Leaving the Ego Outside the Classroom: Education in a Generation of Geulah | Rabbi Uri Marton #011

00:00 Speaker 1 Right now, thousands of boys and girls across the country are starting the new school year. To talk about the relationship between a teacher and the students in the classroom, I sat down for a fascinating conversation with the teacher Rabbi Uri Marton. An episode full of insights, and above all, a change in approach. I’m Meir Vishnapsky, and you’re listening to On Chabad Education. Rabbi Uri Marton, welcome.

00:21 Speaker 2 Thank you. Which camera should I look at? Ah, there it is.

00:25 Speaker 1 Here, here. This one.

00:27 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim.

00:28 Speaker 1 L’chaim, l’chaim. Thank you. Thank you for coming. I want to start with a question. The generation is changing. Every year, the challenges facing educators, teachers, and ultimately the students themselves change. I wanted to ask whether the place of the teacher, and the relationship between teacher and student in the classroom, has changed in recent generations. If so, how has it changed? Where is it going in practical terms? I’m thinking especially of our generation, the generation of Geulah. The Rebbe speaks about this a great deal in his sichos, and we’re already beginning this period, entering into it. So is Geulah also connected to these changes taking place in the classroom? But before we begin, I’d like to hear a little about you: how you got into education, where you are today, and where all your years in education began and took you. Then we’ll talk about the subject. So tell us a little—

01:34 Speaker 2 So you’re asking where I was educated?

01:37 Speaker 1 In the end, those are the places where we ourselves are educated.

01:41 Speaker 2 All right, then let’s start after my year in 770. I arrived in Tzfas—

01:44 Speaker 1 Which group were you in?

01:46 Speaker 2 The ’43 group.

01:46 Speaker 1 ’43.

01:47 Speaker 2 The famous group, known for getting together every year for a Shabbos with Rabbi Zalman. All right. I think it was Elul 5744. My friend Rabbi Aharon Shiffman recruited me. We met once, [unclear], and he told me they were looking for a teacher in Tzfas. Well, since I grew up in a home immersed in education—my father was an educator—I went to Tzfas. While working, I also began studying education and working toward a teaching certificate. On the first day I walked into the classroom—

02:36 Speaker 1 You were just back from your year in 770, right?

02:39 Speaker 2 No, a little later. Yes, Elul 5744. I walked into the classroom, and I had real lions sitting there. Today each one of them is [unclear]—Vishnapsky, Kaplan, Elperin, and so on. Within an hour, one child had escaped through the window to his mother, and after two hours another child ran to the principal to say that—anyway, I must have made quite a mess of things. That afternoon or evening, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Lev Kapker [?] invited me to his home. He made me a cup of coffee, served me a good piece of cake, and we sat and farbrenged until morning, until Shacharis. I didn’t notice the time passing. From him I learned the first principle. He laid the cornerstone. He made me a different person. On the second day, I was no longer who I had been on the first. He changed me inside out, as they say. Working with him, alongside him—may Rabbi Lev be well, may he live, may he live forever—that dear man invested not just his best, not just most of his strength, but all of it in me. He guided me over the years. He was my first source for what we call education.

04:03 Speaker 1 So he was a teacher or educator at—

04:06 Speaker 2 He was the principal, the principal of the cheder. He was already principal when I arrived. The key to everything he accomplished with me was acceptance. He managed to accept all my foolishness and all the chaos I caused. Even when it was too much for him, he didn’t say so outright. I could see it on his face. I knew, “Right now I’m causing him pain, not nachas.” It was amazing. Amazing what one person can do in one place, in one role. You know, we have so many... I learned that from him. Over the years I was offered all sorts of positions: supervision, administration. The Ministry of Education kept saying, “Come be a supervisor—supervise this, supervise that,” when they set up the, uh, Charedi—

04:58 Speaker 1 The Charedi district.

04:59 Speaker 2 The Charedi district. My good friend Benayahu Tevila [?] went to be a supervisor there, a senior supervisor, and they wanted me to join him. But my motto has always been that we have plenty of chiefs of staff, officers, and generals. What we’re missing today is good soldiers in the classroom. When you’re the teacher of twenty or thirty students, to them you’re the one who can save them. You can sit there or [unclear]—that’s the point. We have so many [unclear], so many advisers, so many... I say that with so many advisers, we can’t see the child. You understand? It’s unbelievable. And I learned that from him. He focused on that small space, the classroom. Do the best you can right there. I can’t tell you how much I received from him. Later, at his initiative and with his encouragement, I went to study. I earned a bachelor’s degree in special education because he wanted to open a special-education class. I was there in 5760. I’m talking about the period from Elul 5744 until 5762; in 5762 and 5763, I taught a special-education class, a remedial class. He gave me all the tools, brought in mentors for me, sent me to study. I earned my bachelor’s degree at Oranim College, long before there were programs for Charedim.

06:28 Speaker 1 Yes, today that’s common.

06:29 Speaker 2 Yes, today it’s completely different. The studies are tailored for them. By the way, I went to ask about it. And once—I’ll tell you—some friends, fellow teachers in the staff room, bought me a birthday present. I was born on 19 Kislev, so they bought me a gift. They took a page I’d written and sent it to an expert graphologist named Chava Rothschild. Maybe you’ve heard of her; she’s the guru of... She wrote three pages about me. One of the things she wrote was—

07:01 Speaker 1 An original gift, I...

07:02 Speaker 2 A very moving gift, really. She wrote, “You need to study and become a professional in education, and you shouldn’t study in Charedi settings. You need to learn about all the ugly stuff, because that’s who you are.” Apparently she recognized that this was where I belonged. “You need to learn about all the ugliest things and draw something out of them, because you have the ability to turn them into something good, to understand what’s happening with a student.” You see, today Charedim study in a sterile environment, then come into the classroom and encounter completely different situations. It doesn’t quite match what they studied.

07:41 Speaker 1 There’s a gap in that training.

07:43 Speaker 2 I’m not saying that’s a good thing, or that every teacher needs to deal with all of it. But I studied the whole subject from the bottom up, including abuse and disorders, and it helped me. It helped me get to know the students. Then, after twenty years in Chabad education, I retired. Why I did that is a story in itself. There was the Dovrat Committee [?], and an opportunity arose. I retired at forty.

08:11 Speaker 1 Very early.

08:12 Speaker 2 Because I had already been teaching for twenty years. At the time, forty was the age from which they encouraged people to retire. I went to teach at a Breslov cheder here, Magen Avos. Rabbi Kenig, a"h—

08:29 Speaker 1 Who was the rabbi of the Breslov community here in Tzfas.

08:32 Speaker 2 He was the community rabbi, Rabbi [unclear], and now his brother [unclear]. Oh, a man worth his weight in gold. What a man. Extraordinary people—angels, I’m telling you. It’s unbelievable. The two of them spoke with me and said, “We need you here. You’re close enough to us for people to trust you, but also distant enough that they can open up without fear. Go continue your studies.” They sent me to do a master’s degree in at-risk youth, what’s called youth work, after my bachelor’s in special education. I completed that successfully too. Then, after five years here, I went to work in a Shas school in Tiberias. At Shas they always told me, “There’s no such thing as ‘it can’t be done.’ What we want is what will happen.” And they managed to bring me back in through the back door. The human resources director told me, “Mr. Marton, you should know that you are the only person in the country, from the founding of the state until the end of time, who receives both a pension statement from the Ministry of Education and a salary slip from the Ministry of Education on the first of the month.” There had never been anything like it, because Shas got them to bend the rules. Well—

09:55 Speaker 1 So in Tiberias you—

09:56 Speaker 2 In Tiberias, I was also involved in education. We set up special-education classes there, and I also worked in regular classes. Around that time—and before and after it, too—I trained teachers. I started guiding parents through Achiyah in the north[?], at several branches. And Rabbi Kalpols[?], a dear man, recruited me for the Chinuch Atzmai teachers’ college. I spoke about special education and practical tools for the classroom.

10:30 Speaker 1 So these days, is that mainly what you do—guide and lecture to educational staff?

10:36 Speaker 2 You’re asking what I do today? You just want to cut this short. You don’t have the time. All right, I’ll tell you in a word or two: these days I don’t do anything anymore.

10:46 Speaker 1 Then why are you here?

10:47 Speaker 2 That’s it. I also taught at—later they recruited me to Sha’anan College, where I taught language and thinking, and development from elementary-school age through what’s called high school. Anyway, to make a long story short.

11:01 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

11:01 Speaker 2 I also worked here with the college in Tzfas, on questions of language and expression and so on. I went to Ukraine on a mission for the Ministry of Education, as part of the Hefzibah program, with dear Rabbi Stambler. I had some role there in [unclear], at the women’s teachers’ college. Afterward I began a doctorate at the University of Haifa. I completed and revised my master’s thesis. I worked with Professor Rachel Sagie-Schwartz[?] on what’s called future intelligence. It was a subject very close to my heart, and I worked on it for over a year, a year and a half. But then I realized it wasn’t really taking me anywhere.

12:04 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

12:05 Speaker 2 At most, my gravestone would say, “Here lies the doctor. Doctor.” So I gave it up, because—

12:12 Speaker 1 You were already in the middle of writing the paper.

12:13 Speaker 2 As I went along, I realized it wasn’t—no, it wasn’t real. With a bachelor’s and a master’s, you study; with a doctorate, you supposedly start doing research. It’s pseudo-research, a façade. I’m researching some topic, and the results are nonsense. I could see where it was leading: you become a doctor, an expert on the subject, a researcher. No, it’s nonsense. In short, I felt the time was being wasted—time I could have invested in the right places. So I announced that I was leaving, and it was a hard day for Israel[?], because [unclear]. She called afterward, again and again: Why? It was very important to her to have someone representing the chareidi side. All right. Later I joined the team at Gan Hamelech, for those who know it. What drew me there was inclusion—“inclusion,” if you’re familiar with the Ministry of Education’s inclusive schools. By then the Ministry of Education had woken up: “What is this pensioner doing with you?” So they needed a special employment contract for pensioners, for old-timers[?] like me. I was there for a few years. Now I’m what you’d call a freelancer. That’s it. Boruch Hashem, I sit at home and do nothing. You know, when someone can’t function anymore, he gives advice. That’s usually how it goes. I do a little writing. I discovered my artistic writing—my writing, you know, and how to put it to use for other things. I started studying the subject in depth, both technically and in halachah. I write tefillin and mezuzos.

14:06 Speaker 1 You write tefillin? Wow.

14:07 Speaker 2 Yes, for my own enjoyment.

14:10 Speaker 1 Beautiful.

14:10 Speaker 2 That’s it. So much for that.

14:11 Speaker 1 So now, now we’ll start with the question.

14:12 Speaker 2 Wait a moment. When you ask someone, “Who are you?” he immediately starts presenting his professional side. What about the family side? Who am I really? I’m a father, a husband to a wonderful wife. I’m a father of eight children, with sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. I’m a grandfather to thirty grandchildren, bli ayin hara. May there be many more.

14:32 Speaker 1 Amen. Those really are the things that shape us.

14:36 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

14:37 Speaker 1 Those things.

14:38 Speaker 2 It’s bein hazmanim now, and the house is full, Boruch Hashem. So I’m enjoying an hour of respite here with you.

14:43 Speaker 1 A break.

14:44 Speaker 2 Yes, not exactly. I enjoy it more there, but all right.

14:47 Speaker 1 Thank you. So now let’s get to the question, to the topic.

14:53 Speaker 2 You’re really asking how we put this idea into practice in the classroom—the idea of education. Wait, is this for me to drink? You—

15:03 Speaker 1 Of course. Why else would it be here—

15:04 Speaker 2 I thought it was just for the—wait, to make a brachah I need my hat. They had me take it off because of the camera. Now I need a hat to—fine, I’ll cover my head with my sleeve, as chassidim do. L’chaim, l’chaim.

15:16 Speaker 1 L’chaim, and may it bring blessing.

15:17 Speaker 2 When there’s no mashke, we say l’chaim over—But wow, this thing scares me. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word everything came to be.

15:29 Speaker 1 Amen.

15:33 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim!

15:36 Speaker 1 No, it’s all right, it’s all right.

15:37 Speaker 2 All right, okay. Well, in one of my roles I guide teachers in various settings, and they always ask the same question: “How did we get to this point? Look at today’s children.” Just to stop them right there, I say, “You haven’t phrased the question correctly. It isn’t that today’s children are different; it’s today’s teachers compared with the teachers we had. How can you compare them? So why complain?” But that isn’t quite accurate either, because today’s melamdim are on a much higher level—not that they’re better than the melamdim of the past, but they do a different, more demanding job. And I’ll explain. Ask whenever you like.

16:44 Speaker 5 In a moment, I—

16:44 Speaker 2 Because I can talk. You know, until I talk myself hoarse. If we’re talking about—let’s look at the changes, see what happened to education, what happened in the classroom and the world of education generally. If, in the past—and you know what, maybe we shouldn’t start with education. Let’s start with life itself, Jewish life in the shtetl. Picture Moishele in the town getting up in the morning, taking his tallis and tefillin, going to shul to learn and daven, and then going to open his shop. His life was already written in a book, his own book of chronicles. He didn’t change it; he couldn’t change it. If a Jew, rachmana litzlan, chas veshalom, decided he no longer felt like coming to shul to daven—or went even further and decided, chas veshalom, to stop putting on tefillin or keeping Shabbos in his shop—such things just didn’t happen. There was a framework. There was a community, there were rabbis, there was a court, and they would give him the trouble he deserved. It simply wasn’t possible. There was no stepping outside the bounds, and that ran all the way from top to bottom. Everyone knew his role, knew his place. A child in cheder knew that he came to class in the morning, came to the melamed, and had to do this and that; this and that was expected of him. He couldn’t break the rules. That was the way of life. Over time, exceptions developed, more and more of them. And if we look at the situation today—today—

18:54 Speaker 5 We’ve left the shtetl.

18:55 Speaker 2 We’ve left the shtetl. Today, I don’t know—you could say the shtetl has left the Jews. You can picture a Jew who, unfortunately, doesn’t put on tefillin or, at least for now, doesn’t keep all the mitzvos. Someone once told me, “I’m a happy Jew”—“happy” was his acronym for “partially observant.” That’s what he called it. You can meet a Jew—In the past, a Jew had to take part in community life. Today, a Jew walks down the street and a Chabadnik comes up to him with a big smile and says, “Dear fellow Jew, would you like to put on tefillin? Would you like to do a mitzvah?” Then he stops and thinks it over: Do I want to? Don’t I? Do I feel like it or not? You awaken the deepest point within him, where he chooses the good. He makes that choice on his own initiative. And this affects our whole lives. Today we live differently in every respect when it comes to free choice. A person has more freedom to choose. The whole order of things is completely different from what it was then.

20:24 Speaker 5 With Yiddishkeit, we used to have much more pressure from the community, from the shtetl. There wasn’t much of a choice. You lived in the shtetl, so Minchah was part of your life.

20:35 Speaker 2 Yes, you could say there wasn’t much choice.

20:37 Speaker 5 And today?

20:39 Speaker 2 Today it’s different, completely different. Today—

20:41 Speaker 5 Do you see that with children too?

20:42 Speaker 2 Right, I’ll get to the children in a moment. First I want to express this point.

20:46 Speaker 5 In general.

20:47 Speaker 2 The closer we get to the Geulah, the more a person’s personality becomes truly their own. The Hebrew word for independence, atzma’us, comes from etzem, essence. Because the Source of Light is about to be revealed. We are on the verge of a revelation of the Source of Light, and the Source of Light is essence. Around the essence there is darkness, as we know: “Who forms light and creates darkness.” So in one sense, it looks to us like darkness, but on a deeper level, there is a revelation of essence here: a Jew chooses, of their own accord, to do good, to do a mitzvah and give pleasure to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You could put it this way: when that Jew is walking down the street and someone approaches him and says, “Come put on tefillin,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, so to speak, on the edge of His seat. I’m putting that in quotation marks. Will he put them on? Won’t he? What will he decide? The pleasure Above in this, it seems to me—and this is my opinion—is much greater than with “mitzvos performed by rote.” We are approaching a time, a Geulah, described as ink written on fresh paper. So for it to be fresh paper rather than erased paper, the erasure has to go very deep, until the paper truly reaches the state of fresh paper.

22:24 Speaker 5 The moment a Jew chooses, in that situation, to put on tefillin, that is...

22:31 Speaker 2 That is the height of the pleasure. It’s the talking bird. The king can compel all his servants and ministers and everyone around him in the palace and courtyard, but he cannot compel the bird to sing. He can’t force it. He can’t threaten it. Here he has to persuade it, coax it, give it a treat so the bird will start talking, start singing, start saying, “Your Majesty, how great you are.” The pleasure from that, from that very point, is simply indescribable. I have to say something here in parentheses. I want to be clear about where I stand. The things I’m saying—I’ve seen them in sichos, in letters, in Igros Kodesh, but I’m not quoting. I’m not bringing citations, because that’s not what I’m doing here. I’m saying what I learned from what the Rebbe writes. Each of the listeners and viewers can do their homework afterward, look it up and find it. And I’m sure several of you are already saying, “Isn’t that in this sicha, and that point in the other one?” Right. So on the one hand, I’m not making this up, and on the other, I’m not placing responsibility for my thoughts on anyone else. This is how it seems to me; it’s my opinion, and I’d be happy to hear other views if someone wants to disagree, and so on. There’s no issue with that. Now let’s step into the classroom for a moment.

23:57 Speaker 5 Into education.

23:58 Speaker 2 Yes. So the child of exile is the teacher’s backdrop. The teacher stands on the stage. The teacher’s job is to educate—to educate the child. “Educate a child according to his way.” That’s how they used to read it: “according to his way.” He’ll get what he needs. And the child learned. The child learned that he had to do this and that, and if not, woe betide him. That was it. The teacher was at the center; the rabbi was at the center. There’s the well-known sicha on Shoftim, for example: “Your judges and your advisers.” Today, in this era when the Geulah is beginning to shine, [unclear], the student is no longer impressed. That no longer convinces him. The teacher has come down from the stage. He needs to know that his place is no longer onstage at the center of the classroom. On the contrary, the student is the main concern here, and I, the teacher, am here to guide him, to show him what is good. As it says in what we read last Shabbos, “See, I set before you today”—I’m placing it before you. Or as it says, “Choose life”; “I have set before you life and death”—and then, “choose life.” You will choose. You, the student, will ultimately choose. What can I do? I can show you what is good, reveal it to you. Perhaps later we’ll talk about how to do that.

25:47 Speaker 6 Yes.

25:48 Speaker 2 But first we need to understand our role. The teacher needs to know what his role is. Once, a teacher would walk in with his whole ego, sit down, open the Gemara and start teaching it—[unclear]. The student had to run after the teacher, trying to follow and understand. And if he didn’t understand, well, the class understood. Fine. Somehow, a thousand go in and one comes out; they enter the study of Talmud. Today, in my opinion, the most important thing a teacher needs to know is to take that whole bag called ego off his back before entering the classroom and set it down by the door. Forget about it. Don’t worry, it will wait for you. It won’t run away; no little elves are going to come and take it. You’ll find your ego afterward. When you enter the classroom, you enter tuned in to the student. You’re focused on— I don’t like it when, in interviews, I hear someone shifting it onto others and saying, “You, you, you.” Come on, let’s talk about “I.” I enter the classroom. You know, when someone enters a new group, a classroom—say, a new student—what’s the first thing that goes through his mind? What’s the first thing he does as he looks around? What does he say to himself?

27:21 Speaker 6 Where he can place himself, right?

27:23 Speaker 2 He checks. He says to himself, “Who here is stronger than me at X? Who is weaker than me at Y? Who is smarter? Who understands more? Who is happier?” He places himself. “I think that fellow is above me in this respect, but this one is definitely below me.” He places himself in the group’s hierarchy. That’s what people say, and that’s generally what happens when someone walks in. But when the teacher walks in, the point isn’t “me.” He tries to get to know the group. Let’s see who is strong at what. The teacher needs to understand that the students didn’t just spring up here out of nowhere. True, you’re not about to suggest a shidduch for a student, and you’re not hiring him for a job where you need to know his entire background. But to teach a class and bring a group together, you do need to know what each member brings with him. That’s what inclusion means, by the way. It’s related to hiskalelus, being part of a whole, but also to “the whole,” to being a vessel, to... In other words, I now take this student and observe him. I watch, I consider, and I want to see what this child or this young man brings to the group, what he contributes. I need to learn to reach him from that place of his, the place where he excels. From there I’ll lift him up; from there I’ll draw him along; from there I’ll influence him. I’ll try to bring him toward goodness and light, starting from where he is and what he brings to the group.

29:13 Speaker 7 The student is at the center, and the educator is—

29:15 Speaker 2 I’m careful about saying “the center,” because the moment you say the student is at the center, teachers object to it. “What, the student is at the center?” I had a teacher tell me, “I never got any respect. When I was a child, they told me to respect the teachers. Now they say to respect the students. I never got any respect.” I’m not saying “the center.” I think there is no center. Say I ask—and I always do this when I come into a group of teachers—“What do you teach?” “We teach...” One says, “I teach Gemara. I’m in a yeshiva.” “I teach this; I teach the alef-beis.” No, that’s not what I asked. I asked, “What do you teach?” “Oh, you mean we teach children?” “Yes, we teach students. You have to see the student. I know, you’re going to say the student is at the center.” No. What do you teach? You don’t teach students, and you don’t teach Chumash. You teach how to learn—the experience of learning. The student won’t remember what you said. He won’t even remember how you said it. The student will remember how you made him feel about learning. That’s the point. Now, every student receives that feeling differently, so your lesson needs to be built from several approaches, or you need to know when to use one approach and when to use another. You need a full arsenal, a bag full of tools, so you can reach everyone. But before anything else, you need to look closely at each student and ask what his center is. Not “the student at the center,” but the center of the student. What is his strength? Where does he excel? How does he express his personality? If you manage to reach that place, touch that point, and speak to him in his own language, where he

31:25 Speaker 2 So then the path—your path—is already paved. Let’s say... Now, before I get into examples, this is the idea of Geulah. Geulah means that a person expresses himself, gives expression to who he is, to his essence, to what makes him feel at home and comfortable. That is a dwelling in the lower realms. A dwelling in the lower realms means that I can come to your home, walk around your apartment in slippers, and feel comfortable. A student comes into the classroom, and it doesn’t feel like home to him. He’s tense.

32:16 Speaker 7 He has to study. He has to do this.

32:18 Speaker 2 Yes, there’s tension. Now, tension isn’t bad. There’s a place for maintaining a little academic pressure—some tests and so on—but first and foremost, the student should come in and say, “Ah, this is my home. At least it’s my second home.” Maybe after Grandma’s it’s his third home, fine. But he should feel that you’re there for him and that you’re giving him the opportunity to have a good experience of learning. Now.

32:47 Speaker 7 Actually, as we said, I’m drawing the parallel again. We said that the Jew of the past lived in a shtetl and didn’t have too many options or choices; he lived his life. The Jew of Geulah, or the Jew of today, chooses this—meaning he has a choice. And in the classroom, the student of the p— the student in exile is one whose teacher is the center of the classroom. The teacher comes in, opens the Gemara, they start learning, and the opposite is...

33:14 Speaker 2 So the student in exile is a student who was forced to come in and sit down, and he feels the burden. The student of Geulah comes because he enjoys it, because “Taste and see that Hashem is good.” He tastes it. The teacher gives him a taste in the right way and in the right measure for him. It’s like when I prepare a meal for someone: I need to know what he likes to eat, what’s healthy for him, and what isn’t good for him. I prepare in advance. I remember that on Shabbos, when guests come from the center[?]—yes, guests—sometimes some of them are vegetarians. We ask in advance, and the whole Shabbos table is planned around the guests. My wife always says that the cholent, as they say, depends on the guests. And that’s exactly how it works at our house. If the guests are vegetarians, the cholent is vegetarian. So the cholent really does depend on the guests. But the student feels that you have him in mind, that you take him seriously, that you want what’s best for him. He learns, and he experiences it. If there’s time, perhaps I can say more about how to do these things. But first, let’s understand the principle. A child has a personality; he has a say, a voice in the classroom. He brings something with him, and we mustn’t stifle it. As a teacher, I mustn’t tell him, “Put that aside now. We’re learning now; this is what we’re doing.” On the contrary, let’s use his strengths to bring him in, to draw him into learning. Now, yes, this is a difficult point, because ultimately I have a mixed-ability class that I need to teach a whole-class lesson. True. So perhaps some classes need less whole-class instruction and more group work. Those are details. But first, we need to understand and learn to value what the child brings with him, because it’s priceless. Once you know how

35:17 Speaker 2 to draw him in and use that for the benefit of the group: What are you good at? Come and share it with everyone. Let’s divide the class into groups. You’re good at explaining—you’ll be the speaker, the rosh yeshivah, whatever. You’re good at writing—you summarize. You draw.

35:34 Speaker 7 The responsibility.

35:35 Speaker 2 Draw something connected to what we’re learning. You can do a report, put on a play. Do you know how many times I’ve discovered students’ talents just by changing something a little? We put on a play about—I remember one year, twenty-one years ago, we decided to act out the Gemara we were learning. It was a passage that could easily be acted out. And suddenly, the child at the very bottom of the class academically, the last one I would have expected it from, turned out to have an amazing talent. It became clear that he understood the Gemara very well.

36:19 Speaker 7 Ah, he acted it out...

36:20 Speaker 2 Acting was how he expressed himself, and from that day on, that was how I tested him. His test was always like that. He had to show... Now, what does that give the group? What does that give the class? That’s not the main issue. The point is that you take one or two children who are good at something, and they contribute what they have. And if they contribute what they have, they invest in it—and then they gain from it too. When a person invests in something, that’s the meaning of preferring his own one kav, because he invested in that kav.

36:54 Speaker 7 So it becomes his.

36:55 Speaker 2 So it becomes his. And then what? Then he wants to receive the other nine kavim as well—all ten kavim.

37:03 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

37:04 Speaker 2 And Hakadosh Boruch Hu also wants my kav. That’s the idea of Geulah: He wants my kav. “And they willingly accepted His kingship.” Choose Me, choose Me. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu puts up advertisements and signs and road signs: “Choose Me, choose Me.” We just have to open our eyes and see those advertisements, those signs. He’s speaking to us all the time, and the teacher needs to highlight these things for the students—to emphasize them and mark them out. And to choose Him in life.

37:38 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

37:40 Speaker 2 One of the ways our students today are different—and as for teachers, I have to say, I meet many of them, perhaps even most of them, who know very well how to respond to this properly.

37:56 Speaker 7 Why?

37:58 Speaker 2 But there are teachers who don’t know. I’m saying, I’m saying.

38:02 Speaker 7 What?

38:02 Speaker 2 The point is that in the past, the typical student was quiet. He didn’t speak; you didn’t hear him.

38:10 Speaker 7 He didn’t stand out.

38:11 Speaker 2 Yes. And today, suddenly, he speaks up. He might tell you, “I don’t want to.” What chutzpah! Now, the Rebbe says that “in the footsteps of Moshiach, chutzpah will increase” isn’t necessarily something negative. Chutzpah will increase. That is, souls with that kind of boldness have come down because we need to bring Moshiach. We need to bring Moshiach; we need to bring Geulah.

38:35 Speaker 7 Yes, how will we bring him if, uh...

38:37 Speaker 2 How will we bring him if they’re all yes-men? I once had a class—this was thirty years ago—a class of thirty-seven students.

38:48 Speaker 7 That’s relatively a lot.

38:49 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. I remember the number because I was always writing reports to the principal, and I’d write him a report about the thirty-seven students. I’d use “thirty-seven students” as an expression. I actually meant the number, you know.

39:04 Speaker 7 Yes, yes.

39:04 Speaker 2 Hashem protect us. Anyway, what was it? Thirty-seven students, but they were all yes-men, all potted plants. I’d walk into the classroom and they’d all stand up. “Sit down”—they sat. “Open the Gemara”—they opened it. Nobody spoke, nobody... How long can you take that? After two difficult weeks, I went to the principal and said, “I can’t do it. I need someone who’ll challenge me. I need a Reish Lakish.” But they were all like that. [unclear] That’s not it. The souls of today, who need to bring Moshiach, are souls that come from a much higher source. And it’s like... Well, we won’t get into the Chassidus of it, but in any case, these are the souls of today. Someone once told me—an important Jew told me a story. He told it, and I heard it: There was a Jew who was an enormous Torah scholar, G-d-fearing, a great learner, devoted to Torah and davening and so on, but he had no personality. He had completely effaced himself. No one ever heard him; no one ever saw him speak up. That’s how he lived his eighty years. He passed away and arrived in the World Above. In the World Above, he stood for judgment, and the angel speaking to him said, “Look, clearly you deserve Gan Eden. You spent your whole life doing good. But we can’t let someone with no personality into Gan Eden. There’s no such thing. In Gan Eden, everyone contributes something, gives something, speaks up. That’s Gan Eden; that’s an aspect of Geulah. What would you do here? So we decree that you return in another incarnation. In your next life, you don’t need to study, you don’t need to daven, you don’t need to show anyone respect. Just work on your self-confidence. Be the kind of person who’s always expressing his opinion.” And he says, that same...

41:06 Speaker 2 The person who told this story was a maggid shiur. He said, “That bochur is in my class. He sits in my class.” Or a teacher might say, “That’s the child who sits in my classroom.” Fine, that can be debated, but we need to know how to deal with these kids and know that they are Moshiach’s soldiers. And they, specifically, will get there. Yes, this generation specifically. We need to be permeated with that knowledge: we are raising the children of “Do not touch My anointed ones.” These are the children who study Torah with their teacher. It’s talking about our generation; these are Moshiach’s kids. Now, if a teacher walks into class without ego—I’ll tell you, a typical teacher of the old school, let’s say, walks into class. Suppose he’s insecure. He sat up all night preparing lessons. In short, he comes in the morning, and what’s his first thought before he starts teaching? What’s the first thing that goes through his mind? “These kids have probably already planned how to disrupt me, how to drive me crazy. I need to show them who’s in charge here. There’ll be none of that.” Then he starts the lesson, and two boys in the back are whispering. “Aha, there they are, the two who are ruining my lesson. Be quiet! The principal!” He sends one of them to the principal, and... he’s already lost. He’s lost two souls. The children, the class, have seen him get angry. What’s the bottom line? Where does that lead? But that wasn’t what was going on at all. They’d come back from recess; they’d been playing outside, I don’t know, playing tag. There’s such a thing as an adjustment period. They were sitting there talking to each other: “You know, Yanky wasn’t fair, because in hide-and-seek he hid in a place we’d agreed was off-limits. So, you know, when recess

43:10 Speaker 2 comes, we’ll tell him.” They’re in that adjustment period, talking about their own business. They’re not even thinking about you. You’re not the subject. Now, if you’d come in without ego, you’d be an observer, a pure observer. In academia, that’s what it’s called: a pure observer. You’d look at what was happening. You’d see, neutrally, that they’re still caught up in something else, while you want to start the lesson. You know what? Maybe give them another moment. Maybe take an interest in what’s going on. There’s so much to this. I could talk about it at length. I don’t know how much time we have—tell me. I’m with you. Yes? Yes, we have time. I know you’re with me. The question is, until when—ad mosai [unclear]? All right, listen, I want to tell you a story. I’ll give you an example now. I hope it won’t take away from the time for... the listeners will say, “But in the end you didn’t give us any practical tools.” I’ll try to keep this little story short. One year I had a student who was generally fine. He was a nice boy, liked learning and everything. Today he’s a father himself, but every so often back then he would erupt. He’d start running wild and hitting other children, and he’d be in a storm in the classroom. It came in waves. I thought I had to intervene, do something, calm him down—and boom! Then, little by little, he’d settle down. It was like a bell curve, rising and falling. This was when I was studying for my master’s degree at Oranim College. Everyone brought in some incident to discuss, and this was what I brought to the table. The lecturer told me, “Look, try not to get involved. Try to be an observer. Try to catch the trigger. What makes this child lose control? Try.

45:09 Speaker 2 Every time there’s an outburst, take a step back. Do a biopsy, so to speak. Analyze it: what happened? Did someone say something? Did you say something?” I started tracking it. The first time I didn’t really understand; I didn’t see it. The second time, I think I began to suspect something, to get a sense of it. After it happened again and again, I formed a hypothesis: when the subject of fathers came up in class, he erupted. That was what I was seeing.

45:43 Speaker 8 Little by little, you noticed that it was—

45:45 Speaker 2 You know how, after a few times... There’s a game where you choose a word and I ask you questions, and you have to work that word into a sentence. After a few sentences I catch on to which word you chose, because you keep putting it in everywhere. So after seeing it once, twice, three times, I brought the idea back to class, and the lecturer said, “Now, to confirm your hypothesis, you need to try bringing it about yourself. Go into class, talk about fathers, and see whether that really sets him off, whether that’s the trigger.” Well, I came to class afterward. It’s cruel, but, you know, it was for the sake of helping him, so to speak. I said, “Children, today we’re going to depart a little from our plan. We won’t study the halachos we usually study. Today we’ll study the halachos of honoring one’s father and mother. A person must honor his father,” and so on.

46:40 Speaker 8 Were you looking at him?

46:42 Speaker 2 No, no, I wasn’t looking at him in particular, but the explosion didn’t take long. Now, he seemed like an ordinary child. I knew his father and mother; everything seemed fine. So what was going on? I didn’t know what to do. After it happened again, I called his mother and said, “I want to talk about this. We need to address it.” I arranged a conversation and said I thought there was some deep issue connected to the subject of fathers. I spoke very gently and indirectly. It didn’t take long before she burst into tears and told me that the father living with them now wasn’t the boy’s father; he was his stepfather. His real father had left home some time earlier, a year and a half before, and had decided he didn’t want a relationship with the child. The boy missed his father terribly.

47:43 Speaker 8 So his father had chosen to cut off contact with the child, and that was his trigger.

47:46 Speaker 2 And the boy missed his father very, very much. He wanted a relationship and was trying to reach out, but his father wasn’t interested. Yes, it’s painful. One day I asked someone local to come into the classroom. I took the boy on a walk in the hills here, toward the area of Abba Shaul. Do you know where Abba Shaul’s grave is? Abba Shaul and his wife. By the way, it’s an incredible place. I don’t know, perhaps there are others, but I don’t know of another Tanna or Amora buried with his wife. Abba Shaul and his wife.

48:22 Speaker 8 Where is it?

48:23 Speaker 2 It’s in the Birya [unclear] area, but in the opposite direction from—people probably know. You can look it up on a map afterward. It’s a beautiful, peaceful place, and I, in my humble opinion, believe that place has a segulah for harmony in the home, because of Abba Shaul and his wife.

48:47 Speaker 8 You’re telling us about a Tanna who’s buried—

48:49 Speaker 2 And I’m speaking from experience. If my wife and I sometimes have a disagreement, we go up to the grave, sit there, and in the end everything works out. So I walked around there with the boy, and little by little, very gently—it took four hours—

49:05 Speaker 8 Wow.

49:05 Speaker 2 I brought up the subject, and we both cried. It was very moving. It was something very, very deep. Then we thought together about what could still be done. “My father doesn’t want to stay in touch with me. What can I do?” At the end I said to him, “Let’s go to Abba Shaul—Abba, Abba Shaul—and say a chapter of Tehillim, a few chapters of Tehillim.” We sat there, heartbroken, and said Tehillim. I wish the happy ending were that his father came back. That didn’t happen. But at least the boy somehow managed to cope and learned to live with it. He gained some kind of tool, you understand? From that day on, he changed so much. Even today, when I meet him walking down the street with his children, he’s such a happy, warmhearted person.

50:05 Speaker 8 Wow, what a story.

50:06 Speaker 2 You understand? All of that came from the ability that lecturer tried to give me—that tool. He succeeded in giving me the tool: don’t get caught up in it; don’t bring your ego into it. Just the opposite. Take a step back and observe. Be a journalist; be curious. What’s happening here? Why? The boy has just stood up, thrown a chair, and gone wild. What’s a teacher’s natural response? “Sit down! What is this?” No. Hold on a moment. Take a step back and ask, “What’s happening here? What’s going on?” And when you manage to reach something, you get to a deep place in his soul, in his heart. Then you create in him the desire to work on it. Come, let’s try. Come.

50:59 Speaker 8 I’m trying to ask: a teacher with thirty students—does he need to create that same connection with all thirty students in order to...?

51:09 Speaker 2 Um...

51:09 Speaker 8 Of course, the story you told is a very—

51:11 Speaker 2 Look, I recently met Rabbi Shai Weber [unclear]. The well-known Rabbi Shai Weber [unclear]—he was my teacher in eighth grade.

51:21 Speaker 8 He basically knows the entire Gemara.

51:23 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes. That institute, yes. He’s Jewish. Anyway, we had a teacher we didn’t like, and we managed to get rid of him with various methods of ours. I’m not proud of my part in that. In any case, they brought him—Shai Weber[?] from the kollel—to teach us in eighth grade. And he was so—

51:48 Speaker 8 Where was this? Which—

51:49 Speaker 2 At the Chabad cheder in Jerusalem.

51:50 Speaker 8 Tarsaz[?]?

51:51 Speaker 2 Tarsaz[?]. And he was so—he was sort of practicing on us; we were his guinea pigs. Some of the boys were already saying, “Oh, they’ve brought us a new teacher? We’ll wear him out too, like we wore out the last one.” But in practice, he was so good, so warm. He reached each of us in such a personal way that we dreamed we might get to study with him for another year. We didn’t want to go anywhere else. Now, I met him recently—my nephew, the son of my brother Itzik, a”h, is marrying into his son Moishe’s family. So I met him there at the vort, and he immediately said to me, “Uri Marton, right?” Now, I no longer look like a twelve-year-old boy. Of course, we’d met here and there at Gemara training sessions, but those weren’t personal encounters. So I asked him, “How does the Rabbi remember me?” He said, “From every year, I remember the very best one and the biggest rascal—the sharp one and the one who gave me the most trouble. Now you decide which one you were.” So what I’m saying is, at the extremes, we always have the children we don’t forget.

53:16 Speaker 9 The ones who demanded a lot of our attention.

53:18 Speaker 2 You can’t ignore them. On one side you have the strong students, and on the other, those who are less strong. And everyone in the middle, the whole range in between—sometimes we forget to give them the attention they need. That’s a mistake, a very serious mistake. I’m not saying a teacher has to pay attention to every student in every lesson. But he should have some kind of chart where he can check off: I gave so-and-so attention; I spoke with this one; we had a conversation; we took a walk together. What did I do with him? What did I do for him? He should keep it organized so that no one gets forgotten or left behind. That’s very important. I think it’s very important.

54:08 Speaker 9 And that’s how you create what you spoke about at the beginning—that feeling that this is home, that the child feels the classroom is...

54:14 Speaker 2 Not yet. That’s the initial tool.

54:18 Speaker 9 A connection, a personal connection afterward.

54:19 Speaker 2 The initial connection. Now, once I know who I’m dealing with, I need to know how to speak to him, how to approach him. And you shouldn’t be afraid that someone else in the group will come and say, “Why do you treat him that way?” You shouldn’t be afraid of that. Children understand that some children have particular needs. Everyone has their own particular needs, and so on. But you do need to know the child’s inner world and know how to communicate with him. Now, that’s a very broad subject—the subject of connection. So first of all, let’s put it this way.

55:02 Speaker 9 Connection.

55:03 Speaker 2 A student’s connection to his teacher. His attachment style—let’s put it that way—a student’s, or a person’s, way of connecting throughout life. How a person forms what’s called attachment. You speak English, after all. Attachment has been studied so extensively; there’s a tremendous amount of research on it. Secure attachment, insecure attachment, avoidant attachment, initiating attachment. But before all that, why is it important? Why is a connection important here? As I said, in the past a teacher would walk in, start the lesson, teach the Gemara, and that was that. Whether you understood or didn’t understand didn’t interest him. Whoever disrupted the class went outside; whoever spoke disrespectfully went to the principal. Right? There was no connection. Back then, that wasn’t so harmful. Today it touches a child’s very soul. Let’s start with a student. Say we want to—let’s take davening as an example, even though it isn’t our subject, because I want to use it as an example for the broader point. We want to teach a child to daven, but the child doesn’t understand the idea. You know that in the laws of the High Holidays, it says to select a chazzan. What are the requirements for a chazzan? That he be worthy from his youth, and that he have—having a pleasant voice is the last requirement.

56:42 Speaker 10 I thought that wasn’t a requirement.

56:43 Speaker 2 No, it’s the last requirement: that he have a pleasant voice. And by the way, it doesn’t say a voice that pierces the heavens—just a pleasant voice, one that doesn’t drive people out of shul.

56:54 Speaker 10 That’s important.

56:55 Speaker 2 It’s very important.

56:59 Speaker 10 You mean the requirements for the High Holidays?

57:02 Speaker 2 The requirements for the High Holidays. One of them is that his household be in need and that he have children to care for, so he’ll feel a need to daven, so he’ll feel—

57:14 Speaker 10 What does it mean that his household is in need? That he’s short of money?

57:16 Speaker 2 Yes, his household is in need, and he has children to care for, so that he’ll daven. That’s the wording in halacha: so that he’ll daven from the depths of his heart. In other words, this halacha tells us that a person davens with full concentration when he needs something, when he feels a need. And davening, in its original Torah-level sense, is about just that: when a person needs something, he davens.

57:44 Speaker 10 Right.

57:45 Speaker 2 That’s how it was. But a child has everything. I come to davening and start thinking about what I need, making a list—wow, wow, wow, wow. Later they taught me that those are extraneous thoughts, that I should focus on other things, contemplate other things, not my bank account. But—

58:02 Speaker 10 But it always starts there.

58:03 Speaker 2 Yes, but there has to be some need that awakens me. The student has everything; he’s given everything. What is he missing? He lives like the Jewish people in the desert: manna falls for him from heaven, and his clothes grow along with him.

58:17 Speaker 10 Laundered and everything.

58:19 Speaker 2 Yes. He gets up in the morning and everything’s been washed. Tell me, what does he need in his life? So to get a child to daven, you have to create a need in him. What kind of need can you create in a child? I’m not talking about withholding food or clothing, G-d forbid. A child’s need is to please you, to want you to be pleased with him.

58:48 Speaker 10 By “you,” do you mean the teacher?

58:49 Speaker 2 Yes. Let’s talk about parents now; it’s the same with a teacher. The whole idea of “Honor your father and your mother,” as explained in the sefarim, is that up to a certain age, a child doesn’t grasp an abstract idea. He needs to see; he needs to touch. When a child is born, a baby touches everything. At first he even tastes things, because the lips are very sensitive to heat, cold, and texture. Later, touching is enough, and he understands how something would feel on his lips. Over time, little by little, he no longer needs to touch it, but he still needs to see and hear. When you explain Hakadosh Boruch Hu to a child, he doesn’t understand. That’s why we don’t start teaching Gemara until a certain age: a child doesn’t understand abstract reasoning. He needs something very tangible. And even when we do begin teaching Gemara, we start with topics that are very tangible, close to his world—found objects and lost property, and so on.

59:52 Speaker 10 Yes.

59:53 Speaker 2 And identifying marks. So what did Hakadosh Boruch Hu do to give a child this sense of authority, of hierarchy, of there being someone above me whom I need to listen to, and—

1:00:11 Speaker 10 To ask him to daven.

1:00:12 Speaker 2 He gave him parents, and He told him, “Honor your father and your mother.” And that is “Educate a child according to his way.” When the child internalizes the idea of honoring his father and mother, his father and mother are, in quotation marks, “G-d” to him in childhood—

1:00:30 Speaker 10 In the early years.

1:00:31 Speaker 2 And then, as he grows up, he learns to carry that over to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And as an aside, if there are parents watching, perhaps it’s worth saying that some parents are very authoritarian. They demand consistent obedience from the child, and woe to him if he doesn’t listen to them. When that child grows up, that’s what Hakadosh Boruch Hu is like to him. Hakadosh Boruch Hu—

1:00:59 Speaker 10 That’s how he pictures Him.

1:01:00 Speaker 2 That’s how he sees it: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is looking for me all the time, walking around with the... There, he spoke about Kaddish, you understand? And he has a verse, “G-d of vengeance, Hashem.” There are parents who are too lenient: let him off. He’s a cute kid, a sweet kid; he doesn’t understand anything. When he grows up, he’ll be twenty-two. To talk to him about slaughter, you understand? He grows up thinking Hakadosh Boruch Hu is lenient, compassionate and gracious. It’s not so terrible. He loves me; He loves every Jew. I can do whatever I want. In the end, [unclear]; if someone angers Him, he knows how to explain it away to himself. What is the right way for a parent, and also a teacher, to be an authority while being assertive? In other words, I hope and yearn and long for you to listen to me. And if you don’t listen, it pains us, your parents; it pains us very much. We’re so happy when you do something good. We’re so happy to see you do a mitzvah, to do something we asked of you. But we’re not police officers. We’re not standing there with a whip, right? Our strongest tool is joy and happiness and nachas—to show that nachas, to let it radiate outward. Then he wants to please you. He wants you to enjoy him and have nachas from him. And when he grows up, that becomes what he wants from Hakadosh Boruch Hu: he wants to bring nachas

1:02:35 Speaker 10 to Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

1:02:36 Speaker 2 That’s the whole point. Now, say the child doesn’t come to daven. He doesn’t feel like it; he doesn’t show up for davening. One time he somehow does come, or he might overhear a conversation from his room—a conversation in the kitchen that’s meant for him to hear. Those indirect conversations work best. His father says to his mother, “Today during Shema I thought about Moishele and said, ‘It’s such a shame he isn’t here with me. I would be so happy if he were sitting beside me.’” Then, one time, he comes in for even five minutes, and afterward you make a big deal of it. Not right away. Two days later you come with a candy and say, “Remember Shabbos? Come on Tuesday. On Shabbos you gave me nachas. You came for Shema—remember saying Shema? I want you to have the same pleasure I had. Here, take something sweet.” A wise teacher connects with a student and awakens in him the desire to please him. How? Why would a student want to please his teacher? Because the teacher matters to him. The teacher is someone important in his life, and as a student I want to bring nachas to someone who matters to me.

1:03:57 Speaker 10 Being important to him—that’s the first stage of the connection.

1:03:59 Speaker 2 Now how, how, how do I become important in the student’s eyes? By making him important in my eyes. That’s it. As in water, face reflects face. Now [unclear]. Not that I pretend to care so that—rather, I genuinely pay attention to the student, look for what’s inside him, make sure this student has a place in my heart, that he matters to me, and greet him with a warm face.

1:04:29 Speaker 10 That’s what we said at the beginning.

1:04:30 Speaker 2 Speak to him in his language. Look for it. I’ll tell you something else. May I? Is there time for stories?

1:04:35 Speaker 10 Yes, a story, and then we’ll move on.

1:04:37 Speaker 2 In one of my roles, one of the hats I’ve worn, I’ve been a youth counselor. I don’t do much of that today, but I used to work with at-risk youth, as they’re called. There was one boy in a learning-support program who was just shut down. It took me a while to get to know him, to understand him, and I saw that he just wasn’t engaged with life, in short.

1:05:10 Speaker 10 Wait, in youth counseling, would you see them every day? Did you see this boy regularly?

1:05:13 Speaker 2 Some I saw every day in the youth advancement program, in learning support. There was a very dear man here, Chaim Kadosh, who has since passed away, alav hashalom, and his sons, [unclear] and Lior Shvavo [unclear]. There was a program here, too. I also worked with boys in Tiberias, both within an organized program and outside it. I’d meet them hanging around on the street, as they say.

1:05:38 Speaker 10 So you meet this boy and see that he isn’t—

1:05:40 Speaker 2 I met him and saw that he wasn’t into it, in short. We talked. One day we sat down, and I gradually tried to reach him from different angles. It turned out that what interested him was soccer. He lived for soccer. There was some tournament going on, with competing teams, a league, Group A and Group B, and so on. He told me about it almost in passing, because he understood I wasn’t interested—and I really wasn’t. My only connection to a soccer ball is our similar shape. I always say that in second grade I was good at soccer as the ball. When they needed someone to bring a ball, they used me.

1:06:30 Speaker 10 So you had no connection to it. It wasn’t something you—

1:06:32 Speaker 2 Not something I—certainly not soccer in the sense of following it. It wasn’t playing sports; it was watching. That night I sat down with the material. I searched and dug around. I learned team names, players’ names, the key players, what was happening now, where the tournaments and competitions stood and what was coming up, and so on. I just sat there and filled my head with all that nonsense. I confess my sins. Boruch Hashem, none of it stayed with me. The next day when we met, I casually said, “Next week that player will [unclear]; hopefully it’ll work out. They need to pick up three points,” and so on. His eyes went wide. Wow. He lit up. He came from a chareidi home where no one was interested in this—not anyone around him, not his teachers, nobody. And suddenly someone was. Now, he was smart enough to know I wasn’t really a soccer fan. He had seen the day before that I wasn’t. He understood that I had sat down and done something for him, to enter his world and connect with him. It moved him so much. Later, when it came time to learn, he tried so hard to work with me, as if to give something back. In other words, he understood that I had done something because he mattered to me. I had gone far out of my way because I wanted to show him that he mattered. So I became important to him, and he wanted to please me. It was a wonderful interaction, and he grew from there. From there he moved forward, and we made progress. Little by little he began to take an interest in the things he needed to take an interest in, the things I wanted him to take an interest in—but it was his choice, you understand? Maybe one more short story. Is there time?

1:08:39 Speaker 11 Of course.

1:08:40 Speaker 2 A mother from central Israel once contacted me. “I heard you’re [unclear].” She had a son who was disconnected, and he wasn’t succeeding. He was in eighth grade and wasn’t managing at school. As we spoke, she described a very unfortunate child who was disconnected from everything. He wasn’t functioning at home, and he wasn’t functioning in class. During the conversation I tried asking her, “Is there anything that interests him, at least?” “No.” Then, as if to make matters worse, because the situation was so bad, she said, “Sometimes he goes off by himself and sits on a rock out in nature, looking at the birds.” “Ah, birds! That’s what interests him.” He could tell you what every bird was and where it lived, its natural habitat. In short, I told her, “Dear mother, now you’re going to study birds. Spend the next few days delving into the subject and learning about them.” “What are you talking about? I sit here mourning the fact that he’s out there on that rock, and now I’m supposed to put that nonsense into my own head too?” I told her, “Look, our conversation can end here. If you want to listen to me, try it. Try it and see—maybe it will work. Learn about birds, enter that world and start exploring it together with him. Ask him sometime if you can come sit with him on that rock. Start talking with him about the birds. Let the conversation flow; share information, let something pass between you. Start there.” She called me a month and a half later. She was crying. She said, “You saved my child. He’s simply flourishing.” Do you understand? We need to—you know, they say, “Educate a child according to his way; even when he grows old, he will not depart from it.” In Hebrew,

1:10:34 Speaker 2 In grammar, there are connecting words that express cause and effect. You say “therefore,” or you say “because”—meaning, I describe something and say it has a prior cause. Or “therefore” introduces a result: I do this, and therefore that happens. So what is the relationship in this verse? “Educate a child according to his way, and therefore, even when he grows old, he will not depart from it”? Or perhaps you can read it as: “Educate a child according to his way because, even when he grows old, he will not depart from it.” Go along with him, work with him, because that is how he will be. You won’t change him. You won’t change his essence, his personality; even when he grows old, he will not depart from it. And therefore, educate a child according to his way. Come down to his level, to his way—

1:11:24 Speaker 11 So you’re saying that in a classroom, for an educator—a teacher, a maggid shiur—to be effective, he has to reach that point in each of thirty students...

1:11:33 Speaker 2 Maybe this is the place to say a word about that, too. Of course there are rules. It’s not that I’ve now let go of all restraint and said, “Sweetheart, you can do whatever you want; I’ll talk with you about birds and soccer.” There are rules in a classroom and rules in education, even outside the classroom, in one-on-one interactions. There are safeguards and boundaries. And as we know, boundaries let a student feel free within them—like a fence on a fourth-floor balcony, right? When there’s a fence, he feels freer to move around. But the fence needs to have some flexibility. If I said, “We go to sleep at nine; close the book,” and he says, “But I have one more page before I finish the chapter,” be flexible. Okay, three minutes, five minutes. Don’t be rigid. Fine—but you do need boundaries, and you do need assertiveness. The child needs to know clearly what you expect of him, what you want from him. You need to speak clearly. He shouldn’t have to guess. The child doesn’t... You see, we’re constantly expecting children to behave properly, and if a child doesn’t, I scold him. Maybe we should do the opposite. Maybe you should start; you should break that cycle yourself.

1:12:46 Speaker 12 Mm-hmm.

1:12:48 Speaker 2 You start conveying things, explaining them—but remember that, in the end, your approach has to fit. A class has its own character, too, and the teacher needs to adapt to the class. If the class is more lively, more boisterous, the teacher needs to know how to contain that. By the way, since I mentioned “containing”: the Hebrew word for it comes from the word for a vessel.

1:13:11 Speaker 12 We spoke about that in our conversation.

1:13:12 Speaker 2 But it also comes from the word for gathering together. Now, here’s what I want to tell you: the light adapts itself to the vessel, and through that, as we learn in Chassidus, the vessel is elevated. If I adapt the—otherwise, if the light doesn’t suit the vessel, you have the shattering of the vessels.

1:13:25 Speaker 12 It breaks it.

1:13:26 Speaker 2 Now, when a vessel is filled to the brim, any jolt spills its contents. The vessel needs to have room in it to receive. If you want to be a vessel that can contain the child, you need to take yourself out of the equation. Not “What is this child doing to me? He’s disturbing me, he’s annoying me, is he listening to me?” Not that. Rather, who is this child? Ask him who he is. As it happens, through hashgachah pratis I listened to the podcast you did with Rabbi Chitrik, and he spoke about how “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” is a choice.

1:13:55 Speaker 12 Right.

1:13:56 Speaker 2 You’re expected to choose. Enough—how long can we keep telling you what to do? Now you need to choose. But notice that phrase: “I am my beloved’s because”—presumably because—“my beloved is mine.”

1:14:08 Speaker 12 Mm-hmm.

1:14:08 Speaker 2 Or “I am my beloved’s” [unclear], and I keep going. Or the other way around: “My beloved is mine,” but I’m not His. But who is the “I” in that sentence? Who’s speaking? “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine”; “My beloved is mine, and I am His.” Who’s speaking? The student is speaking. It isn’t Hakadosh Boruch Hu saying, “You.” Rather, the Jew says, “I”—I belong to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me. You hear the student’s voice; his voice is heard. It isn’t the teacher at the center, or the teacher’s voice. It’s specifically the student’s voice. That’s the point.

1:14:44 Speaker 12 I want to ask a question.

1:14:45 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:14:46 Speaker 12 We’re right at the time when students throughout the country are starting again—in Talmud Torahs, cheders, and yeshivos. Many Temimim are starting yeshiva, first year, second year, third year. So, as we wrap up, what would you say to the staff and parents at this time of new beginnings? You’ve been talking about shifting the focus away from the teacher arriving and opening the Gemara. So at the start of the year, what would you tell them?

1:15:17 Speaker 2 I’d put it this way: I’m not as good at this. You should ask a rosh yeshiva or a maggid shiur. But since you’re asking me, and I’m here to speak, I can’t just say, “Ich veis nisht—I don’t know,” right? So I’ll say this: Be interesting. Be engaging. Be meaningful. If you open the Gemara and begin teaching, and the student senses that you’re sitting there against your will, living against your will, half-dead—well, be appealing. Look for a way to make the lesson engaging. I could give examples, if we have time; I don’t know. I actually spent some time as a pedagogical instructor. I went into classes and observed them, and I saw teachers who were interesting and others who taught in a dry, lifeless way. Make the learning into a puzzle—what’s called the method of self-discovery. Give the child the facts and ask him, “What’s happening here?” Let him notice a contradiction and look for the answer to a question. Let him live the Gemara, and then it becomes his own line of thought. You can also use a lot of humor. Humor is a very powerful tool. I usually used it a lot with students who spoke disrespectfully.

1:16:51 Speaker 3 Why?

1:16:51 Speaker 2 Because a student speaks disrespectfully and says, “I don’t want to listen to you. Who are you, anyway?” and so on. The standard response, you know, is to send him to the principal, open a file on him—now he has a file in [unclear][?]—

1:17:03 Speaker 3 To survive there.

1:17:04 Speaker 2 We’ve called his parents, and so on. It simply wears me out, too; I don’t have the energy for it. And sometimes, you know, one well-placed humorous remark helps. “Who are you, anyway?” “Me? I’m a puddle here.” Something like that. Come on, this isn’t you against me or me against you. We aren’t fighting. It’s you and me against the clock, against the system. Make use of the time. We’re on the same side of the wagon. No confrontations—don’t get drawn into them. Avoid confrontations.

1:17:34 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:17:34 Speaker 2 Leave your ego outside the classroom, before the mezuzah. Kiss the mezuzah and ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu, ask the Rebbe, to help you and give you the right idea. Go in and be engaging, be interesting, take an interest in them. Don’t fight the disruptions; work with them and defuse them wisely. In short, be smart.

1:18:03 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:18:03 Speaker 2 The student should understand that you’re not there because of your ego, or because you have to deliver a lesson and now you’ll be the center of attention. There’s material here that needs to be learned. There are lots of practical tools for how to do that, but this is the tone. That’s the tone. Look—

1:18:21 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:18:21 Speaker 2 Once the student feels that he matters, he understands that what you’re doing here matters. He becomes more engaged almost automatically, and a good connection develops between you. That connection makes the student want to connect, want to... The effort here is what it’s all about. You say that it takes forty years—“a person comes to understand his teacher’s mind after forty years.”

1:18:50 Speaker 3 His teacher’s mind.

1:18:50 Speaker 2 It takes forty years for a person to come to that understanding, to stand on his own two feet, in his own right. Why “his teacher’s mind”? Because his teacher invested understanding in him. Daas means connection. Daas also implies effort. For forty years the Rebbe invested in us, and afterward he tells us, “Now manage on your own. Let’s see what you can do. You bring Moshiach.” That’s the point of our generation. We need to act. We need to choose. Our choice is critical. Our actions—every little action we take—are critical. It takes time for a student to absorb this, because the teacher does have a role. The teacher is like the forty years in the wilderness. Yes, forty years [unclear]. But here it isn’t forty years; we’re already past forty years, and we already need to be fully involved. The students are ready for it. So the teacher needs to be the one who presents this to the student: “Behold, I place before you today.” He chose life for them, but you need to choose.

1:19:51 Speaker 3 Amazing.

1:19:52 Speaker 2 All right.

1:19:52 Speaker 3 To close, we ask our guests for a tip or a piece of advice, either in serving Hashem or in education. I think we’ve had plenty on education throughout the episode. So perhaps there’s something in serving Hashem that works for you, something you carry with you and could share with us as we wrap up.

1:20:11 Speaker 2 I’ll tell you something. There was once an evening about education in Kfar Chabad, at Nachum’s [unclear]. I spoke and spoke and spoke, and after—after an hour and a half, the moderator says, “Now we’ll have questions and answers.” He turns to me: questions and answers with the audience. I said, “Fine.” I took the microphone, came down from the stage, and turned to someone. I said, “You.” “Me? What should I do if a student does...?” The moderator looks at me and says, “Oh, you didn’t understand. No. They ask, and you answer.” I told him, “Oh, you want me to answer questions? Then I’ll tell you the truth. If that’s the procedure here, if that’s the custom, I’ll try to answer. But the truth is, I have more questions than this entire audience put together. No, I don’t have an answer to every question.” I’m in favor of anything that works. Try it. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, don’t—don’t keep trying the same thing. Learn by doing. Try things out, stay curious all the time, don’t get stuck on one approach. The same goes for serving Hashem. For one person, a particular aspect may speak to him more strongly; for another, the atmosphere may be more powerful. We’ve been studying together every morning for almost four years now—this 7 Elul will make four years—after davening at six in the morning. And I can tell you that studying Chassidus in a meaningful way, really internalizing it, has a tremendous effect on the entire day. That’s fundamental. And living, living with G-dliness, living with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And by the way, when we talk about students, we need to teach them this too. You know, I once asked a melamed—not in Chabad; this wouldn’t have happened in Chabad. I asked a melamed in another setting, “When was the last time you spoke to the children about Hakadosh Boruch Hu? You teach Gemara, you teach halachah, you teach Mishnah. When did they hear about Hakadosh Boruch Hu? That Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves you, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu expects something of you, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu...

1:22:27 Speaker 2 ...” That doesn’t happen. And “behold, Hashem stands over him.” We spoke about that, right? What does it mean that He stands over him? That Hashem stands over him—

1:22:45 Speaker 4 It sounds like something very, uh—

1:22:45 Speaker 2 It sounds very much like, yes, like “an eye sees and an ear hears.” But I heard a Chassidic explanation—I don’t remember which mashpia it was from. “Hashem stands over him”: He is standing over you like a person standing on a rickety ladder, or on a table. He puts a chair on the table and stands on it, and says to you, “Hold the chair, hold the ladder so I don’t fall.” You’re holding it steady so that the whole thing doesn’t fall [unclear]. It’s in your hands now. When a person lives with that—with “the world was created for my sake”—he lives with that idea. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me every moment, all the time. What I do has an effect Above. I act; I make things happen. The Rebbe—uh, I think it was the Tzemach Tzedek—once told someone, a young man who complained that he, uh—no, I don’t remember who it was, one of the Rebbeim—that he was sinning, falling into sin. So the Rebbe told him to picture his teacher’s face. He pictured the Tzemach Tzedek. He looked for a tzaddik he knew, and afterward he told the Rebbe, “It doesn’t work.” And the Rebbe told him, “[unclear].” He meant his own teacher. You instill this idea in children. First of all, the Rebbe has to be someone deeply meaningful to them, and they need to internalize it. It’s a powerful aid in serving Hashem. It simply works. I face a test, and I picture the Rebbe standing beside me, standing with me. He sees into the heart and mind. This whole idea of G-dliness standing over me—it gets through to me; it has an effect. Uh, I don’t know if it’s advice for everyone. I don’t—I’m not—

1:24:27 Speaker 4 It works for you.

1:24:28 Speaker 2 Yes, it works for me. I’m sure there are people who would laugh at me, who don’t need any of this at all, who never face a test. They do everything in a spirit of lofty intentions [unclear]; everything just flows [unclear].

1:24:38 Speaker 4 I haven’t reached that point.

1:24:39 Speaker 2 But yes, [unclear].

1:24:41 Speaker 4 Well, Rabbi Uri Marton, thank you very much for your time. Yasher koach.

1:24:45 Speaker 2 Thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I bless you with success.

1:24:50 Speaker 4 Amen.

1:24:50 Speaker 2 And with Hashem’s help, may you bring Moshiach very soon indeed.

1:24:54 Speaker 4 Amen.

1:24:54 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim.

1:24:55 Speaker 4 L’chaim. Yasher koach.