Preventive Morality

When a virus spreads, we don’t wait until everyone is sick to begin looking for solutions. We isolate, vaccinate, and do everything possible to prevent the illness in the first place. The same is true with morality.

Preventive Medicine

In the early 1980s, a Jewish attorney named Michael Goldhirsch from Melbourne, Australia, decided to invest in real estate together with a business partner. They bought two properties in downtown Melbourne and held on to them for several years.

Then, in 1986, a large Japanese company approached them with an offer to buy the properties. The company wanted to build a major store on that site, and the offer they made was one the two partners could not refuse. They went through with the deal and made a very handsome profit.

The Goldhirsch family was very close to Chabad and to the Rebbe, and they decided that it would be meaningful to use the money for something connected to Chabad. After discussing it seriously, Michael and his wife decided that they wanted to establish a children’s medical center in Brooklyn, New York, near the world headquarters of Chabad.

They wanted the medical center to operate according to halachah and under the Rebbe’s guidance.

Since they did not know many people in Crown Heights, they came to New York and met with Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the Rebbe’s secretary. They gave him the check and said that the Rebbe should use the money in whatever way he felt was right. They added that their vision was to open a children’s medical center in Crown Heights, and then they waited for the Rebbe’s response.

The Rebbe’s answer came in the form of a three-page letter.

In the letter, the Rebbe addressed their proposal to build a children’s clinic and explained that there are two general approaches in medicine: treatment and prevention. Treatment means caring for a person after they have already become ill. Preventive medicine, on the other hand, tries to stop the illness before it begins.

Everyone understands, the Rebbe wrote, that preventive medicine is the ideal approach. Why? Because once a person is already sick, treating them requires significant resources, and very often brings pain and distress—not only to the patient, but also to the family, and even to the doctor, especially when surgery or difficult procedures are involved.

Preventive medicine, by contrast, does not cause the person suffering. Financially, too, it is far more efficient.

The Rebbe then wrote that preventive medicine is most successful when it begins at the youngest possible age—with things like vaccinations, brushing teeth to prevent cavities, healthy nutrition, and so on. That is how you raise a child who is physically healthy.

But, the Rebbe continued, that is still not enough. A human being needs to be healthy not only in body, but also in spirit and character.

So how do you raise a Jewish child who is emotionally and spiritually healthy?

The Rebbe’s answer was: by giving the child a Jewish education from the earliest age. That education gives the child inner strength and helps him grow into a healthy person—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

For that reason, the Rebbe suggested that the best use of the money would be to invest it in Jewish education.

In the end, Michael Goldhirsch later said that he did not even know exactly which educational project the money went to, because he and his wife left the decision entirely in the Rebbe’s hands. But the Rebbe’s perspective—his understanding of how to address both physical and spiritual illness—not only guided their donation. It changed his life forever (adapted from My Story, issue no. 258).

Morality from Mount Sinai

Recently, a new virus broke out among passengers on a cruise ship. It brought back memories of COVID, when countries around the world shut down large parts of the global economy and sent billions of people into isolation, all to prevent the disease from spreading. That was preventive medicine. Later came the vaccines—and what is a vaccine if not another form of preventive medicine? The goal is to make sure the illness does not take hold in the first place.

The same is true when it comes to the outbreaks of violence we see from time to time. If we want to uproot that kind of behavior, we cannot begin when people are already adults. We have to start when they are very young, already in preschool, teaching children to love and respect every human being. It all comes down to education. From the earliest age, children need to absorb the idea that every person is created in the image of G-d.

And how do we heal the violence, unrest, and crime that sometimes take over our streets? That, too, is not solved only in prisons. Many of those young people, had they been given a real opportunity to receive a good education in strong schools, and later in colleges or professional programs, would not be out in the streets destroying property or looting stores. They could have become successful, productive people instead of reaching that point.

But even education alone is not a guarantee that we will raise moral human beings.

Today we celebrate Shavuot, the holiday when we received the Ten Commandments. But what exactly happened at Mount Sinai?

G-d descended upon Mount Sinai early in the morning, while the Jewish people were still asleep. Suddenly, the sound of the shofar woke them up, and Moses brought the people out of the camp toward the mountain.

And then each person heard G-d Himself say: “I am the L-rd your G-d.” “Honor your father and your mother.” “Do not murder.” “Do not steal.”

Now imagine a Jew standing there, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and thinking: This is what they woke me up for? Did I not know before that murder is wrong? I honored my parents before Mount Sinai too. Even the belief in one G-d had already been taught by Abraham nearly five hundred years earlier. So what was new?

The answer is that at Mount Sinai, they did not hear these ideas from a teacher, a parent, a philosopher, or a rabbi. They heard them from G-d Himself.

Until then, morality could be understood as a beautiful idea, something noble and worthwhile. Honoring parents is certainly important—but today I am busy, today it is inconvenient, today it does not quite work for me.

At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people understood something deeper: there is a Creator. There is a Master of the world. And He is the One who commands us to live this way.

Morality is not just a nice idea that I follow when it fits my schedule. It is an obligation.

At the giving of the Torah, the Jewish people internalized the idea expressed in Tanya: that “G-d stands over him… looks upon him, and examines his mind and heart” (Tanya, ch. 41). They understood that this is real. It is not just a nice sermon the rabbi says on Shabbat before the cholent.

And that is what is so missing in many schools. It is not enough to give students information. We have to give them formation. Not only education in the academic sense, but real moral and spiritual guidance.

We have to teach a child that there is a Master of the world. We have to help the student understand that it is not enough to be smarter than the police officer chasing him, or to have a father wealthy enough to hire the best lawyer to get him out of trouble. G-d sees him. He stands before G-d. And one day, he will have to give an accounting.

Only that kind of education can raise a truly moral generation: people who do not hate one another, who do not harm someone because of the color of their skin, and who do not loot stores simply because they can get away with it.

Education Day

The Rebbe devoted his entire life to education.

In 1978, the United States Congress designated the Rebbe’s birthday as Education Day, U.S.A., and President Jimmy Carter issued the official proclamation. Since then, every president has continued this tradition, marking the Rebbe’s birthday as a day dedicated to education and moral awareness.

Today, this message is more urgent than ever. We have to do everything we can to ensure that every child receives a strong moral education—not information alone, not academics alone, but a real education built on the timeless awareness that “an eye sees, an ear hears, and all your actions are recorded in a book.”