It often seems that as soon as I start writing about a certain subject I begin to stumble upon all sorts of related material — articles books and personal anecdotes. It happened again when I began saturating these pages with the wonderful work of Rabbi Yair Nahari — the Yerushalmi Jew who rescues girls from religious families who have landed on the streets — and related approaches to child rearing and youth at risk.
The following was no exception. Someone sitting next to me in shul was leafing through a sefer at the end of davening and some curious instinct made me take a peek to see what had drawn his interest. I glanced at a few lines and then I knew why my eyes had been guided there. This was the story I needed to illustrate the relevance of what I’d written.
The sefer my neighbor was reading was Aleinu L’shabei’ach words of chizuk and emunah based on the weekly sedrah by the gaon Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein shlita the renowned rav of Ramat Elchanan in Bnei Brak and a son-in-law of Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv ztz”l. On the parshah of the rebellious son Rav Zilberstein develops a well-known interpretation based on the words “And they have chastened him but he will not listen to them” (Devarim 21:18). What comes first the Rav asks that the child will not listen (and therefore they have chastened him) or perhaps his rebellion is a result of their attitude?
Rav Zilberstein writes: “A well-known interpretation is that because ‘they have chastened him ’ therefore ‘he will not listen to them…’ Parents need to know especially in a generation such as ours that great achievements in chinuch do not come by exerting pressure on children and not by chastening them but by forming a close warm relationship with them. This is the way to success in chinuch.
“Parents who think that forceful means will bring the results that they didn’t get through gentle means will soon learn that young people today will not submit to that. And once you have lost a child’s trust you’ve lost everything.
“This mistake is quite common and more’s the pity because when parents wake up to the truth it may be too late. A rosh yeshivah I know from one of the most prestigious yeshivos bore personal testimony to this in a public forum. He summoned the entire student body of his yeshivah together and told them he was giving them a talk on child rearing.”
Rav Zilberstein himself was surprised because this rosh yeshivah generally only gave shiurim not mussar talks. But a bigger surprise came when the rosh yeshivah announced “I’m here to tell you from personal experience how not to fail at chinuch….
“For years ” said the rosh yeshivah “from the time my son could understand orders until he was almost bar mitzvah I never missed a chance to scold this boy. He was a bit overactive and I couldn’t sit silently when I saw him misbehave in any way. And so we were in this dance as my son became more and more aggressive. He ignored my comments and rejected my discipline not listening to a word of guidance which made me want to scold him even more.
“Looking back at it from where I am today I don’t know what I was thinking. How did I not realize I was taking a path through a minefield?”
The situation with his son became progressively worse — he seemed untamable acting out and negatively engaging everyone around him. The breaking point came one Shabbos night.
“We had guests at the table. They were distinguished people and we wanted the meal to proceed peacefully. So of course before Shabbos I talked to my son wagged my finger at him threateningly and warned him to behave nicely. As usual the warning only got his back up and at the beginning of the meal he was already fighting with one of his siblings as a show of strength. All my warnings had fallen on deaf ears — as they always did.
“At one point he grabbed his brother’s kippah and threw it on the floor. That was going too far I thought and in front of everyone I ordered him to pick up the kippah and put it back on his brother’s head. He of course categorically refused. After I repeated my order a few more times and threatened that if he didn’t obey I would actually have to put him out of the apartment and make him stay behind the door he persisted in his defiant behavior and so I felt I had no choice but to get up and carry out my threat.
“But it wasn’t so easy. He put up physical resistance and you can easily imagine the awkward mood at the table and the embarrassment my wife and I felt. Finally I got the boy out. But then he started kicking the door. We were so sick with embarrassment that I had to let him back in. He came back to the table and again he started fighting with his siblings. After a little while I got up — I should say I bounded from my chair and said ‘That’s enough! I won’t have any more of this!’
“My son assumed I meant this as a declaration of war and prepared himself for another battle but believe it or not this time I meant just the opposite. Suddenly it hit me that I’d been mishandling this situation all along. My muscle flexing was driving my son further and further away. Could it be that proper child rearing hinges on giving orders and scoldings on anger and yelling? It couldn’t be. I had to take another path with this child.
“And so I went over to him. He was scared. He thought I was going to smack him and he jumped out of his chair too…. But this time I was smiling. I asked him to come to me and I kissed him on the head.
“I don’t know where I got the courage because it was like admitting my mistake like saying to him ‘You’re right I haven’t been treating you properly.’ But something amazing happened. ‘As water reflects a face to a face ’ his face suddenly took on a calm expression his eyes radiated a gentleness I hadn’t seen in ages. He came close and nestled against me.
“At that moment I realized my big mistake and I resolved to publicize it as much as possible despite the embarrassment it cost me. It’s well worth it to suffer a little more embarrassment when the profit is the chance to teach the right way to raise children.”
Rav Zilberstein adds that the rosh yeshivah originally thought of publicizing this chinuch miracle as an anonymous third-person account but then he realized that full disclosure lends more credibility to a story. “I decided to tell it openly ” he said before his talmidim. “I am that Abba who almost lost one of his children.”
Today that boy learns in one of the top yeshivos and his father says his rapprochement with him has completely reversed the effects of the past. As a postscript he added that it was a miracle his son hadn’t dropped out of the yeshivah world.
In his sefer Rav Zilberstein goes on to stress: “It must be emphasized that this story isn’t meant to inculcate the idea that we should never reprimand a child or even hit him lightly sometimes in order to guide him on the right path. We can use these means when necessary but we must keep things in the right proportion and not rule over our children by constant slapping and scolding. This kind of conduct will contribute nothing to a child’s chinuch.”
The story is another striking example of how Shlomo Hamelech’s wisdom “as water reflects a face to a face ” is applicable in real life. The father — the rosh yeshivah —might have initially acted out of desperation but something worked. His unilateral change of heart evoked a likewise response in his rebellious son.
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Two notes on the idea of sending mishloach manos to unaffiliated Jewish acquaintances which I advocated in last week’s Purim issue. First the idea was conceived by the organizers of Project Inspire an arm of Aish HaTorah. And second my friend and associate Rabbi Yonason Rosenblum was the first to bring up the idea in the pages of Mishpacha. —