Raising Children in Africa with a Sense of Privilege: Education on Shlichus | Rabbi Chaim Bar Sela #009

00:00 Speaker 1 The shliach Rabbi Chaim Bar Sela. Welcome.

00:03 Speaker 2 Glad to be here. It’s great to be here, Meir.

00:06 Speaker 1 Seriously, seriously. The truth is, we’re brothers-in-law, and I’ve known you for a few years now.

00:10 Speaker 2 Guilty as charged.

00:13 Speaker 1 And since I got to know you, I’ve been exposed a bit more to the challenges and the realities of shlichus. So let’s start with the fact that you’re a shliach in Africa, in Rwanda. We’ll talk about that, and I’d also love to talk about shlichus in general: the challenges, what led you to choose to go on shlichus, and, most importantly, the main subject we’ll come to at the end—raising children on shlichus. I think a lot of us send our children to preschool or cheder, and they come home. On shlichus, especially where you are, it’s a little different. I’d like us to talk about that world.

00:46 Speaker 2 With pleasure. That’s why I’m here.

00:48 Speaker 1 Great, let’s start. Tell us a little about the practical details.

00:51 Speaker 2 We’re on shlichus in Kigali, Rwanda. It’s a country in East Africa, near Congo, Burundi, and Uganda. A small country, with fourteen million people. We’ve been there—actually, yesterday, on 15 Menachem Av, we celebrated seven years.

01:09 Speaker 1 Oh.

01:09 Speaker 2 We’ve entered our eighth year. When we arrived, there was nothing in terms of Jewish life or a community. We were the first to come to the country, and little by little we built a community. Today we have a very close-knit community of about a hundred Jews from all over the world—Americans, Europeans, Israelis.

01:33 Speaker 1 Were there that many when you arrived, or...?

01:35 Speaker 2 No, no. There were just a few dozen.

01:37 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

01:37 Speaker 2 Over time, more people came, and the people changed. People come and go—there isn’t really a local Jewish community. They aren’t Rwandans; they’re Jews from abroad who work there, or each has their own reason for being in Rwanda. And over time, more and more Jews have been arriving. Most of our work is with the community. There are also tourists and other visitors, and many organizations—NGOs.

02:05 Speaker 1 What does that mean?

02:06 Speaker 2 Nonprofits. In Africa generally, there are a lot of nonprofits and organizations that help people in need. But in Rwanda specifically, thirty years ago there was a genocide. More than a million people were killed in three months. Since then, the country has, in a sense, been reborn. They’re rebuilding in every area, including healthcare and education. Today it’s one of the safest countries in Africa. It’s very clean, very orderly, but it’s still Africa.

02:41 Speaker 1 So what are these NGOs?

02:43 Speaker 2 Jews come to volunteer in education and medicine. We have a doctor in the community who performs heart surgery on children. He works for a Jewish organization called Save a Child’s Heart.

02:56 Speaker 1 So a lot of organizations support the country’s recovery.

02:59 Speaker 2 Right.

03:00 Speaker 1 Hold on—what made you decide to do this? I have children, and I want them to be shluchim. We work in the world of yeshivos and so on. How does that happen? Where does it come from? Is it your family? Is it something you saw or experienced?

03:15 Speaker 2 Wow. At home, the truth is, both my parents worked in a bank for forty years. My siblings all work in secular professions now—law, accounting, and so on. I’m the youngest, and I’m the only one on shlichus today. So the truth is, it mainly came from yeshiva. Of course, we grew up with the whole concept of shlichus, but in yeshiva it became clear to me that I would go on shlichus. Before I started looking for a shidduch, that was a condition for me.

03:47 Speaker 1 How? What happened there?

03:49 Speaker 2 I studied in yeshiva in Kiryat Gat, in both the younger and older divisions. It’s a very special place. One year in the older division, the student shluchim organized farbrengens throughout the year with shluchim from around Israel who came to farbreng. I remember those farbrengens. There was a shliach from Elad, and others from all sorts of places, including Be’er Sheva. We would sit and listen as they farbrenged, and in those moments I decided I wanted to go on shlichus.

04:19 Speaker 1 Wow.

04:20 Speaker 2 Hearing them, their stories and their dedication, I knew right away—

04:27 Speaker 1 So those farbrengens, over the years, built something in you—

04:29 Speaker 2 They built my desire and my decision to go on shlichus. And thank G-d, we really were privileged to go.

04:35 Speaker 1 And how did it happen? You’re a young newlywed, you say you’re going on shlichus, you get married, and then...?

04:40 Speaker 2 Right after the wedding, we spent our first year in kollel in Jerusalem. Toward the end of that year, we started looking for a place. When I was meeting my wife during the shidduch process, I told her we would go on shlichus, no matter where—Dimona, Yerucham, or Florida. Wherever we were needed, we would be there. The first place that told me to come was Nigeria, a country in West Africa. It’s a very difficult country.

05:15 Speaker 1 Oh, you didn’t start in Rwanda?

05:16 Speaker 2 No, we started in Lagos, Nigeria. It’s a very, very tough place to live in general, certainly as a Jew, and all the more so as a shliach. It was a very special experience. There’s a shliach in Abuja, the capital, and we came to work under him, to help and develop the activities in Lagos. After a few months, a young couple arrived there, and we moved on to open a new country, Rwanda. We flew from Nigeria to Rwanda with what we had gathered there, a few—

05:47 Speaker 1 We didn’t go back to Israel.

05:48 Speaker 2 We didn’t go back to Israel. We came from there with two mezuzos, a kippah, a bentcher, and a siddur. That’s how we opened the Chabad House.

05:55 Speaker 1 I imagine—and I’m sure you’ll tell us more about the place itself in a moment—that you don’t arrive to find a shul and a community waiting for you. At that stage, what keeps you going? I mean, what...?

06:08 Speaker 2 Of course, it’s the—

06:11 Speaker 1 Because it’s... it’s crazy. You took your whole family there. All your children grew up in Rwanda.

06:16 Speaker 2 Right. They were actually all born while we were on shlichus. [unclear][?] was born when we were still in Nigeria, but the three children after that were born in Rwanda. In other words, they’ve lived on shlichus their whole lives. They’ve never lived in Israel. At first, what keeps you going is understanding that you’ve gone on shlichus and you need to do what needs to be done. You arrive in a new place, and of course there’s the excitement of it. Especially in places like that, you start from zero. There’s nothing. Every little thing is a project; everything takes organizing and planning. Getting milk and making it kosher, arranging chalav Yisroel, bringing in kosher chicken, a mezuzah, a siddur, davening—every single thing is a project. You’re building the shlichus from zero to a hundred, and if you don’t do something, it simply doesn’t exist. So that constantly drives us to create more and more, because if we don’t do it, it won’t happen. For example, now that we’re here—

07:09 Speaker 1 You’re visiting Israel.

07:10 Speaker 2 We’re visiting Israel. We know that if I’m not there, there’s no one to lead Kabbalas Shabbos. There won’t be kiddush; kosher food won’t be served.

07:18 Speaker 1 So what do you do?

07:19 Speaker 2 We brought in bochurim from the Shluchim Center. Two bochurim are there for the whole time we’re away. So the Chabad House keeps running as usual and meets all the needs. Shlichus is a responsibility every single moment. You can’t turn off the lights and leave, even for a day. And the truth is, it happens to us every time: whenever we leave the country for one reason or another, that’s exactly when we get all kinds of messages and calls from people. For example, just yesterday the head of the Jewish Federation of France called me.

07:53 Speaker 1 What is that, exactly?

07:54 Speaker 2 He’s in charge of the Jewish federation in France, the liaison between the Jewish communities and the government. It’s a very senior political position with a lot of influence. He happens to be visiting Rwanda and wants to come to davening and a Friday-night meal. So—

08:09 Speaker 1 And you’re not there.

08:09 Speaker 2 And I’m not there. That, and all kinds of other things, always happen when we’re away. I always tell myself that the Rebbe makes sure it happens just then. Because when you’re in a place, you get used to it over time, and you start asking yourself, “What am I doing here?” Everything seems routine; everything just carries on. Then, when we go away, we get these unusual phone calls and say, “Why am I not there right now? Why am I not there?” That gives us the strength to return with all our energy—and even more.

08:42 Speaker 1 Guys, another episode of On Chabad Education is starting. If you connect with what’s happening here, click Follow on one of the platforms. The more our community grows, the more we’ll be able to bring in special guests and produce content of the highest quality. Be part of the journey. Let’s continue. So, about the difficulty: you’re saying that at the beginning, it’s a shlichus and it’s exciting, right from the start. But ultimately, the point is that if you’re not there, there’s nothing, and that Jew won’t get what he needs.

09:08 Speaker 2 And really, it’s daily work. Going out on shlichus isn’t just something you do on that first day. Just as every day a Jew has to leave Egypt, as though you left Egypt today, you go out on shlichus each and every day. Every day you start again with the understanding that you’re going out on shlichus, that you’re on a mission and you have a responsibility. If you don’t do it, it won’t happen. There’s also the difficulty of dealing with that. Every so often you have setbacks, and you ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Is it worth it? Where do I get the strength? What am I doing all this for? Why am I sacrificing my whole life, so to speak, and my children and family, a social life and a community, and so many other things? What for? And why? Just last week, by hashgachah pratis, a letter was published—they printed it in Dvar Malchus—in which the Rebbe writes to a Jew who is traveling to Africa. The Rebbe writes to him that one doesn’t travel to Africa every month, or even every year; it’s a very unusual event, and there must be a reason for it. He needs to act on it in his service of Hashem, in his shlichus. The Rebbe mentions the story of the Rebbe Maharash, who traveled specially to Paris to save one young man, one Jew, without even being sure he would succeed in influencing him. But the Rebbe Maharash devoted his time to it. So even for one Jew, you need to travel and carry out the shlichus.

10:26 Speaker 1 Wow.

10:27 Speaker 2 And certainly in a place like ours, where we have fewer than a hundred Jews in the community. None of them came there because they were looking for Yiddishkeit. Each came for their own reasons.

10:40 Speaker 1 I wanted to ask you: Why do Jews live there in the first place? What brings a person to Rwanda? What’s there that would make a Jew leave his life here in Israel? You mentioned Europeans moving from place to place and ending up in Rwanda.

10:49 Speaker 2 As I always say, nobody came to Rwanda looking for Yiddishkeit. Some came for business, some for diplomatic work, and some as volunteers. Sadly, many are married to local people.

11:01 Speaker 1 Intermarriage.

11:02 Speaker 2 There’s a great deal of intermarriage. We arrived, so to speak, as something additional. Gradually, the goal was to connect those Jews with their Judaism, make Judaism accessible to them, and show them that they need it. Over time, it turned around: now the reason some of them stay is the community and the Chabad House. There are even several families who left. One couple, Jews from France who had lived in Rwanda, made aliyah to Israel. They couldn’t find their place here. They didn’t find a community or feel connected, and after a little over a year they came back, just because they felt they had a home and a community where they could come for Shabbos and holidays. We’re really their family. And there are a few other examples like that.

11:52 Speaker 1 That’s incredible. We’re mainly focused on education here. So far we’ve talked about shlichus; I want to talk about education—raising children on shlichus. A shliach can spend a lot of time educating others. But at the end of the day, you also have children. And besides managing money and raising funds, hunger, and so on and so forth—I understand a shliach carries many other responsibilities too. What challenges have you faced, and what solutions have you found, in raising children in a place so far away and so unfamiliar, with no community for dozens of kilometers around?

12:29 Speaker 2 First, I’ll point out that the first priority is educating our own children. Before anything else, before all the important and special tasks, first and foremost we have to take care of the children on shlichus.

12:42 Speaker 1 Have there been times when that statement has come to you like—

12:47 Speaker 2 Absolutely. I think everyone experiences this in everyday life. You suddenly get a call from your boss right when you’re having dinner with the children, or you’ve sat down to learn with your child, and you stop to answer the phone. Or there are other distractions. As parents, we constantly need to remember and remind ourselves that those things can’t come at the children’s expense.

13:09 Speaker 1 Right, but I think here both the boss and the work can be very holy and G-dly things. You know what I mean? To say, “Well, I have money”—that can also come at the children’s expense. Have you found yourself in situations where you...?

13:20 Speaker 2 Look.

13:20 Speaker 1 What do you think about that?

13:21 Speaker 2 Yes, absolutely. There’s a difference between your boss calling in the evening and a Jew coming to put on tefillin right now, or someone with a halachic question. Still, if this is the time set aside for the children, then that’s the shlichus. On our shlichus, besides the community, the visitors and the Jews, our children are part of our shlichus.

13:42 Speaker 1 Wow.

13:43 Speaker 2 I mean, we brought them here. It isn’t their fault they ended up in Rwanda. Nobody asked them; they didn’t choose it. Of course they’re very happy about it, but it wasn’t their choice. It was our decision as parents, and they were born into this reality. As parents, though, we have to see to everything they lack, all their—

14:04 Speaker 1 All their needs.

14:05 Speaker 2 All their needs, and make sure this doesn’t come at their expense. Of course, life here in Israel is different from life in a place like that. But materially, they shouldn’t lack anything, and certainly, spiritually, their education shouldn’t suffer or be diminished in the slightest because they live in a place like that.

14:26 Speaker 1 Wow.

14:26 Speaker 2 So that’s our shlichus. If, for example, this is the time when I sit and learn alef-beis with my child, or Tanya, or whatever it may be, I won’t answer that Jew, because right now I’m occupied with this shlichus.

14:40 Speaker 1 I imagine it’s easy to get mixed up about that.

14:42 Speaker 2 Of course there are—

14:45 Speaker 1 At the beginning, it happens a lot.

14:47 Speaker 2 It’s something you constantly have to reinforce, again and again, and remind yourself of. And you know, a person needs to think about his children’s education all the time, to reflect on it every day. Part of that is thinking about how to manage your time better and how to stand by your principles more firmly. The children certainly shouldn’t suffer because they’re on shlichus. So, back to the original question: it really is very challenging. We arrived in a country where there was nothing—no solutions, no answer for the children’s education. In the first few years, when the children were small, they were at home. That was easy, and we were relatively able to function during the day with the children around us. But as they got older—

15:35 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

15:36 Speaker 2 It became very, very hard, especially for my wife, particularly seeing how lonely they were. They had no friends, no interaction with other children, and it affected her shlichus. She reached a point where she wasn’t prepared to continue like that—with us carrying on this way and the children staying around us all day.

16:00 Speaker 1 Meaning, the children being at home—she said she—

16:02 Speaker 2 Couldn’t do it anymore. We consulted several rabbis and sent the children to a local preschool at an international school. It was a non-Jewish preschool, and at the time they were the only Jewish children there. Of course, we specifically looked for one with no religious affiliation—no Christianity, no Islam, nothing. And of course they knew the children ate only kosher food. We sent food with them, and they started their day late. Until ten in the morning they were with their mother: they davened, learned something, did a craft activity, and only then went to preschool. It was mainly for companionship, to help them develop interaction with other children.

16:43 Speaker 1 Social skills.

16:44 Speaker 2 Skills, yes, the skills a child needs. Ultimately, they need friends. And when they got older and reached the stage where they could learn on a computer through Cheder Net, of course we enrolled them immediately.

16:55 Speaker 1 Which, basically, Cheder Net is—

16:57 Speaker 2 Cheder Net is an online school for the children of shluchim around the world who live in places where they don’t have a school, so they study on Zoom. It’s been around for decades, since long before COVID. My son just finished first grade, and his class meets for four hours a day. His classmates are children from all over the world—Australia, New Zealand, Japan. They’re in different time zones, too. Some log in in the evening in their pajamas, while for him it’s morning, time for Shacharis. So he has four hours, and Mendy, who just finished third grade, has only two. After that ends, he goes to kindergarten. He stayed in kindergarten for another year, which he’s just finished, so next year he’ll start first grade and be there all day. And then there are the two little ones.

17:45 Speaker 1 Who are still too young to join the others.

17:47 Speaker 2 Right. One is under three and the other is four, so they already go to a kindergarten that we opened—which is a story in itself.

17:59 Speaker 1 What do you mean? How did that come about? A Jewish kindergarten?

18:02 Speaker 2 We’d wanted to open a kindergarten for many years. We tried every year, but as I said at the beginning, the parents weren’t all that enthusiastic. They weren’t specifically looking for a Jewish kindergarten. In fact, they saw an advantage in an international kindergarten, with children from all over the world and different languages and cultures. So a Jewish kindergarten didn’t speak to them or interest them, certainly not a new one where they’d be guinea pigs, so to speak. For several years now, my wife has run an activity called Sunday School. On Sundays, children from the community come and learn the alef-beis and Jewish traditions, and prepare for the holidays. But that starts at a certain age. Over time, we saw a need to do something for younger children too—two- and three-year-olds. So once a week she’d hold a get-together called Baby Jewish, on Tuesdays. They’d read a story in Hebrew, listen to some Hebrew songs, do a craft project, and of course learn about Judaism.

19:03 Speaker 1 That’s for really young children.

19:05 Speaker 2 Toddlers who came with their mother or father. I’d meet with the parents while my wife was with the children, with the toddlers. The first time we did it, I suddenly saw twelve children. I said, “There are this many children in the community? We need to do something with this. We can’t neglect it any longer.” That evening we sat down and said, “We’re opening a kindergarten.” To make it work, we created a model for an international kindergarten as well. We didn’t market it as a Jewish kindergarten. Of course, people know that we opened it and run it, but it’s an international kindergarten for everyone. From our perspective, even if just one Jewish child enrolled, we’d have done our part: that child would be under our care. Of course, the kindergarten would be kosher and closed on the holidays, and so on. Gradually, we’d bring in Jewish content, or gather the Jewish children who enrolled and do activities with them. What actually happened was that all twelve of those children were the first to enroll. We’ve just finished the year with seventeen children, and we hope to have twenty-five next year. So it’s still a mixed kindergarten.

20:16 Speaker 1 So it’s a relatively high-standard international kindergarten, where they learn languages and so on, and you bring in the—

20:24 Speaker 2 Right. First of all, we set a high standard. When we opened the kindergarten, we knew we wanted it to compete with the best kindergartens in Rwanda. To succeed, you have to do your best so parents don’t feel they’re compromising.

20:41 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

20:42 Speaker 2 Today it really is considered one of the best kindergartens in Rwanda. We brought in lots of things from abroad that you just can’t get there. The staff, what we’ve invested in the place, even the nutritional menu—we paid attention to all the little things, so a parent would feel it really is the most highly regarded place in Kigali. By the way, it’s the same with Chabad House restaurants. For a restaurant to succeed, and for a Jew to happily come and eat kosher there without feeling that he’s settling for some schnitzel, it has to be of a very, very high standard. It has to compete with any—

21:20 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

21:20 Speaker 2 —of the most upscale restaurants in the city.

21:22 Speaker 1 He shouldn’t feel he’s compromising. That connects very much with what you said at the beginning about the children: they shouldn’t feel, you know...

21:28 Speaker 2 Right, that they’re missing out on something because they live—

21:30 Speaker 1 Yes.

21:30 Speaker 2 —in Rwanda. So that’s our kindergarten, which is open and—

21:36 Speaker 1 And it’s been running for a year already—

21:38 Speaker 2 A little over a year, and now we’re going into its third year.

21:41 Speaker 1 But when you look ahead—I have young children too, though not younger than yours, and my oldest... I also meet the children of shluchim in yeshivos. I don’t know if you encountered this, but I grew up in yeshivos too, and we had children of shluchim in our class. Is it something you think about? I mean, what happens when this stage ends and a boy goes off to Israel for a few years? In the end, what you’ve given them—you always give, we always give—but do you have any...?

22:14 Speaker 2 That’s the first time anyone’s asked me that question.

22:16 Speaker 1 Yes.

22:16 Speaker 2 Usually people ask my wife what will happen when the children are thirteen or fourteen and leave for yeshivos. I’ll answer the way she does. Of course we think about it. But because we know the day will come when, for their own good, they’ll have to leave, spread their wings and go to another country to study in yeshivos and get a better education, we understand that today, while they’re with us, we need to make the most of every moment with them. We need to invest everything we can in them—in their education, their material needs, their social lives—because in a few years they’ll leave.

23:00 Speaker 1 Yes.

23:01 Speaker 2 Uh—

23:01 Speaker 1 That’s incredible. And—

23:02 Speaker 2 So we live in the moment.

23:04 Speaker 1 You have to. Are there things you see on shlichus that your children are getting, where you say, “That could only happen in a shluchim’s home”?

23:15 Speaker 2 Definitely. Look, it has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, as I’m sure you see in the yeshiva world, I also grew up in Israel with children of shluchim who would come for vacations, in the summer or to camps, and I could see the difference. Children on shlichus naturally spend much of their time around adults—grown-ups, travelers—so they interact much more with adults. I don’t want to say they speak like adults, but they have more interaction with older people, and that can create a bit of a social gap.

23:52 Speaker 1 Meaning they’ll talk more with the travelers at the Chabad House, the people in the community.

23:56 Speaker 2 Right. They’ll ask an adult more questions and show curiosity and interest in things that other young children their age might not be interested in. That’s one thing. On the other hand, they have many advantages—not that this is a disadvantage, but there are advantages specifically to being in a place like this. My wife and I have often talked and thought about it, especially before the holidays, when it’s the eve of a Yom Tov and we miss our childhood memories. We both grew up in Jerusalem. I remember going into the supermarket before Pesach, and all the products were for Pesach. In the newspapers, the advertisements, on the radio—everywhere, you felt the atmosphere of the holiday. Certainly in our communities, out on the street you could see the cleaning and all the bustle. And before Sukkos, there were the arba minim markets and all the sukkahs being built. A holiday atmosphere that—

25:01 Speaker 3 It’s all around you, yes.

25:02 Speaker 2 And we don’t have that. I mean, this is what we do. So sometimes we ask ourselves, “What a shame—my children don’t have that childhood experience.” But on the other hand, the answer is that, yes, they don’t have that childhood experience, but they have a different one. It’s their childhood experience. What they experience is getting ready with matzos a month before Pesach, dividing them into sets of three, coming with me to workplaces and distributing them to members of the community. Or before Sukkos, we go and build ten sukkahs at families’ homes every year. We drive there together, assemble them, carry things and build. And we receive the arba minim as early as Erev Rosh Hashanah. Or before Yom Tov, or every Friday morning, they wake up and immediately see the table set for thirty people. It’s Friday, and they’re excited from the morning. That’s something I didn’t have as a child. They have a different experience, but it’s no less good. It’s their childhood. Everyone needs to live their own experience, rather than try to impose on their children something they had and pass it on. I remember meeting children of shluchim when I was a child. I’d envy them and say, “Wow, I wish I could grow up where they’re growing up, the way they’re growing up.” Today I’ve been privileged that my children are growing up that way. So I don’t think they’re missing anything. If anything, they have something others don’t.

26:39 Speaker 3 Has there ever been a moment when one of your children asked you why you’re there? When your son asks, “Abba, what am I doing here? Why are we here?” How do you answer something like that?

26:49 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s happened a few times, especially when they’re young and miss Grandma, or a visit to Israel, or just before we return to Rwanda. “Why are we here? Why can’t we grow up in Israel?” The simple answer is that we’re on shlichus. This is our shlichus, this is our mission, and this is what the Rebbe wants from us. And we do it with joy. I’ll tell you something: these children are growing up knowing that this is the best place for them, the place where they’re happiest. A shliach once told me that the Rebbe doesn’t need us to do him any favors. In other words, if you live somewhere convinced that you’re making a tremendous sacrifice, that you’re unfortunate all day long—don’t do anyone any favors. Nobody asked you to. Mesirus nefesh is living in Kfar Chabad or Crown Heights. Being on shlichus is a privilege. Of course there are challenges and difficulties, things a member of the community won’t experience. But this is our privilege and our greatest joy. Our children live with that too. They understand that we were chosen, that we’ve been privileged to be on shlichus, and they live it every day. As they get older, they understand it more. They’re proud of it and happy about it. Whenever a group comes, they love standing up and speaking to them, telling them about their shlichus and their experience. We don’t have that feeling of sacrifice at all, because we truly lack nothing. Yes, it comes up in day-to-day life: suddenly I can’t sit and farbreng with friends, or family events happen and we miss them. But those are moments along the way. On the other hand, we have so

28:43 Speaker 2 many advantages. We live with this privilege, in a completely different place and a completely different reality. That’s the price we pay, but it’s not a price you

28:53 Speaker 4 feel sorry for yourself over.

28:54 Speaker 2 Feel sorry for yourself over and suffer from. On the contrary, we’re happy every moment we’re there. And really, this applies to any shlichus, but certainly to a country in Africa where there’s a great deal of poverty and deprivation, power outages and water problems. Everything is very challenging. Even basic products are hard to get. The cultures are different, and dealing with local people—every little thing is a task, and a difficult one. But we’re learning and working on it together with the children, so that we enjoy this place and being part of it, so we can connect with our shlichus and our community. You’ll never hear us telling our children how hard it is here, how much we lack, what we’re missing out on, or how poor and unfortunate the people here are. Just the opposite. Reality is reality, but we talk about the good things this place has. When tourists or other visitors come and ask those same questions, my children naturally tell them that life here is good and that, baruch Hashem, we truly lack nothing.

30:09 Speaker 4 Really.

30:10 Speaker 2 It’s a mindset you live with, and the message you pass on to your children. I hear stories about children who grew up on shlichus and always saw their parents suffering—struggling to make a living, facing financial difficulties and other challenges.

30:26 Speaker 4 That they have to deal with.

30:27 Speaker 2 Of course they have to deal with them. We deal with them too, very much so. But the children don’t have to grow up thinking, “It’s so hard here; we’re so unfortunate.” Especially if I want my children to become shluchim too, to devote themselves to the Rebbe’s instructions and use their lives here to help another Jew, they need to know that it’s the greatest privilege and the greatest joy. We don’t suffer from it. On the contrary, we enjoy it.

30:56 Speaker 4 Powerful. Before we finish, we have a custom here of asking every guest for a tip—a tip in avodas Hashem or in education. So if you have something that works for you and you’d like to share it with us...

31:10 Speaker 2 I’ll mention a few things. First, especially in a place like this on shlichus—of course the children learn in cheder, but there are still many things they lack. It’s very hard for a teacher to teach a class of fifteen children. They do it successfully, but it’s hard to keep track of each child’s progress. So when they finish learning, we sit down and learn with them, reviewing their lessons. My wife is the one who teaches them the alef-beis, strengthens their reading and helps them with all their studies. On Fridays we go over the parsha again, and every Friday night my children repeat a dvar Torah at the Shabbos table—the story of the weekly parsha that they learned with their mother and, of course, in cheder. When you’re in a place like this, you understand that it’s in your hands and that you have to invest the effort. Usually, parents send a child off at eight in the morning, pick him up at two or four—depending on his schedule—and expect the cheder to do all the work. It’s true that the cheder does a lot of the work, but at the end of the day the child comes home, and he sees and hears. It’s our job as parents to invest in his education and give of ourselves, not to expect the cheder to do all the work. And on that subject, you know, everyone has complaints and comments about this or that. You have ideas for improving and advancing the school, for a campaign they should run or a committee they should establish. At some point I realized that all the ideas I have, and all the energy I want to put into big changes—which are much more impressive and look good—

32:51 Speaker 5 And shiny.

32:52 Speaker 2 And shiny. Whether they succeed or not, I should take that same energy and invest it in my child. If I want my child to make progress in something specific, I simply need to sit down, give him that time and invest in him, instead of getting caught up in politics or in discussions in the community or shul about how to improve things and make them more efficient. Take all that energy and invest it in your child.

33:13 Speaker 5 Yes.

33:14 Speaker 2 Make the improvements for him, specifically, and you’ll see that it works best and gets you to the goal you wanted to achieve. That’s the first point. The second point, following on from the fact that the children learn on Zoom: we’ve just finished the school year, and my son finished first grade and had his siddur celebration. And—

33:31 Speaker 5 How does something like that actually work?

33:32 Speaker 2 Um, so I was sure it would be okay, but kind of lackluster. It’s hard to convey the energy of a party when your child is so excited that he’s up at six in the morning waiting for his siddur party at cheder. I didn’t expect it to be like that. The truth is, I was very, very surprised. First of all, the cheder did an amazing job. Rabbi Sofer and the principal, Chavi Kastel, sent a kit to every child in the class months in advance, all over the world. The children had the same outfits, the same backdrop, and the same games and things they’d arranged for the party, so it would look as though they were all sitting together. They even included a letter to read with your child the night before, before he went to sleep, so he’d wake up excited the next morning. And it worked. I mean, my son woke up excited and happy, and spent the whole day wearing his vest, his tie and his crown, and carrying his siddur. He was genuinely as excited as I was at my own siddur party, in person, at cheder. That’s when I realized that sometimes you don’t need to interfere—you don’t need to spoil it. Children have this innocence and purity, and they take things at face value. It’s like when they throw candies at a child as he enters cheder and tell him they’re from the angel Michael. The child accepts it simply, with simple faith. So here, too, he was so excited and experienced it so fully that I told myself: let children go along with what they’re given, with what the cheder provides, and with their own creativity and imagination. Don’t spoil it; don’t touch it.

35:17 Speaker 5 Sometimes, in education, you’re saying it’s not about stepping in, but—

35:19 Speaker 2 Yes. Sometimes you need to take a step back. You want to add something, but you end up having the opposite effect.

35:26 Speaker 5 Wow, amazing!

35:27 Speaker 2 Thank you so much, Meir. It was really, really enjoyable and special. It’s a pleasure to be here; it’s very nice. And I want to ask you, Meir: what made you do this?

35:36 Speaker 5 Wow, you’ve really put me on the spot. I wasn’t expecting this. Well—

35:40 Speaker 2 We’ve switched roles.

35:42 Speaker 5 Yes, completely. You really have put me on the spot. The truth is, I’ve been privileged to work in education with young people for several years now. Among other things, I’d listen to various podcasts on different subjects, and I felt that this medium—which is an incredible tool in the world today—wasn’t being used for the things I wanted to hear about: education, challenges I face in serving Hashem, or other things I’m interested in. There’s so much that’s needed in these areas. Then, boruch Hashem, we wrote to the Rebbe. I consulted a few people who encouraged me to pursue it. My wife has really been pushing for it, and we went all in. Everything happening here costs quite a bit, and I’m not doing it alone. But boruch Hashem, we have the Rebbe’s blessings, and the response has been incredible. I have no doubt it will grow and reach more people. Ultimately, the goal is to make an impact through this medium. It’s an incredible tool. Young people, young married men, parenting—and now we’re starting an amazing program about shidduchim and relationships. There are so many topics and so much good content. We just want to bring it to people, to bring light. That’s the plan.

37:07 Speaker 6 Well done.

37:08 Speaker 5 Yasher koach.

37:09 Speaker 6 Much success in your shlichus.

37:10 Speaker 5 Yes.

37:11 Speaker 6 Thank you very much.

37:11 Speaker 5 May Hashem grant you success here too. Yasher koach, Rabbi Chaim Bar Sela. Thank you very much.