פתיחת בית חב״ד בלי רשות

00:00 Speaker 1 This is Igress. We're looking at letters from exactly fifty years ago, and the letter that we're looking at today is labeled Teves Shevat of Tuv Shin Lamed Dalet, which I don't know, could be now. It's Teves Shevat. We don't always have the exact dates for things. This letter is labeled Yud Alef Mem Beis, and it needs context because the Rebbe just starts talking, so we need to look below the line. If we look below the line, the context here is that this is an answer to somebody who was a Menahel. He was a principal of some kind at one of the Meisdas that was in the city. There's a city that has, I don't know, some sort of a school, and this is maybe the principal of the school, and he's writing to the Rebbe. And he wrote to the Rebbe that somebody living in his city had informed him that he had received permission from the Rebbe to open a Beis Chabad, to open a Chabad house in his town. And, uh, this is very strange because they'd never heard of this guy. This guy hadn't spoken to any of them. There's a whole bunch of Anash there already. There's a whole bunch of Meisdas Chinuch in the town. There's a, there's a whole established, um, there's a whole established, uh, Jewish life in the town, and they wanna know, uh, a Lubavitch life in the town, including schools. And, uh, they wanted to know if the Rebbe really gave permission for this person

00:59 Speaker 1 to open a Chabad house without speaking to any of them. They're already working in Hapatzas HaYadus. They're already working in spreading Yiddishkeit and spreading Chassidus. So they wanna know, did the Rebbe really send somebody without asking their permission? And the Rebbe says, this is our letter, "Lo Shearti Shel Binan Hachi Klali Kanal Yechidi." The Rebbe says, "I never expected that this person, when he asked me about something so public, so, so involving so many p- different people, that he would ask it, that he would approach it as an individual. I, I do-- I didn't expect that." "VeKemen SheKinir Lemishar Anash Yech Ye Sham Kenu." "And since it seems from other Anash, including you, that, uh, that this is the case, that he didn't ask anybody else about this, that he tried to handle something so public as an individual," "Ein Makam L'Chol Mainishen Asati LeBaze." "Then there is no pro-- there's no room at all for any answer that I gave him regarding this." The Rebbe says, "I rescind whatever I told him. If he has in his hand a letter from me saying that, uh, he's supposed to be a Shliach here, I didn't mean it. I had no idea that he wouldn't have consulted with other people in the area. If that's the case, then, uh, then I withdraw." If you look down here in the footnote, "Mainishen Asati," the footnote says, "Sha Askaman Ditna Al Semacha Ashara." The Rebbe had indeed given him a, his permission. The Rebbe has given permission for

02:04 Speaker 1 him to be-- to open a Beis Chabad, a Chabad house, but only on the condition that, uh, that he had spoken with the other Anash in the area. And given that he hadn't spoken with anybody else in town, the Rebbe says, "I withdraw my support." Now, this is not the only letter like that, but it's one of only a few. There is one other letter like this in the entire Igress so far, and it is also in the year Tuv Shin Lamed Dalet, but there's actually a question mark. There's Tuv Shin Lamed Dalet, question mark. They're not sure exactly when this, uh, letter's from. The letter is in our volume though, and it's labeled Yud Alef, Reish Nun He, and the Rebbe says something sort of similar. We're gonna skip the first couple lines. The first couple lines are about somebody looking for a job. But if you look at this last line, "Psicha Speis Chabad," when it comes to opening a Chabad house, "VeKiirtze Beze," and similar things. Doesn't have to be a Chabad house, could be a, uh, a Chabad school. Anything that's involved in Hapatzas HaMayanus, anytime you're opening something that is supposed to be Chabad functioning from our Meisdas, "Kiirtze Beze BeChol Makam Shi Hi Ya," no matter where it is, "Muvan SheZehu Inyan Klali," this is a general matter that applies to everybody in the town. "ShaL Askanei Anash Shi Hi Ya BeMakim." This applies to all of the people, the Askanei Anash, the people who are involved in, uh,

03:04 Speaker 1 the Anash who are involved in getting things done in that place. "ULeChaderish Tzadik Li Yisdian Veneha Maldei Achze," and they need to have a discussion first about anything before we open up a Chabad house. So the Rebbe does say in this letter, it sounds like from these two letters, this is a very general rule. The Rebbe here says that this applies in all places. The Rebbe in our previous letter says he never would have given permission had this not been in place. We get an idea from these two letters that we might have a shitah here. We, we can't be sure 'cause we're only looking at two letters. But from two letters, it looks like we might have a shitah from the Rebbe here, which is that you're not allowed to open a Chabad house without speaking to people in the lo-- in the local place specifically. Now, we know from other stories that they don't have to consult with non-Anash members. They don't have to consult with the, uh, with the local JCC or with the local federation. Chabad does what it wants. But if there are other Chabad people, there are other Chabad organizations operating in a town, it sounds like you can't open a Chabad house without permission from those other Chabad people. Now, uh, it was-- the-- as-- up until now, up until now, w-- uh, in Igress, we're only up to what? I think the last Igress volume that came out is from, like, the early Lameds, uh, which means,

04:01 Speaker 1 like, the early-- I'm sorry, from the-- well, we're in the mid-Lameds already, right? Lamed Dalet. So, uh, maybe it goes Lamed Heh. I'll tell you this. We don't have Igress yet from the '80s. We don't have any Igress yet from the '80s published in the Rebbe's letters. As most of us know, that was really the heyday of Shlichas. The, the Shluchim really went out in droves in the '80s. So a lot of the letters about Shluchim and about these sorts of things, we just don't have yet. I think they'll be printed eventually, but they're, they're not really here yet. But, uh, we were able to pull s-- I was able to find some of them in, uh, in things that have not yet been published. So I'm gonna show you some things that are not in Igress that are from Kisvei Yad or that are recorded in journals or that are reco-recorded in a, in various Kovtsim or from, uh, copies that the, that the Maskiras gave out. These are not in Igress, but they're, they're around in various volumes. We're gonna look at a s-- couple other cases where the Rebbe says something very similar and I think build an actual shitah here. So this is a Sefer called Dvar HaMelech on page eleven, and it says when it comes to opening a Beis Chabad, the thing that is annoying about this book, Dvar HaMelech, is that it never gives the date or the context or anything. It doesn't give-- it doesn't tell you

05:00 Speaker 1 where it is. Just these are answers the Rebbe apparently gave. I wish there were better sources. Uh, on Etzer HaChachma, the author of this book is the Rebbe, so very difficult to figure out who put this together. But in any event, this is apparently an answer from the Rebbe that somebody, uh, told the Rebbe that he was gonna open a Beis Chabad, and the Rebbe answered the following: "Alef, Aderech Psichas Beis Chabad," when it comes to opening your Chabad house, "BeIsiyatas DeAguch BeEretz HaKodesh." You can only do this with the advice or with the counsel of Agudas Chasidei Chabad of Eretz Yisrael, 'cause he was opening in Israel. And, "Beis, Im Yaskimu Az Askamah U'bracha Az Keral Tziyan." The Rebbe says, "If they agree, then I agree and I give you a bracha, but only on the condition that the Chabad officials there agree." There's another letter sort of like this, where there was a member of Anash who wrote to the Rebbe saying that he wanted to go out on Shlichas to a certain place, and the Rebbe answered the following: "Kol HaNa'al Hu B'im." All of that only is on the following conditions. Number one, "BeHaskamah Maleah," you have to have a complete approval, "BeNetzen HaTev," with goodwill, "Shel HaShluch SheYihiyeh DeSham," of the Shluch who is there already. So first of all, you have to have, uh, a-- you have to have complete agreement and also "BeNetzen HaTev." He has to really-- he has to want it. If the Shluch there is

06:02 Speaker 1 interested, then absolutely. And two, "Shlichus Asagas Gvul BeTachlis." I don't want to hear anything about Asagas Gvul. Don't tell me that you're infringing on each other's property. Now- You might remember past couple Shiurim, we've looked a lot of times at the opposite side of this coin, at the Rebbe telling, uh, people that there's really no competition when it comes to Chinuch, that when it comes to Parnassa Ruchnius, there's always room for everybody. But when it comes to somebody who wants to move into a town to mix things up, the Rebbe seems to have a different approach. Meaning if you're there already and you're worried about somebody encroaching on your territory, the Rebbe might tell you, "Hey, you can't really encroach in Ruchnius. There's room for everybody. Don't be worried about your Parnassa Ruchnius." But if somebody's writing to the Rebbe saying, "I'm about to go out there and cause trouble," the Rebbe comes down pretty hard and says, "I don't want you there unless people agree." There is a book, uh, a Kehotz, I guess, that I was able to find called Kehotz Seder Bishlichas. We talked about this a little bit before this year. Kehotz Seder Bishlichas is, uh, somebody put together basically every time in a sicha, in a letter, or in anything they could find that the Rebbe ever mentioned that there needs to be some sort of an order to Shlichas. That people can't just run around willy-nilly doing Hapatsa. Now, this is a little bit surprising for anybody who knows

07:01 Speaker 1 the Rebbe's work. It does sound like from sichas, the Rebbe is calling repeatedly on every single person to make themselves a Shliach, on every single person to find a way to spread Yiddishkeit in their area. And you would think maybe, I mean, I guess you definitely could get the idea that that means that everybody, wherever they find themselves, should automatically be involved in everything. And, uh, what you get in this Kehotz is a bunch of the-- it's a bunch of cases where people write to the Rebbe saying, "I'm a member of an Ash, I'm a Hasid, I want to do the right thing, and so I am basically operating as a Shliach right next to another Shliach. Can you believe this other Shliach for getting mad at me?" And the Rebbe's saying, "I can believe that other Shliach. I'm on his side." So this is a bunch of those sorts of cases. We're gonna look at a few of them. This is somebody who wrote to the Rebbe about his activities in Tzfas from, uh, eighteenth Kislev, from Chai Kislev of Lamed He. This is not printed in Igris. So but the Rebbe writes, "Betach k'anal hu baskam meleah shel, uh, leiv HaKatlin. Ve'azkir al atziyan la'atzlacha besuras teves." The Rebbe says to him that I, I'm, I'm glad to hear that you're involved in all sorts of Hapatsa. I'm glad to hear you're giving Shiurim and that you're putting Tefillin on people. I'm glad to hear you're involved in Chabadish stuff, but I'm certain

08:01 Speaker 1 that you got complete permission from the local Shliach before you went around doing that sort of stuff. This is from Taf Shin Nun. This is printed in a Yoman right now, so it's in a journal. I think one day it might make it in Igris. This is the Rebbe's answer to somebody who wrote that he wanted to go on Shlichas to a certain place. The Rebbe said, "Kol anal hu b'im baskam meleah beratsan teves." Oh, this is the one that we saw earlier. I just doubled it up. Sorry. Okay. Anyway, now we know what year it's from, Taf Shin Nun. Remember the other one I told you we didn't have labels? Now we know where it's from. It's from Taf Shin Nun in the Yoman. Let's keep going. Um, this one is a, uh, Tzilimat Takas. This is a, this is a photocopy of the, of the copy of the, of the letter, and, uh, we don't know much else about it. Here, the, uh-- I'm trying to make sure this isn't the part-- th-this isn't the part that Rebbe wrote. This is them giving context. This is, uh, in response to-- this is from the s-- this is from the Kehotz Seder Bishlichas. So, uh, somebody, uh, "V'kach leidi asher Shliach so-and-so be'ir yoreh be shlucha shel, shel Rebbe." Okay. So a Shliach in a certain place who's the Shliach of the Rebbe and who's running the Beis Chabad, uh, wrote to the Rebbe, um, that he needs somebody to confirm that he is

09:03 Speaker 1 the only Shliach and the only one in charge of that area. Apparently, he's having some trouble. Everybody's claiming that they're the Rebbe's official Shliach. No one knows who's in charge. He knows he's in charge, but he needs the Rebbe to write that he's in charge to give him, uh, y-you can imagine. I mean, this sounds like a mess. So the Rebbe writes, "Ha zeh ha'emes ha'matzias u'ma hu savik ba'avada al derech zeh." The Rebbe says, "This is the truth. This is the fact. This is the matzias, and what could possibly be the doubt that I would have to inform people about this thing?" Then the person continues in their writing to the Rebbe, and they say that in their city, there's somebody who says he got permission from the Rebbe to also be the Shliach here. So he says to the Rebbe, "Who here is the real Shliach? You're telling me that I'm definitely your Shliach, but this guy says that he has your permission." And here we have a very interesting answer from the Rebbe. The Rebbe writes, "Zehar ba'im shanah." It's been forty years. "Shani oina azkir al atziyan." He writes to me, "I want to be a Shliach," and I keep on writing, "I'll mention it at the ohel. I'll mention it at the atziyan of the Friediker Rebbe." "Ba'perish bezeh?" What does it mean when I say, "Azkir al atziyan"? "Azkir al atziyan ve'su lo." I'll mention it at the atziyan and nothing else. It doesn't mean yes. It doesn't mean

10:00 Speaker 1 I'm giving you a bracha. It doesn't mean a haskamah. I've been telling him, "I'll be asking the Frieda Kadever about it," but I never gave him permission to be there. I don't know what he's talking about. I keep telling him, "Azkir al atziyan," forty years now. Why does he think that's my approval? I only have one left, so we're probably gonna end a little early today, but I sense given the, uh, the topic that we're dealing with, we might have what to talk about. I have one more to show you. This is, uh, also a Tzilimat Taka. I don't have the year, uh, but I do have the information. This is a member of Anash who wrote to the Rebbe that, uh, he's involved in all sorts of Hapatzas HaMayanas in the city. He's spreading Yiddishkeit. He's spreading Chasidus. And, uh, the, uh, Shliach told him to stop, basically. The Shliach was not interested, and he wrote to the-- he told the Shliach that he's going-- only going to stop if he gets a heram beforeshes from the Rebbe. You can imagine. I mean, we've met people like this. Who does not know someone like this, right? Guy is a Shliach. He's doing what he thinks is the right thing. He's all fiery. Someone tells him, "You have to-- There's a Seder here. You gotta talk to the Shliach." He goes, "I won't stop unless the Rebbe himself tells me to stop. You get the Rebbe to tell me to stop spreading Chasidus." Look what

10:55 Speaker 1 the Rebbe responds. "Ni chalthu lishmer hefcha hasar beforeshes esem k'anal." I was shocked to hear that the opposite of my warning, my, my explicit warning, is what this person is doing. "Betach yafsiku v'yodeini." Please, he definitely-- He doesn't say please. He definitely should stop and inform me that he has stopped. I wanna know that he has stopped doing what he's doing. So they did indeed get an answer from the Rebbe about this. What we do get from here is two big ideas. One big idea comes from our letters up top, and that is if someone wants to open a Chabad house, it is as close as can be to a shita that they need to speak to any other Lubavitchers who are operating in that town under any sort of official capacity, the meistis Chinuch, um, and anybody else. This needs to be, uh, this-- I guess nowadays you need to speak to Merkas, that a Shliach cannot just go out somewhere and declare himself a Shliach. The Rebbe is explicit about this, uh, that a Shliach cannot just, especially at least, at least not where other Lubavitchers are operating, Lubavitcher meistis, a Shliach cannot show up and declare himself a Shliach. Um, and it would seem that a Shliach who is living in an area declaring himself a Shliach against the will of the Merkas-registered shluchim would be in direct violation of just about every letter we've seen. Uh, what we also have here is sort of a second idea Other episode talks about

12:00 Speaker 1 Hasagos. Well, he talks about making sure that you speak with, uh, a guf. I mean, it's just very clear that you need to have the authority here to open a base Chabad. What about people who aren't opening a Chabad house, they just wanna operate as Shluchim? They wanna do things Shluchim do. Hafatz Hachamanus. You couldn't get the idea in your head, I'm not a Shliach, I'm not trying to be a Shliach, but hey, I am going to go around doing this, uh, doing this Chabad thing. The Rebbe always talks about how we have to bring-- spread Yiddishkeit everywhere. Can I spread Yiddishkeit everywhere? And it looks like when people write to the Rebbe saying, "I'm a member of Anash, spreading Yiddishkeit, spreading Hasidus," the Rebbe's answer is, "You better have spoken to the Shliach about it. I sure hope you spoke to the Shliach about it." And in at least one case, you'd better stop 'cause the Shliach doesn't want you doing it anymore. So the Rebbe does give incredible power to Chabad houses that are already existing in towns, even vis-a-vis people who come in wanting to add more. There is supposed to be, as the title of this Kevitz goes, a Seder and Shlichas. And I know that this does play against some of the things we talked about in previous letters where there's room for everybody, but I think that these things are-- that all these things can be true at once. That the Rebbe's shitah is that there is no such

12:53 Speaker 1 thing as taking away someone's Parnassa Rochnes. There is no such thing as a Hasagos Kvul and Chinuch. And at the same time, there needs to be a Seder for these things, and that, uh, and that it is the Rebbe's will, I think a shitah that is across so many letters and in so many places, also anecdotally from just about everybody in the know, that this is the way the Rebbe operates, that the Rebbe expects the Lubavitch to be operated in this way, where a person doesn't, uh, a, a new Shliach doesn't show up in an area, a new person doesn't start doing Hafatza without the consent and the Bracha of the local Anash. Okay, thank you all very much. The floor is open.

13:24 Speaker 2 Uh, I, I have a few comments. Uh, comment number one is, as I mentioned earlier, uh, before this year, that one of the reasons why we probably don't have that many, um, letters from the Rebbe on this topic in general is because the concept of, um, Chabad houses opening, what we might call unauthorized Chabad houses or mushrooms or whatever they're called, in different ways, different places, has taken place over the last, uh, thirty years a lot more than it ever did in the thirty years before then, when, uh, you know, Merkaz was much more involved and the Rebbe was involved in giving people answers and going on Shlicha specifically. And so that's why I think there's not a lot, a lot written on the topic, but I appreciate you going through and trying to find what you could find. Um, the, the other interesting-- two other interesting things that I found was the concept of right? So the, the-- in, in the one that we saw there, it was quoted twice, was where the Rebbe says that, of course, this has to be with the full permission and the full approval of the Shliach that's there, and in his goodwill. What does that mean? Like, what does it mean? Why can't you say with his approval? What does it mean, his approval and goodwill? So to me, it's interesting because you would think that sometimes a person, maybe a Shliach could be pressured in to approving something. Like, you know, how could-- you know, he

14:38 Speaker 2 doesn't really want it, but he'll do it because there's, like, outside pressures or maybe it's financial pressures or who knows what other reasons it could be. And the Rebbe clearly is saying over here it has to be . It's not enough to be approved. He gives you a stamp of, "Fine, go do it." That's not enough. It has to be that he actually wants you to do it, and he's happy for you to do it. I think that's a whole different . I think that's an important note for people that wanna do things, um, when a Shliach doesn't want them to do it, and maybe he'll be maskim to it, but it's definitely not . So that's, uh, that's another thing I, I wanted to point out. And then the final thing was this, um-- to me, it might even be like a bombshell that the does not mean permission. A lot of people, I think, over the years have taken as, as, as being permission for something. When the Rebbe says, "I'm gonna mention it at the tzin," that this gives them permission to do whatever it is they wanna do. The Rebbe says very clearly, "When I say , I mean I will mention it at the gravesite of my father-in-law, and that's exactly what I mean, and nothing more, nothing less. It's not permission. It doesn't mean anything more than exactly what I wrote." I was thinking about it because I was realizing that the Rebbe's answer the Rebbe would give a

15:41 Speaker 2 lot of times for Shidduchim in most cases was right? So it's more than just . It's, "I've received that you wrote-- written, and I agree with what's been written, and I'm gonna mention on the tzin." So I thought that was a very interesting thing 'cause I think a lot of times-- when I saw this, it was a surprise to me because I think a lot of times people looked at as, as permission from the Rebbe. Um, so that's, that's some comments on this.

16:11 Speaker 1 Very well taken. There's a note down here in the parenthesis saying that later on in their Kevitz, they have a bunch of other answers from the Maskira stressing that doesn't mean anything. Maybe we'll try to make a Shiur out of it. I don't know if we'll find the material. This might be our only source material for this, but, uh, it is-- it, it's very cool. Yeah. Um, my eyes lit up also. I was like, "Oh, look at that. That's, uh-- People don't know that."

16:33 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

16:34 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:35 Speaker 2 Hundred percent. It was like, "What do you mean? I got from the Rebbe." So-- But then the other quest-- the discussion, I guess part of it is, like, how far do you have to go with asking permission from your local Shliach? Is it only when I'm going to do something that is going to be in direct competition with him? Is it just if something that I'm acting as a Shliach? Meaning, if I'm gonna go put on tefillin on neighbors one day or walk around and knock on the doors of neighbors, do I have to go ask the local Shliach for his permission to go knock on the doors of neighbors? Or if it's I'm gonna make a Hanukkah party the same night that he's making a Hanukkah party, do I have to ask him? Like, where does-- wh-where is the gedar? Like, where does it start and where does it end? If I wanna make a Shiur in my house with two, three guys and teach them Tanya, do I have to ask the Shliach permission? And does it make a difference if it's an Anash community versus a non-Anash community? Because some of the answers here that are very sharp seem like they're Anash communities, and some of them it seems like that they're not necessarily Anash communities. Like, the first one you brought up was seemingly like a, a community that had, like, a lot of Anash there. And if that's a lot of Anash there, maybe there's a difference in that.

17:30 Speaker 1 I don't know. These are all good questions. Don't know. I mean, when it comes to Seder, I think it's important to at least let him know, you know? Yeah, but does that apply to, like, mitzvaim? Does that-- as, as Shlomo asked, does that apply to, like, a plumber comes over to my house, champ a tefillin on you without calling the Shliach? Like, there's obviously a line somewhere where it becomes this is for everybody. I, I don't know exactly where that line is.

17:54 Speaker 2 Right.

17:54 Speaker 1 I know some things that are on either end of it for sure. You know? Opening up a competing Chabad house, that definitely needs permission. Putting tefillin on your plumber definitely does not. Where, where, where, where in between does it become a problem? I, I don't know. That's a great question.

18:06 Speaker 2 Right. Having a Shiur for two people, not a problem 'cause they're my friends and they're not gonna disturb anything, but having it for ten does? Like, you know, like, where does it, where do- where does it end?