The Shabbat Show - Episode 21: Back to School: Proud & Prepared Parenting

[Music] hello everybody welcome to another show the shabbat show i can't believe we're back again don't you feel like the weeks are flying by it's awesome it's great to be back with you again ah favorite time of the week now favorite time of the week you can almost feel the week fighting to hold on just a little longer as it loses its grip on our lives the smell of the challah is getting stronger the light of the candle is getting brighter before you know it we're going to be in shabbat the greatest day of the week for me i'm i've been blessed to be with you at this time and as the clocks begin to change we're going to probably switch our time but for now it's an honor to be together and i was thinking today that when you go to schule like when i go to school on a friday night part of my highlight is seeing so many people that i missed all week right it's part of the experience of judaism is not just the rituals of judaism it's the larger culture of judaism there's a certain joy that you get when you see other people around that's why the virus has been so hard for us in many ways that's what it's like to be on the show when you tune in when you come back when you're here week after week it's not that we're delivering and you're watching and listening we're doing this together we're a community we're a family and we need you we want you every person that comes on every person that's part of what we're doing is so critical and it's so great to be back with you again it's so great to be able to experience these last few minutes of the week together before we enter into the day of shabbat we've got a great show for you planned today you know we're in a great interesting wonderful period of time right summer is over and when summer is over what happens afterwards is back to school now back to school has different connotations if you are the child or the parent and there has never been a year where back to school run sweeter than this one and i don't just mean for the parents who have been telling their kids school started like two weeks ago like just walk slowly honey it started just keep on walking when you get that'll probably start how much time with the parents who had the kids home for some six months it's about the kids i know they fight us but they're they're dying for their friends as well this is an incredible period of time we want to do into this show was really take a pause and talk about parenting proud and prepared parenting because the kids are going through an adjustment kids are adjusting into a new world it's an incredible life that we live when you see now as an accessory a mask like this is a thing you buy on websites that are designed when you go to a bar mitzvah and they give out masks with the kids name on it like it's since it's insane if you think about it like little kids like little cutesy kids are walking around with little masks and little strings from their neck so like it's it it's incredible like we're living in incredible times and kids are going through stuff that they're saying they're not saying bar mitzvahs are getting started and then it gets canceled and you can go and you can't go and you can't kiss your grandma and you can't kiss your grandma and it's complicated there's never been a time that we need to talk and pause about parenting when i mean parenting i want to be clear this doesn't just apply to people that are dealing with their biological children i mean parenting in general so if you're watching the show and you're an empty nester parenting applies if you're watching the show and you're not married and you don't have kids it applies because not only may you be may you be an aunt or an uncle you may be a teacher you may be a person in a community you may be a friend when i'm talking about parenting on this show we are talking about what it means to prepare the next generation for greatness it's everyone's responsibility today that's what we're talking about today parenting the torah is very big into parenting in that the torah begins with the idea of us our forefathers it could have very well began in law could well very well began in egypt that's really where we started as a as a nation but it didn't it began with forefathers and our matriarchs and patriarchs because what it's telling us is that there's a certain value to how information gets passed there's a lens we look at through the lens of parents grandparents great grandparents of which we've all had which we all have and in some cases as the generations get older had that's what we're going to talk about on the show today and it's going to be awesome you know why it's going to be awesome because we have insane amazing guests we've got a dinner stillerman that's coming on we've got mrs hannah sterner lewinstein coming on we've got a mentor of mine when i was younger which i will tell you all your only about judge dan butler coming on we've got kahoot we got jamie geller we've got new segments and we've got a great show to bring in shabbat so please join us to the end that there's somebody out there that you think should hear this show just send it to them like just send the link and tell them to watch the show we've got a while together so it's going to be awesome stick with us let's begin by giving you a little bit of what's going on around the horn in project inspire this week mineflex is coming up mindflex is this great program where there where we have courses throughout the week that really stretch your mind flex the mind this week is going to be run by adam jacobs kabbalah quantum mechanics of the spiritual world sounds awesome remember to check out the shabbat show online shabbat show.com you can see previous shows if you found some that you liked you could see longer interviews if there's someone here and also you can send to other people they can watch it so that you don't get it from there um we have i'm gonna we'll talk about a different program that that's going on right now this is called the taste of shabbat program this is a great online cooking program where another group from a different place teaches everybody else else a different aspect of the meal you can check this out here this week they're doing well tuesday where are we september 8th right the soup led by arizona soup let do wait arizona do you guys eat soup you guys have soup in arizona all right it's got to be amazing if the arizona crew is giving you uh soup so check that out um and of course one on one very important for those that want especially as we get to clip to the high holidays great time to get an online partner to get something that you can learn with uh set up calls or text whatever it is really this is the time of year to get this text one on one to 97 000 and of course summer september 14th really important is the dinner the online dinner for project inspire even if you come on for a few minutes and show the support it means the world to them object inspire is working tirelessly to make us better people more inspired and empowered people the show everything that they're doing check it out we've got a great program lined up we've gotten very important honorees um and even if you come on for a few minutes to show your support it means the world to them september 14th okay before we begin in jumping into our first segment i want to give a couple of shabbat shaloms if you want to shabbat shalom we i'd love to hear from you you can always chat it or go to my facebook page and it's there um a couple times let's get let's just begin a little bit and we got a whole show of this so shabbat shalom to the mervis kids into their bubby and zadie shabbat shalom from henya in toronto shabbat shalom to helene thank you um shabbat shalom to rm i thought for sure we'd be in israel now me too me too shabbat shalom to our momentum sister cici dashee i hope i said that right and her family and so many other sisters watching arizona we love arizona and we're pumped for the soup recipes in arizona um shabbat shalom to the propels in miami shabbat shalom to the seidels in baltimore shabbat shalom 2 patriots rock aka rifka tyler from baltimore shabbat shalom to toby and jody my friends by the way just for the record toby i am loving the one you sent over send over more of those bottles the red run was insane okay let's begin with our first segment we have one of our our our our members of the project inspired team is a man named michael atfeld he went on the street today to talk about parents what what they mean to people so check out his report [Music] is it on okay my name is michael upfell i'm going to be asking some random people some questions in new york simply because they paid me to do it so okay time to get in i'm just trying to stop i'm literally trying to get him hello i'm michael atfo we're gonna be asking people questions today about family about what family is to them what their parents are to them uh what good parenting is what bad parenting is maybe i hope we don't get too many answers about what bad parenting is the truth is i just want to try and find out what people think it is that makes them i suppose who they are cute little kid right oh you want to talk how do you know that your parents loved you i mean they told me they told me on a pretty regular basis yeah hugs kisses sporting activities we ate dinner together every every night showering your kids with love and accepting their their mistakes and being forgiving and everything else is just a detail how did you know your parents loved you just by the things that they do for me putting up with all my stuff in high school i knew even if even if i wasn't happy with it they were always caring about what i was doing i knew their heart was in it and it still is it was fine for them that i wasn't like the other kids that i didn't have the same interests as the other kids they made me know that i was unique and authentic as a person they're cool friends that i can relate to them especially my dad he likes to play video games sometimes and i think i can connect with them really well makes a good parent when he comes home tells me sammy i love you just falls asleep and then that's it i go watch my tv what do you think actually makes a pretty a bad parent someone that gets angry the person doesn't care about their child tells like like always drinks comes from drunk what makes a good parent son that cares about his children and he talks and he acts positively with his children you're a father yes i am you're a good father try to be you're a bad father try not to be try or succeed i hope i succeed were you a good kid or a bad kid that's personal i hope i was good okay that was uh our little segment asking people about family pretty much everyone actually has a pretty similar response i don't know what you think about that i hope you liked it i'm gonna pass it back to you charlie take care [Music] thank you michael um everyone i guess identify with different people on that video i identified with the girl that said i drove my parents insane when i was in high school um so my parents are watching i apologize again for uh how i made you raise me uh our first guest this woman named dina stillerman mr dean stillman is the co-founder and director in yehudi in florida through enriching experiences genuine learning real relationships and empowering actions you decatalizes the humbling jewish power within every college student and millennial in florida she also teaches a very popular parenting course that is now available online at principledparents.com adina welcome to the show hi everybody how are you welcome back to the show i should say i know i've been this is i get to i don't know if anybody else has been back but this is really really exciting so good to see everybody out there um it's great to have you on welcome back you're one of our first if i remember correctly i think you were like week three right you were really early on yeah yes absolutely you know what it was at the time now it's like super super popular and i'm really honored that they asked me to come back in a little bit of a different capacity i get to talk about parenting which is a real passion of mine so um great to see you again um so i was asked to speak about i think the secret of real parenting right and what's really interesting is that parenting took lots of shifts over the last a few months was parenting at home and they were inside and we were talking about that before inside our homes and now we're sending them off to the classrooms i have you know five kids are all in class now um but what is real what is the real secret to parenting beyond when they're in your home like what is the secret impact what's what is the secret of making a real impact on your children that when they're sitting next to you or when they're 5 000 miles away from you in college you know that they will take those jewish values with them wherever they go that's the real question i want to talk to you for a few minutes if that's okay so um i'll give you a few phrases actually tell me if they sound familiar to you i was not born yesterday mister there are starving people in africa you would gladly that would gladly eat your dinner money doesn't grow on trees you know i'll wash your mouth out with soap if you keep your eyes like that you're free your your face is going to freeze that way because i said so or if i have to ask you one more time does this sound familiar to you and a lot of you might be chuckling just because your parents and you might have heard those words slip out of your mouth quite a few times my daughter is by the way who came she's my she teaches parenting with me you you might have heard those things slip out of your mouth a few times why because your parents said those things to you and those are phrases you swore you would never ever use on your kids and yet here we are using them again the question is do the things that our parents did for their generation work in our generation today the people that we're raising today do the strategies work what is the real secret we do know that assimilation is high we do know that intermarriage is high is there something new that we can introduce is there a silver bullet that the torah teaches us that we can embrace now today and use it forevermore so there's a paragraph and the torah that's i think an arguably the most popular well-known paragraph in the entire torah so popular that we're supposed to say it when we wake up in the morning when we go to sleep at night we teach it to our children when we're young we say it on our deathbeds it's just one of those things that is almost like the jewish national anthem for three thousand years and that's the shema right and the shama is pretty um well known because it's the time when you cover your eyes and you say the first sentence which is shamayas we declare the oneness of god but it's a paragraph after that that i want to talk about ready for this the paragraph talks about love yeah i have to ask hashem i'll read it to you in english just so you can really see it you should love hashem your god with all your heart with all your soul with all your resources let these matters that i command you today they should be on your heart there it is again teach them to your children ding ding ding ding ding parenting teach them to your children speak of them while you sit in your home while you walk on the way when you go to sleep when you get up bind them to your arm put them between your eyes write them on your doorposts and your house and your gates okay let me give you an analogy for a second if your daughter's all grown up let's say she's in college she calls you up one day and she says mom dad i met a guy you'll say and i like him will you think twice about it probably not but if she were to call you up and say mom dad i met a guy and i love him in fact i can't stop talking about him i can't stop thinking about him i love him so much with all my soul with all my heart with all my resources i gave him all my money i made my jewelry with his name all over it i pictures all over my house of just this guy when i go to sleep at night i think about him when i wake up in the morning i think about him when i sit in my house i can't stop but talk about him everywhere i go in the streets to my supermarkets all i do is talk about this guy what are you going to think now you want to meet this guy now it's really serious yes would you be a little bit concerned but i think it's a great analogy real jewish values are not taught in the school systems completely it's not a fully effective system because real jewish values the real classroom is in the home and we as parents are the teachers why because that's the only way that's the only context that they will be able to see that judaism is not a religion it is a relationship it is a loving relationship with god to the point that everything that we do in our home is about the fact that god created this world for us all of our actions our money the things that they see the fact that we wake up and they'll say what his parents what a gorgeous morning thank you so much god for this amazing morning the pool is clean the sun is shining when they see that energy that love to the point that it's not just a thing that we do prayer but it's a close intimate connection that i do when i'm most worried about something they sneak upstairs and they see me in my room pouring over to hillem over something that's where they see that it's a relationship when they see that we go in our cars and we're praying for a parking spot that's where they see that it's a relationship and it is in that context that we know it will make the deepest impression an impression that truly embodies profundity goes directly to the soul and it emanates from them forever more no matter how far they are from us no matter how far they go it will be there there's a really interesting story about joseph in egypt if you think of far that's far when joseph travels from his family not just far in terms of miles but far in terms of values he went from his home which was so godly to egypt which is like the antithesis of godliness it was filled with a vodazara and not only that with idol worship not only that but he rose to power to the point that he was in a position where he couldn't afford to be unpopular right when you run for presidency you have to be the people's person you have to be someone that is someone that they would like you have to align with those values but somehow we know that he almost made a mistake he was about to trip up in a huge way and then the torah says that he saw a vision of his father and he realized where he came from but what did he see did he hear words that his father taught him or did he see who his father was behind closed doors when nobody was looking in the classroom that his father built that we are still learning from today it was that that he saw which gave him the strength to be who he was meant to be despite the odds despite the challenge truth be told the original classrooms before education was institutionalized was always the home mothers and fathers taught their children let us embrace this amazing opportunity that we have especially in elle this is the time it's the month of love anila dodi vidodi to develop those relationships behind closed doors when nobody's looking when they see us say abraha in our kitchens and there's nobody around to say amen some of us might not be going to synagogue this yom kippur or this rosh hashanah and we will be able to for the first time show our little tiny children who won't necessarily be with us because they're usually in children's services they'll be able to see you with your master close to your heart drenched with your tears and it is that that will make the deepest impression for their lives it will be that synagogue experience that they will remember forever thanks for having me thank you for joining us and we thank you for those words it's so credible that we appreciate um what we do our actions our thoughts are really having an impact like you said and thank you so much for joining us you could check out mr dina stillerman's program on principledparents.com we now have an incredible guest um before we get to our next guest we've got a credible uh album we want to show you a great singer songwriter named tony polanski before we go i want to just give a couple of shabbat shaloms to michael weingart from germany shabbat shalom to shabbat shalom to the cohen's in making georgia shabbat shalom to ronnie and abe adler from fairlawn new jersey i'm looking down at the facebook twitter here debbie laufer from massachusetts shabbat shalom to you okay we've got this wonderful singer-songwriter currently based in new york's name is tony polansky he is set to debut his solo album tofila the first offering of his tevila project later this year the goal is to elevate and personalize the way we experience prayer through song his music can be found anywhere music is found and for inspirational content related to prayer and song feel free to follow him at tefila to ease music on facebook or instagram check out this wonderful song from this great news singer songwriter tony polanski father bring me back to you back into your loving [Music] a [Music] foreign [Music] i [Music] oh [Music] father bring [Music] arms i've gone so far so far from home i'll beg and bring me back to you back into your lovin art father in heaven are you listening i don't know where i am i don't know where i've been all i know is i'm standing here begging you bring me back bring me back into your loving so take me back take me back take me back into your lovely nose i can't do it alone oh bring me back into your lovingness back to you back into your loving arms i've got so far so far [Music] oh [Music] my [Music] oh [Music] i've got so far so [Music] far wow tan if you're watching tanya if you're watching this you killed it man phenomenal god bless you what energy what passion of passion you know adina stillman said something so profound she said it quickly and we got lost to drop but it was so profound she said religion is not a judaism is not a religion it's a relationship it's easy to forget when we talk about parenting that when we talk about parenting we're not only looking down we're looking up every single one of us can have that relationship to god every one of us could feel like we're going back into his loving arms no matter how far you think you are no matter how little you think you have every human being has the ability to feel back in his loving arms that's what this season is all about because every one of us is special there's no one that knows it better than my next guest i gotta tell you i'll tell you a secret i should hope and pray to have the opportunity to speak i really do it's an honor that i hope i always have with god's help i hope when i first started i had i didn't know which way was up and i was in this region called ncsy and one of the greatest gifts that god gave me was he gave me the opportunity to stand and watch for a decade this next guest he is a legend dan butler he's everything he he was a syndicated weekly columnist a security salesman a college professor retail store manager he was the regional director of ncsy he's been a judicial law clerk a prosecutor a family court hearing officer a family court mediator successfully settling over a thousand one hundred custody cases dan butler served as a judge in the municipal court of pittsburgh as well as pittsburgh's specialized domestic violence court one a place i once came there he's gonna remember he once brought me to the bench there once i was there for shabbos one of the most powerful shops of my whole life he's lectured around the world including from radio city musical to the vermont legislator and over a thousand times for the united way he has spoken about legal issues and jewish ethics and hundreds of jewish events around the country judge dan butler welcome to the show wow i can't wait to hear what i have to say i know right first of all it's an honor to have you on i i you nina you guys are are total heroes in the jewish world and one of the reasons why i'm so happy you're on i know you personally i know you for many years and if there's one family that understands this idea that appreciating every child you guys exemplify it talk to us a little bit about how we do that how does a parent be able to understand that secret to appreciate every single child for who he is we live in a strange situation as you know we had five kids and our oldest mikey for the for 24 years he was born with cystic fibrosis he got lung transplants and he got cancer from his new lungs and that's eventually what did him in and uh we have uh two autistic sons uh who uh one of whom you know pretty well from camp hask from the old days and our son uri is now 37 going on seven and uh our other son jj is uh 34 maybe going on 10. and their perspective is that of that age group and we have to dovetail everything to that so that for many people who have who are empty nesters because at my age i should we at our age we should be empty nesters we're not um and every shabbos every holiday we have essentially young kids with us and we have to make them special and unique and different regardless of a pandemic or quarantine or anything else here we are and using that imagination and always having that verve and always having to live up to that has made a tremendous difference in our lives we have always tried to be as happy as possible when you talk about parenting i liked what you said at the beginning it's true even if you're single even if you're retired even if you have no children whatever it is you're still parenting because in every internet interaction you're parenting yesterday was for the umpteenth time domestic violence day in my court and i know that every single person that i interact with what i do is going to change their day maybe even their lives so we all have to act accordingly in some people for some people they can't make that much of an impression but it's important to realize that we all make a difference in other people's lives i mean i got it from my father my father who was the least likely american soldier in the history of the us army went in on d-day he was a unathletic quiet um pious kind of person he certainly didn't belong there but there he was and from the earliest age until the end and he had some incredible stories about it from the army and the war because he went from d-day the beaches of normandy all the way into germany shabbos you have to do something that's special and shabbos if you have something new during the week i think the uh limitation on that is maybe brand new tennis shoes but anything else you save for shabbos you wear it for the first time you eat it for the first time shabbos has to be special sometimes shabbos can be wonderful and sometimes it's difficult depending on your family's circumstances but we were sure to make it special and i just want to tell you one thing from this week's torah portion this week's torah portion is kitavo and it has two segments the first segment is about a farmer bringing his first fruits to jerusalem and making pranayama he has an obligation to bring his first fruits give them to the cohen and then he has an obligation to tell his story he has to tell his life story his family background he has to remember where he came from and then he has to list off that he has fulfilled all of his obligations his community obligations his charitable obligations his obligations to his family and then the torah says something interesting it says this at that point after you've related your history you met your obligation of providing to the kohen to the the temple your first fruits at that point be happy with everything that god has given you now it's a clear directive from the torah the tarot says flat out the same way the torah says thou shalt not the torah says thou shalt be happy but when you look at the rambam for instance maimonides or any of those who count up the 613 minutes vote you discover that that clear directive in the torah is not one of the enumerated myths vote that clear directive from the torah the rabbis tell us is advice you're entitled to a victory lap you've worked hard this week it's time to sit back for a minute assess your life and be happy now enjoy what you have now make the best of what you have now because later in this week's torah portion is what we call the it is a recitation and narration of the cataclysmic horrific tragic events that could befall us if we go off the road and everybody knows that in every life there is rain rain falls in everybody's life nobody has a completely happy life it's what you make of your life and this week's torah portion says you don't know what's coming next but today right now you have a warm piece of cuggle you have a moment of peace you have children who are happy that school week has ended enjoy it be happy the turn advises us because we don't know what's coming hopefully it'll be good but we'll be prepared because we will always be prepared with the right attitude you know it's amazing you say it that way and and i want to just ask this this question because it seems to me that this is sort of the underlying theme of both how you and your wife live your life and also what you're getting at which is this underlying satisfaction and happiness of what you have includes your children and when we try to fix our children when we try to hope our children are more or different than they are it changes the game this i'm happy with what i have really applies to my kids and all of their positives and all of their challenges because that's what god gave me if that's the narrative that i've been given and it's i'm hearing and tell me if i'm hearing this correctly that i'm hearing from you because i'm i'm biased because i know it's you so like i've already i have the history with you um but i wanna i wanna articulate it for everybody here this is the core of appreciating the children it's this sense of being happy with what we have and if we have the ability to have a child or to have a nephew or to have a grandchild that satisfaction is sort of the underlying theme to how to appreciate who they are it's all about perspective you know as well as anybody from your years at hask and your years in ncsy you know that when they have a wheelchair race in camp ask the kid who's in the wheelchair has as much happiness winning that wheelchair race where somebody pushed him from behind was a little faster than whoever pushed everybody else he's as happy as you're ever going to be when your last child gets married off and wins the lottery happiness is relative you know our son uri or he's 37 or he has a very simple understanding of the world but i often say uri is the happiest single person in america he just makes the most of everything and he's happy yeah judge danny butler i i feel like we can do this all day um thank you so much for joining us send regards to your wonderful inspiring wife to uri and jj and uh and to the whole family and uh i hope and pray we get to see each other soon thank you for being with us on the show i hope so when you keep on doing what you're doing for claudius because you're wonderful thank you i appreciate that thank you so much for watching and i gotta tell you honestly one of the most important for the for the viewers out there who who don't know the butlers um you got to get to know the butlers one of the most i think powerful shoppers of my life took place in their house in pittsburgh and they'll they're remembering this where we got there there was a snowstorm we couldn't leave and it was god's gift to us and um to everyone out there i think the message really resonates which is our happiness with what god has given us in our children is how we get to appreciate each and every single one so i think it's a critical message and now it's time for kahoot so get out your computers go to kahoot.it google it mommy make sure that you're on i get to make sure this is the the the reason why i host the show everybody just so you know is that i am sure that my mom has enough time to log on to kahoot 838-1502 838-1502 the competition begins we've got some some new entrants i see some of our current lirans on well the propels are on i see patriots rock is on we've got bring it on uh for this week's show while i do it let me get a couple more shabbat shaloms in um to bonnie artelli in rainey austin texas shabbat shalom ruth sussman in miami shabbat shalom to the blooms in brooklyn shabbat shalom shiri ashley martin cohen in mountain view california shabbat shalom um miriam benjuji i hope i got that right shabbat shalom to you the simons of phoenix shabbat shalom to youth joel salesman in milwaukee allen and stacey levinrad from maryland thank you very much shabbat shalom to you um to the silver family in highland park new jersey hillary and lawrence hess in fairlawn new jersey shabbat shalom the novak family in toronto okay i think we're almost ready to get to the kahoot game a couple more seconds giving people the chance to to jump on here make sure you can get on you can do it on your app you could do it online you don't want to miss the competition shabbat shalom to lay apparel in new york city shabbat shalom medetsky in houston okay here we go let's begin here it is first question how do you say parents in hebrew marim horim and oh yeah for the israelis i'm sure you're you're seeing in a new in new layers and lights of of how these uh these choices are picked antagonistic um let's get a couple more shabbat shaloms in the ten seconds that i have here linda schwartz from annandale virginia shabbat shalom jen from georgia shabbat shalom okay here we go horim ho very good mo rim our teachers ho rim very good let's see how we did stein houses rachel ymg putney putty continues to perform i think i've seen putney every single week on this so putty reveal yourself so we get to see you uh we get at least know your name okay let's go to the next question according to the pew report what percentage of parents say being parent is their greatest joy six percent 24 67 or 91 how many people think that being their parent is their greatest joy i hope my mom is voting in one particular direction fannin fallon levin shabbat shalom from southfield michigan dumansky's in st louis shabbat shalom to you shabbat shalom to leia from montreal helen in toronto okay here goes the answer is ninety-one percent all right i'm i'm interested in the one percent of six percent here ninety-one percent that's pretty good learning steinhause's putney continues h and rachel s so kids go to our third question today according to google what percentage of dads go to youtube for guidance on key parenting topics how many guys go to youtube to figure out how to be a better parent that's i guess an easier way of saying it risa and bryant wool from oak park mission shabbat shalom hanya storch from woodmere shabbat shalom birmingham alabama to the bernheim shabbat shalom laurie heifetz from the upper west side i hope i got that right shabbat shalom gabby kesten shabbat shalom to you okay here goes eighty percent eighty percent of dads go to youtube for guidance it's amazing how people got that right putney continues h learning rachel s and stein houses let's go fourth and final question for this week's champion remember well i'll tell you afterwards but after studying 70 000 children over 70 years harvard identified these as causes for successful and happy children except for talking listening to your kids make it clear you have ambitions for their futures fresh dinner three times a week and teaching them numbers and letters these are the things that make them happy except for which one which one of these choices does not necessarily impact at the level of others their happiness rosalie weissfeld from mcallen texas shabbat shalom the answer is making dinner make continue doing so but making dinner i guess is not as important as listening giving them ambitious and teaching them the basics of life i wonder how many jewish moms would disagree with that by the way let's see what you get let's see who wins first hannah plays on the third place number two learning number one h number one is h we should make a rule steinhaus and gibbs you got to give me more than a letter to qualify we'll talk about that later remember we get new prizes for you so if you have won go to projectinspire.com and get rosh hashanah related prizes for the kahoot game one more time i want to make sure that we remember that september 14th is the the annual dinner make sure you check that out i wonder by the way now that we're about to get to jamie geller who's next speaking about food i wonder if my grandmother was playing kahoot and the answer was dinner is the least important thing if she would take issue i think she would and i also think forgive me harvard that the food that our moms have been making us consume is the secret to jewish success that's just my theory but i'm not from harvard next one we have jamie geller i don't know if jamie geller's mom is on but continue to ship nachos from her we're gonna go to jamie geller our partner here who always delivers an incredible incredible way for us to appreciate the wonderful food that she's doing check out our next segment of jamie geller hi charlie thank you so so so much hello everybody in keeping with the theme of this week's episode i'd like to thank my parents first of all we're going to start with my mommy who's a little bit of a celebrity here on the show i think she's won kahoot once or twice and charlie always makes sure to shout her out which makes her feel so special i want to make her feel even more special she doesn't know this is coming hi mommy i love you and i know you're watching because you watch everything i do and you are my number one fan now generally we usually say that you're tied with hubby for that position but for the purposes of this show you are my longest number one fan and i think that's the greatest gift that you could have ever given me is let me know how much you love and support every single thing that i do and by association everyone that i do it with so so happy that you're such a fan of this show as well i love you mommy a ton okay and to the other half my father and his father are going to be featured in this week's episode no they're not there but it's their famous potato cocoa my father has taught me so much in life how to ride a bike how to drive a car how to make a potato coogle so i think that's a really nice well-rounded education and of course he's allowed me to go to some of the finest educational institutions in the world so daddy i thank you and love you for your support as well you're all gonna love him too because this potato goal is literally famous not one person has ever tasted this and not said i love it i hope that you enjoy it like i said it's passed down three generations so it's tried and true and proven have a wonderful shabbat stuff that dreams are made of you want to whisk together three eggs and the idea here is to have everything ready to go so that the potatoes don't brown as we start to work with them we have really quick assembly because the first time that i made potato cocoa for the first week that i was married to my husband with my grandfather and my mother at the table so embarrassing because i turned out like a one-inch thick rubbery brown flat passover cake that's what it looked like it was so mortifying because i didn't know these tips about having everything ready to go having the potatoes soaking in water so you've got to make sure that you follow these particular tips that will make your potato cocoa gorgeous season with two teaspoons of kosher salt don't be scared potatoes love salt it helps their flavor shine through and about half a teaspoon of pepper my grandfather always used white pepper especially because it's a really light colored recipe and the flavor was really delicate but i never have white pepper in my house so i made this switch when i started making potato cocoa to the black pepper we like that little bit of a contrast and kick but totally up to you the next thing we've got our oil hot we've got our eggs seasoned and ready you want to do the onions first in the food processor again to keep those potatoes white and creamy i have the blade set to the blade the shoestring blade that's like there's the whole controversy about do you like your potato cocoa mushy or stringy i grew up in a mush house my husband grew up in a string house so i asked him what do you like he said variety is the spice of life so sometimes i make mush sometimes i make string and sometimes i do half and half but today i've got the shoestring blade set here so i have my peeled potatoes in a bowl of water because the second you peel the potatoes they begin to oxidize that's when they're going to start to turn brown and this heads off that process i have six kids in my house and i've got six peelers so they help me peel all the potatoes potato cocoa freezes amazing i'll often double and triple this recipe and so then i'll have like 12 or 18 pounds of potatoes that have to be peeled so we all get together we'll do like special time on wednesday night and peel the potatoes i'll leave them in the fridge overnight just like this and then thursday we'll bake we're gonna mix everything together now we're gonna add our eggs good that's looking good and that's already gonna help protect the potatoes from browning a bit and we're gonna add our hot oil wait for the sizzle wait for it awesome that's where the magic happens i remember watching my father and grandfather make this dish and we would just start salivating at this point and then we would just wait by the oven okay now let's go quickly get our heated custard cups out of the oven hot oil hot glass but the glass is what gives it that coveted crunchy exterior okay you want to fill these you want to pack them really nice get this in 425 degrees [Music] oh yeah i remember standing vigil by the oven waiting for my grandfather and then my father's potato coogle honestly potatoes oil and salt you so can't go wrong with this the best part though about my potato cocoa cups is that no one has to fight over the coveted crunchy corner so once these are cool enough to handle just with a butter knife loosen around the edges they'll pop right out you're gonna absolutely adore these i've made them for my family hundreds of times if you want more classic jewish recipes subscribe to my channel i can't wait to cook with you thank you jamie for another incredible video our next guest is a person who i also have familiar with her father uh this is a a wonderful individual this is hana sternal lewinstein is the principal of a terrorist high school in muncie a life coach a therapist she's a master's degree in clinical sociology and social work she's also a program director of the online ms of an online msw program mrs lewinstein welcome to the show you hear us hi yup i got it thank you so much i just want to say i am so happy to be here with everybody first time on the show and i'm blown away i feel so connected to everybody to the jewish nation and we're all part of it's it's really i'm really overwhelmed by that thank you sure and thank you for being on um you know you're the principal of a school listen your father is the an absolute legend for those who don't know um mrs lewinstein's father is ronnie greenwald ronald greenwald is one of the jewish people's legends i can tell you my story later we don't have time i one of these days i'll tell you just um my connection to your dad but if you haven't yet seen project inspire's video highlighting him go to shabbat show.com go to projectinspire.com and you'll see an individual who really is beyond belief but you are a principal of a school you're a therapist you you have so many different approaches now that is so critical right now so we have children adjusting like i said in the beginning of the show this is this is crazy times like i said my little kids are in masks you can't touch somebody if someone comes over my my girls had a girl a friend that she saw on the street whose sister got the virus and now everyone's stuck it's it's it's trying for parents but it's also trying for children and what advice do you have for parents now as the kids begin to readjust into what we call let's say normal times right we're trying to get back to normal a drop new year new times how from your vantage point would you you have a very interesting perspective right both as a therapist and as a principal what advice can you give parents out there to help kids adjust properly so i think um firstly i would say just to notice all those things that you just said how much the children are experiencing and have been experiencing that sense of unrest for all this time and the lack of structure um school's all about structure and and they haven't been in a structure for a really long time so just remembering that as parents that our expectations of them are that they slowly get back into structure but it's going to be a process and you know i feel like this time that we've been in has been um my daughter tehila um has been a time of um you know i had this idea of what i'm going to share with with everybody a few days ago and then i went back to school and all the ideas i had just went out the window because it's just everything's so fluid and changing and um what you think is the right answer one day is not the right answer the next day based on the experience that you've had or you've seen kids have so it's that open-mindedness to know that this is ever changing kids are feeling lots of different things um and they need us to know that it's unnerving for them it's scary to go back to school it's it's um can i say something you said to me about school my daughter said she's excited okay no i'm not gonna share so there's different feelings that they that they may feel about um going back to school and and whatever they feel we need to be like yeah that's that's what it is you know we can't fix it we could just i understand that that's what their feelings are going back and um i i told my students the first day i'm like you know the hardest thing when you're so nervous and you don't know what's going to be you just want to stay on your blanket you know you just don't want to go out there yeah and the best thing we could do and we just don't know what's happening is to show up and you all showed up and i'm so proud of you for all that and i hope you're proud of yourselves and i really i hope that all of us are recognizing how much that takes for our children to to show up and to be there and to attend uh school and whatever capacity their every school's different and what they're doing is different but if they show up to whatever it is that they're asked to do that's incredible and for sure academics are important for sure i have i'm a principal i believe it but right now just even attending and coming and doing their best that's it that's just to be so proud of them for doing whatever they can do and um and really recognizing that there's a lot of social anxiety coming back and not knowing you know how your peers are going to greet you it's been a while um how's it going to be to sit there in that mask how am i going to struggle everything and we're just going to be patient with the process and really really understanding you know it's great you say what you said and i want to just i want to highlight one piece because i think it's so powerful and it applies to parents as well there is we don't give ourselves enough credit for showing up right showing up in life is like more than half of the battle it's just taking it right that's and we don't necessarily give us credits for showing up as parents and showing up in this world and showing up what's going on we don't give us and we don't give our kids enough credit for showing up um i i love that point i want to just highlight it for a second what is it like for a kid when i think the reason why we don't give kids enough credit is because we're worried like if i don't set the bar high enough like they're not going to stride but i i think what is it like for a child in your experience when people are at least at the right time focused on this which is go show up do the best you can like i recognize that even though and in the beginning we had a woman named stillerman who said something interesting said the way you parent kids in one generation doesn't apply to the next generation and this isn't we're not living in generations right the way like for us last generation was february i'm saying like the way we lived in february like it's a different journey like living in a different time zone so like whatever we did up until march is is it has to be in a way re-thought how much goes into that and how much would you would you counsel parents to really shift their expectations for the foreseeable future for their children i think it's it starts it starts first with listening to them and what they're saying about what their experience is so making space for them to be able to say what their experience was without any uh judgment or criticism of it because we jump to like get nervous about what they said because like oh did they just say that they're not going to school ever again oh my gosh right did they just say that uh they hate their teacher like let me just jump and we but if we can try really hard to recognize that we're getting you know unnerved and scared and just try to focus on what the child is saying that their experiences and i'm um distracted right now uh and to just focus on what their experience is then we're going to have a feeling of what they need to hear from us it's probably not going to be to solve the problem heads up it's probably not going to be to fix it and to you know come with a great idea that mom has or dad has probably going to be to hear it um to hear what they're experiencing and to share that with them and then you'll see if they ask you a question we'll try to answer it if they uh you know they have something more to share you'll have given that opportunity so i think that you know what with everything that's going on that's so um bizarre at the same time we always go back to basics and um those basics i think are the love and time that we that we give over you know we've talked about this and come up in the show and also boundaries to keep the boundaries with love in a gentle way the structure of the house bedtime and uh in real time and bath time and home of time so keeping a combination of keeping the structure and giving a lot a lot of love together so crazy times but i think we go back to basics all right well thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your wisdom i am i'm sure that your school is going to navigate properly with someone with this much insight at the top uh thank you one of these days i'll call you and share with you just how much your father has impacted my life um but until then good job is shabbat shalom and you're doing what you're doing for the jewish people thank you so much everyone and it's really that's the truth the truth is that half of what we're doing is showing up and that's such a big piece and by the way that's what your bot's all about that's what god is saying doesn't it all come back to shabbat we've done this like what a hundred times together is there anything that doesn't relate to shabbat isn't that what shabbat is god's like just show up yeah i got it you're not perfect yeah i got it you don't run the world yeah you had ups you down this weeks but guess what it's over it's me and you time now sit at the table hold the cup just show up just be here from shabbat don't worry i don't care what your background is i don't care what you know and don't know i just want you it's a relationship not a religion i love that i love that all those that i didn't get a chance but shabbat shalom shabbat shalom we'll come more liran lisa debbie dorian shabbat shalom for those that are on thing to the bagoon and bolton family shabbat shalom sorry if i missed a couple shabbat shalom thrift commands or lisa mervis linda from buffalo shabbat shalom to everybody lesson that i think we take from this show [Music] god's wants a relationship be happy with what we have do the victory lap as dan butler said so beautifully just show up recognize that everything is changing and we need to be more appreciative of what we have and sensitive to the people around us most importantly we need to appreciate that we got to be good parents and and and siblings and aunts and grandparents but we also have a great father out there who wants the best for us that's what shabbat is about so on behalf of me and mine to you and yours i wish you a shabbat filled with wisdom and rest and perspective maybe we have a shabbat in which we can put the whole world in some order that makes us more comfortable but even if not maybe we realize that the more we just show up the more we push for the relationship the more we push for the happiness and everything that we have the more we will experience life with the richness that it can offer us i really hope that next week we do this in live and from jerusalem but if not i hope i get to see you next week as well so happy long weekend for those that are watching from america happy labor day weekend and to everybody have a great weekend good shabbos and shabbat shalom can't wait with god's help to see you next week [Music] bring me back to you back [Music] are you listening i don't know where i am i don't know where i've been all i know is i'm standing here begging bring me back so take me back take me back take me back into your love your nose i can't do it alone i've got so far so [Music] far oh i'm coming [Music] back i [Music] father bring me back to you bring me back into