Vayimaen - Golem's Row | Rabbi Fischel Schachter

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Refuse to let a label, failure, or past humiliation define you; only you can decide whether you are a "Golem," and you can reclaim your situation at any moment by choosing to act differently. The speaker, Rabbi Fischel Schachter, recounts being placed in "Golem's Row," the lowest-ranked class row in his third-grade cheder, and uses his father's response and a Luna Park ghost-house story to illustrate the point. He ties the lesson to Chanukah, the turning on of the light.

Key Points

• As a child in third grade, the speaker was seated in "Golem's Row," the bottom of three rows, where kids placed the weakest students.
• When the fluorescent lights over that row went out and he was moved up temporarily, he felt promoted, only to be sent back once the lights were fixed.
• His father, rather than explaining the humiliation, quietly moved him to a new school with more kids, and later explained that the label only sticks if you let it.
• The speaker warns that the Yetzer Hara (the inclination toward wrongdoing) tells people "you blew it, it's game over," and quotes the Divrei Yisrael: don't let your heart say "I blew it."
• The Luna Park ghost-house story shows that fear dissolves once you turn on the light, and Chanukah symbolizes that act of illumination.

Details Worth Noting

• Concrete instructions: The transcript contains no step-by-step method. The actionable guidance is: decide for yourself whether a label applies to you; do not treat a past failure as final ("it's game over"); when you feel overwhelmed by fear or past hurt, "turn on the light" by choosing to act and reframe the situation.
• The father's approach was to change the environment rather than dwell on the hurt, and he advised not to make an issue of having been a victim, since that identity can be used against you for life.
• The speaker says he decided not to let the Golem label define him, and clarifies that one is not allowed to hurt anyone, while emphasizing that only one's own words of self-judgment ("I blew it") make the failure real.
• The Luna Park example: a boy is terrified in a haunted house, then realizes the ghosts are plastic once the lights are switched on, illustrating that fear loses power under illumination.

Bottom Line

Your self-assessment, not a classroom seating chart or a single mistake, determines whether you are a "Golem," so choose to switch on the light and act again.