פרק מיוחד: ר׳ לויק

00:02 Speaker 1 This is Iggros, and today we are having a special episode, and the reason why is because it's Chaf Ov, Chaf Menachem Ov, the, uh, the Rebbe's father, Rebbe Levi Yitzchak. And I looked in our volume, uh, that we're learning this year, the year Tav Shin Lamed Gimel, volume is Chaf Tes. We don't have anything on Chaf Ov. We also don't have anything in particular on the Rebbe's father. The only mention in our year is that some people had opened a Rebbe Levi Yitzchak library, which we actually discussed in one of our prior shiurim. So we don't have much about the Rebbe's father, the Rebbe's father's Torah. Uh, Tav Shin Lamed would have been a fun year to look into. I almost made that our topic today because that was the year the Rebbe started publishing his father's work, and so we have some letters about his enthusiasm about the, about the publishing, including one that he sends to Shazar saying, "I'm sending you a-- Since we're, since we're so close, I'm going to send you some of the early prints of my father's work on Tanya." Um, but that's not what we're gonna do today. What we're gonna do today instead is I wanna look at a letter from Rebbe Levi. A very short letter, but also in Rebbe Levi's own words, his most important letter. Rebbe Levi considered this the most important letter he ever wrote, and he says this himself, as we'll see. First of all, before we do that, though, I do

01:00 Speaker 1 wanna point out there's a letter here from Tav Shin Mem Daled, which is always pronounced Daled Mem because of the bad acronym. And the Rebbe asks what we should do on Chaf Menachem Ov. I have this on the screen for you. He says, "Chaf Menachem Ov yom yiortzeit v'yilulah shel my father, Levi Yitzchak ben HaRav Reb Boruch Schneer, Reb Boruch Schneer," um, and all of the honorifics. "Alai acheivah s'chus gadol la'atzil v'lakish." It is my great obligation and also my great merit to emphasize and to request. "Nilmed vi'sadi yismitera sei." The people should learn from Rebbe Levi's Torah. They should learn from the Rebbe's father's Torah on his yortzeit. "U'natah v'yamidin lizech nishmasan." They should also donate some money in honor of his neshama, lizech nishmasan. "Shmasan asah al hapatzas hayadus." What did the Rebbe's father do? He gave his life for spreading Yiddishkeit b'sei Bnei Yisrael among the Jewish people. "Miacharei mes achavarzah," from the other side of the Iron Curtain. "Da ide zeh haya chovesh v'esasurim." He was put in prison. "Venishpat l'galus." He was sentenced to exile. "Umeis b'geulah." And he died in exile. "V'shama nuchas kavod." And that is where he rested. That was his resting place. "S'chus yog analeinu al kol Yisrael shlita." So the Rebbe says that my father suffered terribly for the Jewish people, and he suffered to spread Yiddishkeit everywhere. He was imprisoned, he was exiled, and he died in exile. And how I would like you to commemorate the day of his death is by learning

02:14 Speaker 1 some of his Torah, and also by giving some tzedakah in honor of his neshama. Obviously, today in the Iggros here, I don't think we're gonna be giving tzedakah, but we can learn a little bit of his Torah, and his Torah includes his writing. I'm gonna show you a letter here. This is a piece of a letter, and this piece of a letter is something that Rebbe Levi wrote after sending the letter we're going to learn today. So the Rebbe Levi-- the letter we're gonna learn today is a letter that Rebbe Levi sent on the day of the Rebbe's chasuna, and it is a one hundred and one-word letter. It's one hundred and one words long exactly. He made it exact. He mentions it here as his one hundred and one-word, uh, dipesh, which I believe is like a dispatch, but I think he means it's a telegram. So it was sent as a telegram. Here he writes a couple months later, "Mikol hameina dipchin shegichah." You had-- You, you definitely got, he writes to the Rebbe, you definitely got a whole bunch of, uh, of telegrams for your wedding. "Cheftzi me'eish dipa-- dipesh shel ishi yesh beih meah ve'echa tevis." It is my deep desire that this telegram that you got from me, which has exactly one hundred and one letters in it, "yihiye shamor etsecha," should be guarded by you. "Ki nichtev mikidas libi." It was written from the depths of my heart, "umeme nafshi," from the depths of my soul. "V'shishmereinu leilech yamim

03:18 Speaker 1 v'shanim, v'shanim, v'shanim tovos ne'imim." You should keep it safe for many long years and in many good years and pleasant years. "Shekvasi lashem yisbarech." It's my hope to Hashem. "Sheykum aleichem kol amar baya." And it's my hope you will keep everything in it. So it's a letter that meant a lot to Rebbe Levi. Uh, Rebbetzin Chana has in her diaries, the Rebbe Levi's wife, the Rebbe's mother, has in her diaries that when Rebbe Levi sat down to write this letter, he soaked the tablecloth with his tears. So it's a short letter. It's a powerful letter. It has a lot of subtext that I do not understand. I understand some of it, but certainly not most of it. Um, and it is something that I think we should look at today because of how much it meant to Rebbe Levi and the fact that the Rebbe did indeed follow what his father asked him and keep it with him for many, many long and good years. This is the letter. It was written on Yud Dalet Taf Res Pey Tes, the day of the Rebbe's chasuna, and sent as a telegram. And it's written to the Rebbe, his name is at the top of the page, to Warsaw, where the, where the chasuna was happening. And he writes the following: "Mimaamkei talumis levavi," from the depths of the depths, bad translation, of my heart. "Hinni m'varechecha beni." I'm blessing you, my son, "Ahuvi," my beloved son, "mechmadi," my, uh, my precious son. "B'yom chasanicha," on the

04:24 Speaker 1 day of your wedding, "im baskircha," with your match, "Chaya Mushka yichiu l'mazal tov," which is the rebbetzin's name for mazal tov. Okay. "Hashem elokei aveinu." God, the God of our fathers, "hakodeshim," our holy fathers, "sheb'z'chusam anu chayim." We live in their merit. We live in the merit of our holy fathers. "Yifreish aleichem sucha shleime." This God, who is the God of our holy fathers and whom we live in the merit of, this God should spread over you a sucha shalom, a sucha of peace. "Vi'binyan shelcha ma'ad." And this building you have, this edifice you have, should be a lasting edifice forever. So far, fairly standard language for a wedding letter. Then he writes, this is from, um, Kohelet. This is Kohelet tes, tes. "Rechayim im ha'isha asher ahavta kipshuto u'kemidrashai." You should live a life with the woman that you love as is pashat pashat and also as it says in the Midrash. So this required opening up a Midrash. Uh, I went looking a little bit. I obviously don't know what Rebbe Levi means because he's, uh, Rebbe Levi, if you learn any of his stuff, he operates at every level of Torah, pashat, remez, drash, and sod. And, uh, but I'm gonna tell you what the Midrash says. So "rechayim im ha'isha asher ahavta" is a line in Kohelet, which literally means what it sounds like. You should see a life with the woman that you love. You should marry a woman you love and spend your life with her is the pashat

05:31 Speaker 1 in Kohelet. Kohelet Rabbah, and this is also Baraita Nashi, says that this means that in addition to the woman that you love, you also should get yourself a life. Which is that get a life, which is that in addition to the woman that you love, which is Torah, you also should find yourself a job. So the Midrash in Kohelet says that this is a, this is a muqah for people finding jobs, that they should, uh, that, that, that people were-- the Midrash goes on to list the most honored people were people who split their time. "Shlish Torah, shlish tefilah, shlish umanos." That's the language in this Midrash, that the best way to live a life is a third of your life spent working, a third of your life spent davening, and a third of your life spent learning Torah. So it is possible when he says "kemidrashai" that he means like the Midrash in Kohelet Rabbah, that I'm wishing you a life of love with your wife, "kipshuto," and I'm also wishing you a life that is evenly split three ways between Torah and davening and umanos and having a job. That's where it continues, right? Yeah. This is also a is from Mishlei and says that God says your source should be blessed. There, I, um, I wrote down in my notes here, Rashi says . Rashi says, He says, This is the Torah that you learned when you were a young child. The Midrash there says, means that you should find everything you

06:44 Speaker 1 need in your city. That happy is a person who has a wife from their city and a Torah from their city and a job in their city, so they don't have to travel much. I don't know if that's at all what he meant. Just pointing out some of the things these psukim mean because Rebbe because he's just throwing psukim at us. Your source should be blessed and you should be happy with the wife of your, of your youth, and the wife of your youth is the Torah you learned as a child. I will note that when the Rebbe was, um... I guess not the Rebbe. When somebody was writing, can't remember who. When somebody was writing the Rebbe's biography for Hayom Yom, maybe we have a historian in the room who can remind me who wrote the Rebbe's biography in the front of Hayom Yom. You ever open the front of Hayom Yom? In the front, it has biographies of all the Rebbe. The first time it came out, it didn't have the Rebbe's biography in it. It, it couldn't have because-

07:24 Speaker 2 Wasn't it Zelikson? Wasn't it Zelikson that wrote it?

07:26 Speaker 1 It could have been Zelikson who wrote the Rebbe's. Yeah, it could have been. And I could have heard this story from him when he came to Fabrang. This is totally possible. Um, but anyway, when the first edition came out, the Rebbe put it out, so he didn't have his own biography in there because he wasn't Rebbe yet. That wouldn't have made any kind of sense. But at some point, they kept reprinting it, and the Rebbe's already Rebbe. There's a Nasiyas, and it's going on for a while. I think it was like Machaz or something, maybe even the Lameds, that they finally printed the Rebbe's biography in Hayom Yom, and by that point, it had gotten ridiculous that he wasn't there. He was a very well-established next Rebbe in line, and it didn't make sense that his biography wasn't there. So maybe Zelikson, maybe somebody else went to the Rebbe and said, "We're gonna write a biography of the front. Is that okay?" And the Rebbe said, "Fine," but he wants to edit it. So they wrote it up, and the Rebbe made very few edits to this biography. One of the only edits that he made to this biography is that there's a section in the beginning where it says the Rebbe in his childhood learned diligently. I think the lotion is and I think the Rebbe added the words that the Rebbe added that he learned incredibly diligently as a young man. This was something that the Rebbe never hid, that as a young

08:21 Speaker 1 man, he was a very, very diligent student. Obviously, that diligence continues his, continues his entire life. But the Rebbe emphasized, wanted people to know that when he learned as a child, he learned very, very seriously as a child. People tell stories of the Rebbe as a child standing in his room and learning for hours on end without looking up from a book. He was a very, very diligent child. So it might be that this is the Rebbe's father reflecting on the fact that you should be happy with and you should grow with the Torah that you studied as a child because that is what the Midrash on that passuk means. Okay, continuing. In the merit of the Tamach Tzedek and his wife, you and your wife are called after their names, right? 'Cause the Tamach Tzedek was named Menachem Mendel, and his wife, wife was named Chaya Mushka, and that is also the names of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin. The merit of your forefathers, specifically the Tamach Tzedek and his wife, who have the same names as you two, should be something that stands for you as a merit all of the days of your-- all of your days forever. When you go in the way of Torah and mitzvah it'll give you a life. You should have a life as you... I guess as you go. Let's do as. As you go in a way of Torah and mitzvahs, you will live a life of-- may you live a life of nachas and

09:32 Speaker 1 shalva and hashgacha. These are all kinds of relaxation or tranquility. Uh, nachas is joy to, to or I guess nachas, right? Shalva, relaxation. Hashgacha, quiet. in all good things, selah. That's also a You should be is a great wonder for the Jewish people. That's a passuk in, in Yeshaya. And I don't have any drash on it because there's no commentary on it. It's just that it's a, it's a language from a passuk. And you should raise up a generation of children and grandchildren who will be and mitzvah, involved in-- deeply involved in Torah and mitzvahs, practically . And we talked about how, uh, how Reb Leivick, I think that, uh, Mendel mentioned this before the recording started. Mendel mentioned that, um, that, uh, one of the problems, one of the downsides of Reb Leivick's Torah is that since he was writing so briefly on the margins of his book, he didn't often get to talk about but it was definitely his opinion. He just didn't have the space and the ink to say it. Look at the last line that he writes to the Rebbe. That you should have that you should have a practical outcome. The Rebbe's focus on definitely is hereditary, at the very least. I'll also point out that this is the that the Rebbe ends his wedding maamer on. So the wedding that if you, if you the Rebbe's wedding maamer at your reb- at your wedding, then you... Not, not the Friediker Rebbe's, the Rebbe's, then you'll remember that one

10:51 Speaker 1 ends Not though, just with the word mitzvahs. Uh, your father who is literally with you, your father who is literally with you. These are, these are heart-wrenching words. You know, the Reb Leivick made a wedding that day in his house without a chasan and without a kallah, and brought all of their friends over with the Rebbetzin Chana to celebrate. So your father, who is literally with you, Levi Yitzchok. And notice that he doesn't write his last name, and he doesn't write an honorific. He writes nothing else. The reason why is because if you add up all of the num- all of the words in this telegram, it is exactly one hundred and one with Levi Yitzchok. And if you put Harav or Schneersohn on the other end, you would have a hundred and two letters. So he puts just his name here, which is not how he normally signs his letters. He usually puts his last name because he wanted to be sure that this would have exactly one hundred and one letters in it, as we saw from his letter over here, "My one hundred and one-word dispatch to you." So he feels very strongly about this having exactly one hundred and one words. Of course, the hanging question in the room is why he cares so much about it being one hundred and one words, and of course, we don't know the answer. That's the truth. We have, we have no idea. Um, Rabbi Dubov, he put out this letter, and he put

11:52 Speaker 1 together, I think, like thirty, thirty or forty different possibilities for what the one hundred and one could mean from Reb Leivick's own writing. They went through Reb Leivick's work and found every time he referenced one hundred and one and pulled it to the surface. One of them that I like a lot, and I believe Chayenu also published a version of a couple of years back. There's a really interesting one that incorporates a couple different things from I wanna tell you that one. And besides we'll-- besides that, we'll kind of leave it up to, uh, leave it up to something that we will never, will not, until Mashiach comes, fully understand. Um- The gematria of the word is two hundred and twenty-seven, and the gematria of the word is three hundred and twenty-eight. So to remember and to forget, the two gematrias, if you subtract remember from forget, from forget, you get one hundred and one. So one hundred and one is the difference between remembering something and forgetting something. This is, uh, the, the Temah Tzedek points this out, that the difference between forgetting and remembering something is the number one hundred and one. Now, this fits nicely with the Gemara that I'm sure you're familiar with, that people used to learn Torah one hundred times, and anybody who learned it one hundred and one times was guaranteed that they wouldn't forget Torah as a way of making sure that they internalized it because, uh, that person's called an . They would learn Torah one

12:56 Speaker 1 hundred times to serve God the basic way and to be an who truly serves God, a servant of God, you were supposed to study Torah a hundred and one times. That's in somewhere near the beginning. The, uh, the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, somewhere in the middle, like chapter fifteen, that, uh, somebody who reviews what they learn one hundred times is, uh, is somebody who has, uh, is like somebody who's, um... What's the lesson there? It's like somebody who, uh-- Is it a camel? Is that the one there? A camel, a donkey, I can't remember. I really have to go back to chapter fifteen of Tanya. Um, anyway, people are sometimes hired to do a basic job, and when you ask them to do even a little bit more than that basic job, it costs twice the price. That one hundred and first time is considered beyond someone's nature, and because it's considered beyond nature, it's, uh, it's something that requires significantly more effort and then therefore has significantly better output. The other thing to know is that there is a malach that is called Ma'as. This malach called Ma'as, which name is-- w-it has a name that means tax. That's a rough name. A malach called Ma'as, the Ariza mentions it in . He says that there's a malach called Ma'as, and its job is to make you forget the Torah that they've learned. That's its job . You're talking about a malach with a raw deal. This malach's job is to make us

14:00 Speaker 1 forget the Torah that we've learned. Ma'as is the gematria one hundred, . So you take which is forty and which is sixty, Ma'as is gematria one hundred. That means that one hundred and one, according to the Temah Tzedek, would be one beyond the capabilities of the malach that is in charge of making us forget Torah. So when you put this all together, what you get is that the difference between for me re-re-remembering and forgetting in gematria is the number one hundred and one, which is also associated with being an who goes beyond the regular s- regular series of studies in order to internalize their studies particularly well. That's somebody who's learned the Torah one hundred and one times. This is called a level above nature, which is also corresponds to one hundred and one according to the Alter Rebbe in Tanya and this also would supersede the malach whose name has a gematria of hundred, of one hundred, whose job it is to help Jews forget the Torah. So that would make one hundred and one the thing that transcends that malach. This all comes together into a theory that Rabbi Duba puts together very nicely in his book, Under the Line, where he says that, uh, one of the main themes of this letter that we're looking at is that, I think in this letter over here he says twice that he wants the Rebbe to remember these words. He wants the Rebbe to remember him. He wants there to be a connection between

15:03 Speaker 1 them that lasts forever. There is a, "This is your father who's with you literally right now, and the words that I'm telling you of Torah should be literally with you right now, and I never want you to lose this paper." This is, uh, he says, "Yeah, I want you to guard this," and this is something you should be guarding this for many days of your life. The, uh, the Rebbe Levik wants the Rebbe not to forget him and not to forget his words, and it seems that the key to not forgetting something is the number one hundred and one. It foils the malach who has the gematria of a hundred, is the difference between in gematria remembering and forgetting, and is what the Gemara describes as the way somebody goes above and beyond in remembering their Torah. In any event, this is a letter that was deeply important to Rebbe Levik and one that the Rebbe kept with him as his father requested and, uh, that's it for today.

15:51 Speaker 2 Could we say that and are like one is, one is, um, like, "I'm with you and I'm with you." One is like, "I'm with you from far, a distance," and one is from up close. Is that what the would mean?

16:07 Speaker 1 I don't know. Um, I roughly and imprecisely translated it as just super with you, but obviously that's not what Rebbe Levik means. He wouldn't use that extra word there unless he meant it to mean something like that.

16:18 Speaker 2 Because say means like I'm like here with you and means like I'm with you, like almost like I'm empathizing and I'm with you and is like I'm with you. Like it seems like it's-- one is like and one is

16:29 Speaker 1 You, you mean like like is in your presence almost?

16:32 Speaker 2 Correct. One is I'm with you and is like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm one-- One would be I'm one with you and one is I'm physically with you. Like one is almost like a spiritual and one is physical.

16:39 Speaker 1 One is almost literally there. Yeah. Yeah. That would play in nicely to this idea about one hundred and one, once again emphasizing this theme of, of don't forget, stay close, get and hold onto things. I'm there, I'm literally there. Yeah, I like it.