Ears to Hear 12 | "Welcome, King Moshiach"

00:00 Speaker 1 And Hashem has not given you a heart to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

00:08 Speaker 2 Ears to Hear. Audio programs for the Temimim from ATAH’s Or Yomi.

00:15 Speaker 3 What more can I do so that every Jew will cry out that he wants Moshiach? Each person needs to set himself a vision, a goal. Where do I want to get? How many Jews can I reach through my work? A yeshiva student has his own areas of activity, but it could be that even there, he hasn’t defined any vision for himself. He says, “There are places where I can do something. I’ll go to this center, I’ll go to that center.” That isn’t defining a vision, a target, or a goal.

00:51 Speaker 2 Sholom aleichem to all the Temimim in the Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch yeshivos throughout the Holy Land and the entire world. We’re now beginning another program in the Ears to Hear audio series, a program imbued with a spirit of steadfast hiskashrus to the leader of our generation, the Rebbe shlita, King Moshiach, and to his central mission of bringing Moshiach. In this program, we’d like to talk about the events surrounding the revelation of King Moshiach, and in particular the Chanukah 5753 mitzvah-tank convoy, with its special banner that brought the message to all the residents of the Holy Land: “Welcome, King Moshiach.” The convoy received the Rebbe, King Moshiach’s own approval and encouragement. We’d like to discuss what preceded the convoy—the earlier events in the revelation of King Moshiach, beginning in 5751, that gave rise to it and propelled it forward—as well as the convoy itself and what took place during it. And from then until today, we’d like to talk about how that spirit and vitality remain relevant: publicizing “Welcome, King Moshiach,” and spreading the Rebbe’s identity and message everywhere. We’ll be speaking with the convoy’s operations coordinator and one of its organizers, Rabbi Shemarya Harel. We’re now beginning this special program with Rabbi Shemarya Harel. Sholom, sholom to all the Temimim. We’re here now for program number twelve of Ears to Hear, with Rabbi Shemarya Harel. L’chaim. L’chaim, Rabbi Harel.

02:25 Speaker 3 L’chaim, and blessings. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word all things came to be.

02:29 Speaker 2 Amen. L’chaim, l’chaim.

02:32 Speaker 3 L’chaim, l’chaim! Long live our master, our teacher and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, son of David.

02:36 Speaker 2 Amen and amen. Well, thank G-d, we have the opportunity to sit together. These days are remembered and relived. We’re in the days of Chanukah now, recalling the extraordinary events surrounding the revelation of King Moshiach in general, and the years of wonders in particular. That reached a peak in 5753, with the Rebbe’s encouragement of the “Yechi” declaration and much more. And that brings us to what we want to discuss now: the mitzvah-tank convoy in 5753, which brought the message “Welcome, King Moshiach” to the Holy Land on an unprecedented scale. But perhaps first, we’d like to hear from someone who stood behind that transformation. We’d like to ask Rabbi Harel what drove that slogan. After all, it wasn’t as though someone just woke up one morning and said, “Let’s make a ‘Welcome, King Moshiach’ slogan. Let’s set the whole country alight with this torch of faith,” and then it happened. There was something that came before it, something you thought about, became fired up about, and embraced, and with that you moved toward the mitzvah-tank convoy. So the first question is: What was the driving force? What brought that fire to the point of such massive publicity through the convoy?

03:42 Speaker 3 That’s a good question, and one that requires me to recall the details carefully. But in general, a few things need explaining. First, there was a core group: Dovid Nachshon and Avi Taub, z"l. Looking back at the whole process, I’d say those were the two people who led it. At the time, that wasn’t necessarily apparent all the time, because people were working; everyone did his part, everyone created things. But in retrospect, they were the core that drove these efforts. And—

04:40 Speaker 4 And when did you join them?

04:44 Speaker 3 I had always wanted to—I mean, I was always involved on the operational side. Then came the sicha of 28 Nissan. The sicha of 28 Nissan shook people up. I’ll allow myself to say that, to this day, I think most chassidim don’t understand what the Rebbe said there. Perhaps now isn’t the time to discuss that, but that’s the fact of the matter. In any case, it shook people deeply.

05:13 Speaker 4 You were in the Holy Land at the time.

05:16 Speaker 3 I was in the Holy Land, yes. I was coordinating the work of the mitzvah tanks.

05:21 Speaker 4 And you received the sicha on Friday morning, and...

05:23 Speaker 3 We received the sicha.

05:24 Speaker 4 You were shaken.

05:26 Speaker 3 I wouldn’t say that I personally was especially shaken. Not because it wasn’t shocking, but because there are things in life that take time to sink in and have their full effect.

05:41 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

05:41 Speaker 3 For example, those words of the Rebbe’s, “Everything I have done has been in vain”—you can’t even understand them on an ordinary intellectual level. What does it mean that the Rebbe is speaking about forty years of intensive work with thousands upon thousands of chassidim and with the entire Jewish people, and the Rebbe says that everything he did was in vain? The mind simply cannot grasp it.

06:12 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

06:12 Speaker 3 Okay, but that’s not the point. The point is that... I also wasn’t part of Chabad’s central group. I was with the mitzvah tanks.

06:20 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

06:21 Speaker 3 Dovid Nachshon offered me the work with the mitzvah tanks when I was in yeshiva in Morristown, New Jersey, toward the end of my time there. I asked the Rebbe and came to the Holy Land, started working with the tanks, and was completely focused on the mission. I didn’t look right or left. Chabad’s organizational structure, the rabbis, and so on didn’t interest me. Those things didn’t interest me. Only things—

06:50 Speaker 4 Getting the mission done.

06:51 Speaker 3 Only practical things directly connected to the matter itself interested me. So I wasn’t involved in the broader way Chabad operated, either. Anyway, there was the sicha, and they decided to hold a central gathering, and the gathering took place. Right afterward, Dovid Nachshon approached Rabbi Ashkenazi together with Avi Taub, and I was there too. Rabbi Ashkenazi began working on the well-known halachic ruling that he issued at the outset. Dovid Nachshon tried in many ways to get rabbis’ signatures, so that at least three rabbis would sign the ruling. There was Rabbi Ashkenazi and there was Rabbi Axelrod. They were the first rabbis here in the Holy Land willing to take the risk of signing such a ruling. Could I tell you that I was afraid or apprehensive? No, I don’t think so, because I didn’t even know what there was to be apprehensive about. Those concerns didn’t interest me. The next morning, Dovid assembled the group of ten the Rebbe had spoken about. He had nine. He tried one person, then another, all sorts of possibilities. Eventually, I saw how hard he was trying. I said to him, “Listen, Dovid, I’m willing to join. If you want me to join, I’ll gladly do it.” He said, “You know what? Fine, come on. Join us; you come too.” So that was when I joined that group. Then, of course, we went together, and there was that extraordinary scene of waiting for the Rebbe by the mikveh.

08:37 Speaker 5 You stood there too?

08:38 Speaker 3 Of course.

08:38 Speaker 5 When the Rebbe stopped.

08:39 Speaker 3 All ten of us were standing there.

08:41 Speaker 5 Honestly, speaking behind the scenes, were you worried when the rulings were presented to the Rebbe? I mean, were you apprehensive beforehand, or was it obvious to you that the Rebbe would accept it? I’m just trying to get a sense of what was in your heart.

08:53 Speaker 3 It’s like a military mission. What do you mean, worried? You know what you need to do, so you do it.

08:57 Speaker 5 Yes, but even with a military mission, if the prime minister hasn’t accepted something like it for forty years, and suddenly you present him with something unprecedented, he very well might not like it, to put it mildly.

09:07 Speaker 3 That wasn’t my concern. I...

09:09 Speaker 5 You don’t remember how you felt.

09:10 Speaker 3 Dovid Nachshon—Dovid Nachshon handed it over. We stood there together. That’s all. It was very moving and very powerful. I wouldn’t say “touching,” but it had an impact. The fact that the Rebbe took it, looked at all of us, surveyed us, so to speak.

09:30 Speaker 5 The Rebbe actually looked at you? You remember that?

09:32 Speaker 3 Yes, yes. He looked at all of us, opened his sirtuk, and put the letter, the...

09:40 Speaker 5 The ruling.

09:41 Speaker 3 The halachic ruling, yes, with the letter, into the pocket of his sirtuk. He said, “Yasher koach, yasher koach,” and went up the steps of the mikveh. It’s an image I remember to this day. A profoundly impressive sight, etched in my memory.

09:59 Speaker 5 What does it represent to you?

10:02 Speaker 3 To me, it expressed the fact that we had done the right thing. That’s all. And not only had we done the right thing—our world is used to a world of falsehood. So even when you do the right thing, you’re often met with, “What did you do? Why did you do it? How did you do it?” With the Rebbe, there’s none of that. If it’s the right thing, the Rebbe accepts it and moves on. That’s it. So that was very, very—let’s call it—profound. I don’t know if “moving” is the word; it touched the very heart of the matter. Then they established the Central World Moshiach Headquarters, with everything that went along with it, everything we were handling at the time, all the signatures, the first 150 signatures. And then, of course, the famous Shabbos—the famous Shabbos of “Yechi Adoneinu”—and, of course, the Sunday that followed, with all the unimaginable opposition there was.

11:06 Speaker 5 Did that opposition take the wind out of your sails a little? From your perspective, you had seen the Rebbe encourage it on Shabbos.

11:12 Speaker 3 Look, it depends how you look at things. David Nachshon came in the morning and said that Rabbi Groner had told him that what Nachshon had said was on his own initiative. He said it in a way that made it sound as though the Rebbe himself was canceling it.

11:30 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

11:30 Speaker 3 So it definitely affected us. When you write to the Rebbe in all your reports, “His Holiness the Rebbe shlita, King Moshiach,” and right afterward, that Sunday and the next, the Rebbe sends back only the heading and writes, “When he comes, it will be given to him,” your knees start to shake. You say, “Wait, maybe we did something wrong?” Because you...

11:53 Speaker 5 How did you understand it? After all, when you went up on Shabbos and proclaimed “Yechi,” it was received, wasn’t it?

12:00 Speaker 3 Look, that wasn’t the time to judge whether it was being accepted or not. We did things as we understood they needed to be done.

12:06 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

12:07 Speaker 3 And, after all... Look, nobody came over and said, “Wait, wait, stop.” Certainly not the Rebbe—he encouraged it. He also encouraged the singing of “Yechi Adoneinu” after Shabbos. And on Sunday I was there alone, singing “Yechi Adoneinu” for a full hour, from ten to eleven. So—

12:30 Speaker 6 What do you feel in those moments, standing there singing “Yechi”? I mean—

12:33 Speaker 3 I felt that I wanted to jump up onto the bench, the way Zushi Leibovsky [unclear], of blessed memory, used to do, to reach more of the crowd.

12:44 Speaker 6 Right.

12:45 Speaker 3 But I felt that if I took my attention off it for even a tenth of a second, the whole crowd would swallow me up and it would be as though it had never happened. So I didn’t dare—

12:54 Speaker 6 They weren’t paying attention to you? I mean, when you were singing, they were—

12:58 Speaker 3 They all wanted to tear me apart, to swallow me alive.

13:01 Speaker 6 There was nobody with you? Where?

13:03 Speaker 3 Nobody. Everyone was probably stunned by how frightened they were of the crowd. But I said, “What do you mean? If this is what needs to be done, then this is what we do. What kind of question is that?” I couldn’t even grasp it. And when I saw that the Rebbe hadn’t come down by eleven, I said to myself, “Maybe I really am doing something wrong.” The moment I stopped, the Rebbe came down.

13:26 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

13:27 Speaker 3 In other words, it could be that the Rebbe expected the crowd to join in.

13:30 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

13:31 Speaker 3 But when he saw that this was the response he was dealing with, then all right, we got the idea; we’ll move on.

13:47 Speaker 6 And how did it feel when the momentum returned afterward, on TV [unclear]? Suddenly the Rebbe was encouraging “Yechi Adoneinu” in front of the cameras. That really was—

13:54 Speaker 3 I wasn’t there anymore.

13:55 Speaker 6 You weren’t there.

13:56 Speaker 3 I had gone back to Israel to organize for Lag BaOmer.

13:58 Speaker 6 But the news must have reached you, and—

14:00 Speaker 3 Everything reached me, but—

14:01 Speaker 6 So surely it gave you a sense of hope, a confidence that, wow, you had done what needed to be done. No?

14:06 Speaker 3 No, no. You have to understand, you have to understand. It wasn’t as simple as you think. The Rebbe had assigned this task to the Chabad Rabbinical Committee together with Tzeirei Agudas Chabad. This was an institutional matter. And because it was institutional, all sorts of efforts were already under way here in Israel over how to do it and what to do: meetings at Tzach [unclear], meetings here, pidyonos there. Then there was the matter of an advertisement, a general advertisement we wanted to publish, and Shmuel Hefer made it—with “Yechi Adoneinu” in large letters. Tzach announced that they would not go along with “Yechi Adoneinu.” So “Yechi Adoneinu” had to be removed. A mess began here in Israel that really prevented us from having the opportunity—

14:54 Speaker 6 The freedom to act.

14:55 Speaker 3 —to understand what was happening here. It wasn’t as though the Rebbe came and said, “Listen, I’m telling you to move forward, and don’t let anything bother you.” He didn’t say that. In other words, the Rebbe left this open, as Moshe Rabbeinu did in his time when he let the spies go. How do I put it? “I know what you want to do, but since the Land of Israel has to belong to the Jewish people, I have no choice; I have to leave this to you.” It was something like that here. I’m not judging what the Rebbe thought, but I’m saying that the Rebbe gave the public as a whole room to express itself. The atmosphere was very, very mixed. Throughout the years of the Rebbe’s leadership, the Rebbe issued extremely sharp letters about the way Chabad worked in Israel and around the world, about the way Chabad chassidim worked with one another, and so on. Very sharp criticism of the way things were done. So when we reached the point where the Rebbe said that King Moshiach was active in the world, we were hesitant. We weren’t firm. We didn’t come and say, “Rebbe, you’ve said it, so we’re moving forward.” We said, “If this is needed, we’ll do it.” Yes, that’s all true. But we didn’t surge forward; we didn’t advance in the way we really should have, because we kept looking back to see what the Rebbe would say. I’m not saying that was a mistake or that it wasn’t. Today, I don’t know if you can judge it that way. But it came from a certain mistaken understanding of what the Rebbe really wanted from us. The fact is that around the year 5740, the Rebbe sent $500 to three organizations in Israel because those organizations had given him great nachas. By that measure, the other organizations had not given him great nachas.

17:06 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

17:08 Speaker 3 So that was Chabad. That was how we worked. We worked by saying, “Let’s look in every direction and see whether we’re doing the right thing or the wrong thing. Do we have money or not? Do we have time or not? Do we think this way or don’t we?” That’s no way to run things.

17:29 Speaker 7 But I believe that, for many chassidim, it came from a sincere place. They wanted to pursue this matter of Moshiach only with the Rebbe’s full approval, and because things weren’t so clear, they may have proceeded one tiny step at a time. No?

17:41 Speaker 3 I can’t tell you exactly what happened or how. I really don’t know. In any case, that’s how it was. There was a debate at Tzach about the Moshiach campaign. And that debate went on and on and on. It seemed as though it would go on forever. Precisely because of what happened. I mean, after everything that happened on 27 Adar, what did David Nachshon say? “Look what you’ve brought the Rebbe to.” Think about it: suddenly everyone started singing “Yechi Adoneinu.” Wait—what happened, everyone? Where were you? Everyone was enthusiastic, singing and playing music. Where were you before? What’s happened to you now? You remember it now, when there’s nothing left to do? What’s going on with you? What’s this great joy? Fine, sing “Yechi Adoneinu.” It’s very important. But to come and say, “Now we’re carrying the flag”? Come on, everyone. You dropped that flag somewhere along the way. In any case, because of what happened on 27 Adar, and because of that whole story, and because people finally began singing “Yechi Adoneinu” and received the Rebbe’s approval for it, it was decided that for Chanukah 5753 we would do something. What could we do? We could have done many things, but a convoy of mitzvah tanks was something very dramatic and significant, something that could accomplish great things. Then, I think, David Nachshon started the idea of “Welcome, King Moshiach.” I don’t remember exactly where it originated. Avitahu [unclear] came and said he wanted to put up billboards all over Israel, and I think David told him, “Then we’ll write ‘Welcome, King Moshiach’ on them,” because it fit with what the Rebbe had said about welcoming Moshiach Tzidkeinu.

19:49 Speaker 7 And that’s among the—

19:50 Speaker 3 It’s a welcome. “Welcome, King Moshiach” is a very fitting welcome.

19:55 Speaker 7 So from your perspective, right after the sicha of 28 Nissan, you would have launched a campaign like this. It’s just that everything that needed to happen—and did happen—on 27 Adar, and then the start of “Yechi Adoneinu,” came afterward, and then it became a matter of course.

20:11 Speaker 3 There was a real eclipse between, let’s say, Shabbos Tazria-Metzora and 27 Adar. A major eclipse, because the Rebbe said to Dovid Nachshon, “New opponents have arisen, new opponents have arisen.”

20:29 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

20:30 Speaker 3 “So perhaps, for the time being, this should be scaled back.” In other words, that was the impression we got from the Rebbe.

20:37 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

20:38 Speaker 3 And if that’s the impression you get from the Rebbe, you can’t really do anything. So it wasn’t clear how to keep moving forward, apart from holding farbrengens and talking about it, and so on and so forth.

20:53 Speaker 8 Ay, ay, ay, Melech HaMoshiach. Ay, ay, ay. Come, spirit, come. Ay, ay, ay, Melech HaMoshiach. Ay, ay, ay.

21:03 Speaker 7 And that brings us to the tank parade in 5753. You could say it brought this message to Israel more powerfully than anything else at the time. For the first time, Chabad was openly traveling around Israel with the slogan “Welcome, King Moshiach,” with “Yechi Adoneinu” being sung, and with the Rebbe’s picture at the center—bringing the identity of the redeemer everywhere.

21:26 Speaker 3 Yes, absolutely.

21:29 Speaker 7 So, as the parade’s operations coordinator, let me take a moment to put things in order. What was the route? It went north—from north to south. It was...

21:38 Speaker 3 First of all, we thought all the tanks—there were twelve at the time—should take part. That was the first thing. Second, we thought it should go from one end of the country to as far south as possible. So we actually started at the Lebanese border.

21:59 Speaker 7 Oh.

22:00 Speaker 3 Yes. We started the parade not in Kiryat Shmona, but right at the Lebanese border. From there it went down to Kiryat Shmona, and then began heading south toward the center of the country.

22:15 Speaker 7 So you passed through major cities like Haifa, and then Bnei Brak and Tel Aviv.

22:20 Speaker 3 First of all, we planned it in a way that—

22:22 Speaker 7 The planning was yours? The procedures, the police, all of that?

22:26 Speaker 3 All of it was mine. Yes.

22:27 Speaker 7 Was it easy to get police permits for something like that? Things weren’t then the way they are today.

22:32 Speaker 3 Avi Taub helped with the police permits. And it wasn’t just permits—the police actually escorted the entire parade. They accompanied us with cars, with motorcy— We also found a group of motorcyclists then.

22:46 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

22:47 Speaker 3 And, for pay, they rode ahead of the parade as escorts.

22:52 Speaker 7 So you set out through the major cities and first arrive—

22:56 Speaker 3 First of all, there were large menorahs. There were menorahs on the trailers—the tanks’ trailers. Each tank towed a trailer with a large, four-meter menorah. On top of each tank, on its roof, was another fairly large menorah, a bit over a meter tall, lit electrically. It was very impressive. And the menorahs on the trailers, besides having electric lights, could also be lit at the various places where we stopped for public lightings.

23:29 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

23:30 Speaker 3 And...

23:31 Speaker 7 Now I’m really interested to hear: when you arrived with the tank parade, people could also have seen it simply as a Chanukah parade—Chabad bringing the light of Chanukah. Did the other message overshadow Chanukah, or did they come together? What I’m asking is, was the “Welcome” message clear, or did people mainly take in the candle-lighting? I’m just curious.

23:55 Speaker 3 First of all, the whole country was covered with large billboards.

24:00 Speaker 7 That was a precedent for the parade.

24:01 Speaker 3 They said, “Welcome, King Moshiach.” I don’t remember right now what was on the tanks themselves, but as far as I recall, the menorahs also had “Welcome, King Moshiach” on them. So one thing reinforced the other. Look, the whole subject of Moshiach wasn’t something that sank in all at once. At that time, especially the coming of Moshiach and “Welcome, King Moshiach”—Israeli television tried to make a program about it.

24:36 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

24:37 Speaker 3 And their conception of Moshiach was, how should I put it, some sort of...

24:42 Speaker 7 A different planet.

24:44 Speaker 3 A different planet. Angels and all sorts of things. They interviewed Gidi Sharon [?], and they interviewed some character on the Golan Heights, and various others. They presented it as something completely mystical and obscure, something for people who were a little bit kooky. So the message got out, but it was still a long way from really sinking in with people.

25:11 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

25:12 Speaker 3 And that was the beginning. That was the beginning.

25:13 Speaker 7 It was like the opening artillery barrage, so people would understand what this was about, in the hope that afterward it would sink in intellectually.

25:21 Speaker 3 Right. Right, exactly.

25:22 Speaker 7 So I’m interested to hear: when you arrived, say, in Haifa, and spoke to people—I’ve seen video of dancing to “Yechi” and “Welcome, King Moshiach,” the Avraham Fried song that came out around then. The slogan was clear. Did people get the message? Was it clear to them, or was it still hard to accept the—

25:41 Speaker 3 Wait, let’s understand something general. People accept Moshiach in the most straightforward way in the world. They’re not Chabad chassidim with complications in their heads that they have to overcome.

25:52 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

25:53 Speaker 3 Moshiach, “Welcome, King Moshiach”—people accepted those things. On the contrary, they were a hundred percent enthusiastic about them. Absolutely.

26:03 Speaker 7 But connecting that to a specific person may have been a bigger step.

26:06 Speaker 3 Why? No, not at all. The person was clear. The Rebbe as Melech HaMoshiach was very clear in this context.

26:13 Speaker 7 I’m asking because this was really the first time it reached Israel so powerfully. That’s why I’m asking.

26:19 Speaker 3 As long as it doesn’t interfere with someone in their own kitchen, why wouldn’t they accept it? It’s an idea, and a wonderful idea.

26:27 Speaker 7 You have someone it makes sense to see coming to redeem the Jewish people. So why shouldn’t it be the Rebbe?

26:31 Speaker 3 Why not? Yes—what would bother me about that? On the contrary.

26:34 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

26:35 Speaker 3 Even my friends from the commando unit—the first thing they say when they call me is, “Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu Verabeinu Melech HaMoshiach Leolam Vaed.” It doesn’t bother them at all. On the contrary, it’s something distinctive. It sounds good, what I’m—

26:48 Speaker 7 So you’re saying it had already gotten through to people then.

26:51 Speaker 3 Certainly. Look, again, not to everyone.

26:53 Speaker 7 Right. I’m asking because when the parade reached Bnei Brak, things must have looked different.

26:56 Speaker 3 Maybe. And perhaps not in every kibbutz either. It was accepted in the kibbutzim, but overall, I don’t think there was a problem. On the contrary, it was wonderful: lively niggunim, menorah lightings, handing out sufganiyos, saying l’chaim, dancing. People received it with tremendous joy, especially because it was so impressive. The police escort in front, the motorcyclists riding behind them, then the tanks with the music—it was incredibly impressive. We stopped at various places we had planned where we could pull over, held a public lighting for ten or fifteen minutes, and continued on.

27:36 Speaker 7 Amazing.

27:36 Speaker 3 And that’s how we continued to—

27:39 Speaker 7 All along the route. Was there television coverage the whole way, or only at major stops?

27:44 Speaker 3 Television crews joined us at certain places. I don’t remember exactly anymore. They called, asked to join us, came, and filmed. Yes, I remember when we were in Jerusalem. It was very impressive there. People were really impressed. We parked at Avi Taub’s building, the big NDG [?], which could hold all the tanks and trailers, everything together inside. And I think we spent a whole day in Jerusalem making announcements and driving around. From there we went to Beersheba. Yes, it was very, very—

28:19 Speaker 7 If we go back a bit, in Jerusalem you passed the Knesset, apparently. It sounds like something interesting happened there with Dov Shilansky and Ron Nachman—

28:29 Speaker 3 The truth is, unfortunately, I don’t really remember those details.

28:31 Speaker 7 Yes.

28:32 Speaker 3 But yes, we did pass there. We stopped by the Knesset, that’s right. We stopped by the Knesset, and people came and lit the menorahs.

28:40 Speaker 7 And when you reached Beersheba, did you feel you’d conquered the country by then?

28:44 Speaker 3 When we reached Beersheba, we felt how much effort it had taken. It was a very, very serious undertaking.

28:51 Speaker 7 We’re talking about four days.

28:53 Speaker 3 Four very intense days, with a great deal of driving and a tremendous amount of activity. We had two teams of mechanics accompanying us.

29:04 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

29:05 Speaker 3 To deal with any problems with the tanks. It was undoubtedly a formative experience, both for those who saw us and for those who took part in the parade—the bochurim and the married men who were part of it. It was definitely, definitely very impressive.

29:25 Speaker 7 Wow. That really is moving. From what we can see, I recently read the letter Rabbi Nachshon wrote to the Rebbe about the convoy. He notes there that Reb Shmuel Ariel had already taken charge of organizing the convoy and coordinating it with the police. That’s what the letter says. At the end of the letter, you can also see that the Rebbe’s approval and blessing were received. That’s what Rabbi Groner writes. So you had already received that. Do you remember how it felt to get the Rebbe’s approval for the convoy? That’s, that’s something—

29:57 Speaker 3 You’re asking questions that don’t really register with me. Because—

30:00 Speaker 7 Why not?

30:01 Speaker 3 The tanks’ activities, throughout the roughly twenty years I was involved with them, were so intensive. It’s hard to say whether we were more or less excited by the Rebbe’s replies. I remember a period, for example, when we ran a very serious program of Shabbos visits to communities—dozens of communities, then dozens more, Shabbos after Shabbos. You send bochurim, working with all the yeshivos in the country, to different communities, and there are no replies from the Rebbe. No replies. It got to the point where I said to Dovid, “Could it be that the Rebbe doesn’t want this?” What was going on? There was no reply at all to the reports. We wrote the Rebbe detailed reports every week about everything we did. Usually there were replies, and then suddenly there were none. Then the Rebbe apparently sensed it, and suddenly he wrote back that our report had been received and that the activity should continue, or even increase. I felt relieved. Can I tell you I felt excited? I don’t know. Relieved, yes. You feel that the Rebbe does want it. All right, he wants it one hundred percent. We continue.

31:19 Speaker 7 I’m asking specifically about this convoy because the letter written to the Rebbe did say it was about welcoming the King Moshiach, the Rebbe shlita. In other words, that was how it was presented. It was clear, even when they wrote to the Rebbe, that the convoy’s purpose was to bring the identity of the redeemer to the people. So receiving approval for something like that must have warmed your heart.

31:38 Speaker 3 No question. No question. I just don’t remember exactly how I felt at the time.

31:41 Speaker 7 As a simple soldier, you went ahead with the...

31:45 Speaker 3 We went ahead, yes. We had approval. We were already in the middle of preparations. It wasn’t as though we now had to start preparing. We were already well into it, and it was a tremendous amount of work. There was no day and no night, with all the logistics, the planning, the schedules: how you’d travel, how long each leg would take from one point to another, who would receive us and who would join us. And who would light the menorahs, including the Knesset members who lit them. All of that took a great deal of coordination. I think, as far as I remember, we were also at the Kosel.

32:21 Speaker 7 Yes.

32:21 Speaker 3 That was also very moving. Rabbi Getz, of blessed memory, was exceptionally cooperative about it, and it was very, very impressive.

32:33 Speaker 9 Certainly, everyone wants the true and complete Geulah to come immediately. So each of us takes it upon ourselves to prepare to welcome Moshiach in the most fitting way, and together we will proclaim with strength: “Long live our master, our teacher, and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, for generations and generations.” Surely Hakadosh Boruch Hu will send His Moshiach immediately. He will bring us the Beis Hamikdash here and establish the kingship of Israel here, and the kingship will be Hashem’s.

33:08 Speaker 3 Amen.

33:13 Speaker 7 King Moshiach for generations. Long live our master, our teacher, and our Rebbe, King Moshiach for generations. That really is an interesting point. I’m asking you as the convoy’s operations coordinator: you were responsible for a thousand and one things—organizing, leading, deciding how long to spend at each stop before going to the next. During the convoy, did you also get a chance to speak face-to-face with people about the subject? About Moshiach, about what you’d come to tell them? What did they take away from it?

33:44 Speaker 3 You have to understand: the convoy traveled for four days and covered, I would say, more than five or six hundred kilometers.

33:56 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

33:57 Speaker 3 It wasn’t fast travel; it was relatively slow. There were a lot of stops and a lot of activities. Even when you stopped, everyone had been briefed. Each person had a job. One handed out l’chaim, another handed out sufganiyot. Someone handed out the materials, brochures and the like. Someone danced with people. In other words, it wasn’t as though you could say, “Let’s sit down for a farbrengen and talk.” No. If you spoke to someone for thirty seconds, that was a lot.

34:29 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

34:30 Speaker 3 There was no room there for conversations beyond that. There was plenty of talking around the event, yes, but as far as I remember, most of the people we dealt with in official roles received it very warmly. It was definitely something that touched everyone’s hearts—even the Chabad chassidim, I would say.

34:56 Speaker 7 What do you mean, even the Chabad chassidim?

34:59 Speaker 3 Listen, Chabad chassidim had a problem. There was a real difficulty accepting that the Rebbe is King Moshiach and is leading us to the Geulah. For many people, it didn’t sit right. “What? Hold on, everyone, stop a moment. We’re not there yet.” All right, fine, that...

35:18 Speaker 7 So you’re saying that although this convoy was ostensibly aimed primarily at the general public, when it reached Nachlas Har Chabad, Kfar Chabad, and other communities, the people there understood that something unusual was happening.

35:33 Speaker 3 I don’t know about... It was hard for many Chabad chassidim; it was a little hard, yes. All right, that isn’t new. It still exists today. It exists today too. Look at what’s happening with the palace. There’s a palace that the Lubavitcher Rebbe asked to have built. The Lubavitcher Rebbe initiated the cornerstone ceremony and asked to know what had happened there—who spoke and what they said. The cornerstone has been there for thirty-three years, and there’s no palace. So you tell me: what’s behind that?

36:04 Speaker 7 I have no answer.

36:05 Speaker 3 All right, it’s because there are people who oppose it. In other words, there is opposition, and that’s something the human mind finds hard to comprehend.

36:13 Speaker 7 So you’re saying we need to adopt the approach you’ve spoken about throughout the program: to be a soldier and simply march along the path the Rebbe gives you. Less—

36:23 Speaker 3 No, no. I’m absolutely in favor of initiative and taking steps forward. Certainly, certainly—within the guidelines the Rebbe set out.

36:31 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

36:31 Speaker 3 Each person in his own sphere, in his own role, following what the Rebbe set out. We need to break forward on a large scale. In my opinion, Chabad’s main problem is looking at everything too narrowly. Everything is viewed on a small scale instead of a large one. The Rebbe spoke about this already in the teachings on the vessels of Tikkun.

36:48 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

36:48 Speaker 3 But—

36:49 Speaker 7 How so? With the message of Moshiach, for example, what does it mean to look at it too narrowly?

36:53 Speaker 3 The Rebbe defined a goal. In the sicha of 28 Nissan, the Rebbe defined a goal: “What more can I do so that every Jew will cry out that he wants Moshiach?” So the Rebbe is saying: reach every Jew in the world and bring him to cry out that he wants Moshiach. That means you need an outreach effort that, first, reaches every Jew in the world, and second, reaches him in a way that awakens him to want Moshiach.

37:13 Speaker 7 Not just something that stays beyond his understanding, but something he understands and—

37:15 Speaker 3 Certainly not something that stays beyond his understanding.

37:16 Speaker 7 That he connects with it, I mean.

37:17 Speaker 3 Certainly. These are things—

37:18 Speaker 7 What do you think of the way the work has been done until now?

37:22 Speaker 3 The way it’s been...

37:25 Speaker 7 In terms of quality and quantity, what exactly is the difference—

37:28 Speaker 3 Defining goals. Defining a vision and goals. Chabad has no defined vision and goals. It doesn’t exist. It’s all “we’ll see how it turns out”—whatever comes to hand, we’ll do.

37:38 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

37:39 Speaker 3 There are no defined objectives here. When a businessman opens a business, he defines where he wants to get to. He builds a plan accordingly. On that basis, he borrows money from the bank and sets up his business. In Chabad, people say, “Wait, let’s look at what’s around us, and then we’ll see what we’re capable of doing, because I have to get up in the morning, take the children to school, daven, and do a few other things. After that, if we have time, we’ll do something too.”

38:04 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

38:05 Speaker 3 And maybe I don’t have the money. So if I don’t have the money, I’ll act according to the money I have. What businessman does that? A businessman says, “I want to make a million dollars, so I’ll invest five million now. I’ll go to the bank, ask for a loan, and get the job done.” That’s what Chabad needs to do: turn this whole approach around. First, define the furthest-reaching goal possible. I open a Chabad House in a city like Nazareth Illit. There are forty thousand Jewish residents here. I want to reach forty thousand Jewish residents. How do I get there? Make a plan, but first, want to get there.

38:37 Speaker 7 Mm. You’re saying there’s a problem with the intention behind the goal, with focusing on it and setting its direction—and that’s what undermines all the ways of getting there. It doesn’t, it doesn’t guide—

38:49 Speaker 3 It doesn’t provide—there aren’t even any ways of getting there.

38:51 Speaker 7 Mm.

38:51 Speaker 3 Because you haven’t defined a real goal, you have no ways of getting there.

38:55 Speaker 7 Right. As a military man, you know that in military strategy, defining objectives and then working toward the goal is one of the most basic things.

39:03 Speaker 3 Not just one of the most basic things. Without it, you don’t get anywhere.

39:05 Speaker 7 Mm. So you look at it that way and say Chabad isn’t really there.

39:10 Speaker 3 It’s not about looking at it a certain way; you can see it. Chabad isn’t doing what the Rebbe said to do: reach every Jew. If someone is at a Chabad House in a particular city and isn’t thinking about all the Jews in that city, then he isn’t doing the job. It’s very simple. He’ll come and say, “Listen, I don’t have the resources.” Create the resources.

39:33 Speaker 7 Mm.

39:34 Speaker 3 That’s the problem. The approach here is backward. Instead of asking how we conquer the objective, we tell ourselves, “Wait, that goal is too far away. Let’s settle for a closer one.”

39:47 Speaker 7 What do you say to the Temimim listening to us now? They haven’t taken responsibility for a neighborhood or a city. They go out on mivtzoim on Fridays and Shabbos. How can this point apply to them? With this strategy of bringing the message to the people they meet on mivtzoim, what way of working will get them to the right place—to reach, as you say, every Jew they can?

40:11 Speaker 3 You’re asking about a way of working. Before we discuss that, we need to talk about what the work itself is. We need to adopt the goal the Rebbe set before us.

40:24 Speaker 7 Accepting Moshiach.

40:26 Speaker 3 That’s a matter in its own right. I’m talking about “What more can I do so that every Jew will cry out that he wants Moshiach?” So each person needs to set himself a vision, a goal. Where do I want to get? How many Jews can I reach through what I do? A yeshivah student has his mivtzoim, but even there he may not define a vision for himself. He says, “There are mivtzoim. Where can I go? I’ll go to this shopping center, I’ll go to that shopping center.” That isn’t defining a vision, a goal, or an objective. Defining an objective means: first, tell me what we have here in this city. I want a clear goal for where I need to get, and I want to work with these Jews. So I go to them, I go to them during my breaks, and afterward I plan how I’ll continue working with them during vacation or at other times. There isn’t just one way of working—come, put on tefillin with someone, say a couple of words, and go home. That’s Chabad’s mistake. There are ten ways, twenty ways, a hundred ways. When someone comes to a city, there are toddlers, preschools, elementary schools, high schools, girls’ schools, work with young people, work with people who have finished their army service, and work with the elderly. Each requires its own approach. They’re different approaches.

41:50 Speaker 7 So you’re saying the first thing is to define goals clearly. Now, if we’re talking about convincing people and bringing them the message—and this is very interesting to the students—to the point that, as you keep emphasizing, a Jew genuinely cries out that he wants Moshiach, then obviously he needs to connect with it. So let me ask about you, for example. Someone convinced you too, so to speak. You came to the light of Chabad and then connected with Moshiach so strongly. You can really speak from experience about how to influence a person on an inner level, to bring him to an inner place. How can I, as a student, influence someone like that?

42:27 Speaker 3 The goal is very, very simple, but it takes the will to do it. We need to create a reality.

42:35 Speaker 7 What does that mean?

42:36 Speaker 3 This is one of the things people don’t do. We come and fit ourselves into the existing reality. That’s not right. We need to create a reality. If the Rebbe says, “I want every Jew to cry out for Moshiach,” then when I come and speak with a Jew and he says, “How are you?” I tell him, “We’re waiting for King Moshiach at every moment.” I tell him once, twice, three times, ten times. I’ve created that reality for him.

43:03 Speaker 7 That’s still something external.

43:04 Speaker 3 Not external at all. It isn’t external. We’re creating a reality now. There’s a way to work. You come and say, “I’m opening a daycare for young children,” so you create a daycare with a Chabad education. “I’m opening a preschool,” so you create a preschool with a Chabad education. “I’m arranging farbrengens for young people, or classes.” Let’s take classes. Classes are extremely important.

43:31 Speaker 7 Which the students also give in yeshivos today.

43:32 Speaker 3 Extremely—about yeshivos, I don’t know. Yeshivos are a matter of their own.

43:36 Speaker 7 Outside the—

43:36 Speaker 3 I’m talking about—fine, but there’s also the wider public.

43:40 Speaker 7 Yes, yes.

43:41 Speaker 3 There are tens of thousands of people in every city who need classes. If each person took it upon himself to create a class, he’d come to teach it. Five people show up, six, one, two, ten, twenty. He has his class. He creates a reality called a class. Halachos, sichos, Geulah, Moshiach—things that are relevant right now. Those things. If a person is permeated with the idea of Moshiach, it creates that reality for the person in front of him. When I came to Israel, I introduced the practice of saying “good news.” Today it’s taken for granted.

44:17 Speaker 7 What do you mean by “good news”?

44:18 Speaker 3 Hmm?

44:19 Speaker 7 Bringing the rabbi good news?

44:20 Speaker 3 No, saying “good news.” People wish each other good news. That didn’t happen in Israel when I arrived. It wasn’t a thing. Even saying “Have a good day,” for example.

44:29 Speaker 7 Creating a reality.

44:31 Speaker 3 You have to create a reality. A person needs to understand: I want to create a reality of Moshiach, and I mustn’t be put off by it. Why shouldn’t you be put off? Because many people will say, “Wait, wait, how can you talk like that?” Don’t be put off by those things. We need to understand that, as Chabad chassidim, we have to create the reality of Geulah in the world in many different ways. That’s what we need to do.

44:56 Speaker 7 Wow. Okay, so to sum up the program—we really want to finish in the next few minutes—what’s the main message? First, let’s say l’chaim. L’chaim to everyone—

45:05 Speaker 3 L’chaim, let’s drink l’chaim. Long live our master, teacher and Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever, amen.

45:10 Speaker 7 L’chaim, and blessings. Hearing all this history, you might say, from the beginning of the revelation of King Moshiach—as you described so vividly, the halachic ruling, then the “Yechi,” then 5753 and the other events—and now this focus on how to bring Moshiach to every Jew, wherever he is: what does that mean in practice? We’re yeshivah students. We want to fulfill the Rebbe’s demand of 28 Nissan. What do we need to do, and what should we focus on?

45:38 Speaker 3 As I see it, there’s a serious problem with yeshiva students. Today, they’re in their comfort zone. They’re very spoiled. It’s very much, “Don’t tell me what to do. I’ll do whatever I feel like.” They’re very unwilling to join a collective effort. This isn’t something you can fix just by telling them what to do. First of all, the yeshivos need to understand—and both the heads of the yeshivos and the students need to understand—that today there are five hundred thousand reserve soldiers who have left their homes and are going to risk their lives to defend the Jewish people and Eretz Yisroel. Where are we? Where are the Chabad chassidim? Where’s the going into battle? Where’s the “You know what? I’ll do what needs to be done. Tell me what’s needed and I’ll do it”? It doesn’t exist among the students. First of all, wake up, boys. Wake up from your deep sleep and understand that you need to start taking action. So you do a tefillin campaign. That’s wonderful, but it’s all done on an “if it happens to come up” basis. In other words, if the opportunity comes along, I’ll do it, and if I don’t feel like it, I won’t. That can’t be. We need to be soldiers who run forward, break through, and bring one more Jew and then another closer. There are entire kibbutzim that no one approaches. True, Yaakov ben Amram is doing work, but he’s one person. There are whole places where no one speaks to the people. Souls—souls crying out, “Help! Help!”—and no one hears them at all. So yeshiva students, wake up. That’s the first thing: to wake up.

47:18 Speaker 7 We need to establish an order. I mean, from Sunday to Friday, what the Rebbe asks of the students, of course, is that the main thing is Torah study, and—

47:28 Speaker 3 I’m talking about the atmosphere. I’m not talking right now about the mechanics. I’m talking about the atmosphere itself.

47:33 Speaker 7 One second, I’m just trying to sum this up. So when we talk about this atmosphere, as you called it, this charge into battle—the atmosphere, this driving force—it also needs to be a clear driving force in Torah study, studying with such strength and sincerity on the days when they sit and learn Torah from morning till night. It’s just that the charge forward needs to be more clearly felt. And of course, as we discussed, on Fridays, when they go out into the world to bring the message, to bring Moshiach to people, they should do it with a vision and a desire to reach as many people as possible, in both quantity and quality.

48:06 Speaker 3 Each person needs to define a vision for himself: where do I want to get to? That’s all. And alongside that, there needs to be something called desire. Without desire, it won’t work. Everyone has desire, but for many people it’s dormant. We need to awaken that desire.

48:24 Speaker 7 So simply awaken that desire and talk about it more and more. As we see here, we need to draw strength from those days for our own time, to take on that aspiration. You were the pioneers of the group, you could say. You jumped into the water, you went forward with Yechi, and you brought the message of “Welcome to us, Moshiach” to all of Israel. Simply take that spirit and channel it into the tools we have in these days, and bring it to every Jew, wherever he is, in the strongest possible way. So—

48:54 Speaker 3 And that’s possible, because today we have the tools.

48:56 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

48:57 Speaker 3 The tools are there.

48:58 Speaker 7 Thank you so much, Rabbi Harel. Thank you very much for giving your time to the Temimim. Thank you so much.

49:04 Speaker 3 You went over time. Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach l’olam va’ed.

49:09 Speaker 7 L’chaim. Thank you very much, Rabbi Harel.

49:12 Speaker 10 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.