August 6, 2023|י"ט אב ה' אלפים תשפ"ג Parents, Stop Obsessing over Making your Children Happy! Teach Your Children to Remember their Roots! By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Two kids are talking to each other. One says, "I'm really worried. My dad works twelve hours a day to give me a nice home and good food. My mom spends the whole day cleaning and cooking for me. I'm worried sick!" The other kid says, "What have you got to worry about? Sounds to me like you've got it made!" The first kid says, "What if they try to escape?"

Parents work hard for their children. They slave away for their children. Do you know why? They want their children to be happy! And do you know why they want their children to be happy? Because happy children make happy parents. Especially in today’s stressful world, why should unhappy children create another stress in our lives. So we will stress ourselves out to the max and do anything just so our child won’t cry. We are obsessed with our children’s happiness. And yet, I think that in this parsha the Torah sets a different agenda for successful parenting.

After all, the sojourn of our ancestors in the wilderness was not simply about a relationship between a nation and their God. It was about a relationship between a parent and a child. In this week’s parsha, Moshe specifically refers to God at this time as our Parent and we, His children. But He wasn’t that parent who would do anything so that we would be happy in the wilderness. Some of us tend to think that life in the wilderness under God’s protection was like Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Food fell from the heavens that tasted like whatever you imagine so you could effectively have cake and candy for breakfast, lunch and supper. Some of us tend to think that there’s this impenetrable force field protecting you all the time and an air conditioning unit with a thermostat and like in shul, different people were adjusting the thermostat every few minutes to make themselves feel comfortable. Life in the wilderness was miraculous, yes, but I don’t think that it was particularly enjoyable.

And if you don’t believe me, just read how Moshe framed our sojourn in the wilderness in the Torah. וַֽיְעַנְּךָ֘ וַיַּרְעִבֶךָ֒ וַיַּֽאֲכִֽלְךָ֤ אֶת־הַמָּן֙ . God subjected us to the hardship and hunger and gave us manna to eat. Many mefarshim explain that the manna was not even the antidote to the starvation or hardship. The manna itself was the hardship because we couldn’t go to Costco and stock up on a lot of manna, getting one of those really large family packs of manna that you can’t even fit into the trunk of your car; rather, each day we had to hope that manna would fall from the sky, and that’s not easy. And each day the manna looked the same and may have tasted the same. This is not a rib steak from a high-end steakhouse. Yes, it’s true that שִׂמְלָ֨תְךָ֜ לֹ֤א בָֽלְתָה֙ מֵֽעָלֶ֔יךָ וְרַגְלְךָ֖ לֹ֣א בָצֵ֑קָה זֶ֖ה אַרְבָּעִ֥ים שָׁנָֽה – that our clothes did not wear out and our feet did not swell in the wilderness, but there’s no mention of air conditioning, of a spa or of luxury accommodations in the wilderness. And this is where the Torah tells us וְיָדַעְתָּ֖ עִם־לְבָבֶ֑ךָ כִּ֗י כַּאֲשֶׁ֨ר יְיַסֵּ֥ר אִישׁ֙ אֶת־בְּנ֔וֹ ה׳ אֱ–לֹהֶ֖יךָ מְיַסְּרֶֽךָּ. We should bear in mind that God disciplined us in the wilderness just as a parent would discipline his son. God protected us in the wilderness and He provided for us in the wilderness but the goal was not to pamper us, not to make us exceedingly happy all the time. The goal was to prepare us for our national adulthood in Eretz Yisrael.

What is national adulthood in Eretz Yisrael? Well, when we are children, we are completely dependent on our parents for our needs. At some point, we need to branch out and take responsibility for our own lives and our future. And you know what may happen? We just may make it big as adults. We might become wildly financially successful, so much so that we no longer need to be part of our parent’s cellphone plan. Does God have a problem with that? No, He doesn’t. What’s the concern then? The concern is פֶּן־תִּשְׁכַּ֖ח אֶת־ה׳ אֱ–לֹהֶ֑יךָ. The concern is that we will forget God. We will forget our parents. We will forget our roots. The concern is וְאָמַרְתָּ֖ בִּלְבָבֶ֑ךָ כֹּחִי֙ וְעֹ֣צֶם יָדִ֔י עָ֥שָׂה לִ֖י אֶת־הַחַ֥יִל הַזֶּֽה – that we will say my own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me and we say nothing more. It’s okay to take pride in our accomplishments. It’s just that in addition to this statement, וְזָֽכַרְתָּ֙ אֶת־ה׳ א–ֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ כִּ֣י ה֗וּא הַנֹּתֵ֥ן לְךָ֛ כֹּ֖חַ לַעֲשׂ֣וֹת חָ֑יִל – we must remember that God provided us with the strength that we have. There is nothing inherently wrong with financial success. There is nothing inherently wrong with attributing that success to my own efforts, provided that I remember my roots. That’s the key. Remember where I came from.

As such, the primary goal of parenting is to not raise our children in luxury and make sure that they are happy all the time. The primary goal of parenting is to encourage them to be responsible adults and instill in them the absolute necessity to remember their roots, where they came from. Why is that? Because remembering our roots leads to three outcomes.

The first outcome is gratitude. As parents, we must teach our children to live their lives gratefully. We need to teach our children to appreciate every detail of life and to appreciate those individuals who give of themselves to us. We must teach our children not take anything or anyone for granted. That is why God took care of us so that we remember what He did for us in the wilderness and we are grateful to Him. But we also remember that he provided the bare minimum for us in the wilderness. He didn’t want to provide every luxury for us in the wilderness because then we would feel entitled and we would not appreciate every blessing that we receive.

Now Moshe’s audience will remember the wilderness experience to engender feelings of gratitude, but what about subsequent generations? That is why in this section Moshe commands us to recite birkat hamazon, to express gratitude to God for the food that we eat, to remind us to appreciate what God has given us and to take nothing for granted. This is a major challenge for parents who want to give their children everything they want, especially if the parents felt deprived as children and parents now have the resources now to satisfy every desire of their children. We need to understand that if we just want our children to be happy and give them everything that they ask for, then we may raise children who as adults will fail to grasp the value of the blessings that they have, who will not live gratefully and who will always want more.

The second outcome is values. When our children remember their roots, they don’t just remember that we took care of them, but they remember our values. When our children enter the adult world and they are exposed to so many different cultures, some of which are antithetical to Torah values, they may forget what we taught them, what we stand for. They need to constantly remember not just the food and the shelter that we provided them, but also the values that we taught them. Yes, we must remember that God protected us in the wilderness, but we must also remember that he established a covenant with us and gave us a Torah to fulfill this mission. And that’s exactly what we do when we recite birkat hamazon, which was commanded at this time. We don’t just express gratitude to God and bless Him for the food that we ate. We thank God for the Torah that He gave us, for the covenant that he entered into with us and for the land that He gave us. Birkat hamazon is the only blessing explicitly commanded in the Torah, and Rav Hirsch explains that when we bless God, we are accepting upon ourselves to further God’s mission in this world. We feel rooted in the values that He gave us and we will continue that mission and those values and build on what we learned as children when we become adults.

The third outcome is courage. How can our children face the challenges in life for which they feel woefully unprepared? Bnei Yisrael must have been nervous at this time. How can they cross the Jordan River and defeat גּוֹיִ֔ם גְּדֹלִ֥ים וַעֲצֻמִ֖ים מִמֶּ֑ךָּ עָרִ֛ים גְּדֹלֹ֥ת וּבְצֻרֹ֖ת בַּשָּׁמָֽיִם – nations greater and more populous than them with great cities that are fortified up to the heavens? If we believe that God is the one who is הַנֹּתֵ֥ן לְךָ֛ כֹּ֖חַ לַעֲשׂ֣וֹת חָ֑יִל – who gives us the strength to achieve, then God will give us the strength to defeat our enemies. In his tenth drasha, the Ran explains that the pasuk does not say that God’s strength will enable us to achieve. The pasuk says that God gives us the strength to achieve. When our children feel rooted in the past, in us, and as parents we believe in them, then we give them the courage and strength as adults to take on the world as daunting as it may be.

Moshe’s message to the Bnei Yisrael is more than a message about God’s relationship with His people. It’s a message about parenting. It’s a message that, as difficult as it may sometimes be, giving our children what they want to relieve our stress is not always the best approach. Parenting our children involves training them to remember their roots, to engender in them feelings of gratitude, appreciating every small blessing they receive and the people who bestow these blessings upon them. It involves transmitting clear values such that when they become adults, they fully understand what you stand for. And it involves having faith in our children and giving them confidence that they can tackle the world because you will be there every step of the way rooting for them.