Lehisraanen Episode 19: Rabbi Moshe Dickstein (Be'er Sheva)

00:00 Speaker 1 Shalom aleichem, welcome to another episode of the podcast “Lehisra’anein,” where chassidim share memories and bring to life the times they were privileged to spend with the Rebbe at 770, the source of our life. In this way, we chassidim refresh our connection to the Rebbe, relive that atmosphere, and make good resolutions to strengthen our study of the Rebbe’s teachings and follow in his ways. With Hashem’s help, we will see the light of his return very soon. In this episode, we’ll refresh those memories together with the chossid Rabbi Moishe Dickstein, who received special attention, unique instructions, and fascinating responses from the Rebbe. Reb Moishe was introduced to Chassidus and the ways of chassidim while at the yeshiva in Nachalim. Later, he moved to Yeshivas Simchas [unclear], and from there, on instructions from above, he went to study in Morristown. Afterward, again on instructions from above, he went on shlichus for the Rebbe, and received a special response about organizing the famous parade in Tel Aviv in 5740: “You are wanted, and your deeds are wanted.” In his own distinctive, flowing style, Reb Moishe will share his life story, his very special connection with the Rebbe, and how he later received extraordinary responses and witnessed wonders concerning his family and his shlichus in Be’er Sheva, which continues to this day. Rabbi Moishe, shalom aleichem, good evening.

01:27 Speaker 2 Aleichem shalom, Rabbi. Excellent.

01:30 Speaker 1 I’ll start with the question I ask everyone: Fun vanet shtamst du? Where do you come from?

01:34 Speaker 2 Where do we come from? Where do I come from? I attended elementary school, the Tziyon School in Tel Aviv, and after eighth grade I took the entrance exam and was accepted to Nachalim.

01:47 Speaker 1 The Tziyon School—the Mizrachi movement, as it was called.

01:50 Speaker 2 The Mizrachi movement. Knitted kippahs, knitted kippahs. I came to Nachalim and studied ninth grade there. In tenth grade, there was one afternoon when a teacher didn’t show up, so they sent in the dorm counselor instead. Instead of giving us a free period, they sent in the counselor. His name was Zimroni Tzik.

02:15 Speaker 1 Zimroni Zelig.

02:16 Speaker 2 Zimroni Zelig Tzik, z"l. We made a commotion when he came in. We weren’t exactly a herd of bulls, but within three minutes he managed to quiet us down. I don’t know how. He started asking us questions: Where was G-d during the Holocaust? Real questions of faith that left us open-mouthed. I mean, we were religious, kept Torah and mitzvos, put on tefillin, and didn’t have the slightest idea about any of it. He showed us that we knew nothing. The whole forty-five-minute lesson was questions. And he said, “I want you to give me answers. These are the questions people are asking out there today, and you need to answer them. You need to know what to say, and you need answers for yourselves.” At the end of the lesson I went up to him and said, “You sat there asking questions. Fine, well done. You managed to fill a whole math period, but I want answers. This matters to me.” I was with another five boys. So he said, “Come to my house tonight.” Now, the...

03:25 Speaker 1 He lived in Nachalim.

03:26 Speaker 2 He lived in the moshav, in the yeshiva apartments. This was the daily schedule: from seven to eight there was a study session—when I say a study session, I mean a session studying nigleh. Then Maariv. Then, from eight fifteen to nine thirty, we did homework.

03:42 Speaker 1 Homework.

03:43 Speaker 2 Homework we’d been given during the day. From nine thirty to eleven was free time; everyone could do what they wanted. At eleven there was roll call. So at nine thirty I asked my counselor for permission to go to Zimroni’s and hear the answers to the questions. There were five others with me. We went to his house. He welcomed us and gave us tea and biscuits. I’ll never forget it: Petit Beurre biscuits and tea. So, come on, let’s get to the answers. What were the answers? Tanya: “We learned in a beraisa at the end of chapter three of Niddah: They administer an oath to him, ‘Be righteous and do not be wicked.’” And this means this. But you know what? It was interesting. We didn’t get answers to the questions, but it was interesting. Then someone looked at the clock: “Come on, go, it’s lights-out.” Yes, right, lights-out. So we didn’t even shower. I didn’t shower; I went straight to bed. At around one or one thirty, I ran into him walking around there. “Can we come over tonight too?” “If you find it interesting, come tonight too.” I said, “No, but tonight you’re not teaching. Tonight you’re answering the questions you asked us in—” He said, “All right.” And then he carried on studying as though nothing had happened. And that, that gave me a certain...

05:07 Speaker 3 What year are we talking about?

05:11 Speaker 2 5730. The yeshiva gedolah was in 5730, right?

05:16 Speaker 3 Yes.

05:16 Speaker 2 5731. One lesson, then another, then another. That’s how I started becoming close to Chassidus. Along the way, he also began answering the questions. G-d isn’t somewhere only when we let Him in; He is everywhere, and it doesn’t depend on us. In short, I became a Chabadnik, and another year—

05:44 Speaker 3 Define that.

05:45 Speaker 2 What does it mean to be a Chabadnik? Having a siddur, davening from a Tehillas Hashem siddur. Saying Tehillim after davening, including the Rebbe’s chapter, chapter 71. Why do I remember chapter 71? Because when I reached chapter 71, I said, “That’s it, I’ve closed the circle,” and closed the siddur.

06:05 Speaker 3 Come full circle.

06:06 Speaker 2 Come full circle. Chapter 71. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—chapter 70. It was at the end of 5729, with the demonstration in Jerusalem. It was the end of 5729 or 5730, between 5730 and 5731. And after Maariv, studying the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. A passage. That was what being a Chabadnik meant. As time went on, going to the mikveh, then washing my hands by the bed, then going outside, and then cutting off my forelock.

06:45 Speaker 3 In other words, adopting practices gradually.

06:47 Speaker 2 Gradually, gradually, gradually, gradually.

06:48 Speaker 3 Writing to the Rebbe?

06:49 Speaker 2 Not yet. Not yet writing to the Rebbe, but hearing stories about the Rebbe. You mention writing to the Rebbe. When I was in twelfth grade—the final year—I had a startling dream. In it, I got a call at the public phone in Nachalim. The phone was somewhere else, near the dormitory. Someone came to fetch me at twelve thirty at night. This was a dream: I had a phone call; someone was calling and looking for me. I got to the phone. “Hello, this is Binyamin Klein speaking. The Lubavitcher Rebbe is coming to Israel and wants to stay in Nachalim.” Sorry: “He wants to see you, the boys in Nachalim.” In the dream, I went to tell Tzvi Yitzchak [?], of blessed memory, and Moshe Segal.

07:38 Speaker 3 May they live long.

07:39 Speaker 2 May they live long, and a few more—mainly them, and [unclear], Gofin’s son-in-law [?], Amos Moskowitz, and others. I went to tell them, and we took a taxi to the airport—all in the dream. We arrived, then went back to the airport. Standing at the entrance to the plane was the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We knew the Rebbe’s face from pictures, but next to him stood someone wearing a hat whose identity I didn’t know, and someone else who was Binyamin Klein—though I didn’t know who he was either. Then they told the Rebbe that these were the boys from Nachalim: “The ones arriving now are from Nachalim.” So the Rebbe said he wanted to come and rest in Nachalim. The motorcade arrived in Nach—this was all in the middle of—all in the dream. The motorcade arrived in Nachalim, and the Rebbe asked, “Where is it?” I said to him, “My bed.” I woke up. Listen, this isn’t a joke. I woke up, and the bed was perfectly made. I had been sleeping, yet the sheet was straight, the blanket was folded, and I was sleeping on the floor.

08:47 Speaker 4 You were on the floor in real life, not in the dream.

08:48 Speaker 2 That was after I woke up. I woke up on the floor.

08:51 Speaker 4 Wow.

08:52 Speaker 2 I asked Zimroni, “What do I do?” He said, “What do you want from me?” No, it was Nimrod Shtunsky. I asked Nimrod, “Wha—what do I do?” “Write to the Rebbe.” It was probably one of the first letters I wrote to the Rebbe. I received a reply—a general letter—and the Rebbe sent me a picture of himself.

09:11 Speaker 4 Along with the letter.

09:12 Speaker 2 Yes, inside the letter was a—

09:14 Speaker 4 Picture.

09:14 Speaker 2 There was a black-and-white picture, a picture of the Rebbe. It wasn’t anything remarkable, but it was a picture. So that’s about writing, writing—

09:23 Speaker 4 You mentioned Meir Baruch Shtunsky, may he be well. Where does he come into the picture? Did he arrive after Zimroni?

09:27 Speaker 2 No, no, no.

09:28 Speaker 4 Then tell us about it.

09:28 Speaker 2 Zimroni was thrown out.

09:30 Speaker 4 Because he made me a Chabadnik.

09:31 Speaker 2 Because he made you a Chabadnik, yes.

09:33 Speaker 4 So you were the first group, all the names you mentioned?

09:35 Speaker 2 No, no. The first group included Holtz—yes, actually Holtzman—Shimon Neumann, Nachman Kleinman. He’d arrived even earlier, but the central founding group included Shmuel Chifer and Aharon Tannenbaum.

09:49 Speaker 4 That was already—

09:49 Speaker 2 They were the old-timers. The old-timers, yes.

09:54 Speaker 4 And then Zimroni was thrown out.

09:56 Speaker 2 Zimroni was, and another counselor came in his place: Eliyahu Levin, of blessed memory, the son-in-law of—

10:03 Speaker 4 Of Barkchin.

10:03 Speaker 2 Of Barkchin, from Tzfas. He [unclear], went for his year with the kvutzah, and Avraham Kutz came in his place. Avraham Kutz couldn’t make it, so Meir Baruch Shtunsky came. And Meir Baruch Shtunsky has been there ever since.

10:17 Speaker 4 Permanently.

10:17 Speaker 2 Regularly. So, the one who worried about getting me out of there was Zimroni. But the one who brought me through the gates of Chabad was Meir Baruch Shtonsky.

10:33 Speaker 4 And then you moved to yeshiva?

10:35 Speaker 2 It wasn’t so simple.

10:36 Speaker 4 Getting in, yes.

10:38 Speaker 2 At the yeshiva, they pushed us to go to Merkaz Harav.

10:41 Speaker 4 At Nachalim.

10:41 Speaker 2 At Nachalim. And anyone who strayed and rebelled was sent into exile. That is, they sent me into exile near Gaza. Some yeshiva had opened in—

10:52 Speaker 4 In Netivot.

10:53 Speaker 2 No, no, no, not Netivot. It was in Azriel[?]. Yes, they sent me to—

11:01 Speaker 4 In the neighborhood.

11:02 Speaker 2 In the neighborhood, the redhead and Dan—Dan Segal was the mashgiach.

11:07 Speaker 4 Dan Segal was the mashgiach.

11:08 Speaker 2 Yes, this was way back, right in the yeshiva’s earliest days. And I caused a commotion there.

11:17 Speaker 4 What kind of commotion?

11:18 Speaker 2 We spent the whole night learning Toko Kohen, the sugya of Toko Kohen.

11:26 Speaker 4 Toko Kohen.

11:26 Speaker 2 Toko Kohen. We spent the whole night learning all the Tosafos, all of it. In the end, I asked the person teaching me—he was a Nachalim graduate—I asked him, “Tell me, why do I need to learn this?” It was about ten minutes before morning davening, before seven. He said, “Torah sharpens a person’s mind.” I said, “What? Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us the Torah to sharpen minds? You’re out of your mind.” In short, I went to the mashgiach. He heard me shouting at him. “What do you mean, ‘sharpens’? Come here, come here. He says the Torah sharpens the mind!” He said, “Sir, go daven, eat breakfast, and head back to Nachalim.” Fine. I went back to Nachalim, and then, to cool me off from all this, they sent me to Merkaz Harav. While I was at Merkaz Harav, I traveled to Kfar Chabad. In other words, the yeshiva thought—

12:23 Speaker 4 From Merkaz Harav to the center.

12:24 Speaker 2 Yes. The yeshiva thought I was at Merkaz Harav. My parents thought I was at Nachalim. And I myself was in Kfar Chabad. I’d travel with—what’s his name? Tzvika, Tzvika from Rishon LeZion.

12:43 Speaker 4 You traveled with Tzvika.

12:44 Speaker 2 I traveled with Tzvika and Meir Baruch Shtonsky to Nachalim.

12:48 Speaker 4 To...?

12:48 Speaker 2 To a Tanya class. Then I came back, supposedly to Nachalim, as if I’d returned from... I got there and saw a whole lot of cars in the dark. I got out of Tzvika’s car and saw that behind it was a parents’ meeting—the whole crowd. In short, I spotted my father, and he asked, “Where have you been?” “What do you mean? I’ve been walking around here looking for you.” “You weren’t here yesterday, either.” “I was in my room.” “No, you weren’t. I was in your room, and you weren’t there.” So I immediately ran to Meir Baruch Shtonsky to ask him what to say, how to handle it. I was scared. He said, “Break all the rules.”

13:28 Speaker 4 Just give me a little background. Who was your father? Where did he come from?

13:31 Speaker 2 My father was a Holocaust survivor, a survivor of Majdanek, and a Karlin chossid. My grandfather received a hundred certificates to travel either to the United States or to Palestine. So my grandfather went to ask him where to go, and he said—

13:54 Speaker 4 The Karliner Rebbe?

13:56 Speaker 2 Yes. He told him, “Blayb do”—“Stay here.” So all his life my father would say, “We stayed here, and he escaped.” And he—

14:06 Speaker 4 Yaakov Shving[?].

14:07 Speaker 2 The whole family that was murdered, and everything that happened—it was as though it was because of that. So he became... The moment he heard “chossid,” that was enough; it didn’t even matter which kind. For him it was... Later, toward the end of his life, he came back and became... Not that—

14:20 Speaker 4 Religious Zionist, yes, that was where he stood.

14:20 Speaker 2 Religious Zionist, charedi, religious—any of those. But chossid? Just the word made everything go black before his eyes. And...

14:30 Speaker 4 So you told him that...

14:31 Speaker 2 I told him. I said I’d been in Kfar Chabad, and I got two slaps. It was in a hallway packed with boys and parents, and suddenly—smack, smack. I said, “What?”

14:48 Speaker 4 Wow.

14:50 Speaker 2 My father was carrying a briefcase. He went in and banged on Yoske’s door. The parents were sitting there.

14:54 Speaker 4 Yoske Beged[?].

14:55 Speaker 2 Yes. He opened the door, and my father said to Yoske, “I don’t care about the parents here. Listen, I sent my son to study here, not in Kfar Chabad. What was he doing there for a week? I’m paying you. I...” That’s how it went. And what came of it? Yoske Beged came around, and later his attitude changed. I’ll tell you afterward how it changed. In short, my father got a promise out of me that I wouldn’t go to Kfar Chabad anymore, that I’d stay and study and get my matriculation certificate. That was what mattered to him—the matriculation certificate. So I said I’d get it. What did Kfar Chabad have to do with that? It didn’t make a difference. I’d already enrolled in yeshiva halfway through my final year, halfway through twelfth grade. I chose Monka[?], chose Klaks[?], and was accepted to yeshiva. I was only allowed to travel to Nachalim for the matriculation exams. Boruch Hashem, I managed, thank G-d. Now I’m skipping ahead a year—more than that. A year in Morristown, a year in Kfar Chabad, about three years. I went into yechidus with the Rebbe in ’36. I went into yechidus with the Rebbe and asked what message the Rebbe had for Nachalim, where they were making trouble and shouting and... So the Rebbe said—

16:31 Speaker 5 Wait, Rabbi Beged was making trouble then? So you asked the Rebbe for a message for the boys at Nachalim.

16:38 Speaker 2 There were no farbrengens; it wasn’t—

16:41 Speaker 5 No, I mean it had stopped.

16:43 Speaker 2 It was underground, but... So the Rebbe said, “Zog zey”—“Tell them.” The Rebbe said it in Yiddish. “Tell them to bring me two people from the yeshiva.” We didn’t want to take over the yeshiva. “It’s just to add a little yiras Shamayim—with tzitzis, with negel vasser, a little yiras Shamayim. And that way...” And he told me to take two [unclear], two [unclear] from the chassidim, and I would go with them to—

17:12 Speaker 5 To Beged.

17:12 Speaker 2 To Yoske Beged. I took Rabbi Chazan, I took Meir Bostomsky[?], and who else did I take? [Unclear]. I took three. We went in Tzvika’s car to Nachalim. Yoske knew we were coming, and he received us warmly.

17:33 Speaker 5 He knew you were coming?

17:34 Speaker 2 Yes, because we’d spoken to him on the phone. And then: “Well, now say what the Rebbe told you.” So we all stood up—Yoske stood up too—and I said it. And everything became wonderful. Then the trips to the Rebbe began, and there was yechidus, and then, boruch Hashem—

17:54 Speaker 5 Until things worked out.

17:55 Speaker 2 Now I’m going back in the story.

17:59 Speaker 5 So meanwhile, you’re learning in Kfar Chabad, trying to take your matriculation exams, and—

18:02 Speaker 2 And at Nachalim. That was it. The year ended, and I entered the yeshiva in Kfar Chabad to study there properly. Meanwhile, Zimroni, an old friend of mine, opened a Chabad House in Bat Yam and asked me to help. So Shimon, Menachem Kleinman, and I would do it. Since we’d worked at Nachalim, we were in touch. Holtzman and Neuman less so, but Menachem and I traveled to help out a little. And that little bit of help spilled over into Sunday, and a bit into Thursday, and kept spilling over. Yankele Katz called me in.

18:36 Speaker 5 Rabbi Katz called you in.

18:37 Speaker 2 Yes. He called me in and said, “Do you see the mezuzah?”

18:43 Speaker 5 Do you see the—

18:43 Speaker 2 “The mezuzah? Do you see the mezuzah? Kiss it—you’re out today.”

18:49 Speaker 5 The mashgiach.

18:49 Speaker 2 Yes. I asked, “Why?” “You’re never here.” I got home and found a letter from the Rebbe. I’d received a letter from the Rebbe. In it, the Rebbe wrote that I should involve myself with greater vigor and strength in the Jewish mivtzoim—the five mivtzoim. That I should do more. I went straight to Ramad. I said to Ramad, “Explain to me—”

19:11 Speaker 5 Wait, wait. Did the letter arrive because you’d written to the Rebbe about what you were—

19:13 Speaker 2 Written? No, no. The letter just arrived, a general letter. But at the bottom, about involvement in—

19:20 Speaker 5 A general letter for the holidays.

19:22 Speaker 2 Well, not a holiday letter. It was on the 20th, I think.

19:26 Speaker 5 And an addition in the Rebbe’s handwriting.

19:27 Speaker 2 That you should be involved in—

19:28 Speaker 5 Because you’d written to the Rebbe that you were—

19:30 Speaker 2 No, no.

19:30 Speaker 5 Some report, something.

19:31 Speaker 2 What report? I don’t write reports. Zimroni writes reports. I don’t—

19:35 Speaker 5 So in the Rebbe’s handwriting, it said to continue being involved in—

19:37 Speaker 2 The five mivtzoim, with greater vigor and strength. I went to Ramad. I said to Ramad—

19:44 Speaker 5 Ramad was the main mashpia then.

19:46 Speaker 2 The mashpia, yes, a new mashpia. I said to him, “Look, Ramad, explain to me what...” And Ramad was always pushing people to travel to the Rebbe, so he started. Then I said... He said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.” He went to Yankele Katz and told him about the letter—

19:59 Speaker 5 Ah, it was with Ramad when he was at [unclear].

20:01 Speaker 2 Yes.

20:01 Speaker 5 At the yeshiva, not at home.

20:01 Speaker 2 At the yeshiva. No, not at home—I went to his home. And I told him about the letter. He said, “Wait, wait a minute.” He went to Yankele Katz, who took me back into the yeshiva. Now, things at home were not good between me and my parents. There was serious anger. I got an answer from the Rebbe—this might be of interest to people. Don’t touch the beard. But regarding tzitzis: at yeshiva I wore my tzitzis out, while at home I tucked them into my belt so they wouldn’t show.

20:41 Speaker 5 Was that an answer in writing or given orally?

20:42 Speaker 2 An answer in—no, no, no. It was an answer on a note. I’d written about what to do with my parents, with the—

20:49 Speaker 5 Perhaps the most difficult outward signs.

20:50 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, maybe it’s possible. And... anything governed by the Shulchan Aruch should be done only according to the Shulchan Aruch. I had two more questions: whether to go—whether to keep going to Bnei Akiva, because my mother was very insistent that I not cut myself off from my friends, and whether to go to the beach.

21:10 Speaker 5 With the family.

21:11 Speaker 2 Yes. So the Rebbe said: anything governed by the Shulchan Aruch.

21:15 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

21:16 Speaker 2 So I understood. I stopped going to Bnei Akiva, and I stopped going to the beach too. I wore my tzitzis under my belt, and I didn’t touch my beard. What beard? It was sparse, but...

21:26 Speaker 5 Just a second, let me stop you. That answer to your question—had you written the options to the Rebbe?

21:30 Speaker 2 I wrote, I wrote to the Rebbe, not—

21:31 Speaker 5 The Rebbe [unclear] entirely on his own.

21:33 Speaker 2 I wrote to the Rebbe about what was forbidden, and I said maybe this would be possible... There was no option with the beard, and I said maybe I could wear the tzitzis outside but under a belt. And Bnei Akiva—I wrote about the things where there was no option, or—

21:48 Speaker 5 So the Rebbe marked what you had written.

21:49 Speaker 2 So the Rebbe’s answer was like this: tzitzis under a belt; don’t touch the beard; and what is forbidden according to the Shulchan Aruch is forbidden according to the Shulchan Aruch. That was... And the situation got more complicated. In short, Reb Mendel pressed me to travel to the Rebbe, to go at the end of ’34. So I went.

22:17 Speaker 5 In other words, you entered [unclear] at the beginning of ’34.

22:20 Speaker 2 Yes.

22:21 Speaker 5 The Yom Kippur War.

22:21 Speaker 2 Yes, the Yom Kippur War, right. I had entered back in ’33, but...

22:25 Speaker 5 And the whole question of joining the army hadn’t come up yet.

22:28 Speaker 2 So I had—

22:29 Speaker 5 No, I’m asking from your parents’ perspective.

22:30 Speaker 2 From my parents’ perspective, they knew I had a disability, that I was blind in one eye.

22:36 Speaker 5 I see.

22:37 Speaker 2 I couldn’t see out of one eye. Cataracts—it’s a whole story. To travel to the Rebbe, I needed permission from the yeshiva again. I didn’t get permission, except from Reb Mendel. There were three: Rabbi Katz, Reb Mendel, and [unclear]. Mendel was one hundred percent yes. Katz was one hundred percent no.

23:08 Speaker 5 Mashke.

23:09 Speaker 2 And Mashke said, “There’s time. You can dream.”

23:15 Speaker 5 To settle on the globe.

23:16 Speaker 2 Yes. In short, I had already gotten a visa and traveled with a ticket—a one-way ticket. I got there, and they told me, “Without a note from the yeshiva—”

23:26 Speaker 5 When did you arrive? What year?

23:28 Speaker 2 I arrived around 18 Elul 5734. That is, a little before 18 Elul.

23:35 Speaker 5 Between school years. Just about between school years.

23:38 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. And... they told me, “Without a note from the yeshiva, you won’t get food. Michael will throw you out—Michael Lipsker.”

23:49 Speaker 5 Michael Lipsker.

23:50 Speaker 2 “Michael Lipsker will throw you out of the dining room.” I said, “What? What happened?” The truth is that for a whole month I slept in the women’s section. I slept in the women’s section, where Leibel Groner’s room used to be—now it’s the women’s section. I slept there. I had a little bed. As for food, breakfast and lunch weren’t a problem. For supper I scraped things together, and one time I was very hungry. Very, very, very, very hungry. I said, “What can happen? I’ll go up with a plate like all the bochurim. At worst he’ll shout at me. He’ll give me food and shout at me.” So I went through the line with my plate, embarrassed. He asked, “Zogt? Did you get some?” I said yes, in Hebrew. I told him, “Yes, but I’m still hungry.” “Please.” There was no such thing. No such thing. “Please.” I took some. He didn’t bat an eye. Where had this person come from? Had he dropped out of the sky? So I saw that it worked out well. I went over to him and asked if I could get a pillow and so on, because sleeping was hard for me. “Where are you sleeping?” he asked me. “In 770.” “What? A bochur in 770? [unclear]!” He went, “Check, check, check, check. Give me the key to 520 Crown Street. Take an apartment, take this, you have—”

25:13 Speaker 6 You really managed on your own?

25:14 Speaker 2 I managed on my own. Really, completely on my own. When Yehuda Katz arrived—Rabbi Katz arrived—he asked me, “Where are you sleeping?” I told him, “I arranged that too.” His eyes widened. How could such a thing happen? In short, they sat down and discussed where I would sleep. Where would I learn? Where? Where would I learn? In 770, I was still young. [unclear]. Where? In Boro Park, I didn’t speak English. What was there? A yeshiva, you know—

25:51 Speaker 6 Hadar Hatorah.

25:52 Speaker 2 Not Hadar Hatorah.

25:53 Speaker 6 Oholei Torah.

25:54 Speaker 2 Oholei Torah—I didn’t know Yiddish. I mean, I understood it, but I couldn’t speak it. What were we going to do? I told them, “Leave it to me. That’s my problem. I’ll learn. I won’t sit idle.” I wrote to the Rebbe. I sat down in 770 and wrote to the Rebbe about my whole problem with my parents, with everything. I wrote to the Rebbe: where, where, where could I learn? I said that if I stayed in 770, within a month I’d become an askan. Boro Park wasn’t an option, and neither was Oholei Torah. So what? The Rebbe wrote to me: “Learn in Morristown.” That hadn’t occurred to anyone at all. All right, I started asking where Morristown was and what Morristown was. Meanwhile the Yom Tov season came around, Sukkos and so on. There was a young married man named Shmuel Haber who lived with his father-in-law, Klemenson, the mashgiach in Morristown. I needed to speak with him. Now I’ll stop here and go back a month. On Sukkos, before Simchas Torah, people were staking out places, holding places for themselves. Boruch Hashem, I was strong. I held two places, one on the pyramid where Rabbi Yarok danced, and one toward the front where everyone was. That was it. I had a place—

27:14 Speaker 6 Also near Rabbi Yarok’s box—

27:16 Speaker 2 Also near Rabbi—

27:17 Speaker 6 Near the box on the bimah.

27:19 Speaker 2 On the bimah. Everyone looked, everyone knew the rules. Yes, all was fine. We went on tahaluchah. I came back from tahaluchah, and someone was standing in my place. Now, I had learned that it was wonderful to hear, but I wanted to get there for the dancing. So I said I’d stand there for the dancing. I said to the person standing there in English, “Sir, that’s my place.” He said to me, “I don’t understand Hebrew.”

27:43 Speaker 6 He said that to you in Hebrew?

27:44 Speaker 2 Yes. So I said to him, “Sir, this is my place.” He said, “Farshteyst keyn Yiddish?” I said, “Sir, this is my place!” So he said, “I don’t understand English.” I said, “Then I’ll speak to you in a language you do understand.” I grabbed him and—whoosh. So that was Sukkos. Back to Shmulik Haber. I came to Klemenson’s house and knocked on the door. Who opened it? A little girl. “Can I speak to Rabbi Haber?” “Who’s Haber? Oh, the one you beat up.” Everything got jumbled in my head. I didn’t know what to think. I said to myself, he probably needs some kind of outstanding scholar for his yeshiva. What was I going to do? So I spoke to him rather sheepishly. I could see he recognized me.

28:37 Speaker 7 He recognized you.

28:38 Speaker 2 He remembered me; he recognized me. So I told him, “The Rebbe told me to learn in Morristown.” He gave me an answer that he later regretted. He said, “The Rebbe told you to learn in Morristown, but he didn’t tell me to accept you.” Afterward I got upset, threw up my hands, and wrote a note: “I went to Rabbi Haber to be accepted into Morristown, and he told me, in these words: ‘The Rebbe shlita told you to learn in Morristown, but the Rebbe shlita did not tell me to accept you.’ What should I do?” A question mark. A note. Twenty minutes later—

29:21 Speaker 7 The secretary agreed to take your note.

29:24 Speaker 2 Twenty minutes later, I went flying as fast as I could. “Where’s Dickstein? Rabbi Chadakov is calling you.” He asked me, “Did you write the Rebbe a note about Morristown?” I said yes. “They’ll tell you what to do right away.” Shmulik Haber came out looking for me, practically with his tail between his legs. “Tell me, do you write to the Rebbe about everything?” I told him, “Of course. I’m telling you the Rebbe said I should learn in Morristown, and you’re telling me the Rebbe didn’t tell you to accept me. So what am I supposed to do?” After that, I was accepted to learn in Morristown, boruch Hashem. I learned there for two years, and then—

30:07 Speaker 7 Now I want to go back for a second. You arrived at the Rebbe—what happened? What was it like? This is a little [unclear].

30:17 Speaker 2 Yes. I arrived at the Rebbe—

30:18 Speaker 7 When did you arrive? You must remember the date.

30:20 Speaker 2 I arrived in the afternoon, after Minchah. Between Minchah and when the Rebbe left for home. And it was—

30:30 Speaker 7 Let me explain: the Rebbe would generally leave at around five-thirty.

30:32 Speaker 2 About then, yes, something like that.

30:33 Speaker 7 To go home to be with—

30:34 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. So it was between Minchah and then. And... by 18 Elul I was already there. Maybe 17 Elul—

30:45 Speaker 7 A little before the eighteenth.

30:47 Speaker 2 Right, a little before—15 Elul. And I said, seeing the Rebbe there for the first time, I said the Shehecheyanu blessing. The Rebbe walked like this, looked this way, looked that way, and I thought about all that anticipation, waiting such a long time to meet the Rebbe. Then the next day, or the day after, it was the start of the Yom Tov, and there was Birkas Hagomel.

31:19 Speaker 7 Upstairs there.

31:20 Speaker 2 Upstairs there, of course. Everything was better upstairs. And... then the bochurim said that the Rebbe had looked at him from head to toe, like this, taking in the whole—

31:30 Speaker 7 You were already wearing a hat and jacket, in terms of dress, yes.

31:31 Speaker 2 Sure, sure. Hat, beard, everything. I remember Menachem Meir—Menachem Meir was upstairs for this—so everyone hid, everyone hid behind my back. I said, “The Rebbe knows about me. What is there to be afraid of?” That was it. And afterward there was a pan for Rosh Hashanah, so I went by with the pan. On Erev Yom Kippur, I went by to receive lekach. The Rebbe gave me lekach, and I walked a little farther. Then Meir Harlig said to me—

32:07 Speaker 7 The Rebbe—

32:08 Speaker 2 So I was walking along, and the Rebbe—I went back. Then the Rebbe asked me—

32:14 Speaker 7 During—

32:15 Speaker 2 Nachum?

32:17 Speaker 7 While you were giving the pan?

32:18 Speaker 2 No, no, at the—at the—

32:21 Speaker 7 At lekach.

32:22 Speaker 2 At lekach.

32:22 Speaker 7 On Erev Hoshana Rabbah.

32:23 Speaker 2 On Erev Yom Kippur.

32:25 Speaker 7 Oh, Erev Yom Kippur.

32:26 Speaker 2 On Erev Yom Kippur. “Vos mit dayn chaver, Nachum?”—“What about your friend, Nachum?” What? I hadn’t said a word. The Rebbe wanted to give him some, so... The Rebbe gave me a few pieces, and I moved what the Rebbe had given me from one hand to my right hand. I shifted it, took it in my hands; now I had something in each hand. I started walking. The Rebbe called me back again: “Vos mit dayn eltern?”—“What about your parents?”

32:53 Speaker 7 Wow.

32:54 Speaker 2 And for me, that was—

32:55 Speaker 7 That was already after you’d written about—

32:56 Speaker 2 That was already afterward. It was after the Rebbe knew about my parents and everything, everything. I put my finger like this and separated it into portions. The Rebbe took about three pieces—

33:06 Speaker 7 Let me explain, since people can’t see this. You took some of your own portion in your hand, and with your finger you separated some off for them. Then you brought your right hand back over.

33:15 Speaker 2 Then the Rebbe wrapped up three pieces, wrapped them in that, and told me, “Shik dos vi dos”—“Send it just like this.”

33:22 Speaker 7 Send it—

33:23 Speaker 2 Just like this.

33:24 Speaker 7 Wow, that’s—

33:26 Speaker 2 That’s—

33:26 Speaker 7 That’s a way of drawing someone close.

33:28 Speaker 2 It’s—it’s unbelievable. It’s—

33:30 Speaker 7 After you’d poured out your heart and told him the whole—the whole situation.

33:35 Speaker 2 That’s it. So I sent it. I traveled to Boro Park.

33:38 Speaker 7 To...?

33:38 Speaker 2 To Boro Park. It’s three stops before [unclear]. I sent it on Erev Sukkos. My father—my parents—received it. Now, something awakened in my father: the chossid in him, that chassidic feeling. So he wrote them a letter saying it was from the Rebbe, and that the Rebbe had sent three pieces. At home there were my father, my mother, my sister, and my brother. The Rebbe hadn’t sent one for my brother. Later we understood that the Rebbe hadn’t sent one for my brother because his time would come.

34:10 Speaker 7 Wow.

34:10 Speaker 2 And—

34:11 Speaker 7 How did they react? The—

34:12 Speaker 2 My father was delighted. There were hardly any telephones; you couldn’t call, only write letters. So my father was delighted that the Rebbe was thinking of them.

34:22 Speaker 7 And he didn’t cut them off, didn’t cause you to—

34:24 Speaker 2 He didn’t cause me to cut off—to break away. Even though I wanted to, even though I had broken away and fled overseas. But the Rebbe didn’t let that happen.

34:31 Speaker 7 If we stop and think about it for a second, it’s—it’s also educational.

34:34 Speaker 2 That’s the Rebbe. He’s a genius, a genius. Say it.

34:37 Speaker 7 Both in sensitivity and in education.

34:39 Speaker 2 It’s—it’s—

34:40 Speaker 7 And it also made them—

34:41 Speaker 2 Appreciate the...

34:42 Speaker 7 Wow.

34:43 Speaker 2 That their child hadn’t run away from home; he was still connected.

34:46 Speaker 7 And that he was thinking of them.

34:47 Speaker 2 Yes, that the Rebbe... I went to Morristown, the second class—

34:56 Speaker 7 Just a second, one tiny second. Sorry. [unclear].

34:58 Speaker 2 Yes, [unclear]. It’s good to dance, to dance and go on a procession, and... No, I experienced that closeness later, after I was already married.

35:10 Speaker 7 We’ll come back to that shortly. But at this point the Rebbe was speaking about the campaign for Shabbos candles, right? On Erev—

35:15 Speaker 2 So the Rebbe spoke about the Shabbos candle campaign on Erev Hoshana Rabbah, yes. The Rebbe spoke about Shabbos candles, and then I called the secretariat and asked them to speak with my sister about lighting candles.

35:30 Speaker 7 All right, so after Tishrei you traveled, as expected, to Morristown.

35:32 Speaker 2 As expected, I went to Morristown. Now, anyone who studied in Morristown—any of the Israelis who studied there—knows that you come for an entrance exam and then travel back to New York. You call Rabbi Heber at home, and Rabbi Heber tells you whether you’ve been accepted. Then you either go back or you don’t. The thing is, public transportation to Morristown cost almost three dollars, and I didn’t have it. I said, why should I go and come back? I told myself, “Of course they’ll accept me. He has no choice.”

36:13 Speaker 7 He’s already stuck with you.

36:15 Speaker 2 So I didn’t have the money to go there and back. I took my suitcase, a few pairs of underwear, an undershirt. I went to Morristown. They explained how to get there: Forty-Second Street, get off, take a bus, straight there. When I arrived, I put my suitcase in the basement—there were lots of basement rooms there. I left it in the basement, went upstairs, and took the exam. Elyakim Wolf tested me, and... only Elyakim Wolf tested me.

36:41 Speaker 7 There were three Hebrew speakers there: Rabbi Heber, Elyakim Wolf, and Malach.

36:45 Speaker 2 Yes, all of them. And there were six Israeli bochurim there too. I didn’t know that; I found out later. Anyway, the rabbi said, “Go to New York. You have my phone number. Call me when you get there, and I’ll tell you whether you’ve been accepted.” I said thank you. I went downstairs and started wandering around in the woods. I kept walking around, wanting time to pass, but it wouldn’t. Another ten minutes, another five minutes. I’d had enough; I couldn’t take it anymore. Anyway, I went back to the yeshivah. There was a pay phone downstairs in the basement. With a little hope, I called. “Hello, this is Moshe Dickstein.” He said, “All right, you can come. You’ve been accepted; you can come.” Three minutes later I showed up in the zal. They asked me, “Where did you come from?”

37:29 Speaker 7 A miraculous shortcut.

37:30 Speaker 2 I told him, “I came from the woods.” I said, “Did the rabbi think I was going to spend six dollars traveling back and forth? I don’t think so. Where would I get the money?” So he told me, “No one has ever done that to me before.” Then he put me in touch with his relative, Yitzchak Luzinsky, to arrange a room for me, somewhere to sleep, a bed, and that was that. There were a few Hebrew speakers there: Itche Raskin, Naftali Greenblat, Meir Bluzinsky. Oh, I said Meir—

38:01 Speaker 7 Yitzchak.

38:02 Speaker 2 Yitzchak Bluzinsky. And Chana Rivkin. Who else? Then Mendy Schneerson joined our gang, and so did—

38:20 Speaker 7 Mendy, Sholom Ber’s son.

38:21 Speaker 2 Mendy, Sholom Ber’s son, yes. The grandson of—

38:24 Speaker 7 Yes.

38:25 Speaker 2 And someone named Relnik [?] joined us, and Shimon Jacobson—Shimon Jacobson, the—

38:30 Speaker 7 The chozer.

38:30 Speaker 2 The chozer. They joined our gang of Israelis. We spent time together, and that was our group in Morristown. A year later, at the end of the following year—there was first year, second year, third year—at the end of third year, ten bochurim from my class went to Cincinnati to establish a yeshivah there. I was also on the list.

38:59 Speaker 7 Wait, before Cincinnati: what was the routine while you were studying there? Did you travel to the Rebbe every—

39:03 Speaker 2 We traveled to the Rebbe whenever—

39:04 Speaker 7 Every farbrengen.

39:05 Speaker 2 Every farbrengen. There was something else, too. We didn’t know that Shmuel—Rabbi Heber, that’s it, Rabbi Heber [?]—would call Rabbi Chana Krov [?] on Thursday and ask whether there would be a farbrengen. Rabbi Chana Krov [?] would say yes or no. There was never a Shabbos farbrengen that the Morristown yeshivah missed. Sometimes the Morristown yeshivah would come in and there wouldn’t be a farbrengen, but never the other way around. We didn’t know that. I’ll tell you an anecdote. One Shabbos, eleven, sixteen young fellows, and Shmulik [unclear], and [unclear]—someone said, “We’re going to walk from Morristown to Ci—” We calculated it—Duchman, yes, Duchman. What’s his name? Mendy Duchman.

40:04 Speaker 7 Mendel.

40:05 Speaker 2 Mendy Duchman. He was also in the class below us. Rubashkin was in the class below us too. He calculated that you could walk across the bridges, that it was... possible to walk. But how many hours would it take? Twenty-one hours. Fine, we’d walk it in twenty-one hours. We’d leave here at nine and reach Cincinnati at one in the afternoon. No way! We wouldn’t even be able to stand on our feet to listen to a farbrengen. Now, in our class was Yehuda Krinsky’s son. What’s his name? He’s my age.

40:49 Speaker 7 Hillel Dovid?

40:49 Speaker 2 Hillel Dovid. Dovid Krinsky. As soon as Shabbos was over, we said, “Call his father.” His father had a car. As soon as... They called his father, and his father said, “There’s no farbrengen.” Then we started questioning Shmulik: “How do you know whether there’s a farbrengen?” We pressed him right away, and he told us that—

41:08 Speaker 7 Until then, you didn’t know there was a connection or anything like that?

41:10 Speaker 2 We didn’t know there was a connection. And it had always worked out perfectly. Anyway, we went to establish a yeshivah in Cincinnati. In Morristown, that’s where I really got my foundations in Torah learning. I gained more Chassidus there too, but the foundations of Torah learning—actual learning—came from there. To take a sicha and study it, to take a sugya and study it. To learn, not—not just wander around. Exactly: to learn. And Shmulik also taught us to love learning. Not just to know how to learn, but to love it.

41:53 Speaker 7 To live it.

41:54 Speaker 2 To live the learning. That year was the first year the Rebbe began having siyumim on tractates in—

42:03 Speaker 7 Av, Av—[unclear].

42:04 Speaker 2 Yes, by the next day there was already a siyum on a tractate and a pilpul about it. I asked him, “How? Where did you get this from? You didn’t learn it. How?” So he showed us a few tricks for taking a Talmudic sugya. There are several ways you can put it together—

42:25 Speaker 7 To learn the sugya.

42:26 Speaker 2 To learn the sugya. Anyway, my name appears there too. Now, to speed things up, [unclear] told me to ask my parents whether they would let me stay in America for another two years.

42:38 Speaker 7 When was that?

42:39 Speaker 2 To establish the yeshiva in Cincinnati.

42:40 Speaker 7 After Tishrei, [unclear]?

42:42 Speaker 2 After—yes, after Tishrei, [unclear]. No, after Pesach, [unclear]. After Pesach.

42:48 Speaker 7 So you were in Morristown for a year and a half.

42:51 Speaker 2 Yes, two years of study.

42:56 Speaker 7 Coming up to—coming up to 5737.

42:58 Speaker 2 Coming up to 5737, to go to the yeshiva and establish it in Cincinnati. Actually, no, it was two weeks before [unclear] Kfar Chabad[?]. Then [unclear] said to ask our parents if they agreed. For the Americans, there was no problem. Yitzchak Bergenstein had no problem either. Naftali Grinfeld—Grinblatt—had no problem. And with Moshe Dikstein there was a problem. My parents gave permission; I called my father right away, and he agreed. [Unclear] was to submit all the positive answers to the Rebbe, along with the yeshiva’s records, all the grades, attendance, and everything else needed. So he submitted it, and next to my name the Rebbe wrote, “He is going up to the Holy Land, to the Chabad House in Bat Yam.”

43:46 Speaker 7 Just like that, on his own? “He is going up—”

43:48 Speaker 2 “He is”—right next to my name. Why are you sending my name to Cincinnati?

43:53 Speaker 7 “He is—”

43:54 Speaker 2 “He is going up to the Holy Land, to the Chabad House in Bat Yam.”

43:59 Speaker 7 A shlichus from Above.

44:00 Speaker 2 It wasn’t from Above. Someone had asked, and someone had asked specifically for me. So I think either Zimroni had been in yechidus and asked, or he asked in a letter, or Zimroni’s wife had been there and asked. One of those...

44:16 Speaker 7 Did you ever ask him?

44:18 Speaker 2 I was so upset. I wanted to—but what? How? I was pulled in two directions. On one hand, I wanted to stay in yeshiva, learn and devote myself to establishing a yeshiva. On the other hand, a shlichus from the Rebbe is... Our whole lives are a shlichus from the Rebbe. What are we working for? To be a shliach of the Rebbe. I felt torn, and Shmulik told me—Rabbi [unclear] told me, “Go to New York. Write to the Rebbe that you...” I said, “What should I write to the Rebbe? Am I going to ask the Rebbe’s opinion? I’m not going to ask his opinion.” “Write to the Rebbe: Here I am.”

44:53 Speaker 7 So you wrote, “Here I am.”

44:54 Speaker 2 No, I wrote, “Here I am.” When was this? So I spoke with Rabbi Groner, and I was given a time and went in for yechidus. The yechidus was—

45:07 Speaker 7 One second, just before that. The Rebbe had said on Shabbos Bereishis that the bachurim would no longer go in for yechidus. So you hadn’t gone in either. That means you didn’t go in when you arrived in 5737.

45:18 Speaker 2 I didn’t. I didn’t.

45:18 Speaker 7 Meaning that when you arrived, you didn’t go in.

45:20 Speaker 2 I didn’t. There was no yechidus; I hadn’t been in.

45:21 Speaker 7 There wasn’t.

45:22 Speaker 2 This was your first yechidus.

45:23 Speaker 7 So when was it, before 5737?

45:28 Speaker 2 After—after Shavuos.

45:30 Speaker 7 After Shavuos 5736.

45:31 Speaker 2 Between Shavuos and 5737.

45:34 Speaker 7 No, coming up to 5737. After Shavuos 5736.

45:37 Speaker 2 After Shav—after Shavuos 5736, yes. Between Shavuos and [unclear][?]. How do I know? Because by [unclear][?] I was already in Israel.

45:44 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

45:46 Speaker 2 And I wrote, but Rabbi Groner said, “All right, you’ll go in on such-and-such a day.” He told me, “Write down everything you want to write to the Rebbe, put it in a sealed envelope, and write on it that it’s for yechidus on the date I gave you. Then give it to me, and he’ll arrange it according to... When you go in for yechidus, you go in with only the note bearing your name.” I sat down and wrote everything from the beginning, from “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth” onward... And [unclear]—I forgot to tell you, I was the first student, the first student [unclear] learned with as a chavrusa. In the morning, at seven, from seven to seven-twenty, to seven-thirty, quarter to eight. It started with me.

46:37 Speaker 7 So that’s when you began learning with him.

46:38 Speaker 2 Do you remember something like that?

46:39 Speaker 7 No, I didn’t get a chance to study with him.

46:42 Speaker 2 So I had lots of problems. Spiritual problems—I mean questions. The books say one thing, and I see bachurim doing another.

46:53 Speaker 7 Questions about coming to Chabad, you mean.

46:56 Speaker 2 They always said that communism was good in the books, but in practice, people couldn’t live that way. So it’s only good on paper, like communism. In the books it all works, but in real life it doesn’t, because you see that the bachurim aren’t like that.

47:11 Speaker 7 Meaning that Chabad is wonderful in the books, but in the actual lives of the bachurim, less so.

47:16 Speaker 2 So [unclear] said to me—he asked if I wanted to learn with him as a chavrusa. I said yes. Then he told me, “Learn twelve chapters of Tanya by heart.”

47:24 Speaker 7 Right. Zimroni told you, “You want answers to your questions? Learn with me.” That’s a kind of teaching too.

47:30 Speaker 2 And the condition was twelve chapters of Tanya by heart.

47:34 Speaker 7 Before you started learning with him.

47:35 Speaker 2 No, no, not before.

47:36 Speaker 7 At the same time.

47:36 Speaker 2 While we were learning. And for all my questions, Moshe—Moshe Rosenfeld—was an older bachur who had already come back from the Rebbe for the second time. He directed me to him so I could...

47:49 Speaker 7 Ask him the questions.

47:50 Speaker 2 Ask him the questions. And we really sat together for many hours, and...

47:55 Speaker 7 And when you started learning with [unclear], what did you learn?

47:57 Speaker 2 We learned Kuntres [unclear], [unclear], Kuntres [unclear]. After that we learned Tanya, and he also told me how to learn Tanya by heart: three lines each day, and review the three lines from the day before. Every day, three new lines, along with everything I’d already learned. And that’s how I devoted—

48:13 Speaker 7 You learned the maamarim with [unclear].

48:15 Speaker 2 We learned [unclear]. After we finished [unclear], we learned—

48:18 Speaker 7 Tanya.

48:19 Speaker 2 We learned Tanya. We started Tanya, and he told me stories. Never mind, that’s not... Where were we?

48:30 Speaker 7 When you went in for yechidus.

48:31 Speaker 2 Oh, I went in for yechidus. So [unclear] told me that at your first yechidus, on your birthday, you ask the Rebbe what you were born for.

48:44 Speaker 7 What was I born for?

48:45 Speaker 2 What’s my role in this world? What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want from me? So I wrote to the Rebbe that I wanted to know why my soul had come down into this world.

49:02 Speaker 7 That’s what my mashpia told me to ask.

49:07 Speaker 2 The Rebbe looked at me and said, “You need to be involved in education.”

49:11 Speaker 7 Wait, slowly.

49:12 Speaker 2 “You need to be involved in education.”

49:15 Speaker 7 The Rebbe said it in Hebrew.

49:16 Speaker 2 No, no, no. At the beginning of the yechidus, the Rebbe asked me, “Vos farsh—” like this. You can’t see what I’m doing. The Rebbe took the note with my name and took a stack of envelopes, went through them like this, and pulled out my envelope.

49:30 Speaker 7 So let me explain. You went in with your note, and as you said earlier, your letter was there. The Rebbe simply ran his holy finger along and—

49:38 Speaker 2 Found my letter. Exactly.

49:39 Speaker 7 The envelope.

49:39 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. Why am I saying this? Because I could see my letter, I could see my handwriting. And as the Rebbe was opening—

49:46 Speaker 7 The Rebbe was opening the envelope.

49:47 Speaker 2 Opening the envelope.

49:48 Speaker 7 Which was still sealed.

49:48 Speaker 2 Sealed, completely sealed. The Rebbe opened the envelope and began reading, marking things with his pencil. As he did, he asked me, “Vos farshteystu, Yiddish oder Ivrit? Ivrit.”

49:59 Speaker 7 “What do you understand, Yiddish or Hebrew?”

50:01 Speaker 2 Yes. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t open my mouth. He asked me, “Nu, vos farshteystu, Yiddish...” Then he said, “Nu.” The Rebbe began speaking in Yiddish. And interestingly—the Rebbe had glasses there. The Rebbe moved the glasses. No, that was later—

50:19 Speaker 7 Meaning they were on the desk, and the Rebbe moved them.

50:20 Speaker 2 The Rebbe moved them out of the way... And then the Rebbe told me, “You will need to be involved in education and occupy yourself with spreading the wellsprings, Torah, the wellsprings, and Chassidus.”

50:35 Speaker 7 Torah, the wellsprings, and Chassidus.

50:37 Speaker 2 Torah for those who don’t yet observe Torah and mitzvos; Chassidus for those who observe Torah and mitzvos but aren’t yet chassidim; and the wellsprings—how chassidim live with Chabad Chassidus.

50:50 Speaker 7 He spelled it out just like that?

50:52 Speaker 2 Exactly, in every detail. So I knew that was my direction in life. And the Rebbe also gave me ten liras, to change into coins in Israel and give one to each person I learned Chassidus with.

51:17 Speaker 7 For how long?

51:18 Speaker 2 Until they ran out. To change the money... So I changed it into twenty-five-agorot coins. There was a break-in at the Chabad House in Bat Yam, and they stole it along with everything else. It was unusual, because there hadn’t been—there hadn’t been anything like that. As far as I understood, there hadn’t been such a gift.

51:36 Speaker 7 That kind of shlichus.

51:36 Speaker 2 Yes, there hadn’t been a gift like that. That’s it.

51:42 Speaker 7 Did the Rebbe address anything else?

51:44 Speaker 2 The Rebbe addressed other things too. Everything I wrote in the letter—everything, everything, everything—he addressed.

51:48 Speaker 7 What can you share?

51:51 Speaker 2 The Rebbe told me—what I said about education. Regarding what I wrote about wanting to be connected to him, he said to learn a maamar... That part he said in Hebrew. Then he said, “Zolst lernen mayne maamarim”—“You should learn my maamarim.”

52:20 Speaker 7 My maamarim and my sichos.

52:25 Speaker 2 Your head must not be—

52:27 Speaker 7 Your head must not be empty.

52:29 Speaker 2 There always has to be something there, even when you’re waiting for the bus. That’s—that’s so—

52:42 Speaker 7 When you’re waiting for the bus, there should be something in your head.

52:45 Speaker 2 That’s—that’s a motto for life. Because so many times, when I was working with the mobile units, I’d be working and… you’d come across some shul. A rabbi arrives with a beard and a suit, and they say, “Rabbi, say something.” You always had to have something to say. I always had something in my head. Always, always, always. They couldn’t catch me unprepared, even today. Today some Chabad people asked me to speak. There’s a shul here run by Chabad people. They wanted me to speak. There’s something to say, there’s… And afterward the Rebbe also told me, “When you come in to see me before the chuppah, before your wedding, we’ll continue talking about what we’ve started now.”

53:36 Speaker 7 That’s what the Rebbe said in yechidus—“When you come in to see me before the chuppah.”

53:39 Speaker 2 Before the wedding. “Then we’ll continue talking about what…” Now, before the wedding I pulled a little shtick. Of course, I asked the Rebbe about this and that. I wrote to him, thinking, “Will the Rebbe remember or not?” I thought, why play games? So I wrote, “The Rebbe promised me before…” When the Rebbe read it, a smile came over his face.

54:04 Speaker 7 That was at the next yechidus.

54:05 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, the next one—the one after that. After many yechidusen. You made the Rebbe smile. The Rebbe saw what I’d been thinking. And what was it? I’ll tell you—

54:18 Speaker 7 We’ll get to that in a second, we’ll get—

54:20 Speaker 2 No, no, because this, this, this—

54:23 Speaker 7 What happened next, after what the Rebbe said?

54:24 Speaker 2 The Rebbe said this: “In a permissible manner.”

54:31 Speaker 7 [unclear].

54:32 Speaker 2 “In a permissible manner.”

54:33 Speaker 7 Permissible.

54:36 Speaker 2 I was still—I was still a groom-to-be. I wasn’t—I wasn’t married.

54:38 Speaker 7 Oh, what’s permissible for a groom.

54:39 Speaker 2 “I’m making you my shliach to give this to your bride in a permissible manner, and tell her that I asked you to give it—this tzedakah—for education at the Kosel.”

54:59 Speaker 7 Education.

54:59 Speaker 2 On the day—the day of the wedding.

55:01 Speaker 7 On the day of the wedding?

55:01 Speaker 2 On the day of the wedding.

55:02 Speaker 7 In connection with the education the Rebbe had discussed with you at the previous yechidus.

55:05 Speaker 2 All of it. It was a continuation of what the Rebbe had told me, and I learned so much from it. After all, I had to say the entire Tehillim on my wedding day, so I learned that I should say the entire Tehillim at the Kosel, give tzedakah at the Kosel specifically on the wedding day, and give it for education. So all my children went to the Kosel on their wedding days, said Tehillim—all of Tehillim—and gave tzedakah for education at the Kosel. That’s exactly how it was… That’s it.

55:38 Speaker 7 Yechidus.

55:39 Speaker 2 I came out, I came out—

55:39 Speaker 7 How long were you inside?

55:41 Speaker 2 A very long time. For a bochur, that’s a very long time.

55:43 Speaker 7 A very, very long time.

55:44 Speaker 2 When I came out, Kaminker[?]—Shaya—asked me, “Well, what happened?” And what I told him, I remember the words as if it were today: “The Rebbe didn’t cough, and he didn’t put on his glasses.” Why? Because I had it in my head that a cough meant something, too. And when the Rebbe puts on his glasses, he has to put something between what you’ve written and his holy eyes. If he coughed, apparently he wanted to waive all kinds of…

56:16 Speaker 7 And here you felt—

56:16 Speaker 2 And here I felt that everything went smoothly. Then, at a yechidus some years later, when my wife was pregnant with Mendy, the Rebbe said something about success in—I don’t remember exactly what—in material matters, and the Rebbe coughed, and then said, “and spiritual matters.” I had a tape recorder at that yechidus, so the Rebbe asked me, “Vos darfstu on di tape?”—“What do you need the tape for?”

56:50 Speaker 7 The Rebbe saw the tape recorder?

56:51 Speaker 2 No, he didn’t see it. I wrote that I had a tape recorder.

56:53 Speaker 7 Oh, you wrote that—

56:54 Speaker 2 So the Rebbe said, “Vos darfstu on di tape?”

56:55 Speaker 7 Sounds like you needed the tape.

56:57 Speaker 2 No, it was so I’d have it. Then I knew the Rebbe’s exact words. And here the Rebbe shlita coughed. Since it was my yechidus, I wanted to know why the Rebbe coughed.

57:09 Speaker 7 So you submitted that to the Rebbe.

57:10 Speaker 2 After the yechidus, I wrote, “The Rebbe shlita coughed.” The word “coughed”—

57:16 Speaker 7 Right, Shmuel Kavel[?] asked whether you wrote every little thing to the Rebbe.

57:19 Speaker 2 The Rebbe circled “coughed” and wrote, “There were accusations.”

57:24 Speaker 7 There were accusations.

57:28 Speaker 2 There were. That’s it, that’s it.

57:30 Speaker 7 Did you also write down that yechidus from 5737 and the one from 5736?

57:33 Speaker 2 No, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? Then I would have had to record it, and my wife had to look after the child.

57:37 Speaker 7 No, not record it. He asked whether you wrote it down.

57:39 Speaker 2 I wrote everything down. It’s all written.

57:41 Speaker 7 You wrote it—and submitted it to the Rebbe? In, in—

57:43 Speaker 2 No, no, no.

57:44 Speaker 7 But you wrote it down.

57:45 Speaker 2 I certainly wrote it down, of course. Right afterward, as soon as I came out of the yechidus, I wrote it down. And I kept working at remembering, remembering, remembering everything… Because yechidus takes such effort. On the one hand, you’re soaring; you’re not in this world, you’re really overwhelmed with emotion. But on the other hand, you have to be one hundred percent focused to remember every nuance, every detail. That’s it. I arrived in Bat Yam, and the rest is history. I arrived in Bat Yam and worked at the Chabad House. Afterward—

58:21 Speaker 7 You were with your parents then.

58:22 Speaker 2 My parents and I had made complete peace. I hadn’t been home for two years, so my parents were waiting for me at the airport. I gave them my suitcases, and they said Binyamin had a taxi. I went to Bat Yam, of course. The Rebbe had sent me to Bat Yam. Smaroni and I settled in, got down to work, and… I returned to Tel Aviv, returned to Bat Yam, and we worked there. There was a tremendous amount of work at the Chabad House. The first Chabad House in the country was in Bat Yam; it was all new at the time. And then, I think—this is the story behind the scenes. Rabbi Yosef Frenkel, Yosef Frenkel, had a yechidus with the Rebbe.

59:12 Speaker 7 He was one of the rabbis of Tel Aviv at the time.

59:13 Speaker 2 He was the rabbi of Shikun Bavli.

59:15 Speaker 7 Yes.

59:16 Speaker 2 He asked the Rebbe for someone to work with the young people and children—the youth—in Tel Aviv.

59:23 Speaker 7 In Tel Aviv.

59:26 Speaker 2 And he asked the Rebbe to send someone. One day, ah, what’s his name? Yisroel Leibov called Smaroni. He wanted to speak to me, for me to come—

59:42 Speaker 7 To Kfar Chabad.

59:43 Speaker 2 No, to Rechov Kook, where there was—

59:44 Speaker 7 To Rechov Kook, which was then in Kfar Chabad. Yes.

59:47 Speaker 2 I get there, and he asks me, “Tell me, how are you with children and young people and all that?” I told him, “What do you mean? That’s what I do all day—work with lively kids.” “How would you feel about going to Tel Aviv? Being in Tel Aviv?” I said, “What happened?” So he tells me, “In Russia, we say: don’t ask questions.”

1:00:07 Speaker 7 Don’t ask questions.

1:00:08 Speaker 2 Don’t ask questions. So I said, “If you say so… Speak to Smaroni.” And that’s how I moved to Shikun Bavli. By then I had gotten married, and I set up a minyan for children there. What they do today in Tzfas, in all the communities—all the communities—that was the first minyan of its kind. They gave me gifts, money for gifts for the children. There was a minyan with a few bochurim and children, in Shikun Bavli, on behalf of—on behalf of the shul. Of the rabbi, yes. I put up a large sukkah there. He gave me activities to run in Shikun Bavli. I also had a few baalei teshuvah there— “So you were already married then?” “I got married in the middle of that period. That’s when I met Rami Antin[?], and I met Yehuda, and various others—” “Yehuda, Yehuda Friedman?” “No, no, no, no. You don’t know him. Yehuda was a new immigrant from Germany who had been a poker player. He became a baal teshuvah and left the kitchen. Both of them are baalei teshuvah of mine. They say, ‘If they try to put you in Gehinnom, we’ll stand there and not let you in.’ They both signed my kesubah.” “What year did you get married?” “5739.” “5739. So when had you gone to the Rebbe before that?” “Well—a quarter of a year.” “Wait, you went to Eretz Yisroel in the summer of 5736. When did you go back there?” “To the Rebbe? 5738. Tishrei 5738.” “Tishrei 5738. You were—” “I was with the Rebbe.” “When did you go in for yechidus?” “For yechidus? Not yechidus. We went past.” “No, I mean you were there after the incident.” “After the incident. There hadn’t been a yechidus before that. There was no yechidus.” “You came for Tishrei.” “Yes. I fainted into Avraham Meizlish’s arms.” “When?” “At the yechidus—we went past.” “After you went past and saw the Rebbe.” “Yes. And then he gave me—the Rebbe gave me another dollar for Tel Aviv.” “Just a second, slowly. The Rebbe was sitting at the entrance to the room, and people went past?” “In the lower courtyard.” “Yes. And the Rebbe gave a dollar to every—”

1:02:12 Speaker 2 One? He gave a dollar to each person. I went through first and fainted. When I fell backward, I landed in Avraham Meislish’s arms. So the Rebbe put a dollar in my hand, and gave Avraham Meislish a dollar to give me for Tel Aviv—because of your shlichus in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv. And... that was it. Then the Rebbe also took part in the trip, the trip to [unclear]. After that, 5738. 5739. In 5739 I was there twice as well. I was there in Tishrei and then before the wedding. Wait, in Tishrei there was also a yechidus that, at first, they said people wouldn’t be allowed into. Yes, they would. They said they wouldn’t. There was a whole story there with the Frenchmen. With the... kos shel bracha on Rosh Hashanah. Before, before the absence, they said that anyone whose surname began with alef through kaf would receive kos shel bracha now, on Rosh Hashanah, and those from kaf onward on Simchas Torah. That was it. So people went by and went by, until it was over. Then the Rebbe asked, “Have you already had some?” Everyone had already received. Yes, so he asked Levi Goren, “Have you already had some?” Levi Goren couldn’t say yes, so he gestured with his hands. The Rebbe caught one poor Frenchman, or perhaps an Englishman: “Have you already had some?” That’s how the Rebbe asked him: Have you already received? Have you already received? So he answered in French or English, as they said. Then the Rebbe gave him something like “[unclear].” There was an expression, “[unclear].” Then the Rebbe said that whoever didn’t receive any was hurting him. Whoever didn’t pass by—he would shake hands; that was in 5739. So it was as though everyone received a blessing. Yes, and there were no boxes to stand on. At the ceremony everyone was on the floor. There were no human pyramids, no—because they didn’t want to block the air at all. Except for the pyramid, the western pyramid. Yes. No, the one on the side. The southern one, the southern one on the side. The western one was the permanent pyramid. Yes. And not—everyone

1:04:25 Speaker 2 who stood on a box had his legs broken. No, there wasn’t—nobody stood on... It was joyful. 5739. And then you went back to Israel. I went into yechidus. Oh, you went into yechidus. Of course. I went into yechidus. Because then they were making up the yechidus appointments from the... No, but you went in—you weren’t engaged yet, wait. Still 5739. In 5739 you went into yechidus, and... What did the Rebbe tell you in 5739? To go back to Israel. You had gone there from the outset intending to— To go back to Israel. I went into yechidus. The moment I came in: “You must get married. [Unclear] tells you to; the Almighty Himself tells you to; the Shulchan Aruch tells you to get married. The Almighty Himself tells you to get married. And if you think it will interfere with your work, that cannot be. The Almighty tells you to get married; you must get married.” Just like that. That was the good morning. You had only just walked in—the door hadn’t even closed. The Rebbe—let’s translate it into Hebrew for a moment. I’m instructing you, commanding you, to get married. To get married. The Shulchan Aruch tells you to get married, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself tells you to get married. And if you think—if you think it will interfere with your work, then it won’t— With the shlichus. With the shlichus, then that cannot be, because if Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands it, it cannot interfere with the shlichus. Don’t be smarter than Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He added instructions, rules and instructions. At the end: “a year of [unclear], a year of blessing, a year of this, a year of that.” “A year of your shidduch,” with a shin, “a year of your shidduch.” In other words, all the letters—all the letters, and with a shin, “your shidduch.” And [unclear]. I went outside. A young man—did you write anything about it? No, nothing! A young man, Rivka Petrushka. The whole thing... Get married. Where? You don’t play games with the Rebbe. I met Yossi. Rabbi... Yosef

1:06:32 Speaker 2 Grossman. That’s all. Yes. I said, surely—he was a mashpia then, at—actually, no, no, he was a friend of mine. Of course, his mother—I wasn’t going to approach his mother, Mrs. Chaya Grossman. Chaya Grossman. May she be well, by the way. Yes, may she be well. I wasn’t going to go to her, and I was too embarrassed to approach Rabbi Grossman. So I had a friend. I went to him and said, “Can you come in?” I told him, “Listen, I need to get married.” He said, “What happened?” The Shulchan Aruch commands it, the Rebbe commands it—and for a young man to come and speak to a shadchan like that... Now, I don’t have parents here to deal with the shidduch and all that; it’s just me. In short, I thought it would be best to go back to Israel and speak to my mother. And there were several good suggestions. No, all right, I arrived and... How old were you? Just to place the year— My sheva brachos were when I was twenty-four. Oh, so you were actually young. Yes, I wasn’t old. Not that, not... Based on what I—based on what I asked Rabbi Trebnik. I asked what, what, what—Rabbi Ashkenazi, Rabbi Trebnik—I asked what the right approach was. So he said, “Listen, you teach in secular schools; you see female teachers. You see—you’re not going to stay in a classroom and put up a partition between boys and girls. You need something that will protect your eyes.” So when did you get engaged? Our shidduch was on 15 Shvat. And I got married— Fifteen, 5739. Fifteen, 5739. Yes, yes. The fifteenth of Shvat. Right, you’re correct. And we got married on 13 Tammuz. 3 Tammuz. And then you traveled—and that whole year I had, I had—she was working in Tanach, so she couldn’t, she couldn’t get married in the middle of the year. She was staying with the

1:08:23 Speaker 2 Levna family, right? Levna, yes. The daughter of—the daughter of Yossi. Of Rabbi Yosef. Yosef, Yosef Levna. Yes. And I got married— She was a Tanach teacher, so that’s why you married later. Later, yes. So she could finish the school year. Her studies, at least the school year. And I couldn’t either; I was in the middle of a degree, so we asked rabbis for permission, because an engaged couple isn’t supposed to meet. One phone call a week. When did you travel to the Rebbe? I traveled to the Rebbe for Shavuos. I traveled for Shavuos together with Rami Antin [?], and Rami Antin [?] was also engaged. I came back—we came back—I came back through England. He got married in England, and after that I returned to Israel. We received the siddur together, and that’s the story of the siddur. So we were together the whole time. Then the Rebbe asked, “Who is getting married—” Ah, wait. Wait. So Rami said— Who was getting married first. Yes. So Rami said to me—but he needs to receive the shidduch. That’s how he put it: “I’m getting married first, but he needs to receive it,” because I was his rabbi and so on. So the Rebbe told him, “I’m giving you several dollars; I’m making you my shliach to give them to him.” One second, I want to go back a little, to 5736, when you were there. You were with the Rebbe for Pesach. Of course. When you were in Morristown. Yes, yes, of course. You were with the young men. I was with the young men upstairs in the orchard. The Rebbe came to see the Seder. Yes, at both Seders. I had four Seders with the Rebbe. When the Rebbe—no, but that wasn’t— The Rebbe came— No, at—upstairs, no. Upstairs. But the Rebbe only came. In the orchard. The Rebbe came to see you at both Seders. Yes. Itzik Raskin told me, “Stand here. You stand here. This is where the Rebbe will stand for the blessing.” I said, “Itzik, how do you know?” “You stand here.” And that’s exactly what happened. The Rebbe stood half a meter away from me and gave the short blessing.

1:10:25 Speaker 2 The blessing of Hamotzi. The Rebbe walks to the kitchen, says something to [unclear], comes back, stands up, and says a very short blessing. The bowl is whole. He looks at each bowl to see—they were supposed to have been arranged already. Are there any other special farbrengens you remember from 5734 and 5736? In 5736 there was—well, if 15 was already after you came back. No, not 15. I wasn’t at the [unclear] either. That was the [unclear]. In 5734 there were all those sichos about the people who spoke against Lubavitch. Against Lubavitch, wow! Who spoke against Ashkenaz, and Lubavitch and Satmar, and... the sichos about the students, the students of the Chofetz Chaim. Those sichos are what I remember. Just a Shabbos, an ordinary winter Shabbos when I came from Morristown, Shabbos Mevorchim. What was it like? How many people were there on Purim? There were a lot. It was packed, packed. And we ate cholent with a cigar. What a treat. Then you got married. Let’s go back to 5739. You came as a chosson, and then you had yechidus. I had the yechidus—with something to pass on to the kallah. To pass on to the kallah. And the Rebbe spoke about shlichus, that you should continue somewhere. And then—no, not yet. I was in Tel Aviv. Meaning, there wasn’t... About half a year later I received offers— Wait, you got married and moved straight to Tel Aviv? We lived in Kfar Chabad. I had an apartment in Kfar Chabad, but I worked in Tel Aviv. But—[unclear]—and I went into schools in Tel Aviv, high schools, Alliance Israélite Universelle and Tichon Chadash. What did the work involve? Talks in schools, and in the afternoons, koshering kitchens, the mezuzah campaign. All the campaigns. The campaigns, yes. But it wasn’t called a Chabad House then. No, no, no, no. The term “Chabad House” didn’t exist. It was the work of a Chabad House. And Lubavitch funded it. And where, so to speak—

1:12:40 Speaker 2 was the office, the organization? It was—Lubavitch, everything, everything—on 16 [Kook] Street. On 16 [Kook] Street. That’s where my office was. I was given a desk and a telephone there, and... my father-in-law [unclear] was there too, Rabbi Nachum Cohen, for a while— Ah yes, right. I was— Of course, of course. Well, Nachum Cohen was certainly there. Is he your father-in-law [unclear]? Yes. Oh! Nachum Cohen has quite a history. 16 Kook Street was the house, his second or first house. His first house. Fine. And then? Then I realized I needed to earn a living. I wasn’t on my own anymore. I needed to... So I got several offers among the Bukharian community: to work with the Bukharians in Rishon LeZion, with the Bukharians in Kfar—or maybe there wasn’t a Kfar, I don’t remember. The vocational school and [unclear] offered me a job in Be’er Sheva as a school rabbi. I wrote to the Rebbe. No answer, no answer, no answer. What do you mean, no answer? I traveled to the Rebbe. I wanted to know what to do. I needed to earn a living. I came to the Rebbe and wrote that one of the purposes of my trip was to find out what to do. That was it. So the Rebbe wrote to me, “This could have been done by writing a few lines. Send a letter.” As if to say, what did you come for? No, I had sent dozens of letters, lots of notes. So, “This could have been done by writing a few lines.” Anyway, the Rebbe answered that Be’er Sheva took precedence. And when did the Rebbe give you that answer about Be’er Sheva taking precedence? When I wrote, the Rebbe wrote to me that Be’er Sheva took precedence. That was in the winter of 5740. It was after Lag BaOmer. We’ll get to the Kinneret in 5740 in a moment. After Lag BaOmer. After—ah—Be’er Sheva took precedence. Be’er Sheva took precedence.

1:14:50 Speaker 2 Now let’s go back to Lag BaOmer for a moment. There was a meeting about Lag BaOmer. Rabbi [unclear] didn’t want to take responsibility for it. So let’s start at the beginning. There was an instruction from the Rebbe to hold Lag BaOmer parades. The Rebbe sent fifty single-dollar bills: hold parades in fifty places, and each place that took part would receive a dollar. Meaning that until then there had been no parades at all in Israel. There were no parades in Israel. There were only the Sunday ones with the Rebbe at [unclear]. Yes, and [unclear]. [Unclear]. Then came 5740. 5740. About when did the instruction arrive? It arrived quite a while beforehand. After Pesach? After Pesach. The beginning of Iyar. Yes, something like that. And Rabbi [unclear] didn’t want to take responsibility for it, so Moshe Slonim took it on. We held a meeting. At the meeting were Moshe Slonim, Rali—Rali Alperin, Nachum Cohen and me, and Moshe Slonim. That’s—I have... You raised good children. From that group, there’s no one left. Moshe, [unclear]. We tried to work out how to do it. First of all, what even is a parade? What goes into a parade? And we started looking at where to hold one in each place—where to do one here, where to do one there. Where there was a Chabad House, it wasn’t a problem. There was Jerusalem, Kfar Chabad, Nachlas Har Chabad. Ashdod—I don’t know if there was one there or not. There wasn’t. But where the shluchim were—there was Afula, there was Netanya. There were shluchim, the shluchim from Yud Shvat. Shalom— From Yud Shvat. 5736, 5737, 5738. Yes, so there were... Yes, but they were still, they were also still in Shvat— Never mind, never mind. But they were there, they were... There was Afula, Hadera. Afula, there was Hadera.

1:16:29 Speaker 2 Netanya. There were really only a handful of places. Dickstein, you do Tel Aviv. Why? Most of them live in Tel Aviv. You do it, you do it... Why? Because your grandmother lived— Oh, actually, when you were working in Bavli, did you live at home? No, I was... As a bochur I lived with my parents, yes. Yes. That’s it. So they decided Dickstein would do it. By the way, “Together, All the Children of Israel”—that was Nachum Cohen and me. We came up with it; we did it in a second, off the cuff. Fine, and... So I said that if I was doing Tel Aviv, I couldn’t be on the organizing committee. So Moshe asked— Because you’d be busy with— Yes. So Moshe asked me, “Can you do both? Can you do something else as well?” Anyway, I brought in Rami [unclear] and explained what we needed, what we needed to do. So Rami [unclear] said— Was Rami in Tel Aviv then? Yes, he was in Tel Aviv. So Rami immediately said, “Kikar Malchei Yisrael.” But two days before that, there had been May Day, the workers’ holiday, in Kikar Malchei Yisrael. Explain it to the young people. The red holiday. The red holiday, May Day. Ibn Gabirol Street was closed. A march, a march by all the supporters of the Communist parties. Yes. The police told us, “Under no circumstances are we closing Ibn Gabirol again.” Just so we understand, Kikar Malchei Yisrael was really the biggest square in Tel Aviv at the time. There was Kikar Hamedina, but Kikar Hamedina was something small. So what do we do? Just hold a gathering. But would that count as a parade? So we asked. Moshe Slonim asked Rabbi Hodakov whether a gathering would also count as... whether it was also what the Rebbe meant. The answer came back that it would. Great, so we’ll hold a gathering. What do we do at a gathering? We said, “We’ll bring a magician, we’ll bring a basketball player,”

1:18:15 Speaker 2 We’ll bring Tzvi Greenberg to speak. We’ll bring [unclear], and we’ll do it, we’ll do it, we’ll do it—and we’ll also have Shlomo Giladi. No, not Shlomo—Moti Giladi. Moti Giladi. We’ll have Moti Giladi. He was a kind of performer, an impressionist. A singer and an impressionist. I’m putting it gently. I mean, he performed for adults too. And the magician was Moti Lahav-Hertz and Shalom Lahav-Hertz, who are big names today. They balanced benches and chairs on their teeth—it was... And we took all the girls from... We put out flyers, printed flyers, took all the girls from the seminary, and got what today you’d call a tour bus—a truck, a bus—and dropped them off at schools all over Tel Aviv to speak in the schools. We got permission from the Ministry of Education—from the education department at city hall. The city’s education department gave me permission to go into schools and speak. So we dropped them off, dropped them off, dropped them off, dropped them off. And once they’d finished—done—we picked them back up. That became a three-day program to cover all the schools and kindergartens in Tel Aviv. Greater Tel Aviv, I mean. Tel Aviv wasn’t nearly as big then as it is today. Bavli was the edge; we covered the whole area. That was the north, as far north as it went. There was a bit of Ramat Hachayal. And the east. Yes, and... and Jaffa. Kiryat Shalom. And people got furious—whoever got furious. “How can you hold a celebration during Sefiras HaOmer? How can you have a magician?” There was shouting and outrage; all the prominent people signed on to it. And the Anash activists got frightened. They started yelling at me: “How can you do such a thing?” I didn’t respond. Rami, with his way of talking, responded to them, and in short, it turned into a whole mess. I don’t want to name names, but

1:20:31 Speaker 2 prominent people, some of the elder Anash. They thought this was meant only for Jewish children—for frum children. Frum children. “What are you... what are you doing?” You stirred up such outrage, we’d gone back two hundred years, to the time of the Alter Rebbe. They wrote against it in their newspaper. There were whole columns against it. Fierce opposition. It got to the point where I couldn’t go into shul—not the shtiebel, which is today Beis Nachum Yitzchak, not Beis Menachem, and not [unclear]. People would shout at me: “You’re the one...” I collapsed at home. There was... Anyway, then Shmuel Chefer wouldn’t let the girls travel to publicize it. But there was a counselor, Simona—we’ll interview this Simona soon—who told me, “You’re right. We’ll walk from Kfar Chabad until we get to [unclear]. Bring the buses to [unclear], and we’ll travel from there.” That Simona was called Shoshana—Shoshana Harel, as she’s known today—and our families are related by marriage. She’s Shmuel Harel’s wife. So that’s what happened, and the girls came. Anyway, the big day arrived. I took some boys from the yeshiva to serve as ushers, and some girls as ushers. How many did I take? Twenty. I went to the Dan bus company and told them to add buses on all the routes—route 11, I remember, route thirty-fi... uh, 32, route 25, route 27—all the routes that went to Kikar Malchei Yisrael. They needed extra buses because masses and masses of children were coming. At 3:15, not a soul. At 3:30, not a soul. “What time did you invite the children for?” “Four.” At quarter to four, buses started pouring out children. Unloading them. And I mean unloading! The police served as ushers: “Girls, go over there. Boys, you go over there.” Police, because there wasn’t... Anyway, they sat on the chairs, sat on the ground; it got crowded. At 4:15, it all began.

1:22:42 Speaker 2 I’d already sent the car—the... not Botman, [unclear], an elderly man—to Jaffa to bring more ice pops, because we’d run out. I’d ordered a thousand. After that, I sent him twice more. The police estimated there were more than five thousand children there. Wow. That encouraged you too? It encouraged me, encouraged me, encouraged me, yes. And he came. He came, yes, he came. Now Yosef Gopin tells me, “Listen, the Rebbe is giving a sicha in New York right now.” The parade. The parade. “Maybe we can arrange something with city hall?” I said, “Please, go ahead.” Anyway, he ran to city hall because he’d managed to get a telephone line. Back then, getting a line from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem took an incredibly long time and cost a fortune. But he got a line from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Lichtenstein connected it, and they hooked it up. You could hear the Lubavitcher Rebbe over the loudspeakers. Leizer. Leizer, Leizer. What did I say? Glichenstein. Reb Leizer Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein, Lichtenstein. He connected the broadcasts for you. And over the loudspeakers in Kikar Malchei Yisrael—the May Day loudspeakers—you could hear the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I mean, it was around six in the evening, after it had ended. Yes, yes, after it ended, exactly. It was the parade, and there were Chassidim there—Belzer Chassidim, Gerer Chassidim—listening to the Rebbe. While someone translated into English, Shalom Botman translated into Hebrew. Now look at this, look at this: the May Day stage, the May Day lighting—we didn’t have a penny—the May Day lighting and loudspeakers were carrying the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s voice. The Communist Party, which hated Zion, hated Zion, hated Zion. It was an absolute revolution. As I wrote to the Rebbe, it was— We’ll still get to what you wrote to the Rebbe.

1:24:33 Speaker 2 And then it ended. It ended. Some people apologized to me; others didn’t. That was that. I went to Moti Giladi. Listen to this anecdote. I asked Moti Giladi, “How much do I owe you?” He said, “Listen, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Just pay for my taxi there and back.” I asked, “What about the orchestra?” “Go and speak to them. They’re not my orchestra, but we...” I went to them. They said, “Listen, something like this happens once in a lifetime. Just pay for two taxis there and two taxis back, for the two groups.” I went to Shmuel [unclear] and said, “I promised you.” He understood. “How much?” Yes. So I told him, “Fertsik.” The amount he’d mentioned. “What’s fertsik?” “Fertsik, forty liras.” “What? What? What?” “Forty liras.” Yes, forty. Well, fertsik liras—fertsik toyznt liras. Forty thousand liras. Yes. He took a checkbook out of his pocket and started counting. Counting. I said, “Enough. That’s enough; we don’t need any more.” He kissed me. It meant more to him than the whole parade and everything else. He was so moved. It shows that it worked too—it worked, it worked. He’d been afraid the whole time. The elders had kept filling his head with worries about it... And he was an elder himself, yes, one of the elder Anash. He was afraid the whole time, afraid that, G-d forbid, they’d make some declaration about him, about Chabad. So we packed everything up and left. I went home exhausted. All the adrenaline had drained out of my body. You know, there weren’t phones then to call and find out what had happened, how it had gone. The next morning I went to—I lived in the housing development—I went to the shtiebel. “Well done!” Everyone, you know. Yes, suddenly. Suddenly it was a success. Success has many fathers. Yes. That was it. Now I’m frustrated. On the one hand, I’d gotten all of Chabad on its feet, and on the other...

1:26:50 Speaker 2 So what, what now? What’s the truth? There was a photo lab that made prints, and I paid them double. They developed the film faster if you paid a little more. So I made an album. We wrote down the whole process, how it came about and everything. Rami and I wrote it. Rami wrote and signed, and I... and I traveled to the Rebbe with it. Now, I decided to travel with two tickets: one for a return trip two weeks later, and one for a return trip that very night. I told myself, if the Rebbe wants to see me, I’ll stay. If the Rebbe doesn’t want to see me, I’ll leave. Meaning, you were that worried that maybe— Maybe. Listen, that’s... You hadn’t reported during the preparations? Or had you reported? I don’t know if we reported. No, I don’t think we did, but people heard about it. There was a lot of noise. All Jerusalem, all Bnei Brak was... Meaning, you were afraid that perhaps you’d done something, G-d forbid, that wasn’t... Exactly, exactly. Despite the success, you didn’t know whether you had permission. Success? The Satan succeeds too. G-d forbid. Yes. Anyway, I came to [unclear] with a written note: “I am responsible for the procession in Tel Aviv and for all the commotion it caused. If I am wanted, I will stay here for two weeks; if I am not wanted, I will go back immediately.” And you were also concerned that others might have written to the Rebbe about the commotion and everything. I was certain, certain that they had written to the Rebbe. A million percent certain. I gave it to Binyamin. He said, “Tell me, are you normal?” I said to him, “Binyamin, listen, you know me. As Shmulik Brosh asked you—you know me. If you, if

1:28:55 Speaker 2 you don’t take it, I’ll slide it under the Rebbe’s door. Then the Rebbe will have to bend down to pick it up. Be like an ax in the hand of the woodcutter. You don’t know what it says.” I opened it so it would be easier for the Rebbe to read. “I ask just one thing: put it on top of the pile of notes you’re taking in, so that when you come out from the Rebbe, you’ll have an answer...” And what would happen until then? I said, “Until then, the Rebbe won’t see me. I’m going into the secretariat. I’ll hide here. The Rebbe won’t see me.” I’m telling you, it was 2:15. Meaning, you told yourself, “I’m not going in for Mincha.” I didn’t go in for Mincha. A wooden partition separated me from the Rebbe. I hadn’t seen the Rebbe that morning, nothing. I hadn’t seen him. I arrived at 2:15, and there was Mincha, and my heart was pounding, and Chodakov was pressing me. The Rebbe’s door was closed, the Rebbe’s door was closed. I thought to myself, “Why are you bringing an old man to the Rebbe?” Anyway, the Rebbe came out, and I was in the secretariat. Binyamin got himself and the note ready, knocked, and went in. After Mincha. After Mincha. I don’t know—he said it was twenty minutes, but to me it lasted hours. He came out with a smile like this. A big smile. “Well, what?” A smile. “Well!” Where I had written, “If I am wanted,” the Rebbe crossed out “if.” He made a mark underneath. A circle. A circle. A mark. An arrow-like mark. “You are wanted, and your deeds are wanted.” “You are wanted, and your deeds are wanted.” I let out a roar. I immediately started running back and forth as far as Chodakov’s room, like a madman. Listen, weeks of pressure lifted from my heart, and then it dawned on me where I was standing. The Rebbe was going home. It dawned on me that I was standing there and wanted to see the Rebbe. That’s why I’d come. I stood at the entrance to the zal and waited. The door opened,

1:30:57 Speaker 2 everyone bent down. Bent down. The Rebbe opened the door and closed his room behind him. I looked at the Rebbe and began reciting loudly, “Blessed are You, Hashem, our G-d, King of the universe, Who made man.” I said all the blessings, and the Rebbe stood and waited until I said Shehecheyanu. It was all one continuous flow of speech. The Rebbe stood and waited until I said Shehecheyanu. “Amen.” And the Rebbe went out. The Rebbe went out—that was after the farbrengen, and here it’s on film. It was before Shavuos. Before Shavuos, during the Three Days of Preparation. And at that farbrengen, the Rebbe told me to say l’chaim three times. He was showing his approval. That was the same farbrengen at which the Rebbe said that someone who could say such a thing about the procession must have invalid tefillin. Yes. And three times during that farbrengen, the Rebbe told me to say l’chaim. They gave me a small cup, so I got a big cup. Then they gave me a big cup with just a little in it, and the Rebbe signaled, “No.” Not that. Naftali Greenfeld was standing next to me. I don’t drink in front of the Rebbe; I bend down and drink. So he said, “The Rebbe was looking at you the whole time. When you bent down, he was looking at you.” Afterward there was a dollar distribution. For the tankists. For the tankists. And of course I was the chief tankist. A bit tall. Yes, yes, tall. The Rebbe told each person to take one, to give one to each person. Then the Rebbe said to me, “Du kenst tzvei”—“You can take two.” And he handed me this pack, a very, very large bundle. I took the top one and the bottom one, and of course I distributed the rest. And... afterward, on Shavuos, there was kos shel bracha. There’s an amazing picture that Freddy managed to take of me at kos shel bracha. The Rebbe is looking at me like this, really looking at me, and you can see delight on the Rebbe’s face. The Rebbe’s face,

1:33:03 Speaker 2 such vitality, such joy... It hangs in my living room at home. You were wanted, and your deeds were wanted. Baruch Hashem. To know that you did something, that’s... Yes, something. Baruch Hashem. To know you had gotten it right, brought the Rebbe to... to that point. And then there was... afterward came the answer that Be’er Sheva took precedence. Afterward came the answer that Be’er Sheva took precedence. At that same time. At that same time. And you went there. And then I went to Be’er Sheva and became the rabbi for the schools—again, it was all about education, educating the schools, and also training instructors. And from childhood I remember pictures of Moishe Dickstein training instructors. How do you remember that? Either I was in Kfar Chabad or it was in a brochure from Tzach. It’s one of my memories. Wait, and after that, when you... you started to say you arrived... before Mendy was born. Ah, before Mendy was born, I came to... By then there was already [unclear], it was already permitted... 5741? No, no, why 5741? Shavuos. Sh-Shavuos, yes. A year later, in the year 5741. A year later, yes. A year later, when I went in, the Rebbe said to me, “Mazel tov, Moishe.” That’s... that’s a story. He said to me, “Mazel tov, Moishe.” That’s how the yechidus began? That’s how the yechidus began. Binyamin Klein, who heard “Mazel tov, Moishe,” closed the door. When I came out, he asked me what the mazel tov was for. I said, “I don’t know.” So he asked, “Is your wife pregnant?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Take the keys and call her.” I said, “How can I call now?” She was in the middle of her seventh month, the middle of her eighth month. “Call home.” So what was it? What was this mazel tov? I started thinking, what is this mazel tov, what is this mazel tov? What

1:34:59 Speaker 2 Is that...? I went to [unclear]. I asked, “Reb, what did the Rebbe mean when he said ‘Mazel tov, Moishe’ to me?” And [unclear] answered in a second: “F-f-first year.” Then it clicked. After Menachem Wolpo from Netanya, I went to receive dollars. It was Wolpo’s first year after his wedding, and the Rebbe gave him a dollar and said, “Mazel tov.” And I said to myself, in my heart, “If only I merit for the Rebbe to say ‘Mazel tov’ to me at my wedding, or in the year afterward.” That’s what I said in my heart. Nobody in the world heard it from me, except Wolpo. This was at the dollars for the tankists, in the year Wolpo got married, 5747. So nobody in the world knew, except Wolpo, whom I told about that thought. I asked him, “What did the Rebbe say?” He told me, “Mazel tov, first year.” So I told him, “If only I merit that too.” That’s it. It suddenly clicked in my head. I said, “Ah, what a Rebbe.” But this wasn’t the first time after your wedding? What do you mean, after the wedding? It was the first time after the wedding. Two weeks—you hadn’t been in yechidus for two weeks. I’m talking about two weeks. Ah, so the Rebbe—I mean two weeks. Ah. So the Rebbe—Moishe. I said, how does the Rebbe remember so much? Has he nothing else to do but remember me? It didn’t come from me. Meaning, you had a yechidus afterward, after that answer that you were wanted? You had a yechidus? I had a yechidus about Be’er Sheva. About Be’er Sheva. The Rebbe didn’t refer to the date in yechidus anymore? Nothing. Nothing at all. That had passed. It was over. We spoke about Be’er Sheva,

1:37:05 Speaker 2 so... that’s it. I come out of the yechidus and see Moishe Slonim. I tell him, “Moishe, I’m going to Be’er Sheva.” Now, they knew about it. Moishe Slonim shows me a telegram that Avraham [unclear], of blessed memory, had sent him. It said they’d received a building for a Chabad school from the Ministry of Education. So Moishe told me, “Now write a note”—meaning right then, so the Rebbe would receive it that very night—“and ask the Rebbe: when he told you to come to Be’er Sheva, did he also mean for you to get involved with the school?” Because the Rebbe knew; he’d already seen the telegram. What was the answer? “Certainly.” Wait, that’s not the end. I’m sitting and writing up the yechidus. “Do you live—do you live in Kfar Chabad?” So I say, “Yes.” “Yesterday I was in yechidus, and the Rebbe told me to live in Kfar Chabad. Do you know of an apartment for rent?” His Hebrew sounded a little odd, like an English speaker’s. I told him yes. He said, “Great, which apartment?” I said, “Mine.” At the time we were living there under a lease, and... Who was he? An American, I don’t know. While you were writing up the yechidus? Yes, yes. He lived there for two years. Before the move to Be’er Sheva? Yes, he lived there two years. Then Avraham Slavin lived there for a few years, many years. After that, someone else lived there. By then the children were being born in Be’er Sheva. Meni was still born in Tzrifin, and all the children after him were born in Be’er Sheva. Wasn’t there something with Shalom’s speech? Oh, Shalom’s speech. Shalom was born with his tongue attached to the... to his palate. To his palate. The doctors saw it right away at birth, but they told me there was nothing to do about it yet. He would have trouble speaking until age five; then they could operate, because before age five an operation wouldn’t help,

1:39:10 Speaker 2 but he wouldn’t be able to speak properly. And if he didn’t speak, his vocal cords wouldn’t develop, and then he might not be able to speak at all. So they told me that if he started talking, even if the other children laughed at him, I should let him talk. Even if his speech wasn’t clear, he needed to talk so his vocal cords would work and wouldn’t be damaged. In short, I wanted to take Shalom with me when I traveled to the Rebbe for Chanukah. I took him. Before we traveled, I went to Soroka and got his whole file. Back then there was a physical file; you couldn’t just click on a computer. You had to take all the papers and make copies. Well, you couldn’t take them out of the hospital; at the hospital they copied them for twelve agorot a page. In short, I took this full file and photographed everything on both sides. I took the whole file and a pan, told the Rebbe about it, and, like an idiot, asked for a brocha that the operation should succeed. How old was he then? He was born in [unclear]. Yes, so he was a little over five. This was just before the operation. That’s it. We took everything, and we’re driving to the airport with Arik [unclear], also someone I’d brought closer to Yiddishkeit, and Amikam Schwartz of Negev Taxis, also someone I’d brought closer to Yiddishkeit. Now, Shalom used to speak like this: “What’s your name?” “Toim.” “What’s your father’s name?” “Mota.” “What’s your mother’s name?” “Totna.” He couldn’t pronounce any of the letters that involved the tongue. Right. In short, on the way from home to the airport, he turns to me and says, “Abba, isn’t the shamash higher than all the candles?” “The shamash higher than all the candles?” What? The sounds. Yes, normally. Completely normally. So I kept asking him, all the way from Tel Aviv to New York, questions whose answers contained a lamed or a shin. Then I said to myself, what do I do with the pan? What do I do with the letter, with the photographs?

1:41:13 Speaker 2 So when we arrived, I explained it to Rabbi Groner. Rabbi Groner looked at the pan and said, “Write [unclear].” [Unclear.] From then on—when the Rebbe says that the mail does its job and a person is instructed to write, the moment you write it, it’s already done. The moment you write it, it’s already— Did the Rebbe respond to what you’d written? No, nothing. But Shalom received extraordinary, tremendous attention from the Rebbe. The Rebbe gave him a coin. I’ll tell you about it in a moment. The Aron Kodesh—the Rebbe is standing here, by the Aron Kodesh, and Shalom takes the coin from the table. [Unclear] for Chanukah. Clink, clink. He doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do. Clink. So the Rebbe gestures to him like this. Clink. That was at Shacharis. At Minchah, the Rebbe gave him a coin and waited until he went to put it in the pushka. “Put it in the pushka.” And he waited. Usually I’d give Shalom another coin to exchange for it, so when the Rebbe gave him one, Shalom said, “But my father didn’t give me a coin to exchange.” That’s what he said. The Rebbe smiled. He went off somewhere; I don’t know where he was, playing. In short, when it came time for [unclear] to go in, he went in and pushed apart the Rebbe’s legs. Because of the crown. Because of the crown, [unclear], yes. It had gotten crowded where I was standing, so he ran to the Aron Kodesh. That’s Shalom. We got back to Israel and went to the hospital, to the doctor, to close his file. So I asked him, and he said to me, “You’re not all right, you’re not

1:43:30 Speaker 2 Right. “You went to another doctor for surgery? How could you do that? I’ve been treating you for so many years, and you never had any surgery!” So how did he say it? He came in and said, “Hello, Dr. Gideon.” Sholom said hello to him. Yes, the doctor was stunned. So I said, “I went to the Lubavitcher Rebbe for a blessing.” Ah, that was it. You were there with the children too? Of course. I was with Sholom and with Eliyahu. My wife was with the girls. And with Eliyahu, there was also... The Rebbe had come back from the Ohel. I can’t really say this, but he looked troubled, with a somber expression. He didn’t wait for anyone to open the door; he opened it himself and came out. The moment he saw Eliyahu, he smiled—a big smile. Rabbi Groner told me, “Listen, whenever the Rebbe is in public and comes out, I want your son standing first.” I don’t know why, but he would do that, and the Rebbe would give him five dollars. What was the connection? What, you don’t know? No, I don’t know anything about it. So I told his cheder class that he was going to the Rebbe, and every day they made a drawing for the Rebbe. They put together a beautiful folder as a gift for the Rebbe. At the Sunday dollar distribution, he went by, and I had rehearsed the words with him: “This is a gift from my friends at cheder in Be’er Sheva. It’s my birthday, and I want to ask for the Rebbe’s blessing.” In short, I handed it to the Rebbe, and Eliyahu told him, “This is a gift from my friends in Be’er Sheva, and my birthday is on April 5. I want the Rebbe’s blessing to be a soldier of the Rebbe.” The Rebbe shlita said, “This dollar is for the gift you brought me,

1:45:38 Speaker 2 this one is for you, this one is for that Gan Yisroel, and this one is for your father.” I was standing behind him. “This one is for your father.” The Rebbe gave him five dollars. That was in 5742, at 770. At 770. When? 22 Shvat 5742. 22 Shvat, a month before. Then they announced that the Rebbe would distribute a kuntres and five dollars when he returned from the Ohel on 25 Shvat. People came from all over the world. Now, we had a flight that night. I said I was prepared to give up that flight, no matter what. Was that a good decision? No, but from the sicha... a great deal... a good lesson. Ah, the Rebbe said, all right. I said, what does the flight matter? Another two hundred dollars, three hundred dollars—what is that, really? I said, “I’m staying here, and nothing else matters to me.” I just said to Rabbi Groner, “Let me be first. Let me be first.” How could I be first? There was such a crush, with barriers and walls all around. In short, I pushed and pushed until I got right up close. I took Eliyahu—the Rebbe was approaching the stand. The Rebbe came up to the stand, and there was more pushing, the usual pushing and then everyone else pushing too. I put Eliyahu up—there was a wooden booth there. Right, boards, boards, boards. I put Eliyahu on my shoulders and said, “Who can get at me?” Yes, there I was, with him on my shoulders; he wouldn’t get hurt. The pushing started, and I pushed forward until I reached Rabbi Groner from behind. I took him down—Eliyahu. Eliyahu. I took him down, steadied myself a little, and pressed Rabbi Groner: “Come on—can I tell the Rebbe we’re leaving, that I’m traveling now?”

1:47:41 Speaker 2 And indeed, the Rebbe returned from the Ohel—usually, at these distributions, you don’t say anything. Right, you don’t say a word. Fine. Eliyahu went ahead of me, and I kept walking, going around and walking on. I called to Eliyahu—and he repeats this all the time, and I imagine he carries it with him himself. So I called out, “Eliyahu, come, come, come, come, come!” Then the Rebbe said to me, “You should travel there in good health, and bring good news, good news.” Those were the first words I heard from the Rebbe. He wished me a good journey. Those were the first words I heard from the Rebbe. That’s it. Wow. I wasn’t there for Pesach. Very soon we’ll return and see the Rebbe, and until then there should be good news, Reb Moishe. I wasn’t there for Pesach. Rabbi M.L. [unclear] told me, “Your eyes will behold the King in His beauty.” So I asked him, “Why are you traveling?” He said, “When you reach my age, you’ll travel too.” You’ve reached his age. With Hashem’s help, we want to see the Rebbe again very soon, the King in His beauty. Travel in good health and have a good journey. And Moishe, you are cherished, and your deeds are cherished. So you need to write to the Rebbe that, with Hashem’s help, we want to see the Rebbe immediately. Thank you so much. May you be healthy and joyful, and travel in good health and have a good journey. Amen, amen, amen, amen. Thank you so much, Rabbi Moishe, for the special vitality you’ve given us by sharing, with such feeling, the instructions, the yechidus, the blessings, and the miracles—everything you relive with the Rebbe with such special feeling. It leads us to bless you and all of us, the entire community of chassidim and all the Jewish people, that very soon we merit to behold and see the Rebbe again, “in the light of the King’s face is life.” All of us—“He will revive us after two days; on the third day He will raise us up, and we will live before Him.” In the meantime, may we all have a good inscription and sealing,

1:49:58 Speaker 2 and a good, sweet year, and may we see the Rebbe immediately. Thank you so much.