CHINUCH WITH PURE OIL

A lecture by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Gluckowsky, rav of the Chabad community in Rechovos, in which he tells us how to purify our homes of the idols of our times and how to “illuminate” our mitzvos.

Prepared for publication by R Studnitz

The Rebbe asks in a sicha, why was the miracle of the oil necessary when according to Halacha it was permissible to light the menora with impure oil until they obtained pure oil? One of the answers given is “in order to show love for the Jewish people,” i.e. since Jews were Moser Nefesh during the period of evil decrees, Hashem responded in kind and broke the laws of nature and made a miracle.

The Rebbe however extracts a different lesson from this, namely that Chanuka is from the root “chinuch,” and from the youngest of ages we need to provide children with uncompromising chinuch. Yes, there are times when leniencies are permitted, but when it comes to chinuch, we shouldn’t rely on them. Chinuch needs to be uncompromising, pure olive oil.

When I began thinking about it, I was reminded of a couple who came to consult with me about their daughter. She was around fifteen years old and attended a Chassidishe school, but her Yiras Shamayim wasn’t that great. The parents had only negative things to say about the school. (Some say that when children do well in school, it’s thanks to the home and the family; if they don’t do well, it’s the school’s fault. Whenever I hear complaints directly solely at the school, I say, “One minute, what about this child or that child who learned there and turned out well?” The answer I get is, “Of course, from a Chassidishe family like that they will turn out that way.”)

I listened to what they had to say while knowing that their home wasn’t of the type that could be called “a pure jug of oil.” I asked the mother, “What kind of reading material do you have in the house? What kind of newspapers do you allow into the house?” (This conversation took place nearly twenty years ago, before the Internet age, which is why I asked about reading material).

She blushed and blustered, “What happens in my bedroom has nothing to do with my children!”

I said, “You are making a mistake. You think your children don’t know what you’re up to?”

“The actions of the fathers are a portent for the children,” and Chazal say, “the power of the son is greater than (alternate translation/meaning: derives from) the power of the father.” If parents live lives of compromise, their children absorb that and act accordingly. If you cut corners in Yiddishkait, they learn to do the same. If you teach them that not everything needs to be done as written and there are two different things, the first is written in s’farim and second is the way we live, then a child will quickly learn that this is a rule for life and apply it as he wishes.

There are certainly improvements that can be made in our schools, but we need to start fixing that which is under our control. Our home is under our control and we need to take an honest look at what kind of house we have, what sort of atmosphere there is, and see whether the oil is pure or not.

THROW THE PRIEST OUT OF THE HOUSE

In the “Al HaNissim” prayer that we say on Chanuka, it says: “And they cleansed Your Temple, purified Your Sanctuary, kindled lights in Your holy courts …” When they wanted to dedicate the Mikdash, they first needed to cleanse it of idols that the Greeks put there. This is something we need to do in our own lives; we need to ensure that our homes are clean of idols. Today, Boruch Hashem, there are no idols as there were in the past, but there are modern idols that we bring into the “holy courts” and I am referring to books, newspapers and technology.

Some people think that in Chassidus we only focus on the good and less on the “turn away from evil,” but the Rebbe wrote and spoke on many occasions addressing situations that call for “veering from evil.” A television was expensive in the 50’s, and only wealthy people bought one. A decade later, they were manufacturing it in a way that brought down the price and made it affordable for the average person. The Rebbe, in a sicha, described what happens when a television is brought into the home. In America, Sundays are a day off and so people go to sleep late on Motzaei Shabbos. Sunday morning, parents sleep late and their little children wake up before they do and watch television. What’s on television early Sunday morning? Broadcasts of Christian religious services. So while their parents sleep, the preacher is let into their home. The Rebbe gives an extreme example so we can understand what this can lead to.

I once repeated this sicha in a shul in a Rechovos. A man exclaimed, “I must tell you what happened to me!” This man was from South America and had become a baal t’shuva. His mother once came to visit and brought a gift for her grandchildren – a VCR.

“I wasn’t sure whether I wanted this machine in my home,” he said, “but I gave in, since we could use it to watch videos of the Rebbe. The Christian holiday was a few days ago. The children were wild and my wife asked me to put in a video of the Rebbe to calm them down. I saw that the video was not in the machine and I went out of the room to look for it. It took me five minutes to find it. When I returned to the room I was shocked at what I saw. The children were watching the Christian holiday worship in Bethlehem! Somehow, the machine picked it up. I quickly inserted the video of the Rebbe and forgot about what I had seen. Now, a few days later, here I am in shul at the farbrengen and you’re telling us that the Rebbe said that by bringing a television into the house, it’s like allowing a Christian minister into your house. I can testify that this happened to me!”

This might be an extreme case, but the Rebbe wants to let us know that these gadgets bring things into our homes that we would never otherwise allow in.

INTERNET – OPENING THE DOOR TO THE OUTSIDE

The Internet is part of the problem. In Halacha there are two customs about where to put the Chanuka menora. Chabad custom is to put it in one of the doorways inside the home. According to this, the main pirsumei nisa (publicizing of the miracle) is to one’s household. According to the other custom, the main pirsumei nisa is to the outside and the menorah is lit near the window (or outdoors).

The truth is that today, there is a third place where we can place the menorah – next to the computer. That is definitely what we can consider “the doorway of the home to the outside!” With the Internet, you bring the street into your house, and what a street! If the Internet has no filter, G-d forbid, not only is the street in your house, the entire world is there. And then we want our children to grow up Chassidish … You want your child to be an angel? Then why do you act like a human being and expect him to be an angel? It doesn’t work that way. You think he doesn’t know that his father is on the computer two hours a day and what he does there? Why shouldn’t he do what you do?

Some have given up and some ask whether it is really possible to deal with this. There is a story of a person who went to a movie theater while wearing a large hat. He sat in the front row. People asked him to take off his hat which was blocking their view, but he refused. The crowd was annoyed and demanded that he remove his hat. Instead of taking it off, he said, “I have a reason for doing this.” They may have thought there was some ideology for what he did, but they continued to insist that he remove his hat so they could see the screen.

The argument continued until finally someone went over to the man and grabbed the hat off his head. They all saw that the man was bald. They said to him, “Because you’re bald, you had to turn this into a philosophy?! Say that you’re bald; don’t say ‘there’s a reason.’”

The same is true here. We trip up here and there, and we haven’t reached the level of Dovid HaMelech who got rid of his yetzer ha’ra, but to make it a philosophy?! A way of life? To say it’s in the house L’chat’chilla?!

When I speak about this, some tell me I’m living in the Middle Ages. “You use a cell phone and fly on a plane, unlike your grandfather who traveled to Lubavitch with a horse and wagon, and the Internet is the same thing. It is part of our lives today.” Someone said this to me whom I consider very Chassidish.

I can understand the difficulty of not having it, and I can understand that people sometimes trip up, but say it the way it is and don’t make it into something essential that we can’t do without. Parents have a yetzer ha’ra, but at least let the children grow up in an atmosphere of purity in which they know that their parents are serious, even if they stumble occasionally.

When speaking about “pure oil,” it means to do the maximum within our control. That way, this world won’t have such a hold on them, for they grew up in a home in which they saw what was important and what was trivial, and this will be the way they act in their own homes in the future.

MAKING MITZVOS SHINE

The continuation of the “Al HaNissim” says, “And they lit lights in the courtyards of Your Sanctuary.” After we’ve cleared the Mikdash of idols, we need to ensure that there is light in the house, that our lives of Torah and mitzvos are illuminated with light, chayus, and simcha.

Here is a simple example:

Someone asked me, since we should go on mivtzaim and light menorahs in other locations, when should the menorah be lit at home? “If I light as soon as the sun sets, I won’t be able to sit for half an hour because I’ll need to rush out on mivtzaim.” Indeed, one needs to sit with the lights for half an hour and the Rebbe Rayatz said we need to listen to what the lights are telling us. So what should he do?

I told him, “If you are not returning home too late and your family will still be awake, it is preferable for you to light after mivtzaim because the Chanuka atmosphere at home is no less important. Light the candles and then sit for at least half an hour with the family, eat latkes or doughnuts, listen together to the story of the lights, sing some Chanuka songs, and recount the miracles of Chanuka. You can also learn the halachos and customs of Chanuka together. It is your opportunity to reach your own family. This is called “illuminating the mitzva.” This is Chanuka at home; that the mitzva is illuminated, as opposed to lighting and immediately dashing out. When you do it right, people see that something special is going on. The “big deal” you make of lighting the menorah is something which will leave a deep impression on a child.

If you light on time, as it says to do in Halacha, and then you immediately run out to do mivtzaim, it will look as though you’re just doing the mitzva to get it over with. How do you want your children to relate to the mitzva?

TO END WITH SIMCHA

Another way to make mitzvos shine with chayus and simcha is something I learned from my father a”h, who was a teacher in an elementary school in America. When I was sitting Shiva, someone who had worked with my father came and told me the following story:

“Once, when your father went to the Rebbe for Yud Shevat, he asked me to substitute for him for two months in the third grade class that he taught. I agreed and taught Parshas VaYeitzei. Each boy read a pasuk until we reached the final pasuk of the parsha. I asked one of the boys to read it and all the boys shouted: That’s not how we finish the parsha!

“I asked them what they usually did. They told me that their teacher taught them to make a siyum at the end of each parsha and the way they did it was by public auction. The final pasuk was auctioned off and the money collected was used to make a siyum with the remainder going to tz’daka.

“I was very surprised. I would not have thought of an auction for the third grade, but since this is what was done, we began the auction which ended up raising $1.75. Two children bid over the final sum and the last pasuk was sold for $1.77 (by the way, the two final bidders are leaders today of Jewish communities). The boy who won had to bring the money in the following day. They bought refreshments (in 1953 there was a lot you could buy for $1.77 and still have money left over) and the boy stood in front of the entire class and recited the last pasuk. Then we had the siyum-party.”

When I heard this story, it made a tremendous impression on me. I began thinking about how many Mishnayos, Parshiyos and chapters of Gemara our children learn and finish, and where are we? Sleeping.

Some time later, I came across a book about G’dolei Yisroel of the past generation. One of the famous roshei yeshiva writes there that when he was nine years old, he came home one day from yeshiva and mentioned to his mother that they had finished the Chapter HaMafkid in Bava Metzia that day.

He then went to his room and stayed there for half an hour. When he emerged, he saw a white tablecloth on the dining room table, candles, and the smell of a cake baking in the oven. His mother was wearing Shabbos clothes. He was sure an important guest was coming but his mother said there was no guest.

“You said you finished HaMafkid so we are going to celebrate,” she said. This rosh yeshiva continued, “That is when I learned what cherishing Torah learning means. When I saw the white tablecloth, the candlesticks, the cake and the Shabbos clothes, I realized that something big had happened that day, that I finished a perek of Gemara.”

The same is true for the Shabbos table. You need to makes efforts on Erev Shabbos so that the meal won’t just consist of tasty food, but there will also be some stories and Divrei Torah appropriate for children, so that there will be spiritual food and the Shabbos table will be illuminated. I can show you my father’s copy of Rabbi Zevin’s Chassidic Tales in which he made a mark next to each story that is suitable for children so that every year, he had stories ready for the Shabbos table.

That’s called giving chayus to the mitzva, making a mitzva shine. At home, we have endless opportunities to do this.

These are only a few examples. If we want children to “live” with Torah and mitzvos, then we need to live with them; because today, in the big world, everything sparkles with the chayus and pleasure of the “other side.” It’s not enough that we clear out the idols; we also need to bring in light, and it depends on us.

May Hashem help us take strength from Chanuka so that we have both “they cleansed Your Temple” and “they lit lights in the courtyards of Your Sanctuary.” If we are illuminated, then we can light up our children, the environment, and the world around us, wherever we go.