Lech Lecha - What is Chinuch?
Parshas Lech Lecha is foundational to our understanding of our role as parents as it is the place where Rashi first gives us the definition of chinuch or parenting! In the fourth aliyah Avram goes out to rescue his nephew Lot who has been taken captive and he takes with him, chanichav, his trainees, or the ones he had been mechanech. Rashi helps us out and defines chinuch as: לְשׁוֹן הַתְחָלַת כְּנִיסַת הָאָדָם אוֹ כְלִי לָאֻמָּנוּת שֶׁהוּא עָתִיד לַעֲמֹד בָּהּ, וְכֵן חֲנֹךְ לַנַּעַר (משלי כ"ב), חֲנֻכַּת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ (במד' ז'), חֲנֻכַּת הַבַּיִת (תה' ל') This roughly translates to “this word chinuch is a term of the initiation or beginning of a person or tool’s usage in the manner he will continue in for the future, and this is the meaning of Shlomo HaMelech’s statement, “train a child”.” And there we have it - the idea that what we’re doing as parents is not scrambling day to day as we try to cope and get through one more bedtime or one more carpool, it’s training and equipping our children for their life journey, for the path that is uniquely theirs and that they will continue on their whole lives long. We see this idea in the passuk that Rashi quotes from, - חֲנֹ֣ךְ לַ֭נַּעַר עַל־פִּ֣י דַרְכּ֑וֹת -- train or educate a child according to his way. This in itself is a meaningful line and is quoted extensively in parenting classes, but it isn’t the end of the passuk. The passuk ends, גַּ֥ם כִּֽי־יַ֝זְקִ֗ין לֹֽא־יָס֥וּר מִמֶּֽנָּה׃ Train a child for his path, even when he ages he won’t sway from it. Have you ever wondered why Shlomo Hamelech uses the term, “yazkin”, even when he becomes old? Why not the word “gever” or “ish”, why couldn’t he say, even when he grows up or becomes an adult he won’t depart from it? I think that this insight is at the root of all parenting. Shlomo HaMelech knows that chinuch isn’t about what the child will be like when he is 18 or 30, chinuch is about raising a child so that straight through to the end of his life, when he is an old man, he is still on the path his parents started him on. Chinuch isn’t short sighted, quite the opposite. The message from Rashi in our Parsha and from Mishlei is that that our task as parents is to begin with the end in mind. Chinuch involves thinking about what our child’s unique path is that is truly inherent to him and that will carry him through his whole life, and what we need to do to develop, facilitate, and enhance that journey. I generally prefer not to share specific parenting how-tos on Toras Imecha. I like to share concepts and ideas we can each think about and implement in our own ways for our own families. The reason gets to this core definition of chinuch. No two children will have the same life journey. No two families are even remotely similar, and no one other than the 2 parents Hashem has entrusted with the responsibility for those children, can possibly know what is the right chinuch for that child. Mrs. Bruria Schwab once shared with me a lesson from her father who told her that chinuch is compared to a boat. A boat travels on the ocean on its own path and no other boat can exactly follow the same path. You can see where a boat is going and try to follow in the same direction, but you will be hit by different currents, winds, and tides, and even if you end up in the same place, you did not get there exactly the same way. Parenting is envisioning the end goal for each child, where can this child be as a zaken, an old man or woman and what does he need to help him get there. No two will be the same. This truly is the beautiful and crucial job of Jewish mothers. Find a few minutes to get out of the daily scramble every now and then and tap into the long term picture. It may be that we will still do many of the same things we do now, but our motives and emotions will be completely different when we’re doing them as parents who are mechanech our children, as Rashi says, initiating them onto the path of life that they will continue living long into the future. Conversation Point: When have you made a chinuch decision with the long-term in mind? How did it play out?
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