נחמה בעקבות שבעה באוקטובר

00:01 All right, this is Yigris, and today we're going to look at letters from fifty years ago that are unfortunately letters that make a lot of sense fifty years later. Today is October seventh. We're remembering the horrible things that happened in Eretz Israel, uh, on October seventh this time last year. And fifty years ago, the Rebbe was writing similar letters because he had to comfort people right after the Yom Kippur War. Unfortunately, many Israeli soldiers and many Israelis who were not soldiers died during the Yom Kippur War. And the Rebbe was, uh, as we've talked about in prior shiurim, the Rebbe was instrumental in helping organize, uh, programs to help the widows and the orphans of people who died in the Yom Kippur War. So now on October seventh, I wanna look back to how the Rebbe responded to victims and to soldiers who died in the Yom Kippur War and hopefully find, uh, advice for nowadays, uh, how we can comfort, how we can comfort ourselves, comfort other people, and move on as a nation and as individuals using the Rebbe's advice from fifty years ago that he applied to people who are facing similar, although not identical, troubles. And, uh, with that, the two main letters that we're gonna look at today, it's gonna be a little scholarly. We'll have a little bit of fun, although this is not a fun topic. We'll try to make it at least interesting. Um, the idea is that we're going to see two big letters here. These

01:07 are the two big letters that the Rebbe wrote. They're, uh, to two, uh, wives of people who had died serving in Tsahal during the Yom Kippur War. And we're going to see a couple things the Rebbe says in here, sort of are shitas that the Rebbe built over time. So we're going to look at prior letters that the Rebbe wrote to people who were suffering and show how the Rebbe sort of developed these ideas over a ten- or twenty-year period. But in any case, we're gonna start just by looking at the letters, the main letters in front of us. If you look below the line, the letter is labeled Yud Aleph Mem Gimel. It's from the Cheiref of Tav Shin Lamed Daled. Uh, so not exactly fifty years ago anymore now that it's, uh, after Rosh Hashanah. Uh, the letter, it says here, . This is a klali prati letter, so it was sent as a general letter to many, many wives of soldiers who were killed during the Yom Kippur War. And then usually along with this general letter, the Rebbe would as-- would sometimes, uh, not us-usually, uh, sometimes the Rebbe would send also a personal letter along with this general letter. But what we're looking here at is the general letter that the Rebbe wrote to war widows. And the Rebbe writes, , which is the lashon that he uses when addressing women. The Rebbe says it was, uh, "I was in terribly pained to hear about the horrible thing that happened,

02:18 that your husband died. May his blood be avenged, that he died in the war." This is an interesting lashon, and every letter that I saw that the Rebbe writes to somebody who has lost a loved one, the Rebbe gives this same bracha that from now on it should be , that particular lashon. The only other place I've seen that particular lashon, which means that from this point onward, only good should find the family in a good and revealed way. The only other place that I've seen that lashon s- uh, um, consistently show up in the Rebbe's work is the Rebbe uses this in the pan that he writes on Rosh Hashanah, uh, printed in the back of the, um, of the, uh, uh, what do they call it? I don't remember what the name of the Sefer is. There's a Sefer that has the minhagim of Chabad, but it's not a normal minhagim Sefer. It's got like collections of what all the Rebbeim did. It-- I think it's maybe it's a minhagim Chabad, but it has some funny name attached to it. I don't remember. But in the back of this Sefer, they, uh, they have copies of the Rebbe's handwritten pans that he wrote on Rosh Hashanah for himself and after his name, after his wife's name, after anybody he's writing a pan for, he always writes, . So this lashon I've only ever seen at the end of condolence letters, at the beginning of condolence letters, and at the end of a Rosh

03:26 Hashanah pan. But that's the lashon the Rebbe seems to use consistently. Anyway, just a fun fact. The, uh, main point of comfort when it comes to something horrible like this happening, if you really wanna find comfort in a terrible thing like this, and not just a point of comfort, but a general comfort, you'll find it in the words that we use to comfort people traditionally for generations upon generations, as the Torah and as our tradition tells us, when we comfort people, we always say, and then the Rebbe continues, When we comfort somebody who's lost someone, Rachmana Litzlan, we say that that Hashem should he should comfort, he should comfort you. among all of the other mourners of Zion and of Jerusalem, so that mourners should be comforted along with the . Now the Rebbe continues, It doesn't seem that there would be a connection between these two ideas. Comforting this individual who lost a loved one and comforting all of the mourners of Zion and Yerushalayim wouldn't seem to be connected because one is a national tragedy and one is a personal tragedy. But when you look into the inner depth of this line, this is the main comfort that a person can get. When the Jewish people are mourning Zion and Yerushalayim, this is a joint mourning, that this is a national mourning, that every single Jew mourns together no matter where they're located. It's true that people living in Yerushalayim who are staring at the Kotel and staring at the place where the

04:58 Beis Hamikdash should be and now it is destroyed, they're going to feel the national tragedy far greater than people living in America or somewhere else in the world. Nonetheless, everybody suffers together. So the entire Jewish people are mourning the fact that we don't have a Beis Hamikdash in Yerushalayim, although it's understood that some people are going to mourn it a little bit more than others because it's more personal. They're sitting there in Yerushalayim and they're experiencing the trouble that they're in right now. This also applies when we're comforting a regular mourner, an individual who's lost a family member. There is a certain comfort in the fact that we're all joining together in the pain. Because we're all one people. This paragraph is very interesting to me. The Rebbe saying here is that the same way that when it comes to national mourning, there are levels. There are people who really feel the loss of Yerushalayim because they're there and they're experiencing the trouble right now. And if we want to apply that to our current situation, certainly there's a big difference between being in America and upset about what's go-- what happened on October seventh and what has happened since, and living in Eretz Israel and experiencing the tragedy and the terror every single day. There's a difference. But we-- there's not a difference in how connected we are over the comfort and how connected we are over the pain. That is, the Jewish people are completely connected when it comes to, when it comes

06:08 to sharing the burden and sharing the suffering. Maybe not the burden. When it comes to sharing the suffering, we're completely connected, although certainly it is more personal for people who are experiencing up, up close. And, uh, that is the reason why we use the lashon . That the same way that they're- Tiers when it comes to how much a person can really feel what's going on in Tzion and Yerushalayim, there are tiers when it comes to personal tragedy as well. There's people who are closer, Rachmana Litzlan, to the deceased and people who don't know them so well, so their tragedy is in a more distant way. Nonetheless, we all come together to mourn as one. So that's his first explanation of Makim Menachem Eschem, that it's a collective tragedy, and the same way that the destruction of Jerusalem and Tzion is a collective tragedy, albeit a tiered one, so too personal tragedies are collected and tiered at the same time. Tiered being T-I-E-R-E-D, not teared, like with people crying. Umezeh eyd nekod shnia, and here there is a second point. Asher kemeshe bignei leTzion v'Yerushalayim, minegei leTzion v'Yerushalayim shalt yada renam. When it came to Tzion and Yerushalayim, when it came to our Beis Hamikdash, the Romans destroyed it. V'kedem lachem gam ya'ad haBavlim. Before that, the Babylonians destroyed it. Rak avai Beis Hamikdash habano becheitzim uavanim keder zot, but they were only able to destroy the physical Beis Hamikdash, the one made out of wood and out of stone and out of silver and

07:18 gold. Aval Beis Hamikdash hapnimishe belev kolech habachas shel Yisroel, ein yada hametz l'chamosh lebay nitzchi hu, ve'nitzchi hu. The, uh, Beis Hamikdash that is, that is inside the heart of every single Jewish person, the nations of the world are not able to damage it, and it's permanent, it's eternal. Kachu bigegel havel yochef. So just like, remember, we're trying to find a connection between mourning over Jerusalem and mourning over an individual loss, the Rebbe says so too here. Kachu gam m'neguel havel yochef. This also applies when an individual loses the family member. Asher yada ma vishulet es ach, v'rach m'guf ve'inyanim. The death, the hand of death can only, can only have a-- The hand of death can only have power over, uh, the hand of death can only have power over the body and its inyanim. Aval neshamah nitzchis hu, but the neshamah, it's permanent. V'rach sh'al sulam elo, just went to the world of truth. Shelechachen kol huteve hamuchmenes afir etzene shones anachayim. Whenever they do, whenever anybody of the, any of the remaining family members, they do something according to the will of God who gives life. Ko acheim, hispa'am mesiv betanen, v'neshamah muzmus ve'tevasam. This gives the neshamah great joy. So the second point here is that the same way that the Beis Hamikdash was only destroyed in body but was not destroyed in soul, and the actions that we do still matter to the spiritual Beis Hamikdash. Similarly, when a person dies, their body is destroyed, but not their soul. And

08:29 when their family members do good things in their merit, this benefits the soul, even though it's in a, even though it's now in the Olam HaEmes. The Rebbe concludes, Yihiyah ratzon yesh mechan l'ava, le'ete v'mechol tsar ve'keiv. It should be God's will that from now on, you should not know any pain or any suffering. Ach teiv, ve'ach teiv dibasan mechan l'ava, and you should only have good news to send from now forward. Vivrachah. So that's the Rebbe's first letter, and we have really two key points from here. The two key points in how to understand Makim Menachem Eschem when the Rebbe's comforting people who have lost loved ones in the Yom Kippur War. The first one was that you should understand that the entire Jewish people are suffering with you and mourning with you. Although we understand that it's felt differently by those who are experiencing firsthand than those who are doing it from afar. And second of all, the Romans and the Babylonians, they destroyed the body of the Beis Hamikdash but couldn't destroy its neshamah. And similarly, the Jewish people's enemies, they've destroyed some Jewish bodies, but they can't destroy the Jewish soul. Uh, the souls of these individuals live on, and when we do good things in their merit, this is able to lift them up. That's the first letter the Rebbe sends in general to Neshei Hallei Hatzahal. There's a second one here. We're not gonna read the whole thing, it's quite long. But I wanna show you at the bottom

09:29 that the Rebbe has a slightly different version of this also sent. This is the second letter, Yud Alef Mem Daled. This is the next one in line, same year. This is from Tammuz, Lamed He. And this is also Klali Prat to Neshei Hallei Hatzahal Hamachanesim B'Yom Kippur, Mashalim Mikem Damam. So the same address, a general letter sent to people, wives who had lost their husbands in the Yom Kippur War. And the Rebbe writes, B'tzar nadati, I was very sorry to hear, or I was very pained to hear about the loss of your husband. It should be God's will that from now on, you should only have good. B'teve nivra v'nigla. Once again, using the Lashon that you really only see in a Yum-- in a Rosh Hashanah pan or in condolence letters. And then over here, the, uh, I just wanna point this out before we jump. The Rebbe says up here, Ein kamanus mechtav zeh le'taretz koshis. The Rebbe says, "I'm not going to, in a comforting letter, in a letter of condolence, my job here is not to answer your questions." Everybody has questions when something bad happens. They wanna know why bad things happen to good people, why this happened to them, why this happened to their family. And the Rebbe says, "I'm not coming for that." Ki im lehakel hakeiv. I'm only coming right now to try to lessen your pain. Akabanu miktsas, at least a little bit. So the goal of these condolence letters is not to explain why bad

10:24 things happen to good people or explain divine justice or anything like that. The job of somebody trying to comfort a mourner, I think the Rebbe is teaching us, the job of anybody trying to comfort someone who's in mourning is not to explain what happened, but to try to lessen the suffering. In these intervening paragraphs that we're not going to read inside, the Rebbe basically says that the body, that the body dies, but the soul lives on. He says it at length, and he says it somewhat poetically, but we're going to jump a little bit to the bottom. And here the Rebbe says, Mizem mu van. From the fact that the soul is still alive and your entire connection, the other thing the Rebbe had set up here is that a loved one's entire connection to-- When two people love each other, their connection is at the soul level, not the body level. So when the body ceases to exist, the love doesn't go away, which is a beautiful idea. Mizem mu van gam kein. Shelaneshamah nitzas baOlam HaEmes. Now, this soul that you, that you love, that you continue to love because the soul is still alive, uh, is now found in the world of truth. Taamin meuchad be'imrei, asher be'nei mishpacha mis'eis shimcha ase. This is a very interesting Lashon. Says that the soul will get particular joy from seeing that its family members are not, uh, caught up anymore in the tragedy. Mishdaglim kol ha'toledem l'saneh chem be'finteihem. They're trying to, I don't

11:26 know how to say this nicely, uh, they're trying to move on. That is, that the soul gets incredible nachas from seeing that the family is trying to get its, get itself back together, organize its life the way that it's supposed to, that it's supposed to. Ba'ad rabo heidim es nitzan zivan, also encouraging other people around them to, to, uh, move on in a positive way. Uvekha kol maaseh teve nasah idei be'nei mishpacha harayzeh nachas ruach me'uchades leneshamah. Certainly, any good deeds that are done by the family members give incredible nachas ruach to the neshamah and to all the neshamahs that are found in this, that are found in the world of truth. Re'ey udasa devar ma'aseh neidul. And the Rebbe says they are aware of what you do. This is, uh, actually a psakan. This is sort of the Rebbe taking sides of the Gemara in Masefes Brachos that has a Machlokes over whether the dead know what goes on in this world. The Rebbe says they certainly do, that the neshamah knows when its family members are doing good things and is proud of them. Furthermore, the Rebbe says, V'nachas ruach me'uchad, v'yas is es es leneshamah. If you wanna give the most nachas ruach, you wanna give the most satisfaction to the neshamah of the deceased, you do this when, Ki sh'vaneha yeladim ischanchem v'chinuch matim, when they see that their children are being educated properly with a good Jewish education. Furthermore, V'lo yeish, chas v'shalom, v'lo nifgas ruach, chas v'shalom. And that

12:25 is without depression and without, uh, yeish, without feeling like they need to give up. That is, the Rebbe's saying in these two paragraphs that the most, some of the most nachas ruach you can give to a neshamah of somebody who's passed is to not be overwhelmed by the tragedy of their passing. rather raising children in the way of as is the traditional greeting. Certainly, the Rebbe says anybody who is put in this situation is given the power to productively move on and to make that the, and to make their, and to help their children productively move on. The Rebbe gives a bracha that this should all be done with enthusiasm and that they, they should be good examples for everybody around them. And that the merit of your husband who died in the war should stand for you and all of your family members. May they live long, and he gives them a bracha. So we have here, uh, from this letter a couple main points. That is, the Rebbe is not here to answer questions when he's writing a condolence letter. He's here to provide some degree of comfort. The second big point was that the neshamah is eternal, the soul is eternal, as is our connection to loved ones who are not alive anymore. And finally, that the soul gets a particular nachas from seeing its family members recovering from tragedy and making every effort to arrange their lives in a good manner, and even more so when they encourage those around them

13:38 to do so. Uh, the Rebbe then adds that in general, every good deed performed by, performed by the family brings that neshamah spiritual joy even now 'cause the soul knows what's going on, and this includes educating children properly without despair or loss of spirit. So these are the two fundamental letters the Rebbe writes to war widows, people who lo-- w-women who lost their husbands in the defense of the state, in the defense of the Holy Land, defense of Eretz Yisrael. There is a letter from Tuzshin Chaf Tes that was written to Zlota Altai. I-I... Anybody know her? I don't know. I mean, but ha-half the time somebody on the live Shir is like a family member, so I don't know. But, uh, in any event, she, uh, lost her son also in a war, but it's not clear what happened exactly. It says, he was serving in the army. It was the year nineteen sixty-nine. I don't know. Was there a war going on in nineteen sixty-nine? Between sixty-seven, you know, I don't know what war. I, I don't know. He died serving, he died serving, uh, serving in Sahal. And the Rebbe writes her a letter in Yiddish, and, uh, because you know how my pronunciation goes, I'm going to more, mostly freely translate here, but this is the letter in Yiddish, and I want you to see the original. I-- Sometimes I bring you translations in Hebrew for my own ease, but the, uh, the Lashon is so, uh, is so powerful, I

14:51 don't think we can translate this one without having the Yiddish on the screen at least. But the Rebbe writes that in, uh, recent days, I learned through your son, who's Binyamin ben Tzion, uh, you should live and be well, about the loss, uh, the he wants to distinguish between the living son and the one who's not alive anymore, of the grandson, the Avrech Yoram, his name was Yoram, and, uh, and, uh, Hashem yikom damo, that God should avenge his blood. So this person's grandson, Yoram, Yoram had died while fighting for the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael. The Rebbe then continues. He says that Hashem should help, that from now on, uh, there should only be happy occasions for every Jew, all Yidden, joyous occasions in an open way, in a revealed way, as is the custom that is from generation to generation. Once again, he's using the Lashon. This Lashon that I told you only appears as far as I know in condolence letters and in, uh, and in a pan for Rosh Hashanah. Continuing, um, continuing. The, uh, the nechamah, the comfort that you have in this small phrase, and he doesn't say what phrase it is, but it's very clearly hamakom yenachem. Um, I don't know why it's not printed here. I, I guess maybe it's implied. I wonder if maybe it was left out. But any event, he's talking about hamakom yenachem. So the Rebbe says, in the phrase hamakom yenachem, yenachem, that says that the mourners should be comforted with the

16:05 mourners of Tzion Yerushalayim, this ent-- this sentence contains the entire essence of the idea. And that is that the bad thing that happens to a person and also the c-comfort that a person can have is connected to being comforted over Tzion and Yerushalayim, which comes from the one who is the comforter of Tzion and Yerushalayim, the menachem Tzion ubene Yerushalayim, the one who comforts Tzion and rebuilds Yerushalayim. Turn that off so it doesn't make noise anymore. And that is Hashem himself, of course. Uh, it says here that Hashem knows the hidden reasons behind things that people don't understand. He has the power to provide real nechamah, real comfort, so that even, uh, even a person who has normal human intellect can feel that comfort and be comforted. And then the Rebbe gives the bracha, bracha for long life, good years, and, uh, says that they should only hear good things from this point onward with a blessing for success in your work to benefit yourself and all of the daughters of Israel. She was apparently involved in some sort of work for the entire Bnei Yisrael tfilcha. Uh, and that's the end of this letter. What I get from here, though, is something really interesting in the middle we didn't see in the other letters. It says here that Hashem is the only comforter and the only rebuilder of Tzion Yerushalayim. He is the only one, excuse me, who knows the hidden reasons behind events that people can't understand, and therefore he has the power

17:15 to provide true comfort so that you'll be comforted. What, what exactly does that mean? The implication is that somehow Hashem, since he knows the real reasons why bad things happen, is going to be the source of comfort. But how is he going to do that if he can't explain it to me? It's sort of the, the Rebbe's hinting at something in here but not saying it exactly. He seems to be saying that somehow God is the one who comforts us because God is the one who understands the reason why bad things happen in the first place. And how exactly that provides comfort is not clear to me, but that's the sort of a third interpretation of this idea of hamakom, which is that, uh, the reconnection between hamakom yenachem eschem, that God should comfort you, along with the comforts of Tzion Yerushalayim, is the same way that Hashem is the only one who understands why Tzion Yerushalayim got destroyed and why, you know, the only one who can rebuild them. He's also the only one capable of understanding why your personal life was destroyed and helping you rebuild it. So as of fifty years ago, which is about where these letters leave us, as of about fifty years ago, the Rebbe's shita on talking to mourners, comforting them, and hamakom would be, I summarized in a little sheet I have on the side here, that, uh, number one, we're all in it together. Although you're feeling the pain most acutely, we're all in this together.

18:16 And number two, a body can die, but a soul lives on forever, as does your connection with that soul. Number three, the soul gets nachas from seeing its loved ones move on productively. And number four, God knows the hidden reasons for tragedies, so only he's qualified to comfort, which implies that if we understood what he understood, we would also be okay with things and be comforted. I think the implication that's hanging here from this letter in Yiddish is that if I understood as much as God understood, I would automatically be comforted as well. The reason why I think that is because of a few other letters I wanna show you before we conclude. So I went back in time a little bit. Uh, to letters from Taf Shin Chaf Vav. This one's also Taf Shin Chaf Vav, and this one's very famous is also, I think. This is from Chaf Tes. Letters that are earlier, and you can actually see in some of these earlier letters, the Rebbe, I wanna say, developing a shita on how to write letters of condolence and how to explain . So this letter is, uh-- th-these letters we're gonna look at right now are not to people who died in wars, they're just condolence letters. But if you look at the Rebbe's other condolence letters, you can see this sort of, uh, the things that we've talked about in these two-- in these big letters, the widow letter and the mother letter. We can see, uh, the Rebbe's shita

19:17 sort of building across letters to other mourners. Over here, this letter is from Taf Shin Chaf Vav. Tes Zayin Eluf Taf Shin Chaf Vav. The letter is labeled Tes Reish Yud Alef, and I wanna go all the way to L'chayim. So down here it says, . It says that L'chayim, it's not easy to understand the connection between the individual mourner and the mourner of Tzion and Yerushalayim. Just to remind you, we're looking at this one line that people say to mourners all the time, that God should comfort you along with the mourners of Tzion and Yerushalayim. The Rebbe keeps on asking in each of these letters, what's the connection between people, a national tragedy, mourning the Beis HaMikdash, and the individual tragedy of someone losing a loved one? And now the Rebbe says, you can find the Nekuda of Nechama on this, . I wanna point out to you that this lotion, Nekuda of Nechama, is the exact same word, point of Nechama, that the Rebbe used in his letter to the widows, Nekuda of Nechama. So this letter was written, uh, almost ten years later, but the Rebbe's using the exact same language, Nekuda of Nechama. That the point of Nechama would be, although actually in the widow letter, he says it's more than a point of Nechama, and in this letter he says that it is a point of Nechama. Um, maybe we're getting a little too granular, but I am noticing very similar lashenis. The Rebbe says, "I don't have time to

20:26 go to explain this at length, but I wanna point out a few things. Behei, number one, that the individual who is mourning is actually part of a national mourning, uh, group. That is that we're all in this together." So this first point that we see in the Rebbe's letters to widows, the Rebbe's letter to the mother of a soldier-- excuse me, the grandmother of a soldier who had died, uh, that we're all in this together, that although you're feeling the pain most acutely, the entire Jewish people are at one on this front, is something the Rebbe says, albeit much more briefly, in his very early letters on comforting as well. The comfort of the individual is guaranteed the same way we are guaranteed to one day be comforted from Tzion and Yerushalayim. We're guaranteed that one day we're going to be comforted from the fact that the Beis HaMikdash got destroyed. And similarly, the individuals who have lost loved ones are guaranteed that one day they will be comforted as well. One of our-- The Rebbe calls this one of the foundational pieces of faith that we have. One of our faith articles is that we will one day be comforted from Tzion and Yerushalayim. How, how exactly do we one day become, become comforted from the losses of the Beis HaMikdash and Tzion and Yerushalayim? How does that one day-- How do we ever get comforted from such a national tragedy? The answer is in a pasuk. One day we are going to say,

21:43 "God, I'm thanking you for hurting me." That one day we're going to thank Hashem or, or admit to Hashem, recognize Hashem, but specifically thank Hashem. One day, the pasuk says, we're going to thank Hashem for the bad things that have happened to us. Rebbe says the same thing applies to an individual. I want to unpack what we just read a little bit literally and say it a little bit less literally, but I'll keep it on the screen so you can disagree with me. Uh, I think what the Rebbe is saying here for the second point, which you don't see so much i-in the later letters, but I think they're implied in them, just they're said a little bit more gently. In this letter, the Rebbe is saying it a, a little less gently, saying that, uh, what is the connection between an individual being comforted and the entire Jewish people being comforted? The entire Jewish people are guaranteed that one day we're going to understand the reason why Hashem destroyed the Beis HaMikdash, and we are going to, uh, because we understand it, we're going to thank him for doing it. We're going to . One day we're going to say, "Uh, I'm glad, I'm glad you hurt the entire Jewish people." One day we're going to understand why national tragedies happen, and we're gonna thank God for them. Right now, we don't understand them, but one day we will. And when we do, that will be the comfort for us, the understanding of God's

22:47 reasons for doing things. And the Rebbe says here, that also applies to the individual, that individuals who have, rachmanu l'tslan, bad things happen to them, they don't immediately understand in this world, in this body, before Mashiach comes, they don't understand why bad things happened, and therefore, they don't experience comfort, but they're guaranteed that one day they will experience comfort through understanding the same way that we do by the Beis HaMikdash. Now, uh, the Rebbe says this once again in another letter, so I'm not just pulling this out of thin air. This letter is labeled Tes Reish Tes Zayin. It's from Chaf Gimel, Eluf-- Taf Shin Chaf Vav. And once again, it's a condolence letter, not to a soldier in this case, but just to somebody who had passed. And he says, and then the Rebbe explains, Once again, he's using the lotion Nekuda of Nechama. I don't know why, and here the Rebbe says, "There are three things I learned from this verse, . Thing number one, the individual's mourning, this is the same thing we keep on seeing, So point number one, we're all in this together. I think that's been point number one of ju-- of every letter we've seen, is that the Rebbe opens by saying, "Everybody's mourning with you. We're all in this together." Point number two, Point number two, now here the Rebbe is separating something that he sort of smushed together in the prior letter. So he's separating the ideas. Point number two, there is a-- one of the

24:03 foundations of our faith is that one day the Jewish people will be comforted from the loss of the Beis HaMikdash. And similarly, we are guaranteed as one of our articles of faith that individuals who suffer personal loss will experience comfort. And finally, point gimel, the true, uh, comfort that comes to individuals is the same as the true comfort that comes to those who mourn the loss of the Beis HaMikdash, and that is . Nowadays, we don't understand at all what's going on, but one day when Mashiach comes, we're going to say . We're going to say, "Thank you, Hashem, for damaging me." We are going to thank Hashem for rebuking us. This is the bracha and the promise when it comes to the Nechama, the, the comfort of an individual. So what we have here is, uh, that the, this thing again, which I think is the same as in the last letter, which is the Rebbe saying that the ultimate comfort that comes to the individual and comes to the entire Jewish people, a national tragedy, is only with the coming of Mashiach. When Mashiach comes, we're going to say one day we're going to understand why Hashem did all the things that he, that he did. We're going to understand why they were per-- why they were national tragedies and personal tragedies, why individuals lost loved ones in wars in Eretz Yisrael, and why things like the Yom Kippur War and things like October 7th, we're going to one day understand why these

25:23 things happen, and that will be the ultimate comfort, the coming of Mashiach and the explanation, an explanation that we don't have now. This is part of the Rebbe's very important sheet regarding the Holocaust and regarding all national tragedies, that we don't claim to know why bad things happen to us in this world. But one day we'll understand them, and we will be grateful for them. Uh, that's hard. That's a tough pill to swallow now, but it is how the-- it's the, the reason why I'm not uncomfortable saying it is because it's the way the Rebbe comforts mourners. The Rebbe's sheet in comforting mourners is telling them, "This is horrible right now, and one day you're going to thank God for it." And you get this, uh, letter after letter after letter, uh, including, if you read between the lines, this letter that the Rebbe wrote to a grandmother who lost her son fighting in a war in Eretz Yisrael. The Rebbe says, uh, essentially the same thing in this letter in Yiddish, that only Hashem who understands why these things happen can be the one who provides the comfort. So while I'm a little bit uncomfortable with saying it, I'm not uncomfortable with repeating it in the name of the Rebbe. Uh, the, the Rebbe's message to people who are suffering from horrible national and personal tragedies is that with the coming of Mashiach, we'll understand why it happened, and we'll celebrate, and we'll have true comfort. But until then, there's not-- until then, there's

26:20 no real comfort. Until then, the real comfort is that it's hard to-- the only comfort is that we're all in this together. So I guess if I had to summarize all of these letters, I would say that in the short term, uh, in the short term, Mashiach's coming. But prior to Mashiach coming, uh, the comfort of the Jewish people is that we're all in this together. And the long-term comfort for the Jewish people with Mashiach coming is the understanding that Hashem does have a reason why he does things, and when we do understand that, we'll have a more permanent kind of comfort. Another letter I have on the screen, but we don't really have time for it, so I'll just leave it for you to look at on your own. You also probably have seen it before, is the very famous letter that the Rebbe wrote to Ariel Sharon after his young son died in an accident. And you see a lot of these same themes in this letter. Uh, if you've seen this letter before, it's a good time to reread it because if you reread, if you reread it, I think you'll find that, uh, a lot of the main points the Rebbe makes in this very famous condolence letter to Ariel Sharon, uh, are the ones that we've seen him build over the years leading up to this, the idea of everybody being in this together, everybody being guaranteed nechama at some point. the idea that the body can die, but the

27:17 soul lives on forever. The idea that the soul gets naches from seeing its loved ones moved on productively and not get caught up in the past and in the tragedy. And, uh, of course, probably the, uh, the most important point, that the soul is eternal and our connection to those who have been lost is eternal, and the body of the, of a Jewish person and the body of Jewish people and the body of the Beis Hamikdash can be destroyed by our enemies, but that the Jewish soul lives on, and that the collective Jewish soul lives on, and that the spiritual Beis Hamikdash lives on. And that even in times of tragedy, it's important to remember that only the physicality can be destroyed, never the spirituality underneath it. And as for the physicality, how do we explain it? One day, Mashiach will come very, very soon. Before the end of this year, Mashiach should come and explain it so well that we are able to say, Okay. That's it.