Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen once wrote an article proposing that parents and teachers join a structured va’ad — a group focused on personal character development — before they take on the job of educating anyone else. He’ll tell you plainly: it was the least popular article he has ever written, and he doesn’t expect that to change.
But he stands behind it, because it explains something that puzzles a lot of parents: why some people, without seeming to try especially hard, raise children or teach students who turn out remarkably well — while others, working just as hard with just as much love, struggle.
The rebbe who worked on himself first
Rabbi Kelemen points to a well-known example: a legendary rebbe whose students consistently turned out exceptionally well. People often assumed he had some special pedagogical technique. Rabbi Kelemen’s explanation is different: “Instead of working on his kids, so to speak, he worked on his kid — he worked on his own character. Whatever technology works on this body, works on those little bodies also.” Because the rebbe’s own perceptions were accurate and his own character was refined, when he spoke, he was “on the nose.” His students absorbed who he was, not just what he said.
Why this is uncomfortable — and why it’s true anyway
It’s much easier to search for the right technique, the right script, the right consequence system, than to do the slower work of examining your own character. Techniques feel actionable. Self-work feels vague and endless. But Rabbi Kelemen’s claim is that the techniques only work as well as the person applying them — a parent who is impatient, reactive, or inconsistent in their own life will apply even the best chinuch advice inconsistently, and children notice inconsistency long before they notice technique.
What “working on yourself first” actually looks like
This isn’t vague self-improvement. Rabbi Kelemen is specific: it has to be serious, organized, and structured, with real standards and real checks — not just good intentions.
- Pick one trait, not ten. Choose the single character trait that shows up most often in your parenting friction — patience, tone of voice, follow-through — and work on that one thing for a defined stretch of time.
- Build in a check. Track it. A nightly two-minute review of how you did with that one trait that day turns vague hope into a real feedback loop.
- Find a chevrah or accountability partner. A va’ad works because you’re not relying purely on your own self-assessment. A spouse, a friend, or a study partner who checks in with you adds real accountability.
- Expect this to be slower than fixing your kid’s behavior. This is a long-term investment, not a quick fix — and that’s exactly why so few people commit to it, and why it works when they do.
The uncomfortable truth in Rabbi Kelemen’s least popular article is also its most hopeful truth: your children are far less in need of a better technique from you than they are in need of a better you. That’s harder to hear, but it’s also fully within your control — which most parenting advice, if we’re honest, is not.
To go deeper into Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen’s teachings on character and chinuch, join the inner circle at lawrencekelemen.com.
This blog was co-written with Artificial Intelligence.