Rebbe’s Answer to a Unsuccessful Meshulach

Episode 274: "Rebbe's Answer to an Unsuccessful Meshulach"

Welcome to our weekly Motzei Shabbos program.

Tonight people are getting ready. They're saying Selichos [?] — that's a very serious time. It's a time when so many people might feel a little down or depressed. I mean, I can understand it — it's the end of the year, you know. When people have to make an accounting at the end of the year — whether they earned money or didn't earn money, they have to pay tax, did they make parnassah this year or didn't they make parnassah this year — so sometimes, if they know it could have been better, they feel a little down. So people sometimes come to the farbrengen tonight and feel a little bit depressed.

So the Rebbe comes and the Rebbe says that we should — the Rebbe used the word "vakshaky" [unclear]. People should never be depressed. People should be warm with each other, because when two Yidden get together, it becomes warm — whatever even a malach like Michael cannot do, two Yidden together can do. So people sit together and they say l'chaim, and they make good [wishes], and each one wishes the other — this is the happiest time. So when people go like that, then the Rebbe is also happy with them.

Now, by the way, depression is not a sin. They say: atzvus is not a sin. But what atzvus can bring, no sin can bring. So a person has to be happy. When we're happy, [Hashem] is happy. So this is the time of farbrenging, and it has an effect on the entire year.

By the way, we're talking about a farbrengen. I once heard — I don't remember, maybe from my father-in-law — that there was once a gadol, I don't know who it was, whether a Rosh Yeshiva or a Rav — he had the yahrzeit of his mother, and he forgot to say Kaddish. Can you imagine — when a son says Kaddish it's very important for the neshama — but he forgot. So his mother came to him in a dream, and his mother said to him, "My son, I know you forgot to say Kaddish. I'll forgive you — it happens — but I cannot forgive you that you didn't give out cake and make a farbrengen, because when people say l'chaim, the pleasure that gives the neshama is unbelievable, even more than Kaddish."

So we see what a farbrengen [can accomplish]. But, unfortunately, a farbrengen many times does not become what a farbrengen should be. So the Frierdiker Rebbe said it depends on the farbrenger — if the farbrenger is a dugma chaya, a living example, then the farbrengen is a good farbrengen. The farbrenger has to be a dugma chaya, and I'm going to mention soon exactly what the Frierdiker Rebbe said.

So we mentioned a few weeks ago about a bee and a spider — the difference between a bee and a spider. Why am I saying bee and spider? I want to share with you a story.

Today is Motzei Shabbos, and there's a minhag that says somewhere that on Motzei Shabbos, if a person tells a story [of tzaddikim], it is [unclear]. There are [unclear — "three"] — not necessarily specifically on Motzei Shabbos, but every night — [the idea that] a story of a tzaddik is good for all things. So I want to share with you tonight a story, and the story shows how a person should be — and this is also for a farbrenger — how a farbrenger should be.

As you know, I've mentioned many times that when Rabbi Mindel was with the Rebbe taking dictation — the Rebbe spoke to him, he knew shorthand, he took dictation, and he went home and composed the letters — the Hebrew letters, the English letters — he composed most of these letters. Sometimes the Rebbe showed him or told him the question the person had asked; not all the time. This time the Rebbe told him the question, or showed him the question. This is written by Rabbi Mindel, so I'm sharing this with you.

So the Rebbe told him this story: somebody asked — he is a meshulach, he came to America, I think to Canada, to raise money — and somebody writes to the Rebbe that he has to go back home and he didn't make much money. I think a few years ago I mentioned this, but I want to bring out something here.

In those days, people used to leave home after Pesach to go as a meshulach, or for business, and they used to come home from [after] Pesach until Sukkos — that's how they used to live. He was home from Pesach until Sukkos; in the meantime — I think it was Elul — he writes that in a month he has to go back home, and he was not [successful] — like this person, as the letter says, because he wasn't so [successful]. I don't know whether it was a lot of money, I don't know, maybe it wasn't much at all — but he asked the Rebbe [for a bracha].

So the Rebbe told him he should become a maggid, a lecturer. He says, "Rebbe, I never spoke in public, and if you mean for me to lecture, I never spoke to people — I'm a baal agalah, a wagon driver. I don't know what you mean by being a maggid. I don't know what I'm [capable of]."

So the Rebbe told him: you should be like a bee, not like a spider. He says, "Well, I don't know what that means." So he told him: it says anything that comes from a kosher animal is kosher, anything that comes from a non-kosher animal is treif. Why is it that honey comes from a bee, and honey is kosher, and a bee is not kosher? Milk that comes from a cow is kosher because a cow is kosher; milk from a non-kosher animal is treif. So why is honey kosher?

So he says: the difference between a bee and a spider — you should be like a bee, he tells him. Why? Because what's a spider? A spider makes a web. The web comes from inside the spider, from his essence. What does it do? It kills. It accomplishes nothing. That comes from inside a bee? A bee doesn't make honey — honey doesn't come from the bee. If honey would come from the bee, honey would be treif. The bee goes around collecting flowers, nectar, and it becomes honey — but it doesn't come from the bee.

"If you are going to be like a bee," he told him, "when you go around for business, or collecting, you'll lecture." Lecture doesn't mean to give a formal lecture — you'll talk to people, you'll say things that you learned, you'll be a collector. You'll learn nigleh, you'll learn, he told him — you'll learn stories of tzaddikim, and whatever you do, wherever you go, you'll say it over to people — not your own [ideas]. This is what he told him. Not your own — then you'll become like a bee, and it will become honey, sweet, and people are going to like it. And next year he learned the whole summer, and that's what he did, and years later he [went out as a meshulach] every year, and he told people what he collected.

In other words, he told him a person should always be a collector. Even the Alter Rebbe, in the Shulchan Aruch [HaRav], says he himself said: "I didn't write it from my own — I collected it from the Shulchan Aruch, from the Maharal of Prague, from the Bach, from the Zohar" — he was a collector. The Rebbe was also a collector. Take, for instance, the Igros — the Rebbe collected all these things and put them in the Hayom Yom, all the maamarim — with the Rebbe, it was always: where did he take it from? So a person should always be a collector.

What is the lesson we can learn from this? Because the Frierdiker Rebbe said that a mashpia, or a farbrenger, should be a collector. He should learn, and then he'll know what to bring. Even a maggid, even a lecturer — he should always collect and give over exactly what he heard, be like a bee, not like a spider.

Now, there was once — I read a letter here on this program — that somebody asked the Rebbe: he goes to shul and wants to put a stone in the wall of the shul — can he do that? The Rebbe did not like it — I don't remember exactly the words — the Rebbe said, "Why do you have to add? [The shul] itself is good — don't add anything." In other words, people should not add; people should collect, and say over what [the Rebbeim] said.

There was once — I heard the same thing — about when Yitzchak gave a blessing to Eisav, after Yaakov had taken away the blessing, and Eisav wanted a blessing too. So he told him: when the Yidden will take away the yoke of [Torah] — I mean, when Yidden will stop doing mitzvos — [Eisav] will take off, take his sword out, against them. That's why we have a lot of problems also with [Eisav's descendants] — because when Yidden don't do mitzvos, [the protection] is taken away. [The Torah] has 613 mitzvos, not 614 — when you start adding [you take away]. We shouldn't add. When you add — you're a psychologist, or you have your own ideas, and you go and finger with that — that's called adding. Don't add anything — you should collect and say over what you learned.

So the Frierdiker Rebbe, when he came to America, wrote in a letter: "A farbrenger should be a dugma chaya, a living example." And a living example means he's davening, he's shomer, he's careful, and he says over exactly [what he learned] — not like a spider, who takes from himself. And when a person is like that, and brings that, and each one wishes the other brachos — this is what a farbrengen is supposed to be.

Why am I saying all this? You know I said before, we have Rosh Hashanah coming, and Sukkos is coming up, and there'll be a lot of farbrengens, and they have to be for the benefit of Yidden, for Klal Yisrael — so I'm saying this because sometimes it happens that people go off on their own at a farbrengen, and it's not the way it's supposed to be.

I will tell you a maamar. There's a maamar that says before Yisro gave his daughter for a wife to [Moshe], he wanted to make a condition with him: that when they would have children — meaning Yisro's grandchildren — they should learn about all things of the world, all worldly wisdom. Why? Because then, when they learn, they will realize how Torah is higher than all the wisdoms [of the world] — like Moshe, who knew all the wisdoms of the world, and so he appreciated the Torah [even more]. So Yisro wanted his [grandchildren] to be like this. But Moshe said it's not a must — you don't have to learn, you don't have to go to college, so to speak, you don't have to learn anything else [to know Torah is higher] — you'll know without it. Moshe did not agree with that.

Some people feel there were [exceptions to this], and I heard from a farbrenger — there was a Rebbe, he was a Rebbe of chassidim [unclear reference] — mentioned sometimes — he spoke, you know, coarse words sometimes. That happened — he was given to that. It happens, even some people speak tough words, but we can't learn from that — we're not allowed to learn from that — because, regarding a farbrenger, I did hear from a farbrenger that he said one should not speak things that are not [proper], because he is speaking to the neshamos. He says over here: you speak words of Torah, and through that it will have an effect — whatever, I don't want to go into it.

So what I want to say is that a person has to be a collector. Don't speak your own ideas. If you're a psychologist, or whatever you are, you went to college — but don't put that into a farbrengen. A farbrengen is made to be something completely [different].

You know, once there was a letter — a bochur wrote to the Rebbe — he wanted a [driver's] license. He's asking the Rebbe for a bracha that he should be able to pass his road test. The Rebbe answered — the Rebbe took his time [with this] — he wants to pass the road test and he asked the Rebbe for a bracha. Why? He says because he needs to go to [unclear] faster, and with a car he can go faster. So he asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe answered him: "Don't put your reasons [into it] — I have to answer: you want that license, you want to ask, that's one thing, but don't say it's because of that [reason]."

This is not the way a person [should act] — let's say he went to college — he should not use his college [learning] in a farbrengen. He has nothing to do with a farbrengen. He should be a collector. This is a lesson that we can learn: be a collector.

Now I want to end off with a letter from the Rebbe. This is an original letter the Rebbe writes to somebody about a collector, and I'm going to read a paragraph, two paragraphs:

"This is a reply to your letter, in which you write that you are an avid collector of stamps and would like to have some enclosed first-day envelopes and autographs." So he sent the Rebbe envelopes, asking the Rebbe to autograph them.

So the Rebbe answered: "I regret that I cannot comply with your request. On the other hand, since everything is by Divine Providence, and you have taken the trouble to write to me, I take it as an indication that I should use this opportunity of calling your attention to a matter which is related to your hobby. This is that every Jew is duty-bound to be an avid collector of mitzvos and good deeds in everyday life. These are indeed the most valuable and precious things that a Jew can collect, so much so that our sages declare that one hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world is better than all the life of the World to Come. Moreover, this is the kind of collection which a Jew can constantly enrich, day after day, without recourse to special postal issues and autographs. It is only a matter of one's own personal will and determination. I trust, therefore, that you too are an avid collector of mitzvos and good deeds, and that, in compliance with the great principle of 'love your fellow Jew as yourself,' you are using your good influence to inspire others in this direction, by example and precept."

And the Rebbe also answered here that he should attend a farbrengen, and he will be inspired from the farbrengen.

So this teaches us that a person should be a collector — collect mitzvos, don't say things from your own at a farbrengen — and we should have a lot of [hatzlacha]. And now we're going to say l'chaim — we have a bracha for everybody.

Next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.