Dr. Zimmerman, Rabbi Rutenberg, Rabbi Meirov, Rabbi Kigel | PARENTING & SHALOM BAYIT PANEL | CHAZAQ

[Music] okay good everybody great to see everyone and uh we have a panel amazing panel today and we're talking about parenting shom Bas you know and whatever else comes up really and we have I have a lot of index cards here so let's start uh with the person the doctor are you a rabbi or not yet no no no okay to me you're a RAB uh the Dr Zimmerman who you do you want to can you describe yourself in two or three sentences um I'm a clinical psychologist I run a group practice we see a very wide array of uh issues uh both children through adulthood I also uh train rabbis in mental health awareness and uh consult to countless organizations in Yesa wow so you're like a rabbi to the rabbis yeah sort of or maybe a shrink to the rabbis okay very good then we have the co of EMT uh Rabbi not Dr Rabbi AKA runberg can you introduce yourself in two to three sentences nice to see everyone sh um I wear multiple hats as one of the uh the founders and directors of emth a Outreach organization working primarily in Queens uh with the uh College young professional young couples not such young couples of the Queen's community and I also have a degree in clinical social work so I do quite a bit of couples's uh relationship counseling uh primarily before marriage but also during marriage as well and thank you RAB rberg and RAB rberg really is helping a lot of Jews brashem and then last but certainly not least we have Rabbi mov can you would you like to introduce yourself in two to three sentences I I need no introduction but first of all I got to say I'm very honored to be here with uh these two distinguished rabbis uh Rabbi doctors and um it's a big Z to be here I mean I'm involved with kazak since our Inception 18 years ago uh primarily dealing with public school boys and girls and dealing with SH as well and uh I have to be one of the okay so to everyone that's here in our studio audience and everyone's watching the fact that we want to improve our sholom bias even though it's great we want to make it even better fact that we want to improve our parenting you know the kids don't come with instructions necessarily is amazing and I just want to the the best thing that I learned in rabinal school is that sometimes people don't necessarily listen to the advice but it's to feel out prayer always works so I want to give us a collective prayer that with hashem's help we should all and make our sh Bas even better and we should be the kind of parents that we really want to be and raise fantastic children okay we're going to start off with a layup question should a boy in an orthodox High School be allowed to watch the Super Bowl I think it may be coming up I don't know who's did it so please don't tell me if you know uh and it says here in parenthesis not halftime during that time they will be Shing of course so let's since Rabbi me of you you mentioned that you deal with high school kids so what do you say should a boy in North ax High School be allowed to watch the Super Bowl um I told my son to come here he sent you the question but uh the truth is it really is a very difficult question I think every person has to know the environment that their children are in what high school is he in what kind of friends does he have sometimes if you're too tough and your child when everyone else is doing something it might backfire um so you got to know exactly you know what's going on in his life in the life of his friends I personally uh feel that I think today the sporting industry especially football has become uh a very provocative IND industry so many things that you don't want you know your average adult to see even with the commercials and the halftime show and everything else I'm sure you've all heard about it um so if you could somebody somehow Shield yourself from the Super Bowl uh you can't say hey son you can't watch it in the meantime you're hanging out with your friends watching it you hear so if you could maybe do some sort of family gathering uh get together order all the chicken poppers and all the sandwiches in your family and get everyone together and have a good time and make it exciting without it let them just find out the score great if not then again every s single situation has to be judged accordingly uh cuz you do not want this uh to to backfire onom okay excellent Dr zimman what what says you on that subject should a high school boy in an orthodox school be allowed to watch the Super Bowl so I I like what RAB marov said in terms of you have to know every situation is different and in general the idea of getting one minute sound bites to run your family or your Shon B is probably not such a good idea so hopefully you'll take whatever we say in in the context of generalized advice um there's a massive difference amongst children and your family right talked about not being hypocritical but also uh if you're you have to pick your battles and you have to know if this is even a battle meaning for a kid who's watching everything else and watching movies then this is not your battle okay maybe halftime is your battle um for for a kid who's wants to be in Yeshiva but you're throwing a Super Bowl party don't pull them out to come to your Super Bowl party it's very hard to teach SE um the most important thing is to really know yourself know your value system and and know your kids and is talking about a lot of times we get you know excited about one thing and we lose the big picture remember that parenting is the long long hole down the line how they going to react to this right if you if you took a stand on this and he goes tomorrow to ISA and all the kids are talking about the game did you win or lose so take a long view of what how am I advancing the cause and always put the relationship and the feelings ahead of any specific behavior as long as it's within the confines of whatever is you know not blatantly AER okay beautiful okay next next we're going to go to sh we're going to try to toggle between sh bias and parenting and maybe some combination questions okay this for Rabbi rudenberg fun date night any good ideas that do not involve food um I would suggest that anything you do that doesn't include cell phones and in front of you is a date night doesn't make a difference if you're home if you're at a restaurant if you're going bowling if you're going for a walk um my very very strong View and this is my own personal experiences as well as many others that I've had the opportunity to talk to and help is just getting those devices away okay already in my book is called the date night so a date night could happen at home a date night could happen like it can be very um it can be very um creative um but but literally shutting off both spouse's phone which is phones um or what I advise is if you have to keep a phone on because you have babies at home or you might have an emergency or something like that have the spouse who is less addicted to their phone keep their phone on okay try not to fight about who's less addicted it's usually pretty obvious If we're honest with ourselves um and and I can't tell you how much connection there's created by shutting off the phone it's very very important to actually shut it off these devices can be shut off okay and it's legal how do you do that okay it my understanding is it's legal in in in 48 states to shut off your phone okay um it you can you can turn it off and already there's a connection the moment the phone is turned off there was a study that that was done where they actually had people take away their phones on on a date or on a timeout with their spouse and they wanted to see the connection that couples would have if they weren't allowed to look at their phones and believe it or not it wasn't that much more connected than if the phones were in front of them but when they had them shut it off or take it away literally take it away the connection went up dramatically so just the fact that we have a phone in our pocket that's how addictive these devices are it takes us away from connection So my answer I'm really not answering the question but my my non-answer answer is um it's more about what you don't do than what you do do and you can be very creative with that okay all right I I like that you put away the cell phone it's already a starting point and of course you know going out to dinner could be you know get expensive and fattening and everything else so one of the things that uh my wife and I started doing on date nights is we there's about uh 100,000 different types of Shalom bias books so we started reading them together it's like a fun date night you know it's like date night and Sh it's like rolled into one and and if you have your phone out it's not going to be good so but that's a an an idea one of many you also you could do activities you go like get some fresh air go for a walk put your you know keep your phone away read a nice sh and bu book together there's at least 100,000 out there I don't know why there's so many so okay next question is this is going to be interesting start maybe with thoughts on homeschooling kazak is busy putting many many many students from public school into Yas so what if a parent says to you hey I got a great idea we're going to homeschool what do you think about that so uh the truth is I'm not such a m expert on homeschooling I think there's a advantage to being in a regular school environment in a regular is environment they get to see other kids they get to grow they have challenges communication um so there's definitely a tremendous Advantage obviously uh with going to a yiva environment however if a parent feels that in their specific case homeschooling might be more effective and it's very well possible then you should definitely entertain it but make sure it's done right and your children are not going to be uh you know left behind on some of the core matters in Judaism and secular matters as well so if it's done right and your uh family feels it's a right approach maybe you have a a rabbi or rabbit or a mentor or some other individual that's an expert that could guide you on the situation then yes it is a possibility but keep in mind that you are going to take away from the from the positivity that being in a school environment including the fighting and the arguments which is also there to help build build your child up as well um so you know obviously this has to be done with the proper guidance if you choose to do so okay very good next question for Dr zimman how can spouses PRI prti prioritize say that word again prioritize prioritize PRI prioritize I'm sorry English is not my first language how can spouse's prii Pro prior priority skip it go their relationship while fulfilling their parenting responsibilities being parents and at the same time husband and wife it's so hard without escaping to Florida of course so I think that's probably what you're saying is the most important thing to acknowledge that everything here it's a lot easier said than done and what what people mistake is that they think the kids are demanding the kids have all these needs so naturally the kids pull for the prioritization you end up providing for them first and you think okay I'm being a better a better parent you know we'll pick it up on on the spouse and and the data is pretty clear that the best parenting for your kid is a good relationship with your spouse and now that's again hard to do um so it does require Consciousness on both people's part carving out time and making sure that there's respect to one another first and foremost setting limits on where the kids can come and not come when you have some alone time and even working to work together on your parenting so that's a unit it's not like okay mom's busy with the the kids a whole day dad comes you know home after Mar when everybody's asleep and then for shabas that we're we're in this together but I think it's very very crucial that people know the the predictive nature of the attachment between husband and wife predicts how your kids's own selfworth is going to be and their relationships so the stronger your connection and attachment is that's going to predict theirs I'm sorry might be bad news for a lot of the people here but no that's what we're here to to really improve strengthen that prioritize it and and keep that as a factor and and each spouse usually needs this one needs time to okay we got to check in on a date this one needs no I need your help come home early you know and you need to be able to respect one another where you jointly need and how you're prioritizing putting yourselves ahead okay very good um question rabber would you like to answer that I would just like to add yes um thank you Dr Zer I just add a component which is that um I think you really have to take a step even further back which is prioritization in general in other words um like step kovi talks about in the four quadrants his book um seven habits of highly effective people that being able to prioritize which he calls quadrant to which are the nonurgent but important things is the greatest predictor of whether a person is going to have a really fulfilling meaningful life that they really in in so many different ways so learning to prioritize internally which is super super hard today because we're being bombarded non-stop by by these like WhatsApp messages and and constant know being pulled in so many directions and it's exactly at the time in our lives when our kids need us the most that we're being pulled the most you know you see some people like you know who already in like post a little bit closer to retirement they're like they're looking to be pulled like look somebody like but but it Hashem made it you know this this is the you know the challenges of our life is sometimes a lot of BR right we're being pulled by by our parosa sometimes successful parnas being pulled by our kids by our spouse the fact that we're being pulled in so many directions is a br but the the answer I believe very much is to learn and I'm I'm struggling with myself so like if anyone knows how to do it please let me know but is is to is to learn how to prioritize internally CU all growth has to start inside yourself and then with your spouse and then with your kids it has to start with yourself so if we can learn to prioritize better ourself our own you know um you know priorities um it it will make it easier to create time for our spouse um and and for our kids um I think Just sh just a brief salant started the mus movement he's accredited saying you know felt that every person should do half hour 20 minutes of m a day as a necessity and somebody came to him and said you know I only have time to learn a half hour a day what should I learn and like they knew he was going to say mus but like what about what about what about so he gave a brilliant answer and he said learn 20 minutes of mus and you'll find out that you have much more time than you thought right so I I always think about that answer because because so often when we think we don't have time it's because yeah because I spend three hours a day on social media and checking and checking the news and checking the news again and checking the news a third time and and and and if we prioritize oursel better and and and really put like anchors and rocks in our life um we could have a lot more time can you repeat the book that you just it's called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven kovi it's one of the best secular books I believe out there okay very good thank you Rabbi rudenberg okay Rabbi meirov here's a question that you probably deal with a lot how do you navigate conflicts related to extended family Dynamics such as in-laws or religious observance differences while maintaining unity in your marriage so basically the parents are still parenting even though the you know the the kids who are now married and they have different religious patterns different ways of communication different basically everything right and the couple's trying to be within themselves a unit and they have to be respectful to their parents and everything at the same time I mean this is obviously something that we probably all come across um the family Dynamics could be very complicated sometimes and we make it even more complicated by the way we react I always tell people you know after you get married honestly after you got married OB did you want to have sh for seven days would you have preferred to go to Disneyland or some other nice beautiful place be honest with us still waiting for the honey right I mean let's be realistic seven days of sing your mother your father your grandmother your grandfather your uncles your aunts your brothers and sisters you know seven days they were driving us nuts to get married now that we're married to see them for for a full week why not go on a nice vacation uh and and one of the reasons is the m behind it is to tell you when you get married first of all it's not a fantasy world you start off your marriage by going out to a vacation you're giving yourself a false premise of what marriage is all about and to tell you that marriage is all about family so even though they drove you nuts for all these years to get married now that you are married realize spend time with your family um but like you said there's sometimes friction and everything else uh that may come across you know there's a guy that once went to his boss he says uh listen my motherinlaw has a birthday coming up this Tuesday can I get a full day off on Tuesday because we're making a big party for her so the boss says absolutely not no day off like thank you so much for understanding me you know uh uh so so in in reality you have to realize there a lot of people we don't realize that we clamp down on our wife or husband you're not going to their house not going to their party it's not right if she's there I'm not showing up if he's going to be there I'm not going to be joining for Shabbat this kind of behavior is that it really isn't it's a yite or it's a Shabbat there's 30 40 50 100 people there you can't make such uh conditions to your spouse so again family is very important it is the foundation of of of a marriage now it doesn't mean that you have to spend all your time with that individual but when there's a family gathering that's something you have to be part of in terms of religious observance that was probably the main part of the the question um this is very sensitive and a person has to know what's a what's a stringency what's considered M what's a must uh sometimes people especially the B they they dilute everything they don't know what's you know nice to do okay to do forbidden to do and they make a whole War about things that never should have been a war to begin with um um so I think anytime you have anything of religious matters definitely discuss it with uh your Rabbi riton to give you the proper guidance because you never won religion to turn into a fight that's the last thing you ever want to happen now are there times where maybe the door has to be closed yes not for you to decide that's something for for an expert to decide together with you and your spouse beautiful beautiful okay next question this is for Dr Zimmerman who is in danger of being addicted to inappropriate things on the internet who is in danger and what fences should be put in if any cuz a lot of people you know we all have this cell phone right almost everyone probably everyone in this room probably everyone in the world almost everyone in the world uh and if not the cell phone then a computer who's in danger should should we all be worried men women what fences should be put in so I think this is one of the harder things for us especially in the Jewish World to acknowledge is just how human we are the gamar makes a very clear statement AAP tropus there's nobody who can take responsibility for sexual matters and obviously there's different levels in terms of arousal desire struggles which between genders between ages and and and there are many predictive factors of what's going to lead somebody to addiction but the kind of notion that I'm good it's meaningless to me you're you're living in a self- delusion forget forget why you're deluding everybody else you're you're you're not connected to your your true Essence and um and just go go out to that expensive restaurant when you're splurging on the date and notice if your spouse notices the opposite gendered waiter and is spending a lot of time looking at it how that feels right very rapidly you'll see oh looking at something else disturbs you as your spouse looking at the other the waiter or waitress and think oh that person's very handsome or that person's very attractive bology we're all human we notice and it affects us even if we're not recognizing it so we all have to be very careful and the same way we talked about with the Super Bowl uh we have a very very complex message when we have devices constantly unfiltered and everything that we tell our kids no oh no that that movie is not for you that that show is not for you now in terms of addiction potential obviously those who in general are struggling with almost any serious emotional issue so if you have anxiety what do you want to do to relax and Retreat into a fantasy world this you have depression you want to feel good this sadly so many roads lead to technology issues because it's the perfect Escape into a realm of fantasy and a realm of Illusion a realm of self-pleasure So today we're dealing with this in unprecedented fashion where countless roads lead there so there are many many Pathways obviously the person who in general is more compulsive they end up struggling doing things over and over again if they'd rather not they get very into things are going to be highly uh vulnerable to this and obviously the the bigger their emotional struggle in general there's going to be a higher likelihood for them to fall into this on a in a very serious way but again going back to it it it can't just be words oh the rabbis put out proclamations we have Aus we have filtering we have tag events and then okay I have this EV I have this device I have this device and and most of the calls I get sadly are yeah I took it off for my kids report and then the other kid watched it I get multiple calls a week about kids who are stumbled into highly highly inappropriate things because they had access when a person nobody's trying to do anything bad something laps something they're not Vigilant about they don't have multi-layer safeguards for this and even even at the child level this is happening constantly so so what fences should we put in so the First Fence is obviously you know be mindful of what devices you have in your house and whatnot today people think oh my kid only has a dumb phone the Dum phones some of them are the hardest things to filter and you can access anything today for $35 your kid can go to a target a grocery store and pick up a a Wi-Fi enabled device you have to know what's flying so the first thing is awareness then obviously modeling how do you deal with Device what safeguards do you have then obviously you have to keep very close eye on the emotional well-being of your spouse and your children and if you see something AR right go that if you see somebody spending a great deal of time in the bathroom if they're spending a lot of alone time they disconnect from those social engagements to pull into to their world those are all starting to be telltale signs that something's going in the wrong direction the the best safeguards is healthy connection healthy attachment so we put we talked about the suras staying away from negative the best thing is a person feeling good about themselves their relationships and their connection to Hashem the more we have positivity in oursel with others and with God that is the best best Safeguard and all the research and all the rabbis are in alignment with this the best things don't fight as much evil yes put serious safeguards in place but build positive okay beautiful thank you Dr zurman um the only thing I would just add to that is um just you touched on it but just to um especially when it comes to our children teenage children even this has become an issue even with pre pre-teens you know um the the the best advice I could possibly give you is to have the type of relationship ship with your child that your child would consider talking to you about something going on to have a situation where you're you're going to be the first person your child talks to that may not be practical but I like to say like if your child had five people they wanted to speak to about this you would be potentially in the top five maybe number five but um and I think the way you do that is twofold one is like Dr zman said is is the it's not just the Sur it's the it's it's finding ways to connect and which is very very hard today but finding ways to connect finding common language even if it might be Sports finding a Common Language finding a way to to connect to connect with with with your with your kids um I'll just show a personal example I have a 15-year-old uh who goes to Yeshiva in in the r in Riverdale and um he's not home a lot during the week so um recently he got into chess and um I tried to play chess with him once a every night it doesn't work out every single night problem to Happ no no no that's that's not the that's not the isue but I and I noticed something fascinating I noticed that when when I play chess with him he often pauses and tells me something going on in his life and I don't think he would have told me that had we not sat down to play chess and the chess has become like a a modality of of communication where it's not like oh I have a problem so I want to sit down with you know so that's the first thing trying to be proactive um quadrant 2 um and and and find ways to to connect with our kids before the problem begins once the problem is already there it's already much harder to address the second thing is when something happens how you respond is so so crucial I can't say if I would say so so so many times you guys will get annoyed it's so crucial how you respond so if you see something inappropriate on a device and you see that your child looked at something inappropriate the natural inclination the natural response is to like give him a speech or or to get upset or to like make the child feel that they're bad because they did this thing and I think when we do that first of all your child will for sure not tell you what they did the next time and I also think it's bad and I'm sure it'll come up you know you want to address we didn't plan this we this is our first time meeting actually but I wasn't going there because I thought they were talking about sort of these blockage safeguards but Rob Ro saying for those who don't know I I wrote a book called from Boys to Men guiding our sons and students the ways of kadha it's actually not just that we wait for this conversation if we're not going to go proactively and educate them first before they encounter this both about their bodies what's changing they're going to hear it on in in camps on the bus in school other places then it's already a little too late we always want to jump in first with as much proactive education as possible and the book provides both guidance on how to have those conversations at each developmental stage and also how to deal when you know something inappropriate is going on or somebody is struggling and uh the book also has bibliography for for you know some female versions not identical of that and so that's another piece that we really need to step into is proactively parenting for every difficult life Challenge and this is one of the greatest challenges our generation is facing we can't wait to you know stick our heads in the sand and expect things to go smoothly we have to step up our game tremendously you have a copy of the book I have a bunch of my car but oh no I don't even have my but it's readily available on on Amazon uh mosaica press from boys to men guiding our sons and students in the ways of kadus and it's deeply rically involved the gum were involved in Feldman one of the most senior Ras in America wrote the forward and and many many gum were deeply involved in the process okay can you share some inside of this also yeah um so just to add to what both Dr Zim and renberg said I about the CER that you should have with your kids you said top five you should be the top five is he said that the kids come to how do you really get to that point that the kids are open to talk to you it's it's a big a if you really think about it I mean many people tell me Rabbi you know my son 14y old suddenly goes to his room closes the door doesn't talk to us and what how do we how do we prevent that with your next child um and really I think it's very important when you have an opportunity to be in the car driving your 5-year-old boy or girl to school or picking him up from the bus or driving into the supermarket those are seven minutes where you could just talk to them no how was school today what went on in the bus oh AB you know what happened in the bus this get to this and this get to that they're opening up to you and then every day or every other day you have the same conversation about something that happened someone that did someone that said something in school someone got punished in school someone that hit him in school they're having this conversation with you as a 5-year-old and a seven-year-old and a 10-year-old and third next thing you know when they have their first challenge who's part of the top five it's you because they've been doing this with you for the past 10 years right so if you don't have these small talk this conversation with your kids when they're little kids then it's be very hard for them to open up to you when they're teenagers that V and maybe just one more tip to what they were saying Sal who passed away was it a few months ago one of the greatest uh here in our generation a tip that I heard him say once when it comes to the internet and computer usage in general even if you have a filter he says you know if there was a concept of internet in the times of David in times of kazal I have no doubt he says that we make an just like a man and woman cannot be secluded in a room together so too you should not have seclusion with the Internet by yourself um and one he gave besides the filtering uh that we all discussed one he gave is that all the computer software you have a laptop or a computer in your house it should always be facing the open area it should never be a situation that the kids are sitting and doing their homework and the computer's facing the wall when you pass by you don't see what's going on you should set up the the the the computer in the house where it should be in an open area where the men the the parents as well and the kids always use it and it's going to be every it's visible we're not hiding anything nothing is being uhh you know hidden from anyone this way takes away that extra urge you're doing something wrong because you know that you're not facing a wall rather you're facing an open area in the house if I could just add um one more point I did have an opportunity to read a lot of your book and it's it's a great book um and I think what the point that I was making you you talk talk about a lot in the book which is the importance of recognizing that the desire to look at these type of things is normal and that's so important that the child understands that he's not or she's not abnormal they're normal but it's not healthy for them it's not good for them it's something that's going to affect them adversely later on and and I think that distinction just in addition to what said about communication is being not non judgmental non-judgmental is not something you can fake right it's either you are judgmental or you're not judgmental so in your heart of hearts if you're not judgmental if you see these things and as upset as it might make you if you're if you're trying to understand where the child is coming from that's going to make a very big big difference um I remember yakob Hartz shared with me once that in in Europe there was a um there was a lot of people who were going away from Judaism and there was a guy who came to his his rebi his rebbi and he said about his own son he goes my son is crazy he's dancing with the Shas and the non-jewish girls and he's eating kazer he's eating pork and the reie puts his hand it's very wise Reb puts his hand on his student shoulder and he says to him he says my my student he goes your son is not crazy said if he was dancing with the with the kazas and eating the Shas he would be he would be crazy he says he's normal he just doesn't have the right guidance he needs the right guidance and the right right approach beautiful okay very good okay so we next question try ra let's start with ra of my wife says I like I lack compassion how do I get better at Compassion how how does a man be more compassionate so tell you should know that if your wife says that to you she's not looking to hurt your feelings or if your husband says something something me isant to hurt your feelings either when someone says that and it's your other half that means something is hurting them inside so instead of getting offended try to understand them now how you say it also makes a big difference but assuming you're saying it the the correct fashion understand them and see where they're coming from and have a heart-to- heart talk about it uh uh because a relationship is meant to go on for 50 60 70 years you want to be till right to see children and grandchildren and great grandchildren so you went have also a stable relationship so when your spouse tells you listen you don't have any compassion that means that she feels there's something wrong maybe you're being too aggressive maybe you're being too demanding and a lot of people in this community maybe come from homes where it was accepted in the old country for the man to be the more dominant figure and when the woman speaks you you know open your eyes nice and wide and she's quiet after 4 seconds right uh uh but that's not the right approach you know we have to the r says you have to respect your wife more than you respect yourself and if you have money you make sure you spend it on her at the same time the wife has to respect your husband and give him extra love and everything else you know uh uh we have to realize it's it's a two-way street it's not enough to just be a compassionate guy in sh and at a workplace everyone loves you and you're Ru you're here but when you come home you like a Taliban she's scared to see you and the kids are hiding under their beds you know a person has to have the the right balance of of being the good guy in the SCH and also being the good guy at home yes you got to have a certain level of uh of uh leadership at home but not not too much fear and not causing trauma to the people around you uh so yes if he or she ever comes to you and saying that you are lacking compassion I think B take it like a like a man if your wife says it to you and and try to understand her and try to maybe tweak some things in your life beautiful you know I think first of it's a beautiful point one of the things you said right away seems like you're very experienced at dealing with these issues it's so easy for us to take something personal when the spouse says something to us and starts what you're talking to me you're you know and just get defensive and snowballs into a fight and you realize I'm I'm married Buck over 25 years after some time you realize your spouse is not out to get you your spouse is your best friend you're a team they want to work together with you and when they're saying things it's coming because they're in pain like r m said and you have to be there and hear them out and say okay how can I improve very very beautiful okay next question there's about four index cards that all asking the same thing so I'm going to ask Rabbi rberg this the question is what if my wife and I are or my husband and I are not on the same page parenting you know one person is like more oh yeah whatever the kid wants to do the other person is more like drill sergeant and vice versa what if they're not on the same page parenting that's so normal because we all come from our own different parenting usually we're rebelling we want to do the opposite of what we got even though they made us great people but we don't realize it and so rather what do you say they're not on the same page should they fight should they split the kids in half what do you say so I'd actually like to hear what Dr Zim says about this but but um I'll give my little little answer um I think we have to start off with an assumption that we're not going to be on the same page right because there there's no two people that are on the same page and if they're on the same page that's a really boring relationship and um it's actually healthy for our kids to see different approaches and to see um you know parents that are not exactly on the same page CU chances are they're not going to marry someone that's exactly on the same page as them um so first we have to start with that that Han that assumption that we're not going to be exactly on the same page with our spouse I grew up in a different home than my spouse each one saw different things we nature Nur every different Factor we're very very different in what we bring to the table in a relationship the goal of a healthy relationship is to compliment each other and hopefully to come to to be on the same page so to speak in approach to bringing up our children but not to assume that we're going to be on the same page because if we're going to assume that we're be on the same page we're going to be frustrated most of the time you know they say Einstein's definition of insanity I'm not sure if he actually said it is repeating the same thing again and again and expecting a different result and I know many people that have this approach about a lot of things in life even about in-laws issues about a lot of different things like I don't understand why don't you see it my way why don't you see it my way so so the first thing is to assume is to understand that we are different and we're we're we need to find a a um a common ground so to speak in how to how to address these issues but but first to understand that that there's that there is a a a natural difference and um I think it's also important just to answer in a nutshell but obviously you could talk so much about this topic is to have some red lines so I think that that each parent should have things that they consider red lines and communicate that with each other so that they're on the same page so to speak about what the red lines are on things that they are not open to um to having happen in in in a family situation um that's what I would say for now okay what would you like to say dror zman well I I think it's great where rudenberg said I I'll take a step back to enhance his point um it goes back to actually the beginnings of Shalom Bay rosha Feinstein would give young couples one sort of and piece of wisdom when they would come to him for blessing for their marriage he would say like the same way no two people look alike no two people think alike you have to learn to respect the other person's thinking now that again much easier said than done so we're we we're not meant to think Alik um there's a reason it's AER KGO that often the other half of us that was split off all the stuff that uh is separate and different and opposite is now supposed to come back and merge um and and to touch on this we didn't touch on it in marriage we we're selling everybody a false bill of goods I I love the fact rotenberg is talking about our real humanists we're all going to be different the same thing with marriage we we give people this fake idea you're going to get together it's going to be the same page the same thinking the same family structures and it's going to be ma like when we in our Jewish stories it's like and they got married as if that's the Finish Line as far as I'm concerned that's the move from the minors to the majors and now let's see what happens both in terms of your mid in terms of your connection um so in in terms of being on the same page what RAB R saying even in terms of demonstrating for children how do you deal with differences of opinion how do you deal with conflict how do you do assertiveness but not aggressiveness how can you handle and kazal were very explicit about this that the you know mothers were more naturally nurturing and they needed you have this that's why aim comes first versus and the kid naturally feels a certain Bond there are gender differences there are approaches now also we did talk about red lines and red lines are a tricky business cuz as you heard from our Maro people grow up in certain houses where certain expectations and you're making a red line my father this his Grand grandfather this I don't want to grow up with some snowflake here some American snowflake I'm I'm going to beat him back into the old country and uh we have to be very very careful about that um not to say that in the past that that that was inappropriate or wrong but to say that like many both the GD and the research are very clear that that doesn't work for the children of today so there are certainly certain red lines but how do you handle that so this message actually of you have to be on the same page I've seen countless carbonos in my office because a very unhealthy spouse would do highly toxic things to the children and the other spouse stayed quiet and the children actually have bigger complaints and more hurt about the healthy person why did you let this happened to me why didn't you stand up that needs to be done in a very careful way and in a lot of things if you're having extreme differences so aside for trying to figure out what's different what's a problem in yourself and in the relationship so always like like rber said you start internally then you go to the relationship and also there's a big notion here in you know self-made person nobody should be self-made that's why you have friends family members you have rabbis and that's why bar there are countless mental health professionals reach out for guidance and help if you're getting stuck and you really can't work it through and you've made really proper attempts at speaking it out in a kind way and you can't get there get yourself help you could save Generations like this because the kids will see the of conflict they'll see the level of dysfunction and they will pass it forward so the best thing often you could do is work on your own stuff and then work on your relationship and if you need help get help all right beautiful thank you that's you know very very excellent point that you're making both of you it's normal to disagree and sometimes like there's nothing to do and you shouldn't be embarrassed go to a rabbi go to a therapist go to a mentor and have some someone work through how you guys should do it together or else it's it's not going to be too much fun so the these three men are available we have two rabbis and and a therapist and no we have one Rabbi one therapist and one Rabbi therapist official so call him first guys thank you so much thank you his number is okay everyone's numbers will be available on on their website okay um next question okay so next question we have is for ROV what happens when when the one of the spouses does something wrong is like whatever it is something outside of the red lines how does a couple deal with that they weren't expecting it you know they could be we have so many different things outside of red lines either they're watching something they're not supposed to the other C uh spouse catches them they're doing something they're not supposed to what happens is there reconciliation is there how do how do we get back to being Shalom the Shalom so uh one thing I always tell couples when I sit down with them either before they get married or while they're already married I tell them a famous story with mosha Schneider uh he was once conversing with uhb and while they were conversing a young man walks by says get what happened I'm getting married next week okay and he says R give me a he say what do you want he says give me a that we should have a perfect marriage everything should be smooth we shouldn't have any fights and any problems everything should be no bumps in the robe and he's waiting for the bra and he's waiting and waiting and waiting and no is coming says Rabbi what happened says I'm not going to give you this I know this will never happen no such thing as a perfect marriage and everything is smooth I will give you a however that you should have the wisdom and the inner strength to overcome the challenges of marriage life now with that being said like I believe said before if you catch your child doing something wrong your reaction is very important if you're going to come and react in a wild fashion you might destroy him even more don't make it worse than what it is realize the mistake that he did or she did was a mistake that's part of their natural growth process same thing really applies to the husband and wife as well they're not Angels because they got married he and she still have their faults he and she still have their challenges so yes there are certain red lines but the way you react also has a tremendous uh uh impact on what's going to happen down the road so I think everything has to be done certain things cannot be tolerated 100% but everything should be done with wisdom know how to react when to react to get the proper advice from the proper Professionals for how to deal with the situation because if you can take the problem and just hide it under the carpet it's going to get worse and worse and you're not talking to him he's not talking to you next thing you know the relationship is going down the drain worse than it could should have been so so everything has to be done like I said with a proper uh uh dosage and ingredients of reaction cuz remember everyone's a human being involved in the situation no one's looking to harm anyone Shalom and mistakes happen and certain mistakes are worse than others but always make sure you react in the proper fashion and get the proper guidance after after it happens okay beautiful okay Rabbi runberg what are some good Shalom biased books one can learn with one's spouse I know you enjoy reading we sometimes discuss I know you enjoy reading a lot of sh B's books uh which ones would you recommend and and there any are there any Jewish ones um like you mentioned there's there are a lot of books out there um one of the ones that that comes to mind is um mayor Winkler mayor Winkler 10 minutes a day to a better marriage yeah 10 10 minutes a day to a better marriage he has a very interesting approach um that um you allow your spouse to say something for 10 minutes and don't respond for 24 hours I don't know how many people were successful doing that approach but even just the idea of it even if you wait 24 minutes to respond like that's a very uh a good book um I I'm not trying to get away from the question but I can't say enough when I do this like relationship class that I give at Emma to couples before their wedding I one of the things I asked them in the class is what's the most important thing to work on in your marriage and usually do this in my office and I have a computer screen that's off and um I asked them to look at the screen for a second and they see it a picture of thems and I say that's it so I I can emphasize enough that if you really want to have sh and the most important place to first turn is to self-growth whether it's working on an issue that you had even before marriage or whether it's working on an issue that came up during marriage to to to work on your work on yourself um because a healthy marriage is made up of two healthy individuals striving to become one I know it's a mouthful but a healthy marriage is made up of two healthy individuals striving to become one I can't tell you how many times and I'm sure Dr has had the same thing where people have come thinking that the problem was the marriage when in reality the problem was thems and of course it affected the marriage and of course the marriage is a secondary aspect and the marriage needs to be addressed as well but just like we know with an infection right if you treat the fever and not the infection you're never going to really treat the patient you have to treat the infection and if a person has an issue like you some with anxiety you know it you have to treat the anxiety or get the anxiety to be in a manageable place um I've literally had people come to me and say a woman came to me maybe it was like a few two 3 years ago and she says I need marriage therapy I said why she goes because I have anxiety and I'm like okay so you should get individual therapy she goes I don't want to say it's my fault and I'm sure this is true for many situations and I said if you know if your spouse is not supporting you in this then then you need marriage therapy and I literally asked her I said if you had an infection on your foot would you go to a marriage therapist or would you go to a podiatrist right and we all know we' go to a podiatrist right so so I think it's really really important even though we strive as a relationship to be a one a unit but it's a unit of two individuals and that means that that just to answer the question as much as as Shan Bay books are important RAB schaer's book 10 10 10 thus mistake that smarts coup couples make great book he has a video book which is great there's a lot of good stuff out there but I can't emphasize enough the importance of looking into yourself first right if I could just add one more thing a there's a word um that that is often used in relationships called triggered right people say my spouse triggered me my child triggered me somebody triggered me and I maybe I'm being a little bit like going you know far with this but if you think of the word trigger right it comes from like a gun right so if somebody triggered you it's like you're your gun went off right and a bullet went out and you're basically blaming the person who caused you to pull the trigger right now if you're in a shooting range and somebody jumped and and made you pull the DP that's maybe understandable but if you're in your regular married life or you're in regular your house on a regular given day and you got triggered maybe you should look at yourself and say why was I walking around with a loaded gun with a bullet in the chamber with no safety and going like this so I can focus on the fact that you triggered me or I can focus on maybe I need to be calmer maybe I need to work on my anger maybe I need to work on my self-development my my self-confidence my my own ego so then every time my spouse looks at me the wrong way I don't jump and and take it so personally Etc right so the easy response is just to say if you don't look at me that way if you don't say that to me in front of my mother if you don't do this if you don't do that I won't get triggered but that's not a growth response so if we really want to grow as a person we need to really look into ourselves okay excellent all right so basically the books you should read together first of all read some self books indiv self-help books individually then we have Dr Rabbi schaer uh 10 uh mistakes people make Rabbi schaer then we also have Dr Winkler wickler i k l e r 10 minutes a DAT of better marriage 10 minutes say anything from John gotman Hasa some of them is not are but but the concepts the concepts are very very On Target and somebody wants to go even a little deeper um EFT emotion Focus therapy right hold me tight I think John so there's another there's other ideas related to attachment Theory and there's a book called attached where this a little deeper stuff maybe one important note I think RAB rberg alluded to like all the non-jewish books are going to have some things in it that we're going to find like very alarming so or many things so just pick out the concepts the concepts are there the concepts are very good dere ER but some of the examples are not Jewish so Ju Just just to jump in on what Rutenberg is saying there's a few things first of all we we have to know that the only thing marriage cures is being single many people have an expectation that I'm going to get married and it's going to help whether it's my self-esteem my anxiety my depression my issues with my family it doesn't do any of that and again we're promulgating this idea that you get marriages the end end of the road Road and it's really the beginning and often is a much bigger trigger for many things um for those of you that are comfortable with Hebrew um has a it's a very small pamphlet you can get in farm stores there were some that somebody put English words on top of it I if you can get hold of that certainly some private and it's fantastic there is a one for women as well but his main message there is he this is from page one it's out the it's out the gate he says to this young person who's getting married to this boy so tell me what's going to be the foundation of your marriage and what do you think the boy responds a nice good Yeshiva boy anybody love love and right so he says love and understanding and rolba says I hate to uh burst your bubble but um love he says any love that's dependent on anything B if that thing goes to bits there goes the love and he says inevitably in your marriage it's going to go to bits understanding it's a very nice Theory right now you're dating you sound great wow you're asically so aligned you like the same things I tell most of the people I work with somewhere between 6 weeks and six months into the marriage the idealization phase as we call it in relationship goes down and then it's all of a sudden and what and it's like what the heck was I thinking I should have married the other one what was I doing they sold me a fake bill of goods the whole nine yards right and those of you gigg at least you're honest with yourself those of you like I don't know what he's talking about you just didn't look anywhere in the mirror and you're you know subconscious as R Rutenberg is really his source for this goes way way back Botho talks about the Balto famously says our interactions with other people are designed as a mirror now that's an incredibly Jewish way to live of internalizing uh stress and issues and say what can I do at the same time we have to be exceedingly careful in the same way RAB May I've addressed the question before there are red lines and somebody's being abused or beaten or somebody say that's not for you to look in and say what did I do to cause him to get so angry that he smacked me right there are things where there are absolute red lines and you shouldn't blame yourself if you know if your spouse is caught uh doing something that's way over the red line you shouldn't say oh wow what did I do I must have been such a bad spouse they did that they might have their issues now again you should still use you should go slow uh and and we we have seen with the right and interventions even people who've gone through G um can stay together when it's appropriate uh there's a lot of help out there but again not something you want to do on your own to be to be very cautious so so what does he answer so what should be the basis again this is not such such an exciting thing the says it is good for a youth to accept a yoke in his Youth and he says that oh is I have to accept What is marriage marriage is a it is a of yourself it is a we have to switch our mind that marriage is now Bliss right I get to have intimacy I get to have my own house I get to have my own life no no no this is the beginnings of real aod and if anybody here is honest and you're married and you have kids one are the two biggest places of real AEM in your life is by far your marriage and your parenting and when we look at it and we give that over to children they we put the expectation in oh how can I grow can we grow that changes the landscape and we can deal with struggles because it's not oh I got hit by a Mac Truck that wasn't supposed to be there noes who gives us tremendous challenges sometimes as ways for us to grow and the more we look at it as such from a Jewish perspective that is how we go through and build a foundation for life and the real solid foundation is that commitment to that forever this is our aod we're going to make this go this is my responsibility right beautiful um you know one question also that people ask a lot is especially us coming from the former Soviet Union like why do we have to why do we have to do so much a Voda why do we have to work so hard on our marriage on our parenting like it seems like our parents our grandparents it just worked whatever anything right they didn't know anything there's no there here we have 100,000 help self-help books there there there was zero and America also like so you know so so the the the answer is one answer that I saw in very interesting book actually that's a very good shom book called Beyond Mars and Venus it was written by the same Mars and Venus guy but he said the generation has changed and now we need Beyond Mars and Venus so he said in the previous generations this is so important they really just wanted to be role mates right so I have role a you have role B whatever we're not going to fight about it we're not going to have so much connection we have different roles we get it done in our generation we want to be soulmates right we want to like be our spouse's best friend be have intimacy go on vacation have everything be great not yell at each other we're not looking for a quote unquote partnership right we are looking really for a soulmate so that takes a lot of work role Mates is like a job doesn't take so much work let's see whatever happens happens you know soulmates takes a lot of work all right we're switching back to par ing for a moment Rabbi me of how does one encourage their teenagers to become more excited about Judaism how to encourage our teenagers to be more excited about Judaism so the truth is first of all the school where yiva you s them to has a big impact certain schools certain yot are all about okay here's Jewish culture uh Jewish ritual and Shalom is then you're wondering why doesn't my son want to have greatness in Judaism other really push your children to try to reach greatness and try to recognize their potential so putting them in the right environment that's already step number one but step number two more than Anya it's really the atmosphere you have at home how excited are you for Shabbat how excited are you for going to does your wife have to push you get out of the house and your kids see your wife keeps saying come on Shimon get up get up I know I'm tired okay I went to share last week leave me alone then the kid sees the father has no interest like why should I be interested uh uh if the father is is sitting at the Shabbat table and uh he's crutching and complaining you know the the this week didn't come out like last week My Mother Does it much better than you and he sees the constant bickering between the husband and wife like why would the kid want to enjoy a Shabbat meal when he gets married why would he want to make an official sud so to build that excitement you got to make things exciting you got got to show that you're excited uh uh uh if the mother's complaining about being a burden on her why would the daughter want to have part of her life but if she's going to look beautiful within its nehh boundaries and and her daughter see it that she's confident she's proud and she's not complaining about it it's going to motivate them to say you know what you know I can go with a certain path and still look beautiful so a lot of it really begins uh uh in the home in your actual home but obviously the school setting also has a tremendous impact as well so you got to make sure that you get them the proper balance uh when it comes to these matters okay all right modeling modeling for sure meaning like the the the children follow the parents it's not fullprof of course you know but uh that's a good starting point very good yes I can just add uh to what may ever said firstly 100% like um that your own attitudes are really the most important you know somebody once said to me like if if the child sees that the parent is super excited about the Super Bowl but like just going begrudgingly through chabas then the message they're going to get is that the Super Bowl is more important to my parents so working on ourselves again to to be excited mosha Feinstein said you know he was always bothered why so many Jews went away from Judaism even though the parents sacrificed so much for Torah gave up their jobs for for chabas and he said it's because the fathers would say desid it's hard to be a Jew and the kids are very very intuitive especially today they pick up on so much at a very young age and they picked up on the parents sort of negativity about being religious even though the parents were going through the tions or not the Motions even though the parents were passionate about it but but they picked up on a certain negativity and I think we all have to be conscious that in every generation there's a different there's a different moment that we can be so if we're sitting at the shabas table and our our kids hear us complaining about tuition or complaining how expensive the groceries are we might not realize that we're just sitting with our friends having some shot of whiskey and just talking about this and there is a lot to complain about both of those topics but but um but the reality is if our kids hear this negativity and if we're living that negativity then um and they say 80% of communication is non-verbal so if we're living that negativity if we're not taking an approach yes it's hard but it's so worth it our kids are going to pick up on that the second thing I would just say and this is you know I've five boys and um ranging from from 10 to 23 I'm sorry from 13 to 23 and um the the the the thing that I try to tell myself is that this is a separate human being than myself and I think one of the problems we have sometimes as parents is we we're either not involved enough or we're too involved and sometimes when we're too involved we take it personally when our child let's say a child doesn't want to go to SCH in the morning and we take it personally must be I'm a bad father it must be I didn't do enough and then we start putting our stress on the and the child and like guilting them into going to schol because because we're bad parent if they're not in SCH and the reality is that the child is its own human being is his own human being and and children go through phases and sometimes they might be going through a phase hormonal phase there's a crazy amount I mean your book talks about it there's a crazy amount of hormonal changes that go on like between like the like 13 and 16 or 12 depending on the child and this child is going through crazy stuff and and it could be the child at that moment is not in such a happy place period not just about Judaism it might you might see it in Judaism but that child might be going through just a like a difficult time in general so it's important to be compassionate to the child to recognize it's not always about you and to give them the space to go through those times also maybe to get them a good therapist or to get them get them help if needed or other things but to not take it so personally when your child is not much easier said than done okay I'll say first hand much easier said than done but but not to to take it so personally when your child is going through a certain phase okay can I ask a question B off of that um you have to ask the moderat he's in charge he's in charge um with this one time will'll say yes as far as a tuition goes let say you're sitting with a bunch of families and not just comes up how would you approach it other people are talking kids are listening so okay since I'm since I'm the moderator I'm going I'm going to answer all Studio questions so this comes up a lot and the best way to do it and it's gamara right and it says clearly the question is what if people are talking about oh tuition is so expensive you know far sales High School is free so of course first of all you say kazak has some great scholarships for you and then you say it says in the talud specifically that any money you spend on your child's education has Shem will give you back there's so many different ways to make money now and there's a lot of ways to lose money also you know you could have bought bcoin whenever stocks bonds side hustles your job accidents tickets Apartments so many ways to make her lose money but Hashem says whatever you spend on T on T Tor on tuition will not be taken away from you just don't make any conversation anything for Tor there's no problem okay next question I would like the all the panel to just give us your best answer for this best practices one thing how can this like the toughest question I'm really putting a lot on the panel but you guys are experts we want to hear from all of you how can we create emotional and physical intimacy between husband and wife what's the best thing for that the toughest question yes how can we create emotional physical intimacy between husband and wife R rudenberg really said it many times it's work on your own internals and then communication communication communication communication meaning talk about and try to work through things carve out time so that you can do it and um again get off some of the Romantic Notions of oh things are just going to be spontaneous schedule time to talk about household tasks separate time to just in inoo about emotional connection stuff and schedule time for intimacy because otherwise you'll have complaints because it's not going to happen because it's the reality of the world so you want to have other things that come about we need to make we need to deal with reality we have to get out of fantasy and the world around us is drilling us with all these fantasy ideas deal with your reality to the best of your ability work on yourself work on that connection make sure and prioritize it as we discussed earlier okay beautiful rberg best practices how to create emotional physical intimacy between husband and wife ra so the truth is uh just to add to what they said earlier you know we we got to figure out what brings true happiness in a marriage what is the source of sim in a marriage that's all we want right we got married you want to be happy keep it going so I always tell people the following uh message which I think could lead us on to this question if you look where are my Israelis here who is Israeli AI yeah AI number two you also speak Hebrew no so number two how do you say family in Hebrew right and happiness very good so actually have the same letters means happiness Mish means family um but there's only one extra letter that M has over what's the actual letter P the letter pay very good you know why CU people think that happiness is the house that I have the car that I drive the vacations that's a happiness does give you happy moments but happy the pay the pay means what your mouth your communication is what brings happiness in the family if it's proper communication between the husband and wife then you'll see tremendous s in the house once there's communication you have emotional love once you have emotional leads to the physical but all starts with communication everything else is all fantasies from Hollywood if you don't have the proper communication then everything else just falls apart so I think it's very important like they mentioned a few times in the in in in the in the panel over here putting the phone away learning how to turn off the phone how to communicate in the proper environment because communication really is the foundation for for everything else in this relationship wonderful um thank you the only thing I would I would add to that is um I think it's so important when it comes to emotional and physical intimacy to remember that both you and your partner um have a need for both of those things um and sometimes one person may have a stronger need at certain times but it's a human it's human for a person to uh have just like we have a physical need to eat we have emotional needs and we have um physical needs and and and desires for Connection in all these different areas and I think what's what's important is the to really to go on what Dr zimman said is the the scheduling part and I think one of the hardest parts about the scheduling part is usually we're waiting to have this like feeling and we're like okay if I have the feeling then we'll go out on a day together but if I'm not feeling the connection with my partner so then it's like okay so why should we want to go out but that's very much the opposite because it's when you have those feelings you actually don't need to go out it's when you you need to go out because you don't have those feelings and and because you're not feeling it right now and and and this is where like torah's laws of T really strengthen our marriage is partially for this reason because it gives a renewal a constant to the connection and that's what we need on an emotional and physical level usually almost every couple that I speak to both are craving these connections but sometimes they're embarrassed they're afraid they're like oh they're hurt because of an argument that happened two weeks ago to to to be vulnerable and express the fact that they're missing something so so recognizing that this is like like the same way you you wouldn't go you know a whole two days not eating because you had some bad food 3 days ago you you you need these things and we need to have these connections and we have to find time and and create uh space for for both both emotional and and physical and physical connection and through the connection it creates more connection you know in my relationship class I mentioned I think I heard this from RAB DAV Orman from he said that um you know I don't tell people I love my spouse I tell them I want to love my spouse and and I I I really uh connect to that idea because I want to means even if at this moment I'm not feeling the connection the Torah tells us Ava right AA we we we give and therefore we love that that that we we we we create the connection we create the connection through giving through emotional connection through physical connection and and I think it's so important to to keep this front and center in our mind and like Dr Zim said this goes or said goes so much against our our our our our our culture like the culture we live in says oh if you have that magical feeling then go show up for your spouse and if you don't have that magical feeling wait till you get that magical feeling and a lot of people are waiting wow okay that's really great advice don't wait make it happen it's going to come actions lead to feelings beautiful okay so we have time for one more question and then we're going to let everyone let our amazing p Chanel I have a question but remember if you're asking a studio question I'm answering it should I let make it have an iPhone right well that's a great question so so I a lot of people ask that gave me the wrong right so I'm not sure an iPhone is you know ever appropriate for a kid but I'm not even sure adult what's a good uh several people actually asked that what time uh what age appropriate would be cell phones I can only give you my opinion so my expert opinion is for sure not before high school if you can hold but by high school they're already it's going to be hard and of course you want to get them dumb phone preferable or extremely tagged iPhone if you have to but before high school is you really can avoid it there you know you're smaller than them you can control them better so does anyone disagree with that before high school for the iPhones we may have some disagreements from the uh Studio from the panel again it it it's very easy to give a claw right it's very easy to Sayo was talking about Rao's advice which was applicable when raat gave it you know the computer faces your home how many of you what percentage of your time are you on a computer that's facing anywhere right besides your face so it was it was it was brilliant advice at the time so if your kid is in a Yeshiva where you sent them to and R talked about choosing the appropriate Yeshiva where they going to have this value and what happened is but so and so has it everybody has it you find out there are two kids who have it and that's a problem one of the best things you can actually work with theiva is say let's delay it nobody today say oh I wish I gave my kid a device earlier never heard that in my clinical practice yet right now if you can delay it it's better that being said if you put your kid in a school where everybody in eighth grade already has it and you're going to be the one hold out to 9th grade first of all you're probably not going to be the hold out they'll just have an iPhone you didn't buy for them second of all you might tear apart your relationship so again relationship goes here and then everything else but also people think I got the iPhone I didn't get an iPhone an iPhone that you just got with you don't know what's flying what apps what are aren't parental controls is a nuclear bomb right and right actually I got my daughter an iPad before any other device why cuz the other devices that Yesa was recommending I could not get proper filtering on but the iPad I know how to use really well and there are great parental controls on I could set it the parental controls to go off you don't want to be having oh give it back to me come on this that you want as much automatic that it shuts off and the limits are that not a negotiation so there are a lot of that needs to go into both when you buy things what you buy and then an ongoing need to know what you're doing with it within the context and framework of your child's life and in your value system right okay got it good answer good answer and but I think uh try to hold off as much as possible if you get to high school it's great but don't ruin your relationship now we're going to have words of Bara and final thoughts from all our panels start with Rabbi Meo one more time what is this bring my uh in the worst case scenario uh I guess we'll end off by saying there's there's a famous story which I like to share which is a very powerful lesson you knowl was he was the wisest of all men and you know he he understood the language of of the birds of of of the dogs we don't understand our spouse sometimes right he understood everything he knew what every single plant what what was it good for what kind of healing what kind of what kind of vitamins whatever it may be so he was obviously the greatest of all wisdom um and there was once a famous story that took place with him that say's twins came to him they were they were you know one body two heads and they said we need your guidance we need your and something very important our father passed away and we're not sure are we considered one person or two people how do we divide the inheritance if we're two we get double if we're one we only get one so what would you uh tell us what's the in this situation what did he do he asked one of his servants give me a little towel and give me a cup of hot water and what happened was he covered the head of one of the and then he took the hot water and he Mish put a little drop on the other head and what happened was he heard both screaming out so said oh you both said out then you really what won you really won I'm sure they got upset like couldn't you shut up you could have got double inheritance right but the point is he says Ah you're really won if you feel the pain of each other you're one if you're not bothered by your wife having a a hard day or your husband being stressed out then there's something missing in the relationship I'm not saying you have to be come like with ar LaVine you know the famous story with him going to the doctor with his wife he told the doctor what was the exact line How does it go our foot hurts our foot no I think her foot hurts us how was it our foot our foot hurts right and the doctor says what are you saying it wasn't just a good pickup line by a 19-year old kid he was already in his 70s right he really felt it that his wife's pain was his pain and I think if we realize that put us together we really won two two halves that were put together after you got married and love each other to the point where you care about each other when your wife is disappointed your husband is disappointed it bothers me let me see how I could you know fix this up let me reach out to her let me make something special for her let me something special for him if if you feel each other's pain and feel each other's then you're going in the right path but ifom you're not feeling that that uh that emotional connection then that's where you have to contact Mar rudenberg like I said before and he'll sit down with you and give you hopefully the the proper guidance good you want to close okay so when when you're on these panels you don't know what to expect so we go with go with SCH it's hard to go wrong we'll follow we'll follow what ROV said so two of the most essential lines right the the wisest person of all time says when he talks about human dynamics what does he describe the same way way water reflects right when you look in the water you see your reflection so too is the heart of one person to the other so the first step we'll reiterate how can I get myself into a place where I can reflect positivity where I can feel positivity so many people today the shame toxicity trauma whatever you want to label it makes them feel I'm unworthy I'm not pretty enough I'm not accomplished enough I'm not wealthy enough I'm not good enough as a spouse as a parent right that's its job yet to be filled with negativity and to knock myself down so my first work is how do I deal with my own negativity and toxicity so that I'm a pleasant person even I'm not that that voice is not going away because it's part of the spiritual forces that we have to fight against we have to know that we're here to do work in the darkness you know I'll segue for a second today the you know we have 18 19 20-year-old kids and fathers going off into to the tunnels in Gaza and how do they go in they go in with k with singing It's unbelievable you watch these clips when Earth is going on there why cuz they go in with a sense of absolute Mission and purpose that's exactly where I'm supposed to be I'm supposed to go into the darkness but you're facing death torture if one of them catches you what what what they'll do to you you beg for death why they have a sense of absolute meaning and purpose I'm supposed to be in the darkest of places we often think we have Darkness inside of us we have our own triggers as you heard we have all our issues our mental health issues our addiction issues our our histories we think this is a this is off my path it's not where I'm supposed to be we have to remember no no no you're here to go in the darkest of tunnels the of the dark side of the of the negativity is beyond but that's why you have a coresponding the shama Purity and power but it's constant avod so your first step is your own work appreciating your mission and purpose yeah it's not going on a clip you know shy grer is not coming to your house but this is the purpose the darkness is there for you to grow so you do it yourself then you reflect positivity and Mission and purpose to your spouse and to your children then's message you heard they're independent people I can't bend them to my will I have to figure out what they need when that iPhone is for that kid when the discipline for that child when do I push them to go to sh when do I back off it's all's wisdom and ultimately ultimately I'm the psychologist so I could be more the rabbi so I I could say when we try our best we're going to be deeply imperfect and we have to accept that we are deeply imperfect our spouses are going to be deeply imperfect our children are going to be deeply imperfect hash has plenty of malim upstairs when we try with our imperfections and our darkness and all the the darkness around us to bring light in those small places in those dark tunnels then joins us and he helps and then he protects ourselves our marriages and our children we should all be Z to see the ultimate revelation of light with mhia and all together back with schl in the mikdash amen okay thank you RAB rberg thank you Dr zman RAB thank you to RAB kigle moderator um so first of all I just wanted to to to start by mentioning that um you know although the war in in Israel Isel is going on for months we have to keep this front and center in our mind that mentioned the soldiers that are going in and um we have to be have to be very cognizant of of of their of of the families who are in pain and and so many different people who have been moved from their homes and the hostages um and our should should go out that we should see a very fast and and Speedy uh positive ending to this um I I want to give a special to everyone who came tonight um because just the fact that you're here uh means you probably don't need to be here um because you're prioritizing your relationships um and anyone who watches online the fact that you're watching is also something um and um I I just encourage encourage everyone to make time for these for these things cuz it's easy to to not do that um the thought that I just wanted to to end with is something that's been on my mind for for last like about a year or two something that I feel as like you know people ask me all the time like what's the most important message that you could share and often I I can think of a lot of different things that are the most important but I think that to me one of the most important things is the idea of being intentional right intentional which like we talked about earlier is very very hard today but because it's hard that's why we need it more right I always tell my students like one of the one of the greatest proofs to the Divinity of the Hashem of the Torah is the fact that chabas which was given to us when we lived in tents and and Huts is more relevant today than it was then no human being could have created such a thing right because as hard as it is to keep shabas today we need it more than ever before and as hard as it is to be intentional today we need to be intentional more than ever before and I think the idea of being intentional whether it's in our relationship with Hashem our relationship with our spouse which are the two relationships that mirror each other the most but it's also true in our relationship with our kids it's so so important we know that kavana right when we D we're supposed to D with kavana we're supposed to live with kavana correct me I think it's in it says that one one one minute of of ding with kavana is better than an hour without kavana I think it's one minute of ding with kavana is better than an hour without kavana and the same thing is true in our relationships one minute of a connection with our spouse with our kids with kavana is better than an hour without kavana and and what what I can suggest is is really to be intentional about this which means just an example that something it it might be that if you're coming home later in the day you're not going to see your spouse till later at night that you take 5 minutes to talk to them on FaceTime right why FaceTime why can't you do a regular phone call because if you do a regular phone call while you're doing something else and you pause for like 15 second oh oh yeah yeah right right right yeah of course yeah how was your day oh yeah and you repeat the same question they actually feel worse after that phone call than they did if you hadn't called right and and it's the same thing with our with with with our children so so so being being intentional it's not about the amount of time it's often just about um just um just being being being um intentional and the other thought I would just emphasize is the importance of not comparing ourselves to others right we live in a society that I think social media has been really terrible at this is that is that everyone's comparing themselves and they're not even comparing themselves to the other person's real life they're comparing themselves to what the other person posted on social media or or what the other person projects as their regular life and it's all she it's all lies because we're not even supposed to compare our to our spouse cuz what might be easy for you is hard for your spouse and VI and vice versa so working on myself not to compare but just to be the show up the best that you can be makes a very big difference thank you beautiful okay big round of applause for our panel okay and uh if anyone has any further questions I'm sorry we couldn't get to everything we got to the most uh cladistic the most general questions if anyone has any other questions you can rewatch this on tour anytime or as uh RAB Rabbi Mir said you can contact rabbi rberg all right thank you for coming do