""I knew that today was Shabbat night. I had nothing to light Shabbat candles with. I looked at two electric bulbs and blessed them," one of the survivors testified in 2015.
""On Tisha B'Av we were in the Glasenberg camp in Buchenwald and we were fasting. It was very difficult to hide the fast from the eyes of the SS soldiers, may their names be erased. The wicked did not let us observe religious customs and tortured anyone caught for observing religion. The women from Bukovina who were in the Bershad women's camp were given permission to leave the camp and walk around the city.
""They went to the House of Life and circled the graves three times in memory of their relatives in the death camps. They said Kaddish" (Naomi Winkler. 'Israeli Customs in the Death Camps').
This week, in the midst of the nine days, I went on a particularly strange trip.
I went to Jerusalem to tour Yad Vashem, the Haredi Center for Holocaust Education. This center is a new thing in the last decade. For many years, it was almost impossible to see Haredi people at Yad Vashem, certainly not children or girls from Beit Yaakov.
I won't go into the reasons that led to this, but anyone can certainly understand why. Thank God that today it is possible to come to the place and tour it without violating the laws of modesty. Those who guided us were ultra-Orthodox women, among them Beit Yaakov teachers, who immediately brought us back to childhood stories.
The sharp-eyed among us could not help but notice two prominent historical elements: on the one hand, the Enlightenment, which threatened the spiritual destruction of the Jewish people in Europe. On the other hand, Hitler and the Nazi Party, which threatened and carried out the physical destruction of the Jewish people.
At the same time, even those who are not equipped with a sharp eye could not miss the heroism of Jewish women in the ghettos and labor camps. Observant women who did everything in their power to observe Shabbat under impossible conditions. Women who made every effort to avoid forbidden foods. Heroic women, each of whom deserves to be commemorated no less than the commemoration of Hannah Szenes and Anne Frank.
The brief testimonies I gave at the beginning of my remarks reflect this heroism.
College. Not an academy!
I returned home upset.
This "trip" broke my heart. I immediately called one of my friends who is part of the 'Beit Rivka' team in Kfar Chabad. I wanted to share with her the experiences of the difficult day I had gone through, and suggest that she send the college girls on a trip to Poland or at least to Yad Vashem.
""You could combine this with a visit to the Zionist gurus of Hasidism and a study tour of Chabad houses in Ukraine and Poland," I told my friend with elated feelings. By the way, I myself traveled to Poland with my mother. We looked for her birth certificate, and were horrified by the anti-Semitism we encountered in the city offices of Lodz, the city where my maternal grandmother was born.
My friend, who serves as the cultural coordinator at Beit Rivka, listened to me patiently and told me that in recent years the students have been going on a study tour and seminar at Yad Vashem.
""Look," she said to me, "I think most families are not rich. During these years, the girls are getting ready for their wedding, and if they're going abroad, it would be more appropriate for them to go to Lubavitch, the cradle of Chabad Hasidism, or to Brooklyn, to the Rebbe's house.".
I didn't give up and asked: "How much does education cost? What comes out of the race for a degree and education. We've all seen what education has done to us. And no one forgets that Hitler, may his name be erased, did not distinguish between academic and educated Jews and Jews who study Torah.".
The message was clear and she sighed deeply.
There was a silence, at the end of which the following words were said: "I will not forget my father who came here from Russia. He was privileged to see the previous Rebbe (the Rayatz of Lubavitch) and more than once he would repeat the Rebbe's harsh words against the Enlightenment.".
In 1954, at one of the Rayatz's gatherings, the Rebbe addressed those present. His face became serious and he burst into tears. The Rebbe opened his overcoat and tore his shirt in front of the astonished eyes of the Hasidim. The Rebbe declared loudly: "If you are faced with the choice of sending your children to gentile educational institutions (academy) or to the fiery furnace - choose the second option.".
My friend recounted the events with excitement and said: "If the Rebbe had allowed the Hasidim to acquire an education, we would be no different from all the educated Russian gentiles who fill the streets of Rishon LeZion, Arad and Netanya." Silence fell again. It was clear that there was an inherent dissonance here.
I suddenly remembered that it is possible to teach merit at Beit Rivkah College, which, despite all the pressure, did not give in and did not agree to teach academic degrees, but only equivalent ones.
If they had agreed to turn the college into an academy, they would have been required to make sweeping changes to the curriculum, and instead of being tested on Hasidism, Halacha, and Torah, the girls would have been required to be tested on the teachings of Darwin and Freud, distinguishing between a thousand and one differences.
There is no place for secular studies.
Later, I thought about what Ms. Adina Bar-Shalom, the founder of the first Haredi college that fulfilled the dream of academic studies for Haredi women, told me.
""They change from year to year and you can't recognize them at the end of the third year," Bar-Shalom said honestly.
I'll admit it and not be ashamed: I don't have an academic degree. Sometimes it comes up in discussion and then one of the friends volunteers to tell me: "It will change you completely. You will be a different person. You will analyze and understand the course of events differently.".
And in fact, it reminds me that I don't want to change. I don't want to be educated. I want to remain an ultra-Orthodox woman whose education is the word of God, Torah and Halacha.
In a letter from the Rebbe to the management of the 'Craft School' in Kfar Chabad from Tammuz 5714, the Rebbe explains that nothing has changed in the last sixty years. The Jewish approach remains clear - a separation between the need to learn a profession (art) and between education and secular studies.
Here is an excerpt from the letter:
""And what he wrote about secular studies, here is the point in that it is not Chabad's duty to establish a school for secular studies, and not even in a frivolous and exceptional way. And this is only by force that until the age when compulsory education is imposed by the government, the minimum secular studies required by law are studied, since without this it is impossible for the lower classes and classes to exist. And those who have already passed the age will not study secular studies, and this is a change that cannot be agreed upon.
""Of course, this applies to secular studies in general. But what is used as a tool for learning the craft taught in a craft school is not a study in itself, but rather a branch of learning the craft. And it is important to emphasize that there is a place to study matters that belong to the work, but there is no place in this school for the students to receive a high school diploma.".
The Rebbe signs his letter with the following words: "I enjoyed what he wrote that sacred studies and prayer take up much more time than studying the work and its associated duties, and they will certainly keep that in mind.".
• Part of the column is based on the talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe | The writer is the owner of "My Choice", an event host, lecturer, and radio broadcaster. | For comments:[email protected]
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