Livenyomin Omar | Episode 8: Rabbi Zelig Altein

Interviewer: Hello, and welcome to a new podcast episode. With us is Rabbi Zelig Althaus, a mashgiach and mashpia at the central Tomchei Temimim yeshiva in Lod, and a shliach in the nearby city of Ramle. We’ll be glad to talk with you about all of that. Shalom aleichem, Rabbi Zelig.

Guest: Aleichem shalom. Boruch Hashem, I’ve made it here to your studio.

Interviewer: Let’s perhaps start with the most pressing issue these days: bein hazmanim, the yeshiva break. Did you feel a few butterflies in your stomach when you let your charges go off for vacation?

Guest: Not a few butterflies—a lot. And I haven’t really let go. Just yesterday, I sat until midnight writing a response to a student. A question had apparently been brewing in his mind for a long time, and only now, when he’s home, did he feel comfortable enough to send it in writing.

Interviewer: A question about what? About outlook?

Guest: Yes, yes. A question about serving Hashem, about faith in Hashem, about outlook—a Chassidic outlook. So we don’t really let go at all. And that’s without even mentioning that things worked out this way—we may talk more about it later—but Chabad communities needed to run camps and day camps, and there was a shortage of staff. The yeshiva in Lod agreed to let students go and serve as counselors at the camps, provided someone from the yeshiva supervised them. So once the camps start, I also have to travel to one of them every day, show up in the morning and in the evening, and simply supervise. That’s something new, isn’t it?

Interviewer: Right. Let’s say it would have been better if it weren’t necessary—because it would be better for the students to go to a summer yeshiva—but that’s a separate issue. What I mean by “new” is that you actually stay involved with the students on the camp staffs? You accompany them as a team?

Guest: Yes, yes. The other mashgichim at the yeshiva and I each take responsibility for a different camp or group run by one of the Chabad Houses or Chabad communities in Israel. We’re constantly in touch with the counselors and getting reports from them about what’s happening. We make sure there’s learning in the afternoons and an incentive for those who learn. And we show up at all hours—at night and in the afternoon—to make sure our students are spiritually safe and that nothing goes wrong in those places.

Interviewer: And when you get there, what do you do? Sit and talk with them?

Guest: First of all, there’s the idea of having an authority figure coming and going. That alone creates a certain feeling—it puts the bochurim in a position where the mashgiach might show up at any moment. So I come without advance notice, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening. I’ve been doing this for a few years already; it’s not the first time. So in effect, we don’t let go for a second.

Interviewer: So you yourself don’t really get a vacation?

Guest: A little more of one. A student once asked me—he genuinely didn’t understand. He came up to me before the break, before bein hazmanim, and asked, “Rabbi, could you please explain what you do during vacation?” He couldn’t picture me doing anything other than arriving at seven to give a shiur, and then being there at eight for davening and the nigleh shiur. He couldn’t picture me having any other daily routine. That was so ingrained for him that he couldn’t understand that everything I don’t manage to do all year, I try to do...

Interviewer: Try to get done.

Guest: Try to get done during these weeks, and I always end up with things still owing. So that’s what bein hazmanim is like.

Interviewer: So, in terms of percentages, how many students are there in the Lod yeshiva today?

Guest: Without the evil eye, over 400 students.

Interviewer: How many of them aren’t in a summer yeshiva but are instead...

Guest: First of all, the third-year students moving on to yeshiva gedolah are no longer our responsibility. So that leaves the first- and second-year students. Boruch Hashem, most of the first-year students go to a summer yeshiva. We also don’t allow first-year students to work as counselors in day camps or overnight camps. For the second-year students, yes, that option exists, but I hope it won’t continue—I mean, that the arrangement will be different—because clearly the preference is, and it seems that this is the Rebbe’s wish, that...

Interviewer: That they should have the summer yeshiva. They’re at a stage in life when they still need to be receiving.

Guest: But this year, because of various constraints, and because we understood that the Chabad Houses and communities—Chabad communities—were genuinely stuck without staff, we allowed it. But I hope that...

Interviewer: That it becomes less and less common.

Guest: That it becomes less and less common. And clearly the preference is for everyone to go to a summer yeshiva. There is the issue of cost, though. Paying those high sums isn’t easy, so this does offer another option for someone who can’t afford it. But it’s best if it remains a fallback rather than the preferred option. Ideally, it’s clear that the Rebbe’s wish is for everyone to go to a summer yeshiva.

Interviewer: And in a sense, for the yeshiva to continue along that path even during bein hazmanim. You mentioned that the third-year students are essentially on their own. I noticed something interesting that I hadn’t known about. There’s much more transparency today; through all the channels the yeshiva provides, you can see much more of its day-to-day activity. In my time as a student, the third-year students, just like their younger fellow students in the first and second years, had to take an oral exam on the last day of the year. So on one hand, there’s a kind of maturity here: the yeshiva concluded, “Why make them do that?” Because I saw—and it really opened my eyes—that on the Lod schedule, the night before the oral exam, there’s actually a farbrengen with the third-year staff that goes late into the night, maybe until morning. The lights used to stay on at night because everyone was studying for the oral exam. On one hand, it shows maturity on the yeshiva’s part to decide, “Let’s give them room.” On the other, perhaps it’s a kind of letting go, as if to say, “That’s it, you’re on your own now.”

Guest: Let me clarify that. I’ll tell you what’s changed between when you were there—and perhaps when your older children finished in Lod—and today. Today, the third-year students’ end-of-year oral exam is effectively their exam with the rosh yeshiva for admission to yeshiva gedolah, and it takes place almost at the very end of the year. In my day, for example, we were examined by Rabbi Yankel Kloik or Rabbi Goldsberg before Gimmel Tammuz...

Interviewer: I remember, because Rabbi Yankel Kloik asked me during my exam how the yeshiva was preparing for Gimmel Tammuz. So I know for certain it was before Gimmel Tammuz.

Guest: Today they’re examined after 17 Tammuz...

Interviewer: Or something like that, during that week of 17 Tammuz.

Guest: So that is effectively their end-of-year oral exam. First of all, it keeps them going until the very last moment, and perhaps it’s an even stronger motivation than the yeshiva’s oral exam, because the consequences are significant.

Interviewer: And what happens on the last night?

Guest: Well, we have the Torah campaign at the yeshiva, where bochurim are tested on the entire tractate. So third-year bochurim who want to take part are given a special exam the night before the last night. That leaves them genuinely free on the last night to say goodbye in a healthy way. Of course, chassidim never part, but that farbrengen is something they remember for a long time. It stays in their souls. I wasn’t at the farbrengen myself, but I arrived at the beis midrash at seven in the morning, and the whole room was still full. You could say—and with good reason—that the floor was wet with tears.

Interviewer: Yes, really. That’s something you might usually see among girls, and suddenly you see...

Guest: Yes, yes, suddenly you see it. It’s a beautiful thing, it really is... Rabbi Butman told me the following Shabbos, “I cried too.” It really shows that the bochurim love the yeshiva. I always tell the bochurim entering their first year—and they have a hard time at first; I’m the first-year mashgiach, so I receive them in those first days, when they’re homesick and some of them cry—I tell them, “You’re crying now, and that’s understandable and perfectly fine. But I’m telling you, by the end of your third year, your love will be much stronger.” A bochur came up to me last week and said, “Rabbi, remember when you told me that by the end, my love would be...” Well, Rabbi, you were right.

Interviewer: Exactly. This really gets to the point that you’re the mashgiach for the first-year students. You represent an approach that I don’t think has a parallel in the yeshiva world—not even among Chabad yeshivas. The yeshiva in Lod, perhaps because it’s so large, developed a model with a mashgiach for the first year, a mashgiach for the second year, and a mashgiach for the third year. The question is: Having set out on this path, do you assess how it’s working as you go? Has this approach really proved itself? Can you honestly say that, as the first-year mashgiach, you have a full picture—that you can give an account of every first-year student? Tell me if that’s too ambitious a thing to expect.

Guest: First of all, of course it’s too ambitious. We don’t control people’s thoughts, and we don’t put a microphone and camera under every chair in the study hall. I can’t read minds. But when it comes to keeping track of the students—knowing where each one stands at any given moment—I also sit down periodically with each class’s staff, meaning its mashpia and teacher, as well as the dormitory staff. We constantly go through the list to make sure we haven’t missed anything.

Interviewer: So can you say with certainty that no boy falls through the cracks—say, someone less prominent, less vocal, someone who doesn’t make himself heard? After all, it’s something of an operation, I would say. You said there are more than 400 students.

Guest: Yes. So even when we divide them into three years with three mashgichim, and in a sense it functions like three separate yeshivas, each year is still the size of a substantial, large yeshiva, in other circles and in Chabad as well. Each year on its own is a very large group, and it’s very hard work. I’m not complaining: I enjoy every moment, come in happily every morning, and thank Hashem for placing me among those who sit in the study hall. And yes, we do everything we can. Of course, we also need the parents’ cooperation to make as sure as we can that no one falls through the cracks. Just last week, the parent of a student about to enter the first year asked me exactly that question.

Interviewer: Who can guarantee it, really?

Guest: Yes, who can guarantee it? He told me, “I studied in the yeshivas of the old days”—without naming names—“and I can tell you that I was run over by the yeshiva bus, so to speak. I was completely out of sight. I did foolish things so they would notice I was there, and they didn’t notice.” He has very serious concerns about sending his son to yeshiva now. I told him that we have this division into “leaders of thousands and leaders of hundreds,” while difficult matters, of course, reach the yeshiva’s spiritual director, Rabbi Menachem König, and the head mashpia, Rabbi Botman, who oversee the whole operation. Perhaps that’s—no, not perhaps, certainly that’s—the yeshiva’s strength: combining younger staff members with many years of experience, experience beyond compare. Over the years, so many students, bli ayin hara, have passed through that they’ve seen every possible kind of personality, every kind of face. There’s nothing they haven’t seen already. So of course we create a structure that makes it possible to pay attention to each individual. But there are three partners in a person’s creation, and our partners here include the parents. No one should imagine that he can pull up to the first year with a truckload of sand, tip his son out with all the grains of sand into the first-year pool in Lod, and drive off without looking back to see what’s happening with his son. No one should fool himself. We need the parents’ partnership and attention.

Interviewer: What do you expect of them, exactly?

Interviewer: In other words, would you say you’re in favor of the active parent—the one who’s constantly on the phone to you and never gives you a moment’s peace? “I’ve noticed this, I’ve noticed that.” Isn’t that a bit much? Come on, give us some room to breathe.

Guest: Well, I haven’t really encountered that parent yet, the one who’s constantly on the phone and gets involved in every little thing. But I do encounter very responsible parents who call from time to time and ask how things are going. And sometimes they don’t ask; they tell me: “I noticed he had a hard time going back to yeshiva after this Shabbos at home. Usually he leaves happily, but this time it was hard for him. Could you keep an eye on him when he gets back to yeshiva?”

Yes, after a Shabbos at home, going back to yeshiva. A responsible parent calls me and says, “I don’t know—usually everything’s fine. He packs his things happily and leaves. This time he dragged his feet and dragged his feet. He even missed the bus because it took him so long to pack, and I could see he was having a hard time leaving.” So the father calls me on Sunday evening and says, “Listen, this is what happened. Could you keep an eye on him and see?” In a case like that, I also tell his teacher, “Pay attention. Maybe follow up and see if something’s going on.” That one sentence can make all the difference between a collapse and growth.

Interviewer: Yes, yes. I remember you saying—at that event I’ve had the privilege, thank Hashem, of attending more than once, and this year I’m about to enroll another...

Guest: Boy, with Hashem’s help.

Interviewer: At that welcome event for parents, which you started holding in recent years—it’s a very, very worthwhile thing, and also very moving and uplifting—you said something courageous. You told the parents, “Everyone, we’ve already completed our checks. The boy has been tested, we’ve asked about him, we’ve done everything. That’s it; he’s here now. Please, if there’s any difficulty we should know about, something we’re not aware of, get in touch with us—now or later. Call me and talk to me about it. He’s already here.”

“We’re not going to say you misrepresented him.” Did you say that based on experience? I mean...

Guest: First of all, many parents really do come forward. Some come up right away. I then spend hours sitting with parents in my office, talking and taking notes. Afterward, I sit with the class staff and pass on what I can and what I need to. Some parents call in the following days, and some don’t call—even when there are very, very important things to tell us. Then it suddenly blows up in the middle of the year.

And then it’s, “Oh, no, I didn’t tell you. I meant to mention that he used to have these problems, but we thought he hadn’t had them for a long time.” Sometimes parents really think they can bring a child to yeshiva and say a few magic words... [laughter] I remember that when I was a child, I fell on Shabbos and tore my Shabbos pants. They were brand-new, and I was afraid to tell my parents they’d torn. So I just put them in the laundry, with the sort of childish thought that, who knows, maybe by next week they’d somehow fix themselves. But that didn’t happen.

When you send a child to yeshiva on 1 Elul, any underlying problems won’t miraculously heal if you don’t tell us, if we don’t address them, if we’re not aware of them. I’m not saying we can solve everything. But if we know, we can make room for it; we’ll know how to approach him. I could give quite a few examples, but it wouldn’t be right to reveal them. There have been quite a few things that simply blew up all of a sudden: “Yes, he used to take some medication for attention and concentration, but we were sure that once he got to yeshiva he’d have energy.” That didn’t resolve the problem, and it’s a shame. It didn’t...

Interviewer: So it really blew up, you’re saying, like a balloon bursting?

Guest: Really, with a tremendous bang. And by then, the boy had already been through quite a bit because the mashgiach had treated him like any other boy, someone on the usual track, and everything... Parents have this fear that if they tell us, he won’t be treated...

Interviewer: He’ll be labeled.

Guest: But enough already—let’s be open with each other. In the end, we’re partners in this precious cargo—and by “cargo” I mean what’s most precious to you: your children. Let’s be true partners, without hiding things from each other. Let’s speak openly. Without a doubt, it will only benefit the boys.

Interviewer: Can you spell out what you expect from a student entering the first year? What are your expectations of him, exactly?

The guest: Look, in general terms, I’d say—and maybe it sounds like a cliché, but it’s real—I hope he’ll make the most of his time in yeshiva, connect with good friends, study well, and grow into a chossid who is G-d-fearing and learned. And we give him all the support he needs to make those things, which sound like lofty words, actually happen.

The interviewer: My question is: Do you yourself expect, of yourself or of the staff, to take a boy who’s genuinely a good boy, what you’d call “a nice Jewish boy,” and bring him to a higher level? In other words, he arrived at a certain point, but now he’s entering yeshiva—he can’t stay as he is, even if he’s the sweetest, most wonderful kid. He’s supposed to go up one rung on the ladder, two rungs on the ladder.

The guest: Yes. I see that process all the time. Students come in at the beginning of their first year one way and leave completely different. That’s true of their learning too, simply at the academic level: what he knew how to do and understand in Gemara, how to prepare a passage of Gemara, how to understand Tosafos when he arrived here—if he made proper use of his time, with the right approach, he leaves at another level. He really leaves at a high level.

Where do I see the big crisis? In the transition from eighth grade to yeshiva. Sometimes parents call me, or boys come to me in tears, because they got a 60 on their first Gemara test in yeshiva. This is a student who never got less than 90, and his parents show me his report cards from eighth grade and seventh grade—all his test scores were between 90 and 100. Suddenly he comes to yeshiva and gets a 60. It’s a major crisis.

Put simply, the reason is that the academic level rises very, very sharply in yeshiva. Someone who gets on board and applies himself really does finish the... I follow this closely, and I see how it even shows up in the grades: he gets more and more into the swing of things. The tests, and the particular way Gemara tests are given in yeshiva, really measure things precisely and teach a boy how to learn and how to work on himself—so that he hasn’t just understood on the surface, but truly understood, and hasn’t merely recited the material. In the end, academically, he simply moves up a level. No question about it.

The interviewer: But you can’t say this is an area where, you know, our boys are neglected and abandoned, with no one looking after them. It really is a big issue, a big issue, and it isn’t right to present it as though everything runs smoothly and is all sorted out in every other community. We know that there are arrests, problems, departures and decrees there too. In other words, it’s not that...

The guest: Right. No one can say they’re free of this. No community has solved it. The Chabad community, in its own distinctive way—a way that looks out for the Jewish people as a whole—is getting through this challenge. We hope that, with Hashem’s help, things will improve and get sorted out, and some normality and sanity will enter this system. But without question, what gives a boy the strength to get through this challenge too—because it is a challenge, and it takes a lot of dealing with—is knowing that he’s doing the right thing. And when the Rebbe’s outlook on the matter is clear, he knows what lies ahead of him. That simply brings clarity and joy. He does it as well as he can, and, boruch Hashem, gets through it.

You yourself, even though you aren’t directly involved in this issue, have a considered view on the year of kevutzah. Because some people have said—and I’m not talking about cutting corners, but perhaps about throwing up our hands—that if this is the situation, who says it’s so important? There’s an assumption—I don’t know how widespread it is—but there’s an assumption in Chabad that, were it not for the social pressure surrounding kevutzah, we ought to say: Gentlemen, what was right for its time isn’t necessarily right now. Let’s establish programs here in Israel and leave that model behind.

As I said, I’m in a younger yeshiva, and I’m hardly the person to run all of Lubavitch’s affairs or give opinions about the yeshiva at 770, to which I owe a great deal and where I had the privilege of studying. But I can say that I see a positive direction there. Reb Yoel brought in several young married men and made sure they received salaries, and boruch Hashem, they’re taking a number of important steps. There’s still more to do, a long way to go.

As with anything, a boy needs to consult a mashpia about this [unclear], someone who clearly understands this area and knows what’s happening there. I know several courageous boys who really did consult their mashpia [unclear] and decided that it wasn’t...

The interviewer: And what was their alternative?

The guest: The alternative was to do some kind of fourth year, or even to get married earlier than is customary. They probably made a very good decision for themselves, but I think it’s very hard to give up that year. I mean, that year gave me so much—you can’t even...

What that year gave me was, quite simply, that the Rebbe became part of life. Not just the Rebbe of Yud Shvat and Gimmel Tammuz, but of an ordinary Shabbos and an ordinary weekday. And that’s what a young married man from our community needs: to have a Rebbe not just the way a Jew relates to Yom Kippur, but to be connected to the Rebbe all the time, not only on the eve of Gimmel Tammuz—to learn Chassidus and the Rebbe’s Torah all the time, to write to the Rebbe regularly, everything.

The interviewer: And being there gives you that? It really instills it in your bones?

The guest: Yes. The Rebbe simply becomes part of your daily routine. It’s where you have breakfast, where you have lunch; you do your mitzvos there, and you spend your idle moments there. You wake up there and go to sleep there. The Rebbe simply becomes part of your routine. And you can say clearly that from that moment on, you belong to 770.

You belong to 770, and you travel to all sorts of places to get married, to work, to go on shlichus, whatever it may be—but every time I return to 770, I’ve come home. I don’t have any trouble readjusting there. I arrive, and within a second I feel at home. As a bochur, I would always notice how the kevutzah boys came in, sat down in the large zal, took off their hats and jackets, put them aside and learned. A visitor comes in, and he sits there with his hat and jacket on. He doesn’t know whether someone will take them, steal them, or suddenly move the table. He doesn’t know. So he learns with his hat and jacket on, and before davening he’s still wearing his hat and jacket. That difference was always very noticeable to me.

The interviewer: Who feels at home—you? And who still doesn’t?

The guest: The one who feels at home—it’s his zal, his yeshiva, his place. And I can tell you that, for me, that hasn’t changed to this day. I arrive now and feel at home; I have no trouble readjusting. The moment I put my suitcase down in the third room [unclear], it’s as though I’ve been here all year. And I think all my friends feel the same way. That’s simply what we got from that year: this is home. The rest is that we go out on all sorts of shlichus assignments and come back. In the end, we come home.

The interviewer: I want to ask you on a personal level: Do you feel it’s enough to be a supervisor and mashpia in the yeshiva? You didn’t go out on shlichus—that is, alongside that, in whatever spare hours you have left, you’re also a shliach in Ramla. And I want to press you on this: Why did you need to do that?

In other words, if you were confident about that today [unclear], you would consider yourself a shliach in every sense, because you’re a rabbi in the yeshiva, a supervisor in the yeshiva, a mashpia in the yeshiva. For some reason—and correct me if I’m wrong—there’s an impression that this isn’t enough, and I need to understand it. With all due respect to my being a mashpia and supervisor in the yeshiva, I also have to be a shliach. If not, what have we accomplished? What’s going to happen here?

The guest: I’ll tell you the truth: I think that’s a big mistake. Of course, I don’t mean to dismiss the good things I’ve done, and boruch Hashem, that’s how I was brought up too. I studied at the yeshiva in Migdal HaEmek, and I would see Rabbi Gurvitch and Rabbi Goldberg go out on Fridays and spend several hours on mivtza tefillin. They always gave classes and talks in the city’s shuls. They took responsibility for the community around them. A chossid takes responsibility for those around him and takes an active part in the Rebbe’s campaigns—in mivtza tefillin, on the holidays, and in everything else.

But to tell you that you need the official title of “the Rebbe’s shliach”? No. I think being the Rebbe’s shliach in a yeshiva is important enough, and that title isn’t what will add anything. If someone thinks that working within the community isn’t shlichus, and that he needs to add another layer of holiness here, to make himself holier and wrap himself in the mantle of a shliach—that’s a complete mistake.

In other words, Divine Providence arranged things so that I took responsibility. It began with taking responsibility for what was happening around me and volunteering for mivtzoim in the city where I live. I live in Ramle, near Lod, so I volunteered for the Lag BaOmer parade and for the Chanukah campaign. In the end, it simply grew from the ground up.

Eventually, I received official recognition from Chabad of Ramle, and I’m very grateful to the shliach, Rabbi Avraham Medboil [?], for that honor. But if you ask me: say a young married man works in a yeshiva and is busy with his work there. If he really feels he’s missing that holiness and needs another layer of it, I’ll tell you something pointed. A friend of mine once asked Reb Yoel for his opinion. He had an offer to work in a yeshiva and teach a class, and an offer to go out on shlichus. Which should he choose?

So Reb Yoel told him, “If you work in a yeshiva, you’ll be on the Rebbe’s lists. You may not necessarily be on Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky’s lists, but you’ll certainly be on the Rebbe’s.”

Interviewer: In other words, there may be fewer flashing lights around it, no glittering donors and no sweetened-up conferences. But the Rebbe heads Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch in Detroit, and as you say, even if you lived in Detroit or Moscow, you would be one of the Rebbe’s shluchim.

Guest: Yes, yes.

Interviewer: So is it just a formality, something that doesn’t add any holiness or anything like that?

Guest: But yes, of course, part of making a dwelling for Him in the lower realms is taking part in the process of spreading the wellsprings outward, even to the furthest reaches. Though I read this week in Kfar Chabad that the Rebbe said to Rabbi Tuvia Blau in yechidus, “Fortunate is his lot, that his ‘outside’ is the young men in yeshiva.”

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: That’s a wonderful line, and it really uplifted me. I had many conversations with him, and he would always repeat it with real emotion. So that line stays with me: “Fortunate is his lot, that his ‘outside’ is the young men in yeshiva.” Who can second-guess the Rebbe? The Rebbe says this is part of spreading the wellsprings outward. I don’t see it as any different from Chabad on Campus or Chabad for teenagers. What, because they’re “our own young people,” it’s somehow less worthwhile?

In fact, you’re putting the finishing touch on Lubavitch’s work. This is the very pinnacle of the entire world of shlichus. After all, what makes a successful shliach? What does it mean for a shliach to have succeeded? That he has people he’s brought close—and where do their children study? With you. Everything is directed toward that. It’s the top of the pyramid. This is a sign of success: I went out on shlichus without knowing what remote place I was headed for, brought a Jew there closer, helped him get married, and his children are now in our institution—to the point that his son ends up with you.

So those whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu has tasked with developing that and bringing it to completion are not somehow outside of it. On the contrary, they’re in an exalted place, at the very pinnacle. I’m not trying to convince myself or my friends, but yes, sometimes we need to open our eyes and recognize that this is certainly part of the mission. And those who devote themselves to it wholeheartedly are, of course, the Rebbe’s shluchim in every respect.

Interviewer: So let’s ask one last question. Today, when you’re living in a community, and I hear you from time to time and am impressed—even on a Shabbos away with your family—what, in your view, is the formula? How does a young married man who has already gone out into the world, who already has “a millstone around his neck,” and is no longer inside the yeshiva’s sheltered environment, still hold on to that spark, that enthusiasm, that aspiration and that way of seeing things? How does he keep them from wearing down or fading over time?

Guest: It’s impossible for them not to wear down. Let’s be realistic. If he has a millstone around his neck, he devotes less time to learning; learning is less central to his life. There’s no way it won’t wear down. That’s unavoidable. We have to make sure it wears down as little as possible. We need anchors in our lives that we don’t budge from. But to think you can really stay exactly the same, stay a Tomim in just the same way—that’s a fantasy. As...

The Rebbe once told us a story. We were engaged and had sat down with the Rebbe to ask for some guidance before our weddings. He told us about a young man who was very Chassidic, a sincere Tomim and all that. The time came for him to marry. He asked the mashgiach for permission to go out and meet a prospective match. The mashgiach gave him permission. He met her, made the shidduch, asked permission to leave for the wedding, received it and got married. Now he had to earn a living, so he told the mashgiach, “I need permission to open a store.” The mashgiach gave him permission to open a store.

That Tomim would sit in his store with a Gemara and a Tanya above the cash register, keeping an eye on the clock. If it was time for his Gemara study and there were no customers, he would take out the Gemara and learn. When it was time for the evening Chassidus study session, he would take out the Tanya.

Then the Rebbe asked us, “What do you think?” I said, “Wow, that shows how deeply he feels it.” He told us, “That’s completely mistaken. You’re right that it shows feeling, but it’s a complete mistake to live that way, because a young married man has a different shlichus. The fact that he keeps tying himself to his previous shlichus means he hasn’t internalized that he’s on a different shlichus now. One day it will all fall apart, and he’ll be left with nothing, because he never grasped his new shlichus. A young married man has a new shlichus.”

No one imagines he can remain a Tomim just as he was, but we certainly need to find anchors. There’s no question that the most important anchor is learning Chassidus, making room for it on Shabbos and investing in it; also going out occasionally for the Rebbe’s mivtzoim, and traveling to the Rebbe. A young married man who has that triangle—learns Chassidus, goes on mivtzoim from time to time, and writes to the Rebbe—remains one of us.

A young married man who loses that... I’ve spoken with young married men. One of them, a businessman, told me, “I can’t even remember the last time I wrote to the Rebbe.” Why wouldn’t I write to him about what I’m doing for him? Hashem protect us. People really do lose their connection to the source. What a privilege it is that we can write to the Rebbe. We have the privilege of being connected to the Rebbe; it would be a shame to lose it. Why lose what you’ve been given?

I think, at the end of the day, that’s the triangle: writing to the Rebbe, the Rebbe’s mivtzoim, and traveling to the Rebbe. A young married man who travels to the Rebbe from time to time has that connection. You always have to work at it, but those are anchors that keep him connected.

Interviewer: Well, that’s a good formula to end on. Thank you very much, Rabbi Zelig Althaus, for joining us. And thank you to everyone who joined us for this episode. Our thanks to Yosef David Suissa, who oversaw the production here, and to Yossi Rivkin, CEO of COL. Join us again for the next episode.