0555 - Giving a Shtender to the Rebbe by Farbrengen

00:01 In the farbrengen of Chof Tes Elul, Tov Shin Chof Beis, the night of Erev Rosh Hashanah, Tov Shin Chof Gimel, they brought the shtender that they brought from Eretz Yisrael to the farbrengen. They gave it to the Rebbe. And as I said, they made it in Eretz Yisrael, they brought it from Eretz Yisrael, and they copied the shtender that the Rebbe had from before that was there in the shul, and they gave it to the Rebbe. And the Rebbe spoke about it. And the Rebbe explained the inyan neruchnia is based on a story that the Friediker Rebbe told that once the Alter Rebbe asked his son, the Mittler Rebbe, "With what did you daven Rosh Hashanah?" And he answered, "I davened with the hisbonanus, im v'chol koimei l'fanecha tishtacheve." Koimei means the whole setup of everything bows down to Hashem. Then he asked his father, the Alter Rebbe, "With what did you daven?" He said, "Chag daven mit di shtender. I daven with the shtender." And the Rebbe explained what this means. V'chol koimei l'fanecha tishtacheve, says Chassidus, goes on koimei the ark, which means and the whole seder hishtalshelus. And he was musbaenen how the whole seder hishtalshelus is bottled to Hashem. But when the Alter Rebbe told him that he davened with the shtender means he was musbaenen concerning the inyan of the shtender. What's the inyan of a shtender? A shtender basically is a deimem. A deimem means an, an inanimate object. Even though originally it was semeach, it grew, it was

01:21 a tree, it was wood, but it turned into a inyan of deimem, which means it became even lower than before. So this is even a lower level than deimem. Bechol, we have four levels in the world. Inanimate objects, then you have the plant life, and the animal life, and the human being. And the shtender is even lower than the deimem because it's not just a deimem. It was, it's semeach and turned into a deimem, so it went down on the madrigas. It shows on the lower madriga. And the Alter Rebbe was musbaenen even that is bottled to Hashem. And the Rebbe explained how that bittul is a greater bittul than the bittul when you musbaenen v'chol koimei l'fanecha tishtacheve. Because when you're musbaenen in the seder hishtalshelus is bottled to Hashem, it comes from sechel that you understand how this, this thing is bottled to Hashem and everything is bottled to Hashem, but it's limited to how much you're understanding and limited to how much that thing that you're thinking about is. But the shtender, which is a deimem, and a deimem which helps a person daven because it's a shtender that you could put your siddur, siddur on and you could lean on, so it helps a person daven. Davening is when you reach to understand the bittul of the everything, and when you use the shtender to help you, then it brings out this point that the bittul is even a greater bittul than the bittul that you have through your understanding v'chol

02:34 koimei l'fanecha tishtacheve. Why? Because the shtender is a deimem, and it helps you daven, and there is no hisbonanus in the shtender. The shtender itself has no-- nothing to understand, and it helps you understand. It means you understand how there is a bittul which is beyond any limit. So the inyan of being musbaenen in the shtender, that brings out a greater bittul than the bittul that you understand from v'chol koimei l'fanecha tishtacheve. And this is connected, Rebbe said, to dor de'ikvas d'Meshicha, to the generation of the ikvaim, of the heels of Meshicha, because that's the inyan of a heel. A heel has no sechel, and the bittul that it has is the greatest bittul. Like it says in Chassidus, when the Gaon of Mashiah Rabbeinu, it says Mashiah Rabbeinu was the greatest taon of... So it says that he was the greatest taon of s- more even when he saw the future, he saw what's gonna be with the people in dor de'ikvas d'Meshicha, a time when people will no have understand-- no understanding, no... But they will be completely bottled to Hashem with a mesirus nefesh. And that's hinted in the inyan of the bittul of the shtender, that the shtender is a mesius which is completely bottled to Hashem, even though it's a very low madriga, but it has this level of bittul. And this is what the Alter Rebbe said when the Gaon, his, his bonanus. And the Rebbe said the lesson we take from here, that that's even though who could

03:49 be in the level of the Alter Rebbe, but nevertheless, we have to come to a level of bittul, a bittul to understand that everything is bottled mesius from the highest to the lowest, but not just part of a b'koimei, but the lowest something that's very, very low is also bottled to Hashem, and that's the highest understanding that you could get and feeling of the gedera of bittul. And that's what we're supposed to do in the month of Elul and, and Tishrei, et cetera, et cetera. After the farbrengen, the Rebbe said they should take the shtender up to his room, and it went up to his room. They didn't know how long it's gonna stay there. It stayed there quite a few months, and then the Rebbe sent it out to be taken into the shul. And now there were two shtenders that before they would have to schlep it to daven some-- the Rebbe davened sometimes upstairs, sometimes downstairs. They would have to schlep it up and down. And from then on, they had two identical shtenders. One was upstairs, one was downstairs, and that's the shtender that the Rebbe davened on in shul. But before that, they said, the maskirim said that in the Rebbe's room, he used that shtender very much when he was learning or davening, whatever he was doing. And after a few months, that's when he sent it out to be in the shul.