Is There a Source for Writing Into Igros Kodesh

Episode 290: "Is There a Source for Writing Into Igros Kodesh"

Welcome to our weekly Motzei Shabbos program.

Many people, Chabad and not Chabad, are confused. And I have some emails also, especially lately — I got some telephone calls also from my old talmidim, people who are not Chabad literature people, who learned this, not Chabad — and they asked me: is there anything in the archives that I have from Rabbi Mindel, that the Rebbe said that we should put a letter into the Igros and get an answer?

Is there anything like that — did I find anything, or is it made up by people, and maybe they find it, but it's not from the Rebbe, it doesn't come from him? They're confused. In other words, if the Rebbe said it, then it's a hora'ah; if it's a feeling, then it's something else. But that makes a big difference.

In other words, does it come from the Rebbe or doesn't it come from the Rebbe? Did the Rebbe ever hint that we should do it, that we should put a letter into the Igros and find an answer, like many people do?

So since I got these calls — as a matter of fact, a couple of weeks ago I got two calls from people asking, they want to know, they're confused, they want to know — so I began searching in my files.

I didn't find anything from the Rebbe about putting [a letter] in — no, about the Rebbe [himself saying this].

But I did find — I do know that the Rebbe did say, and he already gave us guidance — I think for [unclear], every person should have: if a person has issues, he should ask about business. If a person has medical problems, he should ask two doctors, or a person should put a pan by the Ohel — the Ohel is important — that I do know the Rebbe said. But about putting that pan into the Igros, I don't have what the Rebbe said.

So I want to read to you what that one person wrote to me. He said to me that he did hear about putting in a pan and getting an answer, about business or about health or about moving. And they told him — he says three things.

Number one, we find that [a king of] Israel would open a sefer and find an answer. It says there that Israel found an answer by putting his finger [on the page]. That's what he said. He writes — a person writes to me about that.

Daniel writes to me that he heard — I mean, I didn't see it myself — that the Rebbe writes in a sefer. He says here, at the Ohel, after Shacharis, before — before he became the Rebbe, the Rebbe said one should place a pan between the Ma'amar and the Igros of the Frierdiker Rebbe — just put a pan there — he did see that, maybe. And then he writes to me that he sees it works, people tell him that it works.

So, so is — is this what the Rebbe wanted? It's an important question.

[clears throat] Now I want to tell you what I did find from the Rebbe, but I want to first make an introduction, because people don't understand: there are many ways, many customs, from holy tzaddikim, true baalei mofes, and they accomplished great things, good results, and performed miracles through different things.

Maybe by putting a letter in a sefer, putting a pan — these were tzaddikim and it helped, but they were not Chabad. We Chabadniks, we have to follow the Rebbe, our Rebbe, our Rabbeim, and we seek advice and brachos from him.

It reminds me — once there were chassidim around the table at a farbrengen, and each one was telling a story of a miracle from his Rebbe. One of them said, "My Rebbe does this and this." Someone asked him, "What do you say about that?" He said, "He doesn't know, but he's still my Rebbe" — meaning, like this, there are so many things. Let's say sheirayim — sheirayim is very important, it's important. But other Rebbes, they give out sheirayim — a piece of cake, a piece of fish — and it helps, talking about tzaddikim. But is that our minhag? No, it's not. It's not from Chabad, so it's not our minhag.

And they have proof — let's say they give shalosh seudos, they give fish with the hands, they eat with the hands. Once a great [Rebbe] told me, "Wash the hands," because it says in the Gemara that fish was given by hand. So they give fish by hand, and they give sheirayim, and they don't want to use a fork, because since it's a mitzvah to eat challah, and you have to have pleasure from the food, and by using a fork — by touching the food you touch the pleasure — that's how important [it is to them]. Somebody told me, "Someone does it, whatever it is, but it's not our [minhag]." Is it, God forbid, against [them]? No, I'm not trying to show disrespect to him, but it's not our minhag, because we never heard from the Rebbe that we have to take sheirayim.

There was the Maharash — he was once walking in the market, and a blind tzaddik [?] — he took him around, and he told him the secret of sheirayim. It's very holy. But is it our minhag? No, it's not.

Let's say, a mitzvah by a wedding — it's used by [certain chassidim] to do it. It's not something people say every day. Is it our minhag? No. To wear a gartel — it's very important, very holy, as a matter of fact it's even mentioned [in the sources]. Is that our minhag? That's important, but that's not our minhag.

To wear a talis Friday night — by the world, everybody wears a talis. The Rebbe was very strongly against wearing a talis Friday night, and the Rebbe brings proof.

There was even once [a tzaddik] who was in prison. They asked for [help], so he came to him and asked, so he opened up, put a pan in, and he opened up and [read] her name, and he gave [a brocha] — he did, he put [the pan in] — so it is, many great tzaddikim did these types of things, but they want to know from the Rebbe what we should do.

So after this introduction, I want to share with you from Toras Menachem, page 489. You can look it up. I want to read you what it says there.

[Hebrew/Yiddish passage read aloud — not captured by the auto-captions]

The meaning is like this: there was a custom years ago that if a person didn't know what to do, and there was no one to ask, so they used to make a goral — a lottery. So they used to make a goral, pick out [an answer], and whatever happened, this is what was wanted.

Another thing — they took a sefer randomly and opened it to a page, and whatever the page said — this is what he's supposed to do.

Now this is what I want to bring out: on the bottom of this, if you look, it's important to see what the Rebbe writes in a note. I saw that — let me translate it for you — to clarify: because of the great care one must take with holy sefarim, it's advisable to avoid making use of holy books, and certainly not to use them for mundane matters, and not to make a goral with them — a lottery — in different ways, and this clarifies that a goral, a lottery, is...

So according to what the Rebbe writes here, this is an answer to these people, whoever is listening: the Rebbe does not stop a person from putting in a question — people can put in questions, no problem, and then maybe they get [an answer] — but it's not from him, it's their own feelings. If somebody wants to know about medicine, they can open a sefer that speaks about medicine, that speaks about business — that's fine, in general — but not to learn out from it what they should do. This is a holy thing, but not to use it that way. This is what I found.

Now, to end off, one more thing, talking about a goral: I just want to say that years ago there was a Chabad convention in the cities, not in New York — a mid-winter convention. So they made a goral for who should go where, and whoever won the goral [would go to that city]. So they were sitting — I'm saying, a few ladies were there, in those days it wasn't too many. So they made a goral, and it fell out that my wife was supposed to go to a certain city. Okay, so she won the goral. Then after a while a whole bus came — they were late — so they came and said, "Listen, we already did the goral, but it's not fair, we weren't here." So they said, "Let's ask Mr. Shapiro if he wants to throw the goral again, we'll do it again, because it depends." Since she had already won the goral, she said sure, let's do the goral again — and she won the goral again. So it means that's what was wanted, that she should be there. Anyway, that's what a goral is.

So this is what I want to bring out today, that people who are confused should know that this — putting a note into the Igros and taking out an answer — is not from the Rebbe. People see other things happen, but they shouldn't learn from that.

Next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.