A Response to Tragedy (5734 - 1974)

00:00 The tragic event in Miran brings to memory a tragedy which took place in Eretz Israel immediately after Shavuos Tov Shin Lamed Heh, 1974. In a car accident which happened while returning from a wedding, four people perished when the car fell off a cliff. Amongst them, the Rav of Kfar Chabad then was Rab Shneer Zalman Garelik, an elderly person, and additional distinguished Hasidim, and also a Kallah who was preparing for her wedding in a short time after that. During the farbrengen which took place on the following Shabbos, Parshas Nassei, the Rebbe addressed this tragedy while his voice was choking with tears throughout the sicha. The contents of the sicha was very unique and unusual, and in a sense, somewhat with a different perspective than other occasions during which the Rebbe addressed tragic events. The Rebbe opened his words as follows, as it is translated here in English. It is known the words of the Rambam in the Halachos of Tanias, when a trouble comes, everyone should know that it was because of their evil deeds that this bad was done to them. And therefore, the Rebbe refers to the Halachos of awal, of mourning, as the Rambam writes, . A person should fear, should be concerned, and search his deeds if there's anything that needs to be corrected. The Rebbe continued referring to the event in 1974 and said as follows, "There are matters that how much one searches he cannot find and cannot understand why it happened." Just to add a comment, this is how

02:23 the Rebbe analyzed that incident, that how much one searches cannot find and cannot understand why it happened. And the Rebbe continues, as we find in Parshas Ki Savo. There, after many negative things, punishments are mentioned in great detail. The pasuk, the verse adds a new concept, and even worse yet, quoting the pasuk that Hashem will inflict extraordinary plagues upon you, The previous Rebbe once said to someone who wanted to explain the events of the Shehiah, what took place in World War II. And the previous Rebbe said, We don't need to justify what took place during the war. We don't need to justify Hashem's deeds. We need to know that this is not logically understood. It is extraordinary plagues, and thus no need to justify Hashem's act. And the Rebbe elaborates. Simply, this is not in contradiction, Chas ve'Shalom, to belief in Hashem, and it doesn't cause a weakness in the belief. But on the contrary, because of the strong belief that one has in Hashem and the knowledge that this is exclusively from Hashem, therefore one can come with tanis. And those who ask, how can one say we know-- we don't need to justify Hashem's act, we find this in the Gemara, in the Talmud, the Rebbe continues, the tractate of Yuma sixty-nine B. And the-- this tractate on this page, the Talmud says as follows, "For Moshe had come and said, 'The great God, the Mighty and the Awful,' Then Jeremiah, Yirmiyahu came and said, 'Aliens are destroying his temple. Where are then

04:47 his awful deeds?' Hence, he omitted the attribute the Awful. Daniel came and said, 'Aliens are enslaving his sons. Where are his mighty deeds?' Hence, he omitted the word mighty. Therein lie his mighty deeds that he suppresses his wrath, that he extends long-suffering to the wicked. But how could the earlier rabbis abolish something established by Moshe? Rabbi Eliezer, the sage says, 'Since they knew that the Holy One, blessed be He, insists on truth, they would not ascribe false things to Him.'" And the Rebbe continues, "Nevertheless, when an event which is the opposite of the Mighty and the Awful is seen with one's flesh eyes, they couldn't recite the Great and the Mighty, since it is the opposite of what they were seeing, and they can't say something untrue. Therefore, they would not ascribe false things to Him." Likewise, the Rebbe continues, when we see an event which is not at all comprehended, even after searching, we need to say the truth that this is not at all understood, but in a manner of v'hiflu Hashem, extraordinary plagues beyond comprehension, and therefore one screams. And surely that Hashem himself feels in agony over this. And although Hashem knows that as a result of this, a new inspiration takes place and the heart is awakened to Hashem and his Torah and mitzvahs, nevertheless, Hashem feels pain that inspiration and awakening needed to stem through such events, needed to result and inspire by these events happening. And the Rebbe continues, if so, that Hashem feels the pain, why did

07:03 he do this? And who can stop him from doing anything he wishes? He had a choice not to do it. This itself is in a sense the Inyan of v'hiflu Hashem, extraordinary plagues beyond logic that we don't understand. And the Rebbe continues, we indeed find in the Talmud about the sage Rabbi Baba Chana that he heard an echo from above which announced, this is representing Hashem, woe to me that I swore with an oath about the Golus, about exile. And therefore, woe to me, also to Hashem, since Hashem also feels the pain in exile. But now that I swore, who can annul it for me? And the sages responded, you yourself should have annulled it, which means a Yid has the key to annul the oath of Hashem. Which we can possibly explain that this means that they gave the tip, they gave the advice, so-called to Hashem, that he can annul it. So a Yid has the key to have it accomplished. And the Rebbe begins concluding the Sikha that through the Aveda of Yidden in Kedushe, in sacred matters, v'hiflu Hashem in an extraordinary manner, in contrast to the negative extraordinary plagues, Yidden have the power to convert the negative into positive. That from now and on, there should be only good things in a visual and revealed good. And in addition, that the visual and revealed good is increased, it becomes infinite without boundaries, as the Tzemach Tzedek quotes from the Alti Rebbe that he heard given over in the name from

09:03 saintly sources about the expression that people use that after a fire, one becomes rich. That the basis for this is that this stems from the sequence of the higher attributes, Chesed, Din, and Rachamim. Chesed means goodness, Din is judgment, harshness, and Rachamim is mercy. Therefore, in the same sense that in the attributes, after Din, after harshness comes mercy, therefore after a fire comes Rachamim, comes richness, which is greater than Chesed, than regular goodness, since this is the characteristic of Yankev, which has no limitations. And the Rebbe concludes the Sikha that this, the above mentioned, is already published, and as the known quote from the Tzemach Tzedek, that something which is published is for dere, deres eternal. And the main thing is that they should be drawn down literally, lemata ma'asoret vachem, lower than the ten handbreadths, close to the ground, and bekariv mamish very soon. A correction. The sentence, Moshe had come and said, the great God, the mighty and the awful. The word awful was used in the Cincinnati press on the Talmud and Yuma, but it should be updated to the word the awesome. And likewise, a little further, where it says, hence he omitted the attribute the awful, should be corrected to the awesome.