The meaning of Asara B'Teves according to Chassidus

00:01 First, let’s talk a little about the custom of divrei kibushin, words meant to stir people to repentance, on 10 Teves—how it began. The bochurim may not know the history, so I want to tell it briefly. After that, as time permits, we’ll discuss a few interesting things connected with 10 Teves. It began in 5738, for the first time. Everyone knows that the Rebbe had had the heart episode then. On Rosh Chodesh Kislev 5738, the Rebbe went home. That was the joy of Rosh Chodesh Kislev, but the Rebbe’s health was still not one hundred percent. The doctors were still watching him, and they didn’t want the Rebbe to hold a farbrengen or do things that required exertion. The Rebbe was still recovering. So you can see that throughout that period, for about two years, the Rebbe did not hold farbrengens on Shabbos. All the farbrengens were held on Motzaei Shabbos, so that the Rebbe would not have to speak and exert himself on Shabbos. Thanks to that, we have recordings of many farbrengens. Well, something good came out of Motzaei Shabbos, as they say. Because during those two years the Rebbe held farbrengens not on Shabbos but on Motzaei Shabbos, there is a lot of audio from the farbrengens of those years. Besides that, much of what the Rebbe said at farbrengens was not even said downstairs. Many of the farbrengens then took place in his room. That’s why, for some of the farbrengens, sichos, and maamarim in 5738, you’ll see it says, “Upstairs, in his room.” What does “in his room” mean? The Rebbe spoke from his room, and people heard him through the microphone, over the telephone. They heard it downstairs in 770, and from there it reached the whole world. That was how things worked at the time. Little by little, the Rebbe began holding farbrengens again. It started gradually, until eventually the Rebbe began holding farbrengens downstairs, as we said. In any case,

02:40 it was the night of 10 Teves 5738, the night before the fast. The Rebbe asked to speak from his room. The Rebbe delivered a sicha that was a sort of mini-farbrengen. Why do I call it a mini-farbrengen? Because it wasn’t just one sicha. There was a sicha, there was a maamar, and there was another sicha. He spoke at length—more than an hour. As is known, the doctors didn’t want the Rebbe to speak so much, but the Rebbe did not listen to them. In practice, that was the beginning. That night, the night of 10 Teves, the Rebbe began the sicha by saying that there had once been a custom of divrei kibushin. In earlier generations, communities had a practice that on a fast day, the rabbi or leader of the community would speak to the community with divrei kibushin—words of moral instruction. The term divrei kibushin comes from the Mishnah in Tractate Taanis, which says that on a fast day they would bring someone to address the people with divrei kibushin. These are words of moral instruction and inspiration, meant to awaken the people to teshuvah. That used to be the practice in communities. For various reasons, the custom fell away, and today there are hardly any communities that do it, or perhaps none at all—I don’t know. In any case, it isn’t a known practice, not among Ashkenazim or Sephardim, not among chassidim or misnagdim. It isn’t known as a custom to deliver divrei kibushin. Some say that reading the haftorah already fulfills the obligation. There are all sorts of explanations and justifications. In practice, the custom did not spread or gain acceptance, and it did not remain in place. So the Rebbe spoke about this on the night of 10 Teves 5738: we need to increase the light. Now more than ever, the world needs to transform darkness into light, particularly with regard to fast days. Fast days are, as the Rambam

04:56 writes, meant to bring about teshuvah, in a way that will lead to “these days” being transformed “into days of joy and gladness and festivals.” The Rambam writes this in the laws of fast days. The Rebbe spoke about it: the Rambam is a book of halachah, not a book of aggadah. So when the Rambam writes in the laws of fast days that the fast days will become days of joy and gladness and festivals, that too is halachah. A Jew must work to ensure that the fast days do not remain fast days, but are transformed into days of joy and gladness. How do we do that? Through the avodah of teshuvah. When we do teshuvah out of love, willful sins are transformed into merits. That, in turn, transforms the fast days into Yomim Tovim—not merely abolishes the fasts. The Rebbe spoke about this at length. There are two ideas. The fasts can be abolished through teshuvah out of fear: you erase the sins, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu abolishes the fast. But with teshuvah out of love, willful sins become merits, and something further is transformed. Through that, the fasts are not merely abolished; they become Yomim Tovim. The Rebbe explains this at length in the Rambam. The Rebbe also discussed [unclear]. In fact, the Rebbe edited the entire sicha, and the edits were recently published. I don’t know if you saw them. The facsimiles of the Rebbe’s edits recently came out. You can see that the Rebbe edited practically every word there. The Rebbe clearly put hours into it. There are many kinds of edits: sometimes the Rebbe edited a little, and sometimes a great deal. Here you can see that the Rebbe edited the sicha extensively, at great length. The next day was Tuesday, just as 10 Teves is a Tuesday this year. The next day, Tuesday, after Minchah, the Rebbe had davened downstairs in the large shul at 770. After Minchah, the Rebbe said he would put it into practice. So

07:04 on the previous night, he had only instructed that the custom be renewed. The Rebbe did not merely instruct others; he also practiced what he instructed the Jewish people to do. So after Minchah, the Rebbe himself delivered a sicha—the first divrei kibushin the Rebbe delivered. That was on 10 Teves 5738. The Rebbe also edited that sicha. It is available in the transcripts; there is the sicha with all the details—both the sicha the Rebbe delivered at night and the one he delivered during the day. That was in 5738, and from then on it became a regular practice. On every fast day, the Rebbe would deliver divrei kibushin, a sicha after Minchah. When I say every fast day, I mean 10 Teves, 17 Tammuz, the Fast of Gedaliah, and the Fast of Esther—those four fasts. The Rebbe did this throughout the years. It began on 10 Teves 5738 and continued until 10 Teves 5752, the last time we merited to hear it. After that, it was already a different period, and there were no divrei kibushin on the Fast of Esther 5752. So 10 Teves 5752 was the last time. Interestingly, on 10 Teves 5752—the last time the Rebbe delivered divrei kibushin—he also spoke twice: on the night of 10 Teves and after Minchah on 10 Teves. It’s interesting that the first and last times were the same in that respect. On the night of 10 Teves 5752, the Rebbe delivered a sicha. The Rebbe said that we should act so that the following day would not be a fast day. The Rebbe wanted to bring about a situation in which there would be no need to fast at all. That depended on an awakening to teshuvah that very night. The Rebbe delivered a sicha saying that everyone should try to awaken themselves to teshuvah in such a way that the awakening

09:14 Teshuvah will bring about a situation where tomorrow we won’t have to fast, and then it will be... There was a very powerful sicha on the night of 10 Teves. I remember it because we shluchim were in Australia then, and by the time we heard the sicha, we were already in the middle of the fast. It was already 10 Teves for us. We were thirteen hours ahead, so we were well into the fast. But it was interesting that the Rebbe spoke so that we wouldn’t have to fast. That was on the night of 10 Teves. On 10 Teves itself, after Mincha, the Rebbe spoke as well. That was the sicha the Rebbe gave on 10 Teves 5752. By then, this had become a regular practice. On Tisha B’Av, the Rebbe did not speak, apart from the final year. As is known, in 5751 there was a one-time exception, when the Rebbe gave a sicha after Mincha, but generally the Rebbe did not speak on Tisha B’Av. And that’s readily understandable for practical reasons too: on Tisha B’Av there are the prayers and putting on tefillin, and it isn’t simple to speak at Mincha. So only in 5751 did the Rebbe return to his room and then come down again before Maariv. That was exceptional. In 5751, that was a period of the days of Moshiach when the Rebbe introduced various new practices. So that was something specific. But the practice of giving words of exhortation was on these fast days. Of course, the Rebbe did not speak on Yom Kippur either. In fact, the Rebbe never spoke on Yom Kippur. So that’s the background to the events. Now let’s get to the content. What are “words of exhortation”? You might say it means words of rebuke. Yes, but in practice, in the format we merited to see and hear from the Rebbe, the words of exhortation the Rebbe delivered before Mincha were generally

11:06 more in the style of Torah discussion. In other words, the Rebbe wasn’t giving a sermon of rebuke or a sicha of rebuke. He spoke about conduct and matters pertaining to the day, explaining the day’s significance and the lessons in serving Hashem that we can take from it. Generally, the sicha would begin by explaining the idea of a fast in the first place. The Rebbe would usually spend a few minutes explaining what a fast is: that it is an auspicious time, the power of an auspicious time, bringing sources from Tanya and from the verses, and explaining several aspects of fasting. After that, he would speak about teshuvah, based on the Rambam’s statement that the fasts are meant to awaken hearts and open the paths of teshuvah. He would always cite the Rambam, who writes in the laws of fasts that one must not think an event is mere chance. When something happens, a Jew must not think it is just a coincidence. We need to ask what it means for us and what we need to do to put things right. So from the fast itself, from the account of what happened, we can draw lessons about what we need to correct. Then the Rebbe would discuss the event itself: What happened on 10 Teves? What happened on 17 Tammuz? What happened on the Fast of Gedaliah, or similarly on the Fast of Esther? And what lesson do we take from it in serving Hashem? Afterward, he would also speak about the day’s Chumash, or, in the later years, the day’s Rambam study, and connect it to the occasion. That was generally the order of topics in most of the sichos of exhortation. Well, some of them—not most; perhaps I’m exaggerating. A very large proportion of those sichos were published in edited form, at least in the earlier years. In the later years,

13:06 perhaps not, but many sichos of exhortation from 5738, 5739, 5740, 5742, and 5743 were edited by the Rebbe and published in edited form. That is significant; you can see that the Rebbe had a particular fondness for them. Okay, so now let’s talk about 10 Teves. What did the Rebbe discuss specifically regarding 10 Teves? There are several interesting points. First, the point I mentioned earlier: there are two things—abolishing the fast and transforming it into a Yom Tov. The Rebbe gave a sicha on this in 5738, which was later published in Likkutei Sichos, volume 16. Anyone who wants to study the sicha will find it very enjoyable: volume 16, 10 Teves. There’s an entire sicha on this subject in which the Rebbe discusses the Rambam and the wording he uses. There are two aspects to abolishing the fast—not merely abolishing it, right? And specifically in connection with 10 Teves. That sicha of the Rebbe is in Likkutei Sichos. But regarding 10 Teves in particular, the Rebbe discussed several very interesting things. He spoke about the Abudraham. There is a well-known sefer called Abudraham, written by one of the Rishonim. It is a work of halachah, cited in the Shulchan Aruch and quoted extensively. He wrote about the holidays, halachah, explanations of the prayers, and other subjects. He is cited many times in Chassidus and in Nigleh, in Chassidus and halachah. The Abudraham writes that 10 Teves is more stringent than all the other fasts. That is what he writes: in one respect, 10 Teves has a particular severity beyond the other fasts. He goes so far as to say that if 10 Teves fell on Shabbos, we would actually have to fast; it would not be postponed. When 17 Tammuz falls on Shabbos, it is postponed. When Tisha B’Av falls on Shabbos, it is postponed. That applies to all these dates except Yom Kippur. But he says 10 Teves is

15:23 so stringent that if it fell on Shabbos, it would not be postponed either. In practice, it cannot fall on Shabbos. The calendar works out so that 10 Teves never falls on Shabbos. But he writes that if 10 Teves were to fall on Shabbos, then it wouldn’t be—no, no, we would have to fast even on Shabbos. What is his source? It is the verse in Yechezkel where Hakadosh Boruch Hu told Yechezkel to mark 10 Teves. There is a verse in Yechezkel in which Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to him, “Write down the name of the day, this very day,” in connection with 10 Teves. Hakadosh Boruch Hu told Yechezkel, “Write down the name of the day, this very day.” And the Abudraham notes that “this very day” is the wording used for Yom Kippur, right? Regarding Yom Kippur it also says, “For any soul who will not afflict itself on this very day.” The verse’s use of the same wording indicates the same severity, the same level. So in practice, as we said, 10 Teves never falls on Shabbos, so that situation does not arise. But interestingly, the Rebbe points out that 10 Teves does have a distinctive feature that no other fast has, even today: it is the only fast observed on a Friday. No other fast falls on a Friday. 10 Teves is the only fast that can fall on a Friday; 17 Tammuz never does. Tisha B’Av cannot fall on a Friday. The Fast of Gedaliah cannot fall on a Friday, nor can the Fast of Esther. So the other fasts do not fall on Friday. The only fast that can is 10 Teves, and according to the calendar we have to fast until nightfall. That means Shabbos has already begun.

17:24 And you still have to fast—even people who daven earlier. Many people daven Kabbalas Shabbos before sunset, especially on the long summer Fridays. Here in Argentina, where 10 Teves falls in the summer, it is often a very long Friday, and many communities daven Kabbalas Shabbos before sunset. But they still have to continue fasting until nightfall. In other words, they have already accepted Shabbos, yet they remain fasting until the stars come out. From this we see the particular stringency of 10 Teves. The question is: What is the reason? Why is 10 Teves so stringent? What makes it different from the other fast days? The Rebbe explains that it is because this was the first fast in the sequence of events leading to the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. The chain of troubles began on 10 Teves. What happened then? Nevuchadnetzar, king of Bavel, came up against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. “The king of Bavel besieged Jerusalem”—we said it in Selichos. So the siege of Jerusalem began on 10 Teves. Then came 17 Tammuz, when the wall was breached; then Tisha B’Av, when the Beis Hamikdash was burned; and then the Fast of Gedaliah, connected with Gedaliah and the surviving remnant. Because 10 Teves was the beginning, the cause of what followed, it has a special stringency. We learn something similar in Basi Legani about the sin of the Tree of Knowledge: Why is it considered the greatest sin? Because it was the cause of all the sins that followed. So, similarly,

19:23 since 10 Teves was the cause of all the troubles connected with the destruction, since that was where it began, it has a special stringency beyond the other fasts. That is the explanation the Rebbe gave. This also answers another question raised by the commentators and halachic authorities—the Magen Avraham and the Taz ask it explicitly: 10 Teves happened only in the time of the First Beis Hamikdash. The account of Nevuchadnetzar surrounding Jerusalem belongs to that period. In the time of the Second Beis Hamikdash, the siege did not begin on 10 Teves; it began on another day. The date is given somewhere. So why do we fast only on 10 Teves, and not on the day the siege began in the time of the Second Beis Hamikdash? The breaching of the wall was on the same day both times, 17 Tammuz, and the burning of the Beis Hamikdash was also on the same day. But the siege of the Second Beis Hamikdash did not begin on 10 Teves. Why fast on that date? That is what the halachic authorities ask. Based on this explanation, the Rebbe says: We fast on 10 Teves because it marks the beginning of the destruction, and that beginning was in the time of the First Beis Hamikdash. On the contrary, the destruction of the First Beis Hamikdash was the beginning of the whole matter of destruction. The reason for the fast is not only the particular event involving Nevuchadnetzar. Rather, 10 Teves was the beginning of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, which began with the First Beis Hamikdash. That is why 10 Teves remains the day on which we fast: it marks the beginning of the entire process. That is another point the Rebbe makes. Another interesting point the Rebbe addresses about 10 Teves concerns the word samach. What exactly happened on 10 Teves? “The king of Bavel samach upon Jerusalem.” The Rebbe would point out a very interesting distinction here: the wording is not “the king of Bavel laid siege.”

21:41 It is “the king of Bavel samach.” That is the wording of the verse, I believe, and that is how we say it in Selichos. What does samach mean here? To be somech, with the letter samech, means to support or help. “Hashem supports all who fall.” But the king of Bavel came to fight! We could say he surrounded the city or besieged it. Samach sounds positive, as though he helped. How did he help? What did he support? What does “the king of Bavel samach” mean? The Rebbe said something wonderful. We know that Hakadosh Boruch Hu provides the remedy before the blow. When He brought Nevuchadnetzar, He brought the remedy within the blow itself. From the very beginning of the destruction and the exile, Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to give the Jewish people a hint about the remedy—how to prevent the destruction from happening at all. What was the remedy? The Gemara in Yoma, and similarly in Gittin, teaches that the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash came about through a lack of unity, through division between people. The Gemara in Yoma says that the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of baseless hatred. It says, “The earlier generations, whose sin was revealed, had their end revealed; the later generations, whose sin was not revealed, did not have their end revealed.” That refers to baseless hatred. The Maharsha explains that baseless hatred was at the root of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. And a particular example is the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza in Gittin. So, since baseless hatred was the cause of the destruction—and even with the First Beis Hamikdash, which was destroyed because of forbidden relations and idol worship, the Midrash says that if the Jewish people had had

23:51 unity, Hakadosh Boruch Hu would have forgiven them even then. There is such a Midrash. So it follows that baseless love and baseless hatred lie at the heart of exile and Geulah. The moment Nevuchadnetzar arrived, what did he do? He sealed off Jerusalem. And when Jerusalem is sealed off, what happens? All the Jews are together. No one can leave or enter. We are all together. That is the point they needed to grasp: through Nevuchadnetzar, Hakadosh Boruch Hu was sending a message calling for unity. We cannot run away; we have to be together inside Jerusalem, close to the Beis Hamikdash. For what purpose? So that Jerusalem would be “as the mountains surround Jerusalem”—how does the verse there go? “A city joined together.” The point is connection and unity: to strengthen Jewish unity, so that the Beis Hamikdash would not be destroyed at all. That is the meaning of “the king of Bavel samach upon Jerusalem.” Of course, the king of Bavel’s own intention was destruction. That was his plan. But from the perspective of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, bringing the king of Bavel was an act of support. It was meant to protect, strengthen, help and encourage the Jewish people—to bring them to the state of being “joined together” in unity. Then the cause of exile would fall away, and with it, its consequence. The whole situation would be transformed, and there would be no destruction of the Beis Hamikdash at all. In practice, there was free choice, and the Jewish people apparently did not learn the message. So what followed—17 Tammuz, Tisha B’Av, and all the rest—unfolded badly. But if so, what we need to learn from 10 Teves is precisely that lesson, that point.

25:48 How much we need to strengthen ourselves in Ahavas Yisroel and Jewish unity. That is the true remedy, the true way to bring about not only an end to the fasts, but, on the contrary, to turn these days into days of joy and gladness, into festivals. So those are a few points the Rebbe spoke about in connection with rectifying the matter of 10 Teves. The last point is also in Likkutei Sichos, volume 25, in an edited sicha on 10 Teves. There is one more thing I want to tell you about 10 Teves. I was privileged to be there that 10 Teves too. It was in 5747, the year of Didan Notzach. Didan Notzach was on 5 Teves. That year, 10 Teves fell on a Sunday. On Shabbos there was an extraordinary farbrengen that stirred everyone about the Geulah. It was Shabbos Parshas Vayigash, and the Rebbe spoke very, very forcefully. The key to Moshiach, he said, is in each person’s hand, and each person needs to know that through his prayers he can bring Moshiach in actuality. The Rebbe spoke with tremendous force and urgency, and people cried out, “Ad mosai?” It was something very powerful. That was Shabbos Parshas Vayigash, 5747. On Motzaei Shabbos there was a gathering of rabbis. Rabbis had come from all over the world for Didan Notzach, and there was a great awakening about the need to bring about the Geulah. On Shabbos, the Rebbe had also mentioned the need for a halachic ruling. I don’t remember his exact wording, but people understood that the Rebbe had called for it. Perhaps the Rebbe said so explicitly. I haven’t checked it now, but the rabbis needed to rule that Moshiach must come. So the rabbis gathered on Motzaei Shabbos, the eve of 10 Teves, and wrote a pidyon nefesh to the Rebbe. On Sunday morning they wrote the pidyon nefesh, and all the rabbis who were at 770 for that Didan Notzach, that 5 Teves, signed it. I

27:56 remember it firsthand, because my father was also there with the Rebbe, and his signature is among them. Quite a few rabbis signed, from all over the world—from Eretz Yisroel, America, and elsewhere. They waited for the Rebbe to arrive from home. The Rebbe always arrived for work at ten in the morning. At ten, the Rebbe arrived, and the rabbis were standing in Gan Eden Hatachton, near the door to the Rebbe’s room. When the Rebbe arrived from home, one of the rabbis approached him and handed him the note. It was a very... The Rebbe was very, very serious. It was a short letter; I think it has already been published in a few places. In it, the rabbis wrote a halachic ruling that all the appointed times have passed, that Moshiach Tzidkeinu must come, and that the time has come for the true and complete Geulah. Then came their signatures. The Rebbe stopped by the door and looked at it for a long time. The Rebbe was very—there was a great deal of tension visible on the Rebbe’s face, a great deal. The Rebbe was very, very, very serious and looked at it for a long time. He made movements with his head. It was very, very frightening. My father says there was simply an overwhelming sense of awe in the room. What was the Rebbe going to— In short, some time passed, and then the Rebbe rolled it up and spoke a few words. Yes. The Rebbe, [unclear], and so on, said a few words. I don’t remember the exact wording now, you know? He addressed the matter, said several blessings concerning it, and then, at the end, the Rebbe concluded his remarks by saying, “And especially since we are now thirty days before Yud Shvat.” That was how the Rebbe ended his remarks and blessings: “Especially since we are thirty days before Yud Shvat.” That was it. Afterward, the Rebbe went into his room, and in continuation of this, the next day the Rebbe began the entire campaign of “Stand ready, all of you,” for the month leading up to Yud Shvat,

30:19 thirty days of preparation, with all the excitement around it. The first time the Rebbe made such a great stir about thirty days of preparation for Yud Shvat, with “Stand ready, all of you,” it began then, in those days. So that’s another point. And now, for us too, 10 Teves has arrived. Besides the fact that 10 Teves is an auspicious time and so on, it is also the time to begin the month of thirty days of preparation for Yud Shvat, with “Stand ready, all of you.” These are two things that depend on each other. May we already merit to see the Rebbe with our physical eyes, and may we merit Basi Legani after the histalkus, and may we see the Rebbe here below, a soul in a body—and he will redeem us!