Vayairah - Tough Love

Hi, this is Davidski. Going to the para in five where in five minutes we try to give you a little insight into the para and paras of course concludes with the dramatic story of ak where says take your son your only son the son that you love yeak and bring him up a mountain and offer him to me as a koraban understood this quite literally that he was going to have to she's son said yeah I threw in a little wiggle room there because I said bring him up as a kurban I didn't say you have to actually burn him but Abraham was prepared to do it so the rashi tells us the conversation take your son says I have two sons yeah and your only son he says wellk is the only son of Sara but Yesh is the only son of Hagar Asha that you love. I love both of them. What was this conversation over here? Akbar who comes to you and says that I want you to take your only son and bring him as a living corbin up on the mountain and you really don't know who I'm talking about. you you don't know whether it's or is I said this to somebody once and they said he was hoping it was [laughter] I [clears throat] don't think so because when said you're going to have a son and that son's going to be called he says I hope you still survives and still lives so he was very concerned for so what was he thinking at this point for salanta says a very interesting shot. Sor says, "This kid is troubled. Send him away." And Abraham didn't want to do it. And Hashem said, "Listen to Sora. She knows what she's talking about." And he sent away his son. Now, he comes back obviously because he's one of the people accompanying Abraham to the Kadesk, him and Eleazar. So, at some point, he comes back. We know in paris he does chuva at the end. So yes seems to be a more complicated character than would appear at first blush. And so what salant says is Arainu's total intention with sending away Yeshel is because he hoped that the would accomplish for Yeshel what the Kira accomplished for. There was a movement for a while there in parenting called tough love where if you indulge your children and let them do whatever they want, you're not doing them a favor. And in fact, there's two different types of child abuse. There's a type of child abuse where you beat and you and you verbally abuse and you hurt them in all kinds of ways. And the other one is called neglect. So, a parent who tells a kid, "You don't have to go to school, you don't have to brush your teeth, you don't have to go to bed, you can eat all the candy you want, I don't care what you do, stay up all night, watch TV, I don't really care." That's just as much child abuse. The social services will take your kid away. That's called neglect. You might think you're a great parent, but you're not. Yeah. If you cared about your kid, then you'd set certain limits for them. And that was the idea of tough love was to be able to get a kid to understand that [clears throat] your decisions have consequences. And if you're going to do certain things, then you're going to have to face the consequences of those actions. I don't know if Sor's intention was that when she wanted him sent away, she wanted him sent away because she was afraid of what Yishmo influence would be on her son Yitk. But Abram's intention was that by sending him away that he would appreciate what we're doing here and come back with that level. Then when he has obviously reappeared at when is 37 years old. Yeah. So uh that's 35 years later. He had hoped that he had so grown from that experience of the that he was now ready to be on the same level as ak and that's what he hoped. A parent was telling me once that he had a kid who was seriously messed up by his parenting methods and he says I don't know what he wants from me. I treat all my children the same. And I said, 'You're right, but you understand that, you know, if a mother makes their child, every child for lunch a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and it turns out one of the children has a peanut allergy and goes into anaphylactic shock and dies. She says, "I don't know what you want from me. I did the same thing for this kid that I did for everybody." Yeah. But people are different and everybody needs a different approach. It's very tricky when you're a parent when you have to use several different methods in a house so that one kid will say how come he can do that or how come she doesn't have to because good parents understand and every child has to be approached as an individual. This is the challenge that all of us have in life that you have to look at an individual and figure out the best way. This is what the Bali Musa were experts at. How to look at a person and figure out what approach is going to work best for them. Re Kella who Zatal who was the R of youngest of West Hamstead was a master of this. He knew exactly what to tell each person and on their level to the point that uh I remember they always say as soon as a rabbi comes into town half the community hates him. That's how it works because they would like the last rabbi that it's automatic. And I spoke to one of the vatikim of Weststead when he came he'd been there for a number of years. I said, "So is it true that everybody loves Rabi Kellmer?" And she made a sour face and she said, "No, no. I would say half the people loves Rabi Kellmer. The other half only like him a lot [laughter] because he was a master at understanding what to say to each person and how to be able to react to what they needed to hear. And that's what we as parents have to do. And that's what Abraham was hoping he had accomplished with Ishmael that he had reached the level of aitzk through the good chabas.