Peacemaker
Like a referee, a Jewish leader is called upon sadly too often to settle disputes and calm warring factions with his unique insight and authority. The Avner Institute presents two transcripts, one on the Rebbe’s far-reaching decisions on gender partition in shul and microphones on Shabbos; the second a warm wedding wish from the previous Rebbe with his key to marital bliss – mutual respect and avoidance of criticism.
In Loving memory of Hadassah Bas Schneur Zalman
“The Ideal Leader”
In a series of letters, the Rebbe responded to rabbis who during the 1950s wrote to him about issues concerning the mechitza, gender partition, in shul, as well as the use of microphones on Shabbos and Yom Tov. The following is a loose translation from a Yiddish note written by Rabbi Sholom Ber Gordon, obm.
A story is well known to the author of these notes about the committee of a particular shul who had approached the Lubavitcher Rebbe to ask about a battle that raged in their shul around the use of a microphone during the High Holidays.
Appropriately, each committee member presented his view. After patiently hearing them all out, the Rebbe observed, “In general the issue has its technical component, i.e. the matter of how the microphone functions and its halachic component, namely the applicable laws of Shabbat and Yom Tov.
“Among those who are causing the tumult about this problem, there are some who are familiar with the laws of Shabbos and Yom Tov but lack a grasp of technical aspects of the issue. There are others who are familiar with the technical aspects of the question but lack a good grasp of the laws of Shabbos and Yom Tov.”
The Rebbe added, “Unfortunately there are some who don’t have a good grasp of the laws of Shabbos or of how a microphone operates, yet they too voice their views on this matter.”
In a calm voice the Rebbe explained, “I am familiar with both aspects of the issue. And I assure you that using a microphone on Shabbos and Yom Tov is forbidden.”
Jewish Street
These words from the Rebbe, which I have related in the matter of the microphone apply very well to all of Jewish life and even to the entire world. There are voices on the “Jewish Street” that are involved with the life and daily problems of the Jewish public. They draw their solutions to their problems not from the eternal Torah of Life but from muddy sources of philosophy and ideology that have long been bankrupt.
On the other hand, we have among the Jewish people great Torah scholars who are steeped in Torah and study day and night. They, however, are blockaded in their own world and are unaware of the challenges facing the Jewish world.
The ideal leader must be one who is like the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
“Look at each other respectfully”
Rebbetzin Miriam Gordon, obm, merited to have a private audience with the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, prior to her marriage to Rabbi Sholom Ber Gordon in 5705 (1945). Shortly after the audience she transcribed what she remembered of that audience in Yiddish.
You must always bear in mind the other’s strengths and one’s own shortcomings. This does not mean that one should lift up the other and degrade oneself, but rather that the other’s strengths and virtues should compensate for their shortcomings.
Generally in family life, spouses should look at each other respectfully. In general one should not focus on the other’s shortcomings.
May Hashem help that the wedding be besha’ah tova umutzlachat, in a good and auspicious hour, both materially and spiritually. May you always live together joyously and may your parents have much nachas, joy, from you as well as from their other children materially and spiritually.
May you have abundant parnosseh [livelihood] and may you have good fortune your entire lives.
One should not do anything alone. Everything should be discussed with one another.
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