I’ve always wondered.
How do kids know that they can get away with misbehaving, that their parents won’t kick them out of the house?
In their friend’s home they act properly.
At school they maintain the decorum.
Why do they feel comfortable to be disrespectful at home?
Because they know their parents will tolerate them even if they don’t ‘toe the line’.
How do they know?
Same questions go to spouses.
A man who would never ignore a colleague at work may remain engrossed in his hobby at home and not respond to his wife.
Or vice versa a woman who never raises her voice in the public arena may scream at the top of her lungs at home.
Why do people act differently with their own family than they do with outsiders?
It all boils down to the same point.
We have an inner compass that allows us to judge what kind of behavior will be tolerated in each differing environment.
That inner discerning voice tells the little child that if he acts out at my friend’s home, he won’t be invited back to a play date with his friend.
Forward thinking and good planning for a child means that if I had a good time at my friend’s home and want to be allowed back for a play date, I had better tidy up the mess I made.
That same innate judgment assures the child that if he doesn’t clean up his mess at home, he won’t be kicked out of the house.
It’s the way it is meant to be.
Love, real love, needs to be far deeper than a transactional relationship.
And today we know more than ever that it is critical that our children don’t mistakenly think that if they are not perfect they will be ejected from home.
In an ironic twist, in today’s day and age, many children subconsciously misbehave and act in a way they know is not causing nachas and pride to their parents because they crave the validation and knowledge that their parents love them even if they are imperfect.
Here in Thailand, we meet our fair share of young people who are testing the boundaries of their parent’s love. Rather than see them as rebellious, we ought to view them from the lens of understanding what they are truly intending, albeit subconsciously. By behaving differently than the expectations of their parents and of their close-knit religious communities they are digging deep to see if the love of their parents extends to them beyond boundaries.
The parents of today have re-learned parenting and are starting to see this misbehavior as not being an act of defiant rebelliousness stemming from hatred. Rather there are issues related to childhood trauma, insecurities, phobias and a whole plethora of possible root causes that express itself in the behaviors and attitudes that challenge the parent child relationship.
Often, by the parents digging deeply into their soul and igniting a love for their child, the relationship can be saved. It can even be rekindled and fanned to grow to a more passionate than average relationship with the child that was the most challenging.
This topic is a very profound one and I have oversimplified but I trust that you hear my point.
It is not easy to actually live with this kind of love and it takes getting used to as it seems to run against traditional thinking and is certainly not instinctive. It needs to be learned and worked on.
It seems to be working.
From my observation and engagements with many differing styles of Jewish communities from all over the world (believe it or not Bangkok seems to be at the epicenter of many Jewish communities. A topic for an article in itself) this way of thinking and behaving is currently yielding very powerful results in healing many fractured and compromised relationships.
Which is why I found it intriguing and fascinating to read in this week’s parsha about Hashem’s instruction to Moshe regarding his appointment of Joshua as the successor of Moshe.
Bamidbar 27:19 And you shall present him (Joshua) before Eleazar the priest and before the entire congregation, and command him in their presence to tolerate their stubbornness.
Rashi comments: And command him - about the Israelites: Know that they are troublesome and they are stubborn. You are given this position on condition that you accept this burden upon yourself.
I can understand that a Jewish leader needs to be reminded that the people may be stubborn and that part of his job is to accept them even with all their difficulties.
But why does Hashem insist that this tolerance clause be done in the presence of the people?
Shouldn’t this be told in private to the leader that he should be ready for the challenges of disobedience?
Wouldn’t it be more effective if the people would be instructed to be obedient without knowing that Hashem has already put it a clause that keeps them under the leadership of Joshua even if they misbehave?
The way Hashem instructed Moshe to transfer the leadership seems to almost be an invitation to the people to test the limits of their relationship with their leader.
Wouldn’t it best be done in a private conversation with the leader?
(see Ramban - Nachamides on this verse who raises these concerns and therefore offers a different meaning to the verse).
To me, it seems clear that Hashem wants both the leader and the community he is leading to know that their bond is consummate and unshakeable.
That every single Jew hear the message that the connection of the Jew to Hashem and to Hashems servant Moshe (and all subsequent Jewish leaders) is unshakeable. Even when there is stubborn disobedience the bond is intact. It may be causing irritation and pain but the Jew is not severed from his ‘head’ the leader of the generation.
This means that a Jewish leader needs to know that he is not just leading the righteous and obedient members of our people. The leaders need to be dedicated just as much (and perhaps even more) to the challenging children.
And Hashem wants us to know from the outset that even if we are difficult, we cannot ever break our connection with Hashem and with Moshe His servant.
The result will be that the children, the Jewish people will be more deeply connected to Hashem.
Just like a child loves his mother more than his friend’s mother. Even though he doesn’t clean up his toys when his mother asks while he does tidy up for his friends’ mother. Externally it may seem that his love for his parent is mitigated and limited. The reverse is true.
It is similar and even more existentially true when it comes to the relationship that every single Jew has with Hashem.
As I was dwelling on this message – which I only discovered this year after many decades of reading the weekly Parsha - I realized how Hashem was sending me a timely message that is so relevant to me this very week in 2026 in Thailand.
The Bangkok Post chose to run the following article yesterday about a person who opened a ‘Bayit Chiloni’ – a ‘secular house’:
A group of secular Israelis has opened a community center on Koh Phangan, saying it wants to offer Israeli visitors to the tourist island an alternative to the “indoctrination” found at Chabad houses.
….
It has been set up directly opposite the local Chabad House on Koh Phangan….opposes the Chabad movement and the concept of Chabad houses abroad, Naor Narkis, a secular Zionist activist and politician, told the Jerusalem Post….
Chabad houses are informal Jewish community and outreach centres operated by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. They function as a “home away from home” for Jewish travelers, students and residents, offering religious services, classes, counselling and communal meals.
There are six Chabad houses in Thailand: in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Pai.
“Religious organizations are present everywhere Israelis are found; their strategy is transparent and clear — and I’m so happy that a secular foothold is now being planted thousands of kilometers away from Israel in order to strengthen secular identity,” Mr Narkis said.
It is so preposterous that it is hilarious.
To call a Jew a ‘secular’ Jew is blending two different kind of descriptives that don’t use the same currency.
‘Jew’ is a religious term. Secular is a description of how you behave. You are either Jewish by G-d’s definition (born to a Jewish mother, or converted according to Halacha) or you are not Jewish.
Some Jews don’t express their holiness and G-dliness as much as their potential allows. Some Jews try harder to express their inner core self as a Jew.
Tzvi Freeman puts it like this:
In modern-day jargon, the term "Orthodox" has come to designate those of us who don't change Torah just so it should fit in better with what everyone else is doing. In that sense, I definitely count myself among the "orthodox." But I sure don't feel orthodox. Should I?
That's another thing the Lubavitcher Rebbe said: "Labels are for shirts." Okay, there are other things that can take labels. Like Reform Temples, Conservative Synagogues. But the Jews that you'll find in these places have all just one label: Jews. Because "Jew" is not a behavioral term. It's an essential state of being. It's not where you're at, it's where you belong.
So if anyone should ask you to describe the three kinds of Jews today, answer as follows:
There are three types of Jews:
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Jews who do mitzvahs.
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Jews who do more mitzvahs.
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Jews who do even more mitzvahs.
And that's about it, because a Jew can hardly breathe without doing a mitzvah.
Of all weeks to meet up with such a ridiculous press conference, Hashem sent me a message tin the Torah Parshah to guide me on how to react.
With LOVE.
Some 3300 years ago, Hashem has already preinformed us about the stubbornness of some of our people.
Yet, the Jewish leaders in an unbroken chain from Moshe, Joshua, till the Rebbe in our generation, have been instructed to be the head and leader of these ‘wayward’, ‘stubborn’ and ‘misguided’ fellow Jews as well at the more devout ones.
This is why the Chabad House in Koh Pangan, like every Chabad House in the world, founded by the Rebbe to be a home of unconditional love for every Jew, is not getting offended and is not putting up barriers. Rather we are warmly welcoming all Jewish including those activists of the so called ‘secular house’ to uncover their true identity and join for Shabbat, to pray, eat, study and congregate together with love and inclusivity.
Chanukah Candle lighting at Chabad Koh Phangan
My friends and colleagues around the world have reached out to me wondering how this is impacting our work.
I responded that this group has done us a great service.
The outpouring of support for the Chabad House in Ko Pangan is incredible. Someone even called to donate funds to expand our school there. So that we can have room for more students in our ‘waiting-list-only’ Chabad preschool in the island.
Graduation last week at Chabad Koh Phangan's preschool.
This is the Rebbe’s version of responding to darkeness. Adding more light.
But in terms of anti-israel and anti-Jewish sentiment, this ‘secular’ activist has harmed the Israeli community living in Thailand at a time when we are already so vulnerable.
A local veteran journalist asked me ‘why did the Bangkok Post share this story, it is not newsworthy in an international sense’?”
I think it is obvious. It delights our enemies. It portrays us as confused people. The bad press about Israel’s and Jews is fed by such eccentric shenanigans about people who can’t even seem to get along with each other
However much we inside the Jewish community know that it is silly and bizarre to open up a ‘secular house’ (there are plenty of unholy venues in Thailand already, I don’t think you need a rabbi to tell you that…), our enemies have a field day with this kind of article.
Let me be very clear.
As misguided as they are, they are our Jewish brothers and sisters who are waiting for their souls to proclaim with pride
SHMA YISRAEL AD text-decoration: revert; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); line-height: 30px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);open sans", "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif !important;">This week’s Parsha proclaims loud and clear that G-d loves each and every Jew so much that He makes it compulsory on the leader to let the troubled rebellious Jew know that he or she will always be loved and cared for by the leader.
During these ‘Three Weeks’ as we remember the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago, which was facilitated and caused by our inner baseless hatred for each other, we need to bring about the redemption by acts of pure unearned love for each other – Ahavat Yisrael with no boundaries.
May we merit to love each other, to love G-d and to love His Torah and welcome the Mashiach NOW. AMEN
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yosef Kantor