Educating a camp

Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week Sponsored in honor of Elisheva Brusowankin's Bas Mitzvah To Sponsor the story of the week, Contact Mendy at 513-456-7595 In the Fall of 1969 shortly before I became a choson, Rabbi Yosef Rosenfeld, the Director/Administrator/Principal of Oholei Torah approached me and asked me to accept a position in the yeshiva as a melamed.  I said I would agree with two conditions. The first condition was that he understands and respects my decision that it is only for one year because I planned on going on shlichus. And he must give me his word that even if at the end of the year he considers me to be a fabulous teacher he will not intimate in any way to the Rebbe that he wants or needs me as a teacher which would ruin any chance of the Rebbe allowing me to leave a teaching job to go on shlichus.  The second condition was that he would give me the 3rd grade (at that time it was the 6- 7 year old boys) -- the class that was beginning to learn Chumash with Rashi's commentary. The reason I wanted that specific grade was because it was only a few years earlier that the Rebbe had begun speaking his famed Rashi Sichos in which he would ask mind boggling questions that the Rebbe insisted that a 5 year old child first beginning to learn Chumash and Rashi would ask these questions. I was curious to see first-hand if the Rebbe was referring to a 5 year old of the Rebbe’s caliber or any 5 year old serious student. Rabbi Rosenfeld agreed to both conditions, so I taught the 3rd grade in Oholei Torah for that year.  It seems that my methods of teaching, though maybe a bit “out of the box,” were somewhat successful. An example – every day I would choose the student who learnt and was on the best behavior that day and gave him a special reward. The reward? I would call his parent(s) and tell them that because he was the best behaved that day and had learnt well, I was going to keep him in for an extra 45 minutes. I would drive him to 770 where I would privately learn with him in the Bais Hamidrash with the “big boys” (bachurim.) That was the reward, learning privately with his rebbi for an extra half an hour. How the boys worked hard every day for that zchus. [Yes, the parents were flabbergasted, but I never heard a complaint against it].  In order to encourage the boys to ask questions I set up a point system. For any question asked, (even one that showed the child had not been listening,) I gave 1 point. For a better question I gave 2 points. If the question was of the caliber of Rashi’s questions or what the Rebbe would ask, I gave 3 points. In order to get the children to also think of answers, as the Rebbe would explain what Rashi would take for granted that the child would understand on his own, I would give points for answers on questions that were asked. The points for the answers were double the points given for the questions, (a 1 point question got 2 points for the answer; a 3 point question got 6 points for the answer.) Taking into consideration that not all children have similar “analytical” minds, and to give all children an “equal opportunity” to earn points, I also had a point system for memorizing pesukim by heart. Every few months I would give out prizes based on the amount of points earned.  For the first couple of months the questions might have been considered “foolish” or just a case of not paying attention, but I always gave at least 1 point to encourage them to keep asking. It didn’t take long. Within 2 months, I started getting questions that would send me home with serious “homework” to find the answers. Two particular questions stand out. Both were asked on the same posukim in Chumash. Both were great questions that I put in the category of what the Rebbe would refer to as “klutz kashes.” The first one was very good, but once it was asked, the answer struck me as the obvious answer, and why Rashi would assume that the child would be able to answer it on his own (which is why Rashi did not have to forewarn it.) The 2nd question, took me 22 years to find the answer!?! Twenty-two years later, I had the unique nachas that it was my own daughter who gave me the answer.  First of all, due credit where credit is due. The two boys who asked these two questions. Unfortunately, I don’t remember which boy asked which question, but both questions were 3 pointers. The two boys were Eliezer Mangel a”h (son of Rabbi Nisan Mangel yblcht”a. In his early 20’s, as a shliach in New Jersey he was killed in a car crash, may he be a meilitz yosher for his family and klal Yisroel); the second boy was my nephew Heshy Spalter (yblcht”a) shliach to Costa Rica. Both questions were about Yoseph’s two dreams.  The first question was on the first dream. In the first dream Yoseph was out in the field with his 10 brothers gathering wheat into stalks, when suddenly his brothers’ stalks surrounded his stalk and bowed to his stalk. This 6 year old boy asked what should have been an obvious question to everyone. We just learnt in the Torah that Yoseph and his brothers were shepherds, not farmers. It should have been their sheep surrounding his sheep, where did wheat suddenly enter the picture? As soon as he asked the question, I realized the answer, but the question was a good question, a question that showed this boy was thinking. The answer, of course, was that what was going to be the cause of Yoseph’s brothers bowing down to him, was during the famine that was going to bring his brothers to buy wheat in Egypt. Rashi did not have to forewarn this question because he knew that every Jewish child, even before entering cheder, is brought up hearing these stories from their mothers. Now for the 2nd question, that took me 22 years to find the answer. The 2nd boy (also 6 years old) asked “why the difference between the two dreams?” In the first dream the brothers’ representation (the wheat) bowed to Yoseph’s representation (his wheat.) In the 2nd dream, the sun, moon and stars (their representations) bowed to “li” – me (Yoseph himself not his representation.) Imagine a 6 year old boy picking up on this difference!?! As I mentioned, for 22 years I searched for an answer. I went to numerous people, many of them rabbis. I asked Rabbi Mangel, I asked my oldest brother (who used to “Koch zich” in the Rebbe’s Rashi sichos, etc. But could not find a satisfying answer. There were those who tried giving answers but they were too intricate, and following the Rebbe’s teachings I knew the answer had to be so simple that a 6 year old would find the answer on his own, which is why Rashi doesn’t ask the question. Twenty-two years later, my daughter became a teacher. I wanted to get across to her the responsibility that a teacher has to “format” the child’s mind and train them to ask questions. So I told her my experience with teaching and mentioned the above story ending off with the fact that I never found the answer to this question. She turned to me in surprise and said “the answer is quite obvious: In the first dream it’s referring to the first time the brothers came to Egypt. At that time they had no inkling that the ruler in front of them was their own brother Yoseph. They only knew him as the ruler in Egypt who provided them with wheat. Thus they were bowing to what he represented. In the 2nd dream it was the sun and the moon, which represented Yaakov and Bilha as well. When Yaakov and his whole family came down to Egypt everyone already knew that the ruler was Yoseph, so they bowed to Yoseph himself. As soon as I heard the answer, I knew that was the elusive answer I was searching for. An "obvious" answer that Rashi did not have to forewarn. The Torah tells us that everyone has “chidushim” that are reserved for them to discover. However, once the chidush is brought into the world then it is open for everyone to find, even if they didn’t hear it from the source. I saw this with my own eyes with this story. I was so excited to have found the answer to this question that had bothered me for 22 years, that I looked up every one of my students from that year and told them that I finally learnt the answer to that question. (Of course, I had to first remind them of the question). I also mentioned it to those whom I had asked and hadn’t gotten the right answer. When I mentioned it to my oldest brother, (I, of course, had to first reiterate the question,) but before I could say anything further my brother said oh that’s obvious and gave me the exact answer that my daughter had already said. Thus I learned first hand, that if children are trained right, they will ask the questions the Rebbe pointed out, and not only the geniuses. 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