Bo - Analyzing the Three Sons

3:06 Where we have remedial education. We have social skills groups. We do that here. We do that in schools in Ramat Bichemish. And then we have a whole therapy clinic. We have about twelve therapists, professionals who are excellent. Run by a really wonderful and very talented person, Dikhan, if you know her. And of course, we have clinical supervision and everything. And we have about 800 kids at the moment that are registered for activity, groups and instruction and therapy in Akshiva today. And this past year, we've had over 1,200 kids that went through our system. And then, in addition, we deal mostly with kids and teenagers. With young adults. Over the past six months, we've also started to offer parents, couples therapy. Because obviously kids don't grow up in a vacuum. More often than not, unfortunately, we get kids and they need And it's really the parents that also need help. We also have other chaturim. We have parent guidance instruction education and so on.

4:35 Today's society As you probably figured out, 100 years ago when the masculine were around, so there were debates: Do I believe in God? Do I not believe in God? But today, that's not what we're seeing. What we're seeing is there's a tremendous attraction to all the things that are out there, which I don't need to enumerate. You all know them. A lot of ta'ava, a lot of things for all kinds of desires and emotional problems, mental issues that come up. So our goal here is, within the context of Yiddishkeit To try and give kids and their parents the tools by which to lead productive Normative Jewish lives. That's really our goal here. We're not a cure organization. But everything we do is in the context of making the child and their family thrive in the context of a Torah environment. So that's what we're here for. This particular program was started nine months ago.

5:39 A year and a half already, but it really took speed like in the beginning of this past year. And our board member, who just called me, is not well. It's not all good. Who really was the main driving force of this program to start it? Because we have recognized for many years that there are a lot of kids, boys and girls. We have girls' programs also, but let's take the boys who are in the system. They wear black shirts and white pants or whatever they wear wherever they go. But then there are certain things that are bothering them. They're not. They have questions. They have issues. They have emotional issues that they have to struggle with and deal with. This program, which I'm not going to describe because I want Ary to describe it Is a maane. How do you say maane? A response. Thank you for that particular subset of boys, which is probably the largest subset out there.

6:43 Boys who are in the system but need That extra, So that's so I'm not going to. If you want to know anything more about what we do, how we do it, you can speak to me. You can look online. You can look at the brochures we have outside. They're almost updated, but we didn't add the last thing. And you can also read more about this program online as well. So without further ado, I want to introduce Shmuel Mordechai Berg Who is the Menahel of Mevaseret? And is a mashpia of NCSY Summer of Nitzosos, and his shirim can be found on nitzosos. Com. Also, the author of Nitzosos on Chumash And a weekly contributor for Meaningful Minute in Gin Alif, and a senior Rabbi at Tomer Devora. Without further ado, please. Thank you. Thank you. Sounds a lot more impressive when you read it from a paper like that. It sounds like a lot of things.

7:46 So I just want to start. Ary didn't ask me to do this. He did ask me to speak. He asked me to do that, but Ary didn't ask me to do what I'm about to do. I just want to share a personal anecdote, just for a moment. When I was a young man myself, I was expelled from elementary school in fifth grade. And a lot of the kids, when they find out about that in yeshiva, they're like, "Ravvi, what did you do in fifth grade?" And it doesn't matter what I did. There was a very big tzaddik who took me into his yeshiva. His name is Rabbi Yaakov Bender. Some of you know Rabbi Bender from Darche Torah and Frakwe. So Rabbi Bender took me into the yeshiva. And I wasn't really from a family that was a darche family. I guess that's the nicest way to say it. I had gone to a very different type of yeshiva. I went to a coed day school, and then I went to the black hat yeshiva world of darche. So it was a very big transition.

8:35 And I remember very fondly. I had a rabbi. Some of you may have heard of him. He's very famous in America now. He's one of the great mashgichim of the generation. His name is Rabbi Mordechai Finkelman. He's a tremendous tzaddik. Rabbi Finkelman was my seventh grade rabbi, and in eighth grade he also became an eighth grade rabbi. And they put me in Rabbi Finkelman's class in eighth grade, in addition to seventh grade. Rabbi Finkelman is a very big tzaddik. And if I'm being very honest, we didn't learn a word in seventh grade because he was a very big tzaddik. There are certain rebbeim that know how to hold a classroom, and certain rebbeim that are such tzaddikim that they're very open, very warm, very friendly. I didn't learn really a word in seventh grade. And all my friends were put in the other eighth grade she'er, and it was very conspicuous that I was in the different class.

9:26 And on day one, right away in the morning, I ran to Rabbi Bender and I said, "Rebbe, what happened? Why am I split from all of my friends?" And Rabbi Bender, very honest, sat me down and he said, 'Look, these boys are all going to certain yeshivas, and they're all going in a certain direction. And your family is not going in that direction. I was going to go back to a more modern Orthodox high school because, frankly, I had gone to a much more modern Orthodox elementary school.' And he said, 'This Rebbe, the other She'er, he's going to give you a very hard time.' The boys from that year were going to yeshivas like Philadelphia, which I don't know what it is today, but back in the day, yeshiva Philadelphia was considered like one of the top yeshivas in America. Boys were going to Yeshivat Raco, boys were going to serious places, South Fallsburg, and I wasn't going in that direction. He said, 'This Rebbe is going to give you a very hard time.' So I thought it would be better to put you in Rabbi Finkelman's class. Rabbi Finkelman was very understanding, very warm, very approachable.

10:21 And I said no, no, no. That's where all my friends are. That's where I want to go. And even though it was the much more serious Sheer, and even though I was not the much more serious kid, I felt very strongly like I need to be with my friends. And I even remember that they got a shmoos that we don't have recess. Like in elementary school, you have recess and then you have lunch. So this rabbi, day one, this other rabbi, very serious rabbi, he said, "We don't have recess here. We're preparing you for yeshiva. We have lunch, you have a 45-minute break, and that's it." It was like very serious business. And in the end of a bender, let me switch to his class. He did give me a very hard time about the high school that I was going to go to. And I'm still very close with that eighth-grade rabbi, Ada Yom Hazeh. She be zaycher refuah shleima. Unfortunately, he's not feeling well right now. And he had a deal that you had if you were going to be in his shir, which was the top shir. So you had to learn in Yeshivah Rakhway twice a week at night with an older Avreich, somebody who was already holding by Bais Medrash, and that was your guy. At the time, this might sound funny to you. At the time, the going rate was ten dollars an hour.

11:27 So you guys can imagine ten dollars an hour. My parents, not reluctantly, Baruch Hashem, I have very supportive parents. My parents said, 'No problem. We'll pay the twenty dollars a week for you to go learn in Yeshivat Rakhui.' And the way that it worked is there was a chavruta tumult, you showed up. It was like a draft. I don't know how you work it here, but back then there was a draft. I walked into Yeshivat Rakhui, and there was a group of Yeshivat Rakhui guys lined up, and they were scouting the talent, who's the eighth grader. It's like imagine being picked last for a baseball game, but you're picked last for beis medrash. It's like the worst possible feeling in the world. They were very tsnius to that. They were very good guys. And I got picked by this guy whose name is currently Rabbi Avi Rosner, who's a very choshev a rebbe in TC in Yerushalayim. If any of you know TC at all, you know TC. Rabbi Ros, was that Tarzheim? Tarzheim. So Rabbi Rosner was my when I was in eighth grade. He was what you guys are doing. I was that kid back in eighth grade. Of course, there were other boys who were not in the group, but they were also part of the school.

12:27 They were all like tremendous basketball players. Yishiv Rockway at the time didn't have a gym. They had like a side outdoor basketball court. It was like a very ghetto type of You know, think like early '90s. Nobody had any money in the yeshiva world type of situation, but there were these guys that were these unbelievable ball players, and we, the eighth graders, we looked up to these guys.19, 20, 21 years old. These were the like these were the chasheva guys. I remember very distinctly. There was one guy who was this amazing basketball player, and he was like everybody wanted to be like him because not only was he a cool guy Not only was he a great basketball player, but he was an unbelievable learner. His father was a rebbe in Yeshivat Akiva, and the story went that when I was in eighth grade, he went to his father with a shilu and a gemara in gett. And his father, who finished shas every single year

13:16 His father said to him, "That's a klutz kasha. There's no way you learn gett well if you have that kasha. Go back and finish gett ten times. Come back to me if you still have the question." And this guy did it. He went and he finished getting ten times, and he came back to his father and he said, "Ta, I still have the question." His father said, "There's no way you still have this question. Go finish getting another ten times. If you still have this question, come back to me." And on the seventh go-around of the second cycle, seventeen times he finished getting, he realized why it was a klutz kasha. And the legend, when I came into Yeshiva Rakhmey in eighth grade, this guy was this awesome basketball player, the coolest guy, and he finished getting 17 times. So that kid became Rav Daniel Kalish, the current head of Waterbury. For those of you who know Rav Kalish, I want to tell you that the single greatest mussar that I got in eighth grade, of course, learning with guys like Avi Rosner. Anyone here ever heard the sefer Olam Amidos?

14:15 It's a beautiful sefer Olam Amidosh written by Rav Moshe Dan Kestenbaum. Moshe Dan Kestenbaum and Avi Razner were best friends. We sat right next to each other in the beis medrash. The greatest mussar that I got was here with these normal, relatable, cool guys who I could talk to. It's hard sometimes, parents. We shouldn't take this the wrong way. It's hard to talk to kids. We're so much older than them. It's hard to remember what it's like to be 16 years old. How old are the kids that are in this program? Elementary school, high school. Somebody once told me that the godless of R. Moshe Weinberger in the Five Towns is that he never forgot what it was like to be 16. It's a tremendous word, no? It's hard to remember what it's like to be 16 years old. The position that you guys, the avreichim, are in is a life changing position. Really, it's a life changing position. You don't know and you can't say what hatslacha is. Come back in 10, 15, 20 years, you'll see these kids and they'll say, "I remember that time that you told me this, and it made such an impact." And for you, it was a throwaway line.

15:16 They might have seen you walking down the street. You might have them over for a Shabbos, whatever it is. But I want you to know the impact you could have on these kids is ayin v'nairu. You can't possibly imagine. And for the parents who are smart enough to participate in this program, and for the parents who are smart enough to support this program, I have to tell you, this easy money. This low-hanging fruit. In America, in Israel, we don't pay so much for tuition. But in America, you can pay thousands, tens of thousands of dollars for tuition for every one of your kids. But the emphasis—the money that we spend on avreichim learning with our kids—it's worth much more than all the tuition that we're paying. The amount of impact that one avreich or one older bachur could have on a young bachur is inestimable. It's just huge. You can't measure the impact you're having. So first of all, kol hakavod to you, and really kol hakavod tokshiva, not just for this particular program, but for all the work that's being done. And specifically to Rabbi Daitch for all the work that you're doing here. I know it could sometimes feel like you don't always get the round of applause.

16:23 But I want you to know that what you're doing for the community is not spam. I just want to take a couple of minutes. I understand we're going to have maybe a couple of minutes for questions at the end. But I just want to take a couple of minutes to talk about something in this week's parsha. We don't often think about this in the parsha because we're used to thinking about it in the Hagada. The three of the four sons that are in the Hagada are actually in this week's parsha. And so, just I don't know if we'll get to all four, but just to take a moment to analyze, not Pesach. Pesach usually has like two moments. There's all the weeks leading up to Pesach of all the time that we spend being mashkia and all the devar Torah that we're going to say at the seder, and then there's the time that we say at the seder that we're just trying to keep our kids engaged. How often do we get to actually spend time at the seder really darsening these things?

17:11 So I just want to spend a couple of moments on this, going through the three children that we see in this week's parsha. The three sons that we see in this week's parsha are the Chacham, the Rasha, and the Ein Yodei Elishah. I want to share something personal to start this. The first thing that we see from the Arba Banim is you need to understand your kids. When we're asking, when we're hearing questions from our children, it's not obvious that the questions they're asking are the questions they're asking. There's always the overt question And then there's the covert question. There's the words that the kids are expressing, and then there's the thing that they actually mean. It's not obvious that the thing that's being expressed that you're responding to is actually what's bothering them. I'll share with you a Maisa Shalaya that just happened in the last hour. I had a very long day today. I've been up since 4:30 in the morning. Not a posh day. A lot of things going on. Doesn't matter what the details are. I walked into my house and one of my daughters. Baruch Hashem, I have wonderful amazing kids.

18:20 I'm blessed. Every single one of them is incredible. But my wife said something, and I'll be honest with you, what she said was completely innocuous and my daughter just went off on her. You don't understand that these are totally normal feelings to have. By the way, for the men in the audience, if you don't have any questions, I want you to know this is a common occurrence. You don't understand that the feelings I'm having are normal. These are very common words, and she just went off And I just I'm like One second, just one timeout. Wait. What just happened? She's like, no, you don't understand, and I'm like, okay, but say that. I'm thinking in my head, I'm about to go give a parenting shir in Hakshivah in an hour, and I have my daughter like roasting me. You don't understand that the feelings that I'm having are normal, and I think I think that what she experienced tonight is actually a very normal thing. It makes sense. Something happened. My wife said something. She meant something totally innocuous. She didn't mean anything bad. Chas v'shalom, not even a little bit.

19:19 But the idea that we don't understand her experience And that she's communicating something to us, and that we as parents have a responsibility to touch up what she's What she is in that moment and then respond to that—that's an art form. That's not obvious. A kid says something, and you respond quickly. It's bad parenting. There's a therapist I know in Yerushalayim. His name is David Levine. Have you ever heard of David Levine in Yerushalayim? He's a tremendous therapist, and he has a move. His move in therapy is when a client is talking to him and a client says something He pauses. But it's like a hard pause. You know what I'm talking about? Not like a pause where he pauses for a minute. He closes his eyes, and he'll take 30 seconds sometimes. Centering himself, or really processing, or really trying to understand the question before he responds—it's an amazing move. And if you've ever been in a room with him when he does it, you'll see, the whole room feels different. And his responses—the words—are so carefully tailored. Sometimes the words that come out of his mouth are Can you help me understand this question? I'm not sure that I chapted. Or sometimes he'll say, 'It seems like you're asking me this. Am I getting that right?' Or sometimes I'll come out with a response

20:44 But hitting pause to tich up to say, what question am I getting here? Is this the question of a chacham? Is it the question of a rasha? Is it the question of a tam? Is it the question of an inyodei alishol? Knowing that there are arba banim, and it could be that there's an infinite amount of banim, but let's say there's four archipel children. There's a certain bria that this kid is communicating from this place. It's not obvious to know that, not as parents and not as avreichim. You guys have to know that when a kid asks you a question, you have to be prepared that the question that's coming to you has to be understood in context. I know context today, especially here in Eretz Yisrael, is a very dangerous word because the entire Arab world wants that we have to give context. October seventh. Not all context is created equal, but certainly with our children, giving context is an important thing.

21:37 I'm trying to think of an example of this. The first example that comes to my head is many, many, many years ago when I first started in Chinuch. A boy came to me and he said,"How bad is it?" And by the way, whenever you get a question that starts off with "How bad is it," brace yourself. It's going to be worse than you think. And the answer he goes, "How bad is it that my maid cooks food for us on Shabbos?" How bad is it? So I'm like, "Just help me understand the mitzvahs here for a second. What exactly is happening?" He's like she takes the chicken out of the fridge

22:08 She cuts it, she puts in the egg, she puts in the bread crumbs, she turns on the fire, she puts it in the oil, all on Shabbos. How bad is it? So what do you think he's asking? You think he's asking me a halacha question? Pashdas is asking me a halacha question. Emma says he wasn't asking me a halacha question at all. He understood that halachically it was probably not the right thing to do. What he was really asking me, and by the way, I'm just trying to get this out of the way, is and I think it's important to note that there are some other things that we can do. But I think the most important thing is that the user needs to understand that there are certain things that they need to be aware of. And by the way, that's not obvious that you should do that either. Even if it is usur, it's not obvious that your first response should be that that's usur. I asked him. I said, "What are you asking me? How bad is it? You want to know like the scale of one to ten? What like how much Gehennom? What are you looking for here?" So he said, "Can I eat in my parents' house?"

22:57 So are we still in the world of halacha? He broke down crying. He said, "I just can't understand why they're raising me in an Orthodox Jewish institution, and I do believe what my rabbis are teaching me, and I feel so uncomfortable in my own home." It wasn't asking me a halachic question; it presented itself as a halachic question. But it's not a halachic question. We have to be smart enough to know when our kids are asking us questions. By the way, if you ever want to know what the question behind the question is, there's a really easy way to tell. The thing that they tell you is, "I'm not saying this. I'm asking this, right?" The thing that they tell you they're not saying is almost always the thing that they're asking for. A friend is always asking for themselves when they say, "I'm not saying it bothers me. It's just like it bothers me, right?" You have to be able to be smart enough to hear the words that they're saying and respond to the kid that's in front of you. Rav Isaacson, who's the Rashiv of Mevaseret, he has a great line. He says, "The first rule of chinuch is dalif ne miatal meid." Who are you standing in front of?

24:01 Or who's standing in front of you? The kid. You have an achrayus to know your children. If you're learning with a kid and you're not taking time, it's not batalla. I know you. You feel like you have to learn. We have to shteig. It's not batalla. If you don't know the kid, you can't teach the taisus. You're not playing the game. You're playing the man. If you don't know the kid, you can't teach the taisus. There's no mitzvahs in the world where the rabbinical values the taisus more than the yid. And if you don't know the yid, you can't teach him the taisus. And I'm not just talking about having a relationship. You don't know what's going to come up around that taisus that's going to bother you. We always have this issue in yeshiva. If you're especially in the years that we're learning Gitin, and especially when kids in the yeshiva are struggling with parents who got divorced or in the process of getting divorced

24:49 You have to be able to know that the question that's being asked could be about something in their life, which means we have an obligation to know what's going on in their life. It's k'day to battle. It's k'day when they come to take. I'm not saying you have to battle the entire time. Rabbi Darcher is trying to run a program here. I'm not chas v'shalom. I'm not saying that you're spending 45 minutes doing that. It's a good idea to sit down when the kid comes to you. It's a good idea to go. How was your day? What's going on? It's a good idea. When can we take a walk? It's you can't know. You can't. How am I supposed to respond to the question? The Hagada is very clear. Chacham Mahu Omer. It's a Chacham that we're dealing with. Mameila, we understand the question in the context. The Balagad is already telling us this kid is a Chacham. I know this kid is a Chacham. It's going to require this type of response. I know this kid is a Rasha. It's going to require this type of response. You see this all the time in Yeshiva. Rebbeim come to me. He said he asked me this, but I'm telling you this is what he meant. How does the Rebbe know? The Rebbe knows because he took the time to know the kid.

25:51 And I'm not saying again. I want to be clear. I don't want to mean Chassidim. We're not trying to define kids or box kids in or say you're this type of kid. But all children are a specific type, especially for the parents that are here, especially the older parents. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You know how everyone's complex, everyone's big. I'm not Chassidim putting anyone in a box, but you know there's always that kid. And I'm not talking about the letters. I'm not talking about she has ADHD, he has OCD. It's a certain type. There's a certain type of kid. You have to know the type of kid that you're dealing with.

26:23 Sometimes it means I know the type of kid that I'm dealing with, so this is not the fight. I'm not fighting with them on this because of this type of kid. This is not worth fighting about. Parents who don't know their children, I've seen people who don't know their kids. Come on, we're here to learn. Let's go. Maybe the kid isn't here to learn. Maybe that's not what the kid came in the door for. It's not obvious that just because a kid comes down and opens up a Gemara that he's there to learn. In fact, there's a Rebbe in yeshiva who says, "If you ever want to know what's going on in a kid's life, crack open a Gemara. Believe me, in two seconds flat, you're going to know everything that's going on in that kid's life." By the way, it's a beautiful thing that a Rebbe can open up a black Gemara with a kid, and that a kid goes I just got to tell you what's going on. I'm having such a hard time. There's something very beautiful about that. That's what we're here for. We're here to build people. Part of building a person might be teshuvah, but you have to learn the person first.

27:11 So I want to talk tonight about three types of children that we see. I think all of us probably have a little bit of this in us. The first type is the chacham, and if you look carefully, what the Balagadah says quotes the pasuk Ma'edus v'chukem v'amishpatim asher shiva Hashem alakechem eshem va'ata amrlo kelchas pesach ein mafkir nacher pesach apikom. So the first pasuk that we have in this week's parsha is the Chacham. It's the Balagadah's interpretation that it's a Chacham, but the Balagadah says we have a person and he's asking, 'What are these Aidos? What are these Chukim? What are these Mishpatim to you?' And we give him a very strange answer: 'Ein Mafteir nachar a Pesach hafikomen.' So I saw a very beautiful pshat. There's a certain lack of humility that perhaps. I don't want to say for anyone else, but I know for sure for myself, and I've seen this many times in Chenech. There's a certain lack of humility that all children have.

28:10 It's normal for them to have this lack of humility. Because kids want to understand. Anyone here ever heard of Mendel Kessen? Mendel Kessen is a tremendous balashkafa, specifically in the works of the Ramchal. And years ago, I took a class with him for an entire summer. One of the most brilliant chinuch courses I ever took in my life. And he said, "Children love learning." What they hate is not understanding. Children love learning. What they hate is not understanding. There is nothing worse than opening up a block gemara, and the block gemara tells you are an idiot. And it's true. Think about it. If we opened up a sefer in German, how fast would we close it? And imagine if a rebbe said to you, "No, go break your teeth over it." Would any of us break our teeth over German poetry? I imagine. First of all, German poetry by itself is a very funny concept. The idea that, I just don't know, French I could get behind, but German poetry doesn't seem like a poetic language. But imagine the rebbe goes, 'No, you're going to love it. You just have to work harder to love it.' None of us are buying that.

29:21 And it's the same thing for so many of these kids. They love to learn. They love to learn. What they hate is to not know. What they hate is to not know. You see, these American Bacharim, they come to Eretz Yisrael for the year. They don't know how to translate. They don't know how to punctuate. They don't know how to vowelize. They never learn Mishnayos. They never learn Chumash. They don't know what the Gemara is doing because they never understood the background information to the Gemara. They never been trained in lamdas. They don't understand how to be masbra machleikas. They don't understand the bumps in the road that Rashi is dealing with and why Rashi said what he's saying to see the way things that are missing in the Gemara. So what does the kid say? It seems irrelevant to me. Of the seven problems with Gemara, relevance is the seventh one.

30:00 We're not dealing with relevance, and the raya is that when kids get good at Gemara, they stop talking about the relevancy of it. Remember when you got good at it, and you're like, I could figure out how to do this, and then you stopped being like, you didn't have to make it up anymore. I remember when I was in seventh grade, I was growing up in Farakway. There was a shul in Farakway called Young Israel Farakway. Many years ago, the Young Israel Farakway rims were not ten feet tall, but I was a very small kid. And for the life of me, thank you so much. You must be an amazing parent. To see the need of someone and to provide for that need. Thank you very much. I remember I could not for the life of me reach the rim. So whenever anyone asked me if I wanted to play basketball, my response was, "I hate basketball. I don't play basketball." I loved playing baseball because if you're a tiny kid, you have a tiny strike zone. You could always get on base because they're going to walk you every single time.

30:50 So I was always like, I hate basketball. Until eighth grade when I had my first growth spurt, and then all of a sudden I was like, I think I like basketball. Had nothing to do with basketball. If you're good at something, you like it. So kids have a natural—I'm going to say this word. I don't mean it like this, but there's a natural arrogance that a kid has. I need to understand, and if I don't understand, it's not good. I can't do something that I don't understand. I'll share with you a ma'isa. I was in Los Angeles. Anyone here from Los Angeles? From Los Angeles. You know Pico. So I was taking a walk down Pico with this kid. I was giving him a feather. And I'm walking down the street with him, and we're walking down Pico because I couldn't sit. It was in Yula. Where'd you go to high school? I just went here. You grew up there. So this kid was a Yula kid, and if you have ever had the klala in your life of having to do a massive amount of interviews in a very short amount of time.

31:46 It's one of the worst things that a rebbe has to go through, because you have to sit with the same kid over and over again. You have to say to him,"Why do you want to come to yeshiva?" And every kid thinks he's giving the same clever answer, as if nobody ever said this before. They're like. I don't know if I want to learn, but I want to learn. And you hear that like how many times in a row? And my ADHD kicked in. I just couldn't. I couldn't handle it anymore. So I told this kid, "Let's go for a walk." So I said, "Let's go for a walk." So we're walking down Pico. I said, "Why do you want to come to Israel?" So he said, "I want answers to my questions. "That's a beautiful reason to come to Eretz Yisrael. So he said, "I don't do anything unless I know the answer." So I said, it doesn't seem to be true to me. You do a lot of things in your life that you don't understand.

32:32 So he's like, what are you talking about? I only do things I understand. I was like, you have a car. He's like, yeah. I was like, you bring it to a mechanic. You get, you pay him to fix it. You understand what he's doing? He's like, okay. I don't understand my mechanic, but every single other thing that I do in my life. It's a very teenager thing to say. It seems to be very intellectual. It's like I'm a chacham. What do you mean? I don't do things I don't understand. One of the most important chinuch lessons that we have to give our children is: you are not going to understand everything because the mind is finite. The mind has a gvool. We can only understand that which is understandable. Even in the world of imagination, what do we imagine? We can imagine a unicorn. Because what's a unicorn? I know horns. I know horses. I could put them together. You can't imagine something that's beyond the world of the finite. You can only take things within the finite and put them together. There's a responsibility that we have as parents, maybe the first responsibility.

33:32 That and especially if we're learning Torah with these boys, that the mind is something that the Rebbeinu Shlulam gave us to serve him, and we have to do our best to fit whatever we can into our mind, whatever is within the realm of the understandable But also not everything is understandable. There's a certain gaiva of I have to understand the Rebbeinu Sholom. You can never understand the Rebbeinu Sholom. The Chacham is asking, 'Ma'edos v'achukim ma'mishpatim.' What's bothering the Chacham? There are things in the Torah that I don't understand. Why do I have to put on tefillin? You ever have that question from a kid? Why do I have to put on tefillin? A kid said to me once, he goes, 'I'm not getting struck by lightning.' This was his shprach because I don't wrap straps. It was such a painful lucham. Wrapping straps. I never heard. I always heard like putting on tefillin. This kid was wrapping straps. He goes, "I don't wrap straps, and I'm not getting hit by lightning." And I want you to know, I hear it. If the only reason that you're putting on tefillin is because I'm afraid of being punished, the emphasis there's something very beautiful about saying, "I don't want to put on tefillin anymore." I hear it.

34:35 But there's also a certain anivus that we need to teach our children that you don't need to understand everything. Especially when they get married, right? For those of us in the room that are married, how many of us understand? I'll do it on this side of the room. Please don't take offense. How many of us understand what our wives want from us? We have no idea what our wives want from us, and it's not a bad thing. We're doing our best, but we're a different species, and it's very hard to learn what the other half of the species is looking for. Imagine somebody said the words to their wife. Their wife said, "Could you do this for me?" And you go, "Not until I understand why." That's a that's a terrible that's a terrible idea for a relationship." In a relationship

35:20 Our first response has to be yes, and to humble ourselves before the person that's asking. I'm saying this, and I know it's probably not going to hit in this audience, but it's worthwhile anyway. Anyone here like a? I'm not a guy who grew up Cholv Yisrael. I don't know if you all grew up Cholv Yisrael. So, you know the Hershey Kisses? You know Hershey Kiss? So for those of us that used to be Avaryanim, yeah, you know the Hershey Kisses. So you open up a Hershey Kiss, you know there's like a little white powder on the top of the Hershey Kiss, like from the tin foil. If you open up a Hershey Kiss and you see that little white powder And your first thought is anthrax, that's probably something that's going to kill me. You have issues. It's a Hershey Kiss. If your first thought is anthrax, you have a problem in your life.

35:59 If somebody's trying to teach you Torah and you don't understand, and your first response is 'whoa, I don't understand what's going on. I'm not doing anything here,' that means there's something else going on here. And it's our responsibility, and I think this is the first thing the Baal HaTov is telling us for a reason. There's an anivus that we need to teach our children when it comes to learning. You don't need to know everything. Not everything is given over into the realm of understanding. We do our best to understand, but it's okay not to understand some things. In fact, you might argue that sometimes being the best Jew that we could be is serving you. And I have no idea why I'm doing it. As parents, I'm not saying this is a good line. I don't want anyone to walk out of here and say Berg said this. But there is something to it, which definitely means I'm going to get misquoted. But I'm okay with the misquote. There's such a thing as telling your children, 'Do this because that's what I told you to do'

36:47 And there's something healthy about that. I'm not saying that we don't have a responsibility to teach our children why we're doing things. But when a parent tells a child, 'We're doing this now,' the attitude that we need to instill in our homes is, 'That's what we're doing.' If a kid demands an answer, that's a beautiful thing. I want to teach you. You deserve good answers. But understand that our first step when it comes to the world of doing is we're here. This is what we're doing now. There's anivus. We're humbling ourselves before something larger than ourselves. And I want to say in the nicest way because I happen to think we're dealing with a dar mitzuy. These kids are amazing. They have so much energy, they just need to be channeled properly. The problem is that people don't know what they're doing. So when you have a kid who's got all this energy and you don't know how to channel it, it becomes a problem. This is why I think we put the cart before the horse, and sometimes we tell our kids like you're the center of the world, and it's not a healthy way for children to grow up. A healthy way for children to grow up is to know I'm meshubed to something larger than myself.

37:41 And that's that's it's a it's it's a fundamental idea. I don't want to go out to Mirv right now. How many? If we're being honest with ourselves, how many of us didn't have moments in our life where it was like, let's say you forgot to daven Mirv. You're in your house and you're going "Oh man," you start. You ever do the masa schedule thing? You ever like in your head going like, "I've got 15 minutes to that Mirv." I'll make this decision in seven. You ever do? You ever like have moments like that? What drives us? If we do make that mitzvah, what drives us to make that mitzvah? There's a shibud. I'm a shibud to something larger than myself. So I think the first thing the Baladadah tells us is teach your children the anivus that there's something larger than themselves that's beyond understanding. That's not a bad thing for kids to learn. The second thing.

38:28 Is the Russia? The Russia is my favorite. Everybody darsens on the Russia. By the end of the Hagada, it's like every single kid is the exact opposite of what they were. The Chacham is a Russia. The Russia is a Tsadik. The Tom is the most complex person in the world. The Ini Odelelishol is Ruchaim Kanievsky. Everyone darsens it. I just want to say a very simple thing: the Russia The Russia of the Balagada says Ma'avo Da'azay S'lechem, quoting the pasuk. The Bible says, 'Ulofisha hoysi etz atzmo men akla kafra beikar.' There's an amazing line. It's an African proverb. "Chach ma bagayim tamen." I don't often quote from the Ga'anim, but this is an amazing line. A child who does not feel the embrace of the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. It's an amazing line. A child who does not feel the embrace of the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. He's a Russia. He's a Russia. He's such a Russia. He's doing things that a Russia would do. Why?

39:29 Lefisha ha'isi etz atzma men akla, because he's removed himself from the tzibur. And why has he removed himself from the tzibur? I'm sure that the people running Akshiva could tell you this as well as anybody in the world. Because if we're being honest They're just reflecting what we told them. It's a big indictment on the Jewish community. But the emiss is it's true. Kids who feel loved by the community do not run. They don't run. Kids who are not matzliach in yeshiva but feel loved by the yeshiva, they don't run. The kids who run, they run because we told them to run. It's not nice what I'm saying, but it's emes. I grew up in yeshiva Darke Torah, as I mentioned. I want you to know there were far, far, far from brilliant kids in that yeshiva. There were kids mamish that had no shayches to the world of learning Torah. But there was a real space for them in Darche, and many of those boys stayed connected to the yeshiva for years, even though they mamish couldn't learn a block of Gemara. They felt loved by the yeshiva. They mamish. They felt loved by the yeshiva, and they had no reason to leave the community because either rabbi, they were celebrated for their talents.

40:33 They were celebrated in their way. I remember Rabbi Bender when he opened the vocational school in Darche. It was a huge thing that he opened in the yeshiva a program for boys who were not going to be taking regents or going to college, and he opened for them a plumbing program and an electrician program, and they learned how to work on cars. It was unbelievable. It was a gevaltika thing because the kids said, "there's a place for me." They were celebrated for their talents. A kid who's told leave the community, he will. The kids listen very well when they're told there's no place for you. They listen very well. And when a kid feels loved by the community, he won't leave. I had dinner with a very old friend of mine, a guy I know since I was one year old. I had dinner with him a couple nights ago, and we were talking about this. He mentioned it again. We had spoken about it a couple months ago. In my high school class, there was a guy that could not pass a test to save his life. Mamas could not pass a test.

41:31 And the school made a deal. Old friends walking. The school made a deal that if this kid will pass a test, you could ask your father this. If the school, his father was a rebbe of mine in high school. I should say it differently. His father taught a shiur, and I was in that room in high school. I had tremendous respect for the rebbe in that case. His father was an excellent ball player. But you should know this kid. The school made a deal: if he passes a test, the whole class gets an ice cream party. Four years of high school, we had three ice cream parties. Three ice cream parties. He passed three tests in all of high school. By the way, he's the wealthiest guy in my class by far. And when the school rebuilt the school, and he was the one who made the biggest donation. He's unbelievable guy. But you should know, he makes the biggest donation because he felt the love from the school, and other kids didn't. Other kids didn't feel that same love. The Russia is not a Russia because he's bad. It's because he's not part of the tzibur. And why is he not part of the tzibur? Because we didn't help him feel part of the tzibur. That's why the word of here of the Lubavitcher Reb is a beautiful

42:34 Beautiful word. He says, 'Hake eshinav.' Chassidus doesn't mean to punch a kid. We don't punch children in the face. It's not. I'm sure it's against Hachshiva's policies, and it's also not a good idea. The 'hake eshinav' means if a kid is talking that way Then you got to stop him from talking that way. The way we talk makes a difference. You have to stop a kid from talking this way, and you have to say to him,"If you were in Mitzrayim, you wouldn't be redeemed." The highnu, if you were in Mitzrayim, you wouldn't be redeemed because it was pre-Matantayra, and only twenty percent went out. But since Matantayra occurred, and now Hakadosh Baruch Hu chose us for no reason, Ahava she'ena taluya bedaver. So now, when it comes time for Mashiach, every single Jew will be redeemed. Because Hashem Baruch Hu chose us for no reason, so there's no reason that He'll ever stop loving us.

43:22 So there's nothing that a yid couldn't be redeemed for. It's a beautiful shot because this is the antidote to telling kids who don't feel a part of the community, 'We love you, and there's nothing you could do to push us away.' And it's the most amazing thing. If kids will tell you all the time, I just was on the phone with a mother yesterday. And the kid is mamish not performing in yeshiva, and I said, 'Teach me, what does your son need?' She said he needs rebbeim who will refuse to push him away, even when he's saying push me away. He's mamish not showing up. What he's screaming for, and the mother's right, a hundred percent. She's saying he's she's he's screaming for a rebbe to like he's testing us. Like, will you push me away? I'm not showing up. What are you going to do now? You're going to throw me out? He asked me that by the way, paimale. He walked into the office. He was going to throw me out. So I said no. He goes why? I said because he want to be. I don't throw kids out that want to be thrown out.

44:14 So I'm a contrarian. I'm fighting you. So he's like, fine. I don't want to be thrown out. Now you're gonna throw me out? I said no. He said why? I said because you want to be thrown out. You're lying to me. Stop lying to me. The kid is momish testing boundaries. Our responsibility is to widen the road and make sure that every one of these kids feels they have a place. And not to plug again your program, but I just want to say this: these programs, programs like this, not programs for after the fact. Programs like this teach kids you have a place. A kid who comes and learns with an avreich. And he comes the next day to yeshiva, and he knows that Rambam, he knows that Tosef, he knows that Rashi, he even knows Shachar Lev Tary of the Gemara. He has a place in the classroom. His rebbe is going to be mishabeachim. He has a place. It's not rocket science. It's paint by number. A kid who feels loved will love. That's it. This we know this. This we don't. I don't know why it's like it's obvious, but yet it's not so obvious when it comes to our own children or the community. I had a Rebbe come ask me the following shaila. The Rebbe, by the way, you should know this Rebbe is one of the most important people in the world.

45:17 Warm, dynamic Rebbeim I've ever met in my life. In his community, not Ramat Pechemish. In his community, there's a boy who went off the derech And the sister Psychotic. The sister is persona non grata now because obviously the family had a hard time, and maybe she was talking to boys for a minute. Now in the community, the parents don't want their daughters to play with this girl. She's an eighth grader. Nobody could play with this girl. So the Rebbe came to me. He goes, 'What should I do? My daughter wants to have her over with all the chavura, but if this girl comes, the mothers won't let their other kids come.' " So he's like, "My heart." He came to me very easily. He's like, "My heart is breaking for this kid. I said, "I just have one question for you. How would you feel if it was your daughter?" How would you feel if it was your daughter that she wanted to come over to somebody else's house, but if she comes over, nobody else is allowed to play?

46:14 So he said, "I had them all over." And Taka, one parent didn't send. Everybody else talked a big game, but in the end, their kids came. But how sick is that? In the sweetest way, it's a beautiful thing, and I understand that Kallah Yisrael is trying to protect their children. But what are we talking about? The surest way to send that kid off the derech is nobody play with the kid. Is this what the Rebbeinu Shlom gets nachas from? I know I'm speaking very straight right now, but it hurts me. I want you to know what would have been if Rabbi Bender didn't take me all those years ago, because I was the Haftorah kid. Rabbi Bender's darchei was a yeshiva that was anti-television. My father was the president of a television association.

46:48 Like all the shows that you didn't see on television growing up, they were my father's shows. Literally, I was in an anti-television school. We were not a television family. It's not like we had a television in the house. We were a television family. The entire parnasah came from television. Why did Rabbi Bender take us? Because he was confident in his own chinuch. That he could include people in the community, and that kids wouldn't run away. And by the way, I did say inappropriate things. The first mishnah and kedushah, I'm not going to get into the details. I want you to know, in eighth grade, I took a class called 'The Art of Being Jewish,' which was about how to be a good Jew, and I failed it. In fact, I think I got a D- in that class. But I don't remember anything about it. I was the one explaining them. You don't know what the mishnah means. I'll teach you what the mishnah means. I was a different kid. I want you to know those kids didn't go off the derech from knowing what the mishnah and kedushah meant. But the impact that they had on me was much bigger than the impact that I had on them.

47:36 I'll tell you another ma'aseh very quickly. There's a rav in the five towns. His name is Rabbi Ben Yamin Chorney. Anyone here, Rabbi Chorney? He's a tremendous tzaddik. He had a son who has a son whose name is Moshe Chorney. Now Moshe Chorney is Rabbi Moshe Chorney living in Lakewood. Moshe Chorney was my little brother's best friend, and my father used to call Moshe Chorney the rollerblading rebbe because they would go rollerblading, and he had long paez, and his paez would fly like racing stripes when he was rollerblading. It's a very beautiful thing. We should get you some rollerblades. Everyone should have the title once in their life of the rollerblade method. I only have these little guys; it doesn't work. And also, these are the remnants of a once great nation of hair. But the rest of this is not so much. So I asked Rabbi Charny years ago. I said, Rebbe, why did you let Moshe Charny hang out in my house? You know he was watching television with my brother. So Rabbi Charny looked at me like I was nuts, and he said, Mordechai, your parents are amazing people. I have no problem with my son being in their house, and I was very confident in the chinuch of my own home.

48:33 And I was like, where did I lose that idea that kids can interact? Today, if they talk to a kid who's not exactly like them, it's for sure they're going off the derech. If you think because your kid talks to another kid, they're going off the derech, then your kid was already going off the derech. There's something about making our community a place where we're not just look. Again, I'm not saying that every kid is that kids don't have ashba, kids have ashba. But how do we create a community where every kid feels loved? This is the problem of the Russia. One more, and then we'll finish with this, and then we can open it up to questions if we have any. We'll do the awkward silence thing, and that's also a very beautiful thing. The last one in this week's parsha is the Tam. We think of the Tam as simple, but the Emes is the word Tam means complete. Tam, when something is simple, it has no parts to it; it's full.

49:21 There's another avoda that happens to our children That our children feel like, why do I need the Eibaster in my life? I'm complete without Hashem. I have everything I need. Why do I need the Rebbeinu Shalom in my life? And by the way, it's another thing that our kids learned from us in the community because the emissaries we have a tremendous amount. You look around in this community. This community is amazing. How long have you guys been here? For you've been here for a minute. I'm here almost 17 years. I remember when before they had Ramat Beit Shemesh Gimel And before they had the malls. When I moved in, there were sheep in my backyard. The first Friday that I walked in, that I moved into my house, there were sheep in my backyard where the new mall is being built, and there was a mayan, and there were several chassidim going to mikvah on erev Shabbos. It was a very uncomfortable thing. I said, "Chevra, anachnu garim po'achshav." One of them turned around and waved at me. I turned back around and now there's a mall there. I remember when this community was much, much smaller. We have a tremendous amount

50:21 And in a certain way, it's very easy for us to turn around and go,"What do I need Hashem for?" I have everything I need. The Jewish community has so much money today. So Baruch Hashem, we have so much money, and we use it for amazing things. But it's quite possible to live a life in Yiddishkeit without the Rebbeinu Shlom. It's possible to be a Jew, to daven three times a day, to learn a blattamara, and to have no alokus in your life whatsoever. There's a big revolution happening in Klal Yisrael now to return Hakadosh Baruch Hu to Yiddishkeit. You see certain places learning different svarim, engaging in different things. I was in the Five Towns recently, and somebody said, "Oh, you're going to daven in the Happy Clappy Minyan?" So I was like, "Happy Clappy Minyan." I didn't know what they were talking about. They're like, "It's a Happy Clappy Minyan where they like dance and they talk about Hashem." And I was like, "Yeah, I'll proudly daven in the Happy Clappy Minyan. Like, this is a real brisker. Like, yeah, this is a beautiful thing to return the abundance of to Yiddishkeit."

51:21 And to our children, when they say to us, 'Mazos, what do I need this for?' My sister-in-law is a very well-known Tefila teacher. She said it used to be that Tefila was the most popular course in her seminary, and then parents started giving credit cards to their kids for the year in Israel. It used to be that when you came to the year in Israel, you didn't come with mommy and daddy's credit card. You came with whatever money you made. You were expected to spend your own money, so tefila became important because you ran out of money, especially if it was Hanukkah time and you already spent too much over Sukkot doing whatever you did. We don't have to talk about it. And now it's Hanukkah. All of a sudden, you start davening to the Eibush there. I need some money. But if you have mommy and daddy's credit card, why do I ever need to ask Hashem for anything? Because everything is just a swipe away. And there's a message that we need to teach our children, which is bechayzik yad. The Gemara in Kiddushin, Lamad Amdei says, without the Rebbeinu Shlom, we cannot do anything. There's nothing that we could do.

52:22 I want to tell you the moment in my life that I knew my father was a God-fearing Jew. My parents are both balei tshuva. They're they're amazing people. I'm privileged to have grown up in their home. My mother is insatiable, insatiable when it comes to learning Torah. If there's a shiur, she's at the shiur. There's no question about it. My father, growing up, used to say, "A little learning never hurts," so let's learn as little as possible. In fact, the only shiur he liked was Rabbi Meir's shiur. That was the only shiur he liked. Shavuos night, we would always go to hear Rabbi Meir. Other than that, he didn't want to hear any shiurim. So this is my rebellion. I learned Torah because my father told me not to. I didn't know. I thought my father became Orthodox because it was a good thing to do, a good idea. But I didn't know if he was really a God-fearing Jew. And when I was in high school, he lost his job, and there was a two-week period where he didn't have a job. When you lose your job at that level, it's not, frankly, the biggest deal in the world because there's a compensation package that comes with losing your job. But I didn't know that, and I was very scared.

53:20 I was 16 years old. We had just moved to Lawrence, so I thought I was better than everybody else in the five towns. It was like a whole thing, and then he lost his job. And I was like, Dad, what's going to be like? We're going to have to move back to Farakwe. It was like it was scary. So my father said, I'll never forget this line. He said, "When the Rebbeinu Shlom gave us money, I was privileged to give tzedakah, and I hope that the Rebbeinu Shlom will give us more so that I could continue to give tzedakah. I had never heard, and never heard since, my father say anything that from in his entire life. It was the most amazing thing And he was teaching me something that I'll be honest with you. I learned a tremendous amount from my rebbeim. Nothing touched my soul the way those words touched my soul.

54:01 Hakadosh Baruch Hu takes us out of Eretz Yisrael. You can't leave Eretz Yisrael on your own. We can't do anything without the Eibushter." Our homes need to be homes where Hakadosh Baruch Hu's presence is felt clearly, and it has to be something. They say, "Amayz, I don't want to say which gadol because I don't know if it's true story or not." But they say there was a certain gadol here in Eretz Israel who's the lamdan of the generation, without a doubt. And one of his children went off the derech, and they asked him why, and he said, "Because I spent more time talking about Rambam's at the Shabbos table than I did singing z'miros. There's value in having a home. That the Rebbeinu Sholom is present in our home. That we talk about Hashem, shame Hashem, shagor b'fiv. It's not a joke.

54:40 When we talk about the Rebbeinu Sholom in our lives and we're real about it, the kids hear it. When we say, 'I can't do anything without Hashem,' what do you mean? Hashem is everything. It teaches our children again that notion that there's something larger than ourselves. Just to sum up, every child is a world unto themselves, but you have to know who you're talking to. Am I talking to a cham, a rasha, or a tam? They all need to be answered kafid their own way. A cham needs to be answered to understand. Your mind is a beautiful thing, but there's a humility that you have to have. We can't understand everything. The Rasha is not a bad kid. He's a kid who we chucked from the community. She said you didn't want me, so I left. We have to tell those kids there's a space for you in this community, and it cannot just be Akshiva. It cannot just be Akshiva. Akshiva, you're wonderful, but you're here to send a message to the community that every home should be an Akshiva home.

55:30 I wish, I give you a bracha, you go out of business. Then you come work for me. But I give you a bracha that you go out of business. I give you a bracha. I actually are. You should have a job for a long time. But the whole achshiva should go out of business. And finally, to know there's a tam There's a kid who thinks I don't need the avisher in my life. And we have to teach those children you need the avisher in your life. Without our kadosh baruch hu, we can't possibly do anything. Thank you very much for coming out. Thank you for those avrechem that are here. Thank you for all that you're doing for these wonderful, beautiful children and for the parents that came out. Your special parents for coming out. I want you to know the difference between my personal life, myself, my brothers, and other kids in the community. My father was our little league coach, and my mother stayed to watch the games. And other kids, their parents left them. It was free babysitting. A parent who comes out to something like this tonight, I want you to know you're special people, and you sent a very special message to your children that they're learning matters, that they matter, and Be'ez Hashem, it should be a tremendous ches for them.