תיקון חטאים

00:00 This letter is from Yud Beis Tammuz. I know we're, we're, we're like right before Shavuot, so I can't necessarily justify the date on it, but it is an area of interest. Um, this is a letter for s-- from somebody. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe that, uh, that they'd forgotten to put on tefillin one day. They missed a day of tefillin. I don't know if this has ever happened to you. I don't know if you want to admit on a recording that this has ever happened to you. I will tell you that when I was younger in my high school years, I remember missing tefillin one day. I don't remember how it happened exactly, but it didn't happen for me. And, uh, and I discovered a lot of, uh, a lot of these sorts of letters while looking for a tikkun, tikkun for it. What we're gonna discuss today is the Rebbe suggested tikkun for somebody who has missed putting on tefillin, and we're going to launch from there into a larger discussion of the Rebbe's tikkunim in general, all with the intent of before Shavuot, getting all of our personal tikkunim in order. One of the ideas of Sefirat HaOmer, of course, is that over thirty-nine... over forty-nine, wow, I'm tired. Over forty-nine days, we're supposed to fix our midas, and that includes fixing any averot we might have in our hands that we go into the-- we go into Kabbalah of Sefirat with a certain degree of purity. And the Rebbe gives a lot

01:01 of advice on how to fix common averot. So that's the subject of the day, how to fix the averot of possibly missing a day of tefillin, and also how to fix other common averot. Um, hopefully not halacha al hamaychah for anybody, but hey, if you're somebody else's mashpia, you can also pass these along to your mishpachah who forgot to put on tefillin. So see, everybody wins. We have here the letter is Yud Tuf Tuf Kuf Zayin from Yud Beis Tammuz Tuf Shin Lamed Gimel, and it's very short. We're gonna read it. The Rebbe is answering this letter about somebody who forgot to put on tefillin. He writes to this person, that you should become an expert in the laws of tefillin but the practical ones. and also two or three have to do with tefillin. So the Rebbe's advice is a tikkun. This was printed in Likutei Sichos. The Rebbe's advice for a tikkun for somebody who missed tefillin is first of all, to become a expert in the practical halachas of tefillin, the halachas that we use every day, as we're gonna see in a couple other letters, the Rebbe does not want somebody to become a bakki in safros or in making t-tefillin boxes as a, as a tikkun for this. It's the practical halachas of wearing tefillin, and also in two or three maymarim that have to do with tefillin. This is the tikkun that fixes the averot. Moving over to our supplementary text, we're gonna look at like a million other

02:15 of these. I just-- I, I always like to launch from Lamed Gimel 'cause that's the year we're learning. So that's in Tuf Shin Lamed Gimel. This is a letter from Tuf Shin Kuf Vav. It was written on Vav Teves. Once again, the Rebbe is responding to somebody who forgot to put on tefillin. The Rebbe doesn't even write what he forgot to do. It was tefillin, but I guess it's embarrassing to write it out in full form. Sound familiar? Almost the exact same lashon, right? And then he says, Here he clarifies what he means when he says that he doesn't mean the halachas of tefillin that involve writing tefillin, just the parts of Shulchan Aruch that discuss putting on tefillin. what you're allowed to do when you wear them. The halachas that are practical for daily tefillin wearing, not special, not special halachas for safros. Also, the Rebbe wants such a person to learn that speak about tefillin, and here we have some suggestions. you'll find a couple in Likutei Torah. You'll find some in Likkutei Torat. You'll find at least one in Derech Mitzv'tacheia, Hilchas Tefillin, and Derech Mitzv'tacheia. The Rebbe says, "I want you to remember that tikkunim are not teshuva. Tikkunim are a part of teshuva, but they're not teshuva." Teshuva still is regretting what you did in the past and and accepting a good resolution on the future. But in addition to that, some people want a tikkun on top of a-- on top of their teshuva. So the Rebbe says, "Just

03:36 don't forget. Don't, don't, uh, don't grab the, uh, don't grab the tafal and forget the ikar." I think a lot of people get very passionate about this. By that, I mean people get very passionate about tikkunim and forget to do teshuva. The Rebbe reminds people at the bottom of a lot of these letters, "I'll give you a tikkun, but don't forget to do teshuva 'cause that's, that, that's the main thing. The tikkun is, uh, is icing on the cake." So w-once again, in this letter, we have basically the same thing we saw in the previous letter, just spelled out a lot more clearly. This was, uh, these are two letters to people who forgot to put on Rabbeinu Tam's tefillin. Uh, this one is from Igress volume Yud, page Tadek Vav. It says, person writes to the Rebbe saying that he forgot one day of Rabbeinu Tam. By the way, that never should happen, and the reason why it never should happen is because we should teach our children, and we should ourselves make sure to put on Rabbeinu Tam immediately after Rashi's. There's a reason of the halacha to do that, that, uh, that the Rebbe brings in a couple other letters, that there's an idea of connecting Rashi to Rabbeinu Tam, not making them separate averot, but there's a very practical reason. Uh, I've never heard of somebody forgetting to put on Rabbeinu Tam who was always careful to put them on immediately after Rashi. You forget to put on Rabbeinu Tam because

04:38 you put them on at three o'clock in the afternoon, and the time gets away from you. So it is, uh, very important to make sure it's tefillin. I just was telling a bar mitzvah boy this in Shul the other day, just don't separate them. I was witness to that. What was that? I was witness to that. You were witness to that. Yes. I'm, I, I, I tell, I tell boys who are starting to put on tefillin this all the time, one of their first instincts is, for most bar mitzvah boys, one of their first instincts is, "I'll put on my Rashis, I'll get to my Rabbeinu Tams later." Don't, don't let them get into this habit. They will, uh, they will, they will forget Rabbeinu Tam someday if that's their habit. Absolutely. So the Rebbe says, for somebody who did unfortunately forget Rabbeinu Tam one day, for this, the Rebbe does not give a halachic tikkun, very interestingly. For this, the Rebbe gives a purely spiritual tikkun. He says he wants this person to learn a couple and also um, and he wants the person to make a a, a rule that these couple they will think about every single day uninterrupted for at least a little while. Okay. Another one about Rabbeinu Tam, this one's unique because this person forgot Rabbeinu Tam a few times. Excuse me. So once again, here for Rabbeinu Tam, he's giving practical halachic tefillin advice. but since you made this mistake twice, you forgot to put on tefillin, these

05:56 are Rabbeinu Tam in this letter, two times, as you've written to me, so here the Rebbe has tears, it looks like, and this was the advice that I received at the time when I was, uh, when I was younger, um, and needed a tikkun for missing tefillin when I was in, when I was in high school. Um, the, the advice that I received at the time was that if you forgot, if you forgot it once, then you have to learn the halachas of tefillin. If you forgot it twice, then you're going to also have to learn the chassidis of tefillin. I assume that the advice that I got was from this letter. Maybe it's from another letter that I didn't find. Uh, another letter about Tefillin, and this is one that I'm very interested in because it builds a case. I mean, what we could do, right? What we could do is just go through there. I have a book. I think it's on my shelf behind me, actually. It is a very disruptive and very addictive book. Can I find it to show it to you? Um, I'm looking quickly. If I don't find it in one second, I'm gonna go back to the share, but I think I keep it down here in the, in the dungeon so that people don't get, uh, absorbed in it. Where is it? One more second of searching, and if I don't find it, I'll just tell you about it. Hmm. Maybe it is upstairs. I don't

07:00 know. Okay, I'm just gonna tell you about it. A shame. I wish I had an object lesson to show you. I have a sefer that is called Etz HaSegulos HaRebbe. Have you ever heard of Etz HaSegulos HaRebbe? I don't know when they printed this, but somebody put together all of the segulos that the Rebbe ever writes in letters as if they're not personal pieces of advice, right? So basically, the book is about half the Rebbe saying, "Check your mezuzahs," and other things are just strange segulos that were clearly shayach to individuals. But it is addicting to read 'cause they sort it by every physical disease. Like, if you have a leg problem, read these pages. Hand problem. It becomes like fortune-telling. And, uh, so, so it's-- Tikkunim can appear to be a little bit arbitrary. The Rebbe explains that when he's giving Tikkunim for Averos, he's not saying anything arbitrary at all, and he does this explanation in this particular letter to somebody who missed Tefillin. So i would like us rather than to, uh, to set up-- Uh, what i could do, that was what i was starting to say. What i could do is just go through Igris and tell you all the places where the Rebbe says how to fix your Averos, and it could be arbitrary, or we could learn what the Rebbe's method is. And i think learning the Rebbe's method will allow us to kind of make our own Tikkunim or su-- or suggest Tikkunim to our Mushpa'im, um,

08:00 because the Rebbe does suggest that. So take a look over here, this letter in front of us. Igris volume sixteen, page forty, gives an idea of how to build a Tikkun. "Nu mashal shel eda pama edes em eirid Yud Gimmel Tammuz." You're talking to me again about the thing that happened to you on Yud Gimmel Tammuz. I believe this was that he forgot to put on Tefillin, and this guy kept writing to the Rebbe that it was breaking him apart, but i know it's a Tefillin letter. "Ki ni Tikkun b'kagen do." The proper Tikkun for this, "tar echliyes v'shatach b'yechi saden." Those are the key words for us. The Tikkun for anything needs to be "v'shatach b'yechi saden." It needs to be a Tikkun in the area in which there was a problem in the first place. The Tikkun should be matim to the problem. "V'kem enshe inyan pnimibazehu kun b'vor b'shof hanarach v'tigotanya reish parech mem hest, mem, mem, mem alef," excuse me. Since the inner reason for this problem of Tefillin will be found in Tanya parech mem alef and also in Shulchan Aruch, "kam a Tikkun tar echliyes v'sefas akavanam tzitzu." Therefore, the Tefillin needs to off-- need-- The Tikkun for missing Tefillin needs to be a hesafa in kavanah samitzvezu. So the Rebbe says that when he's giving a Tikkun to somebody, he's gonna either give them a halachic Tikkun, which is going to tell them how to do the mitzvah better 'cause that's the area in which they struggled, or

08:59 he's going to give them a spiritual Tikkun that helps them increase in the kavanah of that mitzvah so that they wouldn't dare mits-- miss that mitzvah again. "V'kem enshe kol indid ben eis namis fatav nimsha chai detsina Torah." And since everything in our lives comes through the faucet of Torah, "tar echliyes limad v'chazarah ba, ba'al peh bizmanan matim, matimim b-b-b-b-b'may marar m'mivarid indid shibur aleiv v'ameach." Since this person forgot Tefillin, the Rebbe wants him to focus on May Marim to talk about the inner meaning of Tefillin, which is "shibur aleiv, v-- shibur aleiv v'ameach," or "shibur ameach al aleiv," but "shibur aleiv v'hameach." We see this a little more clearly in this letter to somebody who was Mechalel Shabbos. This is in volume sixteen of Igris. It's letter number Heh tuff, tuff, kuff, kaf, daled. Somebody, they made a mistake. I believe it was a shegag, but they were Mechalel Shabbos. They write to the Rebbe looking for a Tikkun, and in this letter, he doesn't just give them a Tikkun. He explains his method for arriving at a Tikkun. "B'klal, b'klal Tikkun davar bilti rotzeh, tar echliyes v'chaludeish v'ese inyan." Once again, very similar lashon, but important for us. Whenever we're giving a Tikkun for an Avera, trying to figure out how to fix one of our own sins, rachmana liclan, any n-any "inyan bilti rotzeh, tar echliyes v'chaludeish v'ese inyan." The Tikkun has to be in that area. "V'kem enshe amav is haye binregel Shabbos." In your case, says the Rebbe, there was

10:07 a Shabbos problem, so "l'kabbal ah latzvai bachlat. T'kif aliyes v'kam labal zer vishme Shabbos v'yan, v'yanah b'tachas." You have to make a achlata to be super careful about Shabbos. However, that is very difficult if you don't know how Shabbos works. "V'dei leda'ah halachas shala." In order to know the halachas of Shabbos, "muvin s'tar echlas is baki v'hilchas Shabbos v'negel hapoel al kapanam." Therefore, you're going to have to learn hilchas Shabbos very, very well. So what's the Rebbe's Tikkun? Learn hilchas Shabbos well so that you can be exemplary at Shabbos, and that's your Tikkun for violating Shabbos. "V'lacheinim yivcha b'kitzer Shulchan Aruch." Remember, remember our share from a while back where we talked about how the Rebbe loves to suggest Kitzer Shulchan Aruch to people? I should have brought this example. Therefore, you should choose in Kitzer Shulchan Aruch to learn the simanim v'hilchas Shabbos v'negel hapoel, the practical simanim in Kitzer Shulchan Aruch that have to do with Shabbos. "V'yim dem kam apamim ad sheya baki bam." Learn them several times until you are an expert in them. "V'kem enshe v'chal davar tzrich m'siata d'shmaya," and the Rebbe says, since everything requires a little bit of help from heaven, "v'reitz v'teshuvah shlema, tar echliyes v'limad Torah seiinu haKodesha ba'asmad v'shkeda." Uh, since we all need help from Hashem, the Tikkun should also be in a way that involves learning more Torah, "ba'asmad v'shkeda," which is once again why the Rebbe is frequently gonna give a Tikkun that involves limud haTorah. "Shayideh zen is eseph eizen

11:13 esen haTorah mitzve, v'amitzvah v'mitzvis." Therefore, you'll connect better, um, and be better assisted by the giver of the Torah and the one who commands the mitzvahs. With that in mind, I did give us a smattering of Tikkunim for other things that are very common that I found. I specifically did not do the Tikkunim for the real gnarly stuff. I think this should be a lighter share . If you're interested for Tikkunim for the real gnarly stuff, chiyuv ekares and the like, you can send me a message and I'll tell you where they are. There's, um, in Shulchan Manachem, uh, chelek gimel, there's a list of almost all of them, of almost, uh, almost every time the Rebbe gave a Tikkun for even very serious Averas. Here I'm talking about some of the more common ones. So Tikkun for Tefillah. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe saying that they missed one of da-- I don't know. They missed Mincha or something. Maariv. Maybe it was Shacharis. I don't know. It's from Yud Daled Heh Vav Tav Shin Chaf Zayin. The Rebbe writes, "L'cha, l'chasvei oydes Tikkun b'dagei l'shechas Tefillah." You forgot one of the davening. "Muvin. Sh'l'chol l'reish tar echliyes charatah al avar v'ikval etev al abah." The Rebbe says, first of all, don't forget to do Teshuvah, as we've talked about. Don't do the Tikkun at the cost of the Teshuvah. "Neusef lezeh, liyesh baki v'hilchas Tefillah, tzrichas l'cha, echad v'echad, v'lo yasheichas l'sh, l'-the shliach tzibbur." You notice this is, this advice very similar to

12:16 the Tikkun for Tefillin in that the Rebbe is telling him, "I want you to learn the halachas of Tefillah, and I want you to not learn the halachas of Tefillah that are not shayach to your day-to-day davening, not the halachas of a shliach tzibbur." Remember from Tefillin, the Rebbe told this person who forgot Tefillin to learn the halachas of Tefillin, but not the halachas of safris, of making Tefillin. We're not trying to learn the theoretical. We're trying to stay as practical as possible so that I think about halacha while I'm davening or, you know, while I'm thinking about maybe not davening. No. The tikkun for mezuzah I put here just because it's very common, but I don't understand it relative to the Rebbe's other rules for tikkunim. I have some ideas, but they're totally made up. Here's what the Rebbe says for mezuzah. This is in volume fourteen of Igros, letter heh, shin, tes, zayin. The Rebbe writes, "V'lo ma she'kozav tikun inyan hamizuzah." This person, they had a mezuzah problem. They want a tikkun for it. "Yilmad ba'al peh ezekh rak mishnais v'lo halakhos perekh echa tanya." He wants them to learn some stuff ba'al peh. "Uv'lechte v'derekh v'kiyeitz v'ze yavor alei mesad-- i-im b'dibbur o kapam b'machshava." And when you're walking down the road, you should review these things and think about them. My first thought was this might be like, uh, uv'lechte v'derekh, which is shayach to, uh, amas zey sefasecha uvishorecha, but I, I don't really see the connection. I have

13:19 no idea why this tikkun was here. Perhaps it's not a hirhur haRebbe, but I brought it because obviously somewhat common. Accidentally eating non-kosher food. Um, this should-- This shouldn't happen and this is not-- This shouldn't be common, but I brought it because unfortunately, I think people do make mistakes with this sometimes. They thought they ate something that was okay and it turns out it's not. So I did wanna mention the tikkun. "Aderech hamichshol shaya ach v'ki b'shegeg." It was by mistake, of course. "Mu en sheha tikun tzarch lihi es ba'esa inyan." The Rebbe says even when it's b'shegeg, the tikkun needs to be ba'esa inyan. So remember our claw from before, we said as a general rule that every time we're making a tikkun for something, the tikkun should be ba'esa inyan. That was always bemeizit when it was on purpose. Here, the Rebbe is adding that even if somebody does something by mistake, their tikkun needs to be in the inyan of the thing they made a mistake in. "Zot meris zihirus v'diuk b'inyanei achila v'shtiya she'yakeid abayye." That means being much more careful about the things that you eat and drink. "V'kemich shelo haldavar tzrich m'siata d'shmaya," and since you always need help from heaven for all things, "hine bechol yom chel kelm tefila s'peki acher she'izah prus l'tzdakah." And since there's always siata d'shmaya involved, you should also give a little extra to tzedakah before davening every day. "V'achor tefila," and also after davening, "bechol yom." I've never really heard that one

14:21 before. You see that? Before davening and after davening, huh. "Bechol yom gam b'Shabbos v'Yom Tov yomer lo halakhos mizmoraicha b'tehillim," and also on-- No, you know what? I misread it. That's why I've never heard it before. That didn't make sense. Every day before davening, separate a few coins for tzedakah, and after davening every day on Shabbos and Yom Tov as well, you should say a mizmor of Tehillim. I, uh, I brought one bonus down here, and with that, we'll conclude for today. I brought it as a bonus because it is shayach to us going into Shavuot. I had never seen this before. While I was looking around for, uh, for tikkunim, I came across some shailas and tshuvas on, uh, on Rav Brody's website, AskTheRav, and I looked below the line to see some of the stuff that he brought, that he brings in Hebrew because if you-- I don't know if you know this, but on AskTheRav dot-- AskTheRav.com, you can get like a one-line answer in English for almost every question you can think of. But if you look below the line, you get these brilliant tshuvas that he writes, where he brings mekeres from everywhere, and they're really well put together. So, uh, I love to look below the line on his one-line answers 'cause below the line is where he really has fun. He brings this. I would have never found Shaar Ruach Hakodesh taf tes. I mean, he did, but I would have never found it. He says in Shaar

15:20 Ruach Hakodesh taf tes, it says the following: "Mi sh'neir kol halaila v'lo yishan kla," somebody who stays up all night and doesn't fall asleep, um, "v'eisek b'Torah," and learns Torah the entire night without sleeping, "kol halaila," that entire night, "viyan niftar m'eish karis echad im es chayav chas v'shalom." Every time you do that, you get out of one chi of karis. I didn't know that. So every time we stay up all night learning Torah, we get out of one chi of karis. And then, and then the Shaar Ruach Hakodesh adds, "L'chol laila echad petur karis echad." If you're chayav karis multiple times over, you're gonna have to do this several times. So I just-- I, I wanted to add this because we are going into Shavuot. This is, uh, in addition to all of the wonderful reasons to stay up all night learning Torah on Shavuot. An additional reason that is totally fine to have rattling in the back of your head is that if, chas v'shalom, you or someone you know has an issur karis that they need to deal with, that, uh, that in addition to the tshuva that they've certainly done, they're looking for a tikkun, for a tikkun baduk. Uh, a tikkun baduka? A tikkun baduk. A well-examined and well, uh, and, and well-sourced tikkun for any chi of a karis is staying up all night and engaging in Torah study, one night of that for every chi of karis.