How Did Yud Beis Tammuz Become Chag Hageulah

Welcome to our weekly [Mitzvah Yiddish Shabbos?] program.

Next week will be Yud Beis Tammuz. So by Chassidim, the month of Tammuz is called Chodesh HaGeulah, because Yud Beis Tammuz is the time that the Frierdiker Rebbe was released from prison. Even though Chazal tell us that Tammuz and Av are months of aveilus, mourning — you know, Tammuz is Shiva Asar B'Tammuz and Av is Tisha B'Av — but by divine providence, by Hashgacha Protis, the Frierdiker Rebbe was released from prison in the month of Tammuz, and by Chassidim it's called a happy month, Chodesh HaGeulah, even though it's also Chodesh Aveilus. The Rebbe gave a vort on this Hashgacha Protis.

So there are two questions. Why — what's the connection? Why davka is Tammuz Chodesh HaGeulah and Chodesh Aveilus? What connection does the geulah have to do with the aveilus? That's number one. And the other question is: why do we make such an inyan of Tammuz, of the Frierdiker Rebbe, calling it Chodesh HaGeulah? Many, many tzaddikim, Chabad and not Chabad, suffered and went through prison, and we don't make a Chodesh HaGeulah. And davka by Tammuz, davka the Frierdiker Rebbe — in the chodesh of aveilus we call it Chodesh HaGeulah. Why? What's so special?

So Chazal tell us that when Moshiach will come, Tisha B'Av will be the greatest Yom Tov. And as we mentioned once, of the Three Weeks, the first day, Shiva Asar B'Tammuz, will be Yom Tov; the last day, Tisha B'Av, will be Yom Tov; and in the middle will be like Chol HaMoed. So it will be the biggest Yom Tov, the Three Weeks. So now, since we're getting closer to Moshiach, now it's ikvesa d'Meshicha. And Chazal say that on Friday we should taste a little something for Shabbos — some people eat cholent on Friday, some people eat kugel on Friday, something from Shabbos, to feel a little Shabbos. So by Hashgacha Protis we call this month the month of Geulah, because since we're so close to Moshiach, we're tasting the geulah. This is why this month is like a taste of Shabbos — because it's going to be the biggest Yom Tov, so now we're tasting something that is going to be.

Now, we know that wherever there is darkness, you get light in the morning — the greatest darkness is before dawn, before it gets light. So now, in this geulah, which is ikvesa d'Meshicha, Hashgacha Protis has given us a geulah, and that's why by Chassidim we call it a geulah.

But the question still remains: we don't see this by other [tzaddikim] — why is a release from prison so great that we call that day a geulah? So the answer is: every year there's a Yom Tov, but this is a Yom Tov specifically for Chassidim. Why? So we once spoke that for Chassidim there are four Yomim Tovim. This is a Yom Tov for everybody, but for Chassidim that's the time of geulah.

The first Yom Tov is the Yom Tov of Purim. Haman wanted to kill the Jewish bodies — it didn't matter who, as long as you killed them, kill the bodies. There was a great miracle — the miracle of Purim — so we got rid of the guy.

The enemy saw that they couldn't get rid of the Jewish bodies, so they said, let's go and try to get rid of the Jewish neshamos, the souls. That's the Yom Tov of Chanukah. Chanukah comes after Purim. [They decreed:] learn Torah, but don't do it. If you forget about doing the Torah, then you're hurting the neshama. So that's called getting rid of the neshama, and that was the nes of Chanukah.

So they saw they couldn't get rid of the guf, the body, and they couldn't get rid of the neshama. What do we do now? Let's go to the pnimius of the neshama — let's get rid of the pnimius of the neshama, the essence of the soul. That's the Yom Tov of Yud Tes Kislev. Yud Tes Kislev — for sure, if not for Yud Tes Kislev, we wouldn't have Chassidus. That's the Alter Rebbe. We wouldn't have Chassidus — also called Rosh Hashanah for Yidden. And that was the Yom Tov of Yud Tes Kislev, that the Alter Rebbe went out of prison.

They saw they couldn't get rid of the guf, the body. They saw they couldn't get rid of the neshama. They couldn't get rid of the pnimius of the neshama. Let's go and get rid of the Rebbe himself. And this is what Yud Beis Tammuz is. If not for Yud Beis Tammuz, chas v'shalom, we wouldn't have a Rebbe. And if we wouldn't have a Rebbe, we would not have Yiddishkeit today.

Other tzaddikim also went out of prison — it's a big Yom Tov — but they went out of prison, and there's a private life. Or they have a yeshiva, they made a yeshiva. Or they have, as the Rebbe once said, a hoyf, a "yard" — a Satmarer yard, a Belzer yard, a Gerer yard. There's no Lubavitcher yard. This is a world. [unclear] This is what the Frierdiker Rebbe accomplished, coming to America. And this is why America is a piece of ice, and he came here and said he'll break the ice of America, to bring Moshiach. So it's not that Chabad is just Chabad — it's a world. So when the Rebbe was saved, this is a Chag HaGeulah for Klal Yisrael. This is why it's called Chag HaGeulah, a Chodesh HaGeulah.

Now, the reason the churban happened is because of sinas chinam, because there's no love amongst the Yidden. The first Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of gilui arayos, shfichus damim, avodah zarah — people served idols. So they did teshuvah, and they were able to build the second Beis Hamikdash. But the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed not because of that — it was hate, sinas chinam. Sinas chinam is something you can't touch — it's hard to do teshuvah on. You don't feel like you have a sin — sinas chinam. So to build the third Beis Hamikdash, you have to have ahavas chinam.

This is what the Frierdiker Rebbe — the whole inyan of the Frierdiker Rebbe — was ahavah, love. As we see: when the Frierdiker Rebbe became bar mitzvah — imagine, the Frierdiker Rebbe's bar mitzvah, what he knew — the Rebbe Rashab asked him, "My son, you're bar mitzvah today, tell me what you want, I'll give you anything in the world — what do you want to ask?" Out of everything, he could have asked the hardest thing in Nigleh, Chassidus, whatever. What did he ask? Why do we say "Ve'ahavta lere'acha kamocha" before davening, not in the middle of davening? What bothered him? Love. His inyan was ahavah. And that's why he was in prison.

Now, I saw a letter one time — an amazing letter. I don't think anybody saw it, and this is davka in English. The Rebbe uses the word — somebody asked him about ahavah. Love means ahavah. Ahavah comes from the word that the Rebbe says, "hav," in Targum — "hav." "Hav" means give. He asked, "How can I love somebody I don't even know? How can I love him? I love everybody — Ve'ahavta lere'acha kamocha, everybody." So the Rebbe says "hav" — when you give, automatically you love. Automatically the person loves you, and you love him, when you give tzedakah. When you give tzedakah, you automatically love — there's a love there. When you give somebody a matanah, a present, when you do somebody a favor, when you help somebody — not only that, when you tell somebody "good Shabbos." You walk through on Shabbos and you say good Shabbos — do you know how a person feels? A person feels good. You did a favor, and this brings love. You show somebody a good face — this is called ahavah. "K'mayim hapanim lapanim, kein lev ha'adam la'adam" — by Yidden, you know, we always say Sholom Aleichem. By Yidden it's — I say to you Sholom Aleichem, what do you answer? Aleichem Sholom. You do the opposite: I say first Sholom, and then Aleichem; you say first Aleichem, then Sholom. Why? Because you're a Yid, you have to say the opposite. But the truth of the matter is Sholom Aleichem/Aleichem Sholom — the reason is because we start with Sholom; I start with Sholom and you end with Sholom. Peace. Hevei mitalmidav shel Aharon — ohev shalom, rodef shalom, ohev es habriyos u'mekarvan laTorah. This is what the Frierdiker Rebbe was. This is the Frierdiker Rebbe's inyan of ahavas Yisrael.

So when it comes to Yud Beis Tammuz — Yud Beis Tammuz is the Chag HaGeulah. So it's not just that the Frierdiker Rebbe, a person, came out of prison — which is a big thing also — but the Rebbe came out, we all came out of prison. It's a geulah for Klal Yisrael. And that's why the Chag HaGeulah is davka in the chodesh of aveilus.

That's one thing I wanted to say. Now I want to say something else today, and I'll finish off with that. Yud Beis Tammuz — next week — is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Nissan Mindel. He was born on Beis Nissan — the yahrtzeit of the Rebbe Rashab — that's why his name is Nissan. And he passed away on Yud Beis Tammuz, the Chag HaGeulah.

His whole life was devoted to the Rebbe. He learned in a yeshiva in Lita, in [Novardok?] — not Chabad. The same yeshiva [attended by] Rabbi Hodakov [?]. Imagine — the Rebbe's secretaries, the two most important secretaries, the Frierdiker Rebbe's and the Rebbe's, came from a kingdom of Torah there.

Now, he had a very good head. So the Frierdiker Rebbe was there, and he chose one of the best students to come to him and to translate the Tanya. Rabbi Mindel never learned Tanya before — he wasn't Chabad. Later on, he learned with the Rebbe. The Frierdiker Rebbe wanted the Tanya translated into English. You have to know Tanya to translate it. And as you look in the English Tanya, in the last few paragraphs, the Rebbe writes, in the hakdama, the introduction, that in [previous] generations people wanted to translate the Tanya and they couldn't, until Rabbi Dr. Mindel came, and he translated the Tanya.

Can you imagine what kind of head he had? When he wrote his thesis — I have his thesis — he wrote it for his PhD; the Rebbe told him to get a PhD. So he wrote his thesis on Tanya. The professors were amazed for days and days, how a person could write such a thesis. Can you imagine — he could have been the biggest professor. And the Frierdiker Rebbe told him, "Come with me on the boat, come to America. Tanya is a closed book because it's in Hebrew — literal Hebrew — and Hebrew is a limited language, not everybody speaks Hebrew. But English — more Yidden speak English. So we need the Tanya to be written in English."

As a matter of fact, talking about Tanya — when in '62 the Tanya was printed, Rabbi Mindel gave the Rebbe the Tanya, and the Rebbe's face lit up. That was the time of Sputnik. Whoever remembers Sputnik — so the Rebbe said, the whole world makes a tumult about Sputnik going around the world — we don't make a tumult about the Tanya going out in English? The Rebbe said then we have to make a whole big deal about the Tanya in English — why do you make such a big fuss about Sputnik [and not about this]?

So the manuscript that the Frierdiker Rebbe had acquired — the Frierdiker Rebbe gave it to the Rebbe, the Rebbe gave it to Rabbi Mindel, and they were learning together, and that's how he completed the Tanya.

I remember Rabbi Zalman Posner — when he wrote [his work], he said that if not for Rabbi Mindel, he couldn't have done his work on Tanya, because this was his foundation for the Tanya. And then the Frierdiker Rebbe [unclear] guided him through the whole thing, until the last thing.

The last thing — which I'm not going to go into today — the Rebbe called in Rabbi Hodakov, and he called in Rabbi Mindel, and he called in Rabbi Pekarsky, and he asked Rabbi Mindel to take a pencil and write down what he said, to take notes. And Rabbi Mindel wrote down the notes. This is how close he was to the Rebbe.

[clears throat]

So therefore, since next week is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Mindel, what I'm going to say is that we should have an aliyah for his neshama, and I'm sure whatever he did in this world, he is doing the same thing in the other world.

Next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.