How to Reach the Youth | Letter #8 of 30 Letters in 30 Days

foreign and welcome to week number two of 30 letters in 30 days we started our journey last week at this time monteshabis matsushabas kadish and uh we finished a complete week I hope that everybody got the Shabbos uh discussion table companion that we created uh if you didn't that's at 30 letters 30days.com and that's your One Stop Shop to get the archives of previous classes as well as the PDFs to print out to follow the letters inside during the class as well as on Ed of Shabbos we put out another PDF which is a review of the letters we learned this week along with some discussion questions for you and your family my family and I also did that the Shabbos at the at the Shabbos table okay so another letter Hashem Tess Brooklyn New York foreign judge [Music] a judge in the Israeli Judicial System a a jurist and he had various positions including the judge of the high court in Tel Aviv as well as in other cities at different junctures and uh that is how probably most people who are familiar with the history of uh Israeli government would know him that's a name that you may be familiar with um yes he was distantly distantly related to uh kazanovsky who was one of the early leaders of Chabad in America and that's because he was descended also from foreign because he's from a famous family we know his father was who was a who was a love and in turn was the son of Reb Eliezer shimen and one of the leaders of the Chabad community in erits Israel himself was born in yerushalayim so he was a real yirushami and their family had been in ETC from the time of the Tamar sadik and they they married into the family of rabbits so the tree goes like this I said shalom's father said I believe it's his father was a shimming was the son of sterna Reza who was the daughter of okay so that's that's the yes interestingly enough that ABBA doesn't make any note or mention of the in this letter although they had other correspondences and they had met in person so I'm sure that the egos came up at some point when did they meet in person a few years earlier this letter is 1959 or it's probably still the last few months of 1958 actually um but they had met a few years earlier uh pesach Shalom came to 770. he visited 770 and then he had this after after pesach so talk about two and a half years before this letter um he was very active in social causes in addition to being a judge he was active specifically in the binay brith youth movement and the the this letter that the rabbit is writing to Reb Shalom is actually discussing his involvement with the youth and in general an approach to how to reach the youth so we're talking to somebody who comes from an illustrious pedigree uh descended ultimately of the altareba of the balatanya himself because if he's descended from that means she was the daughter of the mittler who was the son of the altaraba so we're talking about somebody who's from uh from base saraf which also means a distant relative of the rabbi himself um I should mention also that this was in America for quite some time I think six or seven years uh he actually went to University of Chicago I was the last class you saw me do Thursday night I gave from Chicago or more specifically from Highland Park Illinois so uh just a little tie in there a little Jewish geography apparently he was at the University of Chicago from 1928 until 1935. we're talking about before the founding of the state of Israel and uh like I said he was born in yerushalaim and then he was educated in in khadaram in religious schools as a child went to America went to University of Chicago and then he returned to erits Israel and he was involved as we mentioned in the in the judicial system there okay here's the letter greetings and blessings after a very long uh a uh hiatus after a long interval Noam lee la cabochman it was very pleasant for me to receive your letter from the fifth day of Heisman especially by to read there in your letter regarding your impressions about the happy occasion the happy events what was the happy occasion that you shared your impressions about the participation of the youth at the Chabad shuls plural where you davened the high holidays and simrastator so apparently repshalem um I don't know if you regularly Davin with Chabad but for sure this particular tishray had just passed he went to khabajul's differentials for different parts of the the high holidays and uh and simcaster and what he was very impressed with and he wrote and said that he was impressed was how he saw youth present at these services and participating and that that was made a very favorable impression upon him to see the involvement of the youth who are it's understood that I agree with you that the most important issue fade in in any land or in any group of people but especially in the holy land is the direction of the youth so apparently wrote to the rabbit and said along with his favorable impressions of the youth at the Chabad shuls he said you know the most important thing in any place is you see you have to see how the youth are doing what's the direction of the youth so that I was saying yeah I I'm asking literally says I'm asking I agree I agree with you you're right the direction of the youth is super important via Dua I shared nusia Chabad so it's known that the leaders of Chabad the rebellum in all the generations and in all their different places wherever they lived amuse voice even as burdened as they were with all of the different issues that they had to deal with for the general Community as well as for individuals nevertheless as busy as they were [Music] they committed they dedicated a very significant portion of their work to the education and influence of the Jew of the of the Jewish youth boys and they gave priority to this issue above many other issues okay so that I was saying I agree you're right the youth is top priority and in fact I'll tell you even more this was what we saw by the rebellum that they also prioritized dealing with the youth that this was given special uh special priority okay now that I was gonna add his own insight and basically say I agreed with something that you wrote and I'm gonna expect not tit for Tech with pro quo that you're going to agree with what I'm about to say but the number says I'm sure that when I say this it's going to resonate with you which is one of the things you see a lot with the rabbit uh it's a lot you know the style that I've been we've spoken about this many times about how the devil will say you know it goes without St it goes without stating we don't even have to elaborate this is readily obvious it's it's it's a parent and also the similar style that I was saying I'm going to tell you something and I know you're going to agree with it um I could read a lot into that but and I think I have read a lot into it in in the past and I continue to read a lot into it I'll just share with you one thing and and that is maybe maybe two things I'm sorry I can't behave myself one is more psychological the other one's probably more spiritual the the psychologically I think it's always positive and helpful to establish common ground so even what well especially when you're disagreeing with somebody it's important to say look how much we agree about but even when you're talking to someone you agree with it's just good to keep on re-establishing how much we agree on how like-minded we are that we're really we're on the same side we're on the same team okay um so that's one thing Also spiritually you see when when you when you speak well of people and you speak well to them about themselves generally speaking it it it's especially when a rabbit speaks to someone this way it lifts them up it lifts them up to that level so that ABBA says certainly that to someone like you um somebody whose heart is awake to the Holiness of our nation meaning I know who I'm talking to I know my customer you're a person who cares about and who's aware of the Holiness of the Jewish people in other words yes he was a secular judge but the Deb is saying you're not just coming from a purely secular approach you understand that there's here there's a spiritual intangible quality here that the Jewish people aren't just a nation like any other Nation there's a certain kadusha here that we're talking about okay so let's reaffirm that and I always suspect whenever that ever reaffirms something with somebody it's probably to give them a boost in that area as well okay foreign and furthermore your working in the capacity of a judge nacenis Lake it gives you a special ability to look into the inside of a person um and into his State of Mind so the devil says speaking to a guy like you who a understands the spirituality that we're talking about here about Jewish identity B you're a guy because of your job as a judge that you look deeply into people like you don't just take the exit face value you understand how to analyze things deeply analyze people deeply and understand where people are coming from so I'm going to tell you something that you're gonna get you're gonna totally get this this is right up your alley it's Superfluous to elaborate at length about this that the present situation in the Holy Land we're talking about the present situation in the last months of 1958 heading into 1959. yes foreign this issue that we're discussing has even greater significance it is Amplified it is magnified by an additional Factor which apparently they haven't discussed yet now the dev is going to bring up what is this amplifying factor that exists like in other words we've already agreed that the direction of the youthism is important for any people in any place but especially in the Holy Land we get that okay and and I'm going to tell you now something extra that a guy like you who appreciates what you appreciate and who has the experience that you have and the capacities that you have you're going to totally get what I'm about to say here's an extra factor that affects this whole situation about the youth and here's what it is crew eilim means that the immigrants the olim the newcomers to the land were uprooted uses the word uprooted from their places of where they were settled for hundreds of years and had a system of life that was settled for many many generations okay so here's the deal we have to consider the fact of how the youth in erits Israel are coming from generally speaking a very destabilized situation now we said he came from a long line of uh of uh remember we said his father's fathers what do we say his father's fathers father's mother let me look at what I wrote here his fathers fathers mothers mother yeah it was right so we're talking about he's fifth generation uh Sabra like they call it but that's very very rare that's unusual obviously there was a Jewish presence a constant Jewish presence in the holy land at all times through history but if you're talking about in 1959 if you would look I don't know what the numbers are I'm sure they're easy to find out though with a Google search in 1959 what percentage of the Jewish population in the Holy Land were born there um I would assume the majority were not remember you're talking about still it's after the Holocaust right after World War II so a lot of ashkenazim are coming not not from Russia yet because it was totally closed up that came much later but people who were displaced from uh from Eastern Europe from where the Holocaust was you talking about a lot of svardum who are coming from all the countries that they were thrown out of um a huge population Morocco Iraq Syria and many other populations so the rabbit points out to that there's an exacerbating factor that the youth or at least a great deal of the youth in Eric Cicero were ripped away were uprooted is that of his word from the the the settled system of life that they had had for centuries and for Generations so it's understood that most of if not almost all of the new immigrants to the Holy Land may it be rebuilt and inhabited they when they came here they saw a totally new world it was totally foreign to them that I was not getting into the whole thing about how many traditional religious Jews came to the Holy Land and unfortunately were exposed to a whole secular uh culture that they had been sheltered from that was not at least that I was not saying it explicitly but the Deb is saying look you're talking about people we're going to be honest about the Jewish situation they had tradition they had Jewish tradition long histories of Jewish tradition and when they came to the Holy Land ironically enough they were uprooted from much of that [Music] and this is not only so regarding those who have arrived recently Allah to a great extent also kanam Khalid all of the supplies everything we've said even to the second generation remember we said Ram Shalom is what we say fifth generation is fifth generation uh from and uh that I was saying a lot of these people either they themselves are olim they just came or even the children of the olim you don't think that they just automatically resettle so quickly they don't so whatever's saying you have to pay attention to the fact that if you're going to be honest about the situation of the youth in Israel a very significant factor that cannot be ignored is the extent to which you're talking about a massive population that has been removed from the tradition and the history that was retained in their families for centuries and it's a real issue so they came to the Holy Land that's great but they come there and all of a sudden everything that was sort of propping them up and holding them up is removed from them and it's it's uh it's an issue it can't be ignored okay so uh and by the way as an American I I'm fully aware that I cannot properly appreciate this observation that the dev is making and even when I'm reading this I'm couching it in American terms I can't avoid doing that I would love to hear from an Israeli I wonder if we have any Israelis who bother to watch this with me with my American English and everything but I would love to hear from an Israeli what your impressions are of this of the devil's analysis of the youth in Israel in the decade just after the founding of the state of Israel that this issue of youth being removed from their long history of tradition how much of an issue was that how much of an impact did that have if you were there if you lived through this if your parents were there and lived through this I would love to hear about it because like I say I don't relate to this directly what I'm when I'm thinking about this though I'm thinking about the American version of it which is a little bit different um in that it took a little bit longer I'd say and it happened for different reasons but the end result was pretty much the same that the Jews came from a place where they had a long tradition solid tradition and they came to a place where a lot of that just sort of fell away in America it was for different reasons and and and it was more I would say by attrition than the act of and that ever doesn't speak about it here but there was we know unfortunately an active um agenda on the part of certain secular uh movements to replace Jewish religious identity with a cultural nationalistic identity okay and here the Rabbit doesn't speak about any of that at least not explicitly but uh I'm relating to this I'm thinking about yeah it's true like from my experience as an American a lot of times you're dealing with Jews who if you would meet their grandparents or their great-grandparents you would see them fully religious Jews and now who are you talking to somebody who they're sort of removed from that they don't have that context so what do you do you know I've seen it in my own life I remember when we were bahamasayim and you'd meet a Jew on the street corner it didn't it didn't matter uh how secular they were there were certain things that were cultural um touchstones yeah you know I would Yiddish word or just you know speaking about Israel the safety of Israel like even like 20 years ago when I was a baker I guess I'm 23 years ago when I was about her those things meant more and today you see they mean less I remember even hearing a few years ago about a college campus in the Pacific Northwest that stopped serving matzo balls why because the students didn't know what they were you know in the early days of Chabad on campus matzah balls was the whole thing because home away from home right so how do you want to make the Jewish kids feel that that warmth that Sentimental Feeling ah it's just like just like your mother at least just like your grandmother's cooking you give them matzo balls and they have you know Jews have that warm feeling but they came to a point in the past five ten years Jewish students didn't know what matzo balls were so it didn't have that trigger they were removed from that so again I'm americanizing the situation because I don't really relate to the Israeli version of it but my point still stands that Abbott is saying what do you do when you're trying to guide the youth and they're removed from all of this history from this stabilizing force that they had had in their family lines for so many generations and now you don't have access to that how do you reach them glad you asked okay to our great Fortune good news happy news foreign the solution to the problem is sitting right there next to it by the way I could use that expression to almost sum up every letter of the rabbit to our Good Fortune lucky how lucky the solution to the problem is sitting right there next to the problem sometimes even the solution of the problem is right there inside of the problem how are we going to fix this what's the solution here it is in the inner in the inner soul of every Jewish man and woman remember you as a judge you know how to see inside of people you know how to look deeper so inside of every Jewish man or woman as descendants of the Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob stretches is ingrained is deeply rooted a love of Hashem and a love of Torah and just general good character traits and this is explained in the especially in the foundational safer the Tanya which as we mentioned of shalom's ancestors was the author of explains that this is the native default setting of The nashama that we call the Ava mesuteris is the nature of it's the Instinct the Instinct of the Jewish soul so the represents we've got a problem these Jews are culturally removed from the golden chain of tradition big problem and it is a problem we have the solution right next to us right next to the problem the solution is that even when they are removed from the golden chain of tradition you have it right inside of them it never went away it's still there it's mushrush it's rooted in them love of God and love of Torah and just general good character traits that's in them it's inside of them come avoid like we said yeah therefore therefore no samasima we are guaranteed that with the proper amount of effort we will succeed in directing the youth on the right path the good and right path the hakora zoo this information this knowledge that I'm sharing with you about the fact that the Jewish people have it inside of them why should you know this why is it important it's true even if you don't know about it what do you want me to do differently about it like we're already working with them so why why should I know this that the that connection is is inside of them what's the point so the number says knowing this just the he calls it the hakara just recognizing this truth it gives greater encouragement to those who are working in this holy task in other words I want you and all the other people and I told you that upshalom was very involved in beneath birth Youth Organization so I want you to know over there that yeah it can be disheartening and sometimes you think how are we going to reach these people they're so removed from traditional Judaism yeah maybe culturally that's environment but inside of them they're never removed there's nature and there's nurture so of course we want the Best of Both Worlds we want nature and nurture to to facilitate Jewish connection but when they've been ripped away from the nurture they still have the nature you know the famous story George Rohr told them about the beginner service that he was starting in Manhattan he's very happy to say this is for Jews with no Jewish background very serious what he said choose with no Jewish background that would not like those words and whatever told him I don't know you go back and tell them they do have a background they are the children of Abraham Isaac Jacob Sarah Rebecca Rachel and Leah so don't don't ever think of a Jew as not having a Jewish background even if culturally they're removed from it which is a problem we're not saying it's not a problem obviously it's much better if they grow up with the support of a Jewish community that that that gives them a connection to Jewish tradition obviously that that is ideal and that is saying it's a problem they were uprooted from those Traditions but even when that's the case whether it's the Israeli situation or the American situation or in any country where Jews move from one situation to another and and culturally they've become distant from their the way of life of their ancestors we still have a solution and the solution is by looking deeply within the Jew and realizing that that connection to you this is still within the Jew still there with esteem and blessing and that concludes muscularly Rosh Hashanah included attached is a copy of the Mir of my mirth of clolly the general letter that I wrote for Rosh Hashanah we've mentioned this in previous classes [Music] in that in the in the mix of Chloe of of this Pastor shashana the rabbit says I also touched upon this same concept over there okay we're a little over time trying to keep to the 30 minutes we will see you I mean Hashem with God's help tomorrow night for letter number nine