Ears to Hear 19 | "The World Is Ours" - The Guiding Line to Redemption

00:00 Speaker 1 Hashem has given 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.

00:15 Speaker 1 You have to understand that believing the Rebbe is Moshiach is not just a matter for a chossid. Every Jew who observes the Shulchan Aruch is obligated to believe that the Rebbe is Moshiach, because every Jew is obligated to heed the words of a prophet. The Rebbe once spoke about going to the finance minister and asking for money to put mezuzahs in all the schools. What struck me was that the Rebbe didn’t say to go to the minister of religious affairs. He said to go to the finance minister. What does the finance minister have to do with it? There’s no minister of religious affairs, nothing. The money is there. Go there. That’s not the usual order of things. So it’s not the usual order—because a king breaks through barriers.

01:12 Speaker 2 Shalom aleichem to all the Temimim in Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch yeshivos throughout the Holy Land and the entire world. We are now beginning a special installment of Ears to Hear, a series of audio programs. This program is imbued with a spirit of steadfast hiskashrus to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach shlita, and to his central mission of bringing about the coming of Moshiach. In this program, we’ll speak with Rabbi Gedaliah Axelrod, rabbi and head of the rabbinical court, rabbi of the Chabad community in Haifa, and a member of Machon Hanacha Chabad in the Holy Land. We’ll discuss the absolute bittul required of every chossid toward the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, and the acceptance of his kingship. Our guiding theme will be the special words the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, said to Rabbi Axelrod in yechidus: “The world is ours.” We’ll explore the deeper meaning of that special statement and the right way to view the world in preparation for the Geulah. How do we make the entire world ready for the Geulah and for the message of Moshiach through this special message: “The world is ours”? Before the program begins, we’ll mention those who have dedicated this installment and whose generous support has made it possible: the Kretz family of Tzfas, in memory of the mashpia Rabbi Moshe Orenstein a"h, senior mashpia at Yeshivas Chassidei Chabad Lubavitch in Tzfas; and the Ashkenazi family of Nachlas [unclear], in memory of Rabbi Meir Verzov [unclear] a"h, who was active in the Chamo [unclear] organization and Agudas Chassidei Chabad in the Holy Land. Let’s begin this special, moving, and fascinating program with Rabbi Axelrod. Shalom aleichem, Rabbi Axelrod.

02:54 Speaker 1 Aleichem shalom.

02:55 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem. We’re now on episode nineteen of Ears to Hear, a special program intended mainly for the Temimim. Speaking of a program for the Temimim, we find that back then the Rebbe spoke about the rabbi’s influence on the Temimim when he returned from his first yechidus and held farbrengens with the Temimim in Tomchei Temimim yeshivos in the Holy Land. That’s how I understand it [unclear].

03:18 Speaker 1 That’s how it was. I came for three weeks, from the end of Shvat until after Purim.

03:29 Speaker 2 In 5724.

03:29 Speaker 1 In 5724. During those three weeks, I traveled to Montreal for a day or two to visit my uncle, Reb Sheina Shimelovitch [unclear]. I wrote a note to the Rebbe saying I was going to Montreal for a day or two, and the Rebbe told me to hold a farbrengen at the Tomchei Temimim yeshiva in Montreal. So I held a farbrengen there. To this day, people who were there tell me they remember it. That was in 5724, almost sixty years ago. People say to me, “We remember your farbrengen in Montreal.” To tell the truth, I don’t know whether I spoke—or what I spoke about. I don’t remember a word. It’s also possible I had quite a bit of mashke. But people still mention it to me today.

04:15 Speaker 2 Because you had just come back from the Rebbe?

04:17 Speaker 1 Yes, I had come back. The Rebbe told me [unclear]. I received a great deal of advice there from the Rebbe. Whenever I went in to the Rebbe, there was always an answer [unclear].

04:27 Speaker 2 So that was the point of the farbrengen with the Temimim. This program, which is intended for the Temimim, will surely be a continuation of that farbrengen—or that young man’s farbrengen. It’s a continuation of farbrenging with the Temimim. We certainly want to focus on the rabbi’s first yechidus with the Rebbe and on the words the Rebbe said to him then: “Di velt iz undzere”—“The world is ours.” We want to understand the meaning of this essential point, that the world is ours, both in each person’s own life and certainly in the broader life of the community, particularly in matters of Moshiach and Geulah. So first, we’d like to ask the rabbi about that first yechidus. What happened there? How did it unfold?

05:04 Speaker 1 The yechidus lasted twenty minutes. I was a young man with all sorts of—let’s call them birds in my head. I suggested all sorts of things. I’m not really a man of action; I’m more of a man with plans. I don’t see myself as someone who carries things out. Still, I made suggestions, and the Rebbe approved most of them. If only I had carried them out. One thing I wrote was that I generally davened every day after my work at the slaughterhouse in Ramat Gan, where I served as a halachic authority, at the Beis Hillel synagogue in Vizhnitz. At the time, the Belzer Rebbe was not yet a Rebbe. Of course, he didn’t have an attendant watching over him around the clock to make sure no one approached him. Nearly every morning when I came to daven, I would see the Belzer Rav still there. He was at the end of davening, and I was at the beginning. I asked whether I should suggest learning Tanya with the Belzer Rav, who was destined to become the Rebbe. The Rebbe said, “A glaykhe zach”—it was a proper thing to do. But when you learn with him, don’t do it as though you’re teaching him; learn together as chavrusas. That was the Rebbe’s comment. It didn’t happen, because before I got moving, some young men came in the middle of the summer and whisked him off to Jerusalem without any advance notice. The younger Belzer men made him Rebbe, without any announcements or ceremonies [unclear]. By the time I had worked out how to approach the Belzer Rav and fit into his schedule, he was already the Belzer Rebbe. People still complain to me about it: “The Rebbe told you to learn Tanya with the Belzer Rebbe, and you still haven’t done it.” It’s an odd story.

07:00 Speaker 2 That’s the first part of—

07:01 Speaker 1 Of the yechidus. I could see that the yechidus was about to end. I had come there with aspirations; I was a young man. The ticket was very expensive then—perhaps five times what it would be today—and the yechidus was about to end. I said to the Rebbe, “What’s the bottom line?” After all, we had sat and spoken about everything, and I had come to receive something tangible. I’m not someone who cries in public, or even in private. Suddenly, standing before the Rebbe, I saw two large tears running down the Rebbe’s beard. What happened was that the Rebbe closed his eyes, and the color of his face changed. He became emotional and said to me, “How can a person be a beinoni? A beinoni has never committed a sin in his life. If he has—if, if—then how can he be a beinoni? The moment he does something he shouldn’t, he can no longer be a beinoni. Yet the Tanya says that everyone can be a beinoni and must be a beinoni.” The Rebbe clarified this with me during the yechidus, speaking in a subdued tone: every moment, a new flow of Divine vitality comes from Above, and that new flow comes without limits. So with that new flow, a person can grasp the possibility of being a beinoni. That was the Rebbe’s answer. Now, I don’t remember exactly where in the conversation it was, but toward the end of the yechidus the Rebbe said, “Especially since you’re a rabbi, you need to know that the world is ours.” Those were his words.

08:59 Speaker 3 “Especially since you’re a rabbi, you need to know that the world is ours.”

09:01 Speaker 1 “Especially since you’re a rabbi, you need to know that the world is ours.” There’s another statement the Rebbe made about being a rabbi. It was on Lag BaOmer 5754. My son was in the group, and they wanted to interview me about the fraudulent conversions. They knew I had published a booklet against the fraudulent conversions that Rabbi Lurin [unclear] had carried out, which the Chief Rabbinate had then continued.

09:27 Speaker 3 There was quite an uproar about it at the time.

09:29 Speaker 1 In 5754. With Hashem’s help, I took action then. I got 180 rabbis to sign a call for an investigative committee to examine whether those undergoing conversion were observing the mitzvos. Many of the signatories—perhaps half—were dayanim, including prominent dayanim. They wanted an investigative committee. In any case, leading rabbis in the Holy Land wanted it. Eventually they formed the committee and concluded that more than eighty percent didn’t even light Shabbos candles. Perhaps twenty percent did light Shabbos candles, but that was the extent of what they knew. Anyway, they wanted to interview me for the Friday paper that existed then. There was Haaretz, there was…

10:12 Speaker 3 It was understood that you were the one driving the rabbinic uproar. That wasn’t a secret.

10:17 Speaker 1 I didn’t go around waving flags, but I’ve found that I never go out alone. So I took two more people with me to serve on the committee. They were two dayanim—and we’ll get to the dayanim—and I took two rabbis for the appeal to the rabbis. A hundred and eighty rabbis in Israel signed. Perhaps twenty dayanim signed, but they were prominent dayanim, as were the city rabbis in Israel who signed. Now, they wanted to interview me about the fraudulent conversions. That’s how I bring two others into it, even though I’m on my own. So I wrote to the Rebbe. After all, I’m a dayan appointed by the government. I’m going against the state, against the government. They said that converting these people was a matter of security, a security need no less important than the security of the state. The point was that they wanted to interview me, so I sent a note to the Rebbe through my son Moshe, asking whether or not to give the interview, since I was, after all, a state employee and it could harm me. He gave it to Groner [?] just a few minutes before the Rebbe went out to the parade. Groner [?] said, “There won’t be an answer today. After the parade—the parade is starting now—the Rebbe is going to the Ohel. There won’t be an answer today. Don’t wait for one.”

11:40 Speaker 3 And you needed the answer that very day.

11:42 Speaker 1 The parade ended. The Rebbe went in for a few minutes before leaving for the Ohel. During those minutes, the note was opened, and the Rebbe immediately gave an answer. The answer was, “After all, he is a rabbi.” It’s printed—there’s a record of a sicha about the Oral Torah, and that’s where the answer came from. “After all, he is a rabbi, and he has already begun this great mitzvah.” So what is the question? There were three question marks after “What is the question?” And the answer said again, “After all, he is a rabbi.”

12:04 Speaker 3 So this is really a continuation of the first yechidus: first of all, he is a rabbi; and second, there’s also this attitude that the world is ours. If you truly understand that the world is ours, then you generally have to deal with it in the right way.

12:16 Speaker 1 Absolutely. I won’t spend much time on this continuation, because we need to talk about several subjects. But in practice, there was this challenge of “after all, he is a rabbi,” and also a story of a wonder from the Rebbe in this matter. The Supreme Court ruled that an American Reform convert was Jewish. At the time, I signed a letter along with eighteen dayanim.

12:41 Speaker 3 That was the affair in 5769, of course.

12:43 Speaker 1 No, it had already happened in 5762. I had dayanim sign an appeal to the justice minister and the minister of religious affairs not to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling—not to register a Reform convert as Jewish. So they removed the word “Jewish” from the certificate altogether, because the religious minister could not register a Reform convert as Jewish. They simply removed the designation of Jewish status from the certificate. Since nineteen dayanim had signed against the court, it was called a revolt.

13:15 Speaker 3 That caused an uproar.

13:15 Speaker 1 The religious establishment was coming out against the state establishment. There was an uproar about it in the Knesset, and it was in all the newspapers and among all those who usually attack religion. Anyway.

13:29 Speaker 3 That didn’t let you—

13:30 Speaker 1 A dayan who davened with Zevulun Hammer, who was the minister of religious affairs, told me, “Zevulun Hammer said, ‘Rabbi Wexlerod is finished in the rabbinate. It’s already been decided. Decided.’” They knew what the Supreme Court and the state attorney would rule. It had already been decided in the State Attorney’s Office and the Supreme Court: there was nothing more to be done with Rabbi Wexlerod. He was finished. He was going to start battles between the religious ministry and the secular ministry. He was finished. So that dayan told me this, and I wrote to the Rebbe and said, “They want to fire me, and that’s it.” The Rebbe sent me an answer through Chaim Shalom Segal [?]. Apparently, that was how answers were passed on then.

14:07 Speaker 3 Yes.

14:08 Speaker 1 He told me to go to a lawyer—I needed to consult a major lawyer. There was a lawyer in Haifa named Lifshitz. He had some fifty or a hundred lawyers working under him. He was the lawyer for the Electric Corporation and for enormous companies. He had been a yeshivah student, but in his outlook he was an atheist. He may not even have worn a yarmulke then. He didn’t charge me for the consultation. I told him, “The Rebbe said to consult a major lawyer. What should I do?” He said, “Listen, you can say the Supreme Court made a mistake. You can say the Supreme Court doesn’t know something. But telling the staff not to carry out a Supreme Court ruling—that’s rebellion against the government.” So that was how I came out of the consultation: a rebel.

14:51 Speaker 3 And then you changed the wording.

14:52 Speaker 1 I didn’t change a thing. Afterward, Roni Rothblit, who had been the deputy of [unclear], was deputy state attorney and later served on the Supreme Court. She sent a letter to the chief rabbis: Rabbi Wexlerod still doesn’t know how to conduct himself; you need to deal with him. A chief rabbi came especially to Haifa to speak with me. He had received a letter from Rothblit. There was a meeting of the chief rabbis and the dayanim’s committee, and they had decided on an apology. I had one foot inside the room where they were meeting and one foot outside. A man named Wolman, who had also been the secretary of Ger, was sitting there. He said to me, “You have a call from home.” My wife was on the line. She said, “A call just came from Chaim Shalom Segal. The Rebbe said, ‘I will mention it at the Ohel.’”

15:41 Speaker 3 You received the Rebbe’s answer, and that was what encouraged you.

15:47 Speaker 1 I was just stepping into the room—one foot inside, one foot outside. And at that very second came the message, “I will mention it at the Ohel.” Once I had that from the Rebbe, all the chief rabbis, the whole dayanim’s committee, and the entire meeting became insignificant to me in less than a second. I sat down there and spoke up. I said, “Is anyone who signed the letter here in this room now?” They told me no. The purpose of the meeting was to issue an apology for the letter against the Supreme Court. I said, “If none of the people who signed it are here, how can we issue an apology? Those who signed it can apologize. Those who didn’t sign it can’t apologize.” I said to them, “Do you have a room here where you can put a person in prison? Please, put me in prison. If they want to arrest me, put me in prison.” And I stood my ground. There was a chair with two armrests, and I sat down. Someone behind me shouted, “You’re being disrespectful to the chief rabbi. Leave the room!” I gripped both armrests and said, “You’ll have to take the chair with me.” They didn’t dare carry me out of the room in the chair. I stayed seated. During the meeting, someone else shouted at me, “Leave the room! You’re being disrespectful!” In the end, they issued no apology. But the remarkable thing was that I told the dayanim’s committee, “Listen, if I had signed alone, fine—fire me. But another eighteen dayanim signed, and they won’t fire all of them, because that would be a revolt. So you, the dayanim’s committee, should go to Harish and do something. That’s what you were elected for.” The miracle was that they went, because generally, a dayanim’s committee is all very well, but don’t expect it to meet with Harish. Harish was the attorney general. They came to Harish and started talking. “Rabbi Wexlerod said not to speak at all.” Then, interestingly, one of the dayanim’s committee said—perhaps it was Shiloh Rafael, I don’t—

17:38 Speaker 1 remember. He was a man with broad shoulders, a grandson of Rabbi Maimon and the son of Yitzchak Rafael. So he said that if they summoned—Police officers had already come to my house and questioned me, and they came to the beis din to summon me. But they didn’t formally summon me for arrest. They came to me at the beis din too, dressed in civilian clothes. They didn’t want to offend me, because dayanim still had standing then. Today they would summon a dayan...

18:03 Speaker 4 Back then there was more—

18:06 Speaker 1 Right, dayanim still had standing then. So one of the dayanim’s committee said, “If you summon Rabbi Wexlerod for a hearing”—they had questioned me first—“if you summon Rabbi Wexlerod for a hearing, we’ll shut down the entire system.” The moment Harish heard that they would shut down the system... If that were the answer today, the state attorney would say, “Go ahead, shut it down.” But back then...

18:31 Speaker 4 It mattered.

18:32 Speaker 1 The dayanim still had standing.

18:34 Speaker 4 So the prospect of shutting down the whole system of dayanim deterred them, and that’s what...

18:38 Speaker 1 So he backed down and started talking about other things. And the remarkable thing was that the Rebbe had said, “I will mention it at the Ohel.” By the natural order of things, I couldn’t have continued serving as a dayan, yet I remained a dayan. Not a hair fell from my head. They didn’t touch a hair on my head. That was the story.

18:57 Speaker 5 And from several breaches in public, rachmana litzlan—what shame, what outcry, what disgrace, what a chillul Hashem—and [unclear].

19:26 Speaker 4 It really is remarkable to see in these stories, both the story from 5744 and the one from 5746, this feeling, this point: a rabbi who goes forward with the approach that the world is ours. I spoke about this with [unclear]. To go out into the world with that approach—that’s really an approach for every chossid, not only a rabbi. Perhaps with a rabbi it takes a more...

19:47 Speaker 1 As for this matter, here in Israel, I don’t know. But I couldn’t stand by while Judaism was being blurred and erased. As Rabbi Yitzchak said, a Jew [?].

19:58 Speaker 4 Yes.

20:00 Speaker 1 Not because of my righteousness, or because of—you know what—I just couldn’t. At the first conference of dayanim after I was appointed a dayan and began serving in practice in the city in [unclear]—it was Elul 5741—there was a conference of dayanim, and Rabbi Goren spoke specifically about conversion. Throughout his entire address, I shouted at him, and—

20:20 Speaker 4 About that specifically?

20:20 Speaker 1 Absolutely, right in the middle of his address. After he finished speaking, I moved away. I knew he would come after me, so he ran over to me at the back of the hall and said, “Rabbi [unclear], what have you done to me? I’m the one who chose you.” But on the way from Tiberias—there was a conference in Haifa—I wrote a letter to the Rebbe describing everything that was going on here. In any case, I couldn’t detach myself from this matter of Judaism being sacrificed. That has remained true to this day. In one of my Tanya classes, I mentioned that the High Court had done things that no high court anywhere in the world had dared to do. The High Court ruled that Judaism exists without the Giving of the Torah and without G-d. Because if a Reform convert is a Jew, that means a Jew can exist without G-d and without Torah. No high court, no court anywhere in the world, intervenes to decide whether G-d exists or not. Only our High Court has the audacity to say there is no G-d. The Reform movement and Judaism.

21:12 Speaker 4 So this really is something that touches every chossid, and it’s remarkable to see rabbis who care about it as the Rebbe does. But if we go back to the yechidus in 5749, when the Rebbe told you that the world is ours—perhaps on this program, Ears to Hear, which is entirely devoted to Geulah, Moshiach, and hiskashrus to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, I can focus on that. Following your account of the yechidus, conversion, and the whole question of Who Is a Jew, where we saw plainly and unmistakably what “the world is ours” means: how did you understand that in relation to Moshiach? To start with one point, there’s the first halachic ruling in 5751 that was presented to the Rebbe. They brought him the initial ruling with the rabbis’ signatures as he entered the mikveh on Friday in July. Then, it’s said, when the Rebbe came out of the mikveh, they presented him with Rabbi Axelrod’s signature and yours, with a special addition. What exactly happened there? Why was your signature delayed? What was the addition?

22:14 Speaker 1 I even remember where I signed it. It was on Geulah Street in Haifa. They came running to me with the letter and the signatures. I signed and added, “And he sat upon the throne of Hashem.” It was right there in the street. Why did I add “And he sat upon the throne of Hashem”? There had been no prior arrangements, nothing. It just came to me there in the street. Because it says of King Shlomo, “And he sat upon the throne of Hashem,” and that is most fitting for Moshiach. It’s the same idea: “And he sat upon the throne of Hashem.” In any case—

22:45 Speaker 4 Weren’t you concerned about signing—excuse me for asking—a halachic ruling that the Rebbe is Melech HaMoshiach, given all the background that the Rebbe hadn’t been so much in favor of it? Did you understand that something had changed? Rabbi—

22:57 Speaker 1 Look, I saw that the Rebbe was certain. He said explicitly that he is Moshiach.

23:01 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

23:01 Speaker 1 I had no doubt whatsoever, despite all the reversals. I had no doubt that the Rebbe wanted people to say he was Moshiach.

23:09 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

23:10 Speaker 1 I don’t know what date that was, but Rabbi [unclear] had already brought the letter on 15 Iyar. The Rebbe agreed to it.

23:16 Speaker 4 Yes.

23:16 Speaker 1 And he encouraged it. So anyone who says the opposite is simply denying the truth.

23:22 Speaker 4 Right. So that really came first. The halachic ruling essentially led this whole matter. Did you hear that the Rebbe had received the ruling and your signature at the time, or only afterward?

23:33 Speaker 1 I wasn’t personally involved. The [unclear] were handling all of it. I wasn’t involved at all. David [unclear] handled it.

23:41 Speaker 4 Yes.

23:41 Speaker 1 I wasn’t involved at all. They asked me to sign, and I signed. Since you mentioned the halachic ruling—the wording of the ruling—I also had some, uh—

23:54 Speaker 4 Uneasiness.

23:56 Speaker 1 I’m talking now about the wording of the 5754 ruling, which four hundred people signed.

24:01 Speaker 4 Ah, that one. In other words, just to give a brief introduction: there’s the well-known halachic ruling, discussed on a previous program, issued on [unclear] Nissan, that the Rebbe is Moshiach. Then, on Shavuos, there was the ruling that the Rebbe has the presumptive status of Moshiach. And afterward, in 5754, the rabbis drafted the ruling signed by hundreds of people, stating that the Rebbe is a prophet. You were involved in wording that one.

24:21 Speaker 1 In the wording. In practice, the wording stated that the Rebbe is a prophet, emphasizing that the Rebbe is a prophet and that the Rebbe is Moshiach. People should know that believing the Rebbe is Moshiach is not just a matter for chassidim; it is something every Torah-observant Jew is obligated to believe. Every Jew is obligated to heed the words of a prophet, and there are clear things the whole world knows about. These aren’t stories where one person says, “A miracle happened to me with the Rebbe”—though there are many miracles involving the Rebbe that have come to light, especially in recent years, truly miracles like those of the Baal Shem Tov. I mean miracles that everyone saw. Take the miracle when people wanted to flee Israel during the Six-Day War. This was related by an assistant to Arthur Goldberg. He had a relative whose son was a yeshivah student here in Israel, a Chabad chossid, and the parents very much wanted him to leave the country because Nasser, may his name be erased, was threatening, G-d forbid, to do what Hamas did on October 7. He threatened to do that to the entire Jewish population in Israel. Nasser made those threats loudly and openly. He was going to do it. It was simply a matter of saving lives. So the young man’s parents asked him to come home, but the Rebbe had said not to frighten people, not to be afraid, and not to leave Israel. They didn’t know what to do. Since they had a relative who worked with Arthur Goldberg, who worked at the UN, perhaps that connection—a UN employee close to Arthur Goldberg—could secure special permission from the Rebbe for this particular young man. He went in and said to the Rebbe, “But he’s an only son. Perhaps the Rebbe will allow him to leave.” The Rebbe told him, “Nothing will happen to him. You say he’s an only son? To me, every Jew is an only son. Nothing will happen to him.” And Arthur Goldberg’s assistant relates that he was sitting with

26:23 Speaker 1 Arthur Goldberg watching television when the Kosel was captured, and he saw the soldiers crying beside the Kosel, embracing its stones. That man, whose name I don’t remember, said to Arthur Goldberg, “Do you see the victory here now? I saw the Rebbe’s certainty about this victory when I went to ask permission for that young man. I saw that this man knew what he was talking about.” So that’s something everyone knows about. It isn’t a story someone tells about something that happened to him, where you can choose whether or not to believe him. And there’s the story that no chemical weapons from Iraq would fall in Israel and that gas masks wouldn’t be needed. Everyone knew about that, and everyone wondered how anyone could say that people wouldn’t need gas masks and that there wouldn’t be chemical weapons. It’s known that he did have chemical bombs and missiles, and to this day people wonder why he didn’t launch them. But the Rebbe knew: there would be no chemical weapons in Eretz Yisroel. So there are miracles revealed before the eyes of the entire people. And since he was not [unclear], and great, great people visited the Rebbe and came out saying they had never seen such greatness. Besides, there are all kinds of interesting things. I studied at the Ponevezh Yeshivah, and one of the roshei yeshivah who had visited the Rebbe began making comparisons: he had visited [unclear], and he had visited the Rebbe, and one speaks this way and the other speaks that way.

28:00 Speaker 4 That’s what your rosh yeshivah said.

28:01 Speaker 1 He shows this, he shows that, in the pages of Gemara. But Rabbi Nachum Partzovitz, who was a rosh yeshivah at Mir, the son-in-law of Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz, visited the Rebbe. He was just as Litvish as the other one. When he came out from the Rebbe, he said, “I saw a king.”

28:17 Speaker 4 “I saw a king”?

28:19 Speaker 1 Here you see a man, a prodigy, a prodigy from Mir, a Torah scholar from the Mir Yeshiva, a student of the rosh yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz. But, but, but he had eyes to see. I saw a king. That I remember. I also remember meeting the Rebbe of [unclear] from Rechovot, who passed away at the age of forty, and whose yahrtzeit is [unclear]. He was a great man, and I met him when I was perhaps twenty. He said to me, “Are you a Chabadnik? If you want to see a person whose face shines, go to Lubavitch and look at the Rebbe on Friday night, when he enters the beis midrash or leaves the shul. You’ll see that his face shines.” I can say those words myself. When people asked me about my first visit to [unclear], I could say: I saw the Rebbe for the first time. It was at the Torah reading. At that time he did not yet daven in view of the congregation. He would come for the Torah reading only on Mondays and Thursdays, and I saw him from a distance. There’s a story about that Torah reading, but that’s not for now. So I saw him standing there, and of course I stood far away. I kept my distance. I’m not imaginative by nature, or so I think. Perhaps I’m somewhat excitable, but I’m not imaginative. I saw that his face shone. I saw rays of light on the Rebbe. Interestingly, I don’t understand why he kept a handkerchief pressed there and every so often wiped his eyes. It reminded me of Yosef Hatzaddik, who could not hold back and wept when he met his father. When he saw his brothers, he wept. When the brothers came after the passing of Yaakov Avinu, who did not die, and told him that their father had asked him to forgive them, he wept. The Rebbe wept over the exile. He didn’t weep with [unclear] sobs, though sometimes he did burst into tears at farbrengens. He wiped his eyes.

30:27 Speaker 1 At the same time, his face shone. That’s what I can say. I saw it.

30:31 Speaker 4 You saw the Rebbe, the Rebbe.

30:33 Speaker 1 I’m not a person of lofty spiritual stature. I saw it: his face shone. Not just a shining face—actual rays. It reminds me of Rabbi Eliezer the Great, who gave a discourse, and his father came to see him after he had disowned him. He saw that his face shone like the rays of light from Moshe Rabbeinu’s face, and when he saw him he said, “Fortunate am I that this one came from my loins.” He truly had something of the presence of Moshe Rabbeinu. I saw that in the Rebbe. Why do I say the Rebbe is Moshe Rabbeinu? That’s what I think. So, actually, I’ll say just one thing about the rulings. The rulings are based on the fact that every Jew is obligated to follow the Shulchan Aruch, and the Rambam rules that we are obligated to heed the words of a prophet. The Rebbe said of himself that he is Moshiach. The Rebbe said that Hakadosh Boruch Hu appointed a counselor for the generation, a prophet for the generation and a judge for the generation, who would give advice to everyone in the generation. Then, in the notes below, it says that the Rebbe wrote this. It wasn’t someone else who wrote those notes. This is the prophecy that becomes manifest in Moshiach before he is revealed. So does the Rebbe write about himself that he is Moshiach, or doesn’t he? If he does—or let someone tell me he doesn’t, that the notes below aren’t the Rebbe’s. But it’s well known that the notes...

31:50 Speaker 4 Were edited by the Rebbe.

31:51 Speaker 1 Those are the Rebbe’s notes. So the Rebbe writes that his prophecy is the prophecy of Moshiach before Moshiach’s revelation. When the Baal Shem Tov was revealed, it is related that he ascended on high and came to the Chamber of the Bird’s Nest. The chamber was closed, and he couldn’t enter, and he cried out, “Rabbi, Rabbi!” Then Eliyahu Hanavi[?] came and told him, “I’m trying to open the gate,” but he couldn’t. So he told him, “I’ll bring you to Moshiach; he’ll help you.” And he brought him to Moshiach. Of course... Moshiach gave him a Divine Name, and with that Name he opened the chamber, the Chamber of the Bird’s Nest. That means Moshiach was not inside the Chamber of the Bird’s Nest. He was in exile. The Baal Shem Tov opened the chamber for Moshiach. In other words, the Baal Shem Tov seated Moshiach in his seat, in his place. That means Moshiach’s first measure of rest began with the Baal Shem Tov. And the Frierdiker Rebbe relates that the Rebbe said that until the Baal Shem Tov, the tzaddik was on his own and the people were on their own. Of course, there were also miracle workers, holy people and very great people, and every generation stands on the shoulders of its great figures. But the Baal Shem Tov brought the life of Moshiach. The Baal Shem Tov came into the world. “They will spread”—so when will he come? “When your wellsprings spread outward.” It isn’t merely a sign: “When your wellsprings spread outward.” When your wellsprings spread outward, you draw Moshiach down here below and bring about the complete rectification. So the first thing he did was bring Moshiach in, so that Moshiach stood there in his body. After that, we see how it continued.

33:55 Speaker 1 As the Rebbe Rashab explained in [unclear], he said, “We are descended from David.” What does “descended from David” mean? The Baal Shem Tov was descended from David. And the Alter Rebbe said to his teacher, “You are a descendant by birth, a physical grandson, but I am a spiritual grandson.” That means the Alter Rebbe received the Baal Shem Tov’s spiritual inheritance. He took it up. And I saw a letter from the Chozeh of Lublin, in a non-Chabad book of all places, that he wrote to his friends: “I met the Alter Rebbe at the resting place of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, and it is known that the Alter Rebbe cares for the entire Jewish people.” That is the wording I saw with my own eyes in the book, in the letter the Chozeh of Lublin wrote to his friends. “It is known that he cares for the entire Jewish people.” We see that the Mitteler Rebbe established the settlements in Kherson. The Tzemach Tzedek risked his life for proper Jewish education against the maskilim. The Frierdiker Rebbe would curse them vehemently, but the Rebbe, Moshiach, no longer curses anyone. But they destroyed Yiddishkeit. So the Tzemach Tzedek, of course, stood up to the Russian minister of education. And Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech asked him, “Are you permitted to risk your life? Isn’t that knowingly destroying yourself? Is it permitted according to halachah?” He was arrested fifteen times during the two weeks of that conference. They arrested him. After every meeting they put him in jail for a few hours, but Heaven protected him. They didn’t put him in an actual prison. The Rebbe Maharash traveled to Europe and spoke to all the wealthy Jews there against the Russian government. Why? So there would be no pogroms in Russia. And the Rebbe Rashab continued the work against the subjugation of all Jewry. The Frierdiker Rebbe’s work for the entire Jewish people is well known: he literally risked his life and escaped from there through extraordinary miracles. And about the Rebbe, there’s no need to say much.

35:49 Speaker 1 What people say about the world we live in—the Rebbe says it, and we see it with our own eyes.

35:54 Speaker 6 What’s really interesting is that, with all the background the rabbi gave about the matter of... there was also an answer from the Rebbe to the rabbi on 13 Sivan 5751, during the dollar distribution, concerning...

36:07 Speaker 1 When I was with the Rebbe, I asked for several personal requests on behalf of people who had asked me. The Rebbe gave me a dollar for myself, and another dollar for a request, for [unclear] that a woman should have a child. She had a child within a year or two. There was another request that a woman should have a child, and she too had a child within a year or two. I wanted to say something about Moshiach, but I didn’t know what, and I hadn’t prepared any wording. I asked for a blessing concerning the matters leading up to Moshiach.

36:32 Speaker 6 That’s how you put it—a blessing concerning the matters leading up to Moshiach?

36:34 Speaker 1 “I’m asking for a blessing concerning the matters leading up to Moshiach.” The Rebbe gave me another dollar and said, “Spread the books of [unclear].” Spreading [unclear]—I don’t know how much I spread [unclear] from 5751 until [unclear], but—

36:46 Speaker 6 [unclear]

36:46 Speaker 1 Five years ago, on Chol Hamoed Sukkos. No, earlier. I was walking down the street, and there was a Russian Jew from Belarus. I used to have Tanya classes for a few people at home, but at that time I didn’t have a Tanya class. I thought, after all, I can’t give a Tanya class. Besides that, I was giving five classes every Shabbos at the Chabad shul, including Tanya and [unclear]. But I met him on the street and said, “Would you like to study Tanya?” “Yes, of course.” He was Russian, from Belarus. So we studied Tanya, and I saw that it was a good class. I thought to myself, ah—

37:30 Speaker 6 To delve deeper into the—

37:31 Speaker 1 I thought—

37:32 Speaker 6 The point of the matter.

37:33 Speaker 1 It was a good class. So why should only one person hear it? Then I remembered that the Rebbe had told me, “Distribute the books of [unclear].” So I called Amit Roman, who films and records me. It was Chol Hamoed Sukkos, and I was staying with my son in Petach Tikva. Tuesday was Chol Hamoed. I said to Amit, “Could you record Tanya classes for me?” He’s a Chabad shliach in Kfar Chaim, near Netanya. He said, “Of course, of course, of course. Record Tanya classes? Of course. I’ll film, I’ll record.” So I said, “Good, we’ll talk after Sukkos.” He said, “What do you mean, after Sukkos? I’m coming to record you tomorrow.” He didn’t come the next day; he came the day after. On Thursday of Chol Hamoed Sukkos, five years ago—more than five years ago—the Tanya classes began. So I saw that what the Rebbe says comes to pass. From [unclear] until five years ago, quite a few years went by. But even in the smallest thing, I saw that what the Rebbe says comes to pass. There was another incident. People came with bottles of mashke to put on the Rebbe’s table at a farbrengen, and the Rebbe... That wasn’t unusual. I don’t remember the exact sequence. I was going to a large meal, so I bought two of the biggest bottles of vodka and stood near the Rebbe. Why? I don’t know. Two bottles of vodka. The Rebbe said, “Good, so they’ll take a little here, a little there; take a little for that meal.” The word “little” was hard for me. These were two huge bottles—what did he mean, a little here and a little there? Later I saw the answer. At that farbrengen, I was sitting some distance from the Rebbe, and one bottle fell and broke. So I saw what “a little here and a little there” meant.

39:21 Speaker 6 Every expression and every

39:22 Speaker 1 word the Rebbe said—I saw it with my own eyes. What the Rebbe says, that’s how it is. And what I wanted to say about our subject: I also saw, in 5774, [unclear] of the Rebbe. Simcha Gorodetsky, a"h, was there. At that farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about a decree that had been in place until then, forbidding the construction of public buildings because of austerity. The Rebbe said, “That isn’t meant to apply to Talmud Torah schools or shuls. It doesn’t apply to them. And anyone in the middle of building a yeshiva should not stop; he should continue.” When I was leaving for home, I stood there where people stand, and before the Rebbe spoke to him, the Rebbe called him over. I was standing there and heard the conversation. The Rebbe said to Simcha Gorodetsky, “When I spoke on Shabbos about not stopping the construction, I meant your yeshiva. You’re building the Bukharian yeshiva now. That’s what I meant. Don’t stop building it.” But that isn’t at all the point I wanted to tell you. What I wanted to tell you is that the Rebbe spoke then about going to the finance minister and asking for money to put mezuzos in every school. What struck me was that the Rebbe didn’t say to go to the minister of religious affairs. He said to go to the finance minister. What does the finance minister have to do with it? That’s Eretz Yisroel.

40:55 Speaker 7 But Eretz Yisroel—

40:56 Speaker 1 There’s no minister of religious affairs, nothing. That’s where the money is; go there. It isn’t according to the usual order? Then it isn’t according to the usual order. Because a king breaks through barriers. The same thing happened with Reagan, who wanted to visit the Rebbe. Reagan, the president of the United States, invited the Rebbe to visit him. The Rebbe said he was busy and it would be difficult for him. So Reagan said, “Then I’ll come to the Rebbe.” It’s rare for a president to come to a Jew. But the Rebbe was the most—

41:26 Speaker 7 A king.

41:26 Speaker 1 —in the United States. And that, too, is a miracle. It’s a Christian country, and they took a Jew and made him the foremost figure in education in the entire United States. So the Rebbe told Reagan it would be difficult to receive him. The very fact of turning down the president of the United States—I don’t know if that ever happened in history. Even great Torah leaders, truly great ones, would go out to meet some count or landowner or whoever it might be.

41:54 Speaker 7 Why did they do that?

41:55 Speaker 1 They didn’t refuse. They didn’t refuse. But the Rebbe is the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach. One point I wanted to make about this: A chossid who wasn’t Chabad once told me, “With you Chabad chassidim, it isn’t like it is with us. With us, a chossid who is very, very, very devoted, who goes all the way, can eventually reach the level of a Rebbe. With you, there’s no such thing. The Rebbe is the Rebbe and a chossid is a chossid.” There’s a story about the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe once said, “Today I brought down a great Rebbe.” There was once Reb Mordechai of Brisk [?], who came to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe turned him into a chossid. If he hadn’t become a chossid of the Alter Rebbe, he would have become a great Rebbe. But someone who is a chossid of the Rebbe cannot become a great Rebbe, because there is only one Rebbe. And then there’s the idea of Yehoshua being rooted in Moshe. What does that mean? Yehoshua was a young man. From the moment he saw Moshe Rabbeinu, he saw, “I poured out my soul before Hashem.” “I poured out my soul before Hashem.” That means going beyond every limitation, reaching the revelation of the yechidah of the soul and becoming united with the very essence of the Infinite. That is what “I poured out my soul” means. Pouring out one’s soul means that the soul has no limits; it pours out. And where does the G-dly soul pour out? Only before Hashem. And that’s the point—

43:25 Speaker 7 The essential point of bittul to the Rebbe: to be like Yehoshua, rooted in Moshe, and to pour out my soul before the Rebbe. To be at such a level that—

43:33 Speaker 1 There is no sense of self at all. Though the truth is, we don’t understand much about this. I know of a young man who had studied in Litvish yeshivos, and had studied in Lod for only three or four years. Then he traveled to [unclear]. In the first letter he wrote home, he said, “If I hadn’t been embarrassed when I entered 770, I would have lain down on the floor and kissed every single floor tile.” This was a young man from a Chabad home, but he had studied in Litvish yeshivos. He’d spent three or four years in Lod and had only just traveled to [unclear], and already he wanted to lie down and kiss every floor tile. So it’s a gift from Above. As we see with many great people—I don’t know how long he studied in yeshivos before he saw the Rebbe, but he saw the Rebbe and became attached to him. So that, that is—

44:16 Speaker 7 A revelation of the essence.

44:17 Speaker 1 That’s the secret of souls. It’s a matter of souls. Some people want with all their might to connect to the Rebbe. But they want to; they look at the Rebbe and see the person. I heard from one man, a chossid whose father and grandfather were chassidim, who told me, “I saw the Rebbe.” But he had studied in Litvish yeshivos, and he said, “I saw the Rebbe, and I thought: Now I’m seeing a person who observes the Shulchan Aruch from A to Z.” He measured the Rebbe in terms of the sefiros. But there is a way of perceiving the Rebbe through the Shechinah. One perceives the Rebbe, and “my soul burns like fire before him.” In any case, not everyone has that. Being given that connection is a gift. And we see in practice that someone who was connected reached further than someone who wasn’t. He might have studied [unclear] and everything. But if he wasn’t connected—connection means something. Everyone has some sense of self; no one escapes that, not even Moshe Rabbeinu. That sense of self comes from the animal soul. The G-dly soul has no sense of self, but it is limited. As for “I poured out my soul”—one cannot simply pour out one’s soul. When a person finishes his time in this world, the fiftieth gate is revealed to him.

45:56 Speaker 7 The idea is to bring that about while still—

45:58 Speaker 1 The G-dly soul is limited. The Rebbe is yechidah. This is what I understand from the Tzemach Tzedek. The young Rebbe wanted to go up to Eretz Yisroel. The Tzemach Tzedek asked him, “What about the chassidim?” The young Rebbe said to him, “The chassidim—what is a Rebbe? A Rebbe is a revelation of the soul’s yechidah. A revelation of the soul’s yechidah is not separated from the yechidah by distance.” As if to say, “I’m going to Eretz Yisroel; I’ve left the Rebbe.”

46:22 Speaker 7 Yes.

46:23 Speaker 1 What is this idea of connection? Connection is what a Jew needs to strive for. The “I” prevents connection. I once heard a young man who wasn’t a chossid say, “Why should I go to the Rebbe? Let the Rebbe come to me.” What does that mean? Everyone feels their “I.” Everyone has an “I.” Even someone with a small “I” still has it. That’s the issue with connection. When I was with the Rebbe, I wrote in my long letter to him, “I bind my nefesh, ruach and neshamah to the holy grave of the Rebbe.” The Rebbe made a gesture like this.

46:59 Speaker 7 The Rebbe negated that “I.”

47:00 Speaker 1 He negated it. Why? Because I wasn’t really at that level. I knew how it was supposed to be, but I wasn’t at that level. And I truly don’t know why the Rebbe sent me to become so fired up about it. I wasn’t at that level—

47:11 Speaker 7 But the rabbi is speaking about the—

47:12 Speaker 1 I was at the alef-beis stage, at the alef-beis of the alef-beis, and even now I’m still at the alef-beis stage. But the point of hiskashrus—thank G-d, I’ve been through things in life, and I encountered this question of hiskashrus, even though I knew I was Chabad. When I was in a Lithuanian yeshiva, I was Chabad. When I was in Ponovezh, I was Chabad. I never separated from Chabad for a second. As the saying goes, the Alter Rebbe did not want to separate from the Baal Shem Tov even for a mitzvah. But when it came to hiskashrus, I wasn’t about to lie down and kiss the floor tiles. It stood before me like an iron wall. And I knew I was a Chabad chossid, and I knew I had studied Chassidus. Thank G-d, Hakadosh Boruch Hu granted me a taste for Chassidus when I was still a young married man, even when I was a bochur. I had a taste for studying a point in depth. But when it came to hiskashrus, an iron wall stood there. I knew something was missing. I knew it was missing, but [unclear]. Then suddenly a person begins to think: You really are nothing, and what’s getting in your way is your own outlook. There’s something in you that keeps you from giving yourself over to the Rebbe because you feel you can manage without the Rebbe. You can’t manage without the Rebbe, because the Rebbe has a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu. Every Jew has a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu, but the general spark of Moshe Rabbeinu that exists in every generation—everything passes through that Moshe Rabbeinu. It passes through the Rebbe. And then a person thinks: But I really am nothing. I truly am nothing. Not just because the world is nullified as an existing thing, not because existence is nullified by something else, but because the truth is that apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu there is nothing. That’s fine, and I understand it intellectually. I understand it in my own shortcomings, too.

49:11 Speaker 1 But “I poured out my soul before Hashem.” You really, truly are nothing. Not that you understand that this is so. When a person understands it, generally that understanding goes from his mind into his heart. As it says in the Siddur im Dach, it rises upon the heart. There are channels from the mind to the heart, and it settles in the heart. But some sense of self always remains. The Rebbe’s outlook removes every boundary. It’s like when Rabbi Shlomo Karliner came with a student and said to the Alter Rebbe, “Do you see my student? He has a tremendous revelation.” Then Rabbi Feinstein [?] stood to daven Shemoneh Esrei in the Alter Rebbe’s beis midrash, and Rabbi Shlomo Karliner said, “Do you see that Jew? He’s standing in the middle of Shemoneh Esrei right now. A renewal of the soul is shining within him.” A renewal of the soul is higher than a tremendous revelation. How does a renewal of the soul shine within him? Because, as we said earlier, renewal of the soul is connected with the Rebbe, since the Rebbe has left us his soul. So this is what “I poured out my soul before Hashem” is about. There is no separate existence. You really are utterly nothing. You’ll always retain a sense of self, but at least feel that this self is nothing. It exists, but it is nothing. As I once explained: Truth said, “Do not create him.” So Hakadosh Boruch Hu took Truth and cast it to the ground. But what is truth? Truth cannot be moved from its place. Why cast Truth down to falsehood? To say: “You claim that man is false? Go down to falsehood and show it that it is nothing.” That is the outlook.

51:03 Speaker 8 That is also a very profound expression. This outlook applies to all the Rebbeim, but especially when we stand on the threshold of the Geulah. The outlook is loftier, because it belongs to the Geulah [unclear].

51:12 Speaker 1 You’ve just described something to me. I wanted to continue with Chana the prophetess. Through her prayer, Chana the prophetess brought down the Shechinah and brought about the birth of children for the Jewish people. The Rebbe is Melech HaMoshiach, and the Rebbe said that today everyone can reach the level of a tzaddik, not only that of a beinoni as described in Tanya. That’s because the Rebbe said that today everyone can be united with the Rebbe—soul with soul, spirit with spirit, neshamah with nesham. Truly one with the Rebbe. And if a person can truly be one with the Rebbe, then everyone can experience a revelation of the future. That is what our generation needs to rectify. In the time of Tanach, in the time of the prophets, people believed in the messenger of G-d; yet Rashi says in the Book of Malachi that they did not believe the prophets, and that is why the destruction came. Now, for the Beis Hamikdash to be rebuilt, we need to believe in the prophet. And the greatest test is when we say that the Rebbe is Moshiach. Once I was sitting with a Russian man, and I said to him, “So what about Moshiach?” Suddenly I saw venom like a snake’s in his eyes. I had never seen a snake’s venom before; I hadn’t known what it looked like. Then I understood what an evil eye means. There is such evil that you can see it in a person’s eyes. That was the first and only time in my life I saw it. I said, “What does it matter if the Rebbe is Moshiach?” And then—what is the expression?—“because of the serpent,” the four who died because of the serpent. I saw the primordial serpent there in his eyes. Why? Why did the primordial serpent suddenly appear in this Russian man’s eyes? Why did venom suddenly appear there? Because the Rebbe being Moshiach disturbs the serpent; it disturbs evil. So we need to know that the Rebbe is Melech HaMoshiach. The Rebbe is the one who can unite us with him, include us in him, bring us into him.

53:12 Speaker 9 Does that also happen through accepting his kingship?

53:14 Speaker 1 Certainly, through accepting his kingship. We know that he is Moshiach and that he is here in this physical world, even though we don’t see him. After all, the Gemara says that Yaakov Avinu, too, accompanies the Jews in exile. And I hear about soldiers in Gaza who have seen the Rebbe there, walking around in Gaza. The Rebbe is beside every Jew. But there needs to be this sense of “I poured out my soul before Hashem.” It isn’t that I’m giving something up, or achieving bittul bimetzius or bittul hayesh. No bittul, nothing of the sort—revelation, revelations. There is such a thing as ahavah beta’anugim, a love filled with delight. It isn’t the result of your own avodah; it isn’t anything you’ve done. Today there is ahavah beta’anugim that the Rebbe bestows, because he is Moshiach.

53:55 Speaker 9 Just to conclude, then: we understand that the world is ours, that [unclear]. We understand this on that level—that our whole world is ours in the matter of Moshiach, too.

54:05 Speaker 1 “The world is ours” means that the Rebbe said Moshiach is already here. In Tishrei 5781, Moshiach was here, but it took a little time for that to sink in. Thank G-d, it has sunk in.

54:15 Speaker 9 And that finds expression in everything we do, with the understanding that the world is ours.

54:19 Speaker 1 That is the spirit of the shluchim. How does a shliach go to the Philippines? How does he go to some [unclear] place in the world? How does he go to the jungles of Africa? It’s all Moshiach, because Moshiach gives the shluchim the strength to devote themselves completely in everything. May they be healthy, have nachas from their children, and succeed. It’s the Rebbe. The Rebbe is the one who has influence throughout the world today. There is no place in the world that can stand in the Rebbe’s way. That is what “the world is ours” means.

54:46 Speaker 9 Thank you very much for the talks. With Hashem’s help, may these words have their effect immediately, right now.

54:51 Speaker 1 Long live our master, teacher and Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, forever and ever.

54:55 Speaker 9 Thank you very much for the talks. Thank you.

54:59 Speaker 10 Ears to hear. Audio programs for the students of the Temimim, from Ata HaOlami. For more programs, dial star 6358. Long live our master, teacher and Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, forever and ever.