What Speakers Should Always Include in Their Speeches

Transcript

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel Archives. Today is Chof-Alef Adar Beis [?]. There's about 20 days left to Yud-Alef Nissan, the Rebbe's birthday. Yud-Alef Nissan this year is the 120th year of the Rebbe, Yud-Alef Nissan, haba aleinu l'tova.

And in honor, likavod, the 120 years of the Rebbe, every chossid is thinking how he can honor the Rebbe's Yud-Alef Nissan. I'm basing this on the Frierdiker Rebbe — what we read a week ago or two weeks ago. Also, I took this from some letters, the English letters of the Rebbe in the early years of the Rebbe — these English letters are unbelievable.

The Frierdiker Rebbe wrote to people that are lecturers — maybe Chabad, maybe people that give adult education classes. And the way the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote and spoke to [mechanchim?] [unclear], he said something like this: men's lecturers, people who lecture, they can speak for an hour, 45 minutes, they analyze, they analyze their theories, their philosophy — and as the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote, their talks are for us empty theories — I'm just repeating the Frierdiker Rebbe's words. Their whole purpose is to impress people with how good a speaker they are. At the end, 15 minutes maybe they spend on the practical, the bottom line, and the listener goes away with nothing.

The Frierdiker Rebbe writes in a letter to [a Reb Gimmel?] [?]: if they speak to scientists, if they speak to college graduates, they have to strengthen their emunah, so they have to analyze and they have to have their theories and their philosophy, and they can go into it — fine. But here, I guess, we're talking to people like the nashim [women] or klal people — why do we have to always analyze things and spend so much time? Men, women, they sit and they listen because this is what the speaker says. This is all from the Rebbe: speak practical. This should be — I think that's what I'm saying — for your [effort], listen, speak about — as the Frierdiker Rebbe said — how women should be given real, careful advice how to educate their children. When it comes to daily life, Friday night, show an example how a mother lights the Shabbos candles. That moment that she lights the Shabbos candles, she brings — teach that to the girls, that should be the ikar. How the father should conduct himself on Friday night, how to speak to the children about Shabbos.

The Frierdiker Rebbe writes in the early years that the women should be mezaher [careful] in [unclear]. There's a lot to speak about kashrus; there are a lot of people who go to lectures, they listen to lectures, and when it comes to actually [doing it] — and I know, you walk through some houses, even people that have frum houses, certain things in kashrus, by Shabbos, whatever it is, they don't know — that should be shmiras Shabbos. Speak to people about this. People go to shul, they speak about it [unclear] — they feel a bit [unclear] — that the importance of being careful with the kavod of every Yid, as the Frierdiker Rebbe says, and not to embarrass other people — this is the best nachas that we can give the Rebbe, likavod [the 120 years], instead of looking for other new inyanim, of which there are a lot. Yes, and we should also learn — learning is always new, there's always things that we don't know. But I think we should put effort into doing all this. I'm just basing this on the letters, and I'm not afraid to say it.

So now I want to just say, I guess, about the new kapitel of the Rebbe that we're going to say, Yud-Alef Nissan. Listen, you know there is a custom among Chassidim that on a birthday — and in the Rebbe's letters — we should say a new kapitel [of Tehillim]. Let's say a girl is 12, bas mitzvah, she should say kapitel 13, and when she becomes 13, say 14. A boy is bar mitzvah at 13, you should say 14; when he becomes 14, say 15 — until 120 years, and that's what the Frierdiker Rebbe says here. Meanwhile, by the Rebbeim, we also say the new kapitel even after me'ah v'esrim shanah [120 years], because their hashpa'ah to us is even more than before, so by the Rebbeim you say it even later. So we're going to say now —

So I wanted to say over here that I saw a vort on this kapitel. Shir HaMaalos begins — this is a song of ascent, a song about Yidden going from golus to geulah, returning to Eretz Yisroel, which will take place in stages — shir hamaalos, maalos meaning different stages. So: "Esa einai el he'harim" — I lift my eyes to the mountains — when we are in pain and we feel that Hashem is far, we just need to lift up our eyes and hearts towards Hashem, and we will find that He is always on our side and He's always watching us all the time. This is more or less the beginning — so it gives us hope.

So the question is: we live in a dark, dark world, we don't see Godliness, it's covered up. The Rebbe is not here yet, people need a geulah, more young people need a geulah, and we know what's going on, especially today in the world. So until [unclear] — that's not only a [unclear], it means a thick darkness in the world. So the question is, how can we be b'simcha here? This kapitel says — on the other hand we see — how do we reconcile that? So the answer is, it already gives an answer: the help comes me'ayin — me'ayin means it comes from a higher level, beyond our understanding — me'ayin, like you say [unclear] — there's no [unclear] — ah, you do say it, but it comes from a very, very high level. And this is what a Yid should know, and this is the kapitel — even though we don't — we see what's happening, but you should know that it's higher than our understanding, that's where the help will come from. But it doesn't say "ezri" — we need help, we want that it shouldn't remain in the Heavens above, we want that the help should come down, in between, we want to see the help — it should come down, down here.

Then it says we should know, "shomer Yisroel" — meaning even though we are in a world and it seems that Hashem is sleeping, we should know that the help will come. The Rebbe says the word "einam" [his eyes], meaning the eyes of the Borei [Creator] are always open, in the layout [wording] of the pasuk, and the Rebbe mentions that "hinei" is a lashon [expression] meaning the same time as we feel darkness in golus, we should be [hopeful], because there is hope — I guess, as the Frierdiker Rebbe said, when a person thinks good, it will be good.

One more thing about this kapitel: there are 15 chapters of Shir HaMaalos. This is the only Shir HaMaalos that says "Shir Lamaalos" with a lamed, not with a hei — it's always "HaMaalos." Here it's different, and so every Shir HaMaalos refers to this differently. It says over here that the "Shir Lamaalos" is to the One Who will bring us up, bring us the geulah, to Eretz Yisroel, l'olam [forever]. And as the Rebbe says over here, it states that [unclear] — "Shir HaMaalos" [unclear] — that this year will be an aliyah without a yeridah afterward. Usually there is a cycle of aliyah — ascent and descent — that there's golus, geulah, then again golus, and then geulah again. But this geulah, our geulah, will be a geulah l'olam, and this is the last golus, as there will not be a yeridah anymore. This is the hope, this is why our Yidden should live. So, since now it's this way, let's hope that this year should be a year of geulah. Thank you.