Rabbi Peretz Chen | From a stressful, chaotic morning to the start of a calm and magical day - how do we do it?

00:00 Hello to you all. So what are your mornings like when you arrive at work? Do you arrive calm and relaxed, after a wonderful morning at home with the children? Or do you arrive exhausted after an entire battle that went on right up until you got to work? Surely each of us dreamed that, when with Hashem’s help we had children and needed to get them ready and out of the house for school in the morning, it would all be so beautiful and rosy. We’d go in and wake them: “Sweetheart, come on, get up. Say Modeh Ani, wash your hands, brush your teeth, say the morning blessings. Come have a cup of chocolate milk; come have a yogurt.” We’d get ourselves ready, and then, hand in hand, we’d walk with them to the car, walk them to school, and part with a big hug and a kiss. That’s what we dreamed. But in practice, for many, many, many of us—perhaps most of us—the morning is quite a battle. “Get up already! I’m late because of you every day. I can’t keep coming in late; it’s embarrassing. How many times can I do that? Come on, what’s going on with you? Why can’t you find your shoes every morning?” And we get dragged into arguments, frustration and anger. By the time we get the children into the car, or even just out of the house, we need to catch our breath after the struggle to get them out and pull them along. The day has barely begun, and we’re already completely drained emotionally. And never mind us—what kind of morning have our children had? How does it feel for them to start the day in such a deeply unpleasant, unwelcoming atmosphere? What kind of day will they have? So what can we do? I think, in my humble opinion, that many of us deal with this situation, with mornings like these. The question is what we can do about it. That’s what I want to discuss in this class. The truth is, in

02:22 my own home, I’ve recently been doing what I’m about to describe, and it has changed the situation very, very much for the better, boruch Hashem. We’ll get to the practical tip in a moment—what we can do to make things look completely different. But first, let’s understand just how much the morning matters, how much the start of the day matters. Sometimes in the morning we hear a melody, a good niggun, a song that makes us feel good. Then suddenly, at eight in the evening, or seven in the evening, we find ourselves humming that niggun, that song, even though we haven’t heard it once since the morning. Where did it come from just now? The things that enter us in the morning, at the start of the day, stay with us throughout the day. They sink in most deeply. The most valuable hours are the morning hours, and that’s why a melody we heard in the morning will suddenly surface later in the day. It’s no coincidence that the Rebbe spoke more than once about schools that teach both Torah subjects—Chumash, Nevi’im, Gemara and Chassidus—and secular subjects. The Rebbe said we should try to schedule the Torah subjects for the morning, when the mind is much more receptive, much more available to absorb, and things sink in most deeply. After all, it’s important to us that words of Torah, holy teachings, sink in as deeply as possible, because that’s why we came into this world, and each of us is expected to be a Jew who is G-d-fearing. So when we engage with holiness in the morning, we take in much more Torah and fear of Heaven. We’ll study the other subjects too, but we’ll give the best hours to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You can see this in everything. For example, there is a verse in the Torah that says, “The first of your dough you shall set aside as an offering of challah.” The Torah commands us to separate challah, a piece of dough, when we make a batch of dough

04:34 for challahs, for various things, for bread. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, they would bring that challah to the kohanim; today we burn it. But the Torah’s words are “the first of your dough.” The first—that means the first portion. We give the first portion to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As the Rebbe said, give the best part of your day to holiness, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In other words, what happens in the morning carries tremendous weight. We also see this more generally in the concept called girsa d’yankusa: the things we absorb in childhood, at the start of life, stay with us most strongly. That’s why it’s so important to fill the early years of a child, of a Jewish child, with as many positive, holy and valuable things as possible. Just as that quality matters at the start of life, so too, on a smaller scale, every morning is a beginning. It’s important for that beginning to be a really, really good one. So how do we actually do that? How do we make the start of the morning good? The advice is, all in all, very, very simple. As with anything, it takes a little effort to put into practice, but it will change the picture. I’m certain that for anyone who does it, it will, with Hashem’s help, change the whole situation. And the idea is to analyze things. Take a look at what my morning is like. Okay, I live here. My tasks are to take this child to preschool, that girl to daycare, these children to school, those children to the bus stop—whatever applies to each person. I also need to fit in a few things of my own; I need to get myself ready. I also go to the mikveh every morning. That takes time. Making sandwiches, say—

06:39 some people make them in the evening; if you make them in the morning, that takes time. Everything takes time. Add it all up: how long does it take? An hour? An hour and a half? These things take time. A home, a family, children—they definitely take time. Then decide: if it takes an hour and a half, what has happened until now? Everyone needs to be at their schools by eight, so we get up at six-thirty. Six-thirty gives us an hour and a half until eight. So no, we won’t get up at six-thirty. Absolutely not. We’ll try to get up at least forty-five minutes to an hour earlier, no later than that. We’ll get up earlier, and that will give us a huge cushion of time. Then we ourselves can get up before waking the children and get ready on our own. We can get up and say the morning blessings calmly, without the pressure of having to hurry because we’re already late. We’ll say the morning blessings, make ourselves something to drink—a hot drink, a cup of coffee or tea—and enjoy it calmly and peacefully, giving ourselves strength and energy. Anyone who wants to take it a step further can even use that time for a short bit of personal learning, a little morning Chassidus to set up a successful morning and day. Even five minutes, seven minutes. Then we’ve already become human beings again. We feel calm and settled; we’ve had something to drink, eaten something, maybe even learned something. We’re ready! Now we can go to the children and start waking them much earlier than usual. And then what? Because we aren’t under pressure, because we have a cushion of time, we’ll wake them with much more patience, without anger, frustration or shouting. “Get up, get up already! Get up! We’re late; we have to hurry!” No. We aren’t late, and we don’t have to hurry all

08:43 Right. We have time, so we’ll wake them up slowly. And here’s what I’ve personally started doing at home recently: I make sure the table, the kitchen island, is already clean and set up beforehand, with some cereal and a few things the children like. They come downstairs knowing there’s something to eat calmly, without anyone rushing them. They sit and eat a little, and we’re calm too, because we have enough time. And afterward, when we leave the house, we leave a little earlier than we used to. Why drive under pressure? Why get upset about every traffic jam that suddenly comes up because we’re running late? Let’s set out fifteen minutes earlier. Why not? Things are always happening and changing. We’ll get into the car calmly and peacefully, without pressure. Then, even if one of the children is suddenly having a bad morning and facing some unusual difficulty, we’ll respond much more calmly and appropriately, because we have time. We’re not in as much of a hurry as on other mornings, and that can change the whole picture. It’s just like when someone drives from one place to another, from one city to another. These days, we all use Waze. What’s so great about Waze? When I enter a destination, Waze draws on its experience. What does it know? Say it’s eight in the morning now, and I need to drive to Jerusalem at eight this evening. I can already check Waze to see how long the drive will take. How can Waze know now what will happen at eight this evening? Because it has experience. The software has a wealth of experience: it knows the traffic jams and the roads, and it can tell us, for eight in the evening,

10:47 how long the drive should take. Then I can plan accordingly and leave at the right time. What Waze does is factor in the usual traffic jams at that hour and everything else likely to come up along the way. In this respect, when we’re getting the children ready, we need to be like Waze. We should simply work out in advance how long each thing takes, allow a comfortable margin of time, and things will be much, much better and much easier for us. Granted, it requires us, first, to get up a little earlier, and getting up earlier usually means going to sleep earlier too. But it’s far more worthwhile. There are so many benefits. Besides what we’ve just discussed—the children getting ready more calmly and us getting ready more calmly—they’ll leave the house feeling at ease, rather than leaving a home full of tension, anger and shouting. And when they get up earlier, they get tired earlier too. It’s like a cycle: one good thing leads to another. So this advice is very simple, but it’s also incredibly helpful. It can change the whole picture completely, and I’m telling you this from experience. I do this in my own home, and we’ve seen a blessing from it—a great blessing. Another tip I can offer in this connection: sometimes there’s a child who’s particularly challenging, for whom things don’t go smoothly, and who’s usually the reason for delays and things like that. One thing that helps is giving that child a task they enjoy, one that’s theirs. For example, one of my children has a job when we drive with the kids to daycare, kindergarten and the other schools. He has

12:44 a role in the car: he’s in charge of which songs we listen to. That’s his job. Now, for example, we’re approaching Purim, so he chooses the Purim songs we’ll hear in the car, and he manages the music. He’s the DJ for the ride. It gives him tremendous energy, and he gets into the car happily because he knows that’s his role. And when a song finishes, I sometimes say in the car—as I did this morning—“Wow, thank you so much! What a song! Everyone, give him a round of applause!” And everyone in the car clapped for him. It lifted him up and gave him motivation to carry on. In other words, we give the child who finds mornings challenging a particular morning task, something they’ll enjoy doing, and we build them up. That will motivate them to get ready much faster, with more energy, and they’ll be less likely to hold us up. Because how much do we want a peaceful home, a calm home, a happier home? That’s what every one of us dreamed of having. It’s certainly what every woman dreamed of when she imagined having children, with Hashem’s help. So may we manage to come a little closer to our dreams. This advice can definitely bring each of us closer to that dream we once had. So, to sum up: the way to make mornings calmer is to work out how long all the tasks take and then add a sufficient margin of time. An hour is amazing; forty-five minutes is good too. Then the morning will be much more peaceful and calm. And as I mentioned, sometimes the children get up in such a rush that they don’t even eat at home before leaving. They eat something on the drive. That’s not the way. Get up early enough to sit at the table and eat something tasty for breakfast—a nice yogurt,

14:40 some cereal they like, whatever they enjoy. That way, the morning will be much more peaceful, calm and happy for us and for them. It’s very, very important that they start the day on the right foot, because the way it starts stays with us throughout the rest of the day. And as I mentioned, if there’s a child who finds mornings challenging, give them a morning task that’s theirs, something they enjoy doing. It will give them motivation and the desire to keep going. So may it be Hashem’s will that each of us have a happy home, a peaceful home, a home that’s a pleasure to be in and to come back to. If you feel—if you think this idea could help someone else, pass it on. Share it with people. If you have insights, write those in the comments too. I’d be glad to hear them and learn from your experience. And may we hear good news. This goal of a calm home, a peaceful Jewish home, is certainly a very, very holy goal. With Hashem’s help, may it be a merit for the righteous soldiers fighting on every front. May the wounded, with Hashem’s help, recover quickly. May everyone have mental and physical health. May the poor hostages, who are going through unimaginable hardship, come home very, very soon, with Hashem’s help, healthy and whole—in mind and body. May we merit the complete Geulah, the coming of Moshiach and the resurrection of the dead. May we merit an abundance of joy this month of Adar. Thank you very much. May we hear good news. Much success, and all the best.