The nineteenth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 8 Teves 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Vayigash, Revi'i, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, the 8th of the month, from chapter 44 through chapter 48 inclusive.
Tanya, on this day we begin learning from the beginning of chapter 7, from the words "moach nefesh" until page 22, at the words "u'vatchu rabanan".
The short teaching we are learning today is from the reshimos that the Rebbe wrote down in the year 5686, from what he heard from the Rebbe Rayatz. And this is what the teaching says: "The Tzemach Tzedek" - the third Rebbe of Chabad - "instructed all the melamdim who taught his young grandsons that, aside from the regular studies, they should learn with them peirush hamilos - the simple meaning of the order of the prayers". That is, besides the regular studies that one learns with every child according to his age - the letters, Chumash and Mishnayos - they should learn with the children the meaning of the words and their plain explanation, simply to understand the plain meaning of the order of the tefillah and of the words.
The Rebbe addresses this teaching in Likkutei Sichos volume 2. The Rebbe explains that the matter of tefillah is a wondrous thing that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us - that through tefillah we can receive all the things we need. We have many matters that we are in need of, and by praying we are given the opportunity to ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to give us everything we need. And in order for the tefillah to actually accomplish what it should, one has to know the meaning of its words, and from a young age one needs to know the meaning of the words.
And if the child is so young that he does not yet know or is not yet able to understand the meaning of the words, but he is already being trained in tefillah - the Rebbe says that at the very least he should understand the content of the tefillah, he should understand what is being done here; for if there is no understanding at all, this is not tefillah.
The Rebbe relates about the Rebbe Rayatz, who is the great-grandson of the Tzemach Tzedek, how they conducted themselves with him in his childhood. He relates that when he was a child, even before his bar mitzvah, his father - the Rebbe Rashab, the fifth Rebbe - taught him the peirush hamilos of all the tefillos: the weekday, Shabbos and Yom Tov prayers, the Haggadah of Pesach, and a significant portion of the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Already as a child. And he told him: "To pray and not to know what one is praying has no value at all" - one must understand what one is saying.
So, as a child, before his bar mitzvah, his father went through all the tefillos with him and taught him; and after the bar mitzvah he went through all the tefillos with him a second time. Afterwards, following the bar mitzvah, he taught him the chassidic peirush hamilos: he began with "Modeh Ani", and explained to him every line and every verse in the way of chassidus, with particular emphasis on the "bechein" of each thing - what its practical application is.
And how long did this take? It is interesting, so that we should grasp the proportion regarding the chassidic explanation. The Rebbe Rayatz was born, as is known, on 12 Tammuz - his birthday - in the year 5640, and his bar mitzvah was in 5653. The Rebbe would relate that two years later, in 5655, around the time of his birthday, he and his father reached the line "Leshem Yichud" that precedes "Baruch She'amar". That is, over the course of those two years the father managed to teach him from "Modeh Ani" until the "Leshem Yichud" before "Baruch She'amar".
And when the Rebbe Rayatz relates this he says: "Such a teacher and such learning becomes engraved in the mind, and remains in the heart as a living memory for years". That was with the Rebbe Rayatz; and here we are speaking of a much earlier period - that the Tzemach Tzedek himself directed the melamdim who taught his grandsons to explain to them the peirush hamilos of everything.
And the conclusion of the teaching: "And once a month they would come to the Tzemach Tzedek to be tested on this". Once a month the grandsons would come to their grandfather, and he would test them on the peirush hamilos of the tefillah. This concept of doing something once a month appears in the Gemara in several places regarding the Amoraim who would review their learning - as is told about Rav Sheishes and about others - that once a month they would review their studies. So too we see here that the Tzemach Tzedek would do this once a month: calling in the grandchildren and testing them on the peirush hamilos of the tefillah.
Finally, we saw on the previous days that the teachings in Hayom Yom began to correspond to the order of the halachos in the Rambam. We spoke about the ones corresponding to Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, and yesterday about the matter corresponding to Hilchos De'os in the Rambam. The next halachos in the Rambam are Hilchos Talmud Torah.
And at the beginning of Hilchos Talmud Torah, in chapter 1, right in the second halachah, the Rambam writes: "A person is obligated to teach his son's son" - just as a person is obligated to teach his son, he is obligated to teach his son's son, the grandson. And this is precisely our subject in this teaching: that the Tzemach Tzedek took care of the education of his son's son, his grandchildren, that they should learn properly, and he himself would test them once a month on their studies. This indeed corresponds exactly to the halachos of the third subject in the Rambam - Hilchos Talmud Torah. This is the correspondence of the daily halachos. That is the daily teaching.