Yud-Ches Elul - The Baal Shem Tov, Head of the Educators, and the Alter Rebbe, Head of the Guides

00:00 Speaker 1 Since we’re at Chai Elul—the eve of Chai Elul—we’ll begin today with a point connected to this time. There’s a wonderful sicha of the Frierdiker Rebbe from Chai Elul 5703. Around that time, in Elul 5703, the Frierdiker Rebbe published the kuntres Klalei Hachinuch Vehahadracha, a well-known kuntres that I’m sure is familiar to you. Its publication was connected with a farbrengen the Frierdiker Rebbe held on Chai Elul 5703. There he recounts the chain of events that led to the writing of the kuntres, going back to the Rebbe Maharash and the Rebbe Rashab on 15 Elul 5653, fifty years earlier. That, too, was connected with Chai Elul. Among other things, he quotes a saying from the Rebbe Rashab, or one that the Rebbe Rashab said in the name of earlier Rebbes: the Baal Shem Tov was the foremost of the educators, and the Alter Rebbe was the foremost of the guides. That is the wording. In other words, there are two terms here: education and guidance. The Baal Shem Tov was the foremost of the educators, and the Alter Rebbe was the foremost of the guides. It’s interesting: what does that mean? What’s the difference between educating and guiding? And why was the Baal Shem Tov an educator, the foremost of the educators, while the Alter Rebbe was a guide, the foremost of the guides? Thinking about this a little may also give us some direction in our own work. One of the things the Frierdiker Rebbe writes at the beginning of Klalei Hachinuch Vehahadracha is an explanation of the difference between a teacher and an educator and guide. The Frierdiker Rebbe explains this beautifully, and you could say it’s one of the important points of his kuntres: he defines the difference between a teacher and an educator and guide very clearly. He says

02:43 Speaker 1 that a teacher teaches information, teaches knowledge. That, too, takes work—hard work—knowing how to teach, what approach to use, how to teach effectively, how to teach a student to grow in learning, to develop the student’s abilities, and so on. But all of that is called teaching. Education and guidance, by contrast, are about the person. It isn’t information; it isn’t just about the mind or about knowledge. Education and guidance mean developing a human being. And that is really our main job: not merely to be teachers, but to be educators and guides. But as far as I remember, the difference between education and guidance isn’t spelled out or explained in that kuntres. What is the difference between educating and guiding? He keeps using both terms: educator and guide, educator and guide. But here, in the sicha for Chai Elul, he says that the Baal Shem Tov was an educator and the Alter Rebbe was a guide. So what do we know from the sichos about the difference between the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe? Of course, we are small people and have no right to say such things on our own. But what the Rebbes—and what the Rebbe—taught us, we are allowed, and indeed obligated, to study and try to absorb. In a number of sichos for Chai Elul, the Rebbe explains precisely what the Baal Shem Tov introduced and what the Alter Rebbe introduced. I think that if we reflect on this, we’ll also learn what our role is in school, in education and guidance, and what exactly distinguishes the role of an educator from that of a guide. So what we know is that the difference between the Baal

04:49 Speaker 1 Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe is that the Baal Shem Tov revealed the teachings of general Chassidus, while the Alter Rebbe revealed the teachings of Chabad Chassidus. And what is the difference between general Chassidus and Chabad Chassidus? In the Chai Elul sichos, the Rebbe explains one of the points: the Baal Shem Tov revealed the secret of the Jew. The Baal Shem Tov revealed the treasures, the wonderful treasures within every Jew, within each of us. He revealed faith, love, joy, trust in Hashem; he revealed the hidden treasures. We’re all familiar with the Hayom Yom entry from a few days ago, at the beginning of Elul. There’s a similar Hayom Yom entry on the eve of Lag BaOmer; the two complement each other. The Baal Shem Tov said, “For you shall be a desirable land”: every Jew is like a desirable land containing every kind of treasure. Just as the most wonderful and precious treasures are found in the earth, so every Jew has the most wonderful treasures within. And the Baal Shem Tov revealed those treasures. That is the Baal Shem Tov’s fundamental point, the idea of general Chassidus. He brought down—drew down from above to below, in the language of Chassidus—the light of a Jew, a Jew’s depth and inner being, and showed us how to look at a Jew, and so on. But the Baal Shem Tov primarily gave us the essential points; he did not explain the way to reach them. In the sichos, the Rebbe quotes a saying of the Frierdiker Rebbe: the Baal Shem Tov showed how one must serve Hashem, while the Alter Rebbe revealed how one can serve Hashem. The Rebbe explains the difference between “must” and “can.” “Must”

06:59 Speaker 1 means that the Baal Shem Tov said what is required. He revealed a Jew’s inner depth, and consequently each Jew came to recognize the need—but sometimes you know that you have to do something. You know that you have all kinds of strengths, but you don’t have the way forward, the direction, the practical details of exactly how to do it. The Alter Rebbe gave us that knowledge of how to do it through Chabad Chassidus. So, in other words, this is how I would understand what it means to be an educator and what it means to be a guide. The word for education, chinuch, is like chanukas habayis, the dedication of a home. There’s a well-known maamar of the Alter Rebbe in Likkutei Torah, “A psalm, a song for the dedication of the House, by David.” It appears at the end of Likkutei Torah. There the Alter Rebbe explains exactly what the dedication of a home means, and he connects it with educating children. He connects the dedication of a home, the dedication of the Mishkan, a child’s chinuch, and the festival of Chanukah—all things that share the same name or a similar name. He explains that we see that when people dedicate a home, they bring gifts. That’s the common custom. Acquaintances, friends, and relatives bring gifts. The gifts are how the dedication of the home is celebrated. Similarly, when you begin a child’s education and take the child to school, you bring gifts. Gifts are a way of giving the child strength. By giving the child gifts, giving them things, you’re giving a kind of strength through those gifts and those things—a kind of energy, a kind of positivity, a kind of light. With that, you give the child what in today’s language is called self-esteem, the

08:58 Speaker 1 The strength, the energy, the desire to want to walk. When a child starts going to kindergarten, school, or cheder, they bring him... His parents give him presents, take him to school, make all kinds of celebrations around it. That gives the child the strength, the confidence, the energy, the desire, so that afterward he will develop, he will go on his own, he will want to go. And that, essentially, is what chinuch is. At the dedication of the Mishkan, we see that the tribal leaders brought many, many offerings—dozens of offerings each day. What was the purpose of so many offerings? In the Torah, in Parshas Naso, the Torah recounts the dozens of offerings they brought each day. It was a way of drawing down light, drawing down strength, so that afterward they could do the work day by day, on ordinary days. The work itself is very much everyday work, what you might call Sisyphean work. It is hard work, a routine whose results you do not see every day. It takes a great deal of strength and a great deal of time. But when you have that beginning, chinuch is what you give, and that gives a person the energy to want to continue and keep doing it. So you could say that an educator’s work is more about giving than a teacher’s work. In other words, when I say that someone is an educator, educating a child means giving him, giving him, giving him strength, giving him energy, giving him confidence, giving him... And this giving is not only material giving. In fact, I am not speaking so much about material giving right now, though that is included too. Sometimes it means presents or sweets, depending on the age—things we give that today we would call incentives. But the deeper giving that we

11:00 Speaker 1 are talking about now, what we spoke about in connection with the Baal Shem Tov, is spiritual giving. Spiritual giving means deeply true, positive, illuminating messages that give a student the strength to recognize the inner strengths she has. That is what it means to educate. The role of a guide is already conveyed by the word “guidance.” Guidance is about the path—the path itself. To guide means showing what the path is, how to get there, what routes to take, what the details are—the strategies, the advice, and so on. So if we think about it, we understand something quite remarkable, don’t we? This principle, recognizing the difference between the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe, is something we can actually see. We see it throughout the history, the stories, and the teachings. When we learn about the Baal Shem Tov or hear his teachings and stories, their general direction is one of chinuch. The Baal Shem Tov said a saying; the Baal Shem Tov revealed a light; the Baal Shem Tov conveyed a message; the Baal Shem Tov gave us a way of looking at things. That was the Baal Shem Tov. So the Baal Shem Tov, essentially, educated us. He gives us the energy for Jewish life. The Alter Rebbe gave us guidance. The Alter Rebbe takes ideas from the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings. After all, the whole Tanya is the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching. Yes. The Baal Shem Tov’s name is mentioned perhaps three times in the entire Tanya, and two of those three times concern the same teaching [unclear]. The Alter Rebbe does not mention him, but at the beginning, on the title page, the Alter Rebbe writes that it is based

12:53 Speaker 1 on books and teachings from teachers. We know that he meant the Baal Shem Tov. And what does the Alter Rebbe say on the title page? “A long and short path.” In other words, the whole Tanya is the path. A long path that is short—that is the path of the Tanya. All of us teachers here know the explanation of what “a long and short path” means; I am not going to repeat it. Time is short. I just want to draw out the main points, because I think that if we grasp them, they give us a very important, fundamental direction: What is our role as educators and guides? This is the education and guidance we need to give. So when we speak of education and guidance, what are the two points we need to understand? When we talk about educating young people, young women, our first task is chinuch: to educate them. That means giving them the things they need to hear, giving them light, giving them the message, giving them confidence. That is the role of the teacher, the educator: to give students these things so that they believe in themselves and in their own strengths. We need to find all kinds of opportunities—in the classroom, in passing, within the message we convey, in the things we teach, or sometimes at farbrengens, in things outside the syllabus, or in a private conversation. When speaking with a young woman, the first point must be to educate. To educate means telling them exactly what strengths they have, what they possess, and what is expected of them because of the remarkable strengths they have. For this, boruch Hashem, we have the teachings of Chassidus. It is a wonderful teaching—the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov—which gives us very, very powerful messages that simply

15:02 Speaker 1 give us energy and strength. To explain to a girl, to a young woman, the basics: to know who she is, about the neshamah she has and the strengths she has because of it; about her inner self, about the soul, about what a Jew is and what the world is. First of all, it is about how we look at a Jew and at ourselves, the confidence we should have in ourselves and in our strengths, how much Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves us and how much Hakadosh Boruch Hu is waiting for us. Sometimes we think these simple, basic messages are for people in distress, people on the street, people outside. We do not realize how much our own children—and by “our own,” I mean children from Chabad homes—need and are waiting to hear these messages. Messages of encouragement, messages of strength. These messages of strength are, essentially, the messages of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings that we are supposed to convey in school, in all kinds of situations. It means conveying the... conveying it.

16:06 Speaker 2 Recording in progress.

16:10 Speaker 1 Conveying that message, conveying those ideas by... talking about them. And not only talking about them: farbrenging about them. Sometimes it is even the approach itself, not just the words. The teacher—the way she relates to a student, her expression, her positive look, her closeness, her kind word—the things that make a student feel, “She truly believes in me. She truly knows that I have remarkable strengths.” That is chinuch. That is what it means to educate: to give strength. But that is the Baal Shem Tov’s stage. After that, we also need to be guides. And when it comes to guidance, we need to learn the techniques, so to speak, the wisdom and the strategies. We need to learn how to guide, how to direct, how to explain what to do. Okay, fine: I know that I am a Jew and that I have a neshamah. I know what strengths I have. Wonderful—I am full of energy. But now we need to bring that down into practical steps and know how to guide according to the foundations of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings. And this is where Chabad Chassidus comes in. Chabad Chassidus—I begin with the Alter Rebbe and continue from Rebbe to Rebbe, and especially, of course, for us, to our Rebbe. And we have seen that in the Rebbe’s teachings—if we go... I may be connecting two ends of the spectrum, but I think both are very fundamental. There is the Tanya, which is an outstanding guidebook. Although the Tanya is written in a more G-dly, spiritual, perhaps abstract way, it is a book of advice. We all know what is written: the Tanya offers advice. The role of the teacher and educator is to know how to draw out that advice and translate it into the language of

18:19 Speaker 1 Of a girl our age, in our world, in our situation. But Tanya offers very, very practical advice. I’ll give examples shortly. And then there are Igros Kodesh. I’m moving to the other end—I mean our Rebbe, the seventh generation. So there are the Rebbe’s Igros Kodesh, where you find very practical guidance on a great many things—almost, you could say, on every aspect of life. I’ll come back to Tanya first, and then we’ll talk about Igros Kodesh. So let’s get to Tanya, yes? What does it mean to guide someone according to Tanya? One thing is to teach Tanya. We said that a teacher teaches; that’s very important and fundamental. But the Rebbes wanted us to be educators and guides. The whole idea of guidance is to guide according to Tanya. That means taking points from Tanya. Let’s take an example. We need to teach our girls Ahavas Yisroel, right? So when we teach them Ahavas Yisroel, what does that involve? Where does the guidance come in? There is the concept of Ahavas Yisroel in chapter 32 of Tanya, where you have the essence, the soul, of Ahavas Yisroel. You teach that, convey it in classes, and speak about it at farbrengens. But there is also guidance in Ahavas Yisroel. Chapter 32 doesn’t contain much guidance. It gives a few practical points, but we need to take the foundation laid in chapter 32 and find practical guidance for how to guide a girl in Ahavas Yisroel. So, a few practical examples, yes? First, teach a girl what it means to contemplate. After all, Tanya offers contemplation as a form of advice. Tanya is full of it. So are we teaching our girls about contemplation?

20:24 Speaker 1 I don’t mean the lofty levels of contemplation described in the maamarim. I mean the simplest level: using the power of thought to think about these things. We learned what a Jew is. We learned what “a part of G-d above” means, which is really the basis of Ahavas Yisroel. To look at a Jew from the perspective of the soul, to think about that. To set aside a few minutes every day, at some point during the day, to think. You can use the book or not; those are details each teacher can decide for herself. But set aside time to think about these things. And how do we do that? We teach them very simply. Choose a few lines of Tanya. We need to teach them to choose lines of Tanya—these five lines, these ten lines, these particular lines. So let’s talk about Ahavas Yisroel. As we said, Tanya has chapter 32 on Ahavas Yisroel. There’s also chapter 12. At the end of chapter 12, there are about eight or nine very, very practical lines. There it isn’t written in abstract terms. It’s very practical. Chapter 12. There are also about ten lines at the end of chapter 11 of Igeres Hateshuvah, and there’s the end of section 22 of Igeres Hakodesh. So those are four places in Tanya. I may not have mentioned them all; perhaps there are more. But off the top of my head, those are four places in Tanya that discuss Ahavas Yisroel. Each place uses different expressions, a different approach, different definitions. I remember, for example, Reb Mendel Futerfas. An example of an educator, a guide. I don’t want to complicate things. Reb Mendel Futerfas was a mashpia, right? He was a model for our generation, the generation

22:28 Speaker 1 in which I was fortunate to know him. Reb Mendel Futerfas would farbreng, and one of the things I heard from him dozens of times—even though I wasn’t Reb Mendel’s student; I didn’t study in Kfar Chabad. I was at 770, and that’s where I got to know him. Reb Mendel came to 770 often. The times I sat with him, I saw that he lived Ahavas Yisroel. Reb Mendel was a Jew who overflowed with love, overflowed with kindness. What were the lines we remember him repeating word for word, with fire and enthusiasm? He lived with Igeres Hakodesh, section 22. For him, those words were his saying, his slogan. I remember him calling out [unclear]. He would shout: “Let none of you think evil of his fellow in your hearts. It should never enter your heart, and if it does, push it away, for this thought is actual idolatry.” He lived those lines of Igeres Hakodesh, section 22. They were his life. I think it’s because in those lines the Alter Rebbe conveys the message of Ahavas Yisroel not only in action but also in thought: think well of a Jew; don’t think badly of a Jew. Don’t let a negative thought about someone arise in your mind for even a moment. So sometimes I give this as an example, a model for guiding our girls. Take those lines and teach them. Teach the girls to know them by heart—but first, to know them inside the text, to understand what’s written there. Then learn them by heart and contemplate them. Think about them, particularly when there’s a girl who needs more help in this area. Every

24:22 Speaker 1 person has her own shlichus in the world. Some girls need more help with this, others with that. Use these teachings as guidance. So that’s one basic, practical example. You can do the same with joy, with trust in Hashem. For example, there’s Igeres Hakodesh, section 25, about anger. The Alter Rebbe explains how a person should get control of his anger. Anger is a very common trait. I’m angry about this, angry with so-and-so; someone didn’t show me respect, someone treated me badly, someone hurt me. So how do I get rid of the anger? Get used to contemplating. Take section 25. We need to show them: this is the passage, these are the lines. Explain what it says, convey its message, think about it every day, and think about it at times when you feel you need it, too. It will bring you out of that state, lift you up, give you strength. So that’s one example of the kind of guidance we need to learn to give: how to bring these foundations into everyday life. That’s called guidance, and you could give a thousand examples. Time is short, and we need to at least get to the main points. But that’s the idea. For example, we also want our students to have the right perspective, the right way of looking at the world. And that brings us to how we look at the world and at life in this world—to all its worries and everything that worldly life entails. This is a central, fundamental point in the foundations of Chassidus. Chassidus teaches us how a Jew should have the right perspective on life in this world. Tanya is, after all, the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov: to teach them about the oneness of Hashem. Now, the oneness of Hashem is a broad subject. The Baal Shem Tov taught one teaching on the subject of oneness

26:14 Speaker 1 Hashem, as the Alter Rebbe brings in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. On the other hand, the Alter Rebbe developed this into an entire subject: twelve chapters of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah and two chapters in Likkutei Amarim. So there is a lot of information, sometimes quite a lot. So, again: there is the study of the subject. We are not talking now about the study; we are talking about education and guidance. The point to convey is: what did the Baal Shem Tov bring into our lives? The Rebbe called it “the Baal Shem Tov’s glasses,” the Baal Shem Tov’s glasses. What did the Baal Shem Tov reveal? He revealed an entirely new, revolutionary way of looking at the world. Without Chassidus, the world is a reality in its own right; the world has an independent existence, it takes up space, and naturally our worries take up space too. Chassidus changes our entire outlook. So there is the central point of the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching. Then there is the explanation the Alter Rebbe gives, and there is the guidance. How do we, as educators, guide students to internalize the message? How do I live with this message? Let me take an example from this subject. The first sicha of the Rebbe in Likkutei Sichos, volume 1—I’m sure everyone here knows it well—is the sicha on Bereishis. It begins: It is known that the Tzemach Tzedek said, “The way one positions oneself on Shabbos Bereishis is how the whole year goes.” The Tzemach Tzedek said: The way one stands on Shabbos Bereishis is how the whole year goes. I once heard chassidim say—this is a quip among those connected to the Rebbe, yes—why is Shabbos Bereishis such an important Shabbos that the way one stands on it determines the whole year? Because it is the first sicha in Likkutei Sichos. That was a quip people used to say, fine. But

28:14 Speaker 1 what does that sicha actually say? The Rebbe takes the Tzemach Tzedek’s teaching and develops it. Why Shabbos Bereishis? What is so important about it? The Rebbe takes the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching, the point about our connection and faith, the nullification of the world expressed in Bereishis, and brings it straight into everyday life. A Jew has this outlook, this way of seeing things, and reflects on the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching that “In the beginning, G-d created” is happening at every single moment. Once you have that, you have no worries, no anxiety, no fears. You are confident; you know you are in the right place. And that gives you strength to overcome challenges. You enter the year, and day by day you will encounter them. Once you have this right underlying perspective, it gives you the strength to overcome all kinds of challenges and difficulties. Tanya does not use it quite this way; Tanya discusses it as a subject in its own right. Let me jump to Igros Kodesh. I think every teacher and educator must study Igros Kodesh. I do not mean anything specific; I mean Igros Kodesh in general. I think you should simply take a volume of Igros Kodesh; it need not be any particular one. Today there are books that have already arranged the letters by topic. That is good too, but I would say even without that, simply get into the habit of reading two or three letters from Igros Kodesh every day. I understand that everyone here is busy, but at least find some time to read one letter, then another. The Rebbe’s Igros Kodesh are, in my opinion, a first-rate guidebook. The Rebbe gives us very, very, very practical guidance on how

32:58 Speaker 1 to apply the teachings of Chassidus in everyday life. You can take a letter—I would even suggest doing this. I did it from time to time in yeshiva, and it is one of the most wonderful things. It is a shame we do not have a designated time for it in yeshiva, but when I did it from time to time, I saw truly wonderful results. Just take a letter and discuss it. The Rebbe has letters addressing every kind of problem and every kind of difficulty in the world. You see how the Rebbe approaches it, how the Rebbe gives you an approach and a direction, practical advice and guidance in outlook, in every area of life. I think that getting ourselves into the habit of reading Igros Kodesh means learning the right way to look at every detail of life. So this is what it means that the Baal Shem Tov was an educator and the Alter Rebbe was a guide. And we have that role too, on a small scale, as a drop in the ocean. As chassidim who have received from the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe and receive their teachings, we have there an endless source of messages, strength, and knowledge about how we should educate our children and how we must guide them—both in education and in practical guidance. Of course, there are many specific aspects to this and a great deal to learn. In short, those are two points I think we need to take to heart and learn how to put into practice. If I were to sum up the main point I think we should leave with, beyond what we have already discussed, it is something I believe is of the utmost importance for every teacher,

35:01 Speaker 1 for every educator: trust. The matter of trust. Trust is, in my opinion, the number-one key to education, and I think that through the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings, it is right before our eyes. The trust in a Jew that the Baal Shem Tov taught us. Faith and trust are related to faithfulness; trust is also something we train ourselves in. As the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, faith needs to be trained, like a craftsman who trains his hands. We have to train ourselves to trust, simply get ourselves used to believing. Even if we do not say it aloud, if we feel it, the students automatically feel it too. You can actually see the results. When there is trust, the student feels it. It comes across in our energy, and they respond accordingly. Yes, we can draw things out of them. As the Baal Shem Tov said, “Every young child, every boy, every girl, is simply an endless treasure.” Sometimes we see the outer shell. An adolescent, at that age, puts up walls of rebellion. That is part of growing up and trying to survive amid the pressures of that age and all sorts of other things. So they put up a barrier, sometimes a barrier of defiance. We sometimes see only that barrier and form a negative view. Then we start arguing, and it becomes a question of who is stronger. And then we lose the whole thing—what is the expression? We win the battle and lose the war. So here we need to be wise and look beyond that. That is what the Baal Shem Tov taught us: Do not look at a Jew only as they appear on the outside. Look for the treasure

37:13 Speaker 1 inside. Love them, believe in them. Once there is trust, we have the teachings of Chabad Chassidus, which give us guidance and the tools as well. Then we can truly succeed and see results, real results. It is not an easy thing. Education is a challenging task. It is a task where you do not see results every day; sometimes it takes years, and sometimes you go through very hard times. But if we have the right outlook and look beyond the present situation, seeing things more deeply, then we see wonders. I want to wish that today, Chai Elul, which brings vitality, should also bring vitality to our role as educators and guides. May we truly merit to follow the path of the Baal Shem Tov, the foremost of educators, and the path of the Alter Rebbe, the foremost of guides. May we merit to educate and guide our generation so that they become the Rebbe’s soldiers, boys and girls, who follow the right path. And soon the Rebbe will be revealed. Soon [unclear], and the Rebbe will look at each of our students, boys and girls, and see what we have nurtured.