מה הופך בית לבית יהודי?

00:00 This is Iggros, and today we are discussing a letter that is, uh, as far as I can tell, not printed anywhere besides Iggros. That is, people haven't picked up on this letter. It is a, uh, very strange letter. I don't mean strange, Chas v'Shalom, in a bad way. I just mean to tell you that I've never seen anything quite like it. It actually made me do a bit of a historical deep dive just to make sure I was understanding it properly. Uh, we are going to use this letter as a base to spin off into a much broader discussion, though. The broader discussion in our topic today is what a Jewish home should look like, what a Hasidisha home should look like, and somehow that begins with an odd letter. So let's start with the odd letter. We're gonna read the whole thing, and then we'll do a bunch of excerpts from Sichas and from other letters that speak to one of the points in this otherwise very interesting letter. This letter is labeled dalet shin lamed dalet. It is from tav shin tes zayin tes vav yud tav shin tes zayin, and the Rebbe writes to a certain Yitzchak, uh, Weil, I believe is how you would pronounce his last name, who was a member of the Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, which as I understand was a religious kibbutz, maybe still is a religious kibbutz. I don't know the status of the kibbutz or if it's still there, but I think it is. And anyway,

00:58 he writes, "Shalom u-bracha." The Rebbe writes, "Shalom u-bracha." "Mei'nam nachtav," I am responding to your letter. "Bli had'as zman ktivah." I don't know when you wrote it exactly, and here are my answers. Number one, "Bema shemakshir lama shemispar ha'kratzeh ze vechulu?" Why did God want this, et cetera? And we have to look below the line here. This is the right year for this horrible tragedy. The asker is, uh, the writer is asking about the terrible tragedy that happened, the, the terrorist attack that happened in Kfar Chabad in the year nineteen fifty-six, I believe. Nineteen fifty-six. Uh, in the year nineteen fifty-six, I believe five, please correct me if I'm wrong, I believe five, uh, five yeshiva students were killed. Five little kids, really. Um, uh, terrorists came into the-- one of the study halls in Kfar Chabad and just opened fire on the place, and it was a horrible tragedy. And we have a lot of letters from that period, and I don't remember if we ever did an Iggros HaKodesh on that period, but there are a lot of letters following it. Anyway, this person writes to the Rebbe in the aftermath, I guess about a year later, saying, uh, "Number one, I'd like to know why God wanted that to happen," 'cause that's just horrible, obviously. So the Rebbe writes, "K'var, amorim hazal klal gadol." Chazal have already given us a big general rule, and I love klal gadol because klal gadol is one of our indications that what the Rebbe is about

02:01 to tell us is, first of all, a general rule in the Jewish people's way of thinking about things, but also that this is the sort of letter that is written to the general public, not just written to an individual. The Rebbe is introducing a klal gadol. So here's the klal gadol. Let's see it. "Badheh kivshi d'rachmana la ma lacha." I believe that's the beginning of Masseches Brachos. That is, that the mysteries of God, why would you look into them? "V'haperish," and the explanation, "gam k'peshuta," is also to be understood very simply. "V'frat ashar l'chol echad v'echad." Excuse me, let me just pause there. "Perish gam k'peshuta." First of all, the pashtut shot is the pashtut shot. The simple explanation is that we don't look into the secrets of God, the secrets of why God does things and why bad things happen to good people. Why would you spend time on that? So that's the Gemara's basic understanding, is that Jews don't look into that kind of thing. We don't say, "Why did God want tragedy?" That said, "V'frat," the Rebbe then adds something a little bit deeper. "Asher l'chol echad v'echad m'chelkei ha'briyah yesh lei tafkid shel avdam alai sei." Every single person, every single person that Hashem made has a tafkid. They have a mission that Hashem gave them specifically that they have to fulfill. "V'keivah she'ein davar ba'olam levatalah," and since nothing in this world was created for no reason, "arein sum lechol chelek v'chelek hakeichas v'azmana derushim l'mi l'tafkid zeh." Because Hashem

03:04 creates everything very, very precisely, that means that I have a limited amount of energy, and that amount of energy and time and, uh, uh, resources that have been given to me by God Almighty are given to me because that's the amount of time, energy, and resources I need to get my job done. Therefore, "Ki sh'meval d'zmana v'keich hasaf sh'bizman nichnas gam keich hisbonnos sh'lo v'sichla al yanom she'einem tafkidai yachser lei b'hish she'yesh lamalai tafkidim yucha." Since a person has limited time, limited energy, and limited resources, and the Rebbe says in addition to that, limited ability to think, limited keich hisbonnos, limited power of thought, and limited sicha, limited intellect. If I waste my power of thought and I waste my time and I waste my, waste my energy on stuff that's not for me, that's not part of my task, then later on when I need those energies for what is my job in this world, I won't have them. So this is the Rebbe saying that people looking into matters that are beyond human capabilities of understanding, it certainly was not my mission. I certainly was not put in this world to try to figure out why tragedies happen. That is absolutely not a tafkid. That's not the mission of any individual to understand why God allows or wants things, uh, wants negative things to happen. That's not our job. Since it's not our job, if we waste our time thinking about it, we are taking away from the finite amount of energy and

04:10 resources and intellect that we have to do what is our actual mission. So number one, in answer to tragedy, the Rebbe says, "I'm not gonna comment, first of all, because the Torah says, 'Why would you look into the mysteries of God?' And second of all, because I don't want you to waste your time or energy trying to figure out these sorts of things." Let me just close that window so that I don't keep on getting those noises from WhatsApp. Okay, so that's just number one. Uh, the Rebbe says similar things regarding tragedy and similar circumstances, but I hadn't seen a lot of cases where the Rebbe specifically told a person, "You have a limited amount of thought available to you in this lifetime. Don't waste it on things like trying to figure out why bad things happen to good people." This brings us to point two. "V'sheilossei, eich tzarch la'avin es ha'nal v'chen nigel es nefesh chedu b'kibbutz Sde Eliyahu u'bei kamas afan v'chulum?" Now, here I went and looked it up. I looked up the history because I didn't know what he was talking about. It's not well-known history. Apparently, at the time it was a really big deal, but, uh, you know, fifty years later, people-- sixty, seventy years later, people aren't really thinking about it so much. There was a fire at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in the year nineteen fifty-six, I believe. Uh, this fire, as far as I can tell, did not hurt anybody. So Baruch Hashem, it sounds like everybody

05:09 was okay. It doesn't look like the fire hurt anybody, but it did burn down, according to their own website. They have a website that shows their timeline. It burnt down their chader ochel. It looks like it burnt down their, their cafeteria. And apparently, this was something that was seen as an enormous tragedy, even though no life was lost. I guess you had to be there, because he's writing to the Rebbe saying, uh, "How could the disaster in Kfar Chabad happen, and how could we have had our dining hall burnt down?" I think it was a bigger deal than it sounds like on their website. In any event, this was a big deal for them, and he wants to know, uh, how we are supposed to understand this sort of destruction. And here the Rebbe says, "Klalas hanikudim v'yanam k'ga'ein elu." And when you wanna know generally what to say about these things, and once again, this is, uh, this is great. This is a, uh, this is a marker for us. Every time we see these loshenus of klalas hanikudim v'yanam k'ga'ein elu, the general or the, the, the overarching point in all things like this, this is the Rebbe saying, "This isn't a letter to an individual addressing an individual circumstance. This is the shita, generally speaking." And here's what the Rebbe says, "She'ein shlitah al yani ish Yehudi, v'frat al yani kedusha d'mishuv sheyehiyah, im ein halichos mitsad ishuri b'yanam ein." He says, the Rebbe- I think as we're about to see in

06:11 the rest of the paragraph, he's very specifically talking about the fire, not the massacre at Kfar Chabad. When it came to this fire, inanimate objects are not able to hurt a Jew unless we give them permission. That's effectively what the Rebbe just said here. I'll translate more literally though. That is that there is no ability for-- nothing can, nothing can have dominion over a Jewish person, specifically over their yohnat kedusha, uh, anything having to do with their holiness, if there is not some weakness on the part of the victim, on the part of the Jewish person in these areas. The only thing that can give room for something that is inanimate and does not have free will to be able to get in the way of a Jewish person and a Jewish person's free will is if the Jewish person themselves has been weak in some area of their own observance. And we'll remind you, this is not the Rebbe saying that God forbid, um, the, the, uh, the Kfar Chabad massacre was caused by some people not doing mitzvahs properly. That's not what I'm getting from this letter. What I'm getting from this letter is that if a fire breaks out and no one gets injured, check what you've been up to lately, specifically in that room, as the Rebbe goes on to say. Anybody who has anything to do with these sorts of things, great general letter. They should immediately begin examining what they've been doing up until now. That is, it's time

07:18 for teshuvah. If something, uh, if something material in someone's life breaks down, whether that's an enormous expense or a minor expense, it's time to look in the mirror or maybe stop looking in the mirror so much, and... And to examine one's deeds to figure out what did I do that allowed there to be this kind of opening that something could get in my way, especially when it comes in the way of kedusha. Then certainly they will find. If you look carefully, says the Rebbe, I know what you're gonna find. At least in this case, there were apparently seforim in this room that burnt down. Says, you're gonna find that you weren't careful about the holiness of these seforim, that you didn't treat them properly. I believe that's what it says, but it's cut off. Um, I think, says the Rebbe, I think it's much more likely that it wasn't you were disrespecting these books, but that you were doing something very similar, which is not studying these books. The reason why books are published is to be studied as is appropriate. So the Rebbe's saying here that there are two tragedies he can think of, two sins if you will, that he can think of that could cause a house to get burnt down or a building to get burnt down. And, uh, of course. And number one is disrespecting the holy books in it, and number two is not learning the holy books in it. And, uh, as for number two, um, but I

08:22 have a lot more books than the ones I've opened, so it does make me nervous. I guess I better open some books. I, I, I recall reading years ago that the Rebbe Rashab had a seder that got published, and the seder that got published is, is, uh, daily, um, his, uh, itinerary for the day. His list of things he would do every day, his to-do list included spending like a couple minutes with the books he doesn't usually spend time with. So, uh, maybe that's something to work into the schedule. I don't know who he's talking about, but the Rebbe says that there's somebody here that I suspect maybe you haven't been helping him in his holy work as much as you should. Maybe it's a community rav of that kibbutz or something like that. And by open-- by you who have free will choosing not to do the right things in Torah and mitzvahs, you have now opened up a, a crack that allows the things that do not have free will, such as a fire, to sneak into the building. This is the general rule for any of these sorts of things. But, uh, despite the fact that these are the general rules, they have to look-- that everybody needs to look into their actions when something, um, breaks down or when something burns down. The Rebbe says at the same time, in all these situations, there also are specifics, and therefore the specific people and the specific places at specific time need to

09:38 ask themselves, "What have we been up to?" and apply new rules. So when you look into that, you'll find more specific, uh, things to your particular situation. So the Rebbe's saying here is that across the board we have a rule that if, uh, something burns down or something breaks, our first thought is, "This couldn't have happened if I had been behaving the way that I should, so I should check my actions." As for the Rebbe specific suggestions that in this case it was due to a lack of taking care of the books or lack of looking in the books, that's specific to that time and place. Um, every single person in their time and place is going to have to make their own decisions upon looking into their actions to try to figure out what they might have done that allowed this to happen. Once again, I will remind you, this is not our attitude toward human tragedy. This is certainly our attitude toward monetary tragedy. Regarding what you would-- You're asking me what should you do now that this room has been burnt down, what should you do next? And the Rebbe says here, "Ask the mehare" in the area. Um, he says, "I want you to, to, uh," depends on the, uh, the custom of the place. You should turn to rabbonim. Look for people-- look for rabbis in the area, rabbis on site, and ask them what you think that-- what, what is a proper way to, um, act after something has

10:45 been burnt down like this. And presumably after some holy books have been burnt, what to do with them. This line is the reason I brought the whole letter. Look at that. The Rebbe says the burnt-- the, the room that burnt down, I want you to look in and see if maybe there was mixed dancing in that room. The Rebbe is at least-- He's not implying. Let's not, let's not play around. He's not implying. The Rebbe is saying that that could be-- The Rebbe is not saying that is the cause, right? He's saying to look into it. But the Rebbe is saying that that would be plausible. That is that if a person has a room in a house or in a building where mixed dancing goes on, it would not be surprising to see that house or that building burn down, right? That's the, that's the implication of this letter is I wouldn't be surprised. Uh, the Rebbe goes on in this letter to say a lot of other very interesting things, but I don't know how much time we have for them 'cause I wanna show you the rest of the letters. So suffice it to say, the Rebbe goes on to answer a question about a minhag here. He says that, uh, they asked about some sort of special tefillah that some people wanted to say, uh, and the Rebbe says that it's not our minhag, it's not in the, it's siddur of the Alter Rebbe. Uh, the, uh, this, this person writes

11:44 near the end that they think maybe that the thing that happened in their kibbutz, that something burnt down, might have been tied to the fact that the time they were learning a-- they were learning the parsha of breaking down houses. And the Rebbe says not really. That parsha is shyach to galus in general and to Yidden not keeping Torah and mitzvahs properly specifically, and therefore, what you're really getting as a message is get out of galus and keep Torah and mitzvahs properly. And, uh, that's-- What I wanna focus on in this letter-- That's the rest of the letter. What I wanna focus on in this letter is this idea that came up in the first, second, and third paragraphs And really got hit with that area about mixed dancing. But the Rebbe seems to be saying that the things that we do inside our house and the things that we do inside any building, but specifically our homes, they have an actual effect on the spiritual state of the home, obviously, the spiritual state of the people in it, and that it seems to have some physical manifestation. Here, a very negative one, that if sins are done in a house, God forbid, mixed dancing, or if even just lack of respect for svoram, lack of respect for people in a certain building, that can open up the possibility, Chas ve'Shalom, lo aleinu, for a not good thing to happen. Uh, on that note, I'd like to show you all the good things that happen

12:40 if a person keeps their house properly. So what I want to spend the rest of our time doing is reviewing a few letters in Sichas where the Rebbe points out the importance, emphasizes the importance of us having specifically Jewish homes and what it means to have a Jewish home. We always give people a bracha at weddings that they should have a bayis neeman beYisrael. They should have a firm, established Jewish home among the Jewish people, home among the Jewish people. But what exactly that means, what is a bayis Yehudi, is something that I'd like to talk about a little bit today, and it's possible that we'll go into this even more tomorrow. Uh, but the sources I have today just hit the general points. What does a Jewish house look like? And I think you'll be surprised because, uh, I think you'll be a little surprised. At least I was a little surprised. Not surprised by the Rebbe, but just things I hadn't really thought about. I definitely have been conditioned, I, I'll blame my society, to think of home as a place where you can put your feet up. You know, a home is a place of relaxation. And the Rebbe does say that a home needs to be warm, and that a home needs to be a place where people feel comfortable. But that is not the main point you get in the Rebbe's letters. You get in the Rebbe's letters the idea that a home is a place of warmth, but incredible

13:32 spiritual intensity, a place where you really are careful about the kind of stuff that comes in your home and the kind of things that happen in your home because your home is supposed to be a sort of personal Beit Hamikdash, the holiest place in the entire world. You might have heard, I hope you've heard that a synagogue is supposed to be, a shul is supposed to be a Mikdash Me'at, the, uh, little Beit Hamikdash. The Rebbe makes it very clear that he feels even more strongly that a home should be a Mikdash Me'at. So let's look at a couple excerpts from Sichas. This is in Likutei Sichas. This is Parshas Vayeschanan. And, uh, in the Sicha, the Rebbe says this. I want to read just hey to you. "B'emes ga'ata u'gen k'she'adam lemde Torah," when a person learns Torah, this applies even now, that when a person learns Torah, "kol Torah chider lo rak vai ela af hilu b'keis le'havayis vayehu lemde." When a person learns Torah, it doesn't just impact him, it also impacts the walls of the house that he is learning in, which means your home deserves your Torah. I know it's great to go out and go to the kollel, and it's great to go out and go to the shiurim that are in shul. That's wonderful. But at the end of the day, a house deserves to have Torah in it. And if we do, it's definitely a good idea, something we've been pushing in our community that's good for

14:25 all communities, is more house shiurim. Uh, shiurim in a house bring Torah to the walls of a house itself, which is very special. "Fi she'enim chazal," as chazal say, "sh'al asid keren bases sh'al adam idin vei." That in the future when Mashiach comes, the walls of the house, the, uh, the walls of the house are going to testify about the person, what they were up to in their house. So the Torah that a person learns and the mitzvahs a person does in their house, they, uh, impact the actual walls, the physicality of the house. "Mi sh'en sh'ata heim sokim l'sechel es dibur hamasa." What the walls of the house do is they absorb like a sponge. They suck up all of the words and all of the actions that happen inside a house. The Rebbe here does not say all the good ones. He says all the ones. That is all the words and all the actions of the house get sucked into the walls, and that will make me think twice before saying and doing things that I don't want sucked into my walls, sucked into my walls. "Ele sh'ata heim behalem." Right now, you can't see that. You just believe it. It's in your walls, but you can't tell. Um, "Vehelem zeh, yeish lemakim gam api Torah, teres emes, l'chen yesh nam hev delei al haches l'dugme minegelitz nies ef esen darvech hadechadeim begoli." The Rebbe says the Torah itself recognizes the difference between things that, between things that happen in the house

15:25 and things that happen outside of the house. Uh, "Ve'al asid yizak ouk solim ba'keres es ma shesavku l'sech mata." When Mashiach comes, you'll see what your house absorbed. You kind of know already, but at least you can't see it, so you're not constantly reminded by it. When Mashiach comes, the walls of the house are going to show exactly what they absorbed over time. "Emen m'kir tzak v'kabitz me'eitz ya'anena." That's a line that's mentioned in Hayom Yom, although that's not the source. It's Talmud Kook, but it's also mentioned in Hayom Yom, that the stones themselves end up crying out, uh, that the walls, the physicality of the house testifies about what, about what goes on inside it. And obviously, that is for good and for bad. Uh, we saw the negative form of it in our first letter, that it seems that the Rebbe is saying that a certain building burnt down because people did not act appropriately inside that building. This obviously goes to the positive as well. The walls of the house absorb the speech that happens inside the house. The walls of the house absorb the actions that happen inside the house. And therefore, the walls of the house either are more protective or less protective based on what kind of Torah and mitzvahs go on inside them. We have a Sicha over here on Parshas Ki Tetzei of Yud Dalet Elul. This is Tav Shin Nun Alef, and we're just gonna read a small excerpt of it. But here the Rebbe says,

16:26 "Lefarsim." He has a list of things he wants to be mefarsem based on something he taught in Pirkei Avos. And, uh, since it says lefarsim, I love things like lefarsim. It's almost like klal u'se'at imyun. It's one of those words that tells us that these are for the general public, although the truth is we're not in letters right now, we're in Sichas, so we can be very safe in general. When the Rebbe says to publicize this, he means give a share about it and put it on Spotify. So, uh, here we go-- or wherever you get your podcasts. Uh, so here we go. "Lefarsim v'chol makom u'makom al derech shlichos u'yachadus l'Ten Chei Tmenim." The it, it should be publicized in all sorts of places. Tell everybody about the unique shlichos that is given over to Ten Chei Tmenim, to the Rebbe's yeshiva. "Shemshachos v'eles v'chol katzes eivol." It continues in all corners of the world. "Ve'even neres l'hayir," that the students of Ten Chei Tmenim, the students of yeshivas, of the Rebbe's yeshivas, they spread around the entire world, and they become flames that are capable of lighting other flames. Now, so far it's just the yeshiva, right? But watch the pivot. "She'nez lakach shechol bayis Yehudi tzarch liyes bayis Torah, bayis Torah, tefila, gemilus chasadim." In addition to this, this means not just spreading the impact of Ten Chei Tmenim, the yeshiva system around the world, but making sure that that goes into every single Jewish home, not just into a synagogue or

17:25 into a, uh, into a yeshiva, not just into a Beis Medrash, but into a home. That is, that every single Jewish home needs to be a house of Torah, tefila, and gemilus chasadim, acts of kindness, gemilut chasadim. "Tzarch liyes," in addition to that, it also needs to be "kol bayis me'ein bedugmas yeshivas Ten Chei Tmenim." The Rebbe says every single house should not just be full of Torah, tefila, and acts of kindness. It should resemble the yeshiva you came from. That is, your house should be your yeshiva even nowadays. "Me'ein bedugmas yeshivas Ten Chei Tmenim." That is that the house should resemble the yeshiva of the Rebbe, Ten Chei Tmenim. "Idei liba Torah sa'chasidis, nes al libe Torah b'chalal." That it should have learning Torah going on in it, Torah learning going on in it, and specifically the learning of chasidis going on in it, because the house should represent, should look just like the yeshiva. So we're see-- we're not, we're not seeing a house where you come home and sl- plop down on the couch and put your feet up. We're seeing a house that is, uh, holding you accountable for everything you say and do in your house, and we're seeing a house that is supposed to resemble our yeshiva system, as if that was not already pushing us in the direction of, uh, I don't know, uh, seriousness of, uh, of Frumkeit. Enough. Let me show you a sicha that makes it even more serious. Let's up the ante as long

18:26 as we're here. This sicha is from Yud Tes Kislev, Tuv Shin Yud Tes, and here the Rebbe says, "Bais Chassidi, in a Chassidishe home, a Chas-- a Chassid's house. Zarach liyes hagisha ve'hamada de shtel be'even shel Shabbes ha'takam uvdin dechel." That is that a Chassidishe home should feel like Shabbes during the week. That is the same way that Shabbes has the gift of taking us away from physicality and taking us away from, uh, the day-to-day, the day-to-day grind, business and stuff like that, the mundane, that's the best way to put it. The Shabbes removes us from the mundane. Si-similarly, when a person comes home from the outside world and steps into the Chassidishe home, it should be Shabbes. It should be Shab-- I don't mean don't turn on your lights. I mean, you should walk out from the outside, from thechel, from the mundane, uh, world, and step into the sanctity of a Jewish home. I'm not gonna read any more 'cause I have to keep moving. We're short on time. I have here a sicha from Parshas Vayetze, Tes Kislev, Tuv Shin Yud Alef. Once again, we're only gonna read the small excerpt because I need to keep us moving. The Rebbe says, "The following is a hira moser sekhel la'kol." The following is a, is a instruction and a bit of moser sekhel for everybody, and specifically to a chassan and kallah. So if you happen to be a chassan and kallah listening, this one's specifically for you, but it really is for

19:28 everybody. And the Rebbe says, "Bayis b'Yisrael tzarich liyes bais Elokim." A-- When we say bayis b'Yisrael, a house of the Jewish people, it needs to be a bais Elokim. That means to me it needs to be a house of God. "Al yedei zeh she'nasa kadur b'kedusha." It needs to be, uh, entirely injected with, filled with... I need a good translation of kadur. But anyway, completely imbued with. How do we do imbued with? Imbued with kedusha, with holiness. "Chayenu. Sh'lei v'hakasiv v'chachumash sh'vays-- sh'vays hayyim b'reishit." It's not just that you have to have holy s-books in your house, but your house is mundane. "El gam lahavdil masleg v'chapisha v'bayis kadur b'kedusha." That you should be able to make the statement that not only are my books full of holiness, imbued with holiness, but my fork and my spoon are imbued with holiness. That is, that every aspect of the house, including the, I don't know, so-called secular aspects of the house, the material aspects of the house, should be full of, uh, should be full of Torah and mitzvahs, should be full of holiness. At the same time, this can almost leave the impression, God forbid, that a Jewish home should not be warm. A Jewish home must be warm. That is one of the prerequisites for a Jewish home. I have a beautiful letter here from Tuv Shin Yud Alef. The letter is labeled Tuv Tuv Kuf Lamed Tes. And here the Rebbe gives a bracha for newlyweds, and he says this to them. He

20:30 says, "It should be God's will, yirtzin sheyikantsu hu b'nei bais hashiach yu." Excuse me, not newlyweds. They're moving into a new house. My mistake. "L'dirasan hachadashu vesha'atevu b'tslacha v'gashmius uvruchniyus." Uh, God should give you a blessing that you should move into your new house, and it should be in a time, uh, it should be in a good time, and it should be hatzlacha, a success in physicality and spirituality. "Uvadi yachad choiza b'yesvadas chassidiyus, chassidutis." Certainly, you will arrange a Chassidishe farbrengen in that house. And of course, as it says over there, that the way that you, uh, the way that you, uh, do things yourself, the way that you, uh, accustom yourself, so too, that's the way that God will act toward you. The way you act is the way that God acts toward you. Uh, and it will be a Chassidishe varm hayyiz. It must be a Chassidishe and a warm home. It must have ahavas Hashem, of course. You have to love God in your house. Ahavas Torah, you gotta love Torah, as we talked about earlier. But, uh, but there also has to be ahavas Yisrael in the house. You gotta love your fellow Jew. Um, and this, uh, should all go-- this day should lead to all other days, et cetera, bracha v'hatzlacha. Uh, so what the Rebbe's saying over here is that it's not just important to make sure that your house is full of Torah and it does not have sins going on in it. There needs to be

21:29 love for your neighbor inside the house. There needs to be warmth inside the house. It shouldn't be a cold house that is intent on making sure, you know, this is a Beis Midrash. Everybody be quiet. We're learning now. Uh, it should resemble tem chetveim. It should resemble our yeshiva system, but only in the most positive ways. Only in the most, only in the most loving ways. That is, a loving, caring, warm home, but it's a home that insists on being holy at all times. Mundanity does not belong in the Chassidic home. Uh, this is certainly why the Rebbe does not want televisions in our home. But, uh, anything like a television applies to this as well. If it comes from the outside and it brings the secular from outside into my home, it doesn't belong there. The house is supposed to be like yeshiva. The house is supposed to be like a Beis Hamikdash. I have a bunch of English letters that I want to show you, but I'm completely out of time. So, uh, in the interest of that out of time that I'm out of, let me take one minute to just run through some of the best parts of these English letters, and I'll post them in the group. This letter is an English letter, once again from the Rebbe Responsa app, which is incredible. You can find it in that app. 18 Elul of fifty-seven thirty-five. This was written to the editors of A Woman of Valor, which is an anthology

22:24 for the thinking Jewess. That's quite a title. And here the Rebbe says that, uh, "I want you to make sure that people know that a house needs to have all mitzvahs in it," that building a Jewish home means building a mitzvah home. He says that the way that we, uh-- In a home-- I'll read one excerpt, and it's, it is, it-- a Jewish home is like this. "A Jewish home is where God's presence is felt." I'm reading the Rebbe's words. "It is a Jewish home where God's presence is felt not only on Shabbes and Yom Tov, but on every day of the week, and not only when davening and learning Torah, but also when engaged in very ordinary things, such as eating and drinking in accordance with the directive, 'Know Him in all your ways.' It is a home where mealtime is not a time for indulging in ordinary and natural eating habits, but a hallowed service to God, where a table is an altar to God, sanctified by the washing of the hands before the meal, reciting blessings over the food and grace after the meal, with every food item and beverage brought into the home being strictly kosher. It is a home where the mutual relationship between husband and wife is sanctified by the meticulous obser-observance of the laws and regulations, and regulations of taharas hamishpacha," et cetera, et cetera. So he goes on to say that what a Jewish home really looks like is not that, you know, it feels Jewy. A

23:18 Jewish home is a Jewish home because it's full of Torah and mitzvahs, and where all of our seemingly mundane actions are not so mundane. Another English letter I wanted to show you over here. This is from, uh, fifty-seven fifteen, the twenty-sixth of Teves, written to a Mrs. Schwadron, and the Rebbe writes, "I'm sure your physical home will have its proper counterpart in a fine and happy spiritual Jewish and Chassidic home. And as the physical home is designed to keep out any harmful cold in the winter and heat in the summer, so spiritually too, your home will be immune to any harmful outside influences which try to cool down the inner sanctity of the Jewish home." You're seeing here the theme, that stuff from the outside might be mundane, and it might even be bad, but in my home, I'm safe spiritually. To br-- uh, that your, that, uh, your home will be immune to any harmful outside influences which try to cool down the inner sanctity of the Jewish home or to bring in a strange fire from the outside. That is, make sure strange fires don't come in from the outside. And maybe not