ר' שאול בער זיסלין וניגון הנרות הללו

00:07 Reb Shaul Ber Zislin was from the first mimim in Tomchei Tmimim. He learned by the Mashpia Reb Shmuel Granum. Later, in the year of taf res ayin, he was appointed to be the menahal and the mashpia in the branch of Tomchei Tmimim in Ptsedrin. And many of the famous Tmimim were his mechunachim, amongst them Reb Shlomo Cheaim Kessler, Reb laser Karasi, Reb Yisroel Jacobson. In taf res ayin zayin, he became the Rav in Chernika, and in taf res pei gimmel, which was already in the fifth Rebbe's times, he was the Rav in the city of Ursha. On zayin sivon taf res tsadi daled, he was oler to Eretz Yisrael, and he became a Rav of a neighborhood in Tel Aviv called Mea She'arim. Not the Mea She'arim from Yerushalayim, but the one in Tel Aviv, and he was the Rav of the shul called Beis Shlomo. It was once, it was a placing of the corner store ceremony, the havdalah seven apina for the building of k-- the, the building that was called Beis Tikvha in Kfar Chabad. That building was going to be built in order to be able to, um, host kids who were saved from the missionaries. So at the ceremony, Reb Shaul Ber Zislin spoke, and he shared the following story. He says, "Years ago, a Hasid told Reb Itzik Omelor, which was one of the Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe, that he's suffering a lot from Machshava Zaris. But then the Hasid said to Reb Itzik Omelor that 'When I

01:34 learn Chassidus, that, uh, gives me the koach to push the Machshava Zaris away.' So Reb Itzik Omelor told that Hasid," says Reb Shaul Ber, "Listen, my friend. In the king's palace, you have all the utensils that are found in a regular house. The only difference is that in the king's palace, they are made out of much more expensive materials. There's also a broom and a shovel in the king's palace, but the broom and the shovel in the king's palace is made out of silver and gold. Imagine a person taking this fancy schmancy broom and shovel of the palace and taking it out to the street and start to sweep regular garbage on the street with it. And the nimshal is," says Reb Itzik to this Hasid, "that is that what Chassidus was nizgal for? Chassidus is all here in order to chase away your dirty Machshava Zaris." So Reb Shaul Ber Zislin shared that at the event, and he cried and he said, "Who would imagine that one day Chassidus will be used to what? To save kids who are kap by missionaries. Is that what Pnei Moshe Torah was revealed for?" But then he continued and he said that, "However, if that's how the HaShem made it, that the only way to save these kids is with Chassidus, so that's what has to be done." In one of the, the farbrengens in Tel Aviv, Reb Shaul Ber Zislin described the discussion of Reb Asher Nicolaiver to the Rebbe Rashab. And he related, in the

02:57 first years of the Rebbe Rashab, the older Hasidim had a whole discussion once which ma'amarim they should learn. One big Hasid said that they should, uh, devote themselves to learning Imrei Binah from the Mitel Rebbe. Another Hasid, says Reb Shaul Ber, was, uh, pointing out the unique ma'amarim of the Tzemach Tzedek, and another Hasid was saying they should learn the ma'amarim of the Rebbe Maharash. Reb Asher Nicolaiver was there then, and he wasn't from the biggest maskilim either. However, he was very devoted to the Rebbe, to the Rebbe Rashab, and he stood up and he said, "I don't understand what the whole discussion is about. We need to be busy. We need to live with what the Rebbe lives. If the Rebbe is saying ma'amarim every Shabbos and that's what the Rebbe lives with, so there is no discussion. That, that's what we have to live with. That's what we have to learn." Another story that, uh, Reb Shaul Ber Zislin related that he heard from the Mashpia Reb Shmuel Granum about going into Yechidus, and he said like this: "In the generations of the Alter Rebbe and the Mitel Rebbe, the people who walked into Yechidus were divided to three groups. First, those who had shailas in avodas Hashem were allowed in. Afterwards, when they finished, the second group went in. Those are the Hasidim who came to ask Halacha shailas. And then at the end, those who had regular gashmius dikke shailas were allowed in." That was the seder. First avoda, then Halacha,

04:17 then all the gashmius dikke shailas. And in the generation of the Tzemach Tzedek, all the borders, all the limits were broken, and there was no seder and was a, was a chaos in that there was no order to who goes in first. So Reb Shmuel Granum said, says Reb Shaul Ber, that the Tzemach Tzedek once spoke about it. How come that the gashmius is coming before the ruchnius? So the Hasidim actually turned to the Tzemach Tzedek and they asked if they could, uh, reorganize it in such a way that first would be the shailas and avoda and only then the gashmius dikke things. So the Tzemach Tzedek answered them with a mashal. He says, "When you see that the cats go up on the oven, on the fireplace to warm themselves up, that is a sign that it's about to start raining. Now imagine a fool who says the following: 'Why should I daven to Hashem for rain? Instead, let me just take the cat and put it on the fireplace.' Why is he a fool? Because he doesn't get it that the cat is-- doesn't bring the rain. The cat is just a sign about the rain. So too over here," says the Tzemach Tzedek, "the seder in Yechidus is just a sign and a natural consequence of the situation, of the status of this generation. In the previous generations, the Hasidim were into ruchnius. That's what they cared about mostly. And bederech mimeila, the Baalei Avoda were allowed in first to Yechidus. It

05:39 wasn't like a certain seder that was made. It just naturally happened that way. But today, Hasidim," says the Tzemach Tzedek, "are less into avoda, and, uh, therefore, naturally, the, the people with the, with the shailas and gashmius get to go in first. Returning the seder to the way it was before will be similar to putting the cat on top of the fireplace, hoping that that will bring the rain." Another thing Reb Shaul Ber shared in the name of his Mashpia, Reb Shmuel Granum, that he heard from his Mashpia, Reb Avraham Jebener That each Hasid needs to have a Rebbe and a Hasidisha friend. Why do you need to have a Rebbe? That's obvious, because if you don't have a Rebbe, you're not a Hasid. Why do you need to have a Hasidisha friend? The reason is, so the friend should explain you the words of the Rebbe. The following is a story that Reb Yehoshua Munczain related. Says, "It was a little bit after my Anaf Tefillin, and I wasn't yet an expert in putting them on and taking them off properly. So it happened once that I took off my Shel Roish," says, uh, Rabbi Munczain, "before I took off the straps from the finger on the hand. Also, one night I said Krias Shema Shelamita without a yamulka. So, um, after those two things happened, I wrote to the Rebbe and asked the Rebbe for a tikkun for this. So the Rebbe answered right away that, 'You saper ha'inyan lifnei haRav moi rei

07:07 roo vishkonosoi vehu yirehu,' which means tell this to our Rav in your neighborhood, and he will tell you what to do. So the, the Rav in my neighborhood wasn't a Hasid, so therefore I turned to Reb Shaul Ber Zislin, which, uh, was in a different neighborhood. So Rabbi Zislin read the letter, and he asked me, 'Which neighborhood do you live in?' So I told him which neighborhood I live in. So he said, 'If so, you can't come to me. The Rebbe didn't send you to me.' And he didn't even wanna hear what happened. He just sent me away." And from this we learn that when the Rebbe says something, the Rebbe means every word. Another story that Reb Shaul Ber Zislin once related was once a Yugerman who was not a Lubavitcher Hasid, who was, uh, supported by his father-in-law, meaning that his father-in-law paid for his parnasa so he could sit and learn Torah. This was in the times of the Alter Rebbe. After a while, he discovered the light of Hasidis, and he traveled to the Alter Rebbe. The father-in-law got all upset, and he traveled also to Lyozno to the Alter Rebbe. And, uh, when he met his son-in-law, he saw that his yiras shamayim stayed the same, but his hasmadah in learning is not as good as it used to be. So his father-in-law went into the Alter Rebbe, and he complained, "Before my son-in-law was a Hasid, he learned more, and now he's learning less." So the Alter Rebbe answered

08:29 him, "Before your son-in-law became a Hasid, he learned for the cat, but today he's learning for the Aibishter." And he, and the Alter Rebbe explains, says, "Beforehand, uh, your son-in-law used to waste his time in his room, but whenever he heard a sound by the door, he would quickly open up the Gemara and learn 'cause he was afraid maybe it's his father-in-law and mother-in-law about to go in. But then he would open the door and see that it was just a cat. But today he's just learning for the Aibishter, and when you show up, he closes the sefer 'cause he doesn't want to learn for your sake." This is a story that Reb Shaul Ber Zislin related. Now, what's the source of the story? So Reb Mendel Morazov, alav ha-shalom, says that when his family lived in Leningrad, he was, uh, sent to learn with his younger brother in Navel, and they had a Hasidisha melamed, and every morning he told us many Hasidisha ma'asis. "So before Rosh Hashanah," says Reb Mendel Morazov, "we returned home, we, and we traveled by train. So during the trip, I liked to cause trouble, so I opened up different bedrooms on the train. In one of the bedrooms that I opened up sat a older Yid with a long white beard, and he motioned to me that I shou- that I should come close to him. Who was it? Was Reb Meir Simcha Chen. He sat me on his laps, and he asked me to tell him a

09:52 Hasidisha ma'asa that I heard from my melamed. So I told him this story that we just shared before from Reb Shaul Ber Zislin about the son-in-law, that I heard that from my melamed in Navel. Afterwards," says Reb Mendel Morazov, "I came home, and by the Shabbos seudah I caused a little bit of trouble, but suddenly my father, Reb Chaim Morazov, called me over, and he asked me to repeat the story. So I repeated the story, and Reb Shaul Ber Zislin was there by the Shabbos seudah. He was shaking back and forth, and his, looks like his face was, uh, quite excited. Afterwards, Reb Shaul Ber Zislin said by the seudah," says Reb Mendel Morazov, "that he heard the story from the rebbetzin of the Rebbe Rashab, that she said that she heard that in my name." So what it seems like that happened is that Reb Meir Simcha Chen enjoyed so much the Hasidisha chinuch and the story that he heard from this, uh, boy on the train, that he related that to the Rebbe Rashab's rebbetzin. Reb Shaul Ber Zislin related that after a few years of learning in Tomchei Temimim, he returned home to his parents' house, and on Shabbos he davened b'avadah for many hours, and he stayed alone in the shul. So a certain local maskil, uh, returned to shul after he finished his seudah, and, uh, when he saw me davening b'avadah, he was quite curious to see who it is. So when he saw that it was Reb Shaul

11:16 Ber Zislin, this maskil said, "The world was about to, to be fixed, and suddenly came the, the Lubavitcher Rebbe with his Tomchei Temimim, and he pushed it off fifty years further." So when Reb Shaul Ber Zislin came to Lubavitch, he related that to the Rebbe Rashab. He said that this maskil said that the Rebbe Rashab brought the world back fifty years. So the Rebbe Rashab enjoyed it, and he said, "Not fifty years and not even a hundred years, until Mashiach will come." There was once a Yud Tes Kislev farbrengen in Tel Aviv, and in that Yud Tes Kislev farbrengen they honored a certain Rav, who was not a Hasid, to speak. He spoke, and he spoke in a way that, uh, Hasidisha ears couldn't tolerate. He said things that, uh, don't fit very well with, with Hasidis. And, uh, the crowd was getting very uncomfortable. Afterwards, Reb Shaul Ber Zislin turned to him and he said, "There are two Ma'amarei Chazal that seem to be contradicting." On one hand, it says that the woman has a bigger desire to get married than the men. From there, we see that the recipient, the mekabel, has a bigger taiva to be mekabel than the mashpia. But on the other hand, it says that more than the calf wants to nurse, the cow wants to nurse him, meaning that a mother wants to feed more than the baby wants to, to eat. So from there, it seems like the mashpia, the one who-- the giver has a bigger

12:43 desire. So which one is it? So the answer is, said Reb Shaul Ber to that Rav, that depends if you're talking about a behema or a human. When it comes to a human, so then the human desire is to receive, to be mekabel, to hear what the other one has to say. But a behema, a behema doesn't wanna be mekabel for anyone. A mekabel-- a behema just wants to, to share with everyone its opinion. We'll finish off with a nigun on the Hanerot Halalu, and it's, uh, it's an old Lubavitch nigun. Interestingly, there is a nigun from Reb Aaron Haritonov on Sheshones Yaakov on Purim, which if you listen to that, you notice that the first half of this Hanerot Halalu and the first half of that Sheshones Yaakov are basically identical, just the second half changes. So I'm not sure, I'm not sure what's the source of this nigun. Maybe Aaron Haritonov made this one too, or maybe not. We'll play it sung by Reb Dovid Horowitz Shayechya. Hanerot Halalu, anu madlikin. Al ha'tzuot zeh zal, al hanisim ve'al haniflaot she'asita la'avoteinu bayamim hahem bizeman hazeh. Al yedei kodeshim. Ve'chol shemoin asim mei'chanukah, Hanerot Halalu, kodesh kodashim. Ve'ein lanu reshut lehishtamish bahen, ve'ein lanu reshut lehishtamish bahen, ela lirashon bilvad. Ya da da dai, la da dai, la da da. Ma da da dai, ya yi ram. Ya da da da da da, ma ma ma. Ti da da da da da da da. Kedei, kedei lehodot, lehodot lehallel leshimcha hagadol. Lehodot lehallel leshimcha

15:29 hagadol. Lehodot lehallel leshimcha hagadol. Al nisecha ve'al niplosecha yeshuasecha