Letter & Spirit: That’s Not the Shluchim’s Job

In this week’s edition of Letter and Spirit, we present a letter from the Rebbe to an individual who berated him for not ordering the Shluchim to involve themselves in furthering a political cause that the individual felt was very important. The letter was written in English through the Rebbe’s trusted secretary Rabbi Nissan Mindel, and was made available by the latter’s son-in-law, Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro.

The Rebbe delivered a sharply-worded response to the man, explaining that the Shluchim have a specific job to do – to ascertain that every Jew in their vicinity has access to a Jewish education – and they should not get sidetracked to areas which are not their expertise, nor their job.

This weekly feature is made possible by a collaboration between CrownHeights.info and Nissan Mindel Publications. Once a week we publish a unique letter of the Rebbe that was written originally in the English language, as dictated by the Rebbe to Rabbi Mindel.

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By the Grace of G-d

12 Shevat, 5744

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Mr.

S.P. , MN. 55116

Greeting and Blessing:

Your Special Delivery Certified letter was duly received. In it you pose a number of questions, beginning with one that is connected with a complex halachic problem. As is well known, it is not within the sphere of my functions to “pasken shaalos.” I can only suggest that you address this question to an authoritative Rabbinic body, such as the Agudas Horabbonim.

Aside from that, I am surprised at the tone of your letter, especially as I do not recall ever having received a letter from you before.

It is rather presumptuous of you, to say the least, to demand to know why Lubavitch Shluchim are not doing anything, or enough, in regard to a problem about which you seem to be greatly concerned. Not only does your letter lack in taste, but also in logic, for your questions are no more logical than if you asked a physician why he is not active in a matter which belongs in the realm of an engineer.

You should know that the Lubavitch Shluchim have a specific shlichut, which is to spread Yiddishkeit in the communities to which they have been assigned. Congressional resolutions and the like are not part of their programmed activities. Besides, there is very little, if anything, they could accomplish in the area that seems to interest you the most. Hence, to divert their attention, energy and time to anything that is extraneous to their shlichut would not only be wasteful in itself, but would also be at the sacrifice of their complete dedication to their shlichut, wherein they are doing an excellent job.

Equally unreasonable are your contentions about offering scholarships and other “projects” you mention in your letter, all of which do not fit at all within the programs and activities of Lubavitch institutions or shlichim.

The impression one receives from our letter is that you are apparently not familiar with the ways and means of helping the cause you are so anxious to help.

In light of the above, and since you begin your letter with “B.H.” – it is quite in order to ask you at least a couple of pertinent questions in return:

Bearing in mind the rule of Torah that “the poor of your city come first” – have all the Jews in your city been adequately provided with all their needs as Jews? If not, why not?
What have you done, and are you doing all in your power, to influence fellow Jews to do everything they can, to induce and encourage all the Jews in your community – men, women and children, to live as truly committed Jews, committed to the way of the Torah and mitzvos in their everyday life and conduct? If not, why not?

There is, of course, a cardinal difference between my questions and yours, in that action on behalf of the Jews in your community (in addition to having priority) can be carried on independently of the help of the US Congress and without approval of any foreign government, etc. Moreover, such action is certain to be successful. It only depends on you and your own will and determination. As for the urgency of such action- there is surely no need to explain to you the situation in the USA, including your city and your state, that so many Jews, men, women and children are being swept away by the tide of assimilation and other environmental influences, leading to intermarriage, etc. and so many of them are lost to our people day after day. Even one Jewish soul is a whole world, declare our Sages. Yet so many of our brethren could be saved.

Needless to say, the purpose of my answering your letter is not polemics nor preachment, especially as I do not know you. But since I received your letter in the midst of many others, and yours does not at all fit in with the rest, it occurred to me that perhaps it is by hashgacha pratit that I should call your attention to the fact that apparently has escaped you, namely – that many Jews in your immediate vicinity are in vital need of a reach-out effort to save them, and that they have a first claim on local Jews like yourself.

May Hashem grant that you should have a satisfactory answer to my questions – satisfactory not only in the sense of personal satisfaction to me, but satisfactory from the viewpoint of our fellow Jews, especially the young generation in your city, where you have presumably been a resident for some years, if not indeed native to it.

With respect due,

For the Lubavitcher Rebbe shlita,

By (secretary)

P.S. In parting, I would like to ask you a further pertinent question: In what way will it help the cause about which you are so worked up, whether or not you will know what I am doing, or not doing, in behalf of it?

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The above letter is from the soon-to-be-published Volume III of The Letter and the Spirit by Nissan Mindel Publications. The letters are from the archives of Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mindel, a personal secretary to the Previous Rebbe and The Rebbe, whose responsibilities included the Rebbe’s correspondence in English.

We thank Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro, director of Nissan Mindel Publications and the one entrusted by Rabbi Mindel, his father-in-law, with his archives, for making these letters available to the wider public. May the merit of the many stand him in good stead.

s.b.schapiro (NMP)

b’h
I wish to make one thing clear about the Rebbe’s letters and the only one who was entrusted with them by the Rebbe himself, Rabbi Nissan Mindel..

Rabbi Nissan Mindel was the Rebbe’s personal secretary – the only one who dealt with the Rebbe’s correspondence (except for a brief time, when someone else helped with the overload of correspondence in Yiddish/Hebrew only, and those were the standard simple ones).
No one else was entrusted with the Rebbe’s letters nor knows about the letters as Rabbi Mindel did. It was with the Rebbe’s explicit permission and blessings that Rabbi Mindel prepared the English letters for publication (The Letter and the Spirit Series). He did so by selecting some letters, categorizing them and carefully reviewing them so as to leave out any information which would compromise the letter writer’s identity and privacy. No one else has the authority to do this. His daughter worked with him on this project (and she continues this work, as he had prepared enough letters to fill about ten volumes).
As to the letter in question here – yes, it was sent out and signed by the Rebbe’s secretary. It is well known that the Rebbe dictated all his letters and signed most of them but sometimes instructed his secretary to sign it ( for whatever reason. Rabbi Mindel would say that perhaps in some cases it was because of the sharp nature of the letter etc). This letter was selected by Rabbi Mindel for inclusion in The Letter and the Spirit Series. And it is certainly not the letter which is the subject of your comments here.
It is unfortunate, as is so often the case, that there are people who profess to know better than the experts.
When we will b’h publish our CHABAD IN AMERICA THROUGH THE FOLDERS OF NISSAN MINDEL- the readers will clearly see the many original documents among which are letters of the Rebbe that people are not aware of and which will clarify many things.

4 Comments

Milhouse

The Rebbe dictated this 30 years ago in reply to a university student who wrote him a chutzpadike letter, BUT HE DID NOT SEND IT. We don’t know why, but it seems likely that he thought about it again and realized that if the recipient were to learn that the Rebbe dared to disagree with him he would fly into a rage and leave yiddishkeit.

Unfotunately 10 years ago Kfar Chabad got hold of this letter and published a Hebrew translation, which came to the addressee’s attention, and lo and behold he did fly into a rage, did leave yiddishkeit, and for the past 10 years has been a vicious enemy of Lubavitch, and therefore of all frumkeit. There is no accounting for how much damage this twisted individual has done to Lubavitch, all because he read this letter and found out, 20 years late, what the Rebbe thought of his demands.

I doubt that any good will come from publishing this again, this time in the original English. It will only occasion another vicious attack on the Rebbe, as his hurt feelings are revived. I don’t think the Rebbe will have nachas from that.

November 5, 2015 11:06pm
Knows it

It is a known fact that this letter was never sent (perhaps because of its sharp tone). If so why is it being publicized??!!!

November 5, 2015 11:43pm
s.b.schapiro (NMP)

b’h
I wish to make one thing clear about the Rebbe’s letters and the only one who was entrusted with them by the Rebbe himself, Rabbi Nissan Mindel..

Rabbi Nissan Mindel was the Rebbe’s personal secretary – the only one who dealt with the Rebbe’s correspondence (except for a brief time, when someone else helped with the overload of correspondence in Yiddish/Hebrew only, and those were the standard simple ones).
No one else was entrusted with the Rebbe’s letters nor knows about the letters as Rabbi Mindel did. It was with the Rebbe’s explicit permission and blessings that Rabbi Mindel prepared the English letters for publication (The Letter and the Spirit Series). He did so by selecting some letters, categorizing them and carefully reviewing them so as to leave out any information which would compromise the letter writer’s identity and privacy. No one else has the authority to do this. His daughter worked with him on this project (and she continues this work, as he had prepared enough letters to fill about ten volumes).
As to the letter in question here – yes, it was sent out and signed by the Rebbe’s secretary. It is well known that the Rebbe dictated all his letters and signed most of them but sometimes instructed his secretary to sign it ( for whatever reason. Rabbi Mindel would say that perhaps in some cases it was because of the sharp nature of the letter etc). This letter was selected by Rabbi Mindel for inclusion in The Letter and the Spirit Series. And it is certainly not the letter which is the subject of your comments here.
It is unfortunate, as is so often the case, that there are people who profess to know better than the experts.
When we will b’h publish our CHABAD IN AMERICA THROUGH THE FOLDERS OF NISSAN MINDEL- the readers will clearly see the many original documents among which are letters of the Rebbe that people are not aware of and which will clarify many things.

November 6, 2015 11:42am
Milhouse

Rabbi Shapiro, this is absolutely the letter which is the subject of my previous comment. It matches sentence for sentence the translation from the Kfar Chabad’s Hebrew, which that evil person has posted on his web site as the explanation for why he hates the Rebbe and Lubavitch (which then led him to hate all who believe in the Torah).

November 6, 2015 4:06pm

Comments are closed.