Rabbi Korf. I was going to start tonight by saying everything that was said until now. Thanking all of you for the commitment of coming, Rabbi Korf, Mrs. Dolfin, Rabbi Gorfinkel, Mrs. Sankow, and the amazing teachers. As I mentioned to Rabbi Korf before, kein ayin hara there's 50 schools who are now part of Chayolei Tzivos Hashem, but without question, the biggest and the most active school of all of them is Lubavitch Educational Center. I have been around to other schools to speak to the teachers and the children, but this is the first school that we're actually going and getting the parents to come as well. And it just shows on the kind of school that we're dealing with, and it's all been said up until now, but again from my for my part, a tremendous yishar koach to all of you for coming and for the staff here for the amazing work that you do. All of us who are here tonight, from my understanding, have children. And today, in today's day and age, to bring up children, and specifically to bring up Yiddishe children and Chassidishe children, I would say, in one word, is challenging. What I would like to try and do tonight is try to get to the bottom of the challenges, to the root of the challenges, and to identify the Rebbe's solution to the challenges, what we've done to be able to bring the Rebbe's vision to life, and to identify how you can be part of the Rebbe's vision, and what you can do to make this a reality in your home with your children. Let's start with trying to identify some of the challenges that we face. The street is not the same as when we grew up. We don't see the Rebbe. There's tremendous competition for the children's attention. Many times children feel a tremendous disconnect, even though they're learning Torah and doing mitzvot, but they feel a tremendous disconnect from that to their own lives. They feel a lot more connected with modern technology and all sorts of other things that are going on in the world than the Torah that they're learning. Somehow or rather, it seems to be irrelevant to them: What has this got to do with me? Sometimes we look back and we say, where is the child's sense of belonging, identity, pride, and passion, commitment, purpose, direction, and goals, accountability, discipline, motivation, and incentive? I'm not sure if any of you can relate to what I'm saying, but all of these challenges that we face, when it came to the Rebbe starting Tzivos Hashem, and an educator wrote to the Rebbe bashing the whole idea and saying that Torah is supposed to be its ways of peace and supposed to be a beautiful Torah, and here you started an army, teaching children to fight, I know it's the yetzer hara, but you're teaching children to fight, and the Rebbe responded with a letter that was on every single person's chair when you walked in tonight. I can't go through the whole letter. Im yirtzeh Hashem, when you go home, you'll be able to read it, but just to go through some of the core points.

The Rebbe explains in this letter that with any problem that you have, it could be a physical, mental, or a spiritual problem, we only deal with the symptoms when it's an emergency. If you want to deal with a problem, you've got to get to the root of the problem. And then the Rebbe continues writing to this educator that, \"As an educator, I'm sure you understand there's a need for motivation. But, in my opinion, the root of the challenge with today of today's youth is the lack of kabbalat ol.\" Today's the root problem that we have with today's children is they do not accept authority. And the Rebbe continues, \"I'm not only referring to kabbalat ol malchut shamayim, I'm not only they don't only not accept the authority of God, but children today, especially an American child, is brought up with a sense of cockiness. Not only do they not listen to their parents or their teachers, but they even feel they can outsmart the cops and even the judge.\" Just to give you an idea, this letter was written over 30 year 30 years ago. I was still a child in school when the Rebbe started Tzivos Hashem. And in those days, my principal had in his office what he called the עץ הדעת. Used to hang on the wall. And one once I remember when we were It was snowing outside and it was very exciting for us to have snow. And one of the kids came out and told us, \"The Rebbe told us we can stay out for 15 extra minutes of recess.\" And we came back after 15 extra minutes to find the principal with his עץ הדעת. And he would say, \"Bend over, my boy. I'm going to knock that yetzer hara out of you.\" And he did. We used to bend over, and he gave us the cane. This is when the Rebbe wrote this letter 30 years ago. Today, of course, is unheard of. And then the Rebbe was identifying that children are not listening to their parents, their teachers, feeling they can outsmart the cops and the judge. It wasn't really what the society was like in those days. But today, I think we can all see the Rebbe's vision and understand how he saw the root of this problem 30 years ago. The Rebbe says This is 30 years ago. \"There remains only the fear of punishment, and because of the breakdown in the way the law enforcement the breakdown of law enforcement, even that today there isn't.\" As we said before, there's even little to fear in the way of punishment. And here comes the incredible words that the Rebbe writes in this letter: \"I thought long and hard.\" Not only does the Rebbe identify the root problem of today's youth, but the Rebbe writes that, \"I thought long and hard about finding a way of enthusing an American child to get used to the idea of subordination to a higher authority.\" And if that was incredible, the Rebbe goes to say, \"Despite all influences to the contrary in the school, in the street, and even at home, where parents not wishing to be bothered by their children have all too often abdicated their authority and left it to others to deal.\" You see over here what the Rebbe is identifying is the Rebbe is saying that even the parents sometimes, and today I think it's more than ever, not chas v'shalom because parents don't care, but with both parents working, like Rabbi Gopin was mentioning before about hours, unfortunately, sometimes like last week if I go to the office on Wednesday morning and I come home when it comes to licht bentchen, it's not because you don't care about your children, sometimes you're just too busy to always be there for our children, and we're hoping that somebody else is going to pick up the pieces. Here comes the bomb. The Rebbe finishes, writes, includes continues in the letter and he says, \"I came to the conclusion there is no other way than trying to effect a basic change in in the nature of the child through a system of discipline and obedience to rules. Moreover, for this method to be effective, it would be necessary that it should be freely and readily accepted without coercion.\" So just to summarize, the Rebbe identified the root challenge of today's youth, the lack of kabbalat ol, of accepting authority, and he thought long and hard for a solution, and he comes to the conclusion that the only, there's no other way, the only solution is to create a system of discipline that the child accepts upon himself. When it comes to kabbalat ol, most people I would say have a very different concept of what kabbalat ol is than what it really is.

To most people, we know of kabbalat ol of a farmer in a field, and he sees a cow, and he thinks to himself, \"Great, this cow can be an amazing tool to help me plow my field. But the cow's not going to want to do what I want to do, so what will I do? I'll take the yoke, that's the ol, and I will take this yoke and I'll put it onto the cow. And then I can utilize this cow to plow the fields for me. And with that, I'll be able to grow crops.\" That is true, that's where we learn kabbalat ol from, but that's not really what kabbalat ol is. Look in the lashon, because when you look at a cow, does the cow really want to plow that field? No. If you look into Tanya in פרק מ\"א, when the Alter Rebbe explains kabbalat ol, he brings this mashal, he brings this example of the cow, and he says, like this ox דיהבין עליה עול, like this ox that you put a yoke onto the cow in order to extract from it good for this world, הכי נמי אצטריך לבר נש לקבלא עליה עול. So too also, a person needs to accept upon themselves the ol. עול מלכות שמים בקדמיתא והאי והאי לא ישתכח גביה לא ישרי ביה קדושה. Not only do they have to accept on themselves the ol, if he doesn't, then kedushah doesn't rest on him. But look at the difference. When it comes to the ox, what does it use, the terminology? דיהבין עליה עול, you put a yoke onto the ox. And in later generations, they stopped doing that, they started to use a harness, because even putting a yoke onto the ox, it didn't work. They needed to find something more comfortable, something more pleasurable that the ox would they would accept on themselves. But when it comes to a person, it says לקבלא עליה עול. Kabbalah means you accept. Somebody who comes from a non-religious background and has decided to become religious has accepted upon themselves to go in the ways of Hashem. When you're bringing up children today, so you're bringing them up in a in your home where you think is a beautiful Yiddishe, chassidishe house, but did your child ever accept this upon them, or is this the is the way of life that you've chosen, and you're putting it onto them? Have your children ever bought into what you've bought into? Has there ever been a kabbalah from their part, has there ever been an acceptance from their part, or are we just putting them onto the conveyor belt and expecting them to take the yoke and plow the field? In English, we call it buy-in. Today, the world is about marketing. When you have a product, you can have the best product in the world, but if somebody didn't buy into your product, you're not going to sell it. Coke spend so much money every single year on marketing, but why? Who doesn't know of Coke? Imagine if they didn't do any marketing, then so nobody will know that they they existed? But it doesn't work that way. If you want to be able to be successful, you need to market your product, and you need to get people to buy into it. And I think, without elaborating any further, I think that if we can understand that this is the root problem of today's youth, that they've never bought into it before, and every single then then you can understand why every single action is now a challenge. \"Do this.\" \"Ugh.\" \"Do this.\" \"Ugh.\" I don't, again, I'm not sure because I that I don't live in Florida, maybe Florida is different than Brooklyn, but has anyone ever experienced a child saying, \"No\"? Seems like they have, okay. Has anyone ever experienced a child saying, \"Why should I?\" Or what about if you turn around and say, \"Because Mommy or Tatty told you to,\" \"What are you going to do to me if I don't?\" Or, \"What are you going to give me if I do it?\" Ever heard that before? And what about a child responding and saying, not chas v'shalom because they're bad, not chas v'shalom because they're bad, but a child, if you afterwards when you go and speak to them and you ask them how come you didn't listen, their response is, \"But that wasn't the right thing to do.\" A child could be seven years old, and you might be 30 years older than them, but they know better. I mean you're old-fashioned, you're not with the program. They handle your iPad better than you do, so obviously they know things better than you do.

When the Rebbe made this decision after thinking long and hard that the only solution is to create a system of discipline that children will buy into, he didn't just think about an idea of theories, but he actually came up with a model for a solution. And in the Rebbe's words, the the best model for this is the army. The army is the perfect place where people volunteer to join, and when they join, they know they're joining a rigorous system of discipline and there's no games. You're a soldier. There's no such no such thing as asking why. You're buying into a rigorous system of discipline when you're becoming a soldier. Yes, the benefits will be great, incredible benefits you're going to have, but the reality is you're there's no such thing as coming to the army and, \"Today I'm interested, and today I can't be bothered.\" You're joining an army. And the Rebbe's model for for the solution is the army. And then when he starts the army, he clarifies right away, \"I want you to know I'm not making this army.\" He quotes the Chumash when the Yidden go out of Mitzrayim, and he says, \"בעצם היום הזה יצאו צבאות ה' מארץ מצרים.\" On the midst of that day when they went out of Mitzrayim, instead of being slaves to Paroh, they became Hashem's soldiers. We're not creating something new. Every single Jew went out of Mitzrayim, they're צבאות ה'. And then he said, \"How do you know how צבאות ה' is supposed to behave?\" So he says, \"You look at a regular army. The army is a model for you to know how צבאות ה' is supposed to function.\" Not because the army is our model. Really this is how it is in צבאות ה', in Hashem's army. That army is a reflection, a physical manifestation of Hashem's army, and that's why we can look at it to see how Hashem's army should function. Especially the armies of David and Shlomo Hamelech, and we're not talking about chas v'shalom bad things that happen in an army, we're talking about the good, the Rebbe says the good sedarim, the good things in an army. And the first thing he says is, every single children's group, all the children's groups around the world should all be called with the same name that will unite all of them, united we stand. And then, not only have the same name, but they should actually behave like an army. And then he goes to identify, goes into the details in the first rally, he goes to identify the what does it mean that you're part of this army. And he says to the says to the children in the first rally, he says, \"I want you to know this is not a game. This is serious stuff. Serious serious business over here.\" In the Rebbe's words, \"nisht kein shpil.\" Not a game. \"In an army, lives are on the line,\" the Rebbe says. And when you're given a command in an army, the Rebbe says, \"The foundation of the army is kabbalat ol. נעשה קודם לנשמע. First you do your command, And then you find out why. And then he says the second point of kabbalat ol, so three points, is that a soldier can never turn around and say, \"I'm not in the mood.\" If chas v'shalom you're on guard as a soldier, and then suddenly what's going to happen is that someone's going to come past your post, the enemy's going to come through, you know, in fact you didn't do your job, you're putting the whole army in danger, you're putting the whole country in danger. And then the Rabbi says to the children, you think speaking to kids he'd be more calm and maybe the word is gentle, he says to the children, \"If you chas veshalom do something that's inappropriate, you chas veshalom take something that's not kasher and you put it into your mouth, you should know that you're putting the entire Jewish nation in danger.\" And then he goes further, and he says, \"And even if you think that you're not listening for the sake of the army, not chas veshalom for your own sake. For my sake, I would do it, but I think it's better for the army if I do it something differently, then you need to know that even if you're the greatest general of the army, no one can ever change the command of the Commander-in-Chief. Because only he sees the full picture, and only he knows what to do.\" So if you're looking to see why the Rabbi made Tzivos Hashem, between the letter that you have on your on your on your chest at the first rally, I think it's evident the Rabbi is here to deal with the real challenge that we all face every single day. And the Rabbi turns to the children, he says, \"I want you to volunteer. Not only do I want you to volunteer, boys, I want you to get other boys to volunteer, and girls, I want you to get other girls to volunteer to join Hashem's army. To be soldiers of Hashem.\" What does that mean? We said if it was a good nice program, it was a nice color war theme, then okay, it's cute, nice, kids get dressed up like soldiers and you know, it's fun and it's a program, it's cute way of doing it. That's one thing. But if this is real, then what does it mean that we're Hashem's soldiers? And again, the Rabbi takes the the model of the army, and in a regular army, why do we have soldiers? Anyone ever thought about it, why do you need a soldier? Today, we don't really need to think about it because Baruch Hashem America has a powerful army. If chas veshalom America didn't have the army that it had, would we be sitting here tonight like this? We experienced 9/11, היו לא תהיה. The reason why we're sitting here and feeling somewhat safe is because we have an army. What is the army doing? What does an American army do? It allows the American citizens to live according to the Constitution. In the Constitution.