Fascinating new documents reveal the Rebbe’s personal involvement in the creation of the Keren Levi Yitzchak teachers’ fund established by the Rebbe 62 years ago.

At a farbrengen on Chof Av 5724, marking the 20th yahrtzeit of his father, Harav Levi Yitzchak, the Rebbe announced the establishment of a new loan fund for melamdim and mosdos chinuch. The fund, named Keren Levi Yitzchak, was created to address an issue the Rebbe spoke about with great concern: the financial difficulties faced by teachers of limudei kodesh, who were often paid less than teachers of secular subjects and frequently received postdated checks that could take weeks or months to clear.

Recently released documents of a news report by Lubavitch News Service (LNS) announce the launch of the fund, together with the Rebbe’s original handwritten hagahos and edits. The article was reviewed by the Rebbe twice, with the Rebbe adding further corrections and additions each time.

There are many fascinating edits, providing a rare glimpse into the Rebbe’s careful attention to every detail, as well as the deep importance the Rebbe placed on Keren Levi Yitzchak.

In one place, the Rebbe crossed out a line describing melamdim receiving their salaries late, noting that the wording could create the mistaken impression that limudei kodesh was viewed as being of secondary importance. The Rebbe rewrote the sentence to clarify that such treatment creates this impression not only among the teachers themselves, but also among talmidim, parents, and eventually the wider community.

The Rebbe also added a point noting that some yeshivos publicized and took pride in students who excelled in secular studies, while failing to show the same level of recognition and pride for achievements in limudei kodesh.

In another edit, the Rebbe emphasized that Keren Levi Yitzchak was not intended only for Lubavitch institutions, but rather to assist melamdim and mosdos chinuch more broadly. In an additional correction, the Rebbe instructed that further biographical details about his father, Harav Levi Yitzchak, be added from material that had already been published elsewhere.

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REBBE ESTABLISHES FUND FOR TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS OF JEWISH STUDIES

NEW YORK (LNS) – The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, world leader of the Lubavitcher movement, announced the establishment of a special loan fund for teachers and schools of Jewish learning.

Speaking at the Lubavitcher center in New York this week commemorating his father’s 20th Yartzeit, the Rebbe told of the difficult plight of many teachers of Jewish studies in Yeshivos and other Jewish schools. They are often underpaid, said the Rebbe, and in most cases receive smaller salaries than teachers of secular studies. Often they are paid with a postdated check valid several weeks, and sometimes months, hence.

An important and distressing factor resulting from this, continued the Rebbe, is that it tends to impress upon the minds of the children and parents, and ultimately upon the minds of the community at large, that Jewish studies are of lesser importance than the secular.

Even Yeshivos, in many instances, will publicize and exalt those who excel in their secular studies and will take pride in having produced such able students, but they will not feel at all elated when attaining success in religious studies.

Another phenomena resulting, in part, from these implications, the Rebbe continued, is that secular institutions have many financial supporters, some of which contribute huge sums towards their secular advancement, whereas Jewish religious institutions have fewer supporters, and even in these cases, more assistance is rendered to the secular departments.

The Rebbe called for an increase in salaries for teachers of Jewish studies so that they at least equal that paid for secular teaching.

The Rebbe announced that he was establishing a loan fund where teachers receiving postdated checks would be able to redeem them immediately.

As an incentive for Jewish schools to expand their religious studies facilities the Rebbe said that the new fund would offer loans to such schools for such expansion.

The Rebbe noted that these loans would be administered on an equal basis for the benefit of Jewish studies departments of all Jewish schools, and would not be restricted to Lubavitcher or other institutions.

The Rebbe told of a five thousand dollar grant he received from a woman who asked to remain anonymous. She said that she had at one time taught in a Jewish school and a total of five thousand dollars accumulated in back pay.

Years passed and then, quite unexpectedly, she received a check for the five thousand dollars in the mail. She felt that the best thing to do would be to give it to the Rebbe’s charity fund.

The Rebbe expressed his admiration for this gesture stating that he knew that the person was one of only moderate income, and that there were several young children in the family. These five thousand dollars, the Rebbe said, he would earmark towards the new fund. In honor of his father’s 20th Yartzeit the fund would be called Keren Levi Yitzchak.

The Rebbe’s father Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson gained renown at an early age as an outstanding Talmudic and Kabbalistic scholar.

He was the Rabbi of Yekatrinislav, Russia, and was active in Jewish communal affairs. He was instrumental in the defense and the ultimate exoneration of the historic Beilas blood libel case.

Because of his activities in spreading Judaism he was deported by the communists to a prison in Alma Ata, in the province of Kazakstan, in central Asia. This brought ill health and while in prison he passed away on the 20th of Av, twenty years ago. He left many Kabbalistic and Halachik manuscripts.

The Rebbe’s mother who valiantly stood at her husband’s side even during his prison confinement, now resides in New York.