Lehisraanen Episode Six: Rabbi Dovid Ophen

00:00 Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to “Lehisra’anein.” This week we’ll be refreshed together with the chossid Rabbi Dovid Ofen, shlita, of Beitar Illit in the Holy Land. He’ll share what he saw and experienced as a bochur with the Rebbe at 770, from 5734 to 5741: the special moments at farbrengens, the Rebbe’s sichos, remarkable sights, and things he can tell us firsthand. Together with him, we’ll be refreshed. The podcast is hosted by Rabbi Nachum Goldschmid, produced by Aharon Freiman, with Rabbi Shmulik Kaplan assisting in the recording of this episode. Enjoy listening to “Lehisra’anein.”

00:31 Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to another episode of “Lehisra’anein.” Chassidim talk about their lives at Beis Chayeinu, 770, and the years they spent there. Through this, we chassidim are all refreshed and strengthen our connection to the Rebbe. Today we’re with the chossid Rabbi Dovid Ofen. Hello and welcome. Rabbi Dovid, tell us about yourself. I start by asking everyone the same question: “Fun vanet shtamt ir?” Where do you come from? What are your roots?

01:01 Speaker 12 My father was a chossid, but not a Lubavitcher. He was a chossid of Dzikov, a well-known Polish chassidic dynasty before the war. There were great tzaddikim there. My grandfather was very closely connected to the Dzikov chassidim.

01:26 Speaker 2 Originally a branch of Rabbi Naftali of Ropshitz.

01:28 Speaker 12 Originally, yes. My grandfather would always accompany Reb Alter of Dzikov. When they traveled to Marienbad, he would say, “We’re taking Meir Ofen.” They always traveled together. He never went alone.

01:47 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

01:48 Speaker 12 There’s even a photograph of my grandfather with the Dzikover Rebbe and the Vizhnitzer Rebbe together in Marienbad. There are many photographs.

01:56 Speaker 2 Those were years when the tzaddikim were in hiding.

01:57 Speaker 12 There’s one from the tzaddik, and others from earlier. Um, there are some from the beginning and some from the end. My father related that once my grandfather traveled with the Dzikover Rebbe to Marienbad. They were walking in a garden when my grandfather saw the Frierdiker Rebbe. He didn’t know it was the Frierdiker Rebbe. He had heard about him—that he had been imprisoned, and everyone spoke about his self-sacrifice—but he didn’t know what he looked like. So he saw this Jew walking and whispered to the Dzikover Rebbe, “Tell me, this Jew looks like a rebbe, but he walks like a businessman.” Because the Polish rebbes at the time went about in all their traditional clothing.

02:55 Speaker 2 With a walking stick.

02:56 Speaker 12 A walking stick. And the Frierdiker Rebbe was even wearing a hat. It wasn’t Shabbos, so he wasn’t wearing a spodik. The Dzikover Rebbe told him, “What are you talking about? That’s the Frierdiker Rebbe.” So—

03:11 Speaker 2 The Dzikover dynasty was in Galicia.

03:12 Speaker 12 Yes, yes. So my grandfather said to him, “Well, arrange for me to speak with him in yechidus.” The Dzikover Rebbe spoke to him, and my grandfather did indeed go in to the Frierdiker Rebbe. My father said the Rebbe spoke with him for some twenty minutes or half an hour. My grandfather was a great kabbalist.

03:40 Speaker 2 Your grandfather, Reb Meir, was a kabbalist.

03:41 Speaker 12 A great kabbalist, yes. He also wrote down all the Dzikover Rebbe’s Torah teachings, including the teachings from before. Later he wrote everything down. There was no printing then; people wrote things out, and he wrote it all down. He really was one of the leading Dzikov chassidim. So the Frierdiker Rebbe spoke with him a great deal about Kabbalah, as he related, and said he wanted to send him maamarim—Kabbalistic booklets from the Rebbe. They corresponded a little. This was just before the war. My father said that was the first thing he heard about Lubavitch.

04:25 Speaker 2 In other words, Reb Meir came home and told his son, Reb Aharon.

04:28 Speaker 12 His sons, yes. He had several sons, but my father heard it. Later, when the war broke out, my father was the only one—he was the youngest and the only one not yet married. He was strong, but unmarried. When they fled, they asked, “Who can flee?” The families couldn’t flee; they didn’t want to. My grandfather was a widower, and my father was his son, so they went together. When they reached the Russian border, the Russians said my father was young and could work, so they could make use of him. My grandfather was already close to seventy.

05:17 Speaker 2 They told your grandfather that—

05:19 Speaker 12 They wouldn’t let him cross into Russia, so he went back. There was no choice, and my father went on to Russia. In Russia, he ended up in camps at first, and afterward several of them were together. My father was a friend of Reb Irish Rosenberg[?], if you’ve heard of him.

05:39 Speaker 2 Yes.

05:40 Speaker 12 They were together in the same camp. After they came out of the camp following the war, my father traveled around Russia and reached Tashkent and Samarkand. There he saw chassidim.

05:58 Speaker 2 Yes.

05:59 Speaker 12 My father told of something interesting that made a deep impression on him. There was a great chossid of the Frierdiker Rebbe named Chaim Erlis. Once my father met him in shul and saw him saying Krias Shema with such deveikus—genuine Krias Shema. Polish chassidim don’t know what a personal reckoning is; they hadn’t heard of it. That’s something you find in Chabad. He was amazed to see him saying Krias Shema with such [unclear], and it really drew him in. There was another incident: someone in his family, perhaps a son, was ill, and people told him that Reb Aharon of Belz was a great tzaddik and that he should go give him a note.

06:54 Speaker 2 A kvittel.

06:55 Speaker 12 A kvittel. He said, “No. Not a note. There’s one Rebbe to whom I give a note.”

07:00 Speaker 2 That’s what Chaim Erlis said.

07:02 Speaker 12 Yes. He said he wouldn’t do it under any circumstances. Ask for a blessing? Fine, a blessing, but nothing more. He wouldn’t agree. That also amazed my father. Why not give a note? Among Polish chassidim, people knew you could give a note here and a note there. Those things drew my father very strongly to Lubavitch. Afterward my father was in Sweden and in Pocking. And there—

07:28 Speaker 2 Meaning he got out with the Poles.

07:30 Speaker 12 Yes, he didn’t need to—

07:32 Speaker 2 Because he was Polish. So he was with chassidim in Pocking.

07:37 Speaker 12 Yes, he was with chassidim in Pocking. I even have a photograph of him sitting at a meal hosted by [unclear]. Have you ever seen that photograph?

07:47 Speaker 2 The one with Plotkin sitting there.

07:48 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, yes, Plotkin. That’s the photograph. You can see my father there. Anyway, after my father came to the Land of Israel—he married in Pocking. He became engaged in Russia, but he married in Pocking.

08:04 Speaker 2 He married a daughter of chassidim.

08:06 Speaker 12 Yes.

08:06 Speaker 2 A daughter of—

08:07 Speaker 12 Levkovker[?].

08:08 Speaker 2 A daughter of Reb—what was his name?

08:10 Speaker 12 Baruch Levkovker[?].

08:10 Speaker 2 Baruch.

08:11 Speaker 12 He, too, wasn’t originally a Chabad chossid. He was originally a Boyaner[?], but he became very close to the Chabad chassidim. He was very connected to the Frierdiker Rebbe, and all the—

08:25 Speaker 2 So he took several [unclear].

08:28 Speaker 12 Not only that: he also had a yeshiva in his home, and students learned with him. Sholom Rozov studied there too. Many studied there. Father Levin and my grandfather—his daughters even knew the students. They would sit in the house and be given tea and everything. So they already knew about Chabad. And after my father came to the Land of Israel, he really became a Chabad chossid. So much so that he wouldn’t let us study anywhere else—not even in the earliest years of cheder—only in Lubavitch.

09:11 Speaker 2 Did he settle in Ramat Gan right away?

09:13 Speaker 12 No, first in Tel Aviv, and then they moved to Ramat Gan. I was already born in Ramat Gan, but my older siblings were born in Tel Aviv.

09:24 Speaker 2 So where did you actually study?

09:25 Speaker 12 I remember that there were no school buses then like there are today. We took a regular bus, and when we were little, my father would take us in the morning before work.

09:40 Speaker 2 From Ramat Gan to Tel Aviv.

09:42 Speaker 12 To Tel Aviv, and my mother would bring us back in the afternoon. That was the arrangement until we were old enough to travel on our own. Once my mother said to my father, “What would happen if they studied in Bnei Brak? They’re chassidim there too.” My father said, “No, no. Only Lubavitch.” Even though he himself came from Polish chassidim, he insisted that we go only to Lubavitch.

10:07 Speaker 2 And then you went to yeshiva, in Lod or Kfar Chabad?

10:09 Speaker 12 Yes. After the cheder in Tel Aviv, I studied in Lod, then in Kfar Chabad for almost a year and a half, and after that I traveled to the Rebbe.

10:21 Speaker 2 Did your father himself travel to the Rebbe before you?

10:22 Speaker 12 Oh, yes. My father traveled on 15 [unclear] for the first time. Your grandfather traveled then too.

10:28 Speaker 2 Reb Nachum traveled.

10:29 Speaker 12 My father told me that Reb Nachum traveled with that group too. My father was very—well, we followed him, but my father loved going. We would walk from Avraham Street in Ramat Gan to Bnei Brak just for Reb Nachum’s farbrengen. My father would always ask whether Reb Nachum would be there. If Reb Nachum was coming, it was worth going; otherwise, there was no point.

10:57 Speaker 2 So your father was there in [unclear]? Was there something?

10:59 Speaker 12 Dad was in [unclear], and Dad—he didn’t tell us much, but what I remember as a child, I was still a child then, before my bar mitzvah—Dad said that throughout that month he heard so many farbrengens. The Rebbe kept saying “the leader of our generation.” My father said, “How is it that the Rebbe, who has been leading for so many years”—Dad had received letters and instructions from the Rebbe, and so on—“keeps mentioning the leader of our generation in everything?” That really struck him. And also how often the Rebbe went to the Ohel. During Tishrei, the Rebbe went so often—practically every other day, whenever there was some occasion or something special, the Rebbe would go to the Ohel for hours. “I’ve never seen tzaddikim go so often to the Ohel of the previous Rebbes, except on some exceptional occasion.”

11:56 Speaker 2 Before we get to the years when you were with the Rebbe, I want to ask about when you were just a young boy. Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Lod, Kfar Chabad—was there a connection? Did you write to the Rebbe? What did you hear? What was it like?

12:09 Speaker 12 Oh, back then there wasn’t that much connection. We didn’t know. All we knew was that there was a Rebbe, that the Rebbe was the leader of the Jewish people, and that you wrote a pan to the Rebbe once a year. But what the Rebbe said, the sichos—we knew nothing about that. I remember that once, when I was a very young child, Shmuel Lipsker [?] was among the shluchim who came in 5722 [?].

12:40 Speaker 2 He’s a cousin.

12:41 Speaker 12 And he’s a cousin. So he brought a reel-to-reel tape of the Rebbe, like they had in those days, and we held a melaveh malkah at our house. All the uncles came just to hear the recording of—

12:58 Speaker 2 A recording, not a film.

12:59 Speaker 12 A recording, yes. A recording of some [unclear]. That was the first time I heard the Rebbe’s voice. I was maybe seven—yes, seven or eight. Seven. Or even six. That was it. Later, when we came to Lod, they spoke more about the Rebbe there. I also studied a little in Lod when I was young. I came to Lod at eleven, because the cheder in Tel Aviv had ended, so I spent part of my cheder years studying in Lod too, for two years, until yeshivah ketanah. We entered yeshivah ketanah at twelve and a half, twelve, something like that. But for a year and a half we were like cheder boys, except that we slept at the yeshivah at night and went home every Shabbos. Then came the Six-Day War. Yankel Reinitz also brought a tape of what the Rebbe had said on Lag BaOmer—that there was no need to be afraid and there would be victory. So we heard that on the rec—

14:14 Speaker 2 You had that during the war? That’s—

14:16 Speaker 12 It was before the war.

14:17 Speaker 2 Even before the war?

14:18 Speaker 12 It arrived before the war, yes. The Lag BaOmer tape was there before the war, because tensions were so high.

14:24 Speaker 2 I remember something.

14:25 Speaker 12 I—I—

14:25 Speaker 2 I have a vague memory that there may have been an instruction to send it with someone who was traveling.

14:29 Speaker 12 Could be. I don’t know how it got there, but I know that about two weeks before the war, they explained to us why something was going to happen. I remember the secular-studies teacher standing there and explaining the Straits of Tiran and the whole story. We more or less understood, and we understood that a war was coming. And because we had heard so much from the Rebbe, and Yankel Reinitz translated for us and explained that the Rebbe had said there was nothing to fear and everything would be all right, I remember that during the war we weren’t afraid at all. We were calm. Even when we went to the shelter, we were calm, not panicked. We went because they told us we had to go to the shelter, but there was no fear. No fear at all. From the very first day, we were certain, because of the Rebbe’s sicha beforehand, that there would be a great victory. We didn’t know what was happening until two or three days later, when we heard that they had taken the Kosel, and so on. Then we saw that what the Rebbe had said had come true.

15:39 Speaker 2 Interesting—you just mentioned the Kosel. Let’s go through it in order. After that, the yeshivah—

15:45 Speaker 12 After Shavuos. At first you weren’t allowed to go to the Kosel; there were mines along the way. Once the authorities had arranged things and the state permitted travel there, the yeshivah organized a trip, and we all went to all the—to the graves of tzaddikim.

16:04 Speaker 2 Did the older people go with you? Do you remember?

16:06 Speaker 12 I don’t remember, but I remember the whole yeshivah went.

16:09 Speaker 2 No, I mean the staff, not—

16:11 Speaker 12 Oh, the staff—I remember.

16:12 Speaker 2 Shlomo Chaim, yes.

16:13 Speaker 12 No, no, no. Shlomo Chaim wasn’t with us. We—

16:16 Speaker 2 It was always the younger ones.

16:17 Speaker 12 I wasn’t there. By my time, the yeshivah gedolah had already moved to Kfar Chabad.

16:21 Speaker 2 Ah, so which of them—we’re talking about Milach [?]. Who went with you to...?

16:24 Speaker 12 The ones who went with us were Rabbi Yitzchak Mendelson, a"h, and Rabbi Nachum Kaplan, as far as I remember. Not everyone went, but that’s what I recall. Mainly the counselors—Yankel Reinitz and...

16:39 Speaker 2 After that you moved to Kfar Chabad. Was there more connection with...?

16:41 Speaker 12 After that—before Kfar Chabad, I want to mention one very important year. It was called the mechinah, if you’ve heard of it. Between Lod and Kfar Chabad there was a mechinah. Yeshivah ketanah lasted three years, and after those three years we spent a year studying more independently, learning more Chassidus. In yeshivah ketanah we had learned Chassidus for only half an hour in the morning and forty-five minutes at night. When we reached the mechinah, it was like yeshivah gedolah. It was sort of an in-between stage.

17:14 Speaker 2 Who was in charge of it?

17:15 Speaker 12 Oh, there were two people in charge. There was a maggid shiur for Nigleh and a maggid shiur for Chassidus. The Chassidus maggid shiur was called Rabbi Yosef Abrams, if you’ve heard of him. He brought the Rebbe into our very bones. He was the first person who made us want to travel to the Rebbe. His farbrengens and his classes really brought us to life. He encouraged us to write to the Rebbe, for one thing. He taught us how to write. I remember how strongly he urged us, as 11 Nissan approached, to write down hachlatos tovos in honor of the Rebbe’s seventieth year. We studied with him during the year of the Rebbe’s seventieth birthday, 5732. I remember writing to the Rebbe about my resolutions to study maamarim and memorize Tanya. And I even received a letter from the Rebbe—a general-personal letter in which the Rebbe used the wording “a dank oich,” thanking me for my good wishes. We didn’t even know how to give the Rebbe our good wishes. We wrote that in honor of 11 Nissan, the seventieth year, we were taking on these hachlatos tovos. The Rebbe took that as a blessing. He replied, “Many thanks for the blessings”—that’s how the Rebbe wrote it. It was that general letter of the seventieth year that the Rebbe sent to dozens of people. At the bottom of that general-personal letter, which went to everyone, he wrote that the blessings should be fulfilled, “a dank oich,” and how does it say... Oh, the Rebbe writes there about the blessings: “The secondary exceeds the principal.”

19:15 Speaker 2 Except for Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

19:16 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, except for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Yes, the familiar wording. And suddenly, there I was, a young boy, barely fourteen, receiving a general-personal letter. At fifteen I received a general-personal letter. It was the first time, for 11 Nissan. The date on it said 11 Nissan, and it even had the Rebbe’s signature at the bottom. Sometimes the Rebbe would write through a secretary, but this bore the Rebbe’s signature. It really meant a lot. And it arrived in Lod, because that was where we had written from, so the Rebbe sent it to Lod.

19:51 Speaker 2 Did it arrive around Shavuos?

19:53 Speaker 12 Yes, something like that. I don’t remember. In Sivan. I don’t remember when, but it arrived. Abrams had a great deal to do with our writing it, so he deserves credit for that. He really, really encouraged us. It was a year I can’t forget to this day. The Chassidus we received from him, including how to understand it—he taught us that you have to study Chassidus. We had thought Chassidus was something vague, you know, as people sometimes think, that you can just understand it, that anyone can understand Chassidus. Suddenly he would ask, “What is the Rebbe asking? What about the sea? What does this mean? What does that mean?” He would stop and examine every detail. Suddenly we saw that Chassidus is Torah. With him it was almost—

20:40 Speaker 13 How many students were in that class?

20:42 Speaker 12 There were about twenty.

20:45 Speaker 13 Who were the boys your age?

20:46 Speaker 12 One of the boys my age was Eli Landau. Yes, he was there.

20:51 Speaker 13 You were about fifteen years old.

20:52 Speaker 12 Yes, we were fifteen. After we finished at the yeshiva, we went to Kfar Chabad. Now, he spoke a great deal about going to the Rebbe. He was one of those who said you have to connect with the Rebbe, to love the Rebbe. We had never heard anyone speak about having a relationship with the Rebbe; we had heard about hiskashrus and so on. That year really changed our lives. We were young, very young, and my longing to go to the Rebbe came from him and him alone. Before that, it wasn’t there. The Rebbe was the Rebbe, but I didn’t have that longing to go to him. He created that longing for the Rebbe. He really started it. So to this day, whenever I hear about him, I feel grateful to him. Not long ago, there was something about him in Sichas Hashavua, and I was struck by what the Rebbe had written to him, about how his students... [unclear].

21:47 Speaker 13 He means Rabbi Reuven Dunin.

21:48 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, he means Rabbi Reuven Dunin.

21:51 Speaker 13 And then you were in Kfar Chabad for three years, and...?

21:52 Speaker 12 No, no, I was in Kfar Chabad for only a year and a half.

21:55 Speaker 13 A year and a half.

21:56 Speaker 12 In Kfar Chabad, I very much wanted to go to the Rebbe, and I was thinking of going just for Tishrei, because several friends from my class went for Tishrei, Tishrei 5734. But I personally couldn’t, because of my family. My father wasn’t feeling well then. He said, “I don’t want you to go.” He wasn’t well; he’d had his first attack, and he was very frightened. So he told me not to go. I insisted, and I even wrote to the Rebbe about it. In the end, the Rebbe wrote to me, “Listen to your parents, may they live”—meaning, don’t go anywhere without their permission.

22:42 Speaker 13 In a letter.

22:42 Speaker 12 Yes, because I had tried everything. I sent it through Binyamin so I’d get a quick answer, and I tried every trick I’d heard of at the time. In the end I saw that you can’t play games with the Rebbe. I’d told my father, “If I write to the Rebbe and the Rebbe gives a blessing, everything will be all right. So what are you worried about?” He said, “I’ve said what I have to say. That’s it.” In the end, the Rebbe explicitly said to listen. So I didn’t go. I stayed for Tishrei, while a lot of friends from my class went for the whole month. I was really alone in Kfar Chabad that Tishrei.

23:19 Speaker 13 The Yom Kippur War.

23:20 Speaker 12 The Yom Kippur War. It was very hard for me, and I felt that I really wanted to go. So I went to Reb Mendel. This was at the beginning of—at the beginning of 5734.

23:33 Speaker 13 So that means you were really Reb Mendel’s first class.

23:36 Speaker 12 Yes, we were Reb Mendel’s first class. When we came in, there were other classes that were better.

23:41 Speaker 13 Meaning, the class—

23:42 Speaker 12 We were the first with Reb Mendel. We didn’t know anyone, only Reb Mendel. We came to Kfar Chabad in 5733, and then he began. He had arrived in Kislev. At that point he had all that energy and chayus. So I went to ask his advice. I told him, “Listen, I didn’t go for Tishrei.” He, too, had begun speaking about going to the Rebbe, going to the Rebbe. He spoke a lot about hiskashrus, and he also spoke a lot about kabbolas ol. I don’t want people to think he only spoke about hiskashrus. He spoke a great deal about kabbolas ol, but he said, “Kabbolas ol—but you have to go to the Rebbe.” So I came to him in the middle of the winter and told him I’d spoken to Rabbi Katz. Rabbi Katz understood me too. He’d seen how broken I was during Tishrei, alone in the yeshiva on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

24:42 Speaker 14 He himself was at the Rebbe on 15 Tishrei.

24:43 Speaker 12 Yes, he was there on 15 Tishrei. But when he came back—and even before he left; he went for Sukkos—he saw how I was, and he wanted to encourage me. So I told him, “Listen, I want to go to the Rebbe from Purim until after Pesach.” I honestly didn’t know whether to go for Purim or wait until Tishrei—the following Tishrei, in 5733—ah, 5735. Yes, 5735. So I went to Reb Mendel and said, “Rabbi Katz is giving me the option of going from Purim until after Pesach. He even agreed that if I learn a hundred pages of Gemara by heart, he’ll give me part of the cost of the ticket—half a ticket, I think it was. He’ll arrange it through [unclear]. So I can go from Purim until after Pesach. On the other hand, maybe I should wait until Tishrei and go then, so I’ll be there for the whole of Tishrei: the shofar blowing, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur.” Reb Mendel said something I still remember to this day. He said, “If you’re looking for bread—bread and water, as they say, something to live on—

26:07 Speaker 14 Bread and water.

26:08 Speaker 12 Bread and water. “Then go now. If you’re waiting for cholent, wait until Tishrei.” Those were his words. So I took his advice and did go for Purim. I said to myself, “I’ll go for Purim; it’ll work out.” I also had a brother there, [unclear], who was already abroad. He was older, so I figured I’d manage once I got there. The yeshiva administration gave me permission to go for a month and a half. When I arrived, they took me in. They even gave me meals and everything. Finding somewhere to sleep was a problem, so I slept at my aunt’s, but it was all right. Nu, what happened next?

26:56 Speaker 14 You arrived and saw the Rebbe for the first time.

26:57 Speaker 12 Oh! So I arrived. We flew on 11 Adar. The plane left on the morning of 11 Adar, and I got to the Rebbe toward evening. They told me, “The Rebbe comes out for Maariv at a quarter to seven, and you’ll see him.” We even had time beforehand. The plane landed in the afternoon, and we had enough time to go to the mikveh too.

27:29 Speaker 14 Were you alone?

27:31 Speaker 12 My brother took me there. Yes.

27:33 Speaker 14 But you flew alone.

27:34 Speaker 12 I flew alone. Yes. Alone, completely alone. There was no one with me. I arrived at the Rebbe, and that afternoon we went to the mikveh. Then I went in and waited before Maariv. The Rebbe was due to come in at a quarter to seven. Suddenly I saw the Rebbe come in. It was the first time I had ever seen him. The Rebbe stood there at the table—you know where he stood for Minchah. He came in with his gartel not yet fastened and his siddur, and they were saying Vehu Rachum. The Rebbe took his gartel, and in the middle of Vehu Rachum, while he was standing there, he looked at me. I was standing very close; there weren’t many people upstairs then. The Rebbe looked at me, and I looked at him. And I saw that the Rebbe was a flesh-and-blood person. Until then, you know, the Rebbe was Moshe Rabbeinu, the Rebbe was the leader of the Jewish people, the Rebbe led the whole world, with all the wars and all the stories and everything. Suddenly you see that the Rebbe—all the holiness and the Shechinah you picture in spiritual terms—suddenly you see it all there physically, quite literally. It affected me deeply. Suddenly I saw that you don’t have to float in the air. Here was the Rebbe, simply davening like a flesh-and-blood person. And you could see how the Rebbe was connected to you, how he looked at you. You could see the Shechinah in the physical world, as they say. That was very powerful. That was the first thing. The next day, too, when people said Hagomel, the Rebbe looked at each person who said it very intently. It reminded me of a sicha of the Frierdiker Rebbe. He once said that when a Rebbe looks at a chossid, at a person, he draws out all the bad and casts it away, and reveals the good so that the good will overcome the bad. You could really feel it when the Rebbe looked at you. The Rebbe drew out your soul, so that you could become, as they say, a mensch, a chossid.

29:58 Speaker 15 That was the first time. And now it’s fifty-two years later.

30:03 Speaker 12 After that came Purim. Purim was on a Friday, and—

30:10 Speaker 15 A three-day Purim.

30:11 Speaker 12 A three-day Purim. There it wasn’t a three-day Purim, but there was a whole situation then. I don’t know exactly what it was, something involving [unclear]; there was a major conflict. They said the Rebbe had a lot of anguish during those weeks. They asked the Rebbe what the schedule would be for Purim, since Purim fell on a Friday. When would the seudah be?

30:36 Speaker 15 The Frierdiker Rebbe, twenty years earlier.

30:39 Speaker 12 Twenty years earlier. I think the Rebbe had held some sort of gathering on Shabbos then; that’s what I saw in the sichos. But this time the Rebbe said the Purim seudah would be on Shabbos Kodesh, as usual, like any Shabbos meal. What did “as usual” mean? I didn’t know that either, so I waited to see. Then Purim came. I remember the Rebbe coming in for the Megillah, and really, every little thing. Yes, of course, the davening was downstairs. Those first two days, all of a sudden you were seeing the Rebbe in the physical world. Until then we had never seen the Rebbe; it had all been in our imaginations. I imagined, I don’t know, some kind of angel walking around New York. Suddenly you see the Rebbe in person, with a tallis and tefillin, looking around, stamping his feet at Haman’s name. I watched everything the Rebbe did. Then, at the seudah, I had no idea what a seudah with the Rebbe was like. How did the Rebbe conduct himself? Even though we’d heard the broadcasts and heard the Rebbe deliver sichos, seeing how the Rebbe sat with the crowd made a very strong impression on me that first time.

32:07 Speaker 15 I hadn’t even seen a photograph. No, there weren’t any yet.

32:09 Speaker 12 Maybe we saw a picture of yeshivos[?] here. Here are pictures from Tu BiShvat, but that’s not it. Anyway, after davening, I had a cousin there. I asked him where I could stand to hear the Rebbe. I had no place, nothing. He said, “Listen, I stand opposite the Rebbe.” You know where Simo and Benzion stood, if you remember.

32:38 Speaker 15 I don’t remember. I know where they stood.

32:39 Speaker 12 They stood—

32:40 Speaker 15 Simo was a cousin.

32:41 Speaker 12 Yes. Actually, he didn’t know me at all, but he was, yes. I had another cousin there, an Israeli who lived in New York. So he told me, “Listen, I stand behind him.” People stood all mixed together there. If you stand on a pyramid, you have a fixed spot. You can’t move, you can’t move anyone else, and you can’t push your way in. But there, he said, it’s on the floor. People will push you—no, when they push you, push back. He said, “Don’t let them push you away. Stand there until you manage to stay.” And it really was good advice. In the end I stayed there. I squeezed in, and I could see the Rebbe very clearly because I was right opposite him. Suddenly the Rebbe came in, and you saw everyone standing there. The bachurim, everyone sitting around the Rebbe. I had never realized that the Rebbe was surrounded on all sides. That also impressed me very much: the Rebbe wasn’t sitting like some rosh yeshiva, at the head with everyone behind him. You could see it plainly. Suddenly you saw that the Rebbe was sitting among the yeshiva bachurim, surrounded by everyone.

33:56 Speaker 15 Meaning there were people behind him too.

33:58 Speaker 12 The back was full—not just a few people. Some were sitting and some were standing. Some stood up on the pyramids, if you remember. And the Rebbe was sitting there, and I saw that he wasn’t leaning back in his chair. He was sitting on about a third of the chair. He sat there just as I had pictured a prophet speaking the word of Hashem with everyone around him. He sat with such humility and bittul. You could see in the Rebbe what is written about Moshe Rabbeinu. You saw it physically. Suddenly, you saw everything physically. That also made a tremendous impression on me. Everything we had learned in Chassidus—until then, we’d say, yes, bittul, Atzilus, what do I know? Here you saw a Yid sitting there, so humble, full of bittul. All the time, [unclear]... And the Rebbe began to speak. He began speaking about Shabbos. At first we didn’t understand the sichos so well, because we weren’t used to hearing the Rebbe. But the very fact that the Rebbe was speaking, and then suddenly the Rebbe said “L’chaim” to you—that was something else altogether. The Rebbe said “L’chaim” to me. Yes, really. Of course, he said “L’chaim” to you and to Yankel and to Ber, to everyone. It was a very, very memorable farbrengen. The Rebbe said a maamar and a sicha and spoke about Rashi, everything. I even remember the Rebbe speaking about Rashi on the Megillah. Somewhere in the middle of it—at the end, after the Rashi, or before it, I don’t remember—the Rebbe spoke about “Who is a Jew,” and he cried out. Suddenly you saw the Rebbe crying out from the depths of his heart. The Rebbe cried, “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.” [unclear] The Rebbe was speaking about the Knesset members sitting in their—

36:05 Speaker 15 Seats.

36:06 Speaker 12 Seats, and not wanting to budge. And the Rebbe said they thought heaven was their throne. You really saw the Rebbe speaking from the depths of his heart. You saw that every word of the Rebbe was, as Avraham had described it, the word of Hashem. The Rebbe speaks the word of Hashem; it’s prophecy. That was how he had taught us: when the Rebbe speaks the word of Hashem, these are the words of a tzaddik. The Rebbe’s words—it’s Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the Shechinah speaking through his throat. And after everything you’d heard about it, you saw it all physically. It wasn’t fantasy, the Shechinah speaking through Moshe’s throat and all that. You saw a Yid sitting and speaking, and you saw that nothing else mattered to him, only the word of Hashem. Only the word of Hashem—that was what was on the agenda: what was happening, what was new about Purim, what was new about this. That farbrengen, that whole atmosphere, affected me very, very deeply. It was my first farbrengen. What I want to emphasize is what happened on Motzaei Shabbos. By Motzaei Shabbos, my friends had already managed to eat before—

37:35 Speaker 15 The farbrengen ended before Shabbos was over.

37:36 Speaker 12 Yes, just before sunset. The Rebbe finished the farbrengen. The usual arrangement was that if the Rebbe went home, everyone went home to eat. Even if it was already twilight, if the Rebbe went home, that was it—everyone went. It must have been seven or ten minutes before sunset. They finished Minchah and asked Groner, “Is the Rebbe going home?” The Rebbe said he was going home. So we saw the Rebbe leave. When the Rebbe went home after a farbrengen, people didn’t formally escort him; the whole crowd simply left.

38:15 Speaker 15 The whole crowd was behind the Rebbe.

38:16 Speaker 12 As though each person was going to his own home. But it worked out that they were walking with the Rebbe. The Rebbe went in front and everyone followed. Once they got to President Street, the Rebbe didn’t want that anymore, so he walked on alone and everyone went their own way. But until President Street—or a little before that, around Brooklyn Avenue—everyone walked together in long streams, really long streams. People, babies, all kinds of children. Everyone wished the Rebbe “Gut Shabbos,” including the children. It was a very beautiful sight. Then we went to eat the Shabbos meal and came back for Maariv. The Rebbe davened Maariv, went into his room, and then went home. Afterward someone told me, “Hey, it’s not over. There’s chazarah.” What’s chazarah? I didn’t know what it was. I had never been to chazarah. I saw Reb Yoel sit down and begin repeating it. I thought, What is this? What’s he repeating? Then I came closer and heard him repeat the entire farbrengen from the beginning. The bachurim were sitting and writing, and I saw that people were making comments. Someone would say, “By the way, he said this, he said this.” Then someone suddenly said to Reb Yoel, “The Rebbe meant this.”

39:45 Speaker 15 Meaning it this way.

39:46 Speaker 12 Yes.

39:47 Speaker 15 Interpreting it.

39:47 Speaker 12 And Reb Yoel was very... I also learned from all this how one should conduct oneself. He said, “Yes, this is chazarah. If you know that the Rebbe said that,” then fine, I accept it.

40:04 Speaker 15 If you know—

40:05 Speaker 12 That the Rebbe said that word, then I accept it, that’s fine, and we’ll write it down. We’ll look at it afterward. But what the Rebbe meant? Now isn’t the time for that. We’re not thinking at all about what the Rebbe meant. We have to repeat what the Rebbe said. Reb Yoel was a man who understood things, and sometimes, while repeating the sichos, he would be moved by their content. But right now this was chazarah. There was such bittul to the Rebbe’s words. First you repeat the Rebbe’s words—that comes first. He was so particular about it. Whenever a bachur would say, “I think what the Rebbe meant was...” he’d say, “Stop with ‘what the Rebbe meant.’” He couldn’t bear it. He didn’t, G-d forbid, hurt anyone—

40:52 Speaker 15 For saying what the Rebbe meant.

40:53 Speaker 12 Yes. He said, “Tell me what the Rebbe said.” So we learned that this is what one has to do.

40:59 Speaker 15 Since I mentioned Reb Yoel, I recently heard a way someone put it. I don’t know if anyone heard it from Reb Yoel himself, but this is how they described him: When Reb Yoel comes to a farbrengen, he doesn’t even know the weekly parsha. He’s hearing it now from the Rebbe.

41:11 Speaker 12 Yes.

41:12 Speaker 15 When the Rebbe speaks about the weekly parsha, it’s as though he’s learning it right then from the Rebbe.

41:18 Speaker 12 Yes.

41:18 Speaker 15 And then you stayed on as students. You had actually come for only a month, supposedly.

41:22 Speaker 12 Yes, we came for a month. In the end I stayed through Pesach and everything. And I had a friend who—

41:30 Speaker 15 Wait, if you came for a month, did you intend to go into yechidus?

41:35 Speaker 12 I think that if I had gone back, I would have gone into yechidus.

41:39 Speaker 15 Before Pesach, but not when you first arrived.

41:41 Speaker 12 Yes, not when I arrived—afterward, before going back. That was the arrangement. So, after Pesach, or perhaps already before Pesach, I had a friend—he’s no longer in this world, so I can mention him—Yossi Gruzman.

42:04 Speaker 15 Of course you can mention him.

42:05 Speaker 12 Yes?

42:06 Speaker 15 Yosef Tzvi Gruzman.

42:07 Speaker 12 We were very close friends, a little in Kfar Chabad and especially there. He said to me, “Listen, you’ve come to the Rebbe. It’s time you stayed here and stopped talking about leaving.” I told him, “What do you mean? I don’t have permission from the yeshiva administration and all that.” He said, “I didn’t have permission either.”

42:28 Speaker 15 When did he arrive?

42:28 Speaker 12 He came for Tishrei, he came for Tishrei. There were fellows who had permission and stayed on. But he stayed without permission. He just kept staying. His father said he should come back, and he told his father, “Dad, I’ll come back in another month, another month, another month.” He was a spirited little fellow. In the end, Reb Mendelik let him stay and... overlooked it. So he says to me, “Listen, they took me in; they’ll take you in too. Stay here. Why do you need to go back? Forget it.” He convinced me too. I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure.

43:07 Speaker 15 How old were you?

43:08 Speaker 12 I was seventeen. So I told him, “All right, we’ll see, we’ll see.” Eventually I said, “But how can I stay? I don’t even have a place to sleep here.” I had slept at my aunt’s the whole month. I had permission to eat, so the dining hall wasn’t a problem anymore. The supervisor then was Rabbi Michoel Lipsker. You didn’t know him. No, you didn’t know him. He had seen that I had a note, and he no longer remembered how long the note was good for. He knew me already, and that was that. I went into the dining hall and ate there too. But where would I sleep? I had nowhere to sleep. And I wasn’t officially in the yeshiva either. So he tells me, “Don’t worry.” An apartment became available, and he went to Shloime Zach—Shloime Zach was involved from the beginning. He was very trusted by the bochurim; he would farbreng with us. And Reb Shloime said, “Nu, blayb do.”

44:04 Speaker 15 Stay here.

44:06 Speaker 12 That’s what he told me. I said to him, “But I don’t have permission.”

44:09 Speaker 16 M’redt mit Mendelik, m’macht epes.

44:12 Speaker 15 “We’ll talk to Reb Mendelik; we’ll work something out.” He’s simply translating from Yiddish.

44:15 Speaker 12 So in the end he gave me—he arranged it. Reb Shloime arranged an apartment for us and said he didn’t want the younger bochurim sleeping on their own. In other words, he was putting me in there too, and Yossi and one other fellow, and he said, “I’ll bring you older bochurim.”

44:36 Speaker 15 To keep an eye on you.

44:36 Speaker 12 Yes, to keep an eye on us, so we wouldn’t just do whatever we wanted. Fine, we agreed. So they gave us an apartment right where Tzion Vistcha[?] is today. There was an old building there, and they gave us an apartment in it. He put us in even without permission. So Shloime said, “All right, go ahead.” He told Shloime, “I’m taking David in.” He said, “Fine, go ahead and come in. Don’t say I told you to.” Everything was fine. Well, after that I started to—

45:02 Speaker 15 Now, just one second before that: Pesach ’74, the Rebbe came to the Sedarim. Were you with the bochurim?

45:05 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, yes, yes, I was with the bochurim. Yes, that I was. The Rebbe came to the Sedarim. That was—Pesach began on Motzaei Shabbos. Yes, I remember that. And the Rebbe distributed matzah on Friday. Yes, that was also the first time we received two pieces of matzah from the Rebbe.

45:30 Speaker 15 Every bochur got them?

45:31 Speaker 12 Yes. The Rebbe distributed them until ’78. Well, I received them in ’74, ’75, ’76; ’77 was the last time. When the Rebbe—

45:41 Speaker 15 Two pieces of matzah?

45:42 Speaker 12 The Rebbe’s distribution of matzah was something special, a little like the pouring. It wasn’t like lekach, or dollars, or any other food. It was completely different. Why? When the Rebbe distributed lekach, there was a big box standing there, with all the lekach already cut. The Rebbe would say, “May you have a sweet year, may you have a sweet year, may you have a sweet year.” Dollars too: the dollars were there and the Rebbe handed them out. You can see it in the videos. The same thing when the Rebbe distributed kos shel bracha.

46:16 Speaker 15 Poured it.

46:17 Speaker 12 Poured it. But with the matzos, the Rebbe had packages of matzos there on a chair, two packages.

46:25 Speaker 15 Inside the room?

46:26 Speaker 12 No.

46:27 Speaker 15 Where was it?

46:28 Speaker 12 At the threshold. The Rebbe stood by the door.

46:31 Speaker 15 The Rebbe stood in the way of the—

46:32 Speaker 12 The Rebbe stood in the room.

46:33 Speaker 15 In the room?

46:33 Speaker 12 Inside the room, but at the threshold, by the door, close to the door. I think the package was beside him, inside, but very close to the door. And the Rebbe would look at the matzos, and then, as if to say, “Wait, who are you?” The Rebbe would really look at you like that. Afterward the Rebbe would take hold of the matzah, and sometimes he would take one from underneath. Even when there were already broken matzos on top, the Rebbe would dig down, breaking off two pieces of matzah for you. You could really see hashgacha pratis there. I don’t know how else to put it. It was as though the Rebbe was giving you the matzos that belonged to your soul. I don’t know; the Rebbe really looked at you, and that’s why it took a long time.

47:19 Speaker 15 In other words, he broke the matzah after he saw you, not beforehand—

47:22 Speaker 12 First he looked, and then he went to the box and began breaking it. I don’t know whether he took from the top or the bottom. He would break off pieces. I would always hear the sound of the matzah breaking.

47:34 Speaker 15 And everyone received two pieces, ostensibly for the two Sedarim.

47:37 Speaker 12 Yes, ostensibly for the two Sedarim. That’s how we understood it. The Rebbe gave everyone two. That’s how it was for three years—’74, ’75, ’76, ’77—four. And the Rebbe distributed them twice. First, once the matzos had been baked—they baked the matzos after midday—the Rebbe would only begin distributing them at two, or sometimes two-thirty, because they had to bake them and bring them over, and the Rebbe did hafrashas challah, and... that took time. The Rebbe distributed them until hadlokas haneiros. Right up until hadlokas haneiros. And of course, not everyone ever managed to receive them by hadlokas haneiros, so the Rebbe distributed them after Maariv, after Maariv.

48:32 Speaker 17 Before he went to the Sedarim, before—

48:33 Speaker 12 Before he went to the Sedarim. In my opinion, the Rebbe didn’t begin his own Seder before ten-thirty at night, because afterward he went to all the Sedarim. He distributed matzah for about three-quarters of an hour after Maariv, and then the Rebbe went to the Sedarim, and then the Rebbe went to Beis Chana and all the Sedarim.

48:51 Speaker 17 Meaning yours, the yeshiva’s, Beis Chana’s.

48:52 Speaker 12 The yeshiva, Machon Chana. And I don’t remember; at Purim there was the Russian one[?].

48:56 Speaker 17 The Russian one.

48:56 Speaker 12 Yes, and after that the Rebbe went home. So it was around ten, ten-thirty when the Rebbe would even begin the first Seder.

49:06 Speaker 17 You didn’t go to Machon Chana or the Russian one.

49:08 Speaker 12 No, no, no, no one went. But when the Rebbe arrived, the ke’arah had to be ready already, because the Rebbe would look at the ke’arah. The Rebbe was particular that everything should be there. Sometimes—I don’t remember this myself, but they said the Rebbe would sometimes point out if something wasn’t right, [unclear] or something, to that extent. Then the Rebbe would go into the kitchen, look around, and ask Mrs. Musiner about all the hiddurim. She would show him the refrigerator and the stove, how she had covered everything, and so on. Afterward the Rebbe would come out of the kitchen to the bochurim. The Rebbe would give her a blessing, but we didn’t hear that. Then the Rebbe would stand in the middle, while the bochurim were sitting all around. Suddenly the Rebbe would stand in the middle and begin giving a blessing.

50:02 Speaker 17 They stayed where they were; they didn’t come closer.

50:04 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, they didn’t come closer. It was good that they didn’t, but you could more or less hear, because the Rebbe spoke loudly and it became quiet. The Rebbe didn’t speak for long, three or four minutes. The Rebbe gave a blessing connected with Shabbos. It was close to Shabbos, close to Shabbos. So the Rebbe spoke about Shabbos Hagadol.

50:22 Speaker 17 Who came with the Rebbe?

50:24 Speaker 12 The secretaries. Yes, the secretaries came with the Rebbe. Yes.

50:32 Speaker 17 After Pesach.

50:33 Speaker 12 After Pesach. So then we started to... I asked what I should do. Yossi told me, “Come to the sedarim. You don’t know anyone; come to the sedarim. Come to Mendelik’s shiurim every week. Make sure he sees you each time.” And when I began getting to know Mendelik, asking him questions and talking to him, he told me, “Listen, I can’t help you. We have an agreement with the administration.”

51:09 Speaker 17 The administration in Kfar Chabad.

51:10 Speaker 12 Yes, that we don’t take anyone in without their approval. I told him, “You know what? I’ll send a letter.” In short, he said, “Send it, and we’ll see.” But I felt that, deep down, he wouldn’t be the one to hold things up. And that’s what happened. A month went by, then two, then three, until he told me, “You know what? You’ll wait until they answer, and so on. Have you sent it already? If you have, fine.” Then he told me, “You know what? I’ll take you in. Don’t tell them I took you in.”

51:48 Speaker 17 By “took you in,” you mean he put you on the lists.

51:50 Speaker 12 Yes.

51:50 Speaker 17 Essentially, on the report to the Rebbe.

51:51 Speaker 12 Yes, exactly. So he put my name on the report to the Rebbe as having joined, and then he wrote to the Rebbe, and that was it—I became a regular bochur. I even received the stipend from Tammuz, I think. By Sivan or Tammuz I was already receiving a stipend. They gave fifteen dollars a month then. Today, rachmana litzlan, the bochurim pay a fortune. I don’t understand why, but there’s no place like it. So that’s how things went for a while. And I also didn’t want to go in for yechidus, because I was there without permission. So the whole time, even when my birthday came around, I didn’t want to go in.

52:34 Speaker 18 Your birthday was before that.

52:35 Speaker 12 Yes, it was in Tammuz. I didn’t want to yet; it wasn’t entirely official, so I said I’d wait a little longer. I didn’t want to go in. I said, “I’m staying anyway, so I’ll go in another six months.”

52:46 Speaker 18 Yes, just to ask: I’ve thought about this. Compared with when I came, was there more attention, so to speak, for the students in later years? Whoever wanted to could go by for dollars.

53:02 Speaker 12 Yes.

53:04 Speaker 18 So the students actually had more extensive contact, no?

53:07 Speaker 12 Why?

53:08 Speaker 18 Because what was there?

53:09 Speaker 12 There were farbrengens.

53:11 Speaker 18 There wasn’t an opportunity to say l’chaim. L’chaim.

53:13 Speaker 12 Yes. And the Rebbe also began giving out dollars at farbrengens.

53:20 Speaker 18 To the tank crews.

53:20 Speaker 12 To the tank crews. That’s when the tanks started. So we went to the Rebbe as tank crews. We didn’t always go. That’s another thing—I didn’t always want to go. But really, people didn’t approach the Rebbe nearly as much as they did later, when the Rebbe gave out dollars every week. That wasn’t in my time either.

53:42 Speaker 18 In Tammuz you started; you officially entered the yeshiva.

53:45 Speaker 12 And then, after that, there was bein hazmanim, the vacation period.

53:54 Speaker 18 When the Americans went to camp.

53:55 Speaker 12 And there were lots of trips in the tanks. We went too.

53:58 Speaker 18 So that’s when the tanks began.

53:59 Speaker 12 Yes. The tanks began in Sivan. Sivan 5734.

54:04 Speaker 18 Taharah, nezikin, kedushah.

54:06 Speaker 12 Yes, that sicha was on 14 Tammuz.

54:10 Speaker 18 Explain the tank.

54:11 Speaker 12 A tank: taharah, nezikin, kedushah—purification, harmful forces, holiness. The Rebbe explained the tank. First of all, the Rebbe said that a tank goes places an ordinary car can’t go, like mountains and so on. So the Rebbe explained that these tanks, too, go to places where Jews are far away, so to speak. We come to bring about purification: first we bring light into the darkness, which drives away the harmful forces, and then we bring holiness through the mitzvah campaigns, with tefillin. The Rebbe strongly encouraged us to go out with the tanks, specifically with [unclear]. That’s when all the stories of 5734 began, and—

54:54 Speaker 18 We’ll get to 5734 in a moment. So in 5734, that’s when the—

54:57 Speaker 12 Yes. The Rebbe began a big push for the tanks and the mitzvah campaigns. Whenever we went out, the Rebbe would actually wave his hand. I even remember one time when we went out in the afternoon. The Rebbe was coming back from the Ohel, and we—Kuti Rap[?] had started going to the airport, so we would go to the airport in a tank. He would take us in a tank; he had arranged a vehicle for it. Once, as we were driving back, the Rebbe was also on his way back from the Ohel, and we met him on the road. The Rebbe saw that the tank was playing Chabad niggunim loudly, and he waved his hand. We saw the Rebbe.

55:42 Speaker 18 He encouraged you with his hand.

55:44 Speaker 12 He encouraged us the way the Rebbe does with his hand. Krinsky was sitting beside him, and the Rebbe moved his hand like this.

55:50 Speaker 18 The way he usually does with the Torah.

55:51 Speaker 12 Yes, the Rebbe really moved his hand like this.

55:53 Speaker 18 You’re describing it as though—

55:55 Speaker 12 Yes. We could actually see the Rebbe moving his hand, and then suddenly the roads diverged. I don’t know; our driver went another way.

56:04 Speaker 18 The Rebbe was in the limousine, and you were in the tank.

56:06 Speaker 12 I don’t know; I don’t recognize the place anymore. That’s it. But for a while we were really together.

56:13 Speaker 18 The Rebbe accompanied you.

56:14 Speaker 12 The Rebbe really accompanied us like that. It was something remarkable.

56:17 Speaker 18 That same summer the Rebbe spoke about the mezuzah campaign. In Sivan, about mezuzos. They told stories in Eretz Yisroel.

56:21 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, all the stories that happened. Fifteen campaigns.

56:26 Speaker 18 The children of Maalot.

56:27 Speaker 12 Yes, the children of Maalot—that was in Iyar. Yes.

56:34 Speaker 18 And then you entered. Elul arrived.

56:36 Speaker 12 Now, here’s how I got into yechidus. When Elul came, I could no longer go into yechidus, because the Rebbe didn’t receive people for yechidus in Elul. In Tishrei there were guests, so Leibel wouldn’t let me. In Cheshvan the Rebbe began yechidus again.

56:54 Speaker 18 And then, on Shabbos Bereishis, I think the Rebbe said that—

56:56 Speaker 12 Suddenly, on Shabbos Bereishis, the Rebbe—

56:57 Speaker 18 There would be no more birthday yechidus.

56:59 Speaker 12 Birthday yechidus. So I wasn’t sure, but I said to myself that presumably the Rebbe hadn’t meant someone who had never gone in at all. Around Kislev I went to Groner and told him I wanted to go into yechidus. He told me, “What? You can’t now,” and so on. He said, “For your birthday?” I said, “No, not for my birthday. I’ve simply never been.” So he told me, “First of all, there are guests here now. When there are guests, I don’t give the bochurim appointments.” I said, “Fine.” Kislev passed, 19 Kislev passed, Chanukah came. So I went to him right after Chanukah. I said, “Listen, it’s Teves now. No excuses: there are no guests, it isn’t Yud Shvat yet,” and so on. I kept pestering him. He said, “Why do you want it so badly?” I told him, “I do. I’ve never been in yechidus.” In the end, he let me in and set a time for me. It was late Teves, 18 Teves. It was a Thursday when I went into yechidus. I wrote everything to the Rebbe. I wrote that I hadn’t wanted to—I had felt uneasy the whole time, wondering whether, after all, I’d done the wrong thing by getting in without permission. All right, I’d gotten in, but the administration in Kfar Chabad hadn’t agreed, and I didn’t feel at peace with myself. So I said to myself, “I need yechidus. I’ll write to the Rebbe.”

58:37 Speaker 18 You needed approval.

58:38 Speaker 12 Final approval, so to speak, and I would write to him about everything. Among the things I wrote, I asked: since the administration in Eretz Yisroel hadn’t given permission, even though the administration here had agreed and accepted me, should I return to Eretz Yisroel? That’s what I wrote, despite how much I wanted to stay. In yechidus, the Rebbe began by giving me a blessing. He said I should study nigleh and Chassidus with chayus. I once spoke with your father about the Rebbe saying to study with chayus—not just to study, but to study with chayus. Then, in the middle, the Rebbe suddenly said, “And study in the place your heart desires.” That was the answer, as it were.

59:31 Speaker 18 Study in the place your heart desires.

59:33 Speaker 12 Yes. That meant a great deal to me. I received it with great excitement: the Rebbe trusted my heart. I’d heard several times about bochurim who wrote to the Rebbe that they wanted to study here or there, and the Rebbe wrote back, “Who says that what your heart wants is what your soul wants?” But the Rebbe agreed. When I came out from the Rebbe, I suddenly felt at ease. Yes, I could stay; there was no problem. The Rebbe had said to study in the place my heart desired, and had emphasized “the place your heart desires.” So I stayed. I also asked the Rebbe about Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. We weren’t putting on Rabbeinu Tam yet. The Rebbe told me, “If you know a few maamarim by heart.”

1:00:26 Speaker 18 If you know a few maamarim—

1:00:27 Speaker 12 If you know a few maamarim by heart. In fact, at that point I didn’t know any maamarim by heart, so I thought I would learn some and then write to the Rebbe. When I came out of yechidus, someone at a farbrengen—I don’t remember whether it was that night—said to me, “Why don’t you write to the Rebbe that you know chapters of Tanya by heart?” Mendel had gotten us to learn chapters of Tanya by heart. Abrams had also told us, “You don’t go to the Rebbe without knowing twelve chapters.” So we learned all twelve chapters—no prizes, nothing—simply because we wanted to go to the Rebbe. I wrote to the Rebbe that I had learned the chapters of Tanya by heart. The Rebbe immediately sent out a note. He wrote, “Those also count as maamarim, and he should put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin.”

1:01:17 Speaker 18 Those also count as maamarim.

1:01:18 Speaker 12 Yes, yes. I saw that in the Rebbe’s holy handwriting. Binyamin Rami[?] didn’t give me the note, but he showed it to me: “Those also count as maamarim, and he should put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin.” I still managed to put them on that very day. It was right before Rosh Chodesh, and Binyamin looked for me until he found me.

1:01:38 Speaker 18 Erev Rosh Hashanah, the 30th—

1:01:39 Speaker 12 Yes.

1:01:41 Speaker 18 If you don’t mind, let’s go back for a moment to Elul. Your first Elul with the Rebbe, and then Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos.

1:01:56 Speaker 12 The first Elul I remember. First of all, I suddenly saw something new, something that was a revelation to me. The Rebbe distributed kos shel bracha on Pesach and Shavuos. But on Erev Rosh Hashanah, suddenly I saw that everyone had to approach the Rebbe and give him something. There’s what the Rebbe gives out, and there’s what each person gives. That was very moving. I watched the Rebbe receive something from each person. You give the Rebbe a pan, and it’s as though the Rebbe is waiting to see: What are you bringing me? The Rebbe took all the panim and went to the Ohel. Now, whenever the Rebbe went to the Ohel, he went alone. No one else went to be at the Ohel. On Erev Rosh Hashanah, we were there together with the Rebbe. We arrived before the Rebbe did. Suddenly I saw the Rebbe arrive, and it was also the first time I saw him do something so simply: he knocked three times, waited a brief moment, and then opened the door. You understand? With the Rebbe, nothing is just for show. When the Rebbe knocks, he waits for an answer. He waits for an answer, and then opens the door. These are little things, but you see that with the Rebbe, everything is genuine. Nothing is for show. Then I saw the Rebbe put on his glasses. The truth is, as soon as he got into the car to go to the Ohel, he put on his glasses immediately, even before reading the panim, even while saying our [unclear]. I don’t know. As soon as he entered the Ohel.

1:04:00 Speaker 18 The car.

1:04:01 Speaker 12 The car—yes, he put on his glasses immediately, inside the car. I watched the Rebbe standing there with his glasses on, looking at the panim, reading them and tearing them. He tore some, put some back, and did other things with others. I was there for five or ten minutes; I couldn’t stay longer. I felt as though, who knows, perhaps we were disturbing him. I don’t know. The Rebbe is standing there, and you see him do one thing with some and something else with others. It’s not—it’s not... So we went back to 770. And once again, I saw how everything we had learned in Chassidus about malchus and all these matters was simply embodied in the Rebbe. When the Rebbe came in, you saw him sit down before Maariv and say Tehillim. It became quiet, utterly silent. The Rebbe said Tehillim for ten or fifteen minutes.

1:05:11 Speaker 18 Before Maariv?

1:05:12 Speaker 12 Before Maariv, on the first night—only on the first night. Suddenly the Rebbe stood up, and then Avinu Malkeinu began. Suddenly you could see that [unclear] began, as though there had been a kind of stillness. The Rebbe had been saying Tehillim, looking into the Tehillim as he said it. You could see that the Rebbe said everything with such simplicity. And we knew that now there was going to be a [unclear], as chassidim would put it. After that—the Rebbe had been at the Ohel all day. He arrived just a few minutes before sunset, davened Mincha, went into his room, and came down for Maariv fifteen minutes, half an hour, perhaps an hour later. After Maariv, the Rebbe would say... There were periods when the Rebbe said “Gut Yom Tov” aloud, in the years around 5726. Sometimes he said it quietly; I don’t know, it varied from year to year. That was the night. Afterward the Rebbe went home, of course, to sleep. And then there was a story. I just remembered—you wanted to go on to Rosh Hashanah.

1:06:36 Speaker 18 Whatever works for you.

1:06:37 Speaker 12 No, I’ve just remembered something I’d forgotten. It was in the summer. It was something special, a very special Shabbos. I’ve told this story several times. It was when the Rebbe spoke so much about the mivtzoim and the mitzvah tanks. It was Shabbos, 2 Tammuz. The second of Tammuz fell on Shabbos, and Gimmel Tammuz was Sunday.

1:06:57 Speaker 18 Like Pesach.

1:06:58 Speaker 12 Like Pesach. Now, the Rebbe didn’t hold a farbrengen every Shabbos. On most Shabbosim when he did, there was some reason, some basis for a farbrengen. But on Shabbos, 2 Tammuz, it was uncertain whether he would farbreng or not. There were a few signs. One sign in those days, around 5734–5735, was whether the Rebbe stayed in his room for a long time after Maariv on Friday night. Usually, after Maariv, the Rebbe would go upstairs to his room. In the summer, Maariv ended at nine-thirty, and the Rebbe would stay until ten-thirty, sometimes ten-forty-five, and then go home to make Kiddush. The Rebbetzin [unclear]. Sometimes the Rebbe stayed much longer than on an ordinary Shabbos, and that raised the possibility—it was one of the signs—that there might be a farbrengen the next day. And indeed, more often than not, when the Rebbe held a farbrengen, he had stayed late on Friday night. On 2 Tammuz, Friday night began very late, because Tammuz is the height of summer, candle-lighting is very late, and everything is late. The Rebbe went up to his room at about nine-forty or nine-forty-five. After Maariv, he stayed until ten, ten-thirty. At ten-forty-five, the Rebbe still hadn’t come out. Eleven o’clock—and then, you know, that’s exactly when you stay. So I said, “I’m not going to make Kiddush until the Rebbe comes out. I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight.” And I saw that the Rebbe...

1:08:43 Speaker 19 You were sitting in the small zal.

1:08:44 Speaker 12 Yes, in the small zal, the small zal. We were sitting there, sitting there, and the Rebbe didn’t come out. It was already eleven, eleven-fifteen. What? This isn’t normal. The Rebbe came out at ten to twelve. Usually when he came out, he would put his coat over his—over his...

1:09:01 Speaker 19 Over the [unclear]?

1:09:02 Speaker 12 Over the [unclear]. That Shabbos, he went without the coat.

1:09:08 Speaker 19 With the silk visible.

1:09:09 Speaker 12 With the silk and the gartel, and the Rebbe came out at ten to twelve, walking so quickly. He walked fast, came out of [unclear], and we followed him a little way along [unclear]. I saw the Rebbe walking fast, as though [unclear]. I don’t know; that’s how it looked. It seemed that it was very late and he simply had to get home. But the Rebbe looked at the tanks. There was a whole row of mitzvah tanks parked along the street, all along the...

1:09:43 Speaker 19 The service lane, the whole length of it.

1:09:44 Speaker 12 The entire service lane was full of tanks, and the Rebbe looked at the pictures on them. There were pictures of tefillin and of a tank, you know. The Rebbe looked as he walked quickly home, his silk kapote blowing in the wind because he was wearing a gartel. I can’t forget it. It’s such a vivid image: the Rebbe walking quickly home. By then I was sure—or it seemed very likely—that if he was leaving at ten to twelve, there would certainly be a farbrengen the next day.

1:10:15 Speaker 19 Did you accompany the Rebbe all the way home?

1:10:17 Speaker 12 No, not everyone accompanied him. They didn’t allow people to accompany him.

1:10:19 Speaker 19 But there was some other occasion when the Rebbetzin really was concerned about that.

1:10:25 Speaker 12 Yes, I don’t know about that. I heard it from others; I didn’t see it myself. In any case, the next day the Rebbe came to [unclear] as usual: Shacharis, Musaf, everything. And after Musaf, you know, the sign was that he waited for the gabbai’s announcement. There really was a farbrengen. When the Rebbe came up for the farbrengen, I remember that sicha as though it were today, because the Rebbe said such things. He said, “Why am I holding a farbrengen today at all? It isn’t Rosh Chodesh, it isn’t the third of Tammuz.” That’s what the Rebbe said. He went through the possible reasons for a farbrengen, as it were. The Rebbe said, “Shabbos Mevarchim is one thing—I’m walking on an iron bridge.” The sichos have been printed now; someone printed this one a year ago, so I’m just telling you what I remember. “Shabbos Mevarchim is one thing. I’m walking on an iron bridge because the Frierdiker Rebbe instructed me to, so I have no concern about bittul Torah when I take so many Jews away from their learning. The Frierdiker Rebbe told me to do it. But a Shabbos like this one—why am I suddenly holding a farbrengen? There’s no reason for it, no Rosh Chodesh or anything like that.” In short, the Rebbe said, “But since I saw that for two whole weeks, ever since we spoke about the tanks, there has been a tremendous outpouring of activity, those who worked on the mivtzoim I asked for, and really succeeded, have earned a farbrengen.”

1:12:06 Speaker 19 They deserve it.

1:12:06 Speaker 12 Earned it—they earned a farbrengen. That’s what the Rebbe said. That was... It was the first time I saw an awakening from below bring about an awakening from above: the Rebbe truly received our initiative. I sometimes tell students that this farbrengen showed what happens when we give the Rebbe nachas: there’s an awakening from above. The Rebbe gave a farbrengen; without our initiative, it was as though the Rebbe wouldn’t have farbrenged, and because of that initiative, he did. So you see that there are things that depend on us. If we act, good things will happen.

1:12:56 Speaker 19 I’ll go back to Rosh Hashanah 5735.

1:12:58 Speaker 12 So, on the first morning of Rosh Hashanah 5735, I noticed the Rebbe coming in. First of all, I also mentioned this to... what’s his name? My father-in-law. What’s his—ah, Marinovsky. He spoke with me about Rosh Hashanah half a year ago too. Anyway, the Rebbe came in carrying everything. The Rebbe held three or four books: a siddur, a Torah, a thin machzor—that thin machzor—and the Siddur HaAri z”l. And... that’s it, I think.

1:13:44 Speaker 19 Tehillim?

1:13:44 Speaker 12 And Tehillim. Yahel Or Tehillim, right. The Tzemach Tzedek’s Tehillim. Ah, Yahel...

1:13:49 Speaker 19 The Tzemach Tzedek’s commentary.

1:13:50 Speaker 12 An explanation by the Tzemach Tzedek. The Rebbe walked in with three shofars wrapped in handkerchiefs, and he held everything in his left hand. The Rebbe never held things in his right hand. I noticed that several times. The Rebbe would come in with a siddur, with whatever it was, all in his left hand. Everything he carried was in his left hand. So the Rebbe walked in with three siddurim and three shofars, holding them all in his left hand, while his right hand was empty. That’s how the Rebbe came in with his tallis. He sat down, put the shofars into the lectern, and the secretaries brought the panim. That was the first time I saw the secretaries come with bundles—four or five bundles of panim—and actually place them on a table. There was a table beside the Rebbe, apart from his lectern.

1:14:45 Speaker 19 Was there a platform by the previous Rebbe?

1:14:47 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, yes, yes, there was a platform. Yes. They told me there had already been a platform in ’34[?]. I was only ever on the platform. So the Rebbe stood up. They had placed the panim on the table; throughout the davening, the davening went on as usual. Then it came time for maftir. When the Rebbe went up for maftir, all the secretaries followed him with the bundles, and the Rebbe went with the Shulchan Aruch and the siddur. When it came time for the shofars, first the Rebbe read maftir. The maftir was accompanied by very, very intense weeping. The Rebbe always cried during Chana’s prayer there. There was one year, in ’36, when the Rebbe cried unusually hard, but I’ve spoken about that before. The Rebbe gave an entire sicha about Chana, because people didn’t understand why the Rebbe was crying so much at virtually every passage: “I poured out my soul before Hashem.” [unclear] The Rebbe explained the whole discussion.

1:16:08 Speaker 19 The Rebbe spoke about it on 6 Tishrei.

1:16:10 Speaker 12 No, it was printed on 6 Tishrei. The Rebbe spoke about it on the night after Rosh Hashanah, at 770. Yes, the Rebbe spoke about it on the night after Rosh Hashanah. I even have it written down.

1:16:23 Speaker 19 Let’s go back to ’35 for a moment, yes.

1:16:25 Speaker 12 Yes. After that, the Rebbe stood by the bundles and arranged them. At that point I still didn’t know where to stand, either. Stand to the side? Stand here? Wherever you stood, it was terribly difficult. Anyway, I stood facing him, with the Rebbe on the platform and me on this side, the eastern side. I was far away, but I was watching and watching. Suddenly I saw the Rebbe place the bundles down, and everything went dark for me—I couldn’t see a thing.

1:17:07 Speaker 19 The bundles were blocking your view, as it were.

1:17:09 Speaker 12 They were blocking it too, yes. There was already the platform and all that, and people around the Rebbe on either side. In short, I saw the bundles standing there, and I could barely see anything.

1:17:25 Speaker 19 [unclear]

1:17:26 Speaker 12 Yes. I thought, what am I going to do? Where can I go? Looking for another spot now was out of the question. You couldn’t move. I felt so crushed. My first time hearing the shofar blasts, and this happens? Suddenly I saw the Rebbe move one of the bundles back a little, and all at once a gap opened up. I don’t know—it was such hashgachah pratis. Suddenly there was a clear line of sight, and I could see. I could see the Rebbe’s face very clearly. After the Rebbe moved the bundles a little, this gap appeared. I’ll never forget it. At first I had thought, “What are you thinking about yourself? The Rebbe is here, leaning over the panim.” In those early years, in ’35—the Rebbe did it much faster in the later years. [unclear] You have to understand that in ’35 it took the Rebbe a long time, because he leaned over several times. The Rebbe leaned over after maftir.

1:18:35 Speaker 19 Meaning?

1:18:36 Speaker 12 With the tallis.

1:18:37 Speaker 19 He bent down.

1:18:37 Speaker 12 He bent down like this and covered his entire face with the tallis. He stayed that way for about five or six minutes—really, five minutes—before he began “Lamnatzeiach.” He hadn’t said “Lamnatzeiach” yet. Then, suddenly, the Rebbe got up.

1:18:52 Speaker 19 Wait, five or six minutes, or three minutes—it doesn’t matter. What’s happening? Silence.

1:18:57 Speaker 12 Silence, complete stillness. The Rebbe is leaning over. I don’t know whether it was five minutes; you can’t measure something like that. Maybe four minutes. I don’t remember, but it was several minutes. Silence. Nobody says “Lamnatzeiach,” because the Rebbe hasn’t started. The Rebbe has just finished—

1:19:14 Speaker 19 Maftir.

1:19:15 Speaker 12 Kaddish, [unclear], and now the Rebbe is leaning over—

1:19:19 Speaker 19 With the tallis over his face.

1:19:20 Speaker 12 Think about it: the Rebbe is now leaning over your pan. You understand that your pan is there. However it worked, the Rebbe had taken five bundles onto the Torah-reading table. Surely the pan you had handed in on Erev Rosh Hashanah was there. And the Rebbe was leaning over the panim like that, in complete silence. Some people said they heard something. I could hardly hear from where I was; it wasn’t possible to hear. They said the Rebbe was singing a niggun. I don’t know. I didn’t hear it; I never heard it. I couldn’t hear from there. Suddenly the Rebbe got up, took hold of the tallis, and held it like this with both hands. In those years, the way he held the tallis also had a very distinctive shape. I’ll tell you about that in a moment, especially when he said the verses. As soon as he said “Lamnatzeiach,” he lifted the tallis and said, “Lamnatzeiach livnei Korach”—with a roar. The Rebbe roared, and the entire place was quiet, so you could hear him clearly, almost to the far end of the shul. After the Rebbe said “Lamnatzeiach,” he immediately bent down over the panim again, like this, up to seven times. When the Rebbe straightened up for “Min hameitzar,” he took the tallis and made a particular shape with it. He didn’t just hold it: he held it up at the top, making a kind of square.

1:21:14 Speaker 3 Above his forehead, and—

1:21:15 Speaker 12 Above his forehead, and it made an opening.

1:21:18 Speaker 3 Like the shape of a doorway.

1:21:19 Speaker 12 Like a doorway, exactly.

1:21:21 Speaker 3 Around his face.

1:21:22 Speaker 12 Yes. He took hold of the tallis and curved it, making a line here so you could see his forehead. As the Rebbe held it like this, it made the shape of a doorway. It was as though the Rebbe had suddenly made himself a window—a real window, the outline of a window. And that was how the Rebbe began saying each verse. He held the tallis like that throughout all the verses. In the later years he no longer did it; I don’t know why. But in those years he did. I saw it several times, over several years. Then the Rebbe said all the verses, bent down again, and began “Baruch Atah.” For “Baruch Atah,” the Rebbe used the familiar melody. Do you want us to sing the melody?

1:22:21 Speaker 3 Yes, of course.

1:22:23 Speaker 12 First of all, the Rebbe also said the verses with a distinctive melody: “From the narrow straits I called to Hashem; Hashem answered me with expansiveness. Hear my voice according to Your kindness, Hashem; give me life according to Your judgment. The beginning of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments is forever. Guarantee Your servant’s welfare; let the arrogant not oppress me. I rejoice over Your word as one who finds great spoil. Teach me good sense and knowledge, for I have believed in Your mitzvos. Please accept the offerings of my mouth, Hashem, and teach me Your judgments. G-d has ascended with a blast; Hashem, with the sound of the shofar.” Those are the verses. After that the Rebbe began the blessings: “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us to hear the sound of the shofar. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has granted us life, sustained us, and brought us to this time.” Then the Rebbe began to blow the shofar, and as he blew it, he put the—

1:25:00 Speaker 4 The tallis behind his ears.

1:25:01 Speaker 12 Behind his ears. Then you could see his whole forehead, as the Rebbe said, “face to face” during the shofar blowing. The Rebbe said it in the name of the Arizal. You could see that the Rebbe’s entire forehead was bright red—what is written in the Arizal’s teachings was visible, as I said, physically. Then the Rebbe began to blow. When you saw the Rebbe blow the shofar, it was such a thing—it wasn’t simply someone blowing. The Rebbe put it to his mouth and it—

1:25:31 Speaker 4 Got stuck.

1:25:31 Speaker 12 It got stuck. Sometimes the Rebbe would stop, as though the sound hadn’t come out or he had decided it wasn’t a good blast, and he would try again and again. But in the same tone. The Rebbe didn’t strain like this, you know. He just put it to his mouth—

1:25:48 Speaker 4 Without squeezing and straining.

1:25:48 Speaker 12 Without squeezing and straining, and tried again. Many times the Rebbe took a while. Sometimes the Rebbe decided that the shevarim hadn’t come out right[?], and suddenly he repeated them. Things like that happened. I don’t remember when or exactly how, but I remember the Rebbe repeating blasts several times. Again, he did it in the same way. Sometimes it took a while. That’s why I said that this whole process sometimes lasted more than half an hour, if you count from [unclear] until after everything, after the Rebbe had finished blowing—

1:26:19 Speaker 4 Did he switch shofars in the middle?

1:26:21 Speaker 12 Once he switched, yes, once he switched. I was there once when he switched. There was one part where he switched, yes. After that the Rebbe began “Ashrei,” and here too the melody was completely different. Here, after the shofar blowing, you could see that the Rebbe had already, as it were, carried through that whole drawn-out note, and the melody was really one of hope. “Ashrei. Fortunate is the people who know the shofar blast; Hashem, they walk in the light of Your countenance.” Then the second verse was louder: “In Your name they rejoice all day, and through Your righteousness they are exalted.” And the third verse was even stronger: “For You are the glory of their strength, and by Your favor our horn is exalted.” That, that was—

1:27:44 Speaker 4 That was entirely from the verse.

1:27:45 Speaker 12 The Rebbe immediately turned to Reb Mendel Tannenbaum. That’s how it was. You don’t notice it, but I noticed and saw the Rebbe say to him—

1:27:58 Speaker 4 Reb Mendel Tannenbaum was actually the one who called out the blasts.

1:28:00 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, because he was the one calling them out. So he stepped aside. The Rebbe turned, held out the three shofars to him, and asked—

1:28:11 Speaker 4 Because he was going to blow the shofar—

1:28:12 Speaker 12 Yes.

1:28:14 Speaker 4 For the standing blasts.

1:28:14 Speaker 12 For the standing blasts. The Rebbe asked him, “Well, choose. Which one do you want?”

1:28:17 Speaker 4 A shofar.

1:28:18 Speaker 12 Yes, he gestured to him like this: “Which shofar do you want?” Mendel was smart; he took the shofar the Rebbe had blown. I’m just saying that the Rebbe let him choose, because that’s how it was.

1:28:30 Speaker 4 All three shofars were in his hand.

1:28:33 Speaker 12 Yes, yes.

1:28:34 Speaker 4 Resting on his hand.

1:28:34 Speaker 12 Yes, yes. The Rebbe took the three shofars and gestured, “Take whichever one you want.” It was something else—how Mendel immediately grabbed the shofar the Rebbe had blown, and... After that the Rebbe would turn around.

1:28:51 Speaker 4 After that, again—

1:28:52 Speaker 12 Yes. The Rebbe would look at everyone like this, going around. You could see him scanning, really scanning everything around him. The whole crowd, from the front and on every side, including those standing above and below. He didn’t miss anyone. It took time, and he did it in a way you wouldn’t notice, as though he were adjusting his tallis. He’d adjust it this way and that way, and look around. That’s how the Rebbe turned and turned.

1:29:21 Speaker 4 So everyone could look at him.

1:29:26 Speaker 12 Mainly so that the Rebbe could look at everyone.

1:29:29 Speaker 4 He looked to the sides too.

1:29:31 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, that was the main thing. Face to face. The Rebbe looked at each person. He looked at everyone, went over the whole crowd.

1:29:39 Speaker 4 Meaning, it says to look at the face of the person blowing the shofar. Are you saying that here you could also see the Rebbe looking at everyone?

1:29:45 Speaker 12 Yes. It says “face to face,” that one also looks at the person blowing. In particular, it says that this arouses mercy.

1:29:56 Speaker 4 After that came Erev Yom Kippur.

1:29:59 Speaker 12 After that came Erev Yom Kippur, and on Erev Yom Kippur there was the blessing for the Temimim. Yes, there was a blessing after Minchah, and then there was the blessing. The first time that—I don’t remember whether it was in [unclear] or [unclear], one of those years—after Minchah they brought the Rebbe a microphone, and the Rebbe moved it aside like this. He didn’t want to speak into a microphone.

1:30:32 Speaker 4 At the blessing for Anash.

1:30:33 Speaker 12 Yes.

1:30:34 Speaker 4 Until then it had been without a microphone.

1:30:36 Speaker 12 That’s just it, I don’t know what happened. I remember the Rebbe moved it; in the end they did put it there. I no longer remember whether the Rebbe moved it and then they put it back. I don’t know exactly what happened.

1:30:47 Speaker 4 After that, the blessing for the Temimim was already in the zal?

1:30:49 Speaker 12 Yes, in my time it was in the zal. But there wasn’t a microphone there either. In later years, Chaim Boruch put a recorder under the cloth on the lectern.

1:31:07 Speaker 4 A recorder, without a microphone.

1:31:07 Speaker 12 Maybe there was a small microphone; you couldn’t hear it. Maybe people at the back could hear it. But those of us who heard, heard the Rebbe’s own voice.

1:31:18 Speaker 4 [unclear]

1:31:20 Speaker 12 And I’m just saying, before we came to the Rebbe, even though we had listened to broadcasts, you always heard him through a microphone. You didn’t hear the Rebbe’s own voice. On Shabbos and occasions like that, you heard the Rebbe’s voice. The Rebbe also spoke loudly. Understand, when the Rebbe spoke, there were about two thousand people sitting and standing, and most of them could hear in those years. So when the Rebbe spoke, it had an even greater effect. Suddenly you heard it: yes, the Rebbe is speaking. It wasn’t through a microphone anymore. Ah, on Yom Kippur the Rebbe would climb onto his chair.

1:32:05 Speaker 4 [unclear]

1:32:06 Speaker 12 [unclear], but that was only for two or three years, because after that they brought the Rebbe steps.

1:32:11 Speaker 4 Ah, the steps came later, in [unclear]?

1:32:13 Speaker 12 Oh, really? Then, yes, it was for several years. I’d simply forgotten. So yes, I remember the Rebbe always climbing onto the chair.

1:32:22 Speaker 4 The wooden one.

1:32:22 Speaker 12 Yes, the Rebbe climbed onto the chair. That’s how it was.

1:32:26 Speaker 4 Some say that in 5734—there’s a disagreement. Some say the Rebbe climbed up; others say he didn’t.

1:32:30 Speaker 12 I wasn’t there in 5734.

1:32:31 Speaker 4 Yes, no, it’s just that some people—

1:32:32 Speaker 12 No, but in 5735 he climbed onto the steps. He climbed up every time. If not onto the chair, then onto the steps, but he always climbed up. Yes.

1:32:43 Speaker 4 Were there sichos on Sukkos?

1:32:46 Speaker 12 There weren’t sichos on Sukkos, so the Rebbe—

1:32:49 Speaker 4 Meaning, there weren’t sichos every night.

1:32:51 Speaker 12 Right. But the Rebbe came in for almost every prayer service, and the Rebbe would gesture vigorously with his hands. Sometimes the Rebbe would turn toward the crowd. Sometimes—

1:33:01 Speaker 4 Were there a lot of guests then?

1:33:02 Speaker 12 Yes, there were, there were. Relatively speaking, no. Ah, [unclear], the Rebbe would... In general, on Shemini Atzeres the Rebbe would come in without having made Kiddush yet. Maariv was at seven; the Rebbe would go into his room until nine, and at nine he would come down for hakafos. The Rebbe had not yet made Kiddush. All the hakafos were before Kiddush. Sometimes people in the crowd made Kiddush in the sukkahs.

1:33:43 Speaker 4 Mainly the Russians.

1:33:44 Speaker 12 Yes. No, everyone did. The younger people also did, in Binyamin’s sukkah. They would go there to say l’chaim. But it was no more than a little mezonos, some salty snacks and herring or something; they didn’t eat a meal. After that the Rebbe would come in at nine, and then the bidding began. It took a long time.

1:34:09 Speaker 4 The Rebbe conducted all the bidding.

1:34:12 Speaker 12 There was a period when, if the consulate came, the Rebbe would speak.

1:34:16 Speaker 4 That was on the second day.

1:34:17 Speaker 12 On the second day. On the first day there was less bidding too, though I don’t remember why. Or perhaps some of the sales had already been settled. But the Rebbe kept looking into his siddur, over there at the eastern wall. You couldn’t see anything.

1:34:35 Speaker 4 Into a siddur? Not other books?

1:34:36 Speaker 12 No, no, no other books. No, just a siddur, or—I don’t know. He stood; he didn’t sit. Even while they were bidding, he didn’t sit. From the moment he came in until [unclear], until [unclear], after they finished [unclear], the Rebbe never sat down, not once! There was no such thing as the Rebbe sitting. From the beginning of [unclear] until the end of hakafos. In general, you know that on Shabbos the Rebbe didn’t sit through the whole davening or the Torah reading.

1:35:07 Speaker 4 Until 5738.

1:35:08 Speaker 12 Until 5738. The Rebbe would come in and stand at the lectern until after Musaf and Tehillim. He didn’t sit in the chair at all. At Maariv he sat from the beginning until Shemoneh Esrei. But at Shacharis he didn’t sit at all—not during Shacharis, not during Musaf, not during the Torah reading. From Shacharis, from ten, you understand, until twelve-fifteen, the Rebbe stood. The whole davening, every Shabbos. Then suddenly, in 5738, we saw the Rebbe begin to sit down, at “Boruch She’amar” and so on. So when the Rebbe sat down during hakafos—

1:35:45 Speaker 4 In 5738.

1:35:46 Speaker 12 I was alarmed. I immediately said, “Something has happened here.” How could the Rebbe be sitting? There was no such thing. In 5735, 5736, 5737—there was no time when the Rebbe sat down, even for a minute. Even though there was time, because the bidding went on and on, and there was shouting and this and that, the Rebbe didn’t sit down for a moment during hakafos. In general, you could see that for the Rebbe, hakafos were a time of special Divine favor. People sometimes think hakafos are [unclear] and so on. For the Rebbe it was an extraordinarily lofty time. In a sense, no less so than the shofar blowing; it’s just that the shofar blowing is solemn. Here the Rebbe danced, and here there was joy, but you could see that for the Rebbe it was a supremely lofty time. I think that’s why the Rebbe was also careful not to make Kiddush or anything. On the second night the Rebbe held a farbrengen, so the Rebbe made Kiddush. But even then, only Kiddush, and that was it, nothing more. They would eat the Yom Tov meal at three in the morning.

1:36:59 Speaker 5 He didn’t say l’chaim in the middle of hakafos either.

1:37:01 Speaker 12 Of course not! Of course not! There was no such thing at all. At the morning hakafos, the Rebbe didn’t do that at all.

1:37:11 Speaker 5 Well, [unclear] did. Leibel made Kiddush.

1:37:14 Speaker 12 The Rebbe didn’t. The Rebbe had not yet made Kiddush.

1:37:18 Speaker 5 Something, yes.

1:37:20 Speaker 12 The Rebbe, the Rebbe would recite “Atah Hareisa.” On the first night he recited only the first and last verses. On the second night he recited all of the first “Atah Hareisa.” After that, on the second and third rounds, he recited the first and last verses. There was something interesting in 5736. In the morning—Simchas Torah morning—it was relatively sparse compared with the night. So I always tried—not necessarily to get there for davening; I didn’t always make it for davening—but we got there for “Atah Hareisa” before hakafos. There were some who came—

1:37:59 Speaker 5 Quite early. It was at quarter to eleven.

1:38:01 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, something like that. Closer to eleven, yes, something like that. The beginning of “Atah Hareisa.”

1:38:05 Speaker 5 That’s from five o’clock onward.

1:38:06 Speaker 12 Yes, five o’clock and later, yes. Yes. So one year, the Rebbe said Ata Horeisa three times. The first time, everything followed the usual order, and then Or Zarua. Suddenly, after Or Zarua, the Rebbe began. That was [unclear] 5734, exactly fifty-two years ago—ah, 5736, exactly fifty years ago. “Remember Your congregation, which You acquired of old; the tribe of Your inheritance, which You redeemed; Mount Zion, where You dwelt.” Suddenly the Rebbe said that after Or Zarua. Afterward he said, “Yet G-d is my King from of old, working salvations in the midst of the earth.” That was in 5736. Ask anyone who was there [?]—most of them don’t know. Why don’t they know? I’ll tell you. I argued with a nudnik. The nudnik tells me he’s ready to swear to it. So I tell him... In the end, he says to me... I told him, on the street [unclear], I’m afraid we’ll go back and forth.

1:39:15 Speaker 5 I heard it myself.

1:39:16 Speaker 12 Yes. So in the end he questioned me about [unclear]. I told him it was Simchas Torah morning—yes, Simchas Torah morning. He said, “I’m not getting involved, but I arrived at one-thirty, two o’clock.” I asked Rabbi Yair; he didn’t remember either.

1:39:32 Speaker 5 Well, Rabbi Yair wouldn’t have remembered.

1:39:33 Speaker 12 He didn’t remember.

1:39:33 Speaker 5 That’s not... no.

1:39:34 Speaker 12 No, that wasn’t it. But the Rebbe said those two verses only in 5736. I asked about earlier years, and they told me the Rebbe had never said verses from his own chapter. This was the one and only time I remember. Those two verses are in chapter 74. It was 5736, 5736, and he said verses from chapter 74.

1:39:54 Speaker 5 Fifty years.

1:39:55 Speaker 12 Yes, exactly fifty years. He said those two verses.

1:40:02 Speaker 5 In the years afterward, did the Rebbe take part in the sales, or had that already stopped?

1:40:06 Speaker 12 No, no.

1:40:07 Speaker 5 In the early years, yes, of course.

1:40:08 Speaker 12 Yes, I don’t know about that.

1:40:12 Speaker 5 Was there something during the hakafos?

1:40:14 Speaker 12 During the hakafos, the Rebbe mostly stood in his place and encouraged the dancing, except for the first hakafah on the seventh.

1:40:21 Speaker 5 He danced with the Rashag, when the Rashag was still at the height of his strength.

1:40:25 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, the Rashag was... The Rebbe would put his hand on him, and the Rebbe would dance with him and turn around. He would look out at everyone in the shul, looking at each and every person with such grace, such grace. Throughout the hakafos.

1:40:43 Speaker 5 And when the Rashag stopped—he ran out of strength—

1:40:45 Speaker 12 The Rebbe stopped.

1:40:47 Speaker 5 There was no question of the Rebbe dancing alone.

1:40:48 Speaker 12 No, no, no, no. Until 5748, the Rebbe danced with him, so it was shorter. In 5748 it began to last longer. But, ah, I wasn’t there in 5741, though they told me that in 5741 the Rebbe also danced alone. The Rashag wasn’t feeling well, and he was worried the whole time that the Rebbe would dance with someone else. In the end they told him the Rebbe had danced alone, and the Rashag was overjoyed.

1:41:23 Speaker 5 Then came the year 5736.

1:41:27 Speaker 12 The year 5736 was a very special year. It began with Rosh Hashanah—

1:41:30 Speaker 5 Actually, sorry, 5735. You were there for that whole year.

1:41:34 Speaker 12 Yes, we were there. A lot happened. The Rebbe held many unexpected farbrengens in 5735. Many... [unclear], Erev Hoshana Rabbah—I remember Erev Hoshana Rabbah—and several more. Today everything about the farbrengens is in print. There were many unexpected farbrengens from 5734 onward. It started that way with the mitzvah tanks, and then... The Rebbe sang in 5735, on 19 Kislev, I think. The Rebbe sang “Tzamah Lecha Nafshi.” Then the Rebbe gave an instruction to produce a record. Plishevsky [?] organized it. He had a choir and produced a record of niggunim. Around that time, I think in 5735, they decided to include the Rebbe’s “Tzamah Lecha Nafshi.” Now, I don’t know what happened there. They tried to include the Rebbe shlita’s “Tzamah Lecha Nafshi,” but it didn’t work out. I don’t know what went wrong—some technical problem, perhaps the tape recording of the Rebbe hadn’t come out well. I don’t know exactly what happened. So Plishevsky didn’t know what to do, and he told the Rebbe—he wrote to the Rebbe right after 19 Kislev, right after the farbrengen. That’s what I heard. He told the Rebbe that the recording of the Rebbe’s “Tzamah Lecha Nafshi” hadn’t come out well on the tape, something was wrong, so they didn’t know how to put it on the record. And I remember the Rebbe told him, “Don’t worry. There will be another ‘Tzamah Lecha Nafshi’ soon.”

1:43:23 Speaker 5 He made up for it.

1:43:24 Speaker 12 He sort of made up for it. The Rebbe didn’t sing “Tzamah Lecha Nafshi” every other day. Then suddenly, that 15 Shvat, the Rebbe held a farbrengen and sang “Tzamah Lecha Nafshi.” We didn’t know what had happened, what the Rebbe had in mind. All right, the Rebbe sometimes sang “Tzamah Lecha Nafshi,” but at one farbrengen after another, with such a stir, everyone singing along the way the Rebbe sang it... In the end it became clear that the Rebbe had made it up to him. Then he told the Rebbe that it had come out very well.

1:44:04 Speaker 5 Since you mentioned 15 Shvat 5735, that sicha is now printed in Likkutei Sichos too—the one everyone asked about. The forceful sicha there. How much can you tell us about those people who wrote that Chabad was supposedly involved in terror?

1:44:18 Speaker 12 Yes, when the Rebbe cried out. I remember that. I don’t remember which farbrengen it was.

1:44:23 Speaker 5 15 Shvat.

1:44:24 Speaker 12 No, when the Rebbe spoke about the chair, that was on a Shabbos. No, I don’t think it was Shavuos, but there was a Shabbos when the Rebbe cried out: “Whose chair is this? The one sitting in the chair is the Rebbe, my father-in-law.”

1:44:43 Speaker 5 He meant the chair, and the one sitting in the chair was the Frierdiker Rebbe.

1:44:46 Speaker 12 Yes, yes. He began—he began with “my father-in-law,” and then went through all the Rebbeim.

1:44:50 Speaker 5 All the Rebbeim.

1:44:51 Speaker 12 Then he reached the Baal Shem Tov, Achiya HaShiloni, Eliyahu Hanavi, and Atzmus... That was the order. That’s how he named them all, starting from himself: the chair he was sitting on was the Frierdiker Rebbe’s chair. That’s how he began. He named all the Rebbeim, from the bottom upward, until he reached Eliyahu Hanavi and Atzmus Ein Sof.

1:45:18 Speaker 5 Achiya HaShiloni.

1:45:19 Speaker 12 Achiya HaShiloni was mentioned too.

1:45:20 Speaker 5 Eliyahu Hanavi and Atzmus.

1:45:22 Speaker 12 Yes.

1:45:23 Speaker 5 Then the Rebbe declared, “I am in charge of Lubavitch. Write that down.”

1:45:26 Speaker 12 “I am in charge of Lubavitch. Write that down.”

1:45:29 Speaker 5 I am in charge of Lubavitch.

1:45:30 Speaker 12 “Those really are terror organizations.”

1:45:33 Speaker 5 That’s terror—terror groups.

1:45:39 Speaker 12 The Rebbe said that when he spoke out about them, they would send fire trucks to the Rebbe’s house to frighten the Rebbetzin. So the Rebbe said, “I’m not afraid of them, but the Rebbetzin is sitting there alone now.” The Rebbe was speaking at the farbrengen on Shabbos. Then the Rebbe said, “Oh, the Rebbetzin, the lady of the house—have pity on her. Why should she have to suffer this?”

1:46:08 Speaker 5 The Rebbe said, “I’m not afraid, but have pity on the Rebbetzin, who is sitting alone. Why should she have to suffer too?” May Hashem have mercy on their souls. Let’s get back to happier things. Purim 5736. And tell us more generally about your years there.

1:46:26 Speaker 12 Actually, at the farbrengen on 15 Shvat 5736 there were two special things. First, the Rebbe convened a Sanhedrin to rule about Eretz Yisroel. The Rebbe said he wanted seventy rabbis to rule that Eretz Yisroel belongs to Eretz Yisroel and that it must not, G-d forbid, be handed back. The Rebbe spoke about peace and territories, and he asked that...

1:46:50 Speaker 5 By 5736 he had already begun speaking about peace and territories. That started after Yom Kippur, after the Yom Kippur War.

1:46:54 Speaker 12 Yes, he spoke about it forcefully. He asked for seventy rabbis, anyone with semichah, to raise a hand to show agreement. But the Rebbe wasn’t satisfied with that. The Rebbe said that since not everyone could speak and issue a ruling individually, it would be enough for them to raise a finger—that’s how the Rebbe put it—but they had to actually do it. Then the Rebbe said, “First, I want the rabbi, the mara d’asra, of...”

1:47:23 Speaker 5 Borkin.

1:47:24 Speaker 12 Borkin. After that, the Rebbe said, “From Yeshivas Lubavitch, the rosh yeshivah,” and that was Piekarski [?] and Mendel, when they... Then the Rebbe asked the Rabbinical Alliance—Rabbi Berg [?]—and they all ruled. Each one spoke, but it was...

1:47:42 Speaker 5 Every one of them spoke and gave his ruling.

1:47:44 Speaker 12 The Rebbe—the Rebbe asked people to speak in the middle of the farbrengen. The Rebbe sat, and they stood and spoke into the microphone. I remember Reb Mendel. Mendel was the embodiment of bittul, and that really struck me. When I saw Mendel [unclear] and everything, he was such a genuine chossid. I mean, people who were great in nigleh always had this reputation, as though they weren’t quite chassidim, didn’t have bittul, weren’t like that. And Reb Mendel was the exact opposite. For all that he was a great scholar of nigleh, a rosh yeshivah who gave shiurim and knew how to learn, the Rebbe came first. All the time, it was only the Rebbe. And throughout the farbrengen, this man wouldn’t get up or budge. He stood there like a servant before his master. Literally. He never sat down. He was already close to seventy, and he never sat down at any farbrengen. Only when he was ill at the very end of his life, in those last two months. Throughout kos shel bracha he would stand and pour for the Rebbe the whole time, and every Shabbos he would pour the Rebbe’s wine for Kiddush. He’d bring it with his hands trembling, making sure it wouldn’t spill. Really, ah, as they say, his hands didn’t shake. From sheer awe, you’d think he would spill it ten times, but he didn’t. He had such control. Even when the Rebbe would gesture with his hands, he would stand there looking only at the Rebbe. He didn’t move. So when the Rebbe said people should speak, he went over. He could hardly do it; he stood there like a stone. Then suddenly he said a couple of words: there’s a sicha of the Rebbe on the plain meaning of the verse, “By His will He gave it to them,” and so on. In short, he said that according to that sicha, the Rebbe rules as a matter of halacha that Eretz Yisroel belongs to the Jewish people, and no one is allowed to touch it. He—

1:49:57 Speaker 12 Immediately ran off, put down the microphone like that, and sat down.

1:50:00 Speaker 6 Stood.

1:50:01 Speaker 12 Stood, and went back to his place. Yes. After that, the Rebbe appointed the shluchim. So the Rebbe sent shluchim.

1:50:08 Speaker 6 At the end of the farbrengen.

1:50:09 Speaker 12 Yes, and in the middle—yes, in the middle of the farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about wanting to send shluchim. Actually, he had spoken about it earlier.

1:50:18 Speaker 6 No, he spoke about it on 19 Kislev.

1:50:20 Speaker 12 Yes, yes.

1:50:21 Speaker 6 They left on Shabbos, the 19th, that was—

1:50:22 Speaker 12 They left on Shabbos, the 19th, yes.

1:50:23 Speaker 6 On 19 Kislev, at the end of the farbrengen.

1:50:26 Speaker 12 Yes.

1:50:26 Speaker 6 As far as I know, it was at the end—that’s what I heard recently. On 19 Kislev, toward the end—

1:50:29 Speaker 12 Yes, yes.

1:50:30 Speaker 6 Suddenly it became something spiritual.

1:50:32 Speaker 12 Yes.

1:50:36 Speaker 6 So they left the next day, on Shabbos, the 19th.

1:50:38 Speaker 12 Yes, they left the next day, on Shabbos, the 19th, and then the Rebbe asked Reb Mendy Zeitlin [unclear].

1:50:49 Speaker 6 And your friends, the ones your age, came to the Rebbe then, actually.

1:50:53 Speaker 12 They came as a group in 5737.

1:50:57 Speaker 6 On Pesach?

1:50:58 Speaker 12 Yes. No—was it Pesach then, or had it already changed to Tishrei? Yes, it was Pesach then.

1:51:05 Speaker 6 But before that, when did you join the group of shluchim?

1:51:08 Speaker 12 I joined in 5735.

1:51:09 Speaker 6 And then again afterward.

1:51:10 Speaker 12 After that I didn’t go in, because I was in [unclear]; there wasn’t—

1:51:13 Speaker 6 It wasn’t my birthday anymore, so no.

1:51:14 Speaker 12 If it wasn’t your birthday, you didn’t go in. So when I traveled to Eretz Yisroel in—

1:51:19 Speaker 6 We’ll get to that in a moment.

1:51:21 Speaker 12 I traveled in 5739. In 5737 I was on shlichus.

1:51:25 Speaker 6 Where?

1:51:25 Speaker 12 In Cincinnati. There was a yeshivah there then, and we went on shlichus. Me and Dovid Abba Zalman.

1:51:36 Speaker 6 [Unclear.] The Rebbe before that?

1:51:38 Speaker 12 Ah, the Rebbe had asked. The yeshivah had opened in the summer, and Dovid Abba went in the summer. Actually, he went before me. Then there was a bochur who couldn’t stay there. I don’t know, for health reasons. I don’t know what was wrong with him then. So they looked for a shliach, because they needed twelve. They needed a pair, because it was an actual yeshivah, and we were the only ones there. There were a few Israelis there, including Dovid Abba, Itche Raskin—you know him—and Naftali Greenblatt, if you know who that is. So they wanted another Israeli my age. Then Binyamin came to me—I don’t remember. It was in Cheshvan. He asked if I wanted to go on shlichus. He also asked if I was able to, whether I was healthy, whether everything was all right. Boruch Hashem. I told him yes, I’d be happy to go. So he told me, “All right, we’ll see; we’ll talk more.” A few days later he came back and told me the Rebbe had approved it, and—

1:52:54 Speaker 7 You didn’t write to the Rebbe yourself. He submitted it to the Rebbe.

1:52:56 Speaker 12 Yes, he submitted it to the Rebbe. Yes, he submitted it to the Rebbe. And then I went on shlichus. We were there for a year. Then we came back for Pesach. I came back for Pesach.

1:53:14 Speaker 7 Not during any of those months? Not for Yud Shvat or anything?

1:53:16 Speaker 12 Oh, I was there. We held a lottery. The yeshivah agreed to hold a lottery for us for 10 Kislev. I had arrived just before Kislev, right before Rosh Chodesh Kislev 5737, and afterward they held the lottery. I happened to draw 10 Kislev. 10 Kislev fell on Shabbos, and the usual arrangement was that the Rebbe farbrenged on Shabbos—a short farbrengen, until around four-fifteen or four-thirty—and then on Motzaei Shabbos the Rebbe held a farbrengen that was broadcast to the whole world. Suddenly the Rebbe announced that the big 10 Kislev farbrengen wouldn’t be on Motzaei Shabbos. It would be Sunday night, and Sunday night was already [unclear]. The Rebbe would always [unclear] between the 10th and the [unclear]. It was a great surprise. No one knew why. Then, suddenly, the Rebbe went to the Ohel on Sunday. That was surprising too. On the day of a major farbrengen, he generally didn’t go to the Ohel; the Rebbe would go the following day. The Rebbe went to the Ohel. I don’t know. The Rebbe came back, and there was a farbrengen at nine-thirty on Sunday night. That was a great surprise, because it was winter. The Rebbe did sometimes farbreng on a Sunday, but for Kislev and Yud Shvat it was always on Motzaei Shabbos. And then the Rebbe brought up the Ayin Beis series. The Rebbe said, “I had already thought about this during the break, and the question remained; we still hadn’t decided. Today I decided, in honor of 10 Kislev”—because, well, the Rebbe had received approval at the Ohel. I don’t know when.

1:55:11 Speaker 7 To print the—

1:55:13 Speaker 12 To print it, and then the Rebbe began delivering that well-known sicha.

1:55:17 Speaker 7 Tell me the main point.

1:55:19 Speaker 12 The point was that the Rebbe said that, in general, since this is a time for “spreading the wellsprings outward,” on the one hand everything needs to be revealed. And if, by Divine providence, I’ve had a copy of the Ayin Beis series for fifty years—the Rebbe of Lubavitch gave it to me, essentially gave it to me to safeguard—and I received such a treasure... The Rebbe said, “I immediately made a copy.” I don’t know where the Rebbe made a copy in Russia. It’s extraordinary. For fifty years the Rebbe had kept a copy, and the Rebbe said that—

1:55:55 Speaker 7 He received it in 5687.

1:55:56 Speaker 12 What?

1:55:58 Speaker 7 If this was in 5737, that means he received it around 5687.

1:56:02 Speaker 12 It was then, or in 5688. Right before the Frierdiker Rebbe left Russia. It was before the Frierdiker Rebbe left Russia, because the Rebbe left with him. They never went back to Russia. The Rebbe said, “I received it and immediately—ah, immediately I made a copy.” I don’t know if that was in Russia; it seems it was. I’m not sure. Maybe it was when they left. [Unclear]—it was still before they reached the United States. And the Rebbe said that, on the other hand, the Rebbe Rashab hadn’t printed it. The Rebbe Rashab hadn’t printed it. So how could one go ahead and print it on one’s own? You could see real fear on the Rebbe.

1:56:47 Speaker 7 Meaning that until then there was no second volume?

1:56:49 Speaker 12 There was, there was a second volume. There was a—stencil. What do you call it?

1:56:54 Speaker 7 Stencil.

1:56:54 Speaker 12 That, too, only went as far as Vayigash. Open the first volume today: it only goes as far as Vayigash. From Vayigash onward, there was nothing. The whole second volume, the whole third volume, and half of the first weren’t available at all. And—and—the Rebbe, that’s what the Rebbe revealed in 5737. So the Rebbe said that since there was still a doubt, an argument on either side, “I’ve decided—”

1:57:30 Speaker 7 That we should all do it together.

1:57:30 Speaker 12 That we should all do it together, and not say who printed it. The Rebbe was apprehensive. That whole sicha was at two in the morning, after the Rebbe had finished the farbrengen. They had sung all the niggunim, and everyone already thought the Rebbe was ending the farbrengen. Suddenly the Rebbe became serious and began a new sicha. That was this sicha. Then the Rebbe said that everyone should contribute a dollar. The Rebbe put in the first dollar, and everyone followed. There were heaps of dollars.

1:57:58 Speaker 7 People sent in a dollar in the middle of the farbrengen?

1:57:59 Speaker 12 Yes, yes. In the middle of the farbrengen, everyone put in a dollar. I remember there was a big pile. You could see tremendous apprehension on the Rebbe. Truly. The Rebbe delivered the whole sicha with such seriousness, and such... No name should be written, they shouldn’t write who printed it, they shouldn’t publicize it, or this or that. And the Rebbe said, “I’m also not obligating everyone to learn it [unclear].”

1:58:32 Speaker 7 Cover to cover.

1:58:33 Speaker 12 Yes. As though the Rebbe didn’t want it, G-d forbid, to harm anyone.

1:58:43 Speaker 7 And then you went back to Cincinnati.

1:58:45 Speaker 12 Then I went back, and we arrived for Pesach in 5737. That Pesach in 5737, something special happened on Erev Pesach too, like I told you about the matzos. What happened was that the Rebbe suddenly decided to give out a dollar together with the matzos.

1:59:04 Speaker 7 A dollar on Erev Pesach?

1:59:05 Speaker 12 Yes, together with the matzos. There was a huge commotion. Everyone wanted to get theirs before the Seder. Normally, nobody minds getting it at night. What difference does it make if you get it at night? You’ll still get it. But here everyone wanted a dollar, and he brought new dollars so there wouldn’t be any chametz. The Rebbe held the dollar right against the matzos, just like that—matzos and a dollar together. There was no wrapping, nothing. The Rebbe gave a dollar, and we stood in line. And you know how it is in a line: it’s like being stuck in traffic, with someone cutting in front of you every minute.

1:59:45 Speaker 7 It’s one thing for the bochurim, but even the bochurim were under pressure at home on Erev Pesach.

1:59:49 Speaker 12 Yes, everything. Everyone was under pressure. Suddenly a bochur says to me, “Let’s jump in over here, let’s jump in over here,” and I got the idea that maybe we should cut in from the women’s section too. Someone had mentioned it to me. In the end I said, “I see Mendelik standing there. If he’s standing, I’m not going to cut in. What’s this?” I said, “Whatever happens, [unclear]. If we get it, we get it; if we don’t, we don’t.” So we stood there for two and a half, three hours, and each time the line moved a little. Because people were cutting in, it moved very little each time. And the Rebbe was distributing for a long time. It took twice as long because there were two pieces of matzah and a dollar, and the Rebbe held them together.

2:00:37 Speaker 8 Did the Rebbe say anything?

2:00:39 Speaker 12 That everything should be ready for Pesach. Yes. So when we reached Gan Eden, we came in as a whole group, and suddenly I saw the door close. I looked toward the front and saw the door closing. The Rebbe hadn’t told us, “Goodbye, go home and come back after [unclear].” You know, that hit me. I thought, what do we do now? If we hadn’t waited so long, that would be one thing, but we had waited. I’m telling you what I saw. Suddenly the Rebbe opened the door and said [unclear], and the whole group received it. The whole group I was with—we were among the very last, just before candle-lighting. I still have that dollar today. There’s nothing distinctive about the dollar itself. I wrote on it, “Erev Pesach ’37.”

2:01:45 Speaker 8 No, we skipped ahead again. About ’36, there was [unclear].

2:01:48 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, that was special too. Two Lag BaOmers after Pesach—two Lag BaOmers. All of ’36 was also—

2:01:55 Speaker 8 Sukkos, the seventh day of Sukkos. It’s fifty years now.

2:01:57 Speaker 12 Yes, yes.

2:01:58 Speaker 8 It’ll be fifty years.

2:01:59 Speaker 12 He started in Iyar with six, and by Lag BaOmer he had done thirty.

2:02:03 Speaker 8 There was a farbrengen.

2:02:04 Speaker 12 There were three farbrengens on Rosh Chodesh. There was one on the seventeenth, on Shabbos Mevarchim, before Rosh Chodesh, on [unclear], and then one on Rosh Chodesh, on 2 Adar. Three farbrengens. The Rebbe said, “I specifically held three farbrengens because of the two Lag BaOmers.” There were three maamarim, after all. The Rebbe said [unclear]. It was a very special year, and ’36 was a leap year too. Then on Purim there was also a major new development, and—

2:02:40 Speaker 8 And there was the story with Shechem.

2:02:44 Speaker 12 And the story with Shechem, yes. Then there was also Uganda.

2:02:49 Speaker 8 Later on.

2:02:50 Speaker 12 In Tammuz, in the summer, yes. Then the Rebbe said the vort about Velvel Brisker.

2:02:57 Speaker 8 Tell him.

2:02:57 Speaker 12 Because there was that incident. They said Hakadosh Boruch Hu couldn’t perform miracles. So the Rebbe spoke about that—about miracles, and also about a doctor. The Rebbe said that Velvel Brisker was once asked—and the Rebbe said something particularly remarkable about this at the farbrengen—“There are two doctors, both experts, but one keeps Shabbos and the other doesn’t. Which one should you choose?” He answered, “It makes no difference.” So the Rebbe asked: If they’re both experts—if one were more expert, then of course you’d say to take the more expert one. But if they’re equal, why say, “It makes no difference”? Why wouldn’t you care? The Rebbe said that Velvel Brisker was making a particularly remarkable point, but [unclear] emphasizing that when a life is at stake, [unclear].

2:03:52 Speaker 8 In other words, he was making that point deliberately. He wanted to emphasize that when it comes to saving a life, that consideration is completely irrelevant.

2:03:56 Speaker 12 You shouldn’t look at that. He wanted to make clear that the only thing that matters here is the doctor’s expertise. So the Rebbe said that here too, when it comes to saving lives, what matters is expertise in the rescue. If someone can save people by natural means and is an expert, you have to use him. Whether he keeps Shabbos or not is irrelevant. The Rebbe spoke about this very forcefully. Especially since, as the Rebbe said, there had been miracles. They kept saying no, no, Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t perform miracles. The Rebbe demonstrated that there had been miracles, that everyone was saved and all that. Afterward there was Operation Yonatan.

2:04:40 Speaker 9 They celebrate that too.

2:04:41 Speaker 12 Also in Av.

2:04:42 Speaker 9 They celebrate it in Av.

2:04:43 Speaker 12 Yes, when the Rebbe spoke in Hebrew for the first time.

2:04:46 Speaker 9 Where did he make the effort? Upstairs.

2:04:47 Speaker 12 Yes. And then the Rebbe spoke in Hebrew for the first time—a whole sicha in Hebrew. Not exactly Lashon Hakodesh; it was mostly modern Hebrew. That was when Begin was there.

2:05:02 Speaker 9 Begin came.

2:05:03 Speaker 12 Begin came too.

2:05:04 Speaker 9 At the end.

2:05:05 Speaker 12 Yes, he came for the conclusion too. I don’t remember which one anymore.

2:05:08 Speaker 9 [unclear]. Begin came.

2:05:15 Speaker 12 Begin came for [unclear]. Right, we weren’t there, actually. When Begin came, we weren’t there. We were away on shlichus then. Yes, yes.

2:05:20 Speaker 9 [unclear]. Begin came.

2:05:22 Speaker 12 Operation Yonatan had happened, yes. Now I remember. Yes, you’re right.

2:05:25 Speaker 9 Begin came to the house.

2:05:26 Speaker 12 We weren’t there when Begin came. Yes, we only heard it on the broadcast; we didn’t see it.

2:05:31 Speaker 9 You only came back for Tishrei?

2:05:33 Speaker 12 Yes, only for Tishrei, [unclear]. Actually, we made it back for Chai Elul. We arrived just in time for the Chai Elul farbrengen, when the Rebbe sang [unclear]. Yes, that’s it.

2:05:54 Speaker 9 Was there any special response from the Rebbe to your return?

2:05:56 Speaker 12 No, no. But the Rebbe did speak then about Tomchei Temimim in general. It was [unclear].

2:06:02 Speaker 9 When?

2:06:03 Speaker 12 On Chai Elul.

2:06:03 Speaker 9 Chai Elul.

2:06:04 Speaker 12 Yes, the Rebbe said [unclear] about a closed mem or an open mem. It’s printed now. It’s been edited and approved; it’s an edited sicha.

2:06:17 Speaker 9 In general, what did it feel like simply to finish the assignment? Tell us a little about the feeling.

2:06:24 Speaker 12 You felt—it’s like Shlomo Zach [?], who used to daven with us, would always say: “Here shall be your burial place.” This is your place; this is your home. You’ll travel here and there, you’ll go on shlichus, you’ll be here and there. You’ll get married, have a family and all that. But “here shall be your burial place.” This is your place. To this day I feel that when we came to [unclear], that was what it came down to: this is our place. We travel to all sorts of places, spend time there, do all kinds of things, and that’s all well and good. But this is the place. Especially after yechidus, I suddenly felt that since I’d written everything to the Rebbe, that was it. He knew everything about me. I had nothing to hide from him. You felt that you belonged to the Rebbe. Sometimes you’re better, sometimes less so, but [unclear]. That’s it. That’s what you feel afterward. After the yechidus I felt it very strongly. The Rebbe answered me that I should stay, and I saw that I couldn’t run away from him. That was it. I’d given him everything, and he’d given me everything. He holds on to me. I always tell the bochurim that you can’t run away from the Rebbe. Once you’ve come to the Rebbe, that’s it. The Rebbe has taken hold of you. You can’t run away anywhere. You can leave, run off, go away—but you’ll always come back.

2:08:05 Speaker 9 Now, did you ever write to your parents about what was happening with the Rebbe? Did you write home?

2:08:10 Speaker 12 Yes, yes. Usually I wrote about the farbrengens, and I always regret not writing everything down. But I did write about the farbrengens for several years, and I always used carbon paper. We had carbon paper back then. Do you know what that is?

2:08:28 Speaker 9 Yes, I remember carbon paper. I’m still from the generation that remembers it.

2:08:31 Speaker 12 So I’d put in carbon paper. I kept the first copy and sent the other one home. My father really enjoyed getting my account of the farbrengen each time. After the review, I’d sit through the review—

2:08:48 Speaker 9 Your cousin Dovid used to write things up neatly.

2:08:50 Speaker 12 Yes, he was very organized. He worked as a sofer STaM.

2:08:54 Speaker 9 Dovid Shlomo.

2:08:54 Speaker 12 As for me, yes, I wrote. During the review I’d jot down points, and afterward I’d go to my room. It was in the dormitory, and I was very comfortable there. If you know the yeshivah there, I had an enclosed room. I’d sit for a few hours and write up the whole farbrengen in an orderly way. I didn’t do it every time, though. In ’36 I wrote a lot because there were so many farbrengens. I don’t know. I really remember what I wrote down very well; what I didn’t write down, much less so.

2:09:33 Speaker 9 By ’38 we had gone back to the Sefer HaMaamarim.

2:09:35 Speaker 12 Yes, in ’38 we went back to the Sefer HaMaamarim. We studied—by then we were already studying the Sefer HaMaamarim. Before that we studied with a chavrusa, but from ’38 through ’39 we studied the Sefer HaMaamarim.

2:09:46 Speaker 9 Just a moment—in ’38 the schedule changed, apart from the regular study schedule, which...

2:09:51 Speaker 12 After that, the Rebbe began speaking on Motzaei Shabbos; it was no longer on Shabbos. Until ’40, there wasn’t...

2:09:58 Speaker 9 What did you do on Shabbos? On Shabbos we learned.

2:10:01 Speaker 12 Yes, we learned. Yes, it really was a little frustrating. Even though the Rebbe didn’t [unclear]—we only heard the Rebbe’s voice over the loudspeaker again. It wasn’t the same anymore. But on the other hand, the Rebbe did all sorts of things. In ’38 there were many, many, many revelations.

2:10:25 Speaker 9 Maamarim.

2:10:26 Speaker 12 Maamarim, and that too. And with the Rebbe, you saw how the Rebbe decided when to rest and when not to rest. Sometimes it seemed as though the Rebbe was acting according to nature, as though the Rebbe wasn’t exerting himself. Then suddenly the Rebbe held a farbrengen on Chanukah. The Rebbe said a sicha and distributed dollars on the second night of Chanukah. It was astonishing. The Rebbe began the sicha, and by the time it ended, it was already late. So the Rebbe davened Maariv, and afterward he said he wanted to stand at the doorway and give each person a dollar from the Rebbe. A dollar.

2:11:20 Speaker 9 A dollar.

2:11:21 Speaker 12 On Zos Chanukah. “Just as my father-in-law did,” he said. “If my father-in-law also did it at the doorway, then I want to do it too.”

2:11:30 Speaker 9 When did his father-in-law do that?

2:11:31 Speaker 12 I don’t know. That’s what he said. Then the Rebbe took his place. Do you know which door?

2:11:36 Speaker 9 At the exit, where Leibel’s office used to be.

2:11:38 Speaker 12 Yes, the Rebbe stood there at the door, and people began passing by. Leibel saw that who knew how long it would take, so he started holding people back. The Rebbe said to him, “Whoever holds them up holds me up.” That’s how the Rebbe put it. He was startled, and immediately he said, “Anyone who stops the crowd is stopping me, not the crowd.”

2:12:09 Speaker 9 So the Rebbe was actually outside, at the entrance, as it were?

2:12:12 Speaker 12 No, he stood inside, next to the door.

2:12:16 Speaker 9 A large part.

2:12:17 Speaker 12 Yes, a large part.

2:12:17 Speaker 9 A bill, right?

2:12:18 Speaker 12 A bill, a bill. Each person got a bill. And then Leibel was afraid to go through too, after the Rebbe had said words like that.

2:12:25 Speaker 9 To pass by.

2:12:26 Speaker 12 To pass by. So he went through right away.

2:12:28 Speaker 9 Did people hear what the Rebbe said to Leibel?

2:12:30 Speaker 12 Some heard. I don’t know if everyone heard, but people did. No, Leibel was frightened too. He didn’t do it anymore. He meant well, but...

2:12:39 Speaker 9 After that, two days later, on Wednesday—or was it Thursday? Sorry, maybe it was Wednesday—the Rebbe came back from the Ohel.

2:12:48 Speaker 12 Yes.

2:12:49 Speaker 9 It was the first time the Rebbe had gone to the Ohel.

2:12:51 Speaker 12 Right.

2:12:51 Speaker 9 After, after Matan Torah.

2:12:52 Speaker 12 After a long time. Yes, yes, I don’t remember that anymore.

2:12:55 Speaker 9 I remember because I read it in some diary. Suddenly it struck me. There was tremendous joy.

2:13:02 Speaker 12 Yes.

2:13:02 Speaker 9 [unclear] the Rebbe in Williamsburg.

2:13:04 Speaker 12 Yes, yes.

2:13:04 Speaker 9 [unclear] dancing. I’ve thought about this too. No, I have no proof, but it could be that for the Rebbe, until he came back from the Ohel—it was the first time he had gone to the Ohel since Simchas Beis Hashoeivah. When he came back from the Ohel, and I don’t know whether this is right or not, he held a meal.

2:13:21 Speaker 12 That was Zos Chanukah.

2:13:22 Speaker 9 Zos Chanukah, after he had been at the Ohel.

2:13:24 Speaker 12 Yes, that could be. It could be.

2:13:27 Speaker 9 Until then, it was as though things hadn’t gone back to normal. You hold a thanksgiving meal when you return to your previous state.

2:13:34 Speaker 12 On the other hand, the Rebbe didn’t say Hagomel. I don’t know why. He never said it. But on Zos Chanukah there was a meal.

2:13:45 Speaker 9 Were you there?

2:13:45 Speaker 12 Yes, we were there on Zos Chanukah.

2:13:47 Speaker 9 The Rebbe was at the meal.

2:13:47 Speaker 12 Yes. The truth is, we went out on mivtzoim that day and arrived in the middle of Minchah, so we didn’t make it inside. We stood in the corridor during Minchah, and suddenly I saw the Rebbe coming out. Reb Dovid was still an orphan too. Yes, and he needed to... He needed to arrange the papers. Arrange the papers—ah, no. He needed to be... I think he was already married. He married [unclear]. Yes, at the beginning of Kislev, so he needed to travel. Ah, I don’t remember what it was. No, it was for [unclear], right? I don’t remember what it was. In short, he traveled. He had permission. He was also learning in kollel. I don’t remember what happened there. He needed permission from the kollel. I don’t know. He got permission, but when it came to permission for the bochurim, Rabbi Dovid Raskin stood firm and didn’t want to give it. He said, “You’re not traveling for weddings.” So we went to Rabbi Yair. I studied with Rabbi Yair at [unclear]; we studied with Rabbi Yair all year. Do you know where? No. Rabbi Yair didn’t give the shiurim at [unclear], right? He gave shiurim at Ocean Parkway. So we were shluchim there—that’s what we were called, shluchim. After I traveled, you were shluchim at Ocean Parkway? Yes, we studied at Ocean Parkway. Now I remember. We studied at Ocean Parkway all year, starting in Kislev. We studied there, and officially we had to be at Ocean Parkway from Sunday through Thursday. We had a room there to sleep in. We slept there, got up each day, kept the schedule with the bochurim, and learned a little nigleh with them during the day. Mostly we learned on our own, but there were a few bochurim we taught. What was it in practice? Basically a yeshivah ketanah. Yes, and the reward was that Yair came three times a week to give a shiur.

2:18:00 Speaker 12 Four times. He came Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and one other day. On Thursday he gave a Tanya shiur for the whole yeshivah, and on Sundays—three times a week—he taught us Samach Vav. When the Rebbe became responsible for [unclear], he said he didn’t want to teach Samach Vav anymore. We felt bad. What? The whole reason we came to Ocean Parkway was to hear Samach Vav from Rabbi Yair! In short, he said, “No, I’m not learning Samach Vav. I’m learning the Rebbe’s sichos. If you want to, fine; if you don’t, you don’t have to.” So we said, all right, we’ll learn the Rebbe’s sichos. In the end, we gained all the difficult sichos the Rebbe introduced on Simchas Torah, all those sichos. Yes, by then. He didn’t skip a single sicha, from beginning to... Afterward he also learned Samach Vav, but mainly he said that in honor of [unclear], he wanted to learn the sichos. It really was quite a year; he got all of it—the ideas and the sichos—into us. Yes, he immersed himself in them and explained them. I won’t forget it. He spoke a great deal about what had happened to the Rebbe. He said it was hard to understand: the Rebbe is beyond limits, so how could the Rebbe suddenly not feel well? He explained that the Rebbe had now brought about something new that transformed nature: now, within nature itself, the Rebbe also had a natural side. Anyway. By the way, they didn’t make the connection to Ayin Beis then. No. They connected it in later years. Yes, at first they didn’t. I don’t know. They didn’t. So what happened about the trip? You went to Rabbi Yair. So, ah, Rabbi Dovid said, “You know what? You want to travel? Go after the wedding.” Not to the wedding, because the Rebbe had told him to travel to the wedding,

2:19:59 Speaker 12 so travel afterward. Travel after the wedding. So, ah, my brother was getting married, and Dovid—perhaps Dovid wanted to travel too. He told Dovid, “Either travel before Lag BaOmer”—the wedding was two weeks later—“so no one can say you traveled for the wedding, or travel after the wedding.” Dovid said, “Leave me out of it. I don’t have the strength to argue with him.” He traveled before Lag BaOmer. Dovid laughed and told me, “I know you. You’ll insist, stay the two weeks, and then travel.” I told him, “We’ll see.” So Salzman and I went to Rabbi Yair; he also needed to travel for a wedding. We explained it to Rabbi Yair. He said, “That’s not what the Rebbe meant.” Anyway, Rabbi Yair went to Dovid Raskin and started explaining it to him—calmed him down. In the end, Dovid Raskin agreed that we could travel after two weeks, so I traveled after two weeks. And then you came back when you became a chassan? No, I came back for Tishrei, and afterward I traveled back. The Rebbe told me to travel back when I asked the Rebbe about the shidduch. The Rebbe told me to return to Eretz Yisroel. So you were there for Tishrei 5740 too? Yes. After that, after Tishrei. Meaning you were there for Tishrei 5740 too. Yes, I was there for Tishrei 5740. 5734, 5736, 5737, 5738, 5739—Tishrei, yes. Six Tishreis. Yes, we were there for six consecutive Tishreis. And I was there for every Pesach too. Which Pesachs? Every one from 5734 on. Yes. In 5739, there were the Tehran children. Yes, the Tehran children. The Rebbe told them, “Let’s sing Yigdal Chai,” at a farbrengen on [unclear] of Pesach. The Rebbe was very moved when they sang. How many were there—a large group? Yes, there were many. Relatively speaking, it was a lot. There may have been more than a hundred. Yes, there were many children. I remember. After that, did you come back as a chassan, or did you...? I came back.

2:22:14 Speaker 12 As a chassan. When did the idea really begin that...? I didn’t have [unclear] there. I came back as a chassan, had yechidus, and received the siddur there. Oh, you had yechidus? Yes. You went in as a chassan. Yes. Alone. Just as a chassan. As a chassan. Into the room. Into the room. What happened? Because in 5741, already in Tishrei, not everyone went in for yechidus. It was sort of half-and-half, mixed. But when Kislev and Teves came, the Rebbe began receiving people for yechidus again. So I came for Shvat. I came for Yud Shvat. Yud Shvat 5741—uh, 5740. 5741, 5741. I became a chassan at the end of 5740. Oh, the end of 5740. Actually, I became a chassan in Cheshvan 5741. So just a second, let’s go back a little. Where were you on Yud Shvat 5740—in Israel? Yes, I was there. I was in Israel that whole year. And how did...? In 5741, after I became a chassan, I traveled for Yud Shvat. Mm-hmm. So when I traveled for Yud Shvat, there was yechidus, private yechidus for all the chassanim, for everyone. All the guests who were there. Oh, not alone—a group. No. Every chassan went in alone. Every chassan, every one of the guests, received a private yechidus. What happened? I went in to the Rebbe for yechidus. The Rebbe gave me a blessing for the wedding, with the Rebbe’s customary wording. At the end, the Rebbe gave me a dollar and told me to give it to tzedakah on my wedding day. Then the Rebbe took out another dollar and said, “And this is to give to the kallah, so she can give it on the wedding day.” She wasn’t there, but the Rebbe gave it to me. Give this to the kallah so she, too, can give it on the wedding day. On the wedding day. Yes. It was unusual. Some chassanim also received one for the kallah, and some didn’t. It was the same night. A lot of chassanim went in. Now, when it came to the siddur—people don’t always know how

2:24:21 Speaker 12 the Rebbe relates to each person. That very day, I think there were three chassanim standing there, and the Rebbe doesn’t hand the siddur to each one. So it might seem as though you’re receiving less. But I saw something special. When was this? It was after Yud Shvat, on 15 Shvat, right after a farbrengen. I traveled on 15 Shvat after a farbrengen. The next day I came to Minchah. There was a chassan who was a kohen standing there, and another chassan who was getting married in New York in about seventy days, or however many days—I don’t remember. I was the third chassan, getting married after him. So the Rebbe asked. First, when the Rebbe came out for Minchah, he was holding the siddur. The first chassan was a kohen. The Rebbe said, “There’s a kohen here,” and he was the kohen. “And who’s getting married after him?” So he said that he was getting married. The American one. Yes, the American was getting married before me, and I was getting married after him. The Rebbe gestured like this: “And you’re the third.” Yes, the Rebbe said “the last one,” I think; I don’t remember the exact words. Then the Rebbe began. Holding the siddur, he gave it to the kohen and said, “Ask for all good things.” Ask for all the good things. And the Rebbe gestured to him with his finger, [unclear] the second chassan. The Rebbe turned his head toward that chassan and began blessing him with the whole blessing from the beginning. The second chassan. Yes. After the Rebbe finished with the second chassan, he told him [unclear], and the Rebbe began the blessing. He turned toward you. He turned toward me and said the entire blessing. I saw that I had received the siddur—the Rebbe had gestured toward the siddur, as if instructing that it should pass through all the... all the... In other words, the Rebbe tells him to ask for all good things, and then, “You’ll give—

2:26:39 Speaker 12 you’ll give it to the second chassan,” and then the Rebbe blessed him. Yes. He told the second chassan, “And you’ll give it to the third chassan.” Yes. And then he would bless you. So the Rebbe gave it to all of us. Facing you. Yes, yes, each one. Each chassan. The first chassan, then the second, then the third. Everyone saw that the Rebbe related to each one individually. Even while holding the siddur, he gestured like this: “You give the siddur,” and then the Rebbe... He signaled to me with his hand. He signaled with his hand: “You give it to him, and you give it to him.” So you saw that the Rebbe was, in a way, giving you the siddur. Each and every one. When did you come back after the wedding? In [unclear], I also had a story at the general yechidus. In [unclear], there was yechidus in the room, in the room. In the room. There were groups then. They arranged a Hebrew-speaking group, an English-speaking group, a Yiddish-speaking group, a French-speaking group—there were about nine yechidusen. But it went quickly, because the Rebbe spent ten or fifteen minutes with each group, and that was it. I remember everyone sitting in groups afterward and saying—I’m telling you, everyone was talking: “That wasn’t a real yechidus.” You know, you already understand the talk; people get used to things. I said, “What? It can’t be. If the Rebbe indicates that this is how it should be, then this is the best way.” Anyway, I asked my wife, “Which group should we go into?” She said, “Listen, do you want me to understand, or do you just want me to go in?” I told her, “I want you to understand. If you want, I’m not embarrassed to go into the Hebrew-speaking group. I have no problem with it.” She said, “Yes, I want to, but not the Yiddish one. Yiddish is hard for me. I barely understand a few words.” I told her, “Fine,

2:28:44 Speaker 12 no problem. What difference does it make?” We went in. My wife was pregnant then, in her second or third month, really at the beginning, and she wrote to the Rebbe in her note asking for a blessing that everything should go as it should. Fine. As we went in, each person handed the Rebbe a note. The Rebbe took each note and put it on the table, still folded, because everyone was handing one in. There were lots of notes on the table. After the Rebbe received all the notes, he began giving a blessing, with all the notes there on his table. The Rebbe spoke and gave the blessing. Later we listened to Chaim Boruch’s tape. The blessings were more or less worded the same way.

2:29:42 Speaker 10 Were his eyes open?

2:29:44 Speaker 12 I don’t remember anymore. I think they were open for some of it. Maybe for some of it they weren’t. I don’t remember. When we came out of the yechidus, my wife said to me, “I received a blessing for the pregnancy.” I said, “What? Where did you get that? I didn’t hear it.” She said, “You didn’t hear it, but I did, because it was in Hebrew. I heard every word.” What did the Rebbe say? Among the blessings, the Rebbe added, “[unclear] in its proper time, [unclear] that every son and daughter of the Jewish people should have it in its proper time, in peace and with joy.” That was at that yechidus.

2:30:25 Speaker 10 Wow.

2:30:26 Speaker 12 And my wife still brings it up today.

2:30:29 Speaker 10 Just as, in your first yechidus, the Rebbe slipped in the answer about studying with Rabbi Chefetz[?], here the Rebbe slipped in the answer for her.

2:30:37 Speaker 12 I told her, “I didn’t notice it,” but she did. So she always mentions it. That’s the blessing she received.

2:30:44 Speaker 10 Maybe because it was her first time.

2:30:46 Speaker 12 Yes.

2:30:47 Speaker 10 Whereas you were already used to it.

2:30:48 Speaker 12 It was her second time. She’d been to yechidus once before, but she didn’t merit as much the first time. Here she merited more, because it was the second time and it was also in Hebrew.

2:31:01 Speaker 10 Did you come again that year? You were also there for a period in 5744.

2:31:07 Speaker 12 In 5744 I was there for Sukkos.

2:31:09 Speaker 10 When were you there in 5745, for the siyum of the Rambam?

2:31:10 Speaker 12 In 5745 I was there for the siyum of the Rambam.

2:31:12 Speaker 10 You were there for a few weeks, weren’t you?

2:31:14 Speaker 12 Huh?

2:31:15 Speaker 10 How many weeks were you there?

2:31:16 Speaker 12 Yes, yes, I was there the whole month.

2:31:18 Speaker 10 Oh.

2:31:18 Speaker 12 More than that. I also had some miracles. Moshe Roslavsky was a very generous man; he let me use his apartment.

2:31:26 Speaker 10 And you traveled then because it wasn’t usual to travel in Adar.

2:31:28 Speaker 12 Right. I traveled only because of the siyum of the Rambam.

2:31:31 Speaker 10 Did you know there would be a siyum of the Rambam on 11 Nissan?

2:31:33 Speaker 12 Yes, I was already studying it.

2:31:35 Speaker 10 So when did you decide to travel in Adar?

2:31:38 Speaker 12 We started thinking about it in Adar. I said I very much wanted to be with the Rebbe for the siyum of the Rambam. I thought it would be like [unclear]. I didn’t know what the Rebbe would reveal. I don’t know—I wanted to be there for that first siyum of the Rambam, and I was studying every day. So I said, “I want to be at the siyum of the Rambam.” I looked into all sorts of ways to manage it, until I went to Moshe Roslavsky. He told me, “As far as a place to sleep goes, I’ll give you my apartment. Look after it.”

2:32:13 Speaker 10 The apartment that was steeped in [unclear].

2:32:14 Speaker 12 Yes, he gave me the apartment there. I was... He told me, “Don’t use the kitchen on Pesach; that won’t work.” He said, “Close it up. You’ll manage for Pesach.” In the end, I made arrangements with the yeshiva. I paid the yeshiva and got meals. The room was very good.

2:32:35 Speaker 10 Was there any special attention when you arrived?

2:32:37 Speaker 12 So he asked me to write to the Rebbe that he had given me the apartment. He also told me to buy groceries for the hospitality program every day at his expense—ten dollars’ worth. He said, “Go into Lipsker’s every day and buy groceries there. Ten dollars will be enough for you.” He had already worked it out; he knew everything. I’m telling you this to show how he was—why the Rebbe held him so close.

2:33:11 Speaker 10 How much he cared. He cared very much that every Jew should be able to come.

2:33:13 Speaker 12 Yes, that every Jew should be able to come.

2:33:15 Speaker 10 Maybe that was the response—you had written to the Rebbe that you were coming.

2:33:16 Speaker 12 So I had written to the Rebbe that I was coming. But since he asked me—he said, “Write to the Rebbe that I arranged a place for you”—I wrote to the Rebbe about Rabbi Moshe Roslavsky, including his name and his mother’s name. And the Rebbe wrote, “I will mention him at the Ohel for a blessing.”

2:33:40 Speaker 10 Wow. Many years. When did you last see the Rebbe? Until the Rebbe returns.

2:33:46 Speaker 12 I was there just now, on 19 Shvat.

2:33:47 Speaker 10 No, I was asking when you last saw him.

2:33:49 Speaker 12 Oh, when did I last see the Rebbe?

2:33:52 Speaker 10 We’re getting to 5754.

2:33:53 Speaker 12 That was in 5754.

2:33:56 Speaker 10 Were you there in 5752 as well?

2:33:58 Speaker 12 Yes, in 5752 I was there the whole month.

2:34:00 Speaker 10 Did you also make a point of traveling for the whole month like that, for Tishrei?

2:34:02 Speaker 12 I tried to, yes. Yes, in 5752 I was there the whole month. I was there in 5751, and in 5750, 5749 and 5748 I went with the whole family. So I took the children [unclear].

2:34:17 Speaker 10 With Hashem’s help, very soon we’ll be together with the Rebbe again.

2:34:19 Speaker 12 Yes, im yirtzeh Hashem.

2:34:21 Speaker 10 He wants it—Hashem wants it. It will happen soon. He wants it.

2:34:24 Speaker 12 May it be very soon.

2:34:26 Speaker 10 It will be. We’re approaching the time of going from one Geulah to another—from Purim to Pesach.

2:34:31 Speaker 12 With Hashem’s help.

2:34:32 Speaker 10 It has great power. It was refreshing, and may we live to [unclear] with the Rebbe. May we see the Rebbe immediately, very soon. It has great power.

2:34:41 Speaker 11 Thank you for joining us for this episode of Lehisraanen, with our guest Rabbi Dovid Ofen of Beitar Illit. Many thanks to the podcast host, Rabbi Nachum Goldschmidt; to Rabbi Shmulik Kaplan, who helped edit the episode; and to producer Aharon Freiman. See you in the coming episodes of Lehisraanen.