It’s possible to forge a connection through experiences, but only simple ones

L

et’s set the scene. Your kids just finished playing with their entire collection of Legos. The room looks like a tornado struck. In your sweetest voice, you ask them to please clean up. But they just roll their eyes and exclaim: “We don’t feel like it!”

“What chutzpah!” you say, and you lament the dreadful state of today’s youth.

But the truth is, when we’re asked to do something that we dislike, we react like our kids do. We’re just more tactful and pragmatic. We do what we want to do. We’re only willing to oblige others if it’s worth our while. We do what the boss says because we want to keep our job; we do what our spouse asks so we can maintain the peace. Other times, we fulfill unpleasant requests because we enjoy feeling selfless or being appreciated by the other person. But at the end of the day, we do what we do because it suits us.

This is a major flaw in our interpersonal relationships. The Rosh in Maseches Peah writes that Hashem is more interested in interpersonal mitzvos than in the mitzvos between us and Hashem, because the former involve fulfilling a friend’s will along with Hashem’s.

We must appreciate the depth of these words. If bein adam l’chaveiro just means being nice to others, one could never mention Hashem and a friend in the same breath. Hashem is the King of Kings — His will obligates us. But my friend isn’t my boss; fulfilling his will is just a means of being a nice guy. Rather, says the Rosh, in bein adam l’chaveiro, our friend’s will obligates us just like Hashem’s. In a Jewish relationship, we have to be willing to do what the other person wants, not because it suits us, but because his will is important to us.

Now we see that the scenario we opened with isn’t just a question of obedience. We have to educate our children — and ourselves — to give weight to the will of another person. We have to create a culture in the home that fulfilling the will of one’s parents, one’s spouse, or, when appropriate, one’s children, is important and meaningful. Not because it makes me feel good, not because I’ll get a reward. Because I care about what the other person wants.

The framework that produces this culture is the family bond. When you are connected to someone, what they want is important to you, without consideration of reward or punishment. If a family is connected, every member will naturally want to fulfill the will of the others. To train our children to have bona fide relationships, we have to find ways to bolster our family connection.

In my experience, children feel the most connected to their family when they’re active participants in it. Give each child the opportunity to contribute to the family. His contribution doesn’t have to be grandiose, but he has to feel that it’s significant.

Say you let your five-year-old set the table for Shabbos. When she’s done, you say, “Let’s all thank Esti for setting the table so beautifully!”

But then you notice she put all the cutlery on the right side of the plate, and you quietly move the fork to the left. Without realizing it, you just showed her that what’s important to you is the task being done correctly, not her contribution. Believe me, you will survive if you leave the fork on the wrong side of the plate. Let her contribution be significant in its own right, regardless of the result.

I made an effort to let my children contribute intellectually to the family as well. I would pose questions for family discussion, and listen with great interest to their answers.

Before my first trip to America, I asked, “The earth is rotating all the time. Why do I need to fly all the way to America? Why can’t I just go straight up in the plane and wait for America to reach me, then come back down?”

I didn’t give my own answer; I showed them I was much more interested in hearing what they had to say.

I often did this with questions on the parshah. With Torah questions, the answers have inherent significance, but you have to be extra careful not to subtly undermine the value of your child’s contribution.

Say you pose a question that the Ohr HaChaim Hakadosh asks, and your son gives the same answer as the Ohr HaChaim. What should you say?

We instinctively think you should scoop him up in excitement and say, “I can’t believe it! What a talmid chacham! You were mechavein to the answer of the Ohr HaChaim!”

But if you do that, you’ve actually destroyed his contribution to the family. The message he absorbs is that you value his answer only inasmuch as he said the same thing as some great Torah figure; his own opinion doesn’t interest you. Of course, in Torah, the answer of the Ohr HaChaim is extremely significant, but it has no relevance when it comes to creating a family connection; your son’s answer does. You create that connection by allowing everyone to make their individual contributions, and that necessitates valuing each person’s opinion simply because he or she said it.

Actively participating in the family — that creates connection. Bombastic, exciting experiences do not. I can’t stress this enough, because it goes against conventional wisdom. If you go on a roller coaster with your son, your son feels thrilled, all right — but what does that have to do with you? Excitement is a personal feeling; it doesn’t create connection. You both feel excited at the same time, but you’re not excited together. The fact that you happen to be sitting next to your son as he screams in delight doesn’t make him connect to you one iota.

It’s possible to forge a connection through experiences, but only simple ones. When excitement is involved, every person is in his own world. But when you share a simple, calm experience, you’re both in it together.

I used to take my children to the grocery store as soon as they could walk. It was a 30-second stroll from my house, but it took us 20 minutes. We would stop to examine and discuss every bug, every plant. We explored the world together. That simple shared experience created a mutual bond.

If the family connection is strong, every family member sees value in fulfilling the will of the others. Every married person should understand this. Very often, my wife and I have conflicting approaches to an issue. Sometimes I have to give in. What should I do — force myself to do what she wants, hoping it will backfire, so she’ll see how awful her idea was? Of course not. In a healthy marriage, you have to be willing to go full steam ahead doing what your spouse wants, even if you think he or she is wrong. Because your connection is much greater than your approach, your will, or your glorious truth.

If we want our children to have meaningful, Jewish relationships, we have to teach them how to genuinely connect to another person. This lesson has never been more pressing. In today’s global village, when communication with the whole world is at our fingertips, we are growing increasingly isolated.

Let’s make our homes a haven of connection in this detached world, and teach our kids to bond with others, not just interface with them. It may not be as exciting as a roller coaster, but that’s an experience they will never forget.

—Prepared for print by Rabbi Eran Feintuch

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1047)