קניית כרטיסי הגרלה

00:00 Speaker 1 This is Igress, and today we are going to look at a bunch of letters and maybe a Sefer and a Yechidas and even a video actually, although I don't know how well it'll come through on the recording. I'll summarize it for you. Mainly letters. We're gonna look at letters about lotteries. Lotteries, raffles, uh, games of chance. What are our Rebbeim think about these sort of things? And the first letter that we're going to look at is in letter in English, and I got this letter from the Rebbe Responsa app. There's somebody who listens to our Igress here who's involved in this app, and, uh, he told me I should look at it because I keep on missing great letters. And, uh, I, I, I took him seriously, so I downloaded the app, and indeed, this is a really good app if you haven't seen it yet. Free advertisement for the Rebbe Responsa app. Um, you can search for English letters, parts of English letter collections. Very useful. So this letter is from that collection. I have the original up on your screen, the type, the typewritten version. And, uh, this is to a Mr. Menachem Dov Chaim Salek. And it was actually because of this letter that I launched the Shir on lottery tickets. I liked this letter so much, I wanted more information. So here's what the Rebbe says. He says, "Greeting and blessing." Let me make it a little bigger. "Thank you for the let-- for your letter of the twenty-third of Cheshvan,"

00:59 Speaker 1 et cetera, et cetera. Uh, the Rebbe talks about the purpose of Yom Tov. Here's the part we're up to. "Regarding your invention of a system of winning a certain lottery, I do not, as a rule, believe in any such systems." This person wrote to the Rebbe that they have some sort of a system that will guarantee them a lottery win. I don't know, they buy a certain number of tickets, or they can guess the numbers, or some sort of number prediction, unclear, but they had a system. The Rebbe writes, the Rebbe continues, "The best proof is that it has never yet happened that a person should become wealthy by means of a system in regard to any game of chance." So the Rebbe's saying sometimes people do become wealthy because of a game of chance, but not based on a system. It's based on luck. On the contrary, the Rebbe continues, "Those who are lucky to win in a lottery are usually individuals who do not know of any such systems and who win by way of a, quote, lucky chance, as people say, but which is an actually a matter of Divine Providence." And as far as I know this is true, I don't know if this is still true, but I remember reading a couple years back that no one had ever won the, uh, the big lotteries on numbers they picked themselves, that they were almost always or always random numbers. I don't know if that's true, but I do know what

01:58 Speaker 1 the Rebbe's saying here is true, which is the vast majority of people who win at games of chance don't win because they have a system, they win because of Divine Providence, because of what society calls a lucky chance. The Rebbe's not in favor of us setting up systems to try to win lotteries. And then the Rebbe continues by giving a berakhah about the upcoming month of Cheshvan, and you have the Rebbe's holy signature at the bottom of the letter. Uh, what we get from here is that the Rebbe does seem to view a winning lottery ticket as a form of Divine Providence, so that's Hashgachah Pratit. So the Rebbe's telling us here that the lottery is Divine Providence. That would seem to suggest that we like lotteries. So what we're going to do today is a deep dive into whether we do indeed like lotteries, whether we think-- whether the Rebbe thinks that we should buy lottery tickets. Um, and we're also gonna look at whether we should be running lotteries, running raffles for certain things, you know, um, for charity and for, uh, for various benefits. There's all sorts of raffles that go on all the time. What does the Rebbe say about organizing raffles? And we're going to do a big historical deep dive into this because raffles have been around for a while, as have lotteries. There's a Reshima from the Rebbe. This is Reshimas Cheveres, uh, Ches. You'll find this in Cheveres Ches. And it's also actually in the Frideke Rebbe

02:56 Speaker 1 Sechas as almost a direct copy, probably literally a direct copy. Uh, but I'm showing you the one from Reshimas. And it says right here, let me make it a little bigger. This is the Rebbe's notes. «At the Mach Tedek, Kana Pamim Harbey». I can't read this word because it's in Russian, uh, but the footnote says this word in Russian means lottery tickets. So the Tamach Tedek used to buy a whole bunch of lottery tickets. «Bishvila Ushvil Marash Nishmas Aden». That would be the Rebbe Marash. So the Tamach Tedek used to frequently buy lottery tickets for himself. He bought many. Pamim Harbey, he bought lots of lottery tickets. Not, not lots. Many times he bought lottery tickets for himself and for the Rebbe Marash, his son. «Minim Tzakasi Viksavia Katshi, Yiratsin Shiska B'gerda Marash Nishmas Eden». So you have, uh, letters from the Tamach Tedek that say, in his holy handwriting, "May it be God's will that the Rebbe Marash should win the lottery." So the Tamach Tedek used to buy lottery tickets for himself and for his son, the Rebbe Marash. He used to give berakhahs that the Rebbe Marash would win the lottery, and at the end of the day, «Hayu Pamim Shzachav Izikum Nechem». Many, many times, the, uh, Rebbe Marash won, and he got large sums of money. As a matter of fact, a good deal of the Rebbe Marash's wealth, he was, uh, pretty much our only Rebbe that was incredibly wealthy, and a good deal of his wealth came from

04:01 Speaker 1 these lotteries that he won. The Tamach Tedek, loy. But the Tamach Tedek never won. So the Tamach Tedek used to buy tickets, the Rebbe Marash bought tickets, the Tamach Tedek gave berakhahs for the tickets to be successful, but at the end of the day, the Tamach Tedek never won them, and the Rebbe Marash won them frequently. So here we have pretty solid proof, I guess, that certainly lotteries are not treif according to us. We have two Rebbeim who bought them regularly, or one Rebbe who bought them for him and his son regularly, and we have a Rebbe who made a good deal of money out of having them. So certainly, we don't have anything-- we don't have any strong opposition in our culture to lottery tickets. I have another example of this from the Rebbe Rashab. This is in the Igress of the Rebbe Rashab. It's labeled Tov Shin Gimel. And here the Rebbe Rashab thanks the Rebbe Ma-- the, the, excuse me, the Rebbe Mar-- the Rebbe Rashab thanks his son, the Frideke Rebbe, for buying a lottery ticket in order to help make Ten Chadshimim rich, and he seems to think he might win. If you look in the middle of this line, «Neneisi» says, "I was very happy to hear that you, uh, that it came into your hand to buy a ticket for Ten Chadshimim, that you bought a lottery ticket on behalf of the yeshiva." «Yitendis Hashem Yisbarach Sheabatslachav Itzgeh». He says, uh, "I'm giving you a berakhah, that Hashem

04:59 Speaker 1 should make it successful, and you should get a «Balin Bagera Al Godol»," that you should get a big prize in the, in the upcoming raffle. «Be'ezrat Hashem Yisbarach Nuchel Achzik El Agdil Mimfa Al Godol Nal Azef,» and that using this money, the proceeds from this, th- from this lottery, that I'm giving you a berakhah to win, I hope you'll be able to strengthen this incredible project we've undertaken of opening the Ten Chadshimim yeshiva. So the Rebbe Rashab talks here like sort of a foregone conclusion, like, "I'm really glad you bought the ticket. Here's a berakhah that you win, and when you win a really big sum in the lottery, you can use it to fund the yeshiva." So again, we have a pretty clear sign that our Rebbeim are not at all hostile to the idea of buying lottery tickets. Indeed, I think now we've tracked the Tamach Tedek, the Rebbe Marash, the Rebbe Rashab, and the Frideke Rebbe. That's four Rebbes in a row who all had some interaction with the lottery that was positive. So that's pretty, pretty solid evidence that we're not opposed to lotteries. As far as organizing lotteries, it's a little more complicated. Uh, there's a bunch of letters from the Rebbe Rashab about attempts to organize a lottery in his area, and the reason why he wanted to organize and all that, w- well, I don't know if he really wanted to. The reason why people were pressuring the Rebbe Rashab to organize a lottery is because this was

05:58 Speaker 1 very popular in Poland. Uh, the Polish Hasidim and the Polish Yidden in general used to organize a lot of raffles as benefits, and a bunch of Hasidim came to the Rebbe Rashab asking for the same thing. At the bottom of this letter, there's a little bit of historical context, um, unless I'm missing the bottom line that I need. Just a moment. There we go. It's this letter There we go. Yep. So there's a bunch of historical context in the bottom of this letter. It says that when Warsaw was under Russian rule, there was a government lottery that was held twice a year with, uh, varying prize amounts. The Lublin Yeshiva also organized a lottery that was modeled directly after the government lottery. That was probably Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin was a, a legendary yeshiva, and Hasidi Gur, the Gerrer Hasidim, they also organized the lottery. So people came to the Rebbe Rashab and said they wanted to organize one for the Lubavitch Yeshiva as well. They sent a couple shluchim to the Rebbe Rashab to try to figure out how they could make this work. They also sent them to Poland to try to copy the other systems, and at the end of the day, it didn't work. At the end of the day, although we're going to see some letters suggesting that Rebbe Rashab ultimately got involved in this project, according to the note down here, the Lubavitch lottery, the Lubavitch raffle to benefit the yeshiva never quite took off. We see initially the Rebbe

07:00 Speaker 1 Rashab expressing some doubt that it will work in this letter. So this letter is Tuv Shin Nun Zayin, the Rebbe Rashab's, uh, responding to a request that we open a lottery for Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim, and the Rebbe Rashab s-- Rashab says, "B'devarim yeide Tomchei Tmimim," when it comes to things going on with the yeshiva, "B'devar a lottery," regarding the lottery, that's a word I can read, "Yachal l'yeshiva zeh ravach im itz Hashem." It could be we'll make some money off of this if we make a charity raffle to benefit the yeshiva. People buy tickets, we take a certain percent. It could be we'll make some money. "Amnum, nis has kuz bezeh kavod me'uod," but you should know that running a raffle is not easy. It's very difficult. "Im libe eventually it start up l'yeshis has kuz bezeh," unless we can find some way that we don't have to actually run it. It would be much-- If we c- if we can benefit from the raffle and have, like, agents run it for us, then it's not so difficult. Uh, but generally speaking, it's hard to run a raffle. "Ti am lach an as is ide achanim muvdo m'rachim meytan," if we can find people who are far away, have no association with us whatsoever, who will run the raffle on our behalf for a small cut and then give us the money back, that would be great. But if we have to run it, says the Rebbe Rashab, I don't think it'll be very successful.

07:56 Speaker 1 "Nach mashia jerush l'chama izi senes meytad," we can of course encourage it a little bit from the sidelines, but we're certainly not going to be the, uh, the driving force of a, uh, of a successful, um, of a successful raffle. The-- I, I wanna show you a little bit more of this letter, even though it doesn't have to do with what we're talking about, because you have the Rebbe Rashab commenting on what Gerrer Hasidim are like, and I find it very entertaining. So let me read that to you, and then we'll go on to the next letter. "Gam bevi navas devi li dei peil yesh zeh devarim rabin," if you were to pull off this raffle thing, says the Rebbe-- says the Rebbe Rashab, excuse me, there's all sorts of details you're gonna have to get into. "Kim las is devi li ise mo sed haina beli is ez betochais," the Rebbe Rashab also says you'd need some sort of guarantee that you can back up the money that you're claiming you're going to be able to give out. So he's all around concerned about it. Now, regarding Gur, the Gerrer Hasidim seem to be having no problem with their raffle. Listen to what the Rebbe Rashab says. He says, "Ein l'havi rayim mig Gur." Don't bring me proof from the Gerrer Hasidim who have figured out how to make these raffles very successful. "Ki hav kibbutz shalom gadol v'rav," they have an enormous group who, "u'v'neihem harbeh gvirim," and they have a whole bunch

08:52 Speaker 1 of very rich people. So there's a lot of Gerrer Hasidim, and they got a lot of money. "Ye'ezeh Hashem aleihem," and the Rebbe Rashab says may Hashem increase this upon them. May they have more people and more wealth. He's not begrudging them anything. But he does say the Gerrer Hasidim are rich. "V'hadgvirim heima rubin kechulam k'efane merkava." When it comes to the rich people in Gerrer, they're not like our gvirim. They're not like our rich people. Their rich people follow rules. "Hagvirim heima rubin kechulam k'efane, k'efane merkava." The rich people in Gerrer, they're like the wheels on a chariot. "Hem savin l'ruach harechem bli shum b'chirah u'ratzon." They just roll right along according to the will of their Rebbe without any particular bechira, any particular ratzon. They just do whatever their Rebbe says. "Mash ein lib ratzon harav u'banav heima eis im batekev." And whatever their rav and whatever his sons want, they just do immediately. "Ein lib it ma shum davar." They don't care what's going on. "Net komei v' uh," they don't care about things like, um, insurances, and they also don't-- "v'chenu b'halottery," and also this applies to the lottery. "B'keich michal tem chalach gam sikim gadol." They can spend a lot of money, and they'll, they'll jump into things that don't make a lot of sense. They'll throw their money at their Rebbe. This isn't a problem for them. So he says, "Don't give me proof from Gerrer that we can pull this off." The Gerrer gvirim, the rich people in

09:51 Speaker 1 Gerrer, are not like the rich people who have something to do with Lubavitch. The rich people have something to do with Lubavitch, they have free will, and they want a logical decision-making to be part of the process. The Gerrer Hasidim, they just throw their money at their Rebbes. I, I found that very entertaining. He continues, says, "V' Lublin," and when it comes to the Lublin lottery, I don't actually know what's going on over there, um, but it's possibly also the same situation that they have in Gerrer, where they have a lot of really wealthy people who are willing to throw their money at stuff. We don't have that, so I'm not sure we can pull it off. So you see the Rebbe Rashab hesitant that Lubavitch will be able to pull off a lottery, but you don't see any way the Rebbe Rashab saying it's a bad idea because it's a lottery, just because it's hard to organize one. In the end, the Rebbe Rashab seems to have given in. We have at least two letters where the Rebbe Rashab lays out a plan for what this lottery should look like. I'm just gonna show you an excerpt here. This is Tuv Shin Samech Gimel is the label on this letter from the Rebbe Rashab. He says, "Regarding the b'devar ha-geral asisi plan," he says, "Regarding the geral, regarding the agrala, regarding the lottery, I made a plan, and the plan is to sell aseres alafim tetlin." That his plan is to sell, uh, ten

10:44 Speaker 1 thousand tickets, and he lays out here, you can look at it on the screen in front of you, that he lays out percentages we should take and how much each ticket should cost and what the prizes should be. He also assigns certain Hasidim the job of selling the tickets and, uh, and making the project work. So he seemed to try to get it off the ground, but as I told you earlier, it says in a footnote to the original letter that although this came close to working, it never actually worked. We did not in the end have a lottery come out of the Rebbe Rashab. Uh, this hesitance about lotteries-- about running raffles, not about buying them, seems to be a lot of enthusiasm among the Rebbe for buying lottery tickets, but a hesitance regarding running raffles, you also sort of see in the Sefer from the Rebbe. The Rebbe has a Sefer from Yud Aleph Iyar of Tuv Shin Yud Beis, where he talks to a bunch of wealthy people who were supposed to help fund Chabad projects in America, and, uh, this is in Tuv Shin Yud Beis, so that's nineteen fifty-two, very early in the, early in the messiahs. This is from-- Let me just give you the exact source. You can look it up at home. It's Teris Menachem. It's volume Heh, uh, Tuv Shin Yud Beis. Um, yeah, where's the page? Two-ten. Page two-ten. So here he's talking to some wealthy people, and they seem to have raised the possibility

11:43 Speaker 1 of them organizing a raffle, of the wealthy people getting together and organizing a raffle to benefit, uh, the Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim, to ben-benefit the Chabad yeshiva. And the Rebbe writes, "V'nigela atza," excuse me, he doesn't write, the Rebbe says, it's a sicha. "V'nigela atza sh'alasa lifan-- lifne zeh a-aydei achad mehasganim," one of you has raised the possibility, "l'sade ha'g'dola," a raffle, "g'dei laben kol hatem l'teves ha'yeshiva," make a raffle among all of the donors in order to benefit the yeshiva, "chade af zeri b'etzem hatsa yushar ad v'ech azach." The Rebbe says on one hand, it's a pretty good idea. "Aval ein ishe echaz lasagan v'nechem peh." I don't think, though, says the Rebbe, that you people who are here, that the wealthy people who are here with me right now should be involved in running this raffle. "Ki nezes hachshas deve karch b'etzach g'dei lis." First of all, says the Rebbe, it costs a lot of money to run a raffle. You don't realize quite how difficult this is until you try it. Uh, "Ha'reike dei l'mash-- l-l-mamash teches niskegein, k'gein zu. Yisdach lasagan l'vaka etzameh zeh nashim." And also, in order to make this work, you have to sell a lot of tickets, which means that you would have to go out and visit hundreds of people. "L'darom me'eis kam me'ei yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch," you're going to have to talk to hundreds of people about the yeshiva, "ad sheimas lahem," until you are, uh, until you are disgusted by it, until they're disgusted

12:47 Speaker 1 by it. "V'zeve sh'lo devi etzlif l'kabad dolar achad b'ladin." After all of that talking and all that fundraising, you might get a dollar out of them. "V'lefami yitach nafilu sh'lach acher k'dira v'azman yigme adevi yemis k'efes b'tadas mali." It might even be that on the left side you'll end up getting a, uh, you'll end up getting a zero, so maybe you'll get, I don't know, ten dollars. Is that the left side? That's the right side. I don't know. In any event- The Rebbe says that when you try to create a raffle to benefit an organization, it's a lot harder than you think. It costs a lot more money than you think, and you end up going around in circles talking to people about the yeshiva, uh, ultimately for a dollar. It's just not an effective form of fundraising. So the Rebbe says that, uh, the people who would be good for this would be the, uh, rank and file, the foot soldiers. Uh, it would make most sense to have the bachurim running around raising money for this. Um, maybe, says the Rebbe, it would make sense to have bachurim try to raise money for the yeshiva, uh, through a raffle system. But for wealthy people, he doesn't think it's a good idea. In any event, you actually see, I think, a lot of the Rebbe's hesitance about raffles reflects a lot of the things that Rebbe Rashab said he was worried about regarding a raffle. Not that it's a bad idea to sign up

13:46 Speaker 1 for them or to take tickets in them, but that running them is not all it's cracked up to be. It appears to be a lot of fun to run a raffle, big benefit for everybody, but apparently, it's a lot harder than, uh, than, than I knew, uh, at least according to the Rebbe and the Rebbe Rashab. It's harder to run them than you think. It's more expensive. And the Rebbe says here, for wealthy people, there's better ways for them to spend their time and better ways for them to increase funds and raise funds than to go door to door looking for dollars in a raffle. Returning to our original topic, however, I wanna get back to and conclude with our view of actually buying lottery tickets by looking at a few things from the Rebbe. I have two letters from the Rebbe about it, a Yichidas and a video regarding the actual act of buying lottery tickets. What we've done so far is we've demonstrated that the Rebbe said in this first English letter that, um, winning a lottery is a form of Hashgacha Protis, so it's hard to imagine that it's all in all negative. We also have Reshimahs and from the Rebbe Rashab suggesting that the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe Rashab, and the Frierdiker Rebbe were all involved at some point in buying lottery tickets. Uh, and because of that, we are assuming that it's not a bad thing to buy a lottery ticket. And we also saw the Rebbe

14:43 Speaker 1 Rashab toy with the idea, the Rebbe as well, toy with the idea of creating raffles, creating lotteries within Lubavitch, all pointing us toward the direction that we're not really hostile to the idea of a lottery. But we still haven't seen anything straight up telling us that the, the Rebbe is in favor of us buying lottery tickets. So now we turn to some of the Rebbe's stuff. This is a letter from the Rebbe from Zion. This-- I'm sorry, the let-letter is labeled Zion, Taf Resh Mem Tes. It's from Kaf Tes Ear of Taf Shin Kaf Alef, and it's written to the . You might not have seen this one coming, but I assume most of you know that, uh, from-- when it came from the, the Chassidim coming from Kfar Chabad to spend time with the Rebbe for Tishrei, there was, uh, almost always, maybe even always, there's probably always a lottery system where everybody would enter in a certain amount of money, and one winner or one or two winners, a number of winners would get sent to Crown Heights to spend Tishrei with the Rebbe on the dime of everybody else who entered. So you basically entered the lottery, and you hoped that you would, uh, you hoped that you would end up winning and getting to see the Rebbe. And otherwise, I guess the money you used to buy the ticket was used to help fund the trip for the person who won. Uh, this is a straight-up raffle system, a straight-up lottery

15:43 Speaker 1 system, and, uh, the Rebbe strongly encourages it. He wants the list of the people who signed up for that lottery. He, uh, mentions in a couple letters that everybody who signed up benefits, even if they didn't win. Uh, we'll see at least one of these examples here, but frankly, there's one almost every year. So the Rebbe writes in Taf Shin Chaf Alef that he's writing this to all those who participated in the lottery system to visit Crown Heights. The Rebbe says, "I'm writing to you because I have received the list of all of the participants in the lottery, in the raffle to come to, uh, Crown Heights for Tishrei, and I've also received notice of who won the lottery." And the Rebbe says, "It should be God's will, as I've said previously, that the one who does actually travel, the one who won the raffle should be a merit for, should cover for, should, uh, should that he should be the same way, uh, you fulfill for, fulfill on behalf of everybody who did not get to go. The person who goes should sort of be their messenger." In this case, and that he will be able to give merit to everybody who was involved in the project. The Rebbe continues with The Rebbe says, "Specifically, I'm, I'm excited about this because it's a lottery." And the Rebbe says, "You'll find in Tanya, you'll find in Tanakh all sorts of ideas of lotteries being a, uh, a positive thing. So I'm glad this happened by

17:04 Speaker 1 way of lottery." A similar letter, but a little bit more detail on it, is in Igros Kodesh Gimel Resh Chaf Hey is the label on the letter, and it's from Taf Shin Tes Zayin, but I chopped off the front of the letter, so I don't know exactly what date it was sent. Uh, but obviously not difficult to look up. It's labeled Gimel Resh Chaf Hey. Here, the Rebbe again congratulates the people who have won the lottery to visit Crown Heights, and he says that everybody involved is also part of the project. But here, he also clarifies why Al Pi Halacha it's okay to participate in such a raffle. So the Rebbe says, "I was glad that in your letter you included a list of people who were included in this lottery, even the ones who didn't win." "And since based on Hagarela, since based on your letter, it sounds like you are one of the people who helps run this raffle every year. I would, I would hope you'd be able to find the proper words to explain the following to all of the people who participated, including those who didn't win. Ki. To wit, it would appear according to Jewish law, excuse me, when it comes to this sort of raffle, a situation where you can gain a lot of money by putting in only a little bit of money, this would appear, according to Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law, to violate one of our gambling laws. We have a rule, you

18:27 Speaker 1 don't fully acquire something if it's on an asmakht bet and a laykanah. That would mean you don't fully-- you're not counted as acquiring something if somebody else had not planned on losing the thing that they were giving to you. So here, every-everybody enters the raffle, they put in a dollar or two, and they're hoping to get a very, very large sum. And so, uh, you can make the claim that the person who wins is acquiring a win from people who didn't actually expect to lose the money. the Rebbe says, "Don't worry about that in our particular case." Every single person, I'm sure when they participate in the lottery, um, the raffle to send people to Crown Heights, they have the idea in their minds that they might lose their money, and they're not worried about that. But in order to make sure that there's not even a small halachic concern in participating in this kind of raffle, it would be appropriate for the person who wins to consider himself the shliach of all of the other people who participated because since a messenger of a person is like that person, that way, when he travels, everybody else is traveling. So what the Rebbe is saying here is that you could have raised the possibility, not a real halachic problem But a of a possible similarity to gambling when you have a raffle to send one person to Crown Heights from Eretz Israel. And so the Rebbe says, "I have a solution for this. Make it

19:41 Speaker 1 clear that the person who wins is the of every single person who did not win, and that way they all are considered as though they traveled too, and that way everybody won." So since everybody won, everybody already acquired the thing that they were hoping to acquire, and there's not even a concern of a concern of raffle, of a raffle being similar to gambling. The last thing in writing that I wanna show you is a . What we got from those last two letters is that there was a raffle regularly, a lottery system, a raffle system where people put in a little money to gain a very large prize of a trip to America, and the Rebbe congratulates it, encourages it, and is actually happy that it's specifically a kind of . Explains that it's not a Halakhic problem. We have here more support for the idea of a raffle. Uh, this is the . It's printed in . The is from . We don't have a lot of details on it, but I will try to give you what I can. The Rebbe says here, "Since we spoke of ." Apparently, on Simchat Torah, the Rebbe had spoken to this individual about getting, uh, a lot of their money back, about gaining more money this year, and to cover some of their problems. I guess they'd had a bad business year. So the Rebbe gives him another that he should have more money. He says, "In the summer months, you should speak to a certain

20:46 Speaker 1 person." Unclear what any of that is. He says, "In the summer, speak to a certain Rav so that there won't be a of something." Continuing. A lot of times in , for those who are not familiar, they'll cut out some of the personal notes, so we're just-- we're probably missing personal details. The Rebbe adds that he should be aware that the price of gold is supposed to go up, uh, more than a thousand, maybe a thousand dollars, I don't know. It's supposed to go up significantly, the price of gold, and the Rebbe is cautioning him. I guess it's a businessman of some kind. Finally, this part, this is the part that we need. The Rebbe asked him in , "Have you bought a lottery ticket over the course of this entire period?" And then the Rebbe continued by saying, "It would be very appropriate for you to buy a lottery ticket." So we do have one where the Rebbe specifically told somebody to buy a lottery ticket. Uh, there are rumors that different secretaries of the Rebbe were told to go out and buy lottery tickets at various times. Uh, it's somewhat-- it's sort of a-- I wasn't able to find a lot of it in writing, but it certainly is part of the oral history of the Lubavitch, that the Rebbe told individuals to buy lottery tickets. I do have one video of it. I don't know how it'll come through on the recording. I also don't know how you'll get to see it,

21:48 Speaker 1 but, you know, we'll watch it and we'll see what happens. Let me try to make it, uh, see if I can set it up.

21:55 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

21:58 Speaker 1 So you can't hear much. Let me just read the footnotes, um, the, in case you can't see them or in case you're listening. Somebody asked the Rebbe, uh, it's like, um, they're sitting in-- they're standing in front of the Rebbe, the Rebbe's in a chair, and the person asked the Rebbe, "Should I, should I play the lottery? Should I buy a lottery ticket?" And then the person says, "I won the lottery. I wanna know if I should still play it." The Rebbe says back in English, "Yes, but you should only buy one ticket." "No more, no more. No more than one ticket." So we have this, uh, video from the Rebbe where the Rebbe specifically tells somebody to buy a lottery ticket, but only one ticket. That makes a lot of sense when you think about how, uh, how works and how works, and how making a works. Uh, the notion of buying one ticket and not multiple tickets. Buying one ticket is making a for an incredible from Hashem for that would be that would not be within the normal way of acquiring wealth. So if you make a , make a basic vessel for acquiring wealth, that would be considered a way of making a for Hashem to give you a special . But buying more than one ticket shows that you don't really trust Hashem, you trust a system. And that brings us back to our original English letter. The Rebbe says here, "Regarding your invention of a system of winning a

23:05 Speaker 1 certain lottery, I'm not, I, I'm not interested," says the Rebbe. "I don't think it works," et cetera, et cetera. But more than that, lotteries are a matter of divine providence, which means there is no system. It means you have to make a . What a looks like, what it looks like to make a proper vessel for divine providence is to have a ticket. Can't win the lottery without a ticket. So you buy one lottery ticket, and certainly not two, because the moment you buy two or invent a special system for winning a lottery, uh, at that point, you're stepping outside of divine providence of and claiming and I don't think any of our Rebbeim are in favor of that. However, the lottery itself looks to me like this is a lot of encouragement across the board for buying lottery tickets. Please feel free to go out and buy yourself one lottery ticket. Thank you all very much.