Boy Sent Home Because of Tuition Wrote to the Rebbe

Transcript

Welcome to our weekly Motzei Shabbos program.

Since now is the time that people are registering their children for the new school year — yeshivas, seminaries, in town, out of town — I want to share with you two letters. I have them right here.

One letter was written by a boy of 11 years old who wrote to the Rebbe. And another letter was written by a mother to the Rebbe. I spoke to that child's father, and he told me the entire story, because I told him I saw the letter — I have a copy, but the Rebbe has the original.

He said it like this: the boy, his son, came to yeshiva, and the principal told him he should go home. He asked, "Why?" The principal said, "Your father knows, but I cannot tell you. Ask your father. You should go home." So he came home. His father asked him, "Why are you home so early?" He told his father that the principal told him to go home, but he doesn't know why. So his father told him that it was probably because he didn't pay tuition, or didn't pay full tuition — I'm not sure exactly, but it had to do with tuition.

The child sat down and he wrote a letter to the Rebbe, and he was crying while he was writing it — the father told me this. He wrote, "I'm home. I was sent out from yeshiva. My father didn't pay tuition, or he didn't pay full tuition, I'm not sure. And that's why I'm home now," and he wanted to tell this to the Rebbe.

The Rebbe got his letter. As soon as he got the letter, he called Rabbi Hodakov — the father told me this — and the Rebbe told him, "Call the principal right away. He should be back in yeshiva within an hour. And if not" — he didn't say the rest. He didn't say it.

So he called him, of course, and of course they took him back in.

The father then spoke to Rabbi Hodakov and asked, "What is the Rebbe's shita about tuition?" Rabbi Hodakov told him, "The Rebbe's shita is that no child can be refused from yeshiva or from cheder, from school, if tuition is not paid. If it's not paid, let the father deal with the principal — they can go to a din Torah, whatever — but it has nothing to do with the child." That entire year, I'm telling you, the Rebbe did not answer. That principal wrote letters, and the Rebbe did not even want to answer him.

Last year I read on this program an entire sicha of the Rebbe about tuition, where the Rebbe was saying that people give money for beautiful stones in buildings. If they don't have enough money — there's enough money in America, and they should make an effort to collect it — tuition should not even go for the building, the Rebbe says. Tuition should go for the teachers.

The Rebbe was also saying there that principals don't have to sit on a beautiful office chair. The yeshiva — what do you call it — is made for children. The hanhala is working for the children; the children are not working for the principal, for the hanhala. Even if parents do have money and could pay tuition and don't pay for whatever reason, it has nothing to do with the child. The child has to be in school, in yeshiva.

Another thing — this is what Rabbi Hodakov said, not the Rebbe — if the principal says there's no room, or it's taka a tzaddik's point that there really is no room, so if a parent comes and the principal cannot take in the child, he has an achrayus, Rabbi Hodakov said — a responsibility — to see that that child gets into a yeshiva. He should not rest until the child is placed.

This is one thing I wanted to mention today: how important it is that no child should be left behind.

Another thing I want to say now is about the mother's letter. The mother wrote to the Rebbe years ago that her son is a mesifta-age boy. He's a quiet boy — this is a copy of the letter — a quiet boy. He doesn't miss a minyan. He's a ba'al oilnik [?]. Very eidel. Very refined. She doubles every word.

"My husband and I," she writes, "always try to teach the children — shalom, not to speak lashon hara — derech eretz. This is the main thing." She writes that he tries hard, but he's not a student, he doesn't have the best head, but he's a very nice, eidel boy. "When I tried to register him in a mesifta," she writes, "many don't want to accept him, or they give me problems. They don't ask how is his derech eretz. The principal doesn't ask, does he go to a minyan every day? Instead they ask, how are his grades? If his grades aren't an aleph-plus, then they have questions, because they want the best boys. Is this more important than what the parents are trying to teach their children? Is this the shita of Lubavitch? It looks to me like this is a litvisher style. I myself feel down."

That's what she writes. I'm sure other parents have the same problem — the first thing they ask is the grades, not what kind of child he is.

Now, I was looking for an answer to this, and I couldn't find a direct one to her letter. But I did do some research about the shita of the Rebbe on this. Rabbi Hodakov said two things. He said people have to know: derech eretz kodem laTorah — that comes before learning. Rabbi Hodakov himself was a principal of Torah and derech eretz in Riga — a very important, excellent principal. We'll talk about that some other time.

A principal's first concern should be what kind of child this is — his derech eretz. That's why the Torah begins with the letter beis, in Bereishis, because aleph is derech eretz kodem laTorah. That's why the Gemara — Tanya shiva b'ei — begins on daf beis. What happened to aleph? Because derech eretz kodem laTorah applies to everything in Torah. This is the beginning of everything, and this is what has to be known before Chabad, before anything.

A person has to have kabbalas ol — to accept the yoke of parents, of teachers. This is the ikkar of Torah and mitzvos. This is the beginning. Only then do we speak about na'aseh v'nishma. The Rebbe explained that na'aseh means you have to do, and nishma means you have to listen — but it's na'aseh first, then nishma. When a person does, automatically the nishma, the understanding, comes easier. When you tell a person to put on tefillin l'shem — and he has questions, "why do I have to put on tefillin, explain to me" — but if he puts on the tefillin first, it will automatically be easier for him to understand afterward.

So it goes with everything. When a person has kabbalas ol, when a person has derech eretz, when a person davens, automatically the learning will be real learning. This is what the yeshiva should know, and this is what Lubavitch stands for.

I remember we spoke a few weeks ago that when my zaide learned with the Rebbe — Reb Levi Yitzchak, the Rebbe's father — he said to my zaide, "The first thing children have to [learn] before learning is shivisi Hashem l'negdi tamid, that the Aibershter is always in front of them." This is the ikkar of Chabad, if you take it to mean the ruchniyus.

The Frierdiker Rebbe said that when you learn with a child, in order for the child to grow up the way he's supposed to, you first teach "kometz aleph — oh," "kometz beis — bo," not just "aleph, bo." It depends how you learn with a child — that's how he's going to grow up. That is the ikkar. This direction is more important, of course the person also has to learn, but this is an answer, so to speak, regarding everything we're discussing.

There is one more thing I want to mention here: that the teachers also have to be a living example. Through them being a living example, the children are going to behave and be better. [The Rebbe] goes into different ways about this.

I want to finish off with this. I was in the Yeshiva of Brooklyn — the Rebbe told me to be in the Yeshiva of Brooklyn. Many times I wanted to leave for other places, and the Rebbe [?] wanted me to stay, and I saw later on what the Rebbe meant.

There was a principal there, his name was Rabbi Manis Mandel. He was a great person — a true (emes) principal, a leader in chinuch, truly.

Every Sunday he used to go and test children from third grade, second grade, on Chumash. He took a child into his office to test him on Chumash. The door was closed in the room, and next to his room was the secretary's office. A big giver walks in and wants to speak to Rabbi Mandel. So the secretary knocks on Rabbi Mandel's door and says someone wants to talk to him. "Who is he?" His name was Mr. Whitaker [?] — I can tell you his name. Rabbi Mandel said, "Tell him to wait a few minutes. I'm in the middle of Rashi, I'm in the middle of testing Rashi. Wait until I finish, then I'll see him."

So she told him, and he waited, and waited, and waited. He was still there. She knocked again. Rabbi Mandel said, "Okay, I'm almost done." She told the man he's almost done. Anyway, the man left — he couldn't wait anymore. After Rabbi Mandel finished testing the child, he opened the door and said, "Now you can bring him in." She said, "But he left." "No," he said, "what can I do? I was in the middle of teaching Rashi. You can't interrupt — I'm in the middle of learning with the child. How could I show the child that I would leave him in the middle of Rashi to go see someone else?"

This happened on a Sunday. On Tuesday, this man called Rabbi Mandel and said, "I want to tell you something. I give stock to many yeshivas. I never saw anything like it. Wherever I go, when a principal hears I have money, right away they drop everything and come to me. But I saw how earnest you were, that you were in the middle of learning with that child, and even though you knew I wanted to give money, you didn't stop. Because of that, I'm going to give you double — and more." And he gave a lot of money for that.

I wrote this story to the Rebbe when I was there. So the Rebbe asked Rabbi Hodakov to send the yeshiva a check. The Rebbe liked this story — the Rebbe liked what happened. This is an example of a true principal: the child, the Chumash, comes before anything. And when you do the mitzvah — when you act with sincerity — then the Aibershter gives the neshama what it needs, and then you'll have the money too. You see that the person wants to give even more.

This is what I wanted to bring out today, since now is the time people are registering their children. So b'ezras Hashem, we should all have nachas from our children. Baruch Hashem, [unclear]. B'ezras Hashem, next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.