Tzivos Hashem Battalions Mobilize To Conquer Galus
By Aliza Karp

Between Yud Shvat and Yud-Aleph Nissan, Tzivos Hashem Battalions of Sixth and Seventh Grade Boys Have Been Mobilized for Front Line Battle Against the Yetzer Hara

A mobilization of Tzivos Hashem, called Chayalei Beis Dovid, created by a volunteer group of dedicated bachurim and yungeleit with Rabbi Shmaryohu Weinbaum at the helm, features weekly meetings, monthly projects, resulting in individual soldier’s commitments to increase their daily mitzvos. This year the programs are held exclusively in Crown Heights, Montreal and London; next year they will conquer the world.

The madrichim (group leaders) receive special training, and then plan the content of the meetings, prepare the special monthly projects and guide the soldiers to personal advancement.

There are 25 units in Crown Heights, each unit having a maximum of eight boys. Keeping the groups small insures full participation of all the boys and a chance for the madrich to give individual attention to each one. “Contact with older bachurim is so important at this age,” comments Mrs. Matti Korf, mother of club member Moishy Korf.

Unit membership is determined by address, so that boys who learn in different yeshivos but live in proximity to each other have a chance to mingle. “I got to know boys I didn’t even know lived on my block,” said sixth grader Nosson Deitsch. “Now they are my friends.”

Registration requirements for the battalions consist of a nominal fee plus a commitment to participate in club activities. Upon enlisting, each member is given a soldier’s handbook that outlines the goals, strategies and special missions of the program.

The clubs meet on Motzaei Shabbos. The unit leader organizes the meeting’s location and provides the supplies. After the boys wash for bread for Melaveh Malka, a chozer distributes a sicha written in Yiddish. The boys listen to a tape of the Rebbe saying the sicha that they are learning. Then the chozer explains the sicha in English. Someone reads HaYom Yom in Yiddish and explains it in English. Game playing and storytelling follow. The boys learn inyanei Geula U’Moshiach and learn and sing a niggun. The evening draws to a close as the boys discuss their progress on their monthly mission. They bentch, clean up and thank the host family. The evening has been one of fun, friendship and tachlis.

On occasion, the Melaveh Malka is replaced by a special workshop. Some of the units meet during the week so that they can attend the workshops and continue to have the Melaveh Malkas as well. The workshops cover many topics, such as: kashrus and sh’chita (using real chickens), Havdala (candle braiding and spice holder making), safrus (mixing ink and writing with a feather), tzitzis (spinning wool into string and making tzitzis), and tefillin (stretching and shaping the box, twirling thread, and learning to knot straps). The workshop leaders are parents, professionals and community members who volunteer their time, material, skills and talents to the clubs.

One aspect of the program is private. To participate, each soldier must have a mashpia, as it says in Pirkei Avos and as the Rebbe has urged. Soldier and mashpia decide which mitzva he will focus on. Every mitzva will be recorded on the appropriate sheet in the yoman (log sheet of mitzvos). At the end of each week, the mashpia signs a cheshbon ha’nefesh card, a spiritual self-evaluation report, and submits it to the madrich. Upon submission of the third cheshbon ha’nefesh card, the soldier receives a professional leather organizer with calculator.

A young man who is mashpia to one of the boys in the program told Rabbi Weinbaum, “You haven’t just made a program, you have turned over 200 children’s lives.”

Tzivos Hashem Executive Director Rabbi Yerachmiel Benjaminson considers this a pilot project. This year’s program is tailored to yeshiva students, but with some modification, the program can be adapted to other populations of children, as well.

At one of the Motzaei Shabbos workshops, Michoel Albukerk of Tzivos Hashem told the boys, “As a member of Chayalei Beis Dovid, a special division in Tzivos Hashem, each one of you is a frontline soldier in Hashem’s Army. By participating in Chayalei Beis Dovid, you are preparing yourselves to be shluchim of the Rebbe… In order to bring Moshiach, a shaliach needs tools in gashmiyus and in ruchniyus. These workshops are your tools b’gashmiyus. By learning how to make tzitzis, how to make a Havdala candle, how to make tefillin, you are gaining the skills to connect to people who have no background in Yiddishkeit. You are learning skills to appeal to people of all languages and all ways of life, and thereby, you are acquiring the skills to reveal Melech HaMoshiach, NOW!”