Parshas Emor - Three Pillars of Education

2:59 Are all relevant to the children that we raise Perhaps even to the talmidim and talmidot that we teach. The first is don't eat bugs. The Gemara in Haros says that a person does not naturally have a tayva to eat bugs. When you look on the floor, you don't think to yourself Delicious. Slimy Yet satisfying. Correct. Nobody in their right mind thinks that. In fact, there's a dinner here in Eretz Yisrael where there are certain creatures like grasshoppers that if you would have a misora And there is a misora for some of these bugs, that they're actually permitted to eat. And so there's a dinner where they eat all of these creatures that are permitted to eat. They have chocolate covered grasshoppers at this dinner. And it's a guy in my parents' neighborhood Who runs this dinner? And my parents are like, "Do you wanna come?" And I said no because I have no particular taiva to eat. I have a taiva to eat.

4:20 Careful. But I have no tayva like I have a tayva for a hamburger. I have no natural tayva. I don't have for grasshoppers. And that's a good thing. So the Gemara in Haril says so. Why would a person specifically go out of their way to eat bugs? So the Gemara says because they don't have a tayva for the bugs. They have a way of doing the wrong thing. And. When we think about our children You ever have a scenario where you wanted to do something not because you wanted to do it, but because your parents told you not to. So it's not really so different. But think to yourself for a moment what it's like to educate that child. You see, if you're standing up in front of a classroom And you have some students that are smarter and some students that are less smart.

5:27 So any decent teacher will say, well, it's my obligation to teach that student who's not necessarily as intelligent and to find the path for them to learn. And so the teacher might employ a number of strategies to grab that child in. The teacher will say things like We're gonna learn privately on the side Or. Put away your phone in the middle of class. This way, you can better pay attention. And there's different things that the teacher might do to grab the child's attention to keep them engaged. Maybe they have a different style of learning. Maybe they have auditory processing issues. We kind of intuitively understand that when it comes to teaching. We look like puppet games. We intuitively understand that when it comes to teaching, we have an obligation to grab every student in the class. And we know that just because you're sitting in the back of the class and talking, or because you're sitting in the front of the class and taking notes, we know as teachers that it's our obligation to grab every one of those children.

6:46 But sometimes Sometimes you'll hear parents and educators say something to the effect of, "Look" I can teach anyone who wants to learn But if you don't want to learn What am I supposed to do as the teacher? And you have kids that, by their very nature, are oppositional And that's a tough thing as a parent to look at a child who's specifically being oppositional. Not so difficult for a parent to throw up their hands and go I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this one. And sometimes you'll have a family where you have four, five, six kids, and maybe five or six of them kind of go with the flow. They're just kind of like, they're that kid. They're the easy ones. But then you have that one The one that ultimately will be the best one. But right now, it's going against the stream. Just because it's against the stream You have that student in class sometimes that the teacher gives this amazing shear, and everybody is going nuts. That was an amazing shear, and you have the one kid. The one kid goes Like this ridiculous. And you know that they heard the point, but they're just showing their natural gishas to say I'm not interested.

8:15 So we have the propensity to say. That kid I don't know what you want me to do about that kid. The first lesson of education in the Torah is our obligation Is even to those kids who want to eat insects For no other reason than it's useful to eat insects. And this by itself is a revolution. It means that when you show up to parent, and that's why I said we're a little early here. You may not remember, and I doubt you will remember this year when you are thirty-five or forty years old. And you have a teenage daughter, or a teenage son. And you know that teenager is just being obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious. You know this because Because it's called payback, right? You know this, so. Our attitude in the Jewish world is that kid too. Leave no man behind.

9:29 And don't give up on a kid simply because they're doing the wrong thing for the sake of doing the wrong thing. And just like you have an obligation to figure out a way to teach that kid who maybe has special needs. You have an obligation to teach the kid. Who has this attitude of "I'm not part of this" And that's a very, very difficult thing to do. But that's how we start off. The first thing Emor veAmarta laHazer Gedolim ala Katanim Every single one of them And those that don't want to be there, them too. Reb Freifeld Zecher Tzaddik Lavrach, who was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Shaiyashuv, used to keep a key on his wall. A giant key that was on his wall, and people would ask him, "What's the key for?" And he would say, "The key is there to remind me that every single Talmud that walks in this door There's a key, a unique key to opening up that kid.

10:33 But you have to find that key, and not all locks are the same. And so maybe you look at a lock and you go, 'Okay, like all locks kind of look like this, so all keys more or less are going to be in this mold.' And some kids have a totally different type of lock. You need to reinvent the key to get to those kids. What's our attitude when we see those kids? Is our attitude like We're doing our best. We have to reinvent the wheel for those kids. That's why it goes viral. When a Michaelish from Waterbury is posted on Meaningful Minute, and he tells a story that his son was in an elevator And. He got stuck, and the elevator got stuck. Pressing, he's pressing the alarm button, over and over again, and the guys like stop pressing the buttons. And he's like, I'm not pressing the buttons, I'm pressing the alarm button, and Rabbi Kalish is like Don't you see that these kids, you looking at them and going like, stop pressing the buttons, they're pressing the alarm button, it's a cry for help And that video went crazy viral, and people were sending it to me left and right.

11:39 Did you see Rabbi Kalish's video? Did you see Rabbi Kalish's video? And I saw it because the first thirty people that sent it to me, I saw it, and I like keep sending it. I appreciate it. Why? Why does that touch us so deeply? And this is a good thing. Because today we understand that the kid The kid who's pressing the button, you look at him and you go, he's just being obnoxious. He's not being obnoxious. He's not just doing it for the sake of saying, I want to do the opposite thing. They don't know how to connect. It's your responsibility to figure out how to connect those kids. And it wasn't always like that. There was a time, and Baruch Hashem, today we don't have that as much. But there was a time, and unfortunately, I should not say that. And today too many people still experience this.

12:31 But there was a time where it was so prevalent that if you didn't fit the mold, if you weren't part of it, Tzavos said, just go do your thing. We're here, we lock arms. I remember an article. It's a very sad article. That this person was saying That they likened the Jewish world to dancing at a wedding. In the middle, you have the Kala Or the Chasam And the Kala is dancing with her best friend. Who's that circle right around the Kala? The best no the mom's already off in her own circle with her own friends, that's already like and by the way I'm in that circle now I'm in the dad circle, you know what I'm saying like that's like a movement in your life when you're in the dad circle like I'm looking over at all these kids and they're going crazy and I'm like, you guys are being very loud and you're bumping into me as I'm trying to like dance with my friend over here could you guys calm down you know And I'm like I'm like, I don't understand. We're hurting kids' hearing. I'm like, really, I've become, I'm embracing it, but I've become an old man.

13:37 You're like that already now. You're gonna be a disaster. If you're like that at 18, you're in trouble. I'm not makapul. I'm sure you're going to miron. The I'm not mak. I don't believe lashon hara even when a person says it. Maybe we should. Not here to discuss that. You can ask me privately afterwards. Who's dancing around the cowl? The best, best, best friends. And who's in the circle next to that? The good friends. They're there. It's the fourth cousins. It's the we were close in seminary, but it's been a couple years. But I had to invite you. And if you look, I don't know what it looks like on the girls' side But I know what it looks like on the guys' side. We call it the dead man shuffle. You know what the dead man shuffle is? It's not like the guys in the middle are like mommies going nuts and the guys in the center.

14:49 We need better dancing moves than Judy is. Yo, the girls tried it with line dances and things like that. It doesn't look any better. We just don't have rhythm. That's so. This article said there's people in that second circle that they're trying to break into the first circle, but the people in the first circle are holding hands so tight that they won't let anyone else in. And isn't that what it's like a little bit? There's this world of the elite. It's I went to the elite yeshiva. I went to the elite seminary Like I'm. I'm resume building, right? It's like I know exactly who I am, and you're not one of us. And we're holding hands really tight because we think we're ensuring this is going to be good for Klal Yisrael. If we hold hands really tight and we don't let in anybody from the outside, that's the way we're going to maintain our pristine service of Hashem. Of course, how does Hashem feel about this? It's a very different story and one that we're not really going to talk about because that's going to make us very uncomfortable. While it may be true that if we keep out every kid who has any different way, it might be true that we're going to maintain that pristine atmosphere.

16:07 But at what cost? Are we really ready to amputate limbs? And one of the things I'll share with you from personal experience. I was in a modern Orthodox coed school. When I was asked to leave in fifth grade. And the only other schools in the neighborhood that would take me were the Yeshivish places. Was South Shore and Darche, and I chose to go to Darche because I had some friends in Darche, and I didn't really have any friends in South Shore. I knew one or two guys, but I had friends in Darche. Now South Shore would have been more closely aligned to my family's hashkafa at the time. Darche was the most right-wing school in the five towns. So going from my modern Orthodox co-ed school to Darche was a tremendous shift. And I wonder I think in Darche it would still be true, but I wonder if today I would get in.

16:59 I wonder if today, a fifth grader who has behavioral issues and is just driving the school crazy, and they say this isn't working out, if the yeshivish place is willing to open its doors and go. There's always a place for you here. And I know that there are many yeshivas like that, Baruch Hashem. But unfortunately There are still some that aren't that way. And I understand where they're coming from because they're saying, look, you're going to come in with your influence, and your influence is real and it's true. I definitely was doing things in the school because not because I was a bad kid, but because of the place that I was coming from. There's no doubt that I probably introduced things to the other members of my class, maybe stuff they didn't know before. In fact, I remember very specific conversations where I was telling guys, really, you don't know what that is? I'll explain to you what that is. I remember that.

17:49 And yes, I probably did have a negative impact, but I think if you weigh the impact one versus the other, I don't think I'd be here today if Darkei didn't take me in. So you're right. Maybe I did introduce some things to the class, and I can understand why people would be concerned about that. But at the same time, the impact on the other side was very real. Because Rabbi Bender was not a person who held his arms very tight and said, "We're not letting anyone else in." And isn't that an amazing gift? That's the first lesson of chinuch. The first lesson of chinuch is every kid Without exception Even those that are pushing back. The second lesson of chinuch. The medrash says Why did we have a need for the Torah to come to us and say, 'Don't eat blood?' Again, it's very similar to the question of why the Torah had a need to tell us, 'Don't eat bugs.'

18:48 I don't think that anybody here sees a like. Let's say there was a girl on a tulle and she trips. And she's bleeding. I don't think there's any girl in here going. Come here I'll clean you up. Nobody does that. That's not a normal thing. That's not a normal thing to do. So why does the Torah have a special injunction? Don't eat blood. We don't have really a tayva for blood. So the Medrash says that the Mitzrim, as part of their idolatrous service Used to drink blood And culturally, caught on And the Jews in Mitzrayim did it too. So when the Torah came along and said, "Don't eat blood" The Torah was saying Don't be culturally like the Mitzrim. This is the second lesson of Chinuch. You're trying to run a home. And the reality is that the home is a major influence, the second most major influence in a child's life.

19:59 But the first is a kid's friends and the kid's community. You know what's hard? Being the child of the frumest parents in the class. That's hard. You know why? Because the parents may have rules. Maybe when I was growing up, there was the parents that had televisions in their home. I know today it's not about televisions anymore. It's computers. But when I was growing up, the class was divided. It's like, do you have a television in your home? Or don't you have a television in your home? And if you have a television in your home, then you were one type of family, and if you didn't, then you were a different type of family. And it's really, really hard to be the kid of the parent who says we don't have a television in our home and we don't want you engaging with those things, and that's understandable, right?

20:55 But the reality is that the kid walks into class And what's everybody talking about? Everyone's talking about last. I know I'm dating myself, because I know there's no such thing as last night's TV show anymore. It's just binging seasons at a time. I understand. I'll make it relevant. Let's say you're the parent who says I'm not letting my kid have a smartphone. So as a result, your kid doesn't have access to Netflix, and they're not able to say Did you know what happened in all seven seasons of Brooklyn Nine? They're not able to come in and say, 'Do you know? Do you know how this person actually met your mother?' Like they don't know how to have a conversation about how four friends can live in an apartment across the hall from each other for all of those seasons. Will they? Won't they? They don't know. This person is not involved in the conversation, right? So maybe they feel left out.

21:45 O viceversa. Maybe there's a kid in the class who's coming in with the corrosive influence. Or maybe you are the Rebbe who's trying to come along and say, "Hey, live this life of kedusha v'tahara." But you're sending the kid back to a home or back to a community where these values are not kept. I'll share with you a story. A friend of mine is a rebbe in a high school where the parents are often not observant, or how should we say this nicely? Either they're not observant, or they're kind of observant. So the rebbe is trying to give. This is what the rebbe told me. He's like, I'm trying to give a class on sneis I'm trying to give a class. On Shabbos, this is not my example. This is what he related to me. And he said, "of course, I'm not going to have an impact" Because the kid goes home to a place where on Shabbos morning His mother goes out jogging.

23:00 Dressed not sneasly, in an area where there's no eruv. Carrying her water bottle. So, how do you want me to teach this kid? This is what he said to me. How do you want me to teach this kid about the value of Shabbos and sneis and halacha when the kid is just going home to that environment that's going to undo everything that I've done? And so, the second lesson of the Torah when it comes to chinuch is That kid too. You don't have the license to give up on that kid. You don't have the license to come to that kid and say, "Look, I really want to make an impact on your life, but I can't because of where you come from." Can I give you a modern-day example of what this looks like? I've sat in meetings before and I've listened to these quote-unquote mechanchim sit around and bash over and over again a generation of children. Who they claim it is impossible to reach because of their phones.

24:09 You've heard this shmoos. You know it's true. Like I remember one Pesach. I was with my brother-in-law in an amusement park. To call it an amusement park is not even true. It's called Speedy Kef. It's this thing near Beitir. It's like the least amusing amusement park of all times. This thing was built in nineteen forty eight with Hakama Samedina. They haven't updated any of the rides since. It's just as dangerous. We send our children there because it's like twenty shek for a kid. That thing is a death trap. You have to see this thing. You would not believe the thing that I'm telling you is called an amusement park. I'm glad I have you in the room to be able to verify. You think amusement park and you think Six Flags. What you need to be thinking is playground. Not even plus. And we pay to go there anyway.

25:00 Like anyway, I'm not gonna get. That's a whole rant by itself. It's not an important use of our time. So there was this quote-unquote machaneh who was there, and sometimes this happens. I'm sitting there, he knows my brother-in-law, so my brother-in-law introduces me and he says "Oh, Mordechai Berg, mevaser." I like when people do that, where they don't put in the words in between the sentence. They just go, "Oh, Mordechai Berg, mevaser." It's like they stutter their way into the next word. Like that's not my name. I have another identity. And then they do this thing where they try to let me know that they're a machanich too. And maybe you'll give me a job. He said, yeah, I was trying to work in this yeshiva and I was teaching, but today it's impossible with these kids' phones. It's impossible. How am I supposed to grab your attention when you're sitting there the entire time and texting and googling and you're on YouTube? And again, I'm not denying that technology is dangerous. Of course it is. There's two hundred billion users of YouTube, and a hundred and eighty million hours a day are watched on YouTube.

26:09 Of course, it's a problem. I'm not denying that the time a person can spend on Instagram and on Twitter, just scrolling endlessly to see what exists is dangerous. I had someone over to my house for Shabbos. And this person worked for Google. And this person works for Red Bull, and this person works for GameStop, and they worked for ADT. This person, he worked in data analytics and psychology. His job was to grab you in and to hold you. And he stopped working with these companies because he had a crisis of conscience. He was like, I'm destroying people's lives. It's a real thing. Five hours he was at my house for Shabbos, and then a bunch of Mevaser guys, like six Mevaser guys, came over Shabbos afternoon. He was just showing them all the crazy ways in which technology is impacting their life. I'm not denying that that's true. Of course it is. Of course it's a challenge when you have to, when I'm teaching a class and I see a girl on her phone, so I have to figure out how to make eye contact or say something in such a way that she's going to smile and put away her phone.

27:11 Of course it's a challenge. It's a wonderful challenge. What are you supposed to do? So let's make these kids feel terrible about themselves. Let's just let them know. That's my favorite thing when you get the urei das hadoros shmos. You are the worst generation in history. But don't feel too bad, because the next generation will be even worse. Next year, it's like I love that. I walk into a school, they're like, 'Ooh, be careful of this eleventh grade.' The time they come. And you hear these. I'm not saying that the abayam don't have a hard job. Of course they do. I'm doing it also. Of course we do. Because you're right. There is so much to distract you. And when I wanted to watch television back in the day, I had to wait weeks to see what would happen. And there was no notion of binge watching.

28:01 Because I went to Blockbuster to rent a movie, I had to get in a car and travel, and there was a limited selection. And then you had to choose, check out and return it by a certain date; otherwise, you would get a late fee. You understand? This is the Flintstone generation that I lived in. So was it easier to educate? Of course it was, but it was easier to educate the generation before that because the generation before that, they only had Even less shows on television. The generation before that only had black and white on television. The generation before that didn't have television. They only had to compete with newspapers and radio. We could spend our time talking about how am I supposed to teach a guy about shmirah se'niym if I know that night he's going to go on Netflix and he's going to watch whatever he's watching?

29:00 I guess that kid's done. Of course not. That's why the whole shmoos is nonsense. We could talk about the danger, but what we can't do as mechanchim and what we can't do as parents is just sit there and have this conversation over and over again. Because all we're doing is letting people know, sorry, we did our best to reach you, but you were constitutionally incapable of learning because you happen to have been born in a generation with this device. Not true. Of course, it's not true. But we've But we've done that, and you know that because even as I'm sitting here talking to you, so many of you are actually looking at me, which is nice. So it means I know I'm making an impact. I'm watching people go, yeah, I did get that message. By the way, it will get worse because the next technology will come out that will be even better, and that's their job. Because they're trading in the currency of attention; they want to grab your attention because you're the product. They could sell you to companies.

29:58 The same thing that we're doing for you. Instead, I'm being serious. Instead of sitting here saying it's going to get worse, it will And then we're going to be innovative and creative. It's going to be our responsibility to package the content in a way that's meaningful to that generation, so they too can regain choice, just like we did. So it's not instead of saying like, but it's going to be terrible. It's going to be so bad. It'll be a challenge. But communism was a challenge too. People went off the derech because they became communists. People went off the derech because they joined the Bund. That was like a real thing. People used to have ideological issues. There was the Haskala. People have always had the challenges of that generation. This is the challenge of this generation. So instead of sitting here and saying What am I supposed to do with these kids? What am I gonna do? They're just on their phone all day long.

30:47 Let's talk about it. And in fact, I'll tell you that the conversation can be the greatest point of entry if done right. I'll give you an example. So I had this guy, Noach Levin. I had this guy at my house for five hours on Shabbos, and he's sitting with these Mevasser guys, and he gave two etzes. Things you can do with your technology. This we told the guys. Things you can do with your technology to help scale it down. One of the things he said to do was to grayscale your phone. There's a setting on your phone. You can look it up on Google. It's called grayscale. There's a setting on your phone where you can turn your phone to black and white. And a bunch of Mivaserah guys did it this week. And it's crazy. One guy went on Sunday when we had this conversation Sunday morning. He had five hours of screen time.

31:35 By the time he and I had met, which was at nine o'clock in the morning He had five hours of screen time already. So I said, 'How do you have five hours of screen time?' He said, 'Well, I basically went to sleep at four, and then I woke up and had an hour before I got here.' I said, 'Okay, you've got a problem, right?' By the way, the CEO of Netflix actually said this. He said, 'Our competition is sleep, and we are winning.' That's terrifying. It's a terrifying thing to say. So I had this conversation with this guy about the screen usage, and I said, grayscale your phone for 24 hours. Let's see what happens. The guy said he really wanted to try it. He turned his phone to black and white, and he was looking Your phone can actually become black and white, there's no color.

32:23 So he looks at it and he goes, he's got an iPhone, and he's like, this stinks. This is so uncomfortable. And I'm like, the world is in color, right? So the phone needs to be as in color as the world to be able to hold your attention. But when it's not, it's uncomfortable. The next day, Monday morning, we met again. I said, "What was your screen time after our meeting yesterday?" He goes, "Fifteen minutes." What? Because who would want to use it? Who would want to use it? Cause it's not geschmack to watch YouTube or Netflix in black and white. Instagram is not cool in black and white. I'm gonna tell you something. This is gonna be very hard for you to hear. You're never gonna look at those pictures. You're never gonna look at those pictures. You know when you're gonna look at those pictures? When Google suggests, hey, check out what happened five years ago on this date.

33:19 Thanks, Google. I was wondering what happened. And I'm not saying it's not good to take pictures, and I also take pictures of my kids. Then you know what I really look through my pictures when my kids get bat mitzvahed, and I have to make a video. I type in their name, look at about a hundred pictures, select the cutest fifty, and give them to my brother. I tell him, okay, you make a video. I don't know how to do this. And you don't even need to make a video today. You just put it in your computer, and it automatically does it. And you put it up, and all the friends go, 'You were such an ugly baby,' right? Because we think our children are cute, but no, they're not, right? Thank you. So they grayscaled their phone, and now it's an amazing conversation. It's an amazing conversation about the use of technology. It's an amazing conversation about what it looks like when the self is actually engaged. We can have this conversation one of two ways. We can say to you guys or girls.

34:20 Sorry, we did our best, but you were born to this generation, so kind of too bad, right? Or, we can have a conversation that perhaps we never had to have before, what does it mean to choose self-awareness Right? Because we used to have that just because we had time without the device, and now we have no time without the device. So let's have an important conversation, Let's have an important conversation about the choice of what to engage in. Or what we look at. What is the impact that has on us? What we listen to. That's a valuable conversation. That's the second rule of chinuch. Third rule of chinuch: Keep your children's purity. The Rambam says that tuma and tahara are not logical. Tuma and tahara are beyond the realm of logic. There is a movement today. And there's something beautiful, but also dangerous about this movement.

35:27 It's the prove Judaism is true movement. This is what it looks like. If done wrong, this is what it looks like. You don't believe in God? Let me give you a list of proofs. Let me give you a list of proofs. I'm going to prove it logically. There's something really beautiful about this movement because we're trying to figure out how we could get people connected and we're trying to show them that this thing is real. But there's a problem with that. If you do it wrong, here's the problem. First of all, an infinite God cannot be measured. Right? By definition, anything that measures Has to be bigger than the thing that it's measuring. Does that make sense? If I'm measuring this table, I have to have a measuring stick. That's at least the size of this table to know exactly what it's measuring. But what it is?

36:22 What would be a thing that could measure a thing that created the measuring? So aside from the fact that doesn't even make any sense And that's why I so appreciated when Rabbi Kalman's book called it permission to believe. Because he's saying I'm not giving you proof. I'm not giving you like I'm not. It's not in a laboratory. We haven't put God in a lab and said here's how we show it: X, Y, Z. He said here are things in creation that we can point to the notion of a creator, and that gives us permission to believe. But it's not the beginning of belief. The beginning of belief, and I think this is so important for our generation. The beginning of belief is the notion that not everything is limited by our finite intelligence, by our finite logic. That there's something that's bigger than our logic. And that we can submit to that which we don't completely understand. And as parents, that's our first responsibility. Our first responsibility is not to appeal to the lower common denominator of logic, which is not to say that logic doesn't have a place. God gave us a brain because He intends us to use it.

37:29 But not everything can be contained by logic. For example I've said this before, and I'll continue to say it again. You cannot. There is no technology of logic. That could capture love. You can't explain it, and if you can, then it's not love. There is no technology of logic that can capture music. Just because a computer might be able to say it has exactly this many beats per minute per second, this is exactly what's happening. But everyone knows that just because you now fit it into your equation, that doesn't capture music. And if you've listened to music, when I say listen to music, I mean actually listen to music. Not having music on in the background. Thoughtfully and consciously listened to the music. That's an art that's very lost, right? How many of us listen to music when we're exercising? I'm taking a walk. I'm listening to music. I'm on a bus. I'm listening to music, right? But are you listening to the music, or are you just blocking out the sounds from something else?

38:32 Listening to music actually means paying attention to the music that's happening. So Rabbi Avram Willig I don't know if you've heard of him before. He's a beautiful musician. So he told me that he gives a class where he plays a song, and he says, "Did you listen to it?" And everyone's like, "Yeah, we listened to it." He said, "Okay, let's do it again. This time, I just want you to focus on the guitar. This time, I just want you to focus on the piano. This time, I just want you to focus on the violin. And it's a completely different Completely different experience. We know that music is larger than logic. Logic can. Tell us something about music, but it can't grab music. And isn't it a tragedy when we come to people and we say to them, 'Could you imagine a parent coming to a child and saying, 'Let me prove to you that I love you'?

39:21 Wouldn't that be a devastating thing? And by the way, every time a parent has those conversations with the children, what does it really sound like? It's like this defensive conversation. How could you say I don't love you? Don't you know I did this and this for you? "And what does the child inevitably say back? I didn't want any of those things. I wanted other things. So the parent goes ahead and said, 'I did.'" I did these things. Now look, don't you know that I love you? I didn't want those things. I wanted a third thing. Because if you already have to prove that your parent loves that you're a parent who loves your child, something is very dysfunctional in the relationship. So what we can and ought to be doing, and this is what the Kohanim are being told, la hazer gadol la malakatanim Your children are living in a state of tahara. They have to be pure. So teach them about that. Don't take purity. Break it down to this logical thing that you can talk about in an academic way. Teshuva is something that's about belonging and connection, something that's supra logical. It's beyond the realm of logic, and we need to be raising children to grasp that. I'll share with you that a young man came to speak to me this week, and he said to me, 'You know, Rebbe, I'm having emuna issues because I believe, I do believe'

40:35 But like at the end of the day. I could touch this. I can't touch Hashem. I could touch the tree. I could touch the table. So I said to him, "Well, who's the you that's talking to me right now?" So he said, "What do you mean?" "I'm me." I said, "Point to it." Point to it. You can't point to your like. Who's the me? Like again. Let's say I was strange and pointed to my arm when I said me. Are you your arm? "No." Well, clearly not because what happens if you lose it? Would you say to somebody who was born without arms that they're less of a person? Of course not. So who are you? What do you mean? I'm my brain. Really? What if you were less intelligent Or if you were in a coma, you'd be less you? We would have the right just to kill you? The you of you is not limited to your physical body.

41:25 So actually, what's happening today, and this was the conversation that we ended up having, is what's happening today is relationships are Relationships are falling apart because we're training people to deal only in the realm of the tangible and the logical, and that which I can concretely point to. But that's not where we should be beginning our education with our children. The beginning of our education for our children is the intangible relationship that exists, knowing that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is beyond the realm of logic. That's a beautiful thing to teach your children. When kids say Hashem is in Shamayim. Hashem is here, Hashem is there. You know what they're really trying to do? I'm talking about they're trying to say my son, like when he was trying to explain to me how big something is, he goes It's even bigger than Hashem. When little kids are like he has a friend Yehuda Lab, and he says So sometimes he needs to let me know that Yehuda Lab's Abba is bigger than me. Yehuda Lab's Abba is bigger than you.

42:27 So sometimes I say to him. Just 'cause you know I'm trying to engage with him, I go, Nah. He goes, I'm much bigger than you, Udalay Zaba. I'm all the way up to here. So he goes, Oh yeah? Udalay Zaba? He's all the way to Shemayin. So I say I'm also all the way up to Shemayin. He goes, Udalay Zaba is even bigger than Hashem. What do you say to that? He won. What am I gonna say? And then he learned. I don't know where he learned this from, but he goes. I like I love you ten. Now he goes, I love you a Google. He likes somebody who taught him that a Google means a lot. I love you a Google in one. Like he gets like Nah, there's no Google in one. He's four years old. He knows the Google is the biggest thing. But what is a little child's desire to do that? What is a little child's desire to go Hashem is big. Why do we need to do that? It's because a little child has this thing. I need to be able to hold this and this thing that I can understand. Because if I can't hold it, what is it? But we're trying to teach our kids exactly the opposite. Know that there's something that's bigger than you. That's humble.

43:41 That's a wonderful way to teach your children. So this whole movement We're gonna prove Judaism to the kids. If you're already there, something has fallen apart. And it's not that these kids shouldn't learn it. Of course they should, but that's not the beginning. The beginning is the kids like going. Of course. There's something intangible in the world. My life is not limited to the tangible. I don't know if you'll remember this in fifteen years from now or whenever it is that you're dealing with your teens. But I really want to encourage you Even now, as you're thinking about it in these formative years To spend time to say to yourself, Number one I'm all in on every kid. Even the tough ones. Even the ones that are oppositional, simply for the sake of being opposition. Number two It doesn't matter. I know that no matter what, my kids. I'm gonna do my best. Of course, I'm gonna limit But I know that I'm not going to be able to control every aspect of my kids' encounter with culture. We're gonna do our best.

44:48 Doesn't mean that we shouldn't put up important walls. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't have filters on things. But also, I know. That just because they're out in the world doesn't mean that I get to throw up my hands and go, well, that's it. It's every kid. And finally, it's that foundation of faith that's above logic, before logic. It's the faith that logic exists within. That's the gift we want to give to our children.