Rare Audio Recording of the Frierdiker Rebbe

Welcome to our weekly Mivtza Shabbos program.

Tonight is also Mivtza [Shabbos?]. So in honor of Mivtza, I want to share with you a tape. I mean, the tape is really probably an hour, but I'm just going to play ten minutes of it, if I bring you some of the Frierdiker Rebbe.

So I want to share this with you, but before this I want to say something, since today was Shabbos, and it's not usual that we read it this way - we usually start the second [reading] - we always say [this], but only on Shabbos. So I saw a very interesting note in the notes of Rabbi Mindel, and maybe [he] discussed it with the Rebbe, because in his notes he writes things that are [brought] from the Medrash. That's why he writes that a person gives [tzedakah/ma'aser] so that he should become rich and see his mazel, see his luck. So he asks there: what's the connection between becoming rich and mazel, luck?

So he says there that it's spelled Taf, Ayin, Shin, Reish - Taf is 400, Ayin is 70, Shin is 300, and Reish is 200. So Taf is 400 - a tenth of 400 is 40, which is Mem. Ayin is 70 - a tenth is 7, which is Zayin. Shin is 300 - a tenth is 30, which is Lamed. And Reish is 200 - a tenth is 20, which is Kaf. This is what I saw, he said over here. And since today was Shabbos, we read [this] - I wanted to just tell you that word that I saw in the note.

Now let's go back to what I have here, the tape. Some people have heard it already; I have more tapes, but I thought I would play this one. It's only ten minutes - people probably already heard it. It was recorded - if I'm not mistaken - [date unclear], half a year before the histalkus.

So first we will hear on the tape the way the Rebbe was called on, then he was discussing - reviewing with a Rabbi - [what was said] the year before. And if you listen carefully, you'll see there's a different opinion as to what the Frierdiker Rebbe was saying - the Rabbi feels this way, [another] feels that he understands it differently. Anyway, if you listen carefully for a minute, a minute and a half, you'll be able to hear that. I thought I would put that on.

Now, what [the Frierdiker Rebbe] was saying is that a mashpia, a mentor, has to be like a funnel. A funnel is wide on top, so it can receive a lot, and then narrower on the bottom. So it has a lot of channels, narrowing down to smaller and smaller ones, so that not a single drop should fall out - every drop should go in. That's what he's saying, that's why I understand that the nimshal (the lesson) is: a mashpia, a teacher - a lecturer, I guess - has to be like a funnel, in a way that he knows a lot, and when he gives it over to a child, he should give it so that the child is able to receive it, narrowing it down, every child in his own way. This is how I understand what [the Frierdiker Rebbe] was saying, that the Rebbe was reviewing with [a Rabbi]. That's number one.

Number two, we will hear the Frierdiker Rebbe's voice - we probably cannot understand it clearly, [but] I put a lot of work into understanding it, so I'll tell you what he spoke about. But just listening to the Frierdiker Rebbe is worthwhile just to hear his voice - it touches the heart; you can feel the way he speaks.

And the third thing you'll hear is a niggun, a song that they were singing. At that farbrengen the Frierdiker Rebbe was there, the Frierdiker Rebbe's son-in-law was sitting on the right side, the Rebbe was sitting on the left side, the Frierdiker Rebbe was of course in the middle. And Rabbi Bin [?] was there, Rabbi Ashkenazi was there, I think Rabbi Yolis [?] was there. Rabbi Jacobson, Rabbi Simpson, Rabbi Hodakov, Rabbi Mindel - you know, they were all there already. And they were sitting at the table there, listening to this.

So, you know, you can't really understand it [the recording clearly], so I'll just tell you more or less what the Frierdiker Rebbe was talking about.

He says like this: that the Alter Rebbe received [this] from the Maggid, [and] the Maggid received [it] from the Baal Shem Tov [?]. "What do you remember?" - this is what he starts with. In other words, this phrase - "vos gedenkstu," what do you remember - [unclear] revives, with a kind of techiyas hameisim, the revival of the dead, for generations to come. Not only do you live, but you develop another dimension. This is how the Frierdiker Rebbe started. In other words, the inyan (the point) is: what do you remember?

And then he says: this is what my father used to ask me always - he would say "vos" - and he said this he received from [unclear whose father], that the Baal Shem Tov [?] asked him one time, "What do you remember?" And by the way, this was said at the first yahrtzeit of the [BMP - unclear], when the [BMP's] son got up and said that the whole pamalya shel ma'alah (heavenly entourage) moved to Mezritch. Then he asked everybody, "What do you remember?"

So apparently, to remember, people should always sit together and say "what do you remember," and "I know" - sit together and say "I know." He said many times there's a [story] that illustrates this, that he was telling over when he spoke: walking outside in the summer heat, 100 degrees, and they're carrying their talis and tefillin, and a woman is sitting on the 15th floor looking down, and she sees [men] with beards walking like that - this reminds her of her grandfather or her father, and this gives her [something]. So it's important - people should always remember what they remembered.

Then the Frierdiker Rebbe says here: years ago (amol), the shuls were full of [unclear] - people who davened - [they] used to be full of daveners, but it wasn't just saying words, he says. When they davened it was avodah, it was hard work - they sweated when they davened. Not only were they sweating, but also the walls were sweating while the people were davening. That's out, nowadays [unclear] - also, excuse me - a person before he goes to sleep, he says - this was the way it's supposed to be - not just to say words, but he makes a reckoning (cheshbon) of the previous day, how the day was and how it should be.

This is how a person should be, how he remembers. The Rebbe also says here, which we can't fully understand, that davening has to be real work. He says: just like a worker, when it's time to go to work early in the morning, he gives a sigh - he still wants to sleep. Even though he has another 15 minutes left, he breaks himself [to get up]; it's aching, his bones are aching, he still wants to rest, but he remembers that he has to go to work. The same thing also [applies to davening] - this is important. We have to take away from our eating, take away from our sleeping, and the davening has to show results. Where am I holding?

That's what [the Frierdiker Rebbe] was saying here, in general - that when we begin davening, we should know that our parents, our grandparents, and the tzaddikim who are in Gan Eden are waiting for us [to daven properly]. I promise you, when people will do that, [Hashem] will fulfill all the brochos that they need. This is what he says here.

Now I remember once - the Frierdiker Rebbe doesn't say this here, but I know the Frierdiker Rebbe was [once] - I don't know if it was in Poland or here - in shul, the way they daven, and he sees people walking around, back and forth; he walks, he doesn't stand in one place. So he says to somebody that he can't find a place. He can't find a place; he comes here, he goes over there. And that's what this is all about. Then he says: if we would be careful when we daven, the davening would be [real] davening. When we daven, we wouldn't eat so much food, [we wouldn't] sleep so much - and that's in [unclear] - that's in a person's lifetime.

Then he says it's hard for me to speak and [to be] especially demanding, [because] we have to live and let other people live. That's one of the things he was saying here.

Then he says we have to have a feeling of ahavas Yisrael - when somebody meets somebody, he asks him, "Brother, how are you?" This was the language they used to speak. They would hug each other, kiss, and ask, "Brother, how do you feel?" This was the habit that they used to do, and his father used to do like this also, the elders. But this is a "dry" ahavas Yisrael - it has to be a "wet" ahavas Yisrael. We have to see the other person's point, he says, from the other person's side. So the fault is in him; when that would be [the case], that would be good.

Anyway, then he says here - I'm going to finish what he says, more or less - taste the good in it, even if the other one is not the way he's supposed to be. This is what's missing in him; if the other one would know what he knows, he would surely be different.

This is more or less what the Rebbe is saying. So I left out some words. So I thought today I would let you listen to this tape.

[At this point the recording is played: the Frierdiker Rebbe's voice is heard, followed by those present singing a niggun. The audio quality does not allow for an accurate word-for-word transcription.]

...he suffered the most. We all know the history of the Frierdiker Rebbe, his mesirus nefesh for Yiddishkeit. He was known for his love for every Jew. He was very sensitive, very warm, caring, and you can feel it. But [in] the niggun that they sang, you can feel the way he talks - it reaches the heart.

I just want to mention, before I finish off, that he asked many different people, "Did you have a warm meal today?" Everyone, he said, should have a warm meal every day.

We know maybe it happened with other Rebbeim too, but I know [about] the Frierdiker Rebbe - I heard that after [a gathering], his daughter - I don't know which one, I think it was K[?] - she helped him take off his shirt, and his undershirt was wet, his shirt was also wet, sweating. So she asked him, "Tatte, why is it so wet? When you sit and people come in, you sit, you talk to them, you don't seem like you're sweating - why is it wet?" So he says that when people come in, he has to dress himself into that person - when the person walks in, he dresses [himself so that] he is like that person. This is the person, and every person has their issues or whatever it is, and now that person walks out and another person walks in, so he has to undress himself from the other person and dress himself into this [new] person.

This is why he was sweating - he felt every person, he felt this way. So I thought today - some people probably heard this already - but this, in honor of Moshiach Now.