על תקופת אירוסין קצרה

00:00 Speaker 1 A Chassidishe woman who was at the retreat, she asked me, um, she asked me how my Igrish year isn't just the same thing as everybody else's Igrish year, and you get a lot of stuff on Igris out there. I said, "I think what makes our year unique is that we usually pick a from the Rebbe, not just a letter, and that we then prove through something like ten to twenty letters that the Rebbe really means what he's saying, that this isn't a one-off." You know, anybody can open Igrish and say the Rebbe thinks this without being aware that a lot of times the Rebbe doesn't think this. He's just telling this one person what to do. I think we usually avoid that problem. Today, we are really going to avoid that problem. So without further ado, this is the Igrish year, and today we are in honor of . First of all, everybody. This is the first day of , the last day of the month of Menachem Av, and today we're going to look at an Elul topic. Anybody here, uh, did anybody here get married in Elul? Anybody have an Elul anniversary? You can, uh-- Maybe nobody. Elul is a-- Oh, yeah?

00:58 Speaker 2 Yeah, I have, uh, . No, sorry, uh, .

01:03 Speaker 1 As-as long as you remember by the time your wife asks you. Mazel tov.

01:06 Speaker 2 No, no, no, no. My son's birthday is . My wife-- the anniversary is .

01:10 Speaker 1 This is a very famous month to get married in. The Rebbe is a big fan of getting married in the month of Elul. I did send you a sheet around. I wanna just read some of these excerpts. This is not our topic for today, but I do wanna mention that this is the month of marriages. First of all, Elul stands for Ani L'Dodi V'Dodi Li, I am to my beloved, and my beloved is to me. So it kind of is intuitive that it would be a month of romance. It obviously isn't a month of romance, it's deeper than that, but it's a month of Rachamim. So you have down here a letter from the Rebbe on your screen. This is from volume six. It's on page sixty-five. The Rebbe says, "You're asking me about setting up your wedding, whether it should be in Elul." And the Rebbe says that-- Let me get the lesson here. Uh, says, "According to my opinion, if there's no , if there's nothing preventing it, then it would be best to make it in Elul, ." He says it is a month of mercy and also a month of mazel, a month of good fortune. It's a good month to get married in. So the Rebbe in a couple of letters they have here mentions, uh, that's specifically a good time to get married. In a bunch of letters, the Rebbe says, "Either choose Elul or Kislev, and ideally Elul because it's earlier." The Rebbe wants earlier weddings than to

02:13 Speaker 1 happen as soon as possible, which is our topic for today. He mentions here in this letter on your screen, this is from volume, uh, twenty-two, page three-thirteen, that the entire month of , the entire month of Elul is available for weddings. There's not a single day that's not good for weddings. And he talks specifically about the value of Elul being maybe the best day of all for weddings because it has three things happening in it at once. First of all, uh, weddings themselves, they say that, uh, uh, the Sula would get married on the, um, on Wednesdays because that's the day that the were created, and is a day when we celebrate the moon. So it's a day that, uh, has to do with weddings in the first place. is a, uh, a wedding-style day. We also have Elul is , Ani L'Dodi V'Dodi Li. I forget. You have a third reason in this letter somewhere. But in any event, Elul is a very special time to get married. So in honor of the first day of Elul, I wanna talk about marriage. Here's our letter. We're in volume twenty-eight, exactly fifty years ago. The letter is on number , and you're gonna notice a recurring theme, but here it starts. Number one, on the screen, it's in the summer of . The Rebbe writes, "The earlier you make the wedding, the better." That's it. The earlier, the better. From the time of the, uh, from the time of the , from the time of

03:27 Speaker 1 the , once people have decided they wanna get married, there's no reason to have these long engagements. The Rebbe is not a fan of long engagements. The earlier you can make the wedding, the better. So the Rebbe says in this case, this person's writing to the Rebbe sometime in the summer of . The Rebbe says, "Therefore, you should make it in Tishrei if possible, uh, certainly no later than Kislev." So the Rebbe wants it to be a month from then, maybe three months from then at the absolute maximum, but the Rebbe does not want to see a long delay in the . We have another letter from our year that also says this. This is also, uh, in volume twenty-eight, , but this letter is . This is from Elul, and the Rebbe here writes the same thing. He says, "Regarding your questions that you asked me, ." Excuse me. Here we go. He says, "My opinion on this is very well known." "My opinion on this is well known," the Rebbe says, "that anybody who shortens however much you can shorten the amount of time between deciding to make a and getting married, that would be better." So the shorter, the better. The shorter, the better as far as an engagement period. And the Rebbe says, "This is for several reasons," and gives us none of them. So we're going to have to go through some letters to try to figure out what exactly his reasons are. But I will point out the Rebbe

04:36 Speaker 1 says, "That my, my opinion on this is very well known." And indeed, it's very, very well known. I'm not bringing all of the letters on this topic. I left, I think, five or six that I found out just because they repeatedly say, This, this of, uh, of it's well known already, my opinion, that you should be making these engagements as short as possible, is so pervasive in the Rebbe's letters that we're not even bringing all of them because there must be at least fifteen where the Rebbe says just that. Looking over here, this is a letter from the year . It is in volume twenty-seven. The letter is . And here the Rebbe says, . So he starts off by saying, "I would like you to make the wedding as soon as possible." I'm bringing you this letter though 'cause he also adds a thing about weddings in general that I wanna point out, that the Rebbe is not a fan of these very lavish, very expensive weddings. So here the Rebbe starts off the letter by saying, "Please make the wedding as soon as possible." That's the top priority. The Rebbe then adds, . There's no opinion at all to waste a lot of money on expenses for a wedding. Big fancy weddings, not our thing. He's saying here that if only you could show all of the other through by example, if only you could lead by example and have a simple wedding and thereby show to all of Anash, all of the

06:00 Speaker 1 that a wedding, uh, it has , it has ex- it's expansive, it's expensive, but not in physicality, only in spirituality. It's expansive when it comes to things that matter. That we hold Jewish money precious, and we don't just waste it on ridiculous things. The point of our-- point of having money isn't to be able to show off how much we can spend in to other people. certainly not to show that I have more money than somebody else. That he was very frustrated with the ex- with the amount of money spent on weddings. the main thing that we should show off is how much the are gonna give in tzedakah before the wedding and, uh, and in their time and the Rebbe says that if you really wanna show off how much money you've got, show it off by giving it all away to people who need it. Don't show it off by making a big wedding. The, the Rebbe's frustrated, you can tell by the tone of this letter, . Uh, you can see-- you sense a certain frustration in the idea that people are spending so much money on their weddings. But anyway, the important part for our share is that the first three words of this letter is , please make the wedding as soon as possible. One more letter on the general topic before we get into some of the specifics. This is in volume thirteen, the letter is dalet resh ayin gimel, and here the Rebbe says that he is incredibly

07:11 Speaker 1 pained that somebody didn't listen to him and d- waited to make their wedding. So we have here, and they don't put the name. The Rebbe says it should be understood that I'm very upset, that it's upsetting the situation regarding the time of the wedding of this certain boy. The Rebbe says, "I wrote to him recently telling him that I didn't want him to push out the wedding so long." He says that if I can intercede to make the wedding earlier, or if your organization is writing to somebody about this person, if your organization can intercede, please let me know. Let's do it. If, if we can get in the way and intercede to the-- to make this wedding that's supposed to be scheduled, I don't know, a year from now, only a couple months from now, let's intervene. So this does suggest that the Rebbe wants active intervention in this, that this isn't just a, "Oh, it's a shame they did it later." If possible, we should be pushing people, obviously to make their weddings sooner. We're gonna see that as a repeated theme in some of these letters, so I'm pointing it out here. Now, uh, how short exactly should the time be? The Rebbe wants these things done quickly, but does that mean people get married in a week from the time of the, from the time of the shidduchim? Does it mean a month? Does it mean several months? The Rebbe doesn't give an exact answer, but he does talk about the,

08:24 Speaker 1 uh, the range. So in this letter over here, we're in the year tav shin lamed beis now. It is-- the letter is yud shin samech daled. The Rebbe says, This is just a cool intro up here. He says, "When it comes to the shidduch itself, don't ask me who you should marry. You have to make a decision who'd be good for you to marry, but if you are confused, you should talk to your parents." Okay. The Rebbe here uses the I love the because it's different. We saw here in previous letters. This is The Rebbe's comfortable saying that it is famous what I know about this. The Rebbe wants you to shorten the amount of time between the shidduch and specifically the vort and the chasuna. So between the, between the making of the shidduch and between the, uh, the vort itself, which is sort of the, um, I guess the l'chaim, the vort right before the chasuna. Basically, once you know who you're going to marry, he wants you to get married as soon as possible. And then the Rebbe says, at the very least, less than a year. So we do have a hard limit on this, that the Rebbe says it's his opinion, and that his well-known opinion is that at the very least, no one should be going a whole year between concluding the shidduch and start-- and, and getting married. Moving right along. This is a letter from volume fourteen. The letter is heh yud daled. And here the Rebbe

09:43 Speaker 1 says that we should even shorten the time between them first speaking and getting married, not just between the conclusion of the shidduch, but the shidduchim should move pretty quickly. So the Rebbe says here... Uh, let me get the right place. Okay, somebody asked the Rebbe about a certain minhag, and the Rebbe writes, "I don't care about the minhag." Look at this. It doesn't really matter this minhag you're asking me about. Find out what Anash are doing in your area, what they've been doing recently, and do it. The Rebbe says, "What I'm really worried about what does matter to me is the time of the scheduling of the chasuna." That's what the Rebbe really cares about. That's not the part we need. Okay. We need to have We need to learn more Torah. Uh, where's the part that I wanted? here we go. See that The Rebbe says the most important thing to him is that we not extend the amount of time between the two sides talking and the chasuna. Now, I don't know one hundred percent for sure what that means. That could mean the two sides talking, like making a vort and deciding they're gonna have a shidduch. But I think you could read that to mean that even be- be- even between their first meeting, the potential chasan and kallah talking and the chasuna, the Rebbe wants the time to be as, uh, as brief as possible. These should be quick engagements. These should be quick shidduchim, quick engagements, right to marriage.

11:03 Speaker 1 Now the question is why? We haven't covered why yet. The Rebbe said in one of these earlier letters, I'm gonna click back and get to the wrong one, and then I'll lose my place. So just trust me, a couple of minutes ago, we read it. The Rebbe said that it's for, for well-known reasons or for certain reasons. It doesn't give the reasons. So we have a couple of letters here, I think four letters here, where the Rebbe gives sort of reasons, some of them very specific reasons, some a little less- Specific. This one's a little less specific. We have to look in the PS down here. PS, this letter, by the way, is from the year Tav Shin Chaf Vav. The volume is twenty-four, and the letter is Tes Kuf Lamed Daled. We're in the PS section. The Rebbe says, "PS," Nun Beis. "PS."

11:35 Speaker 3 Apan Yekarebei.

11:36 Speaker 1 So now I'm gonna read Japan.

11:37 Speaker 3 Vainu L'sheilascha.

11:38 Speaker 1 Response to your question.

11:39 Speaker 3 Yadua Dati Meaz.

11:40 Speaker 1 My opinion has been known forever. The Rebbe says his opinion on this is very well known.

11:44 Speaker 3 Sheb'derenu kol ha-- Sheb'derenu.

11:46 Speaker 1 That in our generation-

11:47 Speaker 3 Kol Mekares Zman Achasan Zman Achlat Is Shidduch Arei Zeh Mishubach

11:50 Speaker 1 That dabken, our generation, nowadays, it is very important to make sure that we make the Shidduch as close as possible to the wedding. So here we're getting a hint that this isn't like some sort of a Kabbalistic rule that would have existed even a thousand years ago. This is something very practical that we now, nowadays, right now live in a generation that needs to have a very short Shidduch period. You might be familiar with the Gemara that says that, uh, that it's conventional to give women a year to prepare for their wedding. So the Rebbe is saying that this is not a standing procedure. This is something that we needed to intervene. Rabbis needed to get in the way and say, because of the generation we live in right now, a wedding needs to happen much sooner than it otherwise would have had to happen, and you can't have long engagements anymore. That's the Sheb'derenu. So why in our generation do we need this? This is more or less answered in this letter. Finally, volume twenty-seven, the letter is Yud Daled Shin, and the Rebbe says, Yadua She'ein Zeh Be Darkei Tznius. The Rebbe says it's well known that it is not among the Darkei Tznius. It's not modest.

12:40 Speaker 3 Lamshich Zman Ben Achlat Is Lehisdadach La'chasuna.

12:43 Speaker 1 To make s-- To make it a long time between the Shidduch and the wedding. Long engagements are not Tzniusdik. They're not modest. They're immodest.

12:49 Speaker 3 Frach Ish She'om Dar Be'ir Achah.

12:51 Speaker 1 Specifically when the couple lives in the same city. In a lot of cases, the boy and the girl who are going to be married, they live in the same city during the entire period of their engagement. The Rebbe says this isn't Tznius. So it seems that if you combine these two letters, what you kinda get is that in recent generations, Tznius has become a bigger problem. And since it is not Tznius at all to have a Chassan and a Kallah spending a year in the same city, not married, but knowing they're going to be married, you're sort of asking for trouble. This seems to be that that's the main reason, and the Rebbe sort of hints at that in other letters, but nowhere except for here does he say it so clearly, that the Rebbe says it's simply not Tzniusdik. And as we know, Tznius is not just the, uh, the length of skirts or the length of sleeves. Tznius is a personality and a lifestyle, and this is not part of the Tznius lifestyle to know that you're going to marry somebody and then sit around not marrying them, especially when they live in the same town. This is in volume ten, the letter is Gimel Reish Mem Daled. And in this letter, the Rebbe says that, uh, Ruach Chakham Is Not Necha, that the Chakham are mad at people or unhappy with people who push off their weddings and make them, and make a long engagement. This is just the first paragraph we're

13:49 Speaker 1 gonna read. Says here, Me'asher Hidni Kabbalas Mechtavaiyach Me-- uh, from Tes Vav and from... I always get that one wrong. From some day in Teves. We've argued about what that abbreviation means before.

13:58 Speaker 3 Ve'es LiKres Be'asher K'fai Nistada Ein Nadira.

14:01 Speaker 1 I'm happy to hear that you found a place to live.

14:02 Speaker 3 Friki Masuidat Niqash Nikvei Zman Achasa.

14:05 Speaker 1 I know you have to set up the time for the Chasanah. And here's the Rebbe talking.

14:08 Speaker 3 Ki Bechol Zmanim Ufrat Be'dorenu Zeh.

14:10 Speaker 1 In all times, and especially in our generation.

14:12 Speaker 3 Ein Ruach Chakham Necha MeHeftsek Zman Arich.

14:14 Speaker 1 This is a little different than what I just said a moment ago, so please do note the, uh, note the revision. I said a moment ago that it sounds like this is only in our generation. Uh, look at this last line. I hadn't been paying attention the first time I read it.

14:24 Speaker 3 Ki Bechol Zmanim.

14:25 Speaker 1 In all times.

14:26 Speaker 3 Ufrat Be'dorenu Zeh.

14:26 Speaker 1 And especially in our time.

14:28 Speaker 3 Di Chakhamim.

14:29 Speaker 1 Are not happy with people spending a long time waiting between the engagement and the wedding. So even back then, the Rebbe says they weren't happy with long delays. Certainly, all the more so nowadays.

14:38 Speaker 3 Ufrat Ki Shsuv Bezeh She'ein Chesh Bonige LaParnasa Beshiur Azat Me'achuz.

14:42 Speaker 1 This is important. The Rebbe says, especially, I'm especially upset that the reason that you wanna push off your wedding and have a longer engagement is because you're not sure where your Parnasa is going to come from. A lot of people would consider that a practical consideration. A Chassan writes to the Rebbe saying, "I'm gonna push off my wedding a little bit because I wanna make sure that I have a, a, I wanna make sure that I have enough money, that I'm able to afford to be married." And the Rebbe says back, "This is the worst reason of all to push off a wedding. I'm very unhappy to hear that you're pushing off the Chassanah because you're not sure you have the financial means yet."

15:08 Speaker 3 Lamishé Paskona Zal She'ein Adam Yodea Ma Amishdaket.

15:10 Speaker 1 Says the Chazal have already paskened that nobody knows where they're going to get money from. No one knows what's gonna make them rich. So you can't say, "I'm going to calculate. Ah, in a couple of months, I'm going to have the money." You have no idea where your money is going to come from. Money is always a surprise. You think you have a certain business plan, it falls through, and another one opens up. So people never know where they're gonna get money from. For you to say you believe you know where you're gonna get money from is already a big problem. In addition to that, to then use that big theological problem, that problem that you're having with your own Bitachon, with your own trust in Hashem, and then take that and use that to push off a wedding, the Rebbe is very upset about. So this gets a-- this is a bit of a double whammy, this letter, where the Rebbe says, "Don't push off weddings, and especially don't push off weddings for, God forbid, financial reasons." One more letter I want us to look at on this topic. The Rebbe says here, Binyan Shidduch. This letter is, uh, volume eleven, and the letter is Gimel Tav Kuf Samech. And the Rebbe writes, Binyan Shidduchim Shekes Ve'es Ham. The Rebbe says, "You wrote to me about a couple Shidduchim."

16:03 Speaker 3 Hayesh Stivah Maspika Matimah Al Pi Shulchan Aruch Leharach Zman Kalkach VeGemara Shidduch Bechol Bizman Nisuin?

16:10 Speaker 1 The Rebbe says, "Is there any reason in Shulchan Aruch for this? You're telling me there's gonna be a nice long delay between, uh, between the engagement and the wedding, a long engagement, as they say. There's gonna be a long engagement." The Rebbe says, "I don't know how Al Pi Shulchan Aruch you can justify this. How in Shulchan Aruch can you allow such a thing?" So the Rebbe here is suggesting that this isn't just a, uh, this isn't just a Hidur, and it's not just a lack of Darkei Tznius. We're talking here about somebody who is, uh, apparently violating Shulchan Aruch. The Rebbe says, "I don't see in Shulchan Aruch the allowance for a long engagement."

16:37 Speaker 3 Eish Zel Rach Minhag B'li Halacha Yosed.

16:39 Speaker 1 Maybe it's not a Shulchan Aruch thing, it's just a Minhag B'li Halacha Yosed. It simply is a custom that has no, no basis whatsoever, so the Rebbe doesn't like it.

16:46 Speaker 3 Az.

16:46 Speaker 1 Since it is either against Shulchan Aruch or a baseless Minhag, either way, the Rebbe is very happy to overturn it.

16:52 Speaker 3 Az Keda Lebatal BeDarkei Ne'im Udiplomatiya.

16:54 Speaker 1 Therefore, we should undo it. We should get in the way of this, and we should stop them from having a long engagement and get them married earlier. Obviously, BeDarkei Ne'im, in a pleasant way, Diplomatiya, in a diplomatic way. But the Rebbe does want intervention on this front. He does not seem like-- We saw a previous letter about this. We're seeing this one now. I think we can say pretty firmly that if we hear that somebody we have influence over is going to have a long engagement, the Rebbe would like us to get in the way. However, he always says to get in the way, BeDarkei Ne'im, in a pleasant way, in a Diplomatiya, diplomatic way, especially when it comes to weddings, as I'm sure any of us know who've been involved in other people getting married, that, uh, that that's a very sensitive time where they can get quite angry at very small things. This needs to be done diplomatically, diplomatically, diplomatically. Needs to be done BeDarkei Ne'im of Darkei Shalom. But the Rebbe does want us to get in the way. If we have somebody who's under our influence Who is getting married, uh, who is planning on getting married months and months or even a year or longer than a year after the engagement, the Rebbe would like us to get in the way. he says, because who in our generation is really able to say, "I will put a thorn in your eye," Yetzer Hara? Who is really able to say to

17:51 Speaker 1 the Yetzer Hara nowadays that they're not subject to it, especially nowadays? This is again hinting back to the tznius issue and the Yetzer Hara issue and the doreinu issue. This is me-- something we see now in three or four letters, that the Rebbe is concerned that in our generation there's a lack of tznius. In our generation, there is a specifically strong Yetzer Hara when it comes to inappropriate relations between people, one that presumably is a lot stronger when you know you're going to be marrying somebody and living in the same town as them and pushing off a wedding indefinitely or for a very long time. So the Rebbe says, given all of that, we need to get in the way of this because this is a real problem. Obviously, the Rebbe says . At the very least, we should make sure that Anash, members of our community, are, uh, are going to have short engagements because this is absolutely inappropriate for Anash to have long engagements. Okay, so we've seen something like what? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. We saw something like twelve letters today. There are even more that we could on this topic, but it would be-- I think we covered a lot of the major points. Of course, the, uh, the overarching message is that there should be short engagements. We saw several times the Rebbe said that this is a well-known opinion of his, not just a one-off. So anybody who thinks they're the exception to the

18:54 Speaker 1 rule, I would beg to differ. The Rebbe did not list any exceptions to his rule and says he's very pained in one case where someone didn't listen to this rule, that he caused meforsom. The Rebbe wants it to be at least no longer than a year. He said that in one letter that the hard limit seems to be a year-long engagement, but he would like it a lot shorter, and that that time should be counted from the vort to the chasuna. But in one letter, he says it should even be counted from the shidduch, uh, from the initial shidduch, from the beginning of the shidduch to the chasuna, only one year. It seems that anything longer than a year is against the Rebbe's shita quite forcefully. Uh, the Rebbe explained why he said it was because of tznius, that it applies especially when they're in the same city, that the Chacham are not happy with somebody who does this, that karnalso, worrying about finan-finance, is a particularly bad reason because it shows lack of faith. And finally, that if we do find ourselves in a situation to influence people to do this properly, we should influence people to make the wedding close as po-- as close as possible to the engagement. Okay, that's it.