Entebbe at 50: The Rebbe's 12 Torah Passages and the Power of Jewish Children

Early on the morning of Thursday, July 1, 1976, a cab carrying two emissaries of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, wound its way through the narrow stone-paved streets of Meah Sha’arim, Jerusalem. Every adult in the neighborhood was fasting that morning.

Palestinian and German terrorists had hijacked Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris four days prior, on Sunday, June 27. They now held 95 Jewish passengers at gunpoint in an old airport terminal in Entebbe, Uganda. The Jews would all be murdered, the terrorists threatened, unless 53 Arab and German prisoners were freed by the countries holding them. The deadline was 2:00 p.m.

While the Israeli government weighed its options, the Haredi Council of Jerusalem (the Edah Chareidit) had declared a half-day fast. It also called on the children of Jerusalem to gather at the courtyard of Meah Sha’arim’s central school to rally in prayer for the hostages.

The cab left the emissaries outside the home of the densely populated neighborhood’s preeminent Torah authority, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Weiss (1902-1989), head of the Haredi Council. Recently arrived in the Holy Land from Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, Rabbi Shalom Labkowski and Rabbi Avraham Borouch Pevzner, both in their 20s, had come with a suggestion for the prayer rally’s program.

“We thought it would be a good idea if the children would recite the 12 Torah passages the Rebbe had chosen,” Rabbi Labkowski later recalled.1

Just six weeks earlier—across two talks in early and mid May—the Rebbe had unveiled one of his many iconic initiatives: a collection of 12 Torah passages for every Jewish child to learn, recite, and teach to their friends. In talk after talk, the Rebbe had repeatedly connected these passages with a verse in Psalms: “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings You have established strength … in order to put an end to enemy and avenger.”2 The Jewish people’s spiritual strength and security, he asserted, was indelibly bound to their ability to implant the Torah in their children’s hearts.

Rabbi Weiss had not been expecting the emissaries, but he knew them well and welcomed them warmly.

“We plan on reciting Tehillim,” Rabbi Weiss said of the rally’s program. Rabbi Labkowski handed the venerated scholar a freshly-printed paper bearing the 12 Torah passages. “Given the rally’s purpose is to safeguard the hostages,” he suggested, “it would seem fitting to recite these passages which are especially effective at ‘putting an end to the enemy and avenger.’”3

Rabbi Weiss studied the paper. Here were Judaism’s most basic ideas—for instance, Torah tzivah, the first verse schoolchildren are taught; the Shema prayer—alongside similarly foundational passages from across the Torah, Talmud, and the core work of Chabad Chassidism, the Tanya.

Finally, he looked up. “What connects these passages?” he asked, “Were they chosen to be uniquely effective for spiritual protection—to ‘put an end to the enemy and avenger’? Or were they chosen for their educational content—to give children the basics of Jewish belief—in which case any other Torah passage would achieve the same effect?”4

“We didn’t hear the answer explicitly,” the emissaries said, but they suggested that “the very fact that the Rebbe selected them makes them auspicious for protecting the Jewish people.”

Rabbi Weiss signaled his approval, summoned the prayer rally’s organizers, and before long—after reciting Psalms and selichot—the streets of Jerusalem were filled with the sound of 10,000 Jewish children and their parents calling out the 12 Torah passages that would soon become an ubiquitous feature of Jewish children’s gatherings worldwide.

The terrorists’ 2:00 p.m. deadline came and went without incident. The Israeli government had bought time by opening negotiations with the terrorists. Two days later, on Shabbat, an Israeli commando unit loaded two armored cars and a replica of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s black Mercedes-Benz limousine onto four transport planes and skimmed the earth—flying, miraculously undetected, as low as 100 feet above ground—for over 2,500 miles to Uganda.

Landing after dark, they stormed the airport terminal, beat back the terrorists and the Ugandan army, rescued the hostages, and flew to Kenya where they refueled for the flight home. Three hostages and the rescue unit’s commander, Yoni Netanyahu, were lost. Ninety-two hostages returned home safely. The world was astounded.

On Sunday morning, as Israel woke up to the miraculous news, Labkowski and Pevzner paid another visit to Rabbi Weiss. “He was in high spirits,” the emissaries later recalled.5 The venerable rabbi reveled in the miracle at Entebbe and shared his personal satisfaction at seeing the Rebbe’s 12 Torah passages initiative blossom. But by now he had grown acutely curious about this new initiative’s goal.

His earlier question still stood: did the Rebbe intend these verses to serve as spiritual protection for the Jewish people during a time of crisis, or was this primarily a framework for educating the next generation of Jewish children? The two emissaries promptly wired Rabbi Weiss’s question to Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, N.Y..

‘From the Voice of Babes and Infants’ — From 1927 to 1973

On Sept. 5, 1972, Akiva Lakser, an Israeli attorney working in London, was 20 yards from the Israeli athletes competing at the Munich Olympics when eight terrorists barged into their apartment, murdered two, and took the rest hostage. Helpless, he watched the athletes be led away. Later he learned they had all been murdered. The tragedy shook him. He vowed to watch Israel’s athletes compete at the next Olympics. And that’s how he ended up on the flight to Paris, on his way to the Montreal Olympics of 1976, when he was among those taken hostage and held in Entebbe, Uganda.6

Languishing in the old airport terminal, his mind returned to a message he had heard shortly after the massacre in Munich, in the summer of 1973, in a private audience with the Rebbe.

“The Rebbe gave me encouragement,” Lakser recalled of their conversation, “‘The strength of the Jewish people comes from walking in the ways of G‑d, and passing that on, through proper education, to our children,” the Rebbe said, ‘and then we will overcome all these things.’”7

It was a message the Rebbe would soon share far and wide. All summer long, with Munich’s memory marring the Jewish people’s mood, with Israel’s Arab neighbors ominously massing their armies, the Rebbe focused his attention, with increasing urgency, on the state of Jewish education.

By then, many of the American Jews who had once populated close-knit Jewish neighborhoods across New York City had dispersed to its leafier suburbs. Where they would once have encountered Jewish life on the street or in the synagogue on their block, Jewish children now grew up a 20 minute drive from the nearest Hebrew school or synagogue. Often, they were the only Jewish kid on the block.8

In a public letter, the Rebbe urged educators to “do everything you can for the proper education of every Jewish child, beginning from the very youngest.”9 He invoked the Talmud’s insistence that the world is sustained by the study of schoolchildren;10 and he focused on a message his father-in-law, the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, had delivered 46 years earlier, on a cold winter night in Moscow.

On the evening of Feb. 15, 1927, the Sixth Rebbe was meeting with a Soviet Jewish official in a Moscow hotel when four agents of the Communist secret police barged in brandishing pistols. As they rummaged through his luggage, they claimed he was under arrest. It was only the high rank of the Soviet official the Sixth Rebbe had been meeting with that scared them off.

After years of violent social engineering, the Soviet revolutionaries saw the Sixth Rebbe’s underground network of rabbis and educators as a great threat to the Communist Party and the fate of the Revolution itself.

The next evening, Feb. 16, Albert Fuchs, president of the Moscow Jewish community,11 saw candles burning in the Lubavitcher Synagogue that stood adjacent to Moscow’s Choral Synagogue; inside, a large crowd was pressed wall-to-wall. On the bimah, speaking loudly and passionately, stood the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak. Fuchs’ heart fell. Earlier that week, he had warned the Rebbe to leave the capital. Now, he saw police informants among the crowd, listening intently.12

It was Purim Katan and the Sixth Rebbe spoke on behalf of a tradition that has long counted the innocent Torah learning of young children among the Jewish people’s strongest merits in the eyes of G‑d. The Midrash, he noted, portrays the Torah study of little children as the decisive factor at play in the Book of Esther: As Queen Esther prepared to put her life on the line in a long-shot bid to overturn the imperial minister Haman’s annihilatory anti-Jewish decree, the Jewish leader Mordechai “gathered 22,00013 little children, and they cried out and immersed themselves in Torah.”14

To defeat a totalitarian regime bent on snuffing out Judaism, the Sixth Rebbe declared, we must work to ensure that Jewish children receive a Jewish education at all costs. “You’d think that to battle an adversary requires strong men, great might, and experts in the tactics of war,” he said that evening. “But, as is written, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, says the Lord of hosts.’”15 It is by working to reveal G‑d’s presence in the world—specifically by ensuring Jewish children are raised with an awareness of G‑d’s presence—that the Jewish people can sail beyond the reach of their enemies. This, he explained, provides the spiritual mechanism that explains the Psalmist’s assurance that “the voice of babes and infants” holds the power to “put an end to the enemy and avenger.”16

Forty-six years later, this was the message his son-in-law, the Rebbe, returned to.

It is Jewish children who hold the power to secure the Jewish people—whether they stand threatened by silent assimilation or by violent terrorism.

As the summer of 1973 waned, in the final days before the High Holidays, the Rebbe unexpectedly urged that schoolchildren be gathered for rallies where they would give coins to charity, hear a Chassidic teaching, recite Torah verses, and study relevant messages from the Oral Torah.17 “By ending the year with ‘the voice of babes and infants,’ may all negative decrees be obliterated,” he said.18

Then came an open letter to “Jewish educators everywhere,” requesting that they “gather children under the age of bar and bat mitzvah, as many as possible.” This time, the Rebbe suggested a specific set of verses for the children to recite together:

“The Torah Moses commanded is the heritage of the congregation of Jacob” (Deuteronomy 22:4).

“Hear O’ Israel, G‑d is our G‑d, G‑d is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

“Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever” (Liturgy)

This was to be followed by a short prayer,19 and, extraordinarily, a Yiddish message shared in the name of the Chassidic movement’s founder, the Baal Shem Tov:

“The Baal Shem Tov said: every Jew comes into this material world with a certain mission of Torah—which is light—and they carry this mission wherever they go and come, whether in their hometown or wherever, and on whatever occasion they go.”20

On the Wednesday before Yom Kippur, thousands of children massed into the newly expanded central synagogue at Chabad Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway. “The elder chassid, Rabbi Berke Chein, led the children with great emotion,” wrote a young diarist, Aharon Dov Halpern, “and thousands of children, and the Rebbe, too, repeated the words after him. We felt there was something extraordinary happening, some effort to avert an evil decree, but we understood nothing.”21

Three days later, on Yom Kippur, hundreds of thousands of Egyptian and Syrian soldiers and thousands of tanks poured across Israel’s borders. The Yom Kippur War had begun. By the Rebbe’s telling, at a gathering held in the war’s early days, he now understood that Divine providence had orchestrated his last-minute call for Jewish education: “Sometimes there are things you do, and while you do them you don’t understand why. But later, you understand why this happened at this time,” he said.22

For those who had witnessed the Rebbe’s activity leading up to the Yom Kippur War, the Rebbe’s introduction of the 12 Torah passages in 1976 just prior23 to the Entebbe crisis matched a pattern: when the Jewish people faced a threat to their security, the Rebbe could be found vigorously campaigning for Jewish education.24

And yet, as the Rebbe’s actions in the days and years after the Entebbe rescue made clear, the work of the 12 Torah passages had only just begun. This was far more than a spiritual crisis intervention. This was a bold assertion that a young child was capable of far more than had ever been assumed.

Let the Children Teach!

It was the first Shabbat after Passover, shortly after the Rebbe’s 74th birthday, and a few short months before the United States of America would celebrate its 200th anniversary on July 4, 1976. Celebrated with a year-long program of re-enactments, declarations, and shows, the Bicentennial Year brought fireworks to the skies over America’s major cities and primetime speeches from President Gerald Ford.

Speaking at the first of three back-to-back gatherings at 770, the Rebbe surprised his audience by proclaiming a year-long program of his own.

“According to the custom of the country,25 we proclaim that this year is a Year of Education,” he announced. “What has passed has passed, but from now on we must ensure that every Jewish child receives a proper Jewish education.”26

He had set a vastly ambitious goal, and called on his entire audience—businessmen, professionals, housewives, parents, rabbis, and students—to make it happen. “The concept of education is especially relevant to those who have already worked in this field,” the Rebbe said, “but it is also relevant to each and every person.”27 Then, at a second gathering the next day, children themselves were asked to join the ranks of the educators:

We can make an effort to include Jewish boys and girls in the education campaign. This means that as soon as they are able to understand a matter of Judaism, they can already engage in educating. For it is a child’s nature to befriend children their age, and one can explain to a small child that they should influence their friend—whether at school, at home, or even in the street—in matters of Torah, mitzvot, and Yiddishkeit.”28

But what precisely, can a little child teach their friends? In answer to this, the Rebbe presented six Torah passages, each carrying a fundamental message that, when explained simply, “can be understood even by a small child.”29

The structure was simple: two verses from the Written Torah, two teachings of the Oral Torah, and two from the Tanya. Having memorized these verses, the Rebbe suggested, “a child could say them, or think about them whenever they have a free moment, and also explain them to his or her friend.”30

The First Six

תּוֹרָה צִוָּה לָנוּ מֹשֶׁה מוֹרָשָׁה קְהִלַּת יַעֲקֹב.

Torah tzivah lanu Moshe morashah Kehilat Yaakov.

1. The Torah which Moses commanded us is the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob (Deuteronomy 22:4).

“First and foremost,” the Rebbe explained, “one begins with this verse of Torah Tzivah, as the Torah directs, that ‘as soon as a child knows to speak, their father teaches them Torah.’31 Therefore one learns with their child this verse, which says that the child has inherited the entire Torah—meaning that they become the complete master of all matters of Torah and its mivtzvot; over the Torah that Moses commanded.”32

Rabbi Naftoli Hertz Pewzner, a Chabad scholar and the author of a forthcoming book on the 12 Torah Passages, sees this verse as intended to reinforce that the Torah is not something that belongs to parents, who then hand it down to their child, but as something the child already owns.

“The Rebbe wanted the children to feel ownership over the Torah, and especially these select passages,” Pewzner explains. “Oftentimes, it is difficult to convey ideals without sounding preachy, but when it is presented as the meaning of the verses which they already know, it’s received more pleasantly. There is immediate buy-in.”33 The Torah is not an external set of rules imposed upon children; it is a treasure that has always been theirs.

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל ה' אֱלקינוּ ה'  אֶחָד.

Shema Yisrael, Hashem elokeinu, Hashem echod.

1. Hear O’ Israel, G‑d is our G‑d, G‑d is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

“Similarly,” the Rebbe went on, “there is the Talmud’s directive to accustom one’s child to say Shema Yisrael.34 One can explain it with ease to a child: the world they see, with its four directions, its heavens and earth, of all this world we say: ‘G‑d is One,’ meaning that He is the one and only existence. Along with this, one explains to the child that ‘G‑d is Your G‑d,’ that this G‑d is connected with them, He is their personal G‑d.”35

“In most contexts, the emphasis in this verse is placed on the statement of G‑d’s unity,” Rabbi Pewzner says, “but whenever the Rebbe spoke to children, he also focused on the words Hashem elokeinu, G‑d is our G‑d: that G‑d is theirs personally; so the child can feel that a personal connection, knowing that G‑d gives them undivided attention and care. They should know that G‑d is always right with them, listening to them as if they were the only being in the world.”

בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם.

B’chol dor vador, chayav adam lir’ot et atzmo k’eilu hu yatza mi’Mitzrayim.

1. In every generation, one must see themselves as if they personally left Egypt. (Mishnah, Pesachim 10:5)

The third verse introduced the Exodus as a recurring, personal event. “A child must see themselves as if they personally were taken out from Egypt,” the Rebbe said, explaining: “One tells the child that until now they were in Egypt—which means limitation and confinement—and today, this very day, they were taken out into freedom.”36

In effect: G‑d constantly frees us from the grip of our past. Knowing this enables children to grow: “So all the questions the child has—‘How will I be able to adopt a difficult thing I am not accustomed to?’—fall away. Until now they were in a kind of Egypt, but now they have left it behind, they have become a new person.”37

Rabbi Pewzner notes that in the Rebbe’s subsequent talks to children, this verse was taken to be identity-shaping: “You might think you’re not such a good child, you know adults aren’t perfect either, but there is no need to resign yourself to this perspective. Know that in this very moment, G‑d wishes to grant you freedom, freedom to be your true self, which is inherently and totally good. You can leave this inner slavery in the blink of an eye.”

כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר ״וְעַמֵּךְ כֻּלָּם צַדִּיקִים לְעוֹלָם יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ נֵצֶר מַטָּעַי מַעֲשֵׂה יָדַי לְהִתְפָּאֵר.״

Kol Yisrael yesh lahem chelek la’olam habah, shene’emar: “Ve’ameich kulam tzadakim, le’olam yirshu aretz, netzer mata’ai ma’aseh yadai le’hitpaer.

1. All Jews have a share in the World To Come, as it says: “Your nation are all righteous, they will inherit the land forever, they are the branch I planted, the work of My hands, in which I take pride.” (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10:1)

“You can explain to every child, even a very small one, that they are ‘the work of G‑d’s hands, and G‑d takes pride in them,’” the Rebbe explained. “However great your parents are, G‑d in Heaven is greater, and you are G‑d’s beloved handiwork—so much so that you become eternal, you have a portion in the eternal world to come.”38 Later, he added, “This is not due to anything the child did, from the moment they are born, G‑d boasts of them and takes pride in them.”39

Whether or not they see it in themselves, this verse in effect tells every child that they are fundamentally righteous, and that they can never count themselves out.40

כִּי קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָבָר מְאֹד בְּפִיךָ וּבִּלְבָבְךָ לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ.

Ki karov elecha hadavar me’od beficha ubilevavecha la’asoto.

1. For the matter is very near to you, to follow the Torah by your mouth, in your heart, and to do it. (Deuteronomy 30:14)

Next, the Rebbe presented the verse with which Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi introduces the Tanya.

“Similarly,” he said, “there is a concept from the title page of Tanya, that the Torah is very close to you, for you to keep it in your speech, your feeling, and your action, in the simple sense—this means that the Torah is eternal; it is relevant in every time and place.

“One can explain this to a child: a child may naturally want a material thing, for example a toy, but they should know that the Torah is very close to them: they are able to act on it, in action, and in speech, and in feeling. All they need to do is to contemplate the value of it.”41

וְהִנֵּה ה׳ נִצָּב עָלָיו, וּ״מְלֹא כָל הָאָרֶץ כְּבוֹדוֹ״, וּמַבִּיט עָלָיו, וּבוֹחֵן כְּלָיוֹת וָלֵב אִם עוֹבְדוֹ כָּרָאוּי.

Vehineh Hashem nitzav alav umelo chol ha'aretz kevodo, umabit alav uvochen kelayot valev, im ovdo kara'ui.

1. Behold, G‑d stands over you, and the whole earth is filled with His glory and He [nonetheless] looks at you and searches your heart and mind [to see] if you are serving Him as is fitting. (Tanya, Chapter 41).42

Finally came a passage from the Tanya itself that the Rebbe saw as an antidote to social anxiety and peer pressure.

“The first paragraph of the Code of Jewish Law tells us ‘Do not be embarrassed before those who mock,’” the Rebbe said. “How can you teach this to a child? One tells them: it is true that there are other boys and girls who don’t yet know about Judaism, but if you are embarrassed before [other children], certainly you should be mindful before G‑d, who ‘stands over you.’ So certainly, you should not be embarrassed.”43

The Rebbe saw the knowledge that G‑d is here with you, watching you as profoundly reassuring. “Across his personal correspondence,” says Rabbi Pewzner, “the Rebbe often counseled those struggling with various difficulties—depression, anger, worry, even stuttering—to study this chapter in Tanya. The message was not that one should fear G‑d; it was that G‑d is with you, that he believes in you and gives you strength.”44

By making all these passages central to their thinking, the Rebbe concluded, children could become educators in their own right. “When children educate themselves, and when they educate another, they become participants in the campaign of education,” he said.45

Then he added: “This creates the effect of ‘from the voice of babes and infants You have founded strength.’ and as the Midrash says, ‘there is no strength but Torah.’46 For when the Jewish people hold the Torah close, ‘G‑d gives strength to His people’47 in all things.”48

And Six More for Daily Life

The forecast for Tuesday, May 18, 1976, had called for heavy rain. But by 9:30 a.m., with three blocks of Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway already closed to traffic, the morning’s downpour had turned to a slight drizzle.

By 11:30 a.m., 5,000 Jewish children—some driving from as far away as Philadelphia—filled the street. Six giant signs—each bearing one of the Torah passages the Rebbe had introduced—hung prominently on a building’s facade. A marching band stood at the ready. A dozen 18-wheeler flatbed trucks carrying the creativity of a dozen schools idled noisily nearby. One carried supersized Shabbat candlesticks. A model apartment topped another flatbed, complete with a child’s room featuring a chart of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. A group of schoolgirls stood on a third, drawing the six Torah passages on large cardboard books.

The clouds thinned, the sun came out, and the Lag BaOmer Parade began.49

Such parades were traditionally held on Sundays, when they could be attended by Jewish public school students and Jewish day school students alike. This one, however, was a Tuesday, and so hastily arranged in the days immediately following the Rebbe’s announcing “The Year of Education.”

Watching from the raised dais, the Rebbe opened the program with a short talk to the assembled children.

“True education” the Rebbe said in the course of his remarks, “does not merely mean knowing more. It means that the knowledge should translate into new behavior.”50 Accordingly, he presented a further six Torah passages for children to memorize and share “that have a direct connection with conduct in daily life.”

בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֶלֹקִים אֵת הַשָׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ.

Bereshit bara Elokim et hashaomayim ve’et ha’aretz.

1. In the beginning, G‑d created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1).

“This is the first verse in the Torah,” the Rebbe said. “It tells us that G‑d created the world, the heavens and earth with everything in them. This has a direct connection to daily life: a little boy or girl, or even a grown-up, can become frightened that a great, seemingly desolate, world surrounds them, where things are not as they should be. This verse reminds us that the world has a Master who created it, the Almighty. And the Almighty gave us the Torah by means of which we can transform the world and prompt G‑d to give us blessings and success.”51

וְשִׁנַנְתָּם לְבָנֶיךָ וְדִבַּרְתָּ בָּם בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶרֶךְ וּבְשָׁכְבְּךָ וּבְקוּמֶךָ.

Veshenantam levanecha vedibarta bam, beshivtecha bevetecha uvelechtecha vaderech uveshachbecha uvekumecha.

1. And you shall teach the Torah to your children, and you should speak about it when you are home and when you travel, before you lie down to sleep and when you wake up. (Deuteronomy 6:7)

“And therefore,” the Rebbe continued, “children should tell their parents the next verse, ‘And you shall teach the Torah to your children,’ thereby asking their parents to do the greatest and the best thing—to teach them Torah.” The verse also outlined the effects of memorizing Torah passages in general: “When one learns and reviews this by heart, it will be etched in their heart and mind, so that when they are at home, or traveling, or laying down to sleep—it is with a word of Torah.”52

יָגַעְתִּי וְלֹא מָצָאתִי אַל תַּאַמִין, לֹא יָגַעְתִּי וּמָצָאתִי אַל תַּאַמִין, יָגַעְתִּי וּמָצָאתִי תַּאַמִין.

Yagati velo matzati — al ta’amin. Lo yagati umatzati — al ta’amin. Yagati umatzati — ta’amin.

1. If someone says, “I worked hard, and I did not succeed,” don’t believe him. If someone says, “I did not work hard, and I succeeded,” don’t believe him. If someone says, “I worked hard, and I succeeded,” believe him! (Talmud, Megillah, 6b)

But learning is not always easy. One can feel like a failure. “When a child remembers that they once failed, or they did something that was not as it should be, they must not become frightened,” the Rebbe said, “instead, they will review the saying of the sages: ‘If someone says, I did not work hard and I succeeded, don’t believe him.’ From this it is understood: if they will only exert themselves again, it is certain that they will succeed.”53

Later, he added, “A child cries, ‘I managed to achieve other mitzvot, and I did so with great joy, but here I’m stuck?’ One tells them there is a principle in the Torah: there are things that take less effort and there are things that take very great exertion. If you haven’t succeeded, that is not a sign that you cannot do it, G‑d forbid. To the contrary, since this is a mitzvah in the Torah, the difficulty is itself proof that you were given the power to put in the necessary effort—and it is certain that ‘you will succeed.’”54

"וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעַךָ כָּמוֹךָ" – רַבִּי עַקִיבָא אוֹמֵר זֶה כְּלָל גָדוֹל בַּתּוֹרָה.

Ve’ahavta lereyacha kamocha—Rabi Akiva omer, zeh kelal gadol baTorah.

1. “Love your fellow as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), Rabbi Akiva says: this is a great principle of the Torah. (Midrash)55

The pursuit of success in learning can breed aloofness. So the Rebbe’s next passage ensured that children know themselves responsible to befriend and help others succeed, as well.56 “One cannot be satisfied with oneself alone,” he continued, “one must do the same with friends, with one’s surroundings—and there too one should bring the same vitality, heartfelt sincerity, and exertion.”57

וְזֶה כָּל הָאָדָם וְתַכְלִית בְּרִיאָתוֹ וּבְרִיאַת כָּל הָעוֹלָמוֹת עֶלְיוֹנִים וְתַּחְתּוֹנִים לִהְיוֹת לוֹ דִירָה זוֹ בְּתַּחְתּוֹנִים.

Vezeh kol ha’adam vetachalit beriyato uveriyat kol ha’olamot elyonim vetachtonim: lihyot lo dirah zu betachtonim.

1. This is the purpose of man’s creation, and the purpose of all the worlds high and low: to make a dwelling place for G‑d in this world. (Tanya, Chapter 33.)

In a similar vein, having a positive impact on one’s environment is not merely necessary, it is “the greatest mission a Jew can have.” The Rebbe continued: “It is worth memorizing what is said in Tanya that the purpose and goal for which a person, and indeed the world, was created, is to make a dwelling place for G‑d ‘in the lower realm.’ One should make oneself, one’s home, and the entire world a place where G‑d feels comfortable—as a person feels comfortable in their own home.”58

"יִשְׂמַח יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּעוֹשָׂיו" פֵּירוּש שֶׁכָּל מִי שֶׁהוּא מִזֶרַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לוֹ לִשְׂמוֹחַ בְּשִׂמְחַת ה' אַשֶׁר שָׂשׂ וְשָׂמֵחַ בְּדִירָתוֹ בְּתַּחְתּוֹנִים.

“Yismach Yisrael b’osav” — Peirush shekol mi shehu mizerah Yisrael yesh lo lismo’ach besimechat Hashem asher sas vesamayach bedirato betachtonim.

1. “Let Israel rejoice in its Maker” (Psalms 149:2), this means to say that every Jew should rejoice and be happy in the joy of G‑d, Who is pleased and glad to dwell in this low world. (Tanya, Chapter 33.)

Finally, Judaism is not merely a duty that needs fulfilling; it is the ability to do mitzvot that positively bring joy to G‑d by fulfilling His purpose for the world. The Rebbe continued: “It is also worth memorizing a second general principle that the Tanya states: that all this is not a command to be done with no or little enjoyment. Instead, ‘Israel rejoices in its Maker:’ any Jew, whatever their upbringing or condition was yesterday, is entrusted to participate in the joy that G‑d has when one fulfills the mission to make themselves, their home, and the entire world a dwelling place for G‑d.”59

The Rebbe’s estimation of young children was such that he believed they could be motivated by the simple knowledge that their actions would bring G‑d joy.

When the Rebbe concluded his talk, the band marched by and the parade began. With the original six passages still hanging on the building behind him, the Rebbe asked that six more signs bearing the newly introduced passages be added to the display. Within weeks, a booklet of the passages was published. Its cover illustration displayed a boy and a girl studying Torah under the title, “12 Torah Passages for Young Students.”

“When the booklets are reprinted,” the Rebbe suggested in a talk a few weeks later, “it would be worthwhile to add a blank space where the child can write their name, and a space where they can write the names of children they influenced to learn the 12 passages, or to learn Torah and keep the mitzvot.”60 This would give the child a sense of satisfaction and motivate them to do more.

That summer, in summer camps across the United States, Europe and Israel, tens of thousands of Jewish children would commit these 12 Torah Passages to memory. In Miami, one local news outlet reported that “about 100 children, all younger than 13, are memorizing Torah verses in a summer camp program.”61 And from Meah Sha’arim, where ten thousand Jewish children had proclaimed these verses in unison, came the question of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Weiss:

“Were these passages chosen to be uniquely effective for spiritual protection to ‘put an end to the enemy and avenger’? Or were they chosen for their educational content, to give children the basics of Jewish belief?”

Speaking at a five-hour-long gathering on the night of Sunday, July 11 (13 Tammuz 5736), the Rebbe explained his reasoning for these passages. That it was possible to successfully conduct a rescue as risky as the mission to Entebbe, he argued, was a demonstration of “the primacy of the soul over the body, and the predominance of the soul of the world—i.e., G‑d, Who fills the world—over its external face.”62 This flowed from the foundational Chassidic teaching that, “there is no world unto itself; there is only the Divine power which creates it.”63

Evil, in this understanding, occurs when living beings fail to recognize G‑d’s presence. After methodically linking each of the 12 Torah Passages to the Psalmist’s “voice of babes and infants,” the Rebbe continued, “When a child runs around, as children do with their boundless enthusiasm, running to every corner they can reach to find another child or even an adult with whom they can share the Torah passages they have learned, this breaks all boundaries—then the presence of negativity becomes impossible, for the existence of negativity is only possible as a result of G‑dliness’ contraction [tzimtzum].”64

Whether evil expresses itself as a terrorist in Uganda or as a three-year-old child’s temptation to say an untruth, its antidote remains the same: to educate a human being that he or she stands in the presence of G‑d, and that all the world exists just so to fulfill a Divine purpose.

For the Rebbe, the evaporation of evil in all its forms was a natural outcome of educating children to be aware of G‑d’s immediate presence in their lives.

That young children could experience and embrace the Jewish tradition as their own, the Rebbe believed, was critical to the Jewish people’s wellbeing. For, in the words that Akiva Lakser mulled while held hostage under the fluorescent lights of a decaying airport terminal in Entebbe awaiting rescue, “The strength of the Jewish people comes from walking in the ways of G‑d, and passing that on, through proper education, to our children—and then we will overcome all these things.’”65