Parenting Lessons from the Golden Calf

This Sunday we had the honor of hosting Amy Speidel a Conscious Discipline trainer. She was hilarious and true to Art Imitates Life. Totally non judgmental, she captured the joys and oys of parenting.

 

One of the funniest things she did all night was a routine where she demonstrates how parents are often so hard on themselves that they don’t allow themselves to correct course. She imitated a parent going in for the finger wagging and anger kill when in middle they realize that they’ve lost it. At that point they have two choices; they can back up the train and start again or they can continue driving the train through to the detriment of the child.

 

Her point; just because you started off on a bad track, it doesn’t mean you can’t shift gears. In fact, when you shift gears you have demonstrated to your child and empowered them with tools to make mistakes and shift gears mid course.

 

In other words, we have demonstrated for our children that making mistakes is human and we can all correct course.

 

She concluded, that in fact the reason why parents make mistakes in their parenting is so their children can learn what not to do.

 

So our mistakes become opportunities for us and our children to grow. Thank G-d for mistakes!

 

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Our tradition tells us that, Hashem actually facilitates this in our lives. Hashem facilitates the mistakes we make in order for us to contract our course shifting so we can grow and become better people as a result.

 

If we never made a mistake we’d never grow. If we don’t encounter friction we don’t grow. If we never make a mistake we never learn.

 

How was it possible for the Jewish People to sin with the worship of the golden calf, so shortly after Sinai?

 

According to the mystics, it was a set up by Hashem to bring the Jewish People to a place of atonement. It was a set up to teach us that even when we make big mistakes, we are able to recover and shift course to a better future.

 

And Thank G-d for the Golden Calf! As a result the Second Tablets were given, regarding which our Sages say that all of Torah thought (much more than just the 10 Commandments and the Five Books of Moses) accompanied the Second Tablets.

 

Being human is to err. To learn from that and to grow is Divine.

 

Or as the great Mystic Leonard Cohen said;
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

 

The mystic Leonard Cohen