חינוך הבנות

00:01 This is Igress, and today we are looking at a letter from almost exactly fifty years ago. It is from Ches Elul of Tav Shin Lamed Gimel of nineteen seventy-three. And, uh, I confess to not knowing exactly what's going on in this letter. I know enough of what's going on in this letter that we're going to be able to look at other letters that build a shitah and make an interesting case for something. But I don't know the exact circumstances of this letter, and if anybody who's looking on the page figures it out or knows more context, please let me know at the end. What we're gonna talk about today is educating girls, specifically educating our daughters, which is something that there is not a lot of emphasis on. I remember that, uh, that when my daughter was born, I remember calling up a couple, a couple, uh, Chassidishe rabbonim and saying, "I have full books on my shelf on how to educate young boys, and I have no idea what you're supposed to do to raise a Chassidishe girl." It's not, it's not brought in a lot of places. So today we're gonna bring a, a whole bunch of sources that the Rebbe has on the specific ways that educating girls is a little different than educating boys, the needs of some girls that might differ than the needs from some boys, and that begins with our letter here. So we're in Ches Elul Tav Shin Lamed Gimel, and the Rebbe says, I actually wanna

01:03 go to the bottom first. I'm sorry. Let's go to the bottom. He says that this is written on a This is written on a, uh, it's, it is a copy of the Rebbe's handwriting. It's written on This is on the side of a question sent in by a teacher from Ches Elul Tav Shin Lamed Gimel. And the question that this teacher had asked is that He'd had some private conversations with some of his female students. I'm sure they weren't private in a negative way, but you know. He'd had some personal conversations with his female students. In one of his conversations had a bad outcome. We don't know the details of it. We know that he had some conversation with one of the girls that he's teaching, and it didn't go well at all. So he wrote to the Rebbe asking for advice, advice. And the Rebbe says this, The Rebbe says, "There are a lot of things that as long as we don't pay very close attention to them, we don't necessarily notice that there might be something untoward about them. Things that don't on the surface seem to be inappropriate or, um, yeah, inappropriate. Things that don't on the surface seem to be inappropriate, sometimes when you look at them a little more closely, they become inappropriate." We do such things but when it comes to specifically the things that are said, specifically the things that you've said, it can end up leading to the opposite of that which you had hoped to accomplish.

02:22 So we don't know exactly what he said, but the Rebbe is saying that when you look at what you said a little bit more carefully, it can become clear that this would not have led to a positive outcome. So you should have kind of seen this coming if you'd paid a little bit more attention to it, is how I'm reading that first line of the letter. Therefore, therefore you should find a woman to have this kind of conversation with the girls from this point onward. So hard to know exactly what the conversation was. I mean, life experience tells me it was probably a tznius thing and that a, a male teacher maybe brought up a tznius issue that ended up landing very poorly and, uh, and the Rebbe's saying to him, "Look, uh, it's not that it's a bad thing to talk about, it's that the way that it was said was bad. It probably shouldn't come from a male teacher, and in the future, this is something that a female teacher should be involved in." I see, I see my veteran mechanech Yisroel giving me the thumbs up, suggesting that perhaps he at least agrees with my message and maybe even knows for a fact that it's correct. In any event, um, that's probably what this letter is about. So let's talk about the specific needs of girls, um, and how they differ from the specific educational needs of boys. One of the first ones that I want to point out, and I have

03:22 the sheet open in front of you. Let me make it a little bigger. Yeah. Is that the Rebbe does push the idea that girls should be taught by women. Now, I think we know that in a lot of the best girls' schools in Lubavitch, especially in the prior generation, uh, some of our best teachers were and still are male teachers. I don't think you get from the Rebbe that it is forbidden to have male teachers teaching in girls' schools, but you definitely get an idea that there's a preference that there should be female teachers and women running the girls' schools. So we have this in Sefer Hakedush. This is, uh, from the year, uh, this is a hisa of the Sefer Hakedush from the year Chaf Ches, and on the page five O six, the Rebbe writes when it comes to Bais Yaakov, he's talking to a Bais Yaakov, uh, uh, administrator, So it'll be better to, to appoint a woman to be a teacher over a male teacher. So when, when hiring for Bais Yaakov, all things being equal, when hiring for a girls' seminary, give preference to female teachers over male teachers if they're going to be teaching girls. And why? That's quite a statement. He says, "Her yirat shamayim is stronger, she fears heaven more, and her hashpa'ah, the impact she's going to have, is going to be more recognizable on the students." I think this is a klal that he's saying, that, uh, that women have more yirat shamayim than men.

04:30 But that specifically the female students are sensitive to the differences in yirat shamayim that women and men have, and that they specifically appreciate the yirat shamayim of the female teacher. So all things being equal, try to pick female teachers for Bais Yaakov. We have in Shulchan Aruch. This is a print of a conversation with Itche Meir Gerari that the Rebbe had, um... I don't believe it's written anywhere. I think it was a verbal conversation that got written down as a reshima and found its way into Shulchan Aruch. You'll find it in volume five, page fifty, where the Rebbe says about a certain school that Bais, a Bais Rivkah in Montreal that had been unable to, uh, to find a administrator, principal for the entire year. The Rebbe says about this, The Rebbe says, That's the Rebbe's blushin'. Now that there's no other choice, ex post facto, you can find yourself a man to be the principal of this school for women, but it's abso-absolutely not ideal. It's only because many months have gone by, and you were unable to find a woman to run the school. But even then, the girls' school is going to need a mashpia, and that is somebody who can have an effect on the talmidim. That is sefer Torah mehalech, somebody who can, uh, who can give them a Torah approach. The Rebbe says that in addition to the fact that I'm allowing you to, uh, I'm allowing you to hire a principal who's a man for this girls' school,

05:42 you are going to need to find a mashpia for the girls' school who is able to show them a safer, uh, show-- able to show them a Torah lifestyle, and this specifically needs to be a woman. So even if he allows on Halah to sometimes be male, the idea of a mashpia for girls, it sounds like a mashpia should specifically be a woman if she's going to be a mashpia on girls. There's a bit of a hint to this in Sefer Ha- In Mem Zion, volume one, page two forty-six, where the Rebbe lists what people's mashpiyim should look like. He says that yeshiva students, talmidei yeshivas, anybody learning, their mashpia should probably be their Rosh Yeshiva. Says people who have jobs, their mashpia should probably be their Rav. Women, that should be their mashpios, and he's using the feminine there. I think you can maybe be midak, that he's saying that women should have specifically female mashpios. And when it comes to children, small boys and small girls, their mashpiyim should either be their parents or their teachers if they're still very young, or their counselors in camp. Uh, even if this isn't explicit anywhere, and I wasn't able to find an explicit place where the Rebbe says that a woman's mashpia must be female, I think that it is, uh, hinted to in a bunch of places, and at the very least, it is deeply logical that a woman probably shouldn't have a male mashpia. And when it comes to those sorts of conversations,

06:51 the things we've been talking about recently, Eshei Lecha Rav, that it would make sense for a woman to be a mashpia for a woman for all the reasons that we've just mentioned. So we have here that are certain conversations male teachers shouldn't be having with some female students. It's better done with a female teacher. It sounds like when it comes to Hanhalla, we should ideally be hiring, uh, female principals to run girls' schools. It sounds like even when it comes to teachers, we should ideally be hiring female teachers to teach girls unless we're unable to find them, in which case we can put men in, but there still need to be women there in order to handle the mashpia kind of things. And I think you have an implication of the Sefer HaSichot that when it comes to women and girls in general, that their mashpiyim, mashpios, I guess, should be female mashpiot. When it comes to the actual curriculum, actually, I had this letter on the screen already. Here we go. When it comes to the actual curriculum, the Rebbe has a pretty revolutionary, and I think what we would call pretty liberal, view on what women can learn when they're in Jewish schools. You might be aware that there's a existing argument that goes on in Haredi circles and not in Orthodox circles, whether girls can learn Gemara. This was always a big topic at Yeshiva University, uh, and at Stern, whether they were allowed to learn Gemara. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe

07:53 in the year tav shin yud gimel, a woman from Bais Yaakov, that she was a . It was tav shin yud gimel. That would have been fifty-three. She is a teacher at Bais Yaakov, that's one of the big girls schools. She wants to know, . She wants to know if it's true, the rumor that she heard, that rabbonim are now allowing girls to learn Gemara. The Rebbe says, "You didn't tell me what Gemara they're learning, how they're learning Gemara, but you did tell me that you're worried about the fact or wondering about the fact that some girls are now allowed to learn Gemara," and this Bais Yaakov teacher wants to know what the Rebbe thinks about it. And what the Rebbe answers over the course of this really sadistic letter, I put it in the chat, and you absolutely should take a look at it at some length, is that he says that women need to learn the, uh, women need to learn the halachas of tznius, of course. They have to learn any halacha that has to do with their daily life, which by the way, includes most of halacha. A good, a good portion of halacha is shayah to women, so it includes a large portion of Shulchan Aruch. And the Rebbe does not seem to rule out at all the idea of women learning Gemara, specifically the areas that they need to be aware of. We can read some of it inside. He said, the most pressing ways that girls need to

08:56 learn. That has to do with the, uh, has to do with the quality of the girls. This is their talents, their knowledge base, how knowledgeable they are, whether they can handle very deep study. Depends on how smart the girls are. He says, so he said, "I can't really give details, but if you wanna set it up, it's going to be according to , the same rules that we have for anybody else. We teach people what they can understand." And of course, the point needs to be what the Ateret Rebbe says in the Shulchan Aruch, is that they should know the halachas of tznius, which is all of their mitzvos. Mitzvos asei, mitzvos lo ta'aseh. Moving on. The Rebbe says specifically in our days, the, uh, public perception, and specifically the perception of young people, is getting so mixed up. You say they're hadas, they're missing some of the fundamentals of religion sometimes. And they get cleverness from the outside. So there used to be a situation where if you didn't teach kids Torah, they would never get particularly clever about anything, not clever about Torah or not clever about the world. But the way things work now is they're exposed to the world, they're going to get the world's cleverness, and we may as well specifically make sense nowadays to make sure that young children, and specifically young girls, are exposed to Jewish cleverness, because otherwise they're just going to end up with foreign cleverness that will take them away from the path of Torah.

10:11 So the Rebbe's saying that even though there was some hesitation, you might be familiar with the sugyas in the Sukkah specifically, that say that a girl shouldn't learn Gemara because it will teach her, um, teach her, uh, a sort of, um, rebellious cleverness. That that rebellious cleverness is already built into the society that we live in right now, so it may as well be a Torah rebellious cleverness as opposed to whatever she'll get from other places. So the Rebbe seems to be fine with girls learning even, um, even pretty deep things, assuming that they're able to handle it. Down in the final paragraph here, he says specifically, this should in our final generations apply also to Torah chasidus. The girls should be learning chasidus. At the very least, chasidus that brings them to to more, uh, to more internal view of the world. That brings them the love of God and yiras Hashem and fear of God, and ahavas Yisrael, and love of the Jewish people, the love of Torah, and the love of Torah. And he says this is not just important for all men and women, it's specifically important for teachers to be involved in. The teachers need to learn chasidus, and they need to teach their students chasidus. So if we sum up this fairly long letter that I know I rushed through, but I wanted to hit the major points, this letter, which, uh, I do hope you'll look at in some of your time after this year, uh, has the

11:20 Rebbe allowing Gemara on a limited basis, depending on the needs of the time, depending on the talent of the girls. It has the Rebbe allowing even some of the deeper parts of Gemara that were formerly off-limits to girls because they're going to acquire cleverness somewhere they may as well acquire it in a Torah environment, and opening the door, not just opening the door, but opening wide, demanding that girls learn chasidus as well because they have mitzvah of ahavas Hashem and yiras Hashem. So as far as curriculum is concerned, you're not going to end up seeing a whole lot of differences between the ideal curriculum for a girl and the ideal curriculum for a boy, and if you're seeing a lot of differences, it might not be the Rebbe's shita. They also have davening in schools, and the Rebbe has a letter about this. This is, uh, not a letter. I take it back. It's from Likutei Sichos, chelek yud daled, page one eighty-eight. The Rebbe says, "When it comes to practical actions, that both boys and girls," he says, "should be davening." That both boys and girls should be davening, that they should both be davening in school. That, uh, he says another letter that I didn't bring on the page where he says the girls' davening can be a little shorter than the boys' davening, but that girls are expected to daven as part of their education as well, and teaching them to daven is important. He brings a lot of sources here, that

12:22 women have a chiyuv to daven, have an obligation to daven, and that each of them should have their own siddur. I know that we do a siddur party for the boys. I don't remember a siddur party for the girls. It doesn't have to be a party, but girls should have their own siddur. The, uh, last and most important and longest thing that I wanna look at with you today is this absolute treasure trove. I think that if you have daughters, you should print this out and hang this on your wall. I gave you the PDF. This is that, uh, in the year... Do I have the year here? Taf Shin Chaf Ches. So that would have been sixty-eight. Nineteen sixty-eight, some of the people who ran Bais Yaakov at the time went to be- went to meet the Rebbe, and he had a yechidas with them, and he gave them a list. And he, and he ended up editing it and putting it in the back of the Sichos, a list of twelve points that he considers particularly important when it comes to educating girls that differs from those things that are particularly important when it comes to educating boys, sort of twelve turning points about which the education of girls revolves. So I wanna read all of them with you because they're, uh, some of them are quite unique. All of them are fairly unique. Here is the list. This is printed in the back. It's in the Sichos of that year of Sichos.

13:24 I said it was edited a second ago. I'm not sure it was, but, uh, it certainly is in a couple of places. The first point that he made is, There are two things that need to be emphasized when it comes to educating American, uh, teens, American young people. But this applies even more so when it comes to educating girls first. So one of these two things is . The first Sif and the first Siman of Shulchan Aruch is . The beginning of Shulchan Aruch is, "Don't be embarrassed by people who will make fun of what you're doing." It's brought in by, from Yehuda ben Tema. He says they have a az kanamer. They have to be bold like a leopard. So that's the first thing that really needs to be emphasized more with American students and specifically with girls. They can't be embarrassed by their religion. And point number two, Kabbalas ol is accepting the yoke. That is paying attention to obeying the voice of their parents and their teachers, and taking on the yoke of Torah and mitzvahs. These are two things that specifically need to be told to Americans, and even within Americans, most specifically need to be told to girls or taught to girls. Beis. This is, they should be taught the aleph beis and its nekudos before they are taught the pronunciations. He says when it comes to the pronunciations itself, it doesn't matter whether they go according to the aleph beis, but first and foremost, they need to be taught

14:36 aleph beis and the nekudos in order. This is a hirhur that the Rebbe gave for boys. He is extending this to girls in this, in this, in this conversation. Gimel. Look at that. He says, "Do not use reading books that are written by non-religious people." So non-religious Jews have written, um, secular Jews have written books about how to pronounce Hebrew, how to study Hebrew. Don't use them in your schools. Hetzia, the Rebbe has a suggestion. The Rebbe says, "I have some advice. If you do really like these books, take out their good stories, take out their good points, put it in a new format, and put it out under a new shar, and make your own book from their stuff." Now, that sounds a lot like stealing, but the Rebbe says in parenthesis, The Rebbe says, legally, twenty-five years after something's come out, I don't know if the copyright law is still the same as it was in nineteen sixty-eight, but apparently the copyright law in nineteen sixty-eight was that after twenty-five years, uh, there was nothing illegal about taking parts of books out and remaking your own book from that material. So the Rebbe says you can use their material to make your new books, but don't use books that are written by Chilanim when it comes to educating girls. This probably applies to boys too, but again, this list is specific to girls. Daled. They should learn Chumash and they should learn Nach. They should learn the, the Torah, the prophets, and the

15:46 writings. And they shouldn't skip anything. It's very tempting to skip some of the gnarlier stories. Don't skip Yehuda and Tamar. That was a weird relationship between a father-in-law and a daughter-in-law. Don't skip it. Don't skip the David and Bathsheba story, which sounds like a king essentially, uh, doing a bunch of very bad things, is what it sounds like. The Rebbe says, "Don't skip them." Do learn them according to the Yesodas Chazal. Learn them according to the way that the Gemara explains these stories really happened, which is not as bad as it sounds in pshat, but still not great, and, uh, learn these with the girls. I don't know this book, but the Rebbe says he's giving a personal suggestion, that he likes the book Das Sefer Al Tanach. If you happen to be able to find a copy, maybe you should look at it because the Rebbe says that it's the Sefer he recommends for teaching girls Nach. He says, Rabbi Rabinowitz, apparently a Rabbi Rabinowitz wrote it. Uh, teachers should use this in order to teach the material in Nach that's a little trickier or that might be controversial. Point six. When it comes to the secular part of the day, the English studies, studies. That is, when it comes to the secular part of the day, you should choose a Bais Yaakov girl who was raised through Bais Yaakov to teach the secular studies over a college graduate. This is a claw that I saw in the Rebbe's letters regarding boys too, that

17:01 when it comes to secular studies in schools where we do have secular studies, they should ideally be taught by the, by the Rebbes. They should ideally be taught by Yiras Shamayim. They should be taught by Hasidisha people. They should not be taught by secular people by any means. As a matter of fact, I saw one letter where the Rebbe said, "If you have a choice between a secular Jewish teacher or a non-Jew teaching secular studies, you should have the non-Jew teach it over the secular Jewish teacher." So the Rebbe did not-- the Rebbe specifically, um, I saw one letter, I saw another letter. These are all things not included in today's shiur, but they're there. I saw another letter where the Rebbe said to, um, somebody wrote to the Rebbe a, a, a cheder rebbe. A cheder rebbe wrote to the Rebbe saying that they were making him teach secular studies in the afternoon, and he doesn't want to. He only wants to teach his holy studies in the morning. The Rebbe said, the Rebbe said back, "There's nobody better than you to be teaching studies in the afternoon. You can make it . You're the only person who can, uh, who is qualified to turn these secular studies into something that will be used for positive." So as long as they're there anyway, if you are in a school with secular studies, those secular studies should be taught by teachers who are Yiras Shamayim, teachers who are frum. And you should choose a frum

17:56 teacher who knows less about those secular studies over a college graduate Sifrei limud lamada. When it comes to these secular science books and sh- all, all the other hakmas lamada angli, anything on the English side, lo limcheik el hahetz yeda'im befan hamesefer. This is very interesting advice. It's advice that I have personally not taken in my home. I guess I'll have to do things differently. He says, "If you have books that have pages or pictures that you don't want the kids to see, don't erase those pictures or remove them from the book." Listen to why. Ki ze migader yetzer haheshek et haltamideth lahkia al zev. It just makes them wanna look, right? What make, what makes people want to see things more than tearing out pages or covering them over? He says it just makes them want it more. Hiskashu tereh meserish dada kveile hahetz yefan shelano. We should instead, he said, he mentioned that there's a group called Tere Mesera that's already trying to put out secular studies books that are according to our shitas that have things that are appropriate for us in them, but we certainly should not be tearing out pages of books or covering pages of books because this just makes the yetzer haRA stronger to be engaged in whatever is in the torn-out page. Ches. Yesh lahadiv yishuv et hamerom yayishmer. Recognize this? We said it already in an earlier letter. When you have a choice of what teacher to pick to teach at Beis Yaakov, uh, you should

18:58 choose a female teacher over a male teacher because her yiddish nishmays stronger and her ashba is more recognized by the girls. Point tes. Yesh ladavar tamid v'matamides. You should always speak to the girls about the following things. These are things the girls should be hearing all the time, specifically the Rebbe says these are messages that young Jewish girls need to hear. They have to hear about G'dulah Hashem, the greatness of Hashem, G'dulah haBriyah, the greatness of creation, v'zikra sa'adam, and the dearness of people. These are three themes to repeat when it comes to talking to girls specifically, that God is very big, the world is very big, and man is very beloved. Point yod. Lahadkish yesh es yefi bi'ados. You have to really emphasize when it comes to girls, even more than boys, the beauty of Yiddishkeit, the beauty of Judaism. Vesnayim shel mitzvos, the pleasantness of a mitzvah, and that is, uh, supposed midganas ha'olam ha'zeh, rather than knocking down how rotten the physical world is. Zeis amer is the Rebbe says in other words, please. Akav yesh et ha'aseh tev le'olam soomerah ratah. Just to focus on the aseh tev more than the somreirah ratah. To summarize what we just said in yod, um, we have two ways that we can encourage people to adhere to Yiddishkeit. One of them is that we can tell them that the world is awful, and the other one is that we can tell them that Judaism is so much better. And when it comes to girls

20:01 specifically, the message needs to be much less about how bad the world is and much more about how beautiful Yiddishkeit is. In other words, focusing on aseh tev and not on somreirah ratah. Point eleven, this is our second to last point in the Rebbe's twelve-point list of how to approach teaching girls specifically. He says, "These are two answers in science." I don't know how they came up or how they got in here, but apparently I'm guessing that some of them-- I'm guessing that the teacher asked, uh, what to do with weird science questions the girls come up with. They're actually separate questions. The fish is just Professor Einstein, the Rebbe writes. Yei zeh kal lahavi nayem. It's easy to understand today. Ki hashemesh ragagam listevim mesaviv la'aretz kemukah be'atflaim. The Rebbe says that if you use Einstein's opinion, it is easier to understand how the Torah can say a geocentric model where the sun is in the middle-- where the Earth is in the middle, and the sun goes around it. Um, it's true. I have a, I have a whole class on it, Im Sha. Mash Tferes Yisrael maarich mesadir mamar ha'arachim bemishnayos. Tzadik vechitikvasa amedim ya'aseh meshita chadasha. He says and as for Tferes Yisrael, who talks about the Oraychim maimar in his Mishnayos, that was only for that time, and it's a new shita. What he's referring to there is a second question. The Tferes Yisrael in his, uh, Oraychim, in his Oraychim maimar on Mishnayos is, um, that's the source that

21:06 proposes that, uh, according to Kabbalah, many worlds were created and destroyed, and so the Earth can be several billion years old because we're sitting on a rock that God keeps remaking. God says that was a n-- that was a new idea that he more or less made up, and it only, uh, it was only worth saying back then. It certainly isn't worth bringing into the classroom today when explaining the age of the universe. So for some reason, geocentrism and the age of the universe have been smushed into point eleven. Uh, I'm guessing that the people who wrote down what the Rebbe was talking about wasn't-- that they didn't know what the Rebbe was talking about because this should actually be two separate in yod. Okay, uh, and this last point in, uh, yod beis is just really interesting. The Rebbe gives here hadracha on how to address the different shitas that might exist over Zionism, uh, whether Beis Yaakov should take a side, pro-Zionist, anti-Zionist, and how to skirt the line. With that, we'll end, but I wanna read it to you even though it doesn't have much to do with the education of girls just because it is such a... You know, we, I think we all know that the Rebbe has a very nuanced position when it comes to Zionism, when it comes to, uh, when it comes to support of the state of Israel. I think we know on one hand that the Rebbe is not a Zionist and that the Rebbe

22:01 does not see Israel as reish it smichas gu'ulasenu. I think on the other hand, we know the Rebbe's support for Israel is, uh, strongest of anybody, stronger than the Zionists. So the question is, what exactly do you do with that? And people have tried to answer, mashpiyim try to answer. The Rebbe here kind of answers himself. So if you read this, I think you'll get some real insight into how the Rebbe, uh, exactly what the Rebbe thinks about Israel. Venigea Eretz Yisrael, when it comes to Israel. Ein likanes b'vin kuchim lisichasin talmidis venigea ei ze shita yesh necheina. Don't get into conversations with the girls over which position, the pro-Zionist or anti-Zionist position is more correct. Don't even get into the conversation. There is the shita kitzenis, there is the extreme position. Shemedinas Yisrael baTziyanis zeh asa l'tzar lechol Yisrael. There's the extreme position that the founding of the modern state and Zionism itself is a terrible tragedy, uh, for the entire Jewish people. And there is another shita that says the things that happen in Eretz Yisrael are the hand of God and that's saving the Jewish people. The Rebbe says that there is no doubt, ein safek, she'udah be'eretz Yisrael lo nisan b'yadam izman l'chameshet yemei sh geziam. He says the Yidden said-- definitely saw incredible miracles in Israel during the Six Day War. Vinu es hashgachas Hashem, we definitely saw Hashem hashgacha, that he was watching over the remnant of the Jewish people, and he brought us from death to life. So

23:05 one thing that is undeniable that you can tell everybody is that we see miracles in Eretz Yisrael all the time where God specifically protects the Jewish people and brings us from death to life. Uh, asimanim shel as chata degu'ula debias mashiach, but as for these signs of the geulah beginning and the coming of Mashiach, ei shomtzev l'chapes rak bedivrei haRamam. You can only find those things in the words of Ramam, Ya'avetz, and Hilchos Melachim. You can only see-- You can only say that you're seeing signs Mashiach is coming when you see people starting to keep Torah and mitzvahs and return to Hashem, not when you see them settling the land of Israel. Settling the land of Israel is not one of the valid signs that Mashiach is near. People returning to Torah and mitzvahs is a sign that Mashiach is near. So you are not able to use the founding of the modern state or even the filling of the modern state and the growth of the modern state as having anything to do with the aschalta d'geulah. Whereas you can see the Teshuva movement within Eretz Yisrael and within Chutz La'aretz as aschalta d'geulah. Point four. Ein lehavi ra'ayas es tiras bedivrei Ramam bigdei zeh ve'hasifrah meir'a nevuchim hem divrei haAzam midrash ma'ashev el halacha beyach chazak behilchos melachim zeh shaki va ma she'oleh bamkabbal. This is le-le-le lebias mashiach tzedek. The Rebbe says, "Don't bring new ideas from other places. There is exactly one authority when it comes to the laws of Mashiach.

24:11 Don't tell me that the Ramam says this in Meiri nevuchim or that there's midrashim and there's Chazal here." The Rebbe says we have one pesek when it comes to what's going to happen when Mashiach comes, and the only pesek that matters when it comes to what happens when Mashiach comes is Ramam himself. And finally, lemдина Israel ein shum shayeches legu'ulas Israel. There is no connection whatsoever between the Israeli government and the redemption of the Jewish people. Ava, and, and gu'ula, ava. But ki makom hatzalah upleta lechlal Israel. Israel is a place of saving and a place of ingathering the remnant of the Jewish people. V'zeh gam ken inyan gadol me'od. And that too is an inyan gadol me'od. So you see here the Rebbe calling the founding of the modern state and Zionism an inyan gadol me'od really, just not the aschalta d'geulah. And I think that really shows how the Rebbe toes the line on a very complex issue. Anyway, what we have mainly discussed today is not Zionism. What we have mainly discussed today is the unique approaches when it comes to educating girls. A super quick summary is that we saw in our letter that there are certain conversations that male teachers just shouldn't have with female students, and that those require a female teacher. We had a couple letters that are-- and sifras that strongly suggested that, uh, we should choose female teachers for the girls' schools whenever possible and women to run the girls' schools wheneverpossible, and that, uh,

25:16 women should be choosing whenever possible. Yeah, I keep on saying whenever possible because I think it's clear from the Rebbe's letters and and from what happened practically that when it's not possible to find women to do these jobs, men have to do them. But at the same time, the, the ideal is that women should be teaching women. We saw that the curriculum for a girl is going to not differ very much from the curriculum from a boy. The Rebbe wants girls davening every day, even though they don't necessarily have as long a davening. He wants them learning some degree of Gemara, Halakha, and Hasidus, although probably in a lesser form than that which is taught in the boys' schools. They at least should acquire the cleverness of the Jewish people rather than the cleverness of the world. And in this long PDF from the Rebbe, we saw-- PDF from the Rebbe, what a strange phrase. In this long page that we have from the Rebbe, some twelve points, we emphasized several places in which Chinuch of girls is a little different than Chinuch of boys. And one of them that I think really stands out is that girls need to be spoken constantly about Gedulas Hashem, Gedulas Briah, and Yikar HaAdam, the greatness of Hashem, the greatness of creation, and the dearness of people. And we need to, uh, mention all over and over again the beauty of Yiddishkeit. That's it.