Crafting the Self-Reliant Spirit: Wisdom from the World of Cigar Aficionados for Parents and Mentors

I would like to begin with two radically outlandish statements but then argue to try to prove them to be true. Number one cigar aficionados make better teachers. And number two, that the goal of parenting, teaching, proper child tutelage and tutoring is for the parenting teacher to become utterly useless and entirely superfluous. And I would like to begin this argument from the Ata Titzavis bine Yisrael v'yukhue lech ha'shem en zayh zach. There's a mitzvah that the Kohanim should set up, arrange, organize and clean the menorah, the mitzvah of Arihaz, neyros b'amigdash. And the Torah tells us that their commandment is to light it. Or the commandment is to light it, a lahalosnare tumid, to kindle the lamp continuously. Now Rashi picks up on something, citing a Gamara in Mesaklashabis 21a. He tells us that lahalosnare, to raise up the light, to kindle it is in a terminology. Normally we say lahaliknare, not lahalosnare, but as Rashi, citing the Gamara, this is telling us a specific and unique halacha that you are to light the candle on Shabbos and in the mitzvah until the smaller candle, the wick, will catch and then rise up by itself in its own self-sustaining, powerful, illuminating fire. And it isn't hard for us to understand all the symbolism of the menorah presented by the commentators. The menorah always represents spiritual, illuminating light Kinare, mitzvah, vittorah or surely you're aware of that pasak, the spiritual brilliance, the light that comes off, the clarity that is the menorah. That's what we're trying to aim for. And education. When you are trying to light someone else's fire, how do you do it properly? Until the child, until his fire is so lit that it doesn't need your help anymore, until it goes up, olis me, eleha, until he becomes his own tiki torch, until the child becomes his own burgeoning bonfire. So, yeah, the goal is to become the parent that takes the training wheels off, the teacher that can take a step back and watch the child grow and grow, and grow until we become, thank God, superfluous because the child is his own fire. He doesn't need us to keep lighting his torch. And the cigar aficionado? Well, sometimes the child isn't exactly a perfect candle and we are like a cigar aficionado who has a cheap cigar. It doesn't stay lit in the way that he had hoped. He has to have that right tact, that right ability to light it enough, the way to milk it and to make sure that it actually stays lit. With that proper finesse it's possible. And then teaching you have to make sure that, with the right stoking of the coals, with the right lighter, with the right angle, you can inspire a child to spark his heart until he is olis me eleha and goes up by himself. Each and every child. The takeaway Well, don't buy cheap cigars. But even more meaningful, more seriously, is that the goal is to become extra, that you can inspire somebody, and specifically we're talking about children here. Until the haalos nertamed aachitay shall haveas olam me eleha, they want to grow and they rise up all by themselves.