סיגריות, טבק ועישון

00:00 Speaker 1 This is Igris, and today in response to a request from one of our listeners, and I will remind everybody listening that, uh, that if you do have a request for something you'd like us to specifically cover, I will at some point get to it. Sometimes it takes me months, but eventually we usually get to most-- eventually we usually, almost always, at least sometimes get to the things people ask us to cover. This is by special request. Somebody wanted to know the, uh, the Rebbe's shita on smoking, on cigarette smoking, on tobacco. And, uh, this I wanted to do a proper deep dive on because, uh, while there is one very well-known letter about this subject where the Rebbe talks about the pros and cons of smoking and quitting smoking, there's a lot more to it. This really is an entire Torah unto itself. And, uh, I have the letter in front of you. The main letter is from Tuv Shin Lamed Tes. As far as I know, it's not printed in Igris yet. It's, uh, I was able to find it in, um, in, uh, the Heichal Menachem Igris, which is the, not the, not the Heichal Menachem's edition. Heichal Menachem has like a three-volume set that had letters that at the time were not published, and later on, most of them made it into Igris. It's a long and very special letter that talks about the Rebbe's shita on smoking. But before we look at the letter, I do wanna give some historical background.

01:02 Speaker 1 Uh, most importantly, I wanna give you historical background about the importance of cigarette smoking, of pipe smoking, of cigar smoking, of tobacco. The importance of tobacco for Hasidism, for the Hasidic movement. Because tobacco, specifically tobacco smoked out of a pipe, is a, is a, is a fundamental part of Hasidism, at least go-going way, way back. I mean, if you look on the auctions even nowadays, they have auctions all the time for famous Rebbe's smoking pipes. Um, we have stories about the Rizhiner. Probably most of the pipe stories come from the Heiliger Rizhiner. The Heiliger Rizhiner was a, uh, was a prolific pipe smoker. And as far as I can tell from the stories, he smoked one of these very long pipes that reached all the way down to the ground, these super long stem things. And for him, smoking was Kteres. This is the way that he served Hashem. One of the ways he served Hashem was by offering incense to God through the form of pipe tobacco. There is a very famous story where a Hasid of Temach Tzedek visited him on Erev Shabbos and saw this transformation overcome him, that the moment that it became time for Shabbos, he just threw the pipe away and was instantly a different kind of person. Uh, there's also another story, uh, that the Rizhiner Hasidim tell. One of their most famous Hasidim that became a Rizhiner, the name of Rabbi Kiva Eger actually, who became a Rizhiner Hasid, had a discussion with the Rizhiner and at

02:07 Speaker 1 the end of the discussion he decided he was ready to become a Hasid of this Rebbe, but, uh, they needed something to seal the deal. And the way that he sealed the deal was the Rizhiner had him come over and light his tobacco pipe. And this was apparently how he made new Hasidim, is by having them participate in the process of lighting a tobacco pipe. So, uh, this is, this is fundamental. This goes all the way back. A lot of the Rebbes were very involved in smoking and let me get my screen up. I was able to find evidence of almost all of our Rebbeim being engaged in similar practices. So let me share the screen with you for a second. I would like to say, just in case you stop listening in the middle, we're gonna end up saying you shouldn't smoke. And I guess that, uh, it's important to say that at the beginning because I look at the analytics sometimes on our podcast and, uh, a lot of people listen for the first ten minutes, and about half of them listen all the way through the full twenty minutes. So let me just start off by saying we're gonna conclude with you not smoking. Smoking's gonna be a no-go. But I do wanna point out that in history, historically, this was an important part of Hasidism and that, uh, and that a lot of, uh, a lot of Rebbes were involved in it. I was able to find evidence of the Mitler

03:01 Speaker 1 Rebbe having smoked. This is in a Sefer called, uh, called Otes Sipurim Chabad in the sev- seventeenth volume on page two ninety-seven. Says over here that the Mitler Rebbe, that the Hasidim of the Mitler Rebbe would, uh, would, uh, have a-- were used to having a whole lot of Hasidism. So they came to the Tamach Tzedek at the beginning of his nasius, and they asked him if he would also say over Hasidism with a sefer, with a, with a sefer Rav. If he would, uh, if he would say at length Hasidism. Apparently, the Mitler Rebbe, I mean, not apparently, we know his books. The Mitler Rebbe really said a lot of Hasidism. He makes from a vort a kvart. That's what we say, right? So the Mitler Rebbe talks a lot, a lot of Hasidism. The Hasidim were not used to the Tamach Tzedek's shorter style. Tamach Tzedek said back to them, "Ein li kol kach harbeh panai k'meilech hosni on a Rebbe Tamach Tzedek." Said, "I don't have as much free time as my, as my father-in-law had." The Tamach Tzedek's father-in-law is the Mitler Rebbe. "Alad limudei nigla." First of all, I also have to learn nigle. The Mitler Rebbe didn't have to learn nigle. "Veklal ein lashves l'chaisni." Also, you shouldn't compare me to my father-in-law, the, the Mitler Rebbe. "Eshei goyen atzumi nigle v'al vereis bes Medrash pam achas tech ish un hapipke makteres kol hav machshava kol haShas." One time he was sitting in the Bes Medrash, the Mitler Rebbe,

04:07 Speaker 1 this is Tamach Tzedek talking. Says the Mitler Rebbe one time sat in the Bes Medrash, and in the time it took him to smoke a single-- I think a pipka is probably a small pipe. In the time it took him to smoke a small pipe, he reviewed in his mind the entire Shas. So the Tamach Tzedek explained, he said this about the Mitler Rebbe, that in the time it took him to smoke a small pipe, he could review the entire Shas. Which seems to be evidence the Mitler Rebbe was involved in pipe smoking. Why not? All the other Rebbeim were at the time too. Uh, this one covers two Rebbeim at once. One time the Rebbe Rashab, this is a book, this is in a Shmus ve-Sipurim, uh, volume one, page one twenty-one. Says, "Pam ishasan avnu Rashab veis eshel asher echad Moskva." One time the Rebbe Rashab was staying with a rich man from Mosc- Moscow, Moskva. And, uh, the son of this rich man was, was a little bit sick. A little bit sick. And the to-- doctors had told the son of this man not to smoke. But the guy wasn't listening, and he kept on smoking, and his father was very upset. He was yelling at him. He asked him to stop smoking, and they were in a big argument over it, but it wasn't, it wasn't working. The doctors had told the kid to stop smoking, and the kid wouldn't stop. The Rebbe Rashab was in their house, so the

05:08 Speaker 1 rich guy asked the Rebbe Rashab, "Can you maybe have an impact on my son and convince him to stop smoking? He's not feeling well. The doctor said he shouldn't." The Rebbe, the Rebbe Rashab said to this rich man's son, "Why are you still smoking? You're sick." And the son said back, "Don't, uh-- You're also not well." The Rebbe Rashab also was, was sickly. "Why do you smoke?" Which point one, Rebbe Rashab smoked. "Ana ler Rebbe," and the Rebbe Rashab answered, "Ani meashan ki avi hai meashan." I smoke because my father smoked. So there we have it, the Rebbe Maharan too. So we have the Rebbe Rashab and the Rebbe Maharan both smoking. The Friydiker Rebbe, I don't need to bring you a story about the Friydiker Rebbe smoking because if you've learned the-- if you've learned any of his diaries, right? If you-- First of all, there's pictures. But if you've learned any of, uh, any of his memoirs, uh, he describes himself smoking, uh, like a chimney. I mean, the, the Friydiker Rebbe was by all accounts a chain smoker. They say the Friydiker Rebbe would smoke with a single match, and what that means is that he would light a single cigarette from one match, and then he would from the end of one cigarette light the next one and go through a whole pack that way. So the Friydiker Rebbe smoked a lot. We don't even have to-- I don't need to bring you proof for it. But the Rebbe was also

06:06 Speaker 1 involved in smoking for a while, and it seems like he more or less stopped. Although there were isolated stories of him taking one cigarette every now and then for a particular occasion. They'd brought him like special cigarettes from Russia one time, and a Hasid wanted to smoke with the Rebbe. I think it was an Indian Ruchni, it had to be, and the Rebbe might have done it. And when the Rebbe was younger, the Rebbe smoked and then he stopped. There's a story here about this This is in, um... What Sefer is this? This is Ime Melech in volume one on page four seventy-three. Let me just get the right section here. I lost the previous page, but I'll tell you what it said on the previous page. The previous page was that the Rebbe used to smoke a lot. Our Rebbe used to smoke a lot when he was younger. Uh, one time, a certain Chassid said, "I was following around behind him, and I watched him for the entire day, and at the end of the day, there were tens of cigarette butts that were left behind from his smoke." So he clearly smoked a lot. And if you look at the footnote at the bottom of the page, the Chassidim say, it says here in the footnote, that the Rebbe, when he came to America, was still smoking, but then the Friediker Rebbe got sick, and the Friediker Rebbe lived upstairs. And the Friediker Rebbe was bothered by the smoke that would come

07:07 Speaker 1 from the Rebbe's study downstairs and reach him upstairs, and so the Rebbe stopped completely. And that was when the Rebbe stopped smoking was for the health of the Friediker Rebbe. Okay, so we have here just about all of our Rebbeim and other famous Chassidishe Rebbeim smoking. What do we actually think about smoking? And the answer is we're not, we're not thrilled with it. Uh, let's first look at this letter from the Rebbe, from, uh, Tof Shin Lamed Tes. the Rebbe writes. I'm responding to your letter, from the seventh day of Adar, You're writing to me about the smoking problem. Now, what, what is the year here? Tof Shin Lamed Tes, what year is that? That's seventy-nine, right? Seventy-nine? Yeah, nineteen seventy-nine. By nineteen seventy-nine, we were well aware of the dangers of smoking. So this person writes to the Rebbe saying, "Smoking needs to stop." It wasn't really until, uh... I believe the surgeon general didn't officially put out the cigarette warning until the sixties, but by, by seventy-nine, definitely this was well established. the Rebbe says, "First of all, I don't know why you're asking rabbis about this. This is for the experts." "The doctors should make the decision whether people should smoke. This isn't something for the rabbis to discuss." So first of all, the Rebbe says, "You're out of my scope. I'm a rabbi, I don't answer questions about health. Ask a doctor if it's okay to smoke. If they say no, then stop." There's also a bit of an answer hidden

08:14 Speaker 1 in your question. Why the-- You asked-- Apparently, the person had also asked, "Why have rabbis not taken a stand on this?" And he says, "That is also the answer to that question. We haven't taken a stand because we're rabbis, and it's not the rabbis' job to take a stand. It's doctors' jobs to take a stand." the Rebbe says, "I want to add something else." And really, this is the most important point. Also these, uh, doctor opinions, these professional opinions, those who say that cigarette smoke damages someone's health, they're based on the kinds of cigarettes that are made nowadays. They, they produce dangerous, um, substances. The Rebbe says, "People right now are investigating ways to make safer cigarettes." It never panned out. Now, I don't know if it never panned out. Maybe people would make the claim that vaping has, has accomplished that. I don't know. The Rebbe says that people are looking for safer ways to do this. And if they were to become safe, says the Rebbe, The Rebbe says, "There's no reason to say that cigarettes are assur. The reason to say that they're assur is 'cause they're dangerous. So you want me to come out and say cigarettes are assur. What I really could come out and say is that cigarettes in their present form is the strongest thing I could say is cigarettes in their present form are dangerous, and if one day they become safe, it won't be a problem anymore." If the Rabbonim were to come out with such

09:35 Speaker 1 a proclamation, it would never have full lasting halakhic value. The best the rabbis could do is make a Herah Shah. They say that for the temporary time, as long as this is dangerous, it's forbidden. So the Rebbe is saying this just isn't how rabbinics works. We're not gonna put out a straight-up isur on something that could one day become mutar again, and still could happen. If it ever became safe. Furthermore, and any isur we would create by, by way of Torah would be eternal. It would not be changeable ever. The same way the Torah is eternal and is not subject to change. So the Rebbe is explaining at length here why he doesn't wanna put out a, a, uh, straight-up isur on cigarette smoking. As for the general rule, you have to not do things that doctors say are dangerous, the Rebbe says, "You don't need a psak from rabbis. That's a din in Shulchan Aruch." If doctors decide something is dangerous, no one's allowed to do it, and you don't need a rabbinic proclamation. So the Rebbe's pushing back very hard against the idea of the rabbis coming out with a proclamation against cigarettes. First of all, because he says that, uh, this isn't for rabbis, this is for doctors. Second of all, because he says that cigarettes might change and become healthy or become healthier or become safer, and once we put an isur on it, it's gone forever. And third of all, because insofar as there needs to be a rabbinic proclamation

10:50 Speaker 1 that what doctors say you have to listen to, rabbis shouldn't have to proclaim that that's a din in Shulchan Aruch. Now you can tell times have changed. Nowadays, rabbis do have to proclaim that you have to listen to doctors 'cause people think they can make up their own rules. But the Rebbe here says that it's posher to him that guarding your life is something that is a din in Shulchan Aruch and rabbis don't have to announce it. Since you wrote to me about this, but it's end of the Nazis, I do wanna give you some practical outcome because you did write to me and I'm saying no to everything. Now that I'm seeing, you see, here's the Rebbe's punchline. Classic Rebbe here. I see how concerned you are about physical health of other people. Okay. This is a long sentence. So he says, "I see how concerned you are with people's physical health, and by the way, as long as you're concerned with people's physical health, I do wanna point out that somebody quitting cigarette smoking after doing it for many years might damage their body significantly more than somebody, than somebody, uh, continuing to smoke. So if somebody's been smoking for many years and is an old man or an old woman, might be a bad idea to make them stop." So the Rebbe says, "Just as an aside, I'm not sure getting everybody to quit is such a good idea." But in addition to that, the Rebbe says, "I'm certain that you are

12:08 Speaker 1 as concerned about people's spiritual health." And now the Rebbe throws the, uh, throws the yoke on top of the writer and says, "Well, since you're concerned about people's physical health, you must be concerned about spiritual health. I assume you're doing things to help the Yidden." You have to help everybody strengthen their Torah and mitzvahs so that they'll be spiritually well as well. That point that got buried here, though, is one I've heard in the Rebbe's name a lot of times, and I did, I didn't know that it was buried in a letter as an aside. I thought it was like a shita. It's not really a shita. It's a side note in a letter. But a side note in the letter is the Rebbe says as a side note that there are some people who think-- Also, this is not the Rebbe's position. The Rebbe says there are some people who think that in specific situations, it might be a good idea to continue smoking if someone's been smoking for a long time so as not to damage their health. That is not the Rebbe saying that everybody who has been smoking should continue. That's the Rebbe saying that there is such a svara out there. So just as an, as an aside, the only place this appears anywhere from the Rebbe is in this letter, and it's a, it's a side note that's according to some people that is not his shita. So that should be corrected on the record. A lot of people

13:01 Speaker 1 think that's the Rebbe's shita. I think it's very hard to say that's the Rebbe's shita. It's the Rebbe saying that the science might be there. In any event- The Rebbe says, uh, that you should, uh, that you should, um, that you have to love every single Jew and you have to tell people to do the right thing, and, uh, continues to talk about the importance of spreading Yiddishkeit and making sure the world is spiritually healthy, not just physically healthy. Now, what do you get from this letter? You definitely don't get a strong smoking ban that I think a lot of people would expect. You don't get the Rebbe saying, uh, smoking's not allowed, but you do get the Rebbe saying is that if smoking is dangerous and the doctors are telling us it's dangerous, and there's a basic din in Shulchan Aruch and the rabbis don't have to get so excited about it. But I definitely sense a sort of lukewarm quality here, and I think the reason why, although, you know, never-- you can never get in the Rebbe's head. But the reason why there's a lukewarm quality to this, a reticence to aser smoking forever, I think, is because as we talked about, smoking is, uh, it w- if it wasn't dangerous, it'd be so fundamental to Hasidists that it's hard to get rid of. It's, uh, it's-- it-- the dangers are obligating the Rebbe to say that we're not allowed to do it anymore, but you definitely get this idea. You go

14:00 Speaker 1 back, we saw from the Mitler Rebbe, the Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe Rashab, the Frierdiker Rebbe, of course, we saw from the Rojener, that there's an Inian Ruchni in smoking, that there's something spiritual about it, and the Rebbe doesn't wanna forbid it forever if it can be made safe again. The Rebbe's looking for a safe alternative. You can sort of feel that in the letter, I think. I wanna show you a really interesting, uh, table discussion on Pesach. This is from, uh, Melachim Besiba, volume two, page kuf-kuf gimel, where the Rashag asks the Rebbe repeatedly about his father's smoking customs. So the Rebbe's, the Rebbe's father also smoked, and it seems that it was an Inian Ruchni that was a kind of Aveida. The Rashag said, um This was-- I can get you the date. This was, uh, Tuv Shin Lamed. Tuv Shin Lamed. Uh, the Rebbe had told him the previous night that his father at the Seder would smoke, and he would smoke while leaning. He would lean while he smoked, as if it was one of the Aveidas of Pesach. You know, you, you only lean when you're doing something that's a mitzvah. So he would smoke at the Seder, and he would smoke while leaning. So the Rashag asked the Rebbe, "Did your father, Rebbe Levi, did he lean every time he would smoke on Pesach?" And the Rebbe says back, "He would not do that. He would only lean one time in order to show everybody that this also needs to

15:06 Speaker 1 be done while leaning, but he wouldn't continue to lean the entire time he smoked at the Seder table." The Rashag says, uh, "When he ate the rest of the meal, did he lean?" And the Rebbe says, "No." So the Rashag says, "If so, we're finding that smoking was more important than the meal to him, right?" 'Cause you don't lean by the S-- you don't lean by the Sedar, and he was leaning by smoking, which means he was showing that the smoking is more important than the Seder than eating. The Rebbe says back, "To eat? That's not, not really right, because when he ate-- when, when, when we start eating, the beginning of the meal is the matzah. You already lean for the first thing you eat, and then after that you don't lean for the rest of the meal. And similarly, he would lean when he first smoked and then wouldn't lean for the rest of the smoking. But lav davka, does this mean that the smoking is more important to my father than the eating?" The Rashag says, "What did the Frierdiker Rebbe do in Riga?" I guess he wasn't there and the Rebbe was. "Did he also lean when he smoked?" Which by the way, just obvious-- it was obvious to everyone the Frierdiker Rebbe smoked at the Seder. Obviously, the question is whether he leaned. The Rebbe says, "I didn't see the Frierdiker Rebbe in Riga lean when he smoked." So apparently the Frierdiker Rebbe didn't lean when he smoked, but did

16:04 Speaker 1 smoke at the Seder. The Rashag says in Sefer Darkei Chaim. Who's Darkei Chaim? I don't know who-- it does, does it say here? It's, uh-- oh, that's gonna be a hard word. Rabbi Foyle Shimcher Boinn. I, I, I've, I don't, I have no idea can you read that word? I don't know. Uh, he's a Chassidishe Rebbe. And maybe Anhegger said Rebbe Tzadik Divrei Chaim. Oh, that's better. Okay. He brings the Anhegger of the Divrei Chaim of Tzanz. There we go. Does anybody know what that is? I looked up the word and it's not online anywhere. I assume it's a kind of small pipe. Lilka's a pipe. A pipe. Okay. Lilka is a, Lilka is a pipe. Lilka's a pipe. Okay. So he used to smoke a pipe in the middle of the Seder. Okay, pipe. Uh, in Yiddish, I assume, right? The Yiddish for pipe? I believe it was the type of pipe that used to have a hose into a glass jar with water in it, something like that. Oh, like a water pipe? Yeah. I believe that's what I once heard, yeah. Okay, in any event, it says that the Divrei Chaim of Tzanz used to smoke some kind of a pipe in the middle of the Seder. And he says he also told his students to, in that Sefer, that the Divrei Chaim of Tzanz told his students and I thought he was a Chassidishe Rebbe. And the Rebbe doesn't answer anything about the smoking, but he does go on to say

17:14 Speaker 1 that not only was he a Chassidishe Rebbe, he is a Chassidishe Rebbe, and there are still many good Tzanzor Chassidim. So the Rebbe doesn't allow this sort of knock of Tzanz, and that's the end of the table discussion. So we have here also a, uh, discussion I think of the, of the Ruchnius and the importance of smoking to our Rebbe, which might explain why the Rebbe isn't going, uh, isn't jumping over, uh, ju- isn't jumping over anything to, uh, isn't, uh, falling over himself to aser it. At the same time, and we do have to end on this point, and which is really the most important point, uh, something that people did not know until later in America. I wrote down the date in my notes over here. Let me see. Uh, in nineteen seventy-six. It looks like until nineteen seventy-six, Chassidim in America were more or less unaware of this letter and this story, but the Frierdiker Rebbe forbade smoking in the yeshiva and, as a matter of fact, uh, said that even older students shouldn't smoke and that he wanted a list of the students who had given up smoking. And the Frierdiker Rebbe very strongly felt that students should stop smoking, and he came out with this in nineteen forty-two. This was a long time before a lot of people knew that smoking was dangerous. Just to give you a bit of the, of the science here, 'cause that's, that's my value add, right? The, uh, the, uh, we kind of had

18:14 Speaker 1 some evidence, kind of had some evidence that cigarette smoking with-- that tobacco was dangerous even as early as the fifteen hundreds. I mean, we were really-- we knew about it for a while in the backs of our heads it might be dangerous, but we didn't really see a link in scientific studies that made people raise their eyebrows until nineteen thirties. In the nineteen thirties, you started coming out with these individual studies, and every time one of the studies came out and said it was dangerous, twenty-five other studies came out and said it was safe. It was really a back and forth in science. It's hard to say the sci-- a lot of those studies were funded by Big Tobacco, but I don't know that people knew that at the time. So, uh, uh, the link was not clear in the thirties. There was a big study in Germany in the year nineteen forty, that, uh, by Mueller, who found that the extraordinary rise in tobacco use was the single most important cause of lung cancer increases. And at the time, people had noticed that lung cancer had become the most frequent cause of cancer death or second most frequent cause of cancer death, and they were trying to find a link, and it was almost certainly the tobacco. So that came out in nineteen forty. In nineteen forty-three, right around the time the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote this letter, the German Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research Put out a study that they looked at one hundred

19:09 Speaker 1 and nine lung cancer p- cases and found that all but three of them were smokers, um, strongly suggesting a link. So the link started to look real in the early forties. They were, they were fuzzy before the forties, and they started to look real in the forties. Right around then, at the cutting edge, the Frieda Kareva writes that he doesn't want people smoking anymore. This letter is in Yiddish of the Frieda Kareva. It's labeled Alef Taf Taf Kuf Tes, uh, and it is in volume seven. The Frieda Kareva writes, "Shalom Uvracha," short letter. "Baze hinni lamtsi," Here I want to announce, lehitot, to all of my dear ones, es k'doshi, that I have a command from now on. "La'asos l'hashme'a mikol hatalmidim," I want you to make this spread around all of the students, make this announcement. "Hamashnim," the, um, all the students, "hayichyu hamashnim," all the students, they should live long. "Hu smoke v'le'asor b'issur gamur u'muchlat es haish un l'talmidim chosim ben esrim shana." The Frieda Kareva says, "First of all, I'm going to place an isur, an isur gamur, a muchlat, a complete and total, uh, ban on smoking for any students who are under age twenty in the yeshiva. V'li havdil im paperesen or sigarin or pipkes, uh, regardless of whether they are..." I don't know. I think sigarin are probably cigars. Uh, pipkes are probably pipes. Paperesen, those might be cigarettes, like cigarette papers. I don't know. I think those are the cigarettes. Okay. No matter how they smoke- I

20:16 Speaker 1 think it's the- ... whatever vehicle they're using, if they're under twenty, completely forbidden. It's not-- it is an isur gamur from the Frieda Kareva. "Vezeh chal al kol talmidim b'chol makom shehanu b'chol meshe habda l'chas ma'ez le'es." The Frieda Kareva says, "This applies to all students in all locations. It applies when they go home for vacation. It applies when they're traveling. It applies for all twenty-four hours, uh, all the time, every single day. If they are under twenty, it's not happening," says the Frieda Kareva. "Tifkudazu nishmaz b'chol teke va'ez," I want this rule kept very firmly. "Vesh'chakham ulam yedidei sheyichyu," I want the people who are in charge of watching it to watch over it very carefully. I want reports. "Datalmada evra bekuda zeh yenish kasha." Anybody, any student who is evra on this bekuda, who violates this rule, they should be punished very, very harshly if they're under twenty. Now, what about if they're over twenty? He's a lot more lenient. "Ez yedida talmidim yichyu asher bigil me'esrim u'ma'alah," those who are of the year, of the age twenty and above, "yevakesh bishmilu teva sam, v'ruchniyus v'gashmiyus," those who want good in ruchniyus and gashmiyus, "yishtadu la'azeves ha'ish al yedai shima, sh'yamut behem yom yom ad asher yazu l'gamrei." He says, "If you want good in ruchniyus and gashmiyus, you want my beracha, then you should try to quit, and you should try to quit by going slowly day by day until eventually yazu l'gamrei, until eventually you've stopped entirely." Here he's not saying

21:20 Speaker 1 an isur gamur, isur muchlat. He's not saying it's forbidden, but we have a, a under twenty not allowed, and above twenty the Frieda Kareva is saying, "I'd really like you to quit, and if you do, you'll get my beracha." "V'chalashi maaleh bekasulasi," anybody who fulfills my will in this way, "zu tovi yialei v'ruchniyus v'gashmiyus," I'm guaranteeing that anybody who fulfills this and does quit cigarette smoking, uh, by going slow-- o-over age twenty and slowly quits until they're not doing it anymore at all, if they will fulfill my will on this, they will get a special beracha in gashmiyus and in ruchniyus. "V'bakashu le'diani min me talmidim sheyichyim ben esrim u'ma'alah, ma'alez bekasulasi," and I would like people to write in. I wanna know the names of the students over age twenty who are volunteering to quit, uh, be-because of my request, because that means a lot clearly to the Frieda Kareva, and it's signed, "B'shem the Rebbe from the Maskir from Chaim Lieberman." The reason why this letter is particularly interesting to us though, because this of course was in nineteen forty-three, so first of all it's interesting because as early as nineteen forty-three, the Frieda Kareva was telling people to stop smoking, and although I told you that science was starting to come around in the early forties, it really would not come into its own in America or really in the Western world at all until the sixties, where you really saw strong pushback. We-- the scientists knew in the forties, but the

22:22 Speaker 1 scientists, uh, we-we're, we're not accepted by a lot of people. A lot of the doctors weren't saying it. A lot of the doctors liked smoking. Um, the Frieda Kareva is way, is way, is way ahead of the game if in nineteen forty, nineteen forty-two, he's already telling his students he wants them to quit. Another thing that's interesting though is that this letter resurfaced in nineteen seventy-six because a student went to Yechidas with the Rebbe and asked him about smoking, and the Rebbe said, "What do you mean?" The kid was under twenty. And the Rebbe said, "What do you mean? What about the letter from the Frieda Kareva?" Nobody knew about it. So he told him where to find it. This kid went-- I don't know who it was. Maybe one of you knows who this person was. It was nineteen seventy-six, the Yechidas. This student went and showed all the other students and, uh, and put the-- they, they, they took, they took the Frieda Kareva's letter. They put it up on the walls of seven seventy, and the students started a campaign to stop smoking, and those who were under twenty stopped completely, and those who were over twenty, a lot of them did wean themselves off smoking. The, uh, hanhalah of the yeshiva, um, put out, uh, put out all sorts of statements that they weren't allowed to smoke, and they made a rule that no one was allowed to smoke in the zal. That if they had to-- that if they wanted

23:13 Speaker 1 to smoke, they had to smoke outside, even though at the time indoor smoking bans were not-- would not be in effect for many decades. The rule in seven seventy, apparently, from what I read, I mean, I wouldn't know. I wasn't in seven seventy in the seventies. Wasn't alive in the seventies. But as far as I know, um, as far as the, as far as these books tell me, starting from nineteen seventy-six, smoking inside seven seventy was not allowed. You had to take it outside. Uh, and this was before there were any such bans. So this was, uh, encouraged by the Frieda Kareva's letter. The students of our generation took that seriously and implemented it. So what we did talk about today is we, first of all, we didn't wanna come down hard on cigarette smoking as a disgusting, horrible thing, 'cause it's not a disgusting, horrible thing. It's just a very dangerous thing now, and we didn't know that before. But, uh, it is a, it is a, it's a, it's a spiritual thing. It seems that in prior generations, this was something that Rabbeim used to reach spiritual heights. We saw that almost all of our Rabbeim, we have written records of them being involved in it. We heard about the Rojzner. We heard about the, I mean, the Baal Shem Tov had a pipe people talk about. We heard about the fact that this is important to Chassidis, and we saw that the Rebbe's father and the Frieda Kareva both would smoke on

24:07 Speaker 1 Pesach and that the Rebbe's father would lean when he smoked, giving us an idea of how significant it is for our tradition. At the same time, we have a letter from the Rebbe, from Tav Shin Lamed Tes, where he says, "Look, v'nishmatema eiden l'ashrei sekhem, as long as the doctors are telling you it's dangerous, you don't even need rabbis to tell you that it's asur." Obviously, doing something that is dangerous for your health is asur. It's a Shoel U'Tshuva. And as for why he's not willing to put out a proclamation, you have a lot of reasons that I think all more or less probably come down to that we don't wanna forbid something outright that has a good side to it as long-- unless we're sure that it can never be good again. And the Rebbe is hoping, you can see him hoping against hope in this middle paragraph, that one day they're going to find a way to make it safe again, I think maybe to restore the Chassidishkeit of smoking, but in a way that is safe. Finally, we saw that, uh, the Frieda Kareva outlawed smoking completely for people under age twenty, and there's no reason to believe that's not still b'takef. The Rebbe told a student in nineteen seventy-six that this st-- that this letter still applies fully. So that means that if somebody is under age twenty, there's an isur muchlat, an isur gamur for them to smoke from the Frieda Kareva. It's not even a discussion. As for people

25:03 Speaker 1 over age twenty, it's, uh, I don't know if they're allowed to start. All I know for sure is that if they are smoking, they're supposed to try to quit. And, uh, if they can, they get a special beracha for doing so. But you don't see a demand here. Maybe we can go back to the letter from the Rebbe, where he also doesn't really demand people He says, "In some cases, I'm not sure it's so healthy to quit." You don't see a demand for people quitting so much from our Rebbe, but you definitely see a demand that nobody under twenty start. What's also interesting about people under twenty not starting is a lot of data. Uh, a lot of data suggests that almost nobody starts smoking after twenty. It's almost unheard of. Almost everybody who starts, starts when they are under twenty. So forbidding people from smoking, uh, prior to age twenty is a major way of preventing smoking, 'cause almost nobody smo- starts smoking after twenty anyway. But in any event, uh, this is as, this is, this is a, uh, I hope, a very broad treatment of, um, of cigarette, tobacco, and the like. Oh, there was one more thing I wanted to tell you as long as we're still here. One last thing that has nothing to do with tobacco smoking, but I found it along the way. Along the way, I found a letter from the Rebbe, and I don't have it on the screen, and that would take me a second

25:56 Speaker 1 to find it, a second that I don't have, so you're just gonna have to believe me. I'll send it in the group chat, uh, Bli Neder. Is that, uh, somebody asked the Rebbe, the Rebbe has a letter where somebody wrote to the Rebbe asking about smoking marijuana. Smoking marijuana, not tobacco. And the Rebbe's response was the Pele Yod Elula. The Rebbe's response was, "I'm shocked you would even ask. Obviously, it is o- obviously, obviously," that it's aser was his lotion, is that it is, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's forbidden to smoke marijuana, and doubly, doubly forbidden to smoke marijuana. So whereas there seems to be some fondness in our Rebbe's hearts for tobacco smoking, when it comes to marijuana, it's not even a discussion. Uh, smoking of marijuana, the, the Rebbe calls it, uh, the Rebbe uses very strong lashonus. I'll have to put it in the group chat 'cause I just don't remember them off the top of my head. But the Rebbe said, "I'm shocked you would even ask. It is, uh, is absolutely, absolutely forbidden to be smoking marijuana." And as for cigarettes, I think I, I sense... I'm reading this myself. I, I'm reading this into it. I'm not seeing this anywhere. I'm reading it into this. I sense a fondness for tobacco in the Rebbe's writings with an understanding that nowadays it's aser because But there's a certain nostalgia, and you don't see that for other things. In any event, that's it. Thank you all very much.

27:02 Speaker 2 I- I- I- if I could jump in here just to tell you, you, this whole thing brought a, a story to my mind.

27:08 Speaker 1 Please.

27:09 Speaker 2 Um, I heard it many years ago. I cannot, uh, uh, confirm its, uh, veracity, but, uh, be it as it may. I believe I once heard it at a One of the, uh, one of the people who were speaking there brought this story up. He says that, um, when the Frieda Rebbe was in America in the earlier years, when he was still healthier, he, uh, he used to have people come visit him, and they used to chat during the day. So one day, a do- a doctor that took care of the Frieda Rebbe once came in, and, uh, after he checked him, apparently, he said to him that it would be a good idea that you should stop smoking. It, uh, I heard that the Frieda Rebbe used to smoke a cigarette called, uh, Old Gold. It's a unfiltered cigarette, a very strong cigarette. So the doctor told him, "Rabbi, it's a good thing if you would stop smoking." So when he finished the, uh, the, the checkup, they sat to chat a little bit. So he pulls out his cigarette case from his pocket, the doctor, and he offers the Frieda Rebbe a cigarette. They were gonna have a cigarette together. The Frieda Rebbe told him, "I don't smoke. Thank you very much. I don't smoke." So the doctor looks at him and says, "Rebbe, how do you tell me you don't smoke? I know that you did smoke." He said, "What are you talking about?" The Rebbe answers him, "I stopped smoking as

28:30 Speaker 2 you, as soon as you told me that it's not good for me and I should stop. That's when I stopped."

28:39 Speaker 1 I've also heard this story. I've also heard this story before. I think it's reliable. They, they certainly tell it a lot, but I didn't find it written down anywhere.

28:46 Speaker 2 Yeah.

28:48 Speaker 3 The, uh, few comments that I have about this, um, is a few things. First of all, I heard a story that they say that, um... And I heard this from the son of the person who the Rebbe told this to, so I think it's pretty accurate. He was very, very upset that people were inside the seventy smoking, like, uh, the people in the Bais Medrash would smoke. And I have to tell you that unfortunately, I understand that idealistically you say that no one smoked in seven seventy since the seventies, but I can tell you that myself as a bachur in the early nineties, I used to smoke in seven seventy. So no one really took the, uh, the warnings of, of not smoking in seven seventy.

29:22 Speaker 1 I will, I will-

29:23 Speaker 3 As a matter of fact, I remember sometimes-

29:24 Speaker 1 ... defend myself and say, just in my own defense, I did say that, uh, that I know it says it in the books, and I am not sure that's what happened, so fine.

29:32 Speaker 3 It did not happen, number one.

29:33 Speaker 1 I know, the iconic picture of, uh-

29:35 Speaker 3 And there always, in the, always in the movies, they yell-

29:36 Speaker 1 The iconic picture of Reb Yael smoke, smoking while, while, while

29:39 Speaker 3 Yeah

29:39 Speaker 1 ... that, that, that, that, that probably was after the seventies, right? He looks pretty old in those pictures.

29:44 Speaker 3 Correct. Correct.

29:45 Speaker 1 Okay.

29:45 Speaker 3 Correct.

29:46 Speaker 1 Okay.

29:46 Speaker 3 And people used to smoke in seven seventy. There'd be sometimes older student would yell at the younger bachurim to not smoke. And there were "No Smoking" signs in seven seventy, and the "No Smoking" signs came from this person who told me that his father was And he asked the Rebbe, "How come the Rebbe's not banning, uh, cigarettes completely?" And the Rebbe's answer to him was that he's not going to say something Which is different than what it is over here, that he's not gonna say something he doesn't think that people could actually, um, listen to. So he doesn't wanna throw out, uh, you know, waste his, his, his

30:15 Speaker 1 Yeah

30:15 Speaker 3 ... isser. So the guy said that, "At least should there be signs in seven seventy, at least put up 'No Smoking' signs or whatever." So the Rebbe told him, "You wanna put up signs, put up signs." So he went, and he went to the store on Kingston Avenue, the hardware store, and he bought the "No Smoking" signs, and he put them all over seven seventy. But I remember there was a lot of famous, uh, people who stand under the "No Smoking" sign with a cigarette. So it wasn't really, didn't really take anything. And as a matter of fact, as I mentioned before, the Rebbe would sometimes on his way into Mincha or Maariv pick up cigarette butts from the floor. Uh, the Rebbe would see garbage on the floor of the, of the shul. The Rebbe would pick up cigarette butts. I saw it with my own eyes, the Rebbe picking up cigarette butts. Or what we would do is before the Rebbe would come into the shul, the bachur would run ahead of the Rebbe and kick all the cigarette butts deep under the bench, so the Rebbe shouldn't see them and be tempted to b- bend down and, and, and pick up, um, pick up the cigarette butts. I also did hear- A rumor, and I don't know if it's true or not, that when the Rebbe did stop smoking, which was already when the Rebbe was here in seventy-seven, maybe it's the story that you mentioned that the Rebbe stopped smoking because

31:11 Speaker 3 if he could have sent a message that it was disrupting him or whatever it was, supposedly, the Rebbe kept the rest of the pack of the cigarettes in his drawer, Ad Yom Ha'Acharon, uh, or Ad Yom Ha'Ze, however you wanna frame it, that the empty or the half pack of cigarettes, the unsmoked half pack was still sitting in the drawer forever. Um, so I don't know if that's true or not, but so I heard. Um, it's-- it would be very interesting because that would talk to the, the... what you had mentioned before, about the fondness that the Rebbe had for it, and even though he didn't do it, he might have found, felt-- found it, found-- might have been fond of it, whether it was for a spiritual reason or not. Uh, also, I think there's a Shlomie Chabon song about the whole Rizhiner with the clouds, with the Chassid of the Tzemach Tzedek, who went to the Rizhiner to, uh, to see his avoda on Erev Shabbos, and no one would be able to see his avoda on Erev Shabbos. He never let anybody in. And when the Gabai heard that Chassid Tzemach Tzedek was there, that Tzemach Tzedek so went to see, sent him there for Shabbos to see how, how, how the Rizhiner prepped for Shabbos. So he told his, his, his, uh, shamash to bring him in, uh, and to watch him, and then there's a whole thing about where he took him out on the porch and with his pipe,

32:16 Speaker 3 and he says, "What do you see as I'm smoking the pipe? Don't you see the clouds of Shabbos-- The clouds of the, of the week are leaving, and the clouds of Shabbos are coming. The clouds are changing." I always wondered what was in the pipe. So, uh, just saying, it's just, uh interesting, uh-

32:28 Speaker 1 I think very firmly tobacco based on the... Ba-ba-just I know it was a joke, but just based on the Rebbe's response to marijuana, very firmly tobacco. Uh, it seems that the tobacco is specific.

32:37 Speaker 3 Right. Right. Right.

32:38 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, the, the Rebbe is very-

32:39 Speaker 3 Right. So there is a-

32:40 Speaker 1 Very harsh against hallucinogenics or anything that impacts the mind. Um, tobacco, though, has a specific fondness by the Rebbe. Yeah, definitely. It's definitely a fondness. Um, and that's a dangerous fondness, I guess, because a lot of people listening might hear that fondness and think they should go start smoking. So I'd like to emphasize that, uh, that, uh, a good, a good place, I think, for us to end is that although our Rebbe did not come out with strong smoking bans for various reasons, our rabbonim have. Uh, Lubavitch rabbonim have all across the board come out with very strong smoking bans, and they're just... It's, it's, it's, it's simply ossur, um, for anybody to start, that's for sure. Uh, but at the same time, I think the, the, the historical context does add something.