An educational lecture by the graphologist Rabbi Mordechai Rotenstein

00:02 Good evening. Two clarifications, just to be precise. First, I’m not a psychologist; I’m a graphologist. Second, my name is not Mordechai Rothstein, but Mordechai Rotenstein. I was asked to speak today specifically about education with a gentle approach, but with the appropriate firmness. The best teacher I had on this subject was Rabbi Meidanchik. I don’t know where he went. I met with him once, and he told me about the Rebbe’s approach to this. He had several conversations with the Rebbe, and at a farbrengen, too, I think the Rebbe spoke to him specifically about it. So I certainly drew inspiration for tonight’s talk from the chairman of Agudas Chassidei Chabad. In education, “Let the left hand push away and the right hand draw close.” Let’s put that into our own simple words so we can live by it, rather than leave it as a concept we learned in yeshiva. We’re being asked how to deal with our children with appropriate firmness, but without aggression; and how to treat them with love, but without spoiling them. To distinguish between firmness and aggression, between love and spoiling. When a mother kisses her child for the fourth time after he already wiped the saliva off after the second kiss, she isn’t loving him; she’s spoiling him. To spoil a child means not to love him. She loves to love. That is her need. People often speak of suffocating love. When we love someone at a time when they don’t need it, we suffocate them. Very often, suffocating love can even make the person being loved pull away from the one who loves them. We need to give a child what he needs, not what we needed when we were little. And when we love someone, we tend to assume that what we love is what they’ll love. We give what we ourselves love most. What could be more lovable? If we grew up during the austerity years and had no bananas to eat, we decide to give our children lots of bananas. So the first daughter

02:55 is born, and she already has a rash all over her body from a banana allergy. But her mother says, “It’s delicious, eat it!” She refuses to hear that the girl is allergic. How can that be? I wanted bananas so badly. Loving someone means being sensitive enough to listen to what the other person needs. What’s the difference between firmness and aggression? It’s the same idea. When we want to impose our wishes on someone else, we’re being aggressive. When we want to love in the way that feels good to us, we’re spoiling them. When we care about a child’s welfare and give him what he needs, we’re loving him. And when we care about his welfare and keep him from something that could harm him, or insist that he do something that’s good for him—not because it’s what we want, but because it’s what he needs—we’re being firm. Aggression and spoiling come from putting ourselves at the center. Firmness and love come from putting the child at the center. Aggression and spoiling arise from our own frustration or needs. Firmness and love arise from our children’s needs. In fact, that’s also the difference between an educator and an animal trainer. Most of us, at various times in our lives, have been put through a process of training, and unfortunately, we still do that to our children today. Even if a trainer looks after the welfare of the lion jumping through a ring of fire, he’s looking after it so he can make the lion jump better, because that will bring in more money at the end of the month. His whole concern for the animal is how to make more money from it. The better the animal performs, the more money he makes. An educator makes the effort to sit and teach a child about whom he was told, “This child is hard to teach.” “I like a challenge,” the educator says. After two months, he has managed to learn a chapter of Mishnayos with him. He gives the child a test and sees that he passes the test the principal prepared.

05:56 He got eighty-five percent. Excellent for this child. The educator sits with the child, goes over the test beside him, and sees the child’s success. He says, “Moishele, this is simply wonderful. Ribono Shel Olam! Thank You for granting me such a success. We’ll make a big kiddush on Shabbos.” Now, at first glance he’s a G-d-fearing educator. But he isn’t an educator; he’s a technician, because a true educator would respond differently. When he goes over the test and sees that Moishele has succeeded, he’ll say, “Moishele, Ribono Shel Olam, how wonderfully you did! We’ll make a big kiddush on Shabbos.” The first sees his own success. The second sees the child’s success. Someone who sees the child’s success is an educator. Someone who sees his own success is almost an animal trainer. The one focused on his own success won’t have patience for the child, because success could mean a raise for him. It could mean a quicker promotion, and if the child doesn’t succeed, he spoils that for him. Now he has another failure on his record. But when the child’s welfare is what he has in mind, and the child is struggling, that only challenges him more and makes him still more patient, because he cares about the child. So the basic point on which this talk rests—and we’ll discuss several ideas in the short time we have—is this: Do we really have the ability to see the person in front of us? Can we be firm without being aggressive, loving without being in love with ourselves through the person in front of us? Loving a child doesn’t mean fulfilling a dream through him. Fulfilling a dream through a child means loving ourselves through him. If we love the child because he has done everything we dreamed of, the Frierdiker Rebbe says, we loved him more when he was born. After all, when a baby is born, we love him,

08:17 the Rebbe explains. Then he starts saying alef-beis—how we love him! Modeh Ani—how we love him! “The Torah that Moshe commanded us.” He begins reciting Mishnayos by heart. He knows Tanya by heart, too. In the end, the Rebbe says, he even becomes a rosh yeshiva. How much nachas we get from him! The Frierdiker Rebbe says: When he was born, we loved him with a love that depended on nothing. Now we love him with a love that depends on something. Love that depends on something isn’t love for the child. Loving someone because he meets our expectations means we’re enjoying all the good we get from him. That’s loving ourselves through him. That’s using him, not loving him. Loving someone is a way to encounter Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And if Hakadosh Boruch Hu isn’t present in our love for someone, then we’re very, very much in love with ourselves. And the greater our expectations, the greater our disappointments. At some point, the child feels how very much we love him—and how very disappointed we are when he doesn’t do what we want. Little by little, he feels suffocated. He has to think the way we want and behave the way we want. If he strays even a little, we’re disappointed. We make him feel guilty and try to bind him from every direction. Then he says, “Dear parents, stop loving me so much. I don’t want everything you’re giving me. Leave me alone. I’d be better off if you didn’t love me. Your loving me so much comes at a high price. Because if I don’t live up to what you love, you immediately get angry.” That anger is the test of whom we love here. If you love a fellow Jew, you can’t be angry with him at all. Anger always results from failing to get what we wanted out of our love for ourselves. So that will be our measure.

10:21 How many times have we gotten angry at our child? Every time we get angry, it shows that we still don’t truly love. You can’t be angry at a Jew, the Frierdiker Rebbe said when he was subjected to that terrible interrogation. And so, when love isn’t genuine, its end will reveal what it was from the start: when we’re disappointed, we get angry and hurt. There was never love here. Well, you can’t say there was none. Our personality comes from kelipas nogah, and there is some good in it too, but it is mostly bad. So the sign is very simple. If the child listens to us, we love him; if he doesn’t, and we get upset with him, that resentment shows that our love is lacking. When you love, you don’t feel hurt or insulted or get angry. It doesn’t fit. “Love covers all transgressions.” And my goodness, a person may suddenly examine himself and discover that he really doesn’t know how to love, not even the people closest to him. Because loving means truly seeing only the good in the other person. Every parent will stand up and say, “I see only the good in my child,” but it isn’t true. It’s very hard for someone who is honest with himself to reach the point where he won’t get angry at his child. But when he understands that his anger shows his frustration at not getting what his own self-interest wants, his anger will be more restrained. Once there’s understanding, everything softens. Now, it’s certainly interesting that our Sages say, “Let the left hand always push away and the right hand draw close.” The left hand pushing away means holy gevurah, with chessed prevailing over it. That is the left hand. After all, when does a father love his child more: when he takes him to the dentist, or when he puts him on the Ferris wheel at an amusement park? When does a father love his child more? When he brings him a present and wants to give the child what he wants,

13:00 even though he doesn’t deserve it, and restrains himself from giving him that affection or the present—or when he gives it to him? Surely it’s much harder for him to hold back and not give it, for the sake of educating the child, than to give the child what he wants. But let’s look at another point: why is a parent’s firmness so important? Or rather, let’s not call it firmness; let’s call it authority. “The left hand pushes away”—let’s call that the side of authority. Loving authority, authority under which a child feels secure. Let’s explore that a little. The left hand pushing away is essential for a child. Why? A child doesn’t yet have mature judgment. A deaf-mute, a person lacking mental capacity, and a minor do not have that capacity to the same extent. What does it mean that a child lacks judgment? He can’t set priorities. He doesn’t know what matters more and what matters less, what comes now and what comes later. It isn’t clear to him. He comes home and wants to go down and play. So he’s told, “There’s an order. First we eat, then we do homework. Rest a little.” That isn’t what he wants. When a person can’t weigh things properly and knows he has several tasks ahead of him, he gets agitated. A man knows he has to pay his debts, and he also has to find half an hour to spend with his wife this evening. Where will he find the time? He has to finish learning the Tanya, which he hasn’t finished yet. He has to... There are several things to do, and he doesn’t know where to start. He gets agitated. So you tell him, “Instead of getting agitated, take a sheet of paper, write down the order of your tasks, and do them one after another. Calm down.” When a person can use his judgment to arrange his priorities—what matters and what doesn’t, what comes first and what comes later—he calms down. A child, on his own, doesn’t have the ability to calm himself. What characterizes

15:09 a child is that he can take a hundred shekels when his mother tells him to buy groceries and come back with a package of ice creams. “What did you do?” “Mom, you don’t understand—we saved twenty percent!” He’s a mathematical genius. “But I don’t need ice cream.” “But I got twenty extra ice creams! There are a hundred here; I got twenty ice creams free.” “But I asked for milk and eggs.” “We’ll get those afterward. These were cheap, so let’s buy some more ice cream and save even more.” He lacks judgment. He may be a genius, he may be brilliant, but ice cream isn’t what matters right now. A child needs something that will give him balance when he lacks his own judgment, something that will calm him and give him peace of mind. That comes through the firm authority of his parents. Firm authority means, as the rabbi says, firmness in the appropriate measure, but in a pleasant manner. We’ve already seen what that means: firmness in the appropriate measure and a pleasant manner are possible only when we have the child’s welfare in mind, not our expectations of him. Because you can’t act pleasantly while being appropriately firm if you’re focused on your expectations rather than the other person’s welfare. At some point you’ll erupt. How much can you put up with? So, if we’re going to have real authority—let’s talk about that—first of all, we have to be worthy of that authority, worthy of being respected. Let’s see how we can do that and what obstacles stand in our way. One day I ran into a Jewish friend on the street. He was walking along with his head down. I asked him, “What’s going on, Shimon?” He said, “What do you mean, what’s going on? Young people today aren’t what they used to be.” I said, “What happened?” “What do you mean, what happened? I work like a donkey. I have minimal expectations that my children

17:47 will show a little... Forget it. You can’t expect anything from young people today. No respect, no manners, nothing.” I looked at him. He said, “What? Is it illegitimate to expect the bare minimum from a child?” Let’s think about it. Am I allowed to expect nachas from my child? I invest money in him, I invest time in him, I invest emotional energy in him. I care about him learning to be a chossid. Then one day he comes home with some clothes and tells me he wants to join the army. What, I can’t be disappointed? I’m not allowed to feel hurt? One day my daughter comes home, and I notice that little by little her sleeve is getting shorter. How can I just overlook that? It makes me explode. How can I stay calm here? Fine, it all sounds lovely. It’s nice when you talk about it: don’t get angry, don’t say hurtful things. Let’s see you in my situation. How would you react? Would you keep quiet? What, just give her love? How can I accept something like that? Where does it start? A child comes home and tells his father there’s a competition to memorize Mishnayos. He has to memorize so many Mishnayos. The father heard a nice sicha somewhere, and he says, “Listen, Moishele, what lies ahead of you really isn’t an easy undertaking. It’s a great privilege for you to learn. Wonderful. If you memorize the Mishnayos, I’ll give you a shekel for every Mishnah you know by heart.” And Moishele, boruch Hashem, has been blessed with talent by Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and he earns seventy shekels. He’s happy. The child is happy, the father is happy. Boruch Hashem, wonderful! Half a year passes, and there’s another competition. This time it’s a hundred Mishnayos by heart. The father is delighted: a hundred shekels for a hundred Mishnayos—that’s a bargain. The child will be happy, the father is happy. Boruch Hashem. Moishele comes to his father and says, “Dad, there’s a Mishnayos memorization competition.” “Great, Moishele, you’re

20:15 really good at this. You’ll get a shekel for every Mishnah you learn.” Moishele looks at him with a poker face, looks his father in the eye, and says, “A shekel? That was six months ago. You want a hundred Mishnayos by heart? That isn’t seventy. It’s not what we learned before; it isn’t [unclear]. That means going beyond what I’m used to, thirty more times.” He knows how to negotiate too. What do you want? Two shekels. They haggle over a shekel and a half. What, aren’t you allowed to give a child prizes? Prizes are encouraging. What happens two or three years later? Now he wants a computer that might cost a thousand dollars. He wants to fly to the Rebbe, but he wants a ticket to the United States. He has demands. The child is a businessman. He senses how important it is to his father that he succeed. You want my success? I’m happy to give you that, but you have to give me something too.

21:17 Everything has a price. I just heard this on the phone. A woman from Beis Yaakov called me and said, “What? My daughter—we need to travel abroad for a wedding, and the principal is asking her for my permission. What, has the principal lost her mind?” As it happens, I know the principal. And what does the principal say? That girls work during the school year and save money, then get visas over the summer break and travel abroad. When they’re told no, they say, “What’s the problem? It’s my money. I earned it. What do you want?” The daughter really doesn’t understand. Where does this come from, this boldness among girls, even girls from the very best homes? So they’ll go abroad, observe tznius, eat kosher—but they make plans like this on their own initiative. This is real. It’s not just a story. It happens, and that’s why the school has no choice: to travel abroad, they need confirmation that their parents know about it. Good girls can leave without it. When children sense that we need them and are willing to pay a price for what we need, without realizing it we develop their commercial instincts. After all, we’re the ones affirming them. A reward, which is meant to be an educational tool, gradually becomes the goal. He’s willing to help. She’s willing to help. “What will you buy me? I’m willing to stay. What’s in it for me?” Children sense that we need them. We need their Yiddishkeit; it gives us nachas. We want their academic achievements; they give us nachas. They sense that we need them. We’ll say, “We invested in our children, raised them, gave them so much.” And the child will say, “Sure—so long as I bring you a certificate of excellence at the end of the year. You invested in yourself. You enjoy all of it. You invest in your car, and you bought a new computer too. So you bought things for your child and gave him things too. You”

23:54 “want the computer to be the best, the car to be the best, and the child to be the best. You like having the best. And if I didn’t study, would you give me those things? No. That proves it: you want to use me, and you’re willing to pay the price.” He doesn’t think this through in words, but there’s no other way to explain it. Because it’s things that come from the heart that enter the heart—not things that come from the mouth and enter the ear—the child senses that we’re using him to fulfill a dream. How did one father put it to me? “I couldn’t study when I was little because I had serious difficulties. I hoped that at least my son would study.” A statement like that calls for an instinctive “Oy vey” from the heart. Why “oy vey”? The father means well, after all. But the child has to study because you didn’t manage to? He has to make up for your deprived childhood, so that you’ll have someone who did study when you didn’t? Rachmana litzlan. He needs to study for himself, not for you. He needs to study so you can have nachas? We know that when the Alter Rebbe assumed the leadership, his father fled to Hungary. He was afraid of the nachas. And there’s a broader question: am I entitled to nachas on my own account? If I once learned a page of Gemara, may I take pleasure in the fact that I knew how to learn it and receive honor for it? Chas veshalom. So may I receive honor from his page of Gemara? “It isn’t honor; it’s nachas.” After all, the Rebbe, too, gives a bracha that you should have nachas. The Rebbe blesses people with chassidishe nachas. And that means not only that the child should be a chossid, but that you should be a chossid who has nachas. Because loving someone when he does what I need isn’t called loving him. It’s called using

25:53 him. It’s called training him. It’s called forcing him into a mold. And today’s child isn’t willing to be the instrument through which we parents fulfill our dreams. He’s right. There’s nothing more demeaning than using someone for my own needs, even the loftiest needs. But if I want him—who gave me the right? If only we would think about it: what is educational success? When the child being educated—we told the story here about the Rebbe. The Rebbe bends down to a little girl, whispers something in her ear with a smile, and she runs off. Her honor is in doing what the Rebbe tells her. If she were to approach the Rebbe afterward and he said, “What present should I give you for doing what I asked?” she would cry. She would be hurt. “Rebbe, I did what you wanted. That means everything to me.” Why don’t we understand that if we want to make our children happy, we need to be worthy of their feeling privileged to honor us? Not because we need it, but because they do. Instead, we’ve gone so far as to become merchants, buying a child’s willingness with money. Money answers everything. So that’s education? A child who has a father he can respect, and whose father smiles at him—that smile is worth a fortune to him. But the father’s smile isn’t worth a penny once he’s already given the child a few shekels. How does one show that strength of character? Let’s pay attention. A person’s wishes are his honor. A person lends honor to his place; his place does not lend honor to him. A person’s wishes are his honor. Both will and honor are encompassing faculties. Where a person’s will is, that is where he is. When a person wants to use someone in front of him, that’s a trait of a newborn who wakes up in the middle of the night. His mother is beside him. He knows how to cry; he wants

28:35 to eat. He doesn’t care that she has a headache or a stomachache, or that she hasn’t slept in two days. He wants what he wants. Wanting to use the person in front of me for my own benefit is a child’s desire. It’s an unattractive, selfish desire. But a three-year-old knows it perfectly well: “I want.” If you want things like a three-year-old, you have the honor of a child. There’s a rosh yeshivah, a good friend with whom I farbreng from time to time. On one occasion I asked him, “Tell me, when did you decide to become a rosh yeshivah?” He looked at me with this rather superior smile and said, “What do you mean, when? By the age of four and a half, I already knew I was going to be a rosh yeshivah.” He already had it all planned. By hashgachah pratis, the day before I had studied a verse from King Shlomo, and I told him, “King Shlomo says about you that you’re a fool.” He said, “Why a fool?” “A fool has no desire for understanding, but only to reveal what is in his heart.” So you managed to fulfill a childhood dream. What does that change? A few minutes earlier, we’d been talking about how hard things were for him with his oldest son. Now you understand why your oldest son doesn’t respect you. In the yeshivah they respect you because you know how to learn. But at home, your son sees a child who managed to fulfill a dream. He knows you without the trappings of scholarship, because he doesn’t know how to appreciate scholarship. He knows how to assess you. He senses exactly what drives you, and your excitement, and how you tell your wife about it like a child. Just as he comes home and tells his mother how he played marbles with the other kids, you come home and tell her how you spoke and how you learned and how everyone stood up for you, and... What’s the difference between you and him? The intellectual quality. But the motivation is the same. Two children. And you’re going to tell him stories? He sees right through you. A person’s will...

30:42 His honor. If the motivation—after all, “Go from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house” means: discover yourself. “Go from your land”—work on your actions. “From your birthplace”—don’t be influenced by others. “From your father’s house”—even from the good motivation driving you. Freeing yourself from that is the hardest thing. Your child is giving you trouble with discipline, and he can’t respect you because you’re harming him—yet you’re still enjoying it like a baby. Look, you’re a rosh yeshiva. You’ve made it. A sheigetz. What do we do? he asks me. I gave him an answer. He asks me, “How do you do that?” I told him, “First, understand this and accept it: you’re not headed in the right direction.” We must be a gentle authority for our children—loving, but not giving up on Chassidic principles. Gentle, loving, and uncompromising. And that gentleness and love come when we have the child’s good before our eyes, not our dream of becoming a rosh yeshiva with a wonderful family. Everyone talks about me. Shidduchim will come running here from all over the world. What could be more perfect than what we have here? These days, being a scholar who’s also successful is a good business. You get good shidduchim; it’s all money. That’s what the child grows up with. And when we’re a real authority, wanting what’s good for the child, we don’t teach him Torah so we can make up for our own feelings of inadequacy through our successful son. How much trouble comes from successful children who had to succeed so an insecure father could have a successful son. Rachmana litzlan. And the reverse is true with a successful daughter; it makes no difference. The child has to succeed and compensate for what the parents lacked, so he lives for them, and the parents love him so much. Then, when the child stops learning, my world comes crashing down. What happened? Are you distressed over the exile of the Shechinah? Have we lost an opportunity to reveal Moshiach? Or has something you were always afraid would happen finally happened? What drove us

33:07 through all of this? When we need the child to satisfy our own needs, he feels that we need him, and immediately signals: “Whoever wants the rabbi should come to him.” You need me. What will you give me? And when I need him, I’m weak; if I’m weak, I can’t be an authority. If I’m not an authority, he isn’t trying to win my approval. He’s after my money. The child is obligated by the Torah: “Honor your father and your mother.” May I demand that of him? May I demand that my child honor me? We also know there’s a mitzvah to honor a Torah scholar. So should a Torah scholar come along and say, “Honor me”? We saw the fierce struggle the holy Baal Shem Tov had with people who thought they were entitled to honor, in bringing Chassidus back into the world. After all, that was one of the reasons for the opposition. So we’re doing to our children what the opponents of Chassidus did. We have absolutely no right to demand that our children honor us. We have a sacred duty and a sacred privilege to teach them to honor us, and above all, we must be worthy of it. [unclear]. We must be worthy of it, and if we are, the children gain more than we do, and that is what makes us happy. We don’t need the honor. “We are unworthy of all the kindnesses”—truly, when we see how a child flourishes because we were privileged to be worthy of respect. And we become worthy of respect precisely when we don’t need it and run from it like fire. Don’t forget that. In light of what we’ve discussed so far, let’s look at different situations we might find ourselves in. We can see three general approaches we take toward our children. In many homes, this is accepted—I see it often, and I want to flag it as something of a mistake: “I’m the father. I’m in charge here. I decide what happens.” In essence, that’s true,

35:50 and it should be that way. A child needs to feel there’s a steady hand; a parent’s authority reassures him. All of that is true when we have the child’s good before our eyes. But when we make demands because it’s what we want, because “this is how things will be here, and I’m in charge”—I have no right to demand anything of my child. My child: I have no right to demand anything of him. He is obligated to honor me. It’s a positive commandment from the Torah. But I have no right to demand that he fulfill that mitzvah, because I have no right to use the Torah as a spade to dig with in order to fulfill my own dreams. So the child owes me nothing. That’s my starting point. The child owes it to himself to listen to me. It’s not that he owes me; he owes it to himself. I want to take my supposed right to make demands out of the picture. That’s what it says. What do I mean? If I make demands of him without taking him into account, there will come a point when this game ends. As long as I’m stronger than he is, I can make demands. But a time will come when he’s stronger than I am, and then there will be a confrontation, and he’ll win. Making demands is just “might makes right.” I have no right to make demands, and it’s not wise to do so. The moment will come when we pay the price. We taught him that the stronger person rules. What a waste. It’s a humiliating and crushing process that nobody likes to be put through: feeling used, having your life dictated to you, being exploited. That’s the most humiliating experience there is. And when he’s been through that, when we’ve forced him and he feels that we only care about what’s good for us—Hashem protect us when the moment comes that he pays us back. Perhaps that’s also the reason for teenage rebellion. They call them the “foolish teens”; they’re the “wise teens.” After all, the principle is, “As water reflects a face back to a face.” The principle

38:10 is that a debtor won’t brazenly face his creditor. So what happens that, at twenty-one, a child suddenly starts to rebel? Because we tell him we’re educating him, but in practice we’re exploiting him. Let’s give an example. A father works hard to earn a living. He has a delivery route, it’s summer, and he finishes work in the afternoon. He hasn’t finished delivering the groceries he works with yet, but the stores have closed. He has two hours until they reopen at four, so he comes home to rest. He sits down with Chitas and Rambam; he has things to learn. He’s sitting by the air conditioner—it’s hot. In the other room, he’s bought his son a computer with a good setup so the boy won’t hang around in the streets. What can you do? That’s how he sees it. He gave him the computer, and while he sits and learns, the computer cost him a thousand dollars. He still doesn’t know how he’ll pay for it, but first things first. Then he asks his son if he could please bring him a glass of cold water. The boy, who only got a computer yesterday, can’t be brazen with his father. “Sure, Dad. Can I just finish the game?” The father says, “Go ahead, finish it. You’re in the middle.” The father finishes his Chitas, and the water still isn’t there. “Moishele, the water, the water.” “Ugh, Dad, I’m in the middle.” “You’re still in the middle?” “I didn’t forget. I’m in the middle of the third game.” At least he was sitting down. “Get up now and bring me water!” “Dad, I’ll finish the game.” “Get up now, get up!” He gets up and goes over to him. “Bring me the water now!” Moishele sits there unfazed. He sees his father standing by the door, glances back at him, and stays in the middle of the game. He says to his father, “You’re already up, and you’re closer to the kitchen. Maybe you could go get

40:09 Alone?” And when he sees that his father is about to throw the computer out the window, he gets up, brings his father a glass of water, and asks, “Should I put it here for you, or over there?” His father doesn’t know what to do with himself, and then he starts yelling at him. Later, the neighbor asks him, “Tell me, why did you yell at your son so much today?” He says, “What do you mean, why did I yell? I realized I hadn’t been educating him all this time, and it’s time I started.” “What?” He told him the story. “It may be a bit late, and it may have gone too far, but now I’m going to set him straight.” The neighbor asks, “So why did you yell?” “I was educating him!” “Then answer me one more question. Are you willing?” “You’re getting on my nerves, but if you ask, I’ll answer. Well, what do you want?” “Why do you always remember to educate him when you need him? When you need a glass of water, you remember there’s a mitzvah to honor one’s father. You’re using him. You’re not educating him.” “What, is that forbidden, sir?” “When you asked him for water, did you mean to educate him?” “I wanted to ask him for it.” “Aha, aha, aha! You asked?” “Yes!” “Then if you asked, let’s approach it this way. We said there are three ways we can approach a child. We can demand; we’ve seen that isn’t advisable. We can also ask. A child needs to know that his mother needs help. A child needs to know that sometimes his father has had enough and needs help. But when we ask, we need to ask knowing in advance that he has the right to tell me no. After all, a request isn’t a demand. I go to my neighbor and ask whether he has a carton of eggs he can lend me until tomorrow. If he says no, will I be angry with him? I ask my neighbor whether he’s willing to babysit because I’m going out. He tells me he

42:12 can’t. Will I be angry with him? If I’m asking, I take into account that he doesn’t owe me anything, and if he can’t, that’s perfectly fine. A request is not an obligation. So the mother asks. She learned that you should ask nicely, speak nicely to children, gently and lovingly, and that it isn’t a good idea to yell or criticize. That’s what she learned. She comes home and says, ‘Chanele.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘What are you doing, sweetheart?’ ‘Well, hello, “sweetheart”! What’s happened to you, Mom?’ ‘Are you busy?’ ‘Hmm, since when do you care what I’m doing?’ ‘No, if you’re not busy, I’d like to ask you something.’ ‘What do you want, Mom?’ ‘If it’s not too hard for you, could you take out the trash?’ She learned to ask nicely. Chanele has only just heard her, and she already knows what the whole performance is about. ‘I can’t. Why me? Why not Ruti?’ ‘Chanele, I’m asking you nicely, see? I’m not yelling at you. I’d like you to help me a little. What’s the problem? I work myself to the bone for you all day. I’m allowed to ask you for something, aren’t I?’ ‘You’re allowed to ask, Mom. I don’t have to say yes to your request.’ ‘Chanele, don’t be cheeky. I’m speaking to you nicely.’ Aha, what has she learned? ‘I’m speaking nicely,’ ‘I’m not speaking nicely.’ ‘What do you want, Mom?’ ‘I’m asking you to take out the trash.’ ‘I told you I don’t want to. Why not Yossi? Why not Yocheved? It’s always me. I always say yes to you. You always ask me.’ And she always does this to me. ‘Chanele, don’t make me angry.’ ‘I don’t want to make you angry, but don’t ask me.’ ‘Chanele, take out...’ ‘No.’ So, ‘Chanele...’ ‘Oh, all right. Give it here, I’ll take out the trash for you.’ She’s standing by the door. By now the mother has cracked; she’s failed. The teacher gave her homework, and she didn’t manage it. Tricks don’t work. ‘Chanele, why do I always have to yell at you before you listen to what I

44:01 say? Why can’t I ask you nicely?’ ‘Mom, do you really want to hear?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then don’t get angry with me.’ ‘I promise.’ ‘When you ask me, you’re not nice at all. When you yell at me, you’re not nice either, but you’re much nicer than when you ask me.’ ‘How can you talk like that, Chanele? Explain.’ ‘I told you not to get angry.’ ‘I’m not angry. Explain what you mean.’ ‘When you ask, you’re being hypocritical and self-righteous. “Chanele, take out the trash for me. You’d better do it—but please take out the trash.” When you yell, at least you say, “Take it out or you’ll get it.” I don’t want to get it, so I’ll take it out. Fine, that isn’t pleasant either, but at least it isn’t a mask. It isn’t a lie.’ Because if you ask, you have to take into account that the child may say, ‘I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to.’ And what would have happened if the mother had listened and said, ‘You don’t feel like it? All right, Chanele. It’s hard for me, but I was only asking. You’re busy? No need. I’ll manage. Thank you, dear.’ Two minutes later Chanele would come and say, ‘Mom, all right, give it here. I’ll take it out for you.’ After all, we are assured that there are three identifying traits among them: they are compassionate, modest, and do acts of kindness. Surely she won’t be able to hold out against your sincerity. She sees you need help, and she’ll come. She sees you threatening her, and she feels it. After all, the connection between us works through words that come from the heart entering the heart. With the Rebbe Rashab, when they sang a niggun and [unclear]—being occupied with one thing and thinking about another. One thing in the mouth, another in the heart. Who gave permission to lie? So at least ask sincerely. A child needs to know that we are vulnerable. Yes, that’s part of education. Then there’s demanding—that’s just the law of the strongest; it has no place here. Asking, certainly, but it has to be genuine, not just something we get into the habit of doing. And then there is educating. Educating means

46:05 investing half an hour of thought in how we educate. That’s just the thought that goes into it. [unclear]. Now he needs to know that he has to honor me. I don’t need the glass of water, but he needs to know that I’m asking. He needs to respond to me, but when I ask him, it’s for his benefit. Not because I’m thirsty and urgently need something. I have no urgent need at all. The one thing that matters to me now is that he should have the opportunity to honor his father. His father doesn’t need the honor at all. The child needs it. So, Moishy, the time has come. You need to tidy your room. Did you hear what your father said? And here too, words that come from the heart enter the heart. To receive two slaps out of Ahavas Yisroel. I heard from a friend of mine who received two slaps from Reb Mendel. He told me, “I never got two kisses like those from my mother.” On one occasion, the farbrengen ended and he walked Reb Mendel home. Before they parted—let’s use a fictitious name; the young man is probably known here. In any case, this is the story he told. Reb Mendel looked at him and gave him a slap of a kind he wasn’t used to receiving from anyone. Reb Mendel looked at him and said, “Yankele, don’t be intimidated by anyone!” He was stunned; he didn’t know what he had done to deserve it. Before he could even take in what had happened, he got another slap on the other cheek. Reb Mendel walked away. So he said, “I’ve never received two slaps with such Ahavas Yisroel.” And words that come from the heart enter the heart—not blows that come from the hand landing on the cheek. With Reb Mendel, Ahavas Yisroel comes first. He doesn’t see himself at all. There’s the training he went through in Siberia, but what has an effect here is that he loves a Jew and doesn’t see

48:08 himself at all. Not when he kisses him and not when he slaps him. The other Jew’s welfare is what he has before his eyes. That is Ahavas Yisroel. And out of Ahavas Yisroel—forgive me, all you modern people—it certainly can have a place. Sometimes a child is crying out, “Give me a real slap when I need one.” But if it comes from anger, from the anger that takes hold at that moment, then it’s better not to do anything. And I certainly don’t recommend that anyone start handing out slaps, G-d forbid. But when you reach Reb Mendel’s level, the slap is something wonderful. In the same way, as we heard Rabbi Jacobson say here, you can use some sharp Chassidic expression with someone only when it comes from Ahavas Yisroel—not when it comes from a need to compensate for your own feelings of inferiority, because the night before his wife made him feel so small. Now he builds himself up at his friend’s expense. Suddenly he feels like somebody, and after a glass of mashke he takes out all of yesterday’s frustration on the poor young man. Hashem protect us. Because it isn’t words that come from the mouth that enter the ear, or blows that come from the hand that land on the cheek. It’s words that come from the heart that enter the heart. What was the intention behind it? Each person knows in his own soul. The question is: when I gave that rebuke, was I hurting, was I angry, or was I loving? A person cannot lie to himself. And if he can, there are psychiatrists he can go to if he can’t tell the difference between... A person must not lie to himself. Was it out of Ahavas Yisroel or out of anger? Knowing how to educate a child according to his way, and not according to my way, is possible only when—what can we do?—we put ourselves aside and keep the child’s welfare before our eyes. There is no other way. And it breaks my heart when people try to find educational solutions outside the framework of Chabad. Is there anywhere else that can explain a child’s soul to us better than the books of our Rebbeim? Is there anyone who understands

50:34 In education, as one draws closer, one begins to understand Reb Mendel’s approach to education. The point is that perhaps in our generation, as we heard in the previous talk, bittul is bittul, but genuine Ahavas Yisroel is missing. Loving someone. Why is it so hard to love? Bittul. A man is walking down the street and meets a friend who asks him, “How are you, Yankele?” So what does he say? “What do you mean, how am I? I have debts. My wife isn’t feeling well.” “I only asked. Don’t answer! I was just being polite: ‘How are you?’ You’re taking it seriously.” Loving someone means taking responsibility. When I turn to him, it might cost me my afternoon nap today, and perhaps my lunch too. That’s what it means to love. Who is at that level? Each person knows in his own heart. Everyone knows where they stand. But we have to know it without living in illusions, and truly want to live the kind of education the Rebbe wants. Because the work of birurim in the world has ended, and the only work left concerns the heart of exile: our inner exile. We confront that inner exile by standing firm in the face of a test. When we do that, we aren’t dealing with what’s in front of us; we’re doing inner work within our own souls. Somewhere I saw the Rebbe mention the difference between Moshe Rabbeinu and Moshiach: Moshiach is the distant encompassing influence, while Moshe Rabbeinu is the near encompassing influence. And the Rebbe places the Geulah in the hands of two or three people who insist on it—one, two, three. So perhaps that’s a husband and wife and their children at home. Genuine peace in the home. To stand firm in the test, not get angry, and want to truly love and see the good in the other person, rather than what we need from them. Well, we’ve gotten this far, and it’s late. We could say much more, but time is short. If only these things could truly matter to us. Just simple caring. What we heard here earlier

53:05 is that caring—the motivation to know that in genuine education, genuine love is the light of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. To truly love, to bring Ahavas Yisroel home, to reveal the holy Shechinah in the home. Standing firm in this test—these are matters of Moshiach. May it matter to us. Good night.