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Parenting is not just about raising children. It is about revealing souls, nurturing faith, and guiding the next generation with patience and courage. In this series, Rav Shlomo Katz draws from Rebbe Nachman, the Tanya, and Chassidic masters to uncover the spiritual depth of parenting. From creating “vacated space” for children to grow, to awakening curiosity, to embodying holy chutzpah, these teachings offer timeless guidance for raising Jewish children with love, resilience, and emunah.
שלום עליכם friends. This is the second session in the parenting with holy patience and holy חצפה which we began last week here in Efrat on שבת afternoons in our שול, קהילת שירת דוד. And we're all very excited about this because it's stuff that we all know in our hearts that we always want to improve on and always want to seek and find ways to connect to the real deeper reasons as to why is it that my children are my children, why do my children have me as a parent? And I want to just remind us all that the goal of our of our learning is a very clear one, to come to the absolute confirmation of faith that השם יתברך, that God knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to give me the children that I have, which seems like such an odd statement to say. Obviously that's what אמונה is, but that's something that needs to be repeated constantly, constantly, constantly.
We got off to a great start the previous week, and just to briefly, briefly recap last week's session, we came to the notion, based on רבי נתן מברסלב, that since God does not do anything twice, there's nothing that God creates the same. So therefore each child is a completely new חידוש in the world that never existed before. Despite similarities to its siblings, to its parents, to other things that you could detect similarities to, each child is an absolute complete, complete חידוש. But what type of a חידוש? What kind of type of an innovation? רב נתן taught us that each child is there to bring an absolutely new way of perceiving הקדוש ברוך הוא in this world.
That as much as I'm here to teach the child, the tools with which I instill in my children are only there for them to have an easier access and a smoother ride towards discovering a way of getting to הקדוש ברוך הוא that did not exist yet in the world. That sounds all very simple and beautiful. It's clear to all of us though that giving a child that space to figure those things out is what the whole secret is. And therefore this week's session and next week's session will all be about how to parent in this place called the the vacated space.
What is the vacated space all about? We all know that the absolute uncertainty, none of us, none of us know exactly what we're doing. And it's so perplexed, this is nothing new. No one knew exactly what they were doing. It's so funny how when we at a certain age we say to ourselves, we're never going to do the mistakes that our parents did with us, and it's true.
Maybe we don't do those mistakes, but we do a whole new set of mistakes. That's just the way it's been rooted in the DNA of parenting. But this complexity is ממש nothing new. It's rooted in in the creation of the world.
And for us to understand that this method of this cycle of the type of tension between needing to parent and giving space, this is something that is rooted in the creation of the world. We began discussing on שבת a very deep kabbalistic concept based on the אריז"ל. And that is how to let's learn a little bit about the formation of the world. Like if we ask a child, how was the world created? So he says בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ, God created heavens and the earth.
Now the truth is, you'd ask a parent too. How was the world created? And they too say, God created the world in the beginning, there was nothing, there was just Godliness and then God decided that there should be a world. Let's understand that a little bit deeper. Let's go inside.
What we began doing this שבת is we went into the 64th 64th teaching in ליקוטי מוהר"ן, the ליקוטי מוהר"ן ס"ד. We did it both in Hebrew and in English. I'm just going to recap it right now in English. And what רבי נחמן does in this teaching is he brings basic, this sounds very modern, this term: Lurianic קבלה.
Basic a basic understanding based on the אריז"ל as to how and why the world was created. And I want to just insert here for חומר למחשבה, just for you should think about the following: why did you have children in the world? Why did you choose to bring children in the world other than the common answer is that's what everyone just does. So look at this. רבי נחמן says like this in the 64th teaching in ליקוטי מוהר"ן, I'm just going to read a little bit in Hebrew but then go into it in English.
השם יתברך מחמת רחמנותו ברא את העולם. Godly, God created the world as a consequence of of his compassion, which we were talking about that in שיעור yesterday. That's a very hard statement to swallow and accept that this world, the creation of this world, was that in order that God can show his compassion. And many of us are sitting here and we're saying, really? Really? This is compassion? This is what God had in mind with the concept of compassion? And you know, here in Israel tonight is יום הזיכרון, a very heavy night, very intense night and it's very hard to tune into this מידה, to this מידה of of compassion when there'll be many, many memorial services tomorrow throughout the country where families are going to be going to the graves of 18, 19, 20-year-old children, boys and girls, who were killed while protecting עם ישראל and ארץ ישראל.
So this מידה of compassion and sensing that the creation of the world was so God can show his compassion is something we struggle with all the time. I'm only saying that so that we realize that those of us that are reading these words and we're wondering, really? You're not alone. We're going to get through this together. So again, השם יתברך מחמת רחמנותו ברא את העולם, כי רצה לגלות רחמנותו.
ואם לא היה בריאת העולם, על מי היה מראה רחמנותו? If there wasn't a creation of the world, upon whom would God have shown his compassion? רבי נחמן continues and he says, and therefore, he created the entire creation just in order to show his compassion. Now, what's the עניין here now? He's gonna, so that was the why. That answered the why did God create the world? But now, in a really, really esoteric manner, we're going to delve into how did השם create the world? And what was the tension? What was the problem with creating the world? Yet when השם created the world, there was no place in which to create it since there was nothing but אין סוף. Meaning God comes to us, God wants to create the, by the way, everything here is כביכול, so to speak, right? God wants to create the world, but what's the issue is that the world is filled with Godliness.
How could there be room for us human beings in a place that's filled with השם? Nothing but אור אין סוף, the infinite eternal light. And here we come, we meet a concept which we're going to be seeing over and over again, the concept called צמצום, contraction. השם then contracted the light to the sides, and through this act of צמצום, the vacated space was made, that what's called חלל הפנוי. This empty space was made only to allow creation to exist for the sake of showing compassion.
Now, if you're lost, don't worry because רבי נחמן ends off this whole paragraph by explaining that it's impossible to really understand this concept of God contracting himself to create a non-God zone only in order to give life to creation. So I don't want to get too deep into that, because this is just, it'll never end and I'm definitely not qualified to to explain any of these things. But for the sake of our שיעור, this is what I want you to speak about. In order to allow our children be the חידושים that they are, these complete new creatures that are going to bring about complete new ways of discovering הקדוש ברוך הוא and bringing us close to השם in this world, we so too need to remember and emulate the act of creation.
And the act of creation, in order for something to be created, in order for something to exist, if God had to so to speak contract himself, how much more so do us as parents have to learn the art of צמצום? The art of moving by and letting go. Before we continue, I want to jump to the bottom of the text that you have in front of you. It's a one-liner and it's from שיחות הר״ן נ״ט, שיחות הר״ן 59. And it's a line that I want us to keep us in the back of our minds, in the back of our hearts, but we're going to get back to it next week, but I'm דווקא going to it now.
רבי נחמן in שיחות הר״ן 59 says the following, טוב להיות רחוק מבניו לבלי היות דבוק בהם, לשעשע בהם בכל פעם, רק לבלי להסתכל עליהם כלל. רבי נחמן says a very bizarre statement which will probably push us very, very far away of having any desire to connect to רבי נחמן. to his teachings, to Uman, the whole thing. What does he say? טוב להיות רחוק מבניו.
The best thing for children is to keep your distance from them. לבלי להיות דבוק בהם, don't, not to cling to them. לשעשע בהם כל פעם, amusing them all the time. And then he ends up saying, רק לבלי להסתכל עליהם כלל, it's best not to pay any attention to them at all.And it's so easy to misunderstand this statement and to interpret it as giving you the permission and license to completely refrain from giving any sense of love, warmth, and closeness to a child.
That's not what we're going to be talking about at all. We're going to decipher this really cryptic statement by from Rebbe Nachman with the help of some of the more, like I said before in in last week's שיעור, the some very contemporary inspirational contemporaries who have spent a lot of time trying to delve into this topic of both Rebbe Nachman and parenting. And a lot of the material that we're going to be learning from is from a rabbi named Rabbi Erez Moshe Doron. He's much more well known in the Israeli חברה, but he's an incredible teacher in Rebbe Nachman's teaching, has many books.
And in one of his publications called \"From Dust to Gold,\" רב Erez says the following. And the following was the meat of our שיעור. This is what we got to yesterday. This is what we spent time on yesterday.
So you should have this text in front of you. It's right beneath the translation of Rebbe Nachman's teaching 64 about the vacated space, and how this vacated space, again, it was necessary for the creation of the world because without the vacated space, there would be no place in which to create the world.Now רב Erez says like this, and look inside the text. Rebbe Nachman explains that השם is called אבא, while creation is called בן. אבא is השם, בן is the תולדה.
It's what was born out of אבא, which is בן, with the creation was born from השם. Kabbalah explains that in the beginning, השם's infinite light was there. That's all that was there. But creation only existed in potential.
But נכון, creation was not there yet. It was only in potential. The love for creation was there, but it wasn't there yet actually. So this stage, Rebbe Nachman, this stage of השם's infinite light being there and creation existing only in potential, this stage is called אבן, meaning אב and בן are as one.
For our intents and purposes, when we're thinking about these concepts of in our parenting, before our child comes into the world and we have an idea of what our child is going to be like, what our love for the child is going to be like, it's only in potential. השם, meaning in our, the אבא, the parents are there, but the creation itself is not there only in potential, in thought. And therefore that situation is a stage where אב and בן are still, they're one. There's absolute oneness, it's called אבן.The second stage of creation was the constriction of God's infinite light and the formation of the vacated space, devoid, so to speak, of God's presence.
That's what we learned in the teaching of Rebbe Nachman. Now here's the kicker. With that space, God created the world at which point the אב and the בן were separated. אבן became אב and בן because they're two entities.
Creation became an independent entity, separate from God, as it were. Specifically under these circumstances, could the love of the אב for his בן be revealed.Meaning when your child is still a fetus, how much of a revelation of the love can be manifested in the world? I'm speaking more right now about אבות, because for the mother, how can we even talk about these concepts? But for now, just the father, even though I'm sure mothers can relate to this as well. Meaning until I could say I could speak about my excitement towards this child to be born, וכולי, but until תכלית, until it's actually there, I can't reveal my compassion or my love on something that's only there in potential. So רב Erez continues and he says, we see here that the same process which took place at creation also takes place in the relationship between parent and child.
How so? The first stage before the child is born, when he exists only in potential. in the mind of the father, corresponds to pre-creation when everything was united with השם. The second stage, after the child is born, corresponds to השם creating the vacated space in which all of creation was revealed. And he's going to explain now.
The vacated space, it seems, is a necessary condition for raising and training children so that they can become separate and independent beings with an essence and mission different from that of their parents. And as you see in the text in front of you, or if you're just listening to us online, that the word that is highlighted in this last statement is the word different. I'm going to say this sentence again and please pay attention to when this word different appears in the text. The vacated space, it seems, is a necessary condition for raising and training children so that they can become separate and independent beings with an essence and mission different from that of their parents.
And here's, I want to share with you something very personal and I learned, I just learned so much about myself from it. It happened about eight, nine years ago. I was living in רחביה and in ירושלים, and I was walking down the street, walking home, and there was a member of כנסת sitting there having a cup of coffee. His name was Yossi Sarid, he passed away.
And Yossi Sarid was a very harsh, anti, whatever, he was very, wasn't exactly in the spirit of תורה and and the ארץ ישראל that we dream of and and the and the רוח of צדיקים that we talk about all the time. I started getting very nervous when I was passing him by, and I didn't understand why. I was it was it was so bizarre. I started literally feeling anxious and I couldn't sense exactly what it was that was causing me to feel this till I realized a little bit afterwards upon some deep contemplation, what was it that caused me to feel so nervous in front of him? And I realized that my mind was saying to me, uh-oh, what are you going to tell Yossi Sarid? What are you going to say to Yossi Sarid? Now the odd thing is, is why do I have to say anything to Yossi Sarid? I have nothing to do with Yossi Sarid.
So what's this whole ענין of why am I, why am I nervous? Why am I intense about about any of this? It's because I grew up in a home where my אבא's personality is that he would always engage in dialogue with politicians on the right or the left when he felt that something, he always saw it as an opportunity. And his his character is more of, I guess, naturally outgoing than mine, that when I was younger, I would constantly find my father on the phone on Friday afternoons with Shimon Peres's office or Ehud Barak's secretary or people from the right wing as well, שאול יהלום, זבולון המר, all these politicians. And I kind of always sensed that, okay, if that's something that, I guess subconsciously, I was, there was a belief that if that's what my father does, I have to figure out how I'm, I have to do that as well. But does it say anything wrong about my relationship with my father when I realized that that's just my not my natural way of responding? Or it's just not my character to do such a thing? And if it is my character to do such a thing, should it be because I feel a pressure that I have to have the same way of dealing with things? Absolutely not.
You see, the point in this sentence is the word different. With an essence and mission different from that of their parent. How sad and boring would it be if on a general level, we all have the same mission, that's to fix the world and bring משיח and live a life of peace and prosperity. Obviously, that that's true.
But the manner in which I achieve it is different between, we always know that it's different between people, different people, different friends, different families. But even within the family, in the parent-child relationship, we kind of have subscribed to the idea without really realizing it that what I've seen or what I've been shown must be what I'm supposed to be doing too. And it's not our parents' fault that we don't realize that our thing is is is a חידוש. We just, we were never really, we never really internalized this idea.
And it was such a שחרור for me. It was such a, I felt so freed from something that I put on myself. Now, it's not my father never told me to act like this or that I have to talk like this too when I meet members of כנסת. He never mentioned it before.
I don't think he ever would. It was my thing. Where that came from is a whole other story. I actually do some deeper work in that area.
Maybe I, I'm sure it's because I, I look up to my father. I've looked up to my father since I remember the concept of looking and thinking. But just because I looked up to my father, that doesn't mean that I should have set it for a, as a, as a mission in my life to emulate that exact manner and way of dealing with people.So that's where on the child the עבודה is. But here, look what he, how he continues.
רב ארז משה דורון continues. A common pitfall afflicting almost every parent is the failure to recognize that the child as he really is, with his individual perception, nature, and desires, is not the child in the parent's mind. It's a very deep statement. I want to say it again.
A common pitfall afflicting almost every parent is the failure to recognize that the child as he really is, with his individual perception, nature, and desires, is not the child that exists in the parent's mind.When we see these two as one, we're mixing reality with imagination. Disappointed expectations breed disappointment in the actual child. The negative feelings aroused, resentment, anger, helplessness, settle in on the him or her. It eventually settles on the child.
Now this next line is brilliant. And this was the kicker in yesterday's learning. This was the real, I would say like the, the moment that things started to really click for us. We don't say I'm disappointed because my expectations of my imaginary child weren't fulfilled, or the child as I pictured him to myself has not been actualized.
What do we end up saying? We say, I'm disappointed in my child, referring to the actual child. And that is absolutely, that's a false statement. You're not disappointed in the actual child. Your disappointment is only due to the expectations that you have of some imaginary child which weren't fulfilled, but you're forgetting that in order for your child to have been created, there needed to be some kind of חלל פנוי to be created.
You need to have a vacated space for something which existed only in potential, which was creation, right? When it was still אבן, אב and בן together. For אב to be, to be separate from בן, בן needs to have his own set of emotions, feelings, identity, responses, everything. But we forget that. It's almost, we, we sometimes forget that our child was actually removed from the womb.
It's not separate anymore and there's no way to reveal the love and compassion that you want to display in the world, and especially on your child, only, only if it's connected to its separate, different essence in the world.רב ארז finishes here. He says both we and our children will benefit greatly from our making a distinction between the child as he, as he exists in our imaginations and the child as he really is. Everyone benefits from this. Part of the work that we're going to be doing in this workshop, in this course, is that we need to constantly be aware and make a distinction between where am I living in expectation mode of the child and why am I living in expectation mode for my child as opposed to where they really, really are right now.
And obviously a lot of this is going to demand of ourselves some very intense work as to look inside us, the child that still exists within us, how it was like for us to be children, but to not fall in those moments of getting in touch with some pain. That's not the point of our learning. The point of our learning is that we're, we're inviting הקדוש ברוך הוא, we're inviting all the צדיקים's words to sit with us at the טיש while we're learning this material, only in order so that we could truly emulate השם and emulate creation. And again, the world, the way the world was created was through this so-to-speak contraction, this moving away so that creation can give, can, can exist in the world, can breathe in the world.
I'll tell you when this, the, this hit me for the first time as a parent, I shared this yesterday in שיעור as well. When our oldest daughter תפארת came home from one of her first גנים that she attended, one of her first kindergartens, her, before kindergarten even. she was, I don't know, she was three. And she came home and we were living in a in an area nearby here, נווה דניאל, and she came home and she said to us, she she said a ברכה: ברוך אתה השם אלוקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו.
I got so angry. Not at her, I got angry at the world. I said I can't believe that she learned this not from me.Now, at that moment, what did that whole thing become about? Me. It became about me.
There was no empty space there at all. Many times it's about we want to be the ones to teach our children everything. השם gave us a really good test already early on saying, listen, you're going to be you have a lot to teach your children and they're going to pick up on a lot, a lot, a lot. But can you be open to the fact that the the surroundings in which you set your children in will make them more accessible to a lot of things much faster than you realize? I always say like parents that make עלייה are in shock sometimes, not sometimes, all the time, that after a few months of being in Israel, their children's Hebrew surpasses theirs at levels that they could never have ever, you know, even imagined.
But it's the but where the openness to that, the vacated space to that is the beauty within creation. It's the beauty of opening yourself to the child's being a separate being with an essence and mission different from that of our parents. So now when we go back to the opening statement from רבי נחמן from שיחות הר"ן, it'll it'll start to start to sink in a little bit, but we're going to see how it it gets much clearer next week. Where he says, טוב להיות רחוק מבניו, it's good to be distanced from your children.
It's good to be distanced from your children. On what level is he speaking about? Closeness, feeling, sensing closeness, God forbid. But טוב להיות רחוק מבניו, meaning it's good for a parent to somehow find its way to learn how to be distant from their children in what way? For the purpose of realizing that my child and myself are two separate entities. It's not we're not one entity with one perspective and one nature and one רצון, one desire.
But it's only this distance of being from a little bit from afar which makes it even possible for my child to grow, which is what I want, which is what I truly want. I want my child to grow. But this is simply not the case with parents who who are too close to their children with this with constantly overprotecting and really impressing upon your child your own existence and your own זאך, not allowing your child's separate זאך, separate bag, and completely independent existence to be revealed and to and to be and to develop. And that's what רבי נחמן says, keeping a distance, it means give a child space, give a child the vacated space to make his own choices.
And here is where it gets very tricky. Because some parents take this teaching and say and to an extreme which we're not talking about. They say, well in order for my child to really grow, they have to I have to give them all the room in the world to figure things out on their own. Meaning, I'm going to raise them in a home that they just see all different types of things so that when they're 18, they make their choices.
'Cause hey, vacated space, you know, I don't want to impose anything on my child. So clearly that's not what we're talking about. That's an abuse of that מידה. What we're speaking about is something different and this is what we're going to be continuing next week.
How does one keep the distance while still being משפיע, while still having a healthy and holy influence? How does one allow choices to be made by their children while there's still some sort of הדרכה of guidance, of a ray of light shining through the so-called independent existence of the child?So until next week, בעזרת השם, I give us all a ברכה, and please give me a ברכה back to be completely open to what רבי נחמן is saying. It should not startle us, it should excite us that we're finding out ways of emulating the creation of the world within our own homes, within the way that we are with