Are some children just born rebellious?

Rabbi Landau answers: “Children are not born rebellious. We condition them to be.” Rebellion often doesn’t start with a question or a mistake. “A child can survive a wrong action. A child can survive confusion.” What a child cannot easily survive is being treated as if his struggle is who he is. “Sometimes the act was wrong, but the way we handle it made the person much worse.” A weakness turns into rebellion when it is met with shame, anger, and rejection.

He reads the Haggadah this way. The wise son and the rebellious son don’t really differ in their questions. “The only difference is how they were answered.” If you keep shouting at a child that he is the rebellious one, “he will eventually accept that title.”

His conclusion: “A hard moment does not destroy a soul. The loss of belief does.” The turning point comes when a child feels the adults no longer see good in him. “That’s when a weakness starts becoming an identity.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Rebellion is not inborn. It is often conditioned by how a child’s struggles are handled.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

A child can survive a wrong action or confusion, but being treated as if his struggle is his identity is much harder to survive.

What may be behind it

Weakness met with shame, anger and rejection hardens into rebellion. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that such a child “does not learn that what he did was bad. He learns that he is bad.”

Deepest human truth

What actually breaks a soul?

“A hard moment does not destroy a soul. The loss of belief does.” A weakness becomes an identity when a child feels no one sees good in him.

More questions from this teaching

• What is the difference between the wise son and the wicked son in the Haggadah?