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By Rabbi Gershon Avtzon

Question: Dear Rabbi Avtzon! I read with great interest your weekly Chinuch columns that are published here. You have explained the Rebbe’s approach to many different Chinuch-related questions and challenges. I have a more basic and fundamental question which I hope you can address: Is the responsibility of parents to educate their children a mi’dOraisa (a biblical commandment) and mi’dRabanan (a rabbinical obligation)?

Answer: Thank you for reaching out with this fundamental question and we will try to address it to the best of my ability. As with any Halachic questions, we begin with the Shulchan Aruch. 

The Source in Shulchan Aruch

In Siman 343:2 the Alter Rebbe writes: “A father … has a rabbinical commandment to educate his son and daughter even in positive commandments when they reach the age that they can be educated. Certainly, even the more so, that he has a rabbinical responsibility to ensure that they do not transgress a negative commandment mi’dOraisa and even a negative commandment that was instituted by our sages – mid’Rabanan.”

[It must be pointed out that the exception to the above is the obligation of the father to teach Torah to their children. That obligation is clearly from the Torah, as it says “You shall teach them to your children, to speak of them when you sit in your house….”]

The Seeming Contradiction in Tanya

In 5713 (1953), Rabbi Avraham Zushe Ziskind (a very learned Chabad Chassid, who was niftar while davening in 770 on Rosh Chodesh Nissan 5727/1967), wrote a lengthy letter to the Rebbe with many detailed and intricate Torah questions. One of his questions was this very question (if the responsibility to educate is biblical or rabbinical). To boost the opinion that it is from the Torah, he quoted the following from the Alter Rebbe in Tanya (in “Chinuch Katan” – the introduction to Shaar Yichud V’Emuna):

“The commandment of educating [a child] is also a positive precept, as is stated in Orach Chaim, Section 343.”

The Rebbe responded: “This that you were in doubt about the Halachic status of Chinuch: The Alter Rebbe rules (in Shulchan Aruch and this is reaffirmed by the Tzemach Tzedek) that with the exception of the Mitzvah of Talmud Torah it is a rabbinic mitzvah. What the Alter Rebbe writes in Tanya about there being is a positive commandment to educate refers to a rabbinical obligation.” (Igros, Vol. 8 p. 94; #2335 — for a more detailed analysis and explanation of the words of the Tanya, see Igros, Vol. 9 p. 15; #2635].

How Can You Become Bar Mitzvah Without Chinuch?

One may still ask: We all know that as soon as someone becomes Bar Mitzvah, they become responsible for all the mitzvos. If there is no biblical obligation to educate a child in mitzvos, how would anyone know how to do the mitzvos at their Bar Mitzvah? In other words: Without the mitzvah of the Chachamim, which applies and obligates us all today, what was the biblical expectation?

This question is addressed at length in Likkutei Sichos (Vol. 35 page 61) and the idea is in short: The Torah did not expect a child that was becoming Bar Mitzvah to know how to fulfill all the mitzvos on the day that he would become Bar Mitzvah. Rather; They would obligate themselves to accept and fulfill all the miztvos and then begin the process of learning how to do the mitzvos. Just as at the time of Matan Torah, the Jewish people accepted the Torah and began the process  of learning how to fulfill the actual mitzvos (which must have taken time). 

The Moshiach Connection:

The time of Galus, in comparison to the time of Geula, is comparable to a child before he becomes an adult. A child is less mature, less aware of reality, and has a difficult time with rules and structure. Yet, our Chachamim commanded us to begin educating our children when they are very young so that they will be ready to begin fulfilling them properly on the day that they become an adult. The same is true in regards to learning lofty concepts in torah in chassidus in the time of Galus. While we may not comprehend everything now, it prepares us for the time of the Geulah. 

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