The Rebbe’s Brief Answer to 4-Page Letter

Transcript

Welcome to our weekly Motzaei Shabbos program.

Tonight is Tes Kislev. Yud-Tes Kislev is the Geulah of the Alter Rebbe, and Tes Kislev is the yahrzeit of the Rebbe, the son of the Alter Rebbe [the Mitteler Rebbe]. It's a big day.

The Mitteler Rebbe's intention was to spread Chassidus with a broadness, and some were against this — against spreading it this way — which you can always read up on, it's all written. I'm not going to explain what their problem was, but they were against this, and they got the misnagdim to speak against him all the time. I don't know exactly why he was arrested — it's written up why he was arrested — but this was his intention: to spread it.

Some felt that too much of this brings haughtiness. Some people felt that. So it was said — there's a known vort — you should remain an onion. And the Rebbe goes into why he used the word "onion": because haughtiness is not good, and an onion is bitter. But again, I'm not going to go into the depth of this — this was his approach.

So I want to tell you something about going to shul. Now, when I was a bochur — I remember he was my mashpia — we were in 770. He told us that we should always go out to the shuls. So we used to go to the shuls.

We were in Newark, New Jersey, and we used to do the same thing in the shuls. I remember there was once, on Lyons Avenue in Newark — interesting, in those days Newark had a lot of Yidden, a lot of people who came from the Holocaust, from Europe — there was a big shul on Lyons Avenue. So my fellow Tmimim took turns: one Shabbos one of us would say the chazarah, the next Shabbos another person would say the chazarah. So they were walking to shul together, and one said to the other, who was going to say the chazarah, "Did you prepare yourself?"

So he says, "No, I didn't prepare." So he says, "How can you not prepare? How can you not go say the chazarah — there's going to be a crowd there." Probably that shul had about 75 people. It was a big shul. "But you have to prepare." No, he says he didn't. "So why are you going? What are you going to speak about?" So he said he's going to speak about what he learned in yeshiva, about the inyan of the maamar — he's going to try to speak about that.

Anyway, this is what happened. So he came to shul, and he got up to speak, and he was speaking about — it's a hard concept in Chassidus — and the people were sitting there, and they were quiet, about 20 minutes, and they didn't say a word, and they were listening. They did not understand one word that he was saying, but okay. So he spoke, and after he finished speaking, the gabbai got up and gave a patch on the table, and he says, "It seems from this bochur's talk that the yeshiva broke the dishes — let's make an appeal." So they made an appeal, they made a few dollars, and this is what happened.

Now, Rabbi Rasian [?] later on heard about the story. So he made sure to tell us all the time: whenever you go, always prepare. You can't just — you have to prepare. He was also talking about going — sometimes you go somewhere and there's a lot of people, and if you don't prepare, it's no good. So you always have to prepare. This is what we're talking about.

Now let's go back to: what is the accomplishment? Learning Chassidus changes a person's outlook on life. So, tonight I want to mention a story, and really it's the end of a story about something the Rebbe did. It's interesting how the Rebbe knew something. And of course, there is a minhag, as I've mentioned a few times, that on Shabbos — not necessarily just Shabbos, but every night — one tells a story, for all good things. So I want to share with you a story, and I'll tell you why I'm sharing this story tonight.

Everybody has a mission in this world. We spoke about it a few weeks ago. Now, when we were married, my wife and I, we went to the Rebbe, and we wanted to go on shlichus. We were ready to go. A few times we asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe didn't seem to want us to go — there was something for us to do here, it didn't seem that he wanted us to go. As a matter of fact — I just want to point this out — many times the Rebbe spoke very strongly about going on shlichus, but when it came to us, I know a lot of people asked about going, they were excited, but the Rebbe said no. This happened. So the last time I said to the Rebbe, "We want to go." So the Rebbe answered us, "What's so bad about living next to me?" So when the Rebbe said that to us, that's it — I didn't ask anymore, and we stayed here. We did things here, but we did not go on shlichus as we had wanted.

Now, I had a lot of offers of different places to go teach. So I asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe told me that I should go to the Yeshiva of Brooklyn. The Yeshiva of Brooklyn is a litvishe yeshiva. The principal's name was Rabbi Mandel [?] — a very fine man. So the Rebbe said to go there.

Now, speaking about choosing where to go, I want to share with you a vort from Rabbi Hodakov. Rabbi Hodakov once told me — it says a person has a lot of thoughts, but it's Hashem's will that's going to happen. So he explained: it doesn't mean that a person has [certain desires] and then Hashem chooses something else entirely. A person has — he wants a job, he wants to go into business, or he wants to be a teacher, or he wants to do this job or that job — and Hashem chooses one of these. No — Hashem will choose one of the things you yourself want. He wants to move to California, he wants to move to New York, or to Brazil, or to Australia — Hashem is going to choose one of those, not something else entirely. Whatever you desire, that's what Hashem is going to choose from — not something else. That's what he once told me.

So anyway, out of all these options that I had, the Rebbe chose that I should go to the Yeshiva of Brooklyn. And I later saw why the Rebbe said we should go into the Yeshiva of Brooklyn. Now, the talmidim — we even get together now. Some of them are rabbis in shuls, some are rabbis in Teaneck, some of them are in Lakewood, some in Baltimore, but we're still together from years ago.

So one of the bochurim in the yeshiva came to me in the morning, before davening, and he says to me, "I have to talk to you, something very, very important. I need a yechidus." I said, "I'm not a secretary, I cannot arrange that, and I don't think you'll be able to get in." It wasn't easy to get in. "I must go in," he said — he was never in 770, he never saw the Rebbe, but he must see the Rebbe. So I asked him, "What's the problem?" He says, "It's very confidential." I said, "I don't know what to tell you, I don't think you'll be able to go in." So I said, "Tell me what the problem is."

So he says to me, and he meant it: "I have doubts, and it bothers me. I need to see the Rebbe." And we're talking here about a person from London, a fine person, fine family — he learned in Mir. So I said, "Why don't you go to someone in the yeshiva and tell them the problem? Maybe he can help you." He says, "No — when it comes to this, he must see the Rebbe. He's not a Lubavitcher, he was never a Lubavitcher, he never even saw the Rebbe — he must see the Rebbe."

I said, "I'm sorry, I can't." I said, "You know what to do? Sit down, go home, write a letter to the Rebbe." And he says, "What's a letter? This is a feeling — I need to talk to him, I can't put it on paper." I said, "That's all I can tell you." So I convinced him. He went home, he wrote a letter.

The letter was four and a half pages. He wrote a letter to the Rebbe — it was a beautiful letter, from the heart. He wasn't faking it — he meant it. So I said, I'll take the letter, I'll give it to Rabbi Groner, and I'll tell him it's confidential, and whenever there's an answer, you'll get an answer. Okay.

So I gave the letter to Rabbi Groner, and I told Rabbi Groner it's very confidential. The next day he came to me: "Is there an answer?" I said no. He says, "I knew — I knew the Rebbe wouldn't understand, this is something I have to talk to him about, on paper he won't understand my feelings about my problem." So I said, "Listen, I'm not the Rebbe, but I gave it to him, that's all." He came every day — three days, four days, five days — I think it was three weeks.

Rabbi Groner calls me, and Rabbi Groner says to me, "There is an answer." So I went and got the answer. The next morning he came, and before he said anything, I said to him, "You know what? I have an answer." He says, "What, an answer from the Rebbe?" He says, "Wait, don't tell me yet — I'm going upstairs to tell the Tmimim that I'm not going to be in class, I'll be busy this morning." I said, "No, no, no, don't tell him anything, I can tell you right now — it's only six or seven words." He says, "What? I wrote four and a half pages, and the Rebbe answers in six or seven words?" I said, "Yeah." "Okay, what's the answer?"

So, first of all, the answer — that's already three words. He says, "What does that mean?" You know, the Rebbe used to answer sometimes, "I will mention you at the Tzion" — that's something he never heard of. So that's one part of the answer. And then the rest of the answer — so I told him that.

So he looks at me — he's asking about his doubts, and the Rebbe is asking him, does he drink? He says, "First of all, I live in Boro Park, and I drink." I said, "Always?" He says, "No." He says those days, sometimes people used to go to the country, he had little kids, and sometimes there was no eruv [?] — they said that you're allowed to drink [unclear] — that's what he told me. So I said, "Oh, so sometimes you don't?" "Yeah." Anyway, so as far as he knew, the Rebbe didn't understand what he meant — he didn't understand the answer, and that's all. He went back, and maybe — I don't know how many days — six or seven days later —

he comes running in the morning and he says to me, "The Rebbe is a gaon — he never saw such a gaon." He is amazed by the Rebbe. So what was it? He said he found a hidden Midrash that says if somebody has doubts in emunah, he should look into this [unclear]. "How did the Rebbe know that Midrash?" He says nobody — nobody knows that Midrash, nobody heard of such a Midrash. So I said, "First of all, I don't know if the Rebbe knows the Midrash or not, but the fact is — this is what the Rebbe answered." So that's what it is.

So he was very excited by the Rebbe knowing this, and what happened through that — he says, "If the Rebbe knows such things, I want to start learning." So we started to learn together, my[self and him], almost every day, for years, and it simply opened up his eyes. We learned, we learned — he saw the world, he saw the world in a different light. And his wife told me that the Shabbos became so different — he became a different man, she became a happy person.

Now, this answer — why am I saying this today? First of all, we're talking about — also, this answer that he got happened to be around Yud-Tes Kislev. That's why I'm saying this today.

I also want to say, he decided — since in eight days was going to be Yud-Tes Kislev, this is when this happened — he wants to go to 770 for the farbrengen. He had never been there, so I said, "Sure, come over." He went to the farbrengen. There were thousands of people, and he was standing, and he saw the Rebbe from far. After the maamar, after the Rebbe's maamar, the Rebbe — I don't know if people remember this — the Rebbe was looking for somebody, and the Rebbe was pointing like that. Nobody knew who the Rebbe was pointing to. Somebody thought it was them — no, it seemed the Rebbe meant somebody else. So the Rebbe was pointing to him — the Rebbe who never saw him, he who never saw the Rebbe — and the Rebbe was pointing to him with a smile, that he should say [a lechaim]. So they gave it to him and brought it over to him.

So this is the story I wanted to mention today, because it's connected to Yud-Tes Kislev, and it's right before it. So that's how the Rebbe felt toward him.

So, since today is Tes Kislev, next week is Yud-Tes Kislev, we will speak about the importance of — what's so important about learning Chassidus that changes a person's life. Next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.