Question: We don’t live in a large house. Should we push our kids to get more Seforim now or wait until they grow up and get married?
Answer by Rabbi Enan Francis, MS.Ed, Head of School, Torah Day School of Houston, Texas:
When I was fifteen, after a full summer of working as a learning teacher, I saved enough to buy my first set of seforim—just three volumes of the Rebbe’s ma’amorim, but they were the first seforim that were truly mine. I still remember the weight of them in my hands, and as I walked down Kingston Avenue holding them, I felt the pride, the effort, and the sense that I was finally starting my own library. Even today, with their covers torn and pages worn, they remain among my most treasured possessions.
I also remember Hey Teves that year. The Rebbe encouraged everyone to buy seforim from Kehos. My classmates had money saved from babysitting or from home. I had neither. I went to the store just to feel the excitement, but I could only stand on the sidelines as a window shopper. Wanting so much to participate, yet being unable to, was a feeling I never forgot.
This comes to mind when asked what to tell a child who wants to buy seforim but lives in a home with no space for them.
First, we validate and encourage.
A child’s desire to own seforim is beautiful and should never be dismissed. But we also teach an important lesson: even one sefer is precious. A single volume, chosen with sincerity and used with love, can mean far more than shelves of books that are never opened.
And we remind them of a simple truth: אין הקדוש ברוך הוא בא בטרוניא עם בריותיו – Hashem does not ask a person what is impossible. Accepting real limitations is not a weakness; it is the beginning of mature, Chassidishe thinking.
So we encourage our child to buy what he or she can—one sefer, two, or three a year—and to treat them as treasures. A true library doesn’t begin with space; it begins with value. Because in the end, it’s not the size of the bookcase that counts. It’s the depth of the connection to the sefer itself.
