דולרים ומטבעות

00:01 This is Iggers, and today we are going to talk about coins and dollars received from the Rebbe. Uh, this was something that a listener asked us to cover, and I would remind anybody who listens to the podcast, uh, if you have ideas for us to cover, please let me know because I run out of them regularly. Uh, in any event, today we're doing dollars and coins, and, uh, I have a ton of letters to show you, and a couple of sichas, and a yechidas. But before we get into the letters, the sicha, yechidas, I want to give a bit of a background on the dollars and c-- on the dollars, the coins that the Rebbe gave out, the history of it. So a little bit of a history session at the beginning. Um, for those of us in Lubavitch, it's the most normal thing in the world that a Rebbe gives out coins and dollars. I think in the world at large, that's a little less conventional. Outside of the Rebbe being the one who hands out coins and dollars, I don't know that most people think of a tadik as someone who, uh, hands them coins. I don't know. At least, I, I don't think it's that common. Uh, in any event, the coin thing by our Rebbe officially began in, uh, lamed vav, that's nineteen seventy-six, during Shnas HaChinuch. I suspect they were also given out before then. I suspect the Rebbe was giving out coins on a non-permanent, non-official basis. But officially

00:59 in the year nineteen seventy-six, the Rebbe started a seder of giving out coins, and at that point, he would only give out coins to small children and at specific times. That was when he was either entering or exiting seven seventy on his way to and from his place in the shul and when he left the mikvah. Uh, private yechidas ended in nineteen eighty-one, that is mem alef. And from then on, the Rebbe started handing out nickels to children who stood near his room when he entered or exited, and that was sort of a thing that happened immediately after the yechidas ended. Maybe it was, uh, meant to take the place of it, u-unclear. This practice varied throughout the years. It sounds like that at one point in nineteen eighty-three, it was a daily thing, so sometimes it was daily. Some-- they just didn't have a, didn't have a kavias most years as far as I can tell. And this process of giving out coins stopped entirely, with rare exceptions, in nineteen eighty-six. That's because, uh, in the year mem vav, which was nineteen eighty-six, on Yud Aleph Nisan, the Rebbe's birthday, that Sunday, the Rebbe announced that he was going to give out dollar bills for tzedakah. And from that point on, it doesn't sound like there was a whole lot of coin stuff going on. It was pretty much dollars from then on with the rare coin example. Uh, these dollar bills were announced they'd c-- they'd be given to anybody who came to

02:02 his room. Hundreds of people arrived, and two weeks later, official Sunday dollars started, and that would go on every Sunday from ten o'clock in the morning onward, that the Rebbe would stand, uh, stand out front by seven seventy, and he would, uh, give out a dollar to anybody who came. There were minor changes over the years. It wasn't always at ten o'clock. Uh, for a period of time during and after the year of aveilus for the Rebbetzin, dollars were given out after Shacharis at the Rebbe's home. In nineteen ninety-one, dollars began starting later in the day on Sundays. They sometimes started after Mincha because apparently the Rebbe had switched what day he went to the Ohel. So the Rebbe used to go to the Ohel on Sunday after dollars. When he switched it to Mondays, you could make the Sunday dollars later, so it was after Mincha. Dollar lines, uh, based on what I've read, have lasted at this, this, this point in the nineties, uh, dollar lines would regularly last six to seven hours. So six to seven hours of people waiting to get dollars from the Rebbe. Uh, I also read today, this is a Der Herr article, so I'm trusting their numbers. They say that the Rebbe would, would, would routinely give out about six thousand dollars on a regular Sunday. So the average Sunday, that means about six thousand people. I mean, some-- the Rebbe gave a lot of people more than one dollar, so maybe a few, maybe five thousand

03:00 people. Uh, peop-- the Rebbe would give out like six thousand dollars on a regular Sunday. Uh, coins or something akin to a coin made a bit of a comeback in nineteen ninety, in Tammuz Shin Nun, when the Rebbe requested that commemorative coins be minted and handed out on Lag BaOmer at the Sunday parade. Uh, we might do a special episode on those coins in the future, but for now, suffice to say that it was incredibly difficult to get these coins out. Rabbi Krinsky has, uh, has given-- has done like video testimony on this. He and his team minted something like ten thousand coins in less than a week. There were the molds, the ink, and the stamping, and original artwork, and they were able to get it all done on a ridiculous timescale, and the Rebbe was very pleased with this. In any event, coins and dollars are clearly a big deal. They're also clearly strange. I don't know of anyone besides the Rebbe who gave out coins and dollars regularly, let alone on this scale. So in today's episode, we're going to try to figure out why the Rebbe is so into coins and dollars, what the Rebbe's goal is in giving them out, and what those of us fortunate enough to have them should think of these prized possessions. So without further ado, I have some letters with the Rebbe's insights on coins and dollars. I assume most people, I know, I, I'm sure everybody who's on the live thing right now I

04:00 know has at least a Rebbe dollar coin or something. Um, I assume most of our listeners do too. So, uh, maybe some insight into what they are. I think we all know that they were meant for tzedakah, but there's more to it than that. So in any event, this is a letter. This letter is labeled vav tav lamed Ches. It is from Tav Shin Yod Ches, Vav Menachem Av of Tav Shin Yod Ches, and the Rebbe writes, Shalome Racha. I'm responding to the letter. "Since the Torah tells us that a father is obligated to marry off his son," "and it's also understood, it's known, the Torah has informed us that God never, uh, comes..." Uh, what's, what's a good translation of petrunia? Um, he never comes, uh, unreasonably. He never gives an unreasonable, burdensome ex-- burdensome. Hashem never burdens, uh, his creations unreasonably. "He will be "Even though it might be using your mortal eyes, you're unable to see at this point how you can afford it, I trust that you can." So the Rebbe starts off by saying, just, I-- we didn't have to read this part, but it's such a cool part of the letter. Someone writes to the Rebbe saying that they have to, they have expenses for marrying their kid, and the Rebbe goes, "Let me start by saying you can handle those expenses. How do I know?" The Torah made it your obligation to marry off your kids, and, uh, that includes spending money on it, and so it must

05:56 be that God will give you the money for it. But second of all, the Rebbe says, "Hini--" this is the part we have the letter for. "Hini, al pi mamrai chazal, kol hanoteh prutah mi Iyov misbarach." There is a mamrai chazal which is in Baba Basra, on page fifteen in Baba Basra, that chazal say that anybody who would take a coin from Iyov, that's Job, biblical Job. Anybody who would take a coin from Iyov would immediately get a berachah. The Gemara says this because Satan is complaining about Iyov, saying, uh, "Of course he likes you, you're good to him." And one of the things Satan says is, uh, to Hashem when complaining about Iyov, is that he says, uh, "Of course Iyov is a-- is, uh, is worshipful, of course he's religious. Uh, Hashem, you gave him a special berachah that every one of his hands, all of his handiwork, uh, is blessed." And the Gemara says, "What's it mean that all of his handiwork is blessed?" And the Gemara says back, "Not only did everything Iyov do turned out well, but anybody who Iyov gave a coin to, they would get a special berachah." So the Rebbe quotes this Gemara and says, "Based on the mamrai chazal, that anybody who would take a prutah, even a very small coin, from Iyov misbarach would get a berachah." Ki hai ish tam ve'yashar yarei l'kim Hashem Elokei avotav. Why? Because he was an ish tam ve'yashar. He was a simple and upright man. He feared God,

06:58 and he turned away from all evil. Shal delach zeh u'gam midagei l'rabbeinu ha'tzaddikeinu with all of the honorifics after their names. V'chazal shematnu b'kav ha'kodesh melech ha'mer nesi Israel with all the honorifics after his name. V'da'ika chazal b'lishenim prutah. So the Rebbe says that since this applied to Iyov, who was a righteous person, this also applies to all of our rabbeim, all of our nasiyim, and I heard this specifically from the Friediker Rebbe about himself, that the Friediker Rebbe, that anybody who takes a coin from any of our rabbeim, that receiving a coin from one of our rabbeim gives you an automatic berachah the same way that receiving a coin from Iyov gave those people an automatic berachah. V'da'ika chazal b'lishenim prutah. And chazal were specific to say that you only had to receive a prutah, a very small coin from Iyov. Iyov didn't have to give you a hundred bucks for you to have a blessing. If Iyov gave you a penny, you were blessed. She'b'zeh ein ha'kamus kavas ki mi me-- shemi me-- mi bah ha'prutah. That shows us that the amount really has nothing to do with it. What matters here is who gave you the prutah, who gave you the small coin. Hareh musker et b'zeh amcha sheme'ach as hakupus shel kav ha'kodesh melech ha'mer nesi Israel. Therefore, the Rebbe says, "I am enclosing in this letter a check from one of the funds of the Friediker Rebbe." Uv'tuch im chazal shekol mamrai ha'amor. And chazal promise that the aforementioned statement

08:03 will be fulfilled. She'tavi prutah zu berachah basagas amto im ana. And that through this one small prutah I'm giving you, the Rebbe's saying, "I'm writing you a very small check." But this small check is not about the amount. I trust chazal that since this prutah, this small check that I'm giving you, comes from the hands of a righteous person, that therefore it will be the thing that gives you a berachah that will allow you to get all the funds that you will need to marry off your daughter in the future. And then the Rebbe tells him to make sure to learn chitas. So, you know, if you forgot to learn your chitas today, this is your reminder, and that's the Rebbe's first letter on prutah. So what we have so far is that, uh, when we receive a coin from the Rebbe, a coin specifically, especially when it's a small denomination coin like a prutah or like a dollar, a very simple denomination, the idea here is that it gives a berachah, that anybody who gets a berachah from a tzadik, it gives them more berachah, and it becomes sort of the se-- the, the bless-- the blessed seed money for the next big step. We have quite a few letters like this. We're gonna go through a couple of them a little more quickly, uh, 'cause I don't want to, uh, spend all of our time on the coins. But I have a letter here that is aleph, ayin, zayin. It's from the year

08:56 taf shin yod aleph, so it's actually a little earlier than that one. And the Rebbe says, "Shalom u'berachah." He, uh, gives a blessing in the very beginning. Let's scroll down a little bit. The Rebbe says, "Hinis var ratzon she'kana eid mechenes l'veis chadash esula." I'm very happy to hear that you have purchased more machines for your factory. "U'betach shama d'amer vert vos kav ha'kodesh melech ha'mer" would say all the time in the name of the Rebbe Maharash, uh, that you have-- people have to go l'chatchilah ribah. I'm just gonna jump right over that. I just l'chatchilah ribah-ed over the section about l'chatchilah ribah. Anyway, don't forget to always, uh, jump over all cer-- all obstacles, et cetera. Let's go down to the next paragraph. Okay. "I'm including," writes the Rebbe, "echad shekel. I'm including one shekel for you." Mikupos kav ha'kodesh melech ha'mer. "I'm leaving-- I'm giving you a shekel from the funds of the Friediker Rebbe." Actually, the Chanah Bet says, shemetzeh leha fabric sheloy. That's a factory. That I, I'm giving you this so you can spend it on the things that you've spent on-- that's like fabric, but it's a factory. Uh, in any event, I'm giving you this, uh, this one shekel that I hope that you will spend on f- on the factory. I want you to spend it on the factory. So these coins are not meant to be given to tzedakah. The idea of these coins and the previous coin was it's meant to be used for the

09:57 expense that's in front of them, and if you use this for the expense in front of you, the rest of the money will just arrive. So this person writes to the Rebbe saying they just opened a new factory. The Rebbe says, "I want your factory to go well, so invest. It's an investment. Invest this one blessing coin from the Friediker Rebbe in the fund, and then after that, you're going to have a lot more money." Uh, and we see that just one prutah can bring hatzlach. And, uh, since this is a shekel that comes from the Friediker Rebbe's kupa, that tells us that it's gonna bring hatzlach, it's gonna bring success in all of the inyanim shayach to parnasah. So very similar letter to the previous one. Oh, I just wanted to show you this last line. Too much fun to skip. He says, "I'd be interested in hearing," says the Rebbe, "who is your partner and what is his ruchnius like." So he wants to know, your business partner, is he frum? And then he says, "V'nasan bev shar l'feh olav sheyesh shul for gambelim v'niglim v'nimin hachasidus. I hope you can make your business partner somebody who will also be your partner in studying the revealed and hidden parts of the Torah." So he says, "You have a business partner, I expect him to be your chavrusa." V'adieni b'sh-- b'soros tevess gam bezeh, "And I would like to hear good news about that too." So he wants to know about the frumkeit of

10:54 his partner, and he wants to know if he'll be shayach to make a chavrusa. Okay. So we have a third letter that also is on this theme of taking a prutah from Iyov, and this one is, uh, this one's a fun one. Apparently somebody-- y-you tell me if I'm misreading the subtext here, but I think the subtext is that the Rebbe sent a small dona-- a, a large donation, actually. The Rebbe sent a donation to somebody, uh, in the year taf shin yod beis, so early in the nasiyus, and this person seems to have written back to the Rebbe that they were offended by how small his donation is. I'm not sure that's the subtext. Tell me if you disagree with me. Okay, the Rebbe writes, "Ki odech mechtav mer v'yom ayin lul ha'sheini shel kav ha'kodesh melech ha'mer. I received your letter from the day before the yahrtzeit, the, the second yahrtzeit of the Friediker Rebbe." V'ni, ma'as chava bakash ha'slicha. "I want to start off by asking for your forgiveness." Ki kemiduna v'shaleich perish kem nasi b'shleach amcha mis'emes lama shehaya beda'ati. "It seems that when I sent the check, you didn't really understand my intention properly." So the Rebbe sent this individual a check, and he asks for forgiveness because he believes he was misunderstood. The Rebbe continues, "Hu shigamani marach gedolah sikum." "I also understand how big the amount is." Now, I don't know. I, I'm reading that big as being small. I don't know. Anyway, "Aval eedech gisim muchrach gam

11:55 ken l'archiv shar ha'supa shalanu." At the same time, I need to evaluate just how much we have in our funds. So it sounds to me like the Rebbe's saying, "I didn't send you a lot, but the truth is, that's how much my funds could afford to send. I have to manage the funds properly." The Friediker Rebbe had a whole bunch of charitable funds, and the Rebbe's managing them. So this is all based-- my idea of sending you a check was based on something that the Friediker Rebbe said in the name of the Temach Tzedek, and then later applied to himself. So he says there's a story of the Friediker Rebbe, that the Friediker Rebbe to one of his very close Hasidim, one of his real mikusharim, was in a very difficult, real dire financial straits, and the Friediker Rebbe sent him a very small amount of money, and he explained then that the Temach Tzedek had said that anything that comes from his Tzedakah fund, uh, falls under the umbrella of what it says in Baba Basra, that anybody who takes a prutah, a very small amount of coin, very small coin, very small denomination of coin, from Iyov would get a blessing. A prutah is among the smallest amounts of money. And despite that fact, even though it's a very small amount of money, since it comes from the personal collection of somebody who is upright and who is, uh, simple and straightforward, it brings incredible success. Now, that's just really interesting. I'll come

13:21 over that in a second. Anyway, the Rebbe says, "Since I'm-- s-since now I'm in charge of this fund, and, uh, that is left over from the Friediker Rebbe, and I am his Hasid, I, I know that the Rebbe is the Friediker Rebbe's Hasid." I haven't seen it in writing that many times, certainly not in the Rebbe's own words. So that's, uh, that's one to, that's one to bookmark somewhere. Maybe there's a future Igress episode just proving the Rebbe calls himself a Hasid of the Friediker Rebbe. But in any event, the Rebbe writes, this is the Tu Bishvat base. This is two years after the Rebbe accepted the Nasius. So after accepting the Nasius, or a year and a half, whatever, the Rebbe says, He says, "I'm a Hasid of the Friediker Rebbe." "I'm certain," says the Rebbe, "therefore, that if you take this check, even though it wasn't so big, and you invest it in what you are working with right now, it's going to bring incredible blessings." The Rebbe says, "That was my intent in sending you the check. You seem to have misunderstood and been offended by the amount." Uh, I think that's So the Rebbe says, "I do sense, however, that you," whoever this big rabbi is, "that, uh, you were, uh, you were more of a close confidant of the Friediker Rebbe than a Hasid of the Friediker Rebbe." So because of that, I sent you near the maximum that I could have sent you, uh, because I know you're not

14:35 so much a Hasid, more a, a confidant. I'll tell you what the Rebbe means by this. The Rebbe's saying here that I just said earlier, I could have sent you a prutah, and it would have given you the blessing. That's how it works between a Rebbe and a Hasid. You're not really a Hasid of his, you're more a friend of his. I think that's there, with the nun. is, "Therefore, I sent you a lot more than I normally would have sent because I understood you needed near the maximum of what I could give. But the truth is, I could have sent you anything you were gonna get a blessing because anything that comes from Iyov has a blessing attached from this." Anyway, comes out of this, the Rebbe says, is number one, "I hope you're not mad at me." That's what the Rebbe says first. "I hope you're not mad at me." In base, It sounds like this guy hadn't used the check yet, and the Rebbe says, "I'd like you to use it." Uh, the Rebbe says, "Use that check." I, my guess about the background here is that this person was like, "You sent me too small a check, I'm not depositing it." And the Rebbe's saying, "No, no, deposit it. It's gonna give you a ridiculous amount of blessings." Apparently, there was a previous letter that we're not looking at now. Anyway, uh, He says, "I'm a little bit shocked you're not mentioning the health of your wife and your, and your

15:40 family," and the Rebbe asks for how they're doing. But in any event, we have here a third example of the Rebbe taking this now very seriously and saying, "Look, I can send you any amount of money. You invest it in something, and it's going to be successful." I don't believe that when the Rebbe handed out coins to kids, that was the intent. I also don't believe when the Rebbe handed out dollars, that was the intent. But we're starting with just a discussion of coins, and it seems that there was definitely a, a, a, uh, tradition of the Rebbe to hand out, going back from the time of Tzedek, to hand out small amounts of money to people as seed money for their businesses. I will note that by dollars, sometimes the Rebbe will give a dollar towards something, not so much for Tzedakah. Like, he'll give the dollar, normal dollar. Someone will say they started a fund or something, they start a new organization, and the Rebbe will send a dollar to the organization, or he'll give a dollar for the publishing of a book. That would seem to fall under this category, that there's an area of dollars, that there's a, there's a parshah of dollars and coins that's not Tzedakah, clearly. It's seed money for a blessing, and that's what we're seeing in these first couple examples. Uh, I have one more letter I wanted to show you on this topic, aleph, reish, lamed, heh. And this is just to demonstrate that the

16:34 Rebbe does intend for people to actually invest them, so let me just show you this here. Look down in daled. It says, Anyway, this person opened a new business. Uh, he says, "I'm ex-- I'm, I'm including in this a coin toward your business." "I want you to invest it in your business." Here, the Rebbe's being expli-explicit. Certainly, it is well known, the expression of the Friediker Rebbe, that anybody who took a small coin from Iyov would get a bracha. This applies certainly to the kupa that I'm giving from. Okay, so we have this. I think we've, uh, I think we've, uh, I think we've done this one thoroughly. I do have one more. You s-- I have, uh, too many letters today. This one's beit, reish, tet, vav. We're just gonna do the part I wanted to show you, and that is the Rebbe says down here, It implies that this was in Baba Basra, that Iyov would have to give you a literal prutah to give you a blessing. Not like in k-- Not, not like in Masachas Kedushin, where a prutah means if he gave you anything, you'd be successful. So prutah can mean one of two things in the Gemara. Sometimes a prutah means a literal small coin, and in other cases, a prutah means the smallest thing that's worth anything. The Rebbe says, "Although the Gemara implies he had to give a coin, " The Rebbe says that that means I can give a penny, which would be the smallest copper

17:53 coin. So the smallest copper coin, it means that if a Rebbe gives you a penny, you're set. In any event, we're now switching over to dollars with the time that we have remaining. We'll probably go a few minutes over today. I wanna switch to dollars. So as we said, the Rebbe gave out coins, the Rebbe gave out checks, the Rebbe gave out small amounts of money to people who were starting businesses, and coins pretty much stopped in the year-- What year did I say? I checked back to my notes. Co-coins pretty much stopped in nineteen eighty-six, and that's when dollars began. The Rebbe has a sicha where he really does explain fully why he's doing dollars. And, uh, although you've heard it in the past, I heard it a million times. I'd never actually seen it in writing before. I'd never seen the source. So let's read it. Inside, there's a sicha from, uh, Shabbos Parshas Beshalach of Yud Aleph Shevat, Tav Shin Mem Ches. This was shortly after regular Sunday dollars had started, and the Rebbe writes, "Yedua piskam u'teres ba'al ha-yilula." It's well known the expression and the, uh, the expression and the tera of the ba'al ha-yilula. That would be the Friediker Rebbe. "Shekasheh shnei Yidden kash sheyachtem--" That when two Yidden meet... "alem l'shtadlel shebigasham tavie ta'eles teiva l'Yid ha'nesev." The Friediker Rebbe used to always say that when two Jews meet, they have to make sure that their meeting causes a positive and good thing to happen to an additional

18:56 Jew. And the Rebbe now unpacks this. He says, "Besides the good that should happen in the essence of two Jews meeting," that essentially when two Jews meet, good always happens because it's good that two Jews meet. "Hen if it's not etzem itn the avas Yisrael, the achdus Yisrael." There's love of Jews. There's oneness among Jews. Uh, there's a taleis ba'avodas Hashem as well. As the Mitler Rebbe says, there's an advantage in avodas Hashem that when two Jews meet, that's two Y-- that's two, uh, that's two nefesh elokis against one nefesh habachamis. So that's two people teaming up against their worst inclinations. So the Rebbe starts off by saying, "Hey, when two Jews meet, even if they don't benefit a third person, it's a wonderful thing." But in addition to that, "yesh l'shtadlel ashah idez et tat titzmach teiva l'Yid ha'nesev." In addition to that, we need to find a way to make it that a third Jew benefits. "Zehu ach mehataman lenoge achvenish kashi Yidden vaim lifgash yachdav." Now the Rebbe says this is one of the reasons why the recent custom has been that when two Jews meet together to ask for a bracha or something like that, "mikashim zeis im shliach mitzvah vinyan shel tzedakah," that they also receive tzedakah money. Now, I don't know of two Jews who meet to get a bracha from each other or give each other tzedakah. This is the Rebbe talking about himself. The Rebbe's saying, "This is why the recent custom has become that when people

19:57 come to me for a blessing, I give them a-- something for tzedakah, of shliach mitzvah for tzedakah." "Petum l'hadrasa nalsh kashah shnei Yidden kash yachdav lem l'shtadlem b'tevas ha'shul Yid ha'nesev." This is based on the principle that when two Jews meet, they should try to benefit a third Jew. "Sh'nakah lechaimadei shliach mitzvah," the easiest way to do this is by sending money to be given for tzedakah to somebody else. So the simplest reason is the one given by many mashpiyim and the one written in all the books. This is very clearly in a sicha that the main reason why the Rebbe started giving out dollars and giving out coins and such was because when two Jews meet, they should try to benefit a third Jew, and if he gives tzedakah to you to give to somebody else, now a third Jew is benefited. So that's one of the serious advantages. Let's just go down here to Yud Dalet for a moment. The Rebbe now justifies the fact that he has essentially replaced yechidus with dollars. So the Rebbe says, "Ninyan leinyan," based on this, "hem shechlamar le'il odes hanoge la'achrenu al derech efen hapgisha chulu gam ba'efen hapgisha shlo efengash mim kol ech avech m'pratz meshech zman sheyuchla tziyan yonan d'pratim." Uh, the Rebbe says, "I know you guys all know that I've switched things up and that you can't really meet with me privately anymore." "Ela pgisha v'dibur meshach zman hi b'maayim m'kulam yachdav. Lez bovach ein ba'agira in chasam shel gam hpghisha d'pratias

21:05 ela ad Rebbe gadl malasi yeiser b'gven sheidés." And he says, "V'yeiser bach tus m'shel Yisrael." So the, uh, individual yechidus had stopped, and at this point, if you wanted to meet the Rebbe, you had to meet the Rebbe in a group. And the Rebbe says, "I'd like to point out that what we said earlier, that the whole idea of two Jews meeting, that initially there's an initial, um, incredible blessing from two Jews meeting because there's achdus Yisrael and avas Yisrael, and in addition to that, they benefit a third Jew." Says, "What do you think is happening in a group yechidus?" the Rebbe says. "What do you think is happening when a bunch of Yidden come to meet me together? That means that they are increasing in their avas Yisrael and their achdus Yisrael, and they get more blessings for it." So the Rebbe's saying here that people were losing out, k'viyachol, if you'll allow me to say such a thing. The Rebbe's implying that people were really losing out when they used to meet with the Rebbe one-on-one. They were missing out on the biggest bracha because the biggest blessing comes not from just meeting a Rebbe one-on-one, but meeting the Rebbe in a group where you can get the additional blessings that come through achdus Yisrael. "B'reva amahades melech," the Rebbe writes. So, uh, then I just-- I wanna keep going, even though this isn't really on our topic. I just can't skip it. "B'pratias yeiser." More specifically, the Rebbe says, the, uh, "I've

22:00 given ma'ane klali l'shei l'sabim," that lately, this is in the year Tav Shin Mem Ches. At this point, the Rebbe had basically abdicated responsibility for a good deal of individual questions. We've talked about this in the past. If this was, uh, this was a year after the Rebbe announced that anybody who had medical concerns should ask a rofeh yadid and not him, anybody who had business concerns should ask yadidim u'vinim and not him, and anybody who had concerns in avoda should ask mashpiyim and not him. And the Rebbe says, "I'm pointing out to you that this idea that I, that I'm giving you these general answers, that you will get a blessing for refuah if you go to a rofeh momcha, and that you'll go to, uh, you'll get parnassa if you go to yadidim u'vinim, and that you'll get help in avodas Hashem if you go to a mashpia, me put-- I'm putting my blessing in that," the Rebbe says in this sicha. "So you go to the doctor, you go to yadidim u'vinim, you go to your mashpia, you're going to get my blessings, and you're gonna get more of my blessings than you would have had you come to me individually. Because if you came to me individually to get these blessings, you only get my blessing. If you come to me through my general blessing that I gave to a large group of people, you get the additional blessing of achdus Yisrael." So the Rebbe here is telling people, "You're getting

22:57 a better deal." It's a better deal that-- So I'm telling us, um, for, for, for everybody living right now post Kimu Talmus, I will have you know, going to your mashpia and asking them for help in avoda, going to your doctor and asking for help in, uh, in medicine, and going to a business pers-- uh, yadidim u'vinim and asking for help in business, as is the herav, the Rebbe gives you the Rebbe's bracha in a better way than you would have gotten had you asked the Rebbe personally. That's what the Rebbe says in the sicha. "You're getting a better bracha out of going to these three people because it's part of the achdus than asking me personally." I know it's not really on topic, but that is just mind-blowing. The Rebbe here is saying you do better-- that, that our current situation, asking a mashpia for help in avoda gives you more blessing than you would get from asking the Rebbe personally for a bracha in avoda. Okay, I have two more things to show you, and then we're going to conclude. We'll only be a minute late, I think. Only a minute or two late. This is a yechidus, I believe. No, it's a ma'ana. Excuse me. This is a ma'ana. Um, I wrote yechidus at the top, but I lied. It's a ma'ana. That these are the short little answers the Rebbe gave, and there's some background on the ma'ana. This is Mendel Meir Baroslav. This is, uh, Mendel Meir Baroslav. He had

23:52 just a week earlier arrived from Russia, and he was staying near Seven Seventy, and he wrote to the Rebbe saying that he was, uh, saying that he was interested in a yechidus. So he writes to the Rebbe asking for a yechidus, and this is well after the stage. The Tav Shin known as nineteen ninety, well after the stage when people can have yechidus with the Rebbe. So the Rebbe writes, first of all, "Azker al atziyan," I'll mention you by the aisle. Number two, "Arikhis yami v'shanim tevis caleb iz kar in tamim mim l'mudah b'temichei tmimim." Says the Rebbe wishes him long day, l-l- uh, long life. "Arikhis yami v'shanim tevis," long and good years, including a constant memory of the time that you learned in Temichei Tmimim. That is, you should have long and good years and never forget what it was like to be a tamim in Temichei Tmimim. And number three, the one relevant to us, "B'negeh ledibur yechidus." You asked about meeting me one-on-one, "dibur yechidus." "K'nog b'shanam achrenus," as has been the custom in recent years, "zel bi yem alef." If you want to have a yechidus with me, the custom in recent years has been that that will be on Sunday by dollars. "K'yedua u'meforsam," as is well known and been publicized, "veaz gam es have shlichas l'tzedakah." And there you will have an additional advantage over a private yechidus, and that is you will also receive money that can be given as a shlichas for tzedakah. So what the

24:53 Rebbe's saying in these very short words is sort of the thing that he was saying in that earlier sicha. That's why I put them next to each other. The Rebbe's saying people believe that when they stopped being able to talk to the Rebbe one-on-one, they lost something, and the Rebbe's saying, "No, actually, you gained quite a bit." First of all, Sunday dollars is better than yechidus. Better than yechidus. That's what he says right here. This is the HaIsafa. Now, yechidus, you only get to talk to the Rebbe. By Sunday dollars, you get a yechidus with the Rebbe, plus you mitzvah to go do a, to go do a mitzvah and benefit a third Jew. And furthermore, as we said in the previous sicha, when you, when you conclude yourself in the general rulings of the Rebbe, you include yourself in the general blessings of the Rebbe, and in the general blessings of the Rebbe, you have double blessing, the Rebbe's blessing, plus the regular blessing of Achdis Yisrael. The last thing I want to show you is impossible to read. I tried to find a better one, but, uh, this is, uh, so far, it- it's, it's copies like this that make you pray every day for the people who are organizing the Terias Menachem series. They are so close. They are so close to closing the gap on either end of Sefer HaSichas and giving us something we can read. But anyway, the best exam-- the best version of this that exists, uh, is,

25:49 is broken text. And, uh, this is from Sefer HaSichas-- uh, excuse me, Sichas Kodesh. This is Tav Shin Lamed Ches, one of the only years that has not been covered in either direction by Terias Menachem. May they finish, may they finish speedily in our days. Uh, I will, however, decipher some of it for you. This is a, uh, this is a yechidas, a group yechidas that the Rebbe had in Tav Shin Lamed Ches with students who were going off to learn in Migdal Or in Migdal HaEmek. Uh, and the Rebbe writes, to go down to the bottom, he says... See? See what I mean by impossible to read? We'll make it a little bigger. The Rebbe says, "In order to make an achiza, a holding, a foothold, in im yanam gashmiam, in the physical world, I'm going to give each one of you two dollars." Now, this I've never seen before anywhere else, which is why I'm showing it to you at the end. I think it's fascinating. The Rebbe says, "I'm giving you dollars not as an investment in your parnassa and not as a benefit for a third Jew," although it will be for that too. "It's in order to make an achiza in gashmius." I want to make the blessing that I'm going to give you have a foothold in the physical world. And I want you to give one of these, I want you to give, uh, tzedakah darts. And I want to give-- one of them should be given to

26:51 tzedakah in Migdal HaEmek, and the second one I want you to give by the Kotel. I want you to give by the Western Wall. Certainly, they'll find people who are willing to take tzedakah by the Western Wall. The Rebbe was magiya this particular yechidas, and the Rebbe's haga of the yechidas, he put in a footnote, and the footnote, I have a note from a different place that says-- because you cannot read this footnote at all. It's completely blurred out. But anyway, the footnote said this. Uh, "This sicha was brought to the Rebbe. He was magiya it with his holy hand, and, uh, there he said to look in the Ramban, and that source in the Ramban says that neviim, the prophets, they used to do something in the physical world in order to make sure the nevuah would have an achiza in gashmius and make sure that it ca- that it came true." So the Rebbe added this note saying, "I'm giving you a dollar because I want an achiza in gashmius, similar to what the Ramban says." So allow me to translate. The Rebbe's giving another reason why he gives dollars. Another reason why he gives dollars and coins is because when a prophet was going to make a blessing or make something from Hashem come and have a whole foothold in this physical world, he needed to attach it to something physical. And the Rebbe's saying that when I give dollars, at least this time, and maybe s- maybe other times too, maybe

27:50 all the time, one of the Rebbe's additional intents in giving a dollar is to give a foothold in gashmius, a foothold in physicality for the blessing that he is trying to give. So I think we've, across these letters and sichas, seen three big ideas for why the Rebbe gives out coins and what we should think about the coins and the dollars that we have ourselves. On one hand, sometimes the Rebbe gives out dollars and coins as an investment, as a beginning of a bracha, that when you receive anything from the Rebbe's holy hands, uh, any prupa, even a very small denomination of coin from the Rebbe's holy hands, this coin becomes seed money, becomes seed blessing, that ends up giving you many, many more blessings. So those of us fortunate enough to have a dollar or a coin from the Rebbe, we have the makings of blessing. In addition to that, the Rebbe has a very big idea that he talks about at length, especially when it comes to dollars, that when two Jews meet, a third Jew should benefit, an idea from the Friediker Rebbe. And the Rebbe expands upon this and says, if you really want blessings, the best way to get blessings is to, uh, stack them with Avos Yisrael and Achdus Yisrael, and that means including yourself in the klal, and that means benefiting another Jew when it comes to giving tzedakah. And finally, we found a third reason, which is a really obscure one, and this is one the Rebbe

28:49 seems to have pointed to himself using a footnote, which is that sometimes the Rebbe gives a dollar or a coin, maybe even all the time. The Rebbe gives a dollar or a coin because he's giving a blessing, and a blessing is ruchni, it's spiritual, and if you want it to have a foothold in the physical world, it's going to need something physical to latch onto, and the blessing latches onto the physical thing. I'm not sure that all three of those interpretations aren't really one interpretation. That's just one complex interpretation, but in any event, we found three reasons in the Rebbe's own words for why he gives coins and dollars and what we should think about our coins and dollars, and I'm wishing everybody all the blessings that come through these coins and dollars. Thank you all very much.