The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.
In Bereishis 10:25 the Torah states that Eiver had two children, one of which was Peleg and the other Yaktan. R' Frand commented that this is the kind of pasuk which a person reads in Shnaim Mikra and forgets immediately when he moves on to the next pasuk. The following pasuk then lists (by name) all thirteen of Yaktan's sons. R' Frand quoted Rashi who stated that the reason that Yaktan was zoche to have 13 sons because he was a humble person and he used to minimize himself.
R' Frand joked that apparently Rashi is teaching that being humble is a segulah to have children. But then he asked - what does his being humble have to with having children?
R' Frand next quoted the Rabbeinu B'Chaye who observes that in the Tenth Perek there are 70 names of people and that these 70 people were the ancestors of the 70 nations of the world. But if this is the case, not only did Yaktan have 13 sons, he also had roughly 20% of the nations of the world, since his 13 children were 13 out of the 70 nations of the world.
R' Frand also observed that each nation is different from other nations. So how did Yaktan's children wind up so markedly different than they resulted in thirteen different peoples?
R' Frand then asked if Yaktan's zechus was because he humbled himself, why was he not called Katan?
R' Frand answered these questions by quoting the Tolner Rebbi who explained that the way to raise children is not to view them as extensions or clones of himself. Furthermore, according to the Tanna Dvei Eliyahyu the way to be successful as a person is to be an Anav, but even more so in the house, that a person should not act as the master of his children and order them around.
According to the Tolner Rebbi, the message of Rashi is that if a person wants to be a successful parent he needs to be a Yaktan, allowing his children to grow individually without being domineering.
R' Frand finished the vort by stating what he called a Chassidish view of why Yaktan was called Yaktan instead of Katan. He observed that the use of the Yud in front of a word transposes the verb from past to future. What Chazal is saying is that Yaktan's entire direction, today, tomorrow and the next day was to be an anav. In this way he was zoche to 13 nations.
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