Browbeat the Bachur into Learning More on Bein Hazmanim?

What Ever Happened to Training a Child According to His Way

Parents need to wake up. If kids aren’t interested in learning, there is a REASON for it (especially if they are on vacation)!

Last week something really exciting happened! I finally put a very important concept from my Parenting / Homeschooling Mentor group into Action!

One of the things our mentor, Chana Rus Cohen, keeps reminding us about is the concept of inspiring, rather than requiring from our kids. In other words, we want to inspire our kids to learn, not require it of them. As a bonus, this helps their natural genius unfold organically.

We do this by serving as an example to our children through doing the things we want them to be doing.

This means that we keep learning and growing too. We also support rather than enforce their learning interests by planning, sourcing books and other resources, being present for them, setting up a functional and inspiring work environment, taking day trips, helping them get hands on involvement in their interests, and offering guidance.

Enter: my 14 year old son who just graduated 8th grade with five weeks off of school. Straight A student, loved and admired by his teachers, super talented with a lot of leadership and shall we say – entertainment skills. Anyway, for the first almost two weeks of his vacation, this boy did not learn one word of Torah. Not one word. He got up every day for davening, prayed in a minyan three times a day. But no learning. I was  starting to get so annoyed. I tried bribing him, taking away privileges, harassing him. Nothing worked.

Finally, the light bulb went on and Chana Rus’s teachings of inspire not require came to the forefront of my mind. I thought about this kid and what he actually loves to do. Well, he does enjoy public speaking and entertaining, that’s for sure…

 In other words, we want to inspire our kids to learn, not require it of them. As a bonus, this helps their natural genius unfold organically.

That very day he had gone to an introductory day at next year’s high school yeshiva. My husband asked him over dinner, “So what did the Rosh Yeshiva speak to you about today?” He immediately jumped up and went straight into explaining the laws of the nine days of mourning, as they apply to certain obscure situations. He knew it cold. He explained this very clearly and in such an interesting way.

I then asked him if anyone else other than the Rosh Yeshiva taught them. He said that yes, and proceeded to tell us a story, a dvar Torah, and an explanation about the difficulty in new beginnings and why next year will be challenging at first but how this is normal and what to do about it. His speaking skills never cease to amaze me.

And that’s when it dawned on me: I will ask him if he would teach me Torah every day. Some parsha, more laws about the 9 days of mourning; his favorite mishnayos and Gemaras from this past year.

I said, “Would you be willing to teach me some Torah once a day? The way you give it over is so interesting and when I learn Torah alone, i have a hard time understanding a lot of it”.

Now this was something that he could actually get into and enjoy. Teaching, showing off his knowledge and how well he can give it over. Yes, this he was more than happy to do! So now, once a day, we have a little Torah session going. He teaches me and he gets to understand the Torah teachings on a deeper level because that is what happens when you teach something.

Wow.

Who did I think this child was to try and bribe or harass him into learning Torah? How ridiculous is that? What good would come out of such a thing? Sometimes I wonder if I’m brain dead. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one treating my child in this way.

Which brings me to the question – what ever happened to the teaching in Mishley 22\6? “Train a child according to his way; even when he grows old, he will not turn away from it.”

Does anyone do this anymore? I know that the schools don’t, but how many parents out there are putting this verse into action?

The GRA says about this verse that a parent must raise and teach a child in accordance with his nature and natural inclination and in this way, when he grows older, he will not turn away from the way he was raised. However, should a parent force a child to go against his nature, even through the child will listen to him when he is younger, once he grows older, he will turn away from the way he was raised and what he was taught since it is impossible for someone to go against their nature.

Parents need to wake up. If kids aren’t interested in learning, there is a REASON for it (especially if they are on vacation). Bribing, forcing or demeaning kids to learn anything is useless and a very detrimental thing to do for the long run if you really think about it. Parents must take responsibility to figure out what will make a child WANT to learn. And if they can’t figure it out, they shouldn’t expect their child to figure out how to want to learn something that they are not interested in either.

 Next time your child seems uninterested in learning Torah, studying for a math test, doing his required reading, etc. Remember: inspire not require. Think about what makes this child tick, how you can inspire him by personal example, and of course, ask Hashem for help in training your child according to his way.

From Breslov.org, here.

Techeiles Talk Template

Every once in a while I have the Techeiles talk.

This is the general script I follow:

Tell me something, why do you wear techeiles?

Wrong question. Why don’t you?

You don’t absolutely have to.

Really?! (And see the first page here.)

But the Gedolim…

Gevald, I’m ashamed for your sake. You studied in yeshiva. Even if you were right, is that your best answer?

How numerous those with time aplenty for every possible and impossible sugya… but this one! How curiously uncurious they are; I wonder why!

[Rabbi Breitowitz in a shiur here (40:10-49:04) says he never understood why the “Gedolim” are opposed. He asks how come we don’t go by “Safek De’oraisah Lechumra” (and adds the chances of a correct identification here are good). And instead of a sneer or calling the genuine Techeiles “Kala Ilan”, the rabbi ends with “Tzarich Iyun”.]

But I’m not great enough to pasken on this anyway?

By what standard?

Rabbi Breitowitz (above) quotes Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky saying if one learned the sugya himself and thinks the Techeiles is genuine he must wear it. Rabbi Toporovitch testifies.

Corona Craze: The Simple Questions Only Some Were Asking

“Crazy” Questions Everyone Should Have Asked About Covid-19

One of the most astonishing things about the past two-plus years and counting has been how asking certain questions gets one branded as “crazy,” “stupid,” “conspiracy theorist,” etc.  Questions that, had you asked “Before COVID,” would have been … normal.

So let’s dig into our closets and put on our now-sort-of-out-of-fashion clothes, get into a time machine and travel back to, say, 2014. (I pick 2014 to “control” for the Trump Derangement Syndrome that gripped about half the country and most media the next year.)

Government officials and media breathlessly tell us that a deadly virus is rampant, and that we must take particular measures, including vaccinating everyone. Before rolling up your sleeve for an injection, you would questions.

Regarding the illness, you would ask:

What is the severity of the illness?

What is my risk of being infected?

If I’m infected, what is my risk of hospitalization?

If I’m infected, what is my risk of death?

What is the actual risk of other people, and if anyone is at significant risk, what can I do to reduce such risk (“protect others”)?

If people have been reported to have died from the virus or become severely ill from it, how was causation determined? Are we sure the illness was the cause?

Do the people reporting the deaths/severe illness have any incentive to report them as deaths/severe illness from the virus as opposed to from another cause?

Regarding Proposed Non-Medical Interventions (lockdowns, social distancing, masking, etc.) you would ask:

What is the purpose of each proposed intervention?

What is the likelihood that any particular intervention will achieve such purpose?

What are the possible harms and costs of each intervention?

Can the purpose be achieved without the intervention?

If not, can the harms and costs be reduced?

What data are being relied on in support of such interventions, especially unprecedented ones?

Regarding any proposed medical intervention (such as a “vaccine”), you would ask:

Are there tried and true safe drugs that can be repurposed to treat people infected with the illness?

Who are the manufacturers of this new vaccine, what is their track record, and what are their incentives to make drug?

What are the ingredients?

How does it work?

If the drug has novel biotech, how does it work?

What does the drug purport to do?

Does the drug purport to prevent infection?

Does the drug purport to prevent transmission?

Does the drug purport to reduce symptoms?

What testing has been done, and what things were tested? The drug’s ability to prevent infection or transmission?  Reduce symptoms?  Safety and side effects?

What were the test results?

How was the testing done? On whom? How long? Etc.

What incentives do those who did the testing and who reported results have to say the testing was done properly and thoroughly and that the tests were passed?

Are all the data from the tests available for independent review? If not, why not?

If data and answers to these questions aren’t forthcoming, why shouldn’t we assume that there is a cover up of “bad” information?

If there are long term risks we don’t know about, why not take a toe-in-the water approach instead of diving into murky waters headfirst? That is, why not use the drug only on those most in danger from the illness?

Legality

Do the people proposing such interventions have legal authority to do so?

Is there democratic buy-in/support for these interventions?

Has buy-in been achieved without lies, censorship, double-talk, and coercion?

How are people who ask questions being treated?

Finally, we would ask, Have any of the authorities been caught lying about any of this? If so, what are the lies? Why should we believe anything else they say?

Conclusion

At least two things are mighty clear.

First, the COVID-19 debacle — meaning not only the deaths from the illness but the collateral damage from the response — would not have occurred had these questions been asked prominently and often by a critical mass of citizens and in “mainstream” media. We would have stopped after the first set of questions regarding the severity of the illness!  There was no need to do anything beyond staying home when sick and washing one’s hands regularly and taking extra care around unhealthy people.

Second, not only did a critical mass of people fail to ask basic questions, but many people, perhaps most prominently the “educated,” denounced, bullied, and harassed anyone who did. These “educated” bullies even proposed and supported grotesque coercions, including shunning, barring the “unvaccinated” from going into stores and restaurants — and earning a living.

The official response to COVID-19 was a 180-degree flipping of traditional rational thinking.  We do know that government and media (paid by governments) made unprecedented efforts to get people to invert their own common sense and not ask very basic questions. We should ask how and why that happened.

From LRC, here.