כשחם מדי ללבוש ציצית

00:01 This is Yigris, and today we are looking at a letter from the year Taf Shin Yud Ches. The letter is labeled Vav Kuf- How about, how about putting it on the screen? Oh, that'd be a great idea. Let me go back and put it on the screen. You know, I want every-- I, I'm, I'm gonna keep this in the recording, and the reason why is 'cause I want people to know that if they come in person, they get to see things on the screen. This is my advertising for coming in person. Okay. We are in Vav Kuf Ayin Daled. That's the name of the letter. Thanks for reminding me. Taf Shin Yud Ches is the year, and in the interest of full disclosure, I found a piece of this letter in Shochan Menachem, which is just such a layup when it comes to figuring out the Rebbe's shitah on things, and then went and, uh, did a deeper dive into its details. We're gonna learn the whole letter. We're going back to our roots here. I believe this is the way we started our shiur, is that we learn like one letter from the Rebbe and then flesh it out with other things. Here's our letter of the day. So our letter of the day is from Yud Nisn Taf Shin Yud Ches. The Rebbe says, "Shalom u-bracha, and I'm responding to your letter from the end of Shevat, and it took forever to get here, much more than usual." The mail is giving the

00:55 Rebbe trouble. "Nu'um li-- Ne'am li," excuse me. "Ne'am li kreys ve-shmin m'tzayim b'mesukeres Chabadis." "I'm very happy to hear," says the Rebbe, "satisfied to hear that you're finding yourselves in a Chabad surrounding." Vade antar klal gish inna matiyas mesukere zu. Perush is yanis v'gam lima terasa ve'eid vehu ikar hi snaz v'hag松im la'hiraus min hageter zu. The Rebbe says, "I just wanna point out that, uh, living in a Chabad area or finding yourself in a Chabad institution is actually not what it w-- is n- actually not what gives me naches. That's not what I'm talking about. It's not just showing up that does it. What I mean is I'm glad that you're, I'm glad that you're in our tent. I'm glad that you're involved and that you're, that you're interested in learning Teres a-Chasidus. I'm glad that you're interested in following the minhagim and the herus of our Rabbeim. That's what it means to me," says the Rebbe, "that I'm excited to see that you're in a Chabad environment." So if you're in a Chabad environment and not learning the Rebbe's Torah and not keeping the minhagim, I can't promise you that you're giving the Rebbe naches in that particular regard. Onwards. Elash v'teva adam meskadon tzad achetzad. The nature of people is that things need to be done step by step. Lehipachas mina katza la katza. It's not appropriate to do these massive changes. We've talked about this before. We actually have a whole shiur on it, how it's not usually helpful. It's

01:55 usually a bad sign, a dangerous sign when somebody jumps to a big extreme. Usually, it's step by step is the process. In Kedusha, everything's always step by step. Ma'at, ma'at, a Gar Shenoh is the din by Kedusha. Aval hadelech velicha tzrich aliyah bekivun zeh. But the direction's gotta be right. It's gotta be on a good, uh, trajectory. That's what we say in English. We look for a trajectory. People have to be growing, but they should be growing slowly. Ein l'chada venibne'aratzen. Nothing can stand in front of your will. V'tikvas Ish uvesen etov. Nisgad musa b'amur gam al chava-- ahevelim sh'lechem mashbim beze. I hope that I'm going to hear more good news about your advancement in this direction and also about the friends that you are surrounding yourself with who will have a positive effect on you. So point number one, this person is somehow is in some way coming closer to Chabad. The Rebbe is excited as long as cleming-- coming closer to Chabad doesn't mean the outward frills. It means the panimius. It means learning the Torah and doing the minhagim. And the Rebbe reminds him to take things step by step, go nice and slowly, and, uh, and to make sure that you're always on an upward trajectory and to surround yourself with good friends. Just general good advice. It's not what we're going to discuss today. Beis. Binyan tzitztit. The Rebbe-- Th-this person had asked the Rebbe about his tzitztit. Binyan tzitztit. Hashem meluchem la'aved miluchlachem esa tzitztit. I don't know

02:58 what this guy did for a living, but it was something that made his tzitztit gross. Maybe he cleaned, maybe he cleaned gutters. I don't know. Maybe he was like shoveling mud. I don't know what this guy did. Maybe he's a painter. I don't know what he does for a living, but whatever this guy does, it makes his tzitztit get disgusting. It makes them get dirty. So he asked the Rebbe, "Maybe it would be more respectful for me to take off my tzitztit so they don't get dirty while I'm working." The Rebbe says, "Yini bechol zeh tzarch lesei talis katon v'tsuyas b'tzitztit." Nonetheless, you need to wear a talis katon, and it should have tzitztit on it. The Rebbe's clarifying. No room for wiggle room here. "V'frat shevadi ikar havedas v'du meshachayim." Especially since I assume you spend most of your day working, so it really would be a shame if most of your day you weren't wearing tzitztit. So we have kind of-- The Rebbe is not saying that if it was less time than that, it would matter less, but the Rebbe is adding that I'm particularly concerned about somebody who's taking off their tzitztit for the majority of the day because they're at work and they're afraid they're gonna get dirty. The Rebbe then adds, "L'shaddal ad kamish efshar sh'leilachlech." You should be as careful as possible that your tzitztit don't get dirty. Try to keep them clean. "V'chen sheya talis katon sheini b'shvil zman tfila v'shabbos kodesh v'yom tov." You should also

03:53 make, uh, if you're going to get your tzitztit dirty, uh, set aside a second talis katon for davening time and Shabbos and for Yom Tov so that you have a nice one for when you're in Kodesh. But the Rebbe is not letting him take off his tzitztit, even though he's concerned that his tzitztit are going to get dirty. He's concerned about, uh, bizayon for the tzitztit. He's concerned about, uh, about causing a problem in Halakha, perhaps about damaging his tzitztit. And the Rebbe says, "I'm not concerned. I want you wearing your tzitztit." Uh, just finish off the letter. "V'negel hamakom tfila ve'efanah." The Rebb- this person had asked the Rebbe about where he should daven and how he should daven, and here the Rebbe doesn't really give advice. The Rebbe says, "Movin should say tali v'tenai malamakim." Depends on what's going on where you are. "Lechin yatzu im eloi dumaze." So ask people who are in the know about where you should daven and how you should daven. Then the Rebbe says, "V'yiratzon sh'yachlidu b'tevil matim l'kavanat tfila mataraasa." I am giving you a bracha. It should be God's will that you should make good achlatas when it comes to the kavanah tfila, the intent for your davening and mataraasa and its point, sh'yavdish b'levev, which the whole point of tfila is that it should be a service of the heart. "V'mekareves es adam l'beita," which brings a person close to his creator. "V'mashachas brachas v'pirchas Hashem yisbarach m'litzarch adam l'tov." And then that will

04:52 cause brachas from Hashem to come down to fulfill all the needs of a person for good. The Rebbe says, "I hope you're using the time, the days-- I hope you use the days of Purim properly, and I hope you're preparing properly for Pesach, and you're going to pr-- you're going to have a proper Pesach." V'yiratzon sh'chaska biyad hasater hamitzotzecha yom yom, uh, yom im yom. V'kidvar mishnah, uh, mishnah, uh, v'kidvar mishnah, excuse me, hamais hu ikar. As the Mishnah says, the most important thing is your action on Purim and Pesach. And then gives him a-- Rebbe, Rebbe gives him a bracha for Chag Pesach, chashev isameach. Okay. The part that I wanna focus on is this part in the middle about the tzitztit. Here, the Rebbe says that even if you're going to get your tzitztit dirty, you have to wear them anyway. The reason why I was interested by this letter is because, uh, where I grew up Uh, this was a, uh, th-this was something that was discussed a lot, and there was definitely a svara out there. There's a svara among many Orthodox Jews that it makes sense to take off your tzitzit if you're going to make them-- if they're going to become gross, if they're going to become sweaty, if it's going to be in the middle of the summer, it's gonna get hot. Uh, and of course, guys, we're going into the summer months, I believe, uh, at least where I am right now. Camp starts tomorrow for the

05:50 kids. I'm sure that there is some svara moving around, popping around, popping up in, in especially in the summer months, that it makes sense to remove tzitzit that are going to get sweaty or tzitzit that are going to get dirty, uh, and not, and not let damage happen to the tzitzit. Uh, when I was a-- When I was young, I don't remember how old I was, but there was a, uh, there was a modern Orthodox rabbi in our town, and he wasn't a modern, modern Orthodox rabbi. He was a, he was a proper Orthodox rabbi who was a member, who was a rebbe of a modern Orthodox congregation. I'm saying this just to tell you, he wasn't, he wasn't known for being a deeply lenient person. And, uh, he was involved in, I think he, he was involved in a tennis camp for Frum kids. 'Cause you can imagine a, a Frum kid, what are we gonna play? Football? Tennis. So it was a tennis camp in the summer. And he told us befedish that it was disrespectful for us to wear our tzitzit while we were going to play tennis 'cause we'd get sweaty in them, and that it was appropriate to take them off. So this was something that, uh, was trafficked a whole lot when I was younger. Uh, I, I heard it a lot growing up. So when I saw this letter, I went looking for the mucker for the other side. I wanted to find the other side of this,

06:45 the people who I was told as a child constantly that there are big rabbonim who say that it's asur to keep your tzitzit on if you're gonna get them dirty. And I went looking for what this opinion is that seems to be against our rebbe's opinion. And, uh, while looking for it, the first thing I found is that it basically doesn't exist. Is that, uh, is that although I was able to find, I will show you the one teshuvah I found. The work-- I didn't actually even find it. I-- It took forever. I looked everywhere, couldn't find it. I went onto the WhatsApp groups where people talk about Halakhah and just dropped in this question for anybody. Can anybody defend this position everybody brings up, that you're allowed to when you're working out or when you're gonna get sweaty or dirty, take off your tzitzit? And people bi-- people who know things, people who don't, who have never let me down before, responded that they could not find a mucker for this. One guy finally found me one mucker. I will show you one place I found this, and frankly, I found it nowhere else. Rav Mordechai Eliyahu appears to have given this psak at one point, but in a very narrow situation I'm gonna read to you inside. So you have on your screen a psak from Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, who was at the time the chief rabbi of Israel, and this was written in the year תשמ"ט. And he writes here that, uh,

07:41 Shalom Ubrakha, Sha-Shalom Vehabrakha. The rebbe Shalom Ubrakha. This is HaShalom Vehabrakha. He says, "קיבלתי את מכתבך," I received your letter that you sent to me, and you asked about wearing a talis katan, about wearing tzitzit for the students in your school during gym class. That's a sheer talum-ta-ta-ta-his-alum-lus means. It means gym class. So during gym class, should the kids be wearing tzitzit? And I'm going to respond to you as follows, says Rav Mordechai Eliyahu. Alef, כישלמה שלחתי לך, based on what you told me, that students who are wearing-- the students are wearing only undershirts when they're doing gym class, and sometimes in the summer where it's really hot, they don't even wear undershirts. They just wear-- they go, they go, they go, uh, with no shirt on at all. בגין שלבוש אלי מפריד ולבוש לרמי לבין, the reason why they do this is that they remove all of their clothes, not just their tzitzit, because it gets in the way of their activities. למען על, so based on that, אין כל מצוות מן שיר אלמס-- שיר, שיר, האת אמ לוט. I can't pronounce that word. Gym class. לא ושטלס קטן מבשעפרי לפולס אספורטיבי, אספורטיביתי. וגם הדבר אין לחווה טליס קטן. So he says here that there would be no reason during gym class for them to have to wear tzitzit if it's going to bother them and prevent them from playing the sports properly. And also, גם הדבר אין לחווה טליס קטן. This would not be honorable for a talis katan to be in the--

08:50 to, to be worn during, during sports. So this is pretty much the only place that, uh, that I found. Again, I didn't find it. Somebody had to find it for me. Uh, a-any place that there's a real reference in poskim to the idea of a person removing their talis katan out of respect for it during sports. אח, דש לראות את המידות. He says, "We should instruct the students, however, שמיאנח השם ישים סיימת שיר הספורט, that emot-immediately when the sport finishes, מחלף משלבושם, they have to change their clothes, ישובו לבוש השתליס קטן." So they should be told that this isn't a heter to take off their talis katan for a while. While they're playing the sports, it's off, and as soon as gym class is over, you gotta remind them to put it right back on again. Uh, then he just says down here, it's just interesting as long as we have it, that regarding T-shirt tzitzit. I didn't know this existed in תשמ"ט. I, I, I really didn't. I thought this was a new phenomenon. But, uh, in the year nineteen eighty-nine, apparently there were T-shirt tzitzit already. And he said, "This is a T-shirt that is made in such a way that it will be חיים and tzitzit, and I sent you a teshuvah that's attached regarding that. But this teshuvah is, uh, not-- This teshuvah is for people who are involved in work all day, and I don't want them to not wear their talis katan all day. But in this case, where

09:48 they're only taking it off for a moment, I'm comfortable having them take off their talis for a moment, and I don't want them to use the T-shirt tzitzit heter." So what he's saying here is actually very similar in a way to what the rebbe was saying, although it's not the same psak at all. It's got very similar svaras underneath it. He's saying here that if you're asking me about your job for the entire day, I'm not telling you you can take off your tzitzit, and I'm also-- and I'm, I'm going to give you a heter. I'm going to give you tzitzit you can wear that'll make it easier for you to do your job while wearing tzitzit all day. When it comes to something that's much shorter, a, a quick sport where you're then, you're then gonna go back to the classroom, says Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, I'm comfortable telling you to take off the tzitzit entirely as long as you then put them back on immediately after. So this is the only place I found where you have the idea of it's not being אין הכבד לתליס קטן. That's not honorable for the talis katan to be wearing it when you're getting all sweaty. Uh, I'm showing you this just to make things more interesting though, because the truth is, as I already told you, this is a svara, but, uh, everybody else says the opposite. Really everybody. And pretty much everybody's on the side of the rebbe on this one, that, uh, we don't

10:40 really worry about the talis katan getting dirty. Although, to be fair, the rebbe is a little worried about the talis katan getting dirty, right? The rebbe said, "Try to keep it clean. Have a separate pair for davening, a separate pair for Shabbos and Yom Tov." So you sort of see a little bit of the rebbe's concern for this that's coming up in Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, that it might not be הכבד לתליס קטן. The rebbe is not straight up saying nothing is, uh, nothing is a design for a talis katan, wear it anywhere. The rebbe is saying be careful, and it does sort of echo what Rav Mordechai Eliyahu is saying. Nonetheless, I, I'm willing to set these up as two different psaks, that the rebbe is saying you gotta wear it even if it's gonna get messy. Rav Mordechai Eliyahu is saying not the case. I wanna show you that pretty much everybody is on the rebbe's side on this issue, in that we should be wearing the talis katan even if it's going to get very sweaty, even if we're, even if we're going to be playing, playing sports. Uh, I believe that now our community has like a soccer league of some kind, so guys, tzitzit on. Here's a teshuvah from the Tzitz Eliezer Tzitz Eliezer of Eliezer Waldenberg, and he is the go-to, one of the go-to authorities on medical Halakha, but he has a really fun Tshuva on this too. This is in Siman Mem Tes, and you'll find this in

11:35 Chelek Yod Daled of the Tzitz Eliezer. I wanna read the Tshuva with you. He says, "Ma'ri al-Ghazi, uh, zecha l'vivrakha," raised a couple points. He had, uh, three things. "Shlosha devarim she-einam 'am negeim la'atzmam k'dhi l'natza me-acheim u'heima." There's three things people do to avoid excessive heat, and he would like them to stop. Three things people do in the summer months, and he wants them to stop doing those, according to, uh, al-Ghazi. So number one, "Menashim et piyam b'mashiv katan b'sha'at tefila." They fan themselves with a little handheld fan during davening. He says, "Ach meivilem ruach v'zechem meheilech." This, uh, this gets their heat away. You-- I've never seen this happen, and people don't really do this anymore, I don't think, now that we have air conditioning. But you know the little handheld fans. You know the handheld fans that usually have pretty pictures on them? They were waving this in front of their face. I emphasize the pretty pictures because actually, al-Ghazi's worried about them too. "She-ein sover she-keila ha'am midivaram b'shem HaMelech Habas Vedam." You would never do this in front of a king. It's completely inappropriate and shul for you to be fanning yourself with a fan. And then he says, "Also, they have pictures on them that are not always the most appropriate pictures." I'm also worried about the pictures, uh, that are on the fans in a lot of ti- in a lot of cases. "U'mesaya b'case ha'minhag zah, kein al minhag Shabbos." Shabbos HaKademi writes about this minhag and

12:35 also the minhag from the privious, from the previous ois. "B'kol devarim niskarim en kimin hagim shira negim bi-aniyei seichel." These are the, these are things that people do when they're stupid. These are things people do when they are, when they have a poverty of intellect. "Ve'ani ki hadah," so people who have clear intellect, "meir sh'at sidreim eheim," they move their hands away from such things, and they stand, "b'chatzi tzedekim, b'kiddush ha'Yirah, b'inem cheshim, l'bekaitz, l'beheiref." They stand on the vanguard, and they don't care whether it's the summer or whether it's the winter. They will always stand in the service of God, and they don't compromise anything. So first of all, he doesn't like handheld fans. Thing number two, "Al shadal eizev benei Adam ki sheyechel b'derech tachas hatzkiyah shamaim, v'sinim alei hamakheiv ha'shabash mechel b'gili rosh." Some people, they're walking in the heat. It's very, very hot. The sun's bearing down on them, and they remove their hat, and they walk around with gili rosh. They don't wear their yarmulke because it's getting very hot. Truth is, not a great strategy. I think hats are pretty good at, uh, preventing the sun from beating down on your head. People get hot, they remove their yarmulkes. Or perhaps, if we wanna add some of our own words to this, they play sports, they take their yarmulke off 'cause it's getting in the way. "B'kesem, davze ein yasha kiddisa m'sechas kiddushin." This is also inappropriate, as it says in the Gemara Masechet Kiddushin. "Ve'av Huna lamaz namaski

13:34 b'gili rosh, amar Shechina lemayi lemidoshi." That Rav Huna would never remove his yarmulke from his head because he said, "The Shechina's above my head, and I never wanna forget it." And point gimmel is ours. Number three is ours. "Al mashira," one more thing that al-Ghazi was worried about. He said, "Some, ktsat ha'nashim sh'merev hechem," it gets very hot. "Ktsat ha'nashim cheltzim b'veitams. Ktsat hem bigdeyam u'peish dim gam et talis katan ve'chel cham leitz etz." Some people in their homes, their houses don't have air conditioning. It gets very, very hot, and so they remove some of their clothes so they're more comfortable at home. And among these things, they remove their talis katan, and they walk around their house without tzitzit. Kasa Shomi doesn't even mention the idea of not wearing your tzitzit outside of your house. That's ridiculous. But in the house, some people get too hot, so they take their tzitzit off. "B'kesem," he writes, "Dein zenachen," this is inappropriate. "V'lei rai lasay sim l'talis," and it's not appropriate to n- not appropriate to do this. "L'talis katan tarach liyesa alav tamid," because the talis katan needs to be on you at all times. That is the tzitzit that we wear. "Kedai shiru v'yizkor hamitzvos," so that you will see and remember all the mitzvahs. "V'li za'ashu leilech tal damas v'zuzu as," and you have to be very careful not to walk even four amas, approximately eight feet, uh, six and a half feet, eight feet, without having the talis katan on. "U'flum tzara

14:33 agra," and according to the pain is the reward. If you, if you put up with the talis katan in the summer, you'll get more rewards. "Kach hayu nisharam chachmi haTalmud, v'Rav, Rav Nahman ayin sham." And then he adds, uh, "Sipuri achar al gadol meforsim." Somebody told me a story about a certain gadol who, uh, used to do this, and he would remove his talis katan when it got very hot in the summer, and a lot of his students were very upset about this. And based on what I told you from the al-Ghazi, it makes sense that his students protested this because a person should not be taking off their tzitzit even when it's very hot, even when it gives them a lot of trouble. So this isn't exactly the same as the Debba's letter. In the Debba's letter, the concern is that perhaps it will make the tzitzit dirty. Here, the concern is that the tzitzit are making me too hot. But it's a parallel argument because fundamentally, uh, the Halakhic argument for removing tzitzit when it's difficult would not be it's hard, therefore I'm taking them off. It would be that it's a bizayon to make the tzitzit sweaty or to make it something that I don't want to wear, that it's uncomfortable for me. And here he's saying that's not appropriate. Even in the heat, even in the, uh, even in the middle of the summer, I expect you to be wearing your talis katan. I wanna show you one more Tshuva and

15:28 then a little piece of a Sukkah, and then that will be it. This Tshuva is in a Sefer called Az Nidburu. I didn't find this myself either. Uh, some of these are just difficult things to find without help. I'm always willing to, uh, always very happy to give credit where it's due 'cause it brings Mashiach when you cite your sources. Uh, Rav Bruin quotes this in one of his Tshuvot, the Az Nidburu. Az Nidburu, Az Nidburu is, uh, Rav Binyamin Silver. Rav Binyamin Silver, excuse me. Um, Zilber. Zilber with a Zion. Rav Binyamin Zilber. And, uh, his Tshuvot are a lot of fun. They're very long, but they're also very easy to read. So this is a Tshuva. It's in sif- uh, Siman Nun He of his Sefer, of volume Chelek Sheini. And, uh, first of all, in this paragraph up here, which I'm not gonna read to you inside, I just put it as a block. You will have it in your text if you wanna take a look on your own. He makes a very strong argument in the first half of this Tshuva that wearing a talis katan i- all, all day is de-oraita. And that's a very, a very important argument for this discussion because my first thought, if somebody asked me, "Uh, can I take off my talis katan?" My first thought would probably be, "Well, talis katan's only a mi- it's a minhag, right? The mitzvah is that if I have a four-cornered garment, I have to put on

16:27 tzitzit. Do I really need to wear my talis katan all day?" It-- You should know that it's mashal from the Al TeDebeh that it is actually a mitzvah de-oraita to wear it all day, and many Rishonim as well, and he brings a lot of those Rishonim here that, uh, that, that make a very strong case that it's a mitzvah to wear tzitzit all day, even, uh, and to force, force a four-cornered garment onto yourself. So you can't really get out of it that way. And he spends the first half of his Tshuva explaining that you can't really get out of talis katan by saying this is just a minhag. But, uh, uh, boy, we really have fun is down here because down here, uh, where this, this box I-- we're go- we're gonna read inside, not only does he demand that people wear their talis katan while they're playing sports, he also gets very angry at American sports. So without further ado, "Ve'al achas kama vekama." Furthermore, "Mi shepesha et ha-talis katan mishum shemafriel lei." Somebody who removes their talis katan because it bothers him, "l'miskhak," so he can play a game, "sh'mevazeh bezev emetzes shemo yisbarach," that's a bizayon. That's B'zei mitzvah. It's not-- You, you're gonna tell me that it, that it, that it's, uh, that it's a disgrace to the tallit katan to get sweaty? No, it's a disgrace to the tallit katan, to tell the tallit katan, "I care more about basketball than I do about you." That's a-- That's what

17:24 it means to, to... That's what B'zei mitzvah looks like. The entire reason we have the mitzvah of wearing tallit katan is that we won't forget the things that we are supposed to remember. Certainly, you should be wearing your tallit katan when you do things that are alien to the spirit of Torah and against the ways of our forefathers. Sports. When you play sports, you, you're doing this alienating Greek idea of playing sports, uh, working out at gym. He's gonna go after all of it. He's gonna say that this is all, this is all a, a, a goyishe thing to do. It's not a Jewish way to act. And if you're gonna be doing that, you need the tallit katan to remind you to be a Jew. "I don't wanna really get into this right now," he says, but he gets into it. Uh, when they're trying to-- "I ju- I don't wanna get into too much," he says, "but I do wanna mention that there's this min haGoyim that they do in America where everybody plays sports and they work out and they hide this," . "They put this in the cloak of briyut haguf." Do you remember when we saw this from the Rebbe? We saw this lesson from the Rebbe about something else. Anybody remember where? I remember where. Yes, really, you got it? What is it about the kids in the schools? Yeah, it was. It was, it was, it was specifically about, about martial arts- The karate school or something. Karate

18:37 school. Karate, right? That's right. They said, "You're, you're putting this in a cloak of being healthy and I just don't buy that the reason why you wanna punch each other in the face is because you wanna be healthy. There are other ways to be healthy that don't involve punching each other in the face." Yeah. Yeah, we did see that. This is very similar, this teshuvah. He says they're hiding this. They're saying, "Well, we gotta play sports. It's for, it's for our health." Our fathers and our forefathers, they didn't know about any of your fancy workout routines. And they were much less sickly than you guys. Everybody's coming down with everything nowadays. My great-great-grandfather did-- I, I understa-- Look, I, I'm not sure how compelling I find this and you know what? This is a teshuvah from a Rav. We don't have to find this so comp-- th-this part so compelling. This isn't, this isn't a Rebbe letter. We can-- I, I'm with you. They, they, they also died younger. I, I don't know if I agree with this statement, but anyway, he says, . "I think they lived longer lives." I'm not sure that's true. Uh, uh, I, I don't think it is at all. But in any event, I, I did, I did enjoy the, the... It, it's in a bracket in the teshuvah. Just as long as I'm here, I wanna tell you how much I hate sports. Anyway. At the very least, a person needs to make sure they're wearing tzitzit while

19:37 they're doing these activities to remember Yetzias Mitzrayim. As we say twice every day, The whole point of wearing tzitzit is to remember that Hashem took us out of Mitzrayim so that we could accept Him as a God, uh, as, as the God. That, that's a Reish, but they made it a Dalet. And the person doesn't just have to wear this during Shaas Tefillah. They should be wearing this for the entire twenty-four hours. This is similar to the Tzitz Eliezer's, uh, proofs and as well, he-- I told you, he went into this at some length a little bit earlier too. And then he adds, In order to make this test easier for people, I will give a heter though. I'll give a heter in order to make things easier on them. I'm not gonna make you wear the absolute gi-giant, uh, wool tallit katan while you're doing sports. You can wear a smaller one, um, as long as it's still kosher. from a lighter material. Uh, Also, I'll let you put the tzitzit in your pants for the time being if they're really bothering you, uh, because I don't think that's a bizayon because it's not a bizayon if you're only doing it for a moment for the sports. You see, this is actually the opposite of what Rav Mordechai Eliyahu said. Rav Mordechai Eliyahu said, "Since it's just such a short period of time, I don't wanna give you any tzitzit heter. I'd rather you take them off than let you get used to T-shirt

20:53 tzitzit." You have Rav Ben Zion Silber saying that, uh, "Since it's such a short period of time, I'll give you a heter." But in any event, this is the general thrust of Poskim. They are all more or less, uh, on the, on the, uh, on the side of, uh, not just more or less. They all are very firmly on the side of wearing tzitzit even when it's uncomfortable, wearing tzitzit in the summer, sweating in your tzitzit, working out in your tzitzit, playing sports in your tzitzit, and not taking them off. And it's very much reflective of the point of the Rebbe's letter, where he tells somebody who has do-- who does work that would get their tzitzit dirty, "You gotta wear the tzitzit anyway." Although I do think, and I said this earlier, it's a subtle point, I think a lot of the Rebbe's voice in this letter is less like them and more like the heter, more like Rav Mordechai Eliyahu. You see him being cautious about keeping the tzitzit clean and being cautious about having a second pair for Shabbos and Yom Tov, and being specifically concerned because this person would not be wearing tallit katan all day. I'm not sure what the Rebbe would say about briefly taking it off for sports. The strong implication is that he would say no, the very strong implication, uh, from this letter, from the fact that v-virtually all of the Poskim except for Rav Mordechai Eliyahu say not to take them off, and from the

21:47 fact that, uh, when Rav Brun was asked a very similar question, uh, he paskened based on this letter and other sources that you can't take off your tzitzit during sports. I'm quite comfortable telling you that the Rebbe's shita is that you cannot remove your tzitzit even when they're getting dirty. But there definitely is, uh, there's-- I, if somebody wanted to bend the Rebbe's letter, perhaps they could. I don't think they'll have such an easy time bending the other Poskim who all make it very clear that this is not, uh, permitted. One thing I wanna show you, and then we can go-- And I know you're staring at the letter. I don't wanna take it off your screen. But one thing I wanna show you before we finish, then we'll go back to the letter so you can stare at it. By the way, it's also in the WhatsApp group, is, uh, I just wanted to end with a line from an edited sicha from the Rebbe. This is, uh, in Likutey Sichos. It's Parshas Balak, and the volume is Yud Gimel. It's volume Yud Gimel. And, uh, here the Rebbe talks about how it's beautiful that, uh, Why was the, why were the tents of Yaakov so beautiful? Because everybody set their tent entrances in a tznius way. The two tents didn't open to each other, so everybody was tznius. And the Rebbe points out that these tents were aray. These were not their permanent houses. They didn't-- They weren't building houses. They could have

22:41 said, "Look, we're only gonna be here for like a week. Just set up the tents however and we'll get on to it." But even when it came to-- Some of their journeys were quite temporary, days, weeks. Nonetheless, they were very careful about tznius even when they were traveling and even when they were in tents. And the Rebbe then says down here, remember, this is an edited sicha, so the footnotes are all written by the Rebbe. This is footnote thirty-four and it's in bold. Here the Rebbe says, "I would like to emphasize," "about something that is with the time that we're in right now in the middle of the summer." There are some people who are lenient, when it comes to many a-aspects of tznius in the summertime. Because they find themselves in a temporary place outside of the city in a bungalow, they think they can sacrifice tznius, they think they can sacrifice halakha. Perhaps they even think they can take off their tzitzit 'cause they're playing sports in the summer. They say, "I'll sin and then I'll do teshuvah. You know, it's the summertime. I have Elul coming up." When I come back-- Look at that. That is echta, "I'll sin and then I'll come back home. I'll return. I'll come back to the city and then I'll be good again when I'm in Crown Heights." Or Pomona. When it comes to men, this is a problem. But especially when it comes to women. Because she's supposed to be the one who is the

23:49 foundation of the home. "I could go on," says the Rebbe, "but now is not the place." So the Rebbe does, uh, in, uh, this sicha and in other places emphasize that he knows that there are challenges in the summer where people have a temptation, especially since they're out of town, and especially because it's oppressively hot, to be more lenient about tznius by women specifically, and, uh, although men too, but more often by women, and by men to be more lenient with their yarmulke and with their l'vush and with their hat and their jacket and with their tallit katan. And, uh, the Rebbe's emphasizing that this idea of echta v'ashuv, "I'm going to lower my standard for the summer and then I'll come back to the city and figure it out during Elul," is just not the way we do things. One of the things that made the by Parsha, by Parshas Balak, one of the things that made, uh, that made, that made the berakha, that we have such beautiful, "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob," is because we were tznius even in a makom, in a makom aray, even when we weren't necessarily settling down. So I am concluding by telling you that, uh, I'm pretty sure that it is inappropriate for a person to take off their tzitzit while working out, playing sports, or even when it's very, very hot based on many of the Poskim that we saw and also based on a very straight reading of this letter from the

24:46 Rebbe. Thank you all very much.