When My Children Are Struggling | Lecture to Mexico City Community

so thank you very very much and i want to welcome my dearest beloved brothers and sisters from mexico city one of the most incredible maybe the most incredible community i had the privilege of visiting hundreds of jewish communities but the time i spent with the mexico city community is so cherished by me because of the love and the warmth and the atmosphere and the ambiance and the connectivity and the ahadu the unity and the passion that exists in your community so thank you first of all for the privilege of having this special opportunity to address you on such a vital topic you know learning how to create harmony and unity in our families actualizing the vision of judaism as parents dealing with our struggling children i also want to welcome all the communities that are here i know we have from panama and we have from venezuela we have from ecuador and we have from other places in south america and we have from all over the world so i want to welcome whoever is joining us i see we have here on the zoom close to 500 people which is maybe couple so it's i think more than a thousand people and there's other websites that are uh are [Music] are streaming this program so i think we have hundreds of thousands of people here and welcome to everybody and i think the attendance only demonstrates how important this topic is to all of us and how personal it is for so many of us and that's what i want to begin in the beginning that's what i want to say right away we're living now in a very very unique time right you remember the beginning of hemingway's book it's the best of times and the worst of times in many ways our times are unprecedented in blessings and on the other hand also tremendous challenges one of the big challenges that we're seeing today is that so many families have children who are struggling with judaism and struggling with the family and struggling with their parents people used to think that this was true about families that were broken or families that were dysfunctional or families where there was no good education or family there was no beautiful shabbat and no good and no good schools and no parents that were dedicated you know families that you could predict that the children will maybe find different paths but today we see that those facts are not relevant you have today in hundreds and thousands of jewish families across the board from every conceivable community ashkenazim and svardim and yemenites and eduta mizrah and khasidim and yeshivaj and litvish and tyrodic and what's called modern orthodox and zionistic and non-zionistic and very yeshivish and very acidic literally the entire spectrum of the jewish torah community is dealing with this struggle with this challenge it's probably not a single family that i know that is not affected either directly children or nephews or nieces or cousins or relatives or neighbors but almost every single family and some beautiful beautiful families good fathers good mothers fathers who sit and learn all day and all night or fathers who work hard to support their family and learn torah and mothers who are dedicated and good and kind and righteous and full filled with yirachimayam with fear of hashem war of russia and how homes where there's a lot of good things happening and good people but nonetheless the fact is and nobody can deny this wherever you go that so many of our youth so many of our young women and so many of our young men our teenagers our children males and females are struggling struggling on different levels struggling in different ways but struggling some sometimes the struggles are very very serious you're dealing with serious addiction sometimes suicide overdose drug addiction or other forms of addiction where their lives sometimes become extremely extremely challenging and painful sometimes they're not into addiction so much but they struggle emotionally some of them struggle mentally and many of them many of them leave yiddish kite they leave at least on to some degree the path of tyre ambitious and that's what i want to address this evening and that's why so many everyone this is that's why this is the topic today because there's nobody telling there's nobody who's not affected and tonight i want to make a few points that i think and i hope can be extremely helpful and let me right away begin i'm going to jump right into it i'm going to discuss a few different aspects a few different angles and me hashem maybe put yourself a mute whoever the noise over this everybody can hear and may hashem be with us and give me and all of you the strength that we should be able to be conduits to make the right decisions and to do the right things in this situation the first thing i want to share with you is a story a personal story that happened with me i was traveling once to a community and i spoke about children and parents and i spoke about the fact that we live in a day in a time when the most important thing for parenting is that we have to be able to remain absolutely connected to our children under all circumstances and without any strings attached we need to be connected to our children in the deepest way and i explained during my speech that today we know that in most of the cases the idea of throwing a child out of your home or throwing a child out of your family or disconnecting from your child could sometimes spell the difference between life and death and it's usually one of the biggest biggest mistakes that parents could make to cut off their connection with a child there was a father who came over to me after the speech and he asked me he says rabbi why why where were you 35 years ago why didn't you give the speech then 35 years ago i wasn't giving speeches i was a young boy i was learning in yeshiva i say why with tears in his eyes he tells me he says i'm a balchuva i come from a secular family and me and my wife both returned to judaism at a later stage in life we already had children and we moved to a beautiful jewish community and we had a teenage son and he did not conform to the standards of orthodoxy he didn't fit into the yeshiva they didn't want him to stay in the yeshiva and he didn't want to be religious so he said i went to somebody to consult them what i should do this is 35 years ago and the man told me that you have to give your son an ultimatum and tell him either you shape up and you start living the way we expect you to live and if not you can't be in the house anymore so i told the person what am i supposed to do he says change the locks change the locks in the house he's going to want to have a house he'll fix everything up and he'll come back he said you sure he said yeah don't worry about it no kid wants to be thrown out of the house he tells this to me he says i did it my wife and i we're bali trouba we wanted to do the right my wife and i wanted to do the right thing so we called in our son and we said there's an ultimatum you have to change your ways he said no i don't wanna they said we said well you can't be in this house and we changed the locks two weeks later we changed the locks and he couldn't come back home the father looks at me and he's sobbing he says robert jacobson it's been 35 years i have not seen my son i have not met my son i have not received a telephone call from him my wife hasn't received a telephone call from him we never heard from him again and a few years ago i found out that he married a non-jew and he has non-jewish children today from his wife who's not jewish and he says and i want to tell you something else that nobody knows for 35 years i did not sleep one night i did not have one peaceful night of sleep in my bed because of what happened and he looks at me and he says rabbi why why why were you not here why were you not here 35 years ago to give this speech why were you not here 35 years ago to give the speech friends all i could do was cry and give him a hug my heart was torn to pieces i felt so horrible i'm looking at this father broken shattered devastated i want to tell you something i'm not judging i've learned not to judge people i don't judge people don't judge people until you know until you haven't you know until you don't put on their shoes and walk in their shoes a couple of hundred miles that's what emmett says you're not gonna reach somebody else's place i'm not even judging that person who gave him this advice that person thought you know if his father said get out of the house he would run back he thought that this teenager was going to come running back he didn't realize i'm not even judging him but the point is i realized how sometimes we just simply don't diagnose the situation we don't realize the consequences this poor father and mother they were trying to do the right thing they were trying to do what hashem wants they were trying to educate their child with tara with mitzvoth with iraq right with allah and what happened they lost their child and they can't forgive themselves so i say to you my dearest friends we live in a generation where we cannot afford to separate emotionally from our children sometimes your child will cause you pain sometimes your child will do something that is very very difficult to watch sometimes your heart is screaming and you want to say get out of my house go find another house go move to muncie go move to new york go to your shallam eat lafa there don't stay in my house and ruin my whole family and ruined my shabbat and ruined my holidays me and my your mother you know how much we had for yiddish and look what you're doing and i understand you're human we're all human we have emotions we get angry we get upset but this is what's important you could feel your emotions you can have your compassion for your emotions but then ask one question ask not what your children can do for you ask what you can do for your children ask not what god can do for you ask what you can do for god what does hashem want you to do in this situation we know today that there is not a single case of a parent who threw out a child and the child came back we do know that every parent who remains connected to their child it can save lives we never have guarantees in this world ultimately everyone has choices and everyone has different journeys that their shama their soul goes through but when your child feels connected to you emotionally when your child feels that your home is their home and your table is their table and they feel your love and they feel your pride it has an incredibly powerful powerful impact and i want to take it one for i want to take it one step further and explain what's happening you see we often completely don't understand our children you think we think your child is 14 or 13 or 16 or 17. she's not dressing the way you wanted to dress he's walking around without without a keeper he doesn't come to the synagogue he doesn't do this he doesn't do that he doesn't want to learn torah whatever it is and you're getting angry disgusting you're arrogant you're spoiled but i want to tell you something we know today almost every single child wants to give nacha to the parents a child wants to make his mother proud and father proud a child wants to continue the tradition of their father and mother and when they choose not to in 99 of the cases it's because there's something that they're suffering from there's pain there's something that's broken i have spoken to some of the top top top therapists today who live today who have dealt with thousands and thousands of teenagers i know a therapist in jerusalem who has seen ten thousand teenagers who left yiddish kite ten thousand and i asked him i said rip shimon his name is shimon russell i how many of them left yiddish kai just because they're bad kids because they ate sahara they just didn't want he says ten thousand and i haven't found even one that was not dealing with trauma now you may not know what that trauma is they may not know what the trauma is but we have to understand that most of these children something is broken inside and the worst thing to do to a broken person is to break them further what these children need more than anything else is not for me to give them moosa what they need for me more than anything else is for me to make them feel whole because their alienation is not coming from wholeness it's coming from brokenness i'll give you a simple example imagine your whole family are athletic like in mexico you guys are many of you are athletic and the whole family decides we're going to run an on a marathon and for six months you're preparing you're running every day three miles five miles 10 miles 15 miles 20 miles right you know those families no pizza no cheesecake no pancakes no rugged lock no seven layer cake yeah only kale and spinach good food some good protein you're running everybody's running everybody's excited and then your boy your 15 or 16 year old boy looks at you and says tati mommy daddy mammy i'm not going i'm not going to the marathon so you get upset we invested so much i'm going to punish you you're not going to be part of the family i'm not taking you on the trip to israel you're not going here you're not going there and somebody tells you relax relax do it positively give him positive reinforcement so instead of punishing you say you know what if you do the marathon i'll give you a thousand dollars if you do the marathon i'll give you a special reward i'll take you to disney world i'll take you to israel i'll take you here i'll take you there i'll buy you a gift and then one day you find out that this child both of his legs broke he broke both of his legs he can't run the marathon when i was screaming and i'm gonna punish you get out of my house or even when i was giving him positive reinforcement you can do it you can do it i'm completely missing the point the child's legs are broken he can't now he didn't tell that to me maybe he doesn't know maybe he's too embarrassed maybe he thinks i'm not going to believe him maybe he's unaware there could be so many reasons he didn't tell me what's happening even my positive reinforcement was abusive what does this child need this child doesn't need you to talk about the marathon this child needs you to take them and put them on a bed and bring them a cast and help them heal their wounds and bring them a good doctor and calm them down and assuage them and caress them and love them and let them get back to health and let them heal and then they're going to run the marathon on their own today in most cases what we're seeing is children are not rebelling because they just want to be bad you'll see most of the children that leave yiddish guide you can ask any mother and father are the most sensitive ones in the family and the most intelligent ones in the family and the most spiritual ones in the family ask any mother and father your child who left judaism when he was seven or she was eight were they kind or were they cruel were they wise or were they dumb were they sensitive or were they brute were they caring or were they was narcissistic and every mother will tell you i sh he was the most spiritual sensitive beautiful kind boy so what do you think happened you think at the age of 16 your son suddenly became a sadistic rasha he became a wicked wicked person because he watched a movie because he got a phone or because his friend gave him weed or because he met a girl or because of something else that happened you think suddenly your boy or your girl were transformed into horrible horrible people come on your intelligent parents that's not what happened what happened was something is not working something is broken so you know what these kids need more than anything else what they need is parents to believe in them parents who stay close to them parents who respect them parents who enjoy them no it's painful it's painful and it's also embarrassing you may be embarrassed from your father and your mother and your uncle and your aunt and your brother and your sister and your rabbi and your neighbor and you may be looking at your sister and you see your sister has so many kids and they're all from and they all get married and this one goes to lakewood and this one goes to the mir and this one goes to brisk and this one goes to paratyosef and this one goes to slobotke and this one goes to hevron and this one goes to bonovich and this one goes to the second brisk and this one goes here and there amazing beautiful kids best me and my wife we're the losers this kid is not doing this and this kid is not doing this it's so embarrassing and we get upset at our children because they're embarrassing us my dearest friends this is the moment where you have to ask yourself what is judaism is judaism about impressing the community is judaism about looking good for everybody else is judaism about making sure that everybody says is that judaism that's not sure he is that's social that social validation judaism is about asking myself what does hashem want from me at this moment what hashem wants for me at this moment is to prioritize my child to be here for my child to let go of everything else and say i am here for my child the torah says in parashat vayigash yehudah speaks to joseph the prime minister of egypt and he says that he cannot go home without binyamin because yaakov avinu will die because the great commentator on behalf that there's one more place in the tanakh the word is used one more place in parashat and i've shown one more place where initially in proverbs the pasuk the verse says iniquity crookedness folly stupidity is tied up it's bound up it's in in it's etched it's embedded in the heart of the youth so the bala turim says what's the connection between the two kashuras why in these two verses did the torah used the word kashura palaturium gives two interpretations the second one is fabulous he says because ivelt levnar the only way to eliminate it is vinav sheikh shura binafsha because sometimes there's negativity that is deeply embedded and entrenched and ingrained in the soul of the child the only way i can remove it is if my soul is embedded in his soul if my soul is intertwined and interconnected and knotted enough what the bellatorium is saying is sometimes you see your child struggling and you know what you want to do you want to go away you want to detach a father told me he said you know my son comes home at night and i don't want to fight with him i don't want to argue with him so when he comes home i go upstairs to my bedroom and i close the door so i don't have to get into a fight with them and the father was very proud of himself he says i don't fight with him i don't argue with him i don't debate him i let him do what he wants and i told the father no no no no no that's not what your son needs your son doesn't need that when he comes home and he puts the key into the door you should run upstairs and lock the door and watch my clips in your bedroom that's not what your son needs your son needs that you should stay downstairs and when he comes home you give him a big hug and when he comes home you spend time with him and when he comes home you connect to him because the only way to substitute those things that our children become connected to is through our connection with them everybody needs to be connected everybody the question is to what the torah says the first thing the torah says is not good what's the first thing the torah says it's not good it's not good for a person to be alone today we know in science that the antithesis of addiction is not sobriety the antithesis of addiction is connection attachment when a person is alone when a person is in isolation it's not good so people need to feel attached they need to feel connected and they're going to become connected to something either they're going to become connected to porn or they're going to become connected to drugs or they're going to become connected to people who will use them or they'll become connected to superficial friendships or they will become connected to their phones they'll become connected to their screens they'll become connected to to this or to that people need to be connected and the only way to help them is not by disconnecting by you becoming connected to them by them feeling their connection with you these children need you more than any other children they say about the satmirebe rabbenu yoyo one of the principles and satima said that he once came to the south and he said you know we have a problem he says what's the problem he said we have a class in yeshiva all the boys are good they learn they pray they're very good but there's two boys who are really not interested they're just not interested and they're going to ruin the class what should we do we want to expel them so the satmireva said what about the other boys he said the other boys they're amazing he said the other boys need you if they if you wouldn't be there would they be good he says yeah they'll be there they're just good kids so something that said so this is what you should do you should expel the whole class send them home and keep these two kids in the yeshiva you don't throw out these two kids you throw out everybody else they'll be fine send them home let them go to another yeshiva they'll be fine these two kids you keep here when your child is struggling you don't throw them away those are the children you need to be closest to now it's hard because you may have a whole family and you have other children and you're afraid that they're going to influence the other children but let me explain to you how it works the way it works is you have to help all the children understand if god forbid is a family and a child has cancer or a child has an illness we don't throw them out of the house we explain to all the children they can't go to school they can't go to the synagogue they may not even come to the table we help them because they're struggling they're sick we explain to all their childr our children that we want to help this boy we want to help this girl somebody told me because my oldest boy left yiddish kite all my boys left yadishkait i said no it's not because of him what he was struggling with the other kids are also struggling with and he revealed it so it it came out by them too it turned out that the father molested four kids and they all left they blamed the oldest boy they didn't blame the boy but the oldest boy wasn't guilty what happened to the oldest boy happened to all of them and when they saw what the oldest boy did they had the courage to come out what's my point my point here is and this is so important to understand it's very easy to get angry at these kids it's very easy to become a sadiq and say i don't have patience for you you're shying you're wicked but let me tell you my dearest friends what these children really need is hit kashrut they need your love they need your connection don't run away from your children they have only you and i want to tell you something you could send your children to the greatest therapist in the world but nobody can do it for your children what tati and mommy can do for a child nobody some therapists are amazing and great but nobody can do for your child what a father and mother can do for a child the miracles that a father and mother can do for a child nobody can do for a child but for this we need a few things number one we have to be very very humble very humble because it's so easy to become arrogant and say you're embarrassing our family you're destroying our family it's so important to be humble number two it's so important to ask what hashem really wants from me number three it's so important not to sacrifice our children on the altar of religion it's so easy for religion to become self-righteous and then in the name of religion we can be cruel we could be narcissistic we can be selfish but i have to ask myself is yiddish guide about me being this beautiful holy person and saying ah i'm the holiest jew in the world or is it about asking what hashem wants from me right now at this moment we also need something else you need a good support system because it's painful you also need to be able to have compassion for your emotions and you have to have a good marriage because when a husband and a wife are together they can deal with these types of crises i want to tell you a story there was a famous drew in bernie breaker bianca golinski biancolo galinsky was a maggot he was a very very interesting man he came from narvardic he lived in nevada he was in siberia he once went into the stipelagon you know who the stipela was yeah stapler gonzal bianco visceral kanyevsky he was the father of hagon kanyevsky who just passed away a few months ago the stifler was his father he came from a city called horin staple in the ukraine and the biancolor golinski shared that it was once by the stipela gone told him he said i just had a new insight and i want to share it with you and this was the insight you know it says that when ya kova vino yaakov our father ran away from his brother a son he ran away to his uncle lovan so later he tells god kibbum of i crossed the jordan only with my stick so rasheed says he only had a stick his father didn't give him anything else why not so rashi says that yitzhak gave yaakov a lot of money and a lot of wealth however asaf sent his son elifas to kill yaakov and when eliphas came to yaakov he wanted to kill him because asap told him to kill him but rashid says he couldn't kill him why the fisher gaddal alifa's grew up in the bosom of yitzhak so he couldn't kill yakov but he told yakov i have to listen to my father so yaakov told him a poor person is like a dead person take all my money and i'll be poor and it's considered that i'm dead so eliphas took yakov's money so yaakov came to love and completely broke so the stipe lagon says to the biancologist he says let's think about this who was alifa's elephants was the son of asaf the terrorist says in parachute that eliphas was one of the most immoral people his relationships were so promiscuous the promiscuity the arayat of alifa's alifa's had relations with his mother and with his daughter and everybody there was illegitimate and mum said the gemaran sanhedrin and rashi makes all the calculations elifus was a real real rotten tomato he grew up ace of sun and who was his son alifa as was the father of amalek so you understand who eliphaz was so what would yitzhak do with aliphas what would you think asav yitzhak tolerated he's my son but elif was his grandson you should throw him out of the house he says not only in his house he kept him on his lap he kept him on his bosom friday night when yitzhak was sitting at the table and he was singing a who was sitting on his lap alifa's alifas he was singing called makkadesh he was singing eliphas was sitting on his lap he kept the leaf us close to him even though yitzhak was a big chad knew who eliphaz was so the stiples said the stipe lagoon said now look at this you would think okay yitzhak was a nice zadie he was a nice grandfather he says no because of that the whole kalali israel was saved because eliphas would have killed yaakov and if yaakov would have been killed on the way to lavon there would not be the jewish people today but because yitzchak held alifa's in the house and he kept him close to himself and he embraced him and he raised him and he nurtured him and he loved them so yes eliphas didn't become rabban that's true he didn't become the vilnigan but you know what all of the jewish people are around today because alifa's would not lay his finger on yakov why because he kept him close stipela gone said this to the biancologists and now i'm gonna add something you open up the book of eo of the book of job i think it's chapter four chapter six says of e of job had three friends and they all spoke to him beautiful words of ruach kodesh of divine inspiration and one of them is alifas and rashi says because he grew up in the bosom in the house of yitzhak sharta allah divine inspiration came down and dwelled on him so here's aliphos who was no good nick he was involved in a lot a lot of not nice stuff but the holiness of yitzhak impacted him and elevated him generations later the divine inspiration dwells on alifa's and he becomes one of the characters in tanakh who speaks the beautiful words of the beautiful words of job says the stifler this teaches you you never ever ever cut yourself off from your child from your grandchild yes he may not become that sadiq eliphas wasn't even jewish eliphas wasn't jewish asap was considered jewish yesterday eliphas was not and still before matantara wasn't even jewish by holding on to him all of claudius all was saved can you imagine what we accomplish when we hold on tight to our children enough [Music] we have to remember something else we have to remember something else the gomorrah says in kidus it is an argument between a man and a behuda and the argument is when are jews called hashem's children rabbi huda says when they behave like children when they don't behave like children they're not called children rib mayor argues with rabiot and he says whether you behave or you don't behave you're always called hashem's children and he brings forbes him four verses in torah that even when jews are engaged in idolatry and even when jews are alienated from hashem they're still called banim children they're always hashem's children and it's fascinating the najib writes in charlottesville i think dalit in all of gemara and mishnah when there's an argument between a mayor and a behuda the law follows like rabbi huda that's what the governor says in a raven and other places here's an exception here the law follows rep is that even a jew who leaves judaism if he marries a woman it's kidushin he needs a get we don't treat him completely like a gentile even a jew doesn't keep shabbos and you can't drink his wine and he's involved in idolatry and the rambam says are you going but if he betrothes a jewish woman she needs a get afl israel asks but why is that mayor and he says because forbes took him support him and i would add one more thing history has proven that mayor was right if you asked joseph mengele and auschwitz in birkenau who do you send to the gas chambers [Music] the big london every jew what about it he's a jew he's an atheist he doesn't put on finland doesn't keep shabbos doesn't eat kosher he doesn't wear a yarmulke it doesn't believe in god didn't open up a gemara in 25 years doesn't know what doesn't keep him kipper joseph mengele would say he's jewish gas chambers history validated the mayor being in auschwitz they didn't ask what type of yarmulke do you wear what type of hat which looser do you dare how long does you pay your peace or your beard you wear streimel on shabbat and a long capote black coat or do you wear a suit you wear tie you were jewish you had to be murdered our enemies understood that every jew is holy every jew is holy as the great kabbalist and mystics say the soul of a jew is a helicopter the soul of every jew is a piece of hashem and the zohar says go for the long condition the body of a jew is sacred every one of our children is a piece of hashem every one of these children even those children who disappoint and even those children who make different choices and even those children who cause you headaches and you don't sleep at night every one of those children is a helicopter every one of those children is called a child of hashem hashem says about them i love you rashid this week's parasha he says marsha beno tells the jewish people you believe that god hates you but the truth is about every single child in navi ushaya says god says each one is a branch of my plant my sapling the work of my hands a person in whom i boast i brag i glorify myself hashem looks at your child and he says wow i can't be prouder of this person could you do that to your child can you look at your child and despite everything say i don't only love you unconditionally i am proud of you can you see the light in your child's face can you see the holiness in your child's eyes can you see the depth in your child's soul even if they're on a journey even if they're struggling and here's the deal friends we want our children to believe in themselves and the only way these children can believe in themselves is if we believe in them you need to believe in those kids you need to hold them onto those kids and you know what have fun with these children do good do connect to them do sports with them play frisbee with them play basketball with them play football with them make a barbecue go for pizza go for heist go for shopping go for swimming connect bond do things that will make them feel that they're connected to you they have a father they have a mother i want to conclude with this final thought and then we'll open up the floor to questions we're living today in a time and not everybody likes to hear this but let me tell you something these children will make you much better people these children who are putting you through the ringer will allow you to become real jews and i want to explain what's happening you see what i'm seeing is that many of the children are actually on a very very high level i call them mashiach children they are children who cannot deal with judaism that is superficial that is intellectually dishonest they cannot deal with corruption they cannot deal with dishonesty they cannot deal with lies and they also cannot deal with a relationship with god that is not deep and meaningful and authentic and real and powerful and they also can't deal with repression they don't like when we repress things and we don't talk about things and we're not honest about things these are very very sensitive children these are children whose souls belong to the era of redemptive consciousness of gaola and therefore they need a real authentic deep relationship in a way that we might have never experienced judaism and i say to you when you show up for these children they will make you better people they will make you more honest more authentic they will help you confront your insecurities your traumas your ego they will turn you into real if they hashem real jews because in order to be able to connect to these kids i have to confront all of my own insecurities and my own inability to really confront what's happening inside of me the traumas and skeletons inside of me and that's why each of these children is really really a gift each of these children if you let them will turn you into an amazing parents and amazing human beings the last nivua the last prophecy that hashem gave the jewish people the end of malachi what are the last words the last navawa so the commentators say hashem will bring back the hearts of the parents through their children this is our finest hour this is your finest hour we can transcend our fears we can transcend our insecurities we must transcend our egos we have to go beyond the blame game and become channels for divine love and divine infinity to be able to change our paradigms to be able to go out of our religious comfort zones religious comfort zones that sometimes keep us stuck in our narcissistic egos in the name of religion as we sacrifice our children on the altar of social conformity it's time for we as to go through an inner transformation because the greatest work of raising children is really raising yourself you want to know what the real work of educating children is educating yourself educating myself going deeper into myself and seeing what is my resistance what is my fear what is my struggle why am i holding back why am i frozen and when we can do that we can open our hearts and open ourselves and allow these beautiful children to shine and to cast their light on the world thank you it's an unbelievable question as parents what are we supposed to do in our ignorance so here's the first thing let me just tell you whenever you're dealing with a child who's struggling i'm saying this to you on a very very personal note only take advice from people who are experts in this area just like you don't go to a dentist when you have stomach pains and you don't go to a cardiologist for neuroscientific expertise sometimes people go for advice to people who are wonderful people but if they are not well versed and well aware of this whole sugi of this whole parashah of how to deal with it they may be wonderful people but their advice may be terribly terribly off so just be very careful make sure you're going to advise the people who have real experience i don't mean experience with one person or two people people who have dealt with this for years they know what works they know it doesn't work because people can give the most genius advice but if this rabbi or this rabbitson or this great person did not have a child who struggled he doesn't know he doesn't know it's not his fault he simply doesn't know so this brings me now to the question what do we do the first thing we have to realize is that we often just don't know anything and that's why it's so important as our children grow up to be alert to be present to notice what's going on trauma comes in different ways there's children who are molested that's very serious children who are abused physically sexually emotionally sometimes for many months sometimes for many years sometimes through a member in the house a sibling a grandparent an uncle an aunt a babysitter a first cousin comes for shabbat our first cousin comes for shabbat and 10 o'clock at night you're having the meal and he takes your little sister your little daughter your little son we never know sometimes siblings can do it so it's so important to be able to be connected to each one of our children to notice what's happening as they grow up remember there's also different types of trauma there's what's called today developmental trauma a child who's in the classroom for years and the child feels like a loser even if nobody insulted him and nobody beat him and nobody molested him or her but sometimes this child feels so much pain from their connection with this place and as a result of that they're going to shut down they're going to become disconnected they're going to go offline so we have to always be alert and aware of what our children are going through our children are very sensitive today and some children are very sensitive uniquely sensitive we call them hsp highly sensitive people now you may not know anything and suddenly your child is 15 or 16 or 17 and you start seeing things so the most important thing is don't react from a place of anger and from a place of ignorance you need to realize that maybe this child went through something or is going through something and we need to be able to be there for them now when they're so young they may not be able to talk about it they may not even know it may be repressed it may be subconscious and that's why it's even more important that we hold on tight to them it's important that they feel connected to us it's important that they feel safe you see every child needs the four s's every child needs to feel safe in that home secure seen and soothed safe secure seen and soothed very very important that gives a child healthy attachment and when they grow up they can develop healthy relationships if they didn't have that if they didn't feel safe if they didn't feel secure if they didn't feel seen or didn't feel soothed they may have attachment that is very wounded and it's going to translate later in their relationships and their friendships and in their marriages so we need to make sure that as they grow up and they're struggling they feel their safety they feel they're secure they feel that we see them and that we can soothe them and then hopefully we can help them feel that connection and attachment so we don't become the enemies they don't have to fight us if you fight them you become the enemy and now all their anger comes out at you but if their parents are their greatest allies they don't have to fight you you're there for them and when you're there for them what happens is as they get older they could look inside and see what's going on in my life my father and mother are not the worst people in the world and then they could slowly seek the help that they need sometimes it takes time not you know not 16 year olds don't usually go to therapy successfully excellent question what about you have a child who's not struggling so bad he doesn't want to know where he sits it he doesn't want to make a blessing he doesn't want to pray it's not a crisis it's not a crisis what do we do excellent question and the answer is as follows there comes a certain age in life where we can't just throw out commandments on our young children and hope they're just going to jump and say yes once they're getting older once they become teenagers ultimately they have to make their own decisions and our job at that moment is not to control them because you can't you can't at some point another month another month another year they're going to be independent so my job at that moment is not to control and not to get angry my job at that moment is to bond to connect i want to be able to be close to them so i can inspire them i can model behavior for them i could be close to them we can have conversations we could connect in a deep way that's the most important thing the fact that you could scream at your fortune and say put on your situation if you don't put on you'd sense it get out of the house okay maybe he'll listen maybe he won't listen but what are you going to do when he's 15 and 16 and 17 and 18 and 21 what are you going to do then so we have to realize that at some point as they're getting older we need to go away from the mode of control i control and you do what i say now i know it's hard especially for many of us we grew up in houses papa says and you do mama says you do right you do i don't care what you're feeling i don't care what you're thinking i know a lot of us grew up in such homes but let me tell you something today that's not very successful because so many children get turned off and when you're not looking they just don't care about you this guy even if they're afraid of you so they'll be afraid of you when you're looking when you're not looking they don't care for it you want your children to be really connected to torah you want your children to be really connected to yadishka so at some point you have to realize that fear and control and coercion is very very very weak it doesn't have real power what does rashid say in baha'u'llah you want the fire to burn on its own even when you're not there and therefore i want to inspire my child to wear a talit katan i want to respect him i want to respect her i want them to be able to make their own decisions from a place of strength and the best way to do that is when they feel connected to you when they feel close to you when you can have conversations when you can discuss things when they can ask questions when you can share struggles that's the most powerful way to do it it's not easy listen it's not easy we like when they're very small and they could just respond to what we're saying but i want to tell you also something else even when they're small even when they're young and you could control them be careful because if the only way you influence your children is through control they're going to get older one day so even when they're young it's important to have rules in the house but remember the focus is if your child doesn't want to do something what do they say the happy child is the willing child the happy child is the compliant child if your child even as a little kid is not does not want to do something there's a reason for it something may be bothering them they may be struggling with something so even when your child is seven you just scream at them fine but you're not really addressing the person so even at that point when there are rules and there are structures in the house you always want to be able to tune in to who the child is you want the ner you want to nurture the child you want to be able to identify who they are what their strengths are what their weaknesses are what they may be struggling with and how you can help them shine you want to help them take responsibility for their life even when they're young of course in a different way every age is a different process but the point of education is never i control and you just do what i say the point of education is to be able to help the child navigate their own emotions to be able to help the child understand their own strengths to be able to help the child deal with their own challenges with their own conflicts with their own tension with their own anxiety and how do we do that we never do that by just setting down rules irrelevant to what they're feeling we do it by creating rules and structures that the child could celebrate that help the child come out the rules are here to help a child the child is not here for the rules the rules are here for the child we sometimes make a mistake we think our child is here to fulfill the rules now the rules are here to be able to help the child bring out their light so this is true about all ages but especially as they get older our whole model of education has to change does any is anything that i'm saying makes sense anybody agrees with this so you think this is just uh liberal garbage we can do it again we can do it again listen my friends i i just i just want to tell you something you know very often we have a certain way in which we're used to doing things and it's very hard to change and we say this is what hashem wants this is what the torah wants this is what did him want this is what the dolim say this is how to do it and that's it and don't change it but my friends very often what we call religion and torah is really our comfort zone it's just what i'm used to it's what i'm comfortable with and sometimes it's my ego sometimes it's my insecurity sometimes it's my fear so we have to be ready to really challenge ourselves and really grow and really ask ourselves what do our children really really need in today's times because let me tell you something our your children are very deep they're very smart and they're very special when you respect them they will respect themselves when you believe in them they will believe in themselves when you empower them they will become empowered when you will talk to them and talk to their hearts their hearts will open up if you try to manipulate them and control them and overpower them and exploit them and just force them into obedience they're going to shut down you know why because our children today are creme de la creme they're the best of the best they want real relationship with hashem they want an authentic relationship with their parents they want a deep relationship with yiddish guy they don't want superficial relationship they cannot deal with people who don't talk honestly so today we have an opportunity to grow tremendously in our judaism and to develop relationships that are much more authentic and much deeper [Music] how old is this boy right so i think the most important thing is you cannot force a 14 year old to do anything it's just you can't it's not going to work even if you'll force them for two months in a year you won't be able to force so i think the most important thing is to find out what's bothering them is the yeshiva boring maybe they need to work maybe they were hurt maybe they feel not accomplished maybe the teacher insulted them maybe he's bullied by the other kids maybe he feels the learning is irrelevant we have to find out what's what's we really have to find out what's happening i just met a boy last shabbat came to my house in muncie 15 years old brilliant kid smart good-looking athletic interesting very creative entrepreneur i told him he's going to make a lot of money one day and he told me he left yeshiva he's done i said why and he told me he started to tell me his experiences he says the person the the masjid one of the yeshivat was out to get him always gave him punishments he says i don't have patience for these people i'm not fighting with people you don't want me i'm not going to fight and then i realized that some of these boys they need to they need you to be connected to them they need to feel that you like them you appreciate them you respect them you honor them you cherish them i don't know about this voice i'm not saying i was just talking to this boy you know he said i'm fighting with them like like a game he says come on i want to be here respect me you know we need relationships with these children that's one thing another thing is you know a lot of these children feel like they're not accomplishing anything the yeshiva's often the learning is not made for them it's on a level either much higher very higher or lower they don't feel accomplished so we have to be sensitive to this today children need to feel that they're growing they're gaining and we have to understand what is happening with this boy the same is true with prayer he may find this prayer is very very boring and very irrelevant he also may be hurt i don't know i have to talk to this person but i would listen to him very deeply and i would connect to him i wouldn't try to judge him and and squeeze him into a particular situation and control him and threaten him because i don't think you're going to be successful you know even for another year he'll go to yeshiva and then he'll leave i think you want to really really connect to him and understand what he's going through and figure out what's the best plan for him let's remember this god is infinite god doesn't have an image not every boy has to do the same thing different boys need different things some boys need to be here some boys need to be here god doesn't have one picture one image for everybody there's no one bed one size that fits every single person yeah i would love my children to go through yeshiva and learn torah by day and by night and become big talmudic but you can't force your child into a model you have to ask yourself what does hashem want for this child can we have the humility and stop forcing every child into a particular box of what judaism looks has to look like judaism is infinite god is infinite god doesn't have an image why because we don't fit people into certain images we ask what does hashem want from this person what does he want from you what he wants from you is not what he wants from me what he wants for me is not what he wants from you so now i ask a question hashem created this boy this boy is god's boy he's not my boy i don't own him he's hashem's child what does hashem want from this soul how can this soul shine think about that we look at this child say how do i get him into yeshiva how do i control them how do i get them you don't have to get him into any way enough to control him ask a question what does hashem want for his soul can you help him help himself can you help him see his own beauty every child wants to shine we think that these kids are bad kids they don't want to go to yeshiva every child wants to shine is there one person here on the zoo who doesn't want to shine anybody could you raise your hand is there one person here who just wants to die and live a wasted life you know anybody like that unless unless you have been very hurt by life and you don't trust so you feel isolated so you don't want to wake up in the morning so you want to understand what is happening with this child can we give him an opportunity to shine that's how we have to start thinking about our children stop thinking about them that they're bad and rebellious and horrible and chutzpah and not religious and terrible and the internet and they have phones and they have tablets and they have computers and they're ruined yeah they may have struggles they may have addictions those tablets and phones are not always healthy and good but you have to ask another question and that is what does this child need in order for them to be able to believe in themselves in order for them to be able to see their own light that's the question you have to ask and it's a very very deep and humbling question and it takes a lot of inner discipline and work to work on ourselves to be able to see our children in that light thank you thank you so much you understood my answer of course yeah yeah how do you connect to a child who doesn't seem to be interested in any connection and we could tell him i love him but he doesn't respond so yeah so obviously there's a pain over there there's something that's broken or something that's hurt and all you can do is do not respond from a place of anger or disappointment you have to be on your best behavior and you continue to nurture that love so that when that child can heal a little bit they'll be able to feel your presence what often happens is parents respond they say oh you're not interested in me i'm not interested in you we become like children you know you insult me i insult you you don't answer me i don't answer you don't do that you know you don't need your your child to be your best friend find other best friends you don't need your child to validate you you don't need your child to say you're such a good mommy you're such a good tattie you're the best go find yourself a therapist find yourself good friends and get validation from them you don't need your children to be your best friends and give you validation but let me tell you something your children need you to be their best friends your children need you to give them validation your children need you to give them support your children need you to make them feel worthy and connected and proud of themselves that's what they need so if your daughter or your son are ignoring you that's fine but you know what don't stop reaching out when they come into the kitchen and they're groping and they go to the refrigerator and they tell you that there's no food even though the refrigerator is filled with food you just smile and say hi it's great to see you and you know what if you know that your son loves sushi so go and buy sushi and bring it to his bedroom you know that your son loves coca-cola or your son loves this type of cookie or this type of cake with this type of cereal or this type of rip steak so you know what make that food and say here i made this for you you show up with your full heart you show up with your full presence you show up with your fullness shama you look at this child and see the kami mao and you know what that itself will make the child healthier and stronger so that when they can show up to life when they can feel themselves more when they can get their brokenness healed a little bit they'll be able to feel your presence your love they'll come back so it's so important that you don't give up you don't go into a depression you don't go into a place of anger and vengeance and resentment and negativity and toxicity and i'm not going to reward this hotspot but you are completely present and you will see after a while they're going to soften up they're going to come they're going to become closer to you but this takes inner work you have to really work on yourself let me tell you something when you have a child who's struggling you have to be very connected to hashem because if not you're going to fall apart you have to be very connected to hashem you have to have trust you have to have faith you have to work on your marriage you have to be close to your spouse because you have to support each other you have to have a good relationship with hashem you have to believe in what you're doing and you have to be a worked out person and you have to learn how to deal with anger and with resentment and with depression and with frustration and with arrogance and with shame shame is a big one your mother is going to come to the house your father's going to come to the house and say what's this hotspot smack him up smack him up you stupid parents you don't know how to educate your kids there's always going to come somebody to your house or had an uncle and say your stupid parents you spoiled brats the new generation like the good old days everybody smacked us everybody came out perfect and these rotten kids nobody smacks them everyone keeps them in the house teach them a lesson you stupid father and mother who you're listening who are you listening to lectures you're listening to rabbi why why you're listening to avi fishoff you're listening to shimon russell that's your problem listen to me listen to me right you guys know what i'm talking about listen to me i'll tell you what to do you throw them out of the house they don't like it fine let them get another house now i'm not judging them but you have to have confidence you have to say listen i don't want my daughter to start cutting herself i don't want my daughter to start cutting herself i'm going to tell you a little story we'll finish with this a few months ago i was at the shabbaton of keshir nafshi keshinovshi is an organization that was founded by my friend abigaidalia miller together with rabbi russell and avi fischoef to help parents who are struggling with their children they have kesha nafshi today in israel they're doing a convention in a few weeks in israel they're doing in america they do a lot they did in europe they do they did in ukraine last year measure bush in any case not long ago one of the conventions one of the fathers shared something oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i want to tell you something okay this is a hasidis hasidic father from a very very hasidic community in brooklyn new york very hasidic and he says his daughter and a bunch of her friends they left judaism and his daughter wanted saturday night that her father should give her money to be able to buy weed marijuana to smoke up and he knew that his daughter is struggling and she really needs it and wants it so he said yeah i'm even going to take you and he would take her every saturday night to the dealer and he would buy the weed for her and give it to her every week every single week and she was a very broken girl she had a lot of issues and years later she came back to either sky and she was happier and she was healthier and she told the father she said this you were the only father who said yeah all the other fathers said no i'm not gonna give money for this crazy you're crazy you know what the girls did every girl the girls all became prostitutes they all sold their bodies and they had their bodies be with men and got money and bought the drugs the only one who didn't sell her body for prostitution is me because my father came and paid for it now i want to explain this to you if you would tell if i would tell a father go buy this for your daughter you'd say rabbi jacobson you're crazy you're cuckoo you're a sick person you want to drug a child you want to drug a child yeah that's that's that's what you do that's dot torah yeah you're crazy you're a sick person but this father was right because he understood that these girls are all becoming prostitutes because they need their drug and he had to ask himself a question do i want to be right do i want to be holy or do i want to save my child what do you want do you want to be holy do you want to be right or do you want to save your child and he understood you save your child everybody have a beautiful evening and may hashem give you all the strength the direction the serenity the empowerment and the clarity to be able to ask not what your child can do for you ask not how your child can give you knachat and make you feel good and make nice family pictures and beautiful resumes for all the in mexico city and all the shah khanim in panama and all this brazil and all this in peru and all the this and all this venezuela and all this in the caribbean and say ooh this family wow ask a different question what you what me can do for our children what we can do for our children to be able to help them shine and to be able to help them become the people they truly are the lights of hashem in this world thank you thank you may all of us have the courage to rebuild our inner base in our own hearts in our homes and our children and the way to build the inner base amikters is vasuli mcdonald to ask what can i do to be able to be an ambassador of light of love and of hope and of healing what can i do to be an ambassador of hashem for my children for my loved ones that's the question and that's how i can rebuild my own inner betamgash thank you so much