Weekly Dvar Torah: Our Rebbe The Nasi Hador

When Moshe was challenged by Korach and Dasan and Avirom, he turned to G-d saying “please don’t accept their false offerings which they brought as an expression of their challenge to the priesthood.

“Not one donkey have I taken from them, I never hurt anyone of them,” said Moshe, explaining that he has no personal agenda while defending Hashem’s hierarchy structure, because he never benefited from nor did he ever hurt anyone of the challengers.

How apropos to read this Parsha on Gimmel Tammuz, a day that we reflect upon the life of our dear Rebbe, and the love that he has for each and everyone of the generation that he is their leader and Nasi.

The following story I heard firsthand from the individual, we’ll call him Reb Hersh, with whom it happened without any filters, however, knowing how much the Rebbe loved every Jew, I will omit any details that may identify any of the individuals and organizations involved, so not to embarrass anybody, because this for sure is not what the Rebbe wants.

It was circa 1960, when a certain organization, let’s call it organization A, that was doing great work to save Jewish children spiritually, the volunteers were from across the spectrum of all Yeshivos, the work was supported by Rabbis from all over, and they were doing a phenomenal job.

Part of the funding came from the Rebbe, who didn’t want that it be known that Lubavitch was involved, since there was a chance that certain individuals will refrain from taking part in these holy activities, as was sadly the case by some who tried to keep the Machlokes against Chassidim, going.

Somehow word got out that the Rebbe was a major funder of this organization, and the Rebbe’s worst fears materialized.

Some of the Rabbis who formerly supported organization A, issued a letter withdrawing their support of organization A, and they announced the formation of an alternative organization B, which will do the same work, but under new management (and will not accept money from Lubavitch).

One of the members of the administration of organization A, was a Yerushalmi Gr”anik, he was a direct descendent of the Talmidei Hagr”a who made Aliya to Israel 200 years earlier, who were not very sympathetic to Chassidus and Chassidim.

Regardless of the fact that he was a Misnaged, he was very disturbed by the action of aforementioned Rabbis, as he told me, he would’ve supported their actions had there been a conflict in running organization A between the Rebbe and the others, and the Rebbe’s opinion prevailed, he would accept that the others took offense, and therefore decided to jump ship.

But in this case, there was no such conflict, the only crime was that the Rebbe provided financial support without any demands, he couldn’t fathom what animosity and hatred could drive such actions?

Being an honest man, he decided to go visit one of the Rabbis who signed this letter, and he decided to ask him directly what drove him to write such a letter to start a Machlokes for Machlokes sake alone.

How flabbergasted was he when this Rabbi denied issuing such a letter, instead he claimed that subsequent to hearing that organization A got involved in Machlokes, he decided to shy away from Machlokes and therefore he no longer supports organization A.

In his pocket Reb Hersh had a copy of this letter, but out of respect to the Rabbi, he refused to challenge him directly to his face in order not to disrespect the Rabbi, but he walked away from the meeting totally confused, and disturbed by the idea that this Rabbi started a Machlokes for no good reason, and subsequently he lied blatantly about what actually transpired.

In his frustration, Reb Hersh decided to visit our Rebbe, and he asked the Rebbe directly, perhaps he can explain to him how a great rabbi can do something of this nature?

As he recalled, he was expecting the Rebbe to tell him something of a disparaging nature, explaining how certain Rabbis of a misnagdish persuasion could blindly do anything just to hurt Chassidim.

How stunned he was that after relating to the Rebbe the whole story, and showing him the letter, and the misrepresentation of facts that the Rabbi displayed when challenged on this matter, the Rebbe asked him to calm down, and went on to explain and defend the actions of this Rabbi.

There is a Gemara which is brought in halacha by the Rambam, that when there was a meeting of the Sanhedrin to decide whether to add an extra month of Adar to create a leap year, there were two members of the Sanhedrin that were forbidden to participate, the King and the Kohen Gadol.

The reason?

The King because of his army, and the Kohen Gadol because of the cold, meaning that the king had an interest in the outcome of this decision because he had an army to support, and based on the annual income from taxes, and the monthly expenses to support his army, there may be financial conflict between income vs expenses, and he may decide based on those interests.

The Kohen Gadol was disqualified, because he was thinking of the Mikveh that he will need to go to when entering the holy of holies on Yom Kippur, and based on the time of year it could make a difference in the temperature of the Mikveh, and this would tarnish his judgment.

The Rebbe went on, I can understand the huge financial considerations of the King, they involve huge financial considerations, however, the issue facing the Kohen Gadol is puzzling to say the least.

How could such a non-issue be of such importance to sway the Kohen Gadol? Had the issue been about a difference in Mikveh temperature between a real warm 90 degree Mikveh vs a freezing 30 degree Mikveh, at least there was a serious difference in the world of the Mikveh, but in reality The Mikveh was a cold one to begin with, the only difference between having Yom Kippur a month earlier would be perhaps of one or two degrees more freezing or less freezing, so how could this be of such importance to sway the Kohen Gadol to make such a false judgement?

Yet the Rebbe concluded, the Torah does not disqualify this individual who is so inclined to bad judgment from being a Kohen Gadol, the Torah only asks him not to participate in this decision because it may be wrongly swayed by him because of his interest in the temperature of the Mikveh, but this does not reflect negatively on someone who is suspected of falsifying judgment because of such an insignificant issue.

Torah establishes that even a minuscule self-interest in any matter, can and will have an influence on your judgment, but this is only natural and should not reflect badly on the person who is susceptible to such a misjudgment.

In our case the Rebbe continued, this Rabbi is a lone survivor from Hitler, his entire Yeshiva was wiped out during the holocaust, now he is trying to revive the tradition of his pre-war Yeshiva which had philosophy that vues Lubavitch in a negative light, and his financial supporters are of that same persuasion, so if he will demonstrate weakness in his opposition to Lubavitch, he will undermine the future of his Yeshiva.

This should not reflect badly on his judgment, because according to Torah he is justifiably bribed by self-interest, and he should not be judged harshly, since he is only behaving in a way consistent with the dictums of Torah that establishes that self-interests can tarnish a man’s judgment.

The Rebbe concluded, this is why I am not involved in any which way with the finances of Lubavitch institutions, so that I should never be affected to opine wrongly because of self-interests that may tarnish my judgement, the Rebbe concluded his defense of this Rabbi.

This conversation is very telling, to defend someone who obviously had no respect for you to put it mildly, or who seriously has a blind hatred to you to put it harshly, this is something that only the Nasi of the generation, who loves every single Jew of his flock can do, this is our Rebbe, the Nasi of our generation.

Let’s reflect on, and strengthen our connection to the Rebbe, we can’t expect any other leader who loves us, and cares for us, like our Rebbe, and like water reflects the image, we should return the love in kind, we should commit to do all that we can to help bring Moshiach, the Rebbe’s life dream, through selfless love of every single Jew, then we will be reunited with and we will see the Rebbe once again.

Have a Shabbos of total Hiskashrus,
Gut Shabbos

Rabbi Yosef Katzman