Hi, good morning, Gut Shabbos and B'hatzlacha. I apologize for the delay. So let's, I hope everyone is well. Let's begin with אגרת קיז. הנה השם עשה עמך חסד אשר על זה צריך אתה להודות ולהלל כי טוב חסדך מחיים. בקשר עם זה, הנני בזה להביע את דעתי, כי מאוד היה נכון הדבר שתקבל על עצמך עכשיו איזו הנהגה טובה כדרכם של אנשי מעשה להתחזק בעבודה בשעת גילוי חסדי השם.
There is a practice amongst chassidim and anshei ma'aseh to as it were respond to a special giluy of chasdei Hashem by being mekabel some hanhaga tova. הייתי מציע לפניך שתקבל על עצמך ללמוד בכל יום, או קודם התפילה או לאחר התפילה, בטלית ותפילין דווקא באיזה ספר מספרי העבודה בענייני הלכות דעות וחובות הלבבות. נא להודיעני על אודות החלטתך הטובה בנידון זה.
Okay, it's an important hanhaga to know. It's a way of when a person is the recipient in that fashion of giluy chasdei Hashem, so it's something that should lead a person to upgrade his avodah. It's something, it should lead a person to move if not entirely to the next level but there should be some upward movement, some upward motion. And that's what's sort of embodied in this hanhaga tova of being mekabel again in this avodah of being mekabel some hanhaga tova. Kuf Yud Chet. מכתבך הגיע לידי סמוך לכניסת השבת והנני ממהר להשיבך במידת הזריזות המתאימה לחשיבות מכתבך. נמצאות באדם דמעות של צער ודמעות של גיל.
A person can cry tears of pain or tears of joy. שני סוגי הדמעות הללו התערבבו בעיני בשעת קריאת מכתבך. צער של השתתפות ברגש הכאב אשר בלבבך.
And gil and and simultaneously rejoicing על היופי הנפשי המתגלה בדבריך. Apparently as as becomes clear from the next paragraph apparently the talmid who was writing to Rav Hutner must have been must have been subjected to some kind of maligning and attacks in in a very strong and vitriolic way. Mitga'eh ani bemichtavcha. I'm very proud of your letter. מתפאר אני באומץ הדעת שהזהירות לא לגלות הדברים לאחרים. There was no tachlis to to broadcasting his tvi'as to others. I don't know maybe he wasn't attacked maybe someone undermined him and a person is certainly allowed to defend his own reputation. Maybe it means that that there was some position that he was in line for and and through some kind of a politics or something it was denied him. I'm not sure exactly what the what prompted it. I think they they take out the the dates on the letters so that you shouldn't be able to reconstruct I think what the what what what event this is referring to or to whom the letter is written. על כולם יודע אני כי דבריך על העדר תרעומות והתנחומים במרוק נובע מתוך נפש נאמנה שלבה ופיה שווים.
I know that when you say that that you don't have any tainos I know that you're אחד בפה ואחד בלב that that you mean what you write. האמינה לי חביבי וצמיד לבבי. Right tzmid levavi means tzamud means what's attached to right so someone who's attached to my heart. האמינה לי חביבי וצמיד לבבי כי אי אפשר לי לפי שעה לבאר לך את כוונתי בביטוי
rabas hato'eles. Meaning this this setback as again seemingly unfair and unjust as as the person was experiencing it at the time so it's impossible for me but but to tell you what I mean by it but it's really rabas hato'eles. אבל בכל משך הזמן של קריאת מכתבך throughout the time of reading your letter צלצלו באזני דברי המדרש של מאמר הקדוש ברוך הוא על דור גלותו של יוסף. אני מתעסק לעשותו מלך והוא.
So if you look up they give the source on the on the bottom here to the Medrash Rabbah that Rav Hutner is referencing so the lashon of the Medrash is אלא כך אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא אני עוסק להמליך את בנו במצרים והוא אומר למה הרעותם לי.
Yeah I think that's the line just one second. Yeah אני עוסק להמליך את בנו במצרים I think is the lashon hamedrash והוא אומר למה הרעותם לי. The reason it's shelo bedivduk is obviously that he was just quoting from memory he wasn't he wasn't looking up the Medrash which means... means that a person doesn't know what's unfolding. A person doesn't know what's going to happen next, a person therefore doesn't know what today serves as a transition to. A person doesn't know what divine process is unfolding and because of that a person can experience something as Lama Hare-osam Li. A person can experience something as ra when in reality it's it's part of a process that that that's playing out the tov and and and it's simply a link in in a chain of of tov. The Rambam writes in Peirush Hamishnayos in Berachos commenting on, you know, a person makes a beracha on besuros tovos and besuros ra'os, but the Rambam says, you know, a person should not get overly exuberant and euphoric about besuro tovos nor should he be overly upset or depressed about a setback, about a besura ra, because a person only knows what it appears to be at the moment. What it will give way to, what will arise out of this, what the ultimate development and and what the the result ultimately will be a person doesn't know. And lots of times something can can seem tov at the moment and then many years later in retrospect one can see how Rachmana litzlan it was a chain, it was a link in a chain that that didn't head in a good direction and conversely sometimes a person b'sha'aso can experience something as ra and in retrospect years later a person will be able to see how it was how it was l'tova. And that's the similar idea which which Rav Hutner's medrash אבנים התעסק להם להמליך בנו והוא אומר למה הרעותה לי.
A person can't and that's the Rambam's yesod in the Peirush Hamishnayos in Berachos person can't be overly affected by by what's happening because we don't really ever know ultimately what's good and what's bad. Ay, so why do we have the chiyuv beracha at all? Okay, because on the other hand we the halacha doesn't tell us to totally ignore and and deny the human experience of of the moment. So there's a balance between the two. והנני חותם מתוך חבוקי אהבה מרחוק. Kuf Yud Tes. Shalom u'vracha. מקוה הנני כי יסלח לי כבוד תורתו על אחור תשובתי. נצטברו אלי בימים האחרונים הרבה טרדה שבבחינת מצרים ועל כן הרשיתי לעצמי לעשות למשפט הקדימה חזק על חכם כמוהו שידינני לכף זכות בכל דנותו חברו לכף זכות דן אותו לכף זכות. כבוד תורתו מחלק את מכתבו לשש שאלות.
Aleph, אם מותר לחבר ועד החינוך. If a person is a member on a educational committee for a yeshiva. להגיד לאדם כל מה שמדברים שם לשאול עצה מה לדבר ולעשות.
If a person wants to needs to wants to reveal the otherwise confidential deliberations and discussions of a va'ad hachinuch to be sho'el eitzah what position he should take. They're discussing such and such an initiative in the yeshiva. Is it a good idea, is it not a good idea? They're talking about chas v'shalom about dismissing a certain person. Is that proper, is that not proper? Beis, אם מותר לחבר ועד לדבר לשון הרע בפני כל בעל הבית או מלמד מאחר שלדעתו אינו עושה כהוגן.
Can he speak not to someone from whom he's being sho'el eitzah? Any ba'al habayis, can he can he share with him the fact that he thinks that a certain melamed is is not doing his job properly? הנה טיבן של שאלות הללו איני מכיר. I don't really understand these questions because basically what this g'vir is about to say, he thinks both of them are pashut, כי בנוגע לשאלה השנייה פשיטא לאיסורא כי הלא זהו לשון הרע פשוט וברור ואם זה מותר שכלתה לשנא בישא מעלמא.
If this is mutar, there's no such thing as loshon hora. Meaning that the question didn't describe any tachlis or to'eles that would be in sharing those impressions and those feelings about the melamed in question. Absent the tachlis, of course it's loshon hora. אולם בנוגע לשאלה הראשונה הדבר תלוי. דבוודאי אין שום איסור של הולך רכיל ולשון הרע כששואלים שאלת הלכה אצל דיין.
It's certainly not a question of loshon hora or rechilus when a person provides the necessary information to ask a sheila, and to be sho'el eitzah is no different than to ask a sheila. ואפילו במקום שאינו נוגע לגוף הכרעת הדין, and even if the information to be relayed to the beis din is not nogei'a to the psak, אלא שזה נוגע לכבוד הדיין אמרו במועד קטן דשליחא דבי דינא לאו משום לשנא בישא.
The shliach beis din who was sent to issue a hazmanah to someone can report back to beis din how the ba'al din received him contemptuously. So that's not nogei'a to hachra'as hadin, but it is nogei'a to kvod hadayan, but even that, the Gemara in Moed Katan says is for the shliach beis din to bring that report back to the beis din is not loshon hora. ונפסקה הלכה זו בכל הפוסקים. אם כן באופן שחבר ועד החינוך מקבל עצמו הדרכה והדברים שהוא מספר מהישיבת ועד החינוך נוגעים לעצם הכרעת ההנהגה בבוודאי שאין בזה דברים דאיסור.
Whatever is necessary for him to get the proper hadracha, so of course there's no issur of loshon hora. So there, in this context, it's up to the member of the Va'ad Hachinuch to know, the chacham can't know, in other words, what details are necessary or what names are necessary, what names are not necessary. Meaning maybe it's necessary to tell him that there are people on the committee who think such and such, but it might not be necessary asher nikvu b'shemos. It may not be necessary to indicate, oh, ploni and almoni, they're the ones who think we should fire the munahel and others disagree. So especially when it comes to naming names, it's almost impossible, usually almost impossible for the chacham who's being consulted to know where to draw the line between what's tachlis and what's not tachlis. And that the person coming for the hadracha has to at least initially make that judgment. Sometimes he'll come and it'll be clear to the person that he's speaking to that there's not enough to the story, that he's not being told enough to have a feel for it. And then he'll tell him, "No, I need to know more, I need you to elaborate this point" or whatever, but that is a judgment that the sho'el has to make. ולעומת זאת אם הוא מספר זה בתור סיפור בעלמא שמשמיע חדשות פשיטא שצריך לחשוש על כל משפט שיוצא מפיו אם יש בו משום גנותו של אדם. מצד פשיטותם של הדברים חחוששני כי קמצת בתורתך ובדבריך.
A kometz is you just take a fistful of the rest of the mincha, you just take a little bit of it. So kamazta bidvareicha means that you were stingy with your words. והנני בזה בבקשה כי אם יש לך בתורתך הוספת דברים בזה אל ישתמש בזה במידת סייג לחכמה אלא במידת החכמה גופה שדרכה להשמיע ענייניה.
I don't know, I didn't give this line adequate thought, but... shelo b'iyun hara'oy one wonders whether there's a havonoh in that mishna in avos which is being implied, that the way Rav Hutner seems to be implying the pshat, that siyag l'chochma shtika doesn't mean that in the course of speaking divrei chochma that even then there's a siyag of shtika. There is an inyan obviously for a person not to just prattle and inflate what he's saying. If a person has two minutes' worth of substance to say, he should speak for two minutes. He shouldn't speak for forty-five minutes. But that notwithstanding, there's no inyan of siyag l'chochma shtika in talking divrei chochma. Maybe what it means is siyag l'chochma shtika in talking anything other than divrei chochma. It's a siyag to chochma to avoid as much as possible extra dibburim. אלא במידת החכמה גופה שדרכה להשמיע ענייניה. I love some more what's implicit in terms of havonah of that mishna in avos in this line. Okay maybe we'll just take a look at Kuf Chaf. צורת חן אבוד בחסכה לרגלי something or other. הנני מצפה שיקראו בך הכלל כל המברך מתברך. I don't know what they took out here. Tashach, that's sixty years ago. I don't know, maybe his daughter got married, I don't know. That should be easy enough to confirm or refute. I don't know. הימים הם ימי ניסן שהם ימי ההכנה רבה למועד החרות. וכל רגע יקר מפז.
What a beautiful insight. What a beautiful at least we should know the sensitivity that ba'alei avoda have. וכל רגע יקר מפז. Every moment is more precious than gold and silver in the days leading up to today's Daled Nissan also, no? Yeah, today's Daled Nissan. Okay, mamash bo bayom. וכל רגע יקר מפז. ועל כן הנני בזה רק בהנוגע למעשה. סבורני כי כדאי הוא בשבילך להישאר לזמן הקיץ במקומך.
Right obviously his correspondent had asked him in terms of what his plans should be for the future, so Rav Hutner is telling him what he thinks about the zman kayitz beginning in Iyar. כתבתי לזמן הקיץ ממה שעל השנה הבאה עלינו לטובה יש לנו עוד פנאי לשיח בדבר. והחלטה מוקדמת היא בבחינת לא מעלה ולא מוריד ובחינה היא תופסת מקום בראש.
That's an important insight. A person shouldn't look to make decisions prematurely. A person can't make decisions, shouldn't procrastinate either when there is a time for a decision, but a person's not supposed to make decisions prematurely. Person makes a decision prematurely, so then the circumstances which constitute or could constitute crucial factors in the decision may change, and he will already have sort of psychologically or maybe even more than psychologically, maybe in terms of having set things in motion, have locked himself into a certain course of action. Person has to be careful not to make premature decisions. Okay maybe we'll talk a little bit more about this later. That there is a slight chance that that we won't, if if that's the case then.