0120 - Special Notes in Lekutei Sichos - College and Tznius

00:01 When the Rebbe was Magiya Likutei Sichos, many times he would take the opportunity, if it fit into the Sicha, to write something very practical, something that was very negei at that time. And I'm gonna give two examples. One example is in Likutei Sichos, Chelek Yud Gimel, Parshas Bolok. This was a Sicha that came out in a Likud in Tov Shin Lamed Gimel. And the Sicha talks about the Pasuk Matei Ve'elecha Ya'ankev that Bilam said, "How good are your tents, Eden?" And Rashi says he meant that he saw how the doors of their tents are not one across each other because of tznius. And the Rebbe explains the whole Rashi and all the inyonim, and then he says what the lesson from here is, the importance of tznius. And he said also we see from here that not like some people think that only major things connected to tznius are important, but when it's not, when it's minor things, it's not so important to be careful. So here we see that even when they talked about Matei Ve'elecha Ya'ankev, Elecha is a tent, a tent is a temporary dwelling, and even here it's important tznius. And then the Rebbe continued in the Sicha that a person might still listen to the Yetzirah who says, "When is it so important? Only when you're in a permanent situation. But when you're in a temporary place, then it's not so important to be medakdik so, so much, be careful so much in tznius and in every little bit of

01:18 tznius." So the lesson is that even in that you have to be very careful. So on these words where the Rebbe says in the Sicha that one might think that if you're in a temporary place, it's okay, the Rebbe wrote a ha'arah. And these are the words that he wrote. And now I wanna stress something that's important for this time of the year because this Sicha is in the summertime. And he says these words, "Those who are meikel," and the words mekilim he puts in quotations, "in many inyonim of tznius in the summertime, especially when they're found in a temporary dwelling outside of the city," it means when you're in the country, people think you could be meikel, "and some even say, echtev ashuv." The Gemara says a loshon, echtev ashuv, someone shouldn't say, "I will sin, but I could do teshuva." But the Rebbe used the loshon, the play on words, echtev ashuv, I will sin, and ashuv, I will return, meaning do teshuva when I ashuv, when I come back to the city. A person shouldn't say that. And the Rebbe continues and says this is negei to the behavior of men also, certainly to women, because each one of the women is called an ekeres habayis. And then the Rebbe says there's much more to say about it, but this is not the place. When the Rebbe wrote this ha'arah, he wrote on the side to us, to the va'ad. He said that make this ha'arah, put it in a place that

02:30 will be the most obvious and people will see it more, it'll stress it more. And the Rebbe gave two options, or it should be printed separately in the back of the Likud. The Likud was the full Likud of the Sicha. In the back, make it separate, that it should be seen as separate, or put it as ha'arah on the bottom of the page, but put it in bold words. And we talked about it and we decided that we wanna put it that way. That will make, attract more attention. So in the Sicha, in Chelek Yud Gimel, page eighty-four, there's a ha'arah here in bold words, which is usually not there, but this is in bold words because the Rebbe wanted to take the opportunity, people should be aware. Another thing was, this was Tov Shin Lamed Ches, which was right after the Rebbe had a heart attack, Parshas Noach. So the svorah was maybe not to give in the Sicha for the Rebbe to be magiya. Apparently, the decision, the Rebbe wanted it till the, we gave it in. The people who wrote it gave it in. And the Rebbe, while he was laying in bed, wrote something very strong, not just magiya. He wrote not just a paragraph, one, two, three, four paragraphs with his own handwriting, and he was doing it while laying in bed. When I saw the ksav, you could see this ksav was shaky because he wrote it while it was laying in bed. And this is what he writes,

03:44 and I'm gonna read it not in the original Yiddish, but I'm gonna read it in English. This is in Chelek, in Likutei Sichos, Chelek Tes Vav, page forty-two, forty-three. And this is what the Rebbe says. In the Sicha, the Rebbe talks about that science, secular science, before Mashiach will get closer to the understanding of the unity of Hashem. And then the Rebbe says like this, "But at this point, I have to bavon, even though it's obvious by itself, it's self-understood, that all this that I'm saying here about what they will get to, the science will get to, has no connection to the question about learning in college or in the university and kol yetzer hazeh, because over there it's a isur chamor." He says it's a strong aveira, and it's a sakona. Then the Rebbe says, "Chamira sakanta mi-issura. A sakona, a danger, is worse than the isur. And the isur, there's a sakona there and the isur there, because the whole atmosphere and the whole hashkafa of the dalot amos in these institutions nowadays is absorbed full of denial of kefira, denial in hashgacha protis of the Aibishter. According to them, there is not one thing or one power that could get mixed into the way the world runs and the rules of the running of the world." In other words, there's no Aibishter. "This is accepted there as a self-understood thing that you don't even have to prove it. And this is the foundation," the Rebbe says, and he underlines the word yesod,

05:05 foundation, "to the whole studying these places, that they don't even have to mention it because that's self-understood by them. And in most of the times, they learn tiyonim of apikursus, believing in avodah zarah, bechol, et cetera," and underline the word et cetera. And then the Rebbe says, "In ruban hakula, most of these places, there's no boundaries of embarrassment or tznius. They even laugh and they try to make litzonus fun of those that take, are careful with it. And adaraba, anybody who is less tzniusdik, more pritzus, is even greater bechol." And then the Rebbe says, "Ukamaforsim, it's known, this, the outrageous situation there in the campuses." He writes, says the word campuses, dormitories, places where you walk, et cetera. And the Rebbe says, "I don't want to go further into something that's very outrageous in such a terrible way." Then he says, "But someone could have a tayna," and the word tayna is in quotation, the famous tayna, "that he or she, it won't hurt them, and he'll be able to o- withstand the nisyonos, all the, the, the hardships." So we know the simple answer. The simple answer is that even at tzadi gomor, even the last day of his life, the last day of his hundred and twentieth year on this world, in the beginning of the day, before he even davens, has to ask the Aibishter, "Al tivi eini ledei nison", don't bring me to a test because that's a problem. So no one could say that I don't mind if I'll have

06:25 a test. And then the Rebbe says, "Ve'yesh lehairech kama vekama ven kama ekemi." I could even say more and more, but this is not the place. So we see here what was on the Rebbe's mind, and he took the opportunity when the Sicha spoke about science to write while he's in bed after the heart attack, to write all this that I said was written in Yiddish by the Rebbe himself. And there are other places where the Rebbe did such things, but I just gave two examples.