The Rebbe's Campaign for Family Purity (Mikvah) | Mivtza Taharas Hamishpacha

okay so this is a series a uh a series on the mitzvah campaigns and here we are we're doing nivta the campaign to promote the mitzvah of what we we translate literally as family purity taras bacha means family purity sometimes we refer to it as the laws of needha or sometimes it's referred to as the laws of mikvah all of those are terms that are we use synonymously is probably the most general term for it collectively neither really describes the specific state the biological state of that that a woman enters um with a spiritual and biological state and mikvah is the the pool of immersion that uh through which uh a woman or anyone for that matter but specifically in this context a woman achieves tahara or ritual purity so uh let's begin like this i was thinking to myself how are we going to do this how are we going to do this what do i mean every jewish person who gets married by a competent orthodox rabbi and who is prepared according to halacha for marriage is going to get a class more than a class a thorough course in paris bacha slash the loss of nida slash laws of mikvah before they get married this is not something that children learn how to practice or even young adults who are single because very simply it is not applicable until a person is married so here we are we're giving this class this is open to the public this is open to everyone um this is going to go online and anyone can watch it and the question is you know first of all you know propriety is this uh is this something we want to be talking about and the answer is absolutely this is something that we want to be talking about absolutely without a doubt without question and i will tell you how i know that i will tell you where i take my lead from there is a magazine a children's magazine called meshiach times meshiach times is for cives hashem which is the name of an organization in fact it's the world's largest jewish youth club and the meshech times is a magazine that serves the constituents the children who are members of this group it's a physician now i actually heard this story directly from the editor of meshech times rabbi david shalom pape may he be well and he told me like this they wanted to do an issue about the ten minutes about the the mitzvah campaigns similar to what you know we've been doing uh this year and uh as uh robertson wallowak said before we began that this entire series of classes is in honor of uh rosensweig and all of the mitzvahs that will come from this these classes is in her merit so um similar to the way we've been promoting these campaigns the meshiach times magazine wanted to do a an issue promoting these uh these campaigns the problem is that it's a children's magazine so rabbi pape instructed the illustrator and i'm not sure who exactly was the illustrator of this particular cover for some reason i think it was dave berg of mad magazine i believe it was actually or maybe it was al jaffe i think it actually was al jaffe and i'll tell you why because i think the cover had the character called der spy there's a character called the spy and um and he's an el jeff he's also one of the mad magazine artist it's interesting that's a whole other story how did the mad magazine staff come to write for uh to or illustrate and write for uh michelle times but at any rate so the cover of the magazine and this was in 1984 this was the shvat issue interesting this month is shot coming up uh well actually no tonight became um wow yeah tonight is shot so the issue of tough shin mem hey that means uh 1985 winter of 85. they had a cover and on the cover it had um the spy this character and he was planting trees and the yatzahara who's the villain in this comic strip the it's hard is the villain in real life too it's the evil inclination it was trying to stop them and they're planting trees and each of the trees oh and why are they trees because schwa the hebrew month of schwart is associated with the 15th of schwab which many people refer to as tu bishvat tu beshvat doesn't mean the number two like in english two is uh tess valve which is nine plus six which is 15. don't ask why that's a discussion for another time but at any rate uh hamish al-sabishvat the 15th day of schwab tuber new year for trees so for the shavat issue of uh times they had this illustration the this character the spy and the planting different trees and each tree had a mifsa on it i had one of the different mythology so filling shabbos candles mesoza tora study tsudaka all of the the the campaigns but um rabbi pape didn't want to put tares back because it's a children's magazine so he felt it was you know like inappropriate so he wanted to figure out you know how to substitute with something else he was thinking well you know what's important that abba had said to children whether it ever spoke about the importance of telling the truth it's an interesting syria where the rebbe is describing how a child uh comes downstairs and he sees his children or his his siblings are the other children his siblings are eating uh this cake and he wants a piece of cake but he didn't wash his hands yet and uh you know he's tempted to lie and it's a very interesting circle where they never really gets into the psychology of a child and then it was the point of the sichu of the talk is about the importance of telling the truth so rabbi pape decided since the rabbi had spoken about the importance of telling the truth so he could sort of include that as a substitute mitzvah campaign oh telling the truth was not one of the mitzvah campaigns but rabbit paper wanted to take out tadasana family purity because he felt it was inappropriate for children so you take that out you got to put something in so he put in telling the truth so you see the cover has all the different uh trees marked with the different mitzvah campaigns except for the the the one that should be taras bacha it says telling the truth well they used to always hand in the cover of the magazine to the rabbit for review before they would go to print amazing thing with all of his responsibilities would uh look through this children's magazine just that itself is wild but they they handed in the the magazine before they went to print and they got one note back that ever wrote whoever wrote it in hebrew but uh that ever wrote one of them if soyum is missing and then you put in one that's not that doesn't belong so uh rabbit paper gets this answer it was clear to him that ever wants that when you teach the ten mitzvah campaigns even to small children you tell them what the campaigns are even if it's small children so i'm taking my lesson and so they they corrected it they corrected the the um the cover and it came out with uh taras mashbach family purity on it so i'm taking my lesson from that story and uh it clearly means that we are supposed to talk about this with all types of audiences and obviously uh we should do so tastefully we are i think somewhat restricted i mean we're not going to get into the technical observance of the mitzvah that would uh not really be possible that's something that people are taught as preparation for marriage but to talk about the general history of the campaign and then about the mitzvah itself i think uh not only is uh permissible but an incredibly important uh topic to promote maybe in a certain way even more than any of the other topics that we've we've discussed and maybe by the end of uh tonight's class you'll understand why i say that so uh maybe let's let's start like this let's start with the origins of the mitzvah that we said is called taras mishpacha or nida or mikvah where does it come from it is a biblical mitzvah it's a biblic it's one of the 613 commandments and it is a mitzvah that governs the private life of a jewish husband and wife and it is regarded as so important so essential that a jewish community that does not have a mikvah is not considered a community you could say well there's a you know we drive and go to the mikvah you know in the next town over okay fine so wherever you're living that's not called a jewish community you're living outside of the community you can have thousands of jews living somewhere but if they don't have a mikvah it's not called a jewish community now you're going to say there are other things also you know if you don't have a shul it's not called the jewish community that's true but let me explain to you why a mikveh is even greater than a shul according to halakha you're not allowed to sell a show like let's say your community needs funds they they they want money they want to liquidate assets so they say they have a nice piece of property they so they sell their shul so they can get some money not allowed to do that however when it comes to a mikvah you're allowed to sell the shul you're allowed to sell the seafrey toyota torah scrolls in order to have the funds to build the mikveh so we see here that a priority is given to the mikvah beyond any other aspect of jewish life which is i think um a reminder that the core of jewish life is only supported in the synagogue the core of jewish life really takes place in each and every jewish home and the center of the home is the husband-wife relationship and the center of the husband-wife relationship is their intimate life which is made wholly through the practice of the laws of mikvah so it's it's no great wonder that having a mikvah would take such precedence even over other aspects of jewish communal life let me put it to you in a historical perspective maybe this will help bring it out maybe even more clearly anyone who's been to israel who took a trip you know a guided tour almost everybody has been to masada right that's one of the the places all the tourists always always visit and uh one of the things you see up there up on masada up on that mountain where those uh jews were living uh they were resisting the the the roman occupation and they they went up to masada and uh you see there's there there are mikvahs there there are mikvasan masada now how long was the siege in masada it was half a year how long did the jews live up on masada you know and how long did they plan to live on masada it wasn't like they were setting up a permanent community it was they were fleeing they were fleeing so you're talking about jews who are living in what was a very temporary situation and on top of that they had incredible literal life and death threats that they were facing and with all of that you see that jews built mikvahs like that was considered such a basic part of the rhythm of jewish life that even if you're hiding out as a band of resistance a and and you're fleeing for your very lives uh you still wouldn't think to spend any amount of time somewhere without a mikveh and it just it it's absolutely uh astounding when you think about it the jews in that type of situation felt that mikva was that important and of course there are many many many stories through the ages where jews who were living under terrible oppression and had no stability in their lives and everything they did was at you know was was was was only with great peril and they always preserved this mitzvah of mikvah in fact even when the persecution was specifically against the observance of mikvah itself they were building and keeping and using mikvas i mean we know that you know the the story the of lubavitch in the soviet union the times of of of of communist russia is characterized by you know great uh resistance and one of the maybe perhaps even the primary form of resistance was that the previous had a network okay they were the underground uh kadarim the the schools for for for torah study but one of the the primary if not the primary uh services for which people literally risked and at risk gave up their lives four was to maintain mikvas and and and to through secret networks allow jewish women to know where the mikva was and where a new one had opened when the kgb closed one in one location they opened one in another location it wasn't child's play when they closed up a a mix in one location it was very often that whoever they found there was sent to siberia to build a mikvah have a mix in your home was a capital offense and and yet mikva was considered to be so important so cherished so central that uh even when there was like i said literal risk of life and limb there was something that jews wouldn't live without so we we get a we get a a glimpse i think a taste of an appreciation of how powerful how important that that mitzvah is let's talk a little bit about the history or the background of the rebbe's campaign we're speaking about this uh in the context of the ten million the ten mitzvah campaigns so let's talk about that briefly um the first of the time of time we've said this before in other classes in this series but it's it's worth repeating so i'll just repeat it again very briefly a little historical sketch here uh 1967 on the eve of the six-day war that ebba started the fill-in campaign and that was that for a while that was the only campaign so it wasn't under the banner of mithsilium it was just a thing that was nothing and then uh seven years later in fact i think we spoke about last week that the the filling campaign started on the eve of the six day war and the first group of other campaigns started after the yom kippur war like the year following the yom kippur war so it's interesting that the these campaigns were sort of tied in with major events in in in jewish uh history that were going on at the time so in 1974 i think in cable war was 73 so the next year 74 they uh there was the the institution of uh myths dhaka by smalling swarm that's what we did i think last time and nashik right so in in plain english uh zoza hari samus in english charity uh house full of torah books and uh shabbos candles so that those were instituted in 1974. then in the following year toshin lamedhay which is 1975 that ever instituted and kashrus so family purity which is the mitzvot we're speaking about tonight along with uh a campaign to promote the uh the the uh keeping of kosher laws and then by the way there's a connection between taras mishpacha and kashulus very strong connection they are both mitzvahs that affect men and women but women are primarily responsible for keeping them obviously men and women are bound by these laws equally but the practical fact of the matter is who's the one who typically in the jewish home overseas and makes sure that these laws are here adhered to properly is the mainstay of the jewish home the the jewish woman so she is the one who oversees both of those mitzvahs um so during that period of time 1975 when it ever came out with this uh this campaign there were many talks many public addresses where that ever spoke about tara and one of the things that eva spoke about was what we mentioned earlier the mesidis nephesh the great sacrifice that uh lobovich had in russia to build mikvahs when it was very dangerous to do so and that ever spoke about now you know living in a free society nothing's stopping us and uh we have to build we have to build mikvas that we're speaking about building mix and uh and not to delay not to delay because every single couple who who has the benefit of a mikvo when they conceive this is this is such a powerful light i'm going to speak about that in in a moment but such a powerful light in the world and it's not to be delayed it's not to be put off it it's i'm i'm guarding the way that i'm speaking because i i don't want to make it sound like see i'm i'm sort of torn here because on one hand i don't want anyone to be to take it in the wrong way if i say i don't want to say that it's something that you can you have one chance to do it right because people will say well well i didn't know or i i made a mistake and i didn't do it right and now you know my child is born so on the but on the other hand i don't want to say oh it's not a big deal so what am i supposed to say what i'll tell you is this there of course this is a question that people ask now i'm taking a parenthetical detour right now because i feel like it's just important to address but of course there are many people who have asked this question well what do you do when you realize after your children are born so in that case what the rebel would recommend is that you should start keeping those laws now and teshuva is very very powerful toshiba can have a transformative effect so i i would say that if you're still having children um obviously it's it's a no-brainer to observe the laws of mikvah and to observe them meticulously and to take a refresher course even if you've already learned it and if you haven't learned it learn it for the first time but even if you're you're not having children anymore but it would be valuable at least uh one time to have that experience and what the heck you know at the very least you could write it off as a jewish cultural experience right but yeah it has a powerful effect even if it's even if it's after the fact at any rate uh let me go back to where i diverted from that i was speaking about how the urgency basically the urgency and not to delay and not to um allow a situation to happen where you know basically uh every every single day um matters every hour matters uh and and and during in during these talks that i've also spoke about the importance of making the buildings the actual physical structure and the decor and the design of the of the buildings and where in which the mikvah is housed the mikvah itself is the actual pools the immersion pool um but uh you know there's a house i mean now nowadays we have we have a building in the olden days you know sometimes it was uh you know you just jump in the ocean but we have beautiful houses so that i've encouraged that they should make these structures as beautiful as attractive as pleasant as possible and that this is all part of beautifying the mitzvah and it's all part of attracting women to want to observe this mitzvah in other words it's not a mitzvah that that a woman should have to feel of course women have had sacrifice to keep this mitzvah but it's not one that they should have to feel that they're sacrificing if if you can make it so nice that it feels almost like indulgent if it feels like a spa then then we should try to do so um so so just so that it'll be uh done more and and in fact that ever even like acknowledges this in the sikhs whatever says there and maybe you'll argue that even if it's not such an attractive experience she's still obligated it's still a mitzvah right it's still a mitzvah and it really shouldn't bother her whether it's nice whether it's not nice what do you think it's a mitzvah so who cares if the building is is pretty or not that eva said that's not what you should be thinking that's not a germain argument the fact of the matter is that if the building is nice and the experience is nice and the attendant is nice and everything is done in a very luxurious way the fact of the matter is it will promote more women using mikva more often which has this incredibly powerful effect on the the spiritual uh advantages that they give to their children that are conceived from from from that from that uh going to the mikvah so uh you know you can you can argue all you want that it's not so important it is important it is important it's and it may be more important than anything like we were saying before um let's talk a little bit oh i mentioned let me talk about this i mentioned that mikva provides an advantage to the to the children spiritual advantage to the children who are born who are conceived uh in a state of of spiritual purity so let me just talk about that a little bit um when a soul comes down to a body look all souls are holier than angels what i mean what's greater a soul or an angel soul no question but a soul has to come down to a body and when it comes down to a body there's certain wear and tear that it experiences as it comes down from heaven actually heavens plural and eventually comes into this world you know just like after a person passes they leave the body and they go to heaven so before they were born they were in heaven they left heaven and they came to a body and embodiment can uh put a damper on your spirituality to say the least right and and what happens is um the body can sort of buffer out filter out the soul's spiritual sensitivity and what really is going to determine not the soul the soul is is pristine but the interface that the soul is going to have here in this world the the filter through which the soul is going going to experience things while in a body that that's all determined by the circumstances of the conception of the body that the soul is going to inhabit when it comes down and there's nothing more conducive to the [Music] the situation of the body being a good vessel for the soul is nothing more conducive than than being conceived in ritual purity which is the result of immersing in the mikvah and what this does is allows the soul to shine through so of course there are lofty souls beautiful pure souls that were born without the advantage of their parents going to mikvah you know that's that's that's the fact but with mikvah it's giving that soul the ability to have it a little bit easier in life in other words you know let me put it like this your child's intelligence is not something that you can cause you know you don't make you don't get to pick how smart your child is but you can choose what schools to send your child to right and and jewish parents do this all the time we make great sacrifices to send their kids to the right schools so that our child should have every advantage in life right okay so same thing you don't choose how smart your kid is but you choose what schools to give them to send them to or send her to to give them every advantage in life the same thing that their their inner spirituality isn't determined by anything you did or didn't do that that's that that's beyond your ability to help or hurt but the circumstances that that soul is going to come into yeah of course you do have an influence and there's nothing more influential that you as a parent can do than allow your child the benefit of being being conceived while uh the the the mother is in a state of virtual purity that was uh was was brought about through immersion in a kosher mikvah so in that sense we see that the mikvah is a as a mitzvah that's more powerful than any other i'll tell you why there's a saying it's actually it's from king solomon's sayings you know he has proverbs michelle near mitzvah he says that uh a mitzvah is a candle and torah is light so a mitzvah is a candle every time you do a mitzvah you're lighting a candle not just lighting shabbos candles or candles which is literally a candle but you put on filling you're lighting a candle right you eat kosher you're lighting a candle you give tzedakah you're you're lighting a candle uh you shake lulla van sukkas you hear the shayfer on rosh hashanah these are all lighting a candle so to speak and every candle brings light into the world but we all know that no matter how bright a candle is or how many candles you like in a room they can never compare to the intensity of the sunlight when it comes streaming into the room through a window you can't compare the two you could light thousands of candles in the room but it's nothing compared to just opening up the window and let the sun shine through and it's just incomparably brighter well all mitzvahs are like candles except for one all mitzvahs are like candles but mikvah is like letting in the sunshine through the window because what is mikva mikfa is providing the circumstances which allow the purity and the power of a soul to come into the world with no obstruction so that it can come into a body and shine and the light from the soul the soul is like it says in tanya kela killa kami mal it's a piece of god so a mitzvah is a candle yeah it's a nice light but the light that emits from an unobstructed soul when a soul is born into a body with the benefit of purity that's like the sun shining through the window so in that sense the the mitzvah that we do that makes the most light is this this mitzvah like the difference between lighting a candle and opening up the window so that the sun can shine through maybe i'll just very briefly speak about the observance of the mitzvah i as i said earlier i don't want to get into it uh in detail and i can't for obvious reasons i can't but maybe we'll just close up by just speaking about it very in very general terms part of marriage i'm not saying all of marriage but a part of it is love a husband and wife are meant to love each other and there are different kinds of love you think there's one kind of love it's like you know what do you want for dessert ice cream what flavor ice cream oh whatever ice cream then you don't know ice cream if you don't know how many flavors of ice cream there are you don't understand ice cream go ask the poets the poets know there are many times many types of love but let's talk about right now the difference between a husband and wife love and other kinds of love like for instance a brother and sister a brother and sister have a love that is constant in fact their love began before they even really understood what love was because they grew up with each other and they're comfortable with each other and even when they fight they still love each other because that love is just this baseline uh you know it's just normal it's like the air that you breathe and in that sense it's also very neutral meaning it's not wow it's not like it hits you like a ton of bricks no it's constant it's steady it's normal it's so normal you don't even notice it right like an old pair of shoes a brother and sister's love for each other is like that old pair of shoes you don't want to throw it away because when you put on that old pair of shoes it feels like you're not even wearing shoes it's so comfortable it's so just normal right okay that's beautiful it is beautiful but that is not the kind of love the husband and wife are supposed to have for each other a husband and wife's love for each other should not be like that awesomely comfortable pair of old shoes no the love a husband and wife had have for each other should be wow it's hitting me like a ton of bricks now you're going to say that's infatuation that happens at the beginning of a relationship and then afterwards the honeymoon is over and you get used to each other god forbid god forbid why should that happen if a husband and wife love becomes like a brother-sister love that is not good for a marriage which means by extension it's not good for a jewish family or anybody living under that roof which by extension means it's not good for the jewish community which by extension means it's not good for the world when a husband and wife become blase even in a good way not in a contemptuous way no in a very sweet way that is um doesn't bode well for the entire world has negative repercussions on all of reality the core of the jewish home is the intimate life of husband and wife and a husband and wife's love have to be has to be passionate has to be exciting has to be wow this is not my sister that i grew up with and i knew before i even knew how to speak right this is someone i didn't know i had my own life i discovered her i discovered her the first time i laid eyes on you right that's why we speak about husband and wife romance in that way because the novelty of it is it it's all about novelty a brother and sister love is the opposite of novelty which is beautiful in its own way husband and wife love is all about novelty well how do you keep novelty when you're married for a year 10 years 20 years 30 years 40 years where's the novelty so our creator did an an amazing thing he built into us a rhythm of approach disengagement reunion it's part of the biological cycle i mean biology itself is telling us this spiritual truth that there's a time for backing away you know people say i need my space it's true you do need your space why because a husband and wife love has to be about reapproaching reunion not constant union if it's constant it becomes like a brother and sister so we have built into our system this this rhythm this pattern which always ensures that there will be like i said approach disengagement reunion and then the love between husband and wife is always kept new as it is intended to be and and all we have to do is respect the cycle of biology which is embedded in nature and then take our guidance from torah law which tells us how to respect this this natural cycle and not that we do mitzvahs because of how it benefits us no i mean we don't do mitzvahs because it benefits us we do mixes because hashem said to however this one's such a no-brainer this mitzvah so clearly benefits us at any rate i want to encourage everybody um to do what you can for this mitzvah whether it is to be involved in the building of a mikvah you know to donate to a mikvah to educate others or encourage others to practice the laws of mikvah or to take a refresher course in the laws of mikvah or if you've haven't observed the mitzvah before to look into it and and to see about at least maybe one time at least to have that experience and uh to remember that this isn't uh this isn't like any other mitzvah this is the core this is the essence this is the epicenter of jewish life and when the core is strong everything else is strong okay thank you very much blessings to you all and again i want to remind you that this class as well as all of the classes in this series is uh in honor of dyna layer rosenstein shalom made this class and all the mixes that come from it be in her merit