Protecting the Holiness of Our Families

These were some of the questions asked of the Lander College for Men – Beis Medrash L’Talmud (LCM) leadership at a chinuch roundtable held during LCM’s first annual breakfast last weekend at their Kew Gardens Hills campus. Dr. Henry Abramson, the LCM dean, presented opening remarks, and audience questions were answered by LCM Rosh HaYeshiva Rav Yonason Sacks and Menahel Rav Yosef Sonnenschein. The roundtable was moderated by Rabbi Shmuel Marcus, Maggid Shiur.

In addressing the question about how hard parents should push matters related to their Yiddishkeit on their children, Rabbi Sonnenschein said that a heavy-handed approach isn’t always effective, giving the example of parents who use strong-arm tactics to get their kids to shul every morning.

“We find sometimes that there are young men who won’t wake up in yeshiva, but they always wake up at home, because their parents will threaten them in some way,” he said. “That approach won’t help them get up in the morning when they get to yeshiva, and it won’t help when they get older and get married, either. Instead, I would suggest that when children reach a certain age, you have a conversation with them and ask how you can help them fulfill this mitzvah that they themselves want so much to fulfill.”

Speaking broadly, Rabbi Sacks said that having a child or student follow the rules only because of the potential repercussions of not doing so is “a fallback situation.” He noted a seemingly obvious comment by the Ramban, that with regard to the relationship between a father and son, one is obligated to love his children. In explaining the Ramban, Rabbis Sacks said that parents must ensure that their rules are imposed for the love for their children, nothing else.

“If your son’s rebbe were to ask, ‘When your parent does that, what do you think the motivation is? Where is it coming from?’—we hope that he will hear that it’s coming from absolute love,” he said. “If it’s coming from anything else, like a power struggle or the parents looking to overcome their own personal challenges through their kids, that’s where things become very difficult. It must be clear to your children that this is coming from the best place.”

For the question of how involved parents should be when their children start dating, Rabbi Sacks said there must be a partnership between parents and children. “It’s foolish for parents to be demanding and insistent and not consider the wants, the desires and the needs of their sons and daughters. But it’s equally foolish to let them navigate this without proper guidance,” he said. “It can be uncomfortable, but sometimes it’s necessary to advocate for your children with shadchanim. I would urge you to seek advice from your rabbi and rebbetzin—'How do we go about this?' Because this decision is going to determine what will happen to your children throughout their lives.”

Rabbi Sonnenschein said Rabbi Sacks was offering “golden advice,” then offered up some of his own: “Sometimes you hear a talmid say, ‘Well, my mother wants me to do this. My father wants me to do this,’ controlling every aspect of a child’s dating. We’re talking about him getting married! There has to be an element of trust. If I have to micromanage his dating to a point that I’m not treating him like an adult, then I should rethink if he’s ready for shidduchim.”

He made one additional point: “I always tell my students, if your mother tells you something doesn’t feel right, even if she can’t tell you exactly why, you must stop and figure it out,” he said. “A mother’s gut feeling… you don’t want to mess with that.”

Use of Technology

As for how to regulate children's use of technology, Rabbi Sonnenschein stressed that there are two important elements to consider: Yiddishkeit and safety. “We have to make sure our kids are safe. There’s no two ways about it, and we need to have some sense of what’s happening, because the online world could be a very dangerous world. So we have to monitor it, and we should tell them it’s because we love them and we care for them,” he said. “On the Yiddishkeit side of it, we would rather our children not be exposed to so many apps or to social media, and we wonder what they’re doing on their phones.”

A potential solution, he suggested, is to put filters and protections on their phones. But that requires a consistent approach from the entire family. “We should create a standard in our home that all our devices are filtered,” Rabbi Sonnenschein said. “If my devices are not filtered, then it’s a very weak argument for me to tell my children to filter theirs.”

"What’s more," he said, "our children want to feel safe in our homes. We have talmidim coming to us and telling us, ‘I had such a good zman, but there are devices unfiltered in my house and I’m afraid to go home.’”

Rabbi Marcus followed up with a hypothetical: "What if you get your son a flip phone but all his friends have a standard smartphone? Am I making him stand out unfairly?” he asked.

“It’s terribly unfair to place children in an environment and expect them somehow to go against the flow and go against the tide and  to resist everything that’s going on around them,” Rabbi Sacks responded. “It’s not a path for success. Either they will fail at doing so, or they will be socially isolated, and that’s going to create other challenges.

“In thinking about choosing a shul, or schools and yeshivas to send your children,” he continued, “you should be asking, 'What is the yeshiva’s policy in terms of technology? What exactly goes on beyond the walls of the yeshiva?' It should be an absolute priority in choosing a community, because what’s at stake is the wellbeing, the wholesomeness, the kedusha and tahara of our families,” said Rabbi Sacks.

“While a discussion about chinuch is always beneficial, the participants felt that something unique was taking place,” said Rabbi Sonnenschein. “Here were parents and mechanchim collaborating to improve their children’s chinuch. This sense of partnership is a hallmark of Beis Medrash L’Talmud. We are all hoping to be able to gather at more events like this which bring together 'both sides of the family'—the wonderful parents of our students with their rebbeim who are fully committed to the success of each talmid.”