האם הכאת ילדים היא חינוך ראוי?

00:00 So this is Ignatius, and we're returning to a letter that we looked at last time, uh, when we were trying to cover the topic of ein ledayan ela ma she'einev ro'es, that a dayan only knows what his eyes see, that you can only judge if you're in a particular situation. While we were doing those letters, we came across a letter where the Rebbe pushes back very hard against someone who had been hitting students. There was a teacher, uh, back then, this is in, uh, this letter is from nineteen sixty-seven. So I think in nineteen sixty-seven it was a bit more common than it is now for teachers to hit their students. This teacher had been hitting his students, and the Rebbe writes to him very harshly that he wants him to stop. And in response to his response saying, "You don't know how rotten my students are. If you knew how bad they were, you wouldn't, you, you wouldn't say that," the Rebbe goes, "I'm not so sure about that. I really think you should stop hitting your students." So we did see that letter. We skimmed right over it. Today, we're gonna do a deep dive into it. We're gonna have a complete discussion of, uh, whether you're allowed to hit your kids, hit your students, whether this is encouraged, when it's encouraged, uh, what the Halakha says, and most importantly for us, what the Rebbe says as a bottom line, what we do nowadays, what is the Rebbe's shitah. So I wanna first

00:56 of all return to this letter that we saw previously, look at it a little more closely. This letter is labeled dalet reish ayin vav. It's from, uh, the-- it's from, uh, Reish Chodesh Iyar, the first day of Reish Chodesh Iyar of Tav Shin Tes Zayin. And the Rebbe says, "Ve'ikar basi ma shekazav b'negeila tamidim." I'm mainly writing to respond to you regarding your students, what you told me about your students. "Shnegim eita minizifos v'chuloh." You told me about your disciplinary methods. "Bad k'dei al kah." And it seems that you even hit them. You, you don't just discipline them, you actually hit the students. So the Rebbe says it should be understood that this is entirely inappropriate when it comes to older students. And if I wasn't too afraid to say so, says the Rebbe, and the lashon lo lemis tafina doesn't mean the Rebbe is afraid. It's a, it's a lashon hagamarah. What it means is that were I not feeling as though I was stepping on the prior generations, I would say that, uh, even for younger students, I don't think it's such a good idea. So the Rebbe's saying here, certainly, I, I don't want you hitting any older students, and I don't even really think you should hit the younger students if I, uh, were, were I not to place my hand to my mouth in fear. I believe we discussed this, and I told you this explicitly when you visited me here. And so I'm expecting it would be appropriate that

02:07 immediately you would switch your practice. The Rebbe had told this person in person to stop hitting the students. They talked about it. It had not happened. The Rebbe says, "I want you to switch this immediately." So this does sound like the Rebbe is pretty against corporal punishment. Before I show you everything else the Rebbe says on the topic, though, to introduce a little, and maybe even a lot of nuance, I wanna first take a big step back and show you some of the din and the Halakha surrounding this. I think most of us are familiar with the idea, at least, uh, at least, uh, have an intro to the idea that, uh, that hitting students, hitting children is something that, uh, that Judaism does not necessarily have a negative approach toward. Uh, Torah is pretty positive when it comes to hitting kids. There is a, uh, it says in Mishlei, it's a pasuk in Mishlei, it's in, uh, yud gimel chaf daled. It says, which means that somebody who, you know the expression in English, spare the rod, spoil the child, is more or less what it says in Mishlei. The lashon here, its specific translation is somebody who spares the rod, somebody who doesn't, uh, doesn't hit their kids, doesn't hit somebody very often, hates his son. If you wanna know what it looks like to hate a child, it's not to hit them. This is in Mishlei. And somebody who loves their child will wake up early to give them mussar, which means

03:08 that discipline is a positive thing, and it's a way that a parent shows love. Now, how is this expressed in actual Halakha? Uh, this is Shulchan Arukh, Harav Niskei Guf, and Nefesh says it's mutar to hit a kid under certain circumstances. I brought it here for you to take a look at. It should be on your screen. It is mutar to hit your small children. Even if it's not over Torah and mitzvahs, and the intent is just to, uh, direct them in derech eretz, to make them good people. So of course, I think a lot of parents know that they, uh, a lot of people would suspect that you're allowed to hit a child if they're going to violate a mitzvah, because as a matter of fact, you might be allowed to hit an adult who's about to violate a mitzvah or violate, do an aveira. But when it comes to small children, a parent is also allowed to to, to use corporal punishment, to use hitting, to, uh, physical punishment, to, uh, to give them good morals, to direct them in derech eretz. Because your intent is for their good. Because you are responsible for them turning out well, you're responsible for their good, and it's good for them. So what the Alter Rebbe is saying here is the reason why a parent's allowed to hit a child is not because parents have some sort of dominion or control over their children. It's because parents have dominion or control over the wellness of their

04:15 children, and it's good for children to be hit. So this is all predicated, notice, on the assumption that it's good for a child to be hit, that if it's good for the kid, then the parent is allowed to do it because the parent is empowered to do good things for their child. It's a very interesting reason. This would also apply to an orphan that you are raising in your own home. Let's say that the kid is not, doesn't have bad midas, and they're not violating Torah and mitzvahs. They're just not listening to you. You're allowed to hit them to get them to listen to you. The Alter Rebbe says, in that case, you can hit them even for your own good and not for their good. Because a parent has the authority to force their children to listen to them. But if there is a child who is listening to what you say and is not violating Torah and mitzvahs or is displaying bad derech eretz, then then in that case, it's also to hit them. So there are very narrow cases where a teacher or a parent is allowed to hit a child, and those narrow cases are when they are about to, in order to instruct them in Torah and mitzvahs, in order to instruct them in derech eretz, in or- or in order to make them listen. But if it doesn't fit in any of those categories, then it sounds like it's, uh, not sounds like, it's also to hit the child.

05:21 The same way that's also to hit other people. Now, there are rules that are attached to this in Shulchan Arukh, in Yoreh De'ah, in reish mem, uh, sif chof. The Chabad brings that they say that somebody who hits an older child should be put in nidda, they should put in cherem. Because you're placing a stumbling block in front of them, because older people, when you hit them, they tend to hit you back. Now, what age is this exactly? It's older than you think. The Rama says, This means a parent can't hit their twenty-two-year-old or twenty-four-year-old child. Uh, but that doesn't mean a small child. So when the Rebbe says over here in his letter that certainly you can't hit older children, and, uh, I'd think maybe not even the younger ones, he's probably hinting to this idea that when children get to a certain age, whatever age we think they're likely to strike us back, so in that case, the Rebbe is saying, obviously, it's r- it's not, it's not permitted to hit older kids, maybe even younger kids. There's a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. This is brought in a lot of places, but I bring you the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch because his Loss of weight in question. It should be seen, it's seen clearly. It's very obvious that, uh, when you are-- when you do things bedarkei nayam, you're able to have a greater effect. So if you really wanna affect these children, you're not going to affect them the most by hitting them either.

12:03 This is not exactly what the Rebbe said in the prior two letters. In the prior two letters, the Rebbe says, "I don't want you acting in a mean way to the kids. I want you to be nicer." In this letter, he's saying, "You're right," uh, to somebody else. You're, you're right that it's not a good idea, and not just because it's mean, uh, but also because it's not that effective. It's an ineffective way to educate children, hitting them. This letter, I really wish I knew what Issur Skilah they were talking about. That's a great way to tease a letter. This letter is in volume twenty-one of Iggros on page two thirteen, and it's a long letter with multiple bullet points, but, about somebody who was doing some sort of shlichas. They were roving around Eretz Yisrael, helping out with various educational institutions, and they got to some school, and the kids there were doing an Issur Skilah. I, I don't know which one. I, I, I don't know which one. Use your imagin-- or don't. . You told me that you're in a certain school, and there's a bunch of students who are involved in Isurei Skilah. They're doing something that would get them stoned al pi halacha. I don't know what it is. . And therefore, because the thing they're doing would cause them to get stoned al pi halacha, you think that you should be allowed to, at the very least, hit them in order to stop them from doing something that Torah

13:04 would allow us to kill them for it. The Rebbe says you're totally off. In the walls of the yeshiva, hitting a student is completely rejected. It's not at all reasonable. No, no, no grounds for hitting students within the walls of the yeshiva. Besides the fact that the thing itself, which is rebuking somebody by hitting them, is really, uh, is, is more negative than it is positive. It'll also become known when people see how harshly they're being punished, people are going to figure out why they got punished. The parents will figure out, and the students will really figure it out. And then those who didn't know will now be clued in. So what the Rebbe is saying here is that when you punish students harshly for bad behavior, everybody asks, "So what did you do to get hit like that?" And when they answer what they did, that will inform all of the other students about what they did and make the other students start doing it. So you're only gonna make the problem bigger. And we know from Chelei Tzadah that once we know something, uh, once we, once we become aware of something, it has an internal effect on us. The Rebbe says, "I suggest you find other ways of punishing them besides physical punishment." That means either suspension or expulsion from the school. Or perhaps what is brought in the Sefer of the Friediker Rebbe, not let them take part in, uh, in the, in the fun parts of class where they say

14:28 over stories of tzadikim, maybe, uh, maybe not give them something that they want. Not give them that which their hearts desire within the classroom. But the thing that rises above all else, the real result, the real answer is you gotta watch the students better. I don't know what that one is. Uh, it should be, uh, it should-- We can then hope that this thing will slowly peter off over time and not be a problem in the long term. So the Rebbe is saying here is that, uh, even in cases where we're talking about very serious averos, where there really might be theoretical grounds to hit a child, even then the Rebbe is saying, "I don't think you should be hitting them. I don't wanna see it in the schools. This doesn't belong in the schools at all." And, uh, and hitting children actually can have multiple negative consequences. We saw one earlier that it's simply an ineffective tool for chinuch, and we're seeing another one here. When people get hit, when students get hit, the other students ask what they did and then copy them. So the Rebbe says, "I have other suggestions. I would rather you suspend them. I'd rather you expel them than hit them. I would also rather you tell them they can't participate in fun activities like listening to Sifrei Tzadikim. I'd also rather you watch them better and make sure they can't do the averos you're talking about." But as far as hitting them goes, the Rebbe is not interested

15:30 at all. Uh, the Rebbe does reference this sicha from the Friediker Rebbe saying that the Friediker Rebbe said that he had a teacher who, instead of hitting him, would not let him listen to Sifrei Tzadikim. I'm not gonna show you the whole sicha, but I did send it to you in the group, and here it is on the screen. This is just-- It's, it's a sicha that I, I, I always remember this sicha 'cause it's so rich. Here, the Friediker Rebbe goes through a list of all of his melamdim, all the teachers he had as a kid, and the Friediker Rebbe did not like all of them. There was one of them that he absolutely could not stand. And I don't wanna say that about the Friediker Rebbe, so I'm not saying it. I'm not saying he couldn't stand him. I'm saying it sure sounds like he couldn't stand him. He had one teacher, uh, Rebbe Kusiel. Rebbe Kusiel, he loved very much. And Rebbe Kusiel, the way that, uh, the way that he did things was, uh, was as described in the Rebbe's letter, that, um, that if a student was misbehaving, the way to make him behave was that he wouldn't let him listen to Sifrei Tzadikim, and they all loved the way that he told stories, and this was a deterrent. He also had another teacher, though. He had a Rav Shamshon. He had a Rav Shamshon. And, uh, the Rav Shamshon was, uh, was not particularly kind. Says, he was an

16:25 akhzar. He was a, uh, he was an angry, hateful person, like, he would smack us around for no reason. So the Friediker Rebbe says, he would, he would hit us for no reason. So the Friediker Rebbe had a real, uh, had a real, um, had different teachers with different approaches. But the one the Rebbe's talking about is the one that the Friediker Rebbe celebrates, this Rebbe Kusiel, who would choose to take away a, a prize rather than to hit a child. Uh, I don't wanna go into this one too much either, 'cause we are short on time, but the Rav Friediker Rebbe brings in Sefer HaZehrenes, one of the, um, models in Sefer HaZehrenes that Rav Boruch models his life after as he's trying to figure out how chasidus works is, uh, is this individual here, Rebbe Yitzchak Shul. Rebbe Yitzchak Shul tells a story about how he used to torture animals, which is pretty horrible. He was, uh, he was going-- He was a little kid torturing animals, which is something that we would identify as really dangerous behavior, and that was the only time his father ever hit him, and when his father did hit him, he cried over it afterwards, and, uh, he was generally a gentle person who didn't hit. So you do get, uh, from the Friediker Rebbe, you get, even from then, from the Friediker Rebbe, you really get an idea the Friediker Rebbe was not fond of the teacher who hit him. He calls the teacher who hit

17:24 him an akhzar, a cruel person who would hit for lo- for lo- for no reason. In Sefer HaZehrenes, he describes what a chasid is as someone who hit his child once his entire life and cried over it. Uh, worth being aware of, I think. Now, before we come to the conclusion from all the Iggros that we've seen and the sichas and the like, that the Rebbe is entirely anti-hitting- Uh, there are those who think from two places that maybe the Rebbe is pro-hitting in certain cir- circumstances. I think they're wrong. I wanna show you the sicha so we can talk through them a little bit. There is one sicha here. This is from Yutzes Kislev Taf Shin Lamed Alef. It's printed in . You'll find it in volume sixty-two on page three fifty-two. And there the Rebbe complains about a convention where a bunch of Frum people got together to talk about Chinuch. And after saying a quick Dvar Torah, the rest of the convention was about how children need to lead the way, and we need to learn more from our children than our children learn from us, and parents need to take a big step back and let the youth take over. And the Rebbe is very upset about this. The Rebbe has a long sicha where he talks about how this is a Hepchat Torah, not what the Torah wants at all, and how can Frum people say this, that parents aren't supposed to be teaching, and that s- leaders aren't supposed

18:26 to be leading, and that children who say themselves that they were taught poorly are now supposed to be teaching us. The Rebbe is very upset about this idea, and in that sicha he says this, . There is a pasuk meforsh. It says explicitly in the pasuk, that somebody who sp-- who doesn't hit their child hates them, and somebody who loves them will wake up early to give them moser. The pasuk we mentioned, that we read. And the Rebbe says there, . It's not possible to have a discussion over what that pasuk means. to switch over its meaning. It's very clear what it means. What it means is that somebody who loves their kid will, will discipline them. the intent of the word is meforsh in the pasuk. This re-- this applies to Chinuch for our children. And context shows us that this is about Chinuch. So the Rebbe says, "I don't understand. How can you tell me that we are not supposed to be disciplining our children given this pasuk?" Now, there are people out there who I think are wrong, who want to read this sicha as saying that the Rebbe's saying there's a pasuk meforsh that says, "Hit your kids. How can you not hit your kids?" That's not the context of the sicha. I don't think the Rebbe's saying that in the sicha. I think the Rebbe's saying that from this pasuk we see clearly that a disciplinary approach, the parents are supposed to be disciplinarians to some degree, and that somebody

19:36 who doesn't discipline a child hates them. I don't see anywhere in the sicha the Rebbe explicitly pushing the idea of hitting children. And when you put that up against all the prior letters that I've shown you, I don't think that really, uh, that really bears out as evidence. There's one Ksav Yad that is a little disturbing in that it doesn't necessarily fit cleanly with the shitah I'm showing you, but I think that one can be read this way too. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe that she's having trouble controlling her class, a woman with, uh, with female students. And the Rebbe says back, "It says in the pasuk, doesn't it already say in the pasuk that somebody who does not hit their child, uh, that somebody who doesn't hit their child hates them, and the one who loves them will wake up early to give them moser?" And he says, uh, you're letting your student-- you wouldn't let your students, uh, eat-- you wouldn't let your students eat sugar all day. You wouldn't let them eat candy all day. And certainly, you'd find ways to stop them, so you have to be more of a disciplinarian. And then he ends by saying, "But don't forget to be kind in your discipline." Does that mean that he's saying to hit the kids? I really don't think so. I, I don't think we have any evidence from the Rebbe, at least that I was able to find in print, where the Rebbe clearly says that he wants s--

20:29 uh, that he wants educators to hit children. What we do see is that when people are too lenient, the Rebbe comes back and says, "I do need you to discipline these kids," but I don't see anything about hitting. Uh, we do have two anecdotal reports that I want you to be aware of. One is from Rav Shmuel Lu, who we just spoke about last time. We're on Rav Shmuel Lu run at the moment. He had a yechidus in nineteen seventy-three. I pulled this quote that's on your screen and that you also have in the Wha- WhatsApp group directly from his, uh, his interview. So this is what he says the Rebbe told him. He told the Rebbe that he's upset that he sometimes gets angry and hits his kids, and he's worried that maybe that's a bad thing. And the Rebbe said back to him, "One of the things that is shak is punin usin is to think that inasmuch as they are your children, even more are they Hashem's children, and you wouldn't strike someone else's kids, so your hands sh-sh-should tremble before it hits, uh, God's child. Sometimes it's necessary to promote discipline, but never should be done out of anger." So the way that Rav Shmuel Lu ends this, uh, ends his re-recollection of this yechidus is that the Rebbe sort of says that there's times where perhaps hitting is necessary to promote discipline. I'm not exactly-- I'm not sure that's what the Rebbe means. I do know what the Rebbe means

21:27 in the first half, though, is that before somebody hits a child, they should recognize that the child isn't just theirs, the child is God's. And we-- and the same way that I wouldn't hit one of your kids, it is u-unimaginable that I would hit one of God's children. There's also a story that Patala Kin tells. He was a mechanech, uh, in, in, l-- I believe in, in, in London as well, right? In England as well. Somewhere not in America. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, London. In London. London, yeah. And he asked the Rebbe about corporal punishment in the classroom, and the Rebbe wrote the following to him. This is a quote, although I don't have the letter. He says this is a quote from the letter. "It is now Tu B'Shvat, the new year for trees, and the sign of life is slow, steady growth. Look at an oak tree. It takes three hundred years to mature, and just think of a seedling. You put it in the ground, it starts growing a little bit. It's still very small. If you damage it in any way, you will have ruined it. You have to remember that." Uh, when we put all of these things that the Rebbe says together about corporal punishment, I think that this, uh, this one sicha where he says people need to be more strict with their kids doesn't say to me that you have to hit, and the Ksav Yad doesn't mean that to me either. And given all the

22:22 other information we have here, I'm pretty comfortable telling you that the Rebbe has a pretty strong shitah against hitting children, which of course brings you back to the, the main and question that I don't plan on answering, which is why was this so prominent in Lubavitch for so long, given that the Rebbe says over and over again that he doesn't want to see it, mufrach legamrei. There are better options, other options. I don't know what to answer besides, besides ignorance. Uh, I do wanna end with one last thing, a zinger, a real zinger because it's from the Frieda Kireba. This is in Sefer HaSichas, the taf shin daled. And here the Frieda Kireba says, I mean, let, let him speak for himself. Says here, says, "A tzadik can hit, but a Hasid can't hit." That is that a tzadik you-- somebody who hits can still be a tzadik. Why can somebody who hits their kids or a student still be a tzadik? Meforsh in Shulchan Aruch, there are situations where you're allowed to hit a child. They can still be a tzadik. But a person who hits is not a Hasid. A Hasid is defined as someone who doesn't hit. And, uh, the Frieda Kireba, the Frieda Kireba proves this. It says it's from the Rebbe Rashab, but the Rebbe Rashab uses Tanya. It says in Tanya that a, a, that a king who is wise and righteous, uh, hits his child, and then later on it says that the, that a person will run

23:26 to their father who is a rachaman, who is merciful and righteous and a Hasid. So why does the-- why is the word Hasid used to describe the father that is run to for mercy and not the father who hits? And the Fried-- and the Rebbe Rashab, and Frieda Kireba's quoting him, says, "Because you cannot call somebody who hits, who hits their child a Hasid. You can call them a tzadik. You can call them a-- You can call them many wonderful things, but you cannot call them a Hasid anymore." So given all of this evidence, I, I think it's very clear that, uh, it is simply not the Rebbe's shitah that we hit children. Uh, I-- in all scenarios, I don't know. Is it possible, talk to a mashpia, that there is one particular kid and one particular scenario who might need it? Obviously, unique scenarios call for unique resolutions. But at the same time, we do shitahs here, and, uh, it is definitely the general rule that we, we don't hit kids. We don't hit kids. Okay. Thank you all very much.