Ears to Hear 11 | A Chabadnik? Studying the Topics of Geulah and Moshiach

00:00 Speaker 1 And He gave you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear.

00:08 Speaker 2 Ears to Hear. Audio programs for the Temimim from the World Atah organization.

00:14 Speaker 3 And suddenly I was exposed to it. I was exposed to Nun Beis[unclear]. No, I was a child in Nun Beis[unclear], but I hadn’t known the content of Nun Beis[unclear], the sichos of Nun Beis[unclear]. Then I was exposed to them, and suddenly I began to think: Maybe Moshiach has already come. I said to myself, maybe Moshiach has already come and we’re living in some fantasy that he hasn’t—that it’s all just our imagination. But Moshiach really has come. That realization, suddenly being able even to consider that the Geulah has already arrived, that we’re already in the Geulah—that happens through learning about Geulah and Moshiach.

01:01 Speaker 4 Shalom aleichem to all the Temimim in Chabad yeshivos throughout the Holy Land and the entire world. We’re now beginning another program in the Ears to Hear audio series, a program steeped in a spirit of firm hiskashrus to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach shlita, and devoted to our main subject: learning about Geulah and Moshiach. Among the central things that will bring the true and complete Geulah is the direct path to bringing it: learning about Geulah and Moshiach. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, urged this immediately after the sicha of 28 Nissan, on Shabbos Parshas Tazria-Metzora, and then in further sichos, to the point of saying on Shabbos Parshas Vayeitzei 5752 that learning about Geulah and Moshiach had already become a Jewish custom that was spreading more and more. In this program, we want to understand this in depth—to understand what learning about Geulah and Moshiach is, so that we can live with Moshiach. We want to understand Moshiach, get to the heart of the matter, and understand how important this learning is and how we should approach it. We’ll speak with Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Segal, the head mashpia at the yeshiva ketanah in Nof HaGalil, about the nature of learning about Geulah and Moshiach and why every student needs to learn it. We’re beginning the program now with Rabbi Segal. Shalom aleichem to all the Temimim. We’re beginning this special program, episode eleven of Ears to Hear, with Rabbi Segal. Shalom aleichem, Rabbi Segal.

02:31 Speaker 5 Aleichem shalom. L’chaim, l’chaim. Long live our master, teacher and Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, forever and ever.

02:35 Speaker 4 L’chaim, and may it bring blessing. With Hashem’s help, may these words have their effect. We’re living through extraordinary moments, standing on the threshold of the Geulah, days of counting toward Moshiach, and each of us wants to know the main things we should be involved in at this time. Without a doubt, one of the most prominent and important is learning about Geulah and Moshiach. Every student entering yeshiva hears about it. The mashpi’im urge it, but very often what’s missing is the basic explanation, the foundation: just how important is learning about Geulah and Moshiach? So to understand that, the first thing we’d like to discuss is the subject itself, its central and related aspects. Maybe we’ll start with the heart of the matter. Where did it all begin? Where did this drive, this campaign to learn about Geulah and Moshiach, come from? Then perhaps we’ll understand its importance and its essence.

03:29 Speaker 5 It really goes back to 28 Nissan 5751. Everyone knows about 28 Nissan 5751 and the famous sicha. I once heard from Rabbi Yeshaya Braun, the rabbi of Crown Heights—he was a student at Oholei Torah yeshiva—that word came that the Rebbe was returning from the Ohel. He went to the mashgiach, Rabbi Mendel Morozov, and told him that he needed to go daven Minchah with the Rebbe at 770. But there was no permission to leave in the middle of seder to daven Minchah with the Rebbe. If Minchah was at its regular time, at three fifteen, you could daven with the Rebbe, but you couldn’t leave during the learning seder for Minchah at six or something like that. He told him—it was probably already halfway through the fourth seder, and it was late, perhaps eight o’clock; I don’t know exactly what time it was—“I need to daven Minchah, and it’s already sunset, so I can only daven with the Rebbe.” The mashgiach said, “All right, you can go.” So he hurried to 770, while the other students stayed in yeshiva. They didn’t have permission to leave, but when the sicha began, everyone ran. What permission? Everyone ran to 770. He said that by the time he reached 770 and started davening, they were already in the middle of Maariv. The Rebbe began the sicha, so he stopped in the middle of Maariv, before Hashkiveinu, and listened. He says the sicha was so earth-shaking that afterward he completely forgot he’d been in the middle of Maariv. Everyone wanted him to go back and tell them how the sicha had begun. In short, it was the well-known sicha of 28 Nissan: “Do all that you can.” Everyone knows the force of that sicha, the great demand to do everything to bring Moshiach. People immediately asked themselves: What does the Rebbe want us to do in practice? What does “Do all

05:03 Speaker 5 that you can” mean? Okay, but what does it mean? People brought up many ideas, suggested all sorts of things, and held gatherings. There was a tremendous stir. As is well known, that was when the effort to have rabbis sign declarations accepting his kingship began. But one thing that happened was that, a week and a half later, on Shabbos Parshas Tazria-Metzora, the Rebbe spoke about the significance of Malchus sheb’Tiferes in relation to learning about Geulah and Moshiach. Based on the second chapter of Pirkei Avos, the Rebbe said there that the direct, easiest and fastest path of all the Torah’s paths to bringing the true and complete Geulah is through learning about Geulah and Moshiach.

05:44 Speaker 6 There had been some precedent for it. The Temimim had put out a booklet of mareh mekomos, source references, on the subject of Moshiach, but the Rebbe had not yet spoken about it.

05:51 Speaker 5 Yes. In the sicha, the Rebbe pointed out that material on Geulah and Moshiach could be found, for example, in those mareh mekomos and so on. That was after the awakening from below on the part of the Temimim.

06:01 Speaker 6 So it actually began with the Temimim.

06:02 Speaker 5 If we’re talking about an awakening from below, there was one with Rambam study too: the Temimim in Morocco set out to complete the entire Rambam in one year. And with the tefillin campaign, someone here in the Land of Israel took the initiative to put tefillin on Jews. We see that many campaigns began with an awakening from below on the part of individuals, and afterward became a campaign of the Rebbe.

06:19 Speaker 6 The same was true of learning about Geulah and Moshiach.

06:21 Speaker 5 Of Geulah and Moshiach too. So perhaps people were already beginning to understand that if the Rebbe was saying, “Do all that you can,” then learning had a role to play. But the campaign to learn about Geulah and Moshiach began on Shabbos Parshas Tazria-Metzora, 6 Iyar 5751. There was a chossid named Rabbi Chaim Gutnick—Reb Sholom Chaim Gutnick of Australia. He was an exceptional Jew, an unconventional chossid, not an ordinary one. Some chassidim fit the usual Tomchei Temimim mold and so on. Others are people of the Rebbe, a somewhat different kind of people of the Rebbe.

07:00 Speaker 6 Outside the mold.

07:01 Speaker 5 Yes, yes. I mean, in their style. Sometimes they might look a bit more Litvish or Polish, but they have a special connection with the Rebbe. There were several people like that. Rabbi Yunes[unclear] is one example, and Rabbi Gutnick was another. He had a special connection with the Rebbe. For example, after the Six-Day War, he was with the Rebbe in yechidus and spoke with him about the Geulah in very concrete terms. He asked the Rebbe how “he will compel all Israel” would be fulfilled, and the Rebbe told him it could be done through shluchim; he wouldn’t necessarily have to go himself. Those were words you’d say only to someone very, very close.

07:35 Speaker 6 The kind of Torah a father shares with his son.

07:36 Speaker 5 Someone very, very—yes, someone both very close and coming from a very pure place, someone who genuinely cared. Not from a place of politics, not so he’d have something to tell everyone, but from a place of truly caring that the redeemer should come, caring that the Rebbe should be revealed. So he wrote the Rebbe a letter in 5751, a long letter. There’s a copy of it. It was a very long letter: “Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of being the person through whom the Rebbe conveyed various messages he wanted everyone to hear,” and so on. He wrote, “Perhaps I’ll come especially from Australia and the Rebbe will receive me for yechidus, even though that’s no longer customary today. Let the Rebbe receive me for yechidus and tell me what the Rebbe wants.” It was a very long, heartfelt, profound, pleading letter.

08:21 Speaker 6 In other words, he wanted to understand what 28 Nissan meant. He simply wanted the Rebbe to tell him directly.

08:24 Speaker 5 For the Rebbe to tell us what to do? So what should we do? The Rebbe gave a very short answer. I don’t remember the exact words now, but the point was: I’ve already said it several times; for example, see the sicha from this past Shabbos. And when we look at that Shabbos’s sicha, one of the main things that comes to mind when you say “Tazria-Metzora 5751” is Geulah and Moshiach.

08:53 Speaker 6 In effect, the Rebbe directed him to this point: studying Geulah and Moshiach.

08:56 Speaker 5 In effect, the Rebbe was telling Rabbi Gutnick: “Do everything in your power” begins with studying Geulah and Moshiach. This is where it starts—with studying Geulah and Moshiach.

09:07 Speaker 6 And from there, the campaign only keeps growing.

09:10 Speaker 5 And you can really see that the Rebbe began doing this from then on. What did the Rebbe begin doing? Every week, in the Dvar Malchus sichos, the Rebbe began speaking about Geulah and Moshiach. In the sicha for Parshas Emor, which was especially timely, the Rebbe didn’t speak about the weekly parsha at all, or about Rashi, or about anything other than Geulah and Moshiach.

09:26 Speaker 6 Besides the Rebbe’s instruction to study Geulah and Moshiach, the Rebbe simply showed us what that study looks like: the sichos are full of it.

09:32 Speaker 5 Right. Some say they saw the Rebbe going to the Ohel with a Rambam—not the Rambam for the daily study cycle, but the Rambam’s Hilchos Melachim.

09:40 Speaker 6 Oh.

09:40 Speaker 5 Speaking of the Rambam’s Hilchos Melachim, there’s something interesting. I saw an account of something the Rebbe said to a rabbi who came to him for yechidus. I don’t remember who it was now, but the Rebbe told him, “I’m not so well versed in the Rambam, but these laws, Hilchos Melachim, I’ve already learned forward and backward.” That’s how the Rebbe put it to an admor in yechidus. “These laws I’ve already learned forward and backward.” The Rebbe said it to him in connection with Zionism. It may have been the admor of Sadigura. But the Rebbe says, “I’m not so well versed in the Rambam.” The Rebbe isn’t so well versed in the Rambam? Yes, but the Rebbe wouldn’t say something untrue, right? In other words, what is the Rebbe telling us? That his familiarity with the Rambam as a whole doesn’t compare at all with how thoroughly he had studied Hilchos Melachim, forward and backward.

10:39 Speaker 6 That shows how important it is to study Geulah and Moshiach in depth.

10:42 Speaker 5 How much every detail of Hilchos Melachim mattered to the Rebbe—to the point that his study of it was on an entirely different level from his study of the rest of the Rambam.

10:50 Speaker 6 Last year, a book called Etzem Hamalchus came out, with in-depth discussions and explanations of Hilchos Melachim. You can see the richness in every...

10:57 Speaker 5 There isn’t a word the Rebbe didn’t discuss and explain in such depth and at such length.

11:04 Speaker 6 To return to the letter: the Rebbe went on speaking again and again about the instruction to study Geulah and Moshiach, and also showed us, by the time of that letter, that it had already become a Jewish custom that was continuing to spread.

11:14 Speaker 5 Yes. The truth is that in that sicha on Tazria-Metzora, the Rebbe spoke about this as the way to bring the Geulah. But later, in Parshas Bo, the Rebbe spoke about how studying Geulah and Moshiach does more than bring the Geulah: it also lets us begin to live—to live Geulah.

11:40 Speaker 6 And that really is a very interesting subject. Let’s try to get into it for a moment. Why did the Rebbe, especially after the sicha of 28 Nissan, place such emphasis specifically on studying Geulah and Moshiach? If the campaign is “Do everything in your power to bring Moshiach,” it could have meant general involvement with Geulah and Moshiach, and spreading the message of Moshiach. Why this emphasis on study in particular? What makes it unique?

12:03 Speaker 5 The answer, really, is that Chabad teaches that things must be internalized. Chabad demands that. You see it all the way back to the Alter Rebbe. Take the story of Reb Boruch of Mezhibuzh asking him, “Why did you need to go through that whole imprisonment? You could have passed your hand over your forehead and resolved the entire problem of the imprisonment.” But the Alter Rebbe didn’t want that, because in Chabad everything is about internalizing it. What does that mean? It means that something permeates you. And the deepest way something can become part of a person is through understanding it well. There’s acknowledgment, and there’s understanding. Chassidus explains that acknowledgment means I heard something from someone, I believe that everything he says is true, and I repeat his words. If I haven’t grasped it myself, that isn’t called understanding; it’s called acknowledgment. I accept it, and that’s good, because we need to accept everything the Torah says and everything the Rebbe says. We need to know it’s true. But that still isn’t the Torah’s mitzvah of understanding. Understanding Torah means that the idea has settled in my mind: I understand it well, I understand it from every angle, and I can repeat it to other people in my own words, not just recite what’s written in the sichos. Then the idea has truly become part of me.

13:26 Speaker 6 You could say that this is the difference between Chagas and Chabad, from the Baal Shem Tov to the Rebbe.

13:31 Speaker 5 In effect, Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling place in the lower realms. He didn’t just desire a dwelling place in the lower realms; He desired that we, the ones in the lower realms, make that dwelling place for Him. If all our avodas Hashem is simply because the Master of the Universe hands things down to us from above, then we haven’t made it ourselves. Chabad wants “the righteous person shall live by his faith”—that we should serve Hashem ourselves. That’s what it means to make a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the lower realms: we do the work here, from below. And where does it all begin? With study, understanding and comprehension. That’s why Chassidus takes the most G-dly, most lofty ideas, the ones furthest beyond intellect, and brings them into the intellect—to the point that, as Chassidus says, even the intellect of the animal soul can understand them.

14:12 Speaker 6 This is what the Alter Rebbe began with Chabad teachings: bringing Chabad inward specifically through study. Then came the Mitteler Rebbe with his teachings of Chabad, and all the Chassidus, and the Tzemach Tzedek, who brought it all together. The aim throughout was to take G-dliness, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the infinite light, and bring it into us down here. Then the Rebbe comes and, of course, gives us this Chassidus too. But it’s as though a stage arrives when this must find expression in the subject of Moshiach itself, which hadn’t happened then.

14:39 Speaker 5 If Moshiach in general means G-dliness, a revelation of G-dliness in the world, then to want Moshiach we need to study Chassidus, because we need to want G-dliness. But that is still G-dliness in its abstract form. It isn’t yet connected to the halachic details of Moshiach: the order of his arrival, his actions and the criteria that define him. What happens when you study the Geulah and Moshiach in the Rebbe’s maamarim and Likkutei Sichos—as the Rebbe put it, studying the teachings of the leader of our generation, his maamarim and Likkutei Sichos—is that suddenly the most boundless, most G-dly ideas connect with the most halachic questions, with precise definitions and details. In other words, this is the ultimate dwelling place in the lower realms. On the one hand, as the Rebbe just said, the whole purpose of Tomchei Temimim is that the students study Chassidus as they study nigleh, and that the light of Chassidus should shine in their study of nigleh. When you study Likkutei Sichos, you study Chassidus like nigleh. You’re studying G-dly ideas, but they’re expressed in the language of nigleh, the language of halachah, the language of close textual analysis, the language of—

15:42 Speaker 6 Of the Rambam.

15:43 Speaker 5 Yes, in a language you can even present to a misnaged. You can approach someone who’s never studied Chassidus and say, “Listen, there’s a Rambam, and this Rambam presents a difficulty. Here’s the question.” And from there, you can bring him to the most G-dly ideas. He’s moved by it because he grasps them in his own terms. That’s the ultimate dwelling place in the lower realms.

16:00 Speaker 6 So when it comes to studying Geulah and Moshiach, until we reach that point, we haven’t fully explored the subject in depth.

16:08 Speaker 5 There can be reciting ideas about Geulah and Moshiach, and there can be studying them. Reciting means repeating—repeating what was said. I repeat what I heard from the Rebbe. That’s a good thing—

16:21 Speaker 6 There’s a place for that too.

16:22 Speaker 5 It’s a process, a process. The first stage is to repeat what the Rebbe says. But the second stage is not to be satisfied with repeating it like a parrot; it’s to understand it genuinely and thoroughly. What does that give me? It connects me to the subject more fully, and it lets me convey it to the world more genuinely. I’ll tell you a little story. I gave a class on Geulah and Moshiach for people who were becoming close to Chabad. We learned a sicha from Likkutei Sichos and discussed the Rambam[?]. The class ended, and one of them said, “But where is Moshiach? Where is Moshiach at the end of it all? What about Moshiach?” What did he mean? He had studied matters of Moshiach and Geulah, and suddenly a cry came out of him: “But where is Moshiach?” The Rebbe said on 28 Nissan that even when we cry out, “Until when?” it’s only because we’ve been instructed to, not because we’re truly crying out. How will we truly cry out? When we study Geulah and Moshiach and it becomes personal to us. Then we’ll start to cry out for real. As long as we don’t understand what it is, how can we truly cry out? There’s a story about Rabbi [unclear] Kahn: after the sicha on Balak came out in volume 18—I think it came out in 5740—he was so excited about it.

17:45 Speaker 6 Volume 18.

17:46 Speaker 5 I think it was volume 18.

17:47 Speaker 6 Yes.

17:47 Speaker 5 But it came out in Likkutei Sichos in 5740, and he said that until then, no one had believed in Moshiach. Why? Because they didn’t know what Moshiach was. What’s the point of arguing over whether you believe in something when you don’t know what it is? Now that you know what Moshiach is, you can start believing in it. He said that someone who hadn’t studied that sicha was [unclear] when it came to Moshiach. That sicha explains what Moshiach is according to the Rambam, but there are other sichos that explain it according to Chassidus, and sichos that explain it according to the plain meaning of the texts.

18:23 Speaker 6 All the Rebbeim.

18:24 Speaker 5 Yes. There are many, many more things that explain to us what Moshiach is. What is Moshiach? You want Moshiach, but what is Moshiach?

18:31 Speaker 6 Once you understand what you want, your desire to reach it becomes stronger.

18:36 Speaker 5 I happened to see a film that was published by [unclear]. They interviewed a young man around Gimmel Tammuz 5754. He spoke very emphatically about the Rebbe coming, and about the Rebbe, and so on. Then they asked him, “And what will happen when that comes about?” Suddenly you see him getting confused. He doesn’t know what happens; he doesn’t know how to answer. Perhaps for many people at that time, the idea of studying Geulah and Moshiach in depth hadn’t yet taken hold. They were involved in spreading the message about Moshiach. That was all well and good, but it was faith on a transcendent level, and something was still missing.

19:17 Speaker 6 There hadn’t been enough time, emotionally or practically, for in-depth study.

19:20 Speaker 5 Or the amount of material we have today. It’s worth noting that there was no book called Dvar Malchus. There was no such book at all.

19:25 Speaker 6 Yes.

19:25 Speaker 5 If you didn’t know Yiddish, you had no way to study it apart from the booklets. Apart from the booklets, that book was half and half—half in Hebrew. That farbrengen hadn’t been published, and there were booklets that came out each year. There wasn’t even a way to study Dvar Malchus systematically. So there were many factors.

19:40 Speaker 6 Certainly not the broader topics of Geulah and Moshiach.

19:42 Speaker 5 No, there weren’t the [unclear] on Geulah and Moshiach. All those books about Moshiach came out later.

19:46 Speaker 6 [Unclear], Gursky[?] Yes.

19:47 Speaker 5 Yes. So, essentially—

19:50 Speaker 6 His answer really shows that the subject had not yet penetrated inwardly, fully.

19:54 Speaker 5 It was faith on a transcendent level, and very strong faith at that.

19:58 Speaker 6 You can see the passion.

19:59 Speaker 5 Yes, very strong faith on a transcendent level. But what was missing was the inner dimension. That inner dimension comes through studying something and living with it inwardly.

20:13 Speaker 6 Since we’re talking about this, I don’t know if it’s comfortable to ask, but can you speak from your own experience? Did you have moments like that? Can you talk about what it was like for you as a young man, after Gimmel Tammuz or during your year in 770, or at some other point in your life, when you saw the difference between not studying and actually studying?

20:33 Speaker 5 I first encountered the Dvar Malchus sichos when I came to the yeshivah gedolah in Tzfas. I had studied in the yeshivah ketanah in Lod—

20:38 Speaker 6 You’re talking about 5760.

20:40 Speaker 5 5759. Yes, 5760.

20:42 Speaker 6 Okay.

20:42 Speaker 5 I studied in the yeshivah ketanah in Lod. There were classes on Geulah and Moshiach on Friday nights, as usual, about the era of Moshiach, but it wasn’t thorough study. It wasn’t really studying the material. Then I arrived in Tzfas and started learning Dvar Malchus, and suddenly I was exposed to it. I was exposed to 5752. I had been a child in 5752, but I hadn’t been aware of the content of 5752, the sichos of 5752. When I encountered them, I suddenly began to think, “Maybe Moshiach has already come.” I thought to myself, “Maybe Moshiach has already come, and we’re living in some fantasy in which he hasn’t come. Maybe that’s just an illusion, and in truth Moshiach has come.” I remember asking members of the staff, and they pointed me to the sicha of 9 Adar, 11 Adar, where the Rebbe spoke about meriting the true and complete Geulah in the plain sense—that we need a Geulah we can see with our eyes, not just a Geulah that... But that realization, that it could even occur to me that the Geulah had already come and that we were already living in it—that came through studying Geulah and Moshiach.

21:48 Speaker 6 It swept you somewhere perhaps even extreme, but it swept you up.

21:51 Speaker 5 Yes. It swept me up inwardly. I can tell you something else interesting. I went out as a shliach when I was a young man, after my year in 770. I was a shliach in India.

22:01 Speaker 6 Where?

22:02 Speaker 5 Delhi—New Delhi, India. This was in 5774. A Sephardi married man came there and asked me, “Why don’t you eat the third Shabbos meal? What do you mean? There’s a third meal. You have to eat the third meal. How can you not eat it?” I opened Likkutei Sichos to Parshas Beshalach, handed it to him, and said, “Here, please study this. It’s written here.” He sat down and studied it.

22:31 Speaker 6 He was a Torah-observant Jew, someone who could understand the subject.

22:32 Speaker 5 Yes. After he studied it, he asked me, “Tell me, do you have something like this about what you say concerning Moshiach?”

22:40 Speaker 6 Oh, wow.

22:41 Speaker 5 So I gave him the kuntres Beis Rabbeinu Sheb’Bavel. But the truth is that the subject of Moshiach is much broader. With the third meal, you study one sicha.

22:48 Speaker 6 [Unclear].

22:49 Speaker 5 Yes.

22:49 Speaker 6 Volume 28. I mean...

22:51 Speaker 5 Two related sichos.

22:52 Speaker 6 Yes.

22:53 Speaker 5 But Geulah and Moshiach—that’s already a lot of material. You can’t cover it while standing on one foot. There’s Beis Rabbeinu, and [unclear], and all of Dvar Malchus, and many stories.

23:00 Speaker 6 Kedoshim.

23:01 Speaker 5 Yes, there’s a lot here. It doesn’t happen in an instant; you can’t explain it while standing on one foot. But certainly someone can listen to you and even acknowledge that you’re right. Suppose you told him stories of miracles involving the Rebbe, and he wrote to the Rebbe through Igros Kodesh and saw a miracle. From then on, he believes that the Rebbe is Moshiach. But for that belief to become something internal for him, you need to teach him about Geulah and Moshiach.

23:26 Speaker 6 So it won’t be undermined, so to speak. That comes specifically through intellectual understanding.

23:30 Speaker 5 Correct.

23:32 Speaker 6 By the way, it’s interesting—since we’re talking about Chabad Houses and people becoming close to Chabad, and I myself spend a lot of Fridays visiting them—if someone really is willing to sit and study matters of Moshiach for an hour, which sicha would you suggest? Volume 18, [unclear]? What could you start with that would give him the Chabad perspective on the subject?

23:51 Speaker 5 It varies a great deal. The Rebbe writes that with people who are close to us and accustomed to mussar teachings, we should start with Igeres Hateshuvah; with those accustomed to philosophical inquiry, we should start with Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. In other words, where do you begin? It depends very much on the person and their outlook. Someone might be at a more basic level, and you need to talk with him about the return of prophecy, as in the Rambam’s time, and so on. Or he might be someone with a strong Torah background, and you need to start with [unclear]. Yes, it varies a great deal. With one person you speak about Chassidus, and with another you need to start with maamarim. It really varies from person to person. But the central point is that when I come to teach him, I’ll already be steeped in the material. This won’t be my first encounter with it. I’ve already learned the sicha; I know what it says, and I know how to answer his questions. He sees that I’m genuinely serious about this. Now, that itself raises an interesting question. If we’re talking about studying Geulah and Moshiach, then when we look at the sicha of Tazria-Metzora, we could also study Sanhedrin, the end of Sotah, or the Rambam. Baruch Hashem, there are now many, many collections. We could study the Zohar, [unclear], the many writings of the Abarbanel, his Yeshuos Meshicho, or the Rambam’s letters. We have plenty of material. What is distinctive about what the Rebbe emphasizes in the sicha of Tazria-Metzora—particularly the maamarim and Likkutei Sichos of the leader of our generation? If we’re talking about the essence of Moshiach-related matters, to what extent is it precisely this focus on the Rebbe’s teachings that gets us there? Once, through hashgachah pratis, I was on a plane, sitting beside Rabbi Goldberg of Migdal HaEmek, and we studied Likkutei Sichos together—the sichos for Parshas Haazinu and Sukkos.

25:29 Speaker 5 He had brought his parsha book with him. All the Sukkos sichos were there. It was around Sukkos, just before Sukkos. And he put it this way: “There is no Torah teaching in the world as beautiful as Likkutei Sichos. There is nothing written with such clarity and lucidity as Likkutei Sichos.” We have the maamarim of all the Rebbeim, but the maamarim written in our language, in the way that speaks to us most directly, are the Rebbe’s maamarim. The Rebbe’s sichos. First of all, you can understand this simply: the Rebbe is the leader of our generation, our shepherd, our faithful shepherd, right? So the Rebbe speaks to us in the language we need to hear. That’s the first point. Second, from the Rambam and Rav Saadia Gaon, through all the Rishonim and Acharonim, to the Rebbeim and all the Rebbeim—the ultimate culmination of it all is the Rebbe. So clearly, if I want to understand Geulah and Moshiach in the fullest way, I turn to the Rebbe. There’s another point. Some topics have arguments on both sides. The Rebbe decides; the Rebbe rules. Right? I could find a passage in the Zohar saying there will now be a war of Gog and Magog, or all sorts of other things, and I’d also be studying Geulah and Moshiach. But I’d be learning it in the most distorted way possible if I didn’t really know what the Rebbe says about it. If I truly want to know what’s right, I need to know what the Rebbe says. So I study the Rambam, and I study Sanhedrin and so on, but ultimately, if I want to live with the Rambam as I should, I need to live with it as the Rebbe teaches it. I do that by studying the Rebbe’s sichos. Of course there is value in studying the Rambam with his commentators. There is value in studying the—

27:26 Speaker 5 the Gemara, the relevant passages of Gemara, and the sources. But when I want to reach conclusions and live with Geulah and Moshiach, the main thing, ultimately, is the Rebbe’s sichos. And on that very point: when we speak about the Rebbe’s sichos generally, we have Likkutei Sichos, we have Sefer Hasichos, and of course the maamarim and letters. Among the sichos dealing with Moshiach-related matters themselves, how can we identify what is distinctive about each? There are several things. There are the sichos in Likkutei Sichos that deal with specific questions about Geulah, halachic questions about Geulah, explanations of various mitzvos in the context of Geulah, explanations of different areas of Yiddishkeit in relation to Geulah, and thorough examinations of the nature of Moshiach, the Beis Hamikdash, the resurrection of the dead, and all these things. That’s found mainly in Likkutei Sichos. The material on Geulah and Moshiach in Likkutei Sichos has already been collected in five volumes, and much of it is gathered in the book Geulas HaMoshiach and in Chiddushim U’viurim B’Inyanei Geulah U’Moshiach, with explanations of the references. There are also letters in Igros Kodesh about Geulah and Moshiach—a number of letters, including one on the resurrection of the dead and the like, where the Rebbe explains a topic at length. Then there are the maamarim on Geulah and Moshiach. Maamarim are Chassidus: we study Geulah and Moshiach according to Chassidus. We study what Moshiach, Gan Eden, and the resurrection of the dead mean, the differences between them, and the First, Second, and Third Beis Hamikdash. These are subjects in Chassidus, a field of study in its own right: “Know the G-d of your father” as it relates to Geulah and Moshiach. Then there are the sichos of Dvar Malchus. Unlike Likkutei Sichos, Dvar Malchus is less concerned with working through topics about Geulah and Moshiach. One of its main concerns is where we stand now and how we need to prepare for Moshiach’s coming. Again and again it asks what [unclear] means now as part of preparing for Moshiach’s coming, or what the granting of the cities of refuge means now, as we approach Moshiach’s coming, and so on. There is also Torah Chadashah Me’iti Teitzei, the kuntres Torah Chadashah, which really is more of a developed discussion of a topic, like a sicha in Likkutei Sichos. But most of the material is about where we stand now—Parshas Mishpatim 5752, for example, shows us how we can already see it happening in the world. So the sichos of Dvar Malchus are more about the period we are in. That is, they are less about examining the subjects of Geulah and Moshiach, and more about Moshiach and Geulah now. Where are we living now in relation to Geulah and Moshiach? And there is that well-known statement the Rebbe made about the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Rebbe said that the last series of maamarim we heard from the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Basi Legani series, contains many, many teachings with instructions that apply in every detail. If Anash and the Temimim had studied the maamarim we heard—the Frierdiker Rebbe’s final series of maamarim—with precision, they would certainly have found there the answers to all their questions. The Rebbe mentioned that sometimes there are points in parentheses that don’t seem to be part of the subject at hand, but in fact contain an answer to a question someone hasn’t yet asked. Of course, we will hear from the Rebbe “a new Torah will come forth from Me,” but for the time being, Dvar Malchus contains the last sichos we heard from the Rebbe, and [unclear] our situation today as if they were brand-new. There’s a saying about this. Once, shluchim came to a yeshivah and held a farbrengen. They asked: Why were shluchim sent here? After all, the staff of this yeshivah are also the Rebbe’s shluchim. So why do we need shluchim here? One of the shluchim answered with a thought: When Yosef was in Egypt, Yaakov Avinu sent Yehudah ahead to establish a yeshivah—“He sent him ahead of him to Goshen.” So the question is—

29:19 Speaker 5 [unclear] now about preparing for Moshiach’s coming, or what it means to grant the cities of refuge now, as we approach Moshiach’s coming, and so on. There is also “A New Torah Will Go Forth from Me,” the Kuntres Torah Chadashah. That is really more of an in-depth treatment, like a sicha in Likkutei Sichos that works through a subject. But most of the subjects—like Parshas Mishpatim 5752—show us how, right here in the world, we can already see it happening. So the sichos of Dvar Malchus are more about the period we are living in. That is, they are not so much an in-depth treatment of Geulah and Moshiach as they are about Moshiach and the Geulah now. Where do we stand right now with regard to Geulah and Moshiach? And it is well known what the Rebbe said about the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Rebbe said that the last series of maamarim we heard from the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Basi Legani series, contains many, many points with practical guidance, down to every detail. And if Anash and the Temimim had studied the maamarim we heard—the Frierdiker Rebbe’s final series of maamarim—closely, they would certainly have found there all the answers to all their questions. The Rebbe mentioned that sometimes things appear there in parentheses and do not seem to be part of the subject, but in fact they contain an answer to a question that a particular person has not yet asked. Of course, we will hear from the Rebbe that “a new Torah will go forth from Me.” But for now, Dvar Malchus contains the last sichos we heard from the Rebbe, and we live with them today as though they were truly new. There is a saying people share about this. Once, shluchim came to a yeshiva, and at a farbrengen they asked: Why were shluchim sent here? After all, the staff at this yeshiva are also the Rebbe’s shluchim. So why are shluchim needed here? One of the shluchim offered this thought: When Yosef Hatzaddik was in Egypt, Yaakov Avinu sent Yehudah ahead to establish a yeshiva. He sent him ahead to Goshen. So the question is—

31:13 Speaker 5 The question is: Yosef is in Egypt. He knows Egypt, and he is also a chossid of Yaakov. He is still living with the wagons, with the law of the eglah arufah that he learned from Yaakov Avinu twenty—twenty-two years ago. So why does Yaakov need to send Yehudah to tell Yosef to open a yeshiva? He explained: Yosef lives with what he heard from the Rebbe when he was a young man twenty-two years ago. But a lot has happened since then, and there are the things the Rebbe is saying now. That is what he sends Yehudah to convey. So that is a thought about the importance of what we are hearing now, and the special preciousness of studying Dvar Malchus. To sum up the program, then, we understand how important it is to study matters of Geulah and Moshiach—and if that is true of study in general, it is especially true of studying the Rebbe’s Torah, and the later sichos in particular. I just want to sharpen one point as we conclude: why study is so important specifically for us as Temimim, and as Chabad chassidim generally—Chabad, with its emphasis on chochmah, binah and daas—and especially for Temimim, whose focus is Torah study. Why specifically study? If I am a Tamim in yeshiva, involved in other activities concerning Moshiach but not studying, what am I missing? How essential is what I’m missing? There is this idea that every professional sees things through the lens of his profession. For example, in the world of Yiddishkeit, a kashrus supervisor walks into a place. What does he notice immediately? How is the kitchen set up? Is it set up properly or not? Is there a good separation between meat and milk, or isn’t there? Someone else is an expert in mezuzos. Wherever he goes, he immediately looks at the doorways. He sees whether the mezuzah is in the right place or not, whether it needs to be on the other side. That is his expertise. That is what he has studied; that is what he lives with.

32:44 Speaker 5 The same is true, on a different level, of worldly matters. A shoemaker walks around noticing shoes, and an engineer or architect notices buildings. What a person lives with is what he sees. Once, Rabbi Elazar Cohen was at a farbrengen with some French people and spoke to them about France. The whole discussion was about France, and they spoke about it with great enthusiasm. One of the Frenchmen said to him, “Apparently, Rabbi, you don’t read the newspapers. You don’t know what’s happening in France.” He replied, “Apparently you don’t study Dvar Malchus. You don’t know what’s happening in France.” In other words, the question is where our frame of reference comes from. If we live in the world and want to live in a world of Geulah—a world in which we constantly see how things relate to Moshiach and how they lead toward Moshiach—then studying the sichos on Geulah and Moshiach, and Dvar Malchus in particular, is what enables us to see Geulah in everything happening now. As the Rebbe put it in Parshas Mikeitz in 5751: a Jew hears “Mikeitz” and immediately says, “Aha, keitz! Mikeitz is connected with the keitz, the end of exile. Keitz hayamin, the end of days.” “I saw a menorah all of gold, with a bowl upon its top”—a theme of Geulah. Or, as chassidim say, after Mikeitz comes Vayechi, and as soon as one hears “Vayechi,” one says, “Aha, Vayechi—Yechi Adoneinu!” That is the point: when you live with Moshiach, you see Moshiach in everything that happens. There is also the verse, “Faith has perished and has been cut off from their mouths.” When we do not speak about matters of faith, faith gradually weakens. The opposite is expressed in the verse, “I believed, therefore I spoke”: speaking about matters of faith strengthens faith. There is a statement by the Frierdiker Rebbe [unclear] that chassidim must always travel to the Rebbe. He says that we see people who used to travel regularly and then stopped, and we can see a weakening in them. But why? They have the writings; they can study them in regular classes and do everything else. Why, then, are they weaker? Because they are missing the light—the light of the king’s countenance. They do not have that light. Many things can be settled convictions for us: the Rebbe is Melech HaMoshiach; the Rebbe is alive and with us; the Rebbe will redeem us; this is the last generation of exile and the first generation of Geulah; everything is about Moshiach. But if we do not constantly study Geulah and Moshiach, it can begin to dry up. These can remain accepted beliefs that we hold to, without being things we live with. If we want to live with them, we need to study constantly. On that note, one last practical question. A Tamim listening to this program now wants to approach the subject of Moshiach. Besides the campaigns for 15 Shvat, Yud Shvat and 11 Nissan—and there are many campaigns with interesting booklets—how would you guide us as Temimim in taking on a project of consistent study about Geulah and Moshiach? Where should we start? When should we study? How much time each day? What should the schedule be? There are books that collect material on Geulah and Moshiach by subject, such as the two volumes of Shaarei Geulah. They came out back in 5751, when the Rebbe spoke about studying Geulah and Moshiach. You could say Shaarei Geulah was the first book of its kind on the subject. It brings together many fundamental ideas about Geulah and Moshiach. Many of those ideas can be found in a more complete form

34:26 Speaker 5 Talking about matters of faith strengthens faith. There’s an expression from the Rebbe [unclear] that chassidim must always travel to the Rebbe. He says you can see the weakness in people who used to travel regularly and then stopped. Why should that be? They have the writings; they can study them on a regular schedule and everything. So why do they grow weaker? Because they’re missing the light—the light of the king’s countenance. They don’t have that light. We can take many things as givens: the Rebbe is Melech HaMoshiach. The Rebbe is alive and with us. The Rebbe will bring us the Geulah. This is the last generation of exile and the first generation of Geulah. It’s all about Moshiach. But if we don’t constantly study Geulah and Moshiach, it can start to dry up. These things can become assumptions. We believe them; we accept them, but we don’t live them. If we want to live them, we need to keep studying. And on that point, an interesting question to close with: A Tamim listening to the program now wants to get into the subject of Moshiach, in addition to the campaigns for 15 Shvat, Yud Shvat, and 11 Nissan—and there are plenty of campaigns with interesting booklets. As an ongoing study project, how would you guide us, as Temimim, to take on a project about Geulah and Moshiach? Where should we start? When should we study? How much time should we devote to it each day? What should the schedule be? There are books that collect material on Geulah and Moshiach by topic, such as Shaarei Geulah—two volumes, yes—which came out back in 5751, when the Rebbe spoke about studying Geulah and Moshiach. You could say it was the first book on Geulah and Moshiach to come out in that form, Shaarei Geulah. It brings together many fundamental points about Geulah and Moshiach. Many of these things appear there in full

36:08 Speaker 5 in the Rebbe’s full sichos, in Chiddushim U’viurim B’inyanei Geulah U’Moshiach. One approach that often makes studying easier is to connect it with the weekly parsha: a student knows that each week he has to finish at least one sicha from Likkutei Sichos on Geulah and Moshiach. True, Likkutei Sichos on Geulah and Moshiach does not follow a sequence of topics; it follows the parshiyos. But that way you build up your knowledge of more and more subjects. And, of course, there is the weekly Dvar Malchus. Not only does it follow the weekly parsha, it also progresses from one stage to the next, and often the Dvar Malchus sichos form something of a continuation of one another on subjects of Geulah and Moshiach.

36:43 Speaker 7 And since you are studying anyway—many people say they are already studying Likkutei Sichos—devote at least one sicha a week to a Likkutei Sichos sicha on Geulah and Moshiach. Then, alongside the study of Dvar Malchus, these ideas will sink more deeply into your understanding.

36:53 Speaker 5 Yes.

36:54 Speaker 7 Thank you very much, Rabbi Segal. To conclude, the Temimim would like to hear: what is being asked of us now, and how do we accomplish it?

37:03 Speaker 5 The Rebbe Rashab spoke about two phrases: “Your enemies, Hashem, have taunted,” and “They have taunted the footsteps of Your Moshiach.” Tomchei Temimim was established to overcome both those who “taunted Your enemies, Hashem” and those who “taunted the footsteps of Your Moshiach.” He said that the first generation would be those who disparaged Hashem—the generation of the maskilim. The next generation would be people who observe Torah and mitzvos but mock the idea of Moshiach. And the Rebbe says in Dvar Malchus that we are already at the stage after “they have taunted the footsteps of Your Moshiach.” We are at the stage of “Blessed be Hashem forever, amen and amen.” Those are the closing words there, before Chapter 89. So now it is “Blessed be Hashem forever, amen and amen.” What does that mean? It means bringing the Geulah in actual reality. There are no opponents. Once, we had to fight opponents of Torah and mitzvos. Later, we had to fight opponents of Moshiach. Today there are no opponents. But what is there? The need to bring the Geulah in actual reality. How do we bring the Geulah? How do we bring about “Blessed be Hashem forever”? How do we reveal G-dliness in the world? By studying Geulah and Moshiach.

38:00 Speaker 7 Thank you very much, Rabbi Segal. With Hashem’s help, may those who watch this program be inspired to study more and more, and may we merit the revelation of the Rebbe shlita, Melech HaMoshiach, immediately.

38:07 Speaker 5 Amen.

38:09 Speaker 8 Ears to Hear. Audio programs for the Temimim from the Or Yomi website. For more programs, dial *6358. Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach L’olam Va’ed.