Panel Discussion

to lead into the topic that we'll we'll talk together for a few minutes before we really the real topic is to say goodbye and to thank everybody for really just a beautiful beautiful shabbos the word connection would be a word i would use the word authentic connection sincere would be words that would be associated with such a shabbos i want to tell you about my favorite part of akhasana that i appreciate and it's a very quiet part of weddings that i want to share with you as a lead-in to the topic that we'll talk to say goodbye the at the casana there's something called today many people are just busy writing the tenorium and busy with that the real purpose of hussein's dish is to sing smiris and devetory historically is about to be built and to just go into it suddenly is is highly inappropriate and the purpose of the customs dish is historically you could look up people darshan and yana year of shamayim they spoke that in a year of shamayim they sang songs of in years shamayim you're about to build a bias big zak and you want all the thoughts to be helga thoughts saif myself and that was the point of i very much i'm trying in yeshiva by fastness to restore hassan's tish to what it was so i asked the guys to come early we sings meerus i try to share divreitaron and yanni or shamayim but at least this mirrors that that's that's that's good also this mirror is to sing songs that bring us to new year's eve at that costumes tissue we make a kenyan with the hussein and this is my favorite part of the wedding this is the beginning the hassan is macabre kenyan and he obligates himself he in front of adam he obligates to take care of his mushbacher but he obligates himself he makes a kenyan the rest of his life if you ask a guy if you ask a person he asked her you're the shaman why are you good to your wife three in the morning while you're running to get medicine if she needs it a guy answers because i love her it's the wrong answer that's what a guy says because i love her and the yid says because i made a kenyan now we sound pathetic we sound pathetic you sound like you're clueless that's really very romantic it sounds crazy i want to explain why it's gorgeous and to explain it and that i won the lead into the topic that we'll close with so we sound pathetic why is the guy going three in the morning dear because i made a kenyan and it's not pathetic at all allow me to explain allow me by a i love you means like it's raining outside they have no say it's raining it's a fact it's raining outside by a guy i love you means you make me feel good that's what it means that's the perish and it's true what they're saying i do love you make me feel good brahmana slum by the way then all of a sudden the neighbor please i don't want to say and by the guy he faces that i don't love you anymore you don't make me feel good anymore and they grapple the gallium are wolf falling out of love it's this probably nothing in the western world that more confounds the westerner all their music is failed love she walked out he walked out trial lalala i basically summed up you could do it in rap if you want to rap for him and i came out summed up all guyish music and the pirish is because i love you you have no say it's raining outside and just i don't get this thing and now it's not raining and by yid we're creators of love and by a yid we don't observe love i love you by your yid means that no matter how you make me feel i'm committed to that's what i love you means if i was a guy somebody said i love you i'd run away yeah now you love by your yid i love you means no matter how you make me feel i'm committed to you that's what it means the perish of i love you it's not a joke at all when a guy gets up three in the morning it's because i'm committed to you and i cr we create love together we create good feelings because i'm committed i want a school to say i love you to a child it's the word love is that everybody says love love they don't know what the word love means i want a school to say i love you to a child doesn't mean you make us feel good you make us look good i love you i love you means i'm committed no matter how you make me feel i'm committed to you that's what i love you means so i like that kenyan the whole marriage is built on that canyon he was mccabell kenyon it's fascinating that such a powerful part of the wedding the guests don't know about the cow is not even there it's not even in front of her the guy makes a kenyan a commitment he commits and at that moment he makes a kenyan he's macabre kenyan i have a private thing i'll give excuses why i'm not being massager if i don't believe a huston is capable of emotionally supporting a wife i won't be miss other i'll give an excuse i'm busy this that i won't be massaged i don't i'm not i don't want to officiate over a lie and a man commits to physically and emotionally support it's a commitment and it says in the subaru yaki or i'm going to value give cover to somebody is the emotional support to somebody and that's the soggy that i want to talk as a goodbye is the sugiya of learning to emotionally support somebody learning to emotionally support we could physically support you noticed here a lot of the sessions we were sitting right in the middle and this one was sitting right facing the men the men have a tougher time than the woman on this to stay emotionally involved in the journey of our children is murder i could tell you for me that i've been called out by bhakram by my children of trying to make them happy and cheering them up but not being there when they're crying not staying in that moment to emotionally support is difficult it means we have to know we have to be able to ourselves be in the moment feel and learn how to feel learn how to process feelings and then to be there for our children this is not newfangled stuff this is not i don't psychology is not needed just learn just torah shayrach that there's an absolute obligation to of physically and emotionally support is an obligation with our children we send our children off to schools wonderful place schools of people are trying and doing and again we can have our frustrations and it's not the point to make any referendum on schools what i wanna what i wanna say to everybody here is we can't give over we need to emotionally support our children they have one father one mother a tata and a mama tati and mommy have to emotionally support we cannot rely on schools the word nurture and to emotionally support it's an agenda all three of us have scott freeman somebody who's a man on a mission and feels that we have to add more nurture in schools and he's he's on fire with this mission on fire and all three of us rabin shushan this is something if we describe the mishra ben as somebody who has a school in cleveland we're all involved in schools and all of us this point of of schools being more emotionally supportive we all believe but that's not what the discussion i want i because that's that's that's a discussion for principals and and schools have to look at themselves and learn how we can better nurture but a school will never we'll never replace appearance made schools a ready has to try and that we could talk about our schools being nurturing enough and that could be a whole discussion that we have to ask but as parents that the job of nurturing our children and leaning in emotionally and being there and really trying hard to lean in to their story and to what's going on the word nurture the word nurture and emotionally supporting is something we have to do as parents and certainly we're sending to schools and and that's something we all do from young ages but certainly not relying on that and giving our own nurture to our children is something extremely important to so you now i want to talk about one component of nurturing a kid one i want to talk about one aspect in this surgery of nurturing it's very relevant in schools and again i'm i'm more talking to parents and want to want to focus there i wanna talk and then i'll pass the i'll pass the wall i'm hogging a little right now but um i wanna talk about the topic codependence for a very specific reason to us in this room so i want to talk the subject of co-dependence we could speak about for the next year it's a long long segue i want to say one aspect of co-dependence for a specific reason about us parents i don't some people know mo i assume most people here know what code depends if you don't that's fine too but to give you a bit a little picture of like codependence a classic the classic and the easiest picture of co-dependence a group of kids are in the 7-eleven the local 7-eleven i guess that's something i don't know why i'm so fixated on 7-eleven but let's let's make that the place where it's the irony is i come from a city where the only there's not after eight o'clock there's no restaurants and like the geshema my daughter asked me and that's what i i'm hanging out in my 7-eleven so i'm like there's no it's me and my daughter we have nothing bad has gone down in 7-eleven in waterbury but um it's the only thing open after eight and at night she wants a slurpee so we go a 7-eleven together and we've gotten a slurpee so i don't know why i'm so fixated with 7-eleven i guess that's because the only thing open is slurpee what we got it's lovely you know you'll know i started it me and my daughter the bottom line is is that their kids let's say their kids hanging out they're struggling they're two types of people who come in to help the kid and the kids know it themselves there's the type of older person who doesn't have a good marriage doesn't have good friendships he's in trouble himself maybe even an addict and he's giving to youngsters it's very powerful to take care of youngsters and it feels good and he uses that giving and the kids needing him for rides and all different things to feel good very very dangerous that's called a co-dependent relationship even when he gives a hug to the youngsters he wants a hug and needs the hug and when you use a relationship to a youngster to get what you're not supposed to get that's codependence many of bakar has shown me relationships that they've had bachelors struggling which i would define as codependent relationships and they end up a lot of emotional hurt that long text after all i do for you you never thank me bad nonsense and things that are extremely unhealthy and can be damaging and again not to protect and not to bring another suggest now we have a new thing to worry about no no not at all emotionally support our children and will be their support and then they'll be capable of dealing with all different relationships that's not what i want to bring out but a codependent relationship is when the giver tries to get something from the relationship that he's not supposed to that's no shy because now it's normal every single person who's in general could get insulted by a kid i would not hire a rebbe who doesn't get insulted by the guys because if you don't get insulted it means you're a professor who's arrogant who doesn't want a connection so it doesn't bother what they say that's i want to read you gets insulted and then doesn't need the guys to apologize you know why he has a good marriage he has his own hobbies and outlets he's a healthy human being and as the ability not to be a codependent to give and to give unconditionally and then yes sometimes all of us and the reason why i bring up codependence because i want to say that us parents could be codependents also and when i talk about emotionally supporting and it's been a big theme that shabbis is emotionally caring for ourselves we have to have the ability that our kids don't have to apologize to us not because we're so lenient so it sounds like you come here as like the liberal shabbos i want to explain what what's going on here we spoke about their parents beautiful like really big people there's a family here the pollux they're i look up i'm a talmud of them they're big people big big people the suga is not people have a challenge with child rearing and then we like give up our morals and i used to hold up all of you so i let hull of stem i used to not have a television i let him have a television that if you think that's the sagya then i don't know where you were the shabbos the is people becoming big godly expanding more understanding big big people golem the word godless rashi says is midas is to be expansive to see past ourselves that's the soggy the song is a person becoming a gundle and dergadilum here big people who've expanded remarkable ways of catalyst of seeing another perspective the the need of somebody else just getting expansive that's the subject when we talk about here not asking your kids to i need i'm angry at me where you we all get angry at our children really angry and it's the unspoken part when our kid's struggling as i'm mad at him what he's done to the house i had a beautiful house and he's brought us to our knees i am mad at him and then somebody comes says you're not letting he he doesn't have to apologize so everything's everything like favors the kid it's uh no it's all about us by the way sometimes the best eight says the father sometimes you walk the father has to play more tennis the mother has to draw more maybe play more tennis herself each person each person has to know how to emotionally care for themselves that's not a cooler i never like sometimes in general you have the martyr the rebbe is like such a martyr any rebbe by me laughs when i spoke with scott and i were talking anybody says i'm the kanye royal mabuh i just left i always think about that line when i'm in the middle of like a really intense volleyball tournament and i'm like grinding out with like 14 up and the line goes i'm the county royal in my book and then i finished the tournament we like my point is that it's not martyrdom i don't want somebody who's a martyr at all at all at all i want somebody who takes good care of himself and is a happy person living life beautifully a beautiful life and sharing it with somebody else you're allowed to enjoy i love having this house of teaching tyra to youngsters of encouraging somebody of creating relationship and friendship it's delightful it's wonderful you're not allowed to take from it what it's not supposed to provide is not good for you it's not good for you we can't fill a hole that we may have had from a difficult relationship to mama or a difficult relationship to tata where difficult relationship all different difficult relationships and ask this to fill that that's dangerous you're asking something to be what it's not supposed to be and this of not wanting our kids to apologize we get insulted by our kids speak it out if you don't get insulted by your kid then i don't know that that would be silly you're not you're not invested you're not emotionally attached of course you're going to get insulted but then the ability ourselves not to be codependents so make sure we have our own relationships worked out our own inners worked out and then we don't take from a beautiful relationship of giving that's powerful and precious and special and deep but we don't we're not trying to get what's not supposed to be gotten that's the healthy powerful healthy relationship that we're zaika incapable of when we can when we can give in this way we can get in this powerful healthy way of yes being insulted all the time of course you would be and then yes being able to heal and that going on that walk and healing we're a powerful giver for our children what the ones who get the most of course the person is a giver that's the that's the powerful healthy giver that we're that we're visualizing so that's that was a lot of the takeaway to me of this precious shabbos that we recited to is the person himself leaning into their own emotional needs their own silky their own journey in healthy powerful ways all of us many parents ask what can i do for my son play more tennis that's the answer in a very real way a mother what can i do that's a very very real thing take care of our own needs in order that we can then lean in powerfully to our kids needs nice i want to i just want to add to her but kayla said a few thoughts come to mind so one of them is actually a story about myself when i was a teenager i was a very difficult teenager you could ask my parents and i'm a difficult adult also and when i was a teenager i remember i got very upset at i think it was my father probably both my parents at the time and i think i cursed my father out and i later felt bad about it and i went to apologize to him i've only told the story a few times my father probably doesn't even remember the story and i want to apologize that my father said something amazing to me which at the time i don't know that i understood even the how profound it was you know sometimes someone speaks i'm listening to her kayla speak and he's bringing me back to work i did 20 years ago in my own life you know and sometimes you take things for granted and you don't even appreciate the depth of what's being said and i was i cursed them out and i later went back and i apologized that my father said to me you don't have to apologize to me i know you were just upset and when rabbi kayla said that it uh you know it brought me back to that experience and i could tell you that you know i always say i i try to be a good father i try to be a good rebbe you know i but i always say you know some things that come easier for me than others it's simply because i was given it you know i had someone who showed me how to do that you know there are other things i'm not good at and people didn't give that to me some people inherit money other people inherit other things so you know it's easy for me to sit here and say you know to do such a thing when someone did that for me i have that ability but i do want to add something uh so i'm a big clustered of someone named dr bencion soratskin i consider him my rebbe and my mentor really and he has a book that everybody should buy on amazon in my opinion um i forget what it's called but just look up uh doctor he has a website it's free you don't need to buy the book it's all free actually and he says something amazing and i really have uh integrated into my life i probably relate to it because my father you know really lived this mantra and he always said that nachos is a very dirty word nachos is a very very dirty word you know we we hear people say all the time you should have knocked us from your children so i'll tell you i always say at my simples for my own children i always say that my wife and i should give nachos to my children you know that it's our responsibility to give nachas not our responsibility to get us you know we don't have children in order that they should give us we have children that we should give them the way that we act the way that we behave the way that we treat them dr stratzkin has a very beautiful um story he tells that a father came over to him he said you know how do i treat teach my children tamidos so he said well what do you mean by me though so give me tell me exactly what you're really asking so he said well my kids don't say please and thank you ever to me so he said well can i just ask you a very frank question do you say please and thank you to your own children and he was like no i don't think so he was like well then they're not going to say it to you you know i really do believe that children reflect back that which they receive i learned something very profound this shabbos you know it's funny sounds cliche but i thought i came here to give and i came here and i really took away something very profound um i learned two things one thing that i knew but now i know in a much deeper way you know i was never someone that was really attuned to neglect because i was not someone who was ever neglected i was you know always um well liked i had a lot of friends you know i was an athlete i got a lot of attention growing up so maybe i didn't relate or understand how deeply painful it is to be neglected i also didn't realize how neglect doesn't have to mean neglect neglect can simply mean not getting as much attention as your sibling i didn't know that to be honest i thought okay so this one gets a little more attention that one gets a little less and i will say in ishibas you find this a lot you know you find guys who get very angry at the yeshiva rightfully so because they feel they're not getting the attention of another child you know that's why you'll find that you know sometimes i'm like blown away why does this kid like this school and the answer is obvious he gets a tremendous amount of positive attention a tremendous amount of it so whether the school's accomplishing anything or doing anything good it doesn't matter they're getting positive attention and and they like that part of the school and i tell you i you know i'm part of a new shiva by kayla's mansion called aureus 12 10 flights opened last year and we started with 20 boys and this year it grew in a year to 70. and it was actually terrible to be honest because it's hurt the place in a lot of ways and i'm learning that i'm no longer able to give the kind of attention i need to every single talmud i haven't been able to give if i can interject one second they're doing amazing i just wanna throw that out there they're doing amazing and they're doing amazing work as the outsider i can i can say that yeah beyond the surface very good thank you that's great well maybe we're doing amazing for some kids but my expectation is 100 success and if a kid doesn't feel that he is being successful then that's on me but we have a tagline that relates back to what rabbi kayla said which says and i'll tell you a funny story about this a great story so we have a tagline on all my emails that says students can't fail only we can so i get two different attitudes about this some people get very upset about this you're moving all accountability from children you're not teaching children to have any kind of accountability i mean what kind of message is this you know that only you could fail they can't fail and it really goes back to what i learned from dr sirotskin and really my parents i guess which is the only way to teach accountability is by having accountability you don't teach accountability by telling someone else to be accountable [Applause] you know there's uh a very very beautiful i'm gonna misquote it to some extent but uh there's a beautiful maisha feinstein i believe that he says that um in particular it's my bar mitzvah actually i i think when uh when ava mavino asks yeshmal to help him to go get food and water for the melaka so i think rashi tells us that because the food came directly from avraham he got himself the man came directly from chimayami the kanegen midda but because yeshmal went and got the water so it had to come through some other way so much asked a great kasha what did avraham avinu do wrong you know what what was so i mean worst case he wanted him to be part of the mitzvah it's not even like he said to him you go and do it he said come with me you would think this would be the greatest form of i'm gonna do it and you're gonna do it and uh says something that's unbelievable he says because the only thing is doing it yourself that's the only thing i was always bothered i'm not here god forbid to talk about other places it always bothered me that a rebbe would walk around during davening while he was dominating taking attendance of all the boys i always wondered like what kind of message are these kids getting like he doesn't have to dive and it's more important that he worries that you're daviding you know if a rebbe would see if atomic would see his rebbe really diving and pour his heart out he would he would see what daviding looks like he would see what daviding is really about i think really the biggest problem i find you know teenagers are smarter than most adults they're very real and they're raw and they don't have to worry about public perception or what the neighbors will say they they say the way it is i think very often they feel they're being used to be honest by the schools how you gonna make the school look i always tell my tommy them i don't care about orissa i don't care if it burns to the ground to be honest i think i'm a pretty talented uh mechanic i'm sure i could find another job you know i i don't need orisol to exist but i need all these kids all these boys to feel loved to feel to be who they are and i want to add one more thing i i said this once and i got pushed back but before i tell you that i tell you a funny thing about the other thing so rabbi yablak who's uh who started the yeshiva with me is a wonderful person or by ashrae yahblah he called me one night he said steph tell you i got a call from a parent in the community they were very upset by the tagline they felt we should change it that students can't fail only we can so i said okay i'm sorry they feel that way you know i'd be happy to talk to them you know if they want to call me and be more than happy to discuss it but to be honest you know everyone has an opinion and unless you really understand where they're coming from you don't really know what they're saying anyway i kid you not probably an hour later i got a random phone call from a woman i never met and she said i'm going crazy i just found your website i've never seen such a tag life a tagline in my life i'm so happy somebody gets it so you know you could spend your whole life driving yourself crazy to please everybody this one that one so i'll please this one and then i'll make this one upset but the only thing that really matters is doing rats on hashem is to do what the right thing is you know to to do the right thing now i lost my train of thought about the other story i wanted to tell you take your time what was i saying sound like a good one i have no idea oh now i remember see positive there you go so it goes a long way so no now i remember the story so i we had malcolm segal from jm and the m come to our ishiba and interview some of us and i was on there and he kind of asked me what's your goal what do you want to see happen with the bakram with the boys here i said i really only have one goal and again i can tell there are people who didn't like what i said so my only goal is that the boys should know that i unconditionally love them appreciate them value them really admire them and my hope is from that they will then consider that i live my life in a way that i love yiddish guy that to me tire is the only thing in the world that matters it's the only way to live your life it's the only way to really have the it's the only truth in the world and i hope they will consider that one day and if they do not i will love them all the same and i always tell them you know what i would love for you to win the lottery also do you hate me for that you know what i'm saying i hope you win the lottery and if you don't it's okay i'll love you all the same i don't want you to win the lottery to give us money i don't care you don't have to give us money i'm just i just want you to win the lottery because i love you and i want what's good for you and because i want what's good for you i know this is the only good in the world the only and i want you to have it but if you don't want it that's fine that's your life to live i'm not here to tell you how to live your life i'm here to tell you how i live my life and you decide how to live your life and i will love you all the same it doesn't matter to me [Applause] and i'll tell you something else i i have a daughter i have five daughters actually and um so one of them i remember many many years ago she came home all right kids so uh i had a daughter who came home from you know they go to like mainstream-based tacos and you know personally i'm just saying i love the school they go to you know i i i have a lot of appreciation for their school um for for the shibutana passaic passaic but my daughter came home she was very young she was very upset and i was talking to her in her bed one night she was very young and i asked her what's bothering her she told me that in davening she doesn't like daviding in school and i said what's wrong so she said maura gives out stickers sometimes i dive in really beautifully and i don't get a sticker and sometimes i don't want to dive in and then you know i feel bad that i don't get a sticker and my friend gets a sticker and i don't get a sticker all normal healthy feelings of a child and i said to my daughter i'm going to tell you what i'm going to buy you a book of stickers so she said to me you mean if i dive in nicely you're going to buy me a book of stickers and i said no i'm just going to buy you a book of stickers i said if you want a darvin that's between you and hashem nobody can tell you whether you should david or not only you and hashem you come home you go to school if you don't want to go to school for dividing that's fine also you could stay home and bark hashem it helped tremendously this daughter i mean all my leonhard my children are great davners because their mother is an unbelievable governor and they watch her daughter every day in the house so you know they have a wonderful role model in that way but this daughter you know certainly has a very very special place in her heart about tefila and you know this idea of unconditional love it's not a trick i just want to be clear it's not a tool i'm not trying to manipulate someone to get where i am you know i it's really not it you know hashem loves all of his children no matter what and hashem knows what goes on inside the heart of every single human being every jew he knows and it's our job to love our children unconditionally and what does that even mean if my kid doesn't dive and i don't love them like what does that have to do with me even that's between them and hashem and if my kid doesn't make enough money should i not like them also like what what what does that have to do with anything that's their business my business is to love my child my business is to like my child my business is to admire my child my business is to see my child for who they are and my children are different my oldest oh she's a straight a nothing like me she's always she's stressing out at home you know doing all her work i'm like stop doing your homework it's stressing yeah what are you doing my wife's like leave her alone i'm like stop it's driving you crazy you know and my second one oh she can't stand over you know she's like she's like tatty you know start a orange show for girls i want to go to our school you know we don't have homework that's a big thing or mateo salman who's really my rebbe and uh um that's the other book i tell every person really needs to read with hearts full of love it really touches how much said which is it's not a psychology book it's uh it's it's a book of torah the whole thing is torah and uh matiel says in there that school is not home there's a whole chapter and you should know i started all my classes my whole year when i used to teach uh every day give a shear with this chapter it's called school is not home is not school excuse me it talks about a parent should not make their kids do their homework that's what the masjid says he says it creates such tension in the home such tension and then he says parents become the bad guy you know and and and i want and i'm telling you i've never allowed i love my wife she's wonderful i never allow her to make them do their homework so she somehow gets them to do it i don't know how but but i i won't allow it and we have a sheet in our yeshiva there is no homework for general studies also there's no homework when a boy goes home they have to be home home has to be a place that they love they have to love being home they have to love being with their parents they have to love spending time at home with their friends running around being kids is a very famous mice i misunderstood it for many years i think have a better understanding of it today very famous mice that rabiacov kaminetsky there was a child one of his grandchildren i guess someone came over to speak with him and the grandchild hopped onto the table and was standing dancing on the table and i always remind my wife for the story it doesn't work still but nonetheless and uh so the the person who was there meeting with their biafra he said like with you know with all due respect what kind of kinect is it to have a child standing on a table serbia said doesn't mean controlling your child i promise you this child at 15 will not be standing on a table you don't have to worry about it that's not called that's nothing means in my opinion it's not my opinion i have no opinions from what i've learned means really to be a loving person and through that it with the outpouring will be that you become someone that people say i want to live my life just like this like my mother my father i want to live such a life but if the mother and father is a bitter angry person all the time why would they want to live that life what what would they why would they want that if yiddish got that's the famous story their motive feinstein right they say that by ramaisha that many many years ago a lot of children went off to dara some stayed on some went off and they asked her maisha what was the nazca meaner right why did some stay on and why did some go off and he said because a lot of parents said okay i'm not judging khalilah judging you know and really the answer is whatever kayla said about feeling whole within ourselves and that that that's the truth meaning we don't need to work on our kids we need to work on ourselves that's really the truth you know but ramos just said because designing you that people would say it's so hard to be a youth and if it's hard to be a youth so why does the next generation want to be but if the greatest thing in the world is to be then of course that's what they're gonna want you know that but but but only if they really feel that way only if they really experience that only if shabbos really feels like something you know something special only if they they see in the home that that this is this is happiness this is godless but but if the relationship is tense you didn't dive in you didn't watch the english or you know you didn't this you didn't know what why would they want it and and then we're stuck with the problem we have to then convince them somehow this is really good for you don't realize it's good for you it's a bitter pill but it's good for you you know we all have to do hard things in life you know i've heard that one a lot of times okay i don't like we all do things we don't like to do okay but your whole life every day you know that's that's how you're gonna live your life so i'll just end with one last point i'm sorry to for speaking so long um so my takeaway from the shabbos though was really this though i knew we had to like our children i knew it wasn't enough to love them but i didn't know we had to like let me say it differently i i didn't realize and it's funny it's because i didn't read the kazanich properly i think the khazanesh is lush and i don't have it in front of me i said it to someone yesterday but he says we don't need warmth and love i could look it up but i think he says we need yeah value we need to value them we need to appreciate them we need to admire them it's not enough even to like maybe it has to be admiration you know i know how rabbit kills just tommy didn't feel about him and i'm sure you see his tommy them that's how we have to feel about our children every single one of them they have to be doing them in our eyes you know i don't believe i don't know maybe i don't know i don't know i don't think doiling became gadolin thinking i want to be a goddamn i don't think at least it would seem very unhealthy to me but certainly our children have to be good island in our eyes every single one of them and any child who doesn't feel that way is gonna struggle they're gonna struggle and you know why because you know what they say to themselves subconsciously if my own parents don't think i'm the greatest why should anybody else you know what happens they meet a girl or a guy and they tell them they're the greatest even if it's for 10 seconds and like i i like can't get over some of the stories i hear so stupid you know they believe the guy you know like really but you know what it for 10 seconds they felt like they were the greatest person in the world that's what i walk away with you know i love all my children at barcelona we have seven children they're all wonderful i don't have a favorite i love them all but i i reflecting my wife and i were talking i could see some of them need more time some of them need more admiration even thinking that i like them even thinking you know i certainly have no negative nothing negative but maybe not even recognizing how great they are isn't enough and i'm walking away with a commitment i told my wife that once a week moving forward i'm going to spend one night take with my wife going out for pizza with one child once a week and the kids who i feel do need more of that admiration i plan to give to them when i get home um because the reality is children can't fail only i can okay i'm uh okay i'm not gonna say my tagline of i'm not gonna take a lot of time uh lied to too many crowds over the course of shabbos it's not this point already it's just pathological it's not um i um one of my tell me them scott was speaking i was reminded of so many things i have a yeshiva in cleveland shiva high school of cleveland um we have it's a very small school we're more of a preventative school um boys who were in the mainstream yeshivas but they they couldn't be celebrated in the mainstream not the mainstream's fault not their fault they just couldn't be celebrated in uh in the mainstream and that would have led to them just falling between the cracks and everything so so we're there and uh and i i love these boys but that line comes up a lot you know the the line of robbie after right when we can't do something or we struggle with our dorm right we have boarding houses and it's very it's very difficult especially in the cleveland winter to get the boys from the boarding houses to the dorm back to the boarding houses to the dorm you know we're we're trying to have a dorm within the with that or have a building would be great also we'd have a building with a so i was i was squeezing with the guys about the frustration i love sharing with my boys the frustration that she was going through i i i remember being a teenager when the robin would go into their closed door meetings and and it was so it was so alienating because if you're going to do that i i hear do it when i'm not here it was very alien now we need to have meetings that we can't discuss in front of the guys obviously but but not when not not when we're not when the boys are around it's like it's like your children if you have that thing that you gotta you know every guy's worst nightmare every guy's biggest every man's anxiety is when the wife says to him right before the kids come home we need to talk and then the kids come home after they go to sleep it's like i can't i can't breathe what time do they go to sleep i can't do this but with four hours you crazy they're like melatonin get the melatonin out we're knocking them out early tonight that's not so so but i i was sharing with my tell me them the the struggle of uh because they were sharing with me also that it's difficult and we were sharing this and one of the boys said to me rebbe don't worry about it after i get i get out of here and after let me set it like that sounds like prison all right after i i move on and after i make my money right it's a concept of a kid's money by the way teenagers still have that same concept of a money right they all think that with that pizza shop job they're going to move out they're going to get an apartment they're going to get their insurance they're going to buy a car they're going to they all have that they still have that concept of money and he said when i get a million review all to me it still won't help you can dollars it's like when i'm when i get my million dollars ready i'm telling you i'm going to build us a building i'm going to guess the door and i said to him sound like i don't need you a million dollars you already gave me a million dollars you showed up you're here this is this is worth so much more than that i don't need your million dollars later and i can't stand it when guys say it because then i know i'm doing something wrong i i love that they feel connected and they feel ashiba that they want to give back that's beautiful but the ones that you see in their eyes feel that they have to pay you for this they have to give back they don't feel that you're doing this because you're so in love with what's happening they don't feel you're gaining enough from it i tell my boys all the time it's not it's very cliche but it's so true every single year i know i'm walking out a different person from that year i'm going to meet some kid and i'm going to learn something i never knew i used to give the boys friday night around the shops they will give breakfast friday night i could do for my kids my kids go first and the boys know my kids have their seats on the table and no one's allowed to i want to touch the seat it it gets funny when there's other guests over there and someone tries to sit and like my four-year-old daughter's seat and they're like actually that's only honesty and i'm like who what and he's like eliana's taking your seat and she comes and she's like that's my seat like fine so i go around and give i give breakfast to all the boys friday night and one friday night i'm going around i'm giving brachas i go up to one boy i'm just going one boy to the next go up to one boy i'm about to give him a bracha and he moves out from under my hand which is very very common he was a new kid moves out for money he was having i've been a local boy a boy that was local to cleveland which most of my boys aren't you move down from under my hand and he goes oh it's okay robbie my my parents already gave me a bracha and my heart broke this kid taught me such an enormous lesson if he thinks that i'm trying to give him a bracha instead of his parents the other guys might be thinking that also who in the world do i think i am i was giving him break as a rugby i was not and i switched it up we do it by sean i'll show this now because no one and no one uses it no and no no one questions it and when i go and put my hand in the head they're like what oh oh okay no one's ready for it you know but everyone gave them friday night because they used to their parents doing it i cannot i should technically be a a number i went to a very good elementary school but when i was growing up it was still very in style to um embarrass a kid then hit him then embarrass him again and then really to drill to drill it home have him like stand up for the rest of the class and no one forgets and so that to make sure that the trauma is like deep seated in there to make sure they would have you stand up so um that would happen constantly daily i would get smacked or what he called and and uh i remember one one time i was in seventh grade already so like a little bit of an older kid one of them being from the other class who i didn't know i never said three words to i'm josh i've never said three words to this person but the way you looked at me in the hallways and then was because i had a chip which if he saw me speak now he'd be like serves you right you see what happens everybody's showing them finally exactly his revenge he'd be thrilled to see me now um but uh but every time he would walk he would walk by me in the hallway he would he would give me this look and um and he pulled me over one day and he said to me um i heard so we walked into the office and i sat down in a chair and because i was used to it i had my chair in the office that i would sit in and then they would sit and we would do the thing and the good days were when the principal had his computer screen he just got a computer and school's done and he had a computer screen turned around and they used to have remember remember what a screensaver is i don't know if anyone has screensavers on things a screensaver was these these shapes that would spin around each other and it was mind-blowing so we'd have a computer at home it was mind-blowing to me this thing and i would sit there watching it and i could space out like you have no idea how badly i could space out and i'm sitting there watching i never listened to a word anyone said well that computer screamed i would just nod and agree and periodically say i'm sorry and and and uh and so this rebbe comes in and i sit down and he says yeah that makes sense and i said he's like you're going to sit down before the rebbe okay okay are you the rebbe i said no he said would you like to sit in the rebbe's seat then maybe i said i said belle we already accomplished this i think so he says stand up so i stand up and he says i'm not going to sit in a room with you like fantastic and and it was so it was he said i'm not going to sit in a room with you and my wedding goal was so bad that i was relieved i was like oh good this is going to take long to get back to lunch and he goes he goes uh which is another thing from a hanukkah if it's a long conversation obviously you have to do it during recess but leave a kid's recess time alone you want to speak to a kid call him at home call him up let his mother tell him your rebbe is on the phone for you he wants to speak to you the kid will feel like a million especially if you're telling him something good pull him out during class and tell him i'm sorry i couldn't wait till after class that was incredible what you just did that was amazing so he turns to me and he goes i heard you're hanging out oh okay i just realized okay it's a dangerous story i heard you hanging out um with uh might she i wish his brother was actually here i just asked i heard you hanging out with maishi and i said i said yeah yeah he's a new boy i uh i what he called he said no not yeah no he said he answers yeah though i don't know what to do right now and he goes he goes you are not to see that boy outside of yeshiva anymore and there was one second where i felt so good i was like wow that's so beautiful i don't even know this guy this kid that he's talking about is in his class and the kid was he was a little bit of uh you could tell he was a trans woman of the year he probably got him well he was a little bit of a troublemaker and he said and he was trying to protect me so he's like you're not hanging out with that kid anymore i said okay and back then it was like ravi's word is reviews words i said okay uh okay you know i was thinking myself i don't know what i'm gonna say to this kid but okay you know fine and he said because you're not gonna ruin that neshama i'm like and it took like a minute for it to even even process i was like wait a second is anyone else in here did he there were so many other stories that i went for first because it made no sense that someone would do that i want to tell you something i went home because back in the day before people although when i was a kid when i was a kid our two big fears were being kidnapped and quicksand those were our two big fears quicksand was a big was a big thing i don't know bugs bunny almost died a whole bunch of times because they're quick sad i nowadays i don't hear about it anymore i i don't know anyone and it's our big fear when a kid goes missing we're like he got kidnapped he got kid i don't know the last time you knew anyone that was kidnapped i don't know it's like so many other things happen daily that that's a problem but okay so we fine but we used to go home by ourselves now we'll go from bar park to brooklyn okay at least everyone else is still listening morrow park to flatbush i'm a real right here i've done this man uh back to flatbush and we take the b9 bus and i would walk and get on the b9 i'll be going home i remember i was sitting on the bus and i just started laughing to myself now this isn't a rare occurrence by the way if you see me walking down the street my wife asks me to wear earpods even if they're dead she said cause then then no one's gonna think you're insane when you're walking and you're laughing for no reason when no one's around and you're talking to yourself so i uh i'm on the bus and i start laughing to myself and and it was one it was probably the first moment that i realized what it means to have a home and what it means to have a school i was laughing at myself i was laughing with myself because i was like that guy's crazy that guy's so crazy and i was afraid to tell my parents but i want you to know why i was afraid to tell my parents i came home i was completely not curious what this guy said to me at all like it didn't even this is probably one of the first times i'm even bringing up that story again and not out of a traumatic thing i it has been an unimportant event in my life and i remember saying it's walking in and i wanted to tell my mother because it was like meeting a crazy person on the subway it was like you're not gonna believe what this guy was doing like i wanted to tell my mother but i knew i knew my mother would get in her car she would drive down to that school and wait and the minute that guy or anyone who looked like him came out of that building she'd run him over back up run him over again [Applause] she would pull the she would call the ambulance for him make sure he gets proper medical attention have him go to wait for him to do physical therapy be healthy come back out wait outside the hospital and go for a second without a question in my mind i was worried about this crazy person and i was i was i was legitimately worried for him so i didn't say anything to my mother i didn't say anything to my mother oh yeah very good yes yes for everyone out there that's like these moroccan ladies my mother is ashkenaz she's superbly asking us and um and but she's got the heart of a moroccan so that's why i always said anyone always said that moroccan men could be very violent could be very what he called then you know that i'm like why don't you go see a moroccan couple for a second you tell me that we're worried about him uh you know meeting about it they're tough these ladies so my yeah you got that i abandoned that joke halfway through good um my point is is that right now the way i view it and schools are incredible but the way i view it with my own children as scott was saying is that and or a chaos touchdown i'm going to say it mean but schools are a glorified babysitting service for me that's what it is they are not there to build my child they're not even there to talk to my kid they are not there to do anything but give him some information that he's never going to use again think about the valedictorian in your school you have any idea where that person is right now they peaked way too early in life they got to speak at the end they quoted a few people think their parents think they're what you called and said something condescending like and to my very m from here it is up and beyond i go to youtube this i didn't have to show up this could have been in an email you could have sent everyone an email we could have done it i'm not saying there's anything wrong with the kid that achieves well it's beautiful but what did he do with that afterwards and but the kid who got the experiences that kids that that kid walks out a a a a a wellspring of love of information of of experience i'm going to end with this when i was an artist sorrow and i was an artistral i uh i'm dyslexic um by my blessing and nature and and i mean i don't know i have a bunch of but yeah a bunch of things i carry with me you know just to impress people so uh so it's my it's my khasana stick i'm dyslexic i uh i so i had a fear out i was very worried with my first son that the reading because reading if if you're a boy in a yeshiva and you can't read your life is going to take a very i'm we're the people of the book if you can't read it it's it's a big problem so i uh i was very worried and when my son first went into heider and eric israel rabbi hillel was his rebbe there's something i think okay scott will definitely agree when you meet a rebbe even a a fourth grade review not even i i love how people like down play like a great school review or elementary school these people do more care of and save more lives i and have the opportunity to do that on a daily basis but when you meet a rebbe especially a rugby of young children that loves what he does that is so on fire about what he does this rebbe one time told me his ruby hello he told me he said there's a maksan a uh uh a storeroom in a storage room in the in the school a whole sun however big these maksans are packed with suitcases packed he said i have three suitcases in there for every month of the year for every month of the year i have three suitcases in there because that's what i use i use all the stuff in those suitcases to decorate the class every single every single month we do a different decorations in a class he switches up the whole classroom that's a person who just he doesn't have to do he loves what he does so i went in for our pta and my first thing was is how you know how's he reading i read with him at home and i you know he's not getting it i don't think he's getting it and he said to him he said to me he opens up an olive bina and he sends it gives it to me and he says uh he says show me uh show me how you show me how you do it i'm like what do you what do you want me i started palpatine i'm like oh no he's gonna test me on korea like that's that's how deep uh i'm like what do you want me to do he's like he takes alafina turns it in front of him he says i'm going to be your son you'll be you okay i'm like oh no i'm definitely getting all this wrong he goes i'm going to start reading i'm going to make mistakes i'm going to make the mistakes i know he makes and so he starts going and i like i correct him i said oh and i'm doing it nicer than i would even do it in print like maybe let's do that again and and he's like no that's wrong don't do that don't do that and then he goes to the next word and i'm trying everything and he's like don't do that don't do that and i'm like okay i get it i'm i i'm horrible what do you want and he looks at me and he goes your son's either going to learn here to read or not learn how to read that's just what's going to happen in life let me show you what you should do he turns around the offbeat he hands it to me he says read it any way you want he says don't even say the right word so i'll never forget it the word was nim shah i don't i'll never forget the word and i look at it i say nem shnim i said what is going on i said what is going on right now and he goes no no keep going i am sorry i interrupted i keep going and every word i would say he would just ah that's beautiful i said what are you doing he said you don't know what i'm doing i said no he took my hand he leaned over the table he took my hand he looks at me and he goes i want you to imagine that you're five years old just imagine that you're five years old i said okay he said you're not good at reading you said you weren't going to read i said no i'm not going to read it he said you have the olive being in front of you he said you have your aleph being in front of you he said you're up to a hard word it's nimshaq that a hard word he says picture yourself saying it i say okay and i'm starting to get and he says now i want you to look across at your father i look across and he goes your father is saying ah and i started bowling and i said wow i want to learn i don't even care if i get it right it doesn't matter he learned how to walk he learned how to talk he'll learn how to read but he needs to have that as loveless and no rebbie or stranger a person the world could give that to him nobody the rebbe said leave the correcting to me because either i'll get it right or i'll get it wrong either i'll read or he won't but there's something you can give him i never could i could never give him that reaction of his abba that reaction i could never give him it'll never mean anything to him i hate when we do the school bashing not because it's right or wrong but because we feel that if we assign blame and it's not our blame we could sleep better at night everyone gets up and says if you throw a kid out you know what these principles are going through sometimes if you're throwing it out you're all right saya i'm not saying they're right or wrong i'm saying for every parent that's calling and saying if you throw this kid out you're at safe he has four parents going saying how are you keeping the kid you're he's a mazda grab him and he's a everyone's calling on their side with their thing he's gonna make an enemy with everybody no matter what and the rebellion why doesn't he give my son more time and because he gets paid 25 000 a year he has to hold down eight jobs so does his wife and he has his own kids he's stressed we have to stop relying on these people to do anything other than what they're actually supposed to do which is teach them basically useless information no i've had some amazing rebate in my life i will never forget misato's marcus because rabbi weissler one time at the end of a class and i was not by a stretch of the imagination the best kid in that class i think it was me there was a few empty spots i was that bad and then it was the rest of the class to they just put me a few levels below one time i don't know what it was i don't know why i applied myself one day yeah it's a weird day whenever i watched the night before was not good enough to have disturbed what was happening clearly i needed a distraction from life so i paid attention tomorrow that day and at the end of the class he gives the whole share and i didn't ask any good questions by the way and this is how you know i didn't ask any good questions i didn't raise my hand and answer nothing at the end of the class he says before we go to recess and and this yeshiva this rebbe i love them but it was not this type of because before we go to recess i just uh i i want to give the class a bracha and everyone everyone stops and he goes i give everyone here abraha that every single time you learn every single time you learn your face should shine like elsie van sushan's face is shining right now [Applause] he didn't even like me i have no knowledge i will never forget my status moccasins for as long as i live we were learning kuffar kapara that day i'll i'll never forget the line the daf when he went like this to prove to us kufrika para i'll never forget the whole thing i remember the tie he was wearing we're so afraid of negative influences and negative effects on our children we're so afraid the first story i told you i promise you i forgot until this morning this story of rabbi weissler i remember weekly i called upon it weekly the muhammad and the schools have such a big responsibility i don't mean to downplay that but at the end of the day at the end of the day they're there so that we can get done what we need to get done and every other minute and every other hour and every other time of our life has to be spent on how am i building this kid and if you don't want to focus on how to build a kid that's fine just focus on the fact that this beautiful kid is mine you're mine they always say just love them i always say i love the line but that's like that's like telling uh it's like going over to an oncologist and saying so at the end of the day i remember someone came over to me one time he said at the end of the day all you got is before even the rabbit training book before all the this guy comes to me goes at the end of the day with these kids and i just was finished dealing with a very difficult situation and it was the wrong time for this guy to come up but he goes at the end of the day with these kids it's just love just you know show them you like i'm showing me love them give them a good time they'll come back i was like that's like saying to an oncologist at the end of the day you just give them medicine right i'm saying just give them some medicine chemo whatever give them medicine they'll be fine like yeah i guess yeah yeah but there's different medicines there's different times different ways there's different there's just so much behind that we need rebellion need experience and time and and all these things to learn what to administer when a parent has that naturally we cannot take your place a rebbe a teacher a principal cannot and should not ever take the parents place we are here to support you but you lead the way you lead the way be in contact with your kids teachers be in contact with everyone you can you lead the way there is no question i'm sure that kayla's gonna test this i'm sure rabbi friedman can attest to this there is no question if you were to take a kid in ninth grade and his parents are in touch with me and and are putting into the yeshiva are invested in the yeshiva not just their son but are invested in the yeshiva they come by they want to be a part when you see that boy versus a kid whose parents are not like that and you watch them go from 9th to 12th you are dealing with a different product a completely different product our schools are there for what they're there for they are a child's school like your job it's not your life hopefully you're their life [Applause]