The tragic story of the 19-year-old from a chareidi family who took his own life made its way to Maran HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef Shlita, who addressed the issue of the responsibility of rabbonim to their talmidim. Without mentioning the actual case in point, the rav’s weekly shiur addressed the topic of ושיננתם לבנך.
The gadol hador spoke of the responsibility of a rebbe and teacher to bring students closer, not chas v’sholom to distance them and strip them of their integrity and desire to be in yeshiva. The rav explained that the Rambam speaks of ושיננתם לבנך being “your students” and the need to accomplish this without anger.
One who throws a student from yeshiva signs his destiny to fall prey to foreign and evil cultures explains the rav, and rabbonim must always remains cognizant of this reality. Rav Ovadia speaks of the merit one attains by raising a talmid chacham, and what a marvelous reward one will receive in Olam Haba, lamenting just how many teachers and rabbonim lack patience and the love required to mold the future generation.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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11 Responses
Rav Ovadia’s words are so brilliant and beautiful. Beyond words to describe.
Bless you Rav Ovadia Yosef for speaking out about the enormous resposibility and influence Rabbonim have on their students. Too many bachurim have left the derech bc of harsh Rebbes. Too many bachurim have been thrown out of yeshivas for minor infractions. Where are they now?… G-d help us.
We need the Chacham to come to NY and knock some sense into the heads of ALL these “for profit ONLY” roshei yeshivos (dare I call these selfishly destructive individuals that) who relentlessly hound us for money and deliver on a mediocre level at best – to the “metzuyanim” whom they hand pick…Ohhhh, now you got me started!!
Beheima HaDor thanks for your comments
שנאת עמי הארצ לתלמידי חכמים
Chamor Hador ,Your comments are very unfair Calm Down !
The problem is that not all yeshvos are for all people. However, if a bachur goes to a non-mainstream yeshiva, his chances of succeeding in life are minimal at best, since our society has shunned those who dare to be different. This applies to bachurim and whole families. Yidishkeit has taken a dangerous and ugly turn over the last generation and half.
I believe that ALL THE LOCAL yeshivos must adhere to this. We are losing too many kids because of unqualified Roshei Yeshiva, principals, Rabbeim and teachers. I wish each one of them to have their own child who has excellent middos but is not an aleph/a+ student and see how they like being pushed around like a yoyo.
DON’T write is what i meant…
Is it possible that some bochurim may not be suited to be in Yeshiva all day long? Is it possible for us to raise even such bochurim to be TZADIKIM! YIREI SHOMAIM, & OVDEI HASHEM!? Is it possible for us not to look down at them and see the tremendous potential that they may have as such? Is there still such a thing that is called just a plain simple good ERLICHE YID?
#4, Before you start calling people names, you just better be mispallel that you or any of your children or relatives never have that nisayon….
and they blame every thing on the internet! please! they don’t relize that they are the ones who are turning off these kids from the begining. we should have had an asifa for chinuch instead, who are our kids rebbeim and mechanchim and chaverim, there are many kids that went off because of the internet and thier parents dont even know what a computer is.