מקווה שנוצר בנס

00:00 Speaker 1 On page twenty-three, and we are again doing letters from exactly fifty, fifty years ago. This is Tes Tov Mar Chesvan, Achav Shim Lamed Gimel. And this is written to Shmol Tovia-- what's the last name down here? Stern. Do we know him? He seems to have been involved in the community in Miami. Don't know if he was a shliach. Didn't look up the details on this one. In any case, the Rebbe is very excited about mikvah that he built in Miami, so we're going to read the letter about the mikvah, and at the end, the Rebbe has an interesting twist on, uh, on what to do with mitzvahs that come by way of a miracle. So with that, we have Shalom Ubracha. B'nai Mivisimcha Kibalti. The Rebbe is B'nai Mivisimcha over receiving this letter. That's a strange phrase. Means the Rebbe is very happy. Mechta Rebbe Mivasi Tev Al Derech Kmar Benina Mikvah Bekilas Kedeshtulei Berev Ta'er. He built a mikvah in his holy congregation, and it's a very pretty mikvah. It says, "Gam Ken Al Derech Hiddurim Shehaza." And in this letter, he wrote to the Rebbe that he completed a mikvah. The-- It says in the footnote that this was in Miami, and that he did it beautifully, and he did it with all sorts of hiddurim, so halakhically it was beautiful and also physically it was beautiful. Uh, as an aside, we have a lot of letters from the Rebbe in Sichas too, where despite the fact that we generally are not all

01:09 Speaker 1 about hiddinius in Chabad, we are about hiddinius when it comes to mikvahs. The Rebbe, uh, makes it a strong sheet that the mikvah should be as beautiful as possible, specifically because the people of this generation won't go to a mikvah that's not beautiful. So maybe it's not the hat'chil of the case, but in any event, um-

01:23 Speaker 2 No, it's not a good-- By the way, it's not, um-

01:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

01:27 Speaker 2 Um, if I remember correctly, halakhically it says that it's supposed to be, um, and you-- You know, there's, um-- If I have to look it up again, I don't remember offhand, but there's like you're allowed to, like, you're supposed to-- you could sell a, a tzedakah or, or a, a shul for-- to build a mikvah.

01:48 Speaker 1 Absolutely. Mikvah gets the top priority.

01:50 Speaker 2 Even to the beauty of it. Even to beautify it. I mean, the-

01:54 Speaker 1 And, um, regarding the halakha of beautifying a mikvah, uh, I can bring support for that. Uh, we-we're constantly worried that when mikvahs are not nice enough, women won't dunk in them properly. Uh, that concern shows up by funky staircases and by, uh, by anything unstable that we're afraid that if they, uh, they're afraid they won't put their head under completely if they're scared of a mikvah. So that's true, it's in halakha.

02:15 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

02:15 Speaker 1 The Rebbe emphasizes though that obviously there's tiers in that. Once you have a nice enough mikvah, there are perfectly nice mikvahs that no one's afraid of, but they're not, you know, with, uh, with lion head spouts coming out of them and, uh, and waterfalls in the background. And the Rebbe seems to feel that the extra touches are important too, that nowadays we need marble pillars in our mikvahs. Um, and, uh, I don't know if that comes down to the halakhic consideration, but it certainly comes down to the, the understanding of what people are nowadays. A mikvah needs to have marble pillars or people won't go to it. Anyway, I hear. Okay. Im Bechal Mitzvahs Hidur Inian Gadol. Look, exactly what Mendel said. It's true that with all mitzvahs there's a hidur. Hidur is an inian gadol. It's an important thing to have hidur by mitzvahs. We have pretty esrog and we have pretty mikvahs. Halachas gam bikahim legayer lemikvah sheyesh tzedek lehadeik halav shari. When it comes to mikvah, you have to do as much hidur as possible. Shari kiyam mitzvas hu, fulfilling this mitzvah, negeia mashpia al nilidin. This fulfilling this mitzvah is negeia and mashpia on everybody who's born from that mikvah. Mikvah is how-- is where children come from, more or less. And, um, the experience of the mikvah is, and have the mikvah happen is negeia mashpia on the children who are born afterwards. Hainu lededus v'lededo dedus. Mikvah affects not just one generation, but generations upon generations, so making sure

03:23 Speaker 1 that it's done nice and that people wanna use it is a top priority. Im bechal hakufeskach, that was true all the time. Achas kama tamidedes ein oder yasm. Certainly in this orphan generation, it's twice as true. See, the first paragraph is what Mendel said, now this is what I said. We're together in the letter. Ve'ad sheyesh kamish nimnaim ledavar al derech zeh ve tam shonim meshunim. Many people have found excuses not to use mikvah for reasons that are of, of a, of questionable nature. Tam shonim meshunim, strange reasons, reasons that are probably not legitimate. Shedachein, definitely not legitimate. Shedachein achei ve'edei sigdei lefarsim gadol hef rechshmin taris mishpacha. So we have an even greater obligation to publicize the necessity of taris mishpacha, the fact that mikvah is not optional, since a lot of people have been raising complaints about it and found what they think are legitimate excuses not to practice taris mishpacha properly in this generation. We need to, uh, we need to publicize that taris mishpacha is not optional, it's mandatory. Ve havd shad is vis chus mi yuchades di Miami beza. Here he mentions the name of the city, I guess that's how we know. Says the possibility and the incredible chus falls on Miami specifically. This city is, is specifically a good place to build a mikvah and to, uh, publicize the importance of taris mishpacha. Ki kemich v'kamet kufes meshana b'im sham v'kamia yades vedinas. People come throughout-- there's all sorts of seasons. We're in one right now, right? It's

04:39 Speaker 1 the yeshiva break, or more or less it's the yeshiva break. People come to Miami all the time on vacations. They come at different times, so it's not just one city taking care of its people. It's sort of a central city that a lot of different groups of people come to. So if the people in Miami are stressing taris mishpacha, they don't just touch Miami, they touch everyone. Arei kol inim sham mitzvah shnas sham ve hidur upius mamatim. Every time a mitzvah is done there, in a place where a lot of Jews gather, and it's done with hidur and with pirsum, it's done beautifully and it's done publicly, uh, in an appropriate way, of course. Ve'ad aktev hu li'ir v'tesheya kpoim mam bakrim atzam. It doesn't just benefit the people who live there in a regular way, el hasha'athem. It also affects the mevakerim atzam. It also affects the people visiting. El hasha'atkati yesh das ba'avam nefel. It also has a far reach. Al yade mevakerim eretz v'shuv nimakemam. So what he's saying here is that when you do something, when you do a mitzvah beautifully and in public, it obviously benefits the people in the immediate area, whether they live there full-time or whether they're vacationing. But the advantage of doing it in the presence of people who are vacationing is that vacationing people go back home. They'll leave Miami and they'll go back to where they're from, and they'll bring the message of mikvah being a beautiful and mehudar thing, and maybe have an--

05:40 Speaker 1 hopefully have an effect back home too. So this is, uh, this is a letter that I think is particularly noteworthy for people who are on shlichas in vacation spots or people who are on vacation and have an ability to have an effect on their fellow travelers when they're on vacation, is that when you have a chavan, somebody else on a vacation, they end up going home with that. So I guess you have further reach. All the more reason for people who are on their vacations right now to have hafatsa there too. Veyodatsin. Sheteha psicha v'shatev matzlach. Says, "I hope the grand opening goes well." Itzmala mikvah tafkid b'shlimusa. "I hope the mikvah fulfills its purpose." La'itz kiyam tzedek kiyam mitzvas ha'tar- mikvah Miami b'sevasa, "so that it will spread." Uh, it'll publicize and spread the fulfilling of the mitzvot in Miami and its surrounding areas. The Rebbe says it should be God's will that very soon we should see the fulfillment of the promised that, uh, that Hashem is the mikveh of the Jewish people. which is the way the Rambam ends up. The Rambam The Rambam ends up by saying that God is our mikveh. We go to the next page, keeps on saying, The Rebbe wishes for Mashiach and the And then the Rebbe-- This isn't, this isn't put as like a . There's no PS on this, but it is a PS. This parenthetical PS is what we'll talk about today at the end. The Rebbe's pointing to at the time they

07:01 Speaker 1 were in was, uh, of the opening ceremony at least was So there he talks about, uh, There's a in a Baal HaTurim that says, So I didn't know what this was, and it turns out that Sefaria does not have a solid collection of Baal HaTurim. Um, you click Baal HaTurim for Sefaria for Breishes, they have like four entries. I don't know why they didn't fill it out. Must be some licensing issue. But this is why our office needs to be full of sefarim. I do have a Mikvaot Kdei Lezachumash, and I went and looked it up, and fortunately, I was able to find it. So this is what he says. I never saw this before. The Baal HaTurim says, "When Yitzchak dug the Be'erot, he dug Be'erot and he named them each. Each of the Be'erot got a name. Each of the wells Yitzchak dug got a name. One of the wells was named Rehovot. That was the most special well. That was the expansive one that nobody, nobody fought over." And then there's a Baal HaTurim on this. It was named Rehovot against the Greek people. They made a gezeirah apparently in the times of the Greeks that there would be no mikvehs allowed because they didn't want us to reproduce, and they knew that if we didn't have mikvehs, we wouldn't, we wouldn't reproduce. That could be the best way to end the Jewish people is to cut off their mikveh supply, 'cause a Jew would never do such a thing. And God

08:14 Speaker 1 then made a nes. He made a miracle. That's how we-- That God summoned a mikveh to every single person's house. That a mikveh magically appeared. By a nes appeared in the houses of every single Jew, and they were able to go to private mikveh in their houses, and that's how we were able to reproduce in that land. So that's a Baal HaTurim on Chumash. The Rebbe's tie into that. And the Rebbe says, We can go from Midrash all the way to Halakha. We can learn from this the fact that when the Yin didn't have mikveh access, God sent them miracle mikvehs, and they used them and reproduced using them. He says, the Rebbe says that this is a proof that a m- that m- that mikveh mayim de-nes, that waters from mikveh, that a mikveh that comes by way of a miracle also is metahir. That's not a foregone conclusion that you can use miracles to do mitzvahs with. The Rebbe then brings a parenthesis. There's a whole back and forth about this. Whether you're able to use magic oil for Hanukkah, whether this is a Gemara Menachos we'll look at in a second, whether wheat that falls from the sky can be used for mitzvahs. He says you can't bring a rayah from Miriam's well because it says, uh, because the Torah itself calls it mayim, as you see in the Mishnah Mikvaos. But generally speaking, so the Rebbe in this final footnote is saying that he wants to bring a proof that you

09:28 Speaker 1 can, that you can, uh, do miracles. I'm sorry, you can do miracles. You can do mitzvahs with things that come al ya'dey a miracle, by way of a miracle. And his proof from it is the fact that this mikveh, these mikvehs from the times of the Greek Empire, the times when the Greeks were around, God sent us mikvehs, and we were able to use them. So, uh, this Gemara Menachos I had to look up also. The Gemara is, uh, it, it's Gemara Menachos tells a story of wheat falling from the sky. I sent it to you as your supplementary background material. The background goes, I'll read you the Gemara. Let's say that wheat falls from clouds. What's the din by it? So the Gemara asks, uh, the din for what? And that's really the end of the Gemara for our purposes. 'Cause if you're talking about Menachos, why not? Why can't you offer a Menacha from wheat that falls from the sky? Menachos don't have to come from things that were specifically grown in Eretz Israel. You can make a Menacha offering out of anything. So Gemara answers, wheat that falls from the sky is, is wheat, and you can use it for a mitzvah. That's what the Rebbe's using this for. The story goes-- The, the Gemara actually goes on, uh, with more detail of what exactly happened here, what, what mitzvahs they were talking about, and then tells a story of a guy named Adi the Arab, um, who was one time walking

10:36 Speaker 1 and wheat just rained down all over him, spreading several parsas. But anyway, uh, Rashi and Tosfos have a debate over what exactly this is talking about. Why is wheat falling from the sky? Rashi says that the clouds sucked up water over a ship that was carrying wheat. You know, clouds evaporate things, things evaporate in clouds. This actually happens with fish a lot. If there's a big storm, sometimes it'll rain fish because clouds can pick up water along with small things in the water. So he says, Rashi says there was a boat traveling at sea and had a bunch of wheat kernels, and the clouds came and sucked up the wheat kernels and then rained it down over Israel, and they wanted to know whether they could use that for Menachos. Tosfos says it was straight up a miracle. But the point of this in any case is that, uh, is that we see the Gemara does not have any issue with, uh, wheat that was-- that arrived by way of miracle being used for Menachos. The Gemara seems to have no issue with the Hanukkah story where we use miracle oil for a menorah, and this Baal HaTurim has no issue with us using miracle mikvehs in order to do the mitzvah of mikveh. So the Rebbe uses this as a proof that we are able to use miracles in order to do mitzvahs. There is a place in the Kol Ha'ases volume twenty-seven, page two oh one, where the Rebbe then takes that to

11:37 Speaker 1 the next step and says that's exactly what Mashiach's going to look like, is that we're going to have a world that's full of miracles, and nonetheless, we'll be able to keep mitzvahs within the realm of those miracles, that the ikar will be mitzvahs in a world that is effectively but that there will also be m- miracles going on. The world will be free of disease and suffering and oppression. We won't have Shimon Malchus. That is a miracle. And nonetheless, within that context, we'll be permitted to do regular mitzvahs. You can check it out there. There's a footnote where the Rebbe brings that Gemara along with a bunch of other Gemaras to support the idea that we will be able to, when Mashiach comes, do regular mitzvahs maiyus through miraculous means. That there will be miraculous means that we get some of our materials for mitzvahs, but we'll still take those materials and do them with physical mitzvahs. And the Rebbe's lashon there in the sefer is That's the ikar of Mashiach. The main point of Mashiach, the main, I don't know, the main actions that happen in the time of Mashiach is that there'll be miraculous means. We'll maybe receive our wheat miraculously, or our oil miraculously, or our mikvehs miraculously, but the ikar is that then we'll still be doing mitzvahs maiyus within the context of that miracle. That's it.