מצבים שנראים חסרי סיכוי

00:02 Okay, this is Igeris. We are looking at letters from exactly fifty years ago, and we are very close to Elul. Once Elul starts, we're getting back into our regularly scheduled program of making sure that every day lines up with the month, give or take. But in these final days before the month of Elul, we are still going back and picking up some of the letters that we left on the cutting floor from earlier parts of the year. This letter is from Zion, Kislev, Teshrin lamed gimel, and it has in it a very major im yinim kasid, it's a very big idea, so big that it shows up in Hayim Yum. We're gonna look at it together. So the letter is from the year Teshrin lamed gimel. The letter is Yud Tav Reish Gimel, and it is written to a Wagner, a rabbi named Mr. Wagner. the Rebbe writes. This first part is just interesting. Nothing to do with our topic, but let's read it anyway. Sometimes the Rebbe's mail didn't get out. This is something that I always wonder about. Every now and then in a letter, the Rebbe will say, "I feel like you might not have gotten my message," but I haven't seen it so clearly anywhere. Here it's very clear that the Rebbe sent out a letter and someone just didn't get it. Rebbe has a lot of mail; these things happen. The Rebbe timed a certain letter that was supposed to congratulate his son on his wedding and give him a

01:11 berakhah, and it didn't come in time for the wedding. The Rebbe is disappointed about this. The Rebbe then says, the berakhah is beyond time. The berakhah, obviously, it applies-- the blessing applies to all times and all places. So I'm gonna repeat the berakhah, I'm gonna double it. That the match between these two people should be a permanent edifice. You and your wife should, uh, should enjoy the, uh, should enjoy them, should enjoy the young couple. We call you the you and all of your children. You should have great nakas from all of them. Okay, now to our point. You wrote to me, says the Rebbe, that you were staying in Eretz Yisrael. And then after that, you'll be traveling to a coun-to a country in the south, the countries of the south. The Rebbe says, you were in Israel, then you're gonna be traveling. Okay, everything . Here is the point for today. The Torah is full of the following idea. That is that God arranges the footsteps of people, that is from God the steps of person are established and his way will be desired, or he will desire. one of the commentaries on this line that God arranges the footsteps of man is is that the way of God should be something that the individual ends up enjoying. So certainly when you get to that place where you're traveling, I expect you to spread Yiddishkeit because the way of that is you bring-- you going to that place should be in a way

02:40 that is with the, with the desire, fulfilling desires of God. certainly you'll desire it too. So the Rebbe is saying based on this I want you to go make the world a better place in the place that you are traveling. There's a, uh, signature, and then there's a PS that's just interesting, where the, uh, the writer had apparently asked how to appropriate a certain donation at Kfar Chabad, and the Rebbe, very much in his style, says you gotta talk to the and nobody else. You have to ask the person in charge, and they will tell you what to do. Not going within the system is not something I've ever seen show up in Igeris. It's usually people ask what they should do. The Rebbe says they have to go through whatever system's in place. So if you go through the bad, you'll figure out what to do. Okay. I wanna focus on this line here, and how it's used by the Rebbe and how it's used by the Rebbe particularly. I'm opening up this, uh, this source sheet over here. You should have it on your screen. You might recognize it from Hayim Yum. Hayim Yum for ten Tammuz, for the tenth day of Tammuz, has this saying from the Alter Rebbe more or less in the same way that the Rebbe just said it, but it's gonna drive home the point most clearly. So in Hayim Yum we'll read it. At the beginning of the of the Alter Rebbe, he said a Torah. He

03:44 said the following at the beginning of his time as Rebbe. That God establishes the footsteps of people. when a person gets to a certain place, a Jew gets to a certain place, is the intent there is that he should be doing a mitzvah in the place where he goes. That's why God put his foots in the-- put his feet, his footsteps in that direction, was that he would do a mitzvah. This doesn't mean necessarily that he has to do a mitzvah for God. It could be a mitzvah for another person. But God put him there to do a mitzvah for God or for a person. a Jew is a messenger from on high. is from the place where he is. There is from where he is, there is the strength of the person who sent him, that person, the God who sent him. Now, what's the difference then between us and angels? Angels are also messengers. Malachim are also messengers. The answer is that a neshamah is given the shlichus by way of Torah, and that gives us an advantage over the angels. But practically speaking, there's no real difference. We are practically speaking angels. We're put in a place by God, and we're expected to do our job in that place. The Rebbe invoked this line when he left Riga on part of his very famous talk when he was leaving the Anash of Riga and heading to America. Uh, many of them he would never see again in the physical body. He wrote

04:56 about his leaving Riga to come to America. The Rebbe said, "I'm leaving because God arranges the steps of man, and, uh, I have to leave." Uh, so, uh, he says that therefore he's going to America as part of the explanation the Rebbe gives is that he's not really making the decision to leave. Nobody makes a decision exactly where they go. Another letter from the Rebbe. It's safe to say that the Rebbe uses this expression, I don't know, maybe seven or eight times in Igeris. The Rebbe uses it in almost every volume of Igeris. It's maybe, uh, maybe one of the most common expressions from the Rebbe. We have this in letter alef chap tav kl samech beis from the year Tav Shin Gimel. The Rebbe writes, uh, overall what this idea is in the following letter. Says the thing that should rise above all other things, what matters to me the most, what is most dear to me, says the Rebbe. is that a person should realize their obligation to enter into the task of strengthening Torah and fear of heaven. is this not what a person's meant to do? it says in the Pasuk that God arranges the footsteps of man and desires his ways. every single Jew needs to know that God is arranging their footsteps. every single step that a person takes God is bringing them. from place to place, from year to year, from city to city, from country to country. This is something that God himself established. People need to

06:26 know says the he calls it one of the most dear things to him that people come to this realization that they do not have free will when it comes to where they're going to be, only what they do there. And why does God move people around? He doesn't move people around for something that they might want. He moves people around for the general good of the people in that area. That they will strengthen in their area, spread terror in their area and in their area. We live in the place we live specifically because God, because God wants us to do good for terror and good for people in that location. Otherwise, he wouldn't have put us there, and it wasn't our choice. Once again, the calls this one of the most dear things to him, this idea. When a person then fulfills that, God desires the ways that he's acting. Also in his own way, God then takes care of his ways, his that gets the, uh, the the desire, the the will, The is now attaching this to something in . He's telling you the key to . Key to says the, says the you were put in this place, in the particular place you're in, to do God's job. If you do the job that God wants you to do, he then gives you . He then gives you success in your . He gives you success in health and children and in money, but only if you fulfill the will of what

07:37 he wants you to do while you're doing there. People might get confused, however, as the Rebbe, as the says in a letter to in Montreal. in Montreal, the year is the letter is in the letters. And there he says that, uh, he thinks some of the students in Montreal might think that God led them to Montreal because the food's better there. Take a look at this letter. He says, There seems to be some problems going on there, and I have some reasons why. What's the first issue? What's the first mistake they're making? These people seem to think that people, that, uh, brought them to the city of Montreal, the city that they're in right now, so that they can relax. Eat its fruits. And benefit from its goodness. And to get themselves a little bit of honor. They think they've come to a good place because this place is a place that's good for them. Everybody honors them as they show up in the town. They're hearing good things. They figure that they're here to enjoy themselves. It's as if they'd forgotten the verse that says that God puts people's feet in a certain place so that people desire the outcome. The person who God brings with his feet, these people are coming there, and they're not fulfilling, learning Torah with the that is expected from . And he says these, that is expected from by the way, is something from you should kill yourself over it. That a person should be killing themselves uh,

09:08 over the study of Torah. They should be killing all of their, uh, all the all the enjoyments they get from the things of the world, and that they should be engaging only in Torah study and the Torah. The Rebbe says sometimes people show up in a location, and they misunderstand what they're doing there, and they have to remember that they're there specifically for God. I wanna show you one more letter from I know this isn't the, uh, the class, but this letter has so many really cool things in it, and, uh, this is the kind of letter you send around to your friends afterwards, this one on the screen. I'll put it in the chat after. This is a, a letter that you can use. I was actually-- I was talking to Mendel Sandhaus about this letter a little earlier. So Mendel, if you're only listening now, now is the time to list-- look at this letter. This letter is labeled and this is, uh, in Warsaw, and it is a sharp letter. I wanna read the whole thing, even if that means that's all the time we have because it's such a sharp letter, but I do wanna do more of the Rebbe's letters on this topic, so hopefully it won't be all the time we have. Why do some-- why some things-- why sometimes do things not get from ? Why sometimes do people have good ideas that they have trouble implementing? The inability to bring something from, uh, theory into practice. It

10:15 stays just as a good thought. Maybe it's a good midah, maybe it's a good thought. Maybe it was an idea of learning or understanding. This is one of the worst things that could happen. It's one of the greatest downsides. It's one of the things that brings the most damage, um, immeasurable damage, he says, when people have good ideas or good thoughts and they're unable to implement them. And I think that's, uh, that's kind of self-understood, that sort of the great frustration of all people is that we think we're capable of more than we're actually doing. Says this is something that can destroy the soul. It makes a person feel empty. It makes a person feel like an empty person. This, uh, it, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's one of the great plagues of the world, is the, is the, is the intellectual understanding that you could be doing something and the inability to implement it practically. Who really has the understanding to understand what's going on here exactly? So in don't forget the Rebbe is very poetic, especially in his long letters. Anybody who has even a bit of understanding, though, needs to have mercy on themselves. To wrap up, to bind all of their to get themselves out of the Greek mud. That's actually a Halakhic expression. is this a very thick kind of, uh, very thick kind of mud that is a . Most, most mud is not a . In any event, he's saying from this very thick mud of of, uh,

11:35 of imagination, of ridiculous imaginations. People who imagine things and lazy people, what is their nature? Why do they-- Why do things not get done? They blame it on somebody else. They say there's other reasons, outside reasons why things are not getting done. Sometimes they blame the time, sometimes they blame the place. These sorts of people, these lazy people, and people who like to imagine things, it's regular on their lips. If I had somebody to speak with, if God would just give me somebody to have a conversation with, then things would be different. If only, if only, if only, but the situation is not speaking to me, is not working for me, and therefore I can't get anything done. These people always seem to forget Halakha. These people always forget. The absolute truth. That God arranges the footsteps of man because this is said two times in, in, in Nah. David says it in Tehillim. Says it in Mishlei. Both of them mention, mention the name of Havaya, not one of the other names of God, and both of them say more or less the same thing, that God arranges the footsteps of men using the same, using the same words. They're clearly reflecting the intent of God to move people's footsteps in such a way that God is in their lives and in the world. Okay. Both of them are talking about knowledge and about choice. But they come to one conclusion. Dovid and Shlomo come to the same conclusion. Then everything depends on the

13:09 first. God guides a person's steps, and then a person decides what they're going to do there, and that they can't blame the situation. Dovid said, "God arranges the footsteps of man." Every single person needs to know completely . Every single person is a . Not a . This is a little bit earlier than that statement, but a . This is something-- This is what the Friediker Rab was talking in the, uh, the forties, saying that every single person is a of divine providence. To light up in the light of Torah, and also service of God is probably in that place, in that environment the place where he's found. Because that's a . The situation you find yourself in. What he's saying here is, people blame their situation, say, "I can't really do my best because of the situation I find myself in." And the Friediker Rab is saying the situation you find yourself in is and God picked that so that you would be able to do your best. So questioning the situation and saying, "I'm in an unwinnable situation," is always wrong. You're never in an unwinnable situation because you're always exactly in the situation that God expects you to be winning in. There's no such thing as a situation that cannot be won because God put you in that situation. A person gets to choose to do good in that situation, not to change the situation. Then God will desire what that person does. Shlomo Shlomo said the same thing. Every single step

14:30 a person play-- takes in any place they are, that is from God who gives them who gives them strength in order to complete the the intent of God. If somebody will claim, "What about this ? This is the wrong time for this. This is the wrong place for this. I can't succeed in this time and place, and I'm adding in this situation." What is a person to question the ways of God? You should just know . All you should know is that God put him in that situation and therefore gave him the to be doing well in that situation. So blaming the situation is always counterproductive because the situation is from God, and as a matter of fact, God put it there specifically to strengthen you. He adds here in this paragraph, I don't wanna read everything word for word inside, what he said in this paragraph here that's on your screen is that it says that God, uh, God plots the steps of man, but there's multiple words in Hebrew for man. You could use . Why does he use ? Because is something that is . is a part of man, the way that man thinks. corresponds to which is that I just put my head down and do my job, and he says, "You're not going to understand it." He says, "Don't say that God arranges the footsteps of a thinking person. The thinking person will look at their situation regularly and say, 'No thinking person would say I could win in

15:39 this situation. No thinking person would say that I can succeed in this situation. This is a horrible situation.'" And when a person then takes themselves from the status of Adam and puts themselves down to the status of Geber and says, "I'm going to be a man." A person who puts his head down and gets the job done, they'll find that exactly the situation that they find themselves in was the best situation for their growth. Just a really interesting historical note here is that the Friediker Rab starts pushing the idea of in this letter. He says here that, uh, the Friediker Rab-- I'm sorry, that the Alter Rebbe, that's Reb Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, this is always the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe had already been calling out with all of his energy, and that when a Rebbe says it means so much more than when normal people say it. Worth looking at in the final, final part of this letter if you're interested in the development of the idea of . We have a little bit of time left, so that means I have to be selective about what letters I show you. Let me see on my list here. We have a couple of letters from the Rebbe. Let's take a look at this one. This letter is from-- This letter, . The year is . And here the Rebbe writes, I have little notes over here that reminds me of why I wanted each letter. See, I wanna pick a good one for

16:44 you because we don't have all the time anymore. This volume. Which volume is this? This is volume twelve. This is like the overview letter. Let's look at this one. Okay. So the Rebbe says, "I'm writing back to you. I hope you do well in et cetera." Look at the second paragraph. "Certainly, I don't need to further explain to you the Hasidic, the Hasidic explanation of this verse, that God arranges the footsteps of man as is printed in a letter from the Friediker Rebbe that's printed in Atzam." I don't know which one that is. Might be one of the ones we read, might be a different one. "Therefore, every single place a person goes and every situation he finds himself in, a person needs to remember that God sent him ." Remember, this is the Rebbe talking now, but it sounds a lot like the other stuff we've been reading. "Bottom line, wherever you find yourself, you need to light up the candle of a mitzvah and the light of the Torah, and of course, the light within the Torah, which is the Torah of Hasidism . That is, it's and it's . This is just interesting to me. He says here that a person needs to teach Torah wherever they go, and that they should also be teaching Hasidism wherever they go. But he adds in the teaching of Hasidism that includes that a person could and just tell people to have Hasidism and that would seem to be part of lighting up the world.

18:03 It doesn't necessarily have to be a . "Even when you leave that place and go back to your regular place, I don't think a lot of people know this. Maybe people know it and they don't do it, but keep this in mind. It says here that every place you've ever been, God wanted you to be there. And it's true, sometimes you move on to a new place, but that means you have to keep in touch with the people in the prior place and continue to influence them in Torah and mitzvahs, because by dint of you ever being there, you now have a permanent responsibility to that place. This reminds me of the shiur that we gave maybe two or three Yutras ago about how you owe something to your hometown. Even if you don't stay in your hometown, you have an eternal responsibility. It never goes away to continue having a positive influence on your hometown, even if you don't live there. You have to keep in touch with those people. See that line? "In an appropriate way with your friends in that prior place, in order to strengthen them, to give them inspiration, so that they will grow from time to time." Okay. Since God only demands that which people can do, what they have the strength to do, certainly they have the strength and the ability to do what they need to do in that place, or God wouldn't have given them those talents or sent them to that place. Everybody is exactly

19:16 where they belong and expected to be spreading Torah and mitzvahs in that location. Take a look at this one over here. Here, the Rebbe's Midrash in the word yachetz. I'm gonna go right to the middle paragraph. The letter is vav, taf, nun, gimel, and it's in volume seventeen in the middle of the paragraph here. The Rebbe says that of course, read the three Rebbe. What's that second part? Darka yachetz. Darka yachetz literally means that his ways he will like, but it's unclear who the he is, whose ways and who will like it. This Rebbe says this means that you should be enjoying yourself. That's also what he said in our first letter, is that the yachetz is on the person, is that, uh, is that God's way is something that I should enjoy. So I should do my shlichas in every place I am, b'cheetz, in a way that is enjoyable for me. That doesn't mean I should do things I like. It means I should like what God wants. The desire of something is to claim. So this is the innermost will of a thing. Rebbe says certainly you can add Torah and study in that place. But it must be done in a way of joy and in a way of the gladness of the heart. This will also increase your own physical health and also make you more successful. So every single place that God brings us, we're supposed to be there. And every place that we're supposed to be, we're supposed

20:33 to be doing Torah and mitzvahs, but also it should be darka yachetz. We're supposed to do and that way it all works. It works best when we are, uh, enthusiastic about our job, our unique job, and our unique location. This letter, I'm not gonna read, but it's in your list, and you can look at it later. It's letter vav, taf, pei, gimel. Just wanna tell you that here the Rebbe says that's apel hagadol. I'm very surprised that you're writing to me a bracha, that you're writing a bracha-- writing to me asking for a bracha for the place that you're in and the stuff you're doing, and you're not telling me if you're using the place the way that I would like you to. The point is that, uh, that the Rebbe expects that everybody who arrives at a new location or look and finds themselves in a certain location will make it better, and anybody who's not, the Rebbe's surprised they're not reporting it. He expects reports on this issue. I wanna show you down this letter. It's on the, uh, on the screen. This is our last one for today on this topic. Letter is zayin, taf, samech, zayin. And here the Rebbe basically says people are not allowed to move. He said, "You write to me that maybe you would be doing better in a different place. Maybe you should change your location." Apel hagadol, this is very surprising you would suggest that maybe you would be doing better in a different location.

21:34 I, I know that we're running short on time, but I need to make this note. The Rebbe is not saying that you can never move. This person's writing to the Rebbe saying, "I think I would be doing better in a different place." That is alien to the Rebbe's thought. The Rebbe cannot understand that you think you'd be doing better in a different place. Why can't the Rebbe understand that? Because we just learned for the past half an hour or twenty minutes or whatever, we've been looking at length at the idea that you could not be doing better in a different place because God would have put you in that place if you could be doing better in a different place. You could be doing your absolute best in your current place. So tell me you wanna move for a thousand other reasons, but don't tell me you wanna move because you could be doing better elsewhere. You can't be doing better elsewhere or else you would be elsewhere. So the Rebbe writes apel hagadol, that's very surprising. It says all over the Torah. It says at least two times in Nach, that God arranges the footsteps of man. Look at Hayim Yemim, he says. God gave you the particular ability, I think he's writing to a shliach or to somebody teaching. It sounds like they have a, a job in, in, in Kodesh. God gave you the incredible ability to separate the deer from the, uh, the deer from the not so deer, from the

22:33 low quality. Uh, I think, you know. This applies more in our yeshivas than in the higher yeshivas. I think he's talking to somebody in, in, in, in Chinuch. You're telling me you're not satisfied with your work, so the Rebbe has two arguments. The first-- the second one we'll do first. The second one is you have a good job, and you're in a good place. I don't know what you're complaining about. But his bigger argument, which is the one, of course, we're focusing on today, is that you could not possibly be doing better than the place, in another place than you can be doing in the place you're in because here God gave you all the tools to be succeeding. So we have here is a lot of letters on the exact same topic going back to the original Hayim Yemim, which is uh, is a pasuk that teaches us that every single place we find ourselves is Hashgacha Yemim, God arranged that we'd find ourselves in these places. We're expected to be doing good in those places, Torah and mitzvahs, in a way that is, uh, positive for people or positive for God. We specifically have the strength to succeed in these locations, and I think most importantly, what comes out from all of these letters is that if we feel that we're facing challenges in our location, in a place, in a time, or in a situation, those challenges are specifically ordained. Those challenges are supposed to be there, uh, because God picks the

23:39 place that we are, and it picks, uh, picks our talents. God is the, uh, is the best when it comes to figuring out who'd be good in what place, and he chose every single person to be exactly where they are and in the situation they find themselves in. With that in mind, a situation is never the reason why we're failing. We're failing because of ourselves, but, uh, we are-- our situation is never to blame. That's the big idea of this big letter here from the the long letter, is that we can't blame situations, we can't blame places, we can't blame times. Those are Hashgacha Yemim, God made those. We can only blame ourselves for not maximizing our abilities in those times and places. Okay, sorry for going long. That one's it. Questions, comments?