Educating Children for Sukkos and Simchas Torah - Rabbi Yosef Avraham Pizam shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the Lema’an Yishme’u podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Simchas Beis Hashoeivah. The Rebbe speaks about taking everyone—men, women, and children—to Simchas Beis Hashoeivah, to rejoice and bring joy to others. To rejoice and bring joy to others, to travel to distant places, and to bring the four species there as well. The Rebbe speaks about how we need to accustom the Jewish people to using more hadassim. People generally use three hadassim. The Rebbe says at least six, at least six hadassim. If you like, there is a wonderful connection here to Moshiach: it says of Moshiach, “He will sense the fear of Hashem.” The sense of smell is very significant in connection with Moshiach, and the hadas is the species characterized by its pleasant fragrance. Perhaps that is one of the reasons we use more hadassim. These ideas are based on the words of the Bnei Yissaschar for the month of Marcheshvan. In any case, we need to organize Simchas Beis Hashoeivah celebrations for children and take them to the celebrations. Part of their education is to make them happy, get them dancing, and give them a taste of the warmth of Chassidus at farbrengens, each according to his own capacity. Again, not by force, but with thought and understanding, in the right proportion, so that they enjoy it and have an experience that will stay with them for life. Hoshana Rabbah. We prepare hoshanos for women and young children as well, and they too have the custom of striking the aravos. So here too, we should provide women and children with aravos for this mitzvah, so they can say the prescribed text, strike the aravos five times to sweeten the judgments and severities, and say the text printed in the siddur. Another of the things the Rebbe instilled in all of us concerns the education of students and children on Sukkos. Here is an example. Within Chabad there are various institutions—Talmud Torahs and chadarim—where this is less of an issue, almost no issue, or no issue at all. But in other settings focused more on outreach, what are called schools, the Rebbe writes—and this appears in Chinuch U’Mechanech, page 124—“Encourage and make sure that every student has a sukkah at home,

02:50 Speaker 2 that we make sure the child has a sukkah and, together with the family, does indeed fulfill the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah.” Another instruction from the Rebbe concerns Chol Hamoed—every Chol Hamoed, including Chol Hamoed Sukkos. It is not an easy instruction, but this is what the Rebbe says: “On the days of Chol Hamoed, arrangements should be made for the students to come to school every day for two hours, for davening and learning, and the teachers can take turns. Care must be taken that the time is not wasted. In particular, care must be taken that the children have no contact with the street or its atmosphere, for today there are various problems involving what one sees and hears—what one sees in the street, what one hears in the street. This must be watched especially carefully, for the harm it causes is beyond measure.” And another instruction from the Rebbe, appearing in Chinuch U’Mechanech on page 125: “The students should be encouraged to daven all three prayers with a minyan on Chol Hamoed.” Here too, whatever the schools and Talmud Torahs do on their own is welcome. But if parents see that something more is needed and it is not being done, they can either influence the administration to do it or organize it themselves. Members of the shul can arrange activities for the children that include some learning, fulfilling Hashem’s mitzvos, and so on. We’re going to discuss education in preparation for Sukkos—how to involve children, boys and girls, in preparing for the festival, experiencing it, and fulfilling its mitzvos. We’re talking about those below bar and bas mitzvah age. What are their obligations? What are we obligated to teach them, and what must they be trained to do so that they become accustomed to behaving like Jewish children and chassidim? So, we know that if someone below bar mitzvah age built the sukkah, that presents a problem. The sukkah must be built by someone who is past bar mitzvah age. But

05:35 Speaker 2 we can involve young children in helping prepare to build the sukkah, even under what is called an adult standing over and supervising a minor. Ultimately, it is considered that the adult does the work. He finishes it; he checks everything. As a parent, he takes responsibility for ensuring that the sukkah is kosher. There is value in involving the children in the preparations: having them hand over something that needs to be hung up, a particular board, and so on. There is great value in making the children partners in the mitzvah of sukkah. Let’s see what their obligation is to dwell in the sukkah. Although minors are exempt from the mitzvah of sukkah by Torah law until they reach the age of thirteen, nevertheless, by rabbinic law, any child who no longer needs his mother—that is, one who has reached the age of six—is obligated to dwell in the sukkah so that he can be educated in mitzvos. If the child is bright and mature enough not to need his mother even at the age of five, he is obligated to dwell in the sukkah. Incidentally, this is the source of the expression we use, that a young child begins at age six or at age five; it depends on what the Alter Rebbe is actually saying here. But while he still needs his mother, just as his mother is exempt, so is he, even by rabbinic law, since he needs her and she may well not be sitting in the sukkah at all. Women are exempt from the mitzvah of sukkah. In any case, a child who no longer needs his mother is obligated in the mitzvah of sukkah by rabbinic law, so that he can be educated in mitzvos. Although a child who no longer needs his mother is obligated to dwell in the sukkah, if he eats and sleeps outside the sukkah, others do not have to stop or rebuke him. But his father must rebuke him, stop him, and bring him into the sukkah in order to educate him in the mitzvah. In other words, the father is commanded to make sure that this child, who no longer needs his mother, really does eat

08:15 Speaker 2 in the sukkah. I want to return to what it says here, to this wording: “He must rebuke him, stop him, and bring him into the sukkah in order to educate him in the mitzvah.” I want to say this: the Gemara does not mean that you should rebuke him in a way that ruins his mood or makes him feel opposed to it. It means this in the context of how things were in those days: Listen, you’re a son, you have an obligation, you listen to your father and do what you’re told. All right? That is still true today; nothing about that has changed. But your approach should be to bring him in, and above all, you need to get him there in practice. Try kindness. There’s a good chance you’ll succeed by persuading him: tell him, “We’ll have a lovely Yom Tov, you’ll get such-and-such, and we’ll go on this or that outing.” If nothing else works, sometimes you may need to rebuke him, and that may help too. Sometimes there’s no choice. Yes, sometimes there’s no choice. But, G-d forbid, don’t create an atmosphere of pressure that turns Yom Tov into a time of stress. If Yom Tov is stressful, that won’t be good. A child grows up saying, “I hate this holiday; it’s nothing but tension.” Guests come—what do they see? Dad gets upset, Dad shouts, Dad does this. Is that how you want to bring them closer to Yiddishkeit? You have to think and adapt what you do. Everything needs its proper proportion and measure. “The words of the wise are heard when spoken gently.” But here too, I want to share the same secret: find time to prepare the child through what the school or Talmud Torah teaches him, and through what the parents add at home. A story about a sukkah. The Rebbe’s visits to the sukkah on Sukkos. We have holiday stories for every festival, and there are—yes, there are many books

10:34 Speaker 2 There are whole stories about every festival—chassidic stories, stories that show the mesirus nefesh people had for a sukkah, all sorts of things like that. All right, this isn’t a factory for teaching every story in the world. But if a child gets one good story from us, one nice explanation of why we do something, and hears how Grandpa did it and how Grandpa’s grandfather did it, that gives him a connection. Then he’ll want to be part of it. Our forefathers left Egypt and dwelled in sukkos under the Clouds of Glory—that’s what we have in mind in Kiddush too, right? So why shouldn’t the child know that? We can tell him these things and, again, make him eager for it, make it something exciting. As for how long he has to sit at the meal and whether he may go out for a little while—well, every father and mother knows their children. We have to keep things in proportion: on the one hand, the table should be treated with respect; on the other, if a child gets some air for five or ten minutes and comes back, that may be what he needs. Today we’re aware of attention and concentration difficulties. If you force a child beyond his natural ability, you aren’t doing him any good. You have to use wisdom and understanding, and take a measured approach. The child should be involved, experience it all, take part, be part of it, say a bracha. And if necessary, let him get a little air and come back at his best. Buying the four species: the Maharshal wrote that there is no need to buy a young child a lulav of his own, because after his father has fulfilled the mitzvah with it, he can give it to his son to shake and make a bracha over. So the Maharshal said there’s no need to go to so much trouble. But some say that if he can afford it, it is better to buy him a lulav so he can do the shaking properly during Hallel with the congregation, which is better than making the bracha afterward.

12:37 Speaker 2 So we do try, if someone can afford it, to buy one for each child. If that isn’t possible, we buy one or two for all the children, and they transfer ownership to one another. We’ll see that in a moment. If a father doesn’t buy his child a lulav of his own, he must be careful on the first day—whether outside Eretz Yisroel or in Eretz Yisroel, if there are adults who have not yet made the bracha that day—not to give the lulav to the child outright, unless he holds it together with him, because a minor can acquire ownership but cannot transfer it. Fulfilling the mitzvah with a lulav that belongs to several young children: he can buy one lulav for several of his children and tell one son to transfer it to the next. In this way he fulfills the mitzvah of educating two or more young children to use a lulav of their own, and each one acquires his own lulav for the mitzvah. This is also implied by the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, volume 1, page 367. We have young children take the four species on every day of the festival, not only on the first day. So to an adult we say, “It’s a gift on condition that you return it.” We don’t say that to a child, because he can receive the gift but can’t give it back. In other words, he can acquire ownership but cannot transfer it. Now, I remember that in our area there were vendors of the four species who very much wanted to make the mitzvah appealing to children. They would give them invalid sets of four species so the children could, so to speak, play with them, make a bracha over them—perhaps not make a bracha over them, but bring them to shul and shake them. Well, we need to know this: playing is very nice, but it does not fulfill a mitzvah. If we want to educate a child in mitzvos, the lulav and all four species must be kosher. If they aren’t kosher, it isn’t

14:42 Speaker 2 education in the mitzvah. For playing, throughout the festival, by all means—but that’s playing. For davening, for shul, for shaking the lulav, use only a kosher set. I’ll tell you, there was someone who took this even further. I had been invited to kindergartens to teach the children about Sukkos and the four species. I went to this dear fellow, who liked to provide everything. He brought me the four species to show in the kindergartens, but he said, “Listen, my aravos haven’t arrived yet. Lots of eucalyptus trees grow here in the Krayos. Take two eucalyptus branches and you’ll have aravos. Will the kindergarten children know whether they’re aravos or not?” I followed his advice for one reason: the children and the teachers wouldn’t mistake them for anything else, and I told them that the eucalyptus branches looked similar. So I brought them as an illustration, but on the festival itself I would use actual aravos. All right, we need to know that when educating children about the four species, the four species must be kosher and of good quality. On teaching children about the four species, here are the wonderful, instructive words of the Frierdiker Rebbe, who tells of the education he received from his father, the holy Rebbe Rashab, may his merit protect us. The Rebbe Rashab, of blessed memory, took his son, the Frierdiker Rebbe, when he was just three years old, to help him and teach him the procedure for binding the lulav. In the words of the Frierdiker Rebbe in Sefer Hasichos 5704, page 13: “The first Sukkos I remember from my childhood is from the year 5694. On the eve of Sukkos, when my father bound the lulav in the sukkah, he instructed me to hold it while he bound it. I leaned over the table and held the lulav in my hands, and my father bound it. When I was three years and three months old, on the eve of Sukkos 5694, my father took me to the sukkah at his mother the Rebbetzin’s home so I could be present while he bound the lulav and its species. He let me carry the aravos to the sukkah. When we came to the sukkah, my father seated me on the table

17:27 Speaker 2 and taught me how to hold the lulav that was lying on the table while he arranged the hadassim and aravos and bound them. My father chose three long, straight hadassim and placed them on the table. He laid the lulav on top of them and showed me how to hold it with both hands. He took two aravos and placed them on either side of the lulav, added three hadassim beside each aravah, then placed the three hadassim alongside the lulav and tied them firmly with the lulav rings.” The Frierdiker Rebbe was born in Elul 5641, so here he is on the eve of Sukkos 5694, at the age of three years and three months. Look how much his father invests in his education, in his experience, in getting him used to mitzvos, in giving him a taste of mitzvos, in binding the four species. I don’t know whether we should tell everyone to do this at age three, but at least at five or six, yes. “It was the eve of Sukkos 5694. On the table stood a box containing esrogim and lulavim. I thought they were apples and wanted to play with the apples. My father told me, ‘This is a mitzvah.’ Several times he told me, ‘This is a lulav, this is an esrog, and this is a hadas,’ until I could tell them apart myself. I asked my father where they had grown. He answered, ‘In the wilderness.’ I asked again, ‘What is a wilderness?’ He answered, ‘Something like the place where sheep graze, like the one near Lubavitch.’ I asked again how they had obtained these four species, and he answered, ‘They sent a messenger, and he brought them.’ Afterward, Father went to the sukkah at the home of my grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivkah, and I went too. I asked them to give me something from the box, and my father gave me the rings, the rings used to bind the four species. I refused them, saying I wanted one of the bigger things. My father told me, ‘The rings are greater than all the rest, because without the rings the four species are not held together. The rings hold and strengthen the’

19:53 Speaker 2 Everyone. The Frierdiker Rebbe tells us this in a sicha from the first night of Sukkos 5699. Simchas Torah. The Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach’s words are well known: in a sicha on Simchas Torah 5702, he spoke about the students, about the children. “Just look at them and you will see Moshiach.” The children of this generation are imbued with Moshiach, with anticipation of the Geulah. Just look at them, take a look, and you will see Moshiach. It fills their lives. So the great joy of Simchas Torah is, of course, especially connected with the children who study Torah, who are also called “My anointed ones,” as the Rebbe noted in that sicha. Indeed, it is a Jewish custom to bring all the children, even infants, to the hakafos, the Rebbe says, just as we bring them to the reading of the Ten Commandments. The Rebbe said this in a Shabbos Haazinu sicha in 5749: it is a Jewish custom to bring even infants to the hakafos, as to the reading of the Ten Commandments. Even babies in their cradles—if their health permits it, we should make it possible for them to come. That is one thing. Being called up to the Torah: young children go up together with their fathers, or for the Kol Hane’arim aliyah with an adult who recites the blessings with them. The common custom there is to say the words “May the angel who redeemed me bless the children,” and so on. In Chabad custom, we do not say those words. It is also common practice to spread a tallis over everyone standing on the bimah, especially the children, but we do not follow that custom. Still, all the children come close, and together with the person who receives the Kol Hane’arim aliyah, they say the blessings with him, and everyone answers amen. Afterward, they rejoice and dance with the children. It is told of the Mitteler Rebbe that, because of his great holiness, he felt too ashamed to approach the Torah. Who does not feel ashamed? Someone who does not sense it. He does not feel it; he has no sensitivity. He is not

22:25 Speaker 2 moved by it. But the Mitteler Rebbe, a holy, pure soul, such a lofty soul, felt shame in the face of the revelation of the essence of the Infinite that is present in the Torah, Hashem’s Torah. So he would not be called up to the Torah throughout the year. When could he bring himself to go up? Out of his profound self-nullification before Hashem and Hashem’s Torah, he would go up only for Kol Hane’arim, together with all the children. That was the only aliyah to the Torah the Mitteler Rebbe would receive. From him we can learn what the Torah is, what the holiness of the Torah is. And again, as mentioned earlier, on Simchas Torah we should give the children treats and good food—give them, what do you call them, pekelach, yes, bags of all kinds of tasty things that they will enjoy. But at the same time, the children must know what Simchas Torah is. Tell them a little about it. I’ll say it again: you can take a book about the Torah, read half a page, explain a custom—when it began, what happened. Simchas Torah is a day when we celebrate receiving the second Tablets, and Simchas Torah is a day when we finish reading all the Torah portions and begin again. Beginning again matters. Give them the reasons we rejoice, how we rejoice, all the customs, the Rebbe’s wonderful sichos. All these things—once the children have at least a few points in their minds and hearts, each according to their age—will give them a combination of the experience, the fulfillment of the mitzvah, of course, observing Jewish customs, dancing, rejoicing and bringing joy to others, and understanding that this is a great day, a profound day, an interesting day, a day with meaning. All of it matters, from kabbolas ol and attachment to Hashem beyond intellect, to understanding and taking pleasure in understanding

24:47 Speaker 2 Jewish customs and observing them. And there are the second hakafos. Chabad brings joy to the second hakafos. Outside the Land of Israel, hakafos are held on two days. In the Holy Land, Chabad holds second hakafos both in Chabad shuls and in places where the community holds them, or Chabad members organize second hakafos for the public. Here too, the children are part of the joy: they rejoice and they bring joy to others. More broadly, it is very important to let them recite verses, include them, let them sing a little, and so on. They must be part of the program, part of the experience. May we merit the revelation of the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach amid great joy, as we say, “May Tzemach come, may Tzemach come, on Simchas Torah.” The numerical value of Tzemach is Menachem. Amen and amen.