Rebbetzin Esther Offengenden
In spiritual work, you cannot skip steps. (Rabbi Shakhatovich)
Does this mean that when we speak about faith and observing mitzvot, we should not speak about punishment at all?
Of course not. It is simply important that everything come in the right order and in the right proportions.
In faith itself, we distinguish three stages:
the first stage—to love the Almighty;
the second stage—to fear the Almighty, to fear punishment;
the third stage—to experience an uplifting sense of awe (yirah).
So, the first stage is to love the Almighty. Under no circumstances may this stage be skipped!
Yes, a child absolutely must know that bad deeds bring punishment, so that a person can stop himself in a moment of inner conflict. But this knowledge cannot be the first stage. Love of the Almighty alone must come first.
I cannot talk to a child about punishment or about anything stressful or frightening to him,
- until he is old enough to be able to cope with it calmly;
- until I am sure that he has already developed a firm conviction that the Almighty is good, that he already delights in observing mitzvot and takes pleasure in his connection with the Almighty, in doing everything as a person who believes in G-d—the pleasure of faith;
- unless the example I use concerns something completely remote from the child, something with which there is no possibility, even by chance, that he could identify.
The idea of punishment conveyed to a child should ultimately be this: freedom of choice exists.
Terrible deeds, which are very, very far removed from a good child like you, bring terrible punishment. How fortunate we are that we try to carry out the Almighty's will, and that this will not happen to us!
And this conversation must be built exclusively on positive associations and positive emotions, only on things in which the child feels good and successful, where he feels he has accomplished something, where he has done well, where he experiences pleasure and will therefore want to keep behaving that way.
Examples of sins must be chosen very carefully.
Children can torment themselves over tiny things, suffer pangs of guilt over small misdeeds, yet at the same time do extremely foolish things without realizing at all that there is a problem with their actions. One mother recounted how her daughter told her that she had finally learned to be a good friend. She buys her friends lots of presents and throws wonderful, fun parties for them with sweets. The shocked mother asked where she got so much money for all this. And her daughter replied: “From your wallet…”
This girl's mother had told her how to be a good friend. For example, to be willing to share a piece of candy with a friend. But apparently she had not explained that taking money for this from Mom's wallet without permission was not allowed. Evidently, this was so obvious to the mother that she did not think it necessary to mention it.Or perhaps she did talk about it, but at that moment the part about friends mattered to the girl, while the part about Mom's wallet somehow did not.
So we must be very careful in choosing the subject through which to tell a child about punishment.
For example, we may know that our child is not a murderer and is, in fact, quite far removed from anything of the kind. He has never encountered murder in his life, and the likelihood that he will is not very great.Then the child asks us: “Why did the Almighty make murderers?” In words he can understand, we explain freedom of choice, and then say: “It is terrible when a person makes that choice!” At this point we can talk about hell and the suffering of the soul there. It is as though the soul feels the fires of hell, and it is in pain and afraid… And there it understands how pointless and futile those crimes were, how foolishly and absurdly it wasted its life, but it can no longer change anything.
And immediately we begin to speak at length and in detail about how wonderful it is that you were born into a family where you were taught and it was explained to you that killing is wrong, and such a thing would not even enter your mind. And none of us does anything like that. And just imagine how grateful we must be to the Almighty that we are in such a place and were born into a family infinitely far removed from all of this.
When we encounter difficult and painful things in life and use them to rise to a new level of gratitude to the Almighty and love for Him, this is the third stage of faith—yirat Shamayim, an exalted awe of Heaven.
In truth, if we are honest, what did we do to deserve being born Jewish?
What had we done that was so special? When I began observing the Torah and mitzvot and learned all this, I felt as though a miracle had happened. What good had I done for Him that He should bring me, of all people, close to Him? Isn't that such a reason to be grateful?!
Rabbi Jacobson tells a very interesting story. A childless couple lived in a small Lithuanian town. Both husband and wife loved children very much. They devoted their time to all the children in the town. Whenever the man had any free time, he would come to the school and help the teacher, simply for the sake of helping. For many years.
For every holiday, they bought sweets to delight the children. The children's joy gave them enormous pleasure. The couple tried everything to have children of their own, but nothing worked. Then, in the eighteenth year of their marriage, they finally had a baby boy!
The town had a particular custom. On Simchat Torah, the fathers of boys who had started cheder and begun studying Torah that year would put their sons on their shoulders and dance the final dance with them. Only they danced, while everyone else clapped. For many years, this man, too, had stood clapping with everyone else, and everyone looked at him with great compassion.
And then, at last, he had a son. The little boy grew older and started cheder. When, on Simchat Torah, his father put him on his shoulders and stepped forward to dance with him, no one else joined them. Everyone simply stood around them and clapped. He danced alone with his son, holding him in such a way that everyone could sense both his immense happiness and his extreme care, his fear of dropping his precious treasure! Needless to say, everyone present was crying. After telling this story, the town's rabbi said, “Once in my life, I was privileged to see with my own eyes what awe of the Almighty looks like!”
to be continued