A lecture by Rabbi Zusha Poizner

00:02 Speaker 1 It is enough to say that there is a book—works of Jewish philosophy discuss this subject. It is not just that Adam Harishon contained all the souls within him, all the way until the storehouse of souls is emptied. Just as Adam Harishon had a head and all the limbs, so too the souls are divided in that way. We also say that over the generations there has been what we call a decline of the generations. Earlier generations had loftier souls. So much so that we are in ikvesa d’Meshicha, the “heel” of the era before Moshiach—at the level of a heel, the lowest level. This is also one of the things we say about Moshe Rabbeinu: he was “very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” And people ask: Moshe Rabbeinu was a great man, and he knew his own greatness. He spent forty days in heaven; he ate no bread and drank no water. “Moshe ascended to G-d”; he spoke with G-d face to face. So how could the Torah say of him, “The man Moshe was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth”? Didn’t he know he was greater than others? There is a very simple answer: Moshe Rabbeinu did know his greatness, but he made this calculation. He took stock of himself and asked: Why am I a great person? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu blessed me with extraordinary abilities. Had Hakadosh Boruch Hu given those same abilities to someone else, that person would have made even better use of them than I have. That is why the man Moshe was very humble. What credit do I deserve for everything I have done? I received it from Heaven, and I thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu for it. He gave me abilities, He gave me extraordinary strengths, and so I made some use of them. Let me give an example from the Mishnah: “If you have studied much Torah

03:05 Speaker 1 “do not take credit for yourself, for this is what you were created for.” So what are you so proud of? What happened here? I spoke with G-d. Why shouldn’t I have? After all, I didn’t create these abilities myself. That is one answer—a simple, pleasant answer. In fact, we hear another answer. Chassidus explains something further. Moshe Rabbeinu saw every generation and its leaders; Hakadosh Boruch Hu showed him all the souls that would ever be. Hakadosh Boruch Hu also showed Moshe the souls of ikvesa d’Meshicha, of the “heel,” of the days before Moshiach: how in that generation there would be obstacles and hindrances, terrible difficulties, and the souls would understand nothing about G-dly matters. It would not be like the generation of the wilderness, Moshe Rabbeinu’s generation, of whom it is written that they were a generation of knowledge, the generation that received the Torah. They saw G-dliness; they saw what is normally heard and heard what is normally seen. Of course, the question arises: what about those who did the opposite? That is a separate matter, and there is a detailed explanation of it. But in principle, that generation was on a high level, with lofty souls. Our souls are lowly souls, and so G-dliness is not visible to us; we do not see it. Nevertheless—and this is not just a phrase—Jews today are prepared to give their lives to sanctify Hashem’s name and to keep Torah and mitzvos. Jews may not understand why, may not feel why, but certainly: you approach a Jew and ask him to do something, some mitzvah, and he is willing to do it. It is not only that he does not understand it and yet may do it. In my opinion, at any rate, he shows that his objections are a pretense. When you begin asking all the questions, in the end, usually—and this happens—

06:01 Speaker 1 he keeps the mitzvos. Moshe Rabbeinu saw our generation. He saw how far it is from being a generation of knowledge, how many obstacles and hindrances there are, what a doubled and redoubled darkness there is—and nevertheless, people keep Torah and mitzvos. “The man Moshe was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” What is so remarkable about my keeping Torah and mitzvos? I understand; I do it all knowing that if I did not, I would be a wrongdoer. If I failed to do it, I would be worse than a wrongdoer. But these Jews keep mitzvos. All credit to them! “The man Moshe was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” That is over the course of the generations. If we continue with the souls in each generation, there are people whose level you can see. Sometimes it shows in their talents. There are people you can tell are on a higher level. You can see it; you do not have to look very hard. There are, of course, hidden tzaddikim whose level is not visible on the outside, but someone with a discerning eye can see it. In any case, there are loftier souls and lower souls. Forgive me—and forgive all of us—for gesturing upward when we speak of “higher” in spiritual matters, and downward when we speak of “lower.” That is not right. Higher and lower are both right here. They refer to levels, not physical height. A teacher asks his students: Where is Gehinnom? Where is Gan Eden? Gan Eden is up there. And where is Gehinnom? Gehinnom is down below. No, that is not how it works. Gan Eden is not above, and Gehinnom is not below. These are spiritual things. Do you understand? Spiritual things. There is no up and down. In physical matters there is up and down; in spiritual matters there is no spatial up and down. When I say “higher,” I mean a higher level. When

08:34 Speaker 1 I say “lower,” I mean a lower level. “Loftier souls” does not mean that a person is four or five meters tall, or lives on the eighth or ninth floor. And “lower souls” does not mean they are dwarfs or little people or whatever, or that they are down, down, down. We are talking about levels. There are loftier souls and there are lower souls—in level. And neither can do without the other. The head cannot do without the foot, nor the foot without—just as physically the head cannot do without the foot, so spiritually the head cannot do without the foot. We need them all. All of them together, all of us together, make up the Jewish people—all the souls together. As we discussed once before, a Torah scroll missing a single letter is invalid in its entirety. If one Jew is missing, the entire Jewish people are lacking. Something is missing from the whole Jewish people; there is a flaw in the whole. Moshe Rabbeinu said, “The six hundred thousand foot soldiers of the people among whom I am.” We spoke about this last time. “The six hundred thousand foot soldiers of the people among whom I am.” Moshe Rabbeinu knew that he was the head of the people, and there were six hundred thousand foot soldiers. Now, so there should be no misunderstanding: I, and everyone else here, do not know which soul is higher and which is lower. Since we do not know, every Jew, wherever he is, is a Jew! We must relate to every Jew equally. We are speaking here only about the people in this room. I am not going to go looking for this person or that person. The way I relate to everyone is the same. I may be the one who is mistaken; I am no better. Someone might think, “I put on tefillin and do this and that, while that Jew

11:31 Speaker 1 still does not.” No, no, no. There is no such thing. I do not know how to assess people, and I do not know who is better, who is greater, who is higher or who is lower. So I relate to everyone equally. No one knows what is going on deep inside me, and I do not know what is deep inside anyone else. That is why I relate to them as equals among equals. What, then? Since Hashem has blessed me with some knowledge, I need to share that knowledge—and also, through conversation, receive other knowledge in return. I cannot claim to know and decide to sort people: this one has a great soul and that one has a different kind of soul. There is no such thing. Everyone has a soul, a G-dly soul, which is “truly a part of G-d above.” What level it is on does not matter. That is a question we will come to shortly. In any case, if we are one complete body, every body has a head. Looking across the generations, the earlier generations were like the head in comparison with the other limbs of the body, down to our generation, the last generation. Other souls still need to be revealed below; they still need to be born. This is one of the reasons that in recent years the Rebbe has spoken so strongly about having children, about larger families—many children in every family. May they increase; may there be many, many, many children. One reason is to bring those souls into the world and hasten the Geulah. Certainly, that is part of it. And again, here, in a single line, he speaks about this point. At first glance, how can I have many children? There is the question of money. There is the question of love. There is the question of education. There is this problem and that problem, and that problem, with all

14:01 Speaker 1 The problems. We don’t need to spell them out, because everyone knows all the problems. Generally, as they say, every child comes with his own mazal. Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives a child and gives money too. And I imagine that anyone who doesn’t have one thing has children. So, boruch Hashem, no one has become impoverished because of their children. As for love—the idea that you can’t devote yourself to the children—I once heard, and once read, about a mother who had many children, ten or twelve children at home. Someone asked her, “How do you divide your love among all the children?” She looked at him and said, “I don’t divide it. I multiply it.” What does that mean? What does it mean to divide love? As though there isn’t enough? What, a mother doesn’t have enough love? There isn’t enough time to give the children? There is time, plenty of time. You simply have to know what takes priority. And I imagine that this week we’ve heard enough about what priorities are and where they lie; everyone knows for themselves what takes priority. The same goes for education and so on and so forth. And if there are—if there are problems, we see that a family with, G-d forbid, one child or two children has the same problems as a family with ten children. The same problems with education. Ah, seemingly, with only one or two children, you can devote yourself to them, devote yourself to them, devote yourself to them. But there’s no time to devote to them. Of course, I’m not talking about families who cannot have children. That isn’t what we’re discussing.

16:02 Speaker 2 Space.

16:02 Speaker 1 What? Ma’am, with Hashem’s help, there’s enough room for all of us.

16:10 Speaker 2 Where are we supposed to live?

16:11 Speaker 1 At home. Where?

16:13 Speaker 2 Two rooms. How many rooms do you need?

16:18 Speaker 1 Again, for every single problem, a solution can be found—if you only want to find one.

16:25 Speaker 2 No, no. Maybe—

16:34 Speaker 1 That’s exactly the young fellow who was here yesterday with his big mouth. What? What? What? No.

16:40 Speaker 2 I heard.

16:45 Speaker 1 Just a moment, just a moment.

16:50 Speaker 2 That.

16:51 Speaker 1 That’s not the—excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. That isn’t the problem. Yonasan. We’ve seen clearly, we’ve seen clearly that the whole problem of space is an artificial problem. What do I mean? There were families—and now it’s harder, because we’ve already reached a different standard—who lived in one room with seven, eight, or nine children, and every child had his own place.

17:35 Speaker 2 We don’t quarrel, my daughters and I.

17:37 Speaker 1 Ma’am, let’s not get into that, because if that’s the problem now, it isn’t because of the number of children.

17:47 Speaker 3 Not because of the number of children.

17:49 Speaker 1 No, no, no, all right. It isn’t all right. Why do you say it’s all right? That isn’t the reason. If that’s the problem, generally—generally Hakadosh Boruch Hu helps this one and that one and the other one, each person with his own situation.

18:06 Speaker 3 The truth is, statistics don’t show that people with plenty of space and plenty of rooms have no problems.

18:12 Speaker 1 Exactly.

18:12 Speaker 3 We have—

18:14 Speaker 1 Come on, that isn’t our subject right now.

18:18 Speaker 3 It’s hard, it’s hard.

18:24 Speaker 1 Having a large family isn’t the problem, and it isn’t our subject right now. No, no, I just brought it in a little, as they say, from recent times. But that isn’t our subject right now, and it’s simply not worth wasting time discussing it at this moment. We were talking about a matter concerning the tribe. At the time, he spoke about—we spoke about bringing down the souls in order to clarify that first aspect of Moshiach’s coming. That was the point at this moment. In any case, the Jewish people form one complete body, with all the souls that need to descend and be revealed. And at the top, just as in earlier generations—the earlier generations were like a head in relation to us—so too, in every generation there is a head in relation to the entire people, and that head includes the entire people within himself. Since we’re speaking about something spiritual, it’s hard to understand how so many people can be inside such a small body—even if it’s the largest body—all the souls inside it. How can he contain them all within himself? But again, we’re speaking here about something spiritual. When we speak about something spiritual, it isn’t a question of physical space, of up and down. Where is Gan Eden? Where is Gan Eden? Up there. Where is “up there”? In heaven. Where is that? Where is that? Where is Gehinnom? Where is down below? Down below? In the lowest depths. Where are those lowest depths? Where are those lowest depths? Down below. Dow—where is down below? Where is down below? If you start drilling here, will you eventually find Gehinnom below? Or if you go up, up, up, up, where will you see Gan Eden? You won’t see it. It is a spiritual concept. You cannot see a spiritual concept with coarse, physical eyes. The same is true if there is one Jew in a generation, the head of the generation, who includes

20:56 Speaker 1 within himself all the souls of that generation. No, he’ll fall. And how do we know this, where do we see it, or why do we need such a thing? A head—and in that head, just as with a physical head: “From my flesh I behold G-d.” How can I understand what exists in the higher worlds, in the spiritual worlds? I look at myself. Since a person is a small world, and he wants to see what the great world looks like, what the spiritual worlds look like, he looks at himself, at least in a manner of speaking, to see all the organs and all the parallels. He looks at what is in this small body, or this large body—however you want to describe it, however small or large it may be. In this complex body, we see that every body has billions upon billions of cells. And not just cells: there are veins, arteries, muscles, skin, flesh—everything, everything. The kidneys and every other part are put together wondrously, created in a wondrous way. In this whole structure, nothing is out of place. And if, G-d forbid, something happens and some part shifts for whatever reason, the entire balance is disturbed. Who directs this complicated, intricate body? The head. Inside the head there is a brain, and from the brain come little fibers, very, very, very fine ones, so fine they’re hard even to see. What we might call nerves. And from the head, everything goes out to all the organs. An interesting thing, by the way: from the head, it generally passes through the spinal column, and from the spinal column into the body. There’s a method of treatment in the world—I think there are one or two practitioners here in Israel—called chiropractic. What is chiropractic? It makes this claim: you don’t need medicines, [unclear], you don’t need medicines, but

24:04 Speaker 1 it says that all problems come from the spinal column. If something is wrong with a person, that’s a sign that something is wrong with a vertebra in his spine. The vertebrae press on the nerves, and that causes problems. And if you want to heal the person, what do you do? You take the pressure off the spinal cord, or off the vertebra, and everything becomes all right. How do you do that? You simply need to give it a good thump—but you have to know where to strike, or where to give it a squeeze, to release the pressure. How did I get onto this subject? I went to such a clinic, and he saved my life. I wasn’t in danger of dying, but he helped me a great deal. Where do the nerves come from? They come from the head, and so does everything else. If they go through the spinal cord to the whole body, then just as things go from the head downward, so too, when something happens to one of the organs below, who feels it first? The head. If a leg hurts, or any other organ hurts, who feels it? The head. “From my flesh I behold G-d”: just as it is with my physical body, so it is in the greater world, in the complete body called the Jewish people, in this great body, this complete body called the Jewish people. There are all kinds of souls; it is extraordinarily complex. This body, this whole structure, is extraordinarily intricate and complicated. There are all kinds of people, all kinds of organs, all kinds of veins, and all kinds of tiny parts you can’t even see. Who’s that person over there? I don’t know him. He’s just [unclear]. What’s all this now? Who knows him? So what? I can’t see him. So what? It’s like a vein that, G-d forbid, becomes blocked—at first, it seems you don’t feel anything.

26:34 Speaker 1 And then suddenly you feel, oh, oh, what a tiny, tiny, tiny thing. It may be felt in one place, and somewhere else only later. I had an aunt, a"h. She had something with her leg. She was in Beilinson Hospital for three or four months, and they did every test imaginable. Her leg swelled up, apparently. They ran all the tests in the world and found nothing they were looking for. But her leg was swollen. It turned out she had cancer in her abdomen, and that caused it. What does one have to do with the other? There’s no such thing as “nothing to do with it.” Everything is connected. Every limb is connected to the others, and you can’t ignore any limb, whichever limb it might be or wherever it is. There is something in this complex whole called a body. The Jewish people are all connected to one another, and especially to the head; the head feels everything. At first glance, why do I need this head? Say we’re talking about a body. With the Jewish people, why do I need it? First, because this is one body, and because Hakadosh Boruch Hu made it this way, there has to be one head. It can’t be that everyone simply does whatever he wants. If every Jew were a separate entity, then each could do whatever he wanted, with no connection to anyone else. Then you could say we don’t need a head. But because we are all one person, we need the head. And yet, each person thinks he is something separate. The writer spoke for hours—how many hours? Three or four hours—about the “I.”

29:28 Speaker 1 About the “I,” which is really nothing, however much he says it is nothing. How did Reuven put it yesterday? He described the fellow saying, “Indifferent, indifferent, indifferent,” until he got a good slap. Then he wasn’t indifferent anymore. Suddenly he had an “I, I, I.” “There is no ‘I’; everything is utterly nullified, everything is utterly nullified.” But when someone gets that pinch, he won’t tell me he’s utterly nullified. He won’t say, “I’m not me.” I’m me. I’m here. Since Hakadosh Boruch Hu created us so that each person feels as though he is something and feels his own “I,” he comes and asks the question everyone asks: Why do I need a Rebbe? Why do I need one? I have a head too. I have a mind in my head too. I can do whatever he does. Maybe not quite as well, but I can manage. What do I need him for? Why do I need someone to tell me what to do, like a head? Moshe Rabbeinu appears in the Torah, in the Written Torah. And since we’re speaking about the Written Torah, we can briefly say what it means, as the rabbi explained, and as the other speakers here explained. So do we have some idea now of what the Written Torah means? Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself dictated every single word. From the letter beis in “Bereishis bara Elokim” to the last letter of “before the eyes of all Israel,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu told Moshe Rabbeinu to write every letter. Moshe Rabbeinu did not write on his own whatever came

32:01 Speaker 1 to mind or whatever he thought. When we speak of eternity, we are speaking primarily of the eternity of the Torah. There are some remarkable verses in the Torah. If we’re speaking of a monotheistic faith, with one G-d and no intermediaries—Judaism rejects intermediaries, whereas Christianity speaks of them—we find some remarkable verses on this subject. Some were mentioned here: after the splitting of the sea, “The people feared Hashem, and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant.” Even before that, Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to Moshe, “And in you, too, they will believe forever.” There are other verses. When the Jewish people began, toward the end, to act out and do things they shouldn’t have, “The people spoke against G-d and against Moshe.” And when they came to their senses, they said, “We have sinned, for we spoke against Hashem and against you.” There is a connection between G-d and Moshe, the Rebbe of the generation—Moshe Rabbeinu. There is another remarkable verse on this subject. Moshe Rabbeinu begins speaking about the revelation at Mount Sinai, when the Jewish people received the Torah—an event we’ve spoken about, that you’ve heard about and, with Hashem’s help, will hear and learn more about. At that event, it says, they heard what is normally seen and saw what is normally heard. Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai. What does it say? When Moshe Rabbeinu describes that event, he says, “I stood between you and Hashem your G-d to tell you the word of Hashem.” Not directly: “I stood between you and Hashem your G-d.” And it is no accident that Moshe uses “I”: “I am Hashem your G-d”; “I stood between you.” Where is the contradiction? If we’re speaking about this matter in the world, you’ve heard—and presumably each of you is aware—that every person is “literally a part of G-d above.”

35:47 Speaker 1 What is the problem? The sense of self, the feeling that each person is something in his own right. Because of that feeling, I can’t enter into someone else. I think we spoke about this too. The Tanya, that profound compendium of the Written Torah of Chassidus, speaks of three levels: rasha, beinoni, and tzaddik. What does rasha mean? Someone who commits sins. Not someone capable of committing sins, but someone who actually does. They say there was a Jew named Reb Zusha of Anipoli, a great tzaddik. He said, “What is one of the things I learned from a thief? A thief isn’t someone who can steal; a thief is someone who steals.” A rasha isn’t someone who can sin. A rasha is someone who sins. That is what a rasha means. I don’t care how many sins or which sins. This is also one of the remarkable things about Chassidus: it comes and tells a person, “My dear sir, take it easy. What do you think—that because you once committed a sin, you’re a rasha?” You committed a sin; you’re a rasha. Then there is a beinoni. What is a beinoni? Someone who is capable of sinning but never actually sins. If he has never sinned, he is called a beinoni. And what is a tzaddik? A tzaddik is someone who is incapable of sinning, who has no yetzer hara. As it says in Tanya, there is the concept mentioned yesterday, iskafya, and there is the concept of ishapcha. One person restrains his yetzer hara from acting. He wants to do wrong, but he holds back his yetzer hara: “Calm down. You want to make me stumble? No. You won’t make me stumble.”

38:11 Speaker 4 Does that include thought, or...?

38:12 Speaker 1 Yes, that too. Thought as well. Because in that same book, that old book, when it begins to discuss a rasha, it isn’t speaking merely of someone who could commit a sin, or someone who could do something but doesn’t. It isn’t only about doing something one shouldn’t. Even someone who can protest and does not protest is also called a rasha. Someone who is able to—you see another person doing something... But I don’t want to go too deeply into that point, because it isn’t the subject. And Yonasan [unclear] starts [unclear]. Why are you starting so many different things? Even someone who, for one moment of the day, does not learn Torah—one moment. Learning Torah also includes directing all one’s actions and all one’s thoughts for the sake of Heaven. That is the point of Torah. If for one second he does not, he is called a rasha. One moment out of twenty-four times sixty times sixty—work it out yourselves, those of you with a computer, since we spoke about computers today too. If for one second in the whole day he committed a sin, he is called a rasha. What is a tzaddik? A tzaddik has no yetzer hara. He doesn’t need to restrain it, because he has transformed the yetzer hara into a yetzer tov. What do you call that? Levels? When we speak of a rasha, there are thousands of levels within that, and there are thousands of levels here too. In principle, a tzaddik is incapable of sinning; he has no yetzer hara. As for us, boruch Hashem, I don’t imagine there is anyone here who has never committed a sin in his life. Presumably everyone has committed one. That doesn’t mean—it doesn’t matter what kind of sin.

40:12 Speaker 1 Boruch Hashem, there are all kinds of people. It doesn’t matter. You haven’t? All right, I haven’t either. Fine. That fits with our outlook.

40:24 Speaker 5 Good for you. Why only me? There are other people here.

40:29 Speaker 1 Not quite that far. By the way, when people began talking about the fundamental teachings of Chassidus—because there’s actually something else missing here that we haven’t discussed, or perhaps only touched on, in the history of Chassidus—what was one of the objections raised by those who opposed Chassidus and its approach? What were they against? The Alter Rebbe, the first Rebbe of Chabad, said: What is one of the foundations of Chassidus? That every Jew, simply because he is a Jew, needs to engage in teshuvah. Because what is teshuvah? Its meaning, as we discussed yesterday and here, is “and the spirit returns to G-d Who gave it.” This does not necessarily mean someone who committed a transgression. No. A sin. It does not necessarily mean someone who committed a transgression or sinned. What is a sin, for a moment? Is a sin something bad? Does it mean someone did something bad? No. There’s a story in Tanach about King David. King David had sworn to Bathsheba that her son Solomon would be king. Solomon had several older brothers. One was Absalom, and another was Adonijah. The story of Absalom is well known. And there was another one, Adonijah. At one point, he wanted to be king. King David was ill and lying in bed, and Adonijah went and won people over. There were displays of support, and they started doing all sorts of impressive things. Nathan the prophet came to Bathsheba and said, “Listen, this is what’s happening.” Bathsheba went to King David and said, “Did you say that Adonijah would reign? Didn’t you say that my son Solomon would reign? And now this is happening with Adonijah, and my son Solomon and I will be counted as offenders before my lord the king.”

43:25 Speaker 1 [unclear]. A sin means a deficiency. A sin means a deficiency. A person is not perfect, and however much he advances, he can never reach the ultimate level, because G-dliness is infinite. Wherever a person stands, he must always strive for a higher level. The teaching of Chassidus is that every Jew, simply because he is a Jew, should be a baal teshuvah, should return through teshuvah. What does it mean to return through teshuvah? To reach a higher level, and then a higher level still. This was one of the things that opponents of Chassidus objected to. What do you mean—a Torah scholar? He makes no claims for himself. He’s a Torah scholar who sits and learns all day. He does only good things. Why does he need to do teshuvah? There is Torah he hasn’t yet learned and doesn’t yet know. He needs to do teshuvah. He needs to do teshuvah. Why are you mixing things up here? Chassidus comes and says: yes and no. True, there is a mixing of things here. I cannot separate one Jew from another. You cannot separate one Jew from another. What one Jew does concerns me. It concerns everyone. And if I am in a state where I need to do teshuvah, every Jew needs to do teshuvah. If I feel that I’m somebody, that is hard for me. Very hard. I say, “After all, I’m somebody.” So I can’t feel the other person; it’s hard for me. If I’m somebody, I can’t feel the other person. And if I can’t feel him, I’m not united with him. Who does feel the other person? Who can feel him? Someone who nullifies himself. Someone whose sense of self, whose selfishness—or, if we use a Freudian word that means nothing beyond the fact that Freud introduced it into the vocabulary—

46:07 Speaker 1 Ego. What is ego? It has no meaning, no meaning at all. Freud, or whoever it was—Jung or someone else, some other fellow—introduced a word: ego. What is ego? Ego is ego, ego is ego. Ego is ego. Ego is ego. There’s no translation for that word. Usually, when people use it, they mean selfishness. Someone who doesn’t have that selfishness—if he has no selfishness, he can feel the other person. We learned this in Tanya, ch. 32. If his body is of little importance to him, if his body is of little importance to him, he can attain something: Ahavas Yisroel. He can feel the other person. If he feels that he himself is somebody, then, as we discussed, there’s a law of physics: where I am, no one else can be. If I’m nothing, someone else can occupy my place. But if I’m the man, if I’m the cock of the walk, then he—

00:00 Speaker 1 How can we know? How can we know who the Rebbe of the generation is? Who is he? Is it this person or that person, or... No, without getting into people's merits. Even without naming people here who aren't clear about it. Who is it? So we said, what does the word “Rebbe” mean? “The head of the Jewish people.” Here we need to go into another point. I don't know how much time we'll have to develop it or how far we'll get. The concept of [unclear], what might be called Moshiach. I'm afraid to say that word right now, for a number of reasons. In principle, if we're talking about Moshe Rabbeinu, the first redeemer, and we're talking about Moshe's continuation, then we're talking about the continuation of a redeemer—and he is the first redeemer and the final redeemer. We have to talk about the reality of a redeemer, because that shows, at least to some extent, what the qualities of a Rebbe are. The only book that discusses such qualities, the qualities of such a redeemer, is the Rambam's work. All the other books of halachah don't discuss this. And again, because every time—I remember speaking about it, or perhaps I don't remember. I've spoken about it a number of times. I don't know whether it was before an audience, or before everyone together, or in groups, or with individuals. And when you start talking about Moshiach, Moshiach, [unclear]. The Rambam, the work I mentioned, is the only work of halachah that discusses his qualities. Moshiach will not display miracles and wonders. If someone comes and displays miracles and wonders, that is not a sign that he is Melech HaMoshiach. Melech HaMoshiach will not arrive on a white donkey—or that's a concept; he won't arrive [unclear] on a white jet. That's the idea when we speak of white, of a white donkey. It means that he takes

03:46 Speaker 1 the materiality of the world—and when we speak of materiality, we mean the coarsest, most stubborn thing in the world—and makes it white, transforming the coarsest thing into something refined. That's what a white donkey means. It's not about a person who can perform miracles, miracle after miracle, do wonders, and jump from several stories up or leap through the air. No, no, that's not it. The fact is, when the Gemara tells of someone whom Rabbi Akiva thought was Moshiach—Bar Kochba—Rabbi Akiva was a person with both feet on the ground. He knew exactly what Moshiach should be like, and when he spoke about “A star shall go forth from Yaakov,” which refers to Moshiach, he was speaking about Bar Kochba, even though Bar Kochba never displayed a single miracle or wonder. So Moshiach doesn't need to display them. He has other qualities. What are those other qualities? Concern for every single person. One of his qualities is that he cares about each and every person. As we said earlier. Not, “That one person—what do I care? He's just a little person; what does it matter?” There is no such thing. Every single person. All of the Jewish people. What is his concern? That everyone conduct themselves as they should. “And he will compel all of Israel.” His concern is for every individual, and it makes no difference to him who is great and who is small. And not only that: it doesn't matter to him what that person's problems are. It doesn't matter if, to me, it might seem like a small thing. Everyone knows that their own problem is the biggest problem in the world, and that's really how it is. My problem is the most important problem in the world, and it has to be treated accordingly. Over the years, [unclear] speak about certain people.

06:29 Speaker 1 The Rebbe of one's own Rebbe—that is the Rebbe. And there's no need to give names, because everyone knows whom we're talking about. If we're speaking here, if I'm speaking about this, there's no need even to say his name. Because generally, one doesn't say the name of one's Rebbe. It's forbidden to say one's Rebbe's name. There are even several explanations of this point in the Torah commentaries. If it's self-evident, then it's self-evident who the Rebbe is and what the Rebbe is, according to what we've been discussing. And if there were questions, and there are questions that need to be asked, then they should be asked. But here, here there's a problem. Several people here have said, “I sent a letter and didn't receive an answer.” I can't promise anyone anything. I can say what I think one should do, based on what's written in the sefarim or on what I received from the elders of the generation. Yes, when people have problems, they should turn to the Rebbe. But there are several conditions. First, if I'm bringing my problem to the Rebbe, I have to be prepared to do what he says. If he answers, I have to be ready to accept the answer and act accordingly. Not, “If I like it, I'll do it; if I don't like it, I won't.” I remember, back when I came to Israel, there was a Jew who had a problem—a medical problem. He was ill. And this Jew, as often happens, didn't quite know what to do. He didn't want to go to a doctor, didn't want to go to a doctor, and he searched. He looked for segulos, looked for this, looked for that. I don't know what. In the end, he sent a letter to the Rebbe. He asked the Rebbe for a blessing for his illness, for his symptoms, and he received an answer from the Rebbe. He merited an answer

09:28 Speaker 1 from the Rebbe: playing golf would help. Below, after the Rebbe's signature, it said, “It goes without saying that you should see a doctor.” He hadn't written anything about the fact that he wasn't going to a doctor. It goes without saying: since a doctor has been given permission to heal, one should see a doctor. What? No, no, no, no, no—that's something else. That's something else. What was written to that Jew, what he received about a Jewish doctor—those were answers. Now it's different. There was a time when we could receive answers. I merited to receive a letter from the Rebbe even though I hadn't written to him. It was—I don't know—many years ago, and he wrote to me there. I was in quite a mood. My moods generally change; they can be of every sort, and at that point I was in one of those moods. One day I received a letter. For several months I hadn't written. Usually I had a routine of writing a letter regularly, every week or two. Some time had passed without my writing because I wasn't in the mood for it. And suddenly I received a letter from the Rebbe: “Although some time has passed since I received a letter from you, I nevertheless hear about you from others,” and so on. And then there was something for me as well. Generally, it doesn't work that way now. It doesn't work like that. I mean, receiving an answer that doesn't even require you to puzzle over what the Rebbe meant. Generally that doesn't happen now, if one merits receiving an answer at all. The procedure now is simply technical: one writes letters. If you ask something, you must be prepared, if you receive an answer, to carry out everything written, whatever answer you receive in writing. Every letter that is sent

12:01 Speaker 1 is read by the Rebbe. In full. And that's a problem. What do I mean, a problem? If we're saying that the Rebbe knows how urgent everything is, then if he sees the urgency and considers it appropriate, he answers in a way that will be understood. If he doesn't answer, that's a sign that a direct answer isn't needed. We understand that this is how it has to be. Then we'll see afterward what to do. Now we need to go back a little.

12:41 Speaker 2 Materiality.

12:42 Speaker 1 Hm? Materiality, not physical substance—just materiality.