למה בחב״ד יושבים בסוכה כשיורד גשם? (תשפ״ד)

00:01 This is Igress, and this is the final shiur on our series on Sukkos Minhagim, uh, that we've been doing between Yom Kippur and Sukkos. We've been going through letters from anywhere. We're not bound by any particular volu-volume, trying to explain some of the Chabad minhagim. And if I had to summarize everything we've done so far, and also of course everything that we're going to do today, there's one big summary for it, and it is that there is a perception, a serious misperception, that Chabad has some leniencies regarding Sukkos, that we're lenient in certain areas, when the fact is we're not lenient about anything. In a lot of cases, we are machmir, and that if you really understand our customs properly, we are in fact always being a little bit more strict than everybody else rather than being more lenient than everybody else. We've already explained in the prior shiurim how, uh, not sleeping in the sukkah is a chumrah. We've explained how not putting decorations on the sukkah is effectively a chumrah, how these things work with Halakha, not only work with Halakha, but end up being aspects of hider, aspects of, uh, of taking Halakha most seriously. And now we're gonna talk about probably the last big elephant in the room regarding Sukkos and our behavior on it, which is that we sit there in the rain. I have personally gotten into trouble many times for this. Uh, many stories from my youth. I used to spend a lot of time, uh, i- in,

01:04 uh, in non-Chabad circles, but I always had our minhagim. So I would always be the only guy sitting in the sukkah, and sometimes they just felt bad for me, and sometimes they actively, they actively protested. You would get from, uh, from non-Chassidim active protest. "How could you sit in the sukkah? Don't you know it's aser? What are you doing out in the sukkah during the rain?" Um, so, uh, this, this is one that strikes very near and dear to my heart this particular year because I bore the brunt of it throughout my, throughout my life outside of traditional Chabad circles, sitting there alone in the rain, uh, using my hat to cover my food. On that note, uh, we, we do have a letter. We have a really, really interesting letter that has a really interesting backstory, and, uh, I don't think I wanna start there. I think it's too hard to start with the letter because the letter w-- the letter, uh, quotes a lot of places in Nigla that we need to know ahead of time, so, uh, we're gonna start with an introduction. The introduction is on the sh-- on the screen in front of you, and the introduction effectively is that halakhically, we do not belong in the sukkah when it rains l'cheira. So there's a Mishnah. The Mishnah is in Masechet Sukkah. You'll find it on twenty-eight B, and you'll find that little Gemara I copied onto the bottom on twenty-nine A. So on chaf Ches, chaf Tes, you'll find

02:02 these Mishnahs, this Gemara. The Mishnah says, "Kol shiv'at ha-yamim ad efes sukkatakheva u'veisa, u'veisei arai." All seven days of Sukkos, a person should make their house... I'm sorry, the person should make their sukkah keva, that's where they mainly live, and their house is arai. Their house is the place they go to every now and then to grab something. That is, they flip things around. Normally, my porch is kind of my place I go when I need to grab something or sit for a little bit, but I mainly live in my house. But on Sukkos, we flip the script. I don't think I actually read this anywhere, but a personal hither that I've had for many years is that on Sukkos, I try to enter through my sukkah. That is, that I walk around. I don't go through the house to the sukkah. I go to the sukkah first 'cause the sukkah is supposed to be the keva. Okay. Yaadu geshamim. Let's say that the rain falls. Mei masai mu tzefat. When am I allowed to leave my sukkah? Am I supposed to sit there until I'm up to my neck in rainwater? Mishu tisrach hamikya mikvah. Uh, mikvah, excuse me. When the mikvah, which is a kind of a, a solid food, would start getting, uh, smoosh, a food that's kind of a kadesh, that's sort of, uh, smooshed together. Whatever. When it destroys your food, that's how it's brought down in Shulchan Aruch. That's more or less what this Mishnah means. Mashal, mashal l'maad

03:00 avedime. And they said a mashal. They gave a story. What is this similar to? What's an example for this? Leve chaval limzeg, limzeg. Case. The rabbe, a servant comes to pour a cup, a cup of wine for his master. Veshafach lekitan al panav. And the ma-- and somebody, somebody, that's important that it's a somebody, somebody spills the wine on somebody's face. Now, the Gemara asks, i'bailu. They ask the question. Mi shafach l'mi? What is the story? Is the story that s-- the servant brings wine to his master, and the master throws the wine in the servant's face? Or is the story that the servant brings wine to the master, and then the servant decides he doesn't like his master very much anymore, and he throws it in the master's face? Which one is it? I'bailu. They ask in the Gemara. Mi shafach l'mi? Who poured the wine on whom? Tashma dasanya. We can-- we, uh, you come and listen, we have the following braisa. Shafach lei rabbe kitan al panav. Vamal'ei i afsei b'shimushecha. So this is that the master threw the wine onto his servant, and the master says, "I don't want you to serve me." So what's the Mishnah saying? When we come out to the sukkah, we say to Hashem, "I'm bringing you an offering. I'm bringing you..." Uh, we talked about yesterday how the sukkah is literally a carbon according to the rabbis. We bring the-- we bring Hashem a carbon. We bring him an offering. We bring him a nice

04:04 cup of wine, and we say, "Here, enjoy the cup." And what does God do? He takes the cup, and he throws it in our face. He makes rain fall from the sky, makes us patur from sukkah. And that's his way of saying, "I don't want you to serve me." So that is the basic understanding of the Gemara, is that we don't sit in the sukkah while it's raining because this is a sign from Hashem that he doesn't want us in the sukkah. Even more so, it's a sign from Hashem that he's not happy with our way of serving him, and the last thing we wanna do is sit there and make him angry. That is the understanding of the Gemara in peshat. Now, this is brought down to Halakha in Shulchan Aruch. You'll find almost the exact same lashon as in the Aruch HaShulchan Aruch. These are a couple, uh, sections from, from the, s- from siman six hundred and thirty-nine. That would be a tough Reish Lamed test. V'du du geshamim. Let's say the rain falls. Ai ze nichnas l'sech habayis. A person should go back into their house. Don't sit in the sukkah in the rain. It's a psak halakha in Shulchan Aruch. Meimasai mu tzefat. At what point are you allowed to go inside and not sit in the rain? Mi she'er l'sech hasukkah tipes shemitl l'sech hatavshi yibsal apil, apilu tavshil shel pul. This is enough rain that if it were to fall into your food, that it would ruin the

05:00 food, even if it is a tavshil of pul, even if it's made of beans. The Rama then says the following. Rama. Apilu ein tavshil lefanav. Even if the tavshil is not in front of you, you don't have to literally have food in front of you that's being destroyed. You could be sitting there not eating. The point is that if there's enough rain falling that it would destroy your food, that's already enough to say you have to go inside. U'mi she'ein bo bakki biz'ah shir. Let's say that I don't know how to figure that out. I don't have, like, a rain counter somewhere. I don't know exactly how much rain that is before I have to go back inside. The Rama gives a tip. Yesharim yeda kol geshamim labayis im haya yetze, yetze min sukkatze gam ken. Says there's a simple way to decide whether you are not-- whether you are patur from sukkah, whether you shouldn't be sitting in the sukkah once it's raining. Ask yourself, "If there was this much rain in my house, would I leave my house?" And if the answer is, "Yeah, I had a leaky roof earlier this year, so I have a pretty good idea of how much rain it takes for a person not to wanna be in their house." So the Rama says, "If you wanna know how to figure this out, if this is enough trouble that would make you leave your house, then certainly leave your sukkah." That's the din of the Rama. Another section

05:53 from Shulchan Aruch. This is the Rama. I should-- I'm gonna make it italics so nobody forgets it's the Rama. Okay. What do we say about someone who's from sukkah and chooses not to leave? Let's say that it's raining, and the master has thrown the wine in my face, and I say, "I'm a . I wanna stay. I wanna be in the sukkah. I like it here." Anybody who is doesn't need to be in the sukkah because it's raining, and they don't leave. You won't get any reward for it. Don't think you're gonna get reward. You are a simpleton. This is a simple, foolish thing to do. A simpleton is the here, a simple person. And when you do leave the sukkah because the rain has forced you out, don't run out, and don't kick and run, is what this means here. Don't run out, you know, all, all excitedly. Uh, they tell stories about . I'm sure they're not true, but they tell stories about who would wait for it to start raining so they could be from sukkah. They look outside and go, "Ah, it's raining. Okay, we can eat." You know, don't do that. Don't get excited that you're not in the sukkah. You should leave in a way of , in a way of submission, in a sort of sad and submissive way when you leave the sukkah, like a servant whose master has poured wine in his face. So it sounds like the , there's really no justification for sitting in

07:00 the sukkah. Somebody-- What, what-- I'm sorry, when it rains, for sitting in the sukkah when it rains. No justification at all. I mean, we have a Gemara that says that if I sit in the sukkah when it's raining, it's like, uh, it's like I'm standing there while the king is just throwing wine in my face. I can't take a hint. I'm supposed to get out of the room. We have the saying that anybody who does that, they won't get . They won't get any reward. They'll be considered a simpleton. They're a . You don't wanna be a . You don't wanna be somebody who doesn't get . It seems like there's no particular reason for us to be in the sukkah while it rains. Nonetheless, there are Reshimas. These are Reshimas from Rabbi Yehuda Hachittrik, and, uh, these are Reshimas from his time in Lubavitch. And, uh, some of this-- I, I was reading some other parts of it. I had to, I had to to keep reading different parts, and I started jumping around the book, and I lost a lot of time to this that I could have been using to prepare this year because his descriptions of life in Lubavitch are so, are so interesting. They're so beautiful. He writes really nicely. He describes what he was seeing, and, uh, he describes what the sukkah was like. So he says, it was an enormous sukkah, what they had in Lubavitch. It could hold a hundred and fifty students. They hung from the

07:57 walls of the-- I'm sorry, from the, um, the rafters of the sukkah. They hung lamps of kerosene. They put a sort of cage of metal around these lamps and hung them from the ceiling so that rain wouldn't put them out. Needle, needle trees. They had pine needles. They used pine needles for the, uh, for the . Then he says, one time it really rained. I mean, it rained, it rained, it rained. It was a . And the Rebbe Rashab sent a out to the sukkah. He wanted to see, are the students eating in the sukkah, or did they eat in the kitchen? Or in the, uh, uh, yeah, the kitchen. The returned to the Rebbe Rashab, the , and he told them, that the young students, the , the young students, they're in the sukkah. They are eating in the sukkah despite the fact that it's raining. And so that the rain won't fall in their food, they are covering themselves with a from their heads with some sort of upper garment, like a hood. It doesn't really say a hat here. The story, the way I always heard it, was a hat, but he doesn't say this. It's and they are covering the food with sort of a . They're making sure their food doesn't get wet, but they are eating in the sukkah. He says, this is the Rebbe Rashab. the Rebbe Rashab was very happy to hear this. He said, "Here you can see the effect of learning Chassidus." If you wanted

09:22 to see what it looks like when someone learns Chassidus, it's this. Even though they're from the sukkah even though they're from the sukkah because they learn Chassidus, they are . They're being very careful. They're being, uh, they're being exemplary to eat in the sukkah even when there is pouring rain. Now, on the surface, this doesn't make much sense because as we learned from the , if somebody wants to be in this, they should not be. He says they won't get . They're considered a . And here the Rebbe Rashab is very excited about it. Hold that thought for a second. We're going to now finally get to our letter. So our letter for today, 'cause this is an not a this letter is a letter from . The letter is labeled and, uh, it was originally printed in . It only recently made it into 'cause is a relatively new year. It's one of the last volumes we have. So, uh, it's a, it's a very new letter, but it was printed in a while ago. It has a backstory. I posted a video of that backstory onto the chat. I'm gonna tell it to you outside in case you don't feel like watching videos right now. The story revolves around Rav Binyamin Zilberstrom, who we've, who we've met many times in Pomona. He comes to visit sometimes, right? This is the Rav Zili- Zilberstrom that we meet. So, uh, he's, uh, he's in the video talking about this. In nineteen seventy-five, he was learning

10:28 in seven seventy. I think he was a slightly older, uh, slightly older at the time. Not an old . I mean, he wasn't one of the little kids. And, uh, they were doing . And the way that it worked back then is Rav David Raskin would arrange these yellow school bru- buses to bring to communities, and they would, they would go from community to community. And it wasn't really so much a but was more of a . They were brought to Queens and to Borough Park in order to spread joy in these communities. There were yellow buses that would leave with the . At that particular year, nineteen seventy-five, it rained every day of Sukkot, and it didn't just rain, it poured. Every day of Sukkot was pouring rain. So Rav Zilberstrom wrote to the Rebbe asking how we can bring joy to these communities because according to him, you just learn . He'd learned these in . He'd learned that it's, uh, it's like the, it's like the master throwing wine in our face. It's not a happy time. And here the Rebbe's telling us, "Go out there and tell everybody to be , tell everybody to be happy." It just doesn't, it just doesn't work for him. So he wrote this to the Rebbe, and he said, "It's a bad sign. It's a bad sign that it's been raining the entire Sukkot. How am I supposed to bring joy to these communities?" He says to this day, he doesn't know what s- what

11:23 seized him to write a letter like that. "I can't imagine writing such a letter." But he did, and Hashem he did because the result was that he was about to get on the bus. I think he said it was shortly before one PM, so he's about to get on the bus to go out to give joy to these communities. And, uh, a message comes from the saying, "You gotta come up-- You gotta come to the right now." And he said, "I need a couple minutes." He didn't realize it was from the Rebbe. He said, "I need a couple minutes." They came back, and they said, "No, you really need to come right now." At that moment, he realized it was from the Rebbe or it was very important. So he dropped everything, says, "Whatever, I'll miss the bus, it's fine." And he, uh, ran into the Mesivta, and he found there Reb Benyamin Klein. And Reb Ben-Reb Benyamin Klein told him, "You wrote the Rebbe a letter. The Rebbe has a response. I'm gonna read it off to you, and I want you to write it down." And he realized this was very serious, and it was a long response. And he wrote it down, and, uh, and he, uh, and he wrote down the, he wrote down the response. He then went out to, uh, he went out to, uh, bring joy to the communities. The response we have is the response in front of us. Um, when he came back after visiting these

12:15 communities, he saw that they had hung his response. They had hung that letter on the wall of seven seventy in a couple places, and that the Rebbe had been . He had gone into the letter and he'd added sources. So the Rebbe had taken particular care that this letter be transmitted and hung up so that everybody sees it, that it was meant to be for everybody. It says Rabbi Silberstrom that he thought about this and came to the conclusion that it was an urgent matter for the Rebbe because the Rebbe recognized that a lot of people were going to be going out in the middle of rainstorms telling people to be happy, and they needed an answer. How are we supposed to do that? So this is the Rebbe's answer. The Rebbe's answer is the letter in front of us from . In ex-- In answer to your question, how can we explain joy when we're dealing with a time where there has been incredible rainfall and that has prevented us from sitting in the Sukkah? How can we talk about joy? The Rebbe answers. Earlier that day, there had been a little bit of time where it hadn't rained. So the Rebbe says, Since today, on the day today, there was a little bit of time where it didn't rain, we fulfilled Mitzvah Sukkah during that period of time where it didn't rain. A few times during the day. Even according to Rabbi Eliezer Rabbi Eliezer holds you have to have two Sudas in

13:20 the Sukkah every single day. So he says, "Even according to Rabbi Eliezer who holds you need two Sudas in the Sukkah, this is a proof This is proof that God's happy with us serving Him," which is very interesting what the Rebbe's saying here, think about it. So we're saying that the Gemara says that when Hashem makes it rain on Sukkos, that proves that He's not happy with us serving Him. It's like a mas-- It's like a, it's like a, um, it's like a master throwing, uh, the wine in the servant's face saying, "I'm not happy that you're serving me." Says the Rebbe, "What do you mean He's not happy? If He wasn't happy, it would have rained all day. We had a couple times today where the rain stopped. During those times, you could do Mitzvah Sukkah. So certainly, during those times, He was happy we were serving Him. What's to say that He changed? Obviously, God's still happy we're serving Him." So the Rebbe says this would only apply if literally rainfall never stopped the entire Sukkos, and that never happens. There's always a moment where it's not raining, and in that moment, you say, "Look, God's happy with me now, must be happy with me always." And then the Rebbe proves it Specifically, When we make a Berakhah in the rain, which by the way, we do make a Berakhah even in the rain, but everybody makes a Berakhah when it's not raining. There were moments where it wasn't raining. And in that

14:21 Berakhah will be said that God commanded us, that God made us holy and commanded us. The Rebbe says, "I'm not gonna expand upon here, but that's my point." The point is, uh, and I, I-- The, the, this is the-- this is what he means. I believe this is what the Rebbe means, that the point here is that when I say in that moment, I said that God commanded me to sit in the Sukkah. So by saying that God commanded me to sit in the Sukkah, that made me holy through that commandment, must be that God's happy with my service. God can't command me to do something and then say, "I'm unhappy about it." I mean, He can, but He doesn't. So obviously, He's happy with my service, says it is ab-absolutely the case that God is happy with people sitting in the Sukkah in the rain, uh, as long as there was some point over Sukkos that it was not raining. You under-- It's very interesting logic here. The logic is that if there was even a moment during Sukkos where it wasn't raining, then during that moment, I was serving God, and He was happy about it, and I was making a Berakhah that God commanded me to do it and made me holy. And because of that, that now applies for the entire Sukkos, that dur-during the whole Sukkos. I'm serving God in a way that He wants to be served, and I'm commanded, and I'm holy. So there's no way to start

15:21 the question. He then goes on in the letter to say, apparently the second half of the letter, Rabbi Silberstrom had written to the Rebbe saying, "How am I supposed to explain to them that we're going to then go inside for the Shehe? Because we're gonna go celebrate in the Sukkah outside, but we're gonna do Shehechiyanu inside." Now, that's halakha. Learning Torah should not be done in the Sukkah necessarily. It can be done in the Sukkah, but obvious-- uh, you absolutely don't need to. Um, davening is not done in the Sukkah normally. We do davening in shul. We don't normally davening in the Sukkah. So the Rebbe says, "Explain to them ." Since a Fabrengen that you're going to be giving for them, you're going to be giving a Shehe, you're gonna give Torah, then there'll be muttar to do that inside the house. Since it is muttar to go inside the house for those activities, it is therefore specifically supposed to be inside the house. This is a sign from on high that you will be able to have a more pleasant time, and you'll be able to have a clear head while learning Torah. In fact, which is the rule when it comes to all Torah learning, and also when it comes to davening. If you want to think about the greatness of God and His actions and all of His mitzvahs, that is easier to do inside a house. The Rebbe says this is an astira. Explain that to them too. I think

16:27 this is a really important line that doesn't really shiech to our letter, but it's so important. It's the last line of the letter, and that is that what are ? What is the main of a, of a Fabrengen? Um, I, I've been to a couple Fabrengens in our area where the same theme has been repeated, and I know that it's the name of, of big Hasidim, but I must say that I, I could not disagree with it more. And I think some of you have probably been to these Fabrengens with people who have mentioned this idea. They say in the name of Hasidim that there is an inherent value of Fabrengen, even if we don't talk Torah during it, even if it's not an just that Hasidim are in a, in a ma-- in a way of brotherhood are gathering. I, I, I completely disagree. Um, I completely disagree. Unless somebody can find a source that, uh, i-in, fr-from our Rebbe, uh, I completely disagree. Because from what I see from letters like this and from many other places is that a Fabrengen becomes valuable when it involves Torah, which is that the . What's the main of a Fabrengen? That is learning how to think about God, learning Torah, um, becoming a better avodah Hashem. If we're not growing at a Fabrengen, I, I do think these Fabrengens have, uh, have limited to no value if there's no Torah happening at them. And of course, on the worst end of it, it can end

17:30 up being a meshubetsim. Anyway, that's a side point, but that's at the bottom of the letter, so I note it. If we had to summarize what the Rebbe is saying in this letter in one sentence, it is that if it is raining on Sukkos, we still see it as a time where God is happy with our service, and therefore, we don't really apply the mashal that's mentioned in the Gemara that would give us reason to leave the Sukkah. We leave the Sukkah when it's raining because it says we're supposed to. Shulchan Aruch says, "Leave the Sukkah when it's raining." Because it's like the master throwing the wine in the servant's face and saying, "I don't want you to serve me," says the Rebbe, that would only apply if it rained the entire Sukkos. As long as there was a moment during Sukkos where it wasn't raining, God's very happy we're serving Him, and since that doesn't apply and God is happy with our service, no reason to leave. So says the Rebbe's letter. Now, there's one more place that I was able to find where the Rebbe addresses the idea of us sitting in the Sukkah while it's raining, and this is a footnote in the Likutei Sichos, in the Sicha that we talked about over the past-- That Sukkah that we talked about, uh, yesterday. I believe it's the No Sukkah. Um, no, it's the sleeping one. It's the one we talked about two days ago. The Sicha on sleeping in the Sukkah has

18:21 a footnote in it. That's in Likutei Sichos volume twenty-nine, page two eleven. There is a footnote where the Rebbe says, If you wanna understand the back and forth in Halakha for why somebody would sit in the Sukkah during the rain, where does the Rebbe tell us to look? Look in the of the Minchas Elazer, the Monkatcher. Now, as many of us know, the Rebbe, the Rebbe, uh, loved the Monkatcher. Uh, we have a lot of stories with the Rebbe and the Monkatcher, and the Rebbe's interest in the Monkatcher's work in the Minchas Elazer, and the, in the Sefer Minchas Elazer, and the m-- and, uh, and in students. We have dollars where the Rebbe was somebody who mentioned they knew the Minchas Elazer. You can see the Rebbe's face light up. So the Rebbe says, "If you wanna know why Chassidim sit in the Sukkah during the rain, check out the Minchas Elazer in that place." And he says, "You'll see there that the Talmidi Bal Shem Tov . You'll see there that students of the Bal Shem Tov for generation after generation always had the minhag to sit in the Sukkah for all seven days, even if it rained." Now, I'm a, uh, I'm a Hasid, so when the Rebbe says to do something, I try to do it. If the Rebbe says to look for your answer in the Minchas Elazer, that's where I wanna look. So with our final few moments that we have together, I'd like to show you the, this

19:18 piece of the Minchas Elazer. Uh, it's a crime, but as far as I can tell, no one has reprinted the Minchas Elazer since, uh, since the Minchas Elazer's time, because the best printing I could find is very difficult to read. Um, maybe there's a better printing somewhere. If you have one, let me know. 'Cause the one on Heichal HaSefarim, the one on Hebrew books is just not good quality. We'll try to read it anyway. It's on your screen. The Minchas Elazer does thoroughly, thoroughly explain, why we sit in the Sukkah while it's raining and, uh, it's not-- It's an addition to the Rebbe's . So the Rebbe has that letter where he says we can sit in the Sukkah while it's raining 'cause one day it didn't rain. As long as one day it didn't rain, God's happy with our service. The Minchas Elazer takes multiple different approaches. Let's read it together, and we're probably gonna go a little over on time, so if you do have to leave because you have a hard one o'clock stop time, please feel free to depart and listen to the rest of the recording if you must. But I do wanna read this Minchas Elazer because it is . Minchas Elazer says, It's been the custom of our fathers and our rabbis, our holy rabbis, generation after generation from the Talmidai of Baal Shem Tov, from all the students of the Baal Shem Tov, that we sit in the Sukkah for all seven days of the, of all

20:24 seven days of Sukkos, even if rain does fall, God forbid. He says that you'll find this in the Atei Eden. I don't know who exactly the Atei Eden is. I tried to look up and didn't find. I found a few Atei Eden Sefarim. He quotes the Atei Eden, though, which is in the , saying the following. Okay. So it says in the Atei Chaim. It says in the Atei, not the Atei Chaim, the Atei Eden. The Atei Eden asks a question. Remember our Gemara from back here? Our Gemara had asked, uh, had said, "Who spilled the water on whose face?" Now I have a question for you. Why does it matter who spilled the water on whose face? Does it really matter? I mean, either way, there's a negative interaction here, right? If I go into the, if I go into the master and the master spills it on my face, or I spill it on the master's face, either way, I'm not staying in the Sukkah. So why does the Gemara care who spilled the wine in whose face? Says the Atei Eden, because there's a There's a difference who spilled the wine in whose face. Why do they ask the question? If the servant is spilling the water in the wi-- in mu-- the, the wine in the master's face, So if the story is, if we're, if the Gemara is saying, if the Mishnah is saying that when I sit in the Sukkah in the rain, it's like I, God forbid, am

21:40 throwing water or wine in God's face, that is, uh, that is intolerable. That's chutzpah. That's asur. So if we're saying the story is the servant is throwing the wine in the master's face, that would be asur and you wouldn't be allowed to sit in the Sukkah. However, that's not the Gemara's conclusion. But if it is as we explained, that the, that the master is throwing the wine in the servant's face, Somebody who doesn't leave the Sukkah will be considered a . What's he saying here? Saying that if God is throwing the water in my face, let's say I'm an eved, and I go to my master, and I give him a cup of wine, and he throws it in my face, and I stand there. That's a . I don't have to stay. I'm allowed to leave, but at the same time, it would actually be praiseworthy for me to stay there. So the, the Atei, uh, the Atei Eden is saying on this Gemara that the, that the maskana of the Gemara is that you stay in the Sukkah. It's just a really interesting reading of the Gemara. As the Mishnah says, "Leave because the master threw wine in your face," and the Gemara says, "Who? Wait, who threw the wine? Oh, the master threw it? Okay, in that case, you can stay." That is, uh, that is the, that is the understanding of the Atei Eden's reading of this Gemara, that the Gemara is really meant to mean the maskana of the Gemara

22:48 is that you can stay. Now, this is not in line with the way that it's written in Shulchan Aruch at all, but know where this yeshita does exist, that because of the, the nafkamina in this Gemara, uh, the reason why this Gemara is brought in the first place is to tell us that we are, as a , allowed to stay in the Sukkah. This also fits better with what the Rebbe Rashab said, that when somebody learns , when somebody learns , they become the kind of person who sits in the Sukkah even when it's raining. He then has a really cool bracket here, says, Look in, uh, his, his grandfather, I guess that was an earlier Monkatya Rebbe's Sefer, It might not be a Monkatya. I don't know who his grandfather was, but in any event, another Rebbe says that Uh, I must say that, uh, this is a drashah my father has given many times, and I never knew the source for it. Uh, this is apparently the source for it. The source for it is that it says in the Gemara that everybody can do teshuva except for Acher. Acher was Elisha ben Abuyah. He, uh, had gone and he, he was a very, very holy Jew, a big rabbi, and then he, he became a heretic. So everybody's able to do teshuva except for Acher. He can't do teshuva. Nonetheless, it says in the Gemara that he shouldn't, that nevertheless, he shouldn't have left holiness. Excuse me. Because it says, I think

23:58 it's Gemara Masseches. I don't remember where, but there's a Gemara somewhere that says that, um, everything that your, uh, everything that your host, if you're a host in someone's house, so you're a guest. If your host says to do something, you have to do everything he says. You have to listen to everything the baal habayis says, listen to everything that the host says, except for when he says to leave. When the, when the host says, "Okay, I'm done with you. Go home," you don't have to listen to that. And similarly, Acher, uh, who shouldn't-- Acher was told he couldn't do teshuva, but that was God telling him, "You have to leave my house, and then you don't listen." And the fact that a person will not then receive a reward for that This is even better. It's so that you won't think about receiving a reward. As he explains from his Rebbe. And his words are very, his words are very convincing. So what's he saying here? Here, he's adding that, uh, there's an idea that there's a Gemara. There's a Gemara that says that you have to listen to everything your host says except for when he says to leave. And from there, we learn that even if God says that somebody can't do teshuva, that person should do teshuva. The Monkatya wants to say, "Let's add to that." If somebody, if God tells them to leave the Sukkah, he's the baal habayis, but he can't tell me to leave the Sukkah. I don't

24:58 have to listen to the baal habayis when he tells me to leave. So we listen to everything Hashem says, except for when he says, "Leave the Sukkah." That's the, uh, that's the second argument. So we have argument number one is that... What was argument number one? Argument number one is that, uh, since the rabbis, since, since, since God is throwing the wine in my face, I'm allowed to stay. It's to stay, uh, it's a midas chasidus. Argument number two, reason number two is because when God tells me to leave, he's a baal abayas, and I only have to listen to him when he says to do anything except for leave. If God says to leave, I don't have to listen anymore. So if he says, "Leave the sukkah," I don't have to listen. And his third statement is that in response to what the Rama says, that a person's not gonna get any reward if they stay in the sukkah, says the Monkatre, "Great. Who needs a reward? As a matter of fact, it's better to serve God without wanting to receive a reward." So we have here three reasons from the Monkatre why it makes sense to sit in the sukkah while it's raining and why it's not a halakhic problem. He then adds, . This third-- This fourth argument is one that I think I've heard of a lot of, in a lot of Chabad circles. I don't know if the Rebbe ever says it anywhere. The Monkatre says it. Says that somebody

26:02 who is really excited about the simcha of the mitzvah of sukkah, they're very excited about the joy of the mitzvah of sik- of, of sukkah, they're not going to feel the rain. They're not gonna be upset by the rain. So somebody who's in the right mindset isn't bothered by the rain, and therefore, somebody who's not bothered is chaiv to be in the sukkah. How do we know? Let's go over to the next page. We're almost, almost through the Teshuvah. Because as it says in the Rama, So you might remember from our Rama, the Rama had told us, remember the Rama? The Rama had told us, "How do I know that it's raining so much I have to leave the sukkah when I would leave if I was in my house?" Which means that if I wouldn't leave if I was in my house, I'm still chaiv in sukkah. And somebody who's enjoying the mitzvah so much, even within the Rama, is going to be somebody who's enjoying themselves so much that they wouldn't leave their house, and therefore they're not leaving their sukkah. Now just answer, there's now a fifth reason. A fifth reason is that the Rama's rule that I have to leave if I'm not enjoying myself, uh, and, and, and I would leave if it was my house, is not gonna apply here because I am enjoying myself, and in my house, I wouldn't leave. He actually adds that the Rif and the Rash, Rishonim who don't usually bring Aggadic pieces of

27:05 the Gemara, bring this i-- bring this story about, uh, about a, a master throwing wine in the servant's face, and also bring the Naftali, who threw the wine into whose face. Why do they bring it specifically? Because it has halakhic implications, as we have explained. I'm gonna jump near to the bottom of this Teshuvah. He says . Okay, halakhically, You certainly don't need to be in the sukkah when it's pouring. And it's no-- There's definitely not a field. You don't have food in front of you, as we explained from the Rama that we saw earlier. You certainly can get out of it. There's a lot of heter, is what he's saying. Medina. He says that there's a lot of heter. You don't even need the heter for rain. He says where he lives, around here, this can happen too. Sometimes it gets so cold that it ruins your food, and you can even get out of it for that reason. So if you're looking to get out of the mitzvah sukkah, you absolutely can get out of it, he says. There's a lot of heter. You cert-- Medina. You certainly halakhically can very easily get out of sukkah. The Jewish people were holy. We are strict on ourselves. We don't leave the sukkah, and we're fine with being called a hedjet. We don't care if that means we're a simpleton. Because it is in the name of doing a mitzvah of God. We-- These mitzvahs are important to us. They are dear to us. The

28:15 fact that we won't get reward for them, one of the best ways to serve God, as we said earlier, is not to want to receive a reward. In any event, what we have from this last piece is, I think, something very powerful. He says, "Look, there's about a million heterim. There's a lot of good ways to get out of sitting in the sukkah, but the Jewish people are holy. They are strict on themselves. They do not leave the sukkah, and they are very happy to be called a hedjet. They don't care if they're called a simpleton 'cause it's in the name of a mitzvah, and they're very happy not to receive reward because they would rather serve God in a way that does not involve receiving reward." Okay, so let's do a quick summary of everything. I'm so sorry we're over time. This really is our, uh, this is our finale for the sukkah section. Uh, we talked about sitting in the rain on sukkahs. We saw a Gemara, we saw Shulchan Aruch. It looks like it's asur. It looks like we're not allowed to sit in the rain on sukkahs. It looks like, once again, that Chabad is practicing some sort of chasidus guide or some sort of leniency, but certainly not keeping the strict letter of the Halakhah. Nonetheless, we have the Rebbe telling us, first of all, the Rebbe has the se-- The Rebbe has several reasons why he believes that we are being as following this theme, more strict, and why

29:08 we are in fact being mehader and doing the right thing by sitting in the sukkah while it's raining. The first answer is in this letter involving Rabbi Silberstrom, where the Rebbe wrote to him that as long as there was even a moment during sukkahs where there was a mitzvah to sit in the sukkah, that shows that God does want us to serve Him, so clearly the Gemara does not apply to such a situation. The second thing was in Likutei Sichos. The Rebbe said, "If you want a full explanation of this, check Minchas Elazar." In the Minchas Elazar, we had several reasons why it makes sense to sit in the sukkah. Reason number one, the mid-- It was a midik Baalshem Tov. The Baalshem Tov and his Talmidim always sat in the sukkah while it was raining. It's . Our holy fa- forefathers always did this. Reason number two is that the Gemara specifically brings the idea or bring-- or emphasizes the point that the Rav is throwing the wine in the servant's face to demonstrate that this is not a chutzpah for us to stay there. It's just, you know, we're allowed to leave because you don't have to stay there when somebody throws wine in your face. At the same time, at the same time, uh, it is a midas chasidus to stay. He then said that, uh, it's similar to the story with Akher, where we have to listen to everything that Hashem says except for when he says to leave, so I

30:02 don't have to listen to Hashem if he says to leave the sukkah. We also said don't care about receiving a reward because we'd rather serve God not for a reward. We said another reason that, uh, the Rama only lets you leave the sukkah if you are, uh, pained enough that you would leave if you, if this was happening to you indoors, and that's not the case here. People are enjoying the mitzvah, simchas hasham mitzvah. They're enjoying the joy of doing the mitzvah. Since they're enjoying the mitzvah so much, they're probably not patur even according to the Rama. I don't think we really had another reason. We hadn't said another reason was we had a final sort of statement. Our final statement was, those were all of our reasons. Our final statement from the Minchas Elazar was that anybody can really get out of sukkah pretty easily. It's quite easy to be patur from sukkah if you want to. It can not just because of rain, it can even be because it's too cold. But the Jewish people are holy. They are kodesh and machmirim. They are holy, and they are strict. Note the word, they are machmir. And how are they machmir? They don't leave the sukkah when it's raining. If somebody's machmir, they sit in the sukkah while it's raining. This is the Minchas Elazar. Because they are okay with being called a simpleton, they're okay with being called a hedjet in the name of a mitzvah, and they are okay with not receiving

30:57 schar because that is what it really is to serve Hashem completely as an eved. Okay, that is it. Thank you for staying.