חנוכה, חיילים ומסיבות (תשפ״ג)

00:01 This is Icarus. Today we're looking at a letter from almost exactly fifty years ago. It is from Zeis Chanukah of Tavshin Lamed Dalet. Uh, and these are responses. We have a couple of them in our year, and we have a couple of them every year. The Rebbe writing back to soldiers who wrote to him on Chanukah, thanking him for sending shluchim to their bases. This was an old practice, as we talked about in a couple of the previous classes. Uh, Mivtza Chanukah is relatively new. It started exactly fifty years ago. The public menorah lightings are also relatively new. They didn't really come into their own until the late seventies, although you had them a little earlier. We didn't get the widespread, uh, giant menorah everywhere thing until late seventies, early eighties. Uh, but this, this custom of, of Chabad shluchim visiting the army bases and bringing menorahs and bringing a Chanukah party to the army bases, that one's m-- that one's a good deal older. That definitely was around, uh, in the very early seventies, maybe in the late, late sixties as well. This was the beginning of Mivtza Chanukah, was, uh, an army base exclusive thing. And every year, the, uh, shluchim would go to the army bases and celebrate with the soldiers and bring them-- I assume they brought them food of some kind, probably donuts, probably gelt. I don't know what they had exactly, but they brought stuff, they had a party. And the soldiers, uh-- the Israeli soldiers were always very

01:05 excited about this. And usually some battalion chief, some commander of some kind would write some letter to the Rebbe each year thanking him for sending the shluchim to visit them on Chanukah. And we have the responses. The Rebbe almost always writes back. Now, how would I, how would I know that? I have no idea if the Rebbe almost always writes back. I mean that it looks like the Rebbe writes back a lot because every year we have two or three letters, three or four letters of the Rebbe responding to individual commanders, a lot of times in the same exact way, which just implies to me that the Rebbe probably was very careful to respond to all of these letters. But that's a guess. I don't know. Maybe we only have a selection. In any event, what we do know is that we have a lot of letters of the Rebbe writing to heads of the military around Chanukah time telling them his Chanukah message, which means that we can get a definitive shita from the Rebbe on what do you say to a soldier on Chanukah, or what is the message for a Israeli soldier specifically on Chanukah. And of course, this is more important this year than it would've been in previous years. For the first time in a long time, we have a good deal of Israeli soldiers, a number of Israeli soldiers who are actively engaged in combat or in combat zones over Chanukah. We haven't had that in a while. So,

02:04 uh, these are particularly timely. They also, of course, have messages for non-soldiers as well. So without further ado, the letter we're looking at is labeled Yud Aleph Chaf Vav from Zeis Chanukah of Tavshin Lamed Dalet. It's on your screen. And the Rebbe writes, "Shalom Ubracha." And if you look at the very bottom, it says there that the footnote says, "Meviker Anshei Chabad, Etze Chayal Et Tahal." So this is when the Chabad visited the Israeli soldiers. "Bnem Karasic Sava, El David Ish Yanis Rash Musai, Meviker Anshei Chabad v'Shlichas Mitzvah." The Rebbe says, "I was very happy to read that you wrote to me about the inspiration or about the effect that was had from the visit from the Chabad shluchim to your soldiers. I was very happy to hear that it affected your soldiers and the battalion in a positive way." "Bevadi Yavin, Shlikvashi Shi Rash Musu zu hitimtze bituya nachan maisa peal." The Rebbe says, "Absolutely, it should be self-understood that it is my hope that this inspiration that you felt should find it-- should find an expression in maisa peal." That long story short, you shouldn't just be inspired, you should do something with it. I'm, I'm glad to hear you had a good time, but I'd like it to turn into something active. Kelamer, what do I mean by this? "Sh'dvarim shnishmo b'yanai yadus yeviu heysava b'yanim shel yadus b'chayim yim." I hear the, the, the shluchim, they came and they spoke to you about Yiddishkeit. This should lead to a heysava. This

03:13 should lead to an increase in things that have to do with Yiddishkeit in your daily lives. Two important points here, just as long as we're talking about it. Uh, first of all, we have shluchim coming to a base at a Chanukah party, and they're not just throwing a party. Clearly, they said words of Torah, 'cause the Rebbe says, "I hope the Torah words that my shluchim shared with you are things that are going to affect your daily life." Which I think is important for us to remember as we're going out of mitzvah and, uh, and taking care of, of Chanukah parties and making sure that Chanukah celebrations happen. There must be words of Torah at these things, and these should be words of Torah that are not just fun stories. There should be something that can inspire the crowd enough that it could affect their daily life, which means that something substantive should be happening at all of these events. And unfortunately, Lhavdavka does that part always happen. We always remember the gelt drop and we always remember the giant lighting and, uh, and we always remember the music and the donuts. But there does have to be actual Torah at these events. Uh, otherwise, I'm not sure what, what you're going to take from that that goes to chayim yim. So the Rebbe says, "I'm very glad to hear they spoke words of Torah. I hope you'll use them in your daily life." "Tadi. Tamni Esh Makal v'hesibah," says there's always room to increase

04:10 in Torah observance, lest you tell me, look, the Rebbe's talking to Israelis, Israeli soldiers. I can imagine them saying back, "I'm plenty room." So the Rebbe says to them, "There is always time. There's always room to improve in your Yiddishkeit." "Keyven shin yana mechshurim bashem v'selet etzem mitzvot av ein sefim heim." Everything that has to do with God and his Torah and with mitzvahs are infinite. All those things are infinite, which means that there's no one who doesn't have room to improve because they're dealing with something that is endless. So automatically, there's always room for improvement. "Kavedumah kaveh pamen," as we have mentioned many times. "Shenikudim yuchades v'zeh lan'sheh etzava." The most important point of this when it comes to soldiers is, "Sh'lein tzarchim laasbar miyuchades sh'maisa uekar." The nice thing about saying this to soldiers is that we don't have to explain to them that hamaisa uekar. We don't have to explain to them that the most important thing is actually getting the job done. "Sh'chareh zeh yiseh kokim atzava." This is the foundation of keeping the entire military together. The military stays together. The existence of the military comes from the fact that they all understand that getting the job done, maisa uekar, physically doing things, is most important. "Sh'necheledesh tzarch lamal et hav-- hakudes pepeil." That first of all, first and foremost, they need to make sure to actually get the orders accomplished. We're now standing on the final days of Hanukkah, the Rebbe concludes. The idea of Hanukkah is that every

05:22 single day we increase in light and we increase in flames because we light one new candle every day, one new flame every day. So that's an idea of of increasing. Based on that, the Rebbe says it should be God's will. You should all increase in your spirituality and physically-- and physicality as well. Including that your bodies should be healthy and complete. They also should be, uh, healthy in ways that will, uh, specifically because being healthy is something that helps the neshamah be healthy as well. A healthy body makes a healthy soul. That everything that their hearts desire should be fulfilled. What we have here in the middle is, uh, the point that I wanna focus on today, and that's this middle paragraph. As we've spoken about many times, the Rebbe says something that soldiers understand intrinsically is that they don't need... And, and, and, and, and sorry-- and they don't need a specific explanation for, is that is that the most important thing is actually practically doing things. Uh, every soldier understands that the thing that keeps the military together, the Rebbe says, is that the orders are carried out, not that they have good plans, good ideas, that they hear nice divrei Torah and don't-- and don't act on them. What a soldier understands is that nothing's really worth much if we're not actually doing what we were ordered to do. This particular message that soldiers are good at understanding that orders only matter when they're actually carried out, and that the point of

06:41 hearing things is to actually do something with them, that idea, the Rebbe says over and over again, letters to soldiers regarding Hanukkah. I have a few others I wanted to show you, but I actually picked and ch-- I, I did picking and choosing this time. There is, there is literally one of these just about every volume of Igris. I picked a couple of the ones that are happening after our year, Volume thirty and Volume thirty-one, that it would be in the year nineteen seventy-five and one from nineteen seventy-six to show this was a theme that continued. But if you were to look through Igris, you would find that this is, uh, this is a theme all over the place. There were literally tens of letters we could have chosen. Uh, this one in Volume thirty is particularly telling, though. It does the, uh, it does the same thing that we read in the previous letter, except it does it in a slightly different order and maybe in a m- slightly more organized way, so a little easier for us to expand. This letter is Yud Aleph Shin Lamed Daled. That's the indicator on the letter, and is from the year Tav Shin Lamed He. It is written to Rav Yael Nachshon. I don't know what his involvement was in the military. I believe he was some kind of a chaplain, but I don't know. the Rebbe writes. And once again, this is on Rosh Chodesh Kislev, and this has to do with the Hanukkah season,

07:38 give or take, and, uh, and how we should relate to soldiers regarding Hanukkah. And the Rebbe writes, "I was very happy to hear from you wrote to me that, uh, Chabad had visited your, uh, your battalion or Chabad had visited your base, and I'm very happy to hear that that went well," just like our other letter began. Now the Rebbe writes back to him, it's my strong hope that the inspiration that you felt will not remain in the in the world of thought, the and in the f- and in the world of feeling. I hope you won't just think good and feel good because of the visit of my shluchim to your base. What you felt and what you, what you think and what you feel should enclothe itself in action. As Chazal like to say, the most important thing is doing the action. Certainly when it comes to soldiers, there's no need to explain that all of the strategies, all of the strategies of war, even though they are based on incredible deep thought, the Rebbe here says every soldier understands that when it comes to war strategy, it might be based on very good thinking, on very deep thoughts, on chacham and hisbonnus, and, uh, it's true that there's a lot of thinking that goes into planning a military action. But if at the end of the day nobody actually does it, all that thinking's for nothing. What is the whole point of all of that strategizing? Uh, and as safe is and

09:03 what is the ultimate goal of all that strategizing is the is actually getting the job done. And now we are standing in the days of Hanukkah. Tikvasi, or in this case, he was coming close to the days of Hanukkah. I'm hoping that you'll be able to meet with my shluchim, with people from Chabad, either on Hanukkah or on days closer to Hanukkah. And I hope that everything by you is similar to by the Neris Hanukkah. That just like the candles increase every night, everything by you should also increase every night, um, constantly upward. With a blessing for honor and with honors and blessings for success for all of the members of your division in the military, may they live long, the Rebbe's signature. So again, we have this theme in speaking to soldiers around Hanukkah time that soldiers are particularly good at understanding that military strategy isn't worth much if you don't actually carry out the mission. And similarly, I'm glad to hear you were inspired by our Hanukkah party, but I really wanna hear whether that inspiration, whether those plans, whether that strategy is going to cause you to act differently in your daily life. The goal here is to become a better Jew, not to go to a good party. So the party is there. The party is kind of the planning stage, the hisbonnus, the chachma, the, uh, the that's the, uh, strategy of the military. That's our strategy. Our strategy laid out in front of you is, uh, is the Hanukkah

10:20 party. But the Hanukkah party should result in people becoming better, and if they're not becoming better, I'm not sure that there's much worth in the, uh, in the party itself. We have another letter just like this in Volume thirty-one, page seventy-two. It's a long letter, so I just pulled out the middle to show you that the Rebbe does this again the following year, again in a conversation with soldiers, again around Hanukkah time, with very much the same theme. Since we're speaking about soldiers right now, and in this case, the Rebbe was writing to people who were on high rank in the t-- in, in the army. They're people who are running the military. Uh, I believe this one was written to, like, the director of the, uh, one of the heads of the Air Force. So certainly, I don't have to explain or emphasize to any of you because not only are you in the military, you're high-ranking in the military, you understand that that the most important thing is actually seeing the orders carried out, actually doing something. Because that is the foundation and the whole point of an army. The point of an army is not to make good plans. The point of an army is to carry out good plans, and in order to carry out good plans, you gotta make good plans. All the plans and all of these good thoughts, even good speeches which is shaya, the Rebbe says to the politikum, there's people involved in politics who have to

11:28 give good speeches. So all of this is true. Somebody's got to do the planning. Somebody's got to do the thinking. Someone's even got to do the speaking for political reasons. But all of that is just an introduction. It's an intro. It's a preparation for for fulfilling the goals of the army. That is all of this is important, but it all goes into actually doing the job. And the Rebbe's again making the nimshal for all of this, what a Hanukkah party is supposed to be. Come to a military base, throw a Hanukkah party, and everybody says, "Thank you for the great party." It's like so-- It's like showing a soldier a military plan, and everybody's saying, "Thank you for the military plan," and not doing anything. The Rebbe wants to see them actually become better Jews. . And furthermore, and this is the most important thing actually . The Rebbe says that there's another thing that soldiers are very good at. This also shows up in a lot of these letters. That another thing soldiers are very good at is Kabbalah's Earl, is accepting the yoke of, uh, accepting the yoke of someone above them, following orders. put another way, . When you receive an order from higher up in the military chain, it doesn't matter if you don't really understand the reason for this order. . Even if you have some pretty strong questions about this order you're receiving from high up, that doesn't make any difference. . He just has to be trustworthy to

12:44 fulfill the order that he received, as long as he knows the order is reliable. . The Rebbe says only after a soldier has already carried out the task and there's some peace in the world and some calm, does he have time to think over and investigate whether this was really a good order. In the moment of, in the moment of combat, a soldier needs to take the order and use it immediately. He doesn't have time to think about it right then. even furthermore, furthermore . Also, third point, and the Rebbe uses these three points in other letters. Uh, I think if we have time, we'll look at a longer letter where he uses these three points again and expands them. Third point that makes soldiers unique is that they understand that it doesn't really matter where the order comes from regarding what that person did during their civilian life. So we could have a, uh, we could have a CEO of a business who when he goes to-- when he, when he goes up for Miluim, when he goes up for his reserve duty, a CEO might be a very low-ranking soldier. He might have a low-ranking employee at his company who, when they get called up for military duty, is a leader of a battalion. So even though in their civilian life, the CEO gives orders to the guy who's lower on the chain of his company, when he gets to war, could be the guy lower on the chain-- on the, on the

13:53 chain in the company is going to be the one giving him orders on the field, and all that matters is what you're doing right now in the military. So something else soldiers understand is that it doesn't really matter what these people are like in their civilian lives. What matters is who's in charge right now on the battlefield given the war. . It could be they have opposite relationships when they are in their civilian lives. . It could be that in their sec-- in their, in their, uh, regular lives outside of the military, one is at a very high station, the other one's at a very low station. And in the military, the one at the very high station must take orders from the one who's normally at the very low station. . He's not allowed to put up any protests. He's gonna have to receive orders from someone who he thinks in his regular life is inferior to him because on the, on the battlefield, he's not inferior to him, and the Rebbe says . So let's examine these and see if we can move on the nimshal 'cause the Rebbe says that the nimshal is easy to understand. The top one we've seen a bunch of times, so it's pretty easy for us to unpack. The Rebbe has given us three things that make soldiers unique that he always talks about on Hanukkah. Thing number one is that they are, uh, that they're kind of people. They're very-- They, they understand the importance of

14:57 actually getting the job done. That one's easy. We can't just go to a Hanukkah party and, uh, and enjoy the inspiration of Hanukkah. It has to make us better in our daily lives. Otherwise, it's like making a military plan nobody carries out. That's number one. Number two is that soldiers understand that they need to have Kabbalah's Earl. They need to take orders and run with them, and they cannot question the orders in the middle of the battle. The nimshal for that is pretty easy to understand, I think, and that is that people have questions about, uh, questions about the specifics of Torah and Mitzvahs. They have a lot of questions about whether they should be doing them, how much they should be doing, uh, what authority Torah and Mitzvahs have to tell them what to do. Uh, all of that is for, is for peacetime. When in the moment-- When in the moment of doing a Mitzvah or learning Torah, a person simply has to have Kabbalah's Earl and do what they're supposed to do. Someday in the future, I guess in, in Olam Haba, they'll get to relax and ask for all the reasons for things. But right now, some of what we do in Torah and Mitzvahs is not completely clear why we do it. Sometimes to the person, they need to study more. Sometimes we simply won't know in this world. It's a hok. It's a Mitzvah that doesn't have an explanation. For whatever reason, at, uh, at, at some point, a

15:53 person needs to put their head down and say, "I have Kabbalah's Earl. I'm gonna do the right thing because the order came from higher up, and I don't have time now to ask questions about the details of that order." For the final thing in this third paragraph, the Rebbe says another thing soldiers understand is that sometimes they might have to take orders from someone who they wouldn't normally respect. I think that one's pretty easy to understand too. Uh, a, uh, a-- They're going to be Bachrim walking around town. Uh, the-- I know that throughout Manhattan, I'm going into Manhattan tomorrow, and I believe there'll be Bachrim going up and down the streets, going into major office buildings and bothering CEOs, and they're gonna bother presidents of institutions. They're going to bother very important people and tell them, "You have to light a menorah. You have to put on tefillin." And that's an awkward situation because some sixteen-year-old or some fourteen-year-old is going to go up to somebody who's a very important person in his social circles and in his, uh, business circles and tell him, "You need to start keeping Mitzvahs. Put on, put on tefillin. Light a Hanukkah menorah," and push him. And the instinct of that CEO is going to be, "Who do you think you are, kid?" And the answer is that's true in civilian life. In civilian life, outside of the war and outside of Yiddishkeit, we have here a CEO and a kid, and the kid has no right to

16:52 talk to the CEO. When it comes to Yiddishkeit, which is the moment of battle in the nimshal, that is that now we're, we're not, we're not in our civilian lives. We're talking about Mitzvahs. And when it comes to Mitzvahs, a sixteen-year-old boy from, uh, from Crown Heights knows more about Mitzvahs than you do. Therefore, it's time to take orders from him. So, uh, these three messages are messages the Rebbe sp-- sends to soldiers every single Hanukkah to remind them of the fact that because they're soldiers, they understand some things that are harder to explain to other people. They understand the importance of getting things done, they understand the importance of Kabbalah's Earl, and they understand the importance of taking orders from someone who they wouldn't normally take orders from because in a certain situation they are in charge. And these are three things that if everybody thought a little bit more like soldiers, they'd be more receptive to the messages of Hanukkah. I do have one more letter over here. We don't have so much time to look at it, but I'm at least gonna point it out and tell you where it is. The letter is labeled from Tuv Shin Lamed Beis And, uh, here the Rebbe writes a much longer version of the letter that we just read, but he says very similar things. Let's just skim it with the few minutes that we have left. Uh, the Rebbe writes, And he says, "I'm glad to hear that the, uh, that the soldiers

17:52 have been involved in, uh, in increasing-- in, in, in, in, in Hanukkah parties and increasing in Torah and mitzvahs." And then after that, he says, the most important thing is, as we've spoken about many times, that there are two things that keep the entire military running, the Rebbe says. Thing number one is Kabbalah, uh, and he explains that at length as he did in the prior letter, so we're gonna skip that paragraph. And thing number two that keeps the military going is that, uh, the second point that keeps the military running when a soldier receives an order from his higher or superior officer It doesn't matter whether-- what they are like in their civilian lives. These last two points that we saw in this letter become the main backbone of this larger letter where the Rebbe expands on this theme but says, uh, that there is one third point, although he said there's only three things that keep the military running, the Rebbe does add a third point. but it's also fundamental. And the last one is, the Rebbe mentions this in this letter, I wanted to point out before we conclude, is the Rebbe also says that soldiers intrinsically understand that no individual can say, "What I do doesn't matter. Um, what I do doesn't matter. Let everybody else get the job done," because every individual makes a difference, and that is also something that soldiers understands intrinsically, that every individual needs to participate. And in this final paragraph down here, the Rebbe says,

19:05 once again, the Naaseh V'Nishma argument and the claim that soldiers are particularly good at actually getting the job done. So if we really had to expand it as much as possible, we could say the Rebbe has, I guess, five messages that throughout the years he gives to soldiers. One real core one, though. The core message is that soldiers understand the most important thing is getting the job done, not thinking about getting the job done, and that all the good strategizing in the world is no replacement for somebody actually going and doing what the strategy says to do. And therefore, when they go to these Hanukkah parties and feel inspired, they should make sure to actually change their lives. The second theme that we see a whole lot in these letters that we've now seen in three or four letters, and I'm telling you is in, is in ten, fifteen, twenty letters, is the Rebbe telling them that they're particularly good at Kabbalah's Earl, at taking orders, and also that they are particularly good at understanding that when it comes to someone's area of expertise, you may need to take orders from someone you wouldn't normally take orders from. So even someone who feels inferior to you, you might feel you're superior to them in your civilian life, when it comes to Yiddishkeit, you might have to listen to a sixteen-year-old telling you to light a menorah, the same way you might have to listen to a superior officer who in your civilian life wouldn't have

20:01 taken up much space in your existence. We also saw the importance of the individual. This is mentioned in a few letters. And we also saw-- We had one more, didn't we? I thought we had five, unless I just did five and I don't know how to count. Also possible. In any event, those are the major points of-- I think we did all of them and I just don't know how to count. These are the major points that the Rebbe points out to soldiers every Hanukkah to remind them that they have something intrinsic to what they do that makes them particularly good at being Jewish and at, and at growing in Judaism. Uh, I also think that there's a pretty strong message here for us, uh, for those of us who are not soldiers. And, uh, I mentioned it a little bit earlier, but I wanna stress it with the-- in our final moments together, and it's that the Rebbe keeps on telling people here-- All these people are writing letters to the Rebbe saying, "I had the most inspiring Hanukkah. Chabad threw the most inspiring Hanukkah party. Really, it was a special event." And the Rebbe's always saying back, "I wanna know what you're taking from it. And if you're not taking something practically from it, I'm not sure how important the event was." As the Rebbe says in many of these letters, strategizing and writing up the plans and not actually carrying out the mission doesn't mean a whole lot. And I do think

21:00 that an area in which we could all strengthen our Hanukkah initiatives, our Mivtza Hanukkah, our Hanukkah parties, whether we're planning them for a, uh, for a smaller community, a larger community, planning them for our families, that there needs to be a, uh, a and that it can't just be fun. Because although it's important to have fun and important to have an inspiring and enjoyable experience, if there is nothing that they can-- that a person can pull out of that event and say, "I'm going to improve my life and become a little bit better," uh, the Rebbe isn't sure, and therefore, I am certainly not sure that there's much, that there's much value in such an event. Now, the Rebbe seems to, uh, seems to assume that each of these events had actual Torah discussion at them. In our first letter that we saw, the Rebbe said that obviously the, uh, obviously the Shlochim said words of Torah, "I hope you're going to think those over and then actually do something with them." That means to me that these, that these parties, uh, even the, even the ones that seem like they don't have place for it probably should have a few words of Torah. Uh, probably-- definitely should have a few words of Torah, and that there should be things that happen at these events that people can practically act on. Any soldier would understand this very well. Perhaps the reason why this isn't as easily understood to the rest of us is because many

21:56 of us are not soldiers. But what a soldier understands intrinsically is that going to a party isn't enough. There needs to be an outcome. Writing a military strategy isn't enough. There has to actually be a military campaign, and hopefully, we can take that and apply that to our lives as well. Thank you all very much.