Getting to Know Your Children - 06 Nurturing A Child’s Neshamah

The Goal of Chinuch – Helping Our Child Reveal His Neshamah

In the previous chapters, we dealt with the more practical issues of chinuch (child education), wherewe explained that chinuch requires us to be aware of three factors: the realm of action, the realm of emotion, and the realm of thought. Now we will try to explain, in brief lines, of the fundamental facet that lies behind all of the words here.[1]

Every person is a soul, covered over by the body, which is the soul’s “garment”. The purpose of why we came onto this world is to remove our bodily perception of ourselves and reveal our existence as a neshamah (Divine soul).

Thus, if parents want to raise their children properly, and they are aware that each child contains a pure neshamah (as we say each morning in the blessing of Elokai Neshamah, “A pure soul You created me with”), it is now upon the parents to realize that the central goal of all the chinuch on our children is this: to guide our child to the purpose of why we are here on this world - which is, to reveal the neshamah.

Torah-Based Chinuch vs. The Gentile Approaches of Raising Children

Today there are many parenting books that have appeared on the scene. There is also a countless array of parenting seminars and workshops available today that we can find. But there is one thing that is lacking amidst all of this. A large percentage of these ideas are borrowed from the approaches of the modern, gentile world. Perhaps we can raise a decent non-Jewish child from this, but it is not the way of chinuch that is fitting for a Jewish child.

Parents who are of the Jewish nation, who wish to give a proper chinuch to their children and raise them to live a true Jewish life, cannot remain at the level of practical action alone, in order to succeed at chinuch. It will not either be enough if we know how to develop our children’s emotions and thoughts alone. A non-Jewish child will turn out very good if he is developed in these areas, but these areas alone will not be enough to inculcate proper values into a Jewish child, who comes from our holy forefathers. For the Jewish child, whose soul is not like the other nations of the world, we need an entirely different approach towards child education than the one which the modern world offers.

The basic element of a Jewish child’s chinuch is the perspective that he is a neshamah. Meaning, we must help the child form an aspiration to reveal his existence as a neshamah, which at first is hidden and concealed from awareness.

The task that lies upon a Jewish parent, therefore, starts with the neshamah perspective. First we need to get the child to understand that he is a neshamah, and when the child is brought to that point, we can then further develop him in the areas of action, emotion, and thought. When the child reveals his existence as a neshamah, he will then do what he needs to do, he will feel that which he is supposed to feel, and he will know how to think properly.

(Understandably, a large part of this will be accomplished by the child, and not by the parents. But is the parents who need to give the (tools) to the child for this, so that the child can take those tools and develop himself further.)

The Parents Must First See Themselves as a Neshamah

The reason for which Hashem has given us children is explained clearly in the Torah: “So that he will command his sons and daughters to follow him, and guard the way of Hashem, and perform charity and justice.” [2] If we wish to reach the goal of chinuch on our children, which is to “guard the way of Hashem, and perform charity and justice”, it is upon to reflect: How did Avraham Avinu get to this? It was Avraham Avinu who reached this understanding on his own. As we know, Avraham Avinu searched and pondered the Creator’s existence, until he recognized that Hashem exists and that He runs the world. When he reached that conclusion, he then realized that it is upon him to keep His laws and mitzvos.

In order to raise the next generation, our aspiration must be that our children reach the same conclusion that Avraham Avinu reached. We want them to realize that they have a neshamah, which is a “portion of G-d above”, and that this means that they are His servants. So when we nurture them in the realms of action, emotion, and thought, the common drive throughout all of this should be for one purpose alone: to help them understand that they exist as a neshamah, and that their neshamah can guide them in the areas of action, emotion, and thought.

But the child can realize he is a neshamah only if his parents see themselves as neshamos. Therefore, a parent first needs to internalize the knowledge that his existence is a neshamah, covered over by a physical body. Only after reaching this conclusion can the parent easily relate to his child as a neshamah, where he will see his child as being a neshamah that is covered by a body, and that it is upon the parent to help the child reveal his neshamah.

Where is the neshamah located in the person? Rav Chaim Volozhiner wrote in Nefesh HaChaim, in the name of earlier sources, that the soul is comprised of three parts: the nefesh, the ruach, and the neshamah. Part of the soul resides in the liver, and this is referred to as the “nefesh”. This area of the soul is responsible for the realm of action. Another part of the soul resides in the heart, and this is the “ruach”, which is responsible for the emotions. A higher part of the soul resides in the brain, and this is the “neshamah”, which is responsible for the thoughts.

Now we can understand that all which we spoke about in the previous chapters about chinuch, which included the areas of action, emotion, and thought in raising children – is entirely an aspiration to actualize the child’s neshamah. In other words, our goal in chinuch is to bring the child to a level where his actions will involve his neshamah, where his feelings will be flowing from his neshamah, and where his thoughts will be coming from the holy neshamah.

Being Careful With Our Children’s Self-Image

In the first chapter of Getting To Know Your Children, we explained how the parent needs to love the child based on the Torah’s commandment of “V’ohavta l’reiacha kamoicha”, “Love your friend as you love yourself.” However, without viewing the child as a neshamah, parents will have a very hard time treating their children with love and respect. The parents naturally see themselves as higher than the children, and it can feel demeaning for the parent to be careful with the child’s honor and to love him as a “friend” like the Torah says.

However, although the parents are right for feeling that they are the higher authority over the children, when they realize that their child has a neshamah and they are aware of what this means, they will have a much easier time relating to their children with love and respect. Every person has a neshamah, which is called a “portion of G-d above.” Every person is created with a tzelem elokim, “in G-d’s image”,[3] and the Sages teach that “Man is precious, for he was created in G-d’s image.”[4] The parents can learn to see their child in this way, and then it is much easier to act loving towards him and to be careful not to slight his honor.

If the parents simply focus on the fact that they are higher than the children and they feel that it’s unfair to view the child as an equal to them, this perspective is a view that comes from the guf  (the body), which ignores the neshamah dimension. But when the parents are aware that every person has a neshamah and that it is merely our body which covers it, and they internalize that we mainly exist as neshamos, they will have an easy time relating to their children in this way and seeing them as equal to them.

The neshamah dimension is what unites all of Klal Yisrael together, which gives us all the title of “brothers” to each other. From this deepened perspective, we can understand that our own neshamos have been appointed by Hashem as the ones who will raise a part of some of the other neshamos in Klal Yisrael - who “happen” to be our own children. 

Furthermore, when the parents begin chinuch on their children with this perspective, and the children are aware that the parents place emphasis on the neshamah as an important, central aspect in their lives, they will lead their entire lives differently. When they eventually get married, with help from Heaven, and when they have children of their own, they will treat their spouses with the awareness that the other is a neshamah, and they will relate to their children as well as neshamos. They will understand on their own that their children should be honored for who they are, for they will be aware that their children are also neshamos of the Creator.

The Proper View On Refraining From Criticizing Children

A popular topic amongst many educators today is the topic of refraining from criticizing children, and that the parents need to be very careful not to slight the honor of a child or insult him in any way. Many lectures and books have been compiled on this subject, because, from the view of modern psychology, criticizing a child is known to have long-term effects on the overall self-esteem of a person; therefore, there is much attention given to this subject.

I am not negating that conclusion, but we must know that there is an altogether different reason of why the parents should be careful with their child’s honor. It should be coming from a totally different perspective than the above view, as follows.

If the parents view the child as a guf – a physical body - then indeed, it would be logical to make the parents aware of the view of psychology that damaging the child’s honor will impact on his entire self-esteem. In that way, the parent will think twice before he says something that may slight the child. But if the parent is aware as he has conversations with his child, that he is speaking with a neshamah contained inside a physical body – a neshamah that is a piece of the Divine – when that is his perspective, he will surely not slight his child’s honor.

Any Jewish parent who wishes to raise his child properly must have the general attitude that “I am a neshamah, my spouse is a neshamah, and the children that were born to us are neshamos.” When a parent constantly remembers this, he will find no better reason to refrain from slighting the honor of his child. A parents that views his children as G-dly souls will have a totally different behavior towards them, on all levels. When he is about to raise his hand to hit the child when the child has done something wrong, he will think twice before hitting him, remembering that the child is a neshamah, a piece from Above.

(This does not contradict the necessity to sometimes hit the child, when the child has done something that requires this punishment. But we must remember that even when the child should get hit, he should only be hit when it is necessary, and never when it isn’t).

There are people who work with fashioning earth, others work with copper, others with silver, and some individuals get to fashion gold. But when we raise our children, we must be aware of their priceless value. We must know that it is not enough to love them naturally with a parent’s love - although that, too, is important and necessary. Rather, there is something deeper here, which is priceless: Every child contains a neshamah, which has a connection to the Creator of the world. Therefore, as parents, we need to honor them just for that very reason.

In that way, our entire approach towards educating our children will be with a totally different attitude, for we will be trying to add the neshamah dimension into all that we do.

Why Many Children Today Look Empty

To our great pain, the situation today is that there are many young children, and even adults, who look dead. We can see it in many children who come to shul, who leave it in the same way they came in. (Actually, maybe they are a bit more energetic after leaving shul, because they got to doze off and take a nap….) We see before us a person walking on two feet, and we know he is alive, but his entire demeanor is screaming out to us that he is lacking any real vitality. Where does this stem from?

Since there are parts of the child’s neshamah that aren’t revealed, this allows him to feel extinguished inside himself. Therefore, if parents wish to prevent their child from this feeling of emptiness, and they are interested in acquiring a completely different perspective, they should know that the entire goal of chinuch is to reveal the neshamah as much as possible, and to raise the child with the attitude that he is a neshamah. When that is the approach, we will then see before us a child with a healthy soul, who has grown up with a sense of inner vitality, who isn’t suffering internally.

What we have to bear in mind as we educate our children is that our children are neshamos that have been given to us to take care of. They are covered with a physical body, and for this reason, we do not actually see their neshamos. Our task as parents is to help them reveal their neshamos, and to give them the tools they need so that when they grow up, they will continue on their own this task of revealing their neshamah.

Let us emphasize that revealing the neshamah is not a lofty matter that only rare individuals reach. It is necessary and basic for day-to-day life! It is necessary for a man when he learns Torah, and it necessary for anyone when doing the mitzvos. It is the personal task of each person, according to the level he is at. All that we need to change is our perspective. As parents, we need to understand that the goal of chinuch, and the goal of all the words we have learned here, is to reveal the neshamah of our child. That will enable a child to internalize that he is a neshamah, and then he can grow accordingly.

The basic attitude of raising a child with the awareness that he\she is a neshamah has been presented in the concepts of the previous chapters, but in this chapter, what have we have added on here is that our entire, general attitude towards chinuch of our children should be about revealing the child’s neshamah.

Not To Neglect The Physical Needs Of A Child

As you may have realized, this chapter really serves as an introduction to the previous chapters, and naturally, we should have placed this chapter at the beginning of this sefer. However, if we would have done so, many people would quickly dismiss the entire approach here towards chinuch, viewing it as being disconnected with reality. That is why we first placed the chapters that explain the practical applications (we could have said more, but the basis has been said), and only after you have seen that the approach here can be of practical use in chinuch, can you appreciate that this is not just another book about child education.

Baruch Hashem, there are many books available today on the topic of raising children. But the purpose of this sefer was to present a basic system for raising the Jewish child, whose entire goal in life should be: to reveal his neshamah. And, that it is upon us, the parents, to help them and guide them in this worthwhile direction.

However, we must remember a basic point which is very important: There are some people who take an extremely spiritual approach towards raising their children, and they need to hear a completely different approach than the one given in this chapter. Those kinds of parents act irresponsible when it comes to taking care of the basic physical needs of the children, because they are placing all of their focus on the spiritual development of their children. They are too focused on the neshamah aspect, and they forget that their children have physical bodies too, which the neshamah is currently clothed in.

When is focusing on the neshamah aspect proper, and when does it become extreme?

As we explained, every person is a combination of guf (body) and neshamah (soul); the neshamah wants the spiritual, and the body wants the physical. But if the parents try to instill a constant air of seriousness in the home, where only deep, spiritual thoughts are conveyed, any sensible person can understand that this will not be a successful home. This is because we are not souls living in Gan Eden right now. In addition to the neshamah that is within us, we also have a physical body, which experiences various challenges and difficulties of the day-to-day-living that we have to endure on this world, as well as the material successes of daily living that it must be able to enjoy.

Therefore, we should be aware that as parents, we are given the gift of children in our hands, who are a combination of body and soul. On one hand, we must care for their physical needs, as much as we can. Along with this, we need to be concerned for the needs of their neshamos, and to help them reveal the neshamah that resides in their body.

Creating A Humorous Atmosphere In The Home

Close students of the Chazon Ish recall that when he would converse with others, he would start the conversation with something humorous, in order to create a jovial atmosphere between him and the students. Similarly, Rav Shlomo Wolbe zt”l would advise married men to humor their families with saying something funny, in order to create a light, relaxed atmosphere in the home.[5]

The depth behind the above approach is because man is a combination of a body and soul, and while man’s task is to have a serious attitude about life - in order to reveal his G-dly aspect, which is his soul - his physical body cannot handle a serious approach all the time. Therefore, in order to calm the body, one needs to pacify it, by having a dose of humor every so often. When a person relaxes from the humor, he has given his body its needs, and now he is free to pursue the spiritual.

Bringing humor into the home is a matter that is hinted to in Chazal: “It is forbidden for man to fill his mouth with laughter on this world”[6]. From this teaching, we learn that man should have a serious attitude towards life, and to stay away from frivolousness. But we also learn from here that one should not fill his mouth with laughter”, meaning that too much laughter is not forbidden - but a little bit of laughter is permitted. Not only is it permitted, but it is advised. We find that the sages in the times of the Gemara would begin teaching their students with a milsa d’bidichusa, a humorous word.[7]

However, humor is only constructive when a person is balanced with a serious approach towards life. When he is cognizant that life has a purpose to it, he can then gain from humor, which calms the body and allows it to go free a little from the stresses of life. Therefore, only when a person is aware of the neshamah and he views himself as such, can he benefit from a little dose of humor.

So while we must be aware that chinuch on our children means to raise them in the areas of action, emotion, and thought, we also need to know that while there is a very serious side to life, namely that our life’s work is to reveal our neshamah - which requires us to have a deep approach towards chinuch and to be serious, to have deep emotions and analytical thinking – simultaneously, parents must also remember that every child also has a physical body, which has its various physical needs. Besides for certain rare individuals, a person cannot handle always being in a serious atmosphere that resembles Erev Yom Kippur. Besides for the body’s need to eat, drink, and be clothed, it also needs to go free a little, from the seriousness of life.

Therefore, every so often, a parent must make sure to throw a joke into the atmosphere of the home, the kind that puts a smile on all the children’s faces (understandably, this should not be done in a way that transgresses halachah; it should not be a kind of joke that is insulting, or which comes at the expense of another’s feelings, etc.), in order to create a calm, pleasant atmosphere in the home.

Without creating a joyful atmosphere in the home, the children are bound to grow up without a simchas hachaim (a joy for life). Although true simchas hachaim can only come from the depths of the neshamah, the fact is that the physical body of every person has its needs [so any level of joy, even if it is not on a profound level, is necessary]. Therefore, only through integrating these two parts together – a serious attitude towards what life is about, and simultaneously, a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the home – can a parent have the ability to instill true simchas hachaim into the home.[8]

Some people won’t even have to be told about the need to bring some humor into the home; they are already good at that part. But if they are overdoing the humor in their home and they never speak about anything serious with their family members, they may need to hear an opposite approach than the above one. They will need to work on creating a more serious atmosphere in the home.

Therefore, a parent must know himself well. If he knows he is the more serious type, or if he has gone through certain events in his life that shaped his personality to be his way, he needs to learn how to create some humor in his home, so that his home will be properly balanced. If he knows that he has more of a funny and humorous personality, he needs to learn how to inject some seriousness into the home, so that his home shouldn’t become a place of total jest. In that way, the humorous atmosphere in his home will be balanced with some seriousness about life, in a way that is befitting for a Jewish home.

The Foundation of Jewish Child Education:  To Have A Constant Bond With the Creator

As explained before, the depth that lays in the entire path of chinuch outlined in these chapters is the understanding that every person has a neshamah. Educating a Jewish child is therefore primarily about raising him with the attitude that he is a neshamah.

The neshamah, by its very concept, is a longing for the Creator. To the Creator it turns to, in times of joy, in times of pain and predicament, in times of success, in times of trouble – and at all other times as well. The deepest understanding that must settle upon the inner being of every Jew is that in all situations - without exception – there is one single address to turn to: HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That is how a Jew must lead his life. Whenever he has a challenge, he should turn to Hashem, in prayer. In times of joy, he should thank the Creator. And for all other times, he should understand that everything is simply from Hashem.

That being the case, if we want to use the neshamah perspective in chinuch, the basis for this attitude is that the parents themselves need to live a reality in which there is nothing other than Hashem and His Torah. Together, they should strive to cultivate this into the children. If their chinuch on their children doesn’t reach this goal, the chinuch has been stopped in middle of the way, and such chinuch will not bring their children to the desired goal of chinuch.

There are parents who very much want to raise their children with the values of Torah and mitzvos, but they may have some false notions about child education, which are hampering the progress. Parents may train a child to keep the mitzvos and they will do anything to make sure that their children learn Torah, and they may even spend much energy trying to develop good middos in their children, but they must understand that the level of deed alone is not enough to fulfill the will of Hashem (though its importance is immeasurable). Rather, they must remind themselves that there is one common thread that must run through everything: A deep bond with the Creator, throughout the day.

In order for this knowledge to penetrate into the awareness of the children, it will not happen just through singing the Yedid Nefesh song by the Shalosh Seudos meal, or any other song about yearning and love for Hashem. Rather, this awareness must envelope the atmosphere inside the home, throughout the day – in a way that the children can sense it well.

The lesson that we need to internalize is, that the way to build our homes has been taught to us by Avraham Avinu: “For I have loved him, because he commands his children and his household after him that they keep the way of Hashem.”[9]After Avraham Avinu merited to recognize his Creator, the only matter that filled his being was to be close to Hashem, and therefore, that is what he desired to inherit and bestow to his children.

Bonding with Hashem should not be reserved only for when there are problems, such as illness or various other difficulties and challenges in life. Rather, bonding with Hashem must become a staple need in a person’s life, like bread. One should understand well that this is the true purpose of life, and that is the way a Jew need to live.

To our great pain, in our times, there are young boys and girls who are roaming the world in order to “find themselves”. We must know that the central cause for this is because they have never been raised to form a soul connection with the One who made this world, and as a result of this awful void, children become tangled inside themselves and they are not finding themselves. And when that is the case, the chances of them falling into an abysmal descent are closely within their reach.

But on a more subtle level, even when children are still found within the “system” and they look fine in their external appearance and in how they are behaving, that is still not proof that they have formed a deep and true connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

In contrast, when the parents strive for the goal of bringing their children, with siyata d’shmaya, to an understanding that life has great meaning and depth to it, and that a bond with HaKadosh Baruch Hu is necessary for one’s existence - that is the surest path to success, which will greatly reduce the possibility of the negative outcome described above.

“It Is Good For Man To Bear A Burden In His Youth”

Some people have the erroneous perception that it’s better not to discuss with a child such deep and serious matters about life, such as being cognizant of the purpose of life, etc. According to their thinking, “children should be allowed to just be children”, doing whatever makes them happy, with no sense of responsibility towards their future. These parents feel that the difficulties of life will eventually come, such as worrying about livelihood and running the home, but that children should not be unnecessarily pressured with any serious kind of thinking about life.

This attitude is mistaken from the very foundation. It stems from a false notion that the main difficulties of life are earning livelihood and running the home. The truth is known to anyone who searches for spiritual growth and closeness to Hashem: The true work of life for man to reflect on is in his personal service to the Creator.

If this truth is not instilled into the heart of a child from a young age, he will have a very difficult time dealing with this reality when he is older. It is written openly in the verse: “It is good for man to bear a yoke in his youth.”[10] The verse emphasizes that carrying the burden of life must already be worked upon in one’s youth, and not to push it off until after one is married. Only then, after one internalizes the truth about life in his youth, will he merit the end of the verse, “Even when he becomes elderly, he will not forsake from it.”

Every parent needs to internalize that educating the child of this awareness is not simply a commendable idea to spend time on acquiring, which is optional and which may be exchanged for some other goal. Rather, this awareness must be regarded as the fundamental of fundamentals, which every Jew needs to take with him, throughout life.

If parents raise their children naturally and simplistically, believing that the main thing is to give them what to eat and drink and maybe a little more than that, the next generation after them will not be able to develop on its own. That is why it is painful to the heart to see people who reach this conclusion only after going through several tragedies with several of their children. After failing with their third child, only then do they realize that their approach was mistaken. Only when they are down to the wire do they suddenly reach the conclusion that chinuch is supposed to be about bonding, daily, with the Creator.

Children must be able tell if their parents consider bonding with the Creator to be a main aspect of life which they can’t live without. It shouldn’t be regarded as some secret, a “hush-hush topic” that is only brushed upon every once in a while. Only when a child internalizes that the true burden he must bear upon his shoulders in life is to understand that that the purpose of his existence on this world is to recognize his Creator, and truly so – only then, can we say that we have tried to fulfill our duty towards our Creator and to educate our children in the best possible way.

In Conclusion

To conclude this chapter, let us review and emphasize, that although we have tried in these chapters to lay the foundations for successful child education, we must remember that there is no guaranteed success. The purpose of these chapters was to help us have some direction, of how to properly fulfill our obligation towards our Creator, in the matter of educating our children. But we must remember, and be aware, that success is in the hands of the Creator of the world alone, and that prayer and supplication to Him is the first condition that we need in order to see success and happiness in raising our children.

May Hashem accept our prayers before Him, and may we all merit to come forth from us a generation that is upright and blessed.