The Chossid Who Complained About His Divorce

The Chossid Who Complained About His Divorce — Episode 134

Welcome to our weekly program, the inside story of Chabad in America through the Mindel archives. We are very close to the great and holy day of Gimmel Tammuz. There is so much to share from the files of Rabbi Mindel — letters, things the Rebbe told him, subjects, ideas, politics, and more — and this was shared with him because he worked with the Rebbe for fifty years.

I don't know what to say about such a day — [unclear] — there is so much to share, and whatever is said is not enough. Many, many people speak about the greatness of Rabbi Mindel, about the greatness of the Rebbe, about the Rebbe's miracles, but I think most of what can be said has already been said — and yet whatever was said is not enough. Such a Rebbe, you can't describe such a level. And it's not only because of the miracles — we put too much emphasis on that. I want to sharpen this point: it wasn't so much because of his miracles, but because he was a leader.

And as Rabbi Mindel writes in the introduction to "The Letter and the Spirit" — by the way, we're coming out soon with volume six — he writes in the introduction that the Rebbe wore three crowns. Number one, Manhig Chabad — he was the leader of Chabad. Number two, he was Manhig Klal Yisrael — a leader of all Yidden, as we know. And he was Manhig HaOlam — a leader of the entire world. That's why he dealt with people from every walk of life, for everybody. There was never a Rebbe since the Holocaust who turned over the world the way he did. People after the Holocaust had questions in emunah, had questions about Moshiach — the Rebbe brought back Yiddishkeit to millions of Jews, religious and not religious. So there are no words to describe, to speak about the greatness of the Rebbe. But since it's Gimmel Tammuz,

I want to share with you a fascinating story about the Rebbe that happened while Rabbi Mindel was in the room taking dictation. This is all written from Rabbi Mindel — a fascinating story. But before I tell you the story, I want to make an introduction. Even though I once mentioned this before, people who didn't hear it should hear it before I tell the story.

I want to say this — and people still ask me, I don't know how the letters went. First of all, I want to say: it's not from me — it's all written. All the letters — Michtavim Klolim, all the letters, for Shavuos, for Yom Tov, whatever the Rebbe wrote, Hebrew and English, banquets, a lot — I have all of them: dinners, concerts, Hebrew, English — were dictated to Rabbi Mindel. And the wording, the language of those letters, is the language of Rabbi Mindel — meaning, he went in to the Rebbe three times a week, sometimes two, and the Rebbe opened every single letter and gave him a nekudah, the main point. Then he went home after taking dictation — and I have the dictation here, his shorthand. He knew shorthand — he knew Hebrew shorthand, he knew English shorthand, and Russian shorthand — and he would take it down and compose those letters. He brought it back to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe looked it over — if the Rebbe didn't understand it, the Rebbe had to make notations — so he went back again, had to type it again, work on it again, until the Rebbe signed the letter, and it became "the Rebbe's letter" — but the wording is Rabbi Mindel's wording. English — all the English letters, and Yiddish, most of them, were done this way from the early years.

There was a Rabbi Rochester [?] — he did a few; those letters that he did were the big, long letters. Then Rabbi Mindel was close to Rabbi Simpson [?] — but [names unclear] — they wrote letters, letters of Chassidus or other things, but the actual letters — the whole thing, the language — is Rabbi Mindel's. And this is how the letters went.

So I have this, and Rabbi Mindel writes that it was difficult, because it was like a sicha that the Rebbe told him, and to compose such a letter was not easy. So he would take it and sometimes write it and give it to the Rebbe, and it turned out wrong — that the Rebbe did not have that in mind; the Rebbe had only given him a nekudah — that's how Rabbi Mindel understood it. So he had to do it over again — there were notations again — and many times he had a hard time, especially with the Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch letters. So Rabbi Mindel, who knew the Rebbe's style and worked with the Rebbe for fifty years, many times had to make a lot of notations in order to explain better.

So — now, when people quote letters from the Rebbe, it has to be accurate, so that people understand exactly what the Rebbe meant. A couple of months ago I heard a lecture — speakers teaching the Rebbe's English or Hebrew letters, which is a wonderful thing; to learn the Rebbe's letters, you can learn so much — but I need to make two corrections, and this is all based on what's written in Rabbi Mindel's notes.

Number one: you have to say where it comes from. I saw many letters that came from Igros Kodesh — you have to say it comes from Igros Kodesh — the speaker should say that. And I saw the letter — many, many letters come from "The Letter and the Spirit" — and I know, because I have the notations, which letters come from where.

Number two: when one explains a letter, one cannot insert their own philosophy — because I saw that some letters were explained in a certain way that is not what the Rebbe meant, because there are notations showing that's not what the Rebbe meant. So one has to know: when you teach a letter, explain it exactly as meant; if you want to add your own explanation, say so — say "this is my opinion, this is not what the Rebbe said." This is a very important point — otherwise it's not accurate, and that's not what the Rebbe had in mind. The same applies also to sichos of the Rebbe.

Now I'm going to tell you a story. Rabbi Mindel went to the Rebbe to take dictation. The Rebbe opens up a letter — as I said, the Rebbe opened every letter — then the Rebbe gives it to him and says, "Read it." And he reads it — and look what he writes there: he writes that he has complaints against the Rebbe. He was a bochur, and he had gone out with a certain girl — should he continue going out with her? So the Rebbe says, "Continue." So he continued — he continued, and he didn't feel it was right — he thought she wasn't the one — so he told the Rebbe, "I'm sorry, it's not —" nu, the Rebbe says, "Continue." He still didn't attempt to get married — "continue." He continued a third time — maybe it was a little better, but it wasn't a hundred percent, I'm sure — and the Rebbe says, "Continue." What did he do? He got married — because he thought that since the Rebbe said "continue," the Rebbe felt this should be his wife. So he got married. He got married, and after a while he divorced. So now he complains to the Rebbe: "Rebbe, it's because of you — because you told me to continue, and that's why I thought you felt this was meant to be my wife — and now it's not for me." So he complains to the Rebbe.

So the Rebbe asks the two of them, "What do you say about this?" And he smiles — in front of the Rebbe he's not going to answer, he didn't say a word. Again — he didn't say a word. And then the Rebbe writes: "He was a bochur, and after three months they got divorced — they got married, there was a misunderstanding, and now they're divorced — what does this mean?" So this is the answer — this is what the Rebbe wrote: it means that they should have said something, and they didn't say it — because sometimes the answer comes from the back, and it becomes crooked. That's what the Rebbe wrote.

Now, once I showed this answer to Rabbi Yosef Wineberg [?] — he said, "From this answer you can learn a lot of Shas — this is very interesting." I showed it to him — he said you can learn a lot of Shas from it.

Now, what happened in the end? I happen to know who that couple was — a year, a year and a half later, they got married again — mazel tov — and baruch Hashem they have children, and everything is fine, thank G-d. That's it.

One of the lecture speakers came over to me a couple of years ago and asked me, "Do you have anything — I need to speak somewhere — give me something from the Rebbe, from Rabbi Mindel." So I told him this story. How long did it take me to tell the story? Maybe five minutes. It took him almost forty-five minutes! Why? Because he added to it. You have to tell a story the way it happened — I'm telling it to you the way it happened. Now, you can learn Shas from it, you can learn a lot from this — but you can't say things, you can't put your own philosophy into letters. If you want to say your own idea, say "this is mine" — but say where it actually comes from — because I see people quoting letters and giving their own ideas, and it's not based on the notations. Sometimes it seems accurate, and sometimes it is.

So, since we are now before Gimmel Tammuz, I thought I would mention this to you. I hope everyone will resolve to be accurate in quoting the Rebbe's teachings — and to appreciate all the brachos, for all the years, that the Rebbe gave — the Rebbe constantly gave brachos and brachos and brachos — this was the Rebbe's life. So I'm sure that everyone, and the whole world, will receive the biggest brachah that they ever wanted. I think Moshiach is coming — take care. Yad mamash. Thank you.