Collaboration Conference

Teach our children well

5 Towns conference told: Deliver Torah with joy to sustain the next generation

Posted Wednesday, June 28, 2017 12:00 am

Top from left: Rabbi Eytan Feiner of The White Shul, “When Yitzchak met Rivkah: Torah’s first mention of martial love”; Michal Horowitz, “Ahavas Yisrael: In theory or in practice?”; Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, mora d’asra, Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, “Raising successful children”; Rebbetzin Lisa Septimus, yoetzet halacha of the Five Towns and of the Great Neck Synagogue, “Where do babies come from — addressing grown up matters with children.” Bottom from left: Rabbi Hanoch Teller, author and lecturer, “Honorable Mentschem: How to ensure that youngsters (and oldsters) inculcate derech eretz”; Rebbetzin Aviva Feiner, menaheles of Machon Basya Rochel Seminary in Far Rockaway, “Positive influence vs. peer pressure”; Rabbi Shalom Rosner, Bais Ephraim Yitzchok in Woodmere, “Kibbud Av Vaem: The secret behind our mesorah”; Rabbi Robby Charnoff, co-director, OU-JLIC at Queens College, “Why are People in their 20s so distracted? A Biblical framework for self-actualization.”

Doni Kessler

Top from left: Rabbi Baruch Fogel of Touro College, “Motivating our children to motivate themselves”; Rebbetzin Shani Taragin, Tanach coordinator and mashgicha ruchanit at Midreshet Torah V’avodah, “Miriam: Meyaledet, Meinika, and Morah”; Rabbi Ephraim Polakoff, Congregation Bais Tefilah, “Teens and technology: What you know and what you don’t”; Rabbi Jesse Horn of Yeshivat Hakotel, “Helping children balance ideology and pleasure” Bottom from left: Elisheva Kaminetsky, SKA director of religious guidance, limudei kodesh, “Empowering choices”; Rabbi Reuven Taragin, founder and director of Yeshivat Hakotel Community Education Conferences, Esther Wein, “How to recognize your bashert”; Rabbi Kenneth Hain of Congregation Beth Shalom, “When it’s A-OK to say yes.”

Top from left: Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz, mora d’asra of Beis Haknesses of North Woodmere, “Learning with your children and grandchildren: How, why, and how much?”; Rabbi Isaac Rice, assistant rabbi, Congregation Anshei Chesed in Hewlett, “You can’t unsee this: Understanding the impact of watching violence”, l, YU HS for Girls (Central) in Holliswood, “Celebrating Yerushalayim: United and unifying”; Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, rosh ha yeshiva of Midreshet Shalhevet and Rambam Mesivta, “Raising a teenager: Know when to say no.” Bottom from left: Rabbi Joshua Goller, assistant rabbi, Young Israel of West Hempstead, “From your home to ours: Bridging the home-school gap”; Debbie Greenblatt, “30 most important minutes of the day and other vital information you need to raise great kids”; Rabbi Dovid Fohrman, CEO at Aleph Beta Academy; Rabbi Tsvi Selengut, Congregation Ohab Zedek, “Second chances: A lesson for our children, our students, and ourselves”

Doni Kessler

Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, delivered keynote speech.

Doni Kessler

By Celia Weintrob, Photos by Doni Kessler

While Torah is forever true, the ideal way for the mesorah to be conveyed to our children — and how an everlasting love of Torah and Yiddishkeit is embedded in their beings — changes over time.

“You’re still talking about what worked for you in 1972 and insisting that that’s what should work for your kid,” Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, Shila”a, said in keynote remarks that opened the fourth annual Five Towns Community Collaborative Conference on Sunday.

“What is the Torah the kids need now?” he asked. “What worked in 1972 won’t necessarily work today.”

Rabbi Weinberger, founding morah d’asrah of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere and mashpia at YU, reminded the parents and educators in attendance that Torah will not be received if it’s not passed down according to the middah of the time, emphasizing that the primary ingredent needed in today’s chinuch is simcha.

Twenty-six speakers, including rabbis, rebbetzins, educators, community leaders and lecturers each addressed a key issue that challenge families and schools in frum communities. The event, hosted at the Young Israel of Woodmere, was organized by Rabbi Reuven Taragin of Yeshivat Hakotel and sponsored by the OU.

“My wife accuses me of wanting to live in the time of the Baal Shem Tov — which is possibly true — but our job is to educate children today,” said Rabbi Weinberger.

He recounted the story of a rebbe who heard that one of the teachers in his school was disciplining boys by hitting them. He summonded the teacher, who was unapologetic, explaining that he was following in the tradition of his father and grandfather, who were also educators.

When the teacher returned home, he found a number of the rebbe’s chasids removing the appliances from his house, per the rebbe’s orders. Astonished, the teacher ran back to the rebbe to find out why he had done this.

“Your father and grandfather did not have these things, I thought you should not have them either,” the rebbe said.

The middah of fear that predominated in Europe before World War I no longer works, Rabbi Weinberger said, and what must be prevelent in our schools and homes today is the middah of joy.

He posited that while many survivors abandoned their religion after the Shoah, those who did not often had sweet memories of a joyful Yiddishkeit in their youth.

“You may think some people are naturally happy or sad, but it is not true,” Rabbi Weinberger said. “Children are filled with joy. To thrive, a person needs to rejoice and focus on simcha, just as he needs to eat and sleep.”

“Simcha is a natural middah of a person,” he added. “A person who is emotionally healthy will always be happy.”

Rabbi Weinberg said, “We should interview the kids who are no longer living a frum lifestyle, and ask them why they are not. What went wrong? Some of them say it was a suffocating environment. It all comes back to simcha.

He recalled that 25 years ago, when singing and dancing on Shabbos was introduced in some Five Towns shuls, it was “like a cardinal sin — I received so many calls of complaints.”

“Every Jew is born with a natural simcha, before the child absorbs the sadness of life from his parents and those around him,” he said. “Children — until we ruin them, until we break them, until we break that natural joy — [are] are skipping and dancing and happy.”

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