Yahrtzeit Yomi #971!!
כו אדר (ראשון)
Frau Sarah Schenirer
Mother Of Generations
שרה בת ר׳ בצלאל שענירער
אשת רב יצחק לאנדא
(1883 - 1935)
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She was a dedicated educational and social activist, an extraordinary teacher and an exceptional writer. Sarah Schenirer, zichronah l’vracha, was one of the most important figures in the history of Jewish education. Schenirer, a seamstress from Kraków, saw the urgent need for a system of formal Jewish education for girls, an innovation that was necessary to stem the tide of the Haskalah movement which lured many Jewish girls away from the ideals of the Torah. The youngest of nine children, Frau Schenirer founded Bais Yaakov in 1918, but not without first overcoming some considerably substantial societal and political obstacles.
In his later years, a group of men came to the home of the Chofetz Chaim ZTL to inform him about a new breach in the ramparts of Torah tradition: the Bais Yaakov women’s seminary that had been established in Kraków. They argued that the Torah forbids all such innovations and cited the Gemara (Sotah 20a) as proof to their position. While they were trying to persuade the Chofetz Chaim to condemn the seminary, a second group arrived to ask for his blessing for the same institution. The first group was confident that they had proven conclusively that the existence of such a seminary was strictly forbidden, and they were confident that the elderly sage would denounce the newcomers in no uncertain terms. His response, however, was the exact opposite of what they had expected. “Oy,” he bemoaned, “such a holy undertaking, and I have no part in it?!”
With the blessings of great Torah leaders such as the Imrei Emes, the Belzer Rebbe, the Chofetz Chaim and Rav Elchonon Wasserman, Frau Schenirer opened her first Bais Yaakov school in Kraków in 1918 with a class of 25 girls. From these humble beginnings, her school expanded into an educational network that – at the time of her passing – boasted more than 200 schools attended by some 25,000 students all across Eastern and Central Europe!! She was nifteres after a devastating illness at the young age of 52, on a Friday afternoon as she gazed at the Shabbos candles she had just lit.
Before the Jewish people received the Torah, Hashem gives Moshe instructions on how to teach His children: כֹּה תֹאמַר לְבֵית יַעֲקֹב וְתַגֵּיד לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (Shemos 19:3). Aren’t the “House of Yaakov” and the “Children of Yisroel” one and the same? Rashi tells us that in fact the verse refers to two groups within the nation. “Bais Yaakov” refers to the women, while “Bnei Yisroel” refers to the men. Moshe taught the general principles of the Torah to the Jewish women, the “Bais Yaakov”, after which he learned the minutiae of the laws with the men. It is this distinct differentiation that helps us define the unique roles which men and women possess in Jewish life.
Yeshaya HaNavi (2:5) says it clearly: בֵּית יַעֲקֹב לְכוּ וְנֵלְכָה בְּאוֹר ה – Bais Yaakov, come let us walk in the light of Hashem. It is the Bais Yaakov, the women, who lead the way for their husbands and children, and maintain the spiritual light of our people. In the words of Frau Sarah Schenirer, “…because it is the Jewish mothers and teachers who raise the next generation, only they can make the children love the Torah; it is they who guarantee the spiritual survival of the Jewish nation and, contrary to popular belief, the expression “Bais Yaakov” does not tell the Jewish woman that her place is at home, but rather that the Jewish woman IS the home. One must remember that in Yiddishkeit, the home is seen as something more than just a shelter for people. It is also the representation of the mishkan in which the Shechinah resides.”
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