Ep. 54 // "Where Even Is Home?" w/ Rabbi Shmully Metzger

00:00 Speaker 1 The podcast is called Homesick for Lubavitch, and the question was, was I even home to be homesick? Because I, I was in the room, but I didn't understand any of those farbrengens. I learned through all the ma'amar. I mean, anyone could do it. I mean, I'm not saying this, again, for religious reasons. They, they... We went through it. 30 years is a long time. You still have plenty of time to do, to watch all the Westerns. You, you... It's a long time. And then I realized that I wasn't even there, in a sense, because, yeah, yeah, I was there. I got so- I got 40 others, but I wasn't actually there. I don't think that... Like, I don't, I don't... My Lubavitch now is not a continuation of that.

00:35 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2025. My name is Benji Afson, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. I am here with Rabbi Shmuel Metzger, director Shliach Chabad of Sutton. Is that how we call it?

01:01 Speaker 1 Yep.

01:02 Speaker 2 Which is in Midtown Manhattan. And we are here in post congestion, uh... What's it called? Congestion-

01:13 Speaker 1 Congestion pricing

01:14 Speaker 2 ...condu-congestion pricing. So just so you know what I do for you guys recording these podcasts, the lengths that we go through.

01:23 Speaker 1 Appreciate that.

01:24 Speaker 2 And, uh, like I have in the recent podcasts, to start mentioning if you, if you're listening to the podcast, you enjoy this podcast, if you could please subscribe, uh, and like it on YouTube and Spotify, whatever platform you're listening to. And, uh, if you'd like to participate in supporting this podcast, you can visit the website hflpodcast.com/donate. Anyhow, thank you very much.

01:51 Speaker 1 Well, thank you very much for coming tonight, and-

01:56 Speaker 2 My pleasure

01:56 Speaker 1 ...look forward to our discussion.

01:57 Speaker 2 My pleasure. Too many people told me I had to come, so I, at some point I have no choice.

02:02 Speaker 1 Well, thank you.

02:02 Speaker 2 At some point I have no choice. Um, so I, I know you wanted a little bit more of a, of a pre-format or like a, like a, to, to game out the conversation, and in my, in my style and, uh, and, uh, procrastination, I didn't get to it. Uh, so let's just start from, let's just start from the beginning.

02:24 Speaker 1 Okay.

02:24 Speaker 2 Let's start from the beginning. Uh, who are you?

02:28 Speaker 1 Okay. So-

02:29 Speaker 2 Uh, but to more, to be less, to be less, uh, silly.

02:31 Speaker 1 Okay. So-

02:33 Speaker 2 Describe your upbringing.

02:34 Speaker 1 Okay. So, um, for the benefit of your listeners and your subscribers, I, I, I'm part of a generation, okay? So there's my personal story, but my generation is my class, and my generation is post 18 Kislev, um, and the Tzivas Hashem generation. So we went into kindergarten in 1981, and we got a lot of face time from the Rebbe, a lot for children. And, um, after the Rebbe suffered-

03:12 Speaker 2 So you grew up in Crown-

03:12 Speaker 1 I-

03:12 Speaker 2 One second. One second.

03:13 Speaker 1 Okay.

03:13 Speaker 2 You grew up in Crown Heights. So, so take us a step back.

03:15 Speaker 1 Okay. So think of, I grew up in, in Crown Heights. Um, it's, it may be hard to, for some of your listeners to imagine, but my family, my, my parents moved from Kew Gardens in 1977 to President between Kingston and Albany. At the time, we were the only white Jewish family on the block, on President between Kingston and Albany.

03:36 Speaker 2 Uh, so Kings- between Kingston and Brooklyn was still, was very Jewish.

03:39 Speaker 1 Uh, not either, actually.

03:41 Speaker 2 Really?

03:42 Speaker 1 No. No. As a matter of fact, um, my friend, uh, Shalom Raskin, and I lived on the, on President between Kingston and Brooklyn. The buses wouldn't come that far north on Kingston Avenue 'cause there was no one there. Somehow Anash lived Montgomery Crown. We had to like hike down for a while to Montgomery Street to get a bus. I know that it's-

04:01 Speaker 2 To, to, to go where?

04:02 Speaker 1 To go to Yeshiva. Uh, we were-- we went to Ocean Parkway in-

04:05 Speaker 2 Oh, I see.

04:06 Speaker 1 Yeah.

04:06 Speaker 2 I see.

04:06 Speaker 1 Anyway, so just, uh, it's so, um, uh, grew up in Crown Heights, um, in, in the formative years in the '80s, which is very interesting time in Lubavitch history.

04:20 Speaker 2 All right. All right. Uh, but that's, that in itself is astonishing. I didn't, I did not realize that, that, uh, that Crown Heights in the s- you're talking the late '70s.

04:33 Speaker 1 Yeah.

04:34 Speaker 2 It was, it w-

04:35 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's-

04:36 Speaker 2 President, President Street and Carroll Street-

04:39 Speaker 1 Yes

04:39 Speaker 2 ...was-

04:40 Speaker 1 Yeah. It was, it was, it was it was a little bit of a... You didn't, Anash didn't live there.

04:44 Speaker 2 So the 770.

04:45 Speaker 1 Yeah.

04:45 Speaker 2 A few blocks of, of-

04:47 Speaker 1 Yeah

04:48 Speaker 2 ...whoever.

04:48 Speaker 1 Yeah. And then somehow most of Anash lived down there. Um-

04:52 Speaker 2 Oh, it's 'cause the houses were too expensive on President Street?

04:55 Speaker 1 No. There, you, you couldn't, you couldn't give them away in those days. Think about it. Yeah.

05:00 Speaker 2 Wait, so it was dangerous to walk from Crown to 770?

05:04 Speaker 1 Okay. So there was... It's very interesting you should mention this because there was something very strategic that the Rebbe, um, clearly thought about. The Rebbe wanted that building, which is now 1414, to be the dormitory for the Bachurim, simply I think from a security per- uh, uh, perspective, that if you have Bachurim, able-bodied men on that corner, then you already have like a, a outpost there. So there was 1414. It was in a, it was an apartment building originally, and then they slowly, you know, it were able to slowly take over the building. That was a dormitory. So we were able to walk to Kingston Avenue because there was a dormitory there, but I, I never walked to Albany. You never walked, turned the other, you never walked the other way. That was... No. Even to go to Carroll Street, that it was, it was-

05:46 Speaker 2 And to Brooklyn, the same thing?

05:48 Speaker 1 Uh, Brooklyn had, in those days, and Crown Heights had different problems because there were these stray dogs.

05:55 Speaker 2 Seriously?

05:56 Speaker 1 Um, I think that people kinda left, and they left their dogs. It w-it was, it, it was just, uh, it was inner city that, that, you know, for lack of any better word.

06:04 Speaker 2 President and Brooklyn was inner city?

06:06 Speaker 1 Yeah.

06:07 Speaker 2 Huh.

06:07 Speaker 1 In a sense, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the early '80s it started, star- it started, but, but that was somehow, um, there was a gap. There's this, uh, gap, and sometime- And by then, then it started picking up in mid- mems. Anyway.

06:23 Speaker 2 And why did they feel so secure at Crown and Montgomery? I would just think that they would, like, kinda congregate around, around 770.

06:30 Speaker 1 I think-

06:31 Speaker 2 Or is that just how it happened, it turned out?

06:34 Speaker 1 I... Eh, that's a good question. Perhaps because the houses on Montgomery and, and Crown have, um, driveways or gara- Like, they have, like, space between them. Those row houses between President and Kingston and Albany was considered a minus then.

06:47 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

06:48 Speaker 1 Um, so I think, I'm not sure, weren't able to afford to live on President Street, you know, originally 'cause those are, like, more expensive houses, so they kinda got those houses. But that's a whole-

06:58 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

06:58 Speaker 1 ... discussion.

06:59 Speaker 2 That's beforehand. That's very interesting. I mean, it, it's hard to ask someone to remember how they looked at the world as a child, but especially if you're asking them in terms that are, like, adult terms. But I, I just find the, almost the incongruence so fascinating where... I, I know you wanna go to, to we'll get to it in a moment. But, you know, on one hand there's this, there's this, uh, kind of pastoral-

07:32 Speaker 1 Mm.

07:32 Speaker 2 ... pastoral-

07:33 Speaker 1 Mm

07:33 Speaker 2 ... uh, like, uh-

07:35 Speaker 1 Nostalgic

07:36 Speaker 2 ... nostalgic talk of Crown Heights.

07:38 Speaker 1 Okay.

07:38 Speaker 2 You know, back in the day, you know, this idyllic time of, you know, the, the gute yorn. And, uh, you just called it the inner city.

07:48 Speaker 1 It is, it is idyllic though in the sense that, that, um, from my house to 770 was a safe corridor. So you go, um... My parents lived a few blocks-

07:58 Speaker 2 I know, but you're describing safe corridors. That's-

08:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. But, but it was idyllic because, um, the Rebbe was there, and that was r- And that was everything.

08:07 Speaker 2 But you-

08:07 Speaker 1 So everything else was somewhat background noise. Didn't make a difference.

08:10 Speaker 2 Is that really though the case? Uh, 'cause I was-

08:12 Speaker 1 At least that's the way I frame it now. Okay?

08:14 Speaker 2 Right.

08:14 Speaker 1 So.

08:14 Speaker 2 Right. That's how, that's what I'm trying to get to.

08:16 Speaker 1 Okay.

08:16 Speaker 2 I understand if it-

08:17 Speaker 1 Yeah

08:17 Speaker 2 ... it's like, it- it- it's a, it's a, it's, it's almost an impossible game to figure out what exactly you're feeling back then. But it's just at least even, even reve- even looking back, it's just at least interesting to point out that, that, uh, that, like, that there is this, there is, there is this almost contradiction in terms of, like, the vision that we have of it and then the reality, right? The vi- Even the way you just answered. Even if I accept that on face value, like, there's the neighborhood-

08:48 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

08:48 Speaker 2 ... and then there's the Rebbe, right? In many ways it kinda harkens back to how Lubavitch was back in Russia, where they, Lubavitch was this mud town that was full of blatter, right?

08:58 Speaker 1 Right.

08:58 Speaker 2 If you, if you walk, if you walked in-

09:00 Speaker 1 Yeah

09:00 Speaker 2 ... didn't know anything better, you'd be like, "What the heck? This place is-"

09:02 Speaker 1 Right

09:02 Speaker 2 ... "another dump in Ru-

09:03 Speaker 1 Right

09:03 Speaker 2 ... in, in backwater Russia."

09:05 Speaker 1 Right.

09:05 Speaker 2 But for Lubavitchers, this was where the Rebbe lived.

09:08 Speaker 1 Yeah. So it's interesting 'cause f- 'cause of my p- my parents are v- very, um, unique, at least in those days, that, that they're both from, from, uh, from, from families, and they wanted to... And they lived in a frum community, and all their friends were moving from Crown Heights.

09:22 Speaker 2 Right.

09:23 Speaker 1 And they moved to Crown Heights. Um, and just it's incredible that, that they did that because I think the way the frum mind, if you look at the cross-section of a frum mind, is like anyone that's frumer than me is, like, a religious extremist. Anyone less than me is, like, I don't know what.

09:40 Speaker 2 Yes.

09:40 Speaker 1 And they decided they wanna, like, up it for their kids, and they... And that certainly tr- changed the trajectory of our family, so.

09:47 Speaker 2 Oh, they didn't move out Lubavitchers?

09:50 Speaker 1 Well, they, they were Lubavitch. My dad, it's a whole separate story. Um, and some friends came for the first Farbrengen in Tosh Yud Aleph.

09:57 Speaker 2 He, your f-

09:57 Speaker 1 My dad, yeah.

09:58 Speaker 2 Your, your dad was at the first post that they got.

09:59 Speaker 1 Yeah, he was there with some friends. It's a whole separate story.

10:02 Speaker 2 Where did he go to yeshiva?

10:03 Speaker 1 He was at Yeshiva University.

10:04 Speaker 2 Okay.

10:05 Speaker 1 And, and, um, uh, some were, uh, Rabbi Ero Yanak primarily was teaching Tanya there before Tosh Yud actually. He was trying to get the Hmm.

10:26 Speaker 2 Yeah.

10:27 Speaker 1 Anyway, so they considered themselves Lubavitch, considered themselves card-holding members of Lubavitch community. But we had cousins that lived in Crown Heights, so they would come whenever they, whenever they wanted to be here. But then my cousins moved from Crown Heights. Crown Heights, as you know, was just another frum community. But slowly everyone else kinda moved out, and they're like, "We don't have a place. We need to, we need to Crown Heights." And so.

10:51 Speaker 2 So your parents moved... So your parents were always affiliated with Lubavitchers or they considered themselves Lubavitch.

10:57 Speaker 1 Yeah.

10:57 Speaker 2 But they still didn't live in Crown Heights.

10:59 Speaker 1 Yeah.

10:59 Speaker 2 They moved to Crown Heights as, like, a step in their Yiddishkeit.

11:03 Speaker 1 Yeah.

11:04 Speaker 2 Wasn't so much to be, like, next to the Rebbe kind of or that-

11:07 Speaker 1 That's a great question. Um, I think to be near the Rebbe too.

11:11 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

11:11 Speaker 1 I think to be near the Rebbe too and, and yeah. It's interesting because I think, you know, the, how different people see the Rebbe, I'm sure that's coming through on your podcast, is that it's like a Rorschach test, the classic Rorschach test where people, you know, "What do you see?" I asked my dad, um, "What did you see in the Rebbe?" And he said, "I, I, I, uh, I see Yerushalayim."

11:33 Speaker 2 Really?

11:34 Speaker 1 It's interesting. Yeah. 'Cause my dad's Yerushalayim. So he saw that in the Rebbe, and that was... So that was part. It's not they just wanna be holier or frumer. It was, it was something. They wanted to.

11:43 Speaker 2 It's interesting. Dr. Sellickson said the same thing.

11:45 Speaker 1 Interesting.

11:45 Speaker 2 I mean, I didn't speak to Dr. Sellickson obviously. He passed away when I was, uh, one years old. But his son told me that his... Who was on the podcast, he told me that his father would describe the Farbrengen, the Rebbe, the Rebbe's Farbrengen as a place where they speak You know, they felt that, like, he was missing the point. Um-

12:14 Speaker 1 It's interesting

12:14 Speaker 2 ... which I, I, I'm not sure that they're right, to be honest.

12:17 Speaker 1 It's very interesting. I noticed something very interesting. It was my own, uh, little interesting thing that, like we mentioned before, the Rorschach test. You see what you see. So, you know, different people see the Rebe- you see the Rebbe through your own prism, and there's certain people that, you know, if you wanna use colors as an example, we just have a color, a certain colors that the hu- the naked eye can see. We don't see infrared. We don't see ultraviolet. Some people do, like, like someone like Dr. Zeltser, like down they, they see these things that most people don't see. I'm like, "Yeah, that's what I want."

12:48 Speaker 2 Yeah, but, but that, that's an interesting thing. Your Shomayim is, though, what's right in front of you. I think everybody sees-

12:53 Speaker 1 For some

12:53 Speaker 2 ... I, I-

12:54 Speaker 1 I mean, but, but-

12:55 Speaker 2 I think everybody sees their Shomayim. I just think, I just think that, like, it's hard to see your Shomayim-

12:59 Speaker 1 But we're like, but what if-

12:59 Speaker 2 ... when you get carried away with everything else

13:01 Speaker 1 ... enough to, to, like, take your whole family and move them somewhere. Not tonight.

13:04 Speaker 2 Yeah.

13:04 Speaker 1 I mean, you see.

13:05 Speaker 2 I see. I see what you're saying. Huh.

13:09 Speaker 1 Yeah.

13:09 Speaker 2 Yeah, that is very interesting. That is very interesting. So your, your parents are moving to Crown Heights for a very personal reason that few people outside Crown Heights can understand, and few people inside Crown Heights can understand.

13:24 Speaker 1 Right. And it's interesting also because both my parents have, uh, secular credentials. They went to school.

13:32 Speaker 2 Right.

13:33 Speaker 1 It... Crown Heights was a, it was a, it was an interesting time. Um, because we had 1414 on the corner, they would have... I don't know if the newer generation heard of Chapsom. There was always, like, people running and sh- it was like a li- it was a little bit like the Wild West, which is easy to, uh, int- you know, sort of reframe it. But the wa- the... As you said before, it is what it is. It, it, uh, which is, it was a little frightening sometimes.

13:58 Speaker 2 Look, I just, I just... I'm fascinated. You asked me what, you asked me what my epiphany-

14:03 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

14:03 Speaker 2 ... in this podcast is. I, I, I... It's very hard for me to specify an epiphany, but the, the, the fascination that I have is, is the collective memory.

14:13 Speaker 1 Mm.

14:14 Speaker 2 Right? In general, memory's a fascinating thing.

14:17 Speaker 1 Mm.

14:17 Speaker 2 Um, but the collective memory is, in a way, like, even more fascinating, even more complicated.

14:23 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

14:23 Speaker 2 Where kind of everybody, everybody, like, buys in or invests in this collective memory-

14:28 Speaker 1 Right

14:28 Speaker 2 ... and it gets so, like, like, nobody has control o-over it anymore.

14:32 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

14:32 Speaker 2 And people just keep on putting stuff in, and it just... And nobody even knows what it is in a way.

14:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

14:36 Speaker 2 It's just kinda there. You know, so, like, the collective memory of, of Lubavitch, what was it like? And, like, obviously the thing about memory is it's selective.

14:46 Speaker 1 Mm. Mm.

14:46 Speaker 2 Right? And so there's, you know, in many ways, one of... to me at least, one of, like, the defining features of Lubavitch memory is that basically the Rebbe, like, moves everything out.

14:59 Speaker 1 Mm.

14:59 Speaker 2 Like, uh, you know, every- the, like, like, there's no space for anything else, and, you know-

15:05 Speaker 1 Do you mind to expand on that for a second? What do you mean no, no room for anything else?

15:09 Speaker 2 Like, even, like, in our conversation here.

15:11 Speaker 1 Right.

15:11 Speaker 2 You know, how was it to live in Crown Heights when it was a dangerous or scary place? And it's like, well, the Rebbe was there, right? That, that's not, that's not an evasion to, of the answer. That's not... I don't feel that that's not being insincere. Um, I don't feel that it's being insincere or, or trying to avoid the question, but it means that we're not... Like, we, we, in the memory, we're just looking at the fact the Rebbe was there, and, like, the fact that there was all kinds of shenanigans going around on the side, whatever.

15:41 Speaker 1 Let me just tell you how I frame it, 'cause I'm, I'm not trying to, like, like, paint it with a different brush, is that I think the Rebbe's foreign policy of Eretz Yisrael and local policy is Jews don't back down. That was the story. Like, everyone ran away, and Jews don't back down. So it, it, it's not like I said there was no crime. I knew there was crime, but, but... And everyone that, myself and everyone you knew got kn- knocked off their bike. But it was like, yeah, this is like Jews don't back down. It's like, "Yeah, we're here."

16:05 Speaker 2 Yeah, no, I, I, I, I under-

16:07 Speaker 1 Yeah

16:07 Speaker 2 ... I understand that.

16:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:08 Speaker 2 I understand that. But it, it's so, you know, it's, it's, it's something that I wa- I, I wanna talk to some o- some people about also is, maybe you have something to say about it, but, like, the, the riots.

16:17 Speaker 1 Mm.

16:18 Speaker 2 You know, that was... The, the Crown Heights riots-

16:20 Speaker 1 Mm

16:20 Speaker 2 ... I'm watching the documentary in the Wall Street Journal that came out-

16:23 Speaker 1 Yeah

16:23 Speaker 2 ... a few months ago, and I'm like, to me, the craziest thing, and maybe 'cause I'm just one track minded and I s- think the same thing-

16:29 Speaker 1 Mm

16:29 Speaker 2 ... uh, maybe I am. Anyway.

16:30 Speaker 1 Mm.

16:31 Speaker 2 I'm watching it and I'm like-

16:32 Speaker 1 Mm

16:32 Speaker 2 ... this was during the 10th of Tevet-

16:35 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

16:35 Speaker 2 ... which, like, in Lubavitch kind of history is, like, the heyday of of Mashiach, whatever. And it's like, you know, what was that exact- like, how did those two things go together? And, and, like, that to me is... But we have video evidence of those riots. We know they happened. It's just, it's just fascinating to me.

16:54 Speaker 1 It's interesting.

16:54 Speaker 2 What, what was it like to walk through the riot to the Rebbe's farbrengen where he's talking about Mashiach? You know what I mean? Like, what, what was that like?

17:01 Speaker 1 Right.

17:02 Speaker 2 That, that kind of, that kind of ki- that kind of, like, incongruence, that I think is what makes, you know, the, the memory.

17:11 Speaker 1 Right. Right. Okay, so first of all, just we'll talk about the, what happened there. So at that summer I was, uh, in, in the Morristown camp. We came back a little early, and I was there. We came back just in time for the riots, and I had box seats for that.

17:23 Speaker 2 Gevald.

17:24 Speaker 1 For that, uh, for those events. So just in Crown Heights there was a lot of tension and, um, there's sort of like the, uh, uh, like the ra- racism industrial complex, if you'll call it that.

17:40 Speaker 2 Sure.

17:41 Speaker 1 So Al Sharpton would come around, and he was like a, a skilled acupuncturist. He would, like, touch all the pressure points.

17:47 Speaker 2 Yeah.

17:48 Speaker 1 Like, he'd touch this, that, you know? Like, he knew how to get people... I think he's rebranded since, but he knew how to get, like, people riled up. And he came around and, and, you know, sort of, uh... I remember him around for years, by the way. This sort of, when things came to a head. Um, but the point is, is that getting back to your question, is that Mashiach doesn't mean that everything's wonderful. Mashiach means that it, it, it's, there's, there's a cl- a crazy climate. There's a lot of... There's weather, there's, like, a weather, uh, imperfections. It's crazy weather. So something crazy like that is- Moshiach-esque, even though it's the inverse of it, but it, it, it somehow-

18:29 Speaker 2 It feels, it feels Moshiach-esque

18:30 Speaker 1 ... it feels Moshiach-esque, yeah, in the same way a hurricane or a tornado or something really far out.

18:35 Speaker 2 R- so really at the time when you saw the police on the horse, you're like, "This is straight out of a movie," but it's also Messianic?

18:43 Speaker 1 No. I- i- it's interesting because that wasn't-- those events didn't validate or invalidate anything else. It was just, it was like, it, it was like a sideshow. We didn't see that, like, Moshiach, and that's like s- didn't create any-- it didn't validate, at least where I was hanging out, or invalidate anything that was going on. But you're right. During that period of time, the Rebbe spoke about Moshiach, that it's s- just within reach, and Moshiach is coming. And, and it, it was, that was a, a very special time.

19:13 Speaker 2 This week's episode is brought to you by This World Is a Garden, a new film and concert production by Uvlamedia. Based on the Rebbe's first talk, Basar Gani, the production tells the story of the Chabad vision lasting over 300 years to see this world as God sees it, as His garden. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance of a string quartet, This World Is a Garden is a meditation on hope and holding onto a vision as time passes by. This production is now available to be shown at your Chabad House and community. Share the message and vision of Basar Gani with your community in a way you never have before. For more information, please visit thisworldisagarden.com. So how do you, how do you, how do you, looking back, uh, how do you look, h- how do you kind of reconcile these different things? Looking back now, um, do, do you, do you, do you, first of all, do you, do you agree with, with the, with the way I'm framing it?

20:15 Speaker 1 Anyone can frame it any way they wish. There, there isn't any wrong or right way to frame it.

20:19 Speaker 2 I understand, but I'm saying-

20:20 Speaker 1 But-

20:20 Speaker 2 ... i- am I off base?

20:22 Speaker 1 No. No. Um, I, I don't think anyone budgeted for extra innings galus, like 30, 30 years extra innings galus. I don't think anybody, um, budgeted for it, and I think that's, you know, I'm sure you ask people in your podcast, like, yeah, h- how does that work into, uh, into what the Rebbe said? Um, but I, but I will say this, that the Rebbe was always, like, eons ahead. The Rebbe was always like a visionary, and the, the Rebbe's voice always got... He may describe it as a kol gadol v'rayosuf. It's like the Rebbe's voice is only getting louder, and the Rebbe's vision is, um, when the Rebbe spoke then, you saw it now. That's how I see it. I don't see it like, "Oh, 30 years later." See, I never have. No. I think the Rebbe would say 30 years. The Rebbe always thought 30 years later. More recent, what's interesting, that there's a, a woman, Ruth Devorah, um, Wallen, and her whole thing in is a sicha that the Rebbe said in 1979 about meditation, about like, the Rebbe said in 1979, and again, I don't know who heard it or didn't hear it, but it wasn't really famous, about different forms of meditation using that as opposed to medication. So, um, uh, so the Rebbe was a visionary, so he, he saw ahead, and so I, I see it as, yeah, so he sees now.

21:44 Speaker 2 Well, I'm ta- again, I'm talking less about-

21:46 Speaker 1 I don't feel like, I don't feel like it was, like, a hit or miss thing

21:47 Speaker 2 ... no, I'm ta- I'm talking, I'm not talking, I'm not talking so much about, uh, validating what the Rebbe was talking about.

21:52 Speaker 1 Oh.

21:52 Speaker 2 I'm talking about, like, looking back at that time-

21:55 Speaker 1 Mm

21:55 Speaker 2 ... from, from, from a ground perspective.

21:59 Speaker 1 Right.

22:00 Speaker 2 Like, what, how, how do you describe that time? Like, i- i- is there, is there a tension there or conflict between, uh, between the, the, the, the nar- there's a narrative, there's a Moshiach narrative.

22:13 Speaker 1 Right.

22:13 Speaker 2 There's a, there's a way of looking at those years as, you know, the, the, the climax of, of the, this kind of Moshiach fervor. And I, and, you know, I'm being very parve with that.

22:26 Speaker 1 Right.

22:27 Speaker 2 And then at the same time, we're talking about the riots, it was just absolute insanity going on-

22:33 Speaker 1 Right. Right

22:33 Speaker 2 ... right at your doorstep. Or like we were talking earlier in the conversation, the Lameds are these gutezeiten or the-

22:39 Speaker 1 Right

22:39 Speaker 2 ... or the members of gutezeiten Lubavitch-

22:41 Speaker 1 Right

22:41 Speaker 2 ... and in the meantime, everybody's getting punched in the face on the way to 770. I mean, these-

22:46 Speaker 1 Right

22:46 Speaker 2 ... uh, uh, let, let me also put it this way.

22:49 Speaker 1 Right.

22:49 Speaker 2 I'm, I'm in my 30s.

22:51 Speaker 1 Right.

22:51 Speaker 2 And I didn't grow up in Crown Heights.

22:54 Speaker 1 Right.

22:54 Speaker 2 But this is not a Crown Heights that was ever described to me, really.

22:59 Speaker 1 Right. Okay.

22:59 Speaker 2 And I feel, you know, like, not n- at least I'd never heard in these kind of definitive terms that, like, from, that we had to put 1414 here so to make Crown Street-

23:09 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

23:09 Speaker 2 ... to Eastern Parkway as a sem- semi-safe walk.

23:13 Speaker 1 Right. Right. So firstly, I don't, you know, the gutezeiten for me, I don't, I don't look back with that, uh, nostalgic look at then. I, I, I, I know, I, I've always framed it in that way. I know what was good, I know what wasn't good. And, um, what's interesting, at least for myself and for my generation, is that, you know, some people talk about the Rebbe and the yuds, the chafs, the lameds, and the mems, the nuns, and there's always, it seems, just to borrow from technicals, a different frequency. And each, like some- somehow the, the frequency gets a little shifted to here, to there, I guess, as we come closer to Moshiach. For me, um, until that point, you know, in aleph and the beis, my whole experience by the Rebbe is like, um, video without audio. That's an interesting thing, because I saw the Rebbe, I saw everything going on, but I, I didn't understand Engli- Yiddish, and I, even if whatever few words I understood, I didn't certainly understand the taichen. So I, I, I, I was there, and I read farbrengens, and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Rebbe said, the Rebbe said. Yeah, I got that. Yeah, yeah." I just didn't have the, the audio. So the first time at that age is all of a sudden is that things are clicking, the connections. "Ah, I get that word there. I get the da, da, da, da." So for me, it's not just those Moshiach sichas are not

24:29 Speaker 1 just a climax of years. It just, those are the... I, I entered, you know, my-

24:34 Speaker 2 Those were your years

24:35 Speaker 1 ... they entered that. And again, they were younger years. You're only, uh, chafs zayin, I was 15. So they were younger years, but these are the first and only sichas that I remember understanding at the time. And also, um, were-

24:49 Speaker 2 You didn't understand them?

24:50 Speaker 1 I, I understood them. I start understood them. And also-

24:53 Speaker 2 Well, don't pe- don't so many people say... I mean, that's not a proof that you're wrong.

24:56 Speaker 1 Right.

24:56 Speaker 2 But many people say that they didn't understand what the Rebbe was saying in those years.

25:00 Speaker 1 That's a good point, too. So, okay. So it's interesting because, it's interesting to mention this because the Rebbe, there was always maamarim that the Rebbe would say, and then after Mem Ches, the maamarim pretty much stopped. But one can make the argument that after Mem Ches, every sicha was a ma'amar, something ver-very esoteric, so you can say you understand it or don't understand it. Maybe I very well didn't understand it, but I remember at least in my own mind understanding, at least understanding some very basic level of pshat. And also, after each sicha, there was like a little huddle and like at, at, at the, at the farbrengen and, and there was someone next to us, like the Rebbe said this, da, da, da, and they were like talk- And then I would hang out af-

25:37 Speaker 3 During, during the nigun, there was a nigun

25:38 Speaker 1 During the nigun, there was like a little huddle in our space. The Rebbe said this, the Rebbe said that, da, da, da. And it was like... And I was like, "Oh, valid. Yeah, I thought that's what he's, the Rebbe said." And, "Yeah, that's what the Rebbe said." I was like sort of validating what I thought the Rebbe said the Rebbe actually said. So 13, 14, 15 years old, but I think I get this. And then, um, after, right after farbrengen, there was a huddle there, um, label all time and the, the resembling and the group of guys just chazaring the farbrengen until after Shabbos, um, when there was like an official chazarah and everyone from around the world was listening. And so there were, there were a few multiple layers of chazarah, and I, I, I, I hung out at those. Like, just, uh, I, I was a young bachur. I wanted to, you know, be part of that circle.

26:19 Speaker 3 What was pulling you in? Was it, uh, was it the, the Yishimai?

26:23 Speaker 1 Mm.

26:23 Speaker 3 Was it the holiness? Was it, you know, just this is interesting stuff?

26:28 Speaker 1 Um, okay. So I was afraid you would ask this. That's why I thought about this for the first time by, uh, right before this podcast. I'll tell you what it... I-I'll tell you what it is, is that our earliest memories of the Rebbe are from Tefillas Hashem. And you're like these li- We're little kids, okay? Like the smallest, like, little things. And the Rebbe would walk into the room, and the Rebbe was so macro, just to, to like, to the lack of any other... Like it would blow our systems, like, like our... Like, like, uh, like really like all our circuits. So I see the Rebbe like... In those days it was Tefillas Hashem, and the Rebbe's the general of Tefillas Hashem. He's helping us get your yetzer hara in control and get yourself and the, the enemies, you know, the yetzer hara and all this. But the Rebbe was always someone that, like, as much as you think you understand the Rebbe, the Rebbe's eons ahead and always try... So the Rebbe was always someone like that like had a lot of humility because there's a lot more that you don't understand. The Rebbe's a high... Before we get into perk you're taiding, the Rebbe's a tzadik, and the Rebbe's the Noshi HaDor. The Rebbe's eons... Has IQ that's eons ahead of yours, and in the EQ, eons ahead of yours. And whether you've divided in ch- You, you whether you... We look through the, the, um, the spectacles of Chabad, Chagah, or Nehem,

27:45 Speaker 1 executives calls. Any way, what way you cut it, he's like eons ahead. So I, I think it's like every time you learn a sicha, like if you're learning it right, it should blow your circuits. If you're... It doesn't blow your circuits, then you have to read it again. So that's for me is like someone who's always blowing your circuits. That's, uh, uh, that's, that's my personal, uh-

28:06 Speaker 3 That's a fair answer. So you, when you would come to farbrengen, you simply were looking forward to this explosion of ideas.

28:12 Speaker 1 You said like what's your high at the farbrengen? So to speak. Now-

28:15 Speaker 3 No, what's, what's your angle? What's your angle? So, you know, when-

28:17 Speaker 1 Now you also have to remember, also another thing I wanna throw in is that, you know-

28:20 Speaker 3 So some, some people have told me that they were by the farbrengen every week, and they couldn't hear a word that the Rebbe said.

28:23 Speaker 1 Okay.

28:23 Speaker 3 Their place was far away. They, they had a hard time hearing. But they, they liked to see the Rebbe's ksetia.

28:28 Speaker 1 Right.

28:29 Speaker 3 Another person could say they liked the atmosphere. Um-

28:32 Speaker 1 So I'm very fortunate. I think my luck is that so my, my brother Josh had always had the best spot in the house.

28:38 Speaker 3 Mm.

28:38 Speaker 1 He's-

28:38 Speaker 3 Sounds like him.

28:39 Speaker 1 Yes. He's, uh, probably. So he was always up in the front, and my friends advised me. They said, "If you show up on your 13th to farbrengen, they're g- you're gonna get like thrown out 'cause... But if you show up like this cute little kid without a hat, they're like, 'Yeah, it's someone... You're, you know, you're Josh's cute little brother.' Show up when you're 11." My friends advised me, "Show up when you're 11, you'll get the good spot." So I started showing up before I had a hat. It was like, okay, little kid. Then I sort of grew up. I got bigger. So I landed next to my brother, this awesome spot right across. You got great, um, you got, you got the, the best, the best, one of the, a perfect... In front of us are these the Canaan Center. You can't get any better than that pretty much.

29:16 Speaker 3 You were behind the, the old people. And-

29:18 Speaker 1 In other words, in front of the Rebbe, but, you know, but people are sitting. The first place that people are standing in front of the Rebbe.

29:24 Speaker 3 Oh.

29:24 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:24 Speaker 3 I see. Like where the t- where the, where the TV would be at, in the... Like right up there.

29:29 Speaker 1 TV, which TV?

29:29 Speaker 3 I wasn't there, but.

29:30 Speaker 1 Which TV?

29:31 Speaker 3 In the, in the weekday farbrengens, the TV would be right up there.

29:33 Speaker 1 You're talking about the video on the front?

29:34 Speaker 3 Yeah.

29:35 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over there.

29:35 Speaker 3 Right there.

29:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:36 Speaker 3 Right after the, right after the tables.

29:38 Speaker 1 Yeah. The TV was actually against the wall, but a little, yeah, further up, right there. Yeah. So that I was lucky that I was able to get. So I wasn't in left field. I had as good as a seat that... And that's why I'm also fortunate. I also kind of, you know, my brother, um, had an amazing spot for our chofetz. So yeah, that's why I was able. So I, for starters, I'm in the room. I have Shabbos, and even in the alpha base, I could hear the sichas. I could hear the... Like I got them. I'm there.

30:04 Speaker 3 You could hear them.

30:04 Speaker 1 Yeah.

30:05 Speaker 3 And, and you, and you felt like you were, you were picking up ideas that were blowing, that were blowing your mind basically?

30:11 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. I only thought of this now. And like again, also you hear tata. It's interesting 'cause some people when we were growing up, at least in Crown Heights, and again, everyone's in their own little place, we... I didn't hear term Rebbe Tata. I know, and again, I'm not a mashpia, so I can't talk. We knew Rebbe Melech. The Rebbe's a Melech. You just, you're just a good soldier. You're not coming for anything. Why do... You ever ask someone like, "Why you going Miftzoim?" Like, "Uh, 'cause I'm gonna get And, and I, and it's interesting because-

31:07 Speaker 3 But-

31:07 Speaker 1 Because it's Hashem

31:08 Speaker 3 But what did you feel that you were coming? What did you feel? Duty? Respect?

31:12 Speaker 1 No, no. We... You just... You didn't think about. You, you wanted to be there. It's interesting 'cause I might... One of my earliest memories is, um, the rabbi giving out Tanyas Tav Shin Mem Beis after Yud-Aleph Nissan never gave out the Tanyas. Interesting, just a little story, anecdote here.

31:30 Speaker 3 Sure.

31:30 Speaker 1 So I was home. My, my mom was preparing for Pesach, and she's listening on the radio to the farbrengen, and I was just... I was home. And I kind of fell asleep, and I would listen to the farbrengen. Kids, you wanted to listen to the farbrengen. You don't understand one word, but we just... I, I camped out on the couch listening to the radio, and then my mother woke me up and she's-

31:48 Speaker 3 Whoa, whoa, whoa, one second. I'm painting a picture. So, so your mother couldn't be by the farbrengen. This is Yud-Aleph Nissan.

31:52 Speaker 1 Yeah.

31:52 Speaker 3 It's a few days before Pesach.

31:53 Speaker 1 Yeah, and she's cleaning while listening to the farbrengen.

31:54 Speaker 3 She was f- your father was at the farbrengen.

31:56 Speaker 1 Actually, my dad was the, the simultaneous translator. My da- my dad would translate... There, there are three translators. There's Rabbi Manis Friedman, who translates on cable TV in between the sichas. There's Rabbi Yankel Hecht who's translating on the radio in between sichas. And my dad, if you ever see these people with like these transistor radios, people listening to farbrengen during farbrengen, my dad was the translator there.

32:18 Speaker 3 Huh. So he was in seven, 70-

32:20 Speaker 1 So he was actually in the kollel. He had like a, you know, he had like these, uh, headphones and he-

32:24 Speaker 3 So he wouldn't, he wouldn't even go to the farbrengen.

32:26 Speaker 1 During the big weekday farbrengens, he was, he was, he was... No, he wasn't on... He was in the... Well, the kollel was... Well, it, well, it used to be the kollel right behind 770-

32:33 Speaker 3 Right

32:33 Speaker 1 ... now it's like a construction site.

32:34 Speaker 3 But he didn't, he wasn't watching the Rebbe talk.

32:36 Speaker 1 He had a little screen. He could watch, he could watch the, from a, from a live feed. It was like a little black and white TV thingy.

32:42 Speaker 3 Oh, I see.

32:43 Speaker 1 Yeah. So he wasn't there. So my, my-

32:45 Speaker 3 And your mother's two blocks away.

32:47 Speaker 1 Yeah, at home-

32:47 Speaker 3 Okay

32:48 Speaker 1 ... preparing. And I'm, and, and I remember my, um, my mom saying that the Rebbe's giving out Tanyas. And I remember like, "The Rebbe's giving out Tanyas." You... It, it wasn't... You... We all loved the Rebbe, and it's interesting because-

33:01 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

33:01 Speaker 1 ... it's interesting how things evolve, that I was-

33:04 Speaker 3 Yeah, but I, I don't mean, I don't mean to, I don't mean to cut you, but is it-

33:07 Speaker 1 I, I just wanna-

33:07 Speaker 3 ... is it a melech or is it a, or is it love? What is it?

33:10 Speaker 1 Um, a benevolent monarch. People love their king. That's what I'm saying.

33:14 Speaker 3 Ah. I see.

33:15 Speaker 1 So, so I just... I wanna, I wanna just like-

33:16 Speaker 3 Yeah, it was-

33:17 Speaker 1 The interesting thing, and when, when I... I never even thought it was a thing. When did I realize my flavor or my generation's flavor of that is after Gimel Tammuz, I was in yeshiva in London, and one of the shluchim was speaking to the, to like... He was farbrengen late at night. And he's like: "You guys, you don't have abba for the Rebbe." I was... And I was like, "Listen." And again, I, and I hadn't learned that, heard that. It was, he was sort of-

33:40 Speaker 3 When was this?

33:41 Speaker 1 Tav Shin Nun-Heh. After Gimel Tammuz, a lot of us sort of flew the coop. Went to Israel, here, there.

33:46 Speaker 3 Yeah.

33:46 Speaker 1 Yeah. We were a generation camped around, around the hospital. Any event, so we, uh... And he's talking about, "You guys don't have abba for the Rebbe. Why not? 'Cause you didn't do chitas or Ram- study Ram." And I was remembering things like ma kesher? And then it was, ah, like it's a, like a religious thing. Of course, the Rebbe's... But I, we didn't see it like-

34:04 Speaker 3 How... Wait one second. How did you know you didn't do chitas?

34:07 Speaker 1 No, he, he was talking to some guy, whatever, like-

34:09 Speaker 3 Uh-huh

34:09 Speaker 1 ... "You don't, you don't, you don't love G-d 'cause you don't do chitas." I was thinking like, "Since when would ha- someone have to do chitas to love the Rebbe? Like, what's the connection?"

34:16 Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

34:16 Speaker 1 So it's... Of course, the Rebbe is a, a, a religious figure, but I think that anyone who grew... Again, I don't wanna paint like crown heights. I think anyone from that time is like, "You love the Rebbe 'cause you love the Rebbe," not... You know, of course, the Rebbe's Meshiach ben David, but that's not the, the nature of loving the Rebbe because he's a religious figure.

34:34 Speaker 3 So how do you describe your, you were a subject of this, of this monarchy? Like-

34:39 Speaker 1 How... So where would I fit into this?

34:41 Speaker 3 No, just I, I, I, I find this fascinating.

34:43 Speaker 1 I ne- I ne- I know. I wasn't-

34:43 Speaker 3 I find this fascinating because you're saying it wasn't a father figure, it was a king figure, but it was like a benevolent k- king figure, which brings to mind, of course, l'havdil, um, like the, a lot of people in England, the feeling they had towards the late queen. Like, where they, they had this, on one hand, this, like, massive respect and, and... But on the other hand, there was love, although over there it was also completely ceremonial and didn't cost anything, but...

35:10 Speaker 1 Right. But this... I'll... Let me put it this way. Melech not as opposed to anything else. So it's interesting. There is a sicha where the Rebbe speaks about Parashat Shofetim, okay? He speaks about that the Rebbe is everything of the generation. He's the, he's the no- he's the navi, he's a yodea, he's a shofet, he's Mashiach. He's everything. So once upon a time, you know, you had different people playing different positions. You had the navi, you had the melech, you had... So when, when Purim comes around, the Rebbe's Mordechai. When Hanukkah comes around, the Rebbe's Ma- the Rebbe's, the Rebbe, the Rebbe is, is, is, uh, is, is not... So the Rebbe's... It's not melech as a... I never saw that binary of father. There's a... It's just the Rebbe is someone who's way greater than. How's that?

35:56 Speaker 3 So why did you wanna come to farbrengen? I, I, I hope I'm not putting you on the spot.

36:00 Speaker 1 No, no. I, I-

36:01 Speaker 3 You wanted to be there? You felt you had to be there?

36:03 Speaker 1 I never felt I had to be there. And it's interesting because there were these concentric circles of people. So you had people in farbrengen who were listening to the farbrengen. I'm talking about weekday farbrengens now, before Tav Shin Beis. Then you had a generation a little older than me, kids playing kugelhak in the front of the, you know, 770. Then you have, you know, like a whole ecosystem outside, a food truck and this. But the h- the Rebbe is, is the epicenter of this, of this, uh, of this. And again, you're a kid, so y- I don't, haven't learned Chassidus. I haven't learned the . I haven't even heard of Chassidus farbrengen. I never... I remember, like, the, the, the run-up to Didan Natan after Rebbe, I heard that there has to be a Chassidus farbrengen. Never spoke of Chassidus farbrengen. I was like, "What does that mean?" Like, like, "How do you..." Like it's playing doctor. How do you farbrengen? The Rebbe's the farbrengen. I never heard of anything of like... What does that mean, a Chassidus farbrengen? Of course, Chassidus farbrengen is most very important. It's this central thing. So these are formative years. But all I'm saying is that then it was like the Rebbe, like a light. You turn, like we just had in a Yomim Noraim. People are drawn to light. Again, I, I, I, I keep borrowing these like... I wanna throw something, and I heard that the Rebbe's brother, Rabbi Yossel Arie Leib- That back in the day

37:08 Speaker 1 when their house and the Rebbe's home was sort of like a place of ight beit vad l'chachamim, um, people come around, talk about different ideas. The Rebbe's brother never used like the technical term, like malchus, za, these kinda terms because like they become like thingified, they become like a thing. So like it's easy to, like borrow like these prepackaged, uh, light, this, that. But it, it... But one thing is that the Rebbe, the Rebbe drew in people. The Rebbe was definitely the epicenter of everything.

37:43 Speaker 3 Hmm. Sounds almost like a, like a kind of just like a vortex that just like, just pulls everybody, pulls everybody in, and like it's just a force, uh, like it's just like a force of energy for-

37:59 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yep. I wanna throw in an and or a but. Comes Gimel Tammuz, and then without getting into the whole, you know, uh, you know, the emotional piece or, or trauma, whatever, we'll, we'll just gloss over for the moment anyway, is that, you know, you... The podcast is called Homesick for Lubavitch, and the question was, was I even home to be homesick? Because I, I was in the room, but I didn't understand any of those farbrengens, and I didn't, um, you know. And I started studying my Maram, and, um, I, I learned through all of my Maram. I mean, anyone could do it. I mean, I'm not saying this, again, for religious reasons. The, the Likutei Sichot, you went through it. The 30 years is a long time. You still have plenty of time to do, to watch all the Westerns. You, you... It's a long time. And then I realized that I wasn't even there in a sense because, yeah, yeah, I was there. I got, so I got votive of it, but I wasn't actually there. I don't think that, like I don't, I don't... My Lubavitch now is not a continuation of that.

38:58 Speaker 3 Hmm. That's fascinating. That's fascinating. Yeah. I, I actually discussed that with, with one of the guests. I think it was Bershevkin, that, you know, as a kid being away from home at a young age, he, you know, he's, he's asking what that was like, and I said, in a way, more than the sadness or whatever kind of psych- psych- psychological things-

39:21 Speaker 1 Hmm

39:21 Speaker 3 ... that happens to a kid, separation, whatever those things are, what I remember distinctly was the, the confusion.

39:28 Speaker 1 Hmm.

39:28 Speaker 3 In the sense that especially as you get ol- as I got older-

39:32 Speaker 1 Hmm

39:32 Speaker 3 ... I would leave home. I would think of home in a certain way.

39:36 Speaker 1 Right.

39:36 Speaker 3 And then I would come back home and be like-

39:37 Speaker 1 Hmm

39:37 Speaker 3 ... "Wait a second, that's not what I remember."

39:39 Speaker 1 Right.

39:40 Speaker 3 And that's what I was talking earlier about this collective memory that's, in a way, that feeds-

39:46 Speaker 1 Right

39:46 Speaker 3 ... this homesickness-

39:47 Speaker 1 Hmm

39:47 Speaker 3 ... in the sense that like we create this past.

39:49 Speaker 1 Right.

39:50 Speaker 3 And you're like-

39:50 Speaker 1 Right

39:51 Speaker 3 ... "Well, that past, I wasn't even there." Like, like I don't even know-

39:53 Speaker 1 For me, it's neither here nor there

39:55 Speaker 3 ... in, in the sense like it didn't even happen.

39:56 Speaker 1 Right.

39:56 Speaker 3 Like it's a, it's i- it's in a way-

39:59 Speaker 1 Right

39:59 Speaker 3 ... very easy to conjure a past-

40:01 Speaker 1 Right

40:01 Speaker 3 ... that, that like, that all, all... You don't need to live through it. You don't need to prove it. You don't need to-

40:06 Speaker 1 Right

40:06 Speaker 3 ... It's just, you just say it was there.

40:09 Speaker 1 Yeah.

40:09 Speaker 3 You know?

40:09 Speaker 1 Right.

40:10 Speaker 3 It's, it's very interesting. So you're saying that, you're saying that with time, with time, the, the... What you thought it was then has completely changed.

40:21 Speaker 1 I, I don't see... I see them as two distinct things. I remember that, and there's this. It's not like, uh, ich gedenk die gute Tzeiten, or I try to like massage anything to be anything or not. And it's... Those were wonderful, beautiful memories. And again, some of my earliest memories, which actually I didn't understand the lines, but I think I understood between the lines, affect me now, and I'll t- I'll give you an example. It's not an example. One thing that I noticed, um, by the Rebbe as a kid, again, I don't understand anything. We're in Crown Heights because we have all these wonderful cousins who live, who live nearby, and they're all Frum. And like I go there for Shabbos, and the, the expression in Yiddish, "Kinder and gelt is a sheine velt." It's like it's, everything's wonderful there. Everything's great. In Crown Heights, by the way, there's always a tension. There's always like a, like a, like a, like a l- li bei day, bekir beis thing. Everyone's moving and running to farbrengen, coming farbrengen. This is the kinda thing you notice as a kid, like there's a lot of like tension and moving and going. So that's something I saw. And to me, even like after Gimel Tammuz, like all of a sudden, like there was all this time like Shabbos afternoon, like we used to-

41:34 Speaker 3 Hmm

41:34 Speaker 1 ... run farbrengen. So I had to engineer something like that. I just felt like I gotta do something. So I, every Shabbos I would walk to a shul. Mako Kehillos, you walk to shul nearby. The Rebbe started a program. The Rebbe spoke about in later years. Walk to shul. So I'd like hustle down Remsen Avenue. It's raining. You're like, "Yeah," you know, like you're moving. I, I always felt that... And again, it's not because I read anything later. That's 'cause I, I, I remember that, that, uh, it's a more emotive. That like if you wanna, if you wanna be on the Rebbe's frequency, you're moving.

42:02 Speaker 3 Hmm. Hmm.

42:05 Speaker 1 That's-

42:06 Speaker 3 Very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. I, I, I think, you know, I think it would do all of us a lot of good. I, i- in a way, I, I hate to sound even close to being an academic, 'cause I think, I think that that's a way of like killing the soul of anything. Let's try to like make... I know your father's an academic. I'm not saying every academic. But a lot of times I go, "Let's, let, let, let's, the, you know, let's, um, you know, what's it called? Let's, let's get a sociologist on, on the case-

42:33 Speaker 1 Hmm. Right

42:34 Speaker 3 ... and like break it down to these-

42:35 Speaker 1 Right

42:35 Speaker 3 ... completely arbitrary categories and like, you know, just-

42:39 Speaker 1 Right

42:39 Speaker 3 ... to slice the frog a million different ways. I'm not suggesting that. But I think like something that you just mentioned where like let, like there is, there is, there is the narratives. There, there are the-

42:52 Speaker 1 Right

42:52 Speaker 3 ... feelings, things that are very up in the air. And then like you said, like just that movement-

42:57 Speaker 1 Right

42:57 Speaker 3 ... that physical movement-

42:58 Speaker 1 Right

42:59 Speaker 3 ... that is very obvious that it was happening.

43:00 Speaker 1 Hmm.

43:01 Speaker 3 It can be proven. It can o- in a way, can be measured.

43:03 Speaker 1 Right.

43:03 Speaker 3 You could, you could, you-

43:05 Speaker 1 Right.

43:05 Speaker 3 I think there's something valuable about, about like... I'm not saying to dismiss every... Narratives are very important But I think it's also important to like, to like focus on, on real tangible things like that.

43:18 Speaker 1 Hmm.

43:18 Speaker 3 Like what, what-- to, to be around the Rebbe, like the way you described to be around the Rebbe was to constantly move, to never, to never, to never, to never be still. That's a very, it's a very, it's a very physical way of describing it.

43:32 Speaker 1 A physical manifestation, and I, I could share another two little like sort of quick anecdotes which I thought of at the time, and then every once in a while I like forgot about but then I remember it once in a while. So as young, like little kids, we sat by-- we, we'd sit by the Rebbe's feet during farbrengen.

43:48 Speaker 3 Right.

43:49 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe, you know, wasn't like in terms of the, the... It's not like the-- It's a powerful man- very powerful message. Rebbe's not talking in a, the Rebbe's not talking in a Shakespearean style with, you know, mach mit di hent. But when you're, when you're a kid and you're under the table, like you're under the table, you'd see the Rebbe's-- you really saw like frept Rashi and sometimes the Rebbe would ask like a, a real Rashi sicha. And there was so much going under the table, and if you were standing down there, you wouldn't see it. The Rebbe was very restrained. He's very restrained. He's, he's very... There, there's so much-

44:21 Speaker 3 Hmm

44:22 Speaker 1 ...that the eye doesn't see. And that's something I, I, I-

44:24 Speaker 3 That's a fascinating, that's a fascinating what you see, but that's what I'm talking about

44:27 Speaker 1 ...there's a little, a little perspective. Something else which, which... And I, I obviously as a kid, I didn't really put words, but I... Something clicked which n- which in my little, you know, uh, something to that effect. I, I, I, it's, it was a perspective for me was, um, my mother was having tea with a, with another woman in, in, uh, from the neighborhood who lived in the, she lived in the, uh, periphery of Crown Heights geographically. She lived in the periphery sociologically. She was like single mother, and I was just kinda hanging around, and my mother asked her, um, you know, "How do you pay the rent?" And she, she took out a personal check from the Rebbe, and she said, "Rebbe, he helps me."

45:10 Speaker 3 Every month.

45:11 Speaker 1 I don't know if it was one month, but... And I'm sure the Rebbe had lots of others. And I think as a kid, because Rebbe was always talking about obviously Saral and this, and... You, you do see it in my k- without going, 'cause again, I don't wanna make this a comparative study in your youth where, where like, you know, people say one thing and do another thing. Some, some like stark examples, which is not relevant to go into. But to me that was like, ah, there was like a certain thing like Rebbe does this. He doesn't only... And again, I, I never thought otherwise, but it was like-

45:39 Speaker 3 Right

45:39 Speaker 1 ...it was... That, that is a, these are like these three anecdotes are just like little anecdotes, but, but the collected, the gestalt of all this is that like the Rebbe, it, it, this is the, the Rebbe is someone that we're drawn to. That's it.

45:54 Speaker 3 Hmm.

45:55 Speaker 1 But again, not for this reason, just it's part of the story.

45:58 Speaker 3 Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, a boutique video production company servicing the Chabad and Jewish community. Since opening ten years ago, Yuvala Media has pushed the boundaries of artistic and thoughtful storytelling in the community, with an insistence on there always being a memorable story as well as a beautiful and striking visual image that we believe is second to none. Over the years, we have worked with Chabad organizations around the country, as well as large organizations like Boni Olom, Torah Mesora, and Atzalaton, guided by the belief that your story is absolutely worth telling with depth and creativity. If you are looking to tell your story with a video, please reach out to us at hello@yuvalamedia.com. Again, that is hello@yuvalamedia.com. A link can be found in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast. Yeah. But, you know, so I, I think like, for example, those two different anecdotes that you gave, I'm not in any way, um, saying one is better than the other, but I think it's important to notice the differences, e-e-especially the way that we're talking about it here. The... I mean, even the second one can be seen differently, but the first one was, to me, like a very kind of concrete, tangible description-

47:22 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

47:22 Speaker 3 ...of, of who, of like what, what the Rebbe was like, but also how that manifested in the community, this constant sense of, of energy that like was like being very restrained, but almost like trying to explode out of its-

47:37 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

47:37 Speaker 3 ...you know, out of its restraint. Um, you know, and so to me, that's like a very, something very real-

47:44 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

47:44 Speaker 3 ...and concrete about that. And the next one is, is a lot more like

47:49 Speaker 1 Abstract

47:50 Speaker 3 ...mo-motivation, feelings.

47:52 Speaker 1 Right

47:52 Speaker 3 You know, you see what I'm saying?

47:55 Speaker 1 And again-

47:55 Speaker 3 I, I, I'm not saying that, that, that-

47:56 Speaker 1 Right

47:56 Speaker 3 ...I'm not discounting the second one-

47:58 Speaker 1 Right

47:58 Speaker 3 ...but I think we focus so much on this, on the, on that category-

48:02 Speaker 1 Yeah

48:02 Speaker 3 ...and much less on like what was it, what was it like in a concrete, tangible sense. Describe it to me in a way that you can like prove as opposed to-

48:12 Speaker 1 Hmm

48:12 Speaker 3 ...expecting that I'm gonna go along. Does that make sense?

48:15 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah. It's interesting because before we're talking about like a subjective Rebbe and, and, like, I found this interesting. You know, pictures of the Rebbe. You walk into someone's house, it's usually a projection of their personal Rebbe. I, I've never-

48:28 Speaker 3 Right

48:28 Speaker 1 ...this, I just took this off my parents' wall. I, I, I never been able to take a picture. I, there's this, there's like Rebbe touching them base and the Rebbe with the lamis and the-

48:36 Speaker 3 Right

48:36 Speaker 1 ...it, it's, it's very... And every, like, it's-- I don't know like who the Rebbe is. I know, you know, these stories of the... It makes a, a nice soundbite, and I didn't think about this, yes. It wasn't like the story, like you hear the story that the... But like-

48:51 Speaker 3 Right

48:51 Speaker 1 ...recently I was thinking about it, it kinda, it kinda came to the surface. But I do get that, that, that like these like interesting anecdotes, um... I'll share another such anecdote about the Rebbe, is that, um, this is one of my favorite. Like this made a, like a strong impression on me.

49:09 Speaker 3 Hmm.

49:09 Speaker 1 Again, a little anecdote is that I would ride my bike from p- from my house to the corner and back, like about thirty feet so back and forth. Anyway, 'cause that was like the safe place to ride my bike. Anyway, and, and then I, I see a Bucher coming out of 1414, and it was a, I don't know who he was. He's like, he's wearing like his jacket, like his, like jacket over his shirt, and he has like a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. And, um, and all of a sudden it looks like he's having like a seizure. Like he's like shaking, and like, something's not right, and like he drops his cigarette. I, I kind of found it funny. I, I, I just didn't know, I was laughing 'cause I was ner- I didn't know what's wrong. Then I just see the guy running for his life, like running, like north to 770. Then I look, and I see that the Rebbe's car is at the red light. And so I don't know, I, I don't remember who was driving the car, but the Rebbe was clearly there, and he was looking out the window. And it's interesting. Even a kid, you know, the Rebbe, it's like when the Rebbe's smiling, it's like a 20,000 watt. Like, like, and when the Rebbe's not happy, y- you see it. It's like the rabbi, like the rab- it's, it's not happy. And the rabbi was following him, and I, like years later, I've sort of

50:21 Speaker 1 put the story together. It was a middle seder. The rabbi wasn't happy. He's not where he belongs. But, but what made more in this particular story more the impression is not the rabbi was looking at him while he was there 'cause it's, is that how this guy, like he walks out of 1440, whatever, you know. And all of a sudden the rabbi's like staring at him, not happy. Like, the guy, like, uh, how much trauma is the guy s- I don't know. And I don't even remember who it was, but I just remember that, that scene. That made a big impression on me.

50:48 Speaker 4 Huh. It's a cool story. Yeah, I like that kind of story. I, I, to, to be honest, I, I, I, I, I don't have a problem with the other kind of story.

51:01 Speaker 1 Right.

51:01 Speaker 4 I feel that for whatever reason, that kind of story has been preferred in a way-

51:08 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

51:09 Speaker 4 ...um, to, to these kind of more, uh, what would be the word? Like, uh, just down to earth. I, I'll tell you, uh, if, if we're sharing anecdotes, although this... I, I don't have my own personal ones like you do 'cause I, I didn't, I didn't grow up in that time.

51:25 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

51:25 Speaker 4 But there's this anecdote that really stuck with me. I, I heard it years ago by, by the Kinus or one of the Kinusim, I think. I don't know if it was a Bucher.

51:33 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

51:34 Speaker 4 It was in the old Tarzow. They had like-

51:35 Speaker 1 Mm

51:36 Speaker 4 ...one year or they had like a session in the Zal. Could be I was, I was a Bucher. I was just there.

51:41 Speaker 1 Right.

51:41 Speaker 4 And you look, Rabbi Krinsky was, was, was, was giving his address, and he shared this anecdote where he was once driving the rabbi somewhere.

51:50 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

51:51 Speaker 4 I don't know if he was driving him into the city. I don't know if that makes sense.

51:53 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

51:53 Speaker 4 But he was driving him where the rabbi-

51:55 Speaker 1 It happened

51:56 Speaker 4 ...could see the... It did go to the city?

51:58 Speaker 1 I don't... It was weird, but it happened.

52:00 Speaker 4 Right. So-

52:00 Speaker 1 It's possible.

52:01 Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

52:01 Speaker 1 Yeah.

52:01 Speaker 4 So he was driving the rabbi to a place where he could, where he got a view of the Twin Towers.

52:08 Speaker 1 Right.

52:09 Speaker 4 And I don't know if he pointed it out. He said, "These are the Twin Towers," or I'm guessing that's what happened. Rabbi looks up from his Sefer, looks at Twin Towers, and, "Yeah, this is it, grace." And then looks back in the... And to me, the, the... I don't know, something about that kind of... I don't, I, I don't know how, uh, 'cause that story doesn't like, doesn't like, uh, ascribe in a way, doesn't, doesn't try to tell you greatness.

52:37 Speaker 1 Mm.

52:38 Speaker 4 It's, it's like it's, it's a common rule in, in, in storytelling, show don't tell.

52:42 Speaker 1 Mm.

52:42 Speaker 4 You know, the story that-

52:43 Speaker 1 Mm

52:43 Speaker 4 ...that, that, that, that tells you-

52:45 Speaker 1 Mm

52:45 Speaker 4 ...what to feel-

52:47 Speaker 1 Mm

52:47 Speaker 4 ...it washes right over you.

52:49 Speaker 1 Right.

52:49 Speaker 4 But the story that like shows that anecdote of like, like that, like-

52:52 Speaker 1 Mm

52:52 Speaker 4 ...like you, the way you're just describing to me the, the hands underneath the tablecloth.

52:56 Speaker 1 Right. It's also interesting because we're talking about subjective views, and, and again, I, I try to the best of my ability to come with some level of humility. I, I, one thing I, I know is that I, I don't know. It's not Gamal, I promise. It's like I, I, I, you know, I, I realize there's so much more that I don't know, and like I, I was like... I was reading Igress recently, and there's an interesting thing, at least in the early years, when someone sends a Sefer to the rabbi, the rabbi sends like, uh, you know, you know, something on the book-

53:24 Speaker 4 Right

53:24 Speaker 1 ...like a comment-

53:25 Speaker 4 Yeah

53:25 Speaker 1 ...his correction. Anyway, this guy writes to the rabbi, it's like a really far out book, a few books, and the rabbi comments, "This you write your book on comparing Judaism and Islam." It's like so far out. "This that you say that, um, you know, Ramadan is like the three, 30 days of Tishri, it doesn't add up because it's really 40 days. It's like, it's the 30 days of Elul and the 10 days of Yom Kippur, the whole Yom Kippur, the 40 days." I was like, it's so interesting. It's so far out. Like we hear the sound bites. We only hear the usual sound bites. Like I, I always try to sort of like... But, and then there's, there's a lot of levels, and person can make a whole... That's the rabbi. That's not the rabbi. That's just like one interesting thing. I, I want- I, I wanna share an interesting anecdote.

54:01 Speaker 4 Share as many as you want, by the way.

54:02 Speaker 1 Okay.

54:03 Speaker 4 You, you've been granted permission as many as you want.

54:06 Speaker 1 Okay. This was sort of also, uh... I always knew this, but you never saw this like... You know this and everyone knows this, but you saw a stark example of, you know, you say tomato, I say tomato. And you see two shluchim who both Hasidim, and they, and they, and they just saw things from different perspective. One would appreciate Rebbe Melech, and the other one appreciated Rebbe Tata. The other one would appreciate, you know, you know. Um, it was the year after Mumbai, and there was this, um... I don't know how I landed there, but it was the same Sefer Torah, and then afterwards all the, the shluchim from, from that area, they were there. Um, and a shliach tells a story that there was a, the, that there was a, a, um, a sh- uh, that there was a shliach. He wanted to go to a Balabus. He had a meeting with him, and he couldn't get ahold of the guy. Anyway, the guy's secretary calls him and says, "Yep, you, you have, uh, you know, the Balabus is going to the game. He has box seats. You sit next to him, and you're... As long as the game is going, you'll have his attention." So you go to the game. So the guy decides he's writing to the... I don't know if the story happened, but so this, uh, it's not relevant because-

55:12 Speaker 4 So the story goes

55:13 Speaker 1 ...so the story goes, and then what's more relevant is how these two shluchim react to the story. Anyway, so, um, he's not gonna do anything. He's a shliach and not the Rebbe, so he, uh, he writes to the Rebbe. And, um, uh, the Rebbe writes, "I'm not telling you what to do, but so you know, like wherever you go, I'm with you." So one shliach is like, "Meshugenah. Nep the Rebbe at some game or whatever. Ah, ah, meshug- What's he even thinking of writing? He's not... What's he in the havah a minute ago?" Um, another shliach says, "No, I don't think so. I think what the Rebbe's telling him is that he should go, but he's not the guy sitting behind home plate, you know, with dripping, uh, mustard and a hotdog and screaming, 'Play ball!' You know, people see you come, you're a shliach. They, they're not stupid. They know you're talking to the guy. Have your meeting with him. And in the middle of this, you know, in the middle of the game with bases loaded and he, and he, and he, and he agreed to, to, to name the building, so you, you're ready to go and leave the game, and that's it." So it's not- And they're arguing, "No, the Rebbe man does," and the other guy's, "No." And everyone's, "Yeah." They're, these are, these are, these are both-

56:15 Speaker 4 Mommy

56:16 Speaker 1 ... valid, um, I, I don't know. Now, not valid, but it's not for me, it's for Mashpia, but, but these are perspectives that people feel very strongly about, that their Rebbe would say, "No way you're going to do that." They'll be like, "No." Rabbi Herschen, years ago when we were in Boston, he was talking about that he was... Similar concept, that he was, you know, he went to Baal Habos and he didn't realize he's in Atlantic City, and he says, "I'm, I'm in a casino," you know. "I didn't realize that's where the meeting was." And he was self... The point is, is that, like, everyone has their way of looking at it and, and it just, it, it was interesting to see that Rorschach test.

56:44 Speaker 4 Yeah. A- and I think that's why, in a way, it's very important to at least maybe if not to completely get away from stories that, that automatically jump to things that can- cannot be proven-

56:58 Speaker 1 Right

56:58 Speaker 4 ... or, or, or, or, or escape the concrete, you know, to, to, to have a better vision of things that are more concrete and more, more fixed and more specific.

57:11 Speaker 1 Right.

57:12 Speaker 4 Um, you know, the goal is not to... Y- if you go too far with that, then you're basically, you know, you're desiccating.

57:18 Speaker 1 Mm.

57:18 Speaker 4 You're, you're drying it all up and-

57:20 Speaker 1 Right

57:20 Speaker 4 ... trying to boil it all down to some data points-

57:23 Speaker 1 Right

57:23 Speaker 4 ... that, that, that misses the point entirely. You know, your father, your, your sibling, your spouse is not a series of data points.

57:30 Speaker 1 Right.

57:30 Speaker 4 There's a lot more to it, obviously, and that's what you need the stories for. That's what you need the narratives for. That's what you need the feelings for. But when it's only the feelings and only the narratives and only these abstractions, then you end up in a place where, like what you said, like... And, and, and, and to me, the hardest part about it is what you just talked about now-

57:49 Speaker 1 Yeah

57:49 Speaker 4 ... is that people still want to have the Rebbe, right? So everybody has their narrative, and then their narrative has to win.

57:56 Speaker 1 Right.

57:56 Speaker 4 Right? And, and, and, and so we, we, we go away from the concrete to the abstract. We go away from the concrete to the, to the very, like, esoteric. And then we want to insist that our version of the esoteric is, in fact, the only version a- a- available. And, and, and that's cause of immense, immense, um, you know, tension.

58:18 Speaker 1 Okay. So what I try to do to deal with that, because it's a real and, and current problem, is to listen to a full farbrengen every week, at least one full farbrengen. Which, by the way, it's interesting 'cause, like, Joe Rogan, he has a, he has like two, three hours, like, like, people are listening to long form. Once upon a time, you had to get it in 30 seconds, which is a fascinating thing. Which I think your podcast is awesome. People are listening to two, three hours. It's like a new thing. Our brains are being rewired. Everyone's listening two, three hours. To listen to four-hour farbrengen? Yeah, why not? So I, I'm listening to farbrengens, and then-

58:51 Speaker 4 When do you listen to it?

58:53 Speaker 1 Okay. So in a perfect world, you listen with your gartel and your-

58:55 Speaker 4 I'm just saying

58:57 Speaker 1 Going, coming, here, there.

59:00 Speaker 4 Say-

59:00 Speaker 1 Wherever

59:01 Speaker 4 ... just like you have your AirPods, whatever.

59:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. I can't use the AirPods 'cause I'm like, I'm like from the, like, the mems. I need, like, big... Like these, I love these earphones. They're like-

59:10 Speaker 4 I know

59:10 Speaker 1 ... they're like lame. It's meant like I have a big, like, good-

59:13 Speaker 4 So you walk around the city like this?

59:15 Speaker 1 No, I can't. Honestly, I'm, yeah, so I'm, so, like, in the house usually.

59:19 Speaker 4 Okay.

59:19 Speaker 1 I c- I c- I can't wear that. I don't know. Some of those... And in any event, I'm listening to at least a farbrengen a week. So then it's like they're in alignment. You're more likely to get, you know, because you can't retell yourself the same story 'cause you're listening to a new story every week. You're listening to a new farbrengen, so it's like, it- it's more likely it's like in alignment. You could still hit and miss, but it's less like... I mean, you're at least stacking the, you know, the deck in a way which you're more likely to do what the, what the, what, what you're hearing. 'Cause it's not the same story, like, hear, that you heard 40 years ago. And also in extra innings galas, you get, you get, you know, opportunity to learn other things. You know, you listen, you know, the, you know, you're catching up. You're listening, you're, you're, you're... And then, and then that's so... I'm, I'm... It's, for me, whatever I, I think I understand is from recent study.

1:00:06 Speaker 4 Very interesting. Very interesting. All right. So I, I, I, I've cut you off already a few times about Tzvas HaShem. I apologize.

1:00:14 Speaker 1 That's fine.

1:00:14 Speaker 4 But what... So let's go back, let's go back to... I, I find it fascinating that Tzvas HaShem was found, I think, in Mem Aleph, right?

1:00:21 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:00:21 Speaker 4 Which means that a child born in the first year of Tzvas HaShem-

1:00:25 Speaker 1 Right

1:00:26 Speaker 4 ... turned bar mitzvah the year the Rebbe passed away. So I, I just, I just violated my-

1:00:31 Speaker 1 It's, it's-

1:00:32 Speaker 4 I just violated my own rule where I ascribed, uh, meanings that I have no proof for whatsoever, but-

1:00:37 Speaker 1 Well, actually, if you wanna get technical, it's Nem Aleph. Well, okay, if you were born, then yeah. So we're a little older, yeah, so, so-

1:00:43 Speaker 4 Right

1:00:43 Speaker 1 ... I, yeah, so.

1:00:44 Speaker 4 I'm saying it was a 13 year, it was 13 years to-

1:00:47 Speaker 1 But we weren't born then. We're just entering... We're old enough, it's interesting, we're old enough to understand what's found interesting. The Rebbe, the Chamish LaMikra is, like, he's a, he's a big deal. Like, if you read the Rebbe's Ra- when you read the Rebbe's Rashi Sichos, he's, Chamish LaMikra is, is not just like a kid. You know, he's like... Chochmah and Tanya, the Alter Rebbe writes, is like kayak hamah. It's like perfect, objective understanding. Not that your, that our minds are developed, but, like, you can learn a new language when you're a kid. You can't do that, you know, at least I can't learn a new language now. So there's a certain objective, interesting molding happening in your understanding. The Rebbe was speaking to kids like that, and I think that's very, um, interesting. I also, in my particular story, the Baalshesiuv movements are in the, in the late, um, in the late, uh, '60s. So the Baali Teshuvah are now our teachers.

1:01:34 Speaker 4 Mm.

1:01:35 Speaker 1 Which is very interesting because they're American. You had people like, you know, Alter Chassidim. You had, I remember Basher Sosunkin. I remember Mendel. Again, Mendel Futerfas would come for the high holidays. You'd see him around, but, like, he was, they were, they were in Crown Heights. Of course, Yoizedeh. There's a lot of, there's like, um, Rabbi Afton would... But I, I haven't seen myself in the same, like-

1:01:55 Speaker 4 He only came to Crown Heights later on

1:01:56 Speaker 1 ... by, by the time I'm, I'm coming of age.

1:01:58 Speaker 4 Right.

1:01:58 Speaker 1 Yeah. So, but, like, American, like, peop- like, I don't know, like we're from the same planet. And, like, they're Chassidim, and the Baali Teshuvah were fired up. They were fired up. They got... They understood the assignment of army.

1:02:12 Speaker 4 Right.

1:02:12 Speaker 1 And I think they're like, uh, you know, it's interesting. Again, a Rorschach test 'cause the Russians will listen to... If you ever talk about the army, you hear, like, singing, uh-

1:02:19 Speaker 4 The Kazakhs?

1:02:19 Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, what's it called? The, yeah, the famous, uh, yeah.

1:02:23 Speaker 4 Tchaikovsky?

1:02:23 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah, Tchaikovsky and and, and-

1:02:26 Speaker 4 Wait, wait, wait. You gotta explain to... Tchaikovsky, like, it, it explains to you that the madness of Russians. Tchaikovsky's, I, I think the only-

1:02:35 Speaker 1 Right

1:02:35 Speaker 4 ... composer of cla- classical music-

1:02:37 Speaker 1 Right, right

1:02:37 Speaker 4 ... to have cannons go off

1:02:39 Speaker 1 Go off, yeah. Talking about, uh-

1:02:41 Speaker 4 On one of his pieces.

1:02:42 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:02:42 Speaker 4 I mean, just the madness of that country.

1:02:45 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so there was, uh-

1:02:46 Speaker 4 But that, that was before the KGB, by the way

1:02:47 Speaker 1 ... so The Siege of Leningrad, they had the, the, the, yeah, the big, uh... And so, and the American-

1:02:51 Speaker 4 Which Tchaikovsky was then, was by the Siege of Leningrad?

1:02:53 Speaker 1 No, but I'm talking, I'm talking about there's a, there's a, there's a, there's an, there's a classical music, I think it's called Leningrad. They played it during the Siege of Leningrad. All right. The Americans, they're thinking, you know, as the army comes rolling. Like they they have that, that imagery.

1:03:06 Speaker 4 Right.

1:03:06 Speaker 1 Especially from that generation.

1:03:07 Speaker 4 Fascinating.

1:03:07 Speaker 1 It's like, there's like, the US Army is like, "That's our army." You know? And you have, uh, you know, the, the French consistence, they're thinking of like, um, m- m- the Mirages are... Everyone's thinking of their, their army.

1:03:19 Speaker 4 Okay. Okay, so what's-

1:03:19 Speaker 1 Point is that, that-

1:03:20 Speaker 4 One second. How much of this is you projecting, and how much of it is, is like, is like you can like actually describe in a tangible way?

1:03:25 Speaker 1 So all I'm saying is, is that, is that I can say with absolute certainty, even though we're looking down, is that we, we saw, is that our teachers who were teaching us about service Hashem had a certain image of an army, uh-

1:03:36 Speaker 4 American teachers

1:03:37 Speaker 1 ... Amer- Like, yeah. Like, like an American army, which is generals, a strong army, a powerful army.

1:03:42 Speaker 4 That wins.

1:03:43 Speaker 1 That wins. Every time. So-

1:03:46 Speaker 4 I mean, you know, Vietnam.

1:03:47 Speaker 1 No, Vietnam, they won every battle, but they, th- they lost for political reasons. But America does win battles.

1:03:51 Speaker 4 That sounds, that sounds a little bit like Lubavitch, not bad.

1:03:53 Speaker 1 No, no. It's not Lubavitch's history. You look it up.

1:03:54 Speaker 4 No, that sounds a little bit like Lubavitch, wins every battle, but, but-

1:03:57 Speaker 1 Okay, fine. I wasn't going there. But, but my point is, is that, is that, is that, um, these were people who were not just, you know-

1:04:04 Speaker 4 Optimistic

1:04:05 Speaker 1 ... y- yeah. Or were like mercenaries.

1:04:07 Speaker 4 They're warriors.

1:04:07 Speaker 1 You're a rabbi, you'd show up. Like, they, they were fired up. They, they themselves like were like soldiers and Kabbalist oil. And, and, and again, I'm not, I'm, I... It was, that's how we saw it. We had a teacher, I'll give you many-

1:04:17 Speaker 4 One, one second.

1:04:18 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:04:18 Speaker 4 Just to, just to open up your idea.

1:04:19 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:04:19 Speaker 4 I think the word that, that would make most sense is patriotic. That's a very interesting word to introduce into the Lubavitch lexicon.

1:04:27 Speaker 1 No, but it wasn't patriotic. That-

1:04:28 Speaker 4 No, but I-

1:04:29 Speaker 1 I, they may use the, the first version

1:04:30 Speaker 4 No, no. Just-

1:04:30 Speaker 1 Okay

1:04:30 Speaker 4 ... no, but look, uh, the American Army, the whole idea is, at least like the-

1:04:34 Speaker 1 Right

1:04:34 Speaker 4 ... kind of the, the, the mystique of the American Army-

1:04:37 Speaker 1 Right

1:04:37 Speaker 4 ... is that it w- you know, it, it was an army that was like the people's army.

1:04:42 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:43 Speaker 4 It was the people's army. There were wars that they had to be drafted into, but it wasn't like this monarch that would throw... Like, you could never get away in this country with throwing millions of kids at the, at the cannons, right?

1:04:52 Speaker 1 Right. All I can tell you that what I understood at the time was, was discipline.

1:04:58 Speaker 4 Uh-huh.

1:04:58 Speaker 1 That's what I saw. I didn't see Amer- I, I saw discipline.

1:05:01 Speaker 4 But, but why is that American and not Russian? I'm trying to understand.

1:05:04 Speaker 1 I, I got carried away a little bit.

1:05:05 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:05:05 Speaker 1 Some hyperbole there. But, but my ... But the point is, is that, is that, is that-

1:05:09 Speaker 4 But I li- I li- I liked where you were going

1:05:10 Speaker 1 ... okay. But, but, but it's more of like discipline.

1:05:13 Speaker 4 I see.

1:05:13 Speaker 1 Uh, let's see. So like, the Rebbe, every step is... Like, like the Rebbe, every... It's very disciplined.

1:05:20 Speaker 4 So is there a particular teacher that you're thinking of?

1:05:22 Speaker 1 Yes. So we had a teacher in second grade. He always comes up in every conversation, some, every meaningful conversation. His name is Rabbi Washerman, Israel Washerman. He passed away not long thereafter. He had a indelible mark on myself, on my class. Um, and I have an amazing class. I, I-

1:05:38 Speaker 4 He, he taught in Lubavitch Yeshiva

1:05:39 Speaker 1 ... he taught in Lubavitch Yeshiva. And, um, and, and he w- he was like, he was, he was like, to us, he, like, we... He would decide it, that we're going to sing for the old age home nearby, and we would march down. Because we're in the army, we had the army hats, and we would march down the, um, eastern, uh, uh, Ocean Park. We were in Ocean Park Yeshiva. By the way, the famous p- uh, picture of the Rebbe saluting is, uh, my brother, Menachem Mendel, lives in Milwaukee. So we had the hat, the salute. It was very much part of, like, that, that Rebbe, 'cause talking about a melech, but there's also that, that part of dis- discipline, and you're in a army, and there's like that, that piece. It's also interesting, by the way-

1:06:20 Speaker 4 So he, so he, he bought full into the whole tzitzit, chametz

1:06:23 Speaker 1 Who? Rabbi Washerman?

1:06:24 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:06:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, he wa- Yeah. So he, he, he made it a thing, and it was like... And it's interesting because there was also our teacher, Rabbi Katzin.

1:06:30 Speaker 4 Yes.

1:06:31 Speaker 1 So Rabbi Katzin's interesting. Some people may not know this. He was our pre-1A teacher, so ta- he was our teacher in Tasha Mem Beis.

1:06:36 Speaker 4 He didn't teach in Alter? Or that was only later on?

1:06:37 Speaker 1 He taught in Lubavitch Yeshiva, uh, uh, uh, when I was a child. He taught for many years.

1:06:41 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:06:41 Speaker 1 He was a Hasid in the truest sense of the word.

1:06:44 Speaker 4 'Cause I used to see him come to 770 with his boys every week there. I thought that was Alter. Oh, no, you're right. Crown Street.

1:06:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:06:49 Speaker 4 Crown Street. He taught on Crown Street, right?

1:06:51 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, well, in my days it was Ocean Parkway when-

1:06:53 Speaker 4 I see. I see

1:06:54 Speaker 1 ... it didn't exist. Anyway, the point is, is that he made a whole song... He made a tape with, uh, basically, like songs about service Hashem, but like, the tunes were like to popular, um, kindergarten preschool songs. Like to the tune of, uh, and you know, and the song went Like, all, um, Like these like ch- you know, um, children, popular American children's songs. He wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe wrote back something to the effect. There's a savian out there like, um, y- like it's a high... Like it's, it's, it's something to the effect of like, we're not so sure if you can teach... Even if the, the lyrics are Hasidical lyrics, it to, to, to like elevate these children's songs that are not Jewish. So he worked on this whole recording. It just disappeared, and he wrote it and started again. He made another, um-

1:07:53 Speaker 4 Huh

1:07:54 Speaker 1 ... another. So he's like a Ha- He was like, he was a Hasid. That generation, and we saw that gen... There was Rabbi Ferris, who was, uh, now is a shliach I think in Berkeley. It was a whole generation.

1:08:02 Speaker 4 He tau- he taught in Lubavitch Yeshiva also?

1:08:03 Speaker 1 He taught in Lubavitch Yeshiva. He was one class older than me. The whole generation of Baali Teshuva, and somehow no one told us that there, that like you just saw, they, they were like soldiers. It was like that, that, that, uh, zeitgeist of being a soldier and, uh, and that, um, uh, during that time.

1:08:21 Speaker 4 Was there, was there, was there at all this kind of like awareness that- ... the teachers are now like, was, was there any kind of, uh, pushback from the community?

1:08:32 Speaker 1 It's interesting because I heard about him actually. Okay. So, okay. So this is before my time, so it's, you know, uh, I'm not an authority on him, these aren't my credentials, but I did hear about Rabbi Washman specifically. He married a woman from Bern- from, from, from France.

1:08:53 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:08:54 Speaker 1 And Rabbi Goldberg from 770, you know, Rabbi Goldberg from 770, so his father was from the original Bernwei, Invizion, Reb Nissen and-

1:09:00 Speaker 4 Right, right

1:09:01 Speaker 1 ... and like, the Rebbe was starting this, and again, they were Hasidim, okay? I don't know what was said or wasn't said, but the Rebbe was bringing in this generation, um, which was, I th- the jury is still out who did do who a bigger favor because I think bringing in that generation of people with credentials, Americans, and who don't have the trauma of the Russian or... It, it, it did a lot for our community.

1:09:24 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:09:24 Speaker 1 Tremendous amount. So I don't know what they said or didn't say, but, but, um, when Rabbi Was- so Rabbi Washman is marrying this, uh, French woman, and they had the Kabbalah Punim in Bernwei Yeshiva. And this is the first time they'd seen a, like a Baalshesiuv from... They had heard about it, like beatniks or hippies or whatever, that generation, and Rabbi Washman chazret hamimer, and they were blown away.

1:09:50 Speaker 4 Huh.

1:09:51 Speaker 1 And, and he called his son, Rabbi Goldberg from here, and he said, "I, I'm beginning to understand what the Rebbe's, what the Rebbe's doing over here. We didn't really understand what's happening."

1:09:58 Speaker 4 Huh.

1:09:58 Speaker 1 But, but chazret hamimer, like, uh, yeah, as it's done. Anyway, seeing as you asked.

1:10:06 Speaker 4 That's very interesting. That's very interesting. Yeah, these, these, these are, these are... I know you see them as, as anecdotes, but in many ways the, in many ways anecdotes are the, they're, they're very, very important. There, there's, uh, there, there's this, there's this, uh, distinction I once read, I think it's from C.S. Lewis, the difference between looking at the light-

1:10:35 Speaker 1 Hmm

1:10:35 Speaker 4 ... but looking with the light.

1:10:36 Speaker 1 Hmm.

1:10:37 Speaker 4 Right? You look at the light, you get blinded, you don't see anything.

1:10:40 Speaker 1 Hmm.

1:10:40 Speaker 4 You know?

1:10:41 Speaker 1 Hmm.

1:10:42 Speaker 4 Uh, almost ironically. But if you look with the light-

1:10:45 Speaker 1 Hmm

1:10:45 Speaker 4 ... where the light is shining-

1:10:46 Speaker 1 Hmm

1:10:46 Speaker 4 ... like on, like on that spot of the floor-

1:10:48 Speaker 1 Hmm. Hmm

1:10:48 Speaker 4 ... that, you know, it, it's illu- it suddenly it illuminates, right?

1:10:53 Speaker 1 Right.

1:10:53 Speaker 4 And, and so like w- a, a good author doesn't... If you wanna describe, or a painter.

1:10:58 Speaker 1 Right.

1:10:58 Speaker 4 If you look at, you know, all the impressionist painters-

1:11:00 Speaker 1 Right

1:11:00 Speaker 4 ... or all the painters, they don't draw sunlight. Like the sun, you can't draw the sun.

1:11:05 Speaker 1 Right.

1:11:06 Speaker 4 You draw the, the reflection of the light on the water or on the house, right? And the, the, the, the way the light dapples the leaves and so on, that to me is what anecdotes-

1:11:16 Speaker 1 It's very interesting to mention that. The other day I was reading, um, the... I like reading the Rebbe's Igris from the early years.

1:11:24 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:11:25 Speaker 1 Because it's exhibit A of how to be a Hasid, because the, in those days the Rebbe was pre-Rebbe. He's... And you see he's writing-

1:11:33 Speaker 4 Are you talking about the really early years?

1:11:35 Speaker 1 Well, it's before Tafshinjid Alf.

1:11:36 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:11:36 Speaker 1 Okay? So the Rebbe's not technically Rebbe yet.

1:11:39 Speaker 4 Right. Right.

1:11:40 Speaker 1 So as far as we know. Anyhow, the point is, 'cause of the discussion before, Hey Tevis, very interesting, it's a whole separate discussion. The Rebbe mentions in a few of thefabringens that by Moshe Rab- by David HaMelech, he crown- he crowned his son in his own lifetime. The Rebbe men- like throws that in a few different places, and you've gotta wonder if there was any discussion with the Rebbe and the Friediker Rebbe about being... It's a whole separate discussion, but I, I, you know, that's why I said it in the, you know... As far as we're concerned, we know the Rebbe became Rebbe, you know? There weren't two Rebbes at the same time. Okay?

1:12:09 Speaker 4 Right.

1:12:09 Speaker 1 Point is, is that, um, someone's writing to the Rebbe, um, so this is the early years, and it's Hendo Lieberman, right? So the artist.

1:12:18 Speaker 4 My great uncle.

1:12:19 Speaker 1 Ah, there you go.

1:12:20 Speaker 4 Mendel Fuzerfas' brother.

1:12:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. There you go. Okay. See-

1:12:22 Speaker 4 My great-great-uncle. Yeah.

1:12:24 Speaker 1 I'm sure you're familiar with the letter. I'm just for, for the listeners-

1:12:26 Speaker 4 Actually, I'm not

1:12:27 Speaker 1 ... he was very depressed-

1:12:29 Speaker 4 Yeah

1:12:29 Speaker 1 ... clearly, and he, he-

1:12:30 Speaker 4 He lost his wife and kids in the war

1:12:31 Speaker 1 ... yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Y- y- yeah. Anyone who was with Leningrad through the-

1:12:36 Speaker 4 No, it wasn't Leningrad. No, it wasn't Leningrad.

1:12:39 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:12:39 Speaker 4 Just so you know the story, Hendo Lieberman had a wife and two kids who were from, uh, Poland.

1:12:45 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:12:46 Speaker 4 Like the, the Poland that was close to Russia.

1:12:48 Speaker 1 Okay. Okay.

1:12:48 Speaker 4 And they went the summer of the war when no one was really expecting the war to break out.

1:12:53 Speaker 1 Ah.

1:12:53 Speaker 4 They went to visit family.

1:12:54 Speaker 1 Right.

1:12:54 Speaker 4 He didn't go along with them.

1:12:55 Speaker 1 Right.

1:12:56 Speaker 4 And then the war broke out, and they got stuck in Poland.

1:12:59 Speaker 1 Right.

1:12:59 Speaker 4 And so he ended up escaping with his family and the community to wherever, to, you know, to Tashkent or Samarkand, whatever, but his family, he lost. So he was one of like the only Russian Hasidim who-

1:13:10 Speaker 1 Wow

1:13:10 Speaker 4 ... lost his family in the Holocaust.

1:13:13 Speaker 1 Interesting. I mean, t- horrible. I didn't mean interesting in that way. Just I was not aware of that.

1:13:18 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:13:19 Speaker 1 The letter is written to, you know, as, as is done in Igris, dot, dot, dot. You know, it's a personal letter and they don't have his name, but if y- you read the letter, it's clear there was only one such person that had... In those days, the Rebbe describes it.

1:13:31 Speaker 4 Right.

1:13:31 Speaker 1 He was an artist and he was in Laban. Like that whole-

1:13:33 Speaker 4 Yeah

1:13:34 Speaker 1 ... it's clearly him.

1:13:36 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:13:36 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe, the Rebbe is talking about how artists see things from a different perspective. It's like a beautiful letter, how you see things from a different perspective, and that's what makes an artist an artist, to see from that perspective, and if we can see something from that perspective. Basically helping him work through what sort of, I don't, I don't, I, I but I can't even imagine trauma that he's experienced-

1:13:57 Speaker 4 Yeah

1:13:57 Speaker 1 ... in his life to, to put one foot forward.

1:13:59 Speaker 4 He was also, he was also very, he was a very... He was an orphan as a, as a, as a small little boy.

1:14:05 Speaker 1 Right.

1:14:05 Speaker 4 His father passed away bef- before his brother Mendel-

1:14:09 Speaker 1 Hmm

1:14:09 Speaker 4 ... was born.

1:14:10 Speaker 1 Hmm.

1:14:10 Speaker 4 Like during the pregnancy.

1:14:12 Speaker 1 Hmm.

1:14:12 Speaker 4 So, and then he also, he, he, you know, he, he had his own journey beforehand, that he left, he went to become an artist, he came back. I don't know exactly.

1:14:20 Speaker 1 He draws very cool cats, by the way. Like his cat with the... Like his-

1:14:23 Speaker 4 I have a-

1:14:23 Speaker 1 Every picture has like a cat somewhere.

1:14:25 Speaker 4 Uh, the painting I have of his in my living room, I don't think it has a cat. It has a bird. His p- his... I find his, I find his art very haunting, um-

1:14:34 Speaker 1 Hmm

1:14:34 Speaker 4 ... in, in, in a, in a way that I like, to be honest.

1:14:37 Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, it, it's out of Isaac Bashevis Singer something. It's like something far out. It's like, it has a certain-

1:14:42 Speaker 4 No, but like even the ones, like the painting I have is, I don't know if you're familiar, but it's, it's, it's, uh, the one with there's like an old man playing a cello-

1:14:51 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah

1:14:51 Speaker 4 ... and then a young boy playing a violin.

1:14:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. I know that one.

1:14:54 Speaker 4 Um, and even like on one hand it's, it's, it's, it's, it's drawing a very like basic, uh-

1:15:00 Speaker 1 Right

1:15:00 Speaker 4 ... scene.

1:15:01 Speaker 1 Right.

1:15:01 Speaker 4 But at the same time there's, there's something in the old man's eyes.

1:15:06 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

1:15:06 Speaker 4 And just the way that he draws the perspective of the people. Like are they close or are they far to one another?

1:15:11 Speaker 1 Just this recently we had a poet, Yoshua Novemehr, who was at our Chabad House.

1:15:14 Speaker 4 He was the last guest on the podcast.

1:15:16 Speaker 1 Oh, I saw that. I just haven't had a chance to listen. Um, we love it.

1:15:18 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:15:18 Speaker 1 Anyway, okay, so anyway, he's... I asked him when he was here, he was here, um, and I said, "Like, I realize there's something esoteric about the difference between every other yokel who thinks he's a poet and just tries to impose his poetry and you know, and like an authentic poet," which he clearly is. What's like... Is there any way to, like quantify it or like the, uh... Like he says, like, "A real poem should make the hair stand on your neck." That's the way he put it.

1:15:41 Speaker 4 Yes.

1:15:42 Speaker 1 So you can't describe it, but you know it when you see it type of thing, right? So, um, yeah. So you're looking at, at something very ostensibly simple, but it, or it, it, it, it, it's, it triggers you in certain ways, and you know it's art.

1:15:55 Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I, I think to kind of tie it back to the conversation, you know, the, these, these, these anecdotes, these anecdotes about the rabbi or the anecdotes about Crown Heights, there's something about that too, and like, uh, again, I'm not trying to downplay all the stories-

1:16:14 Speaker 1 Right

1:16:14 Speaker 4 ... the so-called rabbi stories-

1:16:15 Speaker 1 Right. Right

1:16:15 Speaker 4 ... the miracle stories-

1:16:16 Speaker 1 Right

1:16:16 Speaker 4 ... whatever it is. But I feel that when you, when, when all the stories come saturated with obvious meaning-

1:16:23 Speaker 1 Right. Right

1:16:23 Speaker 4 ... and like purpose, like this is what the story's trying to tell you-

1:16:26 Speaker 1 Right. Right

1:16:26 Speaker 4 ... it takes away that, that, that moment of connection that art gives you-

1:16:30 Speaker 1 Mm

1:16:30 Speaker 4 ... where like, boom, I get it. Like, this, this anecdote, this anecdote shows me something, and I feel it. The way Yehoshua November described it to me is-

1:16:40 Speaker 1 Mm

1:16:40 Speaker 4 ... being, not meaning.

1:16:42 Speaker 1 Mm.

1:16:42 Speaker 4 Right?

1:16:43 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:16:43 Speaker 4 Right? Like too many times the stories have a lot of meaning attached to them, and, and, and, and less being.

1:16:52 Speaker 1 Okay. As we're dancing around the subject, I would like to, I, I would like to-

1:16:56 Speaker 4 Go straight, go straight into it then.

1:16:57 Speaker 1 So, um, I'd like to bo-borrow from a certain anecdote and, and just what, where I, I hold personally. The famous story with Rabbi Marash, the person comes to Rabbi Marash and he says he was offered this, um, um, investment. You can't lose. It's incredible. He's, he's gonna make money hand over fist. Rabbi Marash tells him, "Don't do it." Short story short is that he invests, he loses money, and he comes back to Rabbi Marash, and Rabbi s- and Rabbi Marash tells him that there's three, "You should've listened to me." Why? There's three groups of people. One, some people see I'm a tzadik, you say, "Elokai Ruach Hakodesh," so they listen to me. I tell you know, you know what's going on from, from the, from, from Shamayim. You know what's going on spiritually. You listen. Some people s-see me as a brilliant person, and some people, they see me as the epicenter of the whole economy, so at least I know it's flying because someone's, you know, people are coming for berachah. You, you, you're investing with this guy? I know he came to me 10 minutes ago and asked a berachah that, you know, he lo- you know, he lost his money. My position is, is that the rabbi is tzadik, you say, "Dayan ha-emes," and I see the rabbi as Ruach Hakodesh and Moshe Rabbeinu of our time. Now, it doesn't preclude... It's not one or the other. It doesn't preclude everything else. I know the rabbi is eons ahead of me, and...

1:18:12 Speaker 1 So that's also interesting, but it didn't preclude that story.

1:18:15 Speaker 4 Yes. Oh.

1:18:16 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

1:18:16 Speaker 4 Oh. Oh. No, no. Fair.

1:18:17 Speaker 1 I mean, I should state in the obvious, but I don't know if it will be obvious. Yeah.

1:18:20 Speaker 4 Fair. Fair. No, so I, I, I, I, I did make that disclaimer a few times. I'm not discounting the other stories.

1:18:25 Speaker 1 Right.

1:18:26 Speaker 4 But I, I do feel that those stories have been preferred.

1:18:30 Speaker 1 Mm.

1:18:30 Speaker 4 Like they, they have been-

1:18:31 Speaker 1 Mm

1:18:31 Speaker 4 ... they have been pushed more, more... I, I'm not saying that it was, uh, somebody, somebody decided to do it and there's some nefarious agenda.

1:18:39 Speaker 1 Right. Right. Right

1:18:39 Speaker 4 But for whatever reason-

1:18:40 Speaker 1 Right

1:18:40 Speaker 4 ... that is the, that is the kind of preferred method of storytelling, where the story has an obvious meaning-

1:18:48 Speaker 1 Right

1:18:48 Speaker 4 ... and the story has this kind of-

1:18:51 Speaker 1 Right

1:18:51 Speaker 4 ... call to action in it.

1:18:52 Speaker 1 Right.

1:18:52 Speaker 4 And, and, and like, this is what the story's telling you-

1:18:55 Speaker 1 Mm

1:18:55 Speaker 4 ... and, or this is what it's saying about the rabbi, this is what it's saying about Crown Heights back then, whatever it is. And, you know, you, you end up ha- you end up, you end up, you end up, uh, you end up putting meaning over, over the con- You, you put the abstract over the concrete. You put meaning-

1:19:12 Speaker 1 Right

1:19:12 Speaker 4 ... over the-

1:19:12 Speaker 1 Right

1:19:13 Speaker 4 ... the being.

1:19:14 Speaker 1 Right. Okay, so now that we got that out-

1:19:16 Speaker 4 I'm not, I'm not saying that, that those stories should go away

1:19:18 Speaker 1 But I, I don't, I don't think... I didn't think that. I just put that out there.

1:19:21 Speaker 4 Yes.

1:19:21 Speaker 1 And with that said, let's get back to this anecdotal stuff, which I love to... Okay. Huge sto- It's anecdotal, but again, you see the rabbi's personality-

1:19:29 Speaker 4 Okay

1:19:29 Speaker 1 ... you know, so to speak. There was, um, uh, uh, he's, he's still, Baruch Hashem, um, he's, he's, uh, Baruch Hashem, Chai V'Kayam. He's an AB Bied- AB Biederman, and he was, I think he may have, he w- he was in the Koch administration, the, the mayor of New York, and he, um, was by Yechidus by the Rebbe, and they were talking shop, I guess, about New York and about macro things. And he mentions to the Rebbe that my father, um, made a shidduch. My fa- my, my father made a shidduch. So he just throws it in. And so the Rebbe says, "Oh, did you, do you pay him shadchanus?" So he says, "Yeah," I mean, and he paid very handsome shadchanus. So the Rebbe told him something to the effect of, "If you knew how hap... Are you..." Like, "If you... Do you... If you knew how happy you'd be th- like now, would you have given..." Like, "How much did you give him?" You know, so he mentions a big number. "If you knew how happy you'd be in your marriage, would you have given him like that?" He says, "Well, you know, you only give shadchanus." The Rebbe says, "I think now you should really give him shadchanus because now you really appreciate how happy you are." So he shows up, someone shows up at our front door 20 years a- married 20 years and gives, like, another check to my da- by my dad, you know, like a handsome check. So

1:20:44 Speaker 1 it's like the Rebbe's always thinking there's a Chabad piece, of course, very intellectual piece, and then there's a Chadass piece, but there's, like, a v-very, um, kind, like, piece always working how to help somebody i-in a, in a, in a very, uh... I thought that was, I thought... I know it's, again, I'm not gonna build, like, a whole story. I thought it was, it's interesting anecdote, which I think people find interesting.

1:21:05 Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I was just, uh, I was just talking about it online with some people this week that it, it came up in context with the, the infamous book by, by, um, Heilman. Uh, that's already years old. I'm not trying to, uh, bring up, uh, old, uh, to beat a dead horse, and I think it is a dead horse. But, you know, I, like, that book, I, I, I remember reading it, and I was like, "I don't even care if it's factually corre- like, I don't... If the history, if you got the history right or wrong, the thesis makes no sense in the se- in, in, in, in the way that, you know... Here's this person who came and took over, saw an opportunity to take over the Lubavitch empire. Okay, first of all, the Lubavitch empire didn't exist, and people thought it was not going to exist. The Lubavitch empire had no money, and that's first of all. But second of all, like, do you know what it... Do you know the cost that it comes with? Like, to be, to be a rebbe is to hear so many people's needs and to... Y- y- even if, God forbid, you, you, you have a heart of stone, like, you will that is a weight you cannot carry. It's a superhuman weight to carry. And yeah, so, so I was saying to... I was like, I was saying to some guys, I w- having a conversation online where, like, for me, sometimes, like, you're

1:22:33 Speaker 4 talking about different ways of appreciating the rebbe. Like, for me, sometimes a cornerstone of my appreciation for the rebbe is, like, that.

1:22:42 Speaker 1 Mm.

1:22:42 Speaker 4 Like, just, like, the amount of sorrow that he listened to-

1:22:47 Speaker 1 Mm. Mm

1:22:47 Speaker 4 ... and, and, and, and was a listening ear to, to, to so many people.

1:22:52 Speaker 1 Mm. Mm.

1:22:52 Speaker 4 And of course, gave advice and helped them.

1:22:54 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:22:54 Speaker 4 But, like, that to me is, you know, going back to this kind of objective-

1:22:58 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:22:58 Speaker 4 ... concrete in a way that, you know, I understand. I don't understand the whole world. I'm not, I'm not trying to shrink the world to my... But this is what I got, you know? You talk about tzidkus and tzadikim, I could believe that, but it's not, it's not in my hands. You see what I'm saying?

1:23:10 Speaker 1 I, I hear what you're saying because it, it makes it also... We can apply it in our own life. There's a famous sicha where the rebbe speaks about in the later years, again, you were, before you mentioned an aleph and the beis. One of the, like, sichas which the rebbe, which the rebbe said, which was, like, hard to understand. It was, like, uh, revolutionary. Every once in a while it comes up, but the rebbe's, Shana Rabba, the rebbe says that the, the Tzemach Tzedek had all the sons were called rebbe.

1:23:33 Speaker 4 Right.

1:23:33 Speaker 1 Now every Hasid could be a rebbe. So it's like, like, what's that? But perhaps-

1:23:38 Speaker 4 Back then you were saying, "What's that?"

1:23:40 Speaker 1 No, I don't, I don't remember it at the time, and I didn't remember it at the time.

1:23:43 Speaker 4 Right. Right.

1:23:43 Speaker 1 But I was... Someone mentioned that, I went, "Look, yeah, it's there."

1:23:45 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:23:46 Speaker 1 So, um, idea is, is that we can, can do something like that. And I... That particular thing, the way at least I try to apply that, is like the rebbe's listening to every single person, and when you're sitting with that pers- with the rebbe sitting with that person, that person's the only person on the planet. There's no one else. You're the absolute center of the universe. And not only that, but when somehow many people feel this, that when you're walking by, you're passing, you're passing the rebbe by dollars, you're like, the rebbe sees the best you. Like, your, your Chida Shaberver, the incorruptible you. Not just you, but the best you, and only you. So I try to apply that when I visit people in the hospital. We have a few hospitals here. I'm very rarely there. There's, uh, Rabbi Freilich. He's, he's incredible. He's part of the Chabad of the Upper East Side, Rabbi Krasnyansky. They have a team of people, they visit people in the hospital. But invariably, every once in a while, I get called to, to visit people in the hospital. So when I go visit someone, before I go into the room, I, I just like, like that, like yichud mode, like, it's not me anymore, you know? It, it doesn't make a difference what's going on or paying the bills or whatever. It's this person and only this person, and it's very, very, very... It's like, uh, when you hear that the rebbe, you know, it's, you have to,

1:25:03 Speaker 1 you have to, like, do yichud this.

1:25:05 Speaker 4 Right.

1:25:05 Speaker 1 But you're, you know, it's just... But anyone could do this. So just these, these, they're taking these stories, applying them, um, to our, to how we would like to play rebbe, so to speak.

1:25:16 Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the, that does make it int- the, the act of internalizing or trying to figure out how to internalize forces you to, to find that real concrete thing, and it might be different for you than for somebody else. But it does force you to get away from abstractions, right?

1:25:34 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:25:34 Speaker 4 It does force you to get away from easy kind of, "Oh, this is what it means." Okay, but, but how are you gonna translate it?

1:25:41 Speaker 1 It's interesting you mention this because-

1:25:42 Speaker 4 You know, it, it's very easy. "Oh, this is what it means for the world." Okay, fine, but, but how do you internalize it? Okay, now, now, now this-

1:25:50 Speaker 1 It's interesting you should mention this because Yutrat's coming up, and it's like the one... I don't want, I don't wanna use the word pet peeve, but I, I can't think of any other word at the moment.

1:26:00 Speaker 4 This, this podcast is very hospitable to pet peeves.

1:26:03 Speaker 1 Okay. The rebbe's speaking about he's becoming rebbe, mazel tov, and then he puts on the record something that he has a hard time with. The rebbe uses the expression «feygelekh un boznen».

1:26:13 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:26:13 Speaker 1 You know, you're sitting at a farbrengen. We'll call it liquid confid- like a liquid confidence of chaia or taking over the world.

1:26:19 Speaker 4 Right.