Honoring parents—the most MISUNDERSTOOD commandment

the Toyota requires an enormous amount of Honor from a child to show to a parent an enormous amount of Honor and any parent who actually exacts that from their child is making a big mistake it says like this that a child has to honor their parents and it gives all these different parameters for what that means and then empath the rambam says however even though it's true that the obligation to honor the parents is upon the children and it's a massive obligation nevertheless from the parents perspective the ramam gives a little advice it's more than advice not advice it's Allah that means he tells you the rule it's based on a Gamora in kidushin I think that Flamin based Ahmad aleph but the Raman brings us ER is the lotion there also means forbidden upon whom and the parent to make a heavy burden on their child that doesn't negate the fact that technically on paper it's true the parent on paper is entitled to certain treatment that's that's the Mitzvah nevertheless says it is forbidden to actually it is forbidden to put a heavy yoke you know like an animal it could be Suburban it has a yoke on his back it's forbidden for the parent to put a heavy yoke on his children and to be meticulous to be exacting about expecting the honor that the child is we're not negating the fact the child is obligated to give that honor but from the perspective of the parent the parent should not be medactic should not be overly meticulous to demand that honor why not he gives a reason that he shouldn't cause the child to stumble in other words you're setting him up to fail Ella rather what should you do he should forgo should be my father he should forgive you should let it go via Salim you know what that means pretend you don't know turn a blind eye ignore ignore you didn't hear it you didn't hear the insult Hi and then he tells you sure because a father and also a mother who foregoes the honor that is due to them and the honor is due to them the honor is officially he's uh he lets it go he lets it slide so here's here's that that's today's Rama and it's also brought in uh and he brings almost verbatim the words of drama almost almost forbidden a couple couple words different so here's if you want to hear the whole speech the two-minute version here's the two-minute version foreign somebody said to me recently you heard a different talk that I gave about parenting he says you know it's very nice how you stand up for the kids the kids need to be understood they need compassion they need empathy what about the parents what about the parents I also you know a little a little empathy for me so I told the guy you heard me talk right he said yeah I heard it I said how many teenagers do you think heard my talk I can tell you something I teach in seminary I'm not sure why I do those are even like not even teenagers there's like post post teenagers they don't listen to me I'm telling you don't listen to me I don't think there's any teenagers coming to listen to me so if I had a big I'm not big with the teens I don't know maybe if I played an instrument or something but if I had a teen following maybe I would speak to the teen perspective and I would tell them about their side of the deal but if I'm talking among us adults us parents What's It Gonna help if I rile you all up and I tell you you think your kid is coach Smith oh it's worse than you think you think he's obligated to this level oh no he's even more obligated than the fact that he doesn't do it it's even more of an affront than you realized so what what good is that going to do I'm talking to us parents and uh from our perspective what's our job is to find it in our heart to be as compassionate and gentle from our with our children as possible and does that mean that you're not going to get the enormous amount of Honor due to you according to Toyota yeah that's exactly what it means you're going to forego that you're going to forego that even though according to Toyota you are well within your rights to demand it but you know what they say you want to be right or do you want to be happy by the way this applies with marriage as well I could give the whole speech about marriage as well you know you could take out your Silva and show it to your spouse and say ah look what it says look what you're supposed to do and you may be well within your rights on paper it may be true but it doesn't bode well for our relationship with a human being people don't tend to like that kind of that kind of treatment so that's the short version of tonight's talk um I'll tell you a story about a teenager he was 17 years old and he had been through a lot he was didn't have a good relationship with his with his siblings in fact they wanted to kill him they almost killed him and then in the end they sold them into slavery and you know who I'm talking about saw the musical yeah I know it is a musical yeah anyways uh so yes Joseph he yeah he had a hard life you know one day he's out in the field shepherding with his father and everything's beautiful and they're philosophizing and they're they're studying the secrets of the universe together that's why they like to hang out and the Patriarchs like to hang out in the field so they could philosophize and think and he's living this slow-paced idyllic life and then the next day he's his own Brothers turn on him he sold into slavery he goes to this crazy place I mean Egypt was just corrupt and he goes from living in a total rural area to this Metropolis this bustling metropolis and it's it's full of all types of lewdness and then over there he's uh he's a slave and then he's exposed to all types of uh Temptation and he's he's a very very handsome young man and everyone notices that's the first thing everyone notices about him and he's getting all this attention this attention for his his looks and you know you think about this here's a kid ripped away from his home from the stability of his home he's been through hell really he's been through hell and I'm not trying to humanize the obvious and I'm not trying to psychologically analyze I'm that's far be it for me but I'm saying is if we could relate to the story for ourselves just for our own use to try to put ourselves I'm not trying to put yasuf into our psychology but I'm trying to put our psychology into his story and say you know how would you feel if that were your situation your young your life is totally destabilized you're in a place of rampant Temptation you have nothing you're a slave so you have no rights and you have no no respect and the only attention you're getting is for your physical appearance and people think you're beautiful and these people don't have very good morals and very good boundaries and you know you can imagine that combination of factors and you're 17 years old you know you can imagine that combination of factors how that wouldn't really you know that wouldn't really go too well you wouldn't want a 17 year old to be in a situation like that and uh so it's interesting we're learning the gamara saita right now there's a there's a minig to learn the 49-page track take so there's 49 days of the imer of the counting of the imer so there's a custom every day of the aimer to learn another page this comes later it's I think that I'm involved so it's like a week and a half before uh little it's for sure it's after log blamer at any rate so there's a there's the agato over there that speaks about this tells this story about Joseph and it says it came to a point of it was just too it was too difficult for him and he had a lot of rationalizations and he said you know who who's going to know and his his master's uh wife was was pursuing him for an illicit relationship and he had all these rationalizations who's going to know and you know how bad is it when I you know I'm a slave it's not like I'm a classy person it's not like I I'm a respective a respectable person I have nothing really to lose I don't have a reputation over here uh and uh so he he's about to succumb at least but at any rate at least according to one understanding of the stories about the succumb and what stops him he he sees this is what the gomato says he sees the image of his father he sees the image of his father yankovino Jacob our patriarch and and then he's able to he's able to stop and it's it's a it's a it's an interesting story like again I'm not trying to humanize Jace of story I I I can't psychologically analyze the office but I'm just saying if I were to try to put myself in that position and try to relate to that feeling of being a totally destabilized broken uh downtrodden uh young person who's totally disconnected from anything that he's ever known um full of pain I mean your brothers tried to kill you they turned on you they hated you to that degree um you're you're the you're the you're the the lowest level of society um you're all of a sudden you're being exposed to all this stuff this confusing stuff and then you have an opportunity for some type of comfort or distraction the easiest comfort and distraction physical pleasure um and attention someone's giving you attention somebody's liking you even if it's for a very shallow reason but they're liking you they're validating you and it's an Escape it's an Escape and and it seems so reasonable that that would be almost an inevitability that the 17 year old is going to succumb and yet he doesn't and what stops him what have we told stops him he sees the image of his father why is this what stops him so I'll tell you a couple a couple explanations that I heard and they're both I think really informative one of them is from the uh the Amos Lee yankov of yankov kamenetsky and he says something just very it's like obvious after you hear it but he says can you imagine the relationship that yankovino must have cultivated with his son with Joseph in order that the image of him should give him that power to refrain from sin in other words it's in a context it's in a context it's not out of nowhere you can infer from this story that their connection must have been pretty tight there must have been a pretty strong bond and Jesus must have felt that his father's presence was meaningful to him I mean it's not his real father it was an image of his father what what's it's an image what's what's the image going to do can't tackle you he can't do anything it was the meaning what it represented to him that this relationship was significant enough to him that it stopped him it gave him the power to overcome so you know from this you you can learn that the greatest power that a parent has in adding to the moral strength of their child is cultivating enough of a connection that when your child thinks of you that gives them strength that's something that means something to them because otherwise why would it give him that push you know there's there's a saying in education which I I hate I don't hate it but I hate that it's true which is people I'll tell you why I hate that it's true people don't care what you know until they know that you care it's totally true and it's not fair because really as long as I'm saying something true that should be good enough but in reality you can say things that are true and if people don't think that you're compassionate people don't think that you relate to them people don't think that you have their best interests at heart they won't listen to you even though everything you're saying is true you know that it's very frustrating what difference does it make if I'm a nice guy what difference does it make if I've invested in the relationship I said something true you should accept it and you know what on paper that's a hundred percent true but in reality human beings don't work that way human beings don't work that way in fact human beings will take into account more the emotional significance of the relationship than the intelligence of the person who's delivering the message to the extent that when they feel loved and accepted by somebody they'll even listen to and believe stupid things that that person tells them in contrast somebody could be saying the smartest things in the world but if you don't feel that they care about you you dismiss it it's not fair but that's human nature so imagine again not to humanize the others but to put ourselves in that situation so we can learn something from it for ourselves imagine you as a father having that power that when your child is in a moment of of moral crisis and he has every reason emotionally to not be able to overcome it that thinking about you is what strengthens him to to be able to overcome that didn't come out of nowhere that must mean that there's a lot of currency in that relationship and that currency must have come through investing time and effort and it was it was conversations that you had and it was experiences that you shared otherwise out of the blue it's not going to make a difference maybe even to the contrary oh there's that judgmental jerk here to guilt me I'll show you how bad I am but the fact again it was just an image the fact that the image had that psychological effect you're talking about a father who really connected to his child so that's that's one perspective I'll tell you another I'll tell you another explanation of that same story and it's not in contradiction actually one compliments the other they build on each other tells us that when when yasif resisted it actually uses a word means he refused and if you know uh the cancellation marks the trop it has a shall chalice which means a chain it's shaped like a chain and it's sung uh like a double Posse it's like a very dramatic uh contralto I think that's the technical word for oh this is great thank you very much fine so he refused you know like like dramatic it's a big it was a big deal what I'm saying it wasn't it wasn't like nah it was like [Laughter] he really had to he had to struggle took a lot of effort so I heard from the mashpia at a wolf Green Glass all over show them but it's a name it's in the name of the Tamira about shantev that the amount Joseph refused is uh is an acronym it's Russia Davis it's which means and yasif saw the image of his father in front of him they're going to say that I know you told me that's the gamotis um he saw the image of his father yeah I don't know it's a little deeper than that the yard yes and Joseph saw the image of his father in front of him you got to translate it a little bit differently not an image of his father but an image of himself held by his father Maris Aviv Nega means he saw himself at that moment the way his father saw him so at the moment of moral challenge moral crisis and he needed strength what gave him strength he had a glimpse of how his father saw him and when he saw himself the way his father saw him he knew he was strong enough to overcome incredible idea here that the way we look at our children gives them a self-concept which they bring with them even when we're not there to tell them the right thing to do yasif was far away from his father but his father had implanted within him a self-concept think about how powerful that is to teach somebody how to have an accurate opinion of their own greatness because when you teach somebody who they are when you literally give somebody their identity in a positive way you gave them their identity that's that's huge you told someone who they are there's a saying wherever you go there you are so think about it wherever you go there you are you bring you with You For Better or For Worse if a parent taunt you that what you are is strong and good and capable you bring that with you into all of the situations of life into every challenge so let's go back to where we started from our children are obligated according to the Toyota to honor us no question the question is why should I care why is that significant to me because I don't want unruly children who are disrespectful and I want them to treat me properly that's that's the game plan you don't want to be I don't know I don't know how to say this without sounding cynical but who in the world signs up for Parenthood thinking that well it's a good thing we're religious Jews because my child will be obligated to honor me and then parenting will be so pleasurable it'll be a really great way to get some honor okay I don't I don't think anyone has ever been that deluded to say you know I gotta you know honey I got an idea how we could get a lot of Honor let's have a bunch of kids and then we'll tell them what it says in how they're obligated to honor us one of the Ten Commandments and if they don't remember we'll remind them and then we're going to get a lot of honor and life's going to be really pleasurable and sweet yeah okay so I don't think anyone's deluded enough to think that that's a good plan yeah why does it matter that my child is obligated to honor me not because I need it trust me I need honor there are many better ways to get honor than being a father the reason it's important that my child has these mitzvahs of honoring his mother and father and really all the mitzvahs it's not from my benefit it's not to make my life easier like I said you know you know the best way to make your life easier don't be a parent at all that's the best way to make your life easier by the way if you want to extend the logic you know how you know how to have the easiest life is never to be born that's really that's the if you want to have the best life possible just don't be born I mean this is yeah yeah so these Mitzvahs are not for me they're for my child it's not from my honor it's for my child's fulfillment to grow up and to be a mensch and here's the thing the minute I start thinking about this relationship in terms of my emotional needs I miss the whole point I missed the whole point even keep it over aim even my child's Mitzvah to honor me was not given in order to fulfill my emotional needs like I said again I don't want to sound cynical but if I'm trying to meet my emotional needs there's a lot easier ways to do it than to have kids and hope that they're going to treat you the way that Toyota tells them to treat you the Mitzvahs are not for me it's not from my honor it's not from my well-being it's for my child so here's the message we are not here as parents to get anything from our children we're not here to receive anything from them not even the honor that Torah tells them that they have to show us again it's not for me so I'm not here to get that from them oh I'm going to have to try to teach them how to do that just like I have to try to teach them how to do a lot of things like don't steal and learning how to pray and to meditate and to uh how to make blessings before they they eat and thank God and be grateful for the gifts they're given there's a lot of things I have to teach my child but that's not for me that's not to me my emotional needs and the minute I think that any of this is about meeting my emotional needs I completely miss the point and worse than that not only do I miss the point I poisoned the entire relationship and I robbed my child of having the emotional stability of a real parent because now I'm trying to get instead of give it's a one-way Street we're here to give to our children is it fair no I didn't say it's fair and to those parents who say but it's it's like what about me what about I'm also a human being what about my feelings what about my needs and my answer is you're right I also have that complaint but your your relationship with your child is not the place where you're ever going to meet your emotional needs I had a clip that went out uh on social media last week it was actually a a clip from a member of uh Mrs pevsner the thing we did in the Evergreen remember back in what is it July or whatever so last week a clip from that talk went up on Instagram it had 31 000 views I was shocked I never had so many views before oh you know about it I guess everybody knows about it okay 31 000 views what what was what was the clip it was a it was a buzz back in the summer but then somebody made a 90 second clip out of it and then it became in one week 31 000 people I never had so much reaction to one thing what what was the clip I said and it was really an offhand remark it wasn't even my main point that the worst form of abuse I think that's why I got so many clicks because it's like a you know it's an inflammatory word I said the worst form of abuse is uh parents who tried to use their children to meet their own emotional needs it's the worst form of abuse because it's the most Insidious because a parent who abuses their child God forbid in ways that are obviously abusive so the child grows up and they say well that wasn't right that wasn't right that was abusive my my parent was using me was hurting me that that was wrong but then there's something that doesn't ever get recognized as abusive it doesn't get recognized as an inversion of the parent-child relationship and that is where the parent is using the child to meet unmet emotional needs and the child grows up and they're not even really sure if that if that was wrong or if it's appropriate for them to have negative feelings about it you know maybe it was maybe I'm just being a wimp maybe it was okay I don't know I mean why should it bother me and you know there are there are technical terms for this inversion of the parent-child relationship one of them is enmeshment enmeshment means that uh the child is becoming used by the parent for their own for their own emotional fulfillment sometimes they call it parentification of the child or the the parent is using the child as a little therapist or a best friend or sometimes it's a pawn yeah yeah they're being manipulated as a go-between or sometimes it's just um as the shoulder to cry on where the parent is is doing a lot of over sharing and either saying explicitly or implicitly that their their well-being is dependent on the child's Behavior and it's absolutely abusive because um that's not what children are for that's not what our children yes our children have a Mitzvah to honor us that's true but it's not for our benefit it's for theirs so the idea that because I have a Mitzvah called I'm now going to religiously justify using my child it's a Corruption of the parent-child relationship it's the corruption of a beautiful Mitzvah it's it's just it's so wrong in so many ways spiritually practically emotionally there's another term for it which is even more inflammatory and I I hesitate to use it but I think sometimes it's necessary just to to impress upon people what we're talking about there's a there's an expression covert incest or emotional incest where a parent will usually a parent who's not fulfilled in their own marriage will take a child and use them as like a like an adult friend and without crossing any lines that are obviously abusive that we would all say is totally taboo right but it messes people up for life uh not to say a person can't overcome it people do overcome it but think about how much of a mountain you're giving somebody to climb when you're putting them in that situation think about it like this if a parent gives to a child selflessly and builds that child up what have you given the child you've given them a sense of self like yasif got from his father his father gave to him a sense of self he knew he was good he knew he was strong he knew he could say no he wasn't he was a mensch now imagine if instead of giving your child a sense of self you're trying to steal from the child a sense of self for you and now your child doesn't even know who they are no there's that old kotzker vort right the katsuka said foreign because you are you and you are you because I am I I'm not I and you are not you in other words if I have no sense of self but I try to find a simulated sense of identity through the context of a dysfunctional relationship right I hate myself but maybe if you love me I'll be worthy of life right that kind of formula for disaster so when I have no sense of self and I try to find myself in my relationship with someone else what am I doing I'm not me because I have no sense of self and I'm not letting you be you because I'm not interested in you I'm taking I'm trying to get myself I'm trying to get my own validation now that's sick when any two people do that to each other now imagine a parent who your whole job is to give the child their sense of self and instead of giving them a sense of self you're trying to get your own sense of self from them so then what happens they go out into the world they don't know who they are they don't have boundaries they don't think they're allowed to have boundaries they don't know how to say no they're they're pathological people Pleasers they don't know how to find healthy relationships they don't even know they have the right to such a thing forget the fact they don't have a model for it but they don't even think they have the right to such a thing now I'm not saying that all parents are committing uh covert incest or in measurement or I'm not God forbid I don't think that that's rampant I don't think it's rampant I think it's all too common I think it's all too common if one person hears this and says oh shoot I should probably try to meet my emotional needs elsewhere then I'm glad I said it okay but I I'm not I'm not saying that everybody is to this extreme most of us are not to this extreme that's what makes it an extreme but there's a spectrum there's a spectrum and on a subtle level on a subtle level when I'm looking to my relationship with my child as anything other than a totally selfless Giver I'm robbing my child I'm robbing them of the strongest asset that they could take with them into life which is a strong sense of self so let's talk about the more benign ways that we try to take from our children now somebody was talking to me the other day but a guy he was saying it very dismissively he was saying that this guy well you know he he got divorced and he married a trophy wife and I think everyone's heard that it's a very crass expression but I think everyone knows what that is so I it happened to be this person who told me this is somebody that I speak with about parenting and I said that's crass yeah but how come no one ever talks about a trophy child they talk about somebody using a spouse or an intimate partner as a badge as a way of getting social status and we all sort of agree that that's shallow how come there's no term for trying to do that with your own children you know what my theory is you know what my theory is why there's no term for it it's just so normalized it's so accepted of course my children owe it to me not to embarrass me of course my children owe it to me to be part of my image maintenance team you know they they work for my PR team what are people going to think of me I'm not saying that there's something evil about a parent having that thought to the contrary I think it's very human to have that thought it's extremely human to have that thought it would almost be unnatural not to have that thought what I'm saying is being a parent means letting yourself know that that's not a healthy thought it's not a legitimate Avenue to go down yeah I understand I have an ego my ego likes recognition it likes positive attention I will use anything to get recognition and positive attention even my children that's natural but I have to be able to stop myself and say I can't do that to this child because think about it when I'm using my child to meet my emotional needs not only am I reversing the entire flow of the relationship which is supposed to be a giver relationship from me to them but I'm taking away from them their future ability to go into other relationships and in other situations and be strong and confident and to be able to believe in themselves because instead of giving them a strong sense of self I've been trying to take my sense of self from them you understand how I mean I know it's so common and so Universal it almost sounds like I'm I'm a lunatic for ranting this way like what does he want from us what's the what's the problem isn't this what every generation does and you know what if that's true let's say for argument's sake that's what every generation has done doesn't mean that it should be perpetuated mashiach is coming this we know this we know mashiach is coming so sooner or later every family line is going to heal one way or another right one way or another every family line has to heal do you know what the last prophecy given to the Jewish people through the prophets and recorded in our Bible happens to be just so happens to be the last message that's given is recorded prophecy it's a Messianic prophecy it's about Elijah the prophet coming on the eve of the Redemption and what's he going to do says the Haitian he's going to return the hearts of the parents to their children and then as a response to them to that then reciprocally the children to their parents the last prophecy that we were given the message that we're supposed to hold on to is that there was going to come a time and finally we're going to heal all the dysfunction all the intergenerational trauma we're going to put it all to rest and you know how it's going to happen the hearts of the parents will return to the children and then the hearts of the children will return to the parents not the other way around not the other way around and I see it I see in this generation something is happening that may be unprecedented that parents are looking more deep into their role as parents and and more introspectively more soulfully and it's not just the same old line uh well I said so or Never Promised You that life is fair I mean we we don't mind saying that to our children I Never Promised You that life is fair but there's a certain maturity I think that's happening where parents are finally able to say that line on themselves like say that to yourself life isn't fair you know what that means life isn't fair that's such a platitude it doesn't sound like anything let me let me make it hit where it counts life isn't fair means you can totally sacrifice your peace of mind your health your time your body your hours everything your dreams everything so that these little people in your house can be comfortable and not only will they never acknowledge and appreciate how you completely sacrificed yourself so that they can be comfortable but they're going to have the nerve to go out and find their own way in life and figure things out for themselves and do things you don't like and do things that scare the hell out of you without any feeling that they owe it to you to not give you a nervous breakdown just because you sacrificed your entire life for them yep that's what it means life isn't fair we have no problem telling it the kids life isn't fair let's tell it to ourselves life isn't fair and I didn't have children in order to have people who are going to meet my needs and it wasn't a clever plan how to get more honor it's the exact opposite of that it's an opportunity to really be selfless to really be selfless and to completely take care of the needs of somebody else so the title Loop talk was what are your teenagers need from you I'm going to tell you what they need from you I'm going to tell you what they need from you they need to know that you are Dependable that you're there for them they need to know that you're safe they need to know that your relationship with them is unconditional that's what they need from you what do they get from that they grow up to be strong confident people who can actually go out and conquer the world every child is a soul Every Soul came to the world to do something unique during its embodiment however many years months days hours that embodiment will last and one of the biggest factors if not the biggest Factor that's going to influence how well that soul is able to achieve its purpose this time around in this world is the treatment that it receives from its Primary Care caretakers during its formative years so a little soul comes into the world and doesn't have a sense of being stable and safe and doesn't get that from the adults in his or her life okay so you can well imagine how that plays itself out a child is going to grow up like yasif and no that he has strength and he has self-respect and he has values that's a child who was given that by parents or we're not trying to meet any personal need through having children so let me let me try to describe it like this you look at a baby and the baby everybody fawns over everybody says oh how cute let me show you the baby pictures right most babies look the same I hate to say it but most babies look the same but everyone wants to you know right well and we love it we love to look at babies or to play with babies what what's the attraction with babies now if you if you want to be you know you could you could you could say well there's an evolutionary advantage because babies are helpless so yeah you could say that but uh give me a spiritual reason let's go deeper than that let's give us give ourselves a little bit more credit the Innocence yeah but you know here's the thing it's not just that we don't fault babies you know that's because of their innocence so they cry in the middle of the night we don't blame them because they're innocent but it's much more than that we're like we fawn over them we're we're proud of them what are you proud of because he made in his diaper he didn't do anything like what are you oohing and eyeing about right so I thought about this there's only two times generally speaking in a person's lifetime where they automatically get a free pass and everyone says good things about them so one time is when you're a baby people will say oh he's so wonderful you didn't do anything but everyone says you're wonderful and then what after you die right so after somebody like oh he was Italian he was uh he was okay so and by the way for that you can't even explain that it's like there's an evolutionary advantage to it so I don't even know what the naturalist explanation to that would be but I have an explanation and I think I think it's I think it's fairly logical a person like I said before is a soul the soul came to the world came to the world for a mission um but what's that old saying we're not human beings having a spiritual experience with Spiritual Beings having a human experience so we're Spiritual Beings we're actually Eternal beings we existed before the world was created and then we visit the world for a period of embodiment and uh what happens is we start being Mis identified we start being id'd as our bodies and what I mean by our bodies I don't just mean tall short fat thin I I mean all the stuff that comes with the body you know smart that you know just the wiring the way our brains are made or you know uh socially outgoing you know different things that come with having a whole uh a body and the whole uh biochemistry and uh your your neural wiring all the stuff that we call a personality but you know it's uh the trappings of of physical embodiment and you become known for that that and you know yourself for that that becomes your your identity and if you luck out and you have uh you have one that's generally considered appealing that'll get you far in life and if not then you know you have greater challenges in life and uh and if your parents don't particularly like your personality or the way that your embodiment expresses itself then you know for sure you're going to have some major insecurities right but all of that what I'm saying to you that that's not the real you the real you was your soul but people forgot about your soul and they started identifying you with these secondary almost accidental traits of embodiment there's only two times when people generally speaking remember that we are more than just our embodiment and that's either when you just got here or you just left so babies just came to the world so you kind of even if you don't articulate it that way you you're sensitive to the fact that this little being came from another world you know and then when people pass away You're cognizant of the fact that they've moved on to or if they've returned to to another world so what happens when people see us as spiritual Eternal beings they like us and they think we're wonderful And when they see us as transient transitory temporary physical beings then they have nothing but judgment for us even best case scenario where you luck out and they judge you mostly favorably right but even that such pressure to live with pressure of having to continue to earn people's approval and and the other eventuality if you don't earn people's approval so then that's that's a terrible burden to carry through life but that's not me that's not the real me that's not my soul if you if you would know my soul you would you would have a totally different opinion of me you would have a totally different value of me so here's what I want to tell you it is the job of parents not to be fooled by the child's embodiment and that just like when your child was a baby you were aware that there's something special and there's a gift here and this this is a gift I didn't make this child I mean this is beyond something I didn't can't go to the workshop and make one of these this is this is a miracle right this is from this is sent from from Beyond and just like we had that feeling of this child is wonderful and they didn't do anything and they didn't earn your acceptance and they didn't earn your validation you didn't tell your baby you know what you can't even talk how can I know if I like you grow up learn to carry a conversation we'll go out for coffee and I'll find out if I like you you didn't and no one said that right no one would say that to a child to a baby why because with a baby you understand they don't need to be able to carry on a conversation to have value because you're seeing them as a soul and a soul has intrinsic value so here's what I'm telling you when this baby grows up and now they're a teenager and they have their own personality and maybe you'd like their personality maybe you don't like their personality maybe you like the choices they're making maybe you don't like the choices they're making you know what a teenager is a very funny thing they're they're they're not children anymore so you can't grab them and force them to do what you want them to do but they're not adults so they're not exactly wise enough to make the best decisions they're very dangerous it's a very dangerous in-between State and you and they're figuring life out and sometimes they're learning from mistakes and and it can be unnerving more than unnerving could be terrifying because you care for your child's welfare you care for their safety and here's what I want to tell you the same way you were able to look at a baby and the same way God forbid someone passes away you're able to see them that's how we have to look at people in the in between times during the embodiment and even during the awkward phase of embodiment called the Adolescent years where most people are unlikable true you have you never met no one met teenagers here look I don't understand why was that like people are looking at me like I said something wrong it's not a known fact that most teenagers are insufferable that's what I said something wrong I mean so it's a true thing I mean it's it's I'm not not putting down teenagers it's an awkward time in life it's an awkward time in life you know there's they say that there was three simple Jews they went to shul and they heard the Torah reading about the akedo when Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac and afterwards they were talking and they were trying to figure out how old do you think Isaac was when his father was going to sacrifice him so they were simple Jews they didn't know this one of them said I don't know I mean I think he was probably a little kid he must have been like five years old because his father was just able to you know tell him to go and he listened yeah okay maybe five years old and another one said no no no but remember the part where he carries the wood I mean he carried wood he must have been a man he's like 40 years old and then the third one said you know what guys it's probably like right in between that he's probably a teenager the other two said no no he couldn't be a teenager because if he would have been a teenager then it wouldn't have been a sacrifice to slaughter him okay so what I'm saying is like this you don't have to pretend teenagers are likeable but you do have to realize as their parent that they're the same soul the Same Soul as before their embodiment the Same Soul they will be after their embodiment and what that means is that irrespective of how you like their behavior and their appearance and their demeanor forget that that that's all about how you you are feeling about it that's all about your feelings forget that let's talk about objective truth this child is a soul and that means that they are intrinsically Worthy unconditionally worthy and infinitely Worthy so three things that I talk about in the parenting course that a soul and therefore every child is intrinsically worthy unconditionally worthy and infinitely worthy intrinsically worthy means their worth comes from within they don't have to go out and do something to get it doesn't have to be acquired unconditional means they can't lose it there's nothing they can do to lose their worth which is related to Intrinsic that it's built in and it's infinite infinite means how worthy are they there's no number for it and if you really want to be philosophical Infinity is not only that which cannot be detracted from Infinity is that which cannot be added to either if you want to be philosophical for a moment because Infinity really there's nothing you can do to make it less but there's nothing you can do to make it any more than it is already so the real value of a soul can't be lost but it can't even be embellished it's already as great as it could possibly be I was this morning I was with a group at the oil I do that quite often since coming to the five towns is one of the things I've been I've had the Merit to me involved in probably at this point probably over 100 groups and it's something I'm very happy to do last night somebody called me I think at 8 pm he said we're coming in from Toronto tomorrow and uh in fact he told me we're landing at Teterboro and I said listen I don't know who else you're calling to set up your trip but don't everyone here knows Peter Burrows where the private jets land so if you want to get a break on anything like don't mention you're Landing in theater he's like oh yeah you're right you know that's please you know LaGuardia just say it's LaGuardia don't yeah okay anyways so they came from Teterboro and they came to the aisle and um so they I had 10 minutes to speak to them I had 10 minutes to speak to them so uh what am I going to tell them about going to the aisle they said speak about a relationship with and going through whatever's resting place and writing to the debit in 10 minutes yeah 10 minutes and that took one of the 10 minutes so then it was nine yeah so I said um that I had a teacher who when he was 13 years old he I mean this was in the back in the 1950s when every 13 year old Bar Mitzvah boy this had a private audience with the rabbit so which is crazy if you think about it so he asked huh so he asked his teacher who was Khan all of a shalom when I go into how am I supposed to conduct myself so to be ill you know in the classic you know harsh Russian Gruff style he says forget it I'll go instead of you so he's like no I'm just asking when I go into some private audience what did that but how do I conduct myself he says no no I'll go inside of you I was like I'm just asking how much he says listen to me God Salem has his world the physical world it's a false World normally when we say that we mean things aren't what they seem that we see things and we we buy into the delusion that there's creation without Creator right that's what we mean when we say the world is a false world but um that's not how to be augmented in that context what he meant was the physical is a false World in it means that in this world where you're embodied you don't see your true self so the falsehood means you're divorced from your own true identity the soul and you play a role and you go through life people think you're something and you even think that you're something and it's not really who you are so WL says to the bar mitzvah boy he says in this world of falsehood there's one valid Amaze one four qubits meaning one little compartment of MS there's one place where you are the real you and in the one place where you are the real you you're asking me how to behave so I told them you're going into the aisle to the web is resting place which is it's a one-on-one meeting that's what the Deva said that episode going to he said it about his father-in-law's resting place that it's a one-on-one meeting so it's a one-on-one meeting with the Reba is an opportunity to be seen for who you really are and you know if you ever met anyone who even went by the debit for dollars for a half a second what do they what do they say is like I felt someone really saw me I felt seen right so what are you gonna see okay you're not gonna see that because it's very different going into the aisle than going by for dollars but what you see is irrelevant here what's really important is how you are seen and what's happening is you're being seen for your real self when you go into the aisle and you present yourself to a sadik who's a loving father who sees you for who you really are then you leave from that interaction feeling empowered to live up to that okay I didn't want to make this about but I I think this is very important you want to know what a parent has the ability to do a parent has the ability to be that for their child the way the Obama was able to look at you and make you feel that you're the only thing in the world and that your value is infinite and unconditional and intrinsic every parent can do that for their child I want to tell you something the worst people for this message I said this in Crown Heights and the lab avatars all came to me afterwards and they said it's not true that but didn't I said what are you talking about that was always demanding from people true do you know how that it ever was able to get away with demanding from people because that bill looked at every Jew as already being enough being perfect you couldn't be more than you already are and since you're already perfect who you are is perfect you couldn't be any more perfect now it's only logical to ask you to express that in your Deeds that's how the devil is able to get away with that every parent can and should do the same exact thing tell your child you don't have to tell them they know you can't lie the eyes don't lie when you light up when they enter the room they will know that you see them as intrinsically worthy and infinitely worthy and unconditionally worthy and then when they know that that sense of self is Rock Solid you can ask them to do a lot you probably won't even have to ask because they'll feel up to the task and that's the power that parents have that's the power that we really have the power we have is to give our children a self-concept to give our children a strong sense of worthiness and value and self-respect but in order to do that to in order to give our children that sense of self we have to be super super careful not to infringe not to misappropriate any of the emotional energy in the relationship because it's all supposed to go this direction it's all supposed to be flowing from us to them we're supposed to be the consummate selfless givers in the relationship and give them a sense of self they're strong enough to go out into the world and to achieve and to to fulfill their mission that their soul came here for so we got to always check in with ourselves and we got to always be we got to be honest with ourselves we've got to check our motives and make sure our motives are clean am I trying to take from my child am I trying to get Social proof from my child you know I want to be seen with my child in a certain life what my child doing known in a certain way am I trying to get validation from my child tell me I'm good tell me I work hard tell me you appreciate what I did it's not cute is it difficult it's very difficult it's more than difficult it's painful it's thankless it's exhausting and if you're lucky you have a spouse who's also ready to do this with you and you can just look at each other and say this is awful but we're in it together so let's just finish let's get to the ad let's raise these kids right but that's that's the best case scenario right nobody's getting validation off of this thing but if you can do it if you can be there for your child to be their safe person you're setting them up for life somebody once told me if my kid ever does something stupid and gets in trouble I don't want them to say oh no if my dad finds out he'll kill me I want him to say oh no I better call my dad are you a safe person are you a supportive person does your child know that they can mess up and they won't lose you because these things are super important they have to do with your child's entire future their entire ability to succeed in life and to feel that they're worthy people who are worthy of respect and worthy of respectful treatment from others and worthy of having goals and worthy of pursuing dreams so much is writing on this and I'll tell you even more I'll tell you even more to up the ante if you're religious so ostensibly you care about your child's relationship with God there's nothing it influences a child's God concept more than their relationship with their parental figures I've had rabbis Scholars tell me I can show you in the books that God is good and that God cares and God forgives but I can't believe it's true for me and the simple reason is because I grew up knowing that I was never enough I wasn't Worthy and I can't get out of my head what your child thinks of you my extension is going to be their default theological position about God think about that think about that so now think about how high the stakes are your reliability you're being a safe person a non-judgmental person a go-to person this is a lot more than just being Pleasant being nice being easy to get along with this has to do with your child's entire future on every level emotionally mentally spiritually religiously so how can we afford to misappropriate any of the spiritual energy of that relationship for personal fulfillment we can't afford it that's not what it's there for and I don't want to sound harsh I'm with you I'm a parent too I'm I'm in this together with you okay I'm commiserating with you it's a thankless job it's not glorious it's not glamorous but but this is the job and there's no more powerful thing that any human being can do than to raise another human being the Gamora tells us that a parent is a co-creator your mother says that there are three Partners in the creation of a human being the Holy One his father and his mother we're co-creators what does that mean we're co-creators I'm not even talking from a mystical perspective being a co-creator what I mean is you know you walk down the street and some poor person asks you for for five dollars you give them five dollars okay that's a Mitzvah that's very nice you change their moment you change their day maybe if it really inspired them it changed their month or let's say even you're a big philanthropist or you have the ability you wrote a you didn't give a homeless guy five dollars let's say you were able to build the building you wrote the five million dollar check okay great beautiful so you changed a lot of people's uh lives in a lot of ways okay huge influence but you want to know something even that influential you're still not a co-creator you're not a co-creator of those people who you influenced and affected and benefited you're you're an influence you're a positive force in their life you're not a co-creator you didn't make them who they are a child you are a co-creator for better for worse you make them who they are and that's why I'm telling you and I've seen it time and time again what a thousand experts teachers and therapists and and rabbis and Mashpee and a whole team you can hire them could put them all together and have an entire team put them all on the payroll a thousand experts just dealing with providing for a child with that team of a thousand experts could do will never come close to what one parent can do for that same child we have an infinite power we're co-creators along with Hashem yes sometimes that means that we do hire the therapist or we hire the tutor and we pay tuition to the school doesn't mean we do all the work ourselves you know we don't grow our food in our garden either we go to the grocery store and we buy it right so just like you can go buy food at the grocery store you can hire the tutor the therapist or whatever but the power for all of that to actually be life-changing comes from you as the parent without the parent in that in that equation it's almost pointless I've seen it time and time again the parents who are writing the checks so they have the experts raising their kids for them but the parental investment on an emotional level isn't there so the whole thing lacks that that power we don't realize we underestimate our own power that our relationship with our child the fact that our child feels safe with us and feels loved and feels accepted that's that's not icing on the cake that is the cake and it's and more and more their entire future their entire well-being their success in life their ability to be married and to have a happy life and and to raise children in a healthy way themselves and to have a healthy relationship with God and and and to have a positive outlook on life and and to have a loving and gentle and compassionate look at their own self everything everything everything everything is dependent on our ability to completely show up selflessly for them even when they are insufferable annoying teenagers who scare you so that's what I think need from us don't let them scare you off don't let them annoy you don't let them frustrate you because when you do that you're depriving them of the most potent healing power that they have in their lives and that is what is the most potent healing power that that teenager has in their life you you oh I'm not so smart I don't know how to you don't need to be smart you just need to be you connect with your child look in your child's eyes be present for them put the phone away make them feel that you have nothing else going on in your mind like I told you the way the Obama would look at people people would get that look for a half a second it would change their life that to me by the way proves the quality over quantity if you look at someone like that for a half a second it changes their life a lot of times people complain like oh I don't have enough time well it's not about quantity it's about quality you know sometimes there isn't enough time in the day but what about that minute that you can spend with your child can you try to meditate on the fact that this is the same baby that I looked at in the crib and I felt nothing but approval and and pride I was failing they did nothing they didn't need to do anything because I didn't judge them based on what they could do I I cherish them for who they were and will always be for their essence that's what we need to do and if if this is the last thing I'm going to tell you if one family can do this and another family and another family but just one family at a time can produce one more healthy adult in the world at a time cumulatively the effect is that the entire world becomes a healthier place think about the fact all the problems in the world are caused by people without people there won't be any problems people cause all the problems and all the problems that people cause generally speaking is because they have problems right they say hurt people hurt people people who have been hurt go out and they they they hurt others and most people have problems from Early Childhood from their formative years and most of that from their own parents so think about the fact that if we could just have the Next Generation have just a little bit less issues from their parents a little bit more love a little more acceptance that those people would grow up to make less problems in the world or maybe even have a positive influence in the world and then the cumulative effect would be the whole world will be a better place and that my friends is what we Jews call mashiach the perfected World The Vision that our prophets had and then it's I'm not saying this is what it what the prophecy means we have to wait and see how it unfolds but it's very apparent to me that that would really be in line with the last prophecy that was given to us by the prophet Malachi that the hearts of the parents will return to the children their children will turn to the parents and and that's Messianic Perfection we have a whole world of healing but it starts in each home starts in each home with each parent and each child okay all right thanks [Applause]