The Most Important Part of Shlichus

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives. A few days ago was the Kinus, and last week, at the end of my program, I mentioned a conversation between Rabbi Mindel and Rabbi Hodakov before the Kinus. I think this was Taf Shin Mem Vav or Mem Zayin [?]. And as I mentioned, many times they used to discuss things before the Nshei Chabad convention, before Hei Teves [unclear] — they used to discuss different things. I have things written down; maybe in the future I'll share them with you. But I mentioned last week something that they spoke about, and I didn't finish the conversation, so today I want to finish the conversation between Rabbi Hodakov and Rabbi Mindel.

So I mentioned last week that Rabbi Hodakov said that every shliach, when he gets up in the morning, he should remember: "Ohalo" — a tent — is temporary, and that is called Yaakov, the lower level of a Jew. But "Mishkan" — a dwelling place — is permanent, and that is Yisrael, the higher level of a Jew. So when a shliach gets up every morning he has to know — you have to have a house, you have to have a Chabad house, he says, you have to have a telephone — I guess a computer, I don't know if there were computers then, but I guess it's probably the same idea — computer, everything, oh gosh, he has to have it, he has to have money. But yet the shliach should know that's not the ikar — that's only temporary, these are not the most important things. The most important thing is the dwelling place, Yisrael — that's what's inside of the Chabad house. When he gets up in the morning he always has to think to himself: how many people am I going to put on tefillin today? How many people am I going to send to yeshiva? How many people am I going to make into baalei teshuva, or whatever? How many people am I going to learn Tanya with today? — he mentioned Tanya. So this is the ikar — this is what I mentioned, Yisrael.

So, similarly, for every Yid — he said the word, every day is a new day, for every Yid, every year is new — so everyone has to take notice of what he's going to do today. [unclear] In the yeshivos also — oh, especially Anash — they know, they have a special task, they know what their avodah is. And every one of Anash, he says, that works for me. This I'm reading with the notes from [unclear].

And by the way, I want to mention a maamer — [unclear] — by the way, it reminds me: I once heard a person ask the Rebbe why isn't Chabad into kashrus as much — this was years ago. I mean, not that they're not into it — Chabad is more into bikur cholim; you know, visiting the sick, Hashem — they do a lot in bikur cholim, they do a lot in kashrus too. I mean the institutions — Chabad started, years ago, was into it, but not as much — they have questions, because, knowing that they go to visit the sick — so why isn't Chabad into kashrus as much as they are into bikur cholim? That's what somebody asked. So the Rebbe answers like this: every food has a shlichus in this world. As it says, eating kosher purifies the nefesh, the guf — it's important, kashrus, as the Rebbe explained the importance of eating kosher — of course, very important. Now — the Rebbe didn't say this sentence, but I'm saying it — you are what you eat: if you eat kosher, you become kosher; if you eat pig, you become a pig — excuse my expression. This is a Yid: kashrus is very important, and if we wouldn't do it, we would have to do it for Hashem — eating kosher. And the shlichus of Chabad is to make people kosher — this is our shlichus in this world, basically. So the shlichus is to make — that's why, when [unclear], we teach people: this is our avodah. Not that the other organizations are not careful about kashrus, or the same for other cities — not that they don't have to be mindful of kashrus for other people — but this is their focus in this world. And that's why — through that — the shlichus is to give over kashrus in this world, and we make people kosher, to eat kosher.

As it's explained, talking about a baal teshuva — in the place where a baal teshuva stands, even the biggest tzaddikim cannot reach that level. What does that mean? Here you have a person — a tzaddik — who grew up, from the time he was born until 120, doing everything right, doing everything properly. And here you have a person who transgressed his whole life, and all of a sudden he becomes a baal teshuva — a real baal teshuva — and you say that he is higher? What does that mean? So one of the explanations given is that any place, any situation, where the tzaddik was never there — he cannot elevate it. You have to elevate everything in this world — food, too, you elevate; you eat chicken, you eat it kosher, you elevate the chicken, or whatever you do. So if a person sinned, or was in a position where he wasn't supposed to be, and now he changes and he becomes a baal teshuva — through that he elevates that place, where a tzaddik never had anything to do with that kind of thing, with that kind of behavior. That's what it means by "where a baal teshuva stands." Anyway —

So the avodah in this world is to bring people closer, and this is our purpose. As we spoke, the Frierdiker Rebbe came to America — they called it "America" — to bring chinuch to America. We see today what the Rebbe accomplished: from 1940, when the Rebbe came, until today, we see what Chabad has accomplished in this world — how many baalei teshuva we have made. So, to finish the conversation between Rabbi Mindel and Rabbi Hodakov —

Rabbi Mindel then mentioned — some people, he mentioned, also told him — over here, they try to find, to look for new ways, to put a lot of effort into teaching children. Rabbi Hodakov was a teacher, he was a principal, a man of excellence, so his emphasis is on skills: how do we — do we need new skills? Rabbi Hodakov says: we have skills — we have skills from the Rebbeim themselves. He wrote about it; other people wrote it too — how to give educational skills to children. That is not something new — we don't have to look for new ways of how we should teach the children, or what we should do with children. And he mentioned, like this — it says, he wrote it down — [unclear] — I don't know exactly where, but it says somewhere: [unclear] — do the right thing, listen to that. There is so much guidance about skills, about how to teach children, so that the children should grow up the way they're supposed to — why look for new things? We live in — we're living in a secular world, and we're also trying to find new skills, how we should do it — you don't have to, he says. This is all written, and it's clearly written. We see — we have, from the Rebbeim's writings, not only for the shluchim, even for other people, even for the released-time programs — we have teachers' guides, and they check that over. So why do we have to now look for something new? He says, some people look for new things — let's not look for new things. What we do have to have skills in is a different type of skill, and that's something that I will, im yirtzeh Hashem, explain next week.

Mentioned to Rabbi Mindel — next week I will continue our Thursday night program. Thank you.