Tazria-Metzora - Raising Children To Leave The Nest

2:20 Normally it's the opposite. This one is an exception. Let's read the balaturim inside. Just one line in Hebrew. Don't worry. Even if you don't know Hebrew, I'll translate every word. Bechol makom in every single place, makdim torim lebenyona. When the Torah lists the order, the tor comes first before the benyona. The turtle dove comes before the pigeon. Chutz mikan, except for this one case where a woman has a baby, she either has a son or a daughter, and she has to bring a carbon. And he says why? Now this is wild. He says lefisha eno mevi ela echad. Normally, in every other case, when you're bringing a benyona or when you're bringing a tor, how many do you bring? The answer is you bring them in pairs. So you either bring two pigeons or two turtle doves. Here, how many? Pigeons or turtle doves? Does a woman bring after she has a baby? What's the answer? She only brings one.

3:16 Every other case she brings two. This case she only brings one. I know this is a little bit technical. How many of you are still with me? Good. Four people raised their hand. Let's try this again. How many of you are still with me? We got another couple of hands raised. I'm going to repeat it again for those that want to lock in. I'll say it again in a second. But he says, why is it switched in this case? Unbelievable pshat. He says, "Shem yimseyona lo yikach." I'm sorry. Shem yimseyona lo yikach tor. If you find a pigeon, bring the pigeon rather than the turtle dove. Meaning, if you have, why does one come before the other? Because let's say I am a woman. I just gave birth to a son or a daughter, and now I find in front of me a pigeon or a turtle dove. Which one should I bring? I should bring the pigeon in this case, not the turtle dove. Why?

4:09 Because it is an unbelievable quality that a turtle dove has. A turtle dove, when they find their mate, when they get married. When their mate dies They never mate with anybody else. They never repair. They're totally loyal to their mate, so they never find anybody else. But a pigeon. After one, after their mate dies, they find another pigeon to mate with. So the Torah is telling us an unbelievable thing. In every single case, if you have the opportunity to bring a tor or a benyona, a pigeon or a turtle dove, which one should you bring first? In every other case You should bring the turtle dove. Why? Because how many are you shechting? You're shechting two. So you're shechting the mate. And the spouse. But here, since you're only shechting one, what's going to happen to the one that you leave behind? They're going to be lonely for the rest of their lives. So the Torah tells us, don't bring. If you can, it's better, it's preferable to bring a benyona and not a torah. It's preferable to bring a pigeon. This way, the other pigeon will go and mate with somebody else. I want to share with you a story. This is my grandmother.

5:29 My grandfather died when my grandmother was in her fifties. He died tragically of a heart attack. I was very little. I was five years old when it happened. As I got older, I became a teenager. I asked my grandmother, "How come you never remarried?" She was an eligible bachelorette. She was then only in her fifties. To get remarried in your fifties. My grandmother ended up living till she was ninety years old. She passed away from COVID. My grandmother's sister lived till she was over a hundred. My grandmother was a healthy woman. She couldn't hear to save her life, but she was a totally healthy woman. I loved my grandmother very much. Imagine if my grandmother would have gotten remarried in her fifties. She would have ended up living with that person for thirty more years. I asked my grandmother, Grandma, why you ever got married again?

6:15 So she said to me, I tried to date. It was too weird. She said I was married to your grandfather. He just wasn't around anymore. I felt like when I was going out with these other guys, I felt like it was cheating on your grandfather, so I couldn't get married to anybody else. There's something exceptionally profoundly beautiful about that. That and my wife and I have this conversation. I'm sure lots of married couples do, or not, and we're just the weird ones. I guess we'll find out when you get married if I'm weird or not. We have, if you died, would you get remarried? I tell my wife, never. What about you? My wife's like, in a heartbeat. You know what I'm saying? She doesn't say it like that. The I'm being recorded. So no. Some people would say, no, you're for the rest of my life. You're my mate. I'll never find anybody else. That's what a torah is. A benyona is not like my grandmother. A benyona is a pigeon. A pigeon says, I have this mate. After I'm done, I'll find that mate.

7:13 Because it's very beautiful. What Balatourim is telling us, an unbelievable sensitivity. We could make this a sheir about Tsar Balechayim. And the beautiful sensitivity that the Torah tells us to have to animals, to make sure that no animal feels like they're abandoned and they're left behind for the rest of their life—that's obviously not the direction we're going with today. I want to share with you a stunning, beautiful idea. I have one very simple question: of all of the places to teach us this halacha, it's very strange to teach it to us here. Let's picture the scene: you have a woman; she just gave birth. She's entered her period of purification. She's going to bring a carban on the base of Mikdash. What does the Torah tell her in this moment, according to the Balaturim? What's the Torah telling her? It's preferable for you to bring a benyona, a pigeon, over a tor. Why? Because a tor mates for the rest of their life and they never pick anyone else, and a benyona will find another spouse.

8:07 Do you see how those two things appear to be totally disconnected? What is having a child? And bringing a carbon to the base of Mikdash after you had a child have to do with finding a mate for the rest of your life? Like those seem to be very tangential things. They don't seem like they have anything to do with each other. You're asking that's a decent question. It's a good question. What do you say? So far, we all how many people show hands? How many people are still with me? Not bad, around ninety eight percent. Okay, I'll take it fine. So the question is why do we learn this halacha here. I want to share with you tonight. Do you girls mind if I write on the board a little bit? We need some classroom participation. Go for it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I generally try not to write on the board. I generally try to be charismatic enough that people will pay attention to me. But sometimes it's helpful. I see that we do not have an eraser here. It doesn't matter. I want to talk about the concept of attachment parenting. How many people here are familiar with the concept of attachment in psychology? Good. So Rabbi Yaakov Danincheski wrote a very beautiful Hagada. I don't know if any of you saw the Hagada this year. It was called the Attachment Hagada.

9:15 He has a very beautiful sefer on attachment. If you're interested in buying a deep sefer in English, that's certainly a beautiful one to learn. I want to speak about two models of attachment in this world. One is going to be called the Benyona model of attachment. The other is going to be called the Tor model of attachment. So the two models are as follows. The Benyona. This is the pigeon Is what we're going to call flexible attachment And the tour, the turtle dove Is what we're going to call absolute attachment. Two models: flexible attachment and absolute attachment. What does it mean? We have to start thinking deeply now. What does it mean? Flexible attachment. So the way I presented it to you before was a little bit not so nice. My grandmother had loyalty to her husband, and other people who get remarried don't have loyalty.

10:19 It's not really true. Let's try to think about this a little more deeply now. If I'm married and chas v'shalom, my spouse passes away. So one way of thinking about it is, this is the absolute attachment of the Torah, the absolute attachment of the turtle dove. I have total undying loyalty to that person, and I'll never get remarried to anybody else. That makes it kind of sound pretty bad for the pigeon. Pigeon's like, when you're gone, I'll just pick somebody else to mate with. But maybe there's a way of thinking about the pigeon. Maybe there's a way of thinking about this benyona in a deeper way, and it goes like this: the benyona bonds deeply to another Deeply to another But it's capable of re-bonding after a loss. And it's not totally immobilized. Why? Because the loss of my spouse does not shatter my identity.

11:16 I'll say it again. I want to make sure everybody gets it. Is he getting this idea a little bit? You say it again. Goes like this. Maybe the reason why the tor doesn't mate after its spouse dies is because it's absolutely undyingly loyal. It has that absolute attachment. But maybe the reason it has that absolute attachment is because its identity is totally wrapped up in its spouse. And when the spouse dies, there's a part of me that dies along with it, and because of that, I'm totally immobilized and I can't rebuild my life with somebody else. It's an interesting way of thinking about it. On the one hand, there's a certain beauty to the absolute attachment of the turtle dove. I mate for life. You're my person. On the other hand, maybe there's a beauty to this flexible type of attachment of the pigeon. I live with you. I deeply care about you. I'm bonded to you in the most absolute way. However, if you were to pass away, I'm still here. I'm still a person. I didn't lose my identity. Just because you passed, I'm still me. You passed away. Now I'm capable of reorganizing my life and attaching deeply to somebody else. Does that make sense?

12:38 So there's two ways of thinking about attachment. Both of them are very beautiful. I'm not here to say which one is better or which one is worse. But there's two ways of thinking about it. On the one hand, absolute devotion and loyalty, amazing. But maybe the reason you can't move on is why? Because I lost myself when I lost you. On the other hand. Maybe there's something very healthy that I'm married to somebody else. This is a little bit of a marriage shmoos. I'm married to somebody else. You're my person. But I stand firmly planted in my own soil. My identity is that I am me, not just I am a wife. Do you understand what that means? You ever see people? It's called codependency. You ever see? You familiar with that terminology? Let's see how many people here are in therapy. The show of hands. You don't have. Just joking. You don't have to tell us publicly, but I can tell just from all the people that went like this.

13:29 So all of you who did this, you're my people. What does codependency mean? Codependency means my identity is dependent on you, and if you're not okay, I'm not okay. People say this all the time. Parents say this all the time. I hope you don't say this when you become a parent. They say a parent is only as happy as their least happy child. You understand what that means? It's like my identity is so wrapped up in being a parent that if you are not okay, I'm not okay. There's a very big difference between you're not okay and I empathize and I'm sad along with you versus I can't be okay because you're not okay. My identity is so wrapped up in you that I don't know how to be okay if you're not okay. Does this make sense? Yeah. Here's a deep thing. There was a very famous, actually he was a doctor also, but he was a famous psychologist called Donald Winnicott. Have you ever heard of Winnicott?

14:24 So for when you go become therapists, Winnicott is a very famous psychologist, and Winnicott said as follows: What's the relationship between a mother and her child? What's the relationship? You ever see these brand new babies being born? What's the relationship in that moment? The baby is born. What's the relationship between a mother and a child? So Winnicott says as follows. A mother and a child From the child's perspective, the child sees the mother as literally one organism with the mother. There's not the child doesn't know enough to say there's me and my mother. What does the child know? That's me. That's me. When I cry, I get fed from me. Who's the me that's feeding me? That's my mother. She is me. There's no separation between the mother and the child. That's what Winnicott says. And so Winnicott says that a parent Needs to be not perfect. What does a parent need to be? He calls it good enough parenting. Have you ever heard that phrase before? What does good enough parenting mean? Good enough parenting means that by not being a perfect parent, pay attention now, because when you're not perfect parents, you're going to want to remember this year so that you have an excuse. Yeah.

15:30 When you can't, let's say for example, your child is crying, you run to your child to soothe your child, but you don't get there. Let's say for an extra sixty seconds, because you were just in the middle of finishing up. Putting up that load of laundry, taking care of that other kid, speaking to somebody—you had to hang up the phone. It took you a couple of extra seconds until you got to that child to pick up that child and soothe that child. What does that kid learn in the time where you were not a perfect parent? If you can't soothe the child, what does the child learn to soothe themselves? You understand? So what happens by being a good enough parent, but not a perfect parent? It is that you start to create a healthy separation between the parent and the child. Does that make sense? And what does healthy separation look like? It means the child learns to say, "I'm me" And that's my mother. There's a healthy distance between the parent and the child learns to have their own identity. Now, what does it look like?

16:33 Forget from the child's perspective. Let's talk about from the mother's perspective. If the mother does not know how to create healthy distance from her child, and sometimes there are parents that hold on very tightly to their children, and from the parents' perspective, it's almost like we're still one organism. We call it, "When are you going to cut the umbilical cord?" For example, my daughter is here in Israel, and I need to know every single second of what's going on. It's not necessarily from a place of love. What might it be from? It's almost from a place of, I'm not okay if you're not okay. My identity as a mother is not okay because I don't know how you're doing as a child. These are what we call helicopter parents and bulldozer parents. What's a helicopter parent? A helicopter parent is that parent that hovers nearby. Kids are playing downstairs in the basement and mom is sitting there with her ear at the door trying to understand.

17:30 What's going on? Coming back, having a conversation with her husband, going. I don't know if she was playing with the other girls or if she was just playing adjacent to the other girls. It's like that very like it's a kid. It's going to be okay. They'll figure it out. Or there's bulldozing parents. What's bulldozing parenting? Have you ever heard that phrase before? What's bulldozing parenting? They pave the way. Chas v'shalom. My child should never experience any bumps, because what happens if my child experiences a bump? Maybe they're going to trip. And if they trip, they're going to scrape their knee. And if they scrape their knee, what's going to happen? They're going to cry. And if they cry, I can't handle that. So I need to pave the way. I need to make sure that my child is in exactly the right bunk.

18:10 I need to make sure they're exactly in the right room with exactly the right roommates. I need to make sure. And if there's a problem back in the day, I don't mean to be this guy. I know what I just sounded like. I believe I'm very aware of the beard and the age. I know what I just sounded like, but it's true. First of all, when I was in Israel for the year, we didn't have cell phones. We called our parents on dorm phones once a week. And if I would have told my mother that I was having a problem, it never would have occurred to her to reach out across the ocean and talk to people in Mevasseret about what I was going through. First of all, email had just come out. I'm confident here that no one has a Hotmail email address. I had a Hotmail email address. That was like a big new thing that just came out was Hotmail. Nobody had email. My mother would never have emailed the Rosh Yeshiva, the Menahel, the office. I just want to check in and see what's going on. My son told me X. I'll tell you a real story. You can't make this up.

19:07 During COVID Shouldn't tell this story. That means I'm going to tell it. Don't worry. I'm just recognizing that I shouldn't. During COVID, I got a furious phone call from a mother. You're a liar. I said, Wow. That really hurts my feelings. I am a lot of things, but I am not a liar. What did I lie about? When we were at the parents' night for Mevasserah last February That you serve fruit every single day in yeshiva. I said we do. We don't eat it, but we do. You know I don't. You know what I mean. But like, although, yeah. Nachas. So we serve fruit every day in shiur. I know what you're talking about. She said, 'Well, my son told me that he had a delicious apple today, and it was the first time that he's had fruit all year long.' Now, I just want you to understand the circumstances. COVID had just broken out in the yeshiva.

20:06 Three boys tested positive for COVID, but I don't know if you remember those times. You were little. What were you like? Seventh grade when COVID hit? So you were little. You probably don't remember this, but if one person got COVID, everybody else had to go into quarantine. Imagine if you had a yeshiva, and now three boys in the yeshiva got COVID. Now 50 boys had to go into quarantine. We had to separate the entire yeshiva: 50 boys in this dorm, 50 boys in a different dorm. We're running the yeshiva on Zoom and in person at the same time, and things are crazy. This mother is calling me saying her son just had fruit for the first time all year, and she's accusing me that we don't have fruit in the yeshiva. I said, I'm not sure what you're talking about. But I'm going to find out. I kid you not, I dressed up in a hazmat suit. You know what a hazmat suit is? Like the nuclear. It wasn't like I didn't put on a mask. I dressed in a hazmat suit and walked into a COVID-filled dorm.

21:00 I went into this boy's room. The boy is sitting there. I walk in. He's like, 'Rebbe, what are you doing here?' I sat down on the bed across from him. And I said, 'Your mother just called me. She's very upset. She told me that you had a delicious apple today.' He goes, 'Yeah, it was really good. Rabbi, why are you in here?' I was like "Your mother thinks it's the first piece of fruit that you've had all year." He said, "Yeah, I don't really generally eat fruit that much. This was like a really good-looking apple. I had it. It was a delicious apple." I said, "Your mother is under the impression that we don't serve fruit because this is the first time you've eaten fruit all year." He said, "It's probably the first time I eat fruit all year, but there's fruit every day by lunch. What are you talking about?" I said, "No, I know that, but your mother is furious because she thinks that there's no fruit in yeshiva. Can you do me a favor? Can you please tell your mother that there's fruit every single day in yeshiva, and you are choosing not to partake of the delicious apples of Eretz Israel.

21:53 And you see the boy go. She really called you. She, like, yet, like he wasn't dying of COVID, he was dying of shame. Talking about He was like, she really called you about this. I'm like, yeah. He's like, I can't be six thousand miles away. I can't cut the umbilical cord. She has to make sure that he's. If he says, I'm eating a delicious apple, she's, how come this is the first fruit you're eating? It's like imagine if you came back from seminary and your mother's like, you have to go on a diet. It's not so nice. Let people. That was a very specific comment. For those of you that didn't understand it, that was a very specific comment. I'm just saying. The idea here is You need to make sure everything is okay. That has nothing to do with your child. Why are you doing that? It's because you don't know how to separate your identity from the child's identity, and that's not a healthy way of being.

22:41 So on the one hand, we have to have absolute undying loyalty, unconditional love for our children. On the other hand, what do we need? To be a healthy parent, what do we need to teach our children? You are you, and I am me. This is a process. Give me one second. Let me cook for one more minute, and then I'll get to you. It's time. We're back. We got to get back into it. Thank you. When we can't soothe our children, and they learn to soothe themselves, that process is called the process of individuation. The child needs to learn I'm an individual separate from my mother. This is a very delicate process, and you have to thread this needle very carefully because if you separate from the child too much, what do we call that? It's called trauma. And if you separate too slowly, the child's like, 'I'm enmeshed, I'm codependent, I never actually established my own identity.' So as a parent, you have to learn how to pull back at the appropriate times. Helicopter parents, bulldozing parents, keep that child in mesh, keeping that child codependent. Healthy separation, slowly and in the right time. You can't parent an eight-year-old like you parent a ten-year-old, and you can't parent a ten-year-old like you parent a fifteen-year-old.

23:59 Does that make sense? So I wanted to ask you about the other extremes, like not the one where you're a helicopter parent, but the one checked out parenting. What does that teach the child? Very good. Very independent. But it's not actually independent. What does it teach the child? Teaches the child how to rely on others. Because as a parent, you have to thread the needle. Because if I'm holding your hand at 15 years old because you can't cross the street by yourself Then there's no individuation. But if I'm letting you cross the street at three, what am I teaching you? You can't rely on the adults in your life to take care of you in an appropriate way. So it's really threading that needle between what we want to build people to be, what's called interdependent. We're going to get to that in a minute. I don't want you to be dependent on me, but I do want you to be dependent on me. I want you to be independent, but not totally independent. So you have to thread the needle very carefully in order to create healthy interdependence, which is what we're going to get to in a minute.

25:01 So far, so good. Does that make sense? How many people are still with me? Show hands. Not too shabby. Show hands if you're from. The Robertson's New Seminary. I just want to know who you are. Amazing. Welcome. It's so good to have you here. I hope we get to have you here every week. You're back and forth all over. Like halfway up, halfway down. Halfway up, halfway down. Right. You, we're threading the needle with you. So What's the goal? So the goal is like this. What we want to create in healthy adults is called differentiated connection. Should I write that down on the board? Here's where I need your feedback. You need to not look at me like this. You can look at me like this and go And then I don't know what's in your head. Or you could say, write it down. Or you can go, no, we're good. We know how to hear the words differentiated connection and write them down. Can you write it? I'm happy to write it down. So differentiated connection.

25:57 You'll have to remember those words that I just erased. Differentiated connection. What does differentiated connection mean? Differentiated connection means as follows: A mother needs to teach her child to be separate from her. Because that's what makes a real relationship possible. Say it again: A mother needs to teach her child to be separate from her. Because that's what makes a real relationship possible. Without separation, there is no other. And in order to be a relationship, what do you need? By definition, in order to be a relationship, what do you need? You need to have two people that are separate and other from each other. Does that make sense? Is a child in Healthy adult relationship with their mother when they're newborns. The answer is no, of course not. Why? Because from the perspective of the mother, from the perspective of the child, how many people are there?

27:14 There's only mommy. There's me and mommy, and never the twain shall meet. We are two. We're not two people. We're absolutely one. So in order to participate in a real relationship, what do you need to do as a parent? You need to be able to step back enough to be able for the child to see themselves as differentiated, and from that space of differentiation, what now occurs. Healthy connection. That's what we're looking for. Why is it that a mother is meant to bond fully, and at the same time, not to define herself in a way that makes separation impossible? So here's where we get a little bit hashkafic, a little bit Hasidic about this. There's two types of oneness. The first type of oneness is what we call pre-differentiated. The second type of oneness is called post-differentiated. Here's what it looks like. Before a mother and a child have this differentiated connection, would you call them one?

28:18 I would call them fused. I would not call them one. You hear the difference? They're two beings that are absolutely fused together. But they're not united. They're not truly one. What does it require to become true oneness? True oneness involves separation. Here's a good way of thinking about it. Adam and Chava, when they were born, how were they born? Anyone know? From her own. No. That's how she was born. How were they born originally? No. That's how. That's what they were born from. They were born. You ready for this? Fused back to back. Adam and Chava were actually one being. She faced this way, he faced that way. That's what Chazal say. Hakadosh Baruch Hu separated them. And then what happened? He told them, "V'hayu lebasar echad." Now you should become one. What's the obvious question? The obvious question is They were one. Why would you separate them in order to become one? What's the answer? They were not one. They were fused.

29:20 To be one, to be in a healthy relationship, is two independent, totally separate beings choosing to be one with each other. Our definition of oneness in Judaism is very different than the definition of oneness in the rest of the world. Our definition of oneness is I'm me and you are you, and we can unite deeply. Why? Because we have a shared soul. So we can draw. That's what intimacy means. Intimacy is not a physical act. The physical act comes after the true intimacy. Intimacy is when two people establish oneness with each other. That's why physical intimacy without true intimacy is inappropriate. Physical intimacy should be an expression of our true intimacy, our true oneness. Two separate individuals choosing to be one with each other—that's what real unity looks like. Another way of thinking about this is: what was the relationship between your neshama and Hashem before you were born?

30:20 So think, slow. Because it's easy to just say, "What do you mean?" It was perfect. Was that? But correct. Let's think about that deeply. You're right. Let's think about that deeply now. Why? Because as long as the neshama is absolutely aware of its source, does it really have an independent identity? No. As long as a ray of the sun knows that it's a ray of the sun, what's its relationship to the sun? The relationship between the ray of the sun and the sun is the ray of the sun says I am the sun. I know I'm the sun. There is no difference between me and the sun. So therefore, the ray of the sun doesn't have any real identity of its own. What happens when you put a neshama in a body, and now all of a sudden that neshama has free choice? You might say to yourself, the neshama has moved far from Hashem, but it's not true. By putting a neshama in a body, and now the neshama, in a certain sense, feels like it has its own independent identity. What opportunity is now available to the neshama? The opportunity is now to participate in a real relationship with Hashem.

31:23 Sometimes moving away is actually a way of drawing close, because as you move away and you become your true individualized identity, you're differentiated from the other. What does that give you? The ability to be not just fused, but truly united with another. You ready for going a little bit deeper now? You ready? Yeah. Before we go a little bit deeper, I just want to tell you I like cooking videos. This is not random. I'm not just saying this because I have Tourette's. I didn't just say this like a random thing. I like cooking videos where it teaches you something. I don't need you to tell me a recipe. I don't need to watch online, but I like to see a cooking video every once in a while. I like to see something I didn't know before. I saw a video. I had this conversation with my wife just the other day.

32:11 Cooking. Chicken thighs Chicken with skin on it in a non-stick pan. In a non-stick pan, it's an unbelievable muddle for cooking chicken thighs with skin on in a non-stick pan. Do you know how you're supposed to do it? I didn't know this. You put because normally I think most Jews probably what do we do? We just put like chicken in the like in a tin and we just put it in the oven, right? Because we're making food for Shabbos and we really have time to do this like fancy shmancy stuff. But if you have, I'm sure the chef here does it, right? You have your non-stick pan. You put your chicken thighs right down on the pan, skin side down. When do you flip the chicken? How do you know when to flip the chicken? So here's the amazing part. You ready for it? The amazing part is You flip the chicken when you're holding the handle of the pan.

32:59 And you just give it a little shake, and it's naturally unstuck. If you try to flip the chicken before the chicken naturally unsticks from the pan, the chicken skin falls off, rips, gets stuck on the bottom of the pan. What happens if you wait? Now it requires a lot of patience because in your mind, what are you doing when you're sitting there and you've got the chicken on the pan? And the chicken skin is down. What are you thinking to yourself? I want to see how it's going. So you have this almost like ADHD moment where you're like, I gotta flip the chicken, I gotta flip the chicken, I gotta see how it's going, gotta see how it's going. What do you need to do? You need to be patient, exceptionally patient. And then eventually, what happens? The chicken unsticks by itself, and now all that flavor from the chicken skin is called fond. All that fond from the chicken skin with all that spices It's delicious. And now what do you do? You deglaze the bottom of the pan, and that becomes this delicious sauce that you make for chicken. For those of you that didn't know, here in Berahamirim, we don't just learn Torah. We don't just learn psychology. We even try to teach you how to cook, so you can eat healthy. The same. It's an amazing muscle. I was talking to my wife about this. It's an amazing muscle for parenting.

34:12 A child who receives everything they need from their parent naturally unsticks from their parent. Like the chicken in the pan. We tend to think if I give my child too much, what's going to happen? They're going to be totally dependent on me. It's not true. If I give my child my absolute love, but here's the thing, in an appropriate way with differentiated connection, the more I pour into them, the more likely it is that they're going to be able to leave. Does that make sense? One way of thinking about this is: How many of you here showed your hands and went to sleepaway camp? Me, I did. Say there. You, everybody else also. With me? Good. Thank you. Do you remember those girls that were absolutely broken for the first couple of days of camp? And do you remember the ones that seemed to be okay?

35:20 The way that we do this, the way that we understand this Is it totally normal, totally appropriate for a child to be homesick. I'm not Chassid Shalom saying it's not normal or appropriate. It is, but I want to tell you a secret. The kids that go off to camp and they're okay. I'm talking about the ones that are actually okay, not just pretending to be okay. You know why they're okay? Because they have so much love at home, they're able to leave and adjust in camp. They have enough grit. They have enough resilience to be able to leave their home and know that they're okay. They're unstuck. The chicken pan gave them everything they needed. The skin naturally comes off. It's a perfect masher. You love it. I love it.

36:02 The reason, if I've got it, and again, it doesn't mean I'm not Chassidish. I'm saying, but if you had a hard time in the beginning of the year, it means that you didn't get enough love from your parents. It's totally normal, totally natural to have a hard time, especially in a big adjustment. I came six thousand miles away from my parents. I'm in a totally new environment. I've never been in an environment like this before. Why are some kids okay and some kids are really not okay? The answer is: The more love that we give our children, the more filled up they are. They've gotten what they need, and now what are they capable of doing? They're capable of leaving, and as parents, that's what we're meant to do. We're meant to raise children that are capable of leaving. Let's think about the way the Torah tells us about marriage. How does the Torah introduce marriage? Bereishis chapter two, verse twenty-four. It's interesting the way the Torah tells us about marriage. You have to leave your mother and your father's house and find a wife and become one with her. Why does it phrase it that way? Why does the Torah tell us you have to leave your parents to find a wife to become one with her? It's when I parent my child correctly and I'm a good enough parent with healthy, differentiated connection, but I give my everything to this child. What happens?

37:18 So what happens is that the child now naturally unsticks. I'm able to leave my parent and then what happens? I'm able to find a wife and become one with her. Let's finish up this year because we have only a couple minutes left, and then I'll take your questions privately afterwards. Let's go back to the moment of childbirth. A mother has just given birth to a child. She has to bring a carbon at the end of her purification process. She has in front of her a pigeon. Right or a turtle dove. She has two models of attachment. The model of the turtle dove is absolute. My identity is so wrapped up in the other that if my mate dies, I will never repair. The pigeon is able to find somebody else. What does the Torah tell us? Which model is the preferred parenting model? If I have the choice between bringing a pigeon or a turtle dove, between bringing a Torah and a benyona, which one should I bring? I should bring the benyona. I should bring the pigeon. Why? Because the pigeon's identity is not wrapped up in its partner, and that's why it's able to leave. It's able to find somebody else.

38:29 The perfect model for parenting is not the turtle dove model. That's beautiful. Absolute loyalty is a stunning thing, but the Torah says we have to be very careful here. As the mother is about to embark on the process of being a parent, what does she need to say? The job here is to create differentiated connection, healthy separation, to give this child so much that they're able to leave and be their own person, that they're not wrapped. It's like the end of visiting day trauma. I think I must have done the worst avera in my life. I know this is going to sound funny. I've done many averas in my life. I think the worst avera that I did was the summer after fifth grade when I was in Camp Magen Av. My mother was going to Israel to visit her best friend who had made Aliyah. It was a very exciting trip. She was going to fly to Israel. Then it was not the same as flying to Israel now. It wasn't like you did it all the time. And she was flying probably through some country. My parents weren't able to come for visiting day because my mother was going to be flying. They made up with the camp; they were going to come a week early. My parents came to camp a week early, and they gave me postcards to write to my mother and mail them from camp.

39:47 That they would get to Israel by the time my mother got there, and my mother would be able to get a letter from me in Israel. My parents went to leave at the end of the day. At the end of visiting day, I was holding on to them, saying, "Don't go! Why are you leaving me? I hate this place." By the way, I loved camp. I hate this place. Take me with you. My parents left. I wrote the nastiest postcard to my mother. I hate you. How could you leave me here? I wrote it that night, and I gave it in. I put it in an envelope. My counselors didn't read it; they sent it. My mother arrived in Israel. There's a letter there. She's so excited to get a letter from her mother, from her son in camp. She opens it up. I hate you. You're the worst mother ever. How could you leave me on visiting day? Probably the worst avair I've ever done, Mom. If you're listening to this year, I ask you mechila again. Worst avair I've ever done. Why do we have visiting day? Is the worst, right?

40:43 Your parents come, and it's like. You're having an awesome time in camp. You were there for two weeks. Did you really need your parents to come visit you after two weeks? Did you need them to schlepp to the mountains for hours to sit in that terrible traffic? By the time your father gets there, he's like a broken human being because he sat in not just any traffic. He sat in Jewish traffic for hours. Really, people playing Jewish geography with their car windows down as they're driving. You're from Brooklyn. Where do you live? You're in traffic. Nobody needs to know. And then, you have to do the post-visiting day, like in school the next morning, talking to the other people. How long did it take you to get back? Seven hours. Never again. It's like the worst thing ever. And on the way there, all the dads are planning, how soon can we leave to beat visiting day traffic? You have those parents who like come up the night before so they can leave at 10 o'clock in the morning, so they can get back for two hours and then not spend visiting day with their children. It'd be better if they didn't have visiting day, then parents could go around Brooklyn or Montzie or Lakewood and just go.

41:42 It was amazing. I didn't sit in traffic at all yesterday. The kids don't need it. Why is it that we're having an awesome time in camp and then our parents come and we melt? The answer is because we're in the process of discovering our own identity. We're in the process of learning individuation. We're in the process of learning. I don't need mommy in order to survive. That isn't avodah for the child. It's just as much, if not more, of an avodah for the parent. So the Torah teaches us. Here at the beginning of a mother becoming a mother, what does she need to learn? A mother needs to be okay and enough for herself to allow her child to fail, to fall, so that the child can recover and learn that they are capable of being their own separate person. Girls have a beautiful Shabbos.