of, uh, אלישבע ליבא. You can't. That's not, this is not נפשו קשורה בנפשו, בינתיים.

ברור שלא.

שהרי אהבה זו היא כלפי חומר כמעט גולמי. There is a lot of love going on over here, but it's love for a very raw, like the highest נשמה, but a very, almost like raw material, חומר גלם. Right?

והילד אינו חש בה כלל.

So the child, as much as we want to say the child feels all the love and it's getting what it needs, but the type of love that we're speaking about in this סעיף... is only very much on the on the level of like, you know, סובב, it's not really ממלא, it's surrounding the kid וכולי. But the kid doesn't feel what the parent really is what would love to be able. I remember I used to do this with with with my when my first two were born, so we had the first two and they were there just us חברה for a few years.

And I remember late at night, like they're looking at me and they already started to understand certain things and I'm speaking all these like I'm saying to them all these deep poetic, you know, dreams for them and and one time Dina just looked at me and she's like, just tell, you know, just tell them you love them. Like just, you know, it'd be great, you know, it's an amazing thing that that that's really what it, באמת in the in the beginning, that's where we're at. So it's as much as as much as we can dream for there to be this back and forth at this age, על כן היא חד צדדית בלבד.

וממילא לא שייך להגדיר אהבה זו בבחינת נפשו קשורה בנפשו.

Now this concept, נפשו קשורה בנפשו, this is going to play a big role in the development of this ספר in our understanding, because נפשו קשורה בנפשו can be misinterpreted and abused. Because what is basically one of the dangers of aiming towards a relationship of וְנפשו קשורה בנפשו? What's one of the greatest dangers? Favorite kid problem. Oh, okay.

נכון.

That could definitely arouse. That can definitely stem from it. What else? What are the other dangers that can be when it's not when it's misunderstood?

נפשו קשורה בנפשו. What's that? Enmeshment.

Enmeshment, like losing your independence with other person. Everything is codependent. Everything is codependent.

יכול להיות, כן.

נכון. What, yeah? What exactly does the phrase mean in English?

נפשו קשורה בנפשו. Their soul is is embedded, is connected to their to their soul. But we're explaining that it's the love, it's two-way love.

If you don't feel it? Sorry? If you don't feel it. What happens if you don't feel it? Like what happens if that is not there that morning or that afternoon, or that 3:30 AM? What happens, right? What happens? I think discipline becomes a difficulty also. Yes. Right? Because there's no line, there's no boundary.

נכון.

אין, אין קווים. There's no boundaries there, נכון. Now, what are the advantages, not advantages, but what is the glory of a relationship of וְנפשו קשורה בנפשו? I want to I want to just explain this a little bit.

נפשו קשורה בנפשו means different things for each child. Each child has a different level of וְנפשו קשורה בנפשו in their parents. Every kid, right? That which works for one kid in terms of of of the displaying of love, I'm sure those of you that have a number of kids, some are mushier than others, yes? Or everyone's just the mushiest kid in the world, especially when they're a teenager.

מה פתאום, right? Each kid, whatever age they're at, has different mushiness or different, a different A different צורך.

צורך, but here we're speaking about the display. We're speaking about how they how they how they express. You know, one of our kids, I was like, wow, there's amazing. She's she's just very shut off, like she's not, she doesn't really display as much as the others.

And then one night we we dropped her off at a sleepover, and the hug that she gave me before she left, right? That what, and she couldn't let go. That was like, talk about וְנפשו קשורה בנפשו. You know, I would never, it came out of nowhere. It came out of nowhere a few years ago.

And I realized that like every kid, their way of displaying this ענין is very, very, very different and unique. And therefore, our need to define what real expression of children's love to their parents is a danger zone. We can't define this. We can't define for our child what does it mean that you show אמא and אבא that you honor them or that you love them? This is their ספר תורה.

This is their thing. You know, ממש a different ballgame. So now let's look, now let's go deeper into this סוגיא.

כעת נבדוק את סוג האהבה השני שהוזכר.

Let's look at the second level of love to compare it to what we had before.

אותה אהבה שמגיעה בשלב מאוחר יותר כאשר הילד מתבגר. Now, let's take a deeper look into that type of love that comes at a later stage in life, the love when the kid is growing up and getting older.

שאהבת ההורים לילד נמדדת בהתאם לתכונותיו ולאופיו.

שם האהבה הזו מוגדרת כקשר נפשי. We're speaking of the type of love the parents have to their children, which is very much in line. It's a type of love that has to do much more with who is the child becoming? What are their תכונות הנפש? What are they displaying? This second level of love that we spoke about before, is this considered a קשר נפשי? What do you think? Now I'm going to put the question to you before we see what he says. Do you understand the question that he has here? Remember there are two types of love we spoke about, אהבה טבעית and אהבה מותנית.

The natural love that we have for newborns, and then love that develops based on characteristic traits and who our kids are, what they look like, how they present themselves, what we see in them, what we don't see in them. That's how a different level of love becomes drawn up, וכולי. So now the question is, he's saying, this third level of love, נפשו קשורה בנפשו, does that, is that connected to the second level of love that we spoke about, which is called more conditional love? Yeah. It's very problematic.

It can be. There's a lot of, this is a big מחלוקת in the room right now. This is ממש like 50-50. Mora Dvora, what do you think? You don't think so.

No. Because I think your child is like a part of you. And I don't think you, I don't think there has to be a condition. I mean, in my mind, it's not conditional, it's just different.

Each, it's like a different pathway. Could be in the ים סוף, there were so many different that each שבט went down.

נכון. The same thing.

Each שבט is, נכון. Like your child is שבט. So, no. Okay.

From the other side? It's a combination. It's a combination of what? With the first, and as you get to know your child and as your child develops your personality, then you have more pathways, like Mora Dvora said. But you always have that natural love for your child. I mean, how many times have we heard stories about people who've done horrific things, and the parent's like, I don't agree with what they did, but it's still my child.

There's still a love there. So I think it's... So you're saying that that level is ונפשו קשורה בנפשו. Yeah.

Yeah, a שילוב of the two. A שילוב of the two. And it's interesting, I was thinking about this when they caught the murderer of the, of Charlie Kirk. So the father was the one that turned in his son, right? But maybe he was doing the right thing for him.

Not cause he didn't love him. 100%. 100%.

צריך עיון, it's a very interesting thing.

נכון. Like, this came, I mean, not not to bring it too, this is this is going to get very sensitive right now, but, you know, this was brought up a lot right now with the struggle of the families of the hostages. That there was a big מחלוקת between the families themselves as to what the right approach is to move forward, right? So there is this father, his name is צביקה מור.

צביקה מור.

צביקה מור, the father of Eitan Mor. There is this mother, גבורה דיצה אור, the mother of אבינתן. And we also have a very, very loving mother called עינב צנגאוקר, right? Now, we, it's absurd this, so without getting involved in like what kind of בית מדרש they each come from, right, they, some some really interesting things came up about in terms of like, how are you, how, what is real love? What is real love בכלל and what's real love for your child, right? And everyone was sure that once Eitan Mor would come out of שבי and he'd find out that his parents were pushing, right, for the continuation of fighting because they felt like עם ישראל is bigger than just their child, and he was asked this again last night that that would, and so when the kid would come out of the שבי and he'd hear, oh my God, my parents were willing to sacrifice me for the sake of a bigger picture of hopefully a victory over the enemy. So, the kid came out very good.

הכל בסדר. Even meaning, not very, he still has a long שיקום. But from what we've learned so far, and he knows now, then they didn't, they didn't know. He knows now that there's room to to to to understand that ונפשו קשורה בנפשו can mean much more than just me, you as an individual, but to look at each other that we're part of a bigger picture as well.

But, in my humble opinion, anyone that has a ביקורת, has any critique on the other side of חבר'ה that held differently, doing whatever they could to save their child, shouldn't open their mouth.

בכלל, no one that's, anyone that's not in this פרשה should not open their mouth at all, at all, at all. We're bringing these נקודות out to just understand what is this concept of ונפשו קשורה בנפשו.

ונפשו קשורה בנפשו doesn't only necessarily mean I will do anything for you and the whole world could go and could go to heck, right? That's not what, I don't think that's what it means either.

If we're talking about the קשר of נפש, of נשמות, we're part of a bigger picture. We're part of a bigger picture called נשמת כלל ישראל. And sometimes I have to look at my child through the eyes of כלל ישראל as well, and not just like, what's the best thing for them right now in this moment. And I think that these things that have been happening around us right now have a lot of לימודים in all areas of life, but we saw parents approach the most difficult situation in the world very differently.

And it's a big test for us, עם ישראל right now, to keep our vision, like to ממש step aside.

ברוך השם I don't think חבר'ה got too involved in this מחלוקת. We understand every parent's doing exactly what they feel, they what they felt they had to do for their children. But for us, we need to extract this to try to understand what types of love are we are we speaking about? Especially when it comes to ונפשו קשורה בנפשו.

Because I'll tell you something. A father like Tzvika, like Tzvika Mor, and a mother like Ditsa Or, these are people that are very much connected to נשמת כלל ישראל. They are.Okay, let's go back inside. There's a lot more to say on this, but let's go back inside.

Third paragraph.

נתבונן בדבר. Let's look deeper inside.

נתבונן בדבר.

כאשר, Alex, do you want to, do you want to bring a chair to here? To right here? There's a chair right here. There's a chair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A chair right here.

נתבונן בדבר.

כאשר אדם אוהב תמונה מחמת יופיה. When you have a piece of art that you love because it's beautiful.

או לחילופין, כאשר אדם מחבב דברים שונים בבריאה מכיוון שהם מוצאים חן בעיניו.

There are things in creation that simply catch your eye and you like it.

האם זהו קשר נפשי של ונפשו קשורה בנפשו?

כמובן שלא. As much as you want to say that certain things are, that's not a נפש, that's not a נפשו קשורה בנפשו. It's something that you like for whatever the reasons are.

נמצאנו למדים שהאהבה אינה מותנית בהכרח בקשר נפשי גלוי בין שני הצדדים. For you, like the picture does not have to love you back in order to love a picture, right? The Swiss Alps don't have to love you back to love the Swiss Alps.

נכון? Butterflies, I'm sure like there's a whole liberal movement today trying to prove that butterflies have all the feelings of butterflies as well, but as much as we know, butterflies do not exactly cherish fond feelings of love and closeness to the to the one that looks and is and is amazed by butterflies in the בריאה, right?

ומעתה ברור הדבר, שכשם שאהבת תמונה מרהיבה, בית מפואר, אינה אהבה דו-סטרית, וכולה מבוססת על צד אחד בלבד. This is all one-way love.

Right?

אהבה חד-סטרית. All these types of loves we mentioned before are one way.

אם כן, הן האהבה הטבעית לרך הנולד, both the natural love we have for newborns, והן האהבה לילד מחמת אופיו החביב של הילד, and the liking you have towards a kid that has a great personality, הינה אהבה חד-סטרית. These both levels of love we spoke about before are both one-way avenues of love.

Both of them are one-way avenues of love. And I and this is important for us to clarify because maybe we thought that the second level of love of אהבה מותנית is a two-way meeting. It's not. It's still a one way.

It's still a place that comes from the parent towards the child when they're a newborn, obviously. When they get older and there's all these different things we see in the child that brings us, brings out more love, it's still us to them. And then sometimes we're shocked. You don't see how much mommy does for you? You don't.

how much אבא does, and then the kid in his childish נשמה is saying, "No one asked you to bring me here. So I'm not sure exactly what you're waiting for." Like I don't know what you're expecting exactly. But this was, this was, I mean I'm sad that you're going to tell me now, what do you mean? We heard you say once that children choose their parents. Say there.

נכון, on a deep kabbalistic level. But inside, in the heart of that teenager or that 30-year-old or the 40-year-old, there is that voice that says, no one put a gun to your head and said, "Bring me here." So all this love you're feeling for me וכולי, it's amazing and it's great, I'm happy for you. But the fact that I'm not feeling it right now. So he's saying over here, נכון, the first two loves of אהבה טבעית and אהבה מותנית, they're one-way loves.

Do none of you know what I'm talking about? I think it's also not connected necessarily to the good nature of the child.

לאו דווקא. Because דווקא the child could even be acting out for whatever reason, and we still have that אהבה טבעית towards them. Uh it we don't have it the way we have it when you're holding a newborn.

No, I know, but it changes. It changes, but that becomes more אהבה מותנית.

אהבה טבעית is hopefully always always there. Hopefully somewhere there.

Just when they're younger and they don't talk back, it's more בגלוי. It's much more easy, it's revealed. It's like this is everything, this defines me as a parent. You know, I it's we have this also with marriages שנה ראשונה.

Right? I had a good friend that said they're married now probably I don't know, probably like 25 years, 26 years, and they're really like an awesome couple that they got married before most of our חבר'ה, my age. And I asked I said, and then I and then I saw them like after they had two kids. I didn't see them for a few years, but I but I remember them during their שנה ראשונה, I said, wow, what's what's life like? He's like, man, my wife and I thought we were going, we looked at each other after שנה ראשונה before we had children, and we looked and we're like, why did everyone tell us about all these of, you know, the hardships and everything that comes? And we we could write a book on on on, not on parenting, 'cause they didn't have a kid yet, but on soulmates, on marriages, right? And then I said, but what happened? He said, then we had children. Then we had children.

You know, then then we had kids. So obviously when a kid is like this age, whatever, this is not number one or two or three of his, or four or five or six. So, but every kid has that, hopefully that it's a כובש חלק מהלב של ההורים. It does conquer a certain area of the parents' heart of אהבה טבעית that should last forever and it is there forever on a certain level.

נכון, it is there. But we deal and interact more with אהבה מותנית as they get older. But ונפשו קשורה בנפשו is the point so far of of this ספר.

ונפשו קשורה בנפשו.

This is a different world what we're entering into.

מהו אם כן גדרו ומהותו של קשר נפשי? So let's understand. What is the parameters? What's the essence of a קשר נפשי? Bless you.

כאשר הקשר בנוי על אהבה דו-צדדית ושני הצדדים משתתפים פעולה לבניית הקשר, זהו קשר נפשי.

Okay, so this is this is very important. When the connection is built on a two-way love and both sides are participating in building that קשר, that's a קשר נפשי. Before we go ahead, let me ask you, is there any room for a parent to have an expectation for this type of קשר with their children? No. No.

Anyone want to say yes? It would be nice. It would be, a lot of things would be nice. It would be beautiful. I think you're obligated to try.

You're obligated to try what? Like, for example, like כיבוד אב ואם. You know, to teach them, to teach them what's the right דרך. And you're obligated to to teach them those מצוות, and if they don't do them, you say you don't say, I don't love them, but you remind them that this is an obligation. Very good Jenny, what you're saying.

Very, very good. In the world there's a thing called now patient parenting, have you heard of this? Gentle parenting. What do you have, what's your what's your וורט on it? What's your 10-second וורט on it? Because I have a 10-hour וורט on it.

יש פה בעיה.

יש פה בעיה. It's I was recently exposed to it. The world is has come. now in the world without תורה, without תורה, just world, they've come to a level, a place where they say, things haven't really worked that well for the last, I don't know how long.

Let's try this, right? Now this world is basically one where it's void, honestly, it's void of any straightforward חינוך actually, if I had to put it in a nutshell. Our מהלך of life, of parenting, is the same מהלך of like with זיווג or like with health or with anything. It's תורה based. And we have a world of חינוך of תורה that we have to teach our children.

We have to give it over to them. We give them, we don't, we have to teach them what are the basic things that השם had in store for you as a child. Now, we have to דאווען so bad, so strong. And we have to דאווען to השם every day as parents.

השם, please let us be sweet and feel-good representers of what your word of תורה is. Because I could come to a child and say, "God told you that when I walk into a room, you stand up." הצלחה רבה. Or, I could say, do you want to learn like a bunch of different things? And one of them is like some laws on שבת, one of them is some laws about, I don't know, כשר. Oh, by the way, this also falls under the category of things that השם tells us to do, and there's laws of כיבוד אב ואם.

And let me tell you how I'm working on it with my parent, whether they're alive or not alive. To show them, to bring them into the paradigm, to bring them into the המשכיות of this is a whole, it's a much bigger picture than just you right now and me. This is part of what makes us who we are. This is a big, big picture.

So therefore, קשר נפשי is something much bigger than what we understand than just feeling a soul connection to each other. Yes, Iva.I feel like we're not having an expectation of our kids that they're developing and like working on building a relationship with us like we are with them, that we're doing them a disservice by not having that expectation. Like the family unit is their first opportunity, like the first place where they're learning how to navigate relationships and how to show love and how to receive love, and when things don't go well, how to manage that. And if we're not, I don't know if we're saying like, we can't have that expectation that there's going to be this, maybe not to the level of אברהם אבינו but that it would be דו צדדי, like aren't we doing them a disservice by not like modeling that behavior and expecting that they would have a response back that creates connection and works through things?Yes, it's a, it's a disservice.Yeah.

So then I guess I'm saying I don't think that we shouldn't have that expectation.That is what you're saying. I'm not putting words in your mouth, but I think that is what you're saying. Correct. But we have to understand what the expectation...

this is what's tricky here. We must understand what the expectation is to, is towards. For them to expect them to feel the love that we have for them, the way that we feel it for them, absolutely not. Absolutely not.But it's not a feeling.And, but wait, sorry, not even and when they're parents, they'll feel it in their way.

But I'm saying the way that we feel it, to expect for them to feel not just what we feel and the way we feel it, no way. That's impossible. It's impossible, but you'd be shocked as to how often people fall into this without even realizing it. Why? So you'll start to go into סוגיות of, well, because they still have mommy issues or whatever.

This is stuff, this is not new stuff. This is stuff that people have been carrying with them not just in this lifetime, in previous lifetimes for years and years and years. It's a big, these are big עניינים. But in order for us to even speak about expectations and non-expectations, towards what?

קשר נפשי.

What does that mean? And that's what we have to define. Because it would be a disservice, and I agree with you, it would be a disservice to say, they will, don't force anything and they'll figure things, you know, just give them the, the... what's that?

כן, give them the framework and hopefully without too much, right? I'm not going to get too involved and they'll figure it. No, there's a גם כן and it is, and I agree with you במאוד, and the way you said it is, it struck me very deep.

This is the, the family unit ideally should be that most interesting and safest place for these... for the beginning of of מהלכים דו סיטריים of the two-way to begin to develop in a healthy way. Yeah. Isn't our goal to have an in an invitation without an expectation? That by by modeling that behavior in our עבודה with our own parents, we're we're laying out the framework of the of what the invitation is and we let go of the expectation of a specific result because any expectation that you would have would be with it was how they're going to.

Yeah, the problem is what happens when you when you're too nervous to lay out an invitation. No no, that's not. That בדיוק and I think that's what we're going to be speaking about.

נכון.

נכון. So these are very important things. Yeah. a monkey wrench.

I have it times four. I don't know how I got it. I have an amazing נפשו קשורה בנפשו with each of my kids. I don't know how I got it.

We could dissect it. In other words, there may be a lot of rules in here that he's going to teach us. No, he's not teaching rules. He's not teaching, there's no rules here.

This book, this ספר is not rules. It's a ספר of making us think, of making us דאווען, of making us look at things deeper. Yeah. But aren't the parents themselves their children, right? And they're also reacting to what they have also experienced in either direction and then kind of give off the opposite sometimes, or the same, right? So either way, I don't even know if the parent has a free will to be able to get to that level if they haven't seen the model of that level.

Then basically what you're saying is that in certain instances, השם made a mistake. No, I would never say that. You'd never say that. But, It's still a learned behavior in a sense if you haven't received it.

נכון. Of course. But even if you have received it yourself because your child brings out different things in you that he wasn't like with your parent.

נכון.

But we have to come from from from the place of השם didn't make any mistakes in terms of giving us the children that we have. We can't we can't look at it like that. And of course we always say that at a certain point in our young parenting career, we go through that midlife crisis of I can't believe my parents didn't give me this or gave me that. We swear we are never going to make the same mistakes our parents made with us with our children, and we don't.

We just make completely new mistakes. And that's going to be and and it's and I'm not saying it's fine, it's just that that that's the way it is. Yeah. I was going to say that it's also I think very important that a parent knows that even though they experienced love in a certain way and they want to present that off to someone else, it doesn't mean that the other person is going to get it.

Like you have to be very very in tune with each child and how the child experiences love and to teach the child, maybe maybe the best thing they could do is teach the child how to communicate so that they can then express. Of course. And you know what? It's not just with children. Like for instance children, no, no, no.

I'm saying, it's not with with children that you know, there's children that that we obviously many many children have autism. So their way of of receiving what you want to give them may be received, but just doesn't look to us like it's being received the way, right? Every every every child here has its own פרשה, but the way that we this ונפשו קשורה בנפשו develops have to has to be nurtured. It has to be really, you have to be very delicate and sensitive about it because it's much bigger than just do you feel what I'm feeling and we feel the same thing and all that.

מה פתאום.

And yeah, there will be, you know, ברוך השם Mindy, I'm so happy to hear what you're saying. That's a dream of every parent. Not every parent has what you just said. But I I can't account for it.

בסדר.

בסדר. I know that's what you feel, but I'm saying that is a very non-given, but it is so worthwhile doing whatever we can to discover the path towards the place that you're speaking about. It's the most worthwhile עבודה a parent can do in this world.

It's the most worthwhile עבודה. And we'll learn בסיעתא דשמיא and עזרת from שמים. Let's just do two more paragraphs.

כאשר נרצה להעניק את החינוך המושלם ל...

See the second to bottom paragraph?

כאשר נרצה להעניק את החינוך המושלם לילדינו, אנו זקוקים לאהבה מסוג אחר.

אהבה מבוססת על קשר נפשי דו סיטרי בבחינת נפשו קשורה בנפשו. When we want to give over the perfect חינוך to our children, we do need a certain type of love from a different, it's something else. Love that's based on the קשר נפשי, on this two-way, meaning each other, בבחינת נפשו.

נפשו קשורה בנפשו.

כשם שההורה אוהב את הילד, כך הילד אוהב את ההורה.

דבר שבמציאות אינו קיים בכל המקרים.

ולפעמים אהבת ההורים הינה כמעט חד צדדית בלבד.

עם זאת, he acknowledges, he says sometimes that's not, it's a great aspiration to have, but quite often it happens that you have to spend years of a non-קשר נפשי the way that he's explaining it over here, and that's the עבודה. Even though you feel like לא מגיע לי.

לא מגיע לי.

מגיע לי קשר נפשי.

מגיע לי means you deserve. And I just want to say, like anyone that's holding in the world of מגיע לי regarding anything that has to do with their children has still not really tasted anything that has to do with this עבודה called the greatest מתנת חינם in the world.You don't go into, you can never walk into your room, into your child's room and feel like, you know, I suffered enough in life, I went through enough. I I understand why I deserve to have this healthy child. Every single child, Steven said it so beautifully, right before he got the עליה on כל הנערים.

He said something so amazing. It was an amazing moment. We had such a שמחת תורה here, I I still can't believe what happened over here. I can't believe it.

And Steven got כל הנערים, Dr. Eagle. And right before he got his עליה, he was screaming to the kids, "Shut up." No, I'm kidding. He's basically saying, he was saying, he was he was screaming to each kid, "You are each a miracle." That's what he screamed to every kid, "You are each of you are miracles. Each of you are miracles," and then כל הנערים, and then ברוך הוא ברוך שמו, and then everyone was ברוך.

It was such a moment.So, if every if if every child is a miracle, to then have demands and expectations on miracles? That's crazy. It doesn't make any sense. It's a miracle. You're going to expect to come with demands and expectations on ניסים? No, but our, we forgot that we're also miracles.

So when it's like they're miracles and we're just, you know, not, it's it's it's complicated.

זה קשה.But here he says that even though we know that obviously ideally the goal would be ונפשו קשורה בנפשו, sometimes it takes a very, very long time for the love affair to stop being חד צדדי, for it to be one way.

עם זאת יש להדגיש, we have to emphasize, שאיננו שוללים חס ושלום את הנחיצות של אהבה טבעית, אחת צדדית מצד ההורים כלפי הילד. Even though נפשו קשורה בנפשו is definitely the goal eventually, like we'll see, we still are not שוללים, we're not revoking, we're not removing the necessity of אהבה חד צדדית, of one way love.

ואדרבה.

אהבה זו שהקדוש ברוך הוא הטביע בנו כהורים היא בסיסית ומוכרחת. This love that God embedded within us as parents is basic and is a must. Like, it doesn't matter how tired you are right now or if your back's hurting you or not, there's there's so much love that Hashem placed in you as a as a as a as a mama to a newborn, that's there.

We don't, our goal in life isn't to be like, I can't wait till I'm done with this and then it's like, מה פתאום. This is essential. Who put it in us? This is the טבע of the בריאה. Hashem did.

Hashem did.

ורק באמצעותה, it's only through this this first level of love, אהבה טבעית, האדם יכול לטפל בילדיו כדבעי בגיל הינקות. That's the only way that you could properly take care of your children when they are this age, right, as babies.

אולם, האהבה בה אנו עוסקים הינה נוספת על אהבה אחת צדדית הבסיסית שקיימת אצל כל הורה לילדיו.

He's saying the love that we're speaking about here in the world of חינוך that we're going to embark on over here, it's going to take us to a deeper understanding of the פסוק ונפשו קשורה בנפשו, what was happening between יעקב and בנימין. Like he always does when he just, this is not just parent theory here, it's not just education theory, everything is through מאמרי חז"ל. And the way that he's going to show us this will lead us all towards a path that shows us that ונפשו קשורה בנפשו sometimes it seems so far. Not.

not at, I'm saying not not at this age. I'm saying when the kid is 15, when the kid is 10, when the kid's 20, it seems so, so far. But it's an amazing journey that's so worthwhile putting all of our כוחות in because essentially, it'll show us also, it'll mirror, what is it going to mirror? What relationship will this mirror, this נפשו קשורה בנפשו?

יעקב and but mirroring obviously. Obviously.

And we have to stay away from a lot of different things that are going to come in our way and try to remove us from this, זה לא נכון. So, next week, it's going to be a much digger digger dive, deeper dive into the parameters, the healthy way of of understanding how do you build a relationship of בנפשו קשורה בנפשו. Because even though your child may look like that's not what they're interested in, that's what they're interested in more than anything, more than anything. I see it.

It seems, oh, it seems, it seems one second, it seems that the kid is more and more interested and most most of the time in life in in אהבה חד סטרי. That's just because because because we're with them for years in terms of needs. It's needs, it's a lot of needs, there's needs going on, and take care of this, take care of that. Are you kidding me? Do you know how tired I am or do you know what I've done for you, right? And yet it and these things don't don't play a role.

But really what a child wants is that. Now Tal, just to address what you said, if that's a supplement for the parents, it's the most dangerous thing in the world, what you just said. What? When if it's a supplement, like but to receive that from grandparents that A, don't have a חיוב to take care of you like your parents do, and also aren't going to because they don't, unless you're like Tom, עליו השלום, who was able to do that for his grandchildren, which is a whole story on its own, and the parents necessarily weren't in the picture, it can't be a supplement, meaning it's true a grandparent can just, it's בנפשו קשורה בנפשו. But יעקב and בנימין were father and son.

They weren't they weren't grandparents. It's not a supplement, but I just see this נפשו קשורה בנפשו because it's a whole different relationship. The love and the connection between a grandparent and a grandchild comes faster. Of course.

than a parent. It's more like a career. It does, but there's no עבודה involved in that. And therefore, there's nothing less we could learn from that.

And you gotta, you got a בית שמאי בית הלל going on over here. So I don't even want to get involved with it. And I am not getting involved. I am not a grandparent, so I don't have anything to say about these things.

I don't have anything to say about it. We'll leave that for another time, בעזרת השם.