The Power of Education | Short Film

To live a full life means using all the unique abilities which God grants an individual – man or woman – and to harness them in the fullest measure, in a manner which is most beneficial to yourself and others. In the late ‘60s, I was sent to the United States of America on behalf of the Jewish Agency. I had found Jewish education important in my life, but it’s not the job for a Jewish boy… And I had accepted a position for my return to Israel to run a new start-up business. Then I was asked if I would accompany a person of very major importance in Israel on a visit to the Rebbe. We arrive at 770 Eastern Parkway. The gentleman that I’m with is taken in to see the Rebbe, and he comes out says to me, “The Rebbe asks to speak to you.” I walked into the Rebbe’s office. There was a love in his eyes. He took my hand, held my hand in both of his hands, and he said to me, “Avraham, stay in education.” It is ordained by God: one person’s soul can descend to this world for one purpose, one mitzvah, while another person’s soul might descend – for some seventy or eighty years, as the Baal Shem Tov taught – for a completely different mitzvah or purpose. So you can never know; it’s possible that your entire descent into this world was for a single purpose – your entire seventy or eighty years – and everything else is secondary compared to this one thing. How he knew that earlier that week I had signed a contract to leave education, I have absolutely no idea. But the way in which this was done, the warmth with which the Rebbe’s very presence touched you made me cancel the contract that I had signed and I’ve since then spent an additional forty five years working in Jewish education throughout the Jewish world. working with tens of thousands of young people every year, and eventually becoming the international head of Hillel. I was fourteen, going on fifteen. I wrote to the Rebbe that I had heard a lot of stories about how the Alter Rebbe wrote his Shulchan Aruch before he was twenty, the Shev Shemat’ta was written before its author had turned eighteen, Rabbi Meshulam Igra said a speech to the public that amazed all the great rabbis of his generation at thirteen. I said, “Even if I learn at my best, I’ll never get there, so why should I learn?” The Rebbe wrote back: “It is explained in the Tanya, in the beginning of the fourth chapter, that what you grasp in Torah depends on the supernal root of the soul; depends on where your soul came from. And it also explains in Chapter thirty the meaning of the Mishnah’s words that you have to be humble in front of every single person; every single person has his advantage in comparison to a second person.” Every individual has their own mission. Some people might excel in things like doing good deeds and acts of kindness, while others are more suited to acquiring a deep understanding of the Torah. And within these two broad categories, there are many subcategories. It is told of the Mezritcher Maggid’s student, Rabbi Zushe of Anipoli that among the Maggid’s students, there were greater scholars than Rabbi Zushe. He famously said, “When I come before the Heavenly court, they won’t ask me why I wasn’t as great as this rabbi or that rabbi, they’ll ask me why I wasn’t Zushe of Anipoli.” That is what he had to accomplish. So if your soul is more predisposed to good deeds over Torah study, or one dimension of Torah study over another, then the second is not expected of you. Not because Torah wants to be “kind” to you – it’s simply not your purpose! “Everybody has to fulfill the intention of the Creator, for which he was created. Self-understood, this is only said regarding what you will excel in, but every single Jew is obligated in all 613 commandments and Torah study is equivalent to all of them.” He added that, because I might have said to myself: “Okay, learning is not for me…” When the Evil Inclination sees no other way to test a Jew, it resorts to a particularly cunning method, a shrewd approach. It tries pushing you into doing something that is not for you, so that you will ultimately fail to do what you truly need to. At the end of my being president of N’shei Chabad, I said, “I can’t do this anymore. It’s singlehanded. I’m tired.” I said to the Rebbe, “This is the year, and then I’m letting it go.” And the Rebbe said, “Why, why are you letting this go? You’re doing such a great function.” I said, “I’m tired. It takes all your strength out of you. It takes away from the children, they’re home on Sunday; I’m not home on Sunday. There’s no one that cooperates with me, I’m doing this singlehandedly. I have to find everyone. I have to do it all myself.” I said, “I’m tired, I don’t want to do it anymore.” And the Rebbe said to me, “You’re tired and you don’t want to do it anymore?” I said, “That’s right.” And he says, “What should the Rebbe say?” He said, “The Rebbe is tired, no one helps the Rebbe, but the Rebbe continues doing it.” “I’m not the Rebbe.” “But you’re not doing the job of a Rebbe; you’re doing the job that you can do”. God gives every person, and certainly every Jew, together with the talents and abilities that they receive, God provides the ability to develop and apply them in fullest measure. The Rebbe said to me, “Can you continue another year?” If the Rebbe says it to you like that, try to say no! Then will you succeed, by going on the path suited to your personality, your capabilities, and the mission that God assigned to you.