Kedoshim(Leviticus 19-20)

The Generation Gap

"When a father complains that his son has taken to the evil path, what should he do? Love him more than ever."
    -- The Baal Shem Tov

The door squeaked open to a dark rainy street. A man's head poked out; the coast was clear and he ran. He approached a lamp post and peered around to check for pursuers. The street was empty. He waited for his contact to arrive. Soon, a tall, dark figure approached. Code words were exchanged.

"Have you got it?" the contact asked in a heavily accented voice.

"Yes," he replied. Guilt caused him to almost choke on the words.

Opening his raincoat he pulled out a school notebook. The contact inspected it for a few minutes and smiled as he handed over a brown paper bag.

"Don't you want to count it?" the contact asked.

Without a reply, he just turned around and walked slowly home, his head held low as if in a noose. He had just sold his son's homework.

This funny story illustrates a fact of life: While parents know they have the child's best interests at heart, the child may often doubt those motivations. Homework, bed time and chores may all make the child feel as though he is an indentured slave! For example, the child imagines that he has to do homework so his father can go out and sell it!

Our question: How can the parent communicate to the child what tasks and behaviors are important, without the child feeling the parent's self interest is at play? This is even more important when it comes to moral issues. How can the parent advise and direct in a way that the child feels it is good for him - and not simply the parent's own hang-up?

A successful relationship - whether between parent and child, husband and wife, or simply friends - is dependent upon both parties eliminating the "me."

THE FIRST STEP

The first step is obvious. For the child to feel no self interest is involved, then no self interest can be involved. This is surprisingly difficult. It requires the parent to take a very honest and deep look into himself and ask: What are my motivations? Because what we think is "altruism" may in fact be parental projection. What is often called parental pride can often be self interest. It may be subtle, but the child picks up on it.

If the parent's goals for the child exceeds that of the parent's own goals, then the child will see that as self-interest. Parents often think that tremendous love for their children nullifies self-interest. But the child will view the parents' demands as the parents' own wants, and not truly what is right for the child. After all, the child thinks, if it were truly right, then my parents would do it as well!

Even after motivations have been checked and the parents are confident of their intentions, parental instructions often get lost. All the advice and guidance fall by the wayside when the child leaves home or matures. Years of direction can dissipate in a few months of college, or living away from home.

Why?

Even though the parent had in mind the child's best interest, it simply wasn't enough. The parent taught good values and gave great advice. But there was one problem: It was the parents' values, it was the parents' advice. When the child leaves the parent, they leave the values as well. The parent wasn't able to take the "me" out of the values.

PARENTS AND SHABBAT

This week's Parsha gives a tremendous insight into dealing with the challenge of raising children:

"A person should respect his mother and father, and My Shabbat he should keep. I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19:3)

The Torah connects the respect we need to give to our parents to the keeping of Shabbat. Why?

The Shabbat mentioned here is used just as an example. It is representative of all one's moral responsibilities - honesty, kindness, charity, etc. We learn from here that parental respect and all other good deeds are separated, yet need to be linked.

At the core of parental self interest is the desire that the child respect the parent. All other values may be of critical importance, but it's a lack of respect which will usually get the strongest reaction. But the problem is that it is this very reaction which indicates parental self interest. If what the parent taught was truly as important as he or she said it was, then more important values should receive equal concern. Yet many parents get furious at their child for not listening to the parent -much more than they do for any other disobedience!

The parent has to ensure that just as much as the child is required to respect his parents, he also has to be good and moral.

MORE THAN BEING CONSISTENT

The big word in child education is consistency. "Do what I say, not what I do" may sound good, but it's risky. Children most often do what they see you do, not what you tell the child to do. This Jewish ideal levels the playing field for both parent and child.

To have the child feel that the parents' instructions are equal to that of his respect sounds far easier than it is. The key is in the last part of the Torah's sentence, "I am the Lord your God." The Torah is telling us that the way to equate parental respect and all other morality is to unify the source of the obligation. A child should respect his or her parents, not because the parents told him to (which is the usual reason), but rather because God said so. The extension of this is just as God says "honor your parents," He similarly instructs all other values.

Furthermore, it is the same God who instructs the parents in values and morality. Seeing the parents fulfill their obligations not only gives the child a sense of how serious to take God and morality, but also automatically puts the child and parent on equal footing. Not that they become peers, but rather the child can more easily relate to a parent who is also responsible to God. Without God in the equation, the child is responsible to the parent, yet the parent is only responsible to himself - if that.

THE GENERATION GAP

I would like to suggest that this is what caused the somewhat modern phenomenon of the generation gap. Dismissing God from a child's education not only took away a relationship to God that the child will later want to find, but also, almost inevitably, created a vast barrier between the parent and child.

The generation gap wasn't caused by different values, it was caused by a different source of those values. When parents set themselves up as the only available source of morality, their children will inevitably doubt their parents' intentions and legitimacy. Those are the same doubts which have traditionally been directed toward God. The modern generation has taken these struggles between man and God and placed them between man and his parents. (For example, why is there pain and suffering?)

Thus, as the child grows, he almost inevitably must reject his parents as the source of values and in so doing reject his parents in some way.

However, when the parent and child are both responsible to God, then values become less personal issues in their relationship. When they disagree with a particular value, they are, so to speak, disagreeing with God, not with each other.

Raising children is far from easy. I doubt most of us realize how difficult it is until we see how poorly we have done. Unfortunately at that point it is often too late. Take good heed of the ones who warn how difficult it is, for the Sages say: "A wise person learns from other's mistakes."

Don't make raising children harder than it is. Help everyone concerned and include God into your child's world. You play the role of a parent... and let God be God.

BRAINSTORMING QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Question 1: If you could choose how your children would turn out, would you rather they be meaningful and fulfilled, but you would never see them again? Or, that they would lack direction and never feel fulfilled, yet you could see them whenever you wanted?

Question 2: If you knew that the course your family is on will eventually lead to failure, what three aspects of your life would you change?

Question 3: What three aspects of your life or personality would you not want your children to inherit?