Holy Mommies and Daddies

(Translated from the books Kedushat Yeladim and Omek HaLev (Hebrew) edited by Rabbi Yachad Witt.)

Here are some wonderful, spine-tingling, goose-bump raising sayings from the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach z”l. You can read these teachings over quickly, or you can close your eyes after each one and savor it for a long time. That’s because all of Reb Shlomo’s teachings are inspiring on a simple level, and much deeper and sweeter if you take some time to think about them. For more information on Rabbi Carlebach, click here: http://www.rebshlomo.org/

Reb Shlomo Carlebach taught:

When children raise their hands and say “Lift me up,” it is so deep. They do not mean “Lift me up two centimeters,” they are really begging their parents, “Please, lift me up to the highest Heaven.” Sometimes, when I see this, my whole body begins to tremble.

There are parents who are always judging their children, “My son is like this…and my daughter is like this…” Sometimes I want to lie down on the floor and cry for the sake of those children and say, “What do you know about your children? What do you really know…” One child committed suicide because he did not get into college. I am sure that his parents judged him by whether he got into college or not, and since he didn’t get in he committed suicide, and that happens all over the world.

Little children need much more than a crib, and I do not mean that they need a lot of presents. That’s not what they need. Children need a place in the world, a place of light, a place full of love.

If parents would dance with their children every time they learn something new from the Torah, those children would definitely continue learning.

If we make room in our lives for our children, they will make room for us in places that we would never get to on our own.

We will never know how great is the holiness of the hands that lift young children. We will never know the great holiness of the hands that lift children with love, and bring them to synagogue. We will never know how great is the holiness of the hands that lift little children to kiss the Torah scroll.

Children really need for their parents to be full of happiness, and the happiness of the parents is like a small wall protecting their children.

When Abraham our Father established a covenant with G-d, and circumcised himself, on the third day the angels visited him, and one of the angels announced to him the birth of Isaac. That means that there is a bigger fixing than circumcision, and when you have a child this fixing takes place. And so, after the circumcision of Abraham our father, he understood that it is only our children who are able to fix the deepest part of our souls.

If I became the chief rabbi of Israel, the first decree I would make would be that yelling at wives and children would be a criminal offense.

I am a chasid (follower) of the Holy One. I am a chasid of my father, my teacher, may the memory of a saint be for a blessing. And I am a chasid of my children.

If I do not return to G-d, how will I teach my children? I must be connected with G-d in the deepest possible part of myself, with the part of myself that is uniquely me, otherwise how will I be able to connect my children with the part within them that is uniquely them? And how will I be able to help them to connect that unique part of themselves with the Creator of the World?

So many children are angry at their parents because at the special moments when gates were opening for them, the parents were too busy with something else to notice.

Why do we lose our children [from Judaism]? If you say something to your children, and it doesn’t come from the deepest depths of your heart, then they don’t want to hear. And they are one hundred percent right- I don’t want to hear it either! I bless you and me and all of our children, that we will find people who will teach us with all of their hearts, so that we will feel close to it, and feel at home with it.

G-d opens up many gates. When will we have enough strength to help each other find the right gate? And when will we have enough strength to help our children find their gates?

When children go to sleep, we should tell them how beautiful they are, and when they wake up, we should tell them how beautiful the world is.

Many parents say that it is necessary to educate our children about the reality of the world that we see around us. But I bless you all that you will educate your children for the reality of the world that we cannot see around us, for the hidden world that exists here. I bless you that you will teach your children what is taking place behind the curtain.

I am looking forward to seeing the day when children will wake up in the morning, and their parents will not be able to stop kissing them and hugging them and telling them how beautiful they are, and what a great privilege it is to be their parents.

There could be a situation that a father sits with his child and teaches him for two thousand years from a book and nothing sinks in, because what do children remember? What remains with children is what you teach them from underneath your prayer shawl, from the innermost part of your heart.

People who don’t believe in their children don’t have the right to bring them into the world. We must believe in our children- we must give them the strength and believe in them, that they will be able to bring the Messiah.

Just as people truly believe in G-d, in this same way they believe in their children.

Parents need to see what is unique in each child. If parents do not see what is unique in their children, it is as though the children live in a hotel and not in a home, because in a hotel I do not need for anyone to see that I am unique. In a hotel I am nobody.

The first thing we eat on the night of Rosh Hashana is an apple with honey. Apples symbolize our fruit- our children, and the coming generation. And when we dip the apple in honey we pray that the world will be full of sweetness and that the Judaism that we teach our children will be like honey in their mouths.

Adults do not need a home, they can go around the world, and live here and live there, and everything is fine. But our holy children need a home, a holy place to sleep.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov would say: The best present you can give people is to give them back their self-confidence.

Ladies and gentlemen, the deepest Kabbalah (mystical teaching), the most exalted secrets, are our children. When the Baal Shem Tov [the founder of Chassidism] taught Torah on the holy Sabbath that was very deep Kabbalah, but when he played with his daughter, Oodel’eh, that was even deeper.

Loving children means that everything reminds me of them.

When children cry for their parents in the middle of the night, all they do is cry. They do not even say “Mommy” or “Daddy”-- they just cry. You know how you feel when your child wakes up in the middle of the night and cries? You know what you feel when he calls for you? That is a taste of the feeling of the Holy One when the High Priest calls out his Name (Shem Hameforash) on Yom Kippur.

Every time I hear the sound of a baby crying, it sounds to me like the shofar that tells us about a better world.

People reach the greatest holiness when they are praying for their children.

The Torah of this world is what we teach, and the Torah of the Upper Worlds is what we pass on to our children when we bless them on the Sabbath night.

The holiness of parents is that we are always praying day and night for our children, and the holiness of this prayer is what we pass on to our children.

When a child looks at you, there are no lies. He is totally pure.

Children know the Torah as it was before it descended to this world.

When I see how holy and special my child is, I taste how holy and special I am to the Creator of the world. I learn from this how every Jew is holy and special, since we are all the children of the Holy One, and every child is holy and special.

Jerusalem is not only in the land of Israel. In any place where people love one another, that is Jerusalem. In a place where two people meet and remember that G-d is one and that G-d brought them together, that is the Temple. And when parents kiss their children- that is the Holy of Holies.

It is true that the Sun lights up the whole world, but children give off even more light than the Sun. The Sun only gives light during the day, and children give light during the day as well as the night, and for all of eternity as well.