“For I have known him so that he will command his children and his household after him and they will keep G-d’s way doing charity and justice. G-d will then bring about for Avraham everything He promised.” (Bereishis 18:19)

A rav came to Rav Yitzchak Zilberstein with the following story: “A Jew who spends the whole day working for a living comes to my evening shiur and as soon as the shiur begins he falls asleep over his Gemara. He wakes up only once the shiur has ended.”

The rav approached the man and suggested he attend a morning shiur but he refused. “It’s true that I fall asleep at night and I may be more awake in the morning. But at night my children see me tired and worn out from work and they see that I am still making the effort to go to a shiur. This teaches them to have mesirus nefesh for the Torah. In the morning at the vasikin shiur my children won’t see me going to learn so how will they learn to love the Torah?”

Rav Zilberstein suggested that the man attend both the morning shiur for his own sake and the shiur at night for his children. (Tuvcha Yabiu)

Sometimes I think my children have selective hearing. Something in their auditory system automatically filters out the lectures the instructive stories the incisive moral lessons and even the shouts.

The other day I had a serious conversation with my nine-year-old about her room. I told her exactly what was bothering me — the cut papers pencil shavings playing cards and the pajamas from this morning all left on the floor. I pleasantly explained why it will be bad for her in the future to live this way. (“How will you be a mother? You know that mice come to homes that aren’t taken care of.”) I explained what she needed to do what she’d get for doing it and what would happen if she didn’t. She rose to the challenge. For a day and a half. Then the familiar chaos was back.

Why? Did I not talk to her enough?

Actually I talked much more than enough. I talked far too much. I poured out my words in bucketfuls.

I needed all those words to hide my lack of security my doubts and hesitations. Do I demand too much? Am I still a good mother? Am I being unreasonable demanding she clean her room when I’m not the perfect homemaker myself? Should I just ignore the mess?

I expend a tremendous amount of energy talking which teaches my children time and again that it’s all talk; tomorrow everything will go back to normal.

The Torah teaches us that Avraham Avinu’s primary strength was his ability to teach his children. If we look through the Torah in search of the words that Avraham spoke to Yitzchak we will find only a total of eight words: “Hineni bni — Here I am my son” and “Elokim yireh lo haseh l’olah bni — Hashem will see to a lamb for an offering my son.”

We learn from this that to be a good mechanech and to teach one’s children the ways of Hashem it isn’t necessary to talk a lot. The most important thing is to set a personal example. There’s no greater chinuch than when a child sees his father acting properly and exemplifying good middos and the ideals of mussar. (Tuvcha Yabiu)

Do I truly feel an aversion to lashon hara? Even when my friend calls or my neighbor’s talking to me? Or is it only when my daughter wants to tell me something about a classmate?

Avraham Avinu was a real mechanech. He taught by personal example and with his confidence in the correctness of his way. He taught without words without instructions and without threats. When he ran to welcome his guests in the middle of a hot day while extremely weak that was a lesson. Even his nephew Lot absorbed this lesson in his very bones and brought the idea of hachnassas orchim with him to Sdom.

Avraham acted. No additional words necessary.

Let us too be everything we want our children to be.