well, like i said in another thread, i’ve been to quite a few speeches lately…so here’s what i have to say- from a rabbi we all know and love. People need to be recognized, acknowledged, they want to know they are noticed. He gave the example of Boaz and Rus. Rus was a moavi and she was in the field and Boaz saw her and naomi and the first thing he said to them was “Hashem should be with you” and then he asked naomi who the other girl was, and when she said who she was, boaz called rus “my daughter”. and he told her he wouldn’t let anyone touch her….and in the end rus ended up being zoche to be the grandmother of Dovid Hamelech, ultimately, of mashiach. Because she told boaz “because you recognized me, because you care about me, i’m going to work so hard to become the best i can be…” and she obviously did. So what the Rabbi was saying- first of all, can you imagine how much nicer life would be if we started our day telling ppl “Hashem should be with you” whether parents to children, rebbeim and teachers to student, children to parents and rebbeim- whoever it is, can you imagine how good that feels as opposed to “ok class take our your textbooks, ur gonna be tested on this” or “moishy you forgot your homework, where’s your lunch?????? k bye” as a kid is running out of the house?? Don’t you think it means something to a child when the last thing you say as he walks out the door is “mommy loves you, and Hashem should be with you all day and He should protect you and watch over you.” It makes a huge difference in their lives if you really mean that. And secondly- ppl have to stop making yiddishkeit a bunch of rules. the way the rabbi explained it- he said a girl came to him and said she was finished being religious its just rules…so basically two meshalim he gave were: A) just like in driving there are many rules/ways to show you how to get from point a to point b safely, so too the Torah. It’s a means of getting our neshama from the day we are born, to the day we die, safely and securely, so that we can go straight up to our place next to Hashem, with a beautiful neshama. and B) he told a story of a father sending his daughter off to sem, he bought her 300 candles and told her to light one every night. she thought it was really weird but they made a deal that she would do it cuz that’s the only way he’d let her go to sem and she did it, even tho her new friends all thought she was really strange. then when she came home she asked her father, why couldn’t you just tell me to call you or something? why b’davka the candles? so he told her that he knew she would call sometimes, and other times she would be too busy for a long conversation…but for sure she would be able to find two seconds to light her candle every day, thereby making sure to think of her father even for two seconds a day. Basically- a lot of the halachos we have, we don’t always understand, and even the ones we do, sometimes they seem annoying- but why do we do them? Hashem just wants us to remember Him, even if it’s only for two seconds a day. It’s for our connection to Him. To strengthen that connection. Another thing that the Rabbi said is we have to stop separating students by academic level- it’s disgusting. how can you give a kid a test that says MODIFIED- you are telling the kid that just because he is ADD or ADHD or just doesn’t have the capacity to hold so much information in his head- ur telling him “YOU ARE MODIFIED. YOU ARE NOT AS GOOD AS THE OTHERS” SERIOUSLY HOW DO YOU THINK YOU MAKE THAT KID FEEL???? AND WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? G-D??? HASHEM GAVE HIM HIS NISYONOS, AND YOU ARE ADDING PAIN TO THE PAIN HE ALREADY SUFFERS FROM? DO YOU THINK THAT’LL MAKE HIM FEEL LOVED AND WANT TO STAY ON THE DERECH??? but guess what, when Hashem chose Moshe to go speak to Bnei Yisrael and Moshe refused 7 times because of his speech defects, Hashem made him go. and only him. because Hashem only wanted to talk through someone who had that, to show him Hashem is there with him. IF HASHEM WOULD COME IN TO YOUR CLASSROOM TO TALK TO ONE OF THE STUDENTS, HE WOULD TALK TO THE ONE WHO HAS ADD, ADHD. NOT THE KIDS WHO HAVE NONE OF THOSE PROBLEMS. problem is this rabbi spoke to many teachers and said we have to do away with grades, and the teachers said “no one would send their kid to my school if we didn’t give grades” horrible! Hashem didn’t make the chumash the nevi’im the kesuvi, the gemara so that kids could get big red 60s on them!!!!!!!!!!! He gave it to us as a guide, a way of life. WHO ARE WE TO GRADE PPL ON THAT???? i think that rabbi hit it right on the spot…
Menu