How Not to Miss Out on Shnas Hakvutzah | Rabbi Chaim Avraviya #013

00:00 Speaker 1 Right now, hundreds of bochurim from across the country are packing their bags and heading off for their year of kvutza. To talk about it, to understand how kvutza began, and to discuss the year itself—its challenges and the strengths it gives each of us for life—I invited the mashpia Rabbi Chaim Abarbaya, an educator at the Chassidic Technological Institute, for a fascinating conversation. A very meaningful episode, full of insights. I highly recommend it. I’m Meir Vishnefski, and you’re listening to On Chabad Education. Rabbi Chaim Abarbaya, welcome.

00:27 Speaker 2 Glad to be here.

00:28 Speaker 1 Thank you so much for joining us.

00:30 Speaker 2 Thank you for inviting me.

00:31 Speaker 1 I want to start by talking about kvutza. Right around now, on 15 Elul, hundreds of bochurim from yeshivos all over the country are getting ready, leaving home, and going to spend an entire year with the Rebbe. I’d like to talk a little about that year. It’s a very interesting year that encompasses a lot. So let’s talk about it a bit. I think we should start with where kvutza began. What is kvutza? What does the term mean?

00:55 Speaker 2 First of all, l’chaim.

00:56 Speaker 1 L’chaim, and welcome. I don’t have anything here to say l’chaim over, but l’chaim.

00:59 Speaker 2 May it be an outstanding success. Podcast or no podcast, I think this is a farbrengen about kvutza. Because when it comes to kvutza, it’s not really something you can talk about as though it were confined to a period of time, or simply analyze exactly how it works and what the rules are. Of course there’s a way to do things, and we’ll talk about that. But the whole subject of kvutza stirs in every one of us—both before going, and certainly afterward—a very special feeling of connection to the Rebbe. You can’t measure that by a fixed period of time or give it some label. So I call this a farbrengen. And when we farbreng about kvutza, we can’t help remembering that it’s really a gift from Above that we received. How did it begin? It began on 15 Shvat, with a certain group of bochurim. In those years, [unclear], there were letters and travel connections, but nothing on the scale we have today, or even the scale that developed in later years.

02:07 Speaker 1 In other words, chassidim here in Israel could live their whole lives without ever traveling to the Rebbe.

02:10 Speaker 2 People did travel [unclear], and there was a charter flight they arranged. That was on 15 Shvat—when was it? Yes, there was a large charter flight, and it was something special. But not in those numbers, and not for long periods. Later there were also problems with the army, and some people went for several years. They traveled when they were young, before they were required to enlist, and stayed there for a few years. But it wasn’t in this form of a kvutza. On 15 Shvat, bochurim—it was the first year they went—wrote to the Rebbe and asked to travel. The Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, agreed and gave his approval. There were conditions: they had to sit and learn, and one of the conditions, as I recall, was that afterward they had to return to Israel to bring the atmosphere of Lubavitch there. That’s one of the most powerful things. And that’s where it began. From then on, it happened every year. At first it was from Pesach to Pesach, and afterward from Tishrei to Tishrei. You can see that the Rebbe shlita himself looked after it. Even when there were various details, including technical ones—like when they had a problem with tickets for the return trip—the Rebbe spoke about it and made sure it was sorted out. He took responsibility for making it happen. The Rebbe even asked the yeshiva administration to pay the—there was something there that really showed him taking responsibility. Another episode about this, though I don’t remember whether it was on that trip or with one of the other groups: to save money, they wanted to travel part of the way by ship, with a stop along the way. The journey would have taken two or three weeks. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, said they couldn’t put the bochurim through such a long journey to get here, so they should pay more if necessary and get them here as quickly as possible.

03:46 Speaker 1 To get to know them.

03:46 Speaker 2 Yes. So you can see the Rebbe’s attitude. First of all, this extraordinary year that the Rebbe gives the Temimim is an extraordinary gift.

03:56 Speaker 1 When you look at a year like that—I remember it from our time—it’s a whole year away from home. How do you prepare for something like that? There are practical things: registering, getting a visa. But how do bochurim prepare for that year, and how do the yeshivos prepare them today?

04:13 Speaker 2 In my opinion, the first thing we have to remember is what I started with earlier. Forgive me for not answering the question directly, but if you ask about preparation, I could say: you prepare, you learn, you daven. But the greatest preparation is understanding what this whole concept means. We’ve received a gift from the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach: the opportunity to spend an entire year with him. First, a bochur has to take that in. He has to realize, “Wait a minute, my going isn’t something to take for granted. It isn’t at all obvious that such a thing exists.” Think of a chossid from an earlier generation—even from the years after the Rebbe accepted the nesius but before kvutza began. If we told him, “Listen, did you know such a thing exists?” he would look with envy at a bochur who spends an entire year in 770 today and takes it for granted. He would say, “We had nothing like that at all.” That realization is the greatest preparation. Because it’s an entire year, and I’m sure we’ll expand on that later. There was a problem—actually, not just as an aside, a real problem—with exit permits and so on. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, wrote a letter to Shazar explaining why it had to be a full year, specifically a full year, rather than a few months followed by a return home. It’s very interesting to read those letters. The Rebbe writes that during this year, they can see at every moment what happens in 770, what happens with the Rebbe. Then, when they return to Israel, when they return to their lives, they’ll know at every moment what their lives are about—what real life looks like. When a bochur takes that in, he says, “Now I understand what I need to prepare for. I

05:49 Speaker 2 need to prepare for this year inwardly, in a fundamental way. For an entire year, as I eat, sleep, and live, everything around me reminds me: wait, I’m connected. I’m truly connected to where I need to be.” So preparation means occupying yourself with the right things and not letting other things interfere. Because if the whole purpose of kvutza is to connect with the Rebbe himself, to come out of that year changed—and you can actually see it: bochurim travel to the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, and come back completely different. You can see it on their faces, you can see it in their— So the first part of preparing is understanding: “I’ve been given a year as a gift, and I need to make use of it.” That understanding already leads you to make use of it. You’ve been given this special gift of being with the Rebbe for a whole year, and you have to make the most of it. The preparation then follows naturally from that understanding. Sometimes a bochur thinks, “I have three years of yeshiva ketana, three years of yeshiva gedola, and then kvutza is the next part of the framework I have to go through.” So, okay, what do I need to do? Bring blankets? Bring pillows? I remember that before our kvutza, there wasn’t WhatsApp or anything like that, but there was an email chain [unclear]. Someone asked what a bochur needed to arrange before traveling for kvutza. A bochur two years ahead of us, who was in 770 at the time, wrote back that we should bring blankets, because it would be hard until we found some, or something like that. I caught myself thinking, “Blankets? Pillows? Why is that what matters? We’re going to the Rebbe!” I wasn’t expecting him to write me some profound maamar, but when you talk about preparation in the simple sense, you can certainly ask: “What do I need to prepare for? I need to do this, I need to

07:15 Speaker 2 do that. I need to go get the affidavit, get the paperwork for the consulate, get the approval, go there...” And with Hashem’s help, any moment now the Rebbe shlita will be revealed, and we won’t need all those permits and all those things. But when we talk about a bochur preparing in the deeper sense, first he has to understand what he’s preparing for. I’m preparing for direct contact with the Rebbe for an entire year. I don’t have to imagine what it would be like for me to be in 770. I’m simply there, in 770. So that’s the—

07:45 Speaker 1 Through the whole cycle of the year. That means what a farbrengen on 10 Tishrei looks like, and what happens there on Purim and Pesach.

07:50 Speaker 2 And every davening is with the Rebbe. So, although right now we don’t see the Rebbe with our physical eyes, we know what the Rebbe says in his sichos: that he is here in a body, that the Rebbe lives in a physical body. We don’t see him, and that’s hard for a bochur, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about that. But when a bochur knows, with faith, anticipation and confidence, “I’m going to be with the Rebbe, really”—this isn’t something I’m doing in memory of people who used to do it, so to speak, or just because it’s what people do—then the preparation becomes much more real to him. He learns a maamar or a sicha so that he’ll be more prepared and worthy. He’s preparing himself to be worthy of a meeting with the king. He’s preparing himself for a whole year in which every moment... When they learn the sichos, both the one from 11 Nissan 5741 and the one from Shvat 5752, they see that the Rebbe speaks about knowing that the Rebbe, the king, is there with him in the room. So a bochur—even if we’re here in our own country, or wherever else in the world—you have to picture it. When you’re there, it’s true that you have to picture the Rebbe because you don’t see him with your physical eyes. But you see that it’s all alive. You’re there, inside the situation. You’re there for davening; you show up where you need to be; you’re present. You come to an awareness of the Rebbe on Shabbos, and then it burns within you. Then it’s no longer that kind of preparation: “Okay, what do I need to do? How do I prepare for yeshiva gedolah or yeshiva ketanah?” It’s entirely different. All the preparations, even the basic, simple things I can do, take on added weight.

09:21 Speaker 3 Because of that. Now, in the end, there’s this concept that’s become established: a whole year, a complete year. Does that concept come from the Rebbe, or something like that? Because the arrangement is that they travel on the fifteenth, 15 Elul, and return on 7 Cheshvan, right? 7 Cheshvan in Israel. That’s the kvutza.

09:42 Speaker 2 Okay, so at first, as we said, it really was from Pesach to Pesach, and after that it became from Tishrei to Tishrei.

09:47 Speaker 3 A year.

09:48 Speaker 2 Yes. If I’m not mistaken, that’s the concept of a complete year. I think it came from the Rebbe, that they come for a year. I don’t know whether the exact words were “a complete year”; I don’t remember. But yes, coming for a whole year—that’s something the Rebbe addresses. He speaks about them coming and staying for a whole year. Whether he uses the words “a complete year,” I don’t know.

10:06 Speaker 3 Yes.

10:06 Speaker 2 There are very strong statements from the Rebbe about it in both directions. In 5730 there were problems with the affidavits. They didn’t give everyone an affidavit. There were some complications particular to that time. Not everyone received one, and the Rebbe spoke very sharply about it—that, in short, people were busy with all kinds of other matters. They claimed they couldn’t get blankets or various other things needed to bring more bochurim, and the Rebbe said that even Moshe Dayan—yes, the Rebbe said that even the chief of staff... Was he the chief of staff?

10:50 Speaker 3 The defense minister.

10:51 Speaker 2 The defense minister. So even he gave permission for the bochurim to leave, and over here they still hadn’t given permission. The Rebbe banged on the table. That’s what I heard: the Rebbe banged on the table, saying that over here they still hadn’t given approvals, but over there they had. If Moshe Dayan gave permission... The Rebbe spoke about it very sharply. How could permission not be given from here for the bochurim to come? That’s also an answer to those who claim that nowadays there’s no need for a kvutza, or that the kvutza shouldn’t be for a whole year. If it’s such a great gift, and the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach encouraged it and pushed for it time and again, then how can you say it isn’t suitable for every bochur? The Rebbe said that if Moshe Dayan gave permission, permission should be given here too, and it should be given to everyone. And everyone was given permission, though at first they said they wouldn’t give it to everyone. Of course, they came. The Rebbe also spoke about how those who came here needed to be immersed in Torah study, [unclear]. In short, the Rebbe spoke to them very strongly about learning, too. There was a bochur who wasn’t learning—the grandfather of one of our students. I don’t know whether to mention his name; he tells the story himself. He wasn’t learning, or he was in yechidus and said he couldn’t learn, or something along those lines. And he received an answer from the Rebbe that he should go to a kibbutz, go away—as if to say he had no reason to be here. He was deeply shocked, and afterward he said...

12:09 Speaker 3 He was in the kvutza and wasn’t learning.

12:11 Speaker 2 He wasn’t learning. I believe he went into yechidus, and the Rebbe asked him about it. He said that learning was hard for him, or something was lacking in his learning. He didn’t expect that response. But if you come in saying, “I can’t learn,” or “It’s hard for me to learn,” then the Rebbe really did tell him to go to a kibbutz—to travel there and volunteer, to do something with himself. In short, if you’re not sitting and learning... At first he was in shock. He went to his mashpia, and the mashpia told him, “You don’t come in saying you can’t learn. That means you can also say that you can learn. So decide that you’re going to learn.” He wrote to the Rebbe, and he stayed. But the other side matters too. Just as everyone needs to travel—and there’s no such thing as a bochur who shouldn’t; we’ll get to that in a moment and bring it down more to the realities of life, because right now we’re speaking in broad terms—yes, everyone needs to travel. At the same time, a bochur who travels has to understand that he’s going to become part of the king’s entourage. He’s going to connect with the Rebbe; he’s going to be part of it. And he becomes part of it when he sits and learns Torah. He sits and learns, learns a niggun, learns Chassidus, and [unclear]. It remains as it was when you were in Tomchei Temimim; that hasn’t changed. On the contrary, now we’re in Tomchei Temimim all the more so. We’re in a Tomchei Temimim yeshiva with the Nasi Hador. That demands much more of us and carries much more responsibility.

13:25 Speaker 3 I actually wanted to ask you about that. Bochurim often call you for advice, and you stay in touch with them while they’re there. In recent years they’ve even flown you out quite a bit. You’re at the institute, and then I see you going away for a week to be with the guys in San Salmanta[?]. So I wanted to ask what’s going on with the guys. Let’s take the idea you’ve described and apply it to the bochurim on the ground. They face challenges. They’re young men of twenty-something—twenty-one, twenty-two—but they’re very far from home, hundreds of kilometers away. A bochur is used to the framework of a yeshiva, with a mashgiach and everything else there. Over there, there are far more people, and it’s much easier to disappear into the crowd. What challenges do bochurim bring up during kvutza? If we want to know what’s actually happening there on the ground, what is it?

14:17 Speaker 2 Yes, I remember that one Tishrei, when I was a bochur, I was a counselor at the Machane Moshiach day camp. Bochurim would come—and this doesn’t exist anymore—and children would come from Eretz Yisroel to San Clemente [?], and they needed someone to look after them. I remember... Then suddenly it was shiur beis and [unclear], something like that—shiur alef, shiur beis. And you find yourself with... Usually, when you come for Tishrei as a bochur, you spend the whole of Tishrei immersed in everything: farbrengens, davening, all of it. You’re in another world. But when we were working with the children at Machane Moshiach, we slept in some school down there [unclear]. They gave us a gym to sleep in. Suddenly I saw children with schoolbags going to school and coming back from school. Or you go outside and suddenly see it, and you say, “There’s a whole world going on here.” When you travel to the Rebbe for Tishrei, sometimes you go almost an entire month without money in your pocket. You only need to buy something before going back to Eretz Yisroel. I mean, you’re in another world. Sometimes you’re up all night, then you get up in the morning and there’s another full day, and you travel around, maybe urging people on—but that isn’t the center of it. The world is... Suddenly you see: wow, there are people traveling, walking around. You come to... You see homes and families in the neighborhood. During Tishrei you suddenly realize that people are talking about bringing home a newsletter. Huh? Wow, life is going on here. What I’m saying is that, on the one hand, there’s this tremendous G-dliness in traveling to the Rebbe. A bochur who knows he’s going to the Rebbe puts aside everything; his whole sense of self is nullified, completely focused on that purpose—yes, on being part of it.

15:55 Speaker 3 Becoming part of the body.

15:56 Speaker 2 Of the King’s body [?]. But suddenly you discover that there’s a reality to deal with. In other words, suddenly I have difficulties, and challenges come up. They can be social difficulties, or genuine difficulties adjusting. Now, as the generations go by, I think bochurim are much more... On the one hand, we see and believe and are certain—and know in actual practice—that this is the generation of the revelation. The Rebbe gives us all the strength for it, and the Rebbe demands it of every one of us. And if this is the generation of the bochurim now on kvutza... Rabbi Orenstein, a"h, I remember, farbrenged with us. He once said—I don’t remember if it was in [unclear] [?]—that the Rebbe delivered a sicha and said, “With Moshiach Tzidkeinu at our head, and the students of kvutza at theirs.” Yes, and when I heard that, I was so excited. Because today you look and say, well, the kvutza has a lot of difficulties, and a lot of things we can go into, as much as you like. But then I say, wow: “The students of kvutza at their head.” The Rebbe’s words are alive and enduring forever. “The students of kvutza at their head”—it makes no difference whether it’s a bochur with difficulties or a bochur... In other words, even if we say the generation is weaker, and there are smartphones and whatever else, they are the kvutza. They are at the forefront; they are our face. They are the Temimim. They are the ones the Rebbe is choosing now to be at [unclear] [?].

17:12 Speaker 4 They’ll be at the head.

17:13 Speaker 2 They’ll be at the head. They’re the ones who are now going to receive the revelation. This is the kvutza of the revelation. The kvutza of 5787—that’s the kvutza of the revelation. The bochurim of 5786 are there now; 5787 is just beginning. This is exactly the transition between 5786 and 5787, and there’s a competition over who, who, who will receive it. But this is it; it’s now. I bring this up because often, when we talk about the difficulties, the truth is that as the generations go by, there are many more difficulties. Yes, on the one hand things are much more organized, and on the other hand there’s much more room to complain—much more time to complain. So as time goes on, you hear a bit more about difficulties. You hear about the social side of things. In the past, when a bochur went to [unclear] [?], of course the social atmosphere was good. You can see it in the authentic journals the guys sent from [unclear] [?] to Eretz Yisroel: “Today we sat with friends and talked about this and that.” You see the friendships. Of course, even in the ways of Chassidus, chassidim sitting together with Ahavas Yisroel is part of everything. But all right, if someone had difficulty with friends, he knew, “I have a purpose here.” Friends mattered too. Today, a great deal of the kvutza experience—if you don’t remember the purpose, if you don’t truly become aware of it and prepare for it... You asked what one should prepare for: the social side really has a very, very strong influence. A bochur can call me in the middle of the year and say, “Listen, I think it’s hard for me here, and I think I might want to go on a trip—or, even worse, go back to Eretz Yisroel.”

18:26 Speaker 4 To finish.

18:27 Speaker 2 To finish kvutza. “I was here until Pesach; I want to finish.” I ask him, “Why?” “Because, listen, I think I’ve gotten everything I can out of it.” And when I talk with him more deeply, he says, “Listen, I also don’t have many friends. It isn’t quite the same group of friends I had in yeshiva. They’ve found a different place and different company, and the social circle has changed.” And that creates a difficulty. What’s the answer to that? We can talk about that too. But there are other difficulties as well. Yes, sometimes it’s also difficulty adjusting to being far from home. In recent years, as time goes on, I hear that more and more. In the past, even when I was a bochur, we didn’t hear it—I didn’t hear it much. A bochur saying, “It’s hard for me to be away from home.” As time goes on, baruch Hashem, it shows that bochurim are connected to their homes. That’s a good thing too, yes, but...

19:03 Speaker 4 You hear it more.

19:04 Speaker 2 I hear more bochurim saying, “It’s hard for me.” A bochur finishing the year says, “I want to go on shlichus to [unclear] [?], but it’s important to me to go through Eretz Yisroel first, because I miss my parents. It was hard for me, and I carried that with me all year.” It’s natural to miss your parents. I’m certainly not saying otherwise; don’t understand me that way. And it’s good that bochurim know how to say what’s hard for them and what isn’t. But that, too, is a difficulty they carry. It was always there, and they certainly know how to express it better now. So that’s one difficulty, and often there’s also a difficulty with material needs. Not all parents have the money to send their son enough just to live there, even week to week. I remember Rabbi David Nachshon farbrenged with us and said that, in his time, it cost a bochur five or seven dollars a week to live while he was at [unclear] [?], and [unclear] [?]. I don’t know—seven dollars in those years. Today, I don’t know. A bochur needs tens of dollars a week, even for the bare minimum—mikveh and other things he needs. Not all parents can send hundreds of dollars every month. Kvutza itself also costs a fortune. With Hashem’s help...

20:01 Speaker 4 That will be sorted out.

20:01 Speaker 2 That will be sorted out. So a bochur also wants to buy things and meet his material needs. For that he sometimes needs to work a little, so he’ll have a few shekels in his pocket. And here we probably come to the next question.

20:14 Speaker 4 About working.

20:15 Speaker 2 About working. What about working during kvutza—should they or shouldn’t they?

20:18 Speaker 4 Because suddenly a bochur... I think it depends on each person, but generally, independence suddenly takes on two aspects there. Some bochurim have managed their own finances until then. But many bochurim came to yeshiva, sat and learned, and their parents paid for them. Suddenly they have to start...

20:37 Speaker 2 Right, and that’s a very powerful point on the spiritual side, and surely on the practical side too. A bochur’s independence is something we—yes, we meet every day, we work together, very closely, full disclosure—and one of the things we keep talking about is that a bochur can often go through his whole life, even as a Chassidishe bochur, without stopping for a second and saying, “Wait, what am I doing with my life?” I don’t mean taking this into some psychological place, or into pointless analysis that’s just philosophy. I mean it in a real, fundamental way. There’s the story of the Rebbe Maharash, who told a Yid to think about himself for fifteen minutes every day, right? He had told him to undertake five hundred fasts. The Yid was alarmed, so the Rebbe Maharash said it didn’t have to be five hundred fasts; he could think about himself for fifteen minutes every day instead. What? A chossid should think about himself? But thinking about myself means asking: Where am I? Before whom do I stand? Where do I want to go? What does the Rebbe mean to me at all? What does it mean that I’m a chossid in the seventh generation? What does it mean that I’m a bochur in Tomchei Temimim, that the Rebbe chose me? What is the Rebbe’s greatness as our Nasi? All those lofty, beautiful words, rooted in holy concepts—what do they mean to me? And as the generations go on, perhaps on the one hand bochurim need more tools to do this, okay? On the other hand, this independence means that suddenly a bochur in yeshivah ketanah starts wondering, “Wait, what’s going on here?” Now, there’s a negative side to that—

22:28 Speaker 2 —where a bochur can suddenly say, “Well, I’m not fulfilling my potential, and this and that, and I want independence,” and many bochurim make decisions on their own. That’s the negative side. But the essence of it is that a bochur actually dares to do some work on himself, to go through some kind of process, some kind of tour [?]. You could call it meeting himself, but really it’s meeting the Hakadosh Boruch Hu within him, right? His G-dly soul. And with guidance and tools—not just meeting his G-dly soul by going off alone into the woods and singing niggunim, but really understanding, “Wait, what am I doing here? I have a shlichus in this world. Hakadosh Boruch Hu didn’t put my soul here for no reason, and specifically in this yeshivah. I have a purpose here. I have a part to play in bringing about the revelation, in bringing Moshiach.” I’m here for that. So naturally he’s much more committed, much more... And then, when they arrive for the year of kvutzah, independence isn’t just independence in the sense of, “Wow, I’m on my own; I can do whatever I want,” because there’s also less supervision, as you said. Though today, it should be noted, the internet has come in, and there’s even more supervision—but still.

23:24 Speaker 4 I understand that since my year of kvutzah, that’s changed tremendously.

23:26 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s changed a lot. But of course, you still can’t keep track of everyone, and a bochur is still much freer than he was. He really does go out into independence, and that’s something we need to make use of. I mean, this independence is positive. And that’s why he needs to prepare for it. I know that in the yeshivah gedolah in Tzfas they do—

23:45 Speaker 4 What do they do there?

23:46 Speaker 2 Yes, they hold a number of workshops and bring up all kinds of topics: friendships, how a chossid should conduct himself during kvutzah, smartphones during kvutzah—all kinds of things they aren’t afraid to put on the table. They provide very good guidance. They sit together and talk things through. I’m very, very pleased with it.

24:00 Speaker 4 Staff and students together.

24:01 Speaker 2 Staff and students together.

24:02 Speaker 4 Wow.

24:02 Speaker 2 They talk about these things. It gives them tools. The bochurim prepare seriously for it. I remember when it started a few years ago, some bochurim asked me, “Why do we need workshops? We can manage.” I told them that in the past, if you wanted to tell someone to treat a friend better, you’d sit with him at a farbrengen and tell him, “Treat him better,” and he would listen. Today, in our generation, it’s hard for us to accept the truth straight, so they give it to us in the form of workshops. But yes, that’s how you need to prepare. Do it as a workshop, do it as a farbrengen, do it however you like, but you do need to prepare. For what? For that independence, when a bochur suddenly arrives and realizes he’s on his own, and there’s no one over him—yes, only the Rebbe himself. But there isn’t a mashgiach over him. He isn’t under the kind of discipline he had in yeshivah, where someone sees what he’s doing all the time. And suddenly, in that vacuum—though, as they used to say where we were, there’s never really a vacuum—in that space that opens up, he has to ask himself, “Wait, what am I doing here?” And if he takes that question and turns it into action and a much deeper connection, then we’ve gained something from that independence. Then the independence is positive. This is also where financial independence comes in, as you said. Often a bochur arrives for kvutzah and finds himself in a situation he’s never been in before. In yeshivah he had food provided and other things. There are bochurim who were so sheltered they’d never even seen what a coin looks like. They didn’t go out to work, even—

25:28 Speaker 2 —during vacations. They went to camp and so on. And even bochurim who did work and want to come for the year suddenly find themselves with this kind of independence—financially too. “I have to take care of myself. I have to figure things out.” And this is a call to anyone who has money and can help the Temimim: of course, support them. Now the question comes up, as you asked, about this independence: what happens? “I’m here and I need money. I want to work.” Is the answer across the board that you shouldn’t work? Is it that absolute?

25:55 Speaker 4 I’m sure that’s a question you get a lot.

25:57 Speaker 2 Yes, it comes up all the time—whether to work, whether to shorten the stay, all kinds of questions like that. And you say, “Come on, surely kvutzah is meant to be a full year.” I’ll give another example: traveling to weddings.

26:07 Speaker 4 Family weddings.

26:08 Speaker 2 Traveling to family weddings. “I want to travel to a family wedding.” The Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, always said not to travel, and everyone knows you’re meant to stay for the entire year of kvutzah. That’s what you should do. In sichos from earlier years, too, the point was that one shouldn’t travel overseas, because “the Torah has concern for the money of the Jewish people.” Later, in an unedited sicha from Parshas Terumah of 5751—the Terumah sicha is from 5752, though—the Rebbe spoke about how today there are many more options than there used to be, and you can travel by plane much more easily, and so on. Much more than before. You spoke with Chababo [?] about this, about what the Rebbe says regarding wealth and so on, the Rebbe’s directive in Terumah to live as a wealthy person [?]. So that’s there too. When I asked my mashpia about bochurim who ask to travel to a wedding, he told me that from the Rebbe’s words in the later years, it’s understood that for those who need to go, it’s easier financially now to travel. So things have shifted somewhat in that regard. Now, if you ask me about my personal feeling when a bochur comes to me: there are bochurim who say, “I have to go to Israel for the wedding,” and you know that if they don’t go, the consequences for their lives will be truly disastrous. So go and come back. Do what you need to do, and come back.

27:25 Speaker 4 That’s on a case-by-case basis.

27:26 Speaker 2 Yes, of course. Write to the Rebbe. But there are bochurim who need... Last week a bochur called me. He’s married now, baruch Hashem. He said, “Listen, I owe you this.” We talked about the year at 770; we talked about life. He’s already out in the world. You don’t stop accompanying them when that year ends. Then we talked about it because one of his brothers is about to go for his year at 770, or something like that. He told me, “You should know, you saved my year.” I asked him why. He said, “When I asked you about the wedding...” It was clear to me that I wouldn’t go, or—I don’t know. His family was putting a lot of pressure on him. We had so many conversations about it, talked for hours and hours about whether to go or not. In the end I told him, “Write to the Rebbe,” of course. But ultimately, the point was that I thought he should go. He went for just about two days and came back, so as not to miss out, and that’s what happened. Now I have to qualify that and say that a bochur needs to know he’s going for a full year, and his family back in Eretz Yisroel needs to know that he isn’t coming back for a wedding. Why? Because, in truth, that’s how things stand. You see it in a letter the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, wrote to Shazar: every single day of that year is a day when you can see the Nasi Hador—see how a Jew conducts himself. So I missed two days of the year. That’s the G-dly idea behind it. But I remember someone farbrenged with us before we went. Actually, not right before we went—even in our first year, at [unclear], we were at a young married man’s home. We went to a farbrengen, and he said, “You know, I remember one year when a bochur came in on 17

28:55 Speaker 2 Teves.” I remember your birthday too. I remember that—it was a date. It was around Cheshvan or Kislev, in our first or second year in yeshiva gedolah, and we went to his home for dinner and a small farbrengen. He began telling us about a day when a bochur came into the apartment and shouted, “17 Teves!” They asked him, “What’s so special about Teves?” And he said, “Do you realize what 17 Teves means during the year at 770?” I always remembered that story about 17 Teves. When 17 Teves came during my year there, I remember bringing it up at the table during Nigleh. I was excited; I said, “It’s 17 Teves—the date he spoke about has arrived.” And I remember what he told us then. He said every day of that year matters. A day in that year is a day for a lifetime. Whether it’s 7 Elul or 8 Elul, whatever the date is, the way you spend it stays with you your whole life. And that can be for the good. It’s tremendous, because every day I made use of there, every day I saw what was going on... I remember that in the middle of the year, a bochur had to travel to Eretz Yisroel for various reasons. He came back after two or three weeks, maybe a month—I don’t remember. I met him about a month after he’d left. I said to him—his name was Mendy—I remember we were walking up Kingston. I said, “People say that when you get to Eretz Yisroel after your year at 770, or even after some time there, it has an effect on you. Did you notice what going to Eretz Yisroel did for you?” It was toward the end of the year, around Sivan or Tammuz, so he’d already spent most of it there. He had to go; it doesn’t matter why. I don’t even remember all the details. But the point

30:23 Speaker 2 is that he needed to go, and he was a very chassidisher bochur. There was a very good reason for it, and everyone accepted that. Anyway, he came back. He said to me, “Listen, while I was in Eretz Yisroel, I noticed a difference in the haftaros there and here.” That was what struck him. If you ask me, different things strike different people. The haftaros—fine. But I remember the way he said it: “Yes, I noticed the difference in Eretz Yisroel.” I got excited too. I said, “Ah, so it really is true what they say: when they get to Eretz Yisroel, they see the difference.” It affects you that much. It’s a way of life, and it stays with you for life.

31:00 Speaker 5 Do you actually see bochurim you accompany—or just bochurim you happen to see at [unclear]—and notice that this year changes something in them?

31:10 Speaker 2 Without a doubt. A chossid’s whole life can be for the sake of standing before the Rebbe for a few seconds, with complete bittul, and being there. Think of all those stories of chassidim: a chossid prepares for yechidus for years, and then spends just a few seconds in yechidus—a few minutes. Yes, in yechidus with the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe tells him one sentence: “Observe and remember were spoken in one utterance.” And then he lives with that sentence for years. What is all a chossid’s preparation for yechidus for? For those few brief moments alone in yechidus? It’s that eternal connection: I and G-dliness, I and the Rebbe, are one. From today on, I belong to Lubavitch; Tomchei Temimim is part of me forever. That’s it. My ego, the world—the whole world—no longer takes up space for me. If a bochur spent an entire year at 770 for those few moments when he engraves that into his soul and commits himself with all he has, when he is completely there, then the whole trip was worth it. That’s the first point. Second, of course you see a change. The Rebbe brings up a well-known teaching in his sichos: if a man betroths a woman “on condition that I am completely righteous,” she is betrothed, because perhaps he contemplated teshuvah in his heart, right? So in our generation, everyone has done teshuvah. I apply that to the bochurim spending the year at 770. You can look and say, “Come on, the bochurim are wasting their nights and doing this and that.” I say you mustn’t speak that way about bochurim. What do I mean? To say, “Nowadays there’s no need to send bochurim for the year, because they...” Whatever it is—you mustn’t say that. But yes, you should reach out to the bochurim, farbreng with them, shake them up, and tell them, “You’re here, so make use of the time. We’re looking to you. We—

32:49 Speaker 2 we—you are our eyes. The Jewish people are looking to you.” So of course. Yes, each generation is different, and the yeshiva administration has to reach them, and so on. But I want to talk about the change itself. A bochur comes for the year, and even if he didn’t make full use of every part of it, he had those moments when he... I’ll even give this example: saying Shema at night near the Rebbe’s room, regularly. Okay, or he didn’t miss a single Nigleh seder from beginning to end, though he struggled in other areas. He learned diligently and thoroughly. His Torah study was on a completely different level. He had moments when he said, “This is it. These are the moments when I’m here for real—only G-dliness, nothing else.” Every bochur surely did teshuvah during that year. Every one of them surely had a few moments when he said, “What am I doing here?” Those are the moments that make a chossid. They make the whole thing worthwhile. Now, I always have to hold both ends of the rope. You have to be careful, because when you say something like that, someone might say, “Fine, then,” and throw off the yoke.

33:44 Speaker 6 Then it gives a lot of people license to do that.

33:45 Speaker 2 So that makes it permissible. Of course, you have to be careful. You don’t do it alone; you have a mashpia—and that’s a podcast in its own right. I know, it’s a whole farbrengen in itself. When a bochur in the kevutza has a mashpia, that independence is guided in the right direction. When a bochur has a mashpia, even the financial problems and other things get resolved on their own. Now, as soon as I say “on their own,” I know what my next phone call will be: “Listen, I’ve been in the kevutza for two months, and my financial problems haven’t resolved themselves.” No, I don’t mean everything simply resolves itself. I mean that in a conversation with a mashpia, you suddenly realize: “Wait, I owe money, I owe [unclear]...” You sit down with the mashpia, with someone who, as the Rebbe says, helps you see things so you aren’t too close to yourself. And he says, “Yes, but wait. You said this and that, because you arrived for the kevutza with this amount of money, and then there was...” Suddenly he reflects things back to you, and you realize, “Oh, right, I don’t actually need that much.” Someone helps you put things in order. Now, you could say that’s technical: someone on the outside tells you something. No. It’s far more than technical. It’s something G-dly, a special spiritual gift. With the kevutza, the Rebbe gave us the gift of a mashpia—the ability not to be independent all alone. A bochur who was in the kevutza in 5728 [?] wrote to the Rebbe that he would learn at night and sleep during the day. He wrote that this was “the path that ascends to Beis El,” and the Rebbe wrote that it was a path that descends downward, not one that ascends.

35:01 Speaker 6 It doesn’t raise you up.

35:02 Speaker 2 So I can come to the kevutza with all its holiness, or go to the other extreme and say, “Listen, the main thing is that I get three seconds with the Rebbe during the year, and I’ve made use of my time.” So clearly, you have to—

35:09 Speaker 6 Hold on to both sides of this.

35:11 Speaker 2 That’s why you need to accept this idea.

35:12 Speaker 6 That’s really where the mashpia comes in. If you had something to say to the students in the kevutza, or to the mashpi’im who accompany the bochurim going to the kevutza, what would you tell them?

35:24 Speaker 2 There’s a well-known story about Reb Chanoch Hendel Kugel, the first mashpia in Tomchei Temimim. If you ever do a podcast about chassidim, he’s certainly someone worth discussing. He was a Jew who cried; he had such warm chassidishe feeling. He cried when he saw another Jew’s house burn down, and they say that this contributed to his passing later on. When his own house burned down, he said, “Hashem gave, and Hashem took away.” But when someone else’s house burned down, he said, “A Jew’s home has burned down,” and took it very hard. He always said Tehillim with tears. He was a truly earnest Jew. It’s no wonder he was a mashpia in Tomchei Temimim. He would always say, “If only I had a little piece of a Jewish heart.” He had all sorts of sayings like that, reflecting the avodah of a deeply inward Jew. Once, when bochurim were going into yechidus, he told them, “Temimim, don’t tell the Rebbe what you want. Tell the Rebbe what you don’t want.” And when it comes to speaking to a mashpia in the kevutza, there can be a chassidishe bochur who fulfills every assignment and does everything he’s supposed to do, genuinely one hundred percent.

36:25 Speaker 6 You can call me with a report and tell the mashpia, “I’m doing everything.”

36:27 Speaker 2 Yes. And ask his mashpia, too: there’s nothing you can catch him doing wrong. He even speaks with his mashpia. Once a month he calls him and talks for a few minutes. “I’m doing well in Nigleh, I’m doing well in Chassidus,” or not even that—“I have no problems. I don’t need anything. Everything’s fine.” Unfortunately, there’s quite a lot of embarrassment around this subject. Bochurim are often embarrassed too. As we said, we need to do a separate podcast on it, bring several perspectives, and open up the subject, because it’s a topic that—

36:55 Speaker 6 What topic—the mashpia?

36:56 Speaker 2 The topic of the mashpia. On the one hand, a bochur often has a mashpia in Eretz Hakodesh, and when he travels to the kevutza, the connection often isn’t as strong.

37:04 Speaker 6 Yes.

37:04 Speaker 2 It depends on how much it’s maintained day to day. It depends on the person, on his patience and his reliability. Yes, what I told you on 9 Nissan—I remember the exact day. The point is that there’s this distance. And often, a relationship with a mashpia requires me to bring my real self to it if I truly want a change in how I conduct myself.

37:26 Speaker 6 Yes, because when you’re in yeshiva, you meet face to face.

37:28 Speaker 2 And even if I’m not doing one hundred percent, the mashpia sees it. He can point out things I’m not doing right, or things he thinks I need to improve.

37:34 Speaker 6 There, it’s really—

37:35 Speaker 2 Suddenly you realize, “Wait, I have to make an effort for this.” Now, first of all, if I do it by rote and call my mashpia just to check a box, I won’t actually bring up the things that need improvement. That’s what I mean about going to the Rebbe too: tell him what you don’t want, not what you want. Bring your real self. Bring those things that make you say, “Wow...” We come to the Beis Hamikdash, to 770, to be an offering to Hashem. So, as the Rebbe says in the Yud Shvat maamar Basi Legani, what is the avodah of korbanos for us? To check that the offering is whole, to know our own condition, to examine each person’s shortcomings—

38:09 Speaker 6 Bring your real self to the conversation with your mashpia.

38:11 Speaker 2 With the mashpia, yes, but first of all when going to the Rebbe. The conversation with the mashpia—when you’re with the Rebbe in 770—calls for that even more. Where I stand before my mashpia is preparation for where I stand before the Rebbe. That’s the first point. So I’m calling on the students: don’t be afraid to keep your mashpi’im busy. And I’m calling on the mashpi’im to be available to the bochurim, not just in terms of time, but truly to be there for them. I also want to give tremendous credit to both the bochurim and the mashpi’im. The mashpi’im really go above and beyond. I’m part of various consultations and groups of mashpi’im who are constantly asking, “What do we do in this case? What do we do in that case?” They genuinely want to help all the time. Temimim, there isn’t a Jew you could approach and ask to be your rav who would tell you no. He might be embarrassed, but he wouldn’t say no. And I say again to the mashpi’im: you mustn’t refuse. Each person has to see what he can give, but you mustn’t refuse a request like that. It takes so much for a bochur to get to the kevutza, approach someone, and want to make a change. That’s true in every yeshiva, but certainly in the kevutza, when he realizes, “I’m not doing okay; I need to get myself in order.” You mustn’t refuse, even if you won’t remain his mashpia afterward. I know mashpi’im in 770 who tell bochurim, “I’m your mashpia for the kevutza. After the kevutza, find another mashpia.”

39:20 Speaker 6 Someone on the staff of the yeshiva there.

39:21 Speaker 2 Yes, find someone there to be your “aseh lecha rav,” someone who will accompany you and take an interest in you.

39:25 Speaker 6 That’s very powerful.

39:26 Speaker 2 Some people distinguish between “aseh lecha rav” and a mashpia. There’s value in that distinction; it’s a whole subject in itself.

39:31 Speaker 6 Yes.

39:31 Speaker 2 But for “aseh lecha rav,” choose someone there who will be available to you. It can also work without changing mashpi’im. I know many bochurim I’ve been in touch with during the kevutza who kept their mashpia, and it really worked as it should. The bochur had reached a place where he said, “I want this. I know it’s part of my life.” There’s more that could be said about it, but when it works properly, the bochur knows he can say what he feels. He can come to his mashpia and say, “Listen, I want to visit Eretz Yisroel now,” without being afraid of the response. I remember once talking with a bochur about the year after the kevutza. He told me he had plans to do something he wanted to do. I said, “Why don’t you do it?” He said, “What are you saying? I was sure a mashpia had to tell me no!” He was certain a mashpia was the kind of person who had to tell him what the books say—just say it to him instead of his reading it in a book. I told him, “No. From what you’re telling me, and from an answer you received from the Rebbe on this matter, I think this is what you should do.”

40:28 Speaker 6 And your answer surprised him.

40:29 Speaker 2 It did surprise him. And continuing from that—let’s get back to the question of avodah. A mashpia needs to—

40:34 Speaker 6 To get to know the person.

40:35 Speaker 2 To get to know the person. And I want to be clear: I’m not calling for all the bochurim to go out and work. Quite the opposite. A bochur needs to learn with diligence and perseverance. The instructions of the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, remain in force forever, and he needs to learn with diligence and perseverance. At the same time, a mashpia needs to know what’s going on with the bochur. That brings us both to work and to another issue: what a bochur may be going through emotionally during kevutza. A bochur can often be socially isolated. He may even have people around him and still feel lonely inside. We’ve seen cases of loneliness where we were sure a bochur was very chassidish, or very sociable—I don’t know; it has nothing to do with his level of Chassidus—and in the end it turned out that he had been alone and lonely.

41:16 Speaker 6 And that feeling that, inside, he’s alone.

41:18 Speaker 2 Lonely. I remember being very startled when, two or three years after kevutza, I traveled to a certain tziyun and a bochur sat down with me and said, “Listen, that was a hard year—the hardest year I’ve ever had.”

41:29 Speaker 6 He said that about kevutza?

41:30 Speaker 2 About kevutza. I was startled, because I’d never heard that it could be a hard year. How? And even more than that, I thought, “How dare he say that? You’re ruining the whole idea!” Of course I didn’t say that to him, but it was hard for me to hear. Still, I asked him about it, and it turned out to be a social issue that had weighed on him very heavily. I tried to resolve it, and his last two months really were completely different. He told me, “Listen, that changed everything for me.” In the end, it was something between him and a friend who had hurt him. They’d been very good friends in yeshiva, and afterward they worked it out. Boruch Hashem, the matter was resolved.

42:00 Speaker 6 So you’re saying to be attentive to where the bochur is emotionally.

42:02 Speaker 2 Yes. What does that mean?

42:02 Speaker 6 Attentive to where he is emotionally.

42:03 Speaker 2 A bochur comes and says, “Listen, I need money. I need a job. I don’t have any.” And you know that his family really doesn’t have money. You know that even in yeshiva gedolah he supported himself; he worked to get by. Again, I’m giving a somewhat extreme example, but—

42:15 Speaker 6 Yes.

42:15 Speaker 2 So know this, dear mashpia: if you tell him, “Listen, you can work two hours a week, or three hours a week”—whatever limit you set—he’ll stick to it. And when he knows he can ask you and hear what you have to say, he can accept it, too. He really wants to submit himself to the whole undertaking. Give him the right tools, and kevutza could be the best year of his life, a year he truly makes the most of. But if he doesn’t dare ask you or even bring it up, if he doesn’t dare talk about it because he sees himself as a sinner, then every time he goes to work he feels he’s spoiled his entire kevutza. That’s another point we need to—

42:48 Speaker 6 “I don’t belong in kevutza if I work, because I’m not supposed to be a bochur who works.”

42:52 Speaker 2 Once he discusses it and the mashpia tells him, “Listen, I understand that you need the money,” there really is room for that. I’ll tell you personally: I’ve had the opportunity to guide a few bochurim, and there are bochurim I tell, “Forget work, forget everything. Put it out of your mind. Strengthen yourself in the knowledge that you’re giving yourself to the Rebbe, and that’s that.” And you see miracles and wonders. Whenever a bochur decides he isn’t going to work at all—miracles and wonders. And that’s how it should be. The true, settled reality is: I’m going to kevutza. I’m leaving everything behind. I’ll tell you a story that could stir anyone who hears it to teshuvah. It shows how the words of the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, remain in force. A few years ago, there was a bochur who didn’t get a visa. He even agreed that I could tell the story using his name, but I won’t. The story moved me and made me think more deeply about this whole matter. His whole class got visas. He was a bochur who kept the learning schedule; relatively speaking, he was doing fine. I say “relatively” because there’s always more one can make of the time. Most of his friends got visas, but he didn’t, and he didn’t know what to do. A week went by, then several more weeks. The flight was getting very close, and he still didn’t have a visa. They tried using contacts; his family tried calling the yeshiva administration there, and all sorts of other things, but nothing worked. He came to me. In yeshiva he had kept to the rule of not having his own smartphone; we’d spoken about that in connection with kevutza. He’d bought himself a smartphone to have, and he put it down beside him as we spoke. This wasn’t many years ago.

44:20 Speaker 6 He’d finished yeshiva, and now he was coming to you for kevutza with a smartphone.

44:23 Speaker 2 He was a fairly decent bochur. Not bad—not the most chassidish bochur in the world, but fine. A very genuine, very honest bochur. He put the phone down and sat with me, and I thought, what can I tell a bochur like this? Why hadn’t he gotten a visa? As far as I could tell, he’d done what he could. He said, “I made every effort.” The yeshiva administration also said he was fine; the yeshiva had told them he was fine, yet he hadn’t received one. I don’t know why. I said to him, “Tell me, are you ready to make an agreement with the Rebbe? Are you ready to devote yourself to kevutza for an entire year and see that the Rebbe will bring about salvations? Are you ready or not?” Who was I to say that with such confidence? But I had no other answer. I told myself, this bochur has to go to kevutza. If I’d been thinking, “Maybe not everyone needs to go to kevutza,” we would have lost everything that followed. I told him, “Write to the Rebbe now, and leave the phone here. You need to decide that you’re leaving the phone in Eretz Yisroel. You’re making a clean break—a bill of divorce—from worldly matters, and you’re traveling to the Rebbe.” He wrote a letter to the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, and placed it in the Igros Kodesh. The answer was amazing—an amazing answer for a Jew who wanted to make a change. That very evening he received his visa, I believe. He managed to fly to the Rebbe with his kevutza.

45:26 Speaker 6 Without the smartphone.

45:27 Speaker 2 And all year he was without a smartphone, and he didn’t work. Well, he did work occasionally, when he really needed money, doing very small jobs. But he completed several masechtos during kevutza, and he learned nigleh and Chassidus. It really was a year of Torah study—that’s what he called it. And the most surprising thing was that he called me around Kislev and said, “Listen, I’ve used up my reserves. I need money. Everything I brought is gone, and my parents have sent money. I don’t feel comfortable asking them.” I think he wanted to buy a watch; I don’t remember exactly. He said, “On the one hand, I don’t know what to do. I want to buy basic things I need.” I told him, “Listen, you have an agreement with the Rebbe. Write to the Rebbe that you’re renewing the agreement, or that you’re keeping to it.” Every time, something astonishing happened. Once, before Pesach, he needed money. Prices go up from year to year—matzos, wine, all the things a bochur needs. It came to two or three hundred dollars, I don’t know. He needed a little clothing, too, and he didn’t have the money. So again I told him, “Write. Renew the contract; refresh the agreement.” He reaffirmed the agreement and his commitment. He had no smartphone throughout kevutza. He told me, “A day or two after I wrote to the Rebbe that I needed money, I’d borrowed some from someone. Then I got back to my room and found three or four hundred dollars in a pocket”—some pocket, perhaps while cleaning for Pesach; I don’t know. He said, “That was the best year I’ve ever had, materially and spiritually.” There’s that story about chassidim making an agreement within themselves—[unclear]. Yes, the inner agreement is that when a bochur comes to kevutza, we make—

46:47 Speaker 2 An agreement here, yes. To hear about the agreement and to make an agreement. An inner agreement: I’m making a clean break, a bill of divorce, from worldly matters, and this year I’m truly spending an entire year with the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach. That’s the outlook. And then how do we resolve social problems? I have a mashpia I can consult. I can also talk with my friends, because we’re all in the same boat. I slowly learn to talk; I slowly learn to do that. And the strongest thing about the friendships in kevutza is the farbrengens.

47:19 Speaker 6 Yes, I actually wanted to ask: if guys who are just starting their year on kvutza are listening to us now, what would you want to tell them? We spoke to the mashpi’im. What about the students themselves?

47:28 Speaker 2 So, first of all, the message is for the students themselves.

47:30 Speaker 6 Yes, of course.

47:31 Speaker 2 And second, I’d want to say that, on the one hand, it’s not—

47:37 Speaker 6 They’re starting right now, on Sunday.

47:38 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. The main thing for the guys in kvutza 5787 is the farbrengen. I didn’t get a chance to farbreng with them for this podcast. We tried a few times, but it didn’t work out. So this will be for them. You can say a lot of slogans about holding on to the Rebbe’s ways, about being his, and about pledging body and blood to his kingship, as we said. But these aren’t slogans. These are words of truth, words that—

48:04 Speaker 6 They can remain just a slogan.

48:05 Speaker 2 Exactly, they can remain just a slogan. And my appeal to the students on kvutza is to look at the inner meaning and essence of these things in actual practice, in real, practical work. I mean, I can spend a whole year contemplating how kvutza is something G-dly and still get up at two in the afternoon. A bochur needs to know what he’s coming for. The main point of kvutza is, yes, to be a chossid, and yes, to pledge yourself body and soul. All of that is true. But ultimately, the point is the revelation. Ultimately, we want the Rebbe shlita, Moshiach, to be revealed before our physical eyes and come redeem us with an everlasting Geulah. When I travel for kvutza, I go with the understanding that my time there, my learning, and my desire to see the revelation—that is my kvutza. This is a year in which I’m going to be with the Rebbe in the most literal sense, in the Beis Hamikdash. And that will keep these things from remaining just a metaphor. It will make them more than just an idea. I’m really going to do something practical to belong to the Rebbe, so that every aspect of my conduct will be different.

49:00 Speaker 6 To make a commitment deep within myself.

49:01 Speaker 2 To make a commitment deep within myself that I’m really going to belong to the Rebbe, to be the Rebbe’s. There’s a letter in which the Rebbe writes to someone about growing a beard when his family objects. The Rebbe says there comes a time when you have to burn the bridges. In other words, there’s a bridge; you cross it, and then you burn it. There’s no way back. When you travel to the Rebbe, you have to burn the bridge. There is no worldly life; there is no connection to worldly concerns. Yes, there are occasional lapses. Yes, I got up late. Yes, whatever else. That’s true. But I belong to the Rebbe, and that shows in every moment. Now you’ll ask me, “Okay, what does that have to do with the schedule?” It has to do with it all the time. It shows particularly in the schedule, because in ordinary life, if I get up late in yeshiva, then I got up late. But on kvutza, I get up for the Rebbe, I sleep for the Rebbe, I eat for the Rebbe. I’m not just moving between the blocks of the schedule and the dormitory. Yes, things may be a little different from what they are now, but I’m in that same G-dly place. I’m not traveling home. I have a whole year. I wake up; I slept, I don’t know—maybe I even got up at two in the afternoon. I get up and, okay, now I’m at the mikveh. I always tell the bochurim: jump on the next train, at the next station. The next opportunity is right here. There’s Mincha with the Rebbe, so hurry and get ready now. By Mincha with the Rebbe, I’ll already be ready. I’ll stand there, ready to greet the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach. I’ll stand in the right way, as prepared as I can be. And the most important thing, really, really, really, is one word: to be honest, to be sincere.

50:22 Speaker 2 To be honest with myself and know how to do teshuvah. To know how to stop from time to time and say, “You know, I’m not sufficiently aware of what this means.” Not to sit there saying, “Yes, we’re on kvutza, we’re on kvutza.” It’s very nice to applaud ourselves. The question is how much I’ve done to make it part of me and to bring about the Rebbe’s revelation. The Frierdiker Rebbe writes that a day without working with another person is a bad day, a dark day—something like that. Very startling words. Every day, when I say Krias Shema near the Rebbe’s room or near the bimah, or wherever each person feels is right, I should recognize that I’m closing out that day with the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach. There was a bochur who served as a shliach in our yeshiva, and every day he read a letter from the Rebbe near the Rebbe’s room. He told me, “I didn’t miss a day of my entire kvutza.” He read 365 letters from the Rebbe, one each day. Think about it: he had a letter every day. He told me, “I experienced wonderful revelations.” And there’s something else to remember: we’re talking about lofty experiences and wonderful things, but the days on kvutza are ordinary days, too. Sometimes it’s just a regular day. I get up in the morning, learn, and daven. Whenever people ask for tips before kvutza, it’s like talking about seasoning before the food itself: keep to this, do that, do that. There are lots of good tools: keeping a set time, having a good chavrusa, learning Chassidus in the morning with someone who’ll wake you up and take it seriously, and so on. But in the end, the foundation is the ordinary routine. I put it this way: look ten years ahead—surely we’ll already be in the Geulah, and so on. But ten years from now, you’ll be at home, going about your ordinary life, and there, in that ordinary life, I—

51:44 Speaker 2 need this. I’m sitting on the couch reading something, I don’t know, reading a book. Do I remember that right now I’m the Rebbe’s chossid? Do I remember it in my ordinary life, when I come to real life? Let me put it more simply. On the ordinary days of kvutza, when there are no revelations, no special farbrengen, nothing out of the ordinary, you can reveal your very essence in the most G-dly and wonderful way, just by sitting—

52:11 Speaker 6 Not Tishrei, nothing special, no shluchim—

52:13 Speaker 2 Nothing. I’m sitting there in the middle of, I don’t know, Teves, or the middle of Adar—not Iyar, Sivan, or Tammuz—a time when even 770 is practically empty. “He and His kingship alone.” I’m sitting and learning Gemara, “the Torah of Hashem is perfect,” and I know that by doing this I’m fulfilling the holy will of the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach. By doing this, I’m doing what I need to do and fulfilling the purpose for which my soul descended into this world. That is where I bring all that intensity, all those ideals. Of course the farbrengens matter, and of course the other things do too. But it’s in the simple things of everyday life that I bring in G-dliness. That gives me strength for my whole life, so that when I’m sitting ten years from now reading some ordinary book and suddenly find myself saying a few words of Tehillim, I’ll stop and say, “You know, right here is where I need to make a dwelling place—”

52:57 Speaker 6 In life, in life, in life.

52:57 Speaker 2 For the Shechinah, yes, a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

53:00 Speaker 6 And what about the parents? Some parents are sending a son for the first time.

53:03 Speaker 2 And the parents?

53:04 Speaker 6 Yes. What’s their place in all this? These guys are twenty years old. Let’s remember, they’re adults already. What’s the parents’ place?

53:10 Speaker 2 That’s also something to remember. You really, really have to remember it. I think parents today are doing a wonderful job with this, and they deserve a lot of credit. I’ve had a few opportunities to speak with bochurim’s parents behind the scenes, and you can see how much they want to help. So on the one hand, I’ll put it a little bluntly: bochurim don’t like being nagged. On the other hand, I remember this, and I’ll never forget it. During kvutza, I would call home from time to time, like any bochur. And once my father sent me a letter while I was on kvutza. He wrote me a letter. I remember what it said.

53:41 Speaker 6 A letter in the mail.

53:42 Speaker 2 A letter—a handwritten letter that he sent.

53:44 Speaker 6 That’s rare today. It wasn’t even WhatsApp.

53:46 Speaker 2 There was no WhatsApp then, but he sent me a handwritten letter with someone, along with a few dollars. I remember what it said: that Rabbi Lishansky[?] had seen what things were like when they left for kevutzah. And, “My dear son...” All right, it was a letter from a father to his son—but it was handwritten. I remember how uplifted I felt afterward. I was excited. And I remember that when we were bochurim in Israel, we would get letters from 770. So even a WhatsApp message can lift someone up today. A message saying, “We’re thinking of you here in 770”—you have no idea what that can mean. So the first thing is for parents to tell their children from time to time, “Listen, you’re our representatives there. How wonderful to know you’re in 770.” Don’t always go straight into what he learned or didn’t learn. The very fact that he’s in 770! I remember when I got the affidavit approval and we went to make the payment. I had just come back from camp. You know how it is at camp—you’re in a completely different world. I was the activities director, and there was all the commotion of closing up and packing away the whole site. Then suddenly you land back in ordinary life. My father was waiting for me by the car in Kfar Chabad. He got out and started dancing with me. He said, “We’re going now to take care of the affidavit payment. You know, my whole life I dreamed that—” I enjoyed that so much. Now, I don’t know how much contact I had with home during the rest of the year, or how often I spoke to my father on the phone. Every so often, I suppose, like any bochur. It wasn’t that I had

55:09 Speaker 2 any particular problems, but I remember those moments: wow, it means everything to my parents that I’m here in 770. That’s something. So when a parent calls his son happily and says, “Listen, how wonderful! What’s happening in 770? What’s new?”—even if the bochur just gives him an ordinary update. I remember learning a particularly good maamar and calling a bochur in Israel to share it with him. It was an experience for me. In fact, I’ll put it more strongly: bochurim in 770 call me, and sometimes a bochur calls just to tell me his problems. Fine. We talk for an hour, an hour and a half. If only there were time for everyone. Then, as we’re finishing, he says, “Listen, you’ve just heard all my troubles.” I tell him, “You told me your troubles, but I heard a bochur in 770, on kevutzah. We’ll deal with your troubles; it’ll be all right, it’ll pass. But do you realize that you’re giving life to someone here in Israel?” So first of all, the bochurim themselves need to know the power they have simply by being in 770. They call and say, “Yes, I’m here in 770. Let me tell you about the yechidus, and let me tell you what’s happening here, and here are pictures from 770.” True, today the world has become more connected. But parents need that communication, and they also need to know that sometimes their children need money. Even if you don’t have money to send, tell them how wonderful it is. I remember that during kevutzah there was a bochur who had no proper shoes. His mother called him

56:26 Speaker 2 because she had seen in pictures online that his shoes were torn. She told him, “Listen, I don’t have money to send you right now. I’ll ask someone—I haven’t managed to send anything yet. But there’s a bochurim’s fund. Go to them; they’ll help you.” There is a bochurim’s fund that helps bochurim. She said, “I had a fairly large sum, a few thousand dollars, and I lent it all to the bochurim’s fund. They’re distributing hats and suits now; they needed the money.” I don’t know exactly what was going on there at the time. It’s a special story, but what impressed me was that his mother noticed and told him to take care of getting shoes. She noticed. There’s that well-known story about a mother who calls her son at a young yeshivah. She asks, “Is it cold there? Are you wearing a sweater?” By the end of the call, the boy has a coat and a hoodie and a sweater and another coat on, because he wants his mother to feel warm. But when the bochur and his parents keep in touch, he feels he isn’t really so far away. They know to wish him a good Shabbos before Shabbos, or something like that. If they can’t reach him, they make sure someone passes on the message. And sometimes they’re available to ask him, a little more deeply, what he’s really going through. If they manage that, boruch Hashem, you see the results.

57:40 Speaker 7 It won’t always be the parents. Sometimes he’ll prefer a mashpia or someone else.

57:43 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. But when there’s that simple communication with his parents, and the bochur knows he can call his mother and cry to her because he’s having a hard time socially, it helps. He knows he has someone to turn to.

57:53 Speaker 7 To finish, we ask everyone for a tip in avodas Hashem or in education—something that works for you, or something you’ve seen in your own life and can share with us. If you could give us something personal.

58:06 Speaker 2 For me, the thing that helps most, and that I try to keep doing, is to sit down and write to the Rebbe. First, just to sit down and write to the Rebbe—or even the act of writing itself already does something. That’s a whole topic in its own right; you should do an episode on it. Every so often, sit down and write to the Rebbe, really look at everything, and put it all down. And the second thing we spoke about, which I think is a very important tip: even if you haven’t spoken with your mashpia for months, dare to be honest with him in the simplest, most straightforward way. Put things on the table, and dare to accept what he says, too. I’ll finish with this. I remember that one day during kevutzah my mashpia told me something had reminded him of me. He’s a learned man, a great chossid, and I was thrilled. He said, “I was learning and saw a letter from the Frierdiker Rebbe, and it reminded me of you.” I thought, “Wow, he must have been reminded of some chossid.” I wondered what it could be. I thought I was so clever. Then he gave me the volume and page. I went over, opened it, and it was a slap in the face. The Frierdiker Rebbe speaks there very sharply about someone who needs to do teshuvah in a certain matter. My mashpia had found a way to tell me that. I appreciated it so much, for two reasons: first, he knew how to give criticism and how to say it; and second, I appreciated that he had thought of me, that I was on his mind. I say this because when we as chassidim know how to speak to one another, and our emotional energy isn’t taken up with social survival or something like that, then the whole kevutzah becomes something real and essential for us. And that creates a situation where, even after he gets married, even ten years later, a bochur won’t travel to the Rebbe just because his friends are going.

59:52 Speaker 2 He won’t travel to the Rebbe just because a group has been organized. He’ll go even on his own, even when it isn’t exactly convenient for him. He knows that without traveling to the Rebbe from time to time, life is completely different. If he doesn’t go to the Rebbe, something is missing from his life, because the actual, physical trip is missing. I’ll finish with this: often you ask someone, “Why haven’t you been to the Rebbe?” and he says, “Well, I haven’t gone for about ten years.” Why? “I don’t have friends there. Who would I be with?” That’s because his whole experience of kevutzah was based only on the social side. But if I know that my going on kevutzah is Hashem’s will, that the Rebbe wants me to be there, that every bochur belongs on kevutzah and every bochur belongs to the Rebbe in our generation—because otherwise the whole thing would fall apart—and that this is Tomchei Temimim, with the bochurim the Rebbe wants there; if I remember that and remind myself of it, and everyone involved knows it too, and we as chassidim can talk about it and inspire one another instead of being occupied with survival, then we’ll have the emotional space to engage in learning, spreading the message of Geulah, and the matters of Moshiach that we need to work on to bring about the revelation. All of that will be there.

1:01:01 Speaker 8 Yes.

1:01:01 Speaker 2 That the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, should reveal himself, and we’ll have the kevutzah of our dreams.

1:01:08 Speaker 8 Then all of this, this whole chapter, would be for nothing.

1:01:10 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:01:11 Speaker 8 This would be missing. I recently met a good friend who told me he flew to the Rebbe for four hours. He said, “I flew to the Rebbe, arrived, went to the Ohel, wrote a letter, and flew straight back to Israel.” I was stunned. Four hours! I mean, you’re flying all that way—add some other errand, you know? But no, he went just for that. It really drove home the point you’re making: we fly without any other reason. Yes. Well, Rabbi Chaim Amar, thank you very much.

1:01:37 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim, dear Group 87. May the group have success.

1:01:40 Speaker 8 Amen.

1:01:40 Speaker 2 No chasing excitement, no looking around for something else. The essence is vested in the body of the king [?]—to belong to the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach. L’chaim, l’chaim.

1:01:47 Speaker 8 Thank you.

1:01:47 Speaker 2 Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu v’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach l’olam va’ed.

1:01:49 Speaker 8 Amen. Rabbi Chaim Amar, thank you so much. Thank you.