Are You a Mordechai? It's All About Jewish Education

Are You a Mordechai? It's All About Jewish Education The following edited remarks were delivered at the Chabad Center for Jewish Life & Learning's 33 Annual L'Chaim Gala celebration, Sunday March 18, 2018. My wife Malkie and I were honored to receive the 2018 Dor L'Dor Award, marking our 20th anniversary since arriving in San Antonio, Texas.

Good evening and thank you! We are very touched and honored by this recognition here tonight. Rabbi Chaim & Rivkie Block , although you are not exactly the gambling type, I am most grateful that you did take a gamble on us- a young couple, still fresh out of the Yeshivah and newly married. It has been an incredible ride, and we are so proud to be your partners in our Shlichus. Your encouragement, guidance, support and vision has really been a blessing. Thank you!

Thank you to all our friends, family and extended family who have been there for us all these years. Thank you for welcoming us, and giving us this opportunity of a lifetime-to teach Torah. While we came to Texas to teach and inspire, we have received so much more in return. We have become inspired and uplifted.

A number of years ago, when discussing what I do for a living, a friend jokingly quipped “you should get a kippah with a different emblem on each panel of the Kippah. Put Chabad on one panel, TASA on the second panel, Kosher supervision on the third etc.” That pretty much sums up our lives, always juggling many things, at once...

With further introspection about my friend’s statement,  I believe the appropriate emblem on the Kippah should be “Mechanech-Jewish educator”. I say this because, everything we have done and strived for in the last twenty years has been about Jewish education. Whether be it youth programming, prison or hospital chaplaincy, or teaching daily in a Jewish day school----the focus and goal has always been the same- to educate and teach our fellow Jews about the beauty and relevance of Yiddishkeit.

To quote the former Chief Rabbi of England, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Saacks “The fate of the Jews in the diaspora was, is and predictably will be, determined by their commitment to Jewish education.”

In the Purim story, we all know how Haman and King Achshverosh plotted to annihilate the Jews. The Talmud in Tractate Meggilah 16a records, that when Mordechai heard about the terrible decree, he gathered 22,000 Jewish children and began to teach them Torah publicly. We are told in the same Gemara, that the merit of this Torah study, saved the Jewish people from calamity.

On Purim 1972, in one of his public Farbrengens, the Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed memory asked a poignant question, “Mordechai was a minister of the king! He was a chief rabbi and Rosh Av Beis Din, the leader of the Jewish people! not a school teacher! Why was it Mordechai who was gathering children to teach them Torah instead of other rabbis or teachers? The Rebbe answered, that Mordechai correctly understood, that in a time of crisis, in a time of duress, whoever is able must take the initiative and preserve the next generation of Jews. “As long as there is a Jewish child who has no Torah teacher, you have no choice – sit down and teach the child yourself!

Today in our own era, we also must take a bold Jewish approach. Every poll and research paper on Jewish life, points to the very same facts. We must do everything in our power and beyond, to educate our children, teenagers and our families, to be proud, happy and engaged Jews.

We must all step up, and be the Mordechais of our time.

Malkie and I have been fortunate to play a small part in this revolution. Join us! Let us join hands together, as one community, and recommit ourselves to insure a bright Jewish future for our children and grandchildren.

Let us all pledge-together to make absolutely sure, that
- NO JEWISH CHILD IS LEFT BEHIND,
- THAT NO JEWISH FAMILY IS LEFT BEHIND
- THAT THE HOMELAND OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, ERETZ YISRAEL and its eternal capitol Yerushalayim is never left behind.  

May we see the fruits of our labor, speedily in our day with the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Amen.

Thank you!