Minhagei Melech - Sukkos - Rabbi Tuvia Zilberstrom shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast from the Chabad Halacha Institute.

00:09 Speaker 2 Esrogim were brought to the Rebbe from—esrogim selected for the Rebbe in Italy. They brought him several, and the Rebbe chose one for himself—and more than one, because during Chol Hamoed there were times when it had to be replaced, both because of the pressure of the crowd who made the bracha on it and, in later years, because so many people handled it. Even with all the care taken, the esrog eventually had to be replaced. Besides that, the Rebbe distributed arba minim to many particular chassidim: some received all four species, others received lulavim, and others hadassim and aravos. There were two lulavim. The Rebbe bound his own lulav himself: he would come on Erev Sukkos, go into the sukkah, and bind it. There was another lulav for the Rebbetzin, and Rabbi Dovid Raskin, a"h, was responsible for binding hers. The Rebbe’s instructions were no fewer than six hadassim, and of course two aravos, one lulav, and an esrog. The Rebbe’s lulav always had thirty-six hadassim. Later, during Chol Hamoed, with all the use it got, the hadassim dried out, and the aravos dried out too, so they had to be replaced. With aravos, we are particular to have only two, no more. When the aravos were replaced, the old ones were removed so there would not be more than two. But when the hadassim were replaced, new ones were added and the old ones remained. They did not remove the hadassim over which the Rebbe and the chassidim had made the bracha. Of course, specific chassidim were appointed to bring these things to the Rebbe. One was responsible for bringing the esrogim, another for the lulavim—each had his own area. Once, the person who was supposed to bring

02:31 Speaker 2 the lulavim also brought one of the other species. The Rebbe accepted them only from the people appointed to bring them; he did not switch their roles. Each person brought his own. The Rebbe’s esrog was always large, and its shape mattered. In general, there are different approaches to choosing an esrog. Of course, everyone wants the most beautiful esrog, the most mehudar, without a blemish. But what sort of esrog should you choose? Where should you focus your efforts for hiddur—on the esrog’s shape or on how unblemished it is? Ideally, you have both. But if one comes at the expense of the other—not when it is a halachic question, but a question of hiddur—then which matters more? Perhaps I’ll first tell you something the mashpia Reb Mendel Futerfas, a"h, told me. His brother-in-law, Reb Bentzion Shemtov, a"h, had been sent to prison, and Reb Mendel needed to send him an esrog to have there. He knew of a chossid in the town where he was staying who sold esrogim, so he decided that on Tuesday morning he would go there, get an esrog, and send it to Reb Bentzion Shemtov in prison. In Reb Mendel’s town, there were two Jews who sold esrogim. One was an elderly chossid who had once been an esrog merchant. He no longer had the strength to run a large business, but he still sold a few esrogim from his home to his regular customers. People would come to buy from him, but he no longer had a big operation. The other was a young, energetic chossid, a merchant with a large stock of esrogim. Reb Mendel told me, “That morning I weighed up which one to buy the esrog from. I decided to go to the elderly chossid—to see an alter chossid. I’d buy the

04:43 Speaker 2 esrog from him.” I got up in the morning, went to him, and chose a beautiful, mehudar esrog. As I was packing it, the old man said, “Coming to me has given me pleasure, since most people go to—so I’ll give you a story as a gift. I started out when I was young, in the time of the Rebbe Maharash. One day the Rebbe Maharash called me and asked me to bring him an esrog, and I did. Every year, I would bring the Rebbe Maharash his esrog. One year there were no esrogim—no esrogim for Lubavitch, no esrogim for the Rebbe, not a single esrog. I went to tremendous lengths to find one, and I did. But it had many—its appearance wasn’t the most beautiful. It had various marks, nothing that raised a halachic question: a black spot that did not disqualify it, or what is called a leaf scar. It had all sorts of shapes and markings on it, and it lacked the beauty we like to see in an esrog. I searched and searched again, but there was nothing else. Then I found one more esrog. That one was completely unblemished, yellow, and beautiful, but its shape was not beautiful—though it was kosher. I came to the Rebbe Maharash and showed him the esrogim. First I took out the one with all the markings and shapes, placed it before the Rebbe, and said, ‘Rebbe, there are no esrogim this year. This is the esrog available.’ Well, of course, the Rebbe Maharash did not need to be told. He immediately asked, ‘Is there another esrog?’ I said yes, there was one more, and put the yellow esrog on the table before the Rebbe—but its shape was not right. The Rebbe asked the merchant, ‘What do you say? Which esrog is better?’ And

06:50 Speaker 2 he didn’t know what to answer. The Rebbe said, ‘Come, tell me what you think. Which esrog should I take?’ So he pointed to the esrog with the markings. The Rebbe asked him why. He thought: The Rebbe sees such a beautiful, yellow esrog; only its shape isn’t so beautiful, and still he hesitates. Apparently there’s something special about the esrog with the flaws. The Rebbe Maharash said to him, ‘No, I’ll tell you. This yellow esrog is smooth and beautiful, but it isn’t a mensch. The other esrog has this flaw and that flaw, but it’s a mensch.’ Let me translate that. The one esrog is yellowish, smooth, and very beautiful, but it lacks the right shape. It isn’t a mensch. The other has all sorts of things that perhaps could look better, but it is a mensch. This is a guiding principle for the conduct of chassidim in general: in an esrog, they look for a beautiful shape. And with the Rebbe, the first thing was always the shape—the shape, the mensch! At different times there were several kinds of esrogim. Usually, the Rebbe’s was large and had a distinctive shape; you could see that with the Rebbe, this was important even if the esrog had various marks. All of that is kosher and mehudar. The Alter Rebbe writes that in general one need not pay attention to those things. But with the Rebbe, you could see that the esrog’s shape mattered. There were different kinds over the years, but that was the direction. And that was the approach among chassidim: an esrog should have a good shape. If it can have every hiddur, like our heart desires, then of course that is very, very important. When the Rebbe chose lulavim, he would always look at eye level to see that they were straight. There are photographs of some of the lulavim the Rebbe examined. Today you can see how

08:55 Speaker 2 When the Rebbe chose a lulav, he would look at it from an angle and straighten it to make sure it was straight. As for the esrog, we are all careful to take an esrog from Calabria, Italy. The esrogim that come from Calabria need very careful supervision. The dear Reb Yitzchak Lipschitz a"h, son-in-law of the mashpia Rabbi Avelin [?], traveled through Switzerland in 5705 and wrote a letter to the Frierdiker Rebbe about the great lack of oversight he had seen in Italy. By that he meant that beautiful esrogim came from there, but no one cared whether an esrog was grafted or not. Esrogim are grown there on a large scale, in endless orchards, and they graft the trees. The esrogim we take from Italy are presumed to be ungrafted, along with all the other requirements. But if they are grafting there too, we lose the entire advantage of that esrog. Halachah says that a grafted esrog is considered as though it lacks the required size. It is not a whole esrog, and one cannot make a brachah on it. So the Frierdiker Rebbe sent Rabbi Jacobson to Italy, and from then on there was special supervision. That continued under the Rebbe, first through the Jacobson family, then through his son-in-law Rabbi Mordechai Holtheim [?], and today his children continue bringing the esrogim. You have to know what you are taking. In 5726, they began growing esrogim in Kfar Chabad, and the Rebbe sent his own esrogim, giving one to Luria’s orchard and one to Gerlitz’s orchard. The Rebbe sent them an esrog. In 5726, Reb Leizer Gerlitz of Kfar Chabad visited the Rebbe. We are talking about 5726, twenty years after 5705, yes, 5726. The esrog orchard in Kfar Chabad was not particularly large; it had esrogim to sell to Chabad. The Rebbe told him, “I want to participate in the Kfar Chabad orchard so that you can expand it, buy more land and enlarge it, because the situation in Italy is becoming more and more difficult.” At the time there were

11:33 Speaker 2 five hundred orchards there, and only nine remained ungrafted. We are talking about 5726. Since then it has become harder and harder. You need considerable expertise to bring an esrog from Italy. I’ll tell you what Rabbi Holtheim [?] told me about his trips to Italy to bring esrogim. I won’t go into how to choose an esrog or how to know that an orchard is ungrafted, but they would come back with their suits torn by the thorns on the trees and only a few esrogim after a whole day. It is very difficult when someone brings hundreds of esrogim from a single picking. You have to know where the esrogim come from. Of course, the esrogim from the Rebbe’s esrog, which the Rebbe gave, are mehudar. The Kfar Chabad esrogim are mehudar. The Rebbe writes that we should make the brachah on an esrog from Calabria. In his Reshimos, the Rebbe writes that he also had an esrog from Eretz Yisroel and would later perform the na’anuim with it, but the Rebbe did not publicize this widely. So we know about the esrog from Italy, but to make the brachah on an Italian esrog, you must be careful that it comes from an ungrafted orchard under close supervision. In any case, the Kfar Chabad esrogim are certainly ungrafted. So even today, some people who bring an esrog from Italy and are not certain about it—as the Frierdiker Rebbe and the Rebbe had concerns—have another esrog they know is ungrafted, to use for the na’anuim and everything else. But we must use the esrog the Rebbe writes about: despite the fact that there are esrogim from Kfar Chabad, from Eretz Yisroel, we should make the brachah on one from Italy. We must be very careful, though, to know where that esrog comes from. When the Rebbe arrived at 770, he had his esrog and the four minim there. He would arrive at 770 and immediately leave his room for his sukkah, carrying—carrying— The Rebbe’s sukkah was put up on the night after Yom

13:47 Speaker 2 Kippur. As we said, the season of our rejoicing begins then, and it says in the customs that one should begin with the halachah that the sukkah must be built—or at least study the laws of sukkah and talk about the sukkah. So, of course, the Temimim built the Rebbe’s sukkah on the night after Yom Kippur. By the time the Rebbe arrived the next day, it was finished. For a while there was a tree that had to be pulled aside so it would not overhang the sukkah. It was a job. A few Temimim built the sukkah, and they did not let everyone come near. When I came to the Rebbe, the sukkah was not yet the one standing there today. It was made of a few boards they had put up. There was a partition between the door and the sechach. So those of us outside, myself included, peeked through a crack to see the Rebbe’s na’anuim. In any case, we could see the lulav and those na’anuim, which we’ll discuss shortly. We also saw them in the shul. In any case, the Rebbe would go out to the sukkah. In the sukkah, the Rebbe had a Tanach. There was a regular arrangement, a shelf with a Chumash, a Tanach and books—Kesser Shem Tov, the Maggid’s teachings, and Tanya. The Rebbe writes that every Jewish home should have those three things, so that is what they put in the Rebbe’s sukkah. Now, the Rebbe went out to the sukkah with the four minim. On 13 Tishrei, the yahrzeit of the Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe always came out, in the years I saw him, with a book of maamarim of the Rebbe Maharash and his four minim. The Rebbe would enter the sukkah and perform the na’anuim. They would open the door for him; he would go into the sukkah, close the door, perform the na’anuim, and then remain there to learn until davening. But as soon as the Rebbe finished the na’anuim, he would open the door, and Rabbi Ehrlich, whom I saw, would go in, take the four minim and stand

16:02 Speaker 2 at the head of the line. Everyone would come to make the brachah over the four minim with the Rebbe’s lulav. Of course, for everyone to be able to do that, they would only make the brachah, lift the minim and give them one small shake. Immediately afterward, in the sukkah, they would find other people’s sets to continue the na’anuim. No one performed all the na’anuim with the Rebbe’s lulav. There was one particular Jew from Kfar Chabad, Reb Cohen, who was the only one to do all the na’anuim with it. We know that in 5752 the Rebbe stood there himself and watched each person perform the na’anuim. That is well known to everyone. But in those years Rabbi Ehrlich held the four minim, and each of us received them and handed them back. When the Rebbe finished, before davening, he came back from the sukkah to his room, put on a tallis and went down to the shul without the four minim, because the long line in the sukkah was still making the brachah on them. Toward chazaras hashatz, before Hallel, they stopped the line, and Rabbi Ehrlich brought the lulav and the four minim to the Rebbe in the shul. The Rebbe took them for Hallel. After davening, the Rebbe went out with the four minim, and they were taken again so that those who had not managed to make the brachah could do so. They continued after the Rebbe’s davening until the line was finished. That is how it was every day of the festival, both Yom Tov and Chol Hamoed. After the men had finished, the women came to make the brachah on the Rebbe’s lulav in the women’s section. When the Rebbe received the lulav in the shul, after it had gone—not through na’anuim, but in every direction, to every corner of the earth—the first thing the Rebbe did was look at it, and we saw how very, very particular the Rebbe was. When the Rebbe took

18:29 Speaker 2 With the lulav and the four species, first of all, the bottoms of all of them should be level. The lulav should not stick out below the others; the lulav and all four species should have one level base. The Rebbe would lower all the species so they were level at the bottom. He was very careful that the spine of the lulav faced him, and he held the lulav in his right hand. Except in Hakhel years, when the Rebbe held all four species during Hallel. The Rebbe spoke about this in a sicha on Hakhel. But during Hallel he always held only the three species in his right hand and joined the esrog to them only for the shaking. He always held the four species with both hands. It is worth emphasizing that even when the Rebbe left his place after Hallel and went to the women’s section, he always held them with both hands. You never hold the four species in one hand, always in both hands. That is how he went to the women’s section with the four species, taking care the whole time, as we said, and always holding them close to his heart. As for the order of shaking the four species: when he brought the esrog together with the lulav, he placed the lower part of the lulav against the upper third of the esrog. The esrog was in his left hand, but the fingers of his right hand also wrapped around and touched it. He brought them toward his heart, and from his heart he moved them in each direction, as described in the customs. When the Rebbe extended them in a direction, he shook them there and brought them back to himself; then he extended them there again, shook them, and brought them back. He did the same upward, then lowered them and brought them back to himself, and did the same downward—a shake and a return—and toward the west, as described in the customs, without turning around, except

20:49 Speaker 2 on the last shake. You have to know that, as with the shofar, we have fulfilled our obligation with the shofar blasts while seated, but we do not speak until all the blasts are finished. Why? Because the blessing was instituted for the recitation of Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofros. You have to know that taking the lulav was likewise instituted in connection with saying Hallel. There is a halachic discussion about why we are not careful to refrain from speaking between the blessing over the lulav and the end of Hallel. That is a halachic matter. But Hallel and the shaking are part of taking the lulav. So today, too, although some people have their own set of four species, everyone needs to know this. Certainly a bar mitzvah boy, even if he does not have his own set. In some families only the father has a set of four species, and he davens Musaf later. The boy needs to stay near someone who has a lulav, so that during Hallel—even if you do not hold the lulav throughout Hallel—you can shake it. That is an obligation from the Mishnah, which says to shake it during Hallel. You have to say Hallel with a lulav. We should make sure everyone says Hallel with a lulav. And during Hallel, too, as we said earlier, the shaking is not just what we do in the morning, when we certainly use both hands. During Hallel as well, when holding the lulav and esrog, hold them with both hands, absolutely not with one hand. And try, however difficult it is, to hold the lulav and esrog with both hands when walking for Hoshanos. As for saying the Hoshanos, that is the only thing we saw the Rebbe say by heart. He knew it all by heart, but he said it after the chazzan, who said it aloud. In any event, that was the only time the Rebbe did not take a siddur with him. Today there are small siddurim and sheets that we take with us, but you need to hold the lulav and the—

22:58 Speaker 2 and the four species in both hands. Sukkos was a time—Sukkos itself is “the time of our rejoicing.” In the years when I was there, the Rebbe no longer held farbrengens in the sukkah. There was just one occasion. Earlier, the space had been crowded, someone had held on to the schach, and it fell. After that the Rebbe stopped holding farbrengens in the sukkah. But in 5727[?], the Rebbe once held a farbrengen with the children, children from his [unclear]. Only the children were there, and every bochur inside had to have a badge. The condition was that if there was a bochur without a badge, the Rebbe would leave the sukkah. There was a bochur there whom the Rebbe looked at when he entered the sukkah, and the bochur did not understand what was happening. So another one, who knew about this arrangement, ran over and lifted his badge to show that he had one and was all right. It was very interesting, and there are pictures of the Rebbe washing his hands in the sukkah. You can see him washing, making Hamotzi with honey, and giving a sicha to the children. But otherwise, during Sukkos, the Rebbe did not hold farbrengens in the sukkah. There was, however, Simchas Beis Hashoevah. During the days of Chol Hamoed, they always took the opportunity to go and bring joy to the shluchim out of town, in places near Brooklyn. Each shliach was in his own place with his small community, so every night groups of people from the neighborhood would go out to bring joy to the people in those surrounding out-of-town communities. In those years when I studied in Lod, there was almost none of that locally. There were, of course, farbrengens of elderly chassidim all night long, farbrengens with chassidim who were men of action. There were farbrengens in sukkahs with chassidim, but dancing in the neighborhood was not a thing then. We did not have much of it at all, certainly nothing like what we have become used to in more recent years with Simchas Beis

25:24 Speaker 2 Hashoevah in the streets of Lod. I might mention when that began. In those years, when Reb Zusha Wilimovsky[?] came for Tishrei, he would start niggunim. When the Rebbe finished davening, he would start a niggun, and there would be a little singing after davening. Otherwise there was none—certainly not when the Rebbe came in, and not when he left either. One year he was not there, so there was no one to start a niggun, and in fact there were no niggunim at all after davening. There was one year when a few niggunim were started, but the Rebbe did not respond to them. It was a very tense Tishrei. With our eyes, we saw only what was happening down here, not what was happening in the higher worlds. Chol Hamoed was tense. The Rebbe did not respond to the singing they started—not even with a gesture for a niggun. You could really feel a kind of tension in the air. It went so far that, as Simchas Torah approached, on Hoshana Rabbah, Rabbi Chodakov called Reb Telushkin—not Reb Moshe, but the father of Reb Moshe Telushkin the chazzan. He told him to set the words “Hallelu es Hashem kol goyim” to the tune of “Ashreinu, mah tov chelkeinu,” and to start it in shul. The Rebbe responded, and an atmosphere of joy began. That was an awakening from Above, to put those words to that tune. Until then they had sung “Ashreinu, ashreinu, mah tov chelkeinu”; now they were to sing “Hallelu es Hashem kol goyim” to it. They started that tune on Hoshana Rabbah after Tehillim. Then an atmosphere of singing began, and the Rebbe responded. There was such joy that they danced for a long time afterward. In fact, that night we were bochurim and wanted there to be a little atmosphere of joy, because everything had been tense.

27:46 Speaker 2 So some people began creating an atmosphere of joy, while others stopped, because you don’t do that without the Rebbe’s permission. Then Rabbi Telushkin called me. He had seen me dancing with my friend Rabbi Shmuel Globerman of Lod. We danced there, and just a handful of people joined us. He told me, “I saw you dancing. I didn’t want to interrupt you. I wanted to tell you that the instruction was to have this atmosphere already when the Rebbe came in for Tehillim.” But it was as the Rebbe wanted. So they sang then, but that was the beginning of what came afterward. In the years that followed, people danced every night, and the Rebbe began responding to the dancing inside 770 from [unclear] onward. It got so crowded in 770 that they went out onto Eastern Parkway. And the Rebbe encouraged it again and again in his sichos, until Simchas Beis Hashoevah became what it is today, with the Rebbe’s instruction to go specifically from private space out into the public domain. Something similar happened on Simchas Torah when the Rebbe came in for hakafos. Until then, it was only later, after the sale of the Torah honors and after all the verses had been recited, that the hakafos began. But there was nothing when the Rebbe first came into 770. There was no such idea then of singing a song as the Rebbe entered. But several Temimim decided that they had to, and they chose the tune. I remember others singing it at the end of bentching: “Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.” They were about to begin the hakafos, and others tried to stop them, but the Temimim decided that they had to bring joy into the world. When the Rebbe came in, he encouraged it, and from then on it became—eventually, it became the entrance on Simchas Torah, with that niggun sung as the Rebbe entered the shul. On Simchas

30:01 Speaker 2 Torah itself, there was a farbrengen. So at night—the first night, hakafos were right after davening. On the second night there was a farbrengen first, from about nine until twelve, let’s say. Then, at twelve, the Rebbe went out and said that anyone who had not yet reviewed the parsha should go outside and give the gabbaim and the organizing committee room to arrange the chairs for hakafos. Everyone who had been at the farbrengen went out, and a little while later, around one-thirty or whenever it was, the Rebbe came in for hakafos, and there was a new arrangement. As for Maariv on the night of Simchas Torah, the Rebbe davened upstairs in the small zal. Why? Because after Minchah on Shemini Atzeres, the entire crowd went out on tahaluchah, while the Rebbe stood and encouraged everyone to go. So no one dared show his face at the Rebbe’s minyan. The Rebbe davened Maariv upstairs in the small zal, and afterward they held hakafos, a few minutes for each hakafah. The elder chassidim [unclear] made a hakafah with a Sefer Torah. That was Maariv on the night of Simchas Torah. Everyone else davened Maariv for Simchas Torah wherever they had gone to bring joy to Jews, and when they returned, they came straight into the Rebbe’s farbrengen. There were years when the Rebbe asked whether everyone had returned, and only then did he conclude the Simchas Torah farbrengen so they could go to hakafos. And some returned even later, including shluchim who had traveled away for Simchas Torah to be with other shluchim and bring joy to Jews in other places. As we said, in those years there was no Simchas Beis Hashoevah at all at the beginning of the evening. Even in later years, when Simchas Beis Hashoevah went on all night, the custom never stopped

32:18 Speaker 2 and continues to this day: going out to bring joy and to help the shluchim draw a large crowd, with a band, to bring joy to the shluchim and everyone in their communities. One year, on 3 Tishrei 5737, the Rebbe spoke about this. Since people were going to bring joy to other Jews on Simchas Beis Hashoevah, there were regular groups who had been going for years and years. The elder chassidim went to one place, the younger ones elsewhere and even farther away, until they spread out as widely as possible to the shluchim all around. People throughout the neighborhood went—men and women, everyone went to bring joy elsewhere. The Rebbe said that, since they were going to bring joy, and halachah speaks of the joy of a bridegroom and bride, that is the greatest joy there can be. Yet what do we find? “As a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, so will your G-d rejoice over you.” Even so, we see that there is a halachah about “new faces,” whose presence adds to all that joy. So the Rebbe asked that when people went to bring joy to the local communities, since many guests had come especially for Tishrei, each group should include at least one person from Eretz Yisroel and another from Europe. Then they could tell people that a local group had come from Brooklyn, from 770, to bring joy, and that guests from Eretz Yisroel and Europe had come too. Halachah speaks of “new faces,” and you can see for yourself that it adds even more joy. So, how do you organize that? Boruch Hashem, many guests had arrived all at once, mainly Temimim from Europe, as well as guests and Temimim from all over. There were enough for all the celebrations they went to—close to eighty places—enough to send someone to each one. But the chairman of Tzach was Dovid Raskin, and working with him was, may he be distinguished for long life, Rabbi Kasriel Boruch Kastel, who still works there today. He was in charge of assigning people and organizing the whole thing. He organized bringing students to farbrengens at which the Rebbe would address them in a sicha—he was the organizer within Tzeirei Chabad. So he asked me,

34:46 Speaker 2 he said that since he was organizing all the locations, taking care of the cars and the people and who would take whom and everything, I, as a yeshivah bochur and a Tomim, surely knew the Temimim better. I could help him find one person from Europe and one from Eretz Yisroel for each group. And I agreed. I agreed. Then I said, “How can we make sure it’s organized?” I said to him, “Let’s prepare a detailed list, because I’ll be telling everyone where to go.” He said, “I’ll call everyone.” I told him, “Let’s put together something very orderly and present the Rebbe with an organized list of all the places people are going and who is going.” He said to me, “Please, Tzach’s typewriter is at your disposal”—they had one and a half machines, or half—or two halves. “The machine is yours; you can do whatever you want.” He didn’t have time, because he had to organize not only all of Simchas Beis Hashoevah, but also all the guests—the places where the people close to Chabad would be coming and where they would stay. I can testify that an hour before Yom Tov he went to build a sukkah he still didn’t have at home. To this day he is a holy man, wholly devoted to the Rebbe in the Rebbe’s neighborhood. I prepared a list of all the places, with two copies. In those days, to make two copies, you put two thin sheets behind a page, with black carbon paper between them. I can hardly explain today how these things worked. That was how they typed all the Rebbe’s letters. There was one thick sheet that they sent, and behind it thin sheets like tissue paper. Those are the copies of all the letters kept in the secretariat. So I went in to the Rebbe’s office on Erev Yom Tov, almost at candle-lighting time, and handed it to Rabbi Klein. “Do me a favor,”

36:51 Speaker 2 I would submit to the Rebbe the full Tzach program for Simchas Beis Hashoeivah throughout Sukkos 5737. I also posted a copy in 770, near the doors where they put up the “mazel tov” wedding announcements, thank G-d. The bulletin boards were covered with about seven pages listing all the locations—close to seventy, perhaps seventy or eighty places—and who was going where. I had a direct hand in all this. I remember the Rebbe held a farbrengen in the sukkah, and some people wanted to peek in from behind, through the s’chach. I had to pull them away from where they were standing, because I needed to get each of them into the car going to his assigned place. There’s always something interesting happening at 770, especially when the Rebbe is holding a farbrengen. Toward the end of Sukkos, since I was directly involved, I asked Rabbi Kastel, “When do we send the Rebbe a report on the activities of this past week?” He told me, “Over the course of the year, with Hashem’s help, we’ll manage to collect reports from everyone, and then we’ll submit it to the Rebbe.” I asked, “When?” He said, “For example, last year, 5736, we submitted the report on the activities of Tishrei around Yud Shvat.” Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Teves, half of Shvat—almost five months. In earlier years, it was generally sometime during the year. I asked, “Can you leave it to me?” “Please, do whatever you want.” I said, “Before Simchas Torah, the Rebbe will have a report on what was done.” The practice then was to write the Rebbe about everything: who went, where they went, and what they spoke about—the content. We see in the Rebbe’s letters how he responds to every detail of every activity. I want to add first

39:08 Speaker 2 that that same year, before or during Tishrei, the Rebbe had made another request. Wherever Jews live, they have a gemach, a charitable loan fund, and there is a central gemach for the neighborhood or community. The Rebbe said to expand this work: there should be a gemach in every neighborhood, every shul, every boys’ and girls’ school, and perhaps even every classroom, to increase awareness of acts of kindness. There should be tzedakah boxes and help for people. The Rebbe addresses this in his letters too. Every yeshivah opened its own gemach, every class in a yeshivah—everywhere, gemachs multiplied throughout the world. Since the Rebbe had asked for this that year, I asked the people going out to bring joy to each location to check what was happening with the gemach in that area. If the Chabad House had none of its own, they should start one; if it did, they should expand it into other areas. Schools started gemachs for pencils, erasers, and notebooks, and even a gemach to help a child pay a fine imposed by a teacher. On the night of Hoshana Rabbah, before the recitation of Tehillim, when the Rebbe would come in at one in the morning, I met with everyone for the report I was writing to the Rebbe. It was an opportunity to find many of the Anash. I collected their reports on what had taken place in each location and what they had spoken about. I told them, “I don’t need to write out all of Likkutei Sichos and all the books of maamarim for the Rebbe. The Rebbe knows them. I just need to write that you spoke about the unity of the four species and how they come together.” They were writing out entire sichos. I said, “I’ll write one line: they spoke about unity, about the four species, about joy—the topic. There’s no need to spell out for the Rebbe everything written in the books containing what he himself said.”

41:18 Speaker 2 But since the Rebbe had asked us to pay attention to gemachs that year, and we had asked the people about them, I allotted three lines to each location: Who went? What did they speak about? And then a separate line, typed on the typewriter, about the gemach: “There wasn’t one, and they promised to [unclear],” or “There is one, and they’ll expand it.” Everything was compressed into about two and a half long lines, but the gemach got a line of its own. On Erev Simchas Torah, after Minchah, I handed the report to Rabbi Klein. “Please submit to the Rebbe the report on this past week.” For the first time, you could say, the Rebbe received a report on all the Simchas Beis Hashoeivah activities, from 15 Tishrei through Erev Simchas Torah. I thought there might be some response. After all, this had never been done before. There was no response. But on Erev Shabbos Bereishis, Rabbi Raskin came looking for me. He didn’t say the Rebbe was looking for me. What had the Rebbe sent out? Not my report from Hoshana Rabbah, submitted on Erev Simchas Torah. The Rebbe had sent back the summary of the planned activities that I had submitted before Sukkos, with a single question in abbreviated form: “Where is the report on what actually happened?” I had never had to submit a report like this before. The Rebbe was saying, “Wait, I received this beautiful plan. Where is the report on what was actually done?” Rabbi Raskin told me, “Only you can answer.” I sat down again and spent all of Friday calling more people. I added about ten more locations and provided more detail. In short, on Erev Shabbos Bereishis, a report covering close to seventy locations was submitted. I waited, thinking perhaps now there would be some response. Nothing. On Erev Shabbos Noach, Rabbi Raskin came again.

43:47 Speaker 2 “The Rebbe has sent out a page, and he’s waiting for an answer.” What page had the Rebbe sent out? Above the report from Erev Simchas Torah, the Rebbe had added four lines: “Gemach missing for numbers 13, 17, 21, 24.” That’s when I saw how the Rebbe reads every single letter. But if you’ve taken on a job, do it completely. You made a point of including the gemachs, so the work has to be complete.