Rabbi Moti Garmach, Kyoto, Japan - Part 4

00:21 Speaker 1 Shalom aleichem, Motti, how are you?

00:24 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Everything’s delayed.

00:28 Speaker 1 Are you done with the monsoons? Not the monsoons—

00:32 Speaker 2 Typhoon.

00:33 Speaker 1 Typhoon, where you are. Right.

00:34 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes, baruch Hashem. The Japanese are always prepared for... the worst of all.

00:41 Speaker 1 Right.

00:42 Speaker 2 They really are.

00:45 Speaker 1 What was it like?

00:46 Speaker 2 There was rain, a bit of wind, but nothing. No, no, not even close.

00:52 Speaker 1 Ah.

00:53 Speaker 2 But the Japanese always... I guess it says there, “Take very, very, very, very, very good care of yourselves.” Not too hot, not this...

01:04 Speaker 1 Apparently—

01:04 Speaker 2 No, they’re always cautious. With everything, they just want to be sure. To be certain.

01:12 Speaker 1 Their record got stuck on the word “very.”

01:17 Speaker 2 Yes. No, there’s a story about the Seder night. We take the cartons of wine bottles to the hotel across the street, to the large hall there. And... how do I put it? I put down one carton and set the second one on top of it. Two cartons high. And the Japanese man says to me, “Maybe you should put that on the floor, so that if there’s an earthquake right now, it won’t fall.”

01:46 Speaker 1 No, listen—

01:46 Speaker 2 If there’s an earthquake that—yes, if an earthquake strong enough to knock over two cartons stacked on top of each other happens, then the last thing I’ll be worried about is a broken bottle. I mean, there are lots of small earthquakes in our area.

02:04 Speaker 1 Right.

02:04 Speaker 2 So that’s what it’s like, living that way all the time. Everyone lives that way. It teaches us how to be ready for Moshiach.

02:14 Speaker 1 Yes, yes.

02:14 Speaker 2 Always ready for trouble.

02:17 Speaker 1 I think that’s exactly the right comparison. I mean, if we were as ready for Moshiach as they are for earthquakes, things would be a lot better. Yes.

02:30 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

02:30 Speaker 1 Absolutely. Well, Motti, we said that this time you’d tell us about yeshiva, about your time there, and how you got involved in shlichus.

02:45 Speaker 2 Right. So we’ll start... the other way around. We were in yeshiva ketanah, right? The—

02:51 Speaker 1 Yeshiva ketanah. You were in Lod, you were in a room, you were in a group with Yossi and Yonah and—

02:59 Speaker 2 Yes, those righteous young men. No, it really was a very good class. And at around fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, those are the ages when you start forming yourself, finding your direction. You see some who are more chassidish, some less; some who are more diligent, some less. And—

03:25 Speaker 1 At what point did shlichus become something you had to think about personally? I mean, you said that your whole childhood was really shlichus, but that was part of your father’s shlichus. My question is, at what point in your life did you say, “Shlichus is something I want to go into”?

03:49 Speaker 2 Right. I think what we grew up with wasn’t just our father’s shlichus. Our father was more occupied with it, but we all lived—not just with the feeling, but with the reality—of always being ready to help someone. Always looking at what needed help, what needed doing. And it was like that in—

04:13 Speaker 1 A kind of personality that’s always looking for someone who needs help.

04:19 Speaker 2 I mean, being more attentive to helping out. If something isn’t clean, if there’s dirt on the floor, if a siddur is out of place. I noticed it in myself in yeshiva and thought maybe I was the odd one. Then I saw it in my brothers too, and after that I saw it in all of them, each in his own place and in a different way.

04:39 Speaker 1 Bottles too? Do you put the caps back on bottles?

04:43 Speaker 2 Yes. What, if they’re fizzy?

04:46 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:47 Speaker 2 Yes. No, all kinds of little things. I saw it in all my brothers, and you’ll see it even more in [unclear]. And there was also concern for different people. In every class there are those everyone looks after, and there are those who can make themselves heard, and there are those on the edges. They’re quieter by nature and less in the spotlight. So, naturally, you try to see how to bring them in, how to find something to talk about with them, how to... Again, it’s not that this isn’t shlichus, but you don’t approach it that way. It was something that came out of shlichus. And you see it with mivtzoim at yeshiva; it’s something...

05:30 Speaker 1 Wait, explain what mivtzoim are, because not everyone watching knows what you mean when you use that word.

05:37 Speaker 2 Well, Rami Levy has promotions, but the Rebbe of Lubavitch, Melech HaMoshiach, cares about every Jew, wherever they may be. The Rebbe focused that care on both material and spiritual needs. One way of focusing spiritual help is through particular mitzvos. The word “mitzvah” is related to “tzavsa,” meaning connection. A connection of... So how do we connect? Every mitzvah connects us to the Creator, connects us to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And each mitzvah in itself, each such connection, that contact with the Infinite, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—that’s everything. That’s enough. Everyone talks about bringing people back to religious observance. That’s not how the Rebbe raised us. I don’t see it as a goal of bringing everyone back. Every person, every Jew, has their own point of contact with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. More points of contact mean a stronger connection, more... And that’s what the mivtzoim are. There are ten mivtzoim, and it’s all part of the shlichus of Moshiach, as we discussed. Each mivtza, each project, is really about connecting Jews with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, out of concern that every Jew should have a personal relationship with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—not a relationship with rabbis, not a relationship with... Each person should have that personal connection. And the one we all encounter most often, the one people know best, which is in the media now too, is tefillin. You stop someone on the street and ask, “Have you put on tefillin today?” It’s an opportunity to give him the merit of that moment of connecting with the Creator’s will. If I want black coffee and you go to the trouble of bringing me black coffee, then we’ve connected. We’ve become joined together through your fulfilling my wish. And when the Creator asks—wants Jews to sanctify the world by strengthening

07:37 Speaker 2 the connection and bearing witness to the connection between us with the tefillin of the arm and the head, directing the desires of the heart and the thoughts of the mind so that everything is focused on remembering Him and remembering our connection with Him. For a Jew never to have put on tefillin in his life is not a good situation. It’s really about saving every Jew. This week we had... Almost every Jew we put tefillin on in Japan is usually putting them on for the second time since his bar mitzvah, or the first time, or the third time since his bar mitzvah. Many, many Jews who come here don’t put on tefillin daily, or even weekly. And that’s really the... How do you put it? You say smoking isn’t healthy, or drinking cola isn’t healthy, and you see someone drinking and drinking. You say, “Hey, my brother, wake up. Stop. Put the cigarette aside.” You can’t watch him have one after another. So when you see a Jew who hasn’t put on tefillin, you say, “Come on, my brother, let us show you that concern, that we care.” I actually read just now that someone asked—or rather, the opponents, those who disagreed with the Rebbe of Lubavitch’s concern for Jews, with putting tefillin on anyone in the street. One of their complaints was that, outside Israel, the first question you ask is “Are you Jewish?” First you ask whether he’s Jewish. Now, if he isn’t Jewish, then you’ve wasted time you could have spent learning Torah, and you’ve also put yourself in an awkward situation. So how can the Rebbe send his shluchim, his chassidim, out to put tefillin on Jews like that? So the Rebbe—

09:28 Speaker 3 Explain what you mean. You mean that a Chabad shliach who goes out to meet Jews and help them put on tefillin is actually... wasting his time.

09:41 Speaker 2 Yes, but if he... but if he found a Jew and put tefillin on him, then he didn’t waste his time, because he approached him. But along the way he approaches many non-Jews too, and the time he spends approaching non-Jews is one hundred percent wasted, because there was never even the potential for someone to put on tefillin. So that’s the argument, in a way. And the Rebbe actually answers that when a Jew approaches a non-Jew, the first thing it does is awaken something in the non-Jew: “Hey, here’s someone who has a connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I have a connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu too.” So the question itself already has a positive effect. And beyond that, the next step is finding a Jew who has never put on tefillin in his life, who has reached a point where he simply doesn’t put on tefillin—which is not a good spiritual state. Saving him from that state: the time spent doing that is not a neglect of Torah study. That time is part of the mitzvah of finding him. I mean, that’s... But what I’m saying is, the Rebbe’s concern that we reach that Jew so he’ll put on tefillin—that’s a personal concern for a fellow member of our people, for a brother, so that all of us will... how do you say it? So that none of us will be left out of the picture.

10:49 Speaker 3 What picture?

10:51 Speaker 2 The picture of the entire Jewish people. The connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—each person with tefillin, each person with a mitzvah. In other words, not leaving any Jew without putting on tefillin, without that connection. So the goal isn’t to make everyone religious or chareidi. We don’t have a ballot or a political party. The goal really is for each person to have a personal connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And the point you picked up on—

11:13 Speaker 3 What the Rebbe spoke about regarding tefillin was, “All the peoples of the earth will see that the name of Hashem is called upon you, and they will fear you.” In other words, beyond the mitzvah itself, there’s also the matter of creating a deterrent against the nations that want to attack.

11:31 Speaker 2 Yes. When the Rebbe began the tefillin campaign, that’s how we went out. So what was the tefillin campaign? It was a project focused on this during the Six-Day War. And as you mentioned, the goal really was to subdue the enemy. To subdue the enemy. There’s the physical war and there’s the spiritual war. If, G-d forbid, Grandma isn’t feeling well, of course we go to a doctor, but we also open a book of Tehillim. We, the Jewish people, combine the spiritual with the physical. We have never relied on the physical alone. We’re still here today not just because of the physical. There’s no explanation for it apart from the spiritual dimension that’s woven into everything. So the Rebbe began with protecting the soldier—spiritual protection. The spiritual bulletproof vest is putting on tefillin, and that’s the verse: “The name of Hashem is called upon you, and they will fear you.” The moment a soldier puts on tefillin, he strikes fear and dread into the enemy. Those were the great miracles—

12:30 Speaker 4 That’s very important.

12:30 Speaker 2 —of the Six-Day War. Yes. In other words—

12:33 Speaker 4 Okay, so go on. Tell us about the yeshivah and—

12:36 Speaker 2 So, the campaigns. That was part of yeshivah too: going out on Fridays to put tefillin on people. And on Shabbos there were Shabbos parties—going out to say verses of Torah, to learn Torah with children in the area, and to go to shuls... In other words, it’s something you’re steeped in from home. It’s not because someone told you to do it. A Friday couldn’t go by without going out to help another Jew put on tefillin. It’s like not going to shul on Shabbos. It just wouldn’t make sense. Something would be missing.

13:10 Speaker 4 It’s already built into your soul.

13:12 Speaker 2 Yes, because it’s what we grew up with all the time, the whole family, all the time. Tefillin, tefillin, tefillin. Always helping a Jew put on tefillin. It was something... Every Friday, my father would drive by the yeshivah, wake the boys in the dormitory, and take some of them to Beit Dagan[?] to put tefillin on the stallholders[?] there. It was part of life, all the time.

13:40 Speaker 4 Okay.

13:41 Speaker 2 So you feel it in yeshivah too. You feel it in all kinds of little things, but it still isn’t defined by wanting a Chabad House or... It’s a life of shlichus. Because what the Rebbe really wants—a life of shlichus—isn’t someone wearing a badge. It’s not just the official person with a sign that says “Chabad House.” Being a shliach is a state of mind. Wherever you are. I just met a family, and they told me the mother had been a teacher in Crown Heights when she was young and had taught Chabad children. “Yes, we’re not Chabadniks, but the mother taught Chabadniks.” I said, “What do you mean you’re not Chabadniks? Everyone’s a Chabadnik. What do you mean—what is Chabad?” They laughed, but I explained to them the place the Rebbe has brought us to. It’s concern and caring for another Jew, for a brother. And not only for a brother, not only for a Jew, but for non-Jews too, for all the nations of the world. Helping them come to recognize that... You have a treasure in your hands, and you aren’t going to keep it to yourself. Share it with anyone you can help, anyone you can give that knowledge to and help see life differently.

14:56 Speaker 4 So I want to understand. Is shlichus about sharing information with Jews? Is that what shlichus is about?

15:04 Speaker 2 The point is that the Rebbe is the one who sends us. We are the shluchim. So the Rebbe gives us our focus. He focuses us on the goal of bringing Geulah to the world, bringing the revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Today we’re in an olam, a world—a word related to he’elem, concealment. The goal is to bring Moshiach, Moshiach himself and the era of Geulah, when here in the physical world we’ll reach a kind of return to Gan Eden, where that revelation is visible.

15:29 Speaker 4 So what is this matter of—

15:30 Speaker 2 So to reach that, to reach that state, we have a shlichus in the world: to sanctify the physical world, to bring it—

15:42 Speaker 4 And what if a Jew doesn’t want that? Suppose a Jew doesn’t want to get there. “No, Gan Eden doesn’t interest me. Leave it—leave me out of Gan Eden.”

15:49 Speaker 2 Gan Eden doesn’t interest us either. Gan Eden—what about the lives we’re living here today? How do we feel today that we’re not living in order to die, but living in order to live? And living in order to live isn’t a one-dimensional life. It has a deeper dimension, a dimension beyond everything we do. Does every action of mine have awareness behind it? Am I aware, in everything I do, why I’m doing it? What’s my purpose?

16:23 Speaker 4 I thought shlichus was about Moshiach. The Rambam says that one of Moshiach’s tasks is “to compel all of Israel to walk in its ways.” In other words, Moshiach has to teach Torah to all the Jews around the world. So how does he do it? He can’t do it alone, so he sends shluchim to do it on his behalf. That’s what I thought. But perhaps you’re saying something different here.

16:46 Speaker 2 Yes, but we’re at these stages in order to... Again, where does it lead?

16:54 Speaker 4 Where does Moshiach’s shlichus lead? “To compel all of Israel to walk in its ways.” In other words, to teach every Jew what the path of Torah is and tell him, “Listen, my dear fellow Jew, the path of Torah is your path.” To say it pleasantly, beautifully, persuasively—but to say it.

17:11 Speaker 2 In order to bring the Geulah.

17:14 Speaker 4 In order to bring the Geulah, but—

17:17 Speaker 2 In practice, that stage, when Moshiach has to persuade the Jewish people, comes before Hakadosh Boruch Hu decides to redeem the Jewish people.

17:27 Speaker 4 Aha.

17:28 Speaker 2 At that stage... In other words, the final Geulah is the Geulah. The way he brings it about is by bringing the entire Jewish people to that point. That’s an action. The act of caring for every Jew, wherever in the world they may be, is an identifying sign. It’s a sign that identifies someone as presumed to be Moshiach. So one of Moshiach’s tasks is to compel all of Israel. But the goal is for us truly to get there. The goal isn’t only to make sure every Jew follows the path of Torah. The ultimate goal is that, by following the path of Torah, together we’ll experience the Geulah. We’ll truly change the world for the good, for revelation—revealed good, with the light of Hashem revealed everywhere.

18:16 Speaker 4 So you’re saying that every Jew needs to reach that state? And in Kyoto, are you doing that? I mean, do you reach every Jew there?

18:27 Speaker 2 Ah, if only. No. People are here for a very short time, and it’s a big city; they’re scattered everywhere. There are so many places to visit here. To make a distinction, Kyoto is like the Jerusalem of Japan. It’s the ancient city, with sites all over it—some historical and some connected with, let’s call it, idol worship. Shrines—no, not shrines. Ancient temples of other religions. And gardens, Japanese gardens, a lot of culture. So there’s... how do I put it? We go to one or two spots in the city once a week to put tefillin on people or meet Jews in the street. But to do that regularly, it’s hard to fit into the day-to-day, because just running the Chabad House—what does that mean for a Jew—

19:27 Speaker 4 Let’s try to focus on that. You’re saying: Yes, we need to reach every Jew, but I don’t have the capacity to do that, so I try to reach whoever I can.

19:40 Speaker 2 For now.

19:43 Speaker 4 Okay.

19:43 Speaker 2 As the institution becomes more established, yes. We may or may not have mentioned this, but this is really our first year. We’re starting our fifth year, but this is the first year we’re actually dealing with tourists. There were three and a half years without tourists, and before that, before COVID, we were here for a few months, but we were more like guests. That was before the Rebbe actually wrote to us to stay here. So you learn what this place needs. You learn the place itself. And there are so many people who come to eat at the Chabad House, to eat kosher, and that keeps us busy too. And the children growing up at home are homeschooled. Their school day starts in the afternoon, because their teacher starts lessons at eight in the morning in Israel. Eight in the morning in Israel is two or three in the afternoon here.

20:47 Speaker 5 Ah.

20:48 Speaker 2 So you need to start your day in the morning and find a routine for the children. We’re still learning how the system works. Maybe we need to bring more young women on shlichus from Israel to be kindergarten teachers or help with the morning routine, and then we’ll be freer. But we’re learning how things work, learning the conditions, figuring out how to improve things and get them established. There are projects that—

21:20 Speaker 5 Okay. In any case, you’re a child in yeshiva, then a teenager in yeshiva, and you grow up with all this. What’s the next stage?

21:28 Speaker 2 Well, every year, during the month of the Yomim Tovim, the bochurim travel to New York.

21:37 Speaker 5 By the month of the Yomim Tovim, you mean the month of Tishrei, starting with Rosh Hashanah.

21:41 Speaker 2 Tishrei. From before Rosh Hashanah until after Sukkos and Simchas Torah, they travel to experience the Yomim Tovim, the holiest, most elevated time, with the Rebbe in the most elevated place. And... I mean, everyone works on himself, and I have—

21:59 Speaker 5 How old were you? How old were you when you started traveling to the Rebbe?

22:03 Speaker 2 That’s exactly it—I was about fourteen or fifteen, yes. But the very next year, when everyone went, I stayed in Israel. I stayed because my father’s Chabad House needed help. We took turns: which of the brothers would go and which would stay. Each year someone else went, because there was a lot of work and a lot of help was needed from the children. The children know the system best. They know what needs doing, and you don’t have to explain everything from A to Z.

22:43 Speaker 5 Of course.

22:45 Speaker 2 And we stayed in Israel while all our friends went to the Rebbe. It wasn’t much of a dilemma. Being with the Rebbe in New York, and being with the Rebbe on shlichus—sometimes being with the Rebbe on shlichus is closer.

23:07 Speaker 5 Yes, there’s—

23:08 Speaker 2 The upper waters and the lower waters.

23:10 Speaker 5 I think the Rebbe himself said that someone on his shlichus is closer to him than those who are right beside him.

23:18 Speaker 2 Yes. At the creation of the world, the waters were divided into upper waters and lower waters. The upper waters seem higher, more spiritual, more elevated, while the lower waters seem material and lowly. But carrying out the shlichus, doing the will of the Creator, is more elevated. Who says spirituality is a spiritual experience? Spirituality is doing what needs to be done, not having a spiritual experience. And here, actually being there and doing it—that’s carrying out the Rebbe’s will in practice. As we said earlier, a mitzvah connects you with the One whose will it is and with His will. So you want to do... Again, these are things that sink in when you grow up with them. It’s obvious that this is what you’ll do, and when everyone, in my mind—

24:05 Speaker 5 So you grow up in the yeshiva in Lod. Where do you go for yeshiva gedolah?

24:10 Speaker 2 To the yeshiva in Tzfas. It was obvious I’d go to Tzfas, because my father studied there too, and it’s a very happy yeshiva. Tzfas is very... But it was a transition to seriousness. Until then we’d been children, teenagers. Now it was time—how do you say it? Now real, serious life begins.

24:40 Speaker 5 Yes.

24:42 Speaker 2 That’s the feeling when you arrive at yeshiva gedolah. You’re starting now. I mean, there are bochurim who are stronger or less strong in their observance, more or less chassidish—all kinds of levels. Moving to yeshiva gedolah means starting to take things more seriously and with more responsibility. And while I was in the yeshiva in Tzfas, a yeshiva opened in Herzliya Pituach for a while. Rabbi Shalom [unclear] opened it, and they were looking for bochurim to come and strengthen it at the start. Again, there wasn’t much hesitation. It meant leaving where everyone else was, and leaving the whole experience behind, but it meant going where you were needed.

25:32 Speaker 5 In other words, Motti, could you say you’re not attached to your comfort zone? Is that a fair description?

25:38 Speaker 2 No, no, no. I’m not that spiritual. But the comfort is more in the flexibility of deciding what you want to do. Like, what—

25:54 Speaker 5 What’s the guiding principle?

25:55 Speaker 2 Yes.

25:55 Speaker 5 What are we allowed to do?

25:56 Speaker 2 It wasn’t coming from... yes, it wasn’t a matter of being the soldier Yossi, but more part of Motti’s experience. It was an experience of doing what needed to be done and getting more experience, seeing... I also really wanted to hear Eli Elperin give Chassidus classes. I mean, not just Chassidus classes from mashpi’im and teachers, Chabad chassidim who teach in yeshivas, but to hear Chassidus taught by a shliach who had become observant and had lived through life. I mean, to acquire the language for learning Chassidus.

26:41 Speaker 5 To acquire tools for learning Chassidus. That’s a bit over my head. What do you mean?

26:48 Speaker 2 Chassidus deals with spiritual, abstract concepts, and you need to find words—

26:53 Speaker 5 To explore and develop the concepts more deeply. I understand.

26:56 Speaker 2 To convey the message, to use words and expressions. There’s the language of the yeshiva, where the concepts—let’s call them the Kabbalistic concepts, the concepts of Chassidus—are explained with certain nuances, in a particular language. When you hear the same explanation from a shliach who isn’t in a yeshiva now and who works with a different audience, you hear different examples and words. Then your understanding of Chassidus becomes more your own. It’s not an understanding you’re reciting by rote, or a concept you understand but that hasn’t quite settled in. The analogies are drawn more from life, and so on.

27:43 Speaker 5 Yes.

27:43 Speaker 2 Of course, the people teaching in yeshiva do a very good job too. But that was a thought I had.

27:49 Speaker 5 So you did move to Herzliya.

27:52 Speaker 2 Yes, for a few months. I remember a shliach who’s in Herzliya Pituach today, [unclear]. I remember, too, that in one of his talks he said, “You can tell you grew up in a shlichus home.” I mean, a Jew walks into the yeshiva, looking around. What’s he doing here? Does he need something? And someone gets up, approaches him and asks, “Have you put on tefillin? What are you looking for? Do you need something?” It’s a sense of responsibility for a Jew the moment you notice him entering your space. At a certain age, you... I mean, when you go out to put tefillin on people, you stand at a booth and approach everyone. But when someone comes into your space, that’s something that takes—

28:38 Speaker 6 You mean your Chabad House? The Chabad House?

28:42 Speaker 2 No. Well, yes, but it wasn’t the Chabad House. It was the yeshiva.

28:47 Speaker 6 Ah.

28:49 Speaker 2 Y-yes, in Herzliya Pituach. So you’re sort of on the yeshiva grounds, and someone comes in—to learn, to hear something. Going up to him is another matter. It seems like something beyond you, but it isn’t. You’re dealing with seventeen-, eighteen-year-olds who haven’t yet... I mean, you haven’t lived that life, you don’t see it as something that comes so naturally. There was also a yeshiva in Haifa, and a branch of the Tzfas yeshiva, but again, it was always within yeshivas. It’s a place of responsibility. And I think that’s shlichus. You see it again in the person who looks around him, you see? There’s a parable chassidim tell about how everything we see and hear is a lesson in serving Hashem. There’s the story of how the Cossacks chose a horse. They would put them through all kinds of physical exercises and training, and one of the tests was to cross a raging river—to swim against the current and get across. But that wasn’t enough for the Cossacks. If a horse saw another horse struggling—

30:15 Speaker 6 You mean that wasn’t enough for the horse to pass the test?

30:18 Speaker 2 Right. The horse wouldn’t be accepted; it wouldn’t pass the test unless, when it saw another horse getting weak and having trouble crossing, it would grab the other horse with its teeth and help it reach the other side. That was a horse the Cossacks could rely on. It was a horse that had done the job. It wasn’t just a horse that could win. It didn’t just win; it cared.

30:51 Speaker 6 I see.

30:52 Speaker 2 That’s a parable we heard in yeshiva, and it stayed with us all the time. It’s something that, how do you say it, stands. I mean, this isn’t about achievements. Being a chassidishe bochur isn’t an achievement of, uh, being—

31:10 Speaker 6 How many bochurim were there in the yeshiva in Herzliya?

31:14 Speaker 2 In Herzliya there were ten, fifteen of us. A small group. We were there for a while—not a long time. Afterward we also spent a period in Haifa, on Rosenbaum Street.

31:29 Speaker 6 So both in Haifa and in Herzliya.

31:31 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Herzliya wasn’t for long. I don’t have the dates clear in my mind now. It might have been three months, two months, something like that. Over the course of our three years in yeshiva there, right? But this story, the parable of the horse—that’s something you see in yeshiva. You notice the bochurim: who’s chasing achievements. Achievements in learning, achievements in Chassidus, and perhaps in many other things, even putting tefillin on someone else. I mean, it becomes a matter of—I don’t know if “achievements” is the word—but of being perfect, or being—

32:20 Speaker 6 Competitive.

32:20 Speaker 2 Yes, but not just competitive. Not necessarily. Not competitive with others—with himself. A person trying to reach a certain peak. But that isn’t the peak. The peak is... that isn’t the goal. The goal is where you are now, and how much you see the people around you. That’s what I remember from yeshiva. You see it all the time among the bochurim: those who were in that place either went on shlichus somewhere in the world or went on shlichus in yeshivas. Today I have many friends who work in yeshivas, who are in yeshivas, and their genuine care for each young person, each student, comes from a deep place. That really is the spirit of dedication, the spirit of shlichus. You see it in so much: the education to care for another person to the point of taking responsibility. And yes, that was there in yeshiva too, with all the farbrengens. Reb Maidovnik[?]—hearing so many of his insights—and Rabbi Orenstein on the inner work of serving Hashem. But that was the atmosphere: constantly being driven to do something. What does the Rebbe want from us? What does the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach want us to do now? In the third year, the seventh year... I was responsible for the tefillin campaign. For the whole yeshiva: where each bochur would go to put tefillin on people, and the entire operation. Assigning everyone and making sure each one was set up, and deciding who he would go with. Some people assign the guys randomly, just distributing the names. But then they don’t feel comfortable. Because even with going out to put tefillin on people, if you go with someone you don’t click with, someone who isn’t on your wavelength, who you don’t get along with so well, it won’t—

34:21 Speaker 2 last. After a month or two, he... Not everyone will actually keep going out. So you have to think about that: how to assign people, how to make sure each person is in a good situation, and ask him what he’s missing and what food they’ve taken. We’d go out from Tzfas on Fridays—I’m talking about more than fifteen years ago. We’d get to Maalot, Akko, Karmiel, Nahariya. Nahariya was the end of the route in one direction; in the other direction, toward Haifa, we’d go as far as the Krayot. We really spread out across the whole area. So that meant organizing transportation, payments and assignments, how many needed to go out, and making sure there was food and everything was taken care of.

35:18 Speaker 6 You were responsible for that whole operation?

35:21 Speaker 2 Yes.

35:21 Speaker 6 How many bochurim did you send out each Friday?

35:25 Speaker 2 Oh, I don’t remember numbers. But say there were 350 bochurim in the yeshiva. It was something like three buses, or two buses plus rides to various places—the industrial zone, Kiryat Sh... I mean, a bus would go along and drop bochurim off on the way. One would go to Kiryat Shmona and drop people off along the route; another would go to Nahariya and do the same.

35:55 Speaker 6 I see. And was that what made you want to become a shliach and open a Chabad House, or something like that?

36:04 Speaker 2 No, not yet. I mean, it wasn’t a thought that was so—

36:10 Speaker 6 Clear.

36:11 Speaker 2 Yes. It was clear in a way; it was in the background, that it would happen. The question was where. I did have the thought of going abroad.

36:21 Speaker 6 Why specifically abroad?

36:24 Speaker 2 Seeing the shluchim abroad, their impact and their stories, and knowing myself—that I’m not spoiled, and that different things don’t frighten me.

36:41 Speaker 6 Okay. So then you finish yeshiva gedolah and travel to the Rebbe.

36:48 Speaker 2 I travel to the Rebbe.

36:48 Speaker 6 For what’s called kvutza.

36:51 Speaker 2 Yes. A full year studying by the Rebbe in New York. You experience that whole period, the whole year, all the Yomim Tovim. As you begin your life, you get that boost, that personal connection with the Rebbe. That’s the year of study called kvutza: a whole year learning by the Rebbe, with the Rebbe. The framework for learning there is looser on the administration’s part. You’re already older, nineteen or twenty, and you’re responsible for yourself. It’s up to you whether you get up on time, whether you start your day.

37:38 Speaker 6 And you remember what it’s like in practice. I mean, some bochurim arrive late or don’t come at all, and you’re sitting there learning in the shul at 770, with all the noise around you. It isn’t so simple. It’s not like sitting in an orderly classroom where everyone is learning together.

38:02 Speaker 2 Right. It isn’t lectures and classes. Yes, 770 is the generator of the world, a place where every evening, every day, a different shliach from somewhere in the world comes in. Visitors come from all over the world. It’s a tourist destination that draws people from everywhere. People come to daven, to ask for a bracha from the Rebbe. So you have so many distractions—that’s true. But the focus is... Maybe I also heard this from a mashpia in yeshiva, but for me it was set: start your day. No matter when you went to sleep, because there are always farbrengens, always fascinating things in the evening, special conversations and special people to listen to. But in the morning—start your morning. If you didn’t sleep enough at night, you can go back and rest afterward. But start the morning. No matter what—

38:58 Speaker 6 Wait, wait, wait. Explain this to us. You mean no one tells a yeshiva bochur what to do; he tells himself.

39:08 Speaker 2 A yeshiva bochur does have... When we were talking earlier about yeshiva in Israel, there is a framework there, and there is—

39:14 Speaker 6 In Israel, yes. I’m talking about by the Rebbe.

39:17 Speaker 2 At the Rebbe’s, at least back—today it’s a little different. In our time, there was attendance, but it wasn’t really... It was a stage in life when you were responsible for yourself. Responsible for getting there on time, responsible for having a chavrusa, responsible for—

39:38 Speaker 6 So in practice, it develops a person’s self-discipline.

39:41 Speaker 2 Completely, completely. And there, in that atmosphere, it’s constantly a hub for interesting and remarkable people—truly remarkable people. Special rabbis, special shluchim from all kinds of places around the world arrive, and in the evening someone is sitting at a table with a bottle for l’chaim, and... I mean, there’s always something. Every time of year, it’s—

40:06 Speaker 6 770 is everyone’s courtyard. It’s a very large place, with room for thousands of people. And then someone comes along, as you said, with a bottle and a few salads, puts them on the table and starts talking, and people begin gathering around him.

40:19 Speaker 2 Usually he comes to daven Maariv or something, and the bochurim say to him, “Wait, wait—what did you come for? Come on, let’s hear something. You must have a few stories.” Then they start talking while standing, and someone says, “We’re already talking—let’s sit down.” So one person goes to bring a bottle and another goes to bring salads. It’s not that he brought the bottle; things just develop. Someone has a wedding in the family, so he’s come. And throughout the year you have the Kinus Hashluchim, and you have the holidays. Then there’s the period of Chabad holidays. You have Tishrei, you have Chanukah, and at every time of year you have guests arriving from all over the world especially for that gathering, that period, that particular holiday taking place that week or around that time. I mean, it’s Tel Talpiyos, the hill toward which everyone turns. Everyone comes to visit, to see the Rebbe, to ask the Rebbe for a blessing. And inside a hall like that, inside such a large shul, there’s an area where the students sit and learn. And there you have to remember that your job is to sit and learn, with everything going on around you.

41:28 Speaker 6 With all the noise around you, you still have to concentrate and learn.

41:32 Speaker 2 Yes.