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sh_jwp9e
Excerpts from JW-P9
"After concerts in Biala/Poland 1989'
Transcriber not indicated
Xerox, typescript, minor handwritten corrections, pp8
This is a post-game discussion between R. Shlomo and his closechevre.
There are many fine remarks from the chevre, but in generalexcerpt only R. Shlomo's remarks.                          

Topic: Collective 'inheritied' guilt and (individualized?)forgiveness. {JWP9n1} 
R. Shlomo:  ... You know that yesterday we are going to Maidaniik,and mamash we see with our eyes ... a Jew has no rights, that theworld is silent when Jewish people are killed ... {eo} And a a daylater so many people come to listen to me.  And they didn't comefor me, Shlomo, as the person.  They came because they want tohear what a a Jew has to say.  And it was for the first time, youknow.  Since the Second World war, Jewish pople come here and allthey talk about is about the graves...And they come to the Polishpeople and say to them, 'How could you do this....' Nobody everyspoke to them like, 'You're our brothers, and you're our sisters,and let's make the world better.'  So I have the great privilegeof doing it, which is unbeliveable.
	Because ... the gemorah says, 'ein v'atah elah tshuva', 'Itsays, 'From now on' that means, 'already I want to become better'. And sadly enough, the world always thinks that if you want to dotchuva, you want to get better, you have to dig up the past.{JWP9n2} 
And here's a Torah from the Hidusha haRim.  The Hidusha haRimsays, if you talk so much about mud, you get dirty yourself, ...We have to unmud ourselves.  And the same thing tonight, it was sobeautiful, every heart was open.  And they didn't have to come. And they came.  It was just such a privilege.  Because how do weknow how many great souls are in other countries, right?  In othernations?  Tonight we had the privilege to see this.  Do you knowwhat kind of unbelievable sweet souls are hanging around inPoland, all over the world.  And you know the greatest revelationof G-d is two peole.  People are the greatest revelation of G-d.{JWP9n3}
(Somebody asked a Pole if all the Poles are anti-Semites. {JWP9n4}
R. Shlomo regarded that question as entirely contrary to thepurpose of his visit.)  R. Shlomo: "She's a product of herparents.  So we have to unproduct {JWP9n5}
ourselves.  ... {we must} not only ... be our parents' children,we have to become our parents' parents.  We have to teach them afew things they haven't learned yet."

R. Joshua Witt:  "Some people said to me, 'we wish there were moreJews in Poland again.  We miss the Jews' ... {eo} .. {JWP9n6}
we were singing tonight 'Kah Ribon Olam', songs for Shabbos inBiala whicha was an empire of Chassidus.  Thousands of chassidimsinging Friday night.  It has been so long since those songs havebeen sung in these places ... 

Vi:  " ... so many descendents of the other side of the Holocaust{JWP9n7}
feel a lot of guilt, need to be forgiven ...               

R. Shlomo: ... you are touching on something very deep ....guiltfeelings ... {eo} I'lll tell you an unbelievable Torah from one ofthe Baal Shem Tov's greatest pupils. The gemorah says that deadpeople are full of guilt feealings .. They {the living} are sofull of it {guilt}, but they don't do anything about it ... thoseyoung people who came today, they didn't come because they arefull of guilt.  They don't know how to handle it. ... I was inAustria a few months ago.  Kristlnacht.  A heavy night.  (R.Shlomo tells of receiving a letter from a woman born onKristalnacht... "she says 'How could I be related to people whoare silent' {who did not protest Kristalnacht when it occurred}... I said to her ... 'From now on I'm adopting you .  I'll beyour assistant father, assistant mother, and your brther.  Andyour best friend.  She was crying and she says, 'You give me backmy soul' ... So they don't want to feel less guilty.  They don'twant to say, 'It's forgotten and forget it.' {JWP9n9}

They don't want to froget it.  But somehow they need ... {eo}Sometimes, Reb Nachman says, certain things are so heavy, youcan't carry them.  ... ... {eo} Their parents are bad enough thatthey can carry it.  Obviously.  But those kids, from them it'shard to carry, because they are good kids, right?  So maybe I justgive them a little strength to carry it.  And when they carry it,they'll do something good about it.
	You know there is a Torah from ...the holy Rebbe of Balbroom,right around here, Katowitz.  It must be a few miles (from Biala). He was a big Rebbe.  The Rebbe has two functions.  Sometimes, whenyou come to a big Rebbe, he takes off the whole thing from you,and sometimes the Rebbe has to give you the strength to carry it.
	He says, basically, Yehuda and Binyamin.  Yehuda hascompletely G-d's NAME.  He says, 'I can't do anything, Ribbonoshel Olam, YOU have to do the whole thing.  By Binyamin it says,'Bain kisayfav shah-chain' ("Between hs shoulders, he shalldwell") (Genesis:    ; blessing of Yakov).  So we need sometimessomeone to sya, 'don't worry about it.  G-d will fix it.' Sometimes we need someone's strong shoulders ... those few minutesof the concert {apparently there was some sort of unpleasantincident during the concert} have nothing to do with guiltfeelings.  It was just like ... {eo} and they didn't like usbecause they feel guilty about their parents ... {eo}
	You know whawt Reb Nachman says?  Doing something wrong isbad, to feel guilty is evil.  Because when you feel guilty, you'redead ... They don't know how to handle it, so we help them alittle bit to handle it.  'Cause if they kn w there is one Jewthat loves them, it's already ... maybe twenty Jews loving them.

Mimi Feigelson:  "... A couple of years ago there was this guytaht was trying to court me... I kept on, by chance bumping intohim...one evening, I went to a lecture, and there he was again. At the end of the lecture, he shtooops me me a note.  He says,'There is no such thing as chance.'  In Hebrew, 'mikreh'.  Becausethe letters of 'mikreh' are 'Rak Mei HaShem', -- only from G-d.... ' ... tonight I'm feeling very old.  And I guess on the otherhand, I'm feeling very young.  Very old, because what weexperienced today {the group went to one of the Holocaust sites}was beyond words.  And I think that, in my heart, when I came toPoland, I didn't think there was room for forgiveness, under anycircustances.  And maybe that's why I feel old, because I takethat on my shoulders.  And yet after tonight {R. Shlomo's concert}I feel young in a way, because a child feels he has his whole lifeahead of him, and there's always room for new things, and there'salways room for new dreams.  And I think that at the conerttonight we opened gates for forgivenss.  Not foretting, butforgivenesss.  And in that sense, wwe opened gates for dreams, fornew worlds, for a beatufiul world.

R. Shlomo to Yachad Witt:  We thank you for every inch of yourpayis.  Someone told him already that his payis are too long. They are definitely not too long.  If someobdy tells you that yourpayis are too long, just tell them that the place where you go,you don't need long payis.  Where I 
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{'one of the Witt kids', as I once identified Tik'i', thatis, Tikatevu} 
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go, I need long payis.
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{R. Shlomo is not here precisely speaking of Mahane Yehuda. But on the other hand, he is. -- sa, 5/30/94.  With deepestrespects and apprecation to the entire Witt family. }
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