“No College! No College! No College!”

While singing “Eimosai ko’osi mar” at a farbrengen, the Rebbe suddenly halted the niggun and announced, “The concept of disseminating Chassidus is a direct challenge to the idea of attending college. So, let us now proclaim three times in unison, ‘No college!’”

As Torah-true Yiddishkeit was getting on its feet in America, many reasoned that college must be embraced, or at least tolerated, since it is imbedded so deep in the local culture. As a result, most of the graduates of Lubavitch high schools didn’t continue to Lubavitch yeshivos, but the Rebbe would not concede. He saw things differently.

In the summer of 5720 (1960), a group of students from the Lubavitch Achei Temimim high school of Boston attended the Rebbe’s farbrengen. After one of the sichos, the Rebbe gave them a l’chaim, and instructed them to begin a niggun.

The enthusiastic students began the song “Eimosai ko’osi mar,” which is about spreading Chassidus. The assembled joined the lively niggun, to the Rebbe’s encouragement.

Suddenly, the Rebbe halted the niggun and said to them, “The concept of disseminating Chassidus is a direct challenge to the idea of attending college.

“So, let us now proclaim three times in unison, ‘No college!’”

The students all repeated after the Rebbe with zest, three times, and promptly continued singing the niggun with new-found meaning.

(Toras Menachem, Vol. 28, p. 163; Di Yiddisher Heim, issue 19)