Rabbi Peretz Chen | I want to dedicate a lot of time to my kids during vacation, but it's not enough. What do I do?

00:00 We come into the vacation full of plans. We’ll take trips with the children, spend time with them, make up for all the time we haven’t had for them. We’ll study with our son and prepare him for next year. We’ll help our daughter strengthen her learning for next year. These thoughts and plans fill us with a good feeling: we’re good parents, devoted parents, simply model parents. But then vacation begins, and suddenly things come up and time slips through our fingers. What we planned doesn’t happen at all, and an unpleasant, frustrating feeling creeps in. Maybe we’re not good enough parents: we planned so much, and we’re simply, simply not doing it. So in today’s lesson, we’ll put our minds at ease and understand that we really are excellent parents. We’ll learn that, yes, we can’t accomplish everything, but even for the little we do manage to do, we deserve a huge “well done” and a hearty yasher koach. And sometimes, in the little we do manage, there’s a lot—an enormous amount—for our children. Today we’ll see how great figures of the Jewish people believed that even a small thing can have tremendous power. We’ll also see that, with Hashem’s help, what brings the Geulah may sometimes be one small action. So today we’ll learn about the power of a single action. Because this lesson is so relevant to us as parents, I’m sure you also have something to say, something to add. I’d really love for you to comment and tell me what you think. Share your good advice and tips, each of you from your own experience. So let’s get started. First, let’s put things a little into perspective. Children are unpredictable.

02:20 Sometimes something seems to us like it will be wonderful and will really make them happy, and it turns out not quite so. And sometimes there are things we think they won’t enjoy all that much, but those turn out to be what makes it so much fun for them. Yesterday I was out of town, and my wife said to me, “Buy falafel for all the children. They’ll be happy, because the children like eating falafel.” So I said, “Okay, I agree. I’ll buy falafel.” I bought it, and it actually cost a lot—a whole lot. I got home expecting them to be excited and happy. But suddenly one wasn’t hungry, and another had a few pickles put into her pita, so now she didn’t want to eat it. One had this issue, another had that. Some ate, but some of the portions were left to the side, uneaten. We thought it would make them happy and be a treat, but it turned out not quite so. By contrast, last week I promised my children, “Tomorrow we’re going to the beach.” Wow, were they happy. The beach is fun. Then tomorrow came, and a few things came up. Evening was already approaching, and I could see there was no way we could go to the beach as we’d intended. No, it wasn’t possible. It wasn’t going to happen. So I told them, “Dear children, I’m really sorry. We won’t go to the beach today, but instead we’ll go to the playground in the neighborhood. We have a very big, beautiful playground nearby. We’ll go there—that’s what we’ll do, because there’s no other option.” They said, “What?” They were terribly, terribly disappointed. “What? Why?” Well, that was how it was. On the way to the park, we stopped at the neighborhood grocery, bought cans of drinks and a few snacks, and went to the park. They enjoyed themselves so much that they didn’t want to go home. They said they were already looking forward to the next time we’d go there. Something that to us parents had seemed not all that exciting, not all that

04:22 interesting. What, the neighborhood park? They had such a good time there—unlike the falafel, which we thought would be a treat but wasn’t. In other words, it’s hard to know in advance exactly what children will like. Sometimes parents take them on an expensive outing to an amusement park and pay hundreds of shekels. The day goes by with hours of standing in line, line after line, in the hot sun, and the children don’t enjoy themselves all that much. But then you go to a little grove or a small forest, bring a camping stove and a few eggs, go all out and spend a hundred shekels on things—which is a lot for that kind of outing—make them shakshuka and a few other nice things, bring a ball, and the children enjoy it tremendously. So first of all, sometimes we think of doing this and that and the other for them. Our thoughts aren’t necessarily the children’s thoughts. But in general, even the little we manage to do with them during vacation—even if we manage only part of it, only a third of it—has tremendous value. Every action, even one single action, has incomparable value. There’s a story about the holy Arizal, who lived in Tzfas, the holy city, the city of the Kabbalists. Every Friday evening, the Arizal would go out to the fields with his students to welcome the Shabbos Queen. One Friday evening, the holy Arizal said to his students, “Perhaps we should go welcome Shabbos in Jerusalem.” Now, what does “in Jerusalem” mean? Shabbos is only minutes away, and they’re in Tzfas. Today it takes about two hours to drive from Tzfas to Jerusalem. So how exactly would they get to Jerusalem to welcome Shabbos? But that’s what the holy Arizal said. One student, though, said he needed to go home and check whether that would work for him. The Arizal said, “All right, we’re staying in Tzfas.” It turned out that if they had gone to Jerusalem to welcome Shabbos, Moshiach would have come. In other

06:34 words, we missed Moshiach’s arrival then. But why? Because of a walk to Jerusalem? Apparently it was an especially auspicious time, and if they had gone to Jerusalem then, Moshiach simply would have come. In other words, sometimes one deed, one action, has such power that it can even bring the Geulah. That is the power of one action, of one deed. We know that recently in Israel there was a major debate—one that resurfaces from time to time—about putting on tefillin. Chabad chassidim go out to public centers throughout Israel and around the world to help Jews put on tefillin, and there are always people who speak out against it and interfere with them. It’s something that keeps happening. Usually, these incidents only strengthen the tefillin campaign afterward. The story began in 1967, on the eve of the Six-Day War. The Jewish people in the Land of Israel were worried, deeply concerned. Arab armies surrounded us and, G-d forbid, wanted to harm us. On Shabbos Parshas Bamidbar, the Shabbos on which the month of Sivan was blessed, the Rebbe held a farbrengen with the chassidim in his beis midrash at 770. There, the Rebbe told the chassidim that they needed to go out and help as many Jews as possible put on tefillin—civilians in general, and soldiers in particular. The Gemara says that putting on tefillin lengthens a person’s life. In Menoras Hamaor by Rabbi Yitzchak Aboab, it says—and the Rebbe quoted this—that someone who puts on tefillin is saved from three hundred punishments. It says there that, G-d forbid, failing to put them on for one day brings three hundred punishments. The Rebbe once spoke about this, quoting it and saying, “When you give a Jew the opportunity to put on tefillin, putting on tefillin removes all those punishments from him. It’s a merit for him.” The Rebbe spoke about this before the Six-Day War: the Gemara says that when a Jew puts on

08:49 Tefillin—the tefillin instill fear in enemies: “All the peoples of the earth will see that Hashem’s name is called upon you, and they will fear you.” The Gemara explains that when a Jew puts on the head tefillin, it strikes fear into the enemy. The Rebbe spoke about this with great enthusiasm, and the chassidim went out to every place where soldiers were gathered. They went throughout the country and helped as many Jews as possible put on tefillin. And that continues to this day. Some years later, the Rebbe said that those tefillin had saved many, many Jews. The tefillin that Jews put on saved many Jews’ lives, and this continues to this day. But when it first began, some people came with complaints—because whenever something holy begins, people immediately try to harm it, to interfere with it. They said, “What good does it do? A Jew puts on tefillin once. What difference can one time make?” At first the Rebbe did not address these objections. But about half a year later, after other objections had also been raised, the Rebbe addressed them. He said that, first of all, when a Jew puts on tefillin even once, it opens the gate to the World to Come for him. Someone who never puts on tefillin has a problem reaching the World to Come, Hashem protect us. So we have already helped that Jew. The Rebbe quoted what I mentioned earlier from Rabbi Yitzchak Abuhav: the tefillin a Jew puts on save him from all kinds of negative things. The Rebbe said that the goal is certainly not for him to put them on only once, but to put them on again and again. Chabad chassidim should keep going out and helping people put them on. Hopefully, he will then continue putting them on himself. But that one time opens something up inside him. It moves him forward, because one time matters. One good deed, one positive act, has power.

10:34 That is why we go out with the children during vacation. We will not manage to do a lot; we will manage a few outings, whatever we can. Every time has value. Speaking of tefillin, I want to share a story. When I studied at the Rebbe’s beis midrash, 770, in New York for a little over a year, all of us students would go out every Friday across New York to help Jews put on tefillin. A friend and I would go to a street in Brooklyn, Graham Avenue, and visit the stores, offering the owners—most of whom were Jewish—the opportunity to put on tefillin. There was one electronics store whose owner was originally from Israel. He was a somewhat embittered man. Once, when I offered him tefillin, he got so angry that he started shouting at me. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You’re offering me tefillin? I was putting on tefillin before you were! Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t put on tefillin!” He kept shouting, and I left his store embarrassed and humiliated. I decided I would keep visiting the store, but I would not offer him tefillin. I would simply give him a copy of Sichat HaShavua, the weekly parsha leaflet, and wish him a good Shabbos. And that is what I did. Some time later, as Pesach approached, we went around the street giving the store owners packages of shemurah matzah for the Seder. When we brought him the matzah, he seemed to be in a calmer mood and started talking with us. He told us a story, and we understood why he was so bitter and irritable. One of his children, he told us, had left a Jewish school and gone to a non-Jewish school, Hashem protect us. He had deteriorated spiritually, morally and as a person, and was ruining his life. So we understood why the man was so embittered. But some time later,

12:34 I came into his store with Sichat HaShavua and wished him a good Shabbos. I saw a tall man with curly hair there. At first I thought he might not be Jewish, but on second thought I approached him and said, “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” “Yes, I am Jewish.” “Would you like to put on tefillin?” He said he did not want to. He told me he was the owner’s son. It turned out he was not the son who was causing his father trouble, but another of his sons. He did not want to put on tefillin and even seemed taken aback [?] by the question—as if to say, “What do I have to do with tefillin?” He refused, and the following week he refused again. Fine. Two weeks later, we came on Friday and I offered him tefillin. We did not dare ask his father, but we did allow ourselves to ask the son. He said to me, “You know what? I want to put on tefillin—but not for myself.” I asked, “For whom?” He told me he had a female friend who had passed away, may it never happen to us, and he wanted to put on tefillin for her because he had dreamed about her the night before. He did not really know the words “for the elevation of her soul”; he just said it was for her. I told him, “Excellent. Put them on for her.” So he put on tefillin. The following week he did not want to put them on. Two weeks later he said he would put them on again for that friend. “Excellent,” I said, “put on tefillin.” And the week after that, he was willing to put them on. Gradually we became friends. We would come to his office on the second floor of the store, where he handled

14:07 all the accounts. He would put everything aside, even end a phone call. As soon as my friend and I arrived, he would say, “Come in.” He would put on tefillin and always bring us bottles of cold drinks. On the last Friday we visited him, before returning to Israel when we had completed our studies there, he said, “I have a surprise for you.” He told me he had ordered a new pair of tefillin. “I’m going to start putting on tefillin every day,” he said, “and it’s thanks to you.” I was so happy. My friend and I were, of course, both delighted by the change that had taken place in him. We saw the power of a single act: that first time this Jew put on tefillin, when he did not want to do it for himself but did it for the elevation of his friend’s soul. It opened something inside him. It touched his soul and moved him forward spiritually, to the point that he bought tefillin and began putting them on every day. How much power does one act have? How much value does a single good deed have? We go out with our children, we take them on trips, wherever we may go. First of all, the children feel it and appreciate us. They feel that we make an effort for them and devote ourselves to them, and that builds their appreciation. But above all, we need to know that it really does have value. And we parents should feel very, very good about ourselves. We are doing all right. We are putting in the effort; we did it. We are good parents, truly exemplary parents. We should not let thoughts creep in: “How much did we manage to do? Hardly anything.” No. We are excellent parents. We are certainly investing in our children and doing things for them. Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu, the first father, had, as we know, a tent in the desert. Every passerby who came to his tent received a hearty meal in the middle of the desert. And it is told that at the end of the meal, the people would say, “Avraham”

16:15 “Avraham Avinu, thank you so much.” Avraham Avinu would tell them, “Don’t thank me. Thank the One to Whom everything really belongs. Thank the One Who spoke and the world came into being. Thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” Some thanked Hashem, and some didn’t. “Who is Hashem? We don’t know Him.” Avraham Avinu would say to those people, “Okay, you don’t want to bless Hashem? No problem. Then pay for the food.” They would say, “No problem, we’ll pay. How much?” So Avraham Avinu would calculate the cost of a meal in the desert. It’s like when you go on a hike along the Banias or the Chatzbani, and at the end of the trail there’s that pickup truck, the one people call “the robber,” selling ice pops for twenty shekels—because that’s the price in the middle of nowhere. Avraham Avinu would tell them, “You ate meat here,” and quote them a high price for meat in the desert. “You ate bread?” A high price. “Water?” A high price. When they saw the total, they said, “All right, all right, we’ll bless the One Who spoke and the world came into being.” Now someone might ask: What’s the point of those blessings? They only said them because they were forced to. That’s a good question, and there’s a wonderful explanation, but we’ll leave it for another time. What matters for our discussion is that, through these actions, through a person saying a blessing just once, Avraham Avinu established the Hebrew nation—us, the Jewish people. It says that Avraham Avinu converted the men, and Sarah his wife converted the women. They drew crowds of people after them. Some of those people who followed them and became part of the Jewish people were people who had said a blessing over food just once at Avraham Avinu’s home. That one blessing over food helped establish the Jewish people. From there arose the people of

18:09 Israel. From there, people changed. Something inside them changed, and their hearts began to follow the G-d of the world. What power does one action have? What power does one good deed, one positive deed, have? How much can it lift someone up? How much can it move someone forward? How much can it affect our children? They’ll feel the effort we put in, genuinely appreciate it, and carry it with them through the rest of the year. In chapter 27 of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe speaks about the tremendous power of even a single action. The Alter Rebbe says that sometimes a person wants to say something inappropriate—some choice bit of lashon hara—and decides not to. Or I have a bad thought in my head, a negative thought about someone or something, and I make an effort to push it out of my mind. Or a person wants to do something wrong and refrains. The Alter Rebbe says that when a person does this, takes such an action, makes such an effort, it seems small to that person. It may seem small to the people around them, too. But in the eyes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it is such a great deed that, in the words of the Zohar, “The glory of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is elevated throughout all the worlds.” The great light of Hakadosh Boruch Hu spreads through all the worlds. There are higher worlds—the worlds of Atzilus, Beriah, and Yetzirah—and these worlds receive a new light, a lofty, sublime light, because a Jew down here did something seemingly small, made a small effort, pushed away a small negative thought. Every deed and every action has tremendous power. Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev said that it is written, “Know what is above you.” A person needs to know what is above him. But he offered another reading of those words: “Know that what is above is from you.” Everything in the higher worlds comes from you. It all comes from us. It all

20:14 happens through us. Through our small actions here, wonderful things happen in the higher worlds. There are so many stories of someone who did something small—recited Tehillim, took some action—and accomplished great things in all the higher worlds. A single action has tremendous power. So when we make lots of plans for the summer break with the children and want to fit so much in, but in practice it doesn’t always work out, we need to recognize and be happy about what we did manage to do. And we need to know, as we learned from the holy Arizal, that one action can bring Moshiach. What power does one action have? As we saw from the Rebbe, it mattered to him that a Jew put on tefillin even once, because that one time has tremendous power—power beyond description. One time can lead a person to the very best places on earth. We also saw how the Alter Rebbe describes the power of one action in Tanya. We saw with Avraham Avinu how one blessing changed people and made them part of the Hebrew people, the people who believe in the G-d of the world. That is the power of one action. So we are wonderful parents—the most successful, the most capable. We are exemplary parents because of the times we did succeed. And the Geulah, too, which we all long for so deeply—may it come already, and may Tisha B’Av become, with Hashem’s help, a day of celebration and great joy. The Rambam says, and the Rebbe repeated this many times, that the Geulah will come through one small action. A person must view himself and the world, the Rambam says, as balanced: half guilty and half meritorious, like the two sides of a scale. And the Rambam says that one good action can tip the scale, can make the side of merit weigh just a little more, and then

22:23 with Hashem’s help, the Geulah will come to the world. One action can bring Moshiach. That is why the Rebbe spoke about grabbing the opportunity for one more action and then another, because every good action has the power to bring the Geulah. So in our own homes, too, in our personal Geulah with our children, that one activity, that one trip, that one outing—each one we manage to do has power. It has a profound effect on them, and it will certainly do good, help them, move them forward, and be a great success. So let’s appreciate what we do manage to do, because we really are good parents. May everyone have success. With Hashem’s help, may we merit that Moshiach come already, and may we walk with our children toward the complete Geulah. May we merit to do another good deed and another good deed that will, with Hashem’s help, tip the scale toward the Geulah. And may everyone have an enjoyable, good vacation with the children, a vacation that recharges their batteries and ours. Let’s appreciate ourselves very, very much. Let’s recognize the value of what we really are doing. Wishing you much, much success. Thank you very much.