Ep. 5: Experiencing It Today with Rabbi Yossi Lew

00:00 Speaker 1 If you really, really, really connect, you're gonna be connected. Your mind will be there. The only thing you're missing is the fact that it's physically not happening, but there's more than physical that's happening around you. There's energies, and there's ruchnius, and there's Rebbe. These are things that are intangible, and those are things that you can absolutely be connected to, and I-- and you are connected to.

00:28 Speaker 2 I'm Yossi Kamin. 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. This episode is dedicated to the nishmas of Rav Sadiya ben Rav Mordechai alav hashalom Dahan, and the refuah shleima for Chana bas Nechama Dina by Shaul and Sheindi Dahan. How are you, Rabbi Liu?

00:59 Speaker 1 Well, we're doing this podcast right after Shavuos, and it feels like the, as the Friediker Rebbe said, we're still on the mountain. We're still, at least we're still in the shadow of, of the mountain, of Matan Torah, Zeman Matan Torah Seinu. That was always a special Yom Tov in the Jaffe-Liu family, because, uh, my grandfather used to come to the Rebbe every year for Shavuos. So Shavuos is uplifting. Also, I was born right after Shavuos, so it's a good time.

01:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

01:29 Speaker 1 I'm Baruch Hashem, doing well.

01:31 Speaker 2 When is your, your birthday?

01:33 Speaker 1 One week after Shavuos, Gitalet.

01:35 Speaker 2 Oh, very nice. Okay. Shana Tova. Amen. Um, and actually, it's interesting. I think, um, a number of people got a little bit of a window into the story of, uh, Zalman Jaffe, of your grandfather and yourself, because, uh, this month's Der Her magazine has a whole feature where we interview you, and you discu- you, you, you're discussing primarily your grandfather, but also relates to you. So a little bit of-- people got a little bit of a window into, into that, including Shavuos, by the way. It's actually interesting. In the other part of the magazine, earlier on, in the section where we have the Yumanim, the Rebbe mit den Rebbe. So we highlighted, uh, Sivan Taf Shin Nun, and there's also a beautiful picture of the Rebbe talking to your, uh, grandfather about the car when the Rebbe was going in. So, uh, I think the people already got a little bit of a window into, into what's going on over here.

02:34 Speaker 1 Into my yichas.

02:37 Speaker 2 Is that, is that what you call it? It's yichas, yeah. It's yichas, yeah.

02:41 Speaker 1 That's how the Der Her article began. The first line, it says, "I came to New York with the yichas."

02:47 Speaker 2 Right. But you, you actually said something very interesting in the article, that you had a whole story that the Rebbe asked about you during Yechidus with your grandfather, and the way you said it was that it was really a kiruv to your grandfather. It wasn't a kiruv to you. And as the Rebbe, when you were in Yechidus, you didn't get special, uh, kiruvim like that.

03:16 Speaker 1 I, I didn't mean that it wasn't a kiruv to me. I meant it was a kiruv through my grandfather, but I didn't have kiruvim usually like my grandfather had. In other words, it, it, he gets the hashakach for that, the Rebbe sending me regards. That was in Taf Shin Mem Beis when, um, you know, I don't live my life with regrets. Um, in life, you make mistakes, and everybody makes mistakes, and you have to learn from your mistakes, but move ahead and move on. You can't dwell in the things that you didn't do or the things that you could have done. You have to only dwell in what you can do from here. But one thing in my life sticks out as I, like, regret, and that is when the Rebbe turned eighty on Yud Aleph Nissan Taf Shin Mem Beis in nineteen eighty-two, and I was a bachur learning in Yerushalayim, which is a whole other story how I got there, and I had not just a ticket to come to New York, but a boarding pass. I already had a place on my-- on the-- a seat on the plane. And then the Rebbe on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, at, uh, ten, eleven days before, he asked that people don't come and take the money and give it away for half toras tzedakah and half for the expenses of Pesach. And I was a bachur. I couldn't get rid of this ticket. I was-- There was no exchanging this ticket, so I would have

04:54 Speaker 1 lost the ticket, and I did, because there were people around me who kept on saying, "How could you go to, to New York? And the Rebbe said, 'Don't go.'" The Rebbe didn't quite say, "Don't go," but the Rebbe suggested it was-- it w- well, pressure was put on people. Anyway, I don't wanna get into the whole story, but bottom line is I didn't go, and I felt very u- unhappy, and I regretted the fact that I didn't go with my own gut feeling and, and just, uh, just go. And that year, the Rebbe sent me regards, and so did the Rebbetzin, um, because if Aleph Nissan was that Sun- was a Sunday, and my grandfather went to see the Rebbetzin, and he told the Rebbetzin how disappointed I was, how unhappy, how upset I was. And the Rebbetzin told my grandfather to tell me, "Tell Yossi that h- he doesn't have to be at every single thing." Something to that effect. I know I d- didn't hear it from the Rebbetzin, I-- so I'm not sure exactly what the words were, but that was a r-- you know, the message was, "It's okay." You know? Or after I farbreng with myself a little bit, I realized that I think Yud Aleph Nissan can become Yud Aleph Nissan even without me being, being there. But, but still it-- I felt like I-

06:23 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, you still have the regret.

06:25 Speaker 1 I still feel that, ugh, the one time in my life, right, where is-- where I could have really just done something for me, and I just... I was, I was listening to other people.

06:38 Speaker 2 I mean, also the Rebbe at that time, there's a whole story that the Rebbe told people not to come, but then at the end gave a Yasher koach for those that did come, and, uh, the Rebbe gave out the tanyes.

06:50 Speaker 1 Yeah. The Rebbe did say in the sicha of not to come, the Rebbe said that it's my birthday, and on a birthday, one is, needs to be in exclusion on their own, behisbodidus, and I need time for that, and if I have too many guests, I won't be able to spend too much time on my own. That's what the Rebbe say. He never said it any other year, but he said it on that year, in Mem Beis. So he, he, he was, he was basically didn't want the big crowds. I think that the Rebbe heard, and I know that the Rebbe heard of the people who just didn't want to go, and they felt very pressured because Hasidim around the world were saying, "If the Rebbe means anything to you, you need to be there." And that's a true sentiment as obviously the Rebbe's turning eighty, and no Lubavitcher Rebbe turned eighty, so this was a very big moment in Lubavitch, and they wanted that this should be the biggest crowd ever. And, um, the Rebbe was very unhappy with the people who are unhappy. If you-- people were, were pressured to come, that was something the Rebbe never wanted to tolerate.

07:56 Speaker 2 So you're, so you-- what you're saying is that, I mean, obviously, this is your, uh, interpretation b'da'at zach den, but right, I don't think the Rebbe-- I mean, the, the way you understand it is that his kashrus and the connection to the Rebbe should come mitzah d'chassid, not for like a peer pressure type of thing.

08:17 Speaker 1 Right.

08:17 Speaker 2 Is that the way you're reading into it?

08:19 Speaker 1 Yeah. In תשל"ב there was a, a philanthropist who lived not too far from Manchester, and my grandfather connected with him, and he started giving money to Lubavitch. And my grandfather wanted that this guy should go to New York and have a yechidus with the Rebbe. And the Rebbe sent out a long letter, which is printed in the, in the yearly, um, uh, um, collections when they collect these settlah. And the Rebbe wrote then that first of all, sending somebody from overseas to meet, to meet somebody else just like that isn't, uh, isn't something that's, that, that, that is, like, acceptable. And let the guy-- the guy doesn't know me. Y-you're putting pressure on this person to meet me. The, the, the gist of the settlah was that the Rebbe didn't accept that somebody's putting pressure. E-even if he's visiting New York and say that at twelve o'clock, one o'clock in the morning, you should meet this great rabbi and everything else, he doesn't even know what's the seudah is. He doesn't know Lubavitch. He doesn't know the Rebbe. He doesn't know the system. He doesn't understand, and he's not, he's not, uh, made that way at this stage. At this stage, it's not a good thing. And I know, I know the names of people who wrote to the Rebbe feeling the pressure that other people were putting on them. It's Erev Pesach. It was staying for a Shabbos and Sunday, and they're coming from overseas, and their wives and their children would-- Uh, for

09:51 Speaker 1 most of them were making pro-- maybe making excuses, I would think. But ei-either way, the, the Rebbe was not, uh, going to accept something. And I know the-- I know people who actually wrote to the Rebbe. I know the names of these people. So, um, that's why I believe the reaction was so strong. It's the, the Rebbe was-- had a reputation of making sure that whoever comes to visit, comes to visit with, uh, all the permissions and don't owe any money. Rebbe would give certain people-

10:24 Speaker 2 The Rebbe said it a few times, right?

10:26 Speaker 1 Before Tishrei.

10:27 Speaker 2 Yeah. That you have to come, I think you have to be able to afford it. That's what the Rebbe said, and also has to be with permission from, uh, your household and from your wife. Uh-

10:37 Speaker 1 And they don't need you, don't need you back in town, and so on. The Rebbe would say this before Tishrei. And, um, so it, it, this was not a new thing. It was just-- it was such a tumult in the world to go to the Rebbe for the eightieth birthday, and it just, it just stopped. This mountain just dissolved i-within a minute.

11:02 Speaker 2 What do you mean the mountain dissolves? You're saying like the whole-

11:05 Speaker 1 There was, there was such an excitement. There were charters, there were planes, there were, uh, tickets and boarding passes, and excitement to, to, to, just to be there, to just to show up. The more-- In בְּרֹוךְ עָם הַדְרַס מֶלֶךְ the pasuk says, which means with a, with a multitude of people, that's the glory of the king. Just the people, the amount of people, Hasidim who are showing up and saying, "Thank you, Rebbe. We-- This is, uh, this is such a beautiful, important milestone for all of us," um, et cetera. And it just, it dissolved. It was a big farbrengen, but not-nothing to what it could have been. Thousands of people didn't come.

11:45 Speaker 2 Wow. It's interesting that you see like a certain thing by the Rebbe, and obviously, Chabad Rebbe is the one we o- we know what his kashrus is, al piturah, 'cause the Rebbe explained it so much in the sichas, especially, you know, especially right after the תש"י, but תש"ד for the older years. On the other hand, you have this certain element that Like the Rebbe, I mean, it's the, the sich that the Rebbe said about, you're, you're looking to ask her for questions to ask even though you don't have them, and, uh, you ask, a-a-and the mashpiyim are telling people to, to ask questions even when they don't have them. There's a certain inyan that the Rebbe wants it to come b'tzad, b'tzad ha'mata. So it's, it's, it's an interesting, uh... I think everything with the Rebbe is, uh, very nuanced, right? It's not, it's not black and white, so with, with this as well. It's interesting.

12:36 Speaker 1 His kashrus has to work both ways, right. There has to be-- You have to have the Rebbe, but, but you also have to have the person who is willing to put him or herself over there and, and, and do what needs to be done.

12:53 Speaker 2 Right. The Rebbe also said once-- But it's also part of like, like the Rebbe said once, um, I think it was a chiddush to, to Zalman Gurari, I, I believe. Like the Rebbe said, "Be'etzem, I only need a minyan here." The Rebbe's saying it in that context, like everyone should go on shlichus, but I don't-- I, I just need a minyan. Like it's, it's not about the, you know, the, the, the chutzah, uh, we, we, we ne-we need, we need this, like, uh, we're trying to, we're trying to accomplish here and, uh, you know, I, you know, I, I don't need it. I don't-- I, we, we, I don't-- The Rebbe doesn't need it. It's interesting.

13:32 Speaker 1 Right. The goal wasn't to build the community. The goal was to build the world.

13:39 Speaker 2 Right. So it's like, um, it's, it's interesting because, um, some, uh, other, other-- M-most, uh, manhiggim, that, that the whole thing is about the community. Anything else is like extra credit, and the Rebbe just, it's just the opposite. Like the-

14:00 Speaker 1 Right. And he, he was looking to not, not to build Lubavitch around the world, but to build the world around Lubavitch, really. In other words, to make people come closer to the Eibishter, and of course, to Chassidus, and of course to Lubavitch, but the goal was to get out and bring them in.

14:24 Speaker 2 And that's like-

14:25 Speaker 1 So-

14:25 Speaker 2 Yeah.

14:25 Speaker 1 And that depends on the people. And the Rebbe had to choose different people for different places, certainly at the beginning, and places that would, uh, that would fit those people. As in the article in the Tehere, I wrote about Rabbi Shemtov, Rabbi Bentzion Shemtov, who was sent to England. Y-you just can't imagine. England today is England. What it was a hundred years ago was much more England. And Bentzion Shemtov was the complete opposite of England. But it was davka him that was chosen by the Rabbeim to be there and to, and to do what needs to be done because he didn't care what England thought, and he didn't worry about protocol. He, he wanted to spread Chassidus, wanted to spread his kashrus and the Rebbe, and he built it. He ac-actually did build it.

15:18 Speaker 2 And that's the, and that's how you-- Uh, he was the connection with, with, with your grandfather. Like, that's how, uh-

15:24 Speaker 1 That's, that's how we came to Lubavitch. Exactly.

15:27 Speaker 2 It's in-- It was in, it was-- If, if you wrote about in, in the article that it was, it was in the blood, comes from, uh, your grandfather came from, from Lubavitcher stock. But, uh, in Manchester was, uh, uh, Rabbi Shemtov. I met, I met a-- I mean, over the years, I met a lot of people from the original pillars in, uh, in England that said that their first connection was, uh, Bentzion Shemtov. That, that, that was the... You, you knew him? Like you, like you, you grew up with him?

15:58 Speaker 1 Sure.

15:58 Speaker 2 Like-

16:00 Speaker 1 Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, he w-he left England in the late sixties, uh, but so I remember him as a very, very young kid. But he also came very often back to England. W- After he left, because his son-in-law was, was then the head shliach, he kept on returning, and he would stay in England for a few weeks, and he would continue helping and doing work and whatever it was. I don't-- I'm not sure what he was doing. The last time I saw him was a few months before he passed away at a bar mitzvah of Yossi Futtafass, who was the, the director of the Gan Yisroel. And, um, he asked me if I'm gonna invite him to my bar mitzvah.

16:42 Speaker 2 Yeah.

16:42 Speaker 1 He knew exactly who I was. He was very, very connected with my family, and, um, from both sides, even the Lew side. He was very, uh, very connected that way.

16:53 Speaker 2 You're saying he, he knew your father from, from New York?

16:56 Speaker 1 I'm not sure if he knew my father that well, but his, uh, his son, Avremel, was involved with my family, my father's family from Gan Yisroel because they all went to Gan Yisroel. And, uh, his son Berel was involved with my father personally, bringing him close to Lubavitch. Um, so the Shemtovs like knew the Lews as well, not just the Jaffes.

17:18 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, he-

17:19 Speaker 1 And when the shidduch came, Bentzion Shemtov wrote a letter to my grandmother in English, and we printed that letter in the, in the, uh, diaries of my grandfather. And in it, he wrote, "I've been around three Lubavitcher Rebbes, and I don't ever remember seeing a Rebbe to be this involved in a shidduch. So you know that this shidduch is going to be a great one." He wrote that to my grandmother, who was complaining that my mother was a little too young and whatever. So he wrote that. So he knew my father and, um, but I mean, obviously, he was much older and from a different generation.

18:00 Speaker 2 And, um, I th- and I think, um, I think that when your father was in Tel Aviv-Das, uh, I think Berel would come, uh, learn Tanya over there, right? Is that, is that accurate?

18:12 Speaker 1 Yeah. She would give a shiur Tanya and, um, he was the first one my father learned Chassidus with.

18:20 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

18:21 Speaker 1 Was Beryl, yeah. And Beryl's grandson is married to my daughter, so now we became

18:26 Speaker 2 Oh.

18:26 Speaker 1 Chatanus.

18:28 Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay. But, b- so when you were learning in England, like, um, when, when did you come to New York? You came to New York, like, in high school?

18:38 Speaker 1 I was born in New York. I started in New York. I was in Yeshivas when I was-- I was in Yeshivas twice before I even went to England. Even though I can't say I remember anything, but I was a young kid, young baby. Um, when I was-- We were living in London, and we would come often, more often than anyone else.

18:58 Speaker 2 Why?

18:58 Speaker 1 And my father-- For a few reasons. First of all, my father had his father and his whole family back in New York. That would be a, a very Balabatische thing. Second of all, um, the, uh-- And I would say the more important, not-- the most important, not more important, the most important reason was because my father wanted that there should be a Haskachas to the Rebbe bepel mamash. And when we came, we got tremendous Kiruvim, um, in Yeshivas and in, uh, at Farbrengens, public, um, and the picture in the Der Her, the Rebbe shaking my hand. These are Kiruvim that you just didn't have, and when, when children of Shluchim came for, by the Rebbe, it seemed to be very, like he, he was looking at this, these are the people that are growing up on the fronts where, where Shlichus was happening. And it seemed to bring a lot of Nachas to the Rebbe, a lot of joy. There was one time at the Farbrengen, I think I wrote about this in the, in the Der Her. I didn't write, I think I, I mentioned it, that, um, at a Farbrengen, in one of the Sicha Vimi Yehudi, the Rebbe seemed to be, after the nig-after the Nigun started, and after the Sicha, the Re-the Rebbe seemed to be a little, uh, serious still from the whole, the whole Sugia, the whole Parsha of, of, uh, Mi Yehudi, and its, and, and the, and the aggravation from it. And my grandfather, whenever there was

20:34 Speaker 1 a, a lively Nigun, my grandfather would sort of stand up and sort of like go to the Rebbe like, "Come on , let's, uh, let's, let's be happy." Like every time. But this time he did it a little stronger because he felt that, uh, the Rebbe looked a little, I, I guess, down or whatever. And the Rebbe looked up, and the Rebbe smiled. Rebbe s-smiled broadly, and the Rebbe started like, uh, uh, uh, um, encouraging the song with the, with the, with the movements of his head. Then the Rebbe turned around and saw that my-- that I and my brother, my brother and I were saying L'Chaim. So the Rebbe nodded. Then the Rebbe turned to my grandfather and said, "Learn from your grandchildren to say L'Chaim, not just stand over there clapping." And things like this. We, we got attention like that whenever we came, and, uh, I think my father got attention, like very strong attention as well because he was more-- he came more often than most people, and he got special permission from the Rebbe to come for different reasons, even though the, the rule was you came once every two years. When we came, we would stay for three or four weeks. We hardly ever missed anything. Not a Mincha or Maariv. Maybe Maariv in Shavuos time would be very late, but eventually. We didn't miss Farbrengens even though we were much very young, and we would have to run out. Six or seven years old, you'd have to run

21:55 Speaker 1 out. I, I remember things from those years. I remember from taf shin lamed, from nineteen seventy. I was only six years old, and I remember different, different parts that went on at that time. Lamed beit, lamed gimel, lamed hei. The different years that I was there, so we came much more often. So we weren't that distant. And I think that other people in England saw that, and they started taking their sons with them.

22:20 Speaker 2 I was about to say that, that wa-that was probably a rarity in, in England-

22:24 Speaker 1 Very rare

22:24 Speaker 2 ...back then.

22:25 Speaker 1 And of course, it w-cost, cost a lot of money, and it, it wasn't a simple thing. Um, I saw that my parents had to give up different, uh, luxuries around the house or around their own lives so that they could afford to go to New York and take us with them, or take my father with him, and, or my mother with, with the girls. And it was so, it was so rewarding that ad dayom haze, till today, it has an effect, uh, on us. This, uh, being there and just knowing, uh, understanding the ropes. Also being in-- We never-- When, when we came, Rabbi Chodikov insisted that we go to school. And so I met a lot of people who later became very dear friends in Ohel Torah when we used to go to Ohel Torah, and, and classmates, um, for two or three weeks.

23:18 Speaker 2 That's very interesting. I, I, I just, we j- I just did a interview with, uh, Dovid Greenberg. He's-- And he said when he came for Tisha, I asked him if he went to school. He said no. So-

23:29 Speaker 1 Tishrei, yeah, Tishrei is a disruptive time. But Shavuos time, or even Hanukkah time when we came, other times, I never came for Tishrei as a kid. But, uh, the other times, it's, Shavuos is two days, and the rest of the time it's a regular school day. And we went to school from, you know, from nine to four. We went the, the whole day.

23:49 Speaker 2 You went to Ohel Torah?

23:50 Speaker 1 Went to Ohel Torah. I remember Rabbi Sheiner. I remember Rabbi, uh, Rabbi Eli Chaim, and, um, Rabbi Engel. It's all the different Rebbes that were there. Rabbi Marazov.

24:03 Speaker 2 You knew, uh, Yiddish then?

24:05 Speaker 1 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The Rebbe spoke to me in Yiddish in Yeshivas as well.

24:11 Speaker 2 Your parents spoke to you in Yiddish?

24:13 Speaker 1 No. But in school, the first language I learned in school, how to read, to write, and all of that was, uh, was Yiddish.

24:21 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. As, um-

24:24 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe spoke in Yiddish, so there, there were, uh, the broadcast, the, the, the, uh, the hookups, the telephone hookups from the Rebbe's Farbrengens. I would sit and write. That, that began my career in writing Sichas. I didn't quite write the Sicha. I wrote words that I heard, you know, un, fashtandik words like that, that the Rebbe would use, and I would, I would write them down. I still have those little, uh, little booklets that I, uh, wrote when I was-

24:53 Speaker 2 They were doing, they were doing that in New York also, by the rallies. Um, that was a thing that kids would do. They, by the Farbrengens also, they would write d- kids would write down the words that they, uh, heard.

25:04 Speaker 1 Right. It kept you busy.

25:06 Speaker 2 Right.

25:06 Speaker 1 It kept you busy. Or, or else in London, it was two, two thirty, three thirty in the morning. And, um, so we would go to sleep a little earlier, get up in the middle of the night and then go to the, the Lubavitch house there, and, and the farbrengens could, could have gone on for five, six, seven hours. And, uh, to keep a kid busy for all that time, you had to find ways, you know. The sichas were not, uh, unfortunately, were not that interesting at that time. You know, what the Rebbe was saying. For example, I remember the sicha from 4th Tishrei, 5711. I was just about 10 years old at that time, and the Rebbe said the sicha, the very famous sicha, which was the hadran, the end of the Masecha of Sukkah, about Miriam bas Bilga. And I heard this Miriam bas Bilga name quite a few times, and no, had no clue what was, Rebbe was saying. And I didn't know it, it, that, that one of the most bombshell sichas in history, how powerful that sicha is, how amazing that outlook of the Rebbe, the typical outlook of the Rebbe to s- find the goodness in every person. And, but I do remember the Rebbe breaking down and crying and saying, "Lukus, Lukus," which, which means wolf, wolf, and I had no clue what it means, and I didn't know what context it was in. Yeah. But I remem-- Actually, I can still hear it. I remember these moments, even

26:35 Speaker 1 though it wasn't, uh, you know, we didn't understand the context at all. But we were listening. It's ac-- No, no, I'm saying it's very fascinating that you remember the sicha and even the words, but then, uh, only later did you actually understand what, what, what you, what you experienced. Well, when I was about 13 or 14, I started going through all the hanochos, all the sichas that were, that were there till then. And, um, I found that to be, like, so interesting. I said, "Wait a minute. I was there and I and this was happening, and I didn't have a clue." Yeah. You were doing this in, in England you were doing this? Yeah. My father had the collection of all the Sichas Kodesh, you know? Yeah. But all the people are doing this, uh, t-till today. Of course. So do I. Yeah. They're l- They're, they're, they're learning a sicha that they might have been at when the Rebbe said it, and, uh, either they don't remember or they didn't, uh, underst- they, they weren't, uh, cognizant of what the Rebbe was saying then. There are sichas that I've s- I've learnt maybe 30 times. I was there, and I read it again and again. It's, it keeps, it keeps it fresh, and it keeps it, uh, it keeps it in your mind, and it keeps the... When you read a sicha that you were actually there for, especially when you were a little older, it really brings back the whole, the scene. You

27:59 Speaker 1 remember where you were or how you felt when it was happening. So actually, I was f- Few, a little while ago, I was learning, uh, a sicha, a farbrengen. Forgot what I was learning, but I just remember that whatever, whatever it was was, you know, something that, uh, had midan uman. And, uh, I was just thinking to myself, like, it's an ama-- You know, a lot of, es- especially in certain years, the Rebbe would talk about on Shabbos that, uh, people aren't listening. The, the, the Rebbe, the Rebbe mentioned this th- this, this concept about the farbrengen. And, uh, but I'm thinking to myself, you know, I'm sitting 40 years after the sicha was, was said, and, uh, whatever. There's a Jew in a corner of the world that, uh, that, that, that, uh, was left b-because of it. So it's, it's, I think it's all part of the, the, the It's mind-boggling. When you, when you take it that way, when you think about all the different people that the Rebbe helped over the years, begashmius and especially beruchnius, and if you think about the shlichas and the shluchim and the investment that the Rebbe had in that, plus all this Torah, eh. But the Torah itself, it's, it's, it, it, they, they started 30 something, 32 years ago to start giving out all the sichas in a renewed way in the Hebrew of the L'chok, and they haven't finished yet. And they were only gonna do the first 30 years, from 5708 to

30:47 Speaker 1 5770, and they still haven't finished. And this is what, the, the, the Rebbe's not saying it. It's, it's written down, and to go through it and to, and to unpack it, and then for people to learn that and to understand where the Rebbe's coming from and, and, wow What the, the revolutionary, uh, ideas and thoughts and explaining thousands of pieces of Gemara and Rashi, Tosfos, Mamorim, and Kabbalah, and Halakha, and Hakada, like, it, it's amazing.

31:25 Speaker 3 Yeah. Um, I mean, and, and you particularly see it when you-- if you learn a whole farbrengen. I was-- I learned on Shavuos, uh, full farbrengen. And like if like-- It's a, uh, I learned Mem-Daled. Were you there Mem-Daled?

31:40 Speaker 1 I was-- At that time, I was on shlichus in South Africa, but I remember Mem-Daled. I remember the farbrengen. I remember exactly what the Rebbe was saying. That was a very energetic, high energy farbrengen, including that sicha about the Rambam as well. It was a, it was a, a very powerful farbrengen. Mem-Daled and Mem-Heih particularly, both those years were very, very, very strong. About Torah and about the Ibishter. And, uh, the other things about Vashem Tov, Moshe Rabbeinu, and, uh, and Davar Malach, w- it was every year, but there was a specific e-emphasis on godliness in those two farbrengens.

32:20 Speaker 3 Yeah. So when I'm learning it, um, so you think you're done with the farbrengen. Like it's a very-- It's a long farbrengen. You think, you think you're done with the farbrengen.

32:27 Speaker 1 Yeah.

32:27 Speaker 3 The Rebbe says we have to finish so we could daven before, before Chatzos.

32:31 Speaker 1 Chatzos.

32:31 Speaker 3 The ma'ariv before Chatzos. But then the Rebbe, as he usually does, gives his statfus in the, in the Kinus Torah the next day, and the Rebbe says, you think the farbrengen's done, and then, then there's, there's a whole nother tremendous, uh, sicha, the Rebbe's statfus in the Kinus Torah. So it's like it's gamayna mesgaver. It's never, it's never, it's n- it's never ending.

32:53 Speaker 1 So in the lameds when, w- when a lot of more people were, were, were attending and, and, and in present, it, it, it happened much more than once and more than ten times that the Rebbe would say, "You look at the clock. You look at the watch." There was always a watch on the re- on the table of the Rebbe. "You look at the watch from, uh, Rebbe Yerucham, alav ha-shalom. You look at the watch." And then the Rebbe would say, "Because it's late, mo- morgen is a yom ha'avoda. Tomorrow is a workday. So a kapo nebekitze, we'll, we'll talk bekitze now about the hadran, the siyum of this masechta." An hour and a half later, the Rebbe would go-- had gone through... And then on Shabbos, he would say, "We didn't have enough time to finish." So-

33:36 Speaker 3 Yeah

33:36 Speaker 1 ... Rebbe would go back on it. Ah, those days, wow.

33:41 Speaker 3 And you also-- I mean, so you also have, um, a unique-- I mean, you, you're involved a little bit with Chazara also, right? With the-- Like you were involved in, uh, in, in the writing of, uh, of, uh... What were you doing? You were doing the Rad? Like what, what were you doing with?

33:57 Speaker 1 In the Hanachos?

33:58 Speaker 3 Yeah. What were you-- What, what was your role?

34:00 Speaker 1 So again, I've-- Since I'm a kid, I've been writing. When I was in, in my young teens, when I was already thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, I was writing by the farbrengens the, the farbrengen, not just, uh, words. I was writing them. So I can-- I have. I still have-

34:15 Speaker 3 You're talking about still on the, on the hookup?

34:18 Speaker 1 Yeah, the lameds. Lamed Ches, Lamed Tes, Mem, Mem Maluch, Mem Beis. When I was, when I was out, when I was not in New York, I would sit and write the farbrengen. And, um, I would also record it, the farbrengen. We would make tapes as well. Uh, so I would keep it with me. You know, the WLCC wasn't so advanced in that time, and the Hanachos could have come a few weeks later. So it was good to have with you a reminder. Sometimes the Rebbe said a, a sicha about the Parsha, about whatever it is, and I had a non-Lubavitcher teacher in the Lamed Ches and Lamed Tes. The farbrengens of Shabbos were always Motzai Shabbos, and school would start late. He wouldn't know, 'cause he was not Lubavitch, if there was a farbrengen or not. So he would come regular time. He'd come at nine o'clock, and we wouldn't come in till ten thirty. And it frustrated him. And one time, after a few weeks like this, he said, "Okay, so you were up for three or four hours from, from, uh, eleven o'clock to two and then three in the morning, and you're coming late in the morning for, to, for your Gemara shiur. Tell me, what did the Rebbe say in these three, three, four hours?" And so we started giving Chazara. And he said, "Forget about the Gemara shiur. Continue."

35:43 Speaker 3 Yeah.

35:43 Speaker 1 He got very inspired, and he started coming himself-

35:47 Speaker 3 Wow

35:47 Speaker 1 ... to, uh, to one, once or twice. He didn't come every week, but he came-- didn't come every time, but he came once or twice. He says, "This is maade, like this is Chidushi Torah and this is, uh, this is inspiring." He was very taken. So anyway, so when you had a particularly heavy sicha, a beautiful Rashi sicha or something like that, it was good to have in writing. Um, so I had experience in this area to begin with. And I came in, in Mem Gimel. When I was in New York, I ca-- to learning in Alef Torah, I was-

36:18 Speaker 3 In Zal?

36:19 Speaker 1 I was in Zal, right. The Zal was on Troy Avenue those days. And I was asked to come in to be magiya, to check for mistakes. Those days, it would all be typed. So Simon Jacobson, who was the writer, he would type it up, and then it would go-- undergo different people would look it over, his father-in-law for language, and then other people who were writing the Ha'aros, Maareh Makomos. And so the-- it was retyped again to be in the format like of printed Hanachos like you have it today. But the retyping needed to be perfect. It needed to be without mistakes. So I came in as a without mistakes. And within a few months, though, I was already started getting involved with the writing. But then, um, in the beginning of Mem Daled, in Teves of Mem Daled, I was-- had the one of the biggest chos of my life That, uh, we were chosen, 10 bochurim were chosen to go to open up a yeshiva in South Africa, Johannesburg. So we left, um... When we came back, we came back at the end of Mem Hey. That's why I said before, Mem-- it was Mem Dalet that was in South Africa. It was Mem Hey we were still in South Africa. It was a two-year, not to come back in the middle type of shlichus. And so we came back in Elul of Mem Hey. And so Mem Vav we got very involved. In Mem Zayin, Pesach time, Vayakhei Pekudei was the first,

37:51 Speaker 1 the first one. We started giving out the Techin Katze. Techin Katze was more than a Rad. A Rad was, like, two pages. So Techin Katze was a smaller version, in Hebrew, of what the Rebbe said, a brief version.

38:05 Speaker 3 So first there was a Rad?

38:07 Speaker 1 No. The first thing came out was Techin Katze.

38:09 Speaker 3 So when was the Rad-

38:10 Speaker 1 Techin Katze-

38:10 Speaker 3 Something else?

38:11 Speaker 1 The Rad came out because Lahak also wanted to give something out, I guess. I'm, I'm, I don't know how-

38:16 Speaker 3 So the La- the Rad is Lahak. Okay.

38:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. Techin Katze came out from Alechas Hatmimim, and I was extremely involved by that point. Mem Zayin, we were writing already. And, um, but the Techin Katze, I was writing it together with Chaim Abrams, who today is in Postville, Iowa, and we were on shlichus together in South Africa. And then so Mem Vav, the problem with Mem Vav was when we came back from South Africa, Tishrei, Mem He- Mem Vav, uh, David Raskin, alav ha-shalom, came over, and he said that he wants us to go to Ocean Parkway. Ocean Parkway needs a lot of chizuk. He wants us to go to Ocean Parkway. So we told him, "I'm sorry, we just came back from a two straight years without seeing the Rebbe, and we are done. We're finished." And he started badgering us. Uh, David Raskin was very good at getting things done. So he came, he came in, but we-- There, there was a brick wall.

39:12 Speaker 3 The Rebbe, the Rebbe says he, uh, wrote about him, "Medats la'aseh bepayo." That-

39:16 Speaker 1 Bepayo. He, he really did

39:18 Speaker 3 He likes getting things done.

39:19 Speaker 1 Right. And he knew that it would be critical. Ocean Parkway was about to fall apart, and he did-- He was relentless, and we, we were-

39:27 Speaker 3 What, they had, they had a zal there?

39:29 Speaker 1 They, they had as, a, a Mesifta zal. So the kids were thir-thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and we were twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.

39:38 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

39:39 Speaker 1 And we were not listening. There was no way he was gonna get us to go. There was just absolutely no way.

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41:38 Speaker 3 through your financial support as well through visiting our website, derher.org, or through contacting us to setting up a meeting. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the podcast.

41:48 Speaker 1 So he went over to the Rashag, and the Rashag had a yechidus with the Rebbe in Geneva, Switzerland in the beginning part of Tishrei. And the Rashag asked the Rebbe if he could, uh, make this happen. He said, he said he wants the kvutze from-- We came back from South Africa to go ɗafka this kvutze. Everybody's talking about this kvutze. So we didn't know any of this, but it, uh, some chassidim that year, Mem Vav was on Monday, Tuesday, and on either the-- Later in the end of that week, maybe Thursday that week or Sunday of the next week after Shabbos Parashas, Binyamin Klein sent a message that he wants all the 10 bochurim to come in to Moskitas. And so we go into the Moskitas, and he says, "The Rebbe wants you to go to Ocean Parkway." "Huh?" I said, "The Rebbe wants you?" So one of the bochurim with a little bit of guts said to him, "What? The Rebbe said it? What did the Rebbe say? What are the words the Rebbe say?" So he says, "I'll tell you exactly what the Rebbe told me." He said, "The Rebbe said, 'Ich vil a di kvutze vos iz tzurikgekommen fun dorim Afrika zol farn in Ocean Parkway.' I want that the group that came, returned from South Africa should go to Ocean Parkway." Seven thirty the next morning, we were all at the seder, and we stayed longer than any other group that was sent to Ocean Parkway. We stayed all the way

43:22 Speaker 1 into Iyar, basically till the end of-- almost till the end of the year So Mem-vav, we weren't really around. Um, we ca-- we didn't miss any Shabbos, of course, and we didn't miss any farbrengen in the weekday. Even the quick, the, the, the, the sudden farbrengens didn't take that long to get from Ocean Parkway to, six to twenty minutes. So we were there. Uh, but we weren't like Besuro Hanyanim. I would come back to check over the hanachos every time, or they would send it to me, or... So, you know, I was involved, but not-- It didn't have my whole, uh, my whole focus. But Mem-zayin was, uh, a great year in that sense. We didn't go anywhere. And so we started the techin katzah then, and I remember, uh, I was the head counselor in Gan Yisroel in Tosh-Mem-vav. And in Mem-zayin, Avraham-

44:11 Speaker 3 There's a video of you, um-

44:14 Speaker 1 Chaf tav.

44:15 Speaker 3 Yeah, when Chaf tav and the camp comes.

44:17 Speaker 1 Avraham Olshemke told me he, he, he nee- he needs to go over with one of the head counselors to get dollars.

44:23 Speaker 3 To raise him.

44:23 Speaker 1 And he found me, so I went with him. Yeah. But Mem-zayin, he came to me again. And I w-- I wanted-- Once you're there, you really-- It's, it's a special, special zchus to be the head counselor there. But, um, Simon Jacobson told me, "Now that you're writing this techin katzah, camp is finished. Your talula on Sumchah Torah is finished. You need to be at the farbrengens, you need to be there on time, and you need to be... You know, you, you can't, you can't shirk your responsibility." Even when I became a chassan, I, I, I wasn't able to. He says, "You need to find a replacement or else don't get married."

45:05 Speaker 3 You wrote to the Rebbe about any of this?

45:08 Speaker 1 I didn't write to the Rebbe, no. I only wrote to the Rebbe when the Rebbe asked for three, for three things in the Voes Chanan Tisma. He asked for three things that you did, that you accomplished, um, over the last kufar. I wrote about the techin katzah, that we-- how, how much we invested in it, especially later. When the Rebbe was magiya, one of the techin katzah, Va'era, Tosh-Mem-ches was the Siah Marambam, and the Rebbe was magiya the whole techin katzah. And we went crazy. I mean, th-this w-- The, the Rebbe also, on Chaf Ve-- On Chaf Tes Shevat, the Rebbe called in, uh, certain people. Rabbi Zalman Gurari, he called in, he called in Gershon Ber Jacobson. And he told Gershon Ber Jacobson, Besuro Hanyanim, that the techin katzah, "Fasport me shores fun arbet." It take-- It saves me hours of work because people would call in after Shabbos to understand what was going on, and the hanachos weren't available until Wednesday, Thursday. Now, these-- We, we, we write it on Motzei Shabbos no matter what. No matter what happened. After Kol Sheker Bracha, we did not go to sleep until it was done. So by Sunday morning, the whole world had it, and we faxed it. We used a fax machine. So it was, it was, uh... We bought a fax machine, so it was available everywhere by Sunday night, and we had a special section for Heroish, for Ma'aseh B'fiel, and the Rebbe praised it greatly a few months after Rebbe was

46:45 Speaker 1 magiya the techin katzah. So we put in a lot more effort to the techin katzah at that time. And so I wrote to the Rebbe then that I was one of the people involved, but otherwise I did not write. No.

47:00 Speaker 3 And the techin katzah went all the way till Tosh-Mem-Beis, I believe. I mean, you were, you were already Moshiach, but-

47:07 Speaker 1 Yossi Jacobson, I was the one who appointed him as my successor, and he continued writing it until Mem-Beis. At first, he told me, "I don't know. I can't do it. I'm too young. I'm, I'm just a Bachur in Ale Hatorah." So I told him, "Try, uh, and, and if it doesn't work, I'll, I'll, I'll see if I can find somebody else."

47:27 Speaker 3 But there were others writing it also with him, I think.

47:30 Speaker 1 So Chaim Abrams was writing it. And then the farbrengens became so much shorter that it didn't really take that much time, uh, um, at, at that point. After Tish- Tisma, Tosh-Mem-Tes, some of the farbrengens finished at three o'clock. Started at one thirty, finished at three. It was only two sichas and, you know, all the Rashi, all the heavy stuff.

47:49 Speaker 3 The Rebbe stopped the Rashi sichas then, yeah.

47:50 Speaker 1 The Rebbe stopped Ma'amaram, the Rebbe stopped Rashi sichas. We-- The Ramaram were also in the techin katzah. So-

47:56 Speaker 3 The last thing the Rebbe was magiya before Chav- before Chav Sein Adar-

48:01 Speaker 1 Was the Rad.

48:02 Speaker 3 Was, was, was that the Rad or that was techin katzah?

48:05 Speaker 1 No, the Rad.

48:06 Speaker 3 Oh, it was the Rad. Okay. But es- essentially it's the same thing at that point. There, there was always two.

48:13 Speaker 1 It was-- Might have been even three, um, if I'm not mistaken, later.

48:16 Speaker 3 But there was also a fact sicha-

48:19 Speaker 1 Right. The fact sicha was written-

48:20 Speaker 3 In, in Alef Mem Beis.

48:21 Speaker 1 Right.

48:23 Speaker 3 Fact sicha is actually-

48:24 Speaker 1 Right. But the techin, techin katzah started this thing. When, when we were doing the techin katzah, it wasn't a farbrengen of an hour and a half where the Rebbe said two, three sichas. This was, this was three sichas or two or three sichas before. Then there was a Maimon, then there was a Rashi, the Rambam, the Ze'ira, the Avus. This was a whole farbrengen, sometimes finishing at five thirty, six o'clock. There was a lot of stuff there. The techin katzah could have been twenty pages. And so w-we didn't have a limit of one page or two pages. It was like a hanacha, except that we, that, that we took the liberty, if there were things that the Rebbe said that we didn't quite have the time to go into and get to the bottom of, we would, we would leave it out, and leave it for the hanacha which came later that week.

49:10 Speaker 3 Right. It's still, it's still a kitzur, it's a techin katzah, right?

49:12 Speaker 1 Right.

49:12 Speaker 3 It's not, it's not a hanacha.

49:14 Speaker 1 Right.

49:14 Speaker 3 Hanacha could be, uh, fifty pages.

49:18 Speaker 1 A hundred pages, right.

49:19 Speaker 3 A hundred pages, yep. Uh, very interesting. So, so this is like a-

49:25 Speaker 1 It was a tremendous, tremendous, amazing time of my life because to, to-- First of all, you cannot stand at a farbrengen with a good memory and then walk away. It-- There was a whole-- There was a say of how this needed to be done. This is Reb Yael who taught it. It's, it's, it's in Chassidus, it's in Ma'amaram, especially Shavuot Ma'amaram, about Bital. That if you want to explain-- If you want to hear something, if you want to learn something, you can't think along with the Rebbe. If the Rebbe was saying something at a farbrengen, let's say the Rebbe asked a question on the Rashi, but your mind tells you, "You just learned that Rashi, but doesn't the Rashi say something different in the oth- next passek and everything else?" You can't think that way. If you thought that way, then you didn't hear, then you weren't listening. So in order to be at this farbrengen on Shabbos and be part of this team, first of all, you had to have a good night's sleep on Friday night. Second of all, no cholent before the farbrengen. Nothing that's gonna make your stomach rumble. I didn't say, I didn't say-- I didn't make kiddush ever before the farbrengen. I just took, took... I heard kiddush, and I took a little sip of wine not to get my mind cloudy. I ate very, very little, just a kichlach that they were giving out, that's all. And then I had somebody who stood right on top of me,

50:48 Speaker 1 on a bench on top of me, and he didn't understand Yiddish hardly. And so as soon as the sicha was over, that's the next step. Y- after listening, and y- it's one of the hardest things to do, is not think along when somebody's talking to you, 'cause y- you're, you're immediately trying to take what the words a person says and apply it to yourself, but then you're not listening. Then you're thinking. There's a li-- there's a art in listening, just a- absorbing, taking it in. But then the next step you need to do is review, chazarah. And so there was a guy standing next to me, uh, right on top of me, who didn't understand Yiddish. And so I immediately, as soon as the sicha was over, the nigun would start, I would just I would go over the s- the, the, the sicha. And then after Mincha, there would be a, a impromptu chazarah in English by Rabbi Leibel Oltyns, zol zayn gezunt. And I would join that. And then I would go to Simon Jacobson's house for, to eat the seudah Shabbos, and then we would put together the whole farbrengen, no kitsur. We would go chazarah. So by the time Shabbos was over, I had, I had reviewed it in my mind three times. I reviewed it or heard it from someone else three times. And then there was Reb Yael's chazarah on Motzae Shabbos. At that time, you can write. So Simon would be-- I wouldn't be at that chazarah because

52:12 Speaker 1 we would immediately start writing as soon as Shabbos was over. As soon as Havdalah were made, we sat down, and we started writing. And so Simon would later, hour and a half, two later, would bring the notes that he had from h- from the chazarah because there were certain elements where-

52:28 Speaker 4 He would go to Reb Yael's chazarah?

52:29 Speaker 1 Right. So he would bring his notes from the chazarah 'cause there were certain elements of-- that the Rebbe said it, and when, while the Rebbe said it, it might have made sense, but when you start putting it down on paper, uh, there's too many issues here. You need to see some words. Maybe you missed a word here or missed a, a connecting, uh, idea. So then we would have it on paper, then we had Simon a- was available to talk to him, to ask him. So this was, uh, uh, it was a-- It, it was not just simply listening to a farbrengen with a good memory. The memory is just w- a part of it. Y- Reb Yael didn't just stand there and take it like a tape recorder. He aft- between each sicha, Reb, Reb Yael would sit down on, on the bench where he would be standing. He would actually sit down, and he would-- You would see him. He would ha-- He som-- many times his hands over his, his eyes and going through it and reviewing it, cha- chazaring it. And when you had these, you know, with Sukkos, three-day Yom Tov, so the Rebbe would say a sicha Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, these three straight nights, and you couldn't do anything until Motzae Shabbos. So we would have chazarah twice a day, after Shacharis and after Maariv, each one, each sicha. And, um, I-- One time on the f- by the berakhah of Erev Yom Kippur, in Tosh

53:53 Speaker 1 M"Z, to the bochurim, the Rebbe would come a, a few minutes before licht bentchen. That berakhah went on for about twenty-three minutes, and the last two minutes were-- the, the microphone went out. It was already shkiah. It was already Yom Kippur. And so it needed chazarah from that. Um, and so on, you know. You know, many times like this. The nights of Sukkos in, in the sicha to the ohrchim, I was always inside, right in the front.

54:19 Speaker 4 In the sukkah?

54:20 Speaker 1 In the sukkah when the Rebbe spoke to the guests.

54:24 Speaker 4 Um, Motzaei Yom Tov after Kol Shevuchet, there was chazarah at 2:00 in the morning?

54:30 Speaker 1 No. No, we didn't need that because we would write after Sha-- As soon as Yom Tov was over, the only thing we needed to remember-

54:36 Speaker 4 So you didn't stay by Kol Shevuchet?

54:38 Speaker 1 Oh, I never-- What? I didn't go anywhere. I stood right opposite the Rebbe by Kol Shevuchet. You'll see-- You won't see me in most of the pictures 'cause they don't, they don't have the pictures of the crowd. They have the picture of the Rebbe and the crowd, but I was opposite the Rebbe, so you don't really see me. But I-- You see me in the videos. You see me in the Motzaei, uh, Motzaei Shabbos Bereishis tish meh, you'll see me. And anyway, I did not move. I was right-

55:01 Speaker 4 But, uh-

55:02 Speaker 1 -in front of the Rebbe, mamash in front.

55:05 Speaker 4 So Reb Yael did chazarah-

55:08 Speaker 1 After Kol Shevuchet

55:08 Speaker 4 ...after Kol Shevuchet.

55:09 Speaker 1 Not when it finished at 2:00 or 3:00 in the, in the morning. Then it would be Sunday, it would be, it would be-

55:13 Speaker 4 The next day

55:14 Speaker 1 ...chazarah in cheder sheini, yeah, or something, or the next morning, hisorichat. Um, no, but we didn't need chazarah because there was a recording of it. We, we, we would write down the words of the Rebbe as soon as Yom Tov was over. So the farbrengen would always be- begin within, within a few minutes before shkiah, and then they would sing a nigun after the Rebbe washed and ate so- some challah. So, and by the time everybo-- The time the Rebbe started the sicha was already after shkiah, the first sicha.

55:44 Speaker 4 So you-

55:44 Speaker 1 So the f- first sicha was about fifteen, twenty minutes or twenty-five minutes, and that was it because as soon as Yom Tov was over, they would, w- there would be paper and pen would be at-

55:54 Speaker 4 So you s- you stand in front of the Rebbe by the, by the shewust farbrengen, let's say.

55:59 Speaker 1 So all-

55:59 Speaker 4 And once it was, once it was Motzaei Yom Tov was over, you were writing in front of the Rebbe, even though everyone was Yom Tovdik?

56:05 Speaker 1 Not quite. So I had-- my place was opposite the Rebbe by the Farbrengens. But on Yom Tov Farbrengens, I would sit inside of the shvil, right under the table. And the Rebbe couldn't-- uh, Dovid Feldman and Simon would both sit and write. They would have notepads, and they would-- uh, pads that you can quickly turn the page and keep on writing, writing, and writing, and writing. And, um, where they sat, they couldn't see the Rebbe, and the Rebbe couldn't see them.

56:35 Speaker 4 Only on Yom Tov?

56:36 Speaker 1 Right. There was a table. They only sat on Yom Tov. There, there's a, there's a table in front of the Rebbe's Farbrengen table. And on that table, they would sit. They would, they would, they would sit, uh, they would have a couple of, of, uh, there would be like a bench there or, or maybe a, a, a seat, and they would sit down right at the table, and they would pull out this envelope, this bag that they have. Inside, they had three or four pens, 'cause in case a pen runs out, and they would have extra whatever. And they would have something Nach books in it, so they can bring it with them. On Simchat Torah, you couldn't hide it anywhere. And on Nach a Pesach, and Shavuot, and Rosh Hashanah, you can put it under the table. But on Simchat Torah, they removed all the Farbrengen tables for our Hakafos. So they-- you could only bring it in. Anyway, they brought it in, and they-- as soon as-- they had a, a watch with them. As soon as Yom Tov-- the minute Yom Tov was over, they would bring out the pen. Nobody could-- uh, even the crowd couldn't see it. Nobody could notice it. They were hunched over the whole time. And so they were, like, hunched over, like, under the table. Who was looking down there anyway? So, no, uh, I don't think the crowd saw them. The Rebbe definitely didn't see them, but the Rebbe knew that they were-- this was

57:49 Speaker 1 happening. The, the Rebbe knew the system. And, um, so I didn't really need to write. It was only one time that I wrote, but it, it wasn't necessary. But I would still sit in the front just in case I would need to write. And also because people who came-- the, the people would c- start coming from Long Island and from New Jersey. As soon as Yom Tov was over, they would get in a car and try to catch the last hour or two or three of the Farbrengen and stay for Keriat HaTorah. Um, and so the-- there would be a tremendous racket. It would be a big noise 'cause women were coming, children were coming. It was a big noise where-- in my place, much bigger. And so it was often that I sat in the shvil on Yom Tov. Also, Lail Simchat Torah, there were times that I also sat inside.

58:41 Speaker 4 But usually in tho- in those years still, no-- it wasn't-- you weren't supposed to sit in the shvil. Like, there wasn't-

58:47 Speaker 1 I never, I never sat in the shvil any other time. I wouldn't sit at the Rebbe's Farbrengen. I wouldn't sit.

58:52 Speaker 4 Stand.

58:53 Speaker 1 I would always stand, but, uh, only those times were the exception because ac- you couldn't stand in the shvil. And there were other Chevre who sat in the shvil. I would tell the other Chevre, "Can you do me a favor? Just for this Farbrengen, can you stand in my place? It's a, it's very good place, right opposite the Rebbe." It wasn't a bad-- you know, you didn't have to go to the other side of the world. Some people protested that, but, uh, I, I, I wasn't, I wasn't there that often, so.

59:17 Speaker 4 It's a, uh, it's a whole thing in Lubavitch, my place. It's a big, it's a big concept.

59:22 Speaker 1 Right. I had a place.

59:23 Speaker 4 My place, and then-

59:24 Speaker 1 Right

59:24 Speaker 4 ... mine, and this is my Da'at Amos, and you can-- and with all the Avos Yisroel-

59:28 Speaker 1 Makom, Makom kavua

59:28 Speaker 4 ... but, but you don't, you don't start with someone's place by Farbrengen, right?

59:32 Speaker 1 A Farbrengen or Hakafos, Makom kavua. There was one time that I actually put somebody in my place by the Rebbe's Hakafos on Simchat Torah mem vav because this person didn't have a chance, and I just gave him my, my spot. And every time I see him, Adai Yoma Ze, he just g- constantly, "Excuse me. I thank you." He says, "It turned my whole life around."

59:55 Speaker 4 Someone that you knew?

59:57 Speaker 1 Someone that I knew, yeah, who's much older than me. He's gotta be at least in his eighties today. But, um, every time I see him, he's like he's... The Rebbe's Hakafos was a Giliul Elokus Mamash. I'm talking about the Rebbe's own Hakafos, the whole Hakafos. The whole Simchat Torah was Giliul Elokus. The whole Farbrengen, everything was Giliul Elokus, but this was, this was the Rebbe pouring out, just pouring out. And so to give that away was, um, one of the biggest Mesirut Nefesh I ever had. But I felt that for this guy, I just, just felt it was important.

1:00:34 Speaker 4 So you must be f- you must be, like, from England or something c- because you did that.

1:00:39 Speaker 1 The guy is from England, yeah. He's from an-

1:00:40 Speaker 4 No, I mean, you, you, you must be from England or something that you gave away your place for Simchat Torah. I don't know if many people would do that.

1:00:48 Speaker 1 It's not for-- It's not where you're from. It's wh- it's, it's when you're in the presence of the Rebbe and feeling the Rebbe, what would the Rebbe want you to do? And I've had to use that in my life quite a few times. What would the Rebbe want you to do? You know, uh, I was there Gimmel Tammuz, like w- everybody was there. And then-

1:01:18 Speaker 4 Nun Daled.

1:01:19 Speaker 1 Nun Daled. I was inside the aisle during the l- levaya, and I said to myself, "Okay, the next year came, Gimmel Tammuz Nun Hei, I would go to New York. It was a Shabbos. I'll go to New York." In Nun Vav, my wife was in the ninth month, and she basically said, "I cannot go." And I didn't go. And I don't think I had a more miserable day in my life than that year. And I, I-- That year I made a Hachlata, that's never gonna happen again. And three years later, not only was she in the ninth month, um, in Tammuz, Gimmel Tammuz, but the baby was due on Gimmel Tammuz. And I davened Shacharis in Atlanta And I flew to New York, and I called every hour. Those days, the, the, the planes had a phone. You put a credit card, it was a ten dollars a call. I called every hour because if, if any kind of labor, I would turn around and get in the next plane and come right back. And I was, I was at the Ohel. I was in New York from landing to takeoff, I think it was four and a half hours. I just went to the Ohel, I went to Crown Heights for a few minutes, and then I went straight back to the airport, and I was at Davin Mincha back in Atlanta. Shacharit and Mincha was in Atlanta, uh, but I was there. And then about, uh, five or six, maybe seven, eight, nine

1:02:50 Speaker 1 years ago, I got a call from somewhere, from Merchakim. It might have been South Africa, it might have been one of these places to come for a bring for the whole week, Gimmel Tammuz. And I said, "I'm sorry, not Gimmel Tammuz." They said, "What do you mean with not Gimmel Tammuz?" I said, "Gimmel Tammuz, I need to be at the Ohel." And they said, "Why?" So I said to them, you know, I told them I had made a chovat that I'm not gonna miss it again. It was the most miserable day of my life. It's miserable anywhere you are, but when you're among Hasidim and when you're at the Ohel, you feel there's a camaraderie. You know, misery enjoys company as they say. A very hard day. So the guy said to me, "So you're gonna go to the Ohel?" I said, "Of course." So he said to me, "The Rebbe that you're going to be s-standing next to, uh, how would he feel that you're standing there on Gimmel Tammuz, and you could inspire hundreds or thousands of people b-back here? Can you tell me in your knowledge and know, and know how the Rebbe would be, how-- what, what do you think the Rebbe would advise you to do in such a case?" And I, all I went, all I said was, "Um, um, um, you're right. A hundred percent right." So then I made a chovat that when I go away, I might-- I will not come back home. I'll go straight.

1:04:10 Speaker 1 It, it may be it's Hei Tammuz, maybe it's Zayin Tammuz, whatever it is, I'm going to go at some point within that kufar, and I'll do my, my business then. So, uh, these are things that regulate sometimes your life. What would the Rebbe want you to do? And so standing at Hakafas, and the Rebbe coming to dance with the Sefer Torah is, it's an indescribable, it's an indescribable moment. It's chadash al halochitz, it's engraved in anyone who was ever there. I'll give you an example. I don't know how we got to this, but I'll give you an example. I-- In Tofshin Mem Tes, Simchat Torah Tofshin Mem Tes, my grandfather had just had, uh, hip replacement surgery, and the doctor told him he cannot go to New York and be in a crowd like that. And so he said, "I will take every precaution." And so when it came to Hakafas, that was-- it was impossible to take any kind of precaution at Hakafas. There were just too many people there, and whoever was there was very, very... It wasn't just you were there and packed in. You were there with an excitement, which again, it's so-- it's almost impossible to describe this. There was this anticipation and this, this ufgeheidenkait. You were-- It's not just like you were in a different room or different... You were in a different-- You were in heaven, and therefore you knew it. If you're gonna be there, you all heard about it, and they described it to you.

1:05:47 Speaker 1 And so if you were kapshute, you're physically there, you knew the Rebbe's about to come in, and your whole year is, like, gonna be changed as a result of this. And when you saw the Rebbe on Simchat Torah, it was a different person. And when the Rebbe got the Torah, and the Rebbe started walking down, there was a shine, a glow came from the Rebbe that, uh, how do you, how do you describe that? So there was this-- It wasn't just a crowd of people. It was a very high-strung crowd of people, and it-- not always did the people look out for each other. There, there was a time where the Rebbe once tu-turned to somebody who was pushing someone who had to hold the Sefer Torah. And the Rebbe said, "If you're trying to make a place for the Sefer Torah, remember that there's a person who is holding the Sefer Torah, he's more important."

1:06:43 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:06:44 Speaker 1 It was hard to remember that when you were in that kind of-

1:06:46 Speaker 4 There's another-- I don't know if they told him at the same time, but, um, I think it's, I think it was Rabbi Gurary fell, uh, while holding a Torah, and people tried to take the Torah from his arms-

1:06:57 Speaker 1 The Torah out of him

1:06:57 Speaker 4 ... and the Rebbe said, "Heb uf de mention. Pick up the person, not the Torah." Like, like, there's a, there's a person. Yeah.

1:07:05 Speaker 1 Because that was the atmosphere of Simchat Torah, and the Rebbe was, his palace like, like, like he never had. Like, there was no other time of the year like this. And so I said I would stand with my grandfather by the Rebbe's Hakafa and during the rest of the Hakafas when the Rebbe was in his place, and the older people would stand, like, on the side. So I, me, young, young guy with a, you know, ju-just, just married, I would be standing with him. So I did. I went with him, and I carried the Sefer Torah. He was, he was always given a Sefer Torah to go with the, with the entourage that went in for the first Hakafa and the last Hakafa together with the Rebbe. So Rebbe would walk down the shvil. Rebbe would walk down the pathway to the middle of the shul where the bimah was. The bimah was surrounded by a chess, by a, a row of tables in the shape of a chess. Steel tables that were welded together, like stuck together, so because the crowd was so, so heavy And the people who are in this entourage who were standing inside of the hes would be asked to lean against those tables. So sort of to either lean back or sit on those tables because the crowd outside of them wanted to see, and they would be blocking. So that's what they did, and I put myself, plucked myself all the way down by my grandfather's feet. So

1:08:37 Speaker 1 I sat on the floor right next to my grandfather inside of the hes where the Rebbe would be dancing. And the Rebbe starts dancing with the Sefer Torah, and then the Rebbe, in the later years when the Rebbe was dancing by himself, the Rebbe would take the Torah and basically farbrengen with every person there, make eye contact, look into their eyes, and there were thousands. And so the Rebbe would, would, would, would hold the Sefer Torah and go like this, "Yama vaket matza freidma venegba" for all corners of this bimah. Look to every side and spend a lot of-- And spend some time. I can't say a lot of time. In Tisma, the Rebbe spent a lot of time. But in regular years, it was several minutes on each side. And the si-- each side the Rebbe was on, the back was to the other side. The, the side that the Rebbe's face was towards would go crazy. They would jump up and down, screaming, like, you know, th-this, this would be such a moment, such an incredible moment. And I'm sitting on the floor, and the Rebbe comes over to this side, and the Rebbe's shoes were by my shoes. That's how close the Rebbe was. Should they-- Mama sh standing at the table where the people were. And I, I-- All, all I did was I looked up. I looked up at the Rebbe's face, the Rebbe's holy face. And I know I'm gonna sound like a radical meshuggener, and perhaps I am.

1:10:05 Speaker 1 I could be considered one of those, but I'm telling you, streams of light were just pouring out. I never saw the Rebbe like that because I didn't see the Rebbe that close when I was, uh, by Hakafos. I stood a little further back, so, you know, from the distance you saw, but you-- I didn't see that close. I was literally wi-within three feet of the Rebbe, and all I saw was this, this energy, this light that was projecting out of the Rebbe, which is... A-as long as I sit here, it wouldn't be impossible. You know, one year on Gimmel Tammuz in the earlier years, it was in the Nuns, and there was a farbrengen in Beis Rivkah. So it's, it's a long time ago. I don't think they do the farbrengen in Beis Rivkah anymore.

1:10:53 Speaker 4 No.

1:10:54 Speaker 1 I'm, I'm not around.

1:10:54 Speaker 4 They had it, yeah.

1:10:55 Speaker 1 I'm not around these days. I am, I'm all usually farbrengen somewhere. So I was in, uh, Beis Rivkah, and it was two o'clock in the morning. It was-- In other words, the crowd was much smaller, and there was a side table. Rebbe was leading the farbrengen. Next to him was Leib Shapiro, and there were other, other, you know, prominent Hasidim. And Rebbe went on for two straight hours. I cannot, I cannot forget this because what he was saying was something that I'm saying right now. I know this. He was saying, "Could you imagine, are you lo the Isher? That c-- When the Rebbe received the Sefer Torah, a human being should change this way." The Rebbe, his, his face lit up. That's what how Rebbe was saying it. And it-- For two hours, he continuously belabored this point that how, how do you explain that a human being gets a Sefer Torah, and the entire demeanor changes? You couldn't-- Literally, you couldn't recognize him. That's what he was saying. Not you couldn't recognize the Rebbe, obviously. The Rebbe looked like the Rebbe, but there was this energy that was pouring out of the Rebbe on Simchat Torah that you just didn't see. Only on several occasions here or there, special occasions, you'll see it. So moments, days, times like this, you didn't wanna miss a second of it. It was special. It was unique. Each year was different, somewhat. It was, it was an experience that you took with you for the rest of, for

1:12:40 Speaker 1 the rest of the year or even for the rest of your life. It was as I said before. It was, it was engraved. It became engraved inside you, and you couldn't, you, you couldn't tear yourself away from this. You didn't-- You just-- You were hoping it would never end. It was such an uplifting, incredibly elevating experience. And to give it away, especially when the Rebbe himself was dancing, and to give that away was mesirat nefesh. I don't think I ever did it again . There were a lot of people who were wandering around. We once took Meir Itkin, the great Hasid from the town of Nevel, and we dragged him all the way up to the bleachers, and we squeezed him in, um, between us. And he said he hadn't seen the Rebbe's Hakafos. This was in the mems. He hadn't seen the Rebbe's Hakafos since the yuds.

1:13:37 Speaker 4 He didn't have a place.

1:13:38 Speaker 1 He didn't have a place. He wasn't one of those who was gonna start pushing and, you know. And he, he, he started kissing-- After Hakafos, he started kissing us, and he, he came home to his house and started farbrengen all day long about, about this, what they did for him, how he-- elevated he was. It's, it's-- Understand that not everybody could have seen it because you, you needed to be, uh, young. You need to have a good nefesh habahamus, and you need to have a good place.

1:14:10 Speaker 4 Hmm. So how do you connect to this type of G-dly from the, from the Rebbe today?

1:14:25 Speaker 1 I talk about it as much as I can. I describe it to people. I try. Um, and I, I am told that I have a, a way of describing things with, with many details so that they could, um, y-you know, so people could sort of put themselves there, can imagine themselves being there. I've also written several articles before the Deherr. I think the Deherr might have come from, from this kind of thing. I've written a bunch of articles. I'm about to give out a book about, about the Rebbe.

1:15:00 Speaker 4 You wrote those from-- I, I, I read the-- many of them, pr- maybe all of them, where you go through, uh, certain time periods. And there's-- So that some of them are certain dates, and some of them are, like, topics, um, describing things about the Rebbe. You wrote thosethose all from memory?

1:15:17 Speaker 1 I started writing it from memory, but then I realized that there may be things that I didn't see. Whatever I remember, I remember, but there may be things I didn't see, and there may be sichas, which I'm writing about, that I might have missed a point here or there. So I started, um, looking up and asking people. I'm in the middle of writing now an article about the Rebbe's Nigunim that the Rebbe introduced on Simchat Torah. And I'm the kind of person-- Uh, first of all, I-- The, the last Nigun that the Rebbe introduced was Hu Lecha Nei, it was before I was born. But I already wrote about a tkufah of before I was born, Chaf Daled Tes Ves Lamed Chaf Gimel. I wrote an article about that, and the people who were there, I heard from several people who were there, who read this article, and they said, "Wow." First of all, there are details over there that they forgot, and second of all, there are details over there they didn't know because I went and asked about twenty different people. For this article, I must have met fifty people that I'm writing-- I'm working on now. It's very, very difficult to write this article. But I'm working on this one now because where was the Rebbe when he was teaching these Nigunim? Where was he standing? I asked Yudel Krinsky. I, I, I even introduced him-- I even interviewed him. I said, "The Rebbe's eyes, were they open or were they closed

1:16:46 Speaker 1 when he was teaching Shamil? When he was teaching Nigunim like this. Or the Rebbe's hands? Was, was the Rebbe..." So, uh, Rabbi Yudel told me, "The Rebbe was not animated. The Rebbe had his hands by the side." Et cetera, et cetera. I asked all kinds of-- Whoever you can think of, I asked. So I don't take this and do it on my own. Also, when I finish-

1:17:10 Speaker 4 So-

1:17:10 Speaker 1 When I finish writing-

1:17:11 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:17:12 Speaker 1 When I finish writ-- Each article that I finish writing, I send to between seven to ten people to look it over.

1:17:19 Speaker 4 Uh, so what I'm understanding from what you're telling me, it's very interesting. So on the one hand, you have the ability, 'cause you were there, to be «melah zecheres» and to remember what you witnessed, and, and the way you describe, uh, looking at the Rebbe, it's, it's, it's amazing. I mean, just, just to hear that is, uh, is worth it that we're having this conversation. But it sounds like that it's more than that. For you, it's like an avoda. It's an ava-- It's part, it's part of the, uh, uh, one of the ways of hashraas, and part of the, uh, avoda to de-- to describe and to relive moments with the Rebbe. So you're even gonna do moments that you weren't there, 'cause this is, this is something that needs to happen, right? Uh, is it-- Am I saying it right?

1:18:07 Speaker 1 In order-- It's a little bit more than that. I don't consider this zecheres. Zecheres means memories. I don't want people to, to read memories of the Rebbe. I want people to actually feel that they're there when they're, they're with me, and I'm putting myself there. In other words, if I don't feel like I'm there, I can't write about it. So when I wrote about Chaf Daled Tes Ves Chaf Gimel, after I asked all these people, I started learning the hanakos, and then I listened to the tapes many times over just to be able to imagine me being there, and then I can feel it. I don't wanna just write what the Rebbe said or what the Rebbe did. I wanna wrote-- I wanna write how people felt. And my-- Some of my buddies would tell me, "What do you need to write your feelings? You felt this was a very nice sicha. Who are you?" Like, some of-- some people criticized me for that. And I said, "If I was you, and you were the writer, and I w-- and, and if you were the writer and I was you, I would say, have the same complaint. I don't need you to tell me how to feel." But I said, "You have to realize that the people reading this don't know, don't know what's the big deal of the Rebbe saying a ma'amar, for example." I wrote a whole article on the Rebbe saying a ma'amar. The Rebbe saying a ma'amar sounds like the Rebbe

1:19:26 Speaker 1 saying a sicha, or watch a video, and yeah, the Rebbe has his eyes closed, and his eyes are down. It's so much. It's a world here. And that's the point. The point is not just to say that the Rebbe had his eyes closed, to say how the crowd felt, how the crowd sang the song, wha-what was the crowd doing during the ma'amar, and, and so on. It was n-- It's not just about what the Rebbe did. It's about the experience with the Rebbe. It's about being there. And that's what I want to convey in the articles that I write, not just about the information. I wanna, I, I want the people to come with me and experience it with me, feel it with me. So I-- that's why I don't call it memories or remembrances. It's not zecheres. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's-- I want, I want people to do it now. That's why you, if you ask me what I'm doing about it, I wish I could sh-- I wish I can tell you that this book is about to be pr-printed. It's not, 'cause there's articles I need to write, and I, I haven't found the mental capacity yet to finish it. There's just a few more. I've written about twenty-five articles, and it's gon-- It's, it's book one of at least, uh, three. The, the book one is about around the year. So what was Rosh Hashanah like? Vov Tishri. There's something for every date, special day. Rosh Hashanah, Vov Tishri, Sukkot,

1:20:46 Speaker 1 Simchat Torah, uh, Yahrtzeit Kislev, Hanukkah, um, Cheit Teves, Yahrzeit Shvat, um, Chanukah

1:20:54 Speaker 4 But these are all the, the feeling, the f-- the, the feeling of it, it's based on what people told you

1:21:02 Speaker 1 S-some, only some of-- only, only the ones that I wasn't there for, number one. Number two, and Baruch Hashem, I'm able to, to not just to hear from people, but I'm able to read what other people wrote. And when you put certain elements together about-- w-when this one adds a detail, the other one adds a detail, the other one adds a detail, you suddenly have a, a picture that you didn't feel before. And-

1:21:30 Speaker 4 So you're, so you're basically recreating the experience for yourself, then you're putting it to paper.

1:21:39 Speaker 1 I, I'll, I'll share with you a story in that vein. Um, when I was... I, I mentioned before, when I was a young teen, thirteen, fourteen, I started going through all the hanchos, all the sichas of the Rebbe that were not in Likutey Sichos. You know, the, the hanchos. And I came to Yad Alef Nissan, taf shin lamed beis. I came to the Rebbe's seventieth birthday, and I remember that. I remember the Talmud. I was only eight years old, not-- just before my eighth birthday. So I wasn't old enough to understand anything, but I remember the, the Talmud. I remember my father leaving for Shabbos right before Pesach. I was like, "Wow." And I remember the farbrengen. I was at that farbrengen. I-- in, in London, I heard the, the, the hookup. But I didn't know. I didn't know what was going on. But in the hanacha, there is a line in the hanacha that says, after the maimer, they sang the nigun Bacho Hashem chasi si behis odirus gedolah, something like that, with a great inspiration. And the Rebbe, afterwards, after this nigun, the Rebbe said the following sicha.

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1:24:18 Speaker 1 What did the Rebbe say? The Rebbe said that there's something that I wanted to introduce into Lubavitch. Uh, but the Rebbe didn't say introduce. The Rebbe used the word I wanted to basically hammer it in. I wanted to install it into Lubavitch, and I was waiting for a special moment. So the Rebbe called this a special moment, this nigun a special moment. That's why they wrote it in the hanacha. There's no other page of the Rebbe's toirah that says anything close to this. It says that the Rebbe stood up to dance, and there's a-- but it doesn't say they sang a song with great inspiration. Like, what does, what does that mean? And what did the Rebbe mean by that? So when I read that, and I said, "Wow, that's, that's amazing. What, what does that mean?" So I waited for my father to come home, and I said to my-- I showed it to my father. I said, "Here's a..." He said, "Oh, it was amazing." I said, "What happened? Like, what, what-- What was the difference between this nigun and any other nigun that they ever sang at the farbrengen? 'Cause you don't see this on any other page." He says, "It was indescribable. It was amazing. It was unbelievable. It was a-- it was, it was one of these moments. It was like..." I said, "What? What, what happened?" And he, he has no answer. He just didn't know how to answer it. And so I was friendly with, with the older

1:25:35 Speaker 1 bochurim at that time. This is, uh, Lamed Zayin. It must have been Lamed Ches, Lamed Tes. And I asked different people who were there ten years older than me, Yossi Galitsky, uh, Richie Whitgis, different people that I know. And every one answered the same way. "Oh, it was amazing. It was unbelievable." I said, "But d-describe to me what happened." And nobody could. Not one person. And over the years, I've kept on asking this. In Mem Gimel, they started giving out the tapes. WLCC gave out the tapes of previous years. I bought that tape, and the whole nigun is missing. It's just you hear the beginning of it, and then they, they didn't use to record. Then they couldn't. It took up too much space in the tape. So they, they would stop it, and they would open it up again when the Rebbe started speaking, so you didn't have it. Only about, uh, fifteen, sixteen years ago, a bocher gave me a gift, and the gift was all the available, at that time, available clips of the Rebbe's special moments. It was on CDs. It was a, it was a, a case of, of CDs, probably pirated by this bocher. There was about twenty-five, twenty-five-

1:26:44 Speaker 4 I have one, I have one of those sets.

1:26:45 Speaker 1 Right. I still have that set. There was twenty-five CDs.

1:26:49 Speaker 4 I, I should say, I don't know if I have it or I left it at my parents' house- -'cause we don't have DVDs anymore.

1:26:54 Speaker 1 Right.

1:26:55 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:26:55 Speaker 1 Right. So I had, I had a whole pa-package of that, and each one of them had the date on it. So I came home, and I opened this up. Wow, what a treasure Of clips that I never saw before. So the, I went through the dates, and the first thing I saw was Yud Shvat Chaf Shin Lamed, uh, Tes Shvat, Shvat, uh, . So I watched that. This is about twelve thirty at night. So at one thirty in the morning, then I took out Yedid Nefesh Lamed Bet. They had the whole nigun on the video, the whole farbrengen on the video. And I watched this, this, uh, thing for the first time in my life, having for twenty years wondering what is going on here, and why is this considered such a special moment that the Rebbe himself says, "I was waiting for a special moment." And, um, y-you see that the Rebbe is encouraging the nigun from time to time, shaking with the head and a little with the hand. And when the Rebbe would do that, the crowd would, uh, w-would liven up. And according to the, um, e-energy that the Rebbe was giving, that's how the crowd became energized. So if the Rebbe was moving very, very fast, the nigun would go very fast. If it was a little slower, it would be a little, you know, it was a-- The Rebbe was the conductor. In this case, though, the Olam is singing disproportionate to anything the Rebbe was doing. They were

1:28:20 Speaker 1 jumping up and down, and you can see there's like... You can't see the color. It's a black and white, but there's like a red in the face kind of thing. And everybody is just singing it over and over and over again, and the whole place is jumping up and dancing like this. And there, there were notorious non-singers at the Rebbe's farbrengens. People who just didn't sing. Maybe they didn't know how to sing, maybe they didn't, uh, want to sing, I don't know. Even though, even the go- old guys at the back behind the Rebbe, the old Hasidim, Shmuel of Witten and, and, and the Rifkin and the, the Simpson, they, they, they're all moving up and down, their, their hands are moving. A-a-and it, at one point, even the guys sitting were standing up and dancing. It was like-- It, it was a crowd that was just s- You don't, you just don't see that because at the Rebbe's farbrengen. You see the conductor part of it, but you don't see how the, the place is just going crazy by themselves. So I watched this. It's about twenty minutes, and then I rewound it, and I started watching it again. By the third time, maybe even the second time, but certainly by the third time, I s-- it suddenly hit me, and I jumped out of my place, and I started jumping up and down, and I stayed up for the... Next thing I knew, it was five thirty in the morning. I had watched

1:29:45 Speaker 1 this maybe ten times because I suddenly caught on to what was happening there, and this was a moment where the place was screaming three words: I love you. The, the Olam, the people who were there got so caught up in this and the that it just spilled out. There was no controlling it. And the Rebbe at the time, there was no one saying l'chaim. Everyone was just singing and dancing. The Rebbe is moving back and forth. He's watching. He's looking. He has a slight smile on his face, and he's like taking it in. At the same time, Rebbe's, you know, Rebbe's is... But, but the Olam is going meshuga, and they're screaming out basically, "We don't know how to say this. We love you." And the Rebbe said, "I've waited..." Oh, you love me? Seventy-one new institutions, please. Now you n- now you can take over the world. If you love me, it's not about dancing and singing. It-- We need to dance, and we need to sing, but now you take this energy with you and take over the world. This is how, this is my way of looking at it. But what I found amazing was that I jumped out of my chair, and I found myself there. I wasn't there. I wasn't there ever. I didn't know what happened over there. Nobody else could tell me what happened over there. But when once I watched it and I saw it and I internalized it, I became part of that crowd. I was

1:31:25 Speaker 1 there. I transported myself there. My whole mitzias was there, and then I understood. That's what made me understand. And by the way, after that, I approached all these people. My, my father, Philip Galitsky, all these people, and almost all of them nodded and said, "You're, you're right. You're, that's, that's a good way of, of describing how we felt at that time." So I got it. You know why I got it? 'Cause I was there. But you weren't there. You were just watching a video. I know. But somehow, even watching a video and, but focusing on what's going on, not just watching something that you memorized or you heard, heard or you're thinking about, but actually being there, you could, you could put, like, put, put yourself there and start feeling what they were feeling. That's how I... That, that, that taught me an important lesson, and that when you want to say something about the Rebbe, it's not just saying, "I remember the Rebbe." It's about saying, "You need to go and experience it today." So it, it was Shabbos in Mem Zion, in the summer of Mem Zion. It, it was either Balak or, um, Matot-Massei, one of those weeks. And in the farbrengen, the Rebbe was going on, and it, it was one of those really beautiful... Everything was just so uplifting. I ju- I felt up, different than a, a different, than, than a regular Shabbos. And the farbrengen ended quite late. It must have been about five thirty, and it was

1:33:06 Speaker 1 Mincha, and then there was Hazzara, which I stayed for not too long And I was in this, in this heavenly... I-i-in order to understand this, let me share with you this story. Uh, Leibel Groner, alav ha-shalom, is a mechutan of mine, and he was, he was-- I, I spent quite a bit of time after we became mechutanim with him, and he was in my house ten years ago, almost to the day now, for a simcha of an einikel, of one of our einikelach. So I spent a lot of time with him, and one of the things he told me was, and w-- forget about the context of w-w-- or like how this story got in, but he said, "Every time you walked into the Rebbe's room," and he walked in several times a day, "every time, without fail, you walked into the Rebbe's world. So as soon as you walked in there, you were no longer in this Olam HaZeh." And he said, "It was usually heaven, and sometimes it could have been the opposite of heaven." I said, "What? The opposite of heaven? Heaven I can understand, but opposite of heaven?" He said, "Sometimes the Rebbe was frustrated about different things, and the Rebbe would sometimes voice them, and it would be very, very uncomfortable and very... You know, first of all, you were, you were hurt because the Rebbe was hurt. And second of all, you were hurt because you didn't quite know whether the Rebbe wants you to do this or that

1:34:42 Speaker 1 and the other. The Rebbe would give us instructions sometimes to do. Most of the times he just wanted to get it, get it out." And he said, "That was, that was the opposite." I said then, I said, "What about heaven? Can you give me examples?" And he said, "At that poi-- At that I can't, uh... Um, uh, that, that will go down with me," he said. "I cannot talk about it." He says, "That's..." He says, "You know that before you started working in the maskiras, Rabbi Chadakov would tell the people there are three kinds of secrets." A statement from the Friediker Rebbe and this, and what the Rebbe told Rabbi Chadakov to tell the people who work there. There are three kinds of people who keep secrets. One is a person who has a secret, and you know that he has a secret because he tells you, "I have a secret, but I'm not gonna tell you." A second kind of person, he doesn't say anything, but you can look at that person, and you can see that that person has something that they, that they can add, a secret that they can tell. Then there's a third kind of person, when you look at them, you don't even know that there's something going on inside. And Rabbi Chadakov would say, "That's the kind of person you need to be here." So Leibel Groner told me, "That's in that category, that we d- that we don't talk about. You'll never hear it from any of

1:35:55 Speaker 1 us. That's not gonna happen." Now, at the farbrengens, there were times at, at hakafos you were in heaven. That's why I say I can understand what heaven means. You were in a different pl-- You were in different matzees. You were just-- You, you were elevated to the Rebbe's world. You were elevated to the, the, the world of ruchnius, the world of Aibishter. You were, you were elevated to a different, different place. And there were certain farbrengens that I felt that way as well. And I left Seven-Seventy to go on to Eastern Park, where I walked up the stairs, and I started rubbing my eyes. I could not understand how the cars were going up and down. I was so lost in, in this heaven that I forgot that there is an, a, a world, just for a second, but I just like, "Look." I said, "What?" To come down to earth, or as I said right at the beginning, to come off the mountain. This was the kind of experience that one was able to have. And you sometimes you had this zechus to have it, not just at a special moment, but sometimes even on a regular moment to be elevated to the Rebbe's world. And that's why I say that when writing something about the Rebbe, it's not just simply a memory. Then people read your memories, and he has nice memories. First of all, the details are very, very important, and that's why I said to you before, I don't only rely

1:37:22 Speaker 1 on my memory, but I want to know if I missed a detail here or there, so that should be part of the, part of the equation. And the details are very important. And secondly, even more important, most important, is that you have to be descriptive and write not just what happened, but write the h- the whole atmosphere of what was going on. And that's why I speak as well. And when I tell it, I tell, I tell it with as many details as possible so that people who are listening should be able to feel what I'm feeling, what I'm-

1:37:55 Speaker 4 So-

1:37:55 Speaker 1 -experiencing.

1:37:57 Speaker 4 So it's clear by you that someone who doesn't remember the Rebbe or never saw the Rebbe can have the same experience?

1:38:07 Speaker 1 Without a doubt. Without any doubt. But at no doubt whatsoever. I-I-I-- It happened to me, and it happened to me more than once in different, the different settings, in the different places, and in different part-- times of my life. It's happened to me more than once. If you really, really, really connect, you're gonna be connected. Your mind will be there. The only thing you're missing is the fact that it's physically not happening, but there's more than physical that's happening around you. There's energies, and there's ruchnius, and there's Rebbe. These are things that are intangible, and they are the things that you can absolutely be connected to, and I-- and you are connected to. So in other words, when you learn a sicha, when you learn a maamar, you're learning the Rebbe's Torah, you're learning the Rebbe's wisdom. In the yemim it says that his kashes to the Rebbe is, is, is, uh, paramount in that way. That's because you think like the Rebbe thinks. But there's-- I, I think there's another step to this, and that is not just to think.

1:39:10 Speaker 4 Well, he says that in Iyim Yem.

1:39:12 Speaker 1 Right.

1:39:12 Speaker 4 The Rebbe writes in Iyim Yem that another thing is, I think, a

1:39:18 Speaker 1 By farbrengens, absolutely. But that, that's in order to-

1:39:22 Speaker 4 To be a... This podcast is a m-- this podcast is called Among Chasidim. That, that's what, that's what we're doing here.

1:39:28 Speaker 1 Right.

1:39:28 Speaker 4 To be among Chasidim.

1:39:29 Speaker 1 Totally. That has to be a chasid. But I'm saying that there's another level here, and that is sometimes you just simply need to be with the Rebbe, not because of learning and not because of other Chasidim, but simply to be with the Rebbe. So you had that chance b'gashmius when there was yechidus, when there was dollars, or kodesh habrachah, when there's a lechach, and, and things like that. But that, uh, uh, if you really, really, really push yourself, one, you need to and you want to, you can experience that today as well.

1:39:59 Speaker 4 So you're saying because b'ruchnius, this is all happening, right? The Rebbe leapt and and all of these things, and the Nosie HaDair is the Nosie HaDair today. So since this is happening b'ruchnius,nis, so that's the reason why it's possible physically, if you work at it, and if you concentrate on it, and use the proper tools, you can actually have this gashmistikeh feeling of nimat Rebbe as well.

1:40:30 Speaker 5 And, and that's the key word, the tools, because you didn't need that. You just showed up for Hakafas, and you had, you had yourself for the whole year, you had a Rebbe. So it's-

1:40:40 Speaker 4 I always tell people that that's-- I'm saying the reason why we have Deher, for example, is for this reason, to, to give people tools. That, that-

1:40:50 Speaker 5 As, as you know from the beginning, I'm a massive fan of the Deher, and I've been a big supporter o-over all the years, and, and you-- I can-- you-- I will, I will use words of encouragement to all you guys who are working on this. Uh, I'm always gonna be your number one fan because you keep this, uh, um, notice going. In addition to all the great things that you have, the details that people won't know about, and you uncover stories and, and, and tzikhes and whatever it might be, but it's just the fact that every once a month you have a Rebbe walking into your house. You have to read it. It's not the same, but y-y-y-it's, it's a magazine that's sitting there. It's in English. It's available, and it's, it's, it's, uh, fantastic. It's, it's just a fantastic thing. And y- And lately you've, uh, you've, you've cleaned it up. The-- Y-you-- We know the writing has become so much better. And-

1:41:49 Speaker 4 We started, we started writing it in English .

1:41:50 Speaker 5 Yeah, you've used proper English. I-- That was my big complaint to you. And, um, you got-- you're getting your details correct. Y-y-your, your, your... You know, it's, it's w-- probably one of the most challenging things to continuously write things that you haven't written about before because after how many-- however many years, it's been over probably close to fifteen years, it's-- y-you start running out of material. And you're keeping this thing going. You're keeping it alive. Baruch Hashem, thanks to the Deher, a big, big, big fat Yasher Koach, and to you who actually you run-- you direct the whole thing. So you, you are the one who raises the money, and you're the one who makes sure that, uh, it's, it's going. You-- The buck stops with you. So I give you a big, big Yasher Koach to you and to your wife, obviously, who, who is your partner in this. So you should be, uh, continue. Please don't ever think about stopping this, Chas v'Shalom.

1:42:49 Speaker 4 Yeah. Um, and obviously there's other tools that, um... I'm saying, I'm saying learning the Rebbe's Torah is all, is all, is all part of it. I'm saying this is all, it's all one big or g-- I don't know the word I'm mu-- the word, the word that I'm looking for, but it's a lifelong mission and, and, and, and, and shiur that, that needs to be done. And it's done, it's done, it's done through doing what the Rebbe wants, through going on Mivtzoim, through being a Shliach, through learning the Rebbe's Torah, through watching the Rebbe's videos, through reading Deher. I'm saying but this, this is, this is, this is a, this is a, this is a constant avoda that we, that we engage with. That, um, that's... I-I-I-It's, it's just, uh, it's interesting the way, the way, the way the real-- what the reality is that Amal, you just had to be there in the right place at the right time, and now it's needed, it's much... But ultimately because of that, because it-- because you need to work at it, it's a lot deeper.

1:44:04 Speaker 5 Lechayim.

1:44:05 Speaker 4 I'm saying, and anything that you need to work hard for is, uh, is ultimately going to be a lot, uh, a, a, a lot deeper. So Mastama, the fact that we know that today people are, you know, especially older people like saying that people today are more Makoshe than we were, et cetera, there's a reason for it. Because, because people, people actually work for it. People actually engaged in, in doing this on a, on a, on a, on a daily basis.

1:44:33 Speaker 5 Yeah. So several points. You, you can com-compartmentalize this whole thing by saying there's a time for learning, and there's a time for doing, and there's a time for watching, and, you know, getting involved and everything else. But his Kashrus, his Kashrus was not just learning the Rebbe's Torah, it was also coming to visit the Rebbe, and it was also hearing the Rebbe and watching and observing the Rebbe, davening with the Rebbe. It-- There was, it was more to that than simply being a Hasid. In other words, putting on a kapota and a hat is a big zechus, and a gartel, big zechus, because now you're saying, "I want to follow the Rebbe." But following the Rebbe, if you really want to feel... You know, in, in my day, there were people who were not so, uh, connected, even though they were there for Hakafas, and they were there for Napoleon's march at the end of Yom Kippur, and they were there for Kerosh and Bracha, and they were there for dollars, and they were there for Yechidus even, but they weren't, they weren't so, uh, so connected, so committed. But the Rebbe gave us tools. And of course, learning the Rebbe's Torah is of the bedrock because that's how you think along the same lines as the Rebbe. That's how you become inspired by the Rebbe. But going on Shlichas is obviously, or even if you're not officially a Shliach, but doing the Rebbe's work or supporting the Rebbe's work, those are all tools to

1:46:06 Speaker 5 be connected to the Rebbe. I would say Uh, uh, I, I, you know my obsession, I-- this had to come up sooner or later in this podcast about the Rambam. That the learning of the Rambam every day is the biggest tool for schli-- for, for his kashes. And that, the, the reason is because every other thing that the Rebbe wanted was really not about us. He wanted me to go mefetzoyim, and he wanted you to, the, to, to, uh, help this one out and go do the shluchus. But the Rambam, he wants you to learn every day, you, me, us. He wants us to learn. And chitas is something that the Rebbe spoke about thou-- uh, spoke and wrote about thousands of times, but that wasn't from the Rebbe. Rambam is directly from the Rebbe, and it's not something that he asked you to do with other people. Of course, learning with other people is a big thing, but that's not, that wasn't the miftzah. The miftzah is to go and learn by yourself. That means you spend fifteen, twenty minutes every day, sometimes a little bit more, maybe a little bit less sometimes, every day, every single day, without fail, and it's three sixty-five days a year. It's not like miftzah tefillin where there are days you can't do it, or mefselelul of a matzah, even avas isro if you're not around Jews. This is every day for you, for me, for us to do personally, and that's your moment with... It's your fifteen

1:47:44 Speaker 5 minutes of his kashes. Of course, at the same time, you're getting a very big knowledge of the entire Torah, which is another gift that the Rebbe gifted us. So you, if, if you're not gonna go through shas and poskim, you're going to know about, uh, not just about treif and meat that we're learning today, but about how you shecht an animal that is today's Rambam. Or-

1:48:07 Speaker 4 Kav tikula

1:48:08 Speaker 5 ... yevamos and things that you're not gonna, it's not gonna get to. Your whole, mamish the whole Torah. But it, more than that, you're, you're spending fifteen, twenty, twenty-five minutes with the Rebbe because he wants you to do that. He didn't ask you to learn sichas. He didn't ask you to learn Maamar, it should be an obvious, a given. But he did ask you to learn the Rambam every day. So when you're doing that, that's your moment with the Rebbe, which is why I say I can't imagine, I don't understand going to bed without doing that. It's the one thing in the day that he wants you to do every single day. On Erev Yom Kippur, taf shin mem vav, in the bracha that the Rebbe gave to Klal Yisroel, the Rebbe said that there are certain elements of each day that, that belong to each day, including the sheuray Torah. And the Rebbe said there's a shiur Chumash, and there's this, and there's also the shiur Rambam, which is, uh, which we also do. Which one comes first? And so the Rebbe said then that this is kav shelo, words of Chazal. Kav is a measurement. It's my own measurement. In other words, it's my own thing. It came from me, and so therefore I have a certain preciousness to it. And so a Chassid knows that this is the kind of thing that needs to be happening every day. Every day you have a moment with the Rebbe. Every day it's built in

1:49:30 Speaker 5 as a Chassid of this Rebbe, of our Rebbe, who came up, introduced learning Halacha, nigleh every day for us.

1:49:40 Speaker 4 There's a certain Chassid, an older Chassid that was, uh, once, uh, Chassid Ishid, and he-- some Bachrim saw him looking at his Rambam, checking how many pages it is for today's shiur. So they asked him, "You look, you, you wanna know how lo- short it is? Like, what are you, what are you doing?" Like, he's like, "No, I wanna know how lo- much longer I have im bekushet to the Rebbe."

1:50:05 Speaker 5 Like doing the Rebbe want-- what Rebbe wants me to do today.

1:50:09 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:50:10 Speaker 5 And you can't push it off to the next day.

1:50:14 Speaker 4 Also in Taf Shin Beis, the Yechidus, the Bachrim, Yechidus Klalos, Yechidus Klalos with the Rebbe. It's a fa-- uh, especially in the yeshivas they talk about it a lot, 'cause the Rebbe speaks about, uh, lafashalah, about, about learning that, uh, very strong eishe that the Rebbe gives there about Limud HaTorah. If you learn the sicha, the Rebbe's connecting it to, to Limud HaRambam. Like, it's like i-in Torah gufo, you know, we're talk- we're talking about Limud HaRambam. And, um, yeah, every fabregen, the Rebbe explain, explained the Rambam from a-after once the, once the Rebbe instituted the takanah of learning Rambam every day.

1:50:57 Speaker 5 That's, that was also one of the more amazing things, 'cause the Rebbe spent, you know, talked about hundreds, literally hundreds of different places in the Rambam after that. The Rebbe spoke about Rambam a lot, but this was s-such a, a, a, a massive amount of, of, of ideas of the Rambam. There's over, there's over two thousand remarks, or either ha'aras or, or sichas shleimus on the, from the Rebbe on the Rambam. Unbelievable.

1:51:31 Speaker 4 And there's also the general outlook on, on how you're supposed to approach Rambam. In this fabregen, in Shavuot, um, Amdala that I mentioned, the Rebbe speaks about a lot how people, their whole approach to Rambam in the, in the Ish-- in, in the yeshivas, in the Eretz Mayeshivas, their whole approach to Rambam is they see it brought down-

1:51:50 Speaker 5 Isolated

1:51:51 Speaker 4 ... in Sha'ar HaMeshuchar Haroch-

1:51:52 Speaker 5 Right

1:51:52 Speaker 4 ... and then they, they look back, and they, and they learn the Rambam in order to make a pilpul out of it.

1:51:57 Speaker 5 Right.

1:51:57 Speaker 4 But, um, if you read the Rambam, the Rebbe, the Rebbe says-

1:52:01 Speaker 5 Al ha'seider

1:52:01 Speaker 4 ... it was-- Yeah, it was writ-

1:52:03 Speaker 5 Right

1:52:03 Speaker 4 ... the, the Rambam wrote the Sefer to be learned al ha'seider. So if you don't learn it al ha'seider, if you're not learning it in order, and you're just re-- learning it isolated in order to make a pilpul, you're gonna learn wro- the, the Rambam wrong, 'cause the Rambam relies on what he said earlier. So y-your whole pilpul doesn't carry any weight because you don't understand the Rambam, 'cause you don't, didn't learn what the Rambam says before. So therefore, you have to learn the whole Rambam in order-

1:52:26 Speaker 5 It's a long sicha that

1:52:28 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:52:28 Speaker 5 Yeah. So that's also part of his ‹ashas. I would also say that the gem video that comes out every Motzei Shabbos that you can watch is, is definitely part of this, and very, very, very important for the f- for the whole family. It's very short. It's only a fifteen-minute maximum, and it's usually quite interesting. Not just-- It's not just a ‹sicha, but there's other things involved. And, um, i-it's, it's something that is... It's there every week, something different, something new. Amazing. And, uh, these are the tools that the Rebbe left, that there's no Godol BeYisroel who ever in history who was recorded, and obviously videoed this amount of times, and this, uh, uh, in so many different ways. And the Rebbe wasn't necessarily as comfortable as, as he might look. The Rebbe expressed several times regarding videos, regarding pictures. But it's possible the Rebbe left, allowed this so that it should be left behind, that we can continue getting this connection to the Rebbe. Okay, ‹hakafas isn't available, but that's re-- that-- for that reason, as you asked before, for that reason, I feel a, a, a, a personal responsibility to talk with as many details and as length as possible to anybody who just to go, "Oh, I have to put out this book." Just that people should be able to have this kind of experience themselves. Not that their people should know what happened.

1:54:12 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm. So, okay. So I think that, uh, but, but the qu- the question really is, the question really is why, wh-wh-wh-why is this whole thing needed? What I mean to say is, Moshiach could have came, uh, before Gmar Tamuz, like, like, like, like, like it was supposed to. Or, or maybe w-- and obviously it wasn't 'cause it didn't. But why is this, why is this whole attainable ‹hiskashrus that we can have, why is it, why is it needed? I mean, it, it, whichever way you slice it, it's a very tricky time, you know, to Gmar Tamuz. Uh, uh, now saying it's a v- it's a very tricky time in history. There, there, there never was such a, there never was such a concept that, uh, you know, a, a, thirty years after Gmar Tamuz in, in, in, in Chassidus Chabad. No, no, nothing's ever existed.

1:55:14 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

1:55:15 Speaker 4 And ‹daf ke, ‹daf ke now, ‹daf ke when Moshiach's coming, we have this experience. The question is, what's the purpose of it?

1:55:27 Speaker 5 And you expect me to have an answer to that? You know-

1:55:30 Speaker 4 I'm assuming you had thirty years, uh, to think about it.

1:55:35 Speaker 5 The Rebbe had more than thirty years to think about it, and the Rebbe would say often, it's the ‹ganzem nisht pashtandik. Rebbe s-- In, in this classic ‹sichas, ‹chames hase omer be Shevat taf shin lamed tes, and Hashanah Rabbi taf shin mem daled, and to a certain extent, ‹tzvavas Shemini taf shin mem beis, the, uh, very heavy ‹bechiyus niraos, heavy, heavy crying, weeping from the Rebbe on Galus. And in each one of those, and in lots of other places where the Rebbe wasn't necessarily crying, the Rebbe would say, "This just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense why this is happening." This is the Rebbe, you know , when I was a ‹bocher on ‹slichos on Erev Rosh Hashanah, after, um, uh, um, ‹Sh'makeinu, there's a little ‹yehi ratzon that you say only on Erev Rosh Hashanah. There's a similar, uh, ‹tefillah that you also say on Yom Kippur. And, uh, basically, the ‹tefillah is that these days we don't have a ‹melech, and we don't have a this, and we don't have a ‹kohen, we don't have this and this. And so asking the ‹Eibishter to put an end to Galus, that's this ‹tefillah. And I-- When I, y- looked at that ‹tefillah, I was standing there in seven seventy with the Rebbe, I was inclined not to say that. It didn't make sense. When the Rebbe would stand there and talk about Galus, and the Rebbe would s-sometimes cry about the Galus in mem vav and mem zayin, the Rebbe was winter mem

1:57:13 Speaker 5 vav, mem zayin, Rebbe was pushing this very, very strong. And I would always say to myself, "I, I just... I don't understand th-this. It c-- It, it... Would the ‹Beis Hamikdash be any greater than what we are having here, right here? This is the ‹Beis Hamikdash. This is the, that experience. You're gonna watch cows be, be slaughtered. Is that, uh... Obviously, uh, that's of course, that's the greatest thing, and that we ask for the ‹Eibishter. ‹Vesham na'aseh levanecha ‹es kavanat ‹cheveteinu. We say that in the ‹davening. But I can't imagine standing and watching ‹kohenim sprinkling blood on the ‹ mizbeach and the ‹leviyim singing songs and everything else. I'm sure that must have been great, but we don't have anybody who wrote ‹ zichronot from there. But here, you're standing in f-- It's, it's such an elevation. You-- How could you get away from the ‹Eibishter when you're standing in this kind of presence? And the Rebbe's pouring ‹kamayan amez gabe, ‹taira and, and ‹beshefer and ‹nigunim and the, you know, the atmosphere, the, the, the, the, the ‹hakafas, uh, all of these things. And here's the Rebbe crying. He's in terrible pain. He's crying about, about ‹bonim sh'golem ‹al shulchan aviem, and about ‹tzar And about the Turas, et cetera, et cetera. So we don't-- It makes no sense, the Rebbe said. Rebbe said many times, "It makes no sense." So I-- It's, it's impossible to understand. But I can tell you on the other hand, if you would have told somebody thirty-three, thirty-five

1:58:49 Speaker 5 years ago that the Gimmel Tammuz is going to happen, and thirty years later there are going to be Bochurim who will tell you on Shabbos Pinchas taf shin kuf gimel, the Rebbe said this, Maimon, and he said this, and y-you're gonna say, "I understand the guys who were there, guys who were c-who kasich him there." But after Gimmel Tammuz, after a thing like this, how is it possible? And there's only one answer to that. Whatever the Aibishter did on Gimmel Tammuz is the Aibishter's Chesed Bnis. But the Rebbe did not go away. Yativ M'vachayeihi, okay, you can say that, and we all have our stories and we all have our things, it's Yativ M'vachayeihi. But even if you want-- don't wanna say Yativ M'vachayeihi, that thing that you can learn a farbrengen, you can watch a farbrengen, you can, you can, you can watch a video and, and bring yourself and transport yourself into it, is La'as Menki Yesuper. You can't do that about-- with the Bashentov. You cannot do that with Moshe Rabbeinu. You can learn Rambam every day, and you don't know who the Rambam was. You can't connect to the Rambam like that. You cannot connect to anyone like you can connect to the Rebbe. And it's not just about going to the oil or seven seventy or, or, or learning the Rebbe's Torah. It's the-- this, this atmosphere, the energy that the Rebbe feared the Velt is, is never happening. It's unprecedented. Not just because there's no M'malah Moquem Ch-- Lechmalmus

2:00:22 Speaker 5 Maslan, but because the Rebbe hasn't gone away. Reb-- Whatever the Rebbe said about the Friediker Rebbe in Taf Shin Yud, I, I don't understand that because I was around in Taf-- in the Chaf's, in the Lamed's, and in the Mem's, and I did not feel the Friediker Rebbe Yativ M'vachayeihi. I went to the Friediker Rebbe's oil on Erev Rosh Hashanah, maybe Yitzvat and Yom B'shabas, and I, you know, I, I did not-- I didn't get it. You know what? I-- With the-- I didn't see a, a video of the Friediker Rebbe until after Gimmel Tammuz, where you see the Friediker Rebbe receiving the-

2:00:58 Speaker 4 Citizenship

2:00:59 Speaker 5 ... citizenship, and his eye-- He's flickering his eyes. His, his, his eyelids are opening and closing. He said, "Wow, this is the first time you saw Friediker Rebbe even like fr-- a living, moving thing." You have thousands of hours of video of the Rebbe. I don't know why Gimmel Tammuz has to happen. It's a T'shish Vashstandik. And why hasn't-- Okay, Gimmel Tammuz had to happen, but why can't it be over already? What, what's he waiting for now? I don't understand that, and I don't think anybody could explain this. You know, but what you're seeing is people who are continuously connecting to the Rebbe, even y-young people whose fathers didn't see the Rebbe and didn't hear the Rebbe, and they are very into it, and they're very connected, and they're very motivated to go out on shlichas to far-flung places, and they have to work very, very hard, and they have to do things which are Mesirus Nefesh Mamash because-- only because the Rebbe wants them to do it. This is unprecedented. It's unheard of. And th-this is who we had. This, this was our gift that the Aibishter gave us, the Rebbe, and that gift continues to give and continues to be available. And, um, a-a-and when, when the-- w-when this galus will be over and w-we're going to go wherever we're gonna go in seven seventy and whenever, whatever, what-whatever's going to happen then, these, uh, the pe-people who are connected to the Rebbe like this are gonna be in very good shape because

2:02:31 Speaker 5 we'll be ready. Th-th-the Rebbe wouldn't have to skip a beat. People wouldn't have to skip a beat. We're just-- We know the style, we know the person, we know, we know how it is. We're ready.

2:02:44 Speaker 4 We're ready, and, uh, we're ready, we're ready for, uh, the grand sing. In Lubavitch, everyone likes talking camp terms.

2:02:56 Speaker 5 I was the head counselor.

2:03:00 Speaker 4 Okay. So, um, I think that, uh, it's appropriate that, uh, we should-- it should be B'peal Mamash and take it from the Ad Mamash, and, um, it should be today.

2:03:16 Speaker 5 Now, Mamash, Mamash, Mamash.

2:03:19 Speaker 4 Right.

2:03:19 Speaker 5 I, I, you know, one thing we know, there might be a debate, who's Mashiach, what? When the Rebbe comes, we're, we're gonna be right there next to the Rebbe. When-- Hope-hopefully, the, uh, all the-- Uh, hopefully, we'll have a, we'll have a spot. You know, you said before-

2:03:37 Speaker 4 Yeah

2:03:38 Speaker 5 ...but Makom Kavua, I don't know if we're gonna have a-- be able to retain our old places, but hopefully there'll be a place.

2:03:44 Speaker 4 There's an old Varten, uh, Geshemendel Gerelik. I think he says that if Mashiach comes, you're not gonna be able to get in.

2:03:51 Speaker 5 That we-- It'd be lucky if they let you in.

2:03:53 Speaker 4 Yeah.

2:03:53 Speaker 5 That's the thing. In other words, yeah, it's not so simple, but I don't think the Rebbe... You know, we say in the Rashus, Vachasan, Vachasan Torah, "Tayv Ayin Hu Yevarech." There's a Pasuk in, in Mishlei, "Tayv Ayin Hu Yevarech." So Gemara says, "Tell Moshe Rabbeinu, Tayv Ayin, if you have a good eye, he should be blessed because Moshe Rabbeinu received the Luchas and he gave it. He was, he was, he was P'ret Ziva Lonu. So he's Tayv Ayin because of his goodness. So our Moshe Rabbeinu, I don't think is gonna let us stay outside the door. This is-- Those are the Friediker Rebbe's times where couldn't come in, but the Rebbe wanted everybody to be allowed in, and I'm sure we're gonna all be there. And where-- In the, in the short, unfortunate time be-until then, we can still be connected. We can still relive, reexperience all of those things. You know, if there's a Chassidus, the Rebbe brings this m-many times, when they get to the Yomim Tovim, says in the Kuntay Tav, get to the Yomim Tovim, that they're not just simply days of commemoration. They are days of reexperience or reliving. Yom Ha'Ilenes Korim V'nasim, it happens today. Matan Torah happened earlier this week, and, and, uh, Sis Mitnayim happened a few weeks ago, and, and the Churban Beis Hamikdash. These are things that happen on those days. And the Noeled Mashiach. All of these things are happening every year. So with the Rebbe, of course, that's the same thing, that

2:05:22 Speaker 5 we could relive them, re-experience them. And that's... I can't say why it happened so long, but the test, the nisayon of Gimel Tammuz has proven completely in the way the Rebbe would want it. That means we're all in, and we're doing it, and we're following it, and we're learning it, and we're experiencing it, and we're, we're waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting. We haven't let him go. We'll never let him go.

2:05:52 Speaker 6 Okay. and, um, thank you very much for the very, uh, and, uh, meaningful, uh, conversation.

2:06:10 Speaker 5 and

2:06:20 Speaker 6 Okay.