Parenting in Modern Times - Rabbi David Orlofsky

I I share with you what my mother said to me about 10 years ago. I don't have to bring up kids today. It's a different world. It's a different world. Everything has changed. All of the assumptions that we worked with, you know, those of us who are parents, you could you don't have to tell me. You can tell yourself. Did you ever tell a kid something and he told you no? I never said that to my father, not twice. Everybody knows, you know, your parents tell you something and you know, if they're not looking, you can mutter under your breath. You know what I mean? You can mumble, you can grumble, but you did what your parents told you. That's how it worked. That was the assumption, you know? There's a terrible book called A Child Called It. It was on the New York Times best seller list, a series of three books about this guy who was one of the worst child abuse cases in the world. And he was born after me. He was born '60s, '60s, '70s, I don't remember. And he outlines the terrible abuse that he went through and what he put up with. And at one point, he later in the story, his teenage son says, "Dad, why didn't you tell her no?" And he said, "Because when I was a kid, no one ever did that." You never told your parents no. Those are the things. Now, now this every kind of expert tells you, you know, we have to deal differently with our children. The assumptions are gone. Yeah? Now, if you want the good the good part of this, the Mission Insight says this is a siman that you're in the most of Messiah when people are going to um you know, kids behave and children aren't going to listen to their parents. But Hashem, I miss Messiah is a It's very close, you know? And uh the result of it is that we are in this kind of a situation where now the kind of experts tell you you have to negotiate with your kids. You can't tell them things. You have to take a different approach. You have to work with them. Okay, our our parents, or depending how old you are, our grandparents, they had it easy. They came over and said, "This is what you're going to do because I'm your father. I'm your mother. That's why you know, why? Cuz I'm your mother." You know, and that was enough of an answer. It worked for us, you know? And today, you have to negotiate. You have to explain. You have to You know, it's a whole different world. So, the the the tools that worked in the last door doesn't work anymore. Um Reb Meir Shapiro had a beautiful word. It says Moshe Rabbeinu made himself chazozros that he would use to assemble the people, blow the chazozros and everybody would come. He'd blow a win one type of a note so the seam came, another one the whole arm came, whatever. When he died, they buried the chazozros with him. Why? So, Reb Meir Shapiro says, "Because although the tune stays the same, the instrument has to change. And what worked in one door won't work in the next." Reb Shach said that today a door is two years. Now, he said that 20 years ago. That's that's 10 doors ago he said this. I said this to a man kind of not that long ago and he says, "Shh. He was an optimist." And I do it with students. I say, "You look at the kids who are two years beneath you. What do you think?" Those kids are crazy. I'd never do what they do, you think? Two years a different door. So, you know, we when we bring our kids up, we're going through dairy doors. You know, by the time by the time we're done with our kids, we're our great great great grandparents talking to us, you know? It's a different world all together. So, so things have to change. We can't doesn't matter. Posen Kelo says, "Don't bother saying the it was different in the other doors. Things are different. They They have all doesn't make a difference. This is the reality that we have to work with and the best thing you have to do is figure out how to do it the best way you can. When you find yourself in trouble, that's not the time to complain. That's the time to figure out solutions." So, let me tell you a story. This story happened many years ago. And and I told this story over two years ago and someone told me a even scarier story. I lived in a major Jewish community and the youth program on Friday night used to do an owner Shabbos. Essentially, it was a social event for the boys and the girls to come together. And they would have to have a speaker for five minutes. More than that already and the kids got upset. You know, so you have to move very fast. So, I was I was pressured into becoming the sacrificial speaker one week, you know? So, I I show up and everyone's there. And uh and I asked the kids the following questions. Now, remember, they all come, you know, they may not come from Hamish and Mishpacha, you understand? But, they all go to fine Yeshiva day schools. The families all keep Shabbos, they all keep kosher. And I asked them the following question, I'm going to put two buttons in front of you. Push the button on your left and you'll wake up tomorrow morning a nice kid in a nice family, just you've never been Jewish. Your family's not Jewish, you are not Jewish. That's if you push the button. Push the button on your right, you stay the way you are. I said, "If I went around and I asked this question to the kids in your Yeshiva day schools, my guess is that 60 to 70% of the kids would push the button on the left and choose not to be Jewish." So, the kids all look at me. Now, I figure kind of, you know, confrontation's always good, teenagers like that, you know, get to argue. Nothing, didn't say a word. So, I said, "What?" They said, "Rabbi, how can you talk to us like that?" "Everybody would push the button on the left." So, I'm sitting here on a Friday night in a room full of Yeshiva kids who would all rather be Christian, yeah? That's a scary story. Now, so I said to them, "Okay, why?" "Why?" "Why do you have to be Jewish? Why don't you want to be Jewish?" They didn't know what to say. Cuz teenagers know you don't you don't ever say what you really think. You look at the adult and you figure out what they want to hear, you understand? So, Well, this is our part of our Hinnukh system, by the way, is that we teach kids, you know, that the ones who get the praise are the ones who repeat back what we said, preferably in the exact words, you know what I mean? So, many teachers, they don't really teach, they just have a game show, you know? And they say, "What's the answer?" Sometimes they just even fill in the blank. And so, "Avraham Avinu went went where? Went to?" And so, it's just a guess, you know? Everyone's just trying to figure out what the teacher wants them to say. So they're looking at me, what does he want me to say? So I said, "It's easy. You hate being a firm Jew." Oh, you can't say that. Might be true, but you can't say it, you know? Cuz one kid says, "It's not true. I love Shabbos. It's the only day I get to sleep." Yeah? I once heard somebody describe the perfect Shabbos, you know? You wait for your father to come home from shul. He falls asleep at the Shabbos table reading the paper. And in the like no time, by the time you could be in bed by 6:00. It's comatose. You just You just lie there like being dead, you know? Till the drool comes out on the pillow, you know? And uh and then you wake up the morning, you get to shul late, you know? Come back, you have a quick quick lunch, back in bed, before you know it it's over. What a spiritual odyssey. The way many firm Jews keep Shabbos, it's indistinguishable from a coma, you know? So I said, "Look, I don't know how to break this to you, but can just take the phone off the hook and take a nap." She was devastated this kid because that was the only positive thing she found about being Jewish. I said, "Let me ask you, what is it you like about it? I know, cuz there's so many things you can't eat." No, I know, cuz there's so many things you can't do on Shabbos. No, I know, cuz you love learning Gemara. They're like, "Okay, you're right. We all hate it." So why do you hate it? Why do you do it then? Our parents make us. That's the answer. I said, "I'll let you in for a surprise. You know why you that your parents do it? Cuz their parents made them." And their parents made them, and their parents made them, and it's the same thing going on for years. Now, I tell this story over, and I have to tell you it was not a heimisher community. So people say, "Yeah, well that's that's Yanam." I told the story over 2 years ago, and a person comes up to me and tells me the story. I didn't ask him where. All he said it was a cheder for the better boys. You know, there's there's the chedarim for the bad boys whose parents chrais work or whatever. You know, these are the the best mishpachas. The parents are only in learning or in chinuch, etc. And a kid, evidently, asked a question to the Rebbe like, "Why do we have to do this? Or why do we have to learn that?" And the Rebbe sensed there was a problem, and he told each boy, "Take out a petek. Take out a little piece of paper and write down either yes, no, or I don't know. Do you want to be a frum Jew?" Say, 21 kids in the class? One kid wrote yes. Two kids wrote not sure. 18 kids wrote no. That's our kinderlach. That means that there's something wrong. Now, the unbelievable thing is that this Rebbe asked You don't ask these things. I have been in situations where people say, "You don't want to encourage kids to ask questions because they'll start asking questions, and who knows where it will lead?" I said, "They already have the questions. What do you think? Today, you cannot bring build walls high enough to keep everything out. It just can't be done. Take your kids off to a desert island and hope they can't get Wi-Fi. That's it. You understand? There is There's no way to build it. A chashuve Rebbe in Yerushalayim said to me, "You can't find a tzimmes-digge girl in Yerushalayim who doesn't know anything. Those days are gone. It's a different world. It's a different world. Things are different. So, we're going to have to do something about it. So, somehow the message is going wrong. So, I was getting ready to leave. I only had 5 minutes. You know, I said, "My time is up. You know, I don't want I don't want anyone to get upset at me. You know, it's just in a room full of kids who go to yeshiva day school who would they don't want to be They don't want to be Jewish, you know? So, they said, "Wait a second. Wait a second, Rabbi. We know how it works. You can challenge us. You can ask us questions. But, in the end, you have to give us an answer so we can forget we've ever seen you or heard about you. I don't want to be left with any angst, you know?" I said, "Well, you guys all have, you know, uh quality Jewish educations. You tell me. Why does a person have to be a firm Jew?" So, they're thinking. And a kid says, "I know why. Cuz otherwise, you'll burn in Gehenna." And there it is. That is the reason that you should be a firm Jew. Now, this didn't come from no place. Okay? I uh I was in Yeshiva. And uh It was winter's month. It was going on for very long time. I don't know. There were two or three others that year. I don't know what happened, you know? And we were probably doing Yevamot. You know, the Gemara that never ends and the Zman that never ends. And then, yeah, I started to get depressed, you know? Took to bed with mono-like symptoms. I don't know why it didn't show up in the blood test, you know? You know, so my rabbi comes to give me to a gentleman. He tries to cheer me up. He says, "Come on, David. You got to get up. You got to come. You got to learn." I said, "Rabbi, what's the point? I'm just going to go to Gehenna anyway." He said, "That's true. But, focus on the following," he said. "At 350 degrees, you bake. But, at 400, you burn." Shh. Did I feel better. That meant that if I daven three times a day, and I learned 12 hours a day, and I did all the mitzvahs, did everything I was supposed to do, at the end, I would just bake instead of burn. That's the best we have to offer. Come on. When the Yamim Noraim come around, that joyous time, you know? You sit and and if you're if you're zocheh to have a shul with a chazan, boy, you could be there forever. There are people who are still there from last Rosh Hashanah, yeah. You know? And you come to the center token. So I knew it was an important part cuz my father would always say, "Where's the place?" And I never knew where the place is cuz every husband has this trick, you know, where they spend like 20 minutes on a word and then they go, "Honey, honey, honey, honey, honey, honey, honey, honey, honey, you know?" Flipping pages, you know, it's like So cuz the center token follow this along. This is very important. The highlight Shani and Kefa. May you live. Oh, may you most. Now, there was a subtle message there and I don't know if you picked it up. I sure did. We understood what the husband was saying. Someone might live, but you are going to die, die, die, die, die, die, die. And you sitting there going, "I'm going to die?" Wow. Now, now you get to pick the way you're going to go. Who by fire and who by water? Fire's kind of hot. You know, I might be able to tread water for a while, you know. Who by sword and who by storm? Storm's not so bad, you know, I might get through that, you know. Who by earthquake and who by pestilence? If you have an English translation. Pestilence, what is pestilence? I never heard anyone will take the pestilence, Bob, right? But the message is clear. You're going to die a horrible death cuz Hashem hates you. You're a miserable sinner unless you do chuba and repent, repent, get down on your hands and knees and beg and cry and then you could get off with a serious illness. Everyone walks around depressed. Tata, what's with the apple and honey? For a sweet year. How does it look? Doesn't look too good. I was going to go off I had a non-Jewish neighbor who asked Yom Kippur was Wednesday. I'm going over to shul, you know, in the middle of the week with a suit, you know. He says, "What's going on today? It's not Saturday." I said, "No, I have special day. We go to shul and we afflict ourselves." "Why?" Cuz I'm evil. Oh, all right. Well, I'll see you tomorrow? I have no idea. Any word on the pestilence? I should have taken earthquake. What was I thinking? And that's it. You understand? That's what it is. I talked to a guy, you know, in one of these yeshivas for the religiously challenged. I said, "What happens if you're good?" He said, "You go to Olam Haba." I said, "What's that?" "You sit on a cloud and you play a harp, you know." I said, "And if you're bad?" "Hashem burns you in Gehenna forever." I said, "You comfortable with that?" He said, "That's what I always heard." I said, "Does it make sense to you?" Yeah. I said, "That's like a father who says to his daughter, 'Sweetheart, your room is a mess. If you clean it up, I'll buy you a new outfit and take you out for dinner. And if you don't, I'll break your arm and beat you till you're bloody.'" I said, "What would you do?" He says, "I'd call the social services. The man is insane." I said, "That's how you picture Kadosh Baruch Hu, Rachmana?" Yeah? That if you're good, you get a cloud and a harp, and if you're bad, you burn in Gehenna forever? A dysfunctional father who aren't in heaven. You know what I'm saying? Now, this is the message that comes across. There's a group of chashuve Yidden called the traveling Chassidim. They go around and they and they go to communities to make them Chassidish shabbos. And one of them came over and spoke to me once. And they said, you know, "We're your Chassidim." I said, "Wow, I never had any real Chassidim. My Chassidim is very chashuve." You know, I might I might start taking fitlach, you know what I mean? He says, "You don't understand. Even by the Chassidiship, people don't say this anymore. That used to be the message. And how beautiful it was and so and now this is it also. It's Gehenna, it's Gehenna, everything's Gehenna." And so a kid hears this. And now, what are we doing in this world? Do the mitzvahs, do what you're supposed to do, cuz otherwise, the big face in the sky is going to burn you in Gehenna. I asked You should have got once, "How do you picture Kadosh Baruch Hu?" He says, "A big scary face in the sky saying, 'I'm going to get you.'" I said, "You're not so bad." He goes, "I know, but I figure other people have excuses and I don't. One guy told me, "I picture a Kodesh Baruch Hu on a mountain with a lightning bolt." I said, "That's Zeus. You're not even up to monotheism yet. You're on Mount Olympus with the gods." You know what I'm saying? Kodesh Baruch Hu doesn't do that. But unfortunately, this is how so many people picture it. They see they see the world as something terrible. What does the Mesillas Yesharim say? Why are we in this world? You know why we were created? You know why Hashem made us? To get pleasure from Hashem. You know why? From being close to Hashem. Cuz that's the greatest pleasure that there is. Look at everything. Look at everything that's out there. Look at the food. Look at the the comfortable stuff. Look at the money. Look at everything that's out there. And the greatest thing in the world is love of Hashem. And he tells you, "Look at it." Sefer Hinnuch on the mitzvah "Love of Hashem". Says, "How do we get love of Hashem?" Says, "By focusing that love of Hashem is greater than burning ocean burning of covered." Look at everything that's in the world. Look at all the great things. And love of Hashem is greater than everything. So when I teach this, people come to me and they say, "Ah, you didn't read the next line." Some people say, "You didn't read the next line." "Ah, we're not in the next line." This is what we do. If in this world, you don't have any fun at all. Your friends are all going around having fun. You don't have any fun. You pass up this and you pass up that and you do this and you do that and you do everything you're supposed to do. When you're dead, you'll go to the next world and you'll have some wonderful pleasure and I can't tell you what it means, and I can't describe it, but it's really very good. It's really very good. And if you can't understand that, I'll tell you all your friends who are having a great time, they're going to burn in Gehenna. That you do understand. Yeah? All the heat in this world is 1/60 of the age of Gehenna. So, that's great. So, I mean, I understand a lot about Gehenna. So, therefore, what's the goal? Stay out of trouble and try to avoid burning in Gehenna. That's it. Now, I'm not going to make all the dukim, but I'm going to argue from the position of authority. Reb Yitzchak Isaac Sherer says, when he says his Hashem, it means in this world. Reb Volbe writes in Alei Shur, it means in this world. Reb Yerucham writes, in this world. Reb Leibel LaYahu, in this world. Reb Yisrael Salanter, in this world. Reb Chaskel Sarna, in this world. There are others. It means his Hashem in this world. Not when you're dead. Now. And if a person doesn't understand how to Hashem, how to get this unbelievable pleasure from being close to Hashem, you've missed the whole purpose of this world, says Reb Volbe. When a person um How do you appreciate a pleasure? You have to learn how to appreciate it. So, if you go to a very fancy rich people, I sometimes get to speak for rich people. It's a lot of fun. I have a lot of fun when I go to rich people. It's that they have a whole different way of living than I do. So, sometimes you go to a fancy reception, and they're serving wine and cheese. Very sharp smelly cheese, and very dry bitter wine. This is an unbelievable thing. Now, you take a kid. Does he want this kind of wine? But, it cost $200 a bottle. He doesn't want this one. The cheese he want the cheese. He wants potato chips and then soda. You understand? He wants grape juice. He doesn't want He doesn't want this. You have to learn. There's seven steps to appreciate wine. You have to learn how to appreciate wine. There's a way to appreciate the taste of cheese, this kind of cheese, that kind of cheese. If you never learn it, then you have the most expensive wines and cheeses to get heaven and it's not at all Mahabbah. If you don't understand what what what ruchniyus is, then what are you going to do in all of Mahabbah? The whole place is ruchniyus. You never learned how to appreciate it. It's a vov bi you have to have it in this world. And nobody knows this. I was sitting next to a middle-aged Israeli businessman who was on his way to India to join his wife in the ashram where they were studying Buddhism and meditation. And I said to him, "Why?" He says, "You reach a certain point in your life and you're looking for spirituality." I said, "Did you ever consider Judaism?" He laughed. "What does Judaism got to do with spirituality? Judaism is about doing mitzvahs. Now you eat a matzah. Now you shake a lulav. Now you say the shma. Now you put a coin in the tzedakah box, do the mitzvah dance, and that's what it is." Anyone knows that it's all ruchniyus? I was this Jewish guy who was getting into Buddhism, meditation. He did a documentary on the Dalai Lama. Dalai Lama is chashuv in that world. And if you're very close to the Dalai Lama, he gives you your own mantra to be able to concentrate on when you're meditating. So, he keeps asking for a mantra. He says to him, "You're a Jew, aren't you?" He says, "Yeah." He says, "You already have a mantra." He says, "No, I don't." He says, "Sure you do." He says, "Well, well, well, what's the mantra?" He says, "They never told it to you as a kid." He said, "I'll tell it to you. Clear your mind, assume the position, get ready for meditation," says the Dalai Lama to this Jewish kid, "repeat after me. Sh'ma Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad. You sure you never heard this? Of course they heard it, but nobody ever told them that this is something that we can concentrate on that's going to lift us out of this world, although it's a gemara in Berakhot. The Hasidim Rishonim spent an hour saying getting ready for Shemoneh Esrei, an hour. And then an hour saying Shemoneh Esrei, and then an hour coming down from the experience. Do you understand that when they said Shemoneh Esrei they were someplace else that it took them a whole hour to get back down into this world? That's what tefillah is supposed to be. So we don't see it, so we don't understand it, so we don't know it. So when So instead people look around other people and they say, "Oh, look, there's spirituality, meditation, you know." I had a girl in a Beis Yaakov she said to me, "I'm not happy." "And I was a good girl," she said to me. "I was always a good girl." I said, "What does that mean?" "I never did anything." "I never went anywhere, I never talked to anybody, I never did I never did anything. I was a good girl." That's by the way the definition of a of a good girl, she doesn't do anything. You know. A A guy who's a rosh yeshiva he said to me, "You know, he's in an out-of-town community, and his daughter, you know, says, 'Oh, our friends are doing this.' We don't do that in our family." "And another time, 'Our friends are doing that.' We don't do that in our family. And finally SHE SAID, 'WHAT DO we do in our family?'" "All we do is we don't do anything. Do we do anything in our family?" And he said to me, "And I thought about it and I couldn't think of anything." Understand? Who's Who's good? Someone who doesn't do anything. And the more you do nothing, which means we have a lot of work to do. And this is our avodah. Now understand the following. You know, um There was a comedian by the name of Groucho Marx who once said, "The most important thing is sincerity. Once you can fake that, the rest is easy." You understand it all? Unfortunately, you can't fake it. You know this. Your kids know perfectly well what you're thinking. Small children and animals can sense your mood. This has been proven. So, if you're angry or you're upset, your kids know it. A kid will start crying. A little kid. Start crying. You didn't yell at him. You didn't do anything, but they sense that you're upset. They can feel it. They feel how you feel. It's not enough to say it, you have to show it. You You can't even show it. You have to feel it for real. The iker avoda v'ahavta et Hashem b'chol l'vavchem. You have to serve Hashem with your heart. You have to believe it. You have to feel it. It's not enough to say it. We have to change our perception of how we view Hakadosh Baruchu. Unfortunately, so much of our chinuch has been based on this scary face in the sky who's going to come and get us and burn us in Gehenna. Very often when I speak about this in front of a firm audience, I get two questions. You know, right at the beginning. It's always the first two questions. If this is true, how come you're the only one saying it? So, I bring other people. I'll show you where it's real. Talbisha says it. I'll show you where Matisyahu says it. I'll show you where it's real. I'll show it to you. You know, chapter and verse. And the second question they ask is, "So, how come no one's teaching this to our kids?" Yeah? Why don't our kids sense this? I teach uh I used to teach rabbonim who were going out in the field how to answer basic questions on Judaism. And somebody said, "I can give the answer over that you're saying, but I can't do that little laugh you do at the end, and that really clinches the deal." I said, "You you why the little laugh at the end clinches the deal? Because I believe it." It doesn't matter whether or not you say the right thing or not. If you don't really believe it, the hardest questions to answer are the questions you can't answer for yourself. And therefore, every Yid should have a notebook where they write down their questions. And you have to get answers. It's not enough just to say it. You have to find it, you have to believe it, you have to work on yourself because kids will know whether you believe it or not. And the stronger we are, the more we're mahazik ourselves, then the stronger everything else will be. Stephen Covey, he's a He wrote a book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. My Rebbe, Reb All the Way, said there's a lot of wisdom in that book, so I feel comfortable quoting it. Yeah? He said that ultimately, the only person you have any control over in this world is you. Yeah? You can't control your parents. Whether they're going to be reasonable or unreasonable, the odds are they'll be unreasonable. You can't control your spouse. They for sure going to be unreasonable. Your children, for sure they're going to be unreasonable. Yeah? Your neighbors, your boss, you have no control over anybody or anything in this world. The only thing you have any control over is you. And therefore, if you want to work on something, you work on yourself. And the more you work on yourself, the more it changes. My wife saw that my daughters were not being too uh madakdek in tfila. So, she could give them a speech, she could this. You know what she did? She was mahazik her own tfila. And this is what Stephen Covey calls your circle of influence. The more you mahazik yourself, it spreads out to the people around you. And slowly our kids started doing it because if you're a parent and you don't know this yet, you better figure it out. Your kids are always watching you. Not just that they sense how you feel, they're watching to see what you say and what you do. So my wife was reading the Hamadia ones. And one of my daughters says, "What are you doing?" She's like, "I'm reading the paper." "No, you're not. Your lips are moving." So she said, "I went to a sheer and tfila and they said, you know, when you see these little pitokium that say, 'Please davin for a refuah shleimah for so-and-so,' you don't have to write it down on a piece of paper and just think about it when you come to shmini atzeres. Right then and there, say a kapitel tehillim." And so I started doing that. And my kids were like, "Wow, you do that?" It changed their approach, not based on what they said, based on what they did, based on how they really feel. Reb Moshe Feinstein said, "What killed American Jewry is one line, a shver tzu zein a Yid." Kids would come home and hear their father sit down at the end of the day, "Oy, a shver tzu zein a Yid." And the kids would say, "Yeah, not me." Why would I do it if it's so shver? But if they see from you, if they sense from you, not just they hear from you, they sense from you, it's gevaldich. This is the greatest thing in the world. The more we change ourselves, the more mamela change the kids will change. And everyone always says, "What do I do? What do I do?" It's this technique will take you only so far. The ikka avodah is up here. When the Twin Towers went down, so I went that Chol HaMoed Pesach, a Chol HaMoed Sukkos, to Reb Moshe Shapiro, and he told anybody who would listen that this is the beginning of Gog and Magog. And that we have to and od milvado. That's the avodah. We have to focus on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I said, "Listen, at the time I was teaching in our smicha, these guys come in and normally we tell them take it slow, go this, go that, you know." I said, "Should I tell people, 'Listen, you don't have much time left, so I would just cut to the part where you become firm already cuz I don't know how much longer you got here.'" And he gave me one of those looks that he gives me that I'm zocheh to get, you know. And at the end when I was leaving, he pulled me aside and he said, "Mada'i, for sure you have to do slowly. What I'm talking about is up here. The ikkar avodah is in your head. En od milvado, you have to know this up up above. We have to believe that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is everything and if we don't, our kids see it." Moshe Rosenbaum was known as Maury. Yeah, he runs his farm store during the summer and uh and uh up in the mountains and uh Woodbourne. And he told me, says, "Sometimes I have people come in and uh they buy sefarim, Judaica, religious articles, whatever. And they don't want to pay the sales tax. So I said, 'Huh? I can't? Tell me who your posek is who tells you you don't have to pay sales tax. Cuz the Moshe Feinstein says you do and the Satmar Rebbe says you do. So forget tell me who your So they start to get angry at me.' I said, 'Now I understand. You don't believe in the Aibershter.' And nobody wants to hear that when you're buying sefarim, you know. So what do you mean? Says, 'You think that if you have to pay this 8% sales tax, you won't have a parnassah. You have to go against halacha and steal it cuz otherwise Hakadosh Baruch Hu can't take care of you.' What's the message that our kids hear? Not when things are going great, when things are going wrong, yeah? Baruch Hashem, look how great it is. Look at all the good in our lives. Hashem's good to us. My My father died a young man machlah. Took him 2 years to die. Yeah? And he always said, "Listen, I made it to 70. I'm going to say in Tehillim, "Person who lives till 70, I got everything that's coming to me." And the next 2 years he made such a kiddush Hashem because it didn't matter how much pain he was in and from the chemotherapy and everything, he would say, "Baruch Hashem. Hashem's been good to me. I got everything I was supposed to get." You understand? You know what a kiddush Hashem is and what a chinuch is? Our kids hear from us how wonderful Kodesh Baruch Hu is and how wonderful it is. So, we have to change it up here. This is the ikkar avodah. I'll give some techniques and ideas, but the ikkar avodah is up here. And if you don't do it up here, all the other methods and and tricks are not going to work. You have to change yourself. What's the ikkar avodah v'ello? The ikkar avodah, I'm not talking about everything else. The ikkar avodah, says Reb Yitzchak Isaac Sher, Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka, the ikkar avodah is what the Beis Yaakov says, "Ani l'dodi v'dodi li." I love Hashem and Hashem loves me. That's the ikkar avodah, and it's poshut why. How can you go into Rosh Hashanah? You're going to go into Yom Hadin, and you walk in there and there's the judge, and he knows everything, and you can't bribe him, and you can't influence him, and he sees everything, and everything is hidden, and you think he doesn't like you. So, why are we wasting our time? Just shoot me now. You know why I'm wasting my time? But if you have to go into that judgment, and there's the person who loves you more than everybody in this world, and he's rooting for you. He believes in There were these billboards somebody took out many years ago, white with black lighting and it was signed God. I don't think Hashem actually took them out, but it was signed on his behalf. Different kind of things, you know? I wrote a book, want to read it, God. You know, stuff like this. So, here's There was one that made a profound impression on me. It said, "But I believe in you." God. Why? Cuz there's so many people who ask themselves, "Do I believe in God?" But Hashem says, "I believe in you." You believe Hashem believes in you? Ask this question to yourself. And if if you're too afraid to ask yourself, ask it to other from Jews. Do you think Hashem loves you? So, there were people who've heard this enough times already that they can't even get it out. Yes. So, I asked them a harder question. Do you think Hashem likes you? He likes me? I said, "Okay, let's take a step further. Do you think Hashem is impressed with you?" That I haven't met one from Jewry that could say yes. No. Hashem is disappointed in me. Cuz I don't live up to my potential and I'm not good enough. He'll wait for me till the day I die and then if I don't change, he will cast me into the pit of Gehenna out of love so that I will be cleansed. But right now, do you see Hashem looking at you saying, "Way to go, Joe." You're great. You're terrific. You know why? I'll tell you I'll I'll give you the most important n'kuda of chinuch. I started Yeshiva Day School in 1964. Yeah. Scary idea, but that's when I started. First grade. I skipped kindergarten. I was too bright. Yeah. I started 1964, first grade. And when I went to Yeshiva, you have to understand, at that point, 1964, everybody knew that Torah was dead in America. You know? I met the son of the Chernobyl Rebbe. And I said to him, "Listen, I said, you got a family business. Why why don't you become a rebbe?" So, the first thing he says to me, "Do I look like a rebbe?" And then he said to me, "What do you think? You look around now at the rebbe's. What do you think it would look like? When all the rebbe's came to America, there was nothing." So, who do you think came to my father's dish? The homeless, the poor, you know, that had no place to go, you know? Now you look at the Hasidim, you know what it took to build these places? There was nothing when they came. You know? So, he says, "You know, I was going to do this, you know?" He says he says it's a takes a tremendous amount, you know, tremendous amount of effort. You have to work really hard. He says, "Okay." You know? But uh But uh you know, a person person's going to to build this You come in and there's there's nothing there. You know? You know that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you know, believes in you. Yeah? I believe in you. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is is is smiling at you and he cares about you. So, do you know that he's impressed with you? How many people can say that? How many people can really say that Hashem, you know, thinks I'm terrific? Yeah. But that's the emes. The emes is that that we have to, you know, set a a message. And people look at the kids look at us and they say, "Wow." You know? Hashem is smiling at us. Hashem cares about us. And you have to believe that. Yeah? So, we have to change this. Ani l'dodi v'dodi li. Hakadosh Baruch Hu believes in us. Hakadosh Baruch Hu cares about us. And you have to have this up here. Yeah? Hakadosh Baruch Hu is impressed with us. That's a very important word. Yeah? Not just that he tolerates us and he waits for us. Yeah? And the more you work on this, better. So, how are you going to do this? Yeah? I believe in you, right? So, start by taking a look at all the stuff that Hashem does for you. I remember seeing a bumper sticker 20 years ago. It said, "God, what have you done for me lately?" Yeah? What have you done for me lately? You know? So, I started doing it years ago. Somebody said to me it really belongs in both of them. That's probably true, but you know, if I can keep kavana for the first bracha, I'm pretty happy. I get to the words gomel chasadim tovim vekoneh hakol. When I get to those words gomel chasadim tovim, I say, "Like what?" Let me think of something that Hashem did for me. Vekoneh hakol, and it comes to my share. Okay. So, I started off three times a day and I don't repeat. So, you start off, baruch Hashem, I can walk, baruch Hashem, I can talk, baruch Hashem, I can see, baruch Hashem. Okay, you know. When I ran out of body parts, you know what I mean? So, then I started, "Wood, baruch Hashem, for wood. That's a good thing, you know. Air conditioning, that was a great idea. Glass, terrific, you know." I'm going through stuff, you know. And then I went to speak for a a school for special children. And I went down to see the school, and I saw they kept putting drops in one of the kids' eyes, and I said, "What's that?" He says, "Their eyes don't make tears." And so, you have to keep putting drops in it. And I went back when I davened mincha, and I came to the words gomel chasadim tovim, and I said, "Baruch Hashem, my eyes make tears." Yeah? And that was the turning point for me. And I just started looking over and over again at all the things that happened. And I'll tell you the truth, sometimes I have to cheat cuz I don't know which one to choose. I see so many good things that go on every single day. Someone said to me, "Why does Hashem do so many bad things to me?" I said, "He doesn't. He does so many good things to you, but you take credit for that." And all the good things that Hashem does, you take credit for yourself. You almost get into a You ever almost get into an accident and it's like almost a nice, you know, just miss it. What do you say afterwards? "Wow, I'm such a great driver." I'm brilliant. And the one time that you act stupid and you get into an accident, you say, "Where was Hashem? Why did he let this happen to me?" You know? When you If you're going to see If you give Hashem If you're going to blame him for the bad, you got to give him credit for the good. And trust me how much good there is that goes on in your day. You understand that if you do this three times a day, 365 days a year, in 10 years, you'll have counted 11,000 things that Hashem did for you. Over and over. Yeah? All the good that Hashem does for you in every single instance, in every single situation. An unbelievable thing. If you focus on the fact and you believe I need a do do do do do do Hashem loves me and he believes in me and he's impressed with me. I told you the story about the rapper. You know why? Because there was nothing back then. So, when I started school, if you were willing to be a firm Jew, that was an unbelievable thing. And so, it didn't matter if you were good if you were bad or if you made trouble, they wouldn't ever throw you out of school. They couldn't. They didn't have enough Jews. If you went, you got one message. You are a hero. You're keeping Torah alive. You're somebody special. And if you did something bad, you went to the principal and he sighed. And he says, "I I know your family. They're such nice people. Don't do that again, okay? Be a good boy. Go back to class, yeah?" They'd throw somebody out you. Couldn't have enough people. Today Hashem we have too many Jews. There's no question about it. You can't find a deer. Can't find an apartment. You know, can't find parking. Well, we can get rid of some. So, every kid goes to school today and they get a message. Sometimes openly and sometimes it's just implied. We don't need you here. I got four of the kids waiting for your spot. Step out of line and you're gone. We can throw kids out. We can throw them away cuz we got too many. They couldn't throw me away. They needed me. I was a star. Now we don't need anybody. We got plenty of from Jews. We can get rid of a few. And so everybody every kid walks around and what does every parent walk around? Terrified. Don't go around like that. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do that. We'll get into trouble. And if you get it thrown out of school, then forget it. Then no other kid is ever going to get accepted and our whole family is thrown out and no one will ever get a shot up. You better watch yourself. Cuz we got to watch you. Don't step out of line. We don't need you. They needed me. It didn't matter how bad I was. Yeah? And so therefore we have to change the way that we look at it and the children will see us. So, let's take a simple example. People ask me this question more than once. How do you make your kids sit at the Shabbos table? I don't make my kids sit at the Shabbos table. It's a schuss to sit at the Shabbos table. My kid wants to go off to the side, he's missing out. Then everybody ask me, "How do you make your kids eat ice cream?" Here's the ice cream and the kid won't eat it. I got to make him eat it. What am I going to do? Should I give him a punch till he eats it? How do I get him to eat the candy? If the kid doesn't want to sit at the Shabbos table, there's something wrong with how a Shabbos table. Did you ever sit down and look at your Shabbos table and say, "Why would a kid want to sit here? How does a kid enjoy this? That's the question you have to ask yourself. You know? So it depends on the on the kids, depends on the age. There was a when I didn't prepare I used to prepare riddles, I used to prepare jokes, I used to prepare puzzles so that the kids would sit there and they'd have a great time. They would they would they would love to sit at the Shabbos table, it was so much fun. When the kids got a little older, if if you have teens and preteens, what do they love to do more than anything? Hear themselves talk. So I'd ask them a question. I'd ask them a question. This the says that you know cuz I was a there so I had to agree to terms. said the first kid has to be to them. Why? says the cuz he wanted at least one kid to become a child. Let him find it on his own. So I said to my kids, is that a good idea? Should you expose your kids to different kind of things so that they can choose or should you protect them and keep them away? They had lots to say. And when I tell the story over people ask me and what did you tell them? I said nothing. I just let them talk. What could be more exciting than that? They get to give their opinions, they get to give their idea. What do you think about it? Don't worry about it. Parents have plenty of time to lecture their kids. Don't worry. We have plenty of shortage of that. Yeah? That's what we do best. I used to write a in the and I stopped. And I said, I don't have to write a whole column. I'll tell it to you very simple. Don't say 95% of what you want to say cuz it's probably negative and it doesn't matter cuz they won't listen anyway. Say that 5 to 10% of positive things cuz that's what you need to do. Don't worry about it. You don't have to worry. You worry you don't tell your kids enough time cuz they look like they weren't listening to you. They're listening. You know this because later when you tell your kids how much you love them, they'll throw it back in your face. So, you know they were listening. Don't worry about it. They hear every negative comment you make. Don't worry. You know, make yourself say more positive building things. Show them how wonderful it is. Show them that you're impressed with them, that Baruch Hu is impressed with them. Yeah? Make the Shabbos table something that people want to do. You know, I I have my zemiros that I sing. I have certain nigunim that I enjoy. Not all my kids like those nigunim. So, I'll turn to a kid and I'll say, "Go ahead. You You You choose the nigun for this." You know? And uh you know, let them do it. Let them enjoy it. Make it a Shabbos table that they want to sit at. People say to me, "Oh, Pesach is so negative in our house. It's so tension-filled and cleaning and that." I understand because the Pesach hotel industry is a billion-dollar industry. That means that people can't handle Pesach. I understand that. Yeah? We can't handle it. We never heard that from our grandparents, you know? Forget. My best Some of my favorite memories of growing up was getting ready for the Seder. You know? Grate the chrain and and and chop up the apples for the for the charoses, you know, and grate the apples and chop up the nuts. You know, you make you make everything everything ready. Isn't that so exciting? Are the kids feeling that excitement? I'll tell you better than that. We spend so much time cleaning and shopping and cooking and serving. Why? So, we get to the Pesach Seder. In the Pesach Seder, there's a mitzvah to talk to your kids. A mitzvah. And I ask parents, "How much time did you spend preparing what you want to tell them?" Or you're just going to tell them what you told them last year and the year before and 10 years before that. Somebody told me once there's called a lawyer with 10 years experience and a lawyer with 1 year experience 10 times. He just kept doing the same stuff over and over again. There's no heart to that. I say the same thing. There's some people who've had 10 Pesach Seders, and some people who've had one Pesach Seder 10 times. What do you want to give a message? You got to give a message to your kids today, not not 20 years ago or 50 years ago or 100 years ago. Everyone has to see themselves he will they went out of mitzrayim. That means that it has to be a message for me today. What do you want to tell your kids? What a unbelievable opportunity. Do you think about the Seder? Baruch Hashem, my kids are very jealous of the Seder. When I invite Orchim, they get upset cuz this is their time. They love it. I'm I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a you know of a a crazy guy, you know. When I was in Yeshiva, you know what I loved? We used to light and we used to stop in the Seder. We'd go down to the the dining room. We'd all light the Chanukah licht. And then the whole Yeshiva would sing Maoz Tzur. And when we came to Yevanim Nikvetzu Azai, we used to dance. And we went back to the Beis Medrash. And and I loved that. So in my house, when my kids were very little, you know what I did? I'd light the candles. I'd sing you know, Maoz Tzur. When we came to Yevanim, we would dance. And it's so interesting. My kids would go through a phase, you know, where they reached a point where they were too cool for that. I'm too cool for that. They'd sit on the side. They always came back. They always came back into the circle. They got a little older. And one kid was in America. Used to call up every day for Havdalah. You know. This was not one of my more positive kids. And I heard her say to one of her sisters once, "I love Havdalah candles in our house." Do your kids love Havdalah candles? And if not, why not? What are we doing? I I I have kids who like to go to Slichos with me. Not many, Some. And I sit down with them the night before Slichos and we go through the Slichos and I show them what we say and what we don't say and I underline, you know, when you come to the Pizmon, the part that you're supposed to repeat, you know, and I tell them this this that and I got I have eight daughters, you understand? So, they're not all sitting next to me, you know. And and they have their Slichos with everything written in and and underlined and I do the same thing before Rosh Hashanah and before Yom Kippur with the Machzor. They know what we say and where we say it and what we do. You know? You have to You have to make the Yomim Noraim a time that people feel that like wow, this is this is this is something that I want my kids to give over. Is learning fun for kids? Do they enjoy learning? You know? So, my girls when they'd have a Chumash test, you know, we always made sure they'd study. They'd always learn with me. Chumash and Rashi and I'd always bring in other stuff, you know, that I that I'd bring in the Pshat cuz I used to be a teacher myself, you know. You know? Learn with my boys Mishnayos, you know, Gemara. Is it something enjoyable? Do they look forward to it? You know? I see people go to Shul and they kids sit sit there. Kid can't even read. Now, sit there. I wouldn't let my my older son come to Shul with me until he asked. And then when he would come, you know, he'd stay for a certain amount of time and I'd hand him my watch and I He didn't even know how to tell time. I said, "You see the big hand? When it gets on the one, come back. Go outside and play." And he always came back. And then we'd come to the you know, I would just say "Go go outside and play again. Come back with Come back with this." And I didn't let him stay in longer until he asked me to. Cuz I want the kid to have memories that, you know, going to Shul is something wonderful. I know some kids, now they're adults, they can't go to Shul They can't go to Shul because their father had hit them so many times they have such a negative attitude about going to Shul. It's something that's so terrible. If a person understands that I had a coach brother who loves me, I have an all powerful friend who can do anything and say anything and solve all my problems and he loves me and he's looking out for me. You understand how it changes your life? Now, I know certain people who are not happy and they think that there's nothing that they can do about it and that's just the way and you grow up in a house with unhappy parents and the kids are unhappy and everybody's unhappy and there's this terrible feeling in the house. I want to tell you, it's not not because of the positive I know somebody says to me, I always get depressed on Sukkot cuz there's a mitzvah for simcha and I can't handle the pressure. You better cheer up or you're going to go to gehenna. You understand like, you know, it doesn't work that way. Maybe a quick word about gehenna. You know, I tell people, you know you can't really burn a neshama. Your neshama doesn't burn, you know that, right? I said if you're worried about burning, you know, save up your money and and and and invest in cryogenics, you know what I mean? They'll they'll freeze you, wrap you in aluminum foil, put you in the freezer. You could check every now and then. You're you're fine. There's no smoke coming out of you, you know? So, well, the the the reason they use this mashal is because of the busha. That's all That's what gehenna is. Gehenna is when a person turns around and they're 60 years old and they look back at their life and they say, "I didn't do anything with my life." That's terrible. When people look at their marriage and and after 25 years and I have nothing to say to my wife or to my husband and we never worked on our marriage, then that marriage is going to be gehenna. That's what it is. It's the busha of realizing what I could have done with my life. You understand? That it's it's it's an invitation not to waste your time. Life is beautiful and important. So, I'm saying that people have the ability to control this. So, people say to me, "Well, that's easy for you, Rabbi Arlansky, cuz you are a a naturally happy person." So, I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm not. I'm a naturally depressed person. If I was a kid today, I'd for sure be on medication. Yeah? For probably the first 30 years of my life, I was seriously depressed. Yeah? And and I looked at everything morbid and bitter and terrible. And you know, like the Hazal say, they couldn't drink from the water key marim hein. Not that the water was bitter, they were bitter. When you're bitter, everything's bitter. And if you have parents who are bitter, the kids are going to be bitter, the whole house is going to be bitter. We have to change. So, if a person is unhappy, remember, simcha is a mida. Look in the Orchos Tzaddikim, it's listed as a mida just like kaas and kina and gaiva and anything else. You can make yourself happy. Conversely, you can make yourself miserable. We see people have everything in the world and they're miserable. It doesn't work that way, it's a mida. Now, by the way, here's an interesting fact. On a computer, you can create what's called a macro, which means if you always do the same six or seven, you know, keystrokes, you can make it into a macro. Your brain does that automatically. When you start to think something, and you keep thinking the same series of thoughts, your brain creates a shortcut. And so, when you think the first one, the synapses fire up and you go boom boom boom boom boom. So, if you start to think something and you always end up in the same depressing place, you'll get there. You have to stop it right away. Listen to the music. Person's unhappy, listen to the music. If you can find some positive music. There's a lot of depressing music out there. You can find some happy music. Something that puts a smile on your face. Look at yourself and smile. Do you know that when you smile, psychologically, your entire um body changes? I don't know, we're doing a fundraising video once in my Yeshiva where I was I was teaching and I and they said, "Try to get the kids smiling because when people see smiling faces, they give more money. You know, when you smile when you look at yourself and you smile, even if you don't feel like it, you make yourself smile, which by the way is a mitzvah. Yeah? The cover called the upon him your face. The Vilna Gaon, he didn't waste any time. Nothing, not a minute. His tell me them came in once and saw him looking at the mirror going like this. Trying out different smiles. They said, "Rebbe, what are you doing?" And he says, "It says the cover called the upon him your face. I want to see what's the nicest face I can make. So I can greet everyone with a pleasant face. Look at yourself with a pleasant face, you'll see your own smiling face, it'll change your attitude. Listen to something funny, laugh out loud. Do you know that when you laugh, your body releases endorphins? It's a type of a narcotic in your body, a natural one, where you actually feel better. I I you know, they say laughter is the best medicine. That may not be true, but it's a very good narcotic. When a person laughs, they feel better. Yeah? They feel good. So, uh we have the ability to change our attitude. There's no such a thing as we can't do it. A person has the ability to be happy, to be to be uh uh you know, to look at life positively. And if a person thinks to themselves, I remember I had somebody once says to me, "Where's all the simcha in Judaism?" I said, "What do you mean?" Being close to God. He said, "I don't know if I believe in God." I said, "I have nothing to offer you. You like your gefilte fish, eat it. You know, you want to you want to uh shake a lulav, go ahead. You like eating matzah? I said, "The but when we get close to God, that's everything. We have to believe that ourselves. We have to teach it to our children. That's Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. We have to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. uv'chol me'odecha. That's what it's saying. Look at the sefer Hinnuch. Hashem is Echad. He's everything. So, love Hashem because it's better than everything else in this world. And that, remind yourself all the time, I'm not doing mitzvahs cuz I have to, I'm going to get punished. I'm doing it to get this unbelievable pleasure in this world. Not when I'm dead, now. I can daven and lift myself out of this world. I can keep Shabbos and take myself out. Why do we keep kosher? People say to me, you know, I ask this question. Why do we keep kosher? They say, "Well, it's for health and hygiene." I said, "Then you and I are obviously eating in different kosher restaurants, cuz the ones that I go to, there's a lot of stuff going on, but it's not health and hygiene, you know?" I said, "Why do we eat kosher?" The Torah says, cuz otherwise you'll have timtum halev, you'll be closed off to this ruchniyus. I have a friend of mine who's an armchair kabbalist, you know? So, at the end, when he's teaching baalei teshuvah, he or potential baalei teshuvah, he does his party trick. He goes around the room and he tells everybody who keeps kosher and who doesn't, and he's always right. And they're like, "How do you know?" He says, "Cuz I threw in one advanced idea and these people got it and you didn't, cuz you don't keep kosher." Shabbos is a wave of kedusha that fills the world. And all the mitzvahs are just there so we can tap into this ruchniyus. We daven, it lifts us out of this world. That's what it's supposed to be. And when we live our lives that way, and we give it over to our children, then we're able to live a life that's filled with simcha and ahavas Hashem, and then we would see ourselves differently and our children differently and our home differently. And the more we hit that, the more it'll ripple out to other communities and other families. We see it sometimes. You go to a family and say, "How do I get my kids to feel that way?" It's because there's a home that's filled with ahava and with simcha and Hakadosh Baruchu. You spoke earlier about the son of Hashem. How we bring that practically? How can a person bring it to our level in our days, 2015? How can we reach the level of the son of Hashem? So, you know, it's interesting. The most important things we do, and I I mentioned this, but it's important. The most important things that we do are up here. It's in our head. I was teaching in a seminary and the girls would make appointments already in November. Right? They came in September. They have a week of orientation, you know, then they have a few sample classes. Then it's the Yom Tov right? And they're already on vacation, you know what I mean? They maybe had a month and they make meetings with me and they say, "I don't feel like I'm growing. I don't feel like I changed. It's been a whole month." So, what does that mean, you know? Well, I don't know. I didn't change. This wardrobe thing, I didn't do this. I'm not doing this. I didn't say this. I said, "Don't you understand the ikar of avodah is up here?" A person has to really believe Think about that for a minute. Picture cuz I'm I'm going to give you a technique. Don't do this in front of people because they'll lock you away. But, you know, you know, they say the definition of a wise person uh the day definition of a holy person is someone who talks to Hashem. The definition of a crazy person is someone who hears Hashem talking to him, yeah? So, I'm going to make a suggestion. This is what I tell people to make it real. Talk to Hakadosh Baruchu. So, a person says to me, "I daven." I said, "I didn't say daven. Talk to Hakadosh Baruchu ke'ilu he's real. Let's say he really exists." I've heard many from people say to me, "I know there's a God. I just don't believe it." I said, "Right. I I got you there." It's hard. He's invisible. You don't see him. You I understand. But, when I was uh I know people can't leave a message on an answering machine, they just freeze up. It's hard to talk to somebody you don't see, you know? I said, "Let's just pretend that Eloha Sham really exists and he's really there. He's really listening to you. Talk to him. Yeah? Tell him how you're feeling. Tell him what you're going on. Tell him what's happening in your day. Try it. I know it sounds crazy. Try it. Make it an exercise. And if you do this and I've given this advice to a lot of people and it's always I always get the same reaction. Yeah? Go You'll go through steps. First, you'll feel crazy and stupid. That's okay. You're going to feel that way anyway, so why not? Yeah? After a while, you'll feel like someone is listening to you. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes you're talking on the phone and you don't hear anybody, but you know the person's there? Some people don't know that. You have certain people always going, "Hello? Hello? Hello?" You know? They need constant reassurance, you know? I'm not one of those uh-huh kind of people. So, people sometimes have to say, "Are you there?" You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But sometimes you're talking and you know someone's listening. And then, if you get really good at this, you'll start to get answers. Like I said, you won't hear voices, I hope. But you'll start to see things in your life where you're like, "The hashgacha is so dramatic that you know it could have been Eloha Sham has to be there. There's no other way this could have happened." You know? Um one of my sister-in-laws once gave me an example. She said she lost her car keys, you know? So, you know how this works. You know, so you go around, you look for your car keys, you can't find them. So, then you go into a impotent rage, screaming and yelling, then you calm down, you say, "Okay, let me try again." You go over everything very carefully and it's still not there. Then you go through another period of rage. Yeah? So, she says, "After I finished all that, I said, 'Okay, Eloha Sham, you're obviously trying to send me a message. What are you trying to send me? You're trying to tell me that I'm not in charge. Okay, so here's the deal. I can't find my keys. If you don't want me to go, I won't go. If you want me to go, then you'll help me find my keys. But I understand and I'll Nevada, it's completely up to you. So So I opened the drawer that I had opened twice already. And there were my car keys. Yeah? So you'll start to get answers. But the more you make a Kodesh Baruch Hu real, that's the way you say Hashem. And like I say, count the things that Hashem does for you. When you realize that Hashem loves you and Hashem is real. And you practice this, you'll start to feel how Kodesh Baruch Hu in your life. And the more you feel how Kodesh Baruch Hu in your life, then when you davening, you're not just saying words, you're davening to somebody who's real. You can sense a Kodesh Baruch Hu and then you're davening it's a whole different thing. Could you imagine that you're talking to Kodesh Baruch Hu and you see how Kodesh Baruch Hu in front of you and you say "Let us shine your light." Tashuva, Hashem, let's rebuild Jerusalem and it's real. It's not just words, it's real. So I I think that's a a good technique. And how can we give that over to our children? So the best way is by example. That's why kids are always watching you. They're watching you, they're listening to you, they know what you say, they know what you do, they know what you believe. Pesach Krohn tells a great story, you know, um of uh this uh you know, this father's trying to tell the kid not to lie, you know, the kid was lying. Don't lie. So he says, "What are you talking about? When we drove up to to to you know, the the the simcha in Toronto, you know, and we came to the border crossing and they said are you bringing in any food? You told the guy no and we were all sitting out in the back seat." You know? You have parents sometimes who say say to a kid, you know, uh it's very important not to lie. Um Mr. Jones is on the phone, tell him I'm not here. You have to always tell the truth, you understand? Would you ever see a mother do this Stop yelling! I can't take the yelling. Stop yelling! Well, here's my favorite. Don't touch. Instead, kids aren't listening, they're watching. They see where we are. I had I had eight girls and one boy. I got two little boys later in life when I was too old to kill them. But but I had eight girls and one boy. And boys are different than girls. You know, boys express themselves by hitting each other. They'll pick up a toy and smack each other. They have that They express themselves. Girls just annoy each other until they develop eating disorders. You know, it's a whole different kind of thing, you know. So, Yacov is screaming at somebody, my son, you know, I come in. He's little, you know. And I said, "What are you screaming? You know, you can't scream. You have to stay calm." Take a look. Now, I live in Israel where chocolate is a food group. You know what I mean? You know, you can send a kid to school Rosh Chodesh, you know, two pieces of white bread with like chocolate spread on it. You know what I mean? You send it in. That's that's already a sandwich. If you sent the kid to America with two pieces of white bread with a candy bar in between, they'd put you They'd take your kid away. You know what I'm saying? You know. So, everyone Every home in Israel has a big jar of chocolate, you know. He says, "Look." So, the three-year-old had her hands in the chocolate and she had finger painted the table. And I said, "What are you crazy? Look what you did." Anyway, and I stopped and my son says, "See? Just like you." So, the more you believe it and kids know what you believe. They know perfectly well where your values are. I had a guy in Ohr Sameach and he said to me that he's one of three boys and they all intermarried. So, he got divorced and then he he's finding his way back to Judaism. He says, "One time I said to my parents, 'Did it bother you that all of your kids intermarried?'" Parents said, "Yeah." My mother said, "Yeah." I said, "So, why don't you ever say anything?" He says, "I didn't want to impose my values on my children." And he looks at me and he says, "But you know, one time I used a bad word for a black person and my mother washed my mouth out with soap. So, I guess she didn't mind imposing certain values on us." And so, we all know from our parents what's really important to them and what they believe in. And you can see it over and over again. So, you think about it. If you tell your parents, what do your parents really believe in? You You know. What's really important to your parents? You know. And you'll be able to bring 20 stories. Not that cuz they told you. Because you felt it. You saw it. They lived it. Do you have any practical ideas how to make a Shabbat atmosphere by a Shabbat meal? Yeah. I gave them already, but I'll give them again. You know, uh is Look, you know, when when you're going to bring a when a little kid starts walking or crawling around, so parents know you have to child-proof the home, right? And oy vey voy if you don't. They'll open up a cabinet. They'll bring things out of over here. They'll pull this. It was a terrible story here in Jerusalem where some kid little kid pulled the string of the Shabbat urn and the whole thing came down and and and and spilled on them boiling hot water. Terrible terrible stuff. So, you have to child-proof the house. You walk around the house and you say to yourself, "What could a kid do here? Where's it going to be a problem? What's on the floor? What's over here? You know?" Do the same thing with the Shabbat table. Say, I look at the Shabbat table and I say, "Is this a place that a kid would want to be at?" I um I used to make a Shabbat party for my kids. I gave up my Shabbat nap. I know this is heresy in many places. I gave up my Shabbat nap. And I tell my kids, they were all little at the time, "You can invite in all your little friends." And all the little friends in the building would come in. And they'd all sit around the table and I'd give them every little napkin and I'd give them a treat with every bracha. You know, they would get a uh pretzel and they'd get a bisli and a mizyanis and I'd pour little grape juices for everybody and I'd give them a piece of apple or orange or clementine, and I'd give them, you know, can every all the brochos, and we'd make all the brochos together, we'd eat all the food, and then I'd ask a few parsha questions, and we'd sing a couple of songs, and all that. Anyway, I had a very chashuva breich in my building, and he said to me, I patted myself on the back. What a master mechanech I am, because my kid came over to me and said, "Tati, I love Shabbos." And I said, "Really? Why do you love Shabbos?" He said, "Cuz the Olawskis make a Shabbos party." So, you look at it and say, how how is a kid going to come to the Shabbos table and enjoy it? That's always the question. What's going to be fun for them? I don't care what I want to bring across. You know what I want to bring across more than anything? That the kid should have a good time. That's the most important thing. I want my kids to walk away and say, "Wow, I love that going to the Shabbos table. I love sitting there." You know? I'm going to give them treats that they like. I'm going to sing songs that they like. I'm going to tell them tell them jokes or stories or whatever it is. I have two jokes that I am so sick of, because I told it over once at the Shabbos table, and my kids loved it. They made me tell it over every Shabbos for months, till it was coming out of my ears, but I did it with the same level of enthusiasm. Have to act it out. It's a It's a whole a whole hatzaga there. They loved it. Like I said, when they get older, we would argue about things. Somebody once came in, I was having a fight with arguing with one of my kids, you know, one of my older daughters, and everybody in the table was screaming and yelling, and these people stopped in the house, and they just like opened the door, and they looked, and they just like ran away. And the kids got to arguing and to fighting and to screaming and yelling. They were so excited. Yeah? You got to look at it and say, why would a kid like to be at the Shabbos table? How can I be excited about Yiddishkeit when I'm in a bad mood and have no patience? Mhm. That's it's it's an easy question if you're an animal. That's that's a good question cuz an animal can't help it. I can't help it. That's my nature. Right? The famous story where the scorpion asked the frog to take him across the river. So the the frog says, "Are you crazy? You're on my back, you'll sting me, I'll die." He said, "That, don't be silly. I sting you and you die, so then I'll die, too." Is that good for us? He gets in the back, they're halfway through the water and he feels a sting on his back. The frog says, "What are you doing? Now we're both going to drown." Then he says, "I know, but that's my nature." Yeah? We are not victims. You have to change the victim mentality. There's no such a thing as I can't help it. Yeah? You know, the the label Leo, he was waiting for an egged bus and for some reason there was a big delay. He was on his way to Hadassah to have an eye operation. And everyone's staring down the road. Where is it? Where is it? What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? And Reb Leib Bal Yoel is just looking at the safer. And finally, it's so long, he actually looks up the road. And then he catches himself, he says, "Oy. The Alter of Kelm would have been so disappointed in me. So little self-control." There's no such a thing I can't help it. I can't help it. I'm in a bad mood. I'm angry. I have to say, "What? Am I an animal? I can't help it." It's ridiculous. Yeah? You're in a bad mood? So you change your attitude. You know what I'm saying? And like I said, put on some music, you know, it's the same thing with the temper. People says, "I can't help it. I have I'll lose my temper. I can't He made me angry. What is this? What are you an animal? He made me angry." There's no such a thing. You slow down, you count to 10, you take a deep breath, you think of of of all the good things that God did for you, you change your position. I'm not a victim. If I'm unhappy, I'm depressed, I'm miserable, etc. So then I stop and I refocus. Think of all the good things that God does for you. Laugh out loud. Look at yourself in a mirror, make a face. I don't care what. You take control of your life. You are not a victim. You There's no such thing as I can't help it. We have such an attitude today that we can't help it. When I was a kid, you know, if you were walking and you fell down, you broke your leg in front of a store, the store owner came over to you and said, "Why don't you watch where you're going, you stupid kid?" And he called your father, and your father came down and said, "Why don't you watch where you're going, you stupid kid?" And he took you to the emergency room, and the doctor said, "Why don't you watch where you're going, you stupid kid?" And you know what? Next time you watch where you were going. Today, if I fall down in front of the store, I'm going to sue the store owner. How come he had a hard sidewalk? It's his fault. It's everybody else's fault. I was a mashgiach in a yeshiva during a particularly dark period of my life. I had this one kid who was more mature than everybody else. I know cuz he would always tell me how he was more mature than everybody else. That was the only way I knew, cuz you couldn't tell from anything else. And one time he says to me, you know, how mature he is. And I said, "You know what? Maturity is responsibility. And our davening starts at 7:15, and you don't get out of bed till after 11, and often after 12. So, why do you think you're so mature?" And he said to me, "Maybe you should be asking yourself why you can't motivate me to get out of bed. Because ultimately, this is your failure, isn't it, Rabbi?" Cuz there's no problem that's so big you can't blame it on somebody. It's somebody else's fault. Oh, I had a rabbi, he was mean to me. Oh, I had this happen. Oh, my parents weren't good to me. Whatever that. So what? Now, pick yourself up and start life. So what if you had a hard life? Life's tough. You want to compare terrible stories? I got plenty. I choose to be happy. There's no such things you got down, some things went wrong. So what? You're not an animal. You pull yourself together, and you make yourself happy, and you change your attitude. How do I change my perspective of Hashem being a boogie monster? Boogie monster. Boogie monster. How do I give that over to my kids? You know, my my kids hear me say all the time all the wonderful things Hashem does for me. I travel a lot. You know, when I go to speak places, they introduce me as a world-famous speaker. And I always point out a world-famous speaker means a guy with no job. That's what it is. You know, so I can travel around cuz I've nothing to do, yeah. So So, uh when I come back from the trip, so I go over the trip, where I went, what I went, what went on, etc. So, that usually goes with the Shabbos meal. So, it's one Friday night, my son, he was he was young at the time, maybe he was seven, maybe he was eight. And he says, "Abba, you didn't tell us all of the hashgacha protis yet on this trip." He understood that I didn't say that. It's just I would say, "Well, let me tell you, Hashem did this for me and that for me and this for me, you know." And whenever I would point it out, I would say, "Ah, and he does stuff like that for me all the time." It's not a big deal, you know. A guy drove me to the airport late. It's late. I got to the counter a half hour after the plane was supposed to take off, and the plane was delayed cuz there was terrible weather. And I was like, "Baruch Hashem." So, I went to the desk and they said, "Not going to help you. This flight is overbooked. There are 20 people on a waiting list in front of you. There's not a chance that you're going to get on this flight." I said, "I'll wait anyway." And I'm waiting and I'm waiting. Eventually, the plane comes. And first, everybody else had to get off the plane, and then everybody had to get on the plane, you know. And they board everybody, you know, area one, two, three, four, five, you know. And then they start calling the standbys. And they go through one name, two names, three names, five names. And finally, she says, "You know what? Everyone just get on the plane." So, I went over and said, "What happened?" She says, "They sent a bigger plane." Had I gotten to the airport on time, I would have been in one of those middle seats. Everybody was all crowded in the whole front of the plane. The back of the plane was empty. I had a whole row to myself. And I said, when I told the story over, "And Hashem does stuff like that for me all the time. They constantly look at all the good. And my kids know that I live a life where Hakadosh Baruch Hu is always watching out for me and always doing good things for me. And they see it and they hear it. You know, there are other people who hear their parents complain about how terrible it is and how Hashem hurt me and why why did this happen and why did that happen? And I'm like, "Oh, Hakadosh Hashem." I live in Yerushalayim. A s'chut. And uh you know, when people say to me uh you know, something when things go wrong. Things go wrong in everybody's life. I say, "Listen, we have water. You know, for most of Yerushalayim's history, there was no water. It rained. You filled up your your cistern and bore under your house. And that's all the water you had till it rained again. The next the next season. You know, I said, "Now you can turn on the faucet and get water anytime you want. Unbelievable chesed. All right, all the other terrible things that are going on. What do you want to look at? You want to look at the good or you want to look at the bad? And they're both there. You can choose to look at whatever you want. I choose to look at all the good things that Hakadosh Baruch Hu does for me. And that's what my kids hear from me. How can I teach my children to enjoy davening? And really ask, how can I teach myself to enjoy davening? That's a better question. First of all, you have to choose a shul that is user-friendly. Yeah? There are certain places where people go to daven and they do not enjoy the davening. Now, maybe it's too fast, maybe it's too dragged out, maybe there's not enough singing, maybe it's uh you know, you know, an uncomfortable atmosphere. You got to find a place that's user-friendly. That the Baruch Hashem. Now, if you live in a small community and you don't have a choice, there's only one shul. So, you're going to have no choice. You're going to make the best of it. But if you go someplace where, you know, you have a choice of shuls, find a shul that's positive. And if not, create your own. You know, again, we're not victims. We're not stuck. Make a minyan that's going to be the of minyan that you want, even if it's meeting in your living room, you know? It's going to be a happy, positive place. That's number one. Number two is you have to understand the davening. You know? So, people say to me, "Well, I have an ArtScroll." I said, "Oh, good." It used to be you didn't know what you were saying in Hebrew, now you don't know what you're saying in English. You understand? But, you know, you go through the ArtScroll, it doesn't make any more sense to you than it did in Hebrew. Cuz in Hebrew, at least it sounds more poetic, you know what I mean? I said, "You have to get a peirush and you have to go through the words. That's why it's called the avodah shebalev. It's an avodah. And you have to look at those words, like I showed you with gomel chasadim tov u'metiv kol hayom, right? You have to do that with every line in davening and find how it's going to be meaningful. Now, this takes years. But, you have to start today. Buy some wonderful peirushim on the on the siddur. I I I can't really recommend anything cuz I don't know what's what's out there today. But, read through them and find a p'shat in these words that have meaning to you. I don't care if you can It's not a test. It has to be that when you say those words, those words have meaning to you. Yeah? And if they don't have meaning to you, yeah, you're not going to say it. She'oscha kivisi kol hayom. Those words have meaning to you? They sure should. You don't need a yeshu'ah? You know? You can go through every line in davening. Now, it takes time. I'll give you a little thing left over from high school, geometry. What's the definition of a line? It's a series of points. You have to keep adding points onto that line. So, that you're you're underlining or highlighting two or three words in the davening that have meaning to you, and you think about that. And you keep adding to it. Once a month, other words that have meaning to you. And the more that the feel it becomes meaningful to you, then the more it's going to it's it's it's going to resonate with you. It's something you look forward to cuz you want to say these things. You know why? Cuz they're relevant to you. And the more they're relevant to you, then the more they'll be relevant to your children, the more they'll see that davening becomes something beautiful. And you say with a shot. Yeah? I heard a beautiful idea. I think about it every day when I say the Adon Olam. Yeah? And there's saying "Shall I get some wool?" Which I always thought, you know, he gives he gives snow that looks like looks like wool. So, I heard once from a rabbi piece. He said He says no saying some wool cuz shall I shall I get some wool? As much wool as the sheep has, that's how much snow there is. Cuz no one gets more than they can handle in this world. And and you have to go through the davening. And every time you find words that are meaningful, you underline them and you think about them.