האם חבישת כיפה היא עניין חשוב?

00:00 Speaker 1 This is Igris. It is not yet Rosh Chodesh Shevat, which means that we are still looking at letters from anywhere. We have no rules. All of the rules have been removed. We are now looking at letters from anywhere in Igris, uh, because we're filling time, because we're a little bit ahead of schedule for once. So the letter we're looking at today is one that we found along the way more than a year ago, about a year ago. The letter is, uh, from Yud Aleph Elul Tav Shin Tes Vav. It is in volume... Do I have the volume here somewhere? I should. The volume is Yud Aleph, and the letter is labeled Gimel Tav Shin Nun Tes. And we're gonna look at what the Rebbe says about wearing a yarmulke. That's the subject today is wearing a yarmulke. Uh, what we're gonna look at very specifically, though, as you can imagine, the Rebbe is pro-yarmulke. That much you don't need Igris to tell you. What we are gonna see today is that there's a oft-cited argument that yarmulke is a Mitzvas Chassidis. Uh, we're gonna look in Shulchan Aruch. We're gonna see that yarmulke is certainly not a Mitzvah De'Rabbanan. It doesn't seem to be a Torah-level commandment, doesn't even seem to be a rabbinical commandment. It's kind of a custom that has become, uh, so identifiable with Judaism, and a lot of people wanna argue, people write to the Rebbe arguing that maybe it's not so important and maybe they should be, maybe they should

01:04 Speaker 1 be, uh, given a way out of it. And the Rebbe responds, uh, predictably, strongly, that we do have to wear yarmulke. So, uh, the first letter in this series is, I think, the most interesting of all of them. That's why it's first. And the one that kicked off this year is Gimel Tav Shin Nun Tes, and here it is. "V'main ma'chtav mishilei Menachem Av." I'm responding to your letter from the end of Menachem Av. "B'casei eides benei," and there you write about your son. "Shaya Sidri l'mudai cholul messiah meshailish kamiteich shinezer hu k'drishas Toraseinu hakdesha Torah Chaim bin kisei Reish." Sounds like his studies are going well. He's apparently not in the most religious school, but it sounds like from the context of the letter, maybe he was in, like, a, uh, a sort of a, maybe a, a secular/somewhat religious Israeli school. He was in something that was sort of in between. Some kids wear yarmulkes, some kids don't, it sounds like from the, uh, context of the letter. And his studies are going well, but they write that, uh, that questions have come up. A question has come up because he has been careful about, note the Rebbe's words, "Drishas Toraseinu hakdesha Torah Chaim," the request of our Torah, our holy Torah, the Torah of life, that he cover his head. "Hine, ashrei chelkecha v'chelek zugas." The Rebbe wants to open by saying, "You guys are very lucky. You're very lucky that you have a kid who's worried about yarmulke." "Ashrei chelkecha v'chelek

02:10 Speaker 1 zugas sheyichyu asher gadlu v'chinuchai is ve'anam sheyichi b'derech zu," that you, uh, that you are raising your child and educating your child in this way. "She'hu haderech mevuel ishum gashmiyus u'ruchnius gam yachad." The way that you're educating your child and the way that he cares about yarmulke is something that, uh, is gonna bring him happiness. It's gonna bring him happiness in gashmiyus and in ruchnius together, in physicality, in spirituality. "Uzeh muban gam ken yachas l'lamed v'yinyan sh'yesh l'chazekas bedam l'idid b'inyan ha'amor l'il b'ad dum l'adai." So certainly this should also, uh, emphasize that it's important for you to strengthen this aspect of your child's growth, um, and to, uh, a-and, and i-in, in all similar cases, to continue to strengthen your child's, uh, commitment to Yiddishkeit. The Rebbe says, "I wanna point out," this is parenting advice here. He says that everything that when it comes to young people, there's all these small details when it comes to the laws of the Jewish people, and they connect into a complete building, a complete edifice. "Ukesh mishum hidazei u'machlish chelek achad binyada," and when somebody shakes up or weakens a certain area in this building, "eizeh chelek shihye," even if it's a certain whatever, whatever portion it might be, "harbe d'achmeilu mevuel hul, hul, hul, hul shav azizuah b'chol ha'bini b'chalalos u'kemuban." This causes a weakness and a shaking in the entire building as should be understood. Okay. So the Rebbe's saying here that, "I'm very proud of you. You should be very proud of yourselves

03:27 Speaker 1 that your child is wearing a yarmulke and asking you about a yarmulke, and you should recognize the importance of strengthening every aspects of your-- every aspect of your child's dedication to Yiddishkeit because every single aspect is part of this great edifice that will be your child's education, your child's, uh, Judaism, and weakening even a small part of it or weakness in even a small part of it can endanger the entire building." Now the Rebbe gets to the point. Not that the whole thing's not the point, the point of our, of our, of our shiur. Here we go, the real problem. There is a soccer game between two schools, and wearing a yarmulke won't allow him to participate. I don't know why exactly. Maybe they didn't have clips back then. Maybe they had a rule that you weren't allowed to have a head covering while playing sports. Whatever it was, the rule is, uh, he's gonna be unable to participate in a soccer game he's really looking forward to because of his yarmulke, and they're bringing this question to the Rebbe. "What do I do? Uh, my kid wants to wear a yarmulke and wants to play soccer." The Rebbe then says, "Hine ledai ti," in my opinion, "leich l'farash ez zeh kedem iz milo maila shereitz l'shama meizeh tekalah chas v'shalom shetavim meshech hazman miskhak vitach rizush ben vathei safer." Look at that. He says, "I see this as a sign from on high that, uh, that, that he should not be playing soccer, that

04:35 Speaker 1 if he does, something horrible is gonna happen to him, God forbid, and that over time, if he played this game, was involved in this between the schools, uh, that, uh, what-whatever it was, this competition, that if he went to this competition, he'd be harmed because it's just impossible that, uh, it's just impossible that he should have to take off his yarmulke." So the fact is God's protecting him. He, uh, the, the, the, the Rebbe says if he's-- if this boy's in a situation where it's yarmulke or the situation, you should choose yarmulke and recognize he's being saved from a dangerous situation. Now, we've spoken about many times, we cannot apply letters directly to everything, so I'm, uh, ulamis tafina, I would love to tell you that the Rebbe's giving us a klal here, which is that if I have to choose between something and a yarmulke, I should know that choosing yarmulke will protect me from that thing. I don't think we can say that klal, but the Rebbe says it here. Now they write to the Rebbe. They say, "Look, this is gonna cause a negative impact on our son. You're saying that everything about his Yiddishkeit is an edifice. Parents know this, uh, parents know this well. If I tell him he can't play soccer, uh, because of his yarmulke, this could end up shaking his faith even more. This is going to cause a, a negative impact." "It's gonna leave a negative impression on their son that he had to give up

05:40 Speaker 1 something he loved for his yarmulke." The Rebbe says, "If that's the case, have him switch schools." "Maybe to a more religious school." And you don't have to explain to your kid that that's why you're having him switch schools, because of the yarmulke issue. And then he'll forget the entire problem. So in, so when th- the parent's coming to the Rebbe and saying, "I'm afraid that if I make yarmulke unpleasant for my kid, he's gonna hate Yiddishkeit." And the Rebbe says back, "Great, switch schools. Don't tell him that's why you're switching schools, and later on he'll end up sort of blending in and he'll forget he was mad about the yarmulke." So the Rebbe, the Rebbe is not at all, uh, does not at all seem moved by these arguments, that in, that in the name of soccer or in the name of the overall religious devotion of the child, that the child shouldn't be wearing a yarmulke. The Rebbe then thanks them because they were involved in opening a certain yeshiva, and he gives them a berakhah. The big takeaway from this is really not the details, 'cause the details are for this particular kid and this particular family. The big takeaway here is how seriously the Rebbe is taking yarmulke. He's not treating yarmulke like a side minhag. He's not treating yarmulke like a mitzvot aitz, he calls it up here. He says that if it comes down to it and it's a yarmulke versus a sport, clearly you're being protected from tekalah. It

06:54 Speaker 1 sounds-- the Rebbe's taking yarmulke very, very seriously. And this is a recurring theme that we see in the Rebbe's letters, that the Rebbe seems to feel the yarmulke-- the, the Rebbe speaks about yarmulke the way he speaks about a mitzvah derayso. The Rebbe doesn't seem to distinguish. You certainly don't see, I don't see in this letter any indication that the Rebbe sees a difference between this boy wearing a yarmulke and kashrus, Shabbos, anything. And, uh, you'll find that that is a recurring theme. So I have a few other letters to show you about this. This one's really short, just interesting. I don't even know how much we need to see this letter. I just didn't wanna miss it. This is a cool letter. This is a letter is labeled Ches-Tav-Shin-Nun-Dalet. Someone wrote to the Rebbe saying that they give a shiur in Tanakh, and not everybody wears a yarmulke, and they wanna know what they should do. And the Rebbe says, "You're teaching Tanakh to people who are listening, and they're sitting there with their heads uncovered." "I do not think this is appropriate. You can't do it. Don't teach a crowd without their yarmulkes on." If you're teaching Torah, you gotta make sure everybody's wearing a yarmulke. Especially since not everybody th... Not everybody there is sitting without a yarmulke as an eynes. I think what the Rebbe means by this is that, uh, it's not a case where some people just don't know about yarmulke. Some of these people know about yarmulke, and

07:57 Speaker 1 you're being the nice guy who doesn't wanna pressure your students to put on a yarmulke. Don't teach Torah unless the students are wearing a yarmulke. Letter someone wrote to the Rebbe, this is labeled Vav-Tav-Tav-Lamed-Ches from the year Tav-Shin-Yod-Tes, where they write about a shehecheru bedek, somebody involved in shechita who stopped wearing a yarmulke. So the Rebbe writes, so the Rebbe responds, uh, this, uh, this shehech, this person involved in, in the ritual slaughter of animals is suddenly going around with kippah rash. He's not covering his head. You're asking me whether his shechita's kosher if he's not wearing a head covering. Certainly you know the story that happened for many generations before. It's galoshes, right? Those are galoshes. Those are the-- Yeah? Yeah, I, I-- How do you say that word? Ca-gala-galoshen. Galoshen? Galoshen? Galoshen.

08:49 Speaker 2 Galoshen. Galoshen.

08:50 Speaker 1 Galoshen. Even though technically, of course, there is no isur in wearing galoshes. But at the time, this was a proof. This was proof that he had departed from the upright path, because back then people didn't wear those sorts of galoshes. Shehech needs to be somebody who fears Heaven very, very much. As explained by the Alter Rebbe and his grandson, the Tzemach Tzedek, in their works on Halakha. When it comes to our situation, when it comes to uncovering, to walking around without your head covered, um, not wearing a yarmulke is far more important than, uh, than, than, than, than, uh, uh, uh, not wearing a yarmulke is a much bigger problem than wearing galoshes, and this is easy to understand. So then the Rebbe talks about how to fix this. How can we fix this? There's details here to consider. Uh, he-- the, the Rebbe says to do this quietly, to, uh, to in a quiet way speak to the people who organize the rabbinical, I assume, for shechita. There have been situations like this before. How exactly did they handle it? So talk to other people, figure out how to handle it quietly. Um, hurry up and get this done, and fixing it will be easier the faster you get to it. In any event, we're seeing here the Rebbe saying that a head covering is so important that he do- that, I mean, he doesn't say it beferish, but, uh, 'cause the question is, is the shechita kosher? And the Rebbe doesn't answer. But

10:23 Speaker 1 it sure sounds like the Rebbe thinks it's a problem. Um, and obviously it is a problem. And the Rebbe likens not wearing a yarmulke to the, uh, to the per- to the pritzus together of changing levush from the normal levush. That, uh, some things, although they are not technically asur, you can tell by somebody doing them that they have left the path of Yiddishkeit. Even though they're not doing something technically asur, you can just tell that they're on the outs. And, uh, that's the galoshes story. The Rebbe's comparing this to-- comparing yarmulke to this, except saying that yarmulke is far, far more severe than that. The question is why? Uh, in all these letters and many other letters, the Rebbe's taking yamaka very seriously, and it doesn't seem that Shulchan Aruch takes yamaka very seriously. I'm gonna show you the beginning of this letter. We're gonna take a quick break to look at Shulchan Aruch, then we're gonna read the end of the letter. This letter is Ches, Shin, Mem, Hei. It's from the year Taf Shin Chaf Beis. And a girl writes to the Rebbe saying that she's interested in marrying a guy who has made that exact claim. "Rebbe, why do you care so much about yamaka?" Uh, you're writing to me, the Rebbe's writing to a woman-- uh, w- writing to a woman. A woman wrote to the Rebbe saying that she had been matched with a certain person for a shidduch. He's Shemer mitzvos, he keeps mitzvos. He has good midas.

11:29 Speaker 1 They decide they're gonna have a wedding in just a couple weeks. She's very upset about something. He doesn't cover his head. He doesn't wanna do it now. He says that when he-- that when they leave Morocco in the middle of the summer, he'll start wearing a yamaka. And the reason why he says he's not worried about it now, he's gonna do it eventually. It's not a big deal for him because this is . This is just a, uh, this is just a . Wearing a yamaka is not a real halakha. Is that true? Kind of. This is the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch on the screen in front of you. This is Siman, like, Beis or something. It's Siman Beis. Yeah, Siman Beis at the very, very beginning, and the Sif is Sif Vav, and the Alter Rebbe says, . Where'd he get that word from? The, uh, walk-- not walking four, four amas, not walking about, I don't know, six to eight feet without your-- with your head uncovered, uh, is considered a Midas Chassidis. It is, uh, it is Midas Chassidis. Now, for those of you familiar with Halakha, you know Midas Chassidis is not saying you have to do it. Midas Chassidis usually means if you wanna go above and beyond, you can wear a yamaka, but the baseline people don't have to wear yamaka. It's for people who wanna go above and beyond. Uh, even back then, even though there was a time when, uh, in the times of the Gemara, people

12:47 Speaker 1 used to walk around, most people walked around with their heads uncovered, because it was very hot in that region, . Nowadays, the, the, uh, the Alter Rebbe says he lived in Russia, it was cold. People cover their head all the time. Nowadays that everybody covers their head, it's asur to walk or even sit with your head uncovered because it simply is not tznius. Because the ghetto of tznius, the rules for what counts as modesty is look at your neighborhood, see what everybody normally covers, and if that part of you is uncovered, that's always not tznius no matter what the halakha is. So the Alter Rebbe is saying that in his time in Russia, where everybody's wearing head coverings, to not cover your hair even when you're sitting down is not a problem of Gid Ha'arosh, it's not a problem of yamaka, it's a simple problem of tznius. So it might be that not covering your head is a tznius issue. Also small children should do this. But what the Alter Rebbe is saying here is that yamaka is fundamentally Midas Chassidis, and sometimes it's a tznius issue which could make it Deoraisa, but at the end of the day, it's Midas Chassidis. Certainly this applies in our areas, in areas where the Goyim usually leave their head uncovered. And the Yidden specifically decide they're gonna be careful about covering their head for tznius reasons. Now, the Alter Rebbe does add a lav to it. He says it's a real Torah violation when you uncover your

14:04 Speaker 1 head, but it's not because yamaka is an issue and it's not because of tznius, it's a third thing. That is . If you live in a country where most people don't wear head coverings and you decide to look like them and not wear a head covering, you violated the Torah prohibition against dressing like a non-Jew. How does a non-Jewish man dress? Without a yamaka. Therefore, no, no, no-- this is very strange 'cause normally it's a kum va'ase, right? Normally, if all the non-Jews are wearing galoshes and I put them on, I violated the lav of dressing like a non-Jew. But he's saying here that this is also with the shebe al tasa. Every non-Jew doesn't wear a yamaka, and therefore, when I don't wear a yamaka, I'm violating the Torah prohibition of going, uh, uh, of following in their ways. So maybe there is a Torah prohibition, but not really with yamaka, with, with copying the non-Jews. Uh, and then he adds here that actually for this purpose, for the purpose of avoiding that, you can stick your hand on your head, although that won't work for a berakha, and he'll explain himself later. Uh, this would be more or less open, closed book. It sounds like the Alter Rebbe is saying that yamaka itself is not a, is not-- is just a Midas Chassidis, but that there's two possible deoraisas in yamaka, one being tznius, depending on where you live, and the other one being, uh, chukas Goyim, depending on where you live. There's

15:08 Speaker 1 a very confusing thing, though, over here that, uh, I'm not gonna spend much time on, but you should be aware of. It's in, uh, it's in Siman Mem Vav. I scrolled up, and now I need to find it again. It's in Mem Vav, and it's a very famous, a very famous . So famous that it's in he talks about. He has a whole teshuvah on this. Um, that the Alter Rebbe over here says that there's no obligation to cover your head at all. Just wanna point that out. Um, when it comes to a hat for a Jewish lay, begil rosh, the reason why people wear hats is so their w- heads won't be uncovered, even though there is no isur to having your head uncovered. It's just a tznius and kedusha thing. brings but doesn't seem to be an actual din. So there might be a bit of a-- it appears to be a steer in the Alter Rebbe. The leaves a . He says he's not sure how to resolve that problem. In any event, um, what this person's raising in this letter is not nud-- is not an uneducated opinion. This person is telling his wife to be, "I don't wanna wear a yamaka right now. Maybe I'll wear it later when we leave Morocco, but the truth is, I don't feel very strongly about it because it's only Midas Chassidis." This is a knowledgeable guy. He's right. It is only a Midas Chassidis. The Alter Rebbe turns it into a lav when

16:14 Speaker 1 it's chukas Goyim, but he might not be in an area where it is chukas Goyim. So the Rebbe writes Given since you're writing to me, says the Rebbe, that this boy is a person who has good Midas, and he also keeps other mitzvahs besides this one. certainly he will accept the following explanation. That even if there is nothing to yarmulke except for it being a Midas Chassidus. When your person's planning to get married, and that means to build an everlasting edifice, which will be the nosach used in the blessings under the chuppah. That in order to accomplish this, to build a lasting edifice among the Jewish people through marriage, you're going to need a special blessing from the person-- from the person, from the one who gave the Torah and commanded the mitzvahs from Hashem. As we say in many prayers, you, God, are, uh, giving-- you are, are, are righteous, I guess. I don't, I don't mean that, but I don't have a better word right now. And we are embarrassed. We ask Hashem, even though we're not worthy of such blessing, we ask Hashem to bless a young couple in all details. Even though we are not necessarily worthy of it. And since Hashem's Midas with us are Midah k'neged Midah, that God does for us what we do for Him, if somebody wants that Berachah, okay. So the Rebbe is saying here that something very interesting. Let's say yarmulke is only Midas Chassidus. That means that you're doing something that you don't

17:57 Speaker 1 have to do just because you wanna do the right thing and love Hashem. How much do we deserve Hashem's kindness? And the Rebbe says, we don't. God does not owe us anything, uh, in a one-to-one relationship. We're asking God all the time, "Please do me a favor I don't deserve." If you want God to do a favor for you that you don't deserve, then you should do mitzvahs that don't need to be done. So the Rebbe says, first of all, the most powerful thing about yarmulke is that you can demand from Hashem incredible blessings that you do not deserve because you are doing a mitzvah that you don't have to do, because God does things Midah k'neged Midah. So if I act in a way of Midas Chassidus about Hashem by putting on a yarmulke, even though I don't technically have to, Hashem will act in a way of Midas Chassidus with me by giving me things that according to the normal Seder, I don't necessarily deserve. And this last section down here where he says he's gonna put it on eventually, the Rebbe basically says, "You're, you're, you, you're going to need more blessings, so definitely make it a little bit earlier. There's no reason to delay things." But then the Rebbe gets into the actual Inyan, beGuf haInyan. Uh, despite the fact that even if you wanna say it's a Midas Chassidus, you should understand Midas Chassidus is something that you want. The more Midas Chassidus you have, the more leverage you have

18:59 Speaker 1 to ask for blessings from Hashem that you might not deserve. But beGuf haInyan, let's talk about the Inyan itself. You're saying that covering your head, a yarmulke, is only a Midas Chassidus. That's not really the case. The Din has already been Nifsak, it's already a Psaak. That it's a Chil. There's already a Psaak Din that it's a Chil, that you have to. So the Rebbe, uh, explains Midas Chassidus, but doesn't seem to hold that. If you were to ask me what does the Rebbe hold, the Rebbe doesn't hold yarmulke as a Midas Chassidus. The Rebbe holds Nifsak Din, the Din is already, uh, is already decided that it is a, uh, that it is a Chil, that it is an obligation. Not only according to the Poskim who actually think that's what the Gemara and the Rishonim mean, even according to those who argued on this and said otherwise, like the Alter Rebbe who says Midas Chassidus, like the Shulchan Aruch, even they will agree that even though there was never MiIkar Hadin an obligation to wear a yarmulke, in our generation, that a person who uncovers their head, that is them displaying Prikas El, that display-- that, that displays, um, a rejection of the yoke of heaven. Why does a person take off the yarmulke? Because they don't want people to know that he's a son of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. That he's somebody who learns Torah and keeps mitzvahs. People are gonna claim by looking at him without a yarmulke that maybe he's

20:23 Speaker 1 not a Jew. Because he's dressing in a way that is not Jewish. Uh, what does that sound like? That sounds to me like the Alter Rebbe's claim at the very bottom of, uh, of Sif-- of Sivan Beis, which is that there is a possible Lav in taking off a yarmulke, of following in the customs of the non-Jews. Based on this, it should be understood. It's not just the case that according to Halakha, he absolutely must cover his head. Even among the Dinim themselves, this is a very unique Din. This is a Din that testifies to the fact that you are chosen among all the nations. And there certainly is no place in a Jew's life for him to appear in a way or present himself in a way that people might think that he's not a member of the Jewish people. So the Rebbe is saying a lot of things in this paragraph. Uh, one thing he's saying is that it's a Chil. Another thing he's saying is that in this genera-- i-is that there's a bunch of Shitas that say that it's a Chil always, that it always has been a Chil from the time of the Gemara to wear a yarmulke. As for the Shitas that are brought in Shulchan Aruch, the Shulchan Aruch, the Alter Rebbe, the ones that we're more familiar with, that it's a Midas Chassidus, that was only, uh, that w- that was only back then. In our generation, re- removing your head covering is, uh, essentially casting off

21:34 Speaker 1 the yoke of heaven and declaring that you don't want people to know that you're Jewish. That's a problem according to the Alter Rebbe, following the ways of the non-Jews. But furthermore, it is a Sterah of It's a challenge to the fact that we are Hashem's special chosen people, his children. So this is a, uh, I guess, a, a halakhically, a spiritually, a theologically important mitzvah above all other mitzvahs in a way that makes it somewhat unique. The Rebbe says, "I am attaching a Cheveres. I'm attaching a notebook that speaks about Kisurei Rosh." Uh, I believe it was printed in English, so the Rebbe is saying, "Hopefully you can find somebody who speaks English who can help you guys translate and understand this document." The Rebbe hope-- The Rebbe gives him a Berakhah. They should have good news to share and signs his name. So we have from all these letters, the first letter that we looked at was a letter from a, uh, parents of-- concerned parents saying that their child, uh, wants to play soccer, but he's unable to play soccer if he wears a yarmulke. And the Rebbe's answer was, clearly soccer is not for him. And in addition to that, if this becomes an issue where the child starts feeling negatively about yarmulke or Yiddishkeit 'cause he had to take it off, switch schools, don't tell him why you switched schools, and you're gonna see the problem go away. But the bottom line is we can't shake even a small amount of

22:43 Speaker 1 the edifice that we're building in this child's education. Yarmulke is non-negotiable. We saw when it comes to giving a shir that yarmulke is non-negotiable. The people in the audience need to wear a yarmulke. We saw when it came to shochet, person's parnasah, that this guy may lose his job over this, but a shehecheyanu needs to wear a yarmulke. And after all of that, we asked why. We said, uh, why is the Rebbe taking yarmulke so seriously? Isn't it a mitzvot aschitis? And in fact, there is somebody who asked the Rebbe that question. And indeed, the Shulchan Aruch does kind of say it's a mitzvot aschitis to wear a yam-- to wear a yarmulke. However, the Alter Rebbe does also say that there are two possible darashah love in here. One of snias. If you live in a place where people normally cover their head and you don't, then you're not snias. And the other problem is that if you live in a place where people normally don't cover their head like we do right now, then cover-- then not covering your head makes you look like a non-Jew, and that would violate the Torah prohibition of dressing like a non-Jew. This is the one the Rebbe le- really leans into in his final answer. Uh, his final answer here on the page, uh, about this girl who wants to marry a boy, but the boy doesn't wanna wear a yarmulke 'cause it's only a mitzvot aschitis. The Rebbe's first answer is mitzvot aschitis is a

23:39 Speaker 1 great thing to have because you can always use God's extra kindness, and you don't always deserve blessings from Hashem. And if you do things out of, out of, uh, out of, uh, a mitzvot aschitis, then Hashem will act in a way of mitzvot aschitis with you as well. But says the Rebbe, I'm not convinced it's a mitzvot aschitis. Nowadays, the Rebbe says every Pesach would agree. This is the Rebbe's claim that if it is an eyleh, then our generation, both sides of the argument would agree that there is an actual chil to wearing a yarmulke, then actual chil of being, uh, effectively of not appearing like a non-Jew, and more importantly, not rejecting the fact that you are a Jew and being a proud Jew that everybody knows is Jewish as soon as they see that person. Okay, thank you very much.

24:18 Speaker 2 Just, uh, two, two haras that I want to talk about. First of all, the, this, the shochet. Um, interestingly enough, when the Rebbe does-- you know, you mentioned how the Rebbe didn't tell him whether the shochet is good or not. I also found the Rebbe's direction on how to address it from a rabbinical standpoint also very interesting. He doesn't say, "Go report him to the rabbinical authorities." Don't go to rabbinical authorities and say, "Hey, by the way, we have a shochet here who's started-- stopped wearing his yarmulke, and he might be a, a He might be someone who's released himself of the yoke of heaven." He says, "Go to the rabbonim and ask them how have they ever had a situation where and how would they advise it's dealt with?" I th-- I found that a very, like, um, a very darkei noyim, darkei shalom, a way of peace and a way of, uh, a, a sincere way of dealing with it. I thought that was interesting. That's what I took out of that.