In part 2 of this deeply insightful interview with Rabbi Manis Friedman of http://www.itsgoodtoknow.org/, we discuss the one thing children need more than anything else from their parents and whether there is a value in pursuing spirituality. This is part 2 of a 2 part interview. Enjoy!
Hi, there, everyone, welcome to Part II of my interview with Rabbi Manis Friedman. And if you did not hear the first part of our interview, go to last week’s podcast. It will be well worth your while.
In today’s podcast, I ask him two questions. The first is balancing being a loving parent while also exercising discipline, which is so vital for parenting; how to carry a nice balance between the two so that one isn’t offsetting the other. That because I’m being a disciplinary parent, I am not taking away the love that my children should feel from me. And when being a loving parent; I am not taking away the discipline that my children should be getting from me. That’s the first conversation.
The second question is about being a spiritual person and whether that is a pursuit that we should pursue. And that’s very enlightening as well. Enjoy Part II of the Rabbi Manis Friedman interview.
RABBI ARYEH WEINSTEIN:
As a parent, one of the challenges I feel personally, actually, and I hear this from a lot of people is, on one hand we want to make sure that our children know that we love them, that we accept them for who they are without judgment; on the other hand, it’s vitally important to give children structure, discipline for them to understand that there are things which are right and there are things which are wrong, things which they cannot do.
Is there a way to exercise discipline in a way that the children are still feeling accepted or loved, whichever word works over there?
RABBI MANIS FRIEDMAN:
To be Biblical about it, spoil the rod spare the rod and spoil the child, right? So if you don’t use the rod or the brush, the hairbrush or the switch, you’re spoiling your child. The way Chassidus understands it, we’re not talking about a stick and we’re not talking about a physical object. There are things that are flexible and there are things that are inflexible. A rod means something inflexible. If you want to teach your children right from wrong, truth from false, you have to be inflexible. So if you spare the rod, meaning if you present everything as flexible, negotiable, discussable, you’re ruining the child.
So, for example, if you say, I don’t like when you talk to me that way, too flexible. I don’t like. Yesterday I spoke to you that way you didn’t mind. Because you weren’t listening.
So too flexible. What you need to make is an absolutely declarative statement that cannot be interpreted or you don’t talk to a mother that way. It’s not about me, it’s not about you, it’s not about my mood, it’s not what I told you yesterday, what I forgot to say yesterday. You don’t talk to a mother, no one talks to a mother like that. That’s a rod. That’s an inflexible statement. And you never back off. Because if you contradict yourself, you’re making it flexible. You’re making it negotiable.
You say, for example, Don’t ever run into the street. If you add, because if you do you’re going to get hit by a truck, you’ve ruined it. Because chances are your kid is going to say, Oh, no, yesterday I ran into the street, I wasn’t hit by a truck. So you’ve made the rod negotiable.
The point is, you don’t run into the street. Period. And if the kid makes an argument, you simply repeat it. No, you don’t run into the street.
That’s discipline. Discipline doesn’t have to mean punishment, certainly not physical punishment. It means, no, there’s no wiggle room, this is it. This is the truth. No threat necessary.
But if you try to be reasonable, then you’re going to have to threaten. You’re driving me crazy with your questions, so stop it and that’s it. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?
So the first thing is, when you’re teaching morality, right from wrong, there is no rationale, there’s no negotiation, there’s no discussion. It is what it is. Stealing is wrong. Period. Yeah, but what if. Stealing is wrong.
If you’re not talking about morality, if you’re talking about, like, house rules, don’t put your dirty shoes on the couch, that’s not a rod. There, it’s okay to say, Please, don’t. You don’t say, Please don’t steal. Please don’t lie. There’s no please. Because please means, if you please. No, not if you please.
So don’t say, Don’t you ever put your shoes on the couch. This is not a moral law. Lighten up. On the other hand, don’t ever say, Please don’t cheat. So you have to know where to be flexible and where to be a rod.
Kids love clarity, firmness, rods.
The other thing is, don’t always discipline a child when he’s misbehaving. That’s such a bad habit. You catch a kid almost gleefully, caught you red handed, now I’m going to discipline you. They hate it. But if you discipline a child when he’s trying to behave but he’s not getting it right, they’re going to love it.
So discipline is necessary but it doesn’t always have to be when they’re misbehaving. You can overlook the misbehavior, make believe you didn’t notice. But if a kid is doing something he should be doing but he’s doing it wrong, they almost welcome the discipline.
So a kid is doing his homework but he’s also listening to music and chewing gum. And you say, Come on, that’s not how you do homework, those are not good learning skills. That’s much better discipline than, Why aren’t you doing your homework?
And one final thought. If you’re going to criticize, don’t do it from a distance. It has to be face to face, up front, close, never from another room. I think if we hold out good values and we’re firm about it, all the little misbehaviors are going to disappear. Kids want your approval. If your child ever stops wanting your approval, you need therapy. You need repair. Because a healthy kid wants parents a successful kid how do you succeed as a kid? You get your parent’s approval. That’s a successful kid.
So if your disapproval doesn’t mean anything to your child, the whole relationship has to be revisited. Children want to please you. And don’t make it too hard for them. Don’t let your child set the agenda and live your life around the child’s life. A child doesn’t have a life. So parents who are running after their kids to take them here, take them there, no. Kids should be running after you to keep up with you because they want to be part of your life. So what is your life? What are you giving your kids?
In the olden days, a farmer would take his kid on the shoulders and go out to work in the fields or put him on the donkey or whatever, put them on the plow. Today, parents don’t take their kids to work, they don’t belong there. So the parent’s life is completely irrelevant to the child. You have to present a lifestyle that the child is going to want, is going to follow, is going to run to keep up with you. That’s a healthy family, a healthy life, a healthy child.
RABBI ARYEH WEINSTEIN:
Very, very interesting. And insightful. So I actually find this with my kids, when, even though I find it hard to do at times depending on what’s going on, but to actually tell them something firmly, this is what you have to do and I have this sense of conviction and they do it immediately. The moment I have the wishy-washiness and I’m soft and whatever it is, then the negotiation actually starts. It’s exactly what happens.
And I’ve also, actually, in reflection, I’ve noticed that I think a lot about whether I’m doing a good job raising my kids. It’s something that’s subconsciously on my mind a lot. And whenever I sit down with my wife, whenever it is, just to reflect, okay, how are we doing? You know, at the end of the day I say, you know what, they’re being raised in a home that has clear values which they continuously see, they are a part of, and, you know, it’s showing. So I feel like in this last message you said about what is the life that they are becoming a part of, I think, you know and, obviously, we continuously try to increase in that but the more we have something that we are living for which is beyond our jobs, but a value system and a belief system, that itself does phenomenal work for our children.
Okay, one last question. So if someone were to tell you, I went to college, I have a great job, I have a wonderful marriage, two kids and everything is, for the most part, besides from the normal inconveniences of life, going very well for me, why should I pursue spirituality? What would you tell them?
RABBI MANIS FRIEDMAN:
I’m not sure spirituality is the word we’re looking for here because there’s no obligation or need to be spiritual. In fact, spiritual people need some guidance, too. Because there’s a difference between spiritual and Godly. Spiritual can be selfish, you can have spiritual gluttony. Spiritual could be self-serving. Spiritual can be very cruel. Spiritual people don’t feel your pain because they’re spiritual. It’s all good, it’s all good.
So spiritual is not a Jewish objective. Both the spiritual and the physical have to be elevated and imbued with Godliness. Thus, does this serve God’s purpose? Everybody knows the famous story with the Reb Zusha where he said, I’m not afraid that when I get to heaven they’re going to ask me why I wasn;t like Abraham or Moshe, they’re going to ask me why wasn’t I like Zusha, meaning why didn’t you live up to your own potential. That’s a common story.
A little less common or well known is the same Reb Zusha was asked, If you could, would you like to trade places with Abraham? You could be Abraham. And he said, No. They said, Come on, you wouldn’t jump at an opportunity to be and here is what he said. He said, God needs an Abraham and God needs a Zusha. What’s the difference who is who? As long as God has his Abraham and he has his Zusha, what else do you want?
In other words, going back to our original conversation, it’s not about me. So as long as God has what he needs in his creation and in his world, what’s the difference?
So spiritual may be a very appealing, enjoyable experience, but do you need to be spiritual to appreciate the fact that you are in somebody else’s world, that you didn’t create the world? So somebody says, Well, I don’t know about God, I’m not sure I believe in God, a Creator okay, but can we all agree that you didn’t create the world? You came into a finished world that was already created for you?
So where does that put you? How does one behave when one is a guest in a house that he didn’t build, in a kitchen that he didn’t cook at a meal that he didn’t prepare.
So just simple truth, if you take the ego out of it, this is not my world. I didn’t create it. This is not my kitchen, I didn’t produce the food. And yet, I’m invited and I’m welcome. Some people feel that they’re not welcome but that’s an issue. But we’re welcome, we’re part of this world. And for that alone, we should be very happy.
And our question should only be living in somebody else’s house, am I a welcome guest, am I a pleasant guest or am I a difficult guest?
So if you’re happy with what your host gives you and you try to preserve the home the way he wants and the way then you’re a good guest and you’ll get invited back. You start making your own decisions, you know, move the couch here, paint this wall, sell this sell the garage, what are you doing? You don’t have to be spiritual to know right from wrong. And sometimes being spiritual actually doesn’t help at all.
So you have a good life, you have a good existence. They are two separate things. Existence means taking care of your needs. If all your needs are taken care of, do you have a life? Not yet. You have a comfortable existence.
So if everything is going your way, you went to school, you got your degree, you’re making a living, you have a big house, the mortgage is paid, okay, time to start living. Paying a mortgage is not life. That’s just existence. And even having children, are you providing an existence or are you giving them a life?
If you’re comfortable and you’re capable of paying for the best of everything and you’re giving them the best of everything, that’s just existing. Where is life? When does life begin?
Life begins when you start being of service to others. Raising our children, going back to that question, to raise a child means to cultivate in them a pleasure for better things than they are currently enjoying. So an infant, for example, just enjoys taste and touch. That’s it. That’s all their entire pleasure is what they can taste and what they can touch. If you want to raise your child, get them to enjoy a good song, music. You want to raise a child who loves music, get him to enjoy reading. Get him to enjoy heroics, people who did great things, people who did kind things and are of good character. There’s a pleasure in that. If your child has not cultivated that pleasure, you haven’t raised him. He’s still sucking his thumb.
And then you raise a child to actually enjoy Godliness. So that’s raising children, that’s giving them a life and that’s being Godly, which is much better than spiritual.
I don’t know if that answers your question.
RABBI ARYEH WEINSTEIN:
It definitely answers the question. So spirituality in and of itself is not necessarily a pursuit that we should even pursue. It’s just another endeavor in life, and possibly even another self-indulgence. However, becoming aware of reality, which is that there is a Creator to the universe who put me here for a purpose. So once I settle my existence needs, I ask myself, Why did God make me to be who I am instead of seeking to be someone who I am not and filling the role that God gave me as an individual is what is of value.
And the last point I found to be very insightful is with children, you always want to give them something more than what they currently have. And the greatest challenge to humanity is the ability to jump out of our realm of understanding into a realm of faith, which is what we need to do in order to connect to God.
I’m sort of expanding the tree here. Would that fit into the last point that you said? In other words, the way we really expand is when we go beyond only accepting whatever it is that I can control, sometimes we do that with our minds, that I can understand, but we actually can accept that there is something greater than me and this thing which is greater than me is something that I cannot understand because it’s so great it’s beyond the limits of my intelligence and it takes me into experiences which are also beyond my comprehension. That’s a little bit of a subject of mine and I guess that’s why I brought it up.
RABBI MANIS FRIEDMAN:
It’s not really a question of understanding versus faith. Because my having faith is also about me.
RABBI ARYEH WEINSTEIN:
Yes.
RABBI MANIS FRIEDMAN:
Am I a big believer? A little believer? The greatest believer? How about if I don’t believe? That’s a crisis, that’s a no, it’s not. God is God whether you believe it or not.
So what really needs to happen is not just get beyond my intelligence, which I’m perfectly comfortable admitting that there is infinitely more that I don’t know than what I do know, that’s and to have faith. Okay, that’s another quality that I may or may not have. The question is, what’s true?
So whether I believe in God or not describes me, not him. Because he exists even if I don’t believe in him. That’s what most Jews say. I don’t believe in God, but he keeps coming back. He won’t go away. So at least on Yom Kippur, I’m going to go to the synagogue. Because I don’t believe in him but he’s still you know.
Truth is truth. I don’t like Yom Kippur but today is Yom Kippur. It’s on the calendar. I don’t like the synagogue but it is a synagogue. I don’t want to be Jewish but I am. And I don’t believe in God but he’s God.
So the ability to simply accept what is true, not based on my understanding or my faith because it’s not about me.
So what really happens is not do I go by what I understand or what God understands? Do I go by what I know to be true or do I go by no. The real question is, my needs or his needs?
That is really getting beyond myself. It means I’m not marching to my drum, I’m marching to his drum. Because if he really needs something, that’s all I need to know. Because his needs, well, if he actually needs me, if he actually tells me what he needs, I’m free as a bird. Now, I can escape my narcissism. Now, I can get out of my little trap of do I or don’t I believe or am I or am I not spiritual. I got to get out of there. That’s such a small, narrow, tiny little universe. It’s not worth fighting over or suffering over and so on.
So when God calls to Abraham, for example, what is Abraham’s answer? Heneini. Now, we understand what that means. Heneini means, oh, you need something, good, because I don’t. Like, I’m unemployed, I’m standing here looking like, what, oh, you need, wow. That’s freedom. That’s freedom.
If I can march to your drum, I’m no longer a robot. But as long as I’m marching to my drum, that’s so predictable. Such a tiny creature.
So the real question is, My will or his will? My need or his need? That’s a huge difference.
RABBI ARYEH WEINSTEIN:
And we can say, and I’m asking, that this is also the same way we have this relationship with God, and this is the way a healthy relationship with God works, it parallels perfectly with our relationships with other human beings. When we’re consumed in our own needs, we are always frustrated; and when we get consumed in the other’s needs, we discover happier relationships.
Would you
RABBI MANIS FRIEDMAN:
True enough.
RABBI ARYEH WEINSTEIN:
True enough, fantastic.
Rabbi Friedman, this was fantastic so I would like to thank you very very much for sharing this time with us and your deep insights. Thank you very much.