Ears to Hear 24 | A Moshiach-Minded Jew

00:00 Speaker 1 Hashem has given you a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear.

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

00:14 Speaker 6 You could see the Rebbe’s response when they sang “We Want Moshiach Now” or “May the Beis Hamikdash be rebuilt.” I also remember many times after davening, following “Ach tzaddikim,” the Rebbe would continue, “For G-d will save Zion.” You could see the way the Rebbe said it—that it mattered to him.

00:40 Speaker 7 Shalom aleichem to all the Temimim in Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch yeshivos throughout the Holy Land and around the world. We’re now beginning a special program in the Ears to Hear audio series, a program steeped in and permeated by a spirit of firm hiskashrus to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach shlita, and to his central mission of bringing Moshiach. In this program, we’re sitting down with Rabbi Menachem Mendel HaKohen Friedman, the Rebbe’s shliach in Or Yehuda, to discuss the most pressing, most important subject: being a Moshiach’diker Yid. How can every Tamim, every chossid of the seventh generation, be a Jew who truly lives with Moshiach in daily life, in accordance with the Rebbe’s sichos and instructions? We’ll focus especially on the Rebbe’s sichos from the 5740s and his particular fire for Geulah and Moshiach in those years—something less familiar to the Temimim. Let’s begin this special program with Rabbi Friedman. Shalom aleichem, Rabbi Friedman.

01:36 Speaker 6 Aleichem shalom.

01:38 Speaker 7 Well, baruch Hashem, here we are sitting down for a program like this. I’m sure the very title of the program stirs you.

01:43 Speaker 6 With Hashem’s help.

01:45 Speaker 7 There you go—we’re already stirred. Just sitting with you to talk about Moshiach stirs everyone. Of course, we certainly want to hear about all the years you were with the Rebbe, around 770, starting in 5741, with visits here and there through 5746 and 5747, and again in 5749 and 5750—all those years when you were with the Rebbe and heard his sichos and instructions. But first, perhaps we should start with what it means to be a Moshiach Jew, a Moshiach’diker Yid. Clearly, the subject gained greater force in the 5740s, leading up to the great intensity of the 5750s. As a child growing up in Jerusalem, did the subject of Moshiach—which the Rebbe was also speaking about in those years—already sink in for you? Had you heard about it? Were you educated about it? Did you get any particular flashes of insight, or did it all arrive at once when you came to the Rebbe in Elul 5741?

02:39 Speaker 6 Moshiach was a subject that, like any Jewish child, you learned about and mentioned in davening. It also came up at certain times—especially in Jerusalem, when people came back from funerals and spoke about how we should finally merit Moshiach. But when did it touch me deeply in a serious way? That was already in 5741.

03:07 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

03:08 Speaker 6 Around Pesach, if I’m not mistaken—even earlier, a little after Tishrei 5741—when the Rebbe came out with “We Want Moshiach Now.” We want Moshiach now. Suddenly I understood that this was something serious. Before davening, we say, “May it be Your will that the Beis Hamikdash be rebuilt.” We mention it in davening. A child reading Hebrew generally has some idea of what it means, but these are formulas we recite; there isn’t yet a fire in the air that makes you live it and, so to speak, fight for it to the last drop of blood. Suddenly the Rebbe came out with the declaration “We want Moshiach now,” and especially in Jerusalem, there was opposition to it. Anyone who remembers those years knows that Chabad was seen as something different, and faced many times more opposition than it does today. The chareidi world generally focused on what it thought needed attention in the more political sense—yeshiva students and Shabbos. The Rebbe took a different direction: the main focus needed to be on “Who is a Jew?” and the integrity of the Land of Israel. People couldn’t understand it: the Rebbe should be looking after chareidi Judaism, and instead he was talking about... Today, everyone understands that the Rebbe’s view of “Who is a Jew?” concerned a wrong that cannot be put right, and that the integrity of the Land of Israel is literally a matter of saving lives. Then, suddenly, there was another issue that brought great opposition to Chabad: the Rebbe’s declaration, “We want Moshiach now.”

04:39 Speaker 8 So you already felt like the odd ones out because of “Who is a Jew?” and the integrity of the Land of Israel. Suddenly the Rebbe added “Moshiach Now,” and that took things to another level.

04:49 Speaker 6 Yes. And saying “We want Moshiach now” isn’t just a formula you recite. Suddenly it’s like a person saying, “I want an ice pop now,” or “I want to go on a trip now.” “I want Moshiach now.” You mean it, and you expect to get what you’re asking for. When someone says, “I want it now; bring me this, this, and this,” he expects to receive it. Those words really struck me, as I recall. At the same time, there was a firestorm over the claim that it was chutzpah to say such a thing to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Rebbe addressed that in many sichos too. So that was the beginning of what you might call the leap into—

05:26 Speaker 8 You received the sichos in Jerusalem, and you felt this was what you needed to focus on, that it gave you a special energy because this was the subject of the moment.

05:34 Speaker 6 Yes. Suddenly you began relating to Moshiach as something real. It was a different world, suddenly speaking this language. It wasn’t familiar, and even for Chabad chassidim, absorbing it and repeating it seemed extreme, something outside the usual bounds.

06:00 Speaker 8 So, moving on from that Jerusalem childhood, when Moshiach was already becoming a topic in the air and you understood that you had to enter into that atmosphere, we come to the 5740s. You could say that’s the heart of our program. There are the years we all know very well: the major sichos about Moshiach from 5751 and 5752. People are very familiar with them, and so are chassidim. But the Rebbe’s sichos from the 5740s, in which he cries out from the depths of his heart about the Geulah, about “Moshiach Now,” and all these subjects, are less well known. Many people say that if you want to feel the emotion at the heart of Moshiach, you need to study the sichos of the 5740s in particular—to see how strongly and at what length the Rebbe speaks about these things. They’ve been collected in various places and books, but perhaps you could give us a general overview of the sichos of the 5740s and what you experienced of the great stir the Rebbe created about Moshiach. At least, what were the main points on which the Rebbe stirred people, where you felt he was bringing us to an entirely different level regarding Moshiach?

07:05 Speaker 6 Yes. Perhaps the central point is that in Elul 5741 I traveled to the Rebbe.

07:11 Speaker 8 How old were you then?

07:13 Speaker 6 I was thirteen and a half. By then I already knew the phrase “We want Moshiach now.” In those years, when it was new and there was tremendous opposition to it, it was something that sent shivers through you. So when I arrived at the Rebbe for Tishrei 5742, the first thing was that the Rebbe spoke of 5742 as “the year of Moshiach’s coming.” I don’t recall anything like that in 5741 or in earlier years. It was the first time. And when a child hears, with simple sincerity, “the year of Moshiach’s coming,” and then comes to the Rebbe, he sees that the Rebbe is something serious. You feel you’re not just looking at a great person of your generation. You’re seeing a power without precedent in all the generations. The Rebbe entered so deeply into our very being, and you became so fired up about the Rebbe that it’s impossible to describe. In Tishrei, as a child, I knew the sichos too; I took them in at the level of a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old. Anyone can try to put himself in my shoes and imagine how much I understood. You start learning Chassidus and understanding these concepts, but sometimes there was more than that. There were Tzivos Hashem rallies. I was already after my bar mitzvah, so I watched the Tzivos Hashem rally from the women’s section. You could see the Rebbe’s response when they sang “We Want Moshiach Now” or “May the Beis Hamikdash be rebuilt.” And I remember many times after davening, following “Ach tzaddikim,” the Rebbe would continue, “For G-d will save Zion.” You could see the way the Rebbe said it—that it mattered to him.

08:53 Speaker 9 That the salvation of Zion should come, that there should be Moshiach, that there should be Geulah, not—

08:56 Speaker 6 And the same thing with “We Want Moshiach Now”—seeing those motions, and “May the Beis Hamikdash be rebuilt,” again and again at farbrengens. Suddenly you understand that the Rebbe is fighting for something, something there’s no turning back from, and we’re going to make it happen. Everything you’d heard until then about Moshiach—that it was a prayer, a theory, something that would come someday—suddenly you understand that we’re actually going to bring it about. It’s exciting, and it demands something of you. You say, “This really has to happen.” You’re looking forward to it, too. When a child starts burning with something and feels so strongly about it, he can’t understand why other people aren’t caught up in that same fire. So I came back to Israel after Tishrei. I remember telling various people in Jerusalem what had happened at the Rebbe’s. I repeated how the Rebbe encouraged “We Want Moshiach Now” and “May it be rebuilt,” and that we’re the generation of the Geulah—all kinds of things the Rebbe had said about the Geulah throughout Tishrei that had stayed with me so strongly. At the end of every sicha, it wasn’t just “the complete Geulah”; the Rebbe would spend several minutes saying that we would come to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, with all the details we know from the sichos. I repeated all that, and several times older people—even the elder chassidim of those days, you might say—sort of laughed and dismissed what I was saying. My father was standing beside me.

10:15 Speaker 9 Can you give us a little more detail, without naming names? This was in a Chabad shul, right?

10:21 Speaker 6 In a shul—yes. Some people said to me, “Look, we were children once too. They told us it would certainly happen, but you don’t have to get so worked up about it. With Hashem’s help.”

10:30 Speaker 9 They tried to calm you down.

10:31 Speaker 6 Yes. And I started telling them that what the Rebbe had said was something that was going to happen immediately, with such tremendous force. There were people who, out of Ahavas Yisroel—I don’t know what to call it—said, “No, you don’t have to get too excited. Sometimes a child gets like that.” I was on fire about it, and people tried to bring me down a little. I remember my father didn’t want to hurt them, but it really pained him. What was going on here? I remember that afterward, several times when this happened, he would call me aside and say, “I envy your faith.” And I knew that my father was a Jew of such stature, however you want to describe it.

11:13 Speaker 9 A righteous man.

11:14 Speaker 6 When he said that, it suddenly gave me strength and encouragement. I knew other friends who had also come back on fire from different places, and they told me that not only other people, but even their own parents had tried to calm them down a little: “All right, don’t get so—”

11:33 Speaker 9 Bring them down to earth.

11:33 Speaker 6 “Don’t get too carried away.” And boruch Hashem, I think my father did just the opposite: he strengthened me by telling me he envied that faith. Maybe I learned something from it later. Sometimes I see bochurim with that fire. They read a sicha of the Rebbe or a Dvar Malchus, and they’re right there, feeling as though they’ve just heard a sicha of the Rebbe for the first time. Their fire has no limits—what you’d call fiery chassidim. And then I know: envy them.

12:07 Speaker 9 That’s “He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers” all the way. You gave your father that vitality about Moshiach, and he gave it back to you by telling you how important it was. It really is moving to hear about a child coming back from Tishrei 5752 with the fire of “We Want Moshiach Now,” with all that passion. What should we learn when we read and study the sichos? How alive and real these things are, how straightforward they are, and how today we should take them literally and feel the way people felt then. But if we move a little further on—beyond 5752—and take a broad look at the sichos of the 5740s, which central sichos struck you personally, and the chassidim more generally, as times when the Rebbe spoke about Moshiach so powerfully?

13:05 Speaker 6 There’s a sicha in which the Rebbe spoke about the complacent non-Jews, who weren’t bothered that Jews were in exile, and, if I’m not mistaken, there was some sort of plague among them over this. The Rebbe says: how much more so must a Jew be on fire about the Geulah, with it burning within him? The Rebbe gave a sicha about that. I even remember studying it once as a child on a bus to Ramat Gan. I was responsible for distributing the sichos from Machon Levi Yitzchak in Jerusalem. Back then there weren’t nearly as many printed sheets as there are today.

13:36 Speaker 9 Mm-hmm.

13:36 Speaker 6 There were the sichos from Machon Levi Yitzchak. I remember riding the bus with one, and that sicha stayed with me so vividly. There were also new transcripts of the sichos, but it was so stirring to hear how the Rebbe spoke about the complacent non-Jews—and how much more was expected of a Jew. If even a non-Jew must not be complacent, then for a Jew it’s unthinkable: how much vitality about Moshiach must he have, and how far he must be from complacency! In those years, I remember there were periods when Chabad in general would focus on [unclear]. At other times the focus was on getting people to study Chassidus. I remember periods when, if you wanted to meet another Jew and connect him to the Rebbe, you felt you had to awaken in him a longing for the Geulah. He had to feel that every moment he remained in exile was abnormal. He might be thinking, “Boruch Hashem, we keep Torah and mitzvos, even while we’re in exile.” The Rebbe returned to this again and again in the sichos: that’s not normal. How can you think that you can learn, daven, remain in exile, and just go on, boruch Hashem, enjoying every moment of Torah study and mitzvah observance in a state without the Geulah and the Beis Hamikdash, without “we will perform before You the mitzvos of Your will”? That’s utterly out of the question. Another thing the Rebbe spoke about was—meaning, the Rebbe responded to those who didn’t accept “We Want Moshiach Now.” There are many sichos about this. It was part of the Rebbe’s struggle for this idea. He spoke about the blessing of Refa’einu, “Heal us.” When a person says “Heal us,” when does he mean to get well? Is he saying, “Hashem, I want to be healthy, but take Your time. It can be a year, eight years—no pressure”? What’s the truth? When a person says “Heal us,” he means that before he gets to “He Who makes peace,” he should already

15:16 Speaker 6 have received the healing he was asking for in “Heal us.” So when he says, “May the sprout of David Your servant flourish,” and there he says, “Speedily cause it to flourish,” and then says, “May our eyes behold,” it’s like a child saying to his father, “I want to see You do it now.” There’s a certain boldness to that, but it’s the boldness Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants.

15:32 Speaker 9 Sichos like these bring us to the point where a Jew cannot feel comfortable in exile. He can’t be in a position where he studies Torah, keeps mitzvos, and continues along the Jewish, Torah-observant path without constantly feeling that something is missing.

15:48 Speaker 6 Right. There were years when “Ad mosai?”—“Until when?”—was especially prominent. The Rebbe explained that we are in exile, away from our Father’s table.

15:56 Speaker 9 Mm-hmm.

15:56 Speaker 6 The Rebbe simply would not allow it; it was out of the question for a Jew to study and daven and feel comfortable in exile, seeing success—boruch Hashem, material abundance, and progress and growth spiritually. It’s out of the question if he isn’t impatient, longing to return to his Father’s table in Heaven. The Rebbe says somewhere in a sicha that a person can be a guest in a place and receive the very best accommodations, but it isn’t his home. He feels like a stranger and wants to get home. That brings us back to our Father’s table in Heaven: the natural state of a Jew is Geulah.

16:35 Speaker 10 Those are exactly the sichos. It reminds me of the sichos of 20 Cheshvan 5743 and Acharon Shel Pesach 5748. In those sichos, the Rebbe spoke directly about people who want to stay stuck in exile because they have Torah and mitzvos there. The Rebbe uprooted that whole notion and said, “There’s no such thing. We have to be in a state of ‘Ad mosai?’—of ‘Moshiach now.’” Those sichos really illuminate things for us. Now, the better-known sichos: were you at [unclear] and the great rejoicing in 5744? Those moments?

17:06 Speaker 6 I was there for the great rejoicing in 5744.

20:15 Speaker 11 Joy without end, and on the other hand, yearning—“My soul thirsts”—to merit it immediately.

20:22 Speaker 12 Wow.

20:23 Speaker 6 And [unclear], with “Ad mosai?” and [unclear] “Ad mosai?” My whole day before that was “Ad mosai?” [unclear] the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed. [unclear] “Ad mosai, Yisroel?”

20:45 Speaker 12 So really, if we focus on 5744, you could say that this sicha gave you the sense that—as you put it—the matter of the Geulah was serious business for the Rebbe. I mean, when the Rebbe stands at the lectern and cries over the exile, wants the Geulah, and turns to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and says, “The Shechinah is in exile; Moshiach is in exile,” did you feel that the Rebbe was making it serious—something truly real?

21:13 Speaker 11 Let’s put it another way. When people came back from Tishrei, they were asked, “What was Tishrei like?” One of the things everyone spoke about was that sicha, the feeling in 770, those tears—and then, suddenly, going into Simchas Torah at the height of joy. These are things that shake you in both directions. On one hand, boundless joy, connection to the Rebbe, and confidence that it’s happening. At the same time, approaching it with “rejoice with trembling,” with the utmost seriousness. That’s what the Rebbe expects of us.

21:48 Speaker 6 And from this, [unclear] a revelation. Wow. [unclear] “The Shechinah is in exile; Moshiach is in exile.” Every single Jew is in exile. [unclear] with tears that are not excessive, coming from the heart.

22:14 Speaker 12 Wow. So if we pause here for a moment in 5744 and move into 5745, 5746, and 5747, we enter the period of the seforim court case, if we can call it that—from 12 Tammuz 5745 until [unclear] 5747. During that period, too, Moshiach never left the agenda. Even while the Rebbe was dealing with the seforim court case, the matter of Moshiach continued with tremendous intensity. As a student who came to the Rebbe for the whole of 5746 and half of 5747, how did you bring those things together?

22:48 Speaker 11 It certainly never left the agenda. I remember coming to the Rebbe in Tishrei 5746. The seforim affair had begun in 5745, on 12 Tammuz 5745.

23:02 Speaker 12 Mm-hmm.

23:04 Speaker 11 So when you arrive and see the Rebbe for the first time, you start thinking: since 12 Tammuz, over these past months, the Rebbe has been going through the seforim court case. You’d heard what the Rebbe had said in sichos on Shabbos, besides what happened on 12 Tammuz and 15 Tammuz 5745.

23:21 Speaker 12 Mm-hmm.

23:21 Speaker 11 The Rebbe spoke about it, and when you see the Rebbe, you feel it. So at first, of course, what you see is that the Rebbe is now fighting over the seforim. But even in the midst of that, the Rebbe mentioned many times that the ultimate Didan Notzach will be the true and complete Geulah.

23:40 Speaker 12 Mm-hmm.

23:40 Speaker 11 And for those who know, the first time people shouted “Ad mosai?” at the Rebbe’s farbrengen was at the Parshas Vayigash farbrengen, 3 Teves 5747.

23:52 Speaker 12 Mm-hmm.

23:52 Speaker 11 That was four days after Didan Notzach, which had been on the Tuesday of that week. On the following Shabbos, the Rebbe spoke about “Ad mosai?” and said that we need to shout “Ad mosai?” The Rebbe said, “How can we shout ‘Ad mosai?’ on Shabbos? Because we are certain that Hakadosh Boruch Hu will hear our prayers immediately and bring us the Geulah.” So we shout it with joy. At the end of the sicha, people shouted “Ad mosai?” At first they shouted the words; later it became a tune.

24:19 Speaker 12 You really see that even throughout the seforim court case, the Geulah was so pressing for the Rebbe. And as we’re speaking, I’m reminded of Lag BaOmer 5746, during that period, when the Rebbe encouraged the singing of “We Want Moshiach Now” for an hour and forty minutes. What was the atmosphere then? What did it feel like at that farbrengen?

24:38 Speaker 11 The feeling then was very powerful. At the time, it felt as though that song, that farbrengen, would end in Jerusalem. But afterward the Rebbe said something that seemed to suggest otherwise. On the other hand, the Rebbe had encouraged it.

24:57 Speaker 12 Seemed to suggest what?

24:59 Speaker 11 Afterward, the Rebbe said there should have been a gabbai to keep order here. So apparently it needed to stay within a certain order and limits. But while they were singing, the Rebbe was always the one who signaled when a sicha was about to begin. It wasn’t that people stopped singing and then the Rebbe began speaking. Those who were there will remember—perhaps it’s on video, too—the Rebbe would turn his face slightly toward 770, and that would bring the singing to a stop. Then everyone knew they had to stop singing so the Rebbe could begin a sicha. That gesture didn’t happen throughout that hour and forty minutes. There was something else around that time, in 5746—and, if I’m not mistaken, once in 5747 as well. The Rebbe spoke forcefully about the Geulah and, in the middle of a sicha on Shabbos, said, “Get out of exile!” People didn’t quite know what to do or where they were supposed to go. It happened twice on Shabbos, and it was also something that was...

25:59 Speaker 12 Stirring.

26:00 Speaker 11 Very stirring.

26:01 Speaker 12 So moving forward through those years—we’ve been talking about 5746 and 5747—after Pesach 5747 you went on shlichus to the yeshiva in Brunoy.

26:11 Speaker 11 Yes.

26:12 Speaker 12 When you got to the yeshiva in Brunoy, you had crossed the ocean. You’d been in the sheltered atmosphere of the Rebbe’s presence, with all the history and stories about the Rebbe and Moshiach. And 19 Menachem Av 5747 was still so fresh, with all that energy and passion for the loftiest matters. Then you arrived at a yeshiva across the ocean. Was Moshiach in the air there? Were the yeshiva’s rabbis engaged with it, or did you arrive as something of an oddity, bringing the subject of Moshiach with you?

26:41 Speaker 11 You mentioned Didan Notzach. After 5 Teves, there was an appeal. So we arrived in 5748. Those who remember know that at the time, people were saying a great deal of Tehillim: every day they said the portion of the book of Tehillim assigned to that day of the week. When we arrived in Brunoy, one of the important things we instituted, as I recall, was for everyone to say that daily portion until the Didan Notzach of 2 Kislev.

27:05 Speaker 12 5748.

27:05 Speaker 11 5748, when the seforim were returned. But at the same time, there was certainly an awakening about Moshiach. You can see in the sichos how the Rebbe kept bringing up the subject. From time to time, the Rebbe would also shake everyone with a powerful sicha. Perhaps the difference between then and what happened from 28 Nissan onward is this: until then, there were many subjects in Lubavitch. The Rebbe taught Torah; there were Rashi sichos and all sorts of other matters. From time to time, the Rebbe would raise the subject of Moshiach. When he did, it would gather momentum for a few days, perhaps a few weeks, and then things would continue. The Rebbe would speak about other subjects, Rambam and everything else. What happened on 28 Nissan 5751 was that the Rebbe raised the subject, and it stayed on a burning flame. That continued through 5751 and 5752. It was no longer just an occasional awakening. Of course, the awakening was there in every sicha, even when the Rebbe was simply concluding a sicha. But in 5748, for those who remember, the standard format of the sichos began to change. They had started with two sichos on the importance of Shabbos and what was special about that particular Shabbos, including the dates that year, followed by a maamar, then Rashi, and so on. After 22 Shvat, suddenly there were entire farbrengens in which perhaps thirty or forty percent consisted of prayers, requests, and appeals to Hakadosh Boruch Hu to hasten the Geulah. But it still wasn’t expressed with that kind of outcry. On 28 Nissan, something began that you could perhaps say there was no going back from.

28:48 Speaker 13 A kind of “we ascend and do not descend.” You reach a level where it belongs to everyone, and in a sense there’s no going back.

28:55 Speaker 11 Yes, and every farbrengen—everything—was built around it. I remember Zalman Levitin describing this point at the time. He said that the Rebbe had always spoken about how everything must provide a lesson in serving Hashem. Suddenly, the Rebbe was saying that everything must provide a lesson in serving Hashem for this particular time, now—and how could that not lead to the days of Moshiach? It became a lesson in Rashi, in a sicha, in Shabbos; everything was no longer just a lesson. We weren’t simply serving Hashem. We were serving Hashem now in order to bring Moshiach.

29:27 Speaker 13 That really is an interesting point. Even as a Tomim who was there during the 5740s and heard all the Rebbe’s sichos from those years, you still felt the turning point that came on 28 Nissan 5751, from what you’re saying.

29:40 Speaker 11 As we said, until then it went through ups and downs. From time to time there would be a sicha—

29:48 Speaker 13 A startling one.

29:48 Speaker 11 A fiery sicha from the Rebbe that stayed with people longer, stirred everyone, and lifted us to a certain level. But afterward things would settle down, and there were other subjects. It seems to me that from 28 Nissan onward, everything became focused on this.

30:15 Speaker 13 And if we move forward through those years, after your shlichus in Brunoy, to your wedding in 5750: the Rebbe gave you an instruction to publicize the matter of Moshiach. What exactly happened there?

30:28 Speaker 11 It’s known that the Rebbe gave siddurim to chassanim for the prayer they say on their wedding day in the Diaspora. He would give it to them on the day of the wedding. For chassanim traveling to Israel—my wedding was in Israel—he would give it to them at their last opportunity before they left. The Rebbe would hand over the siddur, and what he would usually say in Yiddish was: “Announce that Moshiach is coming.” That night, at the end, there was a Rambam siyum by Rabbi Grilitzky[?]. So one of the things was that he called me up and said, “The Rebbe’s instruction today is to announce that Moshiach is coming.”

31:17 Speaker 13 So since then, we’ve seen that in addition to your work as a shliach in Or Yehuda, and your involvement in education through the books and booklets you’ve published, you’ve devoted special attention to announcing that Moshiach is coming—both in your place of shlichus and beyond it—by producing materials and, more recently, videos and so on about Moshiach. What’s behind the production of these materials about Moshiach?

31:48 Speaker 11 Look, really, all of the Rebbe’s sichos are for everyone. There’s something personal here that is truly uplifting, but the message is for everyone. The Rebbe speaks about doing everything in a person’s power to bring Moshiach. So whenever we see some product, some form of publicity or anything else, we need to think: How can I use this to bring Moshiach? As we said, one of the things is that while people were initially opposed to communications technology, or to the whole modern world—“anything new is forbidden by the Torah”—the Rebbe said that every new thing, every tool, every technological development, every means of printing that becomes available, is there to be used in the service of Hashem. Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not create anything for nothing, and everything He created, He created for His glory. And from 28 Nissan, as we said, and then at the Kinus Hashluchim, when the Rebbe said that the only shlichus is to receive Moshiach and that everything must be permeated with this—or, as we said, that today the Rebbe tells us to ask of everything how it advances us and how it is permeated with Geulah and Moshiach. So now we need to use every technology, every opportunity for publicity, every chance to say something. Our guys always know: if you find yourself stuck at a bus stop or anywhere else, the Baal Shem Tov says you’ve arrived there on a mission. And that mission isn’t just to announce that there is a Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the world and that creation needs to recognize its Creator. Creation needs to be ready now to receive Moshiach, for that perfect revelation.

33:11 Speaker 3 To announce that Moshiach is coming.

33:12 Speaker 11 To announce that Moshiach is coming. To use everything for Geulah and Moshiach. Levi Yitzchak Ginsburg was my mashpia. One of the things he insisted on—because it’s very hard to get into exactly where each person stands on Geulah and Moshiach, how fired up he is, and whether what he does is considered more extreme or more moderate—was always keeping it at the top of the agenda, always in the headlines. One thing he conveyed was that if it slips down the list and we busy ourselves with other things, it’s almost, G-d forbid, a kind of betrayal of the Rebbe. If we don’t remember to place, as it were, “I will set Jerusalem”—the matters of Geulah and Moshiach—at the forefront of

33:59 Speaker 3 our concerns.

34:00 Speaker 11 Our concerns. At the forefront of our joy, at the forefront of every opportunity we have and everything that happens around the globe.

34:06 Speaker 3 Amazing. So that’s what’s behind producing the cards and all the special materials you’ve made, the special images of the Beis Hamikdash, and all the materials and the recent videos about the Korban Pesach: simply to inspire people and announce that Moshiach is coming. And, baruch Hashem, you’re doing it in such a strong way that there’s something for everyone, and for all of Anash, to see and learn from about how to engage with the subject of Moshiach. So, to conclude the program, Rabbi Friedman: the central theme of this program is “Moshiach-mindedness.” We understand the responsibility that comes from all the Rebbe’s sichos on Moshiach throughout the years of the Temimim, and then the special impetus from 28 Nissan onward. How do we bring that into our everyday lives to the point that we become Moshiach-minded?

34:54 Speaker 11 Particularly with regard to the Temimim: the Rebbe once said that if an offering is called an “olah tamid,” a continual offering, then the same applies to a shliach—you are always a shliach. So first of all, there is the simple faith chassidim have in the Rebbe. Even if the Rebbe says something contrary to the doctors’ opinion or to the way of the world. The same applies to Moshiach, even if we have all sorts of questions. First comes simple faith in the words of tzaddikim, especially when the Rebbe speaks of it as a prophecy of good, from which there is no turning back. Second, we really need to study these matters and yearn for them. And there’s another point that I think goes far beyond outreach. It concerns each person personally, though when you’re truly permeated with it, that can also help with outreach. There’s what it says in Tanya: “All the days of your life—to bring Moshiach.” What does it mean to bring Moshiach? Study, daven—every mitzvah brings Moshiach. In 5751–5752, the Rebbe spoke about something that truly concerns the inner avodah of the Temimim and Anash. If we take the next step in our Moshiach studies, there’s something the Rebbe said in the last sicha we merited to hear. For many years, I don’t recall the Rebbe using the expression “G-dliness is self-evident, while existence is something newly created.” It hardly appears in the sichos; I don’t think it appears much even in the sichos of the early years. But in that last sicha, he speaks about G-dliness being self-evident and existence being newly created, as it will be in the days of Moshiach. And the Rebbe wants us to live today as we will in the days of Moshiach in this respect: to see G-dliness as self-evident and existence as something newly created. When we study the sichos of 5751–5752, the Rebbe lifts us to a different spiritual level, one we hadn’t reached before. Take, for example, the story the Rebbe tells about the Alter Rebbe. The Rebbe says that everyone

36:39 Speaker 11 —the Alter Rebbe was in a state where he said: “I don’t want Your Gan Eden, I don’t want Your World to Come; I want You Yourself.” I want nothing more than You. So we always knew... When they tell a story about chassidim, I can copy and paste it, try to come closer to what it means. But a story about a Rebbe is there to show us how wondrous the Rebbe is. It doesn’t mean that you yourself are connected to that level. The Rebbe says no: everyone is connected to it. Everyone can be a tzaddik; everyone can live with the spiritual matters the Rebbe discusses, even at very high levels. But apparently, as we approach the days of Moshiach, the Rebbe—I don’t know, you could call it floating a little—or perhaps we really do have the strength to live in a spiritual atmosphere that earlier generations didn’t have. And if the Rebbe asks it of us, he certainly gives us the strength to do it.

37:18 Speaker 4 So you’re adding that, besides the general clarity we spoke about from the 5740s onward—“Moshiach now,” “ad mosai,” and all that fire—the message of 5751–5752 is that we need to transform our inner lives, our essential selves, and the character and nature of our souls into lives of the days of Moshiach. There are really two movements here: an outcry and a powerful longing for Geulah, and also beginning to live the Geulah.

37:44 Speaker 11 Yes, a movement of inner avodah. What will my davening look like in the days of Moshiach? My love of Hashem, my Ahavas Yisroel? There’s the idea that today we study everything for some further purpose. The Rebbe says it needs to be for the thing itself, for understanding. So the Rebbe says: to the extent you can, try already today to enter into the experiences being described. That, too, comes about through “our deeds and our avodah.” So now our deeds and our avodah need to begin to be as though we are already inside the Geulah, in our feelings and in our spiritual closeness.

38:20 Speaker 4 Wow. Well, after a program like this, surely everyone will be inspired about Moshiach and can understand that the goal is to be a Moshiach-minded Yid: to love learning about Moshiach and to receive Moshiach—the Rebbe shlita—in yechidus, literally. Thank you very much, Rabbi Friedman. Thank you.

38:40 Speaker 11 May we hear good news. Yechi adoneinu moreinu verabeinu melech hamoshiach leolam vaed.

38:44 Speaker 4 Thank you very much, Rabbi Friedman.

38:47 Speaker 5 Ears to Hear. Audio programs for the Temimim from the World Atah organization. For more programs, dial star 6358. Yechi adoneinu moreinu verabeinu melech hamoshiach leolam vaed.