An educator (מחנך) trains the person to limit the powers within him that are awakening to life. This limitation is essential to their whole purpose. The student (חניך) learns to develop his powers within the framework of these limits. Chinuch in not meant to be inhibiting, like a straightjacket; it is meant to be a spiritual garment in which a person can move and grow.
True chinuch חנך is analogous to oneg ענג (pleasure). (this analogy is derived from the commonality in the root letters of both words, according to Hirsch’s system of interpreting the Hebrew language – GS). Certainly chinuch entails a limitation of powers, but it leaves them a wide area that is fitting and satisfying.
The idea is also expressed into the dedication of a house of prayer – חנוכת הבית. The house in dedicated for its exclusive purpose and thus consecrated. It does not take place by means of a dedication ceremony. the first time the community uses it for prayer it becomes dedicated. The same is true of education. Our youth are not consecrated through preaching and moralizing, or through bar or bat mitzva celebrations, but, rather, through chinuch in the literal sense of the word. The young person is trained to carry out mitzvos in practice.
Beraishis 14:14
pages 335-336
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