"Instead of stinging nettle, myrtle will rise" (Isaiah 55:13)
 "Instead of evil, good will rise." (The Malbim's Interpretation)
Myrtle Rising
  • Blog
  • Comments Disabled
    • Privacy Policy
  • Aliyah
    • Mini-Intro
    • General Cultural Insights
    • School Tips
  • Kli Yakar Index
  • Most Popular
  • Contact

A Vital & Applicable Parenting Technique We Can Learn from Rav Elyashiv ztz"l

20/5/2020

0 Comments

 
Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv ztz"l (1910-2012) was one of the premier poskim of the entire world before he passed away.

Born in Lithuania in 1910, Rav Elyashiv came to Eretz Yisrael at age 12 with his parents, then spent most of his life in Yerushalayim.

In addition to his vast Torah knowledge covering all topics, he excelled in hasmadah — the dedication to uninterrupted Torah study as much as one possibly can.

In fact, he possibly excelled at hasmadah more than almost anyone else in his time (as far as I know).

Certainly, he could not have achieved the level of hasmadah without the above-and-beyond dedication of his wife, Sheina Chaya (a daughter of Rav Aryeh Levine).

But even with such a wife, most men would still not be able to achieve hasmadah on Rav Elyashiv's level.

So it was definitely a joint effort.

Before telling a story of Rebbetzin Sheina Chaya Elyashiv, Rebbetzin Heller said something like how the Elyashivs' commitment to Torah reached such a high level, it's impossible (i.e. not such a good idea) to share their stories with others because most people cannot follow such an example, and therefore feel frustrated or "Huh?" when hearing them. 

I think it helped that Rav Elyashiv was an introvert and not a physically strong person, but these are only contributing factors to his hasmadah and certainly do not diminish from his unyielding heart-and-soul dedication to Torah study.

And this is davka why a famous video of Rav Elyashiv demonstrates such good mussar for parents.

Relating to Your Child as a Sugya in Gemara

Probably many (or even most) of you have seen the video of the elderly Rav Elyashiv sitting in his sukkah with lots of people (generations of family members, it seems) milling about.

After taking a moment in which it looks like he sizes up the situation, he delves back into the Gemara open before him.

Then someone announces the arrival of his oldest daughter, Rebbetzin Batsheva, and his son-in-law & fellow talmid chacham Rav Chaim Kanievsky.

Rav Elyashiv doesn't actually smile, but his entire face beams with joy.

His joy increases as his daughter & son-in-law approach and upon seeing them, Rav Elyashiv smiles.

Rebbetzin Batsheva, in addition to being a tzaddekes, was also a very warm & sociable person. She lovingly pats her father on the arm and asks him a couple of times how he's doing.

Though Rav Elyashiv is clearly happy to see his daughter & son-in-law, I get the impression that at his extremely advanced age and health, plus his innate introversion & dedication to Torah learning (something I think that even social introverts can really relate to), he's not so thrilled with all the noise going on around him (though people are considerate & give him his space), but he understands and resigns himself to it.

After the Kanievskys are seated before Rav Elyashiv, Rebbetzin Batsheva decides to tell her father a joke. It's a frum joke with a mussar lesson — not a meaningless joke, but a joke nonetheless.

She asks her whether a fish in an aquarium feels fear on the Day of Judgement.

(Needless to say, this is because aquarium fish are designated for life and not in danger of being eaten by other fish or animals, or caught in a fisherman's net.)

You can only see Rav Kanievsky's face in profile, but he is gazing at his wife with obvious affection and good humor.

And this is where the big parenting lesson comes in.

Rav Elyashiv automatically turns his entire body & face to his daughter, scoots a little closer to her, and channels his entire focus on her face.

He also places his palm over his forehead in exactly the way he did when he learned Torah and zeroes in on his daughter's face.

Then there is some give-and-take between the two of them as he involves himself with what his daughter wants to convey to him.

Strikingly, throughout the entire exchange, Rav Elyashiv relates to his daughter as if she is a sugya in Gemara.

Did he not realize she was just telling him a joke? 

Of course he realized!

And this was the big lesson to me: LOOK at your child when they speak to you.

No matter how simple the conversation is, FOCUS.

Make continuous eye contact. (Or at least keep focusing on their face, if unbreaking eye contact gets too weird or intense.)

Applying Rav Elyashiv's Example in Real Life

Now maybe you're saying to yourself: "Already knew that basic parenting advice — next!"

Or: "I heard that in my parenting class. What's the big chiddush here?"

Or: "Everyone knows this. No one needs to be told this. You must be a really pathetic mother if you didn't know this."

So the thing is...I thought I knew this too.

And I DID "know" it.

And of course you'll hear this in a parenting class.

I also thought I was doing this! I thought of myself as an attentive mother who both talks and listens to her children.

But when I really started making sure to give my child face-to-face focus every time a child wanted to say something to me, I realized how much I actually hadn't been doing it.

​Yeah, I'd been doing it some, but not as much as I really should.

Whether it was "Where's the ketchup?" or a brief humorous comment or something more urgent or serious or conversational, I tried to be like Rav Elyashiv and look them full in the face for however long they spoke, even if I was in the middle of something.

And until like most other women, I'm NOT a good multi-tasker and tend to be one-track-minded. That's just how my brain works. So this proved a bit more challenging than probably for other women.

Especially for very brief comments that come in frequent spurts (like "Where's the ketchup?" and "I found the matching sock!", it's sometimes a bit dizzying to hone in with the proper face-focusing head-swivel each time

​Yet it's definitely worth it.

And I got used to it quickly enough (like any other habit) and anyway, I figure if Rav Elyashiv, one of the greatest masmidim in his time, can do it for his daughter's joke-telling, it must be a very important thing to do. 

Needless to say, I can't always do this. "Always" isn't realistic.

​Sometimes, I just need to finish something or I'm involved with something hot on the stove or coming out of the oven and it's too dangerous to freeze in place and gaze in my child's face as they speak.

Or I forget or simply fail to do so when I should.

That's normal.

​The main thing is to do it more.

And with everything they tell you in parenting classes & parenting books (many — but not all — of which also contain a lot of jumping-through-hoops-while-hopping-on-one-foot-&-juggling-bowling-balls, plus advice that simply is not suited to your individual situation even if it's effective for others), this kind of universally applicable essential can get lost among all the other Vitally-Important-Or-Else! with which many of them inundate you.

But watching truly great people can help us get back to basics.

And it's something that you can actually implement and not wave off as "only for really great people" or "not for our generation, which is such a weak one."

If Rav Elyashiv, a supreme masmid who always did everything in his power to avoid bitul Torah & learn Torah under any & all circumstances can focus with Talmudic intensity on his child as she tells a joke, then that means that eye contact & focus must be vitally important.

And this is something truly important & useful to learn from Rav Elyashiv about parenting.


0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Privacy Policy

    Picture
    Please note this is an affiliate link. Meaning, I get a small cut but at NO extra cost to you. If you use it, I'm grateful. If not, you still get a giant mitzvah connected to Eretz Yisrael.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner


    Myrtle Rising

    I'm a middle-aged housewife and mother in Eretz Yisrael who likes to read and write a lot.


    Picture
    Sample Chapters

    Categories

    All
    Aliyah
    Anti Jewish Bigotry
    Anti-jewish-bigotry
    Astronomy
    Book Review
    Books
    Chagim/Holidays
    Chinuch
    Coronavirus
    Dictionaries
    Emuna
    Eretz Yisrael
    Erev Rav
    Gender
    Hitbodedut
    "If The Torah..."
    Jewish Astrology
    Kav Hayashar
    Kli Yakar
    Lashon Hara
    Love
    Me'am Loez
    Minchat Yehudah
    Mishlei/Proverbs
    Netivot Shalom
    Parenting
    Parsha
    Pele Yoetz
    Perek Shira
    Pesach
    Politics
    Prayer
    Purim
    Rav Avigdor Miller
    Rav Itamar Schwartz
    Rav L.Y. Bender
    Recipes
    "Regular" Jews
    Rosh Hashanah
    Society
    Sukkot
    Tammuz
    Technology
    Tehillim/Psalms
    Teshuvah
    The Lost Princess
    Tisha B'Av
    USA Scary Direction
    Women
    Yom Kippur

    Jewish Blogs

    Daf Yomi Review
    Derech Emet
    Going...Habayitah
    Halacha Q&A
    Hava haAharona
    Miriam Adahan
    My Perspective

    Shirat Devorah
    Tomer Devorah
    Toras Avigdor
    True Tzaddikim
    Tznius Blog

    Yeranen Yaakov
    Rabbi Ofer Erez (Hebrew lectures)

    Jewish Current Events

    Hamodia
    Sultan Knish
    Tomer Devorah
    Yeranen Yaakov

    Jewish Health

    People Smarts

    Archives

    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    RSS Feed

    Copyright Notice

    ©2015-2022 Myrtle Rising
    Excerpts and links may be used without express permission as long as a link is provided back to the appropriate Myrtle Rising page.

Home/Blog

Most Popular

Kli Yakar in English

Aliyah

Contact

Copyright © 2023
Photos used under Creative Commons from Brett Jordan, BAMCorp, Terrazzo, Abode of Chaos, Michele Dorsey Walfred, marklordphotography, M.Burak Erbaş, torbakhopper, jhritz, Rina Pitucci (Tilling 67), Svadilfari, kum111, Tim simpson1, FindYourSearch, Giorgio Galeotti, ChrisYunker, Jaykhuang, YourCastlesDecor, bluebirdsandteapots, Natalia Medd, Stefans02, Israel_photo_gallery, Commander, U.S. 7th Fleet, BradPerkins, zeevveez, dfarrell07, h.koppdelaney, Edgardo W. Olivera, nafrenkel88, zeevveez, mtchlra, Liz | populational, TraumaAndDissociation, thinboyfatter, garofalo.christina, skpy, Free Grunge Textures - www.freestock.ca, Nerru, Gregory "Slobirdr" Smith, trendingtopics, dolbinator1000, DonkeyHotey, zeevveez, erix!, zeevveez, h.koppdelaney, MAURO CATEB, kevin dooley, keepitsurreal, annikaleigh, bjornmeansbear, publicdomainphotography, Leonard J Matthews, Exile on Ontario St, Nicholas_T, marcoverch, planman, PhilWolff, j_lai, t.kunikuni, zeevveez, Ian W Scott, Brett Jordan, RonAlmog, Bob Linsdell, NASA Goddard Photo and Video, aaron_anderer, ** RCB **, Tony Webster, mypubliclands, AntonStetner, Zachi Evenor, MrJamesBaker, sammydavisdog, Frode Ramone, Wonder woman0731, wrachele, kennethkonica, Skall_Edit, Pleuntje, Rennett Stowe, *S A N D E E P*, symphony of love, AlexanderJonesi, Arya Ziai, ePublicist, Enokson, Tony Webster, Art4TheGlryOfGod, seaternity, Andrew Tarvin, zeevveez, Israel_photo_gallery, Iqbal Osman1, Matt From London, Tribes of the World, Eric Kilby, miracle design, RonAlmog, slgckgc, Kim Scarborough, DonkeyHotey, Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, h.koppdelaney, gleonhard, Pedro Travassos, nociveglia, RonAlmog, Israel_photo_gallery, Septemia, Paulann_Egelhoff, Tatiana12, MAD Hippies Life, Neta Bartal, milesgehm, shooting brooklyn, RonAlmog, smilygrl, gospelportals, leighblackall, symensphotographie, zeevveez, Kyknoord, wotashot (taking a break), Tambako the Jaguar, bitmask, Arnie Sacknooson, mattymatt, Rob Swystun, zeevveez, Dun.can, Tim Patterson, timeflicks, garlandcannon, HRYMX, fred_v, Yair Aronshtam, zeevveez, Ron Cogswell, FindYourSearch, Israel_photo_gallery, Serendipity Diamonds, zeevveez, Steve Corey, Dominic's pics, leighklotz, Stefans02, dannyman, RonAlmog, Stephen O, RonAlmog, Tips For Travellers, Futurilla, anomalous4, Bob Linsdell, AndyMcLemore, symphony of love, andydr, sara~, Gamma Man, Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, robef, European Southern Observatory, Brett Jordan, Johnny Silvercloud, Israel_photo_gallery, smkybear, --Sam--, Paulann_Egelhoff, Selena Sheridan, D'oh Boy, campbelj45ca, 19melissa68, entirelysubjective, Leimenide, dheera.net, Brett Jordan, HonestReporting.com, Iqbal Osman1, One Way Stock, Jake Waage, picto:graphic, Marcelo Alves, KAZVorpal, Sparkle Motion, Brett Jordan, Ambernectar 13, Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis, Steven DuBois, Cristian V., tortuga767, Jake Cvnningham, D'oh Boy, Eric Kilby, quinn.anya, Lenny K Photography, One Way Stock, Bird Eye, ell brown, Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, Kevin M. Gill, lunar caustic, gerrybuckel, quinn.anya, Kaz Andrew, kodomut, kayugee, jintae kim's photography, Futurilla, terri_bateman, Patty Mooney, Amydeanne, Paulann_Egelhoff, Mulling it Over, Ungry Young Man, Ruth and Dave, yangouyang374, symphony of love, kennethkonica, young@art, Brett Jordan, slgckgc, Celestine Chua, rkimpeljr, Kristoffer Trolle, TooFarNorth, D'oh Boy, Grace to You, LittleStuff.me, Kevin M. Gill, philozopher, traveltipy.com, Alan Cleaver, crazyoctopus, d_vdm, tonynetone, penjelly, TheToch, JohnE777, hello-julie, DaveBleasdale, Michael Candelori Photography, andessurvivor, slgckgc, byzantiumbooks, sasha diamanti