Livenyomin Omar | Episode 6: Rabbi Arik Malkieli

Interviewer: And as they say, there’s no teacher like experience. You hear a great deal. I have to say, I’m not a personal counselor or a therapist. Once, after a lecture, a couple came over and said, “We want to come and talk to the rabbi.” But what can I do? I have a soft heart. After once or twice, I said, “Friends, I can’t handle it. I can’t. It hurts too much.” You need a strong heart to hear all the complaints and the crying and the...

>> I don’t know, I tend to...

>> So did you refer them to someone?

>> Yes, I asked them. When I just come in, give a talk, make an impact and leave, that’s one thing. But being personally involved is more complicated.

>> Much more complicated. So let me ask you anyway: many shluchim ask themselves this, and it may apply to you too, with lectures in the evening and so on...

>> There’s a conflict. On the one hand, there’s success in shlichus, and the more devoted a person is, the more successful he seems to be. On the other hand, that can mean neglecting family life—one’s wife and children.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: It really isn’t a simple challenge. A person has to keep asking himself: Am I dividing my time properly? First of all, when I go to lead farbrengens or give classes and the like, I often take my children along. My older children still remember it, and it gave them a lot of confidence too. They remember their father speaking.

But beyond that, there’s something called quality time. Even if once a week you take a child out, buy him something, go somewhere with him—those things matter. A person can be home for a long time without that time being meaningful. Take your wife out for coffee; go away with her for a night. Incidentally, there’s a very interesting letter from the Rebbe about taking a break. The Rebbe calls it a honeymoon.

Interviewer: The Rebbe calls it that? The Rebbe uses that expression?

Guest: Yes. Apparently a couple asked the Rebbe about problems with shalom bayis. There’s a letter in the Rebbe’s own handwriting saying that if they went on a second honeymoon—yes, the Rebbe says “a second honeymoon”—then all the problems would disappear at their root. So quality time can resolve things. Both as a couple and with the children, you need to set aside that kind of time and give a child the good feeling that, at that moment, his father is his and his alone. It has an effect.

Interviewer: I want to ask you about another quality that’s inseparable from your personality and impossible to overlook.

>> It’s the joy for life that radiates from you. When people see you—those who know you in our community, and many do—you’re always smiling. Always. First, I want to ask whether that comes naturally and easily to you, or whether you have to work at it.

Guest: Part of it is genetic, first of all. Yes, genetic too; there’s no getting around that. But it also comes from an understanding that develops in your mind: greeting a fellow Jew with a warm expression is an integral part of serving Hashem. Sometimes a person thinks serving Hashem happens only in shul, standing before Hakadosh Boruch Hu in prayer. He doesn’t realize that saying hello or good morning to a fellow Jew, lifting his spirits, saying something kind to him—that’s serving Hashem in the greatest way.

Sometimes someone comes to tell you something. Once, a woman called me and said, “Listen, I read your book.” I’ve published several books—five books, baruch Hashem. How that began is a story in itself, but never mind. What’s interesting is that my first book came about thanks to...

Interviewer: What’s the book called?

Guest: “Chassidus at Eye Level.” Once, I wrote an article about Tu BiShvat and sent it to Kfar Chabad magazine. Someone there told me, “Listen, from now on you’re writing every week.” I said, “What? I’m going to write every week?” You see, that too is a matter of making a decision. You start writing, and then you keep writing, the words begin to flow, Hakadosh Boruch Hu helps, and a book comes out of it.

The first book was called “Chassidus at Eye Level.” It collected all the articles that had appeared in Kfar Chabad—about 70 of them. Quite a few people wrote to me about it. One woman who read it, a Charedi woman from Bnei Brak, said, “Listen, I want to come with my husband to talk about our relationship, about shalom bayis.” I said, “What? No...” She said, “I have to come.” All right, come.

We met in Kfar Chabad. This woman arrived—a righteous, pious woman, wearing a wig with a hat over it, an older Chabad woman. Her husband came with a long white beard and really looked like a distinguished rabbi. Listen, the moment he opened his mouth, I was shocked by the way he spoke to his wife: so crudely, with such a lack of respect. I thought to myself—I almost told him, “Listen, let me tell you something, just between us: as far as I’m concerned, you can stop davening. If that’s how you speak to your wife, where’s your service of Hashem?”

People think serving Hashem consists of certain very specific things. But first and foremost, it’s found in the simple way one person treats another. Make the effort to greet someone, smile at him, listen attentively, say a kind word. That is serving Hashem in every sense. Once a person understands that, he invests in it. He realizes that this is his service of Hashem.

Interviewer: Were you able to help them somehow, to give them room to breathe?

Guest: No, my friend. I told you—one meeting, and that was it. But I should pay them for that meeting. It brought home to me just how mistaken a person can be about himself.

Interviewer: What you’re saying reminds me of the kuntres “Principles of Education and Guidance.” It describes so beautifully how mistaken a person can be about himself. It says that every person is convinced he’s exceptionally wise. A foolish person thinks he’s... It gives about ten examples. It’s remarkable how it describes them. An ugly person thinks he’s beautiful. Suddenly you see just how much a person can deceive himself. Serving Hashem requires making a cheshbon hanefesh, an honest accounting of oneself. The question is: what are you examining?

Guest: A person needs to know that everyone has to make his own cheshbon hanefesh. The Rebbe said: What should your cheshbon hanefesh be about? Thinking about your students. A person needs to ask himself, first of all, how he behaves toward his wife and children. Rabbi Chaim Vital says in the name of the Arizal that the way a person treats his children and the members of his household is the way Heaven treats him.

>> These are matters of tremendous importance, yet people take them lightly. That’s what I mean about greeting people warmly. Whether it comes naturally to you or not, you have to work at it: say something kind to a fellow Jew, smile at him.

Interviewer: Even when you have problems?

Guest: Even longstanding ones. A person gets up in the morning and has problems—problems with his bank account, all sorts of problems. Look, Chovos Halevavos says, “The chossid’s sorrow is in his heart, while his joy is on his face.”

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: Is there anyone who... There’s no person... I’ll tell you: I’ve sometimes met people who seem very successful. Then you start talking with them. Speak heart to heart, frankly, with anyone for fifteen minutes, and you’ll stop envying him. Every person carries burdens that go on and on. And sometimes, with what? A kind word, a smile—you lift him out of his own hell a little, even if only for a moment. There’s nothing like it. Our Father is happy; Hakadosh Boruch Hu is happy when you bring joy to His children. You can’t put a price on that.

I once had a friend who wasn’t Chabad. When I’d ask him, “Shall we go for a run?” he’d say, “[unclear] pack?”

Interviewer: What pack? Yes.

Guest: But this is an approach you yourself have to work on, and it hasn’t been easy.

Interviewer: Let’s say, speaking quietly about yourself, you had an experience right here in Kfar Chabad, after Shabbos, once with a group of young people. I think it was...

Guest: Yes, I had a heart attack. And it was a great miracle too; this is truly the place to thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

Interviewer: It was a Chabad on Campus Shabbos.

Guest: It really is an interesting story. There was going to be a tour of Kfar Chabad toward the end of Shabbos. I wasn’t leading the tour; I had given them a lecture and was with them.

Interviewer: You walked with them along the paths of the village?

The guest: Yes. And I was off to the side, thinking, anything could happen and no one would notice. What happened was truly remarkable—it was really a miracle from Heaven. Suddenly one of the students came over to me and started asking questions. He practically attached himself to me, forgive the expression, like a pest, asking questions that had nothing to do with anything. And I answered him politely, as you said. I remember thinking to myself, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu, why did You stick me with this person? What do I need him for?” It really felt so out of place. Then, while I was talking to him, I suddenly felt unwell. Because I was in the middle of talking to him, I said, “Listen, I can’t talk,” and sat down at the side. He noticed right away, and we were able to deal with it in time. Baruch Hashem, the damage was minimal. So you see there, too, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu provides the cure before the blow.

>> So, as you said, everyone has problems—medical problems, all kinds of problems, from here to tomorrow. Every person does. But as the Rebbe writes in many places, the question isn’t the facts; it’s your interpretation of the facts, how you relate to them.

The interviewer: And that’s our shlichus. You’re invited to speak to many shluchim in different communities. From your perspective, how would you describe a successful shliach?

The guest: Yes. First of all, it really is wonderful to visit shluchim. It’s wonderful to see how much people love the shluchim, and how special the shluchim are. Look, I’ve also gotten to know many rabbis and speakers from other circles. You see what the Frierdiker Rebbe said: [unclear]. Our warmth is greater than theirs; that’s just how it is. I mean, there are wonderful people in every circle, truly, and we have a lot to learn from them. There’s no shame in that.

The guest: But there’s something about the way every Chabad chossid, every shliach of the Rebbe, carries himself. It’s a fiery imprint the Rebbe left on us, whether we want it or not, whether we speak or remain silent. It’s there in every Chabad chossid, and we mustn’t let the name down; we have to make use of that ability. So when you go to Chabad Houses, you see how the shliach gives of himself for Hashem and for people. Look, there’s always room to improve. You can always grow the community, and you can work toward a community with more people of substance. You have to reach out, not look only for people who are struggling. Helping them is good; it’s chesed.

The interviewer: Right. At a Chabad House, I would expect you to build a community. It shouldn’t be that everyone in town who is broken ends up at your door. You can help them as part of what you do, but in the community itself, you need to bring in the serious people, the city’s leading people. Bring them in. A sign of success is that you can engage respected people—not just respected people, but people with minds and hearts, serious people. If you walk into a house of Hashem and see only broken people, that’s a bit of a chillul Hashem.

The guest: Yes.

The interviewer: And if a shliach who watches your classes and lectures asks you, “What, in your opinion, makes for a successful class?”

The guest: Yes. I’ll tell you what I do when I give a class, say, in a community or for a group of people. I never try to finish an entire maamar in one sitting, or an entire sicha—even when I learn with a chavrusa. When you’re giving a class, don’t rush anywhere. You don’t have to. If you’re teaching Likkutei Torah, you don’t have to finish the entire section on the parsha. You can read just ten lines. The main thing is to explain them properly and bring them into people’s lives.

In Likkutei Torah, there are often short maamarim each week—not long ones, shorter ones—with incredible ideas for life. The shliach first has to learn and understand what’s written and take it to heart, and then convey it, not read it like a parrot. Explain it so people understand it with their own minds and can repeat it when they get home. That’s one of the tests: can your people repeat anything they heard, even one thing? Tell me one thing you heard, something you can share with your family, your children, your wife—an insight for life.

I see you quite often in the shul in our community, as it were, when people are called on to give a sermon or share a sicha of the Rebbe before the weekly parsha, before the Torah reading. Some people give the whole sicha, beginning, middle and end. You prefer to share a short idea with a message for life and leave it at that. In other words, you don’t even use all the time you’re given for it, because...

The interviewer: The Pele Yoetz says something interesting. He says it’s better for people to ask you, “Why did you cut it short?”...

The guest: ...than for them to ask, “Why did you go on so long?” And there’s a very powerful vort from the Meiri on Pirkei Avos—we’re saying Pirkei Avos now—about “Make a fence around the Torah.” On the face of it, it means to establish safeguards and boundaries. But he explains “a fence around the Torah” in a very interesting way. He says there are people, preachers, who start speaking and don’t stop. And our Sages say: No! “Make a fence around the Torah”—put a limit on your Torah talk. When you speak, know how to limit yourself, both in time and in depth. Don’t give people more than they can handle. You need to keep things short.

It’s like food: if a person eats too much, it becomes excessive eating. A person should eat a little and digest it properly, with the right nutrients. The same is true of Torah. When you repeat a sicha, always share a short idea with a message for life, with an example or an analogy, on a level people can relate to, so they don’t grow tired of it but say, “Really...”

The interviewer: Leave them wanting more.

The guest: Exactly. More.

The interviewer: One of the things that defines you, for those who don’t know you, is your love of Torah. You have quite a few chavrusas; even I, in my humble way, have a daily study session with you, baruch Hashem. So the question is, first on a practical level: how does one acquire a love of Torah? It isn’t simple. People go out into the world—young married men our age, or a little younger than us, men in their twenties and thirties, entering the workforce. They’re still at a stage where they feel they have to accomplish as much as possible, and suddenly you tell them, “Listen, a regular study session is important. Set times for Torah study matter.”

The guest: Well, that’s a good question. Look, the truth is that everyone has a love of Torah. If someone doesn’t, it may simply be that he hasn’t learned Torah. Even if he sat in yeshiva, that doesn’t mean he learned Torah; he may have just heard texts being read. Learning means understanding it thoroughly with your natural intellect. The Alter Rebbe says in chapter 5, “He studies it thoroughly, using his intellect, until it is grasped by his intellect and united with it.” Those are very powerful words about a person learning, including learning Gemara.

We learn together, and I, for example, am a very big fan of Schottenstein. Why? Because... all the opposition people voice to it is just... Forgive me for putting it bluntly: in my opinion, someone who opposes it is just [unclear]. What did the rabbi say? It comes from roshei yeshiva who feel it’s beneath their dignity for their students to open one. A person feels it’s beneath his dignity. I think that a working person who wants to learn Torah should certainly open a Schottenstein. First of all, he understands exactly what’s going on. When you look at a blurry picture, you don’t enjoy it. When the picture is clear and sharp—people today pay a lot of money for screens so the picture will be sharp. When you learn and understand, you also have notes that give you a broader, deeper understanding.

So you can... We learn Maseches Yevamos together. You can learn with a Schottenstein and feel at home. So someone who doesn’t love Torah has simply never really tried to understand Torah with his human intellect, with the intellect of the animal soul, as Chassidus puts it. And you can enjoy every part of it—Gemara, Mishnah, Chassidus, anything. The Torah is sweeter than honey.

Someone once said that a man came to a rabbi and told him, “Listen, it says Torah is like honey, but I don’t taste any honey in Torah.” The rabbi told him, “You simply have sores in your mouth, so you can’t enjoy the honey.”

The interviewer: And the lesson?

Guest: Now, he was talking about how a person needs to be a little more sensitive in order to... But there’s another sense to it too. Take food: even the tastiest food in the world—if you swallow it without chewing, you won’t taste it. You’ll say the food isn’t tasty. But if you chew it, savor it—like people who appreciate wine. What do they do? They move it around their mouths, let it touch their cheeks... They taste it, as it says, and then say, “Ah, this is good wine,” the finest wine. If you just swallow it, you’ll say, “What? You paid a thousand dollars for this?” My friend, you need to know how to drink wine. When you eat meat, eat it slowly, like ice cream.

The Rebbe once said something very interesting, something new in Chabad. The emphasis had always been on studying Torah with kabbolas ol. The Rebbe added—and it’s written in a sicha of his, in an edited maamar—that the main thing in Torah study is pleasure. With mitzvos, the main thing is kabbolas ol; with Torah, the main thing is pleasure. The Rebbe says that if you don’t enjoy the Torah, the Torah hasn’t had its intended effect.

So what does that mean? When you eat ice cream—do you know the difference between ice cream and falafel? You lick ice cream. There’s a reason ice-cream shops give you a little spoon. It’s not because they’re stingy; you don’t really “eat” ice cream. You’re meant to enjoy its flavor. Any normal person who studies Gemara with Schottenstein, for example, with an explanation—and the same goes for Chassidus—if he understands it, he’ll take pleasure in it. It simply can’t be otherwise. And someone who still feels he lacks a love of Torah simply...

Interviewer: Hasn’t tried it enough.

Guest: Hasn’t tried it enough. Now, I want to tell you something about having a study partner. It’s hard to study alone, also when it comes to keeping a schedule. When you set up a time with a study partner, even for half an hour, it keeps you committed. There’s an energy in studying together, and you feel obligated to show up. That way you can cover a lot. One little bit joins another, and it becomes something substantial. You study a little more, and suddenly... We ourselves have finished several tractates.

Interviewer: Several tractates?

Guest: Quite a few tractates, and that’s from 20 minutes a day. It all adds up, like with a diet. What ruins a diet? It isn’t one big meal...

Interviewer: The consistency.

Guest: “What’s one more cookie?” And then another, and suddenly the diet is ruined. It’s the same with studying: another short session with a study partner, another [unclear], another sicha. Find a study partner for fifteen minutes here, fifteen minutes there. Get up a little earlier—half an hour earlier in the morning if you don’t have time—or study in the evening. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu helps. When you want to do it, Hakadosh Boruch Hu helps you find free time, boruch Hashem.

Interviewer: Yes, boruch Hashem, absolutely. What about you—what do you especially like to study?

Guest: It’s hard for me to point to one thing. I love everything—both nigleh and Chassidus. Torah is sweet. You know, it’s like... What kind of eggplant do you like? I like fried eggplant, I like eggplant in sauce. I enjoy it all.

Interviewer: Because “Torah is better than everything.”

Guest: Right. One of the important things in Torah study is to broaden your horizons. The Rebbe also says not to study the same thing for too long. Study several things. Now study [unclear], study a maamar, study... Each time it’s something new. Switch things up; study a new area of nigleh. I have a study partner with whom I started learning the Jerusalem Talmud once a week, before Shabbos. We learn for 40 minutes. It’s a pleasure; it’s tremendous.

Some people eat cholent before Shabbos, some people eat... You can combine the two. It doesn’t have to be something entirely new.

Interviewer: I want to ask you—you spoke about personal connection...

Guest: Yes.

Interviewer: There’s something very interesting. Not long ago you celebrated a birthday, and you invited me, along with many others, to a birthday farbrengen at your home. Anyone who knows you isn’t surprised, but around your table were a wide variety of young men. People with different kinds of yarmulkes...

Guest: Yes.

Interviewer: Moshiachists, Chabad chassidim, all together. No distinctions, no antagonism.

Guest: I really think that, in the end—you know, it’s like when people talk about the right and the left. In the media they’re presented as two extremes. But when you sit down with someone and talk heart to heart, even over coffee, you see that when one person speaks to another from the heart, image and ideology get in the way much less. There’s a person sitting across from you; speak to him as a person. If you approach him with love and kindness—everyone needs warmth and love, everyone wants to receive warmth and love. And when you give off warmth and love, you receive warmth and love, and the other things matter less.

You don’t make an issue of it. You don’t... You love the person. In my own family, I can tell you, we’re not a Moshiachist family, but I have one son who’s a staunch Moshiachist.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: He’s my son. So what am I going to do, argue with him all day about when he’ll come around? No. Fine. I’m happy you’re doing well; that’s very good. Arguments don’t come from an excess of yiras Shamayim. They come from a lack of basic peace of mind. Once you have basic peace of mind and a basic sense of contentment, you’re less caught up in it. You think one way, I think another—what difference does it make?

Interviewer: A kind of greater maturity, a kind of... more...

Guest: Yes. No, it’s about not emphasizing it. Look, a husband and wife can fight. The very same husband and wife can fight with each other, even get divorced, or they can live with love, friendship, peace and goodwill. What’s the difference? Even if their personalities are exactly the same. The question is what you focus on: do we argue about the things we disagree on, or talk about the things we agree on? Take a couple, just as an example. The wife says, “It’s very cold today,” and he says, “No, it’s hot today.” They could spend five minutes arguing about it. What are you fighting about? Nonsense. Fine, it’s hot, it’s cold—what difference does it make? The main thing is to have good coffee. Why does it matter so much?

Interviewer: Beautiful. Tell me, back in our day we were together and had the privilege of being with the Rebbe. Are there things from those years of farbrengens that stayed with you and that you carry with you today?

Guest: Look, boruch Hashem, we had the privilege of being there from Tishrei 5749 onward. And I’ll put it this way—I once said this at a hesder yeshiva. I said, “Let me tell you something. It might sound strange to you: my whole Yiddishkeit comes from the farbrengens with the Rebbe—my Yiddishkeit, my yiras Shamayim.”

Interviewer: To say something like that to Chabad people is...

Guest: Yes, they looked at me, and I said, “My Yiddishkeit comes from the Rebbe’s eyes.” Yes. The Rebbe’s gaze is something that sustains you for life. I can’t point to one particular moment. We were there in the later years, for Tishrei and so on, but that atmosphere of Tishrei made us chassidim—the whole experience. There’s an interesting teaching in Likkutei Torah: the Alter Rebbe says that sometimes things a person doesn’t understand affect him more than things he does understand. A chossid might enter yechidus, and especially in the later years, that all-encompassing atmosphere...

Interviewer: Had a greater effect, you mean?

Guest: It had an effect, yes. I feel it shaped my whole outlook, my whole way of being, my entire personality.

Interviewer: Still, there’s a question many people ask. Though when you see the Temimim, you ask it less, because you can see right before your eyes how clearly and wonderfully their connection to the Rebbe is alive. But we’re people who are already caught up in concerns about earning a living and the pressures of day-to-day life. The Temimim carry on that connection, but for us, more than 30 years have passed—32 years.

Guest: Yes, so like anything else, you have to maintain it. There’s no way around it. You simply have to study the Rebbe’s sichos, study maamarim, travel to the Rebbe for Shabbos and for farbrengens, and write to the Rebbe.

Interviewer: Write to the Rebbe.

Guest: Write to the Rebbe. I write to the Rebbe a lot. Write to the Rebbe all the time. First of all, it strengthens your hiskashrus. Second, you see—you write to the Rebbe, I send letters both to the Ohel and through Igros Kodesh, and you see the most wonderful things. So writing to the Rebbe is very important. Write to the Rebbe all the time, about everything. Write; tell him what the Rebbe needs to hear. The Rebbe himself writes that one of the reasons things happen that prompt you to write is to strengthen your hiskashrus. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu even brings events into a person’s life to get him to start writing. Write to the Rebbe all the time, about everything. Let me put it bluntly: we have such a good lawyer—the Rebbe. Tzaddikim are like lawyers: they represent you before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and he does it for you for free. You’d have to be an idiot not to take advantage of that. And beyond all that—I’m talking even about the new life that comes from it, when a person becomes completely new.

Interviewer: You’re out among the people—as the verse says, “I dwell among my people.” You’re in Chabad, in the community, and in all sorts of other places you’re invited to. Do you think Chabad is in a healthier place today, in terms of... I’m thinking of a certain problem we talked about.

Guest: I think factionalism barely exists anymore. I think even the prejudice that used to be there is more and more confined to the fringes today, if it exists at all. There’s something to that. It’s not what it used to be, and that’s for the better.

Interviewer: Are you talking about prejudice between ethnic communities too?

Guest: That too. I’ll tell you something that turns it around: I think we’re all prejudiced. I’ll tell you, when I was looking into shidduchim, I also said, “I don’t want someone from that community.” What does that mean—am I superior to anyone else? Someone else says the same thing about a different community. Fine. In the end, everyone feels comfortable with people of a similar background, and that’s perfectly fine. But there are a lot of things—some are real and some are imagined. I mean, a lot of things really are... Look, I see other circles. For example, I have a lot of friends in the religious-Zionist community.

Interviewer: You see Ethiopians marrying Ashkenazim there, and you say...

Guest: How does that happen? The answer is that, in many cases, things work out in real life. As I’ve been saying, people from all kinds of circles get along—there’s a basic emotional connection, and in their community they won’t rule it out. With us, sometimes even with a shidduch, if there’s what you might call a direct, unmediated connection, the person says, “There really isn’t much difference.” So I’m saying we have room to improve on this. I think it happens when we see people sitting together. Today, for many Ashkenazim it isn’t easy to identify with Sephardim, and it isn’t easy for Sephardim either. The Rebbe wrote that in a letter fifty years ago, and all the more so today. But I also don’t really like the people who constantly make this into a whole issue and seem to enjoy feeling like victims. That’s the animal soul—the soul of plaintive Mizrahi music. Yes, there’s a kind of pleasure in it. I always say this in my classes: the Alter Rebbe says that just as the animal soul has an element of water, which gives rise to desires—everyone understands that desires are a yetzer hara—there’s also a yetzer hara that comes from the element of earth: laziness and sadness. People like to feel sorry for themselves. Everyone does it, even about...

Interviewer: What are you talking about?

Guest: Be happy with who you are. Don’t look for validation. Sometimes a person comes along—do you need validation from others? Why do you need validation from others? You have it from yourself, from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Then you don’t make an issue of it, and naturally it takes up less space; people don’t make an issue of it. It’s all about your perspective.

Interviewer: You mentioned five books, and you mentioned how busy you are speaking to different audiences—young people, on campus, in the army. Is there a goal you’re working toward that you haven’t reached yet? A dream you want to fulfill?

Guest: Honestly, I don’t have a dream. When I look at my life, everything has developed along the way.

Interviewer: Along the way. There’s something beautiful about...

Guest: Yes. It says that the more a person plans, the more Hakadosh Boruch Hu enjoys disrupting his plans. It says that even about holy pursuits.

Interviewer: Yes, the Gemara says in Sanhedrin, according to the explanation...

Guest: The Gemara says that even if a person plans, “In such-and-such an amount of time I’ll learn so many chapters,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu disrupts his plans. Why? How can Hakadosh Boruch Hu disrupt a Jew’s plans to study Torah? Because if you think you run the world, it’s better not to study. I mean, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there’s a whole matter of...

Interviewer: The truth is, you see that throughout Tanach.

Guest: You see it throughout Tanach: whenever a king, even one who was very great and righteous, had a moment when he took pride in himself instead of placing all his trust in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, things immediately began to go wrong.

Interviewer: That’s exactly right.

Guest: So I tell people too: go with the flow. Let things unfold. But the trick is that when you see opportunities come your way, you take them. Hakadosh Boruch Hu often throws something your way—I’ll give you an example. I spoke earlier about my first book, about the Rebbe’s hints. My second book came about thanks to Rabbi Mor Yosef, who lives in Kfar Chabad. They have a website—I can’t remember its name right now—and he said to me, “Arik, write a weekly column for our site.” I said, “What would I write?” Then I said, “You know what? I’ll write about relationships in light of the weekly parsha.” So every week I wrote a short post. Eventually I put them all together, and it became a book called Duvdevanim—about relationships, with tips for couples. And I hear from people who read it that they study it with their wives every Shabbos morning.

Interviewer: They read it over coffee.

Guest: Yes. Later, I did the same thing on raising children: short pieces, about half an hour’s reading, with parenting tips in light of the weekly parsha. After that we did one on Tanya, too—50 Insights from Tanya. And then my most recent book, 50 Insights from the Rebbe.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: I was at Beis Chayeinu on my birthday, four or five years ago, and Eisenbach from the broadcasts came in...

Interviewer: Into the classroom?

Guest: Into the classroom. He said to me, “Arik, listen, I don’t have many books about the Rebbe to give people. Maybe you could write a book about the Rebbe.” He just threw it out there, out of nowhere. He said, “You know what? What could be better for a birthday?” And that’s how 50 Insights from the Rebbe came about. I began to realize—I mean, let Hakadosh Boruch Hu guide you, but keep your ears open. Hakadosh Boruch Hu sends you ideas through people; Hakadosh Boruch Hu speaks through people. Listen. Take the opportunities.

Interviewer: Don’t close yourself off to doing those things.

Guest: Don’t say, “But I’m not worthy.” How do you know what you’re worthy of and what you aren’t? Start doing things, and you’ll see. There’s a saying in English: “Fake it till you make it.” You say, “Me, a speaker? Me, give a class?” Someone invites you to give a class, and you say, “Who am I to give a class?” But Hakadosh Boruch Hu sent you someone who’s inviting you to give one. Start giving the class, and suddenly you’ll discover abilities in yourself that you can bring out. Someone asks you to write for a publication, or to do something else. The truth is, there was a period when I worked in a nonreligious workplace, and they asked me—it came from within the workplace—to give a Tanya class for quite a long time. I gave a Tanya class there, and some truly remarkable stories came out of it. One of the participants later became observant, along with all kinds of other things I’d never dreamed of. These weren’t things I had set out to do in that setting.

Interviewer: This podcast has been pretty free-flowing too, but never mind.

Guest: Too many details, but yes—I’m telling you, just do it. “Wait, what will I say on a podcast? What will I say?” What do you mean, what will you say? Sit down and talk. You can talk—talk. Hakadosh Boruch Hu will give you the words. That’s what we tried to do.

Interviewer: Rabbi Arik Malkieli, as always, it’s been a great pleasure sitting with you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Guest: Thank you very much for the idea.

Interviewer: Many thanks to Yosef David Suissa, who directed the production here as only he knows how, and thanks to Yossi Rivkin, CEO of COL. We’ll meet again in the next episode.

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