מה אתה חייב לעיר הולדתך?

00:01 Speaker 1 This is Igris. Today we have a for you to look at on the screen. However, this is not just a it is also, of course, in the volume that we're learning this year, . We're going way back in time to the days of Hanukkah, because what we've done is we have caught up pretty much all of the letters that I wanted to cover that are timely, we've covered until Elul. So, uh, we're going into Menachem Av. For the next month, we're going to go back and do all the letters that we missed in the earlier part of the book, so that we can go into Elul with a clean slate, which by the way, is just good advice in general to go into Elul with a clean slate. Uh, yes, we're talking about teshuva, and it's not even Av yet. In any case, we have the letter, we also have the . I just wanted to show it to you because it's cool to see sometimes when we have the original, uh, when we have the original . You can see it if you're looking on the screen. If you're listening, this is part of the experience that you only get when you when you come to the live share. In any event, we will read the letter. The letter is . It's from , and all the letters that we're looking at today are going to have sort of a common thread. Not sort of a common thread, a very specific common thread through

01:00 Speaker 1 them, which is this is the that I've used in a lot of letters. This is a very strange perspective that Rebbe gave in , which we're going to cover-- which we're going to reconcile in some of the later letters. But the Rebbe's sheet is like this. Uh, it's not just there's an expression in America that charity starts at home. You've heard of charity starts at home. You have to give to your locale before you give to other places. There's also an idea in that if your own area needs money, you give to them before you give some foreign area. However, the Rebbe does not say in these letters that charity starts at home. He says that obligations to home come before charity anywhere and that you are obligated. You owe your home. You owe the people that you come from. You owe the locale that you find yourself in, the locale that raised you because that's where you got your powers from. So if you are a particularly talented educator, and you become a talented educator in, I don't know, New Jersey, and then you decide you're going to travel to Eretz Yisrael and use those skills to strengthen the land of Israel, the Rebbe says, "How dare you? Who gave you that power? You got that power from New Jersey. You owe New Jersey the things that they gave you." Now, the Rebbe in the last letter we're going to look at is going to explain how this works vis-à-vis , which would seem

02:04 Speaker 1 to be a steer-up to the entire idea of us spreading our, uh, spreading, you know, all sort of the incubator of Crown Heights and spreading far and wide. The Rebbe's gonna reconcile that, but the idea is all over the place. So we have in our letter today . Let's read it. Nice short one. The Rebbe says, "You're writing back. You asked a question on my previous letter." We don't have the previous letter. The Rebbe says, "I never meant to write to you theoretically. If you thought we were having a theoretical discussion, you misunderstood the tone of my prior letter." The Rebbe says, "There's a time right now we wouldn't be having a theoretical discussion at a time when there are actual and very pressing matters in life, and here's one of them." What is the fact? What is the situation? The fact is you were born to Jewish parents, and they raised you. And this is, uh-- And in addition to that, several other people, um-- uh, several other Jewish people were involved in helping you. That's what that . So you were helped by your parents, they raised you, and also many Jews raised you and also helped you. All this stuff that you have, this deep understanding, this enthusiasm, these feelings that you have, what made them possible? That only in thanks, only in re-- uh, only because of these, uh, factors, these people who raised you. So I don't know who wrote this letter, it doesn't say, but you get i-the idea

03:31 Speaker 1 from the tone of the letter that we have somebody here who's interested in bringing their talents outside of the Jewish people. Maybe somebody who, uh, wants to engage in what was very popular at the time. The Rebbe was writing to young people most of these letters. Uh, a lot of young people at the time were very interested in traveling overseas and doing what we nowadays call white saviorism, where a, uh, rich white kid goes over to a tribe and tries to, like, give them running water. So, uh, he was interested in bringing his talents elsewhere, it seems, outside of the Jewish people. And the Rebbe is saying, first of all, where did you get not only your understanding of world situations, not only your feeling and your emotions, your , not only your merits, your enthusiasm, where did you get all of these qualities from? You got them from the Jewish people, from your parents who are Jewish and from Jews who raised you. Therefore, there is a fundamental that everybody accepts. All humanity accepts this rule. The Rebbe says, "When, uh, some-- when you-- when a family member is in danger, it is not the proper time to check out philosophical matters and to travel the world and try to decide which nation needs your help the most. Your family needs help." There is also another fundamental . That's sort of charity starts at home. Now look at is where the Rebbe becomes more unique. There's also another fundamental . In addition to that,

04:47 Speaker 1 you have a debt. You have a debt that you owe to your surroundings, to the people around you, a personal debt to the people around you and to your location. They made you into someone who can help other people. So what happens is we have a-- in a lot of foreign countries, we have something that's called brain drain, is that you see a lot of other countries where they'll raise, they'll raise great scholars, and those scholars will run away to America and then give us all of their, uh, give us all of their, um, all of their talent. And all of these other countries have been complaining about that, trying to recruit their natives back home to say, "Look, we raised you, we paid for your education, we took care of you, and now you're sending your talent to America." The Rebbe's saying something somewhat similar, of course, when it comes to . That, uh, the Jewish people have a unique sensibility, a sensitivity, an understanding of the world, and we raise uniquely sensitive and uniquely talented people. And for our uniquely talented people to then go give that somewhere else when we're suffering doesn't make any sense. First of all, you have a , you have an obligation to the people who made you what you are. They made you the kind of person who's capable of helping others. Only after that , only after you have helped the people, paid off your debt to the people who made you who you are, can

05:52 Speaker 1 we talk about how you might help people outside of your immediate surroundings. So we get through the i-- what we get from this letter is the idea that the Rebbe understands the circumstances of our upbringing that made us into the kind of people who are useful to the entire world, to also obligate us, and first and foremost, obligate us to help the Jewish people because the Jewish people are the ones who made us capable of helping other people. It's a very interesting idea. This letter is from the year Taf Shin Lamed Zion, and I have it as a photocopy here and not as a text on your screen because, uh, this Chabad library website, which is great, doesn't have text letters after the year Taf Shin Lamed Gimel. So this one is a PDF, but it's in Yiddish, and this is, uh, Taf Shin Lamed Zion that's on your screen. The letter is Yud Aleph and then Taf Taf Kuf Pei Ches. It is a long letter. I don't know if we're gonna read all of it. It's not that long, but it's long-ish. It's got some really interesting things in it. The Rebbe says, uh, in so many words, "With all sorts of things I could talk about in the letter that you sent me, but there's a very pressing matter that's ha-- that's shayeach right now, and since it's a pressing matter that is applicable right now, and you don't even mention it in your letter, I wanna talk to you about something

07:05 Speaker 1 you don't even mention in your letter that's more important than all the things you wrote in your letter." This letter, the only thing we know about it is it's written to somebody involved in Israeli security who was beginning to become frum, and possibly in the Shin Bet according to one version that I found. Says by way of introduction, the first The Rebbe says, "First of all, you need to understand that every single person has an inheritance. Whether or not they got a lot of money from their ancestors, they have a emotional and spiritual inheritance." And he's not just talking about the fact that you're Jewish. He says that we all receive an inheritance, first of all, from our parents, and second of all, from the people who are around us, our teachers and the like. We have incredible wealth just from our circumstances. Our circumstances give us things. What do they give us? That is certain feelings and talents, and education, direct and indirect and other things. All sorts of things that make up our personalities. Personalities are very much nurture, not nature. There's very little that's in our nature. So almost everything that makes me, me comes from the people who I was around when I was younger. These are the things that allow me to be the person I am today. he says, "Based on this, it is very simple to understand." Therefore, every person is obligated to pay a debt to the people who made them what they are and to their

08:20 Speaker 1 surroundings that made them what they are. to his nation specifically. That is they use-- he should use his unique enthusiasm to, uh, to impact their good and to protect them, to impact them for good and to protect them. This is an important line here. He says, "It should be understood, it should be self-understood, that paying off this debt is more important than any other, um, any other thing you might want to do, and also more important than anything you might personally enjoy," especially when it comes to my own things. I might have things I want to do, and it doesn't really matter. First of all, before I do what I want to do, I have to pay off my debts, and my debts are to the people and the circumstances that made me. Point two, you've heard this one before 'cause it's a expression. When you see a burning house, there's lots of people in it. There's no time for any other things to do. You have to specifically save the people who are inside the burning building. The people who need to be saved first are the ones who don't know the building's on fire. The ones who are in most danger are the ones who are unaware that anything's going wrong at all. Based on the pre-- prior two things the Rebbe said, how should this apply to the individual who he's writing to? You, like everybody else, um yeah. You received like any other Jew, I assume is what that means. You've

09:39 Speaker 1 received these things from the Jewish people, you've received them from teachers, from going into the military, right, into an Israeli, in the Shin Bet. You've received a lot of what you are, an incredible wealth from the Jewish people. And two, the Jewish people are in an incredible sakana. the disease of assimilation, um, uh, inner marriage, disconnect from the entire past, ideal, uh, the, the abandonment of all ideals, an incredible lack of people who can lead others in the upright path. The Rebbe lists these as the great sakanas of the Jewish people. It's worth noting what they are, because if you wanna know what the Rebbe considers the great sakanas of the Jewish people, that would be assimilation, inner marriage, disconnect from the past, abandonment of ideals, and a lack of people to show others the right way. I didn't find in your entire letter anything about these problems. You never write to me about those-- about how you helped these issues in the past. You also didn't tell me how you're going to help these things in the future. And you have to do this immediately, because the house is on fire. Every single day, many of our young people are burnt up in these, uh, in these ter-- there's a bit of a mixed metaphor here if the Rebbe will forgive me, burnt up in these terrible, um, in these terrible, uh, magefas, which are plagues. The Rebbe says here, this is just great, says that, uh, "I do not mean that I want

11:09 Speaker 1 you to hold a scientific experiment to figure out like sociologically why the Jewish people are not relating to Judaism." I don't want you to give very nice and polished spe-speeches. I don't want you to give, uh, to publicize this at the UN specifically. But I also don't want you to exempt yourself from paying back this debt to recogni-- to, uh, to, uh, rescue souls from the burning, from the conflagration. Good word. Based on humility that has no place whatsoever. People say sometimes, "Who am I? What am I? Nobody's gonna listen to me. This isn't really my place in the world." So I also don't want you to exempt yourself. So whereas I don't want you to take a scientific approach or a polished speech approach or go scream this at the UN, I also expect you not to pat yourself, Rama, to exempt yourself around by saying that you're unworthy of the task. So once again, we have a message from the Rebbe that is very clear that he feels that this individual owes the Jewish people before any of his other ideals and before any of his other creature comforts, specifically because the place that he got these qualities, these, uh, these talents, and these abilities from is from the Jewish people themselves. There's a third letter over here. This is in volume Yud Aleph from Tav Shin Tes Vav, and the letter is labeled Gimmel Tav Shin Lamed. And because it is quite long, I highlighted the most important part down here, but

12:27 Speaker 1 it'd be a shame to just skip it because there's, there's just so many interesting things in these letters. This is somebody, I believe, unless I have the wrong one. No, this is the right one. This is someone who wanted to backpack around the world to find herself. I used to see this all the time on campus. This was a-- this is a very common campus question. The students would tell me that they, uh, that they needed to take some time off to find themselves. This is somebody writing to the Rebbe saying that she needs to find herself. You're writing-- I'm responding to your letter from Menachem Av. See, it is timely. She's, she's, she's writing that she's finished learning, and she sees that she lacks a certain independence. She finds herself in a confused situation. She has an idea to travel to a certain location. maybe spend a year there. And she figures that when she's in a new environment, she won't then be able to feel, uh, pushed upon by her parents. She won't have to take advice from her parents anymore. on every single thing she does. and in that case, she feels that she will then for the first time find her independence and she'll leave a state of doubt and confusion. And she asks the Rebbe about this. So her plan, "I need to spend a little bit of time away from my parents. I'm gonna backpack across Europe. I don't know. I'm gonna spend a year in a foreign country.

13:41 Speaker 1 I need to find myself out there, and then I'll know who I really am, and I won't be so confused anymore." She writes to the Rebbe asking for the Rebbe's advice. You can already kinda guess, even if you know the first thing about the Rebbe, that he is not going to say this is a good idea. However, the direction he takes is, I think, unique and also speaks very much to the topic we're on today. So he says, to this place. He doesn't say where, It sounds like you're not trying to travel to this place to relax or to enjoy yourself. It sounds like your whole idea the idea is that you're trying to find yourself out there. You wanna re-- you want to discover your, uh, your innermost qualities and the things that make you special. So the Rebbe says it sounds like you're not going for pleasure. It sounds like you're going for a purpose. If it's true that you're not traveling for pleasure, that you're traveling for a purpose, hoping to find yourself, the Rebbe says in that case, you will not benefit. There's no point in going to this place. There's no p-- no, no, no point in traveling there. It is a in- is a incredible something, very doubtful. It is very doubtful you'll be able to seize any of your talents in that place, and it's a great doubt whether you will even be able to seize or recognize some of your talents when traveling abroad. I wanna skip

15:00 Speaker 1 this section here 'cause he just talks about how she would do better off if she was from Eretz Yisrael. She would do better off staying in Eretz Yisrael, especially during the which is gonna be the Sukkot, I believe. So maybe-- yeah, Sukkot, so I don't think that the Rebbe was happy about that. I wanna jump down here to this paragraph just because we're short on time. You do have the letter as a link in your, uh, WhatsApp, so I encourage you to read the whole thing. There's so many interesting little words. Just don't have time. He said all of this is me answering you and telling you that I don't think you'll actually be able to benefit the way that you think you'll be able to. but in the following lines, I wanna come to the central issue. I didn't find this anywhere in your letter. Says that something you didn't mention in your letter is that something like twenty-- something like ninety percent, excuse me, something like ninety percent of the young people living in Eretz Yisrael, they are, uh, they're confused in their ways. They're full of . They're full of doubts when it comes to how they should live their lives and how they should move their lives forward. They don't, they don't know what path to pick, . Says in most of the cases, there's a reason why they have these doubts is because they don't understand a whole lot of things, and they don't know a lot. They're . From

16:15 Speaker 1 this, it's understood . This then understood that anybody who has any sort of power to influence others to influence others certainly somebody found in that place, uh, they should understand that they have an incredible responsibility to help these people, to help these young people in their lives, and help them in their birth pangs. He says the birth pangs of maturing spiritually and maturing. anybody who has those talents in knowing how to speak to people and help them mature as people and mature as Yidden then has an obligation, to sanctify, to dedicate, to dedicate a good portion of their enthusiasm and their talents to help the people, the young people in their area in those situations. Every single day and week that passes, there are children and the, uh, every single day and, uh, every single week that passes, these young people are at risk of getting, uh, of, of entering into a greater, more dangerous situation, uh, for their future because they are because they are relying on their own ideas. Because they don't have anybody to guide them. I highlighted this part 'cause it's the main takeaway from the letter for us. Anybody who through through God's providence is not somebody who has these fundamental doubts, because they received a good education from their surroundings, doing the above is only paying off a debt. Based on what was given to them in this exact union. The reason why you don't have any doubts is because you came from a that gave you no doubts,

17:59 Speaker 1 and therefore it's your job to pass that lack of doubt onto people who are full of doubts. Even if you tried your very best and put one hundred percent of your efforts into this, you would only be paying back part of the debt of the people who made you so good. Nobody has permission to exempt themselves from this holy work. So once again, this is the Rebbe telling somebody that they owe their, uh, they owe their, um, they owe the-- you know, I hate to use a modern phrase. The Rebbe is almost telling some people to check their privilege, to use a very modern phrase. And you don't realize that the things that make you you, you're very privileged, and the privilege comes from the Jewish people, and you owe us a debt. You o-you have to pay us back for the, uh, for the abilities that you have. And to believe that somehow you came about these abilities by, abilities by yourself, and now you can pay them wherever you like, that's not exactly how paying a debt works. This last letter that I wanna show you is the longest one of them all, and we are not going to come even close to reading all of it. Uh, we're certainly not gonna read the second half of it. Um, but I did put it as a link. You should read it. It's really cool. This is a group of students who were studying in Eretz Yisrael. I don't believe they were from Eretz

19:02 Speaker 1 Yisrael from the context of the letter. It sounds like they had traveled there from America to study in Eretz Yisrael for a year, and they wrote two questions to the Rebbe. Their first question was, "What do you think about American students coming to live in Eretz Yisrael? What do you think about Aliyah?" And the second is, "What do you think about making peace with the Arabs?" Obviously, today, we're not going to talk about peace with the Arabs, but if you remind me, maybe we'll do the second half of the letter sometime. Here, the Rebbe answers the first question. Excuse me, What do I think about young people making Aliyah from America to Eretz Yisrael? And bottom line, the Rebbe is basically not a fan of it, except for in specific scenarios, and you can guess why. Because based on all of our prior letters that we've seen, the Rebbe feels that people owe a debt to the surroundings where they come from, and that, uh, they have specific talents when it comes to the areas that they come from, and that therefore, an American who was raised-- an American Jew who was raised in America and, uh, and is successful as a Jew here, who then takes all of that talent to Eretz Yisrael, is putting at risk all of the Americans that they're leaving behind. So it says, I have to give, uh, a hakdamah. I think we started a little late, so we're gonna have to run a few minutes late today. I

20:03 Speaker 1 hope that doesn't, uh... If it does, you can sign off, but I, I hope you won't leave me. People have two stages in their lives, he says. Generally speaking, we have a first stage in our lives. Generally speaking, the first part of our lives, we are We accept things from other people. We are, uh, passive receivers of things. We don't give much back to our society. That certainly is the case when we're very little. Small babies are effectively parasites, but they end up giving back a whole lot, so we invest a lot in them when they're in a passive state. This is also young people. When we're young, for a period of time, we are passively receiving from our elders, from our families, from the, from the area around us. When it comes to the second stage in our lives, then the hope is The hope is that at least in the main sense, maybe we're always somewhat receiving, but we hope that mainly we'll end up being We hope that w-- that, that older people will end up giving back. That they will end up having a positive effect on their environments, on their surroundings, and on their family. We hope that they will expand to, uh, the, uh, the, the widest possible range of their immediate area, not just helping people in their house, maybe helping people in their town, in a way that is, uh, in a way that is, uh, desirable. It is therefore understood that first of all, we hope

21:18 Speaker 1 from every person, we hope that when we raise a person up, they're going to remove evil, because that's sort of paying back. So what he's saying here is what he said up until now, that if a person removes negative things, evil from their midst, what they're doing is they're paying back the debt, and they're also sort of, um, it-- they're, uh-- it's-- I'm looking for something better than paying back a debt. It's like a, it's like a, uh, investment maturing, really. Is that we invest in small children, hoping that they're going to get rid of some of the evil in our areas, get rid of some of the negativity where we live, and then they grow up to do that, hopefully. They are given the ability by the people who raised them to recognize good and to work with it. During stage one of their lives, they received this from the people living around them. Therefore, first and foremost, it is a responsibility on every person to have a little bit of, uh, of... What, what's a good translation? To, um... There's one word for it in English. It means to recognize the good, but here it means to have gratitude. There we go. Gratitude. That is to pay the debt that is placed upon to, uh, to pay back all the people who had a positive effect on them. Okay. What is it similar to? Here, the Rebbe drives the mashal home very specifically. He says that let's say that I wanna give money

22:47 Speaker 1 to somebody who's poor, who I do not owe. So that's a wonderful thing. However, that wonderful thing comes only after I give tzedakah to the people who, uh, don't give tzedakah. That comes only after paying back my debts. So if I wanna give tzedakah and I owe a debt to somebody, I don't have a right to take that money that there is effectively a lien on and give it out as charity. And the Rebbe is saying this about our own talents as well, is that we wanna help people who are outside of our circle, outside of our locale, outside of our religion in the first letter, and that may be a noble thing, but that only comes when you don't already owe a debt to the people who raised you and to your locale and to your own people first. You owe that debt. So it's not really a who comes-- which charity comes first. It's more of a every-- all of your talents have a lien on them, and you don't really have a right to put that talent somewhere else until you've paid off that lien. This is actually an even stronger mashal, because what if your malveh, what if the person who lent you that money is in a state of pikuach nefesh, is at risk of dying? And you can save the malveh and his entire family through paying off the debts. Now, the Rebbe has strengthened the situation. He says, "Let's say that I want to-- That I-- Let's say

23:49 Speaker 1 I have exactly one hundred dollars, and I owe somebody a hundred dollars who will starve if they don't have it, and I also have an urge to give it away to tzedakah. What kind of rotten person would give it away to tzedakah? First of all, I have to pay back my debt, and second of all, the guy who I owe is also somebody who desperately needs my help." So he says when it comes to, uh, when it comes to the Jewish people, we also desperately need their help. We're not just people demanding that they pay us back first. We're in need as much, if not more, than everybody else. And our locale, American Jewry, is in as, is in as much need, if not more, than all other locales. So it's not just that they-- that American Jews owe American Jews. It, uh, it's also that American Jews, um, are in more danger, or at least in as much danger. Based on this, you can now understand my answer to your question. Somebody who still has-- A young person who still has that kind of enthusiasm that they have not yet tapped into fully, they need to invest in their immediate area. It is the-- There's a din kadimah. That's the Russian the Rebbe's using. A din kadimah. There is a right of, uh, a right of first refusal, I guess. There's a right of first refusal for the area that they grew up in, the place where they were born, the place from which

24:57 Speaker 1 they received their That is, a Jew born in America, first and foremost, owes American Jewry. And then they'll be able to have a positive effect, to put them in the right direction. I would even say this, if the gr- place you came from doesn't really need your help that much. And was only to strengthen that which was already there. I say this even more when it comes to a group that is, uh, that is shaky and that needs your help, and that, uh, and that there are only a few people holding up the foundation of that location. So what the Rebbe is saying here is that even if the place you came from happens to be in good hands and not need your help, you still owe them. But certainly, if the place you come from needs your help, you owe them more than anything. This is the most important thing, the most obligatory thing. Only after you've paid back that debt can you possibly think about effects in other places. or helping another country. I highlighted this. This is the from the Rebbe. This is the thing that you absolutely must do. Young people in every single country and every single city, when it's time for them to turn the chapter into adulthood, they first of all need to sanctify, set aside their strengths, for the country that they find themselves in. Certainly in our country, and stuff definitely in America where there's all sorts of problems. And the Rebbe goes on to list

26:26 Speaker 1 the problems for the Jewish people in America that rise to the level of . So he does not want American Jews traveling to use their talents el-elsewhere. Only once the children have paid back the debt to the place where they were raised and educated, only then are they allowed to think of their Jewish brothers and sisters in another place. So here, the Rebbe is making the circle smaller. Remember, in our first letter, the Rebbe was saying that a Jew owes the Jewish people first. But here what he's saying is that a Jew in America owes the American Jewish people first. And I think you can extend it even to a state, maybe even to a city, 'cause the Rebbe says the here. Even when it comes to a city, that if you were rai-- that the Jewish children who were raised in Monsey owe Monsey Jewish community first before they travel somewhere else. Now, this would, it sounds like, be a to the Rebbe's entire idea of which is something we talked about at the beginning that I guaranteed w-that we would address. The Rebbe does address it here in this letter. He says, He says, "Certainly sometimes, I'm not saying the kids can never travel," he says, "first of all, it definitely is worthwhile for them sometimes to travel to another place for a short period of time." Or to spend maybe a year or two in The Rebbe has no problem with this. He says, because that's supposed to be a preparation so

27:38 Speaker 1 that when they're adults, they'll be able to do a better job helping their locale. So the Rebbe says it's totally fine if American Jewish students want to go on if they wanna go, go learn in or go on a mini of some kind over there or in a foreign country for a couple of years so that they can come back and help America. For, for them to leave permanently, no way. They owe America. What about ? This could even be many times. However, and this is our important line for us because this answers the question. The Rebbe says, "It is also understood that sometimes the locale itself sends people out to another place." Sometimes the locale that you're from will send you to another place to spend a certain amount of time there or to stay there permanently. This is also you paying back the place you came from. So you see this exception here? The Rebbe doesn't say he's making a exception, but he is. What he's saying is that, "If I'm from America, I owe America, unless America sends me to in which case I am paying back America by being on America's to ." So the Rebbe here is saying that, uh, basically anybody who grew up in Crown Heights, first of all owes the Crown Heights community. Absolutely. And that they're not allowed to go somewhere else and take their talents elsewhere until that's been paid off. However, if Crown Heights itself sends them to another place, that is them paying

28:58 Speaker 1 off their debt to the Crown Heights community. This would apply to any community. So here the Rebbe is allowing within the model of the idea that he doesn't want people leaving the place where they came from, and he actually says down here, we won't have time to read it, but I'll tell it to you outside of this next paragraph, he says, next two paragraphs, he says that, "They also are better at speaking to the place they came from. No one really knows the American youth like a person who grew up in America. And although I could go to and probably have an impact on the youth there, my impact on the youth there would not be nearly as strong as the youth that I know because I was like them. So first of all, I owe them. Uh, first of all, I owe the place I came from because th- because, uh, because that's what made me, me. And second of all, I owe them even stronger because they're in a state of complete-- of, of serious danger. And third of all, I'll be better at it than, uh, than somebody coming from another place. So that's really where my talents can sing, really where I-- really what I'm good for in the first place, in addition to being a debt that I owe." And as to the question of how we send people other places ever, given this motto, how exists, that's only when the locale itself sends you out. If the place you

29:55 Speaker 1 are from says, "We don't want you here. We want you to go spread our message of Monsey, our message of Crown Heights, our message of wherever you're from to somewhere else," that is you serving the locale you came from, but it's not a . So we absolutely owe our locales. We owe our locations that we come from because it's a debt, a-- What's the lesson of the Rebbe in all of these letters? A Everybody has to pay a debt to the place that they come from and not go looking elsewhere, even when that's what they want. Even when that's what they want. Certainly over Okay. That's it.

30:26 Speaker 2 What if you feel that it was, uh, the people that helped rear you, um, also hindered you? Which a lot of labavaters feel that, let's say, certain schools or whatnot, uh, hindered them in a way.

30:39 Speaker 1 That's a really strong question, and I wouldn't dare answer it definitively, but I'm happy to give a guess. No, 'cause th-that's, that's a, that's a, that's a powerful one. Um, my non-definitive answer is, I think that at the end of the day, who you are is due to your environment for good and for bad, and if you're even remotely happy with the kind of person you are, that you owe the environment. Now, that doesn't mean you owe the people who knocked you down. I don't mean that. I mean that, uh, it-- that the circumstances of our upbringing are a mixed bag. Even if you have a very good upbringing and very positive memories, part of what makes you you is the negative ones as well, right?

31:12 Speaker 2 Yep.

31:12 Speaker 1 So, uh, so my immediate-- my immediate environment did make me, and if I'm happy enough with who I am to believe that someone else should benefit from me, then the environment that made me, me is clearly something that I'm somewhat happy with, and therefore I owe it back to them, right? I'll say that one more time 'cause I made it a little confusing. If I think I'm good enough to be an asset somewhere else, that means that I think the place that made me was good enough to have made me that asset, in which case I owe that place first. And if I don't think I'm good enough to be an asset anywhere else, then this question doesn't even arise, you know? But that's a very intellectual answer to a very emotional question. I, I, I'd like, I'd like more time to think about it.

31:47 Speaker 2 All right.

31:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.