Educational Insights from Parashat Bo — “We Found the Thief” — A Shattering Document

As educators facing students, we must always examine our response to unusual situations and to exceptional behaviors or actions that cross red lines.

The following is a painful story which did, indeed, end well, but there is undoubtedly much to learn from it.

***

The new tenant is standing by the notice board. In one hand he is holding a transparent bag from the nearby grocery store, containing bread, milk, and cheese; he is entirely absorbed in the notice board. “Itzik, the elevator is here, do you want to go up?” He looks at me, says no, that he wants to see something on the board, and that I should not wait.

The elevator goes up to the fourth floor, and my heart, in direct proportion, does not understand what is happening with the young avrech who lives in our unit. Why is he avoiding me?

I got married thirty-five years ago. Our parents lived in Bnei Brak, and it was obvious that we, too, would live in that city. Apartment prices were still sane then, and almost none of my friends moved outside Jerusalem or Bnei Brak. We bought a nice three-room apartment, and after fifteen years we expanded it and also built a rental unit on the roof.

The story I want to tell took place five years ago. The unit was about to become vacant. Among the people who came to see it was a friend of mine with his wife and their daughter, who was about to get married. They were G-d-fearing, refined people — the sort every owner of a rental unit would want. To my joy, that very day we signed a contract. I did not meet the groom’s family at all.

My first meeting with the young groom was the day after the wedding, a chance encounter in the elevator. He looked at me and asked, “So you are our landlords?” I answered yes. The elevator stopped on the fourth floor, near our home, and we both got out; to reach the unit he needed to climb one more floor. The young groom glanced toward the family name on the door. “Rabbi Horowitz?” he asked. I nodded. “I wasn’t sure,” he looked frightened. “I’m Itzik Gold; I was the rabbi’s student.” Suddenly it seemed that he regretted it; his gaze became embarrassed, evasive. “Very pleased to meet you,” I said, trying to scrape away layers of dust that had settled on my memory. I could not remember most of my students after so many years of teaching. “Mazel tov,” I extended my hand to him; he extended a limp hand back to me and fled.

I went inside, quickly prepared myself breakfast, went out to the Talmud Torah where I teach sixth grade, and all that time the look of my former student troubled me. I told myself that he was a groom, and surely excited. The forced explanations did not really calm me, but the moment I entered the gates of the Talmud Torah, I naturally forgot everything.

A few days later I met him again. This time Itzik saw me from a distance and stopped. He bent down to tie his shoe. Another time he fixed his eyes on the notice board, and another time he simply turned to the other side. He simply did not want to meet me.

Maybe there is a problem with the apartment? I asked myself. And Itzik, a refined avrech, feels uncomfortable telling me, especially since I had once been his teacher?

I decided that at the first opportunity I met Itzik, he would have to tell me what the problem was. If they were suffering so much, I would agree that they break the contract and look for another apartment. Truthfully, I was not worried either; our unit is in a sought-after area, the season is wedding season, they would be fine and we would find another tenant.

Two more days passed, and when I left the synagogue after the Ma’ariv prayer, I saw that Itzik was also heading toward the exit. I waited for him outside and walked beside him. “I’m in a hurry,” he blurted out at me and quickened his steps. I answered that there was no problem: “I may look old to you, but I know how to walk fast, even run.” He laughed, but even his laughter was forced and unnatural. I decided to go straight to the point: “Tell me, Itzik, are you unhappy with our unit?” Itzik looked at me for a second and his gaze escaped. “No, of course not, everything is fine.” He was almost running. “Itzik, then what is going on? Tell me.” I pleaded.

He stopped all at once. Looking at me. “The rabbi really doesn’t know?” His brown eyes entered straight into my heart. “No, I don’t know,” I answered him honestly.

“The rabbi really doesn’t remember me?”

He sighed in resignation and slowed his pace. “I was the rabbi’s student ten years ago, a ten-year-old boy,” he looked again. “I am Itzik Gold, the thief .”

“Itzik, what?” I asked in astonishment. “The thi...”

And then, in the middle of the word, I remembered the whole story. And I remembered Itzik, looked at him, and could not believe it. How could I have forgotten?

It was the second year that I was working as a teacher of ten-year-old children. Our Talmud Torah is intended for excellent children from good families. We also had problems, but they never exceeded the norm. That year something unpleasant happened in the class: children’s belongings disappeared.

Among all the objects there were also valuable items: a sophisticated watch a child had received from his grandfather in the United States, a large sum of money a child had brought to pay tuition, and a new reading book a child had bought for himself after saving money for a long time.

We did not really know what to do about this wave of thefts. The children were stunned and also very afraid. They would not go out for recess, and when they did go out, there was always a theft that made the children distrustful, angry, and disappointed. At first suspicion fell on the non-Jewish cleaner, but after he was sick for several days and did not come, and the thefts continued, we understood that it was apparently one of the children playing tricks on us and taking things from his friends.

One day the principal announced over the loudspeaker that ice pops had been bought, and that everyone should come receive one. The children left the classroom. We assumed that the “thief” would take advantage of the opportunity, and a few minutes after everyone went downstairs, I unexpectedly entered the classroom.

And I found Itzik Gold there, energetically emptying the contents of his friends’ schoolbags.

I do not know how I forgot Itzik, but the moment he spoke I remembered everything all at once; and if we look at him without the beard that had begun to grow, it is exactly the same look, the same smile, the same serious face, exactly the same Itzik...

I stood at the entrance to the classroom, a fresh and energetic rebbe, happy that this nightmare was over, that the little boy who had been fooling me and the entire staff had been caught. Opposite me stood Itzik, a ten-year-old boy, an innocent look in his eyes and his face pale. “Show me your bag,” I said in a firm voice. He began trembling all over, unable to move, but I did not wait for his help and opened the bag myself. A small part of the missing items was there. Somehow, from the fragments of words he said, I managed to understand that he had already sold several things... Meanwhile several students from the class and from other classes had already entered the classroom. “I will have to ask a rabbi what to do with a thief,” I concluded with a stern face.

He nodded, his eyes lowered.

Itzik returned the objects he had; his parents said they would pay for the rest of the damage; the year ended without any special problems, and the theft affair was over.

I meet Itzik ten years later: a young avrech, making a refined and excellent impression. I know the bride’s family; I know they are a special family.

There is a bench near our house. I ask Itzik if he wants to sit. The continuation is already almost clear to me. Now I will hear from Itzik about a difficult period he went through, about an illness in their home, about the theft that happened because of a difficult situation... But that is not what Itzik wants to tell me. “I was a good child. I do not know why I took money and gifts from my friends. Maybe because once someone’s money accidentally fell into my hands and I did not bother to tell him; I simply waited for him to go away, took it, bought a sweet with it, and discovered that money is a nice thing.”

“Does the rabbi remember the moment when he caught me?” The refined avrech looks at me, and I nod. “It was the most miserable and most shameful moment of my life,” he says, his face fixed toward the ground. “I was a good child from a good home; I had a completely ordinary childhood, and suddenly I grasped that I was being treated like an actual thief...” This accompanied me for years in the Talmud Torah, since the friends knew that the rabbi had caught the thief, and it even became known throughout the Talmud Torah. Even when I finished my studies in the Talmud Torah, it continued to pursue me in my self-image. He looks me straight in the eye. “If I had known who was renting us the apartment, I would not have agreed. Every time I meet the rabbi, my hands and feet begin to tremble. The trauma of that terrible moment before the rabbi, in the empty classroom, attacks me again.”

I am silent in shock. Itzik was a ten-year-old child and did something that must not be done — and I, what?

I was the adult figure; I was his teacher. True, I had to discover who was stealing the money and put an end to it, but now, after many years of experience in the field of education, I understand that I should have shown more sensitivity. At the time, I actually praised myself for being practical, for not shouting at him in an unusual way and for not becoming very angry; it turns out that this was not enough. I needed to enter the child’s heart, to understand his embarrassment when he was caught in his wrongdoing like that, to soften the blow for him... and most importantly, to handle it discreetly.

I need to digest the things that fell upon me with such an unpleasant surprise. I think perhaps to consult... I ask him not to disappear from me again, to give me a chance to speak with him, and we arrange to meet again tomorrow, after Ma’ariv.

The day passes. In the evening I realize that I did not consult anyone; I did not really find anyone. And when I sit with Itzik on the bench, I tell him my point of view, as a young and desperate teacher facing a class in which things kept disappearing. I tell him how helpless I myself was, especially since the administration expected me, as an educator, to eradicate the phenomenon, and on one occasion the principal even said to me in an authoritative tone, “Rabbi, the parents are asking where you are.” I was focused on the task of finding the thief, and it may be that I was mistaken...

I told him that I apologize, that I was new in the position and not experienced enough, and that after all, I am glad we met and that he told me about his pain.

During our conversation I noticed that Itzik was indeed looking at me... Slowly, slowly, he was able to look straight at me. Again he told me of the magnitude of the shame, and I told him of my sorrow and of the conclusions I had drawn. Afterwards we went up together in the elevator, and before we parted I said to Itzik: “I still have not wished you ‘mazel tov’ properly. Are you ready to accept it now?” He smiled, extended his hand for a handshake, and thus, as we shook hands, we wished each other mazel tov. And that moment was a formative moment, bringing the Shechinah on its wings.

There is no doubt that everyone who reads this story takes insights from it.

Indeed, it seems that the foundation of these matters is found in our parashah.

To Strike in the Darkness — A Sign for Generations

The ninth plague that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon Egypt was the plague of darkness: “וַיְהִי חֹשֶׁךְ אֲפֵלָה בְּכָל אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים” (י, כב) — “And there was thick darkness throughout all the land of Egypt for three days” (Shemot 10:22).

And it is brought in Midrash Rabbah (and Rashi brings it there): “Why did He bring darkness upon them? Because among Israel there were also complete wicked people, who had been appointed as patrons by the Egyptians. They had great renown and great wealth, and they did not want to leave Egypt. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: If I bring a plague upon them publicly and they die, the Egyptians will say, ‘Just as He strikes us, so He strikes Israel.’ Therefore He brought the darkness, so that the Egyptians would not see the downfall of those wicked people.”

The commentators asked: why did the Holy One, blessed be He, choose specifically the plague of darkness in order to exact punishment from them?

The holy Torah teaches us here a fundamental rule in punishment. Even when it is necessary to punish and denounce the wicked for their deeds, in the sense of “the left hand pushes away,” what is the time to carry out the punishment? Only when darkness reigns and no one sees or notices it.

When a situation is reached in which punishment is necessary for the child’s educational benefit, one must avoid giving punishment publicly and openly before siblings or friends. Rather, the timing and manner of punishment are as the Torah teaches us here in the plague of darkness — only in concealment and modesty, far from the eyes of onlookers, hidden from the eyes of others, lest the child, G-d forbid, be shamed.

And concerning this it is said: “הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ אֶת עֲמִיתֶךָ וְלֹא תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא” (ויקרא יט) — “You shall surely rebuke your fellow, and you shall not bear sin because of him” (Vayikra 19). And our Sages taught us: even in a case where one is obligated to rebuke and denounce the act, he must not do it in a way that will whiten the other’s face with shame, but rather rebuke him privately.

The only way for the hand of the left that pushes away to rule, and for punishment to be carried out when necessary, is only in a manner of modesty and concealment, not publicly.

And the story mentioned above, which to our sorrow is not an isolated case, illustrates for us how great and how far-reaching the obligation of caution in this matter is.

“Once I Failed in This” — Frightening

This was quite a few years ago, when I began serving in holiness in one of the yeshivot. I asked my teacher and master, HaRav HaGaon Rabbi Yaakov Edelstein zatzal, to join me on a trip from Bnei Brak to Ramat HaSharon so that I could consult with him on the way. Among other things, I asked what an educator must know before entering his position. He told me several extremely important things [I brought them in the book “Titen Emet LeYaakov”], but one of the matters on which he elaborated was to be careful with a student’s honor, that he not be hurt, and certainly not to reprimand him in public in a way that could hurt him, for such a thing can truly affect his entire spiritual future. Afterwards he was silent, reflected, and added: “I once failed in this.” There was a student in Yeshivat HaSharon [over which the rabbi, as is known, presided] who was the shaliach tzibbur for the Minchah prayer and hurried during the repetition of the Amidah. After the prayer I drew his attention to pray more slowly, and it seemed to me that he was embarrassed; perhaps someone noticed that I had corrected him. And the matter did not leave my heart. For years I followed him to see that he had not strayed from the path and had not, G-d forbid, gone off to bad ways. Indeed, after many years, when I saw that his home was a home of Torah, my mind was at rest.

Truly frightening.

How far these matters reach... May we merit...

With a prayer that no mishap involving the humiliation of, or harm to, a student should ever come from our hands. Amen.

Rabbi Michael Zechariahu

Spiritual Director at the Tiferet David Great Yeshiva and Chairman of the “Legiono Shel Melech” organization