The Role of the Home

The chinuch (education) children learn and absorb at home is in a certain sense even more important than what they learn in school. Because no matter how much or how well children learn in school in the end they will usually follow in the footsteps of their parents and live the same type of life their parents did. They will absorb and accept the values, beliefs and behavior of their parents as correct, and they will live their lives accordingly. Parents’ beliefs and values are a child’s principles and his starting point in life; children are usually the product of the home they were raised in.

Before we continue let me tell you why I wanted such an old-fashioned type of chinuch for my daughter in today’s modern and enlightened age. This will also explain why we Chassidic Jews are so old-fashioned; we are proud of it and insist on remaining that way.

We as Jews know that each generation is a link in the chain of our people that stretches from Mount Sinai all the way to Mashiach. When the People of Israel stood at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, the blueprint of our lives, they were perfect, Malachei Elokim, who were worthy of receiving that Torah.

However, since then there has been a yeridat hadorot, a decline in that perfection and greatness through the generation, with each generation on a slightly lower level than the one preceding it. And because we know that the generations before us were better Yidden than us, we try our hardest to cling to and emulate the ways of those generations.

We value and revere their piety and the sincere way they lived their lives as servants of Hashem, and we try our utmost to live up to those standards. Although the circumstances surrounding us might have improved, with modern technology and labor-saving devices, we believe that human behavior, rather than improving, has continued to degenerate.

It is for this reason that we are usually fiercely resistant to anyone who tries to change our “old-fashioned, medieval ways” and bring us up-to-date, not just in chinuch, but in every other aspect of life.

A link denotes continuity and all we want to do is to continue the tradition –mesorah – that was handed down to us by our forefathers; our dearest wish is that our children carry on that same mesorah.

If anything does seem wrong with the “system” today, it’s not the fault of the system, it’s the fault of the people using that system; because we are not on the level of those generations who set up it we are not able to appreciate the beauty and goodness of it and to utilize it fully.

Whereas the nations of the world believe that man was created as an ape and has only been improving since then so that the further back in time you go the worse it was, we feel the exact opposite; the further back we go the BETTER it was.

Throughout the generations those who did not keep the Torah have always had this distorted perception about “old-fashioned” Jews living in the dark ages who persist in clinging to their outmoded ways and do not want to see “the light of day” i.e. live a modern life; to them religion was considered to be the opiate of the uneducated masses.

All those “enlightened souls” never understood that the only way for a human being to be “human” was if he kept the mitzvot as laid down by the Torah – seven mitzvot for the b’nei no’ach and six hundred and thirteen mitzvot for us Yidden. Without that there is nothing to stop a human being from doing whatever he pleases to the detriment of all those around him.

So now that we’ve got some background on why we persist in clinging to our old-fashioned ways, which includes an old-fashioned style of chinuch, let’s turn to one aspect of that chinuch – the chinuch we mothers provide – before our children even go to school.

Oh dear! There’s so much to say that I’m not quite sure where to start, so you know what I’ll start with Hashem. First and foremost, last but not least, and in between as well, we must daven to Hashem that He help us succeed in our task. Without Hashem’s loving help there’s nothing even to talk about.

In reality chinuch begins even before children are born, when we work on building a home that will contribute to that chinuch; what we’re talking about here is the relationship between a husband and wife.

A husband and wife are two halves of one soul that have been sent down from heaven to live in peace and harmony and fulfill their task in this world. And what is that task? Our task is to be upright people and bring children into the world, and educate them correctly so that they in turn can fulfill their task. (And let me tell you that it is not the duty of the schools to prepare our children for their task but ours; the schools are here only to assist us).

But before we can even think of raising our children we must first prepare the “ground” for them; that “ground” is our marriage.