The Kollel Member With Sholom Bayis Issues

The Inside Story of Chabad in America — Through the Mindel Archives

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives. Yesterday was Yud Gimmel Elul. Yud Gimmel Elul was the anniversary of the wedding of the Frierdiker Rebbe, and we already discussed in previous programs about the wedding anniversary of the Frierdiker Rebbe. But today I want to share with you an English letter that the Rebbe answered to someone who had a problem with sholom bayis.

Now, I want to say that the Igros Kodesh — the English letters come across more down to earth. He expresses himself differently than in the Igros Kodesh in Hebrew — more personal. The nuscha is the same; it's both the same Rebbe's letters. As I mentioned once, when Rabbi Mindel came to take dictation, the Rebbe would say, "This letter should be written in Hebrew, this letter should be written in English, this letter should be written in Russian," and in different languages. So it's the same thing, but he expresses himself in English much differently. Why? Because the English letters cater to the entire world — more Jews in the world speak English; Hebrew is limited. So English, everybody — Americans, people speak English in England, Australia, South Africa, people speak English. So he expresses himself in a more personal way in the English letters than in the Igros Kodesh.

As I mentioned once, in 1940 the Frierdiker Rebbe said to Rabbi Mindel that Chassidus, the Tanya, is a closed book written in Hebrew, so he wants Rabbi Mindel to open up Chassidus to the entire world, and he wants him to translate the Tanya into English so that all Yidden can benefit. And that's how he started everything else — the talks and tales, and the memoirs, and everything in English — because this caters to the entire world; everybody learns from that.

This is why, in the Igros Kodesh, the Rebbe expresses himself, I guess, differently than in the Hebrew letters.

Now, talking about the Igros Kodesh, I want to tell everybody who is listening that, thank G-d, the fifth volume of *The Letter and the Spirit* is already in print, and in a few weeks you'll be able to buy it in the stores — the fifth volume. So I want to share with you a letter today that is not going to be in the fifth volume; it will probably be in the sixth or seventh volume. But I'm going to say beforehand, regarding this letter, that the Rebbe answered somebody about sholom bayis.

Somebody wrote to the Rebbe — unbelievable — he says, "I got married, I went to kollel, and I sit and learn day and night. Now I already have children. I am a big, big lamdan, and my learning taught me to have ahavas Hashem, love of G-d, and yiras Hashem, fear of the Al-mighty. This is what the learning taught me." Then he says, "I also have yichus. I come from — I don't know — people from the village; I have also yichus. But I need one bracha — I need a bracha for sholom bayis." And he writes — and I'm going to quote a few words — he says, "I want my wife to realize who I am." Apparently the wife doesn't respect his learning so much, or she doesn't give him as much kavod as he wants her to give him. So he says he has a problem with sholom bayis. So he's asking the Rebbe that the Rebbe should give him a bracha. Then he says, "Even when I go to shul, some people that know me, they know I know how to learn — not everybody knows." Okay, this is what he writes.

Now this reminds me — I think it was the Rashab [?], I don't remember which Rebbe — somebody came over to the Rebbe and said, "When I go to shul and I daven, everybody steps on me." So the Rebbe told him, "Who told you to spread out so much? Don't spread out so much and nobody's going to step on you." This reminds me, more or less, of that type of person.

Now, this is a very interesting point — the Rebbe, being so busy, has time to answer this person. By the way, I have a packet of letters that children wrote to the Rebbe with crayons before their birthdays, and they wrote some questions — the parents, I guess, helped them — and the Rebbe has time to answer them on that same paper, answers them certain things. That's how much the Rebbe answered everyone.

I came across, a few weeks ago, a letter from somebody in California, an eleven-year-old boy, who wrote to the Rebbe: "I am eleven years old. I overheard that my father is telling my mother that I'm not going to yeshiva because my father cannot afford the tuition, so they don't want to let him in." And he wrote this. The Rebbe got this letter, he called Rabbi Hodakov — the Rebbe was on the other line — and he told Rabbi Hodakov to call him right away, that they should take him into yeshiva — number one, that's the main thing. Then later on they can discuss it, but no child can be refused because of tuition. This is the Rebbe.

So I just want to say — this is my hosafah — the Rebbe has time to answer this person also.

So I'm going to tell you what the Rebbe answers, b'kitzur: that ahavas Hashem comes after the other ahavos, following the sidra in the Torah. So I looked at this — I thought to myself, I looked up what the Rebbe means by "the order in the Torah." I think it says that there are four types of love: there is an ahava between husband and wife — that's one type of ahava; then there is a love between two friends; then there is an ahava between a parent and a child; and then there's an ahava between a Yid and the Aibishter, G-d.

In the Torah we find, in the beginning, the seder of ahavos. I found in Vayeira, where we read the Akeidah on Rosh Hashanah, it says that Hashem said to Avraham Avinu, "Take your son, whom you love" — this is an ahava between a parent and a child. Then in Toldos there's an ahava between a husband and wife — it says that when Yitzchak took Rivkah. And then there's an ahava between a parent and a child again, where it says about Yaakov and Yosef — so this is the ahava of being a parent and a child. Then in Vayikra it says, later on, ahavas Yisroel, between two friends, and also that you have to love converts. Then, at the end, I think more in Devarim, it says that we have ahavas Hashem — these other times it says "love" there, but that comes later.

So I think what the Rebbe said is that in the sidra of the Torah, in order to have ahavas Hashem, you first have to have the ahava bein ish l'ishto — then you will have the proper ahavas Hashem, because he claims that he loves Hashem. Then the Rebbe continues in the letter about being modest, bittul — then there will be peace between your wife and you, and then there will be shalom bayis. That's what the Rebbe writes in the letter — when I print it in the book you'll see the whole letter.

As we see, the Frierdiker Rebbe, when he sent his wedding invitation, everything is plain, everything is posted. You get the invitation — sometimes people send invitations where the chassan comes from a big yichus and the kallah comes from another, and everything is in the invitation. This invitation — the one that Chabad sends — this is the invitation of the Rebbe, and the Rebbe, of course, had great yichus, but nothing is mentioned. Four paragraphs in the invitation: the first paragraph begins with an aleph, the second paragraph begins with a hey, the third paragraph begins with a vav, and the fourth paragraph begins with a hey — nothing, because we all have — every year there is a ben Avraham. This is number one.

Then another thing the Rebbe writes, and that's a P.S. — I don't have the letter in front of me — your way of learning, the way he was reminding him, this brings jealousy between people, and this is the opposite — learning Torah should bring humility; a person should be modest. This, Torah teaches modesty and no favoritism, bittul. I guess this person needed that type of reminder.

So this is, more or less, the letter — it's longer, there's more things, but this is more or less the letter of the Rebbe.

Now, this reminds me — I was at a chassuna a while ago, and there were choshuve people there, important people — there were Chassidishe people, Litvishe people, there were [unclear] people, heads of organizations — there were a lot of people there. And he was mesader kiddushin, and he gave the brachos to the people called up, important people, and he didn't say any title — he just said, "this one, this bracha, this bracha" — some of them were roshei yeshiva, some of them were heads of organizations, and everything was plain. So a few days later I came over to him — the father of the kallah — and I said to him, "You know, you had those roshei yeshiva, you had people there — why didn't you announce their titles, who they are?" So he tells me, he explains to me, "You don't realize," he says, "how much embarrassment comes when you announce titles when you speak to somebody or write a letter to somebody." He tells me, "You can tell them the biggest title, but when you give brachos one after the other, and one is the head of an organization, and you say, and the other one is the head of a yeshiva, and then the third person is just a plain person — don't you think that he becomes embarrassed? And this plain person maybe is even greater than the people who are heads of organizations," he tells me. "So isn't that embarrassing?" So he made it up that way — no titles — and he hopes that the choshuve people that are there should come and tell him that if you want to give me a bracha, don't say a title, just give me a bracha, you can mention my name — unless it's a grandfather of the host, then you do say — but otherwise you don't.

So this is a very fine point, how a person thinks about other people. And as we see by the Rebbe — the Rebbe used to give a siddur to chassanim before Mincha on Erev Rosh Hashanah, and before he went to mikvah he gave him a siddur so that he should daven from the siddur, and he has to say Al Chet — this is the day of teshuva, to say Al Chet. The Rebbe's siddur — what happens if, before the Rebbe comes out, there are five chassanim or more than five chassanim — who does the Rebbe give it to? The Rebbe is not going to show favoritism; the Rebbe is not going to let anybody feel bad as to why the Rebbe gave to this chassan and not discuss it. So the Rebbe asked, "Who is the Kohen?" So he gave it to the Kohen, and then the Kohen davens, and afterward the Kohen gives it to the other people after he's done. What happens if there are two Kohanim? So the Rebbe gave the siddur to the one who is getting married first. What happens if there is no Kohen, no Levi? What happens if there is no Levi? The Rebbe looked to see who is getting married first out of all the five people, and he gives it to him — but not otherwise, so as not to show that people should feel bad as to why the Rebbe gave to this one and not that one. That's number one.

B'hemshech, we see by sheva brachos, by a chasunah, the chassan should be the one who is maftir. Why do we have a rav — and it doesn't have to be a rav, anyone can be maftir — but not the chassan? Because maybe the chassan cannot read, so as not to embarrass the chassan, the takana was made that one person should be the maftir. The same thing also with regard to kri'as haTorah — years ago, whoever was called up to shlishi had to lein his own parsha, whoever was called up to revi'i leined his own parsha, but later they made it that one baal korei should read everything. Why? Because maybe the person called up to the Torah doesn't know how to lein the Torah, or whatever — not to embarrass him. This is so that nobody should feel bad, so that it shouldn't hurt anybody.

We see, even not only with people — we see with challah: why do you cover the challah on Shabbos? Because when you make kiddush on wine, the challah might be, so to speak, embarrassed — so you cover the challah. So this is a thing that is very, very important to know.

This reminds me that, in the month of Elul, I once mentioned that when I got married, my father-in-law and Rabbi Hodakov — the same thing as the Rebbe — when it came to who should be mesader kiddushin — and this was the time when the Rebbe had already stopped being mesader kiddushin — they were very close to the Rebbe; I think they were among the closest people the Rebbe had — so the Rebbe said, "I would..." That's his answer, but he was very careful about how it would seem to other people.

I once mentioned that Rebbetzin Chana [?] came to the Frierdiker Rebbe before the Rebbe was married, to speak about the shidduch. So she said, "I want a dowry — I want nothing, I have a good bachur." So the Frierdiker Rebbe said, "Believe me, I would give you a dowry, but I don't have the money." So she said, "Okay, but give me, like this, another thing — give me a piece of silver, like..." So he says, "I have other girls, I have other daughters, I can't." So he says, "Don't worry, the One Above will already know what to do" — not to show favoritism. This is very important.

And since we're now in the month of Elul, the month of mercy and forgiveness, the Rebbe always used to say that when people do their taxes, tax season, a businessman sits down and he reckons: did he make money this year, did he lose money this year, and if he made money, and if he lost money, how can he do better next year? The same thing — the Rebbe wrote that a person should make a cheshbon hanefesh, but think: did he hurt any Yid, was he sensitive to another Yid — this is the most important thing, and this is the avoda of Elul before Rosh Hashanah.

And I want to give a bracha, that we should merit to be mekayem, we should all have a kesiva vachasima tova, and that we have a year of Moshiach, and that Hashem — we will continue next Thursday, our Thursday night program. Thank you.