Why Do Chassidim Travel to the Rebbe? And What Might They Be Missing? | Rabbi Leizer Ashkenazi #004

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome. We’re continuing with the fourth farbrengen about traveling to the Rebbe, with the mashpia Rabbi Leizer Ashkenazi, mashpia at the Chinuch Lena’ar yeshiva. This farbrengen is dedicated in the merit of Hinda bas Rivka, that she find a suitable match. If you’d like to dedicate an episode in someone’s memory or merit, you’re welcome to contact me privately. L’chaim, l’chaim. Rabbi Leizer Ashkenazi, l’chaim, l’chaim.

00:19 Speaker 2 L’chaim, and blessings.

00:23 Speaker 1 Just so there’s no misunderstanding, we’re already well into the farbrengen. We’ve been going for an hour.

00:27 Speaker 2 Yes.

00:28 Speaker 1 All right, traveling to the Rebbe. Today, when I think about it, the stories used to be about traveling by horse and wagon to the town of Lubavitch, and today you board a plane. Thousands—I don’t know, really huge numbers of bochurim and families—fly to the Rebbe. So let’s farbreng about that a little. What’s it all about?

00:49 Speaker 2 Actually, that’s interesting. When I was young, I heard mashpi’im who didn’t like it when we said we were “flying to the Rebbe.” They didn’t like those words. You travel to the Rebbe. I didn’t really understand why, but now that you describe it, starting with the wagons that traveled there and ending with airplanes, perhaps there’s something to it. I’ll have to think about it. We’re only at the beginning of the farbrengen.

01:12 Speaker 1 Yes.

01:12 Speaker 2 Right, we’re in the middle—but in the middle of the beginning. L’chaim.

01:15 Speaker 1 L’chaim, l’chaim, and blessings. Traveling to the Rebbe.

01:17 Speaker 2 L’chaim, and blessings. Traveling to the Rebbe really is every chossid’s dream. It’s the thing. It can’t always be explained. We can’t even always put it into words. There’s the story about the rabbi from Dukshitz whose wife wasn’t feeling well, and people collected money for him. He took the money and traveled to the Rebbe. They said to him, “What’s going on? That’s what we collected it for?” He said, “What does it mean to travel to the Rebbe? I can’t explain it to you; you wouldn’t understand.” So there’s nothing to say, well, nothing to say. There are things that chassidim don’t know how to explain. Not everything is so rational.

01:58 Speaker 1 Logical.

01:59 Speaker 2 With a logical explanation. And traveling to the Rebbe—wow, that’s a challenge. We really need to say l’chaim and get into the farbrengen.

02:06 Speaker 1 Yes.

02:06 Speaker 2 So that we can enter into it properly, so that this will be good preparation and bring nachas to the Rebbe. L’chaim.

02:14 Speaker 1 L’chaim, l’chaim.

02:17 Speaker 2 L’chaim, and blessings. Where do we begin? When it comes to traveling to the Rebbe, where do we begin? With wanting to go.

02:24 Speaker 1 So why is it important? It is important. I remember we always farbrenged about it in yeshiva ketanah and yeshiva gedolah: the importance of traveling, and how it’s part of our hiskashrus to the Rebbe. Why? What’s so crucial about going?

02:37 Speaker 2 That’s a good question. Maybe let’s begin, and I think we’ll get there together.

02:43 Speaker 1 Let’s do it.

02:43 Speaker 2 When we talk about traveling to the Rebbe, well, there are many things. Chassidim used to say, “If you don’t travel to the Rebbe at least once a year, where do you get your life from?” The Rebbe, too, says that 770 is called Beis Chayeinu, the house of our life. That’s what chassidim always called the Rebbe’s home: Beis Chayeinu. There’s the idea of traveling to one’s rav, of going to greet one’s rav on a festival, which is in place of traveling to the Beis Hamikdash. After the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, it was established as halachah that one should go to greet one’s rav on a festival. So there’s receiving vitality, and there’s traveling to one’s rav. And there’s “Exile yourself to a place of Torah,” as the Alter Rebbe did. He was already a genius himself, an extraordinary scholar. There are accounts of how, at a young age, he delivered an intricate Torah discourse on sanctifying the new month in the beis midrash, and all the great scholars couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Yet he still sought to go to a place of Torah, to go to a rav. The Jewish people always knew that one must go to a rav. You have to seek out a Rebbe and learn Torah. But traveling to the Rebbe has something deeper and loftier to it, and perhaps we can connect it even more closely to traveling to the Beis Hamikdash. The Rebbe also makes this connection in letters to people: traveling to the Rebbe is like traveling to the Beis Hamikdash. If we think for a moment about traveling to the Beis Hamikdash: a Jew would be living his life, dealing with a neighbor who argued with him about where the yard ended, whether he’d moved the fence a little or not. There were disputes brought before a beis din, there was the local shul—there was everything. Then they would arrive at the Beis Hamikdash, and suddenly nothing existed there except Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They stood crowded together but had ample room to bow down. Miracles. People were uplifted; for a moment they forgot their disputes,

04:37 Speaker 2 forgot their quarrels, forgot everything, and entered a spiritual world, a G-dly world. Just me and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “Just as one came to see, so one came to be seen.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu looks at you; you come to see Hakadosh Boruch Hu through the miracles and so on. Afterward, they’d go back home, back to the pettiness. I imagine that, at least from the way we were taught about it, after Tishrei, after the festival, it took some time to return to those quarrels. They weren’t in that place anymore. And that’s why it says three times a year: the feeling wears off, and people needed to go back to receive that recharge, that clarity that nothing exists apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That’s what’s real in our lives. That’s the center of our lives. That’s everything. That, essentially, is what happened at the Beis Hamikdash. Now, do you think there was no action in Jerusalem? That it wasn’t interesting? Everyone was together. Think about the loaves of a thanksgiving offering. It says they had to make four—when a person brought a thanksgiving offering, there were forty loaves. No one can eat forty loaves in a day and a night, two days and a night.

05:46 Speaker 5 So they had to eat it within a certain amount of time.

05:47 Speaker 2 Yes. They say one explanation is that it was designed to bring people together for a farbrengen, so a person giving thanks wouldn’t be alone. He couldn’t be; he had to sit with other people. Fine, there were farbrengens there. It was interesting, it was pleasant. And there were also people who came and prayed for a good, sweet year; people who came and prayed about the troubles they were facing; people who came to receive blessings; people who came to seek guidance from the Sanhedrin. All of that was at the Beis Hamikdash. What was the most central, deepest thing? People came to bow down at the Beis Hamikdash. And the Rebbe speaks about this. The Rebbe says that in the festival prayers we say, “And we are unable to go up, to see, and to bow down before You.” So the Rebbe asks: What’s the problem? Go up. Go to the site of the Beis Hamikdash. All right, there’s no Beis Hamikdash, but do your part. Come and see. Hakadosh Boruch Hu will see you. After all, that’s the place of the Shechinah. It never departed from there; it’s always there. The Aron Habris is in the tunnels beneath the Mishkan—beneath the Beis Hamikdash. There’s a long sicha of the Rebbe explaining that the Aron Habris there is still part of the Beis Hamikdash today. So a person can come.

06:55 Speaker 5 It’s in the same place.

06:56 Speaker 2 Yes. So can you come? Come. Fine, then you can bow down.

07:01 Speaker 5 There’s no Beis Hamikdash, but I can still come.

07:02 Speaker 2 Yes, and bow down. You can’t bow down there? Who’s stopping you? What, the Defense Ministry? Politics that won’t allow people to bow down? And what if they gave permission to bow down? The Rebbe says there are two kinds of bowing: physical bowing, which is possible, and inner bowing, which is really what people experienced at the Beis Hamikdash. It’s what we chassidim seek: to experience a complete bittul before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Nothing exists apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Nothing else has real significance; nothing else matters. And lying on the ground on the Temple Mount today won’t necessarily give you that experience. Where can you experience it? When you come to the Rebbe’s place. The Rebbe says that when you come to a person who has no personal interests, who is himself completely batel, you experience that. The Rebbe speaks about this—about traveling to the Rebbe.

07:55 Speaker 5 When you come to the Rebbe.

07:56 Speaker 2 When you come to the Rebbe, you experience a kind of inner bowing. He isn’t talking about physically bowing. On the contrary, it’s that inner experience of bowing that matters to us as chassidim; that’s the deeper thing. You experience it with the Rebbe, and it’s elusive. Why? Again, there was a lot of action in the Beis Hamikdash too, a lot to see, a lot of interesting things. Some people danced at the Simchas Beis Hashoeivah, some stood and watched, some stood in the women’s courtyard, and some slept on other people’s shoulders, as the descriptions say, and so on. There was a lot going on. There was [unclear], it was Sukkos, people brought thanksgiving offerings, and on and on. And not everyone came to bow. I don’t want to talk about them. I’m not talking about them; I’m talking about the idea. Not everyone grasped that there was an inner bowing here. That’s what we’re looking for, what Chassidus teaches us, and what the Rebbe teaches us. You won’t get there on your own. Travel to the Rebbe. When I was a child, people would say, “The penny will drop.” Today you’d have to explain what a payphone token was and what it means for it to drop. But—

08:51 Speaker 6 That’s a whole farbrengen at Reb Shimon’s[unclear].

08:53 Speaker 2 Yes.

08:53 Speaker 6 What a token is, and what all that means.

08:54 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

08:55 Speaker 6 That took us about half an hour.

08:56 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, explaining what a token is, how it drops, and what happens. But suddenly it will sink in for me, I’ll internalize it, I’ll feel it, I’ll grasp that there really is nothing besides Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Rebbe—the Rebbe is my whole life. That’s literally how it is. It’s real, it’s absolute, all the way.

09:16 Speaker 6 And why does it happen specifically there? We hold farbrengens here. You know, there’s a point here, something to it. What does it mean to come, to go? Today flying is very easy too. I’m talking about the years when they arranged charter flights, years when it was hard to fly. Not everyone would fly.

09:31 Speaker 2 You’re saying several things.

09:32 Speaker 6 Flying to the Rebbe on some [unclear] trip, and people would stand there—you’ve seen that video of more than a hundred people coming to dance with them as they flew to 770[unclear], 770[unclear].

09:41 Speaker 2 There was tremendous excitement when someone was going. It cost about half a year’s salary, plus all sorts of other things. It wasn’t simple.

09:49 Speaker 6 Yes.

09:49 Speaker 2 So you’re touching here on the question of preparation too. You’re raising a few points: why specifically there, and what about preparation? Because what happened was that the trip itself prepared you. The trip itself meant half a year revolving around it. That’s preparation; it already does something. Someone recently told me that he’d noticed: if you don’t make spiritual preparations, the Rebbe makes physical preparations for you. Suddenly your flight is delayed; suddenly there’s a problem with the visa, then another visa issue, then problems with the room. You’ll arrive less and less full of yourself. Either you make those preparations by learning—and that’s the long, proper, straightforward way—learning some maamarim of Chassidus, reviewing them again and again, and preparing yourself; or you’ll have that sort of physical preparation. That’s how it happens. That’s generally how it works. But there is some preparation. And really, well, there’s no question that when travel becomes quicker and simpler, it seems there’s a point to going much sooner. If we’re talking about traveling sooner, when Reb Mendel arrived in Israel, the first thing he did was say, “Go to the Rebbe. Go to the Rebbe. Go to the Rebbe. Come on, come on, what’s going on? Go to the Rebbe.” The ones who first stirred things up about going to the Rebbe were the shluchim who came in 5706, 5707, 5708. They started saying that people had to go to the Rebbe. Reb Mendel would ask anyone he met, “When were you last at the Rebbe?” Now my father, a"h, was a supervisor at the yeshivah in Lod, and back then it wasn’t customary for young boys to travel to the Rebbe. He met Reb Mendel, who asked him who he was. “What do you do?” “I’m a supervisor at the yeshivah in Lod.” “Do the boys travel to the Rebbe?” So he said to Reb Mendel, “They’re young children.” “Let them travel to the Rebbe.”

11:32 Speaker 6 The younger yeshivah in Lod—that’s young boys.

11:34 Speaker 2 Yes, from age thirteen or fourteen. Yes, in the younger yeshivah it wasn’t customary. So he told him, “Let them travel to the Rebbe.” “Reb Mendel, they’re young.” “Let them travel to the Rebbe.” Reb Mendel’s approach was: “First of all, you have to travel to the Rebbe. Afterward we’ll take care of the preparations too.” That’s also the Rebbe’s approach to customs. For example, the Rebbe talks about washing one’s hands three times with a towel. Someone in the Rebbe Rashab’s time did that, imitating the Rebbe Rashab, and the Rebbe Rashab said to him, “Are you on that level? On the spiritual level this calls for?” So the Rebbe says: All right, you heard about a good custom—do it. Wait, do you have to be on that level? Then see to it that you reach that level too. But first do it, and now see to it that you reach the level. It’s as though the Rebbe didn’t give up on that straightforward, no-nonsense approach[unclear]. As I understand it, the Rebbe doesn’t dispense with preparation. First travel, and now prepare too. If you don’t prepare, preparations will be arranged for you—but that’s unpleasant, and apparently it’s not as deep either, because it comes from Above to below, through an arousal from Above. Still, there’s something to it. Preparing for half a year, making the trip, and so on—it makes you a vessel. It makes you a vessel to arrive less full of yourself. But beyond that, in terms of the revelation of G-dliness, that’s where it is; that’s the Beis Hamikdash. There is a revelation of G-dliness there. Now I want to talk about this. There’s a point I feel is important to make. You have all these things. You have the farbrengen. Excuse the crude word: action. There’s interesting chassidic action.

12:58 Speaker 7 Yes.

12:59 Speaker 2 And there’s a certain point of bittul, of the bowing in the Beis Hamikdash, that you can lose sight of and fail to notice. Because I think—

13:08 Speaker 7 The Rebbe, and I’m not even part of that event[unclear].

13:11 Speaker 2 And maybe that’s what one can suggest here. Once someone came to the Rebbe and said that everyone who hadn’t managed to come should come. So the Rebbe said that everyone who had come should come. It doesn’t mean that if you’ve arrived—

13:19 Speaker 7 Whoever came to the meal should come.

13:21 Speaker 2 Should come—or perhaps he said that everyone who hadn’t come should come. That’s how I remember the sentence; maybe it was something similar. But the idea is that arriving physically doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve arrived yet. There’s something more to arriving now. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but we’re at a farbrengen. L’chaim.

13:40 Speaker 7 L’chaim, l’chaim.

13:41 Speaker 2 We need to clean out our mouths. Yes. So there shouldn’t be any sustenance for the external forces. L’chaim.

13:45 Speaker 7 L’chaim, l’chaim.

13:46 Speaker 2 Shabbos Shekulo Moshiach, remember? All the boys come together. What an atmosphere of Tishrei that creates, on a small scale.

13:54 Speaker 7 Yes.

13:54 Speaker 2 What does that mean? It goes in two directions. From a chassidic perspective, the Rebbe is here. When all the chassidim gather together, the Rebbe comes; the Rebbe is present on a spiritual level.

14:06 Speaker 7 Yes.

14:07 Speaker 2 Right? And that’s why there’s a feeling of Tishrei. But it also means that I could simply get excited by a group of people with good music. I mean, everyone singing together is moving. I could be moved by the outward side of it and forget that there’s a Rebbe here, and that ultimately we came to bow.

14:26 Speaker 7 I think that even today, when I’m heavily involved with arranging things, the venue, and all the—you can give it—

14:29 Speaker 2 What I’m saying is dangerous. It’s dangerous, because, G-d forbid, when chassidim are together, the Rebbe is there. But I’m saying you can lose sight of that too. You can lose sight of it. And when you travel to the Rebbe, you have to travel to the Rebbe. You have to travel in order to put yourself aside, and that’s something you can forget. Before Gimmel Tammuz, I’m not at all sure everyone knew that. I’m not here to judge them. I want to learn from it, because often we reconstruct a story we’ve heard, and that’s good. Those stories put us in the atmosphere and give us some sense of what healthy, normal life is like when you see the Rebbe, and so on. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that people truly arrived at the Rebbe. There, the Rebbe tells someone that those who have arrived should come. In other words, not everyone had arrived at the Rebbe. We spoke about how I might notice all the action around me, all the interesting things, and fail to notice that there’s a Rebbe here at all. This is one of the descriptions in Chassidus of the degree of bittul of the angels. The seraphim are aflame. Why? Because they understand. They’re stirred, but they don’t show outwardly what they feel. Why? Because they’re so close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so near and so attached to Him that they—

15:49 Speaker 7 “Seraphim stand above Him.”

15:50 Speaker 2 So they’re burning inside, but they’re in the deepest state of bittul because they’re near the Rebbe. Okay, now, when you’re there, there’s a lot going on around you, a lot going on, and you have to remember that there’s a Rebbe. Even before Gimmel Tammuz, that didn’t mean people necessarily grasped it. I want to say something; I don’t know if it’s precise, but I’ll try. We always say “Avinu Malkeinu”—our Father, our King. Right? The Rebbe is both a father and a king. That means we’re both children and servants—or whatever you call a king’s servants. I think, this is how it sits with me, that if we relate to the Rebbe as a king, he relates to us as a father. If we see ourselves as servants, he’ll treat us like a father. If we see ourselves as children, sometimes he’ll need to remind us that he’s a king. If you come for Tishrei and only enjoy the atmosphere, you might need to be put in your place for a moment: Sir, there’s a king here; you’re a servant. If you come to set yourself aside, there’ll also be so, so much enjoyment all around. There’ll be so much that’s interesting. In earlier generations—the Rebbe really is good. The Rebbe is good; he gives and he distributes. Think of Erev Rosh Hashanah, I don’t remember which year, when the Rebbe distributed Kitzurim and rice. We come, guests arrive, and the Rebbe starts distributing kuntreisim. Such a feeling of closeness. That’s the Rebbe as a father: he gives and gives. And what happens is that, in a second, you can forget that he’s a king, because it’s so pleasant here, so good here. Where can you see it? Bochurim in the group arrive with incredible excitement. By the end of their year, what do they say? “Ugh, the Israelis are about to come here. It’ll be crowded and cramped. The summer was so nice.”

17:49 Speaker 8 All the guests suddenly arrive.

17:50 Speaker 2 The guests—who has the energy for them? Have you forgotten this is a king? I’ve become at home here. I’m enjoying myself, I’m comfortable, things have worked out for me, and now I don’t want people underfoot. You know, something’s happening here. Tishrei is so pleasant, and suddenly the Rebbe is the center. I’ll take this to another place, too. We said that even in the beis midrash there were people who wanted a good, sweet year. People came for Selichos; they wanted to hear the Rebbe’s shofar blowing. But I don’t think—I’ll say it again, maybe there were a few individuals—I don’t think anyone said, “Hearing the Rebbe blow shofar will give you the best good, sweet year in the world.” I don’t think anyone said that, or even thought it. What were people thinking? How do I make sure I don’t miss a single thing? Exactly where should I stand? Should I stand far away and see but not hear, or stand close, hear but not see? There are a few spots where maybe you can do both, until someone pushes you off the bench. I don’t know. What were they occupied with? Not with having a good, sweet year. It was clear to everyone that Hakadosh Boruch Hu was waiting for this shofar blowing. Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The coronation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is happening here when the Rebbe blows the shofar. There’s nothing in the world more meaningful, more central, more important than this shofar blowing by the Rebbe. I want to be here. I want—I don’t want to miss it. It’s not even “I want to.” You don’t miss something like this. It isn’t even about what I want. Did anyone come and say, “I’ll push my way in so I’ll have a good, sweet year”? Maybe someone did, but I don’t think so.

19:25 Speaker 8 Yes.

19:25 Speaker 2 Okay. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bittul either. Someone might not want to miss it because he wants something too. He understands it’s special, and, how do you say it, “I need this, I...” How do you say it? This subject is elusive. At some point during Tishrei, I’m supposed to have a moment of confrontation that isn’t about me. Not because I decided something, not because I understood something, not because I learned something, not because of some other thing that suddenly happens. Apart from the Rebbe, apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there’s nothing. That’s my whole life. That’s what they meant by coming for Tishrei. That’s what they called it.

19:58 Speaker 8 That’s the bowing down.

19:58 Speaker 2 When you travel to the Rebbe, that’s bowing down. That’s what it should be called. I don’t know if it happens for everyone. I don’t think it happens to me every time I travel. And that’s why the Rebbe says that whoever is here should come. I’m not sure everyone comes in that sense. Wait, so should you not come because of that? No, G-d forbid, G-d forbid. Come—first of all, come. We’re talking about a level beyond that, one we should aspire to. That doesn’t mean we can now give up on the basics. You have to come, you have to farbreng, and you have to rejoice and dance. And you can see this in many places. I see I’ve taken up this whole discussion, but on Simchas Torah—Simchas Torah—the Rebbe hears Kiddush. The Rebbe doesn’t even... The Rebbe tells people to say l’chaim. When the Rebbe is here, there’s no time to go and take care of my food. You listen to Kiddush because afterward the Rebbe might suddenly tell you to say l’chaim, or gesture toward a large cup, telling you to say l’chaim over a large cup. But everything revolves around the Rebbe. After the Rebbe leaves, then your dancing begins. Take a Sefer Torah, say l’chaim—whatever.

20:55 Speaker 9 And that continues into the night. That’s how it was in—

20:56 Speaker 2 Into the night, and afterward during the day, the Rebbe’s farbrengen, and so on. While the Rebbe is there, it’s not the time for good resolutions. It’s not the time to say l’chaim. It’s not the time to hug someone. It’s the time to notice that there’s a Rebbe here. “The seraphim stand above Him”—they stand there in complete bittul. There’s a Rebbe here. That’s the heart of the story. That’s why we came here. We came because there’s a Rebbe here. We came to bow down—an inward bowing down. Don’t say lots of l’chaims; you could even bow down physically and have it be the very opposite of inward bowing. It could be pure ceremony, pure performance, completely false. You need to stand there, close your mouth, sing what needs to be sung, feel what needs to be felt, and hope that the Rebbe will reveal himself to you and tell you to say l’chaim—that he’ll reveal himself to everyone, of course.

21:43 Speaker 9 Yes.

21:45 Speaker 2 We haven’t even gotten into the complexity the Rebbe brought us into after Gimmel Tammuz. I’m telling you, right from the start, even before Gimmel—I’m talking about before Gimmel Tammuz. It’s not certain that everyone... Ah, everyone. The Rebbe is so good, and the Rebbe’s kindness creates—

22:00 Speaker 9 The possibility that I won’t really arrive.

22:02 Speaker 2 Exactly. It creates a kind of difficulty in noticing what’s behind the scenes. We could talk about this at length. I don’t know if I’ll manage to say it yet. L’chaim, l’chaim.

22:16 Speaker 9 L’chaim, l’chaim.

22:17 Speaker 2 You have to travel to the Rebbe. You have to travel to the Rebbe. It’s serious; it means coming to set yourself aside. That’s it. What is it? I haven’t said anything more. What isn’t it? What is it? I don’t know. L’chaim, l’chaim.

22:30 Speaker 9 This is really the point for the niggun.

22:32 Speaker 2 Right, right.

22:33 Speaker 9 Nu, maybe let’s sing a niggun.

22:34 Speaker 2 To start the... Ay ya yamama, ya yamama, ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya mama mam, ay mama mam ay. Ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya, lama ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya. L’chaim. Sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the niggun; something just occurred to me. Sorry. L’chaim.

23:59 Speaker 9 L’chaim, l’chaim, l’chaim.

24:01 Speaker 2 You talk to a bochur. I ask him, “How was Tishrei? How was Tishrei?” “There was a revelation of G-dliness, a revelation of G-dliness. It was—wow! There was vitality, there was joy, it was wow!” Nu, what happened? “I was there, and I managed to do this and that”—and that’s wonderful, and it’s true. But this time I said to a bochur, “I’d like to hear you say: ‘Listen, there was a revelation of G-dliness. I couldn’t figure out the schedule. I fell asleep during Simchas Beis Hashoeivah. I couldn’t get up. I went on the procession, and they left me there. I wasn’t with the Rebbe’s group. I came back alone. It took me until I got to [unclear]. I managed to get an aliyah to the Torah at some minyan. In short, there was a revelation of G-dliness, a revelation of G-dliness. And at the farbrengen, people pushed me around. I fought for a spot. In the end I stood in the back and could barely see anything. No, that was a revelation of G-dliness.’” What do I mean? A revelation of G-dliness isn’t always when I feel moved and enjoy myself. That’s part of it too. But if we come to bow down—I’m giving an extreme example, G-d forbid, an extreme example—I’m telling you, we came to bow down. Who says it’s supposed to mean that I collected beautiful stories, had only moving moments, heard a chazzan sing beautifully, and had some sort of feeling—I don’t know what feeling? Yes, the Rebbe gives us that. The Rebbe gives us that. But there’s something else behind it. We come to bow down. We come to bow down. I want what Chassidus says about the hundred-and-first time: that little bit beyond the usual. Something didn’t work out for me; things didn’t go my way. Good. Now I didn’t feel it, it didn’t feel right, I wasn’t comfortable, things didn’t work out, I didn’t have a place, and so on. Maybe now was the moment when the Rebbe’s presence entered your bones. Maybe now was the second when something was absorbed in your soul: apart from the Rebbe, there’s nothing. Who says

25:56 Speaker 2 That it comes through excitement? And then that excitement starts competing with the excitement you experience back home. There are things to get excited about back home too, and they aren’t always Chassidus.

26:04 Speaker 10 This world gives us plenty to get excited about.

26:06 Speaker 2 I’m not saying we shouldn’t get excited. We must, and it’s better to have that excitement. Not just better—we need it, and it’s right. But Chassidus says that excitement has to be conditional. There has to be something behind it. Why? Because excitement has the power to take over the whole business. Then I start chasing excitement, excitement, excitement. I start saying, “If it moves me, it’s true. If it doesn’t move me, it isn’t true.” Who says? Then I see something exciting, and I no longer stop to examine it. I’m no longer questioning or critical of every feeling of excitement. Who says it’s true? The excitement itself becomes the measure. And if someone has a spiritual experience in a particularly direct way, of course it can overwhelm him. But then he starts getting addicted to those experiences. So should we not get excited? No, not that either. The Rebbe gives us this, and the Rebbe wants it, because then it isn’t just about me.

27:00 Speaker 10 But it shouldn’t be only there—

27:01 Speaker 2 It shouldn’t be only there.

27:02 Speaker 10 I think that, in the end, it’s in life’s difficulties that you encounter these questions. At least, the places where I grapple with what’s right in life are the hard places. When you’re enjoying yourself, when things are good and you’re in a good place, you don’t encounter them. Those questions don’t come up. Of course, yes, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, certainly. I daven, I do the whole thing. It’s דווקא in those difficult moments that I find myself there.

27:24 Speaker 2 Chassidus says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is revealed more in the darkness.

27:28 Speaker 10 Yes.

27:28 Speaker 2 He is more present there, in the darkness. When there’s light, He is there too, but you don’t notice. There’s a lot of background noise—even good, spiritual, G-dly Chassidic things. Now, I’m speaking against this so much that it sounds as though only bittul is preferable, but that doesn’t work either. The Rebbe wants us to be joyful, and it’s not for nothing that he wants us to farbreng. In fact, in all the later years, from 5748 onward, every farbrengen was a farbrengen of chassidim. The Rebbe would farbreng on Shabbos, and he would say, “You should farbreng among yourselves.” Of course, the Rebbe had farbrenged with them on Shabbos, but there were no more farbrengens outside Shabbos. The Rebbe might say a sicha at the shtender, without niggunim, without l’chaim.

28:05 Speaker 10 But what about a big farbrengen like there used to be?

28:06 Speaker 2 No niggunim, no l’chaim, none of that. The Rebbe says, “Now you farbreng.” Clearly, the Rebbe wants us to bring it in. But I’m saying that there’s a place where there’s a struggle between all these— Now I’ll return to the words people used after Gimmel Tammuz: there was a period of revelations, and those revelations conceal the essence. Revelations necessarily conceal the essence.

28:27 Speaker 10 Again: revelations conceal the essence.

28:29 Speaker 2 The essence is the thing itself, and the revelations conceal it. But an essence with no revelations at all becomes a theory that isn’t real. You can just talk about the essence.

28:38 Speaker 10 Make that simpler. What do you mean?

28:40 Speaker 2 If I speak as though truth is true without any revelations at all, then, as you said, why travel? The Rebbe is here too. What does that mean? G-dliness is revealed everywhere. Chas v’shalom, the Rebbe—

28:51 Speaker 10 If we can already [unclear], let’s do it here. Why do we need to travel?

28:53 Speaker 2 Right. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants it to enter into the revelations too. So what happens? It suddenly becomes a kind of spiral. We work on being batel to the Rebbe and bringing that into our world of revelations, our world of feelings, our world of [unclear]. So I learned a maamar, connected with it, suddenly internalized some point in Chassidus, felt a certain G-dly excitement in a special davening or at a farbrengen, and experienced something. And that became a problem: it concealed the essence. Now I have to look for the essence again—but I can’t just discard the experience. So it’s a spiral. Now you’ve looked for the essence. Well, then, neither this nor that. So what about revelations? That’s it: you have to do what needs doing. Get up, arrive on time for davening, be on time, do what you’re supposed to. Fine, I got there—but it’s dry. It’s dry, and now it may be nothing more than a check mark for something I’ve done.

29:46 Speaker 10 Yes. In avodas Hashem, you work hard to get into something. It enters your system, and then... then it already becomes a mitzvah that you— You have to find the...

29:55 Speaker 2 A mitzvah where you’ve lost the thing itself, and all you have left is the ritual. So now look for the excitement again.

30:03 Speaker 10 So that means a life of constantly—

30:05 Speaker 2 But it’s an interesting life.

30:06 Speaker 10 Yes.

30:07 Speaker 2 That’s our heartbeat, going all the time. That’s how we live. Is anyone excited about something every single moment? No.

30:15 Speaker 10 No.

30:15 Speaker 2 That’s how life works. I had that excitement, and now—after a powerful experience—you go home, go to sleep, raise your children, learn Chitas and Rambam, finish your daily study. You have to do what needs to be done, and you wait for the next experience while you keep doing it.

30:36 Speaker 10 Yes.

30:37 Speaker 2 But why? Where’s the truth? It’s here—and then you need an experience to bring it in, to connect all the—

30:42 Speaker 10 Tishrei, unpacking the bundles, and we—

30:45 Speaker 2 Already during Tishrei itself, you have experiences, farbreng, and remember that there is a Rebbe. At Simchas Torah, everyone—even when they saw the Rebbe—was looking for that. Again, there were chassidim who came even then. I once heard a story. I don’t know if it’s right to tell it, because I’ll have to apologize afterward. Let’s say l’chaim, and then we won’t apologize. I’ll apologize afterward. Yes, I should apologize, and you’ll hear why. L’chaim, l’chaim, and blessings. May the Rebbe have much nachas, amen. It’s a familiar story. I’m apologizing because I really am judging the story in order to learn something from it. I’m probably judging it incorrectly, and the story isn’t—what do you call it? But I think Reb Hillel of Paritch would agree to give of himself for the sake of the lesson. Again, I hope I’m not mistaken and don’t sin with my tongue, as Reuven Dunin would say, “May I not sin with my tongue.” So that’s my opening disclaimer. No, because there are several stories about Reb Hillel that, when we were taught them, were presented almost critically, while the Rebbe tells them in praise of him. Chassidim said that Reb Hillel of Paritch was “half a Rebbe.” What does “half a Rebbe” mean? Not that he was a Rebbe, but that he was half of the Rebbe—he was so completely batel to the Rebbe. You want half of the Rebbe? That’s how they explained the expression, “a halber Rebbe”: half of the Rebbe. He was utterly batel. So to judge him as lacking bittul in some matter is simply wrong. Just wrong. But I think he would be willing to give of himself for the sake of the lesson. I was told that Reb Hillel of Paritch once wanted to travel to Lubavitch, and he asked a wagon driver to take him. The driver said, “I know you daven at length. I know you daven at length and it takes you a long time, and then we won’t make it there

33:54 Speaker 2 for Shabbos. So forget it.” Reb Hillel told him, “No, I promise I won’t daven at length. We’ll get there; everything will be fine.” In short, they set out and stopped at an inn for the night. In the morning Reb Hillel stood up to daven. The wagon driver tried to hint to him, but Reb Hillel was in his own world—a real world, a Chassidic world. There was nothing to be done. He finished davening very late, and they didn’t make it to Lubavitch. The wagon driver said, “But we discussed this. We agreed what would happen.” Reb Hillel told him, “Why do we travel to the Rebbe? In order to daven. So if I’m already davening on the way, if I’m already davening on the way, what then?” My judgmental reading is that the Rebbe is someone you go to in order to get something from him. That isn’t right. For Reb Hillel, davening meant living with the Rebbe. He was living with the Rebbe right then. He truly was. But I’m talking about us now, as though you travel to the Rebbe to receive something. That’s part of it. Yes, you travel for that too, but is there something else as well? Is there the way I was raised, the way my father raised me? I remember a photographer taking pictures, and my father told him, “Don’t photograph me.” There were no selfies then. My father said, “I don’t want pictures of myself with the Rebbe. I don’t.” Now that there are selfies, I understand what repelled my father. Yes, chas v’shalom. “Don’t photograph me.” The photographer photographed him and put his pictures in the shop window. Do you know what that meant? Everyone in Crown Heights who came to the shop to see their pictures from dollars, from receiving lekach, and so on, would come up to my father and say, “Thanks for having your pictures in the shop window.” Freidin? Was it Freidin? I don’t know which of them it was. My father didn’t tell me the name. At the end, I asked him, “Where did...”

35:36 Speaker 2 Are there pictures? After all, we have pictures at home. So he said that at the end of Tishrei, the photographer gave him everything as a gift and said, “I photographed your Tishrei for you. Here, take it as a gift.” That’s how we have pictures. But taking a picture with the Rebbe—a selfie? What does it mean to take a picture with the Rebbe? The Rebbe—this is what I was created for. How can you even talk about a picture when you’ve come to the Rebbe? How could I notice that anything else exists besides being next to the Rebbe right now? The seraphim stand near Hakadosh Boruch Hu and burn because they cannot contain the experience of standing near Him, and here we are saying, “Take my picture.” How is that possible? I’m talking about an extreme case. Chassidishe education—but remember that this is part of it: coming to get something from the Rebbe. I come to bow. I come to give. I come to the Rebbe in order to give. I come to the Rebbe in order to give. And if the Rebbe wants to give me something—I’ll give you another example. I remember the long debate, in the early years of traveling to the Rebbe, over whether Israelis should observe two days of Yom Tov or one. One of the things that happened was that once, when someone— the Rebbe said not to call the Israelis up to the Torah on the second day of Yom Tov, because for them it was a weekday.

36:50 Speaker 11 They would travel without their families, right?

36:52 Speaker 2 Right, and that led to discussions about whether they came with their families or without them. Then once they called someone up to the Torah, and the Rebbe made a gesture like this. That’s how I remember the story. “What’s this?” So they told the Rebbe, “He came subject to the Rebbe’s wishes.” What does it mean to come subject to the Rebbe’s wishes? He came here; he returned from his shlichus, even though he lives in Israel. If the Rebbe tells him now to go to Mexico, he goes to Mexico. If the Rebbe tells him to go back to Israel, he goes back to Israel. “I’m not an Israeli right now. I came to the Rebbe. I returned to the Rebbe.”

37:18 Speaker 11 I’m coming back.

37:19 Speaker 2 “I returned to the Rebbe.” Yes, the bochurim have started saying they’re “returning to the Rebbe,” and so on. It’s sweet—until it becomes a custom and stops being sweet. Forgive my gut reaction. Yes, once something becomes a custom and a ritual, that’s what happens. It’s sweet, but my point is: returning, returning. There’s something here. I’ve come to the Rebbe, and just understanding that—all of my life could change. Come on, let’s start with that small thing. The Rebbe could suddenly decide for me: “Call home. Tell your wife and children that you’re going to Mexico now. You’re going to Brazil now.” That’s it. That’s the frame of mind in which we should travel to the Rebbe. Most of the time, it doesn’t happen. Fine, you can count on it probably not happening, and you can tell your wife, “I’ll bring home jewelry from the Rebbe, and everything will be fine”—and that happens. But come with that bittul: “I’m coming to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe can tell me, ‘I need you there.’” Does that mean such a person didn’t get a place, didn’t get dates, didn’t get dollars, didn’t get anything? All of that is there. He saved some of the lekach and some of the kos shel bracha. I remember [unclear] when I went by for kos shel bracha, and right afterward there were these tiny little bottles, about this big—some strange size. I haven’t seen them today. Where can you find them?

38:32 Speaker 11 You pour the—

38:33 Speaker 2 You pour it in very carefully, because the opening was so small, and take it home. Listen, you come home with kos shel bracha and a little lekach, and you make something of it.

38:44 Speaker 11 That’s completely different. You come back with nothing—you come back with nothing.

38:46 Speaker 2 True, but maybe there’s an opportunity here, an opportunity to understand that we came to bow. Maybe there’s an opportunity here; maybe that’s the point. The Rebbe said, “I can go into my room and not come out.” He said it. I don’t think he was lying.

39:02 Speaker 11 What did he mean?

39:03 Speaker 2 The Rebbe was speaking then about why people look at the Rebbe during davening. So he said, “I can go into my room and not come out.” He can go into his room and not come out. He can arrange for people not to see him. He can. “I can.” What are we? When you travel to the Rebbe, how do you travel? Now, if we’re starting to talk about today, that’s a separate subject. Let’s say l’chaim.

39:23 Speaker 11 L’chaim, then. You’re saying—maybe specifically when the bochurim come back from Tishrei, you can ask them how it was. “Oh, it was good, this happened, I managed that. Yom Kippur was very moving for me, with all the davening, and at Simchas Beis Hashoevah I had a lot of good, holy experiences.” Yes. You’re saying that maybe when we fly there, it’s precisely at those moments when I missed out, when I couldn’t make it work, and all that—why? I’m a very organized person. I like having my—I come to Crown Heights, and there’s my place, my chair, my table. And when there isn’t, you know, I try to come early to get my place and my—

40:07 Speaker 2 Me too.

40:08 Speaker 11 Yes.

40:09 Speaker 2 I also like having a place. I absolutely like that too. Bringing the farbrengen down to practical terms—that, that, that sometimes doesn’t quite work.

40:18 Speaker 11 Dangerous.

40:18 Speaker 2 No, not dangerous; it just doesn’t always work. That’s why a farbrengen is a question, yes. But I think that if a person is aware—we’ve farbrenged about it, we’ve identified this point, that there’s something here we need to be mevatel—he doesn’t have to go looking for chaos or for those times of getting stuck that I was talking about, when something suddenly happens. But if something does happen, you know, it might look like this: you’ve found yourself a place, and suddenly an older Jew comes along. You say to yourself, “Places aren’t for bochurim. The Rebbe is here. Bochurim aren’t supposed to…” Put up with it. No, I like having a place too. As a bochur, I had places too. I had an elderly uncle, and I tried to get a place there, or something like that. But if an older Jew suddenly arrives, let him sit down. It’s an honor to the Rebbe for an older Jew to have a seat. There’s plenty of room here. True, I really want my place, but nothing will happen if I’m a little cramped. What can I do? I came early enough; with Hashem’s help, it’ll be fine. I’m not— You know what? Just once like that during the whole of Tishrei. Some moment like that is needed, because if we don’t look for it, it won’t happen at all.

41:40 Speaker 11 Yes.

41:41 Speaker 2 Because the action and the excitement add to everything.

41:44 Speaker 11 It can all revolve around me—my feelings, my experiences, my Tishrei being perfect, being good. You need to come.

41:52 Speaker 2 What, all the way?

41:54 Speaker 11 Yes.

41:56 Speaker 2 But the Rebbe also wants—and the Rebbe puts so much into making sure we’re happy, that things are good for us, that we have a Chassidishe experience, that we’re moved, that we experience a revelation of G-dliness, a revelation. He wants us to receive those revelations. But we also have to pay attention. And if we’re talking about it, let’s—let’s turn to a particular period now. There was a time when the Rebbe’s leg hurt terribly. Physically, the Rebbe could barely walk on it. You can see it in videos even today. There was a video from Motzoei Shabbos, um, a video.

42:32 Speaker 11 What years was that?

42:34 Speaker 2 I don’t remem—um, toward the end of the 5740s. There was a video, and besides that there are difficult videos to watch. A video of the Rebbe coming down the steps: it takes the Rebbe longer to come down the steps from the platform than it takes him to walk the length of 770. His leg hurts. The Rebbe can’t lower his leg; he’s simply in pain. There were times—and there are no videos of this, or there were and they were deleted or are being kept away—when the Rebbe leaned on the tables all the way from the entrance to 770 to his place. He simply couldn’t put weight on his leg. Now, that’s very hard. There were people who—I remember our mashpia shouting, shouting,

43:19 Speaker 11 Reb Zusha Posner

43:20 Speaker 2 He was shouting, he said to the bochur. They were standing there, watching the Rebbe walk, and he said, “The Rebbe is having trouble walking.” So the bochur said to him, “That’s how he walks?” I’m putting it in my own words: Don’t interrupt my revelation of G-dliness right now with something that takes away from my enjoyment. I’m in Tishrei at 770 right now. There’s such an interesting, special story here. I can tell it: the Rebbe, and how he encouraged us. He can’t walk on his leg—what does that have to do with me? What can I do? Wait a second. Something is happening here. I’m not the story. I came to the Rebbe. He’s the story. I don’t know. So what should you say? I don’t know. Tell me if you want. I don’t know what. Something that bothers you. Something that leaves you a little less full of yourself. That’s what it seems to me—everything I’m doing is about being a little less full of myself. In Hebrew, you’d say being a little less carried away with yourself. I don’t have another way to put it. I don’t know how you say that in Chassidic terms, you know. But if we remember that we came to the Rebbe, there will be little moments like that, here and there, when we’re a little less wrapped up in ourselves. How did Reb Daniel [unclear] put it? The Rebbe was handing out booklets on Ahavas Yisroel, and I didn’t have Ahavas Yisroel? He did this with his elbows. “I didn’t have Ahavas Yisroel, so I didn’t get one. I didn’t get one.” What do you mean he didn’t have Ahavas Yisroel? Only someone without Ahavas Yisroel, pushing with his elbows, got an Ahavas Yisroel booklet. The Rebbe is giving out Ahavas Yisroel here. I don’t know if I wouldn’t have thrown a few elbows myself to get a booklet from the Rebbe. But are you willing to accept Reb Daniel’s [unclear] rebuke too? Are you willing to give yourself a wink

44:54 Speaker 2 and say, “I slipped up; that wasn’t Chassidic”? Fine, baruch Hashem, I have the kuntres. The Rebbe gave me a kuntres. But that’s not what the Rebbe wants. Are you willing to bring yourself down a little? Like I said, a little—I don’t know—lower your sense of yourself a bit. You come to bow down, and it doesn’t always look pretty. So am I perfect? I’m not pushing here, while in the Rebbe’s presence people have pushed in every generation.

45:24 Speaker 12 Yes.

45:24 Speaker 2 And we could open a separate discussion on every issue. Why push? It really is an important subject; everything is important. But right now I’m talking about the trip itself. What is it for? There’s plenty to farbreng about. There’s plenty to say about why it’s important to push, what pushing means—lots of things. Right now I’m trying to talk about the trip itself. If I remember that I came here to bow down, then I’m not the story. And in simple terms, that’s what they said after Gimmel Tammuz. The people who had always talked about how much they received, how much the Rebbe responded to them and paid attention to them and smiled at them and spoke to them and gave them things—suddenly they said there was nothing to look forward to. But other chassidim, who had already been trying to take in that there was something else here, said: We’re trying to bow down. So people asked, what do you mean? Do you see him or don’t you? We have to try to bow down. We’re trying to bow down. What difference does it make right now whether you see him or not? And the Satan managed to make things enjoyable enough even now. Enough for people to—

46:16 Speaker 12 You mean the years after Gimmel Tammuz.

46:19 Speaker 2 We see that the Satan managed to create a whole trend after Gimmel Tammuz where it’s fun and interesting and pleasant, and I’m receiving things, and everything is wonderful.

46:30 Speaker 12 [unclear] perfect.

46:32 Speaker 2 Yes. No, maybe part of being whole is saying, “We haven’t seen the Rebbe, and we care about that too.” So I say no—in simple terms, what I want to say is that nothing has changed from our perspective.

46:46 Speaker 12 Yes.

46:47 Speaker 2 Before Gimmel Tammuz, on this point, and after Gimmel Tammuz. Back then it was very easy to look around and enjoy watching what this person did, and whom that person hit, and to lose sight of everything else. A young man tells me, “Every Tishrei I come, I notice who hit whom, who was [unclear], and who fainted. This past Tishrei, I davened to the Rebbe that I wanted to come to the Rebbe. I asked for it; I wrote to the Rebbe about it.” He says that after Tishrei—how many days was he here? Five days? Five days.

47:15 Speaker 12 He flew to Eretz Yisroel for five days.

47:15 Speaker 2 Yes, he flew for five days, [unclear]. He says, “After [unclear], I found out there had been so much commotion all around me, and I hadn’t noticed any of it. I learned about it all from other people’s stories.” He says, “Things happened half a meter away from me, and I didn’t notice at all. The Rebbe closed my eyes. I simply didn’t see any of it. I didn’t see it.” You can come and just be there. There is a Rebbe in the world. There is a Rebbe [unclear]. He is there; every detail matters to him. A king’s son—the preparation for traveling to the Rebbe is the Dvar Malchus about [unclear] a king’s son. Every Jew is a king’s son. [Unclear] watches over his every detail, sees him, looks at him, pays attention to him. Everything matters to him. To really live with that. When you hear a story about another Jew, you should say, “That happened to me.” You shouldn’t think the Rebbe has to come to each person individually and give each one his share of attention. And before Gimmel Tammuz, the Rebbe was occupied with this [unclear]. You can see people going by for dollars, and the Rebbe says to a woman, “Has your husband left for Eretz Yisroel yet?” Her husband had passed by twenty minutes earlier. I know them. Her husband had passed by twenty minutes earlier. Why did the Rebbe ask her that? She told me about it.

48:22 Speaker 12 Yes.

48:23 Speaker 2 “Does the Rebbe know me? Does the Rebbe know who I am?” So the Rebbe has to show her that he knows her. He says to her, “Has your husband left yet?” I know your husband is here and that he’s about to travel. When is he leaving? And the Rebbe has to occupy himself with this. She says he doesn’t know her, or he says the Rebbe doesn’t know me, so the Rebbe has to say something. And on and on and on. The Rebbe is busy giving us attention. The Rebbe needs to be a Rebbe. The Rebbe wants to be a Rebbe. He wants to bring Moshiach. The Rebbe wants us to be his soldiers, and we’re busy with: What did I get? What do I have? What’s this? Again, these things exist, and we need to live with them. I’m talking so much about this—we need to live it. I imagine I’m taking a bit of the fun out of the action. Maybe, maybe. I haven’t found the right middle ground, the right combination, the right balance. Both things matter. But what’s important to me to try to say now is that we’re working to become battul, to let something enter us. It isn’t something logical, or something from a particular farbrengen, or a particular piece of knowledge, or a particular experience. You have to do it all, be part of it all. Something is meant to happen: suddenly, a little more of it sinks in. Like at the Beis Hamikdash. You should know that even at the Beis Hamikdash, not everyone lived that way.

49:35 Speaker 12 Yes. As you said, there was a lot of action there too.

49:38 Speaker 2 A lot of action, a lot of action. Certainly in the Second Beis Hamikdash. There was—

49:42 Speaker 12 With all the esrogim.

49:44 Speaker 2 Throwing esrogim. Yes, there was a great deal going on.

49:46 Speaker 12 There was plenty to get caught up in all around. That was the interesting part.

49:48 Speaker 2 There was plenty to get caught up in all around. There was plenty of [unclear] luggage.

49:51 Speaker 12 Yes, but the focus itself is me—I come to be there. I don’t come to…

49:55 Speaker 2 Beautiful.

49:56 Speaker 12 I don’t come to be with the Rebbe.

49:57 Speaker 2 Beautiful. Not to collect things. We do collect things.

50:00 Speaker 12 And they’re there, and that’s fine.

50:01 Speaker 2 Wait, but at the end, leave time for us to talk about the luggage and unpacking it. I also want to say that something goes into that luggage, and if you don’t know it went in, you won’t know to unpack it. It goes in. You didn’t put it there deliberately; you packed experiences, you packed things. But something else enters: a realization, a recognition that apart from the Rebbe, nothing in our lives is important. Apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, nothing—nothing, nothing. That’s it. That’s the truth. It’s here; it’s me; everything I am is for this. That’s what matters, and it happens. If you don’t notice that it’s happening, that this is what matters, you won’t notice it going into the suitcase, and you won’t think about it. It will wait in the suitcase until the next flight you take.

50:48 Speaker 12 Yes, or you’ll encounter it back in Eretz Yisroel.

50:49 Speaker 2 That’s it. So it’s true that we need to farbreng separately about the luggage we fill, and about this too. There’s plenty to farbreng about. But that’s it. I always remember that after Gimmel Tammuz, this was the guidance the chassidim tried to teach us: Now there is the essence. What does it mean that there is the essence? The essence is always there, but now the revelations don’t conceal it. Come. You aren’t coming for something. You come to make yourself battul. You come to make yourself battul—and then what? Just be there.

51:18 Speaker 12 Where’s the experience? Where’s…?

51:21 Speaker 2 No one promised us an experience. No one promised us anything. After Gimmel Tammuz they told us: Come in order to be there. That’s all, that’s all. To be with the Rebbe. Something happens there. L’chaim. I hope I managed to convey it.

51:34 Speaker 12 Amen.

51:35 Speaker 2 Ah, l’chaim.

51:38 Speaker 12 L’chaim. May it have an effect on those listening—that’s what matters.

51:41 Speaker 2 And may it have an effect on us.

51:42 Speaker 12 Yes.

51:43 Speaker 2 If it has an effect on me, maybe it will have an effect on the listeners too.

51:45 Speaker 12 I remember a lot of people would farbreng with us in the younger division of yeshiva. They stressed this very strongly: preparation, preparation, preparation. I imagine many of the people listening are already on the plane, or on their way, or a few days away from traveling—maybe with the family for Chanukah or something like that. How do you prepare for something like this? What does “preparation” even mean? First and foremost, you keep it in mind. When we talk about preparation, what is it?

52:07 Speaker 2 You should know that in the years when bochurim went in to the Rebbe for a private yechidus, they would begin preparing six months beforehand. Six months. They knew the Rebbe saw everything that had happened to you, every thought you had ever thought. For six months, it was on their minds. Six months, really. I’ve asked people who were there during the time of private yechidus—they’re older now. They prepared for six months before yechidus. They took it with the utmost seriousness.

52:32 Speaker 12 What would they do? Study?

52:34 Speaker 2 Study.

52:35 Speaker 12 Change their schedules.

52:36 Speaker 2 They would start writing reports. They would go speak to their mashpia. “I’m going in to the Rebbe.” Now, it’s not just frightening; it’s so moving. These are experiences you don’t have during the year. During the year, experiences are either sweet or very sharp. Today we go for extremes: give me something really, really sharp.

52:53 Speaker 12 Yes.

52:54 Speaker 2 Sweet, sweet, sweet. Right? This is an experience you don’t know from everyday life. You say, “I’d give my whole life to go in,” and at the very same moment you want to run away because you’re so afraid. It’s yiras haromemus—awe in the presence of greatness. I think that’s the definition. Yiras haromemus means I’m thrilled to be here, and at the same moment I don’t want to be here. Right? It’s so immense. I’m thinking, why am I here? Why am I breathing this air? Why am I taking up oxygen? Right? But on the other hand, how could I simply not be here? Do you understand?

53:30 Speaker 12 Yes.

53:30 Speaker 2 Yiras haromemus brings those two things together. That’s how they prepared. And there they would receive guidance from the Rebbe, and their spiritual world, their Jewish world, was born there. Going in to yechidus is... There’s no question about the preparation. I’ll say it again: from what I’m saying, preparation for something means living it already. Preparation—

53:59 Speaker 12 Like a maamar [?].

53:59 Speaker 2 Preparation for learning happens through learning. Preparation for traveling to the Rebbe means being with the Rebbe now. If we can already begin to notice: a little less me, a little more him. Internalize that basic premise. How do I internalize it? How do I see it in the maamar I’m learning? Because you can learn a maamar in two ways. You can learn it and say, “Here, the Rebbe has given me another path forward, another level.” Or you can say, “The Rebbe is asking something more of me—a demand meant to bring me somewhere higher.” It’s the same with everything. If you come saying, “The Rebbe is what this is about; the Rebbe is the point. Now I need to start living with the Rebbe”—that is the greatest preparation. I need to get it straight in my head that I’m not what this is about. I picture it like a balance scale: the Rebbe and I are on opposite sides. If I want the Rebbe’s side to carry more weight, something has to come off my side. It has to. And this isn’t some Chassidic notion that, if you prepare and something is taken from you, you’ll be ready. No, no. What keeps the Rebbe from being my whole life is that I’m so full of myself. I think so highly of myself and believe I deserve everything. I have everything arranged exactly the way I like it. Again, that’s okay.

55:13 Speaker 12 Yes.

55:13 Speaker 2 That’s okay. The Rebbe wants us to be human beings. But what happens? A friend told me, “Listen, I learned something. To this day, I’m the kind of guy who comes to the mikveh with a whole toiletry bag. You know the type? That’s me. I was the same way in yeshiva. But if someone takes something from it without asking, I won’t die. That’s what happened to me in yeshiva.” Something happened to me in yeshiva: if somebody touched my toiletry bag, with the shampoo and this and that...

55:45 Speaker 12 Everything’s organized, the shampoo and...

55:46 Speaker 2 Yes, I’m still like that today. But he told me, “In yeshiva it got into me that if someone takes something or touches it without permission, I won’t die.” That’s the point, you understand? He’s a little less full of himself. He’s still himself, he’s alive and well, and he has that particular bottle of shampoo and that conditioner. That’s okay; that’s who he is. Someone who doesn’t need those things as much can’t understand it. Can’t understand it. Each of us has some point where, in the end, I become a little less, a little less, a little less. So if, as part of preparing right now, I’m willing to notice that and be a little less—that’s what I mean. It’s a balance scale. The Rebbe and I are on the scales, and for the Rebbe to weigh more, I have to weigh less, because what stands in the way of the Rebbe weighing more is me. Again, the Rebbe is the Rebbe of the world, he is Moshiach, he is alive and he is here, and he will protect us—with or without me, unfortunately, because it can happen without me. If it’s going to happen with me, it has to cost me something. I have to give up some of my desires and all my own things; otherwise, it isn’t real. It has to be something. What did I say? It can happen in a second, but a second that holds tremendous meaning. Amid all my own concerns, there’s one meaningful second in which—

57:01 Speaker 3 I’m less and he’s more.

57:02 Speaker 2 I’m less and he’s more. That’s it. That’s the whole story. It could be that I suddenly gave my place to someone else. It could be that I suddenly thought, “I want to yell at him”—and didn’t. He pushed me. It wasn’t personal. He wants the seat. It’s not personal. There are so many things the Rebbe gives you opportunities for—

57:20 Speaker 3 Here and there.

57:21 Speaker 2 Yes. Step back a tiny bit, step back a tiny bit. That, too, is preparation right now. And of course there’s the preparation of studying the kuntres Beis Rabbeinu Shebebavel. You can’t start from scratch every time; you can’t do without it. [unclear] puts out a beautiful booklet about the Rebbe every year, with stories and the Rebbe’s sichos on beautiful subjects. It draws you back in and gets your head straight about this whole world of revelations. It gets your head straight. There will also be a revelation among chassidim; we’ll become more refined, and that’s how the Rebbe wants us. But I want to talk about something a little more: coming with bittul, setting yourself aside. So how do you prepare for that? You set yourself aside. How do you do that? I don’t know. In a letter the Rebbe writes to someone about bowing down, he says that when a person decides to set himself aside, it isn’t complete bittul anymore. He understands that he needs to, and he decides to—but that’s not it. Only in the presence of someone who truly has bittul, like the Rebbe, can you become batel. Not because you decided to, but because being there makes you batel. Yet even then, you can choose not to look. Who told this story recently in Beis Moshiach? I think Rabbi Tal said he was standing in [unclear], and two bochurim were talking. One said, “Were you having trouble with your glasses? Can you see the Rebbe?” This was when they could see the Rebbe. The other said, “Yes, I bought new glasses.” “Where did you buy them?” “At such-and-such a place.” “How much did they cost?” “[unclear] would have done it cheaper.” They started out talking about seeing the Rebbe, and right there by the Rebbe they were talking about glasses and where to buy them! It can happen. Someone told me this—a Polish Jew—who...

59:08 Speaker 2 once traveled from Meron to Bnei Brak by bus. There were two bochurim on the bus, not Chabad chassidim, talking to each other. One said, “Listen, for the first time in my life I said all of Tehillim inside the tziyun. It took me many hours, because it was so stifling and crowded that I kept going out and coming back in. I’d tried for many years, but this was the first time I said all of Tehillim at the tziyun.”

59:32 Speaker 3 On Lag BaOmer.

59:33 Speaker 2 On Lag BaOmer. The other said, “I was at the tziyun of Rashbi. I brought back cans for the dormitory, and they were handing out gifts in sealed boxes. I brought some of those. I found a spot nobody knows about where they give out pasta [?] and things.” One was with Rabbi Shimon, and the other was with Rabbi Shimon.

59:50 Speaker 3 Each one was somewhere else.

59:50 Speaker 2 Each one was in a different place. “I did this, I did that.” But not eating at the tziyun of Rashbi. Guys, don’t turn even bittul into a habit. When bittul becomes a habit... The Rebbe said that when a person decides to have bittul, it isn’t bittul. Don’t make a habit out of anything.

1:00:04 Speaker 3 You have to set yourself aside. That’s it.

1:00:05 Speaker 2 So that’s it. We need to pay attention to this, really pay attention to it. I know I’ve been talking about something that’s not, not, not a hundred percent easy to grasp, but I think it’s real, and it’s always been there throughout the generations. And it’s not pleasant to see that the Rebbe isn’t walking around on his own two feet. It’s not pleasant.

1:00:24 Speaker 3 We see the Rebbe.

1:00:25 Speaker 2 And when someone comes, and when—same thing.

1:00:27 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:00:27 Speaker 2 When someone comes and wants experiences, just experiences, he can ignore that. The yetzer hara can give us an opportunity to ignore the fact that we don’t see the Rebbe, to ignore the fact that the Rebbe is no longer walking around on his own two feet, and so on. To ignore things and get vitality—and it’s chassidic vitality and all that. Like the parable the Rebbe brings from the Alter Rebbe in a Pesach maamar: a person comes to the king’s palace, and one person gets stuck in the music room, another in the art room, and another in the room with the jewelry. We have to remember, to pay attention to the Rebbe—we came here for the Rebbe. How do we do that? It isn’t simple. It’s a problem, it’s a problem. I didn’t come with a solution. Let’s look for one, okay? Maybe looking will help. Let’s look. Let’s look for that place that isn’t just a powerful farbrengen, isn’t just a special experience, isn’t just... And what if there’s no atmosphere in Tishrei? What if there’s no atmosphere in Tishrei? Tishrei and atmosphere—who said? What if there isn’t any atmosphere? It’s still Tishrei, and it’s still the Rebbe. We’re [unclear].

1:01:31 Speaker 3 I remember, in yeshiva ketana, we had a farbrengen with Zushe—I brought Zushe Posner [unclear], a"h. We were kids—I’m telling you, I was young, thirteen or fourteen, something like that. We’re sitting at the farbrengen, and he starts telling stories about the Rebbe, and every story has an unhappy ending. You know those storybooks, five volumes at home, where in every story people had a problem, they turned to the Rebbe, the Rebbe gave an answer, and a child was born, a shidduch came about, and everything worked out—a whole book of those stories. And I’m sitting there at the farbrengen thinking, what does he want? What is he trying to tell us? I’m still a young Tomim. He starts saying, “They asked for a bracha, and it didn’t happen.” And he had this look in his eyes throughout the whole farbrengen. Then he spoke about this point: if it’s all about what I get from the Rebbe—and yes, there is that, and it’s true, and that’s absolutely how it should be, and it happens too—but if that’s all there is, then wait: if it doesn’t happen, if I don’t receive what... if the Rebbe’s brachos don’t come true, does that mean there’s no Rebbe? Is that it, end of story?

1:02:35 Speaker 2 This can take you in all sorts of directions, because you start getting excited by emotional experiences. So why not travel to the places of our Rebbeim? There are very powerful, enjoyable experiences there too. The Rebbe says, “Lubavitch is here.” I’ve been to the town of Lubavitch. Wow, it’s very moving, very enjoyable. The Rebbe says Lubavitch is at 770 [unclear]. The Rebbe called that “the former Lubavitch.”

1:02:57 Speaker 3 Oh, Lubavitch?

1:02:58 Speaker 2 Yes, the town of Lubavitch. Lubavitch is here, at 770 [unclear]. This is Lubavitch.

1:03:03 Speaker 3 You’re saying that if I’m focused on the emotional high, I can get confused very quickly.

1:03:05 Speaker 2 Right. And these are chassidic highs. He isn’t going to—I don’t know—a music show. He’s seeking a chassidic high. Can you speak against a chassidic high?

1:03:16 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:03:17 Speaker 2 What’s wrong with it? What’s wrong with a Jew going to something chassidic, something Jewish, something good? Nothing’s wrong with it. Nothing’s wrong. You can’t explain it—as the rabbi of Dokshitz [unclear] said.

1:03:27 Speaker 3 We started with him. You can’t.

1:03:28 Speaker 2 We started with him. Ah, I can’t explain it. There’s something here that can’t be explained. There’s a Rebbe, and you need to travel to him and set yourself aside before him. He brings us to set ourselves aside, if we pay attention, if we agree to it, if we let him. There’s a story—I don’t remember exactly who it’s about; there are a few stories about the Rebbe Maharash—where a chossid told him, “I’ll give you a pocketknife if you tell me where Hakadosh Boruch Hu is.”

1:03:50 Speaker 3 A pocketknife?

1:03:51 Speaker 2 A pocketknife. The Rebbe Maharash liked pocketknives as a child.

1:03:53 Speaker 3 Oh, right, he used to carve things.

1:03:54 Speaker 2 Yes, he used to carve. So the chossid said, “I’ll give you one.” And he replied, “I’ll give you my pocketknife if you tell me where He isn’t.” There’s another story, I think about the Kotzker, where someone once said to him, “I’ll give you something if you tell me where Hakadosh Boruch Hu is.” I think it was the Kotzker. And the Kotzker said, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu is wherever people let Him in.” You don’t need to draw the Rebbe in, or take him, or bring him, or bring him down, or find some words, or... The Rebbe comes. Just don’t get in the way—let me not get in the way. That’s the story. A little less of me, a little less of me, and he comes. He comes in his own way, in his own form, however he wants to come. But a little less of me. Our mashpia once told us—and look, I’m bringing an extreme example from the other direction—that after Gimmel Tammuz he was standing at a farbrengen of the Rebbe [unclear], and next to him was a young man holding a cup of wine toward the Rebbe’s place. He heard the young man say, “Rebbe, please reveal yourself for one minute, just one minute. I want to see you. I don’t care if I don’t see you for a long time after that. I’m saying I just want to see you for one minute.” Now, our mashpia told us that the Gemara says one of the Amoraim said—I think it was an Amora—“Let him come, but let me not see him,” meaning: Let Moshiach come, but I don’t want to see his arrival. The time of Moshiach’s coming will be so hard. I don’t want to see that period. I don’t want to be there. It will be so hard. “Let him come, but let me not see him”—let him come, but I won’t see it; I’ll be resurrected. I want to be resurrected in the Geulah, not to be there among those who go through the process of Moshiach’s coming. So he said that this young man was saying, “Let me see him,

1:05:28 Speaker 2 but let him not come.” I want to see him, but I don’t want him to come. As if I’ve lost sight of it so completely that all I want now is to see the Rebbe, and I don’t even mind if he doesn’t reveal himself.

1:05:38 Speaker 4 As long as everything falls into place in my head.

1:05:39 Speaker 2 Exactly—so that I feel as comfortable as possible. I don’t care what the Rebbe wants. I want something from him.

1:05:43 Speaker 4 Wow.

1:05:44 Speaker 2 I don’t care what he wants.

1:05:45 Speaker 4 I was just speaking with a young man, and he told me that he’s been reading about a lot of religions and things like that. He said, “I need G-d to reveal Himself to me for one second, and then I’ll know this is the truth, and that’s it. Everything will line up for me in a spreadsheet, all the numbers and everything.” L’chaim, l’chaim.

1:06:03 Speaker 2 L’chaim and bracha.

1:06:03 Speaker 4 Listen, I’m leaving more confused than I came.

1:06:06 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:06:07 Speaker 4 Rabbi Leizer Ashkenazi, thank you so much.

1:06:08 Speaker 2 L’chaim and bracha. Yes, I’m confused, and I planned to leave you confused. I hope I succeeded. That’s how I was brought up. I don’t have anything else. L’chaim.

1:06:18 Speaker 4 L’chaim, l’chaim.

1:06:19 Speaker 2 May we hear good news. Have a good trip and a good journey back, and may everyone return with the Rebbe, immediately, to the Beis Hamikdash. That would throw off all the plans.

1:06:28 Speaker 4 Yes.

1:06:28 Speaker 2 And it’ll bother all those who already have their places, and all those planning for the crowd, thinking how nice it’ll be. Well, let them have a crowd of all the Jews in the world, pushing up against them in Jerusalem, with no room for them. That’s it. Yes, with Hashem’s help. Because that’s what the Rebbe wants. May it be what the Rebbe wants, the way the Rebbe wants it. L’chaim.

1:06:49 Speaker 4 L’chaim, l’chaim, l’chaim.