If you want to heat something up, the thing you heat up will never become as hot as the flame from which it gets its warmth. It will get warm, for sure, but rarely will the object get as warm as the source of the heat.
If parents are zealous and burning with their commitment to Yiddishkeit, their children will, at the very least, be warm and devoted to Torah. But if the parents are only lukewarm about Yiddishkeit, then their children may have a cool attitude to Torah or even worse, be cold and totally disenchanted.
Our commitment is reflected in our children. The stronger our observance and the example we provide, the stronger and warmer will be their observance.
What do you think of this? Do you see this in life? I asked someone what about the children who are more commited than their parents. Then the analogy doesn't apply, or does it? The answer I got was it's because the children themselves "got on fire!"
I've heard it said that nowadays, children are not the same as their parents in their commitment to Torah, because either they are MORE commited or they are LESS commited, as opposed to generations ago when children were often like their parents in their religious observance.
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I do agree that they are either more committed or less committed and that it is not how much the parents pushed, preached or vetoed everything that was not religious but how much the parents actually believed and felt. Kids whose parents kept up an appearance for the neighbors, left the derech.
ReplyDeleteOf course the parents needed to have a normative approach to frumkeit. They could not show up with a kid with peyos down to his shoulders at a school with kids with modern haircuts. I have seen that and similar things fail repeatedly.
Why do you think parents make their kids stand out in that way?
ReplyDeleteThey are mentally unbalanced parents. I have seen a few of them. Some of the men grow long peyos themselves, don't speak a word of yiddish and have Southern or Western accents. The whole thing is really weird. Some people love being unique or want to show that they are more frum than everyone else. A BT that I knew decided for awhile to wear a covered sheital. She felt that she was at one point descended from that type of chassidim. The kids from those homes get very confused and rejected a lot and the parents are oblivious to what they are doing wrong.
ReplyDeleteB'h
ReplyDeleteYou know I do not have the answers and after learning and looking throughout history the only answer I can come up with is the Aibishter is in charge. For my children that do well and are growing in their Yidishkkiet it's because of Hashem and for one that is having difficultys I say is also Hashem.
We daven and try to bring yiddishkiet in a positive fashion alas we are not human.
The only comfort I have right now is knowning that great leaders in history did not fare better. Ranging from Avraham Oveinu,Yitzchak Oveinu, Moshe Rabbeinu, Shlomo Hamelech, Dovid Hamelech to name a few.