The Rebbe explained the first step in education is for the educator to show a living example in his personal conduct. This is always the best way to influence another person. Furthermore, human nature is such that to influence a student to do something, the educator must do it to a greater degree, since the student considers himself to be less advanced and thinks he can live at a lower standard than his teacher. So too, the educator must speak “words that come from the heart.” This will cause his words to “enter the heart.”
On another occasion the Rebbe added: The beginning of education is to educate a child with a strong foundation—that he is a son of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, who are the same fathers of his parents, his grandparents and of all Jews. In order to implant this feeling in his pupils, the teachers must act accordingly, because a child does not understand play-acting (“chochmot”). When he sees that he is told one thing, and then finds his teacher acting differently, not only is that lesson undermined, but moreover he loses trust in his teacher completely.
Image of a Chassid
Reb Michael Beliner ("Michael der Alter") of Nevl was a mashpia in the Yeshivah in Lubavitch. When he grew old and weak and could no longer teach the students, Reb Leizer Kaplan, the administrator of the yeshiva, asked the Rebbe Rashab for permission to stop paying Reb Michael his weekly salary of five rubles.
The Rebbe Rashab told him, “for me it is worth the money in order that he should stay, and the students will be able to watch him. He is a tziyur (image) of an old chassid.”
The Previous Rebbe writes: A person doesn’t have a choice about the children that are born to him, but he does have a choice about how he raises them, by having them educated according to the Torah by teachers who are G-d fearing.
Igniting the Heart
In a letter the Rebbe advises the administration of a yeshiva that was having difficulty recruiting students on how to make their yeshiva sought after: “Attracting new students and encouraging them to remain in yeshiva depends on the heads of the yeshiva and the teachers. It is quite obvious that merely teaching students at designated times, and even farbrenging with them occasionally, does not suffice. Torah is not like other subjects; it must be alive and all-encompassing, by the students and more so by the teachers.
“If the heads of the yeshiva and teachers learned Torah in this manner, the yeshiva would no doubt become legendary throughout Eretz Yisrael. Young people would come banging on the doors, begging to be allowed to listen in to classes that capture them and energize them with chassidishe zeal and warmth. This liveliness can be achieved not only when teaching Tanya and Chassidus, but even when teaching alef-bet.”
reprinted from The Weekly Farbrengen by Merkaz Anash, on-line at TheWeeklyFarbrengen.com
