Rosh Chodesh Kislev 5738 - Rabbi Tuvia Zilberstrom shlita

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

00:09 Speaker 2 I have to tell a story here that I saw with my own eyes. The doctors sat outside and watched what was happening, to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. But on Rosh Chodesh Kislev, for the first time, the Rebbe came down—uh, came out to the synagogue. At first he davened in his room. Then they held minyanim in the downstairs zal, and afterward they held minyanim in the zal as well, including on Shabbos. But the Rebbe had not yet gone down to the beis midrash, the place where everything had happened on Simchas Torah. Now, as for the first farbrengen—there had always been sichos and farbrengens on Motzaei Shabbos, but a farbrengen where the Rebbe sat among the people, a regular farbrengen, was first held on 19 Kislev. Then there was one on Yud Shvat, and on Pesach the Rebbe farbrenged because it was Acharon Shel Pesach. The others were on Motzaei Shabbos, always broadcast from the Rebbe’s room. The Rebbe wore his hat, jacket, sirtuk, and gartel. Opposite the table stood the secretaries, Rabbi Hodakov and Rabbi Groner, and Rabbi Mindel was there too. The Rebbe spoke to them and into the microphone, and the broadcast could be heard in the synagogue and throughout the world. This continued for years afterward, too. Even once the Rebbe had come down for farbrengens, he would farbreng on Motzaei Shabbos; they did not allow the Rebbe to farbreng on Shabbos, apart from Acharon Shel Pesach and Shavuos. But the others, when it was necessary—there was no way. On Motzaei Shabbos it was broadcast from the room. Even after the Rebbe came down, it was on Motzaei Shabbos. On 19 Kislev, the Rebbe came down to the synagogue for the first farbrengen. At farbrengens they would always say l’chaim three times, but they asked that people say it only once, so as not to burden the Rebbe. On 19 Kislev, when the Rebbe—there were sichos; it was a regular farbrengen, transcribed and broadcast. And during the recitation of

02:34 Speaker 2 the maamar, I noticed a certain commotion. The doctor at the farbrengen was Dr. Weiss. I remember Dr. Weiss arriving on Simchas Torah. Rabbi Krinsky went to bring him with a police escort. He traveled from Chicago on Simchas Torah. Somehow he got there; I remember him arriving with his medical bag. At the time, he didn’t have a yarmulke on his head. You could see Dr. Weiss’s progress afterward: first he wore a yarmulke, then a jacket, then a hat, and then a gartel. I have to add what Rabbi Avraham Meir of Lubavitch says about the Rebbe Rashab: “That is how I remember the Rebbes. Whoever came close to them, no matter who it was, was swept up and became an ardent chossid.” To see how Dr. Weiss arrived and how, later on, he would dance at farbrengens—he even began growing a beard, though his work required him to shave it off. It was extraordinary. So of course he came on 19 Kislev to see. I remember they showed him the farbrengen from 13 Tishrei. He knew the Rebbe; the Rebbe would send him questions, and they corresponded about medical matters, but he had never been there before. They showed him the recording from 13 Tishrei so he could see the same Rebbe who was now their patient, how he had previously farbrenged with all that fervor [?], with all that Chassidus. They wanted to see the changes in the Rebbe’s face. We had always heard stories. Once, being mischievous, I asked Dr. Weiss, “How do you get along with your patient?” We had heard so many stories, and each side would stand its ground. He said, “I get along with him very well.” In any case, that was how things stood on 19 Kislev. Dr. Weiss was at the farbrengen. I was sitting not far from him, and he sat there

04:35 Speaker 2 with a device—there were no cell phones then; they called it a walkie-talkie. Upstairs sat Dr. Feldman. He sat beside the machine and monitored it the whole time, watching the Rebbe’s excitement. This was the first time they had allowed the Rebbe to come down to 770 again, to that large hall where he had not been since Simchas Torah, and to farbreng. So they monitored him closely, watching every heartbeat on the machine. I remember asking when the machine showed the greatest excitement in the Rebbe: during davening, at a farbrengen, during maamarim? For the first time, it was possible to see a little more than our physical eyes could see. What was interesting was that when the Rebbe answered a chossid’s note, even when he wrote the very ordinary response he had written thousands of times—“I will mention it at the Ohel”—that was when they saw the strongest excitement and heartbeat. It showed how deeply the Rebbe invested himself in blessing the chossid and in his situation. I clearly remember that this was when the readings showed so much. So Dr. Weiss was sitting near me at the farbrengen. The Rebbe came in, and no one noticed anything unusual, but attached to his shirt was something like a pen that continuously recorded his heart’s activity. Upstairs was the machine, with Dr. Feldman sitting there watching it. In the middle of the farbrengen, I saw a commotion. Dr. Weiss turned and spoke to Rabbi Groner, and something was going on. No one knew what was happening. Immediately after the maamar, I saw Rabbi Groner approach the Rebbe and say something to him. The Rebbe listened, put his hand in his pocket or made some other movement, and gestured with his hand,

06:46 Speaker 2 as if to say, “I don’t know what you want.” Well, no one knew what it was. We didn’t understand. But on Yud Shvat the same scene happened again, and then the situation became clear. What did they discover? That when the Rebbe says a maamar—and this is well known; I myself heard from the Rebbe several times that at that moment the Shechinah speaks—[unclear] his place, his holy place in the southeastern part of the synagogue. That happened only on Chanukah 5738, when the Rebbe came down for the first time. He came down in the elevator and walked all the way to his place. I remember the first time the Rebbe came in. He had already come into 770 on 19 Kislev, but on Chanukah he walked, and with every step he took toward his place—there was no platform, because they only began putting up the platform during the year in 5738. By Rosh Chodesh Kislev he had already gone to the synagogue; on 19 Kislev he came downstairs. On Chanukah he reached his usual place. There was tremendous excitement when the Rebbe got there. With every step, everyone’s hearts were pounding. The Rebbe davened Minchah, and afterward there was the lighting of the Chanukah candles. The candle-lighting in the Rebbe’s presence deserves to be discussed on its own. The Rebbe did not light in public, as stated in Sefer Haminhagim, because the chassidim and the Rebbe all lit at the same time. But the lighting in the synagogue, the way the Rebbe looked at the candles and then at the crowd—you could not look the Rebbe in the eyes. When the Rebbe looked at you, you had to lower your eyes. It was impossible to meet his gaze; it was a blazing fire. There was something special about his eyes during the lighting of the Chanukah candles. It was always like that, including in 5753. In any case, [unclear] that same Chanukah 5738. There were several special things. First of all, at the candle-lighting, when the Rebbe

10:16 Speaker 2 They light the candles, and the Rebbe looks at the candles and at everyone. After that, they reach “Al Hanissim.” The Rebbe looks in his siddur, joins in the singing, and claps along. At the end, on the words “al nisecha,” the Rebbe claps. So when they sang “for Your miracles, for Your wonders, for Your salvations”—the miracles and wonders of “Who performed miracles for our forefathers in those days”—the feeling among the chassidim was that “Your miracles, Your wonders, Your salvations” meant the Rebbe’s return to his place, “in those days, at this time.” The excitement was tremendous, and with my mischievous streak, I said to one of my friends, “Let’s start a dance near the Rebbe. When else will we have the chance?” It was the middle of the day, and 770 wasn’t very full—just the bochurim. Let’s say a quarter of the shul was full, not... I said we could start a dance. The Rebbe speaks in his sichos about how there had never been a dance in 770. Why not? Because at farbrengens there was no room for dancing. Even on Simchas Torah there was no room for dancing; everyone danced where they stood, but never in a circle. That Chanukah night in 5738, I told someone to start dancing. Anything new in 770 was always treated with a great deal of... caution. But I went ahead, kept at it, and insisted. The Rebbe continued clapping until all of 770—all the 250 fellows who were there, or however many—became one big circle. I think it was the first time in all the years since 5709 that people danced in a circle in 770 in front of the Rebbe. I just remember that the circle was so big that I began to feel unwell. At the time, I had a severe case of angina. Of course, I hadn’t missed a single visit by the Rebbe to the beis midrash, on 19 Kislev and so on, but even though I had started that circle, dancing had become difficult for me. It was just such a circle. The Rebbe was clapping, though very gently, but the circle was... So

12:27 Speaker 2 I stepped out of the circle. I couldn’t keep going; I felt somewhat weak, so I stepped out. But there wasn’t a platform yet, and the Rebbe was continuing, and the dancing was continuing, and I wanted to see the Rebbe. Well, you know how it goes: the floor and the benches are treated much the same. A few people were standing on the benches, and I stood on a bench too, to keep watching the Rebbe encourage the circle. But the Rebbe was looking at everyone, and the moment our eyes met, the Rebbe made two motions to me. The first meant, “Get down,” and the second, “Join the circle. Be with the chassidim.” Perhaps that’s why, almost every Chanukah from then until today, I’ve been with the Rebbe, including with groups I accompany on Chanukah. Maybe that’s one of the reasons. There was something else, too. On Chanukah, the Rebbe wanted to distribute Chanukah gelt in the beis midrash, and the Rebbe said that everyone should come by. We were also anxious because of what had happened in 5738, still worried about the Rebbe’s heart and everything, so they wanted to arrange for only a certain number of people to come by and receive it, and no more. The Rebbe turned around—and perhaps I was among them—and said, “Whoever prevents someone from coming over to me”