'Good Rabbi' Teitelbaum Teaches Grade School Students The Difference Between Jews And Non-Jews

June 28, 2015

Satmar Rebbe: “What if someone walks on the street in Kiryas Joel and he finds an item that someone else has lost, and what if someone walks on the street of Monroe – do you know that there’s a place called “Monroe” by the goyim [non-Jews]? They (pointing at the kids) know that there is a village called “Monroe” by the goyim? Is there a difference [between the two areas] with regard to if one has to return the lost item? Is there a difference if it’s found in Kiryas Joel or if [it is] found in Monroe?”

Halakha (Orthodox Jewish law) distinguishes between Jews and non-Jews in many ways. One of those ways is that a found object – a book, for example, or a diamond ring or a bicycle – has to be announced by the finder in order to allow the person who lost it to claim it. The object has to be kept by the finder and protected for as long as it takes for the person who lost it to come retrieve it – even if it takes many years.

But if the object is found in area heavily populated by non-Jews, that announcement does not have to be made and the Jew who found it can, if he or she desires, keep it and use it as his or her own.

This distinction was hammered home to young students in the grammar school-level yeshiva in Kiryas Joel by the Kiryas Joel Satmar Rebbe Aharon Teitelbaum when he visited the school earlier this week.

Here’s a description of what took place that was, my source says, sent home with the students by the yeshiva. First, here’s a translation made by this source. It is followed by the Yiddish-language original:

The Rebbe asked some questions from within the Talmud that the boys have studied at the rehearsal. The boys answered together in unison.

The tremendous joy was evident on the Rebbe’s face from the answers that they gave.

Rebbe: What if someone walks on the street in Kiryas Joel and he finds an item that someone else has lost, and what if someone walks on the street of Monroe – do you know that there’s a place called “Monroe” by the goyim [non-Jews]? They (pointing at the kids) know that there is a village called “Monroe” by the goyim? Is there a difference [between the two areas] with regard to if one has to return the lost item? Is there a difference if it’s found in Kiryas Joel or if [it is] found in Monroe?

Boys: Yes!

Rebbe: What is the difference? Does it have to be announced?

Boys: Yes!

Rebbe: Is there a difference if it is found in Kiryas Joel or if it is found in Monroe?

Boys: Yes!

Rebbe: In town?(Because the boys didn’t understand the difference between Kiryas Joel and Monroe, the Rebbe said in “Town.”)

Boys: Yes!

Rebbe: What is the difference? Why are we obligated “here” [in Kiryas Joel, the all-Satmar hasidic village] to announce [that an item has been found so its owner can come identify it and get it back] and “there” [in Monroe we are] not [obligated by halakha, Orthodox Jewish law] to [do so]?

Boys: Because here live mostly Jews and there mostly goyim.

Rebbe: [Yes,] here live many Jews and there live many goyim.