During these days of mercy and preparing to travel to the Rebbe, Beis Moshiach spoke with the one who is responsible for the spiritual preparations of a high percentage of the thousands of guests. * We heard about bachurim who use every free moment to learn Torah by heart, girls who learn with friends who are not Lubavitch, and children who transformed their homes with Moshiach. * “Meshichoi” are flying to Moshiach.
“The Dor Deia contest changed everything about the trip to the Rebbe,” says R’ Yisroel Wilschansky, of the hanhala of the Chabad yeshiva k’tana (= mesivta high school) in Tzfas and one of the founders of the Dor Deia fund. “It used to be that the preparations for the actual trip took up most of the bachurim’s time and attention. Even Chassidishe bachurim who learn all year had to look for work during bein ha’z’manim to pay for their plane ticket. Some even had to work during Tishrei or the year following their trip in order to pay back loans.
“Then came the Dor Deia fund and no longer do the bachurim have to run around working, because all the preparations involve Torah study. Dor Deia says, the more you prepare spiritually, the less you will have to prepare materially.”
ELUL IN LUBAVITCH
Rosh Chodesh Elul has come and gone. The Elul z’man began some time ago. The summer atmosphere has been exchanged for the serious atmosphere that characterizes the month of mercy and Slichos, which leads up to the Yomim Nora’im and the Days of Judgment.
To Chabad Chassidim, in addition to it being a month of mercy and Slichos in the sense of the “king in the field,” the month of Elul is characterized by preparing to go to the Rebbe.
Anash, young men, bachurim, boys and girls – all join the powerful spiritual atmosphere in the Rebbe’s four cubits in Beis Rabbeinu Sh’B’Bavel, 770.
Rabbanim, teachers, and mashpiim urge their students to make the proper preparations for this trip to the Rebbe. Stories from the Gemara and g’dolei Yisroel as well as stories of Chassidim from earlier generations are told at farbrengens, in order to emphasize the necessity to make spiritual preparations before seeing the king.
However, the mundane preparations also have to be taken care of. The skyrocketing price of tickets and the difficult financial situation make it hard to go and add various worries to the spiritual experience. The main difficulty is getting money for the trip.
For the past eight years the Dor Deia fund has been operating to alleviate this problem. The fund offers bachurim, girls and even children, a curriculum of study that includes in-depth learning and learning by heart. They learn the material and accumulate points which earn them sums of money that can cover a ticket to the Rebbe for Tishrei.
ASCENDING FROM YEAR TO YEAR
“As someone who has seen the Dor Deia program from the technical end of things too,” says R’ Chaim Hillel Springer, one of the initiators and heads of the contest, together with R’ Menachem Mendel Ginsberg, “I see an increase from year to year in the number of participants and the amounts of the stipends.
“During the time that the contest takes place, I am in touch with representatives all over the country and from all of them I hear one thing, about the excitement of the participants in learning the Rebbe’s holy teachings.
“Dor Deia provides every person with the ability to fly to the Rebbe and to prepare for the trip. Throughout the year, an entire team of young men work hard to prepare the material that will be learned, and boruch Hashem, the results are impressive.
“In recent years, we also started a program for bein ha’z’manim Pesach time, when bachurim all across the country study diligently in special programs that were set up in each community. This way, the bachurim are able to make use of their bein ha’z’manim and also accumulate points toward the trip to the Rebbe. Thus, the trip to the Rebbe effectively begins back in Nissan.
“Today, most if not all of the bachurim fly to the Rebbe with full or partial coverage by the Dor Deia fund, which goes to show the scope of the project.”
WAITING ALL YEAR
“The bachurim wait for this contest all year,” says R’ Wilschansky. “Aside from that, it fills them up with Tanya and Mishnayos by heart. Go into any zal of a yeshiva that participates in Dor Deia and you will readily find bachurim who know entire s’darim of Mishnayos and dozens of chapters of Tanya.
“Usually, in contests where material is learned by heart, a lot of material is stuffed into your head and after the contest, it is forgotten. In the Dor Deia contest, on the other hand, thanks to the learning methodology and the tests, the bachurim do not forget the material that they learn. It is absorbed deep into their minds and they remember it. A bachur who completed the contest a few times knows an enormous amount of Torah by heart.”
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“The girls also look forward to this contest all year,” said Mrs. Chaya Mushka Mell in a phone interview. She is one of the women in charge of the project for the girls. “The contest enables the girls to combine both the material and the spiritual preparations, two things which usually contradict one another.
“Until we had Dor Deia, a girl who found herself a summer job was okay from a financial standpoint, but she probably did not have time to learn and prepare properly. On the other hand, a girl who prepared spiritually usually did not have the financial means to make the trip.
“Another big advantage to the contest, beyond preparing for the trip, is that it enables the girls to deepen their knowledge of Chassidus. All year they are busy learning and taking tests and even when they learn Chassidus through the programs run by Achos HaT’mimim, it is usually easier material. In contrast, during vacation, both because the learning is measured and rewarded based on tests and because there is no school pressure, the girls are free to delve into the learning.”
This is true no less for the children. “The children’s enthusiasm for the contest is greater every year,” said Mrs. Rochel Zaks, who is in charge of the children’s Dor Deia program under the auspices of Tzivos Hashem led by R’ Levi Nachshon. “This year, because of the publicity on the monthly video for children, the children are more interested than ever in the details of the project.”
Unlike the Dor Deia contests for bachurim and older girls, the contest for children is not to help them to fly to the Rebbe but to prepare them for the trip. One ticket is raffled off among all the participants and the rest of the children participate in raffles and earn big and valuable prizes.
“The Dor Deia contest [for children] has long breached the borders of the Chabad world and is not limited to children of Anash,” says Mrs. Zaks. “The booklets are in Chabad houses, camps, and Shelah programs [religious instruction groups for public school children] and are written in a captivating way for children.”
GEULA WITH EIGHT MESHALIM
For the children’s contest, every year a beautiful booklet is published. This year’s booklet is called Mashal Geula and it contains comics depicting meshalim (parables) that explain various aspects of Moshiach and Geula to children. At the end of each mashal there is an assignment which the children need to do in which they are asked about the mashal and the message it conveys. Beyond that, of course, there is the core element of the contest which is learning Tanya and Mishnayos by heart.
“The booklets instill the topic of Moshiach and Geula in children in an experiential way so that they identify deeply with the message,” says Mrs. Zaks. “The manner in which the material is presented enables the message to seep in and make a powerful impact on a child.
“One of the mothers, who after separating challa would throw the piece of dough in the garbage, told me that her little boy asked her why she threw it out. She said that today there is no Beis HaMikdash and by the time Moshiach comes the dough will spoil. Her son said, ‘But Moshiach is coming today and then you can give the dough to a Kohen.’ His mother stopped throwing the dough out.”
Why is it important to send children to the Rebbe?
“As someone responsible for the Moshiach camp,” said Mrs. Zaks, “I can tell you that when I see the girls coming to the Rebbe … well, maybe nothing needs to be explained. When they come, they just connect to the Rebbe in the most authentic and pure way possible. To them, it is Elokus b’pshitus. The problems begin with us adults. To the children, it is simple.
“I speak to lots of parents who sent their young children for Tishrei. True, sometimes there are the problems of a child who is far from home, but that is why we have the Moshiach camp which handles the children with tremendous professionalism. Parents who have sent their boys and girls for Tishrei say they come home different; it has a profound impact on them.”
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Back to the bachurim. “The months of the Dor Deia contest get the entire yeshiva into a frenzy of learning Torah nonstop and we, the staff, have tremendous nachas from this,” says R’ Wilschansky. “You can see the bachurim learning or reviewing by heart every free moment, early in the morning before Chassidus, during the afternoon break, between shiur and seder and after s’darim before going to sleep. They are busy learning all the time.”
I asked R’ Wilschansky why a bachur needs to go to the Rebbe. Wouldn’t it be better for a bachur to immerse himself in the yeshiva Elul atmosphere and prepare for Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur? Doesn’t the trip to the Rebbe, as important as it is, include spiritual pitfalls for the bachurim?
“First of all, you see the chayus in a bachur who just returned from Tishrei with the Rebbe. The Rebbe lives inside him; the horaos and the Rebbe’s inyanim are alive for him. The Rebbe is connected to him, not like something ethereal and distant but like something that has an immediate impact on daily life. No conversation with a teacher or farbrengen will accomplish this. These are things that become engraved only during Tishrei.
“However, a yeshiva needs to take responsibility for its students. We send a staff member to constantly be with the talmidim and he is in constant contact with the hanhala of the Hachnasas Orchim organization and the spiritual committee that do terrific work. He deals with whatever needs taking care of. When you take this kind of responsibility, the results are fantastic.”
THE GREATNESS OF THE JEWISH WOMAN
Back to the girls. “Every year we choose another topic to learn,” said Mrs. Mell. “The topic chosen for this year is the greatness of women in the Rebbe’s teachings. Part one consists of excerpts from the Rebbe’s sichos about outstanding women and leaders in history like Rochel, Miriam, Esther, etc. Part two is about the chiddush of women in the seventh generation. It is all compiled from the Rebbe’s sichos, maamarim, and Tanya.
“This topic, the special quality of women, is material which was very important to us to bring to the girls. Since it is such an important topic in the Rebbe’s teachings, there are so many sichos about the woman and her role. If this isn’t learned now, when will it be learned?
“The girls really enjoy these topics. It gives them a special chayus in their learning. Also, the stipends for learning definitely provide the motivation to learn the material in depth and do well on the tests.
“There are other details of the contest that provide the girls with the ability to earn additional points like, for example, learning with a girl b’chavrusa who is not a Lubavitcher, or attending a D’var Malchus shiur. For the chavrusos we created a packet with material on inyanei Moshiach and Geula in an attractive manner. Among all the chavrusos we have a raffle and the chavrusa that wins gets a ticket for two to the Rebbe independent of their participation in the rest of the contest.”
Can you see the difference between a girl who goes to the Rebbe after all the Dor Deia preparations and one who goes without it?
Mrs. Mell thinks before she answers. “Obviously, without overly generalizing, I think that Dor Deia definitely has a significant positive impact on the trip to the Rebbe and on the way the girls receive the spiritual hashpaos from Tishrei in 770.”