סוד הישרדותו של עם ישראל

00:00 Yod Tav Shen Lamed. It is on page Kuf Nun Vav of volume Kaf Tes, which is from exactly fifty years ago, give or take, depending on the date. We have here Yud Zayin Adar Beis. So we're off by like seventeen days, give or take a month, 'cause this was a leap year. And this letter is written to a Bachur, Daniyal Shi'achia. Uh, there's no notes about who this was. So some Bachur named Daniyal, the Rebbe writes a letter to him. I picked this one for today because it's, uh, it's particularly related to Purim, and today is Rosh Chodesh Adar, so we're getting into the Purim mood. We're not gonna do Purim letters every day of Adar, but Rosh Chodesh, when we get close to Purim, seems appropriate. So Bachar, a Bachar Daniyal Shi'achia. This is written to Daniyal, Shalom Uvrachah. The Rebbe was very pleased to read whatever letter Daniyal wrote. Once again, we don't have any footnotes here, so we're not sure exactly what had been written to the Rebbe. But the Rebbe wishes him well, gives him a bracha that all of his desires of his heart shall be fulfilled for good. I believe. That's right, Leshanah. It's my hope that you had a Simchas Purim, that you had a Purim celebration that was fitting for the place where you are. The most important thing is to keep this simcha, the joy of Purim, going onwards. So right, this is written after Purim. The Rebbe's telling him, "I assume your Purim celebration was

01:18 the way it should be. I hope it was the way it should be, and I hope that joy continues." "I hope you take the lessons from the days of Purim and extend them throughout the entire year." So Purim isn't just a holiday that happens for one day or even for one month. We get very into Adar Mishanah, but we take from Purim is supposed to extend throughout the entire year, as what we take from everything, right? The Pesach, we, we take our Pesach the entire year. We have these nodes throughout our calendar, which are moments where we capitalize on the power of one moment, and we take that moment and spread it through the whole year. So the Rebbe wants him to take the inspiration from Purim and spread it throughout the entire year. The part that I'm excited about is coming up. And now, I assume you know, uh, certainly you know what Chazal say, that the reason why we had a miracle of Purim-- What was the merit that got us the miracle of Purim? It was an incredible miracle. There was in the middle of the deepest, darkest galus, God woke up, k'viachol, and saved us. What, what, what did we do to deserve that? The answer given is and it's in the merit of the Torah learning of the... Oh, man. Kaf Beis Alefs, that's twenty-two thousand, right? Twenty-two thousand small children. Mordechai gathered these twenty-two thousand children and taught them Torah in public, and it was in the merit of

02:40 these children that the miracle happened. Turning the page. You certainly also know that Haman was not-- Certainly you know that Haman was not the first bad guy we ever encountered. He also wasn't the last bad guy we encountered. We've had a lot of villains in our history. As a matter of fact, we say in Pesach, which is, of course, coming up the month after, every single generation, Hamans rise up. We get a Haman every generation. And God always saves us from their hands. But in many generations, it's in a way of we don't see his miracles. And we don't recognize the miracles. So he's saying that in some generations, we can point to the bad guy of the generation, the person trying to kill us or trying to destroy us. We can point to the Haman, and we can write about him and deride his downfall. However, in many generations, he says every single generation, according to the Haggadah, there is some Haman out there. Sometimes we recognize them, sometimes we don't. A lot of times, God takes care of them for us, and we never even hear about the guy. But there is always a Haman. And that's actually totally unique and totally novel to me, the idea that we need to read that part of the Haggadah literally, that it's not just that every generation, you know, every couple hundred years, we have a big, bad guy. It's that there is perpetually someone out there trying to get us, and most of the

03:55 time, we never even find out about him because God solves the problem before it starts. That's what that line means. Um, the So what are we doing right that has God knock down these bad guys before we ever find out about them? Why aren't we hearing about a Haman every day? And the answer is not because there isn't a Haman every day. It's because we're having-- because of the zechus, the incredible merit of our Torah and our mitzvahs, makes it such that God knocks them down, takes out the Haman before it ever becomes a story. Therefore, we all have to focus very much on learning Torah. First of all, we have to learn Torah so we can keep the mitzvahs. And also, of course, learning Torah for its own purposes. Everybody needs to spread Torah and mitzvahs, each according to their abilities. Not just because it's a mitzvah and not just because God wants us to, but for that last line right there, it's the thing that keeps us alive. Very, very literally, it's what keeps us alive, that every single moment, every single generation, there's somebody who's trying to kill us and whether we know about it or not, and the only thing preventing them from actually doing it is God knocking them out of the way before they can, before they can get us in their sights. And the reason why God does that is for one reason, is because of the Torah and mitzvahs that we do. We do Torah and mitzvahs,

05:14 this keeps us alive. And God should help you succeed in going from strength to strength in each of the things that I've just discussed. The Rebbe wishes him a bracha for hatzlacha and for good news. So two big takeaways from this letter that I was unaware of before, and then we're gonna jump into a slightly related letter that I have here in the background information. The two big takeaways I noticed that I haven't seen before is this one idea that, uh, it's not just that we've had a handful, that, uh, a handful of bad guys, but that there's perpetually forces in the world trying to destroy us . And I guess I kind of knew that from a, a non-Torah perspective, but to hear the Rebbe say it is a little more chilling, is that there is, at all times, somebody ready to take out the Jewish people completely. And God stands there at the vanguard and knocks them down, and he knocks them down in the merits of Torah and mitzvahs, nothing else. The fact that we-- when we, uh, when we open a sefer, when we take care of kitos and Rambam, when we- Sit here in the igras here. We are give-- we are creating the merits in the world that allow God to, without us ever knowing about it, knock down the people getting in our way. And the other big emphasis here is that there's an emphasis that isn't so much expressed in this letter, but is certainly said, going

06:18 back to the previous page. It's about the Tzedakah Shebes Rabban, that although our Torah learning definitely has that effect, he's writing to a Bachar and telling this Bachar, Daniel, that his Torah learning helps protect the Jewish people from their enemies. There's certainly an emphasis on it being children. Tzedakah Shebes Rabban, this top base. Tzedakah Shebes Rabban, twenty-two thousand small children get together and learn, and this is what defeats Haman. Now, going over, I, I went looking for, uh, for more letters related to this topic of the twenty-two thousand children being the thing that caused the Purim miracle. I found this really cool letter over here. I have it on the screen. It's in your background material if you wanna click the link and don't wanna look at my screen. It's from Tav Shin Yud Beis, and the Rebbe wrote a fairly long letter to a annual, um, gathering, Sifa Shnatis Achasasrei. It's the, uh, eleventh annual gathering of the So he's writing to people who are involved in Chinuch under in the year Tav Shin Yud Beis. I have this letter on the screen. I don't wanna read the whole letter. I just wanna read a piece of it down here. So at the very bottom of the letter, the last paragraph, if you have it on your screen, it's where my mouse is, if you're looking on mine, says here, the Rebbe is talking to, to people who teach Torah to kids. It says, When a gazara came out, a decree that Haman was

07:38 going to destroy us during the Purim story, Mordechai went out into the streets. And he collected twenty-two thousand small children. To teach them Torah. And he united them, so they would pour out their hearts before their Father in heaven, in prayer and in supplication. Turning the page. And he planted, rooted a mesiras nefesh, a self-sacrifice in their hearts. until they called out with one voice. He inspired these children so much that they became-- he, he, he radicalized them. The children were ready to cry out with one voice, whether for life or for death, we're following you. And it was at that moment that the decree was annulled. The decree was annulled when these children were taught Torah. And this is the part that I think share to each of us, something that I need to think about a lot more, is that, uh, every single person needs to think. Mordechai Hatzadik was a very important guy. He was the head of the Sanhedrin. He was the chief of all the tsadikim. He was the head honcho, like Moses in his generation. He himself went out into the street. And he went out to teach small children Torah. the children of the rabbi's house, the We have to perpetually remember, the Rebbe instructs. A person is not allowed to say that their station in life exempts them from getting involved in teaching small children. How can somebody step away from their incredible responsibilities, their lofty, their lofty, uh, their lofty asukav, their lofty, uh, involvements, and

09:32 step into ti- educating small children? That's certainly for the cheder rebbes. And, uh, we, we pay good money to have people do this for us. You know, I have a job. I have a shiur to prepare. I have a kollel to go to. I have I have Daf Yomi. I can't be involved in the-- in, in, in doing my-- in helping my son with his homework. And the Rebbe says, "Absolutely not." Certainly, you're not bigger than Mordechai, and Mordechai went out into the streets to do it. And not only that, as we saw from our previous letter, it protects the Jewish people, Hagashmeus. he has to recognize. The most important thing, the most important thing that you have going on is the Set aside time, at least some time, to sanctify That every single person needs to set aside some time in their schedule and, um, set aside some energy, some of their energies, specifically to focus on educating the younger generation. in order to implant in their hearts, for all holy things. So the, the Rebbe is making this everybody's responsibility, and he's saying that nobody's exempt. Mordechai himself isn't exempt. And every single person, whether they're very busy at work or very busy teaching Torah, or whether they teach Torah to older people, I, uh, I, I have, on a very personal note, I have more than once over the past couple of weeks, uh, in a rush to prepare the Am Yakov shiur that we have at night, um, told my son,

11:01 Menachem, that I don't have time to do his Kriya homework with him and sent him up to his mother for Kriya homework. The, uh, the Rebbe's saying, "Oh, who do you think you are, Mordechai?" That, uh, if, if you, if, if you believe you have a greater responsibility than setting aside some amount of time to help small children learn Torah, then I don't know who exactly you think you are. It's some way-- I mean, the Rebbe's saying it nicely, but I'm reading it very harshly. That, uh, we have no excuse for this, and, um, we have no excuse for not dedicating some time to smo- to the education of small children specifically, no matter what, no matter what else is going on. It is a top priority, and as we saw from the previous letter, it's a top priority that protects the Jewish people, the Hagshamas. So I think we have a, a direct parallel going into other, is that since the miracle of Purim is specifically tied to the fact that we, uh, that Mordechai took time out of his very busy schedule to educate small children, that those of us who are not currently involved in it, whether with our own kids or with other people's kids, need to take this parallel very seriously and find a couple of minutes or a couple of hours or some time and some of their energies and sanctify them specifically for the education of small children. Uh, every time I try to open anything on it,

12:04 immediately defaults to closing, so I'll never find this Maimer view again. But I looked up over here, there's a Maimer that said the Rebbe's Matayen, somebody's, the Malachets Matayen to at the bottom of one of these two letters, uh, explaining what the advantage of Tashbar are, the Tzedakah Shebes Rabban, the young children specifically. Unfortunately, the Maimer itself closed, so good luck finding it, but I'll tell you what I remember it saying. Uh, it's in, it's in, uh, The Rebbe there says that the unique advantage of children is that their bodies haven't been messed up by this world so much. We eat and we drink and we do things that are not necessarily forbidden. They just, they coarsen us over time, as explained in Tanya. And small children, their bodies are not so coarse. Since their bodies are not so coarse, they have a natural connection to their souls that ours don't really have anymore. And through that, their Torah learning is able to have a greater effect even than our Torah learning, despite the fact that small children don't learn Torah for the right reasons. According to the Maimer, they learn Torah 'cause they're afraid they're gonna get beaten. I hope in our houses it's more because they enjoy the rewards and the Tzedakah Shebes stuff. But, uh, whether it's a stick or a carrot, children learn Torah for the wrong reasons, usually. And nonetheless, despite the fact that their Torah is not officially Lishma, the fact is that their bodies and souls are so

13:09 closely connected 'cause their bodies aren't Miskashim very much and their souls are very holy. And these two things are so, uh, are so compatible with one another that when they learn Torah, it upends decrees world over. So every single generation, we have a Haman coming up against us, and every single one of us have a responsibility to help empower these children to knock those Hamans away from us.