Who Really Wrote Talks & Tales

Welcome to our weekly program, "The Inside Story of Chabad in America" through the Mindel Archives.

I found a letter in the archives of Rabbi Mindel that someone wrote to him, questioning something. He writes like this: "Dear Rabbi Mindel, while I was in the home of Rabbi Berel Levine" — Rabbi Levine worked in the library — "I glanced through some of the books and I found a book that you wrote, and I found an inaccuracy in it. You write there that the names of the days of the week are named after idols. The truth is," he says, "it's not idols, it's galgalim — zodiac signs. So it's not idols." As a matter of fact, Rabbi Mindel wrote maybe fifteen pages about zodiac signs, and the Rebbe was magiha on it — we're not going to get into that today, but it's very important. In any case, this person writes that the days are named after the zodiac and not after idols. He didn't understand the matter, so Rabbi Levine told him, "Write to Rabbi Mindel, and he'll answer you." This was dated [unclear, heard as "Tovshin Manhei"].

Before we get to the answer, I want to mention that anything Rabbi Mindel wrote, especially for Kehot, the Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe, and Rabbi Hodakov looked over. And it's one hundred percent — sometimes the Rebbe added hagahos, notations, sometimes not, but everything was looked over by the Rebbe, especially when it came to Talks and Tales, the shmuesen. There were many people from all over the world — I have a whole collection of letters from people who wrote to Rabbi Mindel and to Rabbi Hodakov about the shmuesen. They had certain questions; they were literally learning the shmuesen and they wrote to Merkos. Chassidim were very much involved — Rabbi Pinchas Katz, I have a lot of letters from him, he was very involved in Talks and Tales, the shmuesen, and in Rabbi Mindel's writings. Rabbi Adler, Rabbi Bronski from Australia was very much involved, Rabbi Sholom Ber Gordon was very much involved, and there were many, many others. They wrote in about certain things they thought were inaccurate, and they wrote to Rabbi Hodakov. Rabbi Hodakov wrote back to them and said, "Everything that Rabbi Mindel writes, especially the shmuesen — Talks and Tales — is holy. It's like a sicha from the Rebbe, because the Rebbe looked everything over. You have questions? Good — learn it again, look at it again. But everything is well-founded."

So the Frierdiker Rebbe checked over and looked over the Yiddish shmuesen, the Rebbe the English, and later on, after Yud Shvat, it was Rabbi Hodakov and the Rebbe.

Here I want to say something. My father-in-law told my wife and myself that the Frierdiker Rebbe told him: "Az ich leien vunder fun natur, kumt mir tzu yiras shamayim" — "When I read the Wonder of Nature, I come to fear of Heaven." This is how holy the Talks and Tales that they wrote are. It's very important to know that.

Now I want to mention — and maybe I did mention it, I'm not sure — that when Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka passed away, my children were young, and they came home and said that their school was going to make an assembly, that since the Rebbetzin wrote the Wonder of Nature, they were going to have a project the whole year to review the Wonder of Nature by heart. Other places, including Detroit, also said the Rebbetzin wrote it. Now, Rabbi Mindel was sitting in his house, and I was looking at him — he smiled. I knew that he wrote it, I saw him write it, so I didn't understand, and he didn't say anything. He didn't speak much. A few days later, my wife came over to him and said, "Listen, you have to tell me — here they say the Rebbetzin wrote it, but we saw you wrote it."

So he said that a few weeks earlier he had met Rabbi Sholom Ber Gordon. Rabbi Gordon used to teach in a seminary, in Beis Rivkah. Rabbi Gordon asked him, "Rabbi Mindel, who helps you with the Wonder of Nature? It's amazing — how do you do it yourself? Who helps you?" So he said, "My rebbetzin." Rabbi Gordon didn't hear the word "my" — he only heard "rebbetzin." So he went back to the seminary and said that he heard from Rabbi Mindel that the Rebbetzin wrote the Wonder of Nature. Afterwards I even called Beis Rivkah, and they didn't accept it readily, because they still wanted to say that the Rebbetzin wrote it.

Rabbi Mindel said, when it came to this, that the Rebbetzin was an isha tzadkanis, a righteous woman, no question about that. But something that she didn't do, you can't say about her — it's not good for the neshamah. And that's one of the reasons we don't make a hesped excessive, because a hesped has to be emes, true. It can't be a little bit not true, the way people say things carelessly. It has to be true. And if people say things about someone, even in a good way, if it isn't true, it's not good for the neshamah. So in general, it's not good to say something about a person that they did not do. I want to bring this out — that before we say a story, before we say anything, we have to be very careful where it comes from, and it has to be one hundred percent accurate.

Now, going back to the answer Rabbi Mindel gave this person about the zodiac — I'm not going to read the whole letter, I'll start from the second paragraph: "However, I beg to differ, since the distinction you make between the spheres, the galgalim, and planets, seems to be irrelevant. Moreover, only Sunday, the Day of the Sun, and Saturday, Saturn's Day, refer to planets or spheres. The others do not. Monday is called Moon Day — this was an idol that people used to bow down to." That's a deity, a form of worship. Tuesday is named after [unclear] the god of war. Wednesday is named in a similar way, after another pagan god. Thursday is named after the chief god of thunder. Friday is named after the goddess Frigg. In any case, he shows them this clearly — it wasn't just a casual remark, he demonstrates it one hundred percent.

Now, by the way, in Hebrew there is no Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. In Hebrew, Sunday is called Yom Rishon, the first day; Monday is Yom Sheini. And that's why we mention this, because we just learned in Bereishis — Yom Echad, Yom Sheini, Yom Shlishi, Yom Revi'i — that every day is referred to as "Yom Rishon b'Shabbos," the first day counting toward Shabbos. There is no "Sunday," "Monday," "Tuesday," "Wednesday" in the Torah's own language. This was a side point, a mamar musgar.

Now, since we're talking about Parshas Bereishis — we just read it a few weeks ago — and of course Bereishis begins with the creation of the world, I want to share what Rabbi Mindel wrote: that Bereishis is not only the beginning of Chumash Bereishis, the first book, but it has to do with the entire Torah, because it's the beginning. Torah, he writes, is from the language of hora'ah — teaching. Torah is not a storybook, Torah is not a science book. Torah is a teacher of how we should live our everyday lives. The Torah gives examples — it speaks about dinim, halachos, about the study of Torah, and about stories. These stories that the Torah tells are not just stories — they are Torah, meant to teach us how to live our everyday lives.

The Torah begins, he writes, with the creation of the world and the purpose of man — Adam and Chava. Here I want to mention something — I've even heard droshos where, in English, Chabad people say "Adam and Eve." The Rebbe points out that Adam is Adam, but Chava is not "Eve." Chava comes from the words "em kol chai" — she is the mother of all living. Among the nations, a woman is called "Eve," and "Eve" comes from the word "evil." That's why a priest among them doesn't marry — because he must remain holy, and a woman, in their view, is not holy. This is exactly the opposite of what the Torah teaches. So "Chava" is a holy word, but "Eve" is not — we have to be very careful when translating into English.

I recall, for example, the word "funeral." We call it levaya — accompanying the body, giving honor to the body. The nations call it "funeral," which comes from the word for smoke or fumes, because they used to burn the body. That's not the proper way — the Rebbe makes a point about this elsewhere, but that's beside the point.

So, Adam — this was the creation, and then it goes into Cain and Hevel, and this is the main content of Parshas Bereishis. The second parshah, Noach, speaks about the Mabul, the Flood, and the Tower [of Bavel]. These two parshios span about twenty generations — close to two thousand years. I'm sure more things happened in those two thousand years, but the Torah doesn't mention them, because, since Torah comes from the word hora'ah — teaching — there's nothing else the Torah needs to teach us except what it actually tells us there: Cain, Hevel, and so on — because the Torah is beloshon hora'ah, in the language of instruction.

Then, from Lech Lecha, Avraham Avinu was born in the year 1948 [from Creation]. He was fifty-two years old when he began to spread knowledge of the Eibeshter — God's name — in the world, and he became a father. So from the beginning of Lech Lecha, the Torah goes into much more detail, because it's important to know about Avraham Avinu, Sarah, Yitzchak, Yaakov Avinu, then the shevatim, the tribes, then the Jewish people's forty years in the desert, then their entry into Eretz Yisroel. All of this, from Lech Lecha until the end of the Torah, spans a period of about five hundred years. The whole rest of the Torah covers five hundred years, except for the first two parshios — because, again, Torah is not science, Torah is not stories, Torah is a lesson we are meant to learn. Even when the Torah, in Bereishis, speaks about all the animals and birds that were created, it's all for the sake of man — so that we can learn what we should do in our everyday lives.

Within Bereishis itself, it's very interesting: Lech Lecha, Vayera, and Chayei Sarah — three parshios — span a period of only about one hundred years, because at the beginning of Lech Lecha Avraham Avinu was seventy-five years old, and these three parshios cover his life. So here, two parshios span almost two thousand years, and here, three parshios span only about one hundred years. The Torah then speaks about Yitzchak and Yaakov — Yitzchak lived one hundred and eighty years, and the parshah covering him spans roughly one hundred and forty years, in one parshah. Then Vayetze, Vayishlach, Vayeishev, Mikeitz, Vayigash, and Vayechi — six parshios — span a period of around sixty to sixty-five years, because Yaakov Avinu, when he left [to Lavan's house], was probably around sixty or seventy years old.

Why does the Torah give this much detail about Yaakov? Because Yaakov Avinu is called "habachir sheba'avos" — the chosen one among the Patriarchs. Not like Avraham, from whom Yishmael also came, not like Yitzchak, from whom Esav came — but Yaakov Avinu's children were all mitah shleimah, all righteous; we are all descended from Yaakov. So there is more for us to learn from Yaakov's life. The Torah is not a history book — the Torah is a lesson, and every word in the Torah is meant to be learned from.

And it says: "Yiftached ha'olam v'al yoftach os achas baTorah" — let the entire world be destroyed, letter by letter, rather than a single letter of the Torah be lost. That's important. That's why, when we learn Torah, Torah is not merely chochmah, wisdom — non-Jews cannot truly learn Torah the way we do. It says there is chochmah among the nations — believe it. But Torah among the nations — do not believe it. The nations can learn Torah, can learn Gemara, can understand it, perhaps even better than a Jew in terms of intellect — but it remains chochmah to them. Torah bagoyim, al ta'amin — don't believe that they truly have Torah, because [unclear] — the whole point of Torah is to know how to live our everyday lives.

Im yirtzeh Hashem, in the coming weeks, since we are in Parshas Bereishis, we will try to speak more about the lessons Rabbi Mindel brings out in his archives on the whole of Parshas Bereishis, which is something very interesting. And, im yirtzeh Hashem, we will continue our Thursday night program next week. Thank you.