0413 - Whistling by the Rebbe

00:01 We know that from time to time by Fabregens, the Rebbe would motion to the people that they should whistle while they're singing. Many times he would put his two fingers in his mouth to show whistling, and sometimes he whistled himself. And many, many times he would turn around to the back, and Rabbi Meir Abu Chatzira was standing there, and he would motion to him to whistle. And Purim, by the Fabregen Tov Shin Lamet Vo, the Rebbe spoke about it by Richas. So I want to mention the background of why the Rebbe spoke that Sikhe. Because that year, Yudus Kislev, the Rebbe also did that. He motioned that people should whistle, and he himself put his finger in his mouth and whistled. After that, in the Algemeiner Journal, in the newspaper, there was a picture printed of the Rebbe with the two fingers in his mouth whistling. A week later, there was a letter printed there to the editor from somebody, actually from a Lubavitcher, who wrote that he thinks it's not nice to print such a picture in the newspaper. Something like this, that the Rebbe's whistling is not such a nice thing, and therefore he doesn't know why they printed it. A while later, a good few weeks later, maybe a few months later, I don't know, there was another letter printed in the newspaper, a letter to the editor by somebody. This time it was by not a Lubavitcher. I think he signed himself, I don't remember exactly, as a professor maybe in

01:19 YU or something like that. And he wrote he doesn't understand what's the problem with the Rebbe whistling, and he quoted the Rambam at the end of Hilchas Lulav, where the Rambam brings from Tanakh that when they brought the Oren, they were dancing and singing for the Simchas Shel Mitzvah, David was mafazes u macharker. David was jumping and basically making himself crazy in front of the Oren as an expression of Simcha. So much so that the daughter of Shaul HaMelech, Michal Ba Shaul, complained to him, how could you do that? You're dancing like one of the empty-headed people. I think it says like one of the Shvaches, and complained to him. So we see here that David HaMelech did it, and the Rambam brings it because the Simchas Shel Mitzvah, you could do these things. That's what was printed there. But the Fabregen of Purim, the Rebbe spoke about it, and the Rebbe said that this is what happened. That they didn't say they printed the picture. They said that there were people who complained, and the Rebbe had big tainas, mainly those people who are looking least kabed bekolon chaver. Some people are looking to get more honor by finding faults in others. But a person who claims that he goes on Mesiras Nefesh, meaning for the Rebbe, in Shaichas Hazogen, he should not understand. At least looking to find a source for it, you'll see. Elomai, the Rebbe said, is because miliktik kopin kaloshen. It's an expression that the Rebbe once told the story

02:37 that there was a chasid who opened a business of kaloshen, of boots, but he got so involved in it that the Rebbe Rashab told him, I heard of a foot in kaloshen, feet in kaloshen, feet in boots, but the kopin kaloshen, the head should be in boots I never heard. That means you're involved in the wrong things. Because of that, you don't realize the truth, and that's why you didn't even think to look for a moker. And the Rebbe quoted this moker in the Rambam at the end of Hilchas Lulav concerning David HaMelech. And the Rebbe said that nobody found it right to answer this tainia that the person had, why the Rebbe fifed, so to speak, the Rebbe whistled. And the Rebbe said, the Rebbe pushed somebody from the outside that he should write that letter. So the Rebbe went into at length in this Rambam. Then the Rebbe also quoted a Gemara in Chum. The Gemara in Chum, Taf Samach Gimel, quotes a posek in Zechariah in Treioser, where it talks about the coming of Mashiach. And there it says, this loshen in Zechariah Yud, posek Ches, Eshre kol ohem va'akap tzem kif edisim. I'm going to whistle to them and I'm going to gather them. So we see here that the inyan of whistling, that Hashem will whistle is connected to the Gula. That's a form of showing the Gula is to Hashem whistling. I might think it's Hashem whistling, but the Gemara in Chum says that there was a story that

03:55 it was a bird that whistled. So people thought, oh, this is a siman of the Gula, but really it wasn't true because it didn't whistle the right way. So we see it's not that Hashem whistles. So we see this is connected to it. And the Rebbe said the fact is that this whistling, he knows, brought Yidden much closer to Yiddishkeit, made changes in some people from one end to the extreme to the other. And the Rebbe said you don't have to even look into their thoughts to know their thoughts to know it. You look at their face, you see. And the Rebbe says he knows for a fact there were people because of the Simchas Shel Mitzvah, it changed them. And the Rebbe said then another thing, that Yudus Kislev is the time when he whistled. Yudus Kislev, that Fabregen, he spoke about the Igeres HaKadesh. In the Igeres HaKadesh, the one that talks that the Alt Rebbe wrote after he came out of jail, and he said no one should do anything to the opponents. And not even to whistle on them. And the Rebbe Rashab once told the Friediker Rebbe that he means a whistle of Kedusha. In other words, there is such a thing as a whistle of Kedusha. But the Alt Rebbe says not on them. Don't do that to them. But there is a concept of whistle of Kedusha. So the people who had this problem, this Taina, why didn't they think of all this? And the Rebbe went on

05:05 and on and went into a lot of details showing that this is an inyan in this inyan of whistling. Another time I remember, I think it was by a Koshel Brocha, I remember when the Rebbe motioned to Rabbi Meir Abu Chatzira to whistle. And when he finished, the Rebbe said you could only do it here. Other places you shouldn't do it because it's an inyan of Plishtim. What he meant was, the Gemara says in Navi Dezorah that Plishtim Letsonim Ho, Plishtim were Letzim, were did such things. And Yechida says that Rebbe didn't say it then Behal Ariches, but it says that Plishtim comes from the word Movui Hama Foolish, like a road that is open to the other side. So here also, if you do these things, these kind of Letzonis, you open yourself up to Sitra Ach at other sides. So therefore, the Rebbe used this loshen. You can't do it someplace else, only here, because here, by doing this, there is such a thing as Plishtim Dikdusha. And this is this type of thing which seems to be like something that's not right, not because it's an Avera, but something that seems to be stupid or things like that. But if it's done for Simchas Shel Mitzvah like David HaMelech did, then it's the right thing to do. And that's what he said to him, that this is Plishtim Shel Dikdusha.