The Yeshiva Graduate Who had Doubts in Emunah

Episode 144: "The Yeshiva Graduate Who Had Doubts in Emunah" (ה' באלול תשפ"ב)

Welcome to our weekly program on the history of Chabad in America through the Mindel archives.

We are now in the middle of a farbrengen. I told you last week that there'll be a continuation, so whoever didn't listen to last week should definitely listen, because I'm starting in the middle. I was in the middle of telling a story. The vishnu [?] said, the Gareth City [?] of Sacramento [?], wanted that I should tell them a personal story about the Rebbe. Last week I told you one story, and now I'm going to tell you the second story that I said at the farbrengen.

I used to teach in yeshiva, of... as they call her, ben toy lead [?]. He came over to me one day and he said to me, "I have to talk to you, but it has to be confidential. Something very important." He says, "I have to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe."

So I said, "I'm not a secretary, I can't make appointments. I don't think you'll be able to go." It was very hard to go into yechidus.

"I don't know, I must see him."

I said, "You're a Mirrer talmid. Why don't you go to the Mirrer and talk to him, whatever problem you have?" Rabbi, I think, Birnbaum was then the rosh yeshiva.

He says, "No, only the Lubavitcher Rebbe can help me."

And he told me what his problem is. He says to me, "I have sfeikos in emunah." And he meant it. He was everything, but he has sfeikos in emunah, he says, and that bothers him. He davens, he learns, he does everything, but sfeikos.

So I said, "You know what? Why don't you sit down and write a letter?"

He says, "How can I write a letter to the Rebbe, that he would understand me? Because you have to speak face to face. This is a pretty musical [?] thing. It's not just a question. This has to do with my whole mood, my whole life."

I said, "You know what? Try to write it, then we'll see."

Anyways, it took him a few days. He wrote eight pages. He showed me the letter, with such a [unclear]. He felt he has sfeikos in emunah; it bothered him. I told him I'll give it to the secretary and it's confidential.

So I took the letter to Rabbi Groner and I told him, "Whenever there's an answer, call me." Okay, that's it.

A day or two or three went by. Then he says to me, "Is there an answer?"

I said, "No."

He says, "I told you, the Rebbe doesn't understand. I can't explain it in a letter. I have to talk to the Rebbe." That's all, finished.

It took, I think, three and a half weeks or four weeks. Rabbi Groner calls me up. He said, "I have an answer for you."

You know, the answers... all the typed letters, the Igros [?], the English letters, most of them were done by Rabbi Mindel, and they were typed. These are not... These are opinions [?], like people used to give to the Rebbe. The Rebbe wrote down with his own handwriting on a piece of paper. Then Rabbi Groner, Rabbi Klein, Rabbi Hodakov used to write it down and give back the original, what the Rebbe wrote. So that's why he only called me. He gave me what the Rebbe wrote, an answer in his handwriting.

The next day I come to the yeshiva and I said, "You know, there is an answer from the Rebbe."

His face mamash shined. He says, "Okay, I'm going to tell my shiur that I won't be able to see the shiur today, because this is very important to me."

I said, "No, no, no, don't worry, you'll be able to give the shiur. The answer is only six, seven words."

He says, "What? I wrote eight pages, and the Rebbe answers six, seven words?"

I said, "Yeah."

"Okay, what's the answer?"

The answer is: "Im yizaher [?] b'chalav Yisrael, [unclear]." That's it.

He says, "What kind of an answer is that, chalav Yisrael?" He says, "First of all, I live in Boro Park, and I drink chalav Yisrael."

I said, "All the time?"

He says, "No." He says, "Dramatist [?] says this, you could drink chalav stam." So when he goes to the country, or when he goes [elsewhere], he drinks chalav stam, but in the house, yes.

"Oh, so you're not that careful. Fine." I said, "There's nothing more I can tell you. This is your answer."

So as far as he knows, the Rebbe didn't understand, the Rebbe couldn't answer, didn't understand him, whatever it is.

It passed by, I don't know how many weeks. He comes in the morning running to me. He said, "Your Rebbe is a gaon! Something impressed me."

I said, "What happened?"

He found a rich [?] that says that if a person has doubts in God, he should be careful with chalav Yisrael, or something like that. "How did the Rebbe know this? This is [unclear], this is gaonus, the Rebbe should know such an inyan [?]. It took me weeks."

I said, "I don't know if the Rebbe saw that. If the Rebbe says, the Rebbe says. This is called shrino with diabetes [unclear], with the greatness [unclear] of this." I said, "If you saw it."

Anyways, from then on I started to learn Tanya with him. We learned together. We lived in Lakota [?] for a long time. This opened up his eyes, it changed him. His wife told me that there was a problem with shalom bayis because of his lack in emunah. But now, since we started to learn, she says he changed, his mood changed, and mamash she became different.

This is the second story that I told the people at that farbrengen, the personal story.

I also shared with them at the farbrengen something very interesting. You know, people think that the Rebbe didn't have a connection with any Rebbes. Usually Ger has a connection with Satmar, with Klausenberg, this one has this one, but the Rebbe, which is a different therapy [?], has no connection.

So I told them, first of all, the Gerer Rebbe, I think it was the [unclear], went into the Rebbe. He came here to America, he was by the Rebbe, and I told them a few things that happened then.

Then the Satmar Rebbe came to be menachem [avel] when the Rebbetzin passed away. And the Rebbe went to Williamsburg to bring him over [?], the Satmar, when he lost his daughter. I told them some things that happened by the Satmar, a few things that happened by the Satmar. I heard some from my father-in-law and some from Rabbi Groner.

When the Satmar Rebbe came to be menachem [?], the Satmar Rebbe had a few questions. One of the things they spoke about: it says, "Poshei Yisrael mele'im mitzvos k'rimon," even a sinner, a Yid, is full of mitzvahs like a pomegranate. He says, "If he is a poshea Yisrael, if he is a sinner, how can he have a lot of mitzvos?" That's what he asked.

So the Rebbe answered him: "I also have a question. If he's malei mitzvos k'rimon, if he has so many mitzvahs, how can you call him a poshea Yisrael?"

By the way, the Rebbin Cutler [?] was there also. While the Rebbe was talking with the Satmar Rebbe, then Sorry Button Cuttle [?] turns to the Satmar Rebbe and says, "What's written? What are you discussing?" So the Satmar Rebbe said to him, "This is not for you. It's not for you." This happened.

So I said, you know, this is one of the things I talked about at the farbrengen.

I also told them that President Shazar was once by the Rebbe. President Shazar was very close. Shazar, the prime minister of Israel, was very close with Rabbi Mindel. He talked all the time; he was sent many times to Shazar. My father-in-law told me that he heard from Shazar: while he was sitting by the Rebbe, he started to talk about the Satmar, I mean something negative. So the Rebbe grabbed his hand, and he didn't want to hear further. He says, "I don't want to hear further." This is what Shazar told my father-in-law [?].

Now another thing, before we go further. By the Satmar Rebbe, when he came to be menachem [avel], the Satmar asked a question. You say to an avel, "HaMakom yenachem eschem," the Place should comfort you. He says, why do they use the word HaMakom, which means a place? Because there's no place where Hashem is not there. But it could have said other names; HaMakom is not a usual thing. Why? And also, you say "b'soch she'ar aveilei [Tziyon v'Yerushalayim]."

So I'm going to tell you now what the Rebbe answered him. I wrote this down. The Rebbe said like this:

Every Yid has a place in this world when he's alive. Now, people might think that place is empty, because the person is not here anymore. So the Rebbe says a person must know that now, after passing, the soul is eternal. The soul hears and the soul sees, and the neshamah hears and sees better than before. All the good deeds that a person did in this world stay here forever; they stay in that makom.

Before, the soul was like in a jail. It was in a body, like in a jail; it was limited. But now it's able to see what the mishpachah, the family, is doing. So the more the person [unclear], the more pleasure the neshamah has.

And makom also means the impact he left in the world. This is a makom, this place, much more than before. So everything he or she lived for is still here, but [unclear]. That's why we say "HaMakom": that place. You learn a lot from that makom. This is what he said.

Now, in a letter, this is what the Rebbe... not spoken to the Satmar. In another letter of nichum aveilim, which we are going to have in Letter and Spirit (I think we didn't put it on yet, maybe it's going to be in the sixth volume), the Rebbe writes like this:

By a tzaddik, death is not a big deal. Death is only a transition from one place to another, from one makom to another place. That's death by a tzaddik, meaning he just goes over from here to here. That's why, if a person is a frum Yid, he's here now, and after death he goes to another place. But a person that is not frum, death bothers him, because here he has kavod, he likes kavod, and he won't have kavod in the other world. Here he has ta'avos [?]; in the other world it's finished. So the person doesn't want to die, because he wants to have all these [unclear] and all these things that he did in this world. So by him, death is a change. But by a frum Yid, especially by a tzaddik, death doesn't mean anything. It's just a transition from one place to another place.

And as the Frierdiker Rebbe said, if you remember: when the KGB took the Frierdiker Rebbe and asked him questions at the interrogation, when they arrested him, fifteen people were around the table from the KGB, and each one had a gun by his place. They asked the Rebbe... He knew Russian, but he didn't want to speak English [?] in Russian, and they didn't like it. So they told him, "You see this gun?" In other words, be careful.

So the Frierdiker Rebbe answered them: a person that has one world and two gods is afraid of this toy, but a person that has one God and two worlds is not afraid of this toy.

And the Rebbe explained, I was told, that by the Frierdiker Rebbe it's only a transition, and in this world you can have a transition. First of all, it is after 120 years. And a tzaddik is sometimes also transitioned: he lives in the other world even in this world. So therefore it's only a transition.

So a person should know that it's only going from here to there. The people cry; they have to cry. But it's only personal, not for them. They cry for themselves, because they lost a person.

And that's why we say this. We tell them: just like the Beis HaMikdash will come back, the same thing, that person will also come back with techiyas hameisim [?], b'karov mamash [?]. And just like the Beis HaMikdash, according to some people, is already here, just about to be brought down, so that person will come back again.

And the Rebbe says, whoever is menachem aveilim in this world, they are menachem him in the other world. So there's no ending to nichum aveilim. This is what the Rebbe writes about.

Now there is no time to continue, so I will continue the farbrengen, im yirtzeh Hashem, next week. Thank you.