On Children Choosing Their Friends Carefully

Welcome to our weekly Mesivta Shabbos program. I hope everybody had a chag kosher v'sameach, a good Yom Tov.

I think it was the Rebbe Rashab — somebody said to the Rebbe Rashab, "After Yom Kippur, what's now? Everybody did teshuvah, everybody's clean, what's now?" So the Rebbe Rashab answered, "Yetzt darf men erst teshuvah tun" — now he has to start doing teshuvah.

So since now it's after Pesach, zman cheiruseinu, now we have to work on our middos. And that's the reason that from after Pesach, the Shabbos after Pesach, till Rosh Hashanah, we learn Pirkei Avos. Because in the summertime, the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, is much stronger than in the winter — ayin ro'eh v'halev chamed, the eye sees and the heart desires. And people have to be careful with what they look at, with other things. So Pirkei Avos gives us a chizuk; it's in the seder avodah of the year, that moach shalit al halev, the mind rules over the heart, not that the heart rules over the mind.

The Ribono Shel Olam made it so that in a human being there are three important organs in a person's body. The moach, the mind, is on top, the head. In the middle is the lev, the heart. And on the bottom are the klayos, the kidneys — my yetzer lev kelayos. But the mind — not everything you feel like doing should you do; you should always think before you do, moach shalit al halev. That's why the head is on top, because it has to rule over the heart. If the heart rules over the mind, then you become a limit [unclear] — then that's not the way Hashem wants it.

And that's the reason that an animal is different than a person. A person has the head on top and the heart in the middle. An animal walks on the same level — the head, the heart, and the kidneys are all on the same level — because with them, whatever they want, they do; it's lev shalit. Not so with a person. And this is what Pirkei Avos teaches us — it strengthens us, it gives us chizuk in everything, in our entire makeup and ethics.

So the question everybody asks — Rabbi Hodakov also asked this question — why is it called Pirkei Avos? It should have been called Pirkei Middos, or Pirkei Mussar, or something like that. Why is it called "Fathers"? What do fathers have to do with this? This is a sefer of ethics.

So here I want to share with you a discussion that I had with Rabbi Hodakov, who all of us are holding onto.

In the 1970s, I taught in yeshiva, and in the afternoon I taught Talmud Torah, an hour and a half, to public school children who had no connection with Yiddishkeit at all. What did I teach them? I taught them about Shabbos — that there's a Shabbos, kashrus, brochos, tefillin, tzitzis. And many children wanted to start keeping Shabbos.

One parent came over to me and said, with derech eretz, very nicely, "Rabbi, I'm sorry to say that I have to take my children, girls and boys, out of the Hebrew school. Because they come home and tell me what I have to do. I am a reform Jew — we don't keep kosher, we don't keep Shabbos. So they come and say we have to do certain things. That's not why I sent them to Hebrew school — they should learn the history before their bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah. But I didn't send them to Hebrew school to tell me what to do."

Now, I didn't know what to do, so I asked Rabbi Mindel. Rabbi Mindel told me, "Go to Rabbi Hodakov." He was a principal — he called him the word, I remember, "par excellence." He told me, "Tell him with derech eretz" — that was under the shitah of Rabbi [Samson Raphael] Hirsch. Rabbi Mindel was a talmid; he was also a student of Rabbi Hodakov, and they had a thousand children. He was an ambassador-principal. He knew every student, where they were; he could tell me twenty-four hours a day, even if they went on vacation — not just a principal who did his job and went home. I give him a lot of credit as a principal.

"Talk to him about it, tell him what you asked me about, what to do."

So I went to Rabbi Hodakov, and I told him. He looked at me — I remember — and he said to me, "How does Pirkei Avos start?"

So I said, "Moshe kibel Torah miSinai."

So he said, "Pirkei Avos was also given at Sinai. That's why it starts with Sinai. So why do you have to teach them about Shabbos and about brochos? Teach them the halachos, the inyan of Pirkei Avos."

So I said, "You mean I shouldn't teach them?"

He said, "No. Start with that. You will see," he told me. "When you start teaching them about ethics, what it says in Pirkei Avos about how to behave bein adam l'chaveiro — when the child comes home, and the parents see that they don't get this in public school, they learned how to behave — then you can teach them about Shabbos, and kashrus, and tzitzis, and everything. Do that."

V'kach hayah, I did it, and that mother came over to me at the end of the year, she was so pleased. She said they started to keep certain mitzvos — I don't know how much, but she was so pleased. And I listened to Rabbi Hodakov.

Then Rabbi Hodakov explained to me why it's called Pirkei Avos — why "fathers"? Because Pirkei Avos is a perek for parents. Parents are supposed to be a living example, a dugma chaya. When children see that the parents are Chassidim and yirei Shamayim, they will have nachas — they will also do. Most of the time, not all, but most of the time, children follow the parents.

When the children see that the father learns Torah — that's his priority. Of course he goes to work, but he goes back to learning Torah — they feel it. Or when a child sees that the father goes to a minyan, Shacharis, Mincha, Maariv, every day, he doesn't miss a minyan, and that's important to him, he doesn't daven b'yechidus — and when they see that the mother puts negel vasser by the bed every night, and in the morning she says brochos with the children, Modeh Ani, puts on tzitzis, netilas yadayim — the children grow up yirei Shamayim and honest.

And he told me: when the telephone rings and the mother tells the child, "Pick up the phone, please — if they ask if I'm home, say I'm not home" — that's not honest. The child can never have respect for the mother after that; that's not honest. But when a mother and father are honest, then the children will be honest, and they'll grow up the way they're supposed to.

The same thing he said a few times: "Honor" doesn't only mean a child should honor the parents — honor the father that is within you, and the mother that is within you. If you're a father, honor "father" twenty-four hours a day — you go to work like a father, you go shopping like a father, you go to shul like a father, you sleep like a father, you eat like a father. Or a mother, the same thing. And the same thing with a teacher — a teacher, if he honors what being a teacher means, it's not only in the classroom; he's a teacher twenty-four hours a day. When a child sees that the teacher tells them not to talk back in the evening, and then sees the teacher talking back in the evening, he can never have respect for him. Honor the teacher. Honor. Then you live long.

And this is what Rabbi Hodakov told me. Then he said that this comes from the Rebbe, but he repeats it: a parent wrote to the Rebbe that he — the mother tries her best to do what she's supposed to, but unfortunately they don't have nachas from the children. Why is it? So he says that the Rebbe's shitah is that a parent should always know — "A parent should know who the chaveirim, the friends, are." Sometimes parents do what they're supposed to, but their chaveirim are no good. Sometimes the children are okay in yeshiva, but then when they go to camp, their chaveirim — nobody even knows who they are. That's why teachers have to be in touch with parents, parents in touch with teachers — always know who the chaveirim are, even more important than teachers.

And then somebody wrote a letter — I have it here, an English letter. Somebody called the Rebbe at night and said, "I want to know when I should send my son to Oholei Torah [?] or to the [unclear] yeshiva." He didn't know; he wanted the Rebbe to tell him. So the Rebbe told him it doesn't matter — they're both [unclear, possibly "holy institutions"]. Find out who the friends are. Find out where is better — it depends on the friends. This is what parents have to have in mind always.

Now I want to say one more thing — actually two more things. First of all, I spoke a few weeks ago in Yiddish, and I had a lot of calls about that. I want to say something — I found a sichah from the Rebbe about the importance of speaking Yiddish. Besides what I said then, the Rebbe said simply, the Rebbeim spoke Yiddish, and the Rebbe was wondering why we don't speak Yiddish.

I found in Likkutei Sichos, cheilek Lamed-Alef, cheilek Lamed-Beis, cheilek Lamed-Vov Tes Vov, cheilek Alef, Tof-Shin-Yud-Zayin — and here the Rebbe writes that he is wondering, he has a kasha [question]: [unclear Yiddish] — that Spitz Chabad [the children of leading Chassidim] speak English with each other. They grew up in homes of Chassidim, bachurim, yeshiva bachurim, they learned in Yiddish — why in English? Even the Rebbe himself doesn't speak English much [?] — why do they speak English? Now, speaking English is not an aveira, it's not a sin, but it shows — it shows that a person is mitdaber Yiddish or not. We see people who speak to their children in Yiddish, like other Chassidim, and people who don't. Even though English is not holy, the Rebbe said speaking Yiddish is very important. We're not talking about Chabad Houses — of course Chabad Houses speak English — but between ourselves, among Chassidim themselves, who come from Chassidishe homes — why?

And here I want to mention one more thing that a mashpia said. A mashpia said, years ago, when a bochur said a maamar as a chosson, he closed his eyes and said the maamar. This was the usual thing — I remember even in my time, later, listening at the farbrengens. A bochur had to close his eyes and say a maamar.

The mashpia said — I'm repeating what he said — there are bochurim today who not only keep a sefer open and don't close their eyes, they look inside; not only that, they say the maamar in English. There's nothing wrong with English, but — he said — a bochur who learned twenty, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four years in yeshiva cannot chazer one maamar with his eyes closed? Years ago, these mashpi'im used to ask the bochurim to chazer Tanya baal peh on Yud-Beis Sivan, Mishnayos baal peh — and now, at his own wedding, he can't say a maamar baal peh, he has to read it inside. And does he have to say it in English?

And he said — you know how they say it — the zeide says "the holy Shabbos," the son says "Shabbos," the grandson says "weekend." What will the great-grandson say? If bochurim now say a maamar reading from inside, some in English, some reading it from inside — if we do that now, chas v'shalom, if Moshiach doesn't come in five or ten years, what will our great-great-grandchildren say? So the Rebbe wanted that when we say a maamar, we should try to close our eyes, not read it inside, and say it in Yiddish — this is the way a Yid is.

Now I want to end up — I know there's no time — with one more thing, talking about Pirkei Avos, about parents.

We [I] come from Cleveland, Ohio. There was a family in Cleveland, Ohio — the father was a Litvisher, but the wife came from a Chabad family from Sweden. What happened? Their whole life was their children — they had twelve children. You'd walk into the house, and under each child's bed, every child had a suitcase. What was in the suitcase? The girls had a dress, clothes, shoes, socks. The boys had pants, tallis katan, a shirt, and shoes. So I asked, "What is that?" They said, "The children know Moshiach is coming any minute, and when Moshiach comes, they'll take the suitcase and go, and they'll be ready right away." And every three years they changed the clothes because the children grew out of them. This is emunah in Moshiach.

I asked, "How did you get this emunah?" He said, "Well, we are Chofetz Chaim Yidden, totally" — because the Chofetz Chaim believed very much in Moshiach. The Chofetz Chaim was a kohen. The Chofetz Chaim had a problem with his heart, so the doctor said he needed a procedure, to put something in his heart. He didn't want it. He said, "Because I'm a kohen, and Moshiach will come soon, and I'll have to serve in the Beis HaMikdash, and I'll have a mum [blemish]." So he didn't let them, and he lived long anyway. So this is where they got their emunah in Moshiach, they told me.

Anyway, I wanted to mention this — so we see from here that this is what Pirkei Avos teaches. If parents behave the way Pirkei Avos says they're supposed to, then they'll have nachas from their children.

We'll be here next week to continue our weekly program. Thank you.