Farbrengen of 19 Kislev 5771, Kfar Chabad

00:00 Speaker 1 Souls in bodies came to him. The Alter Rebbe asked them: Why is this happening to me? Why must I sit in prison? They answered that there was an accusation against him for spreading the wellsprings of Chassidus to anyone who sought them. The Alter Rebbe asked them: If so, is there an accusation? When I get out of here, should I stop spreading Chassidus? The Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid answered him: Since you have begun, continue. And from then on, from that answer given to the Alter Rebbe while he was in Petersburg, the wellsprings of Chassidus began to spread everywhere. Some spread the wellsprings through mitzvah campaigns, some by teaching Chassidus publicly, some with their money, some with their own efforts, and some through Torah study—spreading the Alter Rebbe’s teachings and making his greatness and genius known to the public. We will now hear from someone who devotes himself day and night to the teachings of the one whose Geulah we celebrate, studying and clarifying the laws in his Shulchan Aruch, particularly the laws of Torah study and now the laws of prayer, and sharing his insights publicly. The eminent gaon, the mara d’asra of Kfar Chabad, Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi shlita, please.

01:53 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim. I won’t speak at length, because there are distinguished people here who are in a hurry, and we want to hear what they have to say. With the permission of the rabbis, each according to his standing and honor, Minister Yaakov Margi, members of the Knesset, and public figures: Gut Yom Tov, gut Yom Tov. May we be inscribed and sealed for a good year in the study of Chassidus and in the ways of Chassidus. L’chaim, l’chaim.

02:31 Speaker 3 L’chaim, l’chaim. Good.

02:35 Speaker 2 I was in Paris on Sunday, and it was 14 Kislev. Before davening, some young married men there asked me: Do we need to say Tachanun at Shacharis? After all, it’s 14 Kislev, the Rebbe’s wedding anniversary. I answered them: It depends on what you feel. They asked me: What do you mean by what we feel? What should we feel? So I told them: If all you feel is that the Rebbe’s wedding took place more than eighty years ago, I don’t know whether that obligates you not to say Tachanun today. But if you feel that today, 14 Kislev, is a day of joy—that today, 14 Kislev 5771, it is your joy, a joy through which you are connecting more and more deeply to the Rebbe—then certainly you don’t need to say Tachanun. That is for you to decide. 19 Kislev is the day of Geulah. We are commanded by a positive mitzvah to remember the Exodus from Egypt. But there are two aspects to remembering the Exodus. Every day we are commanded to remember the Exodus that took place long ago, when, more than three thousand years ago, Hakadosh Boruch Hu took us from slavery to freedom. But there is also the remembrance of the Exodus on the night of Pesach, when we say, “Who redeemed us.” We have been redeemed now—not only did He redeem our forefathers, He redeemed us too. This is our day of Geulah now, on the night of Pesach 5771. The same is true of the Yom Tov of 19 Kislev. What is demanded of us as chassidim, as students of the Alter Rebbe’s teachings and as chassidim of the Rebbe, is that 19 Kislev is not merely a day when Geulah and release took place 212 years ago. It is a day of Geulah now, because without this day, who knows where we would be now? And what is well known needs no proof. This past Motzaei Shabbos, I saw a video of the Rebbe

00:00 In the weekly video, there was an interview with an amazing story. All these years—and thank G-d, I was born into Lubavitch—I had never heard it before. The interview was with a Jew who is now in his eighties, living in America, I think in Los Angeles. He related that when he was a young man in his twenties, his father told him, “You should get to know the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” He was an American young man who didn’t know much about the Rebbe, but his father told him, “You should get to know the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” They show a picture of what he looked like back then. He decided to go in to see the Rebbe, asked for an appointment, and was given one. So in he went, this American young man. The Rebbe asked him what he planned to do, and he answered that he planned to study at university. Then he asked the Rebbe, “Rebbe, did you also study at a university?” The Rebbe said yes. He asked, “Which university did you study at?” The Rebbe answered, “The Sorbonne.” So he said to the Rebbe, “The Sorbonne? That’s a world-renowned university. What did you study there?” He had the nerve to ask the Rebbe straight out: What did you study at university? The Rebbe answered, “Electrical engineering.” He asked the Rebbe, “Why? Why did you choose electrical engineering in particular?” The Rebbe answered, “That’s how I see my role, my mission.” He said it in English; I can’t translate it. To find the Jewish spark in every single Jew—that is why I studied electrical engineering. How much depth there is in those words. How much they say about the Rebbe’s mission, the Rebbe’s role: to kindle and find the spark in every single Jew. Back then, it was just the study of electrical engineering. But today, when we look at the baal teshuvah movement, at the Chabad movement, at the shluchim, at the shluchim in every

02:35 part of the world, we see how, through the Rebbe’s mission, they are succeeding more and more each day in kindling and finding the spark in every single Jew. This is the day—the festive day of the Geulah of 19 Kislev—about which the Rebbe Rashab wrote, “The light and vitality of our souls were given to us on this day.” The light, the spark. How to kindle the light and how to kindle the spark. The Alter Rebbe was named Schneur, and there is something very interesting in a halachic ruling of his. Among the thirty-nine melachos of Shabbos is the melachah of kindling a fire on Shabbos. The question is: What defines the melachah of kindling? Leading later halachic authorities have already discussed this question. What is the prohibited act in kindling? Is it producing the light, or consuming the wick? When you light a candle, two things happen: On one hand, you produce a flame; on the other, the candle burns down and the oil is consumed. So what is the prohibited act? The Alter Rebbe discusses this at length in the Kuntres Acharon to the laws of Yom Tov. It has implications for a number of halachic matters, but his central point is this: The main act of kindling is producing the fire, producing the light, not consuming the wick. He brings several proofs for this, though this isn’t the place to go into them. I have often wondered: Why was the Alter Rebbe so intent on proving this point about kindling light—that the melachah of kindling is producing the fire and the flame? It fits with the entire approach of Chassidus. The difference between Chassidus and the teachings of mussar is that mussar deals with subduing the body, breaking the body. Chassidus, as explained in Tanya, is about the light: kindling the light, finding the light within every Jewish soul and within everything in this world, within every created thing—fire, wind, water, and earth. And so it fits very well with the Alter Rebbe’s name: two

00:00 Speaker 1 A radiant face. Light in the revealed teachings of Torah and light in the teachings of Chassidus. Boruch Hashem, we have the privilege of gathering once again for a chassidic farbrengen. How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to sit together. We have gathered to rejoice in the Alter Rebbe’s redemption—a redemption that belongs to us, to every single one of us, men, women and children. May Hashem help us leave this farbrengen stronger, more connected to the Rebbe, to the Rebbe’s work and to the Rebbe’s shlichus. Each of us has our own shlichus: to spread the Rebbe’s teachings, to spread the wellsprings of Chassidus, and above all, to prepare the world for the coming of Moshiach. May it be Hashem’s will that, from one redemption to the next, we merit the true and complete Geulah. L’chaim, l’chaim.

00:57 Speaker 2 L’chaim and blessings. Thank you very much to the distinguished scholar and chossid, the mara d’asra of Kfar Chabad, Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi shlita. Together, all of us here wish him continued success in his holy work and long years in his position, carrying out his work to bring nachas to our King and Nasi. And may he receive the blessing that appears in the introduction to the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch and forms an acrostic of the name of the one whose redemption we celebrate: “May the root of his soul shine forth light and abundant blessing; may his merit protect us, shield our souls, and protect all of Israel.” We will now hear from a loyal friend of Chabad House. I had the privilege of hearing him speak some time ago, and it is a special pleasure to hear him again. The Minister of Religious Affairs, Rabbi Yaakov Margi, please.

02:07 Speaker 1 Did you say l’chaim? Like a chossid, like a real chossid—l’chaim. L’chaim! With the permission of the distinguished rabbis seated at the head table, led by the mara d’asra of Kfar Chabad; the chief rabbi of Givatayim, Rabbi Gliksberg; the chief rabbi of Kiryat Gat, Rabbi Hevelin; and the Rebbe’s shliach, Rabbi Brod. I don’t know everyone’s name, but I acknowledge each person with the honor due to him. Honored members of the Knesset, Rabbi Moses, Knesset member Eldad, and everyone gathered here. On my way here I thought: What can I keep repeating every time? What I say at Chabad gatherings is enough already; people are tired of hearing it. It’s out there—you have a powerful communications network, C... what’s it called? Chabad C-O-L. You say something here and it goes around the world. So I thought, Yaakov, say something new. Enough. Today is 19 Kislev, close to Parshas Vayeishev and close to Chanukah. I said, let’s find something that connects them. And I saw that, as is well known, Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs His world measure for measure. So how do we make the connection? In Parshas Vayeishev, the story of Yehudah comes right in the middle of everything. Our Sages say that because of Yehudah—or thanks to Yehudah, depending on how you look at it—the tribes went down to Egypt and took part in fulfilling what Hakadosh Boruch Hu had decreed to Avraham Avinu at the Covenant Between the Parts: “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land not their own, and they will enslave them and afflict them for four hundred years.” It was thanks to Yehudah—after all, Yehudah was the one who proposed to the tribes that they sell Yosef—that they went down to Egypt.