Farbrengen 19 Kislev Part 4, Children and growth; Rabbi Yossi Paltiel, 5783

foreign [Music] I want to give you an illustration I want to give you a muscle an illustration an example you look at very little children and very very little children two year olds kids before they go to school before they leave their mommy and go on a bus we're standing a classroom next to another child playing the blocks when you look at very very young children I think there are characteristics that are constant about cleaning kind of like little children have certain characteristics that are Universal the first is children are never lazy they don't have a lazy bone in their body they're full of energy they're always running right ask a parent who wants to sleep in on a Shabbos morning or a Sunday morning and the kids are climbing on their heads and the parents they go back to sleep and the kids say but the sun is out the prince say but it's Sunday and they care periods why are you being a sleepyhead let's get up and let's do something the adults want to just waste a little time in bed and the kids don't want to send an extra second in bed it's their nature children's nature is a full of energy they're not lazy at all they're not lazy at all additionally children are universally positive they're happy you watch kids you could almost watch it evolve the very very first grades the nursery all the kids are happy all of them and as you go almost from year to year you see a change in the ratio of children that still have that youthfulness and the children that are showing burden and there's all kinds of explanations but that's the fact every year a few fewer children are free and elated about life than the the year earlier it's just what happens but very little kids they're incredibly positive [Music] another thing about little kids if they're incredibly curious they haven't yet had enough people tell them be quiet and leave me alone to stop at this point in their life if somebody does they ask they don't understand they ask the parents go to a museum with the little kid and the child does a thousand and one questions right and if their parents have cycle they keep their mouth shut If the parents don't have to say because they know you can't ask the man any more questions other people want to ask them questions so the next time the kid wants to ask a question he's going to think that his parents said they shouldn't bother the man and that's the beginning of the end of the Curiosity but children are incredibly they're insatiable they want to know and one other thing there's many characteristics but I wanted to say one other thing which I think is quite compelling kids do not know how to lie little children do not know how to tell a lie they have to learn they have to learn I I teach teenagers boys and girls and they're a couple years younger than the people in this room and I will ask them occasionally do you remember the first time you told a lie because I I don't remember the first time I saw the lie but I remember processing it I remember observing a classmate of mine say a non-truth and thinking to myself but that's not it's how is that possible How could somebody say something it wasn't like my parents told me don't lie because they had the uncle moishi song the children just don't know how to lie they learn how to lie and depending on the life experience in their environment and exposures some learned it younger some learned it older some lie only when they must some people lie because they can help themselves but little children don't lie yeah they just say the truth why because why what else what else is there and I could I could continue to illustrate this but just think about these four things a person who is not lazy at all not lazy can you imagine an adult that's not lazy not lazy not lazy not lazy if I had to do something and I could do it now or I could do it in five minutes when am I gonna do it now every time that's not lazy every time a person who's constantly positive and after happy about his life no matter what it is the person who just wants to know unsational and a desire for knowledge and doesn't know how to lie we see these characteristics and Clinic little kids and then unfortunately they enter into the same world in which we live We Were Once We Were Once those children and then we bring those children into the world and we watch them learn how to navigate the world and to navigate in the world they need to figure these things out and unfortunately some of them learn laziness the biggest thing that I talk about a lot with my students because I think it's the biggest thing his bad habits worse than than evil it's a bit simplistic but it's still quite true worse than evil things is bad habits but we fall into bad habits bad habits are terrible you know why we didn't even mean for it to happen it just happened over time it becomes chronic and we develop a bad habit you're so trapped in your bad habit you can't possibly see yourself stepping outside of it these are all learned these are all learned behaviors children don't have bad habits children are not lazy they learn bad habits and just to be provocative and to get into people's skin I mean I don't think people's skin is going to be exactly fluttered by this but last night I spoke to a much younger group of people and I said to them I mean what's the first example of bad habit right you're married you have a wife you have a husband and you're married this many years and you develop certain patterns in your relationship all kinds of patterns many of those patterns first are in the first form during the first six months of marriage right one of the two partners is very concerned with love the other partner is concerned with getting his way or her ways over the course of six months one gives in more one gives it less and all of a sudden There are rules and it's 20 years later and you're still following the same rules and one feels disappointed and the other feels like we sort of agree that this is okay just to give you an unpleasant example there are couples in this world who put each other down all the time and they don't mean to they like each other they're good people they don't even see it they're just they've fallen into a pattern from the earlier stages of their marriage they developed this habit of pointing out each other's flaws and then it became you know if they would stop insulting each other they would have no relationship you know and then you stop and you wait a minute what's imagine this person I love this person let me put him down all the time what's the tenets or if she'll stop putting me down then I'll think about stopping putting her down right that doesn't work that way I can only fix me but to undo a bad habit whatever that bad habit is like I said I teach teenagers and the number one bad habit that I talk about is bad sleeping habits because teenagers ruin their lives ruin their lives with uh with the way they they abuse the patterns of sleep which are so important then they become adults they get married and they have real responsibility and they actually need to get to work with a clear functioning head and they're so used to not sleeping at night that it's a it's a huge effort to unlearn that stupid adolescent Mr gossip I don't want to fall asleep I may miss something you know this is how teenagers are I this is what I do it's 11 15 at night and I'm going to bed in five minutes but there's a good conversation going on I'm just gonna listen for five minutes and then it's a quarter to two in the morning five minutes I don't know we got to go to the two and the next day you walk around you see everything in quadruple oh I'm awake and I'm learning and you're hyper and you're my sugar you can't think any kind of reason and you can't control yourself bad habits children don't have any bad habits I have a great story I'm a little bit under the weather which is not good when you talk under the weather every Brokers can explain to you for the business so uh zombart Garden said to me once you'll see you're a public speaker you need to take voice lessons or you're going to lose your voice most people who are my business by the time they're my age had to figure out how to speak from here because they lost their voice they ruined the vocal cords so I went over to Aid I know losing Crown Heights who's a former opera singer he has a a real background in singing with the voice and I asked him to teach me how to sing correctly that's what I told him teach me how to speak correctly he says I'm not gonna teach you to speak correct teach you how to speak correctly I'm going to teach you how to speak incorrectly and I felt like I was getting double speak I asked a question I get a story he says you ever see a child that's hoarse children scream and scream and scream they never lose their voice why not he asks me why not because the human voice was made that it can scream and not get worse if you speak correctly little children don't don't have although the psychological stuff which causes them not to use their vocal codes correctly which creates all kinds of problems what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach you to speak like you used to speak when you're a little kid before you had all the new roses and psychosis and Mission gods and that made your speech impaired or taste children don't have these problems they don't they don't huh they're incredibly optimistic they're not lazy they're never depressed they're so curious and they cannot lie now does anybody know an adult like that why is that funny now why did I laugh yeah then we don't want to talk like that there's other three potatoes if there is an adult that has these characteristics you know what we call such a person attack Ed it's hard because a human being who's all grown up and he's naive not at all he's not lazy he's very optimistic he's incredibly curious and he doesn't know how to lie the rest of us that's a different story we all know that this is a different story so I want I want to share this with you this is sort of my I'm for bringing a night after a night after night I got a secret for you I'm saying the same speech over in each group I'm just saying it I'm saying it to the different intonation hasidus which is the brainchild of Champions ideas is about it's about the soul but the Divine spark inside of each one of us the bashamtev taught as teaches and everything has a soul everything has a soul a rock has a soul every single creation has life sometimes the life is evident sometimes life is not evident if something existed as some kind of a life form the life form or force in each thing is Hashem the life form of force in each creation is God says find the soul in everything find the soul in everything that's all because it is fine in the Sharma of each thing just for an example what is the soul of the Universe from the perspective of what is the soul of the Universe from the perspective of people of khasidis I'll say two things the first one is philosophical the second one is practical number one this is what he mentioned me before that God rean animates the world from nothing into something every second the soul of the creation is God's active hand in recreating the world constantly and as a consequence of that there is what we call this we believe in Divine specialized and specified oversight Providence everything that happens God does that's the soul of the reality the soul the shama of the world in which we live is that everything that happens God is doing and if we could sensitize ourselves to that we would live in God's world if if we did that we would beat sadikim we try to do it just a little bit that's the soul of the world what about the soul of a Jew beginning with myself but the uncomfortable one right we're all very good at helping other people because they could help with other people like I said I teach teenagers boys and girls and one of the things I say again and again and again is you don't to be you don't need to be irreligious to have a pintalaid you could be a khasid from a Hasidic community living in the heart of Crown Heights everybody has a pen to lead and you need to give it voice [Music] the nashama needs voice the soul inside of ourselves needs voice that soul is all of these characteristics the nishama inside of us isn't lazy the nishama inside of us is incredibly positive the nishama inside of us has an insatiable desire to know and he's not been insulted into keeping quiet you understand and the nishama inside of us doesn't know how to lie we know those things and it's it's I think it's a legitimate way of explaining what hasidis wants you know there's casitos and there's hasidim there's a big difference is a book it's an idea it's a philosophy it's it's a it's a theorem it's an it's a philosophical approach to living is someone who does what hasida says one must do and what does hasida say to the must do he needs to figure out or she needs to figure out how to give voice to their inner self so that they will be not lazy I I will be not lazy and I will be optimistic and I will want to know and never lose my curiosity and I will lose my ability to tell a lie to Bluff to be disingenuous for you and I for us we're not Sadiq and we're not little kids my little kids are this way because they're pure little kids are this way the soul just came from Ghanaian they're so close to the world of Truth they carry that truth with them then they come into this world and over the course of their lives they learned that in this world you got to be defensive in this world you can't afford to be too overtly happy to call you a fool can't be too overtly honest to take advantage of you you understand so we figure out how do you survive in this world say yeah I'm honest most of the time I'm optimistic when no one is there to insult me I'm curious when nobody Minds ever ask extra questions is [Music] children don't know these issues so they're pure we are not children but we're grown-ups you have grown-ups so that's an interesting way to put it yeah all grown up yeah when we're all grown up we have enough wisdom enough sacral to know that there's so much more growing up that we need to do and Sidis would say to each of us to say to me our role as grown-ups in the Paradigm of casidis is to give voice to anishama and that voice shows itself in these in these characteristics and these traits not lying I I think the one that people most readily relate to is the joy one this is that a person has to find a way of being positive and optimistic period it's very difficult for a lot of us for good reasons unfortunately for good reasons but being realistic and miserable doesn't make the situation any better being optimistic and positive is not going to make the situation any worse it's going to make your life a lot better and it's an axiom of hasidus if you study hasidus I think that through a certain prism there may be other ways of looking at it what I just described is a is a rather comprehensive insight wanted the Hashem wanted to be in a Sharma hidden Soul Jews so hidden and being a soul yid means to permit ourselves to be like to permit ourselves to be honest to permit ourselves to be full of energy and full of curiosity and hard work and never to be lazy and never to get depressed these are Hasidic values these are Hasidic core ideas because the foundation of Casitas is to give voice to the nisham so as grown-ups as big people [Music] how do I say this we're I mean I don't know everybody in this room I know some of you a little I know this guy forever 45 years ago this young man came from and he landed in my class knowledge in the eighth grade this is 1978. 1978 and he taught us all this I remember the words this is this is it really I think you know there was a year by the name of the Commandment of cuts you ever heard of an academic I read a book it was so painful to read such a painful Savage [Music] passed away in 1859 he was in his early 70s so he could figure when he was born in the 1780s he was a little younger was born in 1789 and then the classic born in 1787 or something like that is an incredibly successful rabbit historically successful his his disciples carry the Jewish people in Poland till the Holocaust vomish he passed away in 1859 the Holocaust is 90 80 years later 1940 yeah [Music] 1939 yeah and all of those years it was the tamidium and tamidate but the Mandel katskin saw himself as unsuccessful as not as a failure as a failure he isolated himself he was very disappointed why there's a reason there's an explanation I read a book I I match a bunch of a reader I don't read I study so I studied [Music] why foreign [Music] third in a line of Rebus with a chip on their shoulder this is uh this is this is Hasidic history it's I think it's worth to mention there was a great but one of the greatest his name is [Music] a gigantic with thousands and thousands and thousands of followers his house was busy 24 hours a day he met all kinds of people and everybody found a home by the by the lubliner by the Heiser of Lublin big Scholars were sat at the table of the croissant and regular ordinary reggae daily everyday Folk when he was still alive was still alive he got a competition one of his own disciples broke away and made his own his own thing his name was because his name was also yes as his rabbit and they didn't want to use the names of the code from the holy Jewish he was a talmud of the and he passed away before his rabbit why did he separate why did he separate why did he go away from here's the reason because the bashem came into the world to create a revolution [Music] and the revolution that the balship came into the world to create was a freshness a usefulness of life that every person should try to find a child in himself and give voice to their own soul to their own ishama which is this optimism and this energy and all the things that I mentioned and there are many many other characteristics that you could put on that list of of the shama traits Soul characteristics prioritized so what happened made a Revolution was a troublemaker it was an agitator he took on what you would call this status quo The Establishment in the establishment people studied the people were wonderful people were incredibly wonderful but they were fashlofen there was something mediocre about it there was something um commercial about it something constant without any energy he came along to invigorate the Jewish people and to give Jewish people as individuals a sense of personal identity that involves growth I need to find a child in me and give it more voice it's a radical idea so the cops get up is the the other college and then he was succeeded by his talmud who his name was and then after that these streets their whole life was the war against Hasidic mediocrity they felt that what hasidus had come to to to deal with the problems became Casitas came into the world to teach people youthfulness to teach people energy to teach people joy to teach people not to lie to teach people to work hard and consider it became a coach like anything else over time two generations three generations four generations becomes like everything else you come to show you have a kiddish okay it's not going to make a kid that we make a Kiddush right we eat a lot of food we drink a lot of whiskey right but anything could be culture anything can be made into parv anything can be made into mediocrity sitting in the heart of Christ rebelling against itself what was their issue that they felt that the Casitas that they were observing was becoming cultural it was becoming unfresh it was no longer individual it was no longer each person looking at himself you know one of the great Hasidic Masters or the great Hasidic Masters was that they get it again his father was the second get it he was the third-getter foreign and they they did a lot of radical things as the cut skin was a radical when the third get it ever became he canceled all the radicalism they had to dive in seven o'clock in the morning no doubting four o'clock in the afternoon because you're trying to find God in the alley you know what I'm saying like they used to do seven o'clock in the morning and one of the things that the MDM is that they get it there but he passed away in 1948 and he's buried in Jerusalem during the war of independence he passed away they buried him in the courtyard of the Yeshua they couldn't take him to harassim because bullets were flying the Amis of God together one of the things that he canceled was that gur a very big piece of the hasidus was to push because old people couldn't do it but the young Javi used to push until the nashama came out they were weird they put on special very very thin they have it now also it's very very thin they're basically paper and when they were done with the tissue they were drenched through and through and they used to push like around the river [Music] parenthetically I want to say something I don't know if it's sweet or Bittersweet but I want to say it parenthetically I read a book on the holy Bells it was an incredibly great man that he ran away from the Nazis [Music] and he was sitting on a train we're sitting on a train leaving he says am I hungry through turkey then through Syria he was with three people and it was Shabbos [Music] so he made a Tish they met a Tish and he sat they held it off sat I mean the bells that ever was a godly man I don't have time to describe him and who he was but trust me he was holier than we could possibly fathom and he's sitting there with two people one of them was his brother there's nobody to push there's nobody to push every test you would say stiffness apparently when he said don't push he didn't necessarily mean the physical bodies they were around him don't push so when Daddy used to push like like this episode so when he became says no more pushing everybody gets a seat a 14 year old boy gets a seat and a plate and a fork and a knife and a piece of Google a 16 year old boy everyone's gonna have a normal pushing he's gonna have a big shoe and everyone's sit in their place and he's gonna sit at the head of the table this whole Casino has no more so he said to that but I don't understand he says by your father they pushed and they pushed it was such a big deal they used to squeeze out all the who knows what all the toxins the spiritual toxins see he said [Music] foreign [Music] he's now I'm watching them pushing and they're squeezing the guy next to them I don't need that can also become a mediocre balabatish I did the right word culture it's a way of life it's what we do it's a beautiful way of life it's a holy way of life but it could lose that originality that freshness that youthfulness you understand so the cutscarebe dedicated his life to fight against this what he considered mediocrity and he spoke out very powerfully he said I am to proceed is what the bashem was to the description and he felt like a failure why because he didn't think had enough Integrity his talmuda with the great rabbits of Poland till the war to the second world war and as far as he was concerned the he didn't he didn't get what he wanted his disciples disappointed him anyway we're not uh we're little hasidim but we're we're in a position [Music] to actually take the ideas of see this and make them our own we're in a position to take the ideas of cities and to do an actionable thing in our lives that will make us more it's very simple I remember I've been a kid I was 14 or 15 or 16 years old it was in Los Angeles and Yeshiva and they used to make every summer they bring speakers in from all over the country and they come and they'd speak on topics and people came was a big deal and one of their speakers was a Jew by the name of Professor black who lives in Canada Ontario or wherever he is London Ontario black I didn't know him well he was a bright guy he was a very smart guy he but when I when I saw him what did I see the happiest guy in the world he was so happy he was happy like a little kid and when you knew how smart he was how much of an intellectually was you understood that that Joy is his see this it's not his philosophy it's he was a hosted as a professor of philosophy and an expert on Aristotle foreign and he said I try to be and everyone said hi no one heard what he said he says I tried to be you try to be what try to be accustomed the professor Ayala said I try to be because it is about personal integrity and we are in a position to to find a thing in our life we could give voice to our nashama and make our hasidis not just a cultural thing not just I belong to this community and I wear this kind of hat and I read out of this city and I study these my modem but we're in a position to make our casidis real through real acts of self-improvement through a real Act of self-approvement like I said Americans This is just my opinion okay if you're a Canadian and you're insulted I'm sorry uh this is just my opinion Americans have many interesting traits let's just say they're not the smartest people in the world when no one's in accused of being very bright but we're rich everybody wants what we have and then they want to take it back to their country wait two things about Americans that I want to say number one Americans I think this is a truism I really think it's a tourism Americans really want to be perceived as good it's important for an American to say I'm a good person and I think it's Unique I don't think it's true in others I don't think it's true of Europeans they laugh at us Americans want that you should say you're I'm a good person it matters a lot I'm a good person people make mistakes people go to jail people do things that are wrong but I I believe deeply from my observation that Americans it's important to Americans to be good and then there's a second character it's about Americans we're never too old to change we're never so old that this is who I am and we're unique in this also we're unique in this also in many other cultures when you meet a person passing a person age past a certain age that's it we have you know the ability to grow so this is my this is my insight this is my fabrengan this is what cities this is really is because it is really is [Music] about giving voice to the nishama we can do it in small ways in our life because see this is if I may use this example again the ability to to break bad habits and to undo negative patterns there are all kinds of patterns we have all kinds of pattern every relationship we have we have a pattern we have a pattern our relationship with our parents we have a pattern a relationship with our spouse with a parent in relationships with our children and in all of these patterns we're all stuck I'm stuck my parents are stuck I'm stuck my wife is stuck I'm stuck my children are stuck unless I unstick myself I can't stick that back I don't stick myself if I choose to and if we can take away those we can we can dislodge ourselves from those bad patterns it'll be good it'll be good it'll be better it'll be very very good A little wisdom and a little humility and to tell ourselves that we could do it and then whatever was doesn't have to be for most people whatever was is whatever is going to be a person is in a position that what was doesn't have to be and it does not it certainly doesn't have to continue we can change our patterns our relationships to the people closest to ourselves [Music]