The Rebbe's "Letter in a Torah Scroll" Campaign | Mivtza SEFER TORAH

why did the torah scroll wear a seat belt because it wanted to be a safer tara it's pretty hilarious huh okay i'm gonna give laffy taffy a run for their money we are studying different mitzvah campaigns or mithsayim that were initiated by the laboratory and tonight we're going to talk about the safer torah the campaign to procure a letter of one's own in a torah scroll this is distinct from the study of torah which is another one of the mitzvah campaigns it's distinct from what we spoke about i think last month we spoke about uh the campaign for torah books although the campaign for toro books is related to this campaign because i think we mentioned last month that one of the opinions of how to fulfill the mitzvah of writing your own safer torah is to own torah books so we spoke about that last month when we spoke about the campaign to promote a house full of torah books but tonight we're going to talk about the literal torah scroll the actual authentic torah scroll inc on parchment the holy torah scroll and the whole campaign that led up to the whole story that led up to that campaign which is actually a riveting story and uh and a history that's not that well known um so maybe we'll just start with a little uh like i say with a little bit of history um the story really starts good aleph nissan which is his birthday and the particular year was tough shin mem alef 1981 okay so spring of 81. and the rabbit would always fabreng that ebb would always lead a gathering in honor of his birthday at this particular birthday fabregan or birthday gathering the rebbe said he wants to make an announcement and he asked that first they should sing a happy song and then they should say look i am and then he's going to make an announcement and the devil said like this less than half a year ago meaning meaning prior to this gathering they launched hashem literally means the army of god and that is the youth organization that and set forth a vision for which became the world's largest jewish youth organization and uh it's it's it's a club for children where they go on missions and they do different mitzvahs as their missions and then they write in to report that they successfully accomplish the mission and they get promoted and they have different ranks and that that's what siva's hashem is so the rabbit said that a half a year ago we just launched this new group called civilization now is not a geographical group meaning it's not specific to any location there are members children who are members of sivas hashem who live literally on every inhabited continent of the world so it's not like a group in the sense of an actual physical assembly of people who come together in the space the same space and time so that abba said that since hashem is it doesn't have it's not an actual place or or actual gathering in space and time we need to bring the members of hashem together in some way where their unity becomes tangible where it becomes physically manifest as i was looking over the the fabregan and and you know preparing uh this this class for tonight it really struck me i'm just mentioning this as a parenthetical statement it really struck me that you know now more than ever 1981 i mean that i i i remember in 1981 we barely had fax machines right so but today really you see everything transcends physical location like even right now this class there are people on zoom i mean mostly this is this is from the five towns but people are not from the five towns and then later this same class goes up on youtube and it goes on on soul words and there are people from all over the world who are watching it in different places and at different times i mean a lot of people are here live with us some people will watch it three in the morning later tonight some will watch it a month from now right so we really really know what that means to be part of a group that doesn't have an actual space and time it's a group in the abstract sense that we're all unified for a common cause but we're not all doing it in the same place and we're not all doing it at the same time and the rabbit said that it was important that there should be that physical aspect to it so how we're going to bring all the members of hashem together which really all of the eligible members of hashem are the every single jewish child every jewish boy and girl pre bar and bat mitzvah are are eligible and are ideally members of hashem so it's not even practical where would we even have this assembly so that episode like this the physical embodiment the tangible representation of this unity this assembly will be through the writing of a torah scroll the torah scroll is a physical object the torah scroll is a physical object and it will represent the unity of all these children wherever they may be located in this world i'm not exactly sure and i don't want to take you know i don't want to take the liberty to interpret how we should apply this to our situation now but surely it's something to consider that even when the the airwaves the technology connects uh connect us but uh there still has to be some physical uh tangible aspect of our of our unity at any rate regarding hashem that ebba said we're going to write a torah scroll and that ebba said again remember this is your aleph nissan treb's said that we should begin immediately they should start writing the very next day and they never said even where it should be done that ever said it it should be in eretz israel the land of israel in the holy land specifically in yura salaam iraqi edition the holy city of jerusalem specifically in iraqi khan the old city within the the walls of the the ancient city and more specifically in the tsa that's the the shul the khabad shul that's there from 150 years ago and they should begin the writing immediately and uh the very next day the dev appointed a supervisor for the project a uh one of the shlokam that the rebbe sent to israel rabbi shmuel griezmann was appointed to be the overseer of of the project and from that from the very beginning of the project the debate gave very specific instructions about how everything was to go for instance for instance the rabbit said that the children shouldn't be told which word their letter is let me let me back up and explain i i think i should make it more clear the idea was that every child should buy a letter okay and that that letter should cost one dollar and the point of the one dollar was that it was a number that was even that it could be equal for everyone nobody should pay more no one should pay less everyone should have an equal share okay so every child should buy one letter have their own letter in this safer torah and by them all having their own letter in this one torah scroll so that one torah skull would sort of bring them all together in that one physical uh scroll the actual scroll so regarding the specific instructions the device said for instance the children should not know what word they were given um they should only be told what parsha their letter appears in why because you see they have a sensitivity and also the understanding of the psychology of a child that ever said you know some children will be very happy when they find out you know they got gracious they got shema they got you know uh uh you know but what if a child gets the what if he gets the rebuke you know and then he'll feel bad or if he gets the name of bullock or something you know he'll he'll feel bad about it so nobody should know exactly what word they were given only which parsha which torah portion the word that their letter is in is contained in furthermore the letters should be chosen by lottery it should be done randomly how how to select which letter each of the registrants should get should be done totally randomly there should be no should be no favoritism nobody should be able to you know have a connection and get him get himself a nice uh you know a good letter a good word that he wants should be done randomly that has said that the certificate should be issued there should be a certificate that every child who registers should be given a certificate and in fact the rebbe gave very specific input as to what the certificate should look like and that ever said that there should be in the four corners of the of the paper there should be different images there should be the the kaiser the western wall in one corner the manus magpalo which is the the cave in in hevron where the obvious animals the patriarchs the matriarchs are buried another corner should be cave rajo rachel's tomb and another corner should be the tomb of the rashibe and meron and in fact there was an early draft and that ever wanted it changed as far as which of those symbols should be in which corner and i think he said that kevin rahul should be on the left side and the kaiser should be on the right side the point is that the rabbit had very specific interest in all of the details of the campaign so that was as i said yura alef nissen and every week maybe griezmann would get a call from mazkiris from the rebbe's secretariat benjamin klein oliver shalom would would call and would ask how many registrants how many registrants how many children have purchased their letter in a safer torah and and he would clarify not how many letters have been written how many children have been signed up and it was clear that there was a great urgency to this and that it was very important to the debit to be given the report how many children had signed up now about five weeks later about five weeks later lag by amer that ever spoke again about the about this campaign they never said something very interesting something shocking even that said that we live in a in a in an age of unprecedented danger not that the world is a is a more violent place necessarily it's clearly not it's a safer place but there's an unprecedented danger and that ever described it he said today a deranged person a mentally unstable person can go in a room and push a button and wreak havoc on an entire region of the world i mean what the reboot was clearly describing was i mean some type of technology some type of modern warfare and the danger of an unstable regime or even an unstable individual having access to that warfare and god forbid causing damage that was not possible in previous in previous uh generations before this the advent of this technology so that ever speaking about this describing like painting a picture of it and saying and therefore it's very important that we have all jewish children unified together in the torah scroll and when all jewish children are unified together in the torah scroll this makes the world a safer place this brings bring safety to the land of israel and to the entire world so again a very strange thing even even shocking but clearly that ebba's urgency about checking in constantly about how many children have registered how many children have registered that this urgency that ever clearly connected to some type of a threat i mean specifically that i would describe the threat of some type of modern warfare and then that ever said but the the safer torah the children said we'll we'll counteract that so during the the coming weeks okay now now so i said that's lag blamer that's five weeks after the original launch which was yoda of nissan over the coming two three weeks the rebel was pushing and the rabbit had said actually that we need to finish this before schwarz and um all of a sudden there was this push that has to be done before schwarz now schwarz is i mean schwartz is 16 days 17 days after log bombers he talked about two and a half weeks after log bomber and the check-ins got even more you know urgent where robert klein would be calling robert greisman in in in eretz israel and checking in where are the registrations where are the registrations erev schwarz okay i'm saying the day before the day before schwarz schwarz is the sixth of seven so we're talking about not the sixth and not the fifth but the fourth the fourth day of of sivan was shabbos schwarz was a sunday night monday okay so if schwarz was a sunday night monday meaning the sixth of seven was was basically monday so then sunday was there was the fifth of seven shabbos was the fourth of seven so there was a fabregan the fourth of seven which was uh and that ever spoke again about the great urgency the great importance of completing the children's safer torah that's being written now in yerushalayim and that it needs to be finished and that we need to do everything we can that between now and shavuous we have to register every single child we can as soon as jumptive is over we have to go out we have to hit the streets we have to use technology anything we can do and we have to register as many children as we can remember that i've been speaking shabbos and yamtiv is sunday night as soon as yamcha was over that was it there was a storm there was a storm throughout the world throughout the world i mean i i can tell you this mulasim of oliver shalom the paris france was sitting shiva for a parent at the time and he got a call from benjamin klein who was calling for the rabbit and asked how many how many children are registered for the uh for the safer torah and uh rabbi azimov was at home because he was sitting shiva he was a novel la elena rabbit client said that evan needs to know now how many children in paris are registered for the safer torah ravi azimov said i i don't have the papers here at home the papers are in the office i'll send somebody immediately to go get the papers and they they brought they went to the office and they brought the papers from the office to the shiva that rabbi azeem should be able to give a report immediately immediately to the rabbi how many children in paris have been signed up for the children's safety so there was an incredible urgency an incredible push and again that ever had spoken about this sort of vision of this this a madman were pushing a button and this modern type of warfare but it was really unclear what exactly was happening what was brewing although it was very clear there was something urgent well i will tell you that just a few hours before yamtif everything became clear everything became clear and the world found out what what israel had known israeli intelligence had information that saddam hussein was in the final stages of plutonium enrichment and building a nuclear reactor and was on the verge of a nuclear bomb now we all remember the gulf war the first gulf war remember back it was in 1990 how saddam hussein yamashima shot scud missiles into into israel he had he had missiles they were able to he shot missiles that landed in tel aviv can you imagine could you imagine i don't even want to finish the sentence so it was hours before yamcha there was this daring operation they flew the f i think they were f-15s they they were you see here how the jews fight by the way you see here the value of of of of life to be able to fly to iraq bomb the nuclear reactor and get back you had to fuel up there was not enough fuel to go fly there and fly back but there was no place to stop to fuel up so they when one of these f-15s takes off it uses up a huge amount of uh of of jet fuel just to start just to start the the engine it sucks up a bunch of jet fuel so what they did it was crazy they started the the the jet engines and after they started it while the engines were running they pumped more fuel into the jets so can you imagine i mean it's like putting more fuel leaving the the the what you call the gas cap off of your car okay and they were shooting more fuel into the into the tank after the engines have started so it would have enough fuel so that it wouldn't be a suicide mission god forbid so that they the pilots i mean they they would have gone they would have gone to sacrifice themselves and and to stop to stop saddam hussein from having a nuclear bomb but they would have given their lives but you see how jews value lives and and they pumped ex extra jet fuel into the the jets on the tarmac as they were taking off so that they would have just enough fuel to get to the nuclear reactor to do the bombing and to fly back they flew there it was the afternoon the sun was shining off the dome there was a dome there of the nuclear reactor so because of the sunlight you know in the in the afternoon the sun is shining uh you know sort of straight on so it was glimmering off the the dome they were able to see it they spotted a boom they bombed it right before you um literally right before yamato and at that moment it became clear to anyone who had been following since udalif nissan and lag baimer and adversars the urgency what that ever was talking about so like i said this is a riveting story and a history that's not so well known so it's uh it's an honor for me to be able to tell it in hopes that you'll hear it you'll repeat it you'll relate it to others because i i don't think a lot of people realize all that background now i wanted to share with you you see here this is the registration form and they have it in many many languages in about a dozen different languages they have this form but you see here i have a letter in the children's safer torah and talks about who can buy this is for children under 13 and 12 boys under 13 girls under 12. how much does it cost it's a symbolic cost of one dollar and here is a here's what this certificate looks like this is the registration form but the certificate that you get looks like this and you see here in the certificate how you have the casilla my ravi on the top right kevin rocco on the left madison on the bottom right and it's in rush b on the bottom left and there it has the name of the child so here they they gave a name jacob vistro is the name of the child or the hypothetical child here and it says here that he has an ice but safer veracious partial spacious so in in this hypothetical certificate they show you the book of the five books of moses and the parsha which parsha he got which torah portion like we mentioned before but not the exact uh not the exact word so now i just want to share with you a little bit more about the concept of a communal safer torah this this the basic idea about people buying a letter and sharing jointly in the mitzvah of uh writing the torah scroll what i'm about to tell you is based on a sikha from la cotes sergis that have edited talks from dalit that's uh chapter or rather volume 24. and it's a secret from parshas vayelech why is it a secret from parshas vayalak because in parshas vailekh is where you find the mitzvah of writing a safer torah vailak is one of the very last parshas of the torah and it's talking about the last day of maisha's life and on the very last day of of moshe's life he commands the the jewish people and uh and he tells them the ato and now and now write for yourselves this song this song what's the song okay in the immediate context it means the song of hazinu right that appears in juxtaposition with uh parshas vayala but um on a broader in a broader sense it means the entire torah which contains this shira this song so the atto and now kis fulochemis write for yourselves this song is maisha giving his last will and testament on the last day of his life telling the jewish people you now need to write a safer torah and in fact in the rambam in maimonides in mishnah torah seifert it says over there chapter 7. paragraph one mitzvah's essay alcohol israel it is a positive commandment upon every jewish man to write his own safer torah as it says like it says and then it quotes our verse for like moses told the jewish people on the last day of his life write for yourselves this song meaning the entire torah scroll in which the song appears um elaborates claymore that means to say kis follow him write for yourselves yes the toyota which contains within it this song why do we how do we know it means the entire title leficia increase venezuela parties because you don't write the theta with one snippet with one parsha so if you're supposed to write one part you're supposed to write the entire thing okay at any rate like i said what i'm about to tell you is from a sikha from the cotes circus heilich hof and uh i'll tell you that ebb's question it's a very very simple question but once you hear it it's like yeah that's uh that makes a lot of sense take it you know as they say um this was the last day of moshe's life maesha just said the atto and now so clearly this was something that needed to be done right away there was there was a it was a matter of urgency you tell me how are you going to write 600 000 torah scrolls you ever seen when a shul starts writing a torah scroll you know it's a project that could take a year even if they have funding even if they have all the money up front can take a year six hundred thousand total scrolls we're going to write them in one day because the last day of moshe's life and misha said viato and now now you got to do it it's not even possible how do you even assemble enough parchment and ink to write six hundred thousand total scrolls in one day furthermore let's say we we accept the fact it's not possible to finish it okay you couldn't finish it you could you could start it you couldn't even start it you couldn't even start six hundred thousand uh torah scrolls in in one day is everybody a scribe being a scribe is is a special talent a special skill so you think all six hundred thousand jewish men were scribes and if you're gonna say well you can make a shliyak right you gotta point uh ashley an emissary you could deputize somebody to do your mitzvah for you right yeah yeah you could but who who are you going to appoint the scribe himself has to write his own say for torah today and now you're going to appoint him that he should write yours and there are more people than scribes so on a practical level it just doesn't make sense how in the world they complied with that commandment and with the way moshe expressed it and now and now write for yourselves this song meaning the entire thorough which appears the song so how are we supposed to understand this so i'll tell you what that explains and uh it's astounding it ever says like this clearly they couldn't finish six hundred thousand total scrolls in a day they couldn't even start six hundred thousand torah scrolls in a day and they didn't the answer to this question is that when you own one letter even one letter in a torah scroll it's considered as if you did the mitzvah of writing the entire safer torah when that safer torah has is is complete and has all the letters even though you only have one letter it's as if you did the entire mitzvah so when moshe said now write for yourselves what did they do they immediately began writing a community for torah and it's really a i i think a very uplifting very encouraging idea that when we do a communal safer torah you know who among us is is capable who has the talent let alone the time to write an entire torah scroll but you know you buy a letter in a torah scroll when we do that when a community comes together and and everybody buys one letter that's not just symbolic um that you're we're actually doing the mitzvah not only are we doing the mitzvah in an acceptable way but we're actually doing the mitzvah in the authentic original way that it was done the very first time the very first fulfillment of the mitzvah of maestro bendus mitzvah on the last day of his life write for yourselves this song meaning this safer torah the way it was performed is as a communal safety very powerful idea now i will mention to you regarding the children's safer toyota children are not obligated in mitzvahs we are obligated to be mechanic them to educate them to train them to do mitzvos but they are not yet obligated in mitzvos so it's interesting regarding that children's safer torah that was written in 1981 and by the way i should mention to you that i think they're on the seventh now because as soon as they finished the first one there was actually a siem uh siem se fertera and hof of that year at the at the tomato show and then they danced to the chrysler and then they went back to the tamatark show um because that was huff of that was the end of the summer that year and then immediately at the seam they made a haskala actually the the love of crown heights i mean shimon dwark he went out and he wrote the last ice and he wrote the first ice of the second children's safer torah and they're now currently on the seventh on the seventh severe twitter which is being written right now in the tamartzadek school the same same location where the previous six were written and you can you can sign up you can still sign up for right now if your children do not have um a letter in the sa the children say for twitter you go to kidstora.org t o r a h dot org and you can sign them up right now but at any rate so i was saying that first say for torah how was it done i told you that ebb was very meticulous about the instructions how everything was to be done one of the things that did was make sure that there should be a minion of men who were adults who also had letters in that safer torah and that minion included the rabbis who were involved in the project as well as the scribes there were a couple of scribes who were involved in the project and and the idea being that it should be a communal safer torah it should be you know a minion a group but they have to be adults that form that group because the children don't really have their own biblical obligation to do the mitzvah yet right so that ebba wanted that the children should be united in the safer torah but at the same time it has to be a real savor torah meaning if the savateur is written by someone who's not obligated well you're going to say the scribe is obligated yeah but if the scribe is acting as the emissary for the children the children aren't obligated so it's a little bit problematic so what did the rabbit do he arranged that there's a minion of adults who are part of the group who also had bought letters in the secretary so by by the virtue of their uh being in the group so you have adults who are obligated in the mitzvah of writing a safer torah appointing the the scribe on their behalf to write the secretary and now once you have the savor torah being written as the fulfillment of an obligation for for an adult who is obligated now you can bring in all the hundreds of thousands canaan hoda children who are also added to that to that safer torah um so it's a just an interesting halachic technicality there it's more than a technicality obviously it's an essential point i will i'll share with you one one last idea before we wrap it up here tonight and that is that throughout that uh that period of time starting at all of nissan and through laguema and through uh the shabbos before schwarz when the rabbit was stressing the urgency of the secretary for children the rabbit would refer to a verse from the book of daniel from daniel and the book of daniel he's talking about messianic prophecies one of the things that says there is over ace hahi at that time it's talking about a time in the future time that existed in the future after long after daniel yamid the great minister the ministering angel michael the archangel is going to stand up the one who stands beside your people malach mccoy is a champion of the jewish people he fights on behalf of the jewish people defends them the house and it will be a time of distress that never was since this nation came to be meaning the jewish people there was never a time like this for the jewish people and what's going to happen your nation will escape they will be rescued they'll be saved kol hanimsa kosov basefir all those who are written in the book and that ever stressed during that time that the commentaries some of the commentaries explain what is this safer it's the safer torah and what does it mean kosovo safer that a jewish person is written in the book it means to have a letter that was written on your behalf in the safer and the safer title so that by having a letter your own personal letter in a safer title you are securing your own safety a uh an escape from any hardships which god forbid may be at a time of crisis at a time of upheaval at any rate i will conclude by saying this after the success of the children's safer torah which as you know as i mentioned is continuing to this day you could still get in on it if you haven't people came to complain to the rebbe and they said hey what about the adults so that ebba said i like that complaint and that ever publicly said since the adults want to get in on it too they should also participate in a severe torah which unites and combines many jews so uh actually since then there have been many many sifree torah many unity torahs there's a unity torah that was just started this year um that i i believe i believe you could still buy it on and what's important is that you participate you actually lend financial participation so that you're actually taking part in the mitzvah and you have your letter you have your letter it doesn't matter if you know what your letter is by the way it's a nice thing you know the children should know which parsha their letter is you don't have to know where your letter is you don't have to be present when it's done but you have to uh like any mitzvah you know it has to be some participation so if you don't physically do it yourself the best thing is to appoint the and when you appoint the schleich and you pay the schlier then it's serious business then it's it's ironclad it's certain that this person is doing it on your behalf so encourage anybody if you haven't gotten your own letter in a safer torah or if any of your children don't have letters in the savory torah you can go online right now as soon as we're done right here and and take care of that i want to i want to mention again that tonight is part of a series this is all in memory of the dinalea rosensweigela shalom and all of the learning we're doing tonight as well as all the mixes we do because of the learning should all be in her merit and again this is such an easy mitzvah to take care of so go ahead what are you waiting for go uh sign yourselves up sign your kids up [Music]