0332 - Significance of 25 Years

00:00 We know that by the Rebbe, when a certain special number of years would pass from a certain event, the Rebbe would make a big fuss over it. Like two hundred years, a hundred years, a hundred and fifty years, fifty years, and the Rebbe would speak about it and make a whole fuss over it. I even remember once by Fabrengim, and the Rebbe spoke about something like this, and he stopped for a second, and he said, "On vir Reb Zalman Duchman zurufta son a yubileum." I guess it's called a jubilee, a yubileum, based on the word yevil. So the Rebbe referred to Reb Zalman Duchman zurufta son a yubileum. So by the Rebbe, it was something special. So this goes on ten years, twenty years, thirty years, all kinds of numbers, special numbers. When it comes to the number twenty-five, the Rebbe said that he doesn't know where it says in Torah anything special about the number twenty-five. And this he said in the Fabrengim of Tes Oder Sheini Tov Shin Chof Hei, Shabbos Parshas Vayikra. That was twenty-five years from Tes Oder Sheini when the Friediker Rebbe came to America. So for that Shabbos, a lot of guests came. Those years b'chlal, if a guest came for Shabbos, you would know. It's not like later years where you had every Shabbos tens, twenty, hundreds of guests that would come and you would never know. But those, every Shabbos, there was most the people who were there. If ever a guest came, it was blatant. You

01:20 could see there was a guest. For that Shabbos came a lot of guests. And mainly who were the guests? These were the American Hasidim, the Hasidim that were here in America in those years, in the years of when the Friediker Rebbe came to America in the Shins. And by then, this was a special Yom Tov, the special day, Tes Oder, when the Friediker Rebbe came to America. So there was, you could see right away, there were a lot of people who came for the Fabrengim. So in the middle of the Fabrengim of this Tes Oder Sheini Tov Shin Chof Hei, the Rebbe said that b'chlal we make a fuss over special numbers. But he knows in Torah we find ten years, twenty years, thirty years, and certainly fifty years. But twenty-five years, the Rebbe said so far he didn't see in Torah that we should make a fuss over this number to be a special number. We do find in Tanakh, he said, a nevuah that was said in Esrim v'chamesh shanah l'golasenu, twenty-five years from the golus. But they're not talking about a certain year, a tkufah, certain amount of years which make up a special number. Nevertheless, the Rebbe said, but since it's accepted by people, by Yidden, this kabbalah that twenty-five years is a special year, and then you make a cheshbon of what you did till now, and you make decisions and resolutions for the future, b'meilas, okay if you make a fuss over it. And he brought an example that

02:35 there's a letter from the Rebbe Rashab where he warns very clearly not to say any pilpulim, any haskolas in Tanya, and he speaks very strict about it. Nevertheless, he writes when it comes to avoda, and if you're able to bring out from making these diyukim in Tanya a hisorerus in avodas Hashem, then you're able to do it. So the same thing here, that if we're able to utilize this special number of twenty-five to make a new hisorerus, then it's worthwhile, then it's good. And the Rebbe said especially that we have ponim chadashos, we have guests here who came specially for this, so certainly it's important and it's good and right to utilize this number twenty-five to make it special. And then the Rebbe went into explaining things that the Friediker Rebbe said the day they came to America, and he brought out a hirah from it with shailas, et cetera, et cetera. But here we see that the Rebbe said that even though that the number twenty-five we don't find in Torah being special, but it's in the Kabbalah, and the male of the Rebbe agreed that this number is a number that you could use as an anniversary, especially if in yonim of hisorerus in avodas Hashem will come out.