Things the Rebbe Said Parents Should Be Doing

Today is Yud Ches Elul, the 18th day of Elul. Today is the Yom Huledes, the birthday of the Baal Shem Tov, and today is also the birthday of the Alter Rebbe. From today until Rosh Hashanah is exactly twelve days, and we all know that Rosh Hashanah is a time to make a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of the year. So since today is Yud Ches Elul, and from today there are twelve months left in the year, from today we should make a cheshbon hanefesh for every month. For example, today, Yud Ches Elul, we make a cheshbon hanefesh on the month of Tishrei; tomorrow, on the month of Cheshvan; the next day, on the month of Kislev; and so on. This is the whole idea of Elul — not only Yud Ches Elul, but Yud Ches Elul is that special.

It's just like a person who has a business, and once a year, when it comes to tax season, he sits down and makes a cheshbon: did he make money this year, did he lose money this year, and if he lost money, how can he do better next year? The same thing is Elul — a person makes a cheshbon hanefesh. And also, as the Alter Rebbe says, Melech BaSadeh — the king comes out to the field. Meaning, the whole year, in order to get to the king, it's not easy. Sometimes they won't let you in; you have to wear good clothes, and you have to go through this garden and that garden, until you get to this room and that room, and finally you get to the king — and maybe they'll tell you, go back, you're not sure. But Elul is a time, Melech BaSadeh, that the king comes out to you, puts aside the formalities of the office, and shows a good face to you — even if you have dirty clothes, meaning even if you're full of aveiros, whatever it may be. But you can always make a cheshbon, and that is the month of Elul.

So today, I want to share with you two different inyonim. Number one, a very short letter, which I'm going to read, that he wrote in 1951, and then I'm going to share with you something that Rabbi Mindel wrote down in Hebrew from Yud Ches Elul, 1944.

So the letter is like this. From Yud Ches Elul, the Rebbe writes: every year it creates, by every Jew, the feeling of a decision that the new year should be a better year and an uplifting one in the daily life of oneself and others. If this is so every Elul, how much more so is this coming year — and here the Rebbe said that because the coming year was Tav-Shin-Yud-Beis, that was the Shmita. And this year here also, our coming year, Tav-Shin-Pei-Beis, is going to be the year of Shmita. It is a holy year — just like Shabbos is the holiest day of the week, the holiest of the seven days, the same thing also, the year of Shmita is the holiest year of all seven years.

And the Rebbe writes here — the letter gives a special program for Shmita. Here the Rebbe writes that it has to be a peaceful year, holy to Hashem — not only that you alone should feel the holiness of Shmita, but even the behemos, the material and physical life, and even the nefesh habehaimis, the animal soul, should remove themselves from the material, shake off the gashmius, our coarseness and habits, our physical dust, and distance ourselves from worldly habits which affect a person's way of thinking. And this is the preparation for Rosh Hashanah. And when a person has this in mind this Elul, Hashem will give him a kesiva vachasima tova — that's what the Rebbe writes. And the same thing also our coming year — in a few places, when the Rebbe speaks about Shmita, and also about the year of Hakhel which comes after Shmita, he always mentions in his letters the chinuch, the education, that we should put into our children. This, he said, should be the focus in Elul, especially before this.

That's number one. Number two: in 1944 the Rebbe asked Rabbi Mindel that they have to write a kuntres. In those days, as we've mentioned before, 1944 was not like today. In those days there were not so many mikvaos in the world, in America especially; in those days there were not so many sefarim. Today there's everything, all over the world, every corner of the world — but in those days, not so. People were amaratzim; they didn't know [unclear], they didn't know how to learn, they didn't know what to do. They couldn't properly keep a mikveh, they couldn't keep a kosher kitchen — it was too hard. So the Rebbe wanted that they should make a kuntres — not a new sefer on the Shulchan Aruch, just take the halachos and show people, so that they would be able to immediately know what to do. Because the most important thing that the Rebbe said about getting ready for the new year is action — what we have to do, in practice, what to do. Not philosophy — learning is very important, but if you don't know what to do, then the whole learning is nothing.

So the Rebbe said, make a kuntres. Here I have — I did print part of it, but it wasn't done the way it should have been done, and later on I found more halachos and more notations of the Rebbe. So here I have the kuntres that he asked Rabbi Mindel to work on. This whole kuntres — this is the Sefer HaMinhagim. I don't know if you can see it — Sefer HaMinhagim is well known, it's all over, and I showed it today. But I found more material from the Rebbe, and this is it — it's old. It starts here, pointing to the avodah from the morning, and then it goes into the daytime — washing hands, and so on, and everything. This is something I think we should print; I don't know why it wasn't printed. I did give it out, but it wasn't done the way it should have been. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about this.

So then, giving him this kuntres, the Rebbe spoke to Rabbi Mindel — this was before the Rebbe was Rebbe, when he was relaying something from the Frierdiker Rebbe. He said every parent, every father, should not forget, every day, to learn with or be involved in the education of the children, and they should be lidugma chaya, a living example. And Rabbi Mindel wrote this down, and he gave examples — what the Frierdiker Rebbe said. He said, it's not from the Rebbe, this is from the Frierdiker Rebbe — what did he say?

Parents should be careful — I have it written down here — that when they answer Omein Yehei Shmei Rabbah, the children should see that the father is careful in saying it. Number two: davening with a minyan — the father should daven with a minyan every day. Sometimes, I guess, the Rebbe didn't say this exactly, but people go to shul and they talk in shul, and when it comes to davening they rush through it — but daven with a minyan. Before the Shmita, in 1944, this was also said — that parents should take upon themselves to daven with a minyan.

The Rebbe once said — we wrote about this somewhere — that the Rebbe writes in a letter, somebody asked, "What is Vasikin? What does Vasikin mean?" So he answered that Vasikin means to daven early — you have to go to shul early and daven Vasikin, [unclear]. That is all from the Frierdiker Rebbe, as it says in Tanya, not to speak devarim beteilim. Devarim beteilim doesn't just mean not to speak about baseball or football — devarim beteilim means if people get together and speak, and nothing good can come out of it, that is called devarim beteilim. And not to speak lashon hara. And the Rebbe mentions, as it says in a perek in Tanya, the consequences if a person speaks lashon hara — and he mentions here that lashon hara is the only aveira [unclear] because it has an effect on other people as well.

And this is something a person can take upon himself — also to be mehadrin in tznius. As the Frierdiker Rebbe said, when you go to buy something, be mehadrin in tznius. Tznius doesn't only mean that a woman should wear the right clothes and cover her hair — of course tznius means that too — but you also have to be careful in your speech, nivul peh, how a person speaks. [unclear] and raise your children. This is what the Rebbe said then.

And the Rebbe says there, in the name of the Frierdiker Rebbe, that when a parent puts a child to sleep, he should tell stories of tzaddikim — then in the coming year of Shmita you will have nachas from the children; it will be a healthy year, it will be a sweet year. And when he gave him these instructions, these specific things, it's because when it comes to people, the truth is, after the Yomim Tovim end, people go back to the same thing — but when people make up their minds that these are the specific things they are going to do, then they actually do them.

And just to finish off with another thing the Rebbe mentioned to Rabbi Mindel — it wasn't in connection with the children, it was at another time he mentioned this, also from the Frierdiker Rebbe, and it was also before Shmita — that a person should always have in mind what Shlomo HaMelech said: the world is hevel havalim, vanity of vanities, all is nothing — the physical world is nothing. He wore a ring all the time, and what did it say on his ring? "This too shall pass." All the noisy attractions of the world that run after money and honor and coveting — in truth it is hevel havalim, it is nothing. A person comes down into this world naked — when a person is born, they wrap him in a piece of cloth — and when a person leaves this world, also naked, they wrap him in a piece of cloth. So when a person thinks about all these inyanim in the month of Elul before Rosh Hashanah, it gives him a certain lightness, that he should become better, do more mitzvos, daven more — and Hashem gives accordingly. And as the Rebbe finishes off here, he is rewarded in this world and also in the World to Come.

Now, before I finish, I just want to add my own thought, and I usually don't do this: I think if somebody writes a note on a piece of paper — before Rosh Hashanah, when they go to the Ohel — and tells it to the Rebbe, then he can be sure he's not going to go back on his word to the Rebbe, so he's going to keep everything that we just said, that the Rebbe wanted. We should all have a kesiva vachasima tova. Thank you.