Letters of the Rebbe: "Impress the Neighbors or Please the Rebbe?" (Class 4)

good evening shalom alec and welcome to another letter from our series 30 letters in 30 days letters of the love and uh yes it is the night of mikram aguila of reading the megillah it is the night going into purim and i hope that everybody had an easy fast today and has since heard the magilla and broken their fast and uh yes we're having a sheer and on that note tomorrow night as well yes tomorrow night is the night of so the spurm the poor meal traditionally goes from the end of the porn day and then into the evening coming out of purim day and uh you may be having a porm meal at that time which is totally fine in fact it's more than fine it's great and you'll just watch on archive uh the next day or later or whenever you can catch up but i will be here and uh not only will i be here tomorrow night there will be a double shear the way this is working is 30 letters 30 days so we've got to do a class every day friday night we can't do a class because of shabbos so thursday night is lachem mishna has a double dose we'll do two letters and that class will be an hour it'll really be an hour it's from the outset the thursday night classes are an hour long these classes yes i keep saying it's 30 minutes and then not exactly getting it all in there in 30 minutes i think tonight will be uh we'll get a little closer to that half an hour mark because uh it's a shorter letter and uh without further ado let's jump right into the latter okay get your packets by the way at 30days30letters.com or on amazon or you can get the pdf on 30 letters 30days.com as well okay letter number four this letter is different in a few ways from the letters that we have learned so far first of all i believe it's the first letter that's written to a man right the first group was written to a group of men and boys and then the second letter was a woman and the third letter was woman yeah so this is the first letter that's being written to a man and it's not just incidental that it's written to a man the fact that it's a man actually is pertinent to the dub his answer as we will see but there's another thing that is different about this letter from the letters that we've learned so far and i'm going to give you fair warning the tone of this letter is i i don't want to use the word harsh but it's certainly not sugar coated clearly there's some issue here spiritual issue that the letter writer needs some stern guidance about and the debit is not holding back from giving that kind of guidance so i just want to give you a heads up the tone is admittedly a harsher tone than any of the letters we've read so far and then most of the letters negras kurdish um but that ebba knows his customers and this is what this person needed apparently and uh you know there's a double filter here because not only did the debbie decide to to write and send this letter to this person meaning this is what this person needed but then the devil later on decided uh to publish this letter as part of igriskaydish so not only did that ever send the letter in 1955 but the rabbi then approved it for publication a little over 30 years later so clearly that ebb is okay with us learning this and knowing that not all of the letters have a i'll call it overly sweet tone okay now after building that all up with that disclaimer i i think maybe you're gonna overestimate i'm making it bigger than it is but i just i wanted you to know that this is admittedly uh different than the previous letters here we go hashem by the grace of god the sixth day of the month of march brooklyn um so you see this is we're going to chronological order this is now in the previous letter we read was at the end of the tishrei month but after the high holidays this is another week after that so it's after the high holidays and you'll see from this letter that ebba references in a couple of ways that the high holidays are only just um a week or two prior to the writing of this letter greetings and blessings and as we mentioned before the formulation shalom first and then bracha indicates that the letter is to a man as opposed to bracha and then shalom where that's the formulation used for writing to a woman okay i received your letter and your pan what's a letter a letter is a letter what's upon a pan is a hebrew acronym and i guess you could call it a letter but it's much more than a letter it's a petition for prayer that accosted writes specifically to a rabbit it's a very specific type of communication where echosid is turning to his or her rabbi and asking for the tsaddik to intercede and to pray and to bring down blessings from hashem so this person wrote to the rabbi a letter describing whatever it was that they were describing and then in addition a pawn now as a parent from this letter we're about to see the person asked that the pond should be brought to the isle i think people should understand that uh the debate would bring these uh special communications that are written to arabic to the resting place of his father-in-law in queens that's the oil that we all know of as as the rebels oil it it was initially the the frederick the previous rabbit that had his father-in-law's oil and then after him thomas then was also laid to rest there and next to his father-in-law and that's the same spot the place where the rebels oil is is the very same spot where the rabbit himself went to [Music] read thousands of these these communications over over the years and to pray for on on behalf of of all types of jews from all walks of life so the person who that ebb is writing to right now wrote to the double letter presumably describing some stuff that's going on in life but also they wrote this very special type of letter called the pawn that the devil was then going to bring to the oil to the resting place of his father-in-law and and read over there okay because of the distractions or the additional uh burdens that are coming as a as a result of the holidays so i mentioned that i was going to reference the fact that we're just coming out of the high holidays so that i was saying it was very very busy during the high holidays as you can understand so my response to you was delayed by the way just parenthetically you see now how impressive it is the letters that were written during the high holiday season we had two letters that were written wow tishrei in the citizen chuva and the previous letter we read wasn't written during the high holidays it was written right after yamcha but still you could you could imagine that there was still a delay in the workflow in the secretariat and nevertheless in the previous letter that ebba says how he sped up the response so this just gives us a glimpse of how much backlog there must have been and uh i think it helps us appreciate it a little bit more the letters that the debit did send during that during that time at any rate so that ebba says your your response is a little bit delayed because we just had the high holidays according to your request i'm going to read the pond that you sent me at the holy resting place that is the full and formal respectful title referring to the rabbis rabbit the previous rabbit so the devil says i'm going to read the pan that you wrote i'm going to read it at the oil at the resting place of my father-in-law okay now regarding your pawn your request for blessing as well as your latter regarding both of those things you have to explain to your wife and also to yourself explain to your wife and explain to yourself and as you're going to see from this letter that explain to yourself line is is very important because the dev is going to explain to this person that it's it's his own lack of clarity about a certain issue that's causing him in turn not to be able to explain it convincingly to his wife so that ebba says explain to your wife and and to yourself explain to your wife and to yourself and this is this is admittedly a very harsh term safety affiliates that ultimately it is impossible to jump between branches that's an idiom that's a phrase that has scriptural origin the story of alicia rebuking the people who are following the baal worshipers people at that time they would worship idols when it was convenient and then they would flip-flop and they would worship hashem lahavdo when that was convenient and alicia rebukes that elioja i'm sorry that elio rebukes them and he tells them how long until when are you going to jump from branch to branch meaning how long will you vacillate you got to make up your mind you got to make up your mind pick a team choose a side now admittedly these are harsh words this is what the prophet is telling claudius about jumping between serving hashem and serving idols that ebb is telling this person you gotta make up your mind okay clarity is of the utmost importance here your own clarity and that i was going to proceed to explain how that lack of clarity is causing a vicious cycle okay so you got to make up your mind sorry you're gonna have to decide make a decision are you trying to conduct yourselves in ways that will impress your neighbors or do you want to set up your house in a way that will find favor in the eyes of my father-in-law because you can't do both you can't do both you're trying to impress the neighbors you're trying to get that the neighbors should think that you're cool and you're trying to please that ebb you can't do both you're gonna have to pick one or the other you know during this era 19 the 1950s there was a there was a lot going on as far as assimilation even within the orthodox and very uh hasidic community and the the lure of assimilation in in in in modernity at that time was really uh insidious in many ways especially compared to the very overt oppression anti-semitism and and and and brutality that many jews had either themselves experienced in the recent past or their their parents and grandparents so now you're in sort of an open society and uh there's social pressure and a lot of letters from this era that sounds like our era are dealing with this adult peer pressure you know it's not just kids and teenagers who have peer pressure adults also can succumb to peer pressure so that i'm just saying you can't have both you're going to have to decide what's what's your goal here whose standards are you trying to keep the neighbors or the rabbit and then the devil says link you want to keep your neighbor's standards or the rabbit standards and then adds and the rabbit a share al hatsey and shalom upon whose resting place you want me to read this petition for prayer other words you're asking me to get brachas from the rabbit on your behalf but your relationship with whatever right now is not one that's 100 percent committed and that's causing a problem it is known already piscum the saying the aphorism of kvad kedusha's admin the fourth rabb of khabad rav shmuel the youngest son of the tadik there's a saying from the rabbi rash whoever bemikta have created is made of admir and this saying of the maharash was preserved in a letter of the frida kreb of the previous rabbit and what is this saying that rabbi here says it in the original yiddish duvels as a champion you want that hashem should listen to me but you don't want to listen to me and it is superfluous to dwell upon that very interesting hold on a second what are you trying to get for me right now yes there's a concept called sadiq right it says in the gamora in tinus there's an idea that sadik decrees and hashem listens hashem will fulfill the requests of the tadik so basically rabbi marash was telling a hasid so you want me to cash that in and tell hashem you want me to be geyser you want me to make a decree and say to hashem what hashem should do in giving you a certain blessing but hold on a second you want hashem should listen to me but you don't want to listen to me hashem should listen to me but you don't want to listen to me you don't want to do what i'm telling you to do i want to clarify this this is not god forbid an issue of quid pro quo or a tit for tat where the rebb is saying look you gotta you gotta give something to get something right let's trade let's barter that's not at all what it is i wanna clarify that ebb is essentially saying to this hosted and i guess to all of us i'm as powerful as you make me you don't want to listen to me okay so i guess that's that's how powerful i am then how can i turn around and tell hashem to give you blessings i can't so you have to choose as the hosted you have to choose what the nature of my role is and by not listening to me you're making it pretty clear what my role is at least in this immediate context and you're making it hard for me if not impossible i don't use the word impossible but you're making it hard for me to help you so again it's not quid pro quo let's you know you you do what i want you to do and then i'll i'll give you what you want i'll go diving for you the dev is saying you're not letting me help you you have to empower me here and then i can do what you need okay so then rubber goes on to explain why he's not going to elaborate on this idea he if you want to understand this really simple concept gama namaste then what i already told you should be enough it is enough but if you don't want to understand for whatever reason there's the uh what you call cognitive dissonance you don't want to understand what i'm saying expounding on it's not going to help okay now an interesting part i told you that the letter's written to a man and that it's pertinent that it's written to a man that actually is uh specific to the rabbi's answer that rabbi's writing to a husband let's let's see i told this to somebody else i wrote this to somebody else in other words this is not the only person who that is dealing with who's having this struggle let's say it like that so that ebba says i told somebody else this the answer or the excuse i didn't write it but rather so-and-so wrote it that expression by the way is from the gemara it's a it's actually a question would say it's pedigree of tanya in perigram of tanya the altar mentions an example of of a vac lotion and he brings the story from bhava uh basra where uh the uh there was a document a legal document that was written not a hundred percent correctly and uh asked his son shimon like what happened here so he didn't say like go uh yehuda kaito was the one who wrote it he didn't say oh it's already kaita's fault go yell at him he just said i didn't write it i'm not the one who wrote it you heard it judah the tailor wrote it just you know i'm not the guy you're talking to me but i'm not the guy who wrote it and uh robbie told his son that uh you know what enough slander you know you don't have to you don't have to slander uh due to the tailor at any rate so that ev is using that phrase from that uh gemada and saying you're gonna tell me i didn't write it what does he mean you're gonna see from context as we continue but the rabbi is saying i told this to somebody else and now i'm telling it to you don't tell me that the things that you're telling me are not really what you want it's what your wife wants that's what the dev is saying you're going to see very clearly from context in a minute that the guy said it's not me it's not me it's my wife right it's not me it's due to the tailor it's not me it's my wife okay so the devil says regarding guys who are writing to me because like i said it was more than one person uh who reacting to these guys who are writing to me nowadays and telling me that they're not keeping certain standards because their wives won't let them okay so i want to talk about that and let's see how that ever answers and i also want to just insert here an assumption but i think it's important for context it's fairly clear to me and i'm i have no way of being certain of this but i think it's a fair assumption the person that i was writing to is a classic most probably from a long line of sid this isn't somebody who's unfamiliar with hasidic ways and standards or with the rebecca's relationship this isn't somebody who wasn't raised with this that i've been speaking to somebody who knows better and is becoming lacks and use in using the excuse and that ebb definitely considers it an excuse that my wife is the one who's dragging down our standards okay that i was not accepting that excuse let's continue here so uh you're gonna tell me you didn't write it but someone else wrote it and that it's the wife's fault [Music] it's all her so listen to what that ebba says again the validation that ebba doesn't say it's not true your wife didn't say the things that you say that she said no the rabbit just accepts it okay fine fine you're only reporting to me what your wife has said no problem but i want to tell you something our sages have this is a strong word pascu means they they ruled not just they said it but they said it as a as a ruling that this is the reality that what should voting yet that words that come from the heart go into the heart we have a guarantee that that is the way reality works if you speak earnestly and sincerely your message will be heard so that ebb is saying okay maybe it's true on a superficial level that your wife is the one who's slowing you down and saying that uh she wants to keep lower standards but here's here's here's what i want to suggest to you i don't think it's possible that you've spoken sincerely to her about it because if you would have i think the situation would be completely different in fact the opposite the opposite that ev is about to say that if you would have spoken sincerely to your wife instead of using your wife as your get out of jail free card or your excuse then you'd be in a completely different situation right now watch this video um if the wives and whatever says it plural because i said it's somewhat endemic that if the wives wouldn't sense that their husbands have a weak position meaning you're lacking confidence remember i told you the beginning of the letter the whole thing that i was saying is about clarity and your lack of clarity is causing a vicious cycle because your lack of clarity is causing your wife's lack of clarity which is causing her to be uncomfortable with the higher standards and then you're taking that as an easy out and you're going down in standards and then you're justifying it and then you're lacking clarity and the whole vicious cycle so if the wives wouldn't sense that the husbands are weak in their own convictions not only would they the wives not oppose good things saying they would help you don't tell me your wife's against it your wife is potentially your greatest helper the rubber doesn't say it here but azer connector that's the first wife cava was appointed to be an asian connected to be a helper and that i would always speak about how a wife is a helper she's there to lift you up she's there to support you so you're coming and telling me that your wife's dragging you down something ain't right there's definitely something that's that's out of order here if your wife's pulling you back and in this case and again i want to make clear the context here who that i was speaking to because i know many many stories where you have like a couple who become observant later in life while they're both adults and one starts getting observant faster than the other sometimes the wife gets uh you know turned on quicker she's more uh throwing herself into uh yiddish kite and the husband is trailing sometimes it's the husband who's uh who's running far up ahead and though and the wife is warming up more slowly and and not talking about cases like that where for shalom bias it's very very important to be patient and to be respectful about the other person's uh call it their uh their rate of growth but here we're talking about a hasidic family we're talking about a husband and wife who know better and really they should be doing better and and that ever saying to this husband i want to tell you something you're using your wife as the excuse why you're trailing behind speak to her passionately but you got to believe it first you gotta believe it first and then when you speak to her passionately she's gonna be your biggest supporter you'll see she's gonna push you but you gotta speak to her with sincerity which means first you've gotta get your clarity all right let's finish here now another point i is i liked that you related to the guy in the story in the sikha that i told about somebody having a vision and a dream okay what's this talking about remember this is right after the high holidays so a couple of weeks before on sim castero same year a story about how once upon a time in order to see that in a dream took incredible preparation and purification on the part of the hosted the devil tells the story there about zalman zlatapolsky who was a khasid of the rabbi marash oh we mentioned it earlier in this letter and after the histalkus the passing that remember he was missing him and he wanted to speak to him and he told that son and successor that he had this desire and that helped him to come up with a a sort of program a spiritual program how to prepare himself to earn this ability to see that come to him in a dream so that abu says this and juxtaposes it with the fact that recently i'm i'm guessing in 1955 meaning right at that time that ebba says there was a younger man accosted who the the rabbit that ever means his father-in-law the rabbi had asked him to do something and he didn't do it until finally the that i've been meaning that i've been the previous rabbit came to this guy in a dream and said hey what about that thing that i asked you to do so i mean this is 1955 this is five years after yuchafat after the the stalkers the passing of the of the frida kahrabi so basically that ebbet tells a story about someone contemporaneous to that telling of the story who had had the frito could have appeared to him in a dream and that i was juxtaposing that with you know once upon a time akhasa had to really really work in order to merit that the rabbi should come speak to him in a dream and nowadays look that i was coming to people just to deal with unfortunately negative business where they're not doing what they ought to do so uh and the rabbit even says there in that sichu that you know if the ebb is going to come to him in a dream it could have been in a good way well did it have to be like in an embarrassing way where he's being called out for for not doing what he's supposed to be doing at any rate that ever said this in the sikh a couple weeks prior to this letter i guess the guy when he wrote to the deb said yeah i relate to that i relate to that guy who wasn't doing what the rabbit told him to do and that ever says i enjoyed that i enjoyed that you took it personally that you identified with i guess you know it's sad that he's identifying with something negative but you know what we see here that the main thing is take it personally you heard a story in a sichua and you took it to heart you said hey that sounds like me that could be me i can see myself in that story great that's great that ever says i enjoyed it i enjoyed it i had a no okay this is very hard to translate the kudus you know there's an expression a pinta-layid the little spark the essence of yiddishkai that's in every single jew equally even someone who's outwardly not observant they have that pintalayid that core jewish identity the yakidus benefish which just needs to be activated and brought out so this is not in the kudas this is atomium is the name given by the rabbit ashab to the the bakram the students of the yeshiva which he founded he founded a yeshiva called which was the the yeshiva and lubavitch and then had satellite yeshivas elsewhere in uh in eastern europe and and now all over the world but the name of the students or the the appellation for students of time is tamim and that's that's plural the singular is tomim so that says you learned in tempe to me you learned in the yeshiva so you're atomim and this is a thing you see by the way anyone who learned in timikat even if they only learned for a time and maybe they didn't even come from a lebovate background and they they drifted through the lobovyce system and then maybe they drifted away from it there are many videos actually of people coming to the debit during dollars who were not at least outwardly still chabad and the rabbi would remind them once atomic always atomic if you were atomic if you studied in te karere that's your identity and that's always going to be with you so that ever says here i'm hoping that the nakuda satami within you will will get aroused and will cause you to make some good changes and it's known the ruling of our sages whenever says a ruling he means this is reality this is real if toyota says this as a ruling that means this is how the reality is what's the reality i share each take a goofy that a woman is like her husband literally she is the same body as her husband a wife and her husband are one entity so that i was saying if your nakuda's atomium comes out you and your wife are one entity then the parallel inspiration within her will come out as well and then not only you won't be using her as the excuse for why you're dragging in your standards but she's going to be your greatest advocate and supporter and cheerleader vivraja with blessing and that's the end of the latter and i'm ending somewhat-ish on time good night