A Vort About Kinus Hashluchim

Welcome to our weekly program, "The Inside Story of Chabad in America," through the Mindel archives. At the end of this program I want to say something, since this week is Kinus, so I want to say a vort that Rabbi Hodakov was speaking with Rabbi Mindel — what Rabbi Hodakov said in the week of Kinus — I'll say that at the end of this program.

This program is a continuation of last week's program. Last week we mentioned that everything in the world has a body and has a soul. Shabbos also has a body and has a soul. The husband is called the soul and the wife is called the body. So the wife, she starts Shabbos with lighting candles, and the husband with Havdalah — he finishes Shabbos with the Havdalah candle.

Shabbos begins with her — that is the way she conducts herself: lighting candles, the way she serves the Shabbos food, the way she dresses, the way she dresses the children. This gives shalom bayis to the husband, and this gives the ruach for the whole week. It starts with her. The husband, he's the head, and she's the neck — wherever the neck turns, that's where the head goes.

As we learned last week, in the Torah it says "Kol asher tomar eilecha Sarah, shema b'kolah" — whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice — because the woman has a certain binah yeseirah, a greater understanding. And that's why, when Moshe gave the Torah, he was told to speak to the women first — "Tagid l'bais Yaakov" — if you want the Torah to take hold, speak to the women first, because she will have an influence on the husband.

And as the Rebbe once mentioned in a letter, it doesn't mean only that a kosher woman does the will of her husband — he said it is "eitzah b'vaalah," she gives advice and direction to her husband; this is called [the quality of] Eshet Chayil. So Shabbos begins with her — the way she conducts herself, that's the way the family will take after her.

So when we come home from shul on Shabbos, before Kiddush, we say Eshet Chayil. This is a continuation of this idea: "Eshet chayil mi yimtza" — a woman of valor, who can find her? The heart of her husband trusts in her. And it ends with "Sheker hachein v'hevel hayofi, isha yirat Hashem hi tit'halal" — grace is false and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Hashem, she shall be praised. This is the most important thing.

So when we enter Shabbos we give wonderful praise to the wife and to the mother, as we say in Eshet Chayil: she does good and not evil all the days of her life; she takes care of her home, her husband, her children; she is kind to the poor and to the needy; she speaks with wisdom, and with loving-kindness on her tongue; and the most important thing is that she is a God-fearing woman.

So that explains Eshet Chayil on a deeper level. Eshet Chayil, on a deeper level, is the Torah, to which the Jewish people are married — the Torah is the wife and the Jew is the husband. [unclear] The Jew trusts in the Torah, and the Torah takes care of the Jew.

As the Midrash mentions, when Hashem created the world, Shabbos complained: "Every day You created, You created with a mate — Sunday with Monday, Tuesday with Wednesday, Thursday with Friday — but Shabbos is alone." So Shabbos asked, "Where is my mate?" And Hashem answered, "Your mate is the Jewish people." Jews cannot be without Shabbos just as Jews cannot be without Torah, so too can they not be without Shabbos. [unclear — "Shabbos Kodesh... we are married to one another"] — that's what Shabbos means also: together, married.

This week['s parsha] we also have Avraham and Sarah — Avraham is the husband, he represents the neshamah, and Sarah is the guf. But as the Rebbe mentioned regarding Sarah, the guf is made up of the four elements — aish, mayim, ruach [and afar], fire, water, and air — and in this world the guf is needed more than anything else. So if a neshamah doesn't have a guf, then it can't accomplish what it's supposed to. And this is connected to this parsha.

So here I want to say — talking about Eshet Chayil — I want to say a vort. Maybe a couple of years ago I mentioned it, but it's a very interesting vort. I think we say in Eshet Chayil, "Sheker" — the main thing is that a woman fears G-d. So the Rebbe asks, in a letter: beauty in a woman is sheker, is nothing. First of all, the Gemara says that all Jewish women are beautiful, and besides, [the posuk says] beauty is nothing — but the Torah says Sarah was beautiful, Rivka was beautiful, Rochel was beautiful. If beauty is nothing, why does the Torah mention it? And not only that — the Torah mentions that Esther HaMalka — the whole miracle of Purim happened because Esther was beautiful. So why do we say beauty is sheker?

So he explains it like this: when these three things are sheker — when the "chein" is false — he explains that this doesn't mean she doesn't like lighting candles. We're not talking about a woman who doesn't like candles; she likes candles, but it's not the main thing if she lights them quickly because she has to go do other things. [The proper way is that] a woman lights candles, closes her eyes, and asks Hashem there for the best in the world. Why does she have to bake challah? She could go to the store and buy challah — you still make a brachah. But why does she do it the easier way, going to buy challah, instead of making a brachah over her own challah? Besides, the Torah does mention this, but besides that, for a lot of women baking challah is good for [unclear] — it's a whole inyan of baking challah — but for her it's not that important, and she goes to the store instead. But she doesn't realize the importance of having kosher children, of having healthy, good children, as we've spoken about many times. But for her it's not — it's not a hundred percent [true devotion] when these things are nothing [to her]. Beauty is important, but beauty is important only if you have the other kind of beauty. Today you're beautiful, you have a certain kind of nose, and in ten years your nose changes — so that is not only temporary. But when it's the real beauty, that's not called sheker. So that's how these three things can become sheker.

Then the most important thing is a woman who fears Hashem. And that's why they gave her these three mitzvos, because these three mitzvos are all about havdalah — separation. She was given the power of separation: Shabbos — she brings in the Shabbos, she makes the Havdalah, a separation between the weekdays and Shabbos, as soon as she lights the candles the whole home knows that it's Shabbos. Challah — she takes a piece of the dough, she makes a brachah, she takes from the dough and puts it in the fire, she makes a brachah and thereby she separates [the challah portion]. And Niddah — when it comes time, she tells her husband, "Now I have to separate." So the power of separation was given to her. And not only that — if you want to know if a child is Jewish or not, it doesn't depend on the father, it depends only on the Jewish mother. This is the entirety of what makes a Jewish woman.

Now, I said before that I want to mention — I have written down, you know, that many times Rabbi Hodakov, who was the head of Shluchim, used to discuss with Rabbi Mindel — many times when it came to Kinus HaShluchim — which I have written down, and maybe we'll mention it sometime. But one of the things I want to mention, that was discussed around this time: Rabbi Hodakov used to say — I wrote this down — he would say: what is the tofel, what's the main thing, and what is not the main thing? When a shliach wakes up in the morning, he has to know one thing: what is the ikar and what is the mashkon — a mashkon is temporary. A shliach has to have a Chabad House, it's important; he has to have a car, he has to have somewhere to go — yes, this is important, but he has to know this is only tofel, this is not the ikar. That's why it's called "Yaakov" — that's the lower level, that's the heel. He has to have it, but that's not the most important thing. He has to know, he has to think to himself — he writes here, I think, at the end: how many people did you put on tefillin this year? That's what you should worry about, more than how the Chabad House is going to look. It's important to have a Chabad House, it's important to have [unclear], but is that the most important thing? So the important thing is what's happening inside the Chabad House — the ruach, how many children went to yeshiva, how many came, how many people learned Torah with you — this is the most important thing. This is what they were discussing around that time.

So since today is the Kinus, I thought I would just mention this vort — the discussion between Rabbi Mindel and Rabbi Hodakov about this. This is a vort from Rabbi Hodakov. So, b'ezras Hashem, next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.