Livenyomin Omar | Episode 7: Rabbi Barak Kochavi

Interviewer: Hello, everyone. We’re here with a new podcast episode, and this time our special guest is Rabbi Barak Kochavi, who has been the principal of the Chabad-Lubavitch Talmud Torah in Lod for 17 consecutive years. Recently, we were astonished to hear that Rabbi Barak is stepping down. There had been various rumors, but we didn’t really want to believe them—and now it’s happening. So the first question is: Why?

Guest: First of all, I’ve enjoyed these 17 years immensely. Seventeen years of shlichus, 17 years of loving the children, 17 years of loving an incredible community—the wonderful Lod community, where I grew up and spent my younger years. With Hashem’s help and the Rebbe’s extraordinary brachos, we took on a small Talmud Torah with 180 children and eight classes. With Hashem’s help, with all the Rebbe’s brachos that have accompanied us, and with the incredible staff here, we built an educational powerhouse in Lod. People still come up to me and say, “We moved to Lod from the north, or from other parts of the country, because of the Talmud Torah.” Today we have 760 students and 28 classes. We have two special-education classes and a communication-support class. We’re delighted, and personally I’m very happy about this wonderful achievement. Which only makes your question stronger: Why?

Interviewer: So why, then?

Guest: Why... I’d say there are new people, younger people, and the baton needs to be passed to them. At the same time, “A candle for one is a candle for a hundred.” What we’ve done here—I pray, hope, and am confident, with the Rebbe’s brachos, that it will accompany me to the next institutions I’m going to. It will probably be around 30 other schools that we’ll reach, and we’ll bring the Rebbe’s message there.

Interviewer: As a school supervisor?

Guest: As a school supervisor, yes, with the Ministry of Education. My prayer, my belief, and my hope are that we’ll bring the Rebbe’s light to those other places too, and help children grow who love Hashem, love Torah, are connected to the Rebbe, and are committed to the ultimate goal—bringing the Geulah soon, amen.

Interviewer: But for all that shlichus—and it’s certainly admirable, and of course it’s entirely your right—still, one might say this is a bit of a move toward a comfort zone. Perhaps it even runs counter to what the Rebbe taught us: that we move forward, not, G-d forbid, backward.

Guest: I’d put it this way: If I were doing it for comfort, you’d be right. But I’m not doing it for comfort. I’m doing it sincerely, because I believe my shlichus is to help develop more and more capable, professional people—fine people in every respect—and to bring my experience to more places, so that more good, thriving institutions can grow for the sake of the Jewish people.

I have to tell you, at the beginning of my career I was a subject teacher at this very Talmud Torah. That’s where I started. Rabbi Menashe Hadad picked me out and said, “Now go into education.” Then, through hashgachah pratis, I moved to Rechovot, where I was a classroom teacher for 11 years. Then people said to me, “Wait—if this is what you can do in a classroom, why not broaden your reach?” So I became a deputy principal. Then they said, “Wait, let’s broaden it further.” I went on to serve as principal in Netanya for two years, filling in for Rabbi Perchan while he was on leave. When that ended, we said, “Wait, let’s broaden the reach further and make a greater impact.” That brought us to Lod. Now I believe we’ve reached the stage that says, “Onward—another step.” It’s not a retreat, G-d forbid. Just the opposite: It’s taking everything we’ve brought with us and trying to apply it in more places.

Interviewer: What, if you had to say, did you learn in Lod? And perhaps looking back over these 17 years: You spoke about arriving at a small Talmud Torah with 180 students, and today there are almost 760. Has this place taught you things?

Guest: First of all, this place taught me the power of a community that gives its educational staff the space to do their work properly. It doesn’t interfere in a way that gets in the way; it’s involved. It cares. What happens here matters to it. And the people here in general... I learned to listen. I learned to hear people out. I remember moving into my office and debating which picture of the Rebbe to put up. For three months I couldn’t decide which picture, and in the end I decided the best picture was...

Interviewer: Yes, exactly—the one where the Rebbe is leaning in to listen.

Guest: Yes, to remind us to listen. The most important thing is knowing how to listen, because no one person has all the wisdom; it’s spread among everyone. You have to know how to listen and hear. The second thing I learned is the power of a team. We have a wonderful staff. At first it was a small team, and the individuals on it didn’t necessarily see what strengths they had. You walk into the teachers’ room, spot someone, and say, “Now you’re going to step out of your comfort zone and take on a slightly bigger role.” And that person does, and then another, and another. That’s how an amazing team comes together and builds a place that’s simply beyond words. Today it’s an educational powerhouse.

Another thing I learned: Children are treasures. Children are the most beautiful thing in the world. I always tell the teachers that, in a sense, we’re just the decoration—and we parents are the decoration too. In practice, the child is center stage. We need to devote ourselves to that child and direct all our plans, all our goals, all our efforts, and all our resources toward helping that child rise to a higher place.

Now, here’s something remarkable. We know the story of the woman from Rosh HaAyin, I believe, who came to the Rebbe and asked, “How do you not get tired?” He told her, “People counting diamonds don’t get tired.”

Interviewer: I have a friend who works with diamonds, and he says counting diamonds is very tiring. Very tiring—it really is.

Guest: So what does “they don’t get tired” mean? He says, “Listen, it isn’t tiring when the diamonds are yours. When you work for a diamond company, it’s very tiring. But when they’re yours, it isn’t.” And I say: When a teacher or a parent feels, “This child is mine; this is my baby, my child,” and a teacher looks at the child and says, “I want him to succeed; it matters to me that he succeeds”—

It reminds me of a teacher who was constantly facing challenges with a particular child. The child wasn’t progressing; they kept hitting a wall. The teacher tried one thing and it didn’t work, then another and it didn’t work. Then he told me, “You know what? I’ve decided to do something.” From that moment, things changed. What did he do? He took the chapter of Tehillim corresponding to the child’s age and began saying it every day after davening. He said, “From the moment I connected with him on the deepest possible level through that chapter, things began to move. The child started making progress both in his studies and in his chassidishe conduct.”

There was another teacher who told me...

Interviewer: That’s a bit of a challenge if every teacher starts saying the chapters for all the children—even if they’re all in one class, or at least the same age...

Guest: Yes, that’s what he did, and it worked. Another teacher told me, “Listen, I’ve tried and tried and tried, and I don’t know what to do.” I tried offering him one idea after another. Then he came to me the next day and said, “Listen, I’ve decided to devote myself to this, to go all the way.” Suddenly he had new ideas and new approaches. The child became “his,” and the child’s situation improved. He started writing; he started engaging with the learning.

During these 17 years at the Talmud Torah, and the two years I spent in Netanya, I learned what strength a child has—and what a teacher can do when he takes a child on in the most personal way possible, bringing him from the lowest place to the highest.

Interviewer: Yes. And still, there are quite a few challenges. We don’t operate in a vacuum. A Talmud Torah, like many Chabad Talmud Torahs, has to contend with demands that are almost impossible to meet. Parents often... I’ve encountered parents asking you, essentially, where is the line? Where is the boundary? The system keeps imposing more and more requirements. Now that you’ll be on the other side, part of the establishment, you’ll be the one setting those requirements on behalf of the Ministry of Education. So you find yourself facing that question: Is it the establishment, or is it Chabad? What happens here? How do you preserve the character of a Chabad Talmud Torah on the one hand, while meeting the ministry’s uncompromising demands on the other? How does that work?

Guest: I have to tell you, whenever representatives from the Ministry of Education came, the first thing I showed them was the picture. “Do you see this man? Do you know who he is?” They would smile. “Who doesn’t recognize the Rebbe in the picture?” So I told them, “Look, the man who built this place 54 years ago is the Rebbe of Lubavitch. This place belongs to him, and he runs it.” Just putting that on the table already has an effect.

It happened to me several times with Ministry of Education representatives... You know, I also have the Rebbe’s family tree, and there’s something about that Chassidic pride you put on the table. It may seem naive, even a little too innocent, but it works. It gets through. The first thing established at the start of the conversation is that the Rebbe is in charge here.

Second, I have to say that over the years I’ve seen that the more you are a person of truth and principle, the more you can stand firm against the Ministry of Education’s demands. What do I mean? There was a time when they made a very, very unusual request of us.

Interviewer: What was it? You don’t want to say? Perhaps it’s better not to, so other institutions won’t be hurt, G-d forbid?

Guest: And I said, “It’s not going to happen.” They asked me why. I said, “Because the Rebbe of Lubavitch signed off on the curriculum written for this Talmud Torah.” Many years ago, Rabbi Menashe Hadad brought me the curriculum the Rebbe had prescribed for the Talmud Torah. And now people who had only recently arrived, who “did not know Yosef,” came along wanting to introduce all sorts of things. But when you remember that you are not sitting in this chair as a private individual, but as an extension of the Rebbe, on a shlichus from the Rebbe of Lubavitch, there are principles you do not budge on.

It wasn’t all that terrible, and it passed quite easily. But I was so glad that we don’t budge for every passing trend or every demand to introduce something that has no place here. “It’s not going to happen.” You have to stand firm—with respect and consideration, not to poke anyone in the eye, G-d forbid—on genuine, sound principles.

And I want to tell you that four years later, that same supervisor said to me, “Listen, I salute you. I salute you for not budging. Plenty of Talmud Torahs bowed their heads. They had no choice—there are required hours, and they had no choice. I can understand them; I can’t judge them. But I’m proud of you, and I’m glad you did it, because you showed me that there are principles you don’t compromise on.”

Interviewer: That’s a very... Still, there are quite a few hours of secular studies that you have no choice about; they’re part of the system. What do you do in that case? Do you try to make the most of them by bringing content into the secular subjects that suits us? Or how does it work?

Guest: I’ll tell you honestly: the Ministry of Education has its requirements, while the Rebbe sets our daily schedule. So there are subjects we’ve set aside, in accordance with the Rebbe’s instructions, not on our own initiative. With other subjects, we do the necessary minimum so the children acquire what’s required. We don’t go above and beyond in secular subjects; we do go above and beyond in holy subjects—in Torah and Chassidus. It’s a very delicate balance, a delicate dance between the necessary requirements and what we need to do. And in grades seven and eight, the program is entirely devoted to sacred studies.

Interviewer: Right, a welcome change that’s taken place in recent years.

Guest: Right. There it’s entirely devoted to sacred studies. And not only that: classes go until five in the afternoon, with children diligently studying Gemara, Torah and Chassidus—with extraordinary persistence and dedication.

Guest: By the way, is there a particular reason English isn’t taught? I know that in a Chassidic community like Ger, which is close-knit, long-established and warm, they do teach some basic English so the children will have some familiarity with it. In Chabad, this is a complicated subject. I mean, is there a reason for it?

Interviewer: That’s what I asked Rabbi Menashe Hadad at the time.

Guest: Yes?

Interviewer: He told me that English was not included in the curriculum the Rebbe had given him. Now, when I ask myself why, after all the years I’ve looked into it...

Guest: I don’t know whether the point is specifically English. The point is that once you teach a subject like English, for example, and there’s a Meitzav standardized test in it, instead of teaching it for two or three hours, you have to devote seven or eight hours to it to meet the test requirements.

Interviewer: To meet the test requirements.

Guest: Because otherwise you get marked red. And if you’re marked red, Ministry of Education representatives sit with you every week to teach you how not to be in the red. Then you’ll use up several more hours trying to get out of the red, and before you know it, sacred studies become almost negligible.

Interviewer: Exactly.

Guest: And then what distinguishes us? What’s the practical difference? There has to be a difference, and that difference has to be in matters of holiness. You can’t do everything at once, so English was dropped. What’s interesting is that all the fellows who were in my group know excellent English.

Interviewer: Yes. Ah, despite everything.

Guest: Yes, yes, yes. Right.

And yet the real challenge in a Talmud Torah is to instill a love of Torah, and that’s no simple challenge. In a generation of attention difficulties, in today’s generation, we have... These are all very technical terms, with all their English letters—speaking of English. It isn’t simple.

I invite you to come to a Gemara class taught by any of the rabbis you choose. You need to hear the cadence with which the Gemara is taught, the joy with which it’s taught, the way the words are spoken—it’s simply a delight. Sometimes, when I want a boost of energy, I just walk into one of the classrooms without warning and take it in. The children sit and learn with joy, vitality and enthusiasm. But it all starts at the top, with the teacher in the classroom, who prepares the lesson and comes in full of life.

And I’ll tell you something more: today we have AI.

Interviewer: It’s amazing.

Guest: Right? And everything Hakadosh Boruch Hu created in His world is only for His honor. So suddenly you find teachers taking a sicha of the Rebbe’s, putting it into AI and coming to class with a whole presentation that brings the sicha to life in an extraordinary way. The children connect with it easily because it’s, as they say now, attractive and engaging, and...

Interviewer: And you see the students connecting with the Rebbe’s sicha.

Guest: I want to tell you, I went into one such class. It was a sicha connected with Purim, with some topic... Anyway, I remember the AI presentation—the teacher told me she had made it—broke down the sicha in an extraordinary way in just three minutes. It was a sicha about bar metzra, with all the different views about bar metzra, about the Mishkan, a gift and a sale. There wasn’t a single child who wasn’t following the sicha. So this, too, makes it appealing and helps the children connect.

And above all, I’ll tell you what it is: the sparkle in their eyes—not [unclear], but the sparkle in the eyes of each person teaching. You see him come into the classroom, and you see that the learning has gripped him. [unclear] You understand that they’re learning a sicha of the Rebbe’s, and when he says, “The Rebbe says...,” you feel the vitality, you see the light in his eyes. In my opinion, more than anything else, that gives the children a sense of connection, love, joy and satisfaction.

Listen, I see the children today and I say to myself: people used to say, “The generation of old, the generation of old...” I stand at the entrance at eight in the morning and see the boys coming in with their towels, from the mikveh. They go in and learn Chassidus; they learn with a chavrusa. Then you see the students davening, each one off to the side, some even davening at length, and you have to get them to move along: “Listen, the next session is about to start; you need to eat.” It’s simply a delight to see. You see a new generation of Anash who know, understand, see and feel connected, and it brings such happiness and joy.

Interviewer: Still, something has been happening lately that perhaps wasn’t the case before—a kind of fear of striving for achievement. In other words, more of a move toward the general average, and less... There may be something to that.

Guest: There is something to it, but I think the right approach is to strike a balance. After all, where does what you’re describing come from? You’re saying something valid, but where does that outlook come from?

Interviewer: This comes from the view that everyone is an individual, that each person has their own personality and needs to be treated accordingly. That’s right and true, and that’s how it should be. But sometimes it comes at the expense of exactly what you just mentioned—achievement, progress and excellence.

Guest: I think those are two completely different things that have gotten a bit mixed up. On the one hand, you have to aim as high as possible. This year, in the Talmud Torah, the seventh and eighth grades learned about four tractates. Four tractates! Morning, afternoon and evening. And more than that, there’s our dear Rabbi Osher, who also runs an early-morning session—sorry—and another one in the evening, so the learning continues then too. So they learn four or five tractates. On the one hand, that’s extraordinary achievement. They accomplish a tremendous amount.

On the other hand, you absolutely have to pay attention to those who find it harder. That’s why we also set up smaller study groups within the Talmud Torah, so children who have a bit more difficulty can handle the material and feel that they belong. Because let’s be honest: if a student in a Talmud Torah or a yeshiva doesn’t feel that he’s succeeding, that he’s making progress, that he feels good there—he won’t stay. Sometimes you see people, G-d forbid, drop out. You see them fall.

Interviewer: You’re saying that this is where you can spot the beginnings of a student dropping out, meaning...

Guest: Exactly. You can see it. And our goal, our highest priority, is to identify it and prevent it. How? Very simply: you look a child in the eye and ask, “What’s going on? What’s hard for you? Let’s make progress.” Now I’ll tell you something else. For the first time in a Talmud Torah anywhere in the country, I think—you’d have to check; I haven’t checked, but I think so, because that’s what people from the Ministry of Education told me—for the past two years we’ve had a teacher named Rabbi Nachman Rabinowitz working in the Talmud Torah as a support teacher specifically for learning Gemara. In other words, elsewhere in the country, support teaching generally deals with language, and sometimes perhaps math. With us, there’s a pilot program—I’d even call it a worldwide first—in which those support hours are devoted to children who need highly specialized help...

Interviewer: Specifically with Gemara.

Guest: And then suddenly you see that even the children who find it difficult have a sparkle in their eyes. They’re happy, alert and want to take part. Now, their achievements may not be the same, but I’ll tell you something more: I think we have to keep this in mind and set expectations accordingly. I always tell the teachers at the beginning of the year: every child is different. Once you’ve gotten to know a child, you need to sit down with him, then sit down with his parents and agree on expectations. For one child, 100 is his 100; for another, 50 is his 100. So when that child reaches 50, you should celebrate just as much as you would the other child’s 100, because that’s his achievement.

And often it’s hard, hard to grasp that. But I add—and teachers, please pay attention; parents too—if you say that a child’s target is 50 and he reaches 50, the teacher isn’t disappointed that he got 50, and the parents aren’t standing there saying, “That’s no good.” No. We know that’s his maximum right now, and now we’ll build a plan to get him to 60 and then 70. So the teacher doesn’t feel exhausted or disappointed, and the parents aren’t disappointed. They know there’s a structured, very clear plan to bring the child to a good place.

Interviewer: And above all, the child feels a sense of satisfaction. He has something to aim for.

Guest: He has successes, something to aim for, a smile on his face. And that’s the most important thing.

Interviewer: I’ve seen over the years—and I should say, for anyone who doesn’t know, that I’ve had the privilege of being a parent at your school all these years—something very characteristic of you. We grew up with the idea of being sent to the principal. If that concept even exists here, it’s almost nonexistent, because there’s no distance. The door is always open, and children are always coming and going. First of all, hasn’t that bothered you all these years? Haven’t you ever wished, even for a day, that you’d made a mistake and should have had some kind of entry code or something?

Guest: I’m happy and glad that this is what I chose to do, and I recommend it to everyone. A child needs to know that we’re here for him. Our goal is for him to be well. At the entrance to my office—I don’t know if you’ve noticed—there’s a box that says “Letters to the Principal.” Sometimes I open it and find, “I have a new baby brother.” So I call the child in and say, “Mazel tov!” And then he tells me, “My friend hit me. Help me.” Sometimes there are all sorts of nice things written there.

But I think the secret to success in education is to look a child in the eye, to sense how he’s feeling, to see him. The moment a child feels that he matters to you and that you care about him, he’s ready to do anything for you. I have to tell you, there’s something I really love doing: I walk through the school corridors during breaks and say, “Hi! How are you? How was the lesson? Give my regards to your father.”

All those little moments of communication along the way add up. Then, when there’s a serious incident between a teacher and a student, and the teacher comes into my office with the child saying, “What do we do? What do we do?” I bend down and whisper to the child, “How are you? What’s going on?” Suddenly he softens. Then the teacher comes to me and says, “Tell me, are you a magician? What did you do? What’s happening here?” But I always say: I’ve been building that connection all along. Because when you reach a child’s heart, everything opens up. You can do anything.

I’ll never forget this one child who was very, very difficult and very, very challenging. One day he came into my office wearing pajamas, a tracksuit... I looked at him and was already thinking, “What am I going to say to him?” Then suddenly he started crying. I asked him, “Why are you crying?” He kept crying. He said to me, “Because my father had a heart attack, and my mother took him in an ambulance. I waited until morning so I could run here, because this is where I feel safest.”

And I’m thinking... “Where’s your tzitzis? You’re not wearing tzitzis?”

Guest: When you get into a conversation on WhatsApp instead of speaking face to face, you can say something and I’ll understand it differently, and confusion starts. You call, invite people in, talk, look each other in the eye, and suddenly you discover, “Oh, I didn’t know.” Suddenly the teacher describes the wonderful things the child does with them, and suddenly the mother says, “Listen, I’ve never spoken about you in front of my child.” And suddenly you realize that communication was the problem. Once you put things in order and set yourself aside—as naive, as perhaps a little innocent, as that sounds—it works. You come with clean hands and a clean heart, and your mission is to bring the child to a good place. You think this is the right way, and the parents think it’s the right way, and we try somehow to meet them as equals, with Hashem’s help—the teachers, the students and the parents.

It’s pleasant; there’s peace. I’m proud that in the Talmud Torah I see “Yechi” kippahs and kippahs without it, and you never, ever see a clash. There is no clash. On the contrary, there’s wonderful harmony. You sit in the teachers’ room, and the thing I’m proudest of is that the teachers’ room is boring. There are no feuds, no drama. Why? Because people are focused on what needs to be done, on what’s real, on what matters.

And there’s one more thing that brings everyone together: every other break, there’s a lesson on Geulah and Moshiach. They sit together, each person absorbed in the learning, and there are refreshments. Rabbi Sasson here is the one who leads the...

Interviewer: Among the teachers themselves?

Guest: Among the boys themselves. There are several books on the table, and each time they take a section and learn it. So I think the Geulah and Moshiach lesson adds another layer of chassidishkeit, another layer of warmth.

Interviewer: There’s a real challenge these days, throughout our generation, in these years—the difficulty of making a living, if we can call it by its name. And yet, despite that, you and your team are succeeding. I imagine this is familiar to everyone watching: at other schools and Talmud Torahs too, parents face quite a few fees. It’s not a simple challenge. On a personal note, I remember how, in the early days, you used to come to me, as a somewhat experienced parent, to ask for advice: How do we do this? How do we make it happen? How should we word the letter so it speaks to the readers, to the parents, and gets them to reach into their pockets and pay? Because there’s no choice—there are costs beyond the norm, beyond the basic minimum.

Guest: I want to say there are several interesting factors here. First, over the past few years, the value people place on learning, on being in a Talmud Torah, has risen. Once, that was a choice made by a small number of people...

Interviewer: Only the extremists, or something like that? The maximalists?

Guest: Yes, exactly. Today everyone wants their children to sit and learn. Not because they want them out of the house—no, that’s too simplistic—but because they genuinely want them to learn and grow wiser. The world is confused enough, chaotic enough, and a Talmud Torah is an island of security in learning and Chassidish life. It’s simply a good, nurturing environment. So that’s the first thing.

Second, I think that throughout the years we’ve repeated and instilled the following idea. People say, “Classes end on 31 June, and then summer learning begins—extra, continued learning.” I don’t put it that way. I say: the one who decides when classes end is the Rebbe of Lubavitch. He sets that for us. So 7 Menachem Av is the day the school year ends. What can we do if the wider world finishes early? That’s the perspective: the wider world finishes early; we finish on time.

Now, when you say to people sincerely, “Listen, we’re soldiers of the Rebbe. We’re distinct, we’re different, and the Rebbe has determined for us which days, what times, how much we learn and how we learn”—and you repeat it again and again and again—I can tell you that in the past, during summer learning, attendance was 50 percent, sometimes 70 percent. Today it’s 99 percent, because the remaining one percent is off traveling a bit, seeing the world a bit, you know. But everyone is there. And I’ll say more than that: the entire school day during this period is devoted to Torah learning, from morning until one o’clock—nothing but Torah learning.

So I think the world has changed for the better, too. It has changed in its outlook: no more leaving things to chance, no more asking, “What does the world say?” Instead, stay within that nurturing environment, in the Rebbe’s home, in the place where children learn Torah and add as much as possible. And you know what happened then? Even pockets that had been hard to open suddenly opened. I’ll also say that, for our part, we took various steps to bring costs down as much as we could and ease the burden on families.

But I think all of it together has created the situation we’re in today, which is an excellent one.

Interviewer: Looking back over 17 years, is there a particular moment you can’t forget—and wouldn’t want to forget?

Guest: I’ll tell you: the students, the hundreds and perhaps thousands of students whose journey we’ve shared. Each time, I remember them coming in in first grade and leaving in eighth grade. You see the little child

Guest: Institutions of the wider charedi community. I don’t come as just another person; I come as a shliach of the Rebbe. I said that when I took on the position, and I continue to say it. What does it mean to bring the Rebbe? It means bringing the values I learned, the values we live by—love of Hashem, awe of Hashem, Ahavas Yisroel, everything we’ve learned about them, Chassidishkeit, and loving every child, whoever they may be—with me wherever I go. Not diminishing any of it, but on the contrary, going from strength to strength wherever we may be.

>> From strength to strength.

>> From strength to strength. Rabbi Barak Kochavi, thank you very much for joining us on our podcast.

>> Thank you very much to all of you watching. We thank Yosef David Savitza, who oversaw the editing here, and Yossi Rivkin of COL, who were with us. Join us for the next episode too.

>> Thank you very much.