Our Family, Our Strength - Principle #8: Giving - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Abramov

we continue in the twenty five basic principles of Jewish track child rearing we're now in principle number eight giving the Hebrew word for love is I have I have our stems from the word have have is giving so the the ultimate expression of love is actually giving and when you have two people that's the concept of the love between husband and wife who are both concerned about each other and are mutually giving a very close bond is developed now it's an interesting fact of the creation is that virtually all creatures are born and relatively self-contained at an early stage in their lives they need different creatures need goading and educating 40 for varying short periods of time but they can survive there are some creatures that are born and they toddle off on their own and they're completely self-contained and self-sufficient the human offspring is the most helpless of all of the creatures the human offspring for several of the initial years of its life is completely and totally at the mercy of parents they cannot survive without their parents they cannot survive without giving so it's obviously by design that are shem created humans so totally helpless for these early stages of their lives why aren't we are self-sufficient as a as a cockroach that is born and and and is self contained within within shortly after birth why is it that the human is so totally for yours so the explanation given is that there's a fantastic bun that is created by the giving of the parents as the parents give is a bond of love that develops and the children who on the receiving end of this love and the parents are taking care in the initial stages of life of every little need of theirs every physical hygienic need their their their their nutrition their sustenance everything is only perpetrated by the parents so it brings a situation where the parents are constantly pouring acts of kindness into their child and these this have thus giving translates itself into love and a real deep bond is developed in this manner this is a bond that a should last for life between parents and children but also should become part and / and parcel of the personality of the child when the child was was and the subject of so much love and so much giving these personality traits that were put into him become part of him and this child will become a giver and a lover himself and he'll be capable of giving over love for others so therefore parents should not give up this privilege that they have of giving so much to their children so absentee parent sometimes there's a there's a need whatever the needs are but fulfilling all the child's needs by proxy and they denying themselves a the creation of a bond between them and their children and they they when it's just being done by a hired gun just by rote it's not going to have the same feeling that they are parents to children now um they are sometimes extreme circumstances it was a very famous well recorded incident shortly after the Second World War where there was a tremendous amount of death and destruction in Europe the whole of Europe was that was was shattered out and bombed out besides the terrible tragedy perpetrated upon the Jewish people and the League of Nations set up a series of orphanages because there were so many orphans so many millions of people died in the war and so they set up a network of orphanages throughout the throughout Europe and these orphanages were were both in the most well conceived way possible it was the the conditions were outstanding the feud was the food was nutritious the the levels of Sanitation were as good as possible of Hygiene and they still found that there's a very high mortality rate of young children young children little babies who were orphans from the from the war were dying and they couldn't figure this out why was it and they heard that the certain orphanage somewhere in europe had a very high record of the children surviving and they sent to commission of inquiry to find out what are they doing right there and they found that it seems to be formal uniform with all the other orphanages and they couldn't figure out what is special about this orphanage but there is no mortality children were surviving and they left very confused not being able to ascertain the difference until they as they were walking out one of them spotted a an older lady who was walking around with a young little baby strapped to one of the orphans strapped to her back and two little children under her two arms and someone said who is it the Sun lady that she's a lovely lady she comes in every day and all she does all day is pick up the children and cuddle them and kiss them and hug them and hold them and they went back and they are sir tained that she was the reason for the high rate of survival because we're whereas the orphanage was providing the best nutrition and the best fruit but propped up bottles is very different to the human loving hand or the human nursing or the human feeding and therefore giving is an integral part the more we give to our children the more our relationships and walk will grow and develop it'll be and will be a strong standing bond that will help us at later stages of their development and it will make them much better integrated people you