Letters of the Rebbe: "Stay Above Politics" (Class 7)

welcome to this special matsushabus edition of 30 letters in 30 days and today is a very special day on the calendar in connection to the genesis of igriskadish the set of svarim of books that we're studying from now i think in earlier classes the first class in the second class i shared some of the the background of what was happening in tafsir memzain 1987 when the rabbi initially informed those in the secretariat and in the library that this project would begin in earnest and with tadaba's constant supervision and urging that it should happen expediently i want to add some details today and that is because today what we call tess zion ador the 16th day of the hebrew month of ador which is the day after was the very day this day this date 35 years ago in 1987 when the rabbit turned to rabbi schallenberg 11 from the library and said we're starting a new project and gave rab11 a bundle of facsimiles of meaning the office copies of letters of igriskadish or the letters that would become the series known as iguzk and that included a note with various details saying that we should go through these letters we should review them for publication purposes that we should review them for privacy issues which i mentioned uh in a previous lesson that that was something that was involving robbie simpson from the secretariat to screen all the letters to protect the privacy of those to whom the letters were written and one very important point that i've added that this should all be done urgently swiftly as soon as possible and uh think about the timeline we're talking about we're talking about the sixteenth day of adar the day after shush and porn the first printed actual physically printed book of volume on the virus kadish were delivered to the rabbi's desk on the day before his birthday of his birthday if nissan so basically you're talking about uh 24 days if i'm doing my math correctly just a little bit over three weeks the entire project went from inception or at least from anyone other than that knowing the plans the inception of the project to actually delivering a published physical volume in three weeks absolutely amazing and that was all because the debut was urging the entire time that this is very important and has to be done swiftly and the entire project was done like that every volume volume at the volume was pushed out as quickly as possible i should also mention that the sponsor of the very first volume of the first printing of the egress was a hasid and askan mendel shantiv now that mendelshamtov well it's interesting because this let me just a little personal background i i'm doing the 30 letters in 30 days as a as a series every single night because some people were telling me well you know back when the corona lockdown started you did every single night a shot of a talking class which i did that's true and we went through the whole shot i've been talking about hashem until we finished so they said why can't you do that have his letters every night i should mention that the shadow talking class also is connected to mendelshamtv because my entire impetus for doing the shot of a talking class was a letter that that ebba wrote to mendelshamtv telling him that he should learn shadow talking from rabbina because and that that would uh increase his vitality he shouldn't just learn it uh one time we should learn it several times so the entire impetus for shabbat talking is from mendelshamtov but i should mention that mendoza was the sponsor of the first printing of the first volume of the egress he heard that such a project was happening and he immediately sent in his check to the secretariat and said i get dibs and at first it wasn't clear that he was going to get dibs but then things worked out but he did become the sponsor and uh i want to mention that this booklet you see here has a sponsor as well if you look on the inside back cover nishmas kids his family they sponsored this booklet i guess continuing in his good path so a little bit of ashkajo pratis there and i hope that this enriches your learning of these letters and uh shows you some of the color some of the background and makes it more relevant to you okay without further ado let's jump into tonight's letter letter number seven wow we're finishing a full week of learning we started last week on sunday night and now we're coming to matsushaba so we're completing a full week's cycle of learning tonight's letter letter seven is from yud al of markham tafsin that's the eleventh day of brooklyn havasic the hasid vasquev is a an honorific title bestowed to somebody who's doing good stuff and who's uh getting stuff done is the god-fearing nikbud the nyla the communal servant the one who's involved in communal affairs who is mordechai from yes that's the first motorcycle but this is rich oliver shalom from melbourne australia now i never met murphy rich but what i did is uh in anticipation of this letter i spoke with that mendel knew of melbourne australia may he be well and he was there at the time he was a very close friend of mr rich and he was all he was part of all of the uh that was going to be speaking to mr rich about the uh goings-on at known as yeshiva college the uh the educational institute that was founded by lobovich in melbourne and uh mr new was very very involved in this from the very beginning from its inception and he was right there alongside with uh mr rich and i was able to get some incredible information from mr new salangiorn and in good health with much nachas from all of his family here's what i found out first of all very interesting personal connection mr rich's shidduch was made by mr news parents what's the story about that mr rich mordechai rich came from europe after the war he was a survivor as were most of the jews in melbourne at that time and at first he went to south africa and from south africa he came to australia and he settled in melbourne and he was single and uh the news wendell news parents said to uh mr rich how would you like to meet a nice jewish girl he said tell me about her so they said her parents run a fruit store in a non-jewish neighborhood and so they're open on shabbos but they have a daughter and the girl this daughter she won't work on shabbos she's very frum and she won't work in her parents fruit store even though it's open on shabbos and the family works in the store but she won't work on shabbos so mr rich said let me meet her and in three days they were engaged to be married so yes that's a little bit about mr rich apparently he was a big guy physically tall big guy with a golden heart a loving person who was always involved in dhaka and kindness um he was not from the lobov chair community or from any type of laboratory background he was from a mizrahi background that was the movement with which he affiliated himself and he was very involved with the mizrahi movement all of the years in melbourne in fact later i believe he was involved in a later school also a religious jewish school that started in melbourne called yavneh but at this point he was involved in the starting in the founding of the laboratory school i'll just tell you one quick story more about mr rich that i found out from mr new which is just a beautiful story mr rich started a business a factory making women's coats and it was a rather lucrative business and somebody wanted to buy it from him another jew wanted to buy it from him and i don't know the name of this other jew he mentioned mr new mention that this uh was that this this prospective buyer was not sheimer chavez in fact that's the whole point of the story he was not religious and did not keep shabbos also for whatever uh it's worth it's interesting to note that he was a little person he was a very very short he was a small person uh physically um and he was jewish and he wasn't shabbos observant so this fellow i don't know his name wanted to buy the coat business from mr rich mr rich said i'll only sell you my business if you'll continue being chamber shabbos meaning my business i'm sure my showers my business has shimmy shabbos you're not shimmery shabbos but if you buy my business i want the business to be shaming shabbos and this fellow said okay i'll do it and he became from buying the business he became shabbos observant wonderful story at any rate so i hope that gives you a little bit of an insight into who this mr rich was and this should all be uh this course for him as nishama should have an olia greetings and blessings this letter is in yiddish i received your letter on datum that is undated you didn't put the date on the letter i think i mentioned this before we take for granted that all letters are dated because we send each other emails and it just has a time stamp on it and you see the email thread you can see which which emails response to which and these days especially remember a letter going to australia i don't know how long it took to get there and to get back could be could be weeks i'm not sure the time frame but at any rate when you have letters going back and forth and taking a long time it's very helpful to indicate which date of which letter i'm responding to right now so that's why the daba mentions here you you didn't put a date on the letter lane in them i was happy to read in your letter so battalion in melbourne that you started to energetically take part in the work of the school called ahalei yes of yitzhak that was named in memory of the previous rabbit whose name was jessica i think i should mention a little history that lobovich started a heider a school before this i believe in tough shin yud and i believe that was founded by uh zalman sarabranski and it was a very small school i think had three children when they started and it was just meant for laboratories and it was a laboratory and then later a few years later meaning around the time of the writing of this letter they opened it under a new name all yes of yitzchak and it was a community school meaning it was meant for everyone not just for lubavitchers and this is the the mesa known as yeshiva college which is a k through 12 institution till this day and received through the years much much much direct guidance from the rather and uh in fact there are many letters in the egress too mr rich as far as i can tell at least four more letters over the next uh couple of years or that was writing to mr rich and all of these letters involved the school in in melbourne okay so i'm very happy that ebba says to hear that you're taking part in the school um that bring in the ibrahimovic and i hope that you're taking part energetically in the school that this effort is going to bring blessings from hashem and it's going to bring success this is a very seemingly minor detail but i just think it's important to stop for a second and reflect what the dev is saying i'm hoping that you're taking part energetically in the school that that hishtadlus that effort will bring hashem's blessings for success see even here that is spelling out very clearly the mechanics of success we have to do our part we have to put forth effort and in fact energetically and the more energetically we take part the the more of a vessel we create but in the end it's not our energy it's not our uh it's not our efforts which produce success it merely creates a vessel within which blessings from hashem come down and translate into success so i just think that's an important thing to remember about everything in life okay now that eva speaks a little bit about specifically about schools and education in our era i think this is fascinating now if it is true then in all times and in all places it is it was important to have a torah center to teach torah and to transmit fear of heaven so much more so this was true all along historically this was important but today in our present time it's even more important in unzip in our day um in such a place meaning melbourne in such a place in the rabbit describes what he means by such a place that a yiddish of hyped onto vaccine where the jewish settlement is growing starting to grow so it's very to me it's very important to note that that i was speaking here positively it's a positive thing that the jewish population of melbourne is growing so as the community grows the needs are growing and we got to keep up with those needs so if it was always important historically to have a torah center that was disseminating torah learning and and teaching uh fear of heaven how much more so in our time and in such a place like melbourne which is growing moosman legend of them de gras de queiras we have to put into it the the greatest effort and uh and uh let's call it uh energy we have to engrave well in our mind and in our heart then my mirazaal the saying of our sages call the makayam nafish anyone who saves one jewish life it is if he saved an entire world in other words you're creating an institution but the institution isn't this monolith it's not this machine ultimately what's it about the individual if you can save one individual you save the world and that's how the debit is telling mr rich to set it up okay now further insights about education in our era amo is a heider un yeshiva farakind hot dos once upon a time the the role of the shiva was to rescue a child from being an ignoramus if he wouldn't have a yeshiva to go to he'd be an ignoramus and the child having the benefit of going to school so it would save him from being an ignoramus and it would make him someone who's knowledgeable of judaism at least rudimentary judaism or oftentimes it would make children into real scholars that was the purpose of a school to produce jewish scholarship abraham's attack unfortunately however in our time now that is going to acknowledge some of the challenges of our day we have to actually think about saving children that they should remain jewish meaning in previous generations the purpose of the school was to save them from being ignorant but they would still remain jewishly observant even someone who was totally ignorant would remain in the fold most for the most part that's just the way life was among jews today though the school's purpose has changed and it's not to save him from being ignorant it's to save him from completely god forbid leaving the fold and leaving judaism an endem ken min and for this purpose we cannot rely on the environment and such meaning to say it's implied here that once upon a time the environment itself was enough for kids growing up in the shtetl okay so if he doesn't go to haider he'll be an ammo audit he'll be ignorant but he'll remain observant because jewish observance is in the air it's all around him this fever the environment itself will be sufficient to keep him jewishly involved even if he doesn't know how to learn even if he's not a scholar that ever says is different today the purpose of the school isn't to make sure that a child is a scholar the purpose of the school is to make sure that he stays he remains within judaism it's very interesting distinction about how our time is is different i think it's an important thing to keep in mind today i think sometimes schools forget what their purpose is and they think it's to produce scholars well that's nice to also produce scholars but the primary purpose of schools today is to keep children involved in judaism okay norman musboyne we have to build fortresses for them because the environment not only doesn't promote that they stay within judaism but doesn't say it explicitly but that's the implication of building a fortress the environment can take them away god forbid so we have to build fortresses yeshiva a school the ha gibbon the guarantee that gives a guarantee as they solemn believe in eden that they should remain jewish it is certainly superfluous to elaborate further on this point meaning it's obvious okay now we're going to change to another subject that is a response to something specifically uh mr richard asked about in the frag finance committee on in response to your questions about the direction the financial committee the committee that was set up to support and expand the yeshiva you want to know what should influence their actions in other words this is a new organization a new institution and mr rich is asking for guidance about the direction the spirit the the personality so to speak that the school should build for itself on an institutional level see this is a question that doesn't have a general answer because it depends on the character and the abilities of every member of the committee individually um therefore it's difficult to answer such a question in other words there's not a one-size-fits-all response to this however a general answer that you could apply to most cases and this is this is something you see with that often where the devil will say look a specific answer is going to be different for everyone and i can't do that right now but what i can do is i can give you some general ground rules so here's a general ground rule and i think this is fascinating okay so a general answer aber was is something some you know something general which we need yes you should guard yourself you should be vigilant not to give the school a political color other apartheid character or a partisan characteristic and as i mentioned to you mr rich was very involved in the mizrahi community and movement he himself was very involved in zionism and zionism was very strong in melbourne at that time to the extent where basically anyone who was in the public eye in the jewish community was zionistic to some extent and this is clearly what the rabbit is speaking about that it is a political or partisan issue and you have to make sure that it doesn't become part of the yeshiva's identity very interesting and that explains why and i should also mention that as much as you're going to see that ebb is speaking here about making sure not to allow the school to take on a zionistic flavor i think the laboratories record as far as supporting the [Music] jews living in israel and the security of israel and the military and the government and making sure that their safety and security and prosperity for every jew in the holy land is is beyond reproach we all know and if you don't know it's something to study that rebbe's position on a strong government and military in the land of israel however that is very different than taking on what the rabbi describes as political leanings and i think we can extrapolate if i can humbly suggest that this doesn't just apply to zionism but to any political issue it's interesting also because in the 50s zionism was considered more of more of a left-wing issue and now today it's more for the most part considered more right-wing so you see how these political things are very they change with the times they're political trends and like the word trend implies these things are not set in stone they're uh they're not plato samus they're not something that's eternal they they're fluid and i think that's part of what that was saying here is let's try to stay above these political leanings which are going to change and fluctuate and it ever says also very specifically um how political leanings will estrange people that you're trying to help that's what that ever says explicitly so let's see what the dev actually says and uh i'll reserve any more of my commentary for uh for never i'm going to try not to give any more of my own observations for the rest of this letter let's just get through it because we're running short on time as well valodas lane in taylor is strong statement from the debit learning toyota is not connected to politics and it's not connected to parties this is not my commentary i said i'm refraining from it but a story when the communists came to arrest the frida kahrabi and they came to his house to arrest him in the middle of the night they asked his daughters one of them that his wife rebecca muska what party do you belong to and if you know anything about communist russia especially when the kgb themselves were coming to your house with a warrant for arrest you didn't start up with them and they asked the question what party do you belong to it's pretty clear what the question was demanding they wanted the daughters of the frida kadetta to say that they are members of the communist party and it's very interesting it's recorded in the frida krabi's uh journal of his uh arrest and liberation virgo's daughters said that we belong to our father's party we belong to our father's party and uh yeah i think that's something that every hostage should at least aspire to if you ask me what party what movement am i loyal too loyal to the rebels party just something to consider okay so that ebba says torah study is not connected to politics or party was given enough says just to let you know one of the reasons why lubavitch has been successful why this and this is 1955 think about in our day the the growth of the lobovich institutions that ebba says one of the reasons that the laboratory states that i mean the laboratory institutions have been so successful is because we avoid politics voices i love that yiddish word they have always remained ima partesh they remained transcendent of partisanship i think that's wow this is written in 1955 but in 2022 i think this is something to take to heart labachamoistes are successful because they transcend and remain above partisanship when when you think deeply about the deepest sense of what this means as dictator was given at once to all six hundred thousand jews it's interesting we take that for granted why wasn't uh there like some uh breakout sessions or something like uh this shavit would get the toyota over here and that shave it would get potato over there or maybe even you know because tata is something you learn so we'd have like the advanced students getting the title over in one room and the slower students getting the title over in another room yeah why not why not break it up no everyone got the toyota at the same time with them caught in shipping from the greatest of the great to the smallest to the small and they all simultaneously heard the commandments so first of all tata doesn't look at partisanship or different leanings toyota is one tata for all jews that's one point furthermore they all heard all of the commandments this is a very this is very geshmak it's not i'm just going to give you a little preview it's not that those were more inclined to social justice mitzvahs they heard less ahmed don't uh covet your neighbor and those who are more into religious observance and ritual they heard uh to keep shabbos no everybody regardless of if you're more into being veda and more into being whether you're into the social justice mitzvas or you're more into the ritual observance mitzvahs they all heard all of them at the same time okay let let's look inside that they all heard the seresa dibras the ten commandments at the same time the lord your god remember the sabbath day that's the last one the tenth one don't do not covet the indian so from this you can grasp as torah is for all jews all kinds of jews meaning i am the lord your god basic belief in monotheism it that belief has to lead not only to shabbos observance but also to do not covet in other words the belief in god cannot just manifest itself in ritual observance like shabbos observance but it has to also translate into social justice mixes like do not covet i say and now the flip side the flip side kenmon from delay you cannot properly commit yourself to the social justice misses like do not covet if you don't base that mitzvah on a belief in god and on the observance of shabbos you cannot have one without the other you can't cut out the being odin and allow just the being adam lemaking but conversely you can't cut out the main obligation and just keep the social justice misfits you have to have both so the entire theater was given to all types of jews all at once this tells us a couple things first of all it's for all jews second of all torah has to encompass all kinds of mitzvas that appeal to all kinds of jews with all kinds of leanings so here's what the rabbi says therefore because of this it's very important not to mix in any side stuff don't mix in anything else anything whatever calls it sometimes people get scared off by the side stuff that's not even your mission your mission was to teach toyota and yiddish but you took on an extra character that really isn't part of your mission and that character is going to scare people off because you know you're going to say well some people like it yeah some people do like it but others don't like it and your job isn't to be partisan and to please those who like that and then turn off those who don't like it your job is to stick with twitter and appeal to everyone now they're people turned off by twitter itself okay that's a different question that's a different question which you can go into at another time but we're saying don't add anything extra that could turn off one kind of person or another kind of person because you know what you're you're risking here you're risking that this person is going to lose out on yiddish kite and can you really take responsibility for that you turn someone away from you this kite because you wanted to give the yeshiva a certain character that's going to push away some people and that character is not even part of your of your uh of your mission statement that ever says it clear here cdos is parte other politic whether that's something that's partisan or political um whether it's a political thing or a partisan thing by pushing that thing that the person's afraid of you lose the opportunity for that person to connect themselves to toyota and mitzvos was it worth it no says that it wasn't worth it don't do it okay let's finish up here certainly you remember our conversation as uh i hope that you remember our conversation and it's unnecessary unnecessary to continue re-questioning of you to toil in the matters of the yeshiva or yes according to your abilities using your fullest influence to the maximum so why am i even mentioning it here this this is a great clothes so why am i even mentioning here to remind you about putting forth your energy and being involved in the in the yeshiva the rabbit says i'm only doing this in accordance with the saying of our sages ain't mesoresin [Music] you only urge on you only push those who are who already possess alacrity it's like a double expression in mazarsen ella mizurazen it means that if somebody isn't on top of things so you don't even bother to remind them but someone who's on top of things already you just give them an extra oomph so that's what the rabb is saying i'm not suspecting that you're not into it i think you are into it but there's a saying of our sages people who are already into something you give them an extra push encourage the enthusiastic by the way that ebb has said this thousands of times if you count not just the igress but that that you encourage the enthusiastic somebody who's already into something you just keep on giving them more and more and more good energy keep feeding the flame okay so i want to just one more time urge you on kade as al tsukumen so it should become part of your activities with blessings for success in all of the above also in your personal affairs i'm giving you a bracha i await good news and that is tonight's letter thank you so much for joining us