Proud to Make Parents Proud
A famous Rosh Yeshiva once visited me with his older son. Painfully, he related that his son was substituting inappropriate outlooks for a Torah life. I asked the son to leave the room so that I could have a few moments alone with his father. After speaking together for some time, I began to get a feel of the relationship between the two. I told the Rosh Yeshiva that I felt there was an underlying problem in his behavior toward his son. Baruch Hashem, he himself had amassed a tremendous amount of Torah knowledge, affording him the position of Rosh Yeshiva. That may have been the reason why he did not respect his son’s Torah study and insights, which paled in comparison to his own. When the son saw, time and again, how he failed to match up to his father’s high expectations, he preferred to abandon the whole deal and take his business elsewhere.
The man was silent, so I continued. Maybe it was his job now to express admiration for the little bit of time which his son does learn. Through sincere appreciation of what he accomplishes and a feeling of success, bisiyata di’Shemaya, the boy would return to the bench of the Beit Hamidrash with enthusiasm and diligence.
Education does not end with imparting to our children a smattering of mitzvot, halachot, and rules for living. True education is established on appreciation, mutual respect, encouragement, and feeling success at doing the right thing. Through the sweet feeling which a child absorbs from his parents’ recognition of his good qualities, he will grow to be a source of pride to them.
