Kfar Chabad women's convention

00:07 Speaker 1 Education is a continuum that encompasses a person from before birth until after their personality takes shape—really, throughout their life. For our purposes, it begins at birth and continues through the daycare center, preschool, kindergarten and school, all the way to seminary, until the student becomes “a flame that rises on its own.” Chanukah is the festival of education. Earlier, we saw the lighting of the Chanukah menorah in the Rebbe’s courtyard, and our hearts filled with longing. The Rebbe would often say that the Frierdiker Rebbe said one must listen to the story the candles tell. The Chanukah candles speak. They tell many stories. I want to dwell on one detail. We know that the Chanukah miracle described in the Gemara and the Rambam is the discovery of the flask of pure oil. Our Sages ask: Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu need to make a miracle so that a flask of oil would be found? There is a halachic principle that ritual impurity is set aside for a communal offering, or that it is permitted for a communal offering. In other words, if, for example, all the kohanim are ritually impure through contact with the dead, and communal offerings need to be brought, the offerings need not be postponed. They can be brought even when the kohanim are impure. So if the Chashmonaim had gone to a rabbi at the time and asked, “May we light the menorah with impure oil?” the answer, seemingly, would have been yes, because impurity is permitted for a communal offering. Yet we see that they did not do so. They did not ask. They did not even receive that answer. On the contrary, they received a different answer—an answer from Above. A miracle occurred, and they found a flask of pure oil that lasted eight days, until new oil became available. Why did we need that miracle? The Geonim explain that there is a difference between an act of service performed as part of a routine and one that inaugurates and consecrates a vessel. The halachah is that the vessels of the Beis Hamikdash are consecrated through their use. Offering sacrifices on the altar consecrates it. By

03:17 Speaker 1 lighting the menorah, by doing that... that is how it is consecrated. So there is a difference. If offerings have already been brought on the altar many times and it has become routine, and then a problem arises and the only kohanim available are impure, the halachah says, “All right, it is permitted.” But if this act of service is meant to consecrate the altar, if it is through this act that the menorah is to acquire its sanctity, that is different. When something must be inaugurated and consecrated, only pure, clear olive oil will do. From this we learn something about education. There is a difference between someone who is already settled into the routine of life, in the midst of their years, and occasionally needs—or is forced—to make certain compromises, and the education of a child. When it comes to educating a child, these are the things through which we instill holiness in the child, educate them and make them a vessel for holiness. Here we must know that there can be no compromises. Here we must give the child only pure, clear olive oil. So Chanukah is the festival of education, and this is what the candles tell us. With that, if I may, I will read you a passage from a letter the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote fifty-five years ago. He writes: “The days will come when the younger generation will make a heartfelt demand of all its leaders, and particularly of the directors and heads of the yeshivos, saying: Why did you not admonish us about our ways? Why did you not tell us the complete, unvarnished truth of the Torah of the living G-d? Why did you not teach us how to live our daily lives—how we should pray each day before our Father, the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu? How should we study His Torah, as we are commanded to—with awe, reverence, trembling and trepidation? How should we fulfill His mitzvos, as we are commanded to—with joy and gladness of heart, which is a great service?” That is the end of the quotation. It seems

06:20 Speaker 1 to me that I would not be mistaken in saying that the Rebbe’s words from fifty-five years ago stand before our eyes today. The younger generation is crying out for education. We will ask Rabbi Hefer—whom many of the women seated here, myself included, were privileged to have as a teacher; a man who has devoted years to education and who directs the Beis Rivkah College of Education in Kfar Chabad II—to give us his answer to these questions. Please, Rabbi Hefer.

07:44 Speaker 2 Happy Chanukah. On the one hand, it is a great joy to see so many former students, some of whom finished seminary years ago and some only recently. But this evening has stirred mixed feelings in me. I have been involved in the education of girls in Kfar Chabad for a long time now; this is my fourth decade. In recent years, I have warned more than once that our education is in danger. At times I have even used strong language. As an example, I mentioned Kfar Chassidim in the Jezreel Valley, which was founded, as its name suggests, as a village of chassidim. It was founded by a Jew who was called a Rebbe, and his intentions were certainly good. At first it was a thoroughly observant community. Later, as the years went by, only the name remained. G-d forbid that I should draw a parallel or make a comparison—not even for the sake of making a point. But there are some signs that do exist among us as well. Let us not forget that the community I mentioned was founded seventy years ago, in the late twenties and early thirties, under different conditions and in a different atmosphere from the one we live in today. We live in a very open society, open to harmful currents and influences. And as a community, we do not shut ourselves away. On the contrary, we see it as our shlichus to go out to the wider public, work among them and influence them without being influenced ourselves. Mrs. Wisheski mentioned earlier the flask of oil. She spoke about the possibility of lighting with impure oil under the halachic provisions that set aside or permit impurity, and how, nevertheless, they were prepared to give their lives in order to light with pure oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol. The Rebbe explains in his holy sichos what this flask of oil represents. Oil represents wisdom. It is the essence of life. In everything in the world we find an oil, an essence—even in stone. Today they have found that petroleum, for example, can be extracted from rock. That is its essence. Not from every rock, but there are certain layers from which oil can be extracted. The essence of that rock is

14:07 Speaker 2 petroleum. In everything, whether plant or animal, the essence of life is its very marrow; it is the oil. It is the yechidah. The Greeks, who loved wisdom, did not wage war against wisdom. As we say in “Al Hanissim,” they fought only against the G-dly foundation of wisdom: “Your Torah.” They were unwilling to accept the G-dly foundation of the Torah of Israel, and so they fought against the mitzvos and the chukim that went beyond human reason. For the Greeks, the ultimate criterion, the supreme measure, was human wisdom. We say that the Torah declares, “Man was created in the image of G-d.” The Greeks reversed that and said, “G-d was created in the image of man.” They fashioned their idols in their own image. They found an idol for every force: a deity of wisdom, of wine, of beauty. Even thieves had their own particular deity. In other words, they fashioned their idols in their own image. That was their personification of everything: humanity, man at his peak, the self. The full force of coarseness, of the material and the physical, found expression in Greek culture—in its culture of the body. In its philosophy, too, man was at the center. The concept of bittul, of setting oneself aside before a higher power, of surrendering the self—why, the whole foundation of that culture was to bring the self to perfection. The idea of competition, of sport: “I am first.” What does “I am first” mean? “I.” In Tehillim, Dovid says, “Do not compete with evildoers”—do not compete. But there, everything was competition, asserting the self: “I have to be first.” From this perspective, even the idea of being first in the class is not entirely positive. Yes, being first. They wanted to remove the G-dly foundation. They wanted to defile the point of Yiddishkeit, the yechidah of the soul. But this was the self-sacrifice of the Chashmonaim: even though, according to halachah, they could have used the oil, oil touched by Greek wisdom is very, very dangerous. We need oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen

18:02 Speaker 2 Great. Chanukah, after all, is also about chinuch—education. Today we find ourselves in a situation where, on the one hand, we need to take stock and plan our steps for the future. I’ve said this on various occasions recently: I was among those who fought, in earlier years, when the Beis Rivkah seminary was first established, to ensure that girls from Kfar Chabad would not go off to “graze in other fields,” to study in other institutions. And baruch Hashem, for decades, there was no such thing as a girl from Kfar Chabad studying elsewhere. That had consequences, sometimes negative ones. It would have been much better if we could have separated out a student here or there to preserve the integrity, or the purity, of the institution. But we sacrificed certain things so as not to compromise its wholeness. Today I wonder whether that approach is still appropriate. Baruch Hashem, Kfar Chabad has grown—may it continue to grow. Many families have joined us. Not all come from the same circle or background; sometimes they come from different educational settings, with different traditions. Today it is very difficult to maintain the character of the institution, and I am raising these questions publicly as well. Must we still cling so firmly to the rule that no girl from Kfar Chabad should leave to study elsewhere? Or, to protect ourselves, might it be better for those who want to leave to study elsewhere, so that we can preserve the purity of our institution? In fact, two weeks ago, in a conversation with the educators, I raised an idea that will surely still provoke reactions, positive or negative, for and against: to create, along the lines of Torah-track classes, Chassidic-track classes—a differentiation among the classes at Beis Rivkah. Girls who undertake to meet the school administration’s requirements for Chassidic conduct, with all that entails, would study in Chassidic classes. Just as there are now specializations where students learn sewing or office work, and each one studies and gains experience, then after some years decides what she

22:32 Speaker 2 wants to pursue, so too there would be Chassidic classes. Instead of fashion or office work, in the first years they would have additional Chassidic studies and Chassidic activities, with special support from the school. Of course, it would not be a closed circle. It would be open to every girl who agrees to take on the requirements of that framework. The truth is that, in practice, all the girls at Beis Rivkah ought to be in those classes. That expectation should apply to every single one. But creating differentiation means creating inequality. The advantage is that we would produce certain groups that achieve more; on the other hand, perhaps we would let others off the hook from making the effort to reach that level: “Well, I’m not in that track, so it doesn’t apply to me.” We have a problem. I have maintained all these years that our challenge in educating girls here is different from that of every other educational institution in the village. There is the Tomchei Temimim yeshiva. I see people remembering the good old days at Beis Rivkah—arriving late, as usual. What? Yes. All right, I’ll continue. I ask those who arrived late at least not to disturb. Boys’ education in Kfar Chabad has two frameworks: Tomchei Temimim yeshiva, and, for those who found a yeshiva education too difficult or too demanding, the vocational school, which includes Torah studies alongside vocational training. Naturally, the expectations there are much lower than for a yeshiva student whose occupation is Torah study. Beis Rivkah did not have that option. In one institution, throughout all these years, we accepted girls from every background. We accepted girls from Chassidic families who were, so to speak, suited to Tomchei Temimim, but we also accepted girls from families for whom a Chassidic way of life was something distant. We could not create those separate frameworks. They were together, and something always suffered as a result. Nevertheless, we dealt with these problems over the years. Today even the Chassidic framework has weakened somewhat, and I

27:02 Speaker 2 am not talking about the situation after Gimmel Tammuz as opposed to before Gimmel Tammuz. I am not getting into that at all, because the problems began even before then. I hear the girls’ conversations, their manner of speaking, their speech, their singing. Whether I like it or not, I notice how the girls dress. It is not what it was many years ago. Something has changed among us. The media reach Chassidic homes too, and I make an urgent appeal to every woman sitting here: help keep the most damaging scourge, videos and television, out of Kfar Chabad. And I want to take an extreme position: even a video player used to show films of the Rebbe. I have already heard a little girl say, “Today we saw something from television on the Rebbe’s video.” She said it innocently. It began with something holy and slid into the undesirable things we know about. Students were ill, G-d forbid, and stayed home; a friend came over, and they watched films and borrowed them. Parents do not always supervise. They cannot; they are not home. If someone wants to watch a video of the Rebbe, perhaps a player should be set up in a public place, such as here, where it could be used if someone truly longs to see the Rebbe. But in the home, our very souls are at stake. It is not supervised. We do not always manage to control or monitor it, and after a while it takes an undesirable turn and we are helpless. All the media today, from newspapers to radio and television, expose people to the three prohibitions for which one must give up one’s life rather than transgress: forbidden relations, bloodshed, and idol worship. We must protect our children from exposure to these things. I do not want to go on at length. Educators are sitting here; they all understand the great danger. Is she watching things she should not be watching?

31:45 Speaker 2 She listens to radio programs; she sings the songs heard on the street—and these are girls from Chassidic homes. We began, after all, by speaking about Chassidic education and mesirus nefesh. These things defile the yechidah of the soul, and keeping them out requires mesirus nefesh. No one can say, “I know how to be careful. I’ll supervise it. I can handle it. I’ll explain it. I’ll read it.” No one can come away from this untouched. These things seep in below the threshold of awareness. We have no control over them, and afterward they break out without restraint. We cannot control them. So when we speak on Chanukah about Chassidic education—once, Chassidic education meant something entirely, entirely different. Today we have to speak about elementary matters that the Shulchan Aruch requires of every Jew. It should be clear to him that these things are forbidden. I remember something the Rebbe once told me. It was in 5724 or 5725, when there were problems with clothing, with the length of clothing—as they called the fashions then, midi and mini and so on; I don’t know. The Rebbe said to me in these words—I’ll translate. Toward the end of the yechidus, he told me he had heard that someone in Paris had changed the fashion: instead of short, the fashion would now be long. “Oy un vey,” the Rebbe said, “if we change because of the non-Jew sitting in Paris and not because of the Shulchan Aruch.” The Rebbe then used a harsh expression. Afterward he even told me not to publicize it in his name, because then he would have to—these were the Rebbe’s words—“I will have to throw them out of my four cubits,” meaning those who would not accept it. So the Rebbe said, “Don’t say this in my name.” I failed in that regard and said it in his name. There was a gathering of mothers then. I remember that when I returned, I wrote to the Rebbe that I had slipped in the heat of the moment. But these matters remain relevant today

35:05 Speaker 2 And more sharply: if we do not uphold these things, the Rebbe will, G-d forbid, have to cast us out of his four cubits. Being cast out of his four cubits would, G-d forbid, mean a decline in education. We must hold fast with all our strength to his demands, his letters and his words—to the way he wanted girls to be educated—and not deviate from it or give up even the smallest detail. I want to conclude with this same point. There is spiritual nourishment, and there is physical nourishment. Then there is the matter of dress. Our girls are not dressed as they should be. Every time I go out onto the street in Bnei Brak in the morning and see the Beis Yaakov girls walking to seminary in groups, hundreds and thousands of them, my heart sinks. I simply envy them. You can tell from a distance that a girl is a Beis Yaakov student: her modest dress, her uniform, her blouse not worn over her skirt—not white shoes and woolen socks, hair down to her ankles, and all that goes with it—but dressed modestly and simply, as befits a schoolgirl receiving a Chassidic education. Parents have a large part in this. Parents are not always able to cope with it, and that is the final point I want to make. We need to understand that today, education does not depend on any one party. Certainly the school cannot educate children on its own. It is an important part of their education, but only one part. Parents on their own cannot provide a complete education either, because there is also the community, the neighbors, outside influences and the school. The educational institutions and the parents must join forces. And I want to say to the parents here—not out of any personal interest—that parents often do something wrong without realizing it. Not deliberately, of course. A child asks, “Who said so?” and hears, “A friend said so,” or “That teacher said so.” Disparaging a teacher at home, whoever the teacher may be, harms the girl first and foremost.

38:47 Speaker 2 When we undermine educational authority—and we suffer so much today from the lack of authority in Chabad—we must remember that the Rebbe, with his divine insight, foresaw this and called for rabbis and mashpi’im. He wanted to establish structures that would truly protect us from all those negative influences, yet sometimes we destroy these things with our own hands. If there is criticism—and teachers are not angels either, though it says that if a rabbi is not like an angel of Hashem, one should not seek Torah from him; that is not what I mean here—then by all means, a mother can pick up the phone or make the effort to come to the school and speak with a teacher, an educator or a principal. She will always be warmly received. We have never turned away a parent who came to discuss an educational problem. Keep the criticism to yourselves, not in front of the children. Do not undermine educational authority, because that will harm the children themselves first and foremost. This is a very, very important point. If we succeed in working together—the parents and the teaching staff—and education begins at a very young age, in kindergarten and even earlier: what songs do we teach them? We must see to it that children speak properly. Sometimes I hear young children speaking inappropriately. A kindergarten teacher should pay attention to how a girl speaks, and in cheder to how a boy speaks. In school, we must strengthen Chassidic education down to the small details. If all the parties work together, then, with Hashem’s help, we can overcome the problems, and we will continue until the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, may it be very soon indeed.

41:32 Speaker 3 Thank you very much, Rabbi Hefer, for those important and forthright words. We hope they will lead to action, because action is the main thing. Kfar Chabad is rich in institutions—educational institutions for the boys and girls of Kfar Chabad, and educational institutions for Jewish boys and girls throughout the country. Education is therefore a foremost challenge for Kfar Chabad, and certainly for the Kfar Chabad committee, headed by its chairman, Rabbi Menachem Lerner. We ask Rabbi Menachem Lerner to offer his greetings to this gathering, which, with his assistance, we have been able to organize so beautifully. Thank you in advance.

42:35 Speaker 4 Good evening, and a happy Chanukah! I want to preserve the honor due to the rabbinate, so I am not Rabbi Menachem Lerner. It is also fitting on Chanukah that I speak before Rabbi Mordechai Ashkenazi, because Chanukah is about continually increasing the light. What follows will certainly add both in quantity and in quality. First, we must thank the organizers of this evening. This is the second event they have organized, including the men’s gathering on Motzaei Shabbos. That, too, came about at their initiative or with their encouragement. If even a little was accomplished, it is to their credit. Certainly this evening, which by Divine providence falls during Chanukah, a time of light and merit, when a little light dispels much darkness, will, through the merit of these days, have an even stronger effect, until things are as they ought to be. We were all privileged to visit the Rebbe and have yechidus. Each person who went in to the Rebbe raised his own problems and those of his family, and came out with answers, with solutions, and with a wonderful feeling. Beyond the lofty spiritual dimension of yechidus, people also brought in the concerns of everyday life and came out with solutions. On 26 Tishrei 5744, at the Rebbe’s initiative, there was a yechidus for the residents of Kfar Chabad and Nachlas Har Chabad. Anyone who goes over what the Rebbe said in that yechidus will see how remarkable it is: what he said then speaks precisely to the situation we find ourselves in, the situation for which we have gathered here this evening. By way of introduction, one brief point: in a reply to a note that had been written to the Rebbe, he wrote that, in its inner meaning, as explained in Chassidus, peace means wholeness. And in a Chanukah sicha in 5736, the Rebbe defines peace according to its inner meaning. It does not mean that I have one opinion and someone else has another, and I set aside my opinion

46:12 Speaker 4 in favor of my friend’s. Rather, the inner meaning of peace is that my opinion and his are one and the same. And since we have that yechidus with the Rebbe, surely here in Kfar Chabad, among chassidim, there can be no other position on the matter. There is one position: the Rebbe’s clear position. I want to read a few lines from what was said then, when the Rebbe spoke about what Kfar Chabad is: “As is well known, Kfar Chabad was founded, and subsequently Nachlas Har Chabad as well, by the leader of our generation, my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe. From the very beginning, the leader of our generation set out the spiritual foundations on which Kfar Chabad, and likewise Nachlas Har Chabad, should be based, would be based and is based. The residents’ task is to spread these foundations throughout the Holy Land, and from there the light will go forth and spread to all the countries of the world.” See what is asked of the residents of Kfar Chabad: to spread the principles for which Kfar Chabad was founded throughout the Holy Land, and from there throughout the whole world. “Conduct of this kind draws down Hashem’s blessings in general, and in particular the threefold blessing written in the Torah through Moshe Rabbeinu. In our case, especially and primarily, it draws down the blessing of the founder of Kfar Chabad and Nachlas Har Chabad—a blessing that continues, with an effect that continues to grow, to the point that he also directs it in practice. But regrettably, the development spoken of above has not taken place to the degree and with the completeness that the founder wanted.” Here the Rebbe continues, emphasizing again how abundant the blessings of the leader of the generation are for Kfar Chabad. Consequently, as a practical matter, we must know that Kfar Chabad and Nachlas Har Chabad have local rabbinic authorities, their rabbis. Whether or not one agrees with their rulings, the Shulchan Aruch says that it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s will that we heed

49:09 Speaker 4 one voice. From here we come to what the Rebbe says about the role of women. The Rebbe gives women the role of spearheading every matter that needs correction. Moreover, they should do so very soon, in practice, with joy and gladness of heart, continually increasing. The Torah tells us that Jewish women and girls have a very great influence on their husbands, as well as on their parents, brothers and sisters. It is clear, then, that the fulfillment of all these matters depends on them, and they will surely set a living example of this

00:02 Speaker 1 And with joy and gladness of heart. Then the old and foolish king will have no foothold, not in Kfar Chabad and not in Nachlas Har Chabad. “For this thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” We only need to truly want it, to put personal calculations aside, and to rely on the calculation of the Nasi of our generation, our esteemed and holy Rebbe. From now on—what happened, happened, whether because of a mistake or because of personal distress, and [unclear]. But from now on, the women should set a living example in this. Just as the women did with the Mishkan: they were the first to bring things most precious to their husbands, generously, for its construction. They did so that the Mishkan would be built as quickly and as well as possible, in accordance with Hashem’s will. The same should be true of building a small sanctuary—building every Jewish home, and especially building many Jewish homes in a town or village, particularly one that is a chassidic village, a truly chassidic community. So from now on, everyone will surely do more, with the women and girls leading the way, in fulfilling “Love your fellow as yourself,” in a way that translates into actual deeds and daily conduct. There is therefore no doubt that this initiative is a blessing. This is why the Rebbe gave women the role of spearheading and leading everything that needs to be corrected. If I understood Rabbi Hefer correctly earlier, he was saying that there is a second thought: perhaps, in certain cases, one should consider giving someone who cannot [unclear] the option of moving to another place. Is that right? Was that what you meant? I think so. Well, in my humble opinion, that runs counter to—excuse me, your students are sitting here, but they too will be educators. If that is how I understood it, we can assume that quite a few other women understood it that way too. And it is the opposite of the Rebbe’s position throughout the years. The Rebbe wanted us to accept girls from other homes and other institutions who would come

02:23 Speaker 1 to Kfar Chabad, and today there is a thought of perhaps transferring someone from Kfar Chabad elsewhere. I’ll finish with just one comment—or perhaps a request. There is a problem in Kfar Chabad, and that is why we gathered. There is no need to repeat the problems in the village; surely everyone knows them. What we need to look for are solutions, not to keep going over the problems. With Hashem’s help, the problems will certainly be resolved one way or another. Today in Kfar Chabad, we have a problem that is a result of those problems. People talk everywhere, each man to another and each woman to another, about what happened and what didn’t happen. In most cases they talk about what didn’t happen. And it won’t help to say, “It didn’t happen, but I know firsthand that it did.” Beyond that, and more seriously, subjects that adults were once embarrassed to discuss have now become family conversation at the Shabbos table or at an afternoon gathering of the whole family. And children come home with stories—from yeshiva, from seminary, from cheder, from Talmud Torah. That is much more serious than the act itself. Beyond that, it can give children a sense of permission later on, or make it easier for them to stumble into doing it themselves. When we say, “Quiet, we don’t talk about that,” they know it is serious. If it is too serious to talk about, then certainly it is not something one does. But something people talk about becomes closer to something they might do. And on top of that, people tear one another apart. There is a story that the Chofetz Chaim sent the Rebbe Rashab his book Shemiras Halashon to request an approbation. I don’t know whether he came himself or sent it with a messenger. The Rebbe Rashab did not give his approbation, because he said that the book

05:22 Speaker 1 did not say that it is forbidden even to think it, not just to say it. According to another version, he said he would not give his approbation because the book did not say that one must not even wrinkle one’s nose at something—because that too is serious. How much more so sitting and talking about another person, analyzing and tearing them apart over what did or did not happen. That is certainly serious. That is all I have to say. Thank you very much to the organizers, and much success.

06:08 Speaker 2 May I respond?

06:11 Speaker 3 Thank you very much. Just to clarify what I said, yes? Not to respond. I raised it only as a thought. It is not a decision, and there is certainly room to think about it. I’ll just say, as an aside, that we know very well that the yeshiva in Kfar Chabad, for example, is quite selective, as are all the yeshivos. That has negative consequences, very negative consequences, yes? Children do not receive an education because every institution wants to be elite, and so on and so forth. I am not talking about that kind of approach, yes? About creating an elitist institution and so on—absolutely not. But if there are cases, yes, where sound judgment says that someone can be protected by removing a girl from the institution—something we have not done until now, and at times we have paid a price—I am saying that these thoughts are coming up now, and they are certainly legitimate.

07:36 Speaker 2 Well, thank you very much, Rabbi Hefer. We wish you much nachas, true Jewish and chassidic nachas, from all your students. Thank you very much to the chairman of the committee, Rabbi Lehrer, both for your help and for your words. I saw that everyone here agreed with what you said. I think that should be tonight’s resolution: to educate ourselves, our students, and our children to guard what comes out of our mouths. Through this, we will surely bring blessing upon ourselves, upon our students, and upon all of Kfar Chabad. I heard in the name of Reb Mendel Futerfas that during World War II, a certain guter Yid and his attendant found themselves in a dark cave without windows. The darkness was heavy, and then someone lit a light from some kind of tin that could give off light. The attendant exclaimed, “Oh, wonderful, now there’s light! Soon we’ll get used to this light.” And the guter Yid burst into tears: “Soon we’ll get used to this light. Woe to those who call darkness light.” Sometimes it is hard for us to distinguish between light and darkness. We will ask the esteemed Rabbi Ashkenazi, the mara d’asra of Kfar Chabad, to show us the true light. Please, Rabbi Ashkenazi.

09:53 Speaker 4 Good—good evening, and happy Chanukah. Following everything said here earlier, first and foremost, thank you and blessings to the group of women who took it upon themselves to organize both the evening a week ago and tonight’s gathering. But this is only a beginning. I hope they will continue with even greater strength and vigor, rising in holiness, and bring people together until we reach everyone in Kfar Chabad and say what needs to be said. We have gathered tonight. It has been almost twenty years now that I have shared the burden of the community here. Over twenty years, I have had many occasions to give speeches, to speak, to lecture. Tonight I did not come to give a speech, or a lecture, or to address the public. I came to cry out, to ask, and to plead. Never in the twenty years I have been here—it is almost thirty years that I have been here, but twenty years in this position—have I been in as difficult an emotional state as I have been lately. Two weeks ago, for the first time since Gimmel Tammuz, through Divine Providence—through Divine Providence—I had the opportunity to be at the holy Ohel. I was not there on Gimmel Tammuz, and afterward I had not had the opportunity to go. But I was at the Ohel. For the first time, I was there during the day. As soon as I arrived, I stood there for several hours. Then, during the four or five days I spent there, I tried not to miss a single prayer in the Rebbe’s holy room.

00:01 We were accustomed to going in for yechidus. I had the privilege of going in thirty-two years ago. The first time I entered the room, I saw the Rebbe as I had seen him that first time, and afterward, over the years, during the yechidus sessions and the general yechidus sessions. I stood beside the table. Tears streamed from my eyes. I tried to go in ten minutes early, as soon as they opened the door, before each of the three daily prayers, and to stay until the very end—to make use of every moment I could be there in the room and be alone with the Rebbe. I’ll tell you what thoughts I had then. We are in an extremely difficult situation. On the one hand, G-d forbid that we lose our faith, G-d forbid that we lose our trust. On the contrary, we must strengthen ourselves and one another in the true and complete faith expressed in “Long live our master, our teacher and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever.” There is no doubt about it whatsoever. But precisely because our faith is so great, and precisely because our trust is so great, the sitra achra grows stronger here. Precisely here, the samech-mem gains strength and says, “Come, let us deal cunningly with them. Let us put doubts in their heads and say to them: ‘You poor people, what are you placing your trust in?’” And for that very reason, the danger is extremely great. On the other hand, one might think that we are in darkness, groping in the dark. We do not have the Rebbe’s great light openly revealed to us. For that very reason, the danger is extremely great. I stood beside the table and asked—I’ll tell you the truth, at the Ohel I wasn’t so... I was broken; I broke down when I reached the Ohel. But I received encouragement and strength in the Rebbe’s room. There I saw and felt—I saw, though who am I to see? Still, I’m telling you what I felt in my heart. I felt that the Rebbe was sitting beside the table. The table—the entire room was filled with holiness, purity and Torah. “Who may ascend the mountain of Hashem, and who may stand in His holy place?” But we mustn’t make calculations or think about who or what we are. We must push our way in.

03:19 And there is no doubt about it. The Rebbe sat beside the table and heard everything each person was thinking in his heart. I told this to the men when I was there. Reb Zalman Gurary told me that he had written to the Rebbe before—before 5752, in 5751. He suggested to the Rebbe that the room upstairs, the room where the Frierdiker Rebbe had held yechidus, be opened so that anyone who wished could come and pray there. This was while the Rebbe was still well. He wrote in his note that it was the place where the Frierdiker Rebbe had received people for yechidus and prayed for ten years. The Rebbe added in his holy handwriting: “And read pidyonos there as well.” In other words, the Rebbe received and read pidyonos in that room. So certainly—and it is as though the Rebbe is affirming that even now he stands there and receives pidyonos. How much more so when one is beside the Rebbe’s table. And what did I think, and what did I ask for? I asked: Master of the Universe, I am in Kfar Chabad. The burden is great and frightening. Simply frightening. Just think of taking responsibility for five hundred families, may they increase—men, women and children. And in practice, in a very real sense, I have been placed there. I am responsible for all this, responsible for the spiritual life here, for what it ought to be. There is no room for games today; we have nowhere to run. We stand—I, we stand—with our backs to the sea. It is one of two things: either this or that. In a moment, G-d forbid, all the boundaries could be breached. And who knows where we might end up? Or, in a moment, we could rise higher and become worthy of greeting Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Do you believe in Hashem or not? Either we return to Egypt, to darkness upon darkness, or we break through to the sea—even if we do not understand or know how the sea will suddenly split in two. I asked there about Kfar Chabad, about Kfar

06:23 Chabad as a whole, and about individuals. Of course, I did not mention names, but the Rebbe has surely revealed himself; there is no doubt about it. May we merit to hand the Rebbe the key to Kfar Chabad in a condition at least no worse than it was at the moment when he was hidden from us for a little while. But, sadly, the situation keeps deteriorating, keeps deteriorating in the most straightforward sense, and there is no point being ashamed to say so. I have always avoided speaking, especially before an audience of women, about matters of tznius. Chassidim say that you take a soul, expose it to danger, and make it a rabbi. After all, a Jewish chossid should be looking in a sefer—he should be looking in Tanya, in Likkutei Torah, in Likkutei Sichos. What business does he have knowing about women’s clothing or wigs or any of these things? He should keep his eyes on his studies; he must not look beyond his own four cubits. But in practice, I can say—and I am ashamed to say it, but I must—I sometimes go out into the village: to the grocery store, near the children’s daycare center, sometimes into the street. I think to myself: Where are we? Where am I? Am I in Kfar Chabad, or am I in a village of the National Religious Party, of Mizrachi? In Tzafrirya, or one of the other communities here? It cannot be that a woman goes out into the street, goes to the grocery store with half her head uncovered, without stockings. To the grocery store or near the daycare center. They bring the children, they drive up, get out of the car. I don’t want to speak crudely, but it’s practically like being at the beach. This is a Chassidic village. Men are standing there. What happened to “Do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes”? That is a Torah prohibition. You are causing others to stumble! Where are we? Men, even great chassidim, can stumble. “Do not trust yourself until the day of your death.” And afterward people wonder how such things happen. Perhaps because you violated the laws of modesty, uncovering your hair, you caused men or bachurim or children or

09:21 young people to stumble—and perhaps that is why those young people later wander the streets? Everyone will offer clever theories, psychology and all sorts of reasons. The first reason is what the Torah says: “Your camp shall be holy.” When there is holiness, there is a camp. A camp means there are boundaries and tents; one person does not look into another’s tent. The partitions run alongside one another and shield what is within. But when those boundaries are breached, the holiness is lost. Surely, how can it be that anyone who has seen what the Torah says—why, why, why is the passage about the nazir placed next to the passage about the sotah? And, G-d forbid, things keep deteriorating from day to day. It began with stepping out of the house to stand in the street with a neighbor; then it continued to the grocery store or the vegetable shop, then to the daycare center, then to—then to bringing children to school, and even to cheder. A child is brought to cheder—the Gemara relates in Tractate Kiddushin that they covered his eyes so he would not see anything impure on the day he entered cheder—and he is brought to cheder in a manner that is the opposite of tznius. Please forgive me for speaking this way, but my heart is breaking, because I am responsible for this. There are things one must think twice about—whether to say them or not. But these are things that could, G-d forbid, lead to prohibitions punishable by kareis, to prohibitions punishable by a court-imposed death penalty, to negative commandments, to rabbinic prohibitions—to all kinds of Torah prohibitions. If, G-d forbid, we breach the fence—and the fence has already been breached. What do our Sages say? When others scatter, gather together. When there is a breach, we must cry out. We must shout. I ask you, I beg you: Have mercy on us, have mercy on Kfar Chabad, have mercy on the Rebbe. For forty years the Rebbe labored, with blood and sweat, to build Kfar Chabad. Here, through frivolity, through things—matters that make no sense at all—we may bring about, G-d forbid, I don’t know what. The doctor,

12:35 The doctor in the village is crying out that the number of cases in Kfar Chabad, G-d forbid, is out of proportion to the size of the community. I don’t want to go into the details; everyone understands what I mean. Where is the Rebbe’s blessing? The blessing is there. But as the Rebbe said, a Rebbe’s blessing is like rain. For the rain to make things grow, you have to plow and you have to sow, and then the rain will make them grow. But if you don’t plow or sow, the rain will grow thorns and thistles. Of course the blessing is there, as was mentioned earlier about the Rebbe’s yechidus, when he said 5668. But people are driving the Rebbe away. And I’ll tell you more: Anyone who studies the sichos of 5710, which are all about the strength we draw from those sichos, will see that the Rebbe says something truly startling. He says that the Rebbe is more revealed now than before. What does that mean? When the Rebbe was limited by a physical body, I might have thought I could deceive him. When the Rebbe is not limited by a physical body, he is more present, and the truth is more apparent to him. “Can a man hide in secret places and I not see him?” And if the Rebbe once said that in Lubavitch they know what goes on even in a person’s innermost rooms, how much more so are things now open and clear before the Rebbe. This cannot be. How—Master of the Universe! How can it be? How can it be that—a married woman goes out into the street with half her head uncovered, or rather, half her hair showing? She is violating the laws of Moshe and Yisroel. According to halacha, her husband may no longer rely on her even regarding the kashrus of the food, or matters of Torah and holiness, and so on. The Rebbe founded Kfar Chabad, and one of its foundations forty years ago—as is clear and well known from the Igros Kodesh—concerned wigs. The Rebbe fought against the view of the Sephardic rabbis, who said that a headscarf was actually preferable. They were concerned about wigs because a wig looks somewhat like a woman’s hair, but the Rebbe preferred wigs.

15:22 That is one of the Rebbe’s innovations in practical halacha, especially in Kfar Chabad. And it is precisely here that a breach has opened. Women began going around in hats. At first they told me the hats covered more than the wigs, but we can see where that has led. Anyone can look and see. It is wrong from the outset, whether they brought it from Paris or somewhere else. The Rebbe wanted women in Kfar Chabad to wear only wigs, especially out in the streets, in the shopping mall, or in any public place—and at home as well. So how can a married woman appear in Kfar Chabad like that, in front of her children? What will the children think afterward? What will they see? Who will stop them? In the situation we are in now, who will stop the children? Who will stop the grandchildren if we don’t take ourselves in hand now? G-d forbid! On the one hand, we are climbing a great, high mountain, but on the other hand there is a steep drop. Who knows where we might end up? I think everyone agrees with me about the situation we are in. The whole business with video began for a holy purpose; there is no doubt about that. And I tell you, gentlemen, the first time I spoke about this, two years ago, my heart was torn both ways. On the one hand, I was very concerned. Thank G-d, I have a family too, and I go to New York from time to time, and my children also ask for a video player because they want to see the Rebbe. But I decided: How can I do it? Because in practice, they might also watch things that are not good. So I decided not to bring a video player into my home. It is hard; the children want to see the Rebbe.

18:05 So I told them: There is a library here, and the chairman of the village committee is here. On the contrary, let’s set up a central place in Kfar Chabad where people can watch only videos of the Rebbe. Twenty-four hours a day, anyone who wants to can come in, day or night. Thank G-d, there is a budget for it. They can buy every recording of the Rebbe, going back to the early years of his marriage, and anyone who wants to can come and watch—if seeing the Rebbe is the reason. But everyone knows the truth: the mother wasn’t home, and her son or daughter gathered friends and showed small children, tinokos shel beis rabban, the most ugly things. They inflamed them with images that, as chassidim say, fifty years of work may not be enough to remove from their minds and thoughts what they saw in five minutes. There are children—and I’m speaking to the educators; I have never been an educator myself, but this is what we see—there are children with different dispositions. Some have a cooler temperament, some a warmer one. When a boy or girl has a temperament that runs a little warmer than average, what should you do? Calm them and help them settle down from an early age. Instead, people stimulate it. They lead the child to thoughts and things whose effects may surface later: something seen at age five or six can have an impact at age seventeen or eighteen. I believe psychologists acknowledge this too. What are people thinking? “The child is still little; what does he understand?” He doesn’t have to understand. Seeing it was enough. Chassidus says that seeing leaves a much deeper blemish than hearing. That image will not leave his sight. And that is the reality. Are we going to be like ostriches, bury our heads in the sand and think

20:40 nothing happened? “They only watch the Rebbe; they only see the Rebbe.” Believe me, if everyone in Kfar Chabad who has a video player watched only the Rebbe all day, we would not have reached the situation we are in today. This thing is impure and makes others impure. A chossid, a yeshiva man [unclear], called me a few weeks ago and said, “I want to leave Kfar Chabad.” I asked him why. He said, “I can’t find a place for myself here. I want to raise my children in holiness and Torah.” I asked him, “Where are you going? Where did you find holiness and Torah—in Bnei Brak?” “No, I’ll go to Rishon LeZion. We’ll go to Rechovot.” “To Holon? Holiness and Torah in Holon? You’ll find holiness and Torah there?” He said to me, “Yes. You know what? There, I’m at home with my children, and I tell them: ‘Do you see all those neighbors? You have no reason to look to them. That isn’t us; that isn’t ours.’ I grew up in Tel Aviv too. I saw people desecrating Shabbos before my eyes. What did they tell me? How was I brought up? ‘What do you have to do with them? You have your cheder, your shul, your home. What you see there—that is your place. Everything else is simply not ours.’ But when I’m in Kfar Chabad, I can’t say that. I can’t tell...” That is what this young man says. “I can’t say, ‘Listen, that neighbor—whatever his background—don’t look to him.’ What do you mean? He is our own flesh and blood. His son learns with us in cheder. His daughter goes to school with us. So where will this lead?” There are chassidishe young men here, thank G-d, a great many of them, without the evil eye. Are we going to become two camps?

22:35 We’ll reach a point where one person says about another, “Don’t look at him; don’t go into that house.” Are we going to shun homes here? Shun family celebrations, G-d forbid? What kind of Ahavas Yisroel will we have then? One thing is clear: halachah says that when there is a majority and a minority, we follow the majority. When a question arises in a community—how do you want daily life to be conducted, this way or that way?—even if it isn’t a matter of halachah, what does the Shulchan Aruch say? What do the responsa of the halachic authorities say? Gather the whole community, and let the majority decide. The majority’s decision binds the minority, without exception. All the more so when it concerns halachah or Jewish custom. There is no doubt that most people in Kfar Chabad want to see Kfar Chabad as the Rebbe established it. If a minority in the community disagrees, it must accept the majority’s view. The Rebbe established Kfar Chabad to be a chassidic village—a chassidic village where a woman conducts herself and dresses as a proper Jewish woman, and I’m not even saying as a chassidic Jewish woman, as is customary here in Israel. That was the Rebbe’s wish, and he devoted himself to it with self-sacrifice. The Rebbe wanted the bylaws of Kfar Chabad to include a clause that everyone there study a chapter of Tanya and Likkutei Torah every day. Not, G-d forbid, that a person bring filth into his home. Is that why the Rebbe established Kfar Chabad? Is that what all the Rebbes, throughout the entire chain, came for—to bring filth into Kfar Chabad? I… I would say to this gathering of educators: the younger generation is in your hands, and so are your own children, may they be well. Our entire future is in your hands—the entire future of Kfar Chabad. As I saw in one of the Rebbe’s sichos printed here, the greatest treasure is entrusted to you, both as mothers and as educators. A mother

25:30 is a role model for her children. A teacher is a role model for her students—women teachers for girls, men teachers for boys. And children, as they say, have noses like cats: they sniff out everything. What I think a child didn’t see, he saw too. They have a keen sense. And if they keep quiet, it may come out years later. I’m telling you from experience, from what I know—I wouldn’t even call it statistics—that where there are problems with children’s education, in most of those homes it begins with the upbringing at home. Of course, not all parents are educators, but it begins with bringing filthy things into the home, dirty newspapers. And all the communications devices—is the radio so holy? All the more so television. Why? Because with television there are images, and Chassidus teaches that seeing has a much more damaging effect than hearing. Haven’t there been cases where parents went out, hired a babysitter, and found that the babysitter and the children had listened together to all kinds of radio programs, or to things on the telephone? I know there are stations you can call with the filthiest things imaginable. Hashem have mercy, Hashem have mercy. The House of Israel is becoming like all the nations. I am crying out, I am pleading: Have mercy, have mercy on us! Every man and woman can do something about this, and must do something about it. This is the urgent need of the hour. I know there was a case—I mentioned it at the previous gathering. When I arrived in Montreal in 5709, the incident there was still fresh. A few years earlier, there had been a case, may it never happen to any Jewish family, of infants who died suddenly. There were about six or seven cases. Thank you very much—am I not right? And the community, the chassidic community, was deeply shaken. What could they do? They held a meeting and sent a special emissary to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe spoke about three things. He spoke about unity—there had been a terrible dispute there, specifically among Chabad people

28:43 there. And the Rebbe spoke about television, and the Rebbe spoke about covering one’s hair, about wigs. They did take these things upon themselves then, and it helped in many ways. We have gathered here this evening not just to talk. I think everyone here should pass the message on to those who did not come tonight. The educators should convey it to the parents; rules should be established in the schools, in the seminary, in the high school. We must all do this together and stand firm. It isn’t simple; it isn’t easy. There are people who consider themselves too refined for this, and there are Amaleks of various kinds. Some people are embarrassed. Some say, “Remove the beam from your own eye—you tell me to remove the splinter from my teeth, but remove the beam from your own eye.” There is no shortage of objections. But together, we must not be deterred. I call on all the women gathered here this evening, and all the men who were here on Motzoei Shabbos, to stand with us like a fortified wall and not be deterred. Unity within our community on these issues—I have seen it in dozens of situations: when even a group of ten people rises up with a straightforward, pure intention to accomplish one thing, they succeed in breaking through the heavens. Boruch Hashem, educators and mothers are here from all the institutions in Kfar Chabad, from the daycare center to the seminary. The urgent need of the hour is to strengthen the spiritual life of the village. There is no greater preparation for greeting Moshiach than that. How will we greet Moshiach? With hair uncovered? With a television? With a newspaper? If the Rebbe said that Moshiach will come even with our boots unpolished, we can work out the rest for ourselves. Let’s take this to heart. Let’s be a little brave. I know it’s uncomfortable. One woman is embarrassed in front of another, and she in front of someone else, and one will say to the other, “Since when did she become so righteous? When did she suddenly become so strict?” Fanatical, in other words. But lives are at stake. The lives of every one of us are at stake. It concerns the children, life and livelihood of every one of us. Even those

32:15 who themselves behave as they should have a responsibility for others. If we belong to one community, they are responsible for the others and cannot say, “I’ve saved myself.” It isn’t enough to say to themselves, “Boruch Hashem, everything is fine in my home.” Halachah says that all Jews are responsible for one another. You may not be able to take responsibility for someone in Tel Aviv or Rishon LeZion. But your neighbor? Your son’s friend or your daughter’s friend? You are responsible for them, because you know what is going on there. You could have protested—even a hundred and one times, and more. After all, this is contagious. No one can say, “I’ve saved myself!” Because if a child’s friend at school is exposed to these things, he’ll pass them on to my child too. We have seen it happen in many cases: children who watched television, who saw the dirty newspaper, who heard an inappropriate program, came and told children who had not wanted to hear it and had not been exposed to it. So how can anyone say, “I’ve saved myself”? Aren’t you responsible for your children? The answer, then, is [unclear]. Of course, I mean by pleasant and peaceful means—not demonstrations, not blows, not stones. Through influence and a positive spirit. And as the Rebbe says in Hayom Yom, “Effective outreach does not return… does not…” How does it go? “It does not return empty-handed.” That is the way. If the Rebbe says it is possible to influence the whole world, to win over the whole world in preparation for our righteous Moshiach, and everyone believes it, then can we make Kfar Chabad what the Rebbe wants it to be? Of course we can. If we can win over the whole world, can’t we win over our own little corner? It is possible. But what does it take? A little

34:39 To do something. We must not be overwhelmed, we must not hide our heads in the sand, not be like an ostrich. We must see the problem. Diagnosis, the doctors say, is half the cure. And then try to solve it. I believe that with the help of all of you, with the help of the educators, we will be able to solve the problem and have an influence. For every neighbor, man or woman, let a few people come in with goodwill and explain how much her behavior goes against halachah, even inside the home. If she dresses immodestly and goes out in the street like that, it is a danger to her and a danger to her children. The Rebbe once said in yechidus to someone that if a person is somewhere outside our community, the danger is not as great as when he is here, within his own four cubits, and defiles them. “Who asked this of you, to trample My courtyards?” But what is the answer—can’t you restrain yourself? Can’t you act differently? Then leave here! No one is forcing you to stay. No one will lose out, boruch Hashem. Apartment prices in Kfar Chabad are rising every day. Anyone with an apartment built here can sell it at a profit and leave. But why? Why endanger the entire community? If, G-d forbid, we learned that some contagious disease—may it never happen—had entered the village, I remember, may we be spared, when there was a case of hepatitis here a few years ago. People rushed in droves to the health clinic for vaccinations. G-d forbid, how might they catch it? It mattered to each and every person. We are in a far, far worse situation, and because the enemy is spiritual and so hidden, the danger is a thousand times greater. I do not think I have exaggerated by even one word; perhaps it is greater still. There is much more that could be said. So, in practical terms, I am again calling on all the women educators: if you have

37:03 any suggestions about what to do and how to do what you want to do, I am ready to help as much as I can. As for financial assistance, if there is a practical proposal, I hope the village committee will help with it. I appeal to the director of the seminary, Rabbi Shmuel, who, boruch Hashem, has educated generations over forty years. In fact, the education of a large portion of our girls has been under his influence and the Rebbe’s blessing. Let us think together about what to do—but not stop at advice. Let us put it into practice and set standards. This is how a seminary student should look. This is how a high-school student should look, because she is a daughter of Kfar Chabad. Why is it that when girls from Kfar Chabad go elsewhere, people can point to them and say, “You can see she’s from Kfar Chabad”—and not mean it as a compliment? Why? I was thinking today: we live in a chassidic village, a chassidic village. Everyone knows how seriously chassidim regard the beard. If someone touches his beard, it is treated as something reaching to the heavens—even though, unfortunately, there is something to discuss on that subject today too. But why is touching the beard so severe? There are great Torah scholars in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem who trim their beards, and others there who have no beard at all. The reason is that the Tzemach Tzedek rules with extraordinary severity on this, both according to the revealed Torah and according to the Zohar, because it is connected with the flow of blessing through the thirteen attributes of the beard, the thirteen attributes of mercy. Yet that same Tzemach Tzedek rules just as severely about a single hair of a woman’s head showing outside her headscarf. The same Tzemach Tzedek, in a different section of his responsa—not Orach Chaim, but Yoreh Deah. The same Rebbe, with no distinction. Of course, there is more to add regarding

39:57 unity. I will not go on, because others have already spoken here before me. Just one point about unity in connection with Chanukah, which I saw in a sicha of the Rebbe. It is so interesting, and none of the commentators explains it this way. Perhaps it relates to our subject and to the holiness of Chanukah. We know that on Chanukah there was a war between the Maccabees and the Greek army. But there was also a large group among the Jewish people called the Hellenizers. What happened to them after the victory? The books and histories do not say. Did they take two-thirds of our people and sentence them to the four forms of capital punishment—kill them, burn them? They were Hellenizers; they had gone so far as to practice actual idolatry. What happened to them? It says that Yehudah the Maccabee won, purified the Sanctuary, restored the Beis Hamikdash, captured Jerusalem, and drove the Romans—the Greeks—out of Eretz Yisroel. He had come there from Modi’in. But what happened to all those Hellenizers? Where are they? Where did they disappear to? Did the earth swallow them? I saw a sicha in which the Rebbe explains it this way: In “Ve’al Hanissim,” we say, “You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton into the hands of those who study Your Torah.” The Rebbe explains: “You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak.” Who were the mighty? The Greeks. Who were the weak? Yehudah the Maccabee. “The many into the hands of the few”—who were they? The Greeks, delivered into the hands of the few, Mattisyahu and his sons. “The impure into the hands of the pure”—again, the Greeks into the hands of the pure, Mattisyahu’s men. But “the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton into the hands of those who study Your Torah” does not refer to the Greeks. It refers to those who had separated themselves from the Jewish people at that time, the Hellenizers. They were the wicked whom You delivered into the hands of the righteous. And the wanton—those who deliberately sought to sin and lead others to sin—You delivered into the hands of those who study Your Torah. The question is: what did those righteous Torah scholars do? Did

42:22 they take those wicked people and round them up? Did they kill them? They were chassidim: they drew them close and made them chassidim. That is what “You delivered the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton into the hands of those who study Your Torah” means. You delivered them into their hands, and they knew how to bring them close, how to raise them in holiness. That is the greatness of Chanukah: the unity that came about among the Jewish people, unity in holiness throughout every part of the people. There had been a bitter argument among the Jewish people over how they should conduct themselves: like the Hellenizers or like the Maccabees? The Maccabees won over the Jewish people themselves. It is very hard to find a case in history where, in an argument between Jews, one side admits the other was right. Jews are not so quickly convinced that the other side is right. But on Chanukah, those who had initially thought otherwise—perhaps we should bring in a little reform, perhaps a little of the spirit of the street, G-d forbid—came with pure faith and said, “You were right. You won.” “Whoever is for Hashem, come to me!” [unclear] The purpose of the Jewish people is for the Shechinah and holiness to dwell among us. That is the victory of Chanukah, and that is the unity that came about among the Jewish people. I join in everything said here earlier about unity—unity within the system. One of the most serious concerns here is lashon hara and gossip, things against which the Torah gives many prohibitions. Certainly, certainly. The Rebbe always said that unity is one of the foundations of Kfar Chabad. In the name of the Tzemach Tzedek: “Where there is unity, there is blessing.” I want to announce one more thing concerning the transportation discussed here. I said this, and a number of people called me about transportation for the children. From now on—that is, starting Monday—there will be a different service. The previous arrangement, and the person who provided it, are finished. I

44:29 told him he no longer has a place here in Kfar Chabad. Let that be clear and known to everyone. It should have stopped a week ago, but things were not yet organized, and it involves various parties and young children who are difficult to transport. Boruch Hashem, the transportation is being arranged, and anyone who can help should arrange transportation.

00:01 Speaker 1 Put that in my name everywhere. It has no place within our four cubits. I want to conclude with a blessing for everyone who came here this evening. May Hashem help us strengthen one another and grow stronger together, and with Hashem’s help, may we merit the revelation of the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach. And let us say together: Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu VeRabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach Leolam Vaed.

00:36 Speaker 2 Excuse me for taking the microphone again. I didn’t want to go into details, but I think there are two brief, very important points that everyone here should pay attention to. First, I have a request for all the mothers. The boundaries have become somewhat blurred. Today we see a new concept that’s emerged. They call it “ChabKook”—Chabad and Kook together. Because the Rebbe spoke about the integrity of the Land from a halachic standpoint, as a matter of saving lives, it has turned into something nationalistic. Mothers, I ask you: under no circumstances allow your daughters to go to demonstrations alone. Only if the mother herself also—what? I’m not talking now about Chabad politics. I mean even if Moledet were to organize a demonstration. I wasn’t talking about that sphere. I ask you not to let your daughters go to demonstrations alone. And I would add: the same applies to activities that come under the guise of holiness—Chassidic music and so on. There have been many breaches in that area as well, extremely serious ones. Perhaps one more brief comment: the rabbi has laid out the difficult problems here. Our Sages say: adolescence can lead to a great deal, and bad company can lead to a great deal. Sometimes emotional distress sends out signals. If there were a group among the people of Kfar Chabad that took responsibility for handling such cases—when they see someone showing signs of distress, they could catch it at the right time—it might be possible to prevent many bad things. What happened has happened. But looking to the future, we must address not only spiritual problems, which certainly come first. Sometimes material hardships can also lead to bad outcomes, and those, too, should be dealt with in time.

03:47 Speaker 3 We have heard difficult words, words that came from the heart and have undoubtedly entered the heart. We hope there will be a follow-through, that these words will be translated into good resolutions that are carried out in practice, and that we will see the results on the ground. We would like to take this opportunity to wish the rabbi of Kfar Chabad much nachas from us, and that Kfar Chabad should prosper and flourish materially and spiritually. May everything that needs correcting be corrected, and may we be able to report only good things, good news, and good tidings. The days of Chanukah are remembered for mesirus nefesh. We are called upon to show mesirus nefesh, and during the days of Chanukah, two women showed mesirus nefesh. One was Chana, who gave her life for the education of her sons, for raising her children within the home—so much so that her sons’ names are not known or mentioned. The other was Yehudis, who represents the woman who also goes out into the world for the sake of the people, for the integrity of the Jewish people as a whole. Let us learn from the mesirus nefesh of Chana and Yehudis. With Hashem’s help, in these days, when we resolve to show mesirus nefesh, we will have heavenly assistance that will be felt on the ground, and we will succeed. I will conclude the rabbi’s remarks with a few lines from a letter of the Rebbe from 5714. In this letter, the Rebbe calls educators and those who influence others shluchim of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I will read it in his words: “These educators and people of influence should regard themselves as the shluchim of Hakadosh Boruch Hu in a particular place and at a particular time, to illuminate, refine, purify, and sanctify their surroundings with the lamp of a mitzvah, the light of Torah, and the luminary within the Torah.” And the Rebbe adds, “This luminary has the power to bring back to the right path even those who have strayed to the furthest extreme. As our Sages said: ‘Nothing stands in the way of the will.’” So let us set out with determination and mesirus nefesh, and with Hashem’s help, we will succeed. We ask Rabbi Uri Ben Shachar, a member of Kfar Chabad’s spiritual committee who does so much for the education of Kfar Chabad’s children, to address us. Please.

07:00 Speaker 4 Good evening, everyone. I really don’t have much to add to what the previous speakers have said. I only want to share with you excerpts from a yechidus in 5714, when one of the Chabad community members was with the Rebbe. The Rebbe spoke to him then about two main points. Although these points have been mentioned here, I want to present what the Rebbe said, translated into Hebrew, of course. The Rebbe told him then—it was in Elul 5714—“Wearing a sheitel affects children and grandchildren, livelihood and health, as stated in the Zohar, volume three: it affects children, life, and sustenance.” The Rebbe then adds, “There is no room to ask why one woman or another does not wear a sheitel and does not do what she should, yet we see that she is blessed in all these things—with children, life, and sustenance.” The Rebbe says: First, we do not know exactly what is happening in her life, because not everyone tells us precisely what is going on in their home, what troubles they have there. To us, it seems that she is blessed with everything. Second, the Rebbe says, why are you looking at someone else? You should do what Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands you. And if Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands you to do this—in this case, to cover your hair—then do it. The Rebbe says: Would we want to resemble the non-Jews, who are more numerous than we are and whom we see succeeding? Would we Jews want to imitate them, too, because they succeed? If we had done that, then, rachmana litzlan, there would long since have been no trace of the Jewish people. And the Rebbe told him: When a Jewish woman walks down the street without a sheitel, there is no difference between her and other women. But when she wears a

09:47 Speaker 4 sheitel, people can point to her as an observant Jewish woman. And the Rebbe asks: Whom is she embarrassed before? Society? So-and-so? What will they say about her—that she is a woman who observes the faith of Moshe? What disgrace is there in that? Is anyone asking this woman to show mesirus nefesh? And the Rebbe says—I mean, he didn’t use the words “I understand,” but he says: When there is nothing to eat at home, rachmana litzlan, the children are hungry for bread, and the father is called upon to show mesirus nefesh to keep Shabbos, which will certainly cause him financial losses, while the family’s financial situation is very difficult—that is called mesirus nefesh. And that Jew would certainly agree to make that sacrifice rather than desecrate Shabbos. But here, what mesirus nefesh is involved? The reason people don’t want to wear a sheitel, the Rebbe says, is very simple: they do not understand its importance. And if they do not understand its importance, why not rely on Hakadosh Boruch Hu in this matter? The Rebbe also spoke about the difference between wearing a sheitel and wearing a headscarf. He says: The difference between a sheitel and a headscarf is that when a woman wears a sheitel, she has no choice but to keep it on her head even when she is at a gathering with certain people. But if she has a headscarf, she can remove it if she finds herself at such a gathering. When she has a sheitel on her head, however, even if President Eisenhower—the president of the United States at the time—were to walk in, she would not take it off. With a headscarf, on the other hand, she could easily remove it. And the Rebbe says—and continues; I’m not reading all of it—she might argue, “All right, I’ll wear a headscarf and conduct myself properly in every respect.” The Rebbe says: Certainly, if that is what happens, it is very good. But experience has shown

12:27 Speaker 4 That is not exactly so. And another thing: Why put oneself to such a test? Every day we pray and say, “Do not bring us into temptation.” So how can someone take such a test upon herself? “And who was greater,” the Rebbe says, “than King David?” The Gemara says of him that he had no yetzer hara, because he had killed it through fasting. Yet King David did not withstand a test; he stumbled. That is one point, and those are the things the Rebbe said then about wigs, because the situation in that regard was serious at the time. But today, if you’ll allow me, the problem is not only wigs but modesty in general, as the Rabbi also mentioned earlier. I just want to go over it briefly. Where has anyone heard of a woman going bareheaded in Kfar Chabad? The latest hats that have come into fashion here cover two handbreadths—they, excuse me, expose two handbreadths and cover one. Besides that, there is also the clothing. There are women whose appearance in the heart of Kfar Chabad is a disgrace. A real disgrace! You walk down the street and, without wanting to—absolutely without wanting to—you encounter a deep slit, a slit that exposes everything. Is that called modesty? Aren’t they ashamed? Whom are they trying to impress here in Kfar Chabad with that large slit? And modesty is not just a matter of being fully covered. A lack of modesty does not necessarily mean a lack of coverage. When someone wears vulgar, cheap clothing, clothing that reminds us of Paris and, G-d forbid, even Tel Aviv, it may be covered on every side, but it is still very cheap clothing. Must a Jewish woman dress that way? Is that called modesty? So in 5714 this affliction apparently was not widespread enough to require action on this issue. But today it is not only wigs,

15:26 Speaker 4 today it is also clothing! And that clothing gives us away. Who are we? They explained it right away; it was said here. People immediately recognize a resident of Kfar Chabad, and not always in a good way. Of course, this is only a small minority. Not everyone is like that, G-d forbid. But that minority points to some illness, some decay. The second thing the Rebbe said to him concerns television as well. This is a breach—and I am quoting the Rebbe—an enormous breach, without parallel. Even non-Jews have already spoken out openly against television, which wreaks havoc on their children’s souls, and they are looking for ways to overcome the harmful effects of this device. Woe to us when Jews have to learn from non-Jews. The Rebbe says there is something else here. The Rebbe again mentioned television because video did not yet exist then. The Rebbe says: Someone may decide to watch only religious programs on television, programs that everyone agrees are permissible to watch. That will be his decision. Then the question arises, says the Rebbe: How can those parents guarantee that their children will not also see things they are forbidden to see? If the parents may watch a television program, won’t the children think they may watch whatever programs they want? The Rebbe mentioned this particularly with regard to the United States, where children do not obey their parents. Unfortunately, that is not only true in the United States; it is true here in Kfar Chabad too. And who can guarantee, the Rebbe says, that the parents themselves will not be tempted to watch harmful programs as well? Today they will watch a permissible program; tomorrow they will watch another kind, and little by little it becomes completely permissible in their eyes. And the Rebbe says there is another aspect to consider. Suppose someone really has decided, “I will watch only good things on television,” and we can believe him. Fine, let us say he is strong enough not to watch anything else.

18:15 Speaker 4 Then the Rebbe says: When people know that this Jew is G-d-fearing, a chossid with a full beard, and he has a television at home, someone else does not know that the chossid has decided to watch only good things. He knows nothing about that. All he knows is: this chossid has a television, so it must be permissible. Then I’ll do the same. Why not? Why not? And the first Jew’s example makes it seem permissible. People ask, the Rebbe says, why does so-and-so have a television? He is known to be G-d-fearing, even a Chassidic Jew, so surely one can do as he does. And the Rebbe says about this: It is like a person who has 248 limbs and organs, but not all of them are always in perfect health. Someone may suffer from trouble with his eyes, his ears or other parts of his body. Would anyone say—and these are the Rebbe’s words, not mine—that because so-and-so has an eye condition, he too wants to have the same condition? Would anyone say that? No one is perfect, says the Rebbe. Everyone tries to observe Torah and mitzvos properly. But why learn specifically the negative things from someone else? Is that what you need to learn from him? And the Rebbe says something else. Well, nowadays people do not even say this anymore: No one who has a television at home would say he bought it to increase his fear of Heaven or to acquire good character traits. That is not why he has it. And the Rebbe continues—and I will finish with this: In years past, says the Rebbe, people were careful not to walk past a church. They would always teach their children: If you are walking along and there is a church on your side of the street, cross to the other side so you do not encounter the cross and the other things there. Today, says the Rebbe, people bring

20:53 Speaker 4 the church into the home, the priest into the home, the cross into the home. So what do you expect? And the Rebbe asks him: Try to set things right in the city where you live. You may even begin in New York, because these things need to be set right here too. Dear educators, much has been said here, and there is not much to add. We know one thing: As a close-knit community, a homogeneous group, a village founded for holiness and purity, we have recently seen a certain decline here. We must stop this affliction. Our Sages say: “If one member of a group dies, the entire group should be concerned.” Last week, Kfar Chabad lost a precious soul. I do not know whether we can say with clean hands, “Our hands did not shed this blood,” in light of what was presented here in Dr. Erez’s name. The extent of illness in Kfar Chabad is entirely out of proportion to the size of its population, and that must teach us something. As we know from Chassidus, from the teachings of Chassidus—and the Rebbe spoke about this a great deal—everything physical stems from the spiritual. If there are physical afflictions in Kfar Chabad, they have undoubtedly come because of the spiritual afflictions we have here. Just as the spiritual afflictions bring about physical ones, we have the power to stop this affliction if only we pay attention to it. If only we tell the spiritual destroyer, “Stop,” then may we merit that the precious soul we lost last week will be the last, and may we all merit, from now on, each and every one of us, to do whatever we can within our own four cubits to restore Kfar Chabad to health, both spiritually and physically.

24:16 Speaker 5 Thank you for those words. Chanukah is the festival of the candle, the festival of light, the festival of the spirit. Let us hope that, with Hashem’s help, we will kindle the mitzvah candle, spread the light of Torah, and see the spirit triumph over the material. Many thanks to all our distinguished guests. And let us hope that, since action is what matters most, there will indeed be action on the ground. Yes, of course. Yes. After—at the end. Leave that for now. Leave him alone. Yes. No. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates in his memoirs that when he was a small child, he innocently thought the word “singing” was synonymous with “praying.” Why? Because when he saw his father, the Rebbe Rashab, daven, his father would daven with a niggun; he sang a great deal during davening. The Rebbe Rashab would also sing during meals, between one course and the next. Once, his uncle, the Raza, asked him, “Tell me, what is your father doing?” He answered, “He’s eating and praying now.” In other words, he saw him eating and singing. He understood “singing” to mean “praying.” So he said he was eating and praying, because to him, singing and praying were the same thing. After the difficult things we have heard, we want to pray through a niggun. We’ll ask Rabbi Brodsky, who is here with us, to sing a Chassidic niggun for us, and with our mouths and in our hearts we will offer a prayer to the Master of the Universe that we and our descendants may engage in Your Torah always, all our days. Please. These words of the Rebbe sum up the whole subject in the best and most beautiful way. Shh. Well, this was at a gathering of teachers in the city of Chicago, on 11 Shvat 5702. You, teachers, must always remember what treasures have been entrusted to you. All material treasures—gold, precious stones, and the most magnificent works of art—are as nothing compared with the priceless treasures... Shh. Of Hashem’s gift, which the children’s parents have entrusted to you. Every Jewish child, regardless of origin or background, is the greatest treasure,

28:24 Speaker 5 not only to their parents and family, but to the Jewish people as a whole. In His holy prophecy to the prophet Yeshayahu, Hakadosh Boruch Hu describes the people of—Hashem’s people, the Jewish people, as a vineyard. The Jewish people are Hashem’s vineyard. How wonderful and beautiful that name sounds, “Hashem’s vineyard,” and how strikingly well it suits the Jewish people. It suits the Jewish people to an extraordinary degree—a name that only Hakadosh Boruch Hu could give them. These are not my own words, so I dare ask you to listen. This is a quotation from the Frierdiker Rebbe. In a vineyard and an orchard, there are different fruits. The plants differ in height, branches, leaves, and fruit. The fruits differ in appearance, fragrance, taste, and even their skins. Those who know botany understand how much effort it takes to plant an orchard, and how much attention must be given to each tender sapling so that it takes root and grows properly. It must be watered on time and protected from pests and harmful winds. The gardener labors for many years before he has the privilege of seeing the small plant grow into a strong, healthy tree that bears good fruit for him. Then, when the tree bears fruit, the gardener finds complete satisfaction in knowing that his long years of hard work have been rewarded with a good, lasting yield. The Jewish people are Hashem’s orchard, and you, teachers, are its gardeners. You must clear the garden of stones and debris. You must work hard to plant fruit trees in Hashem’s orchard. You must put all your knowledge, understanding, and strength into helping the saplings take root. You must tie and support the tender plants properly so that harmful winds do not bend them out of shape. You must devote the utmost attention to protecting them from the pests and worms of heresy and the like. Your work, teachers, demands understanding and ability, and a measure of sacrifice and mesiras nefesh. But in return, you will merit spiritual satisfaction

31:33 Speaker 5 when you see, with Hashem’s help, your tender saplings become large, healthy trees, laden with fruit, bearing choice, delicious fruit and bringing beauty to Hashem’s orchard. The fate of the schoolchildren also determines the fate of their parents and of the Jewish people as a whole, and all this is in the hands of the teachers. You, teachers, must understand the magnitude of your responsibility for the fate of the Jewish people as a whole, and all this is in the hands of the teachers. The religious, moral, and spiritual life or death of the Jewish people as a whole is in your hands. When teachers provide a proper Jewish education, the institutions where children study and are educated in the way of Torah and mitzvos are precious and holy—and the reverse is also true. The administrators and teachers of proper Jewish education are the pride of the Jewish people. Be blessed. Those words speak for themselves. And from education to smiles—and really, there is no education without a smile—we’ll ask teacher Devorah Raskin and a group of students to present a performance for us, uh, educational... What exactly is it called? What? Lighthearted—lighthearted educational sketches. Please. We’ll have to turn to face towards