Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Raising Children - The Nature of Education - Chinuch

Education Session 16 Tammuz 14 July 2014

For audio click here

A child is raised and taught; and not trained.

Chinuch/education of a child is so that he will continue to grow and go on his own way.

Even the lower levels of thought speech and actions should not be taught in isolation, but rather connected back to the sechel/mind and midot/emotions.

Tanya describes a benoni – an intermediate person, and yet at the outset there is the description the nefesh/soul.  Why did he not start with of thought, speech and action - the primarily level of the benoni's work/service?

Life is a Godly phenomenon – it is not worldly and not open to understanding. The animal has a living body, but not life independent of body. A human being is categorically different – he is life in a body. He is primarily life. What he does with his body is directed by life and not by the body...!

When we walk and eat it is a chochmah/wisdom activity. We eat to be healthy, and what is health to a human being? It is that the chochmah will function properly.

And what is the difference if you view things from a chochmah perspective or a worldly perception – its the same world! But if you see from a worldly perception then it is imposing itself on you. If you have a chochmah/wisdom view then you see the way things should be – everything has a message of truth.

A soul is something that is Godly – it is connected to God! It sees from that perspective – it sees what things stand for... the task of education is to have that element express itself in sechel/mind and midot/emotions.

Respect is not just perfunctory. Even if a person is wrong, it is recognized, 'this is how he thinks...' and this is real to him from a soul level... So whatever he is learning is on 3 different levels. He senses a truth to what he's learning, and that it makes sense, and that he can relate to it. But if he learns to relate to something that does not have a sense of truth, then he is giving up his own sense of value and judgement.

Sechel/mind is a miraculous gift. The first connection to the truth is via chochmah/wisdom. Children believe what they see, and people say they are gullible, but that is not so. They see from a truth perception. They see everything is beautiful. They see they way the soul sees.

So the Alte Rebbe explains that the conflict is not on the level of illicit desire, but rather on the level of truth...

education must preserve this 'life' element that a child and human being have. We direct their action, but this must be in a way that there is confirmation of what the soul knows.




No comments:

Post a Comment