Ep. 11: The Chossid Who had 29 Yechidus'n, with Rabbi Shmuel Lew

00:00 Speaker 1 And in, in the next split second in my mind, I had a, a, an insight, an inspiration as to this man who's talking now is the greatest leader, greatest tzadik, greatest Baal Midah Kodesh, greatest teacher, the greatest mechanech, the greatest, uh, uh, uh, askin, the, the, the, the greatest builder of mosdos, the greatest publisher of works of previous generations, or one of the greatest of the whole 20th century. But just think of the schvarm the Rebbe gave out, besides, though, that he inspired people to give out. And, and, and, uh, uh, you know, you, you, it, this all in a split second. But at the end of the day, he is your personal best friend, and that you can say about everybody in the world. Anyone comes to the Rebbe, the Rebbe is c- to him, totally, his whole essence is given over to that person.

01:06 Speaker 2 I'm Yossi Kamen. Welcome to Among Chassidim by Der Her, an ongoing farbrengen about life as a Chassid, our vibrant connection with the Rebbe, and inspired living shaped by the way he teaches us each and every day. Shalom Aleichem, Rabbi Lew.

01:24 Speaker 1 Aleichem Shalom, Rabbi Yosef.

01:26 Speaker 2 Okay. So thank you very much for, uh, being here. We had some, uh, meniyus v'kovim when we tried to do it, uh, on the, uh, via the internet, but, uh, I think it's better 'cause now we're doing it face to face panim u'panim, so it's-

01:41 Speaker 1 However it happens, that's how it's supposed to happen.

01:43 Speaker 2 Exactly. And, um, and that, that's a- that's actually, I feel like that's connected to you because the way you ended up being who you are i- is because that w- that's the way it was supposed to happen.

01:58 Speaker 1 And you as well, and everybody. The real challenge is what were we going to do with that situation? And, uh, and for that, you need a rebbe and a mashpia and a good friend, and you have to be honest with yourself. That's what you need in order to find what do I do with everything that brought me to this second where I am now.

02:24 Speaker 2 Okay. So I, I think we should talk about that. May- maybe you can tell me a little bit what brought you to the Rebbe. Like how, how, how'd that happen?

02:37 Speaker 1 Well, I'm, uh, I, my parents, alav ha'mashalom, my father was born in Russia, but he came to America and, um, as a teenager in 1917, January, in Teves. On Shvat-Teves he was with his day, and, um, he studied to be a lawyer at Fordham University. It was the top law school. He was a brilliant, brilliant person, in order that he should be able to be self-employed and be able to keep Shabbos. And my mother, alav ha'shalom, was born in New York, and I was born and brought up in Williamsburg, which was quite a Jewish neighborhood, much more diverse than it is today. And I went to Yeshivas Torah Vodaas, a good Frum school. And at the age of f- 15, that was in the summer of Tav Shin Tes Vav, 1955, my mother, alav ha'shalom, sent us, probably the first time they could afford it. They really were very pressured financially, it was post-Depression years until the '50s, until the Tav Shin Yuds, sent us to camp. And in Williamsburg, Rabbi Moshe Lazar was a bocher. He was very active in the Agudah, uh, and he, he, he was the whole Ruach HaChaim, the, all the-

04:10 Speaker 2 In the camp in Agudah?

04:11 Speaker 1 He was in, in the, in, in Williamsburg itself. And he was also-

04:15 Speaker 2 He wasn't a bocher in 770?

04:17 Speaker 1 He was a bocher in 770, but he w- his hafatsa, like many other people in those days of Lubavitch, was there in Williamsburg. He did whate- whatever he did, he was being a car people.

04:28 Speaker 2 'Cause he was from there.

04:30 Speaker 1 In the, uh, in the Pirchei Agudas Yisroel on B- Bedford Avenue, 616 Bedford Avenue. And, uh, for example, if they had a, um, they put out like a, a, a monthly little journal, a little der her so-called. But he would put in a, a, a, a, a Chassidishe input. For example, they had a, an article about tzitzit, so it also had that it's a beautiful mitzvah to sleep with tzitzit, and like not Chassidim are not very aware of that. I- i- i- but i- in generally speaking, he is a person with yiras Shamayim and true Ahavas Yisroel and a sense of... And my mother had a very high opinion of him. So we went to Camp Agudah because he was there.

05:17 Speaker 2 And he was involved in Williamsburg 'cause he was from there, so that's how he, that's, he lived there.

05:21 Speaker 1 He, he lived in Williamsburg a couple of few blocks away.

05:22 Speaker 2 He was involved in all these organizations.

05:23 Speaker 1 He was involved in, in, um, in youth activities and, and-

05:29 Speaker 2 And he was in Camp Agudah, so-

05:30 Speaker 1 He was in Camp Agudah, I don't know what his role was even. Doesn't make a difference. He could have been the truck driver, he could have been the learning director probably, but he was there and he had a spiritual position. He ran the, um, uh, Oneg Shabbos, the Shalosh Udos, singing Nigunim things. And the next year, as is known, he came to the Rebbe with the idea of making a camp, and, uh, the Rebbe called him in. The, uh, famous stories about how the origins of Camp Gan Yisroel, you know, it's- Almost, almost 70th. We're starting the 70th year this year.

06:09 Speaker 2 Yeah.

06:09 Speaker 1 This is the 70th year actually-

06:11 Speaker 2 Gan Yisroel

06:11 Speaker 1 ... this summer. And, uh, so my mother heard that they're making, uh, um, uh, uh, that Ra- Rabbi Lazar is making a camp, so, uh, we went to Agudah, not because it was Agudah, but because it was Lazar. And the next year we went to, uh, Camp Gan Yisroel. I was a counselor. I was 16 and a half years old, and I was not the youngest counselor.

06:39 Speaker 2 Okay.

06:39 Speaker 1 And, um-

06:40 Speaker 2 That changed by the time I was a staff member there

06:42 Speaker 1 ... but between that, uh, ca- in Camp Agudah itself, a year earlier, meaning 5712, that's when I really met... Lubavitch was sort of, uh, something hardly knew about. You know, it's, it's one of the, th- there are a lot of groups. There were plenty of groups in Williamsburg as well that were just coming, building up, and we knew that Lubavitch are people that are known for Aves Israel, but it was quite remote from my personal experience. In Camp Agudah, uh, Itzhak Mergarari, Rabbi Garari, the Mashpia today-

07:17 Speaker 2 Montreal

07:18 Speaker 1 ... is, is Mo- Montreal. So he was, uh, the same, like, group with me, and he told me that there's somebody, there's a-

07:28 Speaker 2 Some of the bach- the bachirim in 770 would all go to Camp Agudah

07:31 Speaker 1 ... people went to ca- uh, that's the ca- there were, there were very few choices of camps to go to. This is one of the handful of Frum boys Jewish camps. And after Merchash Lichas, a lot of bachirim would go for a week or two to these camps as guests, and obviously while they were there they did have Otza Mayonas. One of the bachirim that was there in Camp Agudah that summer was a bachirim by the name of Berel Shemtov. And so he was older, um, by several years. He's four, five years older than us, and, uh, uh, uh, at, at night we're waiting for a shiur when, uh, uh, Yaakov, uh, Titlebaum used to give a shiur every evening. So Itzhak Mer told me, "Look, we're starting a shiur in Tanya, um, with Rabbi Shemtov in Igeres HaTshuvah."

08:31 Speaker 2 Uh, and Be- Rabbi Shemtov, Berel Shemtov was-

08:34 Speaker 1 Berel Shemtov

08:35 Speaker 2 ... was, was there in the camp also?

08:36 Speaker 1 He was a guest. He was-

08:37 Speaker 2 He was a guest in the camp

08:37 Speaker 1 ... he, after Merchash Lichas I guess, he w- he was there for as a guest-

08:40 Speaker 2 Yeah, I read in-

08:41 Speaker 1 ... for a week or two

08:42 Speaker 2 ... I read in Rabbi Yael's Humanim from Tavshan Yud, he writes also that he was in this, in Agudas Yisroel for a few weeks-

08:49 Speaker 1 That he goes to the camp

08:50 Speaker 2 ... yeah, he read, he wrote that in his-

08:51 Speaker 1 All right. He went to camp, and, um, uh, I consider myself very much Chabad-Lubavitch, Litvish, uh, uh, ideologically. The idea of going to learn Tanya to, to join something different-

09:07 Speaker 2 Right

09:07 Speaker 1 ... than where I was quite comfortable was a very radical idea.

09:14 Speaker 2 Your father was like a, was, was Litvish?

09:17 Speaker 1 My, my, my father was... He never learned in actually yeshiva. He was a deep, deep Yerei Shamayim, and he also was the Aderes Eifrig. He made his own siyam Erev Pesach, uh, as a bachirim. But his father, uh, Pinchas, studied in Volozhin and Mir in 1890s.

09:38 Speaker 2 Okay. So you're-

09:39 Speaker 1 Tof Reich Nuns, and he w- he was, he studied and he knew closely. He, he was known by Rav Chaim Brisker and the Netziv, these people. It was very Litvish, the family.

09:49 Speaker 2 Right.

09:49 Speaker 1 But my mother's side, they were from Pressburg. Her father learned in yeshiva in Hungary, in Pressburg, and his father by Ksav Sover. So for generations... But you know, it was, it was, um... And, uh, uh, the atmosphere Chabad-Lubavitch, it was, you know, it was just, it wasn't anti-anything, but it was, uh, um, uh, I sort of had an identity.

10:12 Speaker 2 Right

10:12 Speaker 1 ... uh, both at home and in my yeshiva, and in the, the groups and the peira I used to go with, you know, activities. I was not looking. Uh, I was looking to learn, you know, that's life. But so this idea was so radical that the kind of person I am, I said, "Yes, davka because it was so out of..." And he asked me, "Would you come?" And I went, and we learned that summer the whole Igeres HaTshuvah, Ma'arath Sim at the end. Um, it was very beautiful. About, must have been about 10, 15 bachirim that came in one of the rooms there. I think there were mixed feelings from the camp authorities about it. I think they didn't want parents to say, you know, uh, "I get to a chap somewhere else," whatever. I don't know. Um, I tell you one thing. Uh, there were things going on there which were, euphemistically speaking, Voshinsaki Noa, you know, a lot less than Tanya Shiurim. That was going in the evenings. Things, the, the, the, things-

11:21 Speaker 2 I thought the problems only started these days. I didn't realize they, they had problems then too

11:24 Speaker 1 ... it, it, it, they were a different form.

11:26 Speaker 2 Yeah

11:26 Speaker 1 ... you know, and, uh, uh, y- the 8th Torah wasn't born, uh, the ca- the Nosha Ha- the Rabbi Menachem Fotofer said about the Tavis, he said the Nosha HaKadmoni was there in Gan Eden already.

11:38 Speaker 2 Right

11:39 Speaker 1 So that's our avoda, that's our work, to overcome all those external and internal impulses that we're supposed to overcome. Um, so anyway, we had this shiur, we finished it, and at the end of the summer-

11:54 Speaker 2 So Berel Shemtov was giving the shiur?

11:56 Speaker 1 Berel Shemtov gave the shiur, made us siyam. We learned through Igeres HaTshuvah, and before Rosh Hashanah, which is a few weeks later, after we left camp, let's say a month later, he sent me I could be I still have it. A small little and with a handwriting just like the Rebbe's handwriting- Yeah ... I subsequently realized, and a small black pocket Tanya. And we were invited to continue learning Tanya in the yeshiva. Now, this was, um, in, in, the, at, at dormitory on a Wednesday night. It was, you know, it was a, an open secret i- in the yeshiva, but it was outside the study time. It was after- They wouldn't allow it in the yeshiva ... after after going home, doing your homework. It was, it was 8:30 or 9:00 at night. Uh, there were shiurim going on. But even before that, or simultaneously, u- uh, Itche Meir called me up and invited me to come to the farbrengen of the Rebbe on the second night of Chol Hamoed Sukkot. H- he said, "That's a special occasion," which is geared and associated with bochurim from all yeshivas. It's not just for Chabad specifically. And that was, that- And I said, "Fine, I'm coming." So that was the first time- In those years, the Rebbe's farbrengen on Chol Hamoed would be for Bnei HaYeshiva. That, that was the- Yes, all the years. All the years. And you, you can see it in the sichas, and, and, and even you see in Poland, it was in

13:40 Speaker 1 Tomchei Tmimim. But the Rebbe farbrengen that all night farbrengen, w- you know, 11-hour farbrengen or something, was, was, um, Chol Hamoed Sukkot for Tamidim, for Tamimim. It wasn't for Anash, uh, especially. S- and it's now gonna be 70 years the coming Chol Hamoed Sukkot- Wow ... that I saw the Heilige Oden and heard the Rebbe's first sicha. Um, it was really, in a sense, when you look back, you see key moments. It was a transitional moment. It was a key moment in my life. I said l'chaim to the Rebbe. I was there a couple of hours- What was, what was it like? What was that moment like- It was- ... seeing the Rebbe? I, I was a, a, a frum boy, you know. I, I went, I went to shul every morning. I was in Torat HaDaas. I was happy. Um, I had, I had a, a teacher, Rabbi Palm, Rabbi Avraham Palm was my teacher in the, in the 11th grade, and he was the best teacher I had. He was really, really ahead of his time, and he was good person. And he- He's a big figure ... he also, he overcame resist... He went to see the Rebbe at moments when he, his own circles. He was a person with, um, he invited us to his house for Melava Malka in groups of two. He, uh, he had, um... He was ahead of his times, I think- Mm-hmm ... in how to relate to American bochurim. That, I was finished that year

15:19 Speaker 1 then, and just going into Rabbi Shapiro, learning Yevamot, uh, uh, that, that year. And, um, but I was also an American boy, and I was into sports and this and that, and th- that day was a turning point. That night, that farbrengen, was a turning point in my life. Um, I don't like to bring in klipa she'ba-klipa, but that was the day that the Dodgers won the World Series- ... for the first time. And the whole farbrengen, which was in the sukkah, there was, uh, uh, uh... And this Brooklyn night was very, very much Dodger country, and there were- And the stadium was across ... there were honking horns the entire farbrengen in the background. Mm. And to me, it was an end of something which is empty and meaningless, just something to waste time with, uh, you know, maybe harmless, but it's certainly meaningless, and the beginning of everything. Mm. But it took me years to actually appreciate that. And, um, it was encouragement of people like Itche Meir and others. And there we had, the, the teach- there were several groups in Torat HaDaas. I mean, Rabbi Nachman Tzudak was a bocher. He had a class. That wasn't mine. Um, Rabbi Yudl Krinsky, he had a class. There were others. Moshe Bagimilsky, I think maybe was himself. And, um, I, I- He, he, he's a student in Torat HaDaas ... I studied most, the two years that I- Was Moshe Bagimilsky a student in Torat HaDaas? Earlier. Earlier. Earlier he was. So he

17:07 Speaker 1 already was gone. He, he had a connection. Okay. Yeah, uh, from the, uh, a family connection there. Mm-hmm. And the person that I learned with, um, most, almost all of those two years was Rabbi Geshem Mendel Gorelik, alav hashalom. And he had a very, very profound effect. Um, he would tell stories. He would bring tapes. To bring a tape then wasn't a little, uh, iPhone or something, or... It was a Wollensak, one of these big, heavy tape recorders. He'd play the nigun, uh, "Haneiros Halalu" as sung in 770. They are um, he gave a lot of this. He told stories about the Rebbe, and you saw his love for that. And he taught the Chassidus. Uh, it was Tanya that we were learning. And, uh, uh, a classmate of mine who lived on the same street, the next block, Rabbi Yosef Nachman Rottenberg, very, very big goon, and he was very close to Lubavitch, and he had, had a kesher with the Rebbe- Um, he's a dayan. Uh, he needs a for shlema. Um, he's in Baltimore for many decades. Um, so he... But he and I were chaverim, very, very close friends, and we went to the Tanyeshi Yurodum, and we would walk home and walk Geshem Mendel to the bus stop on Roebling Street. It was late at night. It, it, you know, it started 11 o'clock at night maybe when we got there after the shiur, and we insisted on paying the 15 cents or whatever it was, his car fare, his...

18:59 Speaker 1 W- that he paid for the bus. But he would stand there, and sometimes one and two or three. There were times we were there till maybe 1:00, 2:00 in the morning, and he was talking. He had push it away. Uh, so that was one thing besides the Shiurim. Also, whenever there was Koshel Brocha, which I'll come to in a minute, the first time I actually met the Rebbe face to face was a few months later by Koshel Brocha. But the Rebbe would give Fortore Vedas in a, uh, w- one of these half gallon bottles, and he would pour in some wine and add some more, and then they would make a fabrangin, and, uh, with good gashmius i- in a nearby shul. I remember, I never counted, but I, I, I can imagine there were anywhere between 50 and 75 bachrim that would come-

19:54 Speaker 2 This is after every-

19:54 Speaker 1 For fabrangin

19:55 Speaker 2 ... after every Yom Tov?

19:56 Speaker 1 After the... Yeah, after, after the time the Rebbe gave the, the... It could be a few weeks later.

20:00 Speaker 2 Right.

20:00 Speaker 1 You know, they worked out what was a, uh, a, a suitable time. And, um, uh, so sometimes Geshem Mendel would also fabrang there in Williamsburg. He was generally, uh, pretty careful, like didn't take mashke very much or anything. But one time he did, and, you know, it was, uh, it, it was, uh, very interesting-

20:30 Speaker 2 Right

20:31 Speaker 1 ... uh, what he said to the Rav who was, he was giving us his apartment or something. Anyway, um, so that, you know, that had a, a big effect. Already that first year, Toshin Tezayon, I was at seven fabrangins, Tezayon. Simchas Bais HaShoeva, which I mentioned.

20:50 Speaker 2 That was the first.

20:52 Speaker 1 And then there was Yut Askislev, which was in the Gehart Ballroom, which was on the corner of Nostrand and Eastern Parkway. And then there was Yut Vat, also in the same hall probably. And then there was Purim. Now, all of those four were during the week. You c- you can take a bus there. But then I also walked on Achran Shopesach, and also on second day Shavuos, and, uh, Yid Bas Tammuz. So Achran Shopesach-

21:27 Speaker 2 Who would you walk with?

21:30 Speaker 1 In Williamsburg, there were a, a lot of families. You know, over the years, the Blasofskis lived in Williamsburg. I used to walk with them later years, you know, Shabbosim, the whole family would walk. Uh, Simcha Zerkin lived in Williamsburg. Uriel Tzimmer, but he didn't walk. He was unfortunately disabled. Um, but we had a fabrangin probably a little bit, a f- a few years later than that, um, twice a year, like, uh, Shvir Shal Pesach night, and, uh, Shabbos Chalomo Yitzukis or something, but Pesach and Tsukis in Rab- uh, Uriel's h- house in Ruttles Street.

22:15 Speaker 2 And he was, uh, he was part of Maskirus. Like he w- he was-

22:18 Speaker 1 He was, uh, um-

22:19 Speaker 2 He worked for the Rebbe, right?

22:21 Speaker 1 He worked for Mercus. I don't know if that was his only job. I don't, I don't know. I never... He's buried in London, actually, in, in Enfield Cemetery.

22:29 Speaker 2 There's an article in The Herald we did on him-

22:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, he was-

22:32 Speaker 2 ... a few years ago.

22:32 Speaker 1 I remember, I remember. But I, I remember the article. I don't remember the details. I remember him.

22:38 Speaker 2 Right.

22:39 Speaker 1 I remember many things that he said at these fabrangins, because he was close also with the Satmarov, and he used to, you know, he, he used to bring messages sometimes. Um, but so there was a group. There was-

22:55 Speaker 2 So, so that-

22:55 Speaker 1 ... Shmuel Lazar. Moshe Lazar had a brother whose birthday was Yid Aleph Nisan, I remember, and he lived in Williamsburg. So he was like a Labavitcher, like the Vien- the Shishers from the food company. They had a c- a connection. A lot of these people, this is, you're talking here about the 1950s and early '60s, the Yuds and the Hofs. It was not many years after Yut Vat. They knew the Frieda de Rebbe from Vienna or something, some of them.

23:25 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. So you had six fabrangins that year.

23:27 Speaker 1 I, I don't remember who I walked with.

23:29 Speaker 2 Right. So but you had six fabrangins that first year.

23:31 Speaker 1 Seven.

23:32 Speaker 2 Seven fabrangins.

23:34 Speaker 1 Uh, there was, uh, uh, so Shvir Shal Pesach, Yut As, Kislev, Yishvat, Purim, Achran Shopesach. Then there was Shavuos, which was a very, very historic fabrangin. It was right after the tragedy of the Adar HaMisha, of the, uh, the, the terrible tragedy in Kvach Habad.

23:52 Speaker 2 The massacre.

23:53 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe announced at that fabrangin that he's going to be sending shluchim, uh, uh, 12 shluchim he sent to Eretz Israel that summer, and, uh, that's a whole chapter in itself. And then Yid Bas Tammuz was also very historic, and a thing which is not known. Um, it was the beginning of Camp Gan Yisroel, and the Rebbe went to camp on Tezayon Tammuz that year, before the first trip went out. There was the f- it was in Ellenville, the first Gan Yisroel ever. Now, what's not that well known, it was Yid Bas Tammuz, if I remember correctly, was on a Thursday. Pretty sure. And at the end of the fabrangin, it must have been 1:00, 2:00 in the morning, uh, Moshe Lazar comes over to me. He knew me from Williamsburg. He said-

24:50 Speaker 2 And you were, you were, uh, you were part of the camp?

24:53 Speaker 1 I was gonna be a counselor.

24:54 Speaker 2 Right.

24:55 Speaker 1 And, um, uh, the f- the very first staff meeting of that camp, the beginning of the staff meeting was an address by Rabbi Chadakov. It was in 676 Eastern Parkway, the dining room of the yeshiva, and Rabbi Chadakov came in, and he took a look around the room-

25:15 Speaker 2 Where, where is that? 676 Eastern Parkway.

25:18 Speaker 1 We're a few h- a few houses-

25:19 Speaker 2 It's, uh, between Brooklyn and New York.

25:21 Speaker 1 Huh?

25:22 Speaker 2 It's on the side of 770 between Brooklyn and New York.

25:24 Speaker 1 The, uh, the, this was a staff meeting before-

25:26 Speaker 2 It, it's, it's on the side of 770 be- between Brooklyn and New York. That's where... It's on the side of 770 between Brooklyn and New York.

25:33 Speaker 1 Between Brooklyn and New York, yeah, and but that was where the dormitory... There was another dormitory on Lincoln and Troy as well, but this is like the main dormitory. The dining room was there and-

25:44 Speaker 2 I once got a ride with, uh, Rabbi Avraham Hashemtev from the alef, and he was telling us about how the Rebbe visited the dorm.

25:50 Speaker 1 The Rebbe?

25:51 Speaker 2 How the Rebbe visited the dorm in, on Lincoln, and-

25:55 Speaker 1 On, on, uh, when there was flu, Erev Yom Kippur.

25:57 Speaker 2 No, a different time. The Rebbe just did a surprise visit.

26:00 Speaker 1 Right.

26:00 Speaker 2 And as he was, he was driving us, as he was telling us the story, he made a sharp right and drove us to the, uh to the dorm to show us which, which house it is that the, that the Rebbe was there. Anyways, go ahead.

26:11 Speaker 1 Right. So Rabbi Khadikov walked in, it was a Friday afternoon. I was still in Torat Vodaas, y- yet for more than a year f- beyond that, but I came there for this meeting, and Rabbi Khadikov looked around the room, and they were all, like, basically young people. Seven- you know, 17, 18-year-olds, uh, you know, those were the older counselors, and he told a story that the Friediker Rebbe once spoke to a group of askanim in... Maybe it was in Riga, and he said, the Rebbe, the Friediker Rebbe said, um, "You are fantastic people with a lot of koachis." He says, "You have one chisaron: you're young."

27:03 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

27:04 Speaker 1 "Abel mit di tzeit vet zich dos oysglaykhn." Time will clear that as well.

27:09 Speaker 2 Right.

27:10 Speaker 1 So he said that to us as well over the years. I thought it was a very beautiful way to begin that, uh, uh-

27:16 Speaker 2 I was, uh, watching a farbrengen, Yud Beis Tammuz farbrengen, and the Rebbe said, uh, lamed beis. The Rebbe says the opposite. The Rebbe gives a whole sicha about davka the younger, davka the young can, uh, do hafatzat haMaayanot, and in, in the next sicha, the Rebbe says, "And even the older people can also 'cause they can act young." So the Reb- the Rebbe has flip- flipped it.

27:39 Speaker 1 There was, like, a Jew, not, not Ch- Chassid at all, but he said that he met a lot of Chabadniks. He said, "They're all 40 years old."

27:46 Speaker 2 Right.

27:47 Speaker 1 I said, "What do you mean?" He says, "The 20-year-olds are wise like a 40-year-old, and the 60-year-olds are energetic like a 40-year-old." Anyway.

27:54 Speaker 2 Right.

27:55 Speaker 1 So, um, let's come back to that farbrengen. After the Yud Beis Tammuz, and this was a, a, a couple of weeks later, it was, uh, days before camp starting-

28:07 Speaker 2 The meeting

28:07 Speaker 1 ...'cause camp's about to start.

28:08 Speaker 2 The meeting with Rabbi Khadikov. Yeah.

28:10 Speaker 1 No, the meeting with Rabbi Khadikov was a few, a c- few weeks before-

28:12 Speaker 2 Okay

28:12 Speaker 1 ... camp. It was the first staff meeting.

28:14 Speaker 2 Ah, ah, so you're going back to when the Rebbe-

28:15 Speaker 1 N- now, yeah, now it was Yud Beis Tammuz, uh, and, uh, at the end of that... And it was a very fantastic farbrengen. I think Zalman Schazar was there as well, but the maimar, Havaya bi- livavcha ozo, it's my favorite... Well, well, it's one of my favorite Yud Beis Tammuz, my Morenu. Very, very special maimar. Very raich in the katav ba- the Rambam. Anyway, um, not that I followed it then, but subsequent I learnt it, but I was there. It was a, it was an experience. At the end of that farbrengen, that's, uh, I think it was a Thursday night, and m- it, it must have been 10, 15 minutes. Maybe I, I don't... Maybe I was gonna go back to Williamsburg m- with Moshe Azog. I used to take buses anyway. I used to go home by public transport.

29:06 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

29:07 Speaker 1 And when I was in Torat Vodaas, I never was late the next morning, and that meant after Shacharit, even if I slept t- three hours that night because I didn't want them to think that somebody who associates himself with Lubavitch is using that-

29:22 Speaker 2 To not come to-

29:22 Speaker 1 ... as a, as a way to, you know, to miss a day of, of, of, uh, yeshiva

29:26 Speaker 2 And at that point, you're already considering yourself associated with Lubavitch, but-

29:29 Speaker 1 In Yud Zion, after, after camp, in, in Tel Zion, they knew I was close. I, uh, look, I, you know, I had a circle of people, Magid shiurim, Rosh yeshiva, a lot of these types of people, but we were close to each other, and people knew I had it.

29:44 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

29:45 Speaker 1 In, in fact, a few years later, I met somebody who I was very close with in Torat Vodaas, and he said to me... He wasn't blaming me. He said, "I just wanna understand, why did you become Lubavitch? What was missing?"

30:00 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

30:02 Speaker 1 "What did... W- what was wrong with what you had before?" He was... So I said, "I did not drop a single thing by coming to Lubavitch," I said. "On the contrary," I said, "the same tefillin became a different tefillin. The same Gemara became a different Gemara." Then said, "All the, uh, the experiences of before were given a completely deeper meaning." I said, "So it's not that I, uh, abandoned or I, I, I, uh, uh, left anything that I had before. It was the context. It was some- some..." The Rebbe showed how it's like the L'maaleh daat ani sicha in Yonah Shenef, Toldos HaChassidus. It's, it's the idea that Chassidus and Chabad, both in learning, in haskanas, in everything, it, it introduces a person to a deeper dimension.

30:58 Speaker 2 Right. In Yonah Shenef, Toldos HaChassidus, it says that it's the pnimius, the Chassidus is the pnimius.

31:01 Speaker 1 In, in Torah it says that every area of Torah becomes deeper-

31:05 Speaker 2 Right

31:05 Speaker 1 ... and different as a result of the way you look at it al pi Chassidus It's not, it's one of the four Chasam Sofer. It, it's something-

31:13 Speaker 2 It's, it's

31:14 Speaker 1 ... it's Yehida which n- uh, which is penetrates everything, the Shem Mem Afia. It, it's, uh, so... And this is in life generally. It's a way of looking at life. It's a way of seeing meaning in, in, in, uh, things which otherwise would just be, you know, uh, perfunctory-

31:34 Speaker 2 Yeah

31:34 Speaker 1 ... just regular. And, uh, anyway, so M- Moshe Azar comes to me at the end of this Chabad. It must be 1:30 in the morning, 2:30 o'clock, 2:00 in the morning, that the Rebbe said that he wants a Minyan to go to Camp Gan Yisroel on Friday, and have a Suda there, so that the beginning of Gan Yisroel should be Yubai Samas.

32:06 Speaker 2 On Friday?

32:07 Speaker 1 There was a f- uh, it, I heard it Thursday night.

32:10 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

32:10 Speaker 1 He asked him, "Would you be ready to come tomorrow morning, 9:00?" It means seven hours later.

32:14 Speaker 2 Right.

32:14 Speaker 1 And I was here, and I went. That, that Friday, I went and, um, and we had 10 people there. I remember the Lifshitz brothers. I remember some of the people. We, and we had a little Suda there, and then she got back just before Shabbos. Um, now, the Rebbe himself also began the camp, and not also, "Kehuda V'hakud Lakra." This is the Kra. The Rebbe started the camp by coming there before the boys came out.

32:52 Speaker 2 To visit.

32:53 Speaker 1 I didn't know that. I was then in Williamsburg-

32:56 Speaker 2 Right. You didn't know that

32:57 Speaker 1 ... playing ball or whatever I was doing, you know? And I, I f- I was very upset. They, they, they didn't have the telephone connection like you have today so much. Uh, well, anyway, I, so I missed that one. Um, so w- um, we were in Gan Yisroel, myself and two younger brothers that summer as a counselor. And in Yud Zayin, I already saw myself as like a, a, a Lubavitcher. Um-

33:30 Speaker 2 So bef- but before that, you already went to Kosher Brocha, and you, you saw the Rebbe-

33:34 Speaker 1 Oh, one minute. Yeah. The Kosher Brocha was Achron Shel Pesach to Zayin. And, a- a- and, and the Rebbe said... No, uh, Bell Shemtif took me and Rabbi Rattenberg, Yossi Rattenberg was his name, uh, to the Rebbe. After the Chabad Lubavitch, I don't know why, but they went upstairs to the Zal for Maariv. I don't remember-

34:05 Speaker 2 There was another Minyan. Wh- while the Rebbe was downstairs?

34:07 Speaker 1 No, the Reb- the Rebbe ha- had the Chabad Lubavitch, and they-

34:10 Speaker 2 The Rebbe upstairs?

34:10 Speaker 1 ... everyone took dollars, coins. It was up, uh, but it was Lebedig and Freilech Chabad Lubavitch. It was very, with a tremendous amount of, of, of, uh, energy and Chayas, even as Achron Shel Pesach Chabad Lubavitch go, Sheiyach Suda. And, um, I, you know, I didn't know the workings. As far as I, this is the first time I was ever at a Kosher Brocha or anything like this. Uh, w- what I know is that they said Maariv will be upstairs. That's in the Zal. It was packed, but, you know, uh, but I don't know how many people. It was packed, packed. And the Rebbe was on the far, uh, uh, corner later for Kosher Brocha after Maariv. So the, the table was there in the way. You went around the Maariv, the west, you know, that which goes to the Chotsi where the Sukkah is. You went there, there was a bit of a space, and then in, in the Duram, in the south, in the, in, in the w- uh, leading to the Cheder Sheini. In that area, the Rebbe stood, and there was a table, and the Rebbe gave a Kosher Brocha. It's nothing like the crowds that were there 10, 20 years later, obviously, but it was still hundreds of people. And you went out through the Cheder Sheini in 770. Bell Shemtif took us over to the Rebbe, and he said, "Dos zwee Bochurim from Torah Vodaas, Rattenberg and Lou, un sie villen betten a brocha zi zoln zein chasidishe Bochurim."

35:43 Speaker 1 This was without consulting us whatsoever. He said, uh, "Here are two students of Torah Vodaas, Rattenberg and Lou, and they want to ask the Rebbe for a brocha, they should be Chasidishe Bochurim." So the Rebbe said, "Rattenberg and where?" What's the other name? He said, "Lou." So the Rebbe said, "Ich bin maskim, nor ze darfen maskim zayn." I agree to the brocha, but they have to agree as well. And, uh, three times in my life that I had varying situ- very varying situations where the Rebbe told me, "I'm giving you special energies." And I think it applies to everyone, whether the Rebbe said it to you directly or not, anyone who wants it, but it's what you do with it that really matters.

36:38 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

36:39 Speaker 1 And I'll, maybe I'll jump and tell you the second time-

36:42 Speaker 2 Yeah

36:42 Speaker 1 ... was when I was actually going to Term Chet Mimim, um, which was the beginning of Tov Shin Yud Ches, after a year of Yud Zayin, when I consider myself Lubava- and I was known by the Rosh Yeshivas in Torah Vodaas also as Lubavitcher. Um, uh, but, uh, uh, the, the trajectory was I would be a firm lawyer, uh, very close to Lubavitch, you know, that type of thing, coming to Chabad Lubavitchs, hang around with the guys.

37:13 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

37:15 Speaker 1 M- maybe living somewhere in Teaneck or something, you know, learning Daf Yomi. I don't know what I would've been doing. But, uh, but I love it.

37:26 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

37:28 Speaker 1 A- and also in Yud Zayin I had my first Yechidut, I'll come to that. Th- then at, at the end of Gan Yisroel, Yud Zayin, I wrote to the Rebbe about coming to Tomchei Temimim. And at, before Hakafot on Simchat Torah, there was a farbrengen where everybody w- everyone went to the tahalucha, to all the different shuls to help him with sameach, and the Rebbe didn't start Hakafot till after they came back. Hakafot wouldn't start till about after midnight. At that farbrengen, I approached the Rebbe and I said the words, "Ich vil beten a broche ich zol hobn hatsloch in Tomchei Temimim" I want to ask for a brocha that I should succeed in Tomchei Temimim. And the Rebbe said, "Amen, amen," or, "Amen ve amen," whatever, the double amen, he said. And, uh, and I g- I gave l'chaim, and as I was withdrawing, like walking backwards from the Rebbe, when I was a c- a few feet away, he t- he looked after me on his Rebbe's left side, and he said, "Daf sep es eikh tond ztsu" You also have to do something about it.

38:45 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

38:46 Speaker 1 So in other words, you know, you got a double brocha, but it's not gonna work if you're not gonna do something about it.

38:56 Speaker 2 So this is a general approach of the Rebbe.

38:58 Speaker 1 Pardon?

38:59 Speaker 2 This is a general approach of the Rebbe. The Rebbe gives the keichas, but we have to do something about it. I think that's what the Rebbe said the first night, Yechivat 57 Dalet, the Rebbe said that, that we're going to help, the Rebbe's gonna help, but the aveita is for us.

39:19 Speaker 1 B'kvod ha'kenes, he said give as much-

39:21 Speaker 2 Yeah

39:22 Speaker 1 ... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, um, now in Yud Zayin, I walked regularly Shabbos with Moshe Lazar. That's who I walked with.

39:37 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

39:38 Speaker 1 Just remembered. That's who I walked with on, on, uh, Achron Shel Pesach and Shavuos. He, he was b- and M- Moshe Feller, later ye- he also, I, I got to know him.

39:48 Speaker 2 He's also from Williamsburg?

39:49 Speaker 1 He was-

39:50 Speaker 2 No, he's from Minnesota

39:50 Speaker 1 ... He's from Minnesota, but he, he was studying at Torah Vodaas in the dormitory.

39:53 Speaker 2 Ah, okay

39:54 Speaker 1 So he lived in Williamsburg, and, um, subsequently married my late sister, alav ha-shalom.

40:01 Speaker 2 That's he's your brother-in-law.

40:02 Speaker 1 He's my brother-in-law, yeah. Now, um, yeah, in Yud Zayin, w- we walked Shab- Shabbos Mevarchim obviously, but also many times when there was just rumors there might be a farbrengen, like Shushan Purim Pa- Pashtus Kisisa. Um, I remember being there Pashtus Noach, which was n- which was Shabbos Meshchedesh. It was not a given that there's going to be a farbrengen, but there was, the Mayamar, uh, Omar B- uh, uh, Hashem Yisroel, Omar Ben Akiva. And, um, so that was Yud Zayin. About a c- a couple of months before my... My birthday is Chof Adar Rishon, and, uh, the Bochum that I was learning Tanya with, maybe they saw it or m- with Geshem Mendel maybe, they a- uh, asked me if I wanted to go to Yechidut for my birthday, get a, a direct brocha from the Rebbe, and this was like, this was like a major, major step, uh, to actually go and see the Rebbe. In fact, well, many Bochum of Torah Vodaas went, but they went, like they went, they would go to see other, uh, rabbeim and Rosh Yeshivas, gedolim, e- et cetera, et cetera, you know. It was no- uh, it was like a done thing. People went for brochas-

41:45 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

41:45 Speaker 1 ... to different people.

41:47 Speaker 2 You're saying for you it had-

41:48 Speaker 1 For b- for, for me, I, I didn't go. I didn't go to Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, I didn't go here, I didn't go to the, to any of those. I, uh, you know, I s- I saw them. I maybe went sometimes to the Tish or to the, or, or, or to Rosh Hashanah or something, but I didn't, uh, it, I didn't entertain the thought of having to go to them as an individual asking for a brocha. And this became a very, uh, special thing, and th- thank God, you had to make appointments anyway months in advance for Yechidut. Rabbi Chaim had this little pad, and he wrote in, you know, for the next few months, all the nights that there was Yech- There were three nights a week, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I think it was with all the rabbeim. Later years from Chof Hey it was only Sunday and Thursday. And, um, my Yechidut was on a Tuesday, the first Yechidut, but, uh, I was starting months before preparing, and the preparation was they invited me to come once a week. Besides Wednesday, there was the Shir Tanya in Torah Vodaas. I would come to 770, I think it was on a Tuesday, and learn-

43:06 Speaker 2 The Bochum suggested that you do this, or?

43:09 Speaker 1 Yeah.

43:09 Speaker 2 Yeah

43:10 Speaker 1 I would learn with Ra- uh, Ge- Geshem M- who, uh, was Geshem Mendel, who was, he was my, like, Damash Haledi.

43:15 Speaker 2 Right

43:16 Speaker 1 I was coming-- I, I remember it was a time that he wasn't there for some reason dur-during the preparation. I would go once a week, and we learned

43:25 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

43:27 Speaker 1 And they suggested that I learn at Bal Peh as well. And, um, and they told me about Ato, which is Yeshiva, uh, which was f-formulated by the Rebbe, um, which, which had... It, it was not necessarily for It's generally people who took on themselves, wash Negel Vasser by the bed, sleep with tzitzit, wear wool and tallis cotton. There were certain, uh, probably chitas, pa, uh... I, I guess when I started, a lot of the minhagim in those couple of months-

44:08 Speaker 2 Preparing for the Yechidus you got, uh-

44:10 Speaker 1 In, in, in preparation for Yechidus. And then, then I re-

44:15 Speaker 2 The Ato was like a formal, formal group then, or it was like a-

44:19 Speaker 1 Pardon? Just-

44:20 Speaker 2 That... Was Ato like a formal group then or was-

44:23 Speaker 1 It's a group which is mentioned in the Rebbe's diggits.

44:25 Speaker 2 Yeah, I know it's mentioned, but I'm saying what was... Like, they got the-

44:27 Speaker 1 Uh, it was a famous. I never heard of it before then or-

44:31 Speaker 2 So was there, like, meetings or anything, or it was just-

44:33 Speaker 1 No, no, no

44:33 Speaker 2 ... you, you were part of it. It's something you associated with.

44:35 Speaker 1 It was, it was... I think it was something like, like chitas. You undertook something.

44:40 Speaker 2 Right, you undertook. Okay.

44:40 Speaker 1 It was, it was like an association. I don't know if they ever had meetings. A good question. It would've been in Eretz Yisrael where it was big.

44:49 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

44:50 Speaker 1 L'fi erech. You know, relatively speaking. Um, the main thing is they... I mean, I took on things for the Yechidus, and then I had a s-heavy session with Yashu Mendel, and he told me that the difference between Polisher Rebbe and the Chabad, where other g- uh, people, is with others, you, you, you can be an onof. You ju- you know, you say, um... You, you don't... Y-y-- If you go to the Rebbe, you tell him everything. Your maalos, your chesronos, you t- you say everything. Your problems and your achievements as well. And he also said, "If the Rebbe tells you to sit down, you don't sit down." And that I had a big problem with. I didn't un... I said, uh... It was beforehand, and he was trying to explain it to me. In the end, he just was frustrated. He just-

45:47 Speaker 2 What was your problem with it?

45:49 Speaker 1 If a man like I was, uh, uh, looking at the Rebbe tells you, uh, "Walk down the street," you walk down the street. He says, you know-

45:58 Speaker 2 So your problem is how could I not listen if the Rebbe tells me to sit?

46:01 Speaker 1 Yeah, well, you know, uh, and he, and, and, uh, he screamed at me. I said, "Well, he said that's the minute. That, that don't you do." And, uh, by the way, just an aside, parenthetically, the, uh, the Rebbe was once going out to his car, I think that, uh, Simpson was the driver, in the early years, and it was, uh, snowing where it was, uh, uh, it was icy on the ground, and the Rebbe told him, the driver, to go in first, not to go around because it was slippery, and he s- just stood there, didn't, like, didn't move, and the Rebbe grabbed his shoulder and said, "Obeying is bigger than everything." Anyway, that's what I heard. Um, when I went into Yechidus, actually, and I wrote to the Rebbe, they told me I should write that I learned I wrote to him, "I'm learning Yevamos." I c- I was coming in there expecting a faher.

47:01 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

47:03 Speaker 1 So beforehand, I was looking at that Maimah. I looked at the Gemara that I'd been learning in Yevamos that week. I was ready, you know, with everything. Write this, write that, you know, that I'm doing this. So the first words the Rebbe said to me was, "Zitst. Sit down." And of course, I didn't because that was the protocol, but I was-

47:24 Speaker 2 Yashu Mendel, uh-

47:26 Speaker 1 He told me-

47:26 Speaker 2 ... instilled it in you.

47:28 Speaker 1 He, um, uh, yeah, well, if he told me, that's what you do. I, I ju... I just wanted to understand-

47:33 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah

47:33 Speaker 1 ... uh, you know, how does that fit in? But my knees were wobbly. Really, anyway, just to meet the Rebbe was, uh, uh, a very, very, uh, one-on-one. And, um, in that Yechidus, I asked the Rebbe about po- Uh, I was very sec- Uh, I, you know, I was learning and I learned Chassidus, but I was doing pretty well in secular as well. Um, and the, the plan, the unspoken plan was that I would follow my father, alav ha-shalom, s-footsteps, and be a firm lawyer. That's all. You know, he go- He would go to, uh, uh... What the Bochum did, they would go to a night school in Brooklyn College.

48:22 Speaker 2 For jobs.

48:22 Speaker 1 It was not... He, uh, he, uh, it, it wasn't mamesh, it was college, but it was more like a, we call a technical school today, to learn a skill. People learned accountancy, they learned law. They learned something for a parnassa. That's what they did. The Rebbe was the person who really showed the world that it's not necessary, that you're not gaining, not in, uh, intellectual development, and not in, and, and not in, uh, parnassa even. That's not, you know, that's not a key for those things.

48:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, maybe you can elaborate a little bit on that, because I think there are people that have this question a lot. Like, you know, you need so much money to live, especially today. How are you gonna do it if you don't have the proper credentials or secular education? Uh, what, what, what, what, what are your-

49:13 Speaker 1 The, the, the, the secular education that people get, uh, though I haven't st- uh, I haven't examined the statistics. I did many times. The last time was probably maybe 10 years ago or five years ago. You know, like I haven't the last few years, but it's consistently that when they say that, um, X percent of college graduates will get jobs easier than others, let's say 85, whatever the number they'll say, together with that they will say that 85% of them or 90% are not employed in areas which they studied at university. I'm not talking about someone who goes for a specific, um, for a specific profession.

50:00 Speaker 2 Right.

50:00 Speaker 1 Someone wants to be a doctor or whatever it is, uh, they go into it. People, they study because they think they're gonna get this, it... This is their ticket to a job. It's not, it's... develops your mind. It's not, it's not, uh... And, and, uh, uh, uh, the BBC in England, it made a series of programs about genes, about genetic questions, and the man who made it was a man called Professor Jones. He's from Wales, I think, and he was in University College C- London. I'll tell you, I, I worked with him. He made a s- a series of six programs about different aspects of the genetic composition of people, and, uh, one of them was about weddings, about marriage, and the, uh, you know, combination of genes and, and, and about, you know, what they call today, about genetic diseases and preventing them. It, that one, each one had one word name. This was called Roots.

51:09 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

51:11 Speaker 1 And it was sold in the whole world. And so he met me a few times and interviewed me about h- uh, sh- how shidduchim works in the firm community. But the, the, uh, the actual program, which I didn't see, but the actual program, uh, they had... Uh, I spoke to him in my office, all the interviews. But on the, on the camera, on the, uh, uh, visually, they showed a chasuna. We went to a chasuna in London.

51:39 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

51:40 Speaker 1 Got permission with, from the chasan and kallah. And we sat together, the professor and I, and they showed us sitting at the wedding talking, and they played what we had s- discussed in the office. So what were we actually talking about? We're talking about knowledge and education, and he told me that the boys who went to yeshiva in his classes in, in, in London are streets ahead intellectually in understanding all the concepts that they're learning. He said their minds are much more developed than anybody else. This is a non-Jewish professor. In England, there isn't that high a percentage of Jews. He said, "Every time I have somebody who came from yeshiva, they're sharp, their minds." It's developing the mind. Now, if you need a certain, uh, area of expertise, whatever field a person wants to go into, you can do that, yeah. You know, they can do that at the age of-- you don't have to start that at the age of six. The Rebbe says it in .

52:43 Speaker 3 Yeah.

52:43 Speaker 1 You worry about a parnasah when the kid's there, uh, teach them not to become a shoeshine boy. Uh, you can do that when you're 15 or 20, whenever it, you know, it, it, it takes w- weeks or months, a year or two even.

52:59 Speaker 3 One of the integral components of being a Hasid are the , whether it's , , , or . These days give us an opportunity to connect with our Rebbeim, to connect with each other, and be better Hasidim. What is the story behind each of these days? How did the Rebbe commemorate and celebrate these days? And most importantly, what are the lessons, the takeaways, and the action items, , needed for each of these days? All of this, and much, much more, are answered in the new set recently published by Der Herr. Our Days is a journey through the Chabad calendar and story, meaning, and practice. With over 700 beautiful glossy pages with elevated content, beautiful, beautiful photographs, you, your family, and friends will enjoy and live with each . This book is a must for every Lubavitcher home, for every shul, for every school. It is a perfect gift item. This will not collect dust. It will be used day after day, month after month, year after year. You can have this set. Go to derherr.org/ourdays, order your set today, and start living like . Th- there's another component to all of this, not just that whether or not you need the credentials to get a job. I think, like what you're mentioning, that in American culture, there's a whole obsession with, uh, parnasah from when the kid is five years old, and that's, you know, w- what track is he going to go onto, or she's gonna go, uh, going, gonna go, gonna go, and

54:55 Speaker 3 that's, like, ingrained in American culture, and it's like this pressure that's put on them since they're little kids. How will you eventually make a parnasah? I think the Rebbe was saying, maybe you can tell me, but I th- I believe that the Rebbe was saying that the whole way we get parnasah is from the Aibishter. So we have to do what the Aibishter wants to get the parnasah, and we should be a, we should be obsessed with the Aibishter, and He'll figure out the parnasah later, not be obsessed with how you're going to make a parnasah, 'cause that's counterintuitive. I think, I think that's also part of it. The n- it's not, not, not only the dangers or the issue of college, but also that the refocus on, on getting o- on the, on the source of the parnasah, which is the Aibishter, therefore do, if it's, if you're supposed to be in yeshiva, be in yeshiva or whatever, whatever the situation is. Does that sound right?

55:40 Speaker 1 I, 100%. I had an answer from the Rebbe to this effect, which I'll come to in a minute, about, about going to college.

55:48 Speaker 3 Well, that, that's how you started this, the, yeah.

55:49 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. But that we, but you s- said we should talk-

55:52 Speaker 3 Yeah

55:52 Speaker 1 ... a little bit about the secular education. I worked f- my first 10 years. The Rebbe said a number of times, both to Rabbi Suzdak and to my , 'cause I was-- I'd come home sometimes 3:00 in the morning, and I had to teach at 9:00.

56:06 Speaker 3 You came home from what?

56:08 Speaker 1 The Rebbe wanted me to te-- when I went on Shlichus in England-

56:11 Speaker 3 Yeah

56:11 Speaker 1 ... the Rebbe said that part of my work, even though I was working basically with youth, adult education, and students, I was like Chabad House and Chabad on campus. Those didn't exist really.

56:23 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

56:24 Speaker 1 And I traveled around the country to different campuses. I met hund- I had a mailing list of almost 1,000 students at that time in, in the, in the late '60s and early '70s. And, um, I, I, I dealt with many students who went through times where, where they couldn't get a job. And those who got jobs, very, very often it was not in the field that they had studied, including Jonathan Sacks. He's one of the students who went to me. He became a rabbi.

56:57 Speaker 3 He was a student that, that you, uh, met?

56:59 Speaker 1 He was-- I met, yeah, I think I met him in Chof Ches, uh, two and a half years after I came to England, but we are very, very close. Um, uh, the, the point is, the point is panosa comes from the Habershtadt, as you say. I'll, I'll come to the tzel of the Rebbe to me in a moment. And even bederech hateva, it needs a bit of discernment to understand that it's motivation, it's developing the mind, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, working and, and that, that gets a person a good, a good position. I'm not ta- I'm, I'm talking here about getting an employment. Some people wanna go into business and want to, you know, uh, it's also something which the more you know, the more you know, uh, it, it, it, it, it, it... Of, of limudei kodesh, lahavdil, the more it helps because it develops the mind in a, in a much deeper way than people think. I know somebody in our community, so he was learning only kodesh. Uh, it, this happened to other many people, and they wanted to get a qualification and go to university at some stage with s-ei-eighteen or whatever. And i-in order to take the necessary exams, they had to go through a school, and I'm a, a principal of a high school of girls where they do these exams, so I can, uh, I can facilitate this, um, study, which I did many times. And, um, this, so this bocher, he studied, he did about

58:57 Speaker 1 four, which people would do five y- after five years in high school. It's a five-year course. The last two is mainly towards the exam. The first three are chumash. And, um, he did it in six months maybe or less, and did all the different subjects, and he got an A star, that's higher than A, in every single one. Then we said, "Do you wanna do the advanced studies?" And he says, "Nah, it was boring." So I said, "Maybe you got a better education than you thought-"

59:27 Speaker 3 Right

59:27 Speaker 1 ... "with what you did." You know, "Uh, you w- now you wanna go into the field, you wanna study it? Study it." Your mind was developed, that's what really matters.

59:35 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

59:37 Speaker 1 You know, I, I, there's so many examples. There was another baal teshuva, a, a d- a doctor, and he had a son, a brilliant, uh, he is a, he is a brilliant scientist now in Cal- but he, uh, applied for a grant. The Japanese government gave a certain small number of people who are genius, they got a scholarship to spend five years for free studying in Japan, advanced science. And, um, and this person was one of them, th- this son, he was a professor. And, and, uh, he had to le- he didn't know Japa- Japanese. That was part of it, so you learn Japanese now. Took a couple, two, three months or whatever, even less, I don't know what it was. You s- uh, the, the, that which is, if your mind is developed and then you decide which area you want to focus on, and you ta- do focus, then, you know, um, it, it, nowadays, those who have a, a, a discerning, y- y- you see what goes on at universities.

1:00:53 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:00:54 Speaker 1 The Rebbe mentions this too, the social life, the political life, they, you know, they, they're being used.

1:01:00 Speaker 3 Sure.

1:01:01 Speaker 1 They're being used and, and, uh-

1:01:02 Speaker 3 So Sh- Shliach wrote after the, uh, after Simchat Torah and October 7th and the demonstrations on campus, the antisemitic ones, so Shliach wrote, "Today is a good day to ask me why I don't send my kids to college."

1:01:17 Speaker 1 That's right.

1:01:18 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:01:18 Speaker 1 Well, that's exactly it.

1:01:20 Speaker 3 Yeah. So what did the Rebbe tell you about your, your-

1:01:22 Speaker 1 Now, so-

1:01:23 Speaker 3 ... college?

1:01:23 Speaker 1 So when I went to Yechidus, let's come back to my first Yechidus, uh, which was Yud Ches Chai Odov Kaf Shin Yud Zayin.

1:01:33 Speaker 3 This is the first Yechidus?

1:01:35 Speaker 1 Yeah. I was in Torah miTzion, and Rebbe spoke to me then, "Ir." In Yiddish, there's a, a different word when you say you, familiar and not familiar. It's most, in many languages, it used to be in English.

1:01:49 Speaker 3 Thou.

1:01:49 Speaker 1 Thou, that's right. Thou is, is, is personal, and you is plural or respectful.

1:01:55 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:01:56 Speaker 1 And thou is du in Yiddish, and, and you is ir in Yiddish. In French, you have-

1:02:02 Speaker 3 Wait, no, you-

1:02:03 Speaker 1 ... vous and tu.

1:02:04 Speaker 3 Oh, so you is du, no?

1:02:07 Speaker 1 You is, you is eich.

1:02:11 Speaker 3 Oh, okay. Interesting.

1:02:12 Speaker 1 You is, you is plural And thou is you as an individual.

1:02:17 Speaker 3 Uh-huh. Okay.

1:02:18 Speaker 1 Thy. And, um, so the Rebbe spoke to me, Y- uh, "Dos vos iz ir shreibt." That which you're writing, formal. That was the only Yichidus. I was in Yichidus, Baruch Hashem, many times, but it was the only one that the Rebbe said-

1:02:35 Speaker 3 The formal way of if.

1:02:36 Speaker 1 Uh, "Ir," it was before I came to Tomchei Temimim. And I wrote to the Rebbe about the future, and this was a, a major Mesirat Nefesh. It must've been under the influence of my Lubavitch fr- uh, Mashpia. About whether to take a one-year break. Really today, it's done by many people, secular, non-Jewish even. They ta- what-- In England, they call it the gap year. After you finish high school, you take a year out to find yourself or something, and then you go to university. But so I asked the Rebbe about, um, whether I should do what I was planning to do, like going to study law, to study at, at, at Brooklyn College at night after I finish high school. This was, uh, half a year before. Or... And, and also I mentioned that I wasn't ready to come into Tomchei Temimim. I was in it'll-- I was in, in Torat HaDaas then, you know, finishing my, the exams and things. So the Rebbe said, "Dem yor vos, uh, vos, uh, uh, vos endik dir in June," he said, "This year..." "Khves hves I say dis doton in a shonuv u'beres," he said. "Don't know how to say this there." And, and, and, and the Rebbe said, "You'll certainly stay in Torat HaDaas."

1:04:10 Speaker 3 At the-

1:04:10 Speaker 1 He did not, he did not talk about where I'm gonna be the following year. But he did say-

1:04:18 Speaker 3 I'm not following. The Rebbe said, "This zman is ending in June."

1:04:20 Speaker 1 "This zman you're gonna certainly remain in Torat HaDaas."

1:04:23 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:04:23 Speaker 1 "Right n- just where you are now."

1:04:25 Speaker 3 Right.

1:04:25 Speaker 1 And that's where I was, I was... This is, uh, February, Mishtama.

1:04:29 Speaker 3 Right.

1:04:30 Speaker 1 And this, and then the, the, the, and the school term goes till June.

1:04:33 Speaker 3 Right.

1:04:34 Speaker 1 "Un dos vos iz shreibt veg college," that which we write about college, "Oyv ikh freyt mein menun, denk ich az ein yor zolt ikh zicher araynlegen ale koachim in Limudei Kodesh vie ikh shreibt, un efshur noch mer oych." "If you ask my opinion, I think that this year you should, uh, uh, uh, you should throw all of your energies into Limudei Kodesh, as you yourself mentioned, uh, one of the options, and maybe more." So as far as I was concerned, that was... That's what you're doing.

1:05:18 Speaker 3 Very clear.

1:05:18 Speaker 1 Y- yeah. If you... And then if you... And you knew, if you asked the Rebbe, you know, many people say, "Don't ask the Rebbe if you're not prepared to do."

1:05:28 Speaker 3 Uh, you mentioned Rabbi Sacks.

1:05:30 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:05:30 Speaker 3 Rabbi Sacks, I saw a, a video of him talking about that he asked the Rebbe about being the chief rabbi, and he, he says that, "I told my wife before I asked, 'Are you ready to listen to whatever the Rebbe says? 'Cause I'm not gonna a-'" She-- He wanted his wife to agree that she's gonna listen to whatever the Rebbe says before... So he got... He, Rabbi Sacks had the Chinuch from, from the Chassidim.

1:05:53 Speaker 1 Right. No, that's a n- a known thing with Chassidim.

1:05:56 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:05:56 Speaker 1 I'm, uh... You know, I've dealt with many, many people, with hundreds of people over the years. Some are pretty high in their fields. Besides Rabbi Sacks, other people in secular fields. And they had, uh, personal, uh, medical issues, fertility, different issues. And, um, some of them, uh, were in touch with world-class leaders in the field who might have said differently than the Rebbe told them. But I remember one, uh, very big professional said, you know, "I w- I was brought up..." She came from, you know, her grandparents were like Chassidish Yidden, uh, Pol- from Poland. Not the parents, not so much. But, uh, she said, "When you ask a Rebbe," she said, "I'd be afraid to go against what he said." Uh, a fertility question. Um, yeah. So i- in that Yichidus, the Rebbe told me this. Now, the point is here, I did not prepare the ground with my father so much.

1:07:14 Speaker 3 Right.

1:07:15 Speaker 1 Uh, uh, not then and not afterwards. I guess it, it was like just, you know, an evasion maybe or not, uh... I, you know... When I think back, all of-

1:07:25 Speaker 3 You were, you were a teenager.

1:07:27 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah, but, you know, uh, sey ich oych achmen lobn. Yeah, yeah. Well, I-- If I had a Mashpia, there's, uh, uh, you know... When I look back at all the different things and the bittersweet memories of, of certain things, I say if, if I knew then, but today it's, it's from experience and, and, and, and observation. I can't say I was... When I advise people, I'm very often telling them things which I never did and maybe never would have done. But I sincerely believe that that's really what I should have done and what, what's best for them. That's all, if they're gonna listen. Um, so, uh, I mean-

1:08:14 Speaker 3 You, you had things from the Rebbe. You asked the Rebbe different things that you were struggling with in Chinuch yourself, right? There were certain things that you asked the Rebbe questions about how to deal with the chinuch of your own children.

1:08:26 Speaker 1 That was later on.

1:08:27 Speaker 3 Later, yeah.

1:08:27 Speaker 1 That was years, many years later. You know, that was, uh, 16 years later.

1:08:32 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:08:33 Speaker 1 No, uh, here, uh, uh, so the, the trajectory, the direction was that I was gonna... After the summer, I'm going to Gan Israel the second year, the first year in Swan Lake. This year I was there when the Rebbe came to camp on the Sunday, 12 Tammuz. And, um, and, and, um, after camp, I was gonna go back to Torah Vodaas and go in the evening to Brooklyn College like everybody else did. But now the Rebbe said this, "Meir, I'm gonna be in the ...</b That's it. That's gonna be there for one year." I did not intend or expect to re- to change from Torah Vodaas or to be, or, or to do this more than one year. That was, uh, uh, my feeling then. Then my father was very upset and every... Et cetera, et cetera. And I wrote to the Rebbe, and, and then I was in camp. After camp, we stayed for a Shabbos to clear up the camp. And I went and, and Rabbi Reml Shemtov, he was very, very close to us always, our family. Later on, the Rebbe told him, uh, when the Rebbe told him that it, it, when he moved up to a higher position directing the camp, the Rebbe said, "It's not his inyan, it's not his job to maintain contact with individual parents, except for Lou."

1:10:05 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:10:06 Speaker 1 He said, "That, that, that family you gotta stay with." So he was very close with my parents. But every- he told me a, a, a very... Uh, he spoke with me. Went, went for a walk that Friday night in the dark, and he said, "Look, you know that sooner or later you're gonna go to Lubavitch Yeshiva. It's gonna, it's gonna aggravate you. You're gonna regret not taking the move earlier." That sentence was like the makat bchatit. It was, you know, a whole build up, all different things. So I wrote to the Rebbe, and I wrote that what my father was concerned about, um, parnasa qu- issue. And, um, I had a friend called Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, alav ha-shalom.

1:11:06 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:11:07 Speaker 1 I knew him from Torah Vodaas. At one or two years, he was with me, uh, in, in the eighth grade. Then he was, he was a Lubavitcher, but then he was in camp, and he told me, "You come... If you come to Lubavitch, come to Newark," that's where he was studying, "and we'll learn together." So I wrote to the Rebbe all about Newark and, uh, this, this plan, and about my father's apprehensions. So the Rebbe wrote the following answer. "Newark or Montreal, "You go to Newark or Montreal," which I had not mentioned. I didn't, I didn't know it existed. "According to the advice of Rabbi M. Mentlik. The conversation with your father should be based on the content of the first berakhah of bentching, chazan, which speaks." And, uh-

1:12:31 Speaker 3 That name is there is the one that's-

1:12:32 Speaker 1 So Ra- Rabbi Kadakov, when he gave it over, this was regular, normal practice with... When Rabbi Kadakov gave over all tzetlach in those days, and, uh, very often he would elaborate. And this was obviously-

1:12:49 Speaker 3 It was common then for the b- for the, the answers to come in the form of tzetlach, not letters?

1:12:53 Speaker 1 Pardon?

1:12:54 Speaker 3 It was common then for the answers to come in the form of tzetlach-

1:12:59 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah

1:12:59 Speaker 3 ... as opposed to, uh, letters?

1:13:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

1:13:01 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:13:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, if you were in New York-

1:13:03 Speaker 3 Right

1:13:03 Speaker 1 ... if you were here, you gave it a, the, the, there was a, the desk pad in the America's office, which later was called Maskit. It used to be called America's office. There was a pile of... It would pile up in the course of the day. Several times in the day, the Rebbe would either buzz in and ask whoever was in the office of the Maskitim to bring the letters in to him. Sometimes the Rebbe himself, when he came in, would walk in and take letters. That's where they were. There was a corner of the, of the, of the desk pad on that, in Rabbi Kadakov's desk. That's where letters to the Rebbe were piled. And, um, uh, yeah, so, uh, and where Ra- Rabbi Kadakov, it was obviously that this was what his job was. Part of his job was to elaborate on answers of the Rebbe. Many... He was, he was known for saying, "And to add to the answer of the Rebbe," and he wouldn't say a word if it wasn't from the Rebbe. But my, in my case, it was written, "Miusad".

1:14:11 Speaker 3 Right.

1:14:12 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:14:13 Speaker 3 So you have to elaborate.

1:14:14 Speaker 1 On "Tochin". It said it, it, the answer is based on.

1:14:17 Speaker 3 Right.

1:14:18 Speaker 1 And he said that the Rebbe told him to say that in the first berakhah of bentching, you say, "Hashem gives panaso to the entire world." That's where the panaso comes from, and he doesn't have to worry about panaso. It, it, it, it comes from Hashem and, and, uh, uh, and, and you're not gonna... I, I hear you say you're not gonna lose out because you follow Hashem's word. It doesn't mean that you can just s- sit at home when the time comes to go out and work.

1:14:56 Speaker 3 Go to the mikveh, go to the mikveh at 12.

1:14:58 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so that was Yud Zayin, first yechidus. This, the other part of the answer-

1:15:08 Speaker 3 So, yeah

1:15:08 Speaker 1 ... actually the first part of the answer, but Rabbi Kadakov explained the second part first, what you should tell your father. The other part was Newark or Montreal, this was already opening up a whole new thing, leaving the country. I never, I'd never left-

1:15:23 Speaker 3 United States

1:15:23 Speaker 1 ... I hardly ever went to New Jersey. I was a, you know, a Brooklyn boy, that's all. And, uh, suddenly Montreal, a, a, a foreign country is brought up. Um, so, um, the Rebbe said, "Ask Rabbi Mentlick." So I anticipated, you know, a grueling, searching, at least 20-minute farher to see where you're holding to know is this yeshiva appropriate or that one. So I was thinking about the Gemara that I w- had been learning and different things, and I went to Rabbi Mentlick, it was during the Seder in the zal in summer of '70, and I introduced myself, and I told him, "The Rebbe told me to speak with you." I showed him the answer, Newark or Montreal, "Ka'tzah ad-Adam Sheyichya Mentlick." So he said, "What did you write to the Rebbe?" I said, "I had a plan of going to Newark to learn with, uh, Rosenfeld." He said, uh, "Did you mention Montreal in your tettel?" I said, "No, I didn't even know about it." He said, "Montreal." So the whole interview was maybe 60 seconds. Uh, I, I, I always think maybe the Rebbe wanted to show me what a-

1:16:45 Speaker 3 What a Chassid is

1:16:46 Speaker 1 ... Chassidish what a Chassid is. He, Rebbe, Rebbe Mentlick was a real, real deep Pnimiy.

1:16:53 Speaker 3 As opposed to thinking, "Oh, the Rebbe told me to figure it out, so let me figure it out." No. He just needed to figure out what the Rebbe really wants.

1:17:00 Speaker 1 That's right. That's right.

1:17:02 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:17:03 Speaker 1 So that was, that was, uh... And then I went to Montreal, and that's when I went to the Rebbe Simchas Torah, and I said, "I'm asking for a brocha 'cause Um, it, it's, the things were pretty tense with my father, you know, and I had a whole Yechidas about it, Yud Shvat. Yud Gim-- Um, early Yud Gimmel Shvat. It was 4:00 in the morning in, uh, Tov Shin Yud Ches, Tov Shin Chai, Yud Shvat, Yud Beis of, of Yud Gimmel, and I brought, brought this up, and the Rebbe told me o- one thing was to go back as quickly as possible to Montreal. "Don't get into arguments." And the Rebbe said, "If you are, if you are success- get the yeshiva in Montreal to write reports from time to time to your father. You, uh, when he sees your success there, That's what he told me there. He didn't just say one year. He said, "He'll see that college is not for you."

1:18:01 Speaker 3 The, the Rebbe said that.

1:18:02 Speaker 1 That, in that Yechidas.

1:18:04 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:18:04 Speaker 1 Uh, it was a very, very powerful... Every Yechidas is powerful. Every single y- whatever it was, even it was so-called-

1:18:14 Speaker 3 It was also you were asking the Rebbe questions.

1:18:16 Speaker 1 Pardon?

1:18:17 Speaker 3 You were asking the Rebbe questions about what to do. I think like other people later that experienced Yechidas, they didn't really ask the Rebbe much. It was more-

1:18:25 Speaker 1 Uh, uh, you asked the Rebbe and, and also the Rebbe told you sometimes what... A lot of them were Rebbe, the Rebbe asked me questions.

1:18:34 Speaker 3 Like what?

1:18:35 Speaker 1 Pardon?

1:18:35 Speaker 3 Like what?

1:18:39 Speaker 1 A lot. A, a many, many. You know, there's a famous one where he, where in Tov Shin Lamed Hey on, uh, Now the context is it was a Thursday night. There were hundreds of people, Orchim. This was Motzei Simchas Torah, Chof Dalet Tishrei. Wednesday was Simchas Torah, Thursday was Yechidas, Friday night's Shabbos Bereishis, the most precious Shabbos of the year, and Rebbe was gonna sit there the whole night. I was there with a son. My son, Penny, was five years old. Took him, I took him to the Rebbe for sukkos. So we went in relatively early. It was probably about 10:00 at night. Um, and I just wrote asking a brocha, that's all, for myself and my family. I didn't, I didn't anticipate, and I didn't want to keep the Rebbe, and I didn't have any special thing to ask either. And, um, yeah, we actually, it w- it turned out to be one of the longest Yechidas. It's the only Yechida... I was in Yechidas I think 29 times, but I, this was the only Yechidas where the maskir opened up the door in the middle. The only time. It w- And the next night was Friday night. Before the Rebbe came down, it was Rabbi Groner. He came to... He's a good friend. He said, "Why do you keep the..." I said, "I didn't..." I said, "I wrote one line in my tettel." And I t- I told him a little bit of what the Rebbe said. He, he, he said, "I thought

1:20:23 Speaker 1 you were too young for that kind of a thing." But, uh-

1:20:26 Speaker 3 What did the Rebbe say?

1:20:27 Speaker 1 I was 34... No, that's Label Groner said.

1:20:29 Speaker 3 But what, what did the Rebbe say?

1:20:30 Speaker 1 What did the Rebbe say? It was a few things. I'll tell you one thing he told me. Um, he said that I, um, my main work then, I was teaching also, but my main work was with student and youth and adult education. Like, as I said, Chabad House and Chabad on campus type of work. So the Rebbe said, "When you go on campuses you will meet female students." It was heaten garnish Who keep nothing of Yiddishkeit. Now this is Havdalah Tishrei. It was exactly a month after Havdalah Elul when the Rebbe, uh, launched the Nesek, Ner Shabbat Kodesh campaign. And, um, the Rebbe said, "They keep nothing, but you speak to them about lighting a candle for Shabbos on the condition that they light it before shkiya, before sunset." And the Rebbe said twice in that little part of the whole Yechidus, "They will folgin, they will obey the rule not to do after shkiya," Not because, I mean, the Rebbe just said, you're talking about people who keep nothing. It won't be because of frumkeit, it'll be because they're honest.

1:21:59 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:22:00 Speaker 1 They're straight. And they'll-- And that will-- condition you make with them, so they'll do it. He said, "Tell them if they miss the week, better not to light that week than to light after shkiya." That was one, that was one part of it, and the, uh, a lot of satellite stories that happened as a result of that sentence of the Rebbe, that halo. Another thing, see, there were so many things, like, you know, he asked me, "Did you hear from so and so lately?" It's a famous, famous, uh, Yechidus, uh, about a, a certain, um, communal figure. Now I dealt with mainly with young people. I spoke to, uh, you know, uh, Bnei Brith, adult education groups, shul groups, but my main, uh, the work that I, uh, well, had to initiate was going to youth clubs. There were many in those days. Later years you didn't have it because you had people, you know, had their own games on their, on their devices. But those years there were, uh, thousands of young people in, in groups on, on weekday nights, and universities especially. All the campus, uh, all throughout England. I had, I had regular shiurim weekly in London on Wednesdays for King's College and, uh, LSE, London School of Economics. Thursdays in University College London and Hillel House, which was nearby. Uh, Monday in Queen Mary College. Tuesdays I used to go to Cambridge one week and Oxford the following week. So that was me traveling. And then the other campuses I would,

1:23:43 Speaker 1 I would come either there for, you know, uh, to speak for an evening in Bristol, different, or in Birmingham, or for a Shabbaton, Manchester, in Scotland even, Edinburgh. Uh, my, it was my work with, with students. And, um, so, uh, um, where was I holding?

1:24:05 Speaker 3 You were talking about the Yechidus.

1:24:08 Speaker 1 Yeah, that Yechidus the Rebbe-

1:24:09 Speaker 3 But then you did, you did the c- the work on campus before you went on schlichus also in, in New York, right?

1:24:15 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. I, I started here. I tell you the truth, my first experience was in the winter of תשח when I was 19 and a half years old, and Rabbi Nissim Mangel, shlita, brilliant. Ad hoyom is very, very brilliant and chassidishi, and he was going to downtown Montreal. We were, we were in, uh, uptown, whatever it was. He-- We were in Park Avenue, a certain Jewish area, but the, uh, it was one of these big shuls, and there was, what they would call today singles or something. It was people in their 20s mainly. This was 1959, 1960, uh, תשח. And he asked me to come with him. I was a younger bachur, s- several years older than me, about five years older than me, but he asked me to come with him, and I did. And it was like an hour, an hour and a half walk coming back. We probably went by car before Shabbos, and we were there for... And there were hundreds, about 200 students and, or young people, and I was fascinated by the questions, how he answered it, uh, you know, how he respected every question. You know, he, he gave a compliment to every question or elaborated on it. On the way home, we analyzed what had been said and, and how, you know, ways of answering questions. That was my first experience, I think.

1:26:00 Speaker 3 You also went to Penn State. That was, that was later.

1:26:02 Speaker 1 That was, Penn State was, yeah, but this was, I was in Montreal י"ג, י"ד, כ"א.

1:26:05 Speaker 3 Oh, okay.

1:26:07 Speaker 1 Penn State was Shabbos Lech Lecha תשכ"ב.

1:26:13 Speaker 3 You were married already?

1:26:14 Speaker 1 No.

1:26:15 Speaker 3 Right before.

1:26:16 Speaker 1 I was 21 years old.

1:26:17 Speaker 3 Oh, okay.

1:26:19 Speaker 1 21 and a half. And, um, I was in summer '70 though, those two years. And, uh, six people went for that Shabbos. Those were Rabbi Reml Shemtov, shlita, was one, and-

1:26:39 Speaker 3 Who are, who are, who was the organizer?

1:26:40 Speaker 1 Who were, who were the other, the six people-

1:26:42 Speaker 3 Now who organized this thing to go?

1:26:45 Speaker 1 It was actually Rabbi Binyamin Klein. Because when he was a bachur, years before then, he was on Merkes Liches in Texas, and in Waco, Texas, he met a man by the name of Rabbi Goldberg. And, uh- Interesting person. I found out years later that the Rebbe's mother, the Rebbe's Chana, lived, uh, uh, that Rabbi Goldberg's mother lived in Crown Heights, and that the Rebbe's mother, uh, had a room in her house in Lincoln Place in the early... You know, in, in when she first came to, uh, Amer- in, in, like, in Toshan Yud. At the time of that year, she was there. Anyway, so Rabbi Goldberg then became the Hillel rabbi in Penn State, and he ha- and Rabbi Klein had maintained, like, he was a big masuda, Rabbi Klein. He maintained even later, years after we were there, he always had contact, and the Rebbe would ask Rabbi Klein, "What do you hear from Rabbi Goldberg?" Uh, it was after Yaakov Chanuka was, was, uh, Niskarev, and, uh-

1:27:59 Speaker 3 You're talking about after the, the, the Sh- the Shabbaton?

1:28:00 Speaker 1 Years later, after our Shabbaton, and he, he... And years later, and he was a Hasid-

1:28:05 Speaker 3 Because he-

1:28:06 Speaker 1 ... and he couldn't eat. Uh, uh, in Rabbi Goldberg's, um, uh, house, they ate cholov stam, and Yaakov Chanuka couldn't. He was a guy who didn't know Aleph-Beis three years ago, and he couldn't eat in this house, and he was upset.

1:28:18 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. Out of Rabbi Goldberg's-

1:28:19 Speaker 1 So, yeah, so R- uh, the Rebbe asked Binyomin Klein, and when he went in one time, he said, "Wha- how, what's happening with Rabbi Goldberg?" So he said he feels bad that this is his talmid. He cannot eat in his house, you know. So the Rebbe said, "Tell him that it's, uh, that all of Yaakov Chanuka's mechayel el choyl is his credit."

1:28:44 Speaker 3 Okay, so now explain why, because Rabbi Klein knew Rabbi Goldberg, and Rabbi Goldberg-

1:28:48 Speaker 1 From, from Waco

1:28:50 Speaker 3 ... made many-

1:28:51 Speaker 1 It's, uh, it's... Yes, he became, uh, uh, he was a contact with Rabbi Goldberg. I'm tell- telling you a little bit about Rabbi Goldberg.

1:28:57 Speaker 3 Because that was the Shabbaton-

1:28:58 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:28:58 Speaker 3 ... and Rabbi, and Chanuka, President Chanuka became friendly with Rabbi-

1:29:01 Speaker 1 Yeah, and this went on for s- ev- every few months, the Rebbe would ask him, and he would, he reported to the Rebbe. Then eventually, Yaakov Chanuka got married, and his wife, Bina, alav ha-shalom, Yotzais Echov, oh, by the way, she was very knowledgeable, and, uh, she was like a Beit Yaakov graduate type of girl. And Rabbi Goldberg had sons, and there's no schools there. He, he hours away from anything, and she w- was the teacher of Rabbi Goldberg's sons. And at that time, he appreciated what the Rebbe said, that you're gonna... It's your benefit, and it's your schar, and your reward. And, uh, the Rebbe asked, and Binyomin Klein told this to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe didn't ask again, "What, how is he doing?" Anyway, let's come back. So we went there, Berel Baumgarten, alav ha-shalom, Yaakov Go- uh, and his, uh, one of his proteges, Chaim Suede, Rabbi Yossel Goldstein, Rabbi Binyomin Klein.

1:30:14 Speaker 3 Only the men went, or was the-

1:30:16 Speaker 1 Only men went.

1:30:16 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:30:18 Speaker 1 Uh, Rebbe Shemtov and myself, uh, our, us talmidim, and with those four, and there were about 300 students. People didn't really... You know, uh, uh, today, Orthodox Jews, Haredi Jews, you, you walk in Manhattan, you see people, you know, and in many various communities, including London, but then around the world, there are pockets of, uh, hundreds or thousands of Hasidim, people see it. Then it was like, it was like a, a dream. And they, they had on the lampposts and on the trees, they had, uh, like, a poster with a Handel Libman painting of the Hasidim dancing, and it just said, "An experience," or "A Hasidic experience, Friday night is in this time." Hundreds of people came.

1:31:12 Speaker 3 So it was just a-

1:31:13 Speaker 1 What?

1:31:14 Speaker 3 ... a wi- a wild phenomenon that they wanted to see.

1:31:16 Speaker 1 It was. Like, meet them firsthand. We sang Nigunim with them, and we spoke with them. The whole Shabbos and, you know, and, um, at the end, and they were very taken. Two weeks later, Rabbi Goldberg invited... What, what worked out, retrospectively, this was the first Pkisha ever. There was, uh, but it was Milmata L'meila. It, it, Rabbi Goldberg took a group of about 15 students for Shabbos Chayei Sara, Shabbos of Rosh Chodesh Kislev, to New York for Shabbos to be by the Rebbe, with the Rebbe, of Lubavitch. They came Thursday night. It was arranged that three of the students had Yechidus. Um, one girl, Susan, she was in for maybe at least 45 minutes, and then there was Ronnie Kaplan, another student, and Yaakov Chanuka, Jack Chanuka he was known as. And, uh, they were, uh, they, the two bochurim were in for over an hour and a half each. And, uh, look, that, that, that's a story in itself, all, all of these, uh, Yechidus. The Rebbe gave a y- first a general, um, small sicha, a five, 10-minute talk to all of the 15 with the Rebbe, and he spoke about, uh, Shabbos of Rosh Chodesh Kislev. And the Rebbe, uh, dwelled on two nekudos, and he spoke in English. One was that a lot of people have a mistaken notion of what Shabbos is. They see it as a ne- they define it by what is forbidden And that's not really what it's about. That, that is a, a, a part of

1:33:12 Speaker 1 it, but that's the byproduct. It's what it is. It's, it's the kedusha, the spirituality that you gain on Shabbos. And, uh, the, and the second was the fact that it's, it's not any Shabbos, Shabbos of Rosh Chodesh Kislev, which the essence is Hanukkah, and Moesi V'hoilach, the idea of increasing in holiness. Those were the two nekudos of this sikha.

1:33:36 Speaker 3 Okay, so, so you were, you were discussing this long yechidus that you had.

1:33:42 Speaker 1 Now, so what I was saying-

1:33:44 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:33:44 Speaker 1 ... is that my work at that time was with young people, with students.

1:33:49 Speaker 3 Right.

1:33:49 Speaker 1 You asked me how it started, you know, uh, and I was-

1:33:52 Speaker 3 I feel like we could... I, I feel like we need a, a week over here to-

1:33:56 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, uh, well-

1:33:57 Speaker 3 ... till, till we get, uh, till all the information comes out.

1:34:00 Speaker 1 I'm happy to share the information. It's, you know... I always think I, I, w- whenever you make a chesbon hanefesh, Reb Mendel Futerfas, I heard from him countless times. He told me he lived in London for years. It's, the chesbon's supposed to be not what I achieved. You have to see what I did, but it has to be focused on what I could have done more than that.

1:34:26 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:34:27 Speaker 1 And that should be a story. That part I never really excelled in. Velo Shenagan, or, uh, it, it, you know, how could I... Uh, what, what did I miss? I'll tell you stories what I, you know... I, I tell you, the stories I tell are 1% or less of what happened. The people you met, and it worked, and this happened, that happened. But then there's all those times that you just, uh, blew it, or you just, you just, uh, sat and read a book when you're on, on the plane, or you slept or whatever it was. Um, so I, I te-

1:35:00 Speaker 3 It makes me, uh-

1:35:01 Speaker 1 I tell, I tell these stories, I hope it'll help someone else to be able to do the same thing, but better.

1:35:08 Speaker 3 But it makes people feel, uh, guilty that there was, there's always things. Is, is that a good thing? People should feel guilty?

1:35:15 Speaker 1 Guilt is not a good feeling. It's, it's, it's, it's, you know-

1:35:19 Speaker 3 So what is it?

1:35:21 Speaker 1 It-- People should feel inspired. People should feel, uh, empowered. People should feel, you know, the only thing that matters is now. The 20-year-old and the 80-year-old are, each of them is making a mistake in their general attitude to life. And ironically, they're both making the exact same mistake. The 20-year-old is saying, "I'm young. I got all my options open. Please, God, I got energy. I'll have health. I'll have this, I'll have that, and I'm gonna be able to do this. I have so many choices. Wow. Spoiled for choices." The 80-year-old is living with nostalgia, good things, regret, anxiety, what's next, uh, uh, aches and pains, whatever it is, whatever they, they live with, they're both making the same mistake. They took the eye off the ball, which is now, today. You c- today is a lifetime. You can achieve something today which will last forever, whether you're 20, whether you're 90. Doesn't make a difference. It's, it, it's, it's using that day, and, and that's all exists. Reb Mendel Futerfas used to sing a nigun in Yiddish. It says, there's no yesterday, there's no tomorrow, there's just a little bit today, so what do you have to worry? But he said it's today. You, you, you have something you can do. So it's not a, it's not a guilt. I, I, whenever I tell the stories of things that happened which were successful, those are the ones I'm gonna tell.

1:37:27 Speaker 3 Right.

1:37:28 Speaker 1 Uh, uh, so, uh, I say to myself-

1:37:33 Speaker 3 We'll do another podcast-

1:37:34 Speaker 1 I accept them as-

1:37:34 Speaker 3 With the fail- with the failures, we'll do another one.

1:37:36 Speaker 1 Yeah, but you can learn from them, too. But m- my point is that because you don't want people to see you as such a great guy, because it's false pretenses. So that, because of that great, um, uh, uh, anivus, just because you are a modest guy and you don't want to have false pretenses, you should deprive them of something because of that? That's certainly not on the cards. The many letters from the Rebbe, people wrote to the Rebbe, uh, "Why do you expect me..." The Rebe-- The m- most important thing he expected of us was to share with others. It's not about your gan eden. It's about what the Aibishter wants in the world. It's about and that means it's somebody else helping them. And many, many letters of the Rebbe in Hebrew and in Y- and in English, where people wrote feeling that they are not really worthy and not really doing what they should be doing in their own life. And, um, so why sh-- How can they justifiably speak to someone else? They're a hypo-- a hypocrite. And almost every time, the Rebbe says two points. Number one, why should that person suffer because you didn't live up to your potential? You're missing something. But then you're, you're, you're stealing from the other person because of your, you, you know, you're adding something. Secondly, by sharing it with someone else, you'll inspire yourself as well. That's the way you'll be able to g- go some way towards correcting the mistake you made-

1:39:34 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:39:35 Speaker 1 ... omission or commission.

1:39:38 Speaker 3 Okay, fine. So let, let's, let's go back to learning from, uh, from the stories. So...

1:39:44 Speaker 1 So the, uh, Rebbe told me that yechidus, that long yechidus, long, you know, it was probably 15 minutes. But on that night, anything more than a minute-

1:39:57 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

1:39:57 Speaker 1 ... I had yechidut of two minutes, but, uh, you could write a, you know, it, it, it, there was something to learn from it. Things that the Rebbe said, a one-liner at the end, a berakhah. Somebody, you know, went in like for an occasion, a birthday, but it went straight, it, it, it penetrated straight to where were and what you needed. The night before the bris of our eldest son, the visits from England, well, th- those are usually, uh, connected with other things. Anyway, so let's come back there. The Rebbe said, "Have you met... Have you heard anything?" Didn't say dimit. "Have you heard anything lately from," we'll call him Mr. X. A communal dealer, I was dealing with students mostly. adult bachur, I knew him, you know, and he probably knew me, but, uh, w- it wasn't my normal field of work. But it happened to be that I met Rabbi Bernhard, alav ha-shalom, Rabbi Nachman Bernhard from South Africa. It was before he was a Chabadnik, uh, himself, but he w- very, very much the Rebbe's person. He saw the Rebbe as the leader, as the Moshe Rabbeinu of their generation, and I knew him well from South Africa, from my visits there. I was there twice by then.

1:41:13 Speaker 4 Before you were in England?

1:41:15 Speaker 1 No, I wa- When I was in England, I was sent in, in chaf chet-

1:41:19 Speaker 4 To South Africa

1:41:19 Speaker 1 ... three years later, and in lamed aleph.

1:41:22 Speaker 4 There's no shliach there then?

1:41:24 Speaker 1 No. That, that, that's a whole story in itself because they asked me to come there as the shaliach, and, uh, uh, at, at, at South Africa, it's a different... I, I have this very special closeness with South Africa and with Rabbi Lipsker and the whole Chabad Bachar, alav ha-shalom, Tzl'ah. Yeah, very, very-

1:41:45 Speaker 4 Okay. So-

1:41:46 Speaker 1 But let, let's come back to here.

1:41:47 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:41:48 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe said, "Have you heard from him?" I said, "I met Rabbi Bernhard, and he told me that he met him and for breakfast." He was in England as, uh, some official person, you know. And that this person was, uh, I, I said it in Yiddish, "He strongly criticized the Rebbe about Mi Hu Yehudi." Actually, it was very much strong. What Rabbi Bernhard told me was that the man was so vehement in his criticism of the Rebbe that he saw there's no point to even try to, you know, to try to convince him that he's wrong. And, uh, uh, but, uh, so what he did was he made a machlo- He said, he said, "I don't agree with you at all, and let's change the subject." He just didn't discuss it. That's what he told me. I think I told that to the Rebbe as well. So the Rebbe said to me, "Do you know why he said that?" Which is if, if... Rebbe to come to me, I was thir-

1:43:09 Speaker 4 He, this person was a person of influence?

1:43:11 Speaker 1 He was.

1:43:12 Speaker 4 Yeah. Okay.

1:43:12 Speaker 1 And, and he, he was a person who had made a statement, I'll tell you a, a little background which was not directly said. He had made a statement or written an article in some, somewhere that Mi Hu Yehudi is not such a problem.

1:43:28 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:43:29 Speaker 1 It's a diversion of energy or whatever. He belittled it, and the Rebbe in a sicha probably said something which was not, you know... But he, that's what the Rebbe said to me, "Do you know why he said that? It's because somebody somebody told him about me," about the Rebbe, "a loshon hora or maybe even a motzi shem ra." The difference between loshon hora and motzi shem ra is loshon hora is a negative aspect of a person which is true. You're still not allowed to say it just 'cause it's true. That's what the avera is. Motzi shem ra is slander. It's, it's a lie, not even true. So the Rebbe said, "He said something which is, uh, motz- a loshon hora, maybe even motzi shem ra, and that, uh, namely that I attacked him in public" And that's why he's seething inside of him. And, um, then the Rebbe said a sentence, "I don't speak about people. I speak about ideas." In other words, if the Rebbe said something which didn't agree with him, the Rebbe's not gonna compromise his idea, obviously. But the Rebbe is not... It's never a personal attack. It's nev- it's never about the person. He, he never said, "Somebody said and therefore." The Rebbe spoke about a, an i- something which, which, which contradicted what he said, and then somebody told him. And, and as the Rebbe's saying it, I'm standing like a soldier at Yechidut by the Rebbe, and I'm listening to this, and in, in the next split second

1:45:29 Speaker 1 in my mind, I had a, a, an insight, an inspiration. I said, "This man who's talking now is the greatest leader, the greatest tzadik, the greatest Baal HaMidah HaKodesh, the greatest teacher, the greatest mechanech, the greatest, uh, uh, uh, askan. Uh, the, the, the greatest builder of mosdos, the greatest publisher of works of previous generations, or one of the greatest of the whole 20th century." But just look, think of Sfarim the Rebbe gave out. Besides, don't, that he inspired people to give out And, and, and, you know, y- y- this is all in a split second, but at the end of the day, he is your personal best friend, and that you can say about everybody in the world. Anyone comes to the Rebbe, Rebbe is c- to him, totally, his whole essence is given over to that person. And therefore, this is all in a split second. When you get back to London, you're gonna get a meeting with Mr. X, by hook or by crook.

1:46:39 Speaker 4 You're thinking this.

1:46:39 Speaker 1 I'm thinking this-

1:46:40 Speaker 4 Yeah

1:46:40 Speaker 1 ... in a s- It's, it's a second all. The whole thing was in a second. And as I'm thinking it, the Rebbe says, "It's not a good idea for you to go to him and tell him that I said this." And as I'm thinking that, I must admit, I was like a bit of a wise guy. In my own mind, I said to myself, "I'll ask Rabbi Vogel, Alav Ha-Shalom." Rabbi Vogel was very close with this person. "And I'll speak with him, and I'll tell him he should go and, and set this man straight." You know? Whatever. And as I'm thinking that, a second later, Rebbe says, "It's not a good idea if you ask ano- a fellow Lubavitcher to go to him." And the Rebbe said, "If the man came to me personally, I could, I could straighten him out," Rebbe said among him- himself. "I could, I could explain it to him. But it's not to you. It's not for someone else." Why? The Rebbe said there were 613 mitzvahs in the Torah. Mi hu Yehudi, who is a Jew, is one of them. If this person does not want to cooperate with Chabad on Mi Yehudi, let's work with him on the other 612. And I consider that, to this day, as a one-line lesson, direction, and directive in life, in everything, in chinuch, in parenting, in marriage, in business, in, in, in, in just socializing. You have a choice of seeing a person as... You don't have to compromise your values,

1:48:33 Speaker 1 but you see where you agree with the other person and work together to build something with that joint, uh, agreement.

1:48:45 Speaker 4 This is the premise that we learned from the Rebbe on how, how we're mekarev and how we... Every single Yid. Because this is-

1:48:55 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:48:55 Speaker 4 ... the premise. The, they're doing mitzvahs that, that, that, that, that they can, or they're not doing that one mitzvah that they can't.

1:49:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And Rebbe said explicitly, Rabbi, uh, Reb Zvi Greenwald, Alav Ha-Shalom, he was a mechanech. He w- He was, when they, when Chabad first came here, Chabad, in, in the late and the, and the, and the Yuds especially, they went to all the kibbutzim. The people in the kibbutzim were from Russia, a lot of them. They really came from similar milieu, similar society, and they, uh, but they had, you know, jettisoned a lot. And, uh, he would go and speak about Ahavat Yisrael, and what unites us, and seeing the good in them, and, you know, be mekarev them. And the, uh, m- many of the other Hasidim would criticize him.

1:49:53 Speaker 4 Lubavitch Hasidim.

1:49:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, the Chabad people. They were Russian. They said, he said, you know, "You're being too soft and too pussyfooting with them. You know, tell them like it is. Tell them, you know, just g- g- g- tell them off." And he, so he, i- he, he felt that that's not going to be an effective way, but he, look, he heard it so much that next time he was in Yechidus, he mentioned it to the Rebbe. His, uh, uh, w- My grand- my daughter is married to his grandson. It's, uh, that time, uh, he told me this story. He said, at the time of the chasuna, he said that, um, the Rebbe said to him, "If you tell them that," in Yiddish, "If you tell them that, you're gonna create a barrier, a wall," a, a, a, a between you and them. He said, "You t- you go and you build on the good. That's, that's the only way to work with a person." Yechidus doesn't mean compromising your values or not saying here's what I hold, but you're, you're not out there to criticize. You're there to get the person where you are holding, there's something you can do.

1:51:12 Speaker 4 Among Hasidim is brought to you by A Chassidishe Derher. We live in a chaotic world, a world where for us Chassidim as a we do not have the ability to hear and see the Rebbe on a daily basis. Yet we know that the Rebbe is very much with us, and the Chassidus Chabad is alive and thriving more than ever before. One needs to only tap into it. A Chassidishe Derher provides you and your family with the tools necessary to tap into all of this, whether it's the monthly magazine, the way it all began, whether it's Derher books, Derher online content, and so much more. Men, women, and children throughout the world benefit and use these tools on a daily basis, whether it's children enjoying the children's magazine that comes along with the regular Derher or enjoying the children's podcast- Whether it's Bachrim in yeshivas receiving the Der Her, whether it's girls in high schools enjoying their Her Club in their local high school, people all over the world and from all walks of life enjoy and utilize these tools and take advantage of it. If you're not already subscribed to the Her monthly magazine, do so today at derher.org. That's D-E-R-H-E-R.org. Der Her is a dynamic organization which is committed to continue providing these tools, grow on a constant basis, and do all that we can to help this effort. Baruch Hashem, it takes a lot of resources and finances to make this all happen. You can be part of Der Her through your financial

1:53:06 Speaker 4 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. So let's go back to, um, I think in, in the chronological place where we were holding, you're, you're in Montreal. The... Then you came over to 770. So how did, how did you, how did you come over to 770?

1:53:31 Speaker 1 A- actually, that's a very, very important question. I didn't know how I could ever get it to happen.

1:53:39 Speaker 4 You were stuck in Montreal.

1:53:40 Speaker 1 I wa- Yeah. Exactly. And I loved the Rebbe, everyone does, but I loved being in the Rebbe's presence. I loved being by the Rebbe. It was just, you know, uh, davening, what- whatever it was. I'm thinking even when I was here already, or e- and before when I came in just for a while, the farbrengen was like you're in gan eden. You see, you can get a taste of it from the videos today if a person really wants, and you focus on it, if it means something to you. You know, allow it to happen instead of anal- uh, people today, some people analyze themselves. "Am I feeling it or not feeling?" You know, just get into the whole thing. But then it was there.

1:54:29 Speaker 4 Your son, your son, uh-

1:54:31 Speaker 1 Yossi

1:54:31 Speaker 4 ... Yossi on the podcast was discussing this, that through a video you can feel it.

1:54:36 Speaker 1 Y- yeah, but well, Yossi himself gave a talk somewhere abroad about Yitzchak Tov Shen Lamid.

1:54:43 Speaker 4 Yeah, so he spoke about this on the podcast, how-

1:54:45 Speaker 1 Uh

1:54:46 Speaker 4 ... he, yeah.

1:54:46 Speaker 1 And then somebody told him, you know, "What are you telling us? We didn't see it." He says, "I was six years old then."

1:54:51 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:54:52 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:54:53 Speaker 4 He-

1:54:53 Speaker 1 He did a lot of... He ta- when... The things that he made in his articles-

1:54:56 Speaker 4 Yeah

1:54:57 Speaker 1 ... he has firstly, I said, "Can I know how a brilliant memory?"

1:54:59 Speaker 4 And he's putting it into a book, he said, yeah.

1:55:02 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:55:02 Speaker 4 But you, but you're, you're saying that when you're in Montreal, you wanted, you wanted to be with the Rebbe. So you're saying every time you're by the Rebbe-

1:55:09 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So yeah, i- in Montreal, you were entitled, so-called, to go in. The, the whole yeshiva used to go in with a bus or a, a, we'd, we'd, uh, hire the train carriage, a, a car of the train four times a year. Yitzchak and Pesach and Yud Beis Tammuz and Tishrei. Those are the four times you went in. Uh, besides that, you need a special permission to come. Even those times, you were not allowed to go unless you had a special paper, a, a, a reshus signed by the-

1:55:57 Speaker 4 Hanhalah

1:55:57 Speaker 1 ... Hanhalah, and you had to be f- in order to get that paper, A, you had to be farher in Nigla and Chasidus, and B, while you were here in New York, you had to be farher in Nigla and Chasidus. I remember because I, the, I was the four years there, Rabbi Oral was farher in Chasidus and Rabbi Mantlik in, uh, Nigla. And a, a farbrenger came and he asked Rabbi Chadakovka, "Go into Yechidus" or something. He said, "Vu is dein passport?" Where's your passport? Um, I have somewhere like a blank, uh, like, of that form. There was a form, uh, of that. Um, I didn't know how... You know, I had in my mind the Rebbe's w- was concerned. I don't know because I had, um... I wasn't writing to the Rebbe, but, but, you know, there was, there was tensions m- probably. I, I wasn't in New York that much. Um, when... My mother, la'asham, wrote every week, and every, every couple of months or so, my father would write a couple of lines, Shalom Farbrenger, yeah. He would write, you know.

1:57:08 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:57:09 Speaker 1 I could... If... One of my biggest regrets in life, I could have handled him-

1:57:14 Speaker 4 Definitely

1:57:14 Speaker 1 ... like, uh, yeah, like, like it would have been the smoothest thing in the world. Yeah, but that one, he needed a little bit sechel and a little bit of experience. Anyway, by the way, it was a very, very... A man of incredible integrity. He was moisen nefesh for Shabbos. Ma- mamash, in a way that, you know, people wouldn't, wouldn't know. There's stories about him, uh, uh, at the, the university when he was the, the... He didn't take exams, they took on Shabbos, and people, uh, denounced him to the people who had to give him his, uh, uh, qualification.

1:57:51 Speaker 4 Right.

1:57:52 Speaker 1 And he stood his ground. But now when we were getting married, which is now just almost to the day, 62 years ago, uh, yeah, which was Tes Vav Tammuz.

1:58:07 Speaker 4 I'm telling you, you're talking about how you got to 770 first.

1:58:11 Speaker 1 No, I tell you about my father-

1:58:13 Speaker 4 Okay

1:58:13 Speaker 1 ... and then we come... And, and, and, and then you'll understand-

1:58:15 Speaker 4 Ah, okay

1:58:16 Speaker 1 ... why, why I thought Uh, I thought it was because the Ma'arches with the father, my father, the Rebbe f- felt that not being the whole time together-

1:58:26 Speaker 4 Right

1:58:26 Speaker 1 ... because he d- he did tell me, "Yichvat Tavshin Chai, leave as soon as you can." By the way, he, uh, I told him, I told the Rebbe, uh, I'll come back to that, about, uh, about I wanted to get my father to go into Yechidas. And, uh, the Rebbe said... He explained to me, the Rebbe spoke to me, even though I was already in term of Chatzmimem, he used to call me Du, but he was explaining things to me. It's 4:00 in the morning to a boy who is under 18 years of age. He said, "When you ask someone to go visit someone privately, it's not usually a done thing." He says, "Tell him to come to Farbrengen. Whenever Zen, Yidden, Zitzin, Dortin, Mitbeard, um, Onbeard, you'll see Jews sitting there with beards, without beards, and he'll hear a little bit of what's spoken, that will have some effect."

1:59:26 Speaker 4 Interesting.

1:59:27 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe suggested that I should get... He said, "The Rebbe says it's too early to do it now, but for Purim," this was Yichvat, so six weeks later is gonna be Purim, Purim Tavshin Chai.

1:59:41 Speaker 4 Uh-huh.

1:59:41 Speaker 1 In advance. Rebbe said, "Get him to come." He said, Rebbe asked me, "Who is close with him? Who does he know here?" And he, Rebbe asked if he knew, of course, Weiss. Didn't he? I said, "The person he knows the best is Rav Mel Shemtov." So the Rebbe told me, "Ask Rav Mel to arrange, and to arrange a, a, a..." The first thing the Rebbe said was arrange a lift, a, a, a, a, a ride. My father never drove . I don't know how the Rebbe knew this, but he said, "Arrange a, a, a, a, a lift for him to come to that Farbrengen, and he'll be there, and he'll hear a little bit of what you speak. That's gonna be, uh, have an effect." And Rabbi Shemtov, Shalita, ar- arranged with, uh, Yanko Winter. He, he went to my father, and he used to... Which was, you know, he-- My, my father liked him very much, and he talk with him in Russian. You know, he, he liked the whole idea of him, from the camps. He was in the summer camp, Aganyar Israel.

2:00:44 Speaker 4 Right.

2:00:45 Speaker 1 Two of my brothers had their bar mitzvahs in camp.

2:00:47 Speaker 4 Ah.

2:00:48 Speaker 1 So my father had been there. And when Rav Mel said to, "Well, would you like to come to the Purim Farbrengen?" So my f- the first thing my father says was, "Will you send me..." It's a Russian word. He knew he could speak to my, uh, coach. The Rebbe s- The, the first thing the Rebbe said was, "Get him a lift. Get someone to take him." The first thing my father said to Rav Mel was-

2:01:10 Speaker 4 "Are you gonna send me home?"

2:01:11 Speaker 1 And then he came to that Farbrengen, and was there for maybe an hour. Rav Mel told him, I think if you listen on the tape, you can hear Rav Mel telling the Rebbe, "Mr. Lew is here." And then , which is another six weeks after. You know, it's a, it- it's 10 weeks after a, a, a kid of 18 years old was in Yechidas. I went over for Kosher Brocha about one of the last people, maybe 1:00, 2:00 in the morning. And the Rebbe asked me, "Did your father tell over anything from Purim?" I said, "Well, Besser." Anyway, so, uh, the Rebbe, uh, uh, like kept, kept, kept the count.

2:01:56 Speaker 4 Count.

2:01:56 Speaker 1 He kept the count of it. Later, when we were getting married, five years later in, in Tavshin Chof Gimel on the 12 Tammuz, a- and the Rebbe was going to officiate Mesadet Kidushin, so my father-

2:02:12 Speaker 4 That's a whole another story in itself.

2:02:14 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. But my father ha- Part of that story is my father, he, he, he, the, the Mesadet Kidushin of his son's wedding, he has to go see him. So he went into Yechidas with my mother on Hei Tammuz, Thursday night, 10-

2:02:30 Speaker 4 So he didn't go in as part of the Yechidas officially. The, his pretext for going to the Rebbe is because the Rebbe is, uh, is, is, is the Mesadet Kidushin.

2:02:39 Speaker 1 It, it, it was, uh, uh, yeah, by, by, by that time, he had, he'd been to that Farbrengen. He had been to the Farbrengen of Parshas Va'yetze Tav Shin Chof Beis, Moshe Feller's Zref Ruf.

2:02:49 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:02:50 Speaker 1 And he was at Yitris Kislev Chof Beis as well.

2:02:52 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:02:53 Speaker 1 We had Chever Brachas for the fellas. So I mean, you, uh, by that time, it was like smooth running with nothing.

2:03:00 Speaker 4 Right.

2:03:01 Speaker 1 Uh, so I did something I never did before or after, which is, um, when my parents were going into Yechidas that night, Hei Tammuz, I walked in and I introduced them. I-

2:03:14 Speaker 4 It wasn't, it wasn't the Yechidas of Chassan Kalah?

2:03:17 Speaker 1 Uh, well, I went in with my kalah separately that night.

2:03:19 Speaker 4 Separately, okay.

2:03:20 Speaker 1 That was a separate Yechidas. But when my parents came, it might've been before I came in, as I don't remember if it was before or after I went with my kalah. But we opened the door, I opened the door, and I walked in and I said, "This is my father and mother." Or, "This is my These are my parents." And I withdrew and closed the door. But as soon as I said this, the Rebbe stood up and walked around the table and gave them a Shalom Aleichem. So my father said to the Rebbe in Yiddish, "I don't think that I deserve this recognition," it's covered, "because when my son was in your yeshiva, the first three years, I was not happy about it." So my father was, like, very straight person. So the Rebbe said, "What do you say today?" He said, "Today I'm happy." So the Rebbe said, "Let's talk about today."

2:04:25 Speaker 4 Yeah.

2:04:25 Speaker 1 That's, that's what come there. Now, how did I get to go to 770? In Tov Shin Chof Alef, after having been four years in Montreal, four beautiful, beautiful years, which I, you know, in, in, in the wrong way, but I wanted to, I wanted to be in 770. And, um, I spoke... I didn't write in a tettle. This I spoke with Rabbi Chadakav, asked him to present to the Rebbe that, uh, my brothers were going to Camp Gan Israel, and I think I can have a g- positive effect on them if I'm in the camp. And, uh, so he asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said, "If you feel you can have it, then go to the camp." At the end of camp, the end of the summer, I told Rabbi Khadakov that if I learn in summer of '70, I will be able to m-have a career. Learn with my brother who was going to college, I think. I don't remember if, where exactly when, if it was. He was going to the evening college. And, uh, and I didn't... Again, I didn't write this. This I asked orally through Rabbi Khadakov. And the Rebbe answered, "If you can-- If you, if you, if you're gonna-- I-if your brother wants to learn with you, stay in summer of '70." So that's how I... The Chof Beis, I was in, in summer of '70. I got engaged at the end of Chof Beis. That's a story in itself. And then I, I was a, a

2:06:20 Speaker 1 full year till our chasuna. So I was Chof Beis, Chof Gimel in summer of '70, and then I was in Kollel Chof Daled, Chof He. So that's four special years. I mean, with, you know, all the years, all the visits, the Tishreis and the Yichv-- whatever it was, these were, these were, um, you know, powerful moments. I remember the, the, uh, after a Sh-a Shabbos farbrengen with the hot summer days and everything, and you walk out and going home, and whether I was in yeshiva or in Kollel, and the, uh, Crown Heights was ma-majority of, well, you know, Maran Roth a lot, Aguda style. People were walking, uh, going for shpatzir Shabbos afternoon. You're going home. It's five o'clock. You're just going home for Seudah Shabbos. And I, I used to say, "How can..." There, there was such a light, such a powerful gilui taking place, and how could a person just be next door, i-in a manner of speaking, and, and not to, uh, go in? Um, years later when I went to Russia and I met the guy, you know, I met people who were from Lubavitch, but, but from Litvish uh, it's, uh... I, I realized there was a community there. There was, um, a non-religious, which is known, but there was also like religious. Like a, a man told me, Berel Torbitov was his name. I met him in Moscow, and the Begedcha, the old Chossid used to call him a Misnagid.

2:07:59 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:08:00 Speaker 1 So in a, uh, one private moment while we were there over Rosh Hashanah, five hundred and seventy, so I said to him, "How are you? Where are you from?" He said, "I was born in Lubavitch." So I says, "Why did they call you a Misnagid?" He said, "Ich hob gelernt in din, in din, de Chassidishe cheder."

2:08:15 Speaker 5 Mm.

2:08:16 Speaker 1 He said, "I went to the non-Chassidic school." So there was another, you know-

2:08:20 Speaker 5 This existed before.

2:08:21 Speaker 1 I, I didn't... But well, even though-- 'cause I was thinking when I was in Crown Heights, if, you know... Uh, it, it, it, it, to our feeling, the whole universe was there. The Rebbe, the, the Rebbe was changing the world. Every word that the Rebbe was saying, every farbrengen was an experience of things happening. And I say it's accessible to people today as well. And the people who experienced it also, you know, you can, you can have withdrawal symptoms or you can just... Some-sometimes it just, you know, it, it gets in the back of your memory. But it was something, and it was something, uh, uh, uh, effective in gashmius and ruchnius in the world. It would, it would, it, it changed things. If you allow it, if you s-surrender oneself to hearing what the Rebbe is saying, then one thing you know you're gonna be doing, you're gon- A, you're gonna access your own inner self, and B, you'll be doing more of what you should be doing than you otherwise would.

2:09:39 Speaker 5 So I, I heard, uh, someone mention that Ben Shem Tov wrote a letter to your, um, to, to your mother-in-law that he never saw the Rebbe be mesasik in a shidduch as much as he was with yours. You agree with that, uh, statement?

2:10:00 Speaker 1 I don't know what ha- what are you do him. And I... Well, I'll tell you something. That, um, that letter he, he wrote in his own handwriting.

2:10:09 Speaker 5 In English?

2:10:11 Speaker 1 He, he wrote... He writes... I have it. I have a copy. I sent it to all our kids. You know, I've kept it all the years. It was to my father-in-law and mother-in-law.

2:10:20 Speaker 5 To Zalman and Rosalind.

2:10:20 Speaker 1 And he-- Zalman and Rosalind. He said, "Dear Zalman." And, uh, he said, "I wanna speak from my heart, and that's why I'm writing in English." And what-- He wanted to speak to them-

2:10:31 Speaker 5 He spoke English, Bencha.

2:10:33 Speaker 1 Well, you see, he wrote there. It's what, you know, a very... That's an... One time I had to go-- I was invited to speak to the Neshei Chabad in Israel. It's about fifty years ago.

2:10:45 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:10:46 Speaker 1 In the summer. I wasn't-- There's no school anyway then. And I asked through the Moshiach, I asked orally again. I asked the Rebbe, "Should I accept the invitation?" And the answer was, "If you can speak Hebrew in a way they should understand it, accept it." It didn't, it didn't t- work out then, but now, I'm, I've been to Israel many, many times, when, or, or in Zoom over the last few years, uh, giving farbrengens or talks. Um, I always f- think of that answer. The Rebbe didn't say if you are grammatically correct or if you have nice, uh, uh, words or, or poetic. He said, "If they will understand." In other words, the main object of a farbrengen is the torchen. It's what, it's what you're saying. Will they understand what you're saying? That was the question.

2:11:42 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:11:43 Speaker 1 And, uh, Rabbi Bentzi Shemtov wrote, you can clearly understand his English. You clearly understand it. And what he wrote was, "In my 43 years in Lubavitch, I never saw, uh, one of the Rebbe push a shidduch." I think the word he used was push a shidduch, uh, like this one. Now, um, he also told me, Bentzi Shemtov-

2:12:14 Speaker 5 You knew him from here, from New York?

2:12:16 Speaker 1 Pardon?

2:12:17 Speaker 5 You knew him here in New York?

2:12:19 Speaker 1 Rabbi Bentzi? I knew hi- I, I knew, I knew his sons. Uh, he was-

2:12:23 Speaker 5 Oh

2:12:24 Speaker 1 ... a known, uh, a known figure.

2:12:25 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:12:25 Speaker 1 You know? Yeah. But, uh, um, he told me that he met the Rebbe's and Chana, the Rebbe's mother, in the street the day after our shidduch. Our shidduch was on a Wednesday. We met a Motzei Shabbos the first time. I was a assistant head counselor in Gan Yisroel, and went back to Swan Lake.

2:12:48 Speaker 5 That was the first interaction you had with the Rebbe's mother, after the shidduch?

2:12:53 Speaker 1 I?

2:12:53 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:12:55 Speaker 1 No, I, I mean, uh, you know, I, I mean, everyone knew she used to come to farbrengens, she came to davening. I don't remember when the actual first time, it could be when I came back from England, when I had a direct, but I would... We were dozens of times.

2:13:09 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:13:09 Speaker 1 I met her in the street, she would stop and say something very relevant. Or she would sit in the front of 1418 President, where she lived, uh, like in the summer when it's very warm, and if you went by, she'd say, "Hello." She'd ask you something about, "How's your wife? How's this? How's that?" Whatever. Um, but she, but, uh, she met Rabbi Bentzi Shemtov, a- a- and, and he said that she told him, "Mat mir gezogt az iz zat geworden a gantse shadchen." "They told me that you have become a whole shadchen." Uh, that was the day after our shidduch, I think, which was tes Zay in Tammuz. It was, uh, one year, uh, uh, minus a day before our wedding. Um, yeah, so that was-

2:13:57 Speaker 5 So it was Bentzi that made the shidduch? Rebbe, the Rebbe did it or-

2:14:03 Speaker 1 It, it, it, it, it, there were different factors. The f- I mean, the first factor was, you know, people would s- say you know, uh, at, at that time, and I, I, I was, uh, I was in heaven.

2:14:18 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:14:20 Speaker 1 I was... You know, I didn't need anything. That was, that was just Gan Eden for me. Uh, just being by the Rebbe every day and farbrengens. Uh, but any time any shidduch came, they usually came to my parents, to my mother, alav ha-shalom, and she would speak to my sisters, "Ask Yaakov," whoever, who would know, who wouldn't. Uh, you know, I, it didn't come to me. This one, Rabbi Lemmer Minkowitz, whose birthday was yesterday, he was the chavrusa of Rabbi Avrum Jaffe, my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, only brother surviving. And he went for a walk with me on Lag BaOmer, suggested the idea. What happened was his bro- his chavrusa had been home for Pesach, and he said to Lemmer, uh, just as a, as a chavrusa, just asking for advice. He says, "I was home for Pesach, and my sister is a very Chasidische person." And it, it, it, and it was England. In those days, there was no, you know, uh, the, uh, the bederech hateva. He says, "She needs a complete, total Lubavitch person that could be acceptable to my parents," or whatever. And he, so Lemmer mentioned my name. Uh, he, he had been with me on a peula in Long Island, a wedding in Long Island, and there was a woman that challenged us about being frum or about, uh, beliefs and stuff. I don't remember what it was even. A middle-aged woman probably. Uh, a Yiddish woman, like a certain, a certain type. And I answered her, but at

2:16:13 Speaker 1 the end she said, "What makes you so sure of yourself?" And, uh, uh, Lemmer was very impressed with t- with her saying that.

2:16:21 Speaker 5 Right.

2:16:21 Speaker 1 So he told this to Avrum, and then he went for a walk with me on... It was Lag BaOmer that year, Taf Shin Chaf Beis. And he told me about this woman, "Would you consider it?" As I said, "Look, uh, whatever comes up, I would give it to my, to my mother." I said, "But, uh, is it kena Yiddishe din?" That's the first thing I said. So she, "No," I went and said, "What?" You know, "Where..." You know, that was the beginning of it, so that was the background. Officially, shidduchim went through Dovid Roskin in those days. So he's the one that I spoke to directly. But Bentzi Shemtov was really, was, he was orchestrating the whole thing. And, um, um- Yeah. And, and my in-laws were not that happy. My wife was only 18 years old when we met. When we married, a year later, she was 19. So, um-

2:17:25 Speaker 5 Those days it was common to have long-

2:17:26 Speaker 1 Pardon?

2:17:27 Speaker 5 Those days it was common to have long engagements?

2:17:30 Speaker 1 No, not... The Rebbe was always against long engagements.

2:17:32 Speaker 5 Why'd you have a long engagement?

2:17:34 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said, "Wait till..." Something... Th- that's a whole sto- that is a whole story with letters from the Rebbe when they wrote. My father-in-law... Let's... We'll come back to that, why was such a long engagement, but I could also explain it in terms of the norm of that time. Um, don't forget she was 18 years old. She was a teenage bride. Even at waiting a year, she was only 19. Anyway, um, my in-laws, even though they were looking for a shidduch for her, of a, different... Of, of, I mean, Abba Yo, what, what was available in Manchester? Obviously, he'd be a frum person. They were frum people, but, you know, uh, uh, there was no question... There was no Lubavitch bochurim in Manchester that I know of. Um, so they were a little bit worried about it, but, uh, uh, Rabbi Avraham Shemtov spoke with them. My wife, meanwhile, went to the D- De- Detroit Camp, where the fellows were. My sister actually was there. And she was coming back about five days, six days. She was coming back for Shabbos, and they were traveling back to England on Wednesday on a flight. So my in-laws, my mother-in-law especially, was, uh, holding things back. So she said, "Okay, you can meet him Motzei Shabbos." Three days before they're traveling. "So worst times you meet someone, if you're interested, uh, you know, come to Eng- Eng- Eng- England in the winter or something. They'll write to each other." You know, that type of arrangement, you

2:19:24 Speaker 1 know, months and, and writing and meeting. Nowadays, you'd say Zoom or WhatsApp. So we met, and they were staying by Mendel Shemtov, alav ha-shalom. That's, that was their place where they used to stay, on Lefferts Avenue.

2:19:41 Speaker 5 And you wrote to the Rebbe about meeting her?

2:19:43 Speaker 1 Obviously. What... Um, no, I wrote to the... I was in camp. I was assistant counselor. I wrote to the Rebbe, uh, "Im li..." I, I asked Rabbi Dov Ber Briskin, "Im li anya'im b'shidduchim, im li anya'im ba'ana b'frat."

2:20:00 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:20:00 Speaker 1 "Should I take an interest in shidduchim?" And the Rebbe made an arrow with the, "Im" be- was crossed out, and meant, "Li anya'im," and whether that part- particular person. It was arranged we'll meet Motzei Shabbos. So I came in for Shabbos. It was Y"B Tammuz, and, um, uh, um, uh, uh, uh... I c- so I came in just before Shabbos. I was in camp the whole time. Was, uh, you know... And Motzei Shabbos, it was arranged that we're gonna meet at 10 o'clock at night. It's middle of the summer.

2:20:41 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:20:41 Speaker 1 Tammuz. At, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, we're gonna meet at Albany and Pr- and President at 10:00 PM, and my brother-in-law is gonna take us to the Staten Island Ferry, and I had nothing. I was Shabbosdik. So he gave me his watch and a $10 bill- ... for expenses, and he dropped us off by the ferry, and we went and we talked, whatever, you know. And we, we took the ferry back a- and then took a taxi. For that $10 in those days was worth, like, $100 today probably, and, uh, got back about 1:00 in the morning to the house, to Mendel Shemtov's house. My mother-in-law says, "That's Hasidim, come back one o'clock in the morning" or whatever.

2:21:34 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:21:34 Speaker 1 But, uh, that was the first meeting. Sunday was the Rebbe's, uh, m- major, the big farbrengen, the weekday farbrengen for Y"B Tammuz. And the Rebbe said the sicha then about Chassid is a Lamdanshek. The whole story with the Rebbe Rashab, and the, the interpretation, fascinating-

2:21:58 Speaker 5 Yeah

2:21:58 Speaker 1 ... beautiful. Tells you what... It tells you what Chassidism is about also.

2:22:01 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:22:03 Speaker 1 And Monday it was arranged, I'm going back to camp. As I said, I was assistant head counselor. You... I did things there. "But we're gonna meet. Uh, we'll meet for, uh..." Oh, oh, one minute. Uh-

2:22:21 Speaker 5 You were assistant-

2:22:22 Speaker 1 No, Sunday we didn't meet. Sunday we didn't meet, my kala and I, w- because there was the Rebbe's farbrengen. "Monday, before I go to the bus to Port Authority to go back to Gan Yisroel, we'll meet for half hour at Mendel Shemtov's house," which we did, and then I went back to camp, and on Tuesday, I get a phone call, I f- don't remember from whom, that I have to come in very urgently. What happened was, on Monday, the Rebbe said that he wanted to meet my in-laws. My mother-in-law was not well, but my father-in-law went into yechidus, and, uh, schver went in, and the Rebbe said, "I was thinking about two possible dates." You know, either, uh, uh, Kislev or, or, or, or June.

2:23:23 Speaker 5 For a chasunah.

2:23:24 Speaker 1 No, my shver said for engagement. There was no chasunah. So he said, "We, we know him." Uh, yeah, this is, we just met 48 hours before. Uh, he said, "What's he gonna do for a living?" That's what he f- he asked the Rebbe. So the Rebbe said, "Evazana lam tanshik."

2:23:44 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:23:44 Speaker 1 It was the day after that sicha.

2:23:47 Speaker 5 Lamp lighter.

2:23:48 Speaker 1 He'll be a lamp lighter, yeah. So, um, and then he asked, uh, he said, "I know him," and this, that, the other. Like the... It was like, uh, a major, a major shock. So they gave a message to someone that they wanted to meet me. So the next day, Tuesday, and w- I came back in, in, in, uh-

2:24:15 Speaker 5 You have no idea what's going on.

2:24:17 Speaker 1 Who?

2:24:17 Speaker 5 You, then, you don't know what the Rebbe said yet.

2:24:19 Speaker 1 I don't have an idea now even 63 years later. Uh, uh, uh, the, uh, I was in camp. They told me, "You get engaged. You engage, you marry a man." Anyway, so I, um... Look, you had, uh, uh, it w- uh, people did a lot of homework, y- you know, even in Tomchei Satmar. So, um, I came in, uh, together with Yitzchok Sufrin, z"l. We have actually born the same day. He was also coming in for a shidduch, so we, we compared notes. And, um, Tuesday the Rebbe was at the Ohel. And, uh, so we waited till after Maariv, and then m- my shver was there also, davening with the Rebbe's minyan, Maariv. And then we went to, we walked to Lefferts Avenue to meet, uh... And then, 'cause the next day, Wednesday, the plane was going back. It was a chartered flight, which my father-in-law was the one who actually arranged it. So the next day it was going back. So it had to be done that night t- to meet. So we walked back, and I said, "Nice to..." You know, I said, "Look," you know, "nice meeting you. Whatever's gonna happen at, in, in the end, we're all nice people." And, uh, I spent maybe 10 or 15 minutes at Mendel Shemtov's h- house upstairs there with, you know, meeting them and saying hello, and I don't even remember anything that was said. And they said, "Go for a walk together." Can you imagine a boy in the, in middle of Crown

2:26:03 Speaker 1 Heights? And we walked for about maybe, you know, a, a total of maybe a half hour, but we walked down, uh, Schenectady or Troy and went into, into Carroll. There's one person that we bumped into. It was a boy about 12 years old, Moshe Kotlarsky.

2:26:22 Speaker 5 Uh-huh.

2:26:23 Speaker 1 And he was a chaver of mine from the day I ever met him at-

2:26:26 Speaker 5 Uh-huh

2:26:27 Speaker 1 ... uh, it, he was a very... I met him in Camp Gan Yisroel when he was about seven years old, and he was a p- I said, "Who is this kid?" I asked the people there. I was... I didn't know him or anything about him. 'Cause he was c- he was there in the office, and he was in the youngest bunk, I think, or year seven. So a young seven, eight-year-old kid, and he's telling them what the, how they should be doing whatever they're running, how they should run it differently. And you could see that he, you know, somebody with ahavah.

2:26:55 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:26:57 Speaker 1 Anyway, so, and, and then I went back to... Uh, oh, the, Wednesday morning Rabbi Kadakov called me in, and he said, "The Rebbe said that you have to finish it today." Their plan was... Now you've met two, three times.

2:27:20 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:27:20 Speaker 1 You g- you, you know, you know each other a little bit, but that's not a, you know... And, and it's over three days. So what you're gonna do is you write to each other, and then maybe come to England in the, in, in November, December, and you get engaged if it's g- if everything's going good. And then you talk about a wedding, you know, more, like a more conventional type of thing. And Rabbi Kadakov called me in, and he says, "The Rebbe says you gotta finish it today. Um, one way or the other, this is it." So I said four words. I said, "Ze storu midaras acherim." It's something depends on others. It's not just my decision. So he said, "The seder of a shidduch is that a couple meets, and if they see that there's something there, they meet each other's parents. And if they agree as well, you write to the Rebbe for a bracha. So in other words, you've met, you see if she's, if, if, if you're willing and she's willing." This wa- this all had to be done within an hour or two. And, and, um, and then you ask the Rebbe for a bracha. So I went to Mendel Shemtov's house, and I spoke to my soon-to-be kallah, who I never called by name anyway because I was in... She, uh, Av- Avraham took us to the S- Staten Island ferry, but he said, he introduced us. He says, "This is my sister, and this is Mindy's brother." That's

2:29:15 Speaker 1 how we were introduced, with no names. So anyway, and so we talked and decided, spend the rest of your life together. And, uh, we asked the Rebbe. I told her what the, you know, the seder, what do you think, and this, that, the other. And we had already spoken about, uh, uh, main, m- main things about chinuch, different, different ideas. Besides, you know, many other things. Uh, camp. She was very active in camp in England over those couple of days. And then, um, the parents met. My father, alav hashalom, was in a business meeting. He couldn't even come that afternoon. He came later on. He was there at Maariv by the Rebbe. But my, I think my uncle, my grandmother came and met... We met in the Milcheger restaurant, the parents. Uh-

2:30:12 Speaker 5 On Kingston Avenue.

2:30:13 Speaker 1 Kingston Avenue. So now the r- rug store, it's own- it was owned by Herschel Spritzer.

2:30:18 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:30:20 Speaker 1 Alav ha-shalom. And when he asked the Rebbe he should buy it, the Rebbe asked him, "Is it suitable for a vort or a bar mitzvah?" And he said, "Yes." Now, in the whole history of that restaurant, the nearest thing to a vort was that, and the nearest thing to a bar mitzvah was his own son's bar mitzvah was there.

2:30:39 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:30:40 Speaker 1 Anyway, um, so we met there. I think my uncle came with my mother instead of my father, and, uh, my mother's brother. Oh, yeah, yeah, one second. Uh, so Rabbi Chadakov told me the say there will be, she's gonna go to Yechidas, because there was Yechidas in the afternoon in those days for the guests from England just before they take the buses back to the airport to go back. A minute, uh a minute Yechidas, two minutes. So, uh, Rabbi Chadakov said, "She'll be able to go in with the guests from England, and, uh, you write a letter. And I'll take it in between two Yechidasim." I said, "Maybe I can go in?" He says, "No, you're not a, you're not a visitor from England. That's Yechidas for visitors from England." So I, uh, I had to give it in, but I got the ma'alah of getting an answer b'ktav.

2:31:46 Speaker 5 Right.

2:31:47 Speaker 1 With the Rebbe. And I write it any time there's any Lubavitch engagement, and I have ch- a chance, time to write it. I write, "Yehei b'shotevu m'salachas libinyan adeiat bayis chasidusi u'meusha bakol." Those are the words. And, um, she went in, and, uh, it was the fir... It was the first time in her life that she was in Yechidas alone. She always went in only with her parents. She was 18 then. And she went in, she said, told me Leah, l- she said that she told the Rebbe, "I made up my mind." She didn't say what. And the Rebbe said he's a very good bocher, this, that, whatever. Told her good things. And, uh, when she shemted was in Gan Eden Atachtan anticipating everything, he pulled out of his pocket a bottle of mashke. And he pulled out of another pocket small kellishkes, little shot glasses, and he was giving l'chaim to people around there. They're Atachtas from 17. Somebody came in, a chasid, Belz Rebbe came in. He said, "What's going on here?" And they says, "You know, it was just an engagement." Then we went to the airport. And so we had a... I had a little conversation with her there while we're waiting for the plane. Then we came back. I think it was one of the coaches. We went... Came back to 770 that night. Uh, but when, when we w- the, when the coach was going away, the Rebbe was smiling very, very powerfully. And my mother-in-law, ala'ah shalom, Mrs.

2:33:32 Speaker 1 Jaffee, Mrs. Rosalind Jaffee, told my mother, ala'ah shalom, "In England, we don't do it like this. It's not even been in the Jewish Chronicle. There you announce it in the paper, and this."

2:33:44 Speaker 5 Right.

2:33:44 Speaker 1 She said, "It's not even been in the Jewish Chronicle. He didn't give her a ring." That's what she said. So my mother said, "I got news for you. We don't do it like that in New York either." She said, "This is exceptional." And that night, my father, my father came, but he came a bit later. He wasn't there when we met. And at Meyerov that night, when the Rebbe, uh, came in, he gave a very big mamash, his whole face was illuminated, smile to my father. Um, so that was the shiva.

2:34:19 Speaker 5 So why was it a year?

2:34:21 Speaker 1 And now why was it a year? My father-in-law said to the Rebbe that, a- asking the Rebbe, "When should the wedding take place? Uh, if the Rebbe will be mesader kiddushin, we'll wait till next summer when the planes come into America. And if not, we'll make it in England in the winter." So, um, on that, there was a correspondence with several letters, with some sharp, a little bit sharp. Um...

2:35:04 Speaker 5 Didn't the Rebbe stop being mesader kiddushin?

2:35:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. He, he already stopped 5740 basically. There were maybe four exceptions, I think.

2:35:12 Speaker 5 So but your father-in-law knew that-

2:35:13 Speaker 1 Pardon?

2:35:14 Speaker 5 Your father-in-law knew that there's going to be an exception? Or yeah.

2:35:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. But it... Yeah. But that year itself, in 5740, there was an exception. Rabbi Avraham Sarkitzki, alav ha-shalom.

2:35:25 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:35:27 Speaker 1 Um, it was an exception. But, um, uh, uh, w- what happened was, uh, the Rebbe said... When he wrote to the Rebbe, "Should it be in the winter in England with the Rebbe not being mesader kiddushin, or in the summer in New York with the Rebbe being mesader kiddushin?" So the Rebbe said, "The time and place of a wedding i- is decided by the mechutanim. And, uh, in this case, I don't see what's the rush." Since Mrs. Daffy feels that she's young, and, um, the chassan, it'll give the chassan time to complete his studies, better to wait till the summer. So that, that would look like saying, okay, now he wrote, he connected the two as conditional. If the Rebbe's Mesad HaKidush will be in the summer, I mean... But then the Rebbe said, "As far as the Kidush is concerned, a relative got married recently, a few weeks or a few months ago, the Rebbe's a relative, and the-

2:36:41 Speaker 5 Who was that?

2:36:41 Speaker 1 ... Mesad HaKidush was a Rav of Anash.

2:36:44 Speaker 5 Who was that Rav?

2:36:45 Speaker 1 I don't know. We tried to work out. I don't know who it was. And there weren't that many weddings in those days.

2:36:51 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:36:51 Speaker 1 Chabad, the Olam was not such a g- crowd. And, um, uh, uh, uh, it, it, it was back and forth. My father-in-law wrote one letter, very, very sharp, saying, "What do you have against j- uh, me and my wife just 'cause I don't have a beard and, and my wife doesn't wear a sheitel? She'd wear a hat," which again, but she... And, uh, they are, they are 100% yours. They'll go wherever the Rebbe sends them, wherever he set, you know. And, uh, uh, he sent the letter off. He hadn't made a copy. He used to make copy... A- all his diaries were based on letters he sent to the Rebbe. And my mother-in-law saw the letter, and she said, "It's t- it's too sharp," whatever he wrote, like, and she's made him write the next day, uh, an apology letter.

2:37:42 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:37:43 Speaker 1 But, um, uh, we didn't have any... Now, a g- a bit of background, which I believe, if people say, "What's the reason?" You can't, uh, on the Rebbe, un- try to understand. You can't understand. And if you do understand, I promise you, it's not the whole story. Like it says in Tanya, "The time him intuitor, whatever time it gives, whatever reason it gives, there's something deeper as well." Deeper is... But I, uh, um, uh, I want to give a bit of background. When my father-in-law was being Masquerade, it was through a tragedy. He, they ca- he came from Keza, uh, Chabad, but they knew Chabad meant we Daven HaSichari, and Yitres Kislov Zehamtev. So he told me those two things.

2:38:33 Speaker 5 They were, we, we just had an article in the Her exploring the story-

2:38:37 Speaker 1 That's right. Yeah, yeah, recently

2:38:38 Speaker 5 ... of how your father-in-law came.

2:38:39 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, uh, uh, so, um, uh, uh, so the, uh, uh, that's, that was, that was the connection, but he became closer. The Rebbe told him to become active in the, uh, Manchester Beth Din. It's like, uh, it's like the Varir. That's what it's called.

2:39:04 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:39:06 Speaker 1 And he got involved. And the Rebbe told him to work on making peace between that Manchester Beth Din, and it's, it was a whole board, like it's, it was a whole Varir, and the Machzikie Hadad, which was like the M- Charedim. And there was a lot of tension between them, and he succeeded in that. They had peace, and they had coexistence, Adai Amaze. Uh, Manchester Beth Din is a very firm Beth Din. It's a good Hercha. And, and, um, but he made that peace between them. And he re- he, uh, uh, in order to do that, he was active, and eventually he was v- elected the president of the, it was called the Manchester Schita Board. That's what it was called. And he was the president. He, he made a chartered flight and brought the wedding over to New York in the hope and the anticipation, but there was no confirmation that everything would be Mesadi Kidushin. And the wedding invitations, there was gonna be a Sheva Brachos on Thursday. The Chassan was on Sunday, Tes Rov Tammuz, and on Thursday, Yitres Tammuz, there was gonna be a Sheva Brachos for the public. So the, the invitation to the Sheva Brachos was, uh, it was over 300 people there. It was a big, like a wedding, with a mechitza, with everything. Um, but when he came to New York, it was a Sunday, Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, Tov Shin Hav Gimel. And the, he would always have a Yechidas as soon as they arrived, and then

2:40:47 Speaker 1 he would have a m- a longer Yechidas while they were here, like w- this time would be Hei Tammuz, and one before they left. So when he went in on Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, that Sunday, my father-in-law said to the Rebbe, um, "You don't have to answer me now, but you must be Mesadi Kidushin." He said, "There's no..." He, he said, "I cannot justify. I'm the president of the Board of Deputies, of the, of the, uh, Schita Board, and there's no way I can justify. It's a Patsim Ponim to the whole Shtot that I took the wedding out of that city. The only justification would be because the Rebbe was gonna be Mesadi Kidushin." The Rebbe didn't answer, but he smiled. That was Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, Sunday. Hei Tammuz, my wife and I went in, Yechidas, Rebbe told him what to learn, Sheha Kidusha, there's things to learn before the wedding, those 10 days that were left. The Rebbe asked me, "When are you going to the oil, uh, before the Chassan?" I said, "I'm going..." I said, "I'm, I'm a Talmid. I go..." Everyone used to go, the wh- the whole Olam went to the oil three times a year.

2:42:09 Speaker 5 This Tammuz, yeah

2:42:10 Speaker 1 Yud Shvat, Yud Beis Tammuz, and Erev Rosh Hashanah. Those are the three times everybody went with buses and everything. So I said, "I'll go, I'll go with everybody, but is it in you to go on, on, on the Erev Chuppah?" And he said, the Rebbe said yes. And, um, and then the Rebbe asked me, "Why is the Chuppah..." The Chuppah was supposed to be 7:30 at night or something, 8 o'clock at night, you know, late. "Why is it so late? Is the hall not available before?" So I said, "Rebbe, I didn't... I wasn't part of the arrangement anyway." So the Rebbe said, "Chazeh mit the mechuten vegen dem" "I'll speak with your future father-in-law about it." And, uh, when my father-in-law went in later on, so the Rebbe told... asked, "Why is the Chuppah so late? It's rachmanus on the choson and kallah to fast so long."

2:43:06 Speaker 5 Right.

2:43:07 Speaker 1 So my shviger said, "If you'll be m- k- mesader kiddushin, they don't mind fasting for two weeks." He said, "This is medavka nisht. It's not necessary." He told him to make it earlier at, at 5 o'clock. I f- I... It could be because on the original in- invitation it said 5 anyway, in the Hebrew one, in the Hebrew side. I don't know. That's again speculating on the reason, but the Rebbe... Of course, when the Rebbe wrote a big sav, he underlined bediuk, 5, underlined 5 o'clock sharp. And it's interesting because the Rebbe did not... Was at the ohel on the day of the wedding. And, uh, it was 3:15, and the Rebbe was not back yet from the ohel, and there would always be Mincha before. It was 4 o'clock, and my shviger said, "You can say the Maimah at the, at the Kabbalas Panim," which was in 7:30.

2:44:03 Speaker 5 So the Rebbe said he's gonna mesader kiddushin?

2:44:06 Speaker 1 The, the Rebbe said-

2:44:07 Speaker 5 Yeah

2:44:08 Speaker 1 ... that they had to send out a, a, a new invitation-

2:44:11 Speaker 5 Right

2:44:12 Speaker 1 ... to everybody about the change of time and venue of the Chuppah. And the Rebbe said it should not mention his name, the Rebbe's name on that, and you should not take it to the printer. There was no quick print and all these things that you have today, home, you know, homemade. You had to go to Rabbi Mottel Schusterman, zichrono livracha. He did a very, very, very big favor because he had jobs. And the Rebbe said we're not allowed to go to him before Thursday. G- That's Yud Beis Tammuz. Sunday is the wedding, so you have to print a revised invitation and send it out. It should reach everybody in New York and in wherever it is before Shabbos. They should know not to come to the Chuppah in Glendale Jewish Center at, at, uh, 7 o'clock at night.

2:45:04 Speaker 5 Right. And so you're waiting and-

2:45:06 Speaker 1 We had a, a, a, a separate invitation.

2:45:08 Speaker 5 So it's the Kabbalas Panim, and this is why-

2:45:09 Speaker 1 "We are pleased to tell you of the following changes."

2:45:12 Speaker 5 So, so back to the chasuna. So it's the Kabbalas Panim, and your father-in-law says to say the Maimah.

2:45:15 Speaker 1 Which is 7:70. And then i- it... So it was already 4 o'clock, f- four... And, uh, my shviger said, "Say the Maimah." Uh, uh, everything went on. It's all on tape, by the way. They made a tape. My brother-in-law made tape even of the Chuppah. And, uh, it was then about a quarter to 5:00. And my shviger said to Rabbi Chadakov, "We have to go." And he... Rabbi Chadakov said, "The Rebbe is not back from the ohel. And when he comes back, it's unprecedented that the Rebbe should have a Chuppah before Mincha. The first thing the Rebbe does when he comes back is davens Mincha, when he comes back from the ohel." My father-in-law said, "The Rebbe said 5:00," and he underlined it twice, I think. It's about five to 5:00, or four minutes to 5:00 Rabbi Kolinsky drives up with the car, quickly parks. The Rebbe goes out. In the meanwhile, everyone... The Chuppah's set up, and everyone's ready ready, you know. Everything's all set to start. And Rabbi... And the Rebbe told Rabbi Chadakov, "We... The Chuppah's first." And it w- was started-

2:46:34 Speaker 5 5:00

2:46:34 Speaker 1 ... 4:59 and 60 seconds.

2:46:37 Speaker 5 Bediuk.

2:46:38 Speaker 1 Exactly, bediuk.

2:46:39 Speaker 5 Oh.

2:46:39 Speaker 1 St- exactly. It's interesting because seven minutes after the Chuppah ended, it was a beautiful sunny day. There was a downpour-

2:46:48 Speaker 5 Right after

2:46:48 Speaker 1 ... which lasted for about maybe a half hour-

2:46:51 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm

2:46:51 Speaker 1 ... just after the Chuppah.

2:46:53 Speaker 5 Wow.

2:46:54 Speaker 1 And, uh, so the Rebbe said, "Now, you want..." B- bederech hateva, on Wednesday night, there was a tomim getting married. Rabbi Leibel of Lubavitch, the To the wedding and introduce him to your son, and tell him that me to invite that, uh, uh, uh, son, Carla's brother, to my wedding on Sunday.

2:48:31 Speaker 5 Yeah. Uh-huh.

2:48:33 Speaker 1 And, uh, which, which I did, and they did it. So, you know, so it, it was, uh, it- it-- there's so many sensitivities-

2:48:39 Speaker 5 Right

2:48:39 Speaker 1 ... involved here.

2:48:40 Speaker 5 Right.

2:48:41 Speaker 1 And I-- And so we, we were at... And, and Labor was at my wedding. They-- When they picked me up on their shoulders, they pick him up also.

2:48:47 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:48:47 Speaker 1 We were two Hasidim at the wedding.

2:48:48 Speaker 5 Right.

2:48:49 Speaker 1 And he made „Yubal Hachazat" at our wedding, uh, Labor Volovik. And, and in, in the wedding pictures is that Bacha, that, uh, brother, whatever. It, it... You know? But the Rebbe say you cannot, you're not going to... We-- I went to, uh, Rabbi Michael Sussman, and he said... I said, "The Rebbe said..." Whatever, and he did it. I, I... You know?

2:49:06 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:49:06 Speaker 1 He, he, he was 100% in his rights to say-

2:49:09 Speaker 5 Yeah, that you can't-

2:49:10 Speaker 1 ... I have, you know, I have a g- I've got a whole backlog here.

2:49:13 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:49:14 Speaker 1 And he did.

2:49:15 Speaker 5 Okay. So ..., uh, we can continue talking the whole day and night for many days.

2:49:22 Speaker 1 There's so much more.

2:49:23 Speaker 5 But, but-

2:49:23 Speaker 1 Yeah. You, you can go down the avenue-

2:49:25 Speaker 5 Yeah

2:49:25 Speaker 1 ... of each of these things. And that's-

2:49:26 Speaker 5 But I want to, uh... No, I want to conclude that, I mean, the Rebbe had so much, I would call it investment.

2:49:35 Speaker 1 So much?

2:49:35 Speaker 5 Investment in you and in your Mishpacha. And, um, what do, what does that mean for you? And what does it mean for all the Hasidim that, that, that hear, hear about it? What, what, what do you think?

2:49:52 Speaker 1 I mean, this is very, you know, uh, uh, uh... Here is a Yechidus I had, w-which, uh, uh, haunts me, and it's that like, um, in Tofshon Chaf Hei when Rebbe told me off for not learning as I could in the Kollel, wasting time. You know, I don't remember how he t- how he got on to the top... By the way, whenever I was in Yechidus with my wife in those days, the Rebbe would speak in English with two exceptions. One was this one I'm gonna tell you about, and one was the night before we went on Tlichos. But, um, the, uh, the Rebbe would speak in English exclusive to my wife. Sometimes he asked something, and I would answer in Yiddish, and Rebbe would trans... So since you said, he-- Rebbe would translate what I said into English for the benefit of my wife. But here, the Rebbe spoke only in Yiddish and told me off very strongly. And, uh, he said, "„Chabtsugas uch tishrei." He said, "I promised your father-in-law that you're gonna become this, that," you know. I don't remember. Like, "Lamdan," you know, all the different things that you're gonna be. And Rebbe said, "Ich kan manish mit zusagen." That was the third time when the Rebbe told me it depends on you. Said, "I can only promise." It's an interesting sent-- What do you mean, "I can only promise" if the Rebbe promises? But the Bechirah is never taken away. You have to remember, at the end of the day,

2:51:23 Speaker 1 your life is yours. You-- The, the, the, uh, Moshe Rabbeinu, the Rebbe, Moshe Rabbeinu, he's got the whole said Rebbe, "It's about what you do." And, uh, y- those Koichas are there if you don't ignore him. And, uh, the Rebbe said, "Ich..." These words, "Ich kan manish mit zusagen," I can only promise. In other words, depends what you're gonna do with it. And it's not, it's, it's not just a once-off, by the way. It's your whole life. Every day, there are probably several or countless opportunities in everyone's life where you have to make a choice, Machshava, dibbur, ma'ase. And all-- And you, you get the Koichas milmeyleh. But Ich kan manish mit zusagen. Rebbe c-can promise and he can give it, but he's promising that you have that potential to live it. And I w- I was in a state of shock. In fact, when-- As soon as we came out of Yechidus, my wife says, "What was he talking about in Yiddish there?" So I said, "He's telling me that I'm not learning."

2:52:35 Speaker 5 There was a report that you weren't learning?

2:52:36 Speaker 1 What?

2:52:37 Speaker 5 There was a report that you weren't learning?

2:52:39 Speaker 1 Was it? The-

2:52:40 Speaker 5 So-

2:52:40 Speaker 1 Was the rep-- Well, somebody reported to them, obviously. I mean-

2:52:43 Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:52:43 Speaker 1 What-

2:52:44 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:52:45 Speaker 1 You, uh, you, you didn't have to be a genius, uh, you know.

2:52:48 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:52:48 Speaker 1 Anyway, so... And, and I just stood. You know, I don't know what I wa- what I, what I should've said, but the Rebbe said, "Fun dein schweigen ve gornisht veren," he told me. "Your silence will achieve nothing." Those were the words. "Fun dein schweigen ve gornisht veren." Indeed, it was about 40 years before I even told over that story.

2:53:12 Speaker 5 Hmm.

2:53:13 Speaker 1 That's from the, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, I, I got a whole podcast-

2:53:19 Speaker 5 Hmm

2:53:19 Speaker 1 ... of, of... Which, which I, which, which I, I don't take as first choice what to say, but you ask what do you feel. When I'm, when I'm, uh, when I'm feeling the way I should be feeling and not schweigen. Uh, Rabbi Mendel Futerfas, interesting, told me after Chaf Beis-- Uh, after Chaf Zayin Adar, and he was in the yeshiva in London, and, and there was farbrengen. I was there. He told me to speak in English. I should speak at a farbrengen in front of Rabbi Mendel Futerfas in the yish- in Yomim Noraim. And I couldn't, and he s- he told me off really very, very sharp then. But then I met him privately a, a few days later, and he said, "Now is the time that you don't hear the Rebbe's voice. We have to talk. We have to be the Rebbe's voice. You've gotta, you know, you gotta talk." So what I do when I'm doing what I think I'm supposed to be doing is to try to share, even though it's sometimes they're very personal and, and, and intimate memories and recollections. But I feel that let somebody else take it and run with it and, and, and, uh, use it. So whatever, uh, any-- No one could live up. The Rebbe was perfect as a Rebbe. Y- Look, look amongst Rebbeim. No vacation, no... He was predictable. He was close. He-- In fact, there's a sicha of the Rebbe about, um, a- about Moshe Rabbeinu said, "Ani yada that they have

2:54:58 Speaker 1 a chelek in the, in the Korban, in, in Parshat Korach. I know that they have a, a share in the Korban Tamid." And he told the Ebrech, "Don't take it." Why do they have a share? It w- had to be given over, M- Moshe yofa yofa. And that's Ani yada. Moshe Rabbeinu knows that besides the community, th- each individual has a role they can play, and each individual should play that role and should be doing what they're supposed to be doing. And, and, uh, so I feel that by sharing the positive, focusing on the 612, that wh- wh- whatever's there, I can help other people. I can't think around, you know, I'm not, uh, uh, uh, c- the consequence is not what's important. The important thing is what can I do today? This is, this is my lifetime, and if I can do something which can help somebody to be what they're supposed to be, that's what I'm supposed to do, and that s- s- somebody, it's not just me. I, I'm, I'm in chinuch of high school kids. I tell that to 13-year-olds and, and 12-year-olds and 15. They said, "I have a sibling who's this, that." I said, "Your behavior can make a difference." Every person, you know, by taking themselves seriously in a, in a g- in a happy way, can feel empowered and can really make a difference. So that's... And, and that's how we bring Mashiach. It's like step by step, the pieces are falling into place. With all the

2:56:29 Speaker 1 problems, with all the issues outside and inside, whatever, one can see that things are happening. We don't have to write the whole script exactly how and when and what, but it's happening, and that's how we're bringing Mashiach.

2:56:46 Speaker 6 Yasher koach. Thank you very much, Rabbi Lew.