Yud Shvat - The Day Hashem Opened All the Treasuries for Us

00:00 When the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived in America in 5700, in the middle of World War II, his holy body was battered and broken by all the suffering, all the horrors, and all the hardships he had endured in Russia and afterward, throughout the journey. Despite all that, he arrived in a wheelchair—but with an unshakable spirit, tremendous strength, and a clear, determined goal. As he said, he was going to turn America into a place of Torah. His well-known phrase in Yiddish was, “America is no different”: America would not be an exception. America would become a place of Judaism, a place bustling with Jewish life and Torah. And so, with what strength he had left, he founded the major central institutions. A year later, his son-in-law, the Rebbe, joined him, arriving in 5701 after tremendous miracles enabled him to cross the ocean and reach the United States. That was when Chabad’s great, well-known institutions were established: Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, encompassing Chabad’s educational institutions worldwide; Machane Israel, connected with the work of the shluchim, the Chabad Houses and shluchim now so well known in every corner of the world; and Kehot Publication Society, which published all the Chabad books they began printing then. These things are well known. But today we want to talk about something perhaps less known and less publicized—an extremely important point in the history of that period. It also has implications for our own time and gives us a new understanding of the great revolution that began during World War II, whose results and fruits we now see throughout the world. We’ll talk about Yud Shvat. Next week is the day of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s passing, his yahrzeit. He passed away ten years after arriving in America—

02:26 in 5710, as we said, on Shabbos Parshas Bo, Yud Shvat. A year later, the Rebbe assumed the leadership of the seventh generation of Chabad Chassidus, carried on that great revolution, and turned it into the force everyone knows today. But what we’re going to discuss is something very, very interesting and distinctive, and perhaps not so well known. What happened during that period, when the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived in America? What is better known today is the great revolution he brought about in Jewish life. America was a desert, a wasteland as far as Judaism was concerned. Everyone knows the joke people used to tell: when a Jew was traveling from Europe to America and the ship began to move—or began to pitch in a storm—the first thing he would do was throw his tefillin into the sea. It was a joke meant to emphasize how quickly Jews cast off the yoke of Judaism. It was very, very hard for a Jew arriving from Europe to America to remain committed to authentic Judaism, to keep Shabbos and kosher, and so on. The Frierdiker Rebbe came and brought about a great revolution. He immediately began founding Torah institutions, yeshivos, chadarim, schools, and other places of learning, as well as a publishing house, so that people would have something to read in Hebrew and Yiddish—Torah books, Torah stories, and so on. But one of the most remarkable things that happened then was that he also began revealing secrets that had never been known to the chassidim—or to the Jewish people generally. He began revealing hidden things: secrets of the Torah and extraordinary stories that had not been known until then. At almost every farbrengen during his ten years in America, the Frierdiker Rebbe would share teachings or stories he had heard from his forebears, Rebbe after Rebbe, tracing them back to the Alter Rebbe, who had heard them

04:51 from the Maggid of Mezritch, who had heard them from the Baal Shem Tov. Many times, he would add that the Baal Shem Tov had heard them from Achiya HaShiloni. As is known from the books of Chassidus, and as related in Toldos Yaakov Yosef by the Baal Shem Tov’s disciple, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, the Baal Shem Tov told his close disciples that he had a teacher whom he called “my well-known teacher.” He would not mention this teacher by name, and only as a great secret was it revealed that the Baal Shem Tov’s teacher was none other than the prophet Achiya HaShiloni. He appeared to him from heaven and revealed secrets to him—secrets of the Torah, as well as much about customs, stories, interpretations of the Torah, and Kabbalah. Until the Frierdiker Rebbe’s time, these things had remained closed and unknown. Even the Frierdiker Rebbe himself, as long as he was in Russia or Europe, almost never revealed them. Perhaps you could count on one hand the occasional saying or story he shared here and there. By and large, though, these things remained hidden away. During his ten years in America, the Frierdiker Rebbe opened up treasures—treasures of Torah teachings, wisdom, stories, Kabbalah, and Jewish customs. I’ll give you a few examples of things that are now well-known practices in the Chabad community, observed by everyone, though their origins were not known. The revelation of those origins began specifically during this period, after he arrived in America. Let’s take a few interesting examples, in no particular order. Chai Elul, the Baal Shem Tov’s birthday, for instance: chassidim had not been accustomed to celebrating it, and most did not even know what had happened on Chai Elul. The details of the story—that the Baal Shem Tov was born on that day in 5458, and that the Alter Rebbe was born on that same date forty-eight years later, in 5505—

07:00 sorry, forty-eight years later, in 5505; that the Baal Shem Tov also revealed himself on Chai Elul; and that Achiya HaShiloni revealed secrets of the Torah to him, along with many other details—all this, and the very celebration of Chai Elul, which later became a major day celebrated with farbrengens in the world of Chassidus, was among the secrets the Frierdiker Rebbe revealed, with all their details, after arriving in America. The third day of Selichos is also a very, very important day in chassidic custom. The Frierdiker Rebbe later revealed the great secret that teachings of Chassidus were said on the third day of Selichos, and that it is a day of special spiritual promise. Then there is the recitation of Tehillim during Elul. The Chabad custom is to say three chapters of Tehillim every day, beginning on Rosh Chodesh Elul and continuing until Yom Kippur, when the entire Tehillim is completed. This, too, is one of the customs passed down from Rebbe to Rebbe, tracing back to the Baal Shem Tov, who received it from Achiya HaShiloni. And there are many more fascinating and wonderful customs like it. Take, for example, the custom of saying one’s own chapter of Tehillim each day. A person says the chapter corresponding to the year of life he or she has entered: if you are thirteen, you say chapter 14; at fourteen, chapter 15; and so on. This custom, too, was passed down privately from Rebbe to Rebbe, tracing back to the Baal Shem Tov. And the same is true of Torah teachings. At almost every farbrengen, the Frierdiker Rebbe would say that he was about to reveal a story the Alter Rebbe had brought back with him from Mezritch, where he had received it from the Baal Shem Tov. Truly remarkable teachings, remarkable guidance and explanations—remarkable things. And the wonder is: what exactly happened when he arrived in America that led him to begin revealing these secrets? On the

09:07 The passing of the Frierdiker Rebbe was on Yud Shvat. On the Friday before, the Frierdiker Rebbe had a maamar of Chassidus printed, as was his custom, for Shabbos, Yud Shvat. Yud Shvat was also the yahrzeit of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivkah, the wife of the Rebbe Maharash. On 13 Shvat was the yahrzeit of his mother, Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah, and the Frierdiker Rebbe would also have a maamar printed for that day. By those years he was no longer speaking; it was difficult for him to speak. As is well known, in his final years, because of all the suffering he had endured, the Frierdiker Rebbe could barely speak. So instead, he issued in writing the maamar of Chassidus that begins with the verse “Basi Legani”—“I have come to My garden.” It is a famous maamar that Chabad chassidim live with, because it was the last maamar the Frierdiker Rebbe left for the day of his passing. The maamar was printed on Friday, and that Shabbos morning, Yud Shvat, Parshas Bo, the Frierdiker Rebbe passed away. This maamar remained like the Frierdiker Rebbe’s last will and testament to our generation, the seventh generation. And our Rebbe, the Rebbe, would return to these maamarim and explain them every year at the Yud Shvat farbrengen, the farbrengen marking the yahrzeit. Each year he would explain another section, another chapter, with profound and wonderful explanations. But in this maamar, the secret was revealed. What, in fact, was the great secret behind these treasures that the Frierdiker Rebbe revealed specifically in those years? In the maamar Basi Legani, he explains the purpose of creation and the idea of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s garden: this physical world. As the Midrash says, it refers to our world. Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose this world; this is where He wanted to be. It is His garden: “I have come to My garden.” So the Midrash explains that Hakadosh Boruch Hu was already here in the world at the beginning of creation. He chose this

11:07 world, and the primary dwelling place of the Shechinah was in the lower realms. Then the Shechinah withdrew because of sins: the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, the sin of the generation of the Flood, the generation of Enosh, the generation of the Dispersion—various sins. The Midrash lists seven sins that caused the Shechinah to withdraw. Then the tzaddikim—Avraham Avinu, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and the holy forefathers, seven generations of tzaddikim in all, until Moshe Rabbeinu—brought the Shechinah back down here at the Giving of the Torah, and afterward in the Mishkan and the Beis Hamikdash. Here the Rebbe goes on to explain, in a wonderful way, the whole purpose of creation. Why is this world, specifically, the purpose of creation? What is the work we are meant to do here, specifically in the physical world? This lower world, a world full of darkness, klipah, and sitra achra—through iskafya and ishapcha, through a Jew subduing the evil, the darkness, the evil within himself and the evil in the world, and transforming it, turning evil into good. He turns bitterness into sweetness through Torah and mitzvos, by illuminating the world and refining the yetzer hara and the animal soul. We make this world a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu; we turn the entire world into one great Beis Hamikdash. He explains this in the maamar in wonderful detail. Later in the maamar, the Rebbe explains that because of this work we do in this world—our task since the Exodus from Egypt and the Giving of the Torah—the Jewish people are called “the hosts of Hashem.” We see in the weekly parsha, Parshas Bo, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu, “the hosts of Hashem”: “On that very day, all the hosts of Hashem went out from the land of Egypt.” The Jewish people receive a new name: an army. An army means there is a war. The Rebbe explains wonderfully that the word tzava has three meanings in the Holy Tongue. Tzava means a soldier. Tzava also relates to a fixed period of time, as in, “Is there not a fixed term for man on earth?” And tzava also relates to tzivyon, beauty. In other words, there are three approaches, three

13:03 conditions for us to be Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s special army, the soldiers of the King, bringing the Geulah and making the world a place of light and holiness. A Jew must be a soldier, with kabbolas ol of the Kingdom of Heaven and with self-sacrifice. A Jew must make use of time, value time, and know that “there is a fixed term for man on earth”: we have limited time in this world to fulfill our task. And we must do it with beauty. Beauty is different colors coming together to make a wonderful mosaic—and that, in essence, is Ahavas Yisroel. There are all kinds of Jews: those devoted to Torah study, those who dwell in the tents of study, businesspeople. There are all kinds of different people among the Jewish people, and it is precisely this togetherness that creates our beauty in winning the war. Later in the maamar, the Rebbe explains that when there is a war, the king must bring out his treasures to secure victory. There are enormous investments. When there is a war, tremendous resources must be invested—so much strength, money, and precious treasures—to conduct it. The resources needed for war are immense. We all know that; we have all witnessed it recently. But there are different kinds of wars. Generally speaking, there is a kind of war with a very, very specific objective. When a country goes to war because it wants to conquer more territory, gain some strategic location, or something of that sort—or, as it says in Tanach, “to take spoil and seize plunder,” meaning to acquire some resource, money, or other things—then of course it will calculate how much is worth investing for the expected gain. It will not spend millions just to gain thousands. That is obvious. But there is another kind of war, a war fought for victory itself. When the entire purpose of

15:08 the war is to win, when the war is for truth—there is a truth that must prevail. There is an absolute truth, a genuine ideal for which the king and all his people fight. When the issue is truth’s victory over falsehood, holiness over klipah, light over darkness, good over evil, there are no calculations. The king spends all his treasures without calculating the cost. That is what the Frierdiker Rebbe discusses in the final maamar he issued, for the very day after which he would pass away. What is more, in case the hint is still not clear enough, he goes on to say that when it comes to victory, the king gives away even treasures he has never seen or used himself—treasures of his fathers and forefathers. He dispenses with all of them freely; the main thing is to win the war. More than that: the king even puts his own life on the line for victory. He gives himself to the war. That is how deeply the victory of good, truth, and justice matters. It touches the deepest place in the soul, where there are no limits. And what are these great treasures? We are speaking of the deeper meaning. The great treasures are the secrets of the Torah. The great treasures are all those wonderful things—the explanations, stories, teachings, interpretations, customs, and instructions. And it was precisely then, as we said earlier, that people suddenly began to understand the secret. What was happening here, that in his last ten years the Frierdiker Rebbe kept revealing more and more? People would stand astonished. He invested hours upon hours at a time when his strength was failing. As we said, his speech was almost impossible to understand. Writing, every movement of his body, came at great cost to him. And it was precisely in those years that he wrote so prolifically, producing his memoirs. There are the books, the memoirs, with their wonderful stories.

17:19 They asked what it was all about. The Rebbe spoke about this sixty years ago at a Yud Shvat farbrengen. He asked: What is the purpose? The chassidim did not understand why the Rebbe was devoting all his strength and health to telling stories. But with time, it became clear. These are the wondrous treasures—precisely the things that had been most hidden and sealed away. They give strength to the king’s son. They give a Jew the strength to make it through the difficult moments of exile with these Torah teachings, these stories, these explanations. Today, in this momentous time, as the world stands on the threshold of Geulah, we can see what these wondrous treasures of Chassidus do. They were revealed especially in recent times. In that period, the Frierdiker Rebbe, and the Rebbe as well, published many works of Chassidus through Kehot—manuscripts that until then people had been afraid to publish. They published many profound works of Chassidus. Today we can see that it is precisely through these books, these stories, these maamarim, these Torah teachings, that a Jew gains the strength to reveal his Jewishness, to be proud of it and to strengthen it. Today, in Chabad Houses everywhere in the world, shluchim, chassidim and ordinary Jews everywhere can drink it in thirstily, understand it and connect with the deepest ideas. As is well known, the Alter Rebbe gave the parable of a king’s son who is ill. Everything is done to heal him. Even if they must take the most precious jewel from the king’s crown, grind it into powder and mix it with water so that it can reach the king’s son and keep him alive, they do whatever it takes. What matters is that even one drop enters the king’s son’s mouth and heals him. And that, in essence, is the story of

19:20 this great day, Yud Shvat, as we have seen in our generation: the day of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s passing and the day the Rebbe assumed the leadership. The Rebbe gave out and lavished these great treasures, as the Rebbe said, and placed them in our hands so that we, as Jews today, would have the strength to bring the light of Judaism to every corner, to warm and illuminate every corner of the world, and to turn the whole world into a garden for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “I have come into My garden, My sister, My bride.” May we merit the complete Geulah with our righteous Moshiach very soon. Then we will see how the entire reality of creation truly cries out, “There is nothing besides Him.” “Hashem will be King over all the earth; on that day Hashem will be One and His Name One.” Amen, may it be His will.