Defeating the ‘Hellenists’ of Today

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

I mentioned in the previous programs that the Frierdiker Rebbe wore three crowns: the first crown, he was a manhig of Chabad; the second crown, he was a manhig to all Yidden; and the third crown, he was a manhig to the entire world. That's why when he came to America he asked right away that they should go to Washington, D.C. to speak to the president, because it was important to him that the whole world should also do chavivim mitzvos, as we already discussed.

So when the Frierdiker Rebbe came to America in 1929, he already said then that America is a medina shel chesed, in '29. I don't know if he saw President Hoover or he didn't see the president, but he gave him a brocha, and he had it written down. It was a historical Rosh Hashanah. He was in Brownsville — Brownsville used to be called the Yerushalayim of America, it's not far from Crown Heights. He davened Rosh Hashanah with Rabbi Hodakov, and he davened hours into the middle of the night. The first night of Rosh Hashanah he cried a lot, people were there, and they had to bring a bed, and it took Chaim Yisroel [?] a couple of hours. It was a historical night. We already discussed it, and if anyone missed it, you can always click back and see.

But what I want to mention today is about the second time, when he came in 1940 — the Frierdiker Rebbe came to settle here in America. We already had a program about that too, but something I want to mention that we didn't mention before.

First of all, he asked Rabbi Mindel: should he put on a shtreimel? Rabbi Mindel came with him, and Rabbi Hodakov came. Should he put on a shtreimel? Rabbi Mindel told him yes. So it seems like a shtreimel is for special occasions — you put on a shtreimel. We already spoke about this before regarding the Frierdiker Rebbe, so the shtreimel has some meaning, anyways.

But before he arrived in New York, he said to Rabbi Hodakov and Mindel: "We're coming to America — America is thick ice, it's a piece of ice, and we came to break the ice of America." What is ice — cold? America is cold. Cold is the opposite of Torah. Amalek is sheker, by the way. In America we say — people say — "oh, he is a cool person, he's a cool guy." Cool is a madrega. It's cool, call it "hip" — the opposite of Torah is cool. America is cold, and we have to break the ice of America.

The Rebbe once said — I remember he was speaking about telling the mashpia — that when a person stands with his feet together, he's not supposed to move, and a nachash (snake) goes around his feet — excuse me — then he should continue, continue davening. But if an akrav (scorpion) goes around his feet, then he should stop and do something about it. In Rus, the Zohar says: what does that mean? When a snake bites a person, the poison is hot, the body becomes hot, and the person dies. When a scorpion bites a person, G-d forbid, the poison is cold, the person's body becomes cold, and the person dies.

And he explained that when a person is bothered by foreign thoughts, taivos, certain desires — wrong thoughts falling into his head — don't worry about it, continue davening. By continuing to daven you will change the taiva, because it's hot, so you'll change it. That's why when people argue with you about emunah in Hashem or whatever, it's okay if they argue — at least something bothers them, so by arguing he'll become whatever he's supposed to be. So when a heat goes into [unclear], by davening you'll change the heat of klipah to the heat of kedusha. But when it's an akrav — when there's apathy, doesn't care, no feelings — then that's much worse.

And the Rebbe came to America and he said America is [about] hashgacha pratis. I once heard this myself, and I don't know if it was the Baal Shem Tov or if it was original, I'm not sure — let's say the Baal Shem Tov taught this: that everything is hashgacha pratis, that whatever a Yid sees or hears, he should learn how to serve Hashem from it.

So this happened on Xmas night, the 25th of December. They went outside afterwards, and there was a custom that on Christmas night, since it was cold outside and the rivers were freezing, the river froze, and they made a tzeylem (cross) on the river. They made it, and then they cut around the tzeylem, and they picked up that tzeylem, and they were walking all night with that tzeylem, with that cross. And they saw this, and the Baal Shem Tov had just told them: whatever you see and whatever you hear, you have to learn a way to serve Hashem from it — what can we learn from the tzeylem? So they ran back to the river and they told the episode, that the Rebbe told them: from here we can learn that when something or somebody becomes cold, the end is he'll become a tzeylem — he'll go away completely. Cold is the eitzah [the way it happens].

So the Rebbe came to America to break the ice of America. The matzav then was unbelievable — people couldn't keep Shabbos. If they had a job, on Shabbos they couldn't work, they had to look for another job. There weren't too many yeshivos. Even when they opened 770, the secular people didn't like it — they said, "now we have no freedom." There were secular people, and the kefirah was unbelievable.

So then the Frierdiker Rebbe went right away to Washington, to President Roosevelt, because the Frierdiker Rebbe had in mind "release time," and I will explain some other time — maybe next week — what release time is: children taken out from public school to learn Torah once a week.

And also, he started writing — he wanted Rabbi Mindel to write everything in English, to write everything, especially when the Rebbe came here, everything should be written down for chinuch purposes. And here I found a letter.

**Letter — from the White House, November 15, 1940:**
"Dear Mr. Mindel: The President" — this was President Roosevelt — "has asked me to thank you for your visit and for your very nice message of congratulations. He wants you to know of his sincere appreciation. Very sincerely yours, Stephen Early, Secretary to the President."

And there are more letters that they sent to Washington right away about the release time.

Also, in 1940 they started a conference for children and youth. So the Frierdiker Rebbe wanted to take advantage of that, in 1940, to pass the law of release time, that you could teach Jewish children at least one hour a week — which we'll talk about next week.

Now, by the way, the Frierdiker Rebbe had a lot of problems, a lot of opposition. First of all, he had opposition from people — even frum people were against it. They said if you have one hour a week, then these children will not go to Talmud Torahs, which is more than one hour. And also they said — the Rebbe later spoke one day about praying in public school — that if they pray in public school, the goyim will think about Yoshke, and they'll get into conversation, and it might be terrible.

You have to think about the objections — these were the frum people that said this — and we see the opposite: how many thousands of children came out through release time, which I'm going to discuss next week's program.

The secular Jews said, why should we mix church and state, why should we mix frumkeit with [public school] — it has nothing to do with it, religion is religion, and public school is public school. This was the kefirah. The Frierdiker Rebbe called it apikorsim — the atheists, the people who pushed it, didn't believe.

And the Frierdiker Rebbe wanted to put into the Talmud Torahs [unclear], which was missing. And this is the inyan of Chanukah: what happened on Chanukah, besides the miracle of the oil — the Hellenists. They were the secular Jews who wanted to become like the Greeks, the Yevanim. The Greeks loved to study Torah — they were one of the first to translate the Torah into Greek. And the secular Jews had a spiritual milchama (war) with the Chashmonaim — the physical war was one thing, and the spiritual war was something else.

What did they say? We say — [unclear] — don't say that the oil is tahor is the [unclear]. And how do we know that these were the secular Jews? Because it says "teme'im b'yad tehorim" — the tumah went into the hands of the tahor. Now, by Yavan there is no tumah by Torah, there's only [unclear]. So this was the milchama that the secular Jews had — these are the Hellenists, and they didn't believe in the Torah shebaal peh.

And this is what the Frierdiker Rebbe meant when he came to America and said that America is a piece of ice — he was talking here about the reform Jews, the conservative Jews. And the Frierdiker Rebbe called them out very sharply — he wrote that it's not the Yidden; there is no such thing as a "reform Jew" — you cannot be reform as a Yid — but it's the rabbonim's problem. Like he said: when you want to know if the fish is fresh, smell the head. If the head is fresh, then the whole fish is fresh; if the head is not fresh, then the whole fish is not fresh. And this was the mashal the Frierdiker Rebbe had when he came here.

Now, this reminds me — years ago I was invited by a reform rabbi — a rabbi, I wouldn't call him a rabbi, as a matter of fact — there are letters from the Rebbe that when he writes to a reform [rabbi] he doesn't write the word "rabbi." But anyways, so I went to this reform rabbi — he wanted me to speak about Chanukah to the Talmud Torah Sunday school, to make a bracha with them. He invited me — this was in Long Island. So first I came into the office, and he takes out a book and shows me a book of pictures, and he says: "You know, I have 750 members, and do you know that half of them are Jews, and half of them I converted — I was megayer them." So I said to him — I was pretty close to him, so I could talk to him like that — I said, "You should know, they're not members — your geirus is not a kosher geirus." He appreciated it. I told him the truth; sometimes when you say the truth, he hears — he never heard it — like maybe he knew what he was doing, he knew he was doing wrong, but I told him the truth.

Also, when I had to speak at the Hebrew school there, I didn't go into the temple, because you're not allowed to walk into the temple — this was in the hall. So he told me to make a bracha with the children on the candles. I said, "The bracha — you told me you don't believe in the Oral Law — what does it say in the bracha text?" He smiled.

He also showed me a pair of tefillin that he puts on a boy who becomes bar mitzvah — only once, for his bar mitzvah — and he showed it to me. Now, by the way, the tefillin was probably not kosher tefillin — they had the shin [unclear] — I don't know where he got it from, "kosher." I said, "This is tefillin — why is it black?" He says, "Black has to be black." I said, "How do you know it has to be black?" I told him, "Maybe the tefillin is green, maybe it's blue — what does it say, if so?" But anyways, they don't want to hear the truth — this was the reform, this type of people — these are like the Hellenists.

And baruch Hashem, today, through this — this had a lot to do with it — that through them we broke, little by little, the ice of America. The Frierdiker Rebbe [said we needed] to break the ice from America. And the candles — the candles that it says you have to light outside — that outside, the world should open their eyes and see all the nissim, and see the light, the truth — until everybody, the last person, will do teshuva, and they'll say the truth, and we should merit to see the big light, the light of Moshiach.

Hashem — next week we will continue our Thursday night program.