0114 - Cheshbon Veses Haflaga

00:01 The year that a group of us started working on preparing the Sichas for the Rebbe to be Maggia for the Sichas was Tov Shin Lamed Gimel, 1973. That year, we learned in Kolol. It was just a few years after we were married, and we learned in Kolol. In Kolol, a lot of the learning was concerning those halachas that have to do when after you get married. And one of the issues that was discussed very much was a certain halacha, how you have to calculate it. The halacha of Ves Tavlogi, how do you have to calculate it? Because there's a big machlokas between the Alter Rebbe and other poskim. And the question was whether we only follow the Alter Rebbe or we also follow the other opinions of the other poskim. And even amongst the Lubavitcher Rabbonim, there was a debate. Some said we only follow the Alter Rebbe, and some said, no, we should follow the other poskim also. Now, someone suggested that we should ask the Rebbe. But we knew that the Rebbe wouldn't answer, because usually if you'd ask the Rebbe a shaila in halacha, the Rebbe would send you to Rabbonim. That's also, we knew that wasn't a netzer. But since we worked on the Kodesichas that year, we just happened to have an opportunity. It came to the Sicha of Parshas Voeschanan that we were preparing for the Shabbos Parshas Voeschanan for the Kodesichas. And there it talks about these inyonim, not specifically about this shaila, but it talks about the

01:19 sugya, the same sugya. And here we thought we were able to ask a Rebbe a question which would clarify how the Rebbe holds when he gave the shaila that we had. Because the seder was that we would prepare a Sicha, but if there was a question that we had in connection to the inyonim of the Sicha, a lot of times we would ask the Rebbe. And after the Rebbe would answer, in many instances, that answer would go into as a hor in the Sicha, because that was the Rebbe's answer. So here there was a shaila that we had that was connected to the Sicha, but it was basically also connected to the inyon of Ves Tavlogi. And the way the shaila would have been answered would have been a real clarity what the Rebbe holds, whether we have to follow just the Alter Rebbe or we follow the other poskim also. So what we did was we prepared a Sicha, and we also wrote the shaila. It was a long shaila on a separate page, typed page, and we gave him the Sicha together with the shaila, waiting that the Rebbe will answer it and we'll see. And I have to be honest that one of the reasons we took it, wrote in the shaila was because we wanted to see the Rebbe's answer when he gave how to behave when it comes to the calculation of this Ves Tavlogi. So we gave him the shaila, waiting for the Rebbe to answer, and then we

02:37 knew that he'll answer and it'll be a clear thing. According to his answer, we'll know how we have to do. When the Sicha came out, the Rebbe sent out the whole Sicha. It was a Megia de Sicha, and he sent out that page of the shaila also, but he didn't answer anything. All he did was with a pencil, he made a line across the whole page, diagonal from one corner of the page to the other, made a line on the whole page, and that's it. Didn't answer, didn't say anything. So from there we saw that if the Rebbe doesn't want to answer shailas in halacha, then there's no chachmas, there's nothing you can do. As much as we tried and we thought this way we will get an answer, but if the Rebbe didn't want to answer, he didn't answer, and therefore we don't have clarity from the Rebbe when he gave the sinyan, and it remains the way it was before.