Practical Parenting - Motivation (Part 2 - Dealing With Children That Are Off The Derech)

2:03 Let's just choose my favorite, just because I'm giving the shir. So I would say, 'Dear betachtonim, God desires to have a dwelling place in the world down below.' "What does he say, Shlomo?" He says, "But why?" Does God desire to have a dwelling place in the world down below? And I respond, classic Chabad answer. I say, this is not a why question, because this is a tayva. It's a desire. We don't understand desires. Desires come from the inner will of a person. Now I think that's a meaningful answer. But Shlomo Sakani says, what if a sixteen or a seventeen year old young man does not appreciate that answer? Not because he's not intellectually capable of understanding. But because he simply has thought it through and he doesn't appreciate it. What then? So I was thinking about your question a lot over the last week. Shlomo, did I get that question right?

2:56 Excellent. So I was thinking a lot about that question over the last week. And I thought a couple of things. Number one There's often not one answer to a question. Often there are many answers to a question, and so, for example, in Mivaseret. We have a lot of different rebbeim answering this question. This very question, in many different ways. So if you were to go to somebody who was into the Ramchal And he was going to quote you an answer from Derech Hashem or from Mesilas Yesharim. He said, 'The purpose of creation is L'shanegal Hashem. God wants to give you the greatest goodness. The greatest goodness is Him. So He desires to bestow goodness upon another. That would be another way of answering the question. You could answer many different ways. The purpose is to serve our master. God created us to serve Him, like the Gemara says. So there are many different answers to this question. So number one, just because a child doesn't like one We have the opportunity to teach him that there are many different answers to many different questions.

3:56 And I think it's very possible that sometimes our derech, what speaks to us, does not necessarily speak to our children, and we should encourage our children to be pluralistic in this regard. What I mean to say is as follows. Our children are going to be different than us. We should value and celebrate those differences because that is the independence of the child. So let's say you are a Satmar Chassid And your kid decides that he wants to be a Lubavitcher Chassid. So there's something very beautiful. He's finding different answers. If you yourself can be a person who appreciates the multifaceted approach of Judaism, Shivim Panim LaTorah. So then you will celebrate the fact that your child has the opportunity to go find an answer that maybe speaks to them.

4:45 And you should encourage them to do that. So your child came to you for an answer. You gave him an answer. The child is not satisfied. There's nothing wrong with saying to the child, 'You know what? Let's go to the Rav of our shul. Let's go to a Rav in the school, and be a person who goes out and speaks to Abanim and says, 'Okay, like my kid wasn't satisfied with this answer. What can we do to find them another answer that satisfies them? Right?' So that's. That's one thing, and that's also a beautiful lesson to teach a child. Because just because our motivational tool didn't work for them doesn't mean that there isn't another one. This teaches a child humility. My parents were willing to say that the answer that worked for them doesn't necessarily need to work for me. That is a beautiful character trait to teach your children, but also something more profound.

5:31 There's a great feeling of safety that comes along with that. Because the child knows that the parents are willing to say, hey, my answer didn't work for the child. Let's work on the child's terms. That's a relationship builder. So number one, if the child doesn't buy your answer, it doesn't mean there aren't other answers. Number two, Shlomo, so far so good. Number two. Let's say the child isn't buying any answers. Now let's check in. Why is the child not buying these answers? We can have multiple approaches here. One approach might be because none of them were intellectually satisfying or appealing. It is possible that that's the case, and we should really entertain that as a possibility. We should authentically say maybe that's a possibility. Maybe the child didn't actually appreciate what was being said. But let's also take another avenue of approach. Because it's also possible that something else is going on in the child's life, or in the relationship, that's inhibiting the child from accepting any of these answers. The kid is making a move here.

6:44 He's grown up, hopefully in a loving home, in a loving community, one where he's been accepted and appreciated for his or her unique qualities. And now all of a sudden, the kid is saying, 'This makes no sense to me. It's possible that it's being driven by another reality. It's possible that it's a Rebiyin school that's not treating him well. It's possible that it's a feeling of alienation from their friends. It's possible that a child feels scholastically they're not going to be able to keep up.' Gemara is really hard. Gmar is really hard, and now a kid is in tenth and eleventh grade, and he's got a lot of pressures. He's got a lot of regions coming up, and on top of all that, he's pressured to get into college, and maybe his Judaism is taking a back seat, and so maybe this is a way of making himself or herself feel better. By saying, "Hey, this Judaism thing is taking a back seat, not because my priorities are wrong, but because this doesn't make any sense." So as a parent, you have to be attuned to the fact that.

7:45 Maybe there's something else going on, and it's really important to make sure that you're checking in on that. I'll tell you why. Let's take for example Shlomo, the kid that all of a sudden got all these philosophical questions, right? And they seemingly came out of nowhere. Perhaps the child is even perplexed himself where they came from, as sometimes happens. By the way, a kid could wake up one day with all these questions and feel like, 'Holy cow, my amuna is gone.' That's a real thing that happens to people. If you start giving philosophical answers to an emotional question, you're only going to frustrate yourself. And you're going to frustrate the and you're going to frustrate the child Because you're knocking on the wrong door. The kid himself is struggling. Maybe let's say, for example, there's a rebbe in school that they really don't get along with. Now you're coming along and insisting that you are philosophically correct.

8:41 And now you're frustrated because you know that the kid accepts the answer and he's just fighting for the sake of fighting. So now you double down and the argument gets heated. Now you're pushing the child away even more. And this probably confirms his inner negative belief that authority figures don't like him. And so now all of a sudden you're off to the races. In reality, it had nothing to do with the philosophical question. So make sure that the parenting technique that you're using is calibrated to the child. Now also you got to be careful because let's say it is, and I'm just making this up. Let's say it is a Rebbe who he doesn't get along with. But instead of answering his philosophical question, you try only to deal with the emotional or psychological issue that's going on. Then the kid says, "Okay, it's true. Maybe I have an emotional issue with the Rebbe, but also you didn't give me a good answer, right?" And so then what happens is the kid goes along with the narrative of Nobody ever gave me good answers to these questions. The kid deserves a good answer, but you also have to deal with the other part.

9:39 And last but not least, I'll open it up to some questions. Rabosei Motivation is often an experience as well as an answer. So it's like very recently I read an article by Rabbi David Bashefkin. It was an excellent article, and he said part of the struggle of modern orthodoxy is that every time we see kids going off the derech So we try to double down and really define what modern orthodoxy is. And Rabbi Bashyafkin was theorizing in this article that the challenge of modern orthodoxy is not the logical definition. It's not the rash, not the rationality of defining modern orthodoxy. It's the experience of modern orthodoxy. So it's very possible that a person is going to be motivated by a beautiful Shabbos table as much, if not more, than a good philosophical answer to a question. So I would attack this on three fronts. Front number one, kid comes with a question. He deserves the answer. If you don't have an answer, let's work together to find one that works for you. Approach number two: Is this really exclusively a philosophical question? Are there other issues that are going on?

10:51 Have a hypothesis. Make sure you're involved in your kid's life so that you can really appreciate what the kid is going through. If you know the kid is being bullied at school, it's not wrong at least to have a hypothesis that maybe some of his questions in Judaism are rooted in bullying. And last but not least, remember that showing someone the mission is not only philosophical; it's also experiential. And so, it's a good opportunity to ask yourself: Is my son or daughter getting the experiences that they need? Maybe this is a kid that needs to be in NCSY. Maybe this is a kid that needs to be in Camp Hask. Maybe this is a kid that needs to go to Camp Simcha. There are a lot of different amazing experiences that exist in the Jewish world that really show someone the beauty of Judaism. Don't limit yourself to only a philosophical approach.

11:39 I'm going to open it up to some questions and answers now. I suppose some of you will have at least one or two. Nachilo shliita. Can we talk about the dangers of using the strategy of saying, 'Well, if my answer doesn't work for you, there are a lot of answers out there,' because I feel like that could be something. If you are subscribing to different sorts of Hasidic values than your parents and your peer group, that could be very alienating. As you said, the example of a Satmar Hasid wanting to be a Chabad Hasid could have lasting impacts on who his peer group is right now and could also alienate him from his parents. My answer to that would be that the opposite is also true. If in his heart he's something else And you force him back in that box, he's also going to feel alienated. So again, I was just using Satmar and Chabad because we're all part of modern Orthodoxy. So I'm making a move that's away from our community. But let's say you have that Satmar Chassid who wants to be Chabad. He's not into doing chesed in hospitals. He's into putting on tefillin on people.

13:02 And Chabad are unbelievable when it comes to putting tefillin on people. There's a post that went viral on social media, and now because of Corona, Chabad can't put tefillin on people. So what are they going to do? What is a chabadster to do? If he can't put tefillin on people, they made these barriers where you can stick your hands through them, and a person is on the other side, and they can. You can stick your hand through and they can stick their hand through, and they literally are wrapping tefillin on people during Corona in a totally safe way. I'm not convinced this is totally safe because of the tefillin carrying the Corona, but my point is these people are fanatic about putting tefillin on people and this Satmar chassid is jealous. He wants to go to Portland, Oregon, and he wants to put tefillin on people because that's his dream. So you may keep him in the Satmar community.

13:50 At least for a little bit. You might keep him there. By the way, long term you probably won't be able to. The more you try to force him into that box, it's like a jack in the box. It's just gonna shoot out even faster. But he's not gonna feel a part of the community while he's there because he knows it's not him. And so really great parents and this takes a lot of courage. Really great parents are open to the possibility that their kids will do something different than them. And so I have a friend in the neighborhood here in Mapai Chemesh, and I'm not gonna say his name though. I suspect that there's some of you on this phone on this Zoom call. Probably even many of you on this Zoom call that know him, and he himself is like a very frum guy, very fine guy. He's a rav. He's a tamal chacham. He's a bentora. And he's into chasidus. His kid is a chassid.

14:40 His kid is mamish a chassid. He's walking around with a bekasha, with a hat. He's a shammish of a rebbe. The first time I ever saw this kid, now I love this guy's father. The first time I ever saw this kid when I moved to Israel, I said. Your son looks like a chassid. And this father, very upset at me, looks at me and he goes, he doesn't look like a chassid. He is a chassid. I was like, I realized immediately that I stepped on something I shouldn't have stepped on. And he explained to me that this is the derech for his child, and he's totally supportive. This is not his derech. But he's totally supportive. I think that's amazing. So frankly, when you have kids who come from yeshivish backgrounds, and there are parents that say

15:24 This kid needs to be in a more modern Orthodox school, and he needs to be in N C S Y, and he needs to do these things because that's what's going to get him. It takes a lot of courage to do that, and at the same time, there are kids on the other end of the spectrum that need to move to the other end of the spectrum. There are kids from modern Orthodox homes that, for whatever reason, they didn't find their place in the modern Orthodox world. They want to be in a little bit more of a right wing world, or maybe even much more of a right wing world. It's really important that we celebrate our children's differences, and so I'll share with you that my parents have sent three children to Mivaseret. All of us are very different, and when parents ask my father why he chose to send to Mivaseret, he would tell them Because I sent three kids and all of them ended up different. And so we've never believed in yeshiva, and we've been criticized for this, but this is what we believe in.

16:13 We believe in showing you a multifaceted approach to Yiddishkeit. Some people say that can be confusing. I agree, but I think it also makes us complex. One man's confusing is another man's complex, and I think different strokes for different folks. There are guys that walk in and they're looking for something fundamentally different than what they grew up with. I think that should be celebrated. So is there a danger that they're going to leave their community? My answer to that would probably be sure. But those kids will probably leave anyway, and sometimes it's really trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Fair. Any other questions? Shlomo Sarkanie. Huh. Huh. So you're. I think. I think you're doing. You're. You're doing the right thing in your question because you're really testing it in the extreme, right? And you're really saying. Let's say the kid just wants out of Orthodox Judaism in general. How much are we supposed to be supportive?

17:22 And the answer to that question is, it's very, very difficult to walk the tightrope that I'm about to describe to you. But I think this is the avoda. I don't agree with the choices that you're making. And I authentically will always love you no matter what choices you're making. Some of you may have heard of Rivka Gerstein Adelstein. Who is considered now to be one of the Gedolei Ador in the Charedi world And he was asked, as one of the leaders of the Charedi world, if your daughter has gone off the derech and she wants you to buy her a miniskirt, what do you do? And he responded, you buy her the miniskirt. And they said to him, but isn't it lifneiver like you're putting a stumbling block in front of a blind person? You're buying her the miniskirt that she's then gonna wear. And he said it's lifneiver. Not to buy her the mini skirt. And the reason is because you're saying.

18:19 It. He's saying it's a greater value to retain the connection with your child, right? It doesn't mean that you have to tell the child I agree with what you're doing, but ultimately I love you, and therefore I will support you, even though I strongly disagree with what you're doing, and it's possible to do that. I'll tell you another story with R. Shlomo Freifeld Zeichat Sadik Levracha R. Freifeld. A father once came to him and he said, 'My daughter is going off the derech and I don't know what to do.' And Refreyfeld gave him an eitzah that every Friday his daughter should make the cholent. And so the father had a conversation with his daughter and he said, 'Look, what you do on Shabbos is up to you, but you make the most delicious cholent for our family. Please don't stop making the cholent.' And so this girl every Friday would make the Shabbos cholent, and then Friday night, Shabbos day, she wouldn't necessarily be home. She'd be out doing God knows what.

19:08 But because that cholent, she retained her connection to Shabbos. She retained her connection to her family, and ultimately, she did return. It doesn't always work out that way, but I think the advice is what's meaningful because it gives us an insight into the fundamental relationship that a parent has with a child. We have goal-oriented parenting. We want our children to be the next generation of Jews that will fulfill our godly mission in this world. And yet. Our responsibility at the same time is of course to the child because that is the best possible chance for success. And so it's a really difficult tightrope to walk. But we do it, and I'll tell you that we do it as rabbayim also. I for example, I have a talmud who I love, and I'm not just saying that. I mamish love this guy. He's an amazing, amazing guy. And we've had a relationship for a number of years. He doesn't keep Shabbos. He doesn't keep kosher. He's certainly not what you would call focused on his Judaism right now.

20:04 But every single Friday, for years Almost without fail, I maybe I've missed one or two or three over the course of the last three or four or five years already. I wish him a good Shabbos. Recently, he came back to Israel. We had the opportunity to go for a long walk, and at some point, he broke down crying and he said, "Rebbe, the greatest gift you've ever given me is you gave me the gift of Shabbos because I don't keep Shabbos." But every Friday I remember it's Shabbos because you wish me a good Shabbos and I wish you a good Shabbos back. Shalom. I believe that I'm planting seeds. The relationship is there, and in the right time. I think that ultimately those seeds will sprout. I have to be patient. Simcha shrone shlitah. We said it's an area like hard to balance as Tyrone, but where do you draw the line? You're not just gonna let your kids have a free for all. So yeah, it's important to keep relationship with them, but you can't just let them do whatever they want just because you want to. That's an excellent question.

21:03 And I think the answer is a lot of it depends on the age. Because a ten year old could still be under our dominion. But at sixteen years old, what are you gonna do if the kid starts walking out of the house on Friday night? As a parent, what are you gonna do? You're gonna tackle the kid. At some point, it becomes absurd. So you're gonna tell the kid, if you walk out of this house and you're mechal shabbos, don't bother coming back. These methods are not going to work either. A lot of things have probably gone wrong up until then. But the reality is that at some point, kids figure out that short of physical abuse, they're not going to be able to. The parents are not going to be able to control them, and so it's worthwhile for us to have a real conversation about what we can and cannot do. And the truth is, we're not in control of these kids. So yes, at a younger age, we should be definitely setting the pace. We teach our children to make brachos, and we may use consequences as a way.

22:00 Again, we're going to speak a little more about praise as a key tool of motivation. We're going to speak about a bunch of things as tools of motivation over the coming weeks, but yes, Simcha. At some point, there's not really much you can do. Shlomo, back to you. Simcha. I'm sorry. What if your child wants to do something that's not safe And they're sixteen years old and they want to start doing drugs? How do you handle that? Let's play it out. So your kid says, "I'm gonna start doing drugs." You as a parent say no. Now what? That's the problem. The problem is you could say no, and so the kid will say, "Okay," and either he's gonna sneak it. As you and I both know, and I'm sure many people on the Zoom call know, these things are of greater access today. You could say no, and by the way, I would encourage you to say no. You, I would encourage you to say as a parent, that is a really foolish decision to make, and one that will have really adverse impact on your life. But what are you going to do?

23:11 The kid's gonna go. He's gonna. You could have a real conversation with him about the dangers of drugs. You could think of a lot of parenting strategies to use. There's a lot of things to do, right? And again, I'm not saying that these are the right things to do, but you could have him maybe speak with someone, right? Maybe speak with a drug counselor, right? Maybe speak with an addict, a former addict, right? There are a lot of things, creative things that you could do to try to explain to your kid how bad of an idea this is. But at the end of the day, you do not control that sixteen-year-old. So if your response to that is, "I'm just going to throw you out of the house," well, now you've lost the relationship with your kid too. So that's the line. The line is this is not okay. I'm gonna be creative in the ways that I communicate this to you because clearly me just saying it to you isn't working. But at the end of the day, kids are free agents.

23:56 You maybe hold him off until he's eighteen years old. Then he comes to Israel and goes to yeshiva, and now he's six thousand miles away. Now what are you gonna do? So he'll get thrown out of yeshiva if he gets caught. Then I'll go to college. Now what's gonna happen? At some point we have to realize we're not in control of these kids, so we have to come up with better parenting tactics than just saying no. And remember, simply every time you just say no. All you're doing is elevating the playing field. What are you going to do to me if I do? You've created a power struggle that you're going to lose as a parent. So the relationship is always going to be key. Now it's a question of what other tactics we can use. Does that make sense? Shlomo, back to you. Sometimes.

24:49 So let's say that happens, and you do revert back to emotional issue Won't that make the child feel endangered? Wow, I'm kind of stupid. I thought I wasn't doing these things because I had all these logical issues that seem so well planned out. I'm just a slave to my emotions, like a five-year-old. Well If I was paying attention, and my kid, let's say my sixteen-year-old son said, "I feel like a five-year-old because I'm a slave to my emotions" So first of all, that would be some grist for the mill right there. Why is having an emotional challenge make you a five-year-old? I think that makes you human. Number two, as a parent, I would wanna make sure that I was providing a safe and warm environment. For a kid who's really struggling and maybe feels really, really hurt right now, maybe they feel anxious about the fact that they're controlled by their emotions Or maybe they feel stupid, like you said, and so it's really important to double down on the relationship and to really help the kid work through that. It's true that the kid may realize that his philosophical issues are rooted in perhaps some psychology, but I think we could be supportive of such a kid.

26:09 Better than just giving him answers to his questions, because it's not real and it won't ever be tofes makom. Again, I'm not saying we don't answer the questions. I'm saying we have to do two things at once. Are there any philosophical questions that don't have a basis in psychology? It could be in a vacuum. It could be. It could be. I'm not sure that I've met those people yet, but I imagine it could be. I know every philosophical issue that I've ever had has been rooted in my own psychology and my own tayvos. It's a bigger question than this year. But it's an important one. I'm not diminishing the value of the question. I'm exactly correct. I've told you guys before. I know a rebbe, and I don't agree with this methodology, but I know a rebbe that whenever anybody comes to him with a philosophical issue. A guy walks into his office and says, "Rabbi, I don't know if I believe in God." He goes, "What's her name?"

27:11 And the guy was like, "What are you talking about? What do you mean, what's her name?" He's like, "What's her name? Who's the girl? It's like, 'Rabbi, what are you talking about?' He's like, 'Just tell me her name. You don't have a philosophical question. There's a girl that you like. You don't want the Torah to get in the way, so you don't believe in God.' This is the difference between Ashkenazim and Sfarim, Joey? Ashkenazim, Ash Ashkenazim, they have an avera they want to do, so God doesn't exist. Sphardim are normal. I have an avera I want to do. God exists. It's just okay. My mother is not going to be happy with me. I'm still Jewish. I'm still right. Joey, am I getting that right? Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. I'm sorry, Daniel. I didn't mean to offend you. But say there. Any last questions before we move on?

28:04 Jonathan Goldberg Shlita. Sì. What if you have like a sixteen, seventeen year old kid, and he wants to like, he has like some money and he wants like move out of the house And he feels like he's too young to do that. That Daniel. Jonathan. You're really hitting the issue right on the head. Because what we do have control over very often with our sixteen year olds is we control the pocketbook. There are things that they want to do in their lives, but they have to come to us to ask for the money to do it. So we could say we could choose to say, and maybe sometimes it's appropriate, we could choose to say I'm not going to give you money to support something that I don't believe in. It's like I'm not going to give my kid money to go buy drugs. Let's make your example a little bit less extreme, Jonathan. Let's say they have their own money.

28:59 So at that point, really, what are you going to do? That's exactly the point. The point is, at some point, every parent realizes that if I get into a power struggle with my kid, I've already lost. Even if I don't lose this particular battle, I'm going to lose the war. Daniel Moran. Yes. Let's say my kid wants to smoke, and I told him no, but then he uses an excuse. But you smoke too. I know a couple of friends that are Hollywood kids, their parents smoke weed, and then the kids want to use an excuse to do it too, even though their parents have been struggling with it. What do you do? That makes you a hypocrite if you say no. David I'm just gonna hold off. I would love to hear your answer privately. I'm just gonna hold off because I have some. I just want to keep it moving because I know Aaron has a question also. If you don't mind, David?

30:02 Thank you. So Daniel, first of all, I think that's a great point. We as parents cannot tell our children to do something or to not do something if we're not willing to live by those same values. And we have to be careful as parents to be, as we've spoken about previously in the year. We have to be careful to live the life that we want them to lead, because the most powerful influence in the child's life is role modeling. And so, if you are the dad who's smoking up So it's probably not going to go very well when the kid says, "How come you won't let me?" And I think the answers that the kid is going to get are probably going to be flimsy. I've heard this story before. Parents say, "Well, until the age of twenty years old, it could adversely affect the formation of your brain." But I'm already forty years old. So what's the big deal? The answer is because that's a bad answer.

30:52 It's just a bad answer. If you don't want your kid to do something, don't do it yourself. You're role modeling bad behavior for them and then you're asking them to appreciate subtle differences. That's not going to work. If you want your kids to be passionate about Judaism, you be passionate about Judaism. And so I think you're right. That's the there was an old commercial About telling your kids not to smoke, and the kid said, "I learned it from watching you." And it was like a famous commercial. "I learned it from watching you." My wife and I always say this to each other. We're like, "I learned it from watching you." So yeah, Daniel, I think your point is really well taken. If you as a parent want your kid to do something, you better do it yourself. And they better see mom and dad doing it. Everybody's human, so we should be role modeling for our kids that we all make mistakes. But there's a difference between making a mistake and raising your kids with contradictory values. A child who has a parent who behaves one way, but tells his kid not to behave that same way, is not going to respect the parent.

31:48 What many years ago when I was in shul So there was a guy who sat behind me in shul that would not stop talking during davening. He was the shul's talker. Everybody has like one guy in shul. Halavayit should be one. Everybody has like one guy in shul like the shul talker. And he's some people they whisper, but this guy's like the talker. He talks out loud. He's just comfortable with himself talking in shul. Yeish tava kaza. People, there are people like that. So this guy was the shul talker. His kid very often did not come to shul, but his kid had a friend over for Shabbos, so his kid came to shul too and they were talking. The father who sat right behind me was talking to his friend who sat right to his left, and his kid, who was sitting to his right, was talking to his friend, who was on the kid's right. And so the kid is talking, and the father takes the back of his hand. He smacks him in the chest and, out loud in front of the entire shul, he goes, "Hey, stop talking!"

32:44 And then he turns back to his friend and goes, "I'm sorry. Where was I? And I was like, 'Oh my God!' I was like, 'That kid has no chance. That kid has no chance.' By the way, he did have no chance. And then how did he become frum? It's a crazy story. Rabbi Kabbessa was the one that made him frum. Rabbi Kabbessa was the one that was able to get through to him just with his sweetness and his kindness. But I watched the kid go off the derech. He was growing up with two different sets of values. This is the same guy that when I came home from Israel, used to whisper in my ear in the middle of aliyas in Kriyas Torah. Used to whisper in my ear. It's usser to talk now because it's during aliyas and you're not allowed to talk during aliyas. He would do it in between every single aliyah, for years, and I wasn't talking. I promise you, I wasn't talking, guys. But he was just that guy. He thought it was a great big joke. So when his kid grew up and didn't respect shul What do you think is going to happen?

33:37 Aaron Goldstein. Sure. Sure. On one hand, the answer obviously isn't a good answer. The oh, I can do it because I'm an adult, but you can't do it because you're not an adult. But on the other hand, we do that with a lot of things, and usually it works. If I'm forty and I'm having a drink with my friends and my kid is fifteen and wants to have alcohol, I say no, you shouldn't drink. If I'm having my relations when I'm forty, my kid who's sixteen wants to have them, like no, you're not old enough. Like I think there are certain things. I think the answer is used a lot. It does make sense. Well, I didn't look at my father having whiskey when I was sixteen and go wow, he's. But I think there's two answers. I think there's first of all two answers to that question. Number one, you gave two very different cases. One case is drinking, and the other case is marital relations. So there's a clear difference between the two of them. Marital relations ought to happen in the context of intimacy.

34:47 The Hainu in the context of marriage. So it's not hypocritical to tell your kid you should be shomer negia because you're not married, right? That's the halacha, right? Shomer negia is it'll be appropriate to be with a particular girl when you're in the context of intimacy. So that's not hypocritical. The difference when it comes to drinking, and I think that's why drinking is a little bit more of a sophisticated issue, is the reality is that many people again don't want to admit this, and there are definitely a lot of people that can see their fathers having a drink. Having a lechaim, being totally normal about it, and it doesn't necessarily turn their kids into alcoholics. However, the research has shown that unfortunately, very often kids, especially kids who are suffering

35:36 I'm sorry, it seems like somebody is unmuted and there's some noise in the background. I'm not sure who that is. The research has shown us that very often, there are plenty of kids that they do see their parents drinking, and so they do try to experiment with it, and then the experimentation goes way above and beyond what the parents are doing. For example, let's say you have a kid who's struggling in school, and again, this is a big topic and one that's going to be. I want to admit from the very beginning that the answer I'm going to give you is not going to be comprehensive because we could spend five hours at least discussing this. But let's say a kid is being bullied in school and he really doesn't know what to do with these emotions because being bullied is a really hard thing. And now he finds his dad's liquor cabinet.

36:24 And hey, what's the big deal? My dad makes a lechem. I want to make a lechem and just see how it feels. All of a sudden he discovers that numb is better than all those feelings that he wasn't able to cope with. And so one drink leads to another. Two drinks lead to four. Before you know it, he's making an Irish coffee in the morning, coming to school drunk. You fast forward a little bit, and all of a sudden the kid realizes, hey, people can smell the alcohol on my breath. This isn't working for me. But marijuana, that's easy to get away with. So he went from drinking to weed. But at some point How much can you be stoned? I can't afford this habit. So he starts to get a job to be able to afford the habit, but he can't hold down the job, and that's when it becomes a gateway thing. If this kid learns to numb his emotions, it is possible for that kid to turn into a full fledged addict.

37:11 And for that reason, I'm going to be very honest with you. And again, this may not be the derech of your parents. I'm not chassid sholm criticizing, but I'm sharing with you that in my home I do not have a sip of alcohol. Except for amperim And it's not because I think alcohol is the devil But because I think there probably will be a child in the family at some point who's going through a hard time, and I don't want to open up that Pandora's box. And so that's been my derech. And again, in shuls, I cannot tell you how many kids report that their addiction to alcohol and drugs began in shul at a kiddush club where it was just cute. A fifteen year old kid having a lechem on Shabbos, nothing wrong with it, and I'm not again to each their own, but I cannot tell you how many stories began that way. As a result, I don't drink in shul, I don't drink at varts, I don't drink at shalom zakers. I'm just not really interested. Sometimes I'm put in uncomfortable situations where a rav in the community will say "Come make a lechem with me," and it's in public

38:13 And I don't want to. What's called, I don't necessarily feel comfortable to embarrass that guy by saying, 'No, I'm not interested,' like that. Sometimes I'll make a joke out of it and I'll say I'm a recovering alcoholic and just look at the room and see how people respond. That's usually my go-to move if I'm being honest. But personally, I don't. I think look, we look at the kids today and we see that so many kids unfortunately have an inappropriate relationship with alcohol and, I think it's something that as a community we need to continue to work on. Making our schools dry didn't necessarily work because it just drove a lot of these kiddish clubs back to people's homes. And so recently, when I was in America after shul, I was staying at a very good friend of mine's house, and he said, "Okay, we go to a kiddush after davening. It's not called a kiddush club. It's kiddush after davening."

39:02 It was a very wealthy community, and the guy who was making the kiddush was exceptionally wealthy, and there had to have been easily ten thousand dollars worth of alcohol in this guy's house. He just had one of those massive closets. Everything was thirty years, and it was just like ridiculous amounts, and everyone was pouring themselves lachaim, and there were kids there And I couldn't help but think I don't know if that's really being made, shem Shamayim. I don't know if that's appropriate. So I appreciate Aaron's question, and again I'm sure there are parents that would disagree with me. That's my personal policy. Can I ask my other question? Sure, please. So back to Shlomo's question and also Nachi's question. I was asking them But in regards to what to do when your kid is doing something that you don't approve of, I understand that you know what happened under ten or under sixteen. But what happens if you've had a healthy, steady relationship with your child, and they know that you support them?

40:04 But they veered off the derech, and you still love them. But then let's say you get the wedding invitation for the non-Jewish spouse. Right? And now they're like Right. So actually Aaron, it's interesting that that's the. It's a great question. I think actually that's ironic that was the case you brought up because that is exactly the case that I was talking about before. This boy who's not keeping Shabbos and not keeping kosher was actually dating a gentile girl. And At some point in their relationship, she was willing to convert, but not with an orthodox conversion, and his father didn't know, but his mother did. It was a complicated case. His mother came to me and said, 'Now what?' And I said to her, at some point, we have to hold the line. All of the relationship building that we've done over the last couple of years has been for this moment.

41:26 And so obviously, it's not a question of saying yes or no at that point. In other words, that's not the avoda with a twenty-three, twenty-four-year-old man. I am getting married to this girl. What do you want? At that point, though, if you do have that rock solid relationship, that's the time to really double down and use every parenting technique you have in the book. Because those kids will not be Jewish, and so that's exactly what happened. And Baruch Hashem, in this particular case, it does seem like she's going to go through an Orthodox conversion, and actually, I happen to believe that she's going to end up bringing him closer to Judaism in an ironic sort of way. The whole point of the relationship is so that at some point you get to call in those chips. But if you don't have that relationship Then you don't get to do that, and so it's not as simple, obviously, as telling a twenty-four-year-old guy, "No, you can't marry that Gentile." But it's definitely, look, I love you, we have a great relationship despite some of your choices. This is one of those areas where we need to sit down and really have a serious conversation because this is a life-altering, in my opinion, mistake. And that's when you pull out all of your cards, cause that's the moment.

42:46 Because you might even win a battle in the beginning, and you might even win some lesser battles. You will lose much more important battles, because there's only a certain amount of emotional capacity that a relationship can hold. If you call in all those chips too early, then you're not going to have anything left in the bank. When it comes time to actually fight the big one, that's why it's really important to maintain the relationship with your child. Okay, Rabosei. Unless there are any last questions And it appears that there are not I will see you Be'ezr Hashem tomorrow. Looking forward, everybody.