"Ve'aviv Shamar Es Hadavar" - The Mezritcher Maggid and the Alter Rebbe, Yaakov and Yosef - Parshas Vayeishev, 19 Kislev 5785, Yiddish

00:00 One of the stories told in connection with the great day of 19 Kislev, the day of the Maggid of Mezritch’s hilula and the day of the Alter Rebbe’s liberation, is a story the Frierdiker Rebbe told in detail. There was a chossid of the Alter Rebbe named Rabbi Yechezkel who was deeply attached to him. Earlier, he had been a chossid of Rabbi Mendel of Vitebsk, Rabbi Mendel of Horodok. Later he became attached to the Alter Rebbe and was among his leading chassidim. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates that this chossid was with the Alter Rebbe in Tishrei 5559. That was the Tishrei when the Alter Rebbe was taken into custody. [unclear] The chossid was there, and when they came with the carriage—the black carriage, which, as is known, was used to take away people considered serious rebels against the government, putting their lives in real danger—and took the Alter Rebbe away, the chossid fainted. He fainted so deeply that there was no way to revive him. Heaven forbid, they thought this would be his [unclear]. Then someone had an idea: they spoke into his ear and told him that the Alter Rebbe was leaving this place. That roused him, and—

01:30 That enabled them to revive him a little, but he was already very weak. He returned to his town, and throughout that period the chassidim fasted, held fast days, davened, said Tehillim, and prayed for the Alter Rebbe to be freed. Then came the night of 19 Kislev. That night, the chassidim held a farbrengen, because it was the day of the Maggid of Mezritch’s hilula. On 19 Kislev 5559, twenty-six years had passed since the Maggid’s passing. It was his yahrzeit, and the chassidim gathered for a farbrengen, said l’chaim, and wished for the Rebbe to be freed. That chossid, who was very weak, dozed off and fell asleep at the farbrengen. Afterward he woke up and said that the holy tzaddik Rabbi Mendel of Vitebsk, Rabbi Mendel of Horodok, had come to him. He had appeared to him and said: “You were my chossid, so it is fitting that I tell you: Know that they are about to release the Alter Rebbe.” He told him what had taken place in Heaven. He said that since it was the holy Maggid’s yahrzeit, all the souls—the tzaddikim connected with the teachings of Chassidus and the disciples—had gathered to be with the holy Maggid in his chamber in the Garden

03:12 of Eden. The Baal Shem Tov sat on his right, the Arizal sat on his left, and the Maggid sat in the middle and delivered a teaching. He spoke on the verse, “He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for many were with me.” In that teaching, he explained that “He has redeemed my soul in peace” refers to the soul of Dovid and the soul of Moshe. Simply put, this means the Moshe of every generation, whose soul’s purpose is to connect the souls of the Jewish people to G-dliness. King Dovid was the soul that waged wars, and his wars—“the battle against me”—were also wars to connect Jewish souls to G-dliness. That is how he explained the verse. After speaking about the verse, the holy Maggid burst into bitter tears and said: “My disciple, the leader, the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Zalman, is in a difficult situation. He is imprisoned. We cannot stand by and do nothing for him.” Then, as the story continues, Rashbi, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, entered, convened a beis din, and ruled that the Alter Rebbe must be freed. “So you can know that he will certainly be freed.” The chossid immediately joined the farbrengen with great joy, although down here they still did not know [unclear] what the situation was. Yes. Only a week later did the news arrive, yes, that—

04:41 that the end, the end had come: on 19 Kislev, the Alter Rebbe had been freed. That became the great day of the Festival of Liberation, 19 Kislev. In any case, the story appears in [unclear], but that is more or less the whole story, as the Frierdiker Rebbe told it at a farbrengen back in Poland, in 5696. This story expresses the tremendous closeness the Maggid of Mezritch felt toward the Alter Rebbe, and how he saw what was being accomplished Above to bring about the Geulah, to bring about freedom, to bring about the Alter Rebbe’s liberation. There is another story the Frierdiker Rebbe once told at a 19 Kislev farbrengen: while the Maggid of Mezritch was still alive here in this world, on his last Shabbos, the Shabbos before 19 Kislev, [unclear] or on the night of 19 Kislev—I don’t remember the precise detail right now—the Maggid of Mezritch took the Alter Rebbe by the hand and said to him: “19 Kislev is the day of our hilula.” In other words, he linked his hilula with the Alter Rebbe’s hilula: the joy of the hilula, the joy of the tzaddik’s yahrzeit, the passing of the Maggid of Mezritch, which—

06:01 took place on 19 Kislev that year, 5533. He saw with ruach hakodesh that this day would be the day of the hilula, the joyous day of the Alter Rebbe’s Festival of Liberation. This is our hilula. In this connection, we also find something the Rebbe spoke about once at a farbrengen following 19 Kislev, in Parshas Vayeishev. In that parsha, we find a very interesting verse with an interesting comment by Rashi, connected to the holy day of 19 Kislev and to the story we have told here. The Torah tells us about Yosef Hatzaddik: “These are the generations of Yaakov: Yosef.” Yosef was, yes, he had the same facial appearance, as the familiar expression cited there puts it. And where are we? I’m getting to Yosef and the dreams. He dreamed one dream and then another: “And they bowed down to my sheaf.” The Torah says that after all this, “His father kept the matter in mind.” What does “His father kept the matter in mind” mean? As Rashi explains, he was “waiting and anticipating.” In other words, “kept the matter in mind” means that he waited. He was “waiting and anticipating”: When would the time finally come for all of Yosef’s dreams to be fulfilled? And Rashi says something further: he took

07:36 a quill—he took a pencil, a pen, a quill—and wrote down the day and the hour, as Rashi cites. Here we need to understand several things. First, what does “His father kept the matter in mind” mean—“waiting and anticipating”? What was he so eagerly waiting for? What was he anticipating? What did he want? What was he looking for? On the face of it, what was the dream? That Yaakov and the mother—“your father and your mother”—and the brothers would bow down to him. Here he says something remarkable about this: “He kept the matter in mind”—what does it mean that he was “waiting and anticipating”? When we say someone is “waiting and anticipating,” we mean something great, something wonderful and precious, something a person longs to see arrive. Was Yaakov waiting and anticipating the time when he would have to bow down to his son? What is so wonderful about that? What is so special about him, the mother, and the children bowing down? And even more, we need to understand what he says about writing down the hour and the day. What do the hour and the day have to do with it? Why did he need to write down the hour and the day? All the commentators ask this: Write down the dream; write down that there was a dream. I don’t even know why anything needs to be written down; it already happened.

09:10 Perhaps one might forget what the point is. But even here, if you write down the event and the date, why does it matter what hour and what day it happened? That is what the commentators ask. But the Rebbe spoke about this several times, and it is very much connected to the great day of 19 Kislev. The point is, first of all, in understanding what this means: when our Sages say that Yaakov waited and anticipated the time when he and Yosef’s brothers would come to bow down to Yosef, they do not mean only a physical bow. Bowing down to Yosef had a deeper spiritual meaning. As our Sages say about Yosef: Yosef Hatzaddik was the first to arrive in Egypt. His entire coming to Egypt was, as the Gemara says in Tractate Sotah, to prepare for the exile in Egypt. The Gemara says that Yosef was the tzaddik who was in Egypt so that the exile in Egypt could be endured. Yosef’s arrival in Egypt made it possible for the Jewish people to come to Egypt. Had Yosef not come to Egypt, they would have had to go in iron chains. Because Yosef was already in Egypt, they came there more easily, with great honor. And this may be one aspect of “waiting and anticipating”: Yaakov waited for it to happen this way, for them to come with great honor.

10:38 But that is not a sufficient explanation. It is a valid point, but it is hard to say that Yaakov was waiting only for the journey into exile to take place with great honor—that this alone made him “wait and anticipate.” Rather, there is a deeper point here, as explained in Chassidus and as the Rebbe explains: by arriving in Egypt ahead of them, Yosef ensured that the Jews would never be forgotten in exile, and that they would be the ones in control of Egypt. Since Yosef was second to the king, and it was said of him, “Without you, no man shall lift his hand or foot,” Yosef became the leader, the one who directed things. He influenced the Egyptians to the point that he had them circumcised, as Rashi says on the verse. In other words, Yosef elevated and changed Egypt, and became master of the reality of Egypt. This affected all of the Jewish people throughout their years in Egyptian exile: the Jews would be masters over the exile, and not, G-d forbid, the exile over the Jews. More than that: as explained in Chassidus, Yosef Hatzaddik was the only one of the brothers who had the strength to be in the world and still remain connected to what is lofty. The brothers could not understand it: how could one do that?

11:57 The brothers were shepherds. The Patriarchs were shepherds too. Shepherds are removed from the world, dwelling in higher realms, within their own four cubits. There, within their own four cubits, one can remain devoted to what is lofty. This was something the Patriarchs and the brothers could not understand. The Rebbe writes that this is why the meaning of the verse about Yaakov Avinu, “His father kept the matter in mind,” is: “He took a pen and wrote down the day and the hour.” In other words, he wrote it on paper. Writing down “the day and the hour” brought the matter into time and place, so that it would not remain only something lofty. All these are wonderful ideas, but they can remain above. They can remain in a higher world, in the soul, in Atzilus—these are higher realms. When Yaakov Avinu, the father of the brothers, took a pen and wrote down “the day and the hour,” he brought the matter down into the world of time, into this physical world, and wrote it on paper. He created that connection, so that this point would always shine within a Jew who is here in this world, and the Jew would always be connected to it—to the point that comes from Yosef Hatzaddik. That a Jew could rise above exile, live with the Geulah, have the strength and the yearning to wait at every moment for the complete Geulah, which will come immediately, and not despair. He...

16:24 Yaakov Avinu, through that writing, [unclear], at every point in time, in each person’s life, in this way. And this is connected to 19 Kislev, to the day of 19 Kislev, as is well known. As is well known, and as is brought down, the Maggid of Mezritch had many students, and the Alter Rebbe received from the Maggid of Mezritch the path of Chabad Chassidus. That is, he took Chassidus and brought it down into chochmah, binah and daas—into intellect, love and understanding. “Your wellsprings will spread outward,” as is well known, was the mission of the Baal Shem Tov. He received it from Moshiach. But the Alter Rebbe brought it down into the world, into time and place, and outward, so that wherever a Jew goes or stands, he can live with G-dliness and be connected to G-dliness. He brought it down into the world, into the intellect and the emotions, so that even in the world, in the darkness, in the public domain, that connection to G-dliness would be there. And the Alter Rebbe accomplished this through the Tanya, through the maamarim, through the teachings of Chassidus that he revealed. This is the meaning of “His father kept the matter in mind.” It refers to the Maggid of Mezritch, who, as he said, called 19 Kislev, the day of his passing, “our hilula.” He

17:51 connected himself, the Maggid of Mezritch, with the Alter Rebbe—“our hilula.” And he raised a question about the path of Chabad Chassidus that the Alter Rebbe revealed: taking matters of G-dliness and faith, secrets and hidden things, and bringing them down into human intellect, into chochmah, binah and daas; taking Chassidus so that it would “spread outward” and reach every place, in seventy languages, as discussed in the sichos about all these matters. This was the Alter Rebbe’s mission: that Chassidus should reach every place, so that the world would be ready for the time of the Geulah. This is “His father kept the matter in mind”—he waited and anticipated. Through studying Chassidus, studying Tanya, studying the maamarim and the teachings of Chassidus, we come to understand how to learn from Yosef Hatzaddik to be in exile and at the same time remain connected above—from the exile of the intellect to the exile of this physical world, the public domain—to illuminate and transform the world, to turn Egypt into a dwelling place for Him, blessed be He, into a G-dly world. And this finds expression in every detail. Yes, that a Jew should truly live with the Geulah; that a Jew, while in exile, should live at every moment with “I await him every day, that he should come”—waiting and anticipating. And Rashi cites here the verse “guarding faithfulness,” a verse that speaks of the Geulah: to be one who “guards faithfulness,” faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That a Jew should be

19:14 certain and assured that we will merit, immediately, the true and complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, and that “the earth will be filled with knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea” will be fulfilled. Amen, may it be His will.