כשהאמונה של בן או בת הזוג מתערערת

00:00 Speaker 1 This is Igris. We are looking at letters from not exactly fifty years ago. This one's from Yud Kislev. I'm pretty much out of Cheshvan letters. It's getting close to Kislev. We're probably gonna start working through Kislev. There's usually a lot of Hanukkah stuff, a lot of, uh, Yud Tes Kislev stuff. It's a full ye-- f-full month coming up Kislev, so we're starting Kislev a little bit early. This letter is from Yud Kislev of Tav Shin Lamed Dalet. The letter is labeled Yud Alef, Yud Beis. And here, what we're gonna talk about today is what happens when one spouse complains to the Rebbe that their husband, their wife, that their partner is not keeping Torah and Mitzvot anymore, has, uh, has become weaker in their, in their observance of Torah and Mitzvot. We're gonna look at three responses the Rebbe gave to this question. One was given to a woman about her husband, one that was given to a husband about his wife, uh, a third one that is sort of a general approach, and then we're gonna look just for fun at what happens when it's not a Halakhic issue, but a Minag Chabad issue, what happens when it's Chabad custom. So it's no longer a Halakhic issue in the family that they are lenient when it comes to Jewish law, but that they're less interested in keeping a Chabad lifestyle. Does the Rebbe say different things? Okay, so starting with our first letter. This is letter Yud Alef, Yud Beis, and it is from

01:04 Speaker 1 Tav Shin Lamed Dalet. The Rebbe writes, . So it sounds like there was a bit of a hurry with one of these responses or both these responses, and it sounds like the, that, uh, that the, that the message was relayed to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe relayed it back by phone. If you look down here at the bottom in the footnote, it looks like that is the, uh, that is the famous Kunin from California. So maybe this was conveyed by telephone to Kunin or Kunin. In any event, here is the answer. In response to her question, first of all, in general, the Rebbe wants her to continue living in America and to take the job at the nursery school. Obviously, that's not what we're gonna talk about today. Maybe we should do a whole Igris one time on taking jobs at nursery schools, but today we're doing the next thing on the line. He says, "First of all," says the Rebbe, "don't do things." He's talking to the wife. "Don't do things to separate yourself from your husband." As long as the things your husband wants to do are against Shulchan Aruch. When it comes to the code of Jewish law, when it comes to Halakha, Shulchan Aruch, you cannot compromise. There's no compromises when it comes to Jewish law. That's the will of God, and you can't get in the way of that. But other than things that are the, are the, the, that straight up black and white Shulchan Aruch, do things to

02:18 Speaker 1 keep yourself close with your husband. Don't separate from your husband except over Shulchan Aruch issues. Then the Rebbe continues, when it comes to helping your husband, to having an effect on your husband, that he should grow stronger in his Yiddishkeit, find other people to do the job. This isn't your job. It's not gonna come-- it's not gonna go well coming from you. It'd be a good idea to find other people to do this job. Because then there won't be so much pushback. A husband, the Rebbe says, is not usually accustomed to having his wife, um, remove him from the mistakes that he's been doing his entire life, is that this just isn't the role that the husband's used to. He's going to buck it. He is going to push back. If you want to avoid the pushback, uh, it's not normal, says the Rebbe, at least in this relationship, and maybe that's a general rule too, that typically husbands don't like to hear their wives say, "You've been doing everything wrong forever." So what makes more sense is to get other people involved. Find other people to talk to your wife. This is-- to talk to your husband, excuse me. This isn't gonna sound good coming from a wife. In addition to that, the efforts that you make should be Be'adinus, it should be in a pleasant way, and step by step. So be pleasant, uh, understand this is gonna take time, move nice and slowly, and make sure that other people are affecting your

03:30 Speaker 1 husband, not you, because on this issue, he's unlikely to listen to you. And of course, we have the overarching rule at the very top of the letter, which is that generally speaking, try to do everything you can not to separate from your husband, to stay close with him. But at the same time, if he wants to compromise on Shulchan Aruch, there's no wiggle room at all. So we have a bunch of advice here in this first letter. It's actually a packed letter for just a couple sentences. We have, um, Shulchan Aruch has to be prime. Otherwise, try to keep things together, get other people to help you, um, and make sure to do things Be'adinus in a pleasant way and and step by step. This is the Rebbe's advice to a wife about her husband who is not yet frum, was frum, and became less frum. I don't know exactly. It sounds like he's been making these mistakes his entire life. So perhaps she became more frum and wants to drag her husband with her. I don't know exactly, but this is the advice from-- to the Rebbe to a, from the Rebbe to a wife about her husband. We have another letter that happens in our volume also. It's also in Tav Shin Lamed Dalet. This is from Yud Tes Shvat. The letter is labeled Yud Alef Nun Tes, so again in our volume, and this is the opposite case. This is the Rebbe writing to a husband about how his wife is not

04:26 Speaker 1 as frum as she should be and what the husband should do about that. And you'll find the Rebbe gives surprisingly similar advice. The first one-- Why, why I say surprising because the first one sounds a little gendered. It does sound like this is that, uh, this is advice to a woman about her husband. Specifically, the Rebbe gives very similar advice to a husband about his wife. So this letter reads, um, responding to, uh, your letter that informed me about the status of your wife. The Rebbe gives her a blessing that soon she should, uh, she should have a, she should have a, a full-term childbirth, and it should go easily, and she should have living children who survive at the proper time, and in an easy way. So he gives her a beracha for an easy pregnancy. The Rebbe gives him a beracha and says that he should check his tefillin and mezuzahs, and then comes the PS, the fun part of every letter, Nun Beis. When it comes to you write to me about wanting to have an effect on her to change, to change what she wants to do, he says that, uh, have women talk to her. Have women talk to her. You're not the guy to deliver this message. Because you're not trying to tell her that she has to listen to what you want. That's not the goal of trying to increase your wife's religiosity, to tell her she has to listen to you. That's not the point. The point

05:47 Speaker 1 here isn't to listen to you. The point here is to listen to God. So you don't need to be the messenger because the problem here isn't that your wife isn't listening to you. The problem is the wife's not listening to God. So get women involved to explain this to her. And also, and this is the most important thing, the same way that one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, so too, et cetera. And the end of that phrase is one sin leads to another sin, so I guess we have to nip this thing in the bud. Apparently, this letter was supposed to be passed on to some women in English, and I don't know the details of that, just that's what it says that note here means at the bottom. Okay. Um, and by the way, the, the reading that I had of Shin Eratzin, which I, I saw Surili's eyebrow raise, how do you know what's going on? Just there's the footnote there, . So that's, uh, regarding Kiam Mitzvahs. So again, we have a sort of similar advice here. I think you can almost pull a klal out of this, although we're not gonna see that so much in the third letter. A pseudo klal, uh, is that generally speaking, spouses are not the people to do outreach to their spouses. We actually did see this in other letters. We saw this regarding two people dating each other, where the Rebbe says, "This is not your outreach project. This is your spouse. You're supposed

06:49 Speaker 1 to be working together on things." Uh, I think it's safe to say that the Rebbe's general approach to one member of a relationship not being frum or being less frum than they should be or decreasing in their frumkeit, chas v'shalom, is that somebody else is the best messenger for this, not the spouse. When it comes to the wife talking to the husband, the Rebbe says that's because husbands don't like listening to their wives telling them they're doing things wrong. When it comes to the husband talking to the wife, the Rebbe says, "Why should it come from you? You're not the person, you're not the one she's wronging. She's wronging God. It should come from fellow women who will tell her that she's doing the wrong thing against God." But that generally speaking, husbands and wives should not be having these sorts of discussions. They're not totally appropriate discussions in a marriage. The concern is there, but you need to direct it. It needs to come from somebody else. Husbands and wives are just not the best messengers for this kind of stuff, it sounds like. Now, this letter I don't believe is published anywhere in Igris, but it is a real letter. It's from the year Taf Shin Lamed He. I don't know why it's not in Igris. The only place I can find it is in the Sefer Mereh L'Dever Navuch. Anybody know this one? Mereh L'Dever Navuch. I think a lot of these sefarim were a lot more popular before Igris started coming

07:46 Speaker 1 out in, uh, in, in multiple volumes where you could get all the letters. These were select letters that were curated. Uh, Mereh L'Dever Navuch has, like, four volumes, three or four volumes. This is in volume one, page two forty-four, and I don't know why it's not printed in Igris yet. Uh, maybe it'll show up in one of the later editions. Here the Rebbe writes, and it's written to a Valley Stream, New York. I didn't know that there was seated in Valley Stream, New York, in Taf Shin Lamed He. There, there, there are some now. It's one of the-- It's like a growing Anash community, but I, I, I don't know who was there at the time. In any event, the Rebbe writes to somebody in Valley Stream, New York, Shalom Uvracham. It's a longish letter. I only have a second, though. The Rebbe says the letter took a little while to get to me. You write to me of having problems with your wife, with your connection with your wife. You've been married to her for fourteen years. You've had children, and you also mentioned that these problems are connected specifically to , keeping the way of life of a Jew. You're having problems with the fact that you aren't on the same page religiously. In the last point, you're having problems religiously is the answer to your question about your problems in your relationship. The Rebbe's gonna make the claim that the reason why your marriage is not healthy right now is because you're

08:56 Speaker 1 having problems in your marriage with Yiddishkeit itself. What happens when you establish your life as a Jewish life? In line with the Torah. You're married for a couple years or a number of years. And you've had children who are going to be raised in the way of Torah, in the life of Torah, . You have to make sure, since you have this family and these children who you wanna raise, . You have to make sure to keep the peace in the house and the unity in the house and the, uh, the a complete way that there should be in the house. That being said, it also has to be understood, though, that what Torah is is the essence of the life of a Jew. There's no room to sacrifice the Torah, even to keep the family together, even for the sake of the family. That's harm-- That's harmony. Because the life of peace and harmony in a Mishpacha Yudis, This last sentence here is somehow the beginning of the sentence that started at the beginning of the paragraph. So I'll wrap it all up. What he's saying at the end here is, though, that, uh, that the life of peace and harmony in a Jewish home can only exist when it is based on the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvahs. You cannot have a Jewish family that is successful in their relationships unless it is based in Torah and mitzvahs, because Torah and mitzvahs are the foundation of what a Jew is, and therefore, Jews

10:25 Speaker 1 will only get along with each other if they're keeping Torah and mitzvahs. And this essential point, uh, regard-- This is an essential point regarding the Torah, that the Torah itself spreads peace. Its ways are the ways of pleasantness, and all of its paths are peace. So Torah promotes peace in your home. So once again, what the Rebbe is saying, when you tie those two paragraphs together, is that you're raising a f- you're raising a Jewish family. You are Jews raising a Jewish family, and Jews raising a Jewish family, if there's Torah and mitzvahs in their house and everything's going well religiously, they're going to have a fine time, uh, as far as Shalom Bayis is concerned. And if they are having problems in Shalom Bayis, maybe ratchet up the religio-the religiosity. This is something that we did see in previous letters. We had a whole, uh, Igris share on Shalom Bayis, where we pointed out that the Rebbe says that, uh, a lot of times people think that one thing's the cause and the other thing's the effect, when in fact, um, a weakness in Torah and mitzvahs can be the cause of Shalom Bayis problems. This part's the part that's more relative to, uh, relevant, excuse me, to our share. It's needless to say that when we need to stand strongly about Derech Chaim, it's about living a Jewish life. You need to stand strong on making sure that your house is a Jewish home raised with Jewish values and with Torah and mitzvahs

11:29 Speaker 1 in it. Nonetheless, you need to give this to your wife. You need to, uh, transmit this to your wife in a way of nima, in a pleasant way. You have to take her feelings into account. Certainly, you shouldn't hand this to her by saying, "Look, I'm the boss of this house, you have to listen to me," or, "I'm the bala bayis, I'm in charge of this house." The Rebbe says you need to-- If you're going to tell your wife that you want to increase the religiosity of the home or take care of the religiosity of the home, you gotta make sure that's not packaged in a form of, "I'm the boss, you have to listen to me." That's obviously very unhealthy. On the other hand on the other hand, what you should explain to her is that this is not just good for you and her and also for the children. It's also good for, um, not less importantly, it's also good for the entire Jewish people. Because the thing that keeps the entire Jewish people running is Jewish guidance. The Rebbe says, you do have to stand strong when it comes to Torah and mitzvahs in your home. You can't be compromising. At the same time, when you explain that lack of compromise to your wife, it should not be in a way of, "I'm in charge, listen to me." That's very unhealthy. It should be in a way of, "This is what's good for me, it's what's good for you, it's what's good

12:38 Speaker 1 for the kids, and it's what's good for our entire people." That's the way to explain these things to a spouse. This is a well-known problem people have. People have this challenge all the time. The Rebbe goes on in this paragraph to say, we're not gonna read this one inside because we've actually seen a lot of this in the shiur we had about a week ago. Uh, here the Rebbe says that it is very common that people disagree, and when they do disagree, they can't see things objectively. There's our objec-objectivity word that the Rebbe likes to use in letters. He says, when that happens, what do you do when you can't see things objectively? You go to a third party, ideally a Rav Orthodoxy. That's what he says down here, a well-tested Orthodox rabbi whose job it is to handle these sorts of problems. And when you discuss them out in the open, you'll be able to, uh, you'll be able to figure out the right thing to do. So if you really are having these sorts of issues and you're unable to reconcile the differences through conversation, take it to an outside source, take it to an Orthodox rabbi, he'll help you solve it. The Rebbe wants to add one more point. The Rebbe says, another thing I wanna add is that things are a process. Sometimes taking on a Jewish lifestyle does not happen spontaneously. It, uh, it can oftentimes come from a . Sometimes the reason why somebody becomes more religious is because

13:44 Speaker 1 they are, they are affected or even, uh, convinced, but this is a stronger word than convinced. Um, it is, uh, uh, anybody have a stronger word than convinced? It's a strong kind of convincing, um, pressured into, I guess. That's, that's almost, almost pressured into. Sometimes an outside source pressures you into keeping the religion or convinces you to keep the religion and, uh, and but sooner or later, the person arrives at the truth, and they discover that this whole time they were doing the, th-that they were being pushed in the right direction. And then the Rebbe says near the bottom of this paragraph, because of that, they end up being grateful for the person who pressured them. Uh, even though at the time the pressure was not welcome, at the time the pressure felt a little, uh, a little heavy-handed, at the end, when a person recognizes the truth, they're happy that they were pushed in the direction of truth. So here, this is an interesting paragraph from the Rebbe. The Rebbe here is saying, take things step by step and understand that sometimes these things don't happen spontaneously, but also understand that your steady and kind pressure in that direction will ultimately be something that the members of your family are grateful for. So here the Rebbe is allowing a little more push. We look back at our previous letters, the Rebbe really tells the husbands and wives in our previous letters, hands off, let somebody else do it. Here he is putting the control.

14:49 Speaker 1 He, he's, he's giving some power to the husband and saying, you probably can convince your wife, but it's gotta be in a very gentle way. It's gotta take her feelings into account. It's gotta definitely not be in a context of you being the boss. It's gotta be in the context of it benefiting the whole family. And recognize that even if you do seem a little heavy-handed at times, ultimately, when she recognizes the truth of things, she's going to be grateful that you pushed in that direction. The Rebbe then ends the, in this final paragraph, classic Rebbe in this section. He says, "You didn't mention anything about the chinuch of your kids. You're writing me questions, but you're not telling me how things are going. I trust that you're going to be doing that properly, taking care of the chinuch the way you should, and you're going to then raise them to Torah ." And he says, "I hope to hear good news about everything you've mentioned." And there is the, uh, berakhah from the Rebbe at the very end. So we have, I guess, three overarching approaches. We have, uh, really two approaches. For to both the husband and the wife, the Rebbe says, when the spouse is not frum anymore or not as frum as they should be or needs to be influenced positively, it's really somebody else's job. You have to, uh, you have to not ba-- You have to not compromise when it comes to shulchan aruch and all other things. There's

15:42 Speaker 1 a little bit of wiggle room, and, uh, when it comes to actually convincing them, talk to somebody else. In this third letter, the Rebbe is giving a husband advice on how to talk to his wife about increasing her devotion to Yiddishkeit, and the advice here is to be very gentle about it, to take her feelings into account, to certainly not try to sell himself as the person who's in charge, who she has to listen to, and also to recognize that if he is a little heavy-handed at times, that probably isn't such a bad thing as long as it's done in a pleasant way, because in the end of the day, when people are convinced to do the right thing, they usually are grateful once they recognize that it is, in fact, the right thing to do. We have one more letter that I threw in, which really isn't necessarily the same inyan, but I wanted to package it here 'cause we'll never-- I can't imagine another, another situation where we'll get to do this, is we have a couple letters from the Rebbe about families that are in arguments not over Halakha, not over whether to keep frumkeit, but whether to keep Chabad customs. And, uh, this actually shows up a lot in Anash communities. We, uh, uh, uh, l-l-- I think a lot of us have encountered this in one form or another. There's a Minchas Chabad you wanna keep, and your wife is a, is an ekhde, a frum lady, uh, frum, frum

16:38 Speaker 1 lady. But you're not, she's not sure she wants to keep this particular Chabad Minag. Here's the Rebbe's approach to Chabad Minhagim, and I, uh, spoiler here is that the Rebbe is not clear on this. Uh, we have to, we have to, we have to, uh, we have to tease this out of the letters. But these two letters go together. This is a letter that the Rebbe writes to a dayan, and then a letter that the Rebbe attaches to the husband that the dayan is dealing with. So the Rebbe writes this to the, uh, rosh ha-bezdin of, uh, Rehovot. This was, uh, Rav Gr-Zvulun Gross, probably. I think that's what the Zion is there. Probably Gross. So it's probably Zvulun Gross. I don't know who that was or is, but he was the chief bezdin of Rehovot, so he's definitely important. Um, anyway, the Rebbe writes, this is a letter in Igeres. It's te-- Its number is Tes Kav Shin Gimel. It's from Kav Shin Kof Tes. And the rabbi writes, dot, dot, dot. I received your letter about a certain couple that's having trouble that came to him. Presumably by the time you get to Beth Din, you're there for a divorce. So I'm guessing that this, the couple came to this Beth Din for a divorce. I'm seeing that the main problem here is , uh, that the, that the reb sent . So the reb writes, "I'm surprised to hear that, uh, in this letter it sounds like the main point of contention

17:48 Speaker 1 between the husband and wife here is Minhagim Chabad and things that come out of Minhagim Chabad, not necessarily Halakhic problems, irreconcilable differences. We have here Minhag problems." The reb says, "This was brought to me previously, this husband and wife who were arguing with each other, and at the time it seemed they were unable to resolve their differences over Shulchan Aruch, over Halakha. And at that point, the problem seemed more intractable. But now you're telling me it looks like the entire problem is over Minhagim Chabad." I already wrote to them several times. They need to have conversations amongst themselves. After that, they sp- have to speak to a reb, in the place where they're living, and then only after that should they turn to Beth Din for the more serious issues. The reb says, "Nonetheless, sin-- despite the fact that I've already spoken with them and it sounds like now I'm hearing a different story than the one I heard last time, it's very important to have peace between a husband and a wife. So I'm going to write to the husband another time, and I'm attaching it in this letter ." And here is the letter right below that the reb did attach to be handed to the husband. The reb writes, to the husband. "I've received your letter and you write that there is a difference of opinion . You've already had problems with your wife for a while. The two of you cannot agree on things. At this point, it's made it to

18:57 Speaker 1 Beth Din, which is never great. I do hear that you first went to a reb, so that's good. as I wrote to you previously." So the reb catches him up and then the reb writes, as a continuation for what I wrote to you previously. Since it's very important to have peace in general and specifically to have peace between a husband and wife, say when a husband and wife are worthy, they will have the Shekhinah, the divine presence is resting between them. Since I'm hearing, it's-- I've heard the rumor that you're really at this point only disagreeing over Minhagim Chabad . Certainly, you will have a, uh, a impact on your spouse, on your wife in a way of pleasantness, in the way of peace. And therefore, and through that, uh, they will be fulfilled through you, the that the Shekhinah will rest between you. Now, the reb doesn't tell him what to do, but when the reb writes here, eh, that the, that the that sure sounds like the reb is saying that that's not something worth fighting over. Um, that is the implication of the sentence, that he says it, "Now that I'm hearing that the only problem between you is Minhagim Chabad, certainly that shouldn't be leading to a Beth Din." Now, I'm not saying that what this letter says is that if a Minhag Chabad comes up, you just give in automatically and roll over. I am saying that a marriage shouldn't end over it. I think that's what the reb is

20:23 Speaker 1 saying in this letter, is that this marriage is in danger over Minhag Chabad, and the reb seems to think that that's, uh, I, I'm putting words in the reb's mouth, but rather silly. Rather silly to end a marriage and make such, to make major arguments, to make a lack of peace in the home, a lack of peace between husband and wife, which is so important that the Shekhinah dwells over a Minhag. Contrast that with what the reb said earlier in our first letter, that if there is a Shulchan Aruch issue, there's no room to be on an issue in Shulchan Aruch. Even if that brings peace between a husband and wife, we can't sacrifice Halakha. The reb's attitude toward Minhag Chabad is certainly more lenient. Obviously, exactly how to apply this is a question for a mashpia. If the mashpia is not there, I guess for a reb . And if he's not there, I guess for a Beth Din. But bottom line, these are things that need to be discussed with a third party when it comes to specific scenarios. But I do think we have a general approach to how the reb handles religious differences between a husband and a wife. Thank you all very much.

21:18 Speaker 2 In the first letter, the, the, sh-- but, uh, when it comes to Shulchan Aruch and the only slippery slope with something like that is a lot of times you have people that say, "What do you mean it's Shulchan Aruch?" Without necessarily knowing and understanding fully the, the, the, the and the practical application of Halakha Shulchan Aruch. And it's very easy for a guy to say, "What do you mean? The reb says Shulchan Aruch and that's it." Uh, so I, I think that, I think there, there's, there's, there's, there's a, a danger there of, of, uh, of someone looking at this and seeing the . And I think, but when you sprinkle in the other and all the other stuff in the other letters, not to water down the concept of standing on Shulchan Aruch, but there has to be an element of sensitivity to that also. And, and, and, you know, not being I'm the boss and this is what it says in Shulchan Aruch, but really, you know, being with the reb even though... And the reb says that afterwards, but the reb doesn't say here in this case, which is interesting, he doesn't say that a person should be with the reb. He says he should have someone else be mashpia on her, but he doesn't say that the person himself should be with the reb as to what are those things that you need to stand on and say, "This is a situation, or this is, you know, uh..." 'Cause I mean,

22:27 Speaker 2 uh, uh, there's times that I think I know what it says in Shulchan Aruch, but it could be very wrong what it says in Shulchan Aruch, or I don't understand Shulchan Aruch fully, or, or don't know if this is something that is a moment within Shulchan Aruch. So I'm just pointing that out. It's my own, my own day on it, but it's not, I mean, it's not what the reb is saying here, clearly, but I'm just saying that somebody could look at this line and become very, very hardlined on things that they think is Shulchan Aruch.

22:51 Speaker 1 I think this really touches on the objective piece back here about, uh, this paragraph in the middle where the reb says that when you are confused about these issues, you really can't be objective and you need to find a third party. Is, uh, a lot of times as, as Sruly says, if you're, uh, it's a different letter. As Sruly says, a lot of times you're, you're determined that this is a Din in Shulchan Aruch. Might, might not be the same, might not be objectively a Din in Shulchan Aruch.