HOW TO LOOK AT A FELLOW JEW

When you approach a Jew to greet him or to put on t’fillin with him, you need to regard him as he stands in Hashem’s primordial thought of Adam Kadmon.

In the HaYom Yom for 16 Elul, the Rebbe writes, “You need to look at a Jew as he stands in the primordial thought of Adam Kadmon (Adam Kadmon is a term for the first of the spiritual worlds which is even more exalted than the world of Atzilus. It is there (as it were) that Hashem’s primordial thought is, as He looks and knows the essence and purpose of every Jewish soul).

In order to understand the significance of this lofty saying and its practical ramifications, we need to examine the source of this aphorism, which is a letter of the Rebbe Rayatz dated 26 Teves 5696 (Igros Kodesh Rayatz vol. 3, p 477 – 514). In this letter, the Rebbe Rayatz refers to the story about the rav who became a wagon driver. The Rebbe explains at length how a person needs to be moser nefesh to help someone else, and in connection with this he tells the following story:

The Alter Rebbe appointed his son, later to be the Mitteler Rebbe, when he was only 17, to farbreng with the many young married men who came to Liozna and guide them in the ways of Chassidus. One time, the Mitteler Rebbe was farbrenging with a group of Chassidim, young and old. There were also elderly Chassidim of the Alter Rebbe in attendance. The topic was avodas ha’t’filla and that it needs to be slow, with concentration, and from the depths of one’s heart. The Mitteler Rebbe spoke so passionately that he made a deep impression on all present. Yet, he was physically weak by nature and speaking excitedly adversely affected his health. He fell sick for several days.

Some elder Chassidim went to visit him and one of them said: Why did you have to speak that way when you know it harms your health? You should have been careful!

The Mitteler Rebbe replied: When my father gave me the task of guiding the young men, he told me, “A Jew needs to look at another Jew as he stands in the primordial thought of Adam Kadmon,” and from this I learned four things (this column is not the place to list them all; I will mention just one). Every Jew in this world, no matter who he is, has prodigious abilities that come to him from the root of his soul. When we are able to reveal and utilize these abilities, it affects not only the Jew himself but all the neshamos that will be affected by him for generations to come!

“When I contemplated this,” said the Mitteler Rebbe, “that my neshama includes and is responsible for many neshamos that I have to influence and guide, obviously I could not refrain from speaking with the greatest excitement. Could I bottle up my emotions?”

A SPECIAL TRIP WITH SOME PAGES OF CHASSIDUS

For this column, I chose some stories about Jews who, when they started out, didn’t seem to have a rosy future in the world of Chassidus. In retrospect though, it turned out that in the primordial thought of Adam Kadmon, it was planned otherwise. Thanks to the efforts of a Jew who was mekarev them to Judaism and Chassidus, dozens, even hundreds of other people became interested too.

Who hasn’t heard of Reuven Dunin? He was a special Chassid who was mekarev hundreds, even thousands, to Torah, to the Rebbe, to Chassidus. He became a legend in his lifetime as well as after his death. He was a Chassid with a 5000 watt (at least) neshama, whose every word affected all his listeners.

R’ Reuven Dunin was not born a Lubavitcher. Someone was mekarev him, and it wasn’t easy. When perusing the fascinating book about him, “The Rebbe’s Tractorist,” as well as in conversations with his brother Avrohom, the shliach in Taanach, it turns out that in his youth, R’ Reuven was very far from Chabad. This was the period when he volunteered in the Etzel and Lechi militias, and R’ Reuven put all his energy into building up the land.

Let it be said in his favor that throughout this period, before his involvement with Chabad, he was always searching for meaning and spirituality. He visited various yeshivos in order to learn. During the period that he worked with a tractor in Nahariya, he went to the yeshiva in Kfar Chassidim a few times and he heard musar talks from the mashgiach, Rabbi Elya Lopian. Here and there, he learned with bachurim, attended Torah gatherings, Yarchei Kalla in Ponovezh, etc. However, every time, after getting a taste, he went back to his tractor.

When he visited his parents, he heard reports about Chabad from his brother who had already become a Lubavitcher, but hearing about it and taking action are two different things.

Then one day, his brother decided to do something. Avrohom was learning in the Chabad yeshiva in Lud and he yearned to see his big brother get involved with Chassidus. He took some published pages with Chassidic ideas, put them in his suit pocket, left yeshiva and traveled to where Reuven was working with his tractor.

It must have jolted Reuven to see his brother, the yeshiva bachur, having made a special trip from yeshiva to the quarry. Avrohom explained that he had come just in order to give him these pages on Chassidus.

At that moment, Reuven resolved to go to yeshiva. The rest is history.

Reuven went to yeshiva, then to the Rebbe, and then became Rabbi Reuven Dunin, the famous hafatza figure whose work does not stop even today (after his passing), through his students.

So remember, sometimes one effort can bring hundreds and even thousands of souls under the wings of the Sh’china. It is just as we were told; from the primordial thought of Adam Kadmon.

SHLIACH IN THE COURTHOUSE

The following story was told by R’ Benzion Grossman of Migdal HaEmek to a group of inmates in Shaata prison, when he visited in honor of the month of Elul.

In the course of Rabbi Zushe Silberstein’s (shliach in Canada) work, he met a Jew in prison who was sentenced to 18 years for drug dealing.

After twelve years in jail, the inmate presented a request in which he asked that a third of his sentence be dropped. He prepared a moving speech in order to convince the judge that he was deserving of a pardon. He did not have money for a lawyer, but R’ Silberstein agreed to appear at the hearing and to put in a good word for him.

At first, the man said whatever he had prepared, but R’ Silberstein could see that the judge was not at all convinced. On the contrary, the judge shifted in his seat and looked annoyed. When it was R’ Silberstein’s turn, he said, “Your honor, the reason for this sentence is so that criminals won’t be on the loose and continue their criminal activity. So I offer to take this man under my responsibility. I arranged a place for him to learn in a yeshiva in Israel, a yeshiva affiliated with the Chabad movement. The head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yigal Pizem, will look after him.”

The judge asked what the Chabad movement is and R’ Silberstein said it is also known as the Lubavitch movement.

The judge left the room for ten minutes. When he returned, a very strange thing happened. At first, the judge spoke very negatively about the inmate and he dismissed his claims. Nor was R’ Silberstein spared his criticism. But after all that, he told the inmate that thanks to one word the rabbi said, he would be released. The one word was “Lubavitch.”

The judge explained that he had been watching television and he saw a Jewish rabbi speaking in front of a large audience. Although the judge did not understand Yiddish, he was very impressed by the appearance of this rabbinic figure. He found out that this was the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He occasionally watched more speeches by the Rebbe.

The moment he heard that the inmate would be attending a yeshiva under the auspices of Lubavitch, he was confident that under the Rebbe’s influence, the man would be rehabilitated.

The man was released and went to yeshiva and he did well, but that is not the point of the story. The point is that this happened through the Rebbe’s shliach, R’ Silberstein, who traveled an hour and a half each way to the prison and took the time to be mekarev a Jew with a criminal past and who was sentenced to many years in jail. Then he traveled to represent him at the hearing.

What we need to learn from this is how to look at a Jew, not as he appears behind bars, but as he stands in the primordial thought of Adam Kadmon.

CAST YOUR BREAD

R’ Yitzchok Nemes a”h was a special Chassid who traveled the world on business. On these trips he would carry out various missions and reach out to Jews. One of the tasks he committed to was to travel once a week, six hours each way, to bring kosher food to a Jew. R’ Yitzchok did not consider what the man was doing with this food.

Years passed and one Shabbos, a young man who wanted to get acquainted with Chabad, was a guest of the Nemes family. During the meal, he said his interest in Chabad came from the fact that a Lubavitcher would bring his grandfather kosher food every week. Although his grandfather would throw the food into the garbage, he was impressed by the dedication of this Lubavitcher and that is why he was visiting.

In the HaYom Yom for 26 Menachem Av, the Rebbe says: In the chassidic “exodus from Egypt” there is the Mitzva of recounting the “Exodus” verbally, to tell chassidic stories and to “sense” and apprehend the story in the deepest recesses of one’s psyche. One must know that every narrative is a guidance for living. Every story must bring forth (in the listener) a fine character trait, an inner enthusiasm for hiddur mitzva, and should enable the listener to sense the “ways of pleasantness” of Chassidic teachings.

That is great encouragement for a column such as this that is devoted to sharing Chassidic stories.

I would like to share some feedback I’ve gotten over the years about how people learned a lesson in life by reading this column:

DON’T ARGUE!

I had written advice to all those on shlichus (and not just them): do not argue! Arguments usually do not convince anyone. They just cause each side to dig in their heels. I wrote some stories to illustrate this point. A few weeks later, I met R’ Shimmi Goldstein, shliach in Dharamsala, India. He shook my hand warmly and said, “Guess what happened thanks to your column!

“A young Israeli came into the Chabad house. He had attended one of the yeshiva high schools and was knowledgeable in Torah but not exactly a friend of Chabad. With almost every Chassidic idea I presented, he had a quote that was used to contradict me. Every few minutes I had to stop the shiur or farbrengen and argue with him, which the participants did not appreciate. This went on day after day. It became urgent to deal with this and get him to stop.

“At the end of one of the shiurim, I told him I wanted to have a private talk with him. We arranged a meeting for four in the afternoon. All afternoon I thought about how to make my case so he would know that he was wrong and leading others astray.

“A few minutes before he showed up, I noticed a copy of Beis Moshiach on the table that was open to your column. I glanced at it and read your advice to shluchim: Don’t argue! Shine light!

“I considered this open hashgacha pratis and immediately changed my plans for my talk with the fellow. When he came in, I put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘I see you are a deep bachur. You have broad knowledge of the sources. Let’s sit together and learn a sicha.’

“We began to learn and, wonder of wonders, he listened and concentrated. He even asked to learn more. We met another few times to learn. Needless to say, he no longer disturbed the classes. He made progress in his learning of Chassidus and when he returned to Eretz Yisroel he went to the Chabad yeshiva in Ramat Aviv.”

All because of a story in Beis Moshiach!

DAVEN FOR YOUR STUDENTS

One week, the stories in my column had to do with shluchim and rabbanim who say chapters of T’hillim for their mekuravim or talmidim, praying that they succeed in their avodas Hashem.

A few days after the column appeared, I heard a story about a teacher in a Chabad high school in Yerushalayim. She was aggravated about two of her students who were not exactly going in the ways of Chassidus. She had many problems with them. The moment she read the simple, ingenious idea in the column about davening for one’s students, she thought: I must try that.

She opened her T’hillim and recited some chapters on their behalf. Incredibly, the next morning, the two girls came to class and she didn’t recognize them. They were sedate and well behaved, as though an extra Chassidishe neshama had entered them. She told her sister the story and the story made its way to me, and now to you.

TAKING CONTROL OF THE EVENT

In an early column I wrote about situations in which a shliach arrives at an event, whether a bar mitzva or a yahrtzait gathering, and there is a lot of music and speeches and who knows whether he will even be called upon to speak. Sometimes, I wrote, a shliach needs to be bold and take charge. I wrote a number of ways this could be done and brought examples.

A few months after the article was published, a young shliach called me and said:

Thanks to you, I have used this approach dozens of times. I used to be shy, but after reading your article, whenever I show up at an event, I go over to the people whose event it is, display confidence and simcha, and … start running the event. This is how the Rebbe’s message gets out to hundreds (by now, thousands) of people who attend these events.

BENTCH FROM A SIDDUR

A Chassidishe businessman told me that a few years back, he read in one of my articles that the Rebbe said it is desirable to recite the Birkas HaMazon from a text. The man committed to doing this.

Please daven for Yaakov Aryeh ben Rochel for a refua shleima