During Religious School social time for 7th and 8th graders, I took a moment with our young teens to ask, “What should adults know about parenting teens?”
They had plenty to share. One offered: “Wait until we’re done speaking before responding” and “If you’re walking with us and ask us how we’re doing and we say ‘okay,’ we are not actually okay.” Another added, “If it’s clear we’re not doing okay but we don’t want to talk about it, don’t keep asking.” I asked, “What should adults do if you don’t want to talk about it but you’re clearly not okay?” The first said, “Comfort us, but don’t push for answers.” A third added, “And let us spend our own Bar Mitzvah money!”
This exchange was my first parenting class since I had a newborn, and it was as needed and wise as that first one. Despite directing educational programs for over a decade and working hands-on with this age group, I am well aware that I don’t even know what I don’t know about the differences between these children’s childhoods and my own.
It has always been true that parents and teachers do not have all the answers, but right now it feels truer than ever because the pace of change has increased in so many arenas at once. Since I am an educator and a rabbinical student, I find myself looking to Talmud stories to find a reflection on my current conundrums. Here are some of the parenting lessons I’m taking from the Talmud these days.
Give teens information
While teaching an adult education course called “Headlines and Torahlines,” we explored AI and Jewish texts around knowledge acquisition. Among our texts, I included Babylonian Talmud Brachot 62a:1-3, in which several rabbis discuss the non-consensual acquisition of Torah knowledge. We find students spying on their teachers in the bathroom and hiding under their teachers’ marital beds in order to learn from them and emulate their ways. Fellow students, and sometimes teachers, disagree with these methods. From this text I’m reminded that when teens want to learn things from the adults around them but can’t always ask directly, they will find the information in other, less-than-ideal ways. I read this particular set of texts as a reminder to offer our teens constructive avenues for information-gathering, even if not always directly through us. For example, mention to a trusted aunt, uncle, or cool friend a tidbit that might be good for them to drop into a text message conversation or leave a book or article out in some way for your teen to find.
Be a safe ear
In B.Talmud Hagiga 14b, Rabbi Elazar ben Arach plays the role of the teen (in this case a student) out for a donkey ride with his trusted adult, his teacher Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. Donkey travel, like car travel, is intimate enough for conversation but with minimal eye contact, which is the ideal setup for deep talks with teens since this mode of conversation lowers stress and potential shame when difficult topics arise.
Under these ideal teen communication circumstances, Elazar asks his teacher to teach him just one portion of the mysterious wisdom that is taboo to share. Rabban Yochanan’s answer is the ancient equivalent of “No.” And why not? “Because I told you so,” which the teens in my life confirm is positively the worst parental response. Rabban Yochanan’s reply reminds me of how often we expect young adults to grasp extraordinary topics through osmosis, without any adult intervention.
“Okay,” says Elazar. “How about I tell you something about this taboo topic that you already taught me?” This is where things can go very wrong, where adults can get defensive, hearing their teen say, “Well, here’s what you said or did that I remember but you don’t.” But with wisdom and some training, it can go better. Rabban Yochanan chooses the wise path. He gets off his donkey, finds a shady spot, wraps himself up, and places his full focus on Elazar. Elazar asks, “Why did you do that?” Let’s face it, our teens are not used to getting our total and complete attention. Rabban Yochanan gives Elazar his trust: “Maybe you’re about to do this wondrous thing, sharing something nearly forbidden but that you’ve decoded by yourself. I am ready.” Elazar opens up, and so does the sky, the field, and all of nature. Trees sing about crocodiles and fruit. Angels confirm, “This is what you both were waiting for.” Elazar shares his learning.
Rabban Yochanan gets up, kisses his student on the head, and praises Elazar for paying enough attention to figure things out on his own and for choosing to share what he’s sussed out. Teachers, parents, beloved aunts, uncles, and grandparents know this moment, when a young adult takes everything you and the world have given them and makes something stunning out of it. They have learned from us through observation and made our wisdom their own. We have trusted them, listened, and made ourselves a safe place for them to share that wisdom back with us. It is certainly worthy of celebration, we don’t even need singing trees and angels.
Attention is more important than answers
In Brachot 7a, we find Moses asking the question many teens harbor at one point or another in religious education: If God exists and is good, why do bad things happen to good people? Moses has seen things: The enslavement of his people, nearly being swallowed by a snake while following God’s instruction, and his nephews dying while serving God. In Exodus 33:13 he says to God, “If you really love me, please show me your ways.” You know those moments when you’re juggling a million things and you totally miss your moment with the teen in your life? So too God. Whatever is going on, God doesn’t want to explain Godself. We are left with a student who yearns to understand yet receives nothing tangible. How many times do our teens end up in the same spot and we simply don’t notice out of distraction or frustration?
Moses is not the only student stuck on the hypocrisy of the world. Elisha ben Avuya also encounters these tangible misalignments. In B. Talmud Kiddushin 39b13-15, Elisha witnesses someone who believes that following the Torah will lead to a long life, only to suffer unjustly. He sees these incongruities and becomes an apostate, referred to from then on in the Talmud as Acher, “the Other.” Like Moses, Elisha declares his questions of justice aloud, but God doesn’t answer, even insufficiently. Worse still, his teachers don’t show up to attend to his passionate questions.
As we parent teens, we might not have helpful answers, or any answers at all, but we need to show up for their passionate questions. The stakes are high. In Acher’s case, he grew estranged from it all, adrift and hopeless. As the first teen taught me in our 7th and 8th grade hangout, when we don’t know what’s going on for our teens, the least and best we can do is “just comfort them.” And, as he advised, what Acher needs is someone, a teacher or parent, to sit and mourn the unjust world with him. Perhaps—and there are no promises—if Acher felt seen, he might eventually be able to see beyond the confusing binaries of this world.
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When our children are young, we share cute anecdotes and pictures of our best and worst parenting moments. As our children become more adult, we honor their autonomy and privacy, but are often left in the dark about how our parent peers are navigating these shared developmental moments. At least we can take a peek into our ancient teachers’ and parent-surrogates’ relationships with their students, many of whom were young adults. They save us from peeking in windows and hiding under beds like the students did in our first text.
These Talmud anecdotes give us scenarios to reflect on, reminding us of our worst parenting moments and our best ones—and that ultimately, trust, listening, comforting, and witnessing might just be our job when we don’t have all the answers.