Dear Alumni Sheyichyu!
Sholom U’Brocho!
With profound pain and shock, and a heartfelt cry of Ad Mosai???!!! we extend birkas tanchumin to Srully and Zalmy Avtzon and to the entire Avtzon family and extended family on the untimely loss of their dear father, the unforgettable chosid R’ Yonah ben R’ Meir. Hamokom yenachem eschem besoch shaar aveilei tzion veYerusholoyim. May he continue his work up there, by bringing about immediately the long-awaited shidduch between the Eibishter and Yidden, with the coming of Moshiach NOW!
Mazel Tov to Moshe Arnold on the occasion of his engagement. May he use out the special period of Yokor Mikol yokor to its’ utmost! Mazel tov to Rabbi and Mrs. Eliezer Posner on the birth of their son. Mazel tov to Rabbi and Mrs. Zalman Horowitz on the birth of their daughter. Mazel tov to Rabbi and Mrs. Yekusiel Goldstein on the birth of their son. May they bring them up lTOveCHuMAA”T mitoch harchovo, and to be true chayolim/os! (If anyone is aware of any mazeltov’s that I omitted please let me know).
Thank you as always for the feedback, it is much appreciated.
The following story was recently shared with me by my brother, Rabbi Yaakov Wagner of Morristown. Many thanks to him, zechus horabim toluy bo:
Rabbi Baumgarten is a shliach of the Rebbe to South Africa. Every time he would travel to Rebbe, he would prepare himself, both spiritually and physically, and his preparations included taking a haircut. His barber was a Jew who was not observant, but, on these occasions, he would always ask Rabbi Baumgarten to mention him, Yitzchok ben Rivkah, to the Rebbe.
חזקה שליח עושה שליחותו, and, in fact, during every trip, Rabbi Baumgarten would also mention Yitzchok ben Rivkah to the Rebbe for a brocho.
On one occasion, when Rabbi Baumgarten came to NY, he was contacted by the Rebbe’s Secretariat. “You have an answer from the Rebbe”, he was told. “How can that be?” he wondered, “I didn’t ask the Rebbe any questions recently”. But the mazkir was adamant. “You have an answer from the Rebbe, come immediately to get it”.
Rabbi Baumgarten came to the office, where he was told the Rebbe’s answer: The Rebbe said to tell Yitzchok ben Rivkah that he should study Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, and he should start keeping Shabbos, and Kosher and teffillin, and he will (then) be a recipient of Hashem’s brochos!
Rabbi Baumgarten was now downright uncomfortable. It’s one thing to carry on chit chat with your barber, and mention his name to the Rebbe for good things. But, now, he was being asked to give unsolicited advice, and (moreover) to demand a major change of lifestyle! He didn’t know how this would be received.
But, having received a clear directive from the Rebbe, he knew there was no choice, the message would have to be given over. He did, however, think of a way of making it somewhat easier. This Jew, his barber, was a member of Rabbi Lipsker’s shul, and Rabbi Lipsker would, therefore, be much better qualified to convey the message.
Upon his return to South Africa, he contacted Rabbi Lipsker. “Listen”, he told him, “I was given a rather puzzling shlichus from the Rebbe, and I think you would be best equipped to carry it out”. He then shared the message of the Rebbe for Yitzchok ben Rivkah.
When he finished speaking, the phone was silent for a few moments. Then, in a low voice, Rabbi Lipsker broke the news to him: “The Jew, Yitzchok ben Rivkah, is in hospital, in the ICU. He was diagnosed with a very serious illness, r”l, and the doctors say he doesn’t have much time left!”
Rabbi Baumgarten was speechless! Suddenly, his shlichus took on an entirely new significance!
Immediately, he rushed to the hospital, and discovered the room of his barber. As soon as he reached it, he ran in and called out “Yitzchok ben Rivkah, Yitzchok ben Rivkah!”
The ill man opened his eyes. Excitedly, Rabbi Baumgarten shared with him the message he had just brought to him from the Rebbe. Yitzchok accepted it gratefully, and committed to follow it.
The happy ending to the story is that, despite the doctor’s dire predictions, he lived for another 14 years!
Spiritual Illness and Its Cure
Sometimes a person is ill. What does it mean to be ill? In the maamar ואתה תצוה, the Rebbe brings from the Arizal that one who does not grasp the “shaar hanun”, - the greatest understanding of Elokus, is called a “choleh”, one who is ill. In maamorim ברוך הגומל לחייבים טובות (of 5726 and others), the Rebbe explains that illness is what happens when the neshomo descends into the world. It becomes confused and its senses become numbed.
Illness, then, is losing our sensitivity to kedusha, to holiness, and becoming excessively immersed in worldly pleasures and worldly pursuits. In a Tishrei maamar of the Frierdige Rebbe he explains the difference between רופא חולים and מתיר אסורים: A choleh, an ill person, is one who is described by the Rambam as שמים מר למתוק ומתוק למר. Things that are good and good for him he finds to be repulsive. And things that are detrimental to him he finds appealing. This is the primary symptom of illness.
[In contrast, an אסיר, a prisoner, does not fool himself. He knows exactly what he wants, he knows that more than anything in the world he wants to get away from this place (as Chazal say ולוואי שנצא בעצמינו). But he is imprisoned. He lacks the ability to go where he should and desires].
We all may experience this illness in one way or another. We may confuse our priorities and distort our direction. Instead of enthusiasm and excitement over Torah and Mitzvos and anything connecting us with Hashem, we may, instead see them as a burden and a bore. Instead of being only superficially involved in our physical needs, we become attracted to them and engrossed in them.
In fact, on occasion the illness may necessitate spending time in the ICU. The ICU, is the place for intensive care. Sometimes our illness, our state of “choli”, may be so pronounced and so advanced that it requires an intense approach to cure it. Not only can’t we be passive about it, - but even being actively involved in trying to change it may not be enough. Sometimes what is necessary is an extreme and intense approach of immersing ourselves into learning and davening to reverse the trend.
[And what do you see when you go into the ICU? What are most of the people, the people who were diagnosed as requiring intense treatment, doing there? Well, for the most part they are – lying in bed! The same is true about us. We may be in a situation that can only be helped with intense avodas Hashem. But what are we actually doing? We’re lying in bed! Or we’re being laid back about our Yiddishkeit, having a lackadaisical approach towards our learning and davening and mitzvos. There’s a minyan going on, or a Torah shiur. But we’re calm, catching up on the latest news with a friend, checking the messages on our phone. No rush, nothing to get excited about! When the chazzan gets to Borchu is soon enough to start thinking about saying Modeh Ani].
In the gemoro in Brochos, it says regarding a sick person: אין חבוש מתיר עצמו מבית האסורים, - it is sometimes beyond the ability of the ailing individual to remedy himself. This is especially true with regards to spiritual sickness. As mentioned, the nature of illness, and especially spiritual illness, is that the ill person himself underestimates his own condition, - he is convinced that he is fine the way he is. Thus, it becomes necessary for an outside force to save him.
As we say in davening: אלקי, עולם ברחמיך הרבים רחם עלינו. Chassidus explains, that we are saying to the Eibishter, to the Elokei olam, - “Eibishter, we ourselves don’t even sense how badly we’re in need of help, what a great rachmonus it is on us. To us it seems normal, it is typical and expectable, to be involved in, and infatuated with, worldly pleasures. It makes perfect sense to us that in the middle of davening we are concentrating – not on the words that we are saying or on Who we are standing in front of, but – on what we may eat for our next meal and how we can best entertain ourselves. To us there is nothing irregular about the fact that learning a shiur or doing a mitzvah is at the bottom of our priorities, and we find endless excuses and countless calculations for postponing them and putting them off.
But You, Eibishter, You know the truth, that this whole world is nothing, and is merely a tool for us to be able to display our subservience to You. You, Eibishter, know the truth, how pitiful and pathetic it is to be engrossed in a world of emptiness and insignificance, while ignoring the world of endlessness and infinity. You, Eibishter, and only You, can truly appreciate the great rachmonus on us, even more than we, ourselves, are able to. In that case, ברחמיך הרבים, with Your infinite attribute of mercy, that truly sees how pitiful is our situation, please You have rachmonus on us and save us!
In such a situation, where – due to our spiritual ailment - we may not even recognize the extent of our own need for help – the only solution may be, as in the story, for the Rebbe to reach out to us, unsolicited, and help us out of our circumstances! In the abovementioned gemoro in Brochos (5b), the gemoro tells of 3 sages who were unwell. Each was visited by a colleague, a fellow leader of the generation, and, during the visit (as the gemoro describes) יהיב 'לי' ידיו ואוקמי, - the visitor extended his hand to the ill person and healed him. In our case, too, as in the story, we need the Rebbe to reach out to us and heal us, and cure us of our spiritual disease.
But, to make that possible, in the story, there seemed to be another prerequisite; - his name had to be by the Rebbe. Although the Jew in the story was unaware of his need for assistance, he didn’t recognize that anything about his life or lifestyle left anything to be desired, still, he did acknowledge that there is a Rebbe, a leader of the generation (and of him personally), and he did make sure to send his name to the Rebbe at every opportunity. And, that seemed to play a part in making it possible for the Rebbe to reach out to him in his time of need.
And this is exactly what we are setting out to do on Yud Shvat. We don’t know what to ask for. We don’t understand exactly what we need (we are not even aware of the fact that we have a need, that something is wrong. We are convinced that other matters, other trivialities, are what afflict us. As is known the interpretation in מרובים צרכי עמך because דעתם קצרה).
But we are going to the Rebbe, and writing a Pan. We are giving in our name, at least, and mentioning it to the Rebbe. Our name is our identity; it is the source of our chayus. And without truly appreciating how desperate is our need to change, we do, at least, turn to the Rebbe. We mention our name to him, and acknowledge that our place is by him. We, thus, at the very least, make ourselves available for his help.
With this we make ourselves keilim, we make ourselves recipients for יהיב 'ידי ואוקמי', for the Rebbe to help us be truly cured of our preoccupation with the falseness of the world, to be liberated from our personal internal golus. And just as we read in the Torah this week of yetzias Mitzrayim, so, too, we should each be freed of our individual meitzarim, and together be freed of the collective mitzrayim, of this final golus, which will be immediately transformed to Moshiach NOW!
L’chaim! May we all be successful, at least, in mentioning our names to the Rebbe, by properly preparing ourselves for the general and overall dedication to the Rebbe, and may the Eibishter take all of the names, the שמות בני ישראל הבאים מצרימה, and take them back out, with the immediate revelation of Moshiach Tzidkeinu NOW!!!
Rabbi Akiva Wagner
לזכות ב"ש ד בן מרים, 'שיק" ל רפושוט" ולאויוש מתוך בריאות הנכונה ס"וכ ט בטוב !ג"הנרוהנ לזכות ת"הרה אהרן בן, חנה ק"ל רפושוט" ואויוש לעי" נהרה" חהרה" תר' יונה ב"ר מאיר ז"ל
