אנהויב ארטיקל אינעם "עמי" פאר מער ליינט אינעם מאגאזין.
קאוד: וועל אויס אלע
Securing Jewish Education // A conversation with the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Aharon Teitelbaum, Shlita
By Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter - April 11, 2018
“Simcha Felder is a shomer Torah umitzvos who also wanted to be bodek and burn his chametz, but he was stuck in Albany. I spoke with him on Erev Yom Tov and I told him a story.
“In Sighet there was a rosh hakahal who was a big shtadlan by the name of Reb Moshe Aryeh Freund. One year on Erev Yom Kippur he had to spend the entire day using his connections to get Yidden out of jail, and he was successful. However, by the time he was done, it was too late for him to go to mikvah, to daven Minchah and to eat the seudah hamafsekes; he had to go into Yom Kippur without any preparations and he was very brokenhearted about it. The zeide, the Yetev Lev, consoled him and said, ‘Moshe Aryeh, I did go to the mikvah, I did daven Minchah, I did eat the seudah and I also said a drashah. Why don’t we exchange [the zechusim for what we each did today]?’ He replied, ‘Rebbe, ich darf shoin nisht.’
“I told Simcha this story, and then I said, ‘I know that you’re a Yid [and you want to prepare for Yom Tov], but the future of klal Yisrael is dependent upon you. Everything can be done through a shaliach, but not this. Another person wouldn’t be able to do this.’ It was pushed all the way until the night of Yom Tov, and he had to go home before it was finalized.
“The vote took place at night—on the night of Pesach. They had to change the law against their will—both in the New York State Senate and in the Assembly, and the governor, bimchilas kevodo, also had to agree to it [and he signed it into law]. According to the new law it’s enough to learn only four subjects. The governor was able to say that at least they’re going to learn those four subjects. There’s no question that he smuggled in some words that we didn’t want once Pesach began, but we can say that for the most part we changed the law and it is effective immediately—not in a year from now.
“All of the mevinim know the gevaldike thing that took place over here for all of the talmidim of every single Talmud Torah. In the past, every child violated the law, and if it would have ended up in court there wouldn’t have been an answer as to why the law wasn’t adhered to. Now, baruch Hashem, this has all changed. Hodu LaShem ki tov ki l’olam chasdo. We have to thank and praise the heilige Bashefer for what took place this Yom Tov of Pesach.”
With these moving words—in a drashah to his chasidim on Chol Hamoed—the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Aharon Teitelbaum, shlita, summed up some of his feelings about the accomplishment of New York State Senator Simcha Felder in stopping the $168 billion budget from being passed until the State agreed not to interfere with the curriculum of the private Jewish schools.
Recently, some people who left the Orthodox Jewish community have been seeking to reform the Orthodox Jewish schooling system by petitioning the State to enforce a curriculum with more secular studies, many of which are anathema to religious people. The Democrats support more oversight and control of religious schools, while the Republicans don’t. In fact, Democrats seek to impose their progressive orthodoxy on others and are intolerant of those who may have different values.
As a Democrat who has been caucusing with the Republicans for six years, thus giving the Republicans a slim majority in the chamber, Simcha Felder has a unique sway in Albany. He is courted by both parties, and both are wary of alienating him or the overwhelmingly Orthodox Jewish population he represents.
When I called Simcha, whom I consider a personal friend, to congratulate him on his principled stand to secure traditional Jewish education—which has sustained the Jewish nation for millennia—he told me, to my utter surprise, that almost all of the credit goes to the Satmar Rebbe. It was the Rebbe’s personal involvement, leadership and guidance that brought about this vital piece of legislation, he said. “I was merely the Rebbe’s shaliach.”
With memories of Communist control over traditional Jewish education still fresh, there are few issues that have united the Jewish community as much as the State’s increasing oversight of religious schools. However, it turns out that few have done as much as the Satmar Rebbe to thwart it.
As I have been privileged over the years to have an open door to the Rebbe’s court—due to my father, z”l’s, familial relationship with the Rebbe, as well as the personal relationship my father enjoyed with the Rebbe’s father, the Beirach Moshe, zt”l—I made it my business to pay a visit to the Rebbe to discuss the issue with him. The primary purpose of my visit was twofold: to ascertain what the Jewish community should know about this episode and to find out whether there are lessons here for the world at large.
The Success of Our Chinuch
It is Sunday, Isru Chag, when I meet the Rebbe in his home on Eihel Court, in Kiryas Yoel. Although there are many people waiting to see him, including women and children, he took time to speak with me—close to an hour, in fact—because of the obvious importance that the Rebbe attributes to this issue. After exchanging some niceties and facts about my father’s familial background—which is somewhat intertwined with that of the Rebbe, as they had many relatives in common—I inquire whether we should publicize the particulars that brought about this legislation. The Rebbe’s answer is in the affirmative.
“We all have to be mefarseim what happened, and we have to speak about the beautiful chinuch of the Yahadus hachareidis, which is something that everyone else is jealous of. Other people have it in their heads that poverty is what brings about the problems in society, but it isn’t true; it’s the lack of mentchlichkeit that creates the problems and brings to an even further lack of mentchlichkeit. If there is mentchlichkeit and the children are raised with mentchlichkeit, then even if there is poverty we can buckle under and continue onward. When you look at the Yiddishe community, no one brought money with them from across the sea, and no one had an education either. But with siyata dishmaya they worked hard and Hashem helped them. Almost everyone in the Jewish community works hard, and the ikar is that everyone has an achrayus to take care of their family. Every yungerman who gets married has an achrayus to pay rent, and when children come he has to feed and clothe them. This means that he has an ol, and when a person has an ol it forces him to mentchel os because he can’t live a hefker life.
“Baruch Hashem, 70 years ago the great tzaddikim who are no longer with us came to America and they founded Talmud Torahs throughout New York, and outside New York as well. Today there are more than 200,000 talmidim who learn in Talmud Torahs in New York, kein yirbu, bli ayin hara. We can’t even count the number of talmidim who have already learned in the Talmud Torahs over the course of the years—they are in the hundreds of thousands. It’s l’siferes.