To the Shluchim Who Felt Discouraged…

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, from the Mindel Archives.

This program today is dedicated to the Lilui Nishmas of my Zeide, Reb [Alter Zalman?][?], whose yahrzeit is this week. He was the Rebbe's melamed — the Rebbe's teacher — for many years. He also had brothers; we already had a program about the class (cheder) that they had, and maybe in the future we'll have other programs about my Zeide, but this week is his yahrzeit. So I just want to say [unclear — a few words of tribute in Yiddish/Hebrew] in his memory this week.

Now, it's a week before Shavuos. Shavuos this year falls on Friday and Shabbos. When it doesn't fall on Shabbos, the second day we stop laining in the Torah at Parshas [unclear], but this year we start reading in Parshas [unclear] because of Shabbos.

So I want to share with you today two letters that the Rebbe wrote to Julius Tolman. We spoke about Julius Tolman before — we had a few programs about him. He's the one who actually sent the affidavit for the Frierdiker Rebbe; he brought him to America, and he took responsibility for him here when he came to America. He was very close with the Frierdiker Rebbe, very close with the Rebbe — they had meetings — and there's quite a few more programs we can do about Julius Tolman. The Frierdiker Rebbe gave him [an honor, unclear], and the Frierdiker Rebbe said that he has a special neshama. We'll talk about that, but I don't want to get into it today. Today I just want to share with you two letters.

**Letter number one** — this we'll do later if we have time. When the Rebbe was in Paris — he went to Paris in Tof-Shin-Zayin [1947] — he wrote a letter to Julius from Paris, Daled Sivan, two days before Shavuos, and it is on stationery of the Hotel [unclear] in Paris. The Rebbe wrote to Julius Tolman in Yiddish — here is the letter — the Rebbe wrote him a beautiful letter, and he sent this letter to Rabbi Nissan Mindel so that he should translate it into English and give Julius both the English letter and the Yiddish letter.

So Rabbi Mindel wrote a letter to Julius: "Rabbi Schneerson is still in Paris at present, and sends you the enclosed letter which he had written just before Shavuos; this is the translation." And then he writes at the end: "Rabbi Schneerson is expected to return in the near future," with kind personal regards. So, if we have time, we'll do this beautiful letter from before Shavuos — we'll do it later, at the end.

But now I want to share with you another letter that the Rebbe wrote to Julius in 1944. The Rebbe thanked him for giving his mesiras nefesh — part of himself — to print the Pocket Encyclopedia, just like we have [a similar work] for adults; the same way, Rabbi Mindel wrote the English, the Junior [edition] for children. So he gave — and this was written before [unclear] — he gave his mesiras nefesh to bring out this encyclopedia. So there, he thanked him.

Now, next to that letter I found a little note, typed — I don't know whose it is, maybe it's the Rebbe's, maybe it's someone else's, I don't know — but it reads [as a gematria]: "give of yourself, and you shall become rich, and you will see your fortune." So what's the connection? The explanation is: Tof is 400 — a tenth of 400 is [40, i.e.] Mem. Ayin is 70 — a tenth of 70 is [7, i.e.] Zayin. Shin is 300 — a tenth of 300 is [30, i.e.] Lamed. Reish is 200 — a tenth of 200 is [20, i.e.] Kuf. [unclear — further detail of the gematria calculation].

In that letter that he wrote to him, the Rebbe gave an example: he wrote that a person is compared to a tree. A tree consists of three main parts: roots, the stem, and fruits — the stem includes branches, leaves, and also fruits. The roots obtain the nourishing substance that gives life from the earth, and the roots also provide a firm anchor for security against the wind, so the tree doesn't fall. If the roots are firm, that's the important part of the plant. The stem forms the main body of the tree and its development; as the tree grows it later produces fruits, and the fruits are for generations and generations.

This is what the Rebbe writes: the roots mean — a Jew's emunah, his faith, provides stability and the nourishment needed for his existence. That's the roots. In other words, the root of a Jew is his emunah — that's the ikar — and if it's not firm in the soil, the wind will blow it away. If a Jew is not strong in his emunah, the gashmius of the outside world might harm him. That's the roots.

The stem is the development — that's the kiyum hamitzvos. If the emunah is strong, then the kiyum hamitzvos will be the way it's supposed to be, but only if the roots are very strong. That's how it grows: as the person gets older and older it takes time, until it produces fruits. Now, what are the fruits? The fruits, he says, represent the good deeds of a Jew, which carry within them seeds, and those seeds can produce other fruits, other trees.

So this is what the Rebbe tells us in that letter — there are roots, the stem, and the fruits. And then the Rebbe finishes, writing that the son of his friend Tolman is considered by Him as if he had built Him a home in this world. That's how he writes in this letter.

Now, similar to another letter here — the Rebbe wrote to a shliach couple, because the wife had written to the Rebbe years ago that they don't see hatzlacha in their work. They see other people — others who have big Chabad houses, who have many baalei teshuva, who send out a lot of mail, who do a lot of publicity — but they themselves don't see any results. So they were discouraged, and they wrote to the Rebbe that they don't see any fruit from the hard work that they do.

So the Rebbe answers them like this: "It is surprising to me that you should have any doubts about your ability, or the success of your efforts. It appears as if you have doubts as to whether the One who gave you the assignment had made a wise choice." That's the kind of thing, because they doubt — because they are discouraged. And the Rebbe says: "I'm sure you do not think so. If you are sure that the One who gave you the assignment has not made a mistake, then you should continue your work with certainty and confidence, and with G-d's help you will succeed."

Now, the Rebbe goes on, but before he goes on I want to say something. I found a letter from Rabbi Hodakov, who was the head of the Shluchim — in other words, when a shliach was sent out years ago, I think they had to go through Rabbi Hodakov. He writes like this: not many people were chosen directly by the Rebbe himself; usually, when a person was sent as a shliach, the Rebbe would call the person over and say, "go and do this and this for me," and that's how he chose the person. The Rebbe didn't personally choose just a few — it wasn't that common.

He writes: I think Rabbi [?] was chosen by the Rebbe. Rabbi Nissan Pinson — I think he was also chosen by the Rebbe — and I think Rabbi Mendel [?] as well, and a few more. But most of the Shluchim were not like that. How did it go? They write: the Shluchim themselves would choose a city or a place where they wanted to go, and they would write to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe would circle a city or a state, wherever it was, and that's how they became a shliach. Sometimes it was said to be by goral — a kind of lottery — and he writes that a goral is like that, and that's another program, we'll speak about it — what kind of "lot" that is — but it means that was the Rebbe's choice.

So this is how shlichus went. Later, I remember that when the Rebbe could not speak, after the stroke, Rabbi Hodakov said that this is how it went with the Rebbe — but the Rebbe did not, most of the time, personally choose the people to go; it was by goral, and that's called the goral of the Rebbe.

Now that reminds me — in Afghanistan, I think, the Rebbe chose someone to be the head of Chabad of Afghanistan. There was a big chossid by the name of Moshe Dubinsky [?], a relative of mine. He had a daughter who was tall, and he was looking for a shidduch for her. So he thought, let's have the Rebbe choose — the Rebbe doesn't usually choose, but [someone] should give him advice as to who she should marry. So they suggested to him: "When you come out of the Rebbe's room, you're going to see a lot of bochurim standing around — look around, there's a lot of bochurim there — since she's tall, choose the tallest bochur." So he looked around, and it took him a while, and he saw a tall bochur — his name was Weiss [?], that's why I'm mentioning Weiss. Then he called him over and said to him, "You are my son-in-law." Weiss thought he was out of his mind — "me? I'm all alone?" — but he said, "you are my son-in-law," and they got engaged, and they told him what the Rebbe had said. Anyway, in the end, he did become the shliach [to Afghanistan]. This I must mention.

So let's continue what the Rebbe writes in answer to the shliach who felt discouraged. The Rebbe writes: there is a difference between planting vegetables and planting a tree. The difference is — vegetables represent quantity, a tree represents quality. When you plant vegetables, say you put corn in the ground, you get a lot of corn — hundreds of ears — but that's it, and then you have to plant again, and it doesn't take long, maybe a few weeks or a few months to grow, and that's all you get. A tree is different: when you put a seed in the ground, first you have the roots, then the stem, then the leaves, and then the fruits — and that takes much, much longer for a tree to grow, it could take years. And then from that fruit comes a seed — say, from an apple — and you plant that seed, and it takes much longer, but when you plant a seed, you get much more than what you put in.

So the same thing — the Rebbe tells this shliach — you complain that you don't see anything, but you don't know; maybe your work, which you do honestly, is more important than other people who have many Chabad houses or who make a lot of noise. You don't know — maybe they see results (pri) right away, but maybe you are planting, and what comes out of your efforts will be greater than what they produce. So, the Rebbe says, don't be discouraged — it takes longer, and since you're not seeing results right away, in the end you may have more fruits than they do. Don't be discouraged.

And here I want to share with you two stories. There was in Paris someone — I believe his name was Reb [unclear] — a good Yid who was very close to the Rebbe; he used to write to the Rebbe. I think later he moved to Antwerp. Someone came over to him and said, "I have one child, and I'm concerned about finding a shidduch, [since I have] one child." The man said to him, "So what — what's wrong with one child? You see that Dan, the son of Yaakov Avinu, had one child, and we see that Dan became one of the largest shevatim — I think Dan was the second largest, if I'm not mistaken — and he grew to be large from one child. So the fact is that other people who had many more children ended up with fewer descendants than came from Dan's one child. That's why you never know. From one child you can have a big, big [family]." You see, there's a big [family] — I mentioned the name — a big diamond family in Antwerp, and that whole [family/business] came from one child.

So, just like here, it's the same thing as with a tree — it takes longer, and maybe you don't see it right away, but from that it can grow much more for generations and generations. You put in a seed, and it can grow a lot.

Another thing I want to mention: a mashpia (lecturer) years ago — he calls himself a mashpia, but since there's no real mashpia nowadays, he's called a lecturer — came over to me and said, "You know, you do kiruv, you do a good job bringing people closer, but if you knew that this person would become a mashpia, you wouldn't even bother with him — you just want to make him a chossid, that's why you're doing this kiruv." So I told him, "I think you are right and you are wrong. First of all, you're wrong — every Yid is important. Every Yid has a neshama, and what we accomplish with a Yid, it doesn't matter which Yid it is. There's the twelve shevatim; there's Shimon, Reuven, Levi; there's Sarah and Rivka; there's Avraham and [others] — every one of them has within them the middos of Avraham, of Yitzchok, of Yaakov, of Sarah, of Rivka — every Yid is important, and in that you're wrong.

"But you are also 100% right: if I have a choice between two people — where I can take this one and make him frum, or take the other, who I know is going to become [a leader/chossid] — I would choose to work with the one who I believe will have more impact, and nobody can tell you exactly why. Because when I work with one person, I don't know how many generations will come from him — maybe many, maybe none — but it's important, nonetheless, and I don't know how much. But if I help someone become a chossid, I know that not only will he be influenced, but he will be mekarev thousands and thousands of others through his children and beyond. That's why, of course, that is more important. It doesn't mean I wouldn't work with the other person, but I would rather invest in what will bear fruit for more generations. So you're right, but you're also wrong."

I don't know if we'll have enough time to do that letter I told you about — the one the Rebbe wrote to Julius Tolman from Paris, Daled Sivan, two days before Shavuos. We don't have time, and I'll tell you why: because when the Rebbe was in Paris, there are a lot of stories that happened there — the people he met, what happened while the Rebbe was there — very, very interesting things, and I think our program doesn't allow us enough time for that. So I think I'm going to leave this for later — this beautiful letter, for another time. It's a shame, but we'll do it another time soon.

Now, before Shavuos, I want to wish everybody a good Yom Tov — and, as the Frierdiker Rebbe used to write, a chag kabbalas haTorah besimcha — a good Yom Tov.