They're ALL good kids | how teachers need to look at their students

so thank you for the introduction um it's humbling to address a group like this because you're a very influential group of people collectively i mean if there are 200 i said 259 a second ago i think now it's 260. but kaninhara um when you see two the number at the bottom of the screen 260 participants that's really thousands and thousands of people because every one of you has a sphere of influence many times more than just the number that appears on the bottom of the screen so it's it's a privilege it's an honor and and frankly it's uh it is also intimidating to uh to dress to to address a group like this but the the good thing is i can't see anybody i can't see the room full of people so it makes it a little bit less intimidating you know say why are you intimidated don't you do this for a living yes i do do this for a living but you know what who do you want to be the surgeon the doctor who walters into the operating room he says i've done this before or the guy who says you know what every single time i do this i mean oh and i am in awe the idea that um i mean you're educators so i'll speak to y'all speak sharp with you a little bit i don't get this i'm going to indulge myself a little bit for a minute because i don't get a chance to do this often because uh not every crowd relates to this but there's something about the it's an awe-inspiring thing when you stop and you think to yourself that what i'm what i'm about to do could have that much effect on a person um think about that you know when when when you have when you teach a student you don't know which word it's going to be that they're going to remember for the rest of their lives you know they may they may forget 99.9 of the words that you told them but there's going to be that one thing that they're going to carry with them and they're going to carry that with them in every situation wherever they go in all of their interactions and then you end up being present with them in all those situations that you don't even know about because of one thing that you don't even remember necessarily having said so yeah all right so anyways enough about me let's let's talk about tonight i was asked to address the hidden potential of every single student every single child and i guess i'll begin like this today is khamisha asaba of the 15th day of the saddest today of the jewish month of the jewish year and precisely because it's the saddest month so when the moon is full and we begin to resurface come back up from the low point of tish above so the the light having come from the darkness is that much more pronounced one of the things we know about the way the world works in general is that there's really only one direction always forward everything's forward because everything ultimately is leading us a step closer to meshiach so even when something feels like a setback there's really no such thing as a setback it's all part of the process we know the famous story from the gemada about rabbi yakiva and how the rabbi interpreted that story there's a story at the end of the gemara in makkah's where uh the sages saw the bisa magdesh in ruins and they saw foxes coming out of the kedish kardashian and rabbi kiva laughed when the other sages cried they asked him why are you laughing he said why are you crying they said because the place where only the holiest person in in the world was able to enter on the holiest day of the year and and now foxes are are wandering around there serbia rabbi says well you know i'm laughing because ishioa navi said he's making the prophecy of zachariah dependent upon the prophecy of aurya zakai you're prophesied about when there'll be rebuilding or you prophesied that that seeing that zion means means jerusalem the base amigdas would be plowed like a field so now that i see that that that prophecy came true i see how much that the rebuilding prophecy comes true so deb asks a few questions but actually the dub asks no less than eight questions about this gemata but one of the questions is what rabia kiva didn't know that there's such a thing as rebuilding he didn't know about mashiach until he saw it for himself so the rebel explains no ruby akiva knew but he didn't know the extent he didn't know the extent to which the destruction had taken place of course he'd heard about the destruction but when he saw how destroyed it was then he was happy because he realized commensurate to the depth of the destruction that would be proportionately how much greater the redemption would be i don't mean subjectively that you know when you sit in the dark long enough then you come out into the light the light feels brighter i don't mean that feels brighter i mean that the lower the destruction is actually the greater the the uh the rebuilding becomes objectively speaking how do you understand that so that abba says what was the prophecy about the destruction seeing it that zion will be plowed like a field what's plowing there's an old story about a jew back in russia he's sent to a gulag to a prison camp his wife his poor wife writes him a letter she says it's time to plant the potatoes and the ground is too hard i can't plow the ground in order to plant the potatoes and the ox died what do i do so he writes back to his wife he's in the gulag and he writes to his wife and says don't touch the yard that's where i hid the weapons and the ammunition of course kgb reads all the mail coming out of the gulag so as soon as that letter arrives a bunch of soldiers pull up in a truck they jump out and they start tearing apart the yard looking for the the weapons and the ammunition they tear up the whole yard until sunset until it gets dark they don't find anything obviously and they get back on their truck they drive away so the wife writes back to the husband she says soldiers just came by and they tore apart the entire yard so he writes her back and he says now plant the potatoes when you see an act of destruction how do you know it's destruction you look at a snapshot of it you only look at it at this moment it looks like everything is being torn apart but plowing plowing isn't destructive it's constructive that's why it's one of the 39 prohibited forms of labor all the prohibited forms of labor are are are productive it looks destructive it's not destructive it's productive and what's more the more you plow the more growth there will be so that's what rabbi akiva saw he said i knew it was destroyed i didn't realize how destroyed when you plow this much the growth is going to be proportionately that much greater so we know that everything that happens is only moving forward and certainly the completely unpredicted events of the past school year are only bringing us closer to machia specifically in terms of genoch this is only leading to a a better era in genoch this is only leading to better schools and better teachers and better students in every way there's no question there's no question that this can only be productive in every single way and and the only question is at a time like this when we have this you know powerful group assembled is there maybe one thing that we can pinpoint that we can name we say okay this is what at least one way i mean there are many many ways but can we identify one specific way how clearly uh we're in a better position today than we were six months ago so here's what i'll tell you gemara at the end of tainus talks about how uh was a big yamatov one of the biggest yamatavim in the jewish year and what would happen on that day they had a custom that the daughters of jerusalem would go out into the vineyards and they would look for a husband and how would they try to catch a husband it depends it depends on who the girl was so it tells us that the beautiful ones i laugh because you know if somebody heard about this going on somewhere you know but it happened in the gemara so it's all kosher anyways the the beautiful ones would say marry me for my beauty makes sense and then the ones who had yichus pedigree they said marry me for my my pedigree somebody's saying please explain how we're in a better position yeah that's what i'm gonna do with god's help that's what i'm gonna don't worry don't worry don't worry that is the whole point that's precisely why do you think i said that whole uh set up because that's what i want to do but uh now i got to tell you the whole story about the bernay of him and the misha asaba of and then trust me if i at the end if i don't tell you how we're in a better position than we were six months ago i'll give you all your money back okay so the beautiful ones used to say marry me for my beauty and the ones with yichos used to say marry me for my family background because a wife is in order to give you children and children are going to be dependent upon you know the the way the children turn out there's nature there's nurture but a lot of it depends on you know family background and then what about those poor girls who didn't have either of these mylas so in fact it calls them the ugly ones that's how the gematta refers to them so the ugly ones kibayakal as if such a thing could exist used to say mary milashem shamayam as long as you adorn me with jewels so it's a funny gemara for a lot of reasons but the rabbit learns this whole uh piece of agatha according to hasidis what's it talking about it's talking about us each one of us who are the beneficiary the souls and the shama is a daughter is feminine it comes from yerushalayim and they go out into the vineyards they go out into the world and they look for a husband to be makadish them it's face of that the amish there's makadish the jewish people like in isha's makadesh and issa and they're looking for a way to get hashem's attention so there are those who have yafi what's your spiritual yafi spiritual yafi is ava vegeta they have love of hashem they have all hashem and they say hashem choose us because we have this spiritual beauty that's uh the tzaddikim then there are those who say look we don't have spiritual beauty we don't have ava we don't have but here's what we have we have and what does that mean that we have like it talks about in tanya the ava mr teres the ava mr teres the hidden love that we get is a yerusha from the obvious so a banana he might not have real avo vegito like a tadik but he has ava misutters and he can tap into that and it's enough ava to get him to do it's not real out of you but it's enough to get the job done to do the mice and that's why those who have this availability they say marry us for children because the purpose of marriage is children what's children eker told they say him the main what are children maison tavin mice behaviors that's what a banana is able to give hashem so he says to hashem choose me because i'm able to be my eater my ava mr teres and i can give you my i can give you actions and then there's the ugly ones the ugly ones an ugly soul how can there be an ugly soul an ugly nishama you ever heard of an ugly neshama there's no such thing as an aguli what does it mean it means they're not sadiq they don't have they're not banning them they they they can't be ma or the ava mesut so what do they say to hashem they say marry me the shame what does it mean to tell hashem to do something with shame shamayim it means do it for your sake hashem not for our sake do it for your sake choose me for your sake hashem as long as you adorn me with jewels what does it mean to adorn me with jewels no there's the expression do you love me because i'm beautiful or am i beautiful because you love me i might not be at sadiq i might not even be a banany but hashem choose me for your sake and in your choosing me you're adorning me with jewels you'll make me beautiful when you love me i become beautiful and the devin mentions another story in the gemara to to bring out what this really means it says the story uh gamora and nadam about a guy who made another not to marry a particular girl why they were nudging him to marry a particular girl he didn't want to marry her so he made another i'm not marrying this girl now you know the way that it works if somebody makes another you have to be soiled you have to go ask him to release you from the nether you're supposed to and how is the hakam supposed to get you out of the net the only way to release you from the nether is they have to find the what's called the passage means something that if you had known it at the time you made the nether you would never make the nether so this guy made another that he's not going to marry this particular girl and he went to w shmot and what did w ishmael do rabbi yoshimo found this girl and he gave her a makeover now i'm not saying robbie ishmael he like picked out the color palette or maybe he just paid for it maybe he just knew who to call you know but uh you know he it says he got her clothes he got her jewelry he adorned her he gave her a makeover ruby schmuel gave gave this girl a makeover so after he gave her the makeover he says to the guy he says let me ask you a question bring her in they brought in the girl he says is this the girl you made another you're not going to marry and the guy looks at this girl he says no not her now it was the same girl but now he sees her in a totally different light right that's the pasta that's how to release the nether if she would have looked like that at the time i made the nether i would never make such another i didn't know what i was talking about i didn't know who i was dealing with that's not the end of the story though the end of the story is it says at that moment rabbi schmoyle cried it says baka he cried and he says her banished all jewish girls are beautiful but anios poverty men have lost son tarnishes their beauty the devic takes this story to explain what does it mean the beautiful ones the ones with the close the quote-unquote ugly ones there's no such thing as an ugly nishama so you have a tadik you have a banana and you have a what you have a what not it's addict not a banana not yet a banana but don't call her ugly you want to know why because whatever situation that she's in this anios the fact that she came into ilam hazard gosh me and that there's a gullis for two thousand years this aneus the circumstantial poverty this is what's making her look not beautiful like the tsadek or even like the bainini but it's not her kobe noises they're all beautiful you just need to be ishmael to come and give her a makeover and then the guy is going to look and he's going to see hold on a second this is who i was talking about i didn't realize who i was talking about the russian air has void about shidduchim and he asks why is it kosher kris yamsev why'd after that comparison so he says like this when the abhishem made the yam he made a condition with the yam that in 2448 years the jews are going to come out of mitzrayim and you're gonna have to split for them and the yama agreed but then came the day when the eden came out of mitzrayim he didn't split so the malek came and asks why why are you not splitting he says because i didn't see the people i'm supposed to split for they realized that when he was asked thousand four to forty eight years ago to split for the jews they showed him the neshamas what the eden looked like then before the world was created and now it's 2448 years later he's seeing the shamans in bodies and not just in bodies but as they were as they were coming out of mitzrayim after they were at memphis and like the method says that the jews in mitra were even involved so the yam saw them he says this is what i this is this isn't who i recognize so the nurse says the same thing with the shidduch the 40 days before you're conceived it's they say bas play ni laplani that's an ashama sees in the shama and they say when you meet her you know marry her but then they come down into this world that's not who i saw up there so there's a hush of being able to recognize that even those who are not sadiq and not bananim even those who don't have yay fee and don't have jihos even those who are so-called ugly can't be that they're also beautiful but in order to see their beauty their inner beauty that's being hidden right now because of being in this world because of the the hardships of galas to be able to see past that you have to see the neshama so here's what i want to tell you you don't need siddhis to tell you how important it is to see a child's potential you don't need to see this for that lahavdil you could have a secular group of educators and they could talk about the importance of seeing the potential in a child there's a thing they call the rosenthal effect why do they call it that because there was a jewish psychologist called rosenthal if you heard about it the rosenthal effect what did he do his theory was basically that if you would tell teachers to have higher expectations of students the students would rise to those expectations and they did a whole experiment in a school the beginning of the year they gave out tests to all the kids and then they randomly picked certain kids and they would tell the teachers these kids are going to blossom this year and then what happened was self-fulfilling prophecy the ones the teachers were told had greater potential by the end of the year they actually tested higher right so the you don't have to know see this in order to know that that when you see greater potential on a child they rise to that potential what does siddhis give us it gives us the awareness that not only does a child have greater potential than we realize but that they have infinite potential because the potential really is coming from the neshama the nishama's ainsoft infinite and therefore accident means not just one who sees potential in children because again you don't need to see this for that siddhis is one who sees the neshama in the student and that this nishama came to this world to do something unique and to make a contribution that no other neshama ever made and that this nishama has infinite powers and that then and that this nishama is beautiful who ever heard of an ugly nishama and whether they're at sadiq or abanini or neither of those two so-called ugly ones there's really no such thing as agu anees man the circumstances of of islamists and in a goof and being in an being in golis that that makes them look ugly but they're not ugly so here's what i want you to think about when a child is born we look at them in the crib and not only do we love them we're proud of them it's a funny thing what are you proud of they never did anything they can't do anything and yet we're proud of that is that silly the truth is no it's not silly it's actually we're very close to uh to a truth when we look at a baby and we're proud of a baby we're actually closer to the truth then than we are many times when the child gets older the truth is hashem says about every single jew i'm proud of you not just unconditional love that we know about unconditional pride hashem is proud of every jew or proud of what maybe if they'll be from he'll be proud of them they'll do mitzvahs they'll be pr no no that's that's a separate issue that's on top of that what we're talking about is maisio de la hispauer he's proud of them just because of who they are so you could have a child who will go on and do great things he could be proud of their accomplishments but that's a separate issue then there's just being proud of the child for who they are unconditionally that unconditional pride means to see them as an ashama to realize that they are the mystery of hashem and that they have unconditional worth infinite worth intrinsic worth they don't have to earn it they don't have to prove it they don't have to accomplish anything to be worthy of it they are automatically completely valid and worthy and when they're babies we see that when they're babies we see that and we recognize it and we don't say you know when my kid will will grow up and do something then maybe i'll be proud of him no no we don't say that because when we look at them as babies whether it's intuitive or subconscious so we don't even realize we're doing it but we're seeing them closer to the way we should be seeing them all the time which is an ashama that doesn't have to do anything to earn validation now what happens they start to grow up you know studies were done that children's self-esteem plummets around five years old and there are different theories why but most theories generally are that it has to do with school so you think about it when you're a baby everyone's proud of you just for being you then you go to school and now all of a sudden you have to prove your worth there are tests and you compare yourself with others and now somebody's telling you whether you're good or you're not good or how good you are so what happened from the time they were babies we saw them as infinitely worthy intrinsically worthy unconditionally worthy in other words we saw them as souls and then at some point all of a sudden that worth became conditional prove it to me you know earn your worth prove to me that i should be proud of you and like i said you know a group of secular educators could could tell you the same thing what makes this an idea that's unique to see this is that if you know a little bit of siddhis you realize just how absurd it is to ever place conditions on somebody's infinite value because all you have to do is realize that you're looking at a neshama and they don't have to do anything to prove their worth in your eyes when you say maidani in the morning one of the the interpretations of rabba munasaka is the hashem has a munna and you when what's the proof he has a muna in you he woke you up he gave you your soul again today so the fact that anybody is walking this earth they wish to send their soul to this world again for another day means that the abhishek already has validated this person they don't need to get it from a teacher or from from from from uh from a parent or from from peers they're already validated they're infinitely valid unconditionally valid intrinsically valid so here's here's what i want to share with you and this is maybe why you will regret taking somebody from outside of the the world of genoch as a as a keynote speaker something wonderful has happened in the past few months a real plowing a real plowing where i mean i've heard people decrying it people are so upset about what we lost over the past few months how much ground we lost first of all we don't lose anything we always only gain and even when we lose it's only to gain if we lost some of the conditioning some of the routine over the past few months see it as plowing the children are fresh slates again we have an opportunity now to set back the clock to a certain extent and to have them as they were when they were babies you know what i'm saying that instead of their i mean we all know as parents and as educators that there's a certain self-concept that a child takes on because of schoolization because of their role in school whether it's the the social role or their scholastic role but there's a certain identity they begin to see themselves as that's imposed it's artificial it's coming from the outside placed upon them they didn't have it when they were babies when they were babies they were they were infinitely worthy and intrinsically worthy and unconditionally worth so we have a certain opportunity now where children have been away from that situation where maybe it's going to be possible to get a fresh start and by a fresh start what i mean is to realize that every single student is beautiful and has infinite potential already i don't i don't have to make them beautiful they are beautiful i have to bring out the beauty they already have and that means i don't have to make them into something they don't have to fit a mold the school is not here to make them be something else other than what they already are the school is here to serve them to bring out their infinite potential that they already possess now the rabbit spoke about i'm going to wrap up in two minutes here the difference between between the shliya and the ascon that i would spoke at the kinesthesia what's the difference rabbi gave the example of a school that an and has a mice he has a school and in order to function he needs nishamas he needs some people to be you know to send their kids as students he needs some people to be donors to be supporters but he needs people in order to serve the you know the institution that's the ask what's the exact opposite comes to a place and he was given these souls to be a steward to these souls and then he looks at these souls and he says what could i do for them that will help them to maximize their potential do i need to give them a school okay so he creates a school and the school is there to serve the nishams so exact opposite the askin has a school and he needs nashamas to serve the school the shelia has neshamas he creates a school in order to serve the neshamas children are not there so that schools can function and run that's that's an absurd notion i don't think anyone believes that schools are there to serve children so that they can bring out their own inner potential and when i say to bring out their own inner potential let me be very clear that doesn't mean to impose a certain vision for success upon them or to assume a certain teaching method has to be right for all students or the same criteria for success are applicable to all students no that's it's not the purpose of the school the school is there to serve the neshama then ashama already was delivered to you perfect intrinsically worthy absolutely worthy infinitely worthy beautiful and it's the job of the it's the holy job of the mechanic to recognize that and to do everything possible to facilitate that inner beauty coming out so here's what i'll leave you with it's easy to talk it's harder to do right easier said than done i don't have a plan for you i'm not a classroom teacher and i'm not an administrator i don't even know how you guys do it i personally think it's the hardest job in the world and i'm in awe of the people who do it so i don't have a plan for you but i can tell you this there's an opportunity right now that didn't exist half a year ago an opportunity to re-align to recalibrate our whole way of looking at the role of our duty or what we're providing and if we ever thought before that we were there to make children fit into some standard we were given an opportunity we're forced into a situation where we're going to have to rethink that there was a lot of plowing a lot of plowing was done a lot of de-schoolification if that's the word was done in the past three four months it's a gift it's a gift it's an opportunity for us and for the students to get back to their inner beauty and for us to get back to our true role as facilitators of them bringing that out from the inside out not not imposing something from the outside so uh look you have a whole guinness here you have some of the greatest minds some of the most important most influential people and most unknown also i'll say that at the same time some of the most disproportionately unknown people as far as the influence that people at this kin is have okay the the the the woman power not the manpower the woman power here is inordinate and the ability to come up with a plan from this one kinase to make this year the greatest year incomparably the greatest year of education that's ever took taken place in the history of the jewish people that potential is totally within reach to emerge just from what's gonna happen at this guinness so you got your work cut out for you i get i gave you an idea go ahead run with it thank you very much for myself