0352 - Celebrating 2 Days of Yom Tov in Eretz Yisroel

00:01 We know there's a whole controversy concerning a Ben Chutz La'aretz, somebody who lives outside Eretz Yisroel, travels for Yom Tov to Eretz Yisroel, whether he should keep one day of Yom Tov and two days Yom Tov, with many details to this Halacha. And there are rumors of what the Rebbe said to this person or that person. I just want to repeat what I heard from two separate people that they themselves dealt with it and what the Rebbe said to them, and I heard it from them themselves clearly. One of them is a Rav Rom Rapaport from Toronto, Alav HaShalom. He told me that in the first years of the Rebbe's Nasiyus, I don't know if it was fifty-two, fifty-three, or one of those years, he asked the Rebbe when he's going to Eretz Yisroel whether he should keep one day Yom Tov or two days Yom Tov, and the Rebbe answered him that he should not go to Eretz Yisroel for Yom Tov because of that, because of this shaila. Another person I heard from was Professor Velvel Green, Alav HaShalom. He was once in Miami, and after davening, I was talking to him, and this subject came up, and he told me that once when he went to Eretz Yisroel, he asked the Rebbe whether he should keep one day or two days, and the Rebbe told him that when he gets to Eretz Yisroel, he should ask a Rov in Eretz Yisroel. The Rebbe added whether it should not be a Lubavitcher Rov.

01:10 So he went to a non-Lubavitcher Rov there, and he told him that the Rebbe told me to go to a non-Lubavitcher Rov. So-- And he even told me the name of the Rov he went to, but I forgot. And that Rov told him, "So I understand what the Rebbe wants is that you should keep two days," because many of the Lubavitcher Rabbonim in Eretz Yisroel pasken that you keep one day. So he says, "I think that what the Rebbe meant is that you should keep two days. That's why he told you to ask a non-Lubavitcher Rov." Now when gezeiras halacha lemaysah, you can't base halacha on these stories. You have to know the circumstances. You have to know exactly how they went and what their mind was, whether to come back and not to come back or what their whole details were with the family, without the family. So you can't base this. But one thing you could say that these two stories can go into the equation. In other words, when a Rov looks into the subject trying to see yes or not, and you look into the tshuva and the lashon of the Alter Rebbe, and you look into all the things, you should take into this equation, into the discussion also these two stories. And you could discuss and say you can't bring a da'at from the stories for this reason, for that reason. Maybe you could say that, but it definitely should be part of the equation when you're dealing with

02:12 what l'peel mamash a Lubavitcher should do. Now probably there are other people who know other stories firsthand, ad rabba, they should say it so the Rabbonim can deal with it, but this is the two that I heard directly from them that what they-- what the Rebbe told them directly.