Room one hundred and eighty-five in the hall of Hayom Yom.
Monday, 26 Iyar, 41 of the Omer, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Bamidbar, Sheni, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, Chapter 119; on this day we conclude the second half of the chapter, from the letter Mem until the conclusion of the chapter with the words "lo shachachti".
Tanya, we continue here Chapter 51. The daily shiur is on page 72, from the word "vehahavdel" until the word "lehachayotam".
The daily teaching comes to explain the mitzvah of reproof from a chassidic perspective. I will give the background: the source of the teaching is in a letter of the Rebbe Rayatz from 1 Kislev 5693. A Jew who lived in Canada sent the Rebbe Rayatz a clipping from a newspaper, in which they published a letter that the Rebbe Rayatz sent to the newspaper. The Rebbe Rayatz noticed that they had added something, apparently in the headline, and told him: these are not the words I wrote, and I had much distress from this addition.
What did they add? In the headline they added, in Yiddish, an expression along the lines of "for the Jewish newspaper in frozen Canada" - cold Canada. The Rebbe Rayatz says: I did not add these sentences, and you are attributing them to me; thereby you attribute a nickname to the Jews of Canada - "the frozen Jews", "frozen Canada". The matter was not to the liking of the Rebbe Rayatz, and he explains to him at length that when reproving a person individually one must be careful in this (and as we will see shortly), and concludes that when it comes to a public reproof one certainly must be careful; and to reprove an entire country and a large collective of people, that its deficiency is a deficiency of coldness - the Rebbe Rayatz certainly did not like this.
Now, what is the point related to individual reproof? The verse in Parashat Kedoshim (chapter 19, verse 17) is a complete verse comprising three parts, and in the teaching the Rebbe Rayatz explains its three precise parts in their order. The verse states: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, you shall surely rebuke your fellow and you shall not bear a sin because of him".
Here the Rebbe explains in the teaching that all parts of the verse are precise: there is an introduction here, there is the mitzvah here, and there is the conclusion here that you must take for yourself from the matter. Let us read the wording. "Before the command 'you shall surely rebuke your fellow'", which is the center of the verse, what is written before it? "It is written 'you shall not hate your brother in your heart'". First of all, before "you shall surely rebuke", you are told "you shall not hate your brother in your heart".
What is the meaning of this? "For this is a precondition to rebuke". Before you rebuke someone, you must be in absolute certainty that you hold nothing personal against him - that you love him, are fond of him and hold him dear, etc. For if there is personal anger in you or a feeling of offense or any personal issue, you have no right at all to rebuke him, since it is possible that the matter stems from a personal reality within you, and you are only "dressing up" in a mitzvah or conduct in order to rebuke him about it. Therefore, first of all you must be sure of "you shall not hate your brother" - a precondition to rebuke. And if you are sure that "you shall not hate your brother", you can approach "you shall surely rebuke your fellow".
And what is the conclusion? After "you shall surely rebuke your fellow" "and after this it is written 'and you shall not bear a sin because of him'". What is "and you shall not bear a sin because of him"? "That if the rebuke was ineffective" - if you rebuked him, after you knew with absolute certainty that you hold nothing personal against him, and you see that he does not budge and the matter has no effect at all - "certainly you are to blame"; take the blame upon yourself, "you shall not bear a sin because of him". Do not say that he is not okay, rather take the blame upon yourself. Why? Because words that come from the heart enter the heart and have their effect [as is written in Sefer Hayashar by Rabbeinu Tam] if so, if the words did not succeed to affect him, the problem is within you - "that they were not words coming from the heart". That is to say, if the result did not come, apparently the matter was not done properly.
It turns out that the verse begins with rebuking yourself and concludes with rebuking yourself, and in the middle - "you shall surely rebuke your fellow" - how careful one must be. And all this is regarding individual reproof.
And when it comes to public reproof, to an entire country, the Rebbe Rayatz writes that from his experience, traveling around the world, he saw that the public and the collective are comprised of many types of people and many feelings; and on the contrary, the collective heart of the Jewish people is awake, warm and good. Therefore, to make such a general statement about a large collective of Jews, as if they are in such a state - "I had great distress from the way they wrote this".
We also know from all kinds of sichos of the Rebbe over the years, that the Rebbe very much disliked, to say the least, when others speak negatively about other Jews. When there were those who spoke of some public with a negative expression, he would speak about it with great severity, that it is forbidden to speak about Jews in such a manner; Jews are the children of the Holy One, Blessed be He, and to speak about the collective in such a manner is completely inappropriate, and it is forbidden to approach with this attitude. And in essence, the foundation of the matter is in this attitude found in the daily teaching.