What I Learn From The Rebbe About Chinuch

00:00 Speaker 1 Hi, I'm Zalman Schner. Welcome to the Everything Chinuch Podcast, brought to you by the Menachem Education Foundation. Here, you'll find Farbrengens, workshops, live interviews, and more. All to inspire you, the Chabad educator. We hope you enjoy today's episode.

00:20 Speaker 2 So let's begin. Good Chodesh, everybody. What a zechus to be here. I have to be perfectly honest, last month when we were logging on for our Rosh Chodesh Adar Farbrengen, that was so beautiful. I said, "See you all next month, Rosh Chodesh Nisan." But in the back of my head, I was a little bit like, "Are we really gonna do this right before Pesach? Will people even be available to join? Will speakers be available to join? Will I be available to join?" And then about a week ago, somebody close to MEF reached out to us. She had a baby, Baruch Hashem, and her baby's go- undergoing numerous surgeries, and she said, "Can I dedicate this month's Farbrengen for Refuah Shlaima for my baby?" And we couldn't say no. How could you say no to something like that? So this Farbrengen is in the zechus of a Refuah Shlaima, an immediate Refuah Shlaima to Esther Malka bas Leva Bela. And what a beautiful thing that we're able to bring Mechantves together on such a special day and tap into those kochos, and the impact that you'll have on your students around the world to be able to be- benefit this baby and all of us to have all the revealed kochos in our lives. Um, we're so excited to be able to offer a unique format this time because, Baruch Hashem, our various esteemed speakers are international, so therefore able to open it up to an international, um, audience as well. Let me see something. It

01:45 Speaker 2 doesn't look like... There we go. Follow it. Um, and we are going to start with Tehillim, as we always do, and we're going to be led in Tehillim by Chaya Libera, a teacher in Torah Academy of Johannesburg, all the way across the Atlantic, and very much involved in all of our Chinuch work, and a paragon of Chinuch herself, but never get to see her on camera 'cause usually these Farbrengens are in the middle of the night. So I'm going to share. We're going to do the Rebbe and Rebbetzin's kapitel, and then kapitel chaf. Okay, here we go. Chaya, let's see Rebbe's kapitel.

02:35 Speaker 3 Okay, I'm just waiting for it to come on the screen. Um, I also want to add with Chana's permission. Can you hear me?

02:42 Speaker 2 Yes, we hear you well.

02:44 Speaker 3 Um, for Refuah Shlaima for, uh, Michal Raya bas, um, Leon Liba. Michal Raya bas Leon Liba, also for Refuah Shlaima.

02:53 Speaker 2 Amen.

02:54 Speaker 3 Um, Shir Hama'alos l'David. L'olai Adonai sh'haya lanu yomar b'nei Yisroel. L'olai Adonai sh'haya lanu b'kom aleinu Adam. Azai chayim b'la'unu b'charos apam banu. Azai hamayim sh'tapnu nachlah avar al-nafshenu. Azai avar al-nafshenu hamayim hazaydonim. Baruch Adonai sh'lo nasananu kerif lishneihem. Nafshenu k'tzipor nimlista mipach. Yoisim ha'pach nishbar v'anachnu nimlatnu. Hizrainu Hashem ben goy osei shamayim va'aretz.

03:30 Speaker 2 I'll do the Rebbetzin's new kapitel. Familiar one?

03:43 Speaker 3 Yeah, just waiting for it to show on my side.

03:47 Speaker 2 All right.

03:49 Speaker 3 Takes a second.

03:51 Speaker 2 Oh.

03:54 Speaker 3 Oh, there we go. Um, no, it's not coming up. Let me do it on my own. There we go. There we go. Um, let's go down a little bit. No? No. Oh, there we go. Okay. Shir hama'alos b'shuv Adonai es shivas Tzion hayinu kechamim. Az yom, az yoma'los chek pinu oshenenu. Wi'u az yomru vagoyim higalah Adonai asos imeileh. Higalah Adonai asos imanu hayinu smachim. Shuv Adonai es shivasenu ka'afikim ba'negev. Hazanim vedima berina yiktzeru halach yalech u'vachoi noseh meshech hazahav. Vayavai berina noseh lumoso.

04:56 Speaker 2 Beautiful. And kapitel chaf, we'll once again repeat that this should be Refuah Shlaima for all Chayalim, anyone who needs a Refuah in the entire Kol Yisroel, and specifically Esther Malka bas Leva Bela and-

05:09 Speaker 3 Michal Raya bas Leon Liba.

05:13 Speaker 2 Amen. Kapitel chaf.

05:17 Speaker 3 Okay. Lamenatzeach mizmor l'David. Yaancha Adonai v'yom sara yisagefcha shem elehei Yaakov. Yishlach azicha mikodesh u'mitzion yisadeka. Yizkor kol minkhasecha v'ailasca yedash nesela. Yiten lacha chovavecha v'chol atascha yimale. Yiranenabi shur ascha u'bashem eleheinu nidgal. Yimale Adonai koma sha aloscha. Ata yodati ki yoshia Adonai meshicha yanehu mishmei kadshei bigvuras yosha yimino. Ei levarecha v'ei levasosim. V'anachnu bashem Adonai eleheinu nizkir. Heim hakorov v'lo falum. V'anachnu kamlu v'nit odad. Adonai hoshia m'melech nenenu v'yom kareinu.

06:01 Speaker 2 Beautiful. Thank you very much. Okay. So today's farbrengen is in honor of Rosh Chodesh, but it's also a Chanah for Yud Aleph Nissan, 'cause we all know that the closer it gets to Yud Aleph Nissan, the less time we'll have to prepare. And for a long time, we wanted to really unpack this topic of learning from the Rebbe about Chanah. Because if we're looking for a role model of the ultimate Machaneh, we do not have to look very far. The Rebbe is that lesson for us. And maybe if you looked, um, at the flyer and did a little double take on the unusual wording of the title, maybe you expected, you know, everything I learned from the Rebbe in Chanah. We davka put it in present tense, everything I learn from the Rebbe about Chanah, because every day we're learning more from every story, from every encounter, from every video of Rebbe dollars, how to really look a child in the eye, how to see a person, how to hear where they're coming from, and there is so much to unpack. So we're so excited to be here preparing for Yud Aleph Nissan with two illustrious shluchis from around the world, as well as all of you. And our first speaker is Mormashi Lipskar, who has been a shlicha in South Africa, um, for over 50 years. Am I right?

07:28 Speaker 4 Yeah. We just passed 54 in Shvat.

07:31 Speaker 2 Wow. Paint your boot. That is amazing. And Mormashi and her husband established the community of Johannesburg as a thriving Chabad community that is growing to this day, and I know all about it because my husband grew up there, and Mormashi was his first grade Mora. And Mormashi is a beloved teacher to so many of my family members of your community, and everybody remembers what you learned. And when we're discussing at the dinner table last night, the farbrengen today and who's gonna be speaking, we just took a minute, and my husband was like, "It's unbelievable the impact that a first grade Mora has because my ability to read, my ability to daven, my ability to learn is all thanks to Mormashi." So please go ahead and share your words of inspiration.

08:25 Speaker 4 Thank you. You could say good Chodesh here, it's already Beis Nissan, so it's an extra exciting and chassidisher date. Um, I need to correct you. Mormashi and her husband did not establish anything here. When you're a shliach, your biggest gift and your biggest tool is to be a conduit. The Rebbe did all this. We can't fool ourselves to think that this kind of hatslacha can ever happen from people, ordinary people. This is the Rebbe's keichas, and that's what we see wherever there's hatslacha. And I think that the, um, the key really is to know that as you go along, to understand that this is not you and you can't get in the way of the Rebbe. You have to be open. You have to be a conduit, and there needs to be a humility which, um, you work on for your whole life. So in terms of what I can share tonight, this is what I chose. I chose the machen yenem besser. The Rebbe was always trying to do people favors, begashmiyus, aruchniyus, to make it better for them. So I'm gonna begin with taking you to the corridor of 770. Some of you may know that when the Rebbe would go from his room to Mincha, people who had just come from a trip, people who were leaving, and people who had an occasion came into the-- through the front door and stood in the vestibule of 770. And when the Rebbe would pass by... So Rabbi Groner knew. The Rebbe had told

10:33 Speaker 4 him that if he has nothing scheduled for the next ten years, he knows how he wants to use every minute. So Rabbi Groner made it his, um... What he understood he had to do was to protect the Rebbe, and there were a lot of people sometimes. And I wanna tell you about one particular day when we had possibly just arrived, and we went to stand there to kind of say Shalom Aleichem. I don't think we were leaving, but it could be one or the other. So everybody's waiting, and there are a lot of people there. And the Rebbe comes through, and a lady approaches the Rebbe to say it's her son's birthday. She has this baby with her, this little three-year-old, and she has a pair of scissors. The Rebbe reached into his pocket and took his own scissors out. What does that tell you? He took a little snip of hair. He had gone one more step, and Rabbi Groner is, like, trying to protect. And a lady came over with a tichel under her chin, I remember, like, a brown coat, short lady, and said, "Oi, Rebbe, my brother-in-law." And the Rebbe said to her, "I have his name and his mother's name. I will mention them... I, I'll mention him at the Ohel." He hadn't walked another two steps, and another lady approached the Rebbe, and to me, it looked like the same type of lady. So, and the Rebbe looked at her, and she also said Somebody wasn't well, and the

12:10 Speaker 4 Rebbe pointed to the Merkaz door, and he said, "See to give his name and his mother's name into the office, and I will daven for them, mention them." He knew the difference. He knew whom he knew, whom he wanted to get to know better. My biggest memory of that day was a young boy, looked like a Sephardi young boy, just that he was well-built and tall and lovely, and he stood there. And as the Rebbe passed by, he said, "Rebbe, bless me." And the Rebbe stopped, and he had such pleasure on his face. This child had come from Canarsie or Flatbush or somewhere. He looked about eleven, twelve years old, and he looked at the Rebbe and he said, "Rebbe, bless me." It stayed with me forever. The Rebbe was never too busy. His first priority was, like Moshe Rabbeinu, the Yidden. So I wanna share something that happened to me when I was finished high school-- Uh, finished primary school. Finished high school. I finished high school in Philadelphia, and I had in my mind that I'm certainly not going to seminary. And let me tell you why. Because to me in those days, seminary was like Bais Yaakov. Bais Yaakov was like you come off of a Roneo machine. Anybody know what a Roneo machine is? You come off of a Photostat machine. You come out of the photocopy machine. And how did you look? Everybody had a navy blue pleated skirt. They had a white shirt. They had brown hair, which was

14:01 Speaker 4 straight, parted on the side, held here with a, a bobby pin, and they wore bobby socks and saddle shoes. Who knows what saddle shoes are? Any idea? Black and white. They've brought them back a few times and tied. And basically, you're a cookie-cutter copy of everybody else. That's the last thing that I was gonna be. So all the years I wanted to be a nurse. By the time I was finished high school, my parents had convinced me that's not really for a Jewish girl. So I thought, I will be a journalist, and I will write articles for Chabad. So what's so bad? Now, in those days, the head of the family would go in for his birthday and discuss... Sometimes the family would come with, and discuss all the children. So are you ready for this? I was already in camp. You may not know, but Bais Rivkah was in Brownsville, horrible old building, dark and leaky. And what happened was that there wasn't money to pay the teachers. So after Pesach, the teachers were on strike, and there wasn't school anymore. And now the girls were in camp, and they really didn't know what was happening for Shavuos. Just didn't know what was happening. My father went in and spoke about every child. When it came to me, he said that I, I'd like to go to university and be a journalist. So the Rebbe said she should go to seminary. So my father said, "Which seminary?" And the Rebbe said, Are you ready

15:50 Speaker 4 for this? Bais Rivkah, if there'll be one. Can you imagine? Um, it was number one to say y-you need to go to seminary, and number two, about Bais Rivkah. So my father phoned me in Detroit, in camp, and he told me what the Rebbe said. But he said, "Don't say if there'll be one. Say the Rebbe said you should go to Bais Rivkah." Well, the Simcha camp was in the Shire, and everybody, you know, that, that was the look. What happened, L'pail, in September, we were in Brownsville. They had very weak teachers because the good teachers weren't coming back now, and it was pretty miserable. And didn't have s- electricity. It was raining in. So the teacher would write in the Yoman, "Lo yasdim, halachnu habayta." Can you imagine? I live in Philadelphia. I'm in New York. I don't have my family there. And, you know, like, what am I doing? So I got very down. And when I eventually was able to share it with my parents, my father, Hashem, said, "The Rebbe told you to go there. You better write to the Rebbe to tell him what's happening." Wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said to, "Daber im ha'melech behanal, Merkaz LeInyani Chinuch." That was Rabbi Chodakov. I was so miserable that I, like, I couldn't talk without crying. It was really... It was November. It was raining outside. We didn't have school a lot of the time. In school, it was dark and it rained in. So I managed to call

17:46 Speaker 4 Rabbi Chodakov, and I got an appointment. Rabbi Chodakov's office was at the end of the corridor. Small room. The Sforim, you see some Sforim behind me. The Sforim were, like, going all the way up and, like, you thought they're gonna fall on your head any minute. And this lovely man was sitting there, bent over, desk was full of things. And I told him- And he heard me out, and that was the story. This was November. In February, after the midterm break, we moved to Church Avenue. We moved to the new Beis Rivkah building. When it was possibly, um, before Pesach, when N she Chabad was downstairs. You know, there were three times a year when the Rebbe would address the women downstairs and men would go up-upstairs. Rabbi Klein, alav ha-shalom, came over to me and he said to me, "You should know you had a very big hand in the move." How many things can you learn from something like that? I was seventeen and I was, I was struggling, and the Rebbe took it seriously, and he made them take it seriously. The class was very small, and the truth is that I should dedicate tonight, L'ilu nishmas Ruchele bas Shalom Shaia. Ruchele was the only Beis Rivkah girl from the year before who joined the seminary, the only high school girl. Everybody else gave up. They thought there wouldn't be seminary, and so they went to different places. We had a tiny class. We were seven girls. I think three from Montreal,

19:41 Speaker 4 one from Borough Park, one from Springfield. I was in Philadelphia, and Ruchele, alav ha-shalom, was from New York. Her yurt site is actually on Dalet, so I think it's appropriate to, to remember her at this stage. So the Rebbe showed me and shows me, ton yenem a teyve, machen yenem besser. How can I make somebody's life better? So I did become a teacher, and it's an incredible assist that the Rebbe gave me for this to happen. What's the story? When I did graduate Beis Rivkah, my parents said, "It's enough. You g- you're coming home. We've had enough with your being affected by everything and everyone." And I did go home, and I taught in Philadelphia. But I missed my friends. I didn't have havrusa. So when it was gonna be camp, I wanted to go to Gan Yisroel. Now, I applied. As it was, oh, it was Purim time, they said, "We're not, uh, we're not organizing anything yet." And when I went in for Shevi shel Pesach, our family went there. Oh, they said it's full. Any of us who are out-of-towners dealing with the in-towners, of course, the in-towners didn't relate so well to the out-of-towners. Anyway, I didn't know what to do. I was really, really miserable again. Not so miserable. Not when I was teaching, then I was good. Because if I couldn't go to Gan Yisroel... I'd already gone to Camp Emunah five years. This was-- I, I was in Gan Yisroel and there was a day camp in Philadelphia

21:38 Speaker 4 that my father ran, but it was a bit boring. Anyway, uh, what should I do? So it was the convention before Shavuot. Philadelphia brought a delegation and I decided I'm gonna go up to the Rebbe. The Rebbe sat and ladies who wanted to speak to him had a chance to go up. And I'm writing, I'm on the train and I say to my mother, "Can I write that my parents agree?" And she said, "No. We're not letting you go back." And I wrote a letter like this. First line was that my birthday was coming up, when it was. Then I said that next year I would like to come back and tea-- uh, this year I taught in Bais Yaakov in Philadelphia, and it went very well. It was grade two. But for next year, I'd like to come back to Brooklyn. Yours truly. But what was really on my mind was the summer, especially coming there then and seeing all the girls. My turn came. Before my turn came, there was a lady there and she was crying and crying, and like I was getting more and more like, how am I gonna do this? And eventually, I put my letter down in front of the Rebbe. Rebbe takes a pencil, makes a line from the birthday, and he said, "Ask her other two." Then he reads the next part. He said, "If you enjoyed it so much, why do you wanna leave?" My Yiddish wasn't so good, but I had practiced. I said,

23:10 Speaker 4 "Tsu zayn mit di khaverus." Then the Rebbe looked at me and said, "But this is only in Yiddish. Dos iz nor in September. What are you gonna do for the summer?" Vos gesht du tan in summer? So I didn't have anything prepared to say in Yiddish, so I said, um, ikh kh'have volt farin in Detroit, ober s'iz geven a confusion, a misunderstanding un yetst bin ikh tok in ort. I don't even know if I used that many Yiddish words, but confusion, misunderstanding. And the Rebbe looked at me and he said, "Vos far a confusion? Vos far a misunderstanding? S'dakh a glaykh azakh." Like that's where you belong. Gave me a brokhah that I could come to New York as well, and I was bawling. I swam off of that stage and there were standing my baba, alav ha-shalom, and my mother, alav ha-shalom. And like, you know, you're a kid, you're nineteen years old, what are you crying about? In those days, kids didn't cry. You let the mother take care of everything. You'll be just fine. Meanwhile, I found the girls. They were standing in the middle of seven seventy. And I said, uh, "The Rebbe said I should come to Detroit." And they still turned around and said, "Well, there's no place." And I thought, I said something pretty corny. I said, "Well, it's the Rebbe's camp." I felt stupid, but that's what I said. They said, "Well, you could run the choir if you want, but we don't know what else you're

24:47 Speaker 4 gonna do." I said, "I'll take it." Guess what happened? When these girls wrote their theme into the Rebbe, the Rebbe sent-- said to them that he wants a halakha at every meal. So they came to me, said, "Y-you wanna teach halakha at every meal?" I said, "Yes, that's fine." In those days, we didn't have books, we didn't have internet. I decided to look for stories that were attached to our halacha. And I just wanna say why. Because when I was 14 in Camp Emunah, Hindi Liu was newly married. They were in Sheva Brachos, and sh- they came to camp and she spoke. And you know how she spoke? She got up on the stage, there were four-year-olds, there was a camp rabbi, and everybody in between. She took a breath and she said, "Rivkele was a little girl who lived in the city." And she told a beautiful story, and she fitted in the lessons, and then she ended the story. And she had everyone, like... And I saw then what you have to do. So I looked for stories. And of course, this was the Rebbe's way, not only of noticing me, but saying to me, "You're not gonna be a journalist. You're gonna be a speaker. It's what you have to do. I'm gonna help you." And for both confidence and where I wanted to be that summer, et cetera, the Rebbe cares. And so in my class now... I don't know how much time I have. Do you want me to stop?

26:28 Speaker 5 Like another five minutes or so.

26:30 Speaker 4 Here we go. What do I do in my class? I'm teaching grade one. I'm teaching grade one for quite a while. I have a system, system that I reward everything. Anything you catch them doing that's good. I've got something called tickets, which basically is more or less the same little picture but it's got different word on it. And I'll look and I'll see 10 kids are acting crazy, and then one guy is too tired to act crazy. "Look at Levi. Levi, this is unbelievable. Look at you, Levi. Your arms are folded, you're sitting down." And meanwhile, more and more kids are like, "Oh, okay." I said, "Levi, really, I, I must give you a Derech Eretz ticket." And the kid put his hands up because they-- I said, "You know, I really can't talk to you now." And they go like this. I said, "I must give you a Nescafé ticket." And there are tickets for if you participate in Lider and Mekunen, if you participate in reading your Yiddish, um, reader. Whatever. Whatever I feel like, you can just write it on there, et cetera. And it works. Why? Because everybody has an envelope, and you bring it back signed. There's a number on the back. If you got, uh, 20 from all your tickets, you now have 20. But everything is worth something. Your mitzvah notes. And any work you complete, you're gonna get two for every word, you're gonna get a five per page. You told the story at home, the mother

28:03 Speaker 4 signed, you get 10 points. You sang the song, five points. And you literally are noticing and acknowledging good things. That sort of reinforcement is priceless. We know how it is for adults. We know that's just how it is. And so I want to end with a story that I must have told many, many times because it was, it was Chofhei Sivan. We had 10 days to our wedding, and we had a yechidus. And my then chassan was writing the ketel, and he asked me if I wanna include anything. Now, a kallah 10 days before the wedding is like, she has a few things to think about. I said, "No, whatever you want." And then I thought, "How are we gonna make our house a home?" We had very nice gifts. Some of them, I had no idea what I was gonna do with them. We had fresh paint on the walls. But I realized in the back of my mind that it takes a lot more than that. And I said, "Let's get a bracha to have a warm home." Let's remember that Ishta is ubesai. A warm home, a warm heart. So he wrote it in. And all the other things he wrote in, the Rebbe gave brachos that we don't remember. What we do remember is the Rebbe said, "Un vos ir shraibts vegen hobn a varemen heym." And what you write about having a warm home, said And I'm here to make it warm for you. And I have kinderlach in the

31:10 Speaker 4 class who are academic, and they're inspired, and they're moving. There are other children taking slower. We have to build them up with other things. This one can sing, and that one can tell a story. And the other one, he can do a mitzvah. And I'll call the mother, and I'll say, "Write anything on this mitzvah chart." He said, "Ma ta'ani." He washed negel vasehr. He got dressed for school. He ate his breakfast. And add to it as you can. We have to see to it that our children succeed. We have to see that it should be warm for them. Everybody is different. And we have to understand that bashgacha pratit, that child has been given to me. They have a lot to teach me. And I'll give you one example of a ticket that I gave last week. A little boy didn't have stationery yet. So I lent him. I have stationery to, to lend. And near the end of the class, another little boy came over to him, and he said, "You're using my marker, Cokie. Marker." And he took it from him. This boy didn't say a word. Later, when they all left, I found his exact marker under his desk. This was mine. So I'm thinking the whole weekend, "What am I gonna do with this?" So I decided this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give an Avas Yisroel ticket to the kid who didn't say a word. Maybe he's a lemachol, maybe whatever, maybe he just takes it. And

32:52 Speaker 4 I'm gonna talk about what happened. You'll never believe it. He didn't say a word. I'm giving him a big Avas Yisroel ticket. It's gonna be five points. And to the other little boy, I called him over. I said, "Look what I found under your desk. Can you imagine? It's exactly like the one that Dovi was using." Because I didn't have to break the other one down, and I could use it as a teaching opportunity, as a learning opportunity. Did he really get it? At least the one wasn't embarrassed. And just to say that we have to see to make it warm for the other. And we've taken that in our marriage as people who come into our home, and we have to make it warm for each other, and we have to make it warm for the people on our shlichas, and we have to make it warm for the Aibishter. See to make it warm for the other, and it will be warm for you. What a privilege. Thank you.

34:00 Speaker 5 Thank you so much for being here. Feel like I have to put out my arms to catch all the gems coming out of my computer screen. That was unbelievable. It's very funny to note that all the different crises that you mentioned over the course of your talk that you were struggling with, whether it was a, a teacher strike or a leaking roof, you know, in the school building or not being able to find a place as a summer camp counselor, everything is exactly the same today. So you're giving us chizuk to deal with, you know. It's not so new after all, the challenges that the-- we go through in chinuch, but you keep your eye on the prize, and that was incredibly inspiring. And I love how you started out by bringing us into the quarter of seven seventy, because so much of the interaction between a teacher and a student, a principal and a teacher, a principal and a student, happens in that corridor, in the hallway. And to be like the Rebbe, to see every child, to see each person, what they need at the moment, that is unbelievable. Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you so much for being here all the way from Johannesburg. I'd like to remind everyone, before we go to the next speaker, we always ask everybody to put in the chat your name, bas, your mother's name, and we send in a duch to the Rebbe. Especially everyone here is... I mean, it's always busy, but

35:17 Speaker 5 it's also Erev Pesach on top of that, and you're here, and you carved out the time, and I'm sure people will carve out the time to watch the replay as well. So please put your name in the chat, in the general chat, not the private chat. That way I can copy-paste it into the Rebbe. And since we're an international crowd, you can also put where you're from. It'll be interesting to see this beautiful, beautiful worldwide farbrengen over many different time zones. So now we're moving not to different time zones, but north to France. And we have with us, once again, Mrs. Sarah Pinson. Sarah's, um... I forgot to mention that Mar-- Mrs. Lipsher spoke as the keynote at our Zoom Kinus, um, Mechanechis during COVID, and that was when we started with these Zooms. Actually, we started before that, but that was when it went, you know, exploded, and you were the keynote speaker. Now we have with us another keynote speaker, so it's flashbacks. Um, throwback Thursday, as they say. Mrs. Pinson spoke at our Kinus Mechanechis two years ago. And, um, Mrs. Sarah Pinson, also, I think, fifty years in France, in Nice, Baruch Hashem. And, um, yeah, there you are. Now we see your picture. And, uh, Mrs. Pinson is part of six generations of shluchim. Is that right? Baruch Hashem. From your grandparents, who were sent by the Frierdiker Rebbe, to great-grandchildren on shlichus. And, uh, soon after arriving in Nice, you founded a school, Kerem Menachem, which grew and flourished

36:48 Speaker 5 and now has two hundred and fifty children more, 'cause that was two years ago when you gave me that stat. So we're so excited to see you here to share your passion in chinuch. Thank you so much.

37:00 Speaker 6 Okay. So it's, uh-

37:01 Speaker 5 Okay

37:01 Speaker 6 ... thank you for having me. Very nice to see Mashie. I was gonna say Popack, but I think she hasn't been Popack for a very long time. As long as I haven't been Altman for a very long time either. And, um- Uh, actually, we are in our fiftieth year. We marked fifty years on Shushan Purim. Uh, there was a very big, uh, event with, uh, over fifteen hundred people, but I wasn't there because I was in Eretz Israel trying to find a way to get back to my home. I am now in my house, so that's a very big accomplishment. And, um, actually, since the last time, Baruch Hashem, Karnei Nacham has over four hundred students, and we have opened a new building for our middle school with a beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea, if anybody wants to come see it. We are actually on the French Riv-Riviera, so we do have a very privileged place in Gashmias. Um, I'm-- this is-- I don't know if I was, uh, I read the title right, but I really thought that this was-- I-I understood that I should share with other people how the Rebbe taught me how to teach. So I'm going to do it. And, um, I see that Mashy's adventure started, she was seventeen, and it's interesting to note that a very big turning point for me was when I was seventeen as well. But-- and also that, you know, with parents encouraging me to tell the Rebbe what was bothering me. But

38:22 Speaker 6 before I got to my seventeenth, I was before, before that, I was at my fifteenth. And being that, um, I was in Bais Rivkah on Church Avenue, I didn't know your miseries when it was not-- before that. But a, as a out-of-towner, it was not easy, and I wanted to leave. I was in tenth grade. So my father took me with him to Yechidus. My father had Yechidus every year on his birthday. And, um, you know, told Rebbe that I don't wanna stay. I don't wanna stay in Bais Rivkah. So the Rebbe told me two things during that Yechidus were very important and very big life lessons and very big teaching lessons. The first one was that you don't stop something in the middle. You're in the middle of high school, you have to go to the end. You cannot stop something when you're in the middle of doing it. You make a commitment, you have to go to the end of your commitment. And the second thing was when the Rebbe said to me that, that you have to stay till you finish high school, I unfortunately said no to the Rebbe. My father was very upset. Anyway, so I said no to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said to me very important sentence that, "I know you don't wanna do it, but that's what you're going to do." And these two sentences are life-changing, and I w-- it-- I use them enormously when I handle my students. Number one is you started something,

39:45 Speaker 6 you have to go to the end of it. You, you have to know how to be responsible. We even use it, I'm gonna say this in a funny way, but, like, even when children are being served to eat, and they'll say, "I want something." So it's just, well, if you had yourself served, then you can't throw out that food. You have to res-- be responsible for what you committed yourself to. This was a very big lesson. But the even more important was the fact to say, "I know you don't want, but that's what we're going to do." There's a few things we could learn from that. Number one, you learn that you-- doesn't-- it's not because you don't wanna do something that you don't do it. In life, we'll have many things that we don't really want to do, but there are things where we have to do even though we don't want to do them. Second of all, which is even so important for a teacher and for a mechanech, is that you have to give space for children's feelings. You can't say that doesn't matter. You have to be able to say, "I know you don't want. I feel that you don't want. I'm hearing you. I'm not being deaf to what you're saying. But e-even though I'm lis-- I'm hearing what you're saying, I can't give in to you, but I heard you." And that was very important because the Rebbe heard me. The Rebbe said to me, "I hear what you're

40:53 Speaker 6 saying. I hear that you said no. I'm not going to throw you out my-- of my, of my, of my office because you said no. I'm not going to scream at you because you said no. I'm gonna say I realize that you don't want, but that's gonna... You have to do it anyway." And that was a very important life lesson for me personally, but it's a, it's a, a phrase that I use for my students. When a child tells me, "I don't wanna do this." I have kids say, "I don't wanna go to school." I said, "Yeah, I don't wanna go to school either sometimes in the morning. But what can we do? This is what we have to do. We're in a, in, in a country called France, so when you're this age, you have to be in school. It's the law. So we want or we don't want, this is what's gonna be. And maybe later on, when you're gonna grow older, and you're gonna have a job, and you're not gonna always wanna do what your boss wants you to do, but you're gonna have to do it anyway. This is part of life. And when you're gonna be a mother, when a family with a-- and a house for home to run, there might be days that you don't feel like doing everything you have to do. So you can say it. You're not gonna get condemned from saying it, and people have to hear that. But what's the strength is

41:49 Speaker 6 to say that, 'I don't necessarily wanna do it, but this is what I'm going to do.'" Then we'll come to age seventeen. So age seventeen was when, like Mashy, I was li-listening and saying, "Wow, this sounds so familiar." That we're gonna do everything in life but go to seminary. You know, like, you know, you're gonna be a seminary girl. Ev-- what does a good girl do? In fact, uh, a, a shulcha older than me said s-said to me once, "Good girls go to seminary and become teachers." Said, "I don't wanna be that good girl. I wanna do something else." I mean, like, who wants to look at, like, you know, everybody's-- what everybody's doing? We wanna be our own original selves. So-- and also, we like to complain. So of course, after four years in Bais Rivkah, I had a list of complaints that was long, as my mother would say, as long as the Yiddish shgalas. And, um, I, I don't wanna go on with this business. Who wants to stay in Bais Rivkah? I already survived four years. How many years can we think of this? And so, uh, and then besides, the Rebbe's told me you have to-- when you finish, you could go. He said, "Finish high school." I'm finishing high school. Let me out of this place. Anyway, so that was my-- I was sure the Rebbe was gonna let me out, but he didn't. And in the very interesting letter and long letter that I got when I was

42:58 Speaker 6 seventeen, which was actually a, um, mission statement, the Rebbe taught me how to teach. So that's what I'm gonna share tonight. I'm not gonna read you the letter. I'm gonna re-read certain parts of it and talk about what was so important, what were these lessons that the Rebbe was giving me about teaching. So the Rebbe says the first thing is-- not the first thing, but one of the things that he said. I'm, I'm not gonna go into some things, some things that are very personal, of course, in a letter from the Rebbe. The Rebbe says that all the complaints that you had are things that is possible to change. How could it be changed? It could be changed by the people who felt that something was wrong. If you feel that something is wrong, then you have what it, what, what you need to change it. You can change things because you felt that it wasn't right. If somebody's not feeling it, they can't do it. But this is a very important statement. The statement is, is that you can answer your own questions. This made me feel as a teacher, and I use it constantly, is I don't answer children's questions. I throw their questions back to them. They'll tell me, "Why did David HaMelech do I don't know what?" I'm a Navi teacher. And I say, "Well, that's a fantastic question. Tell me, why did he do it? Why did he do it?" And then I'm throwing my question back to my students.

44:35 Speaker 6 You felt that that's a question, so you are capable to look for the answer. Look. Look in your heart, look in your head, and then if you really wanna cheat, you can look in the mefarshim. But first, look at yourself and find the answer. And the Rebbe is saying this in, in our family tradition. Uh, I don't know how many of you ever knew of my Bubby Shaina Jacobson. She was quite a woman. I lived in my grandparents' house for six years to be able to go to Bais Rivkah. And, um, my Bubby Shaina is a known fact that the Rebbe asked her to raise money for Bais Rivkah in Crown Heights. And my Bubby Shaina lived sixty years in America without talking English because Baruch Hashem, her doctors spoke Yiddish, the stores spoke Yiddish. She didn't need English. And the Rebbe told her that she has to raise money. So she asked the Rebbe who is going to help her, and the Rebbe told her to look into the mirror. And this is a fantastic statement. You, you, you, you have a challenge, you have to look into yourself. So this was, um... I wanna say also something about this letter from the Rebbe. One of my sons once, um, once sent me a, um, I think it was from a Where the Rebbe says that once-- when the Rebbe says something to you, it's for your whole life. It's something that's gonna guide you your whole life. And this letter, you could-- I--

45:56 Speaker 6 every single time I look at it, when I looked at it again for tonight, I was thinking of how many new things I saw in this letter that I haven't saw it the last time. So, like, every time I'm going, there's something new that I'm gonna learn about it. The next thing is that you don't become a teacher because you have nothing else to do in your life. And you, you cannot improvise becoming a teacher. The Rebbe says to me exactly that in order to become a teacher, you have to prepare yourself, but with a tremendous effort. It's not just like you're going to seminary and it's gonna happen. All of a sudden, abracadabra, you're gonna become a teacher. That doesn't happen. You have to really learn and be open and search. The Rebbe says to go, um, lear-- do-- learn all the, um, uh, to become an expert in Pedagogia. The Rebbe tells me, "Go become an expert." You're complaining about how things are being taught. You can do something about it 'cause you feel there's something wrong, but you have to become an expert. You have to learn. You have to learn how to teach. I'm a principal. I get girls who come to my school who are going to teach after they officially went through I don't know how many years of seminary, in what exclusive seminary that their parents paid a fortune for them to get into. And then we first taught teaching them how to teach because they're in a

47:20 Speaker 6 teaching position, and then it's something when you're making some model lesson, I don't know where, but so when you're standing in front of those kids and you really have to teach, it's method. It's method. And the Rebbe's saying, "If you wanna really be a teacher, you have to learn how to teach. It's not gonna happen by itself." And it's not something like, unfortunately, as it was in Jewish tradition, who became a Melamed, somebody who didn't have any other Parnassa, so he'll be a Melamed. That's it, you know, like, uh, or I'm gonna teach 'cause I don't know what else to do my life. No, you're gonna teach because you really wanna be a teacher, and you've learned how to be a teacher, and you're, you're thinking every single day in your life of how to be the teacher. That's very important. Next thing is, which is for me, so important because when we came here, we started a school with five children in a basement. And in our wildest dreams, we'd have never thought that one day we'd be-- have children on waiting lists, which is the case right now. And this was like, it's beyond, it was beyond our imagination. So the Rebbe says that you have to have a very strong resolution, Do not get impressed if you don't have results right away. Teaching is not-- We're not working in a factory. You know, like you say-- A-and we're not working on a computer. You know, you press on the button, everything comes

48:50 Speaker 6 out. Having results of, with students can be a lifetime. It could be more than a lifetime. We are now able to have the grandchildren of our first students as students. But the, the point is that it doesn't happen right away. I remember hearing from, um, Bassie, uh, Gorelik once said that when the Rebbe told them to start a school in Milano, and they started the school, and for many years it was a very tiny school, and there was-- they couldn't get-- they couldn't attract students. So she was thinking, "Maybe it's not worth it." And the Rebbe said that, that... I think it was Rabbi Chaim. I don't remember who told her. If her husband said it to her. He said, "The Rebbe said to make a school. He didn't say how many students you can have inside. You have to make the school. You have to make the cheder." Now, Baruch Hashem, I visit the school, it's amazing. But the, the point is right now is that it takes time to see results, and that's very important. I, I, I sometimes teach in classes that are very difficult. I teach boys classes. They should only be gezunt and stark, but boys classes are very hard. And you, you, you go and you start to think, "What am I accomplishing?" Uh, I think I'm gonna say a story here that happened. I used to go to a nearby city once every two, three weeks to give a woman's shiur. It was in the shul there. There

50:09 Speaker 6 was not yet any shluchim on that side of the French Riviera. And I used to go... They used to come pick me up 'cause I don't drive.you know, it was a-- it was like a twenty-minute drive. It's not very far. It's a little s-- It's, you know, we have little cities. We're in little cities. So it was very hard for me. My kids were small, and I-- and for me to go out and leave any was really a challenge. And I had this impression that I come every time, I give my class, and nothing happens. So once I said it to them, I said, "You know, it's not so easy to come, and I come, and I'm not getting anywhere. Nothing's happening." So one of the ladies said to me, "But you can't imagine how much we've changed since you've come. You don't know what's going on inside of us. You don't know how we're changing." So you don't know what the results are, and you don't have to get upset if you don't see them with your eyes. That's what the Rebbe's saying. It's not gonna be magic. You're not gonna see something happening. Now, then, V'lo livosh mipnei hamal'igim. Don't get upset if people make fun of you. People make fun of you all the time if you are a c-- person that wants to get someplace, and you have convictions, and you have ideas, and you wanna go to a specific place, there will always be people who are that-- who

51:19 Speaker 6 are not g-- are gonna put you down. This happens. So you gotta stick to your principles. You gotta stick to what you believe in. And the conclusion is the Rebbe test says, you have to have hitlahavut and mesirus nefesh. When you're going into education, you have to have a lot of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is contagious. If you don't love what you're doing, how do you want your students to love what you're doing? You have to have that en-- catchy enthusiasm, but you have to know that this is mesirus nefesh. Because teaching, if you're teaching the way you should, takes your whole person. It's not something that you... It's not another... It's not a job like another one. It's something that takes your whole self. And if you're not ready to give your whole self to this degree, the Rebbe's saying to you, maybe you shouldn't be doing this. So let's remember... Okay, um, I, I have to, have to read the last three words of the letter because otherwise it doesn't... All the charm goes away. Ubevadai Hashem yisbor yaktslia. And certainly, Has- the Aibishter will give you hatslacha. I, I got this when I was seventeen. I was just seventeen. I got it the day of my, like one week before my seventeenth birthday, like something like this. This was, like, really, uh, to, to-- written to a young girl. And I sometimes, not always sometimes, I always wonder, like, I didn't appreciate it when I got it. I had no idea the depth of

52:58 Speaker 6 what I was getting. The only thing I understood is that the Rebbe's not letting me leave Beis Rivkah. That was my immediate reaction. He's making me stay in this place on, um, even more. And he's making me become a teacher, everything that I didn't wanna do in my life. But this is a letter that accompanies me. And every time when I'm in front of a challenge, 'cause believe me, you-- teaching is challenging, shlichus is challenging, a big family is challenging. And when you go back and you read the words of the Rebbe, like, um, Hannah said in the beginning, it's in the present tense. It's not in the past. It's something that's always present and with us at all times. So that's-- I wanna just finish with the final touches. The final touches are when I was going to seminary, it was very... Seminary alef, you were the whole day. In seminary beis, you went a half a day, and everybody went to teach. We were taken-- After going through only seminary alef in high school, we were hired as teachers to teach general studies in Beis Rivkah. Acham ve'es ons, but we would, we're teachers, whatever. So we were sure that we were at the top of the world, and I lasted exactly three weeks. Three weeks. After three weeks, they had me, and I quit. And I said, "No teaching for me. I will never teach. I am not made for it." So my father, alav ha-shalom, was a very smart man, and

54:34 Speaker 6 he was a principal of a school. And when I went home, he sort of, I think, organized that one of the teachers should be absent, then, "Please, please, please, please, can you substitute? I have nobody." So I went into a classroom, and I saw that it was possible. And then I got a job that was outside of Crown Heights in another school, and Laura Nyman, zechoras heil, took me by the hand and she said, "Sarah, when you walk into a classroom, please don't smile for one month." She said, "You're gonna walk into a classroom and you have to be... Don-- You're not gonna be mean. You're gonna be strict, you're gonna be whatever, but don't think that you have to be nice." A teacher doesn't have to be nice in the beginning. A teacher has to be a, a good teacher, but you don't have to look to be a smiling, nice person. That's not the point. Okay, so I went into teaching high school students that were only one year younger than me or two years younger than me in Williamsburg. That was the funniest part of my life. And here I am teaching, um, girls who got married the same time as me because, you know, they got married very young, whatever it was. And I managed. I got through the year and I, I listened to advice and I started thinking, what were the teachers in my life that made an impression on me and how were they functioning, and let's imitate

55:54 Speaker 6 a little bit. So I finished sem beis. I was also getting married. And I'm looking for a job. And I have two possibilities. I have a job offer from a very nice exclusive school in Brooklyn someplace, and I have a job offer from Beis Rivkah, but I'm terrified to go back to teaching in Beis Rivkah. I mean, they, they did me in already once. I'm not gonna do it again. But my grandfather, Rabbi Jake Zitel, tells me, "You know, you have to ask. You can't just, you know, leave Chabad like this." He was not happy with it. "Sit down, ask the Rebbe what to do." So I sit down, and I tell the Rebbe, like, I, I have this good job. It's gonna be well-paying. I mean, my husband's gonna be in kollel. I better have something that's bringing me money. And the other side, I have Beis Rivkah, and I'm scared stiff to go back and work at Beis Rivkah. I mean, after everything that happened, like, I don't have... I, I just don't know. And I did not get an answer. And, uh, the principal of Beis Rivkah used to call me up every single day, "No, no, no." So a principal of Beis Rivkah, you could say I didn't get an answer from the Rebbe yet. For the principal of another school, you can't say that, whatever it is. So my grandfather told me, "You know what? Write again, and I'll personally bring the Rebbe the, the letter." So I wrote again,

57:10 Speaker 6 and that was a very big s-- lesson for me because I think the second time around, I didn't write it with the same spirit as the first time. First time was like, you know, writing like this. The second time you didn't get an answer, you become much more humble, and you read in a much-- you write in a much different way. So I write the letter, the same questions. My fa-- grandfather brings it into Seven Seventy himself personally. And of course, I got an answer almost immediately. It was only three words. "Vechen taaseh vetatzlich." And that's what she should do. The Rebbe underlines Beis Rivkah and says, "That's what she should do, and she's gonna be vetatzlich." And I promise you, I had the most beautiful teaching year in my life. When we were learning how to teach, our teacher was Leah Cadden. And she always told us that she will give us a diploma to teach, and then in the first year of teaching, she will come and listen by the door of our classrooms. And if it will be completely silent, she told us we will not be good teachers. If it will be the sounds of children being wild, it-- we will not be good teachers. But if it will be, will be the sound of learning, then it's a good classroom. And then she told me afterwards that she never came because her niece was in my classroom, so she had ev-- reports every day. She didn't have to listen behind

58:34 Speaker 6 the door. But the, the, the point is, is that I was lucky. The Rebbe accompanied me personally on this journey. And every single day when I'm with my children, because they're my children, my students, I feel this energy, and I go back to this letter for inspiration every single time because, like I said, again, this is a present and continuous thing. And the average health which goes weiter and weiter to be able to accompany our students on the right way and be, like the Rebbe said to my in-laws, be able to be-- go towards Mashiach with our students and show our students that says, "Look, these are our kids." Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to share. And a kashat fel from Pesach to all those who are listening.

59:27 Speaker 7 Wow. Amen. Unbelievable. I just wanna say, first of all, if anyone on the Zoom is teaching seventeen-year-olds, watch out because apparently, what is on the mind of a seventeen-year-old girl could move mountains and change the course of history and is important, extremely important to the Rebbe, so we have to take it very seriously. It was so beautiful. That letter, just line by line, it's literally a blueprint for Machanechis, and it's unbelievable. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And it just reminds me of another letter that another Machanecha shared on one of these Farbrengens. I believe it was Mrs. Chutzonie from Philadelphia. And she shared a letter, I think it's in our kivitz of ten letters, and we should reprint another kivitz now, um, with Mrs. Pinson's letter in the front, um, that when you teach in the Rebbe's mosid, the teacher is a tzinor through which the Rebbe is mashpia on the talmidim. So really, the Rebbe is teaching all of our students through us. So what better way to learn how to do that job than by looking at the Rebbe? So we should all be zecha to draw tremendous inspiration from Yud Aleph Nissan and the chayei chais that the Rebbe gives us. The Rebbe's giving them, we should feel them, and we should bring them into actuality. Thank you so much for this incredible inspiration. Everybody, please remember to write your name and your mother's name in the chat so we could write a doch. I'm also going to

1:01:00 Speaker 7 put in the chat since, um, we have so many new people from around the world. If you want to find out about more Farbrengens, about our Kinas Machanechis in the summer, which is also an international event, but in person, and it should be in Yerushalayim way sooner than the Kinas, already today, our Rosh Chodesh Nissan Kinas, um, then you can click on that link and fill in your information, and you'll get our emails and inspiration videos, um, and chinuch thoughts from the Rebbe on a weekly basis. And it's been an absolute pleasure to have all of you here to Farbreng together on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, preparing for Yud Aleph Nissan, preparing for Pesach. And I just want to conclude with a deep, heartfelt thank you to all Machanechis because the children come to the Pesach prepared to be a keli for the mitzvah of Ichad U'levenka, which is what Pesach is all about because of you and because of all your hard work. So you should be matzliach preparing your students for Pesach, preparing yourself for Pesach, preparing for Yud Aleph Nissan. A kashat fel from Pesach to everybody here and Moshiach now. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mrs. Lipsker. Thank you, Mrs. Pinson. Thank you, every single teacher, for being here.

1:02:14 Speaker 6 Thank you.