חינוך בחודשי הקיץ

00:00 Speaker 1 This is Igris, and we are going to do a bit of a series. That's the plan. At least, at least two of these in a row, maybe three of these in a row to try to get a better idea of the Rebbe's position on secular education in general, specifically when it comes to Chadarim, specifically when it comes to younger children. I don't really think we're going to spend time now going into the Rebbe's position on college and things like that. That's really its own Sugya. Wanted to talk about secular education in schools, in the afternoons, when there's relevant laws that might get in the way. So, uh, when the Rebbe allows it, when he doesn't. I want us to try to build a, a theory of when sec-secular education is allowed, when it's encouraged, when it's great, when it's less great, and, uh, that, that we're not gonna be able to do in just one discussion. But there's several places in our volume, in, uh, in, uh, in volume Taf Ches, which is of course Teshlam Gimel, the year that we're focusing on. There are several places in the year that we're focusing on where the Rebbe talks about this, talks about secular education and the importance of Chinuch Atzma-Kodesh. And incidentally, or interestingly, more than incidentally, a lot of those are right around this time of year. The Rebbe gets very into it around Shavuot. So it's timely for the time of year we're in right now. It's timely going into the summer, and,

01:00 Speaker 1 uh, and it's timely 'cause it was just a Cheder dinner, so a lot of us are thinking about the Cheder. In any case, I do wanna just open with a little bit of the nuance. I think what a, that what a lot of people think is that the Rebbe has a, a clear shita that we don't do secular education for kids at all, ever under any circumstances. That was definitely my impression a couple years ago before I started looking at the, the Rebbe's writings a little more seriously. I think that's sort of the layperson impression, is that if you ask the Rebbe point-blank, "Should my Cheder have secular studies in the afternoon?" The Rebbe would say, no. This is not the case. Um, it's a nuanced question. It's a question that is very regularly for the Rebbe case-by-case sort of thing. A lot of times when the Rebbe allowed it or encouraged it, it was when there was a legal issue involved where it seemed like the, uh, the, the country or the state wasn't going to-- whatever country it was or whatever state it was, wasn't going to allow a, uh, a system that didn't have any secular education, in which case the Rebbe wanted it in the afternoon and not to be so significant, but to be there. The Rebbe does not, as far as I know, in, in any letters that I'm aware of, tell us to straight up fight the government on this if we can get away with doing a,

01:57 Speaker 1 a small amount of secular in the afternoon. So sometimes the Rebbe allows it for legal reasons. Another reason that you see in his writings that the Rebbe allows it is in order to attract more students, specifically in areas outside of big Anash areas, more Shlichus areas where they're opening a new school. The Rebbe sometimes, uh, sometimes even encourages, certainly allows some of these more far-flung schools to have secular studies in the afternoon so as to bring in students who wouldn't otherwise be involved in Jewish education at all. So this does come up as a cheder, a place where the Rebbe himself in some letters, we're gonna talk about this, I think, in the next class. Um, the Rebbe explains himself in a few letters that this is a lot like a doctor's prescribing a medicine, that for people who are sick, a medicine helps, and for people who are healthy, a medicine is, if anything, possibly more dangerous. So secular education should be seen as a medicine that is sometime used, sometimes used to help the sick, not as an ideal. By the way, this is not at all the shita of, uh, of modern orthodoxy or of Yeshiva University. If you were to ask Rabbi Soloveitchik what he thought about this, he would say that secular education is the absolute ideal. This is one of the main areas that the, the Rebbe and the Rav disagreed about. Uh, but of course, our shita, uh, the Rebbe shita is that this is a medicine. It

02:55 Speaker 1 is not an ideal. In any event, that said, uh, I did, i did come across, there's a letter that we're gonna probably talk about tomorrow, but i can't resist today. You'll find it in volume Lamed-Beis on page one-twelve, where, uh, where, uh, Chana Gorevich, who was the, um, the director of Beis Rivkah, after a particularly strong sicha where the Rebbe talked about Chinuch HaTaarous Kodesh, she wrote to the Rebbe and said, "Should she get rid of Limudei Hachol in Beis Rivkah? Should we just get rid of the secular studies track?" And the Rebbe writes back to her that it's completely impossible given the current laws in Dinim Hamaltzu Sadina. So you see that the Rebbe does have a certain, um, d-does want us to work with the laws and sometimes include secular studies. So given that we now know that it's nuanced, uh, I do wanna talk about the Rebbe's position on this, specifically vis-à-vis Shavuot. This is our closest letter to the time that we're in right now. This is from Yud Beis Sivan, so it's right after. The problem is that my, my screen-- There I go. I'll put it on the top so I can see. Okay. You have this letter in front of you on the screen. This is from Teshlam Gimel, our year, and the Rebbe writes this- You didn't say we're live, by the way. Huh? I was waiting for you to say we're live. Oh, I didn't say we're live in the chat? I'm sorry. Paritz wasn't gonna

03:57 Speaker 1 come on till I said we're live. It is my minhag. All right. I apologize. We're live- It's okay ...by the way. This is live. The Rebbe writes this letter, "L'chol haskani hachinuch hakashru befrat, l'chol haskanim hecheir b'Torah and mitzvot b'chlal." The Rebbe writes this letter to anybody who is involved in chinuch that is kashur specifically and in general to anybody who is involved in Torah and mitzvot. So this is a very broad letter. It's to just about everybody. "Shalom uvracha," the Rebbe says. "Bezman din v'yim siyum v'cheysim shel yemei Tashlumin l'chag Shavuot zezman matan Toraseinu." The Rebbe says we are in the days after Shavuot, immediately after Shavuot and the time of the Tashlumin for the Korbanos of Shavuot. "V'am sheh lemudim u'mudrash b'ysvadiyei shel chag Shavuot sh'luf neved sh'l achareha." The Rebbe says we spoke a lot about Chinuch HaTaarous HaKodesh on, on the sichas from Shavuot. "Miuser lamemer Chazal," all based on the following Midrash, a very popular Midrash in the Rebbe sichas around Shavuot. "Asher rak u'miyad ki she'amru Yisrael baneinu yehi hu harev m'shalanu sh'nikayem haTorah nasan HaKadosh, Baruch Hu, es haTorah l'Yisrael." That we-- that God, uh, that God said, "I'm gonna give you my Torah. I'm going to need a guarantor. I'm going to need somebody to guarantee this loan. It's a big one. It's the biggest thing in the universe." And we offered a bunch of different guarantors, and God said those weren't good enough. When we finally offered our children as the guarantor, saying that our children

05:06 Speaker 1 were going to be the ones who would, would always be involved in Torah, that they would fulfill the Torah, that's when God gave us the Torah, which means that receiving the Torah on Shavuot is closely connected to children learning Torah and the education of children. Based on all this, "Araseh l'atzmi v'l'heysu bezeh," the Rebbe says, "I'm going to allow myself to elaborate." "Inyan sheazman garam," about something that is very timely. "Asher cheiv kodesh al kol echa, kol echad v'echas sh'yechel es biadam la'aseh es zechus gadol." What I'm about to tell you is a cheiv kodesh. It is a holy obligation on every single man and woman. I'm saying that because of the conjugation there of echad v'echas, that anybody who has in their ability and the great merit to do the following, this is all a big lead up to his point. "La'aseh es kol ha'toiv l'hem," to do everything that is possible. "Asher kol ben u'bas b'Yisrael," that every single Jewish boy and girl, "yischanchu bechinuch HaTaarous Kodesh." That they should all receive a . Now, we're not defining that in this letter. traditionally in our parlance means that it's going to be a without secular education. But I'm not sure that's exactly what this letter means, 'cause if you read the next couple lines, says, "Both in the areas that are set aside for learning and also in the areas that are not set aside for learning Torah or for learning-- maybe it's for learning secular, maybe it's just their relaxation time that's

06:14 Speaker 1 not set aside for learning." The Rebbe wants there to be an idea of where we are focusing our children on holiness and holy values, not just in the time when they're learning, but also in the other times, even at nighttime. I, I don't know if on this page-- Oh, they do have footnotes here. Let me pull the for you 'cause it's really interesting. He says, when it comes to , not just knowing information, but becoming a good person, or turning somebody into the kind of Jew who learns Torah. There's actually a specific to the hours that are not spent in front of the books, and he says that you can check if you want more details on that. Sorry for scrolling down so quickly, but I wanted to point out. Ah, even though the truth is that this holy obligation to make sure that our children are constantly imbued with is a value, not just as a textbook value, but as a living value. This is not just an obligation. Uh, this is an obligation, excuse me, that applies, uh, for the entire year, so it has no particular time. But but it's a specifically important thing to talk about now around the time of Matan Torah, which is why this is a great thing to talk about in the week leading up to Shabbat. So the Rebbe, of course, is writing it the week after Shabbat. These are the days we will remember the first year when we left Eretz Hamitzrayim, the first time

07:28 Speaker 1 that we said that our children would be our guarantors of the Torah . The Rebbe says, "I wanna point out that in many countries these month-- these summer months in many countries, both in Eretz Yisrael and outside of Eretz Yisrael, there is a general policy that there is a summer vacation, that we're going into the summer vacation season . In some places, they don't give you a full vacation, but they make you go to school less time of the day. for several weeks, we have a period of time where s- we're not forced to put our kids in any kind of school. says the Rebbe. First of all, this means that some of our best talent is available. Normally, our Rebbes, our, our, our people involved in they're, um, our Morahs, our Rebbes, they're involved in . They're usually very, very busy with the children. During the season, they're not so busy, so some of our most talented people are suddenly available. so they can spend their summer break spreading the idea of . That's the first value is that over the summer vacation, our teachers who are not normally available to do this kind of work can spend the summers taking care of the Hashkafah of what they're doing, uh, trying to spread the ideas of what they're doing. there is another advantage that thousands and thousands of students, male and female students, is now possible hence it's, it's possible, it now becomes obligatory. to put them in proper summer camps. so there will

08:56 Speaker 1 be a environment, uh, that is entirely, uh, absorbed with with true Jew-- with true Judaism for a long period of time each, uh, each according to, uh, according to what makes sense. Uh, but this is not the case in the entire year. Now, during the rest of the year, there's always going to be different environmental influences, the Beis HaSefer, the Beis HaChayyim, the Rechev, the parents' house, the school, the street. But the Rebbe's saying here is, is that, uh, and maybe you've heard this before, but it's said so clearly in this letter, is that there's a, there's a certain in, in, in, I don't know, in October, there's kind of an obligation to have your children a little bit mixed up. First of all, they might be in a school that has secular studies, in which case their Torah is combined with their secular. In addition to that, they have to come home at nights. They're going to encounter secularism in the home. They en- they travel on the streets. They take their bus to and from school. They go out. They're going to have a-- they're going to receive mixed influences during the school year. But there is an opportunity in the summer to put your kids in a camp, and in that camp, they can do nothing but Torah and mitzvahs, not be influenced by anything else in the entire world. It's the only-- And, and, and the, and the country allows it, and you don't have to fight any laws to do

09:59 Speaker 1 it. There's, there's no arguments necessary. If you wanna do that, you wanna have that sort of system year-round, we see that, uh, some of our brothers and sisters in the, uh, in the more closed communities, they're constantly fighting the government over their right to, uh, over their questionable right, over their right to completely absorb themselves in the shtetl environment. The Rebbe goes, "Look, America likes-- Am-America lets you go shtetl for the summer. Why not do it? America lets you become completely closed over the summer. Close your kids up and let them focus entirely with the blessing of the Medina." This is not the case the rest of the year. It's impossible. We read that already. I will just add then that, uh, that the Rebbe's gonna say this in the next letter we're gonna look at, but it, it's worth mentioning here that the Rebbe is also kind of hinting at the fact that it's deeply disappointing that some people dedicate their children's summers toward picking up secular studies or picking up secular skills. That may, may as well do that during the school year when you're forced to do it anyway. If there's a time to pick up a sport, a time to pick up an activity, a time to pick up an area, a time to get better at math or science, that would not be over the summer, the only opportunity that a child has legally to be entirely absorbed in Yiddishkeit. So the Rebbe is saying that he really wants the

11:01 Speaker 1 summer set aside for Torah in a way that the rest of the year as we talked about at the beginning. Okay. Therefore, all and all all efforts to make this a reality are . It would be worthwhile to make this happen. Certainly, um, certainly applying to this is the idea of if you try hard enough, you will succeed. The Rebbe gives a saying that this should all work out. I'm not going to read this whole section here 'cause I do wanna go on to the next letters. You can look at it in your free time. Okay, we have another letter that was only a few weeks later that sort of stresses the point that we were just talking about. I don't know if I wanna do this one or the next one. I don't think I wanna do all three 'cause it's a lot of reading and not a lot of talking. Let's do the third one. The second one is in your files. You can take a look at it. It says something very similar to what's said in this one, also from Yud Zayin . Yeah, look at this. So the Rebbe is writing here to people who, uh- Participated-- the students who participated in the, uh, in the graduation of the first year of Beis Hana in, uh, Chabad, Yerushalayim, . Okay. Hey, explain that one, Surly. Explain that one, Parrots. It's a to a bunch of women. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe the, maybe the, maybe the, maybe the,

12:14 Speaker 1 uh, maybe the Menachem was a man. I don't know.

12:19 Speaker 2 Maybe the Menachem was the one who sent in the letter with that there was gonna have-

12:22 Speaker 1 That's right. That's... Fine. Fine. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, I, I was informed near the very beginning of our, of our Igris together by the here that whenever the Rebbe writes to a woman, he writes not . So this is a to a girl's school, but it's to a man, uh, who's running the school, I don't know, or who wrote the Rebbe a letter about it. the Rebbe says, "I'm very pleased to hear that you've done your-- that you've finished your first year." In and of itself, this is something that brings me great joy," says the Rebbe. He said, "In addition to the fact that I get an incredible from the fact that you named the school after my mother," it's called Beis Hana, I believe, right? It is Beis Hana? Yes, Beis Hana, so it's named after the Rebbe's mother. He says , "I hope that it is fulfilled in the girls that are studying there in general," and in those who are graduating, so the graduates specifically. the idea that ev-- that it should be that everybody should be a, uh, an example for everybody. That, that these girls should be a, uh, should be a sign for the entire world. Um, first of all, in regards to their and their in their which I just have to say as an aside, you don't see a lot of talking about and when it comes to a bunch of girls learning Torah, and the Rebbe uses that and

13:36 Speaker 1 he says that they should be-- these girls who are graduating should be examples of a s-- of a and which is beautiful. and also when regarding the outcome, the goal of their learning on that they should be examples in the way that they live every single day in a way of increasing . As we've spoken many times, graduation is is that a does not apply to things that are-- that your life depends on, obviously, right? When you say that you have a of something, you hope that it doesn't apply to things that keep us alive. should not apply to Torah because Torah is it's what gives us life mitzvahs and Torah, they're what keep us alive. So the idea of ending something, that we're done with school for the year, I'm not gonna study math for the summer, it makes a lot of sense. I'm not gonna study English for the summer, makes a lot of sense. That I'm not gonna study Torah for the summer is like saying I'm not gonna breathe for the summer. You don't make a you don't make even a small, "Look, we're just gonna take a break for a few weeks from breathing," is not something that people do. We don't just take a few weeks break from Torah. It's not something that can be done. this is to our point, that the time of summer is a time of break, a time of, uh, of time off. the Rebbe says-- I said that's why I wanted to show

14:47 Speaker 1 you this letter. It's very clear here. The Rebbe says that only regarding and optional things and secular studies should the summer break be a break. when it comes to Torah, absolutely not. or anything having to do with good and there is no break over the summer. The break is for secular studies, which again, is the Rebbe saying he really doesn't wanna see secular studies over the summer. These, uh, enrichment programs to get your kids better at math over the summer, I think it's safe to say the Rebbe is not a fan. when it came to right in our season of that we would be to God a kingdom of and a nation that is holy. even though that is a command, it's a command, it's also a promise. I'm gonna not do the rest of this letter because we drove home the point that we wanted. This other letter over here that we're not gonna look at right now 'cause we're running out of time says almost the exact same thing. It's even, uh, it's even written with the same of, of life depending on, and once again, talks about specifically during the summer. So what we have from the Rebbe here is we talked about at the beginning that the Rebbe does have room. There's room in the Rebbe's and the Rebbe's-- um, for the Rebbe's for there to be secular studies in a school. We'll talk more about it tomorrow, but there's certainly room for it. There's precedent for it. There's no room

15:58 Speaker 1 or precedent for it over the summer. You won't see that in any letter. The idea that children should be learning secular studies over the summer is an anathema, uh, because there's supposed to be a break from these things, and the one time of year that the country allows us to take our kids away from secular and completely immerse them in Torah is not a time for them to be studying secular subjects. The Rebbe really doesn't want it during the summer. He wants instead during the summer that to be a time that is entirely set aside for Torah, the fact that the Torah was given itself in the summer and that the-- right now we're thinking about receiving the Torah at Sinai and the fact that our children are guarantors. In the spirit of this discussion of where meet, I did wanna point out one letter that's not from our section, and with that we'll end for today. It's in it's in the, uh, tenth volume. I didn't-- This, this website where I'm showing you the letters doesn't show page numbers. So it is letter number and I think it's on page, like, forty-eight in . If you need the I'll send it to you, but you actually have the link, so you can look at it. This is a fascinating letter that people don't know about, and I talk about it a lot. I've sent it to I've sent it to almost everybody involved in the and, uh, I don't think most people know about

16:57 Speaker 1 it. I wanna read it to you. It's really interesting. The Rebbe writes to I don't remember his last name, but he's somebody known. Uh, maybe it says down here. Yeah, it does. Katz. Pinchas Katz. His son is, uh, Zev Katz, I believe. Okay. he writes I was very happy to receive a letter from you announcing really good things and blessed things. you put your son that you decided that your son Zev was going to learn all day. Now, listen to what he did. He didn't just pull his kid out of the school that had the secular studies. He did something creative. he made an established rule that the school would have a track. So instead of taking his kid out of the school or instead of changing the whole school over, he took a school that had a track and a track and made a track for people who want to do all day. The Rebbe was very happy about this. he said this is an that makes the marriage for everybody. already said that the entire of all the people who join this track is now going to be dependent on you, he says, I love when the Rebbe does that. The Rebbe says the Alter Rebbe is a and in . what he says in the rest of this line here that I'm gonna go through quickly is that the big of Avraham Avinu was not that he did what God said, but that he did it enthusiastically, and the fact that you

18:17 Speaker 1 are enthusiastically embracing is wonderful All right, because also this is gonna happen for you all the time. You're gonna get this constantly. Every single day that your child is invested solely in on those same hours, on those same hours that they could be involved in other studies, the entire union of this done with and with happens again, again. So you get even more blessing because it's like somebody who gives, uh, many coins of tzedakah rather than a big donation at once, they get more and more for the more times they're doing the mitzvah. And he says, "God should help." by both you, by both the husband and the wife, the, the mother and the father, which is him and his wife, uh, to have feelings in their hearts, that your heart should, um, that your heart should, uh, it, it should settle with your heart. How would you-- how, how do you wanna do this one? Should settle with your heart. It should, uh, it should, uh... Huh?

19:15 Speaker 2 The heart's desires.

19:16 Speaker 1 The heart's desires. The heart's desires of the heart. Uh, what's that last one? Do you know what it is? Anybody know what that last word is? I don't know. In any case, uh, your heart's desire should be fulfilled, should be settled, fulfilled, uh, in a, in an immediate- Ah, Very good. Okay, I wanna look at the PS. Look at the PS. PS says, It is self-understood. The Rebbe says, "I'd like you to-- You have my to spread this letter around." to give over its not even to spread the letter, but tell people the idea. for everybody who already did like you and created such a track in these schools and enrolled a child in them, and also those who have not yet chosen the true good. uh, it's not come to these people, that they haven't in action done these things. There is a when it comes to such things, that such efforts that you'll never come back empty-handed, especially when you speak in a way that comes from the heart, that you should be a good when it comes to this union. Why I'm showing you this PS is this is not a specific . This is specifically a that happened that the Rebbe once spread around in his name, that in all schools that have a secular track, he would like to see a option there, and considers it an incredible to enroll a child in such a track. Uh, that's it for today. Opening the floor for questions and comments and complaints.

20:43 Speaker 1 Um, and we're gonna continue with this theme tomorrow. We're gonna do more about the Rebbe's position, the Rebbe's nuanced position on secular education in schools tomorrow. Please.

20:51 Speaker 2 So I'd like-- I just-- My, my only comment that I wanna have, I feel like I always have to have a comment, two things. First of all, about that letter being written in the masculine and not in the feminine, the versus the entire letter is written in the masculine, so interestingly enough. So it must be-- I don't know who it was written to. I don't know if there's anything in the footnotes as to who was the requester, but it seems like it was, uh... I don't know. It seems like it was-- it's, it's in the masculine sense, uh, and number one. Um, number two is, from what I understand, and I don't know the history very clearly, but from what I understand, when was opened, when the Rebbe encouraged him to open up which was the, the, the, the yeshiva without any, any English education, but the Rebbe's appeal on what, what got Rabbi Michoel Taibel to actually make, make, you know, start and found, found was the Rebbe's appeal was that we should have at least one that has only, only, only which means here you have the, the yeshiva's which has the Rebbe Rashab's name and everything else on it with the, you know, the full everything of what is supposed to stand for. It had an English curriculum. And the Rebbe wanted there should be a at least that has the, the, the Yiddish education as well. I'm just throwing that out there, that it's not like that, you know... I think

21:58 Speaker 2 you mentioned that at the beginning of the, of the, um, o-of this year that it, you know, nowhere do you find that the Rebbe a-abhorred the concept of an English education, but definitely valued, especially with this last letter from Rabbi to Rabbi Pinchas Katz, that, uh, that, uh, the Rebbe really valued the dedication to That's all my thoughts.

22:21 Speaker 1 Excellent.

22:22 Speaker 3 Is there a difference between, uh, institutions? Like if it's a institution that ha-- is for women, is the, uh, way the letter is written changed?

22:38 Speaker 1 It's a weird question because-- I mean, it's a good question. I don't mean that. I mean, it's a weird answer because on one hand, we see that we don't take it as seriously when it comes to the women, at least in the culture. But in the letters, I don't see a difference at all. The Rebbe very frequently in the letters specifically uses male and female words to make it clear that he wants this, uh, he wants there to be an union of for boys and girls equally. Now, we did mention in the beginning that Beis Rivkah one time asked the Rebbe about taking away their secular studies, and the Rebbe said legally it would be impossible. But that implies that if legally it wasn't impossible, he would like to see that too, right? That is the implication of you can't because of implies that if the law changed, he wouldn't want it. And in our letter about summer camps and about not doing any secular studies over the summer, he specifically says He keeps on using the terms that specifically mean girls, too. I, I don't think the Rebbe feels differently about girls.