Vayishlach: 5784 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a wonderful explanation: why do chassidim eat black porridge ('shvartze kashe') on 19 Kislev? At the conclusion of the Daf Yomi class by Rabbi…

00:00 Speaker 1 Rabbi Sonnenfeld in honor of 19 Kislev. We are on the eve of 19 Kislev, the Festival of Liberation. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avos says that one who repeats something in the name of the person who said it brings redemption to the world, as it says, “And Esther told the king in Mordechai’s name.” So I’ll say this in the name of the person who said it. Yesterday there was a farbrengen here in the central shul. Rabbi Sandy—Sander—Wilshansky, the Rebbe’s shliach in Milan, Italy, led the farbrengen, and he said something beautiful that’s worth repeating. The custom is to eat porridge on 19 Kislev. It’s called black porridge, in Yiddish, shvartze kashe. Why do we eat it? Because on two occasions, the Alter Rebbe was saved by eating porridge. Once, they wanted to force him to eat, because the Alter Rebbe did not want to eat the non-kosher food in prison. When the prison official saw them trying to force him, the Alter Rebbe was in great danger. So he said, “Leave him alone. I’ll speak with him.” He promised the Alter Rebbe that he would get kosher food from a Jew and bring it to him. It was black porridge, made from buckwheat. That was one time. The other was when the Alter Rebbe was young, a young married man, and would spend a long time davening. He would arrive at his father-in-law’s house after everyone had finished the Shabbos meal. His father-in-law was not a chossid, and he couldn’t stand it. So one time he locked away all the food, so that when the Alter Rebbe came back from davening, there would be nothing left for him. The Alter Rebbe arrived after finishing his lengthy davening and wanted to make Kiddush. There was nothing. Everything had been locked away—no wine, nothing. So he went down to the cellar. One of the things his father-in-law did was make vodka, spirits. Down in the cellar were barrels of alcohol, so he took some of it. Now,

02:18 Speaker 1 his father-in-law had hidden and locked away the cup, too. But there was a mug there that they used to measure the alcohol. So he filled that mug with alcohol and made Kiddush over it. He drank, and he was particular about drinking not just, uh—

02:36 Speaker 2 Most of a cup.

02:37 Speaker 1 But most of the cup. Not just most of a revi’is, but most of the cup—and it was a large vessel.

02:42 Speaker 2 Of that cup. Wow.

02:44 Speaker 1 So he drank most of the cup and was in danger, because there was nothing to eat. He was really in danger. Then he found the pot in which they had cooked porridge, with some leftovers still in it. He scraped out what was left in the pot and ate it, and that saved him. That’s why we eat porridge on 19 Kislev. But the question is, Chabad custom generally isn’t particular about foods. For example, on Rosh Hashanah, Jewish communities eat the symbolic foods—beets, leeks and dates—and say the yehi ratzon prayers. In Chabad, we aren’t particular about that. We eat the head of a fish, but we aren’t particular about the other foods. The same is true of other customs involving food; Chabad isn’t particular about them. Yet here, suddenly, we are particular about eating kashe. Why? Why specifically kashe? On 19 Kislev, Rosh Hashanah, we make a point of eating kashe. Why are we particular about it here? He gave a beautiful answer. Kashe means porridge, but it has another meaning too: a kashe is also a question. He said that there are questions in the teachings of Chassidus. The maamarim that the Alter Rebbe and the other Rebbes would say usually begin with a question, which is then explained. But there are questions where the main point is the question itself. For example, some maamarim begin: “To understand why the soul descended into the body here in this world.” The soul was previously “a veritable part of G-d above,” beneath the Throne of Glory. Then the soul descended into this world and was clothed in a physical body. Why did the soul descend? There are explanations that this descent is for the sake of an ascent, and so on. But the main point here is the question. What does that mean? A person needs to keep asking: Why did the soul descend into the body? That’s the main thing. We need to live with that question. Similarly,

04:48 Speaker 1 there is another question: In Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, the Alter Rebbe explains the verse, “Forever, Hashem, Your word stands firm in the heavens.” Every created being, everything in creation, has the word of Hashem that gives it life. So the question asked there is: Why does the world appear to have an independent existence? Why isn’t this tree nullified before the G-dliness that gives it life? The Alter Rebbe ends chapter 3 with that question. People ask why he ends the chapter this way. The answer is that this question needs to be asked all the time. A person must constantly ask why the world appears to exist in its own right, with an existence of its own, instead of being completely nullified. That’s the custom of eating kashe. The point is that there are questions we need to live with all the time. And we go from one Geulah to the next: from the liberation of 19 Kislev to the liberation we now have with Chanukah. May we merit the true and complete Geulah soon, amen.

05:50 Speaker 3 Amen. Thank you, thank you!