Letters of the Rebbe: "Education Outside of the Classroom" (Class 11)

shalom alaikum hi welcome back uh letter number 11. wow here we are um we've been getting a lot of feedback at our website thirtyladders30days.com and i to just talk about some of the feedback we're getting some of it is good news about events that are going on as mentioned many times in the past there are groups of women this year is online it's for everyone who wants to learn men and women but there are special groups of women all over the world who are complimenting or supplementing the online share with live meetings and getting together and discussing the letters and what it means to them we had a group in boston at an event with women and girls of all ages uh earlier this week there was a group in morristown actually uh they're getting together each week they got together last week and this week they're going to get together next week and through the 30 days in pittsburgh there was a group with 87 people in hara and someone from the group reads a letter every day and they discuss it in groups philadelphia hader staff is all together learning uh the the letters and every few days they have a question in the teacher's lounge and they have a discussion about a question from based on on the letters also detroit high school alumni uh they're getting together and somebody recaps every single day what the letter was and then once a week they meet together and discuss so those are just some of the groups that are getting together and if you want to lead a group let us know at 30 letters third days.com also we got some mail some questions let me see if we can deal with some of it we got a number of very serious and deep questions and i'm not sure if we can i'm actually i am sure we cannot deal with all the questions that came in but maybe we can deal with more than one let's see how quickly it goes um here's an email based on tonight's letter number 10 meaning they wrote this letter yesterday i guess after after this year about writing to the rabbit remember last night that abbott was saying how much he wanted people to write to him i have a question that maybe you can shed light upon i know how import how important it is to write to the deb and i know that whether you send it to the oil place it in egress etc the rabbit always finds a way to answer you the rabbit that can fit in a veg okay i should actually explain what this person's referring to um maybe i'll explain it at the end of their their email however i want to know how someone could feel motivated to regularly write to the rabbit when confronted with the cold hard fact that we live in a post guimotama's world how can one be motivated to write to the deba asking life-changing questions etc when even if part answers can be strung together in other ways the writer knows that they won't receive an answer in the form of a letter from the rabbi addressed directly to them i know it's a harsh question but it's something i'm sure others struggle with as well with the bracha that the afterlife that was the wording last night even though sometimes the answers are delayed there should no longer be any delay and that is that's the question okay so yeah first of all let me explain a little bit of the question and in in the question is actually a lot of the answer the one who wrote the email said i know there's this concept that ever they could fit in a veg but it's still so hard let me explain what that is and then also offer that back to the questioner as at least a partial answer this is something that himself said to see them after yuchafat said that just as before you would write your questions to the 770 in his office so too today you'll send upon you'll write a note and you'll bring it to the oil or you send it to the oil to the resting place of my father-in-law the rebel will find a way how to answer you so that's something that the rebbe said about his father-in-law after your trot that after the defeat of his passing that people should continue to write and send their their letter to the aisle and then eva will find a way to answer you so i know you're quoting this in your own letter and saying i know that ebb is going to find a way to answer but still how do you motivate yourself and at least in part what i would say is let's stop let's slow down and let's just meditate on those words for a second because i think if we really took them in earnest and we would allow them to settle allow those words to just sink in a little bit more you might have all the motivation you need right there just a suggestion sometimes what i'm saying is we don't lack the information that we need we just haven't chewed and swallowed and absorbed and metabolized the information and allowed it to become part of us so i think in your question itself you have an answer that ebba said about his father-in-law after his father-in-law's passing that people could continue to write to his father-in-law that i will find a way to answer now i will add something which is as we mentioned in the very first class when the rabbit was pushing that the egress should come out the idea was and this is something that agreed was uh was an idea that it was in place of accessibility of yahidis in the in the in the later years it wasn't like it was in the early years where people could have so much access to the debit for one-on-one guidance and as we mentioned what it says in uh in the movie to a base of of the igres that there's this concept that like the altareba wrote tanya and even though it's only a book and a book is no substitute for one-on-one personal guidance but the altar said the tanya can affect that it can have that it can have that effect and so too similarly um the igris they have a similar uh function in conjunction with and we mentioned this in the beginning of the first class you cannot you cannot forget it first of all it says it twice actually in the first panic you have to have a rabbi and a rabbi means somebody you can go to and talk to a mentor a guide it doesn't it doesn't mean literally a pic although obviously you have a halal you have to ask someone who's able to to passkin but means in life in in just general day-to-day living so remember that these two things go together you have to have a mashbia you have to have a personal spiritual trainer to consult with so between having a rabbi and knowing you have that spiritual connection and also having somebody who you're accountable to a mashbiya a love a personal guide so the con the conjunction of the two gives you a uh a pretty solid system for getting guidance another thing i'll mention is the rabbit once spoke in a sikha uh pasha's pink stuff so again this is after the passing of the rabbis rabbit and in that secret pink pink was the famous uh vigilante he took the law into his own hands when there was a crisis and maisha didn't do anything and iron didn't do anything so well how could pink stand up and do something so that i was discussing that and uh without repeating the whole circle basically that abba says there that sometimes maestro beno isn't going to tell you clearly what to do but it's because you have a relationship with moshe that you'll figure out on your own what maisha would have told you and for whatever reason can't tell you maybe because he wants you to figure it out on your own that ever said that could that could be one reason he wants you to figure it out on your own so that ebba said that explanation about pinchas and maisha and then said it's the same thing like in our day when someone writes to the rabbit sometimes the devil won't tell you clear and nevertheless writing to the debit itself has a certain spiritual uh effect where then you'll come to your own clarity so remember sometimes it's not that ever has to tell you something clearly it's that you have to be ready to listen and then once you're ready to listen you write to the debit and you're completely open for what that was going to answer you'll suddenly get your own clarity now you're going to say kind of a catch-22 is that if i had my own clarity in the first place why did i write to that but this is precisely what i'm saying based on that from pinkus maybe just maybe i could also um offer the following story and then i really need to get into tonight's letter there's a year the khashoggi and he's also a psychologist by profession and he lives most of the year in yura shalom in fact last time i was in usually i stayed with him and he's just a wonderful wonderful person a talmud and a warm and loving mentor and just a fantastic person i met him in johannesburg or maybe it was in cape town actually we were in both cities but i met him in cape town that's right and then johannesburg it was gimmel thomas that was your site and i turned to him and i said uh he insisted i call him rabashi i mean to me he's rabbit wine rub okay dr winery he he told me he's hashi so i said abhashi it's gimmel thomas that was your site you have to tell me your your story with the rabbit so he tells me his story and i'll tell it very much begetsu uh rabbi weinreb was living in crown heights this is back in the 60s before crown heights was a predominantly lubavitcher neighborhood in fact the majitsu base majesh was there and his his wife is a majitsu tao people ask me if i'm related the mudgets i say hear me sing for a couple notes you'll realize i'm not related to emojis anyways um so they were living in crown heights and he had been he said maybe to one or two fabregas not even the whole fabregan but he said he'd meaning the rebels for brennan's in 770. he said he'd never written to the dab it wasn't like he had any personal connection to that because he lived in crown heights when he first got married he stopped by 770 you heard that i was speaking publicly a couple times that was about the extensive extent of his relationship anyways a couple years after they got married they moved to silver spring maryland and he was working there as a psychologist and he was also um giving shurim giving high level classes uh to bene toyota and really he was a guy who respected for everything and a professional and everyone went to him for advice the problem is when everyone goes to youth for advice who do you go to so he said he had this crisis where he needed hadraka he needed guidance yiddish kai questions ammuna also practical stuff like being a husband being a father and he had no one to turn to and he said he became very despondent and he spoke to the smartest guy he knew who was a nuclear physicist named naftaliberg all of a sudden and he said you know you're a smart guy what do i do so um enough totally told him you got to go to the debate so rabbit wine rap didn't really know protocol this is in the 60s he could have had this if you wanted to if you would have understood that's how you do it you called mosquitoes you called the secretariat you scheduled you hit this for six months from now or 12 months from now or whatever it is he didn't understand any of that so rabbi weinreb just gets the number to 770 and he calls 770. somebody answers yeah hello verreta who's speaking and uh rabbi weinreb says ayed for maryland because he didn't want to say his name because that was the whole thing remember he was he was embarrassed that he had these questions i'm supposed to be the guy with all the answers everyone comes to me for their questions am i supposed to go how do i admit i even have these questions so he didn't want to say his name so he kept it anonymous and when the the person on the other line who turned out to be rabbit harukov as chief secretary we asked him vereto who's speaking here so he said very specifically he said ayed for maryland a jew from maryland that's it totally anonymous okay i want to ask some questions okay guess what you could ask so he starts asking the questions and a very strange thing's happening as robert weinrep is asking the questions rabbi harikov is repeating it word for word out loud it's a very strange way to carry on a conversation at the end of the whole thing he finishes asking all of his questions there's a silence and he hears another voice in the background and he instantly recognizes this voice this faint voice in the background speaking to rabbi kharkov he realizes it's the voice remember he had stopped in for parts of a couple of fabregan so he knew that of his voice he hears that his voice saying in maryland since he's calling from maryland tell him that there's a jew in maryland he should speak to and his name is wine wrath you understand what was going on rabbi weinreid was asking his questions was repeating them out loud so that rabbit would hear with like a human speaker phone and that ebb was listening to all the questions and the end of all the questions that ebba said since he's calling for maryland tell him there's a jew in maryland he should speak to name wine rep tell him to speak to wine rep so wine rebb was blown away he's like he didn't know what to say so saying hello you know hello and everyone was kind of silent and uh and he and he said did task ahead of us did you hear what the rabbit said he he heard but he couldn't believe it so he said i didn't hear so rebecca repeated it and said it ever says since you're calling from maryland you should speak the wine ramen rabbit wine says what are you talking about i'm wine rabbit i should rabbi karakov says amen would fight so hold on a second now he's not sure what to do so he says he hears rabbi khalikov turned to the devil all flustered and said as eddie is defying them he's wiser and he says he hears in the background the rabbit totally taking it in stride and saying hey bizet zolstrom's organzai so zola visenzai if that is the case he should be made to know that sometimes you got to speak to yourself and that was it you're a wine rep oh good so talk to wine rep speak to yourself and that was the dubba's answer to rabbit wine rabb hazel moldova sometimes you have to speak to yourself so you're going to say well then i could have done that before i called it but maybe that's the whole point maybe it's by making that connection to the tsadik that we're able to re-encounter ourselves on a higher level and we're able to find that clarity that we had all along but maybe it was hidden from us so i would encourage you that even when you're in a situation where you cannot get a direct answer from the rabbit just the commitment to writing has a spiritual power and will bring about clarity and of course again i repeat that's in conjunction with this you have to have a meshbia and you have to speak to your meshbia okay now we're over halfway through today's allotted time and we haven't even started the latter here we go barack hashem tess above brooklyn the fourteenth day of the month of kashmir brooklyn havasic verhasid is rosenberg who was the mashikiyak the supervisor of the students dean of students maybe you would call it at yeshivas amis in yerushalayim and that's very obvious from the context of the letter as we read on that his job was mushkir in yeshiva and that ever speaks about this explicitly the role of yeshiva torres amis was originally founded in there's a chabad history in hebron going back to the daughter of the rabbi the grand daughter of the the altar rabbits so there's a long history of khabad in in hebron so teres ames was founded in 1911 in hebron and then when the first world war broke out it had to move and they relocated to yurushalayam and that's where they've been ever since for well over a hundred years and uh titus amis is an interesting yeshiva because i think we mentioned in earlier classes that the rebel reshab started a yeshiva called temketimim in labavich in the actual town of lubavich peter samus had its own name and it was not officially was started in 1897. titus emis was started in 1911 so what 14 years later but spiritually terror samus is sort of a an affiliate or a branch you could say of time and uh the same spiritual model of a yeshiva that is meant for bachram to excel both in nigla and nister to study of course the bulk of the day the bulk of the curriculum and tim timmerman is learning gemara and halacha learning the revealed portions of toyota but also part of the yeshiva's schedule is to study siddhis the toyota and both yeshivas are were founded in that spirit and founded by the same rabbi by the rabbit the fifth rabbit at any rate this letter was written like all the letters were were learning in 1954 or the last few months of 1954 going into 1955 and this uh rabbi rosenberg who was the mashikira kentuc this was his first year now he continued with the shiva until his passing in tough shin nun zayn okay talk about 1997. so he was there for uh over 40 years as the masjid yeshiva but this letter was written to robert rosenberg in his first year on the job so he was a relatively young man at the time and just sort of i guess learning the ropes as amash in yeshiva okay an answer to your letter from the eighth of march that's pretty fast turnaround by the way from the eighth of judgment to the fourteenth of judgment when you're talking about 1954 male coming back and forth from uh israel yeshiva hashem should grant that you should be successful in your holy work and your heavenly work which is a supervisor and we're going to talk a little bit that's a clumsy translation we'll talk a little bit more about the role of masjid in yeshiva hashem should grant you success in your heavenly work as the meshkiak in yeshiva terrorist amis okay as we're going to see from the letter amish is not a an instructor i mean they may also be but typically it's a separate job it's not an instructor someone who teaches a class the mashkeer is more involved in supervising the students in their general conduct in their life in their even in the dormitories in in in in times when they're eating um you know even really mundane things and especially you know then goes without saying times like davening would supervise davening times to make sure that the the bakrama are praying the way they need to pray but it's not an instructor role where you get up in front of a class and you give a lecture and you you teach a subject okay far you do strong statement here that ebba says it is known it's already known that the responsibility of a mashiach is disproportionately many times greater than the responsibility of other teachers in yeshiva when i read this father i was thinking you know every yamato vanderbilt would say about let's say purim so purim is the most important yamativ in the whole year and then you learn a sikh about pesach pesach's the most important yum tif in the whole year because whatever it is that i be speaking about that ever brings out the uniqueness of that thing so here the rabbi's writing to amashiach and says you know that mashiach's job is so much bigger than that of the rosh yeshiva i'm sure if there ever wrote a roshiva that ever would bring out the greatness and the uniqueness of being a rosh yeshiva but here the dub is writing to and he says we know the responsibility is so much greater than that of a rosh shiva why very interesting logic here kihare alayhim lil maidat because the teachers their job is to teach the students the other side meaning spiritually the opposing side the doesn't give so much disturbance against learning torah now that's an interesting statement because you would think yeah the it's a harder its whole job is to disturb you from learning torah whatever says well relatively speaking no the 800 doesn't bother you from learning tattoos so much why not first of all toyota is likened to the manna that fell from heaven it's it's bread from heaven as opposed to bread from earth and the words of tata do not receive impurity they're like fire which does not receive impurity atsumum that on their own ain't bump sales toyota itself is pure has no it has no dross or any leftovers so toyota is pure and it's almost like the itsahara can't touch it can't mess with it so also from the perspective of the student precisely because twitter is so lofty and pristine sometimes it doesn't it's not so relevant to the student in other words the student can learn toyota and not really internalize it and so it's not really doing its job it's not really affecting the student and so the yitzahara says oh let him learn it's not affecting him anyway the theta is remaining so holy and so lofty that it's not affecting this guy ah leave him alone he's doing my job already doesn't want to finish the statement there but he quotes a saying of our sages that if somebody learns toyota in the wrong way instead of being a samhain an elixir of life it can become a sam moves it can become a deadly poison so in other words the itahara looks at the guy learning and says look the the toyota is pure and holy i can't mess with it that's first of all but as far as how it affects this guy maybe precisely because the tata is so pure and holy it's going to remain abstract in this guy's life he won't internalize it and therefore there's no threat to me the it's a harder says and you know what even if he does internalize it maybe he'll internalize it with the wrong motives with ulterior motives and then he'll turn it into poison god forbid and then also the its owner says he's doing my job so in a lot of ways the yetzahara sort of leaves people alone when it comes to learning taita okay not so alamosh whole job is not to teach the the lessons but to oversee and facilitate the personal growth of the students so that the toyota that they learn is affecting them so you understand it's like the rosh shiva comes and gives a beautiful sheer and maybe it didn't touch anyone maybe it didn't didn't make a dent he has the sort of no you know the the the unglorious job the unglamorous job of coming in and working with the students to get them sensitive to get them primed so whatever the roshiva taught them they actually will internalize and it will affect them in a real way well for that the it's a harder is going to put up a resistance so that evident tells this meshiach the eighth hut is going to leave the rosh shiva alone he's going to come for you because rashashima's not a threat to his job your job as meshiach is a threat to the itsahara's job as yatsuhara so you gotta understand how big your responsibility is all right that when you learn today you should become united with it until it's called your torah by the way it's a gemara in kedush and it talks about why is the tamil hawkham able to be michael on his covet because seemingly if it's covered he has no right to be michael he has no right to forego the the the honor due to a torah scholar but the gemara in conduction says it's because say it becomes his title mean the torah of the person that when you really learn it when you not just understand it intellectually but you take it personally now it becomes yours and if it's yours well then you you have the right to forego the honor due to yourself for having learned tata that way and he's a that's a that's a good motto or like the language of the zohar to use the mystical term that torah and the jewish people are entirely one now latently inherently that's an underlying truth at all times the israel but here we're talking on a revealed level that the jews should become one with the torah the russia shiva might give you a great class and you might be smart and if you're smart you can repeat back the class it doesn't doesn't mean you became one with the torah the comes in and make sure that you're taking it personally now you're becoming one with the torah the negative sahara against this the eight zahara is gonna fight um and it's a hut is gonna bring with him his body the animal soul to help him behold take it with all his might i want to just tell you a quick story i know we're running out of time but pesach is coming and i don't want to scare anyone with that or make anyone turn off the share and go uh start cleaning but i'll tell you a very interesting story that happened in te martim since we mentioned at the beginning of this year the the the shahab started the issue called so the the rabbit son the federica who was interned at his father-in-law was the manahal he was the the administrator of the yeshiva and uh they the reber shahab and the philip rabbit the fifth and sixth rabbit were involved in admissions and one time this bacha came to be admitted into the yeshiva and he was very very talented he was very smart he was very learned so on paper he should have been a shoe-in for admissions but the federal told his father after they were finished with the interview the the rubber shop said what do you think about him the video gabba said that you know he he's not edel he's lacking character refinement so i don't know what to do with him so that abhisham said we could work that out so what did they do pesach was coming so they took this bacha and they gave him every job that has to be done to get ready for pesach they made him clean out the whole yeshiva and then the night of out of peso he had to do badika's comments and he had the cash rather caleb and then actually the day of aeropesa they made him there's a minig that some have to bake matzah out of pesach after hot sauce the high pressure situation so he had to oversee that as well basically they knocked him out [Music] and uh by the end of pesach that rabbit shop said to the fear of god says look at the baker and he looked at him he said how does he look he says completely different his face changed he said yeah you see what zaya shall mitzvah can do the sweat of a mitzvah in other words i'm telling you the story because here was a baja that intellectually was a great student already and the discussion was about his character i think we forget that a lot of times in yeshiva that we focus on academic performance that especially you know with with bachram who are able to achieve in advanced studies and we're very impressed with their mental acumen and and we feel like oh that's the end-all be-all but it's it's really not it's the ultimate is internalization and taking it personally and how the michigan affects me this how what you know in your brain will affect the sensitivity of your heart so anyways that's a story that ended up well where a boy who was very smart also became emotionally refined as well but this is what the rabbi is saying to abby rosenberg that you're the you're the one who makes that happen the roshiv is giving lessons okay great it's hard as leaving him alone but you're the one making sure that the toyota of the bakham are learning is actually changing them on a personal level i'll tell you one more temtum story because why not and i want to thank the duchman family for this especially my friend salman dhukman i uh i knew i'd seen somewhere in there's a wonderful saver called uh the shema aizen and uh the diaries of zamandukman and uh so i knew that the the rabbit asked him to write so i knew there was something there about a samavar or something like a hot kettle or an urn in tamriel so i asked rabbit duckman to find it for me and he pulled it right up and send it to me the deal was there was an oven like a big oven and attached to the oven not a separate piece but like built into the oven there was a like a kettle where people would get hot water as a an urn for tea at any rate uh there's a din in uh that water that stays in a metal container overnight is uh not so good anyways that metal container because it was bolted or soldered i don't know how it was attached but it was attached to this massive oven so it was like so to speak you couldn't ever empty out the urn because it was attached to this big giant oven so there was always a little bit of water that would stay at the bottom and therefore that water would stay overnight so there were certain bachram and who wouldn't drink tea because they didn't want to take the hot water from that urn because there was a little bit of water there that stayed overnight anyways the the feeder could ever found out about this like i said it was the mana of the shiva and uh he found out about it and he secretly he asked undercover you know we shouldn't make a big deal about it but get me the names who are these bakram because this is very this is very nice to hear this very nice news that these bachram are being so scrupulous being so stringent again this is my point you know you could be a tamar you could excel in in in your studies but that's in the classroom there's something called being a mensch and being a shamayim and the hosted outside of the classroom and that's what the dub is telling robbie rosenberg your job as meshkia is that the whole person the complete person the whole package of you to shamayam insensitivity not just academic prowess okay let's finish up here now that ever built up how scary big this job is that's it i'm retiring remember i mean rosenberg started this year maybe after such a letter after you read that what the yates a hot is coming for me forget about it let me see if the rosa shiva will switch jobs with me i don't need this pressure so then the rabbit says to him um since we know from the gamora uh base that even the warden of a well it's used there as the example of a very minor job like imagine a guy who he's not he's not the governor he's not the mayor he's not even on the city council what's his position of authority he watches the neighborhood well it's a very low level this is like on on the level of like whole monitor okay it's like a very low level of of of authority and the gamotobaser says that even someone who has this low-level job that his appointment came from heaven that in heaven they they decide oh this guy should have this job debuff said this my middles out many many many times which was basically the idea that if you were given some type of empowerment if you have a job this didn't just happen randomly from heaven they decided to put you into this job so even the watchmen of a well was was given that uh job from heaven so how much more so the vada like that you were given the power to carry out this job of which is a heavenly appointment you were appointed from on high that ever would always say this to people who were like disgruntled i don't want to say that i've been never let somebody out of a job they didn't like but most of the time that ever would say to them this is no mistake that you have this this job this was from from heaven they appointed you and even the watchman of a well is appointed from heaven so again the rabbi is saying here to robert rosenberg it's a tough job being mishkiek and it's going to resist what you're doing because what you're doing is so powerful and so important in the lives of these boys but i want you to know you have what it takes because you were selected they appointed you from heaven to be this masjid and nothing counts here except for your good will if you're going to have the right attitude you're going to succeed don't worry that in a very short time you're going to be able to say look at the products which i grew meaning you're gonna be able to point to your students with pride and say this this is the fruits of all my hard work look at these look at these students it is superfluous to mention says the rabbit like i don't even need dimension but whatever is mentioning that just like when it comes to physical health i feel like even when we're talking about the body's health it's me the physical body in the most material sense of the word the physical body becomes enlivened and becomes healthier when the spirituality of the neshama is shining through it okay you can't have physical health without spiritual health even in the most simple literal sense of physical health cane who so too and in the case of your job of educating young men when a girl goofed when you're talking about the body of torah and the soul of torah we mentioned before temple tamim and terrorism they study neglect the revealed and the secret areas of toyota that means the legalistic and the mystical so the legalistic is called the body of tito like learning gamara and then the soul of tyra is learning siddhis says just like with a physical body the physical body is healthier when the spirit is present in it and shining through it so too you have to remember the importance of that even in neglect there has to be nister in other words when they're learning to see this okay so there's there's there's times for learning to see this in the issue of a schedule like i said the the bulk of the day uh is is learning komoda like at any yeshiva but there are certain set times for learning to sid this but that ebb is saying is even in the times when they're learning that is infused that study of the body of the toyota is infused with the the the spirit with the soul of the torah and that you should be attentive to that so that there's that uh that extra sensitivity that extra call it um fear of heaven that is infused only through studying the the areas of tita which are what we call hidden or the inner dimensions or what we simply refer to as siddhis okay we went a little bit over time i apologize for that and we'll see you tomorrow night for a double shear thursday nights our double classes to get ready to take us into shabbos see you tomorrow night