The Rebbe’s Lessons for Educators

Welcome to our weekly program, Insights into the History of Chabad in America through the Mindel Archives. We have to listen to the previous program in order to understand this program, because this is mamash a continuation from last week. We left off last week talking about skills — how we should teach children — because people are looking for new ways.

As Rabbi Hodakov mentioned, "Elokim asah es ha'adam yashar" — G‑d made the person just, to do the right thing. [Unclear] People are looking for new, new things in this world.

And by the way, I got some emails from shluchim. They asked me if there's anything from the Rebbe — anything — if there's anything from the Rebbe about how we should teach children, how we should raise them — I mean, all different things — if there was anything, letters from the Rebbe. So anyway, that's why I thought I would mention this to you today, whoever listens to the program.

So first of all, in answer to this — because he was, you could say, a principal par excellence. He was a principal — he had [unclear] meetings — [unclear]. He knew every child twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Even when they went away on vacation or went shopping, he knew where they were, he knew what they were doing. So we can listen to what he says.

So again, I just want to repeat — these are all notes from the conversations that he had with Mindel. So first of all, he says: skills for children — that's all written; the teachers and principals should study them, and you'll see you don't need to find new ways. The most important thing — Rabbi Hodakov said here — the problem is not skills for the children. He says children need skills, of course — we know, we know we can get that. It's the teachers that need skills. And his point was that if a teacher or a principal cares about the children — they really care — they are a dugma chaya, a living example. That's the biggest skill you can have. This is the skill the teachers need — not the children.

And the same thing also goes with the parents, he says — the parents have to know that they have to be a dugma chaya, a living example. When the children see at home how the parents conduct themselves — more or less, it's not a hundred percent, but more or less — the children grow up the way they should grow up.

This is mentioned — once there was a father sitting in shul, telling off his son, "Why don't you answer?" — maybe even gave him a potch for that. There was another chossid sitting next to him, and he said, "Why are you yelling at him? Why are you potching him? Not the child — if the child would see that davening is important to the father, the child would also answer." And you have to know, a parent — he says that's why you have to be a living example for the child.

So Rabbi Hodakov says that if every teacher would care about the child with [unclear], then the child wouldn't rebel. This is what he answered.

And then he gave a few examples. If a teacher says to the children in the class, "You have to have respect" — but the child sees that he goes to shul on Shabbos, and the child sees everything — and he sees that the teacher himself has a lack of respect, no skill will help. Or the teacher tells him, "You're not supposed to speak Russian," [but does so himself]. Or the teacher tells him, "You have to daven with a minyan," and the child sees that the teacher does not daven with a minyan, or daven Mincha, or daven Maariv, or comes late — a child comes late to class because he learned it from the teacher. But if he sees that the teacher comes late, there is no respect anymore. This is the biggest skill that has to be worked on. They spoke more about that.

And then he mentioned also the mother. Imagine, he says — if a child is at home (he knew exactly when a child is at home) — and the telephone rings, and the mother tells the child, "Pick up the phone, and if anybody asks if I'm home, say I am not home." So the child tells the person, "My mother is not home." The child does that — do you think, he says, that the child will ever respect his mother? So this is the only inyan: it's the teachers and the principals, not the children. They will grow up accordingly. So let's not look for new skills.

And as I mentioned a few times, "honor your father and mother" doesn't only mean that a child should honor their mother and father. The Rebbe always used to say — he told me this once — "Honor the father that is within you, and the mother that is within you." If you're a father, honor the father within you — behave like a father, whatever you do, you're a father. The same thing also with a teacher: honor the teacher within you, behave like a teacher all the time. You're on vacation, you're a teacher. You go to shul, you're a teacher. You go shopping, you're a teacher. You are a melamed, and if you care, the child senses that — that's the best skill you can give a child.

And the same thing goes also with mashpiim, he says — [unclear] — and he says that a mashpia too [unclear].

I want to say something — I want to show you something. I don't know if you can see it, but something very, very important. I heard from bochurim who were here, who lived in the 1940s — now, in 770 in the 1940s, there was a second room. There was no shul downstairs — everything was upstairs, on the floor where, you know, where Merkos is, where the Rebbe's room was.

The Rebbe — many times, as busy as the Rebbe was (he was called then the Ramash) — they told me, used to sit down between [unclear] and the back room and talk to them. I mean, in those days there was no telephone, there was no internet — some [bochurim] didn't have their parents [nearby]. The Rebbe used to — first of all, see how they're learning, and also sit down and ask how is his davening, how is his [unclear] — he was very much interested in the bochurim.

And I heard from Rabbi [unclear name] — showing [unclear] — that the Rebbe treated the bochurim in a way that he really cared, and this had an influence on the bochurim.

So when the Rebbe sat down — they told me that the Rebbe also went to [unclear], there is a second, small room, and many times the Rebbe used to put his foot on a chair. They had a sefer for him, and he just flipped through the pages — he looked at any sefer. Sometimes he used to write in [the sefer] — just take out a sefer, [unclear]. I don't know, maybe it took ten minutes, fifteen minutes. This is very interesting, what he told me.

Now, there was a box, or a plastic bag, of Shaimos — Shaimos means holy material that is not going to be used anymore; they have to bury it. So the Rebbe many times put his hand into the Shaimos, and he took out — here is a book — this is a gift to Rabbi Mindel — this is a Shaimos from the 1940s that the Rebbe took out, and the Rebbe started to write. He looked — took out this Shaimos — I don't know — and these are all pages — and the Rebbe wrote hagahos on it. He started to write hagahos here — I don't know if you can see it — he wrote hagahos, Shaimos — it's unbelievable. Here, on the bottom, he wrote it — it took him half a minute, and then the hagahos goes on. Can you imagine, the Rebbe knew exactly what it says here within half a minute, because he wrote right away the hagahos — it goes on, on all these pages, he wrote hagahos. And these have come from Shaimos, all over — here, here, this is — I don't know — this is [unclear], and this is about whatever — I'm not going to spend too much time with this now — but this is from Shaimos. And there are more things that were taken out, and he started to write — and that was — he spent time with the bochurim. This gift — there's more things. So I just want to bring out that the Rebbe appreciated the bochurim, that the Rebbe came around and really cared about them, and this is very important.

So what I want to bring out from this program is that when a teacher, when a person cares about somebody — and of course the level is the dugma chaya — they see that he really cares. This had a big hashpa'ah on these bochurim, that they told me, that they were there then. And this is a lesson that we can learn — we don't have to look for new skills, just the teachers and the principals have to be a dugma chaya. This is what Rabbi Hodakov was always stressing.

Thank you, Mr. [unclear] — next week we'll continue our weekly program.