Ep. 37 // "The Need To Move Forward" w/ Mrs. Toby Hecht

00:00 Speaker 1 Having a Cheshbon Hanefesh night is not to say I'm gonna just sit in this, in this kind of maybe this somewhat toxicity that I've surrounded myself with, with my anxiety, but no, there's a movement to push forward, to push past it, and that is the strength of the human being. That's, that we should never forget that. We should never feel that just 'cause I'm struggling that I'm not connected.

00:21 Speaker 2 Right.

00:21 Speaker 1 Deeply. In fact, maybe I'm even more... Maybe I'm deep- I, I'm more connected because, uh, because I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about it and I'm, I'm, I'm struggling to reach it.

00:34 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2024. My name is Benjie Afsin, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. We are here with Mrs. Tovi Hecht. Tovi is the director of Shabtai Global Jewish Leadership Society in Yale, at Yale.

01:03 Speaker 1 Based in Yale.

01:04 Speaker 2 In, based in Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. I've had the honor of working with Sha- with, with the Hechts, uh, Shmulie and Tovi and Shabtai over the past few years. Um, it's been a great, great honor, very interesting projects that we worked on together, and, um, and I'm very, very happy to have you on the podcast.

01:24 Speaker 1 I'm honored.

01:26 Speaker 2 So let's, let's begin without my opining. Um, we'll get to that later, I am sure, in due course.

01:33 Speaker 1 Okay.

01:33 Speaker 2 Um, we, we were once at the end of a convers- at the end of a project or the end of a shoot, we were talking, and I forget how the conversation got to it, but it, it came to somehow to describing your recollection of Gimmel Tammuz and what that was like. Um, I think maybe we could start there, or maybe you wanna give a short intro of where you grew up and where you come from and, uh, and get back to that. But that was, that was kind of the launching point for this conversation.

02:04 Speaker 1 Yeah. It was, I mean, we were in conversation about 30 years post-Gimmel Tammuz, and I think that's kind of where we led off into a conversation somehow involving my personal experience and just thinking about where we are today in general as a community. Uh, I grew up in Seattle, Washington. Um, my parents went on

03:52 Speaker 2 Right

03:52 Speaker 1 ... where, where we went.

03:54 Speaker 2 So, so one of, one of the things that's been interesting, I've-- I mean, it's very, it's been a few weeks since I published the last episode, but where the conversations had left off back then was different people were sharing, they were all guys-

04:07 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

04:08 Speaker 2 ... um, of different ages. Some of them are probably your age, a bit younger, a bit older, give or take, um, describing their recollection of Gimmel Tammuz. But in a way, to me, more interesting or, or just as interesting and just as important, their recollection of the years around Gimmel Tammuz.

04:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

04:26 Speaker 2 Um, because Gimmel Tammuz in a way is, is too big of, t-t-too big of a moment to, to, to understand in isolation.

04:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

04:36 Speaker 2 Or even in any way. And you kinda need to-

04:39 Speaker 1 A background

04:40 Speaker 2 ... s-s-step away from the sun a little bit to kind of describe w-we know what's illuminated by that. And so, you know, you, you, you just, you mentioned earlier that you had decided for whatever reason to come spend your senior year high school in Crown Heights. You came into Crown Heights at a very tumultuous-

05:02 Speaker 1 Yeah

05:02 Speaker 2 ... time. How did, how did you, how do you describe those years? Like, from, I haven't yet ever just talked to someone who was in, seeing it from Bais Rivkah from the girls or, you know. Yeah, you were a girl back then.

05:16 Speaker 1 So you have to understand, um, you know, I didn't come to New York that often. We came a few times, maybe, you know, a year-

05:28 Speaker 2 Right

05:28 Speaker 1 ... if we were lucky. And, uh-

05:31 Speaker 2 Seattle's the furthest point almost to get-

05:33 Speaker 1 I mean, it's pretty far west, yeah.

05:35 Speaker 2 I mean, does it get any further?

05:37 Speaker 1 Um, no.

05:37 Speaker 2 Alaska.

05:38 Speaker 1 Yeah.

05:38 Speaker 2 But, but-

05:39 Speaker 1 Ala- yeah

05:39 Speaker 2 ... but outside of Alaska, it's the furthest it gets, right?

05:41 Speaker 1 Yeah. It is pretty f- I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's a totally different... The Northwest is, um, now it's different, but when I was growing up, you know, it was a very, uh, distinctly Northwest place, uh, to live and to grow up. And, you know, Brooklyn, my grandparents lived in Brooklyn and in Crown Heights, and so we would come, and it was very, very exciting to come to Crown Heights. And- For multiple reasons, depending on why we were coming, but mostly, um, you know, to come and to go buy, you know, dollars. And even though we had, um, come to Crown Heights actually as a school when I was in Chicago, we came actually for, I think, once or twice. Um, I believe, um, maybe the second time was, um, for Yichvat, and I think that's possibly the last time I might have gone, um, by the Rep for Dollars with the whole school, uh, with our brilliant principal, Mrs. Turin. Um, and I, you know, coming in, even though after, um, after the Rebbe had his stroke, I just as-- a- and maybe this is just, um, I'm just speaking from my experience, obviously. But it-- there didn't seem for me to be a sense of gloom even coming into Crown Heights that September. Um, I don't remember that. I don't remember feeling-- There was definitely a, you know, uncertainty but about-- and like you said, tumultuous, but I don't remember there being, like, this gray, um, environment or gray zone. It was, I'm

07:17 Speaker 1 a young girl. I was seventeen. I was coming to a big school from a small school. I was acclimating. That was difficult. Um, Base Rifka was a completely different environment from my very, very small school in Chicago. I was-- to put it, you know, to give you background, I was the second freshman class. So by the time I left, I mean, it was a little bigger, but it was a small school, and just navigating a much larger school was kind of the focus of, of almost the whole year. And so this idea that in the background, you know, they're-- you're going to seven seventy and you're hoping to see, um, the Rebbe come on the balcony and kind of the experience of what would happen, and I t-- I wasn't thinking too much about it in the moment.

08:04 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

08:04 Speaker 1 You know, when I reflect back now, I think, wow, just, you know-- And I, and I feel-- It's not that I can-- I forgot my emotions then. You know, emotions tend to bring you back to places. So it's not-- I just don't remember feeling this kind of really depressing time even though clearly there was, I mean, there was a lot going on emotionally for a lot of people. You know, one of the things I re- I remember being in seven seventy, and it was packed, and the Rebbe was, um, was wheeled out onto the balcony. And, you know, the crowd would sing for what felt like hours, and only would kind of-- they would kind of, you know, mellow down and then pitch again as if the Rebbe made any form of movement that would kind of, you know, bring the, the, the, the, the mood in seven seventy to, like, another pitch. And so, um, as a young girl who didn't necessarily spend so much time living in the orbit of Crown Heights, you know, I knew it was, uh, it was, it was really... it was hard to see kind of that pitch up and down mellowness. Mellow to pitch, depending on, you know, what, what was happening, um, on the balcony. And so that you noticed, that you just felt like there was kind of a, a desperation, I guess, from the peop- from, from the Hasidim, but I don't-- I didn't internalize it as depressing.

09:29 Speaker 2 Hmm.

09:29 Speaker 1 And it, you know, I was seventeen. I had a lot of things going on. But it-- there wasn't even a, a thought of what's, what's, what could happen tomorrow. We were just kind of living in this moment.

09:41 Speaker 2 Yeah.

09:41 Speaker 1 Does that make sense?

09:43 Speaker 2 No, it makes a lot of sense. Uh, it's, uh, it, it makes sense. It makes sense, like, in its own world. It doesn't-

09:50 Speaker 1 I mean, we were saying the Rebbe's capital every day.

09:52 Speaker 2 Right.

09:52 Speaker 1 We all knew it by heart in the big, um, space in Base Rifka where we davened. I mean, there was just-- this became just regular and kind of like a normal-

10:03 Speaker 2 Right. Right. No, like-

10:05 Speaker 1 Day-to-day.

10:06 Speaker 2 Right. Um-

10:07 Speaker 1 Versus if you-- if I could just say-

10:09 Speaker 2 Sure

10:09 Speaker 1 ... when I used to come to Crown Heights before the Rebbe had his stroke, and if there were, I mean, as a kid or even as, you know, the frenzy of a Shabbos for bring-in, what would-- what was that like? It was amazing, and that was just, like, popping in for whatever it was, whether it was just a w- you know, a Shabbos, and this, you know, running home to say Kiddush and running back. Um-

10:30 Speaker 2 The girls would do that too?

10:31 Speaker 1 I mean, I was just-- we were just part of it. I don't know if I always made it back to seven seventy, but y- uh, you were in this movement that was just con-- this kind of unbelievable, like, excitement and movement and anticipation. So even if I wasn't directly going into seven seventy for everything, you were part of this kind of caught up in this, oh, this... I don't know how to describe it, but, uh, uh-

10:57 Speaker 2 So you didn't feel that that was missing when you came back in, in, in ninety-four?

11:01 Speaker 1 You-- Of course. Of course, you felt it was missing, but it, it was almost like it didn't, it didn't seem, it, it didn't seem as the catastrophe that, like, I think about it now, that it must have seemed like a cat-catastrophe. But, you know, maybe I, I'm an optimistic person. M- my parents weren't. There was a lot of things going on in the background, but a lot of it just seemed kind of normal frenzy with a little bit more of an edge to it. But I wasn't-- I just didn't focus on that.

11:33 Speaker 2 Hmm.

11:33 Speaker 1 And so... And it didn't feel like there was a focus in school on that either.

11:39 Speaker 2 Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, which, yes, is my video production company. At Yuvala Media, we believe in the same principles as this podcast. Namely, that in our communities, there are just so many stories worth sharing and worth telling, and that in the end, a good story is always so much more. Over the past few years, we have helped dozens of nonprofits, companies, and families share their very precious stories with the community. If you're looking to share your story Please don't hesitate to reach out to us for a free consultation at hello@uvlamedia.com. Again, that's hello@uvlamedia.com. A link can be found below as well. For now, let's get back to the podcast. It's, it's interesting, it's very interesting because the, you know, the, the guys that I speak to, they talk about feeling like, um, the rug was pulled out from under their feet. Like, th- there's, you know... To separate, to, to break it down a little bit, I can understand, or I believe people when they tell me, 'cause there's no reason for me not to believe them, that even though their Rebbe had a stroke, and in '94, you know, their Rebbe wasn't, it wasn't getting better. It's very obvious. Certainly in hindsight, but I think pretty much then too.

12:54 Speaker 1 Yeah.

12:55 Speaker 2 Um, you know, and it was only a few months later that the Rebbe stopped coming on the balcony at all.

12:59 Speaker 1 Yeah.

13:00 Speaker 2 Right? Um, you know, so I can understand when people saying, look, like, in hindsight you look back and you're like, you know what's gonna happen, so you're like, then you realize you only had a few months, but you don't feel that way in the moment. I believe that, right?

13:14 Speaker 1 Yeah.

13:15 Speaker 2 Um, but that's always, that's always the, the, the kind of the mystery of life, that it's alive until it isn't, and, and people are like that with their family members and so on.

13:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. How did I miss it? Or, or-

13:30 Speaker 2 You, you don't think, you don't see it... It's not possible for it to be over until it's over, 'cause there's no, there's no gray space. It's, it's on and then it's off-

13:37 Speaker 1 Yeah

13:37 Speaker 2 ... and you can't imagine it.

13:38 Speaker 1 I mean, look, even if you're preparing.

13:40 Speaker 2 Right.

13:40 Speaker 1 Even if there were people that were preparing, which I assume there were, you, it, the, the, the possibility or even the possible reality, it, it still doesn't compute.

13:53 Speaker 2 Right. No, so I believe that. But I still, but I think people still understood that something, like, like the, the, the world that had been until then had been, was over, right?

14:06 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. So I did not feel that way as a k- I just... At... That... You know what? Baruch Hashem, all of my grandparents were alive. I hadn't experienced-

14:17 Speaker 2 Right

14:18 Speaker 1 ... a death of a beloved in that sense. So for me, the, the signs, I, if they were there, I didn't pay attention to them. And I, I didn't think, just like I didn't think my grandmother would ever die you know? Like, these are certain things you don't, you really don't think about, and I, I wasn't in that space, which I'm sure plenty of adults were.

14:39 Speaker 2 Did you pick up... Was, was, you, you, you, was... I- if you didn't feel it yourself, did you feel it around you? Like, 'cause one of the, one of the things that others have described is the, the constant tehillim and the kind of the... Like, you, like what you just, you alluded to before now. You s- you spoke about the desperation. Was that, was that at all something you sensed, uh, with your parents or with older people around you, or-

15:11 Speaker 1 There was a-

15:11 Speaker 2 Was it like, was it hard to... Like, what's, what's this about?

15:16 Speaker 1 No, it wasn't like, oh. It was, there was definitely a lot of, I, I don't wanna say frenzy, but there was a kind of a quiet motion. There was like f- it was a quiet frenzy. It wasn't like this like, you know, rearing up every day, but there was a sense that something wasn't right, and obviously something wasn't right, and this was a big change and... But the, I think the change that someone at 17 would experience, and even if you're, you have feelers out from other people's emotions, this is, it was just too big. It was just too big to kind of get a handle on what everyone else was thinking, even if there was a subtle frenzy happening around you. It just, I just didn't... I think I thought I, I think I thought that everything was just gonna be okay.

16:05 Speaker 2 Mm.

16:07 Speaker 1 I don't remember feeling like what happened was gonna happen, and, and the de- you know, the sea of grief that follows something, like, I mean, none of, I don't think anybody could have been prepared for a Messi, a Dar to, to pa- you know, to pass away. Um-

16:24 Speaker 2 Right

16:25 Speaker 1 ... even if there were signals and signs, and obviously, like I said, the adults in the room were, were making plans or thinking ahead, possibly. I mean, if remembering what happened the night of, of, you know, Gimmel Tammuz, you know, things, you know, there was, I mean, it was chaos. So somebody had, somebody had to, somebody had to hold the reins to keep... You know, you, you felt in a way that there was somebody somewhat, uh, in charge, but everybody was... It was, um, I can't even describe the emotion of what happened. I can tell you what happened. I was sitting in an apart- in a basement with a couple friends, and I think it was right after Shabbos. They had a huge mirror, huge, like half the size of this, and suddenly it fell. We were not even in the room where it fell, but it crashed into what felt like a thousand pieces, a million pieces. That's what it felt like. And 15 minutes later, three people came, and one of them, to the basement, and they are holding each other up, crying hysterically, and one of them was my, one of my closest friends. And, like, I didn't understand what she was doing there, 'cause, uh, she didn't know anybody in this basement, so I was like, "What's going on?" And they told us what happened, and it was just, ugh. I can f- I see her face, and I can feel the emotion that I felt, and I'm thinking, "Oh, that's

17:58 Speaker 1 probably why the mirror..." So I'm thinking, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I'm as- I'm assuming that the mirror fell when the Rebbe passed away. Like, there was this, like, total explosion that happened physically- In, in my mind, that's how I took it. Um, I could just see it. And, um, we just all... Those sirens were on. The sirens started, and we're all running towards 770, and it's... Oh, it just felt like a, a spiritual catastrophe, if I can-- if that makes sense. Like, there was this-- obviously, there was this physical, um, reaction, but it felt like a spiritual catastrophe happening. And everybody is kind of converging on Eastern Parkway. And I remember the woman that I stayed by that year, uh, Yehudis Cohen, amazing woman. She was wheeling her stroller, her baby stroller, and she had her tambourine in the basket underneath. There were plenty of people who had their tambourines out. She had her tambourine in the basket underneath, and I just... That really struck me. She was prepared, but she was, you know, kind of, like, in this refined reaction. Um, and it just seemed like nobody knew what was going on, and there was collective devastation that I've never since experienced. Um, and everybody was crying. It was, it was, it was like this moment in-- that just, um... It's hard to articulate.

19:32 Speaker 2 Yeah.

19:44 Speaker 1 And I think for the first time, even if somebody was prepared, and I, and I know looking back, I'm in my forties now. To me then it felt like the in... N-no one pred- no one could have predicted. Who could have pred- who could have even thought, who would even allow themselves to think? And I was seventeen. There were plenty of adults and who I'm sure were, you know... Everything happened very quickly after that, so clearly there had been some thoughts about how this would hap- how the, you know, the fire would happen. And, um, it just felt that in that moment that we were, you know, instead of standing together to, like, think about this, like, as, like, Matan taught, to receive. We were all together, men, women, children, to, like, to deal with, with, with something so, so challenging. And I think for the first time I felt that day and the few days after that nobody had any answers. Nobody... It w- the sea of grief was at equilibrium. There was nobody who was above it who could say anything, and it was just, that's it. That's all it was. From my father to my brothers to, you know, me to the person standing next to me, it was just, "That's all." That's all it was.

21:22 Speaker 2 Did you speak to your parents about it?

21:24 Speaker 1 My father came in right away, and I remember sitting in my grandmother's apartment, well, her house on Crown Street. And he, he was really wonderful because I think in that moment, for any seventeen-year-old kid dealing with something so challenging, where there are no, there-- no one has an answer, no one can tell you what tomorrow will look like. And I remember sitting on my grandmother's couch, and there's a picture of the Rebbe. And I was just looking at the picture of the Rebbe sitting on the couch, and I was just crying. No one... The, the mood was just like n... It was qui-- I can't describe it, there was a certain quiet, like a silencing that, silence that kind of just fell around. And I remember asking my father, sitting there, I was like, "Ta, what are we gonna do?" And he looked at me, and I don't know if he remembers this, but he said, "I don't know." Like, meaning-- my thing was, how are we gonna get through this? That was what I was asking. And for him to say that to me, it was my father, normally you look to your parents for solutions. And you-- But there wasn't an answer, and I think I remember feeling that that was just the, that's what I needed to hear. I didn't need to s- I didn't need to hear something like, "It's gonna be all right," 'cause it wasn't gonna be all right for some time. And him, uh, admitting that to me,

22:44 Speaker 1 in a sense, as kind of the parent figure who normally tries to, like, calm the fears of children, especially in kind of catastrophic situations or very challenging situations, he was just really raw and honest with me, and it was-- I can't tell you the value of that to, to... Does that make sense? To have t- to be okay with not having an answer? 'Cause I'm not sure any answer would have worked.

23:16 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

23:18 Speaker 1 And I needed that. I needed to know that, I don't know, it's, it's new. It's new for everybody.

23:25 Speaker 2 Right. Right. You're not, you're not wrong for thinking the way that you're thinking.

23:29 Speaker 1 No.

23:32 Speaker 2 This might, this might sound like a little bit of a dumb question. I, I certainly hope it doesn't sound like a callous question, but, you know, you, you said earlier that you were a seventeen-year-old. You know, you're, you're in the swell of your life.

23:47 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

23:48 Speaker 2 Right? You're, you're about to finish high school, go to seminary. I mean, that is, you know-

23:54 Speaker 1 Yeah

23:54 Speaker 2 ...the, the-

23:55 Speaker 1 That's what I'm supposed to be doing.

23:56 Speaker 2 Right.

23:56 Speaker 1 Right.

23:57 Speaker 2 Right, right. You're, you're not, you're not yet, you're not yet settled down with responsibilities. You're a teenager. You're... We, we, we, we all know what that is. Um, and, and it's, and you're also describing how, you know, you're kind of living your life, and you're not paying so much attention or... But then you're describing to me this devastation and this emotional catastrophe and, you know, being brought to tears, and it's not-- If you're in your room cry-- If you're in the living room crying, you're not just crying 'cause you see other people crying.

24:26 Speaker 1 Mm-mm. I was by myself.

24:28 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

24:28 Speaker 1 And the, the room was dark. It was like m- it was mourning. It was, it was like we were all mourning. Like, everything felt like how you would imagine a scene of mourning.

24:36 Speaker 2 So that's my question, and I, and I, and I hope it doesn't sound callous.

24:39 Speaker 1 No. Go ahead.

24:40 Speaker 2 Uh, you know, what were you mourning? Like, if you, if you, if you... Like, what, what did you feel you were missing out on now? If, you know, you had... If, if you didn't feel like, you know... I mean, obviously, you, you, you, you, you, you, you weren't saying that it was all hunky dory or at all, but, like, it seems like you had made peace. "Okay, this is what it is. This is the situation, and I'm gonna live my life." What, what did you feel you were losing?

25:08 Speaker 1 Um, so it wasn't that I, I was living hunky dory. I think that it was just-

25:14 Speaker 2 No, I didn't get-

25:14 Speaker 1 I, no-

25:15 Speaker 2 I didn't get that you were living hunky dory, but-

25:17 Speaker 1 I think, you know, as like any 17-year-old, like, um, the depth of, you know, w- what we were looking at or w- as a community facing after the Rebbe had his stroke, it... I think that I felt somewhat cushioned by the re- the, the reaction around me. It didn't feel to me, even if there was, like I said, some tension and, you know, a certain kind of air of frenzied, there was a certain pattern that we, you know... Y- You're resilient, right? So when I remember I was in the kitchen of the people, the home I stayed with in Chicago when I found out about the Rebbe having a stroke, my father called me to tell me, and, um, you know, I thought that was terrible, but it didn't... You know, maybe this is like the altruism of the youth. Like, it, it didn't translate into where the c- ... Oh, that that might mean something really, really serious. It was just like, "Okay, we're gonna go into a new mode." And in, in no way did I think that this meant that, you know, the Rebbe could pass away. The... I, I didn't translate the stroke-

26:24 Speaker 2 Right

26:24 Speaker 1 ... and thereafter into like, oh, this is, this is the end of an era, so to speak, you know? I... So when the Re- It's like I didn't prepare for it. I didn't think about it, and I don't know if it's, you know, were people, should people have been... No, I don't think anybody was thinking that way. I think the grief that I saw that night from s- ages, all ages, um, you know, you can know something logically as an adult, and you could still just not accept that that will be an outcome.

27:01 Speaker 2 But what did the Rebbe mean to you that it would mean so much for him to pass away? I, I, I'm not trying in any way to say it's not sad, but-

27:11 Speaker 1 Okay, I hear what you're saying

27:12 Speaker 2 ... but that, but, but that kind of, you know, if, if, if you, you, you know, what, what, what, what did you, what were you losing in your life if, if you, if you were, if you were o- if you were able to live your life kind of-

27:26 Speaker 1 Right, just casually

27:27 Speaker 2 ... like a teenag- like a teenager-

27:28 Speaker 1 Yeah

27:28 Speaker 2 ... when, you know, d-

27:31 Speaker 1 Yeah.

27:31 Speaker 2 Yeah, sure.

27:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. So like what was I actually... What, what was gonna be suddenly missing from my life, you mean?

27:38 Speaker 2 Yeah.

27:39 Speaker 1 Yeah, that makes sense. Um, so, you know, growing up on Shluchas for me was not like, um, like this thing that we went to do, and that's why my parents... I, I grew... I was a satellite through and through. Like I, I loved where I lived. I loved what... I loved my life there. It wasn't like, you know, we were there a b- you know, because we went to go do something special. I, we... It was became almost like an organic part of our lives, and I could s- I think I, I speak for a lot of people who grew up in Seattle. Those, we just, we really enjoyed living there. We enjoyed what my parents, you know, set out to do.

28:19 Speaker 2 Right.

28:19 Speaker 1 Um, and we can talk about that another time, but, you know, like I remember as a, as a kid, you know, when we went to New York, it was a really big deal. Um, when we went to see the Rebbe, it was a really big deal. Um, we would have w- uh, hookups, you know, the hookup that would happen that would... We would go to the Chabad House, you know, uh, which was an old sorority house on Greek Row in University of Washington, and we'd sit and listen. You know, we'd be running around, but we would collectively, all the Lubavitchers who were in Seattle at the time, would come and listen. It wasn't like this was... This was my life. This is, wasn't like something I had to think about. I think the Rebbe in my life wasn't something I had to think about. It was like this was, I was, this is how I was raised. I also had, you know, my mother's parents who were, um, from Hungary and had survived the war and had their entree into Lubavitch. I mean, there was a lot of our life that was just kind of being Lubavitchers. The, you know, the Rebbe in our lives was just natural. So it wasn't something I had to think about why was I feeling this way or, you know, what changed when I was 17 after the Rebbe had a stroke. It was more like, it was, it wasn't, I didn't... It was an or- it was an

29:36 Speaker 1 organic kind of community in, in my mind. Does that make sense? So it wasn't like what was I missing. It was like, it's like having something you know you're absolutely gonna have, and then, so you have to, you don't, you're not thinking about having it, and then s- and then all of a sudden, that's very, very important to you.

29:54 Speaker 2 Mm.

29:55 Speaker 1 And then you don't have it anymore, and not only that, but the weight of everything that it meant to you is like an every... All the questions you may have going forward or everything that you know that your parents experienced and your grandparents experienced, like it's like a, it's like a collision-

30:14 Speaker 2 Mm

30:14 Speaker 1 ... of, of different things that you're thinking about because something's so natural in your life, you don't think about what it's gonna be like when it's not. So the, for me, the Rebbe being in our life and very involved in even the day-to-day in the sense that, you know, my, that what we were doing in Seattle and the idea, and it was just unbelievable, positive, natural part of my life. You don't think about what that's gonna look like.

30:43 Speaker 2 Sounds like you're, sounds like the finality is, is what it is.

30:46 Speaker 1 Yeah.

30:47 Speaker 2 Um, the finality and-

30:50 Speaker 1 And, and resonating with all the people that you know. It's like I was old enough and mature enough to understand what this would mean to my parents, what this would mean to my grandparents, my grandparents who were actually in New York at the time, um, they lived in LA. What this would mean to all the people that I knew had had even, you know, more time.

31:14 Speaker 2 Right.

31:14 Speaker 1 What this would mean

31:16 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, uh, uh-

31:17 Speaker 1 I mean-

31:17 Speaker 2 There were-- Go ahead, sorry.

31:19 Speaker 1 No, y- y- I mean, we n- uh, what was gonna happen afterward? What-- H- how could there be an afterward?

31:26 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah, I was about to say, I, I, it, it, it sounds like... I mean, I don't know if this is particularly original, but the image, the image, the image that's coming to, to, to my mind is, like, you have, like, a runaway locomotive train. Like, the way, the way you've been describing it the past half hour, like, you know, you have a, you have a train, and then the conductor, I don't know, has a heart attack. I don't know. And it can't run the train anymore, and now the train's speeding down the tracks at 100 miles an hour, and, you know, and there's this, like, you talk about this kind of desperate energy of trying to, like, figure out what's gonna happen to this train, and i- in, in the moment, there isn't, there isn't any thought of, like, "Oh, what's gonna happen when we hit a cliff or when we hit, like, a, a problem?" Like, you're not thinking about that. You're just-

32:14 Speaker 1 No

32:14 Speaker 2 ... you're on the train. You're so absorbed in it, and you're worried about, you know, what's, what, what are we gonna do with that? Y- y- like, you realize that, that it's kind of spinning out of control, but you don't know what to do about it, and everyone on the train is, is trying to figure something out, but there isn't, there isn't really a way to, to replace that, that conductor.

32:34 Speaker 1 Right. Especially if the conductor is, you know, somebody who's kind of conducting, in a sense, not just the train, but your life and, and-

32:43 Speaker 2 100%

32:43 Speaker 1 ... you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

32:44 Speaker 2 100%, right? And then, and then, and then w- all that energy, when that hits a cliff or that hits a f- a, a, an ending of whatever, however you wanna describe it, that, that just sounds cataclysmic.

32:59 Speaker 1 Yeah.

32:59 Speaker 2 It is cataclysmic.

33:00 Speaker 1 It is.

33:00 Speaker 2 I mean, that, that, that's what it's sounding like. It's, it's almost like it's, you know, like, sometimes I can, I can... When I-- I wasn't there. I mean, I was a little kid.

33:10 Speaker 1 Yeah.

33:10 Speaker 2 And I was in Hu- I was on the other side of the world.

33:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

33:12 Speaker 2 But, you know, s- s- one way of looking at it is, well, it was this gradual kind of coming to an end, you know. The Rebbe got... The, the Rebbe first was older. The Rebbetzin had passed away. Then the, the Rebbe had a stroke, and then had another stroke, and then he passed away. So yeah, and then the, then the question becomes, like, didn't you guys see this coming?

33:35 Speaker 1 Right.

33:36 Speaker 2 Right? And I think that's an understandable perspective, especially if you look at it from a distance and are more impartial. I don't think that's an unfair question to ask.

33:43 Speaker 1 No.

33:43 Speaker 2 I, I don't think it has... I don't think asking it is in itself disrespectful.

33:48 Speaker 1 You mean-

33:49 Speaker 2 Like, what-

33:49 Speaker 1 ... they didn't... Why, why was there such-

33:52 Speaker 2 Shock

33:52 Speaker 1 ... why weren't we... Right, why was, why was there such shock, first of all? And, um-

33:56 Speaker 2 Rebbe, Rebbe was also 92 years old.

33:58 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

33:58 Speaker 2 I think, I think, I think you can ask that question-

34:00 Speaker 1 Ab-

34:00 Speaker 2 ... without being disrespectful.

34:01 Speaker 1 Why, why would you think it's disrespectful?

34:04 Speaker 2 Many people do think that.

34:05 Speaker 1 Oh, okay.

34:05 Speaker 2 I don't think, I don't think it's disrespectful.

34:07 Speaker 1 Okay, okay.

34:08 Speaker 2 I, I, I, I think it can be disrespectful if you, if you... Or, or it can be callous if-

34:13 Speaker 1 Yeah

34:13 Speaker 2 ... you assume that everyone there w... If you're, if you're asking it with the assumption that everyone, everyone there was a bunch of idiots-

34:20 Speaker 1 No, no

34:20 Speaker 2 ... like, what do you think? You think everyone there was a bunch of idiots? You think you're smarter than everybody else? What were they... So-

34:24 Speaker 1 Fancy, we were living in a time where we thought... I mean, it was a utopia.

34:28 Speaker 2 Right.

34:28 Speaker 1 It was, it was the utopia even after the Rebbe had his stroke, so, like, it wasn't... There was, there was... Of... You know, w- why? That's a good question. I mean, I reflect, like, I, I was 17. I'm 47 now, and reflecting backwards, you're trying to think, like, kind of piece together more-

34:49 Speaker 2 Well, I think the runaway train kind of explains it.

34:51 Speaker 1 Yeah.

34:51 Speaker 2 I think the runaway train kind of explains it, where there was this, there was a sense like this train is not in our... Like, we're on this train, and it, it's going. Like, it doesn't slow down. Like there's... Or we don't have any way of slowing it down, and it's just going, and we're gonna have to go with it, right? We're just gonna go along with it. The way you're describing it, that's, that's where the image came from. The, like, you know-

35:14 Speaker 1 Or who was gonna be... Who, who-

35:15 Speaker 2 That we had to go along with this.

35:17 Speaker 1 Yeah.

35:17 Speaker 2 The way you, you mentioned, like the, like, as long as this was what was going on, okay. You know, w- you weren't... It wa- it was obviously sad or, or, or terrible to hear that the Rebbe had a stroke, but the story goes on, right?

35:29 Speaker 1 Well, I, I don't know if it's like, okay, so we're just gonna, and we're gonna, like, kind of, you know... I think the status quo changed. I don't think it was like, okay, status quo was the same. I think things... We, we moved into another-

35:42 Speaker 2 Right, but the story's going on.

35:43 Speaker 1 The story's going on. You know, the h-

35:45 Speaker 2 You didn't, you didn't, you didn't break down into crying and mourning.

35:47 Speaker 1 No. No, no.

35:48 Speaker 2 Right.

35:48 Speaker 1 I mean, it was a shock-

35:49 Speaker 2 Right

35:49 Speaker 1 ... when my father told me, but it was... It seemed to me that the adults in the room or around me had it under control in the sense that they w- didn't seem terribly concerned. And, you know, when you're young, you don't think about... You're just, you're not fully... Your brain is not fully formed or, you know, to, to understand, you know, long vision or depth so much. You're really much caught up in the time. So in the time, I didn't feel like there was an urgency-

36:16 Speaker 2 Right

36:16 Speaker 1 ... that I would be like, "What?" And, um, and I, I'm assuming there was an urgency. Um, I felt the people, at least... This is, again, all of this is just my experience. So I didn't feel, even though there was, we were... Yes, we were saying Tehillim. Yes, there were thoughts, um, of, you know, all we were focused on is the Rebbe getting better. Were there s- were there discussions about what happens if the Rebbe doesn't get better? No. Not that I, not that I was involved in, and not because it was something I was disinterested in. It was just what... My focus wasn't to think about tomorrow. My focus was to think about right now, and I think that's like... I think that that's kinda normal for a 17-year-old. Besides, you know, if I was thinking about existential crises, you know, um, d- you know, the, my grandparents being Holocaust survivors was, like, kind of, like, this very dramatic still part of my life. And so, like, thinking that, like, the people around me weren't- You know, uh, didn't seem like there was a, a... It wasn't like a, a change in the sense where, like, there's this lo- something looming over our heads. I just didn't, I didn't feel that. I didn't feel that from the people. I didn't read that.

37:37 Speaker 2 Right.

37:37 Speaker 1 It- maybe it was there, but the people around us, our teachers, our principal-

37:40 Speaker 2 No, it do- doesn't sound like it was there.

37:42 Speaker 1 No.

37:42 Speaker 2 It sounds, I mean, it doesn't sound like for you, and it hasn't sounded like that from others who I've discussed it with. It sounds like people assumed that this was the next chapter in the story, and maybe we don't know where it's going, but, you know, the story is going to write itself somehow. And, you know-

37:58 Speaker 1 Yeah

37:58 Speaker 2 ... i- in a way, I, I don't think it slowed down if... And I think it accelerated. I think the speed and the, the, the energy and the vo- just everything just accelerated and got stronger. And so-

38:10 Speaker 1 Mm

38:10 Speaker 2 ... when people ask, like, I mean, I've asked this before, I wonder it sometimes, like, w- weren't people, like, like, in a way prepared for Gimmel Tammuz? Didn't, didn't the stroke give them two years to, to get used to the idea?

38:24 Speaker 1 You mean the masses?

38:25 Speaker 2 Yeah.

38:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:26 Speaker 2 And I don't, I don't th- I think, I think it did the contrary. I think, yes, I, I think there were some individuals who were going against the grain, and you could say what you like about them, but I think they were being more realistic.

38:37 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:37 Speaker 2 But... Or they were just thinking differently. But cl- it does seem like on the, on the communal level, things did not slow down. Things got more strong. They got faster.

38:48 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:48 Speaker 2 They got more intense. And when that all slams-

38:52 Speaker 1 Yeah

38:52 Speaker 2 ... either the brakes slam or it fall- or it goes off a cliff, however you wanna describe it, uh, you're describing that cataclysm. I mean, it's just, it's just, it's just something else. It's-

39:03 Speaker 1 And you know what? There was an, there was an aftermath.

39:06 Speaker 2 Mm.

39:06 Speaker 1 And, um, you know, everybody has their own experience and, you know, even within the week after, there was almost like it just... You know, everybody my age, younger, like you were just e- You know, everybody's life experience when it comes to some kind of an event like this kind of starts to kind of get triggered, right? In general, how you were raised or, you know. At kind of our age group, at least f- in my opinion, was kinda, we kinda left on our own, own to kind of like figure it out. We weren't, there wasn't like, there wasn't... I don't think anyone could have, um... I think everybody was just in shock, and everybody was just grieving, and there was a lot of unanswered questions, and there was a lot of tumult about what's next. And so there was a moment there that you were just kind of, those, those, the last few weeks of school, we were just kind of, just kinda living, but not necessarily, there wasn't direction at all. And I, but that, that makes sense to me. Like-

40:12 Speaker 2 Oh, you were still in school?

40:13 Speaker 1 I was still in school. There were, I think we had, it was like right before the end of school.

40:18 Speaker 2 And you still had finals after Gimmel Tammuz, or they, it was just-

40:21 Speaker 1 I can't remember

40:22 Speaker 2 ... they j- give up, give up on the year.

40:23 Speaker 1 I can't remember. I can't remember. Um, but everything was like right around that time, and young people were just walking around and wandering around and just, it almost seemed like it gave people, like-

40:40 Speaker 2 Sounds like-

40:40 Speaker 1 There was a certain liberty to like figure, like try to experience this. Like there was no one corralling you into a mode of expression for this.

40:49 Speaker 2 Mm.

40:50 Speaker 1 I didn't feel that way. And it was interesting 'cause I went the next year right away to seminary, and that was an interesting experience also. Um, and it just, I think the, the takeaway from looking back and thinking about, you know, where we are today, young people today, and, um, I mean, you have thoughts about this.

41:13 Speaker 2 Yeah, that's not what we're here for.

41:15 Speaker 1 Um, I imagine for the adults there was, there was probably a lot of fear. And I think for, um, and that kind of directed traffic for a little while. You know, you think about it this way, you, you know, we have this, this unbelievable moshiach of a generation that we were, we got, we got to, we got to be around, we, we got to learn from. We were, that was directing, you know, some people, their day-to-day activities and for most people, any life changes that were happening, I mean, across like spectrum of different types of communities and different people co- coming from different backgrounds. And, you know, I look now and I think about the fact that my relationship to the Rebbe is so much more now. I think where I am 30, you know, 30 years after Gimmel Tammuz versus where I was, has just been like the landscape is so much richer and brighter, my appreciation, the depth of my understanding and appreciation for what the Rebbe, you know, for who the Rebbe is still, um, through his teachings and through, um, Baruch Hashem, all the videos that we could see and all the letters that we have, and in general, just kind of the directives that, you know, if we paid attention to, we had. We had like this manual that the Rebbe was, you know, gave us. It was pretty clear. And I think n- you know, the appreciation for everything is just grown and grown and grown and working, you

42:58 Speaker 1 know, living on campus and working with young people today, I'm just, I'm just in awe and I think about, wow, like I think about my parents who were able to have private yechidus with the Rebbe, my grandparents, and, you know, I'm so grateful that, um, I have their stories. And even if I didn't get to have that- Um, and I didn't 'cause I was too old by the time Yechidas started, so I never went in with them, um, with my parents. But just to know-

43:31 Speaker 2 You were too old?

43:32 Speaker 1 Yeah, so by the ti- I don't, I, I don't think I ever went in with my parents, so my older siblings I think went in for Yechidas with, with my parents, but I don't think that I ever did. And just like, just thinking about what the Rebbe accomplished, and I mean, the huge task after World War II, after the Holocaust, after the devastation, I'm just-- and thinking where we are today in the world, humanity in general, and the lessons and the guidance, um, that the Rebbe took from, you know, and, and gave to a, uh, delivered to a, you know, to a world that was going through so much change, this country was going through much change at the time, and it's just, it's timeless. Timeless lessons.

44:22 Speaker 2 When did you, when do you, uh, do... Are you able to point to a time or an approximate t- a timeframe where you went from this sense of catastrophe and a, uh, oh, it sounds almost like apocalypse, to, to being able to pick up the pieces? I mean, the, the, the story of the mirror is very evocative, right?

44:45 Speaker 1 Yeah.

44:45 Speaker 2 Where, you know, you have this mirror that explodes into a million, a million pieces. You know-

44:52 Speaker 1 It just fell and like shattered-

44:53 Speaker 2 Right

44:53 Speaker 1 ... out of nowhere. Yeah.

44:54 Speaker 2 Right, and it, it's almost, it almost like, to kind of riff on that a little bit-

44:57 Speaker 1 Yeah

44:58 Speaker 2 ... and like, you know, you, you basically now have this task of reassembling these... It's an impossible task in a way, of reassembling these pieces and re- you know, recreating a mirror and, and, and finding a new reflection.

45:13 Speaker 1 For sure, and I will say that that summer was hard, and the following year was very hard in Israel, um, where I went for seminary. I won't get into the specifics, but there was a lot of cross current of ideas happening.

45:28 Speaker 2 Right.

45:28 Speaker 1 And I'm very grateful. I can't... You know, I think that I had a pretty stable understanding about what, what was, what I needed to do or, um, what I thought or what my idea was about going forward. And for me, it wasn't a challenge per se to think about, "What does this mean? What are we gonna do? H-How..." Like, you know, and everybody has their own experience, and it's really important to understand that. Mine wasn't, like was... I don't, uh, I, I'm in general a positive person, so I didn't wanna sit in this grief, and I don't think that, um, the, the events that happened afterwards in my life maybe didn't allow for it. Like, you know, I just kind of, we had to... The next year was difficult, um, just kind of managing how the adults that were in my life, but let's say in, on an institutional level or an educational level, were kind of dealing with the different narratives that were happening. I'm not gonna, I won't go into detail about that, but because it's not necessary. But you can just imagine as I was, turned 18 or, you know, I had a really good foundation in Chassidus in high school in Chicago, and I, I felt like, you know, which had been an enormous comfort to me in general to learn Chassidus, to understand. And so when I tapped into, you know, Tanya, learning with my, my Tanya teacher, who was just brilliant, Mrs. Turin, uh, it just shaped my life

47:13 Speaker 1 at a, at an early age. At 14 or, you know, you just have a, an understanding of, um, w- the world and our place in it, and I think that that really helped me not fall into this despair of what's next. And at, that's what I think happened, because I don't remember feeling down or that my life was over or that, "What am I gonna do now?" Like, I just didn't feel that way. I felt... You know, I went to seminary. I came back. I went straight to work. I worked. I went back to Seattle, and I taught. And, um, just, we went on, you know, I kinda went on doing, um, what I needed to do, and then I got married shortly after and moved to campus and, uh, moved to New Haven. And I, I don't... There was a lot... You have to remember something. There was a lot of noise.

48:05 Speaker 2 How much of this do you think has to do with, with being a girl as opposed to being a, a bachur? I mean, you have, you, the, wait, the time you're describing was before you got married.

48:14 Speaker 1 Yeah.

48:14 Speaker 2 But you have, you have brothers.

48:16 Speaker 1 I have brothers.

48:17 Speaker 2 Did you, do you sense, do you, do you feel that there's a difference in how you-

48:22 Speaker 1 I-

48:22 Speaker 2 ... you both reacted to it? And then obviously, eventually, a few years later, you did get married.

48:29 Speaker 1 I think-

48:29 Speaker 2 Because the way-

48:30 Speaker 1 Yeah

48:30 Speaker 2 ... you're describing this is very, very different.

48:32 Speaker 1 Yeah.

48:32 Speaker 2 Obviously, it could just be that you're di- you know, just individually, but I'm wondering if part of it is a gender thing.

48:38 Speaker 1 I think it, I think there's two things. I think, um, I think home, the home you're raised in is very important-

48:43 Speaker 2 Sure

48:43 Speaker 1 ... and definitely has.

48:44 Speaker 2 Sure.

48:45 Speaker 1 Um, so, you know, in my house I, I don't remember focusing on the fact that the Rebbe passed away. I think w- it was, it was just, there was just motion. But again, I wasn't in Crown Heights, you know, all that much longer after I went home, and then I went to Israel. So, I think also just the foundation of, in my home was very much, um, a positive outlook.

49:15 Speaker 2 Mm.

49:15 Speaker 1 And that was extremely influential. So, I would say that the, um... What was the question?

49:27 Speaker 2 Do, do you think that there was a difference, or do you think part of it was-

49:31 Speaker 1 Oh, because I was a girl? Abso- Well, no-

49:32 Speaker 2 Well, as opposed, as opposed to being a bachur, 'cause-

49:35 Speaker 1 Yeah

49:35 Speaker 2 ... the bach- the, the, the, the male description of it that I've picked up on is far more doomsday.

49:43 Speaker 1 Yeah.

49:44 Speaker 2 Like, you know, a- and in many ways when you talk, when you talk to a guy about this, very often the conver- like there's, there's no way or the, like the conversation just stays there. It doesn't, there's no way out.

49:55 Speaker 1 Doesn't end. Yeah.

49:55 Speaker 2 There's no way out.

49:56 Speaker 1 Um, abs- you know, we talk, talking about men and women and, and, and different... I mean, of course there would be something different. I, I'm, again, I'm only speaking for myself. I don't, you know, I didn't get into lengthy discussions with other young women about their feelings in the moment, more about like what we're doing now. Um, and it wasn't a focus. And I think that obviously the yeshiva is, you know, I have kind of in her five boys, it's very different, the intensity-

50:24 Speaker 2 I'll give you an example.

50:25 Speaker 1 Yeah.

50:25 Speaker 2 I'll give you an example. Like boys camps sing for years after s- but, but especially in those years, songs about missing-

50:33 Speaker 1 Yeah

50:33 Speaker 2 ... a rebbe.

50:33 Speaker 1 Yeah.

50:33 Speaker 2 Was that something that girls were doing?

50:35 Speaker 1 Girls, um-

50:36 Speaker 2 Did girls ca- did, did that resonate? Was that part of the curriculum?

50:41 Speaker 1 I know that they, they did and maybe still do. Um, I didn't do a lot of sleepaway camp. I worked in Gan Yisroel, Seattle, which I loved. I went for one year-

50:52 Speaker 2 Fair enough

50:52 Speaker 1 ... before, so I was busy, you know, in, in running camp in, in Seattle, which I loved. Um, and so I think the, I think the... I, you know, it made probably a lot of bochurim feel very vulnerable, I'm assuming, and I think that because th- their, their whole, you know, their weltanschauung in yeshiva, I think the, the way from what I see the intensity and the connection and is, is very, um, at least f- the way I see it is maybe it's much more focused. And I think the schools that I went to, in general, um, were, w-were actually focused. I mean, we, we, we learned so much, but I feel like maybe they weren't equipped maybe. There was like, I mean, like many people weren't, but maybe this was for some of them, I don't know how old some of these people that you're talking to, for something like this to happen, it's this kind of emot- that, that required an emotional response because it was so devastating and how to navigate that. You know? So women or, or girls are very, you know, are maybe more comfortable with that, that side of expression, the emotional side and, you know, tears and feeling like all sorts of things is kind of natural.

52:19 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

52:19 Speaker 1 I'm just, I'm totally speculating here. And I think for boys that were much more focused and driven, like to have something that, um, also may have been tied into who they were to the, who their, their identity in a very specific way, um, you know, that was really hard. And I think what was even more challenging was the aftermath, which I think was possibly nobody was equipped to help young people through this very challenging time, especially young, you know, boys in yeshiva who maybe were, were, were working so hard towards, towards a specific goal. And then to have something like this happen is, you know, you'd have to be very equipped to handle massive, many young people, especially bochurim, like I said, in this kind of milieu, deal with, with this enormous emotional like eruption.

53:13 Speaker 2 Was it something that you and your friends discussed in seminary? Was it, was it-

53:17 Speaker 1 I think we discussed more like the... I was in a seminary where there were a lot of different types of people with a lot of different viewpoints and different backgrounds. And I didn't harp. We didn't harp on it. I didn't harp. I, we, we... It was my fifth year away from home. I knew what it was like to be away from home, to be with people with different opinions and different lifestyles and certain way or different, you know, ex- background experiences. So I, I-- it wasn't something that I was gonna get involved, but there were, there were, there was an overarching kind of feeling in my school about kind of two different types of, I guess, narratives in the aftermath. And, um, I just didn't... I guess maybe some wisdom, early wisdom, I just didn't engage too much. I was-- It was too, it was, it was too, um, it was like just, I wouldn't say a danger zone, but it was like this, you know, it was too raw. I mean, this is like literally September. I mean, that whole-

54:24 Speaker 2 Right

54:24 Speaker 1 ... year, it was just raw. No one was gonna... I, I got into one long discussion with a teacher. Um, I was trying to understand, um, kind of the motivation of his teaching, and I, it just, I, I think I figured out that this is, this is, this is, we're living in a moment where people are just grappling. And so I, we, we didn't get into long serious discussions of what does this mean? What's gonna happen? How are we gonna live our lives? How do we, um... what's our path forward? You know, we're, w-we're this generation that kind of feels like, I don't want to say, not, you know, Hasve Shalom, but not orphaned, but like, we don't have that same guidance that our parents had. I, I just, I never went down that track. I, I just didn't. Um-

55:18 Speaker 2 And, and you felt like your friends did, or it was just-

55:20 Speaker 1 Um, it wasn't very apparent.

55:25 Speaker 2 So what, what I'm driving at, what I'm driving at is not, is not to interrogate-

55:29 Speaker 1 Oh, that's fine

55:29 Speaker 2 ... what was going on in your, in your seminary. No.

55:32 Speaker 1 Yeah.

55:33 Speaker 2 I, I, I, and I also don't wanna try to build a whole theory off, off, you know, a particular experience 'cause like you said, it w- a lot of it was individual to you. But, you know, you made an interesting point before, and I, you said it was a speculation, but it does make sense, which is that, you know, stere- stereotypically, but this is also a real thing, is that girls And women in general will, are, are, are built to, to be in touch with their emotional side, right? And it comes more naturally. It's more intuitive to them.

56:13 Speaker 1 Yes.

56:14 Speaker 2 Right? Uh, we're not going into better or worse judgments here-

56:16 Speaker 1 Mm

56:16 Speaker 2 ... but that's just how it is. Whereas with men, very often when an, a powerful emotion grips them, they will try to rationalize what is it? How do I, you know, how do I understand it? Try to move away from that emotional feeling to understanding it and, and building a construct to deal with it.

56:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

56:37 Speaker 2 Right? Obviously, there are exceptions on both sides.

56:40 Speaker 1 Right. Of course, of course, of course.

56:41 Speaker 2 I'm not, I'm not interested in that hornet's nest, no. But, but, but I, you know... So it's a, to me, it's an interesting, um, perspective because it does explain to me, um, what I'm seeing, at least anecdotally on this podcast, but I've also, I've also had conversations outside this podcast. And, you know, it's, a lot of times, it's like you'll see guys talking about stuff and, like, arguing about how to understand Chabad and other Um tamas.

57:10 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

57:11 Speaker 2 And if they're married, their wives are sitting there like, "What are you guys going on about? What is it?"

57:15 Speaker 1 Right.

57:15 Speaker 2 "What, what are you even talking... Like, what is it? Like, like, this is what, like this is what happened. It was sad. End of story."

57:21 Speaker 1 Right.

57:21 Speaker 2 "What's this, what's this, what's this overcomplication?" And then the guys in turn will turn around, and they're like, "What do you mean? You don't under- Like, what do you mean? There's all this. What do you mean? Of course th- there's all this. We can't just, we can't just, just move on and, and, and or just ex- uh, absorb it, uh, emotionally and move on. There's so much to it." And, you know, besides pointing that out as just an interesting s- you know, s- s- sociological observation, I think it has real-life implications in the sense that, right? I mean, there was always a, a, a, a male and female experience of being a Lubavitcher, and yet despite those differences, people would get married and figure it out 'cause that's just how you, that's how human beings are. There's a male experience, a f- a female experience. We get married, and we figure it out. We try to figure it out. But here, on one hand, it's the same like everybody else, where people are just trying to f- understand each other, but there is a, there is a gulf that opens up, a gulf that opens up between the men and women that probably didn't exist before. And one wonders if, if, if that gulf was something that was ever, like, adjudicated, ever, ever explored.

58:37 Speaker 1 Probably no. No, it probably wasn't. And I think sometimes you're still... I mean, you know, you think of, okay, 30 years, and you're thinking, okay, so what happened in those 30 years? And, uh, for some people, they, they don't... You know, it's like reflecting back, and you're, and just because you went, you go through an experience and never have closure. I mean-

58:56 Speaker 2 Right

58:56 Speaker 1 ... and, I mean, we have to think about... And, and I think that that is okay. I think that that's not grounds to dismiss, um, feelings, but it's also not grounds to say I'm, I'm gonna stay here in these feelings.

59:10 Speaker 2 Well, it's okay to not have closure?

59:11 Speaker 1 N- I mean, I think it's okay that, that it happened, meaning-

59:14 Speaker 2 Right

59:14 Speaker 1 ... I think that you have to, one has to almost, like, respect the, the, the enormity of what happened and tr- and transpired in our generation. And, you know, it, it's, there's a lot of emotions. It's a big ask for two things. It's a big ask to think that you're just gonna get closure, and it's a big ask to think that there is anybody who could help you find closure. Because on, on many levels, as much as a, it was a collective experience, we are individuals, and individually, we react differently to things. Um, you know, you can point out the different disti- distinctions between men and women or young women and young men. Um, that's one of it, and then you can personalize even those. And, um, it's okay. I think we could say today, listening to you and hearing what you're saying, it's okay, um, that you don't have closure, and it's okay that you couldn't find closure, that, that, that you weren't able to get it, meaning that's how big it was. And I don't-- What I, what I think is important, and I'm seeing this with young people today that are, you know, were born within the last couple decades, um, that they need to he- I think, I think one of the takeaways that we can say now, I think we're all, you know, we're old enough, you, you and I are old enough to say this. We're adult. I think anybody who's an adult can say this. Um, it's time

1:00:49 Speaker 1 to be, you know, the shepherd. It's time for us to take the role that the Rebbe really saw in each and every one of us, and to, um, take the role, take agency within the role, and guide the next generation. That's not to say that you can't, that, you know, this, this, this situation that maybe doesn't really get resolution, this, this, this experience that ha- shaped so many people's life, um, in, in different ways, negatively and positively for whatever reason, again, personalizing it, distinctions between men and women. And it's time for us to say, "Look, we've got to... We have to find our personal way to reckon with the reality and to be the shepherd for the next generation." And I think it's really incumbent upon us more now than ever, um-

1:01:49 Speaker 2 Wow

1:01:49 Speaker 1 ... to do that. And I, you know, when I speak to young people, and I-- We had this conversation, this other conversation. Now I'm remembering how it got started that, that night. You know, I was speaking to one of my kids, and we were discussing, like, his thoughts on, um- How he feels like the, what needs to happen now, how to, how do we inspire this next generation? Which I think kind of, I think there was this fear within the adult comm- you know, aftermath, how are we going to make sure that we pass this on? W-what's the transmission process now?

1:02:29 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:30 Speaker 1 No one was thinking about transmission. They were thinking about living in the moment. Now we have to transmit for another generation.

1:02:37 Speaker 2 Mm. Right.

1:02:38 Speaker 1 Until Moshiach comes. Like, what does that look like? And I think there was so much fear in doing it right or making sure that, you know, everyone knew what they had to do that we lost, I mean, the certain understanding of what it is we were supposed to be doing to begin with, um, as Lubavitchers, and what the, the method that the Rebbe s- not only instructed us, but led by example. Um, so for me to think that young men and women today are struggling, uh, because they've instead, instead of being shepherd, like shepherd did, you know, in, in a field within the framework of Chassidus, within the framework of Halacha, there was almost like this, "You are gonna be corralled into," like very specific, I hate... I don't like to use word, um, you know, specific focus or principles that would ensure or guarantee-

1:03:39 Speaker 2 Right

1:03:39 Speaker 1 ... a future.

1:03:40 Speaker 2 Right.

1:03:40 Speaker 1 Because suddenly everybody was responsible, and the question was how, how to do it, and how to do it right, and conflicting ideas, 'cause again, this is personal and deep and-

1:03:51 Speaker 2 Right

1:03:51 Speaker 1 ... intense. And I think that, I don't know if I'm going off on a tangent, but I'm, I'm just saying going forward, which is why I think, you know, this idea of did we find closure? Is there, if or why wasn't there? I think that can be open-ended, and I'm not sure that that precludes people from being able to, to still, um, to, to be okay with that, and to also say, like, "What am I doing now?" And I think what's so, what we forget or we shouldn't forget, um, is that the Rebbe, one of, one of the, my biggest takeaways, you know, when I think about now when I try to, you know, encourage people to, um, you know, how to like, if they, you know, ask for advice on, in choices or how to live their life, you know, I think about something so powerful that I, I think I live, uh, you know, through Chassidus, but specifically through the h- the how the Rebbe role modeled, was not that you should, but you can. And it's such, when we tell young people-

1:04:57 Speaker 2 Right. Right

1:04:58 Speaker 1 ... you can versus you should, it's just, uh, uh, it's just, it's a, it's a very different direction. It's a very different focal point. It's a very, it's a, there's a, you know. So I think we're in actually, in a, a really kind of important time, like right now.

1:05:18 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah.

1:05:22 Speaker 1 I think we, like the adults, we have to take ownership, and we have to think very carefully of, of what that means.

1:05:33 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, I agree 100%. You know, it's a, in many ways I w- I would think that that is the definition of becoming an adult. You know, a- an adult isn't, isn't, uh, a- an age on your passport. It is, to me, a recognition that the cavalry isn't coming to save you because you are the cavalry.

1:05:56 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:05:56 Speaker 2 Right? And it's a recognition that in many ways, like you said that night of Yomot Tammuz, like you realize that, you know, nobody else has any better answers than you do. I mean, you can, you can ask, you can learn from other people, but the assumption that someone else is, has it figured out for you, you know, that is the, the, the myth that gets dispelled when you become an adult.

1:06:23 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:06:23 Speaker 2 You're like, adults are just, the adults, your parents, the people your parents' age, your grandparents' age, they're also full of, um, questions and concern and fear for the future, and we all have to live through that, right?

1:06:39 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:06:39 Speaker 2 Like, you know, and yeah, look, I, I, look, I, I personally agree with you very much o-on this point. You know, you look at the Rebbe, for example, even the Rebbe, and I don't like to use the Rebbe as an example to prove that I'm right, but, um, 'cause I think that's, that's something, that that's a technique that's v- often abused. So that's not my point here. It's more you look at it just, just you, you, you look at it from, from, from, from afar-

1:07:07 Speaker 1 Yeah. Zoom out

1:07:07 Speaker 2 ... and, and, you know, the Rebbe went to the Ohel on a regular basis, and I think with increasing frequency over the years. Um, that doesn't sound, that doesn't look like a... So, you know, the Rebbe was communing with the previous Rebbe. I understand, but, you know, Tzadikim commune in ways that I don't underst- uh, none, that none of us understand. So the idea that we suddenly understand that it had to be this way, that, that, that's not true. We, we don't, we can't read one way or another. And at the very least, there's also a reading where the Rebbe went to the Ohel to be near his father-in-law. In other words, he didn't get over it.

1:07:47 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:07:47 Speaker 2 He never got over it.

1:07:49 Speaker 1 No.

1:07:49 Speaker 2 To the point that he had his stroke there, meaning with his last moment of being able to stand on his two feet, that's where he was, and maybe that's where he had to be, right? And I, I don't know. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't know if, how often the Rebbe would go to the, to her father's Kever. I don't know. Meaning I don't know that, I don't know how many sitting with the previous Rebbe went so often to the previous Rebbe's Kever. And I don't know how-- I don't think it's, was so common with the previous Rebbe and for them to go to their father or predecessor's chamber so often. Whatever the case is, the Rebbe went extremely often, which does not seem to be the behavior of someone who is, you know, figured it out and, and moved on, right? I mean, we take it so much for granted, but, like, the, the Rebbe would answer so many people, especially in the later years-

1:08:45 Speaker 1 Ask him

1:08:46 Speaker 2 ... ask

1:08:46 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:08:46 Speaker 2 Right? And it's like, it's like that kind of just part of the lingua franca at this point. Eh, you know, that's what the Rebbe was saying a bracha, and-

1:08:53 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:08:53 Speaker 2 ... of course, there's, like, this kind of understanding where the Rebbe's saying a bracha, but he's-- but the way he says a bracha is-- No, he's literally saying, "I'm going to take this thing, and I'm going to stand for hours at the aisle, and I'm gonna take these, these, the, these bags and bags of letters-"

1:09:06 Speaker 1 Letters, yeah.

1:09:06 Speaker 2 "... and I'm gonna read." You know, and, uh, you know, maybe I get torched for this reading, but I think there is a level of reading here. It might not be the only level, but there is a level of reading here where the Rebbe is saying, "I don't have the answers, but here's where I ask my questions."

1:09:23 Speaker 1 You know-

1:09:24 Speaker 2 I, I don't know. I-

1:09:25 Speaker 1 Right.

1:09:25 Speaker 2 Anyway.

1:09:25 Speaker 1 We, we, we, we don't know, but, I, I mean, the image or the optics look that way certainly, right?

1:09:32 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:33 Speaker 1 Um, I'm, I'm also always struck by that the Rebbe was very clear to write that.

1:09:37 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:37 Speaker 1 I'm gonna, you know, ask him. But I, I, I think that, you know, I don't know what you're allowed to ask what you're not. I mean, I-

1:09:44 Speaker 2 I, on this pod-

1:09:45 Speaker 1 I'm not part of the- I'm not part of that, that... I, I don't-

1:09:47 Speaker 2 On, on this podcast you're allowed to ask anything-

1:09:49 Speaker 1 ... prescribe

1:09:49 Speaker 2 ... but I can-

1:09:49 Speaker 1 Yes

1:09:49 Speaker 2 ... I cannot, I cannot protect you from, from

1:09:52 Speaker 1 From ire. Uh, no, I, I, I, I think that, I think that, um, I think that there's n- there's... I don't, I don't h- disagree with what you're saying, and I think that, I think it's important, um, there's so much to learn about, you know, like I said, like, you know, my, my, my son said, like, you know, "We have a manual. We have it." Like, I want... I... It's almost like what he was saying, he was so positive. He's saying, "Why aren't the adults understanding that we have the manual?" Like, I think there's this kind of this is, this is what we were talking about, kind of feeling that it, it, the, the way to transmit what it was like, who the Rebbe was and is, was kind of superimposing, um, your experience onto young people today, um, to get them to, "Oh, do you understand? This is what it was like." And then emotionally feeling or showing that how, how sad it is that they don't have this.

1:11:07 Speaker 2 Right.

1:11:08 Speaker 1 Um, and-

1:11:12 Speaker 2 There's a lot of emotional debris out there.

1:11:14 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:11:14 Speaker 2 There's no question about it.

1:11:15 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:11:15 Speaker 2 There's a lot of, there's a lot of debris, and-

1:11:18 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah. And I think, I think there's a pl- time and place for that. I think farbrengens are definitely a time to really, you know, be open and raw and, and for young people to listen. I think there's de- there's, there's a time and place for young people where they, they need to just listen because that's actually, you know, that's where kind of all this stuff happens in a way that's, I don't wanna say off the record, but it, it's the emotion, right? The emotion is allowed to be loose. That's what farbrengen is, this kind of like this, this spiritual, um-

1:11:50 Speaker 2 Right

1:11:50 Speaker 1 ... spiritual, emotional space. Um, I think, you know, just making sure that the young people feel that they have everything in their toolbox as we do, as we did, because if you, if we-- there's, you know, if we think about, you know, how, how visual, like, uh, how, how, how, um, av- almost like available there is to see and to learn what the Rebbe thought or what the Rebbe would say for guidance for young people today, aside from being able to go and ask adults who will share to think that they, they are equipped. They're gonna be okay. And I, I believe it because I think, um, I think it's true. I think that the, the Rebbe left us with a, with a, an, an enormous library of, of, of guidance.

1:12:49 Speaker 2 Right.

1:12:49 Speaker 1 And, um, and I c- I can't speak. I'm assuming you know everything. The Rebbe was meticulous in, in making sure that, you know, the footnote, everything, like if you have a question, chances are you'll find them, and I think the, the mode of the emotion behind it from the adults has to be that. We have to f- find certainty in who we are. We have to find certainty in our identity, even with all the debris, even with all the, you know-

1:13:22 Speaker 2 Certainty or strength?

1:13:23 Speaker 1 I think-

1:13:24 Speaker 2 You think certainty is cl-

1:13:25 Speaker 1 The certainty of convictions, like certainty of the strength. Certainty meaning certainty that in our identity, certainty in our hiskashrus, certainty in, in the sense that not other people's vision of your hiskashrus. I think we're pretty equipped to know what it means to-

1:13:43 Speaker 2 So you're saying-

1:13:43 Speaker 1 ... to be connected

1:13:44 Speaker 2 ... con- conviction or certainty? Because I, I, I do wonder sometimes.

1:13:48 Speaker 1 Well, s- as certain as we can be. Certainty, I think for young pe- certainty in, in-

1:13:52 Speaker 2 'Cause, 'cause certainty can mean I don't have any questions.

1:13:55 Speaker 1 No, no. I don't mean by not having any questions. You can be certain about something and have, have questions that are unanswered, but-

1:14:01 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

1:14:01 Speaker 1 ... the conviction-

1:14:03 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. Okay

1:14:03 Speaker 1 ... are there.

1:14:05 Speaker 2 Got it.

1:14:05 Speaker 1 Conviction c- has to come from y- y- a certain-

1:14:08 Speaker 2 Right

1:14:08 Speaker 1 ... s- certain kind of steadfastness.

1:14:10 Speaker 2 No, no, I understand.

1:14:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:14:12 Speaker 2 It's just sometimes certainty is, is said as, as different to conviction, and sometimes it's, it's, it's-

1:14:17 Speaker 1 No, not certainty of what's gonna happen if you do this.

1:14:20 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:20 Speaker 1 Not certainty of what's gonna happen if you don't do this. Certainty in who-

1:14:23 Speaker 2 Right, right

1:14:23 Speaker 1 ... in your identity.

1:14:24 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

1:14:26 Speaker 1 As, as not prescribed by anybody else, but prescribed literally by what w-

1:14:30 Speaker 2 Real self-confidence.

1:14:31 Speaker 1 Self-confidence, but self-confidence that was given to us.

1:14:34 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:34 Speaker 1 So it's, I mean-

1:14:36 Speaker 2 Right

1:14:36 Speaker 1 ... I feel more confident in my Yiddishkeit today than I w- was at 17 at that time.

1:14:41 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:42 Speaker 1 Right? Obviously. But, and more connected-

1:14:44 Speaker 2 Right

1:14:45 Speaker 1 ... to the Rebbe, and more grateful, and I never got to... I, I don't even know if I remember writing a letter myself to the Rebbe.

1:14:54 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:55 Speaker 1 And yet here I am more bound t- to, you know, the, the, the messaging-

1:15:03 Speaker 2 Right

1:15:03 Speaker 1 ... um, and grateful and f- and solid, like, you know, in, in that expression and grateful, most importantly grateful and thankful. Very, very, very, very thankful.

1:15:19 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:15:20 Speaker 1 That I got, that, that I got to be around it, but even I got to be around people who got to be around it, and I think that that's what we can pass on. Like, this is not... We're not trying to tell our peop- our young people, "Oi, what you missed. Oi, you weren't by the Farbrengen."

1:15:36 Speaker 2 Right.

1:15:36 Speaker 1 "Oi." That's very hard for young people today. That's, that, that doesn't sound-

1:15:41 Speaker 2 Well, I, I think it's hard. I, for, I mean, I'm not, I'm not discounting the young people. I think it's hard for ourselves. I, you know, I, I think, I think ultimately it, it comes down to, it comes down to trust. I think, I think it comes down to trust. You know, I think there was, it, you know, I'm, I'm trying to tie it to this conversation. It, you know, the way you descri- you described it earlier, where in the moment of the apocalypse or in the moment, you know, let's call it, uh, it-

1:16:15 Speaker 1 Yeah. It really is a spiritual-

1:16:16 Speaker 2 This isn't the-

1:16:17 Speaker 1 For us, this generation, absolutely.

1:16:18 Speaker 2 Yeah. In, in the moment of the apocalypse, there was this, what you described, this kind of strange sense of ba- togetherness. We're all in this together. And then as you described, as time does its thing, people kind of settled into different camps. Narratives were formed.

1:16:34 Speaker 1 Like fracture.

1:16:35 Speaker 2 Yeah, the, you know, things begin to fragment. You know, um, you know, a, a very intense experience that you share holds you together for a certain time, and then it begins to loosen, and people go their separate ways. Um-

1:16:51 Speaker 1 I... Yeah.

1:16:52 Speaker 2 Right? And, and, and I think one of the, one of the casualties that happens there is casualty to trust.

1:16:59 Speaker 1 Right.

1:17:00 Speaker 2 We stop trusting one another. Um, generations stop trusting each other, where, where parents don't trust their children to make the right decisions. Not necessarily because they, they... The, the lack of trust is not that they think their kids are bad. They think that their kids won't be able to do what they did because they don't have-

1:17:20 Speaker 1 Yeah, it's fair

1:17:20 Speaker 2 ... the same experience.

1:17:21 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:17:21 Speaker 2 Right? And so it's, it's, it's not trust that I think you're going to lie to me. It's I don't trust that you're able to do what I pulled off. This, you know, if a, if a, if a person builds a very successful business, he might not trust his kids to be able to do that on their own, and so you put safeguards in place-

1:17:36 Speaker 1 Sure

1:17:36 Speaker 2 ... and so on, right? And I think all, I think all, I think that is one of the, one of the main things that we, we contend with today when we talk about, you know, being an adult about it. You know, o- uh, one of the... A lot of times when there's, when there's a breakdown in trust, what happens is, is that people, uh, we, we... One thing is we, we don't trust a person at all, or we don't trust each, we don't trust our ability to discuss it or to negotiate it. So we'll basically hide it away and say, "Okay, we're good. We can get along, but we're just... As long as we don't talk about that."

1:18:17 Speaker 1 Right.

1:18:18 Speaker 2 That, that's-

1:18:18 Speaker 1 Right

1:18:18 Speaker 2 ... that's, that's a, that's, that's one way that distrust takes shape, right? And that can be, again, between generations. It can be, be between genders-

1:18:28 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

1:18:28 Speaker 2 ... which plays a role between husband and wife-

1:18:31 Speaker 1 Sure

1:18:31 Speaker 2 ... um, in our community that, at least that's where it would play that role. Uh, it plays roles between one, you know, one, one, one group and another group. And yeah, I think I absolutely agree that, you know, the, being an adult about it is not... And being mature about it. I mean, adult, I think maybe-

1:18:52 Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay

1:18:52 Speaker 2 ... you know, being, being mature about it.

1:18:54 Speaker 1 Right.

1:18:54 Speaker 2 Whatever. I mean, uh, that's just semantics, I think.

1:18:56 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:18:56 Speaker 2 Being, being-

1:18:58 Speaker 1 Capable really is what that means.

1:19:00 Speaker 2 Right. Right. Right. And I just feel like adult is like an age thing.

1:19:04 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.

1:19:04 Speaker 2 Like, you know, like I'm-

1:19:04 Speaker 1 I hear that

1:19:05 Speaker 2 ... I'm old.

1:19:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

1:19:06 Speaker 2 I, I think, I think-

1:19:07 Speaker 1 A certain maturity, a certain level of-

1:19:08 Speaker 2 I think we can... I, I personally think we can expect this of our teenagers.

1:19:12 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:19:12 Speaker 2 Frankly, I mean, like this idea that like we, "Oh, they're only 17, 18 years old. How can you talk to them about it?" And it's like 17, 18 years old will, kids or teenagers will act pretty much how you treat them.

1:19:25 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

1:19:25 Speaker 2 Right? You could talk to them as 10-year-olds, and they'll act accordingly.

1:19:29 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

1:19:29 Speaker 2 You could talk to them as 40-year-olds, and the same thing with 40-year-olds. You could talk to them as 18-year-olds, and some of them sadly will act like 18-year-olds.

1:19:34 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:19:34 Speaker 2 Like, like it's-

1:19:35 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:19:35 Speaker 2 ... ultimately it's... And I think that comes back to trust. Like, do we trust each other?

1:19:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:19:41 Speaker 2 Do we trust each other to, to be able to deal with a unsolvable question, right? At the end of the day in the Lubavitch story, this problem does not get solved until Moshiach comes, right? When, when he will come, and, you know, people have their kind of fixed ideas of when he must come, I don't buy into that. I mean, we, we, we believe as Yidden that Moshiach will come today, but we, it's a belief. We, we... That's where the certainty pro- problem comes up. We don't know for certain that he's coming today.

1:20:12 Speaker 1 Right. We know he's coming, though.

1:20:14 Speaker 2 Yes. Yes.

1:20:15 Speaker 1 That's the certainty.

1:20:16 Speaker 2 Right. And we believe he can come today and that he will come today, however you wanna phrase it.

1:20:20 Speaker 1 Right.

1:20:20 Speaker 2 But we don't know for certain he's coming today.

1:20:23 Speaker 1 Right.

1:20:23 Speaker 2 Right? That, that's the whole conundrum, right?

1:20:25 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

1:20:25 Speaker 2 And, and, and, and the Lubavitch problem doesn't get solved until Moshiach comes.

1:20:30 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:20:30 Speaker 2 Right? So how do we-

1:20:30 Speaker 1 You mean what, what problem?

1:20:32 Speaker 2 Well, the, the fact that the Rebbe's not here with us-

1:20:34 Speaker 1 Right

1:20:34 Speaker 2 ... or that there isn't a Rebbe. There... And, and Lubavitch always had, I mean, besides for the 10 years after Marash or, or what have you, but even then there were people that could be Rebbe. They just weren't officially Rebbe, right?

1:20:45 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

1:20:45 Speaker 2 But, but, you know, the Chassidus was always built around the Rebbe.

1:20:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:20:49 Speaker 2 There's no way to get around that. The Chassidus was not built to be post-Rebbe. Th- that was never-

1:20:53 Speaker 1 No, you're right

1:20:54 Speaker 2 ... something that was described.

1:20:55 Speaker 1 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

1:20:56 Speaker 2 And it was never something that was predicted or anticipated, but it became a fact of life in the Lubavitch world, and- In the Lubavitch world, that problem doesn't get solved until Mashiach comes. So then the question is, until that problem gets solved, as we have this problem, do we trust one another to, to figure things out? Or do we say that that problem is so big and too big-

1:21:17 Speaker 1 Mm

1:21:17 Speaker 2 ... that we basically have to avoid it, and it's like that elephant in the room that nobody talks about?

1:21:22 Speaker 1 You mean, you mean the distrust to talk about discourse or the distrust to s- trust each other that we could carry on?

1:21:29 Speaker 2 Well, yeah. No, well, you were discussing earlier about having to grow up and assume-

1:21:33 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:21:33 Speaker 2 ... ownership of, of this is how, how-

1:21:36 Speaker 1 Of your identity.

1:21:37 Speaker 2 Yes. Precisely.

1:21:39 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:21:39 Speaker 2 Right. And so that problem of identity, and the pro- what does it mean to be a Lubavitcher after it passed away, right? You can, you can say, "Well, that problem is too big."

1:21:47 Speaker 1 It's... Really?

1:21:48 Speaker 2 Uh, I mean, many people say that.

1:21:50 Speaker 1 I think, yeah.

1:21:50 Speaker 2 To-- don't, don't bring it up. Like it's... Or the, or like some kind of, uh... There are many ways of, of, of pe-

1:21:57 Speaker 1 Mm

1:21:57 Speaker 2 ... of, of deflection. One way is like, you know, it was, it was, "It's been solved a long time ago," or, "Why are you making it so complicated? As long as you learn Chitas and you go to the aisle, it's all good." And it's like you-

1:22:06 Speaker 1 Right. I think-

1:22:08 Speaker 2 You know? Right

1:22:08 Speaker 1 ... yeah.

1:22:08 Speaker 2 It's not... Th- things... Something happened. Some- something happened.

1:22:11 Speaker 1 I, yeah.

1:22:12 Speaker 2 You know, the, the apocalypse happened. You're not going to deny that people in the moment-

1:22:16 Speaker 1 Right

1:22:16 Speaker 2 ... were co- the, the... What hap- what was there until that point, something got destroyed. The mirror, the mirrors smashed into a million pieces.

1:22:24 Speaker 1 Yeah. But that, that doesn't give... I, I get that. Um, I hear that, and I, and I, and I empat- you know, emphasi- em- empathize with that notion very much. And at the same time-

1:22:37 Speaker 2 That what? That what?

1:22:38 Speaker 1 That, that there's this sense of betrayal, there's this trust, this unclear path. What does it mean? What, what is your identity today as a Lubavitcher, and how do we... You know, if the Re- if the Rebbe isn't present in our lives in a physical way, how does that, what does that look like? And, you know, I, I think if you zoom out and you look at Jewish history, um, you know, what the... We're, we're... It's, it's pretty clear what we need to do, and not only is it clear within the framework of Halacha, but it's very clear within the framework of Chassidus. And if we think about going back to the Adam HaTanya, which the Rebbe took and, and, and just brought it so home for this generation, for our generation, my parents' generation, my generation, and I believe strongly for the next generation, um, and the next generation when Mashiach comes, um, hopefully which will be very soon, um, is the, is the sense of, of, of self-determination. Uh, we can sit and say, "What should I... What..." Well, or, "What do you want?" It's all there.

1:23:46 Speaker 2 Right.

1:23:47 Speaker 1 I, m- I'm gonna be... This is... I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, um, uh, maybe I'm, uh, I'm... I'll s- I'll s- I don't wanna speak strongly, but it's all there. I think, I think, um, not taking agency at this point, um, is an excuse. I think we are... We, we, within, within the confines of a Jewish community, within the confines of the greater Jewish world, Lubavitch, I think we have the answers. I mean, Chassidus is everything that we need to see and follow. Now, we can say the betrayal between, between Adam and Chaver, or when, you know, or between people, um, or just betrayal by what happened, um, and again, like no resolution. I mean, that's not an answer. That's not an answer. I... And, and maybe for me, this really, you know, harkens back to my grandparents who survived the Holocaust, and their mode in the aftermath of huge... I mean, something that you, you can't put words to.

1:24:51 Speaker 2 Right.

1:24:52 Speaker 1 I think that that, that is ver- That is, you know, and anybody from that generation, including the Rebbe, who ha- had his own terrible personal loss, to sit and say, "I can see a path forward. And not only can I see the path forward, I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna light up that path for you so clearly that you can't get lost."

1:25:13 Speaker 2 So, but so why do you think people, you know, they, they s- 'Cause, uh, you know, let's assume that, that people on, quote-unquote, "the other side" of this, of this discussion, you know, th- they also know that the Rebbe spoke that way after the Holocaust, they also know about the story of Jewish resilience in history. Where do you think this idea comes from that... I mean, I, I think the argument that they, that, that many will make is, uh, th- the Rebbe knew the answers. What are you, are you assu- are you suggesting now that you're a Rebbe? Like-

1:25:48 Speaker 1 It's not about having answers. This is about what to do when you don't have answers.

1:25:52 Speaker 2 Right. Right. Right. You know-

1:25:55 Speaker 1 No one had answers in 1945.

1:25:58 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah. I, I-

1:25:59 Speaker 1 There, there were no answers.

1:26:01 Speaker 2 I, I agree.

1:26:02 Speaker 1 And I think we can in-

1:26:03 Speaker 2 So e- even the Rebbe didn't have answers.

1:26:06 Speaker 1 I, I don't know. I don't think the Rebbe ever told anyone why, how it could have happened.

1:26:09 Speaker 2 Right.

1:26:10 Speaker 1 And in fact, the Rebbe was probably distinct from many people on other sides in the equation who told Jews exactly why it happened.

1:26:17 Speaker 2 Right.

1:26:17 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said, you know... Didn't have an answer for that.

1:26:22 Speaker 2 Right.

1:26:22 Speaker 1 Um, he had a path forward.

1:26:24 Speaker 2 Right.

1:26:25 Speaker 1 And I think that for, for, for those who are lost in the struggle, 'cause that's what I feel like it is, and, uh, again, I, I completely understand, and I think it comes from... It can come from many different angles. People, it's, there's, it's, uh... Sometimes things are hard to recover from. And depending on how institutionally, like, it's handled, I think depending on what was going on in all everyone's personal circumstances, I mean, this is, this was, it's, it's, it was a tragic time for pe- for, for, for young people, for adu- for everybody. It was hard. It was a really hard time. But life's hard, and it won't be the, you know, it won't be the last hard thing th- that they're gonna have to, you know, have to get through micro and macro levels. This is probably the hardest thing on the biggest level of our generation. Um, the distinction is, is that we have a path if we want, and if we choose to, that we can walk on. Um, or, or we don't have to. Um, but to say that there's no path Because there are no answers. This, that's, that's a, um, it's an illusion to think that that's kind of part of our story.

1:27:35 Speaker 2 It's a bit of a cop-out.

1:27:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. But, but understandably so, because it, it requires a lot. It requires a lot to, to say, "Okay, I'm gonna be okay with no answers." I mean, everybody responds to that differently. To say, "I have trust in the Bashert after the Holocaust," to say that, I mean, it's-- you could say there was many people who chose not to.

1:27:56 Speaker 2 Right.

1:27:56 Speaker 1 So we-- it's, it's really a matter of personal... It's-- just go back to the Damah of Tanya.

1:28:01 Speaker 2 Which part of it?

1:28:01 Speaker 1 The part where the Rebbe says it's, it's, it's . It's very close to you. If you-- I mean, it's all about what you want.

1:28:07 Speaker 2 Right.

1:28:07 Speaker 1 If, if you and I want it, if everybody else wants it, we-- Some people have to find a path through the roughage. We don't.

1:28:13 Speaker 2 Right.

1:28:14 Speaker 1 We literally have a path, and it's lit, and it doesn't go off, the light.

1:28:17 Speaker 2 Right.

1:28:17 Speaker 1 And, and that you could say, "Toby, that's, that's nice. Like, that just doesn't resonate with a lot of people." I get it. I get it. But, um, I think in, I think, I think there's a lot of options of how you can decide what you want. Again, it's all about what you want, and what you're choosing is based on what your desire is. Like, what do you want? Like, what do, what do you, what do you want your own outcome to be at this point, right? How are you gonna navigate this path? And I think it requires people to zoom out a little bit, um, 'cause zooming out is very helpful 'cause it gives you kind of like the breadth.

1:28:52 Speaker 2 Right.

1:28:52 Speaker 1 Right? And, um-

1:28:55 Speaker 2 The path is a very interesting, a very interesting, uh, very interesting piece that you're, that you're, that you're picking on. 'Cause I, I know in the first for example, I think... Is it in the first ? But it's, it's certainly something that I've brought up time and time again. You know, myself assuming the bunim, the, the, the path that our forefathers, um-

1:29:18 Speaker 1 Carved, yeah

1:29:18 Speaker 2 ... you know, and, and in a way, what, what you're pointing to here, which I haven't thought about before, is that, you know, in a way you say, "Well, wait, the path that our forefathers walked," okay, so what am I supposed to turn around? Like, they came before me, so they, they walk the path, then, then they stop, and then the path that they walked is over, right?

1:29:39 Speaker 1 No.

1:29:41 Speaker 2 No, no, I'm asking.

1:29:42 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:29:42 Speaker 2 I'm, I'm teasing out the-

1:29:43 Speaker 1 Okay. Okay, got it.

1:29:44 Speaker 2 I'm saying they came before me, right? So how does-- the path that they walked before me, how does, you know... Am I, am I starting from where they started, or am I continuing from where they ended? And if I con-con-continuing from where they ended, then, then what path have they walked before me? The path is over, right? And I think that kind of assumes a very static path.

1:30:08 Speaker 1 Right.

1:30:08 Speaker 2 Right? When, when a path is really more a direction. And the idea is not that they've walked the whole path and they got to the end, and now you start from the beginning and follow them. The point is that they've shown you that there is a path, and the path goes in this direction. And yes, you're gonna have to figure out how this path continues. It's not, it's not all... But, but you know that there is a path. You know that there's somewhere to go to. They've shown you that it works this far. You can keep it going, right? And that, that separates a little bit, um, that separates... The path becomes more-- There's something objective about the path, I think is, is what I'm thinking about now. There's something objective about it and, you know, a lot of times we get caught up in our own subjective-

1:30:56 Speaker 1 Sure

1:30:56 Speaker 2 ... morass, you know, the, the mess of questions and how do I feel, and do I really believe, and do I this and do I that. And, and, and that's all very real, you know, especially in today's world-

1:31:07 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:31:07 Speaker 2 ... the subjective i-i-is, is taken very seriously.

1:31:10 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:31:10 Speaker 2 For good or for, for worse, it's, it's taken very seriously. But that doesn't change the fact that there is a path, and that path, that by definition, the idea of a path is not what's in your mind. It's, it's a thing. It's an, it's an object, right? I think that's the idea. And-

1:31:26 Speaker 1 And it's well lit.

1:31:27 Speaker 2 Right.

1:31:28 Speaker 1 It's not dark.

1:31:29 Speaker 2 Right.

1:31:29 Speaker 1 The path isn't dark.

1:31:31 Speaker 2 Right. Well, I think that's a whole-- that's the definition, right? The definition is that the fact that you have a path, even... Okay, you're saying it's well lit. Even-- But I would say even if it is dark, the fact that there is a path is in itself the illumination, you could say.

1:31:45 Speaker 1 It could be. You, you could say it that way, or you could say that's, that's one way of looking at it.

1:31:48 Speaker 2 'Cause I, I, I don't think the idea necessarily-

1:31:51 Speaker 1 I th-

1:31:51 Speaker 2 ... is that there's this path with bricks and follow the yellow brick road-

1:31:55 Speaker 1 No, no. To the end

1:31:56 Speaker 2 ... you know, until the end-

1:31:56 Speaker 1 No

1:31:56 Speaker 2 ... it's all figured out. What's-

1:31:57 Speaker 1 No. No, you're gonna get a-- what happens when you get to a crossroad?

1:31:59 Speaker 2 That's my point, right?

1:32:00 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:32:00 Speaker 2 I, I know, and I think a lot of the path hasn't been paved.

1:32:02 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:32:03 Speaker 2 I think so-

1:32:04 Speaker 1 And every-- Yeah

1:32:04 Speaker 2 ... so, so what's, what's, what's Rabbi saying then? That like the path of Sha-sha-shals, uh, shals, uh, shalsala are saying that there are, there are, there are, there are ancestors-

1:32:12 Speaker 1 Well, you have the tools. You have the tools to pave your path

1:32:14 Speaker 2 ... they paved the path up to here.

1:32:16 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:32:16 Speaker 2 Right? And so-

1:32:17 Speaker 1 And-

1:32:17 Speaker 2 ... that there is a path now. You're not starting, like when you think about it this way, right? When you-

1:32:22 Speaker 1 You're not blowing dynamite to the mountain.

1:32:23 Speaker 2 Right. And when path... No, even if you are, but when the path starts, there's a lot more uncertainty. Is this gonna work?

1:32:29 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

1:32:29 Speaker 2 Is it not gonna work? Should we be going this direction? Should not go in this direction. Maybe we should turn back and go here.

1:32:35 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:32:35 Speaker 2 We should turn back and go there. And then you, well, you know, it goes, it g- it goes in this direction for twenty years, and then thirty years, and forty years, and then another generation, another generation, till you're two hundred years or two hundred and fifty years deep into this path. Seven generations of Rabbeim have come and gone.

1:32:50 Speaker 1 We're missing an important part here. I hear what you're saying. The important part are the tools. We don't necessarily have the path ahead. What we do have is the tools to carve the path.

1:33:00 Speaker 2 That's what I... Yeah.

1:33:01 Speaker 1 But it's different.

1:33:02 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:33:02 Speaker 1 So it's not like we're, we're just dancing down to the end of the road to follow the g- you know.

1:33:05 Speaker 2 That's my point.

1:33:06 Speaker 1 We have to actually-

1:33:07 Speaker 2 We have to make the path

1:33:08 Speaker 1 ... build the road.

1:33:09 Speaker 2 But we-- But the fact that a path has been already built up to this point-

1:33:12 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:33:13 Speaker 2 ... means that we're not starting with tools at point, at ground zero.

1:33:16 Speaker 1 No.

1:33:17 Speaker 2 But it also d- But we're not, we're not at the end of the path either.

1:33:21 Speaker 1 No. And also, i-i-- and, and the challenge there is to say like It, there's a lot of challenges if we-- This analogy, you can s- people can say that, well, there's like, I, you know, I'm on this path, but like, I don't know, there's another path over there that like it looks like that might be interesting, but-

1:33:39 Speaker 2 That's fine.

1:33:40 Speaker 1 Yeah. But that-- But I think, I think the focus here is, is that we have what we're thinking as the path is our foundation.

1:33:47 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:47 Speaker 1 Is the Mesora.

1:33:49 Speaker 2 Right.

1:33:50 Speaker 1 And I mean, all one has to do is literally read Chitas every day, and Chumash, and then read the... I mean, this is like we're-- It's right there, everything. So the, the path is really the foundation for it as well. And even the foundation under-- We just need... It's almost like we don't even have to carve our own path, we just have to kind of dig to find, to continue the path, because it's not-- Which is hard work. But it's not-- If we decide to stay within this pathway, um, and through doing whatever it is we need to do, we're using our tools and lighting the path ahead. And I think that, um, it takes a lot of work and thought, and especially as parents who wanna transmit, so they want their kids on that path, or they want them-- they wanna give them the tools to forge their own path within the framework. Um, it requires a lot of... It, it doesn't mean that we can't have, that there aren't, there's no doubt, there's no fear. Even with certainty, you, you can have a certainty about something, and it doesn't preclude you from having emotions about that certainty. Sometimes certainty is actually like, you know, it, it just gives you the, the shtarz, right? To be like, "I may have the anxiety surrounding it, even fear, but I've got the shtarz," and that's what the certainty is. Like, I will surpass that, and because I am connected to something so much greater than that

1:35:18 Speaker 1 moment. And I think that that's this path, is that kind of, that's the certainty that I'm talking about, is the fortitude that we have, that every one of us has.

1:35:29 Speaker 2 Right.

1:35:29 Speaker 1 Even with the tumultuous emotions that come at us, even with the betrayal, even with the distrust, even with the concern, even if the doubt, um, to know that it's okay. I can have... I, uh, this is-- That doesn't mean I'm not a good Jew and/or a good Hasid because I'm struggling.

1:35:50 Speaker 2 Right.

1:35:51 Speaker 1 I'm, you know, this is, I mean, this is the human experience.

1:35:55 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:35:56 Speaker 1 This is what we're supposed to be doing. We're not, we're not malachim. We're not supposed to be s-stagnant. We're supposed to be struggling. We-- There's a reason if everything that we learn in Hasidism is about knowing there's the struggle, acknowledging the struggle, and it doesn't mean... I mean, having a chashve in efeshe night is not to say, "I'm gonna, you know, this is, I'm gonna just sit in this, in this kind of maybe this somewhat toxicity that I've surrounded myself with, with my anxiety." But no, th-there is, there's a movement to push forward, to push past it, and that is the strength of the human being. That's, that we should never forget that. We should never feel that just 'cause I'm struggling, that I'm not connected.

1:36:35 Speaker 2 Right.

1:36:35 Speaker 1 Deeply. In fact, maybe I'm even more, maybe I'm deep-- I'm, I'm more connected because, uh, because I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about it, and I'm, I'm, I'm struggling to reach it.

1:36:45 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:36:46 Speaker 1 I'm just sometimes don't know exactly how, but I, I know that important thing is to know that, you know, that you're trying.

1:36:54 Speaker 2 That there is a path.

1:36:56 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:36:56 Speaker 2 There's a path. Yeah. That's right. I haven't, I have, I've never thought about, about the path that way. I think, I think the ob, the, uh, the objective subjective is a very valuable framework, um, because it, it, it, in many ways kind of alleviates the burden of an, of certainty over, or, or of uncertainty. Like, okay, so you're, you're not, you're not certain. Okay, fine. Valid. Understandable even. Um, we don't need to, we don't need to argue if that's normal or not normal or acceptable or unacceptable, but that, that doesn't change the fact that there is a path there. Whether or not you're up to being part of it right now, or you're up to going along with it, that's a different... You said there's a different path somewhere else, fine, but there is a path here. And, and it's, it's not that we don't care about the individual's feelings about it, it's just that you don't have to, you don't have to start from scratch on your own. It's there.

1:38:00 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:38:00 Speaker 2 There's something there if you choose to, to follow it. It do- it's not gonna lend it-- It's not going to... Going on this path doesn't mean it's all figured out.

1:38:09 Speaker 1 No.

1:38:10 Speaker 2 You still have to work, but it's there. It's there. And for some-

1:38:14 Speaker 1 It's there.

1:38:14 Speaker 2 You know, this is-- And I think that comes back down to the fact of trust, ultimately. At the end of the day, we all live in this world, and, uh, it w-- and we're all mortal. And so on whatever, wha-whatever level we're operating on, whatever ambition we have, or whatever vision we have, someone else is going to have to continue that work after. It could be as simple and as kind of natural as raising a family, which is, there's nothing simple about that, but like, as like normal, as like, yeah, at some point you're gonna be gone, and now your kids are gonna have to raise the next generation.

1:38:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:38:49 Speaker 2 Right? That's just, you know, that's what you want. You hope that that's, that they, that they outlive you and that they survive you.

1:38:57 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:38:57 Speaker 2 Right? And-

1:38:59 Speaker 1 And the psychology today would tell you that, you know, if you believe in your kids, they'll believe in themselves, and I think that we have to trust our kids, and we also have to trust ourselves-

1:39:10 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:39:10 Speaker 1 ... to be able to, to tran-- to, to, to be, to be the transmitters, to be like-

1:39:14 Speaker 2 To trust ourselves.

1:39:15 Speaker 1 Yeah. We have to trust ourselves.

1:39:16 Speaker 2 It starts with trust, it starts with trusting ourselves. You know, for some reason, I don't know why it's coming up now to my mind, but I, I remember when I was a boy, um, so it's probably, it's gotta be close to thirty, uh, twenty-five, thirty years now, I was in Hong Kong, and we had a-- My parents brought a guest speaker, uh, Professor Velvel Green.

1:39:33 Speaker 1 Mm.

1:39:34 Speaker 2 And I think he worked for NASA. He worked for NASA at a certain point, and I remember him talking about, or at least I remember my father recollecting that he talked about how there was a thought experiment back in the day about sending a sh, a, a, a shuttle to Mars, I think.

1:39:50 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:39:51 Speaker 2 At that time, it was gonna take much longer than they ex, than they talk about it taking today. And there was a discussion about... Maybe, maybe it wasn't Mars. It was a discussion about a multi-generational trip.

1:40:03 Speaker 1 Is that like the one that Yitzchak Hocohen spoke about during that, that, um, Yutzkah slave?

1:40:08 Speaker 2 May-maybe, I don't remember.

1:40:09 Speaker 1 About what it would be like?

1:40:11 Speaker 2 Uh, maybe.

1:40:12 Speaker 1 Okay. Maybe.

1:40:13 Speaker 2 Maybe.

1:40:13 Speaker 1 Sorry to interrupt you.

1:40:14 Speaker 2 May-maybe. I don't know. It could be, it could be they're all talking about the same thing. It could be I'm remembering it from somebody else.

1:40:19 Speaker 1 Oh, just say it so that everyone knows.

1:40:20 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

1:40:20 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:40:21 Speaker 2 No, so there was this whole h- there was this thought experiment. I don't think it was a real mission, but they were talking about a thought experiment about people raising their kids having to continue this mission.

1:40:32 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:40:32 Speaker 2 Right? And, and one of the big problems that they had was, is that we're gonna send them out now, and any slight deviation is going to ruin this, this, this, this mission. Is that what he spoke about?

1:40:44 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:40:44 Speaker 2 And, and we can't trust-

1:40:46 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:40:46 Speaker 2 ... we can't trust the kids to, to continue with this mission, right? A- and, and there's a number of problems with that. First of all, why can't you trust the kids but you can trust the astronauts? Like, what makes you convinced that you can trust them? But of course, the, the same problem is if y- y- you're assuming trust where you can't assume it, and you're, and you're assuming that you can trust where maybe you can assume it.

1:41:06 Speaker 1 You can't. Mm-hmm.

1:41:07 Speaker 2 Right? You're tr- this trust isn't this kind of, you know, some peop- trust is ultimately trust. You, you, you don't know for sure, but you sh- but you have to trust. You have no choice but to trust. And, and, you know, you, you think about it, and it's you think about it, and that w- what, what they were talking about is describing us today, right? Like, yes, somebody could say, "How do we trust these Hasidim living in these days or trusting these two people sitting and talking on a podcast? How do we trust them to, to get over their biases and their, their motivations and their, you know, all the, all the tumult going underneath their surfaces?" Because, you know, God knows that I know that I have all kinds of stuff going on and, and reasons why I might say one thing instead of the other thing, and there are many things that I'm not even aware of that's going on. So how do, how do I trust myself? How do they trust me? How do they trust any... How-

1:42:11 Speaker 1 Right.

1:42:11 Speaker 2 And, and this is... Yeah, but the, the, there's no, there's no choice.

1:42:15 Speaker 1 Right.

1:42:15 Speaker 2 That, that, that, that is what it is, and the effort, if you think about it that way, the effort of, of Chabad Hasidism is, is that their Rebbe said, "Okay, no, we're actually going to, we're going to take the radical position that if we teach enough and we educate enough and we inspire enough and we show enough of an example, then we can entrust this mission to these Hasidim. With all their flaws and all their shortcomings, they can pick it up, they can pick up the slack and, and, and get us to the finish line 'cause we need them to," right?

1:42:55 Speaker 1 I think the Rebbe was very clear about that.

1:42:57 Speaker 2 Right.

1:42:57 Speaker 1 About when, we know in, in nineteen fifty-one, I mean, part of, you know, was, you know, we gotta do this together. Like, this was not... This was going to... This was, that was the beginning, which is pr- for a part of me, I don't-

1:43:11 Speaker 2 But he wasn't being nice is my point. He wasn't being nice-

1:43:14 Speaker 1 No

1:43:14 Speaker 2 ... and, and, like, and trying to include, you know, like, like the, the star player-

1:43:18 Speaker 1 No, this has to get done

1:43:19 Speaker 2 ... the, the star player trying to make the teammates-

1:43:21 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:43:21 Speaker 2 ... feel good. No. He can't do it on his own. At the end of the day, Hasidim are, are going to, at at least in, in, in reality, what happened was, whether or not he anticipated or not, I don't know, but Hasidim did outlive him. There's no choice in the matter. This is what it's gonna be. And, and-

1:43:41 Speaker 1 Well, how important is it to you? I think that's what the question is. First of all, just back to that story about NASA. So they used the Jewish people as a role, as a model, as an example of how transmission can happen even, um, it, over time.

1:43:55 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:43:55 Speaker 1 I think that that's what would the end, that that was the, the interesting, one of the interesting parts of that story. But, you know, I, I think what it boils down to, and I think this, again, the, the, the whole transmission of Has- you know, Chabad Hasidism, which is this, you know, the, the, the, the kind of like the, um, you're not writing the Kotels. You're, you're what are you gonna do? I mean, we have been infused with this idea. I feel like in some sense there was a regression in a certain way maybe after the Motamas, and a lot of that maybe stemmed from the fear of making sure everything was done accordingly with a lot of people. How are we gonna, how are we gonna further? How are we gonna do more? What the Rebbe wanted from, from us, what we he, what he knew we could accomplish, what he felt what, what needed to happen. And I think there was a, you know, we need to get back kind of, uh, in, on, on the horse in the sense of like, "Wait a second. We..." The Rebbe was very clear, you know, what, what needed to happen, and, and this idea of if you know an olive, teach an olive. It wasn't just relegated to a specific group of people per se. Everybody, everybody got in. Everybody was able to, you know? And, and I see it so much today, and I think it's a matter of s- not overthinking it. I

1:45:11 Speaker 1 mean, you know, it's like, um, be deliberate because you have to be as a parent, you have to be deliberate. You have to assume that your kids are watching. You have to assume that, um, you know, you're their guide. You're their teacher in some sense.

1:45:26 Speaker 2 Right.

1:45:27 Speaker 1 And you have to take that role very seriously, and that doesn't mean that you're not allowed to, you know, fall into like the area of like questions and doubt. But it means that you, you have... I don't... You know, my father uses the word opportunity instead of responsibility, and I think that that's a great word, and you have the opportunity to, to really, you know, p- be that person who your kids need you to be. I n- I, and, and I feel like we were given kind of the tools really very specifically. Every single person, every single Hasid or Hasidah, like every man, woman, child is very, very clear. I mean, if I go back into the literature that was being written in the seventies, uh, by Lubavitcher women, fantastic pieces and articles that was obviously countering kind of the effects of the counterculture revolution, um, and womanhood and- I mean, just fabulous, you know, pieces that were coming out by s- so many different people, different people from, coming from different backgrounds, and harnessed to really kind of provide this, um, inspiration or illumination of a path. Like, and, and I think, like, we, we need to... We can do it. We just have to, um, we have to believe in ourselves, and we have to believe in what the Rebe saw in each and every individual. And you know what? I have friends, I live in a fabulous community in New Haven, um, growing, and it's, it's just really beautiful to watch even

1:46:49 Speaker 1 though I don't live inside the community. But, you know, it's a Lubavitch community. They're not necessarily their And we can't think, um, it's not about perfection. This is not getting it right all the time. This is about working hard to, towards a m- towards a goal. And that goal in this generation is, like in every generation, was to pay it forward to the next generation, to give them, to guide them, to instill the values and the principles of Torah and mitzvahs.

1:48:30 Speaker 2 And to trust them.

1:48:31 Speaker 1 And to trust that, and to tr- of course, to trust them.

1:48:34 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:48:36 Speaker 1 Even if they fall-

1:48:37 Speaker 2 Right

1:48:37 Speaker 1 ... to know that they can get back up as we did and do.

1:48:41 Speaker 2 Right. Well, I think that's a very good, a very, very good way to, uh, to end. And, um, yeah, it's been wonderful. Thank you very much.

1:48:52 Speaker 1 Oh, thank you, Bentzy. Thank you for the, uh, opportunity.

1:48:54 Speaker 2 Thank you very much. The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Sornada Vachar, and is used with their permission.