Who can express the praise of the Torah for its worth is greater than silver. We see in the Mishna “Rav Nehorai said “I will leave all the crafts that exist in the world and teach my son only Torah””. The Talmud, the Medrash, the Zohar and all the holy books are filled with splendour. They speak of the praise of the Torah, and the famous need no proof – all the world know that Torah is great and there is none to compare to its greatness. Even though this is so, there are people who do not invest their hearts into sacrificing their souls and their wealth in order to teach their sons Torah in the appropriate way.
One who wants to merit his sons with the crown of Torah, needs to invest in them before the children are even born to him. He should pray from the depths of his heart to Our Father in heaven that he should give him holy children, people who are perfect in character and in knowledge, and they are clever Sages. He should continually pray to Hashem, both before the birth and after the birth. Prayer should never cease from the mouths of both the father and the mother. They should distribute money to Sages and request from them to pray for their children. The wife should always try to listen to the sound of Torah and after the birth they should place the child in a place where he will hear words of Torah. This is in accordance with what they said about Rabbi Yehoshua the son of Chananya “praised be she who born him” for his mother caused him to become a great Sage. Before he was born she used to go to the Beth Medrash to hear the words of Torah. Likewise, she used to say to the sages “Beseech that the foetus in my womb should be a Sage”. After she gave birth, she would take his crib to the Beth Medrash so that he should hear the words of Torah and fix them in his head.
The great people over the generations have warned with repeated warnings not to sing non-Jewish songs and bad language to a child who is crying for he is thereby destroying the soul of the child. If he wants to hush the child by singing, he should sing songs of Torah.
