Farbrengen 19 Kislev 5756, Kfar Chabad

00:02 Speaker 1 Dr. Cohen. Ladies and gentlemen, someone who has honored us with his presence and joined our celebration many times is here with us again today, at this great farbrengen. He stands today at the forefront of the great campaign for the integrity of the Land of Israel, at the head of the Jewish majority in our Holy Land. He is our guest of honor, Likud chairman and Member of Knesset Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu. Ladies and gentlemen, many chassidim still remember when Mr. Netanyahu completed his term as Israel’s ambassador to the UN. He came to the Rebbe and told him that he had finished his term as ambassador and was about to take office as a Member of Knesset. The Rebbe shook his hand and wished him “great success in the position.” But immediately after wishing him great success, the Rebbe added the following words, and I quote: “I took great pleasure in your speech, and may it be Hashem’s will that you continue along those lines.” That was the blessing the Rebbe gave him, along with many more blessings afterward. Ladies and gentlemen, our dear friend, Mr. Netanyahu, we are all delighted to welcome you to our celebration. Please continue along those lines and grace our celebration, the celebration of the Geulah, with your words. Likud chairman, Member of Knesset Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, please.

02:26 Speaker 2 Honorable Chief Rabbi, Rishon LeZion Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu; distinguished rabbis; defender of Israel’s freedom, honorable former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir; Members of Knesset Rehavam Ze’evi, Avner Shaki and Dov Shilansky; teachers, students, chassidim and friends of Chabad, among them my friend, former Member of Knesset Rabbi Eliezer Mizrachi. I am deeply moved by the opportunity to celebrate the Festival of Geulah with you here in Kfar Chabad. My last meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe as Israel’s ambassador to the UN was mentioned here. I remember our first meeting, when I had just arrived at the UN. I will never forget it for as long as I live. I went to see the Rebbe on the eve of Simchas Torah with one of my former soldiers. A fine-looking, bearded Jew had come to my office. I didn’t recognize him until he introduced himself and said, “I’m your soldier, Shmaryah. Now I drive a different kind of tank.” He said to me, “Come with me to the Rebbe tonight.” So we went and arrived at a large hall, larger than this one, but just as packed with chassidim. They put me on the platform and said, “Wait here.” And I waited. Then the door opened. The Rebbe came onto the platform, turned his back to the crowd and looked into the Torah. That young man came over to me and said, “Go to the Rebbe now.” I said, “Now?” He said, “Now.” And I touched—or rather, barely touched—his right shoulder, with great reverence, and said to him in English, since we had not yet met, “Rebbe, I came to see you.” He turned halfway toward me and said, “Only to see me, and not to talk?” And we began to talk. I listened to him speak in wonderful Hebrew as he explained things to me for ten minutes, then twenty minutes, then thirty minutes. I could already hear the crowd behind us, ready to tear me to pieces. Then forty minutes, then forty-five minutes. This is what he told me. He said, “You are going to the great house of lies. There, one lie follows another. And in that great house of lies, in the deepest darkness, if you light one candle, a candle of truth and faith, it will spread a precious light all around it

06:25 Speaker 2 and everyone will know that it is the truth. Be proud. Stand tall. Stand firm for your people and your heritage.” I remember that look, that steely blue gaze that pierced my heart. I tried then, and I try today, to follow that charge from the Rebbe. Falsehood is not confined to that place. I say with sorrow that it exists here today, too; sometimes it even comes from among us, and lately more than just sometimes. Faced with this shocking attempt to smear Jews and rabbis, with a situation in which people are afraid of what they might say lest someone record them in a barbershop, report on them in a restaurant or come to their home—the answer is that this must stop immediately. And the answer is not only on our level, as public figures. The answer lies first and foremost in the truth and faith of each one of us: to speak our minds, not to be afraid, to stand proud and firm in our faith. We live here in a free country, a Jewish country in which everyone can say what is in their heart. This campaign of harassment against the rabbis of Israel must stop, and the things being said against hesder soldiers—among the bravest of our soldiers and the boldest of our commanders—must stop. I say this with sorrow, because for more than a month now we have been witnessing a campaign that must stop. And what must continue? What the Rebbe said more than once: the Jewish people’s faith in their land, their faith in the Land of Israel, in the unity of our people and in Ahavas Yisroel. If there is one thing that has made a deep impression on me, it is the way Chabad people work throughout the world. I met them in Australia, I met them in South America, I met them in North America. They save lives and bring Jews back to the heart of our people. They bring them back with complete faith. And I want to tell you that over the past fifty years we have undergone an enormous transformation. We emerged from the valley of the shadow of death, the surviving remnant; we returned to our homeland and liberated it. Nineteen years later, we liberated our holy capital,

10:02 Speaker 2 Jerusalem. We established a Jewish state here, with a Jewish army that is the pride of the generations, and all of this is sustained by truth and faith. Our Geulah, which we celebrate, springs from these things. So I think the most powerful thing we can all do together—Chabad people, friends of the Jewish people, religious and secular Jews—is to remember what matters most: what unites us is that we are one people, with one past and a shared future. We will follow this path with a vow in our hearts that, together, we have raised up the fallen sukkah of David. And we will tell the whole world, and say in memory of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, that this sukkah will stand forever and we will never let it fall. I want to wish you a joyous Festival of Geulah. I want to encourage you: the path we share is the path of truth, the path of Geulah. A joyous holiday to you.

11:39 Speaker 3 Yasher koach. All that applause is an expression of thanks and yasher koach to our guest of honor, Likud chairman and Member of Knesset Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, for the words we have heard. Ladies and gentlemen, at that meeting between Mr. Netanyahu and the Rebbe, the Rebbe told him at the end, “You will have to contend with 119 people. Surely you will not be intimidated by that, since Hakadosh Boruch Hu is on this side.” The Rebbe concluded with the same two words he had first said to him, “Blessing and success,” and gave Mr. Netanyahu another dollar, saying, “This is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s gift.” Do you know why “blessing and success” twice? Because if you calculate the gematria, dear friend, Benjamin Netanyahu, it is exactly twice “blessing and success.” Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure everyone here will agree with me. We all wish the Member of Knesset, the chairman of Likud, that he attain the high office in that house of 119 people, serve there as prime minister, and fulfill the mission the Rebbe entrusted to him: to turn that house into a house wholly devoted to truth. Blessing and success, and yasher koach.

00:00 I would now like to invite someone to offer the blessing.