The Letter Complaining About People Talking in Shul

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives.

Last week I mentioned that the Rebbe's letters in English are very clear, and I mentioned that instead of taking time explaining, we can just read the letter the way the Rebbe wrote it - it's clear. Different than Igros Kodesh in Yiddish, which is a little bit difficult - so maybe I need to explain - but the English letters you could read the way they are and people will understand.

So, since we are now learning Pirkei Avos, and this letter that I'm going to read was written on Vov Iyar - today is also Vov Iyar - I will share with you this letter, and the letter is about prayer and about davening with a minyan.

But before I read the letter, I want to mention two things, since we are already in Pirkei Avos - we started to learn Pirkei Avos after Pesach. The Rebbe says that there are a lot of reasons why it's called Avos. Why is it called Avos? Because this is a perek for parents - if parents do what they're supposed to do, then they won't have a problem with their children. Most of the time, the parents are a dugma chaya, a living example, and by learning they will be a living example for the children and grandchildren.

It's like we once mentioned - we say, "kabeid es avicha," honor your father, honor your mother. If you honor your father, the children won't have a problem; they see that the father is a father twenty-four hours a day, and the mother is a mother twenty-four hours a day. So when the father or mother acts that way, and the children see it, this is the idea of Pirkei Avos - that it's a perek for parents. That's one thing.

Another thing I want to mention, because we are learning Pirkei Avos, and Pirkei Avos always teaches us how we should conduct ourselves - not to embarrass other people and so on. I want to mention a story - I think I mentioned it once, but I'm going to mention it again. I heard this from Reb Mendel [?], who was by the table of the Frierdiker Rebbe on Pesach - not by the Seder, but at one of the Pesach meals, I think it was in the afternoon of Pesach. You know, the Frierdiker Rebbe was upstairs in 770 - I don't remember what year, he said '44, '45, 1945 - and there were ten people around the table, standing and watching and observing the Frierdiker Rebbe eating fish.

And there was a Yid there - he was also eating there, I don't know how he got there - and they served borscht. Borscht means beet soup - beets, red. So they gave this person also a plate, and he took a piece of matzah and dipped it into the borscht. You know, we have a custom - it's not a halacha, but it's a minhag - that we are very careful not to dip matzah into liquid, into what's called shruya. But he didn't know this, and it became a whole commotion. The table got wild, and they almost told him off - maybe they embarrassed him, I don't know - but this person didn't know.

So the Frierdiker Rebbe turns around to someone and says, "What's the commotion?" So they told him: "Why did this person put the matzah into the borscht, into the shruya?" So the Frierdiker Rebbe said to the people standing there: "It's better to make the matzah red than to make the face red." We think that we're being exacting now - I'm explaining, I think that's what it means - that we're being exacting that we don't need shruya, fine. But what happens in the meantime? You embarrass somebody, you make his face red, and that's surely the worse of the two. So it's better to make the matzah red.

So this is also a lesson we can learn from this, and it has to do with Pirkei Avos - how a person should conduct themselves.

So now I'm going to read a letter where somebody wrote to the Rebbe that he goes to shul and people are talking in shul - he's telling them not to talk in shul. So how should he go about it? Should he tell them off? Shouldn't he tell them off? What should he do?

So I'm going to read to you this letter from the Rebbe, word for word, that the Rebbe wrote and signed. This letter says: "This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of" - this was May 10th - "in which you write about the unbecoming conduct of some congregants in shul during prayer, and ask for some suggestions to deal with the problem."

So the Rebbe writes like this: "I trust that there is no need to emphasize to you at length - as has always been the case, and especially nowadays - that it is much easier to influence people in a cordial and pleasant way, as it is written, 'the ways of the Torah are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.' Thus, in order to be effective, it is necessary to make a personal approach, not in the presence of others, and certainly not publicly. While it is a mitzvah in the Torah to admonish a fellow Jew, the ideal requires that the first approach be made in a personal, quiet manner, not in the presence of others. Since it concerns Jews who are observant and responsive to Torah and mitzvos, there is assurance that words coming from the heart enter the heart and are eventually effective."

So here we see how the Rebbe says we should deal with other people - and this applies today also. This is also what we learn in Pirkei Avos - you surely remember the mishna which says: "Be of the disciples of Aharon - loving peace, pursuing peace, loving the creatures, and bringing them close to the Torah." Let it be remembered that Aharon was the Kohen Gadol, yet he did not consider it beneath him to go to people and speak to them personally, and do everything possible so that there should be true peace between a Jew and his Father in Heaven, as well as peace between a Jew and another Jew, through proper conduct in accordance with the Torah.

The present days are particularly auspicious for this, being the days of preparation for Kabbalas HaTorah, Shavuos, which came through unity and peace, as it is written, "and Yisrael encamped there, facing the mountain" - meaning that they were all united like one person, imbued with the spirit with which Mount Sinai and the Torah was about to be given. May G-d grant that it be fulfilled in the proper way.

So we see from this how a person should act with other people. And when children see that the parents, and the adults in shul, have to speak to other people - even if they speak in shul - that they shouldn't just tell them off, but do it in a nice way, that's how the children are also going to learn.

[music]

Here we're speaking about a shul. There's a letter here from the Rebbe about someone who cannot concentrate in shul - his mind goes to other places - so he's asking the Rebbe for advice, how can he concentrate in shul when he davens.

So I'm going to read one paragraph, very interesting: "With regard to the problem of concentration in prayer, generally a useful advice is to daven b'tzibur." A person should - and this is another problem, another letter which I'm not going to use today - many people, even though they go to shul, don't daven with a minyan. There's a minyan here, a minyan there, it's very important, that's one thing. At any rate, the Rebbe says that any time you can daven b'tzibur - if you cannot daven with the tzibur, let's say you have to daven at home for some reason - you should always try to figure out what time your shul davens; let's say they start seven o'clock, so you should also start at seven, having in mind that you're davening with the shul. That will also help concentration.

"It is also helpful to daven from the siddur, davening from a sefer, and even when one davens by heart - let's say people close their eyes many times - to keep the siddur open at the right place, so you always have that: when you're davening, even with your eyes closed, always put the page wherever you're up to. Finally, it is good to follow this direction, to give this [some] time before davening on weekdays - that will help the concentration."

So a person should always try to give himself that, and this will help. There's another letter, an English letter, besides the letter - one more paragraph about shul. So the Rebbe says: "Our sages, of blessed memory, said, 'Whoever establishes a place for his prayer, the G-d of Avraham comes to his aid.' Although the deeper meaning of this establishment refers to the spiritual dimension of prayer, the plain meaning of the words cannot, of course, be taken out of context - namely, the actual establishment of a proper synagogue conducive to sincere devotion in the regular daily prayers. Moreover, where the beis hak'nesses is also a beis medrash - that is to say, when the house of prayer is also a house of regular study - it has the added dimension of what our sages describe as 'she'arim hametzuyanim b'halacha,' gates distinguished in halacha, and further comes under the other saying of our sages: 'whoever establishes a place for his Torah study, his enemies fall before him' - something so urgently needed at this time, when our people are surrounded by so many enemies."

So the Rebbe says that you have to have a place to daven. Now it reminds me of a vort of the Frierdiker Rebbe - once, I don't know where it was, he looked into the minyan in shul and saw people walking around while davening, walking around here and there. So the Frierdiker Rebbe said: this person can't find a place - he comes here, he can't find his place, he comes there, he can't find his place - because you have to have a place when you go to shul, to sit and daven. And when the children see that you're sitting and davening in one place, they will also not run around - they will sit down and learn from the parents. This is what Pirkei Avos teaches us, and this is what it means - the example parents set.

Now I want to finish off with something - I don't know whether I should mention it, but I will. I know that there is a local controversy now about building - about 770, about building a shul. Some people hold yes, some people say no - I'm not the one to pass judgment on it - but I just want to say, I found here a letter. There was a Mr. Klein. Mr. Klein was a contractor, and when they built 770, the shul downstairs, when they made it bigger, he was very much involved, and he wrote to the Rebbe. So this is what he wrote - and the Rebbe answered him here through the gabbai that we gave him.

So I thought maybe I would mention to you - there is a plus and minus to making the shul bigger. Some people say you should make it bigger because you need more space; some people say let's leave it the way it was, the way it was when the Rebbe davened here. If you build - let's say you take away the walls - the children grow up, children want to see where the Rebbe stood, exactly how it was, and maybe that takes things away. I don't know, I don't know what to say - I'm not there - but I just want to read to you what Mr. Klein wrote. People who are in Crown Heights knew him, spoke with him many hours, when he was the contractor of the shul.

So he wrote like this - this is in Yiddish, so I'm going to try to translate just a few things. He says: since we're going to build - he writes, I'm reading it from the Yiddish - "You should build the binyan with good acoustics; this will be helpful for davening, and leining, and farbrengen." That's what he writes to the Rebbe.

Then he writes: the lights, the electric, should be - it says here - candle-essence lighting. The doctors lately found out that this is healthier for the eyes than fluorescent, even though it costs more, but health is more important than money. And next to that line, the Rebbe underlined in pencil: "health is more important than money." And if it's impossible to make this kind of candle-essence lighting, then at least the chandeliers should be candle-essence lighting.

Then he writes: we should build - he says here - [enough] toilets and a lot of showers, and we should keep it clean, and when you have it clean, it's better to pay more money to have it clean rather than dirty, because many people do not go to the mikvah because the mikvah is not clean. That's what he wrote.

When they made the shul bigger, he says, we should build rooms for different minyanim, that there should be a seder, that every minyan should start, let's say, at the half hour or the quarter hour, so that it shouldn't become careless - there's a minyan all around, people, a minyan here, a minyan there, and it becomes a whole mix-up and a big problem. He says this should be spoken over with the gabboim, that they should make a rule, and whoever is the gabbai should know when it's his turn or not.

This is what he writes to the Rebbe: the place of davening should be on one side, and the learning should be on the other side - it shouldn't be together, it shouldn't become like a marketplace.

Then he speaks about the air conditioner, and writes to the Rebbe. Then he writes the last thing: if it's possible, we should make windows so that the light should go out to the whole world, that we should show so much - to think that it was for the sake of the neighborhood and the kavanos.

Some people don't know this - this is from when they made 770 bigger.

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