A symposium for women on matters of the Jewish home

00:01 Speaker 1 The story of Dama ben Nesina. If we ask ourselves why Dama ben Nesina didn’t take the key, open the chest and sell the jewel, we can assume he understood that his father wouldn’t be angry with him for preventing such a great financial loss. What father wouldn’t be happy that his son had earned so much money? So why didn’t he wake his father anyway? Because Dama ben Nesina wasn’t thinking only about his father; he was also thinking about his children, about teaching them how to honor parents. If we know how to show respect to a shvigger, a mother-in-law, and how to navigate things—we spend our whole lives, until 120, navigating between the two women in our lives: our mother and our husband’s mother. It isn’t something we deal with only right after the wedding. We’ll set a good example and, with Hashem’s help, be role models. I heard a story when I was in the United States not long ago. There was an Israeli woman there whose mother-in-law stayed in her home, and she suffered terribly because of her. She really suffered. I don’t want to repeat the names the mother-in-law called her in front of her children. A woman told me about it and said, “Do you know how much she honored her?” When the mother-in-law was very old and living in a nursing home, and the daughter-in-law gave birth, she didn’t go home from the hospital. She first went to her mother-in-law to show her the baby, so all the women with her in the nursing home would envy her: what nachas she had, what a respectful daughter-in-law. And that was after everything she had been through. So her children surely learned how to honor her and how to honor their mother-in-law.

01:50 Speaker 2 All right, so we’re talking about setting a personal example. It isn’t easy. It may well be the hardest thing. A personal example. But now we really want to know how far to take this idea of not interfering. Far be it from us. Everyone knows today that a shvigger mustn’t interfere. But what about asking about difficulties, showing interest? Where’s the line between showing interest and… where is the line, really? Where do we stand? Should we be indifferent and say, “Leave it, they’ll do everything themselves,” or should we ask, “What’s happening? What are you doing?” Esther, maybe you can help us.

02:33 Speaker 12 Well, the relationship between mothers—or parents—and their children doesn’t begin the day after the wedding. You can’t expect a daughter whose relationship with her mother wasn’t very close to suddenly have her mother come the day after the wedding wanting to know everything. The relationship between parents and children begins the day they’re born. The way a mother builds that relationship as her daughter grows up, right up until the wedding, is essentially what the relationship will be after she marries. Of course, most mothers are curious. I once heard a mother say, “I knew everything until the wedding day. After the wedding, suddenly I didn’t know all kinds of details I’d known right up until the chuppah, and then suddenly they disappeared.” That mother had to work harder on herself, to hold back and not ask the wrong questions. Of course, a mother needs to be alert—not to go looking for signs, but to notice both good signs and signs that aren’t quite so good. From what I’ve seen when speaking with mothers who went through a bit of a shock after the wedding, a month after the wedding there’s suddenly silence and the phone calls don’t come so quickly. You stand by the phone thinking, “It isn’t ringing. Maybe he just came in [unclear]? Why isn’t she calling? Doesn’t she remember her mother?” And you wonder who should make the first move. What I think—and of course this is only my personal opinion—is that, apart from the relationship built before the wedding, if the daughter sees that her mother doesn’t ask too many questions, she’ll come back to her and tell her what she wants to tell. That won’t necessarily be what the mother always wants to hear. But when the daughter sees that her mother respects the couple’s privacy, that she respects the fact that they’ve become a couple and she doesn’t need to know everything, then little by little the daughter will begin to share what she feels is right to share with her mother. And then we can

05:08 Speaker 12 come to the question of how much we need to know. Of course, that’s very individual. Some daughters open up more to their mothers. Some trust their mother more, knowing that if they tell her something, she won’t pass it on; it will stay strictly between them, like friends. And some daughters know that if they tell their mother, she’ll tell their father and the other sisters, and the whole family will get involved. So they know they can’t really trust their mother when it comes to privacy, and they’ll hold back and not tell her everything. I think an important thing for a mother to remember is that her daughter has a husband. Very often, when women tell me things in my role as a mashpia, or young women come to me, my first question is, “What does your husband say?” I think a mother also needs to learn to say that. If a daughter starts telling you something, you need to ask, “Does your husband know you’re telling me? Do you want me to let him see that I know this detail?” Sometimes daughters say, “My husband doesn’t know I’m telling you this.” And you really need to act accordingly. That way the daughter can learn how far she can trust her mother, and see that her mother respects their relationship as a couple.

06:43 Speaker 13 All right, a very important point: keeping things confidential. We hear from young couples that she’s become pregnant, boruch Hashem, and wants to tell her mother but is afraid her mother will tell the family. Every one of us needs to remember that and take it to heart. Privacy, confidentiality—there’s no question about that. What? The shvigger? Yes, to the same extent. The son’s privacy too. Wait, who is the shvigger? She’s the son’s mother, let’s not forget. Also the… All right, Naomi, what do you have to say?

07:29 Speaker 14 I’m a mother-in-law to sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, boruch Hashem; I’ve been blessed. I agree with everything said so far, and it’s very individual. A mother has to be a very wise woman. She has to see things and put on sunglasses: “I didn’t see.” Hear things: “I didn’t hear.” She has to know how to play the part, to be an actress. Not everyone is born knowing how to do that, and you have to learn it by the time you yourself are on the other side. You have to know exactly how to behave and remember what it was like for you twenty years ago. As I told you, I have both sons and daughters. I try to handle it with humor and laughter, and that really makes things easier. There’s no awkwardness and no problem even when it comes to where they’ll go for Pesach. “Last year you were there and this year you were here. Go wherever you like. If you’ll enjoy it, go. I’ve got plenty of sandwiches on the side. If the food I made isn’t enough, don’t worry. Please, enjoy yourselves.” And something wonderful our Rebbe did—the whole idea of shlichus and the geographical distance—helps enormously. It also makes them resourceful. They don’t need food from their mother-in-law or their mother’s home cooking. They manage beautifully. At first it’s sardines, then tuna, and eventually they move on to real gefilte fish. And today you can get everything. Everything is available today. They aren’t starving, believe me. No, I mean that for both his mother and her mother. And keep the relationship warm. Always invite them, always invite them, but not because she didn’t invite them, or because our gefilte fish tastes better. Or the hilbeh, and so on—whatever each of us makes. That’s it: humor is very important. There’s more to come today, and I hope I’ll have more to tell you.

09:33 Speaker 15 Well, I hope we’ll learn a little sense of humor. As Mrs. Blasov[?] says—I don’t know if she’s here—shlichus is the best workshop for shalom bayis between husband and wife, between a daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law, between a daughter and her mother, and so on. Beyond all our shlichus work. If we look a little more closely, we’ll see both sides. Take Rebbetzin Sterna, the Alter Rebbe’s wife, for example. We know that her parents asked her to divorce her husband. They didn’t like him; he seemed very strange to them. This young woman had to stand up to tremendous pressure. They wouldn’t even give her a piece of bread. It was her sister who helped her, and the Alter Rebbe mentions several times how grateful he was to her for it. So we have to remember that it isn’t simple. It isn’t simple. Truly putting on those glasses isn’t simple. On the other hand, if we look at stories about the wives of the Rebbeim, there is, for example, a story about Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. We know the story of the manuscripts: her grandfather asked her for them, and she gave him her husband’s manuscripts. Her husband was very angry with her afterward and couldn’t bring himself to be with her. The story goes that after a month, she thought perhaps things would calm down. When they didn’t, she turned to her father for help. So again, we have to be open, to acknowledge the difficulty if there is one, and to offer as much help as we can. Well, until now we’ve talked about the relationship between the parents and the bride and groom, the young couple about to marry; about the young couple’s separation. And there’s another point here

11:33 Speaker 15 that also came up in the situation we saw: a certain sense of parting. Do you know that song about eighth grade, “We’ll always remain…”—the one sung at moments of parting? Those are very profound, very elevated moments. There is no parting among the Jewish people, and we certainly don’t mean that, G-d forbid. After all, every mother will say, “We’ve welcomed another son-in-law into our home,” and every mother-in-law will say, “We’ve welcomed another daughter-in-law into our home.” But somewhere deep inside, until now I knew where my daughter was at every moment. As one woman put it beautifully to me, “I’ve become my daughter’s mother-in-law.” So should we prepare the bride a little beforehand, and prepare ourselves? Should we do some sort of workshop within ourselves and with our family, or not? Should we just let things flow? What is happening in those subtle feelings hidden away inside us? Are they negative? Are they positive? What is going on there?

12:31 Speaker 16 I think—I strongly believe—that this matter of separation, which people generally don’t think about much, is something every mother should be aware of as a wedding approaches. The daughters feel it less. Often they only feel it after the wedding. And I think it’s important to understand that this is a very normal phenomenon, entirely unrelated to whether things are going well with her husband. Admittedly, the cases that come to me are the more extreme ones: a young woman suddenly begins to sink into a real low mood, even depression, after her wedding. She sits and cries and doesn’t understand what is happening to her. Even then, when she is brought to me and I try, as a psychologist, to understand what is happening, in most cases this young woman has no mental health problem and there is no problem in her marriage. She is happy with her husband, she wants to be with him, and she certainly doesn’t want to leave him. But it’s hard for her. It’s hard because she is far from home; it’s hard because she doesn’t know what’s going on there right now. One bride moved to Beit Shemesh and suddenly felt so alone and bored. The house was empty and quiet, and she was used to a lively home full of children. These things are hard; they take adjustment. It’s a transition. Of course, the farther you are from your family, the less you can just drop in for a visit, and sometimes you feel it more. I think that if mothers are aware that this sometimes happens, and that it isn’t a mental health problem but a period of adjustment that passes, they can encourage their daughters. They can send sisters to visit, encourage the couple to visit more often, and bring their daughters a little cheer for a while after the wedding. These things pass. The bond between husband and wife grows stronger, because little by little she transfers the sense of reliance she had in her parents’ home to her husband. But it’s a process that takes a little time, just as someone told me

14:23 Speaker 16 not long ago. She had married six months earlier, and she said, “It’s so strange. Suddenly I feel that I rely on my husband the way I used to rely on my mother.” There’s a transition that often happens, but it takes time. And I really—I think that, first of all, understanding this would spare us a lot of alarm. Parents become terribly alarmed when they see a bride one, two, or three months after the wedding and she seems sad. It’s very frightening, and it immediately raises doubts and questions about the marriage. It’s good to know that this isn’t necessarily the case. It may be a process of adjustment she needs to go through, and we need to help her understand it—not interpret it as something abnormal or as a sign that her marriage isn’t going well.

15:11 Speaker 17 I’ll just add one point. As a bridal instructor, I often raise this issue before the wedding rather than waiting until afterward. I ask the bride, while she is still unmarried, “How is your mother taking the idea that you’re getting married, or the separation that’s coming?” That opens up the subject. Often, if the brides have sisters who are married, they’re already aware of it. Some brides from Chabad say, “Oh, I was away from home a lot. I was in Russia on shlichus and elsewhere on shlichus, so my mother is used to it by now.” Other young women talk about it more openly and say, “My mother is already crying.” So we talk about that, and gradually I bring the conversation around to the bride: “And how do you feel about the point Ilana raised—going from a lively home to a quiet one?” That opens her up to the possibility of feelings she isn’t really aware of now, but that may come later. There’s another point here. When the daughter does come home, and the mother is carrying all those feelings about the separation, she may be so full of emotion that she immediately wants her daughter to step back into the role she had before she married. If she’s the eldest daughter, the mother may expect her to put on an apron right away and help in the kitchen as she used to. The mother suddenly needs to put on a different pair of glasses: her married daughter has come home. True, she doesn’t have to be treated entirely as a guest, but she hasn’t returned entirely to being who she was before. This is something that—could I ask everyone to turn off their phones? It’s disrespectful to the people sitting here. And I think these are things worth discussing—not just before the wedding, although in my experience I do bring them up beforehand—to make both

17:28 Speaker 17 the mother and the bride a little more aware.

17:30 Speaker 18 We know the scene. The young couple arrives, and everyone stares and wonders. She always used to help. Does that sound familiar? I’m sure it does to some of you. Let’s give it time to work itself out. How?

17:44 Speaker 19 Would you like to address this subject? Could you?

17:46 Speaker 18 Yes, certainly.

17:47 Speaker 19 I wanted to make two points. First, sometimes this low mood appears earlier—not after the wedding, but right after the vort. We expect to see a radiant, smiling, happy bride, and instead there’s a kind of withdrawal. She asks herself, “Why did I need this in the first place?” That’s when she begins thinking about the serious side of marriage. Sometimes it happens when she starts learning the halachos, and then a wave of fear comes over her. Mothers need to be aware of this and support her, because it’s a process that a great many brides go through. Sometimes they even come and complain of strange pains and physical sensations whose source is really just worry and low spirits. In my humble opinion—and this is something that needs medical approval—I would tell most of the mothers of brides I taught: Please go to a doctor, ask for a prescription for vitamins, and give them to her. Usually a bride is very busy before the wedding, especially with us, boruch Hashem, now that the Rebbe has succeeded in making the period between the vort and the wedding very short. There’s all the running around, the arrangements, the classes and the studying, and if she’s also in school at the time, she’s simply stretched to the limit. She doesn’t manage to eat, apart from whatever junk she grabs here and there along the way. And if her body is actually suffering from poor nutrition, the first result will be tension, irritability, and crying over every little thing, and so on. So mothers who want to avoid eventually having to give her tranquilizers should give her vitamins—of course, with a doctor’s approval. It has helped in very many cases. One more point I just wanted to make: the separation isn’t only on the daughter’s side. The mother also needs to work on herself and stop keeping her daughter tied to her apron strings. There have been many cases where daughters’ marriages were ruined

19:53 Speaker 19 because their mothers could not separate from them emotionally. That’s our part, and we need to work on it.

20:03 Speaker 3 I’d like to say one more thing.

20:05 Speaker 4 That’s called a bear hug born of our worries. So I think that, with real work on ourselves, as Bruria said, each of us needs to get this firmly into our heads. Our daughter is getting married. We should rejoice in this opportunity, show her how wonderful this step she’s taking is, show her the beautiful side of the home she’s going to build. A simcha is approaching for us, and all the preparations should be done with joy. We should see it properly: a new world is being built now, another Jewish home is being built. Encourage her, rejoice, hug her, love her, and do it all more joyfully. Everyone here is talking about how hard it is, about the separation. What separation? There is a physical separation, certainly. You can’t detach yourself from your children, neither from a son nor from a daughter. The son comes with questions: “Oh, but over there they do this and that,” and the daughter says something else. So what? We need to learn from an early age to adjust to other people and love them as they are. I can’t make anyone just like us. We are us, and they are them. That’s it. We need to get that firmly into our heads.

21:14 Speaker 5 Thank you, Rivka. I want to add to what you said: with a strong foundation of emunah, bitachon, joy, and “Tracht gut, vet zayn gut”—think good, and it will be good—we can accomplish a great deal. If we make a comparison, the concept of faith as presented in the Mishnah is like a farmer sowing his field. It says that Seder Zera’im symbolizes faith, because the farmer takes grains that could have been ground into flour and made into bread, and buries them in the earth. He knows they will rot there, and he prays to Hashem that new grains will grow from that decay. In the same way, marriage is a kind of act of faith. The young couple separates from everything that came before, and out of that nothingness they have to create something very substantial. So a great deal of emunah, bitachon, and joy will truly help them achieve something founded on faith.

22:12 Speaker 19 Yes, with a great deal of faith—but let’s remember that we didn’t invent the wheel. Interestingly, I heard that the Tzror Hamor, written five hundred years ago, says something about Sarah. It says, “And Yitzchak was comforted after his mother.” Why? “For death was preferable to her than seeing Yitzchak, her son, in love with and attached to Rivka his wife, and transferring his love from her.” That’s his explanation concerning Rivka. But there’s a certain point here that goes back through history; it isn’t something new. There’s something about the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law who takes her son to herself. That’s why we’re told, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife”—and all with joy and a glad heart. We need to learn how to accept that, truly with joy and a glad heart. Before we move on, we wanted to open it up to the audience a little on the subject of the relationship. What do you have to say about the relationship between parents and children? Who would like to say a few words? Please. Would someone like to? All right, please. Does anyone want to share something, say a few words? What? Some of the ladies do. Yes.

24:06 Speaker 6 Actually, I would ask—

24:08 Speaker 19 If you could stand up.

24:09 Speaker 6 No.

24:10 Speaker 19 Please.

24:12 Speaker 6 Again, my daughter is only nine, but with Hashem’s help, how much should we involve our children in the practical realities of preparing for a wedding? I mean, how much should they hear about the finances, about the financial pressures ahead? Shouldn’t they know about that because it will make them anxious, when right now they’re dreaming of seven wardrobes and seven outfits and all the new standards? Or the opposite—should they, in fact, be realistic? Because before long they’ll be opening a Chabad House, and things aren’t always quite so simple, and so on.

24:42 Speaker 19 All right, so...

24:43 Speaker 6 Two questions.

24:44 Speaker 7 The outlook is exactly what will make—

24:47 Speaker 19 We’re supposed to talk about that. Yes. Up to this point.

25:00 Speaker 6 Just one sentence. My daughter said to me, “Mom, I want you to accept him like a son of your own,” and almost in the same breath she said, “But don’t be a mother-in-law.”

25:14 Speaker 19 All right, so apparently these are the young couples’ concerns too—how he’ll be received. And we all welcome them with open arms. Well, this has brought us to a question. The woman here spoke about finances; perhaps we’ll come back to that a little later. But another question that comes up is this: Bruria mentioned that sometimes, between the engagement and the wedding, the bride suddenly turns inward and starts asking herself questions. We can also have the complete opposite situation. She’s euphoric, she’s in another world, and she’s absolutely certain her chosson is the finest, the very best. He doesn’t have a single flaw. Is that good? Should we say to her, “You know, he is certainly the best one for you, but over the course of life there are ups and downs, and no one is perfect. Everyone has strengths and shortcomings, and you’ll learn to accept that”? Should we tell her? Shouldn’t we? Should we leave her where she is? Since finances were mentioned here, perhaps we’ll get to that later—but on this question, should we leave her in that euphoria? Before we hear some answers here, I asked several dear, respected women in Kfar Chabad at a class. I’ll just share a few of their comments. One said, “Let her think that way. Life will teach her.” Another, very optimistic, said, “And maybe it really will be like that all her life. Why spoil it for her?” Another said, “You should tell her there are days and there are days. There are strengths and there are shortcomings.” Someone else said, “But the bride isn’t listening; she’s in another world. What’s the point of telling her?” But the first woman said, “When the time comes, she’ll remember what her mother said.” And one last mother there said, “It depends on where the daughter stands in the family. If she’s the first, then she really can live in that...” If she’s the youngest daughter—

27:29 Speaker 19 someone who, with Hashem’s help, is about to marry off her youngest daughter—then she already knows that, yes, of course this is the best young man for her, and with Hashem’s help she’ll have the best life. But not every single day will be a moment of supreme euphoria. She already knows that. There’s no need to tell her.” So what do you think? What do you have to say to us?

27:54 Speaker 8 First of all, I want to say that when a bride doesn’t want to hear something, she really doesn’t hear it. When she wants to deny things and believe that everything is wonderful, then even if we tell her, perhaps it will be stored somewhere in her memory for a difficult day, if one comes. For now, she’ll keep riding that wave of joy and won’t let it spoil anything, so I wouldn’t worry. I do think there’s also a question here of a Chassidic outlook on married life. Just as we didn’t come into the world perfect, and we came here to do something, the same is true of married life. I think that should be part of the outlook we give her as preparation for marriage: within married life, too, we’ve come to do something; we’ve come to make things right. Not to fix the other person, but to work on ourselves through the things about the other person that bother us. And I think any woman whose married life hasn’t been the easiest can testify to how much good it has done her and how much it has changed her, because she had to change for her marriage to become good enough—and then better. If we instill that outlook, we don’t create an illusion. We also don’t create the illusion that if, right from the start or in the first month after the wedding, there are problems, difficulties or disappointments, then it isn’t worth it, we chose wrong, and somehow need to make a different choice. Instead, we understand that this is our task and our shlichus. There’s something here for me to learn. Maybe it will take me many years, or maybe we’ll learn it faster, but as a couple, we’re here with the things that bother us so that we can learn. We see these opposites in the personalities of husband and wife: one tends to spend freely and give, while the other tends to save and hold back, or the other way around. Sometimes it bothers them so much, and there needs to be a coming together, with each taking a little

29:44 Speaker 8 from the other. Slowly, they find some middle ground and live together more happily. So I believe very strongly in preparing her to understand that the work only begins with marriage, and that it has to continue throughout life. That way, we equip her with the right perspective, with tools and with inner strength to get past the disappointments and setbacks that happen—and they always will. If it doesn’t happen during sheva brachos, it happens after three months, at the end of the first year or at the end of the second. There’s no escaping the shortcomings and the things about one’s husband or wife that make life difficult for us. Because that’s how Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world. That’s how He created couples. At least, that’s how I see it.

30:31 Speaker 9 That reminded me of a joke I once heard. A bride was about to go out to meet her groom, or the groom was coming to pick her up. Her father said to her, “It’s chilly outside. Put on a sweater.” She said no—the sweater didn’t go with what she was wearing. He said, “No, it’s really cold outside.” Her mother tried to persuade her to wear a sweater too, but she didn’t want to. The doorbell rang. The groom came in and said, “It’s really chilly outside.” Suddenly it was, “What, chilly? Yes, I’ll take the sweater.” Yes, that perfect groom can often do what we, as parents, couldn’t. I’m grateful to Naomi for reminding us that we’re talking about a happy subject, even though we sound so serious, talking about problems and how to solve this and how to solve that. This is a joyful subject. We all look forward to meriting to see our children married and happy. As someone who guides brides, I see that, whether we mean to or not, we sometimes give examples of situations we might call problems. But instead of using the word “problem,” I think it’s better to say “difference.” Let’s call it a difference. Yes. It isn’t a problem. It’s a difference between the way you see things as a woman and the way he sees things as a man, or a difference between families. And it starts already when they begin planning the wedding. One side wants a big wedding and the other wants a small one. One side wants his uncle to officiate at the kiddushin, and the other wants the rabbi. We shouldn’t call that a problem. We can start by saying to the bride, “I understand why he’s asking for his uncle. He grew up around him. His yeshiva was close to his uncle’s home, and he spent a lot of time there, so it’s understandable that he wants his uncle to officiate at the kiddushin. In our family, we’re used to having the rabbi officiate.” So

32:52 Speaker 9 don’t turn every little thing into a problem; look at it as a difference in perspective. If a little girl is waiting for a birthday party and the in-laws’ side of the family doesn’t even remember it’s her birthday, that can become a very big problem. But if her mother has already taught her daughter and opened her eyes to the fact that families differ, and that men and women differ—which is a subject in its own right—then it isn’t a problem. It’s a different perspective, and I think that helps a great deal in tense situations, in the kinds of situations raised here.

33:42 Speaker 10 If I may, I’d like to respond to the survey Bracha conducted among the women. It reminds me of the rabbi before whom two litigants came for a ruling. He told one, “You’re right,” and he told the other, “You’re right.” Then the Rebbetzin said to him, “How can that be?” And he said, “You’re right too.” In principle, it shows us that this question is almost a perfect dilemma. The person who says, “Let her enjoy it,” is right. It’s a healthy stage, and she needs to go through it. Over the years, she’ll remember that wonderful time when she thought her husband was the perfect person, and it will give her strength. On the other hand, the person who says, “Help her understand a little that it won’t always be so rosy,” is also right. I think these perfect dilemmas accompany us all the way through raising our children and preparing them for marriage. I’ll give a few examples that I think we all experience. Take this: if I want to prepare my daughter to know how to run a home, I teach her and she helps me. When she asks why her brothers don’t help, I also want her, in the future, to know how to respect her husband and let him go out to classes and study. So I tell her that boys need to study. But I have sons too, and I want my sons to know how to help their wives. So I tell them, “At least iron your own shirts.” Then my daughter, hearing that, will tell her husband, “You need to iron your own shirts.” So we always have to pull the rope from both ends. Another example: we educate our daughters to be modest. We teach them to behave modestly even in private, even when they shower, and so on. At the same time, we have to be very careful not to create feelings of

35:20 Speaker 10 aversion toward their bodies, because that will make it harder for them later to observe all the details of taharas hamishpachah. So again, we mustn’t pull the rope too far in either direction. We always have to find the right balance, also according to the daughter’s personality. Another example: we’re very, very careful that children don’t see any physical displays of affection between husband and wife. But children need to know that their father and mother love and respect each other; they mustn’t think, G-d forbid, that they’re enemies. We mustn’t go too far in either direction. We always have to maintain a balance. A child needs to see mutual respect and affection, and so on, but expressed in a permitted and beautiful way. And let’s conclude by saying that what remains for us is to pray, to pray and ask, and to do our part. Hakadosh Boruch Hu will give us the siyata diShmaya to know how to find the golden mean.

36:22 Speaker 11 I want to add something. I’m always telling jokes, but I’ll say this. One mother told me how happy her daughter is that her husband helps her: he does the shopping, brings her coffee, gets the children off in the morning, goes to the market—he does everything. But my poor son, what can I tell you? Oy, he has to go to the market, carry everything, get the children ready in the morning, bring coffee, do this, hang up the laundry. What can I tell you? These are things you hear all the time. But you really need to know how to handle it. In my home, I make sure the boys help and the girls join in too. One child does the shopping, another irons, and so on. Everyone at home knows that boys help. They also asked how to prepare boys for marriage. I explain to my sons how to look at things and how to treat their wives: to show appreciation, to say thank you. That’s already the language spoken at home, so they learn from it, and with Hashem’s help, that’s how they’ll behave in their own homes. The same goes for the girls: how to respect their husbands. And of course they see how the person speaking now behaves, and I think that helps a little too. As for respect and the way we speak, I also prepare brides. They tell me, “I want a husband like my father.” I tell them, “You got your father after he’d already been trained for twenty years. Happily take the husband you have, and maintain a relationship of respect.” The beginning of a marriage is just the start of building what it will become later. It’s only the beginning. And if there are misunderstandings or things like that, everything can be worked out. You can listen to and understand everything. Did you want something else? You can speak. All right, go ahead and say it.

38:14 Speaker 10 No, no, keep going.

38:18 Speaker 11 I’ll start, thank you. Again, about relationships: earlier they spoke about families, about daughters’ connection with their mothers and leaving home, and so on. I also have a little story. Once my brother came home, and there was a wonderful smell of food. He said to my mother, “I want to sit down and eat. I’m hungry.” She looked at him and said, “No, I don’t want to serve you. Your wife is waiting for you at home. You can take a pot of food from here and go eat with her, or bring her here and you can both eat at my house. You’re not eating here alone.” It’s a short sentence, but it says a lot.

39:08 Speaker 10 I just wanted to add a point I’ve come across recently. First of all, I think our generation is one that bridges two generations. I think in our parents’ generation, fathers helped less around the house, went to the grocery store less, and did less shopping. I don’t think I ever saw my father and mother go to the supermarket or shopping or to the grocery store. We women, on the one hand, benefit more from technology and perhaps from help at home, but we’re also out of the house much more, and our husbands have had to learn firsthand to help more at home. Our children have seen more help from their fathers. On the other hand, in Chabad we have a new generation of shluchim’s children who leave home for boarding school at a very young age. Many boys—even our sons, who are in yeshiva from the age of three—don’t see much of what goes on at home. They arrive on Friday for a Shabbos break, tired, carrying a bundle of dirty laundry, and by Motzaei Shabbos they want it folded and back in their suitcases. This is something I learned from my mother. On Fridays, when the boys came home, she had a list of small jobs for them to do around the house: fix a lock, replace a screw, all kinds of things. Once I asked her why. They come home for such a short time—why give them chores? She said, “Because later they get married, things happen in their homes, and they don’t know how to deal with them. They’re boarding-school children, and they need to be connected to the home too.” I really adopted that with my sons. When I talk to them a little on the phone, I tell them

00:04 Speaker 1 They also stay connected to home, and I’ve really adopted that with my sons. When I speak to them on the phone, I tell them about things they’ll need to fix. One of them once said, “No, why wait until I come home for Shabbos break? You should get someone to fix it.” I said, “Yes, he’d probably fix it even better than you. But I don’t need nine daughters-in-law saying, ‘What kind of mother-in-law didn’t teach her sons to help?’” I do this with the girls, too—the girls from overseas seminaries here in Israel who come to me for Shabbos. Little by little, around the Shabbos table, I hear their stories: one has been living with her grandmother since she was seven because her parents are in Texas; another has been away at high school for seven years and only goes home for Pesach. One girl even told me, “My aunt knows me better than my mother does, because I’m really…” We have so many children of shluchim in that situation. They and their parents deserve tremendous credit: the parents send their children away for their education with mesirus nefesh. But those children don’t always get to see and experience life at home. So when I heard this, I told them, “Even though you’re my guests and I know perfectly well how to do dishes, you’re going to the kitchen now to do them. Come help me make challah, and come help me prepare things for Shabbos.” Whenever they ask me if they can help, I say yes. A few weeks ago I had some girls from South Africa, where they have household help. On Motzaei Shabbos, while they were doing the Shabbos dishes at my house, I heard one of them say, “Wow, I never knew how hard our helper works.” Then she came into the living room and saw us eating on [unclear], using all the dairy dishes. She turned to me and said, “You don’t believe in disposables? Disposable plates?” It had suddenly dawned on her that when people eat, there are plates and cutlery to wash. So I told her:

02:25 Speaker 1 “I believe in them when I’m alone. But when you’re here, you’ll do the dishes, and your parents will thank me—and so will your husband.”

02:34 Speaker 2 Our girls probably don’t have that problem so much. At least, not yet.

02:40 Speaker 13 I have to say—and I’m going back to what I said earlier—that with all the preparation, you still need siyata dishmaya. I heard about a true incident that happened recently. In a young couple’s home, a button came off the husband’s pants after the wedding. With great ceremony, he brought the pants to his wife. “A button came off,” he said. “So?” she asked. “So sew it back on for me.” She said, “In my house, my father sews on buttons.”

03:08 Speaker 18 Can I add something else on this subject? There’s one point I wanted to raise. I meet with brides’ counselors today. I don’t know—maybe Naomi can bring us up to date from the young men’s side. I think perhaps it has to do with the fact that, bli ayin hara, women today study so much. They really study Chassidus and other sacred subjects. I don’t know whether there’s another group besides Chabad where every woman feels that she herself is a chossid, genuinely works on herself and on improving herself, and studies a great deal, baruch Hashem. Sometimes these young women get married expecting their husband to be their mashpia. He’ll be the great chossid, the person devoted to serving Hashem, who will now help them advance even further and study Chassidus with them. Often they talk about it while they’re dating, and he says, “Yes, of course.” They’ll sit and learn; they’ll study the Rebbe’s Chassidus; and she expects a wonderful spiritual life on a very, very, very high level. And sometimes there are disappointments. Suddenly it turns out that he doesn’t have quite the energy or enthusiasm to sit and study. He doesn’t get up to daven with such eagerness. She has to hurry him along a little and get him out of the house. I think we should be aware that our girls sometimes enter married life on a very high spiritual level, and they can’t expect their husband to be like their teacher. At best, he may be roughly an equal partner, and in many cases they’ll have to be the ones driving the home’s chassidic direction, making it a priority. They shouldn’t see that as a terrible disaster or failure, or think that they can’t live that way. I think there are many homes today where the woman is the one driving the home’s spiritual, chassidic direction, and afterward, baruch Hashem, we see very, very beautiful results.

05:08 Speaker 19 But perhaps there’s also a danger of her becoming his mashpia, the one directing him, directing the home. Here, too. I believe so. Go ahead, Milana[?].

05:20 Speaker 20 I believe so. Here, too, you certainly have to be very careful. I believe it, and I see it. For me, it started with a sicha. We study a sicha every day, and from the look on his face she can tell exactly whether he understands it or not. First of all, you study a sicha. Studying a sicha brings you together. So he quickly makes the salad and the omelet and washes the dishes, because now we need to study. It’s a very good thing. You do what a chossid needs to do, and you keep going. And there’s also a maamar before Yud-Tes Kislev or before a birthday. We do that, too. In general.

05:52 Speaker 21 I think—just a moment, Bracha—that the point you raised is very important. But it’s also important that a young woman not think that the words “Behold, you are betrothed to me” appoint her as her husband’s mashpia. He has a mashpia. If she has something to say, she should raise it gently and discreetly through him. And everyone knows how to quote by heart what the Rebbe says: “Who is a worthy wife? One who does her husband’s will.” If he has no desire for chassidic things and so on, she should help him develop that desire. But why does no one remember the last two words of the Rebbe’s sentence? “In pleasant ways and in peaceful ways.” The Rebbe isn’t saying she should drag him out of bed by his peyos to go to a minyan. The Rebbe says she should think about how to help him want it, so that he feels it’s his own wish. How to do that is a separate workshop.

06:40 Speaker 22 Yes. Briefly. I’ll just give an example from a couple I worked with—actually, only the wife. I only heard her side. They had very, very serious problems and were on the verge of divorce. She told me about it. She described her husband’s spiritual state as very, very low. He would come home and take off his tallis katan, and she never saw him daven Mincha. Shacharis took two minutes, and so on. She told me he didn’t share a Torah thought at the Shabbos table. She told me about his spiritual life, and when I asked, “What do you do?” she said, “I remind him and I tell him, ‘Don’t talk that way in front of the children.’ And ‘That was Shemoneh Esrei? That wasn’t Shemoneh Esrei at all,’” and all sorts of things. Eventually it reached a more physical level, too, with truly serious problems. I empathized with everything she said. When she cried, I cried. But in the end I told her, “Stop being your husband’s rebbetzin. Start making him the food he likes. Give him a compliment, and start building him up as a husband again. You’ve stripped everything away from him, both spiritually and in everyday life. If he lives with disappointment, criticism and a rabbi in the house, everything will fall apart. And yes, you’ll reach a place neither of you wants to reach.” I told her, “Stop focusing on the spiritual side. Start with small things and rebuild him as a husband. Then he’ll want to become what you want him to be.”

08:30 Speaker 23 Well, there’s probably a lot more to say about lessons—a shared study session. It really is very important. I remember when I was teaching a class at the college, I asked one of the girls afterward, “You have a regular study session with your husband, don’t you? I can tell from the way you speak.” She said, “What do you mean? We study together every day.” Studying together can certainly raise the spiritual level—not as his rebbetzin or his mashpia, but as his partner in life. Let’s move on to the next point, though I’m sure there’s more to say about this one, too. We know that the bride and groom who are about to build a home are two different beings. The husband is the yud, the wife is the hei of Hashem’s name; together they form Hashem’s name. The husband is chochmah; the wife is binah. They are different. There are differences between the sexes that originate in their souls. We know that ten measures of speech descended into the world. How many did the woman take? What was left for him?

09:40 Speaker 22 She took nine, and the husband got un-un-unlimited speech.

09:44 Speaker 23 So what happens? A woman comes and says, “He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t talk,” or she feels he doesn’t converse with her enough, doesn’t understand her enough. What—there really is a difference. It reminds me of a joke about a rich girl who had to write an essay about a poor family. So she wrote: The family was poor, the maid was poor, the gardener was poor, and the Filipina caregiver was poor. Everyone who took care of her was poor. A different perspective. He sees things one way; she sees them another. It’s a miracle that they come together at all. If not for the belief that these are two parts of a soul joining in one true partnership, it would be astonishing. But how do we really guide them toward that miracle? Do we tell them? Not tell them? Talk about it? What do we say? Please. Naomi, you start. Or perhaps we’ll start with the audience? Please, let’s start with the audience this time. Should we instruct them, tell them, guide them—or, if so, how?

11:09 Speaker 24 I’m not going to answer exactly the question you’re asking right now. I’ve just had a question on my mind for a while about the mother and the bride-to-be, who need guidance before the wedding. What does the groom expect of them? What does the groom expect—

11:25 Speaker 23 A workshop, a workshop.

11:26 Speaker 24 A workshop before the—

11:27 Speaker 23 Home.

11:28 Speaker 24 It’s very important, because everything is from the perspective of the mother and daughter, but there’s another part to the marriage—

11:34 Speaker 23 Because it’s a change, and a change may call for a little support. A good, healthy, happy change, baruch Hashem. But...

11:40 Speaker 3 Would anyone else like to add something on this subject? Then perhaps we’ll start, and afterward there can be comments. Naomi, please.

11:48 Speaker 23 Please.

11:50 Speaker 3 A couple is very...

11:54 Speaker 4 It’s very important to know that feminist movements spent years trying to blur the difference between the personalities of men and women. Over the last decade or two, they’ve come to the conclusion that if Hakadosh Boruch Hu “created them male and female,” as two distinct beings, you can’t get away from that. You can only make them miserable when you try to turn men into women. You know the saying, “Woe to one whose sons are like daughters.” If someone wants the boys to be girls and the girls to be boys, then that’s a terrible thing. Now, I know that lectures along these lines have become common in the Chareidi community lately. Many women have said that if they had known beforehand that things about their husbands’ personalities that irritated them so much were not shortcomings particular to their husbands, but distinctly male traits, their married lives would have looked different. The question is how much of this we should tell a bride and groom. I definitely think we should. At least the basics—for example, telling a bride what years, literally many years, of living in a dormitory do to a groom. If he takes off his shirt and leaves it on the floor, it isn’t because he’s disorderly. It’s because no one in the dormitory bothered to tell him that the floor isn’t where it belongs. And if he doesn’t come on time and doesn’t remember to let her know, it’s because for the previous seven, eight, nine, ten years, he didn’t have to account to anyone in the world for where he was. That’s very important. It isn’t hard to explain to the girl, the bride, either. Sorry—we’re always girls. You can tell her: Look at how boys fight and how girls fight. Boys can come to blows, roll around on the floor, then get up, smile, and carry on playing together. Girls—if one dared... You know about the boundary lines on a school desk.

13:47 Speaker 4 If her things crossed onto my side of the line, I’ll remind her of it a year, two years, or three years later. It’s very important for women to know that by nature they tend to hold grudges, and they must be very careful not to bring up all their husband’s sins since the day he was born at every opportunity. On the other hand, it’s important to tell the boys—and perhaps this is the central point—that when our Sages say women are quick to tears, they aren’t trying to mock women for crying. They’re telling men that women can be hurt even by things that seem trivial to them, so deeply that they may shed a tear. At first, men don’t understand that. He used to say much worse things to his friends in yeshivah, and it didn’t bother them at all. And she only... He said the schnitzel wasn’t exactly right. I recently heard a story about a couple. She made him lunch, and he came home and didn’t like the food, so he got upset. He didn’t like it—what do you do in the dormitory? You get up and leave. So he went to rest. He woke up two hours later and saw that she was still sitting there crying beside the untouched plates, and he didn’t know what to do. He took his cell phone, went out to the stairwell, called his mother, and asked, “Mom, what do I do?” A riddle.

15:19 Speaker 5 Well, first of all, you can see we didn’t invite men to this workshop. It’s only women who observe mitzvos, and, um, with the separation between men and women, we’ve known since birth that there’s a difference between them. Their interests are different. What we’re talking about here might not interest men at all. And, um, that’s the beauty of Judaism: from a young age, our girls already know there’s a difference between boys and girls. When they come to us as brides and grooms, we just need to show them how that difference plays out in married life. As mothers, we don’t always realize how much our sons experience and absorb dormitory life, or life among boys. Then suddenly, living with a young woman is... As Bruri said, he isn’t used to hanging up his shirt. I remember once telling my husband that a door in the house was squeaking, and asking if he could get up and close the door at the end of the hallway. He said to me, “You remind me of a boy in the dormitory.” I said, “Excuse me, I’m your wife, and I remind you of a boy in the dormitory?” But it’s still deep inside them. All sorts of things remind them of that life. Just as we bring with us the life we lived before we married, so do they, and they spent all that time among men. I heard about a bride—actually, she was already married and had given birth. After the bris, she was sitting in the living room and heard her husband talking to a friend, a shliach somewhere else, about the bris. And... she was stunned. She had never heard him speak that way. Different words. She said, “He was a different person.” It was simply a man talking to a man. It was the same event she had attended—it was their son’s bris—but that was how he experienced it. To her he said, “It was very nice.” It was a really beautiful bris.

17:44 Speaker 5 Yes, it was moving. And that was it. But with his friend, he talked at length... So she came to me. I was there in the apartment, and she asked, “Is that the same person?” I told her, “Yes. Here he was talking to you, his wife, and there he was talking to a friend.” It’s like a continuation of the time when they were together, learning as chavrusas and so on. The word chavrusa reminds me: I once spoke with a young man who was looking for a shidduch, and I asked him, “What are you looking for?” He began describing it, and I said, “You’re not looking for a wife. You’re looking for a chavrusa.” You actually need to make a little switch. You don’t marry a chavrusa; you marry a woman. Sometimes this comes up later, when they’re married and they come and say, “This isn’t it.” What they mean is that she isn’t a good chavrusa. That’s when you need to open their eyes. She’s a wonderful wife, but choose your chavrusa in the beis midrash, not at home.

18:47 Speaker 6 Right. About the boys: as everyone knows, they’re studying in yeshiva. And when they do have a Shabbos off from yeshiva gedolah, they go to some moshav or community to do mivtzoim, so I hardly see them. Then, after yeshiva gedolah, they pack up and come to me for [unclear], and… I don’t see them, as I said earlier. So I always make use of the late-night hours when they come home for Shabbos to talk—so he can talk to me and I can talk to him. I’m speaking about the boys. Each time I take one son and tell him different stories to hear his reactions. It’s very important to do that: to sit and talk with them, to explain things to them. For example, one of my children saw me when I wasn’t feeling well. My blood sugar had dropped, and apparently I didn’t look too good. He got so frightened that he ran and called the girls from their rooms: “Something’s happened to Mom.” It was a Friday. I kept smiling, put something in my mouth, took some medicine, and smiled. Then he said, “Mom, tell me, how did you do that?” I told him, “You should know that I’ve worked on my emotions. It’s very easy to cry and faint. What I did was hard.” A woman is immediately affected emotionally. A woman is more vulnerable, and I always have something to tell them about how a woman is sensitive and how careful you have to be when speaking to her. When I got married, I made some food, and my husband told me that his mother makes a certain kind of soup. I told him, “With Hashem’s help, in forty years I’ll make soup like that too.” But it didn’t take forty years—not even forty weeks or four weeks. Anyway, those are the kinds of conversations I mean. It’s very important to talk with the boys about all sorts of things,

20:41 Speaker 6 to tell them all kinds of interesting stories from home. You don’t have to go to the neighbors for stories; you have them right in your own home. There are so many ways to strengthen them and really show them how to treat someone, how to respond, how to show appreciation—lots and lots of appreciation. There’s a couple I’ve been working with for some time, and we agreed that he would do this and that. He did the first thing well, and then another thing and another. After two weeks he came and said, “I can’t do it anymore. She hasn’t said thank you to me once. I got up for a minyan. I sat and listened to the child.” He was simply doing her a favor, as we discussed earlier. She was his rebbetzin, but they needed to show appreciation for each other. Bring into the home the habit of asking for help, saying “thank you very much” and “please.” How important it is for those little words to be heard regularly at home. Show appreciation for every nice thing someone does. I was in a hurry to go somewhere, so I left dough on the counter, told my daughter what to do with it, and left. At twelve-thirty that night, the house was full of a wonderful smell. I couldn’t stop praising her. I told her again and again how well the cake had turned out. These are such small things, but keep saying them—keep saying kind words. It’s so important. The same goes for the neighbor who came in not looking her best, or who changed her wig. I’m sure everyone can find something nice to say. Train your mouth to say kind words.

22:07 Speaker 7 Naomi, I don’t know if you still have yeshiva-age boys at home, but you do. So for that too… We’ll sit down together right after the workshop. I really wanted to say, for everyone who has boys at home, that I think one of the essential things we have to prepare them for is learning to express emotion. That’s something a woman can’t do without. A great many of women’s disappointments in married life come from how difficult it is for men to express their feelings in words. Now, I think we need to prepare the girls for the opposite: to understand that words really aren’t men’s strong point. Some men love you and show their love by doing things—by running to get you something you wanted, buying you something you wanted, or fixing things around the house. But at the same time, we mustn’t neglect this side of the boys and men. From what I’ve seen, when a man has learned even a little to express his feelings in words—it can’t be helped, women specifically want to hear those words. It’s good for them to hear; it reassures them. They’re willing to forgive a great deal if they hear how much he loves them. It’s not like the man who said at a workshop for men, “I don’t understand. I told her a year ago that I love her. Do I have to say it again?” Yes, again and again, and in different ways. This goes along with showing appreciation, but it’s also simply about expressing feelings. I think that perhaps none of us does that enough in the Israeli mentality and culture. We’re a little stingy with words of feeling toward one another. I think we all need to learn it, and especially prepare the boys for it. As for the girls, one thing you can

24:05 Speaker 7 also prepare them for is that they’ll still need their good friend after marriage—to chat and talk and share every little detail. Most husbands won’t be interested. That’s just how it is. With a husband, you need to come to the main point, the gist of it, and then he’ll be happy to listen too. Often he doesn’t have the patience for all the little stories that we, as women, love and value so much. So I definitely think that’s something you can prepare them for in advance, explaining and showing them these differences. You can also explain to a woman that it takes time to “spoil” her husband a little in this respect—to get him talking more with his wife and learning how to do that. I think women teach their husbands how to enjoy a conversation, how to enjoy sharing things. But it takes time. Her father and mother, as she sees them today—as someone said here—didn’t enter married life like that.

24:57 Speaker 8 It isn’t instant. Before we hear from Esther, there was a scene described in one of the chareidi newspapers: a son calls home from yeshiva. “Hi, Mom, how are you?” “Boruch Hashem. How are you?” “Boruch Hashem.” “So, how are things at home?” “Everything’s fine.” “How are things in yeshiva?” “Boruch Hashem.” “How’s your learning going?” “Fine.” “Still with the same chavrusa?” “Yes, the same chavrusa.” “And what’s happening at home?” Yes. The conversation got stuck. Nothing new under the sun. I think the message here is to know how to talk with the boys, to let them feel connected to home and express themselves. I think these are very, very important things. In many homes, that’s where the conversation gets stuck, and perhaps learning to talk this way is a good start for married life. Esther wanted to add something else. Please.

25:48 Speaker 9 I just wanted to connect a few points here. I recently had a case where a young bride, married only a short time, came to complain that her husband doesn’t show—he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t compliment her on her wig, and there’s no point changing her dress because he won’t notice. There are all kinds of things he doesn’t express in words, and then she feels he doesn’t notice. I knew the bride’s family, and boruch Hashem, there was a lot of shalom bayis in her home. So I asked her whether she had ever heard her father say anything affectionate to her mother. She said no. “And do you think they love each other?” “Yes.” “So how do you know?” She began to answer: “He…” And suddenly she realized that it isn’t necessarily about words. He would bring her a gift, or he wouldn’t start eating until her mother had finished serving everyone and sat down. Little by little, her eyes opened to the fact that it isn’t necessarily the words. There’s much more to it. I asked her, “Now think about your own situation. Does your husband open the door for you? When he hears you coming, does he end his phone call? When he sees you from a distance and can take the packages from you, does he do it?” She told me yes. “So perhaps he doesn’t need to say it. You’re waiting for something you’ve heard other people do, and because you aren’t getting that, you thought you had a problem. But he actually shows a great deal of respect and love in ways your father showed it to your mother—and as children, you felt it at home.” Sometimes girls only open their eyes to their parents’ marriage after they themselves get married, because while they’re at home they aren’t aware

27:52 Speaker 9 of it. So if you know that a bride comes from a home with shalom bayis—as, boruch Hashem, all of us do—you simply need to open her eyes to where she saw that example in her parents and help her see it in her own marriage too.

28:11 Speaker 10 All right, Ilana asked us to address how we guide the grooms, and perhaps the same applies to the girls. I touched a little on this point: the boys talk, and the girls talk too. Don’t tell him about your friends, and he doesn’t need to tell you about his. Sometimes the nine measures of speech descend, and people don’t know what to do with all that talking. They start describing their friends: “She’s so beautiful, and she’s so...” Don’t tell, don’t talk about it. We can’t know what effect it has on the other person. I know of an actual case that really did not end well. A couple would go out to eat with friends, and afterward, on the way home, they would always analyze who was smarter and who was prettier, who was more this, who was more that. There were so many people they thought were smarter and better-looking than they were that, in the end, it did not end well. So sometimes we really need to remember to tell them these little things too. There are a few lines that a mother-in-law or mother might say, and we need to be careful about them: “I don’t want to interfere, but for your own good...” Or, “What do you want from him? He’s only a child.” “I don’t know, but in our day children didn’t behave like that,” and so on. “Don’t forget there are foods besides schnitzel and fries.” Or, “Don’t forget to praise the recipes you got from his mother when he can hear you.” There are other expressions like that which we need to be careful not to say. We’ll touch on this very briefly. I might have skipped this question, but since someone in the audience has already asked it, we’ll address it very briefly so we can finish with the last question. Perhaps we’ll give this one to Ilana. Should we talk about responsibility for running a household? About budgets? How do you divide up a budget? Should you say something to him before he gets married about where he stands on this whole subject?

30:32 Speaker 10 Should he be guided on this? Should we even talk about responsibility, the home, work, and so on? So, Ilana, perhaps we’ll hear from you and then move on to the last question.

30:44 Speaker 11 I’ll perhaps say just a word. This year at the Beis Rivkah seminary, we held a few groups here and there for brides-to-be, and one of the issues that came up was something I hadn’t really thought much about.

30:55 Speaker 10 We’re asking everyone, please—perhaps some of the other workshops have finished. We may close the doors here in a moment too.

31:04 Speaker 11 One of the subjects the girls raised, which troubled them, was...

31:08 Speaker 10 If we could, please. Sorry, just a moment to close the doors. It’ll simply be more pleasant for us.

31:15 Speaker 11 It really makes a difference. Suddenly it turned out that, for the first time in their lives, they realized they were about to move out and run a household with a separate budget. Until now, whenever they needed something, they went to their parents. They got it or they didn’t, or were told to wait another month, but there was someone who knew whether the money was there and how much there was, and who managed things. Suddenly they felt that they were going to be living on their own, and it dawned on them that, even with all the help from their parents, the budget would be quite limited. A young couple generally starts out with a very limited budget. The thought that they would have to live with some difficulty, some restraint, and make decisions about what to spend on and what not to spend on frightened some of them a little. One of them even said something I would never have thought of. She said, “I’ll tell you the truth. I know my parents will help us and that we won’t have a problem covering day-to-day expenses, but it’s hard for me to leave our home. We have such a beautiful home. They’ve collected so many beautiful things over the years, and suddenly I look at... They bought me perfectly good furniture, and I have no complaints—perhaps even more than other couples get—but still, it’s nothing like my parents’ home. Suddenly I’m going to miss,” she said, “all those beautiful things. We won’t have a rug; we won’t have pictures.” All sorts of things like that—points we sometimes don’t think about at all. But there is a transition here. It’s true that a young couple’s home isn’t like ours after twenty or thirty years of collecting things and buying something different little by little. And I strongly believe that, certainly from around age eighteen onward, we shouldn’t be overprotective or afraid to involve our children a little in realistic concerns

33:06 Speaker 11 and in an awareness of the costs of running a household. I think perhaps this comes from a time when there really wasn’t enough to eat, and parents didn’t want their children worrying about food. Some of that mentality has remained with parents: don’t worry the children, don’t worry the children, don’t talk about any of this. I don’t think we should make children worry about food, clothing, or the minimum cost of living. But I certainly think it would help us as parents, and help the couples later on, if they began to understand what it costs to run a household. Our girls, at least the ones I meet, have no awareness of taxes, municipal rates, electricity, or water. Roughly how much goes on those each month? What are they? They have no idea. I think we’re simply doing them a disservice. We aren’t preparing them for life. Then, around the wedding, they come to us with all their requests, because they want things. It’s perfectly natural for them to want everything as beautiful and as good as possible. And why not one more thing, and another, and another? I think that around the wedding, too, we’re allowed to set a budget and say to her, “This is the budget; let’s make it work. If you want something, let’s see what we’ll cut back on elsewhere to pay for it.” That way we’ll be preparing her for life. You should know, a bank manager told me that the largest number of restricted accounts—accounts on which checks can no longer be written—belong to young couples in their first year after the wedding.

34:35 Speaker 12 Perhaps one more word. I think this is a problem for most young couples today. For young couples paying rent while she is still studying and he is still in kollel, it’s very hard to manage even a minimal day-to-day budget. I’m not saying this so we can lament it, but to tell sensible mothers: don’t rub salt in their wounds. I hear young women...

35:01 Speaker 11 Perhaps help them a little.

35:01 Speaker 12 ...who tell me—and certainly, help them if you can—but otherwise, “My mother says, ‘Why didn’t you put an air conditioner in the bedroom?’ My mother asked me, ‘Why didn’t he buy you a present after the baby was born?’” She says, “What am I supposed to tell her—that with the money we managed to scrape together, we bought a wardrobe for the baby’s room?” So at least let mothers be sensible about that. One more very, very important tip: the most important preparation for managing a household budget properly is learning to manage the resources we have at home properly. And perhaps I’ll just hint at this by telling you about a proposed shidduch I heard of that fell through before it even got going. The young man’s father walked into the shop where the young woman’s mother worked, and she said, “Oh, you’re here. Your wife bought something earlier.” He said, “Oh, my wife bought something? Which check did she use—from my account or hers?” So she said, “I don’t want a shidduch like that. If they have separate accounts, I don’t want to join that family.” Something to think about.

36:10 Speaker 11 All right, um.

36:12 Speaker 14 Can you add something?

36:14 Speaker 11 What?

36:14 Speaker 14 There is.

36:15 Speaker 11 All right, because we want to finish with a different final question. Unless it’s very important to you. Someone here wanted to say something; let’s hear a word. Yes, speak up. Could you stand? Without a microphone, at least stand up.

36:37 Speaker 15 For the children of shluchim, the parents also have a great deal more contact with the family. For example, many correspond with them and can talk about their daughter, and can talk about... They have social connections. It isn’t just contact with their biological parents and then going back home. And they also aren’t given a great deal of freedom. They do have things...

37:02 Speaker 11 We all send...

37:03 Speaker 12 Yes, yes.

37:06 Speaker 11 But we can’t hear.

37:08 Speaker 15 I have sisters-in-law who [unclear], and when their children come home, it’s really very limited. Now they open Skype, and for most of the year they can talk with them almost every day because they have that. So they also have family right there in the home.

37:27 Speaker 12 I didn’t mean to say that it’s bad to be the children of shluchim, G-d forbid.

37:32 Speaker 11 All right, we’ll finish with one last point, because we want to end with it. But, you know what? We actually have about five minutes afterward. Perhaps... Well, in any case, we won’t be able to answer it in this forum.

37:48 Speaker 15 We can stretch this until one-thirty.

37:50 Speaker 11 What?

37:50 Speaker 15 We can go until...

37:51 Speaker 11 We can stretch...

37:52 Speaker 12 Until one-thirty. You can stretch it out.

37:54 Speaker 11 Please. They see we can go on a little longer, please. So perhaps just close the doors.

37:58 Speaker 12 Okay, so.

38:01 Speaker 15 Wait, perhaps we’ll pass the microphone over—the microphone. We’ll hear much better. Thank you very much. Good afternoon.

38:13 Speaker 11 All right.

38:14 Speaker 15 If we could just go back for a moment to the couple’s relationship with their families of origin. I’d especially like to address this from the perspective of our work with many couples who are baalei teshuvah. I would actually be very glad if they didn’t visit their families too often, but I also don’t want them to cut off their relationship with their parents. How do we handle that wisely and constructively? The children of those couples won’t see the kind of honoring parents that I want them to see, or that we’re used to seeing in our homes. In two sentences: What exactly are we dealing with here? Not our own parents. All right, so the question is: What happens when the parents follow a different path and we want to guide the children along a particular path? Just a few words. Who would like to answer? Please. I’ll just get us started.

39:12 Speaker 16 It isn’t only an issue for baalei teshuvah, as you said. I think staying at the parents’ home in general isn’t so... That’s really where we began. On the one hand, we said that in the first year it’s good to be close to the parents. On the other hand, we find many couples who are constantly at their parents’ house, hanging around there and practically living there. That in itself isn’t so positive. So it doesn’t really matter whether the parents observe mitzvos or not. You’ve raised another topic: We want to teach the children to honor their parents, but their parents don’t observe mitzvos, and we don’t want the children going back to their homes too often. Do you want to answer that question?

40:09 Speaker 15 I don’t know how far what I’m saying is based on a broad survey of baalei teshuvah. There are two points I can make. First, many couples who are baalei teshuvah feel that after marriage they still need support, and a kind of adoption by a family of mashpi’im who will stay involved with them. That isn’t always there. Often the mashpia, man or woman, feels that once the couple marries, their role is over. That isn’t true. To build a home and know how to do it, they really need a living example and continued guidance. So I would say to everyone here who brings people closer and works with baalei teshuvah: Remember that marriage is the beginning of the road, not the end. As for the relationship with the extended family, at least in my own experience—I’m also a baalas teshuvah, and none of my extended family observes mitzvos—I’ve managed to find a very healthy balance. On the one hand, my children have a loving, warm family, family get-togethers, and a great deal of goodwill on all sides. Sometimes they even order the most strictly kosher catering so that we can eat too; and if they don’t, we make sure there’s something we can eat. I think we mustn’t give up warm family relationships as long as there is mutual respect, as long as the parents genuinely respect the new values and way of life and won’t do anything to undermine the education we give our children, but will support it. I believe that when there’s understanding, respect, and acceptance, relatives who don’t observe mitzvos will help us educate our children too. That’s what I’ve seen in my own case and in others. If we respect them, don’t look down on them, and don’t try to force them into a life of Torah and mitzvos—because sometimes someone else probably needs to

42:14 Speaker 15 do that, not us—I certainly wouldn’t give up the feeling of having a warm, good family.

42:22 Speaker 16 Ayelet Horn is asked to come to this entrance. Her little daughter is waiting for her—the baby. All right, we really have to wrap up; our time is very short. A few words from each of you on how we can improve our homes so that they truly set a personal example for the young couples about to leave them. Sometimes the harder things are what people see, while the reconciliation isn’t visible. How can we set a better example for the children as they leave home? Just a few words from each of you, please. Naomi, you start.

43:15 Speaker 17 I know that the whole relationship begins with the budgets before the wedding. I’m saying this loudly and emphatically because I know that... You can’t hear me? There are sandwiches—that’s very important.

43:29 Speaker 16 Really, just a few words.

43:34 Speaker 17 About the budgets, you have to understand that they’re the families’ concern, not the couple’s. The couple shouldn’t get involved. That’s a very, very important point. If some problem comes up, or words are exchanged, it’s not our concern. That belongs to the parents. And keep in touch after the wedding, after a son or daughter is born—or if they haven’t had children yet. Keep in touch on the holidays. I try to invite all the in-laws for a meal on the holidays. That’s a very, very important and heartwarming thing. That’s what I have to say. Now I wanted to say—

44:14 Speaker 15 A wise question is half the answer. If the question is how the atmosphere at home can have a better influence on the young couple, then that’s the answer: Only the atmosphere at home influences the young couple. No lectures or speeches will help. Perhaps I’ll allow myself to tell a little joke. There’s a story about a boatman who was taking a great philosopher across a river. As they set off, the philosopher very much wanted to discuss philosophy, so he asked the boatman, “Have you studied philosophy?” The boatman said no. “Ah,” the philosopher said, “you’ve lost a third of your life.” Then he thought, “Perhaps you know mathematics?” Again, the boatman said no. “Ah, you’ve lost another third of your life.” Meanwhile, the boat ran aground, a hole opened in its bottom, and water began flooding in. The boatman asked the philosopher, “Have you learned to swim?” He said no. “In that case,” said the boatman, “you’ve lost your whole life.” It’s a joke, but what we mean is this: If a mother hasn’t prepared her daughter to run a home, then a third of her life, G-d forbid... And if she hasn’t prepared her daughter to manage a budget, then another third, G-d forbid. But if she hasn’t instilled yiras Shamayim in her, then her whole life, G-d forbid, is worth nothing. That’s the foundation we have to understand. Take a very small example. If a daughter or son sees at home that every question is taken to a rav—not that the father opens a sefer, though he knows how, and not that the mother consults neighbors and friends, but that there is a rav and he is the one to ask. I saw an example of this on Shabbos at a shul in Lod. They handed out cans of drink to the children after the Shabbos gatherings. One father took his son over to the rav and said:

46:02 Speaker 15 “Let’s ask the rav whether it’s permitted to open a can of drink on Shabbos.” The father knew the answer perfectly well, but he gained something wonderful. That child will never rely on his own judgment...