Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto
Rabbi Yoshiyahu PintoShuva Israel

Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, leader of the Shuva Israel movement in Israel and around the globe, explained his perspective on education in a unique class given to his students in Los Angeles.

In that class, Rabbi Pinto emphasized the great importance in children's education, and warned of the dangers inherent in incorrect education.

"Children's education is an extremely sensitive thing," he said. "Those who are not experts in educating children should not busy themselves with educating children. We have already spoken about this several times, that Shuva Israel has been in existence for 29 years already."

"One time we opened a Talmud Torah (religious boys' school) in New York. The school was open for less than a month. But then a rumor reached our ears, that it was not being run appropriately. On that same day we closed the Talmud Torah. We found places for all of the children to learn."

"We cannot control Talmud Torah, education of children who we do not understand, and do not know what they will do there with them, and how they will be educated.

"Children's education is not commerce," Rabbi Pinto emphasized. "Children's education is not a business. Children's education is the children's emotions and soul. 'And our work - these are the children.' Our forefather Jacob preferred to go down to Egypt and not to travel to his father-in-law Laban - for the sake of his children's education."

According to him, "the people who run the schools and Talmud Torahs sometimes do not understand the depth of education. They do not understand what education is. A teacher who comes to a Talmud Torah and lets his frustration out on the children, and lets all the problems he has at home with his family out on the children - he is destroying and breaking the children's souls, and the children suffer from that all their lives, and grow up damaged and bruised for their entire lives."