Rabbi Michoel Goldin has a mission: “Together, we will make sure that not a single child is left behind.”

Darco, a project spearheaded by Rabbi Goldin, Chabad of Teaneck’s youth director, is a learning program that brings together public school students ages 4-14, mainly those with learning challenges, and yeshiva/Jewish high school seniors who will give them Torah lessons at the Chabad house. These lessons, which will be an hour long and take place one to four times a month as desired by the families, will be catered to each student’s needs, offering subjects from the aleph bet to Chumash and more. The program is open to both boys and girls. Each lesson will be $30, all of which will go to the tutors.

The initiative comes after Rabbi Goldin has been working with public school students for years and has seen an increased need for support after October 7. “I’ve been going for 14 years to Teaneck High School and running the kosher food club for Jewish kids there, and last year, October 7 affected our students in a great way, especially in Teaneck High School. Some of the students got bullied and were harassed for being Jewish, for wearing a Star of David. Two of them actually dropped out of Teaneck High, and it’s been very rough on these students.”

Many students that Chabad works with are those who, due to different learning challenges, had to go to public school for their needs to be met, but encountered hate ever since the war in Israel began. “Since October 7, a lot of rabbis in the community started to notice that we have this segment of Jews who are really struggling in silence,” Rabbi Goldin said. He ran multiple programs for kids of different ages this past year, and “the idea of all these activities was to give the kids a little bit of learning but also to have them find other friends in the community who are in public school to come together, that they can have playdates, that they shouldn’t be left out …

“So this brings everyone together, and it also allows the parents, when they come, [to] meet other parents and get strength from one another, and allows the kids to feel a Jewish pride and to be excited about Judaism, not just to focus on the negativity that’s going on in school.”

The initiative, which plans to kick into action this school year, takes its name from the phrase in Mishlei 22:6, חֲנֹ֣ךְ לַ֭נַּעַר עַל־פִּ֣י דַרְכּ֑ו, “which means educating the child according to their way,” Rabbi Goldin explained. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all. My wife and I are going to talk to the parent of the child and to the child and come up with a curriculum that’s best for that child. So if it’s a younger child and they want to hear a little bit of Parsha, Chumash, a little bit of the holidays, as well as reading, kriah, maybe learning Hebrew, lashon haKodesh, and then afterwards a game, so that will be geared for them. If it’s someone older who could do Navi or they could do Gemara … every child based on their level.”

The rabbi looks forward to occasional fun events as well. For example, “before Chanukah, we bring everybody together to do a fun activity, a trip or whatever it is.”

Why is this project so important? “I’m the youth director at the Chabad house of Teaneck,” said Rabbi Goldin. “I work under Rabbi Simon and Rebbetzin Simon, and as a shaliach of the Rebbe sent from Crown Heights to Teaneck, our job is to see to every community’s different needs. In Teaneck—thank God, we have a lot of Jewish restaurants and kosher food and Jewish schools and such a beautiful community—we have to make sure that there’s no child who falls between the cracks.

“The Rebbe always wanted that no Jew should be left behind. Every Jew should feel [that]. Every child has somebody looking out for them, somebody making sure they have all the resources so that they can be inspired and we can create the next generation of Jewish children. That’s really our mission as a Chabad shaliach, to make sure that every child is part of our program. We can’t afford to lose even a single child because they were overlooked.”

To that end, Darco will be geared towards students “who, for example, play nicely, and they’re a regular kid, they just have dyslexia, or they can’t sit still. Or some of them are very well-behaved, but they need a little bit of extra help, and it was too much for the local schools, and they had to go into a public school. It’s for those kinds of kids.”

Asked what inspired him to start this project, Rabbi Goldin responded: “When October 7 happened and we had so many parents distraught, initially I felt that we have to have a school in our community that is alongside the mainstream schools, but just for children that are a little bit out-of-the-box. And I still feel that that’s a need. In other communities, in Brooklyn, Monsey and Crown Heights, they have schools for children who are regular children, but they just need a slower pace or smaller classes. In Teaneck, we don’t have that. … I think that this is the best idea for now, to create this one-on-one learning, and we will see where it takes us. Maybe it might take us to, at some point, with the help of others, opening a school or perhaps having every school have a class or different divisions in the school.”

Rabbi Goldin concluded with the following message: “We don’t just do [programs] for youth. I also run a young Jewish professional club where we meet every Wednesday night. We have a Torah class, and then we have shabbatons once a month. … We try to create programs from little kids all the way up to teenagers and young Jewish professionals. We try to make sure that there’s something for everybody. Nobody is left out.

“At any point, every child, every Jew should feel loved and feel part of some program, some kind of community, feel proud that they’re a Jew. And our ultimate goal is to bring Mashiach. This is what we’re sent here to do, to make the world a better place, and there will be no more wars, no more hatred, no more jealousy. … We’re going to be living beautifully, learning Torah all day. That’s our ultimate goal, and we do that by each one of us making the world a better place in the unique way that we can.”

If you are interested in signing up your child for Darco, or being a tutor if you are a high school senior, email Rabbi Goldin at [email protected] or call him at 201-546-6049. The program will take place at the Chabad house on 513 Kenwood Place, Teaneck.

Daniel Brauner is a contributor to The Jewish Link. He is an incoming student at Yeshiva University and lives in Teaneck. Contact him at [email protected].