A Shavuos Chinuch Message

Shavuos is an intense time of year. We are accustomed to hearing from our rabbeim that just as Rosh Hashanah is a Yom Hadin regarding what will transpire in the coming year — who will live and who will die — Shavuos is also a Yom Hadin regarding Torah and ruchniyus. On Shavuos, it is paskened how much ruchniyus we will have and how much of a connection to Torah we will attain. Our rabbeim said this in the name of the Shelah Hakadosh and others.

I remember as a bochur, as we approached the Shloshes Yemei Hagbolah, and especially during the long seder that most yeshivos have right before Yom Tov, that there was an intensity in the air, a feeling of, “I had better learn, because my whole year of Torah is dependent on this.”

We felt a strong pressure. For many bochurim, it was a good thing. It was a motivator. It got us into it. However, for others, it was too much. There were those who felt, “I am not really into it. I don’t feel the mesikus haTorah.” They were constantly gauging themselves: “Am I really learning well? Do I really love Torah? Did I say Ahavah Rabbah with enough kavanah? After all, this Ahavah Rabbah is certainly the most important Ahavah Rabbah of the year…” And if they weren’t sure that they were doing it right, they didn’t feel good. They didn’t respond well to the pressure, and some therefore thought, “I sort of want this pressure to be over. Pass the cheesecake…”

Pressured Parents = Pressured Parenting

This feeling of pressure is not limited to yeshiva bochurim. In some ways, parents feel an even greater sense of pressure than their children. If our child comes home from school with a less-than-perfect mark, or if we see that the child does not have such a cheishek for learning, we feel a certain innate pressure building up.

Some parents especially feel that pressure around Shavuos time. It starts with the tens of emails and reminders hanging in shuls not to forget to say the Tefillas HaShelah on Erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan. The Tefillas HaShelah is a wonderful tefillah. It is full of feeling and contains what are probably the most important bakashos any parent can have. It should be said with seriousness, and even with tears if they come naturally. Yet, at the same time, there is this feeling of pressure for parents as we approach Shavuos. We look at our children and wonder: Do they really have a kesher with Torah? How many times will they get up for a coffee and a shmooze during Shavuos night? Is he really learning? Is she really ehrlich? What does she have on her SD card that I don’t know about?

Being a parent and hoping that your children are going down the right path is something that is fraught with anxiety today, and for good reason. Nevertheless, we must understand that if we are anxious, our children sense our anxiety. Then they become anxious and begin to associate ruchniyus, Torah, and Yiddishkeit with a sense of pressure and anxiety.

Home Should Be a Cocoon of Love

The great mashgiach of Lakewood, Rav Matisyohu Salomon, would often speak about the fact that the tremendous love and closeness that a father feels for his child could sometimes work against him and at times create pressure and friction. He therefore advised many parents to hire someone else to learn with their children, as he himself did for his own children.

Similarly, Rav Matisyohu did not feel that the Shabbos table is the time to “interrogate” a child to see whether he knows the parshas hashovua. The Shabbos table, the mashgiach felt, should be a calm, happy, low-pressure, relaxed family time. The pressure of having to know the answers to the questions contradicts the very purpose of what the Shabbos seudah — and indeed the Yiddishe home — is meant to be.

A child who comes home from school should feel like he is coming home to a place where he is loved and accepted unconditionally, regardless of his conduct in school. The home is not a continuation of school. It is the natural place where a child should feel comfortable and free of pressure. When one asks questions on the child’s parsha sheets, the child may feel, “If I know the answers, I am accepted and loved, and if I don’t…”

Not Even a Tiny Bit of Anxiety

I have the zechus of being in the middle of writing a book about the Zidichover Rebbe of Chicago, Rav Yehoshua Heschel Eichenstein, whose second yahrtzeit will be marked later this month. A cousin of his once asked him why he rarely learned with his children, and the rebbe replied, “I will tell you the truth. When I was growing up, if a father was learning with a child and the child didn’t know the Gemara or Chumash, he got a frask. Thus, for many kids (and their parents), learning with a parent became a source of anxiety. Even if I wouldn’t hit my children for lack of knowledge, I don’t want to even have a tiny bit of anxiety as a result of learning with them, and I don’t want them to detect even a smidgen of anxiety or disappointment on my part.”

He strengthened his point when his son, as an adult, asked him why he had not demanded more of them as children.

“I always wanted my children to feel comfortable,” he told his son warmly. “I wanted them to feel like their home was a safe haven, not a place where a taskmaster was driving them.”

The Two Parts of Shavuos

Shavuos is a time of great ruchniyus opportunity. It is a time when we bond with Hashem, a time when we should exude tremendous simcha that we have the great matanah of the Torah and that we were chosen by Hashem to be the nation that received His Torah. Indeed, it is such a time of simcha that it is the only Yom Tov regarding which the Gemara teaches us that we must display our simcha by also indulging in “chatzi lochem.”

The Gemara teaches that there is a machlokes regarding the other Yomim Tovim as to whether one is obligated to indulge in gashmiyus, in seudos and delicious foods in honor of Yom Tov. However, the Gemara continues, that machlokes applies only to the other Yomim Tovim. When it comes to Shavuos, everyone agrees that a person must also have lochem, at least half for oneself (referring to the gashmiyus), and half for Hashem (referring to the ruchniyus). Yes, everyone agrees that on Shavuos, one must also have the lochem — the gashmiyus — such as delicious seudos and the like.

How Chatzi Lochem Can Lead to Increased Chatzi LaHashem

To truly be dovuk in Hashem, a Yid must not feel constant pressure and anxiety, because that can often boomerang and produce the opposite effect. Sometimes, the very fact that there are beautiful seudos and an atmosphere of simcha can help a person imbibe the ruchniyus of the Yom Tov in a healthy way, without undue anxiety and pressure, and without constantly gauging whether he is really “dovuk in Torah” or whether one’s child is “really going on the proper path.”

Attaining ruchniyus for oneself can be tricky and counterintuitive. Sometimes, too much can lead to too little. In that way, the yeitzer hora is a really sly fox.

When it comes to trying to ensure that the ruchniyus of one’s children is progressing properly, it is perhaps even more complicated. What seems right can sometimes be wrong — and often the opposite. Each child is a world unto himself. His needs are unique, and just because his brother or sister needs something, or because a certain type of chinuch worked for one’s siblings, does not mean that it will work for him.

Children Are Too Important and Too Individual for a Set Brocha

The aforementioned Zidichover Rebbe of Chicago would often illustrate the importance of individuality in chinuch with the following thought. In Shemoneh Esrei, we don’t find any brocha where one should daven for his children. Why? After all, aren’t children the most important gift in a person’s life? We find that people can have everything — wealth, honor, a good marriage — but if they don’t have children, they feel that they have nothing. If children are so important, why didn’t the Anshei Knesses Hagedolah create a separate tefillah or brocha in Shemoneh Esrei on their behalf?

The rebbe strengthened his question further by asking: Isn’t the whole idea of tefillah learned from Chana, when she davened for a child, for Shmuel Hanovi?

The rebbe answered that the reason the Anshei Knesses Hagedolah instituted a set text for Shemoneh Esrei was because they understood that there would come a time when people would not be able to daven with proper kavanah. They therefore wanted to institute a uniform nusach that would “work” even when people could not properly focus.

Children, however, are so important that every person will daven and find the right words even without a set brocha.

Not only that, the rebbe continued, but it is not possible to create one uniform nusach wherein one davens for one’s children, because each child needs something different. What is good for one child may be harmful for another. Each child is an individual, and therefore each parent must daven for each child on an individual basis, with tefillos begging Hashem to provide that child’s individual needs and strengths.

A gutten, freilichen Shavuos, full of chatzi laHashem and also chatzi lochem!