Letters of the Rebbe: "Advice for a Rabbi" (Class 5)

okay shalom aleichem good evening afraid if you're on with us live this is the night coming out of purim this is the pure meal time and i'm sure most of you are watching this on replay for understandable reasons um we're going to have a double episode tonight remember these are 30 letters that we're learning over the course of the 30 days before yoda of nissan that eva's birthday and in order to have 30 days worth of learning we have to make up for the shabbos class so just like in the desert when the mon when the bread from heaven was coming from heaven to feed beneath and they could not gather it on shabbos so they were given a double portion on ed of shabbos so we're going to do a double portion and head of shabbat say lecha mishna if you will so tonight we're going to have two letters and this is going to be an hour-long class 30 minutes and 30 minutes i don't know if it'll be exactly divided like that but that's the basic idea um i also want to mention that you know everything is hashikaka practice hashem runs the world down to the most microscopic detail and sometimes we get to see it sometimes we get a glimpse of it and this was not planned at all but i found in both of these letters connections to purim that i myself am aware of there may be others that i'm not aware of but i caught a couple that i am even aware of and that is something that couldn't be planned and it wasn't planned and it just reminds us that everything is just okay tonight our first letter is letter number five and uh this letter was written to somebody who i actually knew and revered as a mentor and as a leader as a role model and pretty much all good things you can say about a person and you're gonna find out who this is brooklyn this letter was written on the ninth day of the hebrew month of march so now we're getting remember our letters started during assassination during the days of awe and then we had letters that were written just right after the high holiday season now we're getting farther from the high holiday season we're in the middle about toward the middle of the month of march okay greetings and blessings and uh well i'm sorry that is the second letter this is brooklyn yeah the the hosted the god-fearing one the honorable the exalted the one who is occupied in communal service are rabbi sv may he live this is referring to rabbit sv or as i knew him being referred to more commonly as uh herschel not that we called him that we called him rabbi shusterman and hershel shusterman oliver shalom was an incredible rav a talmud a pacific a leader a shliyak and there's and there's no limit to what could be said about such a great man and i had the honor to know him personally he was the love in chicago for many many decades before i was born uh he came actually to chicago as a shliya of the frida krebs father-in-law in 1947 and he assumed leadership of binet ruvain the congregation which is the the main congregation for chabad for anash in chicago he became the rabbi of beneruven in 1959. so 12 years after he first came to chicago this letter of course is 1955 so this is before he went to bene roving and he was the rabbi of a different congregation which i'm not sure the name of and i'm not sure if it exists even anymore um i'll tell you something very interesting i once asked a shiloh of rabbi shusterman and what was the shyla my parents may they be well took a trip to eretzistro right after they got married and they bought a megillah a uh an antique i stressed the word antique megillah it was not in great shape and it was more understood to be an heirloom or a keepsake not something that we actually used for form for following in the magilla because it was missing letters it was missing words it was uh it wasn't in great shape at any rate at one point i i think i had actually been learning the gemata megillah where it spoke about the leniencies of a megillah over the leniencies of a seifer toyota and it occurred to me i don't know i mean i know it's not in great shape but maybe because it's a mcgill it's not a safer toyota it's they're different laws maybe it's okay maybe it's usable and so i went i think it was between minha and maidev and bineruven i went to abe schusterman and i showed him my parents megillah that they bought in artistrol this antique megillah that no one had used for porm at least not since we had it and he unscrolled he unraveled the scroll he looked it over for a couple of minutes and he said kosher that's all he had to say he was a man of few words very succinct but when rabbi schusterman said kosher that's all you needed to hear kosher i could say so much more about him but anyways i thought that was pretty marvelous that the shiloh that i asked him was about a poor magilla and here it is bashkajo pratas hashem runs the world tonight is purim okay shalom of rakha greetings and blessings after the long silence noah lee it was pleasing to me pleasant to me le cabo michtave to get your letter matsushabus kedish from coming out of shabbos the the saturday night the night coming out of shabbos it's interesting that ever received so much mail and you know i get emails and emails and i can't keep up with them and it's like oh no another now my inbox is up to 10 000 unread mails uh emails and and and that ebba was receiving correspondences from all over the world constantly all the time and that ever was so busy with so much i mean that was constantly learning that but was learning all day plus all of the the the involvement that ebba was managing and everything that was going on in the world and engineering the the entire movement of chabad and you would think somebody in that position would actually be happy if people would give him a rest and not write so often and yet you find in the igor so often that the dabba will say hey a long time no speak i haven't heard from you heard from you for a while it's so nice that you wrote again in fact in some letters and i think we have some letters coming up where the rebbe will say i was disappointed that i didn't hear from you for so long and from now on you better write more often just to me that that itself is is mind-blowing at any rate so that ever says after the long silence it was nice to get a letter from you again from uh your letter from matsushabus by cursive now in this letter you wrote how you set the things up in the talmud torah that's like hebrew school like uh after school that was very common by the way in those time in those times in the 1950s even fairly religious children didn't necessarily go to jewish day schools and they would maybe go to a public school and then they would have a talmud torah afterwards so apparently rabbi shusterman was running that type of an institution or something like that so that ebba says i was very happy to hear how you set up things in the talmud torah the siddhar hakita is hashemis and how you set up the different classes very strong language i really really enjoyed double really i really really enjoyed my ma she himself how you came up with many aspects of friendly competition that's my loose translation kinosa literally means competition between sages it's actually it's a good morning that's speaking about whether or not a uh a hater can hire another malamate or parents i guess who are educating their children can hire another mulamid whether that's uh unfair to the original malama but it says no it's good because when it comes to torah study kinase the competition suffering means of of scholars torah scholars competition between it scholars wisdom so i guess like you say in a free market economy in capitalism right competition is good for the consumers so in torah scholarship a little bit of competition is good for the amount of uh torah knowledge and wisdom that there's going to be in the world so that ebba says here i'm happy to hear i really really enjoyed uh hearing how you came up with some uh competitive aspects of the classroom in the talmud we're going to hear a little bit about what that means uh in a in a moment but the rabbit continues that this for sure this certainly is going to arouse and bring out the inner spiritual potential that every single jew has inside and i just want to comment here again i think we had something similar in a previous letter where the rabbit was used in expression he was telling that woman to to influence her surroundings and to reveal the toy of shebanovsham the good that's in inside in the in the souls of the people that she's influencing and again here that i was saying similar concept that the competition is merely a catalyst to release something that's already there and that's just you know one of the main ideas in the rubbish title is always the idea that deep down every jew already has spiritual greatness and they want the right things and there just has to be something that jiggles it loose and and brings it out and if it's kind of sulfur if it's a little competition then you use competition whatever it is but we gotta release that that latent potential that's within okay she is gallup that it should come out in actuality shouldn't just be potential it should be actual the ashbu al-khayam and then when it comes out it should then affect their day-to-day lives in other words it shouldn't be a one-off it shouldn't be just one time they bring out their potential but it should be something that then has a continual effect on them in their day-to-day lives and in continuation or in connection to this idea it was very good your idea lesader minion badom to give them their own minion to set up a little a little shul for the kids why why does that ever like that junior minion i think they call it cave and shazam nice and mockingly because then the kids can pick their own shule officers like a gabai the one who calls people up for earlier or shamish you know the one who sets up the chairs and puts out the tablecloths or whatever it is when you have positions of responsibility that's very very good you know just parenthetically i was once uh invited to be the scholar in residence for a weekend a very special weekend with the siting leadership there's a special you know sea team is a very large uh group or a conglomeration of groups of youth groups run by shlokham all over the world and they have a shabbaton once in once a year in crown heights for all of the the members all the teens who are part of seating but then in the summer time they have something called the leadership i think they call leadership summit and anyway those are the heads of each chapter and they come together and these are really motivated kids highly uh highly involved in their in their in their jewish growth and these are the kids who are the leaders and they get together and they have this this summit so i was uh one weekend i was with them i think it was out in the poconos mountains at the bushkill resort and we had a a meeting together and i was like the i don't know facilitator we were speaking about recruitment tactics and you know i don't know what how to recruit i mean i never took classes in recruitment but i picked up something from the rebbe's style and that is that if you tell someone you really need to come to this thing it's really important for you to come to it you really need to come to it maybe they will maybe they won't okay people are busy they got a lot of things to do you're telling them just one more thing that might be good for them to do they'll add it to the list maybe they'll come maybe they won't but instead if you don't tell them you really need to come to this if you say we really need you here you're important you have an official title you're you're the gaba you're the shamish you're the one who sets up the the drinks you're the one who posts on social media after after the meeting when you give them a job instead of saying you need to be here but rather you say we need you to be here all of a sudden people are like i can't miss this i have an obligation i have a commitment and i was talking about that with the with the sea teams and they were all marveling at that they were they were saying absolutely anyone that we tried to beg to come or bribe to come it doesn't work but if you give them a job if you give them a duty a role then they'll be there forever and it could be the simplest job just be you know setting up the chairs but that's how you get people and so the devil is saying here to have a shusterman i love how you set it up that the kids should have their their little titles and their their jobs okay you do actually uses the word team in english he writes it in transliterated hebrew first and then in english team it's known how much american youth love things that have to do with teams this is also an interesting thing that ebba always tapped into the zeitgeist whatever whatever the culture was whether it's american culture or it's israeli culture or where french culture and whatever spoken about these things you tamp into the culture and you wield the culture you use it as a tool to further judaism so that i'm just saying in america people are into their teams that's what they like so great you tapped into that ubermela yes leader and since there's a team there has to be a leader that writes it in in yiddish letters or hebrew letters but yiddish orthography but the word is an english word leader or the rabbi writes captain which is a captain et cetera so that likes that giving children leadership positions this is a great way to motivate them kane is chalet i also liked your your outline the things that you were learning with the adults so rabbi shusterman was both a youth rabbi and adult and a regular adult rabbi so he wrote about what he's doing in the talmud torah with the children he also wrote his outline about what he's doing with the adults that you called upon them to become windows to judaism i really tried to find out what this is windows to judaism it sounds like maybe that was a program that was the name of the program windows to judaism i didn't find anything about it but apparently that's a term that rabbi shusterman used in his letter and the rabbi liked it so that ever says i like with the adults how you uh are calling upon them to be windows to judaism uber gam kane surely you also saw hamam the i would translate that as articles in this case it is about prayer articles about prayer the khalokhim shalom the tales that were published in the talks and tales okay i have to explain talks and tales talks and tales was a 12-page magazine that started coming out from lebowicz right after that ever came to america and that ebba was extremely involved in the talks and tales from its inception and through all of the years the first issue that came out was hanukkah of 1942 and it ran until the month of nissan that's the month of next month and month of passover 1989. okay so you're talking about something that was going for almost 50 years the main author was rabbi nissin mindel who was also a member of the secretariat and who was also one who was involved in the rabbi's letters would take dictation from the rabbi when the rabbi would write letters and this talks entails was extremely precious to the debit it was a tool for spreading judaism well beyond the lubavitch community that was the intention of it in fact in 1979 rabbi khadakov chief secretary wrote a letter to the shlokham how many shlokan were at that time i'm not sure but nothing like the kinus photos that you see today with thousands of shulkers so however many look them they were in 1979 rabbit had wrote to them and reminded them that part of their contract as shlokhim is to recruit subscribers to the talks and tales okay so this is no joke um that ever used to bring every issue of talks and tales to the isle it would bring the toxins house to the oil to the resting place of his father-in-law of his rabbit i should also tell you something a little bit of interesting uh trivia but there's something called a postal permit or a non-profit postal permit and if you have a non-profit magazine that's a monthly magazine you can send it out 12 times a year well as you know like from this year sometimes there are 13 months in a jewish year when you have a jewish leap year so they only had a permit to send out the talks and tells 12 times and i heard from rabbi krinsky once that they actually fought the federal government the post office and said yeah but we have 13 months this year and they won lavovich won that won that argument and they let them send out the talks and tales 13 times a month during jewish leap years so at any rate the talks and tells was very precious to the debit now there were different sections of talks and tales um the gallery of the great which are incredible biographies of jewish leaders from from the times of all the way back to the temple times through the times of the mishnah and the talmud and up to the the medieval sages it's an incredible work the gallery of our great i i enjoy it personally uh there's in nature's wonderland which is teaching children about the greatness of hashem's creation some people compare it to ranger rick it's a like a nature magazine um then there was the stories and they compiled all the stories into i think it's five volumes of books called the storyteller storyteller those stories are the stories that were in talks and tales and then there was another section there were many more sections but then there was one more section of talks and tales called my prayer which is uh the translation it's based on the words vanessa king david and psalms says as for me my prayer so nissan mendel was writing these articles called my prayer it was a serial in every issue of talks and tales and later on it became a book called my prayer volumes one and two so that ev is referring to this in 1955 and telling rabbi schusterman i hope that you saw the articles on prayer that are in the talks and tells i should also mention that would review the talks and tells i i don't know if this is a 100 an accurate statement but i believe it's safe to say maybe someone can correct me that as far as publications that we know that rabbi personally edited and reviewed i think it could only be said for the rebels my mottom for the locations for the laboratory news service press releases those were edited by the rabbi and talks and tales i'm not sure there was anything else that was regularly as part of the workflow reviewed edited and approved by the debit talks and tales was okay so rabbit tells rabbi shusterman i hope you use the talks and tells articles in your your classes with the adults and here the rabbit says after kosovo's even though it's written for children it's a children's magazine but it's wonderfully written and i i challenge any adult to read it and say that it's it's too childish to enjoy it's written in such a beautiful way that children can appreciate it and adults as well so the dev is encouraging every shusterman use those my prayer articles from talks and tales for your talks with the adults it was written for children but the main point and the foundation of these articles is true so truth is truth by choice of who and certainly this will bring out benefit in your lectures you'll use the talks and tells as material for your lectures to the adults kamehame now i wrote to you in a previous letter yes that although you shouldn't necessarily highlight this i think in 2022 this is what we call meta this is like you don't necessarily have to say it explicitly but it should be a hidden objective what is this that is saying to every shusterman you don't have to say it clearly but it should be implied it should be you should have in mind the who and it is should call pagisha that every meeting any time you encounter someone one-on-one or one to a group var tsa or any lecture when you're getting up to speak hine it has to increase some type of awareness and and alacrity on the part of the listeners in doing practical mitzvas in their day-to-day lives so you don't have to say it explicitly you don't have to hit them over the head with it you don't have to be heavy-handed but every time you meet someone you speak to them and anytime you give a lecture and you're speaking to a group there has to be some intention that there has to be a bottom line that's practical and applicable to day-to-day observance it's interesting there's a similar story and it took place 10 years after this in of khaim gupneq in australia told that he is sought out as a speaker in australia everybody comes to hear his lectures and they laugh and they cry but he's not sure he's accomplishing anything with it you know it's kosher entertainment big deal like he wants to actually affect people so i'm good nick asked like for public speaking tips and that ever said you you always have to have some type of a mice of a pile some type of follow-through that's an action and uh so after that we went back to australia and he was giving a lecture and he was talking about shabbos and so he mentioned he said let me make it very practical uh shabbos you're not allowed to light a flame so i'm not telling you don't light a flame but how about you don't smoke on shabbos your doctor will thank you and your rabbi i will thank you and so he did that as just a way of giving some type of an actionable um conclusion for his speech at any rate next shabbos he sees this holocaust survivor who never came to shula on shabbos didn't think that much of it but he noticed he saw him a second week and he saw him the third week finally abby goodman came over and he asked you know how why you become a shul regular he says you know rabbi i heard you speaking i forget where he was speaking it wasn't on shabbos because this guy never came on shabbos but uh he says i heard you speaking and you spoke about like on shabbos why don't you try not smoking so i went to the office on shabbos because i got the guy worked on shabbos and i was about to take out my cigarettes i was like you know what the rabbi said try not to smoke on shabbos so i i i put away the cigarettes and i'm not going to smoke on shabbos and then after i did that i thought well if i'm not going to smoke in shops what am i doing in the office so i came to shul and he did i did it three weeks ago i did it last week and i'm doing it now this week so uh you see the power of giving something very practical and actionable in a speech and that's what that is telling rubbish shusterman here the rabbit says in very strong words ki seif saif because ultimately at the end of it all hares this is words this is the entire purpose of a person what action bottom line um and especially this is brought out in siddhis that it says what does it say because it is that the deepest or most lofty intellectual idea has to come to a therefore literally it means therefore but it means a new so what are you gonna do about it and uh by the way that's an idea that is enumerated or uh elaborated upon in very deep ways in contrast where speaks about the deepest deepest truth has to come down into practical action therefore has to be some type of a practical thing something that's action and it's surely superfluous to elaborate any further on this this is a simple thing i'm sure you understand it i'm not going to say anymore diplomatic and i'm sure you will find a diplomatic way if necessary meaning if it's not necessary then don't worry about it but if necessary i'm sure you'll find a diplomatic way shalaya gisha called the whole heart saw that the audience shouldn't pick up on it that that is your point in every single lecture yes it should always be with a practical takeaway but you'll find a diplomatic way a clever way to smooth it over that the audience shouldn't feel like oh here he goes again with the practical stuff you know be smooth be subtle but make sure it's there now with blessings for success in all of the above and that is the end of letter number five