Chanukah: The Secret of Raising Successful Children

this Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com everyone thank you so much for the honor of Hosting me this evening I was asked to speak about the subject of raising successful children not that I know anything about that um but let's try to take a look at one of the episodes in this week's paraa to try to glean some insights um and some of these insights may seem quite novel and quite Progressive and we're going to find that some of the most Progressive ideas in actually are from the most ancient of Origins from really Rashi himself and at first glance it's going to seem that it's almost possible to say such a thing and on the other hand the collective information that we're going to gather from rashis that I believe we're all familiar with will be so compelling it's going to challenge us really to take another look at the thank you so much for the warm introduction and the and the with continu so we know Ru tells okay you got to pull off the stunt you're going to have to masquerade as and you're going to have to take the and this was very uh antithetical to the whole makeup of is the is and R says don't worry all I I take it on my own shoulders and when yakob finally puts on the Ace of costume and he's standing in the front of his father and his father feels him but his father knew that uh there's something suspicious over here you know there's something very fishy over here and that is he says and Rashi points out that there are two major differences between the way y spoke and the way as spoke says how' you get her so fast soob says the almighty gave me said Whata what happened to you you know you're flipping you flipped that or something why you why you mentioning God's name and then yob says please get up and as would just say y as was very impolite and was in a quandry he feels him he listens to him and he makes the executive decision this must be asov and he gives the braa there's another difference between the way yov spoke and the way asov spoke and this difference is not discussed in Rashi and this is a startling difference and this is pointed pointed out by none other than the and says that difference is that yob spoke to his father second person like you talk to your friend he said get up get up and ASA said will the Tata get up will the father get up third person the way you speak to your R you don't say you of course say will the r will the the rashash but you speak to your Rabbi in third person and asov spoke to his father in third person yum will the father get up and yob spoke to him directly like you talk to your friend K get up and it would seem in this vein that yob had less respect for his father than did asaas Sayes Adler that he heard from his great rebi who is the re Adler who is Ras Adler's rebi Chief Rabbi of England buried right here you know that Adler's re was who's re anyway quotes from Adler that that's exactly right yob and as speak differently to their parents because Jews and Gentiles speak differently to their parents because in the Gentile world there's a generation gap there's disconnect between child and parent and therefore they stand at a diff distance and they say will the parent get up y because there's no connection there's a distance between child and parent but in the Jewish world there's such a closeness there such a warmth there's such a friendship between a child and a parent that we don't allow ourselves to speak to our parent in third person we say like you talk to your to your friend says because in Judaism there's a concept A Child brings Merit to the parent in Judaism there's a concept the child is the leg of the parent this is a very important concept why do we say the child is the leg of the parent cuz we know that after 120 once a person passes on whatever Mitzvah they've accumulated plateaus you can never perform another Mitzvah in one's life even the V on his deathbed he C then in another moment he can never put on a pair ofas and fulfill a Mitzvah again he will then for all time be considered an a stationary entity only a human being who's alive is a but if somebody leaves a son a daughter a grandchild who continues to do mitv they become the legs of the parent and allow the parent to be a therefore says in the name of his rebi in Claus there's such a friendship between child and parent we don't speak to our parent in third person now you say okay fine I could live with that so we see from the and Rashi that friendship is a dimension of Parenthood it's one of the jobs descriptions of being a parent in other words if we were to Define what is the main job description of being a parent and this is going to be very challenging here in England instructor teacher guide role model and friend now that's not what I'm getting at that's granted already we are tonight going to revolutionize the job description of parent let's analyze another comment of rash in we encounter the worst in the anybody know what is the very worst on the Tyra to be a mesis to seduce someone to sin because then you're like the snake you're like the so the says in your brother seduces you the son of your mother or your own son or your daughter or your wife or your best friend wow did you know that the Tyra actually describes an individual who is called your best friend who who's the guy who is this person who is your best friend in this world you know your best man your best lady your roommate from high school who is your best friend in this world Listen to Rashi because Rashi by the way was an orthodox Rabbi and Rashi says a you know who your best friend is your father your parent in other words if you're a great dad you're a bread winner you're great mom you bring home parosa and you keep your kids clean and you take them to the doctor and you're even a good role model but you're not really friendly with your kids according to Rashi you are not fulfilling your role as parent it's not me don't blame it on me this is a Rashi Ines and it's not the only Rashi I'm going to share with you three more rashis that every single time Rashi discusses parenting he makes the same point and I'm not even the one who brings it out from Rashi and the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that definitely will cause us to take another look at an approach that maybe we haven't visited let me take you to par go so yadik is finally reunited with his brothers after 22 years and they weren't really that nice to him you know it's really not so nice to take your brother and throw him into a pit with deadly snakes and scorpions you know I know brother's rough house and they could throw pillows at each other but to take your brother and to throw him into a pit with snakes and scorpions and then to testify that he died and you slaughter a sheep and pour the blood on his coat it's really not so nice and they thought he was dead and 22 years later y says hey guys how you doing it's me I'm Y is dad still alive so they thought that he was going to kill them and Y saw that they were nervous and he said guys don't sweat it you didn't send me here you weren't the ones to send God sent me here God made me paro's father now does that make any sense did y become parro's father remember what Rashi says cuz other what does this mean over here that y was an says rash I became parro's friend and Patron that means Rashi is saying the definition of parent is so they say no Rashi just means in this context under these circumstances in this situation yeah that's what I would have said say shim Schwab in his commentary to the Rashi is defining what a parent is Rashi for all eternity and Rashi as we mentioned was an orthodox Rabbi Rashi is defining so that's a question we have to ask ourselves are we good parents the barometer is are we our kids best friend in this world are we our kids number one Advocate are we our kids number one supporter that's all it's Rashi sayab there's another Rashi that makes the same point this coming week's par yov Vu is running away from laan and uh finally Yo's father-in-law catches up with him what are you going to do when your father-in-law catches up with you you got to sit down and have a meal with your father-in-law there's no choice so yobu they dine and they have a meal and y y needs some Stones so he has to call some people gather this Stones calls his brothers hey yina didn't have any brothers he had one brother asov and he ain't calling asov to gather stones for him asa's coming with 400 guys to destroy him says Rashi who are these mysterious Brothers of Yakov bov his brothers are his children says you know what we see from Rashi that if you want to have peace in your family and you have adult teenage children do not treat your children like they're your children treat them like your they're your brothers and then says you want to have peace in your family you don't have to follow my advice you think this is new Vogue Progressive no problem you could have chaos in your house no problem but if you want to have shom sha in your house then follow the advice of throughout that the definition of Parenthood is friendship and Yakov treated his children like they were his brothers and that is why he was so successful in raising 12 sadik say said whoo this is pretty uh new Vogue attitude you haven't heard nothing yet I want to tell you possibly the most revolutionary observation perhaps I've ever heard this comes from rovic leading M today Mas today also an orthodox Rabbi and this is a simple that I I must have read hundreds of times I never picked up on this also aashi okay we're going to go back to the AKA was after these matters H behold here I am what does the word h mean says of humility and preparedness to fulfill the building of Abraham ainu was humbling himself before the almighty Abu then goes with Y he's headed to hararia to to do the AA and Y is getting a little suspicious cuz he doesn't see the a Dad what's going on over here you know what Abraham says to behold here I am sayar G I understand he when Abraham is is talking to the almighty God he's humbling himself before the rebish but the same language of humility that Abu uses in front of the almighty he's using in front of his son is Abraham speaking to his son with humility and submissiveness as if he's ready to fulfill the bidding of his son is Abu humbling himself before his son the way he humbles himself before God says gich we see from Rashi that the same way one has to Humble themselves before AES one needs to speak to their children with [Music] humility covich there is no doubt that the reason Abraham was successful and producing someone of the caliber ofu is because he showed to he showed respect he valued if you don't believe me and you don't want to take this approach I've been dealing with teenagers for many decades from gamil specializes in teens at risk he says the number one cause of troubled teens is they feel inside a lack of value from their parents that's the number one cause he writes I'm not an expert I'm just telling you what he writes that if you want to learn how to deal with adult children you have to follow the advice of Rashi and Abraham aino and as hard as it may be and as difficult as it sounds AR is teaching us that the same way we have to Humble ourselves before God you have to Humble yourselves before your adult children and it takes a lot of humility to speak that way and I'm going to tell you something that ramam wrote and I could not believe he wrote it to me it sounds like heresy to the extent that in the new edition of tatra they took it out I'm going to tell you what it what it said fromo said that his mother told him and I believe his mother told him this now you have to take it with a few grains of salt because it can't be taken literally but his mother would say that in this generation if the Torah was written which is already heresy the Torah would not have said honor your father and mother the Torah would have said honor your son and daughter now you have to understand in the context that that that was offered and what that means and the point he's trying to make obviously children have to recognize that the parents is the authority figure and the teacher and the guide but if you want to be able to have them accept you as the authority and accept you as a role model and be Mel the parent as the guide it has to be through the medium of friendship I'm going to tell you the advice of another Orthodox Rabbi Rak you ever hear rakovich he was also right-wing Rabbi they they asked if if when you see him you make the he said on there's one You definitely make was a very powerful individual and parents once came to him to ask advice about um a difficult teenager and Rak said there's a very big mistake today that parents think it's their responsibility to make sure the kid DAV and learns and observes mitv he said that used to be the case that parents had dual responsibility they had to be the caretaker of the child and they had to be the rebi of the child now those two roles parent and rebi are conflicting roles the gumar says that a rebbi has to inspire fear into the Tam call any student that doesn't sit in front of the rebi and their mouth is dripping with sweat and tears that's not the proper environment so the rebbi has to inspire fear and the parents have to um instill love into the child says that was back in the day before they had yeshivas once rishu Ben gamla came along and he established isas in every city in CLA Israel the parents give over the role of malam to the teacher and the Yeshiva and the parents have one job and one job only to shower the kid with love again that's Orthodox Rabbi would we have expected that from but this is what Rashi says throughout thees it's a very eye openening idea it should be an idea that should cause us to revisit our approach and our attitude in general and I invite you to discuss it with your personal and I give the RV the hard job of of God writing you how to employ this Lisa and I conveniently return back to the United States of America but I think it's worthwhile to know some of the M of the torah's viewpoint on parthood and and uh it's a lifetime of learning how to apply ITA if I could share with you one other very important dimension of in the aftermath of the establishment of the state of Israel there were many russas who were not successful in bringing up their children Al very very many of them and the brisar was sort of renowned that all of his boys were and he was sort of the Envy of the G because they used to come and visit him and he was sitting around the table and all the boys were you know on board they were all with the program and they said brisar what's the secret what what is your methodology and the brisar said there no there's no methodologies there's no secret there's no methods all there is is to and tears says AB brisar never in my life did I go one dry eyed that I didn't cry that my children should go up to be SH now the brisar you wouldn't expect to be this emotional Fountain of endless demise he said you know some parents how do they rack their children to sleep they sing and name nursery rhymes about kids going up a hill and coming crashing down becoming decapitated and they parents wonder why the kid wakes up middle of the night in Nightmare screaming cuz the last thing they heard is some guy broke his head open that you sang to him says the brisar I don't sing nursery rhymes to my kids I cry and I say to hm when I put them to sleep that they should grow up to be God fairing Jews says the it should be fluent in the mouth of a father and mother for the children now the M identifies specific spots in the daving that one for their children when you say that's one key spot when you say one should have in mind their children when you say much's children but there are many many spots in we say there many many spots it doesn't have to be at a specific spot in the daving the mission BR says it should be sh in your P which means every time you drive a carple and you're waiting in traffic that should be the goto the default Fila that you offer to ream you drop your kids off at soccer you're going to the store this is something that's part of the routine of a parent you're walking to SCH you're walking home from SCH this is something that is done throughout the day every single day of one's life and it never ever stops not when your kids are married not when they could be grandparents and this is still the responsibility of a parent you know they came to the stier and they said to the stier you know um they asked for an in and the stier said they no all there is is and tears you see my son over here every day I pray that should be a God-fearing Jew was already 52 years old one of the gar few years after that R kki Used To Learn with the stier every afternoon and he came to sa he said this afternoon I can't learn with you I promised I never am a but there is a marrying a they have no one to marry them off and I have to go to the wedding to okay okay so they both and before he goes to the wedding he wants to just say goodbye to his father and he sees his father is daving and davening like 10 15 20 minutes more than he usually davens and he's wailing he's crying and goes over he says everything okay he says no my whole life I'm daving that you to be a Loy made Torah and what look what's happened to you today so this is a responsibility on every parent grandparent it's a lifelong occupation it's never too early and it's never too late it's the primary responsibility say we know that if somebody kills bash they have to stay into the AR mlot until the K dies what what what is their killing B got to do with the K because it was the responsibility of the K to pray that under their watch nothing bad happens and nobody kills anybody that there shouldn't be any mishap when he's a k God so therefore we put him in the situation where now when somebody kills B that guy is praying that the K should should end up dying so we see says that it's the responsibility of a God to pray for everyone under his domain because he's the leader of the Jewish people so he's he has the responsibility to DAV says is responsible to DAV for every single Jew that no mishap should occur under his watch then all the more so the responsibility rests on every parents' shoulders to pray that their children be successful they should be Shay for Learning and we only hope and pray that gives us the wisdom and the to bring up our children in the proper way and that all our should be and should bless us all with the that we hope for that we DAV for we should all be thank you so much you've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by Torah anytime.com