An Introduction to Learning Chassidus - Part 4

00:00 Today we’re going to talk about the Chassidus of the Frierdiker Rebbe, and with Hashem’s help, I hope we’ll also be able to talk about the Rebbe’s Chassidus. The timing is fitting: right now it’s Shabbos Mevarchim for the month of Tammuz, which is connected with 28 Sivan. Gimmel Tammuz and 12 Tammuz are dates connected with the Frierdiker Rebbe and with the Rebbe. So the timing is fitting. Regarding the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim: the Frierdiker Rebbe’s leadership lasted thirty years. The first of those years were in Russia. Then came the years when he was in Europe—in Poland or Riga, and so on. And then there were his last ten years, in America. So first we’ll speak about the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim in general, and then in detail. In general, one striking thing about the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Chassidus is that ninety-nine percent of his maamarim are based on maamarim of the Rebbe Rashab. It isn’t like the other Rebbeim, whose maamarim are based on the teachings of all the Rebbeim. Virtually all of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim are based on maamarim his father delivered over the years. He based his own maamarim on his father’s, and in many, many places even the wording is the same. He takes his father’s style and actual wording and adds explanations, elaborations, notes, and so on, without saying that these are additions. In other words, he incorporates them into the maamar, but these are his father’s maamarim with explanations added. That’s one very striking point. A second striking point is the way he explains things, the emphasis on explanation. Compared with the Rebbe Rashab, you could say that the Rebbe Rashab presents the concepts more concisely, while the Frierdiker Rebbe goes into greater length—not on everything. Often you see

02:50 that he reproduces part of a maamar and adds an explanation in certain places. When the Frierdiker Rebbe adds an explanation, he goes into it at length, with many analogies—at very great length. In fact, they say in the name of the Frierdiker Rebbe—or they say it in the Rebbe’s name; that’s how I once heard it. As is well known, the Rebbe strongly encouraged studying the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Chassidus. It was one of the things the Rebbe began promoting at the start of his leadership: that people should study the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim. The Rebbe invested a great deal in this, and so on. They say that the Rebbe once told one of the chassidim—I haven’t seen this in writing, but this is what chassidim relate—that the difference between the maamarim and series of the Rebbe Rashab and those of the Frierdiker Rebbe is that the Rebbe Rashab, n”e, is more concise, while the Frierdiker Rebbe gives more explanations. The Rebbe Rashab presents the concepts more concisely. Of course, that doesn’t mean his maamarim are short; they also go into great length. But relatively speaking, he is more concise, while the Frierdiker Rebbe gives more explanations. So that’s another striking point. Now, the Frierdiker Rebbe’s explanations deal both with the intellectual concepts and with avodah. There are series and maamarim in which the Frierdiker Rebbe takes an intellectual concept and enters into its depth and subtlety, explaining it extensively. And there are many passages dealing with avodah, which is what everyone is more familiar with. Where aspects of avodah are stated briefly, the Frierdiker Rebbe reaches those subjects and writes about them at great length and with extensive explanation. That’s another thing that stands out about the Frierdiker Rebbe. Another point is that, compared with the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Rebbe Rashab generally always comes back to where he began. In other words, he doesn’t leave matters unfinished.

05:11 He’ll pause in the middle to reconcile something with other maamarim, to resolve various apparent contradictions. And in general, with the Rebbe Rashab there’s a sense that a maamar needs to be a complete whole. He’ll come back, he’ll summarize; he begins with a subject and returns to his starting point. He brings things to a close. With the Frierdiker Rebbe, whose main aim is to provide explanations and elaborations, the maamarim often don’t reach a conclusion. In other words, you don’t see him answer every question or reconcile every apparent contradiction. So in many respects, the sense you get from the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Chassidus is that his goal isn’t to bring the whole subject to a conclusion. His goal is to explain and elaborate. Often a series enters into a subject without finishing it or returning to where it began. One thing you often notice when studying the Frierdiker Rebbe’s books, maamarim, and series is that they don’t end. A series seems to stop in the middle of a subject, or even an individual maamar doesn’t conclude: it moves from one subject to another without returning to the first. You can see that the Frierdiker Rebbe’s main aim was to explain subjects and concepts in Chassidus, not necessarily to finish them, return to them, and conclude them. Most of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s series have no conclusion. I mean, really most of them, perhaps even all of them. I haven’t checked, but virtually all of his series don’t come to a conclusion. The Frierdiker Rebbe would write a series—some have three maamarim, some even have ten; there are very long series—and they end somewhere in the middle of the subject. He doesn’t finish the discussion. The Frierdiker Rebbe moved

07:06 on to another subject, and the series was left in the middle. It’s as though his goal was to expand on the concepts of Chassidus that the Rebbe Rashab had written about, explaining them at greater length—not to conclude or wrap up the subjects. These are striking features of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim. But when we speak about the special quality of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim, it’s his feel for the subject, the vivid way he presents it, and his ability to explain every aspect of Chassidus so broadly—as we said, both its intellectual concepts and its avodah. Now, the avodah in his Chassidus is more widely known. That’s what people are generally more familiar with. Usually, when students begin studying Chassidus in yeshivah, most places start with the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim. Because the Frierdiker Rebbe has more passages about avodah and discusses these matters at greater length, most yeshivos study his maamarim. This is also very interesting. The Frierdiker Rebbe himself speaks about this in one of... In one of the sichos in Likkutei Dibburim, the Frierdiker Rebbe writes that when the Tzemach Tzedek published the Alter Rebbe’s Likkutei Torah, he chose mainly maamarim dealing with avodah. Virtually all the maamarim in Likkutei Torah deal with avodah; there are only a few dealing with intellectual concepts. So you can see that when the Tzemach Tzedek selected the Alter Rebbe’s maamarim, he chose maamarim about avodah. “With Father,” the Frierdiker Rebbe says in that sicha—by “Father” he means the Rebbe Rashab—the main focus was specifically on intellectual concepts. The Rebbe Rashab’s maamarim and series dealt mainly with intellectual concepts. The expression the Frierdiker Rebbe uses there is that “Father” prepared the Chassidus—tsugeshtelt; I don’t know exactly how to translate it. He presented it, prepared it, arranged it

09:15 [unclear] the teachings of Chassidus until the coming of Moshiach. So he primarily wrote about the intellectual concepts of Chassidus. The Rebbe Rashab saw that this was what was needed. As a preparation for the Geulah, the world needed a stronger intellectual foundation in Chassidus. And then the Frierdiker Rebbe says that today we need to speak about avodah. Very interesting. In practice, we see that the Frierdiker Rebbe spoke at great length about avodah. That was also a part of his approach. He went into the details of inner avodah at length and in great depth. His maamarim contain lengthy discussions of avodah. Some say—I don’t remember whether this is stated explicitly; maybe it is. I can’t recall right now whether I saw it stated explicitly in a sicha or read it somewhere else. If anyone knows, please tell me. But people say that the Frierdiker Rebbe’s expansiveness is similar to that of the Mitteler Rebbe. I don’t mean the words or the actual style. I mean the way he develops a subject, expanding on it and going into detail at length, especially in matters of avodah. In that respect, it’s somewhat similar to the Mitteler Rebbe. With the Mitteler Rebbe, we see this expansive treatment and abundance of words in Chassidus, particularly on matters of avodah. Now, something many people don’t know—and it’s a shame, really, because it isn’t studied enough—is that the Frierdiker Rebbe also wrote about the intellectual concepts of Chassidus. When he delves into such a subject, he writes about profound and subtle ideas. There are remarkable insights in Chassidus that we find specifically in the Frierdiker Rebbe’s teachings. He takes a subject, a particular point, and presents it

11:16 in a very, very profound way. And people still haven’t devoted enough attention to this. Those who study Chassidus, and mashpi’im who teach Chassidus, need to grasp the special depth and subtlety that the Frierdiker Rebbe reveals across so many subjects in Chassidus. There are well-known series of maamarim by the Frierdiker Rebbe on intellectual concepts, and one of the best known is the series that the Rebbe published in 5751: the series from Tishrei 5694. It’s a special series based on Hemshech 5672—on the end of Hemshech 5672, on the most profound maamarim in its second volume, from 5675–76. In Tishrei 5694, the Frierdiker Rebbe was in Riga, in a place where there were not many senior chassidim who understood these concepts. Yet the Frierdiker Rebbe delivered very, very profound maamarim. You could say that this is among his most profound series, and there you see the depth, subtlety, and breadth with which he treats the most delicate concepts in Chassidus. On the one hand, it is based on a maamar of the Rebbe Rashab, and portions are reproduced word for word. He copies whole passages. But when he explains the concepts and their reasoning, there are very, very profound and subtle ideas there, rooted in the deepest concepts in Chassidus. You can see that in the Frierdiker Rebbe’s teachings. In any case, we said that there is a division into different periods. The Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim can be divided into four periods. The first period was in Russia, at the beginning of his leadership, from 5680 to 5687—the first seven years. There we see the Frierdiker Rebbe at his most expansive. The maamarim are long; each one is fifteen pages. Very long maamarim. And from what people relate, they were also very long when delivered. An ordinary maamar by the Frierdiker Rebbe took two and a half hours. That was the average time it took him to

13:32 deliver a maamar, which is a long time. They were long maamarim, with a great deal of elaboration and explanation. You can see this in the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim from those early years: they are lengthy and expansive. Chassidim even tell two stories from those first years. In one story, one of the great chassidim—I don’t remember whether it was Reb Itche der Masmid or Reb Chatche Feigin—asked the Frierdiker Rebbe why he developed his maamarim at such length but was brief at the end. Why? When he reached the end of a maamar, it was written very briefly, and he had spoken very briefly too. The Frierdiker Rebbe told him—this is how chassidim relate it—“I have a tradition: When you are delivering Chassidus and, in the middle, you notice that the explanations are becoming especially enjoyable, that this is becoming a form of self-indulgence, then you need to shorten it.” That is how the Frierdiker Rebbe answered him. I don’t know exactly what lies behind that. Is it a point about iskafya, about self-restraint, or something else? But that was the saying: when you feel it becoming especially enjoyable, you need to shorten it. That is one saying people relate, and you can actually see it. The Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim from the early years are very expansive, and then he finishes a maamar in just a few words, as though it ends in the middle of the subject. You wonder: What happened? That is one story. In another, the Frierdiker Rebbe asked Reb Itche der Masmid—if I’m not mistaken, it was Reb Itche der Masmid—what the chassidim were saying about the maamarim in one of those years. Reb Itche der Masmid said that the maamarim were enjoyable, but people couldn’t keep up—as though they were too long and the chassidim didn’t have the

15:37 capacity to follow them. So the Frierdiker Rebbe began to shorten them a little, or so the story goes. After that, he began delivering somewhat shorter maamarim. That is regarding the maamarim of the first period. Then there is the second period, mainly the period in Europe. The Frierdiker Rebbe had left Russia and was in places where there were not many Chabad chassidim. There were various Polish chassidim, chassidim of a more general sort, and all kinds of people. We see that the Frierdiker Rebbe changed his approach. First of all, the maamarim are a little shorter. The maamarim of the 5690s are somewhat shorter, and they contain more discussion of avodah, as well as more Midrashic interpretation—many teachings from the Midrash and so on. Presumably, that was simply because he was now in places without a large audience of Chabad chassidim, so it was more [unclear]. On the one hand, the maamarim were more concise and not as long. On the other hand, we already see more teachings of our Sages, more Midrashim, and more discussion of avodah. We see this in the maamarim of the 5690s. The maamarim of the 5690s were also the ones that began to circulate more widely. The Rebbe’s wedding took place during that period, and after the Rebbe married, we see that he encouraged the Frierdiker Rebbe in this matter. Now that the letters between the Rebbe and the Frierdiker Rebbe have been published—in volume 16 of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Igros Kodesh, which contains letters between them—we can see that the idea of publishing maamarim in booklets came from the Rebbe. The Rebbe proposed that they begin spreading the wellsprings outward and printing the maamarim, and that is when they began publishing the booklets. You can see that the booklet

17:27 The first was the maamarim from the Rebbe’s wedding. That was the first kuntres printed—the wedding maamarim. Then, in the 5690s, they gradually began printing maamarim that the Frierdiker Rebbe had delivered from time to time, and these became the Maamarim Kuntreisim. The kuntreisim were not intended just for Chabad; they were meant to be distributed in shuls and sent to all sorts of places. So the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote them in a style that would be more understandable and accessible. From these came the three volumes of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Maamarim Kuntreisim. That was in the 5690s. Then the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived in America in 5700. For the first five years, there are the maamarim from 5700 through 5705. During those years, the Frierdiker Rebbe no longer delivered most of the maamarim. Speaking was difficult for him, so he mainly wrote them. At first he still delivered maamarim—in 5700, and in 5701 as well. After that, in 5702, he largely stopped delivering them, aside from an occasional one. The Frierdiker Rebbe had difficulty speaking; there was the whole problem with his speech. There is the well-known story the Rebbe spoke about: a doctor asked how it could be that the nasi of the generation had difficulty speaking. In practice, in 5701 the Frierdiker Rebbe stopped delivering maamarim and mainly wrote them, and they were then printed. But you can see the style in 5700. On the one hand, there are many series of maamarim. At first they were not series—5700 itself still did not have them—but afterward, in 5701, 5702, 5703, 5704, and 5705, the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote long series. For example, the longest series by the Frierdiker Rebbe begins

19:27 on Shavuos 5704 and continues throughout 5705—a year and a half. It is a very long series. But interestingly, the individual maamarim in these series are relatively short, much shorter even than the maamarim he delivered in person. So on the one hand, the maamarim are shorter; on the other, the series address deep subjects in Chassidus. There are the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim of 5703, the maamarim on kingship, and similarly those of 5704. There are deep subjects there, but in general you can see that each maamar is somewhat more concise, like a sicha. That continued until 5705. In 5705, the Frierdiker Rebbe became ill. As is known, he had a heart attack then, rachmana litzlan, and was in very serious condition. He grew very weak and stopped writing maamarim. From 5706 through 5710, the last five years of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s leadership, the maamarim were no longer new. They were maamarim he had delivered in earlier years, which our Rebbe—then known as the Ramash—worked on and prepared for print. It is not entirely clear whether the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote all the summaries or whether the Rebbe wrote some of them. There are various accounts of exactly how those maamarim were prepared. But from 5706 through 5710, they are all maamarim from earlier years. For example, the series of Tishrei 5706 is the series of Tishrei 5689, and Tishrei 5707 is the series of Tishrei 5683. Similarly, as everyone knows, Basi Legani 5710 consists of maamarim delivered in 5683. Tishrei 5710 is a series from 5692. In other words, they printed series from earlier years, but with changes too. There are new opening phrases,

21:42 shorter divisions, and more individual maamarim. It is the same series, but divided differently, sometimes with a different opening phrase and changes at the beginning and end. Fundamentally, though, it is the same series from the earlier years. That gives a general picture of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim. Besides the maamarim, there are the Frierdiker Rebbe’s sichos—many, many sichos. Compared with the earlier Rebbes, there are a great many sichos from the Frierdiker Rebbe. There is Sefer HaSichos from 5680, from the 5690s, and from the 5700s. The Frierdiker Rebbe held farbrengens much more often than the earlier Rebbes. His distinctive style was that his farbrengens were full of the ways of Chassidus, warmth, and stories. The Frierdiker Rebbe had an extraordinary breadth when it came to stories of chassidim. His was a transitional generation: he moved from Europe to America. He saw the need to pass on to these generations, who would live in the new setting of American Jewish life, all the warmth of authentic Chassidus—what Chassidus had been like in Europe. That is why he wrote so much, spoke so much, held so many farbrengens, and told so many stories about the ways of the chassidim, our Rebbes, and the early chassidim. All this became a whole treasury of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s sichos. Besides that, there are also the Frierdiker Rebbe’s journals and notes. He was someone who wrote an enormous amount, in great abundance. Much of it was burned or lost, but what we have is still a wealth of stories, notes, journals, descriptions, and other things he wrote. From his accounts we have HaTamim, Sefer Hazichronos, and many other works.

23:57 This is also the place to mention the letters. The collection of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s letters—seventeen volumes—is a vast treasury that, unfortunately, people do not read enough. It is a rich and sacred treasury, full of stories, guidance, practices, advice, and all aspects of the ways of Chassidus. There is a whole world of history and a whole world of the ways of Chassidus that the Frierdiker Rebbe recorded in his letters. His letters were much longer and more detailed, with many stories. They contain an entire world that is part of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s teachings as a whole. Now let us speak about the Rebbe’s teachings. Of course, when we speak about the Rebbe’s teachings, we feel a little apprehensive. Who am I to speak about our Rebbe, our nasi? Who am I, and what am I, to speak about the Rebbe’s teachings? Still, at least a few points. In particular, as the Rebbe said, when something can lead to fear of Heaven and strengthen hiskashrus, one should speak about it; one can speak about it. The Rebbe’s teachings are, of course, a vast, boundless sea. If we divide them into categories, there are the Rebbe’s maamarim and the Rebbe’s sichos. Among the sichos themselves are those delivered at farbrengens, which was generally the format in which the Rebbe taught. Then there are Likkutei Sichos, which grew out of the farbrengens—sichos on the weekly parsha, an entire body of Torah. Then there are the Rebbe’s letters, Igros Kodesh, and the Reshimos, the Rebbe’s notes that came to light after Gimmel Tammuz. Each of these is a world unto itself.

26:06 [unclear], and in an entirely different style. There is the style of the maamarim, the style of the Reshimos, the style of Likkutei Sichos, and the style of Toras Menachem—Farbrengens. And in addition to all that, there are the booklets: the more specialized things the Rebbe published, such as the Haggadah for Pesach, Hayom Yom, and a number of other booklets—special subjects, special Torah teachings. Today, since we’ve been talking about maamarim, we’ll continue mainly with maamarim, because our class focuses primarily on the maamarim of the Rebbeim. What about the Rebbe’s maamarim? When you look at them, you see something very interesting. On the one hand, the Rebbe’s maamarim are much shorter than those of all our Rebbeim. The Rebbe spoke more concisely—not at such length, not with so much elaboration. Compared with the earlier Rebbeim, his maamarim are shorter. On the other hand, you also don’t see many series of maamarim from the Rebbe. There are almost none. There are very short series—two maamarim, three at most. There is one exceptional series on “Amud Alef,” of some seven or eight maamarim, but even that isn’t like the usual series of the earlier Rebbeim. With the Rebbe, you see more brevity and more maamarim connected to the occasion: a maamar on the parsha, on the time of year, on a particular day. At the same time, you could say that the Rebbe brought together the whole of Chassidus. Looking at the Rebbe’s maamarim over forty years, you could say that, broadly speaking, he brought together all the major subjects and all the Chassidus of all our Rebbeim.

28:15 Quite literally. If we look year by year, we can see that in certain years the Rebbe’s maamarim drew more on the Alter Rebbe’s maamarim. In other years, they drew more on the Mitteler Rebbe’s, and in others, more on the Tzemach Tzedek’s, the Rebbe Maharash’s, the Rebbe Rashab’s, or the Frierdiker Rebbe’s. There were periods like that with the Rebbe. In general, you can see that from around 5713–5714, the Rebbe often revisited maamarim of the Rebbe Rashab. He took maamarim and series of maamarim and distilled subjects from the Rebbe Rashab’s teachings. Looking at [unclear], you begin to see a great deal from the Mitteler Rebbe, and from 5726 onward, a great deal from the Tzemach Tzedek. Then in 5727–5728, the Rebbe Maharash begins to feature. For several years, the Rebbe revisited maamarim of the Rebbe Maharash. Then, in 5737, the maamarim were based mainly on Likkutei Torah, Toras Chaim, and Or Hatorah—the three books of the early Rebbeim. The Rebbe would take up the parsha, bring teachings from those three Rebbeim, go into their depth, draw them together, and add points of his own. This continued until the last maamarim of the 5740s, in 5748–5749, when the Rebbe stopped delivering maamarim. In any case, what do we see? On the one hand, the Rebbe is more concise. He doesn’t discuss subjects at great length. On the other hand, the Rebbe brings clarity. He brings each subject in Chassidus to a conclusion. He takes it in brief, gets to its essential point and its depth, and resolves the subject. The Rebbe brought together the whole discussion in the Chassidus of our Rebbeim, where there are often many teachings, extensive explanations, and numerous details. The Rebbe takes all that and gives you the concise version, the essential point. The clarity, the clarity, the richness, the clarity in the Rebbe’s maamarim. And I’m talking about the unedited maamarim too, yes? The Rebbe takes a subject, and that’s it: without all the lengthy discussion and all the details, you understand what the question is, what the explanation is,

30:41 and what the answer is. You see the full depth of the subject with the Rebbe. I heard a story that captures this. Reb Yoel relates that in Tishrei 5725, the Rebbe spoke about “proximity and distance” in several maamarim—a very deep subject based on the Hemshech of 5672. The whole subject of proximity and distance. Reb Yoel says the Rebbe delivered three maamarim then: on Rosh Hashanah, Shabbos Teshuvah, and Sukkos. Three maamarim, and the Rebbe covered the entire subject of proximity and distance. In the Hemshech of 5672, it extends across many maamarim. I don’t have the exact number, but around ten maamarim. In three maamarim, the Rebbe presented the entire subject. Reb Yoel relates that one of the older chassidim was there—a chossid who had been with the Rebbe Rashab and had heard the series in Tishrei 5675. His name was Reb Moshe Rivkin, and he was one of the prominent chassidim of the Rebbe Rashab. When he heard the maamarim in Tishrei 5725, he said: “Fifty years ago, I heard this subject from the Rebbe, of blessed memory. He spoke about it all winter, and still, it wasn’t fully settled for me. When did I finally understand the whole subject?” And then he said of our Rebbe: “In three maamarim, the Rebbe worked through the subject.” He penetrated to the depth of the entire matter, taking in all its details from every side. That really expresses something especially apparent with the Rebbe: he took a subject and, without all the lengthy discussion and all the details, grasped its essential point and its—

32:39 And through that, you grasp the depth of the subject from every angle, in the deepest way. And it can seem as though he is merely revisiting a wealth of new insights, down to the finest subtleties. Now, when we speak about the Rebbe’s maamarim, there are the unedited maamarim and the edited ones. You can plainly see the difference between them. The Rebbe’s unedited maamarim were written down as the Rebbe said them. Now, when the Rebbe delivers a maamar, beyond its ideas, its clarification and explanation, there is the light—the G-dly light, as they say, a higher light surpassing them all. When the Rebbe delivers a maamar, it has a richness to it. The unedited maamarim are written in the style in which the Rebbe spoke, so they retain more of the maamar’s light. Often you have to delve into them to understand what is meant, because in speech, things can be left not entirely clear or fully resolved. That’s the nature of speech. In speaking, you convey more feeling, and often it isn’t arranged neatly with a beginning, middle, and end. As is well known, when the maamarim were edited, the Rebbe gave them to Reb Yoel Kahn, who was the Rebbe’s chozer—may he live for many long and good years. Reb Yoel Kahn wrote them down and prepared the maamarim for editing. This is one difference between the Rebbe and the earlier Rebbeim: the earlier Rebbeim wrote their own maamarim, while the Rebbe only delivered them and did not write them. That was something distinctive about the Rebbe. It was also that way with the Alter Rebbe. Only the Alter Rebbe and the Rebbe did not write their maamarim; they delivered them, and the chassidim wrote them down. But the Rebbe would edit the maamarim that he reviewed—the ones in the volumes of Sefer Hamaamarim Melukat. So with the Rebbe’s edited maamarim, the Rebbe particularly wanted them not to be as

34:31 Not just that he said it, but that it should be prepared. The Rebbe asked Reb Yoel—the Rebbe specifically said that it should be organized and edited, and of course the Rebbe gave him the strength and the ability, everything needed, so that the maamarim would be ready. And so we see that a maamar in its edited form is often very different from the way it was delivered. It was written up. There you see more of the analysis and the subject matter of the maamar. There you can see what is new in it. With an edited maamar, sometimes, if you study the same maamar in an unedited version and then in the edited version, you see all the richness, the explanation, the depth, the analysis. There’s a question here, an answer here, a new insight, something to add, a new insight compared with what the earlier Rebbes said. All the depth, the subject matter, and the analysis of these concepts in Chassidus are found in the maamarim of the Melukat series. As for the Melukat maamarim, at first the Rebbe hardly edited any maamarim. In the first thirty years, the Rebbe edited perhaps ten maamarim. Only in 5747 did we merit a complete change in this regard. It’s the greatest wonder. Precisely in the years when the Rebbe was much busier, the Rebbe began editing many maamarim. It was an extraordinary thing. From 5747 onward, the practice began of the Rebbe editing maamarim for every special occasion, and thanks to that we have nearly the entire Melukat series. You can really see the difference: the edited maamarim that the Rebbe reviewed in the earlier years are closer to the way they were delivered. Those maamarim retain the wording as it was spoken; the Rebbe just edited them. But from 5747 onward, the practice was that Reb Yoel would prepare a maamar from earlier years, submit it to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe would edit it. Then it would be printed in honor of

36:22 Yom Tov, in honor of the festival. From that came the new Torah revealed in the Rebbe’s later years—the Melukat maamarim. So that’s regarding the Rebbe’s maamarim. Now, of course, the Rebbe’s maamarim are special. On the one hand, some people actually find the Rebbe’s maamarim easier to study, because the style is easier to understand, the language is closer to ours, and there’s a beginning and an end. There’s a maamar on the weekly parsha. So often, and especially when it comes to hiskashrus, people look specifically for the Rebbe’s maamarim. On the other hand, everyone also knows that if you really want to understand a maamar of the Rebbe’s and grasp its novelty and depth, you need to study the maamarim of the earlier Rebbes. Precisely when you know the earlier maamarim and the fuller explanations can you see [unclear], what the Rebbe added, what the depth is, and which concepts the Rebbe revealed. In any case, that’s a few words about the Rebbe’s maamarim. Chassidim generally speak about the need to study the Rebbe’s maamarim for the sake of hiskashrus. Hayom Yom says that hiskashrus is through studying the Torah—meaning the Rebbe’s Torah, for the sake of hiskashrus. Reb Yoel always writes that this is a mistake, as though I study the Rebbe’s maamarim only for hiskashrus. Reb Yoel always talks about people who say, “For intellectual understanding I study the Rebbe Rashab; for avodah I study the Frierdiker Rebbe; and hiskashrus I get from the Rebbe.” Reb Yoel can’t stand that. These are the Rebbe’s maamarim. We need to study them for intellectual understanding, for avodah, and for hiskashrus. They contain all of it, in holiness. But of course, because the Rebbe published all the maamarim of the earlier Rebbes, the Rebbe did not go into so much detail.

38:21 The Rebbe did not go into extensive detail because he relied on people studying the explanations in the earlier maamarim. So we must study the earlier maamarim, and then we can see the sweep, the novelty, the depth, and the wonder of what the Rebbe revealed in the teachings of Chassidus, in the Torah of the seventh Rebbe, which is a preparation for the Torah of Moshiach. May we merit to receive the Torah of Moshiach immediately, right now, on this very day. Then we will merit to see the inner dimension of the Torah revealed. May we merit, this 28 Sivan and this Gimmel Tammuz, to farbreng together with the Rebbe, with our physical eyes, here below, within ten handbreadths of the ground.