How to CONNECT with your CHILD | Jewish parenting | Cleveland, OH

it's wonderful to be in Cleveland um you guys can probably tell from my accent that I'm I'm not a New Yorker and uh there are Orthodox Jews in America outside of New York that is true much to the to the shock of the New Yorkers but yeah I'm I'm originally from Chicago which is why I speak normal so you'll you'll understand my accent here in Cleveland I cannot tell you how much labor it took me to um after I actually had children to stop saying roof instead of roof but my children would laugh every time I would say it so I changed over to roof which is still takes conscious effort um so thank you to the committee who organized tonight a lot of work went [Music] into there are parts of obviously this evening that I have no knowledge of but just the parts that I do know about basically planning tonight's uh lecture and getting the topic just right and planning what we should really be focusing on there was so much thought and Care put into that process and it just felt really good to be part of that and if my experience with tonight's event was indicative of the thought and the care that Kiva this wonderful institution this uh this girls high school puts into everything else that they do then I can assure you that the the parent body has has done very well and uh made a very good choice of where to send your daughters um we're going to talk tonight about emotional intelligence or emotionally intelligent parenting and I think the first thing that I want to do is just I want to put it out there and say that it's a little bit disheartening that I even have to and I'm not saying for this audience this you're probably what they call preaching to the choir so everything I'm going to tell you you probably already know and already agree with but when I do speak to to uh to Jewish crowds it is a little bit disheartening that there's confusion or a lack of confidence or lack of clarity about terms forget about the term because it's an English term but let's just say the idea represented by emotionally emotionally intelligent parenting when when parents are they're not even sure is that Jewish is that really is that is that authentic or is that like one of those new modern secular things that we're doing as a concession to the big world out there and um I just want to put it up front if you get nothing else from my talk tonight then I'll just I'll put it as a statement at the very beginning and that is that there could be nothing more quintessentially Jewish than loving warm bonded parent child relationships which serve as the foundation for the transmission of our our sacred Heritage and the fact that we even have to say that it's like why should we even have to say that Jewish parents are the most loving most devoted parents that I mean it's a stereotype for crying out loud like there's a joke they say what's the definition of a genius an average student with a Jewish mother or there's another one about the Jewish mother who uh she's taking her 5-year-old son to his first day of kindergarten and she's getting him ready and she says uh bubbla it's your first day come and uh I'll walk you to the bus and they're waiting for the bus and she says uh this is the bus this is the bus drive driver you you should behave on the bus she says Z kite I want you to be good for your for your teacher and at the uh the end of the day she comes and she uh picks him up at the bus stop and she says to him uh did you learn anything today he says yes she says what he says I learned that my name is doid okay so the the effusive love [Music] warm uh parenting style is is is a trademark of Judaism but uh I guess it helps to explain it a little bit more to talk about a little bit more so uh so that's what I'm going to try to do tonight um I'll try to talk about the what the why and the how yeah okay and just at the end make sure that I actually did that that that would that's my my uh goal with hashem's help so what are we talking about the what emotionally intelligent parenting um you know theet Kim had a son who was his successor he actually took over theonis he was the rabbi after the the's passing he was the he he was the the his first born and he actually put together a saer called which are letters of his father and there's a he writes a little preface to the to the m to the letters and in that preface he he speaks a little bit about his front row seat to observe his father's conduct as a community leader and as a rabbi and Riva but he also talks about his father as a father and who else could write about such a thing that better than or than uh the's own son his firstborn son soab y writes over there something that I think if I were to tell you that you heard somebody say this out in the parking lot tonight you might wonder oh where did this guy get this maybe he's reading self-help books maybe he's a little modern maybe he's been influenced by the outside world says that my brothers and I in our relationship with our father we saw our father and he presented himself as our friend now I know and I know this from experience that the minute you tell tell people be your child's friend they get very very nervous and my first question is okay why why does that make you nervous and usually response I get is well I'm not my child's friend I'm my child's parent okay are they mutually exclusive son didn't seem to think so so I'm just wondering are they mutually exclusive I'm not my son's I'm not my child's a friend I'm their parent okay but then the the the bigger question is supposedly if you're saying that because it it's some way uh flies in the face of your values then I would ask you to tell me what's the Torah source that prohibits such a relationship like ostensibly you're saying on on grounds of Torah values you don't want to God forbid be your child's friend so my question is okay state where does it say that give me the source where it says you're not supposed to do that or is it possible that that sentiment itself comes from the outside world and we just heard one person say it to another person and it just sort of became grandfathered in as uh accepted wisdom so I just want to clarify that having a child look at a parent as a friend was good enough for the Kim's family and I think it's good enough for any God-fearing Jew and I don't think there's any case that could be made that it's problematic unless of course maybe you have some secular Source but in that case isn't that the whole reason that you were afraid of it that you thought it was something that was from outside of Judaism so at any rate I I just want to give everyone permission to actually be a child's friend and not just because it's more pleasant to be a friend than to be an authority figure a policeman um but actually because and this hopefully with hashem's help I'll be able to explain tonight this is just going to facilitate good all around there's there's nothing more powerful there's nothing that's a a more successful Catalyst to making everything go smooth ly than our children being able to emotionally depend upon us and view us as safe people trustworthy people who they want to come to and learn from now I want to clarify something when I say that we're meant to be our children's friends I want to make it very clear what I do not mean and maybe this is where the uh the the resistance is coming from or at least on a subconscious level is when people think of the of this idea of being a child's friend they think of it as a two-way street that my child is also my friend and I just want to clarify that that's not what we're speaking about and I would even say God forbid because if we understand parenting and we understand the god-given role that we were entrusted with really we're there for our children we're meant to provide for them we provide them with everything and one of the things we provide them with is safety not just physical safety but emotional safety and the best description I have for describing a person who's emotionally safe is a friend however and I want to make this extremely extremely at the risk of even belaboring the Point explicitly clear we are not meant to turn to our children to provide our emotional needs so we shouldn't be looking to our children for emotional safety and unfortunately that does happen sometimes and it's actually I don't like to use shocking words and I and I'm using this word very very carefully but it's actually an Insidious form of abuse when and there are terms for it in the clinical World though they call it enmeshment or parentification parentification of a child where a parent flips the Paradigm and they try to use the child as a nurturer and a caregiver or even a surrogate spouse in some cases and and and that's terribly destructive and every time I give my parenting course I have a parenting course uh which bar at this point close to 2,000 parents have taken and uh whenever we speak about this idea it's uh I think it's week four when this idea eventually comes up and I mention this idea of being there for our children to Prov provide emotional support for them but they're not there to provide emotional support for us and I mentioned that when when parents do that how uh how damaging that is not only to the parent child relationship but to a child's BAS basic sense of security and it it's a it's a wound an emotional wound that they they need to overcome later in life um whenever I'll mention that there will always be right away right after class four five six depending how big the group is uh parents will come over and say that's you're describing me that's my childhood that's precisely what happened to me I was parentified I was used by my parent to give my parent validation and and I realize now how much that affected me so I want to make it very clear Hashem gave us a Mitzvah and when Hashem gives us a Mitzvah he gives us he backs up all of the the resources that we're going to need in order to follow through on that so we lean on Hashem so that our children can lean on us we're not meant to ask our children to validate us our children's job is not to make us feel safe or to tell us that we're good or give us approval that would be a a an inversion of the entire parent child relationship and I just want to make that very very clear that we're not going to do that that is taking we are meant to provide for our children not to take from them but what I do want to make clear is that being the provider of emotional stability and trust and safety in our children's lives that's not just something that makes life more pleasant it's a deal breaker it's it's I would almost say it's impossible to be your child if you don't do that and I guess that's that's what I want to talk about that bonding with our children is a prerequisite to teaching them how to live I think it was Teddy Roosevelt doesn't matter who it was because it's true who said uh people don't care what you know until they know that you care so you can be very very smart you can have a lot of information you can be right but how much stock is somebody going going to put in the information that you want to share with them really it depends on the relationship well I'll tell you something interesting that I thought of well I thought of it so I think it's interesting you let me know if you think it's interesting um I mentioned I said Teddy Roosevelt said but cares if if it's Teddy Roosevelt because really it's true people don't care what you know until they know that you care but how do we know it's okay for a rabbi to get up and Sho and to say something that Teddy Roosevelt said okay so there's a there there's a concept that rambam said about the chiefly he said it about relying on the Greek calculations for astronomy that we use for calculating the months and the Greeks had some pretty good calculations and you know that's not something you take for granted that you should just follow the Greeks I think we just had a whole holiday few weeks ago Kaneka right about don't necessarily do what the Greeks do um and and and myodes tells us yeah but it's okay you know they they had some good calculations so he says receive the truth from from whoever says it so what does that mean it means if somebody says something that's true it doesn't matter who they are they said it true okay but how do I know that I can accept something from somebody even if I don't necessarily put stock in the person but I know what they're saying is true how do I know that that's true following me because the rambam said it and I trust the rambam you follow what I'm saying so because the rambam told me that I can trust something even if I don't trust the person but the information is verifiable now I can trust the information but really if you trace it all back it's because of my trust in the RAM and and that's what I want to point out to you yish kite our entire M which means a chain like unbroken chain of of of transmission going all the way back to Hari it's all about people mha received from Hasam he gave it to Yeshua Yeshua gave to the Zak and and it's meticulously documented as well and then when you learn you learn the mishna you learn the gar every mishna every M will tell you which T which it's always the name of the sage why why is this important why is this important because it's not about what you know it's who you know quite literally we accept things based on who told us this information and do we generally feel that this is a trustworthy person there's a the term for this is epistemic trust you ever heard this this was a new term to me I just learned this a few months ago I'm going around saying it everywhere but I love this term when I I learned this term from uh a few months ago um from a a child psychologist because I mentioned that uh when Hashem gave us the tah it's very interesting and the kuzari points this out in the first of the Ten Commandments how does Hashem introduce himself he introduces himself okay that's his name who's who took you out of who just took you out of bondage in other words before Hashem tells us his title before he tells us his Commandments before he tells us how to live he establishes there's a relationship there's a context for this remember me I took you out of Egypt and the whole transmission of TOA is based on that Hashem didn't say listen this is this is infinite wisdom this is I'm just going to give it to you and judge it on its own Merit I think you'll be impressed he didn't say that he could have said it he didn't instead how did he frame it he said we've got a thing going on I took you out of Egypt now in that context I would like to tell you some ideas about how you might live so I mentioned this and uh there was a child psychologist who told me that that's called epistemic trust in fact I learned another term also epistemic vigilance those are two sides of the same coin epistemic means like epistemology we all know that word right epistemology is a word you use in day-to-day conversation epistemology means the study of the nature of truth how do we know things are true epistemology is the study of how we know something is true so epistemic trust or epistemic vigilance means to what extent I believe somebody when they tell me something that what they're telling me is true that's epistemic trust epistemic vigilance is how much am I on guard when you speak to me that maybe I can't trust you so here's the thing Hashem himself when he introduces himself he invokes the epistemic trust in our entire mea everything we know is all about transmission who taught whom epistemic trust even the fact that I can rely on the Greeks for calculations is only because the ram who I trust told me that it's okay so here's what I want to say to you very pointedly does your child know that he or she can trust you because if they don't then you can be right you can be saying the truth you can have sources to back you up it's not going to help so I want to repeat myself when your child thinks of people who are emotionally safe people who are trustworthy people they can go to are you in that list ideally speaking you should be at the top of that list that doesn't diminish your Authority that only strengthens your Authority that's the great misunderstanding now if God forbid like I said earlier you cheapen yourself you lower yourself you degrade Yourself by trying to get your child to be your friend oh tell me I'm okay tell me I'm a good parent tell me you like me okay that destroys everything because how can they trust you when you don't trust yourself how can they feel safe when you're admitting to them how incompetent and insecure you are okay but if you are their emotional Rock if you're their safe person why would that diminish your influence why wouldn't that only strengthen your influence ra gamil rovic fromita he said very strong words words that you don't expect to hear necessarily from traditional Jews nowadays and that is when parents Show De edits to their children modern stuff secular stuff parents showing respect to their children no children have to respect it's one of the Ten Commandments right no s Gil said when parents show deits to their children what happens it increases the parents has okay so even if you only look at it from a utilitarian perspective hash means fluence if you want to be influential in your child's life this is how to do it speak respectfully well I don't need to speak respectfully okay you're right nobody can force you to speak respectfully and in fact because of the nature of the fifth commandment if you're rude to your child they're stuck if you have yeah this is the nature of the the Commandment of of K even dysfunctional parents can invoke that Mitzvah and it will actually back them up it is a blank check yeah that's true but then you have to ask yourself practically speaking if that's the way you want to treat your child How likely is it that they're going to actually internalize what you're teaching you'll hear some parents who who don't feel that they need to build that trust and they'll say well my my children do what I tell them to do I didn't ask you do they do what you tell them to do that's called enforcement if I know there's a cop giving tickets I do slow down that's true but I'm asking you when your child is raised and out of your house and living on their own did they actually internalize the moral compass that you attempted to transmit to them or not or maybe even to the contrary because of the ill will maybe they've even rejected that moral compass so I'm not asking can you get them to do what you want them to do while you're watching I'm not asking about about enforcing behavioral compliance which a lot of us use as sort of a a way of assuring ourselves that we're doing okay well I told him to do what he did in front of you but I'm asking a bigger question did this become your child's value will they do this when you're not watching will they do this when nobody's watching I heard a m say to me and it was heartbreaking but I H I think we have to say it and own up to it and use this as motivation to be better he said look at our moat look at what we built you know after the Holocaust there was no Jewish Education in America he says look at all the schools that exist today he says but you know the one thing I lament we know how to raise great children but I'm not so sure we know how to raise great adults getting a child to do what you want them to do while you're watching is one thing actually transmitting a moral compass to the child so that when they grow up they actually think that way feel that way believe that way and then automatically behave that way that's an entirely different skill set schik spoke about it he said if you want a child to actually continue on a path even after he grows up right gin even when he gets old is connect to the child figure out who this child is every individual has different needs every individual has different ways of thinking have a relationship with this child tailor make the relationship with the child then you'll actually have transmitted something which is very different than behavioral compliance which is relatively easy to achieve so let's talk more about this what does this what does this look like what does this look like I heard somebody once say I think this sums it up rather well when my child grows up and in and invariably gets in trouble uh I don't want her to say oh no my dad's going to kill me when she gets in trouble I want her to say say oh no I need to call my dad now we don't want our kids getting in trouble we don't want them stressing us out we don't want them calling us with problems but if in the event that they do get in trouble God forbid do you want them hiding from you or do you want them coming to you ask yourself this question ask yourself this question who does your child go to when they're uncertain about things who does your child speak to when they're afraid who does your child speak to when scary things happen when there's disappointment when there's failure and even moral failure that can be a cause for for shame who does your child speak to about those things because if the answer isn't you then there are only two other possible answers one possibility is the answer is no one they have nobody to speak to which means in that case they are terribly alone which should Pain any parent to imagine a child being that alone or the other possibility is they found somebody or they think they found somebody to trust and you don't get to pick who that is so when they're processing whatever they're going through in life who who are they talking to who are they getting feedback from and and what are this person's values you know we're not even sure who the person is we don't surely we don't know what values they have you see what I'm saying I I I'm coming back to the same point the bonding is a prerequisite for the transmission of values because if you want your child to live according to your values if you want your child to care about what you care about to make decisions based on the priorities that you believe are the true and correct priorities in life as distinct from what I was describing earlier which is mere behavioral compliance which they'll do in front of you like I slow down when I see a cop and I speed right back up when I don't see a cap or that's why I use ways in New York even when I know where I'm going because it tells me when there's a speed tra right I know if there's a camera I don't want to speed in front of the camera if there's no camera I'm going to speed they have not successfully installed that value into me I guess I didn't feel that they cared about me so much so then I just didn't receive it so much they send me these $50 tickets constantly so it's hard to feel that they care about me I live in New York now can you believe that that that itself is so stressful living in New York but God bless you guys at least you're raising your children in a nice to place okay you got that going for you all right so I I I love the Midwest but you know I'm afraid to say too much of it because they're recording it and then it's going to go on YouTube and then the East Coast people are going to hear it be insulted no the east coast is wonderful it's lovely it's beautiful it's beautiful place okay that's where my great-grandparents landed when they came from Russia and then they left but I went back there so I'm New York's great New York is fantastic okay I love New York okay um what was I even talking about oh the camera tickets okay but what I'm saying is you follow what I'm saying the bonding isn't just because it's Pleasant the bonding isn't just because it feels good the bonding is how are you going to transmit your values to your child if you're not the go to a person how's that even going to happen yeah maybe you can until they get old enough to hide better or to to to leave the house that you could you could enforce some degree of Behavioral compliance at least while you're watching but to actually install values into this child that they should actually care they're only going to care about the things you care about when they know that you care about them that's just how it works that's how people work and there's no way to hack this this fact of human psychology that's the way Hashem made our brains there's no way around it there's an incredible I just want to read this to you I I wrote it down because I couldn't memorize the words yet but ra aita who's the son of RA Galia Z so he wrote a sa for and he wrote there such I I just I wrote it down because the words were so powerful he says what is parenting what is like the the main essential point is that the children should feel doesn't say they should know they should feel the great love that the parents have for them and that the children feel that the parents are ready to give up to sacrifice to foro everything for the sake of their children Oh no you're going to raise entitled children they're going to be brats they think the world revolves around them their parents are ready to sacrifice everything for them no no no no I I want to do authentic Jewish parenting I'm going to let my kid know I won't do anything for him right does that make sense to you okay so continues this is the key term here this what we describe that the children feel loved and not just love they feel loved to the point of mish where the parents are ready to give up everything because of their love for their child that's what a what is a parent what's a mother what's a father a mother a father so who's ready to give their own life so that their child could have just a little bit better life that's what we are don't resist that don't deny that and certainly not in the name of Yiddish kite when Yiddish kite is telling us the exact opposite so he says when the children are margish when they feel that love that that love to the extent of being ready to give up everything the parents are ready to give up everything then what happens it's very simple this connects them it connects the children to the parents to receive whatever the parents request notice he doesn't say order but request of them so it's very simple don't tell me well this isn't a popularity contest I don't need my kids to like me okay no you don't need that you're right and if you're talking about your self-esteem get it from somewhere else preferably if you're a God-fearing Jew your self-esteem should come from the fact that Hashem loves you and that you're a Nisha and that you are infinitely precious okay so no you don't need on a personal level you don't need your kids to like you obviously God forbid that's sick that's Twisted but from a practical point of view you have a Mitzvah you have to get your children to know how to live and to actually buy into it and actually care about what they're supposed to care about okay so how's that going to happen how's that going to happen that's going to happen when they know that you are ready to give up everything for their happiness that doesn't raise entitled children spoiled brats self-absorbed children that's not what happens most self-absorbed people I see are people who grew up emotionally insecure no when you raise a child to feel emotionally safe what happens is they're ready to receive now I'm going to say something that you probably go without saying but I'm going to say it anyway and that is that if you do all the emotional bonding and making your child feel safe and then you don't actually model values for them that's not going to work either you have to do both you have to do both but and listen I want to tell you something I was thinking the other day I was just actually I was speaking to a father and I was telling him if I would be Hashem I would be the most liberal Hashem because I would say I would I'm telling you what I would do is if a if a parent did one or the other I would give it to them like either they were really emotionally bonded with their kid okay but they forgot to model good values but I would say you know what let their kids turn out well you know or they did the opposite they modeled good values but they didn't have that connection I would also give it to them but in His Infinite Wisdom Hashem has determined the way it works is we got to do both so we have to live according to our values and I want to strongly encourage parents to uh meet together co-parents mother and a father should get together and discuss your values and especially if you belong to a religious community because I'll tell you why um very often we lean on that to save us froming doing any actual thinking and we're not really sure what our values are because we live in a community that sort of Demands certain standards and sometimes we could mistake that for actually having values it doesn't really mean that we have values values means uh what you care about so it's not just what you do it's why you do it it's not just what you do it's why you think what you're doing is important and a real value means something that you're even ready to give up your life for or maybe better stated something you're ready to live your life for that's very important parents should speak about that what are our values and don't just say well whatever it says in Torah like no what are your core values every family has their signature you know there Z the gar speaks about the idea of a z a Mitzvah that you you especially shine in so every family has that Mitzvah or Mitzvah that are their signatures so you really want to speak about that you want to talk about what are our values what do we care about whether it's um a or it's uh uh learning or it's uh compassion for others or uh working on yourself always improving or or humility or or Saka or having an open home these are kind conversations you want to have with your co-parent okay but again like I said there's two components there's the values there's what you're modeling in your home what you're living in your home and then there's the emotional connection and the emotional safety that actually causes the children who live in that home to absorb those values and to take those values on as their own so what does this look like practically speaking how do I know if I'm emotionally bonded to my child Le once said that I learned what AAS is from two drunks the bicha went into a ketma into an inn a Tavern to collect funds he was always involved in p and redeeming captives so he was often collecting money and in the course of collecting money he would sometimes go into unsavory places so he went into uh the kma and there are people drinking and doing whatever they do and he overheard two drunks two non-jewish drunks who were arguing with each other and um you know some drunks become mean fighting drunks other drunks become lovey drunks so apparently that's how one of these guys was he was a lovey drunk and he was saying to his friend most probably an Ukrainian but dit of is in Ukraine um I love you I love you and his friend who was also drunk says to him no no you don't love me and he doubled down he says no I love you I love you no you don't love me you don't love me I love you no you don't love me I love you no you don't love me back and forth back and forth until finally the second one says to the first one if you love me then why don't you know what hurts me so the B says from this from this moment I had a whole new understanding of a what does it mean to love your fellow as yourself mean a lot of things said if you love somebody why don't you know what hurts them so I'll ask you this question you know we all have things that keep us up at night we all uh I call it the museum the mental Museum that we visit that we are curators of it's not a feel-good museum by the way it's very depressing which it's it's designed to be depressing um so yeah we are the curators and the and the only visitor and we run the gift shop and charge $5 for a Coke just to rub it in to add insult the injury but yeah we have this Museum in our minds where we go where you know when we're worrying maybe even worrying about our children or other things that we worry about health and money and who knows what we worry about so you know what keeps you up at night simple question I want to ask you do you know what keeps each of your children up at night when your child is up and she can't sleep what what's what's bothering her maybe when they're really little you'll say oh I know she thinks there's a monster in her closet we checked that out there's no there's no monster in the closet okay so with a three- year-old you know what she's worried about at night and by the way the monster in the closet is not really the monster in the closet there's something behind that as well but even that is an okay answer cuz at least she still tell she still tells you what she's worried about that that that that itself is Anu she told you some three-year-olds don't tell their parents that they think there's a monster in the closet because they can't trust their parents maybe their parent is the monster in the closet yeah that that happens thank God it's not common it's common enough does happen but say in a normal situation where the three-year-old tells Mommy and Daddy I'm worried about the monster in my closet okay that's when she was three what about when she's five she's seven she's nine she's 11 what about she's 21 she's still your baby your job didn't end so what keeps her up at night now here's what I'm not saying I'm not saying that you should leave the lecture tonight and get on your phone and start calling your kids and say what keeps you up at night I don't mean that that'd be very very awkward very clumsy very heavy-handed what I'm saying is that if you love somebody then then automatically you know what hurts them it's not an interrogation it's not the KGB you're not trying to put together file on this person it is the direct automatic natural outcome of sharing a life together but a lot of times we we we share a life together in proximity we're all living Under One Roof that doesn't really mean that we're sharing a life on an emotional level I heard a comedian say how do you call a family meeting in 20 20 23 you unplug the router and you wait and then you're going to have a family meeting one by one every hey what happened um when we're bonded then we know what's going on in each other's lives so this is not a questionnaire to ask your child um who's your best friend uh what are you excited about right now in school um what are you nervous about in school um what do you think about uh when you imagine your plans for the summer it's not a questionnaire these are just natural things for you sort of self evaluation to ask yourself how much of these things do I know about and as a father I just I want to say that sometimes the expectations and I hope I'm not making excuses for myself but sometimes the expectations for fathers and mothers should be different like there's a mother setting of this and then there's like a father setting which is a different uh level of difficulty like you ask the mothers in this room like what's the name of your your daughter's teacher this year they all know okay you ask the father what's what's your daughter's teacher's name this year there's more of something she's very good I know she's good our other daughter had her she was good okay I my wife knows okay you want to anyone else have the the the shameful experience when you go to the drugstore and they ask you for the birth dates oh my goodness have to and I always you know what do you use the same excuse that I use I said well we're Jewish I know the Hebrew dates I know the Hebrew dates okay not negligent I know the Hebrew dates I got to look up just give me a second I got to got to look up the BR what's what's K's birthday okay all right May 5th I knew that it was May 5th okay but at any rate so there may be different levels that are expected for fathers and mothers and I don't think that's sexist or maybe it is sexist to say it but I think it's okay I think that's okay I'm not implying that mothers and fathers have to have the exact same type of relationship that's why Hashem made it that there's a mother and a father so they're different types of relationships but the the main thing is that our children know that we care about their lives and that when they want to process things what is childhood all about what do you do in childhood childhood is a series of first time experiences that's what childhood is childhood is one big trial and error where you do tons of things for the first time ever and then try to make sense of what just happened so how do you make sense of what happened preferably in an ideal situation by speaking to a trusted reliable adult who will then use each of those experiences that you just went through as a learning experience to reinforce values so that's the question it's not about go find out all of these pieces of information about your child this this is this is an indication for yourself this is just for self- evaluation how can I make sure that I'm available enough how do I make sure that I'm actually my child's go-to person so if you're just you want a a quick way of of of checking checking in on yourself so ask yourself these questions okay but the I'll give you another way that you could evaluate yourself um you know children can pick the worst possible times for initiating conversations and sometimes I think they do it strategically to avoid something right wait hold on I wanted to ask you about something all of a sudden you're asking because it's bedtime or because we need to get in the car right now now you want to have a d m c right deep meaningful conversation but here's what I want to ask you oh boy this is this is tough to say this I know a guy very wealthy very successful guy everybody wants to be this guy this guy hates his life literally hates his life because he has a 19-year-old son who lives in his house and they haven't spoken in a year okay and he said to me I would take all the money in my bank account right now when he said a number it was a big number and I know it was a real number and I would give it to anyone who could get my son to have a conversation with me I would pay anything and he wasn't saying I pay anything in the theoretical sense this is a guy who he said a number it was a big number seven figures I would give that money right now why are that money wherever you want me to wire it he says to me how come I didn't know how much I would pay for those conversations all of the times he came to me and I told him I'm busy I have something else to do if I would have known I was ready to pay millions of dollars for that conversation I would have never let it go I'm not trying to scare anyone or guilt anyone but I I I am asking you to just think about the fact that even in the best case scenario where a child remains bonded with parents they do grow up and they doem this is healthy they get their own lives and we do even in the best case scenario we miss those opportunities we look back and we like wistfully sentimentally at those times or even more so at the the Lost opportunities where we didn't take advantage of those of those times for for conversing with our children so what I'm asking you is this if your child wants to talk are you ready to show them like ra says that we're ready to be MAF that were literally ready to sacrifice and give up everything else for them for our children who else is more important who else do you have to talk to right now what possibly is more important is it another person is it is is it a job is it money is it a hobby is it or even dare I say toyra because what value is our toyra if we can't transmit it to our children and how can we transmit it to them if they don't come to us and this I will say is different in this generation I I think I hope I made my case that love and warmth and bonding is not a new thing it's not a modern thing it's basic yish kite but I'll tell you something that is new that's a curious new development of this unusual time that we live in right before mssiah comes and that is that today our children have many options the world is very open whether that's because there's less anti-Semitism on in on an unprecedented level whatever we think about anti-Semitism anti-Semitism today it's nothing what our compared to what our great-grandparents experienced were were they were stuck they couldn't leave the community there was nowhere to go okay or or because of Technology technology has opened up worlds and I want to tell you the scariest thing that technology has opened up it's not I'm sorry to say this I I I I hope nobody will be offended the scariest thing to me that technology opened up is not that children will see things that are inappropriate and not modest because we were exposed to that as well now obviously the volume and the accessibility is is very different but what's unprecedent that I don't think existed when we were kids and exists today when our kids are kids is the access they have to support systems or the illusion of a support system Community people who they think care about them and have their best interests at heart that today is a new development so if a child doesn't feel that their emotional safety and their strongest bond and therefore their identity identity this is all about identity who is my tribe my tribe is whoever I feel has my back and that makes me who I am that's my identity so when a child doesn't feel that safety in the community in their home in their relationship with a parent then they don't have that identity and they go looking for their tribe and for their identity and there's an insane amount of just endless endless endless places where children even today adults adults being radicalized online just because of what because the ideas were so compelling no one thing which is the most basic human need they wanted a place to belong they want who are my people who's got me who cares about me now we can't control the whole Community you can send your kid to a good school which is a loving school so that helps we can't control the whole Community we can't make sure that our child will feel ideally we want them to feel but we can't control they're going to feel that growing up in the Jewish Community that's my tribe those people have my back those people care about me they're not using me to the contrary they're they're there to support me that's the ideal but if we can't control that and we really can't control it what we can control is that under our roof the feeling of warmth and love and acceptance has to be so undeniable that no matter what will happen our children will be immune to that lure of false acceptance that they will find out there because when they'll compare it to what they've had their whole lives they find anything else to be Hollow why would I want a stranger's love when I have the love of my parents the people who know everything about me and that's part of it the people who know everything about me and still accept me now you're going to say I'm a religious Jew how can I do that I do have standards what do you want me to do ultimately there is there is a limit to where my child's behaviors will just make it impossible for me to accept them so I want to talk about that for a second let's talk about this and my answer to this is not to ignore to but to look in toy and see what toy says because I think a lot of things we say in the name of religion are not what ti is really saying and a lot of parent child relationships were unnecessarily destroyed in the name of something that God never said he wanted there's a m that speaks uh about Hashem had two things before creation before the world in fact that's the first first rashan Kish the bous is BAS Rous B that the world was created for two things that pre-existed the world what two things pre-existed the world and very good okay so I the which is a from says I know that teachings from were transmitted to I know that came before the world they both came before the world but which came before which interesting question first of all which came before which the world wasn't created yet there was no time so what does that mean which came before which so we're not talking about kadus we're talking aboutus which comes before which doesn't mean chronologically there was no chronology which came before which means which one serves which which one exists for the sake of which it's a good question right and what I'm saying is not just a philosophical question about things that were going on before the world was created it's it's a question for right now which one is which which one defines which am I Jewish because I do Mitzvah or do I do Mitzvah because I'm Jewish is my child Jewish because they do Mitzvah or does my child do Mitzvah because he or she is Jewish it's a big difference if they'll stop doing Mitzvah do they stop being Jewish so the tono says or or why why say such in such black and white terms if they do less Mitzvah did they become a little less Jewish and therefore I have a little less love for them and therefore it becomes harder to show that love and that bonding because when they're tadim and they behave well okay then it's a a virtuous circle they're giving me Nas I'm able to be happy with them they feel safe and bonded then they do more of the values that I'm teaching them yay that's great and if that's the situation it should only continue but what if you hit a rough patch that's what I'm asking so I know T and came before the world they both came before the world which comes before which so the tono says a mhall parable about a king who do you think the king is Hashem of course and the King had children and he wanted to teach his children Pleasant ways he wanted to teach him the right way to live so he hired a mamid a teacher to teach his children says the ton Deo did the father have children because he needed a job for this mamad or did he get a mamad because he had children he needed to teach the mamad is the TOA the children are the Jews the TOA came along for the sake of the Jews and hence we see that to speaks about the Jews who already exist is speak to the children of Israel is command the children of Israel the TT references the Jews because the Jews already exist and maybe you think this is uh well this degree of Tolerance this is a bridge too far a person who really cares about TAA won't speak this way I don't know anyone who cared more about TAA than meenu to the extent that TAA is called tasa and Main who told that if you don't forgive my people take me out of your book understood what is and he understood that if you really care about TAA if you really have AAS you have to have so here's the thing thing there's such a thing as speaks about the fact that when you do what I tell you to do I enjoy it even if it's something like it smells Pleasant to meash said could it really be pleasant burning Skins are so pleasant yeah that the pleasantness is I told you what to do you did what I told you to do okay so there's such a thing as I told my kid what to do he did did it feels good that's a real thing s how Hashem feels about us both how hasem feels about us as well as how we feel about our children it's a real thing but then there's a deeper concept as well Hashem says about the Jewish people your nation are entirely righteous the branch of my planting the work of my hands to take pride to take pride in Hashem says I am proud of the Jewish people all of them I'm all of them proud of them how can you proud of all them they're all giving you you don't understand it's two two types of have NAS from you you did what I told you to do sometimes you do what I told you to do sometimes you don't so that Nas fluctuates that Nas is conditional Nas and it's based on what you do and sometimes you do what you're supposed to do sometimes you don't but then there's another type of Nas which is unconditional it's essential essential is the proper word for it and therefore it does not waver it doesn't change and that's not based on what you do for Hashem that's based on what Hashem did in making you so so hasem says sometimes they get that sometimes they don't hopefully we'll give it to him more often than not the goal is to give it to him all the time obviously you learned it tells you you're supposed to have the level of at least your goal is the level is supposed to do to to only do Mitzvah to never do AAS of course 100% that's the goal but then there's something else says I'm proud of the Jewish people cuzz I made them my pride is not in what they've done my pride is in what I've accomplished in making my people my children so we have to understand yes there is such a thing as my child's behaviors terrified me disappointed me made me sick yeah it exists there is such a thing we're not denying it and conversely my child's behaviors were heartwarming were were were I admired what they did I respected what they did I told the whole sh what my kid did I got a bumper sticker on the back of my car what my kid okay that's a real thing but then there's the unconditional pride and no it's not just unconditional love 10 years ago you'd say unconditional love and everyone would say hold on a second you're pushing it now that basically everyone understands unconditional love I'm saying I'm pushing the envelope and really it's the concept is is is 200 years old unconditional Pride that even when you're not proud of your child's actions stop a second contemplate the fact this is a Nish do you know what a Nish is can you even fathom what a is no you can't me neither and that's precisely what is so awesome about it this isn't just some little kid some little person running around in your house and you get to boss them around this is some Eternal Transcendent being from another realm who has come to visit the physical world and you were given the precious duty of being the steward to facilitate that beings transition into embodiment and to give it firm footing to get used to what it's like to be an embodied Soul down here in the physical world because it's not an easy transition but Hashem picked you Hashem knew that you had what it takes to be the welcoming committee to be the the Walmart greeter to say come on in come to this world I'll help you I'll help you get acclimated I'm going to take care of you I'm going to provide you you're my baby I'm going to take care of you I'm going to give you everything you need I'm going to give you what to eat I'm give I give you a place to sleep and give you a warm warm clothing I'll give you a blanket I'm I'm going to hold you I'm going to rock you and I'm going to make you feel safe and as you grow and your needs become more complicated and more sophisticated and it's not enough anymore just to hold you and rock you although please don't stop holding and rocking your children I just married off my my first child my oldest child my my my first child my daughter and I want to tell you something I I've said it before you know in theory now I can tell you in practice but even when you marry them off they don't stop being your baby and baby means you hold them you hold them okay but they have they have you hold them they have to feel your Embrace especially fathers I'm telling you especially fathers of sons when your B comes home from Yeshiva I'm begging you to hug him I'm begging you because I told you there's a big world out there and if he doesn't have that soothing safe warmth in your arms you think he's a robot he's a machine and even if he doesn't go out seeking it in the wrong places it creates dysfunction in an organism not to have those basic needs met it's not healthy just like you're paying all that tuition that he should learn all day okay so part of that is hug him when he comes home that that doesn't even cost money so we're here to love our children to nurture them to give them warmth this isn't modern secular psychology this is basic Yiddish kite this is basic Yiddish kite you care about the Toyota being transmitted to another generation this is how it works epistemic trust we have to win their trust and Trust means I'm emotionally safe and they're going to test those boundaries they're going to see if they can cause us to lose respect for them and we have to have these things very clear in our minds there's my reaction to the behavior I don't have to cosign every Behavior I I have values for myself I don't co-sign all my behaviors even though I did it so ostensibly I thought I was doing the right thing but even at maturity is the ability to be uphold with your own behaviors so I can be uphold by my own behaviors but that doesn't change my child's essential identity and what is their essential identity I'm sorry to invoke the spiritual I'm sorry to invoke the metaphysical you have to see them as a Nish you have to see them as this otherworldly precious being with infinite worth and unconditional worth and inherent worth infinite worth that means there's no limit to how worthy your child is how what price can you put on the value of a life a soul infinite worth unconditional unconditional worth they can't lose their worth even when their behaviors are not behaviors that we have nakas from their worth their identity is unconditional it cannot change and they have to know that if they know nothing else about yishai they have to know who they are and that they cannot diminish their worth in fact not only they can't diminish their worth they can't add to it either if you do the right thing when you do what your father told you to do you don't become more of your father's child your behaviors become more of a reflection of who you are but you don't become more of who you already are it's like when we go out on the street corners especially when I was a bucka in 770 we used to I had a spot in Manhattan and people would excuse me sir are you Jewish and try to put on filling with people on the street corner and they would say oh you're trying to make me Jewish I I would say you just told me you are Jewish am I going to make you something that you already are you don't you don't understand I'm not offering you the Mitzvah to make you something that you you're not I'm offering you the Mitzvah as an opportunity that what you do should be aligned with who you already are so that's what it means it's unconditional and and intrinsic intrinsic worth intrinsic worth means for goodness sake our children should not Fe feel that their value comes from outside of themselves there are children who live their lives feeling like they're on probation feeling like they do not have a spot in their home or by extension within the Jewish people and they're constantly trying to earn that spot no you have inherent intrinsic value you are a Nish your value comes from within it is inherent it is intrinsic you don't have to go out anywhere to acquire it all you have to do is be and yes with proper with proper education transmitting the values teaching our children how to live then what will we accomplish we'll accomplish that who they are and will always be actually comes out in what they do but they aren't who they are because of what they do they do what they do because of who they are I'll say it again they aren't who they are because of what they do they do what they do because of who they are I'm not Jewish because I do Mitzvah I do mitz because because I'm Jewish because doing Mitzvah is the most faithful natural organic expression of my of my deepest identity it's who I am and when I'm aligned with who I am and I know who I am and my identity is solid and my place and my family is solid my place and CLA is are all solid that it's just the most natural thing that Mitzvah will just come out I'll just exude Godly behaviors in alignment in alignment with my Godly Essence tell you one more thought says in the laws of K in uh y 240 there's a lot of laws there obviously as you would expect laws of honoring your parents a lot of laws for children what they have to do for parents but there are some laws also for parents what they have to do for children so what what what does tell us what does the tell us and uh this is this is also based on the ra which is in turn is based on the in K tells us very strong words a means prohibited it's not a suggestion means his oil his Yol could put a Yol on an animal means to make it CED to make it too heavy it is forbidden for a person meaning a parent to make the Yoke heavy Al bonov on his children this is this is a like like meat and milk like not driving on chabas this is this is it is forbidden to make an excessively heavy burden on your children well what does that mean a heavy burden to be OV exacting regarding the co that they the honor that they owe you see I've seen so many tragic victims of well- intending parents who invoked that kib card thinking they were doing the right thing and they read what it said on the tablets they didn't read what has in the uh the asterisk the what do you call terms and conditions or Yen we have a so you have to if you don't consult and you just go straight to the Bible you might uh make some mistakes here which is maybe why by the way way Jews as I began saying when we started that Jews have traditionally had such uniquely warm relationships with their children more than the other cultures around us because they don't they don't have the sh to teach them this so the sh says do not overly require that that c which is a Mitzvah after all the child has a Mitzvah to give you that c but it's a very interesting Mitzvah the degree to which they are depends on subjectively how you will require it from them that you should not bring them to a a a stumbling block in other words it's it's a funny Mitzvah if you require something from your child you tell them that is Kim Hashem has to back you up and now your child will be doing an AA if they don't do what you asked them to do even if it's a crazy thing we have the stories of D that of M explains that that that D's parents were not were not well they were emotionally ill and the reason that kazal used those stories is to bring out that point so unfortunately if a parent does say this is a matter of Kim it becomes one but if you're smart and you're God-fearing and you're sensitive then you realize hold on a second is giving giving me very good advice here do not make this a matter of kib aim and actually to bring them to a m means it becomes your fault becomes your fault and he concludes and he says that a father who foros the honor due to him the honor that's due to him is effectively released very interesting so there's a from the Ben not from the saer B from the saera from uh he he he writes over there he says how does chva work he says cha shouldn't work because it's very simple Hashem gave us a bunch of laws told us what to do what part of Thou shalt not did you not understand right so now you want to do chva oh I'm sorry should have been sorry before you did it not after you did it what can I do these are my laws I it's not like I surprised you I told you the laws so the aala asks really seemingly cha shouldn't work and in fact he says the G in says that that a a king who says it's okay read the it's okay you you could you could commit high treason I forgive you doesn't work because there's a certain uh there's a certain station that the melik represents he doesn't have that prerogative even if he wants to so this is the question of the dalala how Chua could even work so what does he answer he says it's good for us that AEM is not only a Mel he's also a father and in fact first and foremost he's ainu Malo yeah he's a king but he's our father our King and so the entire concept of CHA the ability that we have as nishas that even when we stray from our father we can come back home is only because he's not only a king he's arti because that's what a tati is the ultimate archetype of a father Hashem himself is one who sets aside his honor to let his children come back even when they mess up especially when they mess up and he doesn't stand on ceremony and that's what a a father and a mother are in in the human realm how much more so if that's what Hashem is Hashem can forgo his honor what do you think a father or a mother is your child only has one father and one mother you are the place you are the place when they come back home and I stress the word back when they've strayed as we all do at some point to some degree some more some less some in scarier ways some in more benign ways when they come back home you are home you are their identity you are how they know know what it means to be who they are so your relationship with them is not just any old relationship it's not just two people getting along it's not just two people getting along you are their path and their their their portal to connecting to themselves and to their Nish and to Hashem himself so tell me that you can afford that you can afford to play around with that relationship and and in the name of propriety in the name of things you think you've heard you're going to be standoffish you're going to be cold you're going to be distant we can't afford that and if you really understood who your child was a and you really understood what that means and I don't think from one speech we get it I think it's a it's a meditation we have to do every single day every single night think about each of your children think about them as nishas think about your child when he or she was a baby the first time you laid eyes on them you remember and they were perfect but what was perfect they didn't do anything yet why don't you tell them listen baby you're cute but most babies are cute why don't you grow up learn how to talk we'll go out for coffee and we'll see if we it off why don't we say that to our babies why do we look at our babies and automatically accept them as perfect and I think the reason is the same reason when people pass away all of a sudden they all become sikim after they die you only say holy things about them because when people first arrived to this worldly plane or when they've just left the worldly plane we remember that they're nishas at least on an unconscious level after a while we get used to seeing you in a body and we start mistaking you for your body and then we start judging you and valuing you based on accidents of the body things like if you're goodlook or if you're smart or if you're neurotypical typical or if you have an easier temperament or more difficult temperament all these things are accidents of the body meaning to say it's not the child's Essence it's not the child's Essence the essence is the Nish which this time around has come into this body with this color hair and these color eyes and this type of brain wiring and and and this type of uh learning Challenge and this type of emotional challenge but the essence of the child is the Nish which is unchanging when you saw your baby in the crib you did not put conditions on your love and your acceptance of that child and I'm saying to you I believe that there's something deeper than just babies being cute I believe it's because we are tuned in at that moment to the fact that a soul has just come to this world and souls come on how could you reject a soul so think about your child 10 years later 20 years later 30 years later they never sto being that soul and they never stop being worthy of our respect and our awe and our love and our completely non-judgmental acceptance and none of that is best none of that contradicts our holy obligation to teach them to and teach them how to live none of it isn't contradiction to that to the contrary it's not a contradiction that's what makes it possible that's what makes the whole thing possible you want them to know how to live you want them to believe you're the address to come to to learn how to live so just see them as a soul you don't have to tell them these words some people choose to speak this way I don't know if that's not the way you normally talk I think maybe you'll scare your kids it'll be kind of awkward if you're not like a spiritual person who speaks that way but I'm saying in your own private meditation think about the task that Hashem has given you the holy obligation that Hashem has given you to take care of these Souls and how awesome literally awesome it should fill us with awe to even attempt to wrap our minds around which ultimately we cannot what kind of a being has come to spend its formative years under our roof and then you do your meditation you'll see them as they really are you'll feel that love you'll feel that awe it'll be natural to want to connect to them it'll be natural to want to be there for them it'll be natural to take interest in their lives it'll be natural to support them when they messed up and to help them work it through these things will be natural and then you know what else becomes natural that if you're modeling the right way to live and again if you're modeling the right way to live it'll be natural Pleasant sweet for them to live the way that we know is the right way to live Hashem gave us a big job but he knows what he's doing he knows who he chose and we can do it we have to do it we're going to do it I want to wish everyone here a tremendous Clarity in your parenting that you should see your children as they really are and they should see themselves as they are and then be empowered to live in alignment with that and then the world will see your children as they really are okay thank you and good night [Applause]