The Disappointed Shluchim Who Didn’t See Results

Welcome to our weekly program, the inside story of Chabad in America through the Mindel archives.

Today is Hamisha Asar B'Shvat, Rosh Hashanah L'Ilanos — the new year for trees — meaning, this establishes when a person's ma'aser begins: a person gives a tenth, a teruma. So the year starts with Tu B'Shvat. This is Rosh Hashanah L'Ilanos, for fruits.

Speaking of ma'aser, a tenth — you know, when a person earns a dollar, ten cents is not his; when a person earns two dollars, twenty cents is not his. That's called ma'aser, a tenth.

Now, I saw in the archives — I don't know if it comes from the Rebbe or if Rabbi Mindel wrote an article somewhere — that there's a Midrash which says: give ma'aser, a tenth, and you will become rich, and you will see your mazel. Now, what connection — why does it say "mazlecha"? What connection does mazlecha have to "ta'aser"? It could have said, "Give ma'aser, you'll be wealthy" — but why does it mention mazel?

So it says there a very interesting thing. I saw that the word "ta'aser" is spelled tav-ayin-shin-resh. Tav is 400 — a tenth of 400 is 40, which is mem. The ayin of "ta'aser" is 70 — a tenth of 70 is 7, which is zayin. The shin of "ta'aser" is 300 — a tenth of that is 30, which is lamed. And the resh is 200 — a tenth of that is 20, which is khaf. So that spells mem-zayin-lamed-khaf — "mazlecha," your mazel. That's why it says if you give ma'aser you'll see your mazel. That's what I saw.

Anyway, going back to Rosh Hashanah L'Ilanos — it says "adam eitz hasadeh," a person is compared to a tree in many ways, and I'll mention it soon. Just like a tree has fruit, and a tree grows — a tree grows like a person, who goes upright, not like an animal, a behaima, which is on the same level as the ground. In many ways a person is like a tree.

So I want to share with you two letters from the Rebbe, that the Rebbe answered to two different [shluchim] who wrote that they are shluchim in a city for many, many years, and they work hard, and they do whatever they can — but they don't see fruit, they don't see peiros, they don't see hatzlacha. They do whatever they can, but after so many years they don't see ba'alei teshuva. So they wanted to ask the Rebbe — excuse me, maybe they should come to New York, and maybe the Rebbe can send other shluchim there, maybe they'll do a better job — that's what they wrote.

So this is what the Rebbe answered them: there are two categories in planting — when you plant a vegetable, or when you plant a tree. The Rebbe says planting a vegetable is not much effort — you put in a seed, put in soil, that's all, not much effort, and whatever comes out is whatever you put in. If you put in a potato seed, potatoes come out; cucumber, cucumber comes out — but nothing else. It could be 100 potatoes or 500 potatoes, but only potatoes, and it doesn't take long to grow, and there is no continuation — meaning, once it's grown, that's it, the plant doesn't grow again. So by vegetables there's a lot of quantity — you can have a lot of potatoes, quickly and with no effort.

When you plant a tree it's completely different. First of all, it's hard work — you have to put in a seed, and you have to put it very deep in the ground, and the roots, in order for the tree to be strong, are very important — it's a lot of work. Also, the seed that you put in has many stages — after that you have the trunk, the stem, branches, leaves, and finally you have fruits, and that takes years to grow, not like a vegetable. But once it's there, once you've done it, you don't have to do it again — it's good for generations, the tree stays there and has fruit for generation after generation. That's the difference between a vegetable and a tree.

Just like a tree — you plant with hard work and it takes a long time — the same thing is true also with a person, in many ways. He has children, and the more effort you put into your children, the better they grow up. There are many ways to see the connection between a person and a tree. But after you plant and do everything, you still need a bracha. It says "adam" — a person plants, but a person has to have emunah, faith, that it is going to grow, and then you need rain. Rain is the bracha — you have to ask for rain; if there's no rain, nothing is going to grow, and that is the emunah.

Then the Rebbe says that "adam eitz hasadeh" — just like a person, the most important thing is the emunah, the faith, for a person to later grow in this world, to do Torah and mitzvos. The foundation, the ikar, the root, is the emunah. A tree is the same thing. Why is the root the faith? Because a root you hide in the ground very deep — a person's emunah is also hidden, you cannot see the emunah. So just as a tree's root is hidden, and if the roots are strong then the whole tree is going to be strong, so too by a person — if his emunah is strong, then his avodah will be strong.

The trunk of a tree represents the body. So the Rebbe writes here that the roots suck up the nutrition from the ground, and the trunk stays strong — this is how it is by a person as well.

And the Rebbe mentions here — just like yesterday, yes, [we/he] were in Israel — we learned a few weeks ago about [Eliyahu? — unclear] and Yosef HaTzaddik. [He] remained steadfast in his tzidkus; he was called Yosef HaTzaddik. There are only two people, I think, called "HaTzaddik" — [unclear] and Yosef HaTzaddik — because by them it says that they also had nisyonos, but by them it was overcome; we don't know if [others] will be able to overcome. Every single day, by Yosef, it says, he had the nisayon of the yetzer hara, and Yosef overcame the yetzer hara — he remained strong, because, the Rebbe writes, he was nurtured by his father's emunah. The seventeen years that Yosef was with his father, he absorbed that emunah, and he went through Mitzrayim with that emunah, with his Torah and mitzvos.

And then, just like a tree — a person, a tree has fruit, these are the children, there's a continuation for generations. I saw it also states, "for generations and generations."

Therefore the Rebbe says they should have patience like a tree, because they wrote that they don't see peiros. So the Rebbe said regarding the peiros — you have to have patience, and the Rebbe said they should stay, and there should be hatzlacha.

This reminds me — a tree, you know, stays for generations. Once a [person — unclear] came over to me and said: "You know, you Chabadniks, when you do mekarev people — if you would know that this person is not going to become a Chabadnik, you wouldn't even bother with him. You only want to make him Chabad, so he'll later be close to the Rebbe." That's what he told me.

So I said to him: first of all, you are a hundred percent wrong, but you're also right. You are wrong because Chabad — they go and do mivtzoim with people, they don't think about what's going to be with them. They do a mitzvah, they help bentsch on an esrog, they give matzah, they do everything, they give candles for women to light — they don't care who it is, as long as a Jew is going to do a mitzvah. So you're a hundred percent wrong.

But, excuse me, you're also right. Hypothetically, if I have a choice — I have two people, one I know is going to become a Chabadnik and one I know is not going to become a Chabadnik — I would definitely do mivtzoim with both, for sure, but I would probably put more effort in with the one who will become a Chabadnik. Why? Because if I do a mitzvah with somebody, or make him frum, I know he's going to be frum, and maybe his children — but I don't know about the generations after that. But if I make somebody Chabad, I know he's going to be frum, his children will be frum, and hundreds of thousands of Yidden in the city he lives in — he'll try to bring them closer to Yiddishkeit. So of course it's like this: the main thing is the continuation.

And here we see — I know the names, I have the letters here — that these shluchim went on to have a lot of hatzlacha, they made a lot of ba'alei teshuva, and this is the lesson of Hamisha Asar.

There's another letter where the Rebbe writes, speaking about fruits, that fruits have a taste and fruits have a smell. A taste symbolizes Torah, and a smell symbolizes mitzvos. You learn and you absorb Torah — just like food, you eat food, you absorb it, but that's it, you can't see the food anymore. When you learn Torah, you understand, you absorb, but that's it. Mitzvos, on the other hand, are like a smell — a smell you can smell a hundred times, and the smell still stays. That's why it says "ikaran kayam" — when a person does a mitzvah, it's not only reward in this world, but he has reward in the World to Come too — that's what it says. But the truth of the matter is Torah has both — Torah is learning, and Torah also has the aspect of a mitzvah — so Torah has both, Torah has a smell and Torah has a taste.

But after the emunah, and after everything, you have to know one thing: the Rebbe says the mind has to rule over the heart — that's the rule — and that's why Chazal say a person should grow tall like a tree. A person has three important organs: the moach, the brain; in the middle is the lev, the heart; and on the bottom is the kaved, the liver, and the kidneys — not like an animal. By an animal, the head and the heart and the liver are all on the same level — that's how they walk. By a person, Chazal say, the brain is on top, the heart is in the middle, and the bottom is the liver and the kidneys. If not — he said, if not, it's like [being ruled by] the liver. And this is the lesson that we learn from Hamisha Asar.

"Adam" — in a person there are a few names: adam, ish, and others. He mentions the word here: "adam" — adam is from the ground, the lowest, but a person can reach the highest. Because in the word "adam," the Rebbe says, the aleph is for Adam [HaRishon] — we know he gave David seventy years of his life, because Adam HaRishon was supposed to live a thousand years but gave away seventy years to David. The dalet is for Dovid. And the mem is for Mashiach — the Mashiach, that a person should merit to bring — that is the most important thing, as we just said.

And to make the emunah strong is by learning Chassidus, as we once mentioned — that Chassidus gives a person real emunah, and that's how you can overcome the world, and it strengthens his mitzvos. And through learning Chassidus — this is your future, and this will bring Mashiach speedily, now, mamash. Thank you.