As any good boy scout will tell you, there is a technique to building a bonfire. If you put together large sticks, as I’ve seen in picture books, the fire won’t catch. If you put a match on a pile of leaves, they will light quickly and burn out just as quickly. If you want to build a bonfire, there needs to be both tinder to start the flame and larger logs to sustain it over the long term.
Building a bonfire struck me as a good metaphor for chinuch, after a conversation I had with some other women. They had raised their children half a generation ago. Their children complain that they left their schools without feeling a deep connection and understanding of their Yiddishkeit; they were only drilled and tested to excel in Torah learning. I have had an entirely different experience. I find my children’s chinuch to be inspirational and aspirational. In fact, when I talk to young parents, I’m more concerned about the continual push for even more inspiration and less academics. The pendulum has swung in the other direction.
Chanukah is the holiday of chinuch habanim, educating our children. The Torah is compared to a light, and mitzvos to a flame. The question is how do we ignite a love for Torah, mitzvos and yiras Shamayim in the next generation? What is the correct balance between inspiration and rigor? Too much inspiration with no academics and we have lots of tinder that burns out quickly. A continuous push for academic excellence with no time for joy, and we have the wood that stubbornly refuses to ignite. Somehow, we parents and teachers need to strive to strike a balance of providing the right amount of teaching and encouragement.
As adults, it’s natural to fall into the teaching in straight mode. It’s simpler: I teach, you listen. You don’t listen, you’re bad. Very easy and keeps me feeling good. In addition, some of us are no-nonsense people: I teach what is important and don’t want to waste my time finding stories to fluff it up. Also, part of being an adult is realizing life is serious business. Torah and mitzvos, eternity and true life’s purpose are not things to be made light of.
Our children aren’t wired to that way. They have active imaginations that need to be engaged. They live for today; they see possibilities so they can expand their future. They cannot relate to our more mature understandings that have come from a lifetime of experiences.
Parents have an obligation for chinuch. We need to say no many times and set expectations children won’t enjoy. Teachers have the responsibility to prepare students to function as Jewish adults, and getting into yeshivos and seminary requires a lot of hard work and study time. The teachers will be held responsible if their students don’t learn what they need.
How do we add some tinder of inspiration to the big logs of learning, responsibility, and maturity that we are erecting? Together with parenting obligations, we need to tap into our inner child and add joy to our Torah life. We can take life seriously without being too serious. Whether it means frying three different kinds of donuts on Chanukah, planning Shabbos parties with cliffhanger stories, or going on family Chanukah trips, these moments of excitement are essential.
For teachers: Of course, we need parties, extracurricular activities, and other fun times. But that is not enough. We must actively add meaning to the content and skills we teach each day. Not every child can see the relevance of the Torah to his or her daily life unless we explicitly teach them how to do so on a consistent basis. Applying learning to life is a skill that must be nurtured and taught from the youngest age.
When I was teaching high school Chumash, I would debate with other teachers about our priorities in teaching. My friends would insist that they “cover” every Rashi and Ramban with deep analysis or quiz students about the details of the mishkan. This approach concerned me. Many children find an exclusive focus on theoretical analysis and skills to be meaningless and boring. This influences their view of Torah, its scholars, and their commitment to a halachic life. When teaching Tanach, I tried to find commentaries (in addition to Rashi) that had direct relevance to students’ lives. After all, the Torah is infinite and has 70 approaches. Since I couldn’t teach it all, I focused on those meforshim (commentators) who would guide major life decisions or touched on the 13 Ikarim (principles) of the Rambam. Learning can be both challenging and meaningful, and that should be a focus of our curriculum planning. Meaning is not an add-on to fit between the real learning. It is the learning.
If inspiration is good, shouldn’t more inspiration be even better? What could be wrong with stories, kumzitzes, and feel-good messages? We need our children to be enthusiastic about learning and living Torah. Do I want to be the mean parent or teacher who pushes my kid off the derech because I insisted on doing homework? There is a lot of guilt that is driving us to lighten our children’s loads.
And yet – if we only create moments of joy and excitement, if we are overindulgent in our Torah lives, without structure and expectations, it creates entitlement, not connection. It is hard to love something if you never sacrifice for it. It is easier to walk away from a Torah lifestyle if we always expect to feel happy than if we know that we have standards toward which we need to strive. Eventually, for everyone, learning stops being fun. What happens then? If my Torah life revolves around the inspiration I feel, with no greater depth, when something else comes around that is more inspiring or easier, I won’t have a reason to stay.
There is another problem with inspiration without perspiration. Our children have more exposure to “inspirational” ideas than we ever had. Between WhatsApp, emails, and social media, I am inundated with beautiful quotes, touching stories, and nice ideas. Some fit beautifully with Torah concepts. Many are Christian or Buddhist philosophy made “pretty” for the Instagram era. Our children need to have a firm foundation in the Torah’s approach so they can judge what to forward and what to delete because most of the time we won’t even know what they are seeing.
I heard about a situation where parents in an out-of-town community (not Rochester) were demanding that their daughters in elementary school not learn to read Rashi. After all, when would they ever need to know this? Shouldn’t inspiration be our main goal?
I think those parents were forgetting that Torah is more than an inspirational self-help book. The words of the Torah, of Rashi and other meforshim, shapes our thinking. They set our life direction. They define who we are and how we act. These words cannot be glossed over or inadequately summarized by teachers in a classroom and have the same power. The words themselves provide the foundation that will ground a Torah life for years.
If the force of my personality is the sole source of inspiration without any grounding in those who came before me and are greater than me, my students and children will be in a precarious place. Eventually, my children and students will learn that I make mistakes, misspeak, misquote, or exaggerate details. I can’t tie their entire relationship with Hashem and his Torah to my being human. They need Torah learning that is 100% true, no details changed, and no embellishment for impact. They need Torah with a mesorah (tradition) to ground any and all inspiration. We need to teach Torah in the words of Torah and show reverence for the words of Torah.
On Chanukah in particular, it can be hard to remember this balance. Between in-school parties, family parties, latkes, donuts, gelt, presents, and trips, our focus can be on creating bigger and better experiences without grounding them in any spiritual foundation. As we celebrate to add excitement, we need to make sure that we don’t leave the Torah and spiritual center behind.
Being a parent and teacher isn’t easy. It’s a constant juggling act of when to push and when to give in. A few principles will help us keep our children’s spiritual fires burning longer. As we teach how to learn Torah, we can show our children how to apply it to life. As a family, school and community, we can make the times we celebrate the Jewish year and our spiritual accomplishments a top priority. We can ensure that in any celebration, we always include a Torah focus. And finally, we can recognize that we are giving our children a gift that we are privileged to have. The joy that flows from that realization should ignite a warmth in us and in our children.
Have a lichtige (bright) Chanukah!
