0247 - Boys and Girls Mixed for Release Time

00:01 We know how much the Rebbe was against having mixed boys and girls in the schools. Nevertheless, when it came to release time or known as the Wednesday hour, there it was for boys and girls. Now, the Wednesday hour, the release time was something that started by the Friedrich Rebbe because the government in many states gives a right once a week for the public school kids to go and get some religious education. It's part of their system, but since there's a separation of church and state, they don't allow it to be done in the school building, so you have to go to a different place. So they would take the kids out to a shul, nearby shul to the public school, and those that want, boys and girls would come, and for one hour a week, somebody would come. They had the bochum come, other people would come and teach them Yiddishkeit once a week. It was started by the Friedrich Rebbe, and by the Rebbe, it was a very, very important thing. And even though normally you can't mix boys and girls, but this, first of all, is the only exposure that these kids had to Yiddishkeit. But the main thing is this is part of the public school system. It's not that it's our school that we have mixed boys and girls. It's the public school, and they have mixed boys and girls, and we have a right to teach these kids. So in halakha, there is no problem of us teaching the boys

01:13 and girls because it's not something that we're doing. It's taking advantage of the public school system, and there they have boys and girls together. But I remember one year, it came out that the goyishe chag goyis, the goyishe vacation for the schools coincided with Hanukkah. So there was an idea, I don't know if the idea came from Rabbi Chadikov or from Rabbi Hecht, that we should utilize those days where there is no public school to get the same kids who weekly would come to the release time, to the Wednesday hour, get them every day of the week to come and learn, I think for an hour. And that's what was established. Got in touch with these kids and notified them that we're gonna have every day a certain amount of time that they could come to the same place where you had the release time and they will be taught. But it was said that this is only for boys because mainly the release time every week since it's part of the public school system and they have boys and girls, so we teach the boys and the girls. But this is something outside of the public school system. We're doing something on our own, so it can't be mixed boys and girls, and therefore it's only for boys. But that was only the first day. The second day, we got the message that we should let them know that it's for boys and the girls, for the girls also. And what we heard, what

02:24 was told to us is that when the Rebbe heard about it, I don't know exactly the wording the Rebbe said, but it seems that the Rebbe held that since it's for the same kids and it's all a hemshech to the public school, to the release time that's done in the, under the auspices of the public schools, so this could fall into the same category, and therefore the Rebbe said we should utilize and this should be for the girls also. And for the next few days, the next few days it was for the boys and for the girls. But it seems like it's all because it is all a hemshech to the public school system, which they have the boys and the girls, and we just take advantage of it and we teach them Torah, and this is the only exposure that they have to Yiddishkeit in the whole day and the whole week.