מהו יהודי?

00:01 Speaker 1 We are looking at a letter from-- My video is blocking what the date is. The letter is from Yud Aleph, Menachem Av of Tav Shin Lamed Gimmel, fifty years ago in Igris, and we are at letter-- The number is Yud Tav Tav Nun Tes. And we're looking at the letter on the screen for anybody who'd like to follow. It's a longish letter. I think it reveals the yesod in the Rebbe's approach to this sort of question as we will demonstrate through the rest of this year. Hang on, I'm just moving something. Oh, that works. Okay. I had to move the screens over so I could see what I'm reading. So the Rebbe writes, "Shalom Uvracha. Kibalti mechtavah bli tarech." I received your letter, it didn't have a date on it. "Be'onesh she'ani yachol lagdir atzmi ki yehudi af al pi shenelad li'ima yehudis." This person writes to the Rebbe with a bit of a chutzpah, saying that he cannot consider himself Jewish even though he's born to a Jewish mother. "Mesayem be shlosha shailos," and this person ends with three questions to the Rebbe. So somebody wrote to the Rebbe and said, "I don't consider myself Jewish even though I have a Jewish mother," and he asked the Rebbe three questions. The third one's a real kicker. Number one, "Eich yachol ish mesuyim lehashiv leha-leha- lehachashiv ki shayach l'daas ki she'omer she'ein mamin b'mitzas elokim?" He asked, first of all, how is it possible for a person to consider themselves a member of a certain

01:08 Speaker 1 religion, especially this religion, when they don't believe in God at all? So he goes, "I don't believe in God. How can I be a person who's associated with a religion, let alone our religion?" Two, "Be'aad ha'chasid ledate, ha'element shel bechirah. Kemach sheyeled neled li'im yehudi hu be'eif an automatic yehudi." He says the second question is that Judaism, it seems to him, is missing an element of bechirah. It doesn't seem like there's much free choice in Judaism. He'd like to see a little more personal freedoms. "Kemach sheyeled neled li'im yehudi hu be'eif an automatic yehudi," because a boy or child, the moment that he's born to a Jewish mother automatically becomes Jewish. He'd like to see some sort of opt-in. And number three is my favorite. He also asks the Rebbe, "Eich meitzi atzmo adam mehamiskered shel daas Yehudis?" The last thing that he asked the Rebbe is, "Is there any way out? Can I get out of this religion? If so, please send instructions. I'm looking to leave." Um, "Vakash at chuva, vakash chuva mehira," and he asked for a speedy reply. So this person asked the Rebbe, "I don't think I'm Jewish, I don't feel Jewish," and he asks for a way out. "Hatchuva al kol gimel shailos achas hi ve'hakdamah." The answer to all three questions is one, says the Rebbe, and I'm going to give an introduction. The Rebbe says, "If I wanna answer all three of your questions in one fell swoop, the introduction goes like this: Daas Yehudis, ein od

02:21 Speaker 1 emele she'hadatos binini kari." There's one major difference between Judaism and every other religion. "Asher misbes es hi lo rak min ha'gel hamachshav u'dibbur," because Judaism is based not just on thought and speech, "ki be'maaseh u'p'al," it's also based on action. "Hakafas kol chai yehudi mereg ha'rishon li'yedidaso," it is something that encompasses the entire life of a Jew from the moment he's born, "ad lisgayeruso shel ein yehudi geyrus af al pi halacha," or when a non-Jew converts in a proper way, "vadereg achron shel chai ba'al mei-ba'al meinaso." And it encompasses this Jew all the way from the time he's born or the time that he converts properly until the final moments of his life. So he says Judaism is something that is going to have a-- I believe the way to read this is that Judaism is going to have something that's going to have a physical expression in the child, whereas other religions are theoretical, that somebody thinks and feels a certain way, and that makes them a religion-- that makes them a member of a religion. When it comes to Judaism, it has a, it has a, uh, expression in action. It shows up in action in the person's life, that they are defined as a Jew from the moment they're born to the moment they die. "Ve'esed va'atam la'zev hu ki daas Yehudis ein od ever nesival etz mo'ad m'vohusei ela hi hi etz mo'ad." This is really the key to the entire letter, and as we'll see in our supplement, this is

03:25 Speaker 1 the key to every time the Rebbe answers this question, he uses more or less the same language. So memorize this one. "Ve'esed va'atam la'zev," the reason why a Jew is a Jew no matter what is, "ki daas ha'yehudis," the Jewish religion is not a "ever nesival etz mo'ad m'vohusei." It's not something that a person puts on. It's not a garment. It's not additional to a person, it is etzem, "ela hi hi etz mo'ad." That is in fact their etzem. So what he's going to say in this letter and in other places, and what the Rebbe is going to be across the board on this is that when somebody picks up, uh, I don't know, what's an example? A person becomes a concert pianist. They become very good at piano. They have an etzem, and on top of that, they are now wearing the hat of a pianist. And since that's a "ever nesival etz mo'ad m'vohusei," that's something that is changeable. However, the fundamentals of what a person is, not their garments, but who they are, is never changeable, and that Judaism is one of those fundamen-fundamental parts. "Apia mor muvan al main u'lechal shelessa." Based on this, I can answer all of your questions. Remember, his three questions were that, first of all, he feels that, just a reminder, first of all, he feels he can't be shayach to a religion 'cause he doesn't believe in God. Second of all, he feels that Judaism doesn't have enough free choice. And third of all, he

04:24 Speaker 1 was asking the Rebbe for a way to convert out of Judaism. So he writes-- the Rebbe writes, "Apia mor muvan al main u'lechal shelessa." Will now answer all of your questions. "Mi sh'neled adom o bal chai et sameach," something that is born a person or an animal or a plant, "ee amshush yishnu ze," you can't change that. You can't change the etzem. "Ve'lo yesa'u bezeh kol atzaar mitide she'eino adom." A person can cry out that they're not a person, it won't work. "She'eino bal chai," an animal can claim it's not an animal, "she'eino sameach," or that it's not a plant, won't work. "Aviv li b'mejes li'ten shukef mi mitzios shelo," even if somebody says, "Fine, I'm kefiran mi mitzios. I hereby reject my mitzios, "mi mitzios mi ne'adam," I thereby-- I hereby reject that I am a human. "Kanai muvan sh'lo shayach bezeh b'chirah chavshis." Clearly, they can't make a choice in that. "Ki b'chirah chavshis nitnah l'adam b'negel hanagasa v'ma'asidim hamachshava," because "b'chirah chavshis," when it comes to free will, free will is given regarding the way that you act, not what you are. "V'al leh d'shanas etz mol zah m'vohusei." This is another yesod in the Rebbe, that people have free will. The, the Rebbe is not speaking in Halakha here, the Rebbe is speaking in logic. The Rebbe is saying, logically speaking, a person has choice when it comes to how they act, not choice in when, when it comes to what they are. "Ve'nikuda le'hesif bam," more the Rebbe wants to

05:29 Speaker 1 add another point. "Asher af shnitna b'chirah chavshis l'adam b'negel hanagasa ve'dacha," even though a person is given free will regarding their actions and the way they live their life, "kana," why are they given, uh, free will regarding the way they live their life? Because that's an action, not an etzem. "Harei keven she'etzem shelo hu be'eif mesuyim ve-ve-ve kavoa vehachlati muvan u'muvano poshet asher kechol shmishtadel lehatim hanagasa be'etzem shelo ken yigadel shavas napshe ve'esher bechaim menuchas nefesh shelo." That was a long sentence I probably should have broken down, but what he says is that since this person's etzem is set up a certain way, it is quite well understood, "muvano poshet," that every time a person tries to live in a way that matches their etzem, they're going to be more relaxed. So the Rebbe says, "Look, a person can't change their etzem. A person has every right or every ability, at least, to not act according to their etzem that is within b'chirah chavshis, but it's going to be the opposite of relaxing." When people act in ways that aren't natural to them, they don't have a shavas napshe. "Ve'esher bechaim," they're not happy. "Menuchas napshe shelo," they're not going to be relaxed. "She'zeh taligam menuchas hagof," and this won't give them even a relaxed body. So the Rebbe says, first of all, you can't change your etzem. Second of all, you can change your actions. Third of all, if you try to do actions that don't match your etzem, it, it technically works, you

06:35 Speaker 1 can do it, but it's not going to be pleasant. "Ela sheratzon Adon sh'ti l'adam b'chirah chavshis bezeh," so Hashem decided that he wanted, uh, that he wanted us to have free choice when it came to how we act. The Rebbe gives, I think, three reasons here why Hashem wanted us to have free will in the way we act, despite the fact that acting against our etzem is a little bit self-destructive or a lot self-destructive. Three reasons. Reason number one, by giving us free will, this brings our talents and our possibilities from potential into actual . I think this is number two, to show this shows that he's not-- I'm not, I'm not fooled when it comes to my mahus and my etzem. I know who I really am. And he's not, uh, he's not fathered by the barriers that are in his way and the challenges that he faces. Maybe he'll find these in his path, what is the point of all of these challenges? Also, to reveal that he is a wise and discerning person. This is the Rebbe's third point. The Rebbe says the most important point, this is also he's given free will just to demonstrate that he's not embarrassed in front of maligam. He's not embarrassed in front of people who will scorn him. So the Rebbe in this paragraph gives a bunch of reasons why God would have given us free will, given that acting against free will is, uh, is counterproductive to and, and harmful to, uh, to us

07:55 Speaker 1 vis-a-vis our etzem. And he gives three answers. Rebbe concludes, the Rebbe goes, "Look, I know that if we wanna get into a debate here, people are going to go- going to quibble." That's a good translation. "People will quibble over this, I know." "My intent," the Rebbe says, "is not to quibble it is my obligation and also my great merit to tell the truth the way that I see it." "I saw the way that I see it without any doubt in the matter." This is not really the point of our letter, but I love this sentence because here, I think a lot of us feel like when we're making these sorts of arguments, they need to be completely cogent arguments that could stand up to any sort of protest. And w- therefore, debating somebody or discussing these sorts of issues, that we need to say something in a way that no Hakham could ever undo it. There's no such thing. Uh, people who know how to argue can always undo the truth. The point here isn't who's the better arguer, the point is-- the point here is who's telling the truth. So the Rebbe goes, "Look, I'm not trying to make a watertight argument. I'm trying to tell you the truth. And if it's not watertight, that's not my point." The Rebbe gives a bracha that he should use his time properly and his abilities and all of his possibilities so that, so that his, uh, future actions will line up, um, with the way that

09:08 Speaker 1 his l- with the way that his, uh that his, uh, he should act properly. This is in the well-known lashon that your person should act according to their etzem. He is a so I hope you're gonna be more from, I guess. And as Chazal have al-- have already said, "Nothing can stand before rotsen. You can do it." And that's the Rebbe's letter. So if we had to pull out a main point from this, this main point is this part that I highlighted that I said we'd get back to. When people ask the Rebbe what makes a Jew a Jew and why can't I leave? The Rebbe says, this is not an additional to a person's etzem, ele hee, hee etzem adam. So what d- what makes somebody Jewish? The same thing that makes a person a person. What-- same thing that makes a person, uh, a person a human as opposed to a vegetable. Uh, Judaism is fundamental. It's not a religion, it's the fundamental state of the individual. If we look at some of the Rebbe's other letters on this, we'll find a recurring theme here where he says more or less the same thing all over the place. I'm bringing you all English letters today, and the reason is I couldn't find these letters in Hebrew. I'm not sure they ever were written in Hebrew or in Yiddish. Um, at least, at least two of them were definitely written in English originally, and they're around. They're in all these source books and things

10:21 Speaker 1 like this, and I, I searched, couldn't find the originals. If anybody finds the originals, please put them in. It could be there are not originals, could be their originals were in English. Before we do those letters, I wanna draw your attention to a Gemara, which seems to be the Rebbe's source for all of this. Um, these sound like very, uh, very Hasidish ideas, right? A Jew is really a Jew no matter what. It sounds, it sounds, it sounds cuddly. Um, I, I sometimes joke that there is a, there's a whole group of people who believe in what I call the teddy bear Rebbe, which is that of course, the Rebbe says the thing that sounds sweetest, but it's, uh, not necessarily Chazal-based. In fact, everything the Rebbe says is based in Chazal. Um, I'm making the screen big right now. This Gemara and, uh, you'll find the Gemara having the same conversation more or less about how the Judaism is immutable, you can't convert out, and how God always loves us no matter what we do wrong. Just wanna read it. What is the draash from ? If you-- the rest of the context of the Gemara is that there was a Machloket as how to draash in this pasuk. Anyway, what is the draash of this pasuk according to Abaye and Rava? We need it for the following perisha. You are m-- you are children to God. At a time when you are acting like children, you're called children. Rabbi Yehuda has a harsh

11:30 Speaker 1 opinion on this. Rabbi Yehuda says, "When we act like God's sons or when we act like God's children, we're called His children. When we are not acting like God's children, we aren't called His children." Rabbi Meir thrashes this. Rabbi Meir we're called banim no matter what, and he proves it with like a hundred pesukim. Ready? They're stupid kids. Well, that sure sounds like we're called banim even when we're being dumb. This is in Hazinu. Children who are not trustworthy, who are-- don't believe in Him, so we're called banim even when we don't believe in Him. Also says in the pasuk, these are the children of evildoers, chil-children who destroy everything, still called banim. The place where they say, where, where I will say to you, "You're not my nation ," you'll say back to them, that you are still the children of the living God. So the Gemara says, "Why do we have so many pesukim? Why not just prove it from one pasuk?" And the Gemara goes through the If you would've said, "Only when they're being foolish are they called my sons but if they stop believing in me, I won't call them my children anymore " it says in the pasuk, "banim even when they don't believe in me." And if you're going to tell me that they're called children even when they don't believe in Hashem, but but there is a line. When they start worshiping idols, they're not called children anymore. We have another proof. It says in the pasuk,

12:49 Speaker 1 "Even when they are the children of evildoers, children who destroy things, they're still called children." So even if they do idol worship, if you'll say, "Yeah, we call them but that's not a nice thing to call them, we don't call them full-fledged children ," I'll bring you one more rayah. Anytime we would've said, "You're not my nation ," we'll still say that you are the children of the living God. So the Gemara proves at some length that there really is no way out of this. We are called His children no matter how many rotten things we do. This letter was written that I'm showing you now in English. It's an excerpt from a letter written in nineteen seventy-seven, immediately after Shemini Atzeret. I'm sure that our historians in the room or anybody who's old enough to have knowledge of this can tell you why this is such an interesting letter, right? Nineteen seventy-seven, immediately after Shemini Atzeret would be right after the heart attack. That was in, that was in, uh, that was in Ches, but that's nineteen seventy-seven on the norm-- on the secular calendar. So this was right after the heart attack, um, in a time when the Rebbe was not doing a lot of external communications. A boy wrote to him about his bar mitzvah, and the Rebbe puts this in a footnote. The boy writing about his bar mitzvah says that he comes from a secular family. So the Rebbe says, "Regarding that which you write that you come from a

13:53 Speaker 1 secular family, certainly the secularness is an ancillary condition. It's an external garment that covers your essence." Sound familiar? An external garment covering the essence and core. "For every member of your family is a son of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and a daughter of Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, and Leah, and following them were tens of generations of followers of Torah and its precepts. God gave man choice with regards to his actions, but he cannot choose the essence and core of his truest-- he cannot choose or change the essence and core of his truest nature." This is, uh, very much in line with this one sentence that I keep pointing out in this letter here. This is a letter that is from nineteen seventy-five. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe that they'd lost their Judaism. The Rebbe says that, "I need to take exception to what you call in your letter, my lost Judaism. The expression lost doesn't fit because you can't lose something that is your true essence and true nature." Once again, we have this idea of etzem with no nezer. "What is possible is that the true essence of a person is sometimes in a state of suspended animation or covered over with various layers of foreign substances, even those that are at variance with this essence. But this essence can never be lost. It can only be dormant, as it were, instead of being active and expressed on the surface as it should be." Once again, the theme, Judaism is an essence. You can't cover

14:59 Speaker 1 it over. You can't lose it. This of course remind-- this reminds me, and we talked about this in the shiur before. This reminds me of the, uh, of the story with the, uh, with the Chassid of the Frieda Kerembu, who suggested that some Jews who weren't, uh, holding in their Judaism were like Sifrei Torah that needed their letters corrected. And the Frieda Kerembu said back, "Jews don't, Jews don't have the Torah written on them as ink. They have the Torah carved in them, Sometimes you just have to blow off the dust." So this is what the Rebbe's saying here, that there can be layers of foreign substances, uh, that cover the essence, but the essence can't be lost because we are engraved with Hashem. This was a letter that I know was in English originally. It was a letter to Velvel Green. And, uh, Velvel Green wrote to the Rebbe. I have a link here in case you wanna click on it and, uh, and read the entire letter. It's a great letter. Uh, not that all letters aren't great. I just-- I like this one too. There's a letter to Velvel Green where Velvel Green asked the Rebbe. The Rebbe had apparently hinted in a prior conversation that you could easily find in Rambam the Freudian concepts of conscience and s-- conscious and subconscious. And, uh, Velvel Green took the Rebbe to task. He said, "I wanna-- Show me where. I wanna know where Freud is in Rambam." So the Rebbe says, "The, the

15:56 Speaker 1 essential point in Rambam's explanation is as follows." Um, he's talking about, of course, the, uh, the case where, where Rambam says, That's the context here. That, uh, where-- that if somebody doesn't wanna give a divorce document, we say that we can smack him around until he does the right thing. So the Rebbe writes, "Every Jew, regardless of his status and station, is essentially willing to do all that he's commanded to do by our Torah." That's the proof from this Rambam. "However, sometimes the yetzer hara prevails over his better judgment and prevents him from doing what he has to do in accordance with Torah. When therefore a bezdin compels a Jew to do something, it's not with a view in creating him a new desire, but rather to release within him..." To, excuse me, "To release from him, him from the compulsion which had paralyzed his desire." The goal here is not to make something new by a Jew, that we beat him until he wants to divorce his wife properly. It's the bezdin is trying to reveal his etzem, thus enabling him to express his true self. Once again, etzem. "Under these circumstances, when he declares, 'I am willing,' when he says, that's an authentic declaration." So the Rebbe says, "If you wanna hear this in contemporary terminology, as promised, the conscious state of a Jew can be affected by external factors to the extent of including states of mind, even behavior, which are contrary to his subconscious, which is the Jew's essential nature." And

16:57 Speaker 1 there we go. We got conscious and subconscious in the story. But once again, we have an essential nature, and we have our behaviors. Our havior-- our behaviors would be our conscious state, and that does not always have to line up with our etzem. But as the Rebbe said in our letter, um, th-th-this will, uh, this will cause all sorts of lack of comfort. This will cause all sorts of problems. But a Jew can live a conscious state that is a-at war with his subconscious. And as I guess, as I guess Lahav Bilfred would say, that is, uh, that's pathological. Living at a-- Living in a conscious state that's at war with the subconscious is the reason why a lot of people have mental problems. "When the external pressures are removed, however, it does not constitute a change or transformation of his essential nature." When we get somebody who's conscious to line up with their subconscious, it doesn't change who they really are. On the contrary, it's the reassertion of someone's innate and true character. So what we have here from the Rebbe is a handful of letters and a Gemara that backs it all up. This is the Rebbe's claim that a Jew is a Jew forever, but not just in a, not just in sort of a, uh, a hokey, smiley, uh, hokey, smiley, uh, beginning of your journey at the Chabad house way, but sort of in an advanced way. We have here the Rebbe really thinking through the concepts and explaining them

17:55 Speaker 1 to us on paper and telling us that the main reason why a Jew can never stop being Jewish is because you can't get rid of an etzem, and that the only thing a Jew can may do-- do is make their life significant- significantly more complicated by not living in a way that is matching to that etzem. Floor is open.

18:16 Speaker 2 Yeah, question.

18:19 Speaker 1 Sure.

18:20 Speaker 2 For some reason, but it does work the other way around as far as by a g- uh, by a ger. All of a sudden, his mahus is changing. How does that work?

18:30 Speaker 1 One of two ways. Either he had that etzem all along and it needs to be revealed, or he gets a new etzem. I can bring you a raya for both. Um, I'm not sure. I can bring good proof for either. Uh, my favorite proof for the idea that he had the etzem all along is the Reishis Chochma. It says in the Reishis Chochma that, uh, wh-where do, where do geirim come from? Where do, where do, uh, c-converts come from? They come from non-Jewish parents who had a machshava Torah while making them. This is Reishis Chochma. That would suggest that there's something pre-- there's something that they are-- They're in a way predisposed to Judaism from the beginning. However, I could bring you a lot of rayas in the other direction, that they get a new etzem upon their conversion, um, especially when you think of things like Kikata Nerida, the Rebbe says over here, is the thing that is, uh, ki- that corresponds to a Jew's leila, which sounds like an etzem. So I can hear both directions of that. I think either way, the ger has-- the ger, by the time they are nisgayer, has a, uh, has an etzem. You could also use a raya in the other direction, ger shenisgayer kikata nerida, which the Rebbe does in a couple of sichas, where he says that a, a ger shenisgayer, why do we say ger shenisgayer, not goy shenisgayer? Because he's really a ger all along, at least in potential. Um, whether that's

19:30 Speaker 1 his etzem or not, I don't know. I can't really traffic in etzems. But by the time he's finished his ger, certainly that is his etzem