Ep. 70: The Rebbe Interpreted His Dream with Reb Shimon Kroll

00:00 Speaker 1 I said, "No, this didn't happen." Not surprised about the Rebbe's Ruach Hakodesh, but it happened to me. This happens to someone else. I read stories about this of other people, and now this is happening to me. I'm looking at the Rebbe. You know, I'm shaking my head. I'm looking around. You know, for one split second, one split second, I wanted to stand up, "Rebbe, can I just tell everybody what happened to me?"

00:22 Speaker 2 There's an often overlooked element and way to connect to the Rebbe, and this is something that's supposed to be done on a routine basis. I'm referring to the giving of Ma'amad. Ma'amad is one of the pillars of Askashas, and you can stay tuned later on in the episode to hear more about it and how you can be a part of it. I'm Yossi Kamen. Welcome to Among Hasidim by Der Her, an ongoing fabrengen about life as a Hasid, our vibrant connection with the Rebbe, and inspired living shaped by the way he teaches us each and every day. Shalom Aleichem, Reb Shimon. How are you?

01:08 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem. How are you?

01:10 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem. Doing good. Thank you for being here.

01:13 Speaker 1 Pleasure.

01:14 Speaker 2 Okay, so let's begin. Tell me a little bit, a little bit about yourself.

01:19 Speaker 1 Okay.

01:19 Speaker 2 Where are you from?

01:21 Speaker 1 I grew up in 1950s Brooklyn, and from a American home. We knew we're Jews and everything, and proud to be Jews, but a regular, not such a Frum home, you know. And, um, and so were all my friends. And I grew up on Rockaway Parkway, about a block and a half from Brookdale Hospital. It wasn't Brookdale then. It was called Beth El. They changed it to Brookdale. But that's where I grew up for the first 14 years of my life. And, uh, I did go to Hebrew school. Uh, it was around the corner from me, and it was taught by Frum rabbis. It was called Talmud Torah Beth Yehuda on East 95th Street. I, I grew up on Rockaway Parkway and Wilmore. So that's... Which is about a, a seven-minute ride to Crown Heights, but I didn't know anything about Frum or anything.

02:17 Speaker 2 So what area of Brooklyn is that?

02:19 Speaker 1 Uh, that would be the outskirts of East Flatbush. Uh, whatever comes after East Flatbush. It might have been Bed Stuy after or, or, uh, Brownsville. Brownsville. We were close to Brownsville.

02:30 Speaker 2 Okay.

02:30 Speaker 1 But it was the outskirts of East Flatbush. And I remember going to the Hebrew school. I wanted to go to Hebrew school because my best friend was going. I was nine. I learned how to read. I... It was very nice. These were two Orthodox rabbi. I don't know if they were Hasidish or not, I'm not sure. But they were very Frum, full beards. And this was not release time, okay? This is, all the fry guys used to go t-three times a week after school, once on Sunday and then two times during the week, and they used to teach us history, J-Jewish history, how to read. We used to read before them, and they were-- these were very good guys, and I learned how to read. And there's one main thing that I remember, two couple main things, is that he said that we should say Shema before we go to sleep at night because our soul is leaving our body, and we don't know if we're gonna get it back or not. So that scared the daylights out of me. So I st-I s-I said Shema every night for t- or since, for, for decades. Uh, so I'm just telling you, I used to hear Shema every night. Um, I sa- and he taught us... I learned, uh, he taught us for the bar mitzvah the, uh, haftarah, and I knew it. He, he, h-he, he used certain musical notes that, and I knew how to lane. And I, for my bar mitzvah, I laned

03:58 Speaker 1 in an Orthodox, a big Orthodox shul. My, my... It was interesting. All the fry family came to watch me. But I'm just saying, there was, it was, it was only Orthodox shuls over there. I remember another thing. After bar mitzvah, maybe this is 1964 or '65, walking down Wa- Wilmore Street with my friends. I have a distinct memory of this. A bunch of young yeshiva bachurim are want- walking towards us, smiling. This is at 64, and they asked us to put on tefillin. So those were Lubavitchers not so far away, you know, you know. Those were Luba-- I'm the only one of my friends to put on tefillin.

04:36 Speaker 2 Ah.

04:37 Speaker 1 I remember that distinctly. It was... And they were smiling and friendly. It made a nice impression on me. But anyway, I was the big baseball person. My father was a big baseball fan. I was, I was, um, I played 10 years of organized baseball from Little League, Senior League, high school and college. First year college. We'll get into that soon. Um, I was a little bit of a somebody in baseball. I was voted captain of my high school team, and my manager of the high school team gave me a letter to give to... I went to Long Island University just to give the letter in that the coach should take me from the team. That, that's how it started off. And I made a, a big impression in my freshman year. Uh, I don't know how much you wanna hear about baseball, but, but I'm, I'm gonna tell you one story that, that I was brought in. I was 18. I was brought in with the bases loaded as a relief pitcher. Nobody out. We had a one-run lead late in the game. I'm not r- I didn't even remember the score. It was like three to two, two to one. I think we were playing Seton Hall, whatever. And I was facing the three, four, five batters. That's the power of the order.

05:52 Speaker 2 My, my baseball, my baseball knowledge is very weak.

05:55 Speaker 1 Is very little, so I'm, I'm gonna cut it short. Bottom line is I struck them all out.

05:59 Speaker 2 Oh, okay.

06:00 Speaker 1 And, and with... Which I did. And after that, my coach, my manager, he had a connection with the Red Sox and the Pirates, and they were scouting me. All right

06:08 Speaker 2 They were scouting you for major league baseball.

06:10 Speaker 1 They were scouting me, but I didn't know that. They don't tell you that. My father knew that. He told me later. Anyway, the bottom line is this. I had friends who became hippies, very smart, and I said, "What are you, what is it, what are you doing?"

06:25 Speaker 2 Why, what's this hippie thing?

06:27 Speaker 1 What's a hippie? What?

06:28 Speaker 2 You're asking them what's, what's this hippie thing.

06:30 Speaker 1 No, yeah. I said, "What, what's, what are you into that you made this change?"

06:34 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

06:34 Speaker 1 They said, "We want to find the truth." That's what they said. "We want to find the truth about the world, life, and ourselves." And that made-- And I respected these people, and it made an impression on me, and I decided I also want to find the truth.

06:50 Speaker 2 So you became a, a-

06:52 Speaker 1 So I quit the baseball team, which the manager was completely angry. That's when he called my father. He... "What is he doing? He's being scouted by the Red Sox." And my, my father didn't want to tell me to make me feel bad, but then my manager and my father were really angry at me. I c- I can understand that, you know. I was going somewhere with baseball at eighteen. But anyway, I handed in... I just, I got to tell you some of these little things. I'm sorry, you know. And I went to the ba-- After I handed in my uniform and quit, I went to the baseball. I played, because I played ten years old, and I, I loved baseball. But I, because I, I, I was saying goodbye to baseball, I went to the field. I stood behind the home plate with a fence. It was a windy and blustery day. I just wanted to say goodbye mentally and because-- and things were blowing all over the place. When I stepped behind the fence, a newspaper blew in front of me and blocked my whole view of, of the... To me, that was closure. Whatever that Hashgacha Protis was, that was closure to baseball. Anyway, so becoming a hippie meant I was reading about Eastern religion and, and, and Timothy Leary, who was a big, uh, p- p- uh, forty-year-old hippie, a college professor. I know too much about him, I, you know, but I found out later. But anyway, he-- people looked up

08:12 Speaker 1 to him, and the plan was, you know, you know... It w- what's interesting, what the advantage of being a hippie was you needed to Mavatal yourself. You needed to nullify everything in your life. There was a, there was-- There's something to that. In other words, the American way of life, go to college, get a job, get married, die, whatever. You know, this whole thing with, with life, it wasn't so... We didn't want it so Chitzonius, external. We wanted to find more. Anyway, the plan was like this. I'm cutting it short. The plan was the friends were gonna go to California, find a farm in California, and w- and, and two or three of us were to join them out there and live on a farm for, you know, to live an organic life. Okay? You get the point. Anyway, it didn't work out for them. They got Makarov in California, Shlomo Schwartz and other whatever, and I... And so I'll tell you about me in a sec. Okay. So, so the, the hippie thing lasted about five, six months because it went-- it didn't go anywhere. So I said to him, "I have to go back to reality," so to speak. So I went back to college, but I was still looking and still trying to understand what, what's happening. And I f- I used to live in the Glenwood area. G-- That's Canarsie. And all, uh, we have f- my friends also were all in a state of looking and, and trying to figure

09:36 Speaker 1 out, and we used to have these conversations and discussions about life and what is life and what... And there was one time, I'm just telling you this. There was one time that we're with the, one of the fathers of the friends, and I'm ju- uh, you know, and getting, and getting into arguments about... You know, he, he just was a very smart guy, this guy. Not from, but he, he made a statement to me. All right. This is gonna may sound strange, but he made a statement to the, who, the two or three of us who he was talking to. He said, "The mind is infinite." Here's what he said. He said those words. And something clicked in my brain that I saw the mind going level to level to level. Something I saw, and that, that caught me off guard. That was something that, that hit me. And he, he said, "I'm glad you caught that." I said, "But what does it lead to?" And he said, "God." So when he said God, for that moment, even though I believed in God, I, I stopped saying Shema, by the way, uh, you know, a coup- for a couple of years trying to find myself. When he said God, it all came home, what I was looking for, and it hit me so ha- hard that I, I, I, I realized there's a God. That's all it is. Simple as that. I realized there's a God. What it means, I don't know, but I felt

10:58 Speaker 1 good that I, that there's a God, that there's, there's God, and I want to come close to God. All right. So that's what happened to me with this situation. Um, hope it doesn't sound too weird what I was saying, but, uh

11:11 Speaker 2 It's your story. It's great.

11:12 Speaker 1 It's a story. Anyway, this is during the Vietnam War, and I got drafted. How did United States do the draft back then? They... It was on national television. They took three hund-- So those who were born, I was born in nineteen fifty-one. So those born in fifty-one or fifty-two, um, they, they took three hundred and sixty-five ping pong balls, put it in a big globe or something like, and it made a gyro. Who's gonna get picked? From January to, to, to, from January to December, all the dates of birth. So, and the whole country's watching this, whose son is gonna get drafted. And if you're a low number, you're going to Vietnam. And I got number fifty-eight, and that means that I'm, I'm out. And I had to report to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. That's the end of Brooklyn. That's in Bay Ridge. I remember happening, and I knew guys who ran to Canada to avoid the draft. Uh, draft dodging is five years in prison. I had nowhere to go to in Canada. I wasn't running to Canada. I know guys who punctured their eardrum, and I'm not gonna say it on this broadcast, but there were disgusting things people were doing to get it when they went to the Army to get out, okay? I wasn't doing any of that, and I want-- I just wanted to face it. So Bay Ridge is the last stop in Brooklyn. I remember going there, I'm the only one on the train because everyone's going to

12:38 Speaker 1 Manhattan to go to work, so nobody's going to Bay Ridge at the-- it's eight in the morning, whatever. I get off, I go into the, I go into the fort, and the first thing I see is a soldier saying goodbye to his parents. So that looked sad to me. He was saying goodbye. The next thing is, what I saw in the building is a hippie wearing a dress. You could see he wanted to get out of the Army, okay? That's what I-- the next thing I saw, okay. I still have my long hair anyway. Anyway, there's a lot of... It's the Army. There's a lot of yelling and screaming that's going on over there. Screaming. They're go in your face yelling. Okay. And you have to go through all these tests, these physical tests that the eyes, ears, what parts of your body they're checking out to make sure you're healthy enough to go into the Army. And you also had to take a written test. So there's hundreds of us there in an auditorium. Each one has a desk and a pencil and a, this paper. So they wanted to see if you were mechanically inclined. You had to take a test to see if you're mechanically inclined. This big sergeant gets up on the stage. I'm not gonna say the language that he used, of course, but, "If any of you blanks fail, you're gonna keep taking it till you pass." Okay? "So don't fool around with this test." Anyway, I'm not mechanically

13:56 Speaker 1 inclined, so I don't know, I guess I passed it, I bet. But, but I remember looking at my paper and my pencil, and I whispered a little tefillah. I said, "If you get me out of this, I'll do whatever you want." That's what I said. Okay. I went through all the tests and everything. You sit with an officer, an officer. I have no reason to believe I'm out. The officer said... He was a nice man, this officer, I remember. He said, "You, you failed the hearing test. You have to take it again." So to make sure I'm not fooling around. I says, "Wow. I, you know, I, I didn't know I had such bad hearing. I, I didn't know I have bad hearing." Anyway, I took it again, I got the same score, and I'm out. That was the most ama- that was an amazing thing. I went back to the, the train. On the train I was-- I was the only one in the car because, again, nobody's on the fir- in the first stop. I was crying on the train.

14:50 Speaker 2 Oh. And until that point, you had no i-- Until that point, you had no idea that you have a, a hearing problem.

14:57 Speaker 1 No. When I look back at it, I remember I could hear everything, but once in a while I missed something. That's what I remember. Once in a while. So it looks like the refuah came before the makka. See, that's what it seems. So I didn't know I had a hearing... But I reme-- I do remember once in a while I'd miss something, but not, but not like every two minutes or, you know, nothing like that at all. I heard my teachers, my friends, my na- whatever. Okay.

15:23 Speaker 2 So your, your-

15:23 Speaker 1 So, so this-

15:24 Speaker 2 Your tefillah wasn't a skabble.

15:25 Speaker 1 So I, I was, I was at joy. It was, it was a... So this had a major effect on me with God, okay? Let me tell you a problem with God, okay? I said, "If you get me out of this, I'll do whatever you want." Okay? The Amish said getting you out of this is easy. Nothing for Him, right? But to do whatever you want and coming to Lubavitch eventually, this is endless, okay? But I, I w- I'll get into that later.

15:51 Speaker 2 You're, you're still-

15:51 Speaker 1 It's not fair.

15:52 Speaker 2 You're still trying to do it, Hashem.

15:54 Speaker 1 Exactly. Okay. So we're still having these philosophical discussions in our friend's apartment in Glenwood Projects. It-- That's right near Canarsie. Anyway, we're sitting there. There's six of us. Until... This is Am Israel Chamito. We're sitting there. We want... We God, we're Jews. What does it mean? What does it mean? One guy says... I have all the names of these guys, but I don't wanna say their names. One guy says, "If you wanna be Jewish, you gotta wear tzitzit." We all decided to wear tzitzit. All of us, all six of us. Long hair guys, but athletes. There's one guy who played football for Southern Connecticut State University. But you know, we're talking, we're regular American guys, you know? Some, some went through hippies like me, like looking for, for philosophies and... Fine. We all decide we're buying tzitzit. So one guy, he-- we had a Yellow Pages back then. I don't know if you ever heard of Yellow Pages.

16:52 Speaker 2 I'm old enough to, to know what it is, yeah.

16:54 Speaker 1 Okay.

16:55 Speaker 2 To have used them.

16:56 Speaker 1 So we had Yellow P- we opened up the Yellow Pages.

16:58 Speaker 2 I, I... The tuchlis.

17:00 Speaker 1 There's all the businesses are in there, right? We looked up Judaica. It's wh- the J-- There's not a lot of Judaica back then either, but this guy's finger fell on Heck's Bookstore in Coney Island Avenue. We all decided we're gonna take the Avenue J bus down to Coney Island Avenue, go in... We have the address of Heck's Bookstore, and that's where we're going. We all went, six of us. I can name the names, but I don't know if I should say the names. Anyway, we go into He- we... Okay. So we, we walk into Heck's Bookstore. So Shalom Heck, Sidney Heck is standing behind the counter, and like we walk in, these big long-haired guys, and his exp-- the, the, the look on his face, "What the hell is this?" You know? But, you know, but we walked in, and then we said to him we wanted to buy tzitzit. That really floored him, okay? He sold us the tzitzit. He sold us the tzitzit, and then he says to us, "Did you ever hear of the Lubavitch Rebbe?" We said, "No." Uh, I grew-- Again, I grew up ten minutes from Crown Heights, but it's not the world I was in. When I was gra- when I graduated high school, which is '69- Waiting, you know, I was a regular guy, you know, going to college. I majored in journalism. I knew how to write a bissel. I knew how to write. I enjoyed writing, but I was going to play baseball. Anyway, so

18:22 Speaker 1 that summer, um, a friend of mine named Marvin invited me up to the bungalow colony he was staying. So I had to take a bus. Sure. I went up to the, to go to the bungalow colony. I'm, I'm on the bus, you know, traveling upstate. All of a sudden, the bus shuts down with every other vehicle. It was Woodstock weekend. I didn't even know about it.

18:45 Speaker 2 I thought... One second. I thought you were a hippie. How do you not know about Woodstock?

18:48 Speaker 1 Not, not at eighteen. At eighteen, this was before the-

18:50 Speaker 2 Ah.

18:51 Speaker 1 The, the, the whole, the whole business. I was going to play baseball-

18:54 Speaker 2 Ah, before-

18:54 Speaker 1 Still.

18:54 Speaker 2 Okay.

18:54 Speaker 1 Okay?

18:55 Speaker 2 Hmm.

18:55 Speaker 1 I was in the baseball world, you know?

18:57 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

18:58 Speaker 1 So, so anyway, all of a sudden we-- I have to get-- I have to walk. I'd said-- We didn't have cell phones to call my friend, okay? So I'm walking on seventeen with tens of thousands of hippies. That's all. They're all going to Woodstock-

19:14 Speaker 2 Yeah

19:14 Speaker 1 ... you know? I was just going to Marvin's bungalow colony. They were going to Woods- Anyway, finally I found a pho-- I, I went off the road to so- I called up my friend and, and somehow they got me. Okay? But I don't know how they got... I don't rem- I, I don't remember that part. The point is this: the bungalow colony was w- between a half a mile and a mile away from Woodstock, and we could hear the music. So my friends, some of my friends walked over. They went to Woodstock. I decided I'm gonna stay behind with other friends. So technically, I can't say I was at Woodstock. I could have gone, but I didn't go. Okay.

19:49 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

19:49 Speaker 1 That was the Woodstock thing. Okay.

19:51 Speaker 2 But you were, you were a future hippie enough- That your, your neshama was, was, was, was, was pulled to Woodstock. Okay, got it.

19:58 Speaker 1 But I enjo-- By the way, I enjoyed walking with all of them, you know? It was just a d- They were serving water on the side of the road. "Oh, bless you. Thank you." Whatever. It was just, uh... I felt good, you know?

20:08 Speaker 2 Yeah.

20:09 Speaker 1 But I was just a baseball player going over there.

20:11 Speaker 2 So back, back to Hecht. To Hecht.

20:13 Speaker 1 Okay. So Hecht, he was a nice man. And so-- Oh, so he a- he asked if, if we heard of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. No. Uh, he asked us to put on tefillin. Five of the six of us put on tefillin. It's interesting. Those five, I'm not gonna get into what happened to them or anything like that. Those five became frum.

20:35 Speaker 2 Hmm.

20:35 Speaker 1 The one who didn't put on tefillin, I looked up to this day, looked him up. He's a successful chiropractor on Long Island. I know his name, and he did not look very frum. You know, I'm just saying. So I'm just interesting. The five of the six, the five who put on tefillin be- eventually became frum. Not all Lubavitchers, whatever. Okay. Then, so this was, um, sort of like Purim time. I think he-- we went to a farbrengen. But here's the, here's the thing.

21:03 Speaker 2 Shalom Hecht brought you to farbrengen?

21:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. But wait. B- b- but I'll get to that. He told he, uh, some-- He communicated to all of us. I don't know how he did. Maybe we all... Oh, you know what? It was close to Pesach. He told all of us meet him by seven seventy. He's gonna take us for matzah to the Rebbe Erev Pesach. Okay? F- so we all-

21:28 Speaker 2 What year?

21:29 Speaker 1 Seventy-one.

21:30 Speaker 2 Seventy-one.

21:30 Speaker 1 Seventy-one. Lamed Aleph.

21:32 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

21:32 Speaker 1 So we all met him. Of course, we didn't have to wait online. And Shalom Hecht, by the way, you probably know this, he's one of the three Hasidim that could walk into the Rebbe's office without an appointment. Label Bashinsky and Reb Shlomo Witten.

21:47 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

21:48 Speaker 1 And he can, Shalom Hecht just walk in. It was just interesting. I found all this out later. I, I didn't know his, how connected he was to the Rebbe, how much... But anyway, so he brought us to the Rebbe. He introduced us to the Rebbe. He took us to the front line. I got a-- And he introduced us to the Rebbe as, um, college students, and the Rebbe gave me a little piece of matzah. He told me a couple years later that the Rebbe said to him, when he did this, "You will have parnassa from this." This is what he told me.

22:16 Speaker 2 Wow.

22:16 Speaker 1 "You will have parnassa from this." And I used to go back to visit Shalom Hecht in the store. I bought, I bought a linear Chumash. I was buying things. I had these tefillin from my bar mitzvah. I asked them to check. They were like... I don't know what they were, but anyway. I wasn't putting on tefillin yet. He used to-- After I used to come to his store, he used to walk with me on, on, on Coney Island Avenue and talk to me. You know, I loved him. He was such a nice-- And he could say anything to me. So one time we're walking and he says to me, uh, "Do you live at home?" I said, "Yeah." "Do you eat your parents' meat?" I said, "Yeah." "It's going in your blood." So he scared the hell out of me. I stopped eating meat. Immediately, I stopped eating meat.

23:00 Speaker 2 Some- something with the blood, you know.

23:02 Speaker 1 I didn't know with the blood. I didn't know what's going in my blood exactly, but something's going in my blood that, that shouldn't go there. Okay? I'm telling you, he could talk. He said I w- I was a keli for this. All right?

23:11 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

23:11 Speaker 1 "It's going in your blood." He scared me.

23:13 Speaker 2 Yeah.

23:14 Speaker 1 You know, like they scared me about with the Shema. Your, your soul may not come back. You know, th- that's what they do. So I stopped eating meat. No meat. Okay, fine. So one of the times that, that I bought a sefer, I boughtHavaz Heart of ours in English and Hebrew. Duties of the Heart. I love the name. I'm buying this. I want Duties of the Heart. Fine. I brought it home. There's a Hakdama. I don't know who wr- who wr- who wrote it, but there's one thing that the Hakdama said that I always remembered that hit me. So the... It said in there, "All Jews are blind, and their hand is on the shoulder of the one in front of them, and they're all walking, but there's one at the front who could see, and they're all following him blindly." I just remember that, that's all. So that, that was interesting, I thought, and I went to sleep, and I had a dream. And I wanna tell, you know, the-- whoever's listening to this, you know, this is not just a dream. I'm gonna... I'm telling you right now, you gotta listen to this because this is gonna be my first yakidas. Okay? All right. Th- this is in February. I remember February of seventy-one, I had this dream. I dreamt I was in a field, and it was a beautiful day. I had a shovel, and I was digging. I dug a footprint, a big footprint. I looked across the field, and there

24:42 Speaker 1 were three people there. One I knew. They were digging their own footprints on the other side of the field. Okay? I turned around, and there was Timothy Leary st- standing on a little hill, and he was talking. I didn't know what he was saying. I was done with all that. I said, "What are you saying?" And I just turned away from him. When I turned away from him to fa- to face the field again, a book flew in my hand. It was open. It said one line. It was in English, but it was going from right to left as in Hebrew. You know, this is a dream, okay? But I understood it. It said, "King Solomon had a deep faith," which is interesting. I'm just gonna paraphrase some things. You know, it's interesting 'cause I realized later that he was the wisest of all men, and he had a Kamat Amoda also, which I thought, you know, that- Mm-hmm ... that's something I later on I copped, you know, with that. Mm-hmm. Okay. Then I looked up into the sky, and a voice came from the sky and said, "There's gonna be a resurrection of the dead." And I turned around, and I saw millions and millions of graves, okay? That was a dream I had. I don't think about Trias Tomasim. I don't think about anything King Solomon. All of a sudden, King So- I woke up the next day, and I was very moved by, deeply moved. I don't have dreams like this.

25:58 Speaker 1 Voices, you know, and, and it was, it was just... I didn't know what it was, what it meant. I put that in, uh, so but I put it on the side, okay? And I told some friends. They said, "That's awesome." You know, they, they were-- Okay, this is February. So again, my-- I have a, had an involvement towards Lubavitch with- through Shalom Hecht. Okay, so one of the times a friend of mine, when we... One of the six, two of the, uh, one of the six guys who went in, we both came back to him and said, "We wanna go to yeshiva." And he said- You said you went to Farbrengen. That was before yeshiva? Yeah, yeah. That was before, yeah. They were... Did I just went to one like- What, what was that? I don't remember what happened. Uh, I just remember I went to one Farbrengen. I remember going, not knowing what's going on, standing in the back, seeing the Rebbe, have no idea what he's saying, and I just remember saying to myself, "That's my man." Hmm. I remember that. I didn't know what he was saying. I didn't understand anything. But the way he was speaking with that confidence and that koach, whatever it was, which I'm not even gonna spell. I said, I, so I remember saying that to myself, all right? But this, this to him. Okay. So we wanted to go to yeshiva. Fine. He calls up JJ Hecht, his brother, Rav Mishon. He sends us down to

27:19 Speaker 1 820 Forest and Parkway. By the when, by the way, Hadara Torah was in 825 in those years, across the street. Then they moved, but we were learning in 820. Okay. So we went to JJ. JJ interviewed, and he had a nice plush office, and he was interviewing us, I guess, to make sure we're normal, okay? He calls up Rabbi Jacobson, "I'm bringing over two guys to you." So we get in his Cadillac. All of... The only thing I remember about that conversation with JJ Hecht was he said to me, "It's an interesting world, isn't it?" This is what... I'm just telling you what he said, you know, 'cause I, you know. Okay. He drives us over in his Cadillac to Rabbi Jacobson's house on Montgomery, right? Right off, um, between Albany and, and, um, New York. Between- Uh, Montgomery. Yeah, Montgom- Between Albany and, and, uh, Albany and New York. Yeah. Right? No, that, that's not across yet. What comes after Albany? Troy. Troy. Albany and Troy. Thank you. I've been living out in Crown Heights too long. Okay. Mm-hmm. So anyway, we go in there, and I see someone who looks like a sage sitting behind his desk. I can't wait to hear him tell me words of wisdom, okay? We sit down. First thing he says to us, "You gotta take a haircut." Right? That threw me off. "You gotta take a haircut. You'll be happier if you take a haircut. Others took haircuts, they became happy." Okay? I'm just, just telling what

28:46 Speaker 1 he said to us, okay? In other words, he's basically saying, "I'm not letting you yeshiva with long hair." And I didn't know what... I, I didn't understand what hair had to do with anything. What does hair have to do with all this? I wanna serve God, okay? Okay. So he said that and to both of us, and my friend remind me he also said when we were leave, we were leaving, "It's a good life. It's a decent life." That's what he said, those words. We get on the Utica Avenue bus going back, and we're going back and forth, haircut, no haircut. I don't wanna take a haircut. What does he pick on me with haircut? All of a sudden, haircuts. At the end of the bus ride, I came to my own conclusion that I don't know anything, and he knows everything. I'm gonna take a haircut. That was my conclusion. So I took a haircut, and I felt a, a load come off. Act- By the way, I had these, uh, Italian-American barbers I used to go to. They were very s-staunch Americans and hated hippies, okay? When I walked in with my hair, I thought they were gonna kill me, okay? I thought I remember the... But they gave me a hair-- I got a haircut, and I came out alive. Okay. I remember his name. Um, anyway, so I went to yeshiva. I came to yeshiva. My first teacher was Rab Avva Pliskin. He was a holy man, okay? He's a famous

30:08 Speaker 1 Rab Avva. He was like a chassid from 200 years ago. It's amazing. Uh, he, you know, he made me re... He-- I came up... I remember when I walked up the stairs, there was about 15 guys sitting in his chair, and the, and, and one guy at his desk, "Oh, here comes another one." "Here comes another one." And he made me, made me read. This was Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. I, I couldn't read with vowels. He didn't read. No, no, Mon... I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm sure you heard w- about Rab Avva. Yeah, tell us. Tell me about him. What? Tell me about him. That, that, that he, he was offered the job of mashgiach in 1770, and he took... He-- And this is the kind... He was a... He took the job as janitor, okay? Janitor. Exactly. Wanted to be the janitor. He used to sweep up. He didn't take the job as money. He-- In other words, he, he was like a real humble person. And when, when I was told about him, not only was he a bucki in Tanya, meaning Baal Peh, he knew the first Tanya- But when he was running away from the Nazis in, in Marchmy, and he was hiding out in a, in a loft somewhere, he, he memorized the first book of the Shulchan Aruch, the author of the Shulchan Aruch. Uh, you know, it's interesting things I heard about him. But anyway, that was my first teacher. Anyway, so getting acclimated, I even made... That was my

31:24 Speaker 1 first year of Talucha. I went on Talucha, and I was sort of like getting into things. And I officially became a Bachar at the end of Sivan.

31:33 Speaker 3 So this is still Lamed Aleph?

31:35 Speaker 1 This is Lamed Aleph.

31:36 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

31:36 Speaker 1 It's still Lamed Aleph. And I, and I'm 19, and I threw myself into it with all my chitas. And, uh, you know, this is, this is gonna be... I want this with more than anything. That summer, Hadara Torah, most of the guys went to Montreal camp. Th-th-that's-- I didn't know anything about it. There was only a few of us left, so we had to just ma-

32:02 Speaker 3 You stayed. You stayed in New York.

32:03 Speaker 1 I stayed. I didn't even know they went. But then, but, like, but a lot of guys stayed behind too. But now it wasn't enough to have to go to 770 for, for the min- for a minyan. It w- you know, uh, someone arranged, uh, there was a Duchman that used to learn with me, Tanya for a short bit. Uh, but Bach- he was a Bachar in 770.

32:19 Speaker 3 Which Duchman?

32:20 Speaker 1 I don't remember.

32:21 Speaker 3 Okay.

32:22 Speaker 1 There was a Duchman. That I remember.

32:24 Speaker 3 Okay.

32:25 Speaker 1 Um, so here I was there, you know, trying to... And I found out about Yechidus. You could have Yechidus on Yom Immei'ores. So my Yom Immei'ores is Yud Aleph Menachem Av, two days after n- the Rebbe I found out like did not give Yechidus during the nine days. And but afterwards, you know, he would. And my birthday was right after. I went to Rabbi Jacobson, "Could I have Yechidus too, Rabbi Jacobson?" "I'll get back to you." So I remember he's davening some... I was in 770 davening Shacharis one time, like soon after, and I get a tap on my shoulder. I turn around, it's Rabbi Jacobson, "You're going Yechidus Sunday night." So that scared the hell out of me also, okay? So the Rebbe used to give, I think, Thursday nights and Sunday nights. So I don't... I can't remember exactly what day it was after Tisha B'Av, but I'm going into Yechidus now. And the dream came back to me, and I wanna know what this dream meant. But I'm not gonna do anything with Rab- R- without Rabbi Jacobson. I went to Rabbi Jacobson. Uh, I said-- I told him the whole dream. Uh, "Can I put this in Rabbi Jacobson?" He was so real-

33:40 Speaker 3 Can, can you-

33:40 Speaker 1 Could I... I wanna write this in a letter to the Rebbe.

33:43 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

33:43 Speaker 1 I wanna know what it meant. And he said yes. You know, some other guy would've, who knows? But he w- he was, he was on top of things and understood there's something here. There's something to this. And he said yes. So I wrote the whole dream in a letter. I also wrote I wanna have influence over friends and family. And I opened up the li- the first line of the letter that I wrote, which actually it was, "I'm a Ba'al Teshuvah." And I, and I w- but I took my letter to make sure it's okay to Rabbi Jacobson. He said, "To take out Ba'al Teshuvah. You're not a Ba'al Teshuvah. You're a Tzaddik." Okay. Okay? So he made me take out, "Okay, okay, okay."

34:24 Speaker 3 He didn't like the-

34:25 Speaker 1 He didn't like it.

34:26 Speaker 3 He didn't like ident- you that you're identifying yourself or labeling yourself?

34:29 Speaker 1 Right. He didn't like it. He took it, he made me take it out. How am I a Ba'al Teshuvah, you know?

34:35 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

34:35 Speaker 1 But y-you're not anywhere near that or b- you're not that, okay.

34:39 Speaker 3 Okay.

34:40 Speaker 1 I took it out.

34:41 Speaker 3 So that, that's it 'cause it's a, it's a mile to be a Ba'al Teshuvah.

34:43 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

34:44 Speaker 3 Is that, is that, is that, is that what he said? He didn't explain.

34:47 Speaker 1 Yeah, in other words, I'm not in that category.

34:49 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

34:49 Speaker 1 Okay? At least not yet. All right? Okay. So I took it out. So I would tell one of the Chachamim I know, as you know, that there are Hasidim that spent years preparing to go in Yechidus from the old days, right? I'm ha- I'm just frum, just became frum. Two months, I'm killing myself, a hard-

35:09 Speaker 3 One second. Can I ask you a question? I'm just gonna distract you for a second.

35:14 Speaker 1 Okay.

35:15 Speaker 3 I've been talking a lot over the, uh, many episodes about the book that The Head came out with, Our Days. And Our Days is a very special book because it really helps you to live with all of the Yamim Tovim. So we're just coming off the heels of Tishrei, which is the month, which is Merubeh B'Meah Yemei. There's so many Yamim Tovim. It calms down Achashverosh, but we know that BeChasidim, Kislev is again the month. That's Merubeh B'Meah Yemei. So you have Rosh Chodesh Kislev, the Rebbe recovered from the heart attack, and then we have Tes Kislev, Yud Kislev of the Mitteler Rebbe. We have Edad Kislev, the wedding of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin. We have Yudas Kislev, Chaf Kislev. I mean, there's so... It's, it's a month, and I'm missing a few, but that's-- it's a month that's full, full with Yamim Tovim. So I wanna encourage everybody to set Our Days, beautiful two-volume set. If you haven't yet purchased it, many thousands of people have already, but if you have not yet purchased it, it's a very good time to purchase Our Days. It's a beautiful, beautiful set. If you open up to the month of Kislev, I mean, here's Rosh Chodesh Kislev, just stunning. A-and each, you know, each Yamim of the Pagara, first of all, it gives you the whole story of the Yamim Tov. And then it tells you what happened by the Rebbe on that particular Yamim Tov. And then, in addition, each Yamim Tov has a section

36:36 Speaker 3 called the Takeaways, the Skirah V'Nasan, like how do we actualize? What does the Rebbe explain what the day means? And what shou- what should we do with it? What should we do on that day? What are we trying to accomplish on that day? And many people have told me that this has become like a, a staple. They take it out, they read it before the Yamim Tov, they do it with the family. And I really, really think that if you have not yet purchased it, you can get this two-volume set at theher.or-.org/ourdays. And right-- and if you order it now, you'll get it in time for Kislev, for the Chodesh HaChagim, the month of full with Chasidish Yamim Tovim, Yemei DePagara, which is why we made this set

37:15 Speaker 1 In the first place to help people live with that. So order it today.

37:18 Speaker 3 You walk into Hadar Utra and then you frum the, the second later. How does that work? Or there's like a process.

37:24 Speaker 1 Everyone's different.

37:25 Speaker 3 How does it work? How did it work with you?

37:26 Speaker 1 With me, I wanted to become a f- a frum and be Lubavitcher.

37:31 Speaker 3 That's it.

37:31 Speaker 1 That's, that's what I knew at that point.

37:34 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

37:35 Speaker 1 But I was... You know, it's all new to me.

37:37 Speaker 3 Was that, was that typical for most of the folks?

37:38 Speaker 1 I don't know. I can't speak for anybody else.

37:40 Speaker 3 Okay.

37:41 Speaker 1 There was different guys. There was guys who came who were brilliant and could learn the welt, and they went fry. So I, I, I can't, I can't-- I don't know what their intentions were. You know what I'm saying? I can't speak for someone else.

37:52 Speaker 3 Got it. Okay.

37:53 Speaker 1 I can only speak for me. Anyway, so I wro- so I was told, "You have to hand a letter in beforehand." And one of the hachanos, you make sure even if you went to mikvah in the morning, before you go to yechidas, you go to mikvah again. And, and you wear a gartel. A bachur wears a gartel underneath his jacket. And that was my hachanos. All right? And I hand in the lette-letter beforehand. Uh, so I remember-

38:21 Speaker 3 You handed it to Maskirus.

38:24 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:24 Speaker 3 The letter.

38:24 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. So I remember going to mikvah, coming back, had a gartel. I don't even remember how I put it on, but I guess I put it on. Um, walk up the seers label. Groner Z, he lets me in. I'm outside the Rebbe's door. I mean, in the area. As you know, that area is called Gan Eden Tach chim. The Rebbe's office is Gan Eden Elyon. That was the word on the street, where, where you are. And I remember standing there, out there, and I don't remember any other bachurim. I, like I'm the only bachur. And, and married couples I remember, older men, middle-aged men, but no, no young, young guys like me.

39:05 Speaker 3 They're probably-

39:06 Speaker 1 They were in camp. They were doing-

39:07 Speaker 3 There probably weren't so many bachurim around in the summer.

39:10 Speaker 1 There weren't.

39:10 Speaker 3 You're by the, by the Farbrengen.

39:12 Speaker 1 But, but, but-

39:12 Speaker 3 By the Farbrengens that summer. You were there on Shabbos?

39:14 Speaker 1 Oh, the Farbrengens. There was nobody there at Farbrengens. There was twen- there was forty people there.

39:22 Speaker 3 Wow.

39:22 Speaker 1 It was like you can't, you can't imagine when I went to Farbrengen, which I didn't know anything at that time. There's, uh, there's nobody there.

39:30 Speaker 3 Was that, was that special for you?

39:32 Speaker 1 It, it was-- I thought it was interesting.

39:34 Speaker 3 Uh.

39:35 Speaker 1 You know, 'cause I knew Farbrengens before the summer.

39:37 Speaker 3 Right.

39:38 Speaker 1 It was packed, you know, and this was this. They went up to the... But, uh, I remember Label Woltine used to, um, not go to the country, dopka, when, you know, used to go Motzei Shabbos, he wanted Mishpucha Farbrengen. But anyway, um, yeah, so that's, that was, that was the way it was. So I'm, I'm outside, and I didn't figure I'm gonna be-- I'd probably be the last one to go in 'cause I'm only a bachur, you know. And people are going in, hours are passing. But Yomen Klein comes up to me, and he says, "You're next." He points at me, "You're next." So I didn't like the way he said that. I got scared. I thought I was gonna go to the executioner. That's what it felt like, and I'm not entirely wrong, uh, in, in a certain sense, okay, which maybe I'll explain later. You probably understand. Uh, but anyway, okay, I'm next. I plant myself outside the Rebbe's door. So I'm saying to myself, "Nobody told me the protocol about walking in, in knock." And I, I don't know what to do. I said, "How am I gonna walk in? I'm just gonna walk in. Here I am." I, I, I'm trying to underst-- how am I gonna walk in? That was the first thing I was going through. So I decided on my own that when the person comes out and close the door, I'm gonna open up the door a little, poke my face in. If the Rebbe's not-- acknowledges

41:01 Speaker 1 me, then I'm gonna go in. That's how I pictured me doing this. Okay, fine. So I'm standing outside the Rebbe's door, not directly, of course, to the side. At attention, waiting for this guy to come out. My heart is beating tremendously. The guy had a forty-five minute yechidas. I was looking at the clock when he went in, and he came out forty-five minutes later. That forty-five minutes I'm staying at attention, okay? Anyway, he walks out, this guy. He's a big guy, big, heavy, no beard. His face was sweating. This is what I'm looking at. Come-- he's coming out of the yechidas. His face was sweating, but he had a big smile, and I remember him turning to the Rebbe, giving like something like a Yeshakaiach to the Rebbe with a big smile. That's what I saw. I don't know who it was. Doesn't matter. Door closes. I did what I wanted to do. The Rebbe did exactly what I wanted him to do. And when I opened up a little bit and showed my face, the Rebbe smiled and nodded. So I came in, closed the door. So before I tell you what the Rebbe said, I just wanna tell you three things. Number one, it was a hot summer night, and when I walked in the door, the air-conditioning, the Rebbe's air-conditioning was blowing beautifully. It made me feel great. I feel comfortable. Now, I'm telling you what I remember. Every detail is important, but it made me feel comfortable. That's number one. Number

42:25 Speaker 1 two is, you know, when you, when you watch videos of the Rebbe speaking English, it's a heavy European accent. It's a heavy accent saying these words. As you know that the Rebbe has to get dressed up in the garments of a Hasid. So I'm a, just an American guy, okay? I only know English. And the Rebbe spoke in, with, in English to me with I, I don't remember an accent. It was clear, clear English. That's number two. And the third thing I wanna say is when the Rebbe started speaking, I started involuntarily trembling. My, my heart was not, not only, not only was my heart beating fast, it was shaking. I remember my heart shaking inside. And the Rebbe opened up the yechidas and said- It says in Gemara, I'm gonna paraphrase as we go. It says in Gemara Brachos, "The truth there is in dreams." Those are the first words the Rebbe said. So if you look in Gemara Brachos in the Nuns, pages and pages and pages about dreams, okay? So that's how the Rebbe opened up the Yechidus. It says in Gemara Brachos, "The truth there is in dreams." The field represents your life, and in the field there's a treasure that you're looking for, which would explain the digging. In order for a field to produce the proper fruits and vegetables, the field needs to be cultivated. You need to cultivate yourself in order to produce good character traits. The soul comes from on high in a body. The body wants

44:12 Speaker 1 to go after temptations of this world. Don't go after temptations of this world. Then the Rebbe paused. He gave me a tough look. He said, "Do you understand?" I just nodded. I nodded. Okay.

44:25 Speaker 3 Wow.

44:26 Speaker 1 And then the Rebbe said, "And the voice you heard was a voice from on high calling your neshamah back from the dead." So this is my Tzniis HaMeisim spiritually.

44:39 Speaker 3 Wow.

44:39 Speaker 1 Okay? And I just want you to know, over the years I did resour- research on voices, bas coles.

44:45 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

44:46 Speaker 1 I came up with this. I'm not saying this is it, but the Rebbe said, "From on high," mimav, okay? Mimav, it's not that high, it's mimav. So, so I... what I found in, in Aggadita was all the Malachim only speak Lashon HaKodesh. They don't speak any other language except one. There's one Malach that's sent to do a bas cole for all the countries or to individuals, and that was Malach Gabriel. Am I saying this is it? I don't have any... I'm not, I'm not, not to the level. I'm just wanna say something I came across.

45:19 Speaker 3 Interesting.

45:20 Speaker 1 Okay. Okay. And right after that, the Rebbe said that if the Rebbe said, "The voi- this a voice calling you back, your neshamah back from the dead." Imagine me sitting here, standing here listening to this. I'm shaking like a leaf. Then the Rebbe said, "And every Jew has his own Mashiach." That's what Rebbe said. What does this mean? So I, so I had Tzniis HaMeisim and Mashiach in this Yechidus, okay?

45:51 Speaker 3 Yes.

45:51 Speaker 1 So this Mash- the every Jew has his own Mashiach. So again, it, it's 55 and a half years I'm lis- I'm think- I think about this almost every day. So what I think the Rebbe meant was why did he say that? So I'm gonna say it like we do in Brooklyn now, okay? The Rebbe was saying to me, "Look, pal, it's great you had Tzniis HaMeisim, but you're still in Galus, pal. But you can take yourself out, out of Galus, over your own personal Galus because every Jew has his own Mashiach." You have a nitztzis that can you take, you can take yourself out of your own personal Galus. Every Jew has. That's how I understood it.

46:30 Speaker 3 Wow.

46:31 Speaker 1 Okay. Then the Rebbe said, "You're getting stronger in Yiddishkeit every day. You will have influence over your family and friends. You will." In other words, I asked a bracha for that, and it happened. You know, I used to go back every Thursday night to my old neighborhood and learn with friends, try to put tefillin on them, and you know, and one guy actually came to Hadara Torah because of that.

47:00 Speaker 3 Wow.

47:01 Speaker 1 And he made a life, he made a family here. He lives in Crown Heights.

47:04 Speaker 3 Yes.

47:04 Speaker 1 Okay. And so that happened. My parents, my mother kashered her house. I had Rebbetzin Rosenfeld from Borough Park, the daughter of Elya Simpson, okay? Uh, sh- I, I had a connection with the Rosenfelds. I'm not gonna get into that now, but I had a connection. She came to my mother's house and went over how to do the kashering. And who did the actual kashering? Shalom Ber Levitan, the Hetz Shliach out in the northwest, okay? So I have to tell you how I, I have to interject and just tell you how I met Shalom Hech-- uh, Shalom, Shalom, uh, Shalom Ber Levitan.

47:47 Speaker 3 He was a bachur then?

47:48 Speaker 1 He was in, he was in kollel.

47:50 Speaker 3 Uh-huh. Okay.

47:50 Speaker 1 Okay. He was in kollel. I'm walking down... This is when at the time I'm walking down Kingston before my first Yechidus. I'm just walking, and I'm trying to absorb everything, try to be part of a neighborhood, and, and not, you know, just... And, and the concept I want, I wanna be a Hasid, but this concept of giving yourself over to a man that I was wrestling with-

48:16 Speaker 3 To, to the Rebbe.

48:16 Speaker 1 The Rebbe.

48:17 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

48:17 Speaker 1 I was sort of wrestling. I wanted it, but it was, it was... Okay, in the time, the time I was going through this, all of a sudden a Hasid, a Lubavitcher Hasid crosses the street, gives me a Shalom Aleichem and, and man becomes my friend. And he took an interest in me. There was no ulterior motive. It was amazing. He would talk to me. He would look for me to talk to me and, and make me f- and, and, and just make me happy and feel good. You know, ma- make me feel a part. And I remember this had a major influence on me.

48:49 Speaker 3 This is Shalom Ber Levitan.

48:50 Speaker 1 Yeah.

48:50 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

48:50 Speaker 1 It made it because I said to myself, "If this is what a Hasid is, this is what I wanna be."

48:55 Speaker 3 Oh.

48:56 Speaker 1 It, it, it changed, uh, it, it was a major impact.

48:59 Speaker 3 That's beautiful.

49:00 Speaker 1 Okay. So he, and he told this by the Schluchim Commission a, a dozen years ago, he said, mentioned this. He knows this. We're still in touch once in a while.

49:08 Speaker 3 Nice.

49:09 Speaker 1 Um, he told me stories from the Rebbe when he lived in the same building as the Rebbe before the Rebbe bought his house on President and, uh-

49:16 Speaker 3 New York Avenue

49:17 Speaker 1 ... New... Yeah. He used to live in the same building.

49:20 Speaker 3 When it comes to be connected and to be mekushar to the Rebbe, there are various ways we do this. Limud Torah, learning the Rebbe's Torah, Kium HaRa'ayesov, fulfilling the Rebbe's instructions, and much more. There's one aspect is kashrus, which is sometimes overlooked, which is called ma'amad. Throughout the last few months, we've been highlighting various kronis, various funds that the Rebbe established, that it is a good idea to participate in them, and the Rebbe encouraged the participation of every one of us on special occasions and at certain times of the years. But there are two elements and two ways of giving money to the Rebbe that's supposed to be done on a regular basis. One is the Mei Panim, the money that is given to the Rebbe when a panim is written, and the other one is ma'amad. Ma'amad is an ancient tradition dating back to the times of the Alter Rebbe, where Hasidim would give routine m-money to the Rebbe, sometimes once a week, sometimes every month, different schedules. And the idea of the Maimon is, is that it is money to be used at the Rebbe's discretion for what the Rebbe sees fit. And it is explained by various Rabbeim, m-most predominantly by the Friediker Rebbe, also by the Rebbe as well, that the idea of the Maimon is something that we give in order to be part of the Rebbe's work, because all of the Rebbe's work is something that every single Yid should be doing. But if we are not, we can

50:57 Speaker 3 participate in the expense of those things. There's a lot more to discuss regarding the importance of Maimon and how much of a central role it plays in Chabad Hasidus. Um, this is something that the Rebbe specifically stipulated very interestingly that after Gimmel Tammuz, Maimon should continue. Before Gimmel Tammuz, the Rebbe would take the money for the Maimon and give it to the central Meistels of Machneh Israel, the Merkaz LeHoinu, and Lishkas Hashain. And the Rebbe said that the same should be done after Gimmel Tammuz. This is something that every single Chassid can participate in. The amount is not so important or not as important. It is the effect of routinely giving Maimon, which can be done at magbis.org, M-A-G-B-I-S dot org, through clicking the tab for Maimon. This is an important and integral part of our Hashkafas, and it's something that if one has not been doing so till now, can start now, or if they have done so in the past and have neglected it, something they could routinely do, and through this can remain and strengthen the connection of every Chassid to the Rebbe.

52:21 Speaker 4 He said that the, what, uh, the, the, they used to get... He was, he was run-- the Rebbe was taking his mail out, you know, all the mailboxes. He, he was there. He was a little boy. He was taking his mail out. It was a Haggadah from, uh, Chof Havanot. They sent Haggadahs out, you know, they mail. And he gave the Rebbe, gave the Haggadah to him. He told me.

52:40 Speaker 3 Interesting.

52:43 Speaker 4 Um, okay. So back to the Yechidus. So you will have influences over family and friends. And the Rebbe, the Rebbe closed out the Yechidus and said, "And may the Almighty God bless you." So when the Rebbe said that, I, I, I felt in the room so connected and felt the presence of the Aibishter in that room that my heart was bursting with joy. It was mamash bursting with joy. It was-- I had such simcha from in that, that, at that point. And I was so happy that I ju- I just blurted out to the Rebbe, "Thank you." And the Rebbe said, "You're welcome." Just like that. "You're welcome." And then I was leaving and I again, I said thank you to the Rebbe, and again, the Rebbe said, "You're welcome." And I went back, it was like one o'clock in the morning, I think. I went back, I wrote everything down. Rabbi Jacobson was looking for me the next day. Bedafla looking for me. He wanted to know what this is. And he took me to a bathroom at the Dar Torah. I told him everything, and he was silent like five, 10 seconds. And he said, "Shimon, you had a very deep Yechidus." So that's the story of my first Yechidus.

53:59 Speaker 3 Clearly.

53:59 Speaker 4 Yeah.

54:00 Speaker 3 Clearly, it was a deep Yechidus.

54:02 Speaker 4 Hmm.

54:03 Speaker 3 Are you thinking about it every single day?

54:06 Speaker 4 Yeah.

54:07 Speaker 3 Wow.

54:07 Speaker 4 Okay.

54:09 Speaker 3 So you-- How many Yechidusen did you have?

54:11 Speaker 4 Seven.

54:12 Speaker 3 Oh, wow.

54:13 Speaker 4 Unfortunately, you're gonna have to listen to all of them.

54:15 Speaker 3 Well, that's here, man. That's why we're here.

54:18 Speaker 4 But before I get to the second Yechidus, I wanna tell you something that happened in Tafshin Lamed Beis.

54:24 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

54:26 Speaker 4 So there was a bachur there. His name is Avram. I'm not giving last names out. His name is Avram. He was there for five years already. So he was like the, the dean of the bachur, you know. He was a Chassidishe Yid and he, he could see, he was eidel, all kinds of things. And one day he comes up to me, this was during Tafshin Lamed Beis, and he said, "It's an inyan to ask the Rebbe for a ticken." This is what he said. I said, "Oh, okay. I wanna get a ticken for something." I wrote the letter. I handed it in for a ticken. I, I, you know, I ex-- I, I respected what he said, you know, so I'm, I'm gonna act on that. I don't know anything, okay? Fine.

55:12 Speaker 3 It sounds like that the, the faculty wasn't... Like, you had to pick up things on your own.

55:19 Speaker 4 Yeah.

55:20 Speaker 3 It so- it sounds like that's how it-

55:21 Speaker 4 Uh, yes and no, but we'll get to that. But listen. Um, so I hand in, in the letter. I go in the next day to get it and see if there's an answer. No answer, okay? I go back another day. No answer. No answer. Three, four, five days, a week, ten days. I'm going in every single day. I'm not getting an answer. I don't understand any of this. Why doesn't Rebbe answer me? I don't understand. I got felt bad the Rebbe's not answering me 'cause I went in like ten times, and then so I stopped going in. I stopped going in, and maybe a te- another two weeks passed. This thing is not sitting well with me. Not sitting well. So by ‹Krias Shema She'amita› I start, uh, thinking about this, not understanding it, I started to cry. I started to cry that Rebbe won't answer me. I went to sleep. I broke down and cried. I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning, and it felt good. I felt, I felt clean. You know, it was just... I moved on, but I felt good. I felt ‹besimcha›. It's interesting. And fine, I go to mikveh before ‹chesed hashehu›, and Karastira Mikveh, that was Brooklyn in Eastern Parkway, close to Brooklyn, for those who don't know. And I went to mikveh early in the morning, nobody's on the street. I'm walking on sev- the side of Seven seventy going back to yeshiva, and I see Binyamin Klein standing at the bottom of the

57:00 Speaker 4 steps to Seven seventy, facing the steps. There's a man on the, standing on the steps, and he's looking up at him, and he's talking to him. Again, I'm walking by. I, I'm, I'm, I moved on from this. I'm not gonna, you know. As I'm walking by, he turns his head, points at me, and he says, "The Rebbe has an answer for you." So the night after I broke down and the day after I broke down and cried- Yes ... I get the answer the early next morning. It's amazing. The Hashgocha Prot-- He happened-- He was standing there, and I was walking by. "The Rebbe has an answer for you." So I got, I got my tikkun. So I don't... I have no problem telling you what. The Rebbe said three things I have to do. One is I have to give, make sure I give ‹tedarcha› before davening. The second thing is I have to learn ‹besimcha›. And the third thing I can't tell you, and you hear, you're gonna hear why soon. Why- Suspense. Listen, this is going on for decades. This is nineteen seventy-two. Um, whatever the three things on, on my mind, that's what I do. Sometime after Gimel Tammuz, may- maybe a year or two after, I woke up one day, I can't remember the third thing, which is insane. I remember everything, okay? I don't have-- I have excellent memory, ‹chayai haolam›, and, and especially when you're doing something for over twenty years, I'm not gonna forget to do it.

58:25 Speaker 4 And I'm waking up, I have no idea what the third thing is, and I'm very upset. I'm putting letters in Yigras. I'm going to the oil. "Rebbe, give me a hint." Nothing. I have to live with this. I don't know what it is. And time went by, and it, it always bothered me. I don't know what the third thing is. I should not know it. But then something dawned on me. I... You know, there's a lot of times that the Rebbe, when he give an answer, ‹yedidim mavinim›. Mavinim, which one goes first? Yedidim mavinim. Yeah. So I'm gonna ask yedidim mavinim. I'm gonna ask somebody finally. So I went to a good friend of mine by the name of Moshe Kugel, and I ran it by him, and he said immediately, "You have no worries. You don't need to do that one anymore." Mm. And that settled me. That, I, I was, I was... It completely made me feel better. That's the only thing that makes sense. You don't need to do that one anymore. So I just wanted to tell you that with the, with the tikkun. And you still don't remember? No. Amazing. Okay. So now we're coming to my second Yechidus. You still wanna hear all this? Okay. We're, we're in it for the long- Okay ... long haul. Okay. Second Yechidus. What's the issue of the second Yechidus? I wasn't happy with my progress in learning. I just was not happy. There's other guys here that can learn, they're ‹velt› and

59:58 Speaker 4 this. I'm struggling with, with, with the whole thing. I'm not getting what I want to, and it bothered me a lot. I remember that year, Ha- Ha- darah Torah went to, um, Lake Shaldrake for the summer. We were in Lake Shaldrake. I had to get a lift. I found... Somehow I found a lift to get in so I can have Yechidus. I remember that. Anyway, so that was the issue. And I handed in my letter, and the things I wrote in my letter were, I had something with my father's health I wrote in. I wrote in my hearing's getting worse, what's gonna be, and this thing, maybe something else, but this thing also with the learning. So when I walk into Yechidus, the Rebbe has a pile of letters on his desk. I guess there's some kind of seder who walks in, that's the letter. The Rebbe's flip- You say you didn't hand the letter to the- No, I handed it beforehand. Mm-hmm. That's what he did the first year. Mm-hmm. Peop- other people were smarter than me. They never gave it to the secretaries. They handed in when they walked in. Right. Okay? But I didn't know about that. I was told to hand in the letter. Okay. Anyway, the point is, the Rebbe is flipping through the letters, and he said, "I can't seem to find your letter. Say it over." So I froze. I couldn't speak. I couldn't open up my mouth. I just couldn't. And I remember, but some- there had...

1:01:27 Speaker 4 somewhere I found within me I could start speaking. And I remember many years later when I went through Samech Vav, it said over there that when a s- a sage, a big Talmid Chacham is with a simple person, and he wants the simple person to tell him something, to speak about something, and he, the simple person is like afraid before him and can't open up his mouth, the Talmid Chacham gives him the Nesinis Kayach to be able to speak. So that's what I felt, you know. I couldn't find it. All of a sudden, okay. So I mentioned my father's health. I mentioned, I mentioned, um, my fa- my failing hearing. Uh, the Rebbe said regarding the hearing, "Help will come from on high." So I know what that meant. So yeah, that what I understood that later on when it really got bad, technology developed well with hearing, hearing aids and all this, uh, you know.

1:02:23 Speaker 3 So from Eibeshitz.

1:02:23 Speaker 4 That's what I understand.

1:02:24 Speaker 3 Came from Eibeshitz.

1:02:25 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:02:26 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:02:27 Speaker 4 Help will come from on high. Okay. And, and in the middle of that yechidus, the Rebbe said to me, out of nowhere, "And don't be so moody." This the Rebbe said to me.

1:02:39 Speaker 3 Really?

1:02:40 Speaker 4 Yeah. "Don't be so moody."

1:02:42 Speaker 3 Moody.

1:02:43 Speaker 4 I didn't know what he was talking about. I mean, I ha- afterwards I told my friends, so I'm laughing, "Yeah, yeah." So I don't know. They don't know. I don't know. Anyway, I realized years later what the Rebbe meant was you tend to react to a situation too s- too strongly. You need to step back and absorb and come and, and, and, and react with a more calm, intellectual way. That, that's how I understood this. But he-- this came out of nowhere, you know. Okay, fine. But I didn't say the main thing with the learning. I forgot. But the Rebbe didn't forget. The Rebbe said to me, "And is there anything in particular that's bothering you?" And then, oh, I was murderer. I mentioned about the learning. I'm not happy with my progress in learning. The Rebbe, "Can I give you a berakhah to be a lamdan and a hasid?" That's the berakhah I got. No yiras shamayim, okay. That was not mentioned. And the lamdan before the hasid. Usually it's the hasid and the, the, the, the lamdan is last.

1:03:48 Speaker 3 Right.

1:03:48 Speaker 4 He said, "Lamdan and then a hasid." Okay. Which I, I think is interesting. I have a friend, I'm not gonna say his name, where he went into a... When he was thirteen, when he has ba- had his bar mitzvah, you know, the standard thing is a hayal, hasid yiras shamayim lamdan. So in yechidus, the Rebbe just said to him, uh, to be a, a yiras shamayim and a hasid. He didn't mention lamdan. I'm just saying things happen. You don't know what ... He can learn. He can learn, but I'm just saying. Okay, so that was that yechidus.

1:04:21 Speaker 3 Number two.

1:04:22 Speaker 4 That's number two. Number three. During the course of year, again, I'm trying very hard to make up for nineteen years of lost Yiddishkeit, and I'm learning. I'm, I'm there. This is taf shin lamed gimel nineteen seventy-three. I go to sleep one night and have a dream. Another dream.

1:04:44 Speaker 3 Baal ha-kolelimis.

1:04:46 Speaker 4 Yeah. You see. So I dreamt that I was at Farbrengen. I was the only one at Farbrengen, and the Rebbe said the following: "Just like a person's machshava is completely united with the piece of flesh that he's eating at the time that he's eating it, with the same strength, a person's machshava should be united in ruchnius." That's what Rebbe said. I woke up the next morning. I never heard it put like it was a clear dream. I said, "Wow, a dream with the Rebbe, and I got a vort from him." I never heard it put like that before. I was happy. It was nice. It was good. It was a good thing. That was the beginning of the week. So in those, uh, those years, the Rebbe on Shabbos only Farbrengen Shabbos Ravochim. So there happened to be a Farbrengen that Shabbos. Okay. It must've been Shabbos Ravochim. And we used... You know, we couldn't get a... If it is... Ha'dara Torah guys had to like scramble to get a place. Seven seventy guys didn't let us in with them.

1:05:51 Speaker 3 The hierarchy didn't let you guys in.

1:05:53 Speaker 4 What?

1:05:53 Speaker 3 The hierarchy of seven seventy didn't let you in.

1:05:56 Speaker 4 I have a story with that I'll tell you lat- I'm gonna tell later with the tatbis is okay.

1:06:00 Speaker 3 The okay. Yeah.

1:06:03 Speaker 4 Let me tell you something. But anyway, so we-- but there was actually... I used to find a seat up front, and the, the Hasidim didn't bother me. There was Alter Hasidim, Mitteleishe Hasidim.

1:06:14 Speaker 3 The Bakor, the Bakor didn't let you in, but the, the, the-

1:06:17 Speaker 4 But there was, there was room, but there was actually a little bit of ro- not there was so much room, but I stripped in and they never said boo to me.

1:06:24 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:06:25 Speaker 4 And they let me sit there. Other-- a couple other guys also. Anyway, so I ca- I, I went, I got a, I got a seat. Rebbe came down, made kiddush, made l'chaim, they sang a niggun. Rebbe said the first sicha. First sicha ends. Rebbe makes l'chaim to everybody, sing another niggun. The Rebbe opened up the second sicha with me sitting right there and said, "Just like a person's machshava is completely united with the piece of flesh that he's eating at the time that he's eating it, with the same strength, a person's machshava should be united in ruchnius." So I said, "No." And the Rebbe went to speak on other things.

1:07:05 Speaker 3 One second, I have a question. You're able-

1:07:07 Speaker 4 Yes

1:07:07 Speaker 3 ... at that point, you can-

1:07:08 Speaker 4 I knew enough

1:07:08 Speaker 3 You understand sicha?

1:07:09 Speaker 4 I knew enough Yiddish and this that hear that the Rebbe said that.

1:07:13 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:07:14 Speaker 4 Okay? I said, "No, this didn't happen." Not surprised about the Rebbe's Ruach Hakodesh, but it happened to me. This happens to someone else. I read stories about this, of other people, and now this is happening to me. I'm looking at the Rebbe, you know, I'm shaking my head. I'm looking around. You know, for one split second, one split second, I wanted to stand up. "Rebbe, can I just tell everybody what happened to me?" But they would have killed me, so that would, you know, I, I didn't do that. Anyway, I wanna know why this happened. I went to Rabbi Jacobson before my third yechidus, and I'm gonna run it by him. He loves me, Rabbi Jacobson. And I, and I'm just saying that, you know. Um, he-- I told him, "Can I, could I put this in?" He said, "Yes." I mean, I'm the one going in there. He's not. But he wants to hear. It's interesting.

1:08:04 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:08:04 Speaker 4 To say the least, it's interesting. I wanna know why this happened. Anyway, I wrote it out, handed it in. I'm standing outside in gan eden tachateim to the third yechidus. And I did not have a good feeling about this. I did not. I'm coming, bothering the Rebbe for another dream. That, that's how I felt. I go in, and I was right. The Rebbe said, "The dream you had was good." In other words, he val-- at least he validated it. "The dream you had was good, but it's not the main thing." So what the Rebbe's saying, because I think I know why. In other words, I was go-- if I had this dream, I'm going to sleep every night, what am I gonna dream tonight? You know? So that, I was like into the dream thing. He said, "Don't make it a main thing."

1:08:53 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:08:54 Speaker 4 So I put the... But nevertheless, at the end of the yechidus, the Rebbe gave me a berakhah. "I give you a berakhah. You should unite your machshava and ruchnius b'simkha." Wow. That's the berakhah I got. And that's the second time the Rebbe mentioned simkha to me. The first was in the tikun regarding learning, and this is regarding inyan from his b'ninus. When I walked out of that yechidus, Rabbi Jacobson was waiting for me. He wanted to see what the Rebbe said. So I told him what the Rebbe said. He starts laughing, going like this to me, waving his finger, smacking me in the face. But he gave me the hemsha from Taf Shin Yud and the Rosh Hashanah ma'amar from the, from the Friediker Rebbe, beginning with Ois Yud Zayin, is all about his b'ninus in depth.

1:09:42 Speaker 3 Interesting.

1:09:43 Speaker 4 He wanted me to go through that and learn that. Wow. So that was the third yechidus.

1:09:47 Speaker 3 Very special. Wow. I don't think I ever think as the dream of the Rebbe, then you're asking the Rebbe about it. I mean, on dollars there's a video of someone asking the Rebbe to interpret a dream that they had with the Rebbe, but yeah, it's not such a-

1:10:03 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:10:05 Speaker 3 I, I think, I think it's interesting. I think other Chassidim, if they would've had these things, they might not have asked the Rebbe. I think, you know, you and, uh, that era and, you know, hadara taira, you were able to ask such questions, so it was, uh, amazing.

1:10:22 Speaker 4 Look, I got rushus from Rabbi Jacobson, and that's all I needed. If he told me not to, I wouldn't have.

1:10:27 Speaker 3 Right.

1:10:28 Speaker 4 You know. Okay. So I became a chosid next year. Not to go into all the details, um, from a young woman from Oak Park, Michigan, Landy family. Whatever. Anyway, so now I'm going to the fourth yechidus, which is chosid and kallah. My parents, my wife's parents, my in-laws, and then my wife's, wife's bubby, they all came from Detroit to go into yechidus before the wedding. And so my, our plan was, our plan was to me to learn in kollel for a year.

1:11:09 Speaker 3 In Hadar Hatorah?

1:11:10 Speaker 4 Yeah, they had a torah that year.

1:11:12 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:11:12 Speaker 4 Uh, they had a k- for a while, they had a kollel, and you, you're supposed to get twenty-five dollars a week, which I got twenty-five dollars every six months. Okay, so that's what the, how I got paid. But anyway, so the Rebbe was maskim. He said, you know, basically supported the inyanim learning for another year while the wife worked. And, um, whatever. My, my wife's bubbe had a conversation with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said something that's not logical what you're saying with Shalom, whatever. But anyway, he gave a berakhah to the, to, to our parents that you should have nachas from your kinder and kinder's kinder. And the best thing that came out of that yechidus, I mean, when we all walked out, my father-

1:11:57 Speaker 3 It was in Yiddish, the yechidus?

1:11:58 Speaker 4 What?

1:11:58 Speaker 3 The yechidus was in Yiddish?

1:12:00 Speaker 4 English. English.

1:12:01 Speaker 3 In English.

1:12:01 Speaker 4 Oh, yeah.

1:12:02 Speaker 3 Now he said kinder-- Okay, you just said-

1:12:03 Speaker 4 My father understood Yiddish, but the Rebbe spoke English.

1:12:06 Speaker 3 But you said it in Yiddish, though.

1:12:07 Speaker 4 Oh, I wanna say one, another thing I forgot.

1:12:08 Speaker 3 You said, you said that in Yiddish, though. That's why I'm asking if like-

1:12:11 Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, he said those words.

1:12:12 Speaker 3 In Yiddish.

1:12:13 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:12:13 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:12:13 Speaker 4 That, yeah. But I wanna say one thing I forgot, I left out. When I opened the door to walk into that yechidus, the Rebbe was sitting there shepping nachas. He was like, "Hmm, hmm." He was there shepping nachas when we were walking in. I just wanna say that. Shepping openly, shepping nachas. Okay. When we walked out of that yechidus, my father, who didn't grow up with this so much, he said to me, "Those eyes don't look at you. They look through you." This he said to me.

1:12:48 Speaker 3 Crazy. Crazy.

1:12:50 Speaker 4 And he had a picture of the-- He had a picture, a small picture of the Rebbe in his house.

1:12:55 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:12:55 Speaker 4 And he's putting on tefillin.

1:12:57 Speaker 3 Your father was-

1:12:57 Speaker 4 Yeah, I forgot to mention before, when the Rebbe gave me that berakhah to read from, I forgot to say my father started putting on tefillin. I don't know about every day, but I got him tefillin, and I help him put on tefillin, and he put, he put, he, he was putting on tefillin for a while.

1:13:09 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:13:10 Speaker 4 Okay. So that was number four.

1:13:14 Speaker 3 Number four. Many of our listeners are aware of the magazine. We talk about the Mong Chassidim by the Her. The Her, as was known for many years as a magazine. So so many people subscribed to it, but I've encountered many people that are listening to the podcast. Number one, there are some people that know about the magazine but don't subscribe. And I've met people that have been listening to the podcast that don't even know about the magazine, whether they're not exposed to it or they know about it, but you know, they ne-never actually interacted with it. So I wanna bring to everyone's attention the Chassidishe Der Her magazine. This is the way Der Her began. Beautiful monthly magazine. Comes out every single month. And over the years, so many people have told me different pieces of feedback, and I think the best piece of feedback that I've gotten in one word is that after you read the Der Her magazine, you are uplifted. We're talking about every single month, you're gonna be living with the Rebbe. You'll have a, a diary, a section called Lebn mit dem Rebben about something that happened a certain period by the Rebbe. You'll have a vort, a sicha, v'machah. You'll have answers from the Rebbe, the meinus of the Rebbe. And you'll also have feature articles that gives you, but it's usually on a topic. It could be historical, it could be something, a deep dive into one particular topic, and it could be something about the Rebbe, it

1:14:43 Speaker 3 could be something about a previous Rebbe, it could be something about Chabad history, uh, very recently. It could be from something in the past, from many years ago, hundreds of years ago even. And what it really does is, you know, people learn, people daven, people learn Chassidus. But Chassidushe Der Her really takes your free time, Shabbos afternoon on the couch, bein hasdarim for a bacher or some other type of thing like that, and you can really get inspired and be able to-- uplifted. There's so much out there, especially in the, in the Frum world, there's so much to read. Not necessarily is everything that's available to read necessarily holy, necessarily kedushadik, necessarily uplifting. For sure not. You read this, you'll be uplifted, you'll be more connected, and you'll have a der head. You'll have the der head that we talk about. And for those who know already, it also comes with a kids' magazine. It has comics, it has stories, pictures, beautiful, beautiful for children. And you'll subscribe today, and you'll receive it every single month. And for those who are not yet subscribed and that are listening to Among Chassidim, you can go onto dehead.org, and when you subscribe, use the coupon code AMONG, that's AMONG, A-M-O-N-G, for a ten percent discount for the listeners of the podcast.

1:16:15 Speaker 5 So before I get to the fifty chidas, which was in Machneh Israel, Tof Shin Nun Alef.

1:16:21 Speaker 3 Machnes Israel Development Fund.

1:16:22 Speaker 5 Yeah. But, but before I get to that, I wanna tell one s- a story. I mean, I have all... I wanna tell one, another story. Two, two things. Two things. Number one, after I finished Kollel, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, okay? Shlichus, I wasn't sure. I don't know if I was confident enough to go on shlichus. I, I, you know, like job, I don't know what to... Whatever. So I said to myself, "What do I know how to do? I know how to pitch." Okay? I still know how to pitch. I was still an athlete and had a connection with a, with a, a guy, a non-Jewish guy whose father was manager of a minor league team, and he knew me. He knew me, and he knew what I looked like even. I called him up. I said, "I just want... Would your father give me a tryout?" He said, "Yes." I said, "When?" "Give yourself two months to get yourself back into shape, and I'll arrange for a tryout." So this is a minor league team. This is one step below the major leagues, okay? I wrote a whole letter to the Rebbe about this. Somebody told me I shouldn't say who told me this, but I asked somebody. I was, I had a se- suffic about if I should hand this in, and I shouldn't have asked anybody. I should have just handed it in, and this person discouraged me from handing it in.

1:18:00 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:18:00 Speaker 5 Okay? If I would have went to Leib Groner, he would've picked me and the letter up to the Rebbe. He was a big baseball fan. He was a big baseball fan. I know for a fact about the Groners and the Baumgarts. Big from those-

1:18:13 Speaker 3 They're Americans.

1:18:14 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:18:15 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:18:16 Speaker 5 I, I know things the Rebbe said to Leib Groner once. He run... He was a Yankee fan, and the Rebbe said, "How come..." And when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, the Rebbe said to him, "How come you don't root for the team in the city that you live in?"

1:18:29 Speaker 3 You heard this from him?

1:18:30 Speaker 5 No, uh, from one of the Baumgarts.

1:18:32 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:18:33 Speaker 5 Anyway, so anyway, I can tell you other stories about it. All right. So anyway.

1:18:40 Speaker 3 So you didn't hand in that letter?

1:18:42 Speaker 5 I, I was discour- I was discouraged from handing in the letter. So I'm just saying that I should have handed it in. Let the Rebbe tell me no. Let the Rebbe tell me it's pr-prisprosperous, preposterous. Rebbe then let, let the Rebbe not answer, but at least hand... That was one... I'm just telling you, I felt I always made a mistake with that.

1:19:01 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:19:02 Speaker 5 You know, just to get that out. Anyway, I went into to make... I'm trying to make this short as possible. I went into the bookkeeping and accounting field. I worked for-

1:19:11 Speaker 3 So you didn't, you didn't even go for the tryout?

1:19:13 Speaker 5 No.

1:19:14 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:19:14 Speaker 5 No. That end-- Baseball was ended permanently then. Um, it was interesting. But anyway, I hated what I was doing with accounting and bookkeeping. I worked for a manufacturer, whatever the... And I came across an ad to sell life insurance with New York Life.

1:19:37 Speaker 3 That's what you do till today.

1:19:38 Speaker 5 This is nineteen seventy-nine.

1:19:40 Speaker 3 That's what you do till today.

1:19:40 Speaker 5 That's what I do today, yeah. So this is nineteen seventy-nine. I got all excited. I wrote to the Rebbe. That I handed in. And the Rebbe answered me, "I advise you to take up this opportunity." Ask Allison. So that day, I never looked back after that. And, um, and I, I, I got interesting clients over the years. Interesting. I got the, the, well, um, I'm not gonna go into detail. I'm not gonna say names. I mean, names are... I got, I landed an account with the largest privately held investigation firm in the world, white collar stuff. And I got, uh, very interesting clients. I had the, the former police commissioner of New York as a client, Bob McGuire. I had a guy named Bill Kish. He was under Reagan, second in charge of national security. I was interesting. I got a lot of CIA, FBI guys, you know, whatever that worked for this. It was interesting. And it was, it worked out well with that guy that day. They sold the company for one point two billion, whatever.

1:20:49 Speaker 3 What company? Which comp- Oh, the, the private firm.

1:20:53 Speaker 5 The, the, yeah, the privately held.

1:20:55 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:20:55 Speaker 5 They had it for like nine, ten years, this account. But during this time, you know, I had their pension plan, which means that not only did I do life insurance, I did all the investments for the firm. It was not a small firm. They had worldwide, they were in England, they were in Mexico, they were in China. It was all interesting. It's a good account. Anyway, they had one guy who was second, like he, they, he was hired to like manage, manage the, the office and, and the, and the different, um, agents that they had and all this stuff. And something happened between he and I, and this is like going back to like nineteen eighty-six, nineteen eighty-seven. And he got angry at me, and he threatened to rip away the piece of... "I'm gonna rip this piece of business away from you. I'm gonna take it away from you." So every April is the time when I write new life insurance for the employees and make further investments, and it was, it was a big account, and he threatened to take it away from me. And April came, and I c- I co- I couldn't do anything. He something... He put a block on something. And, you know, it says in Agur's Ekidas, maybe the third chapter, I think, that, you know, the inyan from, from Elokus should be ne- so negeah to you like panosa is negeah to you, that you're not even functioning right anymore. So the, the, the Mashal that's brought

1:22:31 Speaker 5 down from the Alter Rebbe is that the inyan pan- panosa can make a person n-not function properly, and that's what happened to me 'cause I wasn't getting this account. It was a lot of money, and months were going by, and I was sick to my stomach over this. I happened to mention one thing to one friend, which was important, you'll hear why. And, and now it's September, and the Chayei Olam farbrengen is coming. And I think this is Mem Zayin, Mem Chesh the Rebbiden farbrengen 'cause the Rebbesen. So it was Mem Zayin. I think Chayei Olam was on Shabbos that year. Anyway, I'm sick to my stomach. All I want is a l'chaim from the Rebbe. That's all I want, a l'chaim. I stood at that farbrengen behind the Rebbe, like bleachers behind the Rebbe, all the way up. My hand was out between every sicha. The Rebbe would go, "L'chaim, l'chaim, l'chaim, l'chaim." I'm over there, but he never got to me. And the whole farbrengen is like that. The Rebbe making l'chaim, I, um, my hand is out. It reached a point by that farbrengen, it's coming to the end of farbrengen, where they're starting to sing the nigunim that show it's the end. I'm the only hand out for l'chaim, and the Rebbe went like this, "L'chaim." He yelled up l'chaim to me. I got my, I got the last l'chaim at that Chayei Olam farbrengen, and I felt better. I felt good. I didn't care about anything anymore. And at that

1:24:11 Speaker 5 time, I had an office in the Empire State Building. I think it was the fourteenth or fifteenth floor. And I, I went in Monday morning. I'm going to my office. I'm turning the lock. The phone is ringing. I pick... And I even knew who it was. I picked it up. It this guy. He said, "I'm letting the business go through," and he hung up on me.

1:24:34 Speaker 3 Hmm. Wow.

1:24:37 Speaker 5 That happened.

1:24:38 Speaker 3 Amazing.

1:24:40 Speaker 5 That happened.

1:24:41 Speaker 3 It's so... Uh, we had, um, I had on the, on the podcast, uh, Menahem Galitsky, and he was saying that everyone, anyone that was around can tell you that there was communication with the Rebbe, and he said this example. Someone going through something and just saying l'chaim to the Rebbe, that was, that was already enough.

1:25:02 Speaker 5 Yeah. But it was interesting. My ha- I saw my hand was the only hand out for l'chaim at that point.

1:25:11 Speaker 3 Wow. Wow.

1:25:13 Speaker 5 There was that. Then I wanted to speak about how I bought my house.

1:25:18 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:25:19 Speaker 5 Okay. So I wanted to buy a house in the worst way. I didn't wanna rent, and a house came up. A house came up, um, uh, one family, brownstone. I don't wanna say where yet. You'll see. And I wanted to buy it. I had no money.

1:25:37 Speaker 3 This is in the beginning?

1:25:38 Speaker 5 This is in the Mem... This is Mem He, eighty-five, nineteen eighty-five. And, you know, I'm renting. I'm married ten years. I want a house. I wanna be... Anyway, so a house came up. I want the house. I wrote the Rebbe. I wrote the Rebbe that in order for me to buy this house, I have, three things have to happen. I'm gonna have to borrow for the down payment. I'm gonna have to keep borrowing to pay off this, the, the, the things that I need for to fix up the house. I'm gonna need to take in boarders, and the panosa has to get better. That's what I wrote. And then I wrote after that, "Or should I wait till I can afford it?" So the answer I got back was the Rebbe crossed out, "Wait till you can afford it," circled what I wrote, made an arrow to it, pointing an arrow to the three things that I wrote, and he says, "Follow the above. Oskar Alatzian." That's the answer I got to buy a house. And the... So I have to tell you, it's like what I, what I consider Nissim that happened. Boarders were fine. We got nice boarders. In fact, it was a little written from ca- from s- we had a boy. We had a Shemtov from Philadelphia. I mean, interesting boarders we had. Nice, nice, nice people, nice kids. But the inyan of borrowing So the first n-neis that happened is that someone who promised us the money in the family

1:27:15 Speaker 5 didn't give it to us for the down payment, but my wife's bubbe came through for us and lent us fifteen thousand dollars. So we, we were able to go to the contract at least. I went to contract fine, and, uh, I didn't even look at the back of the hou... I, I didn't even look at the hou... I went in the house when we asked Don, but I didn't look at anything. I decided with a friend of mine, we-- in the, uh... So the house was Carroll between Brooklyn and New York. Okay? We're walking in the alleyway between Brooklyn and President. It's an alley. You go to one from one end to the other, and we turned this. I was looking at the back of my house, and my friend turns his head and said, "You're right behind the Rebbe."

1:28:01 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:28:02 Speaker 5 So my house was right behind the-- directly behind the Rebbe. Mamish, directly behind the Rebbe's house. I didn't even know it. I got a beracha for this.

1:28:10 Speaker 3 Right.

1:28:10 Speaker 5 You know? So just to tell you the, uh, the things that I found interesting that we saw after we moved in. I mean, we, we, you know, we're not like peeping all the time, but, but, um, we saw the Rebbe sitting on the d- on the, on the, on the porch in the back.

1:28:27 Speaker 3 Reading.

1:28:27 Speaker 5 Sitting.

1:28:28 Speaker 3 Sitting.

1:28:29 Speaker 5 Then when the Rebbe's sciatic nerve was acting up, they did not let the Rebbe come down the stairs-

1:28:35 Speaker 3 In the front

1:28:36 Speaker 5 ...in the front. They used to back the car up, and I used to see the Rebbe come out the door every day to go into the car to go on Seven seventy.

1:28:43 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:28:43 Speaker 5 And I, I, uh, it's interesting. Another thing I found interesting, we both found interesting, my wife and I, that no matter what time we were up in the middle of the night, if we were up, the Rebbe's library light was always on. You know, this is, this is what we saw.

1:28:57 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:28:58 Speaker 5 You know. And I ended up giving a shiur every Shabbos. I wanted to have to do something. I'm behind the Rebbe. You know? I gave a shiur. They used to have a whole bunch of guys come.

1:29:07 Speaker 3 In your house.

1:29:08 Speaker 5 In my house, you know, in the sedar before davening. And, uh, so I'm gonna get back to the borrowing. I still had to borrow. I didn't have any money to fix up the house. So I would... There were these... And back in those days, there was like two, three millionaires. Now there's like forty million, may-millionaires in Crown.

1:29:29 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:29:29 Speaker 5 But there was all, there was-- I don't wanna mention the names. Okay? But there was names of certain millionaires, and one of the miracles was they actually lent me money, and they didn't know. So I used to... And I used to borrow five thousand at a time. I don't know how long they let me have it for, but when I had to pay him back, I had to go to this millionaire to get five thou- to pay him. Uh, th-this is my life. Peter and the Paul.

1:29:54 Speaker 3 Peter and Paul, yeah.

1:29:55 Speaker 5 Yeah, exactly. This was my life, but I don't care. The Rebbe told me to do this, and I got a bro-- So that in, that itself was a miracle, and there was a third party I used to get, uh, also. Okay. So there was one time I didn't have a third, so I had to pay somebody five thousand back the next day.

1:30:16 Speaker 3 You were missing, you were missing a Peter.

1:30:18 Speaker 5 So what? Yeah.

1:30:19 Speaker 3 You were missing a Peter.

1:30:20 Speaker 5 Exactly. I, I, I didn't have. I went to a friend who sells cars and because sometimes he has cash. He said, "I don't have anything now. Wait and let's see what happens." I went there in the afternoon. I'm hanging around his house, scared to death about not being able to pay back the people I had to pay next day, uh, you know, 'cause I'll, I'll lose my credibility, you know. And hours are passing, nothing's going on. And it's 11 o'clock at night, and he gets a phone call from a guy, from two guys, three guys in Bay Ridge. They saw an ad for a car, his car. Can they come over now and buy it? Okay. They came f- they, they worked for a Chinese restaurant. There were three Chinese men came. They paid him five thousand dollars for the car. They left. He turns to me and gives me five thousand in cash at 11:30 at night. The... I'm just telling you things that happened. And the biggest miracle of this whole borrowing business is that I happened to run into a guy, and we became friends. The guy's quite nice. And I, I told him, uh, you know, I said, "I could help you." He gave me a bag of sixteen thousand dollars in cash. He trusted me. "Use it as you..." Just to sign something, I took sixteen thousand from him. "Use it as you need it. If I ever need it back, you'll give it back." So I'm just saying it

1:31:56 Speaker 5 ended all problems. And what really ended all problems is the third thing was the Parnassa took off.

1:32:04 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:32:05 Speaker 5 And I didn't have to have boarders, and I paid back all the debts. In fact, my wife's bubbe, we paid her ten thousand of the fifteen. She was moikel on the last five.

1:32:14 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:32:15 Speaker 5 Another miracle.

1:32:16 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:32:17 Speaker 5 But that, that's the house business with the, the brachas we got from the Rebbe.

1:32:20 Speaker 3 Beautiful.

1:32:21 Speaker 5 Okay.

1:32:22 Speaker 3 When you, uh, you used to daven in Seven seventy?

1:32:25 Speaker 5 When?

1:32:26 Speaker 3 During those years, you davened in Seven seventy.

1:32:27 Speaker 5 You mean Shabbos?

1:32:28 Speaker 3 Yeah. Shabbos.

1:32:29 Speaker 5 Shabbos.

1:32:29 Speaker 3 Yom Tov.

1:32:30 Speaker 5 All those years when I got married, I used to go to Adas Yisroel a lot. You know, I, I, I used to daven Seven seventy, but I used to go Friday nights Seven seventy a lot, a lot. What's interesting, in the lamed, I used to sit up front behind the Rebbe's shtender. There was nobody there. It was amazing. There was-- at this Friday nights, there was, there was room all over the place. So I can't explain that, but that's how it was.

1:33:00 Speaker 3 And what about Yom Tov?

1:33:01 Speaker 5 Yom Tov's packed.

1:33:03 Speaker 3 Rosh Hashanah?

1:33:03 Speaker 5 Oh, you remind me of something. Okay. But I just wanted to tell you the house business and that Parnassa thing with that guy.

1:33:12 Speaker 3 Beautiful.

1:33:12 Speaker 5 Okay. I wanna tell you a Rosh Hashanah story, a couple of Rosh Hashanah stories. Not long. This is a quick one. So in the early mems, the gabboim finally figured out they could sell seats behind the bimah. All the seats were sold was only in front of the bimah. So they-- so everyone bought a seat. I don't know it took them so long to figure that out, but that's what happened. So I bought a seat behind the bimah for Rosh Hashanah. I had a seat. My seat was the first row right by the, the shtender, ri-right by the banister. So when the Rebbe got called up to Aliyah for Rosh Hashanah, I was one foot away as the Rebbe walked. I liked that, you know. It was good. But, you know, you didn't really see anything otherwise. So I got tired of not seeing, 'cause I used to see when I was a bachur. I used to throw myself in the middle, right in front, and watch the Rebbe blow shofar. You got killed over there, but I did it. In fact, I wanna bring up a point that that was at the year taf shin lamed daled that, um, the Rebbe took almost fifty minutes or fifty... They said it was fifty-three minutes, they said, to blow shofar. The Rebbe, that it was going from shofar to shofar. Um, I was there, and it was took, it was over forty-five minutes the Rebbe couldn't blow shofar. And that year was the Yom Kippur War.

1:34:40 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:34:40 Speaker 5 The fifteenth.

1:34:42 Speaker 3 Wow. Now that year-

1:34:44 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

1:34:44 Speaker 3 That week.

1:34:45 Speaker 5 Yeah. Right.

1:34:47 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:34:48 Speaker 5 So, okay. So I just wanna tell you one thing I did. I decided I wanna see. Went from my seat. How am I gonna see anything? What I did was I climbed up on the banister right behind the bimah. I, I had my... There was a, there was a beam. I had my one foot on the beam, my arms wrapped around the banister, looking over the Rebbe. Right over the Rebbe, watching the Rebbe drape the talis over his head. All the, all the kittelach was written and everything. I was watching thousands of people with their eye. I had a great view. It was the back, but I, I heard the shofar properly, no problem. But it was, it was, it was, it was very moving, that view. And I st-I was up there, but again, I was like this, okay? So the Rebbe blew shofar. It was great. I made a mistake. I forgot to get down. The Rebbe turned around, and he's walking towards me. I said, "Oh, no." And he stops. He's right at the shofar, before the brachas he gives. He stops, looks up at me. I got a look that said, "Don't do this to my shul." That's the look that I got, okay? He stopped, gave me a stern look, then he continued on. I just wanted to tell that. And after davening that year, I knew a bachur by the, by the name of Weiss, uh, Yehuda Ben Yaman Weiss, who had actually, uh, one of the shluchim in

1:36:24 Speaker 5 Carolina is over there. He was a bachur then. I knew him. He came up to me and he said to me, "You know, I couldn't look at the Rebbe's face without seeing Shimon Kroll's face." So there was that. Okay. So, so now we're coming to this Machne Israel Development Fund.

1:36:45 Speaker 3 So you made parnasah.

1:36:47 Speaker 5 So that year they made sure poor people can be part of this now. In other words, instead of giving a million, you can give a hundred thousand and pay it out. They had a new system, okay?

1:37:01 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:37:01 Speaker 5 And it, it... I didn't wanna do it. I didn't wanna go. You know, I didn't wanna commit myself like that. We had to ask, you know, it was something we wanted to ask the Rebbe, but-- and there was a shliach that was hacking us a chain. "Come on, I'll take you. I'll take you to... Come on, get..." I said, "All right, already. We'll go." So we went. I'm not gonna tell you the issues that we had, we discussed with the Rebbe. It's all on film. We have a video of it and everything. I want this, I want, I'm not gonna-

1:37:25 Speaker 3 Right.

1:37:26 Speaker 5 Private stuff. You know, too personal. But at the end of that, I said to the Rebbe, "I want a bracha to make koyem the pledge." And the Rebbe said, "Yo, "" That's what I got for that. That's paid. It was paid

1:37:46 Speaker 3 It was paid.

1:37:47 Speaker 5 Yeah. But I still give anyway, you know.

1:37:51 Speaker 3 Oh, you give to Machne Israel now?

1:37:52 Speaker 5 Yeah. Still.

1:37:54 Speaker 3 So you paid up the pledge?

1:37:56 Speaker 5 I paid up what I had to, but I didn't make any commitment after that, but I pay money anyway.

1:38:00 Speaker 3 Uh, till today?

1:38:01 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:38:01 Speaker 3 Beautiful.

1:38:03 Speaker 5 But, uh, yo, ""

1:38:04 Speaker 3 Amazing.

1:38:06 Speaker 5 That's the third time the Rebbe said simcha to me. That with parnasah.

1:38:08 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:38:08 Speaker 5 You know. First learning, his So there is that. Okay. So, so now we're coming to this Machne Israel Development Fund.

1:38:08 Speaker 3 So you made parnasah.

1:38:08 Speaker 5 So that year they made sure poor people can be part of this now. In other words, instead of giving a million, you can give a hundred thousand and pay it out. They had a new system, okay?

1:38:08 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:38:08 Speaker 5 And it, it... I didn't wanna do it. I didn't wanna go. You know, I didn't wanna commit myself like that. We had to ask, you know, it was something we wanted to ask the Rebbe, but-- and there was a shliach that was hacking us a chain. "Come on, I'll take you. I'll take you to... Come on, get..." I said, "All right, already. We'll go." So we went. I'm not gonna tell you the issues that we had, we discussed with the Rebbe. It's all on film. We have a video of it and everything. I want this, I want, I'm not gonna-

1:38:08 Speaker 3 Right.

1:38:08 Speaker 5 Private stuff. You know, too personal. But at the end of that, I said to the Rebbe, "I want a bracha to make koyem the pledge." And the Rebbe said, "Yo, "" That's what I got for that. That's paid. It was paid

1:38:08 Speaker 3 It was paid.

1:38:08 Speaker 5 Yeah. But I still give anyway, you know.

1:38:08 Speaker 3 Oh, you give to Machne Israel now?

1:38:08 Speaker 5 Yeah. Still.

1:38:08 Speaker 3 So you paid up the pledge?

1:38:08 Speaker 5 I paid up what I had to, but I didn't make any commitment after that, but I pay money anyway.

1:38:08 Speaker 3 Uh, till today?

1:38:08 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:38:08 Speaker 3 Beautiful.

1:38:08 Speaker 5 But, uh, yo, ""

1:38:08 Speaker 3 Amazing.

1:38:08 Speaker 5 That's the third time the Rebbe said simcha to me. That with parnasah.

1:38:10 Speaker 3 Wow.

1:38:10 Speaker 5 You know. First learning, his

1:38:14 Speaker 3 So that, that was once.

1:38:16 Speaker 5 Okay.

1:38:16 Speaker 3 The rest-

1:38:16 Speaker 5 That's one. So then there's a sixth Yechidas, okay?

1:38:20 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:38:21 Speaker 5 That's Machne Israel. The Rebbe had a stroke.

1:38:24 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:38:24 Speaker 5 Okay? Nevertheless, even though the Rebbe had the stroke, the Rebbe, they were making Yechidas for Machne Israel anyway, that we should walk by the Rebbe. The Rebbe was sitting on his, by his office in a wheelchair. I know what it's like to have Yechidas, and when I walked by the Rebbe, I had Yechidas. I know the feeling it is to walk in and to walk out. The same feeling I had for all the other years was the same exact one now. The Rebbe gave over his koach hashin to me, and I felt it strong as anything, no difference. I just wanted to say that-

1:39:00 Speaker 3 To me

1:39:01 Speaker 5 ... regarding, regarding that. That was my sixth Yechidas. Okay. Gimmel Tammuz came and went. Now I'll talk about the seventh. So the seventh Yechidas, this is taf shin samech alef. I turned fifty. And turning fifty was like, "Oh, man." You know, I'm turning fifty now, you know. It's not youngster time anymore, you know. Thirty, okay, forty, twenties, and fifty. So Yud Alef Menachem Av. By the way, that's the yahrtzeit of... That's my birthday. That's the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Hillel Paritcher, Yud Alef Menachem Av. It's interesting. You know, I didn't-- I should throw that point in. Anyway, so th- when it was my fiftieth birthday, and I'm go-I'm going to, I go to the Ohel on my birthday, on Gimmel Tammuz anyway. Yeah, I go to the Ohel every year. But this time I wanna make sure I, I took it m-much more serious. I'm gonna say the whole Ma'amarim HaShas with desire, okay? I wanna say everything time. I'm saying everything. And of course everyone went to Kap- uh, Kaputa. So Yahrzeit of Menachem Albuf was on a Tuesday, all right? Two days after Tisha B'Av. It's Tuesday, and 25 years ago, this is 25 years ago, so you know how old I am now. So 25 years ago they didn't have the crowds like they have today every day. It wasn't. I went in, went to the Ohel. I was even alone with the Rebbe for about five to 10 minutes alone, which was awesome. S- Saying the whole Min HaLoshon, and I told

1:40:51 Speaker 5 the Rebbe I'm turning, I turn- in my letter I turn 50, and, and I'm shvitzing. It's hot. It's a Kaputa. It's a hot day in the summer, but I said everything. I mean, I wanted to say everything. And then I left the Ohel, and I, I said, "I don't have the m- time watch videos for the Rebbe. I have to go right home." I'm walking through the, I'm walking through the, the room that has the video of the Rebbe. There's nobody there but me. I, I turn my head. In that split second I turn my head, the Rebbe said, "Now that you're 50, and it's not like when you were 30, 'cause at 30 as the Mishna says that from 30 to 50 you get stronger and stronger. But at 50 you get weaker. If unite, if you unite your 248 limbs and 365 sinews through a Kaddish Baruch Hu you will only get stronger." Okay, that stopped me. Okay. This is the Rebbe's talking to somebody. I don't know what's going on, okay? This look like it's a for bragging, but this is what he's saying. Wait. Then the Rebbe said right after that, that, that, that stopped me in my tracks. I, I, I... Then the Rebbe said, "And you think you're better than the next person? Maybe the next person's better than you." As we learned this after Moshe Rabbeinu, that the Chiddush from the Alter Rebbe is that Afir HaGoyim, that if that, that Moshe Rabbeinu was so humble that even

1:42:27 Speaker 5 a goy can do a better job. And that was it. I called up my mashpia. I said, "This is what happened to me." He said, "You had Yehudit."

1:42:36 Speaker 6 Yeah.

1:42:37 Speaker 5 That's what I got.

1:42:38 Speaker 6 You saw it in the video.

1:42:39 Speaker 5 I saw it in the video. I was the only one in the room also watching this.

1:42:45 Speaker 6 Hm.

1:42:45 Speaker 5 That's what happened.

1:42:49 Speaker 6 The Rebbe has his way of commu- uh, ways of communicating.

1:42:51 Speaker 5 Yeah. So that happened to me. That I consider my seventh Yehudit.

1:42:57 Speaker 6 Wow.

1:42:59 Speaker 5 I ha- I could tell you Yehudit from this. I ca- You wanna hear this one? There's a guy, he was a bachur after my time in the mid-'70s. So he went into Yehudit. When he went into Yehudit as a bachur, he's from the South, he's from Atlanta. He wrote every name of his family, his father, his mother, his sisters, brothers, you know, he's a bachur, and cousins. He wrote all the names of his family for refuah, okay? He hands in the letter. The Rebbe read out loud every name except his father's name. And he says to the Reb- Rebbe, "You, you didn't mention my father's name." The Rebbe re-read every name again and didn't mention his father's name. When he came out of Yehudit and he went back to Hadara Torah. Hadara Torah has a paid ph- had a paid phone. The phone was ringing. He picked it up. His father passed away.

1:43:56 Speaker 6 Wow. Wow.

1:44:03 Speaker 5 And I think I just wanna close out with a, a Yehudit. I have so many Yehudit from, from Hadara Torah guys. They were unbelievable certain things. Macher, I'm just gonna give one, okay? I don't wanna take up your time.

1:44:16 Speaker 6 Of a friend of yours.

1:44:17 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:44:18 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

1:44:18 Speaker 5 The, the, the, all the Yehudit I, the, the Yehudit I know, they told me.

1:44:22 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

1:44:22 Speaker 5 I mean, some of them are sad. I'm not gonna talk about that, you know? Um, so anyway, there's a guy named Batsalo. He had two Yehudit. One in, I think 1968, one in 1969. He's there in Hadara Torah before me. He told me two... I'll tell you them both if... Should I tell you them both?

1:44:41 Speaker 6 Yeah, go ahead.

1:44:43 Speaker 5 You sure?

1:44:43 Speaker 6 Yeah, sure.

1:44:44 Speaker 5 But the one that I'm gonna close out with defines our relationship with the Rebbe-

1:44:50 Speaker 6 Okay

1:44:50 Speaker 5 ... you're gonna see. But, so his first Yehudit was, um, he was in Shvat, and he decided, an interesting guy, he bought the Rebbe a Sefer as a gift for his birthday. He wanted to give the Rebbe a bir- a birthday gift. I mean, Yahrzeit this, but he bought a gift for the Rebbe, a Ramah, a Sefer Ramah from the Ramah. He walks into Yehudit with the Ramah, put- gives it to the Rebbe. The Rebbe looks at it and says to him, "Are you a descendant of the Ramah?" He said, "No." Then the Rebbe opened up to the back page. He left the price tag in. The Rebbe said to him, "I see you sent, spent a lot of money on your Rebbe. I give you a berachah. You should never run out of money."

1:45:38 Speaker 6 Wow.

1:45:39 Speaker 5 That's the, that's-

1:45:41 Speaker 6 Hm

1:45:41 Speaker 5 What's interesting is I handle his finances and investments, and he's running out of money. Okay. He has some tough times in his life, but he still has money, okay?

1:45:51 Speaker 6 Till today.

1:45:52 Speaker 5 Okay. Next year he goes back to arrange for his Yehudit. His Yom Hilluets is Ches Shvat. So Rabbi Grone said to him, "The Rebbe is very busy now before Yud Shvat. Come back after. Come back after." "Okay, fine." He comes back after Yud Shvat. He walks into the Rebbe's office, and the Rebbe says to him, "Why weren't you here for Ches Shvat?" So he said, "The Rebbe secretary said the Rebbe was too busy." He said, "When you leave my office, you go over to my secretary and you tell him a father shouldn't have to be made to wait to see his children."

1:46:31 Speaker 6 Wow. Wow.

1:46:35 Speaker 5 That's what I wanted to close with.

1:46:36 Speaker 6 Is that how you feel about your relationship with the Rebbe?

1:46:40 Speaker 5 Is that what?

1:46:41 Speaker 6 Is that how you feel about your relationship with the Rebbe?

1:46:44 Speaker 5 That and more.

1:46:47 Speaker 6 That and more. Amazing. Okay, this was incredible.

1:46:55 Speaker 5 I hope that was worth something.

1:46:56 Speaker 6 This is amazing, and, uh, you should continue with the same. I understand you give a Shiur Chassidus every day.

1:47:03 Speaker 5 Yes, six days a week.

1:47:04 Speaker 6 That's amazing.

1:47:05 Speaker 5 I find it amaz- It's going on for over 25 years.

1:47:09 Speaker 6 Amazing. You should continue for many, many, many more years.

1:47:12 Speaker 5 Sure. Thanks for having me.

1:47:13 Speaker 6 And we should see the Rebbe. We should see the Rebbe.

1:47:16 Speaker 5 Thanks.

1:47:16 Speaker 6 Shkoyach.