Ep. 56 // "How Teaching Has Changed" w/ Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum

00:00 Speaker 1 I taught fifth grade, it was probably 20-some years ago, and I, I think my primary goal then was how well do they know the Gemara? I think today that's not my primary goal. My primary goal are, are the messages that I'm communicating to them about life, about Rebbe, about Midot Tovos, you know, that come as an extension of the learning connection to Rebbe, to Rebbe Shammai. That's, that's what's, you know, more important to me. You have to ask what I call essential questions. You have to-- Like probing questions that get kids to think and engage in a conversation.

00:34 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year two thousand and twenty-five. My name is Benji Afson, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. We are here with Rabbi Yosef Rosenblum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Headmaster? Uh, what's the title here?

00:59 Speaker 1 Head of, head of school.

01:00 Speaker 2 Head of school, of Yeshiva schools. And, um, yeah, I actually, um, on a personal note, I actually learned here for a few months-

01:10 Speaker 1 That's correct

01:10 Speaker 2 ... almost a year, uh, back in elementary school, and, uh, I was telling you earlier, I remember, uh, some classes that you gave us on Gemara Makkot. The first few bletter Gemara Makkot. I don't think that was the first time I learned Gemara, but it was definitely towards the beginning of learning Gemara, and it was very, uh, enjoyable. So, uh, you know, a, um, a, uh, a, a form of gratitude for, for, uh, for that back then. So-

01:40 Speaker 1 It's good to see you.

01:41 Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you for coming on.

01:43 Speaker 1 Of course.

01:44 Speaker 2 So, um, you know, you asked me what, what I wanna talk about. Oh, uh, so first of all, a lot of that's up to you, but, um, you know, I, I... The, the reason I reached out is because, uh, like we were talking about off-camera, uh, you know, Chinuch is a very interesting place to, uh... It's first, of course, important place, an important part of any community. You know, you can, you can learn a lot about a community by how it's educating its children, and, uh, what kind of importance it places on education, and how it approaches education. Uh, you can learn a lot about what their priorities are and what they, what they really care about. But I think in terms of Lubavitch identity, which this podcast is about, um, you know, there's, there's... Education's a very interesting place and a very, um, delicate place in the sense that on one hand, education is what's responsible for the future. It's all about the future. What are things going to look like? How are we going to change the future in a positive way? How are we going to empower the leaders of the future? And at the same time, education is very much about the past, preser- especially in a religious setting, preserving the past, um, you know, uh, making sure that we hold onto tradition, and so on. And, you know, you s- you see a lot of tension. I have a lot of friends in yeshivas and so on, and a lot

03:04 Speaker 2 of times the discussions I hear from them or hear about them is, is, or about the yeshivas is, you know, we'd love to make certain changes, but because we feel like we need to, but at the same time, like, how could we change Tench etun? How could we change Chinuch? How could we change the things we've done? And so, yeah, I, I, I think that you asked me why I came. That's why I came.

03:24 Speaker 1 So thank you for coming, and it's very good to see you. Um, you and your siblings spent a certain amount of time here in Pittsburgh in our mosad, and, uh, one of your siblings actually stayed with us in our home.

03:34 Speaker 2 Yes, that's true.

03:35 Speaker 1 Uh, we've, uh, warm memories of the Afson family, and, uh, wish you much hatslacha. Um, you know, Chinuch is, uh, in personally and institutionally, in-in-institution that we're sitting in right now was founded by the, uh, Freidiger Rebbe in nineteen forty-one, Tishri, the first mosad-

03:55 Speaker 2 Right

03:55 Speaker 1 ... that was founded outside of New York. So, uh, that's on an institutional level. On a personal level, my father grew up in Montreal, Canada, and, uh, he didn't have initially, uh, shailes to Lubavitch.

04:10 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

04:10 Speaker 1 Nine Bochurim arrived there from Shanghai.

04:13 Speaker 2 Mm.

04:13 Speaker 1 And my grandparents transferred him into a Lubavitch mosad, which was run by nine Bochurim.

04:19 Speaker 2 Right.

04:20 Speaker 1 And, uh, subsequent to that, he went to Torah Das, and then, uh, the Rebbe personally encouraged him to come back and learn Lubavitch. And, um, so I grew up with, with a very, very deep appreciation of the, of the history and the past and, and what, you know, the context for Chinuch and, uh, so the-

04:43 Speaker 2 You grew up here?

04:44 Speaker 1 I grew up in Pittsburgh, but I grew up, uh, my parents, you know-

04:48 Speaker 2 Right

04:49 Speaker 1 ... uh, you know, my, my family, both my parents were mechanechim. My grandparents were into Chinuch. My, my grandfather, Rabbi Nachum Wolosow in Russia was, uh, into Chinuch, started Mosdos Chinuch there, was arrested raising money and to keep the Mosdos Chinuch a-alive. So, uh, definitely I have a de- very deep appreciation of the history-

05:09 Speaker 2 Right

05:09 Speaker 1 ... and what we're connecting the children to the past and, and all of that. At the same time, the greatest, uh, challenge in Chinuch today is to take those age-old, um, age-old wisdom and age-old, uh, history, et cetera, et cetera, and make it relevant to the child in twenty twenty-five, in Taf Shin Peh Hei, find ways to engage the Talmud and connect them to that past. And that, that's, that's one of the, uh, the things that I think about daily.

05:44 Speaker 2 Right.

05:44 Speaker 1 Um, how to transmit concepts, ideas, attitudes, feelings, emotions, uh, to Torah, to Chassidus, to the Rebbeim to the kid who's growing up in Taf Shin Peh Hei-

05:59 Speaker 2 Right

05:59 Speaker 1 ... with, uh- Who functions very differently even than when you grew up-

06:04 Speaker 2 Mm

06:04 Speaker 1 ... and when I grew up, for sure.

06:06 Speaker 2 Mm.

06:06 Speaker 1 The, the, the, with the, uh, distractions and the, the confusion in the world that we live. We lived in a much less complicated world when I was growing up. Um, so to, to connect, and again, I, I-

06:19 Speaker 2 In what, in, in what sense? 'Cause a lot of people say that, and I, e-enough people say that that you, that you believe that it's true, but, but, but very few define what that means.

06:29 Speaker 1 Okay. So first of all, we're growing up without physically seeing a rebbe.

06:35 Speaker 2 Okay.

06:35 Speaker 1 So that's number one. So if you don't physically see a rebbe, um, to be connected to the rebbe without physically seeing is something that you need to put a lot of thought and effort, uh, to, to, to make that happen. It doesn't happen on its own.

06:49 Speaker 2 Okay.

06:49 Speaker 1 It, it, it's extremely, extremely difficult. There were, there were certain things... You know, let, let me say this. I listen to Farbrengen for Yitzchok or Yitz Nisin, elder, elder shluchim who will talk about concepts and ideas that for them, they just say a word or two, and we all know what that means, you know? Perfect. Hiskashrus. But, uh, every term that for, for me has a definition and a meaning for, for a child growing up in Tofshin Peh Heh, if we don't explain it to them in their oisis, in their world without seeing a rebbe, right? Uh, they're lost. They, they, they don't have that understanding, appreciation, and, and it's not something real in their lives. So concepts, terms, ideas that, you know... So, so growing up without a rebbe, that's number one. They don't have a, a physical rebbe. The, the situation when I say the world was much less complicated when I was growing up, um, there was... Communities had, there was a hierarchy in communities much more so than there is today. Um, there was w-we didn't have the challenge of the internet. We didn't have, which is a tremendous challenge because children are getting their information from other sources.

08:02 Speaker 2 Right.

08:02 Speaker 1 We're not their sole, uh, source on anything almost. Okay. So children, uh, are, are, are introduced to ideas, podcasts, people, um, so we're combat... We're competing against that.

08:14 Speaker 2 That's my fault, basically.

08:15 Speaker 1 That's your fault. But this is a podcast that's trying to bring it back.

08:19 Speaker 2 Uh, depends who you ask.

08:21 Speaker 1 You know, if, if a, if, if a fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-year-old student wants to know something about something-

08:27 Speaker 2 Right

08:27 Speaker 1 ... so one of the places, hopefully, one of the influences is their teachers in school, their parents, but there's other influences as well.

08:34 Speaker 2 Right.

08:34 Speaker 1 As well. You know, the internet and information and knowledge is, is out there today in a way it never was before. I, I think the, the kids are also struggling, um, with, students are struggling with what's going on in the world.

08:49 Speaker 2 Mm.

08:49 Speaker 1 You know, antisemitism. When I was growing up, antisemitism was something that you learned about. You didn't really feel it. It, it wasn't front and center. Um, people are afraid today, and I know Pittsburgh, you know, we've, we've gone through a lot here in Pittsburgh. People are afraid, but more than afraid, they're trying to understand-

09:07 Speaker 2 Right

09:07 Speaker 1 ... what's going on.

09:09 Speaker 2 Right.

09:09 Speaker 1 It's, you know, you talk about antisemitism as a subject, and you remove from it, and you can, you can, uh... It's a, it's a subject, I think kids are asking themselves a question. You know, "What?" You know, they're asking existential questions about Yiddishkeit, and why, and what, et cetera, et cetera. It's really real in their lives. Um, I think there's another thing that's, uh, different today. In Rabbi Posner, um, once related, he said that when-

09:35 Speaker 2 Yes. For those who don't know, Rabbi Posner is the one who founded the school.

09:38 Speaker 1 Rabbi Shimon Posner came here in nineteen forty-three, Toshon Gimel, and started the-

09:41 Speaker 2 Right

09:41 Speaker 1 ... the current yeshiva school. Rabbi Mordechai Alter came in Tofshin Alef and started a form of yeshiva schools, but the current dual program was started by Rabbi Posner in Tofshin Gimel, and he once related that, uh, I think his, one of his daughters was in twelfth grade, and she was learning in Bais Yaakov or somewhere in New York.

10:01 Speaker 2 Was this Mrs. Garelick?

10:01 Speaker 1 Mrs. Darren.

10:02 Speaker 2 Mrs. Darren.

10:03 Speaker 1 And someone came to him and said, the teacher came, she, she was a brilliant lady, young lady. "I think she should go to college." And he said, "She's already in twelfth grade." In other words, you dropped your kid off in school And, uh, you know, you picked them up at the end of the year, and you trusted the already years ago. Like that, it's, it's, it's a, it's a Russia to America shift, an Old World to New World. Uh, but I, I think, I think from what all you're telling me, I mean, there's a lot of

12:06 Speaker 2 You know, you're, you're listing a, a, a, y- a, a, a number of challenges and, uh, they all make, they all make sense, and they're all quite straightforward and obvious to someone watching. Even if you're not in Chinuch, it's quite obvious. But if I, if I had to like isolate or define what it-- what they're about, it seems to me what they're about is authority, right? And like... Or centralization, but same thing really, right? Like once upon a time, you know, the school was the-- or the, the Rebbe school was the authority, and, and, and that was that. End of story. The kid knew exactly who he had to listen to. The parents either didn't care, or they also, "You have to listen to."

12:47 Speaker 1 Right.

12:47 Speaker 2 And, and there was, there was no outside voices. There was no access to... You didn't have to worry about, uh, the kid getting, uh, um, you know, interested in some other thing. A, a kid had to be very, uh, mischievous and very like adventurous to go t-to the library and find something and actually care about it. So authority has been, has been undermined, right?

13:12 Speaker 1 Right.

13:12 Speaker 2 So the question, the question is how do you educate when you don't have that, uh, that stick of authority? In many ways, that's also gone, right? Uh, corporal, corporal punishment is gone.

13:24 Speaker 1 It's gone.

13:24 Speaker 2 Yeah. So like somebody told me, a rebbe, a friend of mine actually, uh, you know, he told me like when he was growing up, corporal punishment, it wasn't America, it was a different country, was just on its way out. And he's like, he's not saying it was good that it... It's... He wasn't saying that it should have stayed. Um, in many ways, he benefited from it being gone. But he's like, the school he was in never recovered. It was built on a model of you, you, you get out of line, you get whacked.

13:53 Speaker 1 The first thing I want to say before addressing the question of authority and how to deal with that is that numerous times we find the Rebbe writing that, uh, our j- our job as mechanchim is to use whatever methods we can to be successful at engaging students. So there, there was once a shailah if they should even use blackboards, you know. That was m- considered modern at, at one point in history. There was a question if you're allowed to, when you write the aleph beis, if you're allowed to use different colors. Um, and the Rebbe writes there that the ikar is his anyanus talmidim.

14:34 Speaker 2 Right.

14:35 Speaker 1 That our job is to find... In those days, that was modern- ... using different colors. You know? So, uh, I've, I've presented in Moises Kinach, Sidra Moises Kinach, that, uh, you know, you're not allowed to use anything, any sort of technology, like a PowerPoint would be also-

14:52 Speaker 2 You're saying in, in another crisis-

14:53 Speaker 1 In a, in other crisis, and the teachers now, they don't allow the teachers-

14:56 Speaker 2 Right

14:56 Speaker 1 ... to use a PowerPoint pres-presentation.

14:58 Speaker 2 Right.

14:59 Speaker 1 So I'm saying the Rebbe's view in general was to use whatever, of course, that's halacha and halachah, it's acceptable, not to use things that are not acceptable, but use technology, use, uh, methods of pedagogy to engage and reach students. So that has to be front and center of, of this conversation. We, we need to look for ways to address the issue that you brought up, take to, let's say, authority. So, um, the number one thing today in Chinuch is building a yachas with the children.

15:34 Speaker 2 Mm.

15:35 Speaker 1 Is building a positive, um, connection with our students. We need to remain emotionally constant, so when a child exhibits or is disrespectful or acts in a certain way, the old style of coming mil malo lemato and just issuing edicts, used to be with a stick, it could be with words, it could be with attitude, you know, it's, it's less successful today. Um, today, we approach children with, with care and concern. That doesn't mean... This is not the new progressive method of parenting, that we're friends and we're all equal. No, that, that's... I'm not saying that.

16:17 Speaker 2 Not pandering.

16:18 Speaker 1 We're not pandering. We're not apologetic. We are... But rather, we, we lead with connection. We stay calm. I'll, I'll... You know, I'll give you an example. One of the most, uh, precious things I do every day, valuable things I do, is actually teach kiduhei Gemara. Um, I also teach them the Siftu Bachurim. It's, it's, it's a very special hour of the day for me. You know, everything else I'm involved with, in raising money and running the school, to actually interact with the children. And I can tell you that, you know, when I start... Twenty-five, thirty years ago when I was teaching, if a child would say something disrespectful, I would say, "That's chutzpah."

16:57 Speaker 2 Right.

16:57 Speaker 1 "A class."

16:59 Speaker 2 Right.

16:59 Speaker 1 "Write twenty-five times, 'I'm not gonna do it.'"

17:01 Speaker 2 Right.

17:01 Speaker 1 Et cetera, et cetera.

17:02 Speaker 2 And that's what you were, that's what you were trained to do.

17:03 Speaker 1 I was trained, you know. When I was a head counselor in camp, they told me, you know, "Mil malo, you know, use gevurah," et cetera, et cetera. I'm, I'm back in the classroom now, and I'm revisiting almost everything that a teacher is supposed to do in, in real time.

17:18 Speaker 2 Right.

17:18 Speaker 1 How do I deal with the child who's, who's disrespectful? How do I deal with, you know, what's about homework and parents and this, you know? And, and so I'll just give you an example in the area of derech eretz. You know, I was actually recording my... I do a weekly video for the, for the community, and sometimes I bring the kids in on it. So there's one kid who was laughing, and so I said to the child, this is last year, I said to him, "Do me a favor." I walked over to him and I said, "Can you wait outside?" You know, so he, he goes outside, and I... 'Cause, 'cause he was laughing and we're trying to record this video.

17:48 Speaker 2 Yeah.

17:49 Speaker 1 So I go outside to the child afterwards, I said, you know, I had no one, you know. I said, "I'm not upset at you." He says, "I'm upset at you." So, you know, my initial response is, "Ugh," you know, "Chutzpah."

18:01 Speaker 2 Right.

18:01 Speaker 1 I said, "Why are you upset at me? Why are you upset at me?" He says, "Because it was very embarrassing. I was laughing 'cause kids laugh," you know?

18:08 Speaker 2 Right.

18:09 Speaker 1 I said, "I, I didn't see it that way at the time," I said, "but the fact of the matter is that, you know- You were disrupting this. We had a conversation, and he walked away with a cl- much clearer understanding of, of why I did what I did. And I think his appreciation and his, uh, and the yachas between the two of us remained strong. To contrast that with, uh, had I challenged him, given a knas, et cetera, et cetera, which I could have, he would've, uh... It wouldn't have been a creative way of dealing with it. And again, twenty-five years ago when I did it, most probably was okay to do it then, thirty years ago, because the children just-- they were trained to respond a certain way. "Okay, I got my knas. You, you told me."

18:48 Speaker 2 Right.

18:49 Speaker 1 Actually, I don't think it was good even twenty-five years ago. But it's definitely, it would've been much more detrimental today because of what you're saying, how people view authority. You know, when you teach something like derech eretz, it can't be that I'm teaching you dere... You know, I'm getting upset 'cause you're, you're disrespecting me.

19:07 Speaker 2 Right.

19:09 Speaker 1 You teach derech eretz for the child. He needs to have derech eretz. That has to be front and center of our d- of our, of our, of our approach. If I'm personalizing it, then I'm not teaching derech eretz. I'm responding to my own, uh, being, feeling offended by the fact that the kid spoke to me that way. But so you, so we have to, again, build connections, relationships, stay calm, be curious, seek to understand what, what's going on with the child, recognize that behaviors are just a window into what's going on deeper in the child. The behavior is not what's interesting to me. The question is why they're acting that way.

19:41 Speaker 2 This week's episode is brought to you by This World Is a Garden, a new film and concert production by UVLA Media. Based on the Rebbe's first talk, Basse Legani, the production tells the story of the Chabad vision lasting over three hundred years, to see this world as God sees it, as His garden. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance of a string quartet, This World Is a Garden is a meditation on hope and holding onto a vision as time passes by. This production is now available to be shown at your Chabad House and community. Share the message and vision of Basse Legani with your community in a way you never have before. For more information, please visit thisworldisagarden.com. I, I was gonna ask you, I think you already kind of answered it, but in, in what you just said, but would you... A lot of times people feel, you know, we have to deal with things today, but if only we could be thirty years back. Like, it was so much better then. Things were so much simpler, and that's what I... That's... I thought... I wasn't sure what you would answer, but then you're like, "Actually, even thirty years, years ago wasn't good," which made me s-think that maybe you're not so nostalgic for how things used to be. But like, you know, how do you, how do you view this, this change over time? Is it a good development? Is it a, you know, unfortunate development? You know, just, "Oh, we have to,

21:02 Speaker 2 we have to deal with it," but, you know, is it, is it... How do you s- how do you see it?

21:07 Speaker 1 I'm not much of a philosopher. I'm not an ideologue or... I'm the type of a person that tries to deal with what I have in front of me.

21:19 Speaker 2 Right.

21:19 Speaker 1 I come to yeshiva every day, try to solve problems.

21:22 Speaker 2 Right.

21:22 Speaker 1 And this is what... I mean, I, I, I could sit and farbrengen about why I think, but to me, that's less important. It's only important if it will help me come up with better solutions, but otherwise, the current situation in front of us is that the children present themselves in a certain way, and I, I think we all have to re- constantly be reflective of what works and what doesn't work with the situation that's in front of us. So I'm teaching them age-old ideas, derech eretz, hiskashrus, um, midas tovias, yirash mayim, uh, all these unbelievable things. But I'm asking myself, the child who's sitting in front of me today, growing up in this world, you know, and, and we can't fool ourselves. We have to have a real appreciation for what, who they are, who these children are. Sometimes there's this illusion, illusion of compliance, illusion of, you know, "I'm gonna say some words to them and farbrengen a little with them, and they're gonna get it." You know, we have to be smarter about it and ask ourselves, "Who are these children? What makes them tick? What are the methods that I can use that can connect them to what my father experienced in Montreal in, in, in the '40s?" You know what I mean?

22:42 Speaker 2 Right.

22:42 Speaker 1 The Ros Bochorum came from, uh, um... That has to be front and center. So I, I'm not, I'm not nostalgic. I, I don't get... I mean-

22:49 Speaker 2 They were probably asking the same question. Weren't they asking the same question? I mean, they had just lost their whole world that, that was, like, their, like, Poland was, was, was their world.

22:58 Speaker 1 Yeah.

22:58 Speaker 2 There was a, there was a whole world that they had.

23:00 Speaker 1 Yeah.

23:01 Speaker 2 Whether or not we wanna go back there, but that was for, you know, there was a soul full of Yidden and, and their Rab- their Rabbeim, and a lot of them came from different krajin in the first place. Like, they probably were asking the same question: "How do we teach these kids in this new country of Canada?"

23:15 Speaker 1 That's correct. That's what's prob- they must probably ask the same type of questions. That was their challenge in-

23:19 Speaker 2 Right

23:19 Speaker 1 ... in their time. And I, I try very much to live now and, uh, and apply whatever I can in the oseis and the language that the children can relate to. I, I farbrengen with my children, and then, you know, I farbrengen with them. I try to ask myself, "What am I trying to communicate to them, and how am I communicating to them?" And then I ask myself, "Are they getting it?"

23:42 Speaker 2 Right.

23:42 Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Um, I-

23:43 Speaker 2 How do you know, how do you know if a kid gets it? I mean, I, I'm not a teacher. My, my wife was for, for a bunch of years. I have kids, and one of the, one of the, uh, I mean, from, from, from being a father, which I'm sure is different, but also similar to being a teacher on some level, um, that one of the hardest things is, like, you don't know what's, what's penetrating. You know, like, how, how do you, how do you know that you're connecting? Because kids very often, at least from what I've seen, is, like, the things that they connect to the most are the things... They don't respond, "Oh, okay, you know, I got it." Um, they're not... It's not how they process it. It, you know, the... How do, how do you know that you're connecting?

24:23 Speaker 1 Right. So, uh, in general, um, it's easier to assess, um, a milim list. Do they know these fifty words or they don't know it than to, to, than to, uh-

24:34 Speaker 2 But that's not connection

24:35 Speaker 1 ... right, to assess affect or, or to assess connection and things of that nature. Um, the way I assess some of these things is over time. In other words, you watch how children respond to a situation. I mean, we talk a lot about students getting along with each other. Let's not, let's remove hiskashrus or k- uh, I'm just talking about, uh, h- how to interact with each other in an appropriate way.

24:59 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

24:59 Speaker 1 You know? And, uh, you have conversations that... I'll have a conversation with the children about, "You guys were arguing today when we came in from recess about, uh, who won the game and everything. On a scale of, you know, one to five, how, how important is that machlikis?" You know? They'll all say, you know, "One." You know? That's, that's not important. Then we'll learn later on the Gemara machlokes and the Mishnah. And I say, "How important is that machlokes?" You know, to a person. "That's a ten," even though we've been giving you... So, okay, there's perspectives here. There's, there's this type machlokes, there's that type machlokes. Why do we argue? You lead the children to at least acknowledge or understand in their own world by, you know, you create a s- a scenario and ask them to respond to it. And then over time, you, uh, you know, you, uh, you observe. It's ongoing assessment, you know. You're constantly watching to see how they're reacting or they im- you know, have they implemented those ideas in their behaviors. So let's talk about, talk about a Rebbe. So, um, I talk, I talk a lot about, like, there's different ways. I'll ask the talmidim, I say, "If you don't know something, how do you find it out?" You know? Let's say you don't know the Halacha, how do you find it out? So the list, well, you can, you can ask a Rav, you can... Then we'll get to the idea, you, you can observe how

26:19 Speaker 1 someone conducts themselves.

26:21 Speaker 3 Right.

26:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, we can observe someone conducts themselves, and then what type of person are you gonna wanna observe? Well, someone who, you know... Then I'll, I'll bring in the story about the Rebbe that, you know, whatever. I told them recently that the one time the Rebbe brought down a, uh, I don't know, a sicha, a maimer, some sort of pamphlet to, to Mincha on Hanukkah. There was a, uh, non, uh, non-Lubavitcher Rav who was observing this. He was wondering when, when's the Rebbe going to... What's he gonna do with that? He can't, you're not allowed to look at the Sefer during, uh, Chazarat Hashatz. And when you're davening, what's he gonna do? He saw that the Rebbe opened the sicha or whatever it was during Al Hanissim. He went back, and he found out that Al Hanissim during Chazarat Hashatz, you don't have to listen to the chazan. So, so I told this to the students. I said, "So, so what, what, what assumptions did this person have?" That the Rebbe is a great tzadik, and if he's bringing the Sefer down, you know, I said then he's gonna use it, and he's gonna use it only the time which it's appropriate. I said, "If I..." I said, "I'm the type of person," I said, "I'm still working on myself. I'll... You're not supposed to learn during Chazarat Hashatz, but sometimes I'll look at a, look at a Sefer. Sometimes I'll say Tehillim."

27:26 Speaker 3 It's better than seeing your cell phone, yeah.

27:27 Speaker 1 But, but, but, but, but if you're looking at me-

27:30 Speaker 3 Right

27:30 Speaker 1 ... if you're looking at me, I, I'm not, not necessarily. I'm, I'm trying to become better and better. But a tzadik like that, you know, they get it. They start understanding it. I, I led them into it.

27:41 Speaker 3 I see.

27:42 Speaker 1 And, and, and then you, you come back to it a year. These are, like, I call them enduring understandings, you know? And you-

27:48 Speaker 3 It's called patience.

27:49 Speaker 1 Patience. But you also, you have to ask what I call essential questions. You have to, like probing questions-

27:55 Speaker 3 Right

27:55 Speaker 1 ... that get kids to think and engage in a conversation.

27:57 Speaker 3 Right.

27:57 Speaker 1 And get them to a point, and then watch over time, patience, and you're being curious to see if you see them starting to... These are lifelong where I'm still working on some of these myself. But, um, the- these, these are m- something, something that I've evolved. I would say for sure that when I taught fifth, I taught fifth grade, it was probably 20 some years ago, and I, I think my primary goal then was how well do they know the Gemara?

28:24 Speaker 3 Ah, interesting.

28:25 Speaker 1 And I think today, that's not my primary goal. And this, if people watch this podcast, I hope they're not upset with me. My primary goal are, are the messages that I'm communicating to them about life, about Rebbe, about Middos tovus, you know, that come as an extension of the learning connection to Yiddishkeit, Yiras Shamayim. That's, that's what's, you know, more important to me. Of course, I'm teaching them, and I care about the Chinuch that I want them-

28:50 Speaker 3 But that's what Torah's about. Isn't that what Gemara is about?

28:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, that's ultimately what Gemara is about. That's ultimately what, what I'm thinking about all day long, not like, is there another homework that I can give them-

29:01 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

29:01 Speaker 1 ... or creative worksheet that will get them to, you know... I do that also. I don't, I'm not minimizing that, but I think a lot more about connection to Yiddishkeit, to the Rebbe, to Torah, Yiras Shamayim, understanding what a Yid is. Those things are much more front and center for me now as I enter the classroom, uh-

29:23 Speaker 3 Interesting. Interesting

29:25 Speaker 1 ... and, and, and, and building them.

29:27 Speaker 3 Is that-

29:27 Speaker 1 I'm very into building them, building the kids.

29:29 Speaker 3 So, so what do you, what, what do you think has changed? You know, so there are a lot of things that, you know, we, we're speaking about in terms of change. There's the, the, the decentralized nature of, of our communities. Even, I mean, I can't speak for all, all frum communities, but from what I observe, even the frumist communities and the most closed off communities are all dealing with this on some level. Lubavitch is for sure dealing with this for many years now. Um, decentralized authority. Uh, you spoke about, um, the patience that's needed, the, the, the need for connection. But now you, now you're touching a little bit on, like, the which themes are you prioritizing or what, which, you know, what, what is the, what are you even trying to convey? Not even, not so much how to convey, but what are you try, what are you conveying? Why do you think that's changed? Like, why is it more important today for kids to come away with these grander messages? Or to frame it differently, why wasn't it important back then to teach that? Was it because you assumed that they already had it from home?

30:31 Speaker 1 Right. I, I think it goes back to what we talked about before. Things were less complicated. I think they got some basic, um, ideas from their parents.

30:43 Speaker 3 Right.

30:44 Speaker 1 There were, there were less distractions. There weren't other voices-

30:48 Speaker 3 Right

30:48 Speaker 1 ... you know, that they would have to filter out. So we were just Mekabel things from the Mashpia who sat with us by Farbrengen. We, we, we turned towards those people for guidance and for, uh, and for, for direction-

31:02 Speaker 3 Right

31:03 Speaker 1 ... naturally, and to our parents. Today, when I look at a child in front of me, I say to myself, you know, the amount of influences that this child has, is gonna have in their lives, maybe does already, um, is, is, is much greater than when I was growing up, and I, I cannot rely on almost anybody. I, you know, for shtetl, better families still have to do their thing, and they do their thing, and depending on who the family is, they contribute, and the, and the community does to a certain extent. But I almost look at it like now, melamdim and machanim have to take achrayus almost for everything. You can't take anything for granted anymore. You can't assume that they know or understand almost anything unless you... Now, in a good school, there's rebbeim doing this year in, year out. But as, uh, you know, just like if you're a havdalah math teacher, you, you have to check to make sure that they, before you go on to the next, you know, uh, chapter, you have to review and check that they got that, you know, similar chinuch, yeah. Uh, to me, I start off the year, I just, I, some of these ideas, basic yirat shamayim, what a rebbe is, what a Yid is, what a neshamah is, what a purpose is, you know. I ask myself, I, I consider it my responsibility to address these in an age-appropriate way when I find the time, and I do it a lot with,

32:20 Speaker 1 you know, essential questions. I try to think of ways to pique their interest and engage them in a conversation around these things and then go, and go from there. Um, so, you know, you asked me nostalgic. I'm, I'm excited about the time I'm living in.

32:35 Speaker 3 Mm.

32:35 Speaker 1 You know, I'm excited to try to, uh, accomplish and overcome the challenges. I, that's how I look at it. By nature, I'm not someone who's just gonna sit back and, you know, oy vey, and what was, and all that stuff. I mean, I could go there. If I let myself go there, I could go there, but I don't find it helpful. Uh, like history, the Gemara says, "Ma de-havah havah." Yiddishkeit is not interested in history unless the history informs-

33:02 Speaker 3 Yeah.

33:02 Speaker 1 -the future.

33:02 Speaker 3 Right.

33:03 Speaker 1 So I do it in that sense. You know, I, I, I love stories that I hear about how tzaddik rebbeim of the past, you know, what they did, because that's gonna inform me how I can, you know, employ a, uh... I heard a story of, uh, someone told me a story that someone ag- someone came to see Reb Berke Fein, a friend of his from Poland. He was teaching of Chabad, and, uh, he, uh, the guy wanted to say hello to him. Reb Berke says, "I'm teaching now, don't, don't disrupt me." Says, "Wait." So he's watching him teach. He asks the kid a question. One of the kids, uh, didn't know the answer. And so, uh, Reb Berke says, "Come with me." And he goes in and gives his negel vasser with the kid. So what an, uh, what an unusual scene. He didn't know the answer to the question. He goes and gives the negel vasser. Afterwards, this person says to Reb Berke, "Well, what happened there?" He says, "This kid's a very, very smart kid." He said, "If he didn't know the answer, it must be that he didn't get negel vasser this morning." So to me, that was like, you know, basic yirat shamayim, you know what I mean? The belief that, you know, you gotta get up in the morning and get negel vasser and say berachos. It w- it inspired me for, for months afterwards. I thought, you know.

34:07 Speaker 3 Wow.

34:07 Speaker 1 So, so you wanna hear a story about how someone, their, their worldview or their perspective, and start thinking about yourself, you know. So ask yourself the question, are my... Is every kid in this class, uh, getting negel vasser in the morning before they come in? Is that going on or not going on? You can ask that question in seventh or eighth grade, unfortunately, in mesivta also.

34:23 Speaker 3 I mean, it's-

34:23 Speaker 1 Not getting angry at them, but just-

34:25 Speaker 3 It's interesting also that that story took place how many, uh, uh-

34:29 Speaker 1 I don't know how many years ago.

34:30 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah, 'cause I'm, I'm listening to you. I'm listening to, to this, to this world that you're laying out and, you know, a lot, a lot of it is, is something that we all observe, at least from the outside of, you know, how things are changing and, you know, it, it's basically like the, the, the, the cohesiveness of, of, of, of, or the simplicity, like you put it, of the past, where every community was kind of in th- their island and the milieu made sense from all the different angles, has fragmented and fallen apart, and now you basically have to start every day from s- kol yom yuvenechu k'chadashim.

35:07 Speaker 1 Right.

35:07 Speaker 3 V'chadashim ha'amish, the Gemara says, right?

35:08 Speaker 1 Right.

35:08 Speaker 3 Like, like you're starting from scratch with, with each kid, um, and each day really because you don't know what the kid has, has, uh, has, uh, digested between yesterday and today. So it's k'chadashim ha'amish. Uh, and look, I, I, I don't know how teachers do it because that's such a painstaking process. It's, it, it's gotta involve so much patience. But I, I also started thinking of like, we have this concept, or many people have this concept, I had it for so many years, that, you know, this is all v- brand new, right? And you just mentioned Berke Fein. Um, I, I don't know exactly which time he or where he fits into, but, you know, even before the, the actual communism with the underground chadarim, which put all kinds of stress on the Lubavitch community in Russia, even before that, like Lubavitchers were under a similar kind of stress. Like, you know, it doesn't get spoken about much for whatever reason. I, I guess people have their heitz for other families and so on. But most families, from what I understand, like, and we're talking about hoib Lubavitch, gezhe families, you know, v- some of them very close to the rebbeim. They lost kids, not to the KGB-

36:19 Speaker 1 Right

36:19 Speaker 3 ... but before the KGB, they lost kids to the idea of communism.

36:22 Speaker 1 For sure.

36:23 Speaker 3 Right? Uh, so after the communism, like this wasn't by force. This was a similar thing, and this is what the Rebbe Rashab was, started Toch Shebe'ach for. Because until Toch Shebe'ach, there was, it was kind of laissez-faire. Like everybody learns on their own in their own kind of ad hoc arrangements, and then they learn chassidus when they get older. It's all assumed everything's gonna be all right, and suddenly kids are dropping left, right, and center, right? I mean, they literally, I mean, my family, um, like, uh, so my great-grandmother is, is, is, uh, my great-great-grandmother is Meyashi, Meyashi Futterfas. She had a sister, Deitch, I think. No, she had a s- I forget. Yeah, she had a sister, Deitch, and they had four siblings that I think weren't, that ended up not being frum. All right? All right, so like, and what was happening there, the old world of s- uh, simple, uh, shtetl Russia of, of, you know, where, where, where, w- where they had no money and then they were, they were, there was terri- terrible times, but it was a simpler life. They didn't, they didn't know any better, and suddenly all these fancy people, fancy, you know, maskilim and God knows what. Do you know that in Lubavitch there was a school opened up, a scholar school opened up in the town of Lubavitch?

37:41 Speaker 1 I was unaware.

37:42 Speaker 3 Yeah. It's fascinating. It's in the

37:45 Speaker 1 Yeah.

37:45 Speaker 3 The Rebbe Shabbet in the had to fight. They were-- They came to-

37:48 Speaker 1 In the shtetl of Lubavitch?

37:49 Speaker 3 In the shtetl of Lubavitch.

37:53 Speaker 1 So history repeats itself-

37:54 Speaker 3 I'm just saying

37:55 Speaker 1 ... in, in, in different ways. I mean, you mentioned teachers. Uh, if there's one message I have for the community, the larger community, is that we have to celebrate those individuals who still come to school every single day and-

38:09 Speaker 3 To teach

38:10 Speaker 1 ... invest in their lives to teach the children.

38:12 Speaker 3 Yeah.

38:12 Speaker 1 They, they need to be the heroes because they are the heroes. And, uh, we've seen a tremendous amount of growth in and, uh, an understanding of what their challenge is. And I, I know I mentioned before, there's a lot of tension sometimes between families and, and, and the, and the and now there's, you know, internet and WhatsApp groups, and, you know, everything you do or say is immediately discussed by the parents of your class. But, um, we need to get behind the teachers, the who are... I think they're doing the things that I'm describing here. I'm, I'm not telling you my own, it's not my own and it's not something that's unique to me. Uh, I'm just sharing that I've had the opportunity to sort of teach twenty-five years ago and then be involved in administration and then fundraising, and then last year go back into the classroom, and it's given me an opportunity to rethink some of these things-

39:04 Speaker 3 Mm

39:04 Speaker 1 ... in, in the current situation. And, uh, yeah.

39:08 Speaker 3 How, how does a school tackle, deal, like conceptually, how does a school... Every school needs to have some kind of identity, right? Every, every, every, ev- every company, uh, everything has to have some kind of identity. But a school for sure is, it, it, the what are we educating? Why are we educating? It has to have some kind of identity. How do you deal with the fact that, like we've been discussing here, and, uh, many has been discussed at length on this podcast, and everyone can see with their eyes that the community is fragmenting in terms of a lot of people call themselves Lubavitchers, and, and not think of themselves as Lubavitchers, but on many profound levels, they are different, you know? And, and they have different ideas what that means. And how does, you know, I mean, obviously one way for a school to deal with that is to basically, um, make it very specific. We only accept Lubavitchers that are of this particular flavor. But the, I don't think that's how it works here in Pittsburgh, and so if it's not, if you don't do that, how, how does a school maintain its own identity while allow-

40:07 Speaker 1 Mm.

40:07 Speaker 3 And, and allow or, or, or work with families that are so different?

40:12 Speaker 1 So, so Pittsburgh is unique in that, um, we have a dual program, It was originally established that way by Rabbi Posner in So that when, the, the minute you say we're a dual program, that we have and we have that already, now there's an identity there which is maybe different-

40:32 Speaker 3 Right

40:32 Speaker 1 ... than in other communities. Um, and what that does is, so someone who, well, most people will leave their children here throughout elementary. That's where they're... When it comes to mesivta age, um, now there's a question. We are, we have a dual program. We don't have two options. You need to attend both. Um, so if I wanna send my child to a mesiv that's, uh, full I have to go now to another community. Interesting, I'll just tell you that when I was in eighth grade, my father wanted me to stay in Pittsburgh, and he wrote six... They, they were just starting a mesivta back then for the second or third time. It wasn't, uh, there had been one earlier than. And, um, my father wrote to the Rebbe numerous reasons why, uh, I should stay in Pittsburgh, but I was desperate to leave. And the Rebbe wrote that, "But I wanna stay, uh, I wan- I wanna go to yeshiva." So the Rebbe wrote, "and I should leave."

41:30 Speaker 3 Mm.

41:30 Speaker 1 When my children were in, uh, eighth grade and I wanted them to stay for our mesivta, um, they reminded me of the story that I told them that, that I, I was allowed to leave. So my point is, Pittsburgh spe- specifically has an identity. Um, the dual program is, is part of our identity, so that automatically says, you know, if you want, if you're here, we, of course, there's a perspective of what is and what is, but, you know, we have an identity, and you have to have an identity.

41:58 Speaker 3 Right.

41:59 Speaker 1 It's a must to have an identity. Our identity is shifting s- slowly but surely. Um, it's interesting that a lot of the, uh, uh, the younger light today, you know, want a greater emphasis on

42:12 Speaker 3 Right.

42:13 Speaker 1 And, and, and, uh, they, they still want a lot of them, but in a different way than maybe twenty years ago, et cetera. So identities can, can shift a little bit. You know, you can, you can massage them, but you have to have one, and you have to be, uh, transparent about this is who we are. Um, you know, we have a mission that we actually s- you know, we talk about it, and this is who we are. So, um, this is what we wanna achieve, and this is how we're gonna achieve it. These are our core beliefs, and we, we believe that we, I mean, we try to communicate that to our parent body as much as we can. But you do have to have an identity. Um, uh, no two families are alike, so it's never, it's never, it's not a perfect science, but, uh, as much as possible you need to, we need to know what we're trying to accomplish, who we are, and, uh-

43:02 Speaker 3 But-

43:02 Speaker 1 And we should be evaluating you for achieving it.

43:04 Speaker 3 But how do you, but how do you deal with... That, that's more like pe- pe- pe- pedagogical ... identity. Like, what are we teaching? But how do you deal with, you know, to, to put it bluntly, you have, you know, this, this concept modern Chabad, right? But, uh, i- to put, you know, to put it less bluntly, you, you know, you have, you have families that, that they have, they, they, they s- they feel that, you know, we, we, we, our kids can watch certain things and read certain things. Our kids should watch and read certain things. Uh, you know, uh, some families feel absolutely not. We cannot have kids, our kids with those kind of kids, or we need a school that, that, that will not tolerate that kind of discussion at all, or that kind of ambiance at all and that will clamp down on it. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, you know, in a way, it's become so diverse and fragmented that, like, the old questions of, like, how do you have families that come from Gesher Chabad and families that are from Al Chabas-

44:04 Speaker 1 That's gone

44:04 Speaker 3 ... that feels, that's quaint. That's quaint, right? That, that's like, uh, yeah, that, that's a s- that's small potatoes. But, like, how, how do you... Like, how does a school inter-- like, engage with the parents and not disregard the parents, but then also... and not disregard the families, but then also have its own identity? Look, I hear from, I hear from, I, I've heard from, from the grapevine, you know, some of the larger schools and some of the larger communities, they're, they're having a very hard time, right? Because, you know, like, what, how did I hear it phrased? That there are some schools, some Lubavitch schools, that, uh, there are days where, like, the kids are allowed to wear whatever they want to school. Like, they don't have to wear a uniform, like, you know, uh, whatever-

44:48 Speaker 1 Correct

44:49 Speaker 3 ... free dress days, and s- they have a number of kids that don't have clothes that fit, that, that, that match the dress code, right? And these are from quote-unquote Lubavitch families, and a lot of, a lot of parents don't want that. They're like, "So they go to a different school." So, like, how does it, how do you think about... I'm not, I'm not trying to put Pittsburgh on the spot, but how does it work if we talk about it more abstract? How does it work that we... If on one hand, there's this, you, you have this openness, you're speaking about this openness of, uh, you know, dealing with the child Basar Hashom and, and, and, and not assuming anything. But i- if every child is coming from his own place or her own place, and we're starting from zero, and we're ready to work with them, how does that not turn into absolute chaos and anarchy in a school?

45:36 Speaker 1 So first of all, in larger communities, um, that's a g- bigger problem. In larger schools and the larger communities, that's a bigger problem than in a smaller community and the smaller c- school like Pittsburgh.

45:47 Speaker 3 Okay.

45:47 Speaker 1 Of course, there's, there are different, uh, types of families, and they have different values. Of course, that exists here also, but it's not as, the range is not as great as, as, as in larger communities. That's number one. You know, if you... The next big question is you have to, we have to differentiate between the values and the policies of the mosad versus the values and the policies of the parents. Now, there are numerous Hasid from the Rebbe that a school should sort of, is responsible for the chinuch of the children twenty-four hours a day, even after they leave the, the, the home, the school, and, uh, it's our chayyus to have, to influence what happens outside of the school. That's true. Having said that, I think just my, my view on this or my thoughts on this is that whereas twenty-five years ago, I would make rules about what the families can and can't do and if their child wants to be in our school, that's less and less possible today.

46:50 Speaker 3 Right. For the same reasons-

46:51 Speaker 1 That's, that's less-

46:51 Speaker 3 For the same reasons you've been talking about.

46:52 Speaker 1 That's right. It's less and less possible. So I don't think it, I don't think the Rebbe's words are eternal, but I think the way we go about influencing what happens those twenty-four hour, you know, twenty-four/seven outside of school, summer, um, our approach is, is a little different than it used to be. You know, you can't as easily just make a rule.

47:12 Speaker 3 Right.

47:13 Speaker 1 You can't do this, that, and the other because firstly, you can't control it, and there are people, the families, like you're saying, are in such a different place today. We still can maintain values and, uh, and policies and attitude for our own mosad, that we can. We c- we can dictate, you know, w- how people can dress, how people, you know, can conduct themselves. That is our, uh, right as a mosad.

47:37 Speaker 3 You're saying on the school grounds.

47:39 Speaker 1 On the school grounds, at, at our events, right?

47:41 Speaker 3 Right.

47:42 Speaker 1 Um, and, uh, to be honest, a lot of thought needs to go into that because of the fact who's coming in, who are our parents, and what are those policies and how should we, you know, uh, you know, if you have a dinner, s-separate seating, mechitza

47:56 Speaker 3 Right.

47:57 Speaker 1 All sorts of questions like that. But that's for the school to decide how we run on our, on r- um, on our, in, in our buildings and at our, at our events, and that's easier. As far as influencing what parents do outside, if they're taking their... parents are showing their children, um, movies, uh, internet, gaming all night long, or going on vacations to wherever, that's a lot more about influence and conversations and, uh, you know, trying to move the needle a- as a community in the right direction. But you, we don't control that. And, and I think if you think you control that, um, that's like, you know, the illusion. There's a lot of things that we believe we're able to do, and we're really not doing them. Like the illusion of compliance-

48:43 Speaker 3 Right

48:43 Speaker 1 ... the illusion of control.

48:45 Speaker 3 Right.

48:45 Speaker 1 These are illusions, and that's been, you know, this generation has revealed that, you know, you know, we've ripped the Band-Aid, you know, off the, of the wound. It's like we're, we're not, we're not getting anywhere with, with, with, with illusions. We have to be thoughtful and curious about what's really happening and, and think about what's the right approach and, uh-

49:03 Speaker 3 Yeah

49:03 Speaker 1 ... you know, what's the right policy or whatever.

49:05 Speaker 3 Right. Fair enough. But, fair enough. But, but, but if I, if I put that question a little, little bit differently, if I'm a parent-

49:11 Speaker 1 Right

49:11 Speaker 3 ... if I'm a parent and I'm sending my child to school, and the school is not like some, like you said, some progressive school where, yeah, whatever the, whatever the child wants goes or whatever the family... You know, everything's okay, and everything's negotiable. No, you have your standards. But my kid's gonna be with another kid from a family that has very different standards to mine. They're gonna be in the same class. They're gonna... They might be friends, right? It's not like there's no barrier of, like, they're in a different school. Like, they're in this school. The school accepted them. Like, as a parent, um, how, how, like, what is the upside? Let me, let me put it... Like, what is the upside of, of having my kid in that kind of environment and that kind of what you called even earlier confusion or a more confusing world? What is the upside of that? I mean, on one hand, you could say, "Well, there's no better choice. You have to send your kid to school." But in a world where, let's say, you could keep your kid at, you keep your kid at home, and you could homeschool them or just, I don't know, just keep it... Like, what's the u- Is, is there an upside?

50:13 Speaker 1 Okay. Before I get to the upside,I think you touched on something that's extremely important here, and that is how you choose your schools.

50:22 Speaker 3 Okay.

50:22 Speaker 1 That's number one. So a lot of thought needs to go into, A, how we choose our schools for our children. If you're in a bigger city, you have more options. If you're in a smaller city, uh, you have less options. But even if you're in a smaller city, there's online options, there's homeschooling options. So first of all, a lot of thought needs to go into where you put your child. That's number one. The minute you make a decision after a lot of thought that your child is in this particular school, it behooves you as a parent now to work with the school to the benefit of your child. That's number one. And to become a partner with the school on trying to do what we can to, to make our children successful. So that's point number one. Now, if I'm-- if a parent were to ask me, "Should I homeschool my child or should I put him in one of your classes where there's all different types of, uh, children?" I mean, that, that... The rabbi, uh, answered numerous times, numerous ways, the Chinuch. You know, someone, uh, Alexander Ben Nun once wrote to the Rebbe a list of... He was a big mechanech in Eretz Israel. Ten rules of Chinuch. So the Rebbe said, "The eleventh rule is there's no rule." What that means is every child you have to evaluate-

51:33 Speaker 3 Yeah. Right

51:33 Speaker 1 ...to know their, their unique situation and make a decision that's appropriate for that child. Now, if someone asks me, "Should I homeschool my child or should I put him in this and this class?" So there, there are gonna be minus of chseras in both. The upside is that putting him in a class with different children with different backgrounds and doing different things is, that's called life. And if you think you're gonna protect him in twenty twenty-five in Tashbet Heich from life, you're making a big mistake. They're gonna run into it in camp. They're gonna run into it in the store. They're gonna run into it in shul. They're gonna run into it... They're gonna hear it. That's just the world we live in.

52:08 Speaker 3 Right.

52:08 Speaker 1 So, so to talk about illusions again.

52:11 Speaker 3 So why don't you send them, uh, just to play devil's advocate, why not send them to public school?

52:15 Speaker 1 Well, you, you wanna...

52:17 Speaker 3 No, it's like-

52:17 Speaker 1 I mean, uh, that's, uh, that's-

52:20 Speaker 3 No, no, but, but you see what I'm saying. Like, like, like someone could say, "Well"-

52:23 Speaker 1 You pick the best possible o-option. Jewish school is better than public school, although the public school is gonna be better than a Jewish school, and-

52:30 Speaker 3 No, but what do you say, for example, is it, is it better to send my kid to a school where, if, if there's such an option, where everyone's exactly like me? Like, is there an up... Like, I, I'm just teasing it out. Is there an up-

52:41 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

52:41 Speaker 3 ...is there an upside of sending, is there an upside of sending a kid to a school? Like how much... Is any... Like how much... If, if it's actually a choice, is diversity a good thing? And how much do... You see what I'm asking?

52:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, I see what you're saying. Diversity is a good thing. It depends on the child. It depends if the child is, is, is a weak child and doesn't have the fortitude or the, or their own personality, and they're gonna be swept into. It depends on the makeup of a given class. You know, a given class may have a really, you know, everyone's going doing things that they shouldn't be doing, and my child's a weak child and will get swept up, and it's a very personal question that relates to-

53:20 Speaker 3 I see

53:21 Speaker 1 ...to each situation. I'm just saying that I, I, I run into parents who think they're gonna protect their child.

53:28 Speaker 3 Mm.

53:28 Speaker 1 And you're, you're not ultimately gonna protect your child. You can inculcate. You can give them strength-

53:34 Speaker 3 Mm

53:34 Speaker 1 ...in your own home and with your, around the Shabbos table, by the supper table, and tell them stories, the Shema Yisrael. You can give them strength, uh, but ultimately, they're going to interact with other people, and they need to learn how to.

53:49 Speaker 3 Right.

53:49 Speaker 1 And, and usually, you know, we're not talking, most Moistes that I know of, you're not talking about the kids aren't doing shogena things.

53:56 Speaker 3 No.

53:56 Speaker 1 They're just doing things that maybe you don't want them to do. Maybe they're reading Harry Potter. Or maybe they're, you know, whatever. They're, uh... There may be some things like that that you wanna, you wanna protect them from, and you can protect them to an extent. Just depends what age it is. So there's no, there's no one answer that's gonna fit every situation.

54:14 Speaker 3 Right.

54:14 Speaker 1 I think you... I think let's not fool ourselves. Let's evaluate, um, the situation in front of them. And we deal with this all the time because you have certain Mishpachas that come from even from a different country or a different world where, you know, this is foreign to them. You know, the fact that like, the fact even that kids play sports-

54:34 Speaker 3 Right

54:34 Speaker 1 ...you know, by recess or play basketball or we don't know. For people from other countries or from other, you know, upbringings-

54:40 Speaker 3 Right

54:40 Speaker 1 ...that's like, uh, considered terrible.

54:44 Speaker 3 That's so-

54:44 Speaker 1 So I hope I answered somewhat, um, you know, some general guidelines, I'd say, you know. Know your child, be ref-- think-- learn about the schools and your options, and then make a decision, and then work with whoever's there to make it work best and be realistic.

55:02 Speaker 3 Well, I think what you're saying is that, or what, what I, what I'm hearing is that, uh, the sa- the s- the same idea that a teacher needs to, uh, start every day from scratch. We can't take anything for granted. S- same thing applies to, to a parent.

55:17 Speaker 1 Hundred percent.

55:18 Speaker 3 Right? Like, uh, uh, like you said, there's no rules. Um, everything's on the table, essentially, and you know, it, it, it's, you know, it demands a lot of patience from parents as well, you know, even if, uh, even if, even if, you know, maybe a parent loves a child more naturally and more instinctively-

55:38 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

55:38 Speaker 3 ...and more unconditionally, right?

55:40 Speaker 1 Right.

55:40 Speaker 3 But, but, but the, th- there's a tremendous demand on patience.

55:44 Speaker 1 Right. So, so, like the option of homeschooling, let's, let's go back to that question for a second. The chseras of homeschooling are great.

55:53 Speaker 3 Okay.

55:53 Speaker 1 There's not proper socialization. We grow as people by interacting and getting into little disagreements and figuring out how to work those through. Putting kids in front of a screen all day is detrimental on many, many levels.

56:06 Speaker 3 Right.

56:07 Speaker 1 So you're weighing, you're saying, "Okay, here's the miles of constraints. Now what are the, what, what are the constraints of being in the classroom?" "Well, so and so, some of the kids do some things that..."

56:16 Speaker 3 Right. Okay.

56:17 Speaker 1 Let's, let's, let's evaluate it and measure it and see what's, what's best. Once you make a decision, become a partner with whoever's running that organization to do what's best for your child and to help each other, support each other, understand each other.

56:31 Speaker 3 Right. I mean, I'm-

56:32 Speaker 1 I'm trying to take these big ideas, global ideas and questions and m- m- and just make it a little bit more simple and practical-

56:39 Speaker 3 No, no. They ma- ma-

56:40 Speaker 1 ... so that people can have, have something to walk away with, sort of.

56:43 Speaker 3 They, they make a lot, they make a lot of sense.

56:44 Speaker 1 Yeah.

56:45 Speaker 3 Look, they make a lot of sense. Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, a boutique video production company servicing the Chabad and Jewish community. Since opening 10 years ago, Yuvala Media has pushed the boundaries of artistic and thoughtful storytelling in the community with an insistence on there always being a memorable story as well as a beautiful and striking visual image that we believe is second to none. Over the years, we have worked with Chabad organizations around the country, as well as large organizations like Bonnie Olim, Torah Umesorah, and Athalathon, guided by the belief that your story is absolutely worth telling with depth and creativity. If you are looking to tell your story with a video, please reach out to us at hello@yuvalamedia.com. Again, that is hello@yuvalamedia.com. A link can be found in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast. Uh, look, like, like, like we started, like we started off the conversation, um, you know, Chinuch, Chinuch on one hand is, is, is... Not one hand. Chinuch is at that spot where you're, you're, you're, you're constantly being pulled between the future and the past, right?

57:56 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

57:56 Speaker 3 And, and the family is. Uh, you know, where do you want your kids to go? Uh, like where do you want them to be in 20 years? And, and, and, and what do you want them to hold onto?

58:07 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

58:07 Speaker 3 And the school has the same thing. And yeah, I think, I think like we discussed also, you know, people de- we definitely feel at a crossroads, which is, uh, I don't think it's unique to history, but it's, it happens every once in a while, where a, a, a certain sim-, uh, you know, um, understanding of society where everything makes sense or has been made to make sense falls away. Like you, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've mentioned a few times, like the illusions have gone, the, the simplicity is gone. Like, um, the naiveté is gone, and we have to, we have to rebuild. Like, uh, or at least rebuild or reconstruct what it means to move forward. Like the, the like in many ways, what hap- what it seems to me is people build something up. Like you talked, it's very interesting the way you framed it with your, with your father and the, the, the Bochurim in Canada, you know, and America, similar, Rabbi Posner. What, I, I interviewed, uh, you know, at the, the beginning of the podcast, I interviewed Rabbi Posner's daughter, Mrs. Gorelick. She grew up here, and the way, the picture that she described is, is, is ground zero. Like you talk about kids being in chaos today, like that was chaos.

59:18 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

59:18 Speaker 3 Right? In terms of like, like, like what's going on in the world around me, nothing makes sense, right? Interesting, just, just to... She spoke again and again about how the bedrock of her Chinuch was her parents' love for her. Like, and that's what she's saying 70 years or 80 years later, right? And so in that chaos, that was a bedrock. Like sometimes you, like her father didn't have an institution or a community to rely on. He was the only man with a beard.

59:44 Speaker 1 Right.

59:45 Speaker 3 Right? And, and so they had to retreat in a way to the core, which was, you know, love of the child, and that's what was her bedrock for, for the re- you know, for, for, for the rest of her life. And so, but my, my point is that they also were in a place where what the world that they had come from, Russia, Poland, whatever, was gone. They, they started from scratch.

1:00:05 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:00:05 Speaker 3 They built such an amazing system that the world you grew up in, and even in a way kind of la- lasting to when I was a child, I grew up in Hong Kong, but the world I, I, I encountered in America, everything made sense. But it didn't... They made it that way.

1:00:19 Speaker 1 Correct.

1:00:20 Speaker 3 And then, and then it ran its course.

1:00:22 Speaker 1 Right.

1:00:22 Speaker 3 Right? Because everything runs its course.

1:00:24 Speaker 1 And we're trying to make sense of it again.

1:00:25 Speaker 3 Yeah, like, like Sean Posner had, like the, the, the same way he started, and now maybe in a way we're starting from an advantage where we're, there's already the building, and there's already, there's a community.

1:00:36 Speaker 1 Infrastructure.

1:00:37 Speaker 3 Right. And there's also the disadvantage that there's a lot of loose ends and a lot of opinions and stuff that, you know, like it's not, you're not starting on a blank slate. And, uh, but, but I think, I think that's, that, that, that, like it's, it, it goes all the way to the parents. Like the parents, like you're describing, like you, you cannot take anything for granted. Everything's on the table in a way, and, and you, you, you, you, you cannot say, "Well, I grew up this way, therefore my kid's gonna grow up this way." Everybody knows that that's not the case anymore, that, that, that rubric is gone, right? And so, so we have to start again. But if, if, if I may, unless you have to go.

1:01:11 Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm good.

1:01:12 Speaker 3 What, what I would... There, there, there is, it's, it's, I think it's connected just to, just to, to move this along a little bit. There, there's a lot of discussion, and I, and I think I've, I've seen you speak about this a lot. There's a lot of discussion today about mental health, uh, in schools or in general in society. But, you know, schools are becoming more and more, um, uh, aware, but also implementing these things. And, uh, you know, I wonder, I wonder how much of mental health is really, um, addressing a different question, which is something that we've been discussing, which is identity. All right? And like, and like a lot, and so tho- just to put a, a bit of a sharper edge on it, you know, if a student doesn't have an identity, and therefore is caught in all kinds of psychological malaises, right? You know, all kinds of problems, dealing with their mental health can itself become a form of identity, but it's like it's- But really that's not the answer to the question. You know what I'm saying? Like, being a healthy child, in my view, is not the same as being a, like a, a, a, a Yiddish child with Yiras Shamayim. Like, like being a mentally healthy child is a good thing. All right, it's not the b- but that's not the equivalent of what Chinuch is for, uh-

1:02:30 Speaker 1 So before I address the question of wellness or trauma-

1:02:33 Speaker 3 Right

1:02:33 Speaker 1 ... that everybody likes to talk about, you touched on parents and the love for their children, and, uh, I think that both parties in this discussion, the schools and the parents, need to do the same thing, and I think that's what you just said. The rabbi writes that parents underestimate the influence they have on their children. So the rabbi, that's in the, the... Parents assume, um, they're, that it's, you know, they're not eff- they're not effective in, in transforming their children. And one of the reasons they feel that way is because they're dealing with the here and now. You know, they, they, they, you know, they, they encourage their child to do X, and the child's not doing it, or they don't see the child necessarily progressing the right way. So they, they respond to that, "You know, I'm not really helpful." But what I find, I j- I look at myself personally, and I look at my children, and I watch it all over the, you know, I observe these things very closely, that children will go back to things that were important to their parents.

1:03:26 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:03:26 Speaker 1 You know, when the parents spoke about something or conducted themselves in a certain way, and you could see when they're real, and it's, you know, the you know. You'll see the children. It'd be, it'd be meaningful. Not necessarily, it doesn't necessarily express it exactly the same way as the parent, but you'll see those things as being important. If the father's someone who opened a sefer his whole life, and they get older, you'll see they'll start learning a little more. If the guy davened a little bit more, wears machbon, and, and going to shul for a minyan three times a day, you'll see the kids doing that. Even if they go very far away, and they come back, I've, I've observed that. So I think it's important for parents to take the same approach as the moses. Now, as, as a mechanech and as someone who runs a moses, I always say that, you know, we have to assume that the child knows nothing, and there aren't any parents, you know? We, we, we just try to partner with them and encourage them. And the parents have to almost assume, "I can't rely on the school. What can I do to-

1:04:18 Speaker 3 Right

1:04:18 Speaker 1 ... to influence my child?" I think when we're both, th- th- you know, approaching it that way, there's a greater chance that the kids will, uh-

1:04:25 Speaker 3 But I just want to clarify that.

1:04:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:04:26 Speaker 3 Uh, uh, 'cause it could sound like it's, it's like you're talking about two disconnected parties, and it, it, well, and, and I'll just-

1:04:33 Speaker 1 Not dis- not disconnected. They need a partner, but don't assume that the other is taking care of this.

1:04:37 Speaker 3 Yeah, so, uh, uh, so that's what I understood.

1:04:39 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:04:39 Speaker 3 I wanted to give you the chance to clarify.

1:04:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:04:40 Speaker 3 It sounded like, like it's never enough.

1:04:43 Speaker 1 It's never enough.

1:04:44 Speaker 3 It's never enough.

1:04:44 Speaker 1 The school should teach, make sure that the kids are getting negel vasser.

1:04:48 Speaker 3 All right.

1:04:49 Speaker 1 The parents need to make sure the kids are getting negel vasser so that we could, we're, we're, you know, that we make sure that the child gets his negel vasser and says berachos in the morning.

1:04:55 Speaker 3 Right.

1:04:56 Speaker 1 No one should assume that that's something that the other one's necessarily doing.

1:04:59 Speaker 3 Right.

1:04:59 Speaker 1 So that, that's, that's my point.

1:05:01 Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I wanted to make sure that's-

1:05:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Not that kind of... And, and try to partner as much as possible.

1:05:04 Speaker 3 All right.

1:05:05 Speaker 1 But yeah, that, that's what I meant. So there's double's better than-

1:05:07 Speaker 3 Yes

1:05:08 Speaker 1 ... than, than nothing. Trauma. So like everything else, you have to find the, uh, the middle path sort of here.

1:05:16 Speaker 3 But first of all-

1:05:17 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:05:18 Speaker 3 ... uh, what has changed? Like w- w- I think-

1:05:20 Speaker 1 With trauma?

1:05:20 Speaker 3 In your mind, yeah. Are kids more traumatized today than they used to be?

1:05:27 Speaker 1 I don't think so.

1:05:28 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:05:28 Speaker 1 I don't think so. I mean, there, there's some of this confusion. I mean, look, look, when there was a Tree of Life shooting here in Pittsburgh-

1:05:36 Speaker 3 Yes

1:05:36 Speaker 1 ... yes, people went through trauma.

1:05:37 Speaker 3 Of course.

1:05:38 Speaker 1 Of course. October 7th, depending how close you were, of course, there was trauma. So incidents happen, there's trauma, but those things have been going on for time immemorial, right?

1:05:47 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:05:47 Speaker 1 Um, I think we make a bigger deal about trauma today than we used to.

1:05:52 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:05:52 Speaker 1 Okay. Now, this, I may get a lot of negative feedback for this.

1:05:56 Speaker 3 I'm not trying to get you in trouble, but-

1:05:57 Speaker 1 We make a, um, a, a bigger deal about it, which is good and bad, like everything else. Um, children do go through trauma, trauma with a small T, and we have a wellness division here at Yeshiva.

1:06:11 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:06:11 Speaker 1 We care about children. We try to identify people who are struggling and give them the support.

1:06:15 Speaker 3 But what, what do you mean by trauma? When you say that trauma with a small T-

1:06:18 Speaker 1 What I mean by trauma, I mean that, um, with a small T, that means that negative events that happened in their lives, that... Not, not negative events of, of a mi- you know, of, of something really traumatic with a big T, uh, from a death or witnessing something horrible, right? Not, not trauma of that nature, but just smaller trauma. Uh, lack of success or, or not being treated appropriately, uh-

1:06:46 Speaker 3 Or made fun of

1:06:47 Speaker 1 ... made fun of and things like that. Um, so that's why it's called with a small T. It's not as dramatic.

1:06:53 Speaker 3 Right.

1:06:53 Speaker 1 Right? But it's, but yet it, it affects a person.

1:06:56 Speaker 3 You can't point with a finger, this happened then.

1:06:58 Speaker 1 Exactly. It's not, it's not an event.

1:07:00 Speaker 3 Right.

1:07:00 Speaker 1 It's, it's usually something, uh, you know-

1:07:02 Speaker 3 Over time

1:07:02 Speaker 1 ... over time. Um, so they're, they're, you know... We're, we're more aware of that today.

1:07:07 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:07:07 Speaker 1 We're more aware of that today than we used to be, and that's good that we're more aware of it, that it has to be, than, than we used to be, and that's why I spoke before about changing how we interact with the children to try to remove that sense of trauma w-with a small T, which definitely affects a kid. For sure, it affects them. Um, and at the, at the same time, we shouldn't see a child who experienced trauma with a small T as being, um, disabled and not able to move forward. Sometimes we go to that extreme and, you know, because they did A, B, and C, they, they don't have the wherewithal, the resilience to get past it. So that's why I say every-everything, it, it's good and it's not good, 'cause it shouldn't be used as an excuse. It should be used to inform mechaneche, mechanecheis parents of how to change the way we interact with our children. Some of the things I spoke about before, emotional constancy, right? And- Being a little, seeking to be understand, understand what's going on, not re- overreacting to the behavior, but not feeling that I can't move my child and I can't... There can't be rules, and there can't be discipline, and I can't, you know, get them to, to move from where they are now to where they need to be. It... Sometimes the, the, you know, the o- overemphasizing all this trauma causes us to feel that, you know, we just gotta leave

1:08:36 Speaker 1 the child alone and we can't, like, you know, they're, they're just too-

1:08:40 Speaker 3 Fragile

1:08:40 Speaker 1 ... k- fragile, and they turn into a snowflake, and now they can't move. So if, if I... I hope I'm being clear. Uh, it's somewhere in the middle is the answer to the question.

1:08:49 Speaker 3 My question is more, what do you think... C- at least from where I stand, I'm not trying to pose as a-

1:08:54 Speaker 1 Right

1:08:54 Speaker 3 ... psychologist.

1:08:55 Speaker 1 Right.

1:08:55 Speaker 3 But I'm more interested and curious about the question of identity. How much of this do you think is, like, people looking for an identity or people con- people questioning their identity and finding their identity instead in, in, in, in, in, in all these two tech-

1:09:13 Speaker 1 I, I think there two-

1:09:13 Speaker 3 In all these two te- in all these new techniques?

1:09:15 Speaker 1 Yeah. I, I think, I, I think identity is part of it, but no, I th- I think that'd be oversimplifying to say, "Just find your identity and you're gonna be okay."

1:09:22 Speaker 3 Okay. Fair.

1:09:23 Speaker 1 And I, I don't think that's what it is. If a child goes through an abusive situation-

1:09:28 Speaker 3 Of course. Yeah

1:09:29 Speaker 1 ... and, and I'm not even talking about serious abuse, but they're put down, they're belittled, they're screamed at and all that stuff, and they, they're now currently somewhat unhealthy because of that.

1:09:43 Speaker 3 Right.

1:09:43 Speaker 1 Their self-esteem and all that. Um, you know, that has to be dealt with in of itself.

1:09:51 Speaker 3 Right.

1:09:51 Speaker 1 That has to be worked through to make them healthy. Just, you know, can identity, um, down the road if, if we help them with identity, is that one of the... Can that contribute to overcoming some of the stuff? Absolutely.

1:10:06 Speaker 3 Right.

1:10:06 Speaker 1 Absolutely. But it depends on the, on the severity of the trauma.

1:10:11 Speaker 3 Of course.

1:10:11 Speaker 1 And it, it depends on, you know, so I was, I, I wouldn't only work on identity. I'd, I'd work on whatever they're suffering from and try to help them process that as a thing in of itself.

1:10:23 Speaker 3 No, I'm not, I'm not-

1:10:23 Speaker 1 If that makes sense

1:10:24 Speaker 3 ... I'm not trying to, God forbid, minimize-

1:10:25 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:10:25 Speaker 3 ... minimize, uh, trauma. I mean, you know, although in a way, I guess compared to today, I'm personally more old school.

1:10:32 Speaker 1 Right.

1:10:32 Speaker 3 You know, like I, I, I think I mentioned on the podcast, like when I was in school, um, I got thrown into a garbage can by my friends k- k- in, in Australia, typical bullying. I think looking back that that was fantastic. Okay. I think like they taught me a lesson and they, you know, it was rough and tumble. Today, that would be absolutely unacceptable.

1:10:51 Speaker 1 Right.

1:10:51 Speaker 3 Right? And, and, and also as a parent, I, I wouldn't be happy if that happened to my kid, right? So I, I personally am a little bit more old school, but, but forget about my, my, my position on it. Like, the reason I bring up identity is it w- w- does that explain why there's so much more focus? You said it's... You said, you said that you think it's more or less the same, but today we pay more attention to it. Is the reason we pay more attention to it at all tied to the fact that, you know, it's almost I'm thinking in my mind that like if, you know, if, if you have like a river that's, that's flowing, you don't see all the rocks and stuff that gets stuck in the rocks underneath on the, on the, on the riverbed. Because the river's flowing, you don't see it and you don't pay attention to it. But when the river dries up, suddenly there, it's like all this, "What's going on here?" Right? And so to me, in a way, like identity could be like a, you know, like it's a river. It's like it's something alive. It's moving in a direction, and when you're, when you're directionless and you've lost that kind of pulse, suddenly it's like, "Oh my gosh, there's a problem here, there's a problem here, there's a problem here." It's not to say those problems didn't e- don't exist or didn't exist. It's more how much of this is a

1:12:01 Speaker 3 function of, you know, grappling for a way forward in general, and suddenly we're like, "Oh my goodness, there's this problem. This must, this, this must be a problem. This must be a problem. This is a problem." That, that's what I'm asking.

1:12:15 Speaker 1 So identity, there, there's a couple things here. You as a child most probably grew up with a, with a strong identity, but besides having a strong identity, your constitution was, as I s- it's probably because of your, who your family was and your parents were and all that, you had a certain inner strength to you. That's not, not just identity, but just you, you were healthy then. I'm, I'm assuming that. I'm just saying to you, okay? I'm, I'm, I'm assuming, you know.

1:12:45 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:12:46 Speaker 1 A, a lot of this has to do with, you know, shalom bayis in the, in the family, a, a cohesive family unit, things are going well. A child like that, aside from identity, there's also their, their strength, their internal-

1:12:59 Speaker 3 Right

1:12:59 Speaker 1 ... um, you know-

1:12:59 Speaker 3 Right

1:13:00 Speaker 1 ... that allows them to, to, to deal with some of this other stuff. You're right. I, I like the way you put it, you know, how identity sits in. But there's also identity, but there are... People are less strength. They're more vulnerable. They're more, uh-

1:13:15 Speaker 3 Sure

1:13:15 Speaker 1 ... susceptible to, to, let's say bullying for a second, and there are kids who go through that and, and it, and it, it's that unhealthiness, uh, doesn't allow them to move forward unless you really a- a- address it. So I, I agree with some of what you said, but I think, I think it's oversimplifying it. In other words, it's not... In other words, if identity in of itself will not solve the problems.

1:13:40 Speaker 3 No, I don't think it will.

1:13:40 Speaker 1 It's a ‹hey› look of it.

1:13:41 Speaker 3 I don't think it will.

1:13:42 Speaker 1 I, I think now we are aware that, you know, kids sometimes are acting out, and they're just not functioning because of stuff that's going on, and I think that has to be sur- brought to the surface and addressed. At the same time, not over... Don't overreact and don't under-react, and I, and I observe both. I, I observe people who, you know, "My child, you can't," and, you know, "Oh, because in fifth grade they were called to the office, and they were asked in the exa- in the wrong way, you know, why they did such and such, that destroyed them for the rest of their life." That's an overreaction. It's not true. It's blaming someone else on their lack of success. Um, at the same time, I don't just ‹beshmet› and belittle it when a kid isn't, you know, doing well. It behooves us to become curious as to why and what can we do-

1:14:29 Speaker 3 Right

1:14:30 Speaker 1 ... to help them.

1:14:30 Speaker 3 Right.

1:14:31 Speaker 1 So again, y- you're ask-

1:14:33 Speaker 3 It's still important

1:14:33 Speaker 1 ... you're asking questions that are broader-

1:14:35 Speaker 3 Right

1:14:35 Speaker 1 ... and, and bigger and, and putting percentages in it, and I, I like to think more about the child in front of me and what they're going through and how to best address it. So, so, you know, I may, I mean, that-

1:14:44 Speaker 3 Fair enough

1:14:44 Speaker 1 ... that, that's how, that's how I look at it a lot more.

1:14:46 Speaker 3 Fair, fair enough.

1:14:46 Speaker 1 Um, a- and I, I... 'cause you asked it, I, I, I do think identity is definitely crucial and part of it, but, um... And I look at my own upbringing just for a second. I'm just thinking for a second. So I, in, in the '70s, there was a public school strike here in Pittsburgh, okay? So 80, 90 public school kids joined the school.

1:15:08 Speaker 3 Oh.

1:15:08 Speaker 1 They were in my peer group.

1:15:10 Speaker 3 And before that it was all ‹babush›? It's not-

1:15:12 Speaker 1 It was all Frum

1:15:12 Speaker 3 ... Frum, Frum, right.

1:15:13 Speaker 1 Frum, not ‹babush›.

1:15:14 Speaker 3 There's always been a mix here

1:15:15 Speaker 1 It was always m- Yeah. Yeah. Right. But it was, it was a smaller, much smaller school.

1:15:19 Speaker 3 And Frum.

1:15:20 Speaker 1 And Frum. Now all of a sudden, all my classmates, all my peers, and all that were non-Frum.

1:15:25 Speaker 3 Huh.

1:15:26 Speaker 1 And they were public school kids, and I... You, you... One could say that, um, I was bullied by them. You know, my woolen tzitzis, I was teased.

1:15:36 Speaker 3 How'd they come into your school and bully you?

1:15:37 Speaker 1 They came into my school, and they tormented me miserably-

1:15:42 Speaker 3 Huh

1:15:42 Speaker 1 ... about these type of things, about my Yiddishkeit.

1:15:44 Speaker 3 Fascinating.

1:15:44 Speaker 1 I gr- So I grew up in that, in that situation.

1:15:46 Speaker 3 Fascinating.

1:15:47 Speaker 1 But I think I, uh, I do think I was by nature a stronger type, physically stronger. Um, they used to call me, uh... We used to play tackle football. Those days they allowed that, and there was a person who was called The Juice, he was a famous football player. And I... When, when I took the ball, they, they tried to tackle me, they couldn't tackle me. I was, they... I was called by all my friends The Juice. Those public school kids, that's what they'd call me. Adem is, uh, there's a kid who sees me, "Hey, The Juice." And he sends the kid, "Send regards to The Juice." My point is I, I, I was a s- You know, I had a very strong identity, Baruch Hashem, and I was, I was, uh, physically okay, and I, I, I... You know, I was a confident kid, so I survived it, it... I, like you, it didn't... I, I don't look back negatively at all. I laugh about it. But I could tell you, if other people would've gone through what I went through at that time, and they didn't have the, that, the whatever I, whatever, it could've destroyed me.

1:16:40 Speaker 3 Right.

1:16:40 Speaker 1 You know, I was... There was, there's other stuff I'm not, I don't even wanna say here, but, but I, I was, yeah, I was bullied by these kids who came into my space, and, um-

1:16:49 Speaker 3 That's fascinating.

1:16:49 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, and I'm sure they had a certain amount of respect for me as well. They, you know, h- sometimes they'd, they'd ask me, "Oh, what do you do here? How do you do this?" Right?

1:16:56 Speaker 3 But they're kids.

1:16:56 Speaker 1 They're kids. There, there was someone who recently met a shliach in California, he said, "Oh, I taught him how to read," or I, I said, "Well, I don't remember that at all." So I'm sure I also contributed, you know.

1:17:06 Speaker 3 Right.

1:17:06 Speaker 1 But, uh, I have no negative feelings about that either. But that, that depends on the kid and depends on the situation. And m- maybe children today are more, uh, maybe they are today more sensitive and more, you know, uh... Part of the culture has sort of inc- you know, taught us that we're supposed to feel s- more sorry for ourselves-

1:17:25 Speaker 3 Right

1:17:25 Speaker 1 ... and not, not get through these things, so that, that, that, that, that becomes part of, of, uh, uh, who we are.

1:17:31 Speaker 3 Right. Of the world.

1:17:31 Speaker 1 Now there's all this us n- neurodivergence and all that stuff. There's a lot, you know, there's all that discussion. It's good to know about it. I'm sure it's, some of it's true, but, uh, we shouldn't get overly, uh, carried away with it.

1:17:43 Speaker 3 Yeah. I'm not, I'm not tr- uh, uh, I'm, I'm not trying to oversimplify it.

1:17:46 Speaker 1 Right.

1:17:46 Speaker 3 And, and also, you know, you said, like, you don't think of... I'm thinking about it in a bigger sense, yeah, 'cause I have the luxury to.

1:17:52 Speaker 1 Right.

1:17:52 Speaker 3 I, I don't teach for a living.

1:17:53 Speaker 1 Right. Exactly, right.

1:17:53 Speaker 3 I don't have to deal with kids on a daily basis.

1:17:55 Speaker 1 Right, right.

1:17:55 Speaker 3 I get to pontificate.

1:17:56 Speaker 1 Right.

1:17:57 Speaker 3 Right? But I, I mean, to be fair, maybe I shouldn't be the one pontificating, but I think, you know, thinking of it on a larger level is also important-

1:18:04 Speaker 1 It's valuable

1:18:04 Speaker 3 ... to some point, right? Because, because like everything, you know, there are the people on the front lines and the trenches, but, but if, if that isn't thought about, and I'm sure it is thought about by others, you know, like, where is this going? Um, you know, and I, I'm not trying to overstep my, my lines and, and, and, you know, educate the educators. I, I, I... There, there, there's a lot of thought going into it. But I have observed, you know, from projects that I've done, from things that I've seen, like, there is a massive push in, of mental health in all kinds of yeshivas, in all kinds of schools, a massive embrace of it. And so, you know, I, I underst- I appreciate what you're saying, which is, and I think it kinda goes back to one of the things you started off with, which is the, the ultimate goal is, is, is aniynus, interest, right? The goal, at least from what I'm picking up from you, is mental health awareness or dealing with mental health is not, like, the end unto itself, right?

1:18:59 Speaker 1 Right.

1:18:59 Speaker 3 The, the, the end, the end unto itself is that the child should come away interested positively in Yiddishkeit.

1:19:05 Speaker 1 Right.

1:19:06 Speaker 3 Right? And, and want to continue this and, and, and have children and teach them the, and push it forward. That's what it's all about, right? And, and I guess the, the struggle like everything is how do you absorb new techniques and new ideas without getting carried away with them and, and letting that dominate the culture? Because, like you said, in today's culture, it i- it has become a dominant force, although I think it's receding a little bit today. But it has become dominant, and, and I think, I think the way you framed it, or the way the, I guess the rabbi framed it back then, um, is, is that you always have to remember what the end goal is.

1:19:39 Speaker 1 Right. Uh, let's take an- anxiety, just one other area for a second here. It's important to, to think about this. So there's very unhealthy anxiety, 100%-

1:19:50 Speaker 3 Right

1:19:50 Speaker 1 ... that must be treated.

1:19:51 Speaker 3 Right.

1:19:52 Speaker 1 But what's interesting thing is that the level of anxiety in, in, in the United States or in the Western countries is, is at an all-time high.

1:20:00 Speaker 3 Right.

1:20:00 Speaker 1 Okay. So part of the reason it's at an all t- all-time high is, is anxiety in of itself is a normal part of life, you know? And there's two ways to, to deal with anxiety, I think. You can try to just rid yourself of it, and if you don't rid yourself totally or your children totally of it, then you failed and something's wrong, and so you're thrown the pharmaceutical and then, and then now what do I do? Or you can say, "Yeah, that's, that happens sometimes when things are a little rough, our anxiety levels raise," almost to normalize it to a certain extent. You know, help the children understand, be aware of it, that that's what they're feeling, and help them recognize that, I mean, that's what happens sometimes. And, and that's, and that's okay.

1:20:47 Speaker 3 Right.

1:20:48 Speaker 1 That's okay. If it's a, if it's not an unhealthy level of anxiety.

1:20:51 Speaker 3 Right.

1:20:52 Speaker 1 Not all issues in life can be solved with medicine or with a doctor or with... That just doesn't-

1:21:00 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:21:00 Speaker 1 ... how life in- innately or naturally has its ebbs and flows and ups and downs, and things happen.

1:21:06 Speaker 3 Right.

1:21:06 Speaker 1 That's also part of the-

1:21:07 Speaker 3 Right

1:21:07 Speaker 1 ... the healthy attitude Towards how to experience the, the, the trauma, you know?

1:21:12 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:21:12 Speaker 1 If, if we train them to say, "Oh, I'm feeling a little bit anxious today. That's a terrible thing. Well, you know, how can I solve this?" And I don't solve it, so now you become anxious about being anxious.

1:21:22 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

1:21:22 Speaker 1 I, I think that so sets you off in a, in a whole different place.

1:21:25 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:21:26 Speaker 1 So that's why...

1:21:27 Speaker 3 I, I... Look, I, I, I know peop- uh, what, who-

1:21:30 Speaker 1 O-others may disagree, and I'm aware of all that.

1:21:33 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:21:33 Speaker 1 I'm aware of all the... A lot of the big speakers talk of ...

1:21:36 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:21:36 Speaker 1 I'm aware of all that. Um, we-we're in the trenches.

1:21:39 Speaker 3 Yeah. No, fair.

1:21:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:21:40 Speaker 3 No, and I also... I'm not an educator-

1:21:42 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:21:42 Speaker 3 ... but I, I don't wanna come across minimizing-

1:21:45 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:21:45 Speaker 3 ... uh, people. Uh, to be honest with you, and to be, to, to be f-to be frank with anybody listening, um, you know, the one time that I, at least that I recall ever having, like, a real panic attack was actually, actually here in Pittsburgh.

1:21:59 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:21:59 Speaker 3 Uh, maybe I'll go visit. It's a few blocks from here.

1:22:01 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

1:22:01 Speaker 3 It was, like, when, when one of the times that my parents were dropping me off and, and, and they, and they need to go home. I was, uh, just about, uh... right before bar mitzvah, and for whatever reason, that time was just too much for me to handle. I had done it already a few times, but that time was just too much. I didn't like the arrangements exactly. Whatever it was, I don't think it was the school's fault. It was just, you know... It wa-it was a number of things. And so I remember vividly the world spinning around me, and, like, it was real. It was real. And, and I'm sure that there are kids that go through that.

1:22:31 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:22:31 Speaker 3 I-I'm not minimizing... A-and, and also just to push back a little bit to what you said before, I don't think that I'm, like, some uber s-super constitutional kid. The garbage can, I could handle.

1:22:41 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:22:41 Speaker 3 But, but that I couldn't.

1:22:42 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:22:42 Speaker 3 And, and perhaps the garbage can had negative effects on me in other ways that I didn't pick up until later on in life.

1:22:48 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:22:48 Speaker 3 And maybe, you know, but, you know, so I, I do wanna acknowledge that there's real stuff that goes on for kids, and n-it's not only the massive scandals that you hear about, but things that are very quiet and, and, and, and that you don't hear about. And, you know, God forbid, you know, uh, to minimize it, and I think it's a good thing that people are, in some ways, getting, you know, g-g-being helped with those kinds of things. Um, my, my, my... I, I think, I think the... what I was pushing at, which, which, which, which really is something that you were laying out, is that it's, it's, it's what, what is the end of this? What is the goal of this?

1:23:23 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:23:23 Speaker 3 And, and just to tie the whole thing full circle-

1:23:26 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:23:26 Speaker 3 ... uh, what's so striking to me, I haven't learned this text for a long time, but I'm sure you're more familiar with it, is how much of the things that you're talking about today are exactly what the speaks about-

1:23:37 Speaker 1 Yes

1:23:37 Speaker 3 ... in . Like, the idea that education starts with discipline, but not discipline of the child, discipline of yourself. I think that's the first thing he says.

1:23:46 Speaker 1 Number one thing.

1:23:47 Speaker 3 Right? Right.

1:23:48 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:23:48 Speaker 3 You cannot... I, I learned it a long time ago, but you cannot... I-if you are disciplining a child 'cause you've lost self-control, y-you are, A, wrong, and, B, you're not gonna... You're, you're showing a child what it means to not have discipline. I mean, a-and I remember this every time that, you know, I, I'd like to think that more or less I'm in control when I'm disciplining my children, but there are moments where I'm just fed up and tired and, or stressed out from something else, and I'm like, "What am I teaching them? That I just lose my, lose my mind?" It's terrible.

1:24:16 Speaker 1 Right.

1:24:16 Speaker 3 Right? And, and then the other thing I think, which is also w-the theme that you've been speaking about, or maybe this is what you've been thinking about yourself, but I just wanted to bring it out, is that the second thing I think the talks about is that each child comes from a different background, right? Am I, am I-

1:24:29 Speaker 1 You're hun- а hundred percent right, and I talk about these things.

1:24:31 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:24:31 Speaker 1 I just spoke last week for Bnos Menachem at a, at an event in New York. It was, it was live-streamed, and, uh, you know, the, the Rebbe Shabbos said you're supposed to think about your child-

1:24:41 Speaker 3 Right

1:24:42 Speaker 1 ... half hour a day. So the, so the so the question that people ask is, "What happens if you have 10 children? Are you supposed to think about it for five hours a day?"

1:24:50 Speaker 3 Right.

1:24:50 Speaker 1 So maybe the answer is that you're supposed to think about yourself.

1:24:53 Speaker 3 Ah.

1:24:54 Speaker 1 And if you work on yourself, then automatically- ... you'll a- you'll have-

1:24:58 Speaker 3 That's a b-

1:24:58 Speaker 1 ... you'll have an effect on the, on all 10 children-

1:25:00 Speaker 3 Right

1:25:00 Speaker 1 ... you know, the same-

1:25:01 Speaker 3 Right

1:25:01 Speaker 1 ... at the same time.

1:25:02 Speaker 3 That's a beautiful answer.

1:25:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. And then that's, that's really where, where it's at. It's really where it's at. I told the story for the "" that, uh, someone came to the "" I encourage my children to learn. They never learn. So the says, "Do you learn?" So he said, "No, I don't learn." So the says, "If you're not learning and you're just encouraging them, they're not gonna learn." So he says, "Rebbe," he says, "You mean all these years that I've been encouraging t-them to learn was for nothing?" He says, "No, 'cause they're gonna have children also one day. They'll encourage their children to learn, too." So, um, the wisdom is there.

1:25:31 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:25:32 Speaker 1 All the wisdom, all the wisdom is there. Uh, I'll tell you a funny story if you have...

1:25:38 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:25:38 Speaker 1 So I, I, I always try to think of ways and ideas to, to improve things and kind of, you know, that's, that's how I'm, uh, wired. So there was a individual who was, uh, not from... He actually has a big for Lubavitch and Yiddishkeit, but he's a big in the, in the world, not in our world. He's written books, and he's, he has a whole mahalach, et cetera, et cetera. So a group of us were working with Menachem Education Foundation. We said we're gonna... It was the Dalet Tamuz Shabbos, it was Gimel Tamuz, and we're gonna, we're gonna go meet with him. He gave us an hour. I became friends with him afterwards, and I spent a lot of time with him on discussing things. But we're gonna meet with him for an hour, and we planned an agenda of exactly what we're gonna ask him and how we're gonna ask him. It was a device, like what next steps and what we were doing. It was developing curriculum and standards of and things of that nature, working on differentiation and et cetera. We literally had a Google Doc with an agenda 'cause we were going to his house in Manhattan, and I was in Shab-- I was in New York for Shabbos, and I traveled to Manhattan. We sat down and we say something. He says, "Wasn't yesterday the Rebbe's, uh, yahrtzeit or anniversary?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "I think it behooves you to study his work and identify, you know, what was

1:26:59 Speaker 1 important to him and what he would advise you as next steps." I says, "Well," you know, here I, I went looking-

1:27:09 Speaker 3 Right

1:27:09 Speaker 1 ... for advice-

1:27:11 Speaker 3 Right

1:27:11 Speaker 1 ... or for recommendations, but who reminded me That everything's there

1:27:16 Speaker 3 Right

1:27:16 Speaker 1 In the Kol Ha'kinach ba'adracha

1:27:18 Speaker 3 Right

1:27:19 Speaker 1 In Tanya, wherever you wanna look in the Rebbe's letters, is you just gotta keep on looking and keep on looking. It, uh, doesn't change. The emes is there, and, uh, you c- we can use techniques that, that, you know, that's for sure. As the Rebbe says, "Kfi etzanes al tamidim." Make the colors different, use the, you know, learn something new, that's fine.

1:27:36 Speaker 3 Right.

1:27:37 Speaker 1 But ultimately the yesodis-

1:27:39 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:27:39 Speaker 1 ... are, uh, are there.

1:27:41 Speaker 3 Yeah. It, it, I, I think 'cause, I think in a way, a lot of times, you know, it, it, the tr- the, the truth is staring you in the face, but it's hard, right? And so we're convinced that somewhere else there's, there's, there, there's a trick, right? The Kol Ha'kinach ba'adracha is beautiful, but but also it, it basically looks at you in the face and says, "It's on you."

1:28:01 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:28:01 Speaker 3 Right? You, you wanna talk about your child, uh, how, what's your child gonna do if, if you're not, if you don't have your own-

1:28:07 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

1:28:07 Speaker 3 ... uh, you know, affairs in order? And, you know, I, I think going back to how we started off the conversation, like, in many ways you can find out about a community in what, in how they educate, w-where are they going, what it... But you also find out about the person, you know, the parent, and, and we find out about the, uh, the father, the mother. You find out about yourself when it comes to education. Like, what, w-what do, like, my child is going to, like you said earlier, is going to pick up on the things that are important to me. What is important to me?

1:28:36 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:28:36 Speaker 3 I cannot put it entirely on my child. I cannot put it entirely on the school. In a way, that's a deflection. The hardest question is to look in the mirror and say, like, "Where am I going?" Right? And in that sense, I think, uh, it's, it's the most important question.

1:28:51 Speaker 1 I just had that moment last week, 10 days ago. Our family got together for my Yemeledis. We went to a place up in Ramot.

1:28:59 Speaker 3 Mazel tov.

1:28:59 Speaker 1 Thank you. And everyone came with children, grandchildren, we got together, and so they put out a little, you know, p- whatever, cute little, uh, publication with different things that said, "If Tatty had a penny for this and this and this, we'd have a lot of money to build a shul," or kasher Torah shul.

1:29:16 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

1:29:16 Speaker 1 And they listed different things. So I, I, I've been looking at that, and I've been asking myself, "What did they see? And what didn't they see? Or what did I think they saw?"

1:29:26 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

1:29:26 Speaker 1 If it didn't make that list, evidently

1:29:28 Speaker 3 Right

1:29:28 Speaker 1 ... they didn't see it. Like, you know, you have to ask yourself-

1:29:31 Speaker 3 Right

1:29:31 Speaker 1 ... "What is important to me, and what are people seeing?"

1:29:34 Speaker 3 Right.

1:29:34 Speaker 1 So certain things, I, I'm a very timely person, so, you know, like, um, so that, that was-

1:29:38 Speaker 3 Sorry for coming late today

1:29:39 Speaker 1 ... you know, so, you know, fair, right. Um, you know, being called and asked advice about everything and all day long, you know, they, they watch me answering calls all the time, you know, things like that. But there were certain things I wish were there. You know what I mean? That's, whatever. So but that's, that was like to me a, "Okay, I, I have to work harder. Maybe, maybe the, the grandchildren will see this."

1:30:00 Speaker 3 For, for the next decade birthday, Im Yirtzeh Hashem.

1:30:02 Speaker 1 Im Yirtzeh Hashem.

1:30:03 Speaker 3 All right. Thank you very much for the time.

1:30:04 Speaker 1 Good seeing you.

1:30:05 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:30:05 Speaker 1 Hatzzlacha raba and, uh-

1:30:06 Speaker 3 Hatzzlacha

1:30:06 Speaker 1 ... wish you very good luck with things.

1:30:07 Speaker 3 Thank you. The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Zora Nadav Bakar, and is used with their permission.