Shema Yisroel—12 Pesukim for Parents

All right, welcome to the second class out of 12. This is a series in the 12 pukim, the uh 50th anniversary of the launch of the 12 sukim is this year. And in honor and in anticipation of that event, we are offering this series of classes for parents to to learn the sukum ourselves to understand why they were chosen and how to teach them to our children in the way that they were meant to be taught. So, I'm not going to review everything from last week. You can rewatch class one. But I will repeat one very important point that I made last week. And I may re repeat this point um next week and the week after and uh every class. Actually, it's not a weekly class. I don't want to imply it's a weekly class. We're doing this over over the the months leading up to the anniversary of the 12ukim being launched which is was the first sixukim and lob 18 days later was the second sixukim. But any at any rate, here's a point that I'm going to repeat from last class and which I may repeat in future classes. And that is that the Reb made it very clear that the point of the pukium was to empower children and to put children in a position of influence that children should not just be students but they should be teachers. And I spoke about that at length last week and you can not last week but last class and you can rewatch that class for more explanation now and we and we went into which was the first of the and today we're going to go into the second of the which is what I want to do is actually ground this in the original text um meaning the the han transcript of the sika this like I mentioned I mentioned the dates the first six pukim were launched at the fabangan of alfes uh which means actually wasn't yet it was the last day of of niss and then the second sixkim were launched uh 18 days later on on lagr so I'm I'm reading from the of lamid v and I'm just going read a couple of paragraphs where the Reb talks about and then we're going to talk about okay is along these lines along what lines I'll explain one moment we have the verse okay when the Reb introduced the Reb said we have a problem which is that in general we don't say Balpe. I'll explain that. There's the written Torah and there is the oral tradition. The written Torah is really only supposed to be read from the text. There are various reasons for that. Simplest reason is so that errors don't creep in, god forbid. So, you're not supposed to. And by the way, people who notice uh these types of things will note that when the Reb would quote in Fabangans, the Reb would never say, I don't want to say never, but I don't think you'll find a recorded instance of the Reb saying a complete verse from Bav. either the Abba would say a part of it or would he would make like he would rearrange some of the words um or paraphrase but there is such a concept that we don't say words from the from the written Torah by heart um so how do we solve that problem well I didn't say this last week but I'll say it this week with lonu we have a a way around that problem because we're told to teach a child to say the verse. Right when they learn how to speak. Well, obviously, right when they learn how to speak, they don't know how to read yet. So, when the child learns to to say, they're saying by heart. They're saying it by memorization because they can't read. They can't read yet. So in a similar way is in a similar way we get around the issue of using a scriptural verse without reading. How do we get around it? Another point which we could also explain this to a child because the Reb said that theim are were chosen on the basis of being ideas that can be explained to a child well enough that the child himself can explain it to others. because we are anyway supposed to help the child to start as early as possible to say this verse um night and day. In other words, we know that the child is supposed to learn to say schma when they wake up and go to bed. Even the child who can't yet read. Ah so we have here another verse that you can teach a child who doesn't yet read. You understand that's one of the reasons well we know two of the reasons clearly explicitly here why was chosen. One reason is because likeu we have explicit direction that this is something to teach a very very small child even a child who doesn't yet read because we know that is something even a little little kid is supposed to say in the morning and and at night even though they don't yet read and then the second reason that says explicitly here is that is another concept that a child could understand that you could explain it to the child and the child can understand what it means. Okay. Now, let's go a little bit more into the words. Um, and like we said earlier, the Reb said this about now he's saying it about as well. This is something we could explain to a child according to the child's understanding and in the child's language. Because the child sees the heavens and the earth and the four directions in the child's own way of understanding. So you could explain to the child the concept of Hashem is our God. Hashem is one. is thus maspel in a in a similar way to the way you would explain it to an adult like the gum says and the gum is we're breaking down the word alf is the one is but then is the seven heavens and the earth is And the the is four is eight. So that's seven heavens and the earth and the the the which is four are the four directions. And all of that the eight and the four the and the are coming from the olive the master of the world which is that that's signified by the olive. which is the acronym in like it's explained in the tour chapter 61 of and like it's explained at length in the books of Muser and which is philosophy and Kabala. Okay, there's a lot going on here that would be very easy to just gloss over and to miss the richness of what we just read. So that's what I want to do here. I want to do this slowly. All right, just to back up. We know two things about Isra. We know that it's okay to teach it to a child. Even though it's written Torah, it's okay to teach it to a child who can't yet read because we all know that you teach a child to say schma by heart when they wake up, when they go to bed. Okay, we know that it's a concept that can be explained to a child on their level. Uh how do we know that? Because the Reba said it. And in fact, we know how to explain it to an adult. And the Reba says, "You could explain it basically the same way you explain it to an adult, but you explain it to the child." How do you explain it to an adult? Okay. Well, in in fact, in like like [clears throat] it's explains in in in BF, this is what an adult is actually supposed to think. You're supposed to have kavana. You're supposed to have intent when you say. So, this is what you're supposed to think that the word one, hashem is one. You're supposed to think that alf is the is the one is is hashem. And that that oneness is drawn down into which is eight, which breaks down to the seven heavens and the uh and the earth. And then the dalled which is four are the four directions. Okay. So the Reba says that's that's how you explain it to an adult. [snorts] That's also how you explain it to an to a child obviously on the child's level and in the child's language. Okay, let's break this down. [snorts] What does this mean that you explain the same thing to a child as you explain to an adult? And in fact, in the next paragraph, DB is going to explain this even um more that what you tell a child is basically the same thing that you tell an adult. It's not a different explanation. It's really the same explanation. It's just bringing it down further. Um but I I'll save that text. I'll come back to that text. I I I want to back up before I go forward reading more of the Debb's words. I want to back up to a a very very very important word. When the debus said that a child can understand in the same way that an adult can understand just adjusted for the child's level [gasps] and of course is a very deep concept. We're talking about the the oneness of God, which is, you know, deep theology. And that's that's a hard concept. And and and yet the Reb is saying, "No, no, no, but a child can understand it." So when the Reb says that, let's just look at the exact wording. The Reb says, "You could explain this. You could explain this to children according to their understanding and their language." I'm going to go slow. Because the child sees already. He sees already. He sees the heavens and the earth in the four directions in a way on his level. What's this do like? What's the precise meaning of he sees it. He sees it. I'm going to tell you a story. And in fact, I I want to give you fair warning. I think it's going to be a story within a story. But if you bear with me, I think you'll find it edifying. The story is that I was finishing a work translating and giving commentary to Shahuna. Shahuna is the second volume of Tanya and it's all about the oneness of Hashem. how the the existence of creation poses no uh secondary it's not a secondary or uh separate existence apart from hashem that uh when we say the tao says there's nothing but hashem that that means not just that hashem is the primary existence but hashem is the only existence okay deep stuff very deep stuff and I was working for Kahos doing a translation and commentary. You're going to say, "Well, where is it? Where didn't come out yet?" This story took place. [gasps] My son was at the Tory Schloim camp in Oracle, Arizona. And so this story probably took place 12 years ago. This is my son's married now and he has a kid. But [laughter] [gasps] anyways, I was trying to finish my my translation and commentary on and it was taking me forever cuz it's deep stuff, you know, oneness of Hashem and all that stuff. It's deep deep deep stuff and it was dragging and they were pushing me cuz neededs to get published. I mean, [laughter] yeah. Okay. And at any rate, so my son was going to the Arizona camp, the Syri camp, and my wife said, "Listen, why don't you take our son with you? I mean, why don't you go with him and you'll have a writer's retreat? You'll be in the in the desert with nothing else to do and and you'll work and you'll finish the you'll finish the translation and commentary." I said, "You know what? Let's go for it." So I I called my shipen who who was uh he was the coordinator of it. I remember he was the one I remember he was the guy I had to call to get permission and uh he said, "Yeah, for sure you we'll put you in a little cabin. No one will bother you and you'll just write all day." And I remember I brought my little white 12-in MacBook and that's it. I just wrote all day. And it was amazing cuz in uh like I think it was 9 days 10 days I I wrote as much it would take me as it would take me 6 months in the normal uh in under normal conditions. And I finished now here's the thing. When I came to the camp I told him I'm not to be disturbed. I have permission to just sit and write. I can't like do anything with the campers here. I just need to write and I need to think about the oneness of Hashem. That's it. I'm sorry. And they accepted that. Then I I was foolish enough to mention on the second to last day how relieved I was that I finished. And they said, "Oh, you finished? So now you can be disturbed. We can bother you." Oh, no. What do you need? Can you talk to the campers? I said, "I'm not really a kid guy. You know, I'm not really [laughter] not really for for kids." They said, "It's okay. Don't worry. You know, we got some time to fill. You know, whatever you do is not going to be any worse than whatever we were going to do. It's fine." So I said, "Listen, not only am I not a kid guy, my brain right now is totally into like deep deep stuff and oneness of Hashem and I'm I'm I'm not going to have a very easy time speaking on a level that kids will relate to." They said, "It's okay. Just do it." Anyways, I get into the room with these kids. These campers are 8 n 10 11. I think the oldest were 12, but I think the for sure the youngest were eight. So I get up there and I'm thinking about you know which is the opening of you should know today and place it upon your heart that in the heavens above and in the earth below there is none else that Hashem is alim and there is none else a there's nothing but Hashem and this is what I'm thinking about there's nothing but Hashem and I'm trying to think how do you say that in kid language and I'm think Hashem is here is there is truly everywhere up down right left all around here there and everywhere that's where he can be out. That's how you say that in kid language. So, but it says you should place it upon your heart and you should know, which really means you should meditate on it. You should allow it to affect you. So, I get up there and I said to them, if your little sibling, your 5-year-old sibling, cuz these kids, the youngest were eight. So, I said, "If your little sibling, make someone who's even younger than you." Like, if your 5-year-old sibling would ask you, "Where is Hashem?" What would you say? And they all say the same. They said, "Hashem is everywhere. He's everywhere. Everywhere." Okay. They all shouted out the same answer. I said, "That's great. You're all correct. That's that's the correct answer. Shem is everywhere." So, I say to them, "Now, let me ask you a question. You all know, right? You should know today. You should place it upon your heart, which means to emotionally process it. I said to them, you all know that Hashem is everywhere. That's what you would tell your 5-year-old sibling. But I want to know now another thing. How does it make you feel? They didn't have an answer. I said, that's fine that you don't have an answer because here's the thing. You don't just automatically have a feeling about a about a thought. You have to think about the thought and then you'll have a feeling about the thought. I said for instance I'll give you an example. These are all this is this is the camp. So these a lot of these kids are from like far-flung communities remote communities. They don't have kosher food where they are um or you know they bring kosher food in from elsewhere but you know that's in the deep freezer in the basement at home. They don't go out to restaurants. So I I wanted to make a relatable story for them. So I said, "Imagine you're in Crown Heights and you're going to go out to a restaurant, right?" Cuz that's like a big deal for a lot of these kids, like going out to a restaurant. So I said, "Imagine you're in Crown Heights and you're going going out to a restaurant and you have to pick milk or or fleshik." So the milk is pizza, the fleshik is uh schwarma, and uh you know, the family has to pick is it going to be pizza or schwarma? Pizza or schwarma. and your teenage sister is taking the, you know, she's taking the votes and she's going around and everybody gets one vote. Um, pizza ashwarma. Pizzaarm. And they come to you and you say, "Hold on a second. I I I have to think. Give me a minute. I have to think." Why do you have to think? What? What do you mean? You don't know what pizza is. You don't know what schwarma is. You've had them so many times. What do you What are you thinking about? But you do need to think. You know why? Cuz you know what they are, but you're not feeling anything about them right now. But what do you do? You take a minute and you think about pizza. You take a minute, you think about shuarma. And after you think about it, you don't just know what it is because you've known what it is all along. You've known about it for years. But by thinking about it, after that minute of thinking, you turn to your sister and you say, "I feel like pizza now. It feels like something." So to move from just knowing something to actually having a feeling for it, you have to think. So I said to them, same thing here. You know the answer. If your little 5-year-old sibling says, "Where is Hashem?" You know the answer. You've known the answer for a long time. And the answer is everywhere. But when I ask you, "How does it make you feel?" You don't know the answer yet. You know why? Because you don't have an answer yet. Cuz you haven't thought about it. But that's fine. Let's think about it now. I said, "Let's take a minute and let's think about Hashem being everywhere." I didn't tell them how to think about it. I just told them, "Think about it." Because I I didn't want it to be my thoughts. I wanted it to be their thoughts. So I said, "Just think about Hashem being everywhere." So, and I said, "I'm we're going to take a minute." And I and I put on a timer and we we were silent for a minute. And to their credit, they they really did it. Okay. So, at the end of the minute, I uh I say, "Okay, let's hear how it made you feel." So, I call on I just called on one kid randomly, but he happened to have been sitting in the front row on the like far right side on my right. I said, "How did that make you feel?" He said, "Safe." I said, "Wow, that's really cool. Who else?" Now, I just wanted to call on maybe like two or three kids just to get examples. But what happened is the kid right next to him was the next kid to raise his hand. So, I said, "How' it make you feel?" He said, "Calm." I said, "Wow, that's beautiful. Calm." And what happened is the kids thought they were all supposed to go one at a time in order the entire room which was not what I had in mind in a room full of like 80 kids or however many kids it was and it took a long time for everyone to answer but the results were actually beautiful. Each kid answered and uh so one kid the first kid said, the second kid said calm. Um the third kid said um I I felt uh peaceful like different beautiful answers really. It was really really beautiful. And uh anyways, that's the story that happened at the young Schllo winter camp in Oracle, Arizona. Um and and I and I told that story at a lecture and I'm not going to say exactly where the lecture was, but it was sometime later, no, maybe [clears throat] a few years later. And I told that story and I told that story as an example of the power of meditation. I said look if these kids can do it we adults can do it. And look what they did. I told them to think about Hashem is everywhere for a minute. And after a minute they had these beautiful answers of of of an emotional outcome that they experienced just by thinking about this idea. So what happened is after the lecture the lecture was actually on a college campus. I'm not going to say where but it doesn't matter. After the lecture, a woman comes to me and she says,"I was not going to interrupt you during your lecture, but I am a professor of developmental psychology." And according to developmental psychology, it's not really possible that that happened. And if it did, you know, they were just saying words. They don't really know what they're saying because developmentally the children of that age that you're describing, you're saying children of 8 years old like they cannot yet process that kind of abstraction like the omnipresence of God. Now, [laughter] it happened to have been that where I was speaking, the Schlak who brought me out, his kid actually happened to have been there and he was walking by and I stopped the little kid and I said, "Could you come here for a second?" I said, "How old are you?" And he said, "He was eight." It was perfect. And I said, "Where is Hashem?" And he said, "Everywhere." And and I said, "Okay, thank you." And the kid walked off. I said, "Look, he he said it, too. I mean, you see it for yourself." She says, "He doesn't know what he's saying. He's just repeating words that he was told to say. He doesn't know what he's saying. Okay. I wasn't going to debate. I frankly I didn't even know what to answer. Um, but [snorts] I thought about it afterwards. I was like, I know that these kids know what they're saying. Like, I know that they do. They're not just parenting words. They know what they're saying. But I had to think about it. So, I'll tell you the answer that I came up with on my own. And it took me, you know, I thought about it for a few days and uh I came to the conclusion that, you know, maybe it's true that generally speaking, developmentally, children don't know how to think about things like the omnipresence of God at that young age. And I mean for full disclosure, not that I ever actually studied Pia in its primary texts, but you know I grew up in a home where my father all shalom was a psychologist and my my mother Tanga Yordin is a speech pathologist and an educator. So I was expos I I knew the name Pia and I knew what developmental psychology was just overhearing it in you know a dinner table conversation. So I knew that there's such a concept of there are different ages at which different skills come in like just cognitively there's a maturity and lav I mean we have this in to that that's why we say that a person is not culpable morally culpable until they're intellectually mature enough. Exodus calls it the godless that until a girl is 12 or a boy is 13 they're simply not intellectually mature enough to be held morally accountable and that's why bar and bos mitzvah are at the ages that they're at. So there is such a concept. All right. So I'm thinking to myself, well maybe Pia, he was when he came up with his benchmarks, he was studying just regular kids. He wasn't studying kids who are told from from the time they're in their crib. But if you talk to a child about these ideas, then they can grasp it at an earlier age than typical. That was the answer that I came up with and I liked my answer. [sighs] But then I mean it's not and it's not a bad answer. It's not a bad answer. But then I realized that there's a much better answer. And I realized that when I was studying this uh the Rebaneshid V um when the Reb talks about being able to explain Israel to children and actually being able to explain to them the same basic concepts that we explain to adults but just explaining it to a child on the child's level. And I want to bring us back to to the text. And I'm going to unpack this slowly, but it's just a few words, but I'm going to repeat the words that I that I repeated earlier. I'm going to repeat them now a third time. As we said, you could explain this concept to a child according to the child's level of understanding and in the child's language because he already sees heavens and the earth and the four directions on his level of understanding. ing. Why does the say he already sees it? This is so powerful. If you if you just stop and absorb this, [sighs] I can grant the premise of the professor of developmental psychology that a little child isn't capable of abstract reasoning and wouldn't be capable of explaining a sashem. That's fine. But that's not what the Reb is talking about here. Actually, the Reba makes it very clear. We're not saying that a child can relate abstractly to aem and the meaning of Israel. But to the contrary, the Eb is saying the child can relate to it experientially. Meaning to say, we're not trying to take the child into some other realm and explain to them things that they've never seen or heard or or experienced on their own. No, we're entering the child's world and talking to them about things they're already knowledgeable about. They already not only they heard about it, they they see it for themselves. And this is what the Reb is saying. The child sees Shmayva. Now, what does that mean? He sees well how much can he really understand? I mean how much do you really understand? How much do I understand? That's why the says according to the child's level of understanding. But the point is the child has a lived experience. The child sees that there's heavens and earth. He sees whatever that means to the child, whatever that means to him or her. The point is that the child has a lived experience of there's stuff all around me. There's a world around me. And all we're doing is explaining the child. Yeah. You see this reality that you're already knowledgeable of and you're already experiencing and it's already something you relate to. Yeah. That's where Hashem is. So we're not explaining to the child Hashem as an abstract concept. To the contrary, we're speaking to the child in the context of the child's lived experienced of the child's lived experience and relating that to what it means to think of Hashem. They're not thinking of some concept of Hashem that comes from some other experience that they've never had. They're relating to Hashem based on the experience that they are having right now. That's what it means. That whatever it is that you're living, wherever it is that you whatever, however you define reality, even if you don't have words for it. See, that's the thing. The child doesn't have to have words to explain it. They just know that they've seen it. Whatever that means to them and now they relate to Hashem in those terms. That's what it means to explain Israel to a child. Mean it means that a child has a life and a child is a conscious being who has some experience, some subjective experience of what that life is. And now when we speak to a child about Hashem, we're not asking a ch a child to to to give us a theological description of Hashem. To the contrary, we're we're we're teaching the child to have a personal experience of Hashem that Hashem where is Hashem in this reality, whatever it is that you're experiencing. And that is something I believe that even Pia would agree a child is capable of doing. So that's [laughter] that's what I would have answered except I didn't realize I didn't have that insight until many years later till fairly recently. [sighs] So in very simple terms, what is when you talk to a child and you let them know that everything they're experiencing, everything that they're aware of, Hashem is there. Hashem is in that. Whatever that means to the child. Now, I told you I'm going to read the next paragraph. I made a bra earlier. You can just take a sip here. I just want to read the next paragraph of this and then we'll wrap up [snorts] is the Reb said that we could explain to a child basically the same concept we explain to an adult. We just bring it down to the child's level. So here the says and like it's like it's been explained many times that what we tell a little child a tinuk cotton you know a little little kid it's not nitis it's not that we say oh the child can't handle the truth so you'll tell the child an alternative explanation not the truth when he'll get older you'll tell him the truth says that's not that's not what we do [snorts] because you're giving the child an explanation that comes from and is amus. So what you're telling the child is also in Zusius. It's just that we explain it to him and we put it into his language. So the idea is it's it's toyos mis the language the the the the the phrasing the examples the way we the way we formulate it perhaps that is is relative to the child but the idea itself the core idea is amus or like the gum says I love this speaks in the language of man and in the language of man is also speaks in the language of children. It's such a profoundly beautiful concept. Stop and think about this. Hashem is infinite. His wisdom is infinite. How in the world can a finite mind relate to infinite wisdom? And yet Toyota puts itself into language that the finite mind can relate to. All right. Well, if Toyota can speak in language that a an adult can relate to, which is infinity being couched in in phrases that finite intellect can relate to. It's not a much bigger uh it's it's it's not a a quantum leap to say. And just like the infinite can relate to the finite mind of an adult which we call toy can relate infinite truth to the finite mind of a child. I mean the the gulf between infinity and the finite is way bigger incomparably so than the gulf between the intellect of the adult and the intellect of the child which are both finite at the end of the day. So if can come down and speak to you can come down just a little bit more and speak to your child or you in this case let's be real you can take the toy that you understand on your level and just bring it down a notch and explain it to your child. Not that you're not telling the child the emis you're still retaining the emis just doing it on the child's level. Okay. when you have to explain it to little kids. So you bring it when so can speak on the the lion and the lashian but inside of that is the is the inner explanation that when you're explaining it in language that the child understands like for instance I gave these kids the example of you have to think for a minute do you want pizza or shawarma so to think about hashem is everywhere. Okay. So, I brought it down for them. It's not that it's not true. That is true. I was just giving examples that are relatable. And then what were they able to do in the story of the theim kids in the at the camp? They were able to say how it made them feel. It's not that they became theologians and they could explain abstractly. It's that they had an experience and they were able to tell you and report to you how it made them feel. So in that feeling that a child has of safety and peace and all the things that the child was was legitimately feeling thinking about that's a real experience which is just as real and just as legitimate as as the any his that the greatest will have thinking about the same concept. So that's what it means that in the way the child relates to it is the it's all in there. is and like we said before that whatever you explain to a child is containing within it not just but also the and also whatever it says in cabala andis and even the 600,000 explanations says in lutra that every concept in actually has 600 000 explanations. Um, but it's all in there. It's contained. It's encoded or it's packed in there. Obviously, it needs to be decoded and unpacked, but it's all in there. So, the way you explain to a child, this is so important, is not an alternative to the truth. It's the core truth. It's the Toyota's truth. It's just in a format or a formulation that's relatable. But inside of whatever it is, the however it is that you're saying it to the child is the deepest of the deep. It's all there. So, I'll give you a little homework if you'd like to try to teach Israel to your child. You can even do this while you're saying Shma with your child because you know this is another thing that I've mentioned that the child says Shma anyways twice a day in the morning and at night. So this is already not only are they thinking about their lived experience as far as they have an they have an idea of living in a world and now you're telling them hashem is everywhere in that world but they also have a lived experience of saying schma it's part of the rhythm of their life. So you're really really relating to them on their home turf and maybe next time you're saying schmma with your child, you can just say to them, you know, you know, tell me where we are right now. You know, I'm in my room and where's our room? It's in my house and where's the house? And you know, different children have different abilities or or levels of grasping this. But you know, when you go outside of the house and you look on your street, what do you see? You see a whole neighborhood. And you know when we go driving to the store, you see there's a whole town and really there's a whole world and and even beyond the world and there's there's there's the heavens and it goes out so far and and and where is Hashem in all of that? Everywhere up up down down right left all around. And that's something that a child can relate to. And you can have that discussion while the child is saying schma. And you're not trying to explain anything to the child that the child doesn't already relate to. It's all based on things that they have firthand experience of. And now the child gets it and gets it so well like the Reba says that they can go and explain it to other children. That's how you know that you've transmitted it is the Reba says the child's going to be so so excited about it they're going to go tell it to other kids. Okay. Thank you for listening. I went a little bit over time. I wanted to make these lessons about 30 minutes each, but I guess I had some long stories today. Um but I think you understand the point that uh is the deepest concept. It's and you can spend a whole lifetime learning what that means. But at the same time it's something that every little child can relate to on their level and that we can relate to on our levels. Okay. And the shak is from you.