Lehisraanen Episode 22: Rabbi Eliyahu Peretz Zilberstrom (Jerusalem, the Holy City)

00:00 Speaker 1 Shalom aleichem, welcome to another episode of the “Lehisra’anein” podcast, where chassidim share their experiences and bring fresh life to their memories of the Rebbe. This time we’re with Rabbi Eliyahu Peretz Silberstrom, shlita, of Jerusalem. Shalom u’vrachah.

00:16 Speaker 2 Shalom u’vrachah.

00:17 Speaker 1 Let’s begin with the question we ask everyone: From where do you come? What’s your background?

00:22 Speaker 2 Well, my father studied in Brisk under Reb Chaim Brisker.

00:28 Speaker 1 Was he born in Brisk?

00:30 Speaker 2 What?

00:30 Speaker 1 Was he born in Brisk?

00:31 Speaker 2 No, in Bialystok. But from the age of eleven he was already with Reb Chaim. As for our connection, before the war, my oldest brother, Aharonke[?], studied in Heide[?], Belgium, where there was a yeshiva. Several others studied at the yeshiva in Heide[?] too. For example, Dovid Moshe Lieberman, Ephraim Wolf, Uri Tzeller[?], Yaakovovitch, and a few others. And Itzik Hamasmid[?] would travel to England, or even America, to collect money for the Rebbe or for Tomchei Temimim.

01:26 Speaker 1 [unclear].

01:27 Speaker 2 He stopped in Heide[?], and that’s how my brother got to know the Chabad group.

01:33 Speaker 1 So Heide was in Belgium.

01:34 Speaker 2 Yes. It was a Litvish yeshiva.

01:36 Speaker 1 And they went there because they were living in Europe.

01:38 Speaker 2 Yes.

01:39 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

01:40 Speaker 2 In Belgium, in France. We were in France because of Hitler and everything.

01:45 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

01:47 Speaker 2 So Ephraim Wolf still managed to get from there to Otwock, but the others didn’t. And from then on, my brother and several others became involved with Zalman Schneerson, and—

02:05 Speaker 1 Where was he?

02:07 Speaker 2 What?

02:07 Speaker 1 He was in Paris.

02:08 Speaker 2 In France, in Paris. During the war, they helped him gather children whose parents had been taken away and care for them in institutions. An institution might have six children, eight children. Twice they tried to smuggle them into Switzerland. Once, Switzerland even handed them over to the Germans. Another time, Switzerland threw them out; it was summer, at the height of it all. But throughout the war, my brother helped Zalman Schneerson. He was a young man, but they called him the director of the operation. Zalman Schneerson organized the money and everything else. In 5705[?], after the war, we all came to Eretz Yisroel, including my brother.

03:01 Speaker 1 Until then, where had you been—where were you?

03:04 Speaker 2 What?

03:04 Speaker 1 Where had you been until then?

03:06 Speaker 2 In France, in a village. The whole family, yes.

03:08 Speaker 1 You didn’t see all that; you weren’t with Zalman Schneerson.

03:11 Speaker 2 No. After the war, yes. After the war, my parents and the part of the family that was there—two brothers and two sisters—went to Zalman Schneerson. We baked matzos there, and we stayed there until we arrived in Eretz Yisroel before Tishrei. My brother, [unclear], went to a yeshiva here to see where he should study, but the Frierdiker Rebbe sent him back to France to help Reb Zalman Schneerson, because Reb Zalman Schneerson was still managing to get children out of the churches—

03:54 Speaker 1 The children who had been hidden there.

03:55 Speaker 2 Children whom non-Jews had taken to—

03:59 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

04:01 Speaker 2 So there was still work to do, and the Frierdiker Rebbe sent him back there.

04:05 Speaker 1 From Eretz Yisroel to France.

04:06 Speaker 2 From Eretz Yisroel to France. Anyway, after some time, he sent word that my brother could leave. They had placed the children in institutions, and then he came to Eretz Yisroel and organized a Talmud Torah in Jerusalem called Shiloh. For example, the children of Gerrer chassidim studied there because they didn’t yet have an institution of their own, until they brought in a rabbi, Reb Yankel. I remember we used to play together there at Shiloh.

04:45 Speaker 1 Wait, just a moment. As far as you were concerned, when did you first hear about the Rebbe—about the Frierdiker Rebbe? From your brother?

04:51 Speaker 2 From my brother.

04:52 Speaker 1 When? After the war?

04:54 Speaker 2 After the war.

04:55 Speaker 1 When you arrived in Eretz Yisroel.

04:56 Speaker 2 We only knew that he was connected to Zalman Schneerson, to Chabad.

05:01 Speaker 1 And when you arrived here in Eretz Yisroel, did you already have a connection to Chabad?

05:04 Speaker 2 No.

05:04 Speaker 1 Not yet.

05:05 Speaker 2 But my brother Mordechai[?] would write to that rabbi, and he wrote about getting my brother Simcha into Tomchei Temimim. Later he wrote that, following that, the younger brother also...

05:21 Speaker 1 Wanted to. Yes.

05:23 Speaker 2 ...should enter.

05:24 Speaker 1 And what did your father do here after coming to Eretz Yisroel?

05:27 Speaker 2 He arrived ill, and a month later he passed away.

05:30 Speaker 1 Oh, he passed away after just one month.

05:31 Speaker 2 We arrived before Tisha B’Av, and he passed away on 14 Elul.

05:35 Speaker 1 Wow.

05:37 Speaker 2 So the family, the family—

05:40 Speaker 1 Scattered.

05:40 Speaker 2 Scattered, in short. Anyway, my brother studied at Tomchei Temimim, and later I came there too.

05:51 Speaker 1 Did you go from Shiloh to Tomchei Temimim?

05:52 Speaker 2 No, no, no. From Shiloh I went to Kol Torah.

05:56 Speaker 1 You were at Kol Torah.

05:56 Speaker 2 In the Talmud Torah.

05:57 Speaker 1 Yes.

05:58 Speaker 2 Yes, there wasn’t a yeshiva yet. It was—

06:02 Speaker 1 Who taught you at Kol Torah? Who was there?

06:04 Speaker 2 What?

06:05 Speaker 1 Who was at Kol Torah then?

06:07 Speaker 2 Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, for example. Yes, everyone knows him.

06:11 Speaker 1 Schlesinger.

06:12 Speaker 2 Schlesinger was a rosh yeshiva there too. And... it was good. I was at Kol Torah from 5710 to 5712. In 5712 I moved to another yeshiva, Be’er Yaakov, and—

06:30 Speaker 1 Sasson.

06:31 Speaker 2 In Elul 5714, I went to Tomchei Temimim. The rabbi and the yeshiva there told me, “You’re too Chabad.” That was it.

06:47 Speaker 1 At Be’er Yaakov, who were you with there? Was Rabbi Wolbe already there?

06:50 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

06:51 Speaker 1 Did you also study—

06:52 Speaker 2 Even though he—

06:53 Speaker 1 He wasn’t the mashgiach.

06:54 Speaker 2 He had a connection with Chabad.

06:55 Speaker 1 Yes.

06:55 Speaker 2 Back in Sweden.

06:57 Speaker 1 In Sweden, he was in the army.

06:59 Speaker 2 That’s well known.

07:00 Speaker 1 Yes. Well, it’s not so well known. But did he say anything to you? Did he speak about outlook or anything?

07:05 Speaker 2 No, but I’ll tell you, from him—

07:09 Speaker 1 Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe.

07:10 Speaker 2 There were two other leading mussar figures. Yechezkel Levenstein was at Ponevezh.

07:15 Speaker 1 Yes, of course.

07:16 Speaker 2 And what was his name? What was the name of the one in Kfar Chassidim?

07:21 Speaker 1 Rabbi Mann.

07:22 Speaker 2 What?

07:23 Speaker 1 [unclear], Rabbi Mann, Reb Elya Lopian.

07:27 Speaker 2 Lopian. No.

07:29 Speaker 1 Reb Elya Lopian.

07:31 Speaker 2 Yes. Anyway, I heard from them—they told me in confidence—that they had a locked cabinet, and they took sources from it for the mussar talks they gave. What was in that—

07:46 Speaker 1 In the locked cabinet.

07:47 Speaker 2 [unclear], the Rebbe’s sichos.

07:52 Speaker 1 Tanya was out in the open.

07:54 Speaker 2 Probably Tanya too.

07:55 Speaker 1 Maybe that was out in the open, in the open cabinet.

07:57 Speaker 2 Yes, Tanya was out in the open, yes.

07:59 Speaker 1 So in Elul 5714 you moved to Lod.

08:02 Speaker 2 To Lod, yes.

08:04 Speaker 1 Who was there? Reb Shlomo Chaim?

08:06 Speaker 2 Chaim.

08:07 Speaker 1 Avraham Meir was still there too.

08:08 Speaker 2 Avraham Meir wasn’t there much. He was a mashgiach, but he didn’t come every time, and he wasn’t a mashgiach who was, how do you say it, closely involved with the bochurim.

08:23 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

08:24 Speaker 2 There was Mendel, a Gerrer chossid—

08:27 Speaker 1 Yes.

08:28 Speaker 2 He was the mashgiach—

08:28 Speaker 1 Moshe.

08:30 Speaker 2 —to make sure they studied and didn’t talk, and...

08:32 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

08:33 Speaker 2 Yes, but Avraham Meir would walk around and take an interest in bochurim. For example, he told one bochur that if he learned Shev Shmaitsa by heart, he’d give him fifty lira. Another, Ketzos HaChoshen[?]. He did things like that. He picked out individual bochurim.

08:55 Speaker 1 The ones suited to those things.

08:56 Speaker 2 Not everyone, no.

08:59 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. But Reb Shlomo Chaim was an educator.

09:01 Speaker 2 He was an edu—yes, he would farbreng and speak with us.

09:07 Speaker 1 When did you first write to the Rebbe?

09:11 Speaker 2 I don’t remember exactly when. This is what happened: Before I came to Lod, the usual practice was to let the yeshiva out on 18 Elul. When I arrived there at the beginning of Elul, I heard they’d be leaving on 18 Elul. I wasn’t used to that. In yeshiva, you study until Yom Kippur—

09:45 Speaker 1 You study until Yom Kippur.

09:47 Speaker 2 Anyway, a letter came from the Rebbe: they were to stay in yeshiva until Yom Kippur. And that’s what happened. So the bochurim were there, but that first Yom Kippur davening... everything changed—

10:07 Speaker 1 Yes. And how long were you in Lod?

10:10 Speaker 2 Until Elul 5718.

10:13 Speaker 1 Four years.

10:14 Speaker 2 In Elul 5718, the Rebbe took ten bochurim out of the yeshiva to work in education. The Rebbe had founded the Reshet in 5712. Until then, there were four schools: Jerusalem, Merhavya, Jaffa, Zarnuga[?] near Rechovot, and—wait, there was a fourth one too. Kfar Saba, I think. No, not yet. Anyway, in 5718 the Rebbe said to expand the Reshet—

10:59 Speaker 1 And it grew dramatically.

11:00 Speaker 2 And they opened four more schools: in Ta’anach[?], in Brosh[?], in Kiryat Gat, and in Kfar Saba. My brother founded the school in Kfar Saba. The Rebbe wrote that fortunate was his lot to be involved in founding institutions, and... well, never mind. Anyway, on 18 Elul 5718, the Rebbe took us into education.

11:30 Speaker 1 What does that mean? Did the Rebbe decide which bochurim? Did he write to you, or did someone approach you? How did it work?

11:34 Speaker 2 Apparently the administration sent the Rebbe a list, and the Rebbe approved it.

11:40 Speaker 1 So—

11:40 Speaker 2 I don’t know.

11:41 Speaker 1 Who else was with you?

11:42 Speaker 2 I don’t—

11:43 Speaker 1 Yes.

11:43 Speaker 2 I wasn’t involved in that.

11:45 Speaker 1 So you hadn’t written to the Rebbe beforehand, and the Rebbe hadn’t written to you personally.

11:48 Speaker 2 I had written to the Rebbe before.

11:49 Speaker 1 About what?

11:50 Speaker 2 About coming to the yeshiva and having difficulties, that I wasn’t settling in so well. Well, there’s... no, never mind.

11:58 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

11:59 Speaker 2 But anyway, I started in Ta’anach[?]. I was there only until Cheshvan.

12:09 Speaker 1 Alone?

12:09 Speaker 2 Cheshvan—

12:10 Speaker 1 Alone?

12:11 Speaker 2 What?

12:11 Speaker 1 Alone?

12:13 Speaker 2 No. Others were there too. Avraham Sarzongi[?] was there, Chirufi[?] was there, and Yitzchak Ginsburg was the director.

12:27 Speaker 1 Okay.

12:29 Speaker 2 It’s a long story, but they greeted us with knives.

12:32 Speaker 1 Wow.

12:32 Speaker 2 In short, they didn’t want—

12:34 Speaker 1 The people of the settlement didn’t want it.

12:35 Speaker 2 They didn’t want the settlement to become religious.

12:38 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

12:39 Speaker 2 There were kibbutzim there, after all, and... never mind. Anyway, I was there until Cheshvan. In Cheshvan they moved me to Jerusalem to work in education.

12:53 Speaker 1 Where, in Malcha?

12:54 Speaker 2 No. Back then there was a school in Sdot Micha, near Beit Shemesh. A small school. There were two boys’ classes and two girls’ classes. First and second grade, first and second grade, third and fourth grade boys, fifth through eighth grade boys. That was what they gave me. And the girls’ classes had two teachers, and the boys’ classes had two teachers. I was there. Then, on the tenth of Tishrei, 5719, there was a meeting at Rabbi Swin’s[?] home, and they opened the Chabad school in Ir Ganim with four students.

13:52 Speaker 1 And they took you again?

13:53 Speaker 2 They took me again, from Sdot Micha to—

13:56 Speaker 1 There, to—

13:57 Speaker 2 Ir Ganim.

13:58 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

13:58 Speaker 2 And the school grew. It was—

14:01 Speaker 1 It developed.

14:03 Speaker 2 Big, very big.

14:03 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

14:04 Speaker 2 It reached two thousand students.

14:06 Speaker 1 Wow.

14:07 Speaker 2 Later it split into three schools.

14:11 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

14:13 Speaker 2 That’s the short version.

14:14 Speaker 1 Yes. And moving on—actually, since you were part of the administration, you didn’t really have direct contact with the Rebbe? You reported to the administration, and the administration wrote to the Rebbe; you didn’t write directly.

14:28 Speaker 2 Rabbi Ben Chen[?] was appointed by Rabbi Chanchin[?] as an inspector—

14:34 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

14:34 Speaker 2 Of the schools. On the one hand, he was the principal locally—

14:39 Speaker 1 And the chief inspector for the area.

14:41 Speaker 2 An inspector. And he ran a course for teachers, on the Rebbe’s instruction. He ran the course so they could get certificates that the Ministry of Education would recognize, so we’d be qualified to teach. That’s the short version—

14:57 Speaker 1 And as yeshiva students, would you also travel to the yeshiva from time to time for farbrengens, or were you all tied up with school?

15:03 Speaker 2 Yes, on the holidays.

15:04 Speaker 1 You traveled for the holidays—

15:05 Speaker 2 Yud—yes, yes, Purim. Yes.

15:09 Speaker 1 When did you first come to the Rebbe?

15:11 Speaker 2 Oh, the first time I came was Elul 5721.

15:16 Speaker 1 Elul ’21.

15:20 Speaker 2 I don’t know, there was Selichos and there was a farbrengen. The Rebbe held a farbrengen before Rosh Hashanah. I thought it was always like that. Later I found out it wasn’t; it was something special. I don’t know. There wasn’t a farbrengen on Erev Rosh Hashanah every year. Well, apparently there was one because people had come—we traveled on a charter flight. There was a first charter flight in Tishrei ’21.

15:54 Speaker 1 Yes.

15:54 Speaker 2 We came in Tishrei ’22, on the second charter flight.

15:58 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

15:58 Speaker 2 And with us were—

15:59 Speaker 1 My father, may he be well, also traveled for Tishrei then.

16:01 Speaker 2 What?

16:01 Speaker 1 My father, may he be well, also traveled for Tishrei then. I don’t know if he was on the charter flight, but he went too. He was there for Tishrei ’22. There were also several yeshiva students then who were considered something of a group.

16:12 Speaker 2 Yes.

16:13 Speaker 1 Right, there was Rabbi—

16:13 Speaker 2 There wasn’t a group yet.

16:14 Speaker 1 Yes, but there were several students who were considered a group. Rabbi Lemel was there, and Rabbi Yaroslavsky, and Micha Steinmetz.

16:19 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

16:20 Speaker 1 There was a group like that—it wasn’t a group yet, but they traveled for a few months. So that was the first time.

16:25 Speaker 2 Micha Steinmetz was my study partner.

16:27 Speaker 1 Ah.

16:30 Speaker 2 Rabbi Salchungi[?] was there, and there were others who traveled on the charter flight.

16:37 Speaker 1 So when did you first see the Rebbe?

16:40 Speaker 2 The first time—there was a yechidus at the beginning, and then another yechidus after Sukkos. The previous year, in ’21, the Rebbe came out to see them off. That is, they brought buses—

17:06 Speaker 1 When they were leaving, on the way back.

17:09 Speaker 2 And before the passengers went to the airport, they stood there, and the Rebbe came out. In ’22, they parked the buses and waited. The Rebbe wasn’t coming out. What could we do? We took off our—

17:31 Speaker 1 Coats.

17:32 Speaker 2 Yes. We started singing and dancing.

17:35 Speaker 1 Until you were sweating.

17:36 Speaker 2 Oh, and we were so happy. The Rebbe opened the curtain—

17:43 Speaker 1 In his room.

17:44 Speaker 2 In his room. We saw him open it. He looked out the window, but we—

17:49 Speaker 1 Kept dancing.

17:52 Speaker 2 Suddenly Rabbi Chadakov came out and beckoned with his finger. They asked him what he wanted. He said, “Zilberberg, the Rebbe is waiting for you.”

18:07 Speaker 1 Ah!

18:07 Speaker 2 I couldn’t, I was so—first of all, I couldn’t stop—

18:12 Speaker 1 To catch your breath.

18:14 Speaker 2 But to go in to the Rebbe? A verse of Tehillim? Nothing. The Rebbe’s time! Do you know what a minute of the Rebbe’s time is? It’s a whole world, it’s not... And the Rebbe was waiting. What do you mean, waiting? I grabbed somebody’s coat, and Chadakov said, “No, your own coat. Go up to the bus and get your coat and hat.” In short, I went into the Rebbe’s room. I came to yechidus without any preparation, without Tehillim, without anything. The Rebbe began talking about education and expanding it. Then, toward the end, the Rebbe said—I don’t know whether to say it in Yiddish; I’ll say it in Hebrew.

19:07 Speaker 1 Say it in Yiddish too, and in Hebrew.

19:08 Speaker 2 “Tzi gedenkst du noch Frantsoyzish?” “Do you still remember French?” Because I was born in France. I gestured with my hands; I couldn’t speak. I gestured—

19:28 Speaker 1 A little. More or less.

19:57 Speaker 2 So the Rebbe said the following. And I left the Rebbe’s room.

20:04 Speaker 1 Just translate it for us.

20:06 Speaker 2 I’ll translate it into Hebrew. “If you make an effort to remember your French, it will be of help to you. If you make an effort to remember French, you will visit kibbutzim where they speak French and meet with the editors of the French-language press. It will be of help to you; making the effort to remember French will help you.” I came out of the room. Everyone outside was waiting. “What did the Rebbe say?” “Je parle français.” I went back to speaking French. And ever since then, if I want to speak French with someone, I stammer. Sometimes I remember, sometimes when I need to say something, I don’t. But when I speak about the Rebbe, I speak fluently, and I even say words I never knew before—and then forget them afterward. That’s a power. I don’t know how to explain it.

21:13 Speaker 1 It’s also interesting that the Rebbe used three—the Rebbe said the same sentence three times.

21:17 Speaker 2 Three times.

21:23 Speaker 1 We’ll come back to that, but I want to spend a moment on Tishrei, on that first yechidus. After ten years of being acquainted with Chabad—or eight years—you suddenly see the Rebbe. What was it like? Even if your heart is pounding, try to give us a little...

21:40 Speaker 2 It’s...

21:41 Speaker 1 Describe it for us a little.

21:43 Speaker 2 No, it’s... What can I say? I had read the Rebbe’s sichos, especially the sicha of [unclear], which speaks about the Rebbe as Atzmus... So looking at the Rebbe isn’t just seeing what appears before my eyes. No. I’d be mistaken to think so. Whether I see or don’t see, I’m not seeing properly. It’s the Rebbe. You think—you think you see, but you don’t. It’s hard. Hard to put into words, to explain.

22:31 Speaker 1 That the external, physical things we see are really only an outer covering.

22:37 Speaker 2 I don’t know how to explain how it can be that such holiness—the Rebbe—could be clothed in a body and speak with everyone. That’s...

22:56 Speaker 1 In any event, describe a little what Rosh Hashanah was like. Rosh Hashanah.

23:00 Speaker 2 I’ll give an example.

23:01 Speaker 1 Yes.

23:02 Speaker 2 In the sukkah. The Rebbe went into the sukkah with the lulav and hadassim and closed the door. Presumably he made the blessing over taking the lulav. Then he opened the door. There may have been—I don’t remember—perhaps twenty people in the sukkah. Seven in the morning. Davening was at ten, but the Rebbe came at seven. And you go into the sukkah. The Rebbe was holding a sefer. He looks at you—looks right at you—and you take the lulav. The Rebbe says, “On condition that you return it.” You take the lulav. I don’t know whether you’re trembling or not. I don’t know. I... I take the lulav, say the blessings, put down the lulav and hadassim, and go outside. That’s me. You can’t explain the feeling. It isn’t yechidus, but it’s really like it. You go in, just you and the Rebbe.

24:24 Speaker 1 I’m going to ask anyway, because there are almost no people left who remember this. Was the Rebbe sitting? This was in the outdoor sukkah—was he standing?

24:31 Speaker 2 Standing.

24:32 Speaker 1 Standing and learning from a sefer on the table, holding the sefer.

24:36 Speaker 2 I don’t know if he was standing.

24:38 Speaker 1 And the lulav and esrog were on the table.

24:41 Speaker 2 They were on the table.

24:42 Speaker 1 Lying there.

24:43 Speaker 2 There was a table like that, and the lulav and esrog were there.

24:47 Speaker 1 And each person who came took them himself. The Rebbe didn’t hand them over personally.

24:50 Speaker 2 He just said, “On condition that you return it.”

24:52 Speaker 1 And he said amen.

24:56 Speaker 2 Then you went outside, and people in the sukkah looked for a lulav. In ’27 it was like that too, though there were fewer people. By ’27 already...

25:11 Speaker 1 By ’27 that wasn’t the case anymore. Yes, I’ll get to that, but Meir Harlig hadn’t taken over yet. It was still the Rebbe who handed it over.

25:20 Speaker 2 Meir Harlig stood at the entrance.

25:23 Speaker 1 But people still went into the sukkah in ’27.

25:25 Speaker 2 Into the sukkah, certainly. The same thing. The Rebbe stood with a sefer. “On condition that you return it.” Amen and amen.

25:35 Speaker 1 And it was like that on the following days of Sukkos too?

25:37 Speaker 2 I don’t know. On the other days it was different for us, but he said amen then too.

25:42 Speaker 1 Yes, there in our sukkah too.

25:44 Speaker 2 In the sukkah. The third time I was there, in ’30, ’31, I think Harlig was already handing it over. That’s what I think.

26:02 Speaker 1 They say that someone once said something to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said he was the only one who cared about my time. That he took over—I once heard that the Rebbe put it this way: he saved me time, as it were.

26:14 Speaker 2 But I’m sure I have another story from ’27. We’ll get to it, though.

26:20 Speaker 1 We’ll get to that. A little about the shofar blowing. Do you remember ’22?

26:24 Speaker 2 The one and only time I heard it. The first and only time. I was never there for Rosh Hashanah again. Other than that, I always arrived on 6 Tishrei. I’d arrive on 6 Tishrei because that’s my wife’s birthday.

26:41 Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

26:42 Speaker 2 I would arrive on 6 Tishrei.

26:44 Speaker 1 So tell us a little about ’22. Where was it held, downstairs?

26:49 Speaker 2 The shofar blowing was downstairs, yes, downstairs. I remember the... Yes, there was pushing, but we still managed to see and hear.

27:06 Speaker 1 And did you see what people describe—the tallis over the face, the shofars here and there? What do you remember?

27:13 Speaker 2 I couldn’t see the cloths, but I saw the tallis over his face. I couldn’t see his face. There were three, three, three...

27:24 Speaker 1 Packages.

27:25 Speaker 2 Of paper, like paper bags. Yes, there’s a story about that too.

27:34 Speaker 1 Tell us.

27:34 Speaker 2 What do you mean, three? But that’s something else. Wait, we’ll get to that. The Rebbe covered himself and...

27:42 Speaker 1 Covered.

27:43 Speaker 2 Yes, covered himself. More than anything, we heard the “ay, ay, ay.” We heard the Rebbe crying. Yes, and we heard the verses and the blessings. We heard the shofar blowing. Yes, and afterward he passed the shofar to...

28:06 Speaker 1 Tannenbaum. Yosef Mendel Tannenbaum.

28:09 Speaker 2 Tannenbaum, or the baal tokeia—what was his name?

28:14 Speaker 1 Reb Moshe Shusterman. Rabbi Tannenbaum was the baal tokeia for that occasion.

28:21 Speaker 2 On... on that street, on Beis Street and Zayin Street. There was a regular shofar blower, I think. What was the rabbi’s name, the baal tokeia?

28:32 Speaker 1 Rabbi Shusterman.

28:33 Speaker 2 Shusterman.

28:38 Speaker 1 That’s it.

28:39 Speaker 2 That’s regarding the... because the shofar, that relates to the lulav.

28:50 Speaker 1 When was your first yechidus?

28:52 Speaker 2 The first was between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It was like an introductory visit, as they called it. We just went in and came out.

29:04 Speaker 1 A note—did you hand in a note?

29:06 Speaker 2 Yes. What? I wrote my name.

29:10 Speaker 1 What did the Rebbe say?

29:12 Speaker 2 I don’t remember anything. Nothing. I went in, said “Boruch...”

29:18 Speaker 1 [unclear].

29:18 Speaker 2 [unclear]. I stood there and went out. That was it.

29:27 Speaker 1 Yom Kippur was...

29:30 Speaker 2 Yom Kippur was...

29:32 Speaker 1 There was the march.

29:33 Speaker 2 The march after Yom Kippur, yes. Yes, the Rebbe stood up on a chair.

29:41 Speaker 1 Did you know he was going to stand on a chair? Had someone prepared you for it? Were there older bochurim who told you what was going to happen?

29:50 Speaker 2 They said they would sing the march, but they didn’t say that...

29:57 Speaker 1 There were farbrengens in the sukkah too. On Beis Street, the Rebbe still held farbrengens in the sukkah.

30:01 Speaker 2 There was a farbrengen in the sukkah, yes.

30:03 Speaker 1 When the...

30:03 Speaker 2 There was one on Zayin Street too.

30:04 Speaker 1 Yes, that’s right. On Zayin Street there was that famous rain.

30:06 Speaker 2 It rained, and there was the story with Reb Yisroel... what was his name? My mind’s gone blank.

30:18 Speaker 1 Boruch Hashem.

30:19 Speaker 2 Reb Yisroel... the head of Tzach.

30:24 Speaker 1 Yisroel...

30:26 Speaker 2 He was the head of Tzach.

30:27 Speaker 1 Reb Dovid Raskin.

30:28 Speaker 2 No, no, Reb...

30:29 Speaker 1 Oh, Reb Yisroel Leibov.

30:30 Speaker 2 Yisroel Leibov.

30:31 Speaker 1 There you go.

30:32 Speaker 2 Yisroel Leibov was at the farbrengen. It was raining, and you could see it on his hat, and Yisroel Leibov held out his little cup to the Rebbe. The Rebbe didn’t respond, didn’t say l’chaim to him. Once, then again, then again, and yet again, until Reb Yisroel Leibov could barely hold back his tears. He asked Leibel Groner to tell the Rebbe that the Rebbe wasn’t responding to Yisroel Leibov. So Leibel told the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said that Yisroel Leibov should take off his coat. He took off his coat, and the Rebbe said l’chaim to him and told him to drink. That was in 5727.

31:20 Speaker 1 Did the Rebbe also take off his coat? When he... when he came into the sukkah for the farbrengen, he came in wearing a coat and took it off, didn’t he?

31:26 Speaker 2 No, he didn’t. He came without a coat.

31:28 Speaker 1 Then maybe it was someone else. Shlomo always tells a story about it.

31:31 Speaker 2 Maybe. I don’t remember. I don’t remember.

31:37 Speaker 1 What happened at the yechidus... or before the yechidus, on Simchas Torah in 5722? What do you remember?

31:44 Speaker 2 Simchas Torah. There were long farbrengens.

31:51 Speaker 1 The Rebbe taught the “Zemiros” niggun.

31:54 Speaker 2 The “Zemiros” niggun was in...

31:56 Speaker 1 5722.

31:56 Speaker 2 5722, yes. That was after the farbrengen in the morning. The Rebbe came over and went up to where his table was. He took a chair, raised his leg, and told the story.

32:31 Speaker 3 I’ll describe it, since people can’t see: he stood with one foot on the floor and the other on the chair, with his hand resting on his leg.

32:39 Speaker 2 Yes, like that. And he told the story.

32:45 Speaker 3 The story about the person who stayed after Yom Kippur.

32:49 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes. From after Yom Kippur all night until morning. And afterward, the whole crowd was singing, and the Rebbe went on like this.

32:59 Speaker 3 Encouraging them with both hands.

33:00 Speaker 2 With both hands, yes.

33:03 Speaker 3 He gave out mashke to those who...

33:06 Speaker 2 He did. Then he said, “Whoever takes it upon himself...” Yes.

33:11 Speaker 3 And what was it he took upon himself regarding Chassidus?

33:13 Speaker 2 Whoever takes it upon himself to learn more Chassidus, yes. These are things that are hard to forget.

33:26 Speaker 3 That’s why we’re listening: we want to relive these things and make them fresh again. And afterward you went in for yechidus.

33:34 Speaker 2 And afterward...

33:34 Speaker 3 After Simchas Torah, for an hour and a quarter.

33:37 Speaker 2 Daily. Yes.

33:39 Speaker 3 What happened at that yechidus?

33:41 Speaker 2 Oh, the yechidus in 5722. I... it was short. Short.

33:49 Speaker 3 Did the Rebbe address the fact that you worked in education?

33:52 Speaker 2 No. Not yet. No, no. That was in 5727.

33:55 Speaker 3 So what was it in 5722? You were a bochur.

33:57 Speaker 2 A bochur.

33:59 Speaker 3 What do you remember of it, at least?

34:01 Speaker 2 I don’t know what, but the fact that the Rebbe called me—that...

34:05 Speaker 3 That was later. That was already your third yechidus.

34:08 Speaker 2 All right, but I connect it to that. It wasn’t on my own merit; it was because of my brother Simcha. The Rebbe simply wanted to convey something—that’s how I understand it. I don’t...

34:24 Speaker 3 By the way, since you’ve mentioned the whole story of that terrible tragedy, did you write to the Rebbe as a family at the time?

34:33 Speaker 2 Huh?

34:34 Speaker 3 Did you, as family members, write to the Rebbe about the tragedy? Did your mother write? Did you write?

34:39 Speaker 2 They wrote, and the Rebbe wrote back, yes.

34:41 Speaker 3 But you didn’t write as a bochur.

34:45 Speaker 2 The letters are there.

34:49 Speaker 3 All right, you returned to Eretz Yisroel.

34:53 Speaker 2 We returned to Eretz Yisroel, and there was a Tzach gathering.

35:00 Speaker 3 A gathering—the national gathering of Chabad chassidim.

35:04 Speaker 2 In short, everyone spoke Yiddish, so a lot of people weren’t inside; they went outside. What could they do? They didn’t understand Yiddish. You have all these people speaking Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish. Then, suddenly—I don’t remember who it was—someone realized it, the...

35:31 Speaker 3 The emcee, the organizer.

35:33 Speaker 2 Huh?

35:34 Speaker 3 The emcee, the organizer.

35:35 Speaker 2 So he said, “Now someone will speak in Hebrew.” People started coming in, and they announced that I would speak in Hebrew. So I came up, and people started coming in. I spoke briefly. What was there to say? The Rebbe said—the Rebbe said, “Yasher koach, good,” and that the ABC of Chassidus is weniger: think less and do more, still more.

36:21 Speaker 3 That’s how you ended your remarks.

36:23 Speaker 2 In short, they came in. That was it. There was a response from the Rebbe. What was the response?

36:32 Speaker 3 To the report of what was said?

36:34 Speaker 2 To the report on the... on the gathering.

36:38 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

36:39 Speaker 2 [unclear].

36:43 Speaker 3 That’s what the Rebbe answered?

36:44 Speaker 2 That’s what the Rebbe answered.

36:51 Speaker 3 You had aligned your thinking with the Rebbe’s. And then you continued in education?

36:57 Speaker 2 Yes, I taught. That’s why I couldn’t stay, and that’s why... The one time I managed to take leave for reserve duty, there weren’t computers yet. The Ministry of Education didn’t check who was there and who wasn’t, and they didn’t check at the border whether you had permission or not. By 5727, you already had to ask permission.

37:26 Speaker 3 From the authorities, from the army.

37:28 Speaker 2 Yes.

37:29 Speaker 3 So you returned to Eretz Yisroel, and when did you get married?

37:32 Speaker 2 In 5722.

37:33 Speaker 3 The very same year you returned.

37:36 Speaker 2 Gimmel Tammuz.

37:37 Speaker 3 Gimmel Tammuz 5722. [unclear]. Did you write to the Rebbe before the wedding? What was the procedure in those years?

37:44 Speaker 2 And I’ll mention one thing from the yechidus in 5722, after Sukkos. One of the things the Rebbe said was this—I don’t remember the exact wording—he asked about a shidduch in Kfar Chabad. My father-in-law went in for yechidus after me.

38:18 Speaker 3 Oh, he was there in 5722 too?

38:20 Speaker 2 He went in for yechidus. The Rebbe told him to inquire about a shidduch in Jerusalem. Now, I knew Kfar Chabad, but I didn’t know Jerusalem. So that’s the story of how...

38:37 Speaker 3 What’s the story?

38:37 Speaker 2 How things unfolded.

38:41 Speaker 3 The Rebbe guided you directly.

38:43 Speaker 2 Exactly.

38:44 Speaker 3 Your father-in-law is Reb Aharon Gopin.

38:48 Speaker 2 That was in 5722. Good. And... all right, move on to 5727.

39:00 Speaker 3 Wait, just a little about the time in between. After you returned, was there any connection between the chassidim and the Rebbe beyond writing on Rosh Hashanah and Yud Shvat?

39:11 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

39:12 Speaker 3 What? There weren’t broadcasts yet.

39:14 Speaker 2 No, but we did a lot of Chabad activities everywhere, not just...

39:19 Speaker 3 You were involved in a lot of Chabad activities?

39:20 Speaker 2 Yes, on kibbutzim, in Tel Aviv, and in Jerusalem. And among Anash—really, anywhere we could. So...

39:32 Speaker 3 Was the press already being used then? Did you meet newspaper editors? Where were the newspaper editors?

39:39 Speaker 2 In Tel Aviv.

39:40 Speaker 3 And did you arrange meetings with them?

39:42 Speaker 2 Yes, but what could I do? I knew what to say—tell them a little about the Rebbe and so on—but I didn’t know how to make use of it so that they’d publish teachings of Chassidus. They wouldn’t agree.

39:56 Speaker 3 They still... And then 5727 came around, or the end of 5726, and you decided to travel to the Rebbe.

40:03 Speaker 2 And we went out in 5722. We went everywhere. We would go and sing, and... Mainly, people would speak. They even put together a choir and sang.

40:25 Speaker 3 I was telling you about my father-in-law. My father-in-law was Rabbi Nachum Cohen, a"h, the son of Rabbi [unclear]. He always tells how important the niggun was. Rabbi [unclear] couldn’t sing at all. He came back from the Rebbe in [unclear]; he was on the first charter flight. My father-in-law Nachum was still a young fellow. He says he was even a little embarrassed to walk down the street with his father, because every Jew he met in [unclear] and Meah Shearim, he would tell him, “The Rebbe says, ‘Atah Vechartanu,’” and start singing. The niggun really caught people’s attention. Maybe we feel that less today. The Rebbe’s niggunim were part of the outreach, part of how Jews came to know the Rebbe. Singing also played a big role on the kibbutzim—

41:08 Speaker 2 Certainly.

41:08 Speaker 3 At Chabad evenings?

41:12 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. More than the talks, yes. There was even a school in Tel Aviv where everyone wore blue shirts with a red cord.

41:31 Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

41:32 Speaker 2 They said, “If you get out of there without rocks hitting your heads—”

41:36 Speaker 3 “It’ll be a miracle.”

41:38 Speaker 2 Anyway, Itzik Ginzburg spoke there too, and we sang. After the talk, the school principal simply cried and promised that he would contribute and see to it that there would be fifty siddurim, pairs of tefillin, talleisim—

42:01 Speaker 3 In the school.

42:01 Speaker 2 In the school.

42:03 Speaker 3 We should explain that the red cord meant the Communist Party.

42:06 Speaker 2 Yes.

42:07 Speaker 3 People don’t know that today.

42:11 Speaker 2 There were other examples like that, where you could see how completely it moved them.

42:20 Speaker 3 Before we get to 6 Tishrei, I also want to ask about the network for a moment. Were you already seeing concrete results—families, an impact?

42:29 Speaker 2 No, not yet.

42:31 Speaker 3 Not in those years.

42:32 Speaker 2 Not yet. But, for example, in Ir Ganim and Sdot Micha there were families who had observed Torah when they lived abroad.

42:54 Speaker 3 In North Africa.

42:55 Speaker 2 Mostly, yes. Almost all of them were from Morocco. A few were from Iraq. Here they had been cut off from it, so they began to come back a little. And later, in Ir Ganim, for example, we brought many children from nonreligious schools into the religious school.

43:25 Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

43:26 Speaker 2 We have examples among the students. For instance, a former student lives here—

43:32 Speaker 3 Here in Neve Yaakov.

43:33 Speaker 2 Here in Neve Yaakov. He’s a dayan on a beis din, and there were two brothers and two sisters in the family. I remember bringing them over from a nonreligious school, and today all of them have religious families. One brother, I know, even studies Daf Yomi; I meet him sometimes. And the sisters are married and have established religious homes. It was mainly the students themselves.

44:04 Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

44:04 Speaker 2 The parents also returned to observance, but not to the same extent.

44:11 Speaker 3 But many of the students—

44:13 Speaker 2 The students, yes.

44:16 Speaker 3 Then 6 Tishrei approaches, and you decide to travel to the Rebbe again for 6 Tishrei.

44:21 Speaker 2 Yes. That was the permission to go. The permission hadn’t yet been publicized, but I had read in the Rebbe’s sichos that there was permission. So I would travel to the Rebbe. Anyway, I traveled for 6 Tishrei. Three of us went: me, Meir Friedman, and Ganshe, who was the wife of—

44:45 Speaker 3 The wife of Boruch Gofin.

44:46 Speaker 2 Boruch Gofin.

44:47 Speaker 3 The aunt.

44:48 Speaker 2 My wife’s aunt.

44:49 Speaker 3 Did you travel alone or with your wife? So you were still traveling alone.

44:54 Speaker 2 Meir Friedman was married too, because he had gotten married around the same time we did.

44:58 Speaker 3 Yes.

45:00 Speaker 2 Anyway, the flight was supposed to take off at eight in the morning. It was delayed, they said, until ten. In the meantime we went to Kfar Chabad and came back; security wasn’t what it is now. Anyway, at ten we got to the plane. No, we couldn’t leave: there was an extra suitcase. Someone had put a suitcase on the plane and wasn’t there. There were these crazy hippies around then. So the flight took off at twelve. Four hours late. We worked it out: sixteen hours of flying, with a stop in France. We were going to miss the Rebbe’s farbrengen.

45:47 Speaker 3 On 6 Tishrei.

45:49 Speaker 2 Yes, on 6 Tishrei. If we’d left at eight, the plan was to arrive at the start of the farbrengen. But after a four-hour delay, we decided that when we got to New York, we wouldn’t look for our suitcases or anything else. We’d take a taxi straight to the farbrengen. Maybe we’d make it. Ganshe said, “The Rebbe will have finished the farbrengen already. I’m going to my sister’s; I’m not going to…” Fine, so drop us off first and then continue on. We got off, and the three of us had only our suitcases. I don’t know, they forgot [unclear]. We took the suitcases, got a taxi and went. We arrived at 770, and there were lots of people outside. We asked, “Has the Rebbe finished the farbrengen?” They said, “No, the Rebbe is speaking, but he’s speaking in Yiddish.” We didn’t understand. But the Rebbe was still there. We dropped the suitcases and went in, but we couldn’t see the Rebbe.

47:03 Speaker 3 The crowd was blocking the view.

47:07 Speaker 2 Suddenly we heard over the loudspeaker that they were stopping the singing. “Zilberstrom, iz er da?”—“Is he here?” What was I supposed to do? I was there, but what could I say? Apparently the Rebbe made a sign. They cleared a path for me. The Rebbe had me stand—the Rebbe was here, and he had me stand opposite him. People started tugging at my coat.

47:43 Speaker 3 Because you were blocking their view.

47:44 Speaker 2 The Rebbe told him, “Stand there.” There were two more sichos. In the second sicha, he spoke about education, about transferring children from nonreligious schools to religious schools.

47:59 Speaker 3 And you were standing opposite him?

48:00 Speaker 2 Opposite him.

48:01 Speaker 3 During the sicha, the Rebbe told you to stand there?

48:03 Speaker 2 Yes. “They are the myriads of Ephraim and the thousands of Menashe.” Anyway, I didn’t know what it meant. After the farbrengen, the Rebbe called Benny Friedman and gave him the mezonos: “Together with Zilberstrom, after they review what was said at the—”

48:25 Speaker 3 Farbrengen.

48:26 Speaker 2 “Review what was said, hold a farbrengen, and distribute the…”

48:32 Speaker 3 Mezonos.

48:35 Speaker 2 When the Rebbe called me over and had me stand there, he asked, “Is there someone in the women’s section?” What could I say?

48:45 Speaker 3 That there isn’t—

48:45 Speaker 2 [Unclear]. I said, “I don’t know.” [Unclear]?

48:51 Speaker 3 “But is she here?”

48:52 Speaker 2 The Rebbe repeated, “But is she here?” I said, “I don’t know.” But there was a woman who had come with us, so I thought she must be there. She wasn’t. There were so many people, and [unclear]. That was Erev 6 Tishrei. Then came the distribution of lekach on Erev Yom Kippur. The Rebbe gave everyone a piece of lekach. I went by, and the Rebbe gave me three pieces. Well, you’re supposed to take some and taste it too, so I ate a little of one of them. What was I to do with three pieces? I kept them. Then, at yechidus after Simchas Torah, among other things the Rebbe said, “You received three pieces of lekach. One is for you, one is for your mother”—she was still alive then—“and one you should give to your wife.” The Rebbe said about my wife, “She should crumble it and make two trays from it.” The Rebbe gestured with his hands—

50:45 Speaker 3 The Rebbe showed him how to crumble it with his holy hands.

50:49 Speaker 2 “She should make two trays from it.” Let me pause and explain. Outside, people were waiting to go in for yechidus. It was three, three-thirty in the morning, and—

51:03 Speaker 3 They were knocking.

51:04 Speaker 2 They were knocking on the door, and the Rebbe didn’t answer. The Rebbe was doing this—

51:09 Speaker 3 Showing how to crumble it.

51:10 Speaker 2 The Rebbe did that, and then the Rebbe did this—

51:15 Speaker 3 Showing with his hand how to cut it.

51:17 Speaker 2 Three lines lengthwise, three lines crosswise. “Give it to every boy and girl, and have them make a bracha over it. They will have a good and sweet year.”

51:33 Speaker 3 The Rebbe demonstrated with his hands. They can’t see the crumbling, but afterward the Rebbe showed the cutting lines, lengthwise and crosswise, to make squares—

51:40 Speaker 2 As though there were no one outside. As though the Rebbe had all the time in the world. Nothing. They were knocking on the door; it made no difference. The Rebbe—

51:49 Speaker 3 The Rebbe was dividing up the cakes for the students right then.

51:53 Speaker 2 Then he said, “I noticed…” Sorry—“I noticed that when you passed by for kos shel bracha, you didn’t take a bottle of mashke.” There were bottles like that; I still have the bottle. The Rebbe would give a bottle to anyone who had—

52:16 Speaker 3 Communal work.

52:17 Speaker 2 That year I was the principal of a school in Malcha, [unclear]. So the Rebbe said, “I noticed that when you passed by for kos shel bracha, you didn’t take a bottle of mashke. That bottle of mashke stood under the table throughout the farbrengen and heard everything that was said. Take the mashke, put it in a bottle and add juice, because it’s too strong for children. Give some to every boy and girl, and have them make a bracha over it. They and all their families will have a good and sweet year. Go into the secretariat and take a bottle.”

53:19 Speaker 3 He went right down to the details of exactly how to distribute it.

53:22 Speaker 2 I meet former students who tell me, “Teacher, I remember you brought us cake and—”

53:32 Speaker 3 And juice.

53:33 Speaker 2 And a mix.

53:33 Speaker 3 And a mix.

53:34 Speaker 2 From the Rebbe.

53:37 Speaker 3 Why didn’t you actually take a bottle at—

53:39 Speaker 2 Huh?

53:39 Speaker 3 Why didn’t you take one at kos shel bracha?

53:42 Speaker 2 I received a kos shel bracha.

53:43 Speaker 3 No, mashke. So why not?

53:45 Speaker 2 Was I supposed to take one?

53:46 Speaker 3 Meaning, the usual practice was for the Rebbe to give one himself; people didn’t ask.

53:49 Speaker 2 You didn’t ask. What—

53:51 Speaker 3 No, because apparently—

53:52 Speaker 2 Some people did ask, but I—

53:53 Speaker 3 No, because the Rebbe seemed to have indicated that—

53:56 Speaker 2 To start talking there? Come on, quickly, quickly. The Rebbe’s time is… Yes. The mashke—you know, the Rebbe doesn’t allow it to be sold on Pesach, but I have the empty bottle. But…

54:15 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

54:16 Speaker 2 Yes.

54:19 Speaker 3 What else happened at that yechidus?

54:22 Speaker 2 Afterward, I remembered: in 5722 the Rebbe spoke about education. At the time I was at Yeshiva Sarav. The Rebbe said that those involved in education who give out prizes should not go into debt. They should work only with what they have in their budget—not exceed the budget. That was the instruction. That was in 5722.

55:02 Speaker 3 Was that about Yeshiva Sarav, or in general?

55:04 Speaker 2 In general, but I was connected with Yeshiva Sarav, so...

55:10 Speaker 3 In other words, besides your work with the school network, you were also involved with Yeshiva Sarav here in Jerusalem. I understand. And by 5727 you had stopped managing the school; that had already been arranged with the Ministry of Education.

55:23 Speaker 2 Only for one year.

55:24 Speaker 3 Only one year. After that, you went back to teaching.

55:29 Speaker 2 I taught the whole time.

55:30 Speaker 3 But the management was—

55:31 Speaker 2 I was also managing, dealing with parents. No—

55:37 Speaker 3 What else happened in 5727? We’re talking about exactly sixty years ago now. Did you stay through Shabbos Bereishis, or did you go back right away because of work?

55:48 Speaker 2 No, Shabbos—well, no... We left right after Simchas Torah.

55:57 Speaker 3 So you had yechidus and then left?

55:59 Speaker 2 We left after the yechidus, yes.

56:01 Speaker 3 Were there any other special instructions in that yechidus?

56:04 Speaker 2 In 5727? Oh, right, there was just the matter of the lulav. I forgot.

56:13 Speaker 3 What happened?

56:14 Speaker 2 On erev Sukkos, the Rebbe distributed the four species.

56:20 Speaker 3 The four species.

56:22 Speaker 2 Rabbi Chanzin was also there in 5727, and the Rebbe told him—

56:28 Speaker 3 Just for anyone who doesn’t know, Rabbi Chanzin was the director of the school network at the time.

56:31 Speaker 2 The director of the network.

56:32 Speaker 3 Not everyone knows that.

56:32 Speaker 2 The Rebbe motioned like this for him to make another round—

56:36 Speaker 3 To go around the table again, as it were.

56:39 Speaker 2 And take another hadas for every school principal.

56:44 Speaker 3 In other words, people would pass by the table, and the Rebbe motioned with his hand for him to go around the table again and take another hadas for every school principal.

56:52 Speaker 2 For every—when he finished going around, the Rebbe asked him, “How many did you take?” “Six.” The Rebbe said, “Did you take one for Silberstrom?”

57:01 Speaker 3 Wow!

57:01 Speaker 2 The Rebbe knew I was a school principal. So I didn’t want to... The Rebbe told him, “Go around again and take another hadas.” When I came out after making the blessing on the Rebbe’s lulav, I asked Rabbi Chanzin to let me use that lulav. He said, “No, it’s the Rebbe’s lulav. I won’t give it to you.” No.

57:29 Speaker 3 Meaning, it was the lulav he had received from the Rebbe with the four species.

57:32 Speaker 2 Yes. So I used another one for the blessing. Later Rabbi Chanzin said, “Oh, I remembered—actually, in this lulav there’s—

57:41 Speaker 3 A hadas for you.

57:44 Speaker 2 So I asked that at least after Sukkos he—

57:47 Speaker 3 Give you the hadas.

57:48 Speaker 2 So he gave me a hadas.

57:55 Speaker 3 But the Rebbe called you by your surname several times, too. That was... By then, back in Israel, your wife had stayed with the children... The Rebbe didn’t address that subject? And then, afterward?

58:21 Speaker 2 After that, in 5731, I was in Israel again in 5734, during the Yom Kippur War.

58:29 Speaker 3 Before that, let’s see for a moment: in 5731 you were there for Sukkos, Sukkos, Sukkos, in—

58:34 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

58:35 Speaker 3 On the day the Rebbe... The Rebbe saw the representatives then from all the... who had stopped—

58:41 Speaker 2 Representatives, yes.

58:42 Speaker 3 Who had stopped over in Israel.

58:44 Speaker 2 The minister, the minister of... in—

58:51 Speaker 3 Did you have yechidus in 5731?

58:54 Speaker 2 We had yechidus, but it was short.

58:57 Speaker 3 Even though it was short, what happened?

58:58 Speaker 2 In 5734, before Yom Kippur, the Rebbe issued a maamar and a sicha. And I think in the maamar or the sicha there was a note from the Rebbe. It said something about [unclear] as far as Damascus. The Rebbe said that this sicha should be publicized in Israel. Yom Kippur was almost here. What could we do? How? The Rebbe had said to publicize it, and that everything should be done with joy and gladness of heart. What could we do? Zalman knew an Arab driver from Ramla.

59:59 Speaker 3 Zalman Gaz—oh, Zalman Gopin.

1:00:02 Speaker 2 He would always drive him around, like a taxi.

1:00:07 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:00:08 Speaker 2 He called him—

1:00:09 Speaker 3 Right, Zalman was with you at the Rebbe’s.

1:00:11 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:00:11 Speaker 3 In 5734, yes.

1:00:13 Speaker 2 So he told him, “Drive to Kfar Chabad, go around to the shuls, and tell them on my behalf, in the Rebbe’s name, that everything should be done with joy and gladness of heart.” It was the night of Yom Kippur.

1:00:26 Speaker 3 The night before erev Yom Kippur.

1:00:27 Speaker 2 The night—it was already Yom Kippur night.

1:00:31 Speaker 3 You were still on erev Yom Kippur, but over there in Israel it was already Yom Kippur. So he called the non-Jewish driver and sent him to Kfar Chabad on Yom Kippur.

1:00:40 Speaker 2 Yom Kippur.

1:00:40 Speaker 3 Before the war had actually started, because it was Yom Kippur night.

1:00:42 Speaker 2 The war started in the morning.

1:00:44 Speaker 3 In the morning, in the afternoon—morning, afternoon. So he sent the non-Jewish driver from Ramla to go around Kfar Chabad and convey—

1:00:51 Speaker 2 The Rebbe’s message, that everything should be done with joy and gladness of heart.

1:00:58 Speaker 3 Did you report to the Rebbe that you had done it?

1:01:00 Speaker 2 What?

1:01:00 Speaker 3 Did someone write to the Rebbe that it had been done, or not?

1:01:05 Speaker 2 I don’t know. In the morning, at eight o’clock on Yom Kippur, the police came and informed the Rebbe—meaning, they informed the secretary. The police came into the secretariat. We didn’t know what it was about. The Rebbe came in for the Yom Kippur prayers at ten o’clock. But he knew... He knew on his own, but they informed him.

1:01:43 Speaker 3 And when did you find out?

1:01:45 Speaker 2 In the middle of davening.

1:01:48 Speaker 3 And then—

1:01:48 Speaker 2 In the middle of davening, they made it clear that the Rebbe knew war had broken out.

1:01:54 Speaker 3 And what happened the next day? Tell us a little about the pan. There was something with the pan, too, with the—

1:01:59 Speaker 2 I don’t know.

1:02:00 Speaker 3 Weren’t there people who wanted to give the Rebbe a pan?

1:02:03 Speaker 2 I don’t know. I don’t.

1:02:05 Speaker 3 Reb Yankel Katz, Reb Yankel Katz was there, Mrs. Freiman.

1:02:09 Speaker 2 I don’t know.

1:02:12 Speaker 3 What do you remember from 5734? There were the French visitors.

1:02:17 Speaker 2 The French visitors, yes. At hakafos there were two hakafos: one for the French visitors and one for the army. Also, all those who—

1:02:28 Speaker 3 Children of Tzivos Hashem.

1:02:29 Speaker 2 Children of Tzivos Hashem. So at those two hakafos—

1:02:35 Speaker 3 The Rebbe motioned for you to go, because you had been in the army.

1:02:40 Speaker 2 Because I had been in the army.

1:02:41 Speaker 3 And with the French visitors, too.

1:02:42 Speaker 2 I’m French, too. There was a way in, yes.

1:02:47 Speaker 3 What do you remember?

1:02:51 Speaker 2 Those are the things. That’s it.

1:02:58 Speaker 3 Tell us, tell us what you remember.

1:03:05 Speaker 2 I was at [unclear] for Shavuos once. But this happened in 5727, not in 5741. In 5741 I traveled with the whole family. Except for Yossi, because he wanted to travel as part of a group. He said that if he traveled with us—

1:03:48 Speaker 3 The army wouldn’t allow it.

1:03:49 Speaker 2 Exactly, they wouldn’t permit it. Anyway, in 5741, after Maariv, the Rebbe began speaking and said in a sicha to go out and dance in the street.

1:04:04 Speaker 3 Sukkos.

1:04:04 Speaker 2 Sukkos. I remember that, yes.

1:04:08 Speaker 3 It was [unclear]. The whole family came that time.

1:04:10 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

1:04:11 Speaker 3 In 5734 you came alone, in [unclear]?

1:04:14 Speaker 2 With—no, not in 5731. Not in 5731. I came in 5731—no, for Rosh Hashanah.

1:04:26 Speaker 3 In 5729.

1:04:27 Speaker 2 We came—no, in 5729, for Gimmel Tammuz, the wedding anniversary. We came, and I was there with my wife and one child.

1:04:40 Speaker 3 In 5731.

1:04:42 Speaker 2 In 5734 I came alone again. I always came alone.

1:04:45 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:04:47 Speaker 2 In 5741 we were all there.

1:04:49 Speaker 3 What happened? The family went into yechidus.

1:04:51 Speaker 2 We had yechidus, and after us—

1:04:55 Speaker 3 And what happened?

1:04:59 Speaker 2 The Rebbe said—

1:05:01 Speaker 3 To stop.

1:05:02 Speaker 2 People were standing and waiting, so the Rebbe instructed Leibel to stand at the entrance to the zal, and the Rebbe came there. The Rebbe stood on one side, Leibel on the other, and they let people in according to lists.

1:05:22 Speaker 3 Wait, wait, I didn’t understand. You had—explain it from the beginning.

1:05:25 Speaker 2 We had yechidus—

1:05:26 Speaker 3 The whole family, in the room. And afterward? The Rebbe said to stop—

1:05:31 Speaker 2 No one else was to go in.

1:05:32 Speaker 3 And then?

1:05:33 Speaker 2 Then the instruction was for Leibel to stand by the door—

1:05:39 Speaker 3 The door at the entrance to the small zal.

1:05:41 Speaker 2 To the zal, by the mezuzah, and the Rebbe stood on the side—

1:05:45 Speaker 3 So the Rebbe came out, as it were—

1:05:46 Speaker 2 The Rebbe came out of the room and went there. The Rebbe stood on one side, Leibel on the other, and Leibel let people in there according to lists. That was the general yechidus.

1:06:00 Speaker 3 In 5741, meaning—

1:06:01 Speaker 2 5741.

1:06:02 Speaker 3 Some people were waiting to go into the room, and then suddenly the Rebbe said they should go into the zal.

1:06:06 Speaker 2 Into the zal.

1:06:07 Speaker 3 And your whole family had been in the room. What happened? Tell us—

1:06:16 Speaker 2 One of the things was—

1:06:17 Speaker 3 Tell us everything. Let’s start with one thing.

1:06:21 Speaker 2 The Rebbe gave one of the girls, [unclear]—she lit Shabbos candles, [unclear]—a coin so that, if she wanted, she could put it in tzedakah. Afterward he gave the boys the same thing. And my Yehuda said to the Rebbe, “May the Rebbe have nachas from his chassidim.” So the Rebbe said, “Indeed—you’re one of my chassidim, too.” On Simchas Torah—the yechidus was... Wait, the yechidus was afterward.

1:07:29 Speaker 3 After Simchas Torah.

1:07:30 Speaker 2 But on Simchas Torah, the Rebbe announced—

1:07:34 Speaker 3 Tzivos Hashem.

1:07:35 Speaker 2 Tzivos Hashem. There were only twelve children whom the Rebbe danced with, and then they took Yehuda—

1:07:45 Speaker 3 They put him into the circle, too.

1:07:48 Speaker 2 The circle. He held on to the Rebbe’s gartel and danced.

1:07:56 Speaker 3 Did the Rebbe say anything about your coming with the whole family?

1:08:01 Speaker 2 I don’t know.

1:08:02 Speaker 3 No.

1:08:04 Speaker 2 Rabbi Lau was also there with his whole family.

1:08:07 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:08:07 Speaker 2 The Rebbe gave them tickets.

1:08:09 Speaker 3 Yes, Berel Teichman was there, too.

1:08:12 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:08:12 Speaker 3 There were several people. I think the Rebbe told Rabbi Lau in 5734 that they should come just to him.

1:08:17 Speaker 2 In my case, every time we had yechidus—in 5722, in 5727, in 5734, and in 5741—the Rebbe would say, “You’ve probably gone into debt paying for the tickets, so I’m giving you a contribution from one of the Rebbe’s funds.” He would give us a hundred-dollar bill.

1:08:51 Speaker 3 In 5731, when you came for the wedding anniversary on Gimmel Tammuz, did you also go into yechidus?

1:08:59 Speaker 2 In 5730.

1:08:59 Speaker 3 Thirty-one, when you came for the wedding anniversary on Gimmel Tammuz.

1:09:01 Speaker 2 Yechidus, yes. But it was short.

1:09:05 Speaker 3 No, but when you came with your wife—did you stay until 14 Tammuz?

1:09:13 Speaker 2 On 14 Tammuz, we were there too, on Sixth Street.

1:09:20 Speaker 3 Oh, you stayed the whole summer.

1:09:22 Speaker 2 Yes, because we heard the Rebbe daven. It was on Sixth Street, on Shabbos. The Rebbe led the davening. As I said, there wasn’t a large zal; there was a small zal.

1:09:34 Speaker 3 The zal was in the country?

1:09:36 Speaker 2 I don’t know. And it was very hot.

1:09:40 Speaker 3 Where was the Rebbe, downstairs or upstairs?

1:09:43 Speaker 2 Downstairs, downstairs. Yes.

1:09:49 Speaker 3 You heard it separately—how, the whole—

1:09:51 Speaker 2 All of it.

1:09:52 Speaker 3 Describe it a little. All right. There were also sichos on nigleh, a siyum on Tractate Avodah Zarah, if I’m not mistaken.

1:10:15 Speaker 2 I don’t know; I don’t remember.

1:10:17 Speaker 3 I’m not mistaken. There are several selections in Likkutei Sichos from that farbrengen.

1:10:25 Speaker 2 I don’t remember. I don’t remember the maamarim or the sichos. On the second, there was a farbrengen for Yisroel’s departure in peace. I didn’t know about it. I came late for some reason, and the Rebbe was then speaking about... “from his needs.”

1:11:07 Speaker 3 I’m still going pale here.

1:11:08 Speaker 2 From the wording, “from his needs.” Yes. All right.

1:11:22 Speaker 3 We haven’t finished yet, Reb Peretz.

1:11:26 Speaker 2 Who should I tell you about? About what?

1:11:27 Speaker 3 What else did you see? I’m sure there are many more things you know and want to share. People can’t see it, but I can see your emotion and the way you close your eyes. You see every word you tell about the Rebbe so vividly, and it comes across. The tens and hundreds and thousands who hear this will see your hiskashrus to the Rebbe. Every story, every—draw out some more. Were you there between 5741 and 5749 too?

1:11:57 Speaker 2 Huh?

1:11:58 Speaker 3 You weren’t there between 5741 and 5749 either.

1:12:08 Speaker 2 I was there afterward, in 5752, I think. The Rebbe was already on the—

1:12:15 Speaker 3 Balcony?

1:12:16 Speaker 2 On the balcony.

1:12:17 Speaker 3 5753.

1:12:17 Speaker 2 What?

1:12:18 Speaker 3 5753.

1:12:19 Speaker 2 5753.

1:12:28 Speaker 3 Over the years, people—until when did you work for the network?

1:12:33 Speaker 2 Until 5745.

1:12:39 Speaker 3 And did the students’ parents write to the Rebbe? Did you see cases, through your work, of people writing to the Rebbe?

1:12:48 Speaker 2 I’ll give you an example. After school, I would visit the homes of children who hadn’t come to school, to find out whether they were sick or whether someone had managed to take them to nonreligious schools. One time I was walking along, and a woman was standing in a stairwell, shouting, “Rabbi, come, come, come! Bless my husband; he’s sick.” I said, “Let’s find out his name and his mother’s name, and write to the Rebbe.” I went in. There was a Jewish man with asthma who had previously been in hospitals. They had given up on him and had taught her to give him an injection whenever he had an asthma attack, and that was it. He lay there like a log. So I asked his name. His name was Simcha. What was his mother’s name? He wasn’t speaking; he couldn’t converse. So I decided to put tefillin on him. He couldn’t be moved, so I put the arm tefillin on like this, and the head tefillin like this. I said, “Shema Yisroel, Hashem Elokeinu.” I said I’d come back tomorrow and we’d see. On the third day I did the same thing again, and then I asked his mother’s name. He and his wife were Holocaust survivors. Suddenly he began to say that his mother’s name was “Eter.” I said, “Eter? I don’t understand.” I called his wife over: “What is he saying?” I asked him to say it again. He said, “Eter.” So she said, “Her name is Esther.” I wrote to the Rebbe—

1:14:56 Speaker 3 Simcha ben Esther.

1:14:57 Speaker 2 “Simcha ben Esther has asthma, and we’re asking for a blessing.” After two weeks, perhaps a little less or more—the mail was working—I received a letter from the Rebbe. First, it enclosed a check from one of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s funds. I was to cash it officially, not on the black market, where I would have gotten much more for the ten dollars. I was to cash it and ask the bank for small coins. Whenever she worked and earned money—she cleaned staircases and earned a little while he was quiet—she was to mix one of those coins in with it. A great miracle. Second, to check the kashrus of their meat and milk. In those days they cooked on kerosene burners, and there was meat and milk; everything was... In short, I replaced their utensils and brought them new ones. Third, to transfer their children to religious schools. And when I wrote down the mother’s name, the Rebbe would be able to daven for them.

1:16:31 Speaker 4 Simcha ben Esther wasn’t enough.

1:16:33 Speaker 2 I went back. I explained about the coins: she should keep them in a box and use one each time, as a segulah. And that’s what happened. She didn’t know how it helped or how it worked. A coin from the bank—how does that work? But the Rebbe had said so. In short, what was his mother’s name besides Esther? Perhaps she had another name. Again I asked him, and [unclear]. In the end he said something, and I couldn’t understand. I asked his wife again. “What is it—Esther Malka?” I wrote to the Rebbe: Esther—

1:17:17 Speaker 4 Simcha ben Esther Malka.

1:17:19 Speaker 2 I took two of their three children and enrolled them in school. They didn’t want to send the third; he was older. What could I do? I wrote to the Rebbe. Every year the Rebbe would send me several letters for the new year.

1:17:41 Speaker 4 So personal.

1:17:43 Speaker 2 There would be one for Simcha too, for the new year. The Rebbe wrote the full text, and I would bring him the letter. He went back to working as a carpenter, around all that dust.

1:18:01 Speaker 4 Wow. The asthma went away.

1:18:04 Speaker 2 When he didn’t feel well, he would come to the school and knock on the windows. The teacher told me, “Write to the Rebbe.” I said, “Let’s check the meat and milk.”

1:18:15 Speaker 4 Whether you’d mixed them.

1:18:16 Speaker 2 “Bring the third child, and put on tefillin.” In short, he began putting on tefillin, they kept meat and milk separate, and the third child came to our school. For six years I received a new-year greeting for him every time, until one year—I don’t remember which—I didn’t receive one. I went to visit them to find out why. He had passed away, so the Rebbe hadn’t sent one.

1:18:50 Speaker 4 Meaning he had passed away beforehand.

1:18:52 Speaker 2 The Rebbe would send them. Sometimes I’d receive five or seven, depending.

1:18:59 Speaker 4 Who else? Who else received letters?

1:19:02 Speaker 2 Nuri, do you know any names?

1:19:03 Speaker 4 Not families of students? No.

1:19:05 Speaker 2 No.

1:19:06 Speaker 4 Rabbis, staff members.

1:19:08 Speaker 2 People who took part in a Tanya class and things like that.

1:19:11 Speaker 4 What Tanya class?

1:19:13 Speaker 2 I used to give a Tanya class.

1:19:13 Speaker 4 Well, tell us about it.

1:19:15 Speaker 2 At Rabbi Avraham Fattal’s. Avraham Fattal was the father-in-law—

1:19:20 Speaker 4 Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s father-in-law.

1:19:22 Speaker 2 He lived on Betzalel Street in Jerusalem, and he had a synagogue called Shaarei Rachamim. Today the synagogue is called Maran Avraham, after his book. He brought me there. After my brother was—

1:19:39 Speaker 4 Murdered.

1:19:41 Speaker 2 That was when I spent a year in Jerusalem to look after my mother. The Rebbe said I should stay.

1:19:48 Speaker 4 Wait, wait, that’s interesting.

1:19:49 Speaker 2 So, for one year.

1:19:50 Speaker 4 The Rebbe said you should stay with your mother and not return to yeshivah.

1:19:54 Speaker 2 I was in basic training [unclear] all summer and winter, and afterward I returned to Lod. That was when I began teaching a Tanya class at Rabbi Fattal’s. There were people there. Rabbi Fattal received a letter from the Rebbe, and whenever he didn’t feel well, the rabbi would tell me, “Write to the Rebbe.”

1:20:14 Speaker 4 Rabbi Fattal himself would ask that?

1:20:15 Speaker 2 Always.

1:20:16 Speaker 4 Rebbetzin Margalit’s father.

1:20:18 Speaker 2 Huh?

1:20:18 Speaker 4 Rabbi Ovadia’s father-in-law.

1:20:19 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:20:19 Speaker 4 They attend the events on his yahrzeit.

1:20:22 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:20:22 Speaker 4 So the father of the Rebbetzin—meaning, his father-in-law already had a connection with the Rebbe. That’s very—

1:20:25 Speaker 2 That’s one of the stories connected with the students.

1:20:29 Speaker 4 Who else did the Rebbe send letters to? Wait, we’ll get to more stories about the students. Were there other letters with things we can learn from? Did you also have a connection with Rabbi Zevin?

1:20:43 Speaker 2 No.

1:20:43 Speaker 4 No.

1:20:44 Speaker 2 I used to go to—but no.

1:20:46 Speaker 4 Yes.

1:20:47 Speaker 2 I never dared speak to him.

1:20:49 Speaker 4 Mm.

1:20:49 Speaker 2 Of course, he—

1:20:51 Speaker 4 He was highly regarded.

1:20:52 Speaker 2 What—

1:20:52 Speaker 4 Where did you live? In which neighborhood of Jerusalem?

1:20:55 Speaker 2 As a bochur, or after I married?

1:20:59 Speaker 4 Both.

1:21:00 Speaker 2 As a bochur, I lived near Rabbi Fattal.

1:21:05 Speaker 4 Somewhere in that area, mm.

1:21:06 Speaker 2 Near [unclear]. When I married, in Shikun Chabad, on the way up to the Slonim neighborhood.

1:21:11 Speaker 4 Oh, already.

1:21:15 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:21:15 Speaker 4 Did you know Rabbi Shmuel [unclear]? Did you know Rabbi Shashonkin?

1:21:18 Speaker 2 Huh?

1:21:19 Speaker 4 Did you have a chance to know Rabbi Shashonkin?

1:21:20 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:21:21 Speaker 4 Well, what did you hear from him?

1:21:24 Speaker 2 I’ll give you one example. It says that when the chazzan says, “Hashem has reigned, Hashem reigns, Hashem will reign,” even someone who isn’t davening has to stand. That’s according to the Arizal. In other words, you come into the shul and you’re at an earlier or later point in davening, and the chazzan is standing.

1:21:46 Speaker 4 If it happens that you’re not davening with the minyan.

1:21:49 Speaker 2 If you’re at that point yourself, of course you stand. But even if you aren’t—otherwise you’re not supposed to stand either. Rabbi Shashonkin said that later, in Yehi Chavod, they say “Hashem has reigned, Hashem reigns” again. When they say it in Yehi Chavod, you have to stand then too.

1:22:08 Speaker 4 Wow.

1:22:11 Speaker 2 That’s something I learned, and I—

1:22:13 Speaker 4 From Rabbi Shmuel [unclear]?

1:22:13 Speaker 2 I try to keep what Rabbi Shashonkin taught me.

1:22:21 Speaker 4 I just remembered: earlier I mistakenly said Reb Beren Gopin. I meant Reb Asher Gopin, of course, not Beren. Reb Beren was his father.

1:22:26 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:22:27 Speaker 4 Yes. When you got married, was Reb Beren still around?

1:22:32 Speaker 2 Yes, certainly.

1:22:33 Speaker 4 Well, tell us a little—

1:22:34 Speaker 2 He was a Torah scholar.

1:22:35 Speaker 4 Tell us about him.

1:22:37 Speaker 2 He was a Torah scholar. Yes, there were many.

1:22:45 Speaker 4 When you would come to Kfar Chabad, you would—

1:22:47 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:22:47 Speaker 4 You got to know the older chassidim, the Russians. What other story involving the students and the Rebbe do you have?

1:22:56 Speaker 2 I’ll take another one, I’ll take another one.

1:22:59 Speaker 4 Every story like that is a treasure. That story with that Jewish man—there’s so much to learn from it.

1:23:07 Speaker 2 I’ll tell you about something else.

1:23:09 Speaker 4 Whatever you wish, for life and blessing.

1:23:11 Speaker 2 What year was it? You’d have to work it out—it was forty-five years ago.

1:23:22 Speaker 4 Forty-five years ago was 5732.

1:23:24 Speaker 2 5735.

1:23:25 Speaker 4 5732, 5733.

1:23:26 Speaker 2 5732, 5733.

1:23:29 Speaker 4 5731.

1:23:31 Speaker 2 Anyway, besides working in education, I—this was before I retired.

1:23:42 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:23:43 Speaker 2 I was at the Tzemach Tzedek in the Old City, and back then, at Colel Chabad here, there were Avraham Borf Lesner [?] and Shalom Duchan. They were managing Colel Chabad at the Tzemach Tzedek then. Eli Zilberstrom. So Eli Zilberstrom doesn’t know English? Never mind, he’ll manage in Hebrew. I was there for two years. In the end, they didn’t want to continue, so it closed. I’ll give you an example of something that happened to me there. They had conditions. They weren’t paying me. First of all, you don’t go out of here; you just sit here, and whoever comes to you, comes. Hakadosh Boruch Hu sent me a Jew. He was from Ahdut HaAvoda. Do you know what Ahdut HaAvoda was? There used to be Ahdut HaAvoda, the Labor Unity party, part of Mapam. Yes. He worked for the Jewish Agency. For some reason he came to the Tzemach Tzedek. He came to me, and he used to bring people to the Kosel. I don’t know why. He asked if he could bring them to me. So he brought me schools: second-grade classes from public schools and seventh- and eighth-grade classes from other schools in Holon, Bat Yam, Tel Aviv, and Herzliya. I never went out; they would come to me. With the seventh- and eighth-graders, I would then go to the Kosel. I would ask the people learning at the Tzemach Tzedek to come with me and put tefillin on the boys. I also asked girls from the high school to come guide the girls and spend time with them, and tell them to light Shabbos candles. Anyway, one time a school group arrived at the Kosel. I was there putting tefillin on them. They would ask other people at the Kosel—you know, the ones who come to help too—“Are you from Chabad?” “No.” “Then you’re not putting tefillin on us. Only Chabad people.” They only wanted the Chabad people. That’s how it was. Afterward I told them, “Go up to the Kosel and say Shema.” Then the principal came and said,

1:27:00 Speaker 2 “No, we’re not going up to the Kosel.” “Chabad didn’t say—oh, Chabad said to go up to the Kosel? Then we can go up to the Kosel.” Well, one time two second-grade classes from a public school came, with parents and escorts carrying weapons. Then they had to leave. Suddenly a teacher came over to me and said, “Look, I’m a teacher with a special child. She was born without eyes; she’s blind. So whatever you explain, she wants to feel it.” And that’s what happened. I explained the Torah-reading table, and she got up to touch the bimah. The Aron Kodesh, the paroches. Ink—that wasn’t possible. But the quill, yes. The parchment—the parchment they write on. She touched it. Yes, yes, fine. Anyway, we finished. I explained about Chumash Bereishis, and they left. I was straightening up the place, picking up papers the children sometimes leave on the floor and [unclear], so it would be clean. Suddenly the teacher came back with the girl. Had she lost something? Forgotten something? No. She wanted to feel everything again: every table, every bench. I told her, “The wood might give you splinters.” The surface had become worn. It wasn’t Formica; it was bare wood. She said, “That’s all right, never mind.” Anyway, she felt every table and every bench, the desks, the Aron Kodesh, the paroches, until she came to one of the tables, where there was a Tehillim. “What’s this?” I said, “It’s called Tehillim.” “What is it?” “It’s one of the twenty-four books of Tanach—Torah, Nevi’im, Kesuvim—and King David composed it.” “What do you do with it?” I said, “You pray with it, or ask Hashem for things, or thank Him.” “Can I feel it?” I said yes. She opened the book and ran her hands over all the... I’m describing what you’re picturing—making it tangible.

1:29:56 Speaker 2 She simply ran her hands like this over the pages of the Tehillim. The teacher said, “The class has already gone. We’re late.” But she wouldn’t give up. She went through it page by page, doing her thing, until she reached a certain place, opened it, and said, “What does it say here?” The teacher took it but couldn’t read it. Why? The teacher hadn’t learned to read letter by letter; she had learned whole words, and she didn’t recognize these words. Mm-hmm. That was the reading method, so she couldn’t read it. The girl said, “Not there—here,” and pointed somewhere else. I opened it and started to cry. A blind girl. “What does it say? Tell me what it says here. Read it.” “For You light my lamp; Hashem, my G-d, illuminates my darkness.” “Can you explain it to me?” That was the place the girl had pointed to. And you know that possuk: “For You light my lamp... illuminates my darkness.” Wow. I asked for her father’s name and phone number; he was a policeman. I said I would need it. The subject of lighting candles had just come up. [unclear] When he heard me say she should light candles—she’s blind—he said, “No, that’s dangerous.” But the girl said, “It’s all right. The teacher will teach me to light candles.” Anyway, I took the name and called her father. I asked her mother’s name and all the details. Never mind. Even at home, when she passes through a doorway, she points to the mezuzah. “How do you write to the Rebbe?” “What? Explain.” “Did you write to the Rebbe?” “I did.” “So what happened?” You write. The Rebbe’s response to it was [unclear]. There were responses from the Rebbe about the network’s activities, and specifically about... Over the years, after all, schools closed midway and opened again. No. One of my students in one of the classes collected the names and phone numbers of everyone in his class. Some of them are even abroad. There are lists of all the graduating classes, and he collected

1:32:50 Speaker 2 everyone. Not everyone came, but they celebrated a birthday together. We’ve been doing this for several years now. Every week I write to them on WhatsApp, something from the Rebbe about the weekly parsha. “So these are graduates of the school?” Graduates of one class. Yes. “Which class? Which year? Twenty-three students out of twenty-seven. Where was this—in Argentina? Are these the ones who studied in Argentina?” Yes. One of them, the one who organized it, is also active today at the Chabad House in Malcha. His name is Hadad. Yes, Tzvi Baruch Hadad. Yes. He’s a taxi driver. Someone religious who rides in his taxi hears—listen to the Chabad niggunim they sang at the birthday celebration. They really appreciate it; they appreciate it and remember. I just remembered another story. “Why only one more? We still have time.” In 5731, when we were with the Rebbe, I wrote the Rebbe a question. At the time I was teaching seventh grade. There was a student who, on the one hand, was a soloist and sang beautifully. But every Sunday at the food break—you know what that is? School starts at eight, and at ten there’s a food break—he would stand there and tell everyone where his two brothers had taken him on Shabbos: they’d driven to the Kinneret, driven to [unclear]. Both brothers had been in the army with me; I knew them, but nebach. Then one time he even brought a sausage sandwich with butter and said, “Look, I’m eating it. It won’t hurt me.” So when we were with the Rebbe in 5731, I wrote: “Is it permissible to expel this student? He could have a bad influence on many children.” The Rebbe said no. “The Rebbe said no?” “Keep him. Before long, perhaps he’ll put on tefillin.” He stayed, finished seventh grade, and then left the school on his own and went to a public school. He didn’t finish there either, and he wanted me to give him a graduation certificate, and... Anyway, this young man was very

1:35:54 Speaker 2 In the army, on the kibbutz, and in Chabad. Ah, a few stories. One of them goes like this: On Pesach, Yehuda was supposed to come to us for the Seder. Instead of coming to us, he went to Hadassah, because his wife gave birth. After Yom Tov, we drove to Hadassah to visit the new mother. We were coming down from Hadassah, and there was an information desk there. This young man, Daniel, was standing at the desk, and he saw me. He said to me, “Talalei yasis.” He remembered what we sing on Pesach. “Talalei yasis.” He takes part every time, and every week he reads the Rebbe’s sicha. He’s one of those students. [unclear] What other things, educational guidance like that, did you have the privilege of receiving? There are a few who became real Chabad chassidim, with the whole look. Yes, but that wasn’t why the Rebbe established the school network. The aim was simply to save children from assimilation, and their parents to some extent too. Not all of them. Not all the parents came back. But many parents did come back, yes. That year when you studied here at Toras Emes, on the Rebbe’s instruction, who was at Toras Emes then? Who was there? Ah, Reb Yehuda—what was his surname? Reb Yehuda Reichman. Reichman. He was a mashpia and gave Tanya classes. There was Shapiro, there was—Moshe Leib. Moshe Leib. And Moishe Ber was here too, there as well. Over the years, you also spent time here at...? Huh? And the chassidim’s farbrengens here too...? Of course. I remember you—when I was here thirty years ago, you were always the people in Shikun Chabad who never left the farbrengen. So tell us something... The farbrengen ended after Havdalah. That was one of the things you were known for. There weren’t many like that. We went through many stages. School, there are [unclear]. There are classes. I’ll give another

1:39:26 Speaker 2 example, about Avraham Fattal’s class. Besides his shul, there was another shul, Beis Yaakov, farther down, toward Herut. Avraham Fattal—Rabbi Avraham Fattal—said to me, “You should give a Tanya class there too.” Fine, all right. We came there. A blind man was sitting at the entrance with his back to the doorway, and the congregation was inside on the benches. It was a Sephardi shul. We went in, and Rabbi Fattal spoke in Arabic so the people would understand. “Today Rabbi Eli will give a Tanya class.” So the blind man asked, in Hebrew or Arabic, whether I knew Arabic. Rabbi Fattal told him, “He knows Hebrew; perhaps he knows Arabic.” I didn’t... Rabbi Fattal told him, “It’s a Tanya class. Sit and listen.” In short, he stayed. The following week—it was once a week—he was sitting there again, and Rabbi Fattal translated for him. The third time, the blind man said to Fattal, “You don’t need to translate. I understand.” The soul understands too, too... The same thing happened at the Chabad House I had. I had a long story there. Tell it; we have time. A teacher used to come with fourteen students. It was a special class. What do you call it? Hyper—hyperactive. Hyperactive. Children who... Anyway, after the class she told me, “This is the first time that for an hour and a half, not one of them left or disrupted anything. By the way, my husband is a doctor at Hadassah. He can speak Hebrew, English and Spanish, because he’s from Argentina, but he can’t read the alef-beis. Could I send him to the Chabad House to learn?” Please do. So I began learning the alef-beis with him. Later we got to Chumash and some Mishnah. After half a year—over a year, more than a year—he said, “I have a friend. We grew up together in Argentina from a young age, but he can’t speak Hebrew either. He

1:42:36 Speaker 2 only knows English and Spanish. Could I bring him to the Tanya class?” I said yes; Tanya would be good for him too. In short, the same thing happened. At the first class he sat there, and his friend translated for him. The second, the third. At the third class he told him, “No, you don’t need to translate anymore. I understand.” That’s the power of Tanya, and the power of your persistence and dedication. The soul hears. And your caring too. He went to an ulpan and learned Hebrew. The tefillin he has today are from me, Chabad. His tzitzis are from me. His kitchen is kosher because of me. His mezuzos are from me. He learns—I think he even does the daily study—but he became [unclear]. I think these things are so important because—There’s more. I brought him to Rabbi Halperin. We immersed him in a mikveh because his parents had baptized him as a Christian. Oy vey. So that if, G-d forbid, it happened again... Out of fear of the Holocaust, they... So Rabbi Avraham [unclear] Halperin said there was a halachah that required... So we immersed him, sent a get to his wife in Argentina, and married him here. He had been living with a widow from the Yom Kippur War, and they had a child. That child has grandchildren already. Wow. He keeps Torah and mitzvos. From one activity, from one class. One class. These things are so important, because the Rebbe established Tzeirei Agudas Chabad. Today, baruch Hashem, there are thousands of shluchim everywhere—We don’t need many in our area. Excellent. I’m saying that the Rebbe established Tzeirei Agudas Chabad. Today there are thousands of shluchim everywhere, and a Chabad House in every neighborhood. But the Rebbe established it so that a Jew who works as a teacher, or even works at something else, will take responsibility

1:44:50 Speaker 2 to give a class now and then, and Tzeirei Agudas Chabad wasn’t established only for someone whose entire life is shlichus. That’s something else, a separate matter. What you’re describing is that, so to speak, you weren’t officially involved in shlichus, and yet look at your activities and their impact. I’m saying to everyone listening: this is something. This is really what the Rebbe wants—that even a Jew who works in high-tech, or wherever he works, has a responsibility to give a class, to get involved now and then, to spread Yiddishkeit. And look at the impact. There’s a large neighborhood here, Pisgat Ze’ev, near Neve Yaakov. At the main shul, the rabbi is a former student. So sometimes—Rabbi Zilberstein, in his humility, doesn’t say “my student”; he just says “a student from the school.” Yes. I would happen to go there, and when he saw me, he’d say, “Today Rabbi Eli will give the class.” Then he’d say, “You should know, this Rabbi Eli is the one who brought us...” He also received cake and juice from the Rebbe. He remembers the cake and juice, how the Rebbe indicated the slices. The Rebbe had that student and his future impact in mind. You’re saying he’s the rabbi of the main shul in Pisgat Ze’ev. There are many stories like that. What else do you remember from when you were there? After that, the crowd was bigger. It was. They went out into the streets and... On the first night, nobody was prepared—nobody knew there would be a sicha at all. It was a surprise. The Rebbe hadn’t... It was a complete surprise for me too. I don’t even remember where it was. It was very unusual. The Rebbe wasn’t standing in his usual place. It was after Maariv. The Rebbe was about to leave, then suddenly stopped and began saying a sicha. Rabbi Yoel wasn’t there until he arrived. On the second night, people already expected it; they waited and planned for it. Let’s tell it. What did Mother write to the Rebbe after Simcha’s passing? She didn’t write. The Rebbe wrote. Anything specific?

1:47:54 Speaker 2 Here’s how it was. The letter is printed in Igros Kodesh. When we received the letter, I said, “The Rebbe has promised twenty-five years.” Why? Shlomo Chaim explained that if the Rebbe writes “may she live”—if the Rebbe puts it in words, as he did in this letter, “may she live for many long and good years”—that means twenty-five years.

1:48:32 Speaker 5 That’s what Shlomo Chaim said.

1:48:34 Speaker 2 So when she received the letter, I said, “Twenty-five years.” And that’s what it was: twenty-five years.

1:48:40 Speaker 5 All right, S.M., forty-one.

1:48:41 Speaker 2 Forty-one.

1:48:48 Speaker 5 She wasn’t with the [unclear]?

1:48:50 Speaker 2 Huh?

1:48:50 Speaker 5 She didn’t travel with him. No. But they were in contact. She wrote.

1:48:55 Speaker 2 She once even dreamed that she had written to the Rebbe and hadn’t received an answer. She dreamed that the Rebbe answered such and such. A few weeks later, a letter arrived with those very words.

1:49:14 Speaker 5 The words she had dreamed beforehand—and you wanted to keep that from us! Wait, wait, wait, Eli.

1:49:22 Speaker 2 My mother did hard work. First she worked at a kibbutz called Netivah, then she worked at Bikur Cholim. She wanted to switch to easier work, so she thought perhaps she’d rent a kiosk.

1:49:40 Speaker 5 What today they call a convenience store. But back then it was small. There were little kiosks that sold some slush drinks, sweets and small things for children. Yes.

1:49:49 Speaker 2 So they wrote to the Rebbe.

1:49:51 Speaker 5 Not “they”—she did.

1:49:51 Speaker 2 It isn’t good. You can’t sell something to someone who might not make a brachah over it.

1:49:59 Speaker 5 That’s what the Rebbe answered you. Wait—who wrote to the Rebbe? You said “they wrote.”

1:50:04 Speaker 2 Mother.

1:50:05 Speaker 5 She herself wrote to the Rebbe.

1:50:06 Speaker 2 She wrote to the Rebbe.

1:50:07 Speaker 5 And the Rebbe said she shouldn’t take it, because a child buying something might not make a brachah.

1:50:13 Speaker 2 Might not make a brachah.

1:50:13 Speaker 5 Was the kiosk in a nonreligious area?

1:50:16 Speaker 2 What difference does it make?

1:50:17 Speaker 5 No.

1:50:18 Speaker 2 A Jewish home.

1:50:19 Speaker 5 It’s not that it matters. I’m just asking so I understand. Do you know where the kiosk was supposed to be? In a religious neighborhood or a nonreligious neighborhood?

1:50:28 Speaker 2 In a religious neighborhood. But other people pass through there too.

1:50:30 Speaker 5 No, I have no... You can’t, because perhaps someone won’t make a bracha. That was the Rebbe’s answer. Was it in a letter or verbally? And I should mention that—

1:50:42 Speaker 2 There was a note.

1:50:43 Speaker 5 A note. So she stayed with the hard work. Any other stories you have? Is there something about Rabbi Chilazon?

1:50:59 Speaker 2 I think so, let me see. One of the girls kept having an infection—

1:51:10 Speaker 5 In her ears.

1:51:10 Speaker 2 In her ears, and three doctors decided to operate. So we wrote to the Rebbe. The Rebbe wrote to consult a doctor who was a friend. We decided that meant the doctor I studied Chumash and Tanya with.

1:51:35 Speaker 5 The one from Argentina.

1:51:36 Speaker 2 From Argentina. Perhaps he counted as a friend. Anyway, he examined the girl and gave her some antibiotics.

1:51:48 Speaker 5 Was that even his field, or...?

1:51:50 Speaker 2 He knew about that too. Yes.

1:51:54 Speaker 5 And you told him the Rebbe had said to consult a doctor who was a friend, so he understood that antibiotics would solve the... When did you move here to Neve Yaakov?

1:52:05 Speaker 2 We moved from Shikun Chabad to Ezras Torah during the Yom Kippur War.

1:52:12 Speaker 5 Did you write to the Rebbe about that?

1:52:14 Speaker 2 Huh?

1:52:14 Speaker 5 Did you write to the Rebbe about moving?

1:52:20 Speaker 2 We gave Tiger a hundred-dollar bill from the Rebbe to... to buy—

1:52:28 Speaker 5 Rabbi Avraham Tiger.

1:52:29 Speaker 2 To buy the house.

1:52:31 Speaker 5 In Ezras Torah.

1:52:31 Speaker 2 Ezras Torah. Later, to buy this house, we also gave a hundred-dollar bill from the Rebbe. With the Rebbe’s consent, of course, for both this and that. Yes.

1:52:48 Speaker 5 Did you move here before Gimmel Tammuz?

1:52:51 Speaker 2 We moved here in 5756, afterward.

1:52:55 Speaker 5 Gimmel Tammuz. Well, with Hashem’s help, very soon we’ll see the Rebbe again, in the light of the King’s countenance, which gives life. Sixty years since you were in [unclear]. With you, uh—

1:53:09 Speaker 2 Like yesterday.

1:53:10 Speaker 5 I can see how emotional you get as you tell it—every, every, every word, every...

1:53:17 Speaker 2 I say, how fortunate we are, how good is our portion. What can I say?

1:53:22 Speaker 5 I remember once hearing from you in Nachlas Har Chabad, when you came for a son, perhaps, or something. Even at an ordinary Mincha, I always said to stand near the Rebbe during the regular Shemoneh Esreh.

1:53:33 Speaker 2 It isn’t ordinary.

1:53:40 Speaker 5 Meaning, there’s no such thing as ordinary with the Rebbe. I... The audience can’t see your face from where you are.

1:53:51 Speaker 2 There’s one thing I noticed: when the Rebbe would say Tachanun, he would rest—

1:54:04 Speaker 5 His head on his hand. I’m describing what you’re—

1:54:08 Speaker 2 Toward the Aron Kodesh. That is, when he came into the zal—

1:54:15 Speaker 5 Upstairs, in the zal, yes.

1:54:17 Speaker 2 He would go straight to the table.

1:54:20 Speaker 5 Yes, on the left.

1:54:22 Speaker 2 He would sit by the table, facing the crowd.

1:54:26 Speaker 5 Sitting with his back to the wall and facing the crowd.

1:54:28 Speaker 2 His back to the wall.

1:54:29 Speaker 5 So when he leaned on his left hand, he was turning toward the Aron Kodesh.

1:54:32 Speaker 2 During Tachanun, he would turn his hand toward the Aron Kodesh rather than this way.

1:54:40 Speaker 5 So that his hand wouldn’t face the right side, toward the mashpia, but more to the left, toward the Aron Kodesh.

1:54:47 Speaker 2 I looked in Shulchan Aruch. It’s explicit; it’s written there clearly that anyone sitting to the left of the Aron Kodesh should lean toward it. Why does it say that? Because the chazzan is generally on the right, so he has to... That’s one example.

1:55:11 Speaker 5 That’s—

1:55:11 Speaker 2 I can give a few more examples.

1:55:13 Speaker 5 Certainly. I remember that, as I said, when you were in Nachlas Har Chabad you once had a strong influence.

1:55:19 Speaker 2 During Kedushah, during Kedushah. We rise up, right? At “Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh” and “Baruch kevod,” the Rebbe would bend down and also lift his—

1:55:32 Speaker 5 His feet slightly.

1:55:33 Speaker 2 His feet a little. Not at “Yimloch,” but at Musaf on Rosh Chodesh, on Shabbos, he would lift his feet at “Yimloch” too. Another thing: during “Elokai Netzor”—I don’t know where in “Elokai Netzor”—the Rebbe would move his foot a little.

1:56:01 Speaker 5 His feet, which until then had been together, would suddenly... During “Elokai Netzor,” the Rebbe would move them slightly—

1:56:08 Speaker 2 In the middle of the passage—

1:56:08 Speaker 5 Before he took his steps back, you mean...

1:56:10 Speaker 2 Before he took his steps back.

1:56:10 Speaker 5 He would move his—

1:56:11 Speaker 2 In the middle, in the middle of “Elokai Netzor.” And Shalom Chaim would relate that this was how the Rebbe did it on Shabbos. So I knew to watch—

1:56:22 Speaker 5 To watch.

1:56:23 Speaker 2 And see. Another thing: during Hallel, the Rebbe would bring his feet together at the “Baruch” of Hallel, during the four “Hodu LaHashem” passages. “Hodu”—

1:56:40 Speaker 5 During the four “Hodu” passages? “Hodu LaHashem ki tov”?

1:56:42 Speaker 2 “Yomar na Yisroel.”

1:56:43 Speaker 5 Yes, “Yomru na yirei Hashem.”

1:56:45 Speaker 2 And during the last two “Hodu LaHashem” passages as well. The Rebbe would bring his feet together—

1:56:50 Speaker 5 Like for Shemoneh Esreh.

1:56:51 Speaker 2 Like for Shemoneh Esreh. Yes, I saw that on Rosh Chodesh. I saw it on Sukkos too, with the lulav.

1:56:59 Speaker 5 You knew to watch and noticed it, you’re saying. Is there a source in the sefarim for others doing that too?

1:57:08 Speaker 2 I’m remembering things little by little.

1:57:11 Speaker 5 That’s the benefit of talking. We can... We’re farbrenging together, refreshing our memories, reliving it.

1:57:25 Speaker 2 Ah, also when the Rebbe would leave 770—I don’t know if the crowd noticed—the Rebbe wouldn’t walk straight out. He would walk like this.

1:57:39 Speaker 5 He would walk like this.

1:57:43 Speaker 2 The Rebbe wouldn’t walk away from the Aron Kodesh like this, but like this.

1:57:50 Speaker 5 Turned slightly toward the Aron Kodesh, sideways. That is, not straight; he would shift a little.

1:57:57 Speaker 2 You can see it.

1:57:57 Speaker 5 Yes, I see that now I’m also... You’re describing—let’s just go back so people can hear.

1:58:04 Speaker 2 The Rebbe—

1:58:07 Speaker 5 You’re describing—I’ll just explain what you’re—

1:58:08 Speaker 2 He never turned his back to the Aron Kodesh.

1:58:11 Speaker 5 In other words, the Rebbe would turn sideways so his back wouldn’t be directly toward the Aron Kodesh.

1:58:16 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:58:22 Speaker 5 These are subtleties that someone who knows to look will notice.

1:58:27 Speaker 2 When the Rebbe would speak... Ah, what was it now? At the end of a farbrengen, the Rebbe would ask to be able to see the Aron Kodesh.

1:58:41 Speaker 5 Yes, there’s a video from a yechidus for supporters. They had put up partitions, and the Rebbe asked them to take them down. There’s a video of it.

1:58:48 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:58:49 Speaker 5 Before leaving the shul, the Rebbe wanted to see the—

1:58:51 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:58:52 Speaker 5 The Rebbe generally wouldn’t trouble people. It was very rare for the Rebbe to ask people to do something, but he specifically asked them to move the partitions, because he was particular about this.

1:59:01 Speaker 2 Ah, yes, so that is known.

1:59:03 Speaker 5 This isn’t just from now. You’re saying you saw it on other occasions too, uh...

1:59:06 Speaker 2 I saw it.

1:59:15 Speaker 5 Well, Rabbi Eliyahu—

1:59:18 Speaker 2 During the Hakhel year, the Rebbe held the esrog throughout the entire Hallel.

1:59:25 Speaker 5 Yes.

1:59:26 Speaker 2 Not only between the times he shook the lulav. Yes, he spoke about it afterward.

1:59:30 Speaker 5 He explained it very clearly. He explained that although the Frierdiker Rebbe would put down the esrog, and for the sake of iskafya he would want not to put it down... Though that was because of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s health. The Rebbe, out of iskafya, followed the Frierdiker Rebbe, even though that was, so to speak, only an incidental reason. [unclear] Rabbi Zalman Sternshulz [?], may Hashem grant you long life together with the Rebbetzin, and may it be—

1:59:58 Speaker 2 Thank you.

1:59:58 Speaker 5 In good health and with joy. We’re still in Rosh Chodesh.

2:00:01 Speaker 2 Thank you.

2:00:02 Speaker 5 We’re in Rosh Chodesh. It’s a time for... with health and joy. A guten chodesh, and may we see the Rebbe again soon.

2:00:09 Speaker 2 Amen.