Rambam Mishneh Torah: Hilchos Talmud Torah Chapter 2

the yeshiva.net [Music] is you establish teachers for children in every land in every region in every city town and village the any city that does not have the opportunity for each and every child to be able to be with a teacher to give them an education you excommunicate the people of that city you put a ban on them until they will establish such institutions where there are teachers giving the ability for every jewish child to be able to study torah because the world does not exist only due to the breath that comes out of the sacred mouths of the children who are learning torah the source of this is a fascinating the gemara speaks about an individual by the name of yahushua bengamla who was a goddess during the second base and the gemara says zach this person will be remembered for eternity shalom israel if not for him toyota would have been forgotten from the jewish people why the initial system that was established in the jewish world is that every father educates his son like we learned in the first chapter of the mother tonight every father has an obligation to teach his son taylor the moment he starts talking what happens if a child didn't have a father a child was left the child was abandoned in terms of an education so then they established that there should be teachers in yerushalayim kimitsi and sir advice so somebody who had a father's father could take him to your salon somebody didn't have a father once again this child was deprived of an education so then they established teachers in every city for older kids when they were sixteen or seventeen the gamora says they would come to learn someone says what happened then if the teacher was not so nice to a child he rebelled and he left this is where yeshua ben gamla came into the jewish world and he made an institution and this is the first compulsory system of education for every single child sponsored by public funds and to appreciate this you have to understand that in great britain and england a system of compulsory education only developed around 1870 and in the united states of america around the same time late 1800s or early 1900s talk about being ahead of your time more than 2 000 years ago the jewish people instituted that every single jewish child living in any town any city any village any region any land must be given the opportunity of a full jewish education and this must be covered by the funds of the entire community and the entire city this was the great contribution of yeshua bengali here we see a little bit of how the judaism looks at education for the jewish people the education of children taking care of our children and giving them a good terror education was not just luxury and it was just not just necessity it was considered indispensable and vital and essential to the fabric and the future and the destiny of our people or in the words of the realm you're based in a gemara chamber the world exists because of the breath that comes out of the mouth of the children who are learning tired as the gemara says there hevel children will have no sin and distortions and blemishes you bring in the children to learn in the yeshiva in the school with the teacher when the child is six years old or seven years old based on the kayak is the stamina the power the energy level of the sun of the child binyan gopher and the build of his body that's why some children could come when they're six and some when they're seven because this rigorous study that this rigorous schedule of study that we're going to discuss he has to be the right age pakistan if he's less than six years old you don't bring him into school i the mishnah says in prayer mikra when you're five years old you start learning homash so they're ready their amber said in the previous chapter that every father is responsible to teach his children from when he begins to speak even younger than five but when do you bring him in to the teacher to start learning during the day as he's going to explain in a little bit of the night this is only when he's six years old or maybe you have to wait when he's seven years old till which is the beginning of the eighth year according to the quest of mishna though i should just say he believes that ben shaish means the beginning of the sixth year and ben sheva means the beginning of the seventh year which would mean when he's five years old or six years old the shogunate explains that rambam means benches actually six years six full years and seven full years it depends on the build of the body and it depends on the intellectual and physical power of this child um the teacher is allowed to hit the child in order to dis hit the children in order to discipline them but never is he allowed to beat them like you would beat an enemy with cruelty and brutality he should never ever strike them with rods or with sticks only with a tiny strap this is based on the gemarian baba bastar khafal of where rav the student of rabbenu hakadosh tells the famous jewish teacher of shmuel barcelos he says you hit the children with arkansas the masani which means with a shoelace and of course the point that rambam is making here is that discipline is important discipline is necessary but the sole purpose of discipline is to help the child succeed if it's about an issue of anger or the teacher has a bad temper or there's an ego involved or it's confrontation or it's who's going to win who's stronger or i lose my patience or i'm impulsive i'm impetuous or i become cruel etc then this has no place in the jewish world says that if a teacher does hit a child more than absolutely necessary for the benefit of the child he does use a stick or a rado he does hit a child cruelly he's violating a mitzvous lysis and a toyota and he must be fired of course based on the salah we can understand that in every generation and with every child you have to examine what is really the best method that will be effective for his or her success in order to discipline them and in order to help them learn as much as possible so you have to really examine what is the method that you're using and that's why the rambam says only with a tiny strap because the point is not to beat the child for shalom the point is what to be able to help the child succeed and that's why today's generation it's not customary to hit at all because when you establish that hitting the child is actually counterproductive then it becomes something that should not a method that should not be used via shiva malam dance the teacher sits with them and he learns with them tired all day and part of the night you have to remember that in those days when nightfall would come it was pitch dark before thomas edison's days so people would go to sleep they would wake up before sunrise they would go to sleep with nightfall yet when it comes to teaching children you teach them all day and teach them a little bit of the night in order to educate them to learn toyota during the day and during the night because as the rambam said in chapter one there's a mitzvah every jew poor and rich old and young sick and healthy even somebody who's very old and he doesn't have power he has to establish times to learn toyota by day and by night so that's why we educate children and we teach them toyota by day and a little bit of the night in order to educate them that when they throughout their life they will learn toyota by day and by night but you never interrupt the children of learning besides shabbos friday and aravyamtiv towards the end of the day ub and on the yamam taivan which were days dedicated to celebration and joy with the family and the community then you also do not send the children to learn abu bashabas but you don't teach them new material but they could review material that they learned already even if it is the first review and the reason for this the gemara discusses is parents would have time to play with their children and it was a special pleasure ayanakshabas both for the children and the parents and they did not want to interrupt that and number two on shabbos people eat more and when you eat you're more lethargic and heavy and it's actually harder to absorb information very interesting and that's why the rambam says that on shabbos you learn you don't review you don't learn new material but you review the material even if it's the first time vayne vatlin des you never interrupt the children from learning even if it's for the sake of the construction of the best every single jew is obligated men and women alike to participate in the building of the basal so if you would have adults you might interrupt them from learning you would interrupt them from learning if it's necessary for them to build the base hamikdash but when it comes to children even if you could use them because if you can't use them then there would be no need for it but even if you could use them and they could be helpful children's learning entirely you don't interrupt even for the building of the bay samitis here again we see the perspective of yiddish on children and on the education of children it's more critical it's more vital than the binyan base amikters which brings the shrine into the world but still it does not compare to learning toyota with either shaking a teacher of children who middle of the job he leaves the children alone and he leaves or while he's learning with them you know maybe when they're reviewing the material or whatever is happening he's involved in other work he uses the time to do other work i show mustache or perhaps he's lazy and teaching them he doesn't really apply himself with every fiber of his being you know he's more lacks this person is included in the possibility of 48 cursed is the one who does the work of god deceptively teaching children is the work of hashem and to do this deceptively is horrible therefore it's appropriate that when you hire a teacher you have to make sure he's a baller he's somebody who has authentic years shamayim fear and reverence of hashem because a lot of things in the classroom nobody is going to know these are little kindle so the teacher who's doing hashem's work has to have years shall i and fear of god understand the unique responsibility and privilege that he has teaching these children and he has to be married mario liquorice means somebody who's skilled it's not enough that he has fear of heaven he has to be an expert he has to be skilled at what he does that he can read and teach the children and ladakh take and make sure that they get the material they master the material they understand it with precision and meticulousness um somebody who's a bachelor who's not married yet should not be a teacher of children if they might say and shame by nature because of the mothers who come to the children either to bring them to school or to bring them food or to watch them or to take them home and therefore it can just uh cause the crossing of boundaries that are inappropriate now usually because so a woman generally shouldn't teach little children because of the fathers who often come to their boys either bringing them or picking them up or coming to visit them and therefore we want to avoid anything that can lead to behavior that is not completely health wholesome and healthy and moral the chitlies writes that this restriction was only in those days when schools were usually in secluded areas for example they were in the private home of the teacher the word is tinuikus shall basiraband the children would be in the house of their teacher so if somebody is not married then the mother is coming there a mother coming could be inappropriate but he says today when most schools are in public areas with a lot of people he believes that these restrictions would not necessarily always apply hey maximum of 25 students can be by one teacher ayu yasir al-hamishvasa madarbayim what if you have more than 25 children up to 40. you have to hire an assistant to be able to help them in the learning it's too much for one teacher if you have more than 40 children then you're obligated to establish and hire at least two teachers so that you can divide the students into two groups and each group will have its own teacher 20 and 20 or even if they're together but you will have not one teacher but two teachers my listeners you take the child away from one teacher and you bring them to another teacher so if there's a city that has two teachers and the child is learning by one teacher you take them away from wanting to bring to another teacher if the other teacher is more skilled and he's doing a better job and this child will be more successful whether it's bediktuk whether it's which means he's literally covering more ground or he's a better teacher in the sense of dicta that the student will understand the material better but medvar mamurim when should you do this take him away from one teacher to another teacher if this will guarantee a greater success in learning of the student so the rambam says this if both teachers were in the same city and the river did not separate between them a yearly year but if you have to take the child from one city and bring him to another city so he's constantly traveling he has to come home and then the next day again has to go to another city or if even if both teachers are in the same city but every morning you have to cross the river to go to the other side of the river to go to the other teacher ain't my listeners then there's no responsibility to do this why because it's too strenuous it's too burdensome and it can be dangerous to go every day to another city and cross the river unless there was a strong bridge over the river binyan chennai right lippel a bridge that's not vulnerable it's not good it's not flimsy it's not going to fall so therefore there's no danger in crossing the bridge every single day crossing the river to bring the child to the other teacher who will prove more successful and for this well for the well-being and the learning of this child last night what happens if you have a mother mother is an alleyway and homes may be open to the alleyway and one of the one of the homes that's open to the alleyway wants to has somebody and he wants to become a malamute he wants to create a school in his house or you have a courtyard and there's many homes open to this courtyard and they are in closer proximity to each other than the homes that are open to an alleyway and one of the homes in this courtyard one of the people living there wants to create a school so children are going to come over and obviously they're going to be learning during the day and a little bit of the night and it can create a commotion and disturb the neighbors the neighbors don't have the right to protest it and to prevent this person from creating a school in his home he's going to teach children usually we have legal rights neighbors could complain about these things and there are various alarms which we're going to get to later but in terms of talmud we don't give them the salah right in another scenario melamite nikes somebody is a teacher of children he has a school he teaches children his friend comes up and nearby he opens up another home where he's going to teach children he wants other children to come to learn they're not necessarily children who are learning by the first teacher but new children are going to come to learn by him or perhaps even there are going to be some of the children who are at the first teacher who may go to the second teacher in the first teacher who has an established school cannot protest the other teacher and stop him from doing this the positive says in is hashem wanted the righteousness of the jewish people that the turtles should become great and grand and strong and therefore even though when it comes to financial concerns as a concept of if somebody opens a store right near me and literally takes away my business there are many details in our locker that we're going to explore where you're not allowed to encroach on somebody else's business but here these don't apply if i'm opening up another yeshiva i'm opening up another shader for a place where toyota is going to grow and become bigger the turtle says here there's absolutely no restrictions and no limitations this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at www.theyoshiva.net donate