על שינוי סיפורים חסידיים

00:00 Good . This is Igris. We are at the beginning of Chesvan. This is the first day of Chesvan. We are looking at letters from exactly fifty years ago from the volume and today's letter is from and the letter is na- is labeled, is numbered, It is one of these short letters that without the footnote below you can't really understand what it's saying because the rebbe is doing like a numbered approach to answering this woman's questions. So we're gonna look below the line and get the context. Says that this is a copy of the letter itself. It's from a copy. and it was written on sort of the, uh, the side, the margins of the letter that was written from Miss-- Mrs. Shternasada Teichman. Uh, it was written on She wrote the following to the rebbe. She says, "I'm now attaching, I'm including here my, my work, I wrote a book called Stories for Children. Stories for Children. It's going to shortly come out under the name, uh, Traditional Stories for Children. Here I wrote, uh, stories of Hasidim in a simple language and something that'll be understandable for children, and I wrote to the rebbe," she says, "about two years ago about the reason why I wanna do this, and now I'm coming to you in the end of it, so I'm showing you my work." The rebbe's answer to her submitting these stories. First of all, which is something I have not seen before. The rebbe here says, "Thank you very much for the

01:23 book," and I think this means he wants her to take it back, that he's sending it, uh, return. I, I don't-- I-- usually he keeps the books. I don't know. Number two, that it should be with success. Three, This is interesting. The rebbe says that your book doesn't seem to have a hakdama. It has no sort of introduction or framing. The rebbe would like to see an introduction of some kind in this book. At the very least it should say somewhere near the beginning or We have a whole share from a long time ago about the rebbe's regular insistence that people send him things only when it has on it. one of our earlier They're all online. Apparently she had some story, uh, that involved and the rebbe wants it removed from the storybook. I, um, I went looking. This book did get published. It got published in It's, uh, it's indexed by the major libraries in Eretz Yisrael, by whatever their version of the Library of Congress is, but I wasn't able to get my hands on a PDF to see whether she made the change or what that story might have been. So I don't know what it was, but in any case the rebbe saw a story involving, uh, involving, uh, and asked her to remove it from this children's book for various reasons. He doesn't give the reason. Could be because he didn't want children exposed to it, could be that he doesn't believe that it belongs to the Hasidism storybook

02:38 I don't know. Doesn't say why. Finally, And the rebbe says, "Basically I'm not gonna edit your book, but somebody should." He said that you should ask a and somebody living in Eretz Israel whether any changes need to be made to the stories in this book. The rebbe defers her to an expert and says that changes might need to be made. So this is our letter for today. What I'd like to use this letter for is as a jumping point into sort of a broader discussion of the rebbe's approach to Hasidism stories and more importantly for us the rebbe's approach to when we change Hasidism stories, what things we remove from books of Hasidic stories, when it makes sense to, uh, to ask somebody who understands a field whether this is a story being told right or whether it should be told differently, all in light of the general idea that I'm sure you've gotten from other sikkas and letters from the rebbe, that the rebbe doesn't really like when we change stories generally speaking. Stories are told Changing even a word of a story usually upsets the rebbe or usually upsets the rebbe. is very strict about stories being told with complete dyuk. And nonetheless we see in our letter, and I'm gonna show you some other letters, where the rebbe asks that stories be changed. What we're going to end up with is a maskana that rebbe does have a letter where he explains when we're allowed to change stories, when we must change

03:44 stories, and when we must keep the originals. And so we're gonna come out with a general rule for how to approach Hasidic stories, uh, when to change them, when not to change them, and how the rebbe sees their dyuk. So for the first exploration of this we have a letter over here, I hope. Hope I put these in the right order. Yeah. This is a letter from volume This is and we're just looking at this one paragraph here to give you an idea of how much the rebbe values Hasidic stories and their dyuk, and it has something to do with the Parsha we're up to right now. The rebbe writes I'm thanking you for the, uh, for the Hasidic stories that you're including in all of your letters. I hope you'll continue to do this. So somebody was writing letters to the rebbe and was also including Hasidism maysees in them and the rebbe appreciated it. We know-- I don't know where we know this from, I just know that we know. I know from, from Brangens and storybooks. But we know that the rebbe actually wrote a similar request to the rebbe early on, uh, in his marriage or maybe even a little bit before saying to the rebbe that he felt his-- an area in which he was deficient, in which our rebbe was deficient was in Hasidism stories and asking the rebbe to regularly send him Hasidic stories. So this person was also sending the rebbe stories and the rebbe was very

04:48 grateful and asked for more of them. It's known how much the rebbe, how much our rebbe, uh, held dear, how much they cherished stories of The the rebbe that's well known that he explains that Sefer Bereishit is put in the Torah before all of the other story-- all the other things in the Torah even though the subsequent parts of the Torah are Halakha and obviously the Torah is there for Halakha. that God decided, God himself decided, uh, that it made more sense to put first. So there's a primacy given to not but you know stories of our righteous forefathers come in the Torah before Halakha, before Jewish law. Now giving an idea of the primacy of the, uh, importance of Hasidic stories, of stories of tzadikim, of stories in general in a Torah true view and the view of the Torah itself and the view of Hashem writing the Torah and of course in the view of the rebbe. So the rebbe very much cares about Hasidic stories. There are many examples where the rebbe mentions how much he cares about dyuk in these stories. I found just one that we'll look at together. Gonna make it big on the screen. There's a sikkah from of the year and the rebbe here tells a story from the Tamach Tzedek that's fairly well known. I'm not gonna read it inside, I'll just tell it to you not with dyuk which is exactly the rebbe's point that I should be telling it to you with but the

05:58 dyuk is on the screen so you can read the dyuk yourself. The story goes that the rebbe for a while after the Alter Rebbe passed, after the Alter Rebbe's his the rebbe was able to see him and converse with him even though he wasn't in a physical body anymore. But then a period came and he was unable to talk to him anymore. He was unable to have these conversations and he was very disturbed by- Tamach Tzedek, not the rebbe, right? Did I say for the Rebbe? It's the Alter Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek. I might have said for the Rebbe. Sorry. The Tzemach Tzedek was unable to speak to the Alter Rebbe for a while after the Alter Rebbe's passing. Uh, even-- and he tried, he davened a whole bunch, and he was unable to get through to him on that spiritual plane. One time he's going to shul, he runs into a butcher, I believe, who, uh, needs a couple rubles and, uh, as a loan, and the, and the, uh, Tzemach Tzedek says to him, "Yeah, I'll give you the loan. I'm just, I'm davening first, so I'll get to you afterwards." He arrives in shul and he realizes that this butcher, he needed the, uh, he needed the money right now, and he can't wait until after davening. He wouldn't have asked if he didn't need it. So he left shul and went over and gave him the money, and then after that, the Alter Rebbe appeared to him again. He was

06:52 able to see the Alter Rebbe again. And the Rebbe says about this story, "Sifra ze, ki chol sipurei haTorah," this is the Sefer. "This story, like all stories in the Torah, v'chol kol ha-sifrei ha-ba'al peh, all of the stories in Torah she ba'al peh, this includes the Ein Yaakov shir, all the Aggadot, all the Aggados, all of the stories in the Torah, all the stories that are told. V'chol sipurei sh'mesaprim tzadikim meshushemim al kein ha-dibbur min ha-sarmah divrei ha-betzalel." Anytime a tzadik says a story, we have to understand tzadikim don't waste words. Tzadikim are very careful about kein ha-dibbur. They never say even an extra syllable, let alone an extra word. A tzadik only says what must be said. "Kmei Sifra ve'nashar sifra kam ke'tuch shemerach aman be'vekamakham pamin." The Alter Rebbe told this story many times. He also wrote it and he publicized it. So from there, "Mahaveh yerach keitzed eych tzadik lisnag lez ein yenichem l'vai al idei zeh," so we can draw a lot of rules, a lot of principles from the precision of this story. The Rebbe's point being that if our story comes from a reliable source, that is from a tzadik, if a story comes from a tzadik, we can be sure that every detail of the story is meant for diyuk. It doesn't necessarily mean that every detail of the story is meant literally, of course. We have stories in the Gemara that are daka not meant to be read literally, but it does mean that every word

07:50 has a drash in it. Every word of a story that a tzadik tells us is going to be darshable because tzadikim don't waste words. On that note, you would assume that the Rebbe would never tell anybody to change any Hasidic story from its ma'aseh, but that would not be correct. So, uh, the famous-- the most famous encounter with this, although the Rebbe does this with a lot of individuals on a smaller scale, is with Rav Zevin. I'm sure you're familiar, Rav Zevin, uh, wrote in addition to the encyclopedia, Talmudit, which he edited, he was also a big posek. He was also involved in, in politics a little bit. He was involved-- at one point, he was, uh, on the Ukrainian parliament. Did you know that? That's interesting. Ukraine had independence for like a year, and during that year, he, uh, had democracy for like a year, and during that year , he was a member of the Ukrainian parliament. Uh, he was very much-- he crossed the paths with the Rebbe frequently before, before his official correspondence with the Rebbe began. He also used to write to the Alter Rebbe regularly in his youth. He also wrote to the Rogatchover regularly in his youth. Um, and he was one of the people who helped encourage our Rebbe to accept the Nesi'us. The Rebbe spoke with him at length about everything he did, and one of the things that he did was he wrote the encyclopedia Talmudit, but the other thing, the Talmudic encyclopedia and edited

08:49 it. But another thing that he did was he wrote Hasidic stories. And at the time, a lot of other Rebbeim were very angry at him about this. They said that it was, uh, it was humiliating for a talmid chakham to be using his wisdom to write Hasidic shmeises, but the Alter Rebbe strongly encouraged him, as did the Rebbe. In any case, he was ready to come out with his, uh, monumental work on, on stories of Hasidim, and the Rebbe strongly encourages him. This letter is in volume eleven. The letter is Gimel Taf Hey, and he writes to Rav Zevin that, uh, "Neneisi, I very much benefited, I very much enjoyed that shehelech-- de-ma mashach shehelech venidfa sifra ve'sipurim chasidutiyyim." Uh, that "I'm very happy to hear that you're going to go ahead and publish your Hasidic stories, uh, formally. Uvetechitzayen es hamakom hem ulaka-lakam-mehem lakach hasipurim." Definitely, you will note where the source from where these stories came from. I wanna know the source. Now, we know from the Sefer of the Rebbe, why does the Rebbe wanna know the sources for each of these stories? Because there's different dargos in, in, in stories, right? If a story is told by a tzadik, then we need to be bedi'ak. If not, lav daka. "Mi hammesapre midasa, u'midasa dayakan ish lo," I wanna know who was the storyteller. I wanna know what kind of a, what kind of da-- what kind of a-- what's a good translation there? Midasa dayakan is how, uh, how specific they

09:52 are about things, how careful they are about things. "Ku v'im hesipurim hem hesipurim chasidim." I also wanna know if they're Hasidic stories or from other sources. "O ish es hamhalach ha'nefesh," or I also wanna know if these are sort of a creative nonfiction, that it follows what y- what the writer thought that individual would do, but isn't necessarily what they're sure they actually did. So the Rebbe wants some sources on this, and apparently he didn't get it because in a letter that was sent a little bit later, also in volume eleven, this letter is Gimel Taf Reish Nun Zayin from Chaf Alef Tammuz of Tav Shin Tes Vav, the Rebbe writes to Rav Sholom Zevin very warmly, and near the end of the letter says, uh, "Thank you very much. I received the books that you put out," and you can tell from the footnote that we're about to read, uh, from the PS that we're about to read, that Rav Zevin did not end up including many of his sources. He included some, but not enough for the Rebbe. The Rebbe says here, "Kidarki venish..." I, I love this because this answers a lot of questions we've had about the Rebbe. You might remember, we've mentioned in a lot of shiurim about the Rebbe's letters that, uh, the Rebbe frequently will say, "It's not my way to interfere in things," and then very specifically interfere in things. And we've sort of, we've sort of joked about that. Uh, the fact is, the Rebbe here

10:48 explains himself, and I've never seen this before. So the Rebbe says, "Kidarki, uh, as is my way, venishana mamre azal atu anolei adonei deshava kamina, basi vishulei agilan be'ezaharas eitaya aslicha." The Rebbe says, "It, it is my way to follow the following mamre hazal." This is a mamre hazal. This is something that Rebbe Yechanan said to... I don't remember. He said to whoever was sent to replace Reish Lakish. I cannot remember the character at the moment. So, uh, Rebbe Yechanan and Reish Lakish used to learn together. Reish Lakish would, Reish-Reish Lakish would slug up everything Rebbe Yechanan said. Reish Lakish died. Uh, look inside for the circumstances. It was, uh, shady. Uh, after Reish Lakish died, they sent a replacement 'cause Rebbe Yechanan needed someone else to learn with, and this replacement used to give Rebbe Yechanan like forty reasons. It might be a different number. I forget the number. Multiple reasons, uh, why he was right. And Rebbe Yechanan said back, "I wouldn't have even brought these things up. Atu anolei adonei deshava kamina. Do I not know I'm right? Tell me why I'm wrong." So the Rebbe says, "I assume that when people write to me, especially to me lehachamim, that they already know why they're right, and they're writing to me to find out why they're wrong. Since this is my assumption, you already know why you're right and you wanna know why you're wrong, I'm gonna come in and tell you why you're wrong." This is the Rebbe's explanation why he

11:48 tells people why they're wrong, and you can borrow it too when you wanna tell someone why they're wrong. It's very, it's very much a darke naivteke Shalom way of telling people what you think is wrong with their stuff. So the Rebbe then says in a very, very long PS, this is gonna take up almost all of our time, I think, reading this PS to Rav Sholom Zevin. He explains why stories need to be done with a certain kind of diyuk, and he points out two stories that he thinks were not done with enough diyuk. So we're gonna read this one inside. I debated doing it outside, but there's so much here that I can't really justify skipping it. So we're gonna read it inside. I wanna make sure I didn't miss anything else, 'cause I'm telling you, this is gonna take up all of our time. Yeah. Okay, we're ready to do this And this confused generation whenever we can clarify things, that is best because nowadays we live in confused times with confused people. Even though it's not always clear how urgent this is, how necessary it is to clarify a point right now. It might be that soon later, that shortly thereafter, it becomes obvious that it was so important to be clear about things. So even when you don't think you need to be clear and everybody understands me, I can say whatever, be careful because we're in a confused generation and sometimes right now things are clear, but they might not

12:55 be clear later. Write the Says this definitely applies when it comes to collecting stories, especially stories that have to do with Israel, uh, that in all times, in all places, we need to be very-- that lived in all times, in all places. I think the comma is there. We then need to be very clear when we're writing up these stories. It should either be in a footnote on the page or at least at the end of the book, the source of every one of these stories and how reliable it is. This is very important for us to hear. He says here this applies to all stories of Tzaddiqim, but it especially applies to Hasidism stories for the following reason. I think I think that's meant to be feminine, otherwise he wouldn't have cut the hay off. In any event, what he's saying here is that when it comes to Hasidism stories, sometimes they're not correct, and sometimes people made them not correct on purpose. So sometimes sometimes they're they're made, they're made incorrect on purpose by people trying to discredit Hasidism. And what happens is it can bring it can bring incredible damage to Remember, our whole point here is to spread and bring Mashiach. And stories that are told incorrectly that could reflect poorly on Hasidism and Hasidim could end up doing the opposite of that and then what's the point? There's no point in a Hasidic story that might prevent the spread of Hasidism. And he's saying here the spread of Hasidic Minhagim

14:24 and the spread of Hasidic Hadraha has sometimes been impeded by ridiculous Hasidic stories that are counterproductive. So the Rebbe says we have to be very careful with Hasidic stories to make sure that they are not counterproductive to our point, which is spreading Hasidism. He says, "Look, I, I read the end of your book. I saw in the last lines you put in, you did definitely bring some and I know how much you love Seder." He's talking to the editor of the Encyclopedia Talmudic. So yes, this is a person who loves order. I'm sure that you did write down somewhere on your own the source of every one of your stories. You're not the kind of person who just throws stories out there. So since I know that maybe in their own pamphlet, he says, "Look, you already published, so there's not much we can do about this, but I think you should put out a pamphlet that will accompany this book with all of your sources." Uh, I'd also like you to explain how reliable each of these sources is. The Rebbe says there are really extremes when it comes to the-- when it comes to storytellers. There are some people who are incredibly reliable, some people who are very unreliable, the opposite, very unreliable. Most people are found somewhere, uh, between that. Some people, they're not very reliable, they're also not very unreliable. So if you could kind of rate the reliability, that would be very helpful. This is also important, he says. "It

15:54 should be understood, I'm not telling you not to put out stories unless you know their source or unless you know the reliability of their source. You absolutely can put out stories when we don't know how reliable they are." As long as it captures the general spirit of the Hasidim or their descendants. That just because the story isn't true, it's not-- doesn't mean that it couldn't have happened. It should be a story that at least could have happened. So the Rebbe says we don't have to restrict and not put out these stories, but there should be notes explaining how reliable they are, so people can take them with a grain of salt. But as long as they are stories that could have at least happened that reflect the general feeling of Hasidism, it makes sense to put them out and tell them with the, with the warning that we're not sure how reliable they are. The Rebbe says, "But it's different for you." This is generally true. Generally speaking, anybody can put out a story, and I don't really care if they're not terribly reliable as long as they make a note. But when it comes to you, I'm more concerned. You are known as a Rav among Anash. Says, "You are of Shlomo Zevin. When you become a pr-- you are automatically a primary source." So people are going to say, "I know this story is true, and I know that it's badil because it came out of Rav Zevin's book." So he's saying that

17:06 since you're such a reliable person and people rely on you, you need to really put these, uh, these, uh, these warnings or these, uh, conditions in your book telling us how reliable each story is, because otherwise people are gonna take everything you say as, uh, as absolutely the way that it happened, and it did not necessarily. Based on everything I just said above, there is an addition to that. In addition to the fact that we need good sources, the Rebbe says, we have some Hasidic stories that just are shocking, that they're shocking. He says some stories, you read these stories, we've all been there I certainly have been. You read some-- you hear some of these Hasidism maises and you say, "I'm certain that the person in this story, big Tzaddiq, he either did something asar or something that is not meshulas edin or not exactly appropriate." That's the way some of these stories leave you. They leave you feeling like the Tzaddiq in question did something either asar or close to asar. This, uh, this, um, cause this, uh, casts down. It casts down on all those who carry and on itself. In the back of your head, if you know a rebbe break the rules, you're not going to take everything that we're trying to teach so seriously, and once again, counterproductive to And the Rebbe says this is such a shame because in a lot of these cases, a very small change in the story that would make very little difference to

18:26 the flow of the story would remove these sorts of problems, and we wouldn't have this issue. So the Rebbe is advocating in cases where a very small change to a confusing story, a story that causes doubts Could remove those doubts, just get rid of that detail. They came into Rubash support of Abravderach Kamatsneres. And why am I okay doing this? The Rebbe says, "Most, most stories, they're oral traditions. They came from many sources. I'm sure that the way that it was put, the words are not usually so and especially since these stories are almost always translated from language to language. A lot of them started in Yiddish, went to Hebrew, some of them went back again." The Rebbe says, "I don't feel very strongly that we can't make very small changes in stories, especially when they remove these sorts of problems where the story seems to be telling us to do something else." He gives two examples. I'm going to focus on one of them only because the first example, I'm not sure exactly what the Rebbe's point is. I'll tell you this first example outside. The first example outside is that there was a certain Rebbe, one of the Hasidish Rebbes, who was offered the opportunity to have a Magid, to, to meet Eliyahu Hanavi and to talk to him, and he rejected the opportunity. He said, "I don't wanna do that. I want Torah Veyagia. I wanna work very hard for Torah." And the Rebbe here says that that seems to be a

19:27 steer against the entire Indian of Magidim, but then he says later on he found some ascetics and something very similar to the Ati Rebbe that he wanted to work hard for Torah. Uh, the Rebbe doesn't in this section give advice of how he'd like the story changed, so I'm gonna jump to the second one. The second one is a little bit more well known. Uh, I remember reading this story without the change in it, so I don't know how the story without the change came out. Maybe Rav Zevin didn't listen to the Rebbe. I don't know. I remember reading this story in the version the Rebbe says not to publish. So this story is a story that's labeled in Rav Zevin's book as Shin Yud Gimel, and the story is that Rav Zusha of Anapoli, a Hasid one time came to Rav Zusha of Anapoli and told him that, uh, his father just died and that he was getting a vision in his dream every night of his father coming to him and telling him to convert, uh to another religion, telling him to leave the, to leave Yiddish guy. So he comes to Rav Zusha of Anapoli, says, "Of course, I'm not gonna leave Yiddish guy, but this is a very disturbing dream. Can you, uh, can you, can you help me with this dream?" And Rav Zusha said to him, "Go to your father's grave." This is the way the story's told that the Rebbe does not like. What I'm about to tell

20:20 you is the version that we're not supposed to tell. That is, he said, "Go to the grave, dig up the grave, exhume the father, look inside the casket or around that area, and you're going to find some of it, the Zara." And he did it. He dug up the grave. They went down there, and they found that the father had been buried with coins that had crosses on them, that had Salem on them, had crosses. When they removed the coins and reburied the father, he never had these problems again. The Rebbe says here, "This story, ." You simply cannot. It's difficult to justify this according to Shulchan Aruch. We actually have a whole igrish here on when you're allowed to exhume bodies, believe it or not. We've done everything at this point. So if you listen back, you'll hear when you're allowed to exhume a body. On that list is not that you might have a cross coin hidden inside the body that's causing bad dreams. But the Rebbe says, "Why not make a small change to the story?" Maybe the story is that he said, "Dig around the grave in the area immediately surrounding it, and you're gonna find something treif in the area surrounding it." Maybe within four amas of the kever, uh, then . Now we don't have a halakhic problem, and we haven't changed the story. And the Rebbe says, "Look, this story was passed down time after time, person after person. No reason to believe that it was told .

21:24 It probably, probably the original version of the story was that Rav Zusha told him, 'Dig around the grave,' not dig up the father." Who would, who would tell somebody who Rav Zusha wasn't gonna tell them to dig up a literal grave? and that's how somebody reading the book is going to understand it. The Rebbe has a note here that I'd find funny because, uh, I also don't know the source, obviously, and as far as I know, no one knows the source. At the end of that story, the story ends that this person then went to the Vilna Gaon and said, "Let me tell you how amazing Zusha of Anapoli is. He told me that if I dug up my father, I would find these coins, and they were there." And the Vilna Gaon apparently said back, um, "I'm not impressed that this worked. I'm impressed-- I'm not impressed that this worked because it's a says that if somebody's having bad dreams, that they can, that it's because about their father saying this, that if you dig up the grave, you're gonna find these coins there." He said, "My shock, my-- What I'm surprised is that Zusha of Anapoli knew the Yudushami." That's the way the story ends. The Rebbe says, "Uh, by the way, if you know what Yudushami the Gra's talking about, I would love you to show it to me because I'm unaware of this Yudushami." He says, "I'm thanking you in advance." As far as I know, Rav Zevin never sent him

22:20 the Yudushami. As far as I know, the Yudushami doesn't exist, and it's another one of these details of the story that kind of snuck in over time. Okay. So we have some principles. So it's not gonna tell the Rebbe Zusha knew this Yudushami. Yeah. If the Rebbe doesn't know this Yudushami, there is no it's not a it's not a question. But also the Rebbe was asking, uh, Rav Zevin, and Rav Zevin as a, as a person who was or editing the Encyclopedia and Talmud is, uh, if anybody knew the answer, it would be him. But it also could be the Rebbe's asking him almost rhetorically, saying, "Look, I, I, I don't know it. I know you don't know. Maybe that shouldn't be in the book either." I can't know what was going on in the Rebbe's head. I just know the Rebbe says he doesn't know the Yudushami, which means it doesn't exist. Means it doesn't exist. Okay. So we have some principles from here. The principles of when we're allowed to edit stories, how important it is to keep our stories true. I think the overarching principle is that what we care most of all about is the spreading of Hasidus. And if something in a story is gonna get in the way of the spread of Hasidus, we can't have it in there, and we should remove it, especially if it requires just a small change. The Rebbe says specifically we can do this when it comes to stories that we don't know

23:16 the sources of so well, when they're not because we assume that things changed over time, people passing stories on to each other, languages shifting in the languages. Uh, but when it comes to primary sources, we have to be very, very careful. Generally speaking, Hasidim don't change things from primary sources, and he cautions that someone as influential as Rav Zevin will become a primary source, so he must make sure his stories are bediuk. Now, Rav Zevin apparently wrote back a question to the Rebbe that was almost exactly the question we're asking with this we're going to conclude. Rav Zevin wrote something back to the Rebbe along the lines of, "I can't change these stories. These are the stories you received from the Rabbeim, and I just don't, I don't feel I have the authority. You're making good suggestions, and I agree with you, but these are from Rebbes. I can't change the words of Rebbes because I think or even because you think that the story should be done a little bit differently." And here, the Rebbe answers him and gives him a klal that we can apply all the way across the board. This klal is found in volume eleven. This is Gimel Taf Shin Lamed Alef, and it was from Chaf Gimel Menachem Av of Taf Shin Tes Vav. The Rebbe writes, "Shalom u'bracha to Rav Zevin. You wrote about my ha'aras, about my notes on your stories. I agree with you," he says. He says, "I agree with you that it's a mitzvah

24:19 to listen to our hakham and to uphold the words of the hakhamim. I agree with you that it's specifically important to uphold the words of the nasiyim. " What, what is that? Yeah. This would only apply when we are fairly certain that, uh, these things were handed over explicitly, that we're sure that we have the right version. Uh, remember what the Rebbe said back here in our sikha. He was very comfortable being medayek in the Frieda Rebbe stories because the Frieda Rebbe and the tzaddikim who told them are so careful. And the Frieda Rebbe specifically, we know that he told the story, we know he published the story, wrote the story. Therefore, the Rebbe is very comfortable being medayek in those stories . This only applies when we're sure. When we're pretty sure these things were handed over precisely. But when it comes to a great safek, a great doubt over how reliable these stories are, about the versions of these stories said, "Look, these people-- these things are gonna go from storyteller to storyteller, goes from mouth to mouth. It's, uh, it's impossible to say that there wasn't some change in the Nusach or in some of the details." And is a, is a It's also I mean, people don't pay attention to small things. So then rather than digging ourselves into holes figuratively and literally, rather than going to great lengths to figure out whether we-- how we can answer how did this Rebbe do this given that this story seems to suggest

25:46 he did something against Halakha? It makes a lot more logical sense to say that the story is not precise rather than to say-- rather than to try to justify a Rebbe's behavior that appears to be against the Halakha. It makes a lot more sense in these, uh, generally unreliable stories, and less certainly unreliable in their details, to change one or two words and remove the question from the beginning. So, uh, what we have from this, I think, is the Rebbe's absolute 'cause he says it in several of these letters and he says it here too very explicitly. The Rebbe's about when and how we can adapt Hasidic stories. If we have a story from our Rebbeim, and that story is from our Rebbeim that they told in a certain way and we're sure that this is the way they told it, especially in published or edited , especially in, um, especially in, uh, in recordings or in things that the Rebbeim were involved in publishing. If there's an aw-- if there's an awkward part of that story, we can change not a word of it, not a single word. But any other case where we're not exactly sure the provenance of a story, if there's a problem that makes it look bad for Hasidus and might imp- might impede the spread of Hasidus, make small changes in order to, uh, in order to make the story fit. Not just because it's good for our PR, but also because as the Rebbe says down here, it's

26:50 much more likely the case that you're misunderstanding the story, that the story is not if the story says that Rebbeim did something that appears to be against Halakha. Okay, thank you all very much.