Ep. 59: The ‘Fail’ That Became A Success with Rabbi Dovid Weitman

00:00 Speaker 1 What did we do? How could we have make such a mistake? How could we have make such a mistake? And I became-- I'm quiet, I'm quiet. The plane goes off, I go in the first class. The guy was in the executive class. I said... I told him the story, he gave me a bedeck. I go back to here. "What? What?" I told him the story. He made a mafteach or what there is inside. We arrive in New York, the reb is going out to the, uh, give, give the sefer. Chaf Av, the yarzeit of the Rebbe's father, Harav Gaon, Harav HaChasid, HaMakub B'Chol, HaRav, Reb Levi Yitzchok is upon us. One of the things that we can do this Chaf Av is to donate a bemishtatef in the Keren Levi Yitzchok, which was founded by the Rebbe in taf shin chaf daled, for specifically for Chaf Av and the zichron of the Rebbe's father. There's a very interesting story behind it, and please stay tuned later on in the episode for more details. I'm Yossi Kamen. Welcome to Among Chasidim by Der Her, an ongoing farbrengen about life as a Chasid, our vibrant connection with the Rebbe, and inspired living shaped by the way he teaches us each and every day. Shalom Aleichem, Rabbi Weitman. How are you? Shalom Aleichem. Shalom, Rabbi Yossi Kamen. Thank you for the invitation. Good to see you. Okay. Thank you for accepting it. Um, so I know you a little bit from a distance. I was actually on shlichus

01:37 Speaker 1 in Brazil when I was a bachur, but, uh, we interacted once or twice then, but, uh, never one-on-one like this. So there's some- there's certain things that I know about you and certain things that I don't know, so I think we should start from the beginning. Maybe you can share with me a little bit about where you come from and the, the background and, uh, how you became, uh, the Rabbi Weitman, the shliach in Brazil. Uh, we'll, we'll, we'll go through that. Okay. Okay, let's start. I'm originally from Belgium, from Antwerp. Antwerp, Antwerpen in Yiddish. It's a very Chasidish town. A lot of shtiebelach, a lot of... And, uh, my family originally, they are Chasidim, Polish Chasidim. They come from Poland. They're born in Germany, but they came all from Poland, both sides. Regional Chasidim, but they are s-Holocaust survivors. My father was on a train already that should c-arrive in Auschwitz, and he jumped from the train. He was fourteen years old, and he, he pushed another five people that Baruch HaShem survived with him. And, uh, after the war, my, my parents are more modern, but they gave me a full Jewish education. They send me to yeshivas and so on. They send me to Litvish yeshivas. I learned in- In- I learned in Israel. I learned in Israel. I learned a bit in Beis HaTalmud. I learned in Yeshivas The Negev. I learned, uh, for a year and a half, two years in Israel. And my father, as a survivor, a Holocaust

03:11 Speaker 1 survivor, also, I had always, let's say, a bit a tendency. I loved Chasidim. Also, the town is a Chasidish town. My uncle was the meshameish beis hakoidesh for many, many years by the Beis Yisroel of Ger, the Ger Chasid. And I, I liked it. Even in the Litvish yeshiva, I had a, a small picture of the Alter Rebbe, and I had some friends in school that were Chabadnikim, so I had, I had some connection. And, uh, my father wanted me very much to be a dentist. He learned and said, "Well, he looked all what kind of the parnassa that's best for it, be a shomer Shabbes, a frum Yid, and so on, and also for God's word, for parnassa." And that was his will. He wanted it very much. But I must say the truth, nafshi choshka batecha, I wanted to learn more. I wasn't happy enough with the learning. And my friends, I got finally for two, three weeks in vacation in Brunoy. And there I- Wa-wa-wait, I, I'm missing. Yes. So you had a vacation from yeshiva to the- No, I was already back in Belgium. My father wanted me to start. I started a bit to learn of dentist, but it was not what I wanted. So I went on vacation, uh, by, in Brunoy. It was a winter vacation, I remember. I loved this very much, uh- How did you get there? Because of friends. Like I told you, I had some friends already there. I had some friends that were

04:37 Speaker 1 going for the, the, there was-- they had a program, I think, for the, for the vacation, for the winter vacation in, uh, Hanukkah time. So I went, and I learned in the, in the Beit Midrash Chassidishe, and I loved it. And by coming back, I decided I'm, I'm going back to yeshiva. Finish. I, I go, uh, I, I'm going back to yeshiva. My father wasn't convinced about, I must say the truth, even a frum Yid of else. So we decided a deal. I'm going to the Rebbe Elul, and if he wants to come and ask the Rebbe, yeah, whatever the Rebbe will say. If the Rebbe says I should go and learn be a dentist, I will do it. Ka-ka- Or- I just, I'm trying to understand the story. So you had this, uh, I don't know, conviction that we're gonna ask the Rebbe. Yeah. But, uh, but that was already from the two months in Brunoy or you- Oh, Brunoy- Back, it was before. Brunoy, no. I wa- I, I ar- I arrived from loin Shvat, and this was in Elul, and my father was insisting I should come back to Antwerp. So we make a deal. He came to New York, and the Rebbe received in for yechidus between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I remember. It was very rare. Normally, the yechidus are after Sukkot. And he came, he came specially. I wrote to the Rebbe what I want to do, but I must say the truth, I was quite scared because

05:58 Speaker 1 I knew that the Rebbe sent many people, especially in France, to learn in, in university, to do mitzvoyim there. So I didn't know what the Rebbe will do. But we left it He went to the Rebbe, he was there another twenty-five minutes at least. The Rebbe must have questioned many things about the war and the way it was and about Belgium and so on, other private things. But at a certain moment, the Rebbe told him, "Your son will continue in yeshiva." And the Rebbe, I think, used the word, "Your son will be melamed. The melamed will teach Torah." He said it clearly to him, and, uh, my father understood that's it. The Rebbe said it very clearly. That's, that's what your son will do. By going out by-- of the door, the Rebbe called him back, and the Rebbe asked him if he knows why people give out some lekach before Yom Kippur. The Rebbe told him that this is... He said no. The Rebbe told him that's the, the minhag is because you should not during the year, if you, Hashem, should have to onkumen on ander yid, you should stand your hand and beten ot mishin yutse given. I think what the Rebbe wanted to tell him, "Don't worry about the parnasah of your son. Don't worry. We will take care." I think that's, that's just about what the Rebbe was telling him. It's okay. It's okay, it's arranged. And that's it. And, uh, Taki stood in, in Brunois. Baruch Hashem learned there,

07:14 Speaker 1 and it was beautiful, and, uh, we had fantastic-- I don't have to tell you. Rosh Yeshiva, Reb Yisroel Goldberg, and the mashpia, Reb Nissan Nechmen. I don't tell you. I saw Avodas Hashem. I saw the difference, of course, from where I learned in litvish yeshivas and this, and this took me a long time. And after, it was very interesting because I wanted... When-- Already then, I wanted in Tisha to stay maybe in New York af-af-after a year. And the Rebbe, uh, I wrote it in. There was still Yechidas. I was in Yechidas. And, uh, the Rebbe told me a few things to learn. Bash G-d, bash kid, bas node, a few things. And the Rebbe doesn't answer me where to learn. At a certain moment, the Rebbe took a dollar and tell-- gives me the dollar and said, "Do-- This dollar you should change for French, French francs." So I understood I have to go back. So so I went to Brunois for another year. So that's around just how I arrived in Lubavitch and how I learned in Brunois. And also in Brunois, Baruch Hashem, beside the learning, which I love, and I still keep on learning, I think it's important, even in shlichus, but I had also many possibility of merkah shlichus. This was very . So merkah shlichus and also special in camps. I will maybe, if you want, I'll tell you a bit more about. My first merkah shlichus was with Dani Moskovich. He was, he was my, my teacher, and

08:40 Speaker 1 he, he knew that I have relatives in Sweden, and I knew a bit the question. So we organized a merkah shlichus ten days in Sweden, seven, eight days, every day in another place in Shlichus. It was very, very special. And he taught me, and we went visit people and mezuzahs and sichas do in the shul and chazoh es daach and so on. It was a very special thing. And interesting, we came back. This was in Shevat, Adar maybe, if I'm not mistake. Maybe later, Adar, Adar maybe. But first, after that, interesting, the Rebbe spoke many time with Binyomin Gorodetsky. The Rebbe told, "I got very good gruse and hatsloche from the Shlichus in Sweden. The Bochurim should go around all over Europe." So there was a kvutze. There was a kvutze of shluchim in Brunois. So the Rebbe-- So then they went out in all countries in Europe. But the Rebbe said, "I got a good gruse from Sw-Sweden that was, uh, with-- that was very, very special." Also, I, I, I worked many time in camps for the Hilal Pevzner. He had camps there.

10:00 Speaker 2 Had?

10:00 Speaker 1 Sinai called Gan Yisroel. Yeah, Hilal Pevzner. Uh, camps of Sinai and Gan Yisroel, and with my good friend, Yosef Yitzchak, hilabai Pevzner, obviously, it's Pevzner. And we organized, and we directed. I was the head counselor, tzion, and so on. This also had or some... Beside that, we made some shlichus in other place. In Switzerland was once with, with students. Means I, I got experience of Shlich-Shlichus already in France, Baruch Hashem, sai with students and sai with kids in camps. This is important for maybe for the-- to understand the, the future of the thing. One interesting story about the Shlichus in-- merkah Shlichus in Sweden. We went in Sweden, we went mainly in the capital, in Stockholm, but also small vi-- And there is a small town, I don't know even if you can say that it's in-- on the map. A small town, an hour, an hour and a half from Stockholm, the capital. It's called Västerås. And we got to know there, there are, there are two Jewish families. Okay, so we took a car, we decided, we call up, we go there. We went there. First family wasn't there. The other family, called Lindeman, I remember till now, is there. We go there, and we speak, and we go, we give mezuzahs and tefillin a bit and put on. And the guy knows how to put on tefillin. And then he says, "You know, I made my bar mitzvah in Kvachabat." He's a Frenchie guy. I made my bar mitzvah in Kvachabat. We

11:31 Speaker 1 looked at him, guy is thirty, forty years old. Didn't, didn't look like it. That was... But it was true. His parents were leaving their clothes, and he spoke about Rabbi Shlomo Chaim, and he was a kid. He made the bar mitzvah thing. Akapanim, in the middle of the talking, he tells us that he's the only one in the whole neighborhood that knows how to read Hebrew. And there are many Jews in small towns there around, many around. So they get together Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They get together, and he's the chazan. He's the only one that knows how to read. He's the chazan. He tells us he goes by car. What can I do? I'm not so religious, but I remember. In the he told us that he, he has difficulties to eat without a sh- meat without a shechita since he was in Kfar Chabad. Interesting about Atomi, I'll call upon him. He didn't learn in yeshiva when he was a kid. I'll call upon him in the doch. We wrote to the Rebbe all the podim for what we did the whole week, whole thing, and we wrote about this Jew, Guy Linderman. And a year after, another shluchim went to visit him. We've g- we gave already the addresses to the other chuts that went Nigeria. Look what's interesting. A year after or during that year, he gets a letter from the Rebbe and a telegram. He gets a mevrak from the Rebbe, which the Rebbe says a letter is coming.

12:52 Speaker 1 A long telegram with a letter tell him, "I know that you know and you make the letter, but you should know you should not go by car to be the chasan for a Shonda Yom Kippur" and this and that. And the Rebbe begs him to go before and to do it the recording the, in the telegram, and then another letter. Here you see a, a, an unbelievable thing. we're speaking about a small town, uh, one Jew. The, and the, and the, and the doch. The Rebbe reads the doch. He gets a letter, I don't know if it was after Auschwitz or the next kvutze. I have the letter, I have the telegram, the thing. Unbelievable. The Rebbe begs, it tells him as a chasan you're going to do, it's very important, but you should know, you should not go by car. Unbelievable the interest, the individual attention to one small Jew in a small town. Absolutely. Just, I tell you, this is interesting. Anyway, you wanted to know a bit how I arrived to Brazil. That's what you asked me before.

13:48 Speaker 3 Well, b-b-before that, you ended up learning in seven seventy?

13:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, of course, I learned in seven seventy a few years.

13:54 Speaker 3 So how did that happen?

13:56 Speaker 1 No, n-naturally, after the year that the Rebbe told me to go back, finished Baruch Hashem, I went there, I went to seven seventy. This part-

14:03 Speaker 3 So maybe, maybe before the shlichas you could tell me a little bit about, uh, what it was like learning at seven seventy, being around the, being, being around the Rebbe all the time.

14:12 Speaker 1 This was, this was Gan Eden. This was something very special, and we maybe didn't, didn't profit enough every day to learn with the Rebbe. Mincha, Ma'ariv, Shacharis, uh, Cheet HaTehilim, Muntik and Domesh. Like that was something special and the farbrengens and everything, every minute. And I l- I learned ano- a year and a half more in seven seventeen, and then another year and a half in Kollel. Another year and a half-

14:37 Speaker 3 So you, um, so you there and you got married.

14:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

14:40 Speaker 3 Um, what year, what years are we talking about?

14:42 Speaker 1 I got married-- I got engaged in lammed zayin, and I got married in lammed Ches. I got married in lammed Ches. Uh, we were, we were bochurim in seven seventeen, and, uh, there was a few things interesting. We were going in the summer to make camps, like I told you, for French kids. One camp in Italy, that's where they proposed me and my wife from the, from St- from the family Tzipel, big askoni from Manash in Milano. And then one month in France camps. And we were all the madrichim, all the people going by... After Mincha, you know, you stay after Mincha and you, you, the Rebbe goes out of Mincha, and it is normally a fot gezunterheyt.

15:27 Speaker 3 Because they were traveling.

15:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. The way we were, we were going traveling already Tammuz to, to the camps. The Rebbe says to every one of us, "Fot gezunterheyt" to the-- Then he turns to me, he said, "Psukus divus." So everyone understood that something might go on, and that's exactly what happened at the end. Uh, I got engaged in Italy, um-

15:49 Speaker 3 I-in Italy, while, while you were there for the camp?

15:52 Speaker 1 After the two camps. After the two camps, yeah. After the two camps.

15:55 Speaker 3 Uh.

15:55 Speaker 1 My shadchan was, uh, Moshe Lazar z"l. Yeah.

16:00 Speaker 3 And the chasanah was, was in Italy?

16:01 Speaker 1 Yeah, the, the chasanah was in Italy. The, my, the family of my wife is very, very attached to... And they were there in Italy. They brought another, they brought the first rabbi, Rabbi Perlov. Still th-th-th they're connected to the Rebbes in the fifties, the yutzes. And they brought, uh, Rabbi Gershon Mendel, Baruch Hashem. It was very strong connection with the Tzipels and the Galeleks. Very, very strong connection. Many, many letters. And so my, the family of my wife has also a lot, lot of connection with Russia. We'll come to that a lit bit later.

16:30 Speaker 3 Okay.

16:30 Speaker 1 Okay. So after-

16:32 Speaker 3 So you went back to Kiryat Ono

16:32 Speaker 1 ... after a year, a year, a year or fif- maybe a year and a half, year, I wanted already to go to Shlichus. I had a pitch pilkes, but on the other side, I liked very much the learning. I, I liked very, very much the learning. So I wrote the Rebbe, um, I wrote the Rebbe, "If I, what should I do?" So the, the Rebbe says, "As you're asking..." So I, I, I asked the Rebbe, "Should I make another year in Kollel?" I said to Rebbe, uh, but I don't remember the lotion, but the Rebbe said, "As you ask" in Hebrew, "Shoylem mele no." As you have doubts, so you-

17:07 Speaker 3 If you have a doubt about staying in Kollel, it means it's not for you.

17:10 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said, "Okay, you already z-on the Shlichus." And that's what happened, and, uh, I got a few proposals. Me, after all, I'm from Belgium, my wife is from Italy. We, we never dreamt about Brazil. I don't think we knew exactly even where it's on the map. But we got a proposal from Rabbi Alpern, a very serious proposal, but I had also other proposals in Europe, in Brussels from Rabbi Chaikin. I had something from Rabbi Gershon Mendel. So we had some, some, th-three proposals, I think, in Europe and one in Brazil. I wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe told me, "If your wife is, uh, agrees", and so to, to get interested about Brazil. So really we-

17:48 Speaker 3 The Rebbe shows out of all the hatsos.

17:51 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said that the Rebbe pushed more to Brazil, clearly, and so that's what, that's what we did, and Baruch Hashem. And the interesting thing that the Rabbi Alpern wrote, and it made me also write, that the main Shlichus will be to work with students, which I had some experience, and with young couples. And also because of the French, that I, I know good French, after all, it's the language in Belgium and France, that I should also work with the Sephardic community To have the Sephardi community because they were the, the Sephardi community in Brazil were originally from Lebanon and from Syria, and they speak French. The old generation speak very French. And, uh, you see that the Rebbe's view, so the Rebbe's , after very many, many, many years, I became the, the rabbi. I'm here, the, the rabbi of the Syrian community of the Safra Synagogue, so-

18:43 Speaker 3 So that was already built into the original .

18:45 Speaker 1 That was already in the, in the, in the beginning of the , yeah. Yeah. Now, coming to Brazil, worked mainly with students. Mainly, mainly with students. A few, uh... I, I arrived after, like, in Brazil 47 years ago. And we work-- We concentrated a lot on students and on young couples. And Baruch Hashem, two months after arriving there in July, we made already a seminar for students. Uh, my Portuguese wasn't so good. Well, it was-- But I-

19:20 Speaker 3 It's, it's related to, to French, no, Portuguese?

19:23 Speaker 1 Yes, close to French. I know Italian from my wife, so it helped me a lot. And we already made the stu- uh, uh, the first seminar Levi Yitzchok, we called it. We wrote to the Rebbe. The Rebbe was very happy or with the answers, Baruch Hashem. I always-

19:35 Speaker 3 So you-- It was called Seminar Levi Yitzchok?

19:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. We called it-

19:39 Speaker 3 How'd you decide, how'd you decide to call it that?

19:40 Speaker 1 Because we started that in Ov, next to Ov, so we decided to give it the name for the Rebbe. And we got the... Of course, the Rebbe was happy. And we got straight away, um, maybe 20 boys, and after two, three weeks, and after that, girls from students. And from that started the small nucleus of Baalei Tshuva that we worked on then. And Baruch Hashem, for-- Baruch Hashem, in Shvat, next year, Shvat, I brought already a, a kvutze to the Rebbe from students. Brought a q- a kvutze from, to the Rebbe from students. This was very, very important. We had Shabbatons and farbrengen and Shabbos Mevorchim and all kinds of, uh, Sunday mitzvoyim and the, the cant-- Rabbi Alpern had the Mitzah tank. We were going around with it. So slowly, slowly grew the, the, the, the, the group, we would say, of Baalei Tshuva. And then Yom Shvat, Tof Shin Mem, there was still Yechidas.

20:34 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

20:35 Speaker 1 Still Yechidas. So then we had a few things very interesting that happened, uh, to-- in that Yom Shvat. First of all, we started to translate, I think it was Tof Shin Mem, I mean, I'm not sure. It was Tof Shin Mem. We started in Brazil. We asked the Rebbe permission to translate. There is a book from Matzach in Israel, uh, Emunah u'Mada. Many letters from the Rebbe about Mada, about Darwin-

21:00 Speaker 3 Torah and Science.

21:01 Speaker 1 Yeah, Torah and Science. The, the theory of Darwin, evolution, and the age of the universe. The Rebbe, all these long letters that we know to, to, to peop- to, to people, scientific people. So we trans-- The Rebbe gave us permission. We started to translate that. Every morning we worked on that. A young man, Manash Bandi, and also a special lawyer, a lawyer from Geza Anash, a very, very important lawyer, Dr. Shaiman. And we worked on that, and it was almost ready. In Yom Shvat, we arrived to the Rebbe. This is an interesting story. And this do- th-this law, the, the... We had already the proofs of the book. The book wasn't ready, but the proofs were ready. And this Dr. Shaiman, he goes into Yechidas, the Rebbe. We were there. And-

21:48 Speaker 3 With you?

21:49 Speaker 1 Yeah, with me. There was a whole group. We had Baruch Hashem 30, 40 people. Anyway. And he goes, he tells the-- He gives the Rebbe the book, the proofs. The rest of the book. The Rebbe tells him straight away, "I don't speak Portuguese. I'll try my best to understand." Then he wanted to be clever, so he tells the Rebbe, . He wanted to come back for a third visit, so he tells, "I hope to bring the book already ready" . So the Rebbe tells him like that, "Bring me better the students and the scientific, science people that will read the book. Let them come to Farbrengens and let them know that there is no contradiction between science and Torah. Torah is much higher than science." So you see a lashon from the Rebbe, "Bring me these people to Farbrengen." It's a very rare lashon the Rebbe should speak-

22:48 Speaker 3 Yeah.

22:48 Speaker 1 About this. Very... The Rebbe says, "I-- Don't bring me the book. Bring me the guy, the nefoshis. Bring me the people."

22:54 Speaker 3 So it's, it's a very, it's a very deep story. So what does it mean?

22:56 Speaker 1 Very, very interesting story. From then on, we understood and we started to make kvutzes to go to the Rebbe. Every Yom Shvat we did that, and after Gimel Tamuz we changed it. We-- Now we do that in Elul. We never stopped to make kvutzes to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe gave a lot of attention to all the students. Answers, private answers. A year or two after stopped the Yechidas. We were there. Last year we still had a Yechidas, only the group of Brazilian in the Rebbe's room. And there were many stories. Uh, I will tell you two, three stories, just a bit to understand. But mamash, the Rebbe gave a lot attention, private and dollars and gave because the group of students was like that. They were coming to New York. They staying from Yom Shvat-- From before Yom Shvat, after Tu B'Av. After Tu Bishvat, sorry. Then the boys would go for months or three weeks in Morristown and the girls in Monchanara. There was a time that we had already maybe 10, 20 girls, Bra-Brazilian in Morristown for a whole year. Many of them would stay because this is vacation. In Shvat is the vacation in the hemisphere, south hemisphere. So that was... And every year we repeated that, and the Rebbe gave a lot of attention. We're sitting together by Shvat and the Rebbe would say l'chaim. That kvutze, Tof Shin Mem, happened an interesting thing. There was an old man. His name is Shimon Der Bamdiger, a richtige enikel Ben Achar

24:14 Speaker 1 Ben from the Rebbe Levi Yitzchok Berditchev. He was living in another state in some, in Brazil, in Salvador, and Rabbi Alpern was mekarev him, and he became a Frum Yid. He was already 80 years old. A bold, "Well, I'm gonna chassid." He saw, he saw the group of students going. He asked me, "Rebbe, can I join? My dream is to see the Rebbe." What, what should I say? Jew once... It was a group of students, but a elder Yid once, and there was another guy. I said, "Okay, fine. He comes with us." He, like Rebbe Levi Yitzchok was a, a, a very sentimental guy, a lot of emotions. We arrived. Normally, when you arrive, kesatei, you know, the whole group, everyone says, uh, uh, uh, birkas hagomel in front of the Rebbe. The Rebbe sits on the, sits on the shtaiyck and you say birkat hamon. When it was his turn, he just saw the Rebbe, he couldn't say birkas hamon. He started to cry. The Rebbe stood there 10 minutes. He couldn't say-- He couldn't speak. Okay. Arrived the Farbrengen Yom Shvat. Malchus, the Rebbe goes in, you know, and the whole afternoon we prepared the place, the seats, and the, and the, and the whole the thing, the . He sees the Rebbe coming in for after he got a heart attack. In the middle of he couldn't make it. His, his emotion-

25:30 Speaker 4 Yeah

25:30 Speaker 1 ... was too big. Heart attack there. No. Heart attack, heart attack. He goes to hospital. He was very worried. We didn't know what to do. Uh, we asked if he should tell the family or not to tell the family. The Rebbe says, "What should his... Why should tell his family?" And the Rebbe sends him a siddur with his signature inside, and the Rebbe told him he should make in the hospital. So he was going around with the whole thing, trying came the night of Yechidus, and the doctor didn't let him out from the hospital. He was in New York hospital, there in Brooklyn hospital. Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, He missed Yechidus. Okay, passed another way too. He's free, he comes back. He writes to the Rebbe, "I came specially and I missed Yechidus. ." So I look the with the Rebbe telling him. The Rebbe tells him, "You were my... You run a farbrengen." How long was he in the farbrengen? He was 20 minutes by the farbrengen. Not more. He had a heart attack. The Rebbe tells him, "You were the farbrengen. "

26:53 Speaker 4 Wow. Uh, this is a... That, that answer is a very famous answer, but the background of the whole story is not-

27:02 Speaker 1 Yeah.

27:02 Speaker 4 I mean, for me it's not famous, so I don't know about others.

27:07 Speaker 1 For sure you get the siddur. There were many interesting story. There was another older man. He-- His name was Federman. He was a senator from another, from Curitiba. I don't know if you know Cur-... Today there are Curitiba, Rabbi Bratsky. But this is another state in Brazil, in the south of São Paulo. And this person, he, in the seminary for students, was a nephew of him. So he got to know, he got to hear about the Rebbe. He had a cancer, leukemia, very strong, and the doctors told him he has a month to finish. He heard about the Rebbe. He also asked me very much permission if he could come to, to, to, to, to Lubavitch. I said, "Yes. Uh, he, he wants to come, come in the ." Okay. He was very, very far from Yiddishkeit. His name was Federman. He went to Yechidus. One thing important, many Brazilians that went to Yechidus didn't speak not French, not Hebrew, not Yiddish, not Russian, not, not English. So I had to stay next to the door. It was inside the room. I heard everything, and then I translated him in the, in the, in the-

28:24 Speaker 4 In front of the Rebbe?

28:25 Speaker 1 No, I translated him outside.

28:27 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

28:28 Speaker 1 But I heard the whole his Yechidus. The Rebbe tells him like that, "You are a Jew that made many, many favors to Jews and non-Jews." He was expecting the Rebbe would tell him maybe, uh, uh, the guy is very sick, so put on tefillin every day. Not a word of a mis- of a, of a mitzvah. And the Rebbe tells him, "You are a Jew that makes a lot of favors to Jews and non-Jews, and you should continue it." And the Rebbe repeat it three, four times. "Your inion is to make favors to Jews and non-Jews." And I give him a and what's up. And he lived another two, three years at least. He went to the memorial, the . Look the story. In Beit Chabad that time by Rabbi Alpern, there was a group of ladies, was called Ezra, that were making Chesed with poor people and so on. One day one of these ladies come and tells me he was living in a small town next to Curitiba, a town called Ponta Grossa. There were maybe 10 Jewish families, not more. This lady comes in, came from that he needs a wheelchair. He has no money for a wheelchair. I said, "Ponta Grossa? I know somebody. We have that senator." In the meantime he be... I sent him tefillin. I went by him at home. He became more Frum and so on. I, uh... He gave money for, for publication of Chabad. I said, "Yeah, okay." I called this senator, uh, Mr. Federman.

29:59 Speaker 1 "Here, this and this street, the poor guy needs wheelchair. I take care." He took care. The next day he passed away.

30:06 Speaker 4 Ah.

30:07 Speaker 1 So we see the Rebbe said already, "Your inion is to make favors Jews and non-Jews." The whole time, the whole time repeating it. Very, very interesting. When I was in Yechidus with these people, one of them, one of them, I remember he was a young boy. I will not say his name. He was a young boy. The Rebbe stopped the middle and said, "Translate." He told me to translate in front of him. Yeah. And this happened twice. And I felt that the Rebbe was testing me if I learned Portuguese. The Rebbe was want... Because normally I was translating outside. I felt very much the Rebbe wanted to see if I learned the language.

30:46 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

30:47 Speaker 1 This boy, the Rebbe told him he should go to Petrópolis to the yeshiva. He was young, he was 17, 18 years. He went-

30:56 Speaker 4 Petrópolis is the, is the yeshiva that everyone went to.

30:59 Speaker 1 Next to Rio. Next to Rio de Janeiro. Next to Rio. An hour from Rio. Rabbi Binyamini, alav hashalom So this boy wanted to go to university. The Rebbe told him, "You should go at least one year to Petach Tikva." He said, "Whatever." He didn't like it so much. I don't know why. He tried, it didn't work, and he cut off his meat.

31:19 Speaker 5 His beard.

31:20 Speaker 1 No, no, he cut off any contact. I tried to call him-

31:22 Speaker 5 Oh, he cut off... Okay, I didn't understand.

31:24 Speaker 1 He didn't let... He cuts his communication. And he didn't go, he didn't stay in yeshiva, he didn't listen to the Rebbe. Look, 36 years pass. Unbelievable. I meet-- I met in, uh, São Paulo a young tomim with a beard and everything. I said, "Oh," he came from Israel. I say, "What's your name?" He tells me the name. I said, "Excuse me, your father is, uh, Sakat Kahen?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Yeah, my father, full Hasids." At the end, he came back, son all... We see a word from the Rebbe. If it doesn't happen first generation, it happens the second generation. It's his mama, she could... I couldn't believe it. There's the guy that didn't listen to the Rebbe. He was in Yechidas, he saw the Rebbe, he got the beracha. Unbelievable. And like that, Baruch Hashem, this was a very, very special... The work with the students also made us make translations of Hasidus in Portuguese because we had to teach the Hasidus and there was nothing. So we started today. We have whole things of Mayim Arayim and everything, Baruch Hashem, in Portuguese, and we got many, many brochs from Rebbe, Yitschok Av, Sharistrein. The Rebbe told me once to send all what we se- all we translate the Hasidus, we should send him, at least. I should send to Portugal and to Africa, whatever. But this also brought other, other words also works. Of course, uh, the work also with the students to get new guys, we started to miss Pegishas. Like

33:06 Speaker 1 New York had Pegishas, you know. When I started to make Pegishas, 400 people, 600 people, many buses from Rio that came. This was the beginning, the, the, the, the young people in Rio. That's how they after wrote to the Rebbe, they want a Shliach, and Rabbi Goldman was there. With all these Pegishas brought people from many other towns, and we sometime we had for a Shabbos 800, 900 students, a beautiful Pegishas with lectures and so on. One of those Pegishas we brought Dr. Branover. He was a few years after he came out of Russia, and he was already in Tel- in Be'er Sheva, a very important, uh, researcher. And his story, just as a refusenik in Russia, was very important for the students. And we brought him, he agreed to come, and he spoke. It was fantastic. Many people... He touched many, many people. And also we arranged him many things scientific. He was received in the university by director. He got a special medal and so on. Before going... Oh, I'm telling you this because just you should know how the Rebbe goes into plotin. This is what I want to tell you. Before going to Brazil, he came through New York. He was in Yechidas. I understand it was more a private Yechidas, but the Rebbe always pushed him on his scientific research. He drew dynamic magnetism or something like that. After he came back from Brazil, he went again on Yechidas, and then the Rebbe asked him, "How was it? Which language

34:34 Speaker 1 you speak? How many students were there?" And so on. Every Pegisha, every Pegisha, we were making like a, a pasta, I don't know how you call it. It's, it's like that time you know that with a lot of... Such a thing that you keep and you can, you can have a tikiyah. How you call it? Tikiyah in-

34:49 Speaker 5 Folder. Like a folder.

34:50 Speaker 1 Huh?

34:50 Speaker 5 Like a folder.

34:51 Speaker 1 With a lot of articles about Chabad and a lot of information. So, so very importantly, the student should know whole tikiyah is Pegisha with the name. I sent it a week before to the Rebbe. There was someone who go to Rebbe. I wrote a ruch like every month. I, I send all the papers, what be the Pegisha and about the program. When he was in Yechidas, he tell me the Rebbe speaks with him, ask him many questions, also what he did about his research, and he told the Rebbe. And the Rebbe doesn't... The, the folder, my folder, I have it already, mine, the Rebbe shows it. The folder of the Pegisha, the Rebbe shows it. Mine I have already. I got already. The Rebbe shows it in, in the, in the room of the Rebbe.

35:30 Speaker 5 Hmm.

35:31 Speaker 1 One of the, of the big professors that received Rabbi, Dr. Branover, his name was Professor Fleming, a goy, got very inspired from him. He wrote me a very nice letter about him, what a man, and the whole thing in Russia and how he get out from communism and everything. Very nice letter. When I wrote to the Rebbe a such about the Pegisha, the Rebbe said, "Yitschok Av, Sharistrein" and pictures and so on. The chagav. The Rebbe some-- One time I sent pictures to the Rebbe. The Rebbe sent me back the pictures and said, "Please write me on the other side of the pictures the name of everyone who's there and what's exactly what..." You see how the Rebbe... What happened, and the Rebbe-- And I like... And the Rebbe said, "Yitschok." And I got the letter from Professor Fleming, the Rebbe Parah. You see, the Rebbe gets very... The Rebbe was very, very interested in the scientific work of, of, of, of Dr. Branover. I mean, I got the letter of Dr. of, of, of Fleming and the Rebbe was happy about it.

36:34 Speaker 5 You sent it to the Rebbe?

36:35 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

36:35 Speaker 5 Yeah.

36:35 Speaker 1 I sent it to the Rebbe. Also you should see what, what, what, the, the impression, the, the, the, the whole roshim that he made in Brazil. It was very strong. Okay. I think I tell you a bit. Let's hear about the questions.

36:49 Speaker 5 That's beautiful. Yeah. Um, you also, you also were involved with printing of, uh, of Tanyas. That was in Brazil?

36:58 Speaker 1 Yes. Let me tell you. Brazil was very involved in printing Tanyas, just to know. First of all, Rabbi Leibele Zeins is the one that printed maybe thousand Tanyas all over the world. Rabbi Alpern printed many, over 100. He had a whole from the Rebbe, especially the-- in whole Brazil, every town. My work is the printing Tanya started when I arrived in Brazil. I got to know that 350 years before, some Portuguese Jews were in Recife. There was a whole Kehillah with Rabbi Yitzchak Abuhatzeira, whole Kehillah of Portuguese Jews that-- it was after the Inquisition.

37:40 Speaker 4 I think that's the, that's the first Jews Bechalal in-

37:42 Speaker 1 Yes

37:42 Speaker 4 ... in Americas.

37:43 Speaker 1 First Jews. The, the-- Even the, the one that, he, he started the community in New York were from Recife. You know, the-

37:49 Speaker 4 Right

37:49 Speaker 1 ... 22 pilgrims that arrived, they, they arrived from Recife. So I wrote to the Rebbe if maybe I should... It was not yet a whole campaign about Tanyas, didn't exist yet. Okay? But I wrote the Rebbe. Already they, they were printing Tanyas, not so strong. I said, "Rebbe, do you think I should print the Tanya in Recife?" Rebbe said, yes. Then I had an idea, maybe we should sell the printed Tanya, maybe the smallest possible. I have one here on my, my, on my desk. I say small-

38:16 Speaker 4 Uh-huh

38:16 Speaker 1 ... So the Rebbe wrote me, very interesting. The Rebbe answered me. Let me see. The Rebbe answered me like that. First of all, about Recife, only if there are some Jews there living. And the second thing, if you're sure they'll be able to read it, then I should print the Tanya and a Tehillim. I brought-- I, I printed both. It was in a special cover as well. Okay.

38:41 Speaker 4 Why did you want to do it so small?

38:43 Speaker 1 Be-because I wanted a pocket, which people should keep it by themselves. So they-

38:47 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm

38:47 Speaker 1 ... we printed it. That was my beginning with the Tanyas. But slow, first of all, you see from everything, something comes out. Then I made one in Paraguay. I decided I'm doing South America Jews. So I asked the Rebbe in Paraguay. I made one in Paraguay, also very small. And you see from the two things, look what's going on. From Recife, look what happened. Never hear . When you do something, something good comes out. Many years later, I found the manuscript of Rabbi Yitzchak Abuhatzeira that he wrote. He was a fantastic Talmid Chacham. He wrote in Halakha, he wrote in Kabbalah, he wrote, he, he wrote in Drush, everything. I gave out already with Machon Yerushalayim three books about that. Unbelief-unbelievable. As a from Recife. Uh, and from Paraguay, there was no Shliach. Many years later, I got a letter from the Rebbe, and I had somebody, a student that went to make a Seder there and brought matzahs, whatever. The Rebbe writes me in this . The Rebbe, his secretary, the Rebbe writes me, "Please get interested in Porchot." Today, there's a Shliach already there.

39:57 Speaker 4 You're saying because you printed Tanyas over there, the Rebbe-

40:00 Speaker 1 So I said something was . Anyway, after we started to print more in other places. I've printed in the capital of Ecuador, which is Quito, and then also in the capital of Lima.

40:14 Speaker 4 Peru.

40:14 Speaker 1 Of Peru, I'm sorry. Of capital of Peru is Lima. This I printed maybe... I, I printed it in 5753, I think. Okay. And I send it to the Rebbe. It arrived to the Rebbe before Chof Ov. Or before Tu B'Av. No, before Chof Ov. You can look in the Farbrengen. Chof Ov, the Rebbe comes down to the Farbrengen with the two Tanyas, and they were small. Not so small like the but they were like that. The Rebbe comes down with the two Tanyas and puts it next to him. And in the middle, the Rebbe speaks a sicha about that. from South America. And for sure, this will help in the countries for the Yiddishkeit because there was some problems. It would help them. I got a whole sicha about that Farbrengen. So I was very happy to... Okay. Uh, and of course, after I got the letter, the Rebbe was sending $20 for every personally letter for people that were printing Tanyas. A bit later, look what interesting thing. A bit later, I asked the Rebbe, I want the, to print a Tanya in Guyana. You know Guyana? There is a... Suriname is the whole-- uh, the, is the Dutch Guyana, and there is the French Guyana, and then Bolivia. But I wrote to the Rebbe, "I'm not sure if there is more than one Jew there." Rebbe already had told me in Recife, only if . I was a bit afraid if we can print a Tanya. I don't get an answer. I don't

41:44 Speaker 1 get an answer. This was like that. I don't get an answer. This was end of 5753. 5754, Hanukkah, there is a sicha, a rally for Tzivas Hashem. By the rally of Tzivas Hashem, the Rebbe speaks of printing Tanya and make a whole Shtukim of it, and even where there's only one Jew.

42:06 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

42:06 Speaker 1 The Rebbe goes back to his room. He tells Rabbi Groner, Tell Weitman he, he calls me up. He said, "The Rebbe says only one." Weitman has an answer already. Okay, I got the, I got it. I send a, a pupil. I was a Talmid Makur from Menashe. Feivel Rabinovich, I send him to, to, to Guyana, French Guyana, the capital is Cayenne, and to Suriname, the capital is Paramaribo. The truth is he found even one more, more than one Jew. Cayenne only one, but I think in Suriname there was a small Kehillah, whatever. He prints the Tanya. From there, he goes to New York. He arrives to New York before Shabbos Parshas Toldet 5754, 5754. He arrives there, so I think it was Shabbos Parashat Sh'lach Lecha. He send it to me with maskirs, do anything more. Shabbos in the middle of the Farbrengen, the Rebbe asks, "Where's Rabinovich? Where's the Rabbi Rabinovich?" Calls him, gives him the L'Chaim without any mask, anything. And the Rebbe speaks another truth, another sicha- Baruch Hashem, some kumah besuras toev from the Mokem Nidach. And Baruch Hashem some kumah de Taniya asher chelkom v'godod sutam who takes care of them. Mehem yiru vechein yasu. And the Rebbe speak, aphilu b'mokem, there is only one Jew in the whole thing, Rebbe, davka tinte Taniya. The Rebbe made a whole stew of that. Interesting how the, how the Rebbe think. I must, I, I, I always ask the HaMidrashav that should have clear answers from the Rebbe. Baruch Hashem, very, very,

43:38 Speaker 1 very clear in the Taniya. So that's how I'm, I... And after I printed also in Bolivia, printed also in small towns in Bolivia, like Cochabamba and so on. But Baruch-- My part of Tanias is only in South America, but some people make much more than me.

43:53 Speaker 4 But that so but that's not the only thing, the shlichus that you did outside of Brazil, right?

44:01 Speaker 1 No, we did some other shlichus also on other, other Bra- other places, yeah.

44:06 Speaker 4 No, maybe you could tell us about it. I'm talking about Russia, right? You, you, you went to Russia.

44:11 Speaker 1 I can tell you a bit more about other things.

44:14 Speaker 4 Okay.

44:14 Speaker 1 First, I got, I got... First of all, I, one of the pupils that were in the kvutze, one of the girls that was in the kvutze, married, uh, somebody. It's very interesting. She, she married a cousin. She asked the Rebbe if she can marry her cousin. So the Rebbe said, "Im hu ereh shamayim?" Yes. Very interesting.

44:35 Speaker 4 Yeah.

44:35 Speaker 1 Very interesting. The family Katan. And they went to live in Kinshasa. Kinshasa is the capital of Congo. Capital of what, one- once it was called Zaire. Today it's Congo. They went to live there. So first of all, they didn't have a mikveh. They didn't have a mikveh bichlal. So the Rebbe gave them hundred dollars to buy, build a mikveh. She was going every month in a, in a, in a, in a, in a b- river with alligators and so on . Baruch Hashem, they built a mikveh. Then after they built a... Anyway, I went there in Kinshasa, a lot of shurim. It's very interesting how you can see all the Rebbe-

45:13 Speaker 4 Oh, how did, how did you end up going there?

45:15 Speaker 1 I am-

45:16 Speaker 4 Because of them.

45:16 Speaker 1 They were living there. They were living there. They were my, my, they were my students, and I knew them from Buchheim. So one day they asked me to come to give lectures. And there they speak French, or French or Dutch, or Afrikaans, which is like Dutch. So there was a big Jewish community. And I asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe told me, "Be careful about the machlikis." No, no, no. And I arrived there, and there was like a big machlikis in the community. You see that the Rebbe knew mamash katzvah et lev, everything what happened. But Baruch Hashem, we went there when there was another Dahan went on mikvah, uh. Then, then after went Bentolila. And Baruch Hashem, it's interesting, we got from the family Katan to, to, to happen there. I, I don't... I was involved in the bringing a shliach in, in Zaire, in Congo. Baruch Hashem is still there very much. Baruch Hashem, Rabbi Bentolila. That was one of the shlichus we did. Paraguay, Baruch Hashem, we're involved and Baruch Hashem do the shliach there. And also, there's, uh, I went twice, Baruch Hashem, in to shlichus from the Rebbe in Russia. And this was still in Brezhnev's time, in communistic time, taf shin mem bet, mem gimel, mem daled. What's the story with Russia? Here is it's a very interesting story. First of all, my wife's family is very involved with Russia because they were handling with furs, and they were buying furs on auctions in Russia, in Leningrad. And they

46:44 Speaker 1 were like diplomats. They never looked at their suitcase, nothing. So the brothers Tzipel, especially the older brother, Shlomo Yosef Carlo, was going by the Rebbe inside that he does tri- three times a year, who remembers him good. Baruch Hashem sent him, he was tall with a mustache like them. It was for an hour or two. He was a big askan. In the Rebbe's room were waiting already chemadanes, suitcases, with what he has to bring to Russia. If it's tallit, tefillin, tanyas, mesudim, whatever. Rabbi Lazar found even some tanyas that still, still brought those time. And he was bringing out of Russia kisvei yad. Kisvei yad from the Rebbe's father, from my modim, from Shidon HaBichlah Sidus, and so on. This they did 10 years or more, or 15 years ago. There are many letters from the Rebbe, but that's not important. Till once they were caught, and the Rebbe told them, "You finish your mission in Russia." But my family, family, my wife's family is very connected to Russia. Me, myself, when I was in Belgium, even young still, sixteen maybe seventeen, maybe like sixteen, there was in Belgium a small group of frumer young people that were very big activists. They were doing some, some peulos against, uh, against Palestinians and against Russians. That means we, when we knew that there is a Palestinian something against Israel meeting, we would throw some things there. We would we make it... And, uh, we sat in prison a few time. I remember good in Munich, in

48:29 Speaker 1 prison . And, and, and I was involved also, and why against Russia? Because those time there was a lot the thing, the appeal of let my people go. So there were a lot of demonstrations.

48:42 Speaker 4 In America, yeah.

48:44 Speaker 1 A lot of demonstrations, especially of Jews, that Russia should open their door, let, let the Jewish people out. The slogan was, "Let my people go." Let my people... And I was involved in these things. When I came to Lubavitch, and when I learned more and I got to know more the system of Rebbe, I saw that the Rebbe was very against those demonstrations.

49:05 Speaker 4 I'd like to bring your attention to the Keren Levi Yitzchak, the fund that the Rebbe established, specifically the Zichron of his father, Harav Levi Yitzchak. And there's an interesting story behind it. In taf shin chaf daled, the Rebbe gave a sicha, and the Rebbe said that we find an interesting phenomenon in the United States, that there are schools that have Limudei Kodesh and Limudei Chol, sometimes more, sometimes equal amounts. And, you know, there's a government requirement to have it, and that's why many of the schools have it. But the Rebbe said, even if there is a government requirement to have Limudei Chol, there is no requirement, and the government does not meddle at all into which one is more important and which has priority. Yet we find an interesting phenomenon that there are schools that prioritize Limudei Chol. How so? When it comes to paying the teachers, the teachers of the Limudei Chol get paid quicker, more on time, and m- and even more money than the teachers of the Limudei Kodesh. And the schools rationalize it. They say, "What do you mean? The teachers that teach Limudei Kodesh yirat shamayim, and they, uh, they'll still come, they'll show up, they'll still show up the next day even if they don't get paid. But the teachers of the Limudei Chol, if you don't pay them, they're, they, they'll go, uh, somewhere else." The Rebbe said therefore he's establishing a fund specifically for Melamdim and Melam- and Melamdei of the Midrash Kedosh, that they can come,

50:22 Speaker 4 and if they get a, a, a paycheck, if they're getting delayed in payment and their own money from the school, they can take a from this Keren Lev Yitzchak. As well, the Keren Lev Yitzchak should be supporting other causes of Torah in the, in Kedosh. And the Rebbe said that this is something that, that he gave the reason of where the seed money for this came. He said there was a woman who either her or her husband worked in a school, and they were owed back pay five thousand dollars, but this is nineteen sixty-four, which is about forty, fifty thousand dollars today. And somehow they got a check all at once. I mean, all the back pay was paid to them at once. But this woman rationalized and says that, said that, uh, you know... She didn't rationalize. It's just the opposite. She said, "If I survived till now without it and we're living, then therefore I don't need it." So she gave a check to the Rebbe. The five thousand dollars that she received, she gave to the Rebbe. And the Rebbe said that it's a large family, and they definitely don't have a savings account, and they didn't grow up in Medinah. He in Russia with Mesiras Nefesh. They're Am-American. Nevertheless, she had this conviction that she, if she was able, able to survive, and she got this check, you know, unexpectedly, she should just give it away to the Rebbe. Therefore, the Rebbe said, "With this is the seed money with, with

51:34 Speaker 4 which I will start the fund, and therefore every single person should give the equivalent. Whatever that five thousand dollars meant to this woman, that's how much we should be giving to this Keren, Keren Lev Yitzchak." Therefore, Keren Lev Yitzchak is something that exists till today. Keren Lev Yitzchak this year has given out many, many and loans to teachers that n- that were waiting on, on, on pay or, or, or a loan, which is a, goes a-against their pay. And therefore, um, it is incumbent upon every single one of us that we can all donate this year on Chafod or around Chafod to, and to Keren Lev Yitzchak. And the Rebbe wrote numerous times around Chafod that the Rebbe specifically used the word that we should be donating around Chafod, specifically when it comes to Chafod. Therefore, every single one, every single chassid should donate to Keren Lev Yitzchak this year, and you could do so at magbis.org. That's M-A-G-B-I-S.org, and you can look for the tab for Keren Lev Yitzchak. And with this, we will all have a zchus in honoring the Rebbe's father and honoring the Rebbe and helping the Kedushah of our children and helping the mechanchim.

52:50 Speaker 6 Why? Because the Rebbe said you have to do it diplomatically, quietly, beseaser, behind the curtain. You-- This demonstration just harm the Jews. That's not good. Okay. I felt bad because I participated a bit in this, uh, terrorist group there. So I wrote as a bocher when I was in seven seventy. You asked me about seven seventy. When I was a bocher, I wrote to the Rebbe. I asked forgiveness. What I, I feel I understand it was not such a good thing. And I wrote to the Rebbe, "I'm ready to go to Russia on shlichut Rebbe whenever the Rebbe wants." I think a bit of chutzpah for a Pisha Jew, a bocher to write like that, but I wrote it like that. Look, this was in Lamet Zain. I got married, came Shlichus to the Rebbe, to Brazil. Tov Shin Mem Beis, just about, came to Brazil, Rav Naftoli Astorin. He was saying gezunt. Shlich from Los Angeles, Russian Shlich. He came to, he to help. I don't know how he got to my Rebbe. He, uh, wrote to the Rebbe that he's coming, he's gonna stay by me. The Rebbe gave a bracha, but okay, I helped him a bit on his things. He was collecting money for the Russian Jews, for Bris Milas, for, for new immigrants and so on. And I helped him, went around here and there. I don't know how and what. He must have go back and he told the Rebbe, he told the Zochim, the people that were involved.

54:24 Speaker 6 And I got the permission to go with my wife to Russia on the Shlichus for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. Mem Beis, Mem Gimel. You see how the thing. Past how many years? Three. I wrote this bocher writes to the Rebbe, a chutzpanik. I write to the Rebbe, I'm ready. It came out. The Rebbe didn't forget about me. The Rebbe didn't forget about me. Six years later, I'm going there for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. We were there for ten, twelve days. By day, teaching my wife, teaching the ladies. I'm teaching the men. They came all over from Russia, from Ukraine, from Uzbekistan, from Georgia, from, from Armenia, from, from... I tell you the older, all the activists that Chabad had all these machteres that the Rebbe have, and we taught them during the day. By night, all night farbrengen. It was very, something very, very special. This is another portion that's too long to speak about, but this was-

55:17 Speaker 4 Where, where was the base kind of?

55:19 Speaker 6 We were Rosh Hashanah, Yom Ki- Rosh Hashanah we were in Moscow and Yom Kippur in Leningrad. It was something very, very special. Uh, you know, in Moscow we had a long farbrengen. We went to Malakhovka. It was a time that some activists were take-- were, were, were caught by the KGB. They were a bit afraid, so we made a big farbrengen in Malakhovka. This is an hour from Moscow. Came the guys the whole night. S-s-so very emotional. There are some pictures about some, something. I'm just telling you a bit about Russia. How did I arrive to Russia? How did we go? And then a year and a half later, I went back to Russia then with Zvi Greenblatt. Rabbi Greenblatt, the head shaliach from, from Argentina, and also we taught a lot. We went around. Very interesting. This was still communistic time We asked the Rebbe if we have permission to go to see the A little bit on the topic. Okay, I'll just say one, one story that happened in Russia. I'll tell you, there are many important, it's not... When I was there with Zvi, we gave a lot of shiurim, visited many people. We brought a lot of things. I don't have to tell you the suitcase. We were six hours, maybe four hours, six hours by the, on the airport, the guy waiting for us because we came as tourist, of course. South American tourist with a casquette. You know, I don't have to tell you all the... And there was

57:03 Speaker 6 there a guy already waiting for us in New-- that knows Spanish. Exactly. They were waiting. What's that? What's this? Everything, something they confiscated. Okay, we arrived. Then on the... We didn't... That, that time it was supposed to be in Moscow, in Leningrad, and in Riga. We arrive in Riga, I remember like today, a guy waits for us. His name was not Yotam, Yoram. Yoram. Okay, he tells us, "Follow, follow me." There were already twenty, thirty people waiting in an apartment for a shiur. We are in the tram of Eymor at once he says the Gimel Oisios. Gimel Oisios mean the three letters. We, we understood what it means. KGB is after us. So he goes out of the tram, we take another one. Gimel Oisios. That-- We made that three, four time, and we see we are followed. He said it's too dangerous. Impossible. If you go there, you put in danger all these guys. We had to completely mevatel. We annihilated that night. Okay, a night free. I went to visit one Jew personally that I knew, that, that I had address, and Zvi went to visit a old lady that was a cousin, that was a mishpocha from the Mashpia, Rabbi Sholom Jacobson. This lady gave him, he was there, gave him a Bichal Sidus. She said, "I have that. This is gift. Please give it to the Rebbe." The Bichal Sidus was very interesting because there was, it was manuscript. There was some pirushim from the, from the Tzemach Tzedek on the

58:38 Speaker 6 Or HaChaim Hakodesh. It's already printed. Okay, we take it with us. We knew before going to Russia on such missions, of course, you are briefed. First time when I was my wife, I was briefed by Rabbi, Rabbi Levi. Rabbi Levi went there many time. There is the first time and the second time I made a video of the people speaking to the Rebbe, like Yechidus. The Rebbe looked it with his Rebbetzin. I heard it from Chesed L'Avraham. He looked at that very, very strangely. Good to, good to know. when you have, when you have such a, such an important thing, you-- we were briefed, you have to leave it in the American Embassy. You're not allowed to take it out because they check you when you go out, and it doesn't pass. You are checked. So what happened? We went to Riga, then from Riga to, to Rostov. It's a big flight from Rostov back to Moscow. And you know, you come in with two suitcase full, full. Lot of film, lot of sidus, lot of, of whatever I tell you, whatever you need. We go back with nothing. So how do you do it? We pass in the old shul, Arkhipova. There, there are old Yiddish Seforim from Shomal Aleichem and from, from Bialik, and you put it in your suitcase. You fill it up like that should be something. Okay. We didn't give that Sefer. We didn't have time to put it in the American Embassy. But normally that's the way how they

1:00:11 Speaker 6 get it back after to New York. We arrived at the airport. Who is waiting for us? The same agent that speaks English, that guy from the- Spanish. Spanish. That speaks Spanish. Yeah. "Open all the suitcase." He said, "Hey, but this is completely different things that we were..." "Yeah, we met people. We make . We change the between. There's a cultural, cultural shiur." The guy looks, looks. But this, all these old books, they become-- They belong to Russia. You know, in the beginning it's written it's what printed in Shamshil, what printed in Kiev, 1899. How do you... What's going on here? Of Eymor at once he sees the book. That's the, the, the Bichal of Hasidus. He takes it out. Manuscript. Crazy. You take out that in Russia. Me and Zvi, we literally start to cry. What will the Rebbe say? We, we cannot forgive ourselves. It's crazy. This is crazy. No. It's no, it's from our grandfather. This is from Rebbe. We don't travel without this from our grandfather. That is Yevreiska kultura from Russia. It belongs. You want to take out ? He calls an old lady that's a mumkhan kultura from Russia, and she say, "Of course." What? Nothing to do. He sends, he sends Zvi to go to the check-in because it's late or we're going to miss the flight. It was a flight to Austria, Austrian flight, I remember, through Vienna. And he tells me with the policeman, the full, you know, these red guys with the da, da, da. Policeman

1:01:46 Speaker 6 with the lady take all the books in the room, and you sign a protocol, you give it back to Russia. I'm going to the room. The policeman is there and the lady, and I'm telling, I said, "What am I going to do, Rebbe Yehoshua?" The policeman went out, and then I thought maybe a bit shoychet, you know, in Brazil sometime, you know, sometime a bit you give money. But then I remembered that before going to Russia, the Rebbe send me out a lot of dollars, eighteen or more, thirty dollars. But he wrote me- Le, le, le, le-lahachlif rak beôifen rasmi. The Rebbe told me only change it officially because the difference between the non-official and official ruble was 200, 300%. The Rebbe told me... This Rebbe thinks everything official. The shocher is not this, is that, that, that. I saw the books were like that. Look what I'm telling you, the books were a whole pile like that. The lady is writing every book, the name, the thing, and she, and she makes me a protocol. She's coming. The policeman went out. I said, "Rebbe, that's the moment I put my hand in. Where is the manuscript?" I just took it out. I put it in my, my pants. It was winter. I had a winter coat. I was trembling because you, you could not see the difference. Everyone sees the difference between a manuscript and a printed book, but at least my... I said, uh, "She is writing." She didn't perceive. She made me

1:03:12 Speaker 6 sign. I run to the, I run to the gate at that. And I'm saying, "I must give that book to somebody before they perceive it. They're going to perceive it. It's impossible not to perceive it. Everyone knows the difference between a manuscript and a... In one minute, they're going to catch me." I'm looking everybody. Maybe that is an agent from KGB, that's an agent. I'm afraid. I arrive to the gate. I see a friend from Belgium, this is Diamond. Old friends from Belgium, Diamond. I'm telling him, his name is Altutski. I say, "Listen, don't ask question. I'm leaving my coat here inside. There is a book. You take it. We... In the plane, we'll, we'll speak about." He understood. I'm going to the plane and Zvi is crying, "What did we do? How could we have make such a mistake? How could we have make such a mistake? And I'm c- I'm quiet. I'm quiet. The plane goes off. I go in the first class. The guy was in the executive class. I told him the story. He gave me a blink. I go back to Zvi, "What? What's going on?" I told him the story. He made a mafteach, all what there is inside. We arrive in New York. The Rebbe is going out to the oil. He gave, he gave the sefer.

1:04:25 Speaker 4 Wow.

1:04:28 Speaker 6 I must have told the story to one of the maskirim. The next day, the Rebbe sent me out a beautiful letter. The Rebbe wrote me a beautiful, a beautiful, beautiful answer. So that was one of the adventures I'm just telling you. Okay.

1:04:55 Speaker 4 A real adventure. It's, uh, with su- with suspense and drama and everything.

1:05:01 Speaker 6 Well, that is, that's, that's exactly how it was.

1:05:04 Speaker 4 Okay. It's amazing. Um, so I have a question for you.

1:05:09 Speaker 6 Yes.

1:05:09 Speaker 4 Um, with the... I wanna hear a little bit more about the shluchas, but with the other, like, chidush that you got regarding your shluchas that you didn't-

1:05:18 Speaker 6 Well, well-

1:05:19 Speaker 4 ... mention till now

1:05:21 Speaker 6 There are many minus from the Rebbe, different one. I don't know what you want to hear, what you don't want to hear, but I'll tell you a few things that maybe might be interesting. Um, the Rebbe spoke a while, certain, certain time about tefillah ketzah. Now, children in public school should start the day with a small tefillah. After the Rebbe spoke a silent prayer. Before he spoke about silent prayer, they started a tefillah ketzah. At that time, I had a good connection with the ministers of chinuch education, and I felt I could present that. So I asked the Rebbe, "Should I speak with them about? Should I try to do?" The Rebbe spoke about America. I didn't know if it's for Brazil or not. I asked the Rebbe yes or not. So the Rebbe answered me, underlined. So the Rebbe told me not to do it because the, the land is very, very Christian, and they will change it not to be a tefillah. A non-- The Rebbe was speaking a, about a non-denominational, uh-

1:06:31 Speaker 4 Prayer

1:06:31 Speaker 6 ... prayer. So that was a very-

1:06:33 Speaker 4 And Brazil's, Brazil's a, Brazil's a-

1:06:36 Speaker 6 Years later, I saw takir that the, the public schools, the, the, the, the, they profit it and they put

1:06:45 Speaker 4 Ah.

1:06:46 Speaker 6 You understand? So the Rebbe said, That was what-

1:06:49 Speaker 4 It's very interesting. You know, 'cause Br- America, there's no relig-- It's not a religious state, but Brazil I think is officially-

1:06:56 Speaker 6 No, also it's separate. It's also separate.

1:06:58 Speaker 4 Separate but-

1:06:59 Speaker 6 It's very... It's maybe the one of the biggest Catholic sp- uh, countries in the world. They're very Catholic. The Rebbe, the Rebbe knew exactly, and the Rebbe write, The Rebbe knew exactly what I... Once I wrote to the Rebbe that I feel that really I don't have time literally for more things to do. Poshet, koach hodom is missing, and then oymis ha'avodah, so much work to do. The zman is short, and I have take also for the baal teshuva, take care of the family. How do you join all these things? Take care of your family, take care of shluchim, and and still missing koach hodom. How do you join all that? I told-- I, I, I was a bit desperate. I wrote the Rebbe a, a long letter about this. It was, I think, in Tov Shin Mem Gimel. The Rebbe answered me like that, And then between sogrim, the Rebbe writes, It means, in English means most of the shluchim have such problems. You think you are the only one. You have a pele that you think that you... underlined. Yes, What the other schlutim did You should, you should get in to inquire what other schlu-- and I really did. You have to have quality time, and you have to see with the family how to do it. Sometimes you have to cut off a bit. You have to... And the Rebbe, Very, very clear answer and very important maybe for other schlutim. Then there was a time, very interesting. Maybe sometime you

1:08:53 Speaker 6 get over the head from the Rebbe also. It's important that... But to get over the head is also important, and you have to say it. At a certain moment, I don't remember which year, I think it was some schlutim, two, three schlutim together with me. Two, two with me. We found... As we had so many pupils already, Mocwhan Hana and in Morristown, we said maybe we make a in Brazil. Oh. And we wrote to the Rebbe the whole plan, and we wrote to the Rebbe, We don't see any any other Nobody has that with... And we were-- We don't see it's going to... So the Rebbe underlined twice and put a question mark. And then the Rebbe write like that, started to Brazil a bit to be more quiet. There was some that was missing, the Rebbe says, You're not look... You, you don't want to see what's going on. The Rebbe gave us over the heads. You're telling me there's no problem. Just start, could that be quiet? Just this is missing. We got it over the head not to do it. So, so

1:10:11 Speaker 4 I understand there was some strong minus from the Rebbe about the-

1:10:15 Speaker 6 Yeah, there were many-

1:10:16 Speaker 4 Various

1:10:17 Speaker 6 Yeah, but look what the Rebbe... I, I tell you, you see how the Rebbe goes into protein. I was once by a Shabbos. I was by Shabbos. It must be I was in Shabbos. I was going by the Rebbe at least twice in a year or through the After Friday night, Rabbi Gorna tells me the Rebbe wants to give you tomorrow. I got-- I didn't sleep the whole night. I didn't ask. I didn't, I didn't come for a the... Didn't know what, what, what the Rebbe wants. Okay. What happens? The middle of the between the two the Rebbe calls me. First of all, the Rebbe asked me, I found it funny. So I said, "San Paulo." The Rebbe said, "Where?" So I remember I came through Peru, through Lima. It's got, got important this. So I told him, "No, my Lima, Peru." So okay, the Rebbe And the Rebbe says, The Rebbe gives me the two people that were not exactly connected. On the contrary-

1:11:42 Speaker 4 In Brazil?

1:11:43 Speaker 6 The Rebbe tell-- The Rebbe tell by the see that this and this tells me, tell me his name. this and this

1:11:51 Speaker 4 People at the

1:11:54 Speaker 6 One was by the other one was not by I cannot say names.

1:11:57 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:11:57 Speaker 6 Okay. The Rebbe. You see, Rebbe give me to do take care of that. Okay? So of course, that's the first thing I did. I came to São Paulo, and I arrived. I'll tell you soon, soon. Motzei Shabbos, I invited him and his wife, and him and his wife, made l'chaim, put them together a bit with Shalom. In middle of a you see what the Rebbe thinks about. I think it's important for schlutim to see how important by the Rebbe is such a thing of Shalom I'll come back to that. So remind me the word In the meantime, the Rebbe asked me. I found it funny. The Rebbe said, "Why I'm going?" The Rebbe knows where I'm going. And then on a Friday night, Rabbi Gorna told me what's make... It means it's planned by the Rebbe. The Rebbe knows exactly. He wants me to say l'chaim with that and that in São Paulo. What happened? The plane broke in Lima. I was there stuck for twelve, thirteen hours, and I had suitcase full because it was that time I was per-- I was With a big in Brazil. Three, four thousand kids. I, I had the printing of three, four thousand names for the pan for I was giving to the Rebbe. So I, I had the suitcase with all the things of in, in, in, uh... Let's see. What's here? Of to bring from New York to Brazil. The Chaga, once in Brazil, we made a nice passport for with that stamps you put.

1:13:15 Speaker 6 You're a general, you're a captain, you're a colonel, and so on. The Rebbe send it out to the in New York. They should, they, they should copy. What did I do? I was there. I found out where there are Jews. Unbelievable. Shabbos in New York. When I was Shabbos, I ate by somebody that told me that he knows a Jew in, in, a Jew in, in Lima. His name Mandel. I looked the book, I found him. I, I went. He brought me to the rabbi. There was a rabbi there. His name was Rabbi Yigal. I forgot the last name. Rabbi Yigal Friedman. Yigal Friedman. So we went to school. I explained him all how it works, He took most of the thing that I had and to implant it in Lima. There's a Jewish school and all the thing. When I came back, I wrote to the Rebbe. I understood already why the Rebbe asked me. Oh, I, I made my I hope I did what the Rebbe meant of Rabbi Yigal Friedman to them. Three years passed maybe, and we decided the schlutim in Brazil to make a ni- for to make a nice book for the Rebbe. You know, a from It's called Very nice. Rabbi Shlomo Gurari, Rabbi Rezines, me. Okay. We went to Rabbonim. Everyone wrote. Some Rabbonim, some Dayanim, schlutim. I get a from Maskir, the Rebbe said you should connect with Rabbi Yigal Friedman. He should also write something. You see? The Rebbe The Rebbe doesn't forget anybody. Look,

1:14:49 Speaker 6 just because two, three years be-before he was a rabbi, he helped a bit for one day for you you should see that he should write in that Unbelievable?

1:15:00 Speaker 4 Amazing. So I wanna ask you, I know I, I know I have to remind you about the so didn't forget about that. Um, but there, there's also... So first of all, there's a big that you had. I actually worked there when I was on shtichas in Yeshiva, Brazil. I taught in the, in the camp. Um, some, some of the shtuchim were-- They had counselors, and some of them were, were teaching. And also, there's the teniad. So maybe you could tell, tell-- talk to-- talk to me a little about those, uh, those mesads.

1:15:32 Speaker 7 Yeah. We have another two things that we're taking care. One is teniads and one is, uh, the Camp Gan Yisrael. Teniad is an institution, not only social institution, Chesed. In Hebrew, it's called Saad. We give-- It's a soup kitchen, Beis Hamachoi. A few people, Mekubalim, and me myself, we got together before Yut Aleph Nisan, Tov Shin Nun Beis, when the Rebbe was go-going to make ninety years. It was almost two weeks before the stroke, and we wanted to give a present to the Rebbe, and we decided we-- Because in Brazil, you have a big disparity between rich and poor. Not so much as middle class. You have people very, very, very poor that live on, with less than two, three dollars on a day. Some things are very, very poor. Twenty percent make less than the poverty line. So, and there are some poor Jews, so we decided, I think the Rebbe would be happy to make a soup kitchen for poor people, to give them food every day. But not food only. So they're a whole meal, a three-course meal. We wrote it to the Rebbe, and we wrote that we're going to call it Eshel Menachem, Eshel Menachem. And the, the, and the Rebbe agreed, and this Gabo Shoshana, we got a nice, ni-nice answer. And it was two weeks before the stroke, and we started. No, no, sorry. We wrote it's going to call-- Today it's Eshel Menachem. That time we called it Eshel Mamash. It was the Rebbe Mamash.

1:16:58 Speaker 4 Mamash.

1:16:58 Speaker 7 From the Rebbe, Eshel Mamash. The Rebbe agreed. The Rebbe was very happy. So it's, it's existed already more than twenty-three years, and we give over thousands meals every day, poor people. It's a very special moment when the Federation wants to show something nice to people that come, delegations and so on. They bring them to the teniad, and it's, and all the media are very known. The president and the, and all the various senators and big, big personalities came already to, to visit it. Special name. It's named after the Rebbe, the, the, the whole thing. It's a whole moshet, it's a whole building only for Chesed. Of course, when you have such a population of poor people, it's not only food. Sometimes they need clothes, and it's, uh, one needs, uh, tennis for the big children, whatever. Of course, this is teniad. The camp is in Gan Yisrael. I will say the story a bit because I think it's an important thing. When I arrived in Brazil, Tov Shin Lamed Tes, Mamash, uh, two months after in, in August, it was almost Tammuz of, there was a Hasidish Hasana in Rio de Janeiro. The Hasana was from a young man, Eliovitch, Alav HaShalom. He was, uh, he was working with Rabbi Blumenfeld. So I went to the Hasana. I mean, I was never in Rio, you know, and I decided, I'm already in Rio, let's visit Rabbi Binyamin, the Rosh Yeshiva from, from Petrópolis. So I went to-

1:18:19 Speaker 4 The only time I was in Rio is for a Hasana also, so.

1:18:22 Speaker 7 Okay. So we are together. So I went to visit Rabbi Binyamin. He was very happy, received me very nicely. Beautiful yeshiva in the, in the mountains, something like that.

1:18:30 Speaker 4 Rabbi Binyamin has, by the way, on his own, tons of stories and heroes from the Rebbe.

1:18:37 Speaker 7 A whole book about, of course.

1:18:39 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:18:39 Speaker 7 But about Brazil, I hope you know that there is two, two books about Brazil.

1:18:43 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:18:43 Speaker 7 The Chabad in Brazil. There you have many answers because the travel-

1:18:46 Speaker 4 And, and the, the Ha'ar magazine, we wrote an article about, uh, Rabbi Binyamin.

1:18:50 Speaker 7 Yeah, but you should see the books. The Rebbe would literally shoot in Brazil so many answers. We get to know so many people, letters from the Rebbe, so-- And we, and we put them together, and we don't have everything, but the-- Brazil was very, very-- It's not strong, not only in the printing of Tanyas, but man-many, many other things. Uh, I'll give you an example. The Mishne Kashrus that the Rebbe came out from Brazil, and there are some words that the Rebbe speaks about Brazil. And Sao Paulo should be Makom Chabad in Brazil. And many brochas. There was a, there was a report that we're going out of the story, the thing. There was a report in Rio that what he, he-- That he was-- He went to a farbrengen from Rabbi Chaitrik. The first shlichut, the first shliach bechalal in the '50s, and then we're speaking in Yud Gimel, was Rabbi Chaitrik to Brazil. Many, many letters, unbelievable. Very interesting. Many things about Brazil. I'll call upon you. The Rebbe put a lot, a lot of keves, a lot, a lot of personal keves. The, the, that's, that, that reporter went to a farbrengen, and then he wrote an article in his newspaper, Yiddish, uh, uh, it was a Yiddish newspaper, and he wrote that, that, Baruch Hashem, Brazil is a mitver, but he came, came to Brazil as a mitver, but came to Brazil a shliach from Chabad, and he's doing a beautiful work, and he writes about farbrengen. The Rebbe got his

1:20:10 Speaker 7 article, and the Rebbe writes him a letter. "Thank you for speaking about Chabad, Yut Tes Kis Lev, about the farbrengen. I don't agree with you that you call Brazil a mitver. A mitver is something where nothing grows. In Brazil, if will come the right people, there will grow fantastic peys." And the whole thing is in Yiddish. You can see it. It's also in the book. The truth is, the Rebbe corresponded. There is letters from the Rebbe to three presidents from Brazil. They wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe writes. I don't think in the United States you have that. The United States, you have two, maybe. Three.

1:20:44 Speaker 4 Bush, Reagan. Yeah.

1:20:46 Speaker 7 Two, I think. We have three. The, the, the Rebbe put a lot of keves in Brazil. Anyway, I was in Rio. I was there by, by Rabbi Binyamin, and he tells me, "I would like to have more pupils. We have not enough talmidim. What could you help me to help more talmidim?" I tell him- Look, I don't-- I came here to work with students, but my experience from Paris that when you make a good camp and it works good and you have good kids, that from there you can manshift them because the yeshiva is already from sixteen years old. You know, you can be manshift them to the yeshiva. It works.

1:21:17 Speaker 4 Making, making a camp.

1:21:19 Speaker 7 Yeah. So it's all very good. We should make the camp. Make a camp. When is by us the summer? The summer by us is in December, January. Very good. Came December, January, some people were against, didn't work. I saw there is a bit of politics, but I made the seminar levels of students. I didn't make it. I arrived two, three weeks after in New York with the kvutze. We're going to Yechidas. I go into Yechidas. I just had given my paper to the Rebbe. I don't know if the Rebbe read it or not. The Rebbe picks up his head and asked me, "Why didn't you make the camp?" Look, I know... I want to explain you. I came back from Rio, and like every month, I wrote a letter to the Rebbe. This was two lines. I wrote to the Rebbe that I was in Petah Tikva. What I told him, what he asked me, what I answered. It was two lines. It's a letter of four or five pages. Six months later, the Rebbe asked me, "Why didn't you make a camp?" The Rebbe felt talmidim was missing kids. I didn't want to make, you know, to tell the Rebbe that somebody was against. I said, "We didn't want there should be problems." So the Rebbe picked up his head, made me a big smile, and said, "No, if you work with Kiruv Levavovos, okay." But I understood that the Rebbe wants the camp. Just leave the Rebbe-

1:22:35 Speaker 4 This is-- Second, this is the story of Kiruv Levavovos?

1:22:38 Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah.

1:22:39 Speaker 4 Oh, yeah.

1:22:39 Speaker 7 Rebbe Noah, Rebbe I understand the Rebbe. Next year came Tov Shimon Aleph. I already didn't ask anybody. I understood the Rebbe wants the camp. I make a camp. Make a camp by Israel. Three weeks before, I had already fifty, sixty kids, forty-five kids. I have all the lists. I write to the Rebbe a letter, Baruch Hashem, all the kids here. We're making normal, all the Bahai Jews first time at Patricia. I was the head counselor. He told-- I rented the place. I make it. The day we're going out of the camp, I get a letter from the Rebbe, and I feel it's heavy. I open, from Then I see that the Rebbe took my letter, cut it off a piece, and wrote with his handwriting, He put me my letter inside. Something very... I said, "He took the letter, he cut off my piece." I said the Rebbe is happy. Made the camp, Baruch Hashem. Finish the camp. I call up in New York, the Maskir. I tell him, Baruch Hashem, the camp was a success. I arrive in New York two weeks after for Yut Shvat. He shows me where a white man camp was. The Rebbe wrote a the details. The details. I understood that the Rebbe really likes the camp. I send pictures and things, Baruch Hashem. And ten years, ten years, we rented places. It's a, it's a schlep, not easy, because you have to rent a place, you have to get truck and bring your-- all your things, and

1:24:26 Speaker 7 you have to be kashering and play and pots and pans. I don't have to tell you all that. After ten years, I decided one night I'm writing to the Rebbe. Rebbe, the union from camp came from Maybe the Rebbe can arrange us a camp. We should have a steady camp. You believe me or not, the same week, a Jew calls me up. Never spoke with that Jew. His name is Mr. Levinsky. He tells me, "I wro-- I bought, I bought the camp from the Reform Shul in Campos do Jordão," which is in the mountains. "I don't know what to do for it. It's a long-range investment. I heard that you're making camps. Maybe you're interested to have it." I ca-- I thought I cannot believe it. The answer is from the Rebbe.

1:25:19 Speaker 4 To buy it or to use it?

1:25:21 Speaker 7 Look, he tells me, "I can give it to you for five years. You don't pay anything. Just you pay, of course, electricity and water, but nothing." I went there Sunday, I remember. Made-- We put in hundred thousand dollar. We would make the shul bigger and fantastic. Thirty-five years passed or forty, I'm still using the place for you to know. Just every five years we renew it. Baruch Hashem, we renew the payment. But what happened? There you could make a camp for hundred people. So we used it a few years, really. We must have used it from Tov Shin, um, yeah, till Tov Shin Nun, something like that. We used it... No more. From Tov Shin-- I'm sorry. From Tov Shin Nun, it was before Gimel. We went up to Tov Shin Tes, and another eight, seven years, nine years maybe. But the camp grew. More than hundred kids. We have hundred, hundred and fifty kids, madrichim. We have teen camps and yeshiva camp and so on. It's bigger. It's bigger. I want to make an interruption. If you don't mind, Rabbi Yosef Kamenetsky. I want to make interruption. The ca-- The, the ten yads. You know the ten yads, the kitchen that we have. To sustain that, it's a lot of money. So we, of course, we have donors here and there, and we make once a year, we make a show. We make a concert, it's called. So we brought already, uh, Mordechai Ben David and Avraham Fried and Shweki and Dedi, all these

1:26:40 Speaker 7 Jewish singers. Okay. Every other... Normal-normally these shows have two thousand people or thousand five hundred, sometimes three thousand. And this helps us because we make a book. It helps us with the money for a few months. Okay? One year, this is good. It must have been Tov Shin Nun He, maybe. We couldn't find a singer. This one is busy, this one's busy. Nobody, this, nobody. Everybody No singer. What do we do? What can you do? We cannot do melaveh malka. The volunteers of Ten Yad, we have three hundred volunteers, ladies and men. A, a few volunteers came by us. They said, "We have an idea. We found a singer. He have say Yiddish lid, like he knows to sing in Yiddish." I said, "You're crazy. Yiddish? Who speaks Yiddish?" Old people, nobody else speaks Yiddish. I said that they'll come three hundred people, that's all. They insisted, they insisted we have to do, we cannot stop. I told them, "Make me a favor, just take a hall for a hundred, hundred and fifty people. There may not be more. They listen to me." And I was ashamed, tell you the truth. I took a plane, I went to New York. I didn't want to be there because I felt that's going to be a fashion, like it's going to be a complete... And I was right. There was 120 people, only old age people. They showed the, the, they showed the video of Ten Yad and this guy sang in Yiddish. Okay. Tuv Shin mem--

1:28:03 Speaker 7 Tuv Shin Nun Tes, around. I'm writing to the Rebbe one night and I said, "Listen, Rebbe, you gave us a camp like that. We used it for a few good years, but the camp is bigger. Maybe we can get a bigger camp. Rebbe, we should get a bigger camp for us. We need a place really a kibbutz camp." I write it. Two, three weeks later, we had a pegisha of students in a hotel that we rented. I arrive Friday in the hotel. I see a goy, "Oh, you. Oh, I know you." He's the guy that was helping me to rent always places of camp. I tell this goy, "Oh, you, maybe you know a place to buy the camp?" He said, "Yes, I know a place here, not far, 10 minutes." "Very good. We go there Sunday morning." We had a nice pegisha, three hundred students, whole night of break. I-- Sunday morning, I go with him. I love the place. It's for the place, swimming pool, the courts and sleeping and everything for... I don't have a penny. I say a few psukim here and there. I ask him, "Give me the name of the ba- of the, of the balabos." "Okay." He gives me the name balabos, an Italian goy, Vincenzo. So Monday, I call the goy. This was around August, September. Listen good to me. I call the goy and I tell him, "Listen, I saw your place. It's nice, but I don't have a penny." It's very important to understand, to,

1:29:24 Speaker 7 to buy it. And he, "Oh," he goes, "Yeah. Why do you have such much place? You have place already for a hundred, hundred fifty people." "No, I bring schools here, poor people. Me also poor people, Jewish." "Oh, you're Jewish?" He said, "Yeah, of course. I'm a rabbi." He said, "Oh, my shutaf is a Jew." I said, "Who is your shutaf?" He said, "Rudy Bracha." I said, "Rudy Bracha? I'm marrying him Thursday." He say, "Yeah, this guy." "Okay, we, we're going to meet at the... by the place, by the chuppah. After the chuppah, we speak." In the meantime, I called Rudy Bracha. He said, "Okay, I'll arrange you. You can pay in many installment," but it cost a million dollar. Very big place. Okay, I arrive there at the chuppah. I don't have the money. I'm very interesting the place. I don't know what to do. Baruch Hashem, I got an inspiration from the I tell, "Listen, listen, Vincenzo, I cannot buy the place like that. Maybe there's some problem, sewage here. Oh, uh, I must test it. I wanna use it for one summer. If it's good, I promise you I'll buy it." "No problem," he said. "Take it." Whole summer he gives it to me. Gan Yisroel, for girls, for rabbonim. beautiful, a few acres of it, but a ganze camp. Comes February, finish the camps. I know the goy is going to call me. He's going to call me, the guy. What do I do? I sit down one night. I open the

1:30:46 Speaker 7 It's very rarely something open. I open . I fall on on the Rebbe Taf Shin Tes Zayen Tes Vav to, to Kitrick, shliach in, in Rio de Janeiro. The Rebbe writes something like that, . Because the Rebbe writes, "Through the children, we get to the parents." Ah, whole letter only about Gan Yisroel, about camp. So I said, "Wow, that's, that's..." Passes three days, I'm sitting. I go to the soup kitchen, to the Ten Yad only once a week, who di- who directs the soup kitchen is my son. I go there for lunch once a week. I'm there sitting Wednesday by lunch. Knocks at the door, a Jew. Small Jew, It's normal. I was sure he comes from another. Okay, I almost put my hand in the bucket. He sits down. He tells me like that, "Rabbi, we were three brothers. We born in Romania. During the war, we saved ourself in Siberia. We came to Brazil. Boris, my brother, Olga, my sister, and me. We never got married. Every one of us had a factory of textile. We made a lot of money. Boris passed away two years ago. Olga passed away last year. All the money is by me, and I'm looking what to do with the money." I think I froze. I don't know. Now listen what he's telling me. "Five, six years ago, I was by the-- I was by a concert of Yiddish lid. It was such a beautiful night. And there they showed a video of an institution. It's three

1:32:28 Speaker 7 weeks I'm trying to remember the name of the institution. This morning, I got it. I'm here. It's Ten Yad. Rabbi, what do you propose me? What can you help me?" I thought it's not possible. what I'm telling you is Listen to me. I'm telling him, and I start to tell him all my plan. I want to buy a camp, the children and the teenagers, and he makes the whole time with his head like that, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." I said, "Now we can make for rabbis, make for-- take for... Here's the summer, the whole year. You don't need to winterize your camp." He said, "We're seeing..." I tell him that we can make there for, for, for, for a couples. "Yeah, yeah." At a certain moment I get nervous and say, "Rabbi Avrum, eighteen dollars." No problem. I said, "Rabbi Avrum, hundred and eighty dollars." No problem. We're now speaking about hundred and eighty thousand dollars. He said, "No problem." End of the story. I don't want it to be long. He paid the million dollar. He paid everything, and he told me there will be more money left over to buy some more around which I... Which we did for him, and we have a beautiful camp Gan Yisroel. This is the , and so we use it the whole year. All the schools, all the frumer people here, even Litvishe, when people have come there and rent it for Shabbos with the big picture of the Rebbe and all, they use it. It's a

1:33:48 Speaker 7 big Kiddush Hashem. Youth camps, uh, seminars for students and clinicians, whatever. And what do we learn from that? Why tell you the story? Because I think we sh- shluchim can learn something beautiful from that. Davka the peula that I thought will be a, a, a failure total will not work out, that was a shame that I went out, from there came the yeshua. This old Jew, if he wasn't by that concert of Yudish, he would never arrive by me. So davka from there came the yeshua. Twice the Rebbe gave me a camp like that on platter, on silver platter without doing anything. Do you understand how much the Rebbe takes care of his shluchim? He gave it to me like that. I just asked Rebbe, as you told me in Yechidus, please take care. Twice like that. It's word to word. Unbelievable. is my... The Rebbe takes care of his shluchim. Once I brought somebody by Machneh Israel, and I remember. A few time, Rebbe, he was with me to Machneh Israel. You know what's Machneh Israel? They built new funds. And he tells Rebbe, he asked the Rebbe, then the Rebbe turns to him, "We should see that the shliach should also be ha- also be happy." So the Rebbe's working for us, pshut, the Rebbe is specifically literally opening our doors for us. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah. I don't know why. You got it?

1:35:10 Speaker 4 Amazing. It's amazing.

1:35:12 Speaker 7 Story, pshut . I don't tell you a word more, a word less. It's . It's unbelievable. I had another miser like that, another miser that has... Davka a peula that I was sure it's a failure, it's terrible, became... I'll tell you, I don't know if you have patience. I don't know if you're patient for my, my, my speaking. I don't know.

1:35:35 Speaker 4 It's very good. I wanna ask you also about Morumbi and, uh, and, and, uh, Safra Shul.

1:35:39 Speaker 7 Okay. So after all Morumbi, Baruch Hashem, after the Rabbi Alpern decided around the Tov Shin between... I forget the... Uh, it's between Tov Shin Mem and Tov Shin Nun to expand on other places. So Rabbi Schildkraut opened, and then in one neighborhood, Rabbi Schild, another neighborhood, and finally I went to the south of São Paulo, which is called N- Morum-Morumbi, and there we opened the Beit Chabad, Morumbi. And Baruch Hashem, uh, it grew, it grew. Today, two takes care of it is Rabbi David Goldberg, my Adam, Baruch Hashem. Very nice. It's a, it's a not easy community because it's very frei people, the south of people. The... Many pa-- They, they're traveling here and there, but Baruch Hashem, it grew. It was from the beginning, from scratch, we started.

1:36:24 Speaker 4 I spent man- many, uh, Shabbats in there.

1:36:26 Speaker 7 A person who was living there is Mr. Horn, Eli Horn, and he helped us for the rent and so on. Just want to tell you an, an interesting story. When I went to Morumbi, I was happy, Baruch Hashem, I got the rent. I rented the place, Baruch Hashem. How did I get to there? Because my wife was teaching, my wife was teaching one of the families there, Ades. This is another story that I want to put now. And through... And there, they were teaching the children. So the broche comes, comes to the wife, you know, and she got me to know this family, and that was the second one that was interested. So with the Horn, we had Ades and a third one. They paid the rent. But Tov Shin Mem Tes, the Rebbe is speaking the whole time, Shnas HaBinian. And I, I, I'm just renting. I felt bad. Every sicha, Shnas HaBinian, be davka in personal apartments, Beit Chabad, and I'm happy that I pay the rent. Just started. I didn't know what to do. What can I do? It was Erev Rosh Hashanah, I remember like today. It was Erev Rosh Hashanah, listen to me. It was Erev Rosh Hashanah, I came back from a shiur to Mr. Horn, and I see a shechtah closed. And I said, "the Rebbe... It's the last day of Tov Shin Mem Tes. I know the Rebbe is going to change. It's not more Sh-Shnas HaBinian." Shnas HaBinian, the Rebbe gives to the, uh, Shnas

1:37:45 Speaker 7 HaYeled, Shnas Ha'yalde, Shnas HaChimuch. Everywhere the Rebbe has Baruch Hashem many shna. It's going to be finished soon. So you know what? I don't hesitate. I look... I got out of the car. I looked. You mean or small, like you say, . Nobody's looking. I jumped over the thing. I went into a shechtah. Belongs to him.

1:38:06 Speaker 4 You, you went, you wa- you went in. It's now belongs to you.

1:38:08 Speaker 7 I went into the shechtah. I started to say pesukim, bit Tanya, be like, "Kinyan meruchis. I don't have a penny. I made a kinyan meruchis." And I told Rebbe, "You want me to buy? I don't have money. At least I'm making... I show you a rotsen that I would like to buy it. I make a kinyan meruchis. At least something I did Shnas HaBinian." I'd never told that to anybody because people would think I'm crazy. So I'm not doing it since then. That's what I did personally with me and the Rebbe, and that's it. Rosh Hashanah, the shul started five, six years later. The balabatim already growing. Uh, be davka venaplatz, a shechtah. I don't tell them that I have already a shechtah. I, I have already a shechtah. I don't tell them. Yeah, be davka, "Rabbi, you should try." "Okay, I will look for."

1:38:49 Speaker 4 Chof Shearim.

1:38:50 Speaker 7 Now, for the first time, I'm sending to the balabos of that shechtah, "I would like to meet you." Doesn't answer me. "I would like to meet you." In Brazil, you can force him. I, I went to agent. I went, "Okay, he had to answer my phone." Finally, I told him, "Listen, I want to speak with you. I'm interested in your, uh, shechtah." "Okay, fine." He received me in his office. Fine, a goy. We speak, speak. He tells me, "Listen, I, I'm not interesting to do-- uh, to, to sell it to much. And I'll tell you the truth. I know two Jews. If you know them, if they're connected to them, then we can talk. If not, not." I said, "Okay, wait." First one is Eli Horn. I'm, I'm going with him in the park sometime Sunday. Second one is Mr. Ades, that his son is in the same class like my daughter. I told, "The first one is my president, the second is the vice president."

1:39:37 Speaker 4 Wow.

1:39:38 Speaker 7 But when I heard that, I said, "Eh, eh, eh. I'm not going to deal more. Let them deal with him." So they put down the price twenty percent, the other one another twenty percent. We bought the shechtah. Baruch Hashem, two, three years ago, Rabbi Goldberg, which is there, built a beautiful building on that same shechtah, Baruch Hashem, that I asked the Rebbe that I make a kinyan meruchani. There is a beautiful Beit Chabad. Just to show you, the Rebbe listens to us. Listens to us, Baruch Hashem. Listens to us. Anyway, Beit Chabad Morumbi is working, Baruch Hashem. Good, the peula is beautiful. Thanks, God.

1:40:14 Speaker 4 And how you, um-- So you said that the Rebbe told you there was a, there was a-- One of the hatsois of the Shlichos was to be involved with, uh, Sephardim.

1:40:23 Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah.

1:40:24 Speaker 4 That... And now you're, uh, a rabbi in, uh, in the Safra Shul.

1:40:28 Speaker 7 Yes, yes, yes. Yes. So this is interesting here also. Um, when I arrived to Brazil, uh, I arrived like Boomer. Shluhus already Rabbi Altman presented me to Mr. Joseph Safra, and we had already a small shiur, and then I started to give a shiur to his nephew. This nephew brought another group of Sephardim, and during years, many years, a few years, I learned with them Tanya every Tuesday night. I remember in the Sifriyah in Beit Chabad, maybe three hours. We start at nine o'clock, we finish twelve-- eleven o'clock. So I have Tanya with them every... These people lately became the, became the vad, became the, the, how you call, the board of the synagogue of the Safra Shul, and they remembered about me. In the meantime, I started to give shiurim also in the youth movement, the Sephardim have a big youth movement called Netzach. And when I-- after-- even though I was volunteering giving many shiurim in the Sephardi community during many years, but after a certain moment, they asked me to be officially their rabbi, and I agreed. I understood that it's important also. And through that, we get into more, more and more kehillahs, more people. Baruch Hashem it's a growing and flourishing community today. Um, I would say it's six hundred families, maybe almost three hundred, three thousand bifarshas, Baruch Hashem. And, uh, Baruch Hashem and Mr. Safra, there's another story, there's another talk, very, very, very connected to the Rebbe. Uh-

1:41:48 Speaker 4 I was gonna ask you about that. He has a whole shayach with the Rebbe, the Safra.

1:41:51 Speaker 7 Yes. This is another talk about the other, other-- There are many families that we f- we can speak. This is another talk. I think like that we-- I can tell you maybe, um, something personally, if you want. I don't know. I don't know what's-

1:42:07 Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. That's it.

1:42:08 Speaker 7 Ah, I was thinking about the Meron B. You asked me. Yeah, I said, I said there is another story that I thought that, that's another story that I thought it going to be a filler, and at the end it became something . Tov Shin Mem Zayin, just about, the Rebbe spoke strongly on a Shabbos about Hanukkah menorahs. Very strong public Hanukkah menorahs, a long... I think it's Mem Zayin, maybe I made a mistake. And we were listening in the fabangen at night and sometime an hour or two hours difference. It was around ten, eleven o'clock with the Shluchim were here or Chazon, and we have to do something. It was in the middle of Hanukkah.

1:42:41 Speaker 4 It was, it's Hanukkah? Yeah.

1:42:42 Speaker 7 Don't remember exactly which day. It was on Hanukkah. Okay, Rabbi Shulkrez me on the phone, another rabbi. I think, we think, what can we do? We remembered we have a very big, huge Hanukkah menorah that we left on the Jewish club, Maccabi. And the next Sunday, we got to know there's a very big soccer game that's between the team of São Paulo and Corinthians. This is a very eighty thousand people in the stadium besides the millions people looking television. We decided we must put that Hanukkiah there. The Rebbe says, "If you command public, we must put it there." How we do it? We have telephones here, eleven thirty at night. We got to know that one of the board of the São Paul-- It's in the São Paulo stadium. One of the, the people on the board is a Jew. His name is called Jamie Franco. I'm calling this guy twelve o'clock at night. I didn't know what would be his reaction. "Mr. Jamie, I heard about you in the board. We just got an appeal from the Lubavitch Rebbe, the world Jewish leader. We have to put menorah, public menorahs everywhere, and, uh, we want tomorrow in that game." He took it very seriously. "Come to me nine o'clock in the morning with your car. We go to speak with the president." I had the booklet a bit already with pictures from America from pu-public menorahs that helped a bit. I go by him, he takes me with his car, we go to the

1:44:08 Speaker 7 president. He took it seriously. Rebbe monk-

1:44:10 Speaker 4 The president, the president-

1:44:12 Speaker 7 Not full, not full, but approach it to you. Listen to them.

1:44:15 Speaker 4 What do you mean the president?

1:44:16 Speaker 7 The pre- the president Goy, a Goy.

1:44:18 Speaker 4 Of, of the team?

1:44:20 Speaker 7 The president of the board of the teams.

1:44:22 Speaker 4 The board, yeah.

1:44:22 Speaker 7 The whole thing together. We go by him. I explain him that it's the menorah, it means peace and light. Light, who doesn't want light? Everyone light. Light brings peace. And here I made a mistake, a very big mistake. I told him this will bring the victory of the team. São Paulo will win. I told him to bring mazel. I wanted to convince him. I was young and Shlichah. This will bring mazel to the team. The guy loved it. He takes the phone, he gives a wkudah in the, in the stadium. In the meantime, Rabbi Shulkre went to take out with a big truck the menorah. They should let him in and put it in on the stage and all whatever. He loved it. Okay. We arrived there. The, the, the, the game was to be four o'clock. We arrived at two o'clock. They put in the menorah. The full-- I don't know if you know Brazil, they're crazy for soccer, and Corinthians is a very popular team, more than São Paulo. We get interviews, the k- the, the, the radio, the guys, "W-what's this thing?" One of them, there's a candelabrum there. "What, what, what's this menorah? What's going on here?" So we say, "No, the lights, the, the, the Jewish light and the, the-- We, we, we win the victory of the Chashmonaim and the thing brings lights and peace." And again, we said, "Now, most probably it will bring mazel to the team of São Paulo." In the stadium, there were many guys

1:45:43 Speaker 7 from the other team, from the Corinthians. They heard it on the radio. They throw literally stones on us. I remember one stone took me here, the mazel had glasses. Okay, but we did ours. Three o'clock, the stadium was full. I'm telling you, eighty thousand people, many Jews. Many Jews made a sign, "Whoa, Rabbi- Hanukkah Sameach, Hanukkah Sameach. We saw that it's, it, it was making many Jews and they couldn't believe the menorah, and this goes on television and I don't know how many mil-million, million people, fifty million people. This is two hundred and twenty million people. Okay, we stood there a bit, but all the time in my life I saw a game. The game starts one zero for Corinthians. They're losing São Paulo. Two zero. I told Rabbi Shirkrot, "Let's go out from here. They're going to lynch us. We, we're not going out alive from here." We run away somewhere. In the meantime, some people saw us. They laughed of us because we said they got... They lost the game. We did everything, Baruch Hashem. The, the publicity, the persume Nisa was莫里迪克, but we didn't go back even to take the menorah because we sent some people going to take with a truck. We told them they're going to win. They lost. I was sure, but okay, what Gemara don't say. Look, the Ash Yoche protest. This Jaime Franco, Shafar, marries his daughter to Mr. Ades, the president of the synagogue. I got close. I made the wedding.

1:47:08 Speaker 7 We're getting close with Jaime. Two, three years passed. I-- we never spoke more about that. I didn't want to talk more about this assumption. One day, Jaime Franco calls me three years later, "Rabbi, the president of the São Paulo Club would like to speak to you. You agree?" He made me such a favor. I was like, "Okay, I agree." "I come to pick you up with the car." I said, "Rebbe Nishile, what does he want?" Okay, Franco comes to pick me up. We go to the stadium. He opens the door, fifty people sitting, the whole board. The president speak, "Rabbi, do you remember the game?" I put my head down and I said, "Of course, I remember." "You know, Rabbi, that we lost that game, but it was the best time in our life. After that, we won the international, we won the Libertadores, we won in Japan, we won the interna-- we won the best." That is true. They won in Japan, the best team in the world. "This gave us such a blessing, you have no idea. The menorah was fantastic. Rabbi, we're going through many problems. One of our players," he tells me the name, "passed away two weeks ago. We got a crack in the stadium. The city prohibited we cannot have eighty thousand, only forty thousand people. We're losing money. Please, could you bring back the menorah?" And always the final is around Hanukkah. "We promise you we'll put it in the best place that all television my engineers will

1:48:39 Speaker 7 put in. Then we'll put on the boards where it's lighting, one side Merry Christmas, on the other side we put Happy Hanukkah every moment. Rabbi, please could you bring the menorah back?" I thought I'm, I'm dreaming. And we did it in a few years. So sometime you think that it's not going, but every peuler has his Peres. Every peuler has his Peres. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Okay.

1:49:06 Speaker 4 Amazing. Okay.

1:49:08 Speaker 7 Personal, personal experience with the Rebbe, I'll tell you one, which I also think that it's important. Maybe it could help other shluchim to see how much the Rebbe has us shluchim in mind. Around תמש. Around תמד. Me and my wife went by the doctor, and the doctor started to say that we have to make tests and things, and things very בריאות, health and thing. Got scared. I told my wife, "We're taking a plane, we go to the Rebbe." This was Erev Shavuot. We arrive Erev Shavuot by the Rebbe. I arrived there, I wrote a long letter to the Rebbe. I wrote exactly what the doctor said. You have to make this test and this test a thing. she would do it, she would not do it. And then I wrote to the Rebbe, "It's bevalbal me mit machshaves." It doesn't let me go. Past three, four hours, Maskirs called me to come back. I arrived there. Look, first of all, where I wrote, and all the thing what the doctor say, the Rebbe cut off with scissors. He made a hole. Listen, the Rebbe made a hole in the letter. Then I learned a new pshat in Tzadik Gozer HaKadosh Baruch Hu Mekayem. Gozer, he cuts off. Not only Gozer, he takes away the decree. When the Rebbe takes off here, he takes it off there, Gozer. You know, in the Gemara in Shabbes, there is the Toises, there is Yaakov HaKoif, Reb Yaakov HaGozer. So the Pshat simply says he was a mohel. But

1:51:02 Speaker 7 I think we maybe can say Pshat Gozer, he took away the xeres. Anyway, so the Rebbe took off that. Then when I wrote that I have machshaves, look what the Rebbe writes me. "Zores kipshute." Zores underlined twice. Machshave zores kipshute. "Tizre keim hachutza." Between them. Throw them out. Al yedei trach gut ve zain gut ke maimer raboseinu zal. Okay, so Rebbe tells me, "Pshut machshave zores." The Rebbe cut off the whole thing, doesn't exist more. Machshave. Then the Rebbe writes in under, "On Nisi, I answered you already. Ashke chelko ve godel schusoi ve chule. Ve Hashem yatzlichim od yoser," underlined, "od yoser." Wow, such an answer. You can see how was happy. Me and wife was, "Shvuot moti pass, I wanted to tell you." Rebbe cuts off the whole thing. Then the Rebbe writes, "I answer you." Ta, ta, ta. But then I start to tell, the Rebbe says, "I answered me, 'Ashke chelko ve godel schusoi.'" I don't remember such an answer And the Rebbe said, I don't have such an answer. I go to Masgidas, and I ask maybe is there a letter on the way, something. They don't know. I come back home. A month later, I get a letter, thank- a thanking letter for the Tanya from Peru and Lima, Peru, and Ecuador, Quito. Under with the handwriting, they wrote, the Rebbe wrote me, Okay. Was happy. But then I said the Rebbe writes me, I don't have such an answer. It cannot be. There is no ma- there is no

1:52:49 Speaker 7 mistake by the Rebbe. It doesn't exist such a thing. I said maybe comes another letter. We'll wait, wait. I'm waiting, waiting, waiting. Comes Elul, I said it's impossible. I open all the letters, Rebbe said the Rebbe wrote me the letter. Look what I found out. In , when I became a Chosid, to me the Rebbe wrote, My wife, at that, that time was not like today with, with telephones. You know, you wrote from Europe a letter, it comes in by post . Look what the Rebbe answered to my wife. She didn't write a word about that. Seven years before. Seven years before the Rebbe wrote me this same lesson, You know how many letters the Rebbe got in between? You know, everybody remember the three package every day, and the Rebbe opens the letter that has Danny's name. The Rebbe, "Onisi, I answered you already." Look how the Rebbe thinks about us. Seven years, thought that this was in . Underlined. Seven years later, when I opened Meron Bi, I opened Beit Chabad Meron Bi in exactly, for the inauguration the Rebbe sent a nice letter in Yiddish, and the Rebbe writes that Beit Chabad there is a letter in the Beit Chabad that is, is done to be from the and the Rebbe writes with his handwriting, Not the time. Of Yiddish. Handwriting. Uh, uh, it's unbelievable how much the Rebbe takes care of his shluchim and thinks about us, and we know it, and the Rebbe said it once, "I think about the

1:55:07 Speaker 7 shliach more than he thinks about me." That it... That's, that's, that's the only.

1:55:15 Speaker 4 Amazing. Amazing.

1:55:17 Speaker 7 Okay.

1:55:17 Speaker 4 Definitely, definitely will be

1:55:21 Speaker 7 That's what the answer was to my wife. My wife got many very interesting. Once my wife was there with a few good daughters, she wrote her duch, and then the Rebbe... She gave my duch. To her duch, the Rebbe said, whatever. On my, on my duch the Rebbe wrote, writes to her, uh, I'm going to write to your husband Who am I? A small person. The Rebbe writes to my wife . You know, it takes his time for us. It's unbelievable how much the Rebbe thinks about us. What should we say? What should we say? What should we retribute?

1:56:11 Speaker 4 We should think about the Rebbe.

1:56:16 Speaker 7 Unbelievable. I think I gave you a small-

1:56:19 Speaker 4 I think, I think everything you gave was excellent and amazing. Kind of wanna give you a that, uh-

1:56:25 Speaker 7 Thank you

1:56:25 Speaker 4 ... you should continue with that and seeing-

1:56:30 Speaker 7 Thank you

1:56:30 Speaker 4 ...

1:56:30 Speaker 7 Thank you for the opportunity, for the invitation. You should be with everything you do. the whole thing. people are so happy to hear. and the emphasis on the Rebbe is forever for... And it's everyone can take something from it, yeah.

1:56:46 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:56:46 Speaker 7 Thank you. Thank you very much.