Join us each week as we journey across the United States and gather words of Torah from rabbanim representing each of the fifty states. This week we are pleased to feature divrei Torah from Rabbi Berel Levertov of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Next week my wife Devorah Leah and my daughters will be leaving me.
Why are they leaving me?
Well, they are flying to New York to participate in the incredibly, unique Kinus HaShluchos, a special conference for Chabad women leaders from around the world.
The conference is unique because some 2,500 shluchot representing every Jewish community in the world – and then some – plus many more lay leaders and future shluchot converge to inspire each other, to be inspired and to get chizuk before beginning another year of spreading Yiddishkeit around the world.
The ultimate goal, of course, is to encourage and inspire fellow Jews to do yet another mitzvah, and another mitzvah, all culminating in the Geulah Shleima with the coming of Moshiach.
How appropriate that the kinus is being held immediately after Shabbos Parshas Yisro, the parsha of Matan Torah.
The giving of the Torah wasn’t only the transmission of laws and decrees from Hashem to us. Matan Torah is when, as Rashi puts it, Heavens and Heavens of Heavens came down to earth, when Hashem revealed himself “panim el panim, face to face” to forge an intimate connection with His chosen people, and through them the entire world.
When Hashem tells Moshe to ask the Jewish people if they want to accept this special covenant with Him, to follow and live by the Torah and its mitzvot, Hashem says, “Ko somar l’veis Yaakov v’sageid l’vnei Yisrael, so shall you say to the house of Yaakov and relate to the sons of Yisrael.” Why the repetition – what’s the difference between Beis Yaakov and Bnei Yisrael?
Chazal tell us, and Rashi records their pirush, that Beis Yaakov refers to the women and Bnei Yisrael to the men. When it came to giving the Torah, Hashem spoke to the women first and only after to the men.
The Mechilta also states, “Roshei devarim l’nashim omer, tell the women the general ideas of Torah.”
The Lubavitcher Rebbe ob”m explained that “general ideas” refer to the core principles of the Torah that encapsulate all the details. The Jewish women are meant to be the guardians of the core Torah values – similar to the idea that the core of our Jewishness is passed through the mother, while the details, the shevet, passes through the father.
The Rebbe was a trailblazer in bringing out this special character of the women while strictly adhering to halacha and minhag Yisrael.
The Rebbe taught that the feminist movement of the ‘60s was a result of the energy of Moshiach’s time when the feminine qualities will be recognized and appreciated much more. We are experiencing this today as a taste of that time, similar to tasting the Shabbos food on Erev Shabbos.
The 22nd of Shevat is the yahrtzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, the Rebbe’s life-long partner. When she passed away in 5748 I was a teenager and I remember that two things struck me at the time.
First, how modest and secluded the Rebbetzin was; she exemplified “Kol kvudah bas melech pnimah” to the highest degree. As much as her husband the Rebbe was a public figure, she was the exact opposite. She would go to extremes not to be seen or noticed (there was a running joke, that if one saw a car speeding down Eastern Parkway without a driver, one could assume it was the Rebbetzin ducking while passing 770). So while there are thousands of photos of the Rebbe, there are but three or four of the Rebbetzin.