Rabbi Schapiro Survives Covid to Present ‘Historic Treasures’

Welcome to our weekly program, the inside story of Chabad in America through the Mindel archives.

Our last program was Thursday before Yom Kippur, and I said then that I was going away for a few weeks and that we wouldn't have a program. We didn't have a program, but not for that reason — not because I went out of town — because on the day that I was supposed to go, I got a fever in the morning, and I went to check, and I had the virus. So I was home for a few weeks. I once heard from Rabbi Hodakov — he used to say it like this: "A person has a lot of thoughts, but whatever Hashem wishes, that will be." So he said there's plan A and there's plan B. That was plan B, but plan A is Hashem's. So baruch Hashem, I'm fine now, and we're starting again our Thursday night program. I hope everybody had a freilichen Tishrei.

This week I want to read to you a fascinating letter that Rabbi Mindel wrote in '49 — before the Rebbe. It's a very interesting letter, and I want to get to it in just a couple minutes, but before that, since it's the beginning of the cycle of reading the Torah, I want to mention a l'kuti Torah about this, and also I saw in a letter — the letter says in the name of the Frierdiker Rebbe — that the way you establish yourself on Shabbos Bereishis, that style is going to be for the whole year. And I think you mentioned that the way you grease the wheel, the mishmir hawagon — that's how it's going to go. If you grease it right, it's going to go right.

So Shabbos Bereishis is a time when a person has to make a cheshbon, and the Frierdiker Rebbe — he didn't say it on that — that is the beginning of bereishis, that is the beginning of the beginning of the story of bereishis here, that we can learn out how we should be and how we should establish ourselves on Shabbos Bereishis.

Now, Shabbos Bereishis is very unique — it's always Shabbos, and Shabbos Bereishis is always between Hoshana Rabbah and — meaning that Tishrei is a month full of Yomim Tovim, full of holidays, and then we go into a month without any Yom Tov. So a person might feel a little bit down — here we have such a month, and now we're going into a month without Yom Tov. So, as the Rebbe mentioned, this is yeridah l'tzorech aliyah — the whole idea for a person being born into this world is yeridah l'tzorech aliyah, but it's to accomplish, to elevate, to make a dirah b'tachtonim — this should be in his everyday life.

I once mentioned, and maybe I'll mention it again — that Bereishis starts with a bais, bais is bracha. As the Rebbe once mentioned, when he was a child, his melamed had a teretz — rebbi's complaint — why doesn't the Torah begin with an aleph? He said the Torah should begin with me first. So his father told him that it will — I'll give you the teretz, I'll start with Hashem — so the Torah begins with a bais, with bracha. Now why bais and not aleph? I once mentioned this is a maamar, but I'll mention it again.

Nine is a very special number because nine is emes. Alef-mem-tav is nine, [through] mispar katan [reduction], it's nine. That's why every number you multiply by nine, the answer is nine. Nine times one is nine. Nine times two is eighteen — eight and one is nine. Nine times three is twenty-seven — seven and two is nine. Nine is emes, always has to go back to itself. When we write — we write a nine, and a six is the same thing, but you take a nine and you put it upside down, it becomes a six. Why? Because six is sheker, the opposite of emes. Shin is three, kuf is one, reish is two — that's six. So that's why — when you write this, it comes out the opposite, because emes is — sheker is the opposite of emes. Where is the head of a nine? On top. Where is the head of a six? On the bottom.

And when the Rebbe was a little boy, ten years old — my zeide once told me — he was his melamed — the Rebbe said: when a child has his head on top, in the right place, keeping to suffering and a lot of things — that's a nine, that's emes. But when a person has his head at the bottom, that's six — that is sheker, that is the sixty shekel [?].

Now, when you count — three is the chazakah, three is a chazakah — bechol g'vulecha — three, six, nine, twelve. If the Torah were to begin with an aleph — if you count aleph-bais-gimmel — that's six. Six is sheker. After gimmel comes dalet — hei is fifteen, five and one is six again. Zayin is again 24 — four and — until almost the end — six is six is second. That's when the Torah begins with a bais. If you start counting with bais — bais-gimmel-dalet is nine, nine is — hei — zayin is eighteen, eight and one is nine — until the end of aleph-bais, that's why the Torah begins with a bais, not with an aleph. And this is another reason why the Torah is a bais — bais is bracha — that this is the idea that we should always have in mind, the idea of bracha. And that's why the Rebbe mentioned in one of the letters that Chodesh Mevorchim, which always falls on Shabbos Bereishis, is a time of farbrengen, and a farbrengen is a time of giving brachos. So I just wanted to mention that.

Now I'm going to share with you a very important letter that Rabbi Mindel wrote in 1949. As you know, this letter is written in Hebrew — Los Angeles — and we'll translate it into English. The letter — the answer — is two pages with the Rebbe's handwriting. Now, I misplaced the letter — I have it, I know I have it, I have to look for it, but over Yom Tov I couldn't find it. So I will not share with you the answer, but I will only share with you the question, and maybe the chassidim can figure out themselves what the answer is. And then when I find the answer — maybe in a week or two, whenever I'll find it — I'll be able to share with you the answer.

Now, as you know, Rabbi Mindel always used to write to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe answered. When he told Rabbi Mindel to translate the Tanya into English, he never learned in yeshiva in terms of — he never had learned — he didn't come from yeshiva. So the Frierdiker Rebbe told him to translate the Tanya — you have to know Tanya, and he never learned Tanya. So he asked the Rebbe — then the Ramash — that the Rebbe should give him manuscripts, and that they should sit together and write — any questions he has. So he asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe wrote — there's so many letters and so many writings on the Tanya, there back-and-forth questions.

He always used to ask the same thing also when he translated the Memoirs — the Rebbe was mag'ihah [proofreading/reviewing] — he worked with the Rebbe — the Rebbe went through the memoirs, the philosophy of our prayer and our people — this is all with the Rebbe's hagahos.

Now, also when the Rebbe sent him to classes in Manhattan — they wanted him to join some classes and then come back and tell them exactly what they asked. So he, Rabbi Mindel, wrote to him the questions and then the Rebbe answered him again — it was writing back and forth. And his private speeches — Rabbi Mindel was also mag'ihah — he worked — he spoke at, once, the Hilltop [?] Torah dinner, he spoke — and the Rebbe wanted to know his speech. The number was [unclear] that he spoke at Hillel [?], he spoke at college, he spoke at YU, whatever he spoke for the NCFJE, whatever — he went to Washington — the Rebbe was mag'ihah — we have over here the hagahos — he looked over everything. So this is something that I'm going to read.

So he used to write back and forth, and also, by the way, regarding Jacobson — all of a sudden he used to ask him to write for the — for the — and he wrote it, and he showed that to the Rebbe, and there were things that were written there.

So, since now is Shabbos Bereishis, and it speaks about the birth of Odom, I want — I found this question about the inclination of a person, and I want to read to you the question that he asked the Rebbe.

Now, by the way, I want to mention again — maybe I mentioned it once — when we speak about Odom and Chavah, Chavah comes from the word em kol chai — she is the mother of all living. Now, many people — and I hear many speakers — when they speak about Adam and Chavah, they say "Adam and Eve." And the Rebbe once mentioned — Eve is not a word — Eve means evil — the opposite of what — the Torah says. So when we speak about this, we should not mention the word "Eve" — we should say Adam and Chavah, but not Eve. But that's a Mushka's [?] — but I want to read to you this question, and let the chassidim figure out the answer.

And this is — I'll read that in English — and this is from the Hebrew:

"Kuntres Nissan Tosh [?], to the honored Ramash, shlita, greeting and blessing. On the subject of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud introduces the idea that a person has a natural inclination to kill himself, what he calls the death instinct — will not expand on this. At the same time, a person also has an opposite inclination, a desire to live, which he calls the life instinct. Because of the strength of the inclination to kill himself, and the fact that it is somewhat limited by the inclination to live, there is born in a person an inclination to hurt another, such as to display anger at another. Therefore he comes to the conclusion that, as a result of the death inclination, there comes about in a person an inclination to destroy. According to him, this inclination is one of the basic powers of the soul. Thus, cruelty brings satisfaction and pleasure to a person. This inclination is a constant presence in the person, ready to pounce, to express itself at any moment, without any external cause."

Then he writes to the Rebbe like this: "There are those later psychologists — yesh bainam acharonim [?] — who dispute this idea and say that even though there exists hatred, cruelty, and destruction in the world, it is not necessary to say that these are natural, inborn inclinations in a person, but rather that the environment and education cause this. It is foreign — apparently it seems from Freud that a baby is born with the instinct to be cruel to living creatures, as in the story of Yitzchok Shoihet [?]."

He wrote this in Hebrew, and he asked Mendel [?] to translate the Zichronos into Yiddish, and he asked Mrs. Mindel to translate it into English. By the way, the Frierdiker Rebbe gave the copyright of the Memoirs to Rabbi Mindel, the same as he gave the Tanya in English copyright, which we'll go into another time — but they only managed to translate the Memoirs — not the whole thing, but [through] the third [volume]. Rabbi Mindel prepared — my wife finished the third volume — and this is the Memoirs, which was already printed — I printed already, but now it's out of print, and if we have a sponsor I would appreciate it, we would be able to print this over — it's a beautiful book. This is the third volume of the Zichronos in English, which is a very, very, very important, very good translation with the hagahos of Rabbi Mindel.

So there, in the story — if you see there was a miser, and he had a son by the name of Yitzchok Shoihet [?], and this was his son, and he saw that his son was torturing the animals, the creatures — which I'm not going to go into the whole story, you can read it — so he called him over and smacked him, gave him a few good smacks for that, and when he finished, the boy went off, and then he overheard — on the other side — that his father was crying a lot. This is the whole story.

So he brings down this story — that apparently it seems from Freud that a baby is born with the instinct to be cruel to living creatures. And also, according to Tanya, that explains the nefesh habahamis — the animal soul — which dwells in the left side of the heart, that is full of blood. It seems that the evil inclination, the yetzer hara, is sunk in the animal soul. But in every Jew, the animal soul is derived from the klipas nogah, and it can be not only controlled but it can also be changed — it can be converted — unlike in Freud's theory. And according to what Tanya writes about the souls of the nations, the idol worshippers, whose source is from absolute klipos [and] no good — this correlates exactly with Freud's theory. So this is what he writes to the Rebbe.

Now he's asking the Rebbe — he has three questions. The first question: what is the opinion of the Rebbe about the above, according to the teaching of Chabad? That's question number one. Question number two: does the philosophy of Chabad have a novel take on psychology in general as compared to Jewish philosophers, and who among them dealt with these questions — be'ma'amarim, divrei hazoar, with evil? This is question number two. And question number three — he writes, "u'mareh mekomos" — he wants to know from the Rebbe the mareh mekomos [sources] in Chabad teaching that deal with questions of psychology. The topic is broad and includes the relationship between sechel and midos, the intellect and emotions, hergesh — feelings, simcha — joy, and atzvus — sadness, and self-control — with thanks in advance, Nissan Mindel."

So this is the question that he asked the Rebbe. It's a very, very important question, and until I share with you what the Rebbe answered — which is amazing — I have to find it somewhere. So in the meanwhile, it would be a good idea for chassidim or people who are going to watch this to think it over, and if they want to put a comment about the answer — gezunterheit — and when I get the actual answer, I'll be able to share it with you.

And this is the program that I wanted — this is today's program, and im yirtzeh Hashem next week we will continue our regular weekly Thursday night program. Thank you.