Episode 2 - A Call for Success - Rabbi Levi Nepersteck

00:12 Speaker 1 Shalom and welcome. Rabbi Levi Naparstek is here with us. Rabbi Levi, please introduce yourself.

00:19 Speaker 2 Shalom, Rabbi Yosef Orkesh. My name is Levi Naparstek. I’m a shliach in education at the Chabad boys’ Talmud Torah in Lod. I’ve worked there for several years as a learning-support teacher and language coordinator. I have a bachelor’s degree in special education, and I’ve taken many professional-development courses on teaching reading, reading difficulties, and reading disabilities. It’s a field I work in both at the Talmud Torah, as a shliach in education, and privately. I’ve studied it in depth and am familiar with many methods and principles related to it, and I’ve also developed a number of things myself. I have a website that I work with, and—this field is very close to my heart. You could say it’s my shlichus in this world.

01:10 Speaker 1 Wow. Actually, before we came here and sat down to record, I did a little research. Everything I heard about you and your work in reading was really special and important.

01:22 Speaker 2 I’m very glad to hear that.

01:22 Speaker 1 So I don’t think there’s anyone better suited than you to talk about reading. First of all, we’d love to hear why reading is so important. I think it’s fairly obvious why it matters. Reading is tremendously significant in life in general, and for a Jew—prayer, learning, so much more. But from your perspective, what makes reading so important?

01:50 Speaker 2 As Jews who are yirei Shamayim, we know that the most important thing our children need to do is learn Torah. That connects them to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and, with Hashem’s help, will help them succeed later in yeshiva too. So it’s very important that the basic skills involved in learning come easily to them and that they master them. We can see clearly that students who have difficulty reading—even if it’s a difficulty they somehow manage to overcome, even if it isn’t very severe—also struggle with learning. You can speak to any Gemara teacher, from fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh grade, and, for that matter, in yeshivos too. They’ll tell you they see a real connection between reading difficulties and success in learning. The point is very simple: every Jewish child deserves the ability to read smoothly and easily, so that when he comes to learn the holy Torah and grow in yiras Shamayim and Torah learning, he’ll face as few obstacles and delays as possible. Then he can truly succeed and realize his potential. Today, of course, seventy or eighty percent of children read as they should. But we know every Jewish soul is an entire world. Even if it were only ten percent—and in some places it exceeds twenty percent, depending on the class, grade, school, and period—there are children whose reading isn’t as smooth as it should be. I want to stress that I’m not speaking only about the severe cases. There are various extreme cases, but I’m not speaking only about them. In every class, there are several children whose reading isn’t smooth enough, isn’t

03:50 Speaker 2 good enough for their grade level. And that can be changed; it shouldn’t be happening. I’m not talking about children with disabilities or exceptional difficulties. I’m talking about children for whom organized work and the right approach could have prevented this situation altogether, and for whom it can still be corrected. That is certainly an important, top-priority goal.

04:15 Speaker 1 Really? As many as twenty to thirty percent of children simply don’t reach a good enough level of reading?

04:20 Speaker 2 I’d say it ranges from ten—

04:22 Speaker 1 Even by fifth or sixth grade, you mean?

04:23 Speaker 2 Yes. It ranges from ten to twenty-five percent. That might sound as though, if you asked these children to read right now, they wouldn’t be able to read a single word. No, that’s not what I mean. But suppose a child reads a text and, in a line or two, there are one or two words he doesn’t read accurately. If that becomes a habit, a characteristic of the way he reads, and it prevents him from reading with comprehension, we need to understand that it harms his learning. So we’re not talking about children who simply can’t read at all, like the situation you may have described earlier at your school. I’m not talking about that. We’re talking about children whose reading isn’t at a sufficient level. Reading needs to be one hundred percent accurate. Ninety percent isn’t enough, and even ninety-five percent isn’t enough. Because ninety-five percent means that this basic skill, which is supposed to give the child access to the knowledge he needs for learning, isn’t accurate enough. Reading isn’t like Gemara or Chumash, where you can score seventy or eighty on a test and be doing well. Reading needs to be at one hundred percent. Less than that isn’t where it should be.

05:27 Speaker 1 Wow. But where does it start? When does the problem begin? How does a child reach fourth or fifth grade with difficulties in these fundamentals we’re talking about, like reading? How can a child reach a higher grade—fourth, fifth, or sixth—and still not read well enough?

05:44 Speaker 2 Okay. There are various factors, and I have to say that what I’m about to mention doesn’t necessarily account for every child and every difficulty. But I want to address one significant cause of reading difficulties: some children, whether they’re at the end of first grade or in second, third, fourth, or even fifth grade, have gaps in their knowledge of the building blocks of reading. In other words, if you show them a letter with a vowel mark, they won’t necessarily know how to read it correctly. Sometimes they really are missing the knowledge. If I show a child a gimmel with a segol, for example, he may not be able to tell me it says “geh.” It can be at that level. Or he may know it in isolation, but when it appears in a sequence of vowel sounds within words, he can’t retrieve it as he should. We need to understand that recognition of these building blocks—the vowels and the letters with their vowels—has to be automatic. That’s an issue for a very high percentage of children who struggle with reading, and it can be solved. That’s what I want to say: there is a solution, there is help available, and every child deserves to receive it.

07:08 Speaker 1 Even at a later stage, in sixth or seventh grade?

07:11 Speaker 2 Yes, even at a later stage. But it’s very important to emphasize that the sooner this help is given, the better. I can tell you from experience, from what I see in practice, that the earlier you address it, the more problems you prevent. When children spend several years trying to read without doing it correctly—when they have gaps in their knowledge and can’t retrieve the vowel sounds quickly enough—they develop habits and ways of approaching reading. Later, even when you try to correct their knowledge of the vowels and succeed in doing so, they’re already used to not looking at the vowel marks. Their confidence in their own ability has also been affected. So my central message, the most important one to me, is that we should and need to provide help in this area as early as possible, already in first grade. Ideally, no child should finish first grade without knowing the vowel sounds so thoroughly that he can read individual words and retrieve that knowledge automatically. He knows it completely, and it stays with him for life.

08:26 Speaker 1 But what causes this in the lower grades? I asked before, but I’m trying to understand it better. What is it that a teacher of a—

08:34 Speaker 2 Yes.

08:34 Speaker 1 a lower grade is missing in terms of skills or techniques—

08:41 Speaker 2 In the learning process.

08:41 Speaker 1 In the learning process they use in the classroom, that causes twenty percent of the children not to be where they need to be in reading?

08:48 Speaker 2 Okay, so there are several factors. First of all, we need to understand that the problem isn’t the teachers.

08:53 Speaker 1 I just want to—I'm asking as a teacher. Let’s say I’m a first-grade teacher and I have students who want to read. How does it happen that twenty percent of them don’t reach the level they should in reading? And what can I do about it?

09:06 Speaker 2 Okay, so first let’s say what the causes aren’t. It’s not that the teachers aren’t good, and it’s not that the learning materials are poor, because a very high percentage of the students do progress and succeed. But we need to understand two things. First, some children need more individualized attention. Some children need something more tailored to them, and that’s true in every area of learning, including reading. Second, we need to understand what happens—the process. An average child arriving at a Chabad Talmud Torah has been through cheder, or several kindergarten classes that generally have a melamed. Let’s say we’re talking about children who really did go through that process, whether in cheder or in a kindergarten with a melamed, where they were taught using Sefer Hamesorah or Sefer Hamelamed and basic learning materials. When children reach first grade, they go straight into reading texts. That’s how the textbooks are structured, and it works for a very high percentage of children. But some children, even at this stage, when they’re already in first grade, still need that basic, foundational instruction found in Sefer Hamesorah or in reading primers: learning the letters together with the vowel signs. If you open any first-grade reading textbook, you won’t find that practice of drilling letters with vowel signs. It isn’t there, except perhaps on one page. Some children still need it at this stage. And the teachers—

10:54 Speaker 2 The teachers can and should identify the children who need it and give them those materials. Not from the materials or textbooks used in class, but, as I said, from Sefer Hamesorah or Sefer Hamelamed. There are also various websites today, and no shortage of learning materials they can use. But the emphasis really needs to be on learning the building blocks—not at the level of words, but letters with vowel signs, using all the tools available today.

11:16 Speaker 1 And if the problem is reading fluently, practice.

11:19 Speaker 2 As for fluent reading, when we’re talking about a child in first grade, we need to make sure, above all, that he recognizes letters with vowel signs well, distinguishes them correctly, and can recall them accurately. Of course, we also move on with him to words, but at the same time we must make sure he knows the letters with their vowel signs. Difficulties with reading speed and things like that are usually addressed more in second grade. First grade is the time to make sure the foundations are firmly in place. You have to understand that some children learned segol or chirik in class but didn’t properly grasp or internalize it. It may not take much for them to grasp and internalize it, but no one worked on it with them. Then they carry that difficulty into the following years.

12:13 Speaker 1 Wow. What would you suggest? I’m asking because last year I taught seventh grade, and this question really interests me personally. What would you suggest to a teacher in an upper grade—fourth and up, or fifth and up—who encounters a child when he’s already teaching Gemara or all sorts of texts, and the child comes into his class without that ability? He can’t read, or he can read but is significantly behind the rest of the class. Now, the teacher can’t stop. I’ll tell you what I struggled with: I can’t stop the entire lesson and say, “Okay, stop, everyone. Let’s learn the building blocks now, or practice reading fluently.” What can be done?

12:55 Speaker 2 Okay, you’re describing something that troubles many teachers. They’re supposed to be teaching the child Gemara, just as we discussed earlier, and then suddenly they see that certain children have difficulty reading. I encounter this myself, by the way. In my private work outside school, I see it every week: talented, intelligent, sharp, quick-witted children who aren’t succeeding in Gemara studies. One of the main reasons is that they have difficulty reading, especially since reading Gemara demands a high level of reading skill. It really is a problem teachers encounter, and it’s very frustrating. And we need to be honest: it is certainly possible to help children in fifth, sixth, or seventh grade too. But at that age, it will usually be difficult to provide that help within the school framework. We need to understand that. It’s possible if a teacher decides to make a special, extraordinary effort and devote himself to it. But most teachers in the upper grades are already occupied with their subjects, with Gemara and the other subjects they teach, and are less focused on reading instruction. We can talk separately about the solutions that are possible, okay? If a teacher decides to, he can go back to the basics with a child. And here it’s important to emphasize: even a child in sixth or seventh grade sometimes needs to go back to the basics of the vowel signs. I’ve personally worked with yeshivah students who needed to work on recalling the vowel signs properly—on those basic skills—and it made an unmistakable difference. I got a message from a boy’s father: “I just studied a sicha of the Rebbe with him.” The boy was thirteen or fourteen. Before, he had—sorry—before, he had seventeen,

14:49 Speaker 2 eighteen mistakes on a page, and now it had dropped to three or four mistakes, and later it disappeared altogether. So it can be solved. But if we really want to work properly and thoroughly, we need to make sure that every principal, every teacher, everyone involved in this area who works as a shliach in education, identifies already in first or second grade—or even in first grade—which children need help, and tries to provide it within the school. Most children who don’t receive that help at school won’t receive it outside school anytime soon. Their parents will become aware of it later, and meanwhile we’re missing the chance to help the child. He falls further behind, and it’s a shame to lose that time.

15:33 Speaker 1 Right. At what stage is it important to involve parents? I mean, we don’t involve parents over every challenge—at least that’s how it works in practice. I don’t know if that’s how it should be. So when, at what point, should we really take notice and involve the parents?

15:49 Speaker 2 I think already in first grade, if the teacher sees that he can’t provide the help the child needs—

15:55 Speaker 1 Involve the parents already then.

15:55 Speaker 2 Involve them by telling them, “Your child needs additional help, beyond what he’s getting here.” Of course, parents can be involved through practice materials sent home with a request to work on them with the child, and that’s what almost every first-grade teacher does. But parents should certainly be made aware of their child’s situation already in first grade. I can tell you that at our school, there’s a teacher who does this with great success. He’s someone who does it in an exceptional way: right from the start, he identifies the difficulty, shares it with the parents, and keeps them updated. Of course, all the teachers do this too, and it’s very, very important. As soon as a difficulty is identified—even at the beginning or middle of first grade—it’s appropriate to share it with the parents.

16:52 Speaker 3 Is it possible to reach a point where every student who goes through the school knows how to read, if things are handled properly? In other words, if I’m running an institution now and I want the boys in my Talmud Torah to know how to read, can this be something that’s taken care of—that works properly as far as I’m concerned?

17:08 Speaker 2 Look, that’s a very good question. On the one hand, there’s a view that says, “Wait, these are children who struggle. They have dyslexia, and that’s why they can’t read.” Dyslexia, or other difficulties a child might have.

17:21 Speaker 3 Right.

17:21 Speaker 2 But what’s wonderful to see is that there are places—quite a few places—where it works. One of the people I’ve learned a great deal from about teaching reading is Rabbi Aharon Kornet from Beit Artzi[?]. He teaches in a cheder, and he has a 100 percent success rate.

17:36 Speaker 3 A 100 percent success rate.

17:37 Speaker 2 He teaches kindergarten children before they enter first grade. I went there, spent a few days, and observed how he works. I use many of his methods. I also spoke with the first- and second-grade teachers who receive the students he taught. When I say 100 percent, of course there are exceptional cases. But he told me that even those cases involve serious family circumstances or various emotional difficulties. When it comes to recognizing the basic vowel sounds, mastering the foundations of reading, and being able to read words and simple texts, he reaches—let’s say 99 percent instead of 100. Not 70, not 80, not 90, and not 95. A 99 percent success rate.

18:21 Speaker 3 If I may ask, what’s the secret?

18:23 Speaker 2 The secret is to work very, very thoroughly from the very beginning: teach in an orderly, systematic way, keep track of where each child stands, see what’s missing, and work on it through repetition. I want to emphasize repetition. When we’re talking about the foundations of reading—recognizing and recalling letters together with their vowel sounds—repetition is tremendously valuable. Sometimes we teach a child something once, twice, three times, and he knows it, but it still doesn’t come smoothly to him. You simply have to keep reviewing it with him. “And you shall teach them diligently to your children”—I think that was said about this very thing. You can see the benefit of repetition firsthand. It’s really hard to find children who won’t learn if you review with them enough. Today there are all sorts of new ways to do that: ideas that use technology, memory aids, games, and other things. You don’t necessarily need those, by the way. Even repetition in its simplest form has tremendous value. For example, I met a child whom people had been trying to teach the letters for two years, and he seemed stuck. So I did something very simple with him. I’m talking about a child who hadn’t started first grade yet, okay? But they had tried to teach him, and it hadn’t worked. I take two cups, write an alef on one and a beis on the other, and start playing with him. Let’s say alef and beis—most children know those. So let’s say alef and vav. I toss him the cup with the alef, and he has to toss it back and say—

20:12 Speaker 2 He has to say, “Alef, alef, alef.” I toss him the cup with the vav, and he has to say, “Vav.” Alef, vav—that’s how I play with him. You do it with him one day, then the next, then a third day, and eventually it sinks in.

20:22 Speaker 3 Beautiful. Wow, what a great idea. You could use that for other things too, by the way.

20:26 Speaker 2 Yes.

20:27 Speaker 3 Who says [unclear] has to... be an experience.

20:32 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, absolutely. And then the repetition—

20:35 Speaker 3 Right.

20:36 Speaker 2 Helps you reach the goal. We need to understand the value of repetition. And when I say repetition, I mean even for short stretches of time. When I sat with Rabbi Kornet, I saw him with a group of five or six children in [unclear], and somehow he had good control of the group. He would sit with one child for two minutes and work on what that child needed. Then another child for two minutes, another for two minutes, another for two minutes. He’d do that day after day, and the children would progress and reach the goal.

21:03 Speaker 3 Wow, that really is amazing. So first- and second-grade teachers, kindergarten teachers—take note. What should we tell them? That you can reach a 100 percent success rate. You can reach a 100 percent success rate. In practice, as they say—I don’t know if [unclear]—but here’s an example you’ve given of a man who teaches children that age and achieves a 100 percent success rate. From what you see in your work, from the cases that come to you and that you deal with—

21:33 Speaker 2 Yes.

21:34 Speaker 3 What do you see? What happens with the young people who come to you? I think it’s important for people to understand, through stories and real cases, why proper reading skills matter.

21:45 Speaker 2 I think reading difficulties can really, really damage a child’s self-confidence. When a child is young, he can’t explain to himself that he struggles with reading because no one had enough time to understand what he needed and give him the right help. All he sees is that he can’t do something others can do. First and foremost, that hurts his self-confidence.

22:07 Speaker 3 Something basic.

22:08 Speaker 2 Yes.

22:08 Speaker 3 Something others can do. It’s not like working through some difficult Tosafos. To him, it’s reading—something basic.

22:13 Speaker 2 Yes.

22:13 Speaker 3 And surely there comes a point when it becomes embarrassing, too.

22:16 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Look, we’re not always talking about the most severe cases, okay? We need to understand that if we define reading difficulties only as children who sit in front of a page and can’t say anything, we’re missing the truth. Because, as I said earlier, reading needs to reach 100 percent. If a child reads at 90 percent—even 90 percent—that isn’t enough. If he reads 19 out of 20 words correctly and gets one wrong, that shouldn’t be happening, because that one word could throw off his understanding of what he’s reading. Even in those cases, the child feels that he isn’t doing well enough. He struggles with himself; he feels incapable. And he doesn’t know what to attribute it to. I always tell children who struggle with reading, “Listen, this has nothing to do with intelligence. You’re very, very smart. Think of someone who needs glasses. Does that mean he isn’t smart enough? He simply needs glasses.” In the same way, there are children whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu decided need more help with reading. Your “glasses” are that someone needs to spend more time learning with you. But you are smart and talented. I can tell a child that, but he doesn’t know how to tell himself. When he sees that reading is hard for him, I’ve heard children say more than once, “I’m not smart. I’m stupid.” A second-grader who, as it later turned out, simply needed practice recalling the segol before the kamatz, says, “I’m stupid. I don’t know how.”

23:45 Speaker 3 Wow.

23:45 Speaker 2 These are things that—I’m not saying we can prevent everything. Some cases really do require specialized help that we may not be able to provide. We have to be honest about that. But there are very many cases where consistent, structured work within the school itself—and that’s what I want to emphasize—can provide the help the child needs.

24:05 Speaker 3 Now, if I can make this personal for a moment—

24:06 Speaker 2 Yes.

24:06 Speaker 3 Teaching reading is a very—it’s a complex thing. Let me qualify that: this is just how it looks to me, because I don’t know the field very closely. But in some ways it seems harder than teaching Gemara or Chassidus. When you teach Gemara or Chassidus, you’re teaching content, and content is always enjoyable. You can bring illustrations and discuss a beautiful line of reasoning in the Gemara. But teaching reading has a certain image, at least—and from what I hear, there is some truth to it—that it’s difficult. You sit with a child and work on the most basic thing, “kamatz alef, ah”[?], practicing it again and again. From your perspective, as someone who works in this field very professionally, I should say, what is your personal approach to this? What journey have you been on?

24:55 Speaker 2 Yes, I agree with you on that point. We live in a time when all the textbooks and methods of learning have been updated. We don’t learn or teach as we did in the past, and everyone understands that things will keep advancing. The way we learn today will probably be much more advanced in another ten years, and that’s perfectly fine. The field of reading instruction has developed tremendously too. The tools available today, including memory aids and games, are remarkable. I always tell our teachers: come and ask any question. Ask, look into it, and you’ll find answers. I agree that it isn’t a given that a teacher will have the knowledge and ability to lead a successful process for a child who struggles, just on the strength of what the teacher already knows, without asking or investigating. But a teacher can ask. Ask questions, look into things, and gain knowledge, tools, and experience. As the Rebbe writes so often in his letters, one needs to develop professional expertise, and this field has come a very long way. A first-grade teacher should absolutely feel free to ask other teachers. You have to understand that the knowledge teachers have in the field is extraordinary, at a very high level. I meet teachers and melamdim in kindergartens and first-grade classrooms with tremendous ability and professional knowledge. So, as the saying goes, “Go and earn a living from one another.” Find out; ask. And if we’re talking

27:02 Speaker 2 about a tip, an idea, or some guidance for a teacher who feels he’s having trouble helping children who struggle to learn to read, I can promise him that the next step is very simple. Contact a few colleagues or teachers. If he knows teachers in his family who work with first- and second-graders, ask them too, and start collecting ideas. He’ll be surprised to discover how many tools he can put into practice immediately. I’m not even talking about taking courses or training programs. Before any of that, there’s a wealth of knowledge and skill among teachers working in the field.

27:42 Speaker 3 There is salvation in an abundance of counsel.

27:44 Speaker 2 Yes, there is salvation in an abundance of counsel. Absolutely. In this area, I can say that I’ve learned less from the training I received than from going out and wearing out my shoes. I mentioned Rabbi Koren: I simply went and watched how he works. I went to several other experts in the field and asked questions, and whenever I came across a book, I looked into it. Of course, this is my professional field. I don’t expect everyone to go on the journey I went on. But I want to stress that you don’t need to go that far. It’s enough to call a first-grade teacher at another school. As I said, you can also ask teachers in your family. Search a little online and find out what’s available. You can take a course if you want to, but you don’t have to. I think anyone who does this will find himself picking up one tool after another and starting to put them into practice. After a few years, he may find he has a well-developed toolbox that lets him respond to the needs of every child.

28:44 Speaker 4 Are there particular tools you would recommend? Anything specific?

28:48 Speaker 2 Well, there are the books, of course. It makes sense for a first-grade teacher, or even a second-grade teacher, to keep some of them on hand: Sefer Hamesores, Sefer Hamelamed, and other books. New books keep coming out. It’s incredible how much this field has developed, like every other field. Each book offers its own angle, and a book that helps one child may not help another; that child needs a different approach. There are all sorts of ideas you can use. Personally, together with a dear partner, I set up a website called “Kri’ah Lehamarah” [unclear]. It lets children practice the foundations of reading, including memory aids. I assume there are other websites, presentations, and resources as well. Someone whose work is in this field simply needs to look into things, ask questions, and collect ideas. Week by week—literally week by week—and month by month, you add more tools and more ideas. You see what works and what doesn’t, and find another book. With persistence and consistency, you can help a great many children. And even if you don’t manage to help every child, each child is an entire world. If you’ve helped one child, you’ve moved him forward and brought him where he needs to be.

30:11 Speaker 4 Today you lecture in the network’s training program for shluchim in education in Haifa. We haven’t yet had that privilege in Holon, so, as they say, we’re waiting for the day you come to us too, so we can gain all that professional knowledge from you. As for the professional training the shluchim in education receive, I’m sure what we’ve heard on this podcast is only a tiny part of what you teach them. So I’m interested in the holiness and preciousness of this work. What do you say to someone just starting out in education, who begins this work and asks himself, “Why do I need to sit with a child now and go over kometz alef, or kometz, tzeirei, and sheva [unclear]? Why do I need to sit with him?” What message do you convey to him—or what message needs to be conveyed?

31:00 Speaker 2 The first message is that it’s possible. Because of the particular structure of our educational system, most children are expected to learn to read, and in practice do learn, before they reach Talmud Torah. They learn in kindergarten classes or in cheders, depending on the place. So there can sometimes be a sense that teaching reading isn’t really central to what we do. Not, G-d forbid, that anyone discounts the need for it, but a teacher—certainly in second or third grade—may see his job less as teaching children to read and more as teaching them the material he’s meant to teach, Chumash, Mishnah, and whatever comes at each stage. Even in first grade, because most children arrive already able to read, a teacher may find that seventy percent of the class reads very well. So how does he think about the other thirty percent? How does he respond to their need for help? The point here is that reading is something very specific and measurable. When you teach a child to read, you’re giving him clearly defined knowledge. There are particular things he needs to know, and you can assess whether he knows them and whether he can apply them. You can look at each child individually. In this particular area, whether the child is in first grade or second grade or

32:52 Speaker 2 third grade, you really have to see him as an individual, not just as part of the class. Don’t settle for the fact that the class as a whole is doing fine. Instead, say: this child is a world unto himself, and I need to find a way to help him. You can’t do that in the same way in other subjects. With a child who struggles with Gemara, however hard the teacher tries, he may not be able to say, “I’m going to bring this child to the point where he knows this section.” That may be impossible. Reading is much more clearly defined. We want to bring the child to a specific goal. The message is to see each child individually, not as part of a class; to look at what can be done to bring each child to full proficiency in reading, and to give him individual attention.

33:43 Speaker 5 To wrap up, when we spoke before this conversation, you told me about a special letter you received from the Rebbe. I think it would really benefit everyone listening, so we’d love to hear what happened—the story behind the letter, and...

34:01 Speaker 2 Okay. A few years ago, I was at a professional crossroads. I was unsure whether to continue working in the field of teaching reading. So, as chassidim do, I wrote to the Rebbe, sent the letter to the Ohel, and also opened the Igros Kodesh. I came to a very special letter in volume 9. I don’t think there are many letters like it in the Igros Kodesh. Someone writes to the Rebbe, complaining about his current situation: he teaches young children and feels that his own learning has suffered because of it. The Rebbe writes to him: “The Baal Shem Tov’s teaching is well known: it is worthwhile for a soul to descend to this world and spend seventy or eighty years in a physical body just to do a favor for a Jew once. So how could it be?” Then the Rebbe writes: “Abandon this way of thinking entirely, and devote yourself to your holy work of teaching Torah to Jewish children, whose learning begins with the alef-beis.” So the Rebbe calls it Torah study. He describes teaching Jewish children Torah as beginning with the alef-beis. We have to understand what that means: I’m sitting with a child who doesn’t know a kamatz, who doesn’t know a segol, a patach, or a chirik, and I teach him. I’ve taught him Torah. That is learning; that is Torah study. And the Rebbe says: “None of us knows what is considered greater before Hashem.” You think studying Gemara is something loftier? How do you know what’s loftier? Right now you’re teaching a child a vowel sound with letters—a segol or a tzeirei with the letters of the alef-beis. Maybe that’s loftier than studying Gemara. “Obviously, this work must be done with joy, over the fact that he—

35:47 Speaker 2 has merited to do it. Then he will also succeed in his personal matters, and his mind and heart will become, in the Alter Rebbe’s words, a thousand times more refined.” That’s a letter in volume 9.

35:55 Speaker 5 Amazing.

35:55 Speaker 2 22 Tishrei 5726 [?].

35:56 Speaker 5 The way the Rebbe speaks to a person’s life, right where they are. You said you were at a crossroads, and that’s the letter you came to in the Igros Kodesh.

36:01 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly.

36:02 Speaker 5 Amazing.

36:03 Speaker 2 Very special.

36:04 Speaker 5 So, Avremi Naparstek, thank you very much. We enjoyed this and learned a lot. Yasher koach.

36:09 Speaker 2 Yasher koach to you.

36:10 Speaker 5 L’chaim, l’chaim.

36:10 Speaker 2 L’chaim.