In Shulchan Aruch there is no section entitled “Hilchos Chinuch,” but we need to know the principles of chinuch. One of those principles is that when a child comes home with a “Student of the Week” certificate and the parents show great excitement over it, or when a child finishes a masechta and the parents make a festive seudas mitzva to celebrate, this inspires him to continue growing in Yiddishkait. He will remember it forever.
SHULCHAN ARUCH FOR CHINUCH
The Shulchan Aruch and poskim address all aspects of life. So it’s really extraordinary that when it comes to the chinuch of Jewish children, something that preoccupies parents for most of their lives, there is no Shulchan Aruch! There are “Laws of Teachers” and detailed laws about the obligation to teach one’s children Torah, but no clear, organized Halachos about how parents should raise and educate children.
The Beis Yosef incorporated all aspects of a Jew’s life within the four parts of Shulchan Aruch, from Orach Chaim to Choshen Mishpat. Why aren’t there Hilchos Chinuch?
The truth is that whoever has even some experience in chinuch knows that every child is another world and every generation is different, which is why principles of chinuch were established. In every era there are mechanchim who teach various approaches to chinuch based on them. The principles are always there, but the rules change from era to era.
Why is this so? We will answer with the following story. There was a father who merited to raise good, G-d fearing children, except for one child who went off the derech. The father, deeply troubled by this, went to one of the great rabbanim and mechanchim and said: I don’t know what happened. I raised all my children the same way, investing all my kochos in all the children equally, so why was I unsuccessful with this child? Where did I go wrong?
Said the rav: You just answered your question. You just said you raised them all the same; that was not good chinuch, because each child is unique and has to be educated in his own way.
A melamed I know told me that he taught the children of a well-known mechanech who was considered an expert in chinuch. At the beginning of the school year, the father told him: This child of mine – don’t be too friendly with him. If you start being friendly, you’ll lose him. He needs rules; that’s his nature and that’s the only way you’ll succeed with him.
With another child of his the father said: This child is the opposite of his brother. You can’t talk rules to him. Get into pleasant conversations with him and you’ll be successful. And it was true, because the father knew that each child was different and the teacher was very successful with both of them.
This is why, when it comes to chinuch, the Torah itself demonstrates that there aren’t rules, but instead instructs us to “educate the boy according to his way.” Every child has his method. We have to invest time, effort and serious thought; the parents need to know what makes each child tick and what his character traits are, and approach him based on that.
HOW DOES A BACHUR BECOME A FATHER?
When it comes to chinuch, there is a very interesting point which people often don’t think about. A bachur in his early twenties leaves yeshiva without being taught anything about raising children. Then he suddenly has a family with children to raise. It would seem to be a recipe for disaster. Can you imagine someone starting to drive without having any driving lessons? It’s sakanas nefashos!
How does a bachur become a father or a teacher? The answer is very simple. There are things you don’t need to learn from a book; being a father is one of them. Although mistakes can be made, Hashem implanted within each person the talent and abilities necessary to raise children, and this is called siyata d’Shmaya.
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai spoke to his students before he passed regarding a person who sins. A person only sins when he says he will sin “if only nobody sees me.” This is because there are things that by nature a person senses are problematic. He knows they aren’t good. The Alter Rebbe explains this in Tanya; a Jew in his purest state has no desire for forbidden things, i.e. a Jew is inherently pure and unsullied. So it means that every Jew has the necessary powers to carry out the G-dly mission for which he came down to this world, but due to the confusion that prevails in the world, sometimes he needs extra direction.
Of course, with all the goodwill one might have, in our generation there are difficulties with parnasa and most parents work hard outside the home, which dulls their natural abilities somewhat. So we cannot rely on natural talent alone and parents have to constantly invest time in learning current chinuch techniques.
MAKING A “BIG DEAL” ABOUT TORAH AND MITZVOS
We all want our children to go in the ways of Torah and mitzvos. However, the knowledge of right and wrong alone is insufficient. In connection with Shavuos, the Rebbeim would wish the Chassidim, “Kabbalas ha’Torah b’simcha u’b’p’nimius.” In order to receive the Torah, it has to be done with simcha and p’nimius. The ways of Torah must be internalized and practiced with passion and joy. Since our children are our guarantors, our involvement in their chinuch needs to be done with simcha and p’nimius. This is how we instill the sweetness of the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos in our children.
The Gemara in Shabbos says that every mitzva that the Jewish people accepted with joy endured. Simcha has a special power, for with it we express the supreme importance of the mitzvos in our eyes. Similarly, any time we show great excitement and joy over an accomplishment or milestone, we are expressing how important it is to us. When parents make a Siddur Party or Chumash Party for their child, they make the Siddur and Chumash important to the child. We need to take every matter of holiness (not only at school), every Jewish thing, and every new mitzva a child starts to do, and make it into something very important.
Many children will say their first memory is of their upsheren, because that was an event full of excitement and emotion. So too with older children; a child who returns home with a masechta of Mishnayos that he learned has to have a festive meal made for him with all the trimmings, so he sees that at home his parents consider this important. This is something that will spur him on in the future. Everything that his parents make a point of noticing and show plenty of positive feedback for is remembered.
As Chassidim, if we look at what the Rebbe did, we see that the Rebbe taught us to conduct ourselves in this way. I remember that at the beginning of the takana regarding learning Rambam, the Rebbe spoke about what should be done for siyumim, namely that they should take place “b’rov am hadras melech” with great pomp, all over the world.
Since this is a siyum of learning Halachos in Torah, said the Rebbe, a “big deal” had to be made, with a lot of publicity, because that underscores the importance.
The Gemara asks: why did the churban take place? And it answers: because they abandoned My Torah, i.e. they learned Torah but did not value it highly enough.
WHAT WILL THE CHILD REMEMBER AND WHAT WILL HE FORGET?
The story is told of R’ Nachum of Chernobyl, one of the great disciples of the holy Baal Shem Tov, who went to a town and was asked to be the sandak for a certain family. He agreed, and after the bris he was given some pieces of sugar and a small bottle of mashke without mezonos. He was taken aback and asked, “What’s this about? This is a bris!” It turned out the family was so poor that they did not have money for more than that.
R’ Nachum said, “This is not the way to celebrate a bris.” He asked everyone in the community to participate in arranging a seuda. He covered most of the cost, insisting that a big seuda with fish and meat be served as was fitting for bringing a baby into the covenant of Avrohom Avinu. They did so, baking challa and cooking fish and meat, and a grand seuda was held later in the day.
In the middle of the meal, R’ Nachum explained why he felt it necessary to make a large feast for the bris. He said, “Before Rosh HaShana there were terrible accusations and decrees made against the Jewish people because there were more sins than mitzvos. The angel Michoel maintained that even though there were many sins, all the mitzvos should be weighed as compared to sins. When they put the mitzva of bris on the scale, Michoel insisted that although it is just one mitzva, a big seuda is made and everyone works together to prepare it and this itself outweighs a number of sins. So I don’t want to forgo this mitzva.”
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The Satan is called Malach Sama-el. Sama-el in Hebrew is an acronym for Seudas Mitzva Ein Laasos (don’t make a seudas mitzva), and Siyum Masechta Ein Laasos (don’t make a siyum when completing a masechta), and Seudas Mila Ein Laasos (don’t make a festive meal for a bris). The Satan says, “If you want to learn, so learn; but don’t make a big deal out of it. Don’t make a seuda.”
This principal is especially true at home. When a child comes home with a “Talmid HaShavua” certificate, or we see that he davened nicely, even without a certificate, we need to make a big deal about it to highlight its importance. A child did something good, so treat it as something important. It gives the child the desire to continue in that direction because his parents consider it important.
These things become engraved in their minds. Whatever is done without emotion is forgotten; whatever is done with attention, with a commotion, is remembered and remains in their hearts.
PERSONAL EXAMPLE TIPS THE SCALE
There was a Chassidishe businessman who had a lot of cash on him. One day he got a bundle of bills and when he counted it he discovered, to his dismay, that one 100 dollar bill was counterfeit. What did he do with it? The easy way out would have been to pass it along with the bundle of bills, just the way he got it. But that would be stealing. So when the children came home from school, he welcomed them with a festive meal, and when the children sat around the table he told them he was going to do a big mitzva.
He took the counterfeit bill out of the bundle of hundred dollar bills and said to them: “See this, this is a bill I cannot pass along. People won’t necessarily realize it’s counterfeit. Even though nobody will know if I pass it along, it is nevertheless forbidden to do so because that would be stealing. So we are gathered here now so we can rejoice over this mitzva.” The father asked all the children to hold on to the edge of the bill and he lit a match and set the hundred dollar bill on fire.
That’s not the end of the story. Twenty years passed and one of his children bought a house from inheritors of an old woman who had died. The heirs said to the son, “Our mother was elderly and we fixed up the house as much as we could. We found some things she left behind in the house, but we were not able to find everything. If you find any more of her things, would you please pass it along to us?”
A few years later, the son decided to renovate the house, in the course of which one of the walls was taken down. To his surprise, he found three gold bars and bundles of bills. A veritable treasure. What should he do?
On the one hand, he could assume that the heirs had long given up hope, but then he remembered the special seuda his father had made when the son was a little boy, over twenty years ago. His father had burned a counterfeit hundred dollar bill and he was reminded of how important it is to do mitzvos and not swindle people.
The son also gathered his family and showed them the three gold bars and bundles of bills, and in their presence he called the inheritors and returned everything that belonged to them.
WHAT BOTHERED THE HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR?
A similar story took place with a Jew in Europe before the war. World War II began when he was on vacation and he had to quickly procure a large sum of money with which to escape. While at the vacation spot he met a Jew who loaned him money with which he was able to leave Poland for Russia. He ultimately was saved along with his children and he eventually reached America.
But he was bothered by the fact that he owed money and could not find the man he owed it to. After the war he made inquiries about the man, but based on all the information he could gather, the man had been killed. He was upset that he could not repay the loan.
Another ten, fifteen years went by before he met a certain man with the same family name as the person from whom he had borrowed money. He figured out that this was the nephew of the man who had loaned him the money. He asked whether the man’s uncle had any other relatives and the man said he was the only one to survive.
He was so happy to meet a member of the family. He paid him the loan and had the entire family join him in a festive meal to celebrate the repayment of the loan he took at the outbreak of the war. This strongly impressed the children regarding the importance of repaying a loan.
This is what is meant by simcha and p’nimius. When we educate a Jewish child with simcha, it penetrates and permeates him.