על מאמר החלצו (חלק 1)

00:01 Speaker 1 This is Igress, and today we are looking at a letter from volume twenty-eight from the year Tav Shin Lamed Gimel. From this time, believe it or not, almost exactly to the day, fifty years ago, it's a letter from Zion Menachem Av. I believe that's tomorrow, and the letter is Yud Tav Tav Nun Zion. The letter is to the Anhalo of Beis Rivka, and we're not necessarily-- in, in Kfar Chabad, and we're not necessarily using it for all of its material in the middle. We're using it as a launching point into a larger discussion, as we sometimes do. So let's read the letter together, and then we'll, uh, and then we'll talk. The letter's on your screen. The Rebbe writes to the Anhalo of Beis Rivka that's in Kfar Chabad in Eretz HaKadesh, which should be rebuilt speedily in our days with Moshiach Tzadikenu. Shalom Ubracha, he says, that I received your letter from Meitzar Shabbos, and the Rebbe writes, "Yiratim she-yenach latis v'shatevim matzlachas." The Rebbe says clearly they had some achlatis, they had some positive revo-resolutions, so the Rebbe wishes them good luck. "V'shatevim matzlachas," all sort of success in their, in their achlatis, in their resolutions. "V'vadai kol etstavin yikaimu es ha-milu'in," certainly all sides will, uh, fulfill the things that they've promised to do completely. "B'simcha," with happiness, "u'vachtus," and with unity, "u'v'tub levav," and with a good heart. "V'timshech nachon kol habrachas," they will then drag down all the brachos, "ha-mevois," all the brachos that are brought. "V'maimar rabos inu n'siyenu

01:18 Speaker 1 d'v'maascha l'chal tzamei chamanashim." This should bring down all the brachos that are explained in the maimer that is called "Heichal Tzu." "V'zchus harab m'seayan," and certainly the merit of the masses will assist them. "M'chayav es hamazakah," it obligates them, and it also gives them merit. So I don't know the context of the letter. It doesn't necessarily say what happened in the footnotes. You can imagine that there was some sort-- from the context of what he's saying in the paragraph, it sounds like there was probably some sort of argument, and multiple sides all agreed to get past that argument. The reason why I think this is because first of all, the achlata involves multiple sides doing what they promised to do, which sure sounds like the end of a negotiation of some kind, and crucially because the Rebbe says that they'll get all sorts of brachos that are mentioned in a very specific maimer, the Maimer Heichal Tzu. Now, I think everybody who's listening, at least on the screen right now, is familiar with the Maimer Heichal Tzu, but as you know, we now have a massive Spotify audience . So for the, uh, for the adoring masses who may not know the Maimer Heichal Tzu, we do need a little bit of a background. This is one of the most famous Maimer Hasidus. Uh, almost every Rebbe, maybe every Rebbe, I'm not sure. I should really look that up before I give the shiur. This is the Maimer that almost every Rebbe gave a version

02:22 Speaker 1 of at the very least, maybe even all of them. There are several versions of the Maimer Heichal Tzu. The Maimer Heichal Tzu that's most famous, which is the one that the Rebbe is referring to here almost certainly, is the one from the Rebbe Rashab. This is the fundamental piece of Hasidus on Aves Isro, on why we have trouble sometimes with Aves Isro, why sometimes we don't love our neighbor the way we're supposed to, what klipa, what yetzer hara, what evil inclination exactly is getting in the way of us loving our neighbor. It has to do with Midian is the main deal there, and how we conquer it and the rewards in store for somebody who's able to conquer the opposite of Aves Isro. This time of year, we're, uh, we're right now in the nine days. We're getting close to Tisha B'Av. Obviously, the reason why the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, and according to the Alter Rebbe, the reason why we're still in exile, is because the sin of the second Beis Hamikdash is one that we never fully recognized as a sin and also never atoned for fully, and that is the sin of Sinas Chinam, of hating people, of hating our fellow Jews, not engaging enough in the love of our fellow Jews. So matim to that time of year that we're in right now, I wanna talk about the Maimer Heichal Tzu and the way that the Rebbe uses it throughout his letters. This may turn into a two-part series. I

03:21 Speaker 1 think it's going to. I think we'll also do this tomorrow, is just a full exploration of the Rebbe's usage of the Maimer Heichal Tzu. Obviously, the most obvious usage of the Maimer Heichal Tzu is to remind people that Aves Isro is important, Sinas Chinam is bad, and that when everybody gets together, good things happen. That is a common use of the Maimer. It's certainly the, uh, the one-line summary of the Maimer, I think. The best one-line summary of the Maimer possible is that Sinas Chinam is bad, Aves Isro is good, and here's what happens to people who engage in Aves Isro and why some people are having trouble with it. That's sort of the goal of the Maimer. But I wanna explore some of the less, uh, some of the less popular usages of the Maimer and where the Rebbe specifically suggests people learn it. So of course, the letter that we have in front of us is one to people who seem to have been in an argument, and the Rebbe says, "I hope everybody fulfills their side of ending the argument and gets all the brachos that are promised to people who unite in the Maimer Heichal Tzu." We have another letter. We have a few letters from our year. Another letter that's similar to this, also in volume twenty-eight, also in the year Tav Shin Lamed Gimel. This letter is Yud Tav Reis Chaf Beis. And again, the Rebbe references this Maimer in a very similar context. Let me just get us

04:22 Speaker 1 to the, uh, the main part. So they're trying to put together some sort of organization. Uh, looks like Nachla Har Chabad was putting together their first vad, or their first local government of some kind. Um, they were putting together the government or the vad that was supposed to be running the community, maybe the vad of Anash within the community. I'm not entirely sure what they were putting together from the context of the letter, but the point is the Rebbe was very happy that they were putting together an agudam. "Tikvasi chazakah," the Rebbe writes. "Shekol echad yisham l'chaver b'agudah zu." I hope everybody signs up and becomes a member of this organization. "K'movan hamenas l'kayam et hakonas v'chlal v'asei s'agudah." Certainly in order to fulfill the rules of the organization and also to establish the agudam, to establish this organization strongly. "V'chazakah b'kamus v'yeches kam yachad." If everybody becomes a member, this will increase it in quantity and quality. "V'zchus harab m'seayan," and certainly the zchus of the rabim, the merit of the masses will help them. "U'frat achim mevorach b'Tzedek Chabad v'kam b'kemus," the Rebbe says, especially given what is explained in Tzedek Chabad in many places. "V'yuchad b'drush meichal tzu l'cham," the Rebbe says. "Certainly this includes among them the famous Maimer Heichal Tzu, which is mentioned by many of our rabim. "Maasach v'dior Maasach v'l'kud tzedek l'bino azaken. Kochas Heichal Tzu ha-meforsam. Glosis v'kochas v'neshas kas." The Rebbe's giving all the places you can find it. You'll find it from the Friar de

05:31 Speaker 1 Kirabbi. You'll find a sikha about it from the Friar de Kirabbi. You'll find a Maimer about it from the Rebbe Rashab. "U'frat achim yeidua she Maimer Heichal Tzu meimar k'vuyim b'yuchad b'shvil l'tir rabir." Also, the Rebbe points out that the Maimer Heichal Tzu is one of the ones that was set aside for purifying the air of the world. "Asher pam b'shnaim o shalosh shanam hai n'siyenu. Chezim alei ham rabim." The rabim would review these Maimarim regularly every few years. "Si hayom im chafchas Tammuz of Tav Shin Gimel." What the Rebbe's referring to here is there's a hayom im chafchas Tammuz Tav Shin Gimel as, as, uh, as hinted to by the very words on the page. There's a hayom im that says that every rebbe had a Maimer that they would make their taras aver Maimer, that every rebbe had a Maimer that they would review every now and then just to purify the air. It was their go-to Maimer. They would say it over and over again, sometimes multiple times in a year, to have the desired effect. On that list, the Alter Rebbe's ma'amar is Echad Hu. So the Alter Rebbe had a Echad Hu, and he would from time to time repeat it just to fix the world around him. Each Rebbe has a ma'amar that's mentioned there. The Mitler Rebbe's is something in Derech Chaim. I don't remember all of them. I heard a story that I don't know how to verify, but I know I heard it at a farbrengen

06:31 Speaker 1 one time, that, uh, that one year on Pesach, there were a bunch of people pushing to get close to the Rebbe's room while he was by the Seder, and, uh, everybody was shoving. It was getting a little bit aggressive. And the Rebbe called out to some of the people who were in the stairwell shoving, whether they knew each of the, each of the taaros of the ma'amarim that's mentioned in Hayyim for each Rebbe. Do they remember every Rebbe's specific ma'amar he would repeat multiple times? And when nobody could figure it out, the Rebbe said, "People who can't figure it out aren't shayaach to be shoving to get closer to a Pesach Seder if they don't at least know the basic, uh, taaros of the ma'amarim of each of the Rebbeim." So the fact that I don't know makes me un- uh, unworthy of pushing and also makes me not a great teacher for this particular topic. However, I do know that the Alter Rebbe's Echad Hu, the Alter Rebbe's taaros of ma'amar was Echad Hu. So the Rebbe here is suggesting, again, the ma'amar Echad Hu, talking about how it's an important thing for people to learn who are putting together organizations, that everybody should be, uh, that everybody should be joining together in this organization in the spirit of the ma'amar Echad Hu, which is not just an important ma'amar about Ahavas Yisroel, but also a taaros of ma'amar, one meant to purify the air and to bring people to, um, a state of

07:30 Speaker 1 Ahavas Yisroel all around us. One more I wanna look at from our year, and then we're gonna diverge a little from the run-of-the-mill stuff. This is another one from taf shin chaf-- taf shin lamed gimel, from volume chaf ches, where the Rebbe talks about this ma'amar. The letter is yud taf taf daled. And this letter, once again, there's a group of people getting together, and they're not necessarily getting along, right? So the Rebbe says, "In order that everything should go well with this organization that you're putting together ." The Rebbe says it would be worthwhile to make sure that in every city there was a va'ad that will help connect the doers and the actions to each other, the asim v'hamasim, the doers and the actions to each other. They'll help organize things and tie things together and arrange everything. Certainly, there's incredible power to the masses, incredible power to the congregation. You'll find more details about this, about the importance of putting together a va'ad that can help connect the other va'ads. You'll find this also in the ma'amar Echad Hu. Uh, a little background on the ma'amar Echad Hu just in general. The Friddle Rebbe has a sicha. The Rebbe actually just quoted in one of our previous letters. Um, he said that the Friddle Rebbe has a sicha that describes the context of Echad Hu. I wanna fill in some of the gaps on that. The Alter Rebbe is obviously the first Echad Hu because he's the first, he's the first source

08:43 Speaker 1 of all of our ma'amar. The Alt-- the entire Tares Chabad is the Alter Rebbe's. Everything else is, uh, with a couple s-- with a couple of rare exceptions, almost every ma'amar is somewhere in the Alter Rebbe's taira. So the Alter Rebbe originally said this ma'amar in the lifetime of the Maggid, which is quite rare. We don't have a lot of ma'amarim from the Rebbe that were said in the lifetime of the Maggid. When the Alter Rebbe first said this ma'amar, according to the Friddle, Friddle Rebbe, it was a version of the ma'amar that began with the statement in Yoma on tes amadeis that, uh, that the reason why he-- the, the reason why the first Beis Hamikdash was... Well, I guess I gotta get the-- The reason why the second Beis Hamikdash was rebuilt quickly was because the first one was destroyed for sins that everybody, uh, recognized as sins and took very seriously, and the reason why the second Beis Hamikdash has not been rebuilt yet is because the sin of Sinas Chinam is not taken seriously enough, and therefore the date of our redemption is concealed. So there's a Gemara like that in Masach Yoma. The Alter Rebbe spun off of that to say a ma'amar Echad Hu, and it was because in the town of Smorgon, which he was traveling through, there were a bunch of, uh... I just, I can, I can so easily imagine this happening. There were a bunch of, uh, rich guys in the town of Smorgon. They

09:42 Speaker 1 had a bunch of daughters, and they obviously, back then, you wanted your daughter, if you had money, you wanted to spend it on having your daughter marry a Talmid Chacham. And what you would do is you would use that money to attract a Talmid Chacham to your daughter, and also to promise that you would support that guy while he was learning the first, you know, decade or two of the marriage. So what happened was we had a lot of rich guys in Smorgon and one poor Rav, and these rich guys all brought in rich-- they all brought in Talmidi Chacham as son-in-laws. The son-in-laws learned there for a long time, and they were bothering the rabbi to no end. They would just ply him with all sorts of questions, frequently to make him look stupid. They just weren't very nice to him. So this big group of sons-in-laws were ruining the rabbonis of Smorgon, and because of that, the Rebbe said this ma'amar Echad Hu, supposed to, to, to inspire them to have a little more Ahavas Yisroel. Uh, the Rebbe Rashab's, uh, the Rebbe Rashab's is the most famous version of Echad Hu, definitely. That is from the year eighteen ninety-eight, and he said it twice that year. He said it once on Simchas Torah and once on the Parashas Noach, in both cases because he was trying specifically to, uh, to encourage more Ahavas Yisroel in a particular area. The Friddle Rebbe doesn't give details about the Simchas Torah one. He just says

10:42 Speaker 1 that there was a movement among frum people that the Rebbe Rashab said poses a greater danger to Yiddishkeit than non-frum people, and I don't know who they were. I have no idea who they were, but the Rebbe Rashab was very concerned about them, and so he, uh, he said the ma'amar the first time in order to, uh, in order to somehow end that klipa, which must have had something to do with Sinas Chinam, but I, I have no idea what he meant. The second one is a lot more clear. When he repeated the ma'amar in Parashas Noach, that was also a Ahavas Yisroel problem. There was somebody there. Who was he? He was-- I have in my notes. It was, uh, it was Rebbe Leibish Schneersohn. He was the son of Menachem Nachum, who was the son of the Mitler Rebbe. So he was there, and he was, he was present on Simchas Torah. And while he was a Yirash Mayim, and, uh, while the Friddle Rebbe said he had a fair amount of bittul as well, he also lacked certain compassion. He was not very friendly, and he wasn't very nice to very simple people. He was actually quite mean to simple people, and there was a big argument at the time in the town where he lived, and he was part of the argument. So in honor of him being present at the farbrengen, once again, the Rebbe Rashab repeated the ma'amar Echad Hu. So this ma'amar has been weaponized, if you will,

11:42 Speaker 1 by the Rebbeim throughout the years as a way of, uh, as a way of nipping in the bud lack of Ahavas Yisroel, uh, Sinas Chinam, and the inyanim that, of course, we're working on fixing this time of year. Going back to the letters, we have the most, uh, what we have so far is three letters from the Rebbe where he basically says, "Let's use Echad Hu to create, to engender Ahavas Yisroel and to get rid of Sinas Chinam and to encourage people to join together in agudas." And we saw from the Friddle Rebbe that's also historically how it was used. Let's look at some less conventional, uh, less conventional usages. This one is a letter from-- it's in volume chaf hei. It's in volume twenty-five, so the year is taf shin chaf ches. The letter is tes, tad, tes, tav, tadek. There we go. And all the way down here in entry dalet, the Rebbe writes, Since we say in all things that God looked into the Torah and only then created the world, similarly, a person can look into the Torah and fix the world. I think that's wild and is worth, is worth the entire share for that line, 'cause let me read it again. It's just so impressive. Says here that since God looked into the Torah to create the world, that means that I can look into the Torah to fix the world. I can go back in and edit it. If there's something wrong in the world, I can edit

12:59 Speaker 1 the world using the Torah since the world was first created u-using Torah. Just incredible. It says that therefore, there was at the time an argument going on in Kfar Chabad. They were trying to decide whether to hold elections, uh, for something that the Rebbe didn't want them holding elections for. In any case, there was some disagreements in Kfar Chabad. The Rebbe says, every single shul in Kfar Chabad therefore should be learning everybody needs to participate as well. Certainly all the people who are involved in this argument, every-- basically he wants in every shul in Kfar Chabad, everybody participating in a, in a shir, in a public shir on specifically on Certainly you have it, and the Rebbe says that we just printed another version of it with all sorts of additions. If you don't have it, we'll send you more. The Rebbe says, "Whatever it takes." He wants everybody learning as a way to, uh, as a way to, uh, directly treat the problem. So in our prior letters, what we saw is that the Rebbe was saying that when you look in the you see the advantages of you see the disadvantages of Here, the Rebbe is prescribing the He's telling a group of people who are in an argument that the only way out of the argument is to look back into the Torah to edit the world, is that the world that you're in right now is a world that is full of and if you find yourself in a the only

14:13 Speaker 1 way out is to edit it through Torah, is to go back to Torah and fix the problem from where it starts. And where does the problem start? In Torah. Where does the Torah have a solution? The So the Rebbe is saying that in a, in a, in Kfar Chabad, where they were having these arguments, they need to create public in order to engender more and certainly those arguing needed to participate in it, but also everybody had to. Ev- it's, it's that everybody has to participate and it's that it should be in every shul, and certainly those who are at the head of the argument absolutely need to be part of this project. So we have now an example of the Rebbe prescribing as a medication. I wanna give you a really strange one, and with that we'll conclude for today and possibly, I think almost certainly pick up tomorrow with more stuff in order to, uh... The goal being, I think, I think the goal being to inspire us in these days leading up to Tisha b'Av to learn the and to internalize its messages and bring Mashiach. Um, that, that, that last part's gotta be the goal. Um, this is the letter from the Rebbe Rashab about his own and, uh, it's actually not about the It's a very long letter about how people don't take davening seriously anymore. It's a, it's a great letter. It's printed in a sefer that's called, um, I believe. Put it together with a bunch of letters from

15:21 Speaker 1 the, from the various Rebbeim about tefillah. But this one section uses to inspire you to daven better, which is a definitely a novel use of it. So this is from the Rebbe Rashab. I just wanna note at the top of the page here, the Rebbe says, the Rebbe Rashab says, The Rebbe Rashab says it is a a Torah obligation a literal Torah obligation to have these to think deeply in davening, in in the with the very depths of the thought and to inspire the hidden love that we have for God. This is not optional. This is not This is not something that the do. This is not something the old men do. He says it's So the Rebbe Rashab uses the lotion of for that. Anyway, what we're reading right here is section dalet. He said that it used to be that even people who were involved in business used to at least daven at length on Shabbos. They would at least have on Shabbos. Maybe not during the week, what can you do? But on Shabbos they would He says it used to be that these workers who didn't have time to daven properly during the week would at least daven real deeply on Shabbos, and a echo of that would last them the entire week. And nowadays he says, "You basically see nobody doing this." There's basically nobody involved in davening on Shabbos. So if you have complaints of modern you should know these complaints existed in the times of the Rebbe Rashab,

16:53 Speaker 1 that basically nobody's keeping up with the Says, "I know that all of you have good reasons for this. You've explained. You all have You all have good excuses for why you don't daven at length." "You put one thing against the other. You think maybe it's ." Tell me you haven't heard this argument before, and tell me this sounds like this is the-- tell me this sounds like it's the of the Rebbe Rashab. You would think that this is a letter coming out of yesterday. What do people say? "I have other things that are also important. You gotta make trade-offs. I'm doing mitzvahs. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm so busy with mitzvahs, I don't have time to daven. I have to go to the I have to make sure that I'm involved in I can't be davening all day and, uh, and have time to put tefillin on people in the street." People have excuses, right? They say, "I can't be a davener. I've gotta be a doer," or something else. You can't-- "I can't list all of them," but they're all there. "You all should know that every one of these they're all false. Everybody has time to daven." At the end of the day, if there's no avodah, they'll become coarse, they'll become thick, they'll become distant. Uh, there's no, uh, there, there, there's no excuses for not davening at some length. Now, he's go-- and it's a strong letter, I'm sorry. he says in this paragraph, he says, "Even people who aren't involved

18:09 Speaker 1 in their work and don't have good excuses and are people who learn all day, they're not davening well either." So just continuing down here. He says,

18:18 Speaker 2 im in le tal