חיילים פצועים

00:00 This is Ygress, and today we're looking at a letter from the beginning of the winter of tav shin lamed daled. So it feels cold here. It could be exactly fifty years ago. We don't have the exact date on the letter. This is a letter that the Rebbe wrote to... We'd scroll down to the bottom. It's a . This is a letter that is . It's written for general and also for individuals to those who were of the of the soldiers of the Yom Kippur War. This phrase, was not really in use at the time. Uh, I believe that they put that in the footnote here because later on the Rebbe would start using that phrase in, uh, nineteen seventy-six, and then they kind of retrofitted to the letters that came out later. But the expression means those who were injured in the Yom Kippur War. However, the Rebbe, as we're going to see, wanted to use a phrase to sev-- to, uh, recognize the fact that they are unique, special, exceptional. That's what means. These are the exceptional soldiers. That means the injured soldiers, the ones who were injured in the Yom Kippur War. The Rebbe writes a letter to them, and as we're about to see, this letter is a letter that the Rebbe s- did not just send out once. We're gonna-- I'm going to show you a letter in a second where the Rebbe basically, uh, gives a little headline to the letter, says, "Hi, nice to meet you," and then attaches

01:05 this letter to various injured soldiers. This was a letter that the Rebbe was happy enough with that he didn't just send it out once, he would send it out repeatedly, uh, m-many times when soldiers who were injured in battle would write to him. So this is the Rebbe's, uh, general approach then to writing to soldiers who were injured in battle, and unfortunately, a very practical letter. The letter is that's the designation. It is on page of which is and we read the Rebbe says uh, I, I forget what that one is. It's a letter. I received your letter. It's an abbreviation. And so I'm giving a that you should have-- I'm gonna mention you for a you should have a complete and soon healing. I'm very happy to hear that your spirits have not fallen and that not only have your spirits not fallen from your injury but that your, uh, that your that your trust in Hashem, the God of Hosts, has only increased. This God who watches over every single person who God is himself good, and the nature of good is to do good. even though sometimes his ways are hidden from the understanding of people who are born of woman, mortal people. We don't know-- we don't understand Hashem's ways, but as is always there, he's good. The nature of good is to do good, and I'm glad to hear that that's the way you view things. it should be God's will that we should hear good news in a revealed

02:37 way, also in a way that can be understood by mortal eyes. the Rebbe says, "I'm going to allow myself and I'm not just gonna allow myself, but also designate this as a great honor for me, a merit for me," says the Rebbe. to write the following to you. It's my honor to write what I'm about to write. because since you shielded with your body literally with your body you literally used your body to protect the Jewish people, the holy people who are living in the Holy Land. this also counts as protecting the entire Jewish people in all places that they are. Now that is, by the way, a controversial sentence right there, and it's worth repeating one more time. The Rebbe is saying that when a soldier protects Yidden in Eretz Yisrael, they are protecting Yidden in America, they're protecting Yidden in France, they're protecting Yidden in Australia. when you protect the land of Israel with your body, you're protecting Jews everywhere, not just in the land of Israel. because the entire Jewish people are friends but more than that we're one family. the family of the forefathers furthermore, we are one body. it says in the Torah, which is the Torah of life, you are standing here today, all of you that they are completely one as one. whether they are at the very highest level of the Jewish people or the very lowest level of the Jewish people, we are all completely one. So when a soldier defends us in Eretz Yisrael, they're

03:59 defending us around the entire world. So the Rebbe says, "I'm honored to write to you specifically because you are somebody who did this with your body literally, with your body literally defended the entire Jewish people." after you've gotten better and you've become cured, with the help of God who is the healer of all flesh and the one who does wonders, and then you enter into the path of life, certainly you're going to have to deal with the, um, the, uh, I guess instincts, expectations of those who are around you. people who are going to be around you, they're going to see the changes in your body. You've been injured. They're gonna see the scars or worse, they're going to see the, uh, the disabilities, a word that the Rebbe does not use. They're going to see this, and they're going to look at you in a u- in a unique way because you look different now, because you've been injured in battle. but all people are upright in the way that they go. They recognize truth, and they admit to goodness. So people are reasonable, says the Rebbe. certainly their immediate reaction what is their immediate reaction going to be when they look at you? You're going to think that they're thinking one thing. Let me tell you what a reasonable person will think, says the Rebbe. Let me tell you that all people are reasonable, that their immediate reaction will be that in front of them is somebody who protected them, the They're going

05:20 to see somebody injured and go, "Oh, this is someone who protected me." somebody who protected me and my family with and the thing that is on them is a permanent sign that is Sealed into their bodies, a permanent sign that they gave-- that they were that they gave of themselves for me and my family. So the Rebbe says, "You're going to get in your own head and imagine that people are looking at you negatively. That's not what they're thinking. What a reasonable person thinks when they look at a disabled soldier is that they are thinking this is somebody who it's marked on their body that they protected me and my family." "This sign that's on you, these scars, these wounds, they are signs that inspire and remind people of the connection between one person and another." "They remind people that some people out there are willing to show that connection so strongly that they will put themselves in danger in order to do good for somebody else." "Not just something that is forced upon them to give their lives, but that they will willingly do it, that some people willingly step into battle to protect the rest of us. That's what people think when they look at your scars." "There's some people who don't just talk about doing it, they literally do it." "And the fact that you are somebody who is literally willing and, willing and able to do this is now a sign on your body that everybody sees." So this is a

06:36 very important paragraph because the Rebbe is not just saying what the truth is, but one way the Rebbe could do this is to say, "The truth is, no matter what they say about you, don't you forget that you did something good for them." That's not what the Rebbe is saying. The Rebbe is saying, "You need to understand that the average person looking at you, any reasonable person looking at you is not thinking what you think they're thinking. You gotta get out of your own head. What they're thinking is that you're a hero. What they're thinking is that you protected them and that you love them, and that there's a sign on your body that you care about them." That's the way that the Rebbe tells wounded soldiers to look at the people looking at them. The Rebbe says, "It is my prayer." "Then the merit of the that you and many of your friends gave they should, and we should, and we all should for merit the following yield, the following promise soon there will be peace in the land and they will rest and there'll be no one scaring them and I will be for you a God and you will be for me a nation." prophecy. And the Rebbe gives a for everything. I will point out just because for some reason it's become controversial lately to say this, the Rebbe in a lot of his letters about war does mention uh, he does not mean pacifism, but he does mention Shalom. Shalom

07:47 is not something that we don't mention. Okay, moving right along. That's just for those who sit at with us on Shabbos. It's, it's not a, it's not a dirty word when used properly, Shalom. This is a letter also from the same year. This is from only a couple weeks from now. The letter is designated and the reason why I'm showing you this, this is an example of where the Rebbe writes a short introduction to somebody and then just pastes the following letter into the letter that he's writing for other soldiers. The Rebbe seemed so comfortable with this letter, at least the main points of this letter, that he was sending it out not just to a one time, but he continued sending it whenever he became aware of other wounded soldiers. This is written to I don't know who he is. The Rebbe writes the Rebbe doesn't know who he is either. "Even though I haven't met you personally your mother wrote to me, though." So this soldier's mother, this wounded soldier's mother wrote to the Rebbe and your mother told me that we're actually one family, that you and I are related. that you're also a descendant of the the author of the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch, the one who established the and she wrote so much to me about you that I feel like I know you. Your mother really wrote a lot. "Therefore, I'm going to allow myself..." Dot, dot, dot. And there in the footnote to the letter, it says

09:02 that the Rebbe pasted in the previous letter. So once again, the Rebbe sends the letter that we just read. The Rebbe gives him a for a speedy recovery and a complete recovery and good news in everything that was said. So the Rebbe sent out this letter pretty frequently. Uh, this next letter and the last one we're gonna look at, at that is a letter, then we're gonna look at a these pieces of that very famous and then I'm gonna show you some pictures of that meeting, of that has a, has a photo essay of, uh, of the Rebbe meeting the the injured soldiers. The first one more letter that is this is from also our year and once again, the Rebbe writes to an injured soldier. But this letter is very different and, uh, it- it's-- you gotta read between the lines a little, but I am almost certain that what is happening here is that somebody received the Rebbe's letter before that talks about how special it is to have permanent injuries and this person's getting better, and they're not going to have permanent injuries forever, and they're wondering if that removes their if they don't have as much because they're not as injured because they're recovering and that really does seem to be what the Re-- what the Rebbe is responding to. So we'll read together the Rebbe writes "I'm very happy to hear when I received your letter that you're getting better, that you're healing. You should have a speedy recovery and

10:15 a complete recovery that is literally a complete recovery. You should come back to your regular strength and be healthy and complete totally." the Rebbe says, "It should be understood." "It should, it, uh, it should be understood that this won't take away at all. This complete healing won't take away at all from the, uh, from the badge of honor, badge of honor that you have for protecting the state." For protecting the state is not what he says. "For protecting the holy land and protecting the holy nation with your body, uh, literally with your body. My whole point is as Chazal say that what you've done is you've released your, um You've reduced the amount of fat and the amount of blood. This is the lesson that has to do with doing teshuvah with kaparah, is that when we give of ourselves by not eating, by suffering, uh, this gives something to Hashem and gives something to our fellow people. So the Rebbe says, "My point is that you suffered. My point isn't that you need to have a permanent mark on your body." Because of the injury that you had, certainly there was a reduction in your fat or a reduction in your blood, and this was giving of your body to the Jewish people, and so you have all those merits because of the injury you had. The injury doesn't have to stay there for you to have these merits. You just need to have had it to have these merits, and you got injured.

11:27 It, it's okay to get better. You gave yourself literally not just in theory, not just, uh, in desire. You literally gave of yourself, and now you're getting better. The fact that you offered your blood, uh, in defending us defending the holy nation in in the holy land, this will also exist after you become totally healed. You will have this merit your entire life. You don't have to worry about the fact that you getting healed means that you did not sacrifice as much as people who do not get healed. Let's say somebody gives you a medal of honor, a badge of honor given by a person. And then you put it in a drawer. So let's say you get a medal of honor and you put it in a drawer. It doesn't take away from the merits of the fact that you received a badge of honor. You don't have to keep it on you all the time to have earned it. Certainly, when it comes to a badge of honor that is carved into somebody's flesh through an injury about this we say, "Through your blood you will live, through your blood you will live." This merit lasts forever. Even if you are completely cured without any permanent scars on the body, don't worry, you're still going to have this merit. It's like putting a badge of honor in a drawer. God's will that through proper health, spiritual and physical health together you'll have the, uh, you'll remember the wonders of Hashem and what he

12:56 has done Once again, that line that people keep telling me doesn't exist when the Rebbe talks about wars. There will be peace in the land, and you will do well, and you will not be afraid. And I will be your God you will be for me a nation So I do believe what's happening in this letter is that someone is writing to the Rebbe with a little bit of disappointment saying that they are, they are, they are becoming healed and that they're not going to have marks of their injuries anymore. And they wanna know, does that still stand for them as the same merit as somebody who was injured in a way that does not heal them? The Rebbe says back, "Absolutely. The point here was putting your body in the line of fire." The fact that a person doesn't get injured or doesn't get injured in a permanent way, the very fact that they are literally putting their life on the line already gives them that merit, and it doesn't matter necessarily to that merit whether that merit remains visible on their flesh. The Rebbe likens it to receiving a medal of honor and putting it in a drawer. That doesn't make the medal of honor any less valuable. Don't worry about being cured. Don't worry about not having these marks on your body. Now on one hand, that's a funny letter. It's, it's a weird complaint. But on the other hand, it's a deeply sensitive letter. You, you can imagine this going through

13:57 someone's mind. There's something that we call survivor's guilt. There is a inherent guilt to people who are in units where a lot of people get injured and they don't. And the Rebbe's saying back, "The fact that you were there and participating and giving your life means that you're the same as anybody else who participated and gave their life, and there's no guilt necessary here." The, the honor comes to those who throw themselves in the way of fire to protect everybody else. The honor doesn't come to the most injured party. And I do think that that's a, uh, that that's a natural response that a lot of people have when they have close friends or comrades who get injured or get injured worse than them, and I think this is a very sensitive answer. This was in, uh-- This was all in nineteen seventy-three, nineteen seventy-four. Uh, I guess the beginning of it would be nineteen seventy-three and the end of it-- A lot of these letters are technically nineteen seventy-three, even though it's 'cause the secular year hadn't changed yet. It was three or, three or four-- Three or two years. What? It's nineteen seventy-six. Three or two, two or three years later that the Rebbe actually met with Mitsuyani Yisrael. He met with the, uh, disabled soldiers. They made a big trip to bring them to the Rebbe. They were on their way to the Paralympics. This had been two or three years later. I guess they'd have time to heal a little bit.

14:57 They were going to the Paralympics in Toronto, and a group was organized to come to the Rebbe and hear a sicha from the Rebbe. And the plan had been that the Rebbe would speak in Yiddish as he always did, and there would be a translator on scene. But at this very famous sicha from the year the Rebbe came downstairs. The soldiers were sitting there, a lot of them in wheelchairs. They had to really rearrange seven seventy to accommodate the, uh, to accommodate the, the-- to make it accessible. So we have a lot of wounded soldiers sitting there. I'm gonna show you some pictures in a minute. And, uh, the Rebbe starts speaking, and he speaks in Hebrew, which was very, very strange for him. The Rebbe usually did not do that. the Rebbe started off by saying, but he's not gonna switch from Ashkenazis. The Rebbe says, "It is my way to speak with an Ashkenazi accent but it's my hope that everybody will understand me." And this is a very rare sicha that's printed in Sichas Kodesh that is in Hebrew. And since it's printed in Sichas Kodesh and they haven't gotten up to yet in, uh, in the typewriting is really rough, guys. Uh, all the dalets and reishes look exactly the same. So we'll do this together. We're not gonna do the whole sicha. I highlighted some parts that are very interesting for our particular point, but I will, with God's help, send you the entire sicha to look at. Scrolling down,

16:02 the Rebbe gives a long introduction, and then he says-- Let me zoom in a little and prepare for resh, dalet mistakes. The Rebbe says, "This is also a very important point." "When a person is missing a part of them for whatever reason, this is not a reason for their spirits to fall." The opposite. "Since they are missing something quantitatively and it's not their fault or furthermore because they did something good, or even more because they gave their life for Hashem or for the people because they gave their life for the Jewish people in a certain place or in a certain situation specifically when it comes to the Holy Land this injury then is proof that God was the creator of people this is proof that God gave him or her special-" ... spiritual powers. He took away a piece of their bodies and gave them extra spiritual powers. Now he or she is able, . They are now able to, uh, empower themselves over what would have been missing, . And furthermore or and the-- to the opposite, to the contrary, they're not only able to prove that they are equal to all other people in their immediate surroundings, that they also-- in addition to that, that they also have an advantage. That they are able to empower themselves over the lacking that would be seen by physical eyes. Yeah, there's much missing letters. That they're able to-- and show that they're able to achieve this level. They'll be able to go up and rise

17:48 in important matters and in good matters. And they will able-- be able to achieve more than a person who is abled-bodied, able-bodied. A normal person. A normal, that's a bad word. A, uh, a abled person. So the Rebbe says that people who, uh, in summary of this paragraph, people who do have these injuries, this proves that Hashem gave them extra and that they are able to use these to demonstrate that both physically and spiritually they're able to do everything else that everybody else can do, and in some ways more than the average person can do. Based on this idea that people who are physically disabled, are actually, are actually super enabled when it comes to their spiritual qualities, and the Rebbe seems to imply in this paragraph even to some of their physical qualities. That word's all fudgy. Uh, I think it's a . Therefore, the Rebbe says, "I'm not happy with those who call people who are disabled, disabled." Uh, means to be knocked down. This implies that they've been knocked down and that they've descended. It's the opposite is the case. You have to say instead, we have to say-- we have to use some word that emphasizes that somebody who was injured in this way is somebody special, and that they are exceptional, and that they became exceptional be, uh, by way of the one who created people in the first place. That they are given they're given special powers that are unique and also that are greater than the average person.

19:20 And therefore, they will be able to conquer things that the average person could not conquer. Therefore, the Rebbe says, "I will suggest." And here the Rebbe makes a joke. I, I love this. The Rebbe says, "As is the to give advice when it is not something that is their area of expertise, I'm gonna give some advice too." That we should change the name. We should call people who are disabled people who are exceptional. Whether they were injured by war, or by any other reason, not just people who were injured in war for these special reasons that the Rebbe mentions earlier, but anybody who has suffered a debilitating injury, the Rebbe wants us to call them because the fact that they-- the fact that the the creator of man decided to take away one of their limbs, a part of their body, in quantity, signifies that he's given them extra and the Rebbe wants us to use a word to actually describe that, to not just make it a token idea that's in the back of our heads, but to say a word about them that means that they really are special. This is very different than the idea of calling disabled people special, which by the way, uh, was before this, that started in the early nineteen hundreds and has recently fallen out of favor. It's not really done so much anymore. There's a movement to stop calling disabled people special because it's a word that was, uh, it's a word that's become, uh, that's,

20:30 that's gained a negative connotation. The Rebbe is not saying to call people special because they need to be viewed as special. The Rebbe is saying we need to use the word exceptional because that is the proper word to describe their actual state. And I do believe that if that was the word we'd be using nowadays to describe disabled people when we said special, that there wouldn't be a movement right now in America to get rid of the word. The fact is that when people say special, they mean, "I'm trying to say a nice word for disabled." That's, uh, and that's, uh, and I, I, I'm not getting into a culture war, but a lot of the things that we do right now in America is that we, we use kinder words for things because the word that people are using is a mean word. The Rebbe is not suggesting we get rid of a mean word. The Rebbe is suggesting we get rid of a truly inaccurate word, that it is not accurate that disabled people are disabled. They are in fact, accurately they are super abled. They are more abled than everybody else. They have stronger than everybody else, and therefore, the word is simply wrong. It's not that we're trying to, uh, it's not that we're trying to make everybody feel better, it's that the word is incorrect. Uh, disabled is the wrong word to describe a person with an injury. The correct word is is exceptional, spiritually exceptional. And if you want

21:27 proof, he says, "God does not take away a piece of somebody's body without giving them significantly more in spirituality." Scrolling down to the very bottom of the the Rebbe just says something really interesting that you don't see anywhere else. I might not read it inside. Let's see how much area I squared off. It's a little long. The Rebbe says that, uh, over here you can read it while, while I'm summarizing, you can read it on the screen. The Rebbe ends off by saying that he wants to finish the by offering every individual a handshake, and he's also gonna give each of them some tzedakah. The Rebbe came down and said and gave his hand to every individual. But in this he talks about the of a handshake ideas that I have never seen before. He says, "First of all, it tells-- shows when, when, when two Yidden shake hands with each other, it shows the difference between Esav and Yaakov, that that, uh, the hands of Esav are hands of war. So when, uh, when Esav, they shake hands with each other, they're trying to hurt each other. When two Yidden use their hands, it's in order to unite in brotherhood." And the Rebbe says that there's another reason why a handshake is special. It's, uh, sym- symbolizes the that the Ten Commandments were given on two tablets, and when a person takes my hand of five and joins it to someone else's hand of five, I'm uniting the Never seen anything like this before.

22:32 Just thought it was really cool. The Rebbe says, "Therefore, it is, uh, it is my particular honor to get to shake each of your hands." And the Rebbe did come down from the dais and shake every individual soldier's hands. Just to conclude what we have here, I told you that I have some pictures. There was a Der Her article where they did a photo essay of the Rebbe meeting these soldiers in nineteen seventy-six, um, but it's loading very slowly. Hang on. Can you see it on the screen? Yeah? Uh, moment. It's jumping around. So you can see here we have some wheelchairs in the corner. These are the soldiers sitting there, and the Rebbe sitting, and the Rebbe at the top speaking to them. Wish this was moving a little faster. What can you do? Anyway, I'll keep these on the screen and scroll through them, uh, but that's it for us now. If anybody has questions or comments, this is the moment.