Tough it out, it's a long life

Rabbi Schapiro, it appears, is now running scared. Does this mean I'll never hear anything good from him again? I'd certainly hope not, because that would make writing this blog much more of a pain than it already is.
In Siman 95 it says that if you cook an egg in a fleishik pot then you can eat that very same egg with milchik, and vice-versa. The Shach comments that you can even boil a peeled egg and do this, as long as the pot was clean. It appear that I was the only person who asked the obvious question: how the heck do you boil a peeled egg? I asked Rabbi Chaim Schapiro, hero to millions and guy being paid the big bucks to answer these kinds of questions, this very question. He told me that the answer was obvious. You take off the peel but leave the membrane. Now, anyone who is as bored as I sometimes am can attest that this is no easy feat. I told the rabbi that in point of fact this was a very difficult thing to accomplish. He said, "So what? That's what the Halacha is!" About thirty seconds later he added, "You think life is easy? Life is hard!"
Now, this is a beautiful story in and of itself, but it becomes much more important when you consider that it is the most important thing I had to write tonight. Yes, there are a couple stories in the docket, but they're inconsequential as you'll soon see. Tonight's Farbrengen, while quite impressive in its drink allocation, was sorely lacking in bloggable shtuff. Rabbi Melech Zweibel talking in a language I barely understand, though he's perfectly capable of lucid English expression, was hardly the only reason. Most of the farbie was the kind of inspirational thing that either demands attendance to be inspiring or requires a greater writer than I. So I suppose I'll instead elucidate Rabbi Schapiro's answer.

That's life, huh? It's hard. You've got to work. There's no way to avoid it. It's funny, I just realized that I wrote about this very topic last night. I guess it's just one of those things that you can't plug too many times.
Oh, was that all there was to write? I mean, it's such a simple lesson. As the old saying goes, "How do you ruin a liberal's day? Work hard and smile." You've just got to do it. For example, there's this thing called Tanya which all of us here in Lubavitch are expected to learn daily. Now, as everyone who has ever opened up a Tanya can tell you, it's not an easy sefer to learn. Does that mean that you shouldn't learn it? Of course not. It just means you have to learn a little harder.
Rabbi Gancz told a story tonight about an Amshinover Chossid who, when a bochur, learned Tanya. Now, he was a serious guy, and when he saw that every Jew is capable of becoming a beinoni he decided to become a beinoni. So the next morning he wakes up, goes to mikveh, Davens, learns, and manages to stay a beinoni for six hours. Then he slips up. "Fine," he reasons, "it's only the first day. Tomorrow I'll do it properly." So the next day, again he wakes, does everything he has to, but what happens? He's out of it after five hours! The same thing repeats itself until he isn't a beinoni for even a little bit of the day. He realized that being a beinoni is a lot more difficult than it looks, and decided to go to the Amshinover Rebbe for advice and a brocha. The Rebbe heard his problem, put his arms on the bochur's shoulders, and said, "You know, the Tanya was written 200 years ago. You do what you always did until now; these days, it's not really possible to become a beinoni."
We look at this story and think, "Wow, that Rebbe is crazy! He should be stoned!" And that's the right attitude too. What do you mean, the Tanya doesn't apply to us now? It says in the holy books that anyone who learns Tanya is having a yechidus with the Alter Rebbe. Every word applies for all time!
The truth is though, are we really any different? After all, who among us ever tried to be a beinoni? Who even learns Tanya properly? We act as though the Alter Rebbe's words don't apply to us; after all, back in the day, things were much easier. They didn't have facebook or blenders or cars or indoor plumbing. Do we really believe that the Alter Rebbe was taking to us, that what he wrote applies to us as well, or do we just pretend to? Yes, it's very hard work to be a beinoni, in fact it seems to be impossible, but that doesn't excuse us from trying. In fact, that's all G-d really wants anyway. If he had wanted perfect creations, he would've just stuck a bunch of angels down here. But he didn't want perfect creatures, and he didn't get them either. He wanted us to work as hard as we possibly could. The rest is up to him.

Meanwhile, right before Rabbi Schapiro left, he told a story about R' Avraham Maayor. He was supposed to farbreng in his hometown in Russia, but he came two hours late to the Farbie. When he finally arrived the assembled chassidim, or what was left of them, asked him what had kept them waiting? He answered that he was on the way to the farbrengen when he saw a harassed mother, at her wit's end, with a bunch of screaming children, and no father in sight. He knew he was supposed to farbreng, but he decided that he couldn't leave this poor family, so he stayed and helped for a couple hours. All the chassidim were very impressed, and as they expressed this he said in an undertone, "Does it matter that it was my wife and kids?"

This reminds me of the famous story from Rabbi Manis Friedman, who was once asked by a feminist at a speech, "What does your wife do all day?" She was of course expecting to hear some horrible female-confining job or somesuch thing, and her mind was blown when she got her answer, "She runs a home for fourteen unwanted children." The questioner was of course very impressed, and she said so in as many words, and probably more. The Rabbi, who hadn't finished speaking, continued, "Yes, she went around asking if anyone wanted our fourteen kids, and no one did, so she kept them." History has not recorded the profanity-laden tirade which surely followed, though from experience I can assure you of its being quite the entertaining thing.