Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The Torah is telling us a lot of times about all of the rewards that we are going to receive if we are doing the right thing, about all the punishments that we, God forbid, will receive if we don't.
[00:00:15] On the other hand, it says in Mishnah that we should not be following God's commandments.
[00:00:24] As a worker who is expecting to get a reward for what he's doing. But we should do it out of love for God, and we should do it because we know that's the right thing to do.
[00:00:37] So here's a question. Which one is it?
[00:00:41] So either I'm doing it for receiving a reward, or I'm doing it because I know that's the right thing to do. How can you have both?
[00:00:50] But in reality, you could have only one thing in your mind while you are doing something. And in reality, what do you tell your kids? You tell your kids that I want you to do this and this because it's the right thing to do, or I want you to do this and this because God is going to reward you.
[00:01:09] So the reality is you could have only one primary motivation. And the reality is that these motivations are contradictory.
[00:01:21] If I'm doing something because it's the right thing to do because God, who I love, told me so, that is a selfless motivation.
[00:01:30] When I'm doing things for reward, it's a selfish motivation. So what is my goal? Is my goal is taking care of myself, or my goal is doing things that are right?
[00:01:42] Mishnah says a person should forever do the right thing for ulterior motives.
[00:01:50] Why? Because from doing the right thing, the reason says a person should forever do the right thing, even if it's for ulterior motives, for selfish reasons. Because from doing things for ulterior motives, you will come to doing things for the right reasons.
[00:02:09] And the Rebbe is asking, why does the Mishnah says the word forever? There could have just said you should do things if you know they're right for ulterior motives. Because from that you'll start doing them for the right reasons. But the Rebbe says the word forever is there because God knows that this is how we always work. Whenever we start doing things, we always start doing things for ulterior motives. People start learning because of rewards that they are going to get. You are telling your kids, if you will behave the right way, I'll give you a price.
[00:02:47] If you will study well, I will reward you. Now you hope that your child, when he's going to be older, will do the right thing even without your prize, you hope that he will behave properly, he'll know what the proper manners are and how to be good and honest person. Even if you don't him a candy in return.
[00:03:09] When a child is little, you are telling him, if you'll get a good mark, I'll buy you a prize. But you hope that when he's going to be in high school or in college, you will not be feeling that you need to give him a prize for him to get a good grade. Right?
[00:03:23] So we always start doing things because of ulterior motives. And by the way, the same thing with Judaism. People start coming to a synagogue and people start being involved in the Jewish life because of usually purely ulterior motives. Because they like something, because appreciate something. They like the company, they like the atmosphere, they like the rabbi, they like the cantor. They appreciate something that they pick up from what the rabbi is teaching.
[00:03:52] So these are all things that people do for themselves. But then we hope that from that they'll start doing things for the right reasons as well. They'll start going to shulem, not just because they like the cantor or the rabbi or the company, they start going to shul because this is they believe is the right thing to do. So when the rabbi is on vacation, they'll still come. When the cantor is not there, they'll still come.
[00:04:15] So this is the trajectory of human behavior.
[00:04:19] And by the way, here we have a very, very important difference between how the Jewish world educates people and our modern day secular education.
[00:04:36] There is a common phrase that I hear very often that people say that in school children should just learn how to read and write and how to do math and all of the religious, ideological things should be taught at home.
[00:04:53] It sounds great, but let's try to take it apart.
[00:04:58] When a child is going to school, what do you tell your child? Why is he going to school? He's going to school to get a good education, so later on he'll be able to make money, right?
[00:05:12] His entire childhood, his entire youth is spent on taking care of himself.
[00:05:19] What is he told to do? He's told to sit there and spend, what is it, eight hours a day in school and then some after school activities. For what? To take care of his own future.
[00:05:33] We are teaching our kids to be self centered and selfish because all what they do is they're taking care of themselves in the future though. Delayed gratification.
[00:05:43] So we tell ourselves that there's a difference between people who want immediate gratification and delayed gratification. And we pride Ourselves that we teach our children delayed gratification. They need to invest time and effort now to get something later.
[00:05:57] That's the greatest achievement that we feel we can accomplish with our children, that they get delayed gratification as opposed to immediate gratification.
[00:06:07] Do you know how many times I'm asked by people who are not very familiar with the Jewish life, They're asking me, your son goes to yeshiva, your girls went to Jewish school, where do they spend the whole day learning there? I'm telling them they are spending their time to learn the Torah.
[00:06:24] I am dedicating most of my efforts and my time and I'm teaching my children to dedicate most of their time not to take care of themselves in the future.
[00:06:37] I am telling my children that most of your day and most of your youth has to be dedicated not on taking care of yourself, but on it has to be dedicated to you becoming a good person, a good Jew, knowing how to do the right thing by raising our children and telling them the whole day, you have to take care of yourself. You have to take care of yourself. You have to take care of your future, you have to take care of your finances when you'll grow up. We are teaching them to be selfish. So when people are complaining that, oh, we live now in what we call an I generation because it's iPhone and iPad and everything else I. But also it's I because it's self centered.
[00:07:17] So we have this self centered young generation because we have been teaching them to be self centered. We have been raising them to think that the only thing they need to do is take care of themselves.
[00:07:29] So I always tell people, if you put your effort into something, it's not a guarantee yet that you're going to get the result you want. But usually the results you get are somewhat proportional to the efforts you put.
[00:07:46] So I tell parents, do the math. Calculate how many hours does a child spend on education that is aimed that he is going to get a good job later on and is going to be making a lot of money? Tons.
[00:07:59] I'm talking about schooling in a regular school. I'm talking about any average school. A kid goes to elementary school, middle school, then high school. And what are parents telling their children? You are doing this so then you'll get a good college.
[00:08:13] So you could get what? You could make a lot of money later on you could take care of yourself. So all of these years of grade school, then college, the child is spending millions of hours on learning how to make money.
[00:08:30] Then I ask parents how many hours does your child spend during his entire youth on learning the right values?
[00:08:39] How many hours does he spend on actually sitting and learning what is right and what is wrong?
[00:08:45] Maybe you'll have a conversation or two with your son when an occasion arises.
[00:08:51] Maybe you will read a book with him about it.
[00:08:55] Maybe.
[00:08:56] But comparing to millions of hours the child spends in grade school and then college, that's a negligent amount of time.
[00:09:05] I tell people this thing about money. You spend so much money on making sure your child's going to get a good degree to make a lot of money later on. How much money have you spent on teaching them right values? So guess what? If people are so concerned about this generation that doesn't have the right values, well, do you know why the generation doesn't have right values?
[00:09:28] Because whatever effort you put in, that's what you get in return.
[00:09:34] If we have a generation that was taught in schools only how to read and write and how to do math, and were not taught values, then how would they know the right values?
[00:09:45] This is why Jewish education is so important. And this is why in Jewish education believe that most of your youth and most of the day during your entire youth supposed to be spent on learning how to be a good person, learning the right values.
[00:10:01] All of these are very important factors. And like I said, your efforts never guarantee a result. But if you look at the statistics, the Jewish observant community is doing much better in terms of how their kids turn out compared to the secular world around.
[00:10:18] If you look at the statistics of how kids turn out in general, thank God, Israel, I mean, look even among non observant Jews, look at Israel, look at the statistics of crime and mental problems in the non observant community.
[00:10:36] In Israel, where everybody is Jewish or almost everybody is Jewish in the observant community, obviously there are every segment of population exists everywhere. Which means in the Orthodox community you have also bad people and criminals and people go through depressions, People go through every type of challenge you could think of, but they are significantly less.
[00:10:58] And why? This is because the education is focused on the right values.
