0008 - 'Cold and Dirty Dark'

00:02 Farbrengen of Simchas Torah tov shin chai, that was the famous farbrengen that has to do with the known Simchas Torah of kalt and shmutzik. That time, Simchas Torah was Thursday and Friday, and then there was Shabbos. So Shabbos was Shabbos Bereishit. Shabbos Bereishit is two farbrengens. There's farbrengen in the morning, and then there's farbrengen in the evening, towards the evening. The big Simchas Torah farbrengen, which in such a kviyus was always Shabbos Bereishit. So on the farbrengen of the morning, that's when the Rebbe spoke about kalt and shmutzik. What happened was that it was raining a lot, and in the sukkah, which that's where was the place where Hakofes was, that's the place where they davened. Upstairs was a small shul. It was small. So downstairs, they had what they called a shalach, which was the biliard, which is really a sukkah. And sukkahs, it was souch on top. But other times of the year, on top of the souch, they would put on a big canvas, and that would protect, and the Rebbe would farbreng there. There are a lot of holes in the canvas. You can imagine it wasn't-- So there were holes in the canvas, and it was raining, and it rained downstairs, and it got full of blotter, full of, of dirt, of mud downstairs. So w- the-- And the-- Normally, they would daven there. And the Rebbe said, "Let me farbrengen." He expected to daven there, but when he went out, he-- The gabbai was standing there, and as they

01:23 were, "Where are we gonna daven?" The Rebbe hoped they say downstairs. And the gabbai said, "Az mu davven eiben in shul, val untn is kalt un shmutzik." Because downstairs, it's cold and dirty. So they davened upstairs. But then lepeil, the farbrengen was all downstairs. But I can remember one of the farbrengens as a kid, but I remember one of the farbrengens, the Rebbe walked out. The Rebbe had, the Rebbe had to walk on the benches. It was mud on the floor, so they made the benches where the people stood, that they cleared it. And when the Rebbe walked out from the shalach, from the farbrengen, he walked out on the benches. He was walking on the benches. So by the farbrengen, Shabbos Bereishit, the first farbrengen, the Rebbe, middle of the farbrengen, spoke about it. And he said that based on what-- Hashem's word, that everything you see or you hear is a ro'eh and a ovedeh. So when the shliach came, and he said that's, "S'kalt un shmutzik," that means it's a shliach mil'meilah. That means that s'nochals kalt un shmutzik. It's still cold and dirty. And he went on crying, crying. I remember crying bitterly. As a kid, I remember it was crying. He even cried so much that he put his head down on the table. And he said that it's already after Elul and after Rosh Chodesh and after Asarah Miketz and Yom Kippur and the yom between Kippur to Sukkot and Sukkot and Halomed and Sheini Rebbeh. It's nochals kalt

02:41 un shmutzik and still kalt un shmutzik, and he explained what kalt un shmutzik is. And it bothered him so much that this is a ro'eh mil'meilah. And this was the, the famous farbrengen of the kalt un shmutzik. A few years later, this was tov shin chaf gimel. See, the first one was tov shin chai. This was tov shin chaf gimel, which is five years later. This Kislev was Sunday. Shabbos was chai Kislev. And I remember I wasn't sure there would be a farbrengen even. But right before Shabbos, the electricity went out, which meant that there was no electricity, so it's dark. And also, it's cold. Downstairs was very cold. This was already in the shul. It was not the shalach, the shul. So they had heating, but there was no e-- no, no h-- no electricity, so there was no heat. So Friday night, when it came to, to come down, so the gabbai, the same gabbai, Reb Meir Chaim Gordon, stood there and told the Rebbe that we can't daven downstairs. Val untn is kalt un finster. It's cold and dark. The Rebbe didn't say anything, went davened upstairs. I remember even Shacharit was upstairs. Imagine tov shin chaf gimel, even though it wasn't a crowd like years later, obviously, but there was still already a big crowd to have to be able to daven. The Rebbe's minyan should be upstairs, but that's what it was. Rebbe minyan's upstairs. And then no one knew if there'd be a farbrengen or not. Lepeil mamish, after

03:46 davening, the Rebbe said there will be a farbrengen downstairs. So the farbrengen was downstairs in the cold, so to speak, in the dark. The Rebbe came down the farbrengen. I'm pretty sure the Rebbe came down with a coat over his shoulders. I don't remember. I think so. Came down, and there was a regular farbrengen. And it was in the dark, but it wasn't that dark because behind the Rebbe those years were the windows. So light, some light came in through the windows. And, uh, the Rebbe farbrenged. And towards the end of the farbrengen, the, the Rebbe told the story of this person who didn't know anything but was learning Tenah Reno. In the Tenah Reno, he learned the Parshah of Vayeshev about the sale of Yosef. They sold Yosef. The brothers sold Yosef. So when he was learning it, reading it, he felt so bad, he started crying. He said, "Such a thing doing to Yosef." Then came next year, and he read the story again. This time he wasn't crying, and they asked him why. So he said, "Now I have no rachmanus on you. You remember from last year what happened. Voh vos krichst du vaiter? Why are you going again?" So the Rebbe used this that since already this is the second time. The first time, tov shin chai, he got nispal from this. Now he doesn't get nispal from this. But he still spoke about it. And then after the farbrengen, the Rebbe said, "We're davening Mincha down here." Always those

05:07 years, even later years, after the farbrengen, the Rebbe would go out of the zal, out of the shul, go upstairs to his room, and a few minutes later would come out upstairs. They would daven Mincha upstairs after the farbrengen. The very later years, it started that they'd daven downstairs straight after the farbrengen. But those years, the Rebbe would leave the farbrengen, go to his room, and then daven upstairs. This time, the Rebbe said bedavke, we're staying here. We're not going upstairs. We're gonna daven Mincha down here, which bis- means davening Mincha in the dark, in the cold, so to speak. And the Rebbe did a davke to show a verknishnis nispal from them. Lepeil Motzei Shabbos, they fixed electricity, and the next night was a farbrengen, and everything's beseder.