49. Sitting on the Keys

I think we should not let others wrongs turn us to do wrong, as it is written in Deuteronomy 15:7-11 7 If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: 8 But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth. 9 Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. 10 Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. 11 For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, sayin, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

Rabbi Freeman, there are 3 paragraphs below the one introducing the Rebbe's quote. Are they all Rebbe's saying ? If no, which ones reproduce the Rebbe's saying ? Thanks

As many posts here have pointed already, The Rebbe had his own shortcoming: He did not identify the gaping hole in the Hugh's schizophrenic paranoia. This not a person of which to say : Oh you see Hughes., he made millions but had no soul.". The comparison Hughes is not far off, maybe a gene or two.How many of us would grab for 1,000,000 and let someone else do the praying ? Guess the number.

How can one say something about someone they never met?

In the case of something the Rebbe said the idea is that one should try to understand. This is consistent with what Rabbi Freeman advised in another DD. In my opinion the important thing is that you have the keys to your freedom, so one is responsible for how that liberty is used. Perhaps that is what Rabbi Tzvi Freeman wanted us to realize. Or perhaps I'm missing something. Or maybe I'm mentally retarded and fail to catch the true meaning of all this.

Howard Hughes Was a sad and lonely man who at first played the playboy, even hiring beautiful beautiful telling them he would hire them for acting positions and giving them money just to stay by their phones for calls that in reality never would happen. In his final years he went bug crazy for he hated bugs and bacteria not allowing any to touch him with their hands or else they would be thrown out for their presumptions. The saddest part of the story was the fact all kinds of people cam forward to claiming their millions from his estate claiming they had a will for his entire fortune. very few got anything from his millions of dollar estate. Most of us would desire to be millionaires but have we really thought about the many changes that if you won that would come upon stddenly after willing.

Money and greed is the source of all evil when is the thoughts that counts.

The story is so poignant. Thank you.

To start with Hughes was a driven creative pioneering aviation genius who made multi-millions. Hughes's state of mind as he grew older deteriorated into many phobias, including phobia of germs. Today, most people have a phobia of germs, HIV, or flu, and are concerned with restaurant cleanliness, plastic gloves on servers etc. In Hughes's case the phobias were far more invasive. He was eccentric for sure, but now we use the tamer umbrella terms of personality disorder, bipolar, mixed states, etc. To some Chabad Lubavitch is a cult, and reformed Baal Teshuvahs ("returnees to Judaism") worrisome to family and friends.
My point is that you have chosen to pick on a sick man. The albatross around his neck was mental illness, not money. Today, with all the research and therapies, mental illness is still more art than science, and still stigmatized. In Hughes's day, what help was there? Precious little. You and Warren Buffet should count your blessings.
May G-d continue to bless your mental health/genius to teach us Torah.