JERUSALEM – In a powerful message this week, Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto urged parents to shield their children from financial stress and fear, warning that exposing them to adult anxieties causes deep emotional harm.
“When a father shares his problems with his child, he breaks him for life,” Rabbi Pinto said, emphasizing that parents should never say things like, “We can’t afford Shabbat,” or “We have no money for food.” Such words, he warned, damage a child’s soul.
He cited the Talmud’s prohibition against frightening children with lies, like telling them a dog will come get them — explaining that such fear-based parenting leads to emotional illness. Rabbi Pinto shared a real-life account of a man who refuses to start a family because, as a child, his father constantly told him he’d raise troublemakers just like himself.
“Words can destroy,” Rabbi Pinto concluded. “Even wealthy people live in fear because their parents planted doubt and panic in their minds when they were young. The damage starts with what children hear.”
