ChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen
ChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen
Street Farbrengen Episode 96 - J'accuse - Unspoken post-traumatic stress syndrome- Chabad Style
As we approach our 100th episode, Zacharia and Reuven turn the mic inward — to the Chabad community itself.
We began nearly a year ago, with a simple question: Has Chabad’s leadership been living with unspoken post-traumatic stress since Gimmel Tammuz?
Now, a powerful anonymous letter has surfaced - in response to the recent suicide of a young man — one that accuses Chabad of a generation gap so deep that it’s left some young people unseen, unheard, and in pain.
In this week’s Farbrengen, we confront that gap head-on:
What happens when a movement’s system overtakes its mission?
When the name of the game becomes survival, instead of soul?
Through stories of heartbreak, honesty, and hope, Reuven and Zacharia wrestle with the hard questions:
Have we confused the Rebbe with the mission?
Can Dirah Betachtonim still speak to a 17-year-old bochur struggling to belong?
Join this raw, soul-stirring conversation — where the system meets the soul, and the mission comes home again.
Zahari was reflecting that we're almost coming up to our hundredth episode of Street for Bringen and the original intent of this program began when you had told me something that I was intrigued by that the leadership of Chabad was suffering from post-traumatic stress Gimaltamas and they didn't know how to handle it. And we talked about it. And now almost a year later, a letter comes out from an anonymous individual who cl who is accusing Chabad to be in a generation gap, a generation where the older generation does not relate to the younger generation, and the younger generation can't relate to the older generation. And his accusation goes all the way I don't know if you want to say up or down to a recent suicide of a Lababaj Bachar. And I think it's time to talk about that generation gap. Never mind, maybe even as old as your grandfather. And we don't have a generation gap, I don't think.
SPEAKER_02:So let's start out by, I guess, defining the concept of a generation gap. And what you mean by that. I mean it's funny, obviously, you and I are incredibly close and good friends, so I hear what you're saying. It's not an age thing, it's a mentality thing. So I guess let's first try to define what you think this Baker meant by not being able to bridge that gap.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think he the Baker is referring to an implacable divide between the two generations. However, there's obviously a lot of frustration there of not being heard and being cared for. And for, you know, people who are joining us, what are we talking about, anyways? There was a Bacher, a young Bacher, young student, and he committed suicide at something like sixteen, seventeen years old, I think. And he was bullied. And it's one of those stories where his being um living with disdain and the discord that that creates drove him to want to kill himself. And the Bakr who's writing this letter said, I also wanted to. And the only reason when I went to yeshiva, and the only reason he didn't is he didn't have the guts to do it. I mean, those are huge statements. And it doesn't mean every Bakr walking around is thinking like that. But what he accuses is the leadership favoring I guess Bachr's Bachram who excel and don't cause any problems. He doesn't quite say it that way. And he even brings up where Ashliach called his daughter a slut because t uh she wasn't dressing SNEAS. And I think that's what he refers to when he says the gap between the two generations. What is and then he brings up the Mishakhist, anti-Mishhachist fight, who controls 770, etc. etcetera. And I said many times that and I see it with other groups of people not Chabad, that you cannot profess the tenets of Chabad, which are Ahab is Israel, Hab is Saturn Abiz Hashem, when you're clued out of probably at least two of those.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So with that you're I I don't I don't mean to press you, but the so that you're saying the generation gap is the lack of the lack of defining Um accountability to one group or another, and like you're saying as a result, and therefore they don't have either.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's interesting you bring that up because that is what he pinpoints. There's no accountability. There's no accountability of who's a schliach. Anyone he claims that has a connection could be a schliach. No one's looking for, you know, exemplary behavior and deep, you know, mental furifass types, because there aren't very many, to go in schlichas. I mean I don't know how the process is. And I understand that it's an open field for a reason. And I know all the great things we used to say in the old days and the Rebbe could could uh make a schlich can make a broom shoot, meaning that a schlich could, you know, do anything. Well if if he's connected to the Rebbe.
SPEAKER_02:Well, but okay.
SPEAKER_01:So let's Yeah, what what's the ah tell me?
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no. Let's let's start stop there for a moment because it's funny it goes back to a fundamental question that I'm sure we've we've asked here before, but what is the definition of success for a shliach, a chasid, the movement, right? If you I I heard uh the movement? I'm saying like the Rebba.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, let's talk to let's talk the two of us.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no, no, I don't want to talk to two of us. I don't want to give I don't want to pontificate about the movement. Just give me a second, okay, please.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02:So so I'm I'm part of the generation camp.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I heard a story of the Rebba of a guy who incredibly emotional story of this guy being interviewed. His his father got killed in a uh in in a um drunk driving um crash. Other other driver was drunk and killed him on the spot. And he came to the rubber and the rebba said, I'm gonna ask you some pretty intense questions about it, and asked about the speed and the car and a lot of different details. And the and the bucker was crying and was giving over the answers, and the rubber was like listening very intently, and then the re and then the the guy said, I the only thing I want in the world is for Mashiach to come and for Tichyas Amesim so that I could go and hug and kiss my father again, and he fainted. And when Rabbi Groner picked him up and revived him, he saw that the Rebba, he saw that the Rebbe was crying, and he apologized to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said to him, uh, and he apologized, and the Rebbe said, You don't need to apologize. He said, I've just never heard anybody else say that the only thing that they want in the world is Mashiach. So I'm bringing up the story because again, with all of the things that you're describing of the generation gap, is are we losing sight of the mission? Are we losing sight of what this all actually is for and what this all actually means? Because for all of those Buckers problems, which are very human problems, right? You go to any company, you go to any organization, you're gonna find similar issues that you find in in what he's describing. And so it's not the question of are the issues normal, they're extremely normal, they're human. It's that is your goal clear and set in order to help overcome those challenges.
SPEAKER_01:Um my answer to that is a resounding no, the goal is not clear. The name of the game is clear. But not the goal.
SPEAKER_02:What's the name of the game?
SPEAKER_01:The name of the game is the as as this guy writes, is that the corporation has to continue. You call it the mission has to continue. The mission that you refer to is the name of the game. Name of the game is the organism of Chabad has to grow, it has to do its job as putting out X amount of menorahs coming up Hanukkah, and has to um just continue. And the Mashiach, of course, is a major component because the river said so. So that's the that's the name of the game. But what's the mission? The mission is you know, for the outside world we'd call it humanity, and for the inside world we'll call it um the yid or the nashama. And I think by and large we have forgotten that. We veered away because of the corporate game that we're playing. I'm not saying in a negative, the corporate game we're forgetting about the players.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. I mean, we we don't need to dwell on this because Well, we do need to dwell on it for a different reason.
SPEAKER_01:Why so I'm gonna ask you this. Do you find yourself in that static between the game and the mission?
SPEAKER_02:I I mean it's impossible not to because you live in all a month.
SPEAKER_01:So what you live. Don't tell me what I do.
SPEAKER_02:No, I'm telling you what. Okay, so say I live. No, we could we're both a person any person who lives in this world who wants to be a functional person in this world, yeah, needs to play the game and needs to be a part of the system to whatever degree, and also needs to make sure that they are clear in the actual real mission so that they don't get sucked up and caught up into the game. And the reason I'm saying this is I mean, you know I'm extremely critical of the system for a lot of different reasons.
SPEAKER_01:And I I I stopped talking about the system.
SPEAKER_02:I and so when I'm what I don't want to talk about the system.
SPEAKER_01:No one's listening for us to give any great insights about the system. No, no, that the letter did it perfectly, and that's why What's your system?
SPEAKER_02:So so it's I don't understand what you mean. I already told you that the system is the same, I believe, for everybody who needs to be who has kids and who So say it.
SPEAKER_01:You be you believe, but you're saying what do you want to say?
SPEAKER_02:So what I'm saying is that your game. I I'm I don't know why you didn't hear me the first two times. I said my game is to be a part of the system like everyone else, but to make sure that the mission is not forgotten.
SPEAKER_01:So your game, you're telling me your game is to be part of the system. What is the system referred to?
SPEAKER_02:Well, in this case it's to I mean in this case.
SPEAKER_01:Which case?
SPEAKER_02:In uh in my in my case, it's to it's it's to raise my kids in an environment in a chabad school, in a shul, in an atmosphere that they're going to be proud chasidim of the Rebbe.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, and what's the mission?
SPEAKER_02:The mission is Dir Batachinim, is Meshiach is the focal point of despite the system, which is a necessary evil, you could call it in one sense, is to not lose track of the fact that, like the Bucker said, Abyss Israel and So wait a second.
SPEAKER_01:So we have for thirty um I was gonna use a four-letter expla expletive. We have for thirty years everybody in involved in the issue of the so-called mission as you've defined it, at each other's throats.
SPEAKER_02:I think that they're d arguing about the system, not the mission.
SPEAKER_01:Well okay. They may be they're arguing about the system and not the mission. How is that possible?
SPEAKER_02:Because they're focused on the fact that they believe the system is the icker and not the mission. They're focusing on the the machloikis of I say one way and another person says another way, or this bucker is not a perfect learner and can't sit for eight hours.
SPEAKER_01:Are your children entering this system?
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Are they at risk because of that system?
SPEAKER_02:Of course. Every kid is, and and it's my job as a parent to make sure that they're focused on the mission while being in the system.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, one second. Oh, I see. So if they you get them to be focused on the mission, the system will not um harm them.
SPEAKER_02:I have little kids, so uh this is my theory. You could you you look at me already with disdain of I hear naivete and stupidity, so tell me what I'm wrong with.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, no, no. But that's why I I think that you have to bring it um back home into the home because the system is not made. Well, at this point, this is what the guy's saying. The system is not communicating the mission. That's right. Okay, so you're calling mission soul when you really get down to it. Yeah. Okay. And mission and and and the game is structured. Right?
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So what's I don't want to talk about any individual organization or schluchem for that matter. What is your system that you and I you don't have to answer this, that you and therefore your children run in. And what is the mission that's prep that's fueling that run? Because we all can point to larger systems. Um big problem. Big problem. Unless you love Machleikis and you're in the middle of it all. Okay? Those people, whether you like it or not, love it. They keep on going.
SPEAKER_02:Even if you don't love it, but if you're high up in that system or get common.
SPEAKER_01:No, you wouldn't get that high up if you didn't love it. I'm sorry, this is by the meaning. I don't know it as well as you can. And for us, we're not there, so it's irrelevant. And not only that, it's like you know, two guys in the mikfit talking about what's going on in Washington.
SPEAKER_02:Not exactly.
SPEAKER_01:You're right, because you can make an influence a little bit in your Dalai Damas, but basically, um and if you have a lot of money, you can make an influence.
SPEAKER_02:There's a couple of ways of uh best.
SPEAKER_01:That's not what we're uh we're forbringing about. We're forbringing about us. So people who complain about the system, you know, it's nice, and it may be even correct. The question is, you know, my high, so then you know, my nafka Mina, what's the difference that you're complaining about at all?
SPEAKER_02:Well, they're hopefully that Bakr, for example, could potentially become a Rebbe himself.
SPEAKER_01:The Bakr did his job already because this letter is going is going viral. Because people don't really know, a lot of people don't know that the Bakr killed himself because the media, which he opens up the letter with, the media puts it as he fell to his demise when he was on a 40th floor at the during that um protest in Arizes. But there was a letter he sent out, um I understand it to be legitimate before, a letter meaning a text. And I guess people who know him knew that he was suffering from bullying. And I've been with kids in yeshiva that had that experience. And we all know about it in the the general world about bullying, and even on you know, social media and so on and so forth. The I've thought about it a lot because, first of all, I was in the system, I got screwed by the system, and then I realized I didn't join to be part of the system, which maybe was why I got screwed by it. But uh for me personally, I wasn't that's why people always wonder when I tell them I hate religion. You know, religion is system. So what is that personally? That's what intrigues me is where do we create our own walled in systems that don't match or even just put out the mission?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so do you have your idea of what's yours?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um first of all, t the mission as you call it as dirbatachtoinim. But this is where we come down to the brass tacks of it for brain. Do the words dira batachtoinim fit into for you and me mission or system? Explain it's obviously a key point in Chabad literature, if you can call it that. It's a unique point. If you know usurping even the Zohar and the Eight Shayim and the the idea of Dirba Tachtan, and the way the Rebbe Rashad puts it, obviously comes from before that, but particularly I'm thinking about Samakvab. And anything you learn could be your philosophy, could be your answer to the system that you feel um some disc cognitive dissonance with and that you're living in, whatever the system that is, and therefore you look, open up a mimer, and it answers the cognitive dissonance, and it solidifies the legitimacy of the system, and it contributes to the system. It's nothing to do with mission. Even if you're using the words dirva tachtanim and the subject, dirva tahtonim, and ironically, you're making it a system-like approach rather than a mission approach. I I'll I'll tell you something that's on my mind that's um that maybe will explain it.
SPEAKER_02:Please.
SPEAKER_01:A little bit. Yeah, I don't know if I'm understanding it. Okay. So you know that I'm like working on a on a the third film that I'm doing called Higher Corners, and I'm interviewing this guy who's a um uh PhD doctor of neurology in a top uh uh what do they call it? Ivy League University. And he has a theory. And his theory, and the question is, what is consciousness? And he says the brain puts everything into two steps, focus and pattern. So everything's put into a pattern and an association. And focus is, you know, like an example would be if you're going to um, I don't know, um wash your dishes, even. Your hand is gonna move, your arm is gonna move, the shoulder is gonna be. You don't think about all of that. The brain is r running it all, but it doesn't focus on that. It only focuses on the intent of cleaning the dishes. Okay, you don't have to know everything. So that's that would be the focus part. And everything is put into that would be a system. It's putting it into a system, into an association, and grouping what's going on and deleting focus on what you don't need and focusing on what you do need. Otherwise, you can't really exist, right? Because you only have so much brain power at any given time, you only have so much energy. And he says one of the needs of the brain is to come up with a pattern focus of definition of who am I? Of what am I. And once you have that, you can keep on moving. And it and it changes, I don't know if he says it changes all the time, but it's a mechanical, um, it's like AI deciding a new idea that it didn't have before based on three other pieces of information that it had. And in this case, it's who am I? And it's very mechanical. It's like the AI robot realizing I'm Tom, right? It doesn't need to, but a human being needs to do that. And he's seeing it totally mechanical, and it can explain it with dopamine and urology and the whole nine yards. We can do that with chasidis. We can do, we can, we want to make sense, and we want and strive to put into uh a certain category everything that we experience, and Hasidis could come along and um help clarify that thing we're trying to group and and call and help clarify m the meaning of life. So now we have a new definition of the meaning of life, and then we have a new definition of what does it mean, what's the most important thing in life is a havasisrael. And now we have a raison d'etre to give charity and so on and so on and so forth. You can call it just intellectual, but it's creating a gilded system of almost like a virtual reality. And that's one of the things the Bakr accuses the powers that be have of Chabad having created that we believe in our own um narrative in our own p um p advertising PR. Where's the mission? Who where does the mission what let me ask you this? To whom does the mission talk to?
SPEAKER_02:It should be everybody.
SPEAKER_01:No, uh in you. It should be in to you and to your family. You have a mission. You said to me, I have a mission and I have what to whom does the mission talk to me. What do you mean me? Your eyeballs, your nose, your ears. What do you mean to me?
SPEAKER_02:To my life.
SPEAKER_01:To my You are a man made up of ten soul parts and two makifim called Ratsun and Oydink. To who we we forgot, you see? Oh, you're talking about that. Just I'm not saying you forgot that and you don't know that, but that's the difference between mission and sis and and and the game. The mission is talking. What does Chasilis talk about all the time? When you really get down to it, it talks about Nefesh Ruch and Shamah, Chayan Yachidah, and ten spheres, right? Seychel and Midday's, that's we already covered that. Why is it talking about all that? And then interfaces those components and says, okay, this is drawn to this mitzvah over here, deals with this level of Nefesh Rukh and Shema, and this deals with like, okay, so the this is here we go into the system again. So the guy picks up the book, and now he can tell you how all the spheres connect to this mice and that mice, and this mice. So he has a, and just like a uh ChatGPT will ask me all the time, do you want me to draw uh sorry, do you want me to draw a chart of what we've been talking about? Right? So it goes and it says, um, let's say uh the myths of Tvillin. Tvillin, which part of the soul? Saychel, okay, and now we have this grid. It reminds me of, as I've told you before, in that university course I once went to in Vancouver way, way back, where the guy gets up on the on the blackboard and he goes, Once there was an eagle agadal, and he draws a big circle, you know. Then there was a cav and he draws a line in the eagle agadal. And you know, the the the man with his arms spread out, the naked man they print in all the Kabbalah books that are made by I don't know the shoken books and you know where his Sekel is and so on and so forth. That's the game.
SPEAKER_03:Mission talks to you, your ratza.
SPEAKER_01:Each your part no, not only your ratza, it talks to who you are. Now the question is who am I? And who you are is Nefesh, Ruach, Nishama, Chaya, Yachidah, the Midois, the Sekel. That's the mission. And when you really um distill what's dirba tachtoinim, you're the tahtoin.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's not the table that's the tahdi. It's you because the table doesn't know haikak from anything. It's how you look at the table, it's how you look at the things around you. So you are the dirba tachtonim. And I think that's kind of so now if you're the dirba tachtonim, could you and there's a there's a person in a classroom who knows that that's the mission, is it possible for a Baker of 16 years old to be one year away from killing himself?
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_01:I I hopefully no. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, if it's done the way you're describing, where again, um things that are not aligned with your mission, even in the system or in the game, then have a platform to be able to be called out.
SPEAKER_01:What do you give me an example of what you're talking about?
SPEAKER_02:I'm saying that once you have that mission clear for how it's supposed to affect you, then bullying wouldn't be stamps. I'm saying there's now a platform to call that out on. Meaning you're able to address those things because you're not.
SPEAKER_01:You mean to call it out, you're not worried about it.
SPEAKER_02:You're not worried about the system. Um the system's integrity.
SPEAKER_01:Are you say are you saying if you call it out, you're putting at risk the system?
SPEAKER_02:That's I think the subtle implication of not being able to criticize the system, not being able to criticize Schluchem, not being able to criticize X, Y, and Z.
SPEAKER_01:Well, nobody wants to know they put the ladder up against the wrong law wall. Right? So that would be the criticism. Okay. Um so I hear you, and there's probably a little bit of that or a lot of that. Um Well, let's go to whoever if it's true, let's go to the Schleich who called his daughter a slut. Uh what do you what do you give me the eyes for?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, that's a crazy thing to to say.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, I'm sure it happened more than once. I don't know. Maybe not the word slut. I got it. Okay. If Assum we don't know who the guy is, but assuming that he was looking at it from a system point of view, which is you're not allowed to dress like that, um, you know, all that that kind of stuff. What's the difference? If he now is being driven by mission and dear batahani, how does he see his daughter differently, do you think?
SPEAKER_02:Good question. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01:He well, let me ask you this. We'll keep that up in the left corner of the screen. You identify, you have you know, I saw a very interesting piece from R Dr. Twersky Oliver Shalom. He's the guy who ran uh it was the rabbi who ran the first Jewish run, I think it was the first Jewish run um addiction center in Pittsburgh. Very special man. And he asked the question in one of his books and listen up, all you ayahuasca guys. If you were told that you can have a psychedelic, but it would take five days for it to kick in, would you take it? That's his question. And he tries to draw a picture that the addiction is def addiction is defined by speed. I must have it now. And that a person wouldn't care to have it if it was five days down the road. Right? And you can even put this, he doesn't do this, but I just thought of it, you can put this exactly into the tension in Chasidis that speaks about Gashmius and Ruchnias. Ruchnias takes friggin' time, and Gashmias is instant. So the person who cannot focus on a goal that's Rukhni is addicted to Gashmi. That's his definition. It's I mean, it's not the only definition, but that's a component of addiction. Instantaneous satisfaction. Right? I mean, think about it. You can put apply this to many, many, many different things, right? Okay, so it it so I'm going to say to you that without mission, as we're calling it, the concept of the g name of the game becomes your addiction. Addiction is instant. Addiction is I have no patience. Addiction is for myself, I won't grow. Or addiction is I see a my daughter who's not dressed properly, she's not fitting into the system. Now it may have been that he told it already five times, but I need that to be fit into the system. I need rectification. You're a slut. I'm frustrated and I'm angry. Now, let's talk about the mission part. This is a woman, let's say she's let's make it up. She's 17 years old. You know, listen up, all you daddies and mommies, right? She's 17 years old. She's she comes in with a mini skirt. She says, I'm out, and she's basically telling you, I'm out of this. And you're a shliach on top of it all, and you're going in next week to New York. Oh, you vehizmir, right? But you're mission-oriented, you're dirba taktanim oriented. What do you focus on?
SPEAKER_02:The nishamah.
SPEAKER_01:Too general. I hate generalization. The nishama. Okay, let me talk to the nishama. Let me why don't you talk to her while she's sleeping because her nishama here is. What do you mean the nishamah? Be more specific. I want to know before you you say anything, what are you looking at? How are you viewing this person that's in front of you?
SPEAKER_02:A nishama who's on a journey.
SPEAKER_01:Who's yeah, that's nice. It's like new age.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't have I don't have a more specific really. Okay, you never had an issue with your kids? Of course, but I'm saying you look you you look at them as being on their journey and needing love and acceptance and understanding and rachamim for where they're holding in order that again you should be able to focus on the mission, which is I know that, but we want to get down to brass tax here.
SPEAKER_01:What do you mean? Are you gonna say one thing? So what would you talk about it? What would you say? Let's let's frust I don't know yet. Let's flush this out. So she's sitting there on the couch, and you're gonna say, you just said to me I have to have Rachimim and acceptance and love. So why have the conversation? I accepted her. And there's this guy, I don't remember his name from Brooklyn that everyone thinks he's like the Messiah and a half, called Radical. What's it called? Radical um forget what it's called, and you just let your kid do whatever they want and you love them. Do you do that? With her?
SPEAKER_02:No, because you could still have standards, but I don't know what you say. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01:No, I'm not even asking what you say, I'm asking who do you talk to?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, what do you think, Ruven?
SPEAKER_01:So if you the first and foremost is again, let's take apart Dira Betahtonim. Her struggle with her SNES is tahtoinim. Right? Her going off is tahtoinim. It's instant. Right? I want that instant addiction feedback. Walking around for this girl in a miniskirt is instant feedback. For the Bachr, who's uh, you know, uh I've told you before, who grows his hair long and everybody's screaming at him in the yeshiva, and he doesn't wear uh the the right hat, right? So he wants instant gratification. He's not gonna get it from a black hat, okay? Because he's not tuned in yet. I'm not I'm not quite sure I get it with from a black hat, but that's besides the point. Um and the fight continues. The the mission seems to have become and you're not gonna like this. What did the reb say to do?
SPEAKER_02:Okay. What what one did I like about that?
SPEAKER_01:That's not the mission.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so what's the mission?
SPEAKER_01:Oh the mission is Zerba Tachonium.
SPEAKER_02:So then what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01:The name of the game is what did the Rebbe say to do?
SPEAKER_02:Explain.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I was explained the whole time. The name of the game is you have uh the game means game theory. I have a board, it's square, it's got square red squares, black squares, it has it has uh different players on it, and you have two players, and it's called chess. That's the name of the game. The mission, the name of the game is to win, and the way the game is to capture the king. Got it. Now these two players are again uh sitting across from each other. There's a whole world going on in their head, right? And their mission is to be smarter than the other guy and to figure out what to do to win, to figure out what to do to win. Okay, so in a similar fashion, Dirubba Tachtoinim has its own parameters of what it means. How do I get there? How do I implement it? Is following the guidance that the Rebbe gives me. But the game is not what the Rebbe gives me. Sorry, the mission is not what the Rebbe gives me, it's the game to win the mission. We have made probably a lot because of Gimel Thomas, we have made the mission following the Rebbe. And I think growing up 30 years after Gimel Thomas is like almost for a lot of people, completely can't relate to it at all. And you know why we've had this discussion before. I hate I listen, maybe it's because I'm a Balichuva, you know, and I come from radical roots. I can't relate to tell a kid, let's say this girl that we're talking about, 17 years old on the couch, that at three years old we said to her, Chaya Mushka, wear socks. It's gonna make the Rebbe so happy. That's making the Rebbe the game and the mission. Actually, and not even the game, the mission. The Rebbe is not the mission. The Rebbe helps you get to fulfill the mission. So what should Dirba Thahtanim? Your relationship to God. The Alta Rebbe tells you how to have a relationship with God. If you're not, which is Dirba Tachhtanim, if you're not into having that relationship, then you move to, well, we're Lababaches, follow what the Alta Rebbe said. And in this age of of however you want to parse it, in Mashiach, pre-Mashiach, already Mashiach, post-Mashiach, I don't know Mashiach, that doesn't fly anymore.
SPEAKER_02:I agree. I guess I don't uh agree with you on this one, or I'm not understanding it well. But I have to think about what you're saying. I don't know if I want to shoot off shoot off the hip. Well, we're trying to get somewhere.
SPEAKER_01:This is saying this is a total of C Night.
SPEAKER_02:But Reuben, you're saying it so so powerfully.
SPEAKER_01:I bel I I I I'm s I I've been struggling with it for a long time.
SPEAKER_02:I have to think about this because the answer in short is no, I don't agree, because fundamentally the Rebbe and Dir Pataktain and what the Rebbe says and to do and to be are all the same. So fundamentally, that's where I'm disagreeing.
SPEAKER_01:That's like saying that's like well, you depends how you understand that. There's what says Chasidis says there's Basra Adam, Nishamaha Adam, and then there's Adam.
SPEAKER_02:I I got it, I got it. But what what I was where I was gonna go with that, hold on. I put put it in the right corner. I think we have a couple of corners open right now. But um put that in the corner for a moment. If you're there there's a there's a fundamental issue that I see myself doing as well as pretty much everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's irrelevant, but go on.
SPEAKER_02:No, but I'm saying I've heard it described by a friend of ours as like the teddy bear rebba, where they create who they want the rebba to be and only say stories and only quote things and only um put out information based off of the vision of the Rebbe that they want, but not who the Rebbe is, because the Rebbe was way greater than any limited one statement that he was. He was he was Gavura in places, he was Chesed in other places, he was Rachimin in other places. Like the you can't hold to one of those things, but when you define the Rebbe and you make a Sheeta out of the picture that you decided that he's in, yeah, then that then I would agree with you that that's and I'm saying your objection to that is based on that the Rebbe is the mission.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I'm saying to you the Rebbe is not the mission. And what I'm saying is Dirba Tachtoinim is the mission.
SPEAKER_02:I understand that. And I understand that you're saying that the Rebbe is giving you the tools in order to be able to accomplish Dirbachtoinim, but I'm I'm still defining system and game as not such a positive thing. I remember I called it a necessary evil because I think it's something that you you have to use and you have to go into.
SPEAKER_01:You can't use it if you're not clear what the mission is. I I got that. Okay, so I'm saying the same thing about the Rebbe. And we have made the Rebbe the game and the mission. And I'm saying to you, the I'll say to you, the first for brain of the Rebbe said, No way, Jose. Sorry to say it so grub. He said, No, I'm not gonna be that. You gotta do your own your own heavy lifting, and we don't want heavy lifting. And you know, I told over this word from Twirski to someone, he said, That's like going to a Rebbe's Kev. Now, where the guy who told me this is not Lababajer. Meaning that if I go to this Rebbe, he's going to make some special thing for me. And therefore, I want it to happen now. I'm gonna go over all the way to the other end of the world and get that braca because it's gonna happen. Now rather than do hard work. I listen, if there's a generation gap, there's a difference between having you know, every I've said this before to you, I could sit every Friday night when I turn around on Lakhad Doidi, I have in my man mind my remembering the Rebbe turning around and seeing his face as he turned around to do Lakhad Doidi. That's my thing, okay? You don't have that, and there's no gem filmed because it was Shabbos that can capture that. Okay? So thanks. Yeah. And being at that Fabrenga, at any Febringa, was has a certain component that's impossible for film to convey. But I could remember it. There we go, that guy's definition of who am I, as you know, I can put that in a pattern and I can, you know, I can define it and so forth. You can't. So there is a generation gap.
SPEAKER_02:I got that. I got that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Now, the generation that's teaching and feels and remembers, perhaps, is doing so with the Rebbe that they're making him the mission. And the mission meaning I can remember it, I can feel it, it moves me, but doesn't compute for a 17-year-old. I'm not getting into this guy particularly that he was bullied and all that kind of negative stuff. It doesn't necessarily work for the 17-year-old. We've spoken about it. That's why we have lots of stories about Great Chasidim, where in the end we come to the conclusion, well, that was them, but not me. We speak about the Great Chasidim, that's the game. Who are you talking to in the room? Dirba Takhtani, the mission, is the kid. How does he relate to that story? How do you teach that story? If you give over that story, that it just solidifies what are the tenets of the game, of the system, then you in a certain way you're defeating speaking to him. And I'm guilty of that, no question about it. But I'm saying, so it's easy to be guilty of it. But what I'm saying is you hear the difference between mission and sit and system.
SPEAKER_02:I have to sit and think with it think uh think on it. Um but what does come up is the fact that I believe it was Hoshana Rabba and Tafshan Nanbase when the the Rebbe said that everybody's an Anmor, everybody's a Rebbe. And a lot of people look at that as like the Rebbe handing off the the power of what it means to now be a Rebbe to you. Yeah. So to your point, I was just thinking of the idea of the fact that the mission is not the Rebbe, like you were describing, and the Dir Patactinim being about you is kind of perfectly encapsulated in that idea that if it's now been passed on to you, your job is to be the dear patactinum. Your job is that was always the case, and that was really all that always the case, but I'm just saying I I hear that point, but I still have to sit with this because I'm not sure if I still even now understand the whole idea of system and game versus mission, but I have to think about it.