Questions That We Asked at a Farbrengen in Jerusalem

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives.

This past summer I was in Eretz Yisrael. I stayed in Geula - Geula is a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem. I was there about six weeks. I davened every day in a shul that's called the Shtiblach - now, this has a name, there are minyanim twenty-four hours a day. Hundreds and hundreds of people are in the shul. They start with the netz minyan, and then there are - I don't know how many minyanim - until the end. I mean, twenty-four hours a day, hundreds of Yidden - Sefardim, Ashkenazim, all types, Chassidish, Chabad - people go there.

On Shabbos too, the atmosphere is wonderful, all over, and everyone is there, all together - whatever nusach a person wants, there's a minyan for him, whatever nusach he is - this is how it was. Basically, they were all united. You know, they say the Baal Shem Tov always said you have to say the opposite - because you're a Yid, so you say the opposite - but here people manage; the main point is to see that everybody is together and united, whatever it is.

Being there a few weeks, I davened together with all these people and I got to know them, and I can tell you, their love for the Rebbe is unbelievable. I never believed it could reach this level, and I was shocked to see so many different things. They showed me dollars from the Rebbe that they got - live dollars - many people have them, and they asked me about the Rebbe; they were very interested in the Rebbe.

There's one person, by the way, who told me - I think he said he was a good chossid [?] - he said that when he was a bochur he used to go to the Kever [?]. He was once standing there, and he saw two Arabs behind him. He didn't turn around, but he started to say Tehillim, standing there for ten minutes, and all of a sudden they left. So he came home and told his mother, and his mother said, "I'm not letting you go to the Kever anymore, it's dangerous - but the only way I'll let you go is if the Rebbe tells you that you can go. That's the only way I won't be afraid, otherwise..." So - just to give you an example - the answer given to them was that he should write to the Rebbe, ask him, and a few other things, and the next day he came to me and showed me - I have a copy here - the letter [the Rebbe] wrote to him about this. It's just one small example of how you never know how much people are touched by this.

So, having said all this, I think if we would be interested in emphasizing to these people the way we do to other Yidden, Moshiach would come already - push it. We see their love for the Rebbe and we see this, but, you know, nobody goes there - not everything is set up, you have to do the outreach, which is important, of course, but also to them. And also, you know, once I heard - they say "Yisrael af al pi she'chata Yisrael hu" - these people are also Yidden, and I think Moshiach would come if we learn with them, see this, talk about the Rebbe - we can make the whole world [different] - I can say I saw it.

So one day the people got together - this was in the summer - and they said, "Let's make a farbrengen." These were people from the city, from the shul, mamish - so we made a farbrengen. Many people came, and here I want to mention some of the questions these people had, that they wanted to know, and what we discussed.

First of all, they asked about Moshiach - why is the Rebbe [connected to this] - and they wanted to know about the Moshiach campaign - what does that mean, what did the Rebbe want? This is what they asked. Also, about Medinas Yisroel - does the Rebbe feel like [others] did or not - it was a question. And why does the Rebbe stand all day and give out dollars - what is the meaning behind standing all day, doesn't he get tired? And also, why doesn't the Rebbe wear a streimel - and another question. And more questions - what happened when he came to America, ten years before, he was here with the [Leviton? / Frierdiker Rebbe's household, unclear] - what happened then. So we went into all this.

It was a beautiful farbrengen. So let me tell you, on the program, what we discussed.

First of all, about Moshiach - I'll tell you what I mentioned to them, and I think everyone mentions this also. I think it was the Kapishnitzer Rebbe [?] - he was once sitting with the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz, and a misnagid was there, and a chossid. The chossid said that the Rebbe is Moshiach, and the misnagid got up and got very upset about this. So the Kapishnitzer Rebbe [?] got up and said to them, "Let me ask you something - of course not, you know, all I'm saying - of course not - but one thing we know: whatever his name is, the whole world knows he is surely not Moshiach, right? What do you care if he's Moshiach? If there is a person who did so much in this world - so much - the Rebbe - is that candidate, that person, in the world today, in the whole world, in our generation, probably more [qualified] than anybody - if you want to say, if anybody, that's number one.

"Number two - Moshiach is being forgotten. We're waiting over two thousand years. People say, yes, we all believe, of course, we end off a speech with 'Moshiach, Rebbe' - but is it real? The Rebbe made Moshiach real. Moshiach is in the entire world. This is what the Rebbe wanted to accomplish - this is what we spoke about, I think this is what it is."

The other thing that bothered them, that was discussed, was: what does it mean that the Rebbe [continues] the Previous Rebbe - why is it, what does it mean, something like that, why is it so? We discussed that, and I saw it in Rabbi Mindel's notes, that the Rebbe wore three crowns - the crown of nesius for the entire Jewish world, and the nesius of the world - of course, everything has to go through the Rebbe.

Also, the people there are interested in the Rebbe - I don't know when people are interested in other [Admorim] as much, in what they're doing or whatever - they're very devoted. And it's besides people that are not frum - I mean, you can see, I wouldn't have to tell you - even the taxi drivers, not religious, right away you say the word "Rebbe," he knows who we're talking about. They all wanted to know what the Rebbe says, and whatever the Rebbe says goes - was it like this by the [other] Admorim or not? Because if the Rebbe says something, people feel relaxed, they feel that this is the right way - whether it comes to health or to other things.

About the dollars - we discussed: the Rebbe stands all day - does he get tired? He gets tired. So what do we say? Sometimes five, six hours - he wasn't a young person. So I told them that I once heard a story: a little girl was carrying her brother on her shoulders, and it was a hot day, and a very dusty road, and she was very tired carrying him - heavy, heavy. So somebody came up and said, "Little girl, you have a heavy load, why don't you put him down?" So the little girl said, "My friend, this is not a heavy load - this is my brother." The same thing here - the Rebbe stands all day, and I think the Rebbe once mentioned: when you count diamonds, you don't get tired - every Yid is a diamond. Which Rebbe has this, that every year he considers each one a diamond - should he get tired from this? This is what we discussed.

Then, at the farbrengen, I mentioned that the Rebbe once said: whoever is makpid about [unclear] for 50 years, and whoever speaks about Medinas Yisroel - the Rebbe was, I think, a bigger kanai than the Satmar [?] as far as this goes. I never heard "fifty years" said at a farbrengen, and I was there - I don't think I ever heard the Rebbe mention the word "Medina." I didn't hear it, at least I didn't hear it, because he didn't want to give a reason to argue - probably a million times "Medina" was never mentioned, because, by the Rebbe, [the political state] doesn't even exist as a concept. Eretz Yisrael - the Torah speaks about it, that's its role, that's why we have to help it - but that has nothing to do with the Medina. The Rebbe never mentioned the word "Medina." So in that sense, the Rebbe was probably more of a kanai than the Satmar as far as this role is concerned - it's not about the Medina, but every bit of the land is important, every Yid is important, you have to save every one.

I remember this story: a Rabbi [Vietnam? - name unclear] went in to the Rebbe, and it was the first time, by the Previous Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz, and he saw the Rebbe Rayatz crying. So he asked, "Why are you crying?" So the Rebbe said, "Moshiach was born today" - but it was [said] with difficulty, like a stillbirth. And according to him, this meant Tisha B'Av [?]. So we see here that this is not the same thing as the Medina - that the land, the holiness of the land, is important, but it's not about the word "Medina." This was mentioned at the farbrengen, which went on for many hours.

So I said, we can see from the Rebbe - at a farbrengen, he speaks, he gives out dollars - the Rebbe is given brachos the whole time, and he says, "What can you give me a bracha for, I am nothing" - that's number one. So even in that respect, he didn't consider himself [anything]. Once, I told them, before a big farbrengen, some bochurim from [unclear] came; they were standing in the back, and, you know, it was Shabbos, so they still wore the big Shabbos clothes, the chassidishe Shabbos clothes, but they had taken off their streimels for Shabbos - they struggled with it, because, since they go through [unclear], they thought the Rebbe wouldn't mind, so they took off the streimel. But the Rebbe saw them from far and motioned to them - in other words, "Where is your streimel?" They were shocked that the Rebbe noticed. Then later on, because one of their daughters got married, they came to give mazel tov to the Rebbe, and they asked him why he had motioned about the streimel, and the Rebbe mentioned, with a smile, [unclear] - in other words, why didn't you wear it on Shabbos. So we see that, even though the Rebbe himself doesn't wear a streimel, the Rebbe cares - since it's Shabbos, the chassidishe way.

This was a discussion right there at the farbrengen. But I'm running out of time - next week I'll continue; I don't have time today for the other things we spoke about - about when the Rebbe came to America, in 1941, what he did that whole year.

And I can tell you that of the thousands and thousands of Yidden there, they would want to see this - and this is something that was shared with [unclear], that there is no objection even to visit, because they love the Rebbe and they love to see this - but you have to get to them. And the Rebbe mentioned that when we want to go and connect with somebody and we don't succeed, it's not their fault - it's our fault, because we don't know how to relate to them. So this is very important.

There's one more thing I want to finish with - one question they were wondering about, that bothered them, about tznius [?] and about [unclear], which we didn't get to today, but maybe in the near future we'll talk about it.

Next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.