In general, when kids went to the Rebbe along with their fathers, the Rebbe would ask these sorts of questions. But from my Bar Mitzvah and on, I began asking the Rebbe questions that I had. The custom in those days was that yeshivah students were able to meet with the Rebbe on the occasion of their birthdays, and I had the great merit of going every year from my Bar Mitzvah until I got married in 1972, and then a couple more times after that.
During these audiences — which would last a couple of minutes — the Rebbe would answer my questions. I would ask about issues of concern for a yeshivah student, such as how to observe a particular Chabad custom, about what area of Torah I should study, about how I prayed, about my inner struggles, or about dealing with the yetzer hara — the Evil Inclination.
One year, in response to a question about those struggles, the Rebbe recommended taking a few chasidic discourses that focus on developing one’s character — as opposed to the more abstract, intellectual subjects that Chabad Chasidut often focuses on — and reviewing them several times.
A chasidic mentor then suggested two particular discourses — one from the Rebbe and another from the Previous Rebbe — and I learned them enthusiastically. But, with time, their effect began to wear off.
So when I went back for my audience the next year, I wrote in my note that it wasn’t working anymore, and I asked what else I should do to help me with my spiritual struggles.
“Take a photograph of my father-in-law,” said the Rebbe in reply, referring to the Previous Rebbe. “When things are difficult and you feel you are being tested, look at the photograph, and that will remind you that the Rebbe is always looking at you, and that the Rebbe is there. When you reflect on that, it will help you.”
On another occasion, I asked about the attribute of ahavat yisrael, of having love for a fellow Jew. When I asked the Rebbe how I could develop this feeling within myself, he referred me to Derech Mitzvotecha, a work from the third Rebbe of Chabad that analyzes the mitzvot in the light of chasidic thought. The Rebbe told me to study the chapter about this commandment, and then to think it over from time to time.
Years later, after I got married and became a full-time teacher at the Lubavitch Cheder of Detroit, I asked the Rebbe about how to help my students develop good character, and got slightly different advice.
I was teaching little kids, from five to ten years old, and felt that the main thing I should be doing was providing a good chasidic education. That is, teaching good personal traits like ahavat yisrael and yirat shamayim — a pious fear of Heaven — was considered even more important than teaching the Talmud or other Torah texts.
So, in a letter, I asked the Rebbe about it: “How can I implant yirat shamayim in my students?”
I didn’t get an answer right away, and after a few months had passed, I stopped expecting one. But the Rebbe still kept the question in mind. In response to another letter I had written to notify him of the recent birth of one of my children, I received a letter with the Rebbe’s standard blessings that he would send on such occasions, and at the bottom there was additional note:
“In answer to your question about implanting yirat shamayim in one’s students: lehar’ot dugma chaya — by showing a living example.”
In other words, if I wanted to have an influence on my students, it wouldn’t be by lecturing them but by being a living example of how they should act. I didn’t need to search for any tricks or shortcuts.
Rabbi Bentzion Stein serves as the executive director of Detroit’s Lubavitch Cheder, where he first began teaching in 1974. He was interviewed in March 2025.
