Letters of the Rebbe: "How to Be a Spiritual Trendsetter" (Class 2)

shalom alaikum and welcome back to class number two of 30 letters in 30 days we kicked off our inaugural class last night barak hashem with uh a wonderful response a lot of uh excitement going on about studying the rabbi's egress and we're going to continue this on through the 30 days until the rabbi's birthday of nissan um before we jump in to tonight's letter our second letter i wanted to address a few things first of all i apologize that we went over time last night we are going to really try to stick with the 30-minute format this is a 30-minute class but because it was the first night last night i wanted to give some extra background about the igras kaidish and that's why we went a little bit over but we're gonna try to stick with god's help to the 30-minute uh time limit um that's first of all uh some business some technical stuff you can still order your booklet if you didn't get your booklet yet at 30 letters 30 days that's 30 the number 3-0 30 letters 30 days dot com and uh you could also order this booklet interestingly enough on amazon and uh i was informed that i think i heard we are number seven in jewish books right now can you believe that so let's push it to the top let's go for number one why not um also if you go to 30 letters thirtydays.com you can sign the pan that is the letter that we are writing to uh the duch that we're going to be writing to bring in to the rabbi yud alef nissen at the oil reporting all of those who participated on any level in this series of classes so we want to encourage you to do that and everything that you need regarding the course is there the pdf if you don't have the booklet the pdf for download is available at 30days30letters.com as well as many other resources another thing i want to mention is this wonderful initiative that's going on parallel to this course that you're watching right now and that is local groups all over the world organized by the vad or mohis kashus are getting together and conducting discussion groups that watch the class and discuss last night i was informed that there was a meeting in chicago they did a launch event for the course and over 75 women got together under the auspices of nishikabad of chicago and discussed the letters watched the class and discussed the letters tonight there's a wonderful uh teen program going on we have campus schloches those are schloches from college campuses who are forbranging with teenage high school girls about the letters that we're studying as a parallel track to this course and there's a lot of different stuff going on if you have a community that you'd like to get involved the resources are there and there's a contact page at thirtyletters30days.com and i encourage you to do that um okay let's jump into our letter but uh before we do i wanted to share just a little bit more general appreciation of the egress with you like i did last night last night i told you that the rabbit asked for gifts of torah if you want to give the rabbi a birthday gift that eva appreciates gifts of torah study some torah and i said that we're going to study the egress as our torah study gift and i want to talk a little bit about very briefly what it means to study the egress because i think that there's uh a misconception people aren't really sure what it means to study the eagles how do you study them i mean what's there to study and uh i told you last night that the rabbit approved of a uh forward to the 12th volume of igras kurdish that described the iguskratis in terms similar to the altarebes tanya okay so that's first of all that the ego's kurdish in conjunction with the assailant initiative of having a personal spiritual coach or mentor is akin to the study of tanya let me tell you more let me tell you more along that same vein um rabbi mendel simpson was one of the secretaries of the rabbit and among his duties was archiving the letters over the years i think a lot of times people wonder where did these letters come from did people did the recipients send them in to be published and the answer is that all along an office copy was retained but i want everyone to understand that the privacy with which the office copies of the letters were retained was absolutely um ironclad there was there was no access to these letters to the extent and this is what i want to convey to you that when the egress project began at the rabbi's behest that ever asked we mentioned last night that eva asked in 1987 that they should start printing his letters there was a question of how actually it would be done in a way that was sensitive to the privacy of the letters and what happened is that rabbi simpson who was the one who archived the letters in the first place so he would he did see the letters and it should be known that he along with all the other secretaries in the secretariat one thing they were known for was absolute confidentiality rabbi khadukov who was the chief secretary all he told all the other secretaries that i can't tell you not to see what you see but i can tell you never to speak and that was there was a code of silence an absolute code of silence so rabbi simpson had seen the letters to begin with he he was the one who archived them so he was the one who would take the letters and redact them in order to submit them to rabbi schollenberg levin from the library who was that then the one who prepared the letters for publication in other words abby simpson would remove any private or personal details from the letters before they were given to rabbi 11 to prepare for publication now i want to tell you that the privacy was such a concern to the that at one point rabbi 11 said i need to see the unredacted letters so that i can i can make explanatory footnotes explaining to people you know you have a letter you're looking at a letter you don't know the context you don't know the background so rabbi 11 said i would like to see the the background that the whole unredacted letter before rabbi simpson uh removes any private details just so i can know for myself and then i can write better explanat explanatory footnotes for each letter and that ebba said that's not going to be possible it cannot be done and robert 11 expressed the fact that that would limit his ability to write these uh these explanations and that ebba concurred that that's the way it's going to have to be in other words that's a sacrifice that would have to be made for the sake of protecting privacy okay so that's just one thing i want everyone to know about the utmost privacy that was was preserved all of the years in filing those letters and even in publishing the letters in eager kadish but that's not why i told you this i told you this because i wanted to tell you what happened in 1988 the second year of egress publication the eagles had been coming out and they were about uh i think it was at the time when this the the volume that we're starting right now hey look you're the volume 10 was was published it was about the same time it may have been right after volume 10 was published at any rate it was 1988 and those who know uh the uh that is life you know that tough memphis 1988 was very sad year for the the for the rabbit was uh surveillance and uh so many of the day-to-day functions that normally took place in 770 were moved to the rebbe's house that abu dhabi was davening was leading the prayers as as his customary for a mourner and the prayers took place in the devil's house and much of the business that normally took place in 770 was transferred to the house so abe simpson says it was 1988 they were about i i believe it was this helix volume 10. and uh simpson was bringing a stack of redacted letters to the rabbit because the rebbe had to look over the redacted letters and make sure they were sufficiently redacted meaning it was a second layer of privacy that the rabbi had to make sure that it was really really anything that was that no one would want shared would be shared and after the rebel would look over rabbi simpson's redacted version only then would it be approved to go to rabbi 11 who would then prepare it for publication so rabbi simpson brought a stack of letters to the rabbit and the rabbit asked rabbi rabbi simpson at that time what's going on with the letters now what does that mean what's going on with the letters that ever knew full well what was happening with the publication that abbott was involved in every aspect of the publication of the letters so that's not what that ever meant that ever wasn't asking what's going on with the publishing that i was asking what's going on with how it's being received how the islam that i've referred to it the community the the movement how are the people reacting to the letters and listen listen to what rabbit said to rabbi simpson and asked rabbi are the people getting involved in the letters are they learning the letters did i use that word are they learning it are they studying it that was that that was what that ever wanted now i'll tell you even more robbie simpson wasn't sure how to answer because frankly he didn't have a lot to report regarding people learning the letters so he grabbed something that he knew that was a positive thing and he said yes in morristown because he had heard that in morristown i believe he had a son that was learning there at the time but at any rate he knew that in moore's town the bakram and the yeshiva and the yeshiva moore's town were learning igras kaidish so he said in morristown the bakram the the yeshiva boys are studying the igres and and and the rabbis said that the fact that that full-time yeshiva students are studying the egress that's that's not news i feel like that that goes without saying that the yeshiva students who are studying full-time are also studying the egress they never said what about the younger light what about the the grown men the one who are the ones who are out of yeshiva and then ever since like absolutely i mean to me staggering that ever told robert simpson this heinz until this day meaning the eagles are now coming out for this is the second year of them coming out i didn't get one letter from anyone asking me a question or writing a scholarly comment or article or uh even like a there was a still is a uh academic journal for torah scholarship where people would write their own observations of their own their own thoughts and the devil was saying i did not see yet that anyone should write to me their own either either ask a question or offer some type of an insight about the letters in other words that was talking about a fairly uh involved level of scholarship not just perusing it in a in a casual way so it's very clear what the rebel wanted and how that ever wanted the eagers to be used i'm happy to say that thousands of us right now kenyirbu are doing that and if you're enjoying this please share this please share this with others don't keep a good thing to yourself okay let us jump into tonight's letter the second letter of our thirty letters this letter was actually printed also in addition to being printed in helix yod of of igriskadish was also printed in la cote sichus helic hof gimmel page 349. and uh let's just begin barak hashem do you notice the date the date is the same date as last night's letter they were both written on the same day and as i mentioned yesterday i'll mention again is an incredibly busy time for any jew especially for the rabbit and the fact that rabbit took time to write this letter at this time is itself a testimony to how important that felt this letter was okay brooklyn that's where the love is writing from who is khanna so i will share with you this letter was written and sent actually to more than one person this letter was sent to several women to whom it applied as well as some women's groups but one of the recipients of this letter this hana referred to here is hannah scharfstein may she live and be well and i spoke with her yesterday and i asked her about this now first of all i will tell you that if you want to know more about it don't bother mrs scharfstein like i did you can read her book an incredible book called beyond the dollar line which is just full of really unique stories about her personal relationship with the rebbe and also she has interviews with gem on the mayan counter project where she speaks about the background of this letter but i called her and i let her know that we're learning her letter tonight which she was very happy about and she said look i've done everything i can to get the message of this letter out and uh yeah go ahead and see what else you can add to it okay and i'm going to add some information that mr scharfstein revealed to me um as we go through the letter blessings and greetings and this is customary when writing to a woman instead of shalom that i would write bracha and this letter is in yiddish we find ourselves now in the days of the 10 days of awe as they're often referred to the days between rosh hashana and yum that regarding these days the the prophet says [Music] seek out hashem where he may be found call upon him when he is near what does that mean much more than the rest of the year hashem is always close hashem is always close but during the ceresu during this very holy time hashem's even closer and i want to just comment something that you might read that as some you know sort of like a perfunctorial uh opening that abbot just says yeah it says and then the navi says that it's the time when hashem is close i want you to know that that detail was not lost on the recipient of this letter that mrs sharpsteen said that she understood that abu was telling her to do some soul searching that this is a time of stock taking this assassination and it's time to look at yourself and improve and in fact in halakha it mentions that the serious michoud is a time to take on extra stringencies and to be even more meticulous about uh mitzvah observance and this is exactly how she took this this part of the letter is so in addition to my previous letter and the rabbi had written to mr scharstein many many times and i want to mention by the way this particular letter was addressed to her there were times when that ebba wrote to her husband times the nebby wrote to her and her husband together this particular letter was written just to her i think that itself should be noted that the rabbi had siddham who were men and siddhim who are women and that rabbit didn't regard female siddhim as different than merc and the rabbi had a message for one of his siddhim he wrote to his concert that's i think a lot of us maybe even take that for granted but it's worth mentioning so he wrote this letter directly to mrs scharfstein who was at this time a newlywed she was married a year earlier she was married a year before this uh before this letter okay ville so i want to give you in addition to my previous letter i want to give you the foregoing lines of champion observances have been taken up by the siddhim and particularly the female hasidim the women of the siddhim was biz easter that until now sullivan is for various reasons not everybody was adhering to so that ebba says there are certain things that are good things to do and they weren't so popular not everybody was doing them but now barak hashem good news people have started to doing people have started to do them and it's also interesting to me that ebb says there are reasons why people stopped but the david doesn't want to get into it it's like why do we have to analyze the problem so deeply it's the mitzius that's the fact the fact is that there was a laxity in this area but now bar hashem it's starting to starting to pick up now what is this referring to we don't know yet but we're about to find out okay so there's an axiom here anything that's new in a place any new initiative anything that is uh innovative it does gring to sushi it's very easy to oppose don't you see that anything that's new it's very easy to dismiss it to say ah that's not the way we've done it what about the status quo there's something called social inertia and you just get used to things being the way they are so somebody comes to do a good thing it's a good thing but it's new so it's very easy to be like yeah why do we have to start doing it so the rabbit says look i'm sorry to tell you that's a truth that new things are difficult now here's what i think is the bombshell of this letter in my humble opinion that emma makes a statement new things are easy to oppose new things are difficult because they're easy to oppose where's that ever going to go with this now where you might go with this is you might say so i'm sorry to inform you that what i'm about to tell you is going to be really tough and it's going to be miserable for you but i can't help you because it's a new thing so that's just your muzzle that's your rotten luck but that's not that's not how that ever takes this it never states something that sounds almost like it's going to be a negative argument like this is going to be tough and that if it turns it into a positive that if it flips the whole thing and actually explains why the fact that new things are are easy to oppose actually is a good thing of course it's a good thing of course of course that's how the dev explains it let's see how the dev explains that it's a good thing okay so new things are very easy to oppose therefore what's the logical conclusion is [Applause] so precisely because new things are so easy to oppose it's all the more precious great is the merit of anyone who's from the the uh what do you call the the first uh the first adapters the people who are the trendsetters and the cutting edge so you see that evan makes a statement it's tough to do something new but turns it into a positive and therefore be precisely because new things are easy to oppose and they're difficult to start that's what makes it so precious to be on the ground floor to be one of the few the few the proud who are starting it before it becomes popular okay so that that's that's first of all the debit continues um from the other hand on the other hand now you think on the other hand means that i was going to make the opposite argument but actually never actually makes the same argument from two sides in other words that ev is going to come to the conclusion that this is a wonderful thing and he's going to do it from two directions first of all something that is new and therefore very few people are doing it is more precious okay second of all second of all another argument is does gringar durkheir in mexico it actually will make it easier for you to motivate yourself i believe if you hadn't estimated or attributed to it the the sufficient importance you didn't give it adequate importance meaning you yourself didn't realize how important it was but you're going to be able to motivate yourself now how nemandik having in mind thinking as dos is knit a private angle again height this is not a private matter or private opportunity nor es hotash bo in a gevisa moss of them guns and cries it has an influence on everybody you hear that because it's new and very few people are doing it you've got an opportunity you can be one of those who who starts it before it's a thing and your your your influence is cherished and special and needed and impactful i when when i was reading this part of the letter i was thinking to myself how the rebbe loved innovation and motivating people to be innovators there's a i'll share with you another story it happens to also be about a young woman actually a a single girl a very young girl a 13 year old girl who um was expecting to go to basiacov in the fall and uh basrifka the obamacare girls school high school started when she was 13 years old and so her father enrolled her and she said i don't there's a brand new school i don't know what it's going to be like what's basically i mean i i don't need i don't i don't know if it's going to be a good place i want to do the normal thing the mainstream thing i want to go to basically so her father was very wise and he said right to the rabbit so this girl wrote to the rabbit and i believe she wrote in english or at least the words i'm going to share with you were in english she wrote to the devin this is the word she or she said to the deb you know this new school is starting biswifka it's totally new i don't want to be a guinea pig she used the word guinea pig and she wrote to them this letter and that ever sent back the letter and crossed out guinea pig and wrote pioneer you're not a guinea pig you're a pioneer so bass risk is new okay fine you'll be a pioneer you'll be from the first to go to base rifka and i should mention that this little 13 year old girl she grew up and uh mrs tartell has been the principal of bassrivka high school the school that she was afraid to go to for uh a few decades now so you see how the rebbe's motivation uh how it carries forth the point is the fact that nobody's doing something isn't an argument not to do it it's a greater argument to do it um you know there was a a new york times bestseller called the tipping point by malcolm gladwell and he has there some laws about how social trends occur and he says there's something called the law of the few which is that something really really big always starts with just a few people and his big example for it is hush puppies he says that hush puppies these brown suede shoes that they were big in the 1950s and then they went out of style and that was just a nerdy thing it was just totally out of style nobody wanted hush puppies and the hush puppy company was barely selling any hush puppies and then all of a sudden in the 90s out of the blue they're getting all the hush puppy company is getting all these orders for shoes and they're like what's going on here how how did hush puppies suddenly blow up they themselves didn't know they weren't advertising they weren't marketing and what they found out is because it was so out of style there were a few club kids in downtown manhattan who would get the hush puppy shoes they were so out of style it was like unique so it was like their signature and these kids would go to these clubs these bars in downtown manhattan and wear the hush puppies and because they did it they were the cutting edge they were avant-garde so then it became cool and then everybody bought the hush puppies okay so keep that in mind that perhaps the law of the few observed by malcolm gladwell and his best-selling book tipping point maybe he should have written about the way that ebba took things that were considered absolutely crazy convinced people to do it when they were in the minority in a small minority and kept them motivated doing something that no one else was doing until it became the norm and in fact i might even say in one way if you wanted to describe that ebba's whole leadership in one sentence you could say motivating people to do something that the world thinks is crazy and keep it up until the world imitates and it becomes normal okay let's let's let's we have to pick up the pace here um yeah nit a reingame dick in the sea base was hoban bis yest of kahalten d ein fitting from bashtim so that ever says therefore i'm not going to get into the reasons why in the homes of anash certain things haven't been kept and again like that ever said before fashion is for different reasons that doesn't want to get that ebb is not going to go and and dredge up the negativity look this is the fact i'm not going to get into i'm not going to analyze why this is the case but this is what it is okay and then the rabbit gets more specific in levushim in the way they dress and in the way they raise their children the way they educate their children but not getting into why there's been a lack in that area draw your attention let's say on inviter that from now on from this day on and here it's bolded on islam in the original letter mrs sharpton says that ebba underlined it took a pen and underlined on a snap which means without exception that from this day on without exception even though previously there had been a weakness in this area it doesn't matter from now on what is going to be without exception with you have to unite yourself with those ladies from anas who are wearing sheitels that's what this letter is about or at least this part of the letter it's about being an early adapter early adopter of sheitel even though it's not popular even though it's out of style and in fact this is what mr sharpton says before she got married she was in yukida and asked her if she's gonna wear a sheitel after she gets married and she said you know my friend she was honest she was very honest she said my friends are american girls and and they they wear hats and we don't we don't wear a shirt though and no i wasn't really planning on it i think of a shape that was like an old lady thing i think of it as a old-fashioned thing that's out of style so you see what that ever did he took something that's better than hush puppies that was considered out of style and he made it cutting edge he made it in style i think i have to explain a little bit here after mrs scharfstein got this letter she was so moved she told her husband tell the rabbi i'm accepting to to wear a shaytal and uh by the way i i just want to remark because many people borrow hashem are watching i just want to pause a second many people are watching this year and i want you to understand i know the discussion of how a woman covers her head is a complex discussion and there are many opinions and clearly in this letter that ebba says anash that i've been speaking to khabad women okay so if you're from another community please follow your messiah follow your post kim but whatever's speaking to chabad and the idea of covering the hair with a shaytal this is something that is from from the rama who bases himself on the shiltig on the rif in gumarashabas and uh at any rate everyone should follow their their community's uh traditions and and ask your love but here the rebbe is speaking very strong in favor of the idea of a shaital and what i want you to know is that after mr scharfstein got this letter she was so moved she told her husband go to 770. you used to go to 770 every every day to daven and when you're there to daven slip in a little note that yes i'm gonna start to wear shaytal and he did so and he came home and he told his wife you won't believe what happened i gave in a note through the secretaries to the rebels saying that you're going to start to wear a schaetel and the secretary has called me aside she told me it was label gunners robbie groener was shown called mrs scharfstein's husband aside brought him into the secretariat office and gave him a check that mrs sharpton should buy a schaetl now i want you to understand this check mr sharpton did not want to tell me the exact amount but um based on questions that i asked her she told me that it would be enough today to buy the top top top top of the line custom shadow in fact she said it wasn't just customers bespoke there was no pattern it was made absolutely from scratch for her and uh i said today i mean you could spend thousands of dollars and she said yeah adjust for inflation that that it was a big check it was a big check that ever wanted that it should be really nice you see here the debit took something that mr scharfstein and presumably many other young women her age felt was like out of style and the nebba said no no we're gonna make it in style to me that's just such a powerful thing it's also you know you can tell somebody look i'm sorry to tell you you're gonna have to be the one who's different you're gonna have to buck the trend but the debbie said much more than that the debit didn't just say we're gonna buck the trend the devil said we're going to make new trends you're going to be the trend setter you know who among us hasn't been told by you by your mother your father what if all your friends jumped off the empire state building you would jump off the empress we've all been told i'm sorry you can't be like everyone else you're going to have to be different the rabbit went even further and said no i'm not telling you be different and therefore you'll be the odd man out and you'll be nabba he'll be like a pariah that abby's no no don't just buck the trend start the new trend you make what's in style and they will follow and you will be from from from the vanguard just such a powerful message about this and about about anything that we're struggling with if you see something good that nobody's doing yet but it should be done and and you question well but it's a new thing and nobody's doing it it's not popular yet hey buy low sell high that's the perfect time to get in on it wouldn't you like to buy apple stock in 1983 right go ahead and get in on it when nobody's doing it yet and that's that's what the dub is saying not a guinea pig a pioneer be a pioneer be an innovator get in on it early okay um fine i'm just gonna go rapidly through the rest of the letter because i want to respect everybody's time um so we read the underlined words on ice nam yeah and we said uh that the word should wear shaytalin oh and then the rabbit mentions another thing in addition to shaytal given the kinder ammo to raise the children in a authentically hasidic way um to run a real hasidic home in all the details on the sham so i health and hashem should help you as a result zen them amiss in the end you're going to see it's not so hard. it's not something you have to be ashamed of that was always about jewish pride go out there be proud of who you are and i want to just remark when the rabbis spoke about the idea of wearing a shaytan i never spoke about it many times one of the things that eva said was it is about jewish pride that it's a distinct jewish look it's about wearing your uniform and being recognizably jewish and being proud about being recognizably jewish in gegentel in contrast meaning to the contrary is not only you shouldn't be ashamed it's old saying stoltzmitt them you should be proud of it that you're strong enough not to be ashamed madame was gay and dick and gasp it is what what's what are you afraid of that your friends are going to see there there goes a jewish woman of israel who's carrying out the jewish tradition traditions phil aziz is not only committed to the jewish tradition she's doing it to such an extent she doesn't want to hide it she wants to do it in an outwardly recognizable way oh zait stoltzen to be proud was ida kinder vasin and then your children are going to know now here's the rubber pivots from speaking about shaytal to about children um yeah your children are going to know as they sign in andres mccollum that they're different than all the nations and your children are going to know they were given the torah of life and to learn the torah of life as the soul the exclusive foundation of their education here that speaks about um letting children be completely exclusively dedicated to lumude kurdish i'm going to go rapidly because of the time in them um [Music] that only after you lay the strong foundation of torah study and you let the foundation solidify for a long time only after that can you even begin to think to even consider studying things other than torah very strong statement okay the merit of taking on a very strong resolution in this guns and hearts in the midfield with your whole heart and with joy and i just want to remark that rabbit always wanted it should be with joy nobody's punishing you nobody's torturing you it should be with joy this is an opportunity this is this is a golden opportunity for you [Music] you should take it on and immediately apply it start applying it to your life and if you do that so brenden and vet brengan i love that and that brengan it should bring and will bring it's sort of like that of his wish and the rabbis guarantee zollbrengen that bring it it's it should bring and it will bring a sima marximate you and your household and by the way i'm not sure about this maybe someone can let me know i know it's very customary to say to a man you and your binet bias i think it's very interesting i'm not sure if it's unique to the rabbit to say to a woman you and your binet bias meaning to refer to a woman's husband as herbene bias it's interesting uses that expression which we should be early adopters of even if nobody else does it and they look at us funny when we say it but be at the vanguard be a pioneer uh um i'm looking forward to good news about all of this very soon and like i said very soon was very soon because mr charleston got this letter and she taught she told her husband go tell that yes i'm doing it. okay thank you so much for joining us for letter number two we'll see you in hashem tomorrow night