Chazal teach us, “A person should always learn where his heart desires, as it says, ‘for his desire is in the Torah of Hashem.’” Since the talmid loves camp, where he is inspired in a positive way to learn and behave properly, and he is provided with Chassidic warmth, it changes him from one extreme to another, because this is what “his heart desires.”
By Rabbi Nachman Yosef Twersky
THERE IS NO VACATION FROM TORAH STUDY!
The summer vacation is just two months long, but as a teacher in yeshiva I have learned that the summer lasts much longer than two months. Four months before the summer, and for half a year after the summer, you can hear the boys talking about what happened and what will happen.
In light of the fact that the summer is so important to the boys throughout the year, it is vital to use the summer for positive activities which will be a good influence on them. This sums up the Rebbe’s approach.
The Rebbe explains that every Jew in any situation has to be continuously growing, especially children who are in their growth period. We cannot say that they need to leave on “vacation,” because every day is vital for them and their future. The statement of Chazal, “I wasn’t created except to serve my Maker,” does not become irrelevant during the summer.
Whenever the Rebbe speaks about the summer, he negates the concept of the long vacation. The holy Torah is the source of life, so how can we give children a vacation from Torah? There are letters that the Rebbe wrote in the early years in which he said, “If I had the power, I would abolish it.” The only correct thing to do is to “go on vacation” from the Yetzer Hara. A little rest from him wouldn’t hurt…
The truth is, although the boys like the idea of vacation, there are some serious ones who want to continue the routine of learning and would happily forgo the vacation. Then there are those boys who consider vacation as a time-off from the year-round routine of learning and who want a break.
Although the Rebbe encouraged the existence of summer camps, he emphasized that this is not to say that these are days of vacation from Torah and mitzvos, and it is absolutely necessary that there be set times of the day for Torah study. On the other hand, the Rebbe did speak of the summer as a time to strengthen the body, and a break so that the talmidim will be able to prepare for the coming school year.
The Rebbe compared the summer break to an athlete who takes a step back in order to sprint forward. So too, in order to strengthen the learning of the coming year, we provide a time to refresh and renew our strength. But the emphasis is on preparing for a renewal in Torah study and mitzvos fulfillment with more enthusiasm and simcha.
QUALITY TIME THAT DOES WONDERS
Throughout the year there are stressful times while being occupied with work in the house, parnasa etc. and the routine of life wears us down, leaving us little time to devote to our family except on Shabbos and Yom Tov.
The summertime, which is less pressured, provides parents with an opportunity to provide quality time to their children. We need to make the most of these days to instill Yiddishkait and Chassidishkait in their hearts through stories of tzaddikim and by providing a better spiritual example than usual.
We can see this in those camps which see to it that the children have suitable counselors with solid Chassidishe values, who also know how to convey Chassidic messages in an experiential way. We see how powerful this can be, with chayus lasting them until the next summer.
I had a student who had a lot of problems and his teachers were asked to take his situation into consideration and to help him since they knew he was struggling with certain things. Since I was aware of his situation, I tried hard to be mekarev him so he would feel good and we’d have an open relationship. Every day he would come over to talk to me. He was very sincere and everything he did, he did wholeheartedly.
Toward the end of the year, I had nothing positive to write in his report card but I noted that he had great potential. He was going to go to camp and I spoke to him at length and said I was sure he would be very successful there. Being away from home, the new environment, the new staff, all this would enable him to turn over a new leaf. He asked me, how can you be sure I will succeed when I haven’t been able to learn since third grade? I answered him with this interesting story:
There were two boys who lived near each other and were good friends. From childhood they learned in the same schools. There was one big difference between them. One excelled in school and always won the biggest prizes, while the other one was a weak student. This went on year after year and the gap between them continued to grow.
When they became bar mitzva, the father of the weak boy was very upset about his son’s situation. He met his neighbor, the father of the boy who excelled and asked him, “What is your secret for having such an outstanding son?”
The man said, “Every time there is a Torah learning contest in school, I tell my son, whatever the school gives you, I’ll give you. So he knows that whatever he earns at school is doubled, and it works! Try it.”
So the father tried it. But he was most disappointed to hear his son’s reaction. His son said, “I don’t need prizes. I am not interested in prizes from school or from you. I am not interested in learning, just leave me alone.”
The father went to the rav of the city to consult with him. The rav said, “Your son will surpass the boy who excels and will become an outstanding scholar! I’ll tell you why. The other boy is a good boy and has good character and when he is given a prize it motivates him to study more. But one day the prizes will stop. Up until a certain age the prizes work, but at a certain point the boy himself will decide whether he wants to learn or not and the prizes won’t help.
“But your son is a very real person and the minute he realizes the truth he will throw himself into learning and nothing will stop him. He won’t need prizes. He will just take himself in hand and then you’ll see what your son is about.”
Sure enough, a few years later, this is exactly what happened.
I told my student, “The same is true for you. You know the truth and when the time comes, with Hashem’s help, that’s how it will be.”
He went to camp and learned 17 pages of Gemara, something even the outstanding boys did not do. Camp changed him.
The next year, I suggested to his father that his son have a change (I didn’t want to say straight out that he needed to leave the house for a dormitory). I hinted to him that it would be good if he went to a place with a dorm and he went. I heard later from the staff that even if there was a farbrengen until late at night, the boy was sitting at the Chassidus class at 7:30 and learning, because he was a bachur who was for real. He took himself seriously and changed from one extreme to another. That’s the power of the summer.
A YEAR’S WORTH IN TWO MONTHS
I had another student who struggled with another kind of problem. At the end of the year with me the hanhala debated whether to expel him. Before the summer he came over to me and said he wanted to go to a good camp where good boys went, but the camp did not want to take him because they were afraid he would make trouble. I told him I would try and help him get accepted.
I called the director (who was a former talmid of mine) and begged him to accept the boy, “Just like you take talmidim from all kinds of places in order to save them. I promise you that he won’t make trouble and will behave himself.”
They ended up accepting him and everything went well all the way until the end of camp when there was a trip for the eight best students and he was one of them.
By divine providence, two weeks before school began, I had to get something from the office and the menahel happened to be there. As I walked in, the phone rang and it was the father of this boy. The menahel asked the father to call back in five minutes and in the meantime he asked me, what should he say to the father, that his son doesn’t fit in this yeshiva?
I told the menahel how during the summer this boy had become one of the best in the entire camp and said I think he should remain in yeshiva. The father could be told he had to be particular about certain things but the yeshiva should not throw the boy out, ch”v! The principal did as I advised and let the talmid remain in yeshiva. Today, this talmid has a Chassidic home.
Many wonder what is the secret to the camps’ success. Chazal tell us, “A person should always learn where his heart desires, as it says, ‘for his desire is in the Torah of Hashem.’” Since the talmid loves camp, when he is inspired in a positive way to learn and behave properly, and he is provided with Chassidic warmth, it changes him from one extreme to another, because this is what “his heart desires.”
The Midrash says about those who built the Tower of Bavel, “And they settled there, R’ Yitzchok said, ‘wherever you see yeshiva (“settling,”) the Satan jumps in.’” In a humorous vein we can say that in whatever yeshiva a bachur learns, the Satan will jump in and make trouble. Wherever he sits and learns, he will think it’s better somewhere else, that the other yeshiva is better. But in camp, everything is good. This is the advantage of camp and we need to take advantage of it in the most positive way.
There was once a group of fifteen bachurim who did not go to camp and stayed home during the summer. Some of the staff discussed this and said they could not be allowed to hang around idly and something had to be done with them.
At that time, I was supposed to learn Chassidus in the morning with R’ Yosef Goldstein a”h and I figured this was an opportunity. I invited the bachurim to join us and it became an ongoing Chassidus class every morning after which we davened together. We did not need to worry about their showing up on time. Every day, at eight o’clock, the bachurim came to learn Chassidus. Since they did this of their own free choice, they enjoyed it and were happy to come.
One of the bachurim told me at the end of the summer, “You should know that this summer I learned more than I learned the entire year.” He came with a chayus and willingness to learn and this had a good influence on his later life.
HOLDING THE CHILD’S INTEREST
The saying goes, if you want children who are yerei Shamayim, it depends on the mother because the mother has the ability to instill this in her children. If you want children who are talmidei chachomim, that depends on the father because when he sits and learns, he is a role model for the children.
Throughout the year, when the father asks his son who has come home from yeshiva to review what he learned, he is not always enamored of the idea. But during vacation, when there is no school, and the father takes his son to learn something interesting, this will make a deep impression on the child and he’ll remember it all his life.
I got a phone call from a young man who lives in Lakewood who is mekushar to the Rebbe and Chassidus. He told me about a problem he has with a boy he tutors. He said the boy has no yiras Shamayim and is not at all interested in learning and he wanted to know how to handle him. How could he instill in him a love for Torah and mitzvos and yiras Shamayim?
I asked what he learned with him and he said the mother asked him to learn a tractate of Gemara with the boy so he could make a siyum on it at his bar mitzva seuda. The boy wasn’t interested in making this siyum but the mother was pressuring him.
I said, do with him as Chazal say, a person should always learn what his heart desires. Learn with him something that he wants to learn, interesting things from Chassidus or halacha. The main thing is that he should learn something he is interested in.
Two weeks later he told me that the boy changed. “He loves to learn halacha, it really interests him.” The change was so swift – during the week between the end of school and the start of camp – that when he went to a s’farim store and saw a book on Hilchos Shabbos with pictures and explanations, he bought it to learn with his father.
When you learn interesting things with children, things outside of the normal routine, it grabs their interest and turns the learning into something fascinating that makes an indelible impression on the child.
For a while, once a week I would teach Ohr HaChayim to those who were interested and served some refreshments. I saw that when the learning is not compulsory it makes the learning more significant and interesting to them.
In this way we can distill the wisdom in the proper use of summer and holiday vacations. Parents should give thought to what interesting things they can learn with their children that they would not ordinarily learn.
There is a seifer called Kessef Nivchar that the Rebbe once said a bachur should learn and take to bed with him. It’s a short seifer with many concepts, from alef to tav, short ideas covering the major topics in Shas and it’s very interesting. Similarly, you can learn Responsa from previous generations, look up interesting questions, etc. It grabs the child’s interest when you learn material like this.
THE SUMMER IS AN EASIER TIME FOR AVODAS HASHEM
The Rebbe says that everything in the world comes from the Torah. Just as this is true in ruchnius, it is true in gashmius. When you need to move, you do it in the summer because the roads are more passable this time of the year and this comes from the fact that spiritually too, it is easier to make progress now in our avodas Hashem.
And yet, we see that it’s harder in the summer! Why is it harder? Because this is a propitious time for advancement in avodas Hashem, the Satan invests greater energy in thwarting us.
But in reality it is easier.
If we utilize the summer months in the right way, we will bring out in ourselves and our children the love and yiras Shamayim which are revealed through Torah and mitzvos that we do during this “empty” time, as it were, through family learning and davening, and we will keep after them in a pleasant way. This will make the summer pass by pleasantly and with nachas, joy, and health of body and soul.
TZNIUS IN THE SUMMER
A very interesting response from the Rebbe was recently publicized. There was a bachur in 770 who wrote a certain question to the Rebbe. The Rebbe referred him to his mashpia. He wrote back to the Rebbe that he can’t ask the mashpia because the mashpia was disconnected from the world and was clueless. He wanted the Rebbe to answer him but the Rebbe wrote: When the Dor Deia did not want the kabbalas ol of the mashpia they explained it etc. regarding Moshe Rabbeinu a”h. No wonder that this also pertains to our generation. You should force yourself to accept the yoke of the mashpia of Tomchei T’mimim and carry out his instructions and report good news.
In this response, we can see how the Rebbe compares the generation of the desert who refused to accept Moshe’s authority, to those, now, who do not want to accept the authority of the mashpia. In life we need a hierarchy and structure. We need to be obedient to a rav and mashpia; this is the system and when we disdain or ignore it, all the troubles begin.
The summer demands of us a strengthening of self-discipline and kabbalas ol. At this time of the year it becomes especially hard to be particular about tznius, but when a woman is particular to do as she ought in this regard, it affects her entire household and even her entire surroundings. The Rebbe compared the lack of tznius to a contagious disease, so that when a woman dresses properly it also affects others who will dress modestly.
Not long ago there was something publicized about a certain Chabad community that wrote to the Rebbe that its members were experiencing parnasa problems and they wanted a bracha and advice for ample parnasa. In response, the Rebbe wrote that the problem came from a lack of tznius in hair covering – wigs, and when they fixed this, it would also have a beneficial impact on parnasa.
The permissiveness and drastic deterioration in morality we see today is not only with Jews. There is a tremendous decline among gentiles, which causes the loss of even the most minimal standards of human values, and unfortunately we see its effects in our own camp. The Rebbe once said we need to influence the “goy in Paris” who designs the latest fashions so he does so modestly.
Sometimes it’s difficult, it’s hard to find suitable clothing, and in some cases people even have to sew things, but Hashem pays us back for this as we see in a recently shared story about the mother of Rabbi Shmuel Wosner z”l. She had a beautiful voice and had an extraordinary offer to sing in one of the most prominent opera houses in Europe, but it would not have been under modest circumstances. She declined upon receiving a bracha that she would merit a great son. Indeed, R’ Shmuel Wosner was a world renowned posek, who passed away a few months ago at the age of 101.
May we all have a healthy, happy summer.