Boys ask shaylos to their rabbeim or your rav?

amother

Wed, Jan 01 2025, 12:00 pm

I'm just curious.

If your teen or unmarried adult boys need to ask a shayla about something, do they ask their rabbeim in yeshiva? Or your family rav? Does it depend on the question? Their age? Whether they are dorming or going to a local mesivta and sleeping at home at night?

Specifically boys coming from a litvish family, going to mesivta/beis medrash.

(Note that I'm not asking "My son wants to ask his rebbe something, and I think he should ask our rav instead." I'm just curious, because until now when he asks us something halachic that we're unsure about, or that we feel confident about but he doesn't seem comfortable with, we have encouraged him to ask our rav, and he's happily done so. I'm wondering if that's the norm, or if now/at some point it makes more sense to encourage him to ask his rebbe. He definitely asks hashkafic questions to his rebbe, but I'm talking about straight halacha -- like where he should light candles on a given night of Chanukah, what bracha he should make on a food, if something is a melacha on Shabbos, etc.)

amother

Seafoam

Wed, Jan 01 2025, 12:09 pm

My bochurim ask their rebbeim if something comes up for them. If it becomes a family issue, they're aware who my husbands Rebbe is and they know that we'll ask him and also will arrange for our son to talk to him so that a consensus can be reached.

As an example, one son's Rebbe last year (10th grade) suggesed something to our son that dh and I did not agree with. In fact, we were vehemently opposed. Our son knew we would be opposed and came to us with the topic. We gave our initial thoughts and opposition, with all due respect to the Rebbe, and told my son that we would discuss with Rabbi XYZ and go back and forth until we were all comfortable. And so we did. It helps tremendously that we have BH good relationships with our sons and they trust us too. In this particular case, it was worth taking a stand and we did not go with my son's rebbe's suggestion. And my son was very at peace with that, it resonated with him, and it didn't come between him and the Rebbe.

For smaller things, I'm happy to defer to the Rebbe and let my sons learn to make decisions.

For halacha, my sons tend to look things up themselves (they're sephardim in the ashkenazi system, dh is the same...his Rebbe is for hashkafa and for guidance, not halacha necessarily) and have a rav they call for piskai halacha if dh isn't available.

If they want to be more machmir on something that we aren't machmir on at home, we're generally happy to accommodate them.

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, Jan 01 2025, 12:56 pm

I think 9-10th, maybe 11th, my boys only asked my husband (basically our own Rav unless he doesn't know but their shailos are usually simplistic), but by the end of high school and in BM, they were forming closer kesharim with rabbeim and asking them mainly. They will still call my husband definitely about minhagim and sometimes halacha, but we always defer to what they heard from their rabbeim if there's chilukei deios as we want to reinforce our values that having a kesher and a trust in a rebbe is super important. (Case in point: my son flew back to Yeshiva one Chanukah night with time to light before even if it was technically too early when he left, like the time he would have lit on Friday, about 20 minutes before shkiah. My husband thought it was preferable for him to light then, and his friend who he got a ride with to the airport did indeed light then. But my son was told by his rebbe that it was preferable to light later at yeshiva, he got in around 10 pm. So we respected that and that's what he did.)

We also encourage them asking for hadracha from their rabbeim when they have dilemmas. BH they seem to have pretty accessible rabbeim.