Overcoming the Loneliness of the Generation – Farbrengen for Yud-Ches Elul | Rabbi Shmuel Biton #002

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome. I’m happy to open our chassidic farbrengen in honor of Chai Elul. I sat down for an uplifting farbrengen with the mashpia and educator Rabbi Shmuel Bitton. This farbrengen is dedicated in the merit of Rabbi Dovber Yehuda, son of Itai, Chana, daughter of Yosef, and their children, may they live together: Esther, Menachem Mendel, and Nechama Dina. If you’d also like to dedicate an episode in someone’s merit or for the elevation of a soul, you’re welcome to contact us using the details below. I’m Meir Vishnapsky, and you’re listening to On Chabad Education. Rabbi Shmuel Bitton, l’chaim, l’chaim.

00:29 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim, and blessings to you, Meir.

00:30 Speaker 1 Hello. Hello. Well, this is a new studio.

00:34 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

00:35 Speaker 1 So we’ll make a start, and with Hashem’s help, it should bring blessing and be a lively farbrengen. We’d be glad.

00:40 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help.

00:41 Speaker 1 With Hashem’s help. Well, Chai Elul is just a few days away.

00:46 Speaker 2 Yes.

00:47 Speaker 1 Let’s see, let’s start at the beginning. What is Chai Elul? We’ll move on from there.

00:52 Speaker 2 Well, first of all, historically, Chai Elul is a very full date, I’d say. We know that Divine Providence brings many good things about on the same day. Sometimes it works the other way: the 17th of Tammuz, Tisha B’Av—different calamities recur on the same date. We found ourselves honoring the memory of those murdered on 7 Adar twice on that same date. So there’s that on the negative side too: difficult days sometimes become overwhelmingly difficult. But here, Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us far more good than suffering. He gave us one date and filled it with goodness. It starts with the passing of the Maharal of Prague. We know that our Rebbeim are direct descendants of the Maharal of Prague, and the Maharal of Prague is descended from King David. And in many of his writings you find echoes in Tanya and in so many books of Chassidus. In other words, I’d call it the early form of Chassidus—his language, his texts, beyond his being the Maharal of Prague and everything that means. Then we have the birth of the Baal Shem Tov in the year 5458, the Hebrew year spelled Nachas, and that isn’t just symbolic. Nachas means nachas: bringing joy to the world. The Jewish people suffered so much before the Baal Shem Tov—so many decrees, massacres, entire communities wiped out. And when the Baal Shem Tov arrived, his very personality, first of all, brought nachas to the world. We’ll come back to that.

02:23 Speaker 1 Yes.

02:24 Speaker 2 Then Achiya HaShiloni, his teacher and master, revealed himself to him on Chai Elul. So he was both born on Chai Elul and merited a revelation of the one who revealed all the secrets of the Torah to him.

02:36 Speaker 1 Achiya HaShiloni.

02:37 Speaker 2 Yes, he revealed himself to him on Chai Elul, a number of years later.

02:41 Speaker 1 No, but Achiya HaShiloni is—

02:43 Speaker 2 He’s holy.

02:43 Speaker 1 Holy.

02:44 Speaker 2 But he revealed himself to him and became his teacher and master.

02:46 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

02:47 Speaker 2 And then, again, we have the Baal Shem Tov’s own emergence, when he chose to go from being a hidden tzaddik to a revealed tzaddik who worked miracles throughout the land. That was also on Chai Elul.

03:01 Speaker 1 At what age?

03:02 Speaker 2 Well, there are different accounts as to whether he was thirty-six or a little younger. In any case, all these things happened then. When we think about birth, birth is also a revelation. A baby comes out into the world. And with Moshe Rabbeinu, yes, “the entire house was filled with light.” Birth is already a revelation. Then there’s another revelation, from above to below: Achiya HaShiloni reveals himself to him, and afterward he himself becomes revealed on this date. So I’ll jump to the conclusion: maybe we, too, can reveal ourselves on this day. It’s an opportunity for that as well.

03:33 Speaker 1 That’s why we’re here, to try a little to—

03:34 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly, to reveal the soul, a little of what’s inside. And then we have the birth of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, in the year 5505. Moving forward quite a few years, the Mitteler Rebbe settled in Lubavitch on Chai Elul. After all the upheaval—beginning with the Alter Rebbe’s flight from Napoleon, then the Alter Rebbe’s passing and the terrible rupture in Liadi, and so on—they settled in Lubavitch on Chai Elul. And we jump ahead again, to the founding of Tomchei Temimim. Classes began in Lubavitch on Chai Elul. The dining hall opened on 15 Elul, but the studies themselves began on Chai Elul. And some say that [unclear] of the Rebbe Rashab, I heard, in 5648, was on the 17th, the night leading into Chai Elul, very close to it. So there is so, so much light on this day. And the Baal Shem Tov coined that expression that appears in Bereishis: “On this day the luminaries were set in place”—a play on the words for “set in place” and “depend.” A new soul descends into the world. That’s essentially what happens with the Alter Rebbe’s birth. But let’s step back a little. First of all, l’chaim. It’s a day full, full of light. And you know how it is, like Shabbos, which extends into the days before and after it: Jews always take advantage of opportunities. Whenever something is holy and positive, they borrow a little from before it and a little from after it. So as Chai Elul approaches, we’re already in its atmosphere. And after Chai Elul, we’re still breathing it in. L’chaim—may we succeed in taking something from all that this date holds and making it part of ourselves.

05:22 Speaker 10 L’chaim. Really, the question with these things is always this: we mark chassidic days and dates. What does it mean for me? I mean, all of that is well and good.

05:35 Speaker 2 Yes.

05:35 Speaker 10 Those things happened. I get up in the morning and go to work, and come home in the evening. What can I learn from it? What does this day mean for me—these dates, all the things you’ve described?

05:46 Speaker 2 Yes.

05:46 Speaker 10 We could sit and talk about the significance of each day in its own right. But that leads to a question about chassidic farbrengens in general: we sit and farbreng on every chassidic date. What’s really behind sitting down together on the date itself? The Rebbe would hold a farbrengen, and people farbreng and talk about the day.

06:05 Speaker 2 Well, look, you’ve asked about farbrengens in general and Chai Elul in particular. Of course, the very idea of a farbrengen raises its own questions: what is it? Especially since the Alter Rebbe was the one who brought it into the ways of Chassidus—the farbrengen—in a more defined and precise form. You know, I think, if I’m not mistaken, that I once read an account from the Frierdiker Rebbe’s chassidim describing how even the Alter Rebbe laid down what kind of farbrengen it could be—not too much, and so on. He went into that level of detail.

06:37 Speaker 10 The details.

06:37 Speaker 2 Yes. That’s the general question. And the second question is, ultimately, when we sit around a particular date, we’re trying to draw inspiration from the person, from the tzaddik we’re getting to know through the farbrengen. But at the center of it, as you say, are we ourselves. We’re not going to sit for four hours to eulogize them. They don’t need our eulogies, by the way; they’re doing just fine. Not the Baal Shem Tov, not the Alter Rebbe, none of them. All they want—those Rebbeim—is to lift us up. The word nasi carries a sense of elevation and lifting up. So yes, in a chassidic farbrengen, however much inspiration we draw from them, the focus, as you say, must always be: what am I taking away? And ultimately, you know, we have to listen to who they were in order to draw from them. But the direction has to be: what am I taking away? Now, you know, a chassidic farbrengen can have many elements. There’s the basic element of Jews sitting together, long before any talks are given or any striking stories are told. You sat together. You know, I once heard Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, a”h, describe how he saw the previous Belzer Rebbe arrive in Jerusalem on one occasion. The great Belzer Rebbe. He came to the tish on Friday night. It was late; he always came out late, always after everyone else. And Rabbi Steinsaltz saw a row of about a hundred chassidim, Belz chassidim and others who had come to see the Belzer Rebbe, sitting on a bench and waiting for him to arrive, for the Rebbe to finish what he was doing and his daily routine. Then they all fell asleep leaning against one another, each with his head on the next person’s shoulder, all along the row. He said that sight moved—

08:24 Speaker 2 —my heart. And he said, “That was enough for me. I didn’t need any more talks or revelations.” Just that sight: students of the Baal Shem Tov’s students sitting together, able to rest their heads on one another’s shoulders. One of them might be a millionaire while you’re penniless, broke; his life might be all in order while you’re right in the middle of the worst crisis of your life. Each person has a different life story, and we rest our heads on one another. That togetherness is immense. By the way, that reminds me of a story. Let’s have a little l’chaim.

08:58 Speaker 11 L’chaim.

08:59 Speaker 2 With your permission.

09:00 Speaker 11 Adri will be back, I hope...

09:01 Speaker 2 Yes. Well, l’chaim, l’chaim, l’chaim to all the viewers and everyone joining us, too.

09:07 Speaker 11 Yes.

09:07 Speaker 2 And l’chaim to you for this special thing you’re putting so much into. May Hashem be with you.

09:12 Speaker 11 Amen.

09:12 Speaker 2 It seems to me He’s already with you, judging by your success. May it increase many times over.

09:15 Speaker 11 Amen.

09:15 Speaker 2 May you succeed in awakening and touching so very many souls, without end.

09:19 Speaker 11 Yasher koach! Thank you very much. L’chaim.

09:25 Speaker 2 That reminds me of a story, since you asked earlier about Shivchei HaBaal Shem Tov. On one Simchas Torah, the Baal Shem Tov’s wife became a little anxious. She saw the chassidim dancing and dancing and dancing, and all the while they kept refilling their little glasses with liquor. She worried there wouldn’t be any left the next day for Kiddush or Havdalah, and so on. She ran to her husband, the Baal Shem Tov, and said, “You have to go down to the beis midrash and tell your chassidim off so they’ll stop drinking. There won’t be anything left tomorrow for Kiddush and Havdalah.” The Baal Shem Tov smiled and said, “I have to tell them? You go to the beis midrash and tell them yourself.” So she ran to the beis midrash. She had her husband’s permission to go in and tell everyone off. She opened the doors, ready to shout, and stopped short. What did she see? She saw a circle of the Baal Shem Tov’s students dancing together, with a blazing fire all around their circle. When she saw the fire their circle had created, she went down to the cellar—ran to the cellar—brought out all the liquor left in the barrels and served it to them. The story doesn’t say what happened with Kiddush and Havdalah the next day. It doesn’t say, so I don’t know. But the Baal Shem Tov, as it were, wanted her to go and see for herself what was happening there. Now, there were no sermons there, no speeches, nothing. There was a circle of students together, and that circle created a fire. Of course, they were on a higher level, and who are we to compare ourselves, and so on and so forth. But the very ability to sit together is something tremendous. That’s why we’re sitting here together, too—whether it’s a podcast or whatever it may be. A Jew can’t, can’t sit alone. And...

11:22 Speaker 2 A farbrengen—the idea is that souls awaken together and manage to sit with one another. That’s enormous. Because, after all, I don’t have an isolated soul. I’m part of a collective soul, and the more I try to solve the problems of my individual soul on my own, the more I’m headed in the wrong direction. In the end, it’s this understanding that we are one great soul, that all of Knesses Yisroel is one great soul, and that when I sit down with another Jew, maybe something can come of it. That’s something very great.

11:50 Speaker 11 That’s a farbrengen.

11:51 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s the foundation of a farbrengen.

11:53 Speaker 11 The foundation.

11:53 Speaker 2 Of course, there are other things to add to it. You can take it all the way to the point where you leave a farbrengen and your life has changed, and [unclear].

12:01 Speaker 11 I’ve experienced many times that...

12:02 Speaker 2 Huh?

12:03 Speaker 11 I’ve experienced many times wanting, waiting for that farbrengen that would change my life.

12:08 Speaker 2 Yes.

12:08 Speaker 11 As a bochur.

12:09 Speaker 2 Yes.

12:09 Speaker 11 I was always waiting—maybe this farbrengen will be the one—and it didn’t happen. It was simply being together, and then another farbrengen and another farbrengen.

12:16 Speaker 2 Yes, I’m not saying we should give up. By the way, what you’re pointing out is wonderful, and if only we could hold on, as young married men and as parents, to that sense of waiting for the event that will change me. Because at some point, it seems, we sometimes lose a little hope in our desire to change. So I’m not saying we should settle for having sat together, exchanged numbers and shown an interest in one another, though that’s enormous and important. Of course, ultimately I need to strive to change. And Elul—yes, we’ll get to that in a moment. So...

12:48 Speaker 11 It’s all connected.

12:49 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s all connected.

12:51 Speaker 11 Chai Elul. We spoke about a farbrengen.

12:55 Speaker 2 So we spoke about a farbrengen, and now we’re coming back to it. I think, you know, we can draw a little inspiration from the Baal Shem Tov, from the Rebbe and the Rebbe, and from all these gifts Hakadosh Boruch Hu sent us. Because they really are gifts; otherwise they would have remained hidden tzaddikim. And the Baal Shem Tov did, in fact, spend a period as a hidden tzaddik. On Chai Elul we celebrate the fact that he revealed himself, that he came to us, even though he had already accomplished great things as a teacher of young children and so on. But we want to receive from him, to draw nourishment from him. I think that anyone who has read a little about the Baal Shem Tov, anyone who read Machanayim as a child, knows that moment when Rabbi Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov’s father, calls him to his bedside and tells him: “Do not fear anyone or be intimidated by anyone—only by Hashem alone. Love every Jew with the innermost depths of your heart.” That moment leaves an enormous mark on the Baal Shem Tov, who loses his mother too shortly afterward. He begins walking through the forests, fearing no one. And I think about this figure who opens and paves the way for all of Chassidus, which continues to be revealed right up to this very moment, right down to you and me. What’s the foundation of the whole story? Don’t be afraid; don’t fear or be intimidated by anyone—only Hashem alone. And love every Jew. Two very, very powerful focal points. I try to think how much that message means to me and to you and to all of us, especially in this generation. We’re overwhelmed. Your podcast, I believe, is titled “On Chabad Education.” We’re not officially having a discussion about education right now; we’re at a farbrengen. But in the end, everything is connected to education: educating ourselves, our children, the people around us. And one...

15:00 Speaker 2 of the things that makes our knees shake, you know, is the sheer number of challenges in this generation. I mean, in four years you feel as though forty years have gone by in terms of the challenges children face today. And “children today” doesn’t just mean our children. It means us as adults, too, and us as adults responding to them, and so on and so forth. Then, before you even get to any solutions—and I’m hardly the one to offer everyone a solution to everything—there’s this feeling eating away at your heart: your knees are shaking. It’s, “Wow, what’s going on here? This crazy generation—where is it headed? And how am I going to pass anything on to my children?” You know? I was born in 5748, in those last years when we still saw the Rebbe, and it’s like...

15:49 Speaker 11 Wow.

15:49 Speaker 2 The last remnants of those last remnants. You’re trying to pass something on, make something present in their lives, educate them, and you say, “No, it’s not possible.” Because, I don’t know, we ourselves have gone a little crazy; we ourselves are already distracted. And yes, the iPhone problem isn’t just our children’s problem—it’s ours as adults first. And this problem and that problem. And I say: before all this turmoil of the generation at the footsteps of Moshiach—the footsteps of Moshiach, the footsteps of Moshiach—Hashem sends down into the world a soul who opens up the teachings of Chassidus, a remedy for every illness. And the foundation of the remedy for everything is: “Do not fear or be intimidated by anything, except Hashem.” First of all, this world has an Owner. Come on, we didn’t invent the wheel. We didn’t invent the iPhone 17, and neither did Apple, for that matter.

16:42 Speaker 12 There’s an Owner.

16:42 Speaker 2 This world has an Owner. There is someone directing everything. And if you truly believe in hashgachah pratis—that this generation really is being guided, and not just this generation but all of existence—then, as the Baal Shem Tov explains, “I have set Hashem before me always” can also be understood in terms of equanimity: everything is equal. There is no challenge that this generation invented. The very same King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who brought about the generation of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and of Reb Zalman, z"l, is sitting today and directing everything that happens here, down to the last detail. And He is calm. If He is calm, then you can be calm too. You’re only His shliach. I’m only His shliach—to educate my children and the people around me. Now, this comes before the solutions, because we can’t approach anything if our knees are shaking. But you can’t just be, excuse the expression, a tough guy: “Don’t fear or be intimidated by anyone. We have psychologists, we have this, we have that. We even have a podcast.” That’s not the point. The point is “only Hashem alone.” In other words, Eliezer doesn’t tell the Baal Shem Tov, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. I’ve given you inner strength. I’ve made you resilient,” and so on. He says, “No. There is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If you fear Him, you won’t be afraid of anyone else.” And that, I would say, is perhaps a first point that lets us lift our heads a little and take a breath. We’re not...

18:07 Speaker 12 What does that have to do with it?

18:07 Speaker 2 Not in a lawless generation, and not in a lawless situation in any way. And that is one of the greatest innovations of Chassidus.

18:16 Speaker 12 Yes.

18:16 Speaker 2 Sorry.

18:16 Speaker 12 No, I’m asking: how is that connected? You made the point that this is why you shouldn’t be afraid to be a real man. But that’s not the point. The point is to fear Hashem and not be afraid of anything else. Why does one depend on the other? Why, if I fear Hashem, does nothing else bother me?

18:31 Speaker 2 Because a person on his own certainly has reasons to be afraid. I have no way to convince you not to be afraid.

18:36 Speaker 12 Yes.

18:36 Speaker 2 I have, you have, we all have—

18:40 Speaker 12 I have plenty to—

18:41 Speaker 2 Exactly. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, sometimes you try to reassure your children, and you say, “I don’t know myself.” I feel right now that I have nothing to go on. Where exactly am I supposed to get the confidence to pass on? Confidence in what? In whom? In which...? Now, the older a person gets, and the more upheavals he goes through—

18:58 Speaker 12 Upheavals.

18:58 Speaker 2 The more upheavals and the more times he runs into a wall, the more he realizes how small a person is. But no, I wouldn’t take that in a negative direction. Not, you know, “Contemplate how utterly insignificant you are,” but rather, “How fortunate we are to be Jews, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu accompanying me.” How Hashem is with us, Hashem is within us, the oneness of Hashem. You know, the most powerful expressions of Chassidus, which the Rebbe developed in ever finer detail. This is the Baal Shem Tov’s interpretation. The Rebbe asks about the Baal Shem Tov’s interpretation: But this wasn’t the Baal Shem Tov’s innovation. “Forever, Hashem, Your word stands firm in the heavens”—it wasn’t his idea. He made it present. There was certainly already an interpretation of this in Midrash Tehillim: “Forever, Hashem, Your word stands firm in the heavens,” because Hashem’s word still gives it life. But the Baal Shem Tov brought that into a person’s very bones. He instilled the feeling that Hashem guides you. Trust in Him, and I will trust in you. How much we hold on to those three words, [unclear], the directives of the Rebbe. That is the basic foundation for chassidim. Chassidim are slightly unusual birds. Fine, today people think of chassidic groups—who wears this kind of shtreimel, who wears that kind of kapote, and so on. But ultimately, chassidim are people who don’t live in the usual atmosphere. They’re outsiders. In what sense are you an outsider? Are you not normal? Are you not sane? Of course not. You are sane; you live in the material world. So in what sense are you an outsider? In the question of fear. You dance through the world.

20:27 Speaker 12 Yes.

20:28 Speaker 2 Now, it’s easy for me to say that, yes. But I have many moments when I feel like I’m being blown about. And I want to draw, together with you, from Chai Elul, on the verse, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed.” Just one breath.

20:44 Speaker 12 Interesting. I’ll tell you, I work in education, and once I sat with a young man. You spoke about this penetrating to the bone. I sat with a young man who was going through a really difficult time socially. When I sat down to talk with him, he described feeling that every door in his life was closing. It was a really painful description. We sat talking late into the night, and at one point I said to him—I was listening, and there wasn’t much I could do in that situation. I listened, and then I wanted to give him a little strength. I said, “Listen, ultimately there is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and He, you know...” He looked at me—and this is a young man who grew up in our institutions and everything—and said, “Meir, what does that have to do with it? I’m having a hard time right now. How does the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is in charge relate to the social difficulties I’m having right now?” A person can grow up hearing what you called the big slogans, but that connection is something we sometimes miss. I mean me, all of us. I think I saw it very clearly with him. I was sitting there thinking, “What do you mean? You’re going through a hard time, and there’s Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” That’s always the last thing to lean on.

21:56 Speaker 2 Yes. Look, it’s not—if I step into the story you’ve just told, yes, first of all, I’m certain that because we all have a neshamah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu isn’t some guest. He is the innermost, deepest reality of a Jew as a Jew. It isn’t some novelty. Hakadosh Boruch Hu isn’t a novelty to a Jew. If anything, we’re His novelty. The question is how much we know, how much digging we need to do to find that place. And that still doesn’t contradict the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world in such a way that He has emissaries. He could have arranged for us all to encounter Hakadosh Boruch Hu at Mount Sinai. He did that, by the way, but we didn’t make it past two commandments, so we moved on to an intermediary. But He built the world in such a way that He has an extended hand, a long arm, in the form of Jews who care about another Jew. And sometimes, you know, a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old—or an older person, thirty or forty, it doesn’t matter—sometimes he asks for the concrete help of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in whom he trusts, but ultimately he expects it from a parent, from someone close to him. And we are Hashem’s shluchim.

23:15 Speaker 12 Absolutely.

23:16 Speaker 2 And look, the Baal Shem Tov himself was someone who went around wearing out his feet. And that already relates to the second sentence that Rabbi Eliezer[?] says to him: “Love every Jew with the innermost depths of your heart.” There are different versions of the exact wording. But where does Chassidus begin? You know, with some deep maamarim in [unclear], or whatever? Chassidus begins with a Jew walking through towns and along unpaved roads, looking for another Jew. Looking for a shoemaker striking away with his hammer, and saying to him, “Wow, do you know how much nachas Hakadosh Boruch Hu gets from the Mishnayos you recite, from the Tehillim you say while you work?” And that shoemaker is convinced he’s nothing at all. The Baal Shem Tov comes, goes from person to person, and reveals this to them. Now, every Motzaei Shabbos there’s that moving scene where Alexei is asked to drive off—no one knows where—and the Baal Shem Tov’s chassidim live with a sense of suspense. What are they waiting for? What surprise, what twist has the Baal Shem Tov brought us to today? But they’ve already understood one thing: we aren’t going to see great tzaddikim, at least not on paper. We’re going to people who are certain they’re nothing, to tell them and reveal to them that they’re something, something, something. That the argument one of them had with his wife on Friday night, when he had nothing, and the dance he did, tore open the gates of heaven. That’s how Chassidus is born. First of all, no fear—that’s number one. And second, one person, then another, and another, and another. What made it possible for the Maggid to sit in his place and cause the light to gather back to its source was that, before him, there had been someone who—

25:09 Speaker 13 Plowed and sowed.

25:10 Speaker 2 Plowed and sowed, and went from door to door. And that’s it. That’s what I find so—

25:17 Speaker 13 Powerful.

25:18 Speaker 2 Come, let’s say a little l’chaim.

25:23 Speaker 13 L’chaim.

25:23 Speaker 2 L’chaim, and for blessing. These two—these two—

25:36 Speaker 13 Yes.

25:37 Speaker 2 These two points we’ve just discussed. So, you know, “Their beginning is bound up with their end, and their end with their beginning.” First of all, they’re found in all our Rebbeim. And the Rebbe takes the trouble, in the maamar Basi Legani, to tell the story of the Rebbe Maharash going and finding a Jew in the middle of a hotel, and so on. And you think about the end, about the beginning of Chassidus, and about our Rebbe, who has made these two elements present for us, instilled them in us, and continues to instill them in us. First of all, with the Rebbe there is no fear. It’s incredible. Now, you know, when someone says “no fear” before the problems arrive, that’s nice, that’s lovely. He gave me an injection before the operation, you know, a sort of anesthetic, and that’s fine, okay. But come be with us in 2026, or be—

26:28 Speaker 13 In the challenges we face.

26:29 Speaker 2 Yes, there were challenges, and the Rebbe was right here, at the heart of the generation that arose after the Holocaust. It was a generation that had been completely shattered. Barely any remnants of the Yiddishkeit that had existed in Poland, with its centers of Torah learning and so on, had survived. And a new generation arose that said, “We’re rejecting all of it”—Zionism, the State of Israel, a whole new model of Jewish identity, fully formed and ready to go. And the Rebbe brought pure, strong, powerful Yiddishkeit, without fear. What was the guiding principle? How can you accomplish anything with a generation like that? Very simply: the same One who was in charge three thousand years ago is in charge now. It’s simple faith. Very clear and straightforward—very clear. You know, I think of the Rebbe standing outside at a Lag BaOmer parade, at the lectern. Look, every Chabad chossid watching us now, whether he was physically at a Lag BaOmer parade or saw footage of it, has seen the Rebbe standing outside on the podium, and the street belongs to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. How did the Rebbe put it? The public domain becomes the private domain of the One Who rules the world. But the Rebbe stands there with a smile, with confidence, and all these people from the military pass by and salute the Rebbe. And, you know, they compose songs—and where does all that come from? It’s a translation. They’re simply translating what the Rebbe conveys to them. It’s not as though they just woke up one day and said, “Come on, let’s establish an Education Day and put it into a congressional resolution in his honor.” The Rebbe conveys such confidence: “In G-d We Trust” on the dollar, plainly, out on the street, out in the world. So the world responds to that. And it’s such a fundamental thing, and it doesn’t matter—we as chassidim have to remember this—it doesn’t matter how many challenges we go through. And, you know, now there are different variations and different things. And sometimes, you know, sometimes I

28:28 Speaker 2 ask myself, as someone involved in education: Wow, you know, [unclear], we’re letting the internet right in. And then you ask, where is the Rebbe? Why did he leave us with this insane challenge? Couldn’t he have told us yes, no, right, left, back? Of course, the Rebbe gave us guidance in advance about technology and so on. But you know, at the end of the day, the truth is that the Rebbe is here, without that fear. First of all, lift your head. The same One Who has guided the world until now is still guiding the world today, down to the smallest details of your life, my life, and your children’s lives. Convey joy, a welcoming face, an endless smile, and a hand that keeps waving like this—that’s one thing. Second, the Rebbe, the Rebbe—I’m talking again about the Baal Shem Tov and the Rebbe—reaches every single person. As the years go by, the Rebbe reduces the opportunities for yechidus for those who managed to get an appointment, and moves to the personal encounter of dollar distribution: one person after another after another after another after another. In every situation, every circumstance, all of it. You know, I have this little episode that I think so many Chabad chassidim share; it isn’t anything unusual. But for me, as a very young child, it was a formative experience. I thank Hashem for giving me parents who have been on the Rebbe’s shlichus in France since 5745.

29:53 Speaker 14 You grew up in France.

29:54 Speaker 2 Yes, I grew up in France, on the Rebbe’s shlichus there. From a very, very young age, it was clear to my parents that despite the shlichus, despite the fact that they were shluchim—and shluchim generally can’t just show up at 770 at certain times; you know, you’re supposed to be with the people you’re reaching out to, so what are you doing here?—it was clear to them that they were bringing their children to the Rebbe. They made all kinds of sacrifices to do that. I remember my mother once telling me that when they were about to leave on shlichus, Rabbi Naiman Grodzensky [unclear] came out of yechidus with the Rebbe very, very late. As is known, he had private yechidus throughout the years, including very long ones, and because of that the Rebbe came out late for Maariv. The Rebbe came out for Maariv as Rabbi Naiman Grodzensky was leaving the room. The next day my father was sitting in kollel. They had already been asking the Rebbe for some time to go on shlichus, but the Rebbe hadn’t responded—hadn’t answered where they should go. Suddenly Rabbi Naiman Grodzensky came into the kollel, apparently looking for him. He said, “I was in yechidus with the Rebbe yesterday. In the middle of the yechidus, the Rebbe told me, ‘Go to the young married man Bitton and tell him that I said he should go. Would he like to go to [unclear] in France?’”

30:59 Speaker 14 Wow.

30:59 Speaker 2 So he left the kollel and ran to my mother at home in Crown Heights. They had lived in Crown Heights since their wedding; their first child had been born there, and so on. “The Rebbe—what do you say?” The Rebbe always wanted the wife’s consent. So my mother said, “What do you mean? We’ve been asking the Rebbe for so long to go on shlichus and haven’t received an answer. Now the Rebbe says we’re going.”

31:20 Speaker 14 And before that, did they have a connection to France, or...?

31:22 Speaker 2 Um, my mother—they had spent some time in France. Yes, even though they weren’t born there, they had already spent some time in France. My father studied in Brunoy, so yes, they had a connection to France, but they had been thinking about various other cities. There were several possibilities, not only in France, by the way. In any case, my mother said, “Of course we’re going. What kind of question is that?” Okay, she gave her consent, and suddenly they began making preparations, and she realized she was pregnant. Then she thought, “I’m going to arrive in some out-of-the-way place, a town that’s a suburb of Paris. Where will I give birth, and what about the pregnancy?” She was very worried. So she wrote to the Rebbe: “We’ve accepted the shlichus. Should we wait until after the birth, so our second child can be born here under normal circumstances, or should we go?” The Rebbe wrote not to delay their departure, but to leave immediately. So they left and arrived on shlichus by Pesach. When my second brother was born, in Elul 5745, right after the birth she wrote a letter to the Rebbe. She wrote, “Boruch Hashem, we’ve had a son, our second son,” and so on. “I have one request as your shlucha: give him the same attention and care you gave my older son, who grew up in the Rebbe’s neighborhood and would come every—you know, every morning to receive a coin from the Rebbe, before Shacharis or after Shacharis. Even though this child is far away on shlichus, may he also receive that same care from you.” And I’m telling this story not because—again, I’m not claiming anything for myself. The Rebbe’s shluchim are—they’re a world of their own. From the end of Elul, they organized a raffle for a trip to the Rebbe, to be drawn on Erev Yom Kippur.

33:10 Speaker 15 Among whom?

33:12 Speaker 2 Among the people of the community. They arrived on shlichus in [unclear]; then the month of Tammuz came, when people travel to the Rebbe. So one of the very first things they did on shlichus was organize a raffle. And at the end of Elul she had written to the Rebbe. Who won the raffle? My father came home late on Erev Yom Kippur; they held the drawing late on Erev Yom Kippur 5746. So she asked, “Who won?” He said, “You did. You and the baby. After all, you asked the Rebbe that the child shouldn’t be ‘neglected’ while you’re on shlichus. So...”

33:45 Speaker 15 And there you are [unclear].

33:46 Speaker 2 That even someone on shlichus should receive the same care. And there it was—she received it. The following Chanukah, my father won the raffle. It was something heavenly. Anyway, bringing us to the Rebbe was part of who they were. So they took me to the Rebbe from the age of two months, and all of that. It’s truly something for which I thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu every day. But, G-d forbid, that isn’t meant to diminish anyone who belongs to this generation and never saw the Rebbe. It’s not someone from an earlier generation boasting. I’m just telling an anecdote. And in Tammuz 5769, um, my mother moved up her trip and flew to the Rebbe on Erev Yom Kippur. I think that...

34:24 Speaker 15 How old were you? You were a little boy then.

34:26 Speaker 2 Yes, three and a half, four years old. [unclear], but a really, really little child. I remember things from 5752, just certain flashbacks—the Rebbe with the lulav, and one or two moments. There are more memories later on, though. My father had planned to arrive later because of his shlichus and his responsibilities. So toward [unclear], he would bring people he was close with along, to make it easier. Anyway, somehow, because of how the calendar fell that year—Sukkos began on a Sunday, and we were able to get plane tickets—we flew on Erev Yom Kippur. My mother just said, “Come on, Erev Yom Kippur.” My father said to her, “What? How will you manage with all the children and the little ones?” But she managed. And that’s how we merited it. To this day, our family is grateful that we merited a special dollar distribution on 10 Tishrei, a Thursday. If I’m not mistaken, that Thursday’s distribution was only for the boys and girls of Tzivos Hashem. Now, we received dollars from the Rebbe countless times, not just on Sundays. In the later years, the Rebbe distributed dollars almost every evening, late in the evening or after Maariv. That day, by the way, the Thursday distribution was in the evening, I think after Maariv, if I’m not mistaken. And suddenly, at 770, we heard an announcement: the Rebbe had asked them to announce something after Shacharis.

35:33 Speaker 15 You were there—there were about twenty of you [?].

35:35 Speaker 2 Yes, all of us were at 770. We davened Shacharis, and we were there with the children. There was a place for the children up front. Again, I’m talking about very, very hazy memories. But that moment is somehow etched into my feelings. Suddenly, an announcement came from the secretary: the Rebbe had asked to distribute dollars for tzedakah. I think the Rebbe went to the Ohel that day, and before the trip to the Ohel, the distribution was only for the boys and girls of Tzivos Hashem. No tricks: even parents bringing their children through had to know that they themselves would not receive a dollar. And of course, we felt we’d been given a mission by the Rebbe. We had rallies, and we had this special thing. It felt as though we were walking around 770 like peacocks—as though the Rebbe was giving us something right then. Now, that evening you would also receive a dollar from the Rebbe together with your father. It wasn’t that the Rebbe overlooked children. The Rebbe smiled at every child who passed by, and so on. So what was special here? The Rebbe wanted to convey a message to us, not only about individuality—that each person matters to me—but that every period of your life matters. You matter. Your age matters. Right now you’re a little child who perhaps can’t even stand on your own, so your father holds you, or your mother holds you. She won’t get a dollar, because right now it’s your turn to receive one. In the evening you’ll receive one with the adults, but right now you should know that your life matters, even before your bar mitzvah. Don’t say, “I’m preparing for my bar mitzvah, and from my bar mitzvah onward I’ll be preparing for real life.” Right now, at this very moment, in what you say and what you do—and I’m returning to the Baal Shem Tov—you may be a simple Jew, a shoemaker, someone with no titles at all, and right now you say a Mishnah or a chapter of Tehillim. You matter, and you bring about salvation

37:12 Speaker 2 in the midst of the earth. What you do is precious. The Master of the Universe is moved by it to tears and dances over it. [unclear], there in the shoemaker’s shop. And that’s something that runs from the Baal Shem Tov all the way to the Rebbe today.

37:31 Speaker 16 At the same time.

37:31 Speaker 2 Those same two points: don’t be afraid.

37:33 Speaker 16 Mm-hmm.

37:34 Speaker 2 And love every Jew.

37:35 Speaker 16 Mm-hmm.

37:37 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim. L’chaim. May we never feel unnecessary or unimportant. And again, I’m not saying the Rebbe gave us some kind of swagger or pride or a sense of superiority. The importance the Rebbe gave us was something else entirely, on a completely different level. It’s not importance in the sense of “You’re important because you’re you, and you’re you, and you’re you.” You’re important because you have meaning, because your life has meaning and your actions have meaning. “You are children of Hashem your G-d.” Do you understand? It’s a little paradoxical, as though the Rebbe inflated us. No, the Rebbe didn’t inflate us. The Rebbe instilled meaning in us. Once the Rebbe instilled that meaning, that shlichus, that watchword, it doesn’t matter where you are or what you do—whether you work in high-tech, in a simple job, or in a metalworking shop. We’re sitting here in this new place. You matter, and that’s something Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose to reveal to the world by bringing these souls into the world. Forgive the expression, but it’s moving. It really is. It’s true. It’s worth a l’chaim on Chai Elul—that we merited such souls and to live in these generations, which make clear to us how important our actions are, how important our words are, how important our thoughts are, how important our smiles are.

38:56 Speaker 16 Can you live like that, though, nonstop? I mean, I can identify peaks in my life when I—

39:01 Speaker 2 No, no, you wouldn’t want to.

39:02 Speaker 16 Feel it all the time? You know, it’s hard. You feel that you matter, but all the time there’s some... The Rebbe smiled, right?

39:09 Speaker 2 The Rebbe wants us to live that way. Yes, truly. Look at shluchim who work 24/7—they feel that way. But they too have their davening, their moods, their lows, and enormous difficulties. And—

39:20 Speaker 16 Yes, we aren’t exposed to that very much. Shluchim go through a lot.

39:23 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And with their children, which is one of the very, very hardest things. Lately I’ve had a lot of phone calls with several shluchim, and the difficulties with the children are just overwhelming. It’s an enormous challenge. So even a shliach doesn’t live at that peak all the time.

39:37 Speaker 16 Yes.

39:38 Speaker 2 But on Chai Elul, we’re allowed to live at that peak.

39:40 Speaker 16 Yes.

39:40 Speaker 2 Right. We’re allowed to, allowed to, allowed to.

39:42 Speaker 16 When—

39:42 Speaker 2 Yes, we’re allowed to reach that peak from time to time. Fine, you’ll have energy left—or you won’t. That’s what I said.

39:48 Speaker 16 You said we steal—we’re always stealing the—

39:50 Speaker 2 Yes, we do, yes, we do. The way the Alter Rebbe taught us to turn the clock while learning with the Maggid’s son. He taught us that “stolen waters are sweet,” in the good sense of the phrase, that—

40:03 Speaker 16 That things are positive and good.

40:05 Speaker 2 That things are positive. Steal those moments, steal [unclear]. And you know, I’d even say that sometimes we’re a little obsessed with getting something out of everything. You come to a farbrengen wanting, right now, this minute, to take away some tool for educating your children, for your relationship with your wife, for this and that—to get things sorted out. But come in, immerse yourself, warm yourself up, and maybe something will come of it. If you arrive with a stopwatch and a gun to your head, asking, “What am I getting out of this?”—no, you won’t get much out of it. Because a farbrengen, by definition, is time spent together for its own sake. Either you go out to enjoy yourself or you don’t. Everyone knows this from being a husband and wife. If you go out with your wife and answer phone calls, you’ve ruined the whole thing. It doesn’t matter what kind of change of scenery you’ve arranged; it all goes down the drain. So I don’t know whether you can sustain that feeling all the time. That’s why we have farbrengens now and then. But Chai Elul is certainly a date like that. It’s a birth. It’s a beginning; it’s a revelation. Yes, absolutely. It’s a time when a chossid needs to stop and give himself the gift of lifting himself up—of appreciating how precious and important his shlichus is, how precious and important his soul is, how precious he is as a parent. Hashem gave you souls. Go for it. Don’t hesitate at all. And above all—above all, forgive me for repeating myself—don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid, because this generation is flooded with fears. We’re living in a generation of fear and anxiety. I remember once having a bit of an argument with a dear Jew who published a book on Tanya for today’s world. He had written an introduction along the lines of—

41:55 Speaker 2 “This is the book that will solve all the anxieties in your life.” It bothered me. It troubled me that, as it were, the Alter Rebbe’s message was about treating anxiety. He said to me, “Yes, our generation is full of anxiety. Someone who learns Tanya won’t have anxiety.” In the end I realized there was something to what he was saying. Speaking of this “don’t be afraid,” there’s a story that comes to mind. There was someone known as [unclear] of Rudnisel. Don’t ask me who he was, where he was from, or exactly what that nickname meant.

42:28 Speaker 16 Where was that, in—

42:30 Speaker 2 Probably Rudnisel, if he was [unclear] of Rudnisel, but—

42:32 Speaker 16 No, but what region is that in?

42:33 Speaker 2 He was, I think, in the Tzemach Tzedek’s home. He was one of the attendants there, and he had the privilege of going through the books before Pesach to clean them of chametz. Once he found a note inside one of the books, and it caught his attention. He saw that it was a special note. He recognized the Alter Rebbe’s handwriting and wanted to copy it. He went to—he went—

42:59 Speaker 16 Started working.

42:59 Speaker 2 To copy it. He came with lead and parchment, and the Rebbe Maharash—the son of the Tzemach Tzedek—came over and told him, “Don’t even try. Reb [unclear] already tried to copy that note, and it burned up on him. Remember whatever you can, but don’t try to copy it.” So the elderly man from [unclear] recounted from memory what appeared in the note. The Alter Rebbe writes there that when the Baal Shem Tov was a few years old, after those words Reb Eliezer said to him at his bedside and after his mother’s passing, he went into the forest and saw a house lit up at the far end. He saw a light, was drawn to it, walked toward it, and entered, going from room to room. When he reached the innermost room, he saw a whole group of the Samech-Mem—demons of a sort. They saw him, and their first reaction was, “Little boy? Aren’t you afraid to come in here?” Instinctively, he stood up and declared what he had learned from his father: “I’m not afraid of anyone, only of Hashem alone.” They were startled by this child declaring that he wasn’t afraid of them at all, only of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But they didn’t give up. They asked him, “Little boy, little boy, will you admit that Hashem has abandoned the earth?” Will you be willing to admit that Hashem has left the earth? The Baal Shem Tov cried out—it says he cried out—“Depart from me, all you workers of evil!” All the workers of evil, all the evildoers, vanished as though they had never been there. At that moment, the entire house, its occupants and its demons, disappeared as though it had never existed. I think this story really gripped me. Every year, I can’t help reading it again. You know, I hear the demons of our generation, who don’t

45:11 Speaker 2 appear as they did then, but in their new disguises, saying, “Aren’t you afraid? Come on, will you admit that Hashem has abandoned the earth?” Will you admit that today’s challenges in education are just—wow—something you can’t overcome, because Hashem has abandoned the earth and will leave you on your own? And [unclear], and [unclear], and Yud-Beis Tammuz, and all the revelations there were have vanished as though they never happened, and you’re on your own. Now go deal with it. A mother cries in the middle of the night, and a father cries in the middle of the night. What’s happening to their child, who’s starting to go off track and leave the path—and feels alone? And a boy in yeshiva ketanah or yeshiva gedolah lies with his face in his pillow, already wet with tears. He feels alone. And all that loneliness, by the way—that loneliness is, is, is...

45:54 Speaker 17 Terrible.

45:55 Speaker 2 You don’t need me to tell you that. It’s borne out by research. You know, the Ministry of Welfare examines the figures: who comes for treatment, who gets referred. Right now we’re talking about people who are referred. Yes, there are also those who need help and stay silent—that’s another matter. But every year, the most common reason young people are referred for psychological treatment and so on, surprising as it may sound, is loneliness. You know, we have a thousand and one names for all the troubles and challenges facing young people today, and it turns out that number one is loneliness. It’s not—I mean, a child says, “I have problem number one, number two, number three; my parents are like this, my family is broken, this and that, I don’t know what’s happening to me, I’m falling, I’m addicted. I’m convinced I’m addicted.” All of that, I can still deal with. But being alone in it—that I can’t handle. And that loneliness is the hardest thing of all. But also—let’s remember that Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not make unreasonable demands of His creations. Whatever challenge a person receives, they are given the strength for it beforehand. And there’s one thing Hakadosh Boruch Hu has placed in our hands: bringing people out of loneliness. That’s not a power the lonely person has. It’s something Hashem asks of us, something He places in our hands. Take every Jew to heart, deep within your heart; care about them, open your eyes, look around. What’s happening around you? What’s going on? Someone needs a smile; someone needs a look. Maybe you need a look too. You’re allowed to look in the mirror and check on yourself, so that we don’t have someone handing out smiles to everybody and ending up empty inside. You know, loneliness is that Samech-Mem, and every time I read this story, I

47:34 Speaker 2 think about the Samech-Mem—or whatever you want to call him—who comes along and says, “Well, are you finally ready to admit that Hashem has abandoned the earth? Are you ready to admit that you really are alone?” The Baal Shem Tov stands up and says, “Depart from me, all you workers of evil! I’m not afraid of anyone, only of Hashem alone.” You’re going to talk to me about being alone? I walk with Him all day. That’s Toras HaChassidus. First and foremost, that’s Toras HaChassidus. It’s a message that’s relevant—extremely relevant—to everyone. And again, I’m not saying I have a set of solutions right now for this problem and that problem and every other problem. But with all our problems, if I take Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s hand through them and walk with Him—after all, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the One who created me. He’s also the One who sends me these problems. Every problem I encounter in life is something He has brought me. Do you understand? It’s as though I go looking all around. Now, that doesn’t mean Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t want me to get help from someone. If professional help is needed, if psychological help is needed, if emotional support is needed—whatever help is needed, [unclear].

48:36 Speaker 3 You mentioned shluchim.

48:37 Speaker 2 Yes, they’re all an extension of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s hand. But loneliness at its root is the antithesis of Chassidus. Here’s this three-and-a-half-year-old child walking through the forest, and he’s at the very beginning of Toras HaChassidus. If you want to belong to it in your life, to say, “I’m part of this”—I don’t know whether I’m a chossid, whether I deserve to be called a chossid. I don’t know about all the titles. But something inside me wants to belong to our Rebbeim, to this. Belonging to it means being convinced that Hakadosh Boruch Hu walks with you. Hashgachah pratis, Divine Providence. It’s not just stories about getting a ride. You know, when we were yeshiva students, we loved those stories: just then a car pulled up and the driver said, “Come on, brother, get in.” Yes, that is certainly hashgachah pratis, without the slightest shadow of a doubt. But there are forms of hashgachah pratis that are a little more consequential. When you feel you’re not succeeding in raising your children, when you feel you’re not succeeding in shalom bayis—when you feel awful about what you might call the core issues of life—and there you remember: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me. And not only with me. He sent me the problem, He sent me the challenge, and He also sent me the solution. And with Hashem’s help, I’ll find the person who can help me, and I’ll seek help if I need it. But it’s all an extension of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s hand. So no, no, no—Hashem has not abandoned the earth. If only we could be a little... You know, there’s always that question in Tanya: Avraham Avinu had love of Hashem; Yitzchak had awe. So what do you want from me? I’m all washed up. No, no—he passed it on. They passed it on. The Baal Shem Tov passed it on to us, passed it on,

50:19 Speaker 2 gave it to us. The Rebbe passes it on to us. A Lag BaOmer parade about fear.

50:25 Speaker 3 Parade.

50:26 Speaker 2 Parade.

50:27 Speaker 3 [unclear].

50:27 Speaker 2 I mean—and then go look for solutions. Nothing that happens at a farbrengen, when you’re feeling uplifted, is going to solve your problems for you. If you have something you need to work out with your wife, no one will do it for you. If you need to apologize to someone, no one will do it for you. If you need to get a grip on how you’re raising your children, no one will do it for you. And if you’ve made mistakes—and I’ve made mistakes, and I still make mistakes—no one will apologize on my behalf. I’ll have to get up and do it. But to be able to apologize, I need drive. I need strength, and I need faith that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me. That’s l’chaim. L’chaim!

51:05 Speaker 3 L’chaim and blessings.

51:08 Speaker 2 Yes.

51:13 Speaker 3 That’s really what we need to do. In short, l’chaim—we need to put it into practice, so it won’t just be...

51:20 Speaker 2 Yes.

51:20 Speaker 3 Now, you said, “Let’s stay with this before we look for solutions.” Let’s stay with it.

51:23 Speaker 2 Because you can’t succeed if you don’t rise above it. So let yourself rise above it. I mean...

51:28 Speaker 3 No, sometimes I keep looking for the practical side. Okay, so what do I do tomorrow? No—at a farbrengen, let go of the practical for a moment. Be...

51:36 Speaker 2 No, again.

51:37 Speaker 3 Let’s stay with this.

51:37 Speaker 2 It’s not a contradiction.

51:38 Speaker 3 Yes, yes, yes.

51:39 Speaker 2 It’s simply about drawing energy for the practical work.

51:41 Speaker 3 Yes.

51:41 Speaker 2 It’s not that I’m losing sight of the practical work. I want it so badly that I have to rise above things in order to do it, because if I’m sinking in the mud, I can’t manage. I can’t. I simply can’t.

51:53 Speaker 3 Along those lines.

51:54 Speaker 2 Yes. So first of all, the Baal Shem Tov was overjoyed. He got up in the morning, came back from the mikveh, and he was already happy—and all the students...

52:02 Speaker 3 On that day.

52:02 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, exactly. Everyone noticed. There was a slight change: the Baal Shem Tov’s face was glowing. He asked to lead the prayers, and when he did, he didn’t say Tachanun. Instead, he sang songs and niggunim like the ones he would sing on Yom Tov, on Chai Elul. So of course, right after davening, everyone approached the Baal Shem Tov. What’s going on? He said, “A new soul has descended into the world. This soul will illuminate the world with the teachings of the revealed Torah and with Chassidus, and it will have mesirus nefesh until the coming of Moshiach.” I hope I haven’t got the wording wrong, but that was the gist. It will have mesirus nefesh until the coming of Moshiach. So first of all, a new soul—that’s, that’s wow. I heard Rabbi Adin Even-Israel say once that a new soul is an unused soul. It’s a soul that has no preconceived notions about the world.

53:16 Speaker 3 It comes in fresh, as it were.

53:17 Speaker 2 Yes. And I remember I danced when I heard that... You know, something just clicks. Sometimes you can have a thousand and one interpretations of something, and then its simplest meaning suddenly clicks. Before all the definitions of a new soul—that it had never been reincarnated, that it comes from the World of Atzilus and remains here as it was in the World of Atzilus, like Moshe Rabbeinu—before all the definitions, “new” means new. What does “new” mean in plain language? The opposite of old. What is old? Used. What is new? Unused. What is old? Someone who says, “I already know you. I know you. I know all your habits, all your addictions, where you’ve fallen. I know you, I know you. All right, next.” No—how do lawyers put it? “Put twenty on it, come back...” How do they say it? “You’re not getting out of this, but we’ll dress up the case.” Yes.

54:14 Speaker 3 Depends how much you put down.

54:15 Speaker 2 Yes, depends how much you put down. Somehow we’ll manage to get you out of it. But look: he’s new. And I remember that really struck me. The Baal Shem Tov was happy that a new soul would descend into the world, a soul capable of looking at people with fresh eyes, completely fresh eyes, right now. It’s incredible. Every Jew who opens Tanya should feel that. When we open Tanya, we know that Tanya is a yechidus with the Alter Rebbe, because that’s what he writes at the beginning of the book. It isn’t a book, because he says a book can’t help people.

54:57 Speaker 3 Right, he says that at the start of the introduction.

54:58 Speaker 2 At most, it can help a few people. That’s what the Alter Rebbe writes in the introduction to Likkutei Amarim. And a person who is in darkness—this is the Alter Rebbe’s strongest argument in that introduction—even if you put a light in front of him, he won’t see that the light is good, because he’s in darkness. I’m in the dark. Never mind—I can’t... Give me whatever solutions you want, advice for every problem. I don’t see that advice as relevant to my life. I’m in the dark. I’m lonely. I’m broken. That’s my life. And so, the Alter Rebbe says, this isn’t a book. Let’s set aside the concept of a book that tries to solve problems. Yes, all the advice is here, but in a different atmosphere, a different framework. The framework is: you and I are sitting together in yechidus, and I’m accompanying you. For the long term, by the way. The beinoni breaks down along the way several times. Anyone who follows what happens in Tanya knows that the beinoni breaks down. And you know, when you’re giving advice, you give it once. That’s it, I said it in chapter 25.

56:02 Speaker 3 You can wrap it up very simply.

56:03 Speaker 2 Yes, very simply. In chapter 25 I told you [unclear], and so on. So what? What’s going on with you? You understand? And by the end of chapter 35, the Alter Rebbe finds himself saying, “I need to comfort them doubly.” I need to comfort the beinonim. He came to me yesterday and told me that after all the advice I gave him, in the end it didn’t work. I had to sit with him and comfort him. Now, comforting someone—you know, when you come, G-d forbid, and may no one ever need it...

56:31 Speaker 3 Yes.

56:33 Speaker 2 When you come to comfort someone, there are no words. You stand at the door thinking for five minutes: What will I say? How will I say it? And in the end you tell yourself, I’ll sit there. I’ll be there. He’ll be happy to see me. It’ll do his heart good. That’s it! And don’t see it as though he’s saying, “I have clear-cut answers for every crisis in your life, but right now I need to comfort you.” That’s a different story. That’s it. I’m just giving chapter 35 as an example of how Tanya really is a yechidus with the Alter Rebbe. And when you come in to the Alter Rebbe, the pleasure, the delight, is that he looks at me as someone new. That’s true of every Rebbe, by the way. But when we go back to the beginning of the process, the Baal Shem Tov leads the prayers, sings, and says, “A new soul has descended into the world.” Not a soul of additions, improvements, refinements—you know, one that will fix all your bugs. First of all, you can’t fix all the bugs. Personally, I don’t believe in that. Fix all the bugs? But let’s say you could. First and foremost, this soul will be able to look at you with fresh eyes, without the baggage of the past, without blame, without blame. Someone who reads Tanya has blame taken away—that’s the number-one thing. You know, thank G-d, I get to give Tanya classes in many, many places, including to audiences who don’t consider themselves religious at all. The feeling they have afterward is something that moves me so much, and I can never quite feel the excitement they feel.

58:08 Speaker 3 Yes, we constantly feel that we’re missing that.

58:09 Speaker 2 Missing it, missing it, because we’re still in the younger yeshiva division, you understand? With the fine points of this and that—and that’s important, it’s important, and it’s true.

58:18 Speaker 3 If you ask whether there’s a way to...

58:20 Speaker 2 What?

58:21 Speaker 3 To learn Tanya, I mean, really from the beginning.

58:24 Speaker 2 Yes.

58:24 Speaker 3 With fresh eyes.

58:25 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

58:26 Speaker 3 We need to. Okay, so you give Tanya classes and...

58:29 Speaker 2 And each time you see how it takes away their sense of blame. They read Tanya, and each chapter brings something into sharper focus. Now, it’s interesting, because the Alter Rebbe does speak about the animal soul. I mean, you know, I’m not going to buy freedom from blame from someone wearing rose-colored glasses who sits across from me and says, “My friend, life is beautiful, there are no problems, you’re wonderful, you’re nothing but soul from head to toe.” That person doesn’t encourage me; he just makes me even more depressed. Show me someone who comes and talks about my animal soul, talks about its impulsiveness and its problems, sees it, describes it in detail—and takes away the blame. You didn’t invent it. Your animal soul isn’t a problem you created. Hakadosh Boruch Hu put it inside you, and it’s your nature. It’s also called the natural soul. So don’t panic. That’s it. He makes your situation feel normal, and at the same time, he doesn’t let me off the hook. Because if, on the one hand, you take away my sense of blame, but on the other hand, you lower my expectations of life, then I’m disappointed in you as my educator. You understand? If all you do is understand me, I don’t choose you as my educator. By the way, that’s a familiar story with many educators. You know, it’s interesting: an educator devotes himself to understanding and accepting someone, and suddenly he discovers that the young man has simply run off to...

59:54 Speaker 3 All that...

59:55 Speaker 2 Yes, he’s gone somewhere else. And suddenly he’s gone to someone who tells him, “Do one, two, three, four.” The educator says, “I accepted him and understood him, while that other person doesn’t understand the soul at all.” A person wants a challenge. He doesn’t want you to excuse him from the challenge. He doesn’t want you to take away the feeling that he can overcome the problems in his life. So understand that. There’s an incredible approach here that the Alter Rebbe brings us as a new soul: he makes demands of me, and he also makes me feel normal. You understand? In the moments when I think I’m a monster, he tells me I’m not. And he comforts me, too. There’s a gentleness there, and that’s a new soul. Only a new soul can do that. Because used souls have already thought up ninety percent of what they’re going to tell you before they walk in—before you’ve even begun sitting with me. You understand?

1:00:44 Speaker 4 I’ve already put you in this category or that one.

1:00:46 Speaker 2 You shut me down, and you even gave me solutions, which was super nice of you, but you still haven’t listened to me. How could you give me solutions from outside the room? Come sit with me. Feel what I’m feeling. Understand where I am in life today before you find solutions for me and shove them in my face. So look: come with a new soul, a clean soul. It’s clear in every direction. It’s clear enough to see your soul too—its clarity, its depth, the [unclear] in it—and not give up on any of it. It’s clear enough to look at that. Come on, it isn’t biased; it sees your problems too. It sees them, but it’s clear. Because, you know, it isn’t weighed down by blame. Blame sits on top of trauma. Sorry, I’m not wearing a professional hat right now, because I’m not a professional. I just work in education, and I’m a simple Jew sitting here with a mic. But that attempt to get something off your chest and say, “There, I found it—that’s the problem, and that’s the problem, and it’s this person”—we do that too. Even with our national trauma after October 7, we’re trying to solve it. You know, to ease a little of the— It can’t be. And if it can’t be, then there has to be someone, something, to pin it on. So some say it’s this, others say it’s the army, others say it’s that person, or the diplomatic leadership, or the politicians. In the end, it’s our inability as a people. Come on, October 7 isn’t just October 7. It’s the sum of seventy years of madness here, years in which we never managed to understand what we want or where we’re going. So you understand what I mean. But someone who’s older in terms of what he’s lived through has a very hard time

1:02:33 Speaker 2 because he’s already accumulated emotions, traumas, post-traumas, and so he jumps to blame. You understand? That’s the first thing that comes to him. But look at him with a new soul. He sits with us with a clean slate, a clean slate. Understand: he comes and looks at everything with a clean slate. He asks us to do the same, comforts us without baggage, and doesn’t blame us. L’chaim, l’chaim.

1:03:04 Speaker 4 No, when I think about the Alter Rebbe, Tanya is always the first thing that comes to mind, and how much it changed things for us. I’m going back to my first point: I feel that as Chabad chassidim, we often miss that, time and again. I’m asking how we can really read it as though we didn’t have all the—everything you mentioned before.

1:03:27 Speaker 2 Yes. First of all.

1:03:30 Speaker 4 When you give a class to people outside—

1:03:32 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:03:33 Speaker 4 You see the excitement, you see the light in their eyes, you see the—

1:03:36 Speaker 2 Right. Look, ultimately the dividing line is the point where it begins to speak to you. You can’t teach Chassidus and inspire people with it if it hasn’t touched you. I mean, you can give beautiful, precise, eloquent explanations. Our generation has a great many shortcomings, but there’s one quality you can’t take away from it: it can’t stand anything fake. On the one hand, it’s drowning in the sea of distractions of our generation, and at the same time—precisely because of that—it’s asking for truth. Now, truth is a huge word. You don’t have to say, “I’m a genuine person, so I can—” No. We’re all genuine, and we’re all fake too. It depends on the hour, the moment, the circumstances. But there’s truth in us, and there’s fakeness in us too. I’m not going to give up on the truth in me because of the fakeness, and I’m not going to neglect dealing with the fakeness in me because of the truth. You understand? At the same time, people want something that isn’t fake. And what they’re asking of you is much less lofty than it sounds. They just want to know that it passed through you first, that before you got here, you sat with it. And I say, fine, I don’t want to start giving tips on spreading the wellsprings outward—who am I to do that?—but this certainly applies when we speak to people outside, or to our children. We want to pass something on. Stop for five seconds, four seconds: Did it pass through me? Did it cut through me? Did it strike me? Did that flash of insight strike me? Now, it doesn’t have to strike me with the same intensity that I want to convey. Sometimes, look, an audience—or your children, if you’re a parent—draw things out of you that you didn’t think were in you, or hadn’t planned to say,

1:05:25 Speaker 2 and they manage to draw them out. But all they’re asking for is one moment of truth, one moment of encounter, one moment when this thing struck you—when you glimpsed it and were affected by it. In a good way.

1:05:37 Speaker 5 Yes.

1:05:39 Speaker 2 You know what? Even in the plain sense of the story about entering the Pardes: “He glimpsed and was affected.” That there was some moment in your life when you were shaken, in a good way—shaken by it. Now, that can’t happen only from, you know, studying Tanya as part of the regular classroom schedule. It really calls for an encounter with the Tanya that’s more relaxed, more expansive. And that’s a good resolution I’d recommend to anyone. Whether you’re a Chabad chossid or not, no matter how much Tanya you’ve gone over—excuse the expression—in yeshiva, or how many classes of Reb Yoel’s you’ve heard, which enrich you tremendously: you see how every word and every nuance is precise to the utmost. But however precise the idea is, it also has to speak precisely to me. Because in this book, the Alter Rebbe wanted to explain clearly to me, an ordinary person, how to serve Hashem. It’s something close to me. I really invite myself and everyone else to encounter the Alter Rebbe’s Tanya. You don’t have to wait until you’re a Chabad shliach for young people, or for this group or that group, to encounter Tanya in this way.

1:06:56 Speaker 5 You spoke about—we were talking about our life-force: the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe. So we started with the Baal Shem Tov: don’t be afraid, and love every Jew. Then we spoke about the Alter Rebbe: a new soul. What does that add? What’s the difference? The teachings of Chassidus were revealed to the world by the Baal Shem Tov. Then there’s the Maggid, and there are many, many Chassidic groups. And there’s Chabad. What did the Alter Rebbe add or introduce beyond the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings? What’s new? What’s the extra— I don’t know if “extra” is the word, or whether it’s different, or whether the Alter Rebbe’s contribution is a continuation of the Baal Shem Tov’s, because they’re both on the same day, at the same time. Two revelations.

1:07:39 Speaker 2 Yes. Well, first of all, the fact that they’re both on the same day means that it’s a continuation. And the Rebbe was always careful to say that the Alter Rebbe was a successor to the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid, and so on.

1:07:51 Speaker 5 We— The Rebbe always made a point of listing that sequence for us too.

1:07:54 Speaker 2 It really is one continuous sequence, one thing following from the other. Without a doubt. Look, leaving Chabad aside for a moment, I’d say that every revolutionary creates a revolution. Okay? Now, once you create a revolution, immediately afterward you have to give it the means to take hold. You understand? I mean, it can’t just be—yes, like the example people give: the Jewish people had fainted spiritually, and the holy Reb Yisroel Baal Shem Tov came and whispered “Yisroel” into the Jew’s ear. There’s that well-known story about Rabbi Moshe Feiner [unclear], the shliach who submitted a column to a newspaper and wrote about Chai Elul, and the Baal Shem—or no, about Chai Elul. He wrote that the Baal Shem Tov, the founder and originator of Chassidus, shouted into the Jew’s ear, “Wake up!” He crossed out the word “shouted” and wrote “whispered”—in English. That alone is worth a farbrengen of its own. But it’s not just that the Baal Shem Tov—you know, in the end the Baal Shem Tov comes and whispers into your ear, “Wake up. Come out of your faint.” Okay. That’s the dramatic moment. You’ve taken someone who was almost dead and brought him from death to life. First of all, on Chai Elul today, the Baal Shem Tov is still relevant. If someone thinks that because we’ve had the Alter Rebbe, the Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe Rashab, and Tomchei Temimim, the Baal Shem Tov is no longer relevant—no. It’s all relevant. It’s all one whole. If today I feel dead, I need the Baal Shem Tov. First of all, on Chai Elul, I need to come back to life. That’s the ABC. Okay. If I don’t study Chassidus at all, and I find myself a young married Chabad chossid who doesn’t study Chassidus at all, this is the day I’m supposed to start doing it, to start. And not just because it’s Elul, not just because it’s Elul. You know, Elul is the time when you

1:09:40 Speaker 2 You set things in place for the whole year. This isn’t a time when you do things just for Elul. Chai Elul comes to bring life into Elul, but what is Elul itself? It’s the month when you get your train on the tracks for the coming year. It isn’t a month when you wake up just so you can say you woke up, and then everything falls apart. No. That’s not what Elul is about. Maybe we’ll come back to that later, to what Elul is about, because we haven’t really touched on it yet. But think about it: when a revolutionary arrives, the first thing he does is wake people from a faint, from spiritual death, from slumber. Okay. Now, when that revolutionary is busy with this all the time, and every Motzaei Shabbos, every couple of days, he takes his wagon and goes looking for another Jew whose spark needs kindling—that Jew then starts looking and asking: Where do I go? What do I do with this spark? As you asked at the beginning of the podcast, what do I do with it in actual life? And if we carry that into Elul: Elul consists of weekdays. Anyone who has studied Torah Or—sorry, Likkutei Torah, Parshas Re’eh, “Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li”—knows this. The Rebbe asks: Why is it weekdays? Because Elul wants to establish things in actual life.

1:10:47 Speaker 6 Not to be one long Yom Tov.

1:10:48 Speaker 2 One long Yom Tov, or a month of Ramadan—excuse the expression—and then, then nothing. Elul comes to change something in life. So in the end, the Jew who has awakened wants tools for this. Incidentally, that’s something the Alter Rebbe emphasizes. Anyone who studies Torah Or or Likkutei Torah knows it; it comes up many times in Tanya too. Now, the Alter Rebbe, after he—you know—rolls on the floor... In Likkutei Torah, unlike Tanya, where it’s a little more restrained, you get this depiction of the Alter Rebbe rolling on the floor and saying, “I don’t want Your Gan Eden...” How can it be? Sometimes you see him do it right in the middle of Likkutei Torah. Suddenly there’s a whole column.

1:11:29 Speaker 6 In the text.

1:11:30 Speaker 2 What’s happening? Where’s the question? Where’s the answer? Where—wait, wait a second. But look where he’s going now: he’s rolling, and he’s trying to take us there with him, to roll with him in a tallis and say, “Nothing—only You.” And the Alter Rebbe always emphasizes very, very strongly: immediately after Shacharis, go straight to words of Torah, study Mishnah, study something each day, and bring the light into vessels. The Alter Rebbe creates a method. He isn’t only the revolutionary who woke people from death; he comes to give them tools for a whole life. And as I said earlier, look at where we meet the beinoni in chapter 35: after he has already received a method for living, a way of life, and he has fallen. Someone needs to accompany him on that journey, the long journey of life. So, like everything, it has its progression, its—its— It’s not that the Baal Shem Tov couldn’t have done this in theory. It doesn’t imply any deficiency in the Baal Shem Tov’s stature. It’s simply that Hakadosh Boruch Hu assigns souls to each era and each task.

1:12:28 Speaker 6 So the Baal Shem Tov’s task was to bring light?

1:12:30 Speaker 2 Well, it says—oh, yes, I’m not worthy to—

1:12:33 Speaker 6 Ah.

1:12:33 Speaker 2 —for us to say what the Baal Shem Tov’s task was. But it does say that the Baal Shem Tov brought light. That’s what he did. I don’t know that I can say exactly what his task was. I don’t need to define it. But the Alter Rebbe created a method, a structured path for an entire way of life. The Alter Rebbe even took the trouble to create a siddur, for example, a nusach. He took the trouble to establish minyanim. Incidentally, he was questioned about this in prison. Anyone who has seen the Alter Rebbe’s Igros Kodesh that came to light over the last fifteen years knows that the entire interrogation is there. One of the things they ask him is, “Why did you set up different minyanim?” And he says that in the other minyanim they prayed too quickly and clapped their hands without really being present. He had to create a framework for people who wanted to daven to Hashem. The very fact that the Alter Rebbe concerns himself with establishing minyanim—you understand?—with creating a system in which all this can be given practical form. And, if you’ll excuse the painful example I’m bringing in here, the fact that the State of Israel brought hostages out of Gaza is not the end of the story. It’s only the beginning. These people carry trauma, post-traumatic stress, tremendous difficulties, memories that surface at three in the morning. And not only the hostages: everyone who was in Gaza during that period, and every citizen of this country over the last two or three years who took their children from one safe room to another. Ultimately, a country has a duty to say, “Okay, I got this person out. What do I do for him now?” You know, it’s like in davening, where we say “Redeemer of Israel” and then “Heal us.” I always thought of it this way: “Redeemer of Israel”—you’ve been redeemed; now, come on, on to rehabilitation. Rehabilitation, [unclear][?]. Let’s begin, begin healing. Because ostensibly he’s been redeemed. So why does he need healing? He’s not

1:14:21 Speaker 2 in trouble anymore. Yes, he needs healing. Because Geulah isn’t the end of the story. It’s the beginning. The Baal Shem Tov woke people from their slumber. You had that awakening in Elul, that one moment of teshuvah, and you say, “Come on, let’s wake up.” Fine—but where do I put it? Who’s willing to learn with me at six in the morning, before I have to get to work—a twenty-minute chavrusa studying a maamar of the Rebbe? Where do I fit in time with my children? All these things need time, a framework, a definition. And the Alter Rebbe appoints his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, to be responsible for guiding the young people. A system begins to take shape. Of course, the Alter Rebbe himself is a rolling fire. You know, the Alter Rebbe’s wife was frightened at first by the way he would behave. Then, on one of the first Shabbosim after their wedding, his brother-in-law went upstairs and reassured her that everything was all right, that he would come back to himself. So much so that it’s later told that the Alter Rebbe would teach a child to earn a little money, perhaps a ruble and a half a month. When the child was waiting for the Alter Rebbe to be ready to learn with him, the Rebbetzin would say, “Would you like to see a sight? Come, meanwhile, I’ll show you something.” She would take him up to the attic and show him the Alter Rebbe rolling in his tallis and crying out, “I don’t want anything—only Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself.” So certainly, chas veshalom, we aren’t saying, “All right, we had the Baal Shem Tov, this meteoric figure, and now we needed some composed aristocrat with a bow tie to come and put things in order for us.” The Alter Rebbe himself is a wheel of fire, a wheel of fire spinning in a tallis.

1:15:58 Speaker 2 Nothing stops; things are only added. The Baal Shem Tov’s fire doesn’t stop with the author of the Tanya.

1:16:04 Speaker 6 And turn into something else.

1:16:05 Speaker 2 And turn into something else. It receives vessels. And the very person who gives me those vessels is someone who still lives the Baal Shem Tov, who pours himself out in his books, in every kind of holy expression. In his fiery dveikus to Hashem, he is utterly carried away with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He didn’t simply put it into vessels and leave us with little cups. So how do we translate this into actual life? Come on—which part do you want to translate into actual life? What flame do you want to place in vessels? What Baal Shem Tov do you want to bring into the author of the Tanya? Talk to me. Tell me. What? You understand? So again, these are only hints, and of course there’s no end to it. The author of the Tanya writes a Shulchan Aruch and deals with halachah while revealing something immense within. It’s to bring that about.

1:17:01 Speaker 6 [unclear].

1:17:02 Speaker 2 So that no one—if I may put it as a headline—can come to a Chabad gathering and say, “You Chabadniks are lovely. You made us very happy tonight, but tomorrow I have actual life to deal with. Tomorrow you’ll go back to your mitzvah tanks, and I’ll turn to the right people to help me with actual life.” The author of the Tanya comes and says: the Baal Shem Tov’s fire, the dancing of Chabad chassidim at a Chabad evening with Yosef Marton[?] or whoever it may be—it enters into sentences. You can encounter it tomorrow at ten in the morning. Tomorrow morning you can be a match for your wife. You can be a match for your children. And that flame will be there. It will be there in a different form, but it will be there. Life.

1:17:54 Speaker 6 L’chaim, l’chaim u’livrachah. Elul—we’re at the end of the month of Elul. Chai Elul. We spoke about the Baal Shem Tov, the Alter Rebbe.

1:18:01 Speaker 2 About the Rebbe.

1:18:02 Speaker 6 About the Rebbe. And with Elul, the count is starting right now, too. You said Elul is the time when we set ourselves up for the whole year. Right now, from 18 Elul, there are twelve days. A day for a year, a day for a year—a day for a month, a day for a month.

1:18:16 Speaker 2 A day for a month.

1:18:17 Speaker 6 Really. L’chaim. L’chaim and to blessing.

1:18:31 Speaker 2 Look, there’s something very interesting about Elul that the Rebbe spoke about in a sicha on Parshas Eikev, [unclear][?]. It was a very interesting farbrengen, because the Rebbe spoke there about the young men in kollel. That sicha is mainly remembered for the part where the Rebbe took the kollel students to task for not learning and for wasting their time, and so on. The Rebbe made a certain proposal there, that only those with the aptitude...

1:18:57 Speaker 6 Wasting time, wasting time.

1:18:58 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes, in the middle of a farbrengen. But there’s a very long section of the sicha in the middle of that farbrengen, where the Rebbe discusses the purpose of the last forty days Moshe Rabbeinu spent on the mountain—which are, essentially, Elul and the Ten Days of Teshuvah. What was their purpose? And if you’ll allow me, I’ll go back to one point from there. Through this sicha, we’ll be able to understand much, much better what our role is in Elul. The Rebbe asks: There were, apparently, three periods of forty days. During the first forty days, Moshe went up the mountain after Matan Torah to receive the first Luchos and, in effect, to sit as a student before Hakadosh Boruch Hu and hear Torah. He had to hear all the laws and everything beyond the Ten Commandments written on the Luchos. Fine. So he was both learning Torah and receiving the Luchos. He was about to come down on 17 Tammuz, but saw the sin of the Golden Calf and broke the Luchos. Then we have another forty days. What happened during those forty days? Moshe Rabbeinu tells us, “I prostrated myself”—I literally pleaded with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. For forty days I did only one thing: I begged Him to forgive you for the sin of the Golden Calf. At the end of those middle forty days, Hakadosh Boruch Hu was appeased. What’s the greatest possible proof that He was appeased? What does He tell me? “Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones.” Come, as it were, as the one arranging the marriage—go ahead and write the marriage contract again. I’m coming to the wedding; I’m ready to marry Knesses Yisroel again. If Matan Torah was a marriage, I’m ready for marriage again. That’s enormous. That’s incredible news. Yes. Okay, the last forty days begin. Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes and tells him to carve two tablets of stone like the first ones, “and I will write on the tablets.” Yes, that’s what the second Luchos lacked. The first Luchos—Hakadosh Boruch Hu both carved them and wrote the Ten Commandments on them. The second Luchos—

1:20:41 Speaker 2 He only wrote on them; He didn’t carve them. Moshe Rabbeinu carved them. There’s a disagreement about whether he carved them in his tent down below—and became wealthy from the material left over—or up above. Anyway, he carved them. Very good. The Rebbe asks: Why are another forty days needed for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to write the Ten Commandments? Even a human being would take about five hours to engrave them on the Luchos. All the more so—lehavdil, with countless distinctions—could the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Who is limited by nothing, write them in the blink of an eye. So He tells him to go up the mountain for Him to write them. Now, he no longer needs to learn Torah; he has already learned it. He no longer needs to pray and plead with Hakadosh Boruch Hu to forgive the Jewish people; he’s finished that. Hakadosh Boruch Hu has been appeased. Just writing them doesn’t require forty days. Now, Onkelos and Targum Yonasan ben Uziel do translate “Hashem listened to me,” in Parshas Eikev, as “He accepted my prayer.” That implies that Moshe Rabbeinu continued praying during the last forty days, too. But according to Rashi, Moshe went up “to receive the final Luchos,” period. There’s no prayer here, nothing else. According to Rashi, he simply went to receive the Luchos. Why? Because that’s the plain meaning. Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him to go up so that He could write them. That’s it. Fine, says the Rebbe, but the question remains: Why? Now, there’s a Midrash that says that with the final Luchos, Hakadosh Boruch Hu taught Moshe Rabbeinu additional Midrashim and teachings that weren’t given with the first Luchos. But first of all, we see that Rashi doesn’t adopt that, because he doesn’t

1:22:15 Speaker 2 mention it. Second, that doesn’t require forty days either. It’s an addition; the fundamentals of the Torah had already been given. The Rebbe says: What did Moshe Rabbeinu do during the first forty days? What do you think he did? Did he only listen to words of Torah from Hakadosh Boruch Hu? No. Moshe Rabbeinu sanctified himself; he prepared himself to receive. How? “I ate no bread and drank no water.” I separated myself from the physical and sanctified myself so I could become a purer vessel for the Torah Hakadosh Boruch Hu was giving me.

1:22:47 Speaker 7 That was the first forty days.

1:22:47 Speaker 2 That was the first forty days. In other words, says the Rebbe, every day of the first forty days—

1:22:52 Speaker 7 Was significant.

1:22:52 Speaker 2 He became—each day was significant. He became purer, more refined. As a vessel receiving the Torah from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he became more and more capable of receiving it. Very good. Now, since it says “like the first days”—Moshe Rabbeinu says in Parshas Eikev that the last days he spent on the mountain were like the first days—Rashi says, “Just as those were with favor, so too these were with favor.” That doesn’t only mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us the Luchos willingly. It also means that during the last forty days, Moshe Rabbeinu once again worked on himself and made himself a vessel to receive. Once again, he went through a process he already knew, and he didn’t tire of it. He wasn’t too lazy to repeat the refinement needed to receive the Torah. Very good. So the Rebbe says: Why, then, does it say that on Yom Kippur Hashem said, “I have forgiven, as you said”? Didn’t we say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu was already appeased at the end of the middle forty days? So He had already forgiven them. What was added at the end—on Yom Kippur, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Luchos at the end of the last forty days—that He said, “I have forgiven, as you said”? Wait, You hadn’t forgiven me until now? The Rebbe explains it this way. Look at Rashi in Parshas Ki Sisa, and you’ll see that Rashi adds two words to “I have forgiven, as you said”: “with joy and a whole heart.” In other words, says the Rebbe, the last days certainly were with favor, just like the first days—not one bit less. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu says He forgave, He forgave; when He was appeased, He was appeased. He’s not a human being who tells you he forgives you and then says, “I—well...” [unclear][?] So what was added now? Joy. The Rebbe asks: Why was there additional joy for Hakadosh Boruch Hu after the last forty days? For two reasons. This is the point I want to make, and I apologize to everyone who has grown tired of this Rashi sicha. The Rebbe says that joy

1:24:37 Speaker 2 couldn’t have been present the first time. Favor could have been there, but joy couldn’t. Why not joy? Because joy involves a twist in the story. Joy arose because of the Jewish people’s fall, because of the failure in between. It’s the feeling that comes when something that was fine stops being fine and then becomes fine again—or when everything was fine, and you almost fell but caught yourself. Then there’s a “Wow, there’s something special here.” There’s a particular joy, a special feeling called joy. And “with a whole heart,” says the Rebbe, is much more than the favor at the beginning. In other words, it’s something additional. At first, it says the last days were like the first days in the favor shown. Now it’s much deeper. It’s a much greater desire than the desire at the beginning. After the sin of the Golden Calf, we received from Hakadosh Boruch Hu a much deeper joy and desire to give us the Torah than there had been at first. Very good. The Rebbe asks: Where did that come from? What made Hakadosh Boruch Hu so joyful? On the one hand, as we said, it was the teshuvah—the Jewish people did teshuvah. On the other hand, and this is the most important point to remember, the Rebbe says it was the very fact that Moshe Rabbeinu stood there and received the Torah anew. He refined himself anew; he worked on himself to become able to receive again after the sin of the Golden Calf. That gave Hakadosh Boruch Hu tremendous pleasure. Now, since this is an unedited sicha—

1:26:00 Speaker 8 Yes.

1:26:01 Speaker 2 I don’t know if—but it’s all written there in brief. So that’s the content of the sicha, okay? Now I’ll go back to the farbrengen, and I just want to make one point. What’s new here? What’s the twist? Why is Hakadosh Boruch Hu so happy that Moshe Rabbeinu manages to receive again? After all, this is Moshe. He’s on a high level; he knows how to detach himself from physicality—“I drank no water and ate no bread.” That’s not so remarkable for him. My father told me that one morning in Brunoy [?], Reb Menashe Nimrod [?] came into the dining room and thought a yellow sponge lying there—one of those old-fashioned sponges—was an omelet. He was convinced it was an omelet and went to bring it to a student. I mean, you know, someone so detached from the physical—and Moshe Rabbeinu certainly was—it’s not such a “wow” that he managed to return to that state of detachment. But there is something very great here. What is it? When we fall—and all of us have fallen in one way or another, some more deeply and some less; we all still fall and will probably fall somewhere again, because we’re human—we have a Jewish instinct to come to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and say, “I have sinned, I have transgressed, I have rebelled. I’m sorry, and I won’t do it again. I take it upon myself not to do it again,” and so on. But there’s a moment when you’re supposed to notice that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has accepted you. He smiles at you and says, “I have accepted you. I’m not a human being.” The Alter Rebbe writes in Tanya that there is not a shadow of a doubt—not even the slightest doubt—that when we say, “The gracious One Who forgives abundantly,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives at that very moment. Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells you, “Come on, carve for yourself two

1:27:47 Speaker 2 tablets of stone like the first ones. Move forward. Get past this stage of pleading for your life and throwing yourself down in supplication.” The Jew who keeps saying, “No, but there’s something wrong with me. I’m a troubled person. I fell and fell, and I’m guilty, and there’s something wrong with me, so I can’t show my face, I can’t show my face, I can’t show my face”—all that muck has to stop at some point. Why? Because there comes a moment when Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “Listen, are you really a baal teshuvah? Do you really want to do teshuvah? ‘Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones.’ Come on, call the wedding hall and start booking the catering. I want to marry you again, the Jewish people. Start doing something with your life the way it should be done. Relax that muscle that keeps pleading and pleading and pleading.” “But Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t believe me.” “I’ve forgiven you.” “No, that can’t be.” Why? Why is that?

1:28:42 Speaker 9 Beating yourself up feels kind of good.

1:28:43 Speaker 2 Exactly. Beating yourself up feels good; it lets you be a victim, and being a victim keeps you where you are, and so on. But we won’t get into that now. I can already tell from your “yes, yes” [?] that this is getting into the victimhood. But it’s something—now, what’s the point? The last forty days are Elul. That’s Elul.

1:29:02 Speaker 9 Elul is “carve for yourself.”

1:29:03 Speaker 2 Elul is “carve for yourself.” Now, of course, there are also Selichos, because over the July–August vacation we didn’t have the “I threw myself down before Hashem.” We didn’t have the previous forty days. So for us it’s all packed together. From 1 Elul, many people already begin saying Selichos, and others start the following week. But ultimately these are weekdays. Elul is ordinary weekdays, days that tell you, “Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones.” What do you want your life to look like? And not just for Elul—altogether. Do you finally want to have a family evening every week? Not just because it’s someone’s birthday, but a time when everyone shares what’s been happening with them. Do you finally want to bring twenty minutes of Chassidus into your day? Go ahead. What’s stopping you? Guilt, beating yourself up, “Who am I? What am I? I’m not worthy, there’s something wrong with me, I fell.” Let it go. That’s not the atmosphere of Elul.

1:29:55 Speaker 9 “Carve for yourself.”

1:29:56 Speaker 2 “Carve for yourself.” Now, of course—here’s the thing. I’ve always thought about this. I asked myself: Why do we do teshuvah at the end?

1:30:04 Speaker 9 It should be at the beginning.

1:30:06 Speaker 2 First clean off the countertop. Tell me, “I have atoned for you”—kapparah in the sense of wiping something clean. Now the countertop is clear and clean; go ahead and cook me something new. But here Hakadosh Boruch Hu does it the other way around. He says, “I won’t tell you, ‘I have forgiven you as you requested,’ until I see whether your life really changes. Show me. Show me Elul. Show me—and I’m coming to you quietly. I’m the King who comes to you quietly, to help you make the changes you want in your life.” Now, we’re often genuinely convinced that there are things we’re addicted to, and I’m not a professional who can tell people how to overcome addictions and so on. But there’s one thing the author of the Tanya says in Tanya, and it belongs to the Elul we’re living right now: Habit becomes second nature. That same natural process turned your habit—my habit of escaping—into what it is. Because addictions are usually ways of escaping. We run away from dealing with things, to a cigarette, to this, to that. Everyone has their own addiction, including the phone in all its forms and offshoots. But we’re running away.

1:31:07 Speaker 9 And apps.

1:31:09 Speaker 2 Yes, we’re running away. But in the end, habit becomes second nature. How did you come to believe you’d be addicted? Because you formed a habit, returned to it again and again, and it became second nature. Fine—use that same pattern. Create something new now; create a new habit. Again, I’m not here in place of the professionals who help people overcome addictions.

1:31:37 Speaker 9 We’re at a farbrengen; we’re not—

1:31:38 Speaker 2 Making absolute pronouncements. We’re at a farbrengen. Right, so I’m not saying that everything can be solved this way. But just as a negative habit became fixed, habit can become a third nature, a fourth nature, a fifth nature. “I’ll start learning Chassidus for ten minutes every day before davening. I’ll start sitting down with my wife once a week.”

1:31:57 Speaker 9 It’s really nice that—

1:31:57 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:31:58 Speaker 9 The first time I learned Chassidus with you was at a class in Ramat Shlomo.

1:32:04 Speaker 2 Oh, really?

1:32:04 Speaker 9 A young married man, Dovid Sidon, held a class in his home, and I came.

1:32:08 Speaker 2 Right. That class still takes place today, on Shabbos morning.

1:32:11 Speaker 9 No, it’s young married men, each with his own things going on, and—

1:32:13 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:32:13 Speaker 9 They sit and learn Chassidus.

1:32:14 Speaker 2 Right.

1:32:14 Speaker 9 Really amazing.

1:32:15 Speaker 2 Right, with a l’chaim.

1:32:16 Speaker 9 A l’chaim. That table is something special [?].

1:32:18 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Dovid is a dear Jew, and—

1:32:22 Speaker 9 Yes.

1:32:22 Speaker 2 He makes Chassidus enter into [unclear]. So, that’s it. L’chaim, l’chaim.

1:32:28 Speaker 9 L’chaim.

1:32:28 Speaker 2 We’ll finish here. Especially in Elul—I mean, of course I sometimes need remorse. If I can’t stand before Hakadosh Boruch Hu and throw myself down in supplication over my foolishness, my mistakes and my transgressions, then I’m not being a Jew. But I can’t become addicted to that supplication. There’s a moment when Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “Move past this stage.” And Moshe knew how to do that.

1:32:49 Speaker 9 Okay.

1:32:50 Speaker 2 And the fact that Moshe knew how to do that, the Rebbe says, is the joy. It brought Hakadosh Boruch Hu joy. Look at this Jew: he isn’t wallowing in self-reproach over his people’s failings, or his own—it doesn’t matter. So l’chaim, l’chaim.

1:33:04 Speaker 9 L’chaim, Morel [?].

1:33:04 Speaker 2 First of all, I wish for the greatest thing every Jew wants: Geulah—personal Geulah, and the universal Geulah that awaits us. May we not try to find the solutions within this exile. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu come very, very, very soon to gather us, “and you will be gathered one by one.” As the Rebbe would always mention that verse from Yeshayahu, “You will be gathered one by one, children of Israel”: at the end of exile, Hakadosh Boruch Hu will come and take each one of us. We can already feel it—that He is coming to us, right into our living rooms, right to our beds, right into our homes, to take us. And may we see the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, in the Third Beis Hamikdash.

1:33:40 Speaker 9 Amen.

1:33:40 Speaker 2 Thank you so much, dear Meir.

1:33:42 Speaker 9 L’chaim, and good news.

1:33:42 Speaker 2 For this time we’ve spent together, and for the l’chaim we’ve shared.

1:33:45 Speaker 9 May it give us strength for the farbrengen. Thank you very much. L’chaim, l’chaim.

1:33:48 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim.