My dilemma may sound strange, but it has been irking me for a long time, and it is very important to me to get to the bottom of it:
How can I be mechanech my kids in realms that I, myself, cannot dream of achieving:
People always say that the ideal form of chinuch is by personal example. A child sees his parents’ behavior and models it. If this is true, how can I properly educate my children to learn with hasmadah, experience a ruchniyusdik Shabbos, and daven with the right kavanah, when I myself am so remote from attaining these levels in ruchniyus? I work long, hard hours to support the family, often daven with a quick minyan in the nearest shteibel, and learn Daf Yomi at night; Shabbos is the time that I, unfortunately, catch up on my sleep… I wish I could do more, but this is where I’m holding now. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want so much more for my children.
Is it possible for someone like me to guide my children to attain greater heights of ruchniyus?
Hagaon Harav Dovid Levy shlit”a responds:
Thank you very much for raising this important issue, which concerns many, many people. I’ll begin with a one-word answer: Yes! Yes, you can! You can certainly be mechanech your children to become great in Torah and yiras Shamayim, and with the right aspirations, efforts and siyata diShmaya, you will, im yirtzeh Hashem, succeed!
Let me expand: The popular perspective that you so aptly described regarding the personal example that a parent offers his child is only partial. It is true that a person whose words and actions clearly conflict cannot properly educate his children. In fact, I once entered a shul and in the lobby stood a man surrounded by a group of loud talkers who clearly had no intention of finishing their discussion anytime in the future despite the fact that the chazzan was beginning. Suddenly, the man raised his voice and shouted at his son, who was playing on the steps, to hurry and go to the beis medrash, while he’d “be along in a minute…” Obviously, the only message this child will absorb is that when he’s an adult, he can linger outside the beis medrash and chat as long as he wants too…
Such is the result of insincere chinuch.
Yet if we look around at our world, we’ll see many great talmidei chachamim and tzaddikim whose parents were pashute Yidden. Further, we learn in gemara Nedarim 81a: “Why are talmidei chachamim not commanded to bear talmidei chachamim? Rav Yosef said: ‘So they shall not say that Torah is their inheritance.’”
So what is the true road to chinuch?
The answer is rooted in the fact that personal example is not necessarily set by the actions we take, but by our value system, our priorities and aspirations. Even if the above cannot be expressed in action, our feelings and values are passed by osmosis to our children—as “Words that emerge from the heart enter the heart.”
This is also expressed in people’s desire for monetary wealth and gain. Millions of people dream of being fabulously wealthy, yet few ever attain that wealth; and still, their children likewise absorb the value and strive for the same. More impressively, there are actually children who are poverty-stricken in their childhood but who achieve the goal and become millionaires or even billionaires, because their parents dreamed of it!
The same is true in a spiritual regard: A child can appreciate that his father wasn’t able to sit and learn Torah full-time because he needed to support his family. A child can even understand that his father’s character and qualities make it unfeasible for him to learn. Yet he can simultaneously internalize his father’s wish that he could learn more Torah, how important it is to his parents that he sits and learns, and how profoundly they value limud Torah—viewing it as the ultimate priority in life.
This is true, however, only if this is the parents’ authentic desire. If so, it’s another method of setting a personal example for our children!
The best way to convey our system of priorities and values to our children is by expressing our genuine appreciation and encouragement for what they do. Every time your son learns for a half-hour with retzifus, compliment him again and again, tell him how proud you are of him and how you shep nachas from his learning.
This is also the place to note that there is a natural explanation to the phenomenon of children of talmidei chachamim who do not grow up to be like their fathers. Unfortunately, many parents set standards that their children cannot live up to, displaying contempt for anything less than perfection. A child who fails to live up to those standards is left feeling that no matter what he does, he won’t satisfy his parents. If he learns a full hour, it won’t be enough, because his father expects not one hour, but two full sedarim! He then recalls his friend who enjoyed a compliment and appreciation for learning just a half-hour…
Parents must internalize that the road to effective chinuch is traversed with small, incomplete steps—but that each little step deserves the full gamut of appreciation and approval, since these are what cultivate motivation and further training.
May Hashem grant us siyata diShmaya in educating our children along His path of Torah…
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