מנהלים רודנים ועצמאות בניהול

00:00 Today we're looking at something that's basically a mission in Pirkei Avos. You could see this as a commentary on a mission in Pirkei Avos. That's not how I'm gonna see it, but you can choose to see it that way. Now, everything that I was gonna talk about is found in the fourth Perek of Pirkei Avos, "Al tihiye dan yechidi shelo dan yechidi ala echad." We're gonna talk today about the idea that people are not supposed to make decisions by themselves, not supposed to make decisions by fiat. Um, my introduction to this, which is something that I put in the WhatsApp group a little bit, is that this is definitely against the model of Chabad houses as I've always understood them. That is, um, I didn't ever read this anywhere. No one ever told me explicitly that this is the law, but at the-- and tell me if you got a totally different impression than I did. Please volunteer. My impression from being around shluchim and Chabad meistits has always been that there's a certain, uh, value to a shliach or a rav or somebody running a mesivta to being able to make decisions unilaterally all by themselves, almost like a dictatorship, and that that's k-k-kind of something that we're proud of, that, uh, unlike other organizations that are frequently paralyzed by multiple people backing up board decisions and this board fighting with that board, something that's supposed to be, at least in my idea, was something that made Chabad, uh, special if sometimes, uh, and

01:05 some-- and functional, plus or minus, depending on the situation, was the fact that we have, uh, shluchim usually run their Chabad houses exclusively. A rav usually has some degree of exclusive power. Uh, if you'd asked me yesterday, um, what is our model when it comes to taking outside advice, I would have told you it's, uh, it's a low priority or a near zero priority when it comes to how people usually run Chabad meistits. Uh, and I would have been completely wrong because what I have discovered through preparing this shiur, is that the Rebbe is, uh, is-- the Rebbe demands, uh, the Rebbe demands that, uh, that we, that we take other people's, uh, opinions into account when we're making decisions, especially for a mosod. And the Rebbe is shocked and upset when he hears that there are some meistits being run by one person. He actually writes in a couple of letters that we're looking at today that he was very surprised to hear that somebody dared to run a mosod by themselves and not have an advisory board that they were listening to. So in, in light of this, I think this is a somewhat surprising shiur, at least it is for me. I'd like to run us through a couple of these letters. Uh, let me move this out of the way so I can see what I'm doing. Our first letter on the screen is, of course, from exactly fifty years ago. Our, uh, 5 Sivan, which is my birthday. My birthday

02:12 is coming up. Don't forget to get me presents. It is tav shin lamed gimel, 5 Sivan. Uh, it's actually a day of terrible destruction for the Jewish people. We fasted for many years on that day, not just because I was born on that day, but also because of Tach V'Tach. Um, that's a joke, even to my, uh, Tach V'Tach's not, the fact that my birthday is a fast day. So, uh, 5 Sivan, tav shin lamed gimel, the Rebbe writes, "Vi yudua psak din," you should know that there is a psak din. It's a halacha. "Ein dan yechidi ela echad," and that's a Kaddish Baruch Hu, that a person is not allowed to judge alone. Only God is allowed to judge alone. That's what ein, ein dan yechidi, you can't judge by yourself. Ela echad, only echad, the one who's called echad, Hashem, is allowed to judge alone. "B'prat mesivta chinuch," specifically when it comes to a mesivta chinuch. And the Rebbe's gonna call this out a couple times, that if there's one place where he really wants one person to not be in charge, it's when there's education involved. "B'prat mesivta chinuch sh'tsarich eliah an halach ve'po'el." There needs to be an halach, and it needs to be a practical an halach, that there needs to practically be a group of people running an institution, not just a menahol. "U'mah sh'ploni uponi noda eg behepech," and he says that, "Sure, you're telling me that there are some people who do things otherwise." You know, this

03:12 guy who runs this mosod or this one who runs this organization or this one who runs an entire region. You know how it is. I know so many people who-- we, we certainly know a lot of people in Lubavitch who really do run the show themselves and listen to nobody else. So he says, in response to your question, how about all these successful people who are doing it on their own? He says, "Hada echez shegamein al ei de'ele mosdos u'la'atsmam machriach eideh sekirah u'psak din anah." The destruction that they are going to cause, that they are causing to themselves and to their mosdos through doing this even more obligates us to understand and keep this psak din. The Rebbe says that if you see people who are running a mosod by themselves, that they're doing things unilaterally, ruling by fiat, dictatorships, he says these sorts of things, they cannot last. They're going to destroy the mosod and destroy themselves. So we need to be very careful to keep this psak din and never judge as an individual. "Ve'cala havin," and he says it's very simple to understand. "U'mitzvah l'parsem u'psak din ha-mishnah." And he says it is a mis-- it is a mitzvah to publicize this. So it's a mitzvah for us to tell people. This is not like a herah-- a herah for a yachid. This isn't a herah sha'ah. This is the Rebbe telling us that anytime we see a mosod that is v-- especially a mosod chinuch, but anytime we see a

04:12 mosod that is being run by one individual, it is a mitzvah to remind them that it's against the psak din and it's gonna destroy them and their mosod. These are pretty strong words. I wanna take a big step back in time to tav shin yud daled. You see a letter on your screen now from tav shin yud daled. This is letter tav reish beis tav reish samech ches. And here the Rebbe writes-- I, I think the Rebbe's joking in this letter a little bit. If he's not, then I don't understand it fully. But I, I, I think the Rebbe is partially being sarcastic here. The Rebbe writes, "Yudua psak din ha-mishnah ein dan yechidi ela echad." You certainly know the psak of the Mishnah that nobody's allowed to judge by themselves. "Asher l'dati," he goes, according-- in my opinion, "ha-echad hazeh hu Kaddish Baruch Hu v'lo iben adam yehi hamishihihiyah." I think at least that this refers to God being the only one who's allowed to judge on their own, not some person. I think that's the Rebbe being slightly sarcastic. I don't believe that there is an opinion that that's anybody else besides a Kaddish Baruch Hu, 'cause the Mishnah itself, I mean, the mefarshim on the Mishnah mentions that Moshe Rabbeinu himself was, uh, didn't judge on his own. Obviously, yachid mumcha ken. So maybe it's possibly he's bringing a halachic thing here, but I don't think so. I think it's a, I think it's a turn of phrase saying it's kind of

05:09 obvious this is God. So unless you're God, you can't do it. "Hineni savur sheim rav Ashi sheha'gvir gadol v'gadol b'Yisrael vechad bedor," he says Rav Ashi was the greatest in his generation. He was one in the entire generation. "Hineh k'she'pasak shailah al behemah," when he paskened a question on a behemah, "b'ushal kol katsav be'ir l'dati," he asked every butcher in his city for their advice when it came to an animal. So Rav Ashi, do you think you're as good as Rav Ashi? "El achas kama kama zeh she'ein dan chad bedor." He says certainly when it comes to somebody who is not singular in his generation. "Taam matim l'lishmeah de'ash al ei yehudi," he certainly should listen to the advice of another Jew. So basically, even Rav Ashi was asking for advice, and you're no Rav Ashi. That's more or less what this letter is saying. "Lezaved la'zaver sh'adi yihiye ada shehu yihiye dan yechidi b'inish neguel am ei s'ladim yisrael." This individual that he's writing about was going to make a decision that would have affected hundreds of Jewish children. And by the way, that does not mean that this is somebody in a government position. Uh, our school has hundreds of Jewish children in it. This could be someone at a relatively small mosad chinuch. You have a lot of kids in a lot of schools. "Dinim she'kosher im kavod kedushas haMelach ha'meirabeim shel ufanem," certainly something that's related to our Rabbeim. "Asher melei yachliyas kishurim im haRabbeim el hepe-- achas u'sham l'hefech." Through

06:14 doing the right thing, you can either c- you increase the yiskashus or decrease the yiskashus of the Rabbeim, specifically when it's a Chabad mosod. Okay, so, uh, moving along to the next letter. What we have from these past two letters is, I guess what we had from the first one is that no one's allowed to rule by fiat, particularly in we saw this emphasized in the second letter as well. We said that this-- that somebody who does this is only going to damage themselves and their mestes, and we said that we need to publicize this psak. In the second letter, we pulled out that no matter how good you are, no matter how special you think you are, may- well, maybe I'm a very special person, maybe I'm a, maybe I'm the most experienced in this area, maybe I have training no one else has, maybe I have that no one else has, so maybe I should be running my mesad on my own. The answer is not unless you're a Rav Ashi and even then not, 'cause even Rav Ashi didn't do it. So you're gonna have nobody-- nobody is going to be great enough to be the exception to this rule. We have a really interesting letter here from, uh, also our volume of This is also . The letter is . It's a short letter where the Rebbe says, "Pashut she'ein lekabel." What's he talking about? Look below the line. Somebody had given some ultimatums. One of the workers had said that

07:12 they have to give-- He gave some ultimatums. One of the employees, one of the people working at the mesad had said, "You have to listen to what I'm saying about this or else." And the Rebbe said, "Pashut, you shouldn't listen to him." Pashut she'ein lekabel him. Definitely ignore the ultimatums of your employees. That you're gonna turn over all the mesads, that they should all be one person's property. Only God's allowed to judge alone. What is that abbreviation? Anybody know it? Hey, you would love a test. Probably. Shouldn't happen. Yeah, okay. That shouldn't... Basically a but, uh, says, "A person who acts in this way will ultimately destroy their mesad, and if an individual tries to take control of the reins, even in a small way, and say that you have to listen to me or I'm out, then they're out. But certainly don't accept ultimatums from people who wanna run the show entirely on their own, because an ultimatum from an individual automatically violates, violates . Moving on to the next letter. It's a little bit long, so I highlighted the part that I'm most interested in down here. But, uh, we're not doing too poorly for time. I think that we can, I think we can read this one. Um, yeah, this one's pretty cool 'cause the Rebbe, the Rebbe calls out their bad behavior in this letter. I love when the Rebbe does that. Okay. Somebody had written to them a, somebody had written the Rebbe a letter, and they wrote in there

08:29 that they didn't have time to consult with their entire board. Apparently, there were seven people on this board, a guy in charge, three people who were on his side, and three people who weren't, and he conveniently didn't have time to call the three people who weren't on his side. So the Rebbe writes, you tell me you didn't have time to meet with everybody to, to come to a decision on this, on this, on this project. This is certainly not justice. To decide on a matter that is to everybody based on one person's opinion. It seems you had time to ask another three people. You certainly had time to ask the other three. How can you tell me you didn't have time? If you had time to send me a letter and wait for an answer from me, you certainly had time to consult with other people. when it comes to the future, though, it is absolutely necessary that there be a seder when it comes to Chabad things. Each person can't just do whatever they want. Even when it comes to gedolim, it says in the pasuk that salvation only comes through great counsel. our Mishnah, don't judge alone. The echad here is about God, not about somebody else. Only God's allowed to judge alone. You need a board. specifically when it comes to... Oh, excuse me. Certainly, when it comes to-- we'll allow for the fact when it comes to individual matters, it is a, it is normal custom, uh, that you'll judge on

09:58 your own. He's saying, "Look, every time you want to brush your teeth, you don't have to ask a shaila. Uh, we understand when it comes to matters that affect only the individual, they're not gonna counsel their friends for every move they make." But not when things are . When it has to do with a lot of people, you're not allowed to do things alone. This is an Israeli politics thing in here. I'm gonna skip right now. Jump there. This is very important. He says, "Certainly, I'm not saying here that this isn't, that this is taking away from the . I'm not saying that the guy in charge doesn't deserve his spot or that he's not putting all of his life into it." Look at that. He's saying, "This is the excuse you hear a lot," right? You hear when people want to run things entirely on their own, they say, "Look, I put my heart and soul into this. I'm the most involved person. I'm the person who, uh, stands to gain and stands to lose the most. I'm the most passionate about it. Shouldn't I be in charge?" And the Rebbe goes, "No." The fact that you are the most involved, the fact that you have all of your chayas in it does not mean that you're allowed to run the show on your own. You're not allowed to be a dictator just because you are the most invested. You still need other people. Everybody needs people. Um, right. I think I got everything

11:06 I wanted out of that letter. We need a seder in Chabad. Uh, even people who put their life and soul into something can't be dictators. Okay, moving on to the next letter. We have two more letters on our roster, and then we'll talk. This letter here is from and the Rebbe here is very surprised that somebody had been running a mesad up until now as an individual. Okay, not very surprised. A little surprised. I'm a little surprised. You had your mesads in a certain location. These places, these mesads of yours, they were being run by one individual. He goes, "." Look at that . There's no room for this. There's no room for one person running a mesad. This is not allowed al pi Torah, and it's also not allowed al pi seichel. It is logically not a smart idea. No one's greater than Moshe, and you do what it says in Chazal, and he quotes all the Mekers and Chazal where it says not to do things all by yourself. He says, He goes, "Since you're telling me in your letter you're gonna fix other problems, I expect you to fix this problem too, other problems as soon as possible." Certainly, I hope you'll do this in a way of and an increased blessing. Last letter we're gonna look at is a very long letter, so we're not gonna read all of it, but I did send you the links, so you can read all of it. I'm just gonna read you this

12:24 excerpt from this last letter on our page. This is . This is Gimel Shin Tzadik. And again, same topic that we've been talking about, but again, said slightly differently. And, uh, what I think is most important about this letter is here's the first time the Rebbe gives a reason why. So up until now, I don't really have a reason why besides the fact that it's in a Mishnah. I mean, that's a good reason, but is there any-- The Rebbe keeps saying that the logic, that logically it makes no sense for you to judge all by yourself. Maybe because you won't make good decisions if you don't have outside counsel. That's not really what the Rebbe says here. He said, " that we can see very clearly ." The Rebbe says basically in this paragraph that the reason why you need outside help is because you love yourself And because you love yourself, you're gonna frequently make bad decisions that don't reflect well on everybody else, which explains, by the way, why he says this specifically is if you're influencing-- if your, if your decisions matter to a whole lot of different people, then you can't be the final decision-maker because you're one of those people. Every single person has an opinion of loving themselves. Maybe that's Certainly, this person's natural love they have for themselves will li-- will lead them to desiring things that will help them fulfill their love for themselves. Basically, what I want, what I'm going to want things that help me

13:40 because I love me. And these desires, they can mislead the of this person. They can mislead their . There's basically even very suspect thoughts can become prominent in these cases and even more powerful than a itself, even more powerful than a bribe in and of itself. Somebody can, uh, through the desire that they have to take care of themselves, end up making decisions, and that desire they have to take care of themselves can be even more damaging than handing somebody a bribe straight up. What is the best advice for this? There's only one piece of advice to get around the fact that you love yourself. That is not to rely on your own , not to rely on your own and even not to rely on your own This is so important here. Even though it seems to you that the things that you're saying are the only way when it comes to and that there's no other option. You're fighting for religion itself. You think you're definitely on the side of right. A person can consider themse-- I think that's maybe and there's a typo. Basically, even when you're sure you're completely right, even when you're sure you're fighting for the side of purity and holiness and truth, you still need an outside opinion because you might be wrong, you might be self-serving, and a person needs, a person needs checks and balances, especially when they're running a . So to sum up all the things that we got from these letters, I made

15:11 a little list on my own notes of some major points. We have, uh, that nobody's allowed to rule by fiat. No dictators, especially in a especially when it comes to the and this is and also It is and it is also logical. When people act this way, it destroys them and their . We saw this in a few letters. The Rebbe said in our first letter that we need to publicize this of the Mishnah and tell people if they are running their this way to stop, uh, which will make, uh, will make us a lot of friends. The means that a person has an advisory board of some kind. That's what it means to have a . He said that in one of the previous letters. Um, he says no one is so great that they're exempt from this rule. See Rav Ashi. No one is so dedicated that they're exempt from this rule. See the merits in Chayei letter. And no cause is so great that it's exempt from this rule. See the Kedusha and Tahara letter. Uh, we don't accept ultimatums from one employee because that is also a kind of . Um, we, uh, we shouldn't tell-- We should never say we didn't have time to consult with other people because there's always time. Uh, it's hard to believe that there's not-- that there's time to get things done, but not time to ask a question. And of course, we mentioned here the reason why, because a person isn't trustworthy when it

16:08 comes to themselves. We love ourselves too much to make decisions on our own. Everybody needs a couple of friends. Ideally, a couple of friends who are good advisors. Okay, that's it. Let's talk.