CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #134 Rabbi Shmuel Yaakov Klein - Jewish Education

dealing with today's kids is completely a different entity than it was years ago and in order to educate properly in order to be a parent properly you have to keep a breast of the changes Alo educate the the the child according to the generation in which he lives we're accustomed to thinking that a generation is approximately how many years 25 years 25 30 years I believe it was the no minska who said this publicly once in our day a generation is fine years W it means that the changes rapidly the assumptions are totally different things which are common place today would have been a source of embarrassment for people to even think about 25 years [Music] ago barim and welcome to Torah talks kazak's Tuesday night program with special guests we have with us all the way from from Brooklyn our dear friend Rabbi yov kle welcome it's always good to see you Rabbi and we're going to be speaking about the Jewish Education and before we get to the topic we give a littleit background about yourself Rabbi and the great work you're involved with and Tor M okay try to be brief and there's a lot of detail there that I would be able to share so first of all I am Canadian I'm from Toronto OH interesting uh I moved here about 15 and a half years ago but that was after being uh 34 years in k in Toronto Toronto and what I was doing in with this broad realm right so I was I was a re I taught also girls KES I taught in and I taught wow I taught adults I did sh in G I did sh inish thought in the G the GBA and then I became a prin principal uh first I was a principal while I was continuing being a rabbi I was an English principal for 16 years in different in Toronto I left K Alto together and I focus only on KES for my last I guess eight years in Toronto I was an I was a limit cage principal uh I was offered the opportunity to move to New York and to join the wonderful world of Torah masar I accepted main reasons my kids were getting married and they were all leaving Toronto so just the thought of remaining there alone in the course of time was a little bit frightening and daunting so I said so I accepted that offer and I became what is known as the Director of Publications which means the things that we uh produce on our own things that we distribute for other authors um Li which means materials that are being used in the classroom primarily uh in the course of time I also took over the um The Wing of which obviously it's but it also is the imperative to learn history specifically um Holocaust studies and this goes back to an initiative goes back about 20 some OD years ago when the V of decided that the time has come to focus on or to teach Holocaust studies it was an area that was for good reason this is not the place or time to go into what those reasons are but there were legitimate and very solid reasons for why Holocaust in Yim were omitted right they were not focused on but the time came for that to happen ter started an official Wing called and um it was founded by a venerable educator his name was RAB Elias famous B and then other people took over in the course of time and I have been for the past I guess 12 years or so running that division as well wow yeah so inspiring Rabbi Klein unbelievable we've had many on the talks and such a broad spectrum of Education in the Jewish world I look at it this way being busy keeps me out of trouble I think that's really the main thing okay it's important so I think the rabbi with all your experience of all these years of educating Jewish children whether it was secular studies or or or Jewish studies uh what would you say if we would pinpoint education back then you know I would understand the rabbi's been in for 40 something plus years and today is there a difference is the same old uh you know open up the farm the books textbooks or or has there been a little bit of a change in the mentality of uh educating our children so you know usually I would try to avoid giving what seems to be a diplomatic answer but to speak truth it has to be both in fact curiously I view the the organization that I'm with Tor Torah means guidance you know teaching what to do and how to do it and that brings to mind the concept of a living Torah which means living guidance we have rash Yesa um right and great Torah Scholars who guide us and set our it's the way right right on the other hand and so that's sort of new keeping up with the times and that's very necessary on the other hand m means tradition the Legacy that we got from the past so are things different they're tremendously different I me just to use a small example which is actually not from the Jewish world but from the non-jewish world uh I believe it was in the 1950s they did a study what's the worst problem facing Educators in the classroom what is it that they're contending with most and back then the the biggest problem was kids chewing gum in class that was the biggest issue that was the biggest issue 50 or 70 years ago and today of course we're dealing with substance abuse and firearms and Technology I would guess that yeah technology actually in the non-jewish world is also very problematic it's even more problematic in our world and uh for reasons that the you know our guidelines our restrictions um uh are a little bit more stringent and they need to be you know we read in the Torah the the pasuk the verse in the Torah says with in the story of The Narrative The Parting of the Red Sea it says so which means water also is an illusion to Torah right t t t right so the which means the water formed for them a wall or barriers on their right and on their left means to say that within the world of Torah there are strong barriers right these barriers are this side and they are on that side and we are more cognizant of the concept or the need for barriers than I would say in the world around us right definitely clearly more restrictions which produces also a much higher much more elevated state of existence for us as we see yeah so that's the but whatever the case may be the world out there has an impact on our restricted world because let's say we have strong walls around us but there are breaches in the wall and through those breaches come the impacts and the influences from the world around us so technology would be probably the prime example of that uh the value system and today you know I don't have to tell you how crazy the world has become with its value system and the assumptions that the world makes uh with issues that I'm too embarrassed even to mention but I think people would know what I'm talking about that has also made an impact on on our world uh I can give examples of that probably better not to right um so yes there there have been changes truth of the matter also the continuation of the there's no such thing as coincidence but coincidentally the continuation is the is the verse which means literally understand the years of generation and generation which sounds very flowery and everything think what well what does it mean yeah what's the what's the concept so to begin with the word schote based on the word sh years is a year sh is a year the Mahar famous rud of of PR the maral of Prague said that the word Shah is based on the word shinui it's the same change right change um the world is constantly in a state of flux where things are not the same as they were that's why Shana is called the sh because the seasons constantly change um so therefore according to certainly um interpretation of the and the rebi of kot um names which probably will be familiar to most listeners most viewers some people think oh yeah okay if you're Mish something then you could be I'm sure you have been madish at any rate so the interpretation is B understand the way the years change the way the generations change because dealing with today's kids is completely a different entity than it was years ago and in order to educate properly in order to be a parent properly right uh you have to keep a breast of the changes and uh I think this the reev of slim said the shom he said beautiful beautiful and he said that whereas the most famous verse in is the wor is the the verse right so he said perhaps we should read it a little differently educate the the child according to the generation in which he lives because the assumptions are different and also the rapidity with which things happen and the changes take place is not what it used to be we're for example we're accustomed to thinking that a generation is approximately how many years 25 years 25 30 years whatever yeah so I believe it was the NOA minska who said this publicly once he said in our day a generation is five years wow right so that that means to say doesn't mean we can take a 5-year-old marry him off Next Generation it it means that the changes rapidly and um the assumptions are totally different things which are commonplace today would have been a source of embarrassment for people to even think about 25 years ago even less so yeah that impacts on the that we give it impacts on the necessity for um schools bov etc etc to keep up with the new technique while always having a strong hold and grasp on the miss one cannot reneg on this even though he has to try to get that so that's a balancing act um the the upside excuse me is that today there are organizations such as T that do train teachers prepare teachers uh it used to be that somebody just felt that okay I've spent enough time in Co for example tomorrow I'll become a rebi no that doesn't work that well anymore all yeah there's training there's orientation there's guidance and um even the operatives themselves the candidates to become are cognizant of this fact and they are pursuing the training so it it is a different I know for a fact many and many friends that have went to the world to go and be Educators they went through the Torah masur uh training and uh they told me it's a world of a difference it's they thought just go to the classroom and give it over no no there's ways of doing it have to keep the kids children engaged and how to get them so so Rabbi you're saying that there's obviously a difference with educating our kids today as opposed to what is used to be uh many years ago uh where do the parents come what role do they have we spoke about the we understand but with regards to parents we all we all know that they they're partners with the with the isiv with the schools with regards to educating their children so what inspiration what could you tell us about again that's that's um a very broad kind of a question I will tell you that the Tas um under my opes and two of my colleagues have been doing parenting courses for the parents of different communities or different institutions different schools we did we completed our ninth just after uh sukus sukot this year and that was in Highland Park in Edison New Jersey and uh we've been to Canada to Toronto and to Montreal we've been to Chicago we've been to months we've been it's a lecture or it's a whole series it's a series combining guidance from mental health professionals such as for example Dr David pelowitz the famous One um Dr Rabbi Dr Zev Brown and others but also rash Yesa so there's a combination of cutting edge psychological um guidance for parents plus the the guidance in Torah so that there's no giving up of uh you know the basic fundamentals and it's either three or four sessions within each program the last of which is always um a a question and answer panel right where parents from the school or the community submit the organization that works on they presubmit questions and that's what deal is dealt with so it touches on issues such as how to be um compliant with the school uh without you know losing your own character it deals with issues such as how to infuse the joy for living and happiness in the part of kids um how to set boundaries for kids which goes a little bit hand in hand with what we mentioned a little bit earlier kids need boundaries like we said um one of the famous educators of Educators in America is a fellow by the name of um oh Rabbi um his name just just lit my mind but he's yo Kramer I'm sorry and I apologize to him because his name is so basic everyone knows it rabol Kramer I heard one speak and he said that uh parents are very conscientious today you know we give nutrition to our kids vitamin A and B and C wife just got the multivitamins the multivitamins but there's one vitamin that parents are not giving enough of and that's vitamin n so we asked him vitamin n says yeah n stands for no because the new culture is is such where parents are not brave enough to often refuse their kids what the kids are asking for and what they're asking for today is so much more there's so much of a so much access to so many different kinds of things and it's dangerous right parents are afraid to say no to their kids so they say they don't say no often enough I remember once um the r of TS in Chicago passed away a number of years ago uh he said at a Tomar convention when when speaking about the fact the parents are trying to be good parents and providing their kids with gadgets and electronics and uh ET ET they want to be good parents uh so he said well U following that line of thinking if they want to really be good parents and they should also buy their kids a loaded pistol um I it's dangerous yeah so but they're giving everything else that is possibly dangerous and killing their Nas possibly yeah 100% true so you know that's what's happening in in today's world often that's one of the aspects of parenting and um also discipline how do we deal with today the level of say will be a lot of so that means hopefully we're approaching the big day that's right of our Redemption but apart from that it's still a pain in the neck to have to deal with us both for teachers and even parents today um I read not long ago of a case in Scandinavia hasn't affected our world yet but in Scandinavia in the non-jewish world there were uh there was a kid a child or maybe two siblings who filed for divorce against their parents child divorcing the parents yeah and the reason because they felt they were being abused because the parents were not giving them all that they wanted ETA whatever the you know the the the the particulars were and they won they they were granted the divorce um crazy world crazy world that's an understatement but that's what we're dealing with so parents need today um a definition what does it mean to be a proper Jewish parent how do you raise your children so that they will be loving they will be balanced they will be mentally healthy in all ways but also that they're growing spiritually it's a very daunting task these days parenting is a chorus by the way I remember when uh the word parent was not a verb it was only a noun one is a parent today you are doing parenting became an activity but that's because there's a necessity to teach parenting 100% And um many people think that when it comes to learning about parenting you have to uh you know read all these books go these classes lectures serieses yes 100% but we you know that we have the Torah and like we said in the beginning of the program Rabbi hor it's the way of life and it's the M it's it's it's our heritage um how important if you could elaborate Torah study with the parents correlates to the the education of the children refine the question if you can learning Torah the importance of learning Torah for parents whether it's the father mean father with son or father father father from father with son and in general the teaches us that one's obligation of learning Torah for himself or by himself you have to precedes the obligation of teaching his children teaching his children we say it every day teach it to your sons you shall teach them to your sons etc etc all of these you should make these things known to your sons and to your grandchildren um but who the is that a person precedes an importance so the person himself has to um worry about his own Torah study first of all for two reasons number one because he is a Jew and the Jew is obligated to learn and to know the word of God but secondly also as a role model um and that has two aspects a role model being that the child is going to want to emulate you that's what a role model is all about and if he sees a father whose aspirations are primarily materialistic or vacuous in any other way that is not boting well for the of the child but also in order for the father to teach the son because that's the ideal of the Mitzvah of Torah studies when a father learns with the sun in fact that was the initial initial model of Torah study we know the gamor tells us uh in that um Yeshua Ben gamla was the one who laid the foundation for as we know it where where that means that there there is a school there was aan once upon a time um fathers Tau their sons he noticed a problem and maybe I can elaborate on this a little bit sh please the problem that he noticed was that the one who had a father would learn with the father one who had no Father which ostensibly means the orphan right would have no one to learn with so what would be with all of those so instituted okay we're going to change the model we're going to change the Paradigm of Torah study with children rather than it being a fatherson Enterprise it'll be children going and studying in the b raban in the in the house of the rebi which ultimately became the school right W now my understanding is that um there weren't that many orphans in the time of Yeshua Ben gamla it wasn't like there was an epidemic or pandemic maybe we should say these days uh wasn't a time of war yesu was a kohen a high priest in the days of yanai King yanai it was a relatively peaceful time so what's the scoop with the the orphans I believe what he meant when he said the word inlaw of someone who has no father means he had no father available to him for various reasons either the father is ignorant because he didn't get the proper training himself when he was a child or the father's too busy in hard Economic Times you know father holding down a couple of jobs no time to learn and you have a few children at home that makes the problem exponentially more difficult so m love means where the fathers are not around so Jewish society would crumble without there being this this change but this change that this change is something that on the one hand we may appear to want to be proud of on the other hand it's a reflection of a strong deficiency in Jewish Society because when Society our society was up to its ideal it was that Paradigm father learning with son that's the way it should be what he referred to is the bait ofan The House of the father now it was replaced with the bit ran the house of the rabbi but that's a reflection that Society our society has declined and one might say that it's continuing to decline although I'm not sure I don't want to read that kind of a social commentator who says that that's where we're holding right now but uh that's um how how has changed interesting thing by the way is that we are taught that bam wanted to curse the Jewish people out of existence right and the gar tells us this is a passage in Sanhedrin 105b where the says from the blessings of Bel and that are being blessings right that's one that's one of them but from the blessings you also can deduce what he wanted to do when he ostensibly was going to curse B is hasem converted the curses into blessings but what he said you can deduce what he wanted to the negative impact the destructive impact that he wanted to make um so for example when he ended up saying what you just mentioned that's referring to the the and also the Jewish Home According to some right right what he wanted to do is to destroy that model of the home being or the b or the school being uh a source of Torah right so the gar and and the all the other blessings as well it's a reflection of what he wanted to do but theor then says might be raah I don't remember um that all of the blessings that bam ended up pronouncing were upturned except for one and that was M that's only that remained which means that there would always be throughout Jewish history history the Paradigm of the Jewish home teaching the question is or or the Jewish school it would always be a Yesa so I heard I think it was Rabbi Hill David said the following at the heat of the pandemic Co experience have mercy upon us all he said how could you say that the Paradigm of Jewish Education was never impacted and it was never upturned we saw at that time just a few years ago was closed right so he said and I've repeated this numerous times he said that the ohel is not only the Yesa it's also the home and what Hashem perhaps needed to do is to restore in our understanding the role to emphasize against the role again the role of the Jewish Home and the father has in the lives of children whereas once upon a time there was perhaps too much Reliance on the on the Yesa so said you know what we're going to close yiva for a little while so what are the kids going to do they have to learn at home so each living room and every kitchen or every Den in the house became AET or mid or became AA in order to restore the role so the parental role in uh both role modeling and actually teaching where it's possible is is crucial but like we said were that's not always possible so the the rebi who comes in and fills the role of the father is considered as if he brought that child into the world first of all but besides that that's how we're compensating for weaknesses in the parenting Paradigm powerful RAB we know that when hears that Y is still alive they're about to go to MIT into Egypt he sends UDA ahead of them why does he send udah ahead of them simply because to go to Goan to build Yesa importance of Tora the importance of learning the importance of sending kids to Yesa that's especially we're busy at over here at kak unfortunately there's still a pandemic I guess we'll call it with thousands of families that still send their kids from to public schools and our mission is to get these kids into after school program Su school programs teens programs are youth center but most importantly to transfer them to over 1,500 kids already the last few years alone were already chance and the vision is that we have to do more to learn Tora to teach Tora to send kids to so we have Tora Klein is a final message if you could uh give us that last of inspiration when we had so much we appreciate it I guess the final message would be this that um a nation without a basic fundamental Constitution if I can use that word uh is doomed to not exist in fact all of the nations of antiquity certainly those who were put into Exile by oppressive kingdoms or Empires do not exist anymore that's right there's only one exception to that rule and that is am am isra Jewish people ROV of Emin once uh he he put out a cter called sov and he wrote an introduction it's a long introduction it's called the sulam B kale which is of course the latter at B kale which Yakov dreamt of when he came there and it's mostly about the Jewish experience that's what the introduction is of that that sit the sulum deals with Jewish existence in history and near the beginning of the introduction says I believe he says it seems to me that far greater than what we usually deem to be the greatest miracles in the history of the Jewish people such as The Parting of the Red Sea K yamu and the the the plagues in MIM in Egypt and anything else that we customarily think great Nim they were of course they were but far greater than any of those Miracles is the miracle of continued Jewish existence despite all the adversity despite all of the Exiles despite all you know Against All Odds so the question is okay that's very nice so on the one hand that's Hashem preserving us right so the miracle is hashem's performing the miracle but there has to be something in which the miracle or the blessing can descend into there has to be a utensil that can a CLE that can be Mel that accepts the Bro from sh and of course we are the bro but we only become a br when we have Torah because the Torah gives us the fiber we making us able to accept the blessings from above and I'll perhaps be uh I'll conclude this particular piece by saying that really to be um a utensil if you compare the human face to the idea of a utensil you know that a smile makes it look like a utensil that if there's not a smile and there's a frown whatever comes from above does not land in anywhere there's no receptacle so the t is the Torah and its statutes and its ideas are worth glad in the heart that's that's why we learn on TSH that's exactly why we don't learn on TSH this is the highest level of joy in the Jewish existence so that's why by holding on to the Tyra we glad Gladden ourselves and by glading ourselves we remain to be those utensils which have the potential to accept the blessings from Hashem and may those blessings continue to come BFA in great abundance upon us all upon you upon your brother and all those who are important in project kazak and all the other um Endeavors that Kel has to save [Music] itself just to add a smile as a CR line that makes a lot of things straight it's a very nice quote and regards to the CLE CLE the letter is spelled out when the Jewish people are all United one together it's a vessel for blessing there was a that said over one time that always wants to give us just like a parent he has a jug of uh ice cream and he wants to give to the child but the child's Bowl falls on the floor and it became muddy would the child would the parent put the ice cream into the muddy bowl of course not so same thing with God Almighty he wants to give to us but sometimes our CLE is a little bit muddy with sin in order for us to receive we have to try our very best to remove the mud and to clean ourselves up the cleaner we are through Tora which the RAB mentioned so beauly the more blessings will able to come onto us and like the topic of Jewish Education should be able to educate our children in the ways of the Tor we should from all our children and grandchildren great grandchildren all we should want to thank our dear audience talks Tuesday nights 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time k.org along with all the podcast players and special thank you to Torah anytime our friends at Daily giving a dollar a day goes very far away thanks to them as well to Natan and Robie and the entire kazak operation and team and staff and and board members and supporters we're forever grateful please continue getting involved with the Holy work of kazak amazing Torah talk we had today with Klein and we look forward to many many more suggestions are always welcome info chq.org info chq.org support is always welcome is.org chq.org please be part of it let's change the world bring the G in here thank [Music] you