Ep. 25: The Artist Who Found The Rebbe with Michoel Muchnik

00:01 Speaker 1 You know, to me as a Hasid of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin and the whole thing, it's like there is nothing I think that's more like meaningful to me in my life just but to have to put a smile on the Rebbe or something like that, you know, or the Rebbetzin, like, like these, this, it's so like the chassid of it and just, just the, the good feeling I have of it.

00:25 Speaker 2 If you've been enjoying this podcast, please like and subscribe so that others can enjoy it as well. In addition, if you've benefited in any way from Among Hasidim podcast and would like to give something back, you can do so today at derher.org/donate. I'm Yossi Kamen. Welcome to Among Hasidim by Der Her, an ongoing fablingen about life as a Hasid, our vibrant connection with the Rebbe, and inspired living shaped by the way he teaches us each and every day. This episode is dedicated to the Nishmas of Rav Saadia ben Rav Mordechai alav hashalom Dahan, and the Refuah Shleima for Chana bas Nechama Dina by Shaul and Shaindy Dahan. Good afternoon, Rav Michoel. How are you?

01:17 Speaker 1 Pleasure to be here. I'm great, Baruch Hashem.

01:20 Speaker 2 Okay. Thank you for making the time to be here. I really appreciate it, as will our listeners. Um, so I think, um, the way we can begin is as follows. Baruch Hashem, over the last few months, we've been interviewing different people from all different types of backgrounds and different Hasidim, and there's something that we-- there's a lot to talk about. You know, everyone knows Michoel Muchnick, the artist. Um, so that's Michoel Muchnick part- in particular, and then more generally, you're part of a very important group of Lubavitch Hasidim. I was watching-- I don't know if-- Did you see the Living Torah Motzei Shabbos?

02:00 Speaker 1 Yes. Beautiful.

02:02 Speaker 2 Yeah. It was about the begisha, and the Rebbe was talking about in the sichas that they selected there about the youth at the time that was kind of breaking the mold and anti-establishment, and the Rebbe was speaking about using that energy to, you know, awaken Yiddishkeit in the American youth, and, uh, I think you're part of a, a large group of people that that actually happened to, and, uh, you're here in Crown Heights. And so maybe you should start from where you came from and how you got here, and we'll start like that.

02:32 Speaker 1 Right.

02:32 Speaker 2 HaDran.

02:34 Speaker 1 Um, I also watched that. Uh, as a matter of fact, it, it brought some tears to my eyes, which is not unusual watching the Rebbe's, the videos Motzei Shabbos, um, especially because it just brings back so many things. Um, it was-- why is it was so touching to me is because it brings back that there was a lot of, I don't know what you call it, but, uh, people didn't all agree with the Rebbe about his, you know, some of the things he was doing with bringing people in and the youth, and especially from the counterculture of long hair and all kinds of stuff. And, um, you just want to-- I'm watching it, I'm feeling the, the, the Rebbe's vision, but not-- but more the compassion and the av od Hashem, and recognizing that you know, he never even spoke about it. And the wellsprings, so there's that it-it's just a matter of some you have to dig a little more, some a little less, but, but there's wellsprings in every Yid. And, um, fast-forward to when I ended up in Morristown, and I was in the first class of Tiferes. And in line with that, there were a number of members of Anash, even when they went to chidush or they wrote into the Rebbe, they were very, very upset that their children should be in the same dalet lameds, same building even. And it wasn't even-- we weren't even the same as, as some, you know, long-haired hippies and things. It, it-- They

04:15 Speaker 1 were begging the Rebbe not to, to do this, to stop this.

04:18 Speaker 2 Not to allow Tiferes.

04:18 Speaker 1 Not to allow this to, to happen. And actually, it was a full year before, um, I guess the Ramah Lipsker or, and Rabbi Herschen or whatever because they were, they were running the, this whole thing, the, where they actually got a, um, a bracha from the Rebbe. Like, very interesting. So, um, but that's a whole, a whole another conversation and, um-

04:45 Speaker 2 I heard that from Rabbi Herschen actually. When I was learning in Morristown, we had a little fablingen with us, and he told us, you know, this was many years ago, so I don't remember all the details, but he told us that they wanted to open up Tiferes, and parents of the Bachurim complained that they don't want their children-

05:02 Speaker 1 Yeah

05:02 Speaker 2 ... and the Bachurim actually wrote a whole letter to the Anahala saying, "No, this is the Rebbe's inyen, and we want it."

05:08 Speaker 1 Really?

05:09 Speaker 2 And-

05:09 Speaker 1 Yeah. I, I remember that

05:10 Speaker 2 ... but the Rebbe told Rabbi Herschen to like wait a little bit, and then until eventually it opened. I don't know, a year or two or something like that.

05:15 Speaker 1 Right.

05:17 Speaker 2 Okay.

05:20 Speaker 1 Also, within a pretty short amount of time, some of us were like looking and acting a lot more frum than some of these parents' own kids-

05:35 Speaker 2 Right

05:35 Speaker 1 ... I should say. Not saying that it was like-- I'm just saying that they saw that there, that the stuff was going on. Anyhow, um, so I was very touched by that and, um, feeling that because you feel it's so personal, you know. Um, I'd like to st- uh, and I was just to come in, I, I, I thought that I-- where I would like to start before we get into all of that, uh, is, um, if you don't mind, is um- Literally when I was born, like my connection to the Rebbe, if you wanna say

06:14 Speaker 3 Go right ahead

06:15 Speaker 1 And years after being in Lubavitch, I came across a, uh, one of the Rebbe's letters, a brief that was written. The Rebbe's, uh, uh, only like a year. Rebbe was in 1952 when I was born. I was born on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, and there was a brief that came out for Rosh Chodesh Nissan. Now, in those days, like I'm not a maven in all this, but from what I understand, there weren't too many letters coming out. They-

06:46 Speaker 3 What do you mean a brief?

06:47 Speaker 1 A, a letter. You know-

06:48 Speaker 3 A letter

06:48 Speaker 1 ... a letter to-

06:49 Speaker 3 A letter

06:49 Speaker 1 ... to the Claudius role.

06:50 Speaker 3 Oh, okay.

06:51 Speaker 1 So as times went on, they started coming out more often, but I believe that in those times, maybe, maybe every Pa- or Pesach, uh, Rosh, it was whatever. It was, it was a let- And in that letter, the Rebbe's speaking about how the, the children were being thrown into the Nile and assimilation and all that kind of stuff. And this is many years later, and I'm reading this, and I realized like, that's like, wow. Like, I was born into that, and I was born that day, and there's a letter, and I mean-- And I knew another s- guy who was born on that day and also became Lubavitch. But of course, I've had every child in mind. But still, it, it made me just an, an actual feeling that the Rebbe was like actually there already.

07:43 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

07:45 Speaker 1 Fast-forward, um, w- I went to like one of the, uh, a conservative synagogue which had like a Hebrew school after school on three days a week. It-- And I loved that. I, I was fine with Jewish kids, and, uh, most of my friends were Jewish anyway, and it was like, whatever.

08:03 Speaker 3 Where did you grow up?

08:04 Speaker 1 Phil-- uh, a nice suburb of Philadelphia. And, um, we-- There was one teacher who, he wasn't my main teacher, but he came in and taught history or some Jewish history, whatever. And he was from-- He was Orthodox. He had a hat, a little beard. Growing up until, pretty much until I went to Israel when I was 18, I never really, really talked to or even had anything to do with anybody who was Orthodox. It was-- In our neighborhood, there was nobody. There was some kind of little-- There was this some little yeshiva like 15 minutes away. We obviously drove by. It was like I had no connection. Anyway, fast-forward. Many years later, I see him in 770, this, this teacher.

08:52 Speaker 3 The guy that taught you.

08:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. I recognize him. And, um, I went up to him, and I said, "You know, Rabbi Devar?" And he said, "Yes." I said, "Wow, are you Lubavitch?" And he said, "Yes." Like, but he said it like, I don't know how much Lubavitch, but he, he, he had a connection, obviously, but I never saw him there. I never, you know.

09:10 Speaker 3 Rabbi Devar.

09:11 Speaker 1 His name is Elchanan Devar. So as long as I hope he's still with us. Anyhow, so, um, kept talking. Whatever. It was just really-- It was nice. He got a lot of naches, right? Fast-forward, um, not even so long ago, maybe two years ago, uh, uh, in show comes out my story, and it's a picture of him. And, uh, he's on the front cover, and this and that, and there's a story. And the story was that he, uh, lived in like a Frameri, and I think he taught in some yeshiva there or something like that the first half of the day. And he was offered in some yeshiva to do something in the afternoon, and he was also offered to, to this job of teaching in, in our conservative synagogue, right? And he wrote to the Rebbe about which he should take. And the Rebbe told him to take our s-- our, our, our place, our-

10:06 Speaker 3 Yeah

10:06 Speaker 1 ... you know. Now, this is so-- Do you see what I'm s-- where I'm going with this? Is, is it like the Rebbe had us in mind already, like planted somebody there. I don't know if he thought of himself as a, of a, as a Rebbe Shliach. That wasn't that kind of thing, but he in fact really was. Just by his presence, we were absorbing the, you know, that.

10:29 Speaker 3 It's amazing.

10:30 Speaker 1 Right. So, um, yes. And then, um, okay. Where, where would you like to go with this?

10:39 Speaker 3 So okay. So that's-- Now we have the, the planting that the Rebbe did. Um, so in your personal story, so what happened at 18? Like, so how did you, how did you get from-

10:51 Speaker 1 Oh, all that old stuff?

10:52 Speaker 3 ... southern Philadelphia to Crown Heights?

10:53 Speaker 1 Okay. Um-

10:54 Speaker 3 What was the-

10:54 Speaker 1 Okay. So I was, um, I was very much got involved w- with my art, uh, when I was like mid-teens. I realized I had this talent. I was very much enjoying it and into it. And then, um, I got real serious about it. And then already in high school, I like was already, uh, you know, a counterculture hippie. I just, you know, was involved in all that. And then, um-

11:27 Speaker 3 That was-- That came into-

11:29 Speaker 1 That's the late '60s.

11:30 Speaker 3 That came-- That was, that was the, that was, that was the times. That wasn't happening-

11:34 Speaker 1 Right

11:34 Speaker 3 ... other times.

11:34 Speaker 1 It wasn't, it wasn't even the majority of kids, but there was a good amount of Jewish kids, you know. Um, right. So we got-- That was into all that stuff. And then, um, I decided I wanted to go to art school. So supposedly, the like the Harvard of art schools, the Rhode Island School of Design is where I ended up applying, and I got accepted. Uh, it's one of these art schools you had to actually have-- You had to actually be smart and have good grades to get into, not just be able to draw something.

12:04 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

12:05 Speaker 1 There was a lot of Jewish kids there. But in any which case, so I went there, and then, um- And at one point I just, I had enough of all that. Just it was destroying me in a certain way. Like I just realized this is like, um, headed not a good direction. And, um, I got into like health foods, but it was more, it was this macrobiotic thing. Um, and that's when I met Meir Abuchatzira. People know that name, the Rebbe's whistler, the-

12:35 Speaker 3 Yeah. Can, can you elaborate about Meir Abuchatzira and the macrobiotics and the whistling?

12:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, this, this can be a whole two-hour podcast. Uh-

12:42 Speaker 3 We have a lot of time

12:42 Speaker 1 ... everything, everything I bring up can be another two -

12:44 Speaker 3 We have a lot of time. He's an important person

12:46 Speaker 1 ... you know. Um, he or anyone with that name, it's A- it's Abuchatzira, and it's basically, uh, anyone with that name is related to the Baba Sali. There's no one with that name that's not. Um, and, um, the Baba Sali, alav ha-shalom, so I think he's was like somehow related, great, grand, great nephew or something like this. Anyway, his pa-- Uh, there was a massive exodus out of Morocco and northern Cal- northern, uh, Africa, uh, w- in 1948 when the state of Israel, you know, happened. There was, you know, like there was a lot of anti that from Arabs and in Arab countries and all this kind of stuff. There were a lot of persecutions, a lot of very... And, and there was a lot of Jews who just moved out of those areas. So they moved, a lot of them moved to France 'cause they, they were speaking French also. Then French Moro- It was, you know, they had language there and stuff like that. Some to Israel, but a lot to France. But that culture at that time, like most, a lot of the kids just assimilated into French culture, and the parents couldn't stop it much. So his parents, yeah, they were Shabta Shabbaton, and they, they had, you know, like kiddush. I'm not familiar what they did. But, and, uh, you know, Sefardim have anyway maintained like that, what do you call it?

14:12 Speaker 3 Fire.

14:12 Speaker 1 It's in their, it's in their blood, you know, appreciation of tzadikim and just, just, just mystic, mysti- just that whole thing, especially if you're an Abuchatzira, right? So anyway, but so he became a very big, like lecturer and spiritual leader of, if you wanna call it, this, this whole thing.

14:33 Speaker 3 Of macrobiotics.

14:34 Speaker 1 Yeah. Right. Remember, the macrobiotic thing is really based on something which is not so kosher, like zen and stuff like that, but it had all this thing with the health foods and stuff like that. So, um-

14:44 Speaker 3 That was popular for the people that are part of the hippie culture.

14:47 Speaker 1 Well, not everybody. A lot of people were not interested in that. They'd more want to eat pizza, you know? And, and do whatever, drugs and everything else. This is much, uh, this is more people like more discipline, more they get toxins out of their body. I don't know, whatever it was. I mean, there's all kinds of reasons. Everything is haskala practice. So, um, I had heard... I was into the macrobiotics in the, in, in art school, and then I wanted to, uh, someone suggested I go vi- visit him.

15:15 Speaker 3 He was already frum then?

15:17 Speaker 1 No. Oh, so when I got there, he had already become frum. I didn't know that he had become frum. He became baal teshuva. Very interesting story about that. Basically, he was, he had so many students, and there were so many of them were Jewish and, uh, who, who were like coming along and doing this, and he was their teacher and mentor and, and spiritual like leader, you might call. And he was shocked how, um, ignorant most of these Jewish kids were from just basic Jewish things, which he took for granted 'cause he was really from a family that had, you know-

16:00 Speaker 3 Jewish

16:00 Speaker 1 ... really not just Jewish, but, but mystical-ass things that were really, you know, substance.

16:05 Speaker 3 And he's encountering Americans who are ignorant.

16:07 Speaker 1 And he just realized that like how much he'd had thrown the baby out with the bathwater when it came to Jewish things. And, and he saw some of the things about some other leaders who were not Jewish with that stuff. And, and, and, you know, it was like he saw the, the not, certain things that were not true. He, he just said, "Okay." And he just started, convinced his wife. She was secular, was far, and he convinced her and to, you know, go along with his journey, and they, they started keeping Shabbos and everything. And, um, a number of those students or alumni from that area, they, they, they started coming along.

16:47 Speaker 3 Right. And Meir was already con- very much connected to the Rebbe somehow.

16:51 Speaker 1 No, not yet.

16:51 Speaker 3 Oh, no? I don't know that story.

16:52 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no. When I met Meir, it was... No, no. Not yet. Um, there were even some gerim from that community. I mean, ka- halacha. Like, there was a few that were so e-enamored by him that when they saw he was getting into this, they took it-

17:06 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

17:06 Speaker 1 ... they, they wanted to know, and they, they were very serious, and they be-- There was three or four, like-

17:14 Speaker 3 And you met him at this period

17:15 Speaker 1 ... they didn't go to, to Chabad. And a lot, some people didn't go to Chabad, but, uh, I'd say the nucleus and like 15 of us, we went to Chabad. What'd you say?

17:23 Speaker 3 You met him at this period when he already transitioned to becoming frum.

17:26 Speaker 1 Right. And then I had had this experience, not to go into all too, too many details, but like two years before, I had, I went for a summer when I was 18. It was like, uh, my parents paid for a, like a, you know, what do you call it? A, um, a gi- a gift, um, graduation gift. I went to Israel. I went with a friend. We're in a kibbutz, and this, and then I was traveling around. I met this old Hasid who stopped me and was trying to be makar with me, and he was doing that with a few. There's, there's people who are in Chabad now, a few guys who like we met, but the same guy, and one of them, and ended up in Kfar Chabad and stuff. He took me to Kfar Chabad.

18:00 Speaker 3 Who?

18:01 Speaker 1 This, this old Hasid. I just was just, not, not Lubavitcher. He was me-meeting like, you know, young American guys and trying to tell them about, you know- ... mysticism and Yiddish guy and never, and he had an effect on me, but it was too heavy, it was too fast, and I just like I said, you know, it was two days, uh, two day thing went on, I, I checked out. But when I got to Meir and I came in there and I walked in, and it was, it was Shvi shel Pesach, I didn't know anything. It was after I was home for like a Passover break, so I mean, you know, like spring break, and yeah, and I, I before I went back to school, I wanted to go visit. So I went there and I got there and I walked in, they were just finishing the meal, Shvi shel Pesach, the afternoon meal. And he's wearing a black hat, and there's other guys wearing black hats, and yeah, and I'm just-- I, I was like, "What's going on over here?" But it did bring back what had occurred two years ago that opened a spark, and then these were people who were doing the same sort of journey I was, like the same journey. Like, so it was-- I could be a more of a vessel for it. And as a matter of fact, I always repeat this story, one of the guys was a-- An animated film came out called Lights. Like, um,

19:16 Speaker 1 it's animated, uh... Oh, it comes out every Hanukkah.

19:20 Speaker 3 Hanukkah video.

19:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. A really great-

19:22 Speaker 3 Yeah.

19:22 Speaker 1 Great animated thing, you know?

19:24 Speaker 3 I grew up with that.

19:25 Speaker 1 Yeah, right? So the, the, um, they're not Lubavitch, but the, the ones who did that were in Binghamton also with us.

19:34 Speaker 3 Binghamton?

19:34 Speaker 1 They-- That's where, that's where Meir Bersare was. That's where I was visiting. That's where-

19:37 Speaker 3 Oh, you went-

19:38 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's where we came from.

19:38 Speaker 3 I'm thinking Brooklyn. No.

19:39 Speaker 1 What?

19:40 Speaker 3 You, you went to Binghamton to visit. Okay.

19:42 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah. That's where they were. And, um-

19:46 Speaker 3 So one of those guys produced the, the video, Lights.

19:48 Speaker 1 Right. And it was him actually, and if you remember Yerachmiel Tilles who runs Ascent Institute in Tzfat, he was-- They, they had an apartment, and I went up with them to the apartment. It's about three, four guys, and I just was about-- like I just was just about to open my mouth, I can say like like how did you come to-- like what's going on, right? And I didn't get one word out of my mouth and this Gary Wurtzel his name was at the time. So he says, "Look," he says, and he looked at me straight in the eye and he said, "You know this is the right thing for a Jew." That's or something like that. Like, "You know this is the right thing to do." Like he just-- It was like a neshamah thing, and he got that, and, and you're gonna get it, you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna like... He j- No, it j- It was so amazing. A-and at that split second, I said, "He's right. I'm not fighting this. I'm gonna do it." And from that day on, that was it.

20:48 Speaker 3 Hmm.

20:50 Speaker 1 That was it. Just teach me, whatever. And then, uh, Meir, um, he, uh, al avodah shalom, so he asked me to come, would I like to illustrate his book. I showed him my art, had a little meeting with him, and he said, "I'm making a book. I'm writing a book." It's about Chinese healing medicine. It wasn't a, a particularly a, you know, Jewish thing. But he, he said, yeah, and I so he gave me room and board, and after I finished school, after a month for the summer, I came there, and then I became frum, and then I just went, ended up not going just back to school. I went to yeshiva.

21:22 Speaker 3 Went to Tiferes.

21:23 Speaker 1 Yeah.

21:24 Speaker 3 So Meir, um, and then Meir, you, you mentioned it already, but, uh, Meir is the one by the fabregans whenever the Rebbe motions to whistle, it's, it's the-

21:32 Speaker 1 Right. The Rebbe had a v- a ve- He had a very interesting connection with the Rebbe. The Rebbe liked him very, very much. Um, what happened was during the eight months I was there, he heard about the Rebbe.

21:45 Speaker 3 Oh.

21:45 Speaker 1 Someone told him there's a tzadik in Brooklyn you have to go see. There was-- We did have Bochur Shluchim come once. Remember, there wasn't that many to go around. Somehow we got two Bochurim. One of them was Mar- Markel. Um, um, he has the, he has the Chabad house in Tzfat, and one was Naftali somebody. He was English. So that was the first time I saw two Bochurim, right? They came up at one point just for a day or something. I don't know, maybe D- I don't know who it was convinced him, so he went, but he went, went not with us. He went, and he said to this person, this-

22:23 Speaker 3 What year are you talking about?

22:24 Speaker 1 Oh, this is 1972.

22:26 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

22:27 Speaker 1 He said, "There's no tzadikim in United States. I'm from-- I know what tzadikim are. I was brought up from the crib with tzadikim around me." He says, "I, I just, there's no tzadikim in America. I've been around all over. I've been lecturing over. There's just, just, just doesn't exist." He's met none of the rabbis. So he, um, but they said, "No, no, this is different. This is different." And he came, and he was standing at a fabregan, and he just walked in, and he took one look at the Rebbe, and he went-- He actually s- I heard the way it was. He just started pointing, like get ex-- and got so excited and said, "Tzadik, tzadik, tzadik." Like he was so excited. He said, "There's really a tzadik in America." So it's cute. It's a very cute story. Then he came back, and then he convinced us to go to a Yud Tes Kislev farbrengen. I didn't know anything about that, what it was, but I went. Cute story about that, too. I remember looking at the, the dais and, you know, I'm young, I'm like twenty years old, and I see I'm being pushed, I'm being crunched, I'm standing up. Okay, it's h- Yeah, it's hard to stand up so... But I see behind the Rebbe is like all these old, old chassidim with like nice long white beards, and they're sitting there and everything is like cool, you know, and they're relaxed, and they're sitting there listening, and they're closer to the Rebbe

23:42 Speaker 1 and all this kind of stuff. So I s- I said, "Look, there must be something right with this, this, this, this what's going on here because where I come from, the older you get, you end up in like, you know, the old age home, and no one talks to you, and no one visits you, blah, blah, blah." Trust me, there was a lot of that. I said, "But here, you know, like you just get better with age, and they get more respect and all this kind of stuff." It's real- So interesting that when you come in from other, from the outside, so to speak, h- things that you notice that people inside-

24:14 Speaker 3 Never notice

24:15 Speaker 1 ... just don't notice, right? Now that I have a long white beard, so now I'm waiting for the respect, but that's besides what I was-

24:22 Speaker 3 That's why we have you here.

24:23 Speaker 1 That's, yeah, right. But then when I w- I came to Morristown to check out yeshiva, I also went to Rabbi Freifeld's yeshiva, alav ha-shalom, just to-- because a couple guys from Binghamton actually went there. So I went to see them and to see about if that was a place for me.

24:37 Speaker 3 They were baal teshuvas in Rabbi Freifeld's yeshiva?

24:38 Speaker 1 I was so I knew I needed to go to yeshiva. I realized I wanted to go, you know, it was time to go to yeshiva.

24:41 Speaker 3 And his yeshiva, they had baal, baal teshuva and Rabbi-

24:44 Speaker 1 Yeah. That was for baal teshuva.

24:45 Speaker 3 All right. That's what it was? Okay.

24:48 Speaker 1 I believe.

24:49 Speaker 3 But you ended up going to Morristown.

24:50 Speaker 1 There, there wasn't very few choices or go to Israel for Chabad. There was no-- There was-

24:55 Speaker 3 Hadar Torah

24:56 Speaker 1 ... or Hadar Torah. Um, the reason I went to visit Morristown is 'cause one of the guys, Reuben Schoenberg, alav ha-shalom, was in Binghamton, and he went to, he went to there, and I was friendly with him, and he invited me to come. And I got there, and that night, not to go again, all these things can just be a whole other long conversation, but, um, um, Rabbi Lipsker was the zion-- Well, he was, uh, for bringing, like, it was the first... It was only six months since the first bachur got there. Most of them spent time playing chess and learning a little bit. It was just too much, you know? So he had to work with the students. There was very few guys who, like, really wanted to sit and spend time learning. But it, that changed as, as time went on very quickly. But, um, it was the first time he really, when I say, like, really for brag, I took a lot of kol chaims and really went, went And I just happened to show up then, and, uh, with my friend, and I'm sitting there, and I don't know. He was on the table, and he was pulling his beards, and it was like all kinds of stuff was going on. He was the right guy for the right time because I don't know how to explain it, but a lot of us came in with a lot, a lot of yeishus, big-time yeishus, thinking that... Like people ask me, you

26:20 Speaker 1 know, "You know, did, did you know about Mashiach till you came?" I said, "What are you talking about?" The whole thing was then about Mashiach, the Aquarian Age, all these things, you know, like we were all about that. I said, "The only difference between now and then was that I thought I was Mashiach." I mean, it was, you know, things like, whatever. So Ra- I know, Rabbi Lipsker's thing was like really breaking yeishus, and he would do things to break our yeishus, and it was like some of it was, some people couldn't take it. Some people, the next day, they packed up and left. But I remember clearly, it started to be that people would walk around and just say, "I'm a gornisht." Like they started to think, you know, like, "Ah, this is it," you know, "I'm a gornisht." So word had got like around like that, so he pulled us together for a n- uh, one night for another farbrengen, and he says, "Okay, guys, go- good. I'm glad you got it, that you're all gornisht." He says, "Now can you get up and start doing something?" That was like real stuff was going on. Anyways, get over that, beyond that, um... No, but I, I remember, I, I, I really was very uncomfortable at that farbrengen, and I was thinking this place is like loony. And then, uh, I was gonna leave, and then the next morning I got up and, and we also had to carry Rabbi Lipsker home. I mean,

27:44 Speaker 1 he really, he was in good spirits. And, um, next morning, he's, he's helping someone with the... I wake up, and, and he's, uh... We were living in the, we called it the bowling alley. There was one big room, and it had like, like long, what do you call those? The boar- the, the slats on the floor, whatever it was. So like a bowling alley. And there was little beds, and that's like all, all of us, we slept in this one place. I got up, and he's like standing there helping someone, you know, with his bed and this and getting him what he needs and have a pillow. I, it was so like grounded, and I just dawned on me that like, "Well, everything he said the night before was like, it was like true."

28:28 Speaker 4 Hmm.

28:28 Speaker 1 It was like true. And there's another moment when I said, "Um, I, I, it's true. I can't, I'm not... This is it." So I signed up. So that was it.

28:39 Speaker 4 Signed up.

28:40 Speaker 1 Signed up. Went to his office and then signed up.

28:45 Speaker 4 So let me ask you a question. Um, in that sicha that we started off with-

28:50 Speaker 1 Right

28:50 Speaker 4 ... that was in the, uh, the ...</b The rabbi's speaking about specifically those that are counterculture or anti-establishment to use out that energy.

28:59 Speaker 1 Right.

28:59 Speaker 4 And it seems to me that the baal teshuva that I talked to from that era-

29:04 Speaker 1 Right

29:04 Speaker 4 ... seemed to most of them were, that, that was part of their story. Either they were like, either they were hippie or traveling or macrobiotics or that. So it-

29:13 Speaker 1 No, it was, there was akshanas there.

29:15 Speaker 4 That's what it is. So what is it?

29:16 Speaker 1 No, there was akshanas. Like we were not just run-of-the-mill. It, it, we were, we were, it, we rebelled against the society. Never spoke about it.

29:27 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

29:27 Speaker 1 We b- we were brought up basically in the material world and being okay with that. Other generations had, they, they, who had time to like even think about other stuff, you know? You just had to put, you know, bread on the table. My grandparents, they came over, I mean, they didn't have a dime. They had to, you know... So we were like spoiled a little, right? But also, but, but there was, but there was something deeper, and they never spoke about it. We, th- this, this was not working for us. I'm not interested in just like, it's not, this is not what it's all about, 'cause we had it, and that's not what it's all about, all about. So we, there was like a vacuum that allowed us, I think, to say, "If you're a spiritually-minded person..." Do you hear what I'm saying?

30:14 Speaker 4 Yeah, I hear you.

30:14 Speaker 1 You start searching.

30:18 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

30:18 Speaker 1 But the, it w- I, I don't know what to call it, but it was... I say, I, I tell people, I say, "Look at me now, where I am, what I, uh, you know, the "... and what, this my life and everything like that, and just think of me like in this secular situation and having my own issues or whatever. Everybody had their own stuff, you know? I just couldn't exist like that. Seeing what, what I am now, to be not this, just look at it go backwards and sh- and think about that. And I could take anyone who like, you know, became like, you know- Baal Teshuvah, like most, like it was, they just couldn't be there. It's like Gerim, you know, like Gerim, like it says it's a Jewish neshamah. So why does some just go that, that s- um, to that point where they actually will take all this on and become Jewish? It's 'cause it, they can't not stay that way. That's how they feel.

31:27 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

31:27 Speaker 1 Do, do you get that sort of what I'm saying? It's very deep.

31:34 Speaker 5 Um, so is that like, um... So ba- basically the time, the culture or whatever this experience that youth were then experiencing was kind of like a prime time, I guess, for those, for, for them to be directed to channel that energy into, into Yiddishkeit.

31:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like total like, I think about the Sh'chach Haperats or something. It's, it's, uh, it's the Rebbe's work. The r- there's something, something with the Rebbe, I guess, 'cause I can't... It's, I mean, God, it was just like, I don't know. Sometimes I think, don't take this wrong, but sometimes I feel like he just plopped down a certain kind of, certain neshamas into that whole soup because there was no way to get out of it unless we were, uh, there was people like us who just couldn't be there.

32:24 Speaker 5 Right.

32:28 Speaker 1 Just like doesn't make any sense to me. I still marvel at the whole thing. Constantly, I marvel, and everything that's any good that's revealed good that happened to me since or anything, it's like, I appreciate it so much like, because I see people didn't take, take this, this, this road.

32:48 Speaker 5 Right.

32:51 Speaker 1 So beautiful. I was just got, um... My parents, um, are buried near my hometown there. So I was, my mother's yahrtzeit. I ended up that I'm getting older, I didn't wanna like drive the whole way back and forth. It's like altogether five hours to go b- there and go back in one day, and so I decided like, "You know, this year I'll s- I'll call Shliach nearby and sleep over." And so I call and I say, "Listen, I'm coming."

33:21 Speaker 5 You talking about Rabbi Altai?

33:23 Speaker 1 N- he wasn't available then, but he was the one closest. But, um, he wasn't there then, so I went to another, um, Brennan, I think. I didn't stay by him, but it was whatever, it was a shul. So I said, "I'm coming. You, you come." And I said, "I'll be like, uh, I'll, I'll make it for bring in for my mother's yahrtzeit and, and I'll still for bring."

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35:37 Speaker 5 part of Der Her through your financial support as well through visiting our website, derher.org, or through contacting us to setting up a meeting. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the podcast.

35:49 Speaker 1 So he tells me, uh, uh, Rabbi Brennan tells me that across the street, there's a guy who has a business, and he's an old friend of mine. So it's one of my good old friends from high school.

36:00 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

36:00 Speaker 1 And he says, "Yeah, I put the tefillin on with sometimes." So, so the, the, the, uh, not him, but the, an- another Shliach who he lives by, so he's getting involved over there, and he sends me a picture of him with the tefillin on, and he's trying to convince him to come up to the banquet. But this is like 50 years after I-- And here's one of my friends, you know. So everybody will come around eventually .

36:27 Speaker 5 Right.

36:27 Speaker 1 Um-

36:28 Speaker 5 So you were zecher to, uh-

36:29 Speaker 1 But-

36:30 Speaker 5 To be there-

36:32 Speaker 1 It, it wasn't easy because-

36:32 Speaker 5 At the right time

36:33 Speaker 1 ... you know, uh, for me to go like, my friends thought like I really flew the coop. Um, it was very uncomfortable. It was a lot of work. My parents, it was the time. Everybody changed after a while, you know, things there was, of course, but it, then it was, it was hard. Par- parents, family, they just, you just, they just could not relate. They didn't wanna relate. It was very painful. There were a lot of tears. I ha- I, I shed a lot of tears in yeshiva from things like that. It was very painful And just also to go from, like, hippieism, which is basically do whatever you want, to like, you know, you have to cut your nails this way. It's not an easy road. Thank God, actually, I was b-involved in that macrobiotic because that actually, in fact, was a very big discipline with the diet, with, with, you know, how you ate and everything like that. Which that was, that was a good... Of course, we all dropped that 'cause it wasn't really sh- you know, the source-

37:34 Speaker 4 You went over to-

37:34 Speaker 1 The Torah and stuff

37:35 Speaker 4 ... you went over to Kugel and Cholent.

37:36 Speaker 1 What?

37:37 Speaker 4 You went over, you went over to Kugel and Cholent.

37:39 Speaker 1 We tried a little bit, but w- you know, it, it wasn't so, it, uh... Most of us still eat healthily. Once you have that consciousness, you're not gonna just go-

37:48 Speaker 4 Yeah

37:49 Speaker 1 ... you know, buy food coloring, food every day. Doesn't happen. Anyway, yeah, so, um, yeah.

37:56 Speaker 4 So you're in Morristown-

37:57 Speaker 1 Right

37:57 Speaker 4 ... in the environment there.

37:58 Speaker 1 Right.

37:59 Speaker 4 And so you're talking about 1972, right?

38:04 Speaker 1 Right.

38:05 Speaker 4 So I believe those years, every bachur was able to have a yechidus for their birthday. So were you part of that?

38:14 Speaker 1 Yeah. Right. So, um, I was actually part of the... It wasn't group yechidus, it was private yechidus.

38:20 Speaker 4 Private.

38:20 Speaker 1 Each k- each g- each, uh, bachur, but I was part of the first group from Tiferes that was offered yechidus. So there was eight-

38:29 Speaker 4 Not, not as a group, but you guys-

38:30 Speaker 1 Not as a group.

38:31 Speaker 4 Yeah.

38:31 Speaker 1 There was eight of us that we had birthdays at some point recently to that day, and it was either, like g- somewhere between the third, fourth, or fifth of Iyar. And, um, my yechidus was, uh, like eight minutes long. Rabbi Groner came in twice to try to pull me out, but the Rebbe was talking to me, and what are you supposed to do? I didn't have that con- the Rebbe was talking to me.

39:01 Speaker 4 Right.

39:02 Speaker 1 Um-

39:03 Speaker 4 But you came in with questions.

39:05 Speaker 1 I c- I wrote my things down.

39:07 Speaker 4 So tell, tell us about it.

39:08 Speaker 1 Um-

39:08 Speaker 4 Tell, tell me about the yechidus. What, what happened over there?

39:11 Speaker 1 Yeah. Going forward, just recognize in general, like there's a lot of personal things which, uh, from the Rebbe to us, to anybody, and, you know, I don't need to share every little thing, right? But, um-

39:26 Speaker 4 These days everyone wants to hear everything.

39:29 Speaker 1 I know that. So, they have retreats for that. Anyway, so, um, um, I wasn't the first one to go in, but I, I... Whenever, I don't remember who. You were just so concentrated. I, I was quite anxious about it.

39:48 Speaker 4 Who, someone prepare you, like Rabbi Lipschutz?

39:49 Speaker 1 Well, I'd already been learning in Morristown for months. So I, we-- And we had gone to Farbrengen Shabbos of Rochem that they... I mean, I realized I was going into the Rebbe, and it was, to me, I, I accept the Rebbe as the, the Rebbe and for me and for everything and everyone gonna do, and, and like total, like it was a total given over to that. Um, but I just was... So I was anxious, like, "Wow, I'm gonna be alone." I, it really sort of freaked me out. I mean, I was like clenched, like that kind of thing. Um, we prepared as much as we could. In fact, Rabbi Groner canceled... We were supposed to go in like two weeks before, and Rabbi C- Groner canceled the whole thing. We found out later that he did it sort of on purpose, or he just felt like we needed to have more of a appreciation about going, something. I'm just telling you what happened. So, um, I walked in, the door closes. I didn't go over to the Rebbe's desk. I'm just standing there. I'm just breathing in the, the, the, uh, what you call it? The air. I don't... The, the... I had such a spir- I, I don't know how to explain it. I, the only way I can explain it was like, and I can only say it's like smell, but it's not smell. It was like a spiritual, it was like just a, a spiritual ga- ganei, uh, uh, not a

41:21 Speaker 1 spiritual ganey, um, a storybook like ganeyden, like Lubavitch, like storybook Lubavitch. You know, you see these pictures like Hendel Lieberman. I don't know what it was. It was just so, it was just a, like beautiful Hamish, and I, I was just standing there like just, like just breathing it in. And then I hear like the Rebbe say, "Come closer." I co- I don't know how long I could have stood there. It was a, it was, I was just in another place. So I walked over to the Rebbe, my pan, but I was literally holding my hands together, like clenching, like I was really quite... I was a f- look, you know, the whole Baal Teshuva thing. I was really afraid I'm gonna have a bad thought, Mashhavah Zarah. I mean, there's, there's all kinds of stuff. Just not gonna go into all that stuff. But in any which case, um, and the Rebbe looked at my re- read my pan and answered questions, some of the questions. Um, and I brought in, and I have them right here, I brought in three little pieces of art, 'cause I was a- I was actually asking the Rebbe, one of my big things was asking the Rebbe what I should do with it.

42:39 Speaker 4 About your talent, your art.

42:40 Speaker 1 In other words, I was... It's really amazing. Like, we're like, really? I can't speak for anybody else, but I was given over. Like, whatever the Rebbe says, it's, it's Torah Mesianite. That's it, right? And, um, I have heard there was somebody in the yeshiva there who, who his parents wanted to go back to school, and he was not going to back to school, and they, and they said, "Yeah, well, whatever." And the, uh, they suggested, "Yes, the Rebbe." He, and he came in, and a servant of the Rebbe told him he should go back to school and get his degree It's so interest-interesting. Um, so I wouldn't know what, what to expect.

43:21 Speaker 4 So this is one of the-

43:21 Speaker 1 But let me show you, um-

43:22 Speaker 4 This is one of the dilemmas that you were-

43:24 Speaker 1 What?

43:24 Speaker 4 This is one of the dilemmas that you were going through, like what to do with your art.

43:30 Speaker 1 Yeah, I was like, "Here, I'm a tal- I'm a talented artist, what should I do with it?"

43:35 Speaker 4 So you showed the Rebbe these. You wanna show it to them?

43:36 Speaker 1 I'll show.

43:38 Speaker 4 This one?

43:41 Speaker 1 I mean, I since framed them, but this was... These are just, they're just two pesukim, but I, I asked the Rebbe if maybe since I'm, I c- I like to do calligraphy, maybe I should become a sofer.

43:54 Speaker 4 Sofer.

43:56 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe told me I should ask a sofer about that. So I don't know why I picked these two pesukim, maybe because I just really like them. So one is, um, from Yeshayahu, and one is from Tehillim. I'm not gonna translate them right now, but they're, they're just beautiful pesukim. One's like sort of about Mashiach, and how nations will come to you, and one is about y- how the, you know, like to a tree planted by streams of water, you know, yields its fruit in its season, and, and all that you do will prosper. They're beautiful pesukim.

44:31 Speaker 4 So you brought these to the Rebbe?

44:33 Speaker 1 They were, they were-- I just-- these two little things.

44:36 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

44:36 Speaker 1 They were in a frame, and then I bought this, this, this little drawing, which was, uh, it's called Shul, and it's just like, like, like this, like a little scene, like a Russian shtetl sort of thing.

44:51 Speaker 4 Can you move it this way? Yeah.

44:53 Speaker 1 And, uh, like in the winter. It has a Magen David on it.

44:57 Speaker 4 That's your art, right?

44:58 Speaker 1 No Shul. So, um, and I asked Rebbe, "Should I-- What should I do in yeshiva? Should I-- Can I keep drawing in yeshiva?" You know, I mean, it's hard for me not to do any. And the Rebbe said, "It shouldn't interrupt the schedule of the yeshiva," which pretty much the s-schedule of yeshiva is you learn all the time. But there was the la, you know, last half of, uh, Erev Shabbos and then Motza'i Shabbos, so that's what I did. Those two times when the guys are playing basketball or something, I would like-

45:28 Speaker 4 Draw it

45:29 Speaker 1 ... draw, and I ended up giving, um, pictures away when kids c- when people came, like a chassan or something, I would give them an original. Can you imagine? I was giving a... Anyway, uh, I d- I did a kesubah for somebody, um, no charge. Typical artist thing. Anyway, so, um-

45:50 Speaker 4 You see, the artists have talent, but it's not always making money.

45:52 Speaker 1 Terrible business people. So, uh, no, and then in the middle of the yechidus, the Rebbe was like, went down to the side, like he went off and was with his chair, holding my pan and like literally going, like bending down and just meditating on it. And I believe it was then the Rebbe says, uh, "They'll take advantage of you." Can you imagine being told that in yechidus, by the way? "They'll take advantage of you." By the way, I didn't understand half of the stuff that was going on until later on in life, but... And then the Rebbe came back, and then the Rebbe said, "You should find a manager who you trust."

46:31 Speaker 4 Then this is right-

46:32 Speaker 1 I connected it to the two, but because they were right next to each other. What?

46:35 Speaker 4 This is right after the Rebbe telling you, "Only engage with it out of seder."

46:39 Speaker 1 No, that, I don't know exactly when that was. I was just-

46:41 Speaker 4 That's a different issue

46:41 Speaker 1 ... I just remember that, that.

46:42 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

46:42 Speaker 1 No, it was in yechidus. I was there for a while.

46:44 Speaker 4 Oh, okay.

46:45 Speaker 1 So that, um... No, the Rebbe also told me things from my birthday. There were cer-certain things that I think the Rebbe said to everybody.

46:54 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

46:54 Speaker 1 Giving a shtreimel and lear-way to learn extra song, you know, those things. Um, at one point, I was getting, like, actually I was getting upset because the Rebbe had not yet looked up at me at all. And I'm like, can you imagine you're with the Rebbe? It's like etern-every moment's like eternity. And I was c-clearly agitated. The Rebbe read my mind and just, and then looked up. And, but it was like this look of Rebbe looked up at me, and it was just a look of, like, such rachmanus that when the Rebbe looked at me like that, I, I don't know what I was thinking. I was thinking like, "All right, maybe I shouldn't have asked for that," you know? And now looking back, it doesn't disturb me, but at the time it was like, I felt like, first of all, am I that low that everyone look, wouldn't look at me, and then Rebbe looks at me like I, like I'm a rachmanus case or something? I, I don't know. It was just like, I was just, I, I couldn't-- I didn't have time to absorb it. And then, it's very personal, but I'm sharing it because I, it really, uh, later I came to see a lot of things from it. But, um, anyway, so I'm walking at the end. The Rebbe just stops, and you know it's the end. So I'm walking backwards out. I get to the door, and the Rebbe says, "Wait, come back." So I walk back, and the

48:36 Speaker 1 Rebbe says, "Are these for me?" By the way, Rebbe spoke English, understood everything. Oh, no, there's one part of it. I'm sorry. Um, I forgot. When the Rebbe did look at the art, the Rebbe did say I should make kesubos. Rebbe did say that. Um, and the Rebbe told me I should photostat. And I did not know what that meant.

49:00 Speaker 4 Photostat.

49:00 Speaker 1 I've heard the word photostat, but from where I came from, that's like this mimeograph machine in the back room that, you know, you photostat, you know, people's tests. It, it was a very strange term, and I j- I didn't know what the Rebbe meant, that I should photostat.

49:13 Speaker 4 Photostat. Mm-hmm.

49:14 Speaker 1 So I said, "What?" And the Rebbe just repeated, "Photostat." And then I said, "What again?" Rebbe said, "Photostat." And then I said a third time, and then I realized I should just shut up. I understood, but I just realized... Later, I realized Rebbe meant I should print. It's just funny. I don't know what to say. Anyway, so then-

49:34 Speaker 4 Photostat means like a copy.

49:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. But in my day, like, photostat was just, you photostat. You print something cheap.

49:41 Speaker 4 Right.

49:42 Speaker 1 It didn't, it didn't register. I hadn't even, you know, that kind of thing. Even the prints that we were gonna call I made in art school were, like, limited edition, and they were, like, artsy, and you'd make a certain way.

49:51 Speaker 4 Rebbe was telling you to print your art to sell.

49:56 Speaker 1 He didn't say it the full sentence, but that's actu-ac-that's obviously what the Rebbe meant. But then, then later, so then I come back and to the desk, and, um, I see the Rebbe's, you know, so, uh, I mean, "Is these for me?" And I just, I believe I said something like, "If the Rebbe wants," like I didn't have an issue with it. You know, if the Rebbe wants to keep my piece of my art, I didn't have... Uh, the-- So the Rebbe looked at all three, and then this one, the Rebbe, like, actually said, "I'll keep this one." So that was fine. I took the other two, and I'm walking out, and then, um, I hear the Rebbe say, "Come back again." So I come back again, and the Rebbe says, "Is this an original?" I said, "Yes." So the Rebbe says, he hands it back to me, he says, "I can't keep an original." He said, um, "If you'll make a print, you'll send me a print." So as it was, I realized that it was a business thing. I probably didn't wanna spend money and print things, and I feel like it's cheaper. I don't know what the whole thing was about in my head, but as time went on, and I b- I started work, so I started making... And in fact, the first lithograph I made, which is a whole way, expensive way of making it, um-

51:12 Speaker 6 What's a lithograph?

51:13 Speaker 1 Oh, I don't have it here. Um, I'm not even going to go into that whole thing. It's, you, you... There's, there's-- You get a lithographer who actually, like, redraws your, the colors on a different plates and then inks them and then prints it and it's a long... But they, it looks more original.

51:29 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

51:29 Speaker 1 And it's nice. So I sent the 18th numbered edition. You, you number them, like one over two fifty, two over... You, you make edition, and you, you destroy the plates, so they're like worth things. Like, like stamps that are, you know, you have limited edition, they be- they're worth more like that. So, um, I sent the Rebbe the 18th one, so it was like... And I also made a print of this picture and sent it to the Rebbe too. And then after that, when I would do something new that I was printing, like, or s- like a ‹ash of a printing thing or something, not every little thing, I would send the Rebbe the 18th one. And they're in the Rebbe's collection in the library. In fact, they displayed one in one of the exhibitions they were having.

52:11 Speaker 6 So now I understand, because I think I have, I think I have arts from you that has numbers in the back. So now I know.

52:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. If it has a number, it means it's a limited edition, and it's not just-

52:20 Speaker 6 I think you gave me one for my Upsherish.

52:21 Speaker 1 What?

52:22 Speaker 6 I think you gave me one for my Upsherish.

52:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. I gave a lot of things away in those days. Um, yeah. Um, so where was I going with that? So, um...

52:36 Speaker 6 So that was that Yechidus.

52:38 Speaker 1 That was Yechidus. And then, um, yeah.

52:43 Speaker 6 So you went back to-- So you're in yeshiva, you went back to yeshiva.

52:46 Speaker 1 Right.

52:47 Speaker 6 And so eventually you, you got married, you're living in Crown Heights.

52:54 Speaker 1 Right.

52:55 Speaker 6 So you knew right away, like, that you're gonna be an artist as a, as a profession? You worked with it-

53:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Well, I was gonna try.

53:02 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

53:03 Speaker 1 Very impractical thing, but the, I had brochos from the Rebbe. Oh, and I think the Rebbe said something. "In fact, I'll give you a brocha for parnassa." I b- I think the Rebbe said that. I don't know if it was in that Yechidus. Maybe it was. But for an artist just to make parnassa and have nine kids, nine har, and all that whole stuff, you have no idea. Like, that's a, a huge, that's a, it's most artists just they'll do it as a hobby, they'll do it this, they'll teach, they'll do other things with it. To make a living as an artist is very, very difficult. So Baruch Hashem, I feel so, you know, brochos from the Rebbe and stuff like that. Um, there are amazing things that happen.

53:39 Speaker 6 So what were some of the other, uh, involvement from the Rebbe in, in your, in your art? I see we have multiple things here at the show. So-

53:48 Speaker 1 Right. Well, there were some times I sent things in, and the Rebbe would actually send out haros.

53:55 Speaker 6 Like what?

53:56 Speaker 1 Well, I'll show you. One of the first things I printed here is this, this, this, this alef. This was the original one. I've d- I've done up- updated ones, and my style has changed and all that kind of stuff, and some things got a little more, more mature. My earlier works, not when I was in college, they were not childlike pic- motif, but when I, somehow, when I became frum, it was like I feel like a little kid in cheder. It's like everything new, and I, like, I don't know, I had that. And so a lot of my stuff was like-

54:29 Speaker 6 Like for children

54:30 Speaker 1 ... very, very, like, yeah, storybook sort of feel. In fact, when I was in Yechidus, and I had-- And remember I told you I walked in, and I felt that feeling? I remember the first th- thing I thought about was that, "Oh my gosh, I have to get this feeling in my art." I want that feeling to be in my art and get that, that across, what I felt there. It's so interesting.

54:52 Speaker 6 So you're saying, so that, the way it expressed itself was more like a child experience?

55:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. There was something, like, very pure about it, you know? It's like people sometimes are brought up this way, and so they have, they, they have some Jewish trauma, you know, associated with this, that, and the other. I mean, we had some of that too, like, because we did have things we were taught, so I had to sort of undo my feeling about it, certain things. But generally speaking, Chassidus and all, it was just brand new and brand, like, and, like, it was just, especially Chassidus, like, these different things. So I did the alef. So this was one of the first things I printed, and it was for, you know, children's rooms. Although I saw it hanging in people's dining room too. But, um, and I took the word from the Alter Rebbe.

55:45 Speaker 6 The Yud above?

55:46 Speaker 1 Yeah, the alef-

55:46 Speaker 6 Yud above

55:47 Speaker 1 ... Yud above.

55:48 Speaker 6 Above.

55:48 Speaker 1 Hashem, the creator. Yud below, the Yidden, the Jewish people. And above, Torah and mitzvahs uniting them. So, um, I also thought maybe the Rebbe would say something because it had the moon and the stars and da, da, da, but Rebbe didn't say anything about that. Um, because- Not in this version, but as I got more touch, I put a crown on the top of the Klitzes Oyod to represent Kesser, to represent whatever, Hashem, King of Kings, whatever. And that's when I s- ever went and spoke about it or lectured and, and explained my pictures.

56:23 Speaker 7 The Rebbe said not to have the Kesser?

56:25 Speaker 1 No, the Rebbe didn't say anything about that.

56:27 Speaker 7 Oh, mm-hmm.

56:27 Speaker 1 I'm just saying, I was wondering if the Rebbe would say anything about-

56:30 Speaker 7 About the stars, yeah

56:30 Speaker 1 ... that I made, like, Shemayim and, like, 'cause it's, 'cause it says Hashem the Creator.

56:34 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

56:35 Speaker 1 But I don't know. But I, I, but I did end up adding a crown just because I wanted to be clear to everybody that. But in the original-

56:45 Speaker 7 And you wanted that the, the Eibishters on top of, of Shemayim?

56:49 Speaker 1 Yeah. The-

56:49 Speaker 7 Okay, yeah

56:49 Speaker 1 ... yes.

56:50 Speaker 7 Yeah.

56:50 Speaker 1 I want that clearly in the picture.

56:51 Speaker 7 That, okay.

56:52 Speaker 1 So my other versions after this, in the year below, the original version, and I had already made what they call color separation. In those days, it cost a lot of money. It was the most expensive part of the printing, was to get a color separation, so print in color. It was very expensive. That's why you didn't see a lot of the things that were printed in color, in books, anything in those times. Um, even my children's books, the first children's books, well, I'll talk about that in a minute. So they were like, I ha- they, they were just, like, two, there were two colors, and, and I had to do a whole thing to get to hand work to get that, uh, it's a whole thing that went on with that. But, um, um, but this was full color, so it cost a lot of money, and, and the color separations I paid for already. And, and the Rebbe said that, that, that in the year below, he, I should put Jewish people. There was just, like, a landscape of Eretz Yisroel. It was like Haaretz, like Eretz Yisroel.

57:51 Speaker 7 Uh-huh.

57:52 Speaker 1 Like, you know? And the Rebbe said I should add Jewish people.

57:56 Speaker 7 People.

57:57 Speaker 1 Yeah, and the Rebbe said, for example, a woman with a tichel, a boy with tzitzit, et cetera. Later on, uh, like, you put two and two together with these things, I got a lot of haoras that, that were, that would be things that, that artists and illustrators that later on that did things for Lubavitch, like, they, they just, I was one of the first to get these haoras.

58:22 Speaker 7 Right. They, they came later, and they knew, like, the rules, but you were-

58:25 Speaker 1 Like, for instance, if you-

58:26 Speaker 7 The rules were being established through you

58:27 Speaker 1 ... right. If you put it, if you put it a sheitel, it's gonna look like regular hair. So for the, even though it was into sheitelach, but if you're doing it in a, in a illustration, like a tichel, like, is clearly she has her hair covered.

58:40 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

58:41 Speaker 1 That kind of thing. So I, that's how I took that. But in any which case, so I had to redo it, and I had pa- I paid extra for it, and I, I, to the, to do the color separations that, that were, uh- and then, but then it, you know, it paid for itself. You know, it sold nicely, and that was it. But, um, uh-

58:58 Speaker 7 Well, if you're listening to the Rebbe, then you have the bracha in your-

59:01 Speaker 1 Right.

59:01 Speaker 7 That was the only horaa for that one.

59:03 Speaker 1 Right. So then there was, um, another, I'm just gonna mention a few different things that happened.

59:11 Speaker 7 But you have all these, but yeah, do it.

59:12 Speaker 1 No, they're, they're all, they all have something that the Rebbe said.

59:16 Speaker 7 So tell, tell.

59:19 Speaker 1 Um, this is, now there's a book called "The Great Mitzvah Fair," but before the book, I made this painting and then sold the painting, and I just made a poster out of it for kids' rooms and stuff. So there's just, you know, it's like a, what do you call it? Like a Jewish, uh-

59:43 Speaker 7 I see it says in the bottom "1981."

59:46 Speaker 1 Yeah, like an amusement park thing like that, right? So, I could tell from sometimes in the answers to things with th- these type of things, like I think they were always getting like pleasure out of it. You know, like, they're, they're like sort of whimsical. There's something. I, I did get a feel. Um, so the Rebbe, I, uh, comes out and says that, uh, I should add an Ahavas Yisroel gift shop. So when you look in the book now, "The Great Mitzvah Fair" book, which has been reprinted, you will see there's this Ahavas Yisroel gift shop. That was totally the Rebbe's idea.

1:00:24 Speaker 7 Ah.

1:00:25 Speaker 1 It's beautiful. Like that would show like, uh, like how could you show a kid like Ahavas Yisroel's? Like, you know-

1:00:30 Speaker 7 It's like how can you like-

1:00:31 Speaker 1 You buy, buy a gift for kids, something-

1:00:32 Speaker 7 A mitzvah, an amusement park named Ahavas Yisroel

1:00:33 Speaker 1 ... you bring something to his birthday part- uh, whatever.

1:00:35 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:00:36 Speaker 1 Um, and, um, and then the Rebbe said-

1:00:39 Speaker 7 I see, the idea of gift is Ahavas Yisroel.

1:00:41 Speaker 1 Yeah. Some are like, how do you, that, that was a good way for kids, you know, like-

1:00:46 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm

1:00:46 Speaker 1 ... um, then there was this, um, what else did the Rebbe say? But, um, Ahavas Yisroel gift shop, and-

1:00:56 Speaker 7 These were written responses-

1:00:57 Speaker 1 Oh

1:00:57 Speaker 7 ... or these were like things-

1:00:58 Speaker 1 They were written. Yeah, like the Rebbe said, "You're, uh, you're missing lulav and esrog." I took that not as a really serious, like I have to go, or like con- most of the, I took it like the Rebbe was like smiling, like, "I have a billion things in here. You're missing lulav and esrog." Like, you know, like hope. Um, the funny part is, is that up here, right here, in the top corner, in the s- in the border, there's a lulav and esrog.

1:01:27 Speaker 7 Uh.

1:01:28 Speaker 1 But I just, uh, look, it wasn't one of the main things that was up there, and, and, and I, uh, I took it like, I also took like the Rebbe was taking this in, but not maybe, like the Rebbe doesn't deal with this obvious, and this was the answer. I don't know what, but I didn't send back and say, "Well, I did put it in there."

1:01:48 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:01:48 Speaker 1 'Cause the Rebbe said, he means, the t- the coming from the Rebbe means it should be a bigger thing that's noticeable in the main part of the picture. That's how I took it. And in the book, there's also, they're, they're sell, in one of the places, he's selling lulav and esrog and stuff like that. So, um-

1:02:08 Speaker 7 And you have, um, you have these, the an- the written answers somewhere?

1:02:12 Speaker 1 Many of them. I don't know. I've- I don't know.

1:02:17 Speaker 7 Should I ask?

1:02:18 Speaker 1 I'm still trying to find things. For in the, for in the-- Here, now this, this is very interesting. You know, I'll-- Well, going-- First I'll talk about the children's books.

1:02:26 Speaker 7 So you did the books with Kahas?

1:02:27 Speaker 1 No. Oh, that was another thing I asked in Yechidas. I asked the, I asked Rebbe. Oh, I missed part of Yechidas. Whenever says-

1:02:35 Speaker 7 Is this all the first Yechidas?

1:02:36 Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm back to the first Yechidas.

1:02:37 Speaker 7 Okay.

1:02:37 Speaker 1 The other ones I was in twice, you know, once before marriage and once, and, and one more time as a bachor, and then I knew to sh-shut up in there, but just like I didn't say... I don't think I said anything. You know, because I'm not sure-

1:02:48 Speaker 7 'Cause I heard from other Baalei Teshuva that they were told not to ask any questions. So I guess you weren't told that or you ignored that.

1:02:54 Speaker 1 I did not-- No, I didn't ask-- I don't remember asking Rebbe any questions in that first Yechidas either. I asked questions in my pan.

1:03:01 Speaker 7 Right.

1:03:02 Speaker 1 A couple of questions. That you could, you know. Rebbe didn't answer everything, by the way. It was something Rebbe didn't answer I was actually upset about. But, you know, like, well, it wasn't time, it wasn't this. Um, so in Yechidas, uh, when Rebbe said, "You should make sukkas," I took that as a green light to, to, to do art. Like it just, I don't know. And it was in the Shama thing. I-- 'Cause it's really what I do and want to do. And, um, I got really excited, and I said, "Oh," and I could do children's books. That's something I wanted to do. So the Rebbe said, um, at the time, so the Rebbe said, "Yes." You have to understand, I was still a little bit sixties in me, you know? So I got really excited, and I started clapping my hands three times, and I said each time, "Baruch Hashem." You know, like clapping. I'm not even embarrassed by it 'cause it was so, it was so coming from such a p-sh-shitas and a place where I was that I had no problem. Rebbe did not look up, he just... The Rebbe said so- And not like, not like uh-huh, but something like, like, like the, the Rebbe said something to, to each Baruch Hashem. Like And then, um, so I went to the-- Afterwards, so the next day or whatever, I went to, I went to Rabbi Zirkind Olshan to see if I should maybe become a sofer.

1:04:27 Speaker 7 'Cause the Rebbe told you to check in with the sofer.

1:04:29 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:30 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:04:30 Speaker 1 So... And I loved, I just loved Hebrew letters, and I loved when I ever tried anything like that, I really loved it. So I come into him, and I sit down, and I say, "I wanna be a sofer." So he says, "Okay, one moment." So he goes back, and the, and he comes back with this sefer that was like, you know, five inches high. It was, um... And it, and it, and he says, "Okay, learn, learn this safer, and then come back, and I'll teach you how to write an alef." So I said, "Oh, you see I'm an artist. I can, I g- I don't need to learn all that before I write it. The, I'm, I'm artistic. You can just, you know, you can just start teaching me." I was like totally naive about any of this stuff. So, um, I didn't know there was all that. I didn't know did, I didn't know did, I mean, after Yirush Mai, after Mikvah. I had known any, all that stuff, the be- Everything is, I had no idea. So, um, I, I think he just, I don't know if you'd call it playing along, but the Rebbe said I should go. So-

1:05:32 Speaker 7 You didn't tell him that the Rebbe said that.

1:05:33 Speaker 1 He, he knew who he kn- I did.

1:05:34 Speaker 7 Oh, you told him that.

1:05:35 Speaker 1 I, I knew, uh, he, he knew who he was dealing with, what he's dealing with. So he actually goes back and brings back a whole bag of q- old quills and ink, and he starts teaching me alef. Can you imagine? So he starts teaching me. So he says, "Here." He, he knew I wasn't learned, I wasn't ready to become a sofer, you know, but he's just like, he said, "Go, go, go back to yeshiva, practice, and when you get this down, you'll come back, and I'll, we'll go weiter." So I went back to yeshiva, and I started doing it, and it was like... I realized it wasn't so easy. And then it started dawning on me, like there's like these, these, there's laws. Just 'cause there's laws about everything else, well, there's laws, and I'm not, you know, whatever. I wasn't one of the most learned people in yeshiva, still not, you know, troubled with languages, and I just... So next time I came in, I like sheepishly, I like brought the whole bag back to him, and I said, "You know, I'm just gonna be an artist."

1:06:31 Speaker 7 So that was that.

1:06:32 Speaker 1 But it, the sensitivity of the way the Rebbe dealt with it is quite, quite fascinating if you think about it, right? I think it was fascinating. Anyway, okay, but to go on a little bit with the books. So I went to, I went to Yigal Krinsky, and I just said, "I want-"

1:06:48 Speaker 7 This is after you left yeshiva when you, when you lived in New York.

1:06:51 Speaker 1 Um, yes, 'cause I wasn't supposed to be doing much then.

1:06:54 Speaker 7 Right.

1:06:54 Speaker 1 But I, I was in yeshiva another year, but I wasn't, and then I came, and I brought... I think I wrote, I wrote... Did I write it already? I wrote a, a storybook, a story. Maybe did an illustration to show, and then I, I, I, I came into Merkos. I went to Yigal Krinsky, and I, and I actually... I must have said something that the Rebbe said I shouldn't, that I asked if I would do children, the Rebbe said yes. I don't know if he thought that meant that they should consider me as doing it because the Rebbe said yes. Like, he didn't say, "Oh," you know, or, or anything. He just, he liked the manuscript, and it ended up that they hired me to do two books. So, um-

1:07:37 Speaker 7 It's only two?

1:07:38 Speaker 1 The, the first one was "Dovah Comes Home" and "The Scribe Who Lived in a Tree." But I'm telling you, these days when I see the, it's how fast you can do things.

1:07:47 Speaker 7 One of them is, uh, my parents are the characters in one, one of them.

1:07:52 Speaker 1 That could be. There were some people that sort of looked like them. Not like-

1:07:55 Speaker 7 No, no, the names.

1:07:56 Speaker 1 They were... Oh, yeah?

1:07:57 Speaker 7 Yeah. I'll show you. I forgot which one it is. One of them.

1:08:01 Speaker 1 Oh, yes. There was Aunt Avram and Aunt Bela. Oh my gosh.

1:08:07 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:08:07 Speaker 1 That's so funny. I f- I don't know if I did that on purpose. You know, you just sort of by nature, you take things from people you know.

1:08:15 Speaker 7 That's a weird coincidence.

1:08:16 Speaker 1 That's very possible. That's very funny. Oh my gosh. Okay, anyhow, so, um- Where were we up to with that? So, um, I, and I don't know, whatever it was, I don't know if Yudl Krinsky like showed these things to the Rebbe.

1:08:30 Speaker 7 Yeah, your work-

1:08:30 Speaker 1 I don't know

1:08:31 Speaker 7 ... published by-

1:08:31 Speaker 1 But now looking back, it's pretty amazing that they, that Merkos decided to just take what I did, and, and there was very little editing on it. Very little. Hardly anything had to be changed.

1:08:41 Speaker 7 So you wrote them and illustrated?

1:08:41 Speaker 1 What?

1:08:42 Speaker 7 You wrote all of them and illustrated?

1:08:45 Speaker 1 Yes. There was, the only one I didn't was "The Great Mitzvah Fair," which I did write, but they didn't like it, and they, they got someone to do a poetry thing to it, poem. It was fine. Um, like I remember one of the changes in the, in, in "Dova Comes Home" was the only change was he was, uh, getting all these things at the store, and when he got back, it was Shabbos. It was just Licht Benson, right? By the way, the whole thing is a mashal for Baalschuva. If you read it again, it's a whole mashal about the story of Baalschuva, and connection to the Rebbe, the whole thing. Anyway, so, um, I remember Krinsky, so he said, um, "We're changing it to already cooked fish because there's, people might think you're getting back and she's gonna cook fish 'cause it wasn't cooked." You know, just 'cause I, I had this whole like fish with a tail, like coming out the basket or whatever. Anyway, whatever it was. So anyhow, that was that. So, um, I still am, I'm still... So I remember one time walking into 770, and you know that, that there's like a, oh gosh, a cabinet, a big glass cabinet that says, you know, Kahal, uh, uh, with the-

1:10:01 Speaker 7 With just the showcase

1:10:02 Speaker 1 ... the Kahal label on the top, you know, made out of wood.

1:10:03 Speaker 7 It was wooden, yeah. Next to the other room.

1:10:06 Speaker 1 And they would change it in there, but it was because if something came out new. But anyway, there was like the f- first there was like, there was four or five lit- like little shelves, and they would have, they had from this, from the Otz wherever they had it from, you know? It's like se- And then the bottom they had my four children's books, right? I mean, crack up. So like, it, it's just funny. It's just very funny. Um, Yudl Krinsky once saw me, he says, "You know," we saw, when they go in Merkos L'Chuchim, they, they sell more of my children's books than anything else because people aren't Frum, and like someone, there was mostly Hebrews for him, and other things that were just like too religious for that. So they bought the children's books. There's old stories about that too. I mean, someone showed up at my, uh, uh, uh, my house once, Shay Tol, sh- full-blown Frum, and she told me that they became Frum from reading one of my children's books.

1:11:00 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:11:00 Speaker 1 They bought it from a, uh, their kid was going to some Jewish, uh, camp. They bumped into these two Bochurim came to the camp, and they were selling seforim to the parents on visiting day. And they bought, they bought "Dova Comes Home," and they, they were enamored by the whole idea of Shabbos and stuff like that. They literally tried to do whatever they could do with kosher food that's just from this children's book. I mean, they, there was no place to like look something up, you know, in a, like a Google s- nothing. The, the Rebbe was not that, or they just were not, didn't know. And they just wait until the next year when two more guys came, and then, then they hooked them up, and they became totally Frum. Amazing story.

1:11:40 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:11:42 Speaker 1 Um, then there's a story that I didn't know of until two years after that happened, was, um, someone mentioned the Rebbe carrying this book, "Dova Comes Home" after Meriv, walking with it under his hand, clearly like, like holding it, walking home. I said, "I never heard about that." And they were, they're, they're, they couldn't believe it, like, 'cause it was one of these things that was, people was, were talking about it because it was so like unusual. And then it was very, I was very touched by that, and I realized that the Rebbe was taking the books home to the Rebbetzin, so you, you know, like-

1:12:22 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm

1:12:22 Speaker 1 ... to show her. And then Moshe Katlansky, alav ha-shalom, did tell me once that the Rebbetzin liked the books very much. You know, to me as a Chassid of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin and the whole thing, it's like, there is nothing I think that's more like meaningful to me in my life just but to have, put a, a smile on the Rebbe or something like that, you know, or the Rebbetzin, like, like these, this, it's so like the chassidut of it and just, just the, the good feeling I have with it. With all the other things I feel, feel like I aggravate the Rebbe. You know, we all have things we feel like we're aggravating, we're not doing, we're this, we're that, da, da, ma, you know, all that kind of stuff. Like, thank God, Baruch Hashem, like, you know, I have these, these things that I can, they're just references to just align me once again. Feel the bracha. Um, and then one time I sent in these prints, because remember Tol, Rebbe told me to print, so I'm printing. I made a little greeting card company, things like that, and I-- This is like, there's like, they're just like little shtetl pictures. I mean, they're not, you know-

1:13:36 Speaker 7 You made a greeting card company

1:13:37 Speaker 1 ... shul, what? Challah ladies, a little Chassidishe Bochur with tzitzits. What'd you say?

1:13:43 Speaker 7 So you made a greeting card company.

1:13:45 Speaker 1 Some of these were mainly greeting cards, but these were just prints.

1:13:48 Speaker 7 Right.

1:13:49 Speaker 1 And I sold them as a package. So I just sent, I sent this, this, sent them into the Rebbe. That's, this is not what I'm, I'm doing. It's another thing that I just printed. So the Rebbe sent out, and I have, I have a copy of it. The Rebbe sent out, I don't have the original check because unfortunately it got stolen. You know, in those days there was a lot of crime. We g- we got robbed a lot. And one time they took the Rebbe's dollars and pushkas, and, and I had them by the same place, like, so they thought it was a check, so they took it. But thank God I had made a copy of it. Photostatus.

1:14:28 Speaker 7 Can I see it?

1:14:30 Speaker 1 That's an $18 check written to Michael Muchnick, both spelled wrong. No, Michael is, I mean, it's Michol. Muchnick spelled wrong. I, uh, secretaries probably did that. And this the Rebbe wrote, wrote $18. So I said to Rabbi Klein, uh, he's the one who gave, I said, "I'm not charging that much for them." Like the Rebbe overpaid.

1:14:50 Speaker 7 Overpaid.

1:14:51 Speaker 1 So he said, "Don't worry Michol." He says, "The Rebbe pays a, the Rebbe pays a good price. Just take the check." But I didn't want to cash it, of course, the Rebbe's signature, you know, that kind of thing. You wanted to look at it, you said? But I thank God I made a copy of that, so.

1:15:08 Speaker 7 Um, there's no date. Interesting.

1:15:14 Speaker 1 There's no date on it?

1:15:15 Speaker 7 No.

1:15:16 Speaker 1 Um, and I just, I, I, if the rabbi brought, brought it, I, I would assume that the rabbi also brought them back to give to the rabbi, so I would just assume that. Um, but I don't know for sure. But still, you know how it made that meeting feel? There were other times, so many times I, I, I remember, I just listened to your podcast with Avraham Frieds, w- and there were certain things in common, and, um, the rabbi did give me different Shliach mitzvah when I went to do exhibitions around the world, and there were a couple times he gave me, um, in the currency of the country. Um, I can't find those currencies. I don't know where they are. Maybe they were also stolen that time, whatever. The rabbi gave me a big bracha from that. I have a whole tzedakah about that. The rabbi told me to-

1:16:11 Speaker 7 After the break-in?

1:16:12 Speaker 1 Yeah. The rabbi told me to, to look and see what the Tzemach Tzedek writes in Derech Mitzvosecha, um, explaining cheder, the Rosh, the Rosh Yeshivas Cheder. It's Chesed and Rachamim. So it's a small paragraph, and the Tzemach Tzedek explains there, and it, it's sort of like on the Yiddish, um, saying that nachas reifa come to shiras, after a fire comes riches. Um, it's based on Chesed Cheder, Chesed and Rachamim, that the, it starts with Chesed when there's a din, that the Rachamim after is greater than the original Chesed. So beautiful bracha. Um, and it was a so it should be. So it was beautiful bracha. Um, then when I started with the exhibitions, see now that looking back on it, I mean, I felt it then too, for sure, but there was, th- there was such a unique way of being makar of people and to teach Chassidus through a, a method that was just so up their alley. People were very much into j- uh, art and all kinds of stuff, so the next thing, a rabbi plops down and comes and wants to give a lecture. Some people are gonna chap, and some people are gonna whatever. Some people just don't even like listening to anybody talking. I mean, there's all kinds of things that go on, but here I made this slide presentation eventually, which is just, I took f- f- really it was from like from the birth of a child and, and I went through Aleph and a Beis, and

1:18:01 Speaker 1 I get... And I explained all these Chesed, and then I went through holidays, and it's about a half an hour long. And I would show this at the exhibition, and we'd have it for like first half hour of the exhibition. And then they would go in, and then they would see all the stuff, and things were priced, and people h- bought stuff. It was so powerful because you could see in the way people are paying attention to every single thing you're saying. You're saying an idea in Chassidus, and you're explaining the painting and the mashal, and they're really like listening. Years later, people, some people come to me like it's, it's, they'd say, "You know, I still remember what you said about the Aleph" or something. Like something's just stuck, you know, that, that kind of thing. But I think why the rabbi was so excited about it, I mean, now thinking back, when I say excited, the rabbi just was very m- like giving me brochas for, uh, when, uh, you know, uh, when I would say I'm going and just give me this, these Shliach mitzvah and stuff like that. I couldn't see the so-called excitement, I don't know if that's, if that's the right word. Uh, but the rabbi's appreciating how powerful this is, and then when these exhibitions were just amazing. Now, I had a lot of anxiety because the, the left brain stuff dealing with all this stuff was like really, was very difficult many times, and you don't know

1:19:22 Speaker 1 if you're gonna sell anything, and you know, all kinds, sometimes I didn't, and this kind of stuff, and just stuff. Um, and there was a whole things about that too, I guess, or what I should do. Oh, I have, I'm holding it, answer from the rabbi. Um, so the first series of exhibitions I had, I arranged for eight exhibitions for the pretty much newly founded Chabad houses down Ca- from Sacramento to San Diego in California. I don't know if there was many more than that at that time. The, we're talking about early, early '80s. So I had things like these prints. I had very little printed art. I just had made some originals and whatever. I, the first couple exhibitions I was selling like well for what I had, and I just realized that they had, everybody put out, because I was going down, you know, almost every night, another place. They had put out, um, their invitations and all this kind of stuff, but I didn't, I, I didn't have enough s- s- I, I realized by the time I get to the next, I'm not gonna have hardly anything.

1:20:34 Speaker 7 You were doing so well, you sold out.

1:20:36 Speaker 1 You know? Right. It's not like I brought that much. I just didn't, wasn't think... So after a couple-

1:20:40 Speaker 7 The rabbi told you in the first Sicha to have a manager.

1:20:43 Speaker 1 Mmm. Okay, I don't even wanna go there. I've had troubles with managers ever since. When I say troubles, trouble trusting them, which is what, to find one someone you trust. I do have management. I do. I have an in-house manager. I have my son Moshe, who's like making sure I don't sign dotted lines until I show him any kind of like, if anything, it's above a certain amount. I mean, I do have management. I haven't, I haven't... And either there were times I had a manager, but things didn't work out. I, it's, it's- The rabbi told Boruch Nachshon the same thing. He also had trouble. It's, it's not an easy thing for an artist to have a manager, just telling you that. Maybe that's why the rabbi said it. But, but I-- No, I need one. I ne- But I sort of have, have, so I'm not... And it's kept me from getting, being taken advantage of, so at least that's... In other words, if the rabbi hadn't done that, I can't even think of what could have been in cer-certain circum-circumstances, I'm telling you. Like, artist people, they just, they can take advantage of them, many things. And I, some things that were, like, real money stuff. So back to California. Yeah. So I was like... I started, like, staying up late at night, and I started sketching things, you know, like I'm gonna sell. Like I'm, I'm trying to make more pa- I become more, it was ridiculous. So, um, finally I had.

1:22:04 Speaker 1 So the next exhibition, I, I, I told the people, "I need to exhibit this, and I'll get it back to you." So at least I can have enough stuff at the exhibition. You went through those that you sold it. And then people can order, they, people can order the prints, or they can order a, a custom painting or whatever. But because of that, I had to go back and travel back and deliver all this. Oh, it was an absolute mess. Uh, I, I lit- I got sick from it. I literally got sick, like real. Like I had to go to the doctor afterwards. Um, and, um, so I wrote to the rabbi and I said, "It looks like it's a parnasa," but, um, like people are buying things, but I'm, I'm such a nervous wreck from it. Like what, what can I do or what can I meditate on that I can function better, like do the, when I'm doing what I, this. So the rabbi said, here's the, here it says, um, it's in Hebrew, but I'll just translate it. Like, "Before each exhibition, um, um, you should with Balinet or, um, give to Tzedakah high times high cents, eighteen times eighteen cents." I never shared the amount with anybody until a couple years ago. Like I just, I don't know, just didn't. It was like I didn't want to make nine hours. Um, so I, whatever it was, it was like eight times eighteen cents, which is three hundred and, three dollars and

1:23:32 Speaker 1 twenty-four cents. So, um, that was one thing. Second thing was, at the exhibit, you should also place on the, at the side of... Who knows it? Pla-place on the table, min haTzah, you know, at the side, a siddur, a tehillim, a Chumash, and a pushka for Tzedakah in Azkiel Museum. So by the way, the rabbi did not mention Tanya here, which later I, I was thinking about that. The reason I think is because I think these things are like sort of, I don't know what you call it, like protective things or so- I don't know what, but since I was already explaining all the Hasidahs, like I already- You were the Tanya. I fe-- And let's not say it like that, but I felt like I was giving over Ti... Like I think, 'cause it's very interesting to me. I, I never really got an... No, but that's what I was saying. So, um, now this just, I, I don't have time to go into too much, but there was, it, this many times before exhibitions, I always find myself, like, getting all burnt, be-bent out of shape. I would just give a Tzedakah. I would... Oh, wait a minute. I'm sorry. I didn't... Why is it not here? Oh, yes, it is. The first line, I skipped it over. The, I also asked what I should meditate on, right? So I was scared, like maybe the rabbi's gonna tell me, "Learn this Sefer. Learn that Sefer, this thing." I was going, "Ugh." And, um,

1:25:07 Speaker 1 I was waiting. That's a big question to ask. You know, it's a whole, could be a whole to-do. And all the rabbi answered, I say all, but the rabbi answer was, "Meditate on the Hashgacha process." I love that answer. Like, wow, you have no idea what that's done for me. So, um, sometimes I found myself in the strangest or very, very difficult situations. Traveling, things didn't work out, or something happened, or this or that, and all kinds of stuff. And I just stop and say, "This is Hashgacha process." And sometimes you see it, what, something pretty soon, and sometimes it could be years later, something comes up and something, and I s- It's amazing. And then I also, what used to bother me was having these exhibitions, speaking about all this stuff, and people walk out, "Oh, it's very nice." They may even buy a painting, but where is the, where is the Maisersoiker? Where is, where is it actually becoming a little more from or taking on a mitzvah? You know, and you can't get up there and start preaching, and you, uh, it doesn't sort of fit with an exhibition. You know what I'm saying a little bit? Right. So, um, my whole thing was like to come in and through the back door a little bit, so, so to speak, and then they get... Like they're, they're looking at some mitzvah and a painting, and then they realize they're at some, some subconscious level, they're actually excited about looking at this decorated

1:26:32 Speaker 1 film or something. You know, hear the psychology of it. Where are we going with this? So, um. So maybe we should go... So first of all, you have some more, um- Like Horos from the rabbi? Yeah. Well, I, I'm very interested. Yeah. You have, you have a few more of them here. Yeah. You want to show me? You show me the mitzvah there. Yeah. Okay, so, um. Did he-- Exactly the same. Nope, that's not, there was no Horah on that. Yeah. Here. This one, I remember there was a Horah. Okay, but let me just explain that. So when I made a lithograph, like something was chashuv in the printing, so the, what, what's going to go out there and people are gonna see, you know, like it's gonna... So I would send it in to the rabbi, and before... Oh, I got smart. After that thing that happened with the Aleph, I sent it in, like before I would print it- Right ... in case there were changes. Changes. Okay. So I got smart. Yeah, still trying to get smart. Anyway, so, um, I, I did that, and then it was taking longer and longer to get an answer, but I had to get these things printed, or I had due dates, stuff like that. And I did come to realize that the Rebbe was not gonna start making comments on everything that I was doing or, or that I was doing so often, but that I think he was giving me a general thing

1:27:51 Speaker 1 like, "Look, you're on your own, but you see that... J- be careful. Like, just make it more Torahdic, make it this, make it that." You know what I'm saying? It's not, not, it's not like something's treif, God forbid. Not anything, just, just check things out.

1:28:05 Speaker 7 That there's answers from the Rebbe that the Rebbe said that it's come the time that I don't need to direct-

1:28:11 Speaker 1 The Rebbe didn't say that

1:28:12 Speaker 7 ... and hold your hand. No, I'm saying no, that to others.

1:28:13 Speaker 1 I just felt that that's what was happening.

1:28:15 Speaker 7 Right.

1:28:15 Speaker 1 So I, um, and I didn't wanna take the Rebbe's time and all that kind of stuff. So, um, but very interesting, like, um, David Shalom paper, paper. So he, he did Mishich Times and that whole thing. He once told me, he says, "You have no idea how many things that we have in there, we got the ideas from something in your children's books." Like, there was a lot of things, like the whole mitzvah train and stuff, but you'll see that all over the place. And then you go into stores, and you'll see mitzvah trains, you know, like, you know, for kids and things like... There's a lot of stuff came from those things. Um, yeah, I should have patented some of that stuff. Anyway, whatever. So this one is called "Before Shabbos Lithograph," and, um, it's really like a, a Erev Shabbos, layers of baking challah, and they're, I don't know, doing chreitas or whatever. So, um, very vintage. So the Rebbe told me that, um, to add an- add another... There's, there's, there's like, there's s- I even set up, I just had, like, kiddush cups and some l- light around, right? So Rebbe said, "You should add a kiddush cup, and you should add..." I, I don't remember. More light or a couple more light. In other words, there was, there was two women and a child, so the Rebbe was, like, adding all what's needed for who's in the picture.

1:29:48 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:29:49 Speaker 1 Um, but I always, when I got an answer like that, I always took it like, there's gotta be something deeper. At some point, I c- and I can't say exactly, but sometimes I think the, the Rebbe was, like, adding to my family, or give me a berakhah for a child or th- I... Something. You're add- like, I've, I, I could be wrong, but there's something, there's just something with all these answers sometimes. I feel like we're just, not just stam.

1:30:21 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:30:21 Speaker 1 Do you hear what I'm saying?

1:30:22 Speaker 7 Yeah, sure.

1:30:23 Speaker 1 Um, then this one, I did, this one... Now, this is a very, very different style. And then, look, life changes. You go through challenges. All kinds of things go on. Some, if you're a real artist, your art changes, you know. So I, at some point, the, the, the childlike stuff sort of, I don't wanna say childish, the childlike motifs, you wanna call it? So it changed. So this is a very much more serious sort of picture, and it's called "The King's Messenger." And I sent this into the Rebbe, and the Rebbe, um, what, uh, mis- miskabel v'shor'schen, is that the, the Ger-

1:31:09 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:31:09 Speaker 1 Right?

1:31:10 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:31:11 Speaker 1 Um, I just sent it in because I wasn't even, I didn't make these prints, but I just, I just wanted the Rebbe to see that, that I made this deep painting, right? And it's basically from the Zohar that, that Atsah that goes to the Ir Elokeinu. No, the Migdal... I'm sorry. He goes from Ir Elokim to the Migdal Havaya, and then back to the Ir Elokim. That's something what the pasuk says.

1:31:38 Speaker 7 Says.

1:31:40 Speaker 1 And I basically meant that, that, that, that that's what a shliach is, and there's the, there's, like, the, the town that he's a sh- like a shliach for, this world, right? And where his shlichus is, and he's receiving, there's a bird with a scroll, like he's receiving the teaching from the Rebbe, the king, who's, uh, you know, higher than, like, higher than, like, some, uh, like connected to above, like, and giving him instructions, basically.

1:32:14 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:32:15 Speaker 1 And there's other things in here that are very deep and personally connecting things, but I'm, I'm just saying it's very... So then years later, after, before, um, when, after there was a stroke, and then the Rebbe was in back of 770, and, and that, the, that, it looked, it, it was the same-

1:32:37 Speaker 7 The Rebbe was in the balcony.

1:32:38 Speaker 1 The balcony, and it's sticking out like that.

1:32:40 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:32:41 Speaker 1 And someone, like, called me up and said they had this picture, or they, and, and they just said, like, "It's your painting. It's your painting." Like, it was just strange. It was just strange because, I mean, it was just a very strange thing to make even.

1:32:59 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:33:00 Speaker 1 Like, that's how I made it, you know, like this balcony and the... I'm not reading into it. I'm just saying, like-

1:33:06 Speaker 7 Right

1:33:06 Speaker 1 ... this is a very deep picture. But any which case, that was that. Um, and, um, yeah, I mean, there may have been some other things. Um, oh, yeah. So I sent in a, I made a, uh, whole series of greeting c- cards. They were just to be, like, note cards that, like, you know, like a lady might write a thank you note to somebody or something like that. And I wrote, "You have to be careful what you write to Rebbe." So I wrote in- That I'm, I'm making these greeting cards. I hadn't made them yet, actually. Again, I put them out there in case there was some horror. And I said, "And I'd like to have them printed in time for Rosh Hashanah." I hope I didn't write that 'cause I wanted the Rebbe to answer soon so that I'd have time to get them ready for Rosh Hashanah, but that's what I wrote. So, um, the Rebbe took that, that, uh, that I'm making Rosh Hashanah cards or something, 'cause in those days people sent out Rosh Hashanah cards, right? So it was more just flowers, and everybody said, "Parachim?" Like, question mark. Like, and then, and some- I forget the other one. Then, and then they said like, "Better?" Or something. Apple dipped in honey. Like he, everybody mentioned these things for Rosh Hashanah, I was so embarrassed. So I didn't wanna say these weren't supposed to be for Rosh Hashanah. I didn't wanna go into the whole thing, so I just,

1:34:30 Speaker 1 I just took up my pen and I just created a whole bunch of Rosh Hashanah cards and did that. Um.

1:34:39 Speaker 7 I have a question for you.

1:34:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:34:41 Speaker 7 Unless you're in the middle of a thought.

1:34:43 Speaker 1 No, no, go ahead.

1:34:45 Speaker 7 Um, what-- Did you have, uh, interactions with the other Chabad artists? I mean, I'm thinking is for, on the one hand you have like Baruch Nachshin who was like, um, from outside that came in, then you also have like the veteran Chabad artists like Chana Lieberman-

1:35:02 Speaker 1 Right

1:35:02 Speaker 7 ... and Zalman Kleiman. Do, do, did you have, uh-

1:35:05 Speaker 1 So I did. Um, but it's funny, like artists are not usually the most chummy with each other.

1:35:15 Speaker 7 Uh-huh.

1:35:15 Speaker 1 They're just not. Um, and I remember, I remember when I first of all was learning that Rashi in the Chumash about the nachash says to, to Chava, you know, "You know why God doesn't want you to eat from the tree? Because you're gonna get the knowledge that he has." And, and then it says there that crafts, crafts people don't, they don't wanna share their knowledge with the other, you know, like they're gonna s-steal their-

1:35:43 Speaker 7 Right

1:35:43 Speaker 1 ... their, their idea that they think is unique or something they, they came up with. I thought, "Oh my God, that's so true." Anyway, so, um, there was always like a little bit standoffish thing of some sort. But on the other hand, you have something in common with other artists. So, um, Zalman Kleiman, alav ha-shalom, if we bump into each other, he would ask me where I get my art supplies from. We never talked about- ... the art. That kind of thing. And before that-

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1:37:51 Speaker 1 When I came to Crown Heights from Morristown, I, um, people told me there's these artists and, and, uh, Handle, Fetter Handle, Handle Lieberman, alav ha-shalom, so I decided I'm gonna go visit. He was older then. Um, and he answered the door, and he said he wasn't feeling well, I should come back another time. Something like happened twice, but I didn't give up, and I went a third time, and he let me in. And I don't know if his English was so good, but in any which case, um, I brought similar type of things. I brought some, my real detailed art to show him. Um, but I came in, and he took me into his back room where he's, he paints. I was blown away. There was nothing in the room, nothing. I'm just gonna be, there was nothing on the wall, no furniture, nothing. There was an easel with one painting on it, which w- had the fiddler with this colorful spring tree blooming in the back, like, uh, later when it was done. So it was one of the things that you would see in a front cover of, of one of the albums or something.

1:39:02 Speaker 7 Yeah, kind of thing.

1:39:02 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:39:03 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:39:03 Speaker 1 That kind of thing. But I saw it, and when it was in the middle of being painted, and there was a little, like, chair, like a child's chair, wooden chair right next to it, and on it was a palette with his paints and some brushes. Now, if you would come to my studio, I, it's like, it's so cluttered, and there's a billion things in there. And I, it, it's just like, which is typical for, like, a messy artist too, but he had just nothing there but that fan. I thought, "Well, that's amazing because it really helps to focus on the painting. You don't have anything else to focus on." Um, but he didn't really talk to me. I showed him, I showed him my, what I brought him, and he like, I don't know what, he just like went, "Hmm." And then he said, he came in the back and said, "You should go to art school." Or go back to art school. I don't know. I didn't take it like a, I wasn't about to do that, and he doesn't know what's going on in art school in the United States and how, 'cause I was there and all that kind of stuff, but I think he's just saying, you know, like, like learn more, you know? I, I don't know whatever it was, but it was sort of funny. So, um, that was the end of that. Um, right. Then Nachshin, so he did come to-

1:40:17 Speaker 7 Which is another artist that the Rebbe really encouraged.

1:40:19 Speaker 1 Voh, Olaveshalem. What? All these are Olaveshalem. What?

1:40:22 Speaker 7 That the Rebbe really encouraged him, and he had a-

1:40:23 Speaker 1 No, well, he paid for his, his schooling.

1:40:25 Speaker 7 Right, and then he vis-

1:40:26 Speaker 1 Like he did for, like, um, uh, Eli Lipsgirl or something for his music. Like, that's-

1:40:30 Speaker 7 Yeah

1:40:30 Speaker 1 ... that's, that's says so much, right?

1:40:32 Speaker 7 And Rebbe visited his exhibition.

1:40:34 Speaker 1 And then he, he, he, he asked that they... He asked, I guess it was, uh, Yuro Kuntz, I believe, to, to make... That he should have an exhibition downstairs.

1:40:43 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:40:43 Speaker 1 And, and when it was being renovated, but they made it whatever-

1:40:46 Speaker 7 It was upstairs in the, the offices. But now it's the offices.

1:40:50 Speaker 1 I don't think it was upstairs. I think it's where-- I think it's was in the back of the Vibershal. You walk-

1:40:55 Speaker 7 No

1:40:55 Speaker 1 ... where the plaza is.

1:40:56 Speaker 7 In the Vibershal, there's a staircase to the upstairs, to the offices. That's where it was. I think that was the cost showroom maybe at that time.

1:41:05 Speaker 1 I went to it. You know where you walk up the plaza? I think they had just built the plaza.

1:41:09 Speaker 7 No, no.

1:41:10 Speaker 1 No? They hadn't built the plaza?

1:41:13 Speaker 7 No, the plaza was built later, but there's-

1:41:15 Speaker 1 So then-

1:41:15 Speaker 7 In the, in the Vibershal-

1:41:16 Speaker 1 If you walk to the plaza now, you would call it the second floor?

1:41:18 Speaker 7 Yes. If you go in that-

1:41:19 Speaker 1 Okay. So that's where it was.

1:41:20 Speaker 7 No, but there's a-

1:41:21 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:41:21 Speaker 7 ... in, in you go in the Vibershal-

1:41:22 Speaker 1 Right

1:41:22 Speaker 7 ... there's a staircase. It's there till today. That's-

1:41:25 Speaker 1 That goes higher than the, the-

1:41:26 Speaker 7 That goes to the hallway of the offices, so that's where it was. There's a picture of the Rebbe walking down that stairca-- or coming down, about to come down that staircase.

1:41:32 Speaker 1 I don't remember that being that way, but that's, that doesn't... Maybe I'm-- 'cause it was not the same setup now that I'm getting confused, but it doesn't make a difference. I, I saw, I saw the exhibition. Um, yeah, that was pretty amazing. Um, so he came once to me, and it was still a similar thing. He wants to know how I did ce- a certain type of thing.

1:41:53 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:41:53 Speaker 1 Like where I got my, my this, like, this, like, um... It's actually a wild fig bark paper. He wanted to know where I got it 'cause, like, he wanted to try it out. It was a little... I, I, I didn't want him to try it out- ... 'cause it was like it was so unique to my art, so I just made this whole thing. I go... And I wasn't really lying. I just said, "Oh, you don't wanna work with this stuff." Like the, it sucks up the paints, and it dries up and starts to thing. I had to go back and fix somebody's thing, and so he, he's just like, "Oh, I don't want to."

1:42:25 Speaker 7 Talked him out of it.

1:42:26 Speaker 1 I talked him out of it. Um-

1:42:29 Speaker 7 May I ask you a question?

1:42:30 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:42:30 Speaker 7 Um, there's something with, um... We also wrote once in the Herald an article about the cookbook.

1:42:39 Speaker 1 Oh, oh.

1:42:40 Speaker 7 The-

1:42:40 Speaker 1 The first, the Spice and Spirit?

1:42:42 Speaker 7 Spice and Spirit.

1:42:43 Speaker 1 I have a story about that too.

1:42:44 Speaker 7 Yeah, 'cause your, your art's on the front, I believe, right?

1:42:46 Speaker 1 Right. So I have a story about that with the Rebbe. So, so this was Esther Blau. So Zion goes on. So she, she was in charge of the cookbook, but there was other people involved. It was a committee. But she was in charge of me. I was the illustrator, and I made these black and white illustrations, and it took them, I don't know, a really long time to get this together. People weren't so sophisticated with these things, but had to know how to make a book. So it really took a long time. And just when they need... She, she just sent me, said, "I have two more recipes." It was that kind of thing. I would do a, a something over some, about a holiday. I would do an illustration, bring it in. But this was going on for, I don't know, a couple years, and they pay me for each thing, like whatever it was. Not so much money. And they f- we found out it's finished. So I hadn't heard from them, so I s- you know, I said, "What's doing?" "Yeah, we're, we're, we're trying to get, you know, get it printed." I said, "Well, what's with the cover?" Uh, so she says, "So the committee decided to go to some, like, um, professional outfit in Manhattan and have them do a quote-unquote professional cover." I-- You can imagine how I felt. I was like, "I worked on this darn thing. It's all my illustrations inside. For how m- I'm worried. I

1:44:03 Speaker 1 spent couple years on this thing. Like, at least give me a chance." I said, I said, "I'll tell you what. I'll make a cover. I'm not gonna charge you, and then you compare the two, and then if, whatever. If you wanna use mine, use mine. If not, you know..." I can't say anything. I can't, you know, I can't argue with... So who could say that? They were, they were embarrassed to say, "No, we're just not taking it." They said, "If you wanna do it in your time, make a cover." So I made that cover.

1:44:36 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:44:39 Speaker 1 So there was like six ladies on the committee. So three of them really liked my cover and wanted to change it to my cover and not the cover that this whoever it was designed, which was, my opinion, pr- had not the Hamish feeling. You know, it was a little cold, but okay, professional, right? So, um, I'm not knocking the ladies. I'm not saying... I'm just saying like, you know, I'm an artist.

1:45:02 Speaker 7 But also there was involvement from the Rebbe in this whole project.

1:45:04 Speaker 1 No. So what happened? So there was like six ladies on the committee or something like that. So like half of them said this, and the other said half. So they were there, they were at a standstill.

1:45:12 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:45:12 Speaker 1 So what does Nashei Chabad do? Is doing a cookbook, and they, they can't... What do you do? You write to the Rebbe, right? So the Rebbe answers. The Rebbe answers, "If you can use both, then use both. But if you can't use both, then better to use from our own community because ev- even in this, there's a bracha."

1:45:36 Speaker 7 Hmm.

1:45:40 Speaker 1 Basically, Rebbe was saying, "Use mine." Do you, do you know how I felt? I, I felt like... I felt so good. Um, 'cause they couldn't use both, so it became the thing. And, and, you know, it was like a nice Hamish. It fit the whole feel of the thing.

1:45:58 Speaker 7 Right. Well, the cookbook is being used well-

1:46:01 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:46:01 Speaker 7 ... till today.

1:46:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, and people still have it. Then I did also the cover for the, the... They had a version that was like a It was a soft cover of Pesach, Pesach version. But just the type of sensitivity of these things. He had to deal with them. He had to deal with them. He was like... No, I, I didn't- I did wonder why the Rebbe said even in this, as if like... I think that was, for them, it was probably a stress. Like, don't think that this is something you're, that, that is outside of considering, like, things. Not just, "Oh." You know what I'm saying? I, I think he was stressing to them that take the, the im- there's importance in all these, these, these, this, this thing. 'Cause this is a funny lesson, even in this. How do you read that? How do you take that?

1:46:54 Speaker 7 Not, not following. Even in?

1:46:56 Speaker 1 That even in this, which means even in this, like a cover for a book-

1:47:00 Speaker 7 Right

1:47:01 Speaker 1 ... or something like that, that there's, there's a special berakhah. I think it's meaning using someone from ... Ugh, I think it means even in this, which you feel you need some extra professional something or other, there is a berakhah from using something for even, even if you feel it's not as professional. Maybe that's ac- according to the way they were thinking.

1:47:22 Speaker 7 Right. And the-

1:47:24 Speaker 1 It came out very professional

1:47:25 Speaker 7 ... huge project. Right. Yeah. Um, were you involved in other, were there other mitzvatim from the Rebbe that you were involved with the art?

1:47:33 Speaker 1 Yes. There was... Also, I'm, I think I was the first one, when the Rebbe talk about the wom- the girls lighting candles. So, I don't remember if I did something the Rebbe said to add the third candle directly to me, like, for a picture or, but maybe. What I do remember is that I did do, I did just put the third candle to the right. I put the two candles, and then to the right-

1:48:12 Speaker 7 This was for what? This was for-

1:48:14 Speaker 1 I think-

1:48:14 Speaker 7 ... like, Neshek, I think?

1:48:15 Speaker 1 I'm not... Don't q- I, I would have to ask Esther Sternberg, zotza"l. She, I did stuff for her, for the, for Neshek. Um, I think that, I remember she had a button. In those days, it was from the '60s, everybody still wore these buttons if you wanted to say something.

1:48:33 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:48:33 Speaker 1 Right? So there was this button that, like, m- "Women in, in doors light Shabbos candles." So there was this button, so, um, they made. I th... It may have been that where I did it, and the Rebbe said the candle should be between the two. I d- I definitely remember an answer that the candle should be between the two. The third candle should be between the two parents' candles.

1:48:58 Speaker 7 Parents' candles.

1:48:59 Speaker 1 Or the two larger candles. And I th- I always meditate on these things because it's, it, it's very fascinating. It's interesting why the Rebbe say that. What's the, what do you, what are you to learn from that? 'Cause you would think, "Okay, the mother's lighting the candles, and the, the, the extra candle does represent the girl, so she'd be standing next to her mother on one side." But first of all, that doesn't represent just a girl's candle. It represents children, you know? Like, light, 'cause you light more when you have more kids and stuff like that.

1:49:28 Speaker 7 But the chidush of the Rebbe's mitzvah-

1:49:31 Speaker 1 Right

1:49:31 Speaker 7 ... was that girls that are not married should light. So, I mean, I guess that's why-

1:49:35 Speaker 1 Right. But when you're s- but when people are looking at Shabbos candles, and you're representing Shabbos candles with a, a candle in the m- a third candle, that could be for a boy, it could be for a girl, it could be for the, the, the mother's lighting for a child, or just the fact that the, or any... I took it like that children are, have hashpa'ah from both parents equally, and it, it's like that, you know, that kind of thing. There's just more to it. There's gotta be more to it. So I just thought of that and, um, there was... Oh, another thing I didn't bring here, but so the Rebbe said told me make kesubots, which I did. Um, had them printed and then, you know, the sofer or rabbi would fill it in, or I would fill it in beforehand. So the Rebbe, this I also felt was a little bit tongue in cheek, if I must say. The Rebbe said, um, but I should not put an illustration of a mikvah because I have a mikvah in that great, not the great Mizrahi affair. It was another painting I showed the Rebbe, and I, and I, I talk about that. People can look it up in Inside Story, in my story. If you want me to tell that, too, people who are listening, I'll go into that. But, but that in that, in that picture, that village picture, there's a, a mikvah underg- like, a mikvah.

1:50:55 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:50:56 Speaker 1 So Rebbe told me not to put, I wasn't planning on it, but not to put a, uh, a mikvah in the, in the, in the, the kesubah.

1:51:06 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:51:07 Speaker 1 Or don't put, or don't put even, or don't write a sign, like, to the mikvah, mitzvat snias.

1:51:12 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:51:12 Speaker 1 I wasn't planning on doing that, but I get there was concern about that. Um-

1:51:17 Speaker 7 This was right in the beginning, or this was later on? 'Cause I think you had kesubots right away.

1:51:21 Speaker 1 No, it wasn't right away.

1:51:22 Speaker 7 It was later on.

1:51:23 Speaker 1 No, early, but it wasn't right away. Um, and that in the kesubah, I asked if I should put the third candle, and the Rebbe said no. In a kesubah, just put two candles.

1:51:33 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:51:35 Speaker 1 'Cause they didn't have children yet, and that's not, that's not, that's not what's going on.

1:51:39 Speaker 7 Interesting.

1:51:39 Speaker 1 Like, all these things are very, very interesting, and there's halachas there that would, should have been followed. Different, I just, I'm not, you know, I'm not posek. I'm not gonna tell everybody what to do. But I mean, there are these things. Um, but just quickly, 'cause you can read about it, but, but it's, it's, I did have this other picture called The, The Village of the Menschiks, with these like, like these l- like these, uh, miniature Yidden, and a big, big, big scene. I also made a lithograph of that. And the Rebbe, he notices in the bottom left, left-hand corner There was a, a g- uh, free loan fund and a, um, hospitality hotel. There was other things there, but they picked those, pointed to those two and said, "These are Inyanim of Gemilus Chasadim, and therefore they should be on the right side of the picture, not the left."

1:52:34 Speaker 8 Because in the three pillars-

1:52:36 Speaker 1 Right. Torah of Gemilus Chasadim.

1:52:37 Speaker 8 Gemilus Chasadim is on the-

1:52:38 Speaker 1 But everything, even in the picture, and people looking at things that have to do with these Inyanim should be on-

1:52:42 Speaker 8 Right

1:52:42 Speaker 1 ... these part, part, parts of the picture. I thought it was fascinating. The, um, and then, um, on the right top, it was in like a tree house or something, so they were davening, and there was the, the shul, so the Rebbe said, "That's Avoda, that's Tefilla, so therefore that should be on the left, not the right. And Inyanim of Torah should be, and Limud of Torah should be in the, uh, the emetzer, in the middle." So ever since then, I s- I almost inevitably, like, even look for those symbols to put in somewhere.

1:53:11 Speaker 8 Yeah.

1:53:11 Speaker 1 Either like a, it could be challah for, you know, Hachnasat Orchim, it could be a pushka for, you know, you know, tzedakah on the right. It could be a shul, you know, something, a siddur in the left, and then Vayismal Elokeinu or something like that in the middle. And then I can talk about these things when I'm showing people. So it's like, it's not just about-

1:53:31 Speaker 8 So you feel like the-

1:53:31 Speaker 1 ... this, it's about teaching

1:53:32 Speaker 8 ... Rebbe was giving you the guidance into how to utilize your art for the mission of spreading Yiddishkeit, but through these Herot, the first thing Rebbe was giving you accuracy, like how to do these accurately, but it's also part of the story of how to give over Torah and mitzvahs through Torahly.

1:53:55 Speaker 1 I have to tell you, as far as I can see, it was pretty much a Chiddush. I, I... Art before that was mostly for ceremonial things, beautiful spice box, this, that, and the other. And then, then like the Jewish artists in like the last, uh, the century, whatever it was, was Jewish scenes, you know? Even like Fetter Handel, it was Jewish scenes. And Rebbe spoke about it like he was advertising the Hasidic lifestyle.

1:54:22 Speaker 8 Right.

1:54:22 Speaker 1 But to actually take an idea of Hasidism, a mashal, and give it over in a mashal so that you could, like, ponder the concept, I think it w- I, I don't take credit for that, but I'm just like, I, I, I, I... I think it was a big Chiddush, and I think the Rebbe like . Um, in fact, here, I'll show you something. This is something of the Rebbe, I mean, I did send one of them in to the Rebbe, but this, this was, uh, again, sometimes, I'm not always doing that on that level, but this is called Geffen, grapevine, and I took this whole thing from a, a Yiddish mayim or, um, geffen m'mitzrayim from the Friediker Rebbe. And where he says that there's different parts of the, of the, of the grapevine, and they represent different parts of the Yidden, to the Eshkol. And I, again, it's like whimsical, I took these, like, miniature people, so I called them, like, the bayirs, I call the, the wise little people, you know. But it means, means the Talmid Chachamim. Then you have, like, the, this is called, like, the ones who are at work, like doing all the, they're working, so that's like the Amaratzim, the, the Friediker Rebbe called it. So that's like the leaves, where they protect. They pr- they're like, they come, they learn a shiur from the Talmid Chacham, you know, that kind of thing. And then you have the s- the, the, the, the whole branch, they're called the

1:55:50 Speaker 1 supporters. It says the supporters, it's written there somewhere, supporters of Torah. So the, uh, the Friediker Rebbe says they, they actually hold up the whole thing by, by, you know, providing the material needs and finances for the yeshivas and stuff like that. Then you have this little guy, the Knik Nuk, uh, which is you ever see in a grapevine, this, like, little thing that sort of twirls around. That's, that never really became, uh, fruit. It didn't, like, it didn't fulfill its potential. And the, the, and he's calling these people Reike, they're not really, they're not fulfilling their potential.

1:56:24 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

1:56:25 Speaker 1 And then he says how it's, but we're unified, we're one people. I-- But, uh, uh, you have to learn the Meyer, but, and there's other things in there too. So you can really, if you t- have, take the time and stuff like that, I mean, it takes a little ingenuity, but you can really... It's basically to just, to just, just to give a basic thing that people want to go and learn the whole thing and-

1:56:47 Speaker 8 Right

1:56:47 Speaker 1 ... you know, that's, it's just, you know, that kind of thing.

1:56:50 Speaker 8 What's this, um, Pirkei Avos?

1:56:53 Speaker 1 One second. So Pirkei Avos, so this was a project which I was offered to do, was to do the illustrations for, um, Pirkei Avos. Um, it's like a coffee table book. Now, what's so interesting about this is the commentary, it's not like maybe something that's so, it's a commentary. Um, but that's what they wanted to do. So what I did, did was sort of snuck it in, I guess you wanna say, is, um, in, in each chapter I did a full color picture, and then I hired Elio Tager, zol zayn gezunt, to, and I explained to him what's going on in the picture with Pirkei Avos, and him with his knowledge, he was able to point out things I didn't even, couldn't even see in the picture. It's amazing. And he wrote a beautiful, like, you know, real Hasidus.

1:57:52 Speaker 8 This is not a Chabad publication.

1:57:53 Speaker 1 It's not. They didn't know. And then we, we just, you know, put a b- and I don't know, it's just really cool. My mother passed away that year, and Beshachah Protis, um, I had to go up to Albany where they m- they are printing these and sign 2,000 of them so they would... And they put this, like, gold sticker on it that the first 2,000 were 2,000 autographed copies, you know, by the artist. So, um- And then I, they gave me the c- couple copies and I'm coming home in this, the, the, the train or whatever, and that night was my mother's yahrzeit, and it's, and it's in her memory.

1:58:32 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:58:32 Speaker 1 That's like really, that was really touching. Um, after this came out and I was in Morristown for this Renaissance fair, and I wro- had written about this 'cause it came out, and then I had all the originals at this Renaissance fair. You know, these little booths, you know? Like, what are you gonna sell? Maybe you'll sell some stuff. But I did. It was my yeshiva, and I went. So, um, on Labor Day or something. Anyway, so, um, I was there. I wrote to the rabbi about the book. It came out, I guess I sent a copy in, something like that. Anyway, I'm at this, the, the fair, and someone, I think it was Rabbi Phil Schanzer, he... Oh, so he comes out, he says, um, "Rabbi Klein or Rabbi Gr- " uh, called, "The rebbe has $18 for you." They're giving me $18. Like, the rebbe liked what was... And, and at that ex- that thing, some big giver who helped support the yeshiva bought the whole originals, all the originals of the book. I probably undersold it like I always did, but I b- but, but it was a big, it was a big thing. A big thing.

1:59:54 Speaker 7 Wow.

1:59:55 Speaker 1 Yeah. But, you know, that, that... The, I realized looking back, the rebbe was encouraging me with these things, you know, like encouraging me, like, to move to more, to do, to more, to more, to more.

2:00:05 Speaker 7 Were there other, have any other interesting, um, he'reos about your travels or anything that, uh, that we didn't cover?

2:00:16 Speaker 1 No. I mean, I had some, like, there's some great stories. I wanna make a book about it. Um, one of my sons said to me, "Look, y- I know you. You're not gonna get around and write a book. Like, try once a week, take one story and write it up and send it to your fa- take them to the family WhatsApp, and then a- after a while edit the whole thing. Once you get enough stories, it's a good..." You know, that kind of thing. So I could go on and on about certain things that happened. Um, they're geshmak. They're very geshmak, but I don't know if we have time to go on to. There's a couple, two or three that I would, but they, they take time s- s- you know, 'cause they have a storyline.

2:00:55 Speaker 7 Okay. So, um, what's the... I, I no- I noticed also in later years you got into more the, they're called murals. Like what, the things that you, like you do-

2:01:08 Speaker 1 No, murals happen when they happen. They're, they're, they're big projects. Um, they always take me a lot longer than I would think. Um, I, I did in the Jewish Children's Museum.

2:01:22 Speaker 7 Right. And there's many Chabad houses that have them in shuls.

2:01:25 Speaker 1 Not necessarily murals. Sometimes you don't realize that they're, they're really, like, printed things and blown up on canvas.

2:01:31 Speaker 7 I'm talking about, like, the clay things that you-

2:01:32 Speaker 1 Oh, no, you're talking about... Okay, well, that's a t- but now you- you're talking about the donor wall stuff.

2:01:36 Speaker 7 Right.

2:01:37 Speaker 1 No, that became like a, like a, like a sort of bread and butter business for the shluchim with my artwork on it, for donor walls, donor plaques, and all that kind of stuff. Um, some of them, some of them ordered really custom pieces, which are really, you know, big things. Um, and others, we made some products. They all have to be handmade though, so.

2:02:00 Speaker 7 Right.

2:02:01 Speaker 1 I mean, I have workers helping with that, with the ones that are the products. We've figured out ways to do that. But, um, it's, that's also, like... It's just, it's special, um, in knowing that you're, that you're drawing out from people, like, the desire to actually donate because they wanna have their names on something nice. It does make a difference.

2:02:25 Speaker 7 Yeah.

2:02:25 Speaker 1 I've heard it, and it does. So that's beautiful, just to feel that I have that zchus, you know, to, like, help shliach in that way. Um, I also, if a shliach calls me or comes to the shul, they're collecting to be on shlichas, I give them some art.

2:02:43 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

2:02:44 Speaker 1 I give them, I pick out selections that are... I have certain things I give that it's, that, that, especially things that have, like, a lot in it that, that you could teach from it.

2:02:52 Speaker 7 Right.

2:02:54 Speaker 1 So that's me at my way of, like, say echem hashalom to your, your post.

2:03:00 Speaker 7 For shlichas.

2:03:01 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:03:02 Speaker 7 And, uh, so I guess, you know, you mentioned the Avraham Fried interview, but I, I guess it's a similar, it's a similar idea here, that the rebbe wanted, told you to use your t- God-given talents, and helped you throughout the way to channel that into, into kedushah, so it's like a-

2:03:26 Speaker 1 Yeah

2:03:26 Speaker 7 ... very unique space.

2:03:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. But in a very interesting way. It was not... The rebbe would just tell me I should, like, and even in the chitas you said you should print, 'cause that's all he said. It's the only thing he said about what I should do with my art, like nothing, um, but then it just opened up my whole desire to, um... The rebbe had a way of empowering you, but letting you, letting you figure, sort of figure it out yourself, like it's in you. It's really, when you're going into back of what we were originally talking about, about, you know, like the early Baal Shevs, but I'm not saying just early, 'cause anybody and anybody, Baal Shev or not Baal Shev, Yidden, Yidden, the rebbe empowered all of us that says you have, you have... There's more. And that comes with a, I'm not gonna call it a downside, God forbid to say that, but the rebbe was very demanding whether you, you know what I mean, in that sense. The rebbe didn't, you know... Like, I don't know about you, but I just go through things, like, all the time, "Oh, I should've done more this, should've moved this, or da, da, da, da." Like, you always feel like you're never really, like, doing anything close to what, you know, the blessing you have and the gifts you have. It's actually very frustrating. But it's a big case of heart. You start, like, g- g- if it's, if it's, if that's getting, if that's getting you

2:04:51 Speaker 1 to do something, fine, but it's getting you just to get upset about it, what's the point? But nevertheless, I do have a struggle with a lot of that stuff. I really do. And Gemara should help.

2:05:02 Speaker 7 Yeah, I think you're right, that the rebbe has, like, this balance of knowing the greatness or the great things that you're accomplishing, but at the same time, never to be satisfied and to know that there's so much more we can do. So I think this is, like, athing you, you could pat yourself on the back with one hand, and push yourself forward with the other hand.

2:05:20 Speaker 1 Right. Even that, it's hard to pat yourself on the back when you feel like the whole thing came from the Rebbe's broche to begin with. But you have to be honest with yourself. Yes, you know, I could say, "Yeah, Baruch Hashem, I was given a talent." And I mean, my gosh, I mean, what some artists do with their talent, you know? That, that it, it's just a big zechus to have a talent, be able to use it, to be mekarev people, or just to just, you know, give a good feeling of a ch- you know, chassidishe idea. I mean, it's a really huge, huge thing.

2:05:52 Speaker 7 Yeah.

2:05:52 Speaker 1 It's just very huge.

2:05:54 Speaker 7 That's the whole idea of a shliach, that a shliach, it's all the koach of the meshaleach.

2:05:58 Speaker 1 Right.

2:05:59 Speaker 7 But who is he using? He's not... He's using-

2:06:01 Speaker 1 Right

2:06:01 Speaker 7 ... a human being that has-

2:06:02 Speaker 1 Right

2:06:02 Speaker 7 ... his own chushim-

2:06:04 Speaker 1 Right

2:06:04 Speaker 7 ... and his own talents-

2:06:05 Speaker 1 Right, right

2:06:05 Speaker 7 ... and his own-

2:06:05 Speaker 1 Absolutely

2:06:06 Speaker 7 ... empowering that person.

2:06:07 Speaker 1 Yes.

2:06:07 Speaker 7 Yes, you're the shliach, efshar lo shelo adam k'mosaich.

2:06:10 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

2:06:10 Speaker 7 But you ha- you have to, you have what to bring to the table, that's why you're the shliach. So that's... And I think you're also an inspiration for other artists, whether it's in art or other types of art, to utilize their talents for, for spreading Yiddishkeit.

2:06:23 Speaker 1 Yeah, absolutely. But, and, and even in that, like, I feel one thing, like, I sh- I feel like, did I really give over to, like, artists about things that I learned from the Rebbe? Or, like, 'cause I, I see a lot of art which is like, okay, cool. But again, is it bringing someone to maasa? Like, things like that. I'm not criticizing anything, I'm just saying that, that I feel like I can offer them even more. I'm actually thinking, I think about other things, things to do. I think of things to do all, all, all the time. I should do this, I should do that. But I would like to have, like, seminars or here and there as a, for artists. I mean, I've, I ran three times the visual arts hakhel, that was my idea. So i- this is the last one, eight years before, and then I did it once before, I guess it was eight years before that. Um, I started in, just in my house at the time, and I just, you know, just a bunch of the artists who were artists in Crown Heights, so I knew most of them, and they'd come in like, "No one, no one trusts..." It's like artists, they don't trust, like, what's going on over here, like, uh. And this thing that she gets next to someone, and he thinks he's an artist. You know, I was just, I could feel the vibes and everything. It was funny. Then I thought, "Wow, that's actually

2:07:38 Speaker 1 a purpose of this visual arts hakhel," like, just to think what can we have in common? What can we share with each other with this? Then it went to a bigger one, the Riz- I had it in Rizhgin, and this last one I had, I actually gave it over to Moshe at Spotlight Design to sort of run it more, 'cause it was, was going on. I c- I just, for just technical reasons, I couldn't really get much of it together, and it was really very nice. And, um, I think most people walked away f- from that saying, "Let's, let's, why don't we do this once a month?" You really are, you know, people can really network or help each other, or just whatever. And I'm not saying they all make, they're trying to make a living at their art. Just, but people are so invested in it for various reasons. You know, let's, like, use it to the best, uh, purpose that we can get out of it, you know? Especially as, like, all the stuff I've been speaking about, about, you know, taking ideas and chassidus this and that, and, like, encouraging other artists to just do that, and do it properly. When I say properly, that, 'cause you can do all kinds of things that's parables, but y- you have to have a certain sensitivity, of course, it's representing a Torah idea. You hear what I'm saying?

2:08:54 Speaker 7 Yeah. Okay, so I think that's why the Aibishter is gonna give you many more years-

2:08:58 Speaker 1 Amen

2:08:58 Speaker 7 ... so that you can continue the shlichus and broaden it in a much bigger way than you have done until now.

2:09:03 Speaker 1 Amen. I mean, what's nice is artists don't retire.

2:09:06 Speaker 7 Yeah.

2:09:06 Speaker 1 They don't, generally speaking.

2:09:09 Speaker 7 Okay.

2:09:09 Speaker 1 So I hope that-

2:09:10 Speaker 7 So-

2:09:10 Speaker 1 ... you're, I, I thank you, take your brocha. I really appreciate it. I hope that, um, this will be inspiring for people who have any kind of talents at all, and that doesn't mean artistic or mu- musical or anything like that, or even creative writing or anything like that. I love listening to speakers, and, and you can tell when they're creative, or they're, or they're, they're themselves. They're unique on themselves, and they let that come out and, and just be, and just be who they are. Everybody's different, so it comes out beautiful, like it's just who they are. You know, their personality, this, the, the way they wanna, their humor, anything like that, and just have confidence, and, um, just do it.

2:09:58 Speaker 7 All right. Just do it.

2:09:59 Speaker 1 Just do it.

2:10:00 Speaker 7 Okay. Thank you very much.

2:10:01 Speaker 1 Okay.

2:10:01 Speaker 7 And, uh, yasher koach. Really appreciate it, and, um, I'm sure everyone that will listen and watch will really enjoy this conversation.

2:10:08 Speaker 1 Right. Thank you.

2:10:09 Speaker 7 Yeah. Hatzlacha.