Be Cautious To Whom You Teach Kabbalah

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

Since now there is a whole movement of learning Kabbalah - people teach Kabbalah, there's a "science of Kabbalah" - I wanted this program to speak about letters that the Rebbe wrote about it, because Kabbalah has certain things, and the Rebbe gave certain answers. I don't think the letters are in English, I don't think the letters are printed, but since there's a whole [movement], I had some calls from people, and also people asked me if maybe I have something in the archives about Kabbalah - about teaching Kabbalah - they wanted to know what the Rebbe said about it.

So, before I read the letter - if we have time today, if not we'll do it another time. Before that, I want to read a letter that somebody wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said that they should speak to Merkos [L'Inyonei Chinuch] - the Rebbe wrote here to Merkos - and he wrote to Rabbi Mindel, Rabbi Hodakov. So this letter was about learning Kabbalah, and the Rebbe said that Rabbi Hodakov should answer, and this is a letter signed by Rabbi Hodakov. I want to read you the letter so that the people who asked should know - this is the only thing I found until now about Kabbalah. I think there is more, but this is what I found right away, so I'm going to read this to you, and this is important for people to know about Kabbalah.

"Greeting and blessing. This is in reply to your letter in behalf of a young man stationed in Korea who was interested in Kabbalah, and you ask what it is and where it may be obtained. Kabbalah, very briefly, is part of the esoteric literature dealing with the profound and mystical aspects of G-dliness and the inner significance of the divine mitzvos. The teachings of Kabbalah have been transmitted over the generations in a special school of saintly, G-d-fearing scholars called Kabbalists. In the past two hundred years or so, much of the teachings of Kabbalah have been incorporated and disseminated in the teachings of Chassidus, especially Chabad, and made accessible to wider circles - indeed, to all who are interested in a deeper knowledge of Judaism.

"Kabbalah per se is a subject that cannot really be studied without a G-d-fearing true teacher, much less by one who has no solid Torah background and is not fluent in the original Hebrew and Aramaic language and the Kabbalah terminology. However, we have published a number of works in English which can well serve as a practical introduction to Kabbalah. These are listed in the enclosed catalogue, with titles underscored in red, on page 27. In addition, we can highly recommend the more recent publications not included in the catalogue: number one, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, volume two; Philosophy of Chabad; and My Prayer - both written by Rabbi Dr. [Nissan] Mindel. We would suggest these, as well as The Commandments, by the same author."

Rabbi Hodakov signed this letter. So this letter was written to this person - in other words, in preparation for learning Kabbalah, we should read these books.

Now I want to say something here that I think I mentioned a few months ago, but I will repeat it again. One of the - I think it was the Mitteler Rebbe [?] - somebody came over to him, and he had traveled and he lectured - he was a lecturer, or he was a teacher - and he [said things over] without [citing] a source, whatever it was. So the Rebbe said to him he should be like a bee and not like a spider. What's the difference between a bee and a spider? A spider makes a web; the web comes from inside the spider. What does the web do? Nothing - it just holds, it traps and kills flies, it doesn't accomplish anything; it comes from inside of the spider. A bee makes honey; the honey doesn't come from the bee itself - if the honey came from the bee, it [wouldn't be real honey]. What is it? The bee goes around collecting nectar from flowers, and it becomes honey - it becomes sweet by going around and collecting.

The same thing applies: this teaches that when you will teach, when you will lecture, when you speak to people - if you are going to be like a spider, if you're going to say your own philosophy and your own ideas to people without a source, it's going to be like a spider - you won't accomplish anything. But if you go around and learn Nigleh, you learn Chassidus, you learn Mussar - go around collecting from different [sources] and say over what you saw, or even stories, from reliable sources - then it will be sweet, people are going to understand it and they're going to accept it, and you'll have hatzlacha.

And even the Alter Rebbe, who wrote the Tanya, said already - he also collected. In it, it says, "Lo mipi atzmi ani omer, ela mipi sefarim u'sofrim" - "I do not say this of my own, rather from books and authors" [as heard]. He took the Tanya, he went collecting from the Shulchan Aruch and from [other sources] - this is how he wrote the Tanya. So we see that this is what it means to be like a bee.

Why am I saying that? I want to say two things here. There are lecturers, people who give lectures, and people ask them questions, and they give answers - philosophy, their own ideas, without a source - this is what they think. And I'm saying this because not long ago a few people asked me, "Do you have anything in the archives of Rabbi Mindel - any stories of the Rebbe, something?" So I gave them a story - two stories. One of them took me five minutes [to relate], and I found out that when they repeated the story, it took them a whole hour - and I was surprised. You could take a story - you have to say the truth, the way it happened - but sometimes these stories [grow], things that never even happened, or someone adds to the story at the end - that's not what really happened. You have to collect it like a bee - exactly the way you heard it, not your own [additions]. That's number one.

Number two - we're speaking here that Rabbi Hodakov wrote that they should learn Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, My Prayer, The Commandments. Now, these books were written by Rabbi Mindel - I think he's probably the only one, maybe there's somebody else, but I know that all the English books that Rabbi Mindel wrote - whether it's [unclear], whether it's Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi in a few volumes, whether it's My Prayer, whether it's The Commandments - on all of them the Rebbe made hagahos [corrections/annotations], meaning that they are holy. Those books have to be, number one, sold in the stores - the stores have to carry them, those books have to be there. So if somebody wants to learn Kabbalah and he wants to get Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, sometimes it's not even in print; other books are in print. This is very important, because the Rebbe made hagahos on it - if this is not in print, [that's a loss]. So I would like to say that, in the things that Rabbi Mindel wrote - which is one hundred percent [reliable], because the Rebbe made hagahos on it - everything that he wrote should not go out of print; it should be in the stores for people to buy.

Now I want to read another very small letter. The Rebbe also wrote about Kabbalah: "Needless to say, to study Kabbalah in India and the like should not be under consideration at all" - this is the Rebbe writing - "and even to study Kabbalah in another, more suitable place, this could also be considered only if one is to learn it from a person who is himself totally committed to Torah and mitzvos. The study of Kabbalah is not like the study of any science and the like, which can be studied from books, from authors, in a detached way; it is intimately connected with Torah and mitz