A few days ago, I went to do afternoon car pool to pick up my children from school (as I usually do the only the morning run). I peaked in to my four year old daughter’s class and she somehow saw me even though there was a closet blocking her vision of where I was standing. The teacher was in the middle of reading the children a story in the last few minutes of the day, but upon seeing me, my daughter jumped up and made a mad dash to my arms and gave me a huge smile from behind her mask. My daughter was so excited to see me that she could hardly talk from excitement and joy and her eyes welled up with tears of happiness.
It was a powerful moment and one that I won’t forget so fast. I pray and hope that even if the form of the love and connection is expressed differently over time by our children, at its core it will be the same and deeper.
As I thought about it and reflected on the love and trust with which our children have in us, I was reminded of the tremendous responsibility with which we have been entrusted as parents to nurture and raise our children. More than anything else that we have in life, our children and youth are the greatest asset that we have in this world as each one of them is a world and universe unto themselves and our responsibility to look after.
Our job as parents is both to provide love, nurture and a framework for them to grow up in a healthy and balanced home, and also to instill them with morality, conviction and a passion for doing what is good and important in life. The more love and positivity that we can share with our children, the more that we are empowering them to be stronger and resilient down the line. Likewise, the more that we can show our core values through the way we actually live and make choices, this will inspire and impact what they too will hold dear and important as they develop their lives.
In Judaism, providing all of the above also comes with expectations and responsibilities that the children should have to their parents, not simply out of respect but also because this is what is good for them. For example there are two separate commandments mentioned in the Torah about children and their parents, one is to respect their parents and one is to revere their parents. Respect might be to do things to honor them and make them feel good, reverence would be by acting in a way that is mindful of the fact that they are your parents and are on a different level of the playing field, and should be given respect in a way that reflects that.
These values are not simply so that the parents get their honor that is somehow due to them, but rather that these are values that will help the children, have a healthy relationship with their parents, and be able to grow and develop as they should.
I once heard Rabbi Sacks share a commentary from the a commentary called the Chida regarding the Shema in which he asked “how is it possible for the Shema to tell us to teach your children all of these values that are spoken of in the Shema, aren’t they such huge topics that take lots of work to incorporate into one’s life”? He then went on to say how the Chida explained, that the beginning of the Shema where it talks about a person loving G-d and loving what G-d represents, is the answer to the end of the Shema where it talks about teaching these values to your children. In other words, when we love what is right and important and our children see it, then they too, will want to hold dear those same values and commitments. This kind of teaching is far more powerful than simply sharing words and lecturing them each and every day.
Parenting is a long and sometimes lifelong journey and each and every day comes with precious moments that contain infinite potential for what we can give to our children. Whether it is a compliment, an honest moment of love, some personal attention, a private heart to heart talk, a walk and chat, a special activity, or a moment for them to see us living up to the morals and values that we hold dear, each one of these are gifts that will both empower them and stay with them forever.
A number of years ago, a ninety year old resident of the Wingate at Sudbury was reminiscing with me about her childhood. Her face began to light up as she recounted how as a five year old girl in Hungary, her father would come home at the end of each day of work, and sit down at the table for dinner and let her sit on his lap and talk to him. As she shared with me this memory, she seemed to be transported to another time and place, and the look of happiness in her eyes made it seem as if she was reliving that moment in time, eighty five years later.
She looked at me and smiled and then came back to the present and told me some other stories.
In that encounter she may have simply been sharing a distant memory of her own life, but she gave me a priceless gift of the power and responsibility of parenting. The influence and impact of the little hugs, moments of focused attention and nurture that we share with our children, have no expiration date and will truly stay with them for a lifetime.
Good Shabbos & Shabbat Shalom
Yisroel