The school year does not begin now, it ends now. The real school year is behind us. The Summer Vacation is the most meaningful and most effective learning time, time in which children learn how real life looks - how their parents speak, work, drive, behave at the park or at a hotel, and how the whole world, outside of school, runs.
Obviously, the vacation is too long and therefore our level of irritability, to which they have been exposed, is too big, but anyway, one moment before we "deposit" them again in the hands of their teachers (and a big thank you to you, teachers!), we must remember that the most meaningful relationship in life is probably this one - that of a father and mother with their children.
Even with all the news stories about "the best teacher I had" or "the teacher who changed my life", there is no doubt that the teachers who influence us the most are our parents. We can say that from the way in which parents buy school books, wrap them and handle them, the children learn no less than from the books themselves.
You can break almost any relationship - friendships can end, marriages can end in divorce, a contract can be breached - but a parent-child relationship is impossible to break under any circumstance. Even if during the years we do not agree, we quarrel and say fierce words, parents and children can never nullify that which connects them to each other. This is such a strong, powerful and basic relationship, that the Torah uses it as a metaphor to the relationship between us and G-d: "You are sons to G-d your Lord". Also in this context, even if a rift was formed in our relationship with our Father, even if we strayed away, lost our way, forgot what our destination is - we are always His sons.
Shabbat Shalom!
