זכויות של הורים וילדים

00:00 Today's Igrot Shir is once again from exactly fifty years ago. We're going back in time to Chof Beis Cheshvan of Tav Shin Lamed Gimel, and this letter is all in Russian. As is our custom, we will not be reading the Russian. I don't know how to read Russian. We're gonna read the Targum Chafshi at the very bottom. Here we have, "Vema'ein on the Michtava," a woman had written a letter to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe writes back, "Beis Ratzon Yaskira es Ima al Atzion, al Tzion kavan kedushas мереcha, мереcha ле'рефуа крева". So she'd written about her mother, her mother was sick, and she's asking the Rebbe for a bracha. The Rebbe starts out by saying, "Of course, at the appropriate time, I'm going to mention, um, I'm going to mention, uh, her by the, uh, by the Tzion of the Friediker Rebbe." "Mu ven mei'atzmei," he said, "It is self-understood." "She snagos ha'yeladim be'chetem l'ratzon Hashem Yisbarach that when children act in the way that Hashem wants, shehu refeh kol basar mafli la'aseh, and God's job, or one of the things He does, is that He heals all flesh and He can do wondrous things. Nevi'im hagdil la'asbir echas Hashem Yisbarach bechol mitzrarech that brings brachos from God in all things that are necessary." Long story short, when children do what God wants, according to ratzon Hashem, who is the healer of all things, God does what they want. "Keil gam briyos hahudim," including curing their parents, including making sure their parents stay healthy. So

01:12 the Rebbe writes to this girl that, "Of course, I'll, I'll daven for your parents, and I'll, I'll bring your parents' names to the Tzion, but the best way to make your parents healthy if they're not doing well is to increase in your personal avoda, because when children work hard, God rewards them," God rewards them or their parents, I'm not sure which, maybe both, "rewards them and their parents with briyos, with health." "Iz nagoz ukeleles." What does this mean? Does this mean I have to learn more Torah, do more mitzvahs? The Rebbe describes it exactly what he wants her to do. "Iz nagoz ukeleles gam hashpa'ah l'chaverot ha'sevavim," that this is also going to go to the chaver... Yeah, chaverot ha'sevavim. This, uh, this hash-- this also includes a hashpa'ah on her friends around her. So this is not just that she needs to learn more Torah, do more mitzvahs. This is that she has to affect her friends. "She gam heim yikaymu mitzvahs," that they also should do mitzvahs. "Vehiju yirei Shamayim," and that they will also fear Heaven. "Al yedei sh'tospir lahem al chashivas ha'davar," they have to explain the great imp-- she has to explain the great importance of Torah and mitzvahs to them. "Ve gam mash mashpia yoser," and the more that she is mashpia, "kish mariym dug machayah," I'm sorry, this will cause a greater hashpa'ah. "kish mariym dug machayah al shaliz nagoz cazeis." When she is a lead-- when she is a living example for what sort of person a

02:16 Jew should be, she'll have a great, even greater hashpa'ah. "Vebrach livzo es teretz bechal ha'merle'il." So the summary of this letter then would be, of today's letter, is that, uh, a person's asking, a woman's asking the Rebbe for a bracha for her parents, and the Rebbe says, "Well, of course, a Rebbe can give a bracha for this, and a Rebbe forget-- can daven for this. There is a, there's a shortcut you can take." That if somebody's parents are not well, the fastest way to get them healthy is to increase in our avoda, increase in our service of Hashem, doing things that is the ratzon of Abeira, the ratzon of the Beira, who is the refeh kol basar mafli la'aseh. And that does not just mean Torah and mitzvahs. It very specifically means, uh, hashpa'ah on other people. It means, uh, reaching out to other people and trying to convince them to increase in their yirat Shamayim and doing mitzvahs. I went looking to find other cases where the Rebbe says similar things. Um, I found at least one. There's this letter from Tav Shin Yud Daled where a boy writes about his mother who's sick. "Vema'ana mechtava b'kachas bracha ba'ad Ima." You can see it on the screen. I should be able to. Let me make it a little bigger, though. Why should we squint? "Vema'ana mechtava b'kachas bracha ba'ad Ima techia." He says he's gonna mention it by the Tzion, very much the same discussion. "Beis ratzon azkira l'mitstarech la." Okay, and if you

03:23 go down here, he says, "Yadua, maima razal." In addition to the fact that the Rebbe's of course going to daven for this woman and try to, uh, and, and going to do whatever a Rebbe does to help people get better, the Rebbe also says, "You can help." "Yadua, maima razal. A shebara mizakah aba." It is well known that a child can be mizakah-- a, a son can be mizakah, a father. That's from Masechet Sanhedrin we're gonna talk about in a second. And the Rebbe adds, "Gam Ima." I believe the Gemara has it, too. "Ov me'eleh gam etzideh alav. Lahei-- gam etzideh," also on your side, seems the Rebbe's saying to this boy. "Alav lahei sef emetz v'limmed Torah nigl v'Torah sachasidis." You need to increase in your Torah learning because your increase in your Torah, Torah learning will cause a zechus for your parent so that your parent will get well. "Mitek mesirah n'sinah bital retzon v'tzaynes, bital retzaynes atzmiym." Not just in a casual way should you increase your Torah study, but in a very serious way. Uh, that's totally giving over all of your retzaynes so that you can learn more. "Ashir limmed haTorah shechayenu v'frat limmed haTorah b'taharah." Limmed haTorah, which is our life, and specifically limmed haTorah in a state of purity. "Mamshich al yadai zeh" probably means exclusively. "Mamshich al yadai zeh b'rachah v'hatzlachah v'hatzarach ladin livi b'nei beiseh." This brings a bracha and success to everything that's needed for a person and for his family. "Ve'ein lecha devar emef

04:28 ne'or atzin," and nothing can stand before it will. So once again, we have a very similar letter from the Rebbe here, where the Rebbe's saying, "Of course I'll daven for your parent. Of course I'll try to help your parent." But at the end of the day, a child can help a parent more than anybody else because a child, through their mitzvahs, through their Torah learning, through their affecting other people, can help the parents more than anybody. Does this only apply during life, or does it also apply after death? We would assume it applies after death because, uh, a major part of our religion is children doing things in zechus of their parents. In theory, that's what Kaddish is. In theory, that's what Yizkor donations are. We, uh, we certainly have this on the books in various places. Uh, I found a really, really interesting letter from the Rebbe where, uh, some-- this is from long before the Nisi'us. This is Tav Shin Gimel. So this is in volume one of Igrot. Somebody wrote, uh, wrote a question to the Rebbe saying that it, that he heard that it says in a lot of places in Chassidus that somebody who's a rasha gamur their entire life can eventually end up making it into Olam Haba, and he doesn't understand how that's possible because there's so many Gemaras and so many, so many Ma'amaré Chazal that suggest that certain people can do certain averot that just bar them from Olam Haba, techias hameisim, Mashiach, uh, Gan Eden

05:28 forever. So he asked the Rebbe, "How is it possible that Chassidus says this?" The Rebbe has a long, long answer. I'm pulling just a little piece from it down here 'cause it's what we're talking about. The Rebbe writes to this person in Tav Shin Gimel, "Ama Razal in Sanhedrin. Barah mizakah aba," the son is able to cause a zechus for his father. "Perush," the Rebbe says, "Sheh me ben tzadik mei'ivi l'chai Olam Haba tzaviv," that a son who is good, a son who is a tzadik, can bring Olam Haba for his father sh'kvar meis, even though the father's already dead. The Rebbe says, "What's the point in bringing somebody to Olam Haba who wasn't gonna get there anyway?" So the fact that the Gemara is telling us that a son through his tefillas can bring somebody to Olam Haba, bring his father to Olam Haba, suggests that he can bring even his father who was not a Ben Olam Haba to Olam Haba, suggesting even a Rasha Gomer. This is even if the son doesn't daven. Because when it comes to davening, even a father can help a child. We're gonna see this in a second. Which is actually in Sota, which we just learned yesterday's Sota. The Rebbe goes, "It doesn't even have to be a child. Other people can do it." Even people who aren't relatives can do this. You too can do this for somebody you know who's not alive anymore. If you're worried they're not in Olam Haba, you have a

06:39 solution. Who was Acher, that, uh, Rebbe Yochanan was able to help Elisha get out of, uh, this invention in Chagigah. He was able to help him get into Olam Haba, and they weren't related at all. Even though he wasn't his, his, his relative, and he also wasn't even his student. He then adds, though, . However, there is nothing stronger than a child's prayer for their father to help them, to help them, uh, if, if they've, if they've already passed. There's all sorts of things that make tefillah more personal. The more personal a prayer is, the better it works out. So what he's referring to here in this Tosefta in the Sanhedrin, just to go back and do a little bit of nigla for a second before we look at the final letter. Um, in, uh, Masechet Sanhedrin, um, one hundred and four. I forget if it's A or B. Does he say it up here what, what, what amud it is? It's one hundred and four A. Says there the lashon that the Rebbe keeps on quoting, which is . This is a hard and fast rule in Shas, that a child is able to ca-- give a zechus to his father, and a father cannot give a zechus to a child. Uh, now the-- What order should we do this in? There's a Rashba. Let's do the Rashba first. There's a Rashba that, uh, that explores this question. The Rashba says that a father can give a zechus to his son's gashmius, and that's,

07:52 uh, the re-- that's the answer for how we have zechus avos in the world, because the Gemara says that a father cannot-- that a child can't get benefits from their father, right? So a, a bra-- How, what's the lashon? So the Rashba asks, if , how do we ever get zechus from our parents? We have holy ancestors. We have, uh, we have the avos. How do we have zechus avos? And the Rashba answers that this doesn't apply in gashmius. When we're talking about gashmius, a father can give zechus to his son's gashmius because the father is responsible for his son's gashmius. What makes a child? A child has three partners, two parents and God, and the two parents make the body, and God makes the soul. So if we're not talking about saving souls, we're just talking about living a good life in this world, making sure that we end up, you know, healthy and that we have enough money and that we have our children and all the things that we need, that can come from zechus avos. It can come from the merits of our parents, whether they're alive or not, because that's the direction of, uh, that's the direction of the Rashba. The father and the mother made the child's physicality, so the father and mother can continue to help the child's physicality. The Rashba clarifies that when the Gemara says, , this only applies in Olam HaNeshamas. And what it means is that a living father can't help a dead son,

08:54 but a dead son can help-- but I'm sorry, but a living son can help a dead father. And his reasoning for this is that it just works in one direction. Why is the son here doing mitzvahs in this world? Whether or not he had a serious effect from his father, whether his fa-- whether or not his father had a m-- had a major effect on his life, this child wouldn't be in this world doing mitzvahs if he didn't have a father. It's the only way to make children, at least so far, is to have a father involved. So there was a father who made this child, and because the father made this child, the child is now doing mitzvahs and learning Torah in this world. So those actions are somewhat attributed to the father. So the father can get some of the credit, even if the child's not necessarily doing it for him. Simply by the fact that the child is filling his space, continuing to do mitzvahs when he's not there anymore, the child can help the father. However, you can't use this reasoning in the other direction. The father, a father who, chas v'shalom, a father who's left alive when his child's not, the father isn't there because of the child. His actions aren't happening because of the child. So the stuff that he does isn't attributed to the child. That's how the Rashba explains this Gemara. Now, what, uh, what the Rebbe's referring to in this letter that we just looked at

09:51 with the Tosefta on, uh, in San-- in Sota that we learned yesterday, is that, uh, Tosefta asks at the end, you might remember if you're keeping up with Sota, that at the end of Yud amud Beis, um, Dovid HaMelech davens, and through his davening, he brings up Shalom out of Gehenom. That would seem to be directly against the Rashba that we just said. We just said in Rashba that we're talking in Olam HaNeshamas, a living father cannot help a dead son. That, uh, Dovid HaMelech says, "Beni, beni, beni," ten times-- no, sorry, eight times. Seven times to get him out of the seven levels of Gehenom and one time to bring him into Olam Haba. How exactly did he pull that off? That's Tosefta's question on the page, and Tosefta gives a few answers. One of his answers are that this does not apply to tefillah at all. That when it comes to praying for each other, that works for everybody. That a son can daven for a father, a father can daven for a son, and that totally helps. It's just that through the actions of mitzvahs, there's a hard limit. Another answer that Tosefta gives is that this is only a limit when we're talking about somebody who did an aveira of aveida zarah. But if they didn't do aveida zarah, a father and a son can help each other out. It would seem then that Tosefta left a small opening for us in that answer. That according to at least one of

10:47 the answers in Tosefta, if a per-- if a s-- if a person did an aveira as bad as aveida zarah, that would mean that their children wouldn't-- that, that, that their children would be able to daven for them, but they wouldn't be able to daven for their children. This small hole and these possible exceptions are closed very neatly by a letter from the Rebbe Rashab. Although it's from the Rebbe. It's a letter from the Rebbe where he quotes the Rebbe Rashab. Excuse me, I misspoke. This is in Igris volume sixteen, page three sixty-five. Take a look at this. I think this is the, uh, the coolest part of the whole shiur right here. Um, the Rebbe writes, Somebody, uh, he's, he's answering. Somebody had written to the Rebbe. They want to know what does-- what the zechus of a tzadik could matter for something. This isn't the part that we need. That's our question. That's the aveida zarah thing we just talked about. Look over here at the word . This is what the Rebbe Rashab writes in Hanach Lenar in his Tzadah. Okay. . Anybody who has eyes will know the following. He'll see the following to be true. The kavana that a father can't help out his son, that's only when the father is acting by rote. When the father's just walking around doing mitzvahs, those mitzvahs don't automatically help the son because we don't attribute the father's existence to the son. we talked about. He's not doing anything for his son. When

12:08 a father puts on tefillin, this doesn't help his son who's not alive anymore. Why not? Because the father's not here because of the son. He's not putting on tefillin 'cause the son is not thinking about his son at that moment. He goes, "But that's not the case about ." When it comes to , it's different. When a son is trying to help a father, even when the child does something without thinking about it, even when a child walks around-- when a child puts on tefillin without thinking about their parent, or davens without thinking about their parent, not in order to do a , I think, somebody who does proper mitzvahs even without thinking about their deceased parent, just by existing, they, they pull their father out of any . and bring them into Gan Eden. So the Rebbe Rashab here is making a distinction. He's saying that if, if, that a, a child is so-- a child is attributed so strongly to the father that the child's existence wouldn't be here without the father, that when the Rebbe says in these previous letters that a child, through their , through their mitzvahs, through their , can help a parent out in both life and in death, that a child's ac-actions can help a parent, that's even if the child's not necessarily doing it for that reason. A child who doesn't even know that their parent's not feeling well when they put on tefillin, or when they light Shabbos candles, helps the parent automatically. The diyuk

13:29 here that we're seeing in , that we're seeing in Gemara, is only talking about the, uh... is only talking about a case where people aren't thinking about each other. The Rebbe Rashab's diyuk is that if the, if the father is thinking about the child, he can in any-- he can, he can always help the child, and if a child's thinking about a father, he can always help the father. They can al-- you can always help somebody by thinking about them, and you can always help somebody by praying for them directly. However, what about when we're acting by rote? And what this Rebbe Rashab letter adds that's so interesting is it looks like that when we act by rote, w-children are able to help their parents, and not necessarily is that the case in the other direction. So we have here in summary from the Rebbe, is we had a letter that we started off with at the top, which was somebody wasn't feeling well, somebody was sick, and, uh, the Rebbe advised the child that although a Rebbe can help, what would help even more is if the child themselves would increase in their Torah and mitzvahs. We saw another example of this. This seems to be a klal from the Rebbe, that he tells children to-- they can help their parents through their actions in Torah and mitzvahs. We wanted to understand why a little bit, and the long story short, we saw all the way at the bottom from the Rebbe Rashab that

14:27 even if a child doesn't intend to do mitzvahs to help their parents, their mitzvahs sort of automatically help their parents because of that Rashba that we saw, that the child's existence and all of everything they do is automatically attributed to the parents. So in conclusion, and sort of as a takeaway, whether, uh, whether, whether those of us listening, our parents who are in, uh, we're able to, uh, help our parents by doing mitzvahs, whether or not we're thinking about them at the time that we're doing them, which is kind of incredible, that, uh, every one of us has the opportunity to help our fathers and mothers wherever they may be by doing mitzvahs, and certainly by thinking about them and davening for them, but even if we're not. Even if not. That's it.