The Letter the Rebbe Didn’t Want to Answer

"The Letter the Rebbe Didn't Want to Answer" (י"ב בסיוון תש"פ)

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, from the Mindel Archives. This week's theme, as it says: "Hevei dan es kol adam l'chaf zechus" – judge everyone in the scale of merit.

I want to share with you a very, very shocking letter of the Rebbe that he sent to a rabbi. The Rebbe had addressed a letter to this same rabbi maybe a couple of years before, and in that letter he wrote "Dear Rabbi." But in this letter he only wrote "Rabbi" – and the reason for that is because this letter is shocking, because of the way the rabbi had spoken. The Rebbe couldn't believe that such words – not only from a regular Jew, but from a rabbi – should be spoken. This really shocked the Rebbe, and I will read this letter soon, at the end.

But before this, I just want to say a word. In the eighteen hundreds, in the time of – I believe it was Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch [?] – everybody has heard of him. He lived in a time when the Reform movement began, the Enlightenment, the Haskalah. He fought against this movement in order to save the Jewish youth. He himself was very frum, but in order to save the youth he established yeshivos where Torah was combined with secular studies – Torah im Derech Eretz, Torah and secular studies together under one roof. This was important because of the Reform movement that had started, in order to save the youth from it.

Now, by the way, there were two heads of [unclear] – that was the yeshiva where Rabbi [?] Mindel came from. There was a yeshiva of Torah im Derech Eretz, and Rabbi Mindel was a student there, and Rabbi Yitzchak [?] was the principal, as we once spoke about. They were both involved in this yeshiva, and this was under the assumption, I believe, that it was also connected to the yeshiva of [unclear] – and everyone acknowledged what he had accomplished there, regardless.

Now here is a picture – a picture of Rabbi [?] HaKohen Mindel, and this is Rabbi [?] – this is from his yeshiva, Tomchei Temimim – this is a class that he had. So they came from that yeshiva. Rabbi Mindel himself always used to say – and he studied in Germany, abroad – he used to reveal a teaching: "Ven di rabbonim zenen gevorn doktoyrim, iz dos Yiddishe folk gevorn krank" – when the rabbis became doctors, the Jewish people became sick. What does that mean? He said, even though of course there's nothing wrong with secular studies – doctor doesn't mean only medicine, it can mean Doctor of Philosophy, doctor of science – but when you mix the two, that's the problem. He said: if you want to be a doctor, be a doctor; if you want to be a rav, be a rav – but don't mix doctor with rav.

For example, we know that the Rebbe was once asked about smoking – people asked the Rebbe, "Why can't you come out and say it's fine to smoke in general, publicly?" And the Rebbe said, "I'm not wrong, I do what I do, but also a rav cannot come out and permit something just because some doctors say it doesn't matter, or because maybe in a few years smoking will be viewed differently. A rav cannot speak based on what a doctor says today, because that mixes doctor with rabbi."

Now I want to bring a story – I think I mentioned once what else a rav has to have, what certain qualifications a rav must have. There's also a picture [shown] of this. There is a story about my [father-in-law] Rabbi Nissan Mindel: when he was in Tomchei Temimim, he was attacked and they beat him up. And for one year afterward, not only could he not hear well, but his whole body was in a weakened condition, so he had to eat every three hours – if he didn't eat, he would faint. Many times he had to have something in his mouth just to function; this was his condition.

So when Yom Kippur came, of course he wanted to fast and he went to shul, though he had to lie down – he was in a difficult situation. But it was Yom Kippur, Yom Kippur – and yet, what about his condition? He didn't know what to do. So he asked the question: what should he do – should he fast given his condition? The Frierdiker Rebbe told him [an answer], and then, before he walked out, the Rebbe held him back and said to him [unclear – a phrase in Yiddish] and smiled.

So Rabbi Mindel went out. His rav was [unclear], so he told [those around him] that the Rebbe had told him he should ask a local rav whether he should fast on Yom Kippur. So Reb Shmuel [?] said that the Rebbe meant he should ask a wise rav – and then he could eat on Yom Kippur. This is something a rav must have as well – it's called [unclear] – not only scholarship, but this other quality too.

There's another thing I want to share with you before I read the letter. My father also had training – before you become a rav, you must have training, to see how a real rav conducts himself. So my father trained under Rabbi Mendel Dubrovsky. Rabbi Mendel Dubrovsky was the father-in-law of the rabbi who used to be the rav of 770 Crown Heights, and this was his father – he was a big rav, one of the biggest rabbonim. Rabbi Mendel Dubrovsky – different people knew him – so my father trained under him.

So a lady comes in with a she'eilah about a chicken. Nowadays we don't see ladies standing in line with chickens for a rav to check – maybe all our chickens are fine now, we don't know, that's another problem, and the Rebbe wrote to somebody about women knowing how to check meat and chicken and all that – but that's a topic for another program. But we don't see this today. I don't know why, but that's the way it is. In those days, years ago, women used to stand in line for the rav to check the chicken.

So the lady brought in the breast of the chicken. My father looked at it, examined the chicken, and he said it was kosher, because there's a particular spot – a bone – that everybody knows, and he told the lady it was fine. Before she left, Rabbi Mendel Dubrovsky called my father over and said, "Come here, I want to look at it too." He looked at the chicken again, looked and looked, and said, "Actually, this is not kosher." My father was shocked, because everybody knows that spot is fine.

Rabbi Mendel Dubrovsky saw that my father was shocked, so he said to him, "You are right – but you overlooked a hidden factor. In this particular case, with this lady's situation, you actually can make it kosher." So sometimes, even though it looks a certain way, a rav has to have a certain depth of understanding and know that sometimes you can find a way to make something kosher. I just wanted to share this myself – my father was a good example of this.

Now I want to read to you the shocking letter that the Rebbe wrote to this rav. First – the Rebbe, in writing to him, does not write "Dear Rabbi" with a blessing – this itself is shocking.

**[Letter from the Rebbe]:**

"After reading your letter of January 29th, my first reaction was to ignore it" – and the Rebbe crossed out the word "ignore" – "and I wrote [instructing] my secretary not to answer this [letter]" – the Rebbe wrote this part in his own handwriting – "but then I remembered the exhortation of our sages of the Mishnah: judge everyone in the scale of merit. However, frankly, I have difficulty in finding any merit in your letter, perhaps because I am not accustomed to read letters of this kind of name-calling – pardon my vulgar expression.

"What would you think of a person – even one not called rabbi – who had just read a report of something that happened thousands of miles away, in a place and country equally far away in terms of society, spiritual climate, and customs prevailing there, accepts the report at face value – especially without taking the trouble to verify whether it is perhaps biased, slanderous, or a slight distortion of the actual facts – and immediately jumps to a conclusion, condemning the alleged culprits, and by association a host of other people, in a virulent and unrestrained manner, using expressions and epithets unbecoming of any responsible person, such as in the above-mentioned letter?

"I did investigate what actually took place and the circumstances surrounding it, and it made me wonder how many humble, apologetic letters you will have to write to those whom you so misjudged and slandered in your uncalled-for outburst.

"In light of the above, I trust you will not feel offended [by] my not signing this letter personally, though I dictated it and read it over. With due respect" – [signed by] the secretary.

And this is the letter. The Rebbe told his secretary to sign it, and at the bottom he wrote [an additional note]. So what can we learn from this letter? First of all, "Hevei dan es kol adam l'chaf zechus" – judging everyone in the scale of merit applies to everybody. If you see a person doing something intentionally against our mitzvos, and you still judge him favorably, then you will never go wrong. So here the Rebbe had to deal with this, and still the Rebbe wrote this letter – it's unbelievable.

And this is what we can all learn out – you learn from the Rebbe how we should conduct ourselves. Even though the Rebbe couldn't tolerate the way this person had spoken, and whatever feelings he had about the words that had been written about others, the Rebbe was still careful in what he himself wrote. You have to be careful before you say something – how careful you have to be. And this is from today's episode, what we can learn out: "Hevei dan es kol adam l'chaf zechus."

Next week we will continue our weekly program. Thank you.