כפרה באמצעות צדקה

00:00 This is Ikarus and, uh, this is the Yeser HaSimcha. And during the Yeser HaSimcha we are, uh, going through letters from just about anywhere. Uh, we don't care how many years ago they were. We're just looking for stuff we can think about during the Yeser HaSimcha. Today, we're gonna do a slightly more serious one, and it's touching to the heart of something that we get asked a lot in Chabad, which is why we don't say Selichos between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That's not really the topic of the Shir, but it's sort of the headline of the Shir, is that the reason why we don't say Selichos between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to make a long story short, is that now is not the time for talking about doing Teshuvah, now is the time for practically doing Teshuvah, and Selichos is kind of comforting. We feel like we've done Teshuvah when we say we're-- when we say the words of Selichos, when in fact Teshuvah is about action. There's a letter from the Rebbe that I have on your screen. It's in English, and I went looking to see if this was a translation of something in Igris in Hebrew, and if it is, I didn't find it. Uh, so I believe this, I believe this is a letter that was originally sent in English. This is from, uh, Zion Marchesvan of Chaf Beis, and as indicated when I opened Igris to that da- to that date, it didn't exist. So I assume that

00:56 this, uh, unless I missed something, I assume this is only in English. The Rebbe says, uh, "I received your letter and you certainly received my letter." The Rebbe goes on to say, "On the question of the custom of Chabad of not saying Selichos after Tzemach David, there is an illuminating statement by the Tzemach Tzedek to the effect that the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are a time for action. The meaning of it is that the verbal prayers of Selichos should be reflected in actual deeds during these days." We've talked about Selichos a lot, now it's time to do it, and in growing measure, not only in quality, but also in quantity. There is much more in this statement, but can't be-- that which cannot be further expanded here, but essentially the main purpose of this custom is to emphasize the need for action during these days. So we dafka don't say Selichos. Uh, I had some students over for, uh, for the second night Rosh Hashanah. We were zecher to have some of the bachur from the, uh, from the mesivta come over for dinner, and they, they-- one of them mentioned that, um, some Chabad minhagim seem to make things easier rather than harder. It seems like sometimes we get off easy, like we don't have to say Selichos during the Yeser HaSimcha. I said to him, "The truth is, I think every time we do something in Chabad, it's always harder." I think our customs are always harder than the world's

01:55 customs. It's just that sometimes they appear simple when you're missing the pnimiyus of the custom. So this is much harder, right? On, on the surface, we don't have to wake up for Selichos for the Yeser HaSimcha. But why? Because we're supposed to be doing Teshuvah, which is a lot harder than waking up to do Teshuvah. In theory, I think we always take the hard road. It's just sometimes the, that's not apparent to people who are following the custom and not the spirit of it. The idea is not that we're off from Teshuvah, the idea is we're working harder now. Anyway, needless to say, and I did not know this, needless to say, when you find yourself in a place where the custom is to say Selichos, this is a letter from the Rebbe, it is indeed proper to join the rest of the congregation, especially as in this case, the saying of our sages, "Al tifresh min ha'tzibur," do not separate yourself from the tzibur, applies. I don't know. I've, I've never, I've never heard this halacha before, but this is in a letter from the Rebbe. If you find your place in a sh- if you find yourself in a shul where they say Selichos during Yeser HaSimcha, you should say it too. Because again, the reason we're not, why we're not saying it is not because we're opposed to Selichos during Yeser HaSimcha, it's because we, um, wanna focus on action. Lechor, just interesting to point out that in the Alter Rebbe Shulchan

02:50 Aruch when he talks about kaparos, he says that we do kaparos immediately after Selichos on Erev Yom Kippur. Now, that would imply that there was a Selichos on Erev Yom Kippur that the Alter Rebbe is referring to. Just putting that out there. In any event. So we're supposed to be doing Teshuvah, and I know-- I think most of us know what that looks like. Hopefully, what that looks like is the zev a-chet, that is we stop doing averos and we start doing the right thing. However, there's another part of Teshuvah, or maybe it's a little bit more of a part of a kaparah, if we're being precise, that's mentioned in Iggros HaTeshuvah, and that's the topic of today's Shir. I have a piece of Tanya here. I assume you know it, but let's, let's review Iggros HaTeshuvah for a second first. I have it on the screen. In Iggros HaTeshuvah chapter three, the Alter Rebbe says, "We should be careful, we should be careful for those who are strict. to, uh, fast for every one of the sins that we have done. Based on how many times you did the averos." The Alter Rebbe says there are some who want you to get to-- you to fast for every sin you've done and how many times you've done it. So if you were angry, I don't know, a hundred times, he wants you to fast a hundred times for anger. However, according to that opinion, as the Rebbe says earlier in Tanya, we don't do

03:53 fasting so much nowadays. People are too weak for it. It can cause more harm than good, but we do have to pay it off with tzedakah. So the Alter Rebbe is instructing us to pay off the cost of our sins with with eighteen The topic of the entire Shir today is how much exactly that is for every single day that you were supposed to fast. And also when it comes to any of the sins that you did that don't involve mitzvah, even if you missed a mitzvah even if you've been not careful enough about studying Torah, you owe a certain amount of money for the averos that we have done. We owe a certain amount of money for the averos we've done. And the-- it says if you wanna find out what these are If you wanna know what-- exactly how many fasts you owe for each of your sins, look it up in the Tikkunei Teshuvah of the Arizal, or look it up in the Mishnas Chassidim in Mesachas HaTeshuvah. The Alter Rebbe says redeem all of these with tzedakah. If you cannot afford to pain yourself with actual fasting, meaning that w- you have, if you have too weak a constitution to fast like six hundred times, you wanna be looking at the tzedakah option. Even though this can end up being quite a m- quite an amount of money, don't be worried that this might put you above the hard limit of twenty percent that you're allowed to give to tzedakah. We're

05:13 only allowed to give twenty percent to tzedakah at max, at maximum. 'Cause this is not called wasting or giving away t- uh, twenty percent-- more than twenty percent of your money in this case. Because you're doing it to redeem yourself from the obligation to fast or hurt yourself. So normally, there was an obligation for fasting or for self-affliction. In order to get around that, we give money. This is no worse than This is the same as healing the body or anything else that we need, like food. And since there's many, many, um, there are many, um- Many fasts that would be required according to these sefarim. And since many of these fasts have many, many days you would have to fast and therefore a lot of money you would have to give, the people-- nowadays, anybody who's is careful to give a lot of tzedakah. Because the weakness of the generation, I don't know whether he, uh, I guess that-- I do know what he means. Because the weakness of the generation that does not allow them to fast appropriately. So the author Rebbe is saying here, and this is brought down as a psak, and this is also l'maaseh, by the way. This is l'maaseh. We owe a certain amount of money for the averot that we've done l'maaseh. Now, I was mesing nefesh for this shiur, and when I say mesing nefesh for this shiur, I mean the following. I went looking in the Tikkunei Teshuvah of the Arizal and in the Mishnas

06:31 Chassidim in Mesachah Teshuvah to find some of these to give you some examples. Um, I mainly found these in Mesachah Teshuvah that was a little bit easier to navigate, but the truth is that, uh, it's all a lot of names of God mixed in with a whole bunch of, uh, very arcane practices. And in there, you can sometimes find how many taniyos he wants you to do. It's a difficult reading. I'm happy to send it to the group if you guys are interested in digging through and seeing if you can find some more. These are the ones that I pulled out. These are some of the ones in the Mishnas Chassidim tractate Teshuvah to give you an idea of just how many fasts we owe in theory. There is for gaivah. Now, I don't know how you measure when you have gaivah. Is this just a perpetual problem or like suddenly showing gaivah in ma'aser? But gaivah is supposed to be fifty-five taniyos, which is the of Shem HaMeforash. Almost all of these taniyos are based on gematrias. Anger is a hundred and fifty-one. That is kasv plus the kelo. So hun- so kasv is a hundred and fifty, plus the kelo, which is just throw in one extra, is, uh, is, is plus Hashem himself, which is, uh, which is kasv. So that's a hundred and fifty-one for a time you were angry. A hundred and fifty-one fasts. Missing tzitzit, Shema, tefillin, or tefillah, that's sixty-one for any of those, the gematria of hayim.

07:33 We have, uh, kibbud av v'em. For lack of kibbud av v'em, forty-four. That is the gematria of av and also the gematria of em. When you add av plus em, you get forty-four. Eating nevelas, those are animals that were not shechted properly. That's eighty-six, which is Shem HaMeforash with the kelo. Any other non-kosher food is ninety-one, which is, uh, ninety-one fast, which is the gematria of maachal. Mem-alef-kaf-lamed spells ninety-one. Stam yeinam, that is wine that, uh, wine that didn't have a hechsher on it, I guess is the practical way to say that nowadays. Wine that was-- that goyim were involved in, that would be seventy-three, and that is the gematria of yayin, which is yud-yud-nun. That's ten, ten, and fifty, plus three, which is each letter of yayin, the yud, the yud, and the nun. Avodah zarah is three hundred and one. That's a big one. Uh, don't worship idols. It's a, it's a lot of fasting. That's almost a whole year. That is the gematria of esh, and it's supposed to save you from the fires of Gehenna. This is just a really interesting one that I found in the middle of the Mishnas Chassidim. If somebody made a kamea, so they made an amulet, and this amulet helped a woman deliver her baby early, and then that baby died, we might be concerned that the kamea was the thing that cau-- the amulet was the thing that caused this woman to deliver early and therefore indirectly killed the baby. And in that case,

08:42 forty-five semas. I don't mean to, uh, I, I don't want to apply this at all. This is pure Kabbalah. I don't mean to touch this. But you might recall that we had a shiur a couple, a couple, uh, months back about how strong the Rebbe feels against induction for non-medical purposes. And this seems to me that there is a, that there is a, there's a teshuvah for an induction that caused a death. So just no-noteworthy, a spiritual induction. Uh, somebody who is beyal nidah, I'm not gonna give most of the examples of forbidden relations for simple tznius reasons. I don't wanna mention them, but a couple that are unfortunately a little bit more common. Um, beyal nidah has actually two in it. Uh, I didn't put the original one. I think it was something like sixty-two for if it, for if it happened by accident. If it was on purpose, it is eighty-two fasts, which is-- I don't know how to do the math here. I put it in Hebrew because I don't understand the math. It is, uh, you have to take yud hei, which is maleh alef, and that should give you twenty-six. And then I think if you maleh that with the same ayin beis, I think, then you end up get plus ten letters of something. You end up getting eighty-two. I, I, I confess, I, I couldn't figure this one out. Uh, zerah lebatalah is eighty-four, and that is actually mentioned in Tanya Peh Dalet Taniyos. All of the forbidden

09:43 relations are listed there. And I also wanted to note that several averot do not have fasts at all listed for them. They have just segufim. You're supposed to self-afflict, and I don't know what you do. I don't know how you pay off a self-affliction. The Alter Rebbe doesn't discuss this. You would think from the Alter Rebbe that there's a fast for everything, but there's not. For example, somebody who mu- who, who humiliates his friend in public. Such a person is supposed to at least . They're supposed to roll around on thorns, uh, because because he may-- because he, uh, because he embarrassed his friend by, uh, by whitening it. I don't understand the connection, but he's supposed to roll around in, uh, in thorns. Uh, so he has to fix himself by rolling in thorns. Uh, lefera, there's no way to pay that off. I don't know. I certainly do not suggest engaging in segufim. The Alter Rebbe speaks very strongly about not engaging in segufim. But I do think that it's very valuable to know just how horrible it is to humiliate somebody because the normal-- uh, if we, if we were allowed to, the normal approach to fixing humiliating somebody in public is rolling around in thorns. So it'll give you an idea of how it should feel. In any event, we have here a list of taniyos, and we know that we have to pay them off with kedaiim peleth, which means that if you could just convert kedaiim peleth into money,

10:48 you would be able to pay off every single one of the taniyos. You could figure out how much tzedakah you owe. Fortunately, a long, long time ago, when I say a long time ago, I mean it. This is from the year Teshen Vav probably. So that would be what? Teshen Vav is, is thirty-six? No, forty-six. Forty-six, right? Nineteen forty-six? Nineteen forty-six, someone wrote a letter to the Rebbe asking how much money they should be paying for these taniyos. They're Sorry, this is, uh, I should tell you where it is. This is in Igress volume two. The letter is kuf-tzadik-tes. You know, before the, uh, the prime system shows up. There's not even alephs in front of this. Early letter, long before the messiahs. So the writer asks, Uh, fun fact, a lot of these early letters from the Rebbe are written in a form of shailah-teshuvah before they changed the format of the Igress. So that was the shailah, and here comes the teshuvah. The reason why I think that's a fun fact, I know I'm, I'm out of order, but the reason why I think that's a fun fact is because, uh, a lot of people complain, uh, I guess in the world. I've, I've heard this complaint from some Hasidim too, and I don't understand it. But in the world at large, there is a complaint that the Rebbe doesn't really have a sefer of shailahs and teshuvahs, and because of that, the Rebbe can't be taken- Can't be taken seriously as a

11:59 pesek because he doesn't really have his stuff written down in shailat u'teshuvot format. The fact is, the Igris are in a lot of ways shailas and teshuvot. They can't always be applied le-dabir. You gotta know when he's answering halakha versus when he's answering the individual. But it is noteworthy that it looks like that's what they were trying to do when they initially published Igris. 'Cause the first couple volumes, it's a lot of sheila, teshuva, sheila, teshuva. So it looks like they're shailas and teshuvot. So that's another answer to the malachim of the generation. Anyway, teshuva. The answer-- That gives the answer. First of all, point one, and this is the main thing we're gonna look at 'cause the rest gets a little arcane. Fun, but arcane. So he says the makar for the Alter Rebbe statement is not a Kabbalistic thing. He didn't come up with on his own. He didn't pull it out of his hat. It is in Shulchan Aruch. Indeed, it is in Shulchan Aruch. I have it on the screen right here. I mean, you could trust the Rebbe, but you also should see it. It says in the Rama, this is in Aruch HaChaim in three, three, four. Siman three, three, four. Three hundred and thirty-four. Uh, that if somebody-- It's talking about when, uh, when somebody's house catches fire, and they're not allowed to put it out on Shabbos if nobody's in danger. That's more or less the din. It's, uh, obviously subtle. Ask-- If your house is on

13:00 fire in a Shabbos, ask your local Orthodox rabbi. Like, run screaming to his house, knock on his door. But, uh, if a, if a house is on fire on Shabbos, unfortunately, and nobody is likely to get hurt, we more or less are not allowed to put it out. Let's say somebody does, because obviously a lot of people are going to violate this, and they're going to either use a shinui or something to put out the fire. That's asur. So the Rama brings, what do you do if somebody fails in this area and they are mechallel Shabbos? Says, if you do violate Shabbos, you have to fast for forty days on Mondays and Thursdays. That's forty Monday, Thursday fasts. And in place of a chatas, 'cause you owe a chatas offering, you owe eighteen peshitim for tzedakah. If you wanna redeem the taitas with money, so already this concept of redeeming a taitas goes back to the Rama. It's not a leniency. It goes back to the Rama. Every day that you wanna fast, if you wanna redeem a fast-- By the way, this does not apply to fasts that are like communal fasts. You can't redeem Tzemach Dalya with this. But, uh, when it comes to a fast for a sin, every single fast is worth, every day of fasting is worth twelve peshitim. Okay. So what's twelve peshitim? That's not eighteen . Fortunately, the Rebbe's gonna explain. Oh, he brings the exact same thing that I brought. Okay. So every peshit is worth about

14:22 one point five of the . So if you know how to do the math, then that would mean that twelve peshitim would equal eighteen of this coin called . Uh, it has a nun in here. I don't think it does in, uh, in, in unless I've just always mispronounced it. Uh, as the Al-- as the Alter Rebbe says in . I'm just curious. Can I just look here and see if I'm consistently mispronouncing this world-- word if it... Hang on, I'm just looking. Yeah, it's . See? In Tanya it's , not . Whatever. Same coin. the same coin. Okay. So that would be eighteen based on . Now, if you wanna figure out how much that is, is going to be the-- exactly what a selah shaltera is. That's a selah shaltera. would be . If you're not following the math, that's fine. Here's the bottom line, is that whatever a selah is, that should be worth two-thirds of a, uh... I'm sorry. A good one should be two-thirds of a selah. And if you ever wanna know how much a selah is, just look at how much in every country they use to redeem a bechor, 'cause you have to use five selaim to redeem a firstborn child. That's five selaim. The Rebbe says, however, we might not wanna be as strict in our case because we are, uh, we're strict to use a selah shaltera and maybe not. The Rebbe then has a quite lengthy discussion here about exactly how to calculate these

15:54 selaim, and I don't think we're gonna have time for it. It's already near the end. I'll send you the letters so you can take a look. I do wanna point out something that's near the end that's sort of interesting, if I can find it in enough time. I think it's the second to last section. I should have highlighted it. Give me one second to find it. No, not there. Hang on. You know, the thing that-- they say radio hosts, they, they, they hate radio silence. It's-- You're not supposed to leave the, the line empty. But I wanna find this part that I wanna show you. I might just have to say it outside if I can't find it. Anyway, the Rebbe raises the possibility that, uh, that the amount that we owe is actually an amount that has to do-- There we go. Found it. There we go. Um, the Rebbe says, . Since the same shir for which is the amount that they're subbing out for a taitas, is actually how much it used to cost to bring a keves. So that's how much it would have cost to lose a meal, basically. That would mean-- I'm sorry, I missed a line. That would mean that according to the Maggid of Radom, perhaps that maybe the shir is based on . It's possible that this isn't a hard number, that the number is not how much it-- That the question isn't really how much is eighteen . That the real question is how much

17:19 is a meal? How much does it cost me to eat for a day? That would then be based on a person's place and, uh, the place that they're found. That it should be the-- You should feel like you lost a sheep, basically. It should feel like whatever the loss of a sheep would feel like to you at that time. 'cause that's how much a chatas would have cost. According to this, this would be a little bit difficult. Although there's no shir lemayleh, it does say in Shulchan Aruch that a rich person should add more money to this. It shouldn't be a lower limit to this either. There are some people in every generation who are so poor that maybe they would o-- they would, they would have to pay a lot less, and it seems like the hard minimum is twelve. So the Rebbe is, uh, the Rebbe, um, works with the idea That perhaps this number isn't a hard and fast number. But as I understand the conclusion of the letter, and because we're short on time, I'll send it around to all of you to take a look. As I understand the conclusion of the letter, we do assume that we owe the equivalent of . So practically speaking, how much exactly is that? And with that, we'll end for today. How much are we talking? I did do the math. Eighteen is twelve point eight grams of silver. As of today, that is nine dollars and fifty-four cents. That's, uh, but of

18:32 course, you have to check how much silver is worth every single day. So that would mean that one fast is worth about ten dollars. That's not way off from the other thing the Rebbe is saying, which is the cost of a meal for a day. I mean, if you're in Manhattan, the cost of a meal for a day is like ninety dollars. But, uh, for a lot of people, I think the cost of their-- of at least one meal, maybe even two meals, is probably something like ten dollars unless they're eating fancy food. Maybe it needs to be a little more. I'm not sure. The Rebbe is in the letter as to whether it needs to be a little bit more than that. But let's assume that it's about ten dollars. That would mean that if it's about ten dollars, that means that somebody who gets angry owes about one thousand five hundred and ten dollars to Tzedakah for a moment of anger, which gives you an idea of how much you have to control yourself. I remember, uh, just I'll conclude with this. I remember Yossi Paltiel, uh, Rabbi Yossi Paltiel says in one of his shiurim, I, I-- He's-- It's apparently an expression, but I don't know where it comes from. I only heard it from him. He likes to say that, uh, that a person who wants to sin has three choices. They can either be a tzaddik and stop doing aveiras, they can get a whole lot of money so they

19:24 can pay it off, or they can get real used to fasting, right? So either you need to have enough money to be able to afford to get angry, uh, to the tune of one thousand five hundred and ten dollars every time you get angry, you need to be able to fast a hundred and fifty-one times, or you need to be somebody who doesn't get angry. Um, but in any event, what this really means, obviously, this doesn't need to be paid off right now. We can pay these things off over time, but we should be paying these things off, and this should, at the very least, at the very least, be a zrizus when it comes to Tzedakah during this time of year. As the Alter Rebbe says at the end, that the reason why people who are nowadays are very careful to give a lot, a lot of Tzedakah is because the fact is, I mean, every time we get angry, we owe fifteen hundred dollars. Every time we have gaivah, we owe five hundred and fifty dollars. Um, and when, uh, God forbid, if you're missing something like tefillin or davening, that's six hundred and ten dollars every single time. These things add up to incredible numbers. The answer is to just give a lot, a lot of Tzedakah. However, if you did wanna make the calculations yourself, I think I've given you some of the resources on how to make that calculation on your own. We should all be zecher to do teshuva,

20:19 not just talk about it. Questions, comments?