The Search for a “Holy Grail” is a Christian Concept, Not a Jewish One
I'm on a quest! Despite the best of intentions, chinuch experts (for all their experience and expertise) can often miss the forest for the trees.
They have their own blind spots.
They may be very good people, good parents, and have good intentions.
But they definitely also miss things and focus on the wrong things.
For example, I know a couple with great shalom bayit.
They really like each other and they never fight. They talk to each other so nicely.
In fact, the wife once confided to me how grateful she was for her husband’s personality, describing him as a diamond and a gem, saying that she was afraid to share this with other people because she’s afraid of ayin hara.
Furthermore, they both have invested positively in their children’s chinuch since their first child was born.
Yet they have problems with some of their kids, and a couple of the problems are pretty severe.
Frustratingly, they struggle to get useful help from chinuch “experts.”
Because the frum world decided a few years ago that all spiritual problems emanated from a lack of shalom bayit in that child’s family, this couple has been relentlessly subjected to ever more intrusive probing and prying from well-meaning advisors to find the lack of shalom bayit that “must” be in there somewhere.
The root of the problem (and its solution) is elsewhere, and the parents need to a cheshbon hanefesh with Hashem in order to find it.
Yet all these advisers and experts cannot give up their elusive search for whatever Holy Grail is currently in style (like the supposed shalom bayit issue) they’re convinced “must” be there.
But this elusive search sideswipes some basic truths:
And all this scrutinizing, delving, and obsessing ultimately will not solve anyone’s chinuch crisis. (Again, it can help. But it cannot solve.)
The problems come from Hashem and therefore, the answers are to be found with Him.
Going at chinuch from a spiritual angle is not easy or smooth or pain-free.
But it is most effective.
They have their own blind spots.
They may be very good people, good parents, and have good intentions.
But they definitely also miss things and focus on the wrong things.
For example, I know a couple with great shalom bayit.
They really like each other and they never fight. They talk to each other so nicely.
In fact, the wife once confided to me how grateful she was for her husband’s personality, describing him as a diamond and a gem, saying that she was afraid to share this with other people because she’s afraid of ayin hara.
Furthermore, they both have invested positively in their children’s chinuch since their first child was born.
Yet they have problems with some of their kids, and a couple of the problems are pretty severe.
Frustratingly, they struggle to get useful help from chinuch “experts.”
Because the frum world decided a few years ago that all spiritual problems emanated from a lack of shalom bayit in that child’s family, this couple has been relentlessly subjected to ever more intrusive probing and prying from well-meaning advisors to find the lack of shalom bayit that “must” be in there somewhere.
The root of the problem (and its solution) is elsewhere, and the parents need to a cheshbon hanefesh with Hashem in order to find it.
Yet all these advisers and experts cannot give up their elusive search for whatever Holy Grail is currently in style (like the supposed shalom bayit issue) they’re convinced “must” be there.
But this elusive search sideswipes some basic truths:
- Parents are people.
- People can never be perfect.
- Only God is Perfect.
- Therefore, parents never will be.
And all this scrutinizing, delving, and obsessing ultimately will not solve anyone’s chinuch crisis. (Again, it can help. But it cannot solve.)
The problems come from Hashem and therefore, the answers are to be found with Him.
Going at chinuch from a spiritual angle is not easy or smooth or pain-free.
But it is most effective.
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