מקומו המרכזי של קיצור שולחן ערוך

00:00 Speaker 1 Okay, shall we? Let's go. I have the letter. The letter is on page ninety-eight. Once again, we're, we're now-- we had a little break yesterday. We went and looked at the Friediker Rebbe's ignorance, but now we're back to our letters that are exactly from exactly fifty years ago. And the letter that we have here is a short letter, short-ish letter to a boy who's learning in Yeshiva. The Rebbe's just giving him some advice on what he should be learning and how he should learn. Let's read the letter first, and then we have some background material that comes after the letter today. So that's on Tariqres. Everybody have the letter, the place? It is Reish, Chet, Yud, Shvat, Tav Shin, Lamed Gimel. Almost exactly fifty years ago. And the boy is excuse me, I told you about the voice. The boy is, uh, Dave Bear, uh, Zippe- Zippel, Zippel, Zibel, Zibel. The, the famous family that did all that work in Italy for the Rebbe. People know him? People know the family, the, the Zibel brothers who were very involved. Yeah, Zippel, Zibel, Zippel.

00:55 Speaker 2 Zippel.

00:55 Speaker 1 What do you say?

00:55 Speaker 2 Zippel. His name is Shuleya from Utah. Because Shuleya from Utah.

01:00 Speaker 1 And the ones who are famous, uh, the famous ones are the father of the person that the Rebbe is writing to right now and his uncles. There were a group of brothers who were in Milan, Italy, and were doing a lot of clandestine work for the Rebbe behind the Iron Curtain. Um, I don't know where the family's been mishalchel since then, but this is the son of one of those-- of one of the famous Zippel brothers who, uh, who did so much work behind the Iron Curtain and were-- apparently, if you're from Italy, you know this family. Um, I mean, everybody knows this family anyway, but I mean, as far as their, their work and their reach. Okay. So it's written to Dave Bear Sheyechya, who is the son of one of these Zippels. Says that at the bottom. Shalom Ubracha says the Rebbe, . I was very happy to receive your letter on Monday. . Your father and I had a discussion. He met with me here, he visited, and then you sent me a letter, and I was very happy to see it. . So this boy had sent the Rebbe a Seder Limudim, sent him what he was up to in Yeshiva, and the Rebbe was very happy to read the things that, the things that he was learning. . The Rebbe wants to add something to his Seder, though. The Rebbe wants to add that maybe you should also be learning Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. I don't know what he put on

02:04 Speaker 1 the list. We don't have the original letter, but most Yeshivas don't have a Seder in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. So, uh, it's safe to say that this was, uh, uh, this was something that wasn't already on the list. In addition to what you're doing, I'd like you to learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. And why? . That's where you'll find all of the halachas that are needed for daily life. Obviously, the, the Rebbe has choices here, and we'll talk about that in a second. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch is not the only book on the list if you wanna know how to live as a Jew, but the Rebbe picks it consistently. . The Rebbe says that it should be God's will, and that your learning should be like, , like, . The Chazal didn't just want us to learn theoretically. They wanted a limud that brings to so you'll be able to keep mitzvahs in all ways that are necessary. . Since one of the key mitzvahs, uh, yeah, key mitzvahs, one of the key mitzvahs is , loving your neighbor as yourself. . You'll definitely apply that. And what does apply that look like? I think a lot of people think looks like feeling, a feeling of love for another person. I've never seen the Rebbe describe it that way. Every time the Rebbe describes , it's an avoda that has to be done l'maase. And what does it look like in maase? Looks like strengthening other people. . I expect you to keep this mitzvah by

03:24 Speaker 1 impressing, im-impressing other people, by impressing the message upon other people, having an effect on other people. people in your general area, and when you're in Yeshiva, what does that hashpa'ah look like? It means strengthening other people so that they'll learn Torah well with hasmadah and shkhila, with seriousness, and strengthening them so that they'll keep mitzvot . What looks like is helping the people around you to be the best they can be. And the ultimate hashpa'ah will not come from shouting, shouting in their faces or shoving it down their throats. It's from being a dug machayah. Everybody will see what you're doing, and that'll be the ultimate hashpa'ah. This is a really interesting twist. This shows-- this is a, this is a that comes from not dealing with another person, if you caught that, that, that nuance at the end. It's the, uh, anybody who doesn't like people and wants a , the Rebbe just offered one, is that you can have a po-- you can help people be better by being the best that you can be, and they'll see you. And being the best you can be, therefore, is a kind of . That if you are a dug machayah , without having to interact with anybody, other people, they want to act like you act. So if you're a dug machayah, you're a good example. Other people are going to follow. This is, uh, something that Yisroel Silverstein loves to say. It's one of his, it's that a, that a . That a

04:43 Speaker 1 is an of . The fact that a can make other around him simply by being a , uh, is an of . Not just of, not just of helping oneself or helping one's community, but literally a . The Rebbe gives him a berakhah for atslakhah and everything we discussed and besuras tovos. The thing that I wanted to discuss today, I know I pulled out this a bit because I liked it, but the thing that I wanted to discuss just for a few minutes is the Rebbe's take on Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. I sent you a link that's a good summary of some of the things. I'm gonna say some things from there and some things that aren't from there. So, uh, the Friediker Rebbe tells people all the time to learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. This is all over the sikhahs and all over the letters. Uh, I don't know how much Kitzur Shulchan Aruch we have mentioned before the Friediker Rebbe in our-- I'm, I'm among the-- Uh?

05:28 Speaker 2 Specifically to Bar Mitzvah boys.

05:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, I didn't find the-

05:32 Speaker 2 Yeah.

05:32 Speaker 1 -specifically Bar Mitzvah boys. I'll give you a couple examples of where he told it to, uh, to, to big Rabbonim. But yeah, the Mental Sandhouse ad specifically mentioning Bar Mitzvah boys heard this chidush a lot. Very good. The Friediker Rebbe very often tells, uh-- Uh?

05:44 Speaker 2 My great uncle, Yisroel Dovid Groner, went into the Friediker Rebbe when Yecheskel was his father, and he told him to learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch with Misgeres.

05:56 Speaker 1 I saw that letter. I didn't know it was to your relative. I saw the word Misgeres.

05:59 Speaker 2 I don't know if that letter is to him or not to-

06:01 Speaker 1 Well, there is one where he specifically says with Misgeres as a- I have to find it, but it says with Misgeres as a for Shulchan Aruch. That's . That's where the Misgeres is Shulchan Aruch. Maybe it's the same letter. I, I hadn't... The reason why I remembered what you were saying is the Misgeres stood out. I think I have it on that link I sent you. I think it's in the link. If it's not, then I found it on . I'll have to send it to you afterwards. But I, I saw that exact . It very well could be your, your relative who that was to.

06:26 Speaker 3 Cool.

06:27 Speaker 1 But anyway, often tells people to learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch in the . He says, uh, this is in Pesach of Tav Shin Daled. He says, "The Hasidim used to learn two sifrim of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch every day." That this used to be the is two sifrim of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch every day. That was what people did. Uh, he says in another place that's in Pesach also, but it's, uh, it's Tav Shin Heh, one year later, he says that if somebody needs to root out evil, they have evil in their hearts, evil in themselves, how do you root it out? Well, we were given Kitzur Shulchan Aruch for that. That's the example he gives of the way that we conquer the evil within, is through Kitzur Shulchan Aruch of all things. Apparently, Rabbi Esteban and Rabbi Shwe both testified that the Rebbe told them that they had to be bakium in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. That this was a for the rabbonim of Crown Heights, that rabbonim of Crown Heights need to be bakium in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, experts in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. I found a, uh, it's not really a . It's printed in Paris Menachem, volume fifty-three, page one fifty-one. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin, who was then the chief rabbi of Moscow, he died in nineteen seventy-one. He visited the Rebbe in nineteen sixty-eight, and there's a, a transcript of their discussion. In the middle of the discussion, they shift to discussing Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. I'll read a little piece of it to you because

07:29 Speaker 1 it's-- I found it very interesting. So it says here that the Rebbe the Rebbe says there needs to be in the shul in Moscow where he's the Rav. And he says to him, "Here, we try to teach in the-- we try to teach in all the shuls necessary based on the level of the, of the group. So we either teach Shulchan Aruch or Kitzur Shulchan Aruch." The Rebbe says, We have found that when it comes to , when the da-the daily halakhahs people need to know, there is a particular lacking. People really don't know, people really don't know . and therefore they don't do halakha. They don't, they don't do mitzvahs properly. You can see the deficiencies in their actions based on their lack of knowledge. Says specifically when it comes to teaching women nowadays, we're seeing the need that they need to know specific halakhahs that are necessary. I'm just gonna jump a little. So then this rabbi from Moscow says to him that there's a particular in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, that he really enjoys it, people enjoy it, because there it explains every halakha. And, um, he says, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. And he tells the Rebbe it's especially great to learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch nowadays because people have written so many Hasafas on it, that they've really expanded it. And at this point, the Rebbe tells a joke. Says, The whole point of Shulchan Aruch, who wrote the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, was to write the short version, and at this point, we have

08:52 Speaker 1 expanded upon it so much that it's gone back out to be one of the longest books that we have. There's so many Hasafas in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Rebbe says it's hardly a Kitzur anymore. Um anyway, the, uh, this Rabbi Levin tells the Rebbe that he hands out Kitzur Shulchan Aruch to his students because they don't really have time to learn other things, and he wants to make sure they at least know the halakh- the halakhahs that they need to know. And the Rebbe says that when he was in, when he was in Russia, he says, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. The Rebbe says, "When I was in Russia in my day, it was almost impossible to find a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch." It like wasn't in print. They didn't have them on the, on the-- They didn't have them on the shelves. He said, "Uh, we used to use Mishnah Berurah, or we would learn Shulchan Aruch itself with these tiny prints that we could keep in our pockets." The Rebbe's reminiscing of what books they had. They had in his area, they had a Mishnah Berurah, they had a Shulchan Aruch, and he couldn't find a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. He said, "We'd learn the Shulchan Aruch with a bear hatim. That's how we used to get by before Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. So when I arrived in this place, I got to America, I saw the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch is everywhere. It's been translated into a lot of languages. It's in all sorts of countries." So the

09:47 Speaker 1 Rebbe seems very impressed by the, by the expansiveness now of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, and as we mentioned, frequently recommended that people learn it. I do want to, uh, in the interest of full disclosure before we conclude for the day, there is a excuse me, where the Rebbe is-- where the Rebbe says, I'll quote the line. He says, by Hasidim, we don't learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. I know, flying in the face of everything we just talked about. We specifically learn Shulchan Aruch and the author of the Shulchan Aruch. So we have this line from a . Out of context, it sounds like the Rebbe's making a . I don't think that's what the Rebbe means in context. Um, if you look at the in context, so the Rebbe's talking about he's very upset about people not taking davening very seriously, and he's complaining about them. The Rebbe's saying they don't, they don't daven, they don't understand that al pi halakha a person has to feel and understand what they're davening in order to be davening al pi halakha. And he complains that people don't know halakha well enough to know that they should be davening well. And in that complaint, the Rebbe says that why don't they l- why don't they look in Shulchan Aruch so they'll know the din about the importance of tefila. He goes, "And maybe people don't learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 'cause Hasidim don't learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, but at least they should look in Shulchan Aruch." That to me implies less

10:57 Speaker 1 that the Rebbe's giving a, a about how we don't learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and more the Rebbe is sort of being the idea that Hasidim who think they're too good for Kitzur Shulchan Aruch don't seem to know the halakhas in any Shulchan Aruch. But that is subject to interpretation. I, uh, when-- On the, on the link that I sent you where they were summarizing some of the Rebbe's shitas on Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, they bring as a footnote that, uh, that maybe the Rebbe doesn't like Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 'cause he does say this sentence. So that, uh, that particular line in the is, is subject to interpretation. I think if you look at the full body of work. Uh?

11:24 Speaker 3 Isn't that obvious based on the concept that, uh, that the, the would give that we should do it?

11:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. I, I, I think it's obvi- it's obvious to me, but it wasn't obvious to the person who organized this thing. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm bringing up the possibility that, uh, that, that I'm not reading the right, but I, I think it's, I think it's pretty clear that the S- that in the the Rebbe is not pushing away Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.

11:46 Speaker 3 If anything, it's only in the context that we had last week's the Rebbe had a big focus on, on knowing halakha maasis, and the Rebbe basically there says that you have to really learn well to understand how to pass in halakha. So maybe the concept there is that the Rebbe bas-- Meaning if anything, if the Rebbe's pushing away Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, it's in favor of doing it more not to negate Kitzur Shulchan Aruch as, as a, as a starting point.

12:12 Speaker 1 That's definitely the case. There's just, there's just too much out there about the, about the benefit of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch for us to say that the Rebbe has any sort of feeling against it. Certainly, he seems to have a lot of feelings toward it. Um, at the Dekak, the two of the, two of the big-- two of the Rabbonim of the Beth Din of Crown Heights testified that the Rebbe told them they had to become vicarious in it, in addition, of course, to the other things that they had to know. I know that-

12:32 Speaker 3 My mother-

12:33 Speaker 1 Yeah.

12:33 Speaker 3 My mother had told me that when she was younger, um, basically, this is before, you know, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and everything, um, what they learned was Shulchan Aruch and Mesares. That's what they... And they had regular follow-up Shiurim, and that's what they learned for Talas and Shlacha.

12:49 Speaker 1 I remember in the book, Samarkand, that Hillel Zaltzman writes that the Rabbonim who were remote in Russia, they leaned very heavily on Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. They didn't have a lot of Sefarim, and they would pass it and write out of it. So this was, uh-

13:01 Speaker 3 Totally.

13:01 Speaker 1 Kitzur Shulchan Aruch was and remains a, a, a fundamental addition to the library. I think I have a copy. Yeah, I keep one here. I keep one in my office here. Anyway, that's, uh, that's, that's it for me. That's, uh-

13:16 Speaker 3 They also have it now.

13:16 Speaker 1 Yeah.

13:17 Speaker 3 They have it without the Rebbe's Psat whenever it, uh-

13:20 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And, uh, Nachman Wilhelm, who lives in our general area, has written on it. He's, he has a, he has two books on, on Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. One that's on the regular one, and one that's on the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch with the Psake out the Rebbe. He takes it very seriously. So we should learn Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, um, and Halacha L'maase in general. Today's letter. Uh, Mendel, I'm gonna look up. We'll put in the chat and discuss. I'm gonna have to look up whether that letter was the, the one that I found the letter that you're referring to.

13:52 Speaker 3 No, I think you, you weren't hearing me. It w- he went in for Yechidas. It wasn't a letter.

13:57 Speaker 1 Oh, it wasn't a letter, it was a Yechidas. Okay, fine. So the Rebbe just spoke to a lot of people then.

14:01 Speaker 3 I think Mesares also added context, which is what makes it less of a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, which makes like Kitzur Shulchan Aruch stuff could be a, can be a difficult thing to pass it from because of the, uh, because of the lack of timing and stuff. And with the Mesares makes it more of a, a, a, of a usable book.

14:20 Speaker 1 Definitely.

14:21 Speaker 3 To me.

14:21 Speaker 1 There's quite a few letters that I've mentioned, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. I only brought a smattering. One of them that just, uh, pops into my head is that a boy writes to him that he's-- he wants to learn more Torah, so he wants to join the normal Yeshiva. I don't think they had Bal Teshuva Yeshivas when he wrote this letter, so he didn't have anywhere to go. And he said, "I can't really understand the Shiur." And the Rebbe told him, "Why don't you go from shul to shul in the area and listen to the local Ein Yaakov Shiur, the local Kitzur Shulchan Aruch Shiur, and the local Parsha Shavuah Shiur, and otherwise find a Bachar who'll learn with you a couple hours a day, and then you'll be able to catch up and join the regular Shiurim." So, uh, seems like this is one of the, one of the regular Shiurim in Beth, in Beth HaKnesses, in Beth HaMidrash. It's one of the regular shul Shiurim, is Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.

14:58 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

14:58 Speaker 1 And a good starting point. Certainly a good way for us to keep on top of our Chayim.

15:04 Speaker 4 I could, I could just tell you that in, in, in Yeshiva Montreal, um, Itzhak Meir Gradi used to push very, very heavily that Bachar should learn the entire Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.

15:14 Speaker 3 When I was in the system in Montreal-

15:15 Speaker 1 Yeah