כשהבן נעשה שומר מצוות

00:00 Speaker 1 Going back to our roots, we're going back to traditional letters where instead of me giving a halacha share that is tied to one sentence the Rebbe said, we're just gonna read a letter because this letter gives us an incredible insight in how the Rebbe handles, uh, children becoming frum, which would ultimately become an enormous issue for the Lubavitch, but I'm not sure how big a deal it was in Tamuz Gimmel. This is probably a little more rare. I didn't expect to find the characters in this story. There's an address at the top that it's to a Dr. Dreyfus, and he does mention the name of the child, Nessanel. But I didn't know who Nessanel Dreyfus was. By mistake, I found articles on him, multiple articles on him. Nessanel Dreyfus is a fair-- Anybody know who he is? Anybody know the name Nessanel Dreyfus? Nessanel Dreyfus was a Shliach. So, uh, this boy in the story, um, giving away the ending, this boy grows up to be Rabbi Nessanel Dreyfus. Uh, he grew up to be one of the Rebbe's first shluchim in, in Netanya. Uh, his father was an academic. He was a Bar-Ilan intellectual type from France who had made Aliyah when Nessanel was sixteen. They moved to Katamon. Almost immediately upon arrival, Nessanel gets very excited about Chabad and goes to, uh, Toras Emes. He goes to yeshiva there. He comes home, and you know what it's like when they come home from yeshiva. He comes home, and he has a beard and

01:06 Speaker 1 a hat, and he has all the Chabad Menhuggah, and he's driving his father absolutely up the wall. So his father writes to the Rebbe and says, "My son's driving me crazy. What did you do to him?" And we have here the Rebbe's response to that letter, what-- how to handle his son's new chumras. Uh, the story ends happily, I guess. I don't know how the relationship with his son ended, but the story ends happily enough and that this boy becomes a prominent Shliach of the Rebbe, uh, who ultimately learns in seven seventy and goes on to be a Shliach in Netanya. So that's the background and the foreground. The other background that we have-- I wish Mendel was here. I was hoping that he'd talk us through the letter that he posted in the chat that I think kind of pings off of this. Uh, if you look in the chat, you'll see that we have a, we have a letter there or a couple letters there about the Rebbe's rather unique approach to ki vadav em. The Rebbe does not necessarily-- to, to vastly over summarize, the Rebbe does not necessarily feel that we have to do everything our parents say, just that we have to be respectful to them, and that's, uh, those are two different things. We don't have to, uh, we don't have to have our lives ruled by our parents. We just have to be nice about it when we disagree. So the Rebbe has that sheet there, and you

01:59 Speaker 1 should take some time to read it. For us, let's just read the letter.

02:02 Speaker 2 My, my letter's in Russian. Is that, is that, I'm guessing, a mistake?

02:06 Speaker 1 Yeah, that is a mistake. You shouldn't have a letter in Russian. Um, this letter's in Hebrew. It should be on page kuf lamed gimel. What, what number are you looking at on your page?

02:14 Speaker 2 Um, alef. So I have to go over.

02:17 Speaker 1 Yeah, just take the link that I put in just now, and that should be-

02:19 Speaker 2 You hit previous instead of next.

02:22 Speaker 1 Ah.

02:22 Speaker 2 I didn't hit anything, but, um... I see. Yeah. Okay, I got it. Yeah, I got it. Thank you.

02:28 Speaker 1 Okay. The page on the Hebrew books is one seventy-four 'cause, you know, nothing's ever coordinated. It's the bottom. And you get, you get used to it. Now that I've been doing this with you guys for a little while, I've gotten used to the Rebbe style. If he's really gonna talk, it's in a PS. That's the rule. The Rebbe answers, then you get these long PS's. So here's the Rebbe's answer. He writes back to Dr. Dreyfus, who had complained about his son's chumras, says, "Shalom u'bracha. I hope that you get real nachas nachas. You should get a Yiddisha, a Torah nachas specifically from your child, Nessanel. This child you're writing about in the letter, I'm giving you a bracha, you get nachas from him. Real Jewish Torah nachas." This is probably necessary to write because I believe I read while I was researching his father. I think I came across the fact that he wasn't just an academic in Bar-Ilan. He was like a Jewish thought academic. So we have here, uh, somebody who's very dedicated to Judaism and not necessarily as dedicated to Torah Judaism. This line here, is I think, uh, supposed to, supposed to drive home a point that he should get proper nachas from Nessanel. And this bracha came true as we've discussed. You guys have the merit that you're found in Eretz Israel. Says there, "I hope you get this nachas because, uh, especially because you're living in the land of Israel where God's constantly watching. And hit next at the

03:51 Speaker 1 top of your page, and we have our mega PS.

03:55 Speaker 2 Hmm.

03:55 Speaker 1 Got it? There we go. Very mu- very much the Rebbe style. Here's your bracha, now here's my point. "PS," first of all, this is something that bothers Hersh every time, so I'd like to repeat it because I like bothering Hersh. We don't write French in this office. I know. It comes up in like every letter. Says, "Therefore, I'm writing back to you in Lashon Hakodesh, but if you want, in the future, you can write to me in French. I can read French. Then you can tell me what language you want to receive my response in. I can write back to you in, in Lashon Hakodesh, in Yiddish or in English, but I can't write back in French. I can only read in French." That's the rule in the Rebbe's office. That is a recurring theme this year. Guess a lot of French people are writing to him. Unclear if he eventually got someone in the office who could write French. Rebbe says, You wrote about your son's chumras, all these, all these, uh, stringencies he took upon himself and the effect, presumably the negative effect, that it's ha-- that is-- that it's, uh, having on the relationship, the youth that you have with him. First of all, I, I don't get involved in these sorts of things unless I've heard both sides. Nessanel hasn't spoken to me. I can't really weigh in on the specific dynamics of your family. But I'd nonetheless like to raise a couple of points that I think are important that

05:13 Speaker 1 have nothing to do with, uh, whether I've heard both sides of the argument, just general points about the state of youth. I'm, I'm paraphrasing 'cause that's what he's about to say. The Rebbe's gonna make a couple general points about what youth are like, what young people are like, what chumras are like, what kulos are like, and what's the Rebbe's general philosophy is, which is really very useful for us 'cause the Rebbe's saying, "I'm not weighing in on the specific scenario, but I am giving you something broadly applicable." So this is sort of the opposite of what we find in a lot of letters. In a lot of letters, we leave the letter going, "Yeah, we got the Rebbe's advice, but who knows if it applies to everybody." Here, the Rebbe is saying, "I'm specifically saying the following is a general thing that I believe that does apply to everybody because I don't know the details of your particular case." So this is the Rebbe's general take on how to deal with children and, and chumras. Point number one, . He says, "Certainly you know this guy's an intellectual. He studies Jewish thought. He knows." And, uh, so you and I both know, says the Rebbe, that when it comes to a Jew taking on a chumrah, if he does it three times, they might need-- he might need to ask God to get out of it, and even then they might not let him out of it. They have to decide whether the-- whether it

06:12 Speaker 1 makes sense to allow him out of the chumrahs that he's taken on. That first point is probably just the Rebbe emphasizing that chumrahs are not small things. A chumrah, either way, it might be-- he might be stuck with it and it certainly is a big deal. So that's point number one. Chumrahs matter, and they matter so much that sometimes the rabbonim don't even let you out of them, even if you do ask them for a way out. Beis, second point the Rebbe wants to make about chumrahs and the youth, et cetera. That certainly you know the difficulties of our time. And you certainly know the worldview of our children is in turmoil. There's no real strong walls separating camps anymore. I don't know exactly what he's referring to there, but I think it means that society is broken down. That there isn't the-- that there isn't, um, a caste system so much anymore, and the children will yell at the parents. That, uh, the divisions between usually means like classes. So I think it means that between classes there's been, there's been a, a breakdown of division. There's no order. Since we live in a world where all of the limitations we used to have are breaking down and there's no classes and there's no, there's no hierarchies anymore, every time somebody puts up a wall, it's a good thing. Every wall in a world like this we live in-- can live in, and this has only gotten more true, that the- Between men and

07:21 Speaker 1 women? I don't think so. I don't think he means between men and women. Okay. Um, I mean, obviously also between men and women, but no, I don't think he means that here. I think what he's saying is that the more the world-- the, the more that the world mixes in that every day, uh, and every approach, uh, is allowed, the more valuable a wall is when I put up a wall and say, "I'm not gonna do this." It used to be that there were certain things that people couldn't do, and nowadays anybody can do anything they want. In a world that gets to be more and more anyone can do whatever they want, it becomes increasingly important to put up a, a, a wall. I think that's what he means. Is that as the world's breaking down its barriers, it's important for us to be putting up barriers. If you read it differently, let me know or let me know in the chat. That's what I think he means here. Especially since we can't know whether these are going to last. I really don't know what that means. I think what he means is that we don't have to get so upset about each of these walls because first of all, the walls are helpful. Barriers are helpful in a world that has no barriers. And second of all, if you're worried about these barriers being things you're stuck with forever, maybe they won't be forever. So, uh, there's nothing to be concerned about. That's

08:20 Speaker 1 how I'm reading it, but again, weird sentence. But when it comes to children or young people, it's very important to be careful. It's not always possible for an adult, especially or including the parents, and the Rebbe says in parentheses, maybe even especially for the parents because they are particularly . They care more. It's hard to know exactly what effect your words or your changes or your pushes are going to have on children, especially your own children. Sometimes you move a single brick in the structure of your child and you move a single brick and it knocks down the entire worldview of a child, especially when it comes to your own child who people are sometimes less sensitive to because they, uh, are more sensitive to him and therefore less sensitive to the impact of what they do. So what's the Rebbe saying in Beis? I think he's saying two things. I think he's saying, first of all, that in a time where classes are breaking down and restrictions are breaking down, walls are valuable, chumrahs are valuable. Especially since a chumrah might not be a permanent structure, it might just be a temporary thing that's put in there in order to prevent a bigger problem. And that when parents get involved and try to pick which chumrahs their children should be keeping and which things that their kids should be careful about, they're n-they're never sure if the thing that they decide to move happens to be the bedrock on which the child's faith or

09:36 Speaker 1 worldview is based, and they can very easily knock down the entire building. I, I think that's what Beis means. But again, if people disagree or have another reading of it, please put it in the chat or speak up in a moment. Gimel. He says, "Let's say that you were telling me, you're writing me to say that your child's too lenient." Especially if he has serious kulots, like he's, you know, really not being careful with the Halakha. That was what this letter was about. There, you would have to intervene because there's a commandment of Heich Tehiach. You have to, um, you have to admonish people when they're doing something wrong. Then you would be fulfilling God's will by writing to me. There is no mitzvah to tell people to stop keeping chumrahs. So whereas there is room for a father to step in and say, "Uh, my son's, my son's too lenient," because that might be a mitzvah de'oraita, and then we have to have a discussion, uh, is this healthy for the child? Is this the time to step in? But at the very least, this is based on Torah, that a person, al pi Torah in theory, has to admonish somebody who's being too lenient. There's nowhere in the Torah anywhere that says when someone's being too strict, you gotta calm them down. That's not a, that's not a thing. So it doesn't seem that this is based on any Torah obligation you might have as a father to calm him down. Thing number

10:42 Speaker 1 four, daled. The way of children nowadays, young people nowadays, is that they look for new stuff. That they, uh, rebel against the establishment. That's what people do. They wanna rebel against the establishment, especially nowadays. Sometimes that rebellion is in the rebellion in the direction of a Torah chumrah. Even though you're telling me that he is rebelling in the direction of chumrahs and it has negative outcomes, you're-- it's hurting your relationship, is not the same as, as had his rebellion been toward a kula. So in daled what the Rebbe's saying is that I understand that this is damaging your relationship. I understand you're not happy that he's rebelling. I understand you don't want a rebellious child, but you have to look in what direction he's rebelling. He could rebel toward a chumrah and could rebel toward a kula. I'd be very concerned if he was rebelling in the lenient direction. Here, he's rebelling in the chumrah direction, so it's a different discussion. Point number five. When a child does lean towards stringency and become more frum, even though this is against the worldview of his parents... We have to turn the page, which for us means clicking. Next page There is a, a central sticking point to this, to this, uh, to this rebellion. Because I'll explain it when I finish the sentence. What the Rebbe is saying here is that a child who's strict about Halakhah is likely to also be strict about honoring you because that's what this child does. So if you're dealing

12:15 Speaker 1 with a Kula, this child's saying that he's not gonna take Torah seriously. That's not something that you-- That, that should be a concern because a child who doesn't take Torah seriously also won't take the commandment, "Honor your father and mother," seriously. This child's saying, "I wanna take the whole Torah seriously." So yeah, it's gonna damage your relationship, and it's gonna get in the way of all the things you wanna do. But at the end of the day, there's one of these commandments, and l'chayim, he should also be strict with that. So there's reason to not be concerned and to the opposite, be glad that he's going to be strict with . But that ends up given . Since he works in Chinuch, you know, he's an academic, so since he has all sorts of problems in Chinuch. Certainly, this small amount of lines that I've read to you, especially as given the importance of the topic, hopefully that'll be enough. I think the Rebbe is saying here, you're an academic, and you think about Chinuch all the time. So I trust that even though this is an important topic, me writing only a few lines will work because we're talking on the same page. You understand educating children, and I'm talking about educating children. So we're, we're in the same world on this. Um, I don't know what that is. Says that, uh, it's my-- it's-- may it be God's will, the Rebbe says, that you'll have nakas from everybody who comes, all of your

13:26 Speaker 1 future children, and that that-- and that they should live. But to do a quick-- Let's do a quick chazar on what the Rebbe's four big points are when it comes to Chumrah's children and everything like that, and then I think we'll call it a day. His first point was that Chumrahs are important, and sometimes you can't even get out of them. His second point was that in a world where the divisions are being torn down, Chumrahs are important. And when you put them up, every single Chumrah you put up is valuable. And that a parent, especially a parent, but really any adult, but especially a parent, can't be sure when they knock somebody's Chumrah, whether they're gonna knock them off base entirely. I think this is a, this is a, a mussar that we can, uh, a mussar that we can take in, uh, in fabregens and likewise, that, uh, that we do have an urge to knock down each other's Chumrahs. That's for sure. That's, uh, that's one of our styles, right? You see somebody, um... I mean, I, I remem- I remember, I remember, uh, making all sorts of fun of people, of people when I was in Yeshiva University, and people used to daven, you know, with, with their fists and the eyes clenched, clenched tight. I used to have a field day with them. Rebbe's saying here, you can't really be sure when you knock down somebody's craziness, whether you are knocking down a craziness that they, that their entire religion's

14:25 Speaker 1 built on. So you gotta be careful what bricks you push. I understand that false things are good to knock out, but at the same time, a Chumrah is a Chumrah. So I don't know. We used to make fun of Yashan all the time, too. I-- There-- A lot of these things the Rebbe is saying, some Chumrahs end up being the basis of the Yiddishkeit, and we have to be careful about knocking them, especially when it's our own children. Uh, point number three said, uh- Someone's Yiddishkeit based on Yashan, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know that either, but, but at the same time, you know, I, I, I think that there's a, there's a school of thought that would say someone's Yiddishkeit based on a beard, I don't know, and that very much is the bedrock of a lot of our-- a lot-- That's, like, our core Chumrah. So it's hard, it's hard to know exactly what lies at someone's root. And I think the Rebbe is saying you'd be very cautious when you knock someone's Chumrahs because you might-- especially a child's, 'cause you might be knocking them entirely off base, especially your own child. We should all be lucky enough to have children who give us the problem of being too makmir. Um, his third point was that, uh, that we don't-- that there's a mitzvah in the Torah to stop people from being meikel, but there's no mitzvah to stop them from being makmir. So we're not really having a Torah discussion

15:20 Speaker 1 here when we're talking about limiting a Chumrah. His fourth point had been that children wanna rebel against the establishment, and they're gonna rebel one way or another. They're either gonna be more strict or more lenient. It's better they turn out more strict. This is something that my mashpia told me many times, says that, uh, parents have a choice. Kids don't turn out like their parents. Your child can either be, uh, your child can either be less frum than you or so frum than you. Someone so frum he calls you a goy. That's so you can have. You can have a child who's significantly more religious than you that makes you uncomfortable, or a si- child who's significantly less, but you don't-- there aren't a lot of parents whose children are like them. So you gotta pick which one you want. I think that's what the Rebbe is saying in daled. And in heit, he says, uh, you should be somewhat heartened by the fact that his Chumrahs are Halakhic Chumrahs that would, in theory, encourage him also to honor his father and mother more because that should lead to more . And even though right now there's a challenge in your relationship, the Rebbe trusts that it will improve.