Monday, September 21, 2015

Yom Kippur, Sandy Koufax and Teaching Our Teens To "Sit It Out"

As a daughter of a pulpit rabbi, with the coming of the Yamim Noraim, my antennae often picks up on a “sermonable” topic.  This Yom Kippur, I believe I have found the sermon- one that would apply to the observant and non-observant alike.   Many rabbis across the country will be speaking of the fiftieth anniversary of Sandy Koufax's famous  refusal to play in the world series on Yom Kippur.  Though not observant, Mr. Koufax was a source of pride for the Jewish community and gave Americans the ability to be “ more publicly assertive and to be less ashamed of their Jewishness. The decision of Koufax to do the Jewish thing so publicly and in such a quintessential American setting as the World Series pumped a new confidence into that generation of American Jews.” (The Jewish Week, “Where Have You Gone Sandy”).  


Unlike in the 60's, the issue of Jewish pride is not one with which our children struggle.  In Bergen County, our children walk the streets with kippot without a second thought.  They go to college and do not hesitate to approach their professors and tell them they will will be off for Yom Kippur.  The Sandy Koufax decision, I believe, can mean something different to our children.


On the pasuk in Vayikra 20:26 Rashi explains the words of Hashem to Bnai Yisrael, “And I have separated you from other people, that you should be mine.”  There he states, “Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya says, 'From where do we know that a person should not say, 'I am disgusted with pig meat, or it is impossible for me to wear mixed kinds (kilayim)'?  But rather he should say, 'I can, but what can I do, that my Father in Heave has decreed upon me that I may not.'”  Rather than say, “Pig meat is disgusting,” one should say, “I want to eat pork. It looks so delicious. I even crave it, but I am not allowed to eat it.”  A story is told of Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetsky that near his yeshiva was a non- kosher pizza store.  When walking past the store one day with his students, he stopped, “took a deep whiff and said Ah! It smells so delicious!”  I desire it, but I will overcome my desire in order to keep laws of the Torah.  (In essence, mitzvot like kashrut help train us to overcome our desires and not succumb to them).


Did Sandy Koufax want to play?  I imagine, yes.  But, what could he do,  his “Father in Heaven decreed upon him that he may not.”  


The Sandy Koufax story reinforces the important lesson for all Jews that the Torah has limits and part of being Jewish is realizing that we are lucky to be able to abide by those limits. How do we relay that to our teens? That topic can fill many blogs unto itself.  

For today, I want to focus on another lesson in the Sandy Koufax story. It is a lesson in “delayed gratification”- the ability to put off the receipt of a reward in order to gain a better reward later.  In essence, this entails overcoming one's desire right now realizing that one will benefit in the future.  In this generation of instant gratification- smartphones, googling etc, our children have a harder time saying to themselves, “I want this, but I need to overcome my desire in the present.”   Self- control is integral to this ability.


The famous marshmallow experiment done in the 1960's and 70's by the Stanford University psychologist Walter Mischel demonstrated the importance of being able to delay gratification.  Six hundred and fifty young children were offered a marshmallow and were told they could either eat it immediately or wait some time and get a second treat.  Years later, in follow up studies, those who could delay gratification were more “competent” and successful in life. Dr. Grazyna Kochanska, followed 300 children for almost twenty years to see how delaying gratificaiton and self- control impacting their lives. She found,  "Those who have good self-control are more compliant, more cooperative, have good harmonious relationships with their parents, good relationships with their peers, and they have good academic success."


This is the key to passing over the temptation of sin for the long-term reward on high.  Why is that task so difficult for some and easier for others?


In an article, “Why Some Delay Gratification While Others Give In?” by Janice Wood,  scientific research provides one strategy to better delay of gratification which is called  "'prospection,' the process by which people can project themselves into the future, by mentally simulating future events.  They can thereby imagine the future benefit.  This 'mental time travel,' also known as 'episodic future thought',  enables humans to make choices with high long-term benefits.”  This research was done with dieters, and clearly the participants who could imagine themselves shedding the weight were better able to resist the food.


Unfortunately, as parents of teens we know that the prefrontal cortex, responsible for future thinking and considering consequences, is still developing.  Teens therefore have a difficult time thinking about the future consequence of their behavior now.   “I want it, but what can I do, my Father in Heaven decreed I cannot have it” is a very difficult task for them.  


With the advent of technology, it has become even more difficult.  Annie Murphy Paul, in "The New Marshmallow Test: Resisting Temptations of the Web," writes of professor Larry Rosen who “asked students to ‘study something important,’ and then he chronicled incidents of distraction. After about two minutes, students' ‘on-task behavior’ declined as they began responding to arriving texts or checking their Facebook feeds. After only 15 minutes, they had spent only about 65 percent of the period doing their schoolwork. ‘We were amazed at how frequently they multi-tasked, even though they knew someone was watching,’ Rosen says. ‘It really seems that they could not go for 15 minutes without engaging their devices,’ adding, ‘It was kind of scary, actually.’  When sending students texts during another study, while watching a video of a lecture, students who delayed responding until after the lecture was over scored significantly better.


Rabbi Shais Taub, in his article, "Why Sandy Koufax Sat Out The World Series on Yom Kippur" shared that Rabbi  Moshe Feller  "visited Koufax in his hotel room on the day after Yom Kippur and told him, 'Sandy, more Jews knew when Yom Kippur was this year because of you not pitching than knew from a Jewish calendar!' I will go a step further and say that more people knew that it was Yom Kippur because Sandy Koufax didn't announce it and didn't pitch than would have known if he did announce it and did pitch. You see, because it's all in the not-doing, not in the doing. 
As counterintuitive as it may seem, the power of not-doing possesses a purity and a truth that doing cannot rival...Giving is easy. Doing is easy. Movement is easy. What's difficult is stopping." Rabbi Taub adds that in this age of information overload, we are constantly doing.
That is the importance of delaying gratification, self- control and simply stopping oneself from doing.  Yom Kippur is a day of refraining from the five "afflictions."  Sometimes we  need to hold ourselves back to focus on what is truly important. 
What can we as parents do to help our teens develop this self-control?  How can they achieve their “Sandy Koufax moment?”


. As parents we can
  1. Starting from a young age make our children wait, take turns and not give in to their kvetching for something. We help them tolerate frustration.
  2. We can encourage them to get involved in activities that don’t have immediate results but require practice
  3. We need to model patience and ability to not give in to one’s desires.
  4. We can ask our children to stop and think about the future.  
  5. We can reward children for self- control.

As we approach Yom Kippur and contemplate how to make this year one of growth, let us reconsider the words of Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya,”I can, but what can I do, that my Father in Heaven has decreed upon me that I may not.”  Notice that he called G-d “Father in Heaven.”  That is the job of the parent who truly loves his/her child- to set limits, to say that you can’t have everything you want whenever you want it, and you need to learn self- control.  It is with love that Hashem has given us the Torah to help us attain the essential skill for life of delaying gratification.  So, too, with love may we help our own children achieve the same so that they may say, “I can, but what can I do, that my Father in Heaven and my parents on earth, have decreed upon me that I may not”- and may they realize that it is for their own good.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Rosh HaShana- A Yearly RESET Button

Each year I search for a light-hearted gift for the teachers who serve as Advisors in our Advisory program. This year I found the RESET button above. What a wonderful message for a teacher- a reminder that no matter what happens, there is a always a fresh new day tomorrow- both for the teacher and student. No mistake is irreparable. One can always start again and move on.

A few days after I had already received these buttons in the mail, the Yavneh Academy faculty was privileged to hear Rabbi J.J. Schachter on the topic of “The Blessings And Challenges Of Change: Printing, The Internet And Contemporary Society.” Rabbi Schachter began by quoting an article from The New York Times Magazine, July 25, 2010 called, “The End of Forgetting” by Jeffrey Rosen. The article begins, “Legal scholars, technologists and cyberthinkers are wrestling with the first great existential crisis of the digital age: the impossibility of erasing your posted past, starting over, moving on.” He continues that in this internet age we struggle with, “how best to live our lives in a world where the internet records everything and forgets nothing.” This phenomenon is different from the past, as he quotes Viktor Mayer- Schoenberger, “In traditional societies, where missteps are observed but not necessarily recorded, the limits of human memory ensure that people's sins are eventually forgotten.” And, so it is understood that people learn from past mistakes and can change. However, in today's society we cannot escape our past. Moving on is not so easy.” We, of course, stress the permanence of what we post with our students when we discuss internet and technology safety. Even adults often forget that what's in cyberspace is never forgotten.

Luckily, however, in Judaism a RESET button still exists. We call it Teshuva. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his article, “The Courage To Grow- A Message For Yom Kippur” highlights that Judaism was actually the first world system to believe that people can change and start anew to become a different type of person. As it says in Yechezkel 18:31, “ הַשְׁלִ֣יכוּ מֵֽעֲלֵיכֶ֗ם אֶת־כָּל־פִּשְׁעֵיכֶם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר פְּשַׁעְתֶּ֣ם בָּ֔ם וַֽעֲשׂ֥וּ לָכֶ֛ם לֵ֥ב חָדָ֖שׁ וְר֣וּחַ חֲדָשָׁ֑ה"
"Cast away from you all your transgressions, in which you have transgressed; and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.”
Press the reset button and begin again with a new heart and new spirit.

In Pesachim 54a it states that Teshuva is one of the seven things created before the world was created. In essence, Hashem created man with a RESET button. It is as if through Teshuva a person has the ability to go back in time and fix his behaviors. This ability is super-natural, as Rabbi Shlomo Landau points out, “so much so that its creation preceded the natural order of design.” As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks notes, “Teshuva tells us that our past does not determine our future. We can change. We can act differently next time than last. If anything, our future determines our past...Our Teshuva and G-d's forgiveness together mean that we are not prisoners of the past, held captive by it. In Judaism sin is what we do, not who we are.” As the Rambam stresses in Hilchot Teshuva 2:1, “even if a man transgressed all the days of his life, if he does Teshuva at the end, nothing of his wickedness is remembered unto him.” And, in 8:8 it says it is forbidden to remind he who has done Teshuva of his past sins. Clearly, as Jeffrey Rosen states, “Unlike G-d, however, the digital cloud rarely wipes our slate clean, and the keepers of the cloud today are sometimes less forgiving than their all-powerful divine predecessor.”

This message of the RESET button is one that relates to parenting as well. When we have an argument with our teen one night, he/she is entitled to a clean slate the next day and a chance to start anew. At times we feel torn about giving our children another chance. How can we overlook and start anew? Every situation is different, of course, but we never want our children to get the message from us that they are so bad that they can never change, or that they are a lost cause so there's no point in their even trying. Each day is a new day. RESET. You can do better and I know you will.

This is an important message when it comes to restarting the school year. Last year may not have been as successful as we had liked. It is a fresh start- academically, behaviorally and socially.

As parents, we are also entitled to RESET and a clean slate. We make mistakes and we need to learn to forgive ourselves and move on. No parenting error we make is irreparable. It is even more powerful when parents can ask for forgiveness, admit their mistakes and let it go. We are then modeling for our children how we would like them to commit to change. We are in essence imitating the behavior of HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself- as it states in Eicha 3:22-23 “The grace of Hashem has not ceased, and His compassion does not fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Each morning He gives us another chance. We owe the same to our children and to ourselves.

That brings us to that Recall notice- the product may be defective, but we can only recall it and start again: (My thanks to Mrs. Sharon Risch for forwarding this to me).

ELUL RECALL NOTICE
Regardless of make or year, all units known as "human beings" are being recalled by the Manufacturer. This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units code named "Adam" and "Eve" resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. This defect is technically termed, "Serious Internal Non-morality," but more commonly known as "SIN."
Some of the symptoms of the SIN defect:
[a] Loss of direction
[b] Lack of peace and joy
[c] Depression
[d] Foul vocal emissions
[e] Selfishness
[f] Ingratitude
[g] Fearfulness
[h] Rebellion
[i] Jealousy
The Manufacturer is providing factory authorized repair service free of charge to correct the SIN defect.
The Repair Technician, Hashem, has most generously offered to bear the entire burden of the staggering cost of these repairs. To repeat, there is no fee required.
The number to call in for repair in all areas is: PRAYER.
Once connected, please upload the burden of SIN through the REPENTANCE procedure. Next, download ATONEMENT from the Repair Technician, Hashem, into the heart component of the human unit.. No matter how big or small the SIN defect is, Hashem will replace it with:
[a] Love
[b] Joy
[c] Peace
[d] Kindness
[e] Goodness
[f] Faithfulness
[g] Gentleness
[h] Patience
[I] Self-control
Please see the operating manual, TORAH, for further details on the use of these fixes. As an added upgrade, the Manufacturer has made available to all repaired units a facility enabling direct monitoring and assistance from the resident Maintenance Technician, Hashem. Repaired units need only make Him welcome and He will take up residence on the premises.
WARNING: Continuing to operate a human being unit without corrections voids the Manufacturer's warranty, exposes the unit to dangers and problems too numerous to list, and will ultimately result in the human unit being incinerated.
Thank you for your immediate attention.

Please assist by notifying others of this important recall notice.