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

Rabbi Landau explains that it is not because the child does not care. “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. Deep down, the child senses that his parent has stopped believing in him.

A child picks this up even when nothing is said out loud. Rabbi Landau notes that a father can believe he is being open by saying, in effect, that he accepts his son's chillul Shabbos. But acceptance of that kind tells the child that his father now sees the struggle as who he is, and the child does not want to sit across from that.

What changes the table, he teaches, is real belief: “I really believe that you have a hard time,” and that it will not stay that way for long. “You have to believe in it.” When a child feels that his father believes in him, he has a reason to come back and sit down.

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

Surface claim

No child wants to sit at a table where his father knows something bad about him, looks down on him or judges him.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that even when the father says nothing, the child feels the heaviness in his father's eyes and the careful acceptance that is really a kind of distance.

Underlying need or longing

A child wants to belong, not merely to be “accepted.” He needs to feel that his father does not believe the struggle is who he is.

More questions from this teaching

• Should parents accept a child who has stopped keeping Shabbos?