פרסים לילדים

00:00 Speaker 1 This is Igres, and today we have a strange letter. That's the only way I can describe it. It's a strange letter, and the reason why it's strange is because the Rebbe takes a strong stand against something, and I cannot tell you I'm sure why. I spent a lot of time today trying to figure out why, and I'm going to offer you some suggestions as to why the Rebbe may be taking a stand on this issue. But the Rebbe feels very strongly. The Rebbe feels, if you look at the letter on your screen, two question marks and two exclamation points strongly about this issue, and it's not something I would have thought of. So, uh, we're going to talk today about prizes that we give children, uh, specifically for their, uh, for their good behavior when it comes to Torah study, when it comes to mitzvahs, when it comes to doing well in chidonim and contests, and specifically which prizes are appropriate to give children and which are not so appropriate to give children when they're coming from a, a mosad, when they're coming from a cheder, when they're coming from a Chabad institution. So we have this letter from the Rebbe, this is from Yud Menachem-Av, which is Tishrei lamed gimmel. So about a month from now, give or take, maybe a little bit less. And, uh, the letter is Yud Tav Tav Samech Ches. So the Rebbe writes, uh, the letter that had been written to the Rebbe, they don't really fill in the

01:04 Speaker 1 gaps down here, but there's an article in Beis Moshiach that does. They were opening a camp. They were trying to-- uh, the Rebbe a couple months earlier, as we've read about, the Rebbe really pushed in the year Tishrei lamed gimmel the idea of children not wasting the summer, the idea of children going to camps, but that these camps would be specifically Torah-centric camps where, uh, where the summer was not a time for necessarily playing sports and a time more for focusing on Torah study. Um, and certainly not a time for engaging in secular subjects which might be mandatory during the year, but are not mandatory during the summer. So the Rebbe had this big push in lamed gimmel. He had this many summers, but lamed gimmel the push was particularly strong, and in Eretz Yisrael they opened a bunch of sort of camp-ish, learning-ish programs. And when they opened these programs, they had flyers that were being put out. The flyers were incentivizing coming to the programs. The way they incentivized it was by offering fantastic prizes to anybody who came to the program. So the Rebbe got his hands on one of these, and he says, "Ma yichriach leichnis zeh davka?" What is this specifically doing in the prize list? "Hakalu kol shar d'varim sh'ba'aretz ha'kedosha b'nevei zi kanen?? Exclamation point, exclamation point. Was there no-- was there nothing else left in Eretz Yisrael? Were there no other prizes available besides the prizes you put on the form? The Rebbe is not happy with

02:12 Speaker 1 the prize that they listed. So what did they list? "Homnam. Avechem mikolei lushon habaze." Was it not, did not anybody who thought this over, "Lo eleh bedakdeish sh'safek sh'efshar sh'prasa shayeich lemivtzah Chabad v'adam harazak ein efshar li'yos efanaim v'zekaryos v'chulo aval lo yikadu regel." There you have it. So he says it would have been totally reasonable for a, um, a mivtza that is shayeich to Chabad and shayech to the Alter Rebbe to give children prizes like bicycles or prizes like candies, but certainly not a soccer ball. Apparently, they were giving out soccer balls. And, uh, the Rebbe is very upset to hear that the prize that's being awarded is a soccer ball and not something that is appropriate for Chabad. The Rebbe suggests some things that are appropriate for Chabad to put out, and he says they're a bicycle and candy. So it's not like the Rebbe davka is saying they need to give out sfarim. The Rebbe, for some reason, doesn't feel a soccer ball is appropriate. And that's why I say the letter is a little bit confusing because, uh, we're going to look at a couple other cases where the Rebbe talks about prizes, and I wouldn't have necessarily gotten this from any of those letters. I, I think I would have been among those who made this mistake, and not only that, I am among those who have made that mistake because of the program that we run at the shul, we very frequently, uh, during the, uh, what is it

03:20 Speaker 1 called? During the , we frequently raffle off soccer balls. So the Rebbe here is davka not into raffling off soccer balls as prizes, and, uh, I'm gonna try to give a little bit of context, and then hopefully we'll spend a bit of time talking about it as a group because I, I gotta tell you, what I, what I'm going to propose is a guess. So floor, floor will be open. Just a little bit more in our letter from Beis Moshiach Magazine. You have a screen-- It's all on your screen. I'll also send you the link to all of this, so you can read the materials in the original. Apparently, there was also a telephone conversation with Rabbi Ephraim Wolf, uh, and the Rebbe-- okay, here it's, uh, look, it's Beis Moshiach Magazine. The Rebbe says to bring to, uh, to let Yisroel Leibov know that "Sher Rebbe einu geres is a prashah kal kadu regel." The Rebbe does not approve at all of the prize of a, of a soccer ball. "V'yeish lashmid is ha'meides" they have to destroy all of the flyers that mention the soccer ball. "Shnid pesuk" which they've already printed, "ve'even sheket" and they should do it in a quiet way. "Sheli yinu li eladim prases" that they won't have to give the children this prize. "Ul'haban" in the future, "sheyadu es yachas shel Rebbe lakaf" in the future everybody should know the Rebbe's opinion about this. So the Rebbe-- th-this isn't a letter that the Rebbe didn't want publicized. This

04:22 Speaker 1 is something that the Rebbe said people should know going forward, "I'm not into soccer ball prizes." Uh, the first thing I wanna discuss as we're do- as we're doing sort of the shir part is that the Rebbe is not at all against giving prizes for learning Torah and doing mitzvahs. As a matter of fact, the Rebbe pushes it constantly. Uh, I have a couple examples here, but you'll find this all throughout Igres, the Rebbe saying specifically when it comes to kids, incentivizing them with prizes is a good idea. So this is from volume eighteen, page two twenty-five. The Rebbe says, "Nofen b'me'uid me'uid." That's two me'uids. "Mash nercha tachlis" the contest, "v'chilu kaprasim" the fact that you arranged a contest and that you gave out prizes. The Rebbe considers that nothing me'uid me'uid, very appropriate. "Vikar yadu apsak tadesen yeter as-chaim" we already know this psak from our Torah, which is a living Torah, "vekinah sefim tarbach achma, ve- tarbach achma." That when, uh, when scholars are jealous of each other, they become more wise. And when sh-- and I think what this means is that when children know that there's a prize on the table, they're going to compete, and that's going to make them do better in school. So giving out prizes, absolutely. He also says, look in the pages of Mishnah to the Rambam, "B'nidichech na'ar sh'be'al pi darke davka" that when you educate a child, "ve'as pi al pi darke" and al pi darke is l'cheira with prizes. "Omein zeh hubah

05:27 Speaker 1 l'psaktim b'sefer halchos, halchos chucah parek yud." He says also we understand you have to train children in a way that makes sense to them. In a way that makes sense to children is that they should be incentivized with prizes. So the Rebbe is quite happy with the idea of prizes and a contest. In volume two, page four-forty, the Rebbe writes, "Cheftzi b'me'uid legash hashel aved apnim benageh l'kayilah." I really wanna start getting involved in the kayilah. "V'bli l'da- l'daber eides hagdeilim d'alten and avrechem." I don't really wanna talk about the avrechem right now, "va'benageh lets yidin batsirass." I wanna talk about the little kids, "ha'yeladim she'yichyu" the children. "Tzedekim yeisus yimasleiv," they need more attention. "Kavanti baze she'ilu alim, she'ilu alimdim bechadaram yeshiva sheinim" those who are learning in other chadaram, in other yeshivas, "hinim izman izman yehi ve'ad, ve'ad," excuse me, "vad miyuchan miitei." There should be a special vad for this, "ve'shiyuv chen esam" that will test the small children. "V'liten prasim" and will give them prizes. "Leilish misnagim bateiv" to those who are acting appropriately. "Ve'chen le'hefech yikabel ei zeh einish." And also children who are not doing a good job in school, they should get a certain punishment. But look what the Rebbe says here . I just-- I brought this mainly for this line. "Kamuvam lo einish knases." The Rebbe says, "Not a knas, obviously." It makes s-- it doesn't even make sense you would give a knas as a punishment for a child. "Kim bedivav azara" they should be

06:34 Speaker 1 warned verbally. "Ve'eleish misnagim hagateiva" they should have, uh, they should have all sorts of, uh, they should have rewards for doing well, and they should have, uh, consequences for doing poorly. He goes on and explains this a little bit more. I, I brought that letter mainly 'cause I found the knas part amusing. Um, but you'll find many, many letters where the Rebbe suggests specifically prizes are the way to go. However, when the Rebbe talks about what kinds of prizes to give out, it is almost always sfarim or money. He suggests handing them cash. This is not a new idea, sfarim or money. You might remember, since we're coming out of yud beis and yud gimel Tammuz, that the Friediker Rebbe's childhood was, uh, was defined by his obsession with pa-- with, with, with learning Mishnah as baal peh. That really was the childhood of the Friediker Rebbe, is that he would learn Mishnah as baal peh, he'd be tested on them regularly, and depending on how well he did and how many he memorized, he would get money, which he used to buy sfarim. So the idea that we would incentivize children with learning in a way that gives them either books or money, or money to buy books- It's certainly well-established in the Chabad tradition. Uh, so I have a couple examples here where the Rebbe suggests books or money. This is in volume eighteen, page thirty-eight. The Rebbe says, It definitely makes sense to have a chidon, to have a contest, and it

07:35 Speaker 1 should be connected to handing out prizes. But since it is a chidon and they're studying Torah, it should be prizes that are to the printing press, things that are printed. So, uh, the Rebbe here-- I think what this line means is that this is another way to relate to them in a way that you're trying to. So we're, we're trying to pass on a Jewish message to the children, and one of the additional ways to pass on a Jewish message is not just to test them, but to give them prizes that remind them of Yiddishkeit, so prizes that have to do with . I think that's what that last line means. Volume twelve, page three seventy-six, the Rebbe says, It wasn't so common in prior years, the Rebbe's saying in this part of the letter, that it wasn't always so common to give out prizes to children. But we're not against them. See, one of the reasons why we've been kind of carved to it, because we understand that learning Torah in yeshivas is normally tied to kedusha. So we didn't want to necessarily give prizes. Maybe throughout Jewish history, we haven't always incentivized learning with normal prizes. So the Rebbe says, "I understand up until now it hasn't really been the custom to give out prizes in yeshivas for things like Torah and mitzvahs because it might give the impression to children and give the impression to everybody else that people are learning Torah and doing mitzvahs for some sort of financial or physical

09:03 Speaker 1 reward." It's been recent years. All the other yeshivas, especially those in Eretz Yisrael, they've started doing the prize thing. They've started doing this. Lately, it hasn't been with money. It's been with . So the Rebbe is therefore suggesting that we started to-- I kind of cut off that part of the letter, but the Rebbe in this letter suggests that since the other yeshivas are doing it, it certainly isn't a bad thing. It's just he hadn't brought it up, uh, brought it up up until now because it didn't make sense to, uh, to mix in with a, with something that was working. It made sense to have children learn English small, but given that everybody's doing prizes now, feel comfortable doing prizes, and it doesn't necessarily have to be money prizes, it can be book prizes. Volume ten, page one thirty-eight. If it will help you with giving out prizes by giving out products, as long as it's not going to be incredibly expensive, So, uh, if you do want, the Rebbe's, the Rebbe's offering to give out prizes. The Rebbe's saying, "I have," you know, the Rebbe controls . He's saying, "If you think it would be helpful for your program to give out prizes from a please send me a list of the that you would like. Make sure it's not too expensive, and let me know how you hope to use these , why you want these particular ones, and what you hope to gain by giving them out." Now, volume eight, page

10:20 Speaker 1 five oh eight. What is this doing? There we go. The Rebbe says, "Somebody has handed me a certain amount of money, , uh, five hundred shekel, to help with handing out prizes so they can either be used to hand out cash prizes or book prizes." Once again, we're seeing cash or books to all those who participate after the are completed. And in volume twelve, page one twenty, which is my last letter on this subject, the Rebbe says, The Rebbe says, "I'm attaching, I'm giving you one hundred liras to help with your program to help you with your expenses." And the Rebbe says, it's simple. Certainly, you can hand out as prizes that have to do with your . Again, books. And you can feel comfortable using the money I'm giving you for that. So the Rebbe's giving them one hundred liras that is supposed to be used for, I guess, to, to run their program. He's letting them know that money that is sent to run a program can be used to purchase prizes. This is an important yesod here because I do think some of us sometimes feel a little bit com-- uncomfortable about this, that when somebody sponsors a program, we wanna use it for the program, not for the prizes. The Rebbe's saying, "At least when it comes to my money, feel completely free to use money that is earmarked for a program for prizes because that's part of the program." I'm relying on your better judgment, the Rebbe says, and it

11:53 Speaker 1 should be understood that it should be that everything should be according to the shita of spreading You should set things up in a way that you'll remain connected to everybody who's involved thereafter in a way that you'll be able to continue having a positive impact on them. Um, so we have from all these letters that the Rebbe is not against prizes at all. He sees a serious advantage to them and ac- Daka asks for them in a lot of cases. The prizes he seems to want are usually book prizes and money prizes, but if you look at our letter at the top, he doesn't seem opposed to prizes like bicycles and, like, uh, candy. So the question is what exactly he has against soccer, and I have not found an answer to that. As a matter of fact, there is even a which I don't think we're gonna read, but I'll have it on your sheet so you can look at yourself, where the Rebbe goes through the game of soccer. This is where he goes through the game of soccer and explains a lesson in from the way that soccer is played. So I don't believe that soccer is somehow the devil. It's not like what people say about playing cards, that there's a specific problem with the soccer ball. I have a theory that comes from reading all of these letters, and then I'd like to open the floor and hear your theories. My theory is that, uh, that in a couple of

12:54 Speaker 1 places, I wanna show a couple of places where the Rebbe does this. Um, over here, volume eighteen, page thirty-eight, the Rebbe talks about prizes and says that these prizes too can be a way that people who are engaged with the program come to relate to Yiddishkeit, that the prizes can be a the Yiddish activities that you write about. So the Rebbe seems to feel that prizes, when done right, can be a pipeline through which you continue to relate to the people you're giving the prizes to. He also says something like that down here in our last letter, where he says that the, um- That everything you do with your program should be set up in such a way that you're able to keep a connection with them afterwards. Uh, you know, uh, when I was a-- when I was younger, we used to go on family vacations, and when I went on family vacations, we used to, um, we used to always have-- we, we were each given a certain amount of money we were allowed to spend on souvenirs. And I remember I always wanted the coolest souvenir, and my father would always tell me, "Don't pick the coolest souvenir, pick the souvenir that reminds you of where you were. The souvenir that, uh, that helps you remember where you were, because, you know, this thing that you like so much, you can get this anywhere. Get something you can only get here." Uh, and that's, uh, that's a side I think the Rebbe

14:00 Speaker 1 might be saying when it comes to prizes as well, is that, uh, I don't think the Rebbe's against soccer balls. I think what the Rebbe's saying in this letter in volume twelve and also in this letter up here in volume eighteen, is that when we're putting together a Yiddish program, and we give out a prize, that prize then sits on the kid's shelf or goes home with the kid. And if the prize is something the kid looks at and says, "Through this, I remember the program," through a sefer, through books that can be used to buy sefarim, uh, it, it gives a, uh, it gives a connection to the Yiddishkeit after the program as well. You get more legs out of it. You don't necessarily get legs out of a soccer ball that you won at a chiddush the same way you do out of a sefer or, uh, or money that can be used for holy purposes that you won at a chiddush. At the same time, that theory, while I think a very nice theory, doesn't really address why the Rebbe seems to be against soccer balls more than bicycles. Because you can't really say that, uh, that the candy received or the bicycle received is going to remind you so firmly of the, of the, uh, of the positive activity. So I don't really know is the answer. The answer is I don't really know. In our letter, the Rebbe says it should be well understood that he is not... that soccer

14:57 Speaker 1 balls are not acceptable raffle prizes. He wants this publicized in his name, um, and he, uh, and he's shocked that people even thought it was a good idea. When it comes to prizes the Rebbe's in favor of, sounds like it's mostly books and cash, and I would love to hear your thoughts. Please, take it away, friends.

15:12 Speaker 2 I think in Israel, so depending on who this is marketed to, if this is marketed to frum kids and also the ages, uh, from what I understand, in Israel, it's actually more taboo for Chabad kids to play soccer. So it's, it's act-- Ball playing is actually looked down upon in the frum world to a certain extent. So it could be because of that, it's like you're, you're kind of-- something which is looked upon in Israel as shkutz, the Rebbe doesn't want necessarily t-to be associated with Alter Rebbe, whereas bicycles is normal for frum kids in Israel. Now, I know in America, it's a very different expectation, but if anybody knows Israeli culture, from Israeli culture, they maybe could confirm or deny what I just said.

15:54 Speaker 3 I think, I think it's a good theory, P-uh, Paras, but I also wanna make a different feel look over here, and I wanna, I wanna try to maybe be mechaleq on what the prizes are being given for. Um, so in my experience growing up, um, when there was like a Mishnahs Baal Peh contest or a learning contest or anything like that, the prizes were almost always only sefarim, only sefarim. You got certain sefarim based on what you learned. However, Mesibos Shabbos, rallies, even by the Rebbe's rallies, I won a game called Operation. You know, remember that game Operation? I won it at a rally in seven seventy, and that was a toy, that was a game. They weren't raffling off sefarim at rallies. So it's very possible that a lot of this directive has to do with what are you memorializing, very similar to what you said, Yechiel, before, but with a twist, that it's not just that you're-- you want, you wanna make sure that you memorialize whatever the event was with something tangible that has legs, as you said, but it's more like when you're memorializing as something that relates to Limud HaTorah, that relates to learning, like Mishnahs Baal Peh, something like that, then you memorialize it, and you reward it with continuing the concepts of Limud HaTorah, but not necessarily, um, is it, is it-- And that's where the bicycles and stuff comes in. And then as far as soccer balls particularly, um, I mean, may-- Paras may have a, a

17:11 Speaker 3 very strong point over here, and I think it, it could, it could be baseball in, in, in, in, in, in, in American culture or, or electronic games in American culture, like these Xboxes and stuff like that, that whatever is considered culturally, you know, whatever, is something that would not be the appropriate prize. But giving kids walkie-talkies, for example, or a bicycle, as the Rebbe says over here, or candies and stuff like that, you know. I mean, maybe Rabbi Silverstein has a unique insight here into the concept of giving children prizes. And, and also, by the way, I just wanna say that I don't know why Olam HaTorah didn't pick up on that line where the Rebbe says not to give kids knishes. Maybe they're gonna say that's also only for Eretz Yisrael. I don't know. I got my share.

17:57 Speaker 4 What type of a community was this letter being written to?

18:04 Speaker 1 I was... Sorry, I was muted. Um, the first letter?

18:08 Speaker 4 Yeah.

18:09 Speaker 1 The first letter was written to, um, to, uh... And it was in Eretz Yisrael. It was, uh, it was Agudas Chasidei Chabad trying to recruit everybody for their various camps. So, uh-

18:20 Speaker 4 So-

18:20 Speaker 1 -mixed crowd. I don't know if it was supposed to be purely Haredi. It was a recruitment flyer.

18:25 Speaker 4 So it could be they're reaching out to people from, let's say, Mea She'arim or extreme als-- ultra-Orthodox?

18:31 Speaker 1 Could be. Could be. I don't really have details on who they reached out to. It says it was in-

18:35 Speaker 4 I just wanna give you-

18:36 Speaker 1 Some approach

18:37 Speaker 4 ...uh, an example or perspective that even in America, you have, take Satmar camp, for example, they do not use a regular ball to play sports with. I've heard this... I mean, growing up, I know because I, I grew up with some of these kids. They use something called a hamantash that's like a triangular-shaped ball as to not exactly copy a sports ball. Like, basketball would be completely asur.

19:05 Speaker 3 How do you play soccer with a hamantash?

19:08 Speaker 4 A kasha v'maisa, this is what it is.

19:11 Speaker 3 When, when I was in Israel, in yeshiva, so sports in general was, was very much frowned upon, and, uh, I remember, like, we had to, like, uh, um, sneak away to, to have the chutzpah to play, to play basketball or something. And if, and if, you knew if you were caught, that would be, like, a, you know, a very severe thing. I, I, I don't know where they're holding these days, but, um, so I'm kind of in line with Paras over here about the, the soccer ball thing. And, and I wanted... Another theory is that possibly, like, you know, soccer and I guess sports in general represents, you know, like a very strong, um, so to speak, uh, you know, people are very, very into sports, right? There's a whole craze about it, and so maybe the Rebbe's, like, associating, like, soccer ball with, like, soccer in general and, and, and, and that kind of whole, you know, uh-

20:04 Speaker 4 Sports represents Aveiras Harog from the Romans

20:07 Speaker 3 ...what?

20:08 Speaker 4 It represents Aveiras Harog from the Romans. That's what they... That's, that's the whole, uh-

20:13 Speaker 3 So the, the, the Romans never played elimination?

20:16 Speaker 4 I'm sure they did, but they, they idolized the, the, the sports.

20:19 Speaker 3 Elimination was our, was our favorite pastime in all the recess.

20:22 Speaker 4 So in America, basketball would be representative of what Israel-- what soccer is in Israel. It's con-- you know, it's considered, like, the most goyishe sport, so to speak.

20:33 Speaker 3 So that goes back to what Paras was saying, that it's a cultural thing.

20:35 Speaker 4 Right. Right. Yeah. I would say so.

20:37 Speaker 3 Yeah. I guess, imagine if they were raffling off, you know, tickets to, to, to, to a soccer game, right? You know? You could see why, why the Rebbe would, would have an issue with that. So perhaps there's a direct, you know, soccer game, soccer ball, it's all, it's all one, one package kind of thing.

20:52 Speaker 1 Rabbi Silverstein, could you weigh in over here on what maybe the practices of Chabad and other Jewish institutions that you're familiar with?

20:59 Speaker 5 Yeah. I have given out soccer balls and... Sorry. I'm looking now for a kapara. I just private messaged Rabbi Yechiel.

21:08 Speaker 1 Ask, ask, ask Ruvi. He'll, he'll send you where to buy the hamantash