האם אני באמת צריך חברותא?

00:00 This is Yigras. Today we are looking at a letter from the year Taf Shin Lamed Gimel, exactly fifty years ago. This letter is from Yud Gimel Elul, so it's an Elul letter. The letter number is Yud Taf Taf Kuf Alef, and the Rebbe gives a about where to live. That is not one we've seen before. We actually had a whole shiur on advice on where to live, that people should live in a Makom Torah, et cetera. But here the Rebbe gives a piece of advice that we did not see in that shiur that's going to launch a larger discussion of not just learning Torah by yourself, but learning Torah with a chavrusa, with a study partner. So we have here Yud Gimel Elul, Taf Shin Lamed Gimel. The Rebbe writes, I'm responding to your, uh, to what you informed me, that God should give you a beracha, that you should, uh, have a proper, a full-term baby. It should be easy birth, and that there should be living children who survive. in its proper time. It should be proper, and it should be easy. The Rebbe gives him a beracha for an easy labor and delivery and a healthy child. Now, getting to the answers of your questions. The Rebbe writes, says as long as you can spend time learning Torah in kollel immediately after marriage, so ideally in Eretz Yisrael or even outside of Eretz Yisrael, it seems that that's what Mechultana would like better. The Rebbe doesn't care where he learns, but the

01:14 Rebbe does want this person after marrying to, uh, after getting married, to learn in kollel for a couple of years. We also saw-- We also have a whole shiur on this topic, on how long to learn in kollel. The Rebbe gives his usual advice, which is that he does want people learning in kollel for a period of time after marriage, but not permanently. Ideally, one to two years or two to three years. In this letter, he says two to three years. Okay. This is the part that we need. Specifically, also after that, when he is done learning in kollel and he goes off and gets himself a job, he needs to be kavey-- he needs to be, uh, he needs to have kviyus itim, he needs to set aside time to learn Torah. And the word chavrusa is bolded here. That's in the original. And also to pick a city to live in where he can find a chavrusa. Don't live in a place where you're gonna have to learn Torah all by yourself. Live in a place where you can find a chavrusa and specifically set aside time to learn Torah with a chavrusa. As far as pranasa goes, he said, "Ask people who, people who love you, who know the inyanim," and he gives them a beracha. So the part that we're gonna focus on today is this piece of advice here. The Rebbe says, even after this person finishes studying kollel, he, he needs to set aside time to learn Torah with

02:18 a study partner, b'chavrusa, and not to live in a city where he can't find such a person. I would have guessed that this was a somewhat rare from the Rebbe simply because we were talking a little early before this shiur started about things that weren't emphasized, things that were not emphasized in our education. A lot of times we assume that they are not the of the Rebbe because they're not emphasized. I don't remember a strong emphasis being placed on making sure that I have a chavrusa. Um, I had a chavrusa in yeshiva because everybody did. This wasn't something we talked about much, and certainly the image of a Hasid learning Torah is not really with a chavrusa. Picture a Hasid learning Samach-- lear-learn-learning, uh, Samach Vav or Ayin Beis. You picture the tallis over his head learning alone, right? So I, I do think we have a bit of a culture of this. I don't know. Uh, I know there are stories about the Rebbe's chavrusas, that there were certain people who got a chavrusa with the Rebbe for a period of time, um, but I don't believe the Rebbe regularly had. I mean, how would I know? As far as I know, the Rebbe didn't regularly have a chavrusa he was learning with constantly. He did a lot of learning on his own. I think we, we, we much more than the rest of the world in Lubavitch, but even in the world at large, once you get to be married, once you get

03:13 to be a working person, the idea of learning with a chavrusa definitely falls off the radar, and it becomes more of a, "Can I get through the Daf by myself? Can I do on my own? Can I be kavey itim?" Because it's harder to schedule with a chavrusa. However, we're gonna find in these letters that the Rebbe pushes the idea of chavrusa very hard, repeatedly in all circumstances. So this is one hundred percent an opinion of the Rebbe that people should have chavrusas. Starting with a letter from the year Taf Shin Yud Beis. This letter is Alef Tav Lamed He. And we're just going to do this part in the middle. Over here, the Rebbe says, the second point. We're not gonna read the first point, but you have it in your source sheet if you like. The Rebbe says, "I want you to push yourself to learn Chassidus with more vigor." That is, you should learn Chassidus with a warmness, with a liveliness. If you find that it's difficult for you to invest a chayus livdikayte, you're not able to put a liveliness, a, uh, a chayus into your learning, when you learn alone, you'll certainly be able to find a chavrusa. If you try hard enough, you will find a good chavrusa. And very certainly you'll have help from the Rebbe. who gave his life in order to spread Chassidus in all places, in all ci-- in all countries, and among all kinds of people. The point the Rebbe is saying here, though,

04:32 that is for us, is that if you're finding that it's difficult for you to invest chayus in your learning, that you're not finding your learning exciting, that you learn Torah, but it doesn't feel like it has a life to it, that might be because you don't have a chavrusa. And one of the pieces of advice the Rebbe gives to invest chayus, to invest life, livdikayte, and varmkeit into your learning, specifically in your, in your learning of Chassidus, is to find a chavrusa. And he says, "If you say you're gonna have trouble finding a chavrusa, I trust if you try hard enough, you will find a chavrusa who will help you infuse your learning with livdikayte." Over here we have a Yiddish letter. You know how I feel about those. We'll do it anyway. This is from volume ten. The letter is Gimel Peh, and the year is Taf Shin Tes Vav. And the Rebbe says he's answering the letter, and there's a, there's like a typo here in the version I have that has like a, a computer error. But I'm answering your letter from a certain date where you talk about the fact that your learning is not going very well at all. You don't have time for it. The shlachkeit of your learning is not going well, and also there's not so much time for your learning. He says, "One of the eitzas, one of the pieces of advice, is to learn with a chavrusa, at least with one other person." So this

05:29 is the Rebbe's advice, is that if you're finding that you, uh, fi-- that your learning is not going well at all, or you find that you don't have time to learn, one of the best ways to fix that problem is to get a chavrusa. What's so interesting about that is the main reason I don't learn with a chavrusa regularly is because I don't have time for a chavrusa. You know, I, I, I pick up, I pick up a Sefer when I, whenever I have a spare second, and, uh, and that's hard to schedule with somebody else. The Rebbe here says that if you're having trouble scheduling your learning, and specifically this is the time to find yourself a chavrusa. He also explains here why it's, uh, in this section, why it's so important to learn with a chavrusa. He says that there are all sorts of benefits of learning with one other person. There's, uh, there's the Dibuk Chaverim, which is something he mentions in several letters, that there is one of the ways that the Torah is acquired, according to the mission in Pirkei Avos is through connecting with your friends. It also says that when you direct yourself toward or engage with some other person, this sharpens you, it stimulates you more. So when you have to have a give and take with another person, this increases the power of the learning. So the Rebbe here is giving a couple reasons why learning with a chavrusa strengthens your ability to learn Torah effectively.

06:27 Moving on to one more letter on this topic of the general or two more maybe of the general value of chavrusa. We have here in volume twelve, this is letter Hey, Kuf, Tzadik the year, is Tav Shin Yod Zayin. The Rebbe is shocked to find that someone doesn't have a chavrusa. The Rebbe says, "Well, the pela, I would like to one day collect all the pelas in Igris. I try to use one at least every year." The Rebbe is frequently surprised, but it always is the-- it always is-- If, if you ever wanna know how you can pick a great letter, if it has the pela in it, it's gonna be great. Well, the pela. "I'm very surprised you're not mention-- you haven't mentioned in your letter the way that you learn." "Certainly, you aren't learning alone." Chas v'Shalom, right? He doesn't say Chas v'Shalom, those are my words. But certainly, you're not learning by yourself. It's known that Chazal took it very seriously that we should learn with Dibuk Chaverim, we should learn while connected to our friends. Certainly, in the place you are right now, you certainly can find a chavrusa given where you live. It's possible you haven't done this. Maybe you haven't had a chavrusa at all, or a chavrusa or you have a bad chavrusa, one that doesn't work out for you. and this is getting in the way of your success in Limud HaTorah. So the Rebbe says, "Do note that if you can't find a chavrusa, you should

07:37 find one. But if you don't have one, that doesn't exempt you from learning Torah." This is an important point that . Your chavrusa's not there, you still have to learn. Your chavrusa doesn't show up, you still have to learn. We are obligated to learn Torah at all times. However, the Rebbe seems surprised to the point of it being a pela, that you might be learning alone, and trusts that you'll be able to find a pe-- a way to get a chavrusa so that you can fulfill Chazal's incredible need for Dibuk Chaverim, the connection of friends. This one makes me feel a little better about myself. Dibuk Chaverim only a chavrusa? What about a shiur? He says with one extra and a couple letters, so he does seem to feel that a, a shiur has similar value, that a shiur has similar value. Um, but in a couple other letters when the Rebbe talks about the advantage of having a chavrusa, he says that it's that you sharpen your skill by the give and take, and that doesn't really happen in a shiur so much. At least, I mean, it happens in some of the shiur I give, where I can't get a word in edgewise because somebody else is sharpening their ideas on my shiur. But normally, in a, in a healthy shiur , in a healthy shiur, a person gives shiur and you more or less listen. I wa-- I don't mean to call out the fact that you asked a question in the

08:36 middle. I meant this in a different context, but it's pretty funny. No, but what I mean is that normally, a shiur doesn't allow you to really sharpen your intellect. So on one hand, you do miss out in a shiur, but on the other hand, in a couple of letters, the Rebbe will say, "I want you learning with other people, Dibuk Chaverim," and that means at least with one other person, maybe with two or three other people. The Rebbe definitely likes the idea of chavrusas. I don't know if the idea of sitting in a shiur and listening fulfills this idea, but certainly, it doesn't have to be a one-on-one chavrusa. Chavurah, absolutely in several letters. Good? Okay, let's keep going. In Beis over here, in this letter, this letter is Wow Kuf Samech Daled from the year Tav Shin Yod Ches, and the Rebbe writes, I, I point this out every time we do it, so let's point it out. The Rebbe occasionally tells us that something is for everybody, and then we know for sure that he's not just talking to the writer, he's talking to the whole world. So the Rebbe here says that the following thing is mokrach. It is required for every single Jewish person, and certainly someone who particularly needs a beracha in a certain area, that they should... Let's get to the end of the sentence. Um, that they should be learning Torah with a chavrusa. Even though you wrote to me that in your area, there are not people

09:46 who are appropriate for a chavrusa, there's no one there who would make a good chavrusa, if you look very hard, you will definitely find at least one or two people who are worthy of being a chavrusa. And once you do learn with somebody else, once or twice during the week, then then you can learn on your own the rest of the day. So you don't have to have a chavrusa every day. The Rebbe says it's okay if you learn with a chavrusa a couple times a week and then learn the rest on your own. Um, it's required to learn Torah every single day, including Shabbos Kodesh. So what a person should do if they have trouble finding a chavrusa, they have a chavrusa is only available sometimes, they should learn with the chavrusa a couple times a week, and the rest of the time learn on their own because we have to learn Torah every single day, and we can't be dragged down by the need to find chavrusas for every seder that we have. However, there needs to be chavrusa in your life at least a couple times a week. And what the Rebbe says up here is that this is a thing that is mokrach for every single Jewish person. Every single Jewish person needs to find a chavrusa at least a couple times a week. There are some specific benefits you find in letters from people with very specific problems, where the Rebbe says that a chavrusa will help cure their specific

10:52 problem. This one is, uh, . I, I don't know exactly what that means, but I assume it means that the person suffers from excessive shyness, that they're very shy, that they are-- that they have trouble, uh, going out and meeting people. So the Rebbe says one of the things that he wants them to do, first of all, he tells them to check their tefillin and also their mezuzahs. Uh, also be careful with Tevillas Ezra, and also to every day before Shacharis, give a little money to tzedakah, learn Baal Peh, certain things, uh, Mishnayas, and also have one Perek of Tanya, at least that will be in your mind, and try to learn with a chavrusa, or at least in a place where people learn Torah in public, like a yeshiva or a Beit Midrash, and God should help you. So this is practical advice for someone who's a little bit too shy, someone who has trouble socializing with other people. One piece of advice the Rebbe gives them is that you can learn socialization through the mechanism of learning Torah with a chavrusa. And even if you can't learn with a chavrusa, you might get some of those advantages just by being in a Makom Torah, by going to shul and being around other people learning, perhaps in a shiur, perhaps in a chavurah. This person wrote to the Rebbe, this is letter Ches Shin Samech Tes in the year Tav Shin Chaf Beis, wrote to the Rebbe saying that he was having memory problems,

11:49 Rachmana Litzlan. And the Rebbe said back to him, "You wrote about your forgetfulness that's bothering you." The advice for this is similar to what Chazal say. One advice-- One piece of advice for that is to learn out loud, to make sure you move your mouth and that you hear your words. That helps things go into your mind. That learning with a chavrusa in a way of shakla v'tarya, in a way of back and forth with a friend, this will help your memory. This also addresses the Shalom Baer was just saying that, uh, does-- or asking, does the Rebbe- Put the same emphasis on learning in a, uh, in a shiur, not if there's not "" with a chaver. Part of chavrusa is the back and forth. This is again why a chavura, uh, so it's 42. Chavrus- chavrusa, chavura with a nice crowd can also be helpful if you're able to bounce ideas off each other, but just listening to a shiur, probably a little bit less so. We keep talking about men. I did wanna point out that in a couple of letters, the Rebbe advises women to learn with a chavrusa as well, or with a small chavura. Uh, this is one such letter. Uh, I'm not sure exactly what the question here was. I've been looking at it a little bit, and I'm not sure. It sounds like she wants to, uh, not prepare as well for some of the things that she's doing, maybe some of the shiurim she's giving, and

12:54 the Rebbe is not happy with it. The point for our letter, though, is down here, . The Rebbe says we see clearly when it comes to women as well, that when they learn with a chavrusa, with one or two friends, they have much more success, they have a much easier time with their studies. This is not specifically a for men, that men should learn with a chavrusa, and women learn alone or go to a shiur. It sounds like women who are capable of doing so and interested in doing so and want to have success in their learning of Torah or need to have success in their learning of Torah also should be involved with chavrusas, with one or two of their friends. Small chavurus, small chavruses where they can bounce ideas off each other and that this will increase the success of their learning. What do you do if you can't find one, though? So we have a-- One of our previous letters, the Rebbe said in a couple previous letters, people say they can't find chavruses, they're just not trying hard enough. What if you literally can't find one? What if you are the only frum person in your entire town? What if you're on shlichus? One of the main reasons I stopped learning with chavruses was because I went on shlichus and out there, who was I gonna learn with? Um, that wasn't exactly true in my case. I had a couple in Nash near me. But the idea is, especially when you

13:58 live in a more remote place, you have a very busy life, what do you do if you can't find a chavrusa that works with your schedule? The Rebbe has, I found, two pieces of advice for this. Here's, let's read the first one. The first one is, uh, , the letter is , and the Rebbe writes, . It's already known from the mission in that one of the forty-eight ways to acquire Torah is through connecting to friends, . So he says, therefore, it would be appropriate, if possible, to find a chavrusa, although obviously the search for chavrusa can't get in the way of your Torah study. Let's say you can't find one at all. This is also in . told us that somebody who studies alone, God also comes and gives a berakhah to such a person. He says to also see again, it's okay, this should be after Rebbe, who explains this in . He's the of Nisra and the of the Shulchan Arukh. He gives checks . You want more details on this. But the Rebbe's point here is that if you absolutely cannot find a chavrusa, you absolutely are obligated to learn alone. A person isn't exempt because they can't find a chavrusa. I remember a phenomenon in yeshiva, and also in my early married life, that if your chavrusa doesn't show up, you go home, you know? If my chavrusa is not here, what am I gonna do? This is not acceptable at all. A person is obligated to learn Torah. They

15:09 can't hinge their Torah study on the attendance of their chavrusa. So you try your best to find a chavrusa because one of the ways the Torah is acquired is through dibuk chaverim. But if you can't find a chavrusa or don't have a chavrusa, your chavrusa is sick one day, doesn't come to shul one day during the Seder, you still have to sit and learn. And when you do, God will come and give you a berakhah himself because the Mishneh has already taught us that a person is allowed to learn alone, and when they learn alone, God blesses them, too. This last piece of advice, though, I think is the, uh, is maybe the most interesting of all of them. What to do if you can't find a chavrusa? The Rebbe says, . You should at least learn with one other person, bechorusa. So let's say you live in a place where nobody knows learning as well as you. They're not as good learners as you. You're the best learner in the community, or you can't find people who are up to your level to learn with. Let's say that there's somebody there, you will at least find somebody who is inferior to you in Torah study. You don't live in a place that has no Jews. Obviously, somebody there can learn Torah with you. They just aren't up to your level. says this in the . You'll learn even more from your students than anybody else, meaning the Rebbe says if you really can't find

16:12 a chavrusa, find somebody to pair up with who is inferior in your Torah learning and learn with them, and you'll learn a lot from them because you learn a lot from your students. So still make a chavrusa and make that chavrusa with someone who's significantly weaker than you and expect to gain from it, not just as a teva, not just as giving a shir, not just as helping somebody who's not as strong in learning as you, but also you can expect to benefit from them in a lot of the same ways you benefit from dibuk chaverim because as the Torah, as the Talmud says, . I learned even more from my students than I did from my teachers. So if we wanted to sum everything up that we've talked about today with the value of a chavrusa, in our letter that we saw, the Rebbe said that you should choose a town accordingly, right? That you should choose a town where you can find a chavrusa. You tell somebody, where you're, when you're deciding where to live, I expect you to have a chavrusa once you're married, and I expect you to choose a town where you can find a chavrusa. When it came to practical advice, we talked a lot about dibuk chaverim, about the fact that Torah is acquired in forty-eight ways, one of them being through having friends that you learn Torah with, you sharpen your ideas with. You saw that in the letter in Yiddish and in our second letter. The

17:07 Rebbe writes in one letter that it's a peleh that a certain person doesn't have a chavrusa, and he expects them to get one immediately. Uh, as for people who can't get a chavrusa every day, the Rebbe's fine with that. He tells one person, get a, get a chavrusa a couple times a week, and then the rest of the time learn on your own, but certainly you're not allowed to be mevatel Torah. We saw that there were some benefits to a chavrusa that are tangible. People who have trouble with shyness and with memory, they can sometimes strengthen their ability to socialize with others and also their ability to remember things by having a chavrusa and bouncing their ideas off friends. We saw that women are also included in the rule that the Rebbe has that people should have a chavrusa. Something that we didn't see but that I'm going to send you, it's also on the source sheet, is that when it comes to learning the halakhas that are necessary for married people right before a wedding, the halakhas of Taarot and Mishpacha and the like, the Rebbe has several letters where he says that that should definitely be done with a chavrusa or with a, with a large group for reasons that are well understood. That's his lashon there. And finally, we saw what we do if we can't find one. The Rebbe said in a bunch of letters, if you absolutely can't find one, you got the mitzvot of tamim. If you try very

17:58 hard, you will find a chavrusa, but if you absolutely can't, the Rebbe says, or your chavrusa cancels for whatever reason, first of all, the Rebbe says you still have to learn. Make sure you sit and learn by yourself, and God will send a berakhah. And if the only people available are people who are inferior to you in learning, then learn with them too. That can be your chavrusa. Your chavrusa doesn't have to be your equal. Your chavrusa can be somebody who's a little less, uh, a little less adept than you. And not only will you be doing them a favor in helping raise their level, you also will learn a lot from them, . Okay, that's it