R' Mordechai Cheifetz (and a Niggun Gaaguim)

00:06 A Rebbe Chossid, Reb Mordechai Cheifetz, known as Reb Mottel Cheifetz, was a talmid in Tomchei Tmimim in Lubavitch. He was one of the chosidim of the Rebbe Rashab. And the Frierdiker Rebbe, in his, uh, Reshimas, counts him as one of the thirteen chashuve chosidim of his father, the Rebbe Rashab. The spring of taf res tzadik ches, Reb Mottel was sent on a shlichus to be a shadar in America on behalf of the Frierdiker Rebbe. And when he came back, and he was on yechidus after Shavuos, he brought back regards from the Anash in the United States. When he left the Frierdiker Rebbe's room, the Chassidim noticed that he's very confused. And when they asked him, "What did the Rebbe say? What happened?" He said that the Rebbe said not to say. However, he did mention to the Frierdiker Rebbe's secretary, Reb Chatzke Feigin, that what the Frierdiker Rebbe was speaking about had to do with the maimar of Shavuos. So that made Reb Chatzke Feigin even more curious to know what was in the conversation between Reb Mottel Cheifetz and the Frierdiker Rebbe. So one day, Reb Chatzke invited Reb Mottel Cheifetz to eat with him dinner. And during the meal, he gave him a lot of l'chaim. Eventually, Reb Mottel, after a lot of l'chaim, opened up his mouth, and he got it out of him what the Frierdiker Rebbe said in that yechidus. And he said like this, "The Frierdiker Rebbe told me that one thirty in the morning, while I was lying

01:34 on my bed," says the Frierdiker Rebbe, "my father," meaning the Rebbe Rashab, "came to me, and he told me, 'It's very good that you said that maimar. My father,' the Rebbe Maharash, 'said this maimar a while ago, and this maimar was never fully clear by me. However, today, when you said this maimar, the maimar became fully clear in my head. Print it and add six lines and make the beginning of the maimar be with the dibur hamaschil of the sisohag Shavuos.'" So the Frierdiker Rebbe told Reb Mottel Cheifetz, "I couldn't hold myself in, even though it was one thirty in the morning. I came down from my bed, and I started to write." When the Frierdiker Rebbe told Reb Chatzke Feigin to print this maimar, he expressed himself and he said, "If the Chassidim would know where this maimar is taken from, it would be a completely different teshuaros." And when Reb Chatzke asked the Frierdiker Rebbe, "What's the source of the maimar? What is it?" And the Frierdiker Rebbe refused. But now we know that because of what the Frierdiker Rebbe told Reb Mottel Cheifetz. Another interesting thing about this, uh, yechidus that Reb Mottel Cheifetz had with the Frierdiker Rebbe, this yechidus happened after Shavuos. So Reb Chatzke Feigin once related that actually Reb Mottel Cheifetz came back from the United States before Shavuos. The Frierdiker Rebbe told him, "Now tell me just general regards from the Chassidim in the United States. After Matan Torah, I will hear it in detail." In other

03:02 words, in the days leading to Matan Torah, Frierdiker Rebbe was in a different world. And Reb Chatzke brought another example for that. He said, "A few years before that, after Shavuos, I once brought to the Frierdiker Rebbe a certain, uh, bill of money, and I noticed that the Frierdiker Rebbe is hearing but is not really hearing what I'm saying. And when the Frierdiker Rebbe noticed that I'm wondering about that, he explained, 'Ich hob noch nisht arop fun ibarg.' I didn't yet come down from the mountain, from Mount Sinai." In the farbrengen of Shivas Habas Tammuz taf shin chaf daled, our Rebbe once hazard this story that the Frierdiker Rebbe told somebody after Shavuos that, "Ich hob noch nisht arop fun ibarg." I didn't yet come down from the mountain. And the Rebbe himself expressed himself in that farbrengen, which is just a few days after Yud Beis Tammuz, that I still didn't come down from the mountain from Yud Beis Tammuz. Another example of the same nekuda. After Shavuos, taf res pei zayin, the Frierdiker Rebbe told the secretary, Reb Chatzke Feigin, that he still didn't read his letter that he sent to him before Shavuos. That's because I received the letter during the Shloshes Yemei Hagbola. And about Shloshes Yemei Hagbola it says, "Al tikshol isha," which means, in a spiritual sense, that you have to be separated from isha, which means you have to be separated from mekabel, from receiver. And then the Frierdiker Rebbe went on to explain to Reb Chatzke that

04:26 now we're coming from Ma'amad Har Sinai and explaining the tremendous taynog that there is from being in Har Sinai. And Reb Chatzke Feigin explained to the Chassidim that despite the fact that that was the year of the Frierdiker Rebbe's arrest, and even though the Frierdiker Rebbe was very heartbroken from the coming arrest 'cause he knew it's coming, you couldn't tell any pain on the Frierdiker Rebbe at all from the tremendous taynog from the Ma'amad Har Sinai. Reb Shmuel Witen once said that the Frierdiker Rebbe actually said to Reb Chatzke Feigin that, "The fact that it looks like things are good by me, it's not because things are actually good, it's just because of Ma'amad Har Sinai." The chosidim of the Rebbe Rashab used to come into the room of the Rebbe Rashab and hazard the maimar back to the Rebbe Rashab, and the Rebbe Rashab would fix mistakes, and they would use that as opportunity to ask shailas on the maimar and to get biurim from the, from the Rebbe Rashab. Reb Mottel was one of the chosidim, and on Shabbos Shuva, taf res samech vav, he came out of the Rebbe Rashab's room in the end of the chazara, and he started to dance from simcha. So the Chassidim told him, "Reb Mottel, it's true that the rosh teves of Shabbos Shuva, which is shin taf, is also the same rosh teves as Simchas Torah, but it's not Simchas Torah. Why are you dancing so much?" So Reb Mottel said, "You're right, but when

05:46 you hear such biurim from the Rebbe, how can you not dance?" On the night of vav kislev taf res pei tes, Reb Mottel and Reb Chatzke Feigin were the aidim by the shtar hatnoim of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin by their chosona. And for Pesach taf shin, Reb Mottel is the one who sent matzos To the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin, our Rebbe and the Rebbetzin, who were then in Paris by the request of the Frierdiker Rebbe. A year later, vav tammuz taf shin alef, the Nazis, Imach Shemam, conquered Riga, and they killed the Yidden in the city, amongst them, Reb Mottel Cheifetz. We'll finish off with a heart-taking nigun, a famous nigun. It is found on Nichoyach, the fifth volume.