Frierdiker Rebbe’s Comment About Children with Special Needs

WELCOME TO OUR WEEKLY MOTZEI SHABBOS PROGRAM.

A few weeks ago, [unclear], there was a massacre in Australia, in Sydney, Australia, and everyone in the world — religious and non-religious people — are asking what would the Rebbe say after such a massacre, after such a tragedy. And everybody has different opinions and different ideas, and I heard from lectures also different opinions, different ideas.

So people ask me, is there anything from the Rebbe, or is there anything that Rabbi Mindel wrote, that the Rebbe [unclear] put notations about tragedy after something happens.

So first of all I want to say, unfortunately there was a tragedy. This is the massacre in 1929, as I mentioned a few weeks ago. After the Frierdiker Rebbe left Israel, and he was on the boat, the Arabs came in. This was Yidden mamash — they killed, terrible thing. There is something that I'm not going to mention today, maybe another time, about the massacre, but the Frierdiker Rebbe had mentioned something.

Then there was another massacre in 1956 in Kfar Chabad, which I went to — [unclear] — afterwards, to write to newspapers about that. And I want to read this to you, but I don't know if I have time today — maybe we'll make it for next week.

But I do want to say today what the Rebbe writes. These are a collection of English letters that are in Letter and Spirit, and I'm going to read some nekudos from the Rebbe.

First of all, every action has a reaction. When something happens to people, or to a person, a tragedy, the Rebbe says it's not a punishment — and he underlined "it is not a punishment," because I did hear some people, some lecturers, saying about the tragedy over there that it's a punishment. There is no — that's number one, by the Rebbe. He says a person's action caused it — he was careless. He explains, actions have consequences; it's our choice that brings consequences. [unclear] This is taken from the Rebbe's letters.

Now, when a person, the Rebbe says, does a sin, G-d forbid — a sin is a careless action — that's a cause for being banished from our land, living in Israel. He goes into it, and things that happen in Israel — it's not like people say, they did this and this, and so Hashem punishes. No, Hashem does not punish; the land, since it is so sensitive, automatically spits them out, because it's a spiritual land — Israel is a spiritual land. So when a person lives there, he has to know that he has to behave differently. And that's why the Rebbe mentions, we don't say "punished us for our sins" — we were automatically thrown out. It's not a punishment — this is how it is, this is nature.

Living in Israel is very important — it's a sensitive land, and a spiritual land.

For example, a person speaks lashon hara — so what does it say? Whoever speaks gets hurt, whoever listens gets hurt, and whoever you speak about gets hurt. It automatically happens that the person suffers, because the action automatically brings consequences. Someone who is careless gets hurt, but you can't say it's a punishment.

A woman who, while she's pregnant, takes drugs, and a deformed baby is born — a disabled child — can she say, "Why did G-d give me such a child? Why do I deserve this?" No — she took drugs, and that's the result. It's not a punishment.

If a person puts his finger in fire and he gets burned, and it hurts, he can't say, "Why did You punish me?" Who told you to put your finger in the fire? It's not a punishment.

Now, the Rebbe says here also — a mamzer was born: a woman, while she's pregnant, is pregnant from a relationship she wasn't allowed to be in — that does the damage. Her action caused it. So the child becomes a mamzer — she lived with that forbidden relationship, so automatically the child becomes that way. It's not that Hashem punished her. I mean, you can't say the mamzer itself — what's his fault? But that's the way he was born; he was born this way because the mother didn't do what she was supposed to. Her actions caused it.

Same thing also when it comes to — the Rebbe says, many times the Rebbe says, and that's important: check the tefillin. Somebody, G-d forbid, is not well, and the Rebbe says check your tefillin, or check the mezuzos. What does tefillin have to do with health? Or check the mezuzos — the Rebbe says other things too — what does it have to do with it? It has to do with it: a person is sick, something was not good, so that brought the person sickness, but it's not a punishment. Check the tefillin, check the mezuzos — they have a connection.

You know, it reminds me — I was always afraid to fly. I fly a lot, and I was afraid to fly, and I asked the Rebbe about it many times. So the Rebbe told me that I should have with me tefillin, make sure that my tzitzis are kosher, and then he says to me, "What is there to be afraid of? You're higher than the gashmius." And he gave me a bracha. What does it mean, by having the tefillin that protects me, nothing should happen, or whatever it is? Hashem does not punish. This is an answer that I wanted to bring out today, because I did hear people — and this was not Chabad — say that Hashem punishes, or Israel, or whatever it is — they shouldn't have said that. No, it's a result — it can be different.

Then the Rebbe says something else also — sometimes things happen because of gilgulim, reincarnation; we have to make up now what we didn't make up before. So certain things happen, but one thing is clear: it's not a punishment.

In the 1940s — I don't know whether it was the early '40s or the late '40s, I'm not sure — they were with [unclear] and Rabbi Fogelman, all of a sudden, and they were standing near the upstairs Zal, near [unclear] room there. All of a sudden the elevator comes down, and the one called Raash came down from the farbrengen very excited, and he says to them, "Do you want to hear something from the Rebbe, just off the press?" And he sounded very excited, this Raash. So they said, "Yes" — I'm repeating exactly what I heard from him.

So the Rebbe was — once, I don't remember whether it was in a shul or in a hall, I don't remember — there were Yidden together, frum Yidden, religious people, and other Yidden, not religious, and they were in the same hall, in the same shul. And the religious people didn't want to have anything to do with the non-religious people — they didn't want to mingle with them, they're not religious, and they didn't want to mingle with them. Or maybe — I think he mentioned — because of the children, they shouldn't see; I don't know if the Rebbe said that, but that's what Rabbi Adelman said, that at the farbrengen the Frierdiker Rebbe said, "But I did — I was with the Yidden, and I did speak to them."

And then the Rebbe said — just like a parent, a father or mother — let's say a father — the love to a child is unconditional and boundless, you can't describe the love of a parent to a child. That's nature. When the parents have another child, the love is the same, and the love of the first child doesn't go away — the love is unconditional. A person can have ten children; for every child, the love is unconditional.

But when they have a child that is born with special needs, or handicapped, or a mamzer — Rabbi Fogelman, Rabbi Adelman mentioned — the love from those parents to that child is even more than they love the regular child. Greater love — you can't even describe that.

The Frierdiker Rebbe said the same thing also as to the Yidden. He said that Hashem loves every single Yid, but a Yid, let's say, that is not keeping a mitzvah — he doesn't know, he's not so observant — yet the love today is even more because of that; I don't know, that's the love of that child, that's the same thing. He said that — and I think he mentioned that before he heard this vort, he thought like the other people did, as far as mingling with other people — I think he mentioned that — but as soon as he heard this vort, it changed for him, his whole theory.

That's what Rabbi Adelman said. And then at the farbrengen, I remember Rabbi Adelman sang this niggun after this, and they sang it a long time. He said, "I'll sing the niggun." Remember, the niggun was: [unclear sung lyrics] "by night shall I love them, by night shall I [unclear] ... by night shall I love them, by night shall I love them."

And after the niggun, the second time, a long time, I remember Rabbi Adelman said — he spoke about that, that it's not a punishment — he said that there will be golus, and he told them [unclear], at a time when they were at the highest level of love between Hashem and Yisroel. So why did he tell them then that your children are going to be punished? So that means that the golus is not a punishment — it's only a way to get to Moshiach. That's when he spoke then.

So I want to just bring out from this program that the people, the lecturers that speak about the things that happen — Hashem does not punish.

Next week we'll continue next week's program. Thank you.