R’ YY Jacobson and Dr Shloimie Zimmerman Discussing Intimacy With Our Children

[Music] thank you very much R Jacobson for agreeing to do this conversation on behalf of amum so we're here to talk about talking to Children about intimacy so I guess to start the r speaks to communities around the world what would you say is the situation on the ground what are people struggling with in this topic why why is there a need to talk to Children about this can you give us a little bird's eye view of what the situation is yeah I think what I'm seeing and probably anybody involved with uh teens and youth seeing it I don't know I don't know if there's any exception I don't know if anybody would disagree with this is the simple fact that we live today in a world where there's so much exposure and openness that even if you create the most spiritually sheltered home even if that is conceivably possible you live in a community with particular laws and restrictions and conceivably your children are completely protected from any secular influence what they used to call in Yiddish from the gas you know anything from the street in terms of their education and therefore you really hope that till 17 18 19 when he or she is ready you know to actually as they say start playing house they won't learn about any of it the fact is that I would assume that in most cas cases maybe even in 100% of the cases or maybe 98% or 95% I don't have lab data you would probably have more of that you know Children and Youth are exposed in one way or another to this whole sugya to this whole issue and what happens in most cases is they're getting an education but the education they're either getting from their own challenges struggles trials tribulations failures in a very secretive way or from their relationships either with various websites beginning with YouTube or who knows what or friends classmates colleagues who introduce it maybe in sixth grade or seventh grade and fifth grade and even if you have a class of 26 children and nobody has internet in the house but all it takes is one boy or one girl who has a cousin at a Kaneka party it could be 26 children don't have internet but at a Kaneka party the cousins went to the side room and while they were eating lkas they also got an education that's all it takes you know uh I know my child was in Camp and got an education in camp at a very young age I didn't think that would happen but it happened so I think we all need to uh put our minds and hearts together to be able to be proactive and preemptive and really create a foundation for all of our children of all communities all communities of Torah observant Jews to be able to preempt the terrible terrible emotional crisis and depress crisis and depression and let down and sense of inadequacy the sense of inadequacy that so many young teenagers have because I am the loser of the system I am I am the only muga out there who is the greatest sinner in the history of humanity and really don't feel have anybody to speak to so I think this is something that is is crucial in in a sensitive and respectful way for parents and teachers and principles and and Ras and rebes and first and foremost fathers and mothers to be able to get the information the tools the skills the techniques and the perspectives the Velton sha to be able to not just uh do damage control but much more than that to actually you know there the evidence not only be Bev not only react to crisis but really create foundations in our communication our relationships that as they enter into the stages of puberty and they start dealing with the changes in their body they will be fully fully equipped to be able to look at it with enthusiasm with with with a proper perspective with a sense of of elevated Consciousness even if they have made mistakes and they continue to make mistakes okay so I think they're r experience is very similar to what we're seeing in our clinical offices and even hearing about broadly from or from kabad to from every camp in the M of clol that everybody's struggling with this so why don't you tell us in your office Dr Zim Dr schl Zim for those who don't know you've been seeing patients for many many years now how many years about 15 15 years so you have hands-on experience with teenagers a lot of it I assume yes maybe you could give us a number and and what you have you know if you would have to summarize your experience obviously every person is different but just some general takeaways of what's happening so so yeah I've treated you know hundreds and hundreds individually and I have supervised you know people who seem now thousands and I also do a lot of training for and so I'm Consulting on thousands of cases over that period of time and what age what age I treat children through adults so we're dealing with kids who already can fall into a bad situation from 3 four years old and up um what's happened is as the so eloquently said if I hear about this information from a healthy Source from my parents from a rebi it's part of the healthy education it's information I'm not bad for hearing it there's nothing wrong with me okay it's normal they're teaching me about if I hear about this from somebody at party from the street from some place that's underground and nobody else can talk to me about it so it's dead silence that silence speaks volumes because it teaches us this is not something you should know or talk about or have anything to do with it is the unspoken and we we've had this with physical illness and kids are in a house that nobody can speak of the physical illness that's there there's a lot of damage that happens and certainly here what happens is the person in his mind thinks am I the only one how could I have these deviates thoughts How Could I Want More information on this and they learn about themselves something is deeply damaged with me and then they can even come across a very holy safer that says this is a terrible a or something of that nature and they can really start a horrible horrible spiral toxic shame guilt anxiety depression and K because of their excitement or lack of knowledge they go act out with somebody else that could have catastrophic effects across the board but people always often accuse somebody like myself okay you're dealing with a clinical population they're you know sick quote unquote so that's different you know why you want to talk to the claw about this and that's why I think it's so important to hear from the RO this is something that's across the Spectrum in polyal and even people not in my practice if I speak to any balaba or any Rabon who are involved in this they all say first of all we were struggling with this before the internet Revol said it 40 years ago that the vast majority of Youth in at the time before the internet was creative were struggling with masturbation and had no way of overcoming it this was 40 plus years ago I don't know what he would have said at the age of smartphones so this is something that we needed to do and I think it's just critical that we're finally showing up and I think what's more important than the actual information because like the said they're going to hear the information it's not the information it's that hearing the information isn't the issue it's people showing up and saying you're normal you're healthy you're good hasm designed you with all these challenges that makes for all the difference is there anything in terms of this change though is that an issue in terms of changing or adjusting to you said the current mat because people are very hesitant especially you know in our world you know anything new is a big problem is this something new is this something dramatically different what's the R's take on where we go with this yeah I think this completely doesn't have to do with it's the exact opposite the entire objective of these types of conversations is to be able to help our youth embrace the T to be able to make to real for them and relevant for them I know a boy who phoned me in AA very prominent beautiful Yesa where kids are sing and he opened up a about these issues and of course it says there that if you masturbate you might you know he it's procreative seed and the penalties and the punishments are horrific the first thing is there's no carus for you for your children you're barely a Jew you're disconnected to God now he's working 10 hours a day trying to St trying to be a good B trying to DAV trying to learn the first say the second say the third say he's a ban he's a good mind but the is telling him that you know I don't even know if you're Jewish your Mitzvah are worthless you're is worthless your daving is meaningless so he looks at himself and he says you know I'm a hypocrite and I'm a loser and and I'm completely defected and everything is going to be thrown back in my face that's a very very serious situation who is he supposed to go to we need to address all these types of people what is this kid supposed to do in that particular case he quit Yesa he was done with the system he's an he's an authentic person he's not a faker on the contrary the deeper Souls you know people who don't take everything seriously is say okay you know big deal but he takes it seriously he wants to be an but if Hashem is telling him you're cut off you're finished you know some places will C you there's no CH there's no CH there's no repentance so it's like you know could murder the says in he could do ch right the r says you could be a and you could do children but this 14-year-old boy is the biggest Russia who ever lived in K and that's what he's feeling about himself that's a that's so the conversation about this is to allow him to remain a Jew to actually allow him to remain Yeshiva that actually allow him to feel like a good person a fulfilled person so not only is it not against the Messiah this is the only thing that will allow the m to be relevant to the m has to make me feel that I am a disaster that I'm a loser that I am the greatest disappointment to that's not a I'm going to embrace that you have to wake up every morning and say for me to be part of the messah is a very painful experience I mean we know psychologically I'm going to have to detach from it in order to protect myself from Pain I'm not going to go into a Yeshiva every day that looking at these means that I am a rash at some point I'm going to detach from if I'm more honest completely if I'm less honest I will detach emotionally and superficially I'll play the game we have to realize also that the more sensitive and deeper souls are the ones that go away further because they they they're not con artists they will not allow for a duality and a dichotomy in their lives they want to embrace something wholeheartedly so that's why I think we have to have the right language the conversation always has to to be age appropriate and soul appropriate one child is not like another child um it has to be done in a more intimate way rather than just a public display because it could be misconstrued and misunderstood but to avoid this conversation today I would I would say from more experience with the people with the youth I would say that in 95% of cases it could be extremely irresponsible and destructive and directly or indirectly is what allows so many young people to feel completely alienated from this m that we're trying to protect absolutely I mean this so mirrors my experience with people both in clinical practice and hearing about this from the clown General that the pain of trying to be a firm Jew who cares who wants to do good he wants to be a good boy he wants to be a good B he wants to grow and then he's having all these feelings and thoughts and Fantasies and what on Earth is he supposed to do with them and it's state it says openly this is who I am so now he's going to end up very split and he senses in the world around him this is unlike anything else not this is unspeakable so I got to deal with this totally on my own so One path is if I'm really authentic how can I integrate these two I'm done the other part is fragmentation internally I have a feeling of Jackal and high there's a part of me that's a and aad and I'm learning and there's part of me that's a rush marusia and there's night and day by me and I can't integrate that psychologically we know anybody who's not integrated that's just the recipe from what kind of symptom profile you're going to end up with not if but just which one and then we have the alternative is the kids who say oh I'm such a rush I have to double down I have to learn 20 hours I have to D inav and their whole drive to yish is actually to run away from shame to run away from this toxic feeling of otherwise I'm worthless I'm a nothing and how am I going to escape that I'm going to propel myself and some people on the surface say okay what's so bad about that but we know that when it's unhealthy fuel that's not what Hashem wants Hashem doesn't want you to feel that if you don't do this you're a shame based lost person who we want nothing to do with this is supposed to be Beauty truth connection honesty Integrity all the's attributes that's what's supposed to propel us so when we going to use negative fuel you could Propel somebody they could learn all the time but what's underneath it is dramatically unhealthy you're going to start to see other issues so they might not leave but internally what they're experiencing and what they're going to give over to their family and their children is going to be a very unhealthy dangerous form of yish what are the emotional results you would say to an individual person somebody who runs into the world of spirituality or or learning or TI in order to avoid and numb the pain and simply Escape their Limitless sense of guilt shame and inadequacy what what are the emotional results maybe five or 10 years down the line or 20 years down the line it's a very scary thing to say especially to say out loud the r pres say it but it's it's just another drug it's another thing you're going to use to numb pain so it's not really going towards something that's a difference between a Pursuit pursuit of Excellence versus perfectionism and running away from shame is this is amazing this is beauty this is toyra this is no I want more and more of this and one is I'm terrible and if I don't do this I'm going to remain terrible and so like any drug you need more and more of it the dosage needs more you become addicted to that feeling and what happens then so okay I had to learn so because I masturbated last night so I learned extra today but then I have the urge and the drive and I don't know what to do with it again so I'm in the next cycle so I need more and more and more and eventually you end up either broken totally intense totally disconnected or on the surface everything looks good you're but internally you have no sense of self you have no integration of the dark side of you and the light side you have no way of understanding this and you're just trying to make it through and that will just wear you down anxiety depression PTSD in some cases right trauma symptoms Every Which Way and these kids were innocent beautiful kids who just trying to make a go at the Myster we were supposedly giving them without any guidance and and what's most painful to me is besides for infancy when do our Bak meet us the most during these years and what do we do I'm out I'll walk you down to let me know in a couple years come back we're good but until that point you're on your own I and I think it's recklessly irresponsible on our part how could we not be there when it's the most confusing and challenging time and they will have these internally catastrophic results we don't need the drama on the outside of off the D or snapping why how many people suffer one of the biggest shocks to me in terms of writing this book for the community was that as sorry for people having a conversation with their kids many people 20 to 50 are coming over to me and they say I'm reading this as my adolescent and young adult self and I'm getting a little bit of healing there every week now somebody says to me you know I'm struggling with tremendous shame and guilt I still don't have the proper view on sexuality if somebody would have said a few of those lines to me at 11 12 13 or 14 the entire course of my life would have been different and they're telling this to me in tears as adults with families and to me in terms of helping people once a person struggles with tremendous mental health symptoms anxiety depression shame to rebuild them takes a tremendous amount of time and money and effort and is so pained and so broken if we could preent this by having some conversations by us standing up as adults and yes it's uncomfortable and we didn't have models for this and that's why I spent so much time and energy trying to give people a road map on how to do this if we step up for these kids they respond you always talk about being authentic with today's kids what happens when you have real conversations with them can you tell us when we get out of this fear Zone and O what is going to happen if we open up and we're just raw and authentic with them do you see them flying off and saying goodbye or what happens tell us what happens you do this all the time yes I think it's the feedback is incredibly empowering and positive when you believe in the innate intelligence spiritual sensitivity goodness and depth of our youth and you speak to them from that space heart to heart soul to Soul authenticity to authenticity you know P to P my inside to your inside first of all they begin to trust you there's a they connect to you they they they they they show so much love they just want to be closer to you they feel protected they feel seen they feel understood they feel safe they feel soothed they feel validated and they could even thear is different even the gar that you'll teach them afterwards or or is going to be different because there is a there's a transference of energy is tremendous energy I think that you know we're living in a time where our youth they're very very intelligent and they're very sensitive and they know truth from falsehood they just sense it they sniff it out in a second and when a teacher a parent or a is really authentic but really not authentic so that it looks authentic you know with a pillow but really really authentic which is vulnerable it's vulnerable and you'll always have the two kids who because of their own insecurity will start giggling and you know making fun but that means they need it much more because they're repressing something what happens is the relationships that are builing are incredibly powerful and they can actually listen to Tyra in a much deeper place I think the greatest compliment a parent or an educator could get today one of the greatest compliments is with your guidance with your mentorship I see that the blueprint of t for life is not in order for me to fit in I received a letter from a woman in Gates I knew that her house is extremely sheltered cuz it was a handwritten letter that came in an envelope with a step how many people are getting such letters to very very few very few it was a letter it was a three-page letter with a blue pen I'm like wow this is what it used to look like you remember we used to get letters in Camp from your mother and you read it like 29 thousand times every night and then you read it again and again and again and today it's a text they won't even write out the full word words you know U is is a w to write you know Y youu and she wrote to me something and I showed it to my wife and I said I mean I I felt very special I felt very validated and it was a very special feeling but it was also sad she writes to me that I listen to your Shir in classes for three years now almost every day I know your classes probably better than you do because I listen twice and three times it's fine you say it once but I hear it a few times and she writes to me one of the most power ful things I took out from your classes is listen to her words and I'm quoting almost verbatim not verbatim but it's almost verbatim is that TOA is not imposed on the on the Human Condition rather it was designed as a blueprint to bring out the best from The Human Condition truly sensitive and understanding the design of the human brain because Hashem is the one that created the human brain wanting you to live the happiest and best life possible I never realized that about Judaism that's what she wrote and I realize we say in he knows our what's happening is people create this disconnect the laws of Tyra at best are restrictive at worst they're oppressive and horrible right but both of those are tragic conclusions if you had to create a human being and you made their brain could you see to as a blueprint to give people the best possible life not just in not just spiritually when you come to Eternity and you're not interested in this world anymore but in this world physically psychologically financially emotionally spiritually if our youth are not feeling that from us if they're not feeling that toy is a real blueprint for life to maximize your potential God doesn't want to ruin your life he doesn't want to suppress your spirit he doesn't want to take away every last pleasure of this world and make you a miserable pathetic person you'll be a slave for 95 years but in the next World you're going to have free sushi for eternity it's it's a very it's a very difficult thing to relate to and it's a it's a Sinister but what if we could really understand all the including the of and that deal with relationships for men and for women premar afterm married are really there not to spoil our fun but actually to help people actualize themselves in the profoundest way which always needs discipline as the famous poet once said if you uh untie the chords of the violin no music will play so we tie chords but not because we like for chords to be tied down because we want the music to emerge you know if our youth feels that and they know it and it's it's coming from an authentic and real place without you know scre without beating around the bush and camouflaging and suppressing and also acknowledging the fact that we make mistakes that even people in Authority are not deities um we're human we don't always have all the facts we've done things wrongly I I find one of the greatest errors is teenagers are very sensitive to hypocrisy when they can't hear somebody a when nobody can apologize I can't say I made a mistake M AK and suddenly it's like I have to be treated as this Divine demigod you know the Egyptians called par a demigod it it either they become naive either they're naive and then they're fine with everything but if they're more intelligent and shrewd either they just disassociate emotionally because you can't trust it anymore or they uh cut themselves off completely they don't even disassociate themselves they just disassociate themselves completely so I think all of our conversations around this and really all areas when we're really really honest and transparent when we realize that Hashem is not some you know Sinister Monarch in the sky who just likes to issue forth laws to ruin people's lives but it's really a conversation about you know what is really the best way to live why does the T think about this think about this this way what is it all about what is sexuality what is sexuality what is that it's not a conversation of as I said before it's a conversation of sexuality is the most powerful force in our world we know that it's the most powerful force not from the secular World from the fact that it's the only thing that allows the creation of life I could sit and lecture for 200 years and Inspire the masses it's not creating life it's creating a force which is very nice maybe sometimes a paycheck but the only thing that creates life is the sexual experience so the balatan writes somewhere and I always love this I tell this to teenagers that where are we most Godlike where are we most Godlike not where we're doing most hashem's will where where do we become Divine and the answer is in our intimacy we become creators in everything else in life we're developers we develop but where do we become creators of life where do we become Hashem like where you and I almost assume the properties of the he creates life literally that's intimacy so in intimacy we are actually not human anymore we're Divine and that's why the pleasure is infinite why is the pleasure why chees we we some of us like chees skap but you can't compare the pleasure of cheesecake or even the pleasure of money the pleasure of cover there's a lot of Pleasures in this world to the pleasure of of sexuality so without understanding the depth of yish guide it's like yeah the Yahara makes it pleasurable because that's the n and if you overcome it you'll get that's a very superficial way of looking at it very superficial looking at it because it ultimately strips a person from The Joy of life it's like yeah so I have to suppress everything for my whole life and then I'll get what if you could look at it differently actually that pleasure is so profound because that's the moment when you mirror the himself you go back to the source of all pleasures all pleasure is Manifest from that pleasure so now you Empower people that they should understand what is intimacy what is sexuality what is this drive and now I have to ask myself am I going to squander it how am I going to harness it how am I going to express it where does it belong should it be shouldn't it not be protected shouldn't it be preserved Etc so that's extraordinarly powerful and really in terms of my book The from Boys to Men the biggest challenge wasn't giving talking points on how to educate children about sexuality they could pick that up in the street there were plenty works like that the biggest issue is this 13-year-old boy or even younger comes up face to face with I got all these drives I got all these thoughts in my head I have all these laws like you said either I have to say Hashem is bad he's torturing me or I'm bad how am I supposed to navigate this so they say I'm bad because they're such good boys they don't want to say Hashem is bad right so they say I'm that itself shows you how sensitive they are they don't want to believe that Hashem is bad so they say I I have such a big G I'm such a mish I'm such a bad kid I'm bad but the next step is if I'm so bad I'm going to have to go to a place that doesn't see me as so bad that's right either physically I have to distance myself or emotionally I may come to sh but emotionally this is not the place where I become alive how would you from a clinical perspective if you're speaking to somebody differentiate between somebody who pursu spirituality say yish from a place of positive experience positive Cravings or it's simply what I would call spiritual bypassing it's just a way of of of numbing my guilt shame and pain and avoiding actually who I am H how would you differentiate they're both sing and learning and they're both daving with a lot of kavana and say to and going through whatever they're going through how would you professionally distinguish that so it's very I I I describe it all the time you can literally have two kusas they're sitting across the table from each kusas they're study partners they're they're learning together they keeping the same schedule one is like the r just described he's feels terrible and he's trying to compensate please spare me don't don't kill me in this world certainly for eternity I got to escape I'll do more and more Mitzvah he's negotiating with this evil God or himself like I got to stop being so bad so I'm going to do some more ding some more learning so he cannot integrate his drives his thoughts his fantasies and his passion to do Mitzvah he has no sense of being a Creator he he has a sense of being a destroyer I'm destroying seed I'm destroying people but is pushing through to get over that guilt and shame so but on the surface it's there's very few motivations in the world that are more powerful than negative motivations if you want to get a guy going really fast to to learn and Davin lion into the room bring a lion into the room bring a gun to his head and an internal gun is the most powerful so I assume that such a person it may result often in a very profound sense of judgmentalism towards others no yes cuz if I hate really what I'm doing probably deep down I hate the Tia that I'm learning because I know that the only reason I'm learning it is because I hate myself so it comes with such negativity so probably if I see somebody who's on a different path I probably have to become so judgmental about them I'm asking and bitter and dismissive 100% but but I think what the B and others taught us in terms of the mirror what you're seeing elsewhere is really what is going on internally I'm seeing this tible part of me that needs to be shut down put away and I wish I could kill it right I let it out towards I let it out towards other people I project everywhere so when your child when this person's child is struggling it's probably a catastrophe sure or his daughter or his wife because here's a continuation the devil's out of the bag the Devil and me I 30 years I suppressed it so professionally I got the best in the United States of America and in is right right I've been in KY for 22 years I've been in the best yeshivas and now suddenly where is the so what's often H what I see happening now is sometimes our children who are struggling they are just holding up a mirror to their fathers and mothers and saying tati look at yourself much much deeper and you'll understand who I am that's right and I would say fortunate are the parents who instead of denigrating their child and turning their child into the disaster of their family realize that it's these children who are actually bringing us back to the D 100% maybe helping us Embrace real Judaism that doesn't have to amputate every drive that you have CU that that child is manifesting all the drives unsuppressed now they're out he's he's changed his look he changed what he's doing he's saying I'm having none of he's acting out she's acting out and then the reflection back is can you accept me but if I can't accept my humanness my struggles my challenges my slips off my setbacks how on Earth am I going to do that and so there's a merger happening I think that I think the RS talks about this in a slightly different way but this is the this is the children and parents the children are causing the parents to return to a much broader and integrated the parents have the humility and the courage to face their own trauma and this is the Vicious Cycle of all of us what we need to be teaching the kids is not that just sit and d and learn it's all going to be all right Hashem made you with this drive for sexuality to attraction to girls to attraction to boys he made the internet he made pornography yes like you said there's a most powerful drive on the other side to create life to more than just create life because they often think of yish okay you get to make babies have total intimacy and connection with another person the deepest connection right that's what Hashem really wants is an element of joy joy and laughter connection the deepest knowledge and intimacy and empathy but with all of that always comes the dark side I have to tell you once a father and son came to see me son was a sharp cookie the father was screaming you know you're an embarrassment to the family embarrassment to yourself son looked at his father says tati why you getting so angry everything you wanted to do your whole life but you couldn't I'm doing for you that's it you know T everything I'm doing you want to do it was like the father told me afterwards boy is right I was never ready to face it but I give credit to the father instead of turning his child into the ultimate quintessential enemy he understood like the B said what you're seeing in somebody else and it's really triggering you you know go back into yourself and that's the point where the hardest part of the book to messaging to Children is how are you going to make sense of these two parts of you and the t's commandments so you're going to be given all of these drives all of these fantasies all the struggles all the wants that you didn't ask for you didn't sign up on day Hashem learning and D are going great so please give me other sexual challenges please help me see a website or hear about this in Camp and get me off course how on Earth am I going to deal with all the negativity inside of me and I think place where we haven't spoken about we've almost cleansed it entirely the toyra is very explicit and I encourage all my patient find me one partial let alone a personality in the T who the T doesn't talk about their humanist their flaws and their failures but today we shut it that everything's perfect everything's going to go on the straight AR there's no way to integrate if we teach children I as an adult and total that means I have lust I have murderous rage I have jealousy all of that pulsates through me not because I'm bad because I'm human and not an angel God has enough Angels he needs humans and if we transmitted that deeply believed that in ourselves and transmitted that to the children I think we would have a different landscape and this is sort of the the peak place of Shame and toxicity is sexuality because it's all in my head nobody's ever come to my office because they talked during or B or maybe even because they see it everywhere but here oh nobody else has these thoughts and these fantasies and these urges and looked at these we you wrote something in your book which I thought was powerful and that is did you ever see what says about right right why don't people have to become addicted to drugs after they say it's says americ so you murdered somebody you served idolatry but they're not going to drug they're not taking drugs for that because some of our society created space for the fact that we lashar is a bad thing right but we have space for that you can see everywhere the child not have to be an neurotic you don't have to become neurotic the child sees Ah that's very human but here nobody tells him this is just as human and these drives are just as human and Powerful more powerful than the drive for so that we if we impart that to Children then they can be fully integrated and I think that's one of the places that has talked about so much and we need to start talking about more and more is how do I embrace the fullness what does it mean to embrace the fullness yeah maybe you could talk on that for a moment so here you're saying embrace the fullness that this is supposed to be the blueprint of creation and yet you quoted the that says you're you're cut off how do you integrate that's very good I think there's one more component that we have to address and that is the child who's dealing with trauma sure because then I think it's a whole different par like I had a session with Ellie Nash who's very to addiction and recovery and all that and he asked me about this on the on the line in our session or somebody asked one of the callers and I said listen you know if a child was molested in third grade or fourth grade or fifth grade or sixth grade or not molested or raped but you know sexually bullied or shown pornography especially in a consistent fashion or other experiences of sexual uality at a very young age pre puberty yeah as you know very possibly when puberty develops it's often directed towards males not females especially if his first Primal enjoyment was with another male or other different factors that create the puberty and now this poor 14 15 year old boy if he's in a Yesa they go to the mikah every morning before ding or even any other Yeshiva they're hanging out with their peers and he's developing all of these profound cravings for masturbation or for relationships with the same gender or even obsessive relationships with the opposite gender and you have to realize very often these people are not driven by authentic choice they are completely completely overwhelmed by Sensations and experiences and Cravings that are that are Beyond them when they open a it is so unfair to apply to them this poor kid everything happened sometimes in a preverbal way he doesn't even know what's happening inside of him and to be able then to say you know you're getting cage you're losing Al that's if you know what you're doing and there's a full sense of Consciousness and deliberation and real choice and to have real choice you have to be able to have an identity and a self-esteem you have to be in your prefrontal cortex you have to be in touch with your prefrontal loes with your executive functioning with long-term planning you can know how to delay gratification you can weigh pros and cons you could see the moral when I am in my uh Primal modes trying to survive and cope I'm desperate and I'm anxious I'm just trying to liberate myself from from from incessant pain and guilt and shame it's like the whole and this completely doesn't apply first thing you need is we to heal you pess so could you from a clinical perspective describe that whole component because I think it's so important when we don't distinguish between the two this guy's looking at the this applies to you like it applies to Kangaroos and crocodiles because you are in your crocodile brain you're in your amigdala you're in your lyic brain go bring the to rats and to elephants and to mice and even to chimpanzees who are very close to us 99% we share DNA and then say look what it says right it's so important to be able to distinguish that no if I may just make a couple caveats because a few things here I want to just be subtle about twe tweak so first of all the data is quite clear that abuse does not lead to samesex attraction what is a profound problem that relates to this whole discussion is is that for children who have no education no Outlet particularly for the opposite gender because that is totally cut off and they are have their energy they have hit puberty they have all these sensation drives they're seeing stimuli that are revving their engine and now who this is just who's next to me who am I allowed to think about I'm in a dormatory I'm going to Mikvah that's where we have explosions of kids who are not necessarily long-term same sex ATT traction but this is all my hormones are kicking up and I have this boy next to me and a lot of times it's not just attractive in terms of the male they're emotionally deficient and so they're looking for this deeper connection we talked about sexuality fundamentally represents a deeper Connection in misguided form as well and they're looking for this emotionally dependent connection if I could be with him in that way then I'll have a fulfillment and so that's one element of it I'm also very hesitant because you know I'm the chair of The Advisory board for amudam and we deal with abuse all over the place but what's come is okay I have most of my patients will say I wish I were abused because if I was abused then I have the excuse because then okay I'm then my brain was like a crocodile okay then all my abuse patients say but I went along with it and I didn't yell and I didn't scream so nobody's actually okay with themselves and I don't want to make it dependent on a specific trauma or abuse because the profile that you describe is really the profile of any 13-year-old boy today who is healthy enough who has a healthy enough sense of self who has a healthy and balanced connection with others with Hashem who understands the broad spectrum of the T who is able to say if my good is good then my bad is bad right oh wow the are dancing because I woke up this morning and said and they're also very upset because I did this and I tell people if you get close to one to one that your mitus and Aus are remotely good you you'll never need to see me again say it's either a thousand times or 2,000 times greater than good if you get close to one to one we're okay these kids are so stacked negatively they viewing themselves and Hashem is just frustrated them he's demanding is critical I can never satisfy him I'm not good enough and now he's faced with these overwhelming thoughts and feelings and drives and all this stimulus all around him what are we talking about so that setup alone is enough to to to to say that the needs to be framed differently in all the and all the and this was very interesting from the through the they all agree that that had to be tempered and was taken out of context and one says shabas heals it one says a basun heals it and and you don't even do Chu now you're fine till you're married there's so many outs but it's not the technical knowledge it's when that kid feels fundamentally I'm bad and has no way to cope with these jobs and no education that is catastrophic for them now obviously the more traumatized a person is the more disconnected from their true Essence they are they're not functioning like you said even just brain Wise from a secular psychology perspective they're more primitive in their functioning let alone spiritually how disconnected they are truly from their Essence that I a beautiful that I am a piece of divine Infinity how far they are from that the further you are the more you're going to act that out and then the spiral just continues and continues and acted out because of desperation because looking for Comfort because every which way that's the amazing thing that Hashem designed the psyche sexuality is all based in fantasy the biggest sex organ is the mind right so if I'm feeling down and disconnected I can numb out because I'm totally gone as long as I'm in that space if I feel unloved they're depicting that somebody loves me if I'm feeling powerless and I could pick something that I'm the powerful one I can't make anybody happy wow this person is so happy you can create a customized prescription drug for yourself through fantasy and that's why I see almost across the board it doesn't matter when somebody's presenting anxiety depression right drama anything they will also be struggling with pornography and masturbation except for it's diagnostic almost somebody who's not because they're so OCD that they're so afraid of it that they're they're shut down but almost everybody else is has this as one of the drugs in their cabinet that they're using because a it's ubiquitous and it's everywhere and I can customize it to get out of my pain and like R always talks about the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety it's connection like you said before if we're not connecting them authentically nobody in the life is talking to them totally honestly about how human we are how do we integrate this struggle what is this all these parts of me right they don't have real connection there they don't have connection with their friends then because I have to hide I have to show that I'm just a good buer who has AAR I can't have these drives so who am I so I only show you this actor part of me I'm putting on a front so then you can't get the benefit of human connection because if they knew the real me they would want nothing to do with me my reu wants something to do with my parents they Shiva my friend and it's only when we can share ourselves fully that we actually get the benefit of human connection isn't what I'm going to pretend the benefit of being connected is when here I am in my full total humanness the good the bad the ugly and the beauty all as one human merger and then you see that and you're you love that and you cherish that and I cherish that in you then we have something unbelievable but until that point I'm struggling with all this on my own I'm going to be totally off course when I'm faced with this so you think practically when the speak so negatively about masturbation what's what would you tell the 15-year-old who grew up in a fin I understand if he's if he's if he was abused and you know as you said his brain is not fully developed even less than a regular 15-year old there's so much desperation and such a sense of of of inner inadequacy that I just I just need a cope and I'm desperate and you know that feeds into addiction and addiction is a whole different par but not the addict but the boy who's 15 and thank God his hormones are working well and he opens up this and last night he had a difficult night what would you tell him so tell me exactly like what the described it looks like you're asking me an intellectual question but you don't ask me the question from 37 lav or or and nobody ever does if it's just pure logic so this the amount of pages in The that this takes up is like this but yet it has totally outsize influence not because of the status because the internal status let me know about anything else that's so in the do you feel this way no so it has nothing to do with your sh so the conversation it's like when somebody's asking you you know why bad things happen to good people it's a very serious question but it's not a question that you necessarily answer with logic how do you heal that pain that hurt of you feeling like you belong to that camp of cut off and disgraceful there are many technical answers and B I collected you know 80 pages of sources P sources from that I can give them but I tell them it's never the real V I'll give it to you but the real V is you going to have to be able to heal inside and see yourself as a fully functioning member and to see your daving as beautiful and holy and that hasem wants you and is connected and that the whole purpose of creation is for you to deal as a human being with these CH deep down why do you think the and the Bali Caba and Bali we're so we're so uh intense about this why didn't they like say okay you're human you know try not to so first of you know that should have been switched I should ask that to the r my you wrote a whole sa for do you have I'm just wondering so first of all my sense is anybody who's not anybody the vast majority of people who wrote even the Bali mus even the FY ones the last hundred years you'll see across the board they all said don't be busy with this move forward the whole thing is distract to direct your attention elsewhere calm down that we have don't worry about it don't even be busy with chuva on it move forward just learn have a good life a good social life have good connections and be positive so they knew more than I did so we could have a people to be reliant on across the Spectrum I think when somebody was actually able to appreciate what it really means so so I I it took me a lot of years to understand this I used to even think that some of the don't hear intense stories about okay they're like extraordinar neurotic and I realize it's like what you said before if somebody realizes the positive side if somebody says this is the most cherished thing this is the I could be cre like a Creator I could have the most intimate connection I could have the deepest of the deep soul and body fused together that's the Pinnacle of what this is all about I'm going to cheapen it I'm going to let it go their intensity around it came from the highest level sensitivity of the beauty and and I tell kids all the time it's the same reason don't think we cover this up and don't talk because it's shameful what do we cover in yishai the most sacred things the today M the so the the covering and the seriousness about the covering is because this is the crown jewels you don't put the crown jewels and just toss it around on the street and let people play with it the crown jewels are not even insured there's no insurance for the insurance because they're priceless the crown jewels in England there's no insurance if they're stolen they're stolen no insurance cuz they're Priceless what are you going to charge for a million dollars a year Insurance you saying this the crown jewels of life right crown jewels of Life are Priceless so that's what's so important for people to understand we read you always have to read it in the context of a relationship Judaism is not a religion it's a relationship if I have an unbelievable marriage a real unbelievable marriage and I'm going on a business trip and somebody offers me to engage in promiscuity it's such a betrayal it's so disgusting why because there's something so special about your relationship are you really going to take those 10 minutes to enjoy yourself and ruin what you built together over 35 years which is priceless which gives every moment of your life fulfillment so if somebody says if you do do that you're cutting yourself off from your wife and your family you're ruining your life you're destroying yourself in nobody can really understand that if they have a miserable marriage if you have a miserable marriage what's the big deal I have I'll be miserable here I'll be miserable there she'll find that about it good I'll go I'll go on vacation for Life only somebody who has that very powerful relationship could understand the the negative consequences I think in in physical health we know you know when your body is truly healthy a food a toxic food which somebody else wouldn't even notice right but if you take it into your body you're going to be nauseous for a for for a month and the doctor the nutritionist will tell you you're destroying your system destroying what's the big deal slice of pizza potato chips they're alling Coca-Cola everybody does it it's not a big deal I think it's so important when we we learn especially when the is so serious and intense you know the negative intensity comes from positive intensity exactly writes aboutus hasem he says what's yusem he says is laughter doesn't seem like laughter and you to work together you know if I disrupt you and I say this guy's a real you're not expecting him to stand in the back of the sh and be you know the jester of town the jokester you know he's the guy who's he's upset he's angry he's uptight if somebody says a word he goes crazy he's the and yet is is and he says something very powerful he says real real fear means that your love is so deep that you're frightened to do anything that will damage the love so the fear is coming because this relationship is too good it's too good to be true you know I I want told somebody it's scary to experience somebody Loving You Yes to the MTH degree it's like if you don't love me to the MTH degree I'm fine you know betraying you but if if you really love me like crazy it's scary absolutely it's scary so I think that all of these it has to be in the context of understanding what it means to live truly elevated Inspired Life you know we're 247 you're in an ecstatic relationship with your deepest core which is one with Hashem and then you'll be the first one to say you're not going to go masturbate you're you're you're really that's what you're going to do do you know what a betrayal to to your dignity that is to to your soul to your health when I'm in a desperate place when I'm having a bad day work is going down south my marriage and my children I'm having my own mental anguish and I and I lose the plot I have to realize the context in which that's happening yes I was very very weak I lost a plot so now what now I could tell myself okay go dig a deeper hole go deeper into the abyss which is what we sometimes do because we don't understand the like I once told somebody you know you had a flat tire on the highway so what are you saying because I have one flat tire now let me puncture all the other three tires that's not what you do you fix the tire so you had a bad day do you know that you had an amazing year you had a bad day you had an amazing year so now fix the tire and move on I mean that approach is uh Absolut is far more consistent with real Judaism 100% And I think that's the the same if you love yourself and you understood hashem's love for you and that closeness that's transformative and I think this conversation is just another unbelievable example how could we sit on the sidelines here I know it's difficult for parents and I know it's difficult for we don't necessarily have the exact training on how to have these conversations but it's not getting the technical word right it's showing up and being authentic and getting in there and saying we have so much to offer Judaism is not a religion it's a relationship how many times does a kid need to hear that and how much more do they need to see that I'm relating to you authentically you're relating to to your re to your friends that's the whole thing is relationship relationship relationship relationship to myself relationship to others relationship to Hashem and I think if parents could get over their own understandable and very very very uncomfortable fears and concerns about opening this conversation and rabim as well we can change the landscape here we're not going to solve the sexual problem the N tried to D to get it away and it didn't work okay that's not what's going to happen the gar says they said it's you can't do it can't do it they were looking for an egg right of a chicken and they couldn't find it couldn't find it lost the whole Drive the whole warmth in the world stop that means that the is the you don't you don't destroy creativity y comes the word creativity Yem is the ultimate you have to harness creativity not destroy it so if parents got up though and they they gave these kinds of messages if kids in our world in our system in our yeshivas heard this what might their Yiddish Tye look like what might their relationship so practically speaking if I came to you professionally as a parent and I say you know I have six boys I have four girl whatever it is what would you tell me like practically at what age I address it Mitzvah before Mitzvah do I speak to do the father speak to the sons do the mother speak to the daughters so the the ideal practically the ideal is father to son and mother to daughter what age and the we deal with a paradox because well before the drive sets in curiosity sets in when do most children hear about this and are curious about it are actually before they hit puberty they're going to learn about it so it's a it's an inverted thing where we talk to them about Mar they're going to hear about what that is like you said at party in Camp so we talk about 9 to 11 roughly we're going to explain that to him as very factual and there's like a very the most worked out paragraph in that book which you know Rabon went over thousand times to give just a succinct message that's appropriate at that age you saying already at the age of nine depending on the kid because 9 101 but that's when we find that kids are are are hearing it depends girls maybe a little bit later cuz the the boys are a little more ambun but you're talking about that before girls we had the benefit that mothers had to go talk to them about having their periods so they already have a little bit more authenticity and openness um for boys it's been really bad but they then shy away from the whole sexual drives and urges and I think we desperately need as before kids struggle why should a child struggle alone we know from the template and the tur the worst thing is alone right why should our kids be alone we dedicate our whole lives as parents to be there for our kids so why not when they need us most so step in there before you see as their bodies are changing each kid is different Mark the time and say you're saying even before the body Chang but there's two the marital intimacy peace just to give them the facts so that they know you're the authentic Source it's not bad I can C to you I can come ask you questions that's for that but in terms of body changes talking them about their body changes and about puberty and about the sexual drug that's right before they're actually going to encounter that you want to get as close to you as you can to the age when their their bodies are changing or starting to change and they're going to face this everything is preemptive the more we could do preemption before a boy you know once a boy is really struggling with his drive that he's going to have issues we only know that Eli andak only two didn't have any sexual struggle right they they they left I'm not that they didn't have struggle that they conquer that entirely we know that these boys are going to so talk to them about what does it mean to fail that every Tad has fallen and that it's human before they go that so but it's a developmental process tracking the kid where they are development so that that that's the crucial we go through piece by piece and we try in the book at least to give real concrete things not so you sound verbatim but to give you here's the basic information now customize it for yourself and your kid and go through age by age stage by stage but be there for them and if you didn't do it it's never too late you didn't introduce the book maybe introduce the book just so the should see what you're talking about so this is a book that I I spent many years writing that it's called from Boys to Men guiding our sons and students in the ways of kadha and it has a forward by Riva RAR Feldman and it takes through the first half of the book is exactly this what ages and stages to have these conversation points but really the main value out of the book is the whole second half where we're trying to put this into a healthy ashfa that a teenager could understand not something deep in esic but something they can concretely hold on to how is this supposed to be what does Hashem want for me what's my job here and that was incredibly uh great partnership between me and many of the gum of today working through that very very diligently to try to give them this road map and I should just add Dr may not want to add this if you look at theas in the beginning of the book and the comments and the footnotes and the glosses throughout the book you see how many Rabon he went to and how many people reviewed it and gave their commentary and their edits so this is really a book that is the result of a lot a lot of work and a lot of nuance and precision and and trying to maintain the balance between authenticity yet not just you know a frivolous uh irresponsible conversation so I think you get a lot of credit for that because a lot of people would plats in One Direction or the other direction you know either Just Surrender the authenticity or just get hooked up this is what I'm writing you like it you don't like it I think you uh displayed a tremendous amount of what they call the the the balance of the soul I just want to wrap up with a story then then maybe you want to wrap up afterwards I was giving a sheer shabas morning a little while ago and uh we were learning I think we were learning a discourse of the balat I think her and the conversation came up he speaks there about relationships and intimacy so I I had a conversation about it it was a shabus morning I give a share early in the morning and it was a very open conversation and the father comes over to me afterwards and he says you know every shabas I ask my 17-year-old daughter to come to the shear because there's men and women because I think it'll be very beneficial for her she's a deep soul and a spiritual soul and an intellectual and this week she agreed and you really had to talk about this this week you really had to do it I don't understand you like from all weeks you know Murphy's Law I finally bring her and you have to talk about something I don't want her to talk about I said you sure she doesn't know about this he says no not in our house it's sheltered it's a house house he tolds me and I'm really upset I'm upset I like you but I have to be honest with you I'm very upset that you did this it's you have to look around and if you see anybody that's younger than than 25 people who are not married you don't talk about it I said okay say I hear you thank you I'm sorry I looked around actually and I thought it was appropriate okay anyway at the end of daving afterwards we DAV at the end of daving there's two girls who ask if they could talk to me privately say yeah and both of them tell me you know we've been addicted to pornography for a few years now we have nobody to speak to we can't speak to our principal our teacher I say your parents for sure not and we want to thank you for talking about this this morning because we never knew that to has anything intelligent anything intelligent to say about the sexual drive and the desire for romance and love we didn't know to has anything to say about it so thank you for I spoke about it for like 45 minutes and then I asked one of them what is is your name and she tells me I said is that your father who was here yeah that's my father he nudges me to come every week I don't want to but B he's saying Murphy's La she's saying that I came this week it was a lifesaver and now I need guidance how to wean myself off from my pornography addiction and I thought to myself the father's upset at me for finally bringing his daughter and from another perspective you know we so often don't know our children we think we know our children we're open we have dinner conversations we go on trips we go on vacation we're we're the normal family we're not uh we're not the Primitive families where kids are not all to have fun I play Monopoly with my kids we do barbecues we go on Hikes together but sometimes there a whole part of our children that we don't know and we have to acknowledge that that even American parents who grew up on the soil of America and seem very Progressive and open-minded we sometimes don't know a lot about our children and we have to take those preemptive actions to really connect to them in uncomfortable places and that's been the exact feedback I've gotten for years of doing this kind of work did anybody criticize you for the book of course would be wouldn't be a good book if nobody criticized me so people did criticize you I will say though 98% of have been extraordinarily positive but there are people you know the say you know it's a shift why do you have to be so open why do you have to talk about what uh and and most of those critiques are we we could have unintended consequences that's why it's been worked through with the gum so carefully so I think wasn't I decided to just put this out was a work on through the made edits even to my thas that's the level of involvement that that they had but the the feedback overall in terms of people actually had the courage to go do this has been one of two camps so first all just to comment on that story people think now they know we don't have an idea in yish that ignorance is innocence the tah if somebody We R lying that the kids can't T they don't know how to translate what's basic if anybody actually knew how to translate they would know everything it's not the knowledge that's the problem talks about in the most open way but in its SN way and it has something intelligent to say the feedback is one of two things wow the conversation went much better than I ever anticipated my fears you really help me and now it's okay and the bigger thing is exactly what we would hope would happen with this girl you know I had the conversation and it went well then a week or two later my child talked to me about being bullied at school about pornography about some other topic entirely why because you show that you're not just oh wow you're with it but I can't talk to you cuz you're not human oh you could acknowledge full humanness full drw lives that we all struggle with this and that's what it means I can bring my humanist to you and we can connect and that's been the biggest BR of this book is to see children and parents really connected authentically same thing with the raan and we know this because we know which rebi and Isa right some re say we don't have these problems maybe two B and he has nobody talking to him after he gives a and they in and then you have one guy Ina who's able to connect he has lines his phone rings off the hook he has no time in his in his life period how do you have such a dichotomy kids pick up when we're ready and we're being authentic and the people who are and they have what to offer and they have intelligent things to say about this they have no time in their day and it's from every aspect of Cl not just the bad kid the good kid none of this we can be more authentic with ourselves with our others with our children and most importantly with the aisher he made us he knows us he knows exactly what we're doing pour it out to him just be real say I'm too challenged by this so Help Me Guide Me and he'll always be there for us if we're authentic that's the that's the goal thank you thank you Dr zman thank you thank you ear Jacobs