קמעות ואמונות טפלות

00:02 Speaker 1 This is Igress, and today we are going to talk about kameas, which are amulets. Um, I see these in the mikvah all the time. I probably shouldn't talk that much on the podcast about the mikvah, but I see these in the mikvah all the time, that people will hang them on the, on the hooks when they're going in. I don't even know if they're technically allowed in mikvahs. But an amulet is, uh, supposedly, I've never been inside one before, but they're these tiny necklace thingies usually that you wear around your neck, and, uh, they usually are written on parchment, and they're usually written by hand, although I don't think there are particular-- uh, there are rules, but I'm not aware of them. In Kabbalah sefer how to write them, you write names of God, you write names of malachim, you write holy things in these amulets, and they're supposed to protect you from all sorts of harm, they're supposed to protect, uh, from disease, they're supposed to help women who are in, uh, with childbirth. They're, uh, they're supposed to help with parnasa. They have all sorts of amulets for all sorts of things. You guys are familiar with these, right? I'm not telling you about amulets for the first time. Kameas, it's a thing. And it's not a made-up thing. It's in a lot of Kabbalah sefer. It is definitely part of the faith. Uh, at the same time, we're gonna look at a bunch of letters today that show the Rebbe is lukewarm

00:56 Speaker 1 on them at best, and in some cases, specifically tells people that he is against them. So the Rebbe is lukewarm to against the average kamea, with exceptions, and with that, we're gonna look at these letters today. So the first one I wanna show you is just kind of an opening letter to get us in the mood for Igress, then we're gonna take a step back, look at sichas, look at the Friydig Rebbe stuff. This letter is labeled Tes Shin Tzadok Vav. It's from Chaf Dalet Menachem-- Chaf Dalet Mar-Cheshvan, excuse me, Chaf Dalet Mar-Cheshvan, of Tov Shin Chaf Ches, and the Rebbe writes Shalom Uvracha, and it's a very short letter in the middle. "LekasaDerech Kamea," you wrote to me about an amulet. "Ein ze meaneh getz leinu." This isn't something we do. It's not our minhag. So there we go. The Rebbe's not saying asur, the Rebbe's not saying evil. He's saying this is not our minhag. Chabad Chassidim don't do kameas. "Mi yiskatzu b'bitachon l'Hashem yitbarach." You know what we do do? You know what we do? We strengthen our faith, we strengthen our trust. "B'bitachon Hashem yitbarach, cholef kol basar m'apav oases," who heals all flesh and does wondrous things. "Mi hazugos ha'chiteves," that is the best of all of the segulos. That's among the best of the segulos. Somebody writes to the Rebbe that they're not, that they're not well, they're sick, rachmanah litzlan, and the Rebbe s-- and, and he says, "Maybe I'm gonna try a kamea or wear an amulet."

01:57 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe says back, "That's not how we handle problems. The way that we handle problems is by strengthening our trust in Hashem, who heals all. That is among the most effective segulos." So with that in mind, I wanna take a step back and look at a bunch of letters and even a sicha that talks about the Rebbe's take on amulets, and I'm going to start with a positive take. There is one place where the Rebbe seems to really like amulets. He talks about how great they are, and he specifically wants people to have them. And this is when a child is about to be born. So this is an edited sicha. It's from Yutiz Kislev Tov Shin, Mem Zayin, and the Rebbe writes, or says, but then writes, "Yedom habor se minagam shel Yisrael me'kadmos dinav, me'kadmos dinav," there is a well-known cu-the custom from the Jewish people from the earliest days. "Mi Yisrael torahi," and many Yisrael, when the Jewish people have a custom, it becomes Torah. "Lisle suvei zeh eiletus fisgais a kameas im shemos hapsukim," to hang in a woman's room when she's about to give birth, uh, phrases or even kameas, the Rebbe says, even amulets that have names of God, that have verses on them, "Shem Hamalos, the Ki Etzebezah." These are those little laminated cards that everybody has on their strollers, and they also you're supposed to hang it in the hospital room or wherever the woman's about to give birth. This is very well-established custom. "B'chol makom

03:00 Speaker 1 tif'al al gei," every place according to its custom. "Kisgula l'shmira," and this is a segula. This is supposed to be a, uh, a protection, a shmira, to protect the woman who's about to give birth. "Leiledus livavah," for both her and for the baby. "Him nigeh l'ileda atsma," this protects during the pregnancy, during the childbirth itself. "Shyeish lehu rav nakil," that it should go well and it should be easy. "Vehem nigeh liyamim shel achei leida," it also protects in the days after she gives birth. "Leilachim shom teves," there'll be good days, uh, long days and, uh, good-- long days and good years for both her and for the child. "Ve'odi nikar nigeh leda achei neled," and the Rebbe says there's actually a second advantage. Since this does have holy names on it and it's not wrapped up in a, in a kamea, it's actually these kameas, they are, uh, they're open and they're available. The young baby, "Shmiyad b'seiz la'olam ha'ba," when this newborn comes out, immediately the first thing that happens when this newborn hits the air of the world, "Yehi muku b'inyan hakodesh," he's immediately surrounded by holy things. The baby is born into a room with a kamea, that's good for the baby. A baby's born into a room with a Shema Israel, that's the first thing he sees, k'viyachol. "K'iddur sh'divarim sh'dreish me'atin ha'pilu ben yema," that it is well known that the things that a child sees, a baby sees, even when they're only one day old, "Yeish lahem hashpah gam

04:00 Speaker 1 b'gil ulasah," these will also affect him when he's older. "Ach sh'niskal b'derech hanema gam bachochma v'nefesh," this is also known psychologically nowadays, the Rebbe says, that the psychologists now will tell you that what children see in their very earliest formative moments has an impact on them for their entire lives. "L'chehen k'shmakivim ozeh b'inyan hakodesh," so when you surround a child with an amulet and things like amulets when they're about to be born, this not only protects the mother and gives her a shmira and also gives her an easier delivery and also helps her have a long and happy and healthy life, it also helps the child have a spiritual life. So this is the one place where we see kameas as a totally positive thing. The Rebbe uses the word kameas, and in the description of what a kamea is, he wants these to be around people who are about to give birth so that the child will benefit from it and so the woman will bene-- so that the woman will benefit from it when she is delivering. This is the last positive thing I have to say about kameas . The, the positive end of a kamea begins and ends with a woman about to give birth in the room where she is about to deliver. We're super into kameas then. Other than that, you're gonna see a lot of negativity. I don't mean negativity, God forbid, but I mean the opposite position. So this is, uh, the Rebbe-- this is the Friydig

04:55 Speaker 1 Rebbe. The Friydig Rebbe, this letter is labeled Beis Tov Shin Peh Vav in his Igress. Says here, "Bracha v'shalom," he's writing to a woman, "U'minha amechtav," I'm responding to your letter. "Hinei lamod chochmas hakabbala b'chalal u'v'inyaneha kameas v'segulas v'eifen hashimush bahen ra'at ein l'rasha, ein. El mi shemekayem et mitzvot v'yirat shamayim u'ba'aseiha mufla u'mushlam b'meidas teves, b'meidas midas teves al pi haTorah." It seems this woman wrote to the Rebbe that she was interested in getting into writing kameas. That is the implication of the letter, that she wrote to the Friydig Rebbe saying that she was gonna learn some Kabbalah sefer and she was going to write some amulets. Either she was asking for herself or for somebody else, but it certainly is a letter directed towards somebody who wants to be an amulet writer. And the Rebbe says here, the Friydig Rebbe says, "To learn the wisdom of Kabbalah in general, and specifically the parts of Kabbalah that discuss how to make amulets and how to create these segulas and how exactly to use them, nobody is allowed to do that unless they are somebody who fulfills all mitzvahs with incredible fear of Heaven, and somebody who has incredible intellect of ba'aseiha mufla, an incredible intellect of mushlam, somebody who's complete in all good midas." Basically, you have to be perfect, uh, according to the Torah. That is, you have to be perfect in Halakha, you have to be perfect in midas, you have to be perfect in yirat shamayim. And once you're perfect in

06:01 Speaker 1 all these things, you're allowed to dabble in this part of Kabbalah, whereas generally speaking, if you are not one of those things, you should not be in those books. This is particularly interesting and perhaps confusing. We're gonna see a letter in a moment where somebody is a little bit confused by this idea because, you know, our, our Rebbeim are definitely into Pri Meitzah Torah. The idea of Chassidus is to bring Kabbalah and the mysteries of the Torah to the general public. At the same time, there are parts of Kabbalah that our Rebbeim really don't want us learning unless we are already very accomplished in other parts of Torah, and this seems to be one of them. We're gonna see a letter in a moment where someone writes to the Rebbe saying, "I thought you were into Kabbalah. Why are you not into me making kameas?" And the Rebbe says, "No, I'm into Chassidus, not Kabbalah. There's a difference." So we'll see this in just a moment. We're going on to the third letter. This letter is from Areba. This is labeled Zain Tav Kuf Nun. The year is Tav Shin Chaf Alef, Chaf Bet, Chaf Beis Teves of Shev, Tav Shin Chaf Alef. And I'm only gonna show you one, uh-- Actually, no, this is the letter I was talking about, so let me show you the whole thing. The Rebbe writes in the second paragraph, "B'kasav sh'kit lu tzvis li l'mishu l'zas midin hakabbalah." The Rebbe says, "You write to me that I more

06:57 Speaker 1 or less commanded somebody to be involved in studying Kabbalah." And the Rebbe says, "Hine, afshstu posenu zehu sh'checha matzuya." The Rebbe says, "Even though people tend to forget things nowadays, so maybe I'm off. Abba chalah l'regad digegen zeh klal. I, I don't usually do things like this." So the Rebbe says, essentially, uh, "I, I didn't do this." He says it in a very polite way, but the Rebbe says, "I, I don't tell people to learn Kabbalah, so I think he's mistaken." "V'zeshe ken, v'zeshe ken hini metzav hu al limed primis hateira, v'deireh, v'deireh miskal v'tereis hashidishe havashante, v'tereis hakualis, v'tereis bin bozaken, tereis hasidis habad, v'kai udul beforesom." "I think," says the Rebbe, "this person misunderstood me. I command people all the time that they should be learning primis hateira, that they should be learning Hasidis, which was brought down by the Baal Shem Tov, that's general Hasidis, and then brought into the Torah of the Alt Rebbe, Torres Hasidis Chabad, as is well known and is famous. But I certainly haven't been telling people to dabble in the, in the original Kabbalah Sefar, and that's not something, that's not advice I typically give." Obviously, there were individuals that the Rebbe did encourage to learn Kabbalah, and some people who the Rebbe even referred to their knowledge of Kabbalah, my Kabbalist is what I'm thinking, right? My Mekubal. Uh, the Rebbe had people that he, uh, that he, that he encouraged to learn Kabbalah, but this is not a general herah. The general, the general

08:01 Speaker 1 public is not supposed to be studying this stuff. And regarding that, we get to our point, "L'sheilasah, hei des kameas, when you've asked me about amulets, hinuleish mativ yanam el klal. I haven't heard anything about amulets." I don't know if this means that the Rebbe has no herah on whether it's our custom. I don't know if the Rebbe means by this that he doesn't know anything about how to write them. He might mean that in that letter, that I don't know how to do kameas. Asking me how to make one, I don't know. But either way, the Rebbe has very little interest in them. We're seeing this as sh- this immediate shlilah. Somebody says, "You, you asked me about kameas, and you asked me about amulets. I don't know anything about this. We're moving right along." We go to our fourth letter. This letter is from Chaf Dal Menachem. Uh, see, I did it twice now. Marchesva Tav Shin Chaf Tes is the letter I showed you at the very beginning. I'm just reviewing it here. "You wrote to me about kameas. This is not our minhag at all. Instead, strengthen your faith and your trust in Hashem because that is among the greatest segulas." Okay. Uh, these are not printed in Igris. One was pr-printed in Kfar Chabad in the Gillian eight forty-one, and the second one was a selimitive copy of the Rebbe's holy handwriting, and they're printed in Shocher Menachem, so I couldn't find them anywhere else. I just gave it to

08:58 Speaker 1 you on the screen, but the two of these, I wanna read these. Uh, the one that's printed in Kfar Chabad says, "Vayna mechtav, mechtav eires kamea." The, the Rebbe wrote to somebody, "I'm responding to your letter about an amulet." And the Rebbe writes, "Hakamea teviyezu hushu rubenei shi'yakhya, yis, shi'yakhyu," excuse me, "yisnagu bachaya yem yem al pi toras teireiseneteras chaem likaimos mitzesea leam nema bachai bohaem." The Rebbe says, "You wrote to me about amulets, and if you want to know what the best amulet in, in the entire world is, it's not, you, you know, it's not that you find some great Kabbalist and have him write down something on very fine parchment or have the particular right names. If you want the best amulet," says the Rebbe, "you and your children should live their daily lives according to the teachings of our holy Torah, which is the Torah of life, and they shall fulfill all the mitzvahs that, that, all the mitzvahs. The Torah says, "V'chai bahem, a person will live by them." So if a person wants to live, they already know what to do. People tend to get kameas, they tend to get these amulets because they're afraid of something bad happening to them. The Torah makes it very clear, how to make sure nothing bad happens to you, and that is to invest in Torah and mitzvahs. So the Rebbe says, "If you want a good amulet, I have one for you." "Im b'chokasei teirechu," right? "Im b'chokasei chai, im b'chu, im

09:55 Speaker 1 b'chu kasei teirechu." Follow my commandments, follow God's commandments, and you're gonna have a good life. Uh, this one is a copy of the Rebbe's handwriting. The Rebbe says, "Kameforesom ein li ese b-b- kameas." It is well known, it is, it is famous, it's well known that I don't do kameas. So somebody apparently wrote to the Rebbe asking about making an amulet for them. And the Rebbe, of course, is a big Mekubal in addition to everything else, and in theory, without a doubt, he could make a kamea. But the Rebbe says, "As is well known, I don't involve myself in amulets." "Ye duah azharas baze," there are all sorts of warnings about this, "ves kaved terasei yaslicha." Uh, and kaved terasei, whoever wrote to him, cl- clearly it was a Rav who'd written to him, says, "I apologize to you, but you're well known, it's well known that this is something that people have to be cautious about." He might be referring to Tam Ti and Meshen Alecha, that people are not supposed to be Magid to see this. That's the similar lashon the Rebbe uses when people try to see the future in certain ways. But in any event, the Rebbe says to this Rav, "I, I apologize, but I don't do kameas. It's not my thing. I don't do amulets." And once again, I, I do wanna stress, amulets are not, uh, are not something that people invented in the past couple of years. Amulets are all over legitimate Kabbalah. They're in the regular

10:52 Speaker 1 Sefar. The Rebbe is not rejecting some new age idea. The Rebbe is saying that this is a very old legitimate Kabbalistic idea, and we don't do it. It's not our thing. Okay. So we have here another letter from the Rebbe. This one is labeled Yud Alef Tav Yud Beis. And now we're getting to what I call our why section. We just made it very clear the Rebbe is not into kameas. I don't think we need much more to prove that. Uh, if we're trying to build a shita, does the Rebbe want you to wear a kamea? The answer-- The question is, are you in childbirth at the moment? If you're, if you're delivering a baby, then maybe, and otherwise, uh, otherwise, I would say no. But the Rebbe hasn't really said why. We've gotten hints in this letter over here. Uh, this n-- th-this letter, the Rebbe had said that, uh, maybe you should strengthen your trust in Hashem instead. We had over here, the best kamea is keeping mitzvahs. So maybe we're getting an in-- maybe we're getting an indication that the Rebbe feels that you're, uh, sort of abdicating responsibility by wearing a kamea. Let's see what the Rebbe says as to why specifically. "I'm responding to your letter," says the Rebbe. This letter is labeled, uh, Yud Alef Tav Yud Beis. It's from Tes Zayin Shvat Tav Shin Lamed He. And the Rebbe says, "I am replying to your letter," um, "Ad shelach nechag Hodesh HaChavall et Tevet nes vaklal sanagas yom

11:50 Speaker 1 al pi Shulchan Aruch." And for the following, for the following, uh, couple days... Yes. For the following couple days, um, following Pesach, in addition to your general daily conduct according to the Code of Jewish Law, the Shulchan Aruch, "Yishnad lun tzeh aved l'chol hapachas v'shas achades b'chol yom chol." I want you to find work a couple hours every day. This person had written to the Rebbe about Parnassa problems. They were having trouble making money, and the Rebbe says, "I want you to work a couple hours every day, even if you can't find exactly the right job. It's gonna start putting you in the right position." And, uh, furthermore, "Yafsik li gamed meshech kol zman zeh ve'aseyas segulas vekameas, vafilu likris vesfar mandech kol zeh." The Rebbe says, "And you know what else I want you to do? I want you to work a little bit during the day, even if it's not necessarily in the field that you're hoping for. And also, I want you to completely stop with this segula thing, with this kamea thing, these amulets. I don't even want you to read books that discuss them. I don't even want you reading the Kabbalah books that describe amulets, even if you're not gonna make one." Uh, and then after Pesach, or if you do everything I'm telling you in the meantime, if you do those things, certainly the situation will have improved by then. Then I want you to write to me again, and we'll take it from there, and Hashem should

12:54 Speaker 1 help you. So the Rebbe says to somebody struggling who's having Parnassa problems, who's saying, "I wanna make a Kamea. I wanna make an amulet." The Rebbe says, "No, I want you to live according to Shulchan Aruch for a little while, for a couple of weeks, I want you to focus on working a little bit and staying away from Kabbalas Sefarim in general and from all these Segulas, and certainly from Kameas. And then after that, things will have improved since then. You can write back to me, and we can take things from there." So we're seeing here the Rebbe telling somebody essentially what we guessed, which is that the Rebbe doesn't seem to like when people try to abdicate responsibility by saying, "I'm going to fix my problems with a Kamea," when there are more, uh-- when there are easier, more direct, and more Torahdik ways to fix things. Somebody who's having trouble with health, the Rebbe says Bitachon's the answer, not a Kamea. Somebody who's having trouble with, uh, worried about living, worried about how long they're going to live, the Rebbe says, "Why don't you do mitzvahs? Behayba." Somebody who's worried about Parnassa, the Rebbe says, "Why don't you go get yourself a job and live according to Shulchan Aruch? Uh, let's not worry about Kameas." So we're seeing the Rebbe pushing away the idea of an easy solution. You might remember that a long time ago, we saw a letter that was Al Berechza, that somebody wrote to the Rebbe saying that their

13:50 Speaker 1 daughter was having problems with her Yiddishkeit. I'm not sure exactly what the issue was, but certainly some form of Af Dera. And she writes to the Rebbe saying that she believes a witch has cursed her child. Remember this letter? She believes a witch has cursed her child. And the Rebbe says back regarding this, regarding this theory that a witch had cursed the child, "I want you I want that-- I want this out of your head entirely because as long as you believe that this is some witch's fault, you're not going to make any efforts on your own. You're going to believe this is supernatural and out of your hands. So what you're trying to do is pawn off responsibility by claiming the supernatural." I think this is a theme by the Rebbe, is that when people try to come to the Rebbe claiming that a problem in their lives and the world at large, et cetera, is due to supernatural, uh, intervention, the Rebbe rejects this entirely, not necessarily because supernatural intervention isn't part of the Hasidic canon, but because supernatural intervention is the best way to avoid personal responsibility. So I think we're seeing that in a lot of these letters. I wanna show you, uh, one more letter and then a bit of a Kese Shem Tov to top us off, and then we'll call it a day. The last letter that I wanna show you is over here. This is Tav Tav Samech Gimel. It's a relatively early letter from our Rebbe

14:49 Speaker 1 from Tes Vav Teis Tav Shin Yod Alef. And, uh, I think we saw this letter once before in a different context. I remember the words here. We're gonna be using it for something different, but this is a classic. This one is a, this is a classic letter. The Rebbe says here, . That is such an opening line. The Rebbe says, "I read your letter, I read it a second time, and I cannot believe what my eyes are seeing." "God gave you the best portion." "a great portion." The Rebbe says that without you putting in any special effort, God gave you the incredible merit of knowing Hasidus and also of being well-learned in it. And you're standing here in doubt. And you're not sure whether your task in life should be to teach this Torah that you were, uh, for no, uh, for no, uh, for no reasons of your own, that you were given a gift of being good at. You're wondering whether you should be teaching the mysteries of the Torah, which connects the mysteries of the Jewish people, with the mysteries of Hashem. You have all sorts of reasons why you wanna leave. Basically, someone writes to the Rebbe saying, "I'm not sure I should be teaching Hasidus anymore." And the Rebbe says, "I read once and twice in your letter, and, and I just-- I can't believe what I'm seeing. You're telling me that you got this incredible good fortune that you know Hasidus, you're good at teaching it, and you're not

16:03 Speaker 1 sure that you're supposed to be teaching it?" The Rebbe continues, "God had to do all sorts of things in order to make sure that your portion, your lottery, would fall on the ability to be somebody who's a Mechanech, a teacher of people when it comes to Darkei Hasidus and the ways of Hasidus." Your entire job, God decided, and He had to rearrange the whole universe to give you the special job of putting warmth and, uh, and life and light into people. That's the job of somebody who teaches Hasidus. And here you're not sure if you should keep on doing it. You have all these reasons that are apparently-- you have ready all these holy reasons. You have sort of, uh, excuses ready to go. That you already received a specific instruction from the Friediker Rebbe. That you should be learning Schita. And from what you tell me, you're good at Schita as well. And you're not sure you should do that either, and I'm sure you have good reasons for that too. So the Rebbe is saying, "You're telling me that you know you're good at teaching Hasidus, but you're not sure if you should do it. You know that the Friediker Rebbe wants you to be a Schita as well, and you're not sure you should do it. Where exactly are your doubts coming from?" The Rebbe says, "In exchange for all of that, and instead of everything that I just said to you, you should just be thinking this through and realizing that

17:16 Speaker 1 your talents have led you in a certain direction, and have led you in a certain direction, and God Himself has been leading you in a certain direction. Instead of all that, you've been looking into amulets lately." You've been asking Kabbalists what's going on with the shape of your face, and they can look at your face and tell your future. People are looking at the-- You're doing palmistry, where they're looking at the lines in your hands. And they're trying to analyze your handwriting. You're going to fortune tellers. People who give themselves lashes. Basically, this person is saying, "I'm not sure what my direction in life should be. I've been going to the Kabbalists. I've been talking to them. I have to do my palm reading. I have Kameas, I have amulets. I'm doing all this Kabbalah stuff in order to figure out my future." And the Rebbe says, "I, I, I read your letter once and twice, and I am just astounded that somebody who so clearly has a talent and an ability and a God-given, uh, mission to be teaching Hasidus and a specific mission from the Friediker Rebbe to be involved in Schita is consulting amulets and people who can read in palmistry, uh, in order to figure out what they're supposed to be doing with their life." Uh, the Rebbe then continues by saying, "There's not that many days around." Every person has a limited amount of time in this world. And he goes on to say, "You don't have that much time,

18:22 Speaker 1 and, uh, you can't be wasting your time with all these ridiculous things." And furthermore, if you're involved in Kabbalah in order to better yourself, you should know that according to Toras HaChassidus, we fix our problems with Teshuva, Tefila, and Tzedaka. With Teshuva, with davening, and with learning, and with Tzedaka, and with giving charity. We don't fix our problems with magic. So the Rebbe really in this letter hits this person very hard with the idea that you're trying to find answers when the answers are already very apparent. You're trying to use Kameas when Hashgacha Protis, if you just stared at it for five minutes, you'd see it right there. And you're trying to solve your own spiritual problems instead of doing it the, the hard way and the boring way with Teshuva, Tefila, Torah, and Tzedaka. You're trying to solve it with magic, and it's just . And the Rebbe really hits this point very hard. I think we see this in a lot of the Rebbe's letters on the supernatural in general, that, uh, that while he doesn't dismiss them as being a thing in Yiddishkeit, he dismisses them as being a crutch for people who are trying to find an easy way out. I want to just conclude with, uh, this is in Keser Shem Tov, and, uh, and it's, uh, it's strange for Keser Shem Tov because most of Keser Shem Tov is supposed to be the words of the Ba'al Shem Tov. But this one, whoever wrote Keser Shem Tov, and I'm

19:24 Speaker 1 not sure who wrote it. Whoever wrote Keser Shem Tov, uh, this is-- they, they wrote here just some things about the Ba'al Shem Tov that you should know. Uh, some things that most people don't know about the Ba'al Shem Tov. And they say here that, uh, that first of all, we need to, uh, we need to start off by explaining the Inyan fun Ba'al Shem Tov. What is the Ba'al Shem Tov exactly? In order to do that, V'zar gezuntheit the Ba'al Shem Tov is nit given mofschet fun elok. You gotta understand that the Ba'al Shem Tov is not removed from the world. People think that he's some holy man on a mountain. He's not removed from the world. He's entirely in the world, very much in the world. He's clothed within the world. And by being clothed within the world, that was how he had, uh, deher in Elokos. The way that he got his deher in Elokos was, and is his, uh, what's deher in Elokos? His, his perceived, his, his feeling, his, uh, his experience of Godliness did not come from separation from the world. It came from engagement in the world specifically. And therefore, the title Ba'al Shem Tov is actually one of the lowest levels of the Ba'al Shem Tov. If you want to talk about the Ba'al Shem Tov in his lowest state, you describe him as somebody who could master names. Because normally, Ba'al Shem Tov means the master of the name. There were all sorts of Ba'al Hashem

20:21 Speaker 1 who could use God's name in order to make all sorts of miracles. This is a, this is a madriga katanim, uh, it is a very low level when we're talking about the Ba'al Shem Tov, the fact that he could manipulate the names of God. And he goes on to say that being able to, uh, move names around is not a hefer madriga. It's not a particularly high level at all. You're mistaken. People think that these Kabbalists, they can move names around, they can make amulets, they can do magic. They think that's some sort of a high level. Uh, that's not lofty at all. Uh, to use a name and have it cause something is nothing particularly special because, this is a wonderful line, says here that the person knows the name, but the name doesn't know him. That is that the Ba-- some, some people use the names. They use the name of God. What are they doing? They're using God's name, but God doesn't think very highly of them. The real, the real trick is to G- that God should know your name, not that you should know God's name. It's a very interesting way to put it. Uh, and anyone who knows any of the Kesei HaAriza"l, he says, uh, or sorry, any of the Sh-- any of the Shaar, any of the, uh, any of the Yichudim, they can do this. You don't-- You, you read a couple books, you'll figure it out. It's actually not a madriga. It's not that difficult.

21:13 Speaker 1 And, uh, this was not anywhere near the madriga of the Ba'al Shem Tov. There's a Ba'al Shem of, uh, of Liadjan. I don't know who that was. He says even he could do this. It's not really a big deal. Um, to say to the Ba'al Shem Tov that, that, that this is what makes him special is entirely incorrect, and, uh, we can't accept that at all. This last line is what I'm looking at, though. Ba'al Shem Tov in the Ze'ena Kamea-- in Ze'ena Kameas, excuse me, when it comes to the Kameas, he did not have gedart hav in kein shemos. When he made Kameas, he didn't need to use names. He could make a Kamea out of anything. He wasn't-- It wasn't that he was able to manipulate God's name and force magic into the world. He had such a connection with Hashem that when he used amulets, he didn't need to put anything in his amulet. He could give you a blank amulet, it would work just as well. The entire idea of manipulating shemos, ma-manipulating names of God and names of angels in order to create a hashpa, th-there's a, there's a shlila of this in Keser Shem Tov that's actually a very low level. Uh, almo-- you know, a, a, a, uh, a what do you call it? An armchair Kabbalist could put together a Kab-- could put together a working amulet. It's not impressive. He's not saying they don't work. He's saying it's just not impressive. If you wanna meet somebody

22:12 Speaker 1 really special, you wanna meet a tzadik who can really get something done, you want somebody who's able to change the world without necessarily having to draw down holy names. So in summary, to go through everything that we've done together, uh, amulets are totally approved for childbirth, and that's pretty much it. The Chida says that only a true Yiras Shamaim should be involved in studying or writing these amulets, so this area of Kabbalah appears to be broadly off-limits without-- unless you have significant spiritual preparation. The Rebbe sort of echoes this in the letter that we saw where he says he's surprised to hear that people think that he wants us to learn Kabbalah. He doesn't want, generally speaking, doesn't want peop-- doesn't want most people to learn Kabbalah. Uh, he wants people to learn Chassidus. We then saw a handful of letters that basically all say the same thing. Uh, amulets are a thing, but they're not a thing for us. We have a few simple no's. We have a couple that explain themselves a little further. Let me get into the why of it all. Why is the Rebbe-- Why does the Rebbe not seem thrilled with th-these amulets? We have two letters and a guess regarding why the Rebbe's not thrilled with amulets. One of our letters says that it simply won't help. Uh, there's no way out of the-- Th-there, there's no way out of the troubles that you face through Kameas. You're gonna get out of the troubles you face through Bitachon,

23:11 Speaker 1 through Yishad Los, uh, and an amulet just isn't the way out. Get a job, have Bitachon, do Shulchan Aruch. Uh, another explanation we saw is that Hashem sends such clear signs to you every day, uh, that you would already know the answers to your problems and the way out of your trouble if you would just wake up and be more aware of the Hashgacha practice in your life. If you would just recognize the incredible gifts you've been given and what direction you're being pushed in, you wouldn't need to be able to see the future. So you're making amulets when all you really have to do is reflect on the obvious hand of God that is guiding you. And, uh, finally, in this letter-- not this letter, this piece of Keser Shem Tov, we detect a disdain for this sort of Kabbalah, which really might be the backbone of some of the Rebbe's Shita against, against amulets. We see a sort of disdain for this, that this is, uh, it's legitimate, but it's, uh, but it's, it's a, uh, it's not so special. Uh, he says, "People think the Ba'al Shem Tov was special 'cause he could do magic with names, but anybody can do that. The trick isn't knowing how to use God's names. The trick is the names knowing something about you." Uh, the Ba'al Shem can make an amulet without names. So what makes a Rebbe special is not some secret knowledge of God, it's the fact that God focuses on a Rebbe.

24:08 Speaker 1 Uh, so what we get from this, I think sort of maybe is a, uh, this is B'dar Chafshin, but I wonder if this is part of the backbone of the general Chabad Shita against getting too involved in supernatural things like amulets, like seeing the future, like palmistry, is that we don't really think very much of it in the first place. It's a relatively low madriga. And even if it was not such a relatively low madriga, how effective is it? Does it really, uh, does it really do much compared to all the things that are tried and true Segulas? To borrow the Rebbe's word, the most tried and true Segula for any sort of success is keeping Torah and Mitzvahs, uh, although I'm not sure that's the one that people want so badly. I think probably people would prefer to wear something around their necks rather than keeping Shulchan Aruch. But at the end of the day, the best Segula in the entire world, and certainly the best amulet, is keeping Torah, investing in Mitzvahs, Ahavas Yisrael, Bitachon, and all the things that we already know we're supposed to be doing. Thank you all very much.

24:59 Speaker 2 So I do, I do have an interesting thing to say, two things to say. First of all, the Rebbe did give somebody a Kamea himself.

25:05 Speaker 1 No way. Do you know who?

25:06 Speaker 2 Absolutely. Absolutely. I believe it's-

25:08 Speaker 1 Is it Chaim?

25:08 Speaker 2 It's Dovid Groner's wife from Australia.

25:11 Speaker 1 Really? Was it for childbirth?

25:12 Speaker 2 The Rebbe gave-- No. The Rebbe gave-- She had something. I think she-- I th- I think the story, maybe, maybe Rabbi Sabol knows, but there was a story with her, I think, going to the Rebbe, telling the Rebbe she was afraid or something. I don't know what. And the Rebbe gave her a Kamea. So there's a, there's a story about that, the Rebbe giving her a Kamea. It's the only person that a known Kamea was given to as far as I know. I believe it was the wife. It's like Dovid Groner, Mendel Sandhaus could, uh, could, um, confirm that.

25:36 Speaker 1 That's so cool, especially when you look at this, uh, this extract here. It says, "Kameh Forson and, and a Kameas."

25:40 Speaker 2 Yeah. Exactly.

25:40 Speaker 1 The Rebbe writes, "It is well-known I don't do Kameas." That's so cool.

25:43 Speaker 2 It's fascinating. It's a fascinating thing. It's a very-- It's a one, one, one time thing that, that I heard the story of. I believe it was just like Dovid Groner's wife in Australia that the Rebbe sent her a Kamea or gave her a Kamea or sent through her husband a Kamea for, a Kamea for her.