Ep. 4: The Transition to Shlichus with Rabbi Yitzchok Wolf

00:00 Speaker 1 When I walk into the mesivta, I come to El, and I see Shabbos morning, Chabad sitz an learn Chassidis. It's, uh, it's poshet, honor to see how the Rebbe is working today. The Koch and Rebbe's inionim is unbelievable. By the way, it's unparalleled in Jewish history because we know what people said about the day after Gematans. And, and everyone has learned it that it's poshet fake out.

00:39 Speaker 2 I'm Yossi Kamen. Welcome to Among Chassidim by Der Her, an ongoing farbrengen about life as a Chassid, our vibrant connection with the Rebbe, and inspired living shaped by the way he teaches us each and every day. Shalom aleichem, Rabbi Wolf. How are you?

00:59 Speaker 1 Aleichem shalom.

01:01 Speaker 2 Okay. Um, so I actually saw that, uh, you, um, wrote some articles recently. I think you're commemorating, uh, 50 years of shluchus.

01:12 Speaker 1 Correct.

01:14 Speaker 2 So I mean, I, I read one-- I think there was multiple. I read one of them. So I, uh, didn't realize you were a shliach in Australia. It's, it's 50 years commemorating that shluchus or in Chicago?

01:28 Speaker 1 No, the shluchus in general, which began with the shluchus in Melbourne.

01:33 Speaker 2 S- so that was Taf Shin Lamed He.

01:36 Speaker 1 Taf Shin Lamed He. Chaf Gimel Iyar Taf Shin Lamed He we walked into Yechidut. And that's where it all started.

01:46 Speaker 2 Yes.

01:47 Speaker 1 I have to say it started Dalet Nissan earlier when we were called in by the maskirus. I was called in by Binyamin Klein, but our group was called in different times of the day, I guess, and, uh, asked, uh, three questions. Are you willing to go to Melbourne B'ezras Chaim Hayyei shluchus? Would your parents give you permission? We need their permission. And if you are Mekabe Abris. These were the three questions. Within, I think, uh, 90 seconds or 180 seconds, as long as it took to contact my parents and by the payphone on Kingston Avenue, Yamulke payphone that we used-

02:36 Speaker 2 Yeah

02:36 Speaker 1 ... to use for a dime. So, uh, it was all straightened out within several minutes.

02:43 Speaker 2 And, uh, uh, so your parents, what, you, you, you, you asked permission or you told your father, "We need, I need permission"?

02:51 Speaker 1 No, I told my father that I need permission. He said right away, "Yes." You have to understand where my father came from. Uh, if not for my father in Samarkand, I wouldn't be sitting here today.

03:03 Speaker 2 W- I th- Was your-

03:05 Speaker 1 Maybe I should go into that

03:06 Speaker 2 ... your father was a Lubavitcher?

03:08 Speaker 1 My father, obviously, uh, he wasn't born and bred as a Lubavitcher Chassid, but later on, he was one of the refugees that ended up in Samarkand, Polish refugees, a given a Galitzianerid. So he ended up in Samarkand like so many Polish refugees did. And if I can share with you an incredible story how he met Chabad, about the ref-

03:35 Speaker 2 I would love to hear it

03:36 Speaker 1 ... the refugees at the time coming from Poland to Russia, they didn't know the language. They didn't know Russian, and they didn't know how to work the system. So people were literally dying from hunger. He lost his father, his mother, and he ended up being sent to Siberia in January of 1940. In 1941, he is off somehow Uzbekistan, Samarkand, first Tashkent, then Samarkand. People were dying from hunger every day. He told me that he was so famished, a zeh gohungert, that at nighttime, he became blind from malnutrition. Can you imagine?

04:24 Speaker 2 Wow.

04:24 Speaker 1 He told me he once walked into an Uzbek, a local guy, into his house, and it, he didn't know where he was going. It was nighttime. He was blind. But then so the guy picks up a butcher knife, and he starts chasing him. He said-

04:41 Speaker 2 Mm

04:41 Speaker 1 ... he doesn't know how he was saved. But anyway-

04:44 Speaker 2 One second

04:45 Speaker 1 ... if he wants-

04:45 Speaker 2 So c- can I go back a second? So he's, he's G- he's a Galitz- Galitzianerid living in Poland. So World War II breaks out. Where is he from?

04:55 Speaker 1 He's from Kraków.

04:56 Speaker 2 From Kraków.

04:56 Speaker 1 A suburb of Kraków.

04:58 Speaker 2 So he escapes the Nazis over the border into USSR?

05:03 Speaker 1 Correct. And he, he was, you know, he was up to Lemberg, and somehow in Lwów area, there was some type of a border with Russia, and he made a critical decision, and that was in late December of 1939 or maybe the first week of January. And he made a decision which he had to make either to stay behind in the German side-

05:29 Speaker 2 One second. The war broke out in the summer, 1939.

05:35 Speaker 1 September 1939. So the first several months-

05:39 Speaker 2 Oh, so this is December. Okay

05:40 Speaker 1 ... you're busy, you're busy running.

05:41 Speaker 2 Right. Okay.

05:42 Speaker 1 So he's running, and he ended up, a long story short, he ended up in Russia, and they sent him immediately to Siberia.

05:49 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

05:49 Speaker 1 So he was one year in Siberia. He used to say how they were cutting down trees, and even Pesach saying, while they're cutting down trees. Actually, my mother went the same journey. They didn't know of each other. They were both refugees and following actually the same journey Played out with my mother. But anyway, they ended up... My father ends up in Samarkand, as I told you. He's famished. He's, he's... One Motzei Shabbos, he's walking the streets. No father, no mother, the Milchama, people dying. The Chevra Kadisha came every day driving through the roads mit a felden vagen, and they picked up the meisem. So he is mamash famished. He's walking Motzei Shabbos, he's hallucinating, and suddenly he hears singing. Singing. He thought he was hallucinating. But as he's walking, not walking, zich geschleppt, the singing is becoming louder. He walks into what he told me, a psatadyre, and it was Motzei Shabbos. There was a Melaveh Malka from the Bobov Chassidim going on. He'd even told me who was there. Reb Dovid Haredoker, Reb Peretz Mochkin, Reb Yudl Chidrik, Shmerl Batuma. That whole chavrayah was there, and they saw a Peilishe bocher walking in, hungrig vi di velt. And there was... T-the only food that was on the table, he told me, was kartoshke mit a bissel mashke. And they took him under his wings, and the rest is history. So w- later on, after the war in nineteen forty-five, he ended up at the DP camps in Pocking. In Pocking, over there too, he

07:38 Speaker 1 met Reb Yudl Chidrik. All the other Chassidim that ended up in Montreal, he met in Pocking, and he was five, six years in Belgium. In Belgium, Antwerp, he was a diamond cutter. Finally came... He was hoping to go to New York because they had a diamond district. But b'peer mamash, he ended up in Montreal. The hayas ended up in Montreal. And the reason why he left Belgium was because of the Korean War, and there was talk that it's gonna reach to Europe.

08:09 Speaker 2 Hmm.

08:10 Speaker 1 Reaching Europe, he had enough- ... of war and dying and famine and whatnot, and these people were traumatized. So was my father and mother. My father and mother met in Samarkand. They were describing their, their wedding. It was Friday afternoon. Se geven a poor minyan Yidden, and that's how, that's where they got married.

08:31 Speaker 2 They got married in Samarkand?

08:32 Speaker 1 Yeah, they got married. They met in Samarkand-

08:33 Speaker 2 So your, so, so your father, uh, came into Lubavitch, uh, derech Avraham Avinu. You know, uh-

08:41 Speaker 1 He was-

08:41 Speaker 2 ... they, they gave, they gave, 'cause he's... Whatever. He ate

08:45 Speaker 1 It, it wasn't exactly ben h- ben gimmel hiker as barei. It was a bit older, but-

08:52 Speaker 2 No, I'm saying the Chassidim like Avraham Avinu. They-

08:54 Speaker 1 Yeah

08:54 Speaker 2 ... they gave him something to eat.

08:56 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, that's right. They gave him something to eat.

08:59 Speaker 2 Wow.

08:59 Speaker 1 Now, al kaponeim, the, uh... He ended up in Montreal, and there he got back to Reb Peretz Mochkin and to Yudl Chidrik-

09:06 Speaker 2 So he knew-

09:06 Speaker 1 ... all the Yidden, and he sent us. I was five years old. He sent me to cheder Lubavitch. And-

09:12 Speaker 2 You were born in, uh-

09:13 Speaker 1 Montreal

09:14 Speaker 2 ... in Montreal?

09:15 Speaker 1 Yeah. So he sent me. Cheder was called the Lubavitch Yeshiva. It was a cheder, a small room on Jeanne Mance Street, whoever is a Montrealer that will be hearing this. And who was my first melamed? An incredible Chassidishe Yid, Reb Dovid Leib Marazef. If you heard of Reb Dovid Leib, he was the oldest son of Chaim Marazef. I ca- I c- I can picture the room that I was sitting. I wasn't even five years old yet. I came in in Elul. I was a month before my fifth birthday. So I'm a little kid. There wasn't a toy in the room.

09:54 Speaker 2 Yeah.

09:55 Speaker 1 Wooden desks. Zits a chum melamed, and he had such a, like a regal appearance. He was-- He had a... Always wore his double-breasted... It was like a, more of a, a lange rekel that the, uh, Peilishe used to wear more, maybe today too. And he was sitting with his hat and jacket. He had a pencil and a wooden ruler, and he was such a rayche tzaddik, I can never forget it. I don't remember what I learned then. I remember one thing, that he taught us the asarah, uh, the, the ten hagunim of the Alter Rebbe. And to this day-

10:32 Speaker 2 There's recordings of him, uh, singing, uh-

10:34 Speaker 1 Singing

10:35 Speaker 2 ... yeah.

10:36 Speaker 1 Now, it's very interesting because he suffered from asthma. So it's like tsappen. He, he, he couldn't catch his breath at times. But we're little kids, and we, we learned the hagunim from the Alter Rebbe, and he taught it to us. And the way he sat, the way he taught us how to read, uh, heystos Ivrit, a Parsha datzia fun ameriker Chassid. But he passed away in the chalf. I think it was chalf vav that he passed away. But I can truly say that that, that was a Chassidishe shechinah. You know, when you learn about, you know, yom yom, a pintel fun neib, a pintel fun nunten. That's the tzia.

11:21 Speaker 2 Hmm.

11:21 Speaker 1 But anyway, I had tremendous mechaneche melamdim in Montreal.

11:26 Speaker 2 Was, um, the-

11:27 Speaker 1 But they are rum for Chassidishe soul-

11:29 Speaker 2 Reb Yudl Chidrik was there too, right?

11:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, I had him two years. Different times.

11:33 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

11:33 Speaker 1 I had, I had him two years. He taught me my bar mitzvah maymer, and he taught me how to leyn, and he was a Chassidishe Yid. It's like, "Das acht a tzeil un ven grenim." Grenim was his mashpia. So we heard a lot about grenim. I can't tell you that I remember everything that he said. But al kaponeim, there were Siyumim over there. I remember going in to Reb Peretz farbrengens. I remember one Purim, which is so much, I remember it very clearly. It was before the time, fashtey tsuk, I was a kid. I was ten, eleven. It was before Taf Shin Lamed when the hookups began- Reb Peretz was sitting in his basement where he lived. He lived next to the Old Babitz Yeshiva, Montreal. And mamash today, they-- it's the Yeshiva Gedola is there now. So it's a different building, but it used to be a house, and he lived in the basement. It was Purim at night. I went with my father. Reb Peretz was like his Rebbe, you know? He taught him Chassidus, and he brought... Got him involved. Every Shabbos, he used to end up being there six, seven clock in the morning learning Chassidus. Nachman Shapiro even lately reminded me about that sier. He was a kid staying over by Yezeda, and how they used to sit and learn from the early hours of the morning. But anyway, it was Purim ba-lach, and he was sitting. He took a lot of mashke Reb Peretz at shtark fabrach. Berel Mochkin,

13:03 Speaker 1 his son, was behind him, gezungin Chassidish nigunim. I remember it well because they were singing some of the nigunim that I heard grow-- farshter from, uh, from David Leib Morzov and other nigunim they were singing. But it made a tremendous impression. One of the things that was missing at the time was, as a ten, 11 year old, there was no farbrengens with the kidas. I don't know why. There wasn't. So this sier of a farbrengen really, really registered. It resonated. The Chassidishe Yid system, farbrengen mit neilem, et cetera, et cetera.

13:38 Speaker 2 So there's a, there's a painting of Zalman Kleiman of a alter Rechasid fabre-- is fab-- where he farbrenged, and there's some kids in the background. So this is, uh... Th-that painting is what you experienced probably.

13:49 Speaker 1 Hundred percent. Hundred percent. I mean, I remember even at the time, eh, like every second year, Reb Nisen used to come and farbrengen. I remember one thing that he used to say over and over again, and I was a kid, twelve, thirteen. You know, kids. A Yid is a Chabad Lubavitcher, and a Chabad Lubavitcher is a Yid. And the way he said it, you know, mit a gantse ernstkeit, made an impression. There were times Reb Sadyah used to come, or Reb Sadyah used to farbrengen.

14:19 Speaker 2 Sadyah Liebler.

14:20 Speaker 1 Yeah. And, and one of the iker things that came out from Reb Sadyah and Reb Nisen when they farbrengen was the zein dit sier von a Talmid. What is a Talmid? You know, what's a Talmid? Of course, and they were the role models of Tomim. Yeshiras nefesh, bechulu, mashpia. I'll soon get to the Rebbe part of this whole thing. But, uh, but what's very interesting was the way Reb Sadyah fartzerkochn in Tomchei Tmimim and a Talmid. I remember he repeated this several times. He used to come to visit his son-in-law, Reb Simcha Zirkind, quite often, and he used to talk about Tomim and, uh, vos heyst a Talmid. So he mentioned... The way he said it, I remember so clearly. Cha geheard fun rebben dem taten. By him, the rebbe, the tate was, of course, the Rebbe Rashab.

15:16 Speaker 2 Rebbe Rashab.

15:16 Speaker 1 And the rebbe, the son was the Friediker Rebbe. So cha geheard fun rebben dem taten. Ich hocge valged zen yor beim taten, beim zeyden bis hoc me yasid gevent Tomchei Tmimim. Taten and zeyde was the Rebbe Maharash and the Tzemach Tzedek.

15:30 Speaker 2 The Rebbe Rashab said that-

15:32 Speaker 1 Said, "Hocge valged beim taten, beim zeyden zen yor bis hoc me yasid gevent Tomchei Tmimim."

15:38 Speaker 2 That means by the ohel. He was by the ohel of the Rebbe Maharash.

15:41 Speaker 1 He was by the ohel. Vayst, I say. There, there was one ohel there, Rebbe Maharash-

15:44 Speaker 2 Yeah

15:45 Speaker 1 ... and the Tzemach Tzedek was one ohel. So there's no question that these, uh, people made, uh, an impression. I had another melamed, a very Chassidishe Yid, Shalom Bergukov. Shalom Berguk-- I was about thirteen, fourteen in his kite. I, I mean, uh, uh, definitely a Chassidishe Yid. His whole sier, it pashut, he loved his Talmidim. It-- The love was all over him, and if he had to, if he had to explain something ten times, he did it ten times. And, and he was makpid in the writing and everything, but everything was mit a za'av, mit a za' lipshaft. Now, today, getting a melamed, uh, Baruch Hashem, I have great melamedim over here. But-

16:35 Speaker 2 I was gonna say that, uh, if anyone doesn't know that, uh, you're, you're he- you're the head of, uh, the In- Institute of Chinuch. So you, you... When you talk about melamedim, you're, you, you know, uh, you know what it's all about.

16:49 Speaker 1 Well, so I saw these sierim, and of course, it made a tremendous impression.

16:56 Speaker 2 And-

16:56 Speaker 1 There was one sier that I remember that I can never forget. It was taf shin chaf zayin. I was-- My melamed was Reb Yankiv Yurkovich. His son is the Rav in Lod, Boruch Blei is Yurkovich.

17:12 Speaker 2 Blei.

17:13 Speaker 1 I remember him as a bocher. So if you reca-- If you know, that Lag BaOmer was a... The Rebbe spoke unbelievable about that as well. The matzav at the time was that the war was anticipated.

17:32 Speaker 2 The Six Day War.

17:33 Speaker 1 Six Day War. It was in the air, and the, the rumor had it that Israel, at Tzahal, was preparing ten thousand body bags. Now, every one of my melamedim was a Nitzan Meshia. Rabbi Yurkovich was a Nitzan Meshia.

17:52 Speaker 2 Survivors.

17:53 Speaker 1 At the time, we had a Lag BaOmer parade. Lag BaOmer was on Sunday. We had a Lag BaOmer parade in Montreal, and we knew that there was a Lag BaOmer parade in New York. The Rebbe at the time had a Lag BaOmer parade, but we were not hooked up at the time. The hookups weren't working at the time, not until taf shin lamed. So he kept on telling us that we're getting a tape. We're getting a tape. And I can picture where he was even standing in the classroom Just hearing that there may be another Holocaust, preparing body bags. I mean, he was reliving. He was standing, I, I can see it, by the light, and we got a cassette tape, cassette tapes, and he, for the class, he's p- he's playing the Rebbe's The Rebbe was like shouting, speaking so loudly. He is standing-

19:04 Speaker 2 You, all of you have heard, uh, you have-- you had heard what the Rebbe said that-

19:08 Speaker 1 We heard We were kids. How old were we?

19:11 Speaker 2 Right.

19:12 Speaker 1 Twelve years old.

19:13 Speaker 2 Right.

19:13 Speaker 1 And that, uh, we heard that the Rebbe and the Rebbe gave a, a, a telling us, you know, that there will be

19:29 Speaker 2 He's

19:32 Speaker 1 So he's standing there, and he's listening We're 12 year olds, the Rebbe is speaking, and it made such an impression.

19:47 Speaker 2 He's crying.

19:47 Speaker 1 Unbelievable. But one, uh, but Dad gave him so much courage listening to the Rebbe. The was just unbelievable.

20:01 Speaker 2 Yeah.

20:03 Speaker 1 Th-there was one thing growing up there, and I left the when I was 16 years old. I left Eretz Yisrael. That's a whole

20:12 Speaker 2 You left Montreal.

20:13 Speaker 1 I left Montreal.

20:14 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

20:14 Speaker 1 So were leaving, had a which was Yossi from Detroit.

20:23 Speaker 2 From Sao Paulo.

20:24 Speaker 1 From Brazil.

20:25 Speaker 2 Yeah, I was on shlichus in, uh, I was on shlichus in Brazil, so I-

20:28 Speaker 1 Okay. So you know.

20:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

20:29 Speaker 1 Uh, he's an incredible guy. Uh, he went Eretz Yisrael. Yossel Schneerson, which used to come often to his zeide. He lives in LA now.

20:41 Speaker 2 Right.

20:41 Speaker 1 He used to come often to his zeide, was also a We grew up from... I know him from when he was eight years old, and I heard that he went Eretz Yisrael. There are some from our kite. Yossi Kalebach was in my class. There, there were others that were in my class, and they was a bit younger, but they

21:04 Speaker 2 Eretz Yisrael.

21:05 Speaker 1 In Marastah. No, Marastah-

21:06 Speaker 2 Oh, Bechal. They were going, they were going-

21:08 Speaker 1 Yeah

21:08 Speaker 2 ... to shidduch places. Okay.

21:10 Speaker 1 My father told me that he would appreciate if I go Eretz Yisrael. you know? resonated with him. you know? But whatever.

21:28 Speaker 2 You want, you wanted to go to the Rebbe.

21:30 Speaker 1 He, he, he, he sent a from Rebbe, and the came with an answer,

21:44 Speaker 2 Eretz Yisrael.

21:45 Speaker 1 So, went Eretz Yisrael.

21:47 Speaker 2 One second. You used to go to the Rebbe Bechal as a child?

21:51 Speaker 1 Yes, I can talk about that. Of course. I had yechidus with my father. I'll tell you a story that my father told me about yechidus, okay?

22:00 Speaker 2 We'll, we'll, we'll hold it, we'll hold the note. We have to get back to you going to Eretz Yisrael as a bachur, but-

22:04 Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.

22:05 Speaker 2 Yeah.

22:06 Speaker 1 It was that the Montreal Yidden follow Yut Rat and Simchat Torah. Rosh Hashana, they gave succeeding from Rosh Hashana, but Simchat Torah and Yut Rat was a given. Remember, even how we used to go, the, the bus used to take us, and we used to stop in, uh, Monsey, go in the mikveh, and, uh, there was a story then that, uh, Rabbi Isaac Shve at times went with the bus, too. You know, the some of them went by car, but most of them, a bus was a to go with the bus. How many had cars to go?

22:43 Speaker 2 Yes.

22:44 Speaker 1 And we used to come there, so I don't know, they'd stop by a mikveh, and somebody was telling him, I don't know if you heard this before. So Isaac Shve said, So the guy tells him, So you could go. Uh, so we used to go those two times. I remember Taf Shin Lamed was a Taf Shin Lamed, we came early Friday morning. Friday afternoon was the Simchat Bet HaShoevah.

23:22 Speaker 2 The big, the big, the big Yut Rat Bechal of Shalom, the Simchat Bet HaShoevah.

23:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. I remember that when the buses pulled up, the Rebbe arrived. So what I recall from that year, that the Rebbe was going up the steps, and the buses, there were five Greyhound buses. It was historic. Five buses, from Montreal at one time. The buses were pulling up. They were lined up in the service lane, and, uh, and this is what I recall, the Rebbe turning around with such a... It's, it's very difficult, the Rebbe's to be But it was unbelievable. You saw... It wasn't a smile. It was like a... I remember that clearly. It was a I was already a 15-year-old bachur.

24:19 Speaker 2 Like, uh, in English you'd say pleasure.

24:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, like a, like a, like a like a... Very hard to describe. so Taf Shin, uh, Lamed, the same thing. Taf Shin Lamed Beis, I remember I went with my father. We were sitting next to each other on the bus, and, uh, Taf Shin Lamed Beis was It was everyone went. It, it was before Pesach, you know? And for me, for my father to go then, like Erev Pesach was a But everyone went It was a... So everyone went I remember on the way back, That, that nigun resonated so much. You c- you couldn't leave a It was so inspirational.

25:16 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

25:17 Speaker 1 Whatever. I'll tell you, mechiyim vek when I was a kid, but it was my father's first time that he went to see the Rebbe, was either tes zayin or yud zayin. I, I'm not sure.

25:30 Speaker 2 What year were you born?

25:32 Speaker 1 I was born in tes zayin.

25:35 Speaker 2 Okay. So the second-

25:36 Speaker 1 So-

25:36 Speaker 2 So you remember the Rebbe teaching a nigun Simchas Torah?

25:40 Speaker 1 The what?

25:41 Speaker 2 The Rebbe teaching a nigun Simchas Torah?

25:44 Speaker 1 I remember the last one.

25:46 Speaker 2 Well, there came-

25:46 Speaker 1 Also-

25:47 Speaker 2 ... mecha

25:47 Speaker 1 ... not the whole tzir, but the last one. Yeah.

25:50 Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay.

25:51 Speaker 1 But listen to this, this is incredible. My father tells me that there was such a big Olam, and you see this was the night after Simchas Torah. You know, Simchas Torah at night, I remember even, uh, that farbrengens used to finish two o'clock, three o'clock was normal. Late, the la- the letzte yarung was already like twelve, twelve thirty, even eleven thirty-

26:14 Speaker 2 You're talking about the night of Hakafos, the farbrengen before Hakafos?

26:16 Speaker 1 No, the night after Hakafos.

26:18 Speaker 2 Oh, my-- sorry. Mechelim.

26:19 Speaker 1 Matzo Simchas Torah.

26:20 Speaker 2 Okay.

26:20 Speaker 1 And the night later, ig ven yechidas. So that year, my father told me there was so many people going at the yechidas that they made two nights for the Montreal Yidden, and his time to go was the second night. He was supposed to be there at three o'clock. I don't know when he came. He said he came early, two, two thirty, I don't know when he came. And he said like this, "It's about quarter to three." And he's standing like, mm, g'neid in the tachna area, and a woman walks, that's how he told me. A froy is a rogge kumet fun zweiten stock. It was the Rebbetzin, and she said like this, "nisht geschlofn. Lost him up." Everyone packed out, the door closed.

27:12 Speaker 2 The yechidas was canceled. Wow.

27:16 Speaker 1 Incredible. Now kapo nem-

27:19 Speaker 2 Yeah

27:19 Speaker 1 ... if you're talking about how Montreal was, uh, it's all Simcha Rebbem.

27:25 Speaker 2 That's a crazy story. The Rebbetzin canceled the yechidas. Wow. Okay.

27:29 Speaker 1 That's what my father told me. He was there.

27:32 Speaker 2 Wow.

27:33 Speaker 1 A kapo nem. So lepoel what happened was that we used to go often, but I have to admit, the koch in Shlichis, I d-- I didn't get in Montreal at all. Now, let's be honest with ourselves. If you're talking about Hofteh, lamed, lamed alef, lamed beis, I left after Pesach lamed beis. I-it wasn't the normal talk of the day, how many shluchim were there at the event? Reish al shluchim, you know, but maybe there was ten, twelve.

28:12 Speaker 2 It was a, it was a select, very select group.

28:15 Speaker 1 Very select few, and it wasn't, it wasn't on everyone's agenda. You know what I mean? It's, uh... So therefore, a farbrengen of the mashpiyim, Wolf Greenglass, uh, Peretz Mochke, they didn't talk about Shlichis. Oh, Matzoh Retz Kashis, Simcha Rebbem, but Sh-shlichis was n-not mentioned. So lepoel, Eretz Yisroel opened up new horizons. Why? I, I came after Pesach lamed beis. It was about a year after, year lamed alef. The Mashpia Hagadol passed away, Kipshlim Yichay.

28:59 Speaker 2 Kipshlim Yichay.

29:01 Speaker 1 But his, his vision, his, his, what he tried to, to get to the Bochurim, Aveida, and davening, and all that, that is what the tzir was in fact about at the time. His vision vi Tomchei Temimim, and that's what he said. I remember the first Shabbos I was there, it was about two, three o'clock in the afternoon, gezetts um fufzik bochurim gedavnt.

29:27 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

29:27 Speaker 1 It wasn't like... Really, it was a tzir. And, uh, David Feldman was there at the time. There were other guys who were there. Zalman Goplin was a yinger man in Kiruv at the time. I mean, there was tzir urim over there, y-yunger light. I mean, Slavatsky. There was a whole group of Bochurim that came from Koltere. One of them was called Borofsky. One of them was, uh, Slavatsky, uh-

29:52 Speaker 2 And Halperin was there

29:53 Speaker 1 ... Yidech Halperin from the Kfar Chabad. There was a whole group of them, and the one that brought them was instrumental was Yosel Segel.

30:00 Speaker 2 There was also, um, Greenfeld was there?

30:04 Speaker 1 Yeah, Chatzkel Seifer.

30:06 Speaker 2 Yeah.

30:06 Speaker 1 There was-- There are a whole group of them. Uh, there was another couple of, you know, kedem shinshtin namit, but, uh, but a kapo nem it was, uh, a tzir. And who was the interim type of mashpia farbrengen with the Bochurim? Was Moshe... What was his name?

30:25 Speaker 2 Paskewitz.

30:26 Speaker 1 So Moshe Paskewitz was-- Again, he was a talmid muvik, I guess, from, uh, Kipshlim Yichay. So what did he talk about? He talked about Aveida. The tzir fun Tomchei Temimim matzot nisht gebiten. The tzir bleibt tzir, Tomchei Temimim is Tomchei Temimim. That was the language of the farbrengen.

30:41 Speaker 2 It, it seems very seamless from Montreal to Kfar Chabad. It was, uh, s-similar.

30:46 Speaker 1 Similar.

30:46 Speaker 2 Yeah.

30:47 Speaker 1 Yeah, similar.

30:48 Speaker 2 Yeah.

30:49 Speaker 1 Everything was until Reb Mendel came. And then Leibel Kaplan, all of a sudden-- I can soon talk about that, that's it.

30:59 Speaker 2 Whether Mendel comes-

31:01 Speaker 1 Reb Mendel came, uh, the Bochurim Achreidish Elul, I think. It was his first farbrengen.

31:08 Speaker 2 From what I under-

31:08 Speaker 1 He came from London

31:08 Speaker 2 ... from what I understand, the Mendel was very, um-- From what I understand, the rebbe was very involved and pushed the idea that a Mendel should be the mashpia.

31:14 Speaker 1 Hundred percent. Like, uh, they said that Reb Mendel told the rebbe, "Ich bin a Baal Habos."

31:19 Speaker 2 Right.

31:20 Speaker 1 So the rebbe said, "A Chassidishe Baal Habos."

31:22 Speaker 2 Chassidishe.

31:22 Speaker 1 So they think he zucked the Rebbe, you know, whatever.

31:24 Speaker 2 I once heard that there was pushback because Reb Mendel, like, like, like Reb Mendel is the, is the famous Chassid that everyone knows. But, you know, in those days, you know, Shemeche HaChaim and Reb Mendel, it was a, it was a different style. Reb Mendel was a, I don't know-

31:37 Speaker 1 Hundred percent. We'll soon get to that. So Reb Mendel's first farbrengen, it was advertised, "Hey, Azegen ach mitoch, nach dem davening." So he's gonna farbrengen the Tzal, all the Bochurim will sein. All the Baal Habatim from Chabad came. Yungaleid from Kela was there, Baal Habat, everyone was there. And his opening, that's what I remember, his opening words were, "In Tomchei Temimim hot men Elul nit gelernt." Uh, when you make such a statement in Chabad, nit gelernt is nishki davent, you know? Uh, like, what's going on? Like, uh, this is coming from somebody who's gonna be the mashpia in Chabad, encouraging the Bochurim, I guess, as a continuation of Reb Shlomo Chaim. Dinave d'rafes vas. And he explained himself. He-- Everyone opened up their eyes, like, "What is he talking about?" He said like this: "In Tomchei Temimim hot men gevos a ruach haChassid. Rosh Hashanah nisht beim Rebbe. Den alle gevem far numen. Tone beseitige arbet. Kvig na por rubel."

32:45 Speaker 2 It was time to get to the Rebbe now.

32:46 Speaker 1 "Machen gemillus chasdim, vat ge numen ag mach fun dem un fun yenem. Un s'hot zikh geton mit zikh ge kreft forn tsum Rebbe." So he brought in such a ruach hafort zum Rebbe, it made such an incredible impression that Tishrei, it emptied out. I heard there was no minyan in yeshiva. The place emptied out. Alle dem gefahren.

33:13 Speaker 2 Can I ask you a question?

33:14 Speaker 1 Go ahead.

33:15 Speaker 2 What is-- I'm just curious to understand, so Reb Mendel came from the same place as all these other people that you're mentioning. So what, what, what shift-- Why was Reb Mendel the different?

33:28 Speaker 1 You know, I personally think, if you wanna know my personal, uh... He had a mashpia, Zalman Moshe.

33:35 Speaker 2 Zalman Moshe.

33:36 Speaker 1 And he spoke so much about Zalman Moshe. He even described to us Gimmel Tammuz, Yud Beis Tammuz in Nevel. He was a Bochur in Nevel, Zalman Moshe, and it-- and this-- Zalman Moshe, dokh ivin a meiridike mekusha. That's my opinion. Uh, he spoke so much about Zalman Moshe, the skachses sim Rebbe, wie er geven sim Rebbe Mishmoshkin.

33:59 Speaker 2 Rebbe, Rebbe Shalan.

34:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that had a lot to do.

34:03 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

34:03 Speaker 1 That's my personal opinion. But dos a dov haboro, a geven meiridike mekusha sim Rebbe, and net gemont his skaches, net gemont a Bochur af forn sim Rebbe. Vu za Bochur Rosh Hashanah nisht forn sim Rebbe. He didn't even me-mention, I don't recall, mention Kabbalas HaMachas, what-- He didn't use those words. Vu za Bochur Rosh Hashanah nisht forn sim Rebbe. It was all like a, like-

34:27 Speaker 2 It's a dovra pasht.

34:28 Speaker 1 Yeah, dovra pasht, a forn sim Rebbe. Uh, bis tam mekusha, bis tam Rebbe mezahid, forn sim Rebbe. Like, it, it was, like, such a natural thing, and everyone went to the Rebbe. But Reb Mendel was an incredible type of a mashpia, that he did tell a lot of the stories of past, his favorites.

34:51 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

34:51 Speaker 1 Yeah. Meir Simcha, Meir Simcha Kein. He once described, can I do this here? One of the farbrengens that he was holding, I talk about Meir Simcha. So he told the following story, and he wanted to bring out vos meinte a avos hachem fun Chassidim. Vos a avos hachem fun Chassidim? They told the following story. He said he was a Bochur, who was the mashpia in Tzal? We talk about Nevel.

35:19 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

35:19 Speaker 1 Meir Simcha lived in Nevel. Who was the mashpia in Tzal? Mashpia was Nisn-- Rabbi Nisn. Nisn was the mashpia.

35:25 Speaker 2 So this is after Tomchei Temimim was left to Ostrov.

35:29 Speaker 1 Hey, zei in Pehes, Ostrov.

35:31 Speaker 2 With the main-- We, we actually recently had an article in Der Her about Nevel, this month, actually. And so we-- It says over there that, um, the Yikah Tomchei Temimim for a f- for tho- that period was in Nevel. That was the main Tomchei Temim, the main branch.

35:47 Speaker 1 You know, he, uh, Kadhi told us before I get to Meir Simcha, he told us that sie geven, it looks like it was a day after Gimmel Tammuz. Iz dong gekumen die idea az der Rebbe's aroys. Tz'hot zich mot un tzuf geven von shlof. Der Rebbe's aroys. So alle gelaufen shul. Ve kumen arayn in shul, Zalman Moshe singe bin toy tsheker. He said Zalman Moshe was-- He used to repeat this many times. Zalman Moshe singe bin toy tsheker. Iz a duch gegangen psaf rimogn, "Oh, guys, her tu farbrengen. Tzores, vot farshikt in kasvei mar."

36:29 Speaker 2 So, I see. They, they, the chatchilah they heard that the Free the Rebbe Now is free.

36:31 Speaker 1 Chatchilah, yeah, aroys freg.

36:32 Speaker 2 And then-

36:33 Speaker 1 Then-

36:33 Speaker 2 ... they heard that there's galus afterwards

36:35 Speaker 1 ... yeah, there's gal-- Yeah, there ain't a gal kasvei mar. Tz'hot zuch, um, and we don't know how long, whatever. Al kapad de we said Zalm-- Ve kumen zong Zalman Moshe, like, "Calm down," you know?

36:47 Speaker 2 Right.

36:47 Speaker 1 Zalman Moshe, as he used to say, "Fartunk in die velt mit mashke," you know, you know how to do-- you know how to say lechayim. They said Zalman Moshe gezagt der gleib nisht a gantse maise. Der Rebbe's aroys And they get drunk, and we use your gimel, your dollar Thomas, we use his uncle, Kumadi idea of the Rebbe's and Ganz and Bafai. And he said, "These are

37:10 Speaker 2 So it's very interesting because if you learn the Rebbe Sichos about Gimel Tammuz, and the Rebbe always explains that even though there was something afterwards, but it's the Haschalah of the Geulah, so maybe that's the beginning of this whole thing, isn't it?

37:22 Speaker 1 The Rebbe is taking a sip from that, yeah.

37:23 Speaker 2 So some things Zalman Moshe was Mechaven, he was a Chassidishe Yid. He's Mechaven to something that the Rebbe would speak about, you know, years later.

37:31 Speaker 1 By the way, Takai got a-- I have a personal letter from the Rebbe dated Gimel Tammuz, Taf Shin Lamed Vav. So the Gimel Tammuz, anyway, we'll leave it for another time. But Al Kapaneh, this is very interesting that if you're talking about Reb Mendel, Reb Mendel Tzasach Yiton in the meaning of an Ahavas Yisroel. He spoke a lot about it in many occasions, in seven seventy with the Bochum. So he, he wanted to tell us what's the Geven, the Ahavas Achim from Sidon. He told us the following thing. He said, "A Geven A Bochum, the elder Bochum, the Mashpia Geven Reb Nisan. Uncle Kummerna Yidir, that Reb Itche the Masmid is coming to town, and he geht farbrengen in shtupl for Meir Simcha." So the anticipation is an Achisidishe farbrengen by Meir Simcha in shtupl. Mistam, a lot of people heard of Meir Simcha. Meir Simcha Geven the Achisidishe Yid, Geven a Yid a Gvir, Geven a Chassid, Geven a, you know, the alamailis, you know, of a... He was a real Achisidishe Yid. He always spoke about Meir Simcha, Meir Simcha. The Al Kapaneh, the day the Achisidis was from eight o'clock till ten o'clock in the evening. But Gelern Achisidis in the free, I think he said from eight to ten, during the Davenself, as they say, the Nigleh biz, biz zim, and then supper, and then eight to ten was maybe he said nine to eleven. I think he said eight to ten was Seder Achisidis. So he said that we were

39:13 Speaker 1 Bochum, and we saw that Reb Nisan Kumteraine Zal Achter Zega, Umva Yisim Peh Vachei, and it's like he gave my glitch a voice, Omeglach a voice to, uh, against the Meir Simcha. But we were told that we can't come till ten o'clock at night, biz nachan Seder. So Reb Nisan's away, Geven a poor elder Bochum, Reb Mendel said, "Ani beseicham, megeitz a Reb Meir Simcha." But we're not gonna go in because they'll kick us out. So megeistan a bain fentsa, vaisuit, it was a summer day or whatever. He says, "We come to the window," and he said, "Unze Mashpia is standing, and et mazeh ogavishin." That mamish, he thought, he said, "The whole Reb, the Reb Itche Masmid didn't speak, and his Mashpia, Reb, uh, nu-

40:15 Speaker 2 Zalman Moshe

40:15 Speaker 1 ... I'll get him in. Yeah, Zalman Moshe was poshet, he et mazeh ogavishin, he said. Uh, uh, Reb, Reb Mendel said, "Ich hagemeint, af di tzvey vel mer key monish redn zwishn zir." That was it . They're parting ways.

40:33 Speaker 2 Oh, you're saying they, to one another, they're, this was-

40:35 Speaker 1 To one another, they're gonna be parting ways. He said the whole time, Reb Itche Masmid didn't say a word. He said, "Sten azega, punkta fun zega, we marchin." He said, "Reb, Reb Itche Masmid, mit un im redn, un Zalman Moshe giblim ishtil." He said a year later, he meets Reb Nisan, and they're talking, unz is, uh, what came up, one of the things was, "A yor tzrik, de farbrengen, ve Reb Itche Masmid de geven." So he says Reb Nisan said, "Oy, das geven a farbrengen. Iz a dach nisht geven ba de gantze farbrengen. Oy, das geven a farbrengen, Zalman Moshe, ach!" And he said, "It's as if between them nothing happened." And he wanted to bring out the Ahavas Achim of Hasidim. Here is Zalman Moshe telling Reb Nisan, telling him of Ogavashin, and he said, "S'iz geven keloy hoyo. Vach geven fun habsum."

41:38 Speaker 2 So-

41:38 Speaker 1 The Ahavas Achim, that, uh, that that is what was front and center of this whole thing going on.

41:45 Speaker 2 So it wasn't pshat that there was a mechilah. It, it was the way when Zalman Moshe told it to Reb Nisan, Reb Nisan knew it's coming from Ahavas Achim, so it's-

41:56 Speaker 1 Of course

41:56 Speaker 2 ... so it's geshmak.

41:57 Speaker 1 Yeah.

41:58 Speaker 2 So I think, I think what the, the problem maybe, uh, by some people today is they only do the first part. They, they, they know how to ziddle someone else without the Ahavas Yisroel, right?

42:09 Speaker 1 Well, there's a whole sicha from the Friediker Rebbe about that and whatever. This Rabbi Malga, you know, talking about Mashgiach and all that when we were in Melbourne. Mizman luzman, we walked into Shmuel Ber Tzalal Althuis. Eretn, eh, egiven-- He wasn't like his brother at all, Pini Althuis.

42:30 Speaker 2 Pini.

42:31 Speaker 1 He was more of whatever. There's a whole history about him. E-egiven Achisidishe Ried, egiven a meredek baal menagem. We have his-

42:38 Speaker 2 Accordings

42:38 Speaker 1 ... gunem. Et nog gezender Mashgiach, he was crying already.

42:43 Speaker 2 Mm.

42:43 Speaker 1 And he used to say, "A moleh gez mimim de Ahavas Achim, motzek kukush vi de taybelach." Today you can't say that .

42:51 Speaker 2 Yeah .

42:51 Speaker 1 But he said, "The Ahavas Achim of Hasidim, it was palpable, motzek kent on tapem it a hand."

42:57 Speaker 2 Yeah.

42:57 Speaker 1 Ahavas Achim of Hasidim. Al kaponeh, going back to, uh, to Reb Mendel, Reb Mendel was two things: Ahavas Yisroel- Ufaren tzim rebem was a maf.

43:11 Speaker 2 You also had, say his avos u'zera was also to the bachurim, right?

43:15 Speaker 1 I'm not talking-- The b-- No, explain, to the bachurim for sure. He was so ibigem to the bachur. There was kinda one bachur from Chicag-- He ended up in Chicago. He's not around anymore. I don't know what about-- His son, Igeven da talmud bonf. He was, uh, about tshuvahs, yeah, halacha, finer. Reb Mendel spent so much time with him, learning with him about Avodah Zara. You were able to see Reb Mendel by Avodah Zara sometimes too.

43:44 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

43:44 Speaker 1 Teaching the ch, uh, chaver midivine mikorav, he, he was Igeven known for them. What was very interesting is how at gezok Tanya, from six thirty to seven, ota, ota gegeb maashir Tanya.

43:58 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

43:59 Speaker 1 The geven me gezok, it wasn't today guys give shiurim and of veisnim, it's like prashas on lamdas, the way he said it. It getaished the verta.

44:10 Speaker 2 You said-

44:10 Speaker 1 First it's a getaished appropriately.

44:13 Speaker 2 Right.

44:13 Speaker 1 Although it was the way he said it, the way he sat. It was ve'ach fidishari, uh, learn Tanya, zog Tanya. It was a whole different siyum.

44:22 Speaker 2 You mentioned the Shalom Ber Gerari, Rabbi Gerari from Brazil.

44:26 Speaker 1 Oh.

44:26 Speaker 2 So he told me, um, that there was a bachur that was, uh, I don't know if today we'd say he's depressed. I, I don't know exactly. He, he wasn't, he wasn't freilech. So Reb Mendel called over Shalom Ber Gerari, maybe you remember the story. He called over Shalom Ber Gerari, and he says, "You see this bachur? He needs that this to be m-- We, we need to make him happy. So I want you to do like this. I want you to make a chavrusah with him. The first five minutes of the Seder, you have to learn every single second. The last five minutes, you have to learn every single second."

45:00 Speaker 1 I mean-

45:01 Speaker 2 "But the re-- the rest, I only want you to talk to him in Beteylim. Du bist a freilecher. You're, you, you, you're gonna cheer him up. You're gonna make him happy. I want you to only talk to him in Beteylim." And that was a harah. He di-- He-- The mashpia told him to do it, so he did it.

45:12 Speaker 1 Yes.

45:13 Speaker 2 So that, I mean, that, that's like, uh, I, I can't even see mashpiyim today do, uh, doing such a thing. I mean, the, the, uh, the outlook.

45:22 Speaker 1 But here comes the part where shlichus came into the picture. At that time, Leibel Kaplan was sent by the Rebbe to b-- to start a minyan in Kollel Young Aliche in Tzfat. In those days, the road-

45:43 Speaker 2 Remind me, what, what year are we talking about? I'm, I'm f-- I'm losing track.

45:45 Speaker 1 We're talking about, as far as I remember, uh, late Lamed Heis, Lamed Gimel, Lamed Gimel.

45:52 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. Okay.

45:54 Speaker 1 And in those days, the nisia from Tzfat to, f-from Kfar Chabad to Tzfat, getting Young Aliche to move there was like I'm telling you to move to Honolulu. Chatsafila, it was a four-hour drive. But the m-- the gevena, they... I-it was not something that was considered normal. To move away from Kfar Chabad, far in, far in Tzfat wasn't a normal thing to do. And at first, he wasn't motzi'a. And I heard, said Menache sagt that the Rebbe told him, gave him like a, a ultimatum, "Oder du machst a minyan, oder kumt zikh unfahrte." That's what I heard. I don't know how true it is, I didn't get it. So Reb Mendel invited him to come to Kfar Chabad on Shabbos, er vet zitzen mit die Yungleit von Kollel, mit die bochurim, un tu vos du darfst, you know, and get them to come, no? So I remember who was sitting by the table, a lefike, a lefike ger, a Kohen, Zalman Gopin. These were all Yungleit in Kollel. Second year Kollel, third year Kollel, whatever it was. I, I think, uh, the, the Zalman Gopin came to Kollel maybe Chof Tes even, whatever. Al kop anem, but he was in Kollel then. The Yungleit were sitting around and talking, and Reb Mendel sitting here, and Leibel sitting next to him. And Reb Mendel told him to say l'chaim, which he did, a lot of l'chaim, uh, and he, and he took over the show. Reb Mendel was elbowing him, "Zog ze, zog ze," and he

47:46 Speaker 1 started to speak about the tayeichaid fun shlichus. Vos mein shlichus shel Adam Kamose. We, we never heard such words, I can tell you. Being, uh, a, a s- somebody, a talmid from Montreal that started when I was five years old, I never heard such heises before. Et hazeh gedicht fun die tayeichaid fun shlichus, vos heys ich hibe geben zem reb shlichus shel Adam Kamose. I remember the highlights of the words that he used, "Vi ken a yungerman nisht, nisht far in a shlichus?" And he's talking to guys that in their minds, this was a ogefektive zach. Not even a question. Those same guys, he was targeting those chaverim. They were sitting in Kollel. Av-- Reb Avraham Haesh Cohen was a Yid, a Goiser Goen. He was the rosh haKollel. That wasn't the subject matter that he spoke. And, and se gevena, they had over chodesh adar. That gave the bachur, myself, such a, a heshek of shlichus, vos is shlichus? Ven shlichus? What does it all mean to us? He began sim rebem that I can tell you honestly that that was the first time that it resonated as medanah fun a shlichus.

49:07 Speaker 2 Hmm.

49:08 Speaker 1 He gave in that thing-- I mean, you can ask anyone who was in Kfar Chabad before, at the time or before, shlichus, all that, it was not in the, in the cards. I mean, it, it wasn't the, the, the neised varim vos mashpiyim am gered when they were farbrengen.

49:28 Speaker 2 So let me ask you a question. I, I think by the bachurim that learned in seventy, seventy, like f-- even in the yuds or especially in the yuds, that was something that they talked about. But I think maybe because they, they, they were hearing directly from the Rebbe, I'm saying, I don't know. I'm not-

49:44 Speaker 1 Again, I can't ask you because I was young. Uh, the chafts, uh, I remember some kisternis, yes, but I don't-

49:52 Speaker 2 Right

49:52 Speaker 1 ... mitz vah bachur-

49:53 Speaker 2 No, I'm, I'm, I'm basing this on, I heard from-

49:56 Speaker 1 Yeah

49:56 Speaker 2 ... from-- So I was told directly by someone that was a bachur in the yuds. I'll say who it was. I heard from, uh, Berel Shemtov told me, and I think he says it bachlal, that when he w-- when he was a bachur, that's what they used to farbrengen about, going on shlichus. But I guess that was their little secret. You know, him and Gershon Mendel and, uh, Leibel Raskin, they knew about this, but, you know, the, the, the cloud didn't know about it.

50:16 Speaker 1 You can count them on your finger.

50:18 Speaker 2 Right. Correct.

50:19 Speaker 1 Okay.

50:20 Speaker 2 Yeah.

50:21 Speaker 1 On your... So in Kopanim, that's when a lot of it started, and, uh, it started to resonate. L'poel Elul lamed gimmel, I ended up in New York and, uh, in Chevid, in Chevid v'teira, which was the place where you went first before seven 70. Afterward, we were older.

50:47 Speaker 2 Was that like, that was the, that was the kvutza?

50:49 Speaker 1 I wasn't even... Yeah, I was, I was still 17 in Elul then.

50:53 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

50:53 Speaker 1 So I, that's where we went. Uh, and who was sitting in the sal at the time was Rabbi Mentlik. Mentlik was a Meir D'Katzir. And, um, by the way, I lately heard from one of my chaverim that he heard it from somebody who saw it. He talked about Rabbi Mentlik, that Rabbi Mentlik, ich mein, uh... I think you're allowed to tell the story, uh, m'mund ad ser irrei. That Rabbi Mentlik was once Friday night walking out of his s- uh, out of seven 70, and he lived like, uh, Kingston over there where is his house, and in front of his house, he saw a blechl from the Koses Sichos on the floor. Have you ever heard this?

51:35 Speaker 2 I did, yeah.

51:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. From Tamid Hasdab, a busta mindset. Anyway, that, uh, he looked into Dalach Hashebhedav, and he did what he did, and, uh, egivena tifer chasidi sharid. Uh, you know, he walked around with his gartel, and he walked around. He was always saying something, Mishnah, Ispalpe, whatever. But then the farbrengens turned into different types of farbrengens. Shloime Zachi was at the beginning of his haspor and all that. Uh, but he was there already two, three years. Zalman Labkovsky given the mashgiach, and, uh, but be ikuf given, uh, Rav Shloime Zachi.

52:17 Speaker 2 Shloime Zachi.

52:18 Speaker 1 And he made a tremendous impression on us. And don't forget that he was a tamid movik of, uh, Reb Yael.

52:25 Speaker 2 Reb Yael, yeah.

52:27 Speaker 1 So-

52:28 Speaker 2 Reb Yael wasn't, uh, wasn't, uh, mashpia in, in then, in, in s- in seven 70?

52:34 Speaker 1 Reb Yael used to give shiur in seven 70. I heard some achva from Reb Yael in seven 70.

52:39 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

52:39 Speaker 1 But, but w- but Reb Yael was-- There was a lot of inconsistency that he used to be, it'd be six weeks, seven weeks, then he stopped, and on after.

52:49 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

52:49 Speaker 1 It wasn't consistent. But the one who gave a shiur, and the first shiur I heard was Torf Shin Ches. I learned by Reb Shloime Zachi, and he gave a shiur. It was a hemsha from Pesach, Chai Lachaki, Chai Bechem. That's the first, uh... And that was Elul lamed gimmel. His farbrengens was totally different. I'm talking what resonated. Everything was about hiskashas. Learning chassidus was about hiskashas, and davening was about hiskashas. On Ibogi geben tzem rebbe. It, it wasn't necessarily about shlichas, but it was hiskashas, the Ibogi geben tzem rebbe. And for shtetzer, then there were Friday. It was getting already on in time, and from time to time, we heard, uh, Rabbi Galech from Italy farbrengen seven 70s, "Ein Ibogi geben tzem rebbe m'shlichas." So then shlichas and Ibogi geben tzem rebbe became one thing. As you're getting older, "Was heyst Ibogi geben tzem rebbe?" Ziche lerne rebbe's, uh, memorim, halachas, zachas, sichas. Sichas were coming out every week. But ziche Ibogi geben tzem rebbe. Ziche Ibogi geben tzem rebbe as you're getting older, 20, 21. Uh, but then the middle, I was 19 and a half. So that's when I, I went on shlichas to, uh, to Melbourne for two years. Melbourne-

54:11 Speaker 2 So when you got the, when, when you were called in by Rabbi Chaitakov-

54:15 Speaker 1 Right

54:15 Speaker 2 ... this wa- this was, uh, you're waiting for this.

54:17 Speaker 1 Not Chaitakov.

54:18 Speaker 2 Rabbi Klein.

54:19 Speaker 1 Lemain.

54:19 Speaker 2 So you're, you're, you're, you're waiting for, for this moment.

54:23 Speaker 1 You know what? It's very easy. We're waiting. So that's a chankeh m'Sushkin, "Od nisin that now's the time v'mevad kleidim bachurim far in Australia."

54:34 Speaker 2 Was that the only shlichas group then?

54:37 Speaker 1 I think at the time there was also Miami in Eretz Yisrael.

54:40 Speaker 2 Okay.

54:41 Speaker 1 Motankeh radin. But, um, thinking that I will be picked, I didn't think I will be picked. That's the honest truth. Lag asnish mid chala nivis. I'm just telling practically, I didn't think that to be, but he called me in. And after that, after that whole shlichas, we understood that it's mamash... I don't know how the Rebbe picked names, but it was... A-after we finished our shlichas, Chaim Gutnick, who was the one that used to communicate with the Rebbe, write to the Rebbe about the yeshiva and shluchim v'chulu v'chulu, he got an answer from the Rebbe, "Vayigia zman she'ivacha ineises atzmi." This was published already. And, uh, a- so there wasn't going to be shluchim, but months later, yeah.

55:34 Speaker 2 So that's the "vachaineises atzmi" meaning that till now it was-

55:37 Speaker 1 Yeshiva can-

55:38 Speaker 2 Yeshiva was above the shluchim.

55:39 Speaker 1 Yeshiva can exist without shluchim.

55:42 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

55:42 Speaker 1 L'poel mamash, what happened was that they wrote a letter to the Rebbe, Rab Chaim Gutnick, and he wrote that, "Givn shi yotzo tzav mei haMelech shelo yhiye shluchim matzi imanu," whatever he wrote. So the Rebbe's answer to him, he told me this several times, "Lo yhoys hatzav klal uklal, ela shelo yhiye shluchim al yodi." "Ele vechem ishluchei melach vetere semas." That was the answer. So we heard this answer, it was a good feeling, you know?

56:17 Speaker 2 And this is before you went?

56:19 Speaker 1 After we went.

56:20 Speaker 2 So that means that till now, the Rebbe was choosing each person?

56:23 Speaker 1 A shluchim al yadi.

56:24 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

56:25 Speaker 1 And then, so we heard this, you know, it was, was interesting. The Al Kaponim, there was-- And I wrote about this, that there's no question, because of the time that Groner spent with us-

56:42 Speaker 2 Rebbe Groner in Australia

56:43 Speaker 1 ... lehoros shlomin, Rebbe Yitzchak Groner, there's no question that one of the ma'aras was to hear from a zaid.

56:54 Speaker 2 Hmm.

56:54 Speaker 1 It was, fa shteyt zech, hamakusit fun reb. Every Thursday night, we used to sit in his house, sometimes till eirah beikimamash, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock, was zzz, zeyner zecher nis, the inyonim that he had. I mean, everything is published today already, with tapes and everything. Also, said, "Gehat fun reb," one of the things, again, shluchas that was so... At the beginning of his shluchas, he was a shliach in Buffalo, New York. In Buffalo, New York, he wasn't that much shliach.

57:30 Speaker 2 He was a, there was a school there?

57:33 Speaker 1 Whatever it was. I didn't know what his shlichas was. I'm talking about tov shin yud beis, yud alef yud beis. So he was a shliach there. He wasn't that much shliach, and he came back to the Rebbe, and he told the Rebbe that, "Pashut, I'm nish mat shliach." So what happened was, the Rebbe told him, "Kadvor meilan," he repeated this many times. "Ach zidishe yunge man, af yedn aleh tog, ode fahr bikres hashachar, ode noch bikres hashachar, zich metzaya zein ditzure fun rabbin." And the Rebbe started crying, zeiti ve'em. There's no question that all of these stories and what he had, the shlichas fun rebbin, gave even more atchuka. You know, we're already getting older, and when you're twenty, twenty-one, you start thinking a bisl vaita too, you know. And yeah, that's another pashut, v'dafan a shlichas for me in there. Vi andish, you know what I mean? A vas is min habacha of not shlichas, you know, to prepare for shlichas. So, so we heard a lot from Rebbe Yitzchak, and it really resonated time and again. And, uh, before we went into yechidas, going to Australia, so the Rebbe said that that morning, that the aleh verse in the given of shlichas in Australia should come in with us, and-

59:08 Speaker 2 In the pr- in the past?

59:09 Speaker 1 Also.

59:10 Speaker 2 Where, where was it?

59:10 Speaker 1 The previous group. We were the fifth group.

59:12 Speaker 2 Aron Lezer, Aron Lezer Tzeiten was part of your group?

59:14 Speaker 1 That means the four group, four groups before us.

59:17 Speaker 2 Aron Lezer Tzeiten was part of your group?

59:19 Speaker 1 Was the previous group.

59:20 Speaker 2 Previous group, okay.

59:21 Speaker 1 I was, my group was Ari Hitrick, Levi Wanberg, Yossi Friedman, efu, ofem Ishelishta. So what happened was, the Rebbe also said that Rebbe Yitzchak Groner dochter, he should also come in. So we came in, they told us to come in the first. When we came in, I was in Yechidas before this, several times.

59:44 Speaker 2 No, the mental, uh, note, I wanna hear about the Yechidasin.

59:48 Speaker 1 Yeah.

59:48 Speaker 2 Okay.

59:48 Speaker 1 So what happened was, we come into the room, and there's butcher paper covering all of the, the Rebbe's desk. But we came in first, the room fills up, there were twenty-two people in the room. So if this is-- We come in, and the Rebbe's standing, and you can only see the Rebbe, like, from here and up, because the table was covered. And it was covered, like, a foot and a half or, like, more than a foot. So if the Rebbe's standing here, I ended up standing here, Yossi Gerari next to me. And this part in front of the Rebbe was not covered with butcher paper. Mistamé, those that prepared the room, thought that no one is gonna stand over here or see what's going on here. They're gonna be standing behind the desk. But lapel, zekh vedai alem, so we stand there. The table, at least two-thirds, three-quarters of the table was full of Sefarim. And the last heilik hashof of the table, the last, like a third or whatever it was, quarter, a third, was setlach, envelopes, and newspaper clippings. But to see that was, like, unbelievable. Later on, Rebbe Yitzchak Groner told us that he heard from his brother, Leibel, that the shiurim that the Rebbe has, a minute, two minutes, two minutes in different Sefarim, and quickly the table fills up. And at times, the Rebbe tells Leibel to get a psa sefer. If it's more than a minute or two, and he comes back, the Rebbe's already learning something else already

1:01:34 Speaker 1 with adds on the table, other things already in. And kada, interesting. Binyamin Klein, I once went, uh, alav hashalom. I once went back from the oil with him. So I asked him, "Ez omid etzel apse hasipur fun rabbin?" So he tells me that once it was about quarter to three, and mincha is three fifteen. So a Yid, a, uh, literally Yid comes with a Shenem Sefer of Shulchan Aruch, and he wants to bring it into the Rebbe. He wants to bring it to the Rebbe. He said, "You can't just walk into the Rebbe. I'm going in with the mail in a couple of minutes." Uh, whoever saw the mailman come again, sometimes with two sacks, sometimes with one sack. So mail was always a big thing, but, but he told me Sfarim Kundtreysim was always the first thing the Rebbe looked at. Always. He says he took that Sefer in with the mail, and Weiss is the Bochum, told the fellow that he was carrying right to this man the one Sefer.

1:02:42 Speaker 2 He, he wrote, he wrote the Sefer or is a-

1:02:43 Speaker 1 Yeah, he wrote the Sefer. He was the Mechaber.

1:02:45 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:02:46 Speaker 1 But he had the other's, uh, copy of the Sefer with him, said that, "When the Rebbe comes out the Minchah, so stand in the lobby over there, i-in the front room, and the Rebbe will see you, uh, y-you're holding the Sefer. This time it's you." And the Rebbe walks out three fifty, the Rebbe walks by him, and the Rebbe for a second, like, stopped. "Og gedruckt ha gantze Sefer af Shulchan Aruch nisht eymol, demant a malt dem Rebbe," and the Rebbe walks by.

1:03:17 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:03:17 Speaker 1 Gadol, my, uh, my schwer, something similar, not totally. My schwer was a Yotzem at the Olov Shalom, Rabbi Shmuel, Rabbi Moshe Olov Shalom, who recently passed away. So he, uh, his great uncle was called Dasuna Kedayin, Rabbi Mordecai Gershon Spalter. A given Atzia from Amola, Grace Rov, uh, it was, uh... He wasn't a Lubavitcher Hasid, but he was a, he was a Mekuravet, said for dying in some Rebbe Memaloyor Yechidas, whatever. So he wrote a Sefer, and he wanted the Rebbe to look at it, and the Rebbe said, "Give him an Askames." So when he went into Yechidas, I guess it was before it was published, my schwer was outside. He didn't go into Yechidas with him, but he was outside, maybe in the Natacht, wherever he was. And he told him right away the story. And he said that he walked in with a, um, dreysik fertsik bleter in his own handwriting. And he said that the Rebbe went mamish like this. Looked at the page, turned the page, look-- took about two, three minutes, went through everything. My schwer said that the ksav was for an alter read that you can hardly read.

1:04:38 Speaker 2 Right.

1:04:39 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe mish the bleter.

1:04:41 Speaker 2 The Rebbe-

1:04:41 Speaker 1 And, and he says to the... And the Rebbe says to him, "Segut, iz olt iz druken." So he says, "Lubavitcher Rebbe, ich mein iz olt iz drukh lernen." So the Rebbe said, that's what he told the Rebbe, saying that the Choishid Chan is gekukt, and the Rebbe gives him Ha'ares on what he has written in that, in those-

1:05:01 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:05:01 Speaker 1 ... thirty pages.

1:05:02 Speaker 2 Wow.

1:05:03 Speaker 1 So he went out of Yechidas, he said, "Azad kop, Azad fisar," he said. He saw Gedali Yisroel-

1:05:09 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:05:10 Speaker 1 ... before the war, but he never really, he never-

1:05:12 Speaker 2 Everyone says that by Yechidas that the Rebbe would, uh, when the Rebbe would read your Tzedakah, the Rebbe would just in one second read the whole thing. The Rebbe just like would like...

1:05:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. Gadol, talking about Rebbe, it was in Mem Hes after the Rebbetzin passed away. So at the time, maybe it was Mem Tes already, at the time, the Rosh Yeshiva, uh, Rabbi Yisroel Bekersky, was a random Rebbe Zachasid. He was the Rebbe Zachasid. And he came to Chicago because his Yivik Sheini wa- had children in Chicago. He had a son in Chicago, Abramowitz.

1:05:58 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:05:58 Speaker 1 I get a call from Reb Daniel Maskitz, Alav Ha-Shalom. There's a lot to talk about Reb Daniel, given our Choshev HaShliah. And he calls me and he says the Rosh Yeshiva is in town. And he got a call, I don't know from whom, Mizlam Zen, Efshar Bagrifen, that we should go over to him and visit him and... So I went with him. We went to this, uh, Abramowitz's house, and we meet him there, and of course, he knew who we were, and, uh-

1:06:30 Speaker 2 He, he knew from Sim Sim.

1:06:32 Speaker 1 Yeah. I got a smicha from him, efriat me several times, whatever, you know, the normal things, so he knew who I was. He knew who Reb Daniel was too, you know. So kapane, he was very comfortable. And he was speaking about the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin. The Rebbetzin passed away. He said to us, "Ich vashtay dem Rebbe," you know, like, whatever. But then he told us like this. He said, "Ich hob gekent ale gedole Yisroel fad hamuchlome." And he starts naming them. Reb Menachem Zemba, the Belzer Rov, the Bobover, the Amshinov, the Alexander Rebbe. He went through the whole list, everyone that he knew. He said-

1:07:17 Speaker 2 He learned in, uh, he, he learned in, uh-

1:07:18 Speaker 1 He went to Chechma Leblim

1:07:20 Speaker 2 ... Chechma Leblim, by Menashe Ber, yeah.

1:07:21 Speaker 1 He said, he said like this: "The Belzer Rov, a tzadik. The Bobover Rov," as I remember he said, "The Bobover Rov," he said, "Ken a klige Yid. The Menachem Zemba, a goon." And then he named the other ones, I forgot already which, what he said about the other. "Oba ish, Shahakol Boy, a ish hashkolis," I remember clearly he said, "Not the Rebbe." He said, "Ich kenne dem Rebbe," he said.

1:08:10 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:08:10 Speaker 1 He said how the Rebbe told him he should print the Chika Halachis, and the Rebbe So he said, "Ish ashkoiles aguen in nigle, aguen in Nister, aguen in Avi Sisrol, aguen in Inyonet Aome. Vi yret metem dot mezaguen," he said. And he was, he really, like, he didn't have to be yoitzer for us. You know, we were like young guys, you know. I'm talking already 30-some years ago.

1:08:40 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:08:41 Speaker 1 And he was very taken by the Rebbe, and the Rebbe was mechabed him a lot, but, you know, at, uh, you know, at fa- at far shtand l'lalen, you know. Rabbi had talking about him when I was in Yeshiva Montreal, going back a bit. Rabbi Hirschbron used to give us a shiur Motzaei Shabbos, Mishnayos. He was-

1:09:01 Speaker 2 He was... Rabbi, Rabbi Hirschbron, was the rosh yeshiva of the yeshiva, or he was, like, a guest rosh yeshiva? What, what, what was the story?

1:09:07 Speaker 1 You know what? Isaac Shve handle with the rosh yeshiva, but he gave a shiur klali every week.

1:09:12 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:09:12 Speaker 1 And he was the bocher, if I had this.

1:09:14 Speaker 2 He was part of the faculty officially.

1:09:16 Speaker 1 Yeah, he was, he was the best bocher. Well, uh, because he gave the question, I gave the answer. Hu mose, vahu mefage, he did everything. You know, he was so excited when it came to learning, uh, they have gezuchter kashenaych and gezuchter m'tereitzoych. He was-

1:09:35 Speaker 2 I heard from someone in Montreal-

1:09:36 Speaker 1 He learned it

1:09:36 Speaker 2 ... that he would drive him to, I think, uh, I think Chaim Troitel, I think, that he would, um, drive him to Montreal to fabregin sometimes, and he'd sit in the back, uh, with a Gemara the entire time, you know, the whole, the whole trip. Yeah.

1:09:51 Speaker 1 So what he told us was that, um, he spoke about himself, and then he spoke about the Rebbe. So about himself, he spoke that he told us when he was 16 years old, "V'nichshon giveyn a bukki v'shas."

1:10:07 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:10:08 Speaker 1 He said he met the Koshlo Govrov, that was his Rebbe or whatever, and the Koshlo Govrov met him. He was 16 years old, and he said to him, "Pinya lech hera dekems shas." So, "Abba demach mitum kop," he says, right? Like, I acknowledged it. So then he asked me, he said that, "Ba- ba mig gefrekt acht shailas in b'kius, chaza alle geansert. Noch navich gefrekt, ich kem ba eich fregn?" So shailas in b'kius. So the Koshlo Govrov said to him, "Freg." He said, "Fir rote givist anferung, fir rote nish geansert, noch mon gloich gebeten mechila." That he, that he put him on the spot. He starts to talk about the Rebbe. He said, "Bechlal ich begrem bam Satmar Rov, bam Ger Rebbe, v'geret mit zeyem lernen, alle miner bach epes gechapt," he said. He said, "Mit the Rebbe, chabad, a file gefrekt dem Rebbe vi zi sheyt Chabad in Shas," he said. And the Rebbe, because I think he said Baba Basra, but I'm not sure. I think it ends in-

1:11:18 Speaker 2 Says Chabad, the word Chabad?

1:11:19 Speaker 1 The word Chabad, Chabad Siman.

1:11:21 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

1:11:22 Speaker 1 You know, Siman Chabad, Siman...

1:11:23 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:11:24 Speaker 1 So he start. He said, "The Rebbe in his learning, achad bedorot." Now, how can... Yeah, and his thing, he, he... There were a lot of things that he said about the Rebbe, "Vi, vi the Rebbe's L'Chides Aches, de alle Marom Ocoimus, de Marom Ocoimus fetzer koachen de Marom Ocoimus from Rebbe." He f- quick alle move the Marom Ocoimus because he, he loved seeing it. He was very taken by the Rebbe. I heard that the last, uh, Siyum HaShas, they didn't invite him because of Yishak Yisroel of Lubavitch. So he said, "Der Rebbe Meir Shapira vot hanke lap vot demamoiket nishtain gelat."

1:12:02 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:12:03 Speaker 1 Yeah, whatever. So anyway, far, uh, I'm being sidetracked. But anyway, with, uh, him and, uh, the Rosh Yeshiva, uh, Rabbi Pekarsky. Uh, Pekarsky was a very interesting Rosh Yeshiva. I remember once, I don't know if it's negea. I remember once he was sitting in zal, and, and ze giveyn a mal kanim in zal, seven, seven, they know how to learn, zem gut gelehrt-

1:12:26 Speaker 2 The kanim?

1:12:27 Speaker 1 The kanim, yeah. There was kanim in nigle. The Yeshiva Kikar HaReeha-

1:12:30 Speaker 2 What was the whole-- The kanim started, like, in, in the youths, the whole-

1:12:33 Speaker 1 The youths, yeah, yeah. Avraham Elshemta was one of the kanim.

1:12:35 Speaker 2 Yes. The Rebbe wanted certain bochurim to become, uh, masters in Torah. That, that idea, right?

1:12:43 Speaker 1 Right. Correct, yeah.

1:12:44 Speaker 2 So what was he say? That you have to, you have to, you have to give a shiur, Motzei Shabbos, right?

1:12:46 Speaker 1 You have to give a shiur. So I remember he was giving a shiur, uh, Rabbi Pekarsky, and I said, "S'y du a klalen gan shas." So Yitzchak Goldberg is sitting there, and he says, "In vu a da klalen gan shas?" So he caught him off guard. So he says, "Ich veis nisht vi zi zikh, un ich zal im nisht trefen." That was typical him, auf dem poylishen derech, you know.

1:13:13 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:13:13 Speaker 1 But ach upon him, uh, he was a Chassidishe Yid. He was dem Rebbe's a chassid, uh, no question of that. You see in the early pictures, ve iz a pishtut beim Rebbe. Anyway, so then, uh, that was the shlichus in, uh-

1:13:25 Speaker 2 Australia

1:13:25 Speaker 1 ... later on the shlichus in Australia.

1:13:27 Speaker 2 And then you came back to 770?

1:13:28 Speaker 1 In Aus- in Austria, yeah. We came back to 770-

1:13:32 Speaker 2 Was that, was that... Could you... I, I, I said we're gonna talk about-- I said, I don't know if you, you want to, but what, what happened when you were in Yechidas when you were a kid? Like, like, uh, what, what-

1:13:42 Speaker 1 Okay. So I'm, I'm gonna come back to that. I'm gonna come back. I just wanna finish this part of before we get to the other shlichusim. So I wanna finish with Melbourne. When we came back was Nisan, early Nisan Lamed Zayin. That's when we came back. And by the way, the Rebbe told us when we, we were in Yechidas, he gave us hundred dollars and said, and that was Chof Gimmel Iyar, "Ich vil hobn a gedrukten Keitz Chedush HaTorah. Einer zal bei mir zayn a gebundenem vis Yod Gimmel Tammuz un azweiter elfer Shone." We were giving shiurim hours a day, nigle, Chassidishe, Birset, Ian, and for u-- And we came Erev Shavuot.

1:14:26 Speaker 2 Did the Rebbe use that language?

1:14:27 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe-

1:14:27 Speaker 2 I, I, "Ich vil," I wanna-

1:14:29 Speaker 1 "Ich vil hobn." I think it ends with... And he said, and he repeated, "Ani shomeim mitzrik shickn dibyald." Twice he repeated it.

1:14:37 Speaker 2 Ah.

1:14:37 Speaker 1 You can see in the, in the Reshimin, the Anaf Aluf. You bet we had it ready. And we worked with the local bochurim. We did it ourselves, whatever we, we, we did. So, uh, anyway, we come back, and we asked the Rebbe what we should do in the summer.

1:14:53 Speaker 2 When you came back after two years in Australia?

1:14:55 Speaker 1 Two years in Australia. So in those two years, you can't go anywhere and, uh, nothing. So ach upon him, we asked the Rebbe what we should do in the summer. The Rebbe's answer was, "Li shor mi seven, seventy." And really, it was an incredible summer. First of all, the farbrengen is a seven seventy was, it was kumat v'ledig. I mean, you had a couple hundred people maybe. There were two benches, and two benches in the shvil, a-and, and-

1:15:26 Speaker 2 'Cause everyone's on merkeschlichas or in camp or in the country or whatever.

1:15:30 Speaker 1 A-and the, the Rebbe saw everything is not a guzma. He always, the Rebbe always saw everything. But then with excuse me, was a smaller Ohel. So I remember the head of Beitar from Melbourne came to town. I knew him from-

1:15:49 Speaker 2 What, what is Beitar?

1:15:50 Speaker 1 Beitar is a Zionist group.

1:15:53 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:15:53 Speaker 1 But al kapone came to town, and he knew me from Melbourne, so I invited him to come for Shabbos. He came for Shabbos, I got him a place, and then by farbrengen I sat him down by the end of the benches, and I stood by the last leaf of the bench. And between the sichas I mamish bent down. I don't think the Rebbe could've seen me. And I gave him over tamtzis of the sichas. And the Rebbe was so mechabev that, that zitz dafem the mensch, and, and you're attending to him, you know? There's no, uh, thing for them to hear.

1:16:31 Speaker 2 Nothing.

1:16:31 Speaker 1 This is a Shabbos, it wasn't a hookup, it wasn't... And, uh, m- farbrengen's about to end, the Rebbe goes, "For me."

1:16:39 Speaker 2 They appointed you.

1:16:40 Speaker 1 Yeah, but I, I, I didn't think it's to me, so I just turned around-

1:16:44 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:16:44 Speaker 1 ... 'cause there was a shtick Ohel in the back. Rebbe goes again. Rebbe told me to say l'chaim, and him to say l'chaim, the Rebbe.

1:16:51 Speaker 2 Oh.

1:16:51 Speaker 1 It was a meir di kir feeling that, uh... How can I tell you? The Rebbe's every smile was... I mean, smile. The Rebbe-- I remember the Rebbe walking home Thursday nights late. The Rebbe said, "Two great in the sicah," whatever. Like we were up always seven seventy at night, Thursday night was normal for him, farbrengen shpet, you know, fourteen fourteen, fourteen eighteen. There was always things going on. The Rebbe's walking out of the room always, most of the time, with a, with a bag, with one of these big envelopes, these v- manila envelopes. A big one, a small one. The ne-emis that you felt was undescribable. I don't, I know, became a shvenigen Gan Eden, but, but the, the, the, the, the I'm gonna stop it. When we walked the Rebbe home on Friday night, Friday night, it's, uh, uh, Friday Mincha Shabbos, uh, we walked the Rebbe home. The Rebbe's walking, the Rebbe's face, the Rebbe's... We walk behind the Rebbe, but watching the Rebbe come out, it was just unbelievable. It was... And you couldn't get tired looking at the Rebbe. You just couldn't get tired. I remember as a kid, I came the first Shabbos Tisha B'Av, Hey Vov Tisha B'Av, that we came Friday Hey Tisha B'Av, Vov Tisha B'Av was Shabbos. It was Tof Shin Chav Vav, it was the first yortzeit of the Rebbe's son Chana. We were kids, you know, I've seen the Rebbe before that. Then, then we came, um, Simchas Torah too, but then it was

1:19:01 Speaker 1 the first yortzeit. There was a bus of kids came, uh. We were standing, how old was I? Ten, 11. You know, kids 11 wanna play, you know. We couldn't take our eyes off the Rebbe. It was like glued to the Rebbe. What did we see? Then the Rebbe. But it was like such a, a hano... I know the Rebbe was against makuktafa, makuktafa.

1:19:30 Speaker 2 Right.

1:19:31 Speaker 1 It was such a hano ruchnius looking at the Rebbe. It was just unbelievable. Whatever. Tza l'chai tizuch. So-

1:19:39 Speaker 2 It's a zeide-

1:19:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:19:40 Speaker 2 I don't know if it's a zeide gezacht, maybe it's a ikhe gezacht.

1:19:42 Speaker 1 Yeah, I know, but I'm just saying it's, it's... So anyway, so the Rebbe told us to stay, uh, I remember Tisha B'Av, so people came in already, some people from the country or whatever. But that whole zman was such a rayche zman sitting, uh, that Mincha Maariv, we didn't daven. There was no davening Shacharit with the Rebbe other than Monday and Thursday. But Monday and Thursday, the upstairs was not crowded. It wasn't crowded.

1:20:09 Speaker 2 It was late. It was 10 o'clock.

1:20:11 Speaker 1 Yeah. So it was a, uh, just watching the Rebbe, it was, uh, it was, uh, it was like a tiny gruchni. It was like, uh, like you're in Gan Eden, you know what I mean? Like you're watching it. A ma-- I yet gezogt, uh, Yothel Segal told me. Uh, Yothel Segal ze he yeshalma, and he said that he used to come often for Simchas Torah. By the way, he stays at my house every year for the past 30 years. He comes from Chicago. A cheder maisis from Rebbe. He said he used to stand by a kafes, and he said, "At that time, you didn't need Gan Eden. Vet getacht in Gan Eden, Mashiach." You, uh, you had Mashiach Gan Eden in full display This was it. You didn't need more. What, what do you need more? The guy that talking, he said Akovus, or you remember, uh, an incident. I didn't know when this was Lamed Alef, Lamed Beis, I don't recall. But I wanted to see Maariv Simchas Torah, banacht Leil Simchas Torah. I wanna see Leil Simchas Torah, so I know I'm gonna miss out on going to the tahluch early, so I'm gonna go to East, uh, East, uh, Flatbush. East Flatbush, heh, the shul coming in.

1:21:32 Speaker 2 Smart Bush.

1:21:34 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, but it's Smart Bush. Okay. So I wanted it up, so I was inside, and of course, the bochurim that helped... By the way, I don't think there were more than thirty people inside. The zal upstairs. Then the elderly-

1:21:46 Speaker 2 The Rebbe daven upstairs?

1:21:48 Speaker 1 Yeah, Maariv the Rebbe davened upstairs.

1:21:49 Speaker 2 'Cause the setting up down, the, uh, downstairs is set up for fablingen.

1:21:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. The Rebbe, the Rebbe davened upstairs Maariv. Uh, Shemini Atzeres Maariv was downstairs.

1:21:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:21:59 Speaker 1 Simchas Torah was up. And always Shemini Atzeres the Rebbe ca- comes in, puts down the siddur, and he turned around with a niggun. And where the Rebbe stood Friday was not where he stood Beis V'Heh, but Kisa Torah.

1:22:15 Speaker 2 Right. Beis V'Heh, the Rebbe was right by the door, you know, by the, by the hallway, by the magnet. And, uh-

1:22:24 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:22:24 Speaker 2 ... Rebbe was the other side, yeah.

1:22:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. So what happened was the Rebbe comes in, and if you know, there's a door next to the omit, where the chazan steht. That door was open maybe a half an inch, or maybe less, because there were a lot of bochurim outside, and jungeleit, that from zach geshemte reinkumen. So they stood outside, and the door was out, you were able to see mamash the Rebbe. Sat oys gekukt vi the Rebbe bemerkt nisht.

1:22:55 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:22:57 Speaker 1 The Rebbe puts down the siddur, and Rebbe ta-- Uh, uh, don't ask me what niggun, but one of these, uh, niggunim, Simchas Torah, they can niggunim. Suddenly, the Rebbe goes like this. To the helem zogey narikot, agum dibima. Can you imagine? It's the only time I ever saw that in my life. So when the Rebbe did that, there was some excitement, uh, like a volf kok in the Rebbe, so you were circling the bimah gekukt af un Rebbe, whatever. The door opened up from so much, maybe, maybe three quarters of an inch. Put some Rebbe, walks to the door, opens up the door, and goes like this, "Allez on a reingeyn" And everyone started dancing. Whoever was there ran in. A lot didn't, but the ones there ran in.

1:23:42 Speaker 2 Right.

1:23:43 Speaker 1 It's a tzir from, uh, Simchas Torah. I also mention, uh, I, I remember talking about Simchas Torah in Akovus. I remember once the, um, the, the shul was like a third of the shul. So you know how the shul was built in-

1:24:02 Speaker 2 Three installments

1:24:03 Speaker 1 ... Yeah, like there's like three apartment buildings that the basement-

1:24:07 Speaker 2 Is this, is the shalash?

1:24:09 Speaker 1 Y- yeah.

1:24:09 Speaker 2 And then there's-

1:24:10 Speaker 1 So, so it was only the shalash

1:24:11 Speaker 2 ... in seventeen eighty-four and seventeen eighty-eight, yeah.

1:24:12 Speaker 1 That was still about Chaf Zayin, I don't know when, Chaviv, Chaf Zayin, wh- whatever. Then they built the, the next ones. The-

1:24:21 Speaker 2 The Lamed Daled

1:24:23 Speaker 1 Lamed Daled, yeah. Lamed Daled they built it in nineteen eighty-four?

1:24:27 Speaker 2 The last one.

1:24:28 Speaker 1 The last one, right.

1:24:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:24:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, the last one was Lamed.

1:24:31 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:24:31 Speaker 1 But then only the first one was standing. I remember ov- also when I came Vov Tishrei, I remember clearly where I was standing in the back by the colored windows watching the Rebbe. A kapo nem, so, uh, what was I? Middle. I f- I lost my train of thought.

1:24:49 Speaker 2 So you're saying that, uh, when you came downstairs, it was just the first part of seven seventy.

1:24:55 Speaker 1 Oh, this first time. So the, it's, it's Simchas Torah banacht, and the Rebbe's in the middle of zabrengen, and the Rebbe stands up to dance. Suddenly, abruptly, the Rebbe stopped, and the Rebbe said, looked up, "Vey yidden shlogen zich" And there was like a hush, you know. And then the Rebbe continued. So these are things that the Rebbe noticed everything, uh, uh, veshteyt zechus. And there was by Akovus many times, as you know, in the frat when it grew, when the much more people came from different parts of the world, v'chol, v'chol, it was, uh-

1:25:32 Speaker 2 Different, uh, nationalities.

1:25:35 Speaker 1 Okay. So it used to be the seder that by, um, that when it came to yom im lettuce, you went into yechidut. So I went once as a kid with my father. Maybe I was-

1:25:53 Speaker 2 After yom im lettuce.

1:25:54 Speaker 1 What?

1:25:54 Speaker 2 Before bar mitzvah, yeah.

1:25:56 Speaker 1 For your father's yom im lettuce? No. I don't know when my father went in, it was Yushvat time.

1:26:02 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:26:02 Speaker 1 But I went in yechidut with my father.

1:26:04 Speaker 2 Of course, okay.

1:26:04 Speaker 1 I was eight years old, nine years old, so I don't remember m- much, only the Rebbe sitting by the table. Neret zekhns zechtzig yor tzik, by the way. V'a kapo nem, and then I went in for ba- my ba- bar mitzvah. The bar mitzvah was short, was interesting because I went in after my bar mitzvah, right after. My bar mitzvah is Daled Tishrei, so I wasn't there for Elul. My father was going to go Simchas Torah. I went in right after Simchas Torah with my father, and he a-- and, and the Rebbe just said one word, "Gi gaben stokie yenem toven gezuchter meimer," and this and yes, said the meimer, but Rebbe didn't say hear me the meimer, or like he did to others and all that. Rebbe just asked him in huggy yom im lettuce, and gezuchter meimer, and that was it, like...

1:26:56 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:26:59 Speaker 1 Every year thereafter, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, I went in a- right after Tishrei. Don't ask me why I didn't go in Elul I don't know. Maybe-

1:27:13 Speaker 2 El, El was no Yechidus, no?

1:27:16 Speaker 1 El was no Yechidus, but Chof Lamed I could have gone in. But I was in Eitz HaShayim when I was... No, then, then I was in Montreal. I was in Montreal camp. Could be that's why. Oh, I didn't go-

1:27:29 Speaker 2 I, I think the Rebbe didn't have Yechidus in El.

1:27:32 Speaker 1 No, but not only that. I could have gone in Av or could have gone in Tammuz, but I didn't.

1:27:36 Speaker 2 You went in-

1:27:36 Speaker 1 I'm just telling you, Maaziah went after that. All these Yechidus were very short. Remember once I asked a Bracha for my mother, asked this, uh, but very nothing extraordinary, except by the, um, when I was 18, I asked the Rebbe about, uh... The Rebbe always looked at the-- There was a time the Rebbe looked at the Tzetel of Dan Holler and all that first as you came in.

1:28:04 Speaker 2 You, you, you had to give-

1:28:05 Speaker 1 The Rebbe had the Tzetel

1:28:06 Speaker 2 ... you had to give the Tzetel from Manhalda, right?

1:28:08 Speaker 1 And say good thanks. Uh, yeah. And, um, when I was 18, I asked the Rebbe about, uh, because after I came back from Eitz HaShayim, I asked the Rebbe about putting on Tefillin, uh, putting on Rabbeinu Tam. Then everyone asked the Rebbe Rabbeinu Tam when you were 18. It's interesting, I didn't put it, put it on on my 18th Yom HaZikaron, which was Dalet Tishrei. I don't know why I should have, but I, I wanted to be in Yechidus and ask the Rebbe first, so I asked the Rebbe in Yechidus. I wrote in, the Rebbe said, "Sag likeh zach," uh, onto the Rabbeinu-- This was through faxing Rabbeinu Tam. "Sag likeh zach onto Rabbeinu Tam's show."

1:28:49 Speaker 2 Then, then later it changed Teshri Lamed Lamed, the Rebbe said everyone should do it from, uh, Lamed He.

1:28:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. Then, then Rebbe said, uh, Lamed He. But it's interesting because when I came back from Australia, I had no Yechidus. There was no, uh... No, but then was right away Lamed He. Lamed He was right away after I came back.

1:29:11 Speaker 2 After the summer.

1:29:12 Speaker 1 So Lamed He, yeah, after the summer was Lamed He, so that's a whole separate Parshah, Lamed He, right? And the Rebbe said the, uh, the Sichas in the Rebbe's room and, uh, all of that. So it was Bemesah. And then came the Shlichas, which I had very interesting things. The, the Shlichas in, in Detroit, I have to say, the Shpocher of Rebbe Rashabtab.

1:29:37 Speaker 2 One sec. When did you get married?

1:29:39 Speaker 1 I got married Ches Cheshvan Lamed He. So-

1:29:44 Speaker 2 Lamed He.

1:29:45 Speaker 1 Yeah. So Gadam, my parents were in, in the, in the Garden of Naatan, my mother and my father. So he, he gave them a Shver, a Schwiger, and they gave them all Brachos. But to my mother, he said, "Lange gezunte yorn." And she lived till she was 90.

1:30:10 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:30:11 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, and she had, you know, lived a long and nice life. Um, so I got married in Lamed He. And just to point out how the Rebbe knew everyone who's there, even in the later years, the, the crowds were so big. I, I'm not saying a Chidush. The Chidush is when the Rebbe takes note of it and tells you about it. That's the Chidush. So in Mem Zayin, I was going to go to Russia, B'Tammuz V'Tzamchem.

1:30:41 Speaker 2 You're saying you're li- already living in Chicago, Rebbe?

1:30:43 Speaker 1 I'm, I'm already in Chicago, yeah.

1:30:45 Speaker 2 You're doing a special, uh, trip.

1:30:47 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:30:47 Speaker 2 A special, uh, special trip.

1:30:50 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I'm, I'm going to, uh, to Russia, and I was in New York. It, it was going to be after Shavuot, and after Shavuot, I was first in New York for about several days to get some training, preparation. Was mit Meg zogen, was mit Talet zogen, whatever. It was still the beginning of Glasnost. So it was very important that, you know, you don't talk what you're doing, and you don't talk about what you're doing.

1:31:20 Speaker 2 It's the beginning of what? Uh, I'm not familiar with it.

1:31:21 Speaker 1 Glasnost. Uh, you know, the-

1:31:22 Speaker 2 What is that?

1:31:24 Speaker 1 The... When the former Soviet Union began to Westernize.

1:31:30 Speaker 2 Okay. That's a very... Okay.

1:31:32 Speaker 1 So to speak. So to speak.

1:31:33 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:31:34 Speaker 1 But our Kapono said we still have to be very careful. We, uh, only have to stay in the, uh, hotels and not speak in the hotels or to anyone to speak. V'chu, v'chu, v'chu. So I came in then, and then I was going to meet my Shutaf. That was the first guy, Plotkin, who went as a former Russian. They wanted to see whatever. They sent him first time, somebody who left Russia off a Polish passport, went. So I went with him.

1:32:00 Speaker 2 They wanted to see if it works.

1:32:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, and see how it works. Yeah. So I didn't, I didn't go that Sunday to Dallas. I was in Chicago. I was going to meet him in the middle of the week at JFK, and from there go to Russia. So he goes by the Rebbe-

1:32:20 Speaker 2 Can I just ask a question? They were taking a Shliach from his Shlichas to go to Russia? That was the s-- That was, that, that was-

1:32:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. Shluchim went

1:32:27 Speaker 2 You weren't the only one, now that I think about it. You're the, uh, uh-

1:32:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, Shluchim went. Yeah, yeah.

1:32:31 Speaker 2 It wasn't only Shluchim, but also Shluchim, yeah.

1:32:33 Speaker 1 Also Shluchim, yeah.

1:32:34 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:32:34 Speaker 1 Rabonim went, this, whatever. Like, uh, Akaba Shluchim went. Of course, Shluchim went.

1:32:38 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

1:32:39 Speaker 1 Rebbe Shapira went several times.

1:32:40 Speaker 2 Shmalu went, uh-

1:32:41 Speaker 1 Shmalu, yeah, they all went. I went to Mem Zayin. Some of my friends went to-- My Schwager went. Hershey Spalter went with them, and he went at the time where there was the Chernobyl reactor and all that, that, uh...

1:32:53 Speaker 2 Right.

1:32:53 Speaker 1 Akabani walks by the Rebbe Plotkin, and the Rebbe asks him, "Who would dein Shutaf?" He says, "He's in Chicago." So the Rebbe said, "Ich farshteynish. Die gantze mishpacha dor fachassene un hergeblibene in Chicago?" The mishpacha was there because my niece Got married to Edelman, whatever. One of the Turks got married to Edelman. So I just came, and I just-- I wasn't going to come again, you know. I have a lot of nieces and nephews, Baruch Hashem, with the rest of the Mishpacha, so I wasn't going to go. But the Rebbe said... And Shabbos was a, a big crowd, you know, uh, like every Shabbos, the men was a big crowd. The Rebbe punk gezen that my father was there, my, my, my mother was there.

1:33:41 Speaker 2 And now you're, uh, related and the whole thing.

1:33:43 Speaker 1 Yeah, whatever. The ganzah Mishpacha, da, far simcha, der gebliben in Chicago.

1:33:48 Speaker 2 Wow.

1:33:49 Speaker 1 So from then, you know, the, the Rebbe saw everything which was going on. There were times that when the Rebbe walked into Tehillim, the Rebbe really looked around. He knew who's there, Shabbos and Rosh, I'm not there. The Rebbe once went into the zal when I was a bachur upstairs in seven seventy. Uh, kapo nem, uh, so where are we at? The, uh-

1:34:14 Speaker 2 So y-y-you're talking about shlichas.

1:34:16 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah, I wanna tell you, uh, also, I think it's negeia for yungerleit and shlichas to know this. Very negeia. I was a shliach in Michigan, the feder for three years. Sibis me sibi sheinis, I used to write in a lot to the Rebbe about my experience over there, the relationship with Rebbe, and Rebbe was, is, Aluham Rachu KeZiyam, v'shalom teives, is the Rebbe, zach síri sharit. So there was a lot that I learned from Rebbe, kind of skash with some Rebbe, with Rebbe. But then there were times that we've had, let's put it this way, our disagreements. And I wrote to the Rebbe a lot about it. And once I wrote a lot, that was from my last tettel, the gabada shlichas. And the Rebbe's answer was so clear, "Im ein lo chozer hamachsik oso shom, yochol es anyan la'atsar es acheres." Basically, the Rebbe is saying, "These are my roshe shluchim. I picked them. If you don't like it, you can leave." And I was, I was pleased with the answer because first of all, the Rebbe-

1:35:35 Speaker 2 I mean, it so- it sounds like the Rebbe was telling you to go. The Rebbe saying, "As long as you don't have a contract that's holding you down, you should, you can leave."

1:35:41 Speaker 1 I, I wanna tell you how it resonated by me.

1:35:44 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:35:45 Speaker 1 The Rebbe, the Rebbe had zine Yidden, zine shluchim that he picked. He's not changing them. The, the-- If, if, if du kent zech nisht oysglaykh mid Zey, kentst du geyn gezunterheit. And I think maybe it's too sharp for yungerleit to hear these days, but in my opinion, uh, a ze Rebbe vek es lop. And, and you know what? And then later on, I had the gabba my shlichas over here. So I went straight from, from there to Chicago, but this answer was maybe an odar. And I came to Chicago, I left chof alef of from, uh, Michigan, and I came chof alef of to Chicago. So there was no beini lebeini. In those days, there were offers, there was vastavils, you know.

1:36:36 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:36:37 Speaker 1 That was already mem beis. So there was a lot of, uh, I came lamed tes over to Michigan, but I left-- I came be yom li yom. I came chof alef of, lamed tes, and I left chof alef of. I told the Rebbe, "A kodesh Baruch Hu, remarush naseim shel tzadikim be yom li yom." He didn't wanna hear about it. Agapah. But anyway, I learned a lot from Rebbe. And, um, so one of the offers, of course, was Chicago, and I came to Chicago. And of course, uh, I knew Daniell back from Yeshiva Montreal, about a year older than I am. And, um, va se gebleiben was that, uh, I, I went right into the Rebbe because, because of the money situation, without going into anariches, I had tzekes. So I punkt wrote a letter-

1:37:28 Speaker 2 The position was the position that you have now? The-

1:37:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, to start the school. There was a preschool, but to start the elementary school, that was why I was going to come, to start an elementary school.

1:37:40 Speaker 2 In Detroit, what was, what were you doing?

1:37:42 Speaker 1 In Detroit, I was doing the same thing.

1:37:44 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

1:37:44 Speaker 1 I was, I was teaching two hours a day and taking care of an whole shaft, whatever.

1:37:50 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:37:52 Speaker 1 Okay, we won't go into all that, but whatever. So, look, be peh yom, namash, I write to the Rebbe that I have tzekes. I get a letter from the Rebbe, b'chtimis yad kodsha. "Bekesher la'atzo oisoi be Chicago, im tzekes atzlo al yekomes lo zer." That was in a letter, which was also a letter for the opshernish of my son. So it wasn't specially about that, but it was a nichbe betzidi and a letter. So it wasn't like even an answer. He c-- the Rebbe could have given an answer, uh-

1:38:36 Speaker 2 It wasn't a ma'en.

1:38:38 Speaker 1 It wasn't a ma'en, although I wrote a letter, the Rebbe could have written the ma'en on the letter like the Rebbe did so many times.

1:38:45 Speaker 2 Right.

1:38:46 Speaker 1 So al kapo nem, what happened was that the, uh, al yekomes lo zer, I'm gonna look into other things. Okay, al yekomes lo zer. Okay, so the Rebbe's telling me al yekomes, so-

1:39:01 Speaker 2 Right

1:39:02 Speaker 1 ... I'm done. S- I don't know, for several weeks or two months later, I get a call from Reb Daniell, alu vashalom, and he tells me, "Yitzchok, I want you to know that the shailas that you had are being resolved for a very interesting reason." There was another yunger man that came from Montreal for the position, and the Rebbe's answer was, "Im ein bazeh shailas shelo atsagas gvul." We don't know what means atsagas gvul. What kind of atsagas gvul? No one has the position. No one is giving away that po-- Like, the only thing we can think is of you.

1:39:39 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:39:40 Speaker 1 I said, "You have your answer, and I have my answer." And I have an answer, al yekomes lo zer, fatik, nishalo fel. So he says, "You know what? You're writing gin mitzlamah dat saas." In those days, dat saas were all over the place, and-

1:39:57 Speaker 2 They were to open new places or to, to-

1:40:00 Speaker 1 Everything. Whatever, what- whatever. There was like Nayech, I don't remember, Buffalo wanted to open up something nearby, and even Wisconsin, I was there once, and there were offers. And, uh, but I was already involved in Chinuch, so went to Chinuch. But now right back into the Rebbe that Rav Daniel came to me, and he has another hatsalah, and that five people are guaranteeing the money for the first year, whatever, there was a... Right away, within two hours, "Aska ma bracha, aska latzian." So although there was a letter like that, and so basically what the Rebbe said, in sakeh etzlo, it was sakeh etzlo. Sakeh etzlo is all you cover. So the "Is abrusel dil atatet kedav blayten." Mm-hmm. And then I guess came the answer, you know, "Aska ma bracha, aska latzian." But then there was other nyonim that I had, but the time is rolling. Is the time for psachas sipur, Rabbi Meyer? Uh, I don't... There's no hakbola on time, Rabbi Wolf. Continue. Yeah, while I was in- Take, take, take off your watch. While I was in, uh- I have a question. What happened when you went on shlichus to Detroit? I'm just curious, like there was answers from the Rebbe to go- Yeah ... by going to Detroit? Of course. Aska ma bracha. Yeah, yeah, of course. Mm-hmm. Aska ma bracha. I think you- Then I also had hatsalos and all this. We discussed- And my, uh, my fetter, Yitchameil Lipsitz, who was, uh, lived in Detroit at the time, convinced

1:41:36 Speaker 1 me you gotta go there. They, they need somebody for NIU, for administration, whatever. So I went. I wrote to the Rebbe first, Uh, I don't... There's no hakbola on time, Rabbi Wolf. Continue. Yeah, while I was in- Take, take, take off your watch. While I was in, uh- I have a question. What happened when you went on shlichus to Detroit? I'm just curious, like there was answers from the Rebbe to go- Yeah ... by going to Detroit? Of course. Aska ma bracha. Yeah, yeah, of course. Mm-hmm. Aska ma bracha. I think you- Then I also had hatsalos and all this. We discussed- And my, uh, my fetter, Yitchameil Lipsitz, who was, uh, lived in Detroit at the time, convinced me you gotta go there. They, they need somebody for NIU, for administration, whatever. So I went. I wrote to the Rebbe first, Mm-hmm ... "Al kaponeim," um, while I was in Detroit, Simchas Torah, Mem, Mem Beis. So I had two kids at the time, and for Steitzach, when I used to bring them for Arafes for Shemini Atzeres. Simchas Torah, Arafes was very late. One of them was a year old, the other one was two and a half. So i- it was, you know, you can only do so much, and I, one of them I held on my shoulders, and the other one, my shvagers took care of them. It wasn't easy bringing the kids. You must be shtupped to go. Anyway, I brought them. I wanted them to see them, the

1:42:40 Speaker 1 Rebbe. So I'm standing mamish by the mizrach wall, uh, right to the left, on top. There was piramidus over there, stood on top. So I, I was able to see the Rebbe perfectly, the Rebbe was able to see them. And it was noticeable, I was holding Moishy, my son, on my shoulders, and it was noticeable that the Rebbe was looking several times, even made with the hand, and it was noticeable. But you know what? It could have been somebody near me, but it wasn't, uh, Sholom Shpalter used to stand near me. But whatever. So al kaponeim, make a long story short, a day afterwards, after Simchas Torah, I go to, I drive back. I had myself, my wife, my two kids, and one of Stein's children, Benzion Stein's, and Dr. Machab's a kind. We're driving back, we're in the Poconos, and the car goes out of control and smashes onto the side, whatever, and the one that was not buckled in punt at the time was my son Moishy, was a year old. And, uh, immediately, I don't know how, there were no cell phones then, the police from the Poconos came. We were all tied in except for him. He got out of his car seat, and he banged his head. They immediately made an MRI, and he has a, not a, like a fracture, but a indentation in the skull. And they suggested that surgery would be the right thing to lift the pressure from the skull, because if not, uh, if you

1:44:30 Speaker 1 don't lift the pressure from the skull, he can have seizures, Chas veShalom, and all of that, as the child grows and all that. Okay, so I said I'm gonna call the Rebbe, and the Rebbe's answer was, it took about two, three hours till I got the answer, and I kept on calling. The Rebbe's answer was, "Lishol oida pam b'Chrei dish Kislev abba aleinu l'tova aska latzian." Now this is the day after Simchas Torah, and they were ready for a surgeon to do the surgery. But "Lishol oida pam b'Chrei dish Kislev abba aleinu l'tova ve'aska latzian," and we're talking about one day after Simchas Torah, which is, uh, I think Chovd Alef Tishrei. So it's about five weeks away from Kislev. Right. That was an interesting, uh, thing. Is that you were ready to do the surgery, like, in, then? Yeah, I mean- Yeah ... yeah, they, they- In, in the Poconos. Yeah. So, uh, they suggested that. The peil what happened was that when I come to... By the way, when I, before I went back to Detroit, I went back to New York with my son. We left him there for a day because he was in trauma. So I came back to New York, I came to Mincha with my son, and I stood by dimes. Now, it's interesting what happened, because the Rebbe gives him a dime. He looks at me, he gives him a dime, a nickel, and he throws it into the pushka, and the Rebbe hebdon geim vaita, and

1:46:05 Speaker 1 he turns back around. "Ich hobn gegeb, yeah?" Just gave him. Ich hab ihm gegeben, yeah? It's interesting. I don't know, it was a yachas or whatever.

1:46:17 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:46:17 Speaker 1 Okay. L'poel, Rosh Chodesh Kislev, the doctors were matzia in Henry Ford Hospital that the Rebbe should... They were matzia that make the, make the surgery. So I'm going to ask the Rebbe right away. So the Rebbe's answer was, "You should katzas oy drefer." Katzas oy drefer, you can ask another doctor. We went to another doctor, the other doctor said, "You should definitely do it. You should do it. He's matzia to do it." So then there was a doctor that came from Pittsburgh. He was a surgeon, a pediatric surgeon, and he said... We said, "We're gonna go to him because he knows the melacha." Make a long story, we made an appointment, and he's gonna do the surgery. A day before the surgery or two days before the surgery, we had another appointment with him, and he says, "Rabbi, I don't think that you should do the surgery." So, yeah, that's a mei chai. He said, "We just finished research on such injuries, and the same chance that he may have from seizures, from the injury, he can have just from the surgery." So it doesn't pay. But now I'm really stuck because l'poel two doctors said yes, one doctor said no.

1:47:44 Speaker 3 Right.

1:47:45 Speaker 1 Dafern der chaito freig mein Rabbin. So I asked the Rebbe, and there is simply no answer. Veiter asked Binyamin again and again. So I asked Binyamin, "What do I do?" Binyamin said, "If you don't have an haskamah from Rabbin, you don't do the surgery. You just don't do it." Several weeks later, I wrote to the Rebbe about another inyan, gad about Detroit. And I wrote to the Rebbe, "B'kesher l'bni Shie Yechye, v'yei shle kibal ti tshuva m'kvey kdesha tzaddik mur, lo yasisia netuach." So the Rebbe circled, "Le kabal ti tshuva. Ki she'ein shaila, ein tshuva, askara latzin."

1:48:27 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:48:28 Speaker 1 But then matzach yehandik dem eyes.

1:48:31 Speaker 3 You already had-

1:48:31 Speaker 1 I want, I wanted to be a oiver chacham.

1:48:34 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:48:35 Speaker 1 So there is, like, no fault insurance-

1:48:38 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:48:38 Speaker 1 ... in English again. So I thought that we could make... Anyway, it was in court for about five years.

1:48:44 Speaker 3 Oh, oh, so you want-

1:48:45 Speaker 1 That my son was suing me because I bought two old tires, used tires for the trip. So my little son is suing me. It was in court several years. They even wanted to make a settlement, the insurance company. The, the oimed, I had to have somebody that called that case, and I asked, uh, Lemel of Silverberg to, on behalf of my little son, to sue me. You know, to... But I'll probably make a long story short, it took about several years, and I came back for the final thing, and the judge says that, uh, we're gonna have to do over all the tests again because the attorney was saying, "You know, these tests, it's, it's such... These injuries, it's not like a, a stak. It's not like you have, like, a small injury." It was a indentation in the skull, and that can still be putting, uh, pressure on the skull and what- on the, on the brain. L'poel yetzer, what happened was we, we made more... The, the, the judge said, "Let's make over the tests and the pictures and the MRIs." We did it all. We come back several months later, and the doctor who's appointed, I guess, from the judge or whatever, says, and he had all the pictures lined up in front of the judge, "Uh, Your Honor, there is no indication from these pictures that this child was ever in an accident or ever had an injury on the brain." But then matzach yehandik, then we didn't get a... My

1:50:20 Speaker 1 son didn't get a dime, and I was very happy that matzach avei yehandik im baruch Hashem. But the Rebbe tshuva ki she'ein shaila, ein tshuva.

1:50:28 Speaker 3 She'ein shaila, ein sh- she'ein shaila.

1:50:29 Speaker 1 Ki she'ein, ki she'ein shaila, ein tshuva, askara latzin. I wanna, because it's starting to get... I wanna say something about chinuch, uh, which I think two things I'm gonna say. One with the Rebbe-

1:50:43 Speaker 3 You, you read my mi- you read, you read my mind because I was about to tell you that, uh, I'm sitting across some chanich, Channukah Yarin. I don't know, you know, a-among chassidim podcast, I'm sure we'll have many types of people, but I don't know how, what, w-

1:50:57 Speaker 1 Okay

1:50:58 Speaker 3 I don't know who the next, uh, person in chinuch is on, so, so I want that.

1:51:02 Speaker 1 Okay. So-

1:51:03 Speaker 3 I'm gonna s-

1:51:03 Speaker 1 So I wanna talk, I wanna talk about chinuch. When you wrote a ruch tsum Rebbe, the Rebbe read the ruch. The Rebbe read the ruch. So I remember, I didn't know if his name was mentioned, but it could be there was a child in cheder, uh, eleven, twelve year old. For some reason, he was sent to Chicago from Detroit. He was... Th-there was a mekarev over there, and for some reason, they sent him here to learn. Uh, this goes back about even thirty-five years ago. M-may- no, maybe less, thirty-two years ago. And I got a call from Leibel, "Vash teitzag b'shem derev, the Rebbe vil visn," and he was having difficulties. "The Rebbe vil visn vos mitun fayenem kind."

1:51:58 Speaker 3 This is like Tashan Noom Beis?

1:52:01 Speaker 1 No, no, no. This was earlier. This was Mem, Mem Tes maybe.

1:52:07 Speaker 3 Mem, Tash, Mem Tes, the Rebbe wants to know what you're doing with the kid in... Okay.

1:52:10 Speaker 1 Yeah. The Rebbe wants to know Mem Tes, Mem Tes. The Rebbe wants to know what we're doing for that kid. The kid obviously is shvere chaiten-

1:52:17 Speaker 3 Wow

1:52:18 Speaker 1 Then, uh, two things really. I mean, this was already in one of the, my stories, but it's worthwhile to repeat this. Before I get to that, I wanna say another story. That at the beginning of our school in Chicago, they wanted people in the shtetl. Most of the kids we had were from non-Chabad homes. But they like the private attention, the small classrooms, and all that. People who are not necessarily from the Chabad community had no problem sending their kids. But then we saw that when it comes to first grade, they take out the children. And then there was a case, somebody wanted to come back afterwards, so we made a rule. Once you leave, you can't come back. Because it, it's He says, "Okay, if, uh, He calls me up. It's okay. I, I said, "You know that once you leave, you leave." Okay. He calls me up. This was in I didn't know if it... If the year was Mem Hey, Mem Vav, whatever year it was. It was, it was around there. Mem Hey, Mem Vav. He calls me up, he says, "Rabbi Wolf, my kid doesn't wa- wanna go to any school other than Cheder Lubavitch. You gotta take him back." So I said to him, "Rabbi Richter, Rabbi, we have a policy now. I know your son, Mista, really wants to be here. But frankly speaking, if you won't take him out now, if, if you'll send him back now, in a year or two, you'll take him out again.

1:55:03 Speaker 1 I know what's gonna happen. You're a Telzi Yid, and have big yeshivas, nice community. The Telzer community in town, very nice. They have their school and everything. So I, so I, I don't wanna do this. A kid back and forth, and back and forth. You don't go school hopping with children." He says, "Okay, if, uh, He calls me back several weeks after Succos. "Rabbi Wolf, this kid have a, a Lubavitcher neshama. You must take him back." I said, "We have a policy." He says, "Policy, schmalicy, you're going to take him back. He sits every day in front of the classroom. He's six years old, I took him back. Great kid, and today he's a shliach by the name of Avrumie Richter. And his father's Niskarev Dvarim Tzel Lubavitch. Uh, he's the youngest of, of, of his children. Beautiful mishpacha. Avrumie's a shliach today somewhere in New York, somewhere, New York State. Recently, I kinda spoke to him, and his father now, an alter Yid, a Yid a lamdan, a, a ben Torah. And he lives on Five Eighty Crown Street, he moved into. So it's, uh-

1:56:30 Speaker 3 Right

1:56:31 Speaker 1 ... in Lubavitch Hashulchan. A very nice... His mother, very, very, very nice people. Extraordinarily nice people. And Avrumie Richter is, uh, one of our success stories.

1:56:41 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:56:41 Speaker 1 There was Yut Zvat, Cheit Tevet time, and you know what happened at the time? That the Rebbe said, I think it was the Seudah BeTevet, that there should be three pinnis,

1:56:55 Speaker 3 After, after the, after the seven days of celebration-

1:56:57 Speaker 1 After the seven days of celebration

1:57:00 Speaker 3 ... there was this test.

1:57:01 Speaker 1 Of... I, what I used to do in the beginning-

1:57:03 Speaker 3 Just a second. So that, that applied to schools all over Lubavitch, so the Cheders-

1:57:06 Speaker 1 Everywhere. Yeshivas, everywhere

1:57:08 Speaker 3 ... this test.

1:57:08 Speaker 1 So what I started to do at the beginning of the mems, I have a chaver, Mendy Glukhovsky, zal zayn gezunt. We were in yeshiva in Seven Seventy together, then Kollel. And he... Not in Kollel, 'cause he went to Chassidus. In yeshiva, we were in zal together. And l'peyo, he tells me, "Well, So anyway, so I used to have a tray on my desk, and they used to throw in the copies of the sheets of paper on my desk, and it used to go to the Rebbe. I always got answers. This

1:58:21 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:58:23 Speaker 1 I had a gevald, a gevald of stuff from kinas, from papers, from mamish, a box like this. I'm not exaggerating. I brought to New York, and I send it in. I leave it in the office to Rabbi Kroner. So he's the fine Rebbe, the Rebbe asked for the pinas. He's okay with it. Two days after Yitzchak, I'm back, I get a call from Chadikov. I can go on a lot about Rabbi Chadikov. I had a nice kesher with him.

1:58:55 Speaker 3 I was going to say that, um, mestame because you were in Chinuch, Rabbi Chadikov had an extra special connection because he was in Chanuk, right?

1:59:04 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. He was... Yeah, the one who got me into that was Berel Shemtov, and I thank him for that. Berel was-

1:59:08 Speaker 3 He told you, he told you to call Chadikov all the time?

1:59:11 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:59:12 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:59:13 Speaker 1 I got that. Once wrote a letter to Chadikov on my letterhead with a hatsor. The goshmizdah hatsor that, uh, I got to give in to the federation, uh, audited statements. I'm matzia, I tell him that today is not the amol of our shluchim from Daston. He sent it into the Rebbe. I have a copy of it. The Rebbe wrote an edmoh here, Lasses Kane, and the, uh, uh, initials to give it over to Yudl Krinsky.

1:59:47 Speaker 3 To give, to give what over?

1:59:49 Speaker 1 The letter, uh, the contents of the letter. I'm a zobet now a shluchim. I ain't get my audited statements. And what he told me later on is that as a result of that, he makes that achroze by the... I have a copy of the letter on my phone.

2:00:06 Speaker 3 That's the reason why he makes that announcement by the kinus, the-

2:00:09 Speaker 1 Yeah

2:00:09 Speaker 3 ... that audited statements.

2:00:09 Speaker 1 The letter that I wrote was Tov Shin Mem Wow. I don't know if it's important to read it, but the Rebbe's answer was Lasses Kane. Like, "Bimachilus kleitorose," I think I, that would be the proper thing to do. I write to Chadikov, and, um, and the Rebbe's answer was, uh, very interesting. So al kaponeim, so going back to Chadikov calls me two days after Yitzchak, and he says, "Du ost duch ge kuk di alle zachen vos du ztain ishriben tsum rebben?" So I said, "Eh, be emes nein."

2:00:47 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

2:00:48 Speaker 1 "Entsu fil, aber falovech af dem orim, af di shluchim mit dem marot, you know, uh, falovech." So he says that, "Doten, et do a mach beres von a kind, un de ineveniks de tovo von der mach beres hot doten a shir vos gehelt nisht sum cheder." And he asked me if I know about that shir, which was inappropriate. It was a Kitav book, a book, uh, mach beres from Kitav that used to give, publish, like Hebrew, with Hebrew lines that you should be able to write alamed carefully and alangachov carefully, v'chulu. And in the back, it was more of a Zionist book, you end up now a shir. So he asked me-

2:01:38 Speaker 3 A shir, a shir like a song?

2:01:40 Speaker 1 A song, yeah.

2:01:40 Speaker 3 Oh, okay.

2:01:41 Speaker 1 Mit milim, mit velt, v'chulu.

2:01:42 Speaker 3 Ah, a shir, okay.

2:01:43 Speaker 1 He asked me if I know about it, and I said I know what it is. So he said, "On a parad, vos de duch gein alle kitis, un zen ib sin ish tor noch a volche shirim mach beresen, un zey farbaiten mit nayer, aber on a parad." Can you imagine? It's two days after Yitzchak, and I sent it to the Rebbe. Now, what the Rebbe did with it, I don't know. But there was already a response two days after that, shingiven a response. Gerade-

2:02:13 Speaker 3 Do you know, do you want, do you want to share what the shir was?

2:02:17 Speaker 1 It was a Zionist shir. I'll leave it, I'll leave it up to your imagination. But al kaponeim, the, um, one of the Zionist songs, but it didn't belong in a cheder. Al kaponeim, it- it's, it- it's not the first time that you get the feeling that mamish, al kemahat, on everything I used to send in, the Rebbe... But sometimes, some things are happening, and you don't even know it's going to end up by the Rebbe. So I'll give you something. Yitzchak Dovid Grossman came to cheder for some odd reason in our old building. He came with Rav Dani'el Brader, alav hashalom, and he brought him to cheder. Then he said, "Lama machim pictures." And so somebody had, somebody was there with a camera from his people that he came with. He took a picture with me and Dani'el standing next to him and snapping pictures. Several weeks later, I met him in New York. I said, "Oh, uh, vos macht ikh?" He said, "Vuder vogen, ich bin given bad alaren, ich habe gewissen die bilder zum Rebbe. Un der Rebbe hat mir gesagt, 'Ich kenne doch die junge leid, sie sind doch meine junge leid.'" When I heard that , you know, you didn't know you're taking pictures, and then you know suddenly it's going to be by the Rebbe. That's what he told us. Eibenz am egal zen basic nisht, but it came from himself. I didn't ask him about the pictures because it, it, it wasn't an issue. He himself initiated the conversation.

2:03:55 Speaker 1 So al kaponeim, there was a lot of things mit Sat Chinuch that it was obvious that... I asked once Chadikov, because I used to have conversations with him, "Is der Rebbe tzefrieden fun unzer cheder?" So a typical answer, "Der Rebbe zeit tzefrieden, aber vase mit a andere ten tuisend kinder, Yiddishe kinder in Illinois? De tu step is mit zey." It was the typical Chadikov. I don't know if it came from the Rebbe. You know, I asked him on a telephone conversation. By the way, Chadikov was always involved in things. So I once asked him for a certain hadrache in several in yonim. We were going to move the girls' school here, v'chulu v'chulu. And on the phone, he's giving his hadrache. So at the end, several things. At the end of the conversation, I asked him, "Ich vil aut fashreiben," and this was in the end of mems. The fax machines were going already. "Un ich vil es fashreiben, un faxen tsu eich, un i, ib sie dor ho'ores, vos i vil misdogen, felo zain af." So he said, "Yeah, yeah." And he sent me back with ho'ores, and I remember by Kinas Hashluchim,I read it. So you never knew with Chabadikov what comes from the Rebbe, what doesn't come from the Rebbe. But that was a Dova Bo that Chabadikov was so involved with Chinuch that this was sometime in the men's, that after Reb Moshe Olroshon passed away, Reb Moshe Katarsky, somehow the, his children had a copy of that letter. I'm

2:05:43 Speaker 1 not sure how it came, but could be through Chabadikov it came to him. So I wrote a letter to Chabadikov that I need Melamdam, I need Shluchim over here, because he's in charge of Chinuch. Maybe he commits, if he knows people that want to go into Chinuch, he should matzir them to contact me. Can you imagine writing such a letter to Chabadikov? You know, like, like asking him, "Please help me in my Shlichas. I need some, some employees." And Al Kaponim, I'm just telling you that the involvement with Chabadikov was... There was another thing that I had from Chabadikov that gave-

2:06:19 Speaker 4 But people, but people, uh, think that Chinuch is not Shlichas.

2:06:23 Speaker 1 Chinuch is 100% Shlichas. I take great offense when you make such a statement.

2:06:28 Speaker 4 That's why I asked it, because I wanted to... It wasn't a statement, it was a, it's a question.

2:06:32 Speaker 1 A rhetorical statement.

2:06:34 Speaker 4 I, I wa- I wanted to refute it. I don't want to do anything. I'm just bringing it up because people say this.

2:06:38 Speaker 1 Okay. When's the given, the Maister mit di Tmunis with the Sefer Shlichas?

2:06:43 Speaker 4 Yeah.

2:06:44 Speaker 1 So the ones that were in Chinuch, they given up against the Maister.

2:06:47 Speaker 4 They didn't put it in.

2:06:48 Speaker 1 Right. And LeBreu Mamish, uh, it went into the Rebbe, and the Rebbe was masking that the Shlicha Chinuch. So even the Shlicha Chinuch in New York were over there. And then Bayas, Chinuch is part of our Shlichas over here. It's so obvious, you know. I wrote into the Rebbe as soon as I came here, I took the blank that I copied from Detroit, Heidel Babich. The side things was my own, but the Cheil Bab, and Tacht Nasi is Kveik Duchsas. And in those days, every blank you sent into the Rebbe, you know, I mean, you started a Shlichas, you have a stationary, the blank they called it. You send it into the Rebbe. And of course, I sent it into the Rebbe, and it was normal. I didn't, I didn't get a no, I didn't get a yes, but it was-

2:07:32 Speaker 4 So the Cheil Bab and Tacht Nasi is-

2:07:34 Speaker 1 Yeah. Cheil Bab Tacht Nasi is Kveik Duchsas. Yeah.

2:07:39 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:07:39 Speaker 1 So Al Kaponim, so to say that those were not Sh- Shlichim was, uh... But I'll tell you another thing which I think is, is important, and, uh, it was Mem Zayin, the famous Mem Zayin, Hey Tevis with the Rebbe Gate Gem Gelb. This time you know about that famous Hey Tevis. The Rebbe said that 50 per-- 10%, I think, uh, the Rebbe said he'll give him 50% of the, the budget or the, uh-

2:08:05 Speaker 4 Mem Ches, no?

2:08:07 Speaker 1 Yeah. Mem Ches, yeah. Uh, he's gonna give it a Halva.

2:08:10 Speaker 4 It was Halva, yeah.

2:08:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:08:12 Speaker 4 To Shlichim.

2:08:13 Speaker 1 Yeah. So w- we didn't know what's, you know, what's going on because I'm asking Reb Daniil, like, "What's going on?"

2:08:20 Speaker 4 What do you mean?

2:08:22 Speaker 1 We didn't-- We're not getting.

2:08:23 Speaker 4 Oh, you didn't receive it? Okay.

2:08:24 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I mean, this is what I heard. It, it went to Chabadikov. Chabadikov said, "The Shliach Tot Nisdach, Reb Shleim Azal Man Hecht." Shleim Azal Man Hecht was gone already eight years or something.

2:08:42 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:08:42 Speaker 1 And the Shliach was Reb Daniil Moscowitz, and everything did go through him. So I'm not sure what Chabadikov meant, and I'm not gonna judge. But hearing that, I got an-- I got like, "What's going on? I'm a Shliach because of Reb Daniil Moscowitz who brought me down. Shliach Heich Heich Shliach. What do you mean? Then, then I'm nothing."

2:09:06 Speaker 4 Right.

2:09:08 Speaker 1 So I contacted Chabadikov, and I said, "That's how I know that I'm a Shliach, through Reb Daniil Moscowitz. If he's not a Shliach, I'm not a Shliach. I'm resigning tomorrow morning." LePeal, there was others, another one from the Shlichim here that I heard wrote a letter, whatever. And, uh, LePeal it was Nistadem. Daniil was the Reish HaShlichim. What he meant, who knows? You know.

2:09:37 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:09:37 Speaker 1 By him could be if he didn't get... I, I didn't even wanna know what he meant or say what he meant. Uh, I don't know.

2:09:45 Speaker 4 Yeah.

2:09:45 Speaker 1 But there were things that was self-understood that when Chabadikov speaks at times, he speaks from the Rebbe, and I'll give you a Mashal what happened. His oldest son, which is now here, was filled to Illinois, uh-

2:10:00 Speaker 4 Whose, whose son?

2:10:01 Speaker 1 Mere Shimon. Mere Shimon is the oldest son of Reb Daniil.

2:10:04 Speaker 4 Shimon, oh, Moscowitz. Shimon, yeah, okay.

2:10:06 Speaker 1 So, uh, at the time of his Bar Mitzvah, he, uh, his father wrote a letter to the Rebbe that the Maister has some Limud HaFel, and he would rather, if he's Bar Mitzvah, not have him engaged in Limud HaFel, and he's gonna send him to his Zayde in Toronto. His Zayde was from the Chassidishe Yidden.

2:10:27 Speaker 4 Mendel Aharonov.

2:10:27 Speaker 1 Mendel Aharonov, yeah, was, uh, Chassidishe Yid, Reb Mendel. I, I remember he used to come to Montreal. I think his... He had a Schwiger over there or a mother, I'm not sure who he has.

2:10:39 Speaker 4 Um, yeah.

2:10:40 Speaker 1 He had somebody in Montreal. He used to come and visit. Maybe he came to visit the Tzeiklin because Herschel Tzeiklin was his schwager.

2:10:47 Speaker 4 Related, yeah.

2:10:47 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:10:47 Speaker 4 I lear- I learned in, uh, Mesifta in Toronto, so I know him.

2:10:50 Speaker 1 Oh, so you know him.

2:10:50 Speaker 4 I know, I know him, yeah. I mean, I kn- uh-

2:10:52 Speaker 1 You knew him

2:10:53 Speaker 4 ... I used to sip his fabringens, yeah.

2:10:55 Speaker 1 Yeah. So Al Kaponim, so I right away, I write a tzeitel tzum Rebbe that Bechad there was ongoing conversations, yeah, Limud HaFel, Nish Limud HaFel, whatever I read it settled from Reb that-

2:11:10 Speaker 5 He was also a big strong, uh-

2:11:10 Speaker 1 He's the Reish Hamluchim

2:11:11 Speaker 5 ... he was a big advocate of , uh, Menadano, yeah. You got a-

2:11:17 Speaker 1 So he... I read it settled from Reb that he's the son of the Reish Hamluchim, and it's eighth grade. So I'm ready to close the eighth grade Limudei Harel and just have Limudei Kodesh all day because, uh, I get a call from Chadakov, and he was livid. "Do ." That we're part of the Schluchim, so may... He was adamant. So that was very important to hear this, that sometimes we hear... I mean, in fact, the Nun Alef, the Nun Beis, there were sometimes, uh, but it doesn't mean that that became... I don't want to go into that topic, but it doesn't mean that it became a, a, Okay, Al Kaponim. That's it. Anyways-

2:12:28 Speaker 5 So I have a, I have a question. Um, did you ever, did you ever hear, speak to Rabbi Chadakov anything about tuition?

2:12:36 Speaker 1 No, but the people that I hired all went through Chadakov. The Reish V'Rishonah, we had a over here that I brought into the Mosed, which now is the menahol of a very big Mosed, Lubavitch Mesivta of Chicago. Rav Moshe Ben Yomov Perlsin, the , a goy, an alarm, a Hasid. But when I brought him in, I asked, uh, the Rebbe and Chadakov, you know, told me what I should do, whatever w-way with the Shlichas, whatever. It was some Shlichas. But Al Kaponim it went through the Rebbe Sukkah Mabrakha, everything. So Ch- Chadakov was involved and, and, and the Rebbe was involved in our Shlichas. So to say that the Shluchim Chinuch, Chabad, I, I think today it's so obvious that our biggest challenge is Chinuch. And, and, and Baruch Hashem, I can say that we gave out a lot of nice Talmidim from Chicago, and now with the Mesivta it, it's becoming the normal thing. They go from here to the Mesivta, and then we have the girls' high school, which is also an outgrowth. It used to be Lubavitch girls-- uh, uh, Chei De Lubavitch Girls High School. Then at the end, Daniel felt that it should be independent for fundraising, for a lot of other things, and it went. And today Rabbi Hertz is, uh, Sheyit Bereish from this big Mosed, so it's beautiful. And we have just in elementary and preschool, we have just under five hundred Talmidim and Talmidot, and the school is growing. We're in middle of a big project

2:14:10 Speaker 1 and, uh-

2:14:13 Speaker 5 So-

2:14:13 Speaker 1 I can just say one thing that the, uh... It was 1991. It was Limu Zohar on Memorial Day. Uh, we had a big seudah in our house, and it was right after that Shabbos, I forgot what day in Sivan it was, that the Rebbe came in and washed after Mincha-

2:14:37 Speaker 5 Nase

2:14:37 Speaker 1 ... on his place. What day in Sivan?

2:14:39 Speaker 5 Shabbos, Shabbos Parshas Nase.

2:14:41 Speaker 1 Shabbos Nase, right. So right after that, Monday morning was the fire. The children were in the hospital. The parents all sat there and the Rebbe told me three times, two times to me and one to my wife, after that, "You do over state the Shem Zohar, uh, So Baruch Hashem the Meseds are growing, Baruch Hashem, on the Rebbe's Kehis we see over here, and it's fifty years since my Shlichas. And I can say Shlichas is today what saves Yungleit. And, and we're not doing it because it, it, it saves Yungleit. Because Hiskashas from Rebbe today is Shlichas.

2:15:28 Speaker 5 So let me ask you a question-

2:15:29 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said, the Rebbe said there are four levels of Hiskashas. There's no other way. There's no detour that you can take. which is so beautiful, and Shlichas is what the Rebbe want.

2:16:13 Speaker 5 So what do you, um... What's your message? I mean, before you were describing very beautifully, first of all, the whole upbringing and the atmosphere and everything that you grew up with, but also the, the Gan Eden and the Tayno Ruchni that you experienced by the Rebbe. And obviously, uh, uh, even on Shlichas, you know, all these, the Herois of Chadakov and the answers you got. Um, what's your message to someone like my age and younger that doesn't have that experience? How could-- And we know it's a fact that, uh, the Yatom Chayei and Malacha Halam Eim the Meshamesh, and everything is continuing until we're Memali the Shlichas to make it DeLeve Tachtainim. But how do you re-- how do you have that? I mean, for you, it's like you experienced it, so

2:17:07 Speaker 4 It could come with even without Aveda. Today it sound-- it feels like there's more Aveda needed. So what's your message to-

2:17:13 Speaker 1 Okay. So first-

2:17:14 Speaker 4 -that generation?

2:17:15 Speaker 1 So first of all, I wanna say, when I walk into the Mesivta, I come from El, and I see Shabbos morning, hundred of bochurim sitting learning Chassidus. It's, uh... it's poshet, honor to see how the Rebbe is working today. Bochurim learning Chassidus, going on Mivtzoim. The Koch and Rebbe's in Yonom is unbelievable. By the way, it's unparalleled in Jewish history because we know what people said about the day after Gimel Tammuz. And, and everyone is learning that it's poshet fake out. I was once sitting at a table by a, a dinner, a banquet over here. So sits the Rosh Yeshiva, another Rosh Yeshiva. I was on that table. So a guy says to me, "Rebbe Wolf, you guys are Chabad with your networking. You guys are just so unbelievable what you accomplished. If you would only omit one thing, can you imagine what you could accomplish?" "And what's that thing?" "This whole Rebbe thing." I said, "Then we, we would look like you." I say, "I wanna look like you." So of course we need the Rebbe thing. The Teshuvah from Rebbe is a thing that it's beyond Havon and Hasaga. It-- Can you understand that when you're Mekayem a Mitzvah, it's Memam Shechta Me'ir himself? That's poshet of the year. On this day Chassidus, and it says, "Goli Veyudua," that learn today for Chassidus, a Yid do the Mitzvah, Tzav S'chiba, Vabin S'chibit Neibish. Well, and, and how it happens, we don't know. The Rebbe gave the Heror for the day Rosh Chodesh, and

2:19:10 Speaker 1 he gave four things, and he gave it a huge Yud-Aleph when the Rebbe basically wrote the Shulchan Aruch of his Teshuvah. So you're asking-- So I look at what's going on, and I scratch my head, and I taka don't understand it. Just like I don't understand how a Mitzvah is Mamshik the Me'ir himself, I also don't truly understand the Kohech Hadush of Nasi Al Doir, that thirty years later, can a bochur sit, learn a Ma'amar from Rebbe, have a Chassidus from Rebbe with the Eisies HaRav, and that inspires them, and they go on Mivtzoim. You know, think about it today. We're living in the United States twenty twenty-five. A teenager, Friday afternoon, from one floor to the other. One floor of offices, they let them in, the other one, they kick them out, come back on Monday morning, and Mechapt ein Yid, Ometut Metan Tevil, Bifatufiza Kakafte, and the bochur comes back, and he's glowing. Why is he glowing? He could have done so many other things Friday afternoon. I know what teenagers are. I mean, I'm somewhat involved in Chinuch, so I know. And, and you watch this, or you watch kids wanna do, wanna do Mivtzoim with their parents. On the Gitz HaTracht. How is this happening? The Chakayech Elion Shelo Chayisa Kamayu. I mean, if you really think about it, how is this happening? The Rambam was a great man. He didn't accomplish that. Even if you think back about the Rabbeim, you know, when you speak about the Rabbeim, Midav Zechit

2:20:56 Speaker 1 Mitavot. And Bechal, you're talking about the Ba'al Shem Tov, Mitamagit, Mital Rabbeim, Midialidis. But you see the day Rosh Chodesh, it's not a normal thing. I mean, we all can agree it's not a normal thing. So you're asking me, I don't have the answer. I just know it's not normal. The L'ma'alam De'ech HaTeveh. Umidav Tomit Kabbalah Sol, a Yid is a Kabbalah Solnik, a Kabbalah Solnik is a Yid. Sitzen Bochurim, Ze Dav Antonim Mivtzoim. Um, but-- And that's the beginning and that's the end. For, for a Yinger man to take his wife, and, and we're living in a big world, and the world is small, but you take somebody, and you send them to Vietnam or South Korea. The Shvere Keitan. I have my own son in Montana. I have other, other children that have Shlichas too. Miami is not Montana. Montana is not Miami. Uh, New Hyde Park is not, uh, Montana. You know what I mean? Un, un, sits men in Montana. And I know certain things that my son would be upset if I repeated. The, the Goidel HaMesirus Nefesh, and Vant Nem Tzechtos. Un in Emet, Poshet Yungalech. You know what I mean. In Inyan, think about this. I was a kid. The only Sefer in Yiddish you had was Tach Sin Tales. And then you had a Chutz Tach Sin Tales. There was the Sefer, a blue book, the Baal Shem Tov. I don't know if you ever came across. Today, some it-- it's included in so many other Sefarim.

2:22:35 Speaker 1 Dotne Faran, one chapter of the Greeshe Shlichas. What did the Baal Shem Tov do? Baal Shem Tov Hadarango from Potamidin. That's a Greeshe Fasten. Whatever he told them to do. Neget Mesakan Zayine Shomes. It's a whole story, the Greeshe Shlichas. There's another story over there, a Yid that was a Ben Shivim. It was a Greeshe Lamdan. You do it like a story when a Rebbe Baal Shem Tov was geschickt from the Talmidim, from the Eyniklach, whatever, at the Gigem Keches. Who was the Shadar Badim Semech Tzedek? A Hauber Rebbe. Yeah. Like Lil Parsha. Lil Parsha was a Hauber Rebbe. Harav HaTzadik of Lil Parsha. It's all you need. I didn't have to name people to feed the Rebbe name, the Harav HaTzadik. As I'm a Moshe, the Rebbe wrote this himself. Yeah. Okay, then you go, uh, uh, uh, you're, you're talking about Yidden, Rebbe Shneor Zalman of Liadi, okay? I get it. Rebbe Shneor Zalman of Liadi, about Ruach HaKodesh. You know, I, I get it. They, they tell a story that I heard this from Rabbi Schusterman. He was, he was in Chicago, and it was in Tzadikei HaDor, and he stayed in one place for two weeks, and he had his whatever he had, was that the guest, and he didn't eat by these people. And L'Pail, two weeks later, I get a phone call. So they see that the bed wasn't even touched, and they needed a bracha for children. They went to Rabbi Shlita. So they came to him, they

2:24:02 Speaker 1 said, uh, "We want from you a bracha." So he said, "The Rebbe did not vote." "But write, not vote. It's from Rebbe, again." They basically told him, "You're enough of a good Rebbe for us. You give us a bracha." And they took away, they got a clean ranzel. He had a baggage, it was a small, uh, suitcase. They said, "We're not giving it back until you give a, uh, suitcase." So he gave them a bracha mitn Rebbe's, mitn Rebbe's, uh, koach that they gebentsh were mit a kind, and they had a child. He came back, L'Pail, when he came back, he-- Daavè Zuckerman. I heard this from Schusterman, Rebbe Schusterman, Aruch HaShan. He said that he told the Friediker Rebbe what he did, and the Friediker Rebbe said, "This time I'll let it go through, He didn't wanna touch that. So Al Kapaneh, Rebbe Shneor Zalman of Liadi, Rebbe Tzvi Alchemes, which was-- We're talking about Rebbe Tzvi Alchemes. When we came to Australia, uh, the one that used to come with us everywhere was Zusha of Ortazan. He was our guide, and he was, uh-

2:25:16 Speaker 4 In Eretz Yisrael

2:25:17 Speaker 1 ... Zusha Polonowski in Eretz Yisrael.

2:25:19 Speaker 4 On the way to Australia.

2:25:19 Speaker 1 On the way to Australia, yeah. So what happened was, this time the one who met us was Rebbe Tzvi Alchemes, Tov Shim Lamadei, Chav-- Chavdaled year. We came on Chavdaled. We left Chavkim Achavda. Everywhere where we went, he is following us. Motzei Shabbos, we were Shabbos in Chabad, Madkuhulet Agans in Shabbos. Motzei Shabbos, we went to the Tevet. We came back twelve, one o'clock at night from Yerushalayim. Four o'clock, we gotta go to Tehran. We come, we come to the airport. It's Vira Vega, four, half o'clock, and the man is standing there, and we're leaving. At the Takusht, upon Gim Veynen, he said he's like the letzte shluchim from HaMashiach. He made a bracha Shechiyanu Bishpem HaMalchus several weeks later.

2:26:09 Speaker 4 He was-

2:26:09 Speaker 1 He had the accident and passed away.

2:26:12 Speaker 4 Ah.

2:26:13 Speaker 1 So then, then Ashada.

2:26:15 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:26:16 Speaker 1 Yede Ingo Heint is Ashada. You think about it, Shluchim, yungerleit. And what are they doing? Rebbe Tishri, Pirkei Avot Parasha, uh, was Gegan Chazal Mesilas in Brei. We're talking-- We're not talking about the Baal Shem Tov, it's, uh, Mesakan Kivne. The yungerleit and Mesakan Neshamos. They live me-ulf Neshamos, and these are the Rebbe, the koach from Rebbe. It's unimaginable. It's unparalleled. What, what you wanna say to Tmimim? Just think what we're doing. In, in seventy-seven, he found a, found Rosh Hashanah, found a Tziyus, vekta veks a vekshtal, Moshe Pinchas Katz, the Rav Gem from Netishon for the Ben Klech, Kdoshes Hamakom, Kdoshes Hazman, Mizal Vison Vu Mishtei, Tum Favem Mishtei. Yungerleit that are going know this. They have to articulate it. Kdoshes Hamakom, Kdoshes Hazman, Mizal Vison Vu Mishtei, Tum Favem Mishtei. That's my message. What a message . Look what's going on, Meketevel, with Mesakan Neshamos. It's unbelievable, no? Have a nice day, Rabbi.

2:27:24 Speaker 4 Yeshe. Koach, Gadol Rebbe Wolf. Hatzlacha Rabbe in Shlichus. All the best. Koach.