Rebbe’s Chanukah Letter to Reform Rabbi

Welcome to our weekly Motzei Shabbos program.

Tonight is Chanukah, and it's dark outside, and Chanukah teaches us that we should put a light near the mitzvah — so that people passing by should also see the candles. The candles should be by the doorpost, for the outside world to see.

And the Rebbe brings down the Chazal — the Rebbe says that the events that happened in the past are remembered and observed. Not only remembered, but we have to apply them to our everyday life.

That means that everything that happened to a person — I mean, everything that happened years ago — you have to apply it today, even though it happened years ago.

You know, like they say about reading the Megillah: if a person reads the Megillah backwards, it's not kosher. What does "backwards" mean? It means if you say the story of the Megillah happened years ago, that's it — it's just a story, it's not relevant today. No — you have to apply it every day.

So it comes out the same way: the candles have to be lit in the dark, that we should light. That means — the mezuzah — you have to be surrounded by the mezuzah. And we'll explain that soon.

Another thing it teaches us: not to be satisfied. You know there's an argument between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel. Beis Shammai says the first night you light eight candles, second night seven, third night six — going down. Beis Hillel says the first night one, second night two — that every day you add. Don't be satisfied — every day a person should add, always more and more and more, always increase. Yesterday you did this, today you do more.

So the candles have to be lit, and we should know that every day we have to increase in mitzvahs. Also — why does it say "mezuzah"? I mean, we know it has to be on the left side, but why does it stress the word "mezuzah"? What does that have to do with it?

So there are a few things here. The Rebbe stresses that a person has to be surrounded — meaning like this: the home, the outside world — even though a Yid has to go out into the outside world to put a light into the outside world, don't forget that it shouldn't creep into your home. Nothing should creep in — that means your home has to be protected.

We think about frum Yidden, we think about Yidden who are not frum yet, and every Yid is holy, and we have to be mekarev Yidden. But don't forget about your own children, and about your own grandchildren, because the outside world can sometimes creep in on us. So the home has to be protected — the right side of the mezuzah and the left side. You also have to know — they say "even though he has sinned, he is still called Israel" — but we forget that Israel is also Israel. Don't forget about your own children.

Don't forget — even though you're frum, and you daven and do everything — the outside world shouldn't creep into your home, into your children. And that's one of the reasons we put the mezuzah on a slant — because the slant also represents that this home compromises, it's not straight. It's not that everything the wife says goes, it's not that everything the husband says goes. They both have to compromise, and when they compromise, there will be shalom. This is what the mezuzah also shows.

And "mezuzah," as we once mentioned, comes from [an acronym of] several words: mem, zayin, [and] zayin. Mem means 40 — Moshe was on Har Sinai 40 days and 40 nights. [The] zayin goes to "zera Yisrael" — a person should have a home of people, and then [unclear] — then you have a partner — and so on — until the walls of your home will absorb the mitzvahs that you do in the house.

And this is important — he mentions here, and stresses in this letter, that the fashions of the world should not creep into your home. Many religious people — even [unclear] — they have to wear their socks a certain way, or the tie has to be a certain way, or they have to wear this dress because it was made in France — and this should not creep into a Jewish home. This is what [the mezuzah] means.

Another thing I want to mention — there's a letter from the Rebbe that he wrote to a reform rabbi, a [unclear] letter — I think reform or conservative.

I don't want to tell you what he asked the Rebbe — it's not important. I just want to tell you what the Rebbe answers.

The Rebbe says like this: "Don't be wishy-washy. Say it the way it is." [He says,] take off your kid gloves, your [unclear].

"In the time of Chanukah," the Rebbe writes, "unfortunately there were Jews who were called Hellenists. They learned Torah, but they wanted to follow the Greek culture. As we say regarding Hellenism — they learned Torah, they wanted to learn, but not say 'do it' — they wanted to learn because it makes sense, not because Hashem commanded it. This is how they wanted to follow the Greek culture. And these were Jews, and they learned Torah as a culture — this is the problem, and this is the root of it — that we got rid of this type of approach."

But later on there was the Haskalah — that was the Enlightenment, later in the years — and reform came from these maskilim. How did it start? So the Rebbe writes here — I'm reading this letter — they used to say: "Be a Yid in the house — in the house you're frum, you keep Shabbos and do everything — but when you go outside, be like a goy." And this is how reform and conservative started. And this is what we have to be careful of — sometimes people at home do it one way, but when they're somewhere else they do it differently, and the children see it, and they do as they see.

You have to know — the zeide says "Shabbos," the son says "Shabbos," the grandson says "weekend" — what will the great-grandson say? If we are going to be wishy-washy, what is our great-grandson going to say, or our son going to say?

So this is the whole point of the yom tov. And by the way, it's mentioned regarding reform — you know, there's Pesach and there are other holidays, and for them Chanukah is a bigger yom tov than any — and what's the problem? They made the problem. The problem came from these reform-type people, from these Hellenists, who felt this way — and for them Chanukah is a big yom tov. This is exactly the opposite of what they're doing — of what Chanukah is about.

I'm talking about the movement, not the Yidden. These Yidden who go to a reform temple or a conservative temple — they're holy, they're Yidden, it's not their fault. It's not them — the movement is the problem, not the Yidden. The Yidden are holy — every Yid is holy.

And this is the message of Chanukah that we have to know — we have to get rid of this type of approach. We're all standing at Har Sinai — all of us — whether you're reform or conservative or anything else — there's no such thing as reform or conservative, it's [just] a philosophy.

And he ends the letter — this is a letter to a rabbi — the Rebbe says, "I don't even want to address you as rabbi, because being reform, you're not a rabbi. You're not a rabbi."

And he mentions about generations — he never saw a person with three generations of reform, or three generations of conservative. There's no such thing. Did you ever see a person say, "I come from a line of reform going back generations"? There's no such thing — a person is reform because he came from a frum background and changed, but there's no three, four, five generations of reform. You cannot stay reform, because it doesn't sustain itself — either, G-d forbid, they intermarry or assimilate, or they change back to being frum — but there's no three, four, five generations of reform.

The reason I'm saying this is because the Rebbe says, "Don't be wishy-washy, say it the way it is." And this is another thing about Chanukah — just like it says that [the Jews in Egypt] didn't change their name, didn't change their language, didn't change their clothes — they spoke like a Yid, they dressed like a Yid, the whole atmosphere was like a Yid. The same thing applies now.

People should know that these three things will take us out of galus, and bring the geulah. And like it says, all [opposing forces] will be nullified, and we will remain, because that's how holy we are. So we should put a light into the world, and through learning, of course, this will bring the geulah, which we are all waiting for.

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