Pesach Safety & Family Guidance with Zvi Gluck, Rabbi Yakov Horowitz and Rabbi Avi Landa

Welcome back to another episode of let's try to help this world as best as we can. We had such an amazing feedback after the Purim uh event that the three of us did that we were asked to do it again. So, I would like to introduce Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, Rabbi Avi Landa for once again joining and doing what we can to help make sure that we can keep our communities as safe as possible. It's really important that we all understand that Pesach is a most beautiful time of year. But statistically it can also be a very dangerous time for children. Large gatherings, unfamiliar spaces, disrupted routines, and distracted parents can create a perfect condition for abuse to occur and go unnoticed. Awareness isn't being paranoid. It's protection. And hopefully we're going to do our part today to provide you with some ideas as well as some other thoughts on these topics. Rabbi Horowitz, can you >> Yes, sure. begin? >> Um with pleasure thank thank you Reb Twee and Reb Avi. It's a pleasure to be on with you guys again. And I want to thank Amudim for all your amazing amazing work um with individuals and for the community. Um so like I think I think it's really important that we we have an honest look at this. And and be sometimes when we get in a situation with is a a holy event, you know, Yom Tov, a holiday, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, other things like that, um we tend to feel like protected. The holiday's going to protect us or um nothing bad can happen. But if you look at it differently, if you take out the religious component and you say, well, let's say someone's attending a hotel program or they're going to their grandparents where where there are four families there and they invited some guests. So, if you just think I'm going to be in our children are going to be at a place where there's lots of new people, very unstructured time, and the assumption is that during a three, four, five-hour Pesach seder, the kids are going to run around uh and and play. With whom? We don't know. You know, if you if you don't think about it this way, of course it's going to be an event that that is unfortunately ripe for for something terrible to happen. So, we shouldn't be obsessed by this, but it's something that we definitely need to think about. And and like everything else, preparing about it by by us talking about it and by you doing each of you who are listening to this, think about what you can do to see to it that there is supervision. One other way to think about it is you have a seven-year-old child that goes to school, you know, throughout the school year, um how many people is that is that child exposed to besides for their peers or their class? A handful of adults and and kids in any other school. It's it's much more supervised than a Pesach seder is. And um there there isn't that much unstructured time. So, just think about it realistically so that we can plan so that it can only be a happy beautiful event. Thank you so much, Twee. Thank you, Reb Yaakov. It's a pleasure again to be here together with both of you. Just to echo some of what Reb Yaakov Horowitz was saying, I think there's never a wrong time to have what we like to call a healthy boundaries conversation with our children. Those can be obviously different at different ages, always age appropriate. Even a five- or seven-year-old can be spoken to about healthy boundaries as well as a 13- and 15-year-old and an 18-year-old. And these are things that we need to be talking to our children about every so often. You [snorts] know, the common times that people perk up and think about this is when their children are going to be away from home for extended periods of time like before they go off to yeshiva, to a mesivta, to a school, or before they go to sleepaway camp. But really before Yom Tov, it's a great time as well. It doesn't need to be a long conversation. It can be a short conversation one-on-one with each child, I would recommend, because each child's at a different stage and age, where you just set speak about at an age-appropriate way the idea that it's never okay for somebody else to be trying to look, show, or touch at different private parts of the body, uh parts that are normally covered by bathing suits, uh acting in certain ways that make you feel weird or uh just feels off. Anything that has that kind of feeling to it, you need to come and tell you need to get out of there and tell us right away. Tell the parents right away. And it's important to just put out there like it's never lashon hara, it's never snitching. I like to always just say the phrase, it's not snitching, it's saving. That means, you know, snitching is uh the rebbe told the class, "Don't eat Don't eat any snacks now." And some kid is sneaking a little snack in the back of the class and you raise your hand and say, "Oh, rebbe, he's eating in class." We could call that snitching. But anytime it's something dangerous or unhealthy, it's not snitching, it's saving. It's not lashon hara, it's letzei'elus. It is in terms of the danger and the healthiness and the making sure that to stop anything that's unhealthy. And so, once we understand those two points, you always, even if you just have a doubt, maybe this was a little weird, you come and talk to us about it. Worst case scenario, we have a nice conversation and it's okay and we move forward. But it's really important to always tell us about anything that's going on. That's the first idea that I think I would just put out there in terms of making sure our children are prepared in and of themselves, regardless of what we can do proactively, but preventatively what we can do to help our children be careful as we go into the wonderful Yom Tov and Kallah. But Reb can I Well, so Reb Avi, what you said was spot on every single point. I would just add one thing that we should tell our children no matter who it is. No matter who it is. Because the the instinct is to shut it down when we're with family. Um I make What's that one? You you never have to hug anybody even Bubby or Zaidy if you're not comfortable. >> by the way, any grandparents um who are watching this, uh community members, grandparents, um I tell, you know, when I when I horseplay with our grandkids or I do stuff with them, um I always like I always say something like um if if let let's say for example, I have a thing that I play gorilla with the kids, you know, walk around like a gorilla and they run away. It's a whole big thing. I tell the kids, "If you don't like if you're not comfortable, if you get scared if you're frightened by this or if you don't want just say stop and I'll stop that second." And the the actual the last couple of years the kids started really became funny. I do it, the kids say stop stark and I think it's great cuz it's giving them agency. It's part of the it's part of the whole gorilla stick. But but what it's telling the children is that even someone we I know you love me and I I get all that, but if you don't like it, just say stop and I and and I'll stop right away. I like to always say whether it's a friend, a relative, or someone you respect. Those are the three three ways that I say it and I'll just add in specifically tickling is something which can be innocent, but I found too many times is a pass off for things that become not innocent. So, probably should be avoided in general, but especially the children need to know they can say, "No, I don't like you tickling me." No matter even if they're very young. I didn't and and it's it's Thank you for bringing that up. Um it's extremely important. And you know, it speaking of grandparents, um when I do talks um and people say, "What's with What's with this? Now I need permission to kiss my grandchildren?" And and families have different norms for that. But when grandparents call me very offended, could you imagine? My daughter my daughter-in-law told me that I can't kiss the grandkids without permission. So, or they say about tickling or anything else, I tell them this is a great opportunity to support what the children are learning. The reason that child safety education is effective because they're told that they have agency and they can speak up. And if you give them a slobbery kiss and they don't like it and they come to the mother and the mother um can't get you to stop, you're training you're you're undoing all the critical child safety information that that the children need. This is what they're told currently. They weren't told that We weren't told this when we were kids and, you know, look what happened to to so many people. >> So, let me let me add to that before I reshift into the focus, but I've said this many many times. You know, part of me is very upset about something on a personal note that bothers me, but it's the reality of the world we live in. I could never forget the time when I was, let's say, in fourth or fifth grade and I was having a bad day and I had an amazing rebbe who put his arm on my shoulder and we took a walk, you know, up and down the hallway, maybe even around the block, and he gave me the few minutes I needed. And you know what? That might have been great. But in today's day and age, we're living in different times. We're teaching our kids different messages and it's important that people understand it. We're not doing it in a way to say that everybody's an abuser. But if we teach our children that they have the right to decide for their own body or their own feelings, you know, the book we spoke about, you know, Rabbi Horowitz many, many years ago, Uncle Willy Tickles. Right? That was one of the first books that was ever, you know, put out on this that I remember that my my mother read that to me. You know, many, many years ago. So, that's something that we need to keep in mind. Um I'm going to frame this and I think I want to go in three different directions. One is I want to talk about family gatherings because as we know, um it's really common that most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by somebody the child knows, often a family member or close family friend. I want to also highlight hotels. And I also want to spend a few minutes talking about the importance of understanding survivors' position when they are either at a seder or with us for Yom Tov. Certain things that can be triggering, you know, and things that we should tell people to keep in mind. Um just some important points. So, I'm going to start off with some of the pointers that I put together on large family gatherings, risks, and tips. So, it's very important that children, especially in our community we have this, um I don't even know the right way to describe this word. But basically, there's this bubble, the frum bubble. Everybody looks the same, everybody acts the same. We're all there, we're all here together, everybody knows each other and by definition, we let our guard down. That's just a reality. We do it as adults also, right? When we're we're in a familiar place then at the end of the day, that's something that happens. So, if we do that as adults, we can only imagine, you know, what children do. Now, also, we have to remember that these are atmospheres of fun celebration, enjoyment. You know, a lot of hugging, a lot of people not seeing each other for a while. Unfortunately, a lot of adults drinking more so than, you know, just the arba kosos. Um there's a lot of rooms in people's houses, bedrooms, basements, attics. Um you know, things of that nature. These are all things, you know, during the seder, people, you know, are having these long sedarim where they think it's important, you know, and and for some people it is, for some people it would ADHD kill them, but either which way, for children it can be very detrimental and you're going hours and hours long of no supervision. So, I'd like to maybe [clears throat] give the floor to let's discuss those for a few moments. >> Yeah, I think definitely we have to recognize that when we're all together in a house, it sometimes can be a couple of houses in in the neighborhood which means you can have some children's, you know, then the seder's going really late and you can have some children a few doors down in a totally separate house without any supervision really. It could be just a couple of young teenagers or preteens. Something that we normally would not allow just like during the year in terms of a sleepover with zero adult supervision and all of a sudden the Pesach seder night is uh just automatically kind of makes it a time for that. And we have to be thinking to ourselves, is that really something that we are okay with when we're preparing and planning? Once again, the preparation is so incrucial because in the moment when you lost the matzas and you're trying to find it and you just remembered that you forgot to grind up the charoses and again, we're we're we're holding before the hotel now. Although these things happen at the hotel, too, trust me. But uh you're you're trying to see, you know, quickly try to get everything together, that's not going to be the time to think about these preventative and healthy decision-making, you know, conversations and structures. But beforehand now, in these next couple of weeks are the times to have these conversations and to think, okay, where are the kids going to be if it's 1:00 a.m. and we still have an hour to go and they're tired and they want to go back, where are they going back to? Are they going to a bedroom down the hall from the dining room? Are they going to a place that's far away, that's down the block? So, thinking about these things and making preparations and arrangements, thinking about the fact that even in the same house, there's no reason that kids, and maybe there's a bunch of cousins sleeping together, there's no reason doors need to be all the way closed, certainly not locked. In general, those are good tips for when kids are coming together, family is coming together, kids are sleeping multiple kids in the same room. Um and one thing that I would just end my piece for now on, it's a more of a global idea that applies in general to everything and it certainly applies to these safety habits as well. Mothers and fathers, but but I've seen it I've seen it more with with mothers, but I'll say it to both, of course, should trust their intuition, their gut instincts. Sometimes I've just heard too many stories and been involved in too many cases where a mother or a father just has this feeling like something just doesn't feel right. And maybe it's like, "Wait, we're about to do the next part of the Haggadah, you know, Eliyahu is here, he'll wait." Eliyahu will wait for you to just go spot check your children in the bedroom because you have a feeling of it just something doesn't feel right. Listen to those feelings. Again, not to be obsessive but every once in a while, it could be as much as, you know, every 20, 30 minutes. You're just doing a little check in here and there to see how everyone's doing. It's just a smart habit to be in, especially when we have younger children who are gathered together with different children of different age groups, potentially all sharing the similar rooms and to be thinking and discussing and preparing for that. Let me just add one thing before I go to Rabbi Horowitz, which is you mentioned something very important. We keep talking about abuse, abuse, but let's also remember that very often there's experimentation. It could even be the same age. So, that's a very important thing as well that, you know, very often we overlook where it might not even be coming from a {quote} bad place, but again, these are environments that things like this can happen. Well, thank you thank you so thank you so much for pointing that out because I was taking it for granted that, you know, we're it's it's not all the same category. It's a great point and so many of the cases start with kids experimenting with each other. I appreciate that. And and we could give a it's it's not a bad practice for parents to to have like a code word, mean which means I'm feeling uncomfortable. You know, to tell your children that if you use this word you know, if you use this whatever word you make up >> us an example of one of those? >> that I'm not feeling safe right now. And and and Banana split. No, you could say uh Exactly. Exactly. Ice cream. No, say something. Use a word that means that I'm just not feeling uncomfortable because there's people around and the person that's been bothering them or getting in their space might be sitting at the table. You know, and it and it and it I'm saying you you play time. Make fig- make a word. Make a word that the children should know that if they tell you that you'll automatically step in and and, you know, take them aside um because they might not be that that expressive. Or if you tell them if you pull my sleeve like this if you come over, I'm sitting at the table, you can just pull my sleeve and and that'll mean that you really want my attention and you're not feeling comfortable. >> And you don't turn around and go, "Get away from me, [laughter] I'm in the middle of saying something." RIGHT. YOU KNOW, YOU should know my father's in Stark did this with us when we were younger cuz he worked in Albany during the week and there were times my mother wasn't driving and there were times that uh you know, that my father needed someone to pick me up and we had code words that when a person said, "Your father sent me." This is the code word and that was something we had from way back then. Um you know, so a couple of let's just do some of the pointers, you know, just putting it together, which is so obviously, it was mentioned earlier giving the child autonomy over their own body. Now, as we unfortunately see with the current events with all these things going on in the world if we teach this to children, it will also help them when they become adults. So, we have to look at a full picture. So, again, nobody, even Bubby or Zaide or Grandma or Grandpa or Uncle, you know, Yunkel, it doesn't matter. Um I think it's very important that, you know, we have policies and we announce it. Open door policy. We don't allow the door to the bedrooms to be closed fully. Whatever however it's structured, you know unless it's the times, [clears throat] whatever you figure out, but announce these policies. That means there is no adult who's ever allowed to be in a room with a child with the door closed. Period, end of story. The same thing that we talk about in yeshivas, right? People say to me all the time, "Oh, it's not fair, they're painting a bad rap on the rabbaim." I said, "No, no, no. You're making a mistake. If the rebbe is not in the room closed with the student, then the rebbe is protecting himself." You know, look at it from all sides. So, there is no exception. I was just showing her something, I wanted to play a game. No, there is no such thing. Um another thing I think is identifying unsupervised spaces and eliminate them. You know, the hiding space under your staircase that, you know, whatever it is. And then we have the stuff that we talk about always, you know, look out again, I always say signs and symptoms are a scary thing because they're not always there. But we can do the best we can. So, look out if there's any adult who's gravitating towards the children or singling out any one child. And again, it wouldn't be an amudim discussion if we don't remind parents when you drink your inhibitions are down. And it is much harder to properly parent, especially in environments, which this will apply both to hotels and to family gatherings, if you are an inebriated. And you cannot be there. So, let's keep in mind that alcohol, marijuana, edibles, all these things certainly will have an impact. And it's extremely important have constant discussions with the kids throughout. In other words, just just you know, gentle conversations. Talk about them. I don't like to say, "Ask your kid point blank, did somebody touch you in a place inappropriate?" You know, cuz that usually is, you know, opening it up for but, you know, are you comfortable? Are you okay? Is there anyone here that you wish wouldn't be here? You know, there everybody knows their kids of which way to have those discussions. I think it's really important and and this is something we speak about always. Communicate, communicate, communicate. You know? I was just talking to you know, our daughter Sarah. Um she our youngest. Um when she when she was in high school, um I used to go out to Starbucks with her once a week. I shut off shut off our phones and we just had great quality time. Um that that we really, you know, were bonding together and she went up to get something and a woman next Jewish woman went over to her and said, "Are you feeling safe?" She didn't know that I was a father. So, so so my she just said, she just sees this guy and and thank God with all our children kids when I would talk I would totally be locked in. I didn't my phone was off, you know, I was I was just talking to her. So, someone thought it might be creepy. So, our daughter Sarah got really offended. "Oh, that was disgusting." She said, "That's my father." And I told her, "Darling, go back and thank her." Because she didn't say, "Your father's doing something this person is a creep." She did it in the I thought it was I thought it was very thoughtful. It was really I was very impressed. I I'm actually impressed by that. I mean, cuz how many times do we do do we have what's that called again that they had with the woman in in in Right. And and I actually got up, went over after Sarah thanked her. I went over to to the woman and thanked her. I said, "Thank you very much because if if my daughter was with someone and wasn't feeling safe, I'd be I'd be very happy that I'm sure you had no reason to do this. So, maybe we can extend that that if we see people in our family or or generally speaking that that some um boundaries might be might be getting eroded. Um it's okay for us to tell ask the kids, you know, are you feeling safe? Are you feeling comfortable? Um it's just another another layer of protection. One example that I've heard that I really like is the kid says to the parent, "I'm having one of those one of those stomach aches." Um so, you know, it's kind of a normal thing to say, but it's unique one of those and it's set up beforehand that makes perfect sense. Brilliant. I'm glad I'm glad I thought of it. Exactly, because it's like now I need to take care of it. So, that's one example. Um I got it from actually one of the safety kit programs. And um another idea I just want to say just in terms of like overall perspective, especially for the Seder night is you see that Hazal have so much focus throughout the entire Seder on keeping the kids involved, keeping the kids asking questions, feeling good, wanting to be a part of it. It's not a night that is designed for the adults to have fun, to darshan all the Seder Torah, the secrets of the Torah. It's that you could save that for the next morning when you wake up for nights because you're into Kabbalistic things and even though you stayed up all night, you also stayed up for Tikkun But for the Seder night, we're there for the children. We're there to keep them involved and keep them engaged. And we can say Kol Hamor Ben Ben Kol Hamor. We could say certainly it makes sense that that Hazal would want us to keep our children safe and healthy throughout the Seder night. If that means making a little bit of a faster Seder, which maybe there's even some Halakhic foundation for in terms of when you're eating the Afikoman and there's no reason to keep everyone starving until really late at night cuz you're darshaning every single line of Maggid. You can save all those Divrei Torah for the meal time and for afterwards. But again, the point is that the whole Seder should be something the kids should be involved in. Why should the little kids miss out on Chad Gadya, which is a pretty cool part of the Seder even though it's all the way at the end because we need it needs to be at 3:00 a.m. Okay, some kids even if it's at 1:00 a.m. or 1:30, it's going to be too late for them, but we should try to move things along and keep our eye on the safety of the children. I actually think it's very in line with what Hazal's ratzon and vision is for the Seder and the Katina. I hear that. So, I actually grew up you know, it's funny. We had a pivoting time in my house in the earlier years, you know, we were we everything was at home. There was no concept of hotel, missing the whole nine yards, which by the way, just off topic and if you want to cut this out, that's fine, but I don't know. I think we need to figure out a way to change the way minhagim are addressed when it comes to Yom Tovim. How many families get ripped apart because the son-in-law doesn't do this and the daughter-in-law doesn't do that and now you can only go to one. I promise you Hazal did not want that we should use minhagim and gebroks and not gebroks and this and that as ways to create machlokes and strife amongst family members. That's just my own pet peeve. Um again, that's my own thing. Another thing people can complain and say it's big luck thinks she's going to change things. It doesn't matter. I just find it to be really troubling. Like it's just there's so many fights over it. And then it's like, "But when they're dating, of course it's like, no, we love she's great." And all of sudden resenting. And and that resentment carries on and then it goes to the grandkids. Why couldn't we go to Bubby and Zaidy cuz they do eat gebroks. They don't I just think it's one of those things that I mean again, not for this topic, but I I just felt the need to get it off my chest. I just want to I just want to add one thing to what you just said. It's very easy for us to think about how we need to be the adults in the room when we are um 35-year-old parents and our children are eight, nine, 12, you know, young children and we're like, "Okay, the child wants this or wants that." And we don't want to make them upset. We want to be flexible for them. It's much more difficult when we're the adult and we have sons-in-law or daughters-in-law who have their feelings and we see them as adults already. But the truth is that they're really still children. They're still young. We can think back to when we were in our young 20s. They don't have the maturity level and the life experience and the recognition recognition like Zvi is saying for the importance of shalom especially at the Seder. We need to look at these young newlywed first couple years marriage uh married adults as young adults as the children compared to perhaps the parents and grandparents who are hosting the Seder or the ones that are hosting the table at the hotel that will jump into in the private Seder room. We need to recognize that we're the adults in the room and we could be mavater. And actually think it's very in line with what Hazal's ratzon and vision is for the shalom. And my machatunim, you know, the parents of the of the chasan and kallah on the other side would ask me or we we would discuss how the wedding's going to run and the chuppah and this and they said, "Do you have any minhagim, you have customs that that you you So, I said, "My most important custom to me, my biggest minhag is that I I want my machatunim to be happy." That's what I said. I said, "I'm not I I That's what I said. My minhag is that I want the machatunim to be happy." I said, "Udi and I are walking the kids down. That's not negotiable. You know, I'm still the father. I said that's the way it is. Uh other than that, whatever you'd like, whatever you want." And and you know something, we we it's hard for us to imagine as our kids get older that we're really setting a culture for our family and that they they look to us when there are things like this. And when we when we're when we're compassionate and flexible and we and we send the message that family counts and that and that we we close an eye even if things aren't exactly the way we want them to be, I think it's a great lesson to the kids. Right. Um yeah, absolutely. So, jumping right into the the hotel specific. So, as I was saying, when we were younger, we were home and Pesach was interesting and then one year my father was designing his stark and may have the esrog or as he said may have the esrog and he was cutting it down. [laughter] Um [snorts] you know, >> [clears throat] >> he got injured a few weeks before Pesach and and we ended up going to a hotel. And I I again, I can say this, we had the most amazing time in hotels. Um we really did, but a lot of what I'm going to say now are things that I could say firsthand need to be addressed in many many ways. So a couple of things that just to to to frame it. First of all, there's hundreds of people, adults, kids. Like we said earlier, the from bubble effect, right? Everybody looks like us. The parents are here. We're all in the same thing. We let our guard down completely. Very often kids are playing unsupervised, running in the hallways, in the game rooms, you know, going to the pool, riding elevators, which by the way is a totally separate story. I could tell you I myself have walked into elevators when in a hotel. Uh this wasn't even a Pesach, but this was a a weekend retreat, and there was it was a Thursday night or Friday Thursday night, and there was a adult holding his phone, showing it to a kid in the elevator with with pornography on it. Like just it was like this adult had 30 seconds to I guess plant his move on this kid between the floors and jumped at that opportunity. So, elevators, again, keep it in mind. You know, it's funny. There was always the famous question is elevators yes yichud no yichud. And you heard me say last time, I hold yichud is between men and men, men and women, women and women. Just be safe, you know, but just you don't have to put yourself in a situation. But elevators itself happens to be something that I I remember literally walking in on that situation and having to address it. Um and then there's also the staff, you know, at the end of the day, again, I'm sure that every staff member is vetted amazingly well. The babysitting staff, the entertainment staff. But let's be honest, these are kids watching kids. So, these are situations that again, we're not telling people don't go to hotels. We're not trying to create that fear factor, but understand that lots of people, lots of strangers, they all look alike. We like to believe we're part of the same community, and many of them were hired to be entrusted with our children's safety. So, these things together are a recipe that we need to be extra careful with. >> overriding We'll start with Rabbi Horowitz this time. >> message would be that that kids tend to be in a much higher risk when we make assumptions like we see um we see a an 18-year-old um child, grandchild of ours, walking out with a couple of kids, and we assume that they're staying with them the whole time. You know, so the people at the table think that kids watching, that kids says go back to your family. So, that's where that's where um you know, that's where sometimes things fall between the cracks when when there isn't a clear handoff of who's watching the children at any given time. And and by the way, that goes for walking back and forth to shul. I've been encouraging rabbis and community leaders of shuls, of synagogues to to see that the children walk in groups. And and they shouldn't go into, you know, especially like in Rockland County in Monsey where we live, everybody's cutting through the backyards cuz the streets aren't in a clear grid, and people take shortcuts. So, to try to see that there's either an adult or kids going together. So, when your children are telling you that oh, there's a we want to go to the tea room, we want to go whatever, tell them where, you know, that we'd like you be back at a certain time or have somebody be in charge of of making sure that the kids are going if they're going to the room, for example, or anything like that. See to it that that you have something in place. So, one of the hotels we went that we actually had it was very spread out. It was out west. It was a gorgeous place, but it was there was so many different rooms, and and we actually made up among ourselves. We we had like seven, eight people that just you know, took 10 minutes just to walk around. For guys without personality package, see you and I, it would be great to be able to get up and walk around for 10 [laughter] minutes. So, so we we I took a turn. So, it really was it really was it's helpful to to to have some sort of idea of how that supervision's going to work. Yeah. I think that's great. I'll I'll just add briefly just with I'll just preface this idea with a story. I was once at a years ago, we used to go to a Pesach hotel that really prided itself on the very high level of kashrus that it kept in the kitchen and with all the food. You never went into the kitchen though, right? >> [laughter] >> No, but that's a separate not fit today. You know the joke they say I I have to say this. I'm sorry, you know, but when they talk about have a hot kashrus sameach, right? So, you know the famous story. If you're going to your in-laws, have a hot kashrus. If you're going to a hotel, have a hot sameach. And if you're staying home, have a hot kashrus sameach. Oh, very nice. Sorry, I needed to. No, so this is a story that goes along those lines. So, anyway, one of the members at our on our group wanted ketchup very badly. And it seems that the waiter, who was not a Jewish waiter, obviously wanted to impress and get his tip, and he wasn't able to find the Pesach to ketchup. Either they ran out or whatever the issue was. And he came back 20 minutes later with a regular bottle of Heinz ketchup. And they started using, "Wow, what a waiter." And then someone's like, "Wait, is this Pesachdik?" Now, again, it's only kidney is. It's not a major issue, but still it it speaks to crossing those boundaries that the mashgiach set up. Um and they found out that well, the waiter wanted to make them happy. So, he found the person who had the key to the locked chometzdik kitchen, went in, got a bottle of Heinz ketchup, and brought it to the table to make them happy, right? So, the point is when we look at a hotel, we think to ourselves the opposite of when we're kind of in a neighborhood and the kids are sleeping a few houses down. It's all we have to be careful. We have to check in on them. But in a hotel, we're all in one building or one campus. It feels much more safe, much more familiar like we're saying. But the truth is like everyone like Reb Yaakov was saying, like Tzvi was saying, it's so spread out. There are so many opportunities for problematic places that we're unfamiliar with, that we're not even aware of, potentially. Locked up places that are left open, and kids get Again, we just want to be keeping an eye on recognizing where they are, where they could be, spot checking, following our intuition. Perhaps we should say especially in a hotel setting that's not as familiar to us. And where like Reb Yaakov said very well, where our feelings and our assumptions can be dulled because it feels like one big place. It's some of the tips. Thank you so much. Some of the things just to try to bridge it back together, which I'm just going to put some of these from what you guys said is obviously children should never be going alone. So, maybe like a buddy system, you know, but we know who the buddy is. Um having established check-in times, you know, you can go there, but you need to meet us at this and this time at this and this place. Reb Horowitz, you said something that I'm very impressed with. Walking the space. Yeah, it's great for ADHD, but it's also great to know spots. I mean, the hotel that we went to, I could tell you every spot good, bad, and ugly. Okay, I I knew that place cold. Um safe adults by name. If you have a problem and we're not around and you see so-and-so, specific, you know, pointers. Um we also have to remember safety of health and safety, right? Swimming pools, pool safety. You know, we have to remember that very often at these places, they either have lifeguards. Lately, I've noticed a lot of hotels they stopped having lifeguards. They they just have at your own risk because they can't they can't get sued if they have no lifeguard. I mean, these are some of the things that we started seeing. So, and and also very important, know the ratio of the children's programming. You know, if they say there's a day camp and it's a one 13-year-old for 27 6-year-olds, you know, that might not be the you know, the safest type of environment. So, again, I think these are things that a lot of it is hotel specific, but really it's what we like to say common sense is not so common, but it's common sense of like sometimes what you think is so open and so simple is really where the problem is. Like, "Yeah, so Yanky's going in to lay down for an hour because he's tired." And okay, but we have a rule, the door can't be closed. You know, you can't like these are things that we sometimes take for granted. So, I think especially in in times of Yom Tov, in times of, you know, any joyous occasion, you know, weddings, b'nei mitzvah, weekend b'nei mitzvah, Shabbos sheva brachos, all these things, whether it's at home, whether it's in a hotel, these all open up for opportunities, but there's also the flip side, which is the opportunity for us to continue that communication with our children. It's an opportunity for us to speak to them beforehand. It's an opportunity for us to remind our children that their body belongs to them. Remind them there's a difference between a secret and a surprise. Right? You know, I remember the first time I heard that. There's no secrets, there are surprises. You know, you got to understand this. Um [snorts] at the end of the day, these are opportunities that can open up the dialogue and open the conversation. And we shouldn't miss on these opportunities, especially when we have a reason for it. So, it could be helpful, and it can also be there for helping them much longer term, not just for the specific Yom Tov or event. I wanted to now shift gears to the overstimulation of Pesach. Um noise, crowds, late nights. A lot of times a lot of people that we're dealing with were abused during times of Yom Tov, and we see this from clients of ours. Especially when it was family members, uncles, cousins, siblings, grandparents. I just had a conversation with a mother recently, and uh my heart is still aching. I don't even know the right response. Uh where the mother reached out about how to address the fact that the father meaning the grandfather was doing something where they were hosting the entire family. Her child was abused. And the abuser was an uncle. They never told the grandparents about the abuse. Half the family doesn't believe it. And the mother's like, "Listen, I'm very supportive of my daughter, but enough is enough. I want to go with to to my parents for the 70th anniversary or 50th anniversary, whatever it was." And like blaming their child for the fact that like, "Well, why why why can't I said, "You're not not going for any reason other than to show your child support. I've been supporting her for years. She's not getting over it. You know, these are situations that come up a lot, and especially on Yom Tov. And nobody wants to hear this like, "Oh, you're going to have a miserable Yom Tov because you shouldn't be with your in-laws, grandparents, cousins, uncles, things of that nature." But let's remember, those are the times that things might have happened. And we have to be extra sensitive about that. There's nothing wrong with telling our children, and this by the way applies to everything, not just survivors, but anybody. Giving them an exit, you know? If you're feeling tough, if something's, you know, stressful use that code word, right? I love that idea. Use the code word, right? Your stomach ache. That that that again, you know? The other thing that I think I want to really try to discuss for a few minutes is the concept of making sure that survivors are not forced into anything. You know, that guilt of like the whole family's together, you must do this, you must participate. You know, years and years of therapy can be undone by one situation that can just completely flare up. So, >> [snorts] >> I would like to let's start with Rabbi Alvi Lander this time. You know, let me get some thoughts. Let's hear some thoughts on these topics. Okay, yeah, thank you. I mean, there are all sorts of, you know, Pesach, Yom Tov in general is a break from routine. It's a different schedule. Uh there's let's not just talk about the Seder nights, but let's talk about the going to shul, and it can be a new community for certain people that they're staying by and that they're a guest by. And then there's the Chol Hamoed and the certain types of trips that might the family might want to take. I think we absolutely need to be sensitive and have discussions. Again, preparation's the key. Having a discussion on Chol Hamoed morning when some people davened late, and now it's already noon. And oh, if we don't leave now, we're not going to end up doing anything. And now everyone's pressured to just do whatever everyone else says we should do. So, therefore, we're going to go to the shooting range. And that's what we decided, but we forgot or didn't think of ahead of time, and everyone was just pressured that maybe there's somebody where the shooting range would be triggering, pun intended. Um for them. Um many other types of activities that for whatever reason might be something that's uncomfortable. If we think beforehand, it will save us a lot of agmas nefesh anyway. Uh it's not very popular to think, "What are we going to do each day of Chol Hamoed on Rosh Chodesh Nisan?" But it's not a bad idea to think about that as opposed to thinking about it motzei the first days and then going into each day of Chol Hamoed. And when we think about that, it gives opportunity for somebody to place a private call to say, "I know you mentioned on this day you might be doing this. I'm not so sure I'm so comfortable with that. It's something that I'm not I'm not really so comfortable with. Maybe I'll um l'chatchila I'll set up something that I'm going to do differently for that day. Or maybe there's another idea that we could do that's similar that's that I am okay with. And we respect we respect everyone else's wishes. Um so, I really think preparation is the key in this area. >> I I I I think what you said what Rabbi Yankel said about planning is is to this as well. >> is probably the most important thing is is just thinking about what you want to do. Are our old kids going to be comfortable doing what you want to do? You know, children have anxieties about I'm I'm not not necessarily only related to to to child safety, but just being into the kids and that uh it it if a number of I just took without here in Florida. Some of our grandkids came. And I took them, you know, they went they went uh like water skiing out on a on a board. But whatever it was, it was it was a lot of fun. I checked with each child individually if they wanted to go. And gave them an out and told them that if you don't want to go, I'll find something else to do. You know, cuz sometimes look, sometimes the kids, depending on their risk tolerance, will love it, and some just aren't comfortable saying it. Then they get out and and they on the water and they have a total meltdown. So, like to give kids real agency to say that some things they're just not comfortable doing, and and that that's okay, and we'll offer them, you know, an alternative. So, that that has also to do if you know your children have anxiety um over certain things, please be keyed into what you might want to share that either with other family members, ask your child first. Especially if they're older, but give them the license to be able to step out of an activity if they're just not happy. Uh putting kids on a on an a roller coaster at an amusement park, you know? You might love it. Not everybody does. So, so like just try to be mindful. And when you're teaching children that they can back out of a roller coaster ride, it gives them more agency about other things in their lives. That's as one thing we know from research is that the more the more agency we give children um and autonomy about making certain decisions on their own, that's helpful. It it it trans that that thinking carries over to to much more important areas about child safety and that they that they have a right as an individual to to speak up. So, there was an interesting time that we were someplace. I forget where it was exactly. I think maybe it was Israel, but I'm not sure. And there was this family, and there was like 9:00 in the morning or 8:30, and they were getting their kids into this van, the tender, and you heard all the screaming and yelling, "Get, we're late. Where are the the And and I'll never forget walking up to the mother and saying, "Listen, the kids are guaranteed to remember this trip. You get to make a decision. Are they going to remember it for the good or for the bad?" You know, we keep forgetting that like and in my family, and sometimes it becomes a problem, but the kids they played. I have teenagers now. They're not getting up to run first thing in the morning to a Chol Hamoed trip. Okay. So, they're not. But you know what? The yelling, screaming is not, you know, it's almost like the line, you know, Rabbi Yankel we said years ago, you know, you know, I heard you say, "If you want to guarantee that your kids will hate religion, chase them out of bed every morning for You're going to guarantee they'll hate it. Okay. You got to just be, you know, understand that it's a time for family. I mean, you know, to to put my my rabbi heart hat on, right? You know, we talk about the arba banim, right? There's four different children. Chazal knew that not everyone's the same. There's different kids, different flavors. We have to make sure to do what we can to encompass all of them. So, we have to remember that. Each one has different strokes, different folks. This one might like this, this one might like that. I just wanted to add that parents shouldn't make the mistake when it comes to kids struggling with anxiety or shyness. They shouldn't think to themselves like, "Oh, the roller coaster is the thing that I need to like pressure them to do to break them out of their anxiety." There are plenty of healthy, regular parts of life that are going to be the things where we are going to have to really encourage them. If they're anxious, and therefore they're not going to school, we need to get a professional involved. We need to as parents figure out how can we get them going regularly to school? How can we get them to be regularly learning? How can we be get them to be regularly exercising and being healthy with their minds and with their bodies. And if anxiety is getting in the way of that, we're going to need to utilize all the tools we can to help them embrace that and expose themselves to that and break through their anxieties and grow. But roller coasters are not the thing that we need to use to >> should not as exposure therapy to get our children to break through their anxiety. >> um Yes, so. There there are some great tools out there that that therapy. You know, when I was a kid, the therapy really wasn't wasn't a thing, not much of it. Um, but I I remember a child in my school. Um, I knew that one of my students he he had a an anxiety issue. And by the way, if you do have a child with an anxiety issue, tell the staff members. Tell tell people tell everybody in their life so they should know. And I I I was curious cuz there was a situation there that he had a do something in public presents present something. And he was feeling uncomfortable. I went over to him and said, "How you doing?" And it was fascinating. He pulled he pulled cards out of his pocket. And they were strategies for managing anxiety. One is, "This isn't my problem." Two, you know, "I have the right to say no." And and it actually, you know, I I saw him employing I've seen it with other people since, but if you have a child with anxiety, it it's it's very helpful to to give them the tools and be patient and let them go to a therapist and talk it over. I did a talk with um a Rabbi Jonathan Schwartz who runs the anxiety clinic. He's fantastic if you're interested. Um, it's called the anxiety clinic Rabbi Jonathan Schwartz. I did a few talks with him during COVID. And he actually said because he did I said people are very anxious. He said that he found that some of the kids that struggled with anxiety overall were doing better than kids who didn't because they had strategies for dealing with anxiety all the time. Yeah, that was it was fascinating. And I looked around and I saw how to they had they had they had I was blown away by it. Exactly, right? >> Well, that's the same thing with the studies with social emotional learning versus just standard good touch bad touch. It's very nice to teach them good and bad. But we're teaching you the skills. And I think that that's a perfect way to cope with anxiety. You know, we get calls always before freaking out with everything going on. Remember those like that that Remember between Purim and Pesach that first year how bad it was that was like really when everything hit. So, the kids who had mechanisms for dealing with it were actually, in many cases, not everyone, but many cases he said that they were actually doing better. So, leading into that, I just want to share, you know, before Yom Tov, we always end up with a lot of stories. And I I've mentioned this before Purim, I'll mention it again. Now it's important for people to know. There was a very big debate when people call us up and they ask us Halachic shailos, "What am I allowed to do on a Yom Tov, right? If I'm feeling stressed, can I call a support line? Can I call my therapist? You know, can I go to a 12-step meeting on Zoom or on this?" Or can I We have people calling up. And again, so at some point we at Amudim decided and we're calling it Halacha, Hashkafa, and Heart, you know, the three H's, where we took we have a Rav who's an expert in mental health um, who's been involved for many many years, Rabbi Yisroel Grossberg. And we sort of basically have like a ask the Rav because a lot of people are embarrassed to call their own Rav. Now, at one point Rabbi Horowitz will confirm this is true about me. I would have walked at the idea saying, "Oh, you need to go call a Rabbi. If you can do something, go jump in the lake." I But we start learning that as we get older and more mature, we realize people they need to hear it even if they know it. You know, what what what was done a few years ago with Rav Dovid Cohen shlita and Rav Katz putting out that video and we're going to release it again this year. You know, people make a big mistake. They thought the video was only COVID. We made it very clear. This was the first time in Breakthrough that a two poskim, huge Halachic authorities, were able to get up there and say something. And I want you to know afterwards Rav Dovid Cohen had told me the amount of pressure he got from talmidim to do a retraction, do a this, people are going to take it out of context. And you know what? Those calls that we got over Yom Tov on the support line spoke volumes for itself. And you know, there was the old adage, you know, like when when when is the girl going to call for help if not Shabbos morning when the father's in shul, you know? But so I do want to say that that's something that we need to we need to address. But I also want to say but one of the questions we always get often and I "What do I do? My kid hasn't been home in a few years. We don't talk to them. We threw them out at all these different scenarios. He's not from anymore. He is from. He's making believe I'm less from, more from. Everybody has He's going to ruin the other kids, not the other kids." So, I'll never forget last year there was a mother that was very torn, but her and her husband were not on the same page. And we basically guided them and said, "Listen, you got to call your son and invite him for the Seder. If he drives to you and parks a block away, you love him. If he parks in front, you love him. If he comes and do me a favor. Just the Seder is not about peace. The Seder's about inviting him, showing him he can be there." And Motzei the first day is the mother called me up and said, "I want you to know that my son was pretty much I think she called him a lump on a log. That's the term. I think that's the term she used. Where he didn't do anything, he didn't participate, he just sat there. But at the end of the night before he was leaving, he turns to me and goes, "Ma, I forgot what it's like to be part of something." So, this was something that, you know, I I hear this and I keep reminding everybody. We talk about being slaves in Egypt, right? We adjust in the chet ha'egel. We can go through everything that Pesach has to offer. But what were we? We were broken, we were traumatized, we had no dignity. What's the first thing Hashem did? Did he force us to change? Or he said, "I've seen your suffering." That's our model. We've seen your suffering. We want you to know that we're going into Pesach. Pesach is not just a story. You know, when Chazal say feel like you live it every year, right? I think what they're saying, and I believe this is every year all of us can try to find a way that we can either help ourselves or other ones feel seen, feel heard, feel valued. At the end of the day, this is what Klal Yisrael's about. This is what we are about. We are a beautiful nation who loves to be there for each other, but we always have to remember that no matter what it is that we're dealing with. Koach nefesh comes first. Pidyon nefesh comes first. Being able to be there for ourselves and our loved ones. And being, you know, if you're nervous about it, reach out. We'll put you in touch with a Rav. If you want, we're going to put out the videos again. The point is understand if you're in pain, please reach out. If you don't feel comfortable with something, try to tell it to your parents before. If you know there's going to be a trigger, if you know something might be difficult. And as a parent or a loved one or an other affected individual, I beg you. Understand what Pesach is really about. The real leaving Mitzrayim is that we are seen. We were heard. We were broken. We were not forced to change to be like everybody else, to wear the clothing they were wearing. Hashem felt our suffering. So, that is something that I feel we should all do and in this zchus of everything that we do, we should be zocheh that this should be the final one and we should be zocheh that there should be a final one. really have a real of redemption for all of us. Amen. Amen. I just want to I just want to quickly add, you know, we can put this in somewhere earlier, but um, to to what Tzvi just said, and and I've heard both Tzvi and Rabbi Yaakov I've heard both of you say this. So, I just want to say it on behalf of all of us. Uh, validating somebody's emotions does not necessarily mean that you're agreeing with them. So, when we want to do what Tzvi was just saying in terms of really hearing and seeing our children and the other people around us, we can sit and we can listen and we can paraphrase the difficulties that they're going through, and it does not mean that we necessarily agree and we subscribe to that philosophy or anything like that, but we can say I hear I I'm recognizing the trouble, the difficulty. That's very real. The validation does not necessarily mean agreement. And just one other thing I want to just quickly put in here, especially for this year, is with everything that's going on in Eretz Yisrael right now, the Yidden in Eretz Yisrael going through their Yom Tov are obviously I'm sure Hashem everything will be over by then and everything will be peaceful. We're holding out about two weeks before Pesach, but if not, and there's a lot of chaos and sirens and all that, we ourselves empathize not being there right now. I don't know if either of you are going to be there for Pesach, but um, we empathize >> B'ezras Hashem we'll all be there. I'll come for Yom Tov in Eretz Yisrael. Amen. Amen. With Mashiach, yes. Um, but if not, we we just want to make it very clear that we empathize deeply with how chaotic and how disturbing and how not routine and not simple and stressful all of that can be. And it it's even harder, but even more important for us, the adults in the families and around the table, to do everything we can to keep as much stability and calmness to role model the calmness calmness for our children. And not to forget also how many people here in the states and elsewhere in the world just reading the headlines and hearing about what's going on in Israel are are just living with a level of stress not to the same level as those actually experiencing it. And there's also people that might not be making it back home to their parents. We should keep that in mind as well. And but just to go back to what you first said, I think the line that I like to use just to echo that is validate the feelings, not the story. In other words, people have to learn to separate the two. It's really important. This is what somebody's feeling. I'm here. I'm going to be empathetic. I'm going to be compassionate. You know, we say this in the business world, trust and verify, right? It's the same concept, but let's do it in a more practical way. But Rabbi Horowitz, as always, it's it's a pleasure and and I want to thank all of you and a big shout-out to our producer Tzipi for putting this together. Like to say thank you to the audience. >> always a pleasure. And hopefully we'll keep changing the world one person at a time. Amen. Thank you so much, everybody. I will stand for you. We can face the world together. If we raise our voice and make [music] the choice to learn to live again. I will stand for you [music] when you need me more than ever. We will face the truth >> [music] >> and find a new way through. We will stand for you.