מנהגים בתקופת ההיריון

00:00 Speaker 1 Okay, this is Igris, and we are once again looking at letters from exactly fifty years ago, give or take. It's 57 in this letter, so it's pretty close to where we are right now, 57 of Taf Shin Lamed Gimel, and this is a letter that the Rebbe writes to a-- I think it says down here who this is exactly. This is Shimon Rosenberg of Afula. Anybody happen to know Shimon Rosenberg of Afula? Peretz, you're here. Do you know Shimon Rosenberg of Afula? I don't know who he is. I did used to live near Afula, um, when I was in Migdal. Migdal's like closest city was Afula, which isn't saying much 'cause Afula and Migdal are both not cities really insofar as either of them are cities. Anyway, uh, he's writing to Mr. Shimon, who's in Afula. Shalom Uvracha, the Rebbe writes. The Rebbe's saying in response to what you told me about your wife, that God should give her full, um... Rough translations here. He should fill the days of her conception, which means that she should have an easy pregnancy. to the way that it should be of a , and it should be an easy pregnancy. and she should give birth to living children and lasting children. and its proper time and the proper time of a , it should be an easy birth. So long story short, the Rebbe is giving a beracha that his wife should have an easy childbirth, and that the child should live, and that everything should go

01:17 Speaker 1 well for her and for the baby. Then the Rebbe writes, with a whole bunch of, um, a whole bunch of suffixes. More than usual, I think. There's a lot on this one. The Rebbe says, "You should know that my father-in-law, the Friediker Rebbe, has a that until a woman enters her fifth month of pregnancy, we don't publicize the pregnancy. You shouldn't let people know. There shouldn't be a pirsum." Then the Rebbe says, The Rebbe says that I'm giving you a beracha, vehatzlacha, and that you should be able to spread Yiddishkeit specifically among the people who have recently made Aliyah from that place. He doesn't say where that place is, so I don't know where they're making Aliyah from, but in any case, this individual is clearly involved in some form of hafatsa, and the Rebbe gives him a beracha for hafatsa. What we're focusing on today is this middle section, which is something that given, given how old all of us are, given our age, we probably all not only have heard about this but think about it a fair amount. Baruch Hashem, we should all think about it more, which is the question of when you're allowed to pr- publicize a pregnancy. It's, it's very popular, lehavdil, in the secular world right now to make big baby reveals and gender reveals. As far as us, uh, we're pretty, we're pretty quiet about it, as I'm sure you know. And the from the Rebbe that gets thrown around a lot is that we're not-- that

02:34 Speaker 1 we don't have any sort of pirsum. We don't publicize a pregnancy until the fifth month. In the background thing that I sent you, there's a whole English article where, uh, where I don't know who put it together, but it's a pretty good compilation where they put together letters from the Rebbe that explain when we, uh, when we publicize pregnancy and a whole bunch of other pregnancy customs. If you're in the WhatsApp group, you can check that out there. It's in English. It's got copious footnotes. What we're focusing on right now is this one though that we don't publicize until the fifth month. This is not the only letter where the Rebbe says this. As a matter of fact, there are so many of them that in one of the volumes of the Kuntessichas, a series of them are printed in the back, just to give you an idea of the scope of this. I have three of them up here. This is a page from the Kuntessichas. I'm just gonna read them off. This is, I believe, the one we just read. No, it's not. This is from Chaf Beis. It's just almost the exact same lotion. The Rebbe says that the Friediker Rebbe says, "Don't let anybody know until the fifth month." That was from a year prior to the one we read, although the lotion is almost identical. This is from Taf Shin Chaf Alef. Um, the Friediker Rebbe said, "Certainly you know that the Friediker Rebbe has a . We don't publicize

03:44 Speaker 1 until the fifth month." And the Rebbe says it's well known that there's a when it comes to pirsum. The Rebbe says it's fine to tell people who are close relatives. When I say pirsum, I mean don't go shouting it from the rooftops. No, uh, no big banners, no giant parties, no putting it as your Facebook status or your WhatsApp status. Um, no Instagram posts. But as far as telling people, that's not necessarily what pirsum is. So the Rebbe keeps on referring to a in the Friediker Rebbe. Where did the Friediker Rebbe tell him this? The Friediker Rebbe says this in this letter. I have the letter up here on the screen now. It's from Taf Shin Zayin. The Re-- Friediker Rebbe says this a few times, but this is, I think, the foundational letter of it. He's writing, Shalom Uvracha, and mind you this is the Friediker Rebbe talking now. Responding to your letter, the men of Hasidim who are careful about their conduct. when it comes to the way that they live their lives. they have ancient customs, and they keep them. And what do they do? Their custom is to hide the pregnancies of their wives until she enters the fifth month of pregnancy. So this isn't just not pirsum. The Friediker Rebbe is using even stronger words here, that the ancient custom is, the ancient custom of people who are careful, Hasidim who are careful, is to totally conceal it, to hide the pregnancy until the fifth month. The Friediker Rebbe says

05:01 Speaker 1 certainly there's a . I, I regret to tell you that no matter how hard I looked, I did not find anybody saying what this is. So I, I don't know what it is. The Friediker Rebbe doesn't write it, and the Rebbe doesn't write it, and, uh, searching on it, a didn't find it. So if anybody does happen to find it, please let us know and we'll, we'll update. But in any case, there's a um, I, I always thought it was an ayin harah thing, but the fact that the Friediker Rebbe writes that there's a , that would imply it's deeper than ayin harah. So I, I don't know what it is. He says they should have a, an easy childbirth and that everything should go well, the usual berachahs, and this is from the the Friediker Rebbe. So we have here a little more background information. This is an ancient custom. It's for Hasidim who are careful about their conduct. So that implies maybe it's not for everybody, um, because it's for people who are most careful about their conduct as Hasidim who keep ancient customs. And we have here a lotion of hiding the pregnancy. not just pirsum. So we have a letter from the Rebbe, Taf Shin Yod Gimel, where he breaks down a little bit the difference between pirsum and , what it means hiding versus publicizing, what exactly the Friediker Rebbe means when he says you shouldn't be publicizing a pregnancy. So the Rebbe says this in Tav Shin Yud Gimel,

06:07 Speaker 1 the letters on the screen. from Erev Shabbos Kodesh, the last Erev Shabbos Kodesh when it comes to your wife who is pregnant. Um, the lashon is not to publicize it. So therefore, if somebody needs to know for some reason, she, uh-- for whatever reason that should be, the Rebbe goes, "The prohibition against publicizing a pregnancy until the fifth month doesn't apply to parents, it doesn't apply to close relatives, it doesn't apply to doctors or anybody who needs to know about the pregnancy. It just applies to general public-- general publicizing of it." I, I like this letter because of that, but I also like it because of what he says in the bottom here. The second paragraph isn't about our topic, but I think there's context that matters. Look at this. This writer had asked the Rebbe, "Are there some specific childbirth birth customs?" And the Rebbe writes back, "I've already written to you, I haven't heard any." The Rebbe says, "I have no childbirth customs. People have a million customs for childbirth. I haven't heard of any of them." So the Rebbe says, "I'm gonna give you a couple general ones." you have to check your mezuzahs, and he wants you to give a little bit of charity, a little bit of money to Tzedakah. In other let-- He says here that right before she lights Ner Shabbos Kodesh she should give Tzedakah. And the Rebbe mentions in other letters the idea of saying and repeating the line But really, the Rebbe doesn't have a

07:28 Speaker 1 whole lot of childbirth customs. On his short list of things people need to do when they're pregnant, though, is not publicize until the fifth month. He mentions this in every letter. So I think it's-- the context here is interesting because what the Rebbe is telling us is, "I don't have a whole lot of customs, but here's the ones that matter to me. Check your mezuzahs, don't talk about it till the fifth month in a big way, and give Tzedakah." So of the few customs that we have, this seems to be one of the big ones, not, uh, not publicizing until the fifth month. If you open up something-- I opened the Nifta Gavriel earlier to find a little more context. He has nothing on this fifth-month thing, and he does have like twenty pages of childbirth customs among Hasidim. Hasidim have so many customs when a woman's pregnant, and, uh, when it comes to Lubavitch, we have really one we take very seriously, and it seems to be this, this five-month deal. Okay. So as-- until five months, we can't publicize it. What about the first three months? Who can know at that point? From the Friediker Rebbe, it sounds like nobody. This is a letter from the Friediker Rebbe in Tav Shin Zayin. I know it's surprising. Um, it says the same s-- the same lashon, now that you've told me about your wife. The, the, the accepted way of doing things is until three months, until the first trimester, the Iber, of the,

08:33 Speaker 1 of the child, of the, of the pregnancy. We hide even from our closest relatives. So according to this letter from the Friediker Rebbe, it sounds like even parents, even close friends, even, uh, everybody doesn't-- isn't allowed to find out about the pregnancy for the first three months. God gives gives a berakhah, that Hashem should give her good health, et cetera. This is strange because, uh, in the summary that I sent you and also the way that it's generally taught and accepted, is that parents, close friends can hear in the first three months. This seems to be against the letter from the Friediker Rebbe. The hard-

09:05 Speaker 2 Is, is there a difference between three months and five months? I'm seeing a difference here.

09:09 Speaker 1 Yes. Yes. De-definitely. Five months-- Un-until five months, you can pub-- you can't publicize it. Until five-- So between-

09:17 Speaker 2 So maybe the first three months it's nobody, and then from three to five-

09:20 Speaker 1 Yes

09:20 Speaker 2 ...it's close relatives, and then after you publicize it.

09:22 Speaker 1 Absolutely. So starting at five months, it's, it's open season. You can tell anybody, you can have pirosem. And from three months-- it sounds like until three months, you can't even tell close relatives. So it seems like between three and five is when you would tell your parents. Um, so it sounds like for the first three months you can tell a doctor. The Rebbe has a letter where he says, "Obviously, people who need to know for medical reasons can know." And, uh, there's a halakhah that a woman has to tell her husband for all sorts of Tairas Mishpacha reasons. But besides, besides the woman and her hu-- besides the, the couple and their doctor, it sounds like for the first three months, no one's supposed to know. And then, uh, somewhere, I guess, in the fourth month is when you would tell your parents and your very close friends, and then the fifth month is when you would tell, uh, is when you would tell the entire world. That's what it sounds like from the Friediker Rebbe. I'm pointing this out because I don't believe this is, uh, I don't believe this is what they wrote in that English summary I sent you. I think that the-- they, they, they believe, and it's probably based on this letter here, that close friends can pre-- can be told earlier, that close friends might be able to be told in the third month. This is a letter from the Rebbe. It's in Yiddish. My reading of Yiddish is

10:19 Speaker 1 rotten, but my understanding of it is great, meaning that if I say the words, you'll laugh at my pronunciation. But in any case, the Rebbe once again writes that he's, uh, he's received a letter saying that this woman's pregnant, and he's wishing her all good things. Look down here, I'm responding to your question. Says, "The Seder by the Friediker Rebbe always was, he always said that we do not publicize this, um, until the fifth month, and this means pirosem specifically. We don't publicize it. No screaming it from the rooftops. But it is also self-understood that you have to tell the doctor and, uh, you have to tell people like the relative. You have to tell relatives or very good friends. That's totally fine before the fifth month." I don't know how to, uh, bimiyashiv that letter that's in front of us with what we just read from the Friediker Rebbe. 'Cause the Friediker Rebbe says that for the first three months, he doesn't want you telling close friends and family, and this letter here, the Rebbe says that for the first three months, you can tell close friends and family. Um, or maybe he's just talking about the fourth month here, and that's how we resolve it, is it's before the fifth, but after the third. So, uh, I, I'm-- By putting these two letters together, what we come up with is that it's possible that, I think, b'di'eved hefshed, that prior to three months, only the husband, wife, and the doctor can know. Starting

11:26 Speaker 1 at the fourth month, you're telling close friends and family, and starting at the fifth month, you're telling everybody else. Although nobody ever uses-- The Rebbe and the Friediker Rebbe, neither of them ever mention the fourth month as being a milestone. There's nothing else left in the gap between these two letters. The Friediker Rebbe clearly says that your family and friends can't know before three, and the Rebbe clearly says that your family and friends can know before five, which introduces the concept of four. There must be a fourth month in this story, and the fourth month seems to be the family and friends month. So to summarize what we have from all of these letters put together is, I think, a shita that is not brought in any of these English summaries, as far as I know, or in any of the summaries that exist, is that it seems that the Rebbe/Friediker Rebbe shita on publicizing is for the first three months, nobody except for people who absolutely need to know. It's on a need-to-know basis. In month four is when you can tell close family and friends, and in month five is when you, uh, is when you publicize it, uh, openly. The last lingering question here is what to do about a pan. You may be familiar with the custom that there is a old custom not to write about a pregnancy in a pan until the third month and the beginning of the fourth month. This comes from, uh-- well, this is very

12:24 Speaker 1 old, but the first place I found it is a letter from the Frieda Krebba, where he quotes it as being a mimic of the system of the Alter Rebbe. It's over here. This letter's on the screen. Frieda Krebba Tavshin Ches writes, "Makuba etza Nash Yechyu. It is accepted among a Nash. Miziknei Hasidim hoyed kaved kedusha rebbeinu zaken from the Alter Rebbe Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe. Shoshama pi baKodesh Hashem, the Baal Shem Tov and the Rebbe Maggid." Says the Alter Rebbe heard this from the Baal Shem Tov, he heard this from the Maggid. "Kamenyan and Hagada Orich Hasidim, he learned many customs from them about how a Hasid should live. Umehem, and among them, Asherad sei ved kedush hashlishi. Betkhiles haravi, that until the end of the third month and beginning of the fourth month of a pregnancy, lo yechtavu pan betzatel minyana iver, that you should not mention in a pan or in a tatel, you shouldn't write to the Rebbe about a pregnancy." Okay, so it sounds like the Rebbe is included in the close friends and family section that we just set up earlier. That in-- for the first three months, nobody including the Rebbe finds out. Starting in the fourth month, your parents, your close friends, and the Rebbe finds out, and starting in the fifth month, the whole world finds out. However, lehayer, that this, uh, so maybe not so much lehayer, but to add on top of that, that's a pan and that's a tatel. Does that apply to

13:28 Speaker 1 writing to the Ohel? And, uh, first of all, this is purely Ashkenazic and purely a guess, uh, what exactly the status of the Ohel is. Is the status of the Ohel the same as writing to the Rebbe? Is it the same as asking a Alatzion ? Is there a difference between mentioning something at the Ohel and mentioning something in a pan? These are, these are mashpia questions, and these are ones that no matter which side you take, half of the room will hate you. So, uh, I don't have specific hadracha on this, but I do have this really interesting entry that someone put in his Kashrus. The person who wrote this is a rev, is Rev Yosef Karasik. Um, maybe our Israeli here, Mendy Friedman. Do, do you know him? Rabbi Karasik, he's a, he's a, he's an Israeli Lubavitcher Rav. Um, apparently with a- Where is he from? There's, there's a few of them. Yosef Karasik, there's a few of them? No, there's a few Lubavitcher Ravs. Oh, no, no. This is Yosef Karasik. He's in Bet Reffer, I think it is. I don't, I don't know where that is either. Um- Neither do I ... apparently, he's app-- he apparently knows what he's doing. Sichas in English has a nice summary about him. He's written a couple books. So, um, he wrote this in his Kashrus. He says there's a Sicha, and it was faster just copy and paste the Sicha than to find it in the original. So if you look on

14:29 Speaker 1 your screen, the Sicha in Tav Shin Mem Zion, the Rebbe says, it's in, it's in volume two, page one eighty-two. "Keyn veshalayti hav shalas likre es kol pesukos." The Rebbe says, "I won't have time to read all of the pan that you're sending me, to read all the letters that you're sending me. Ki im laaniach lemes ma'altsiyan, I'm only gonna have time to place them in the Ohel. Yachol kol achev ach zechteiv kal mashareit, so therefore everybody can write exactly what they want. V'lo yekhav bosha, without being embarrassed that I might read it." This is the Rebbe talking. "Zot ha'aveen shekes es lakadish baruch hu. Here, it's more like writing to God than writing to me. Ad de'ein es idenen, and it'll be-- it's writing to God by way of the, by way of the Rebbe." So the Rebbe in the Sicha seems to be mechallek. He seems to distinguish between what a Rebbe reads, what's put in his hand, and what's placed in the Ohel without a Rebbe reading it. It's possible that his only distinguishing factor here is that people are embarrassed to write some things to the Rebbe. However, there's definitely a way to read this Sicha to say that placing something in the Ohel is not the same as giving something to the Rebbe, and whatever rules there are for giving messages to the Rebbe, they might not apply when you're visiting the Ohel. Based on this, this Rev Yosef, this Rev Yosef Karasik wants to say that from Gimel Tammuz

15:30 Speaker 1 onward, when we bring our pans to the Ohel, there shouldn't be any limitation in when you can write down a pregnancy. That the same way that God knows starting in the first three months, you can put it in the, put it in a note that's sent to the Ohel in the first three months, ma sh'ein kein being able to hand it to the Rebbe directly. This is a diyuq that he made up, and I don't know if it's right, but I'm bringing it to your attention because it sounds, it sounds intelligent to me. So, uh, in summary then, we have several stages and several gedarim of when we publicize a pregnancy according to Minichabad based on the many letters and Sichas and ideas that we've looked at today. In the first three months, it looks like it's really just for the husband and the wife and the doctor who may need to know about it, and anybody who's on an absolute need to know basis. Starting in the fourth month, that's when you can put it in a pan, that's when you can tell your parents, that's when you can tell your closest friends. Starting in the fifth month, there's a complete pirsum, and there's a possibility that when it comes to writing to the Ohel, you can already write a pan and put it in the Ohel starting in the first three months, maybe. Certainly putting it in a conventional pan that would be handed to a rebbe in a kof gashmi, the minute

16:27 Speaker 1 going back from the Baal Shem Tov is that we do not do that until the fourth month. Okay, a comprehensive understanding of the fifth-month rule. Open the floor for questions, comments, and complaints