Shabbat Parshat Toldot - 5763
Keynote Address on Parenting
by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

Last Motzaei Shabbat, the Orthodox Union sponsored an Interactive Conference on Parenting in the community of Monsey, NY. Four professionals in the field of mental health presented workshops, and the keynote address was delivered by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, current Executive Director of the OU and former Rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Emunah in Baltimore and clinical psychologist. This essay is a summary of that address.

Rabbi Dr. Weinreb noted the particularly strained relationship portrayed in Parshat Toldot between Yitzchak and Rivkah, regarding their sons Yaakov and Esav. In fact, he said that the theme of parental difficulties was central in the Book of Bereshit (regarding the raising of Kayin and Hevel, Yitzchak and Yishmael, Yaakov and Esav, and Yoseph and his brothers). It was hard then, mistakes were made by our Avot and Imahot, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.

He defined parenting as a goal-oriented teaching process. Specifically, four goals were mentioned that every parent should have in mind in raising their children.

1.
Try to inculcate in your children a sense of self. Each child is unique, has been given his or her own set of abilities, different from their brothers and sisters. Each child has a mission in life that cannot be performed by anyone else. He recommended the book “Chovot HaTalmidim,” “The Student’s Obligations” by the Piasetske Rebbe, the basic message of which is that HaShem recognizes, values and loves each and every Jewish child.

2.
Try to inculcate in your children a sense of “family,” particularly with one’s own relatives, and extending to the entire Jewish People as well. “No man is an island;” the Torah defined the family as the basic source of support for the individual, but the spokes of that “family” radiate outward to the entire Jewish People and beyond to the whole human family.

The media hounded out of office a good, decent and intelligent man, Dan Quayle, portraying him as a “nincompoop,” because he had the gall to attack a popular television show as being particularly hostile to family values. We should recognize the fact that the media in this country in general comprise one of the strongest negative elements in their destructive potential to family values, in their consistent portrayal, for example, of parents as fools, and children as possessing superior wisdom.

3.
Try to inculcate in your children a sense of spirituality, a sense of a real and living relationship to G-d. A survey was taken that asked the question with whom children felt most comfortable in communicating their feelings. The results listed peers, teachers, even parents(!) – but G-d was rarely mentioned. The knowledge that “there is Someone to talk to, in prayer” is a necessary ingredient in the make-up of a healthy individual.

Many forces in our society militate against spirituality. In particular, the pervasive sexuality, bordering on pornography, that is rampant in all forms of advertising, on TV and on the Internet, make our streets and even our homes similar to the perfume shop in a neighborhood of ill repute that parents are warned by the Talmud against placing their son near, if they want to keep him from temptation and sin.

“Machloket,” the division that characterizes the Jewish world is very harmful to the development of any sense of spirituality. The continual disrespect, tearing down and lack of tolerance for any group that espouses a worldview only slightly different from that of one’s own group, results in an environment in which it is very difficult to achieve spiritual equilibrium.

Cynicism also has a negative impact upon spirituality. The Children of Israel came forth from Egypt like a boiling cauldron! But Amalek, knowing full well that it would be scalded by its action, nevertheless plunged into the cauldron. And by that action, the arch cynic of history cooled Israel down, in the eyes of the world, and in the eyes of Israel itself.

4.
Try to inculcate a sense of optimism and hope in your children. Hope for the future has always been one of the secret weapons guaranteeing Jewish survival. Whereas pessimism and a sense of despair “turn off” idealism and faith. The feeling that one can overcome obstacles with the help of HaShem enable a child, and an adult, to move confidently from each developmental level to higher levels, and from crises and near defeats to victories.

The first verse in Parshat Toldot (Bereshit 25:19) appears at first to be redundant. The verse reads, “And these are the generations of Yitzchak son of Avraham; Avraham was the father of Yitzchak.” Now if we know that Yitzchak was the son of Avraham, surely we know that Avraham was the father of Yitzchak!

The Kedushat Levi by Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev answers that the Chumash is teaching here a lesson in parenting. Who is a good parent? One who is successful in transmitting their values to the next generation. How do we know that Yitzchak has the capability to be a good parent, to have “toldot,” generations? Because he was the son of Avraham, the Master of “Mesorah,” Jewish Tradition, about whom HaShem testified (Bereshit 18:19), “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the L-rd, to do justice and judgment...”

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

Archive