We spoke to one special lady who has so deeply internalized the teachings of Rabbi Miller that she not only lives by them at home and transmits them to her children, but also seamlessly integrates them into her daily interactions with her preschoolers.
We’ll start at the very beginning
In the busy Jewish streets of Monsey, you might have met Mrs. Silka Tauber, Chassidish wife and mother, and preschool principal extraordinaire. Originally a second-grade morah, Mrs. Tauber moved on to teach high school, eventually “graduating” to her current position, where she oversees close to eighty budding n’shei chayil between the ages of four and six and a half.
The Taubers were introduced to Rabbi Miller’s Torah around twenty-five years ago through his kuntreisim and sefarim—and it was love at first sight. They immediately recognized that THIS was the way they wanted to lead their lives, and that it was the paradigm for every Jewish home. They pored over the kuntreis every month, reading it from cover to cover, and discussed its contents with their children. Even now, their dining room is a Rabbi Miller exhibit of sorts, displaying pictures and signs of their mentor.
Yes, something clicked for them. Everyone has bizyonos and nisyonos, be it neighbors, workers, or family they encounter daily, people who provoke them, trigger them, and potentially bring out the worst in them. But Rabbi Miller showed the Taubers that those situations were created for a purpose.
“Rabbi Miller said that you don’t go out to work for name, fame, or money. You go out to work to work out your middos,” says Mrs. Tauber, “and this understanding has literally kept me going throughout my life.”
This Principal has Different Principles
And here’s where it gets even more interesting.
Mrs. Tauber doesn’t keep Rabbi Miller’s Torah to herself. As preschool principal, she feels a strong sense of responsibility to her young charges, and infuses them with Rabbi Miller’s hashkafah in the classroom.
Rabbi Miller for tiny tots? Absolutely.
“I go into every class separately,” says Mrs. Tauber. “I open up apples at home, take out the seeds and explain to them how Rabbi Miller walked along Ocean Parkway. When he met bachurim and older guys, he would stop them and say, ‘You want to see what I have in my pocket?’ And he would take out the seeds.
“‘What is the seed and where does it come from?’ he would ask. ‘How does the seed become an apple?’
“I show the girls how Rabbi Miller ran around teaching the whole world what it means to thank Hashem, from a seed growing, to the Earth, to the sun, to the rain, making it grow into a food. That’s what we eat and that’s what we thank Hashem for all day.”
Do the girls really understand and appreciate what they are hearing?
Mrs. Tauber makes sure they do. She hung up a huge picture of Rabbi Miller and placed a Ziploc bag next to it. The girls were galvanized into action, and began filling up the bag with seeds they brought from home. One told how her mother made apple compote. Another said her mother made apple cake. Each child came with her seeds and a heart full of appreciation for the wondrous gift of apple seeds!
Rabbi Miller and the Snowstorm
Mrs. Tauber didn’t wait for preschool to share Rabbi Miller’s Torah. While she was still a high-school teacher, she had numerous opportunities to transmit his hashkafah.
“We once had a tremendous snowstorm,” remembers Mrs. Tauber, “and the shed behind our house broke.”
End of story? Not for the Taubers.
“While it was still snowing, I ran outside. I wrote on an oak tag: Thank you Hashem. Our shed is broken but our house is whole, and put a picture of it into the Community Connections. When school resumed after the snowstorm, I told the girls they should look through the Connections and they’ll see something about my house, something about thanking Hashem. Their response was adorable. They all cut out the picture from the Connections and brought it in.”
A Lesson from a Kugel
The Taubers see clearly how their dedication to Rabbi Miller’s teachings has permeated their home. “I try very hard to see only the positive, rather than the negative. One of my kids once put a potato kugel into the oven and the whole thing splashed.” (Editor’s note: If it’s ever happened to you, you’ll know that it feels like a disaster of epic proportions.) “And I said, ‘Whoa, thank you, Hashem, that it splashed! It wasn’t our heads and it wasn’t our feet that splashed. It’s okay, it’s just a kugel!’”
Why the Magnets?
When the end of the school year rolled around, Mrs. Tauber knew she had to do something special for the mothers of her preschoolers. She contacted Toras Avigdor and ordered a magnet for each mother (see picture).
“Why do we have to thank Hashem for our mothers?” she asked the girls. “Who thinks about your homework? Who prepares your clothes for you?” She emphasized everything mothers do and that we have to thank Hashem for giving us such special mothers.
“I told them I’d give them a present for their mothers. And it was the cutest—they were on a high. They put the magnet in a clear bag, and I added a sticker, saying something like: This is the present we’re giving you. We’re thanking you for being such a special mother, and thanking Hashem for what you’ve done for us.”
Mrs. Tauber gave out the same magnets at the bar mitzvah of her youngest son, and the women were thrilled. “They couldn’t believe that we even had Rabbi Miller at our bar mitzvah!”
The RABBI MILLER Magnets can be ordered here!
Torah for Jewish Women
On the nonstop highway of everyday life, how would Mrs. Tauber encourage other women to feel a connection to Rabbi Miller?
“Read the Toras Avigdor every week. Rabbi Miller said that when a woman walks with four children, one on either side of her, one sitting in the carriage, and one sitting on top of the carriage, she should know that she’s just like the Kohen Gadol doing the avodah in the Bais Hamikdash. One’s screaming, another’s acting up, but she’s doing that avodah of a Kohen Gadol. She can live a life of tranquility. If she lives with Rabbi Miller’s Torah at work or at home, then her whole life becomes a beautiful way of living.”
Thoughts?
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