Should parents accept a child who has stopped keeping Shabbos?

Rabbi Landau teaches that the answer is not acceptance but belief. “No child wants to sit at the Shabbos table with a father who knows something bad about him,” who looks down on him or judges him.

So a father should not tell himself, “I'm accepting that you're mechallel Shabbos.” Rabbi Landau puts it this way: “I don't accept your mechallel Shabbos. I believe you're just struggling right now. And it'll pass.” As he says, “I really believe that you have a hard time,” and it is not going to stay that way for long.

He stresses that this has to be real: “You really believe that, by the way. You have to believe in it.” The parent does not accept the chillul Shabbos itself; no father wants that for his child. What he refuses to do is believe that this is who his child is. That belief is what a child feels at the table, and it is what brings him back.

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

Surface claim

A struggling child does not need his father to accept his chillul Shabbos. He needs his father to believe he is only struggling, and that it will pass.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

A child feels it when a parent “knows something bad about him,” looks down on him or judges him, and he does not want to sit at that Shabbos table.

Underlying need or longing

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that acceptance is passive and agrees with the darkness, while belief is active: “I do not believe that this is who you are. I believe you are going through a hard time.”

What may be behind it

In the book he explains that a child senses the judgment behind “I accept you as you are,” as if the father were making peace with a reality he never wanted. Believing in the child takes real inner work from the parent.

Deepest human truth

Rabbi Landau writes that the struggle is an outer garment, not the person himself. A parent who believes in the soul beneath it gives his child a table where he belongs.

More questions from this teaching

• Why does a struggling child stay away from the Shabbos table?