איגרוף, היאבקות ואמנויות לחימה

00:00 This is our annual shiur. We are still looking at letters from exactly fifty years ago, and today we're looking at the same letter that we looked at yesterday, but for an entirely different part. As I told you in yesterday's shiur, the-- th-these gen-- these, uh, Klali Pragi letters are treasure troves. They really are. So the Rebbe will write a letter to an entire community, and then below the line, he will answer people's individual questions line by line. And, uh, I don't know. We might pull, we might pull ten shiurim from this letter. That's the truth. Each of these, each of these little one-liners from the Rebbe are entire stories. The Rebbe says, "I've received your letters. in response to the thing that you wrote to me, ." First of all, don't come here for Tishrei. I don't know why they asked. I don't know what the situation was. This is obviously not a . Some people do come for Tishrei. For this individual, the Rebbe didn't want them for Tishrei. The part we're going to focus on is Beis. It seems you're interested in learning, uh, ringside wrestling. Zira is a, a wrestling ring, so professional show wrestling. Uh, is a form of wrestling. So I don't know if this is professional wrestling like the way that we call it in the United States, where it's a, uh-- where professional wrestling means, uh, means that it's acting, or whether this is a professional wrestling like, uh, like high school wrestling and where, where, where they're

01:10 actually grappling with each other. I don't know. But in response to your question that you wanna learn professional wrestling, , uh, don't. I'm pained by the fact that you even thought this would be a good idea. Not an answer you want from the Rebbe. I'm pained that you even had the thought that maybe you should go into this field. We don't have many more details about this letter. There's one that was printed in says up here that the writer had asked that he had a bit of a history with wrestling. He knew a little bit about it, so he, he already had a bit of a talent for it, and he had a bit of a talent and suspected he could make a good deal of money, and he could therefore help himself and also help . So he figured he could donate better to, to the . He could also become quite wealthy himself. He had a for this. So he writes to the Rebbe saying, "Look, I, I have a skill. We all have talents. My talent is, uh, is, is wrestling people and, uh, ringside i-in rings. I don't know, uh, wrestling people in wrestling rings. Uh, can I use this as a way of making money?" And the Rebbe says back, "I'm surprised you would even ask." Uh, not surprised, "I'm pained." "I'm pained by even the that you think it's appropriate for you to be wrestling for a show." He doesn't say exactly why. 'Cause there's qui-quite a few things

02:17 here that could be upsetting the Rebbe. One thing could be we don't know who the author is. Um, they always tell us below the line when the Rebbe says nice things, but they never tell us below the line when the Rebbe says something like, . So we don't know who wrote this to the Rebbe. Could be that this was, uh, some big mashpia. You know, could be this was some Chassidish person the Rebbe thought that it was inappropriate for that individual. Totally possible. Could be that the Rebbe doesn't like the showman aspect of it, doesn't want people becoming professional athletes. I have no idea. Could be that the Rebbe doesn't like the physical aspect of it, people beating each other up. I suspect that's what it is, um, especially given the well-known psak of the Shulchan Aruch Harav on this issue. Normally, if we were gonna do a halacha, I would take you all the way back to Shas and Poskim, and we would look at regular Shulchan Aruch as well. However, you should be aware that anybody who wants to talk about the sugya of martial arts, of boxing, of wrestling, of one person hitting another person with permission or, uh, to cause as minimal amount of damage, you know, not, uh, not, not the normal chai v'lo sugyas, they all quote the Shulchan Aruch Harav because he has a very unique opinion on this. And for us, that's very important because he's ours, right? This is the Alter Rebbe. So I wanna just

03:18 do some of the-- some of this, uh, inside. I have on your screen. This is the Shulchan Aruch Harav in Just look at Sif Alef together. Lay down some of the groundwork. In Sif Alef, I have it on your screen. The Alter Rebbe writes, . It is first of all asur to hit somebody. It's asur. It's not just bad midas. It is an isur de'orayta. If you are-- If you do hit somebody, you . So this should be the end of the discussion when it comes to things like boxing, right? Not so much, but that's the way that we're thinking right now, and our mindset right now sounds like I'm if I hit somebody, and that's it. There's a posuk to prove it, . The Torah is very careful to tell us when we're, when we're giving out malkos that we're not allowed to give even one more than the amount that is prescribed. So the Alter Rebbe says, this is a drash from the Gemara as well, that if the Torah is so careful that we shouldn't even give one extra patch to a rosh who's getting a-- who's getting malkos, certainly we need to be very strict about hitting somebody who is not chai of malkos even one extra hit. And even somebody who raises his hand to hit his friend, even if he doesn't actually hit him, I'm sure you heard this growing up in school, I tell my kids this all the time, even raising your hand gets you din rosh.

04:39 says to the rosh, He didn't say, "Why did you hit that guy?" "Why are you going to hit that guy?" Anybody who does hit his friend, uh, if you know violent people, listen up, tell them this. Anybody who does hit their friend, they're . they stand in a . They have a, uh, they have a pr-- they have a, uh, an old, old cherem on them. for the minyan asara, and they should not be counted for a minyan. So if you know somebody who hits somebody, they shouldn't be counted for a minyan. Uh for any uh, until the, uh, until this person accepts to listen to the din of Beis Din and goes to Beis Din over the issue. So, uh, this is Shulchan Aruch Harav. This is not a Gemara I'm quoting you. This is a relatively recent. This was written, what, three hundred years, two hundred years ago, give or take. And, uh, it's our Alter Rebbe. It's brought lehalacha that somebody who hits doesn't count for a minyan. They're . They have to go to Beis Din. They're in a cherem. Terrible stuff. Let's take a look in Sif Beis. Let's say somebody hits his friend, but he just gives him a slap across the face. He doesn't hit him in a way that causes even damage of a sheva pruta, but he does hit him. Look at that So since there's no chi of mammon, he doesn't owe any payment for it because he didn't do enough damage to cause damage.

05:55 Now the other dinim of the Torah kick in, and that is he's Ɣaiyim malkos min ha-Torah. This person did a lav. So the Alter Rebbe holds... Now, the reason why the Alter Rebbe is saying this, just context, is that if you look in Shulchan Aruch, the mechaber says that if you hit somebody less than a sheva pruta, that you're patur, you don't owe them any money. The Alter Rebbe says, "Yeah, you're patur from the money, but you're not patur from the din that there's a lav involved, so you still get malkas." As a matter of fact, now you really get malkas because there's no mammon, so there's no payment, so obviously malkas. Apilu chaveireh hissikim bemrivah. Let's say he started it. Let's say the other guy started. This guy started with me. He started fighting with me. Vechargo v'dvarim, and he egged me on with words. He said real nasty things to me. Afilu hikoh, v-v-v-- afilu hikoh, even if my friend hit me first, he hit me first. V'hu shafas ekla kaysay. If the, i-m-- Sorry, I wanna put the period there. Afilu hikoh, even if he hit you first, it's still going to be a lav darayis. So if someone comes up to this-- comes up to you and hits you, you hit them back, you're over a lav darayis. That's it. Even if he go-- even if he goad you on with words, even if he said the sort of things that, uh, that, that make a person want to hit you.

06:54 There's an exception. V'hu shafas ekla kaysay. This does not apply if the guy stopped hitting you. So if this person, uh... I'm sorry, this only applies if the guy stopped hitting you. This only applies if he hit you once, and then that was it. You're not allowed to retaliate by hitting. However, self-defense is permissible. Aval im lei pasa, if this guy keeps hitting you, v'nashai la kaysay say, then you're allowed to hit him. Ki le'ats la'atsah in order to save yourself. Im eef shela'ats la'atsah be din acher, but only if there is no other way for you to save yourself. So you're obligated to run away. If you can't run away, you have to hit. Im eef shele la'ats la'atsah be kamu et es, and if you could have saved yourself by giving him a small smack, lei ko v'harbe, you're not allowed to hit him a hard smack. V'chen idei echam yisro makkah chaveiro im lei yachol atsil miyadeh im lei she-- im lei she yika makkah. Also, if you see one of your friends and they're gonna get hurt and you can't, uh, you can't save them without hitting their aggressor, mitzvah la'aseh, so that becomes a mitzvah to hit. Ki le'afru shif iser. Uh, so he gives exceptions to this rule when it comes to self-defense, but in a normal case, you're not allowed to hit somebody. Now, the part we need, I wanted this background, the part we really need is in the Shulchan Aruch, Harav Ches Mishpat Hilchot Geniztei Guf

07:53 B'nefesh V'dinayim. Look in Seif Dalet. I've underlined it for you. This right here is where the Alter Rebbe-- Something the Alter Rebbe said above also departs from the norm, but this is very special. Asur la'akeh es chaveira afilu hu nisan ledo shus la'akeh sei. Look at that. It is asur to hit your friend even if he gives you permission to hit him. This would seem to be the end of martial arts and all physical sports that involve hitting another person. Because, uh, sh- would seem to be the end of boxing, would seem to be the end of sparring in martial arts, unless you're just gonna hit a punching bag. It would seem to be the end of wrestling. The Alter Rebbe says here that it is asur to damage your friend, asur to hit your friend, even if he gives you a shus, even if he gives you permission. Ki ein adam l'shus al gufe because nobody has permission, nobody has control over their own body. Kla al case v'leil ba'ashei v'leil latzah b'shumtzah afilu minias ei zeh makah l'mishtah. You're not even allowed to deprive yourself of food and drink. You are simply not allowed. You don't have permission. You don't have a-- The word here isn't permission. You don't have authority. You don't have authority over your body, so you don't have the right to give permission for someone to hit you. There's an Eliyahu Cain here. Eliyahu Cain, ei zeh dech teshuva. The exception to this is teshuva. If somebody wants to

08:52 shitar zeh tova ki lei, because sometimes suffering is good for you. Latzal nafshe meshachas, this saves you from, uh, from hell. V'l'chei mutar la'azten l'hisanes l'teshuvah, so it's mutar to fast for teshuva. Afilu mi she'eini yachol la'asan es, mi sheyachol la'asan es mutar, afilu shelo b'derech teshuva. Somebody who is good at fasting, they can even fast in ways that are not b'derech teshuva. Elikei l'maref nafshe in order to make their soul a little cleaned out. La'shemesh ein tov l'maaleh m'toev ha'zu. Basically, he's saying unless this is a tova, unless this is a good thing that you're hitting them, we don't have a shus to ever hit another person. So it sounds like from here that when the Rebbe says in our letter that he's, uh, he's mitzah refilot kasat hadayta chadayah, that what he might mean is that anybody who knows the Shulchan Aruch and anybody who knows how we pasken knows that he was asking the Rebbe for permission to do a professional lav. So he's asking the Rebbe ... Imagine writing to the Rebbe saying, "I'd like to be a murderer for a living," right? "I'd like to be a I'd like to be a, uh, an echad treifas for a living." The, uh, the-- This person in the Rebbe's mind, I think, was writing to the Rebbe saying, "Can I please do a lav in order to make money?" And the Rebbe's saying back, "What, are you kidding me? The Shulchan Aruch already said that it's a lav, mitzah refilot kasat haday."

09:56 Possibly. Um, this is definitely the Rebbe's position about professional wrestling. That's all we know for sure. Is this applicable to martial arts, to boxing, to other fields? Looking in the Shulchan Aruch, it sounds like from the Alter Rebbe that it would be asur for a person to engage in boxing because the Alter Rebbe says that even a light hit, and certainly even a hit with permission, is asur because a person doesn't have the right to give you permission to hit them. Um, I'm not sure how this goes with a goy. I don't know if, uh, I don't, I don't know what the dinim are regarding a Jew hitting a goy. This is regarding two Jews. It would sound like you're not allowed to-- Two Jews wouldn't be able to box with each other or wrestle with each other unless it was somehow a tova for them, which is a hard case to imagine because even in boxing, where everybody's meichal because they enjoy the fight, nobody wants to lose and no one wants to get hit. So it's very hard to imagine there actually being a tova in this. I think it's probably pretty clear from the Alter Rebbe that it'd be asur to box or to wrestle professionally or even as a, as an athletics activity, and the Rebbe seems to say that in the letter too. What we're looking at over here, though, is a more subtle point, and that is karate, martial arts. Now, martial arts are not exactly the same thing

10:57 as professional boxing and professional wrestling. Here, the sport isn't smack the other person. Here, the sport is learn how to defend yourself. It doesn't always involve hitting another person. There are forms of karate, forms of martial arts, where instead of practicing on your friends, you practice on, I don't know, uh, items, or you don't necessarily hit somebody, you stop before you hit them. I believe martial arts, when they're done right, I mean, when they're done on a, on a stage, that they're, they're hitting each other or trying to hit each other. But there's a possibility martial arts might not fall into the same gather. This letter is not published in Igrus. This letter was put out in a T'shuva, and it was printed in a book. Um, I, I-- The title's in the corner. Merah L'Der Navuch is where it's printed in a book. It's also printed in a T'shuva It circulated-- I have a very strong suspicion it was written in English because the Hebrew is, uh, not the Rebbe's Hebrew. So it either was written in Yiddish or English and translated or, uh, or the maskirus wrote this letter, uh, in their own, in their own sign. Because the Hebrew is not the way the Rebbe ever writes. Uh, so you'll, you'll notice this immediately, is that the Hebrew doesn't sound like the Rebbe's Hebrew. In any event, this-- I sent you this whole letter, and it is, um, it's such a cool letter. You really-- If you have a couple of minutes

11:58 today, read the beginning and read the end 'cause we're not going to today. In the beginning, the Rebbe talks all about how it's so important to make sure that children in America don't feel that their religion is inferior, don't feel that Judaism is less cool than the other religions, and that Jewish school is less cool than other schools. And he gives them advice on how to make sure that doesn't happen. It's just a very insightful letter that is as practical, uh, today as it ever was. In the end of the letter, he also talks about really interesting things. He talks about, uh, Mordechai and Esther and why they didn't use some political means or physical means to try to stop Haman, why they instead turned to Tene Hachod Ve'esravan. It is just a fascinating letter from beginning to end. Um, we're gonna read just this section here where this writer had asked the Rebbe about starting in a Chabad school, a karate class in a Chabad high school. So they wanted a karate club in a Chabad high school. They wrote to the Rebbe, "Are you okay with this?" And I'm gonna go back a little further than I have to just because this part of the letter is so interesting we can't not cover it. 'Cause here the Rebbe talks about how sports in schools can be damaging in general, and I just-- I, I, I, I feel the need. So Everything we've talked about up until now is regarding subjects, secular subjects that

13:05 the law requires. sport, but when it comes to athletics in co-- in, in, in high schools and in schools and in colleges, when it comes to, uh, what's the word, the gym class, this requires particular caution. Because as I'm sure you know, in many schools in America, even the very most prestigious schools in America, sport. There really is an outsized emphasis on athletics. So much so even though this might be surprising for us to see they actually rank students according to their athletic prowess. Here, he must be talking about college sports, but I guess you even see this in high school sports. In a higher place, they, they rank the importance of their athletic prowess above their academic success. So the Rebbe says this is so surprising, but believe it or not, there are schools in America where they will rank a student based on his athletic prowess, not just based on what he thinks and what he learns. This is done by the administrators. Certainly, the students see it that way. See what I mean? This is not the Rebbe's Hebrew. This ha-- th-these damaging influences of having this sort of approach and the, uh, and the emphasis that's generally put on sports stars. Look at that, powerful sports stars. It should be self-understood just how damaging it is that children idolize sports stars, that schools idolize sports stars, that schools and school administrators give special credence to sporting stars. The Rebbe says this entire system is, is messed up. That's what he's saying

14:45 in that paragraph. The whole system of college athletics and the whole system of children idolizing sports heroes, the Rebbe's not happy with at all. Now, this is not what we're talking about. I just couldn't resist. Okay. But here what we're talking about at least, uh, the part that has to do with us, The Rebbe says in our private conversation prior, they, they'd met with the Rebbe to discuss their school. We talked about permitted versions of athletics. Of course, this is to exclude any activities that inspire the yetzer for aggression. Any activities that inspire the yetzer for aggression, the Rebbe does not want the children to be learning these sports. And then he gives some examples. That is wrestling and boxing. So the Rebbe says off the bat, "I don't want children learning wrestling and boxing. I don't want people learning wrestling and boxing because these are things that these things inspire the for, uh, for aggression." But then you ask me about karate. Karate is not the same thing. Maybe we could include it in our curriculum, and the goal would only be self-defense. It wouldn't be to teach them aggression. It wouldn't be to teach them, uh-- it w- it wouldn't be to, uh, to teach them how to hit other people. The idea would be self-defense only. I don't think, says the Rebbe, you can really I don't think you really can remove the violence from, from karate. I mean, you can make it into something that's about self-defense, but it has a

16:10 violent side to it, and I don't think you really can remove it. This would be the case even if your school was the only place in Miami, the schools in Miami, that they were teaching karate. But here it's well known, people know what karate involves. So people know, uh, people know the details of it. Even if there's a student in one class who, uh, who know, who, uh, who knows about it, he was gonna talk with his classmates about it. He'll be able to then encourage his school to pick up karate without any of the limitations you put in place. The Rebbe's concern here is, I think, that, uh, if you start a muter form of karate in your school, which is purely self-defense, which isn't aggressive, which is mainly to-- which is really just to pr-- teach the kids to protect themselves and, I don't know, gain confidence. If you do that, you make a kosher karate, then somebody in another school will hear that your school has karate and demand full-on karate, which is completely inappropriate. I think that's what the Rebbe's saying here. Um, If this doesn't happen, this other student doesn't get what he wants, and they won't let him have the karate he thinks your school has, then he'll resent his school. In that both of these options, both these scenarios are completely, uh, uh, They're not desirable. Since in most high schools, karate is not a required course, and it doesn't really help the health of the body. I

17:45 don't think the Rebbe's saying here that there's no, that there's no, uh, exercise-- that there's no, um, exercise value in it, just that there are better exercises than karate. I don't think anybody would say that the best way to get in shape is to do karate. It's, you know, um, it's one of many forms of athleticism. I think that we should not include karate in one of our schools. That's what the-- From here, the Rebbe goes into a different topic in his letter. Um, so what we're getting here from karate, from the Rebbe's take on karate, and the only letter that we know of of the subject, I searched far and wide, and I don't believe the Rebbe ever wrote about martial arts in any other context. This is our only letter, and of course, it is specific to this school in Miami and his concerns. We do see a couple concerns here. One thing that we see is that anything that is cannot be done at all. The Rebbe is not happy with anything that is He specifically lists boxing and wrestling, and also does not seem to feel that karate falls into that category, or he simply would have listed karate there. So karate in and of itself doesn't seem to be the same as boxing and wrestling in that it's not It doesn't inspire people to be violent in the same way. Nonetheless, the Rebbe is concerned about martial arts for a different reason. He says, even if you, uh, even if

18:50 you take the violent element out of martial arts and turn it into something that will not be you also have the fact that when martial arts is cleansed in one school, other schools will wanna do it in a way that is, uh, that is, that is less kosher. And he's worried that either they'll get what they want and they'll be able to do less kosher forms of karate, or they won't get what they want and there will be resentment. And furthermore, he doesn't feel that, uh, he doesn't feel that it's all that necessary for physical health, so he doesn't want it in our schools. If this can be extended, and I don't know that it can, but if this can be extended, there is a hanging implication here that would have a lot of, uh, applicability for, uh, for, for other activities. The Rebbe's saying that even when you make something kosher, at least in the case of karate, even when you make something kosher for your school, if people know what that thing normally involves, they're going to demand the non-kosher version of it, and they're-- and you've introduced something now that everybody else has to deal with. I don't know if this applies to things like kosher yoga or kosher meditation or other activities where they've been made mutar, but one could imagine that it might, right? One, one could imagine that the Rebbe's shitah here is that my problem with kosher karate is that it's going to lead to non-kosher karate. You

19:54 could wonder if that applies to other fields that people are gradually making kosher versions of, but that's just a guess. In any case, um, I looked up to see what, uh, some of our poskim, some of our rabbonim were saying about martial arts, about karate, about boxing, um, and, uh, they all seem to be asking the paintball shailah nowadays. Nowadays, everybody was asking the paintball shailah, "Can we do paintball?" It would seem that paintball has a lot of the same inyan. Rav Brenner has a teshuvah revo-re-revolving around paintball, where he also discusses martial arts and also discusses boxing and wrestling, and he seems to feel there that we might have a heter in the bottom of the Alter Rebbe over here. Let me just pull it up on the screen, and then we'll finish for the day. We saw down here that the Alter Rebbe says that it is mutar for somebody to give you permission to hit them if they're going to benefit from it, if it's, uh, if it's a tovah hiloy, if it's a tovah for them. The example the Alter Rebbe gives is teshuvah. But it sounds like we do have, we do have enough au-authority over our bodies to permit people to hurt us if we actually benefit from it. He wanted to say that it's possible in cases like paintball, where it's a recreational activity that people, uh, that people look forward to, when it's a recreational sport that involves one person hitting another, maybe something like tackle football,

20:59 that you could imagine that if you could say maybe that it's tovah hiloy, that their reshus for hitting would work because in that case, it's clearly good for them. I'm not sure I agree, 'cause I don't think anybody wants to get hit in any of these sports. Meaning, a person plays paintball, ideally, they don't wanna get hit. They wanna hit the other person. That's the goal of the sport. When you're playing tackle football, you don't wanna get tackled. You want them to miss you. So I, I don't think that you can really say tovah hiloy by any activity where I go into it hoping I don't get hit. But, uh, but I, I guess it, uh, that-that's a, that's a thought of Ian. Anyway, the Rebbe's shitah on, uh, or something like the Rebbe's shitah on boxing, on wrestling, and on karate in the only letters that we have on the subject.