Kesher Nafshi -London Uk- Do our struggling teens Have Bechira?

This Torah class is brought to you by tora anytime.com. Good evening everybody. All the newcomers that came the last half an hour, the last 45 minutes. There's an advantage of speaking while people are eating. Uh usually when people eat, they're a little more quiet. On the other hand, people that are done eating, they're socializing with the neighbors. In any case, I want to seize the moment to bring in a little bit more. We heard so much today from we just started the Shabas. We just started the weekend, the Shabaton. We already heard so much from Shimanush and everybody else. Amazing stuff. Now I want to bring the element to the next level of feeling a little bit more what's happening here and try to tune in to the to the moment. First of all I want to thank obviously again the organizers. Such a lavish supper. So much beautiful food and amazing stuff. Yes. For everybody. And it's just amazing how you're able to have a dream that you want to make a chabas and then it materializes. It actually happens. So I think that's an amazing. So I just want to start with a quick story. I'm not going to be speaking too long today. I just want to bring out a few very good points that I think is very important. There's a story said from the Talmud a very known Talmud. His name was of Chabo of Chabo. He wrote the whoever knows the ciphers the was sentenced to prison for a while. I don't know how long for a year for two years and you could imagine the prison in those years in Sars Russia wasn't so easy and he had a friend which was another of the bash of a lady from the mag which was the ramer was also a very big sadic a very big rebu but he was financially he was very he's very stable financially he went every Thursday he went to the guard of the prison and he bribed him. He gave him I don't know how many rubles to let the Moran leave the prison for four hours. Instead the went into prison for those four hours and like this the was able to leave do with his stuff and came back and then they switched back. That's what they did every single Thursday. Why did the do those four hours? Obviously was not able to go to the mikvah while he's in prison. first thing he ran to the mik and then he went around raising money for for families that needed it. That's what he always did and he he couldn't be in prison without being able to collect money for Eden and this went on week after week after week one day or Maya comes Thursday to prison gives some rubles for the for the prison guard and the maram tells him today is the last time you're going to have to bail me out on Thursday. I'm done with my prison sentence. He says, "How do you know? It doesn't make sense because I know you still have a while to go." He said, "I'll tell you something very interesting happened yesterday." I guess there was a little window in the in the cell over there and a old lady knocked on the window and the says, "I look out. I see an old lady and she says, "I have a question of this week's para that told you should leave your your place. Don't be so stable." So she asked, "Since when does Hashem have to tell you should do something because it's in your favor? It's because you're going to appreciate it and you're going to enjoy it. It's for your favor. Does something because Hashem tells him to do. So why did the toy have to say that's what she asked the Marim didn't want to answer her? He said if she asked such a question she probably has the answer. And she said I'm going to tell you why. Because the greatest the greatest and biggest in the world. He did. You had this doors open, always people coming in, guests serving, giving food. Hashem wanted him to feel how it feels being nu and thrown around from place to place. So next time when he does and brings in people to his house, he should really know what it means to them. How they feel that image gave them food to life. That's why had to leave. And that's not because your fave you're going to you're going to appreciate much more what you're doing for the Eden and she disappeared. So man said I think it was Sudani that came to tell me that and I feel the mans continued that he was one of the one of the greatest myths besides collecting money for poor people. He was very Isaic in in in in in huh pidon pidon was one of the greatest mitz that the man used to always do in those years it didn't take much to to lock up a yid into prison man went around collecting so he said I was here in prison that I should taste it and feel it how it really actually feels and when I'm going to do it I'm going to have hanua I'm going to really realize how I'm saving this Eden This is something that all of us in this room are experiencing something. We have children that are that need pity. They're locked up in their own thoughts, in their own pain. They're locked up in their own They're in their own prison. People could be walking around in the streets and being very, very locked up. People could be in prison and being very free. Freedom is in here, in the brain, and in the heart. Hashem gave us the gift and the challenge of raising the shumlik that go through and they need pity and shim from us. They need us to actually be there for them and understand them and feel them. Throughout this chabas, we are going to learn and grow together, all of us, how it actually feels in the child's mind, in their perspective, how they feel the pain that they're going through. We're going to try our best to listen and to understand and to grow together, to feel how our children are actually in prison. They are the ones that are walking around with so much clim and heart pain in their hearts. They're so locked up emotionally. They're so locked up mentally. They're so locked up socially. It's the hardest thing in the world to be different than your family. The hardest thing to do in a person's life. If someone actually decides to be different than their family means they are in immense immense pain and they're prisoners of their own pain. How can we try to help someone if we don't know how it feels? We're going to learn and understand and what's going on psychologically, emotionally, and mentally in their brain, in their system, how they feel, and then we're going to be able to really help them. When someone goes through pain, the first thing they need is to be validated. They need to feel that it's valid. I have a right. I have a right to feel this way. Sometimes a person feels a certain way even if it's not rational, they still have a right to feel that way because feelings does not have to always be right cyclic. It's a feeling. It's an emotion. We feel guilty for many things that that when you sit down, you think about it, why do I feel guilty? It's still a feeling. It's still there and still painful. Our children are car carrying so much pain with them and so much guilt of what pain they're causing us and causing our communities. And if we're going to try to tune in a little bit and understand how they feel, automatically our reaction to them is not going to be tit for tat. Our reaction is not going to be how do I discipline this kid. Our reaction is not going to be how do I force this kid? How do I bribe this kid? If we feel what they feel, we're going to realize bribing is not the mahalik. Making them feel guilty how much pain you're doing for Tati and mommy. That's not going to work. It's going to do the opposite. It's going to give them even more pain. We need to go together with them in their in their pain automatically. You'll know what to say. People always ask me, "What should I say?" They call me, they text me. I said, "Feel them. You'll you'll know. You'll know. Just just follow your heart. But let it be real. Don't try to bring them back to Yiddishite." going get to a shabas like this. It's a little harsh what I'm going to say, but if you came here for the weekend to learn how to bring back your child to Yiddish kite, you can pack your bags and go home. We're not teaching you that. We're not you didn't come over here to figure out how you going to bring your child back to Yiddish kite. You came over here because you know or you heard that children that behave different than their whole family and their classmates and everything else is only because there's something inside them that's triggering them and pain and and driving them to do something. You're coming over here to learn how to feel what they are feeling to ease their pain. And as when we heal the problem, when we take care of the cause, hopefully the effect is going to change as well. When they dropped the kite or different things in when we started to realize there's an issue, when they dropped out of school or whatever it is that changed lish or wherever when we realized something, it's a little late in the game. There was pain way before there's something going on in their system. Yiddish kite is the last thing that they drop and yiddish kite is going to be the last thing they're going to bring back. We are here to learn and to grow and to be mazic each other how to help our children how to ease their pain from our children. This is why we're here. And as when the pain goes away, who doesn't want to be a yeid? Who doesn't want to be a yeid? Or someone that doesn't know what yides is. He didn't grow up in host. If someone knows what is and living like aid and being a proud and being if someone is giving away all their all their money and everything in the world, it must be there in pain. Yiddish does not have to be preached. We don't need to teach our kids. We don't need to tell them what they're doing wrong. They know. They went to our they went. They know exactly. So we came over here to Shabas and for the extended weekend for the shabaton to learn and to understand and to feel and to actually go into the mat together with our kids and instead of judging them we're going to have on them instead of trying to trick them into doing something. I understand it's painful. I'm not here preaching and just saying things. I have my own two children like this that are very very struggling. Some of them are growing the self. I'm not here to say that it's easy. Yes, we are still humans and whoever is new in this. It's very very painful to face your mother-in-law, your neighbors, your in-laws, and your parents and telling you you have to do this, you have to do that. What do you know? The new generation, they're starting to do things. Just tell them to behave. What do you mean? Just just just tell them to just just put up a longer skirt. What do you mean? Wow. And those people around us mean good, but they judge us and it makes it so much more difficult. So I understand that and that's valid, but that's not going to help our children. The looked nobody does only if they have which is an emotional an emotional pain. So if we really put ourselves into there Susan we try to understand sometimes we try in the beginning of this nan of the Spanish whoever is doing it is trying to figure out when did it happen was the kid bullied hurt molested shamed there's so many other things that it could be regardless if we're able to get to the bottom of what caused it the mitsas shows if someone leaves their community even a guy that grew up in an Italian family an Italian community and the Benzenhurst that's at Barabak or the whole comm and they leave and they become so that kid is in pain and this is something that needs to be drilled into our heads again and again and again we need to know that whatever they behave whatever they do is only out of pain I know what's in your head now the next question is where's Bakita his brother is behaving in yeshiva his brother is not changing the sister is behaving so Why? What happened? Why is this kid choosing to do something? And what's going on with where is Do we have free choice? So, don't we? So, why isn't this kid behaving? The answer to that is it's true that everybody has everybody has free choice, but everybody has free choice in a different place in their life. For an example, you know, we all have few children. I always say I have all types of children. The shiv and they're born the same parents. Everything is the same same genes. One kid is born with they're all the same cute. We want to eat them up when they're young. So cute when they're young. You want to eat them up. When they get old, you say, "Why didn't I?" The joke. So all of our children are born with different traits. One kid suffers more from jealousy than the other. One child has more anger than the other. So you can't say that both of them have the same at but the same place. Only Hashem could judge how hard or how difficult to make a choice per person is one person to learn five minutes a day they're going to get more from than another person that learns a whole day. This person we don't know is inside this personality the nature. I don't know there's so many mental and emotional and physiological components that need to work together to hash someone to be successful in we just had a few weeks ago said we say is bu the beginning Hashem created but he said buddo means ba means healthy in the beginning we need to be healthy before we start the you need to be physically mentally and emotionally healthy to be a a perfect hashem If you're not emotionally healthy and physically healthy, I'm stop with we need to be very very healthy and very stable to be a real perfect and if our children are not doing something is not because they choose to be that way. They don't have in that way. They have in in in the dest they have if they should if they should do one mitzvah five minutes a day maybe we don't know we don't know how much someone gets some kids you know have the school the high school in my for our holy children and I I learned so much from from watching them and talk to them as staff and the girls the teenagers that struggling. It came na kipur. You know what? You know what? You know how many phone calls I got from the girls? Revi, I could only keep or fasting or phone. Which one of the two? I can't give up both. If I would ask my grandfather, what what would he answer? We're not allowed to. You have to fast. You're not allowed to be in the phone. Emas of course everybody in stairs they're they're shalas from competent that know this mahal that understand that children that go through these stages are they're emotionally not they're not besu and we need to understand how to answer them but do we know if a girl or teenager gave up their phone for 24 hours a day for do we can we even comprehend the scar they're going to get. Do we even know that they're going to bring Mashiah so much closer? Obviously, we only need to try our best. I know where my is. I know where my struggles are and I know what comes easy to me and I know what doesn't come easy to me. But you don't know where where I struggle and I know where you struggle. So to me, I don't know where your is. When I see our kids, our teenagers and our children that are struggling, I say to myself, they don't have they don't have Hashem knows where their bik is. Maybe their bik is one cigarette less of Shabas. Do we know if a child is going to get for one cigarette less of Shabas? There's something that we need to take into our brain. We need to understand I think when we were little kids in school in Shiva and it needs to still be said that way for healthy kids that everybody has and it still remains true but when we get older and all of us need to learn something and I see it clearly in clearly that everybody has in a different place and they're not going to ask why weren't you like they're going to ask you why wasn't I the best Zisha they're going to ask him did you give it all you've got of your not going to ask him why weren't you like and they're not going to ask him. They're not going to ask me why I'm not so like someone else because my challenges and my difficulties and my talents are very different than someone else's. Our children are not in a place where they could make that we know of. So therefore the lingo is they don't have they're in pain. Where they do have hashem knows we can never know. We think we know our children. We don't. They go through different difficulties. They don't share with us everything. So, I'm going to leave you off with this. When a person, you know, I'm going to say a quick story. I said it in Manchester. So, whoever views from Manchester, you'll hear it again. And they said, um, when you say a story that you want to learn from it, and someone says, I heard it already. the the the lingo about this that means they didn't hear it the first time. I say every day and I say it again. Story goes like this. This is something that I heard from someone that heard from the bala that there was a a person in in Williamsburg many many years ago and his son started slipping and sliding going through the journey the way we call it took over his yam became shabas. This seed was connected to the to the spinker whoever remembers him was very and he went into him and said cry whatever is crying is going through those years there's no uncitional parenting there's nothing doing so the said call him to me let me talk to him I I know your son I remember him bring him to him he comes home he tells the son that wants to talk to the said go the wants to talk to you he comes to the bachelink and he says, "Reb talking to me, I just want to tell you that I am a mahal shabas." Says, "Oh, really? What do you do? What what makes you a mahal shabas?" Says, "Rabbi, I smoke on Shabas." Said, "Ah, you smoke on Shabas. How many cigarettes do you smoke like in a in a in a 24hour?" He said, "I don't know the number. Let's say 10 cigarettes." He says, "How long does it take you to smoke a cigarette?" He says, "Three minutes average." She says, "Aha, so 23 and a half hours you keep chabas. It's only a total of a half an hour, 10 times 3 minutes that you don't keep shabas and you smoke." The Bukha left the next Shabas he was smoking and he thought to himself, you know what? I'm going to smoke one cigarette less. I'm going to be keeping Shabas even more. It's not all or nothing. And that's how it went. And this he's married has children beautiful. This is a cycle. And he understood that for this one person one cigarette less than another cigar just understand Shabas those moments obviously we need to try everything the max but when we deal with children that are in pain we need to understand that everything they do is a major effort effort says we get according to your effort not according to what you accomplished you get according to your effort. Our children many of them most of them if not all of them are bigim according to the pain they're going through and according to they still try to do certain things some of them try to give us less pain and other kids try whatever they do we don't know what's going on in shine so the is helpful that we should continue we have to finish tonight I mean for now that we should all around the shabas and really listen try to understand exactly what's going on our children's head so we go and pick up from each other and and validate each other and talk to your friend, to your neighbor, someone sitting there. You get to know each other. It gives a little comfort. It gives us clarity. It gives us and try to pick up knowledge and trying to understand them more and more to understand our children what they're going through. We have on all the tables there are this Q&A page. You'll see it on the tables on Shabas and Russ are going to answer the questions if you can. If you have certain questions on the Mahalik, how it works and what what the what the message of the Shabas is, you can write it down and on Shabas will hand it over. There's a box. There's a box here. There's a box over here. I'm going to put on the stage. You could write your question or you could give it till tomorrow's also Rim is giving. There's going to be a box over there also a box and you could you could drop your paper in there. And you know I I I I'm used to going to a bus stop and I come to London there's a bus stop. There's like this is very confusing and uh and hopefully we'll all go home with a lot of clarity, a lot of a lot of understanding and a lot of validation at last. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by tora anytime.com.