I have a good son. In fact, he’s a great son; He has good middos. He is kind, nice to everyone, intelligent, and responsible. At 16, he drives everywhere, and is happy to do errands for me. He’s a really special person. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
My son likes everything about school, during the English part of day. He likes his rebbe, too, but he doesn’t like gemara. It’s boring and doesn’t excite him. He okay with Chumash, mishnayos, halacha, and many other subjects. But most of the day, he says, is spent on gemara.
About any other subject, I would say, “Don’t worry, that’s not the only thing that counts.” But I’m afraid that, in our system, it is the only thing that counts. And I’m worried that his lack of success in gemara is making him feel badly about himself. I don’t want it to affect his relationship with his Yiddishkeit – because the reality, it seems, is that to be a successful ben Torah in today’s society, you need to be good at gemara.
When I went to a PTA meeting recently, the rebbe said to me, amidst much praise, “You don’t want your son to be one of those who goes off the derech.” He told me that the boys who don’t like gemara have nothing to hold them to Yiddishkeit. I felt like I was going to faint. What are you talking about? I thought. My son is a gem.
I don’t want to fight with the school. My goal is not to change the yeshiva system – or even if I would like to see things change, I’m certainly not qualified to do it. My real question is what should be my stance towards my son and his learning? What attitude should I convey?
Should I tell him how good he is and ignore the fact that he doesn’t like to learn? Should I be open about my feelings, which are that that I never expected to raise a gadol, that my aim is to bring up someone who is committed to Judaism. I want him to be a person who always goes to shul, takes mitzvos seriously, goes to a shiur, does chesed, etc. If I express these thoughts will it cause him to stop trying to master gemara and to settle for less?
Maybe some parents try to “encourage” their sons to learn. Part of me wants to do that, because I’m scared, but most of me doesn’t. For instance, I would never say to him, on Shabbos, “Why don’t you learn something?” because I don’t want the answer to be no. I don’t want to be a nag about Yiddishkeit. Although many rebbeim stress learning most of the time, I feel that teenagers need to have time to do things that are fun, like exercise or pursuing interests and hobbies. Of course, if I thought that getting him a gemara tutor would make him love learning and love Yiddishkeit even more, I would run out and get him a gemara tutor. What I don’t want to do is force him to learn, which I fear might backfire.
Why do the schools spend so much time on this narrow area of study? The girls have many different teachers, many subjects and extracurricular activities to excel in, and many choices. Why can’t we do the same for boys? I hope you can clarify this for me and give me a good overall approach to my son and his learning.
Bachur’s Mom
Dear Bachur’s Mom,
Your question is rather complex and includes many issues that are difficult to define. I would like to address your question as a whole by sharing some ideas that I hope will be helpful to you.
I notice that many aspects of your dilemma involve fear. Understandably, you are concerned for your son’s well being and spiritual development, and you don’t want to do anything that will perhaps turn him off from learning. You also don’t want to allow him to continue on a path that will result in him not developing his true potential. There is so much talk in recent years about teens leaving the Torah way, as your son’s Rebbi mentioned, that unfortunately many parents have become afraid to do anything for fear of damaging their child in some mysterious way.
This fear itself can be damaging, because the single greatest factor in a child remaining within our value system is that child’s relationship with his/her parents. And for this relationship to have power, it must be based on honesty, love, mutual respect, and understanding. When a parent is afraid to respond to a child due to fear, their ability to express their natural feelings within that relationship suffers.
Let me translate this into practical terms: It is clear from your letter that you love, respect, and admire your son. Yet you hesitate to share this with him for fear that he will “settle for less.” I urge you to trust your maternal instincts and let your son know how highly you think of him and how much you love him. This will only strengthen his desire to bring you nachas, be”H, as it solidifies the positive feelings between you.
At the same time, let us consider how you might approach his learning issue if you were not afraid of causing any lasting damage. In fact, I would ask you to take a moment as you read this and imagine how you would approach this if you knew that you could not possibly harm your son’s future learning. It is helpful for you to choose an approach with which you are truly comfortable, and you are the best judge of that. I will continue writing this column, in case you still want some ideas, but my guess is that once you allow yourself to think in this way, you are already coming up with something.
I would begin by asking him to explain more about his difficulty with gemara. I myself am not clear what it means that he does not like the subject – is it the iyun (in-depth) portion of the day, the bekius (quick overview) part, or both? Is it related to a learning difficulty, or is it just trouble understanding the Aramaic language? Is it the logic and in-depth analysis that is required? How did he do in gemara before this year?
The reality is that, while your son sounds like an exceptional person, he will feel better about himself if he can do better in school. And, as you say, the bulk of Judaic studies involve gemara. So the question is what can be done to help him improve his skills, or get more comfortable with learning it. I am going on the assumption that, generally speaking, most children (and adults!) can at least tolerate a subject at which they are reasonably proficient. So it is likely that there is something about gemara that is giving him trouble.
This in no way contradicts the fact that you love and respect him, and are thrilled with his learning and achieving in all other areas. You are not saying that he is less of a person because of his issue with gemara, but you are still legitimately concerned about his ability to be happy in school and yeshiva, and want to assist him in developing in this area. It may be an emotional issue that makes it hard for him to be patient and put in the needed mental effort for gemara, but this is also something that he is likely to share when you approach him in this positive way.
I think you don’t need to worry that by sharing love and acceptance you are sending the message that it is okay for him not to learn. It also does not seem that he thinks it is okay for him not to learn, but he is nevertheless struggling with gemara. You can feel comfortable sharing your positive feedback while offering support. You do not have to put his entire self-worth on the line here; nor do you have to treat this issue as inconsequential. But you can work to support and assist him from a purely practical perspective – he will be happier and feel better about himself if he is more comfortable learning gemara, and any progress he makes in that direction is positive. Ultimately, for him to put in enough effort to become outstanding in this field of study, he will need to find inner motivation. Either that will happen or it won’t, and I don’t think it is your job to require that of him, which you clearly believe as well.
Getting him a tutor would seem to be a good idea. You may want to broach this with him while you are discussing the subject already. Showing him that you are willing to spend money and effort on making him feel better about his learning also sends a positive message – that he matters to you. But keep in mind that the focus is helping him – not trying to turn him into something that you want him to be.
The same thing goes for the Shabbos learning. As you say, it may be normal for a child or bachur to want some time off. But you seem to feel that learning on Shabbos might be good for him. This is another issue you can bring up, and you can ask him honestly if this is something you can support him in, or if he truly does not want to learn on Shabbos. There are many things in life that we know are good for us but that are simply easier to not do. For some people this may include brushing their teeth, and for others, it is learning on Shabbos. Simply by offering to help you can bring this into the realm of something that he may be willing to acknowledge as being good for him. If he continues to prefer not to learn, I don’t see that you have lost anything. This is provided that you can handle a no answer without being too disappointed in him. There is never any harm done by an offer of support, as long as it is genuine. The danger is when these “offers” are really expectations that are being couched in more pleasant terms. When a child senses that, it may damage the level of sincerity he is willing to put into the relationship as he feels that his acceptance is only conditional.
To sum up, it is clear that you are a caring and thoughtful parent of a bachur who is exceptional in many ways. I encourage you to feel safe enough to share your feelings and concerns and to trust yourself and your son to work these issues out together. It sounds as though you have plenty of shared love and trust in your relationship, which provide a more-than-adequate foundation for this level of involvement in his life. I wish you much hatzlacha with this and all your endeavors.
Yehuda Weisbord is a licensed counselor and is available for consultation at 410-484-6604
Call
Send SMS
Add to Skype
You'll need Skype CreditFree via Skype
