A lesson from Communism

00:00 But the distinctive quality of Chassidus is [unclear]. Hashem is here with us. [unclear]. What is the approach of Chassidus? It isn’t just what’s written in books. And if you bring philosophical inquiry into this, what does that mean? So Hashem rules the world, so He created the world, so the world couldn’t be otherwise. [unclear]. But we want it to penetrate inwardly. And Chassidus penetrates inwardly... There’s something interesting about Chassidus: it isn’t a matter of philosophical inquiry that leads you to the conclusion that Hashem exists. Imagine this: there was a time in communist Russia when they changed all the textbooks. They prepared new teaching material in line with communism and changed every book—even arithmetic books, even math. I mean, arithmetic, two plus two, isn’t against communism. Why would you need to change a math book? But they were very, very... They built all the books around examples. They give examples in textbooks, even in math, to help a child understand. For instance, the example goes like this: he walks into a store, and you give the shopkeeper a ten-cent coin, and the item costs two cents; how much change does he give you? Eight cents. But the example has a store, and under communism there mustn’t be stores. There mustn’t be private lives. You don’t exist in the world as an individual at all; there’s the state.

02:14 Yes, you exist—you’re part of the state. But you, as yourself, don’t exist. And they changed the math book. That’s how far they went... the whole matter of stores. Imagine the child learning this; it gets into his head, and so he comes to accept the communist system. Chassidus doesn’t say, “So Hashem exists.” It says that Hashem rules the world at every moment. [unclear]. The world is... I have to say, what they asked, what they asked, [unclear] the world. He’s a religious person, and [unclear]. So what? He’s a religious person; he’s G-d-fearing.