5735
Long Branch, New Jersey 07740
Blessing and Greeting:
I duly received your letter in which you write about a situation where the children are more strictly observant than the parents, and about the problems that this creates at home.
Since you invite me to comment on this situation, I would like to say the following: it is surely unnecessary to explain at any length that parents always desire their children to have a firm and proper outlook on life. This is especially true in our day and age, which is one of deep confusion in regard to the real values in life, and where so many young people are at a loss to find their true bearings, etc. Hence, it is obvious how happy parents should feel when their children do in fact have a strong commitment to a meaningful way of life, which, additionally, is in harmony with the tradition of both sides of the family, as you make clear. It is well known that this way of life also attaches great importance to the children’s having a positive attitude towards their parents, especially since the honoring of one’s father and mother is one of the Ten Commandments.1 All of this should make the parents feel rather fortunate, and should give them a great measure of peace of mind, and certainly should be no cause for them to make the situation more complicated and more difficult for the children than it need be.
Moreover, a very welcome trend in the larger cities in recent years has been the dramatic growth in the percentage of children who are more strictly committed to the observance of the Torah and mitzvot in the daily life than their parents happen to be, together with the fact that these parents have nachas from the children and take great pride in them.
I trust that the above lines, though all too brief in relation to the subject matter, will, for a person of your background, suffice to provide some food for thought, and encourage you to see to it that not only are the peace and harmony at home fully preserved, but also to consider it an achievement to have brought up such fine children, whose ambition is to go from strength to strength in the Jewish way of life, and certainly not to react negatively and make it difficult for them in any way, G-d forbid.
May you and your husband truly have lots of Yiddish nachas from each and all of your children in good health and a happy frame of mind.
With blessing,
Notes and sources
1) Shemos, 20:12.
Published: The Letter and the Spirit, Vol 1 (Nissan Mindel Publications, 1998), 425.
Note: Letters printed in "The Letters and The Spirit" are from the Archives of Rabbi Nissan Mindel A"H, the Rebbe's personal secretary entrusted with writing up the Rebbe's orally dictated responses. The “Nissan Mindel Archives” are comprised of secretarial copies, including first drafts, and may have subsequently been published with editorial changes. Therefore the letters as they appear in the book may not be the final signed version.