להתנצל ולדרוש התנצלות

00:01 This is Igress. The letters we're looking at today are all on the same topic, an interesting one that, uh, there is not a lot of material on for perhaps reasons that will become obvious, and that is, uh, times the Rebbe says sorry, or makes an apology, or demands an apology. Now, the Rebbe, as far as I can tell by going through Igress now for a while, is that there's something like four different kinds of sorrys that the Rebbe says in letters, and some are more genuine than others. And I don't mean, God forbid, that the Rebbe is not genuine. I mean that some of them mean sorry, and some of them are a sorry that the Rebbe is using as a way to enter a conversation. So there is on the very, very rare occasion, I found exactly one of these, and I did scour Igress to the best of my ability using every keyword I could find. I found one example where the Rebbe apologizes for what looks like a legitimate wrongdoing, that the Rebbe says, "I did something wrong, and I'm sorry." And I'm gonna show you that one today. I was able-- only able to find one of those. And even that, I'm not completely sure the Rebbe's apologizing for wrongdoing. But that's-- I have one that's close to that. That's very rare. Uh, something that we have somewhat commonly is the Rebbe making a-- the Rebbe apologizing for a mistake or an error on his part. That is, that was not

01:01 wrongdoing, but there's been some sort of an oversight. That we do get sometimes. I'll show you a couple of those. By far, the most common one, which we see all the time in our letters, is an apology about a delay in response. This is a big sorry. You get slick on this for a lot of them. The Rebbe will say, "After asking for an apology for the length of time between when you wrote and I'm responding, I'm now finally getting to it." And frequently, the Rebbe gives an excuse for this. He apologizes for the delay in responding, and he usually says that's 'cause of tirza or some kind of an extra, um, difficulties going on, uh, on his side of things that makes it difficult to respond to all of these letters at once because of tirzas and tzibas. That's the way the Rebbe usually apologizes. And the fourth way is also one we've seen a couple of times. It is maybe the second most common, and this is when the Rebbe says sorry, but it's only there to soften the blow of things that he needs to say, but it's not really an apology. It's that I'm, I'm asking after bakashas licah for what I'm about to say, I need to say the following anyway. So it's sort of to soften the blow, to apologize for a perceived slight, but not because anything actually wrong has happened, but because the Rebbe needs this as a rhetorical tool. And, uh, although it is terrifying to

02:00 say that the Rebbe uses rhetorical tools, I'm going to prove that to you today because I have a letter where the Rebbe tells a shliach, "I do this all the time. I put sorry in things to couch terms, to make things that are unpalatable, more palatable, and I'd like you to try it too." So we are going to look at these four ways the Rebbe says sorry, and if we have time, I also wanna look at a couple cases where the Rebbe demands that other people apologize. The Rebbe has individuals where, um, individuals who have said things or done things, the Rebbe will sometimes in a public sicha or sometimes in a letter demand their apology and say their apology would be worthwhile. So I don't know if we'll get to all of that today. I do hope we do. In any event, the first letter is one from exactly fifty years ago. It's from the latter days of Adar. Shili Adar, Tavshin Lamed Dalet. That is, that's fifty years ago. And it's written to Rav Grunfeld. Now, Rav Grunfeld, uh, this is Yeshayah, Yeshayah Kohen, HaKohen Grunfeld, who was a very important Rav in London. He was a Rav in the London Bezdin, uh, not a Lubavitcher, uh, a, um, a dayan, a very important Rav. So I reached out to Rabbi Shmuel Lou about this, uh, to try to figure out what this letter was about. Had the incredible honor of speaking to him for a few minutes. I say incredible honor for

03:00 a few reasons. Besides the fact that Rabbi Lou is a legendary shliach, he also is one of the individuals who inspired the Igress Share in the first place, although it was really a groundswell from our community that got the Igress Share off the ground. I think one of the main impetuses of the Igress Share starting was the fact that Rabbi Lou came to Fabrang in Pomona and encouraged us to buy a set of Igress for the Shul and to begin learning Igress and talk to us about how learning Igress had changed his life for the positive. So this year certainly owes a debt to him. He told me that he isn't sure what this particular letter is about, but that he has a suspicion based on the conversation that he had with Rav Grunfeld, the dayan from London, that apparently Rav Grunfeld had an opinion about a certain marriage. He had an opinion that a, uh, that a divorce had either been done improperly or it had, uh, the get had maybe been pushed a little bit. He was not comfortable that a divorce had gone through all the way, and despite his discomfort, maybe not knowing about his discomfort, whether the Rebbe knew or not, I don't know, but what I do know is that the Rebbe gave a bracha for a second marriage for this girl, even though Rav Grunfeld wasn't sure she was fully divorced. It's not clear at all, but this is what this letter's talking about. Rabbi Lou's not saying

04:07 that's what this letter's about. He's saying that this is, uh, one thing that it could be about. But in any event, uh, Rav Grunfeld was offended, and this could be the letter where the Rebbe addresses that and apologizes for offending him. This is our one example, the only example I found of a, uh, mea culpa from the Rebbe, where the Rebbe says, "Something wrong has happened that was caused by me, and I'm apologizing for it." So the Rebbe says here, "Shalom uvracha. I've received your letter and that which you attached with it. I am, u-understandably upset about the pain that I caused the, uh, the-- that I caused you. Your, your honorable turanis." I don't know. How do you say that in English? I just-- Is there-- The, the honorable Rav. Um, um, the Rebbe says, "I'm, I'm pained by the fact that I caused you pain. That certainly it was not the intent of anyone to cause any pain to any Jew in general. And certainly not to cause-- Not certainly not to cause pain to a Rav who's a teacher among the Jewish people, somebody who paskens shailas from the-- somebody who's from the seed of Aharon HaKohen, because of course, he was a Kohen as well, but flat. And as has already been written, who can know, who can keep track of all the errors one might make?" So here, the Rebbe is saying, uh, "I made a mistake, and I'm sorry that I offended you. Sure, sure sounds like the Rebbe

05:23 is saying that he made a mistake. The Rebbe says, "We're now finding ourselves at the end of the month of Adar when sadness gets turned to joy. And that applies to the entire month. It should be God's will that all things that were unpleasant should be flipped over into a situation of joy and of satisfaction. Especi-especially since you are telling me at the end of your letter that the main problem between us has been resolved, uh, or is going to be resolved. As we go from one redemption, one of the rede-redemption, that is from the redemption of Purim to the redemption of Pesach, calls the month of Nisan, Chazal call the month of Nisan the month of redemption. He says, the Rebbe gives a bracha, that we should all be removed from all sorts of confusing things, all things that will confuse us with a complete geula with the coming of Mashiach. So the Rebbe ties his apology to the time of year, and this is Stark. I, I, again, I did not find anything like this. I've never seen anything like this in letters from the Rebbe, where he really says, uh, says, "I'm sorry that I caused you pain. That wasn't my intent at all." And And, uh, and, uh, and I hope that we can flip this over into a positive, into a positive solution. There are, however, as we mentioned at the beginning, many cases of different kinds of apologies from the Rebbe. This is a very typical letter. I just

06:45 pulled this one because it's one of literally thousands, literally thousands, I think, um, of letters where the Rebbe says, "I'm sorry that there was a delay in the letter." Just as an example, the Rebbe says this letter is and the Rebbe says I'd like to open with a request for, uh, great forgiveness. Please forgive me. Because I haven't written for a while. I haven't responded to you up until now because of many tirdes. That's again the usual excuse that the Rebbe uses is that, uh-- I don't mean excuse, I mean explanation. Usual, usual re-- explanation is that I've been very busy. And unfortunately, right now, the tirdes that were getting in the way of the Rebbe answering letters were ones that were full of pain. which has to do with the terrible gezeira, which has caused all kinds of confusion, and then that people are calling it a law. Those who make con-- Those who create confusion call this a law of Miyu Yehudi, of who is a, who is a Jew. So, uh, the Miyu Yehudi question. Then he goes on to tell the person they'd like them to get involved in Miyu Yehudi. But in any event, the Rebbe here is apologizing. A classic apology from the Rebbe is that I haven't been able to get to your letter because I've been very, very busy with other things. There's a really cool version of this that was originally written in English, so it's available on chabad.org. I've been using these more in the

07:48 Shiurim because chabad.org recently put up, relatively recently put up, uh, hundreds, maybe thousands of letters in English from the Rebbe that are now searchable. So I've been trying to, uh, especially when they're originally in English, trying to pepper some of those in here. This letter is from the year Taf Shin Mem Vav. Another thing cool about the chabad.org letters is that Igris runs out in the lameds. We haven't fin-- Igris is still being published. So we don't have anything in Igris from the mems, but we have a lot of mem letters in English because especially then a lot more Americans were writing anyway. It's a treasure trove of letters from the, from the mems. So this letter was, uh, says here there was a respected rabbi. They wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe did not respond, and the Rebbe wrote a letter to Rabbi Groner and said to him, "I'm very offended that the Rebbe hasn't written back to me." And the Rebbe writes him an apology letter for not getting back to him, and it's a very, uh, very serious one. The Rebbe writes, "Greeting and blessing. I duly received from Rabbi Groner the letters with reference to me, more precisely to my failure to respond to your correspondence. Let me say at once that your complaints are completely justified." So the Rebbe apologized, that they're completely justified. "I can only ask your indulgence to judge me in the scale of merit, the . I assure you that my failure to respond does

08:46 not reflect anything in the nature of cold shouldering, as you put it, God forbid. As for an explanation of the absence of written responses on my part, I plead guilty without explanation." The Rebbe says, I'm not gonna explain myself. "Since an explanation would have been rather lengthy and beyond the scope of this letter, I must therefore rely on the the benefit of the doubt, that you will believe me when I say that the cause has absolutely nothing to do with you." The Rebbe says, "The reason I'm writing to you now, however, is not hard to find." So I'm not gonna explain why I didn't write in the past, but I'll tell you why I'm writing now. Why am I writing now? Since we entered the month of Elul and it's time to make amends for past failures. And although obviously these few lines cannot quantitatively suffice for all that has been omitted, they hopefully can suffice in terms of quality and real content. So the Rebbe is saying, I'm writing to you in Elul specifically to apologize because this is a month where we do apologies. So we have here maybe a very extreme case of the Rebbe apologizing for the, uh, for the, uh, delay in sending a letter. In Igris volume Lamed Beis, which is from Taf Shin Lamed Zayin, I don't know how this happened exactly. I gotta guess that this was some sort of an office clerical oversight. The Rebbe failed to acknowledge something like four books that he'd received, and

09:48 we have back-to-back letters where the Rebbe writes essentially the same thing to four different authors, each time saying, "I'm really sorry that I didn't, uh, that I didn't say thank you for the book." And we have these back to backs. I just thought this was a really interesting one to show you. Uh, this one's labeled Yud Beis Peh Tes, and all the other ones, next one's Peh Tes, and the next one's, uh, Tadik, and the next one's Tadik Alef. Four in a row like this. These are all from the days of Purim, of Taf Shin Lamed Zayin. And here the Rebbe writes to, uh, Chaim Deber Golowski. Golowski? Okay. He says, I'd like to begin with asking for, uh, . Please forgive me on a great level. because for various reasons I'm apologizing for not acknowledging that I received your book, And then he thanks him very much for the book and thanks him for taking the time to send it to him. And then if you look at the next letter, Yud Beis Peh Tes, this is written to Betzalel Zulti of Yerushalayim. The Rebbe writes, same lashon, that is for various reasons I'm apologizing, because for various reasons I did not, uh, eh, I did not mention, I didn't, I didn't acknowledge that I received your Sefer Mishnas Yavetz for Urim. And, uh, the Rebbe says again, thank you very much for sending it, and please send me more things. And then Yud Beis Tadik, look at that again. Again, I'd like to

11:04 apologize. for various reasons When the Rebbe says I'm guessing something went wrong in the office. I don't know. So this author was Mordechai. Um, Spielman had written a book called Tsion Lenefesh Tsvi, and again, the Rebbe did not at the time acknowledge receiving it, so he apologizes for not acknowledging receipt, and then says, "Thank you very much for sending it," and asks him to send more. So this happens, what was that, three or four times in a row? Three times in a row. Just a really interesting run of, uh, of, of apologies. Anyway, we've seen an apology for wrongdoing, and now we've seen an apology for a delay, and we've seen an apology for mistakes, for errors. This is an error where the, where the office made some sort of mistake and the Rebbe is apologizing. Uh, what we have here is, um, in this letter, and this letter is in volume Hey, and it's, uh, on page three hundred and five. It's just a piece of a letter that I wanted to show you because this line is such a punch. Uh, it has so much punch to it. This is another kind of apology the Rebbe does, where he apologizes as a way of softening the blow, but says, "Look, I need to say what I need to say, and I'm sorry that it offends you, and I'm gonna say sorry to make you, to make you feel more comfortable with the things I'm going to say, but I wouldn't say it any

12:09 differently." It's a sorry, not sorry, that is used to couch the idea. So here we have-- Look at just this line, this one line down here. I apologize for possibly offending somebody. but the truth remains the truth. whether it offended anybody or not. The Rebbe says, "I'm apologizing for offending, but the truth is the truth, whether or not I offended you." Is that an apology? I don't think so. I think that's the Rebbe softening the blow of a hard statement here. So this is what I call the fourth category of apology, and you do see this quite a bit. I'm gonna show you a couple other examples of this, where, uh, where the Rebbe will u-- will, uh, will soften a blow by saying, "I'm sorry, but I'm, I am, I am saying exactly what I mean." Uh, the reason why I'm sure that's what the Rebbe is doing is because of a letter that was written to Rav Gringlass, and we have some of his Talmidim, at least one of his Talmidim on the, on the Zoom right now. There's a letter written to Rav Gringlass in Montreal, and the Rebbe here tells him, "I want you to try this trick. It's something I do all the time." So clearly, this is something that, uh, that we're justified in saying is a strategy from the Rebbe. This letter is labeled Bet Tav Tav Nun Daled. It's from Yud Daled Menachem Av, Av Tav Shen Yud Daled. The Rebbe thanks him for working on Surah

13:11 Saesius. I actually looked this up just 'cause I was super curious what that's about. Uh, there was some, there was some... In the year, believe it or not, in the year, uh, nineteen fifty-four, there was still some confusion about what Chabad looks like in Safros, and Rav Gringlass was in charge of, like, comparing manuscripts and figuring and talking to Seforim and figuring out exactly what we do, which is just fascinating to me that that late in the game we still had some confusion. In any event, the Rebbe says that he read a certain book from a certain Gaon, certain big Rav, and this Rav does quote the Tamach Tzedek, but remu- removes from his Sefer any input from Chabad sources and also very clearly isn't interested in Chassidus Chabad and doesn't learn Chassidus Chabad. And, uh, the Rebbe is very upset about this and wants Rav Gringlass to have an impact on him. So now the Rebbe says in very harsh terms that a person cannot possibly, uh, cannot possibly be a Yid if they're not studying the entire... Not a Yid. They can't possibly be a Talmid Chacham if they're not studying the entire Torah, and the Torah includes the Torah of Chabad. And the Rebbe speaks very harshly about someone who wants to put Chabad on the back burner and not make it part of their repertoire. And after speaking harshly, he says this, "It's possible that the words that I used are a little too harsh for this author that I would

14:12 like you to speak to." So he says to Rav Gringlass, "You can feel free to change around my words, but not the content. Make sure that the ideas get through, but use your own words because it might be a little too harsh." "And maybe we'll, maybe we'll be able to pull it off." And he says, "I have a tip for you. Pro tip, why don't you open your letter with ," which is, as we saw, the way the Rebbe softens a lot of his blows. "And also bring the expression of the Chacham , which is also brought from the letter from the Tamach Tzedek." Maybe that's Mendels. I, I don't know. That, uh, that truth is beloved more than anything else to a wise person. So he says, basically, uh, soften him up a little bit. Tell him that you're very sorry and that you recognize that wise people wanna hear the truth, and then introduce relatively harsh words. The last thing that I wanna show you is that sometimes the Rebbe demands apologies from other people. And when the Rebbe demands apologies, he usually tells people the same two things, that there were two very famous people who were not afraid to admit when they were wrong, Meshe Rabenu and Rava, and both of them did it, and therefore you should do it too. There was a, there was, there was a certain Rosh Yeshiva who gave a speech, and I guess a recording of it or maybe a transcript of it made it

15:22 to the Rebbe, and, uh, he said disparaging things about Yitzchak Avinu. Anybody remember when we talked about that in the past? This was a long time ago. But, uh, this, this Rosh Yeshiva had said something disparaging about Yitzchak Avinu, one of the Avos, Isaac, our forefather. And, uh, the Rebbe gave a whole sicha about how horrible this is, how anybody could say something like that. And the Rebbe sicha got back to this Rosh Yeshiva, and this Rosh Yeshiva wanted to call the Rebbe to a Din Torah for speaking Lashon Hara about him. So he wanted to, he wanted to sue the Rebbe over this. And his claim was that the Rebbe was not telling the truth because it had actually been not one Rosh Yeshiva, but two Rosh Yeshiva who had said these horrible things about Yitzchak. That was their claim, is that the Rebbe had put it at the feet of just one Rosh Yeshiva, when in fact it should be about two Rosh Yeshiva. So, uh, in this, uh, in this sicha, the Rebbe says that, uh, he's willing to apologize for it. Take a look at this. The only time. This is a sicha from Tav Shen Chaf Tes, from Yud Daled Kislev. It's on page two ninety-two in Toras Menachem, Volume fifty-one. So the Rebbe says, the, uh, the only ta'ana they're making against me is I spoke about this Rosh Yeshiva who said disparaging things about Yitzchak Avinu And the fact is that two different Rosh Yeshiva had actually said

16:28 the negative things that I was, that I was talking about. Therefore, the Rebbe says they wanna bring me to court and sue me. I claimed one Rosh Yeshiva said two things, when in fact two of the Rosh Yeshiva said those two things. And they have gone further to make the claim that because of my incredible stature as a Rebbe, I'm not able to retract or to apologize for things that I've said in front of a large congregation. So they're saying they have to bring me to a Din Torah because I can't apologize because I'm some sort of big Rav. So the Rebbe says back, and he says here that he has said . He says it while laughing. When I heard this ta'ana, uh, I became, um, I became, I became crestfallen. Even though it's, uh, difficult to say that I, uh, that I, that I became crestfallen, said that, uh, uh, we were already talking about Yitzchak here being disparaged, so, uh, I was already pretty crestfallen. Because what this really means is that everything else I said was true. The fact is all of these negative things were said about Yitzchak Avinu. The only mistake I made was that, uh, was that, was whether it was one or two Rosh Yeshiva. Means that everything else was true. Everything else that I said was true, which is, which is painful to hear. The difference between if one person said it or two, not only disregarding the person who spoke, but when it comes to

17:47 the people who are listening, a lot of people heard terrible things happening, and nobody stood up and said, "What are you guys doing? How dare you say these things about Yitzchak Avinu?" So I'm still upset. And then the Rebbe says, regarding the claim that I'm not able to, uh, to apologize or to retract things that I say because I'm a Rebbe and I'm not allowed to apologize, the Rebbe says that's ridiculous. There's not a single Jew in the world, who is not, uh, who is not within the Parsha of apologies. Every person can make a mistake. To the degree that we find, Maaseh Rab, that we find that this practically happened, when he made a mistake, he admitted, and he was not embarrassed. Also, Rava in the Gemara, that he one time admitted that the things that I'm saying, they are . The Rebbe's using these cla-- these examples he uses in a lot of these cases, We also find by other Amora'im. So the Rebbe says, therefore, I'm not afraid to, I'm not embarrassed to tell you that I made a mistake. Even Rava, and I don't have to say Lehavdil says, he says in the name of the Frieda Rebbe, because you don't make a Lehavdil between Gedolim and Ketanim, only between, uh, things that are pure and impure, but not between, not between Jews regardless of their state. Therefore, I'm now announcing in front of everybody the words that I said are using the same Lashon as Rava. I said one Rosh

19:12 Yeshiva said it, when in fact it was said by two Rosh Yeshiva. So the Rebbe is fine with apologizing publicly This is from Achrenet Shal Pesach, Tefshin Lamed. It's a Sicha. It is in Terretz Menachem, uh, volume Samech, and it is on page one fifty-eight. Here the Rebbe tells somebody, tells a government official who had been, uh, I believe they wanted to push, uh, that, that, that non-Orthodox conversions would be valid. And, uh, the Rebbe here says, again, Mishna Matzinha Filundegai Lameshi Rabinu, even what we see by Meshi Rabinu that he's Hayyav L'Bosh, and also Rava in his base Menachum, she said, Devarim Shema Matzah Befeim Talasim Beyadi. So, uh, the Rebbe says, "Why do you think the Gemara tells us this?" Even B'genuzt Eima Tmeia, even when it comes to disgracing an impure animal, the Torah doesn't bother doing this. Alach Kasam Bekama. Why would we talk about the fact that Meshi made a mistake and Rava made a mistake? Why do you think the Torah tells us these things? And the Rebbe says, Alach Kavan Hamisita B'gemara Hi Kidesh Nilman MiRava. The idea of telling us that Rava made a mistake and that Meshi had made a mistake and that they admitted, is only to teach us that we are supposed to admit when we make mistakes too and apologize. L'ai HaGadol Yesh MiRava, there was nobody greater than Rava. Punishar Rava Filu Achri Shitah. And he was still Rava even after he made a mistake and apologized. Biglash Heid Betava Use, because

20:16 he admitted to his mistakes. The Rebbe is saying here kind of two really interesting things. One of them is that the whole reason the Torah tells us about Meshi and Rava and the like making mistakes, Tzadikim at that level, is to tell us that everybody is Shayach to a mistake and everybody should be able to apologize. And second of all, to show you still get your title even afterwards. Meshi doesn't lose any status by Hayyav L'Bosh, and Rava doesn't lose any status by admitting that he made a mistake. You won't lose your status by admitting you made a mistake. Just admit that you made a mistake. The last thing that I wanna show you is a very sharp Sicha, uh, and I have it in full here. I think I put it in the chat and I did put it in the chat in full, so you can read the full version. This is one of the sharpest Sichas that I've ever said, and, uh, it really is according to everybody. And, uh, and you can-- i-if you know your Chabad history, you know the sharpest Sichas that Rebbe ever said were usually in response to something that, uh, that, that, uh, that Rav Shah said. That, uh, usually if Rav Shah said something in Eretz Israel that was against the Yidden, the Rebbe would respond in a certain, uh, a Charifus that you just don't see in other Sichas. Here, the thing that Rav Shah had said was that, uh, we could give up

21:14 the Golan Heights, and it would be okay if we gave up the Golan for peace, and that we survived for two thousand years without the Golan, we can survive another two thousand years without the Golan. That was his Lashon. And, uh, the Rebbe was very upset about this. The Rebbe has a long Sicha saying that he can't imagine anybody would say such a thing. He says that the thing the Rebbe seems to be mostly upset about, the truth is, the thing he's most upset about is that Rav Shah said that we could survive another two thousand years, period. That is, the Rebbe says, "How can you say that there's gonna be another two thousand years? The Torah is very clear that we only get six thousand years, and then Mashiach comes. You're telling me you think we could be in Galus for two thousand years?" So although he talks about giving up the Golan, it's clear from the Sicha that the Rebbe is mostly upset that he would imply that there could be another two thousand years of Galus, which is just very interesting to me, but it's very sharp. One of the sharpest parts of the Sicha that has nothing to do with us, but that I must show you because it is so interesting, even though we are literally running out of time at this point, meaning that the, the, the, the, the, uh, Zoom is ready to cut us off. That's how, that's how late we're running right now. The Rebbe says

22:04 here, "I wish people would stop talking about the entire thing because then the problem would go away. You know, people wouldn't keep on publicizing it. I wish people would stop talking about it. But even worse than that, what is-- what's happening now we have Eideh Sheker that are coming. He has, uh, false witnesses that are showing up, Leitzanim, jokesters, Chanifim, flatterers, Shakranim, people who lie, liars, and Sakrei Lashon Hara, people who speak Lashon Hara. All of these people are in the category in Sedrah where it says that the sh- that they will never be able to accept the face of the Shechinah, that the Shechinah will never meet them. And what are they saying? Machasim Komenei Terutzim V'sevaras. They're all coming in and defending him, saying he didn't really mean to say that. Menasan Lashon Eitzes Techein Addevarim, V'lei Kach Hamarti El Hachulah. They're saying, "Oh, Rav Shah didn't really mean that. He meant to say something else." They're trying to justify his words and twist his words so that he doesn't look like he said something horrible. V'vashash Efsher Lishmo'a Saklatas HaDevarim. But there's a tape recording. I can hear what he said. V'lishmo'a Bedieg Mar Mar Lepaleni. How-- why are you going out trying to explain what he said in a positive light when we can listen to what he said and know for sure what he meant? Elemu, Nanimu L'haganach K'vodo, those who are interested in defending his honor and are looking for Terutzim, should-- it would be better if they would

23:01 get a little bit of Sechel, he says. It'd be better if they'd become a little smart, get a little Sechel. Veyodinu She'efshar Lachish L'lashon Shevar Mishuk Tedabi K'se'arat Alatan. Understand that it's impossible to contradict or to try to twist things that we have an audio recording of. Lachem, or maybe a video recording. Lachem, Motav L'pleini, L'haganach K'vodo L'shitat Lashlikas HaDevar. If they really wanna defend his honor, they should stop talking 'cause they're just making themselves and him look silly. And for these-- And as for the Shakranim, as for the liars who are trying to change his words and say that he never said that in the first place or that he meant something else, the Rebbe says, "I suggest you go to the nations of the world, go to non-Jews, and try to explain to them your novel interpretations of his ideas and see if you're able to convince them to not b-believe what they heard in the, in the tape recording." Says you're trying to pull something off that you know that, you know that no honest person is gonna allow you to pull off. Now, the Rebbe says-- I just, I, I love that whole section because there's a, there, there's a whole farbrengen in that section there that, you know, trying to, trying to-- th-this misplaced need for people to, uh, to lie in order to defend the honor of Torah for some reason when there's clear recordings to the contrary. Look, we, we know it was said, and I love you

23:57 love Dan L'kaf Zchus and obviously Salal and Kavod HaTorah, but don't, uh, don't be too smart. We know it was said. So here the Rebbe says that Lachem, Motav L'pleini, She'yadir Shvar B'temim Uv'tam. It would be appropriate for this individual, who was Rav Shah, to, uh, to declare that all the things that he said are completely nullified, backtracked, uh, retract. U'mash Amar Kein, Hayu Beshegi U'be'enes Vechulu. And he should explain that what he said was either a mistake or it was a mistake where he was sort of forced into that. Maybe he was cornered, uh, politically. He should admit that he did the wrong thing and give his reasons. Pischa Gemara Mespert Is Gadol Israel, as the Gemara says about Gadol Israel Amoraim. Shlais Baish L'hados V'lo Ma. When it came to Gadol Israel like Rava, they were never embarrassed to admit and say, Devarim Shemar L'fem Talasim Beyadi. So the Rebbe's giving Rav Shah a way out and saying, "I'd like you to apologize." V'esam Mizun. Furthermore, Filu Meshi Rabenu, Hayyav L'Bosh. And even Meshi Rabenu himself admitted and didn't-- and was not embarrassed. Be'amash L'fi Sheba L'chlal Kas V'chlal Tois. And admitted that because according to Rashi, he got angry, and therefore he made a mistake, and obviously Rav Shah was angry when he made these statements. And, uh, the Rebbe then says here, even though there's a psak din in Shulchan Aruch that it's asur to compare yourself to Meshi Rabenu, he says, nonetheless, Meshi Rabenu taught and laid out the path

25:02 for all people. It's called the Teress Meshi, and taught us that you should admit when something's true, even if it means that you have to admit that you made a mistake. B'gan Kesh Utzidichim L'mesh Devarim Gdim D'em L'talem. Even if this means undoing all the things that you said in the past. So what we have here is, I think, a, lengthy, discussion of the Rebbe on apologies, not saying sorry. What we did at the very beginning is we saw an example of the Rebbe apologizing for what looks like, uh, was the Rebbe owning up to a legitimate mistake of some kind. We have multiple letters where the Rebbe apologizes for delays in correspondence. One very thorough one, where the Rebbe really apologizes for delaying in getting back and says he's writing in the month of Elul because that's a time to handle apologies. Uh, so the Rebbe apologizes frequently for people not re-- for not responding to people fast enough. We had a fun, sort of fun one, where for three, four letters in a row, the Rebbe apologizes to people for not acknowledging the receipt of their books, which I think must have been some sort of a clerical error. Uh, we also talked about a frequent thing that the Rebbe does, where he apologizes, but more as a way of couching a strong criticism. And the Rebbe actually gave the same advice to Rav Greenglass, telling that if you have to couch a strong criticism, you should open by saying, that I'm init--

26:01 that I'm initially starting off by giving a great apology. Then we saw that the Rebbe is willing to apologize himself when he makes, uh, when he makes factual mistakes as well. The Rebbe, it turns out, had been misinformed about how many Rosh Yeshiva had disparaged Yitzchak Abino, it had been two, not one, and the Rebbe was willing to admit that indeed it was two, not one. And he said, "I'm not embarrassed to admit there's nobody at a great station, no great Rebbe was too great to apologize. Rebbe did it, Maisha Rabbeinu did it. I certainly can do it." We have a Sicha, the second to last Sicha, had been telling a politician that they'd made a bad decision when it came to Miyu Yehudi, and that therefore they should be like Maisha Rabbeinu and apologize. And finally, we have the Rebbe talking really directly to Rav Shach and saying to him, "You made a terrible mistake when you said the Jewish people can survive another two thousand years without the Golan. People should stop trying to justify what you said and trying to defend you for Kabbalah Terra. If anybody here really cares about Kabbalah Terra, what they'll do is they will encourage you to give an apology. And if you apologize, you'll be no less than Maisha Rabbeinu and Rebbe, as the Rebbe says in one of those prior Sichas. Maisha and Rebbe kept their station and kept their status, and if anything, we kind-- we, uh, if anything, we respect them more for

26:58 the fact that they apologized. So apology is always an option. Okay, that's it. Thank you very much.