הוצאת רישיון נהיגה

00:01 This is Igress, and today is, uh, less of a shita shiur where we try to figure out exactly what the Rebbe thinks about something and more of a survey, to be perfectly honest. Uh, there's a lot out there on the Rebbe's answers to people who wanted to get driver's licenses, especially in the '50s when it wasn't quite as common. I don't know how common it was in the '50s for the average person to get a driver's license, but I can tell you from the letters, it's very clear that for, uh, Hasidic Jews, it was not at all common to have driver's license in the nineteen fifties and certainly not for women. So a lot of them reached out to the Rebbe asking whether they should get a driver's license or not, and they got interesting answers. Some of them are, uh, very direct, a clear yes or a clear no, and obviously, there's no shita there. That's just, uh, based on the person. The Rebbe told some people, yes, get a driver's license, and some people no. But in a lot of the other letters, the Rebbe actually develops something of a background to why somebody would or would not get a driver's license, and based on that, I've sorted our letters today. We have like s-- we have literally seventeen of them today, but a lot of them are very short. Don't worry. Uh, I've sorted them into three categories. There's the yeses, there's the ifs, if you do something, then yes, and then

00:58 there's the straight-up nos. And if we have time at the end, I'll show you some of the letters where the Rebbe develops a shita regarding women, uh, getting driver's licenses in those early days. It's worth noting that as far as I know, nowadays, people just get a driver's license. I don't think this is something that, uh, most adults go to their mashpia over. But, uh, at one point, people were always writing to the Rebbe before they did this, at least enough that we have a large amount of material on it. So without further ado, this is the first letter we're looking at. It's barely a letter in-- meaning that all that happens here is the Rebbe circles something. If you look below the line, this letter is labeled Yud Beis Tav Beis. It, uh, is from the year Taf Shin Lamed Ches. And down here it says that somebody wrote to the Rebbe that, uh, they were interested in getting a driver's license. They wanted to know if they should drive. They wrote to the Rebbe saying, "Is it appropriate for me to learn how to drive a car?" And the Rebbe crossed out the word "haim," is it appropriate, and made an arrow to say, "Nachen, yes." Meaning the Rebbe wrote back by, uh, signaling, took away the should I, and pointed to the yes, indicating that, yes, they should learn how to drive a car. So that's a pretty clear yes for that individual. This, uh, is a Torah that I don't know.

02:01 I don't believe it's printed in Igress yet. At least I didn't find it there. Maybe it is, and I just missed it. But this is a Torah from Taf Shin Yud Beis. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe about getting a driver's license, and the Rebbe wrote back that he was very happy to hear that they were getting one. "You write to me about your situation," says the Rebbe, "and you also write to me that you've started learning how to drive." "I think it's a very good idea." "I'm sure you'll be able to pass the test. I'm sure you'll be able to receive a license for this." "And I hope," says the Rebbe, "I hope that this ends up helping you with your job, helping you with parnassa." And the Rebbe goes on to say that I expect that you're going to strengthen your learning of Torah, both the revealed and the hidden aspects of it, and that you'll part-p-participate in shiurim that are taught in public like the Igress shiur. And this is also a keli, uh, participating in public shiurim, sitting in a public shiur is a keli, is how you make a vessel for receiving blessings from Hashem, especially when it comes to parnassa, and you have the Rebbe's signature, presumably near the bottom somewhere. Okay. One more clear yes from the Rebbe before things start to get interesting. This letter is labeled Beis Peh Vav. It is from the year Taf Shin Yod Gimel. And the Rebbe says here, The Rebbe says, "I

03:16 was pleased to hear that you received your license to learn how to-- your, your driver's license." "And God should then send you, uh, parnassa, your livelihood, be-archava, in a expansive way." "And you should increase in your learning of Nigla and of Chassidus," "In a relaxed way because now you'll have a job." The Rebbe says, "Now that you've learned how to drive a car, I expect you will learn how to drive your body and your animal soul in the right direction using your neshamah as the driver." We'll see actually the Rebbe expands upon this in the last letter we're gonna look at today, and he gives a berakhah for So we have a couple clear yes answers. And you would think if you look at it-- if you looked at just these three letters, that, uh, the Rebbe loves driving, loves driver's licenses, and always says yes. Uh, you would be very incorrect. You would be correct about three letters. Let me open the section of ifs and nos with a wonderful sikha. Uh, I bet you a bunch of you know this sikha because it's got so many, uh, it's got so many interesting points in it that I feel like it must get circ-- it must get circulated a lot. But if you're unaware of this one, this one will thrill you. It's a very early sikha from the Rebbe. It's from the year Taf Shin Yod Alef. Uh, it's in Terias Menachem, Volume two on page one ninety-six, and the Rebbe tells a

04:27 story. He says, The Rebbe says, "Somebody walked into my "With me. He talked to me, and he spent a half an hour talking to me about his car, about the fact that he wants to drive a car." And the Rebbe says, "Regarding his godly soul and his animalistic soul and the constant war that is fighting-- that is going on between them, he doesn't mention a word because it doesn't matter to him." "You know what-- we wanna know what matters to him. What matters to him is a car." "And therefore, he comes in and wastes not just his time, but other people's time." And you know what? I, I assume that's a veiled reference to the Rebbe's time. He comes to the Rebbe for a half an hour talking about a car, and the Rebbe is not happy. The Rebbe says, "Why does this young man need a car?" "He is a young man. He has two healthy legs." "Thank God." "He can walk by foot. He doesn't need a car." And when he-- "When he's walking down the street, he could use that time to review or think about Chumash or Tehillim." "It would be worth the rest of his entire life just for the moments he would take walking down the street thinking about Torah." "And in exchange for that," "He wants to drive a car." "There you can't think about Chumash or about Tehillim. You're supposed to be driving." "Because you're busy driving the car." I already see some of the people in

05:49 our group who have self-driving cars or something like it saying, But this was in the year nineteen fifty-one. He has to look at the speedometer. He has to look at the traffic signals to figure out whether the lights are red or whether they're green. "And if he wants to show off just how strong his most base instincts can be, his animalistic soul," "To know without a ticket. He wants to prove that he can, you know, get through a red light without getting a ticket. He's busy. He's busy. He's either busy driving well or busy staring at his instruments or busy trying to break the law. He can't be thinking about Torah while he's driving, so, uh, this isn't for him." Now, the Rebbe talks about the Friediker Rebbe. He says the Friediker Rebbe, he was good at everything. Nonetheless, he never learned how to drive a car, but he was good at everything. But he did know other things. He knew how to ride on a horse. And he knew how to target shoot. That means target shooting with a gun. See, for Eliyahu Chaim one time told the Rebbe, "Shenatas pami merebbe," that he was one time traveling with the Friediker Rebbe. The Chaya had come to do Shabbos with him. This was when the Rebbe Rashab was still alive. "Uve'avar ban basmichas bamakam shenihiyu od leklitis lamata'ara," and they passed a place where there was like a target shooting. They passed a shooting range. "Hitzil larebbe, ha'eizeh la'eil reitkeit, le'hatzach mesira befleita bekli,

07:01 bekli lamata'ara." He motion-- He, he, he, he hinted to the Rebbe, he suggested to the Rebbe that they should have a shooting competition between the two of them at the target range. Rebbe Yochanan and the Friediker Rebbe agreed to have a target shooting contest with Eliyahu Chaim. "Umaph li ataver," and the shock was, "Sipur Eliyahu Chaim, harebi kal lamata'ara bechal yeria." The Friediker Rebbe hit the target every single time. "Vidu ami, v'Eliyahu Chaim bechal yeria chatasi es, es mata'ara." I missed the target every single time. "Naas linin," and into the Rebbe's is now returning to our point, and he continues with the chavrangan. But in any event, I, I don't know that we needed that for this year, but if you were unaware of the story of the Friediker Rebbe target shooting and winning a target shooting competition, you, you now know it. And what you really need from this is the Rebbe is not a fan of cars, of driving. I mean, I'm not gonna say that he's always against it. Of course, we just saw three yeses, but there's certainly some hesitance where the Rebbe says about one boy that comes to him to talk about, talk about his car and about his driving, "I don't know what you're doing driving. You got two good legs. Why don't you do some walking?" So on that note, I wanna transition now to some of the Rebbe's less warm responses to people who wanna drive, starting with, uh, a bunch of ifs, a bunch of

07:57 ifs. If you do the following things, the Rebbe is okay with you getting a driver's license, and if not, he doesn't wanna hear about it. So this letter is labeled Yud Aleph Tov Mem. It's from the year Taf Shin Lamed He. And the Rebbe says, "I'm responding to your question where you wrote to me about getting a driver's license." And the Rebbe says, "Yifne l'Rav de'ata dadasam." I want you to go to a Rav of your congregation and ask it like a shailah. So he says here it's a shailah for a Rav, not for a Rebbe, but for a Rav. You have to ask Al Pi Halakha if you should have a driver's license. I don't know the context, but I will tell you the Rebbe says that at least twice. There's another letter that's very similar. This is, uh, a ma'ana from Taf Shin Mem Heih. Uh, and in this ma'ana, a bachur from, uh, France, he asks the Rebbe if he should learn how to drive a car. It's in a churah. Uh, and the Rebbe says, "Kerass Rav de'anasht zarpas." You should talk to the Rabbonim of France and find out whether they're okay with it Al Pi Halakha. So it seems that some people need to ask a shailah before getting a driver's license. I don't know. I think now that it's standard, it probably isn't as relevant, but I'm leha'yer, leha'yer. Here, this is also a churah, I believe. I had to find things from all over the place. No,

08:53 this is printed in Niskashas. Printed in Niskashas, but it's, uh-- I don't know where it is. Not printed in anything beside... I couldn't find it anywhere else. Anyway, this is from Chaf Dalet Tammuz of Taf Shin Chaf Vav, printed in Niskashas, uh, and written to Rav Chadakov. Uh, "L'sheilascha im lu medut driving." If you're asking me whether you should learn how to drive, uh, since the Reb-- the Rebbe has answered that since you are afraid of driving, you should not learn how to drive. So somebody had written to the Rebbe saying that they were afraid of driving, and they wanted to know whether they should get over their fear and get a driver's license, and the Rebbe says, "No, if you're afraid of driving, don't drive." So you have to also not be- Looks like it says Lu London. Lu London. Yeah, I think that's probably who it was. So that's the-- that's a churah probably. That's probably Rabbi Lu, I assume. Right? Yeah. He actually doesn't drive Admo, by the way. Yeah. Huh? He doesn't drive Admo. He still doesn't drive because of this. I guess he was afraid. Okay. Uh, one more that's in a churah. Uh, somebody asked the Rebbe permission to get a driver's license, and the Rebbe answered the following: "If you will go to appropriate places at appropriate times, then yeah, get a driver's license. Otherwise, l'chera not." So yeah, if you're gonna use the car for the right reasons, fantastic. I have one more if to show you,

09:57 and this one's in English. This was-- is again from the, uh, from the app that I've started using, the Rebbe Responsa app. So this is from the Nissen Mandel collection. This is written to Mrs. Grace Schildkraut, uh, of New Haven, Connecticut, and the Rebbe says, "Blessing and greeting. I received your letter on the nineteenth of Menachem Av with regard to your question as to learning to drive a car. If you think that knowing how to drive a car would be useful, including also in matters of Yiddishkeit, it would be advisable to learn to drive and to receive a license, for after all, the fact of having a driver's license does not in itself compel one to drive a car." So the Rebbe's saying here two things. Number one, uh, if you're gonna use it for Yiddishkeit and for good things, sure. And also, I don't really see the harm in getting a driver's license because you're not asking me whether you should drive. You're asking me whether you should have permission to drive, and permission I'm not so worried about. And then the Rebbe concludes by saying that he will mem-remember her family in prayer, et cetera. Okay. Now up to the no's. These are some times the Rebbe straight-up said no to somebody who wanted a driver's license. Uh, here we go. This one's quite short. Somebody wrote, and she seemed to have pretty good reasons. Uh, she writes, she writes in her letter to the Rebbe that, uh, she has, um-- she's, she's

10:56 changing where she lives, and she's going now have it-- she's now going to have to travel a far way, something like thirty minutes, to get to the school where she teaches. And she asked the Rebbe if it would make sense for her to learn how to drive so that she would be able to save some of that time that she's losing in transportation. And the Rebbe answers, "Le'itzata ein hakadai." As of now, no. Even for work, which is a little bit surprising because here she has a perfectly good reason. The Rebbe had said in some of his if letters, if you're going to be serving Hashem with it, if you're going to be going to work, if you're going to be, um, teaching in a school, this would seem to be-- you would, you would have thought the Rebbe would say yes, and here he says no, which is once again emphasizing what I told you at the beginning of this year, which is I don't think we're getting a shapta here. I think we're getting very personalized answers. But what we are seeing is that the answer is not simple. There's not a simple yes, no, or if. It's very much case by case in how the Rebbe addresses these letters. Here's another if. Actually, I take it back. Not another if, we're up to the no's. I got confused. This is our next no. So we just read this no over here, and now our next one under the no section. A woman

11:49 writes to the Rebbe saying that she wants to learn to drive a car, and the Rebbe says, "Why don't you use your time better?" So he's got So he's not telling her that she has to focus on her family. He's actually giving her options. He's saying, "Focus on your family. If you don't wanna do that, focus on Nshei Benei Chabad. If not on that, focus on spreading Yiddishkeit, but I don't want you wasting your time learning how to drive a car." Here's another in the solid no category Oh yeah, this is a harsh one. I love this one. It says here, this is a story that's brought in, uh, and I can't tell you for sure that I would have believed it, but I'm gonna show you in a moment. I found it in like four or five other places, all references more or less the same story. So we have the, uh-- we, we just have to trust the people who are in the Yechidas, I guess. It's a Yechidas. There were two bachurim who one time went to the Rebbe in Yechidas, and they went in separately, and they each asked questions. Each one of them asked a question, could they get a driver's license so that they could travel on mitzvah? And they wanted to be able to put tefillin on people. They wanted, uh, they wanted a car. They wanted to be able to drive. To the first one, the Rebbe answered, "Why are you mixing in your taivas with mayim

13:23 yomim?" So basically, the Rebbe's inyun is mitzvah, is putting tefillin on people, and you want to get a chance to drive a cool car. Why are you mixing up your taivas? Now, I, uh, I-I certainly am guilty of this. I mean, I, I think the thing that I loved most about the Sukkah Mobile when I was younger was that I got to rent a pickup truck and drive it around. So, uh, totally sensitive to this. But the Rebbe says, "Don't mix your taivas to drive cool cars with mayim yomim. That's not the way this works." Uh, to the second one, the Rebbe answered, uh, "You don't know how to drive yourself. You wanna drive a car." So to the second one, the Rebbe said, "You don't even know how to control yourself. You don't know how to drive yourself, and here you wanna go driving a car." So two very harsh answers to bachurim who wanted to drive. That was a strong no from the Rebbe. And just to emphasize that this really happened, there is a person here who tells a very similar story and gives the source, but I can't figure out who it is. There's a Rebbe Tamim, Reish Mem Alef, who could be anybody, I guess. But he says that this is from Karaites. They tell the story that when I was a young child, I thought-- when I was a child, I was a teenager, I guess. I thought that I would maybe learn how to drive, and I asked

14:21 the Rebbe about it in Yechidas. And the Rebbe was very strict about this, and he said back to me that first you have to learn how to drive yourself, only, only then can you learn how to drive other people. And then the Rebbe added, as a tikkun for even wanting to do this, as a, as a way of doing teshuvah for even desiring a driver's license, you should start putting on Rebbe Nutam tefillin privately, because at that point, people were not yet putting on Rebbe Nutam prior to their marriages. So it, it-- whether or not this is the same story or two different stories, clearly, at least once and maybe twice, the Rebbe responded to a bachur who wanted to drive a car, uh, "Maybe you should learn how to drive yourself before you drive a car." And to that other bachur, his response again had been, "Don't mix your taivas with mayim yomim. I want you to go on mitzvah. You have a taivas to drive a car. Don't mix them up and tell me you're gonna go on mitzvah, and then you'll get to drive a car." I cannot emphasize enough that everything we're seeing is very much case by case. You can tell that these bachurim, the Rebbe knew what they were asking and he wasn't comfortable with it. So it really depends on the individual. Uh, I want to spend a little bit of time with the time we have left talking about the Rebbe's shita on women driving. Uh, there's

15:15 a rumor that I didn't, I didn't find any primary sources to confirm, although I don't even know what a primary source would look like for this, is a rumor that the Rebbetzin drove a car, uh, and that, uh, certainly that's what people say. You saw it. You saw it with your own eyes. Okay, that's even better. Oh, no, you didn't see it with your own eyes. Uh, people say. People certainly say the Rebbetzin drove a car. And, uh, and there's definitely an assumption that while some of the other Hasidic groups, I believe one of them only recently started allowing women to drive cars, that Chabad was always more modern on this issue. We were like, "Yeah, of course, women drive cars." You don't really get that from the Rebbe's letters. The Rebbe doesn't tell women they can't drive cars, but he does tell them that they need to ask the Rav in their community and not buck whatever the trend is where they live. So I have here a T'rurah. Excuse me, it's a Yechidas. And let me just get to the part I want to show you. So she says that in the year Tofshin Chaf Ches, uh, we received from the Rebbe, Shelo Yisnag B'Rechev, Lo Ba'alei V'Lo Ha'ani. So in Tofshin Chaf Ches, she says we were in Yechidas, and this is, uh, this is Zamir. She says we were in Yechidas on Tofshin Chaf Ches, and the Rebbe said that me and my husband both should not be in cars. We

16:23 just shouldn't be driving. I guess the Rebbe saw something, I don't know. The Rebbe didn't want them driving b'chlal at all. Yechidas Od Hakah Sh'Yehi Etam V'Shos Lamim Lehicha. So after she said that we're not allowed to take rides in cars, I said, "How am I gonna get anywhere?" So this woman asked the Rebbe, "Can I learn how to drive, and then I'll drive us around?" The Rebbe said back to me, Ani Shomea. She writes, Eino K'Dechi, Esh Harves Hakanos Bazeh, that I hear that Eretz Yisrael, it's very dangerous to drive. And yeah, that has not changed. Avlan Zeh Mekubal, but if it is accepted, She Ishut Nag B'Rechev, Gam B'Chugim Datiim Acherim, but if it is accepted in other religious circles, whatever religion, in other religious circles, that women drive cars, V'Lo Etro Rishon, and you're-- V'Lo Atro Rishoni, you're not going to be the first woman driving a car who's frum, Az Efshar Le'aseh Zot, then you can do it. So you see the Rebbe's kind of giving into the trend here, the Rebbe saying that if generally speaking, religious women don't drive cars, I don't want you to be the first. But if women in your area, uh, that are re-- that are religious Jews are driving cars, then sure. After that, he turned to my husband and said, "Are you," uh, V'Atah Le'esiv To Shenag Ba'atah. He said to my husband, "Do you not wanna learn how to drive a car?" 'Cause the wife had asked. The husband, "Don't you wanna

17:20 learn how to drive?" And my husband said back, "No, I'm too scared." And the Rebbe said back, "You're not afraid to sit next to your wife when she's driving?" And my husband said, "No." And the Rebbe said, "In that case, fine. In that case, Ze Efshari. In that case, it's possible." So you see there's a discussion here. It's not a carte blanche. It's a, it's a discussion. The Rebbe wants to know, do other religious women do this? And if so, I don't want you to be the first. But if so, go for it. And again, we see this theme that if someone's afraid of driving, we saw this in Rabbi Lu, that if someone's afraid of driving, the Rebbe really doesn't want them driving. He doesn't want you to get over this fear, just wants you to give into it. But, uh, I like this question near the end. Are you not afraid to drive next to your wife? No, not afraid of that. Then fine. Okay, then fine. Uh, another one where the Rebbe writes to a woman who's interested in learning how to drive. This one is printed in Igris Kodesh on volume Tes Zayin on page Reish Gimel. I'm giving you only an excerpt of it. The Rebbe says, "Inenei Adei Minhagei Chug Eila Hu Mashkav, Aval Lid Mali V'Neashmo Mipi Ashmo Sh'B'Chug Zeh Mushlav V'Yesh Ish Sh'Nag Mechanis." I don't know what group you come from, says the Rebbe, which particular Hasidic or religious sect you come from, but as far

18:18 as I know, I don't-- I mean, I don't know much about that sect, but as far as I know, the group that you're from, women don't drive cars in that particular group. Uh, Lavor She B'Chugim Chareidim Acherim Yesh Nashkaf Acher Es Midin Zeh. It's true that there are other Haredi groups where women do drive cars. Aval Harai Gam Yodu Ach La'av HaTorah. But you should certainly know the general rule in the Torah. She Be'asah L'Rav Yesh L'Nehgi Psaka V'Shelo Rav Ve'asah L'Shmuel Ki Shmuel. Certainly, you know the general rule that if you live in the area of Rav, you have to act like Rav's rulings, and if you live in the area of Shmuel, you have to act like Shmuel's rulings. So the Rebbe's saying to this woman, uh, as far as I know, the group that you live with, the religious Jews you live with, among them, women don't drive. It's true that other religious women in other groups drive, but you don't live there, and you gotta act according to the place where you live, according to Halakha. And this, uh, sort of echoes back to some of the things we saw earlier, where the Rebbe does consider at least part of getting a driver's license a Halakhic issue. Yinam Zeh Muvhan Uh, from Norwin. «Based on this, it's understood. «Uh, certainly the fact that you publicized that this woman had a car and that she was driving. We don't know exactly what happened, but clearly, there was some degree of unpleasantness that

19:26 had happened. Uh, maybe people were pushing back. Maybe, maybe things got a little worse than that. It seems the community was not happy with what was going on. And the Rebbe says, "I think that might be, first of all, because you bucked community norms, and second of all, because you told everybody about it. You made it very clear that, uh, this particular woman was driving a car." Since that is the case, therefore I would think that if you wanna fix your community matters, you should publicize the opposite. And this should be easy if, in fact, she was not driving the car. But when you come to a Tikkun, you should add on to things in addition. So as the author Rebbe says, if you really want to do Teshuvah for having, I don't know, created the impression that a woman was driving a car in a community where they're not supposed to drive cars, for her actually driving in such a community, in any event, he says, "I have a Tikkun for you. It would be appropriate for you to, uh, set aside a twentieth, a 20%. 20% of the price of the car and of what you would be paying on the car in the future for some Tzedakah inian, uh, in order to, uh-- And if you add along with that, then Hashem will certainly help you." So a strange letter that I don't think we have a, a ton of context for. Let me see if below the line they give us

20:37 more. Did anybody notice if below the line there was more context? Let's see. Says down here that, uh, no, it just says a similar letter. Yeah, we don't have a lot of context for what's happening here, but it sounds like a woman driving in a community that didn't like it, uh, for, for Halakhic reasons in that community, uh, caused some, uh, arguments, caused some problems, and the Rebbe has solutions to it. First of all, that she shouldn't drive in a community where the community doesn't want her to drive. And second of all, that they should do Teshuvah in the form of giving Tzedakah for that. So, uh, if you were thinking that, uh, the Lubavitch approach to women driving was always a straight line of yes, I, I don't, I don't know about that. That's an interesting letter. Uh, one more I wanna show you about women driving, and then I'm gonna show you one more thing where the Rebbe gives us an idea in, uh, in Chidush, and with that, we'll conclude. Once again, this is like seventeen letters today. We never do this many. This was pr-- This is an Atchalah from, uh, this is a Raskin Teshuvah. The Teshuvah that was given out of Levi Yitzchak Raskin's Bar Mitzvah, uh, in the year Ayin-- in the year Nun Tes. And it has a couple of really interesting stories about, uh, about asking the Rebbe to drive. So at, I'm showing you right now. So this woman writes that when I wanted to

21:37 get a driver's license, I wrote to the Rebbe, and I received an answer, and the answer was that I should ask Rabbi Dworken. Uh, and he was the posek, and, uh, and he paskened that, uh, when I go on Shlichus, I'm allowed to get a driver's license, but not before I go on Shlichus. So a woman wrote to the Rebbe asking for permission to drive. The Rebbe said that it's a question for a Rav. Rav Dworken told her that she could, but only once she went on Shlichus. She says, "When my mo-- when, when my mother went to the Rebbe..." Um, excuse, excuse me. "When my-- when my mother went to get her driver's license, she failed her driver's license test." She failed the driving test. She continues to tell the story. "My grandfather went into the Rebbe on that day, and the Rebbe asked him how the driver's test went for his daughter. The Rebbe answered that she did not-- that she failed. She failed. Uh, and the Rebbe answered, uh, that if she doesn't succeed the first time, then she's going to need to, uh, do it again the second time, and then she'll be motziach. That she didn't pass the test the first time, but I'm sure she's going to pass on the second occasion." The last thing we have in this Teshuvah is, uh, Deidosi, so I guess that's my aunt. Um, my aunt, when she was trying to get permission from the Rebbe to get a driver's license in Yechidus,

22:40 the Rebbe said to her, uh, "Since when are women Bali Hagolos? Since when are women wagon drivers?" Uh, in action, when she actually went on Shlichus, she did get permission from the Rebbe to get a driver's license. So we do see some, I don't wanna say hostility, but certainly some pushback to the idea of women driving in these early years when it was not the norm for frum women to drive. I really don't think that this is such a, that this is such a thing anymore, um, but that's because norms changes. The Rebbe himself says in the letter, the, the pushback here is about what is tznius and what is normal for women in that community, in that time, and in our community, in our time, it's obviously completely normal. In those times, there was some pushback. The absolute last thing I want to show you is a letter labeled Aleph Taf Taf Tzadik. Aleph, it is from the year Taf Shin Yud Gimel, and the Rebbe says to a woman, excuse me, to a man, "I'm responding to your letter, that you write that, uh, a couple times you've taken your driver's test, and you have not received it yet," which means they keep on failing their driver's test. This person's trying to get a driver's license, and it's not working. The Torah says that there is a time for everything. And certainly, in the future, you will succeed. I guess this just wasn't the right time. You know, you didn't pass the test

23:48 because it wasn't the right time, but in the future, you certainly will succeed in the test. Of course, after you've prepared properly, when you've studied for your test. But I also wanna add, says the Rebbe, that physicality and spirituality are very much connected. Certainly, when it applies to a Jewish person. And so if you wanted to know a spiritual connection to the thing you're involved in, and I think almost hinted to in this letter, is that if you want success in learning how to drive a car, that part of that success comes from learning how to drive your body. That your body is a physical vehicle, and it is the vehicle that the soul rides. And the soul itself, uh, is the vehicle for the Nefesh Elokis, for the godly soul. And the Rebbe puts in parentheses that the example is not necessarily perfect, but it works. Certainly, you will strengthen your dedication to Chitas as the Frieda Rebbe instituted. And certainly, you'll take part in classes that are taught in public, and God will give you successes, and He signs by giving a blessing. Okay, so we have here an enormous review, I think, of the Rebbe on driving and driver's licenses. We saw that in some cases, you get a straight yes from the Rebbe. Some people ask the Rebbe for a driver's license, if they should get one, and the Rebbe says, absolutely. The Rebbe says, "I hope it helps you with your parnasa. Um, God should give you success in your

25:08 test." Uh, but we saw that that's not the entire story. We saw a sipra where the Rebbe pushes back pretty hard against, uh, somebody who comes into Yechidus and wants to talk and cars, saying, "I don't understand why you don't use your two good legs to go walk yourself somewhere and think about Torah. Why are you spending so much time driving a car?" We saw that there are several times people write to the Rebbe asking for permission to get a driver's license. There are conditions-- there are conditions attached to it. If you're going to do mitzvahs, if you're gonna do the right thing, then great, and if not, then not. And certainly, in many cases, the Rebbe says you have to ask a Rav, and you have to make sure that it's the norm in your area for your gender, for your time, for your space. And that just depends on the location and what the Rav says. We also saw a series of straight-up no's, where in some cases, the Rebbe tells people, "Not you. You're not going to learn how to drive." And finally, we did a quick review of the Rebbe's shitah on women driving. I don't think this is so much a shitah as much as it is a lechaye, which is that the Rebbe, regarding women driving in the early days when frum women, generally speaking, did not drive, the Rebbe's go-to answer was, you gotta talk to a Rav, you gotta figure out what's going on in your community,

25:59 and you've gotta keep community norms because a good deal of tznius is defined by the norms in the community you live, in the time, and the space that you live. I think it's very safe to say that nowadays, at least in our community and probably in almost all frum communities, uh, the norm is that it is, is that it is tznius for women to drive cars, and it's not even a question. But at the time, it was, and the Rebbe took it seriously. The Rebbe didn't just brush it away. And finally, in conclusion, we saw a letter where the Rebbe discussed how a person driving a car is akin to a person driving-- a person's soul driving their body, and that if someone wants to get, I think you can read between the lines of this letter to see, that if someone wants to get better at driving or do better in passing their driving tests or improve their driving skills, you know, you can take these defensive driving courses. Perhaps there is a spiritual defensive driving course, which is that a person dedicates themselves to Chumash, Tehillim, and Tanya, throws themselves into public shiurim, and invests in spirituality and understanding how the neshamah drives their body, that might even translate into making them a better driver. At the very least, it'll make them a better driver of their bodies. And with that, thank you all very much.