Rabbi Peretz Chen | How do I speak eye-to-eye with a frustrated child?

00:00 Think for a moment of someone who understood you: a teacher, a parent, a coworker, your husband or wife, your rabbi. How did it feel when you sensed that they understood you? You probably felt that it eased the difficulty, that things weren’t quite so bleak, that you had the strength to cope. And all because they listened, made room for what you were feeling, and showed empathy. In today’s class, we’ll talk about how to bring this wonderful thing into our homes. We’ll also see how prominent figures among the Jewish people used this approach to draw Jews close, embrace them, and have an influence on them. And we’ll go deeper and see that this is the way Hakadosh Boruch Hu runs the world, and what a wonderful thing comes from acting in precisely this way. Today’s class is dedicated to the elevation of the soul of Yehuda HaKohen, son of Lena and Rafael, who passed away on 1 Menachem Av a year ago. He was a social worker, a very, very dear and beloved young man, and what we’ll discuss today was his life’s work. This was the approach he used to touch people’s lives. Last week, a friend told me something—a close friend, a dear friend, a Jew I very much love listening to. Over the past two years, he has grown much closer to Judaism, to keeping Shabbos and observing mitzvos. He’s taken truly beautiful, significant steps forward. Last week, during a late-night conversation we had, he told me, “Look, in the past I’d come home and my little daughter would be crying. Why was she crying? Because children sometimes cry, and it seems to us that they’re crying for no reason. I would immediately get angry with her. ‘Why are you crying? Grow up. Be a big girl. What’s all this crying for no reason? Stop crying all the time.’ And I would

02:18 put an end to it very quickly, by methods that may or may not be acceptable, but that was how it ended. Today, after making progress spiritually and beginning to think about the meaning of life, my relationships at home with my children have improved too. Nowadays, when my daughter cries, the first thing I do is kneel down so my eyes are level with hers—so I’m at eye level with her. Then I ask her, ‘Why are you crying? What happened? What do you want?’ She’s crying so hard that she can’t get the words out. I tell her, ‘Come on, calm down. Daddy’s here with you. What do you want?’ Little by little she calms down, and I’m able to hear what it is she actually wants. At that point we’ve already solved fifty percent of the problem. Sometimes she asks for something I can give her, and sometimes it’s something I can’t. But she’s already calmed down, and we’ve started talking. Most importantly, she already feels that I’m with her, at her eye level—not some big, grown-up, intimidating father looking down at her. I’m right there at her eye level. And that changes the whole picture.” He told me how moved his wife is by the change in him. In New York, near the Rebbe’s beis midrash, there’s a museum called the Children’s Museum. I’ve never been there, but I was told about one of the things they’ve done there. They have a room with ordinary household items—a table, a chair, and other things you’d find at home—but made very, very large. When we walk through it, we’re at the height of the table legs. What is that exhibit meant to show? It’s meant to show adults how

04:20 children see the world. When our little child walks through the living room at home, what does he see? He doesn’t see what’s on the table. It depends on his age, of course, but he doesn’t see what’s on the table. He sees the legs, the underside of the table, the scribbles underneath it. That’s what he sees. Children’s view of the world is different from ours. That exhibit tries to show visitors that children see the world differently, from a different perspective, and that we therefore need to relate to them differently. We need to understand that the way I see something as an adult is different from the way they see it. So if I come and shout at a child, “Why are you crying? Grow up!”—what do you mean, grow up? He isn’t grown up. “What are you, a little kid?” Yes, he is a little kid. We need to see things from their point of view. A child shouts, cries, acts wild. Something is bothering him. Instead of confronting him head-on and getting upset—“How much more of his crying can I listen to all day?”—just let him feel that we’re with him, that we sense what he or she is feeling. And as that friend told me, physically come down to their eye level rather than looking down from above. “What’s wrong? What happened?” Identify with their difficulty, let them sense that we feel what they’re feeling. That approach already solves fifty percent of the problem. Afterward, we can understand what they want and how to resolve it. But let them feel that we’re with them. It may take a few more minutes, but it’s a much more effective solution, and much more effective in the long run. It gives children a strong inner sense that their parents are with them, that they’re not alone. That gives them a great deal of self-confidence. The Rebbe related a story about the second Rebbe

06:30 of Chabad, the Mitteler Rebbe. Jews would come to him with all sorts of problems and challenges in life, and to ask how to do teshuvah for various sins they had committed. When a Jew came to the Mitteler Rebbe and told him about the transgressions and sins he had committed, the Mitteler Rebbe would try to get inside his head, to understand him and feel what he was going through. So much so that once, a young man came to the Mitteler Rebbe and told him that he had committed transgressions—sins of his youth, improper things he had done as a young man. The Mitteler Rebbe told him, “You should know that my skin shriveled because of the sins of your youth.” It seems that the Mitteler Rebbe was saying that he had developed some physical condition on his skin, some sort of illness or sore, because of that young man’s transgressions. In other words, the Mitteler Rebbe knew that to help another person, to help him move forward and find a solution, I first have to enter his world, come down to his level, and try to feel and understand what he’s going through. Then I can find a solution for him. If I look down at him from above, I won’t truly be able to connect with him or truly help him move forward. There’s also an amazing story told in Sefer Hazichronos. Sefer Hazichronos is a book about the period before the Baal Shem Tov, that remarkable time in the history of the Jewish people, more than three hundred years ago. It’s a very beautiful book in two volumes, called Sefer Hazichronos. It’s worth reading—truly fascinating and beautiful. It tells of a Jew named Boruch Lipa. Boruch Lipa was an outstanding Torah scholar. He sat and learned Torah, devoting himself entirely to his studies. In due course, Boruch Lipa married the daughter of a very, very wealthy Jew, and that

08:44 Baruch Lipa’s father-in-law, that wealthy Jew, told his son-in-law, “You sit and study Torah. I’ll support your family. Rely on me. You study Torah, and I’ll provide everything you need.” And that is what happened. For five or six years, Baruch Lipa sat and studied Torah, delving into it from morning to night. When the years stipulated in their agreement came to an end, his father-in-law said, “Keep going. You’re good at studying Torah, so continue your studies and keep advancing. Become the rabbi of a community; I’ll help you with whatever you need.” But Baruch Lipa decided he wanted to go into business, and that is what he did. He went into business and began working for various landowners. This was an era of landowners—men who controlled and oversaw their own estates. Baruch Lipa provided them with various services, and little by little, their way of life began to appeal to him. Baruch Lipa, a learned Jew whose whole life had been Torah, gradually began to behave and live like a non-Jewish landowner. At first, he established a beis midrash on his estate. There was a shul there, with three daily prayers and Torah classes, and he himself would visit constantly and study Torah. But little by little, the shul closed, the beis midrash closed, and Baruch Lipa no longer went near those places. He lived just like the non-Jews, like the landowners. Of course, this broke his father-in-law’s heart. He did not know what to do when his son-in-law behaved this way. The head of the yeshiva where Baruch Lipa had studied in his youth decided that this could not go on, and he traveled to Baruch Lipa to try to bring him back to Torah observance,

10:52 taking a group of students with him so he would have a minyan for prayers, since there were no longer any services in Baruch Lipa’s shul. The place had become deserted. He stayed there for several days, but it was as if Baruch Lipa’s heart was sealed shut. Whatever his former rosh yeshiva said to him, he would not listen, take it in, or accept it. He only showed his rosh yeshiva all the splendor around him and his vast properties. “Look what I have! Look how well I’m doing!” The rosh yeshiva went home bitter and frustrated that he had not managed to bring his beloved student back. The years passed, and the one thing the rosh yeshiva did was recite Tehillim every day before Minchah, praying that his student would return. Then one day, Baruch Lipa walked into the rosh yeshiva’s shul. His face was different, his whole appearance had changed: he came in as a baal teshuvah. The rosh yeshiva could not understand what had happened. What had caused Baruch Lipa, who had lived like a non-Jewish landowner and committed every sin imaginable, to return? It turned out that at that time, Rabbi Yisroel the Baal Shem Tov was alive. The Baal Shem Tov had a student named Rabbi Azriel, and he told him, “Your task is to bring Baruch Lipa back.” So Rabbi Azriel, the Baal Shem Tov’s student, traveled to Baruch Lipa’s estate. He understood that simply approaching him and saying, “Come back,” would not work. What did he do? He hired himself out as a worker there. But he stood out: all the other workers were non-Jews, and here was a Jew with a beard and a different kind of head covering, working away, sawing and doing his job properly. And Baruch

12:47 Lipa noticed this Jew, who even looked like a Torah scholar, working there. After all, Baruch Lipa himself had once been like that. Little by little, a conversation began between them. They talked about this and that, and their conversations grew deeper. In those deep conversations, Baruch Lipa began telling Rabbi Azriel all his heretical theories. What did Rabbi Azriel do? Instead of saying, “What are you talking about? That’s nonsense! It’s heresy! What you’re saying is wrong,” he listened and listened. He even showed interest in what Baruch Lipa was saying: “Wow, what you’re saying is remarkable. Interesting, fascinating. You know, I hadn’t thought of that.” Baruch Lipa began to feel that here was someone who understood him, who felt what he felt, who saw the world the way he did. He began to feel emotionally close to Rabbi Azriel. But after every long conversation in which Rabbi Azriel showed so much empathy toward Baruch Lipa’s mistaken views, Rabbi Azriel would suddenly change direction at the end and say, “But consider this…” He would present things differently, as they truly were. Baruch Lipa was ready to listen. Because Rabbi Azriel had given him so much attention, understanding, and acceptance—had made him feel, “I’m with you”—Baruch Lipa was open to hearing him even when he said something different. And so, after one conversation and another and another, Baruch Lipa gradually realized that he had been mistaken, and he became a true baal teshuvah. And all thanks to what? To the fact that Rabbi Azriel did not say, “You heretic! How can you talk like that? You’re talking nonsense. Your views are false. You should be ashamed of yourself—look what you’ve become!” Instead, he listened to him. He heard him. He did not agree, but he listened and listened and listened. He truly listened.

14:56 Baruch Lipa felt, “Someone here understands me. Someone feels what I’m feeling.” An emotional, inner, deep bond also developed between them. In the end, that made him open to hearing the truth from Rabbi Azriel, and he returned. Because that is the way: to listen to the other person, to sense what they feel, to give children the feeling that “We understand you. We’re with you in this.” So many Jews who visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe, whether for a brief encounter of a few minutes when the Rebbe distributed dollars or for a longer meeting in the Rebbe’s room, what is called yechidus, all of them tell the same story. They felt that when the Rebbe spoke with them, his holy eyes were fixed on them. There was no world, no one else around, no other matters waiting afterward. There was only me, facing the Rebbe. That is how they all describe what they felt. They felt the Rebbe understood them, because that is truly how the Rebbe was. When he spoke with a Jew, he was completely focused on that Jew. And everyone left the Rebbe with the feeling, “Someone loves me. Someone senses what I’m feeling. Someone feels my trouble. It isn’t only my trouble; it’s his trouble too.” That made people want to move forward, to change, to do good things. That is the method, that is the approach, and the same applies at home with children. Instead of immediately coming at them with swords and knives, we need to come down to their level so they can feel it. We listen. And by the way, this is good at every age—every age. Think for a moment: when children are very small, still babies, we understand that this is what we have to do. Every one of us, regardless of our standing, comes down to their level, speaks their language, plays their kinds of games, and makes funny sounds for them. Because when they are very small, we understand that we have to come down to their level; otherwise, there would be no conversation at all. But when they get older, suddenly it seems to us that they are already grown up. They see

17:12 the world the way we do, but that’s not how it is. They’re still little. They don’t understand the world the way we do; they don’t see things the way we do. We have to show them that we understand them: listen to them, get down on our knees, look them in the eye. What happened? What’s wrong? Is it hard for you? Is it hard? Is that really what happened? Wow, that’s really, really unpleasant. That’s a very unpleasant feeling. Oh, it hurts me so much that this happened to you. And then we can move forward. Yes, as parents we have sound instincts, and we know how to move forward—what to say, what words to use, or whether to keep letting them share. Or to ask, “So what can I do for you?” And they’ll feel that we’re with them. That’s how it works. The truth is, this is how Hakadosh Boruch Hu runs the world. After all, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is far, far above every concept we know. What does that mean? This world is made up of time and space. What is time? There’s a past, a present and a future, and there are differences between them. That’s time. I can’t go back into the past right now. I can’t be in the future right now. There’s also space in this world. Here isn’t the United States, and the United States isn’t Australia. This world operates in a certain way, but Hakadosh Boruch Hu is above all that. For Hakadosh Boruch Hu, past, present and future are all together. Where do we see this, for example? Yom Kippur arrives. Yom Kippur is a time of atonement for all sins. But what does that mean? A Jew committed a sin four months before Yom Kippur. How can Yom Kippur correct something that happened four months ago? When something breaks at home, you can’t turn back the clock. Broken is broken. That’s it. It will never

19:03 be what it was. How is it possible? Because on Yom Kippur, for example, this power of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—Who is above time—is revealed. And so, in this world, it becomes possible on Yom Kippur to go back into the past and change and correct it. This is true whenever a Jew does teshuvah for things he’s done wrong. The power of teshuvah is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s infinite power: to go back into the past today and change it. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is also present in the future. You can see this even with tzaddikim. Sometimes a tzaddik says something to a person, and only twenty or forty years later does that person understand what the tzaddik said and why he said it. It says that tzaddikim resemble their Creator. Certain tzaddikim could see the future in the present, because for Hakadosh Boruch Hu—and for certain exceptional tzaddikim too—the past, present and future are all together. My parents, may they live and be well, had a private meeting with the Rebbe, a yechidus. There, the Rebbe said something to them—he told a particular story. My father says he didn’t understand why the Rebbe told him that story. What was the connection? He didn’t understand. Only forty years later did my father understand exactly why the Rebbe had said it. Perhaps we’ll tell that story another time. But forty years later, he understood why the Rebbe had said something that became relevant to him only after forty years. In other words, tzaddikim see the future in the present. For Hakadosh Boruch Hu, past, present and future are all one. He is above the world, above everything we know. We also said that in our world there is space: there’s Israel, Australia, the United States—different places. I can’t be both here and there at the

20:57 same time. But we see that certain extraordinary tzaddikim, who resemble their Creator, could be in several places at once. For example, it’s told that when the holy Ohr Hachayim passed away, the Baal Shem Tov was in Russia, while the Ohr Hachayim was in the Land of Israel. The moment the Ohr Hachayim passed away, the Baal Shem Tov tore his garment, as one does when someone dies, without anyone having told him of the Ohr Hachayim’s passing. There was no WhatsApp then, no email, nothing. This was about three hundred years ago. Afterward, the Baal Shem Tov said, “I was beside the holy Ohr Hachayim when his soul departed in purity.” But how could you have been beside him? You were in Russia. Because great tzaddikim are here and there at once. For them, it’s all together, and that is certainly true of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Tzaddikim resemble their Creator; that is how it is with the Creator. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu is above all the boundaries of the world we know. He is above—above everything, above everything. And yet Hakadosh Boruch Hu relates to us and comes down to our level. When someone opens the Torah, what does he find? Stories. The Torah tells us about things that happened in the past so we can learn lessons from them. It speaks to us almost as though we were little children, through stories and parables, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu looks us in the eye at our level, at our limited level. He truly comes down to us, because that’s how you make progress, how you reach people, how you change people. If He spoke to us in a language so lofty, a language of infinity, we wouldn’t understand a thing. We wouldn’t understand at all what was wanted of us. Through the Torah, through its stories, Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes right down to our level, to our limited understanding. But the truth is, it’s explained

23:02 in Chassidus that even when Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes down to our limited level, there is tremendous depth within that seemingly simple level. What does that mean? Let’s use an example, a parable, to understand it. Suppose a father comes to his son and says, “Listen, my dear son. You have a lot of little pieces of wood here. If you don’t want them to burn, take them, bring them together and tie them together. Small pieces of wood can easily burn, but when they’re together like a thick log, they won’t burn.” When a father says that to a young son, what does the son understand? That his father is giving him advice about fires—how to prevent things from burning by making them like a thick log instead of thin kindling. But then the son grows up, and he thinks about what his father said. “Ah, I understand what Dad meant. He wanted to tell me that if my brothers and I aren’t separated but stay together, connected and united, nobody will be able to burn us. Nobody will be able to overcome us, because we’re together.” In other words, the father told his son a story, just a story that the son thought was about fires. But when the son grows up, he suddenly understands: My father gave me something profound, something meaningful for life. That’s what my father was telling me. That’s the depth the son understands after he grows up. Within all these seemingly simple Torah stories are layers upon layers upon layers of depth. And as a person grows older, grows in learning and grows in Torah, he discovers: Wow, what depth there is in the story of Creation! What depth there is in the story of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge! What depth there is in the story of the entry into the Land of Israel under Yehoshua bin Nun! What depth! When Moshiach comes, we’ll begin to understand the

25:07 The powerful depths and the messages in these stories. But at the beginning, how do we speak to children? In simple language, language they can understand and connect with, because that’s how we connect with things. If we use lofty language, it will be impossible. Still, let’s put this in perspective a little. There’s a story about the Raza, Reb Zalman Aharon. He was the brother of the fifth Chabad Rebbe, the Rebbe Rashab. Reb Zalman Aharon was a deeply thoughtful Jew, a Torah scholar and a profound thinker. When he heard about someone’s troubles, he would truly identify with him. He would enter into what the person was going through and feel it with him: “I’m completely with you.” But once—and in fact, several times—Reb Zalman Aharon himself suffered very serious losses. His merchandise burned, including warehouses of wood and soap, and it caused him great pain. He said, “When I felt what real pain was, I realized that when I had identified with someone else’s pain, I probably hadn’t truly managed to feel it. When I experienced my own personal pain, I felt that real pain was much greater than what I had felt when I identified with someone else.” When a person feels his own pain... So yes, will we really be able to feel our children’s pain completely, at exactly the level they do? Maybe not. Perhaps we can’t, because they’re the ones going through it, not us. But at least we can give them that feeling. We can try to feel it as much as we can. Let them sense that we’re with them, that we feel what they’re going through. That will give them strength and the feeling that they’re not alone. It will give them a great deal of confidence, and it will also help. It will help bring down the—

27:14 the intensity, the drama of the situation. And probably in general, when they feel they’re not alone, they’ll find it much easier to deal with whatever comes their way. Just try it the next time one of your children starts to lose it. Instead of losing it ourselves, let’s simply kneel down to their level. If it’s an older child, even a teenager, we don’t need to kneel down, but we shouldn’t immediately start giving advice or lecturing, attacking, or getting angry. Let’s listen, identify with them, and make room for what they’re feeling. Let’s show empathy. “I’m with you. I understand you. I understand you. Wow.” Maybe “I understand” isn’t quite accurate, because perhaps we don’t really understand. But we can say, “I can see this is hard for you. What can we do?” Those words will give them so much strength and will already solve fifty percent of the problem. Then we can move forward, help look for solutions, and find a solution together. Maybe not—but this is a way, a method, an approach. This is how we should work. May we see much nachas from our children—Jewish nachas, Chassidic nachas. May they be healthy and happy and, with Hashem’s help, G-d-fearing. May we walk together with them toward the Geulah, with Hashem’s help. And then, in the Geulah, as I said earlier, we will understand and see the depth and greatness of everything here in the world: all the stories of the Torah and everything the world shows us today, which Hakadosh Boruch Hu has condensed and brought down to simpler levels. May all this come with the arrival of Moshiach, very soon. Amen, so may it be. Thank you very much.