Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman, LMHC

Are you a sufficient parent?

If you think the answer is yes, beware of complacency.

If you think the answer is no, what do you think about that?  What is it like for you to think that you're not sufficient as a parent?  I would like you to think that it is all right.  And not become complacent.

You've got me confused.  You want me to be okay with being insufficient as a parent?

I would really prefer that you see yourself as a sufficient parent who provides for his children's needs and wants to give them even more.  Have you ever made a siyum on anything you've learned?

Sure, I made a siyum just last month on a Seder Mishnayos, Seder Moed.

Mazal Tov.  So you're finished with Seder Moed now, you've learned it sufficiently.

No, I mean, yes I learned it sufficiently, but no, I'm not finished with it.

You're not finished with it?  But you made a siyum.   If you're not finished, what were you m'sayaim?

I was m'sayaim the Mishnayos with the Rav.  But I'm not finished with it.  I hope next time to learn Seder Moed with the Tosfos Yom Tov, and maybe another time with the Tiferes Yisrael.

So you made a siyum but you didn't really celebrate since you haven't yet learned it with the Tosfos Yom Tov, and the Tiferes Yisrael.

NO, that's not true.  I was very excited about making the siyum on what I had learned.

You were excited about what you had accomplished even though there's a lot more that you want to accomplish?

Yes, I was.  What's wrong with that?

There was nothing wrong with that.  He was a sufficient Mishnayos Moed learner worthy of making a siyum, and aware that he wanted to learn even more. 

That's the way I want you to think about yourself as a parent.  Sufficient and not complacent.

Yaakov Avinu offered a gift to his brother Esau.  Esau demurred, saying, "I have a lot."  Yaakov replied, "I have everything."  Esau's statement sounds like a realistic assessment of his situation.  Yaakov's, on the other hand, is hard to understand.  It might even be mistaken for complacence.  "I have everything" sounds like there's nothing more I that need.

What Yaakov said was true.  Yaakov knew that he had everything he needed.  It may be that the lesson to us in Yaakov's words to his brother is that sometimes what you need most to realize is that you have everything you need.

The earliest version of a list of fundamental human needs may be the Mishna in Pirkei Avos that teaches us that even if one had to subsist on salted bread and measured amounts of water and had to sleep on the floor, one could still learn Torah.  The Mishna describes it as chiyai tsaar, a life of depredation.  One would want more, but not need more. 

A more recent version of this short list of needs, formulated by Abraham Maslow, was published in the 1943 issue of the journal Psychological Review.  Maslow drew a pyramid to illustrate how our basic needs must be met before we can aspire to what he called higher level needs.  The bottom level of his pyramid is labeled "Immediate Physiological Needs," and it refers to food, water and sleep as the fundamental human needs, the same ones listed in the Mishna.  Maslow's Pyramid rises to include esteem, respect, and self-actualization, which he described as higher level needs.  That's where I disagree.

If you need something and you don't have it, you are lacking something, you're incomplete, and perhaps even endangered.  According the Mishna, if you have food, water, and the ability to sleep, you have everything you need.  You are not lacking anything, you need nothing else.  There are higher level wants, aspirations, and desires, but, by definition, these are not needs.  You may strongly desire something, deeply yearn for it, and be genuinely disappointed if you don't achieve it, but it isn't essential to your survival.   The lack of a need is a threat that must be addressed.   Lacking a want, however important it may be, is not a threat.  Failing to make the distinction leaves people feeling and behaving threatened over unmet wants in the guise of needs.  Understanding the difference between needs and wants allows us to allocate our energies more appropriately.

Let's go back to my conversation with the dad who had made a siyum even though he wasn't forever finished with Seder Moed.  He said he had finished learning the Mishnayos with the Rav.  He hopes to learn it someday with additional m'forshim.  I suspect that if he were to re-learn the Mishnayos with the Rav he would learn more that he had learned the last time through.  So do I think his siyum was a farce, that he had no reason to celebrate?  No, I don't think that at all.  I think his siyum, and all siyumim, are echoes of Yaakov's words to Esau.  Echoes of the message that when we have what we need, we should acknowledge and celebrate that.  We may, and perhaps should, want more, but it's important to distinguish between needs and wants.  Siyum means finished, and there's more to do.

The ability to joyfully accept what we've accomplished and at the same time want more is the paradox of the siyum.  The lesson of that paradox is best observed through its converse, the insistence on getting more because you think what you have is never enough.  A sure recipe for frustration, disappointment, resentment, and ultimately, despair.

So what can I say to my child when he wants more than I can possibly give him?

That's a fair question.  I'll ask you one in return.

What do you say to yourself when you want more than you can have right now? 

I hope you have learned to cope with disappointment, and to think about accepting what is now, while you plan for and look forward to something even better. 

Teach your child by modeling for your child that contentment needn't breed complacency and a siyum is worth celebrating even though you want to learn more.