Ep. 55 // "A New Intellectual Stage" w/ Rabbi Dr. Eli Leib Rubin

00:00 Speaker 1 Before Gamotama's, the rabbi's speaking every week.

00:02 Speaker 2 Right.

00:02 Speaker 1 People are so busy just keeping-

00:04 Speaker 2 Keeping up

00:04 Speaker 1 ... the new c-new contrast, the new liquor. For most people, it wasn't possible to do that kind of l- to learn in that kind of way, and to think in this kind of holistic way of, you know, Chassidus as, as a whole. Chabad is arriving at a kind of new intellectual stage of thinking, of learning, st- learning Chassidus in a more serious, uh, more organized, more systematic, and more an- analytical way, which, which I th- hopefully will allow people to really start to understand some of these subjects in a deep way, internalize it deeper a- and live it deeper.

00:39 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year two thousand and twenty-five. My name is Ben Zion Afsin, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. We are back, finally back, uh, here in Pittsburgh with, uh, an old friend and, um, a colleague, and now a, a teacher because, and a teacher of mine because I read his book, um, Rabbi Eli Rubin, Dr. Eli Rubin. Doctor, right?

01:17 Speaker 1 Doctor.

01:17 Speaker 2 Dr. Eli Rubin, and, uh, that's a very... That's a-- I say that with not an ounce of, uh, of cynicism. Very, uh, well-earned, uh, PhD, if I can be a judge at all. Um, just to address the elephant in the room, uh, it's been a couple months since, uh, I recorded or released, uh, an episode. Um, I appreciate everyone reaching out to see if I'm still alive. I am indeed. Um, but it turns out that there are other things going on in my life besides this podcast. So, I mean, the appropriate question after hearing, after all the episodes should be, do I have a life? And I do. Uh, so, you know, the past couple months, I had to tend to work and different projects, as well as some other things, and I'm happy that, uh, I've been able to make some time, carve out some time to be here in Pittsburgh and to have you on. And, uh, I'm very glad to restart HFL with, uh, with you and a discussion about this book.

02:22 Speaker 1 Well, thank you very much. It's been, it's been great listening to Homesick for Lubavitch, and this actually feels like going back in time to some of the old farbrengens that we had sitting across tables.

02:33 Speaker 2 Ah.

02:35 Speaker 1 Which, which probably we don't want to remember too much of, but-

02:37 Speaker 2 Well, I, I don't know if I want to. I don't remember. I used to... There used to be something else in my cup in those days.

02:44 Speaker 1 Yes.

02:44 Speaker 2 But, um, look, on some level, everything is part of, uh, you know, ev-ev-every experience is part of who you are, for good or for bad, and as much, as much as maybe, as much as maybe, you know, one can look back at some things with, uh, I don't know, negativity, but, you know, regret, I think there's also good things that can be taken-

03:04 Speaker 1 I think a lot of good things came out of those farbrengens.

03:06 Speaker 2 I don't know. Yeah, I think a lot of good things came out of those times, and, um, uh, we're sitting here today, aren't we?

03:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

03:12 Speaker 2 Uh, so that's the, the, the-

03:13 Speaker 1 This, the PhD and this book are also products of those farbrengens in some ways.

03:19 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. I had no idea, yeah, what you were onto in yeshiva, to be honest. Um, uh, we definitely would have had different conversations if I knew what you were up to back then. Um, but, you know, I, I think in many ways that's gonna be the conversation on some level is how does a book like this fit into yeshiva?

03:38 Speaker 1 Right.

03:38 Speaker 2 You know, and how comfortable could you have been, uh, at the time, or where was there a space to have these kind of conversat- conversations in yeshiva? And to be honest, as much as I loved learning Chassidus back then and, you know, reading this book, um, definitely, uh, you know, I wouldn't say it felt like learning a Maimonides, but it took me back to a time in my life when I was far more immersed in Chassidus and the ideas of Chassidus. Um, one second, I have to... Um, it, it took me back to that time. It took me back to that time, and-

04:15 Speaker 1 I remember watching you on Shabbos mornings, walking up and down- ... thinking over the Maimonides that you would later hazah, right?

04:22 Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, look, look, I, I'm not embarrassed of it. I'm not embarrassed of it at all. I, um, you know, talk about regrets, that isn't one of my regrets. I, I, I, I put a lot of time into learning Chassidus back then. Um, you know, maybe mostly Seder, but I think when you're 20 years old on Shlichus, and you're showing up for Seder every morning, I think that in itself is like a state- a statement of sorts. And yeah, I, I loved it. And, uh, to be honest, um, looking back, I wish I had prioritized it more. Maybe that's a conversation for itself. But, uh, you know, um, like I, you know, committing to learning Chassidus, like, and that's what I like or I think I g- I think I've... My gravitation to it was 'cause I, I, I think I'm better at it than, let's say, learning Gemara or whatever. And I just, you know, instinctively got drawn to it. I wish I had done it more. But, um, anyway, the, the book really pulled me back to a time which I enjoyed immensely. Um, you know, losing yourself in a discussion whether or not the world exists.

05:29 Speaker 1 Right.

05:29 Speaker 2 You know what I mean? That, that, that's a, that's a conversation you take for granted. Um, that's a conversation you take for granted.

05:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. I think in yeshiva there's a time when you can ask these questions seriously-

05:41 Speaker 2 Right

05:41 Speaker 1 ... and actually really question, does the world exist? And then, let's say real life kind of gets in the way of asking real existential questions.

05:53 Speaker 2 Right.

05:53 Speaker 1 But sometimes real life can bring those questions up again-

05:56 Speaker 2 Yes, absolutely

05:56 Speaker 1 ... in, in different ways, in new ways.

05:58 Speaker 2 Yeah. I, I think the thing of yeshiva is, is, is one part of it is that you're younger, and you're in a way more naive about life. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. You're just- Less experienced, um, and you're... Th-that's why so much radicalism happens at that age, 'cause you, you can get pulled much more, you're less tethered, and you're, you're less bogged down by other responsibilities. But, um, I think it's also just being cloistered. You know, I think if, if an older person with all that responsibility, I mean, maybe that's a bit of an oxymoron, was able to somehow retreat to a cloistered space, I think it would... You know, but that's just not afforded to you when-- I mean, that's part of what responsibility is, right?

06:39 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's cloistered, but also the... I, I... My experience, especially when we were on shlichus in Los Angeles, was that there's a certain openness as well. Mosaiam, meeting people, having to talk to people in English, in their language-

06:52 Speaker 2 Right

06:53 Speaker 1 ... in a way that would resonate for them, I think was one of the first... It's, it was certainly an ingredient in forcing me to think deeper-

07:02 Speaker 2 Yeah

07:02 Speaker 1 ... and, you know, am I really understanding what I'm learning?

07:06 Speaker 2 Right.

07:06 Speaker 1 And if I can't articulate it clearly in language that other people understand, then I don't understand it.

07:11 Speaker 2 Right.

07:12 Speaker 1 So, so I think having that, uh, part of the yeshiva curriculum that's open to the world-

07:18 Speaker 2 Right

07:19 Speaker 1 ... uh, it-it's not just for the sake of Mosaiam, I think it's actually important for education, for, for the process of learning itself.

07:26 Speaker 2 Fair enough. Yeah, so it's not, it's not airtight. It's not airtight-

07:29 Speaker 1 Yeah

07:29 Speaker 2 ... but it's ninety-five percent of the time you're, you're in that world where you're surrounded by, by Sefardim and, and, and that kind of reality, right? You kind of look at the world around you and, like, you're suspicious of the world outside the walls of yeshiva, or you can be, and you know what's real is, is what's, what's written in the Sefardim and-

07:47 Speaker 1 Right. The world of ideas.

07:49 Speaker 2 The world of ideas.

07:49 Speaker 1 Ma- That's what matters.

07:50 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. That's all that mat... It's all you know, and everybody else is, you know, like, uh, is a baal, is a balabos at best, you know? Um, and you g- you're, you're deeply suspicious of the balabatishe kind of, uh, instinct.

08:02 Speaker 1 Right. A- and not, not only people who are outside in the world generally, but even people who come into the yeshiva and are Lubavitchers and have a nice long beard, but they are Balabatim.

08:14 Speaker 2 They're Balabatim.

08:15 Speaker 1 They're Balabatim.

08:15 Speaker 2 Oh, they're Balabatim. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I, I, I think there, I think there's, I think there's, you know, there's something beautiful about that, and I think it's definitely, uh, you know, a, a wonderful period... Can be a wonderful period in one's life, and it, you know, I think it can be a wonderful foundation f-for, you know, in one's life. There's like, like I was saying, you know, reading this book, it brought me back to a very nice place. It wasn't like, "Oh, God," "We're so..." You know, like, you're bringing back bad memories. No, it was, it was, it was very enjoyable and, you know, having to think some, some things over and, you know, oh, I ha- you know, I, I hadn't thought of it that way. I mean, I, I, I'm not... There were many things that I ha- didn't know about, but some things I thought I knew about, but realized I, I had to reconsider, and, um, that was wonderful, so thank you for that. Anyway, I don't even think we introduced the book. The book is Kabbalah and the Rapt- and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism. So before we get off on a tangent, which we inevitably will, why don't you des-describe the book? Um, if you... I, I know that's a big ask. It's a very dense read, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It's, it's, it's... There's no wasted space in the book. It moves, and it's full of... It's

09:34 Speaker 2 full. Um, but try to, try to-

09:38 Speaker 1 So the way I would, uh, encapsulate it is that it is the story of the ideas of Chabad-

09:43 Speaker 2 Right

09:43 Speaker 1 ... beginning from the Ariza"l and going all the way to the Rebbe.

09:50 Speaker 2 Mm.

09:51 Speaker 1 Um, along the way, there's the, the pre-Hasidic debates amongst K- Mekubalim, Kabbalists, uh, in the two hundred years between the Ariza"l and the Alter Rebbe, and-

10:04 Speaker 2 And, and some professors in Oxford

10:06 Speaker 1 ... and there's also debates amongst professors about what different-

10:09 Speaker 2 Fascinating

10:10 Speaker 1 ... Chida, Chiddis and Ksida, Ksidis mean. Oh, you're talking about in, in Cambridge.

10:14 Speaker 2 Cambridge.

10:14 Speaker 1 Yeah, the philosophers in Cambridge, the Cri- the Cambridge Platonists, who in the seventeenth century, the Kabbalah Ariza"l was already being translated into Latin.

10:24 Speaker 2 Yes.

10:24 Speaker 1 And so you have some very fascinating debates about how to interpret the Ariza"l amongst philosophers. Um, there, there are other books that have been written about, which have a lot more about this.

10:36 Speaker 2 Yeah.

10:36 Speaker 1 Leibniz on the Kabbalah and-

10:38 Speaker 2 Right

10:38 Speaker 1 ... uh, and so on and so forth. But the, the key point there is that Kabbalah became, especially Lurianic Kabbalah, became central to European thought, modern, you know, modern European thought, uh, which has largely been forgotten, but is very much the case. And there's some, some of the debates that we know of in Chabad from either from the, the debate between the Alter Rebbe and the Vilna Gaon or between early Mekubalim, the Misnasdim and, um, and others, uh, w- they were, there were parallel debates-

11:14 Speaker 2 Yes

11:14 Speaker 1 ... that, that were happening there.

11:15 Speaker 2 Fascinating.

11:16 Speaker 1 So-

11:16 Speaker 2 I was just rereading it today, the first part. It's fascinating.

11:20 Speaker 1 Uh, and then from the Alter Rebbe, I go through each of the Rebbeim, and it's a mix of history and the history of ideas.

11:27 Speaker 2 Yeah.

11:28 Speaker 1 So I, I try and explain, for example, not only what difference between the Rab Maharash and the Rab Rashab is in their apr-approach and their understanding, or the way they... The sugyas that, that they focus on and so on, and how they develop the sugyas and the style, uh, but also what was happening in the intellectual world around them at that time, um, and how what's happening in Chassidus relates in many ways to parallel ideas and modernity. The, the, the center of the book is the Hasidic ideas.

12:01 Speaker 2 Right.

12:01 Speaker 1 It's, it's going through the sugyas in Chassidus, uh, but around those ideas, I'm also giving you a larger picture of the history of Chabad institutionally, the different Rebbeim, the different, uh, you know, the... After the Tzemach Tzedek passed away, you have- The different branches within Chabad, and-

12:20 Speaker 2 Right

12:21 Speaker 1 ... I discuss how that, all of that, all of that played out historically as well as intellectually.

12:25 Speaker 2 Yeah.

12:26 Speaker 1 Uh, and then coming down to the Friediker Rebbe and the Rebbe, um, how the Chassidus reflects, in the case of the Friediker Rebbe, it reflects, uh, his move away from Lubavitch geographically. This, I call that a geographic rupture. Um, and, uh, dealing with rupture in a, in a very kind of visceral, real life way, um, being exiled from Russia, being exiled from Poland, dealing with the Holocaust, uh, rebuilding Chabad again and again and again, uh, then Am- in America. Um, and with the Rebbe post-Holocaust, so overcoming that rupture, and, uh, also probably, you know, the, the, the book that-- the book concludes really with the Rebbe, the way the Rebbe's thinking on Chassidus, we actually just had some of this in the Maamar Bas Legani, Mem Hei.

13:23 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

13:23 Speaker 1 Where the Rebbe's like rethinking the Yesod Hasichus in a, in a very kind of radical way. I link that to the Rebbe's own knowledge, personal, direct personal knowledge of the rupture in science that happened in the 20th century, the new science of quantum physics and so on. The Rebbe sat in Schrödinger's class, uh, and the Rebbe had a professor called, um, uh, what, what's his name? It's, it's slipping my mind now. Uh, Reichenbach. He had a professor called Reichenbach, who was a philosopher of science-

14:00 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

14:00 Speaker 1 ... who was-- he understood that the new physics of Einstein and Schrödinger, of quantum mechanics, undid what had come before him in philosophy, and that a new philosophical framework was needed, which kind of chucked out a lot of the axioms, the fun- foundational ways of thinking, that are fundamental to philosophy. Even today, we're still kind of stuck in that old mo-

14:25 Speaker 2 Right

14:25 Speaker 1 ... in that old mode of thinking, but Reichenbach understood that-

14:28 Speaker 2 Right

14:28 Speaker 1 ... it didn't work anymore. And the Rebbe, in, in letters refers to ideas that seem very close to Reichenbach, and I argue that, uh, some of that seems to be coming to the fore in these, in, in the way the Rebbe himself is rethinking the Yesod Hasichus in a way saying, "The things that we always took as axiomatic," like for example, tzimtzum is not kipshutei.

14:52 Speaker 2 Right.

14:53 Speaker 1 The Rebbe then says, "Well, uh-"

14:55 Speaker 2 It might be on some level.

14:56 Speaker 1 On some level, maybe it's true, right? It's-

14:58 Speaker 2 Yeah, that was fascinating. That was fascinating. That was fascinating how, how everything came full circle, right? The whole, I guess, the book starts with the, the burning of the Tzvas, Tzvas Arivash.

15:09 Speaker 1 Yeah.

15:09 Speaker 2 Which had a lot to do with the debate between the Gro and the Alter Rebbe about tzimtzum kipshutei, l'ein kipshutei, and all, the whole journey, and then at the very end, you have the Rebbe want, it's, you know, finally saying, "You know what? There is a space where the two could be true," but not, it's not, it's not, he's not taking a ste- he's not, um, agreeing with... You know, it's not like retreating.

15:34 Speaker 1 He's not letting go of the Alter Rebbe.

15:35 Speaker 2 He's not retreating-

15:36 Speaker 1 Yeah

15:36 Speaker 2 ... but it's more like something has happened over time that has now not made things narrower, but made things broader. 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, Basse Legani, 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 on to 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 Basse Legani with your community in a way you never have before. For more information, please visit thisworldisagarden.com.

16:29 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:29 Speaker 2 And I think there's a wonderful line that you have there at the end where the Rebbe's, um, faith, his emunah, is what, is what let, like, I don't know if you use the word lets him, but you're saying the only way you can explain that is the Rebbe basically lets go of a certain kind of certainty that you see in other places in Chassidus, and is open to what could be the most radical kind of, and, and, and, and very, uh, un- destabilizing, right? I think, I don't know if you use those words, but-

16:57 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, I kind of use those words. Right

16:58 Speaker 2 ... but a destabilizing kind of framework. Like if, you know, if tzimtzum kipshutei, l'ein kipshutei is, in a way, the intellectual identity of Lubavitch for 200 years, and then suddenly, or maybe not, you know, maybe it's a... That's very destabilizing. And you s- you say like, I think you said there's two things that, uh, what, what allowed the Rebbe to do that, his, his, his, his infinite faith in, in Torah, and I, I forget what else, but-

17:23 Speaker 1 I think I did.

17:24 Speaker 2 But, um, but, but, but I, I, I resonated with that a lot.

17:28 Speaker 1 Reb Yochanan would say the Rebbe is like, uh, he's, he's on the one hand the greatest intellectual, and also has the emunah of a baba.

17:36 Speaker 2 It comes from-

17:36 Speaker 1 Yeah

17:36 Speaker 2 ... it comes from a Yechidus with a journalist, uh, an Is- an Israeli journalist who came on a Yechidus and made that comment. I think that's where that, that originated.

17:45 Speaker 1 Yeah.

17:45 Speaker 2 I forget her name. Gula Cohen? No, I don't know.

17:47 Speaker 1 Yeah.

17:47 Speaker 2 There was, there was such, some journalist. Um, no, but-

17:50 Speaker 1 But I think, I think that's very core because, uh, emunah, um, so we often take emunah as a kind of closing off.

18:00 Speaker 2 Right.

18:00 Speaker 1 An intellectual closing off, like I can't entertain certain thoughts because I'm a meimen.

18:04 Speaker 2 Right.

18:04 Speaker 1 So that I'm not-- I won't allow myself. But with the Rebbe, we see almost the opposite. Because he's a meimen, he's not scared of any ideas.

18:10 Speaker 2 Right. Right, but let me, let me find the line. I should have, I should have put a sticky on it if it, if I can find it in a few seconds. It was... It was, it's at the very end.

18:35 Speaker 1 Okay. Well, I found it so quickly.

18:47 Speaker 2 Oh, I found it. It's worth the-- It was worth the wait. "What underpins his bold, potentially disorientating account of ontological capaciousness and uncertainty." Some pretty decent reading right there.

19:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. I have to explain what ontol-ontological uncertainty means.

19:07 Speaker 2 No. What under... Uh, I mean, let's, let's, let's move past that for a moment.

19:10 Speaker 1 Okay.

19:12 Speaker 2 Um, what, what underpins this disorientating, disorienting, uh, approach? The answer, in my view, is faith and certainty. Faith in the capaciousness of God s- of God's singularity, and certainty that all faithful interpretations enshrined in the polyvocal canon of Torah, including the mistaken and the disproven, are not only legitimate but true.

19:39 Speaker 1 Right.

19:39 Speaker 2 So f-faith and certainty.

19:42 Speaker 1 Right. So the, the, the certainty that every-everything in Torah is true-

19:47 Speaker 2 Right

19:48 Speaker 1 ... including the-

19:49 Speaker 2 The views that you disagree with.

19:50 Speaker 1 Right, right. And that, that comes from the Rebbe's father-

19:54 Speaker 2 Yeah

19:54 Speaker 1 ... Rabbi Yitzchak.

19:55 Speaker 2 Right, right.

19:56 Speaker 1 But the Rebbe spoke about it in, in, in, in the context of these-

20:00 Speaker 2 Right

20:00 Speaker 1 ... questions about tzimtzum, about ontology, which means reality. What is the nature of reality?

20:05 Speaker 2 Right. That, that's such a beautiful line. I mean, I know there's a lot of fancy words in there, and, you know, I don't think the book needs my approbation or, or encouragement for anybody that's interested in reading it. But what I would say is that this... Yes, the book is written with words that are, um, foreign to most laymen, but it's-- I, I felt that it's not, you know, sometimes it's done in like a gratuitous way, you know, like we're gonna throw in as much words to scare you away. The book is v-- in my view, is, is very inviting. Um-

20:38 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

20:38 Speaker 2 ... it's not, it's not condescending. If you can get past those words, and you'll get used to it with time. As you read the book more and more-

20:45 Speaker 1 Also, I try and set up a word before I start using it.

20:49 Speaker 2 Right. Yes.

20:49 Speaker 1 I try and explain the work that it does-

20:51 Speaker 2 Yes

20:51 Speaker 1 ... and why it's a useful word.

20:53 Speaker 2 Yes. I did not feel like you were using words there just to show off your vocabulary. I mean, you are British, so- So that's, that goes without saying to some level. But I, I did not f... You know, so those words, I think, you know, with... If you're already reading English books, so you probably know most of the words, and some of the words will come to you with time. So don't let that scare, scare you away. But I thought the idea of, uh, of, of faith and certainty, which... But I, in a way, the word certainty has to be un-un-unpacked a little bit because it's not like certainty of like, "I know I'm right." It's certainty in the Torah, which even in the certainty in the things that, that I think are wrong or think, you know, I disagree with them, but it's a certainty that takes me out of myself. It's a certainty, it's a certainty in this fixed, immovable object called the Torah.

21:51 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

21:51 Speaker 2 And-

21:52 Speaker 1 And I think sometimes because we're Maaminim, and we also have certain personal beliefs-

21:57 Speaker 2 Right

21:57 Speaker 1 ... so we insist that whatever our beliefs are are the Torah's beliefs, and we won't allow ourselves to see, let the Torah speak for itself sometimes-

22:05 Speaker 2 Right

22:05 Speaker 1 ... because we don't have that faith and certainty in the Torah, right?

22:09 Speaker 2 Right.

22:09 Speaker 1 In the truth of Torah. The Torah has the, you know, like the, there's a line that the Rebbe quotes from the Frieda Rebbe in 𝑲𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒀𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒕𝒉 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒂, that all the different isms, uh, come from Torah, right?

22:20 Speaker 2 Right.

22:20 Speaker 1 They have, they have... There's an 𝑲𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒔 of Emes that comes from Torah.

22:23 Speaker 2 Right.

22:23 Speaker 1 So often, like that capaciousness, that openness, that willingness to see there's an 𝑲𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒔 of truth here, we don't let ourse-- we often don't let ourselves go there. Right. It's hard, it's hard to-

22:34 Speaker 2 So capaciousnes- capaciousness is almost a, a 𝑩𝒓𝒆𝒊𝒕 𝑲𝒆𝒊𝒕 for the people listening.

22:38 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

22:38 Speaker 2 𝑲𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑩𝒓𝒆𝒊𝒕 𝑲𝒆𝒊𝒕.

22:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

22:40 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think in a way the, the point here is faith and uncertainty, faith and certainty as two separate, in a way, opposing things. What people, not other people, myself also, is very often we want to have certainty in the faith. Faith is by definition uncertain.

23:02 Speaker 1 Yes.

23:03 Speaker 2 Right? So how do you have both at the same time? I think that's the 𝑲𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒔 that you're getting at. How do you have faith and certainty at the same time? If, if your faith is certain, then your faith is actually quite, quite, um, quite childish on some level.

23:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. Right. Right.

23:17 Speaker 2 Right? Or quite, quite innocent.

23:18 Speaker 1 And if you're, if you're certain, you don't need faith.

23:20 Speaker 2 Right.

23:20 Speaker 1 So-

23:21 Speaker 2 That, you know, the fam- the famous Vartung Sideth is that that's, that's 𝑲𝒆𝒊. Right?

23:24 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

23:25 Speaker 2 That's 𝑴𝒊d𝒆𝒂. That's not 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐.

23:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. 𝑴𝒊d𝒆𝒂 and 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐. Yeah.

23:27 Speaker 2 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐 is post-𝑴𝒊d𝒆𝒂 by, by definition.

23:29 Speaker 1 Yeah. It has a few... It's almost like an 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒊 𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐.

23:32 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

23:32 Speaker 1 That, that, uh, the Mitzvah of 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐 must be about 𝒔𝒊 𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐, which isn't intuitive. If it's an intuitive obvi-- if it's an obvious thing, then you don't need a Mut- a Mitzvah of 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐. 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐 is-

23:42 Speaker 2 But it's also unknowable.

23:43 Speaker 1 Right.

23:43 Speaker 2 It can't even be knowable.

23:44 Speaker 1 Yeah.

23:44 Speaker 2 Intuitive is at the beginning, but it can't even be known upon reflection because once... And it's, it's, the line's always changing. I, I remember, I don't remember where, but I, I know that this, this is something that I learned, that I saw because of this over and over. The line changes. As your 𝑴𝒊d𝒆𝒂 grows, the line moves forward, and now you need a 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐 for... There's always gonna be a space in G-d's-

24:05 Speaker 1 In, in 𝑴𝒂 𝒂𝒊 𝒅𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒐 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒐-

24:06 Speaker 2 Yes

24:07 Speaker 1 ... uh, 𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒂 𝒊-

24:09 Speaker 2 Yes

24:09 Speaker 1 ... 𝒊 𝒑𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒐 𝒊 𝒕𝒐.

24:10 Speaker 2 That's what it refers to.

24:11 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. And there's a letter of the Rebbe also developing that idea.

24:14 Speaker 2 Right. So the, the, the line's always changing, which, which can be frustrating, but it's also the sign of growth, the sign of growth. Um, but I think, I think that at least that's how I understood that pa-- that passage where, so how could you have faith and certainty at the same time? The, the, the answer is that the faith is what you have. It's how you, it's how you hold onto it. The certainty is not... Like faith is in a way is in yourself, which I think you also touched in the book, how tzimtzum eventually comes back to the person. Right? But it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's God's ultimate act of faith in the, in, in the, in the person to do what he needs to do, right? So our faith is also in, in ourselves in a way, and certainty is in the Torah, right? And, and how these two coincide, I think is, is, is, is in a way the, the, the, like the basis. Not very easy to, to un- to unpackage and, and-

25:14 Speaker 1 Right

25:14 Speaker 2 ... and figure out, but there is two separate things here.

25:16 Speaker 1 Yeah. But part of it is also the notion, the understanding of what Torah is, right? The certainty that Torah has this breadth, guide, this capaciousness, right?

25:27 Speaker 2 Right.

25:28 Speaker 1 Torah, Torah has within it, uh, a scope that's beyond the- our own horizons.

25:34 Speaker 2 Right.

25:35 Speaker 1 We have very limited horizons. Uh, I, I just read this book by Philip Goff.

25:39 Speaker 2 Okay.

25:40 Speaker 1 Uh, uh, it's called "Why?" About purpose. And he has this line that each generation, uh, is limited by horizons that it can't see beyond. And so, like, every wo- every generation has a kind of a worldview that it thinks is, like, obvious.

25:56 Speaker 2 Right.

25:57 Speaker 1 And to challenge those assumptions a- and al- allow for generation, for, for a group of scientists, for a group of philosophers to allow themselves to start thinking differently to the way they've inherited, is very hard. And I think part of this idea, the certainty that the Rebbe has, that the Torah... The Torah is beyond those horizons. We don't need to... We... And therefore, we don't need to be scared. If we understand that the Torah is... W-why are we scared? We're scared because we can't imagine a different way of thinking. We can't imagine a bigger way of thinking. How is this gonna fit with the Torah as we understand it now?

26:30 Speaker 2 Right.

26:30 Speaker 1 But if you understand Torah to be so big as to encompass, like as the Rebbe says, every moment, every idea, every new theory that's gonna come, which the Rebbe said this in an interview with, uh, Israel Shenker in The New York Times, 1972. So he... Would I have to be scared of? There's gonna be a new discovery, that's already in the Torah. Whatever's beyond the horizon, the Torah knows about it.

26:51 Speaker 2 Right.

26:51 Speaker 1 So it's, I don't know, I, I don't need... So that certainty that Torah has something to say-

26:56 Speaker 2 Yes

26:56 Speaker 1 ... a way to deal with whatever's coming, that's what allows you to have that faith and to have that.

27:03 Speaker 2 Absolutely, yeah. The way you're putting it now is reminding me of, um, my favorite Teshuvah, which is... My favorite Teshuvah of those that I know, which is a small amount of them, but, you know, the, the Rebbe's Teshuvahs. And there's a Teshuvah that's undated, so I don't know when it was written, although if I had to hazard a guess, it w- it would have been during the war, like at, at the, you know, at, at the, at the nadir of, uh... Is that how you pronounce it? Nadir of, of, uh, nadir-

27:32 Speaker 1 I'm not very good at pronouncing words. Nadir, I think

27:34 Speaker 2 ... uh, nadir. Or, or the low point of-

27:36 Speaker 1 Low point, mm-hmm

27:36 Speaker 2 ... of, um, the low point of, of, of nihilism. Like, the world was literally revealed to be as ugly as... I mean, in-incomprehensibly ugly. Um, and, you know, there's this, there's this very short Teshuvah where the Rebbe writes, um, there's two, there's two, there's two, um, there's two, like, axioms from Chazal the Rebbe takes. One is, "Lo nivra derech el, uh, levatala." Nothing was created in vain. And that, and the other one is that ev- every... The aid's created only to serve the Habester. I think those are the two. It's been a while, but- Yeah. The... And, and, and those two together, it, it makes it almost mathematical, and he write... There's no... It's like a, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a formula almost. Um, that how you... When you put those two together, you come up with this idea that... And, and the Rebbe, the Rebbe spells this out, that there's no thing, no event, no moment in time that doesn't have a purpose. And so when a purp- when a person is faced with a situation, a, a choice that, that, a, a, some kind of a moment of, a moment, a moment of reckoning, that moment has been created for a purpose. And the only w- the, the, the, the only purpose that there could be, because you're created to serve the Habester, and that's the only reason you're created, is to, is, is to serve the Habester. The only purpose could be to serve the

29:17 Speaker 2 Habester in some way, either a mitzvah or, or, or, or not doing in a, you know, or, or something that, that has its basis in the Torah, right? And, and, and what's the, the way the Rebbe formulates it is, is that there are moments in time where you, it's only you. In, it-- he's in the world, He's there 'cause you, only you are in this situation, right?

29:45 Speaker 1 Everything is a, is a relationship with the Habester.

29:47 Speaker 2 Right. But what, what, what that... So, so you're in this space all on your own. This space is unique to you, uh, but unique not just in some kind of human being differentiated way, unique all the way up to, to God himself. Like, it, it, it, it... The, the, the cut that separates this moment from any other moment goes all the way up to, to the highest point possible. You're, you're there only with the Habester by yourself, and that entire weight comes down to what do you choose to do now? And the way you know what to choose is only through what the Torah tells you to do, right? And I think that's what you're talking about here, where, um, you, uh, especially if this was written during... But whether or not it was written during the war, it was written in context of the war-

30:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

30:38 Speaker 2 ... in context of what was going on in the world. And, and so you're in a space where, where the, the, the dominant way of looking at the world is pure nihilism, and then maybe a little bit better existentialism, where you are all by yourself. Everything is absurd. There, there, there, there's no context that you can hold on to, right? You are left with faith, but faith is a small ship on a very wa- rocky ocean.

31:05 Speaker 1 Right

31:05 Speaker 2 Right? You, like, like I-I'm here with the Avester, wonderful. Okay? The world is cra- like, the world-

31:12 Speaker 1 Well, the key thing is what are you gonna do the next moment, right? That's, that's what it says.

31:14 Speaker 2 And that's what, that's what rescues you. That's what rescues you.

31:16 Speaker 1 Yeah.

31:16 Speaker 2 Right? What rescues you is that this moment is not just, uh, is, in, as much as a nisayon is powerful and important, it's not just to test your subjective endurance. Because, I don't know if the word's because, but if that was the case, one w- one might th- one could think, one could argue that that's impossible. At some point, the subjective is gonna be overwhelmed by, by the world around it. There is a way to tether that subjective, and truly subjective moment, to something that's real and eternal.

31:49 Speaker 1 Yeah, to the ultimate.

31:50 Speaker 2 Right. And that's the beauty of that formula. And, um, you know, like, that's the way, in a way, I've always understood it as, as, like, the way out of despair.

32:00 Speaker 1 Right.

32:00 Speaker 2 That e-existentialism always leads people to despair.

32:04 Speaker 1 To, to put it another way, if something exists, whether it's a situation, a thing, an entity, if it exists, it means the Avester put it there, and there's a way for it to be redeemed.

32:13 Speaker 2 Right.

32:13 Speaker 1 There's a way for you to take a step that will make that situation purposeful.

32:20 Speaker 2 Right. Even though that situation is subjective.

32:23 Speaker 1 Right.

32:23 Speaker 2 That's, I think that's nekuda. The faith is the subjective side of it, right? And, and, and you-- whe-when you realize how subjective it is, that could create terrible despair.

32:35 Speaker 1 Yeah.

32:35 Speaker 2 That's all the ex-- uh, not all, but many of the existentialists ended up jumping off a roof.

32:40 Speaker 1 Right.

32:40 Speaker 2 'Cause when you, when you accept that the world around you is absurd and nuts and, and, and lost all of its bearings, it's im- it's an impossible place to be, to be the only sane person at the crazy party.

32:52 Speaker 1 Right.

32:52 Speaker 2 Right? And there's-

32:53 Speaker 1 But if, if you're alone with the Avester, then it's different.

32:55 Speaker 2 And there's a way for you to a-actuate that.

32:58 Speaker 1 Yeah.

32:59 Speaker 2 In that, right? I-

32:59 Speaker 1 Yeah. That link, that link between the subjective and the objective-

33:04 Speaker 2 Yeah

33:04 Speaker 1 ... the Avester, the ultimate objective-

33:05 Speaker 2 Torah

33:06 Speaker 1 ... reality. Torah.

33:07 Speaker 2 Torah.

33:07 Speaker 1 Yeah, Torah. Torah and the Avester is, is actualized, it's realized in the thing that you do.

33:13 Speaker 2 Right.

33:14 Speaker 1 And, uh, it's, it's not just like, uh, navel-gazing.

33:17 Speaker 2 Right. To-- like, the Avester puts you in this situation of uncertainty and, but he gives you Torah to find the certainty in it, I think would be a way to form-

33:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

33:26 Speaker 2 Whatever. I, I didn't, I didn't come here to show you my Torahs, but I, I think that's... Like, when you were talking about this passage of faith and certainty at this, I think that's the vark.

33:34 Speaker 1 Right. Right. Yeah. I see, I see the connection that you're drawing there. There's al- but I think there's also a, a difference, which is that there, Narishma seems to me that it's also kind of, there's something feels very narrow. I think he even says, like, some, like, "There's only one correct way to move forward."

33:50 Speaker 2 Yes.

33:51 Speaker 1 Yeah.

33:51 Speaker 2 Yes.

33:51 Speaker 1 I think he said something like that, right?

33:52 Speaker 2 Yes.

33:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. Which is like to do the-

33:54 Speaker 2 One, two, three

33:54 Speaker 1 ... 1000 things there.

33:55 Speaker 2 Yes.

33:56 Speaker 1 Whereas here, like, in this concept of Torah that you have in, in the Sichos from the mems-

34:01 Speaker 2 Right

34:01 Speaker 1 ... and even in

34:20 Speaker 2 Yeah, but you're, you know, or you're sup- like-

35:25 Speaker 1 The Shashala

35:26 Speaker 2 ... it's one of tho-

35:27 Speaker 1 Yeah.

35:27 Speaker 2 Yeah, it's one of those things where like, like, how don't you know about it? Like, how don't, like-

35:31 Speaker 1 Right

35:31 Speaker 2 ... no one told you about it?

35:32 Speaker 1 I, I think no one's gonna tell you, but you're expected to know.

35:34 Speaker 2 Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's like almost like that is a form of elitism that I, that I, that I, uh, you know, I, I find completely ridiculous. Like, like, is this, like, is this kosher or is it not kosher? Is it legitimate or is it not legitimate? And I, I, I would argue that it's very legitimate, but we'll get back to that in a moment. Uh, you know, but you trace the history of ideas, uh, through, through, uh, throughout the Chabad, um, chain, and how in a way one led to another, but also not. There were many forks in the road. You can trace how things... Because you see, especially in some of the generations where there were two paths that were taken by people who were, who had, who had the bona fides to, to, to, to have a comment on this.

36:20 Speaker 1 Yeah.

36:20 Speaker 2 You could see that it's not so, not so pashet that it went this way and not that way. It could have gone that way, right? Um, a-and history could have been very different, and I think you speak about that in the book. Like, what would have happened if this had happened? The, the counterfactuals are fascinating.

36:34 Speaker 1 Right.

36:34 Speaker 2 Right? What would have happened-

36:34 Speaker 1 I, I didn't really pursue the counterfactuals, but I, I point to them.

36:37 Speaker 2 No, but you-

36:37 Speaker 1 Yeah

36:37 Speaker 2 ... you say like, you know, for example, if, if, if, if we had go- if, if, if the Mario and Kapos had won the day, and, and there was many, there was, there was much reason to believe that it, that, that, that it, it, it, it would.

36:50 Speaker 1 That it would. That it would at the time, yeah.

36:51 Speaker 2 Yeah. He had, he had plenty of, he had plenty of, um, he had plenty of backing. Um, I, I don't know if you re-write this in the book, but I, what I've heard, and maybe I'm wrong, what I've heard is that many of the, you know, the, the big, the big players, the big tzaddikim went with-

37:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. Many of the tzaddikim, yeah

37:06 Speaker 2 ... went with him. Went with him. He was the older one, right? And so- You ask, like, if we had gone with him-

37:11 Speaker 1 And it wasn't just the older one, he was, in certain ways, he was more in the traditional image-

37:16 Speaker 2 Right

37:16 Speaker 1 ... of Chabad Rebbe at that time.

37:17 Speaker 2 Right.

37:18 Speaker 1 Davening barichas in a very, you know, ecstatic way, and saying Ma'amarim with-- He, he was a talmid of the Mitteler Rebbe, so he said Ma'amarim with clarity, panim asbiros.

37:29 Speaker 2 Right.

37:30 Speaker 1 Um, and he evidently had tremendous charisma, and he was already-- He'd been, you know, he was thirty years older than the Rav Maharash.

37:38 Speaker 2 Oh, thirty years?

37:39 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yes, and more, more than-- about double his age at that time, at the time of the start of the Tzemach Tzedek.

37:43 Speaker 2 Right.

37:43 Speaker 1 So he was already, you know, a, a masmid mahus.

37:46 Speaker 2 Right.

37:47 Speaker 1 So, and, and recognized as such. So yeah, it w- it was by no means-

37:53 Speaker 2 And he was the heir apparent for many years.

37:54 Speaker 1 For many years, yeah.

37:55 Speaker 2 Until the very end.

37:56 Speaker 1 Yeah.

37:57 Speaker 2 Yeah. So you ask a question of, you know, if, if, if, if he had, if he had-- if, if his way had won going forward as, as we see how history progressed, what would have that led to? Um, but overall, you, you quote, I think, Elliot Wolfson, how in Lubavitch you cannot look at, you cannot look at its history without its ideas. The ideas are the history of Lubavitch, right?

38:24 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:24 Speaker 2 I don't remember ex- exactly how he phrased it. He certainly phrased it in a more confusing way.

38:28 Speaker 1 Right. I think the, uh, phenomenol- phenomenology determines-

38:32 Speaker 2 The history

38:32 Speaker 1 ... the historiography.

38:33 Speaker 2 Not, not the other way around.

38:34 Speaker 1 Yeah.

38:34 Speaker 2 Right? Which I, which, which I, which I think in many ways is, is accepted in Lubavitch as a darah pashut, Lubavitch is a movement of ideas. But I, a- actually, as I was thinking, as I was thinking about it, I was like, "Maybe it's not so pashut" because, you know, the-- In many ways, we think of Lubavitch as the seven Rebbeim, and those seven Rebbeim, especially like, like looking back retroactively, are seen as, like, that's always how it was meant to be, right? And so I, I, I think it's a very interesting, um... I mean, I, I, I think, I think it's, I think it's m- m- a bolder statement than, than, than it might appear to say that the history of Lubavitch starts with the history of ideas, right? Because the, yes, the Rebbeim were the ones that espouse these ideas, the ones that taught these ideas. But, you know, was it, was it the ideas that conferred them being a Rebbe, like the, the Rebbeshaft on them, or was it not?

39:45 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

39:46 Speaker 2 Could there be a Rebbe without ideas?

39:48 Speaker 1 Right. I would say my-- Part of my argument is that not in Chabad.

39:53 Speaker 2 Right.

39:53 Speaker 1 I would say not in Chabad. Um-

39:56 Speaker 2 I know that's what you believe-

39:56 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

39:56 Speaker 2 ... that's what you write a book about. But, uh-

39:58 Speaker 1 Yeah

39:58 Speaker 2 ... is that, is that how we see it in Lubavitch?

40:02 Speaker 1 Uh, like, uh, let me just give one example. The way I d- I give, I talk about this in the book, that part of the process of the Rebbe becoming the "mamolech hamelech hamefuid hakorei" is the fact that he was in charge of kahas. I'm not saying this was like a strategy or someone set it up this way, but the fact was-

40:21 Speaker 2 Right

40:21 Speaker 1 ... he was in charge of kahas, and there's a reason he was in charge of kahas, 'cause he was the pers- he was the one who could. He was the one who knew how to write, who had the knowledge of chassidus. He worked on publishing the Tzemach Tzedek's Tshuvahs, for example, "Miluim" of the, of the Tzemach Tzedek. He published the-- He sta- he started bringing out the Ateras Ma'amarim. He did new editions of Torah Or, Likutei Torah.

40:44 Speaker 2 Right.

40:44 Speaker 1 So he, he was the custodian of the Ksavim, of the ideas of Chabad before he was Rebbe.

40:49 Speaker 2 Right.

40:49 Speaker 1 So that's part of the s-- what makes him Rebbe automatically, because he was already the custodian of the ideas of Chabad. The, to, to be the Rebbe of Chabad is to be the custod-- the authoritative custodian of the ideas of Chabad. And it's not, it's not just an office that you can, uh, you know, inherit the, the, the seat and sit in the seat because you're a son or you're a g- or a son-in-law. It's the person who has the spiritual, intellectual weight a- a- and authority that people recognize that this is someone who can say "Di velt ikh in khayim"

41:26 Speaker 2 Right.

41:27 Speaker 1 Right?

41:27 Speaker 2 Well, he became a Rebbe when he said a ma'amar, right?

41:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:29 Speaker 2 I mean, that's, I mean-

41:30 Speaker 1 That, that's what we all know, and that's what we all accept and understand. But-

41:33 Speaker 2 I, I mean, if you-

41:33 Speaker 1 I'm trying to show that it goes-

41:35 Speaker 2 Right

41:35 Speaker 1 ... it ha-- that has deeper roots.

41:36 Speaker 2 Yes.

41:37 Speaker 1 Right?

41:37 Speaker 2 Yes.

41:37 Speaker 1 And, and, uh, you know, the com-- point to "Reshimas", "Reshimas HaMenorah" which the Friediker Rebbe commissioned basically from the, from the Rebbe-

41:44 Speaker 2 Right

41:44 Speaker 1 ... in, in Tzadik tes, uh, which means that the Friediker Rebbe saw him as the person who can legitimately interpret Chabad thought and, and also synthesize it with the rest of Torah, going back to that-

41:56 Speaker 2 Right

41:56 Speaker 1 ... idea, the-

41:57 Speaker 2 Right

41:57 Speaker 1 ... the, the, the breadth of Torah and the, how Torah contains multitudes, and the Rebbe was, uh, the master of synthesis-

42:06 Speaker 2 Right

42:06 Speaker 1 ... synthesizing all parts of Torah, and the Friediker Rebbe recognized this, and that's why he was Rebbe. That's why he was ready to be Rebbe, because he was the teacher of Torah. He was the-- He, he, he had the knowledge, he had the ability to, to, and, and, and also to think in new ways. He's, he's a different kind of thinker to the Friediker Rebbe-

42:21 Speaker 2 Yes

42:22 Speaker 1 ... in so many ways. But the F- F- the Friediker Rebbe wasn't threatened by that. Other Rebbe, he saw this is the next Rebbe, right?

42:29 Speaker 2 Uh, I, I, I can not only accept that, but I can also, you know, there's plenty of evidence to, to buttress your, your, your, your argument, if it's an argument at all, right? If-- But I think it is, as I'll get to in a moment. You know, the, the, there were multiple generations where there was a insistence that the Rebbe Lubavitch is in charge of the Ksavim, right? The Rashab and the Razah. The Razah wanted a portion of the Ksav, and the Rashab would not. He would not fargin. He fargined him on the yerusha, on the money, but not fargin on the Sefarim. Right. Of course, we know later on what ha- the Frierdiker Rebbe's massive, uh, desperate battle to get the s- to get the Sefer up.

43:06 Speaker 1 To form the library. Yeah.

43:07 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. What was that about? I mean, there are all kinds of things that it was about that I don't understand, but on a basic level, it's like you're the custodian of the ideas.

43:15 Speaker 1 Right.

43:16 Speaker 2 Right?

43:16 Speaker 1 Yeah.

43:16 Speaker 2 It's not just holding on to Tashmishe HaKedoshah.

43:18 Speaker 1 And then it comes to, to Hitvias-

43:20 Speaker 2 And Hitvias

43:20 Speaker 1 ... the, the Sefer case. It's sa-

43:22 Speaker 2 Right

43:22 Speaker 1 ... a continuation of the same, yeah, and, and the Sametzadeks, Yeru- the Yerusha deSametzadek Sefer.

43:27 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

43:28 Speaker 1 Earlier, I think, I don't know if, uh, I mentioned it-

43:29 Speaker 2 Well, they fought over it also, the Murashad-

43:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

43:31 Speaker 2 ... and, and the Mariel.

43:32 Speaker 1 Yeah. I don't know if I got into that in the book at all, but-

43:35 Speaker 2 I don't think so

43:35 Speaker 1 ... yeah, there was question of who would, uh, be the Yerusha deSefer. And even earlier, Mariel, he, he was an eden by one of the Choizrim of Vada Altaraba, uh, Freydis, uh, Shloime, Rav Shloime Freydis.

43:54 Speaker 2 Okay.

43:55 Speaker 1 And the Naden was Duksaven.

43:58 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

43:58 Speaker 1 Right? So Duksaven were very important and the-

44:01 Speaker 2 And this wasn't like the, like what they call, like the, the, the people that today, you know, they, they, they hoard shuras and, like, holding onto stuff and, like, own- owning stuff that no one else saw. This-- I think there was a clear understanding that you're a custodian of ideas here. The ideas are what we're about, and, and, and whoever is in charge of those ideas is in it- is basic- is de facto the Rebbe, right?

44:25 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

44:26 Speaker 2 But-

44:26 Speaker 1 It's not just hold it. It's not just a matter of having the ideas on the bookshelf.

44:30 Speaker 2 No, but the re- the fact that-

44:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah

44:31 Speaker 2 ... you're entrusted with it sh- sh- not, not that th- that makes you the Rebbe, but-

44:34 Speaker 1 Yeah

44:34 Speaker 2 ... not if I own the... But, but I mean, look what... And you could sometimes see the argument from the, the opposition. Very, very, very-

44:42 Speaker 1 It, it's, it's, it's owning, it's owning them. It's publishing them, uh, uh, editing them. The Sametzadek, right,

45:02 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

45:02 Speaker 1 ... Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, a boutique video production company servicing the Chabad and Jewish community. Since opening 10 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 Boniolum, Torah Mesorah, and Athalathon, 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@uvlamedia.com. Again, that is hello@uvlamedia.com. A link can be found in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast. Yeah, that definitely is a big, a big, a very beautiful part of the book is, you know, what in, in the world of academia, I think it would be considered comparative literature, where you're taking different texts and comparing them to each other. And sometimes I could see them as like, uh, like a, like a very, like eccentric, you know, like... But no, what I think you, what I think what you unpacked there, um, and what you, what you showed was that a lot of times you'll have a mimer that looks on the surface to be a repetition of an old mimer. And, and so like Lubavitch, other Brisk, where like, you know, things

51:11 Speaker 1 were said by the founding father of, of this intellectual dynasty, and then the, the, the, the people that come after, their job is, you know, in Brisk it was all about saying it exactly how it was said in the past. That's how I, that's how I've-

51:25 Speaker 3 Could, yeah. Yeah

51:26 Speaker 1 I, I, I've read, you know, I've read that and I've heard that as well. It's all about holding on to the tradition, and the, and the children are of course biktamidichachamim, but they are holding on to the emes of Reb Chaim, you know, and, and, and because he's the founding father, and there is a weight of course that the founding father has. That's where it all, that's a ground zero.

51:44 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

51:45 Speaker 1 But what you-

51:45 Speaker 3 I see, I know there are other Chassidism where there's like a minute to, to play violin by the Hanukkah Menorah.

51:51 Speaker 1 Right.

51:51 Speaker 3 So once upon a time, the rabbi could, knew how to play violin. Now they don't know how to play violin, but they still play it.

51:55 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

51:55 Speaker 3 They still think-

51:56 Speaker 1 Right

51:56 Speaker 3 So

51:57 Speaker 1 So right. Right. Okay, that's a little bit more on the comical side. But, but you showed how, you showed how in the text it could look the same, but really there's a vast, um, thing changing here, which again, upon reflection is something that I had h- I had paid attention to before, but this was, but also hadn't, which was, well, you mentioned a m- moment ago about like Lubavitch being the tzadik, but also the tzadik has to quote-unquote "explain himself" or, or, or share wisdom. That's, as we know, we're taught in Yeshiva, that's the fundamental difference between Hasidim Peilim, Chabad and Chagas, right? Tzadik G'mna Seichaya, Tzadik G'mna Seichaya, right? Is, is a tzadik someone who basically keeps, contains the halakhic within, but share, but, but shares it only in a way like, uh, via like brachos or, or presence, right? Or, or, or, or, or is a tzadik someone that empowers you to find a certain halakhic in yourself, right?

52:52 Speaker 3 Right.

52:52 Speaker 1 Um-

52:53 Speaker 3 Communicates to you-

52:54 Speaker 1 Right

52:54 Speaker 3 ... in a way that you can understand yourself and then-

52:57 Speaker 1 Right

52:57 Speaker 3 ... apply it and, and do it yourself, right.

52:59 Speaker 1 Exactly. But I think what I paid attention... So that I knew. That I knew. But here, what you demonstrated was, at least what I took away from it, was that it's not such a simple... It was, oh, so it's a diff- it's a nafke mina that the Hasid can now ba'aveida or not. No, it's, it's a bigger nafke mina, 'cause it's a nafke mina about the rebbes also. Because you could say, Tzadik G'mna Seichaya, the tzadik has to share ideas, but why can't each rebbe just share the same ideas?

53:31 Speaker 3 Right.

53:32 Speaker 1 Right? Why can't-

53:32 Speaker 3 Just repeat it.

53:33 Speaker 1 Right? He, he's the, he's the standard bearer and, and every rebbe is going to give you that, that, that, that moment of, of Matan Torah where he's chazaring the, the, the words of the Alter Rebbe, and, and, and then you have to daven like the Chassidim of the Alter Rebbe, like what? But of course, when you think about it, it's, it's, it's obvious that's, that that's not how it works, and maybe is a reason why other Chassidism didn't, uh, you know, accept this or embrace this. Because Tzadik G'mna Seichaya means that Chassidus has to rechensich with, with the people on the ground. Right? Halakhic has to become embodied in people who are living in their times.

54:13 Speaker 3 Yes.

54:13 Speaker 1 Right? And not only the Chassidim, the rebbe, the Rebbeim also. Because say what you want about, yes, the Rebbeim are, are in a different realm, but they, we know for a fact that they were seven different people. That, that's not, that's not controversial.

54:26 Speaker 3 Right.

54:26 Speaker 1 Right?

54:26 Speaker 3 Who lived in different times-

54:27 Speaker 1 Right

54:28 Speaker 3 ... and different places.

54:28 Speaker 1 Right. And the fact-

54:29 Speaker 3 And some of them were for, for a period, they lived in Lubavitch, but-

54:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

54:33 Speaker 3 Yeah.

54:33 Speaker 1 Yes. And, and, and, and, you know, what your book points out is that m- a bunch of them were not, were not the heir apparent. Right? So they were not... They, they, they lived a portion of their life very private to themselves, not being prepared to be the rebbe. In a way, the only one that would seem the... I think the Tzemach Tzedek wasn't, it was an heir apparent from, from-

54:55 Speaker 3 At all, it's not that

54:55 Speaker 1 ... Not really. Not really.

54:56 Speaker 3 Yeah.

54:56 Speaker 1 Not really.

54:58 Speaker 3 I, I, I, in "Beis Rebbe", I think it says that the Tzemach Tzedek wanted us, the Chassidim, there was still a son of the Alter Rebbe alive.

55:05 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

55:06 Speaker 3 Avrom Chaim, I think.

55:08 Speaker 1 Right.

55:08 Speaker 3 And so the, that was a... I think there were like several options. There's also, um, maybe the, the husband of the, the, the Alter Rebbe daughter, um, Frieda.

55:22 Speaker 1 So, so who was the heir apparent? The only heir apparent then would be the Frieda Rebbe, 'cause he was an only son.

55:26 Speaker 3 The Frieda Rebbe was the one, the chora, who was the most obvious heir apparent.

55:30 Speaker 1 An only son and very, and very involved.

55:33 Speaker 3 And maybe you could say the Mitteler Rebbe, because the Mitteler Rebbe was the old, was the oldest son, but even there it was contested. It wasn't-

55:39 Speaker 1 Yeah, it wasn't there. It wasn't there

55:40 Speaker 3 ... You had, you had Reb Aron of Shashev.

55:41 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. So-

55:43 Speaker 3 I mean, and at that point it wasn't even clear that there should be a Mamshach.

55:45 Speaker 1 Right.

55:45 Speaker 3 Like maybe the Alter Rebbe was like a, you know-

55:47 Speaker 1 One of the-

55:48 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

55:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.

55:49 Speaker 3 Maybe, maybe he's like a Chad, you know, Chad Pami.

55:52 Speaker 1 Right.

55:52 Speaker 3 You know, this is like such a gilut, the Alter Rebbe, and I think there were people who thought that at the time.

55:56 Speaker 1 Yeah.

55:57 Speaker 3 K- k- k- Chassidim. There's a version in "Beis Rebbe" which I think I quoted in the book, that the people going around saying, "The Chassidus alein hagshata" as, as-

56:06 Speaker 1 It's over.

56:07 Speaker 3 It's over, yeah.

56:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

56:08 Speaker 3 Chassidus, Chassidus itself died.

56:10 Speaker 1 Wow.

56:11 Speaker 3 When the Alter Rebbe died.

56:11 Speaker 1 Wow.

56:12 Speaker 3 That was the- Baruch saying that wasn't true.

56:15 Speaker 1 Right. Right. So, so we know that these are seven different people. There was, there was, there was, th-there was at the very least moments, uh, or periods in their lives where they were not openly the Rebbeim, and many, many times they, they said, and I take them at their word, I don't know why we have to not. They take-- they were not interested or not ready to be Rebbe, so they, okay, they were Rebbe. But then anyhow, I, I don't understand the logic in that. They said they weren't. They said they weren't, they weren't, they weren't, so they weren't, right? A-all I'm trying to point out is that they were different people, and so if, if Chassidus has to be something that's internalized and not just minhagim and, and, and v... You know, and, and, and, and, and, and presence and, and halakhic, unarticulated halakhic, but, but articulated ideas, then each Rebbe is gonna have his own take on it.

57:07 Speaker 3 Yes.

57:07 Speaker 1 Right?

57:08 Speaker 3 Yeah.

57:08 Speaker 1 And, and what that does, and this is where things start getting a little bit-

57:11 Speaker 3 In the same Shabbos, right?

57:12 Speaker 1 Right. In the same Shabbos, right? Even in Torah, right?

57:14 Speaker 3 Even in Torah, yeah.

57:14 Speaker 1 And, and what that does, and that-- where that starts getting, uh, subversive, and I don't mean in like in a, in a, in a Torah way, but like, you know, it starts, it starts, it starts, um, it starts moving the plates underneath a little bit, is-

57:30 Speaker 3 Right

57:30 Speaker 1 ... is that ideas change by definition. Once-- Meaning, if it's just a text that you come back to again and again, it could stay static. But ideas live in people's minds, and those minds live in people's lives. You cannot-

57:46 Speaker 3 Right

57:46 Speaker 1 ... you cannot separate, right?

57:48 Speaker 3 Torah Shebe'al Peh, it's in Nitzavim Vayelech.

57:50 Speaker 1 Right.

57:51 Speaker 3 The famous, uh, Rebbe's sicha, Nitzavim Vayelech.

57:53 Speaker 1 Right.

57:53 Speaker 3 There's a part of Torah that stands still.

57:55 Speaker 1 Right.

57:55 Speaker 3 The Oisis HaTorah.

57:56 Speaker 1 Right.

57:57 Speaker 3 And then there's the understanding of Torah, which is Vayelech.

57:59 Speaker 1 Right.

57:59 Speaker 3 It's always progressing. It's always changing.

58:01 Speaker 1 Right.

58:01 Speaker 3 In every generation, there's new layers, and there's a sicha. It's, uh, it's, uh, it's an Achrensh Pesach, Mashiach sod, sicha. I don't remember which year. I think in the Chaf's. And the Rebbe says something which is stuck in my mind because it seems like such a davar hamavet. It seems like such a, like almost like heretical. Against all our, um, intuitions, our instincts as Lubavitchers. The Rebbe says that if not for the Arikhot HaGalut, uh, Torah would have remained very limited. We wouldn't have... There's so many yoniim in Torah which would never have been revealed.

58:33 Speaker 1 Right.

58:34 Speaker 3 It's only through time, which th-there's this time means change-

58:38 Speaker 1 Dynamism

58:38 Speaker 3 ... dynamism and, and the ability to produce and reveal deeper layers, layer upon layer and layer, that can only unfold through time.

58:46 Speaker 1 Right.

58:46 Speaker 3 If you, if you only have one moment, you know, there's the, the Ari Z"L, when he fell asleep, it says in the Kotot Torah, uh, that Ari Z"L fell asleep one Shabbos afternoon, and he had a, a dream, and he said it would take him eighty years to express-

59:00 Speaker 1 Right

59:00 Speaker 3 ... what he saw in that dream. So maybe in some other realm, you could have, like, this infinite revelation all at once. Uh-

59:06 Speaker 1 Right

59:06 Speaker 3 ... even there, it says it's still a limited amount of time, right? Eighty years.

59:09 Speaker 1 Right.

59:09 Speaker 3 Uh, so he ha-- you know, it, it, or he, he had it in an hour, but-

59:13 Speaker 1 Right

59:14 Speaker 3 ... an hour is an hour, right? So you need time to... T-time means novelty, change-

59:20 Speaker 1 Change

59:20 Speaker 3 ... and development.

59:23 Speaker 1 Right.

59:23 Speaker 3 And, and the Rebbe's saying it as a milah.

59:25 Speaker 1 Right.

59:25 Speaker 3 Like, uh, this is not like, uh, you know, unfortunately, we've been in Galut so long, and-

59:30 Speaker 1 Right

59:30 Speaker 3 ... you know, like a na-- okay, so we have, like, a little sliver of, uh, I don't know what the word, nechamah, right?

59:37 Speaker 1 Right.

59:37 Speaker 3 Comfort, okay, we, we also have Torah.

59:39 Speaker 1 It's not-- Yeah.

59:39 Speaker 3 This is a purposeful thing, right? That, that, that there's an avodah in Galut. There's a, there's a whole Sugya in Chassidus, it's called, it's, uh, the milah of Galut, the avo-- the, the avodah-

59:49 Speaker 1 Right

59:49 Speaker 3 ... of Galut, and how really the avodah of Galut is Mashiach. It's, it's w-with Mashiach of the gilel, the avodah in Galut. It says it's clear in Peirush on Likkutei Torah.

59:58 Speaker 1 Right.

1:00:00 Speaker 3 But, um, you know, but this idea of change through time and, and, and yet it's all part of Torah's emes, right? It's all, it's all... The, the... I still, I see it as one Chassidus, right? Chassidus Chabad is one, isn't... There are seven Rebbes who are, who are different thinkers talking in their time, in their way, and developing their own methods, uh, d-saying their own Chiddushei HaChassidus, and yet I do see it as a, a single kind of flow, um, that they're all going back to the Alter Rebbe all the time. It's this-

1:00:34 Speaker 1 Right

1:00:34 Speaker 3 ... tether, this fundamental tether. And but yeah, I see that this is maybe one of the more controversial things in the book that people may call me out on or criticize me for, that, you know, this, this... W-we, we have a tendency to homogenize, right? To see things as one. You know, you know, it's easier, it's simpler.

1:00:53 Speaker 1 It's, it's to play safe, be nice. It's, it's almost honest.

1:00:56 Speaker 3 It's safer to say that everything is, is the same. There's only one way of doing things.

1:01:00 Speaker 1 Right. Right.

1:01:01 Speaker 3 There's only one truth. A-and o-once you start saying there are multiple truths, then, okay, you're a postmodernist, yeah?

1:01:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, you, you put... Look, I, I, I had no problem with it. I mean, maybe you could say that's, that that's, that's a critique of me, but I, you know, I, I-I'm okay with it. Um, you know, you, you, you demonstrate, I think, pretty, pretty, pretty vividly how, for example, the fi-- the Mitteler Rebbe took a lot of things that the Alter Rebbe said very far, which was one of the points of consternation for Reb Aharon Schechter and other Chassidim as well, and you demonstrate how Tzemach Tzedek pulled it back and sometimes said, "These are nice words, but that's not what the Alter Rebbe said."

1:01:38 Speaker 3 Right.

1:01:38 Speaker 1 You, you... There is a tension there that exists in the text. It's not in our, in your, in your, you know, uh, you know, just trying to being provocative.

1:01:48 Speaker 3 Right.

1:01:48 Speaker 1 And, and I think also for, you know, obviously, we can't get in depth to the different ideas in the book, but, but, like, I, I do wanna point out that we're not talking here that the Rebbeim added a kneitch on Sefer HaKolam in like a, a, a savart in, in, in... No. Like, I think where, I think it becomes very vivid in the book, uh, you'll correct me if, if you feel differently, but the Reb Maharash seems to be like a point of no return. Like, like, like, uh, you c- like the biggest jump that I saw At least the way you framed it was between before the Rabbi Marash and then the Rabbi Marash.

1:02:24 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:02:24 Speaker 1 Uh, in a stylistic way, that's when HaMeshihim began. I mean, maybe you could say, and this-- but this might have a bias of recency, the Rabbi was the next big jumping off point, or not... I shouldn't say jumping off point, but the, the next biggest jump. Um, but the Rabbi Marash, and, and, and you don't just say that there is a stylistic thing of the HaMeshihim, but there's-- Because you're talking about Simson in the book, you're talking of-- It, it goes from being a, a shaila of, um, you know, i-is the world at odds with the Abristher? And so you are-- It all, it's all about ca-- Is the Abristher big enough to be in the world that's so low, and he's so high at the same time? Can he, can he manage that? Like, you know, um, Al Pi Torah, let's say.

1:03:11 Speaker 3 Right.

1:03:12 Speaker 1 And the Rabbi Marash says, "Wait a second. This world itself..." Right?

1:03:18 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:03:18 Speaker 1 Speak to that a little bit, so I don't wanna put what ... I mean, do you agree that that-

1:03:22 Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that is the big jumping off point. The, the way I would say it is, is that the, the Semak Sadeq and the Mitre Rabba, both Talmidim, they're both Talmidim of the Alter Rebbe.

1:03:33 Speaker 1 Right.

1:03:33 Speaker 3 And so they're still... There's-- A-and I, I... In the book also, I, I discuss them in, in one section together because it's the Talmidim, it's the school of the Alter Rebbe.

1:03:43 Speaker 1 Right.

1:03:44 Speaker 3 And so they're in the Alter Rebbe's shadow, and the language is still very much the language of the Alter Rebbe, even though the Mitre Rabba has his own more highly philosophical language and is kind of very radical in his formulations, wants to drive your mind beyond what you can think, what's possible to think, uh, as far as it can go. And the Semak Sadeq is much more, um, I'd say, containing it within the language of philosophy, the traditions of philosophy-

1:04:11 Speaker 1 Right

1:04:11 Speaker 3 ...of, of, uh, of Hakirah and of Kabbalah that came before the Alter Rebbe. So he's kind of putting it in more traditional terms, whereas the Mi- Mitre Rabba is pushing it into more radical terms.

1:04:21 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:21 Speaker 3 But they're still both Talmidim of the Alter Rebbe, and so they're dealing basically with the same conceptual world. And part of that conceptual world is what I call the rhetoric of acosmism.

1:04:30 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:30 Speaker 3 Which means, uh, talking about the world as if it's nothing. Um-

1:04:36 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:37 Speaker 3 Kolom Mamish, right?

1:04:38 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:38 Speaker 3 Is the lotion.

1:04:39 Speaker 1 Is a world-- The shaila is, is a world in fact nothing or is it Kolach Shiv-

1:04:42 Speaker 3 Right

1:04:43 Speaker 1 ...like nothing?

1:04:44 Speaker 3 And, and for the most part, when you read Torah Or, you read Maamar of the Alter Rebbe, you read Sha'ei Chelev HaMonah, the language is very much, uh, being Mevatal the world-

1:04:53 Speaker 1 Right

1:04:53 Speaker 3 ...saying the world, you know... A-and many scholars made the mistake, and I-- and could be Chabadniks have also made this mistake, that, uh, it, it means that the world actually doesn't exist.

1:05:04 Speaker 1 Right.

1:05:04 Speaker 3 So I call that the rhetoric of acosmism 'cause they're, we're talking in a way that sounds like you're saying that the world doesn't exist.

1:05:10 Speaker 1 That gush is a rhetoric.

1:05:12 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:12 Speaker 1 Right? The sound of it.

1:05:13 Speaker 3 Now, I, I argue very forcefully, I don't think that that's actually what is being said. I think that is the Alter Rebbe is clear that, um, you know, if you, if you learn carefully, if you learn gruntyk-

1:05:23 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:05:23 Speaker 3 ...like we say in Yeshiva, uh, and, and you know how to learn, then you'll see that any place where it looks like the, the Alter Rebbe is saying the world doesn't exist, actually, he's saying that the world does exist, and he's saying that, uh, sometimes he's even saying that this idea that the world doesn't exist and the Ein Od Mevade, that can only be realized down here Lamata in the world.

1:05:42 Speaker 1 Right.

1:05:42 Speaker 3 And so it's a kind of paradoxical idea.

1:05:44 Speaker 1 You know, you also explain why the Alter Rebbe comes across that way. One, a-at least a, a theory is because the Alter Rebbe was the first to make these kind of bold statements.

1:05:53 Speaker 3 Right.

1:05:53 Speaker 1 So by, by-

1:05:55 Speaker 3 It's obvious that the world exists.

1:05:56 Speaker 1 Right. So he, he's the one. It's at that point of . He has to push-

1:06:01 Speaker 3 Yes

1:06:01 Speaker 1 ...in the opposite direction. So, A, he, he's going to speak, and it's certainly gonna sound much more radical-

1:06:07 Speaker 3 Right

1:06:07 Speaker 1 ...in that direction 'cause you're, you're-

1:06:08 Speaker 3 He's, he's trying to undo the Hanach Piyecha, that the world is all there is.

1:06:12 Speaker 1 Right.

1:06:12 Speaker 3 It's the most obvious and, and-

1:06:13 Speaker 1 Especially on a Sechel Dica level.

1:06:15 Speaker 3 Right.

1:06:15 Speaker 1 Right?

1:06:16 Speaker 3 And he's trying to give you... Another key part of it, he's trying to give you a concept of the Abristher, which is not the Abristher in relation to the world. We just had this in Torah Or-

1:06:23 Speaker 1 Right

1:06:23 Speaker 3 ...in, in the Maimon, um, Chayei V'etosh. The second Chayei V'etosh in Torah Or, there's a lotion there that, "In ze ikar v'lekos mashum ha'olamos."

1:06:31 Speaker 1 Right.

1:06:31 Speaker 3 The main thing about the Abristher is not that he creates the world. It's a very radical concept, uh, because usually-

1:06:36 Speaker 1 It's an impossible concept

1:06:37 Speaker 3 ...it's an impossible concept. We, we thi-- we can only think in terms of what we know.

1:06:40 Speaker 1 Right.

1:06:40 Speaker 3 And all that we know is the world, right? So when you think about God, what's God? "Oh, He's the creator of the world."

1:06:44 Speaker 1 Right.

1:06:44 Speaker 3 And to state that the Abristher is something el- No, no, He's not the creator. Create, creation is like something... The Abristher happened to also create the world, but there's an-

1:06:51 Speaker 1 Right

1:06:52 Speaker 3 ...there's an ikar v'lekos, which is not that He made the world. It's a very radical idea. And, and, and so to give-- to bring such a concept of the Abristher into people's minds and, and, uh, let it sink in a little bit, uh, he, he spoke in a, in a, in a much sharper way-

1:07:08 Speaker 1 Right

1:07:08 Speaker 3 ...about the Afisis HaOlamos-

1:07:10 Speaker 1 Right

1:07:10 Speaker 3 ...the nothingness of the world. Um, but then the... by the time you get to the Rabbi Marash, first of all, he's born-

1:07:18 Speaker 1 So second, just, just fill out the gaps. So I'm just qu-I'm quoting what y-your book says. So the Mitre Rabbi takes that even further.

1:07:26 Speaker 3 In certain ways, yeah.

1:07:26 Speaker 1 In certain ways.

1:07:27 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:07:27 Speaker 1 But he takes everything, like, to its extremes, and the Semak Sadeq pulls back. So Se-

1:07:32 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:07:32 Speaker 1 So I just wanna set up. So the Semak Sadeq basically, more or less, by the time the Rabbi Marash comes, we're kind of back to the Alter Rebbe, right?

1:07:40 Speaker 3 Well, I, I, I don't know if I would put it that way exactly, but both the Semak Sadeq and, and the Mitre Rabba in different ways, at, at certain points say more or less clearly that the world is important, the world does exist. And the Alter Rebbe also says that.

1:07:57 Speaker 1 Right.

1:07:58 Speaker 3 But the, the, the point is that both the Semak Sadeq and the Mitre Rabba are, are still using this f- Aharay, most of the time, they're using this language, right? Of, of the world is nothing.

1:08:10 Speaker 1 The Mevatal the world.

1:08:10 Speaker 3 They're being Mevatal the world. The, the Rabbi Marash says a Maimon, which I think most Vachers today know this Maimon, Michah Melech-

1:08:18 Speaker 1 Right

1:08:19 Speaker 3 What they might not know is that he already said this ma'amar before the his taqas of the Samach Tzedek. And part, one of the things I argue it, that this might have been part of the controversy around the Ramaraish and around the who's gonna be the next Rebbe, is that the Ramaraish started saying this, this, this ma'amar, uh, which is basically an argument. It's the first time a Chabad Rebbe is devoting a whole ma'amar to proving that the world exists.

1:08:44 Speaker 1 Does exist.

1:08:44 Speaker 3 That the world is-- That the world does exist.

1:08:46 Speaker 1 Does exist.

1:08:46 Speaker 3 Right? So-

1:08:47 Speaker 1 I mean, that tells you how far we've come at this point.

1:08:49 Speaker 3 Yes. So, so, so after fifty years of the Giliyam of Chabad, more, you know, seventy years or so, uh, it, it was paletaka. In other words, people were going around and the world, the world... Rebbe Menachem Schneerson said, um, that when he went to Lod, he was from a Baba family.

1:09:06 Speaker 1 Right.

1:09:07 Speaker 3 He went to Lod to learn because they had a underlie, they had a dorm. And so when he came back for the first, uh, whatever it was, a Shabbos off, I don't know if they had Shabbats off in those days, but whatever. He came home to Tel Aviv, one of the local Chassidim, I don't remember who, one of the local Chabad Chassidim said to him, "So you already know that the world is, is worth nothing more than this, an onion skin." Right? So, so this idea had in-inculcated, it had started to sink in, right? That the world is, is, is... Uh, and but the Ramaraish came along and started... He, it's a new rhetoric, it's a new way of talking, and it's, it's, it's more than just a new way of talking. It's, he has a whole theory.

1:09:46 Speaker 1 It's a deeper... In a way, it ends up being deeper.

1:09:48 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah. A Kabbalistic theory of how the world is actually more of an, of a manifestation of the essence of the Aibishter than any Olam HaZruchni.

1:09:59 Speaker 1 Is this, is this for Philip Avitch who's listening? This is the idea of Koch HaGvul and, and, and-

1:10:04 Speaker 3 Koch HaGvul, yeah

1:10:04 Speaker 1 ... and the, and the Reshimo.

1:10:06 Speaker 3 The Reshimo.

1:10:06 Speaker 1 Leh, Lehnaga Tzimtzum, right?

1:10:08 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

1:10:08 Speaker 1 That there's, there's sh-

1:10:08 Speaker 3 Resh, Resh is Reshimo, Lehnaga Bema Tzimtzum.

1:10:10 Speaker 1 Lehnaga Bema Tzimtzum. So the idea is, the idea is, um, for those familiar w-with... And this is quite familiar for people. Maybe not the Lehnaga Bema Tzimtzum. That's already, uh-

1:10:21 Speaker 3 That's already getting into the-

1:10:21 Speaker 1 More esoteric.

1:10:22 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:10:23 Speaker 1 But, but the idea of Koch HaGvul being a con... There's a con... There, there is a, there is a continuous, there's a continuum from the Gvul of this world, not just the Tzimtzum, but before the Tzimtzum as well.

1:10:35 Speaker 3 Right.

1:10:35 Speaker 1 Right? The Gvul of this world has, has, has a source, has, has, has foundations that go all as high as, as-

1:10:44 Speaker 3 All the way back to the essence of the Aibishter.

1:10:46 Speaker 1 All the way back. Right.

1:10:46 Speaker 3 'Cause usually the way we understand Tzimtzum is that it's a break.

1:10:50 Speaker 1 Right.

1:10:50 Speaker 3 'Cause the Aibishter was only itself.

1:10:51 Speaker 1 Right.

1:10:52 Speaker 3 And Gvul begins after the Tzimtzum. That, that would be the Pashta Avara.

1:10:56 Speaker 1 Right.

1:10:56 Speaker 3 And li-limitation is a product of Tzimtzum.

1:10:58 Speaker 1 Right.

1:10:59 Speaker 3 But the-

1:10:59 Speaker 1 And if there's any continuity, it's only

1:11:01 Speaker 3 The Aibishter's own self that comes back. The Kav. Right.

1:11:04 Speaker 1 Right.

1:11:04 Speaker 3 Right. The Gili of the Kav is a, is a... It comes through the break of the Tzimtzum-

1:11:08 Speaker 1 Right

1:11:08 Speaker 3 ... but it's still, it's, it's rooted, it's tethered to the itself, which is pre the Tzimtzum.

1:11:12 Speaker 1 Right. Right. Right.

1:11:13 Speaker 3 And these are big suggias in, you know, you learn in Samech Vav.

1:11:15 Speaker 1 Right.

1:11:15 Speaker 3 You can learn, you know, in, in Vakacha. Uh, and that the, the is , which means it's... Even, even though it's coming after the Tzimtzum, it still has the quality of the source, of the Aibishter own self. But the Kalim, the Samach Tzedek will say this, "The Kalim "

1:11:33 Speaker 1 Right.

1:11:34 Speaker 3 Right? The Kalim, because... W-which is the limitation of the world. The . They're created something out of nothing. There's no such thing as Kalim before the Tzimtzum.

1:11:40 Speaker 1 Right.

1:11:40 Speaker 3 There's no such thing as limitation before the-

1:11:42 Speaker 1 Right.

1:11:42 Speaker 3 But the, the Ramaraish says, "No."

1:11:44 Speaker 1 There were Kalim.

1:11:44 Speaker 3 "The Kalim were also "

1:11:46 Speaker 1 Right.

1:11:46 Speaker 3 Why? Because this, the, because of the, this idea of the Reshimo.

1:11:49 Speaker 1 Reshimo.

1:11:50 Speaker 3 Right? The-

1:11:50 Speaker 1 Right

1:11:50 Speaker 3 ... the Reshimo is, uh, a of the itself, but it's the Koch HaGvul of the itself. And the Tzimtzum, it gets rid of the itself, but it doesn't get rid of the Reshimo, which is... This is really the big, the most radical idea, because what we're saying is that even the Kav, which is , is , is not really the same Gili of the Aibishter.

1:12:11 Speaker 1 Right.

1:12:11 Speaker 3 It's, it, it's a new k- it's a more limited-

1:12:13 Speaker 1 It's not a real artifact of, of net Tzimtzum.

1:12:15 Speaker 3 Exactly.

1:12:16 Speaker 1 It's not a real fossil of this.

1:12:17 Speaker 3 Whereas the Gvul is, is untouched by some Tzimtzum.

1:12:20 Speaker 1 Untouched.

1:12:20 Speaker 3 Right? It's pristine. The Gvul-

1:12:21 Speaker 1 Right

1:12:21 Speaker 3 ... which is everything you touch around you, the world itself, right? The most like thing.

1:12:26 Speaker 1 Right.

1:12:28 Speaker 3 This is .

1:12:29 Speaker 1 Right.

1:12:29 Speaker 3 This is pristine Aibishter.

1:12:30 Speaker 1 Yes. I love this. I love-

1:12:31 Speaker 3 You know? It's, it's, it's a very crazy idea once you start-

1:12:33 Speaker 1 I love it

1:12:34 Speaker 3 ... really thinking about it.

1:12:34 Speaker 1 I love that. But I, I wanted you to speak about that, besides the fact that I love it, is that I-

1:12:39 Speaker 3 So this is really a Chiddash. I mean, this is-

1:12:40 Speaker 1 Yeah. The Ramaraish was-

1:12:41 Speaker 3 This is not a Chiddash. I mean-

1:12:42 Speaker 1 The Ramaraish was not saying, "Hey, we went too far with, with acosm- acosmism," we say, "where the world is nothing. We have to... Uh, the world is something." No, no, no. He's not, he's not like, um, moderating.

1:12:53 Speaker 3 He's not, he's not a conver- conservative in that-

1:12:54 Speaker 1 He's not moderating. He's not moderating and saying, "Okay, we got, we got over our skis. Let's get back to the middle." He's like, "No, no, no. I'm gonna take this idea even further. Not in the opposite direction, but I'm going to show you how this... How if you go further with this logic, not logic, but if you go further down this rabbit hole, or you go down further down this truth of, of, of, of, of, of Chassidus, we're gonna come to a place that's even more, but..." Right? I think it's a more... It's, it's even more radical.

1:13:21 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:13:21 Speaker 1 But it, but it, but it-

1:13:22 Speaker 3 And in a way, it's opposite of the, the orientation of Chabad before, right? If Cha... And, and that's part of the difference between him and the Maril. The Maril is a much more kind of, let's say, mystical or ecstatic even, right?

1:13:34 Speaker 1 Right.

1:13:34 Speaker 3 If you learn Tanya, right? People don't like to hear this today in their Rashbi, but Tanya is like a kind of , right?

1:13:40 Speaker 1 Right.

1:13:40 Speaker 3 It, it does-

1:13:40 Speaker 1 It's Avei, Avei Deprimis.

1:13:41 Speaker 3 It's Avei, Avei Deprimis. And it, and it means and .

1:13:44 Speaker 1 Right.

1:13:44 Speaker 3 It... There's a, there's a part of Tanya, there's a thread in Tanya which is anti-world.

1:13:48 Speaker 1 Are you saying

1:13:48 Speaker 3 and doesn't mean to, to be a better you? Are, are you, are you sa- Of course it also means that.

1:13:56 Speaker 1 Are you saying that it's not just a, a, a, uh, a pre-

1:13:59 Speaker 3 A self-help guide

1:14:00 Speaker 1 ... a prelude to-

1:14:01 Speaker 3 Yes

1:14:01 Speaker 1 ... uh, to, uh... What's it called? To, to some kind of, uh, mental health?

1:14:05 Speaker 3 Yes. Uh, and certainly saying that.

1:14:09 Speaker 1 Are, are you suggesting that maybe

1:14:11 Speaker 3 brought some people- Let's not-

1:14:12 Speaker 1 ... to very dire, not healthy situations, and they were not wrong necessarily?

1:14:17 Speaker 3 Right. Yes. I, I think so.

1:14:18 Speaker 1 Okay. I just wanted to, I wanted to get you into hot water for a little bit.

1:14:21 Speaker 3 And, and it's... A-and w-- It, it... I'm not, I'm also not saying that the Ramaraish overrode this.

1:14:27 Speaker 1 No, I understand.

1:14:28 Speaker 3 Um, but the, there, there is a kind of anti-world... Okay. There's , which is, you know, .

1:14:35 Speaker 1 Right.

1:14:36 Speaker 3 But the, but that's thirty-six into Tanya, right?

1:14:38 Speaker 1 Right.

1:14:38 Speaker 3 It takes a long time to get to .

1:14:40 Speaker 1 Right.

1:14:40 Speaker 3 There's a lot there before that.

1:14:42 Speaker 1 The

1:14:42 Speaker 3 ... No, no, no one's gonna convince you or me that the is someone looking at Tanya in a, like, un, unprepared way. He's gonna say, "Oh, what's Tanya about? Tanya about the " Right.

1:14:54 Speaker 1 They probably won't even notice it in the, in the ocean of ideas.

1:14:57 Speaker 3 It's because we-

1:14:57 Speaker 1 It's about Avei Deprimis and the Nevuah as usually is

1:14:59 Speaker 3 ... we, we see it as much more central because it's been made so-

1:15:03 Speaker 1 Yes

1:15:03 Speaker 3 ... so central, and so when we look back... And there's a few times in Tanya where he says what the purpose of the world is.

1:15:09 Speaker 1 Right.

1:15:09 Speaker 3 Only one of them he says , right? In, in he says .

1:15:15 Speaker 1 Right.

1:15:15 Speaker 3 Right? Uh, you could, you could, you could be metaval. You could pr- you could explain how they maybe they both in some way mean the same thing, but-

1:15:22 Speaker 1 Yeah. He also speaks about the purpose of the Bnei is for the malchut itself.

1:15:26 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

1:15:26 Speaker 1 Right? Like, and divrei Torah is one possible answer for the, for the... It's also brought up as a answer to the, to the, the depression, right? Which, like, the, the, there's a purpose in here which even-

1:15:37 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:15:37 Speaker 1 ... which your lowly, your lowliness and your struggle is the purpose, um, which kind of gets us back-

1:15:43 Speaker 3 And there, there's another thing about the divrei Torah in the Tanya, which is I think in Lamed Gimel or Lamed Daled, he says, where he talks about simcha. He says that simcha hanefesh is w- when you realize that you are a shliach of the malcha, that you're the host of the king.

1:15:58 Speaker 1 Right.

1:15:58 Speaker 3 And, well, so why? Because you must be an achas Hashem.

1:16:02 Speaker 1 So divrei Torah-

1:16:02 Speaker 3 And the Zohar, divrei Torah. When you, when you, a lo- a person in a body uses your fleshly mind to think about the oneness of the Aviser, that is the Aviser, the divrei Torah. There's also a different concept of divrei Torah.

1:16:15 Speaker 1 Right. So-

1:16:16 Speaker 3 Right?

1:16:16 Speaker 1 Right. But, but look, I, I think, I think in many ways, going back to the c- the idea of time, s- one of the reasons people see these things as in conflict is because you-- we, we're, we're, we're collapsing time and saying, "Well, if the Alter Rebbe said this then and in one language, and then you find a ma'amar there that says in a different language, there must be a fundamental change or rewrite of Chassidus in the first place." And it's like, no, no. The, th-these ideas happened in a continuum over time, and they were in dialogue with one another, and time allows for ideas to go one way, go another way. You know, one of the beautiful things of the-

1:16:58 Speaker 3 To be opened up, expanded.

1:16:59 Speaker 1 Yes. And talking about the Rabbi Maharash, I'm not a... You, you, you, you turned me on to the Rabbi Maharash a little bit a few years ago, and I didn't learn nearly as much as you did, and pr- maybe near- not nearly as much as many people listening to this. But it jumps out to you immediately, is the Rabbi Maharash's Chassidus, he, he toys with ideas, and this is actually not. Like, he, he's... It's not, it's not written with this kind of finality. He s- he tests out a theory, goes with it, then says maybe not, then goes another, like, "This is wrong."

1:17:29 Speaker 3 The Mitre Rav also does this a lot.

1:17:30 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:17:30 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:17:31 Speaker 1 So I, so I have even less proficiency in the Mitre Rav, but, but the Al- but the, the, the Rabbi Maharash, it's on the, on the second page maybe. It's, it's right there. Like, he says an idea, and he builds it and builds it, and like, "Actually, it doesn't work. Let's go somewhere else." And so my point is that there's a... It's not like this, like, you know, there was an idea given and then just mimi- like, just, just hammer it over again and again and again and again, the static idea that we have to force into our heads with a mallet. No, these ideas are d- themselves dynamic.

1:18:02 Speaker 3 They're dynamic ideas.

1:18:03 Speaker 1 The Rebbe themselves are dynamic. You see it in Rabbi Maharash's Now, again-

1:18:08 Speaker 3 And they talk to each other. You, and you have different com- like, conceptual components, and there's this conceptual component, how you understand it in itself, another conceptual component, how you understand itself, and then there's the way they talk to each other, and that actually reshapes the way you see the whole. Like, the, the, the Fedik Rab does this in, in Bas HaLagani.

1:18:26 Speaker 1 Right.

1:18:26 Speaker 3 Takes two ma'amaram of the Rabbi Ashlag.

1:18:28 Speaker 1 Avodah Zarah.

1:18:28 Speaker 3 Uh, yeah.

1:18:29 Speaker 1 You're right about that, yeah.

1:18:29 Speaker 3 Yeah. And also, I mean, one of my pet peeves- ... right, is, is Samech Lamed, right? 'Cause both of them learned Samech Lamed in yeshiva. I had this experience. You, you learn the first six ma'amaram, eight ma'amaram or so, but if you... You've learned the whole Samech Lamed. I, I was at the Sium.

1:18:49 Speaker 1 Okay, that's-

1:18:49 Speaker 3 When you learn the whole Samech Lamed, you see that the point of Samech Lamed is, is, is not realized anywhere close in those 10 ma'amar. There's a beautiful sugyas about ratzon and tayinok.

1:19:00 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:19:00 Speaker 3 But the point that he wants to get to, he doesn't get to till much later on.

1:19:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's also not about-

1:19:04 Speaker 3 Like, it's a big building block.

1:19:05 Speaker 1 It's also not about Kabbalah Sela, Mekubal Rav.

1:19:07 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

1:19:07 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:19:07 Speaker 3 Mekubal Rav is also just a step along the way.

1:19:09 Speaker 1 Right.

1:19:09 Speaker 3 Right? He wants to get you to the, to the idea of benchon nasah avod.

1:19:13 Speaker 1 Right.

1:19:13 Speaker 3 Uh, which is a much... It's neither the, the ma'amar of the Ben nor the Avodah, right?

1:19:16 Speaker 1 Right.

1:19:16 Speaker 3 He just wants Mekubal Rav. Yeah. There's this av- avod, there's that avod. So we-

1:19:19 Speaker 1 It's a true Chassidus in this world that can only happen the achryat tzimtzum.

1:19:23 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

1:19:26 Speaker 1 Right. Right. I mean, I, I, yeah, I, I, I'm not back... I did learn Samech Lamed. At least I, I covered the ground of Samech Lamed. I don't not the content at all. I should learn it again. Um, but, but yeah. There's al-

1:19:39 Speaker 3 We should, we should learn it again.

1:19:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:19:40 Speaker 3 After that.

1:19:41 Speaker 1 After that. But I, I, I did want to... I'm not pushing back to what you said, but I, I do wanna push back on or I wanna sug- I wanna bring up the tension here because, um, you know, on one hand, the ideas are dynamic and, and you see that in the text. It's not a, it's not a controversial thing in the least. It, it, it, it's not controversial at all to say-

1:20:06 Speaker 3 It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be.

1:20:07 Speaker 1 No, but it's...

1:20:08 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:20:08 Speaker 1 No, but meaning it's not like, it's not speculative. It's not like this is my take on it. You see the back and forth in the text itself, right? Sometimes in the same ma'amar. However, you know, I, I don't know what the source for this is, but I think it's accepted as, as, as tradition that one Rebbe said of the other, I don't remember which, that, like, the derech esher of, of, of the previous Rebbe is like a vadai. Which is also-

1:20:34 Speaker 3 Yeah. I think the Fedik Rab said about the Rebbe Ashlag.

1:20:35 Speaker 1 Which is also... This in a way, now I'm jumping into deep waters, but just for a moment. I think, 'cause I think it speaks to this topic. As I've mentioned a few times on this podcast, I love the Hakdoma to Kuntres HaMaayan. Part of that's probably 'cause I haven't read enough of the Fedik Rabbin's writing, so it stands out to me more, but there's so much in there. It needs to be translated to English, and it needs to be studied more because it's the Fedik Rab in a way describing what it means to be, um- tutored by, by the Rebbe Rashab in Hasconus and, and Rebbeshaft. And one of the places, one of the things that I remember, I don't remember the words, I wish I did, where the Rebbe Rashab is instructing the Fidei Rebbe to go down at the scene of the Rebbe Maharsan, the Tzemach Tzedek. And he's describing to him how, like, the Rebbe Rashab is looking to these, his father and his grandfather with... Like, it's not, it, it, he's looking at them as, as he's on new ground. He, he is, like, he, he do- he, he, he s- he sees himself as being a, a, um, a new generation and therefore a less certain generation. He sees them as, as, as bigger, loftier people, right? I'm not trying to c-compare the Rebbe one to another. I'm just saying that, that is an, that, that makes a lot of sense when you understand that it's a dynamic thing going

1:22:05 Speaker 1 on here. They, they are already in the Olam Ha'Emes. Their, their work is complete. Their work is final. His work is still happening. Of course, it's not as certain.

1:22:15 Speaker 3 Right.

1:22:15 Speaker 1 Right? It's still, still, it's, he's still working on it. It's, it's not-

1:22:19 Speaker 3 Also, also historically, that, that kuf is the kuf when the Rebbe Rashab was moving from being a private person who's studying the, the Kesavim.

1:22:30 Speaker 1 Right.

1:22:30 Speaker 3 He writes in, in, uh, Kanech LeMa'ar, he has some lines over there, very beautiful lines about how much he haraved-

1:22:38 Speaker 1 Right

1:22:38 Speaker 3 ... the long siddurs during those years, the mens after the Rebbe Maharsan passed away.

1:22:43 Speaker 1 But this is already in the Tzemachs.

1:22:45 Speaker 3 This is already in the Tzemachs?

1:22:46 Speaker 1 Yeah. This is, this is, this is all around that famous Yutras Kislev when he missed-

1:22:49 Speaker 3 Right. It's the early Tzemachs.

1:22:50 Speaker 1 The early Tzemachs, yes.

1:22:51 Speaker 3 It's the beginning of Tahat Tmenim, right? Yeah.

1:22:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you're not totally off the mark.

1:22:54 Speaker 3 Yeah. So, so he's, he's gone from that, like this kuf, the end of the nun, the fr- I would say from the mid-nuns-

1:23:02 Speaker 1 Right

1:23:02 Speaker 3 ... till around this kuf-

1:23:05 Speaker 1 Right

1:23:05 Speaker 3 ... is the process of transition from the Rebbe Rashab being more, more of a private person-

1:23:10 Speaker 1 Right

1:23:10 Speaker 3 ... and really resisting taking on klal-

1:23:14 Speaker 1 Right

1:23:14 Speaker 3 ... uh, in Yanom. And he's already found Tahat Tmenim, and he's getting more and more into Hasconus. It's in, by 1910, he is the firah. He's running, you know, he, he's one of the m-m he's the major activist-

1:23:28 Speaker 1 Right

1:23:28 Speaker 3 ... uh, on behalf of, from Yiddishkeit in, in the Russian Empire.

1:23:32 Speaker 1 And it's very tough times also.

1:23:34 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:23:34 Speaker 1 It's Haskalah. It's, it's, he's being whacked from all sides.

1:23:37 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:23:37 Speaker 1 That's, that's-

1:23:37 Speaker 3 And he, he's making this decision to go head-on into this battle-

1:23:41 Speaker 1 Right

1:23:41 Speaker 3 ... really, for the future of Yiddishkeit.

1:23:43 Speaker 1 Oh, the, the, the, the, the, uh, have you... It sounds like you've read that, that, that kadimah. There's a line there where the Rebbe Rashab, 'cause he's attacked not only by the tsar, but, you know, that was constant, but he was also attacked by the Haskalah movement. And the Haskalah, I forget what they were called now, um, but they set up a school in Lubavitch.

1:24:03 Speaker 3 Right.

1:24:04 Speaker 1 And they were a- they were antagonizing. They shut down Tahat Tmenim for a while, and they were trying to get them in trouble, Fidei Rebbe in trouble with the different papers and all kinds of things. And the Rebbe Rashab said at some point, he's like: "Look, I don't know what's gonna happen to me. I don't know what's gonna happen to Lubavitch, but I'm gonna stand on principle, and whatever happens, the rest is up to the..." I don't know the exact expression, but whatever happens is, it happens, right? And he looks at the Rebbe as an anchor, right? So, it-- And I think to go back to the conversation of time, um, not that I'm an expert on Brisk or anything, or not to pick on Brisk either, but there is a general concept in Torah at large where the past always dominates the, the present, right? The, the, the different kuf-

1:24:50 Speaker 3 The Rishonim.

1:24:50 Speaker 1 Yeah, the Rishonim and different kuf. You know, the Rishonim come after the Amora'im, the Amoraim come after the, after the Rishonim, and so on and so forth. There's the, the, the present cannot argue with the past. And I, I don't think that you see that in Lubavitch as well. Like, the, the, the Alter Rebbe is always the foundational text. That's everybody has to somehow fit into that, right? Um, how, and Tanya is a Teresh Bochasavach is Chabad. But what you're describing in the book and this dynamism that you point to i-is, is, is a very optimistic way of looking at, at the world and looking at time.

1:25:29 Speaker 3 Right.

1:25:29 Speaker 1 Because instead of just looking at the entropy of time, where with time everything deteriorates and everything falls apart, and, you know, just give it time and everything's gonna be to the gutter, right?

1:25:40 Speaker 3 Right.

1:25:40 Speaker 1 Instead it's-

1:25:40 Speaker 3 There's a V'dalah from Midrash Tzilal, I think in the name of Rishon HaMenof, that Dor L'Dor Yishac Ma'asecha.

1:25:47 Speaker 1 It's from the Rashpaz.

1:25:48 Speaker 3 So it's from Rashpaz originally.

1:25:50 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:25:51 Speaker 3 Every generation-

1:25:52 Speaker 1 Yishac Ma'asecha

1:25:53 Speaker 3 ... it gets better.

1:25:54 Speaker 1 V'zabis Ma'asecha. And, and I think that's probably why the Rashpaz was so beloved by, you know, the Fidei Rebbe and, and, and-

1:26:00 Speaker 3 The, the way Midrash said it, he said it, he said it about Tahat Tmenim.

1:26:03 Speaker 1 Right.

1:26:04 Speaker 3 Every dor, so maybe this was a reminiscent Hesaphah, that every dor Tahat Tmenim becomes more meshubach. There was the original dor in Lubavitch.

1:26:10 Speaker 1 Right.

1:26:10 Speaker 3 Then there was the dor who fought under the communists.

1:26:12 Speaker 1 Right.

1:26:13 Speaker 3 And then there, then there came, uh, uh, the Holocaust, and after the Holocaust, building, building Tahat Tmenim again in America. And so Midrash, his Hesaphah was that the kuf of after Gemara Talmud is, is noch mehr meshubach.

1:26:24 Speaker 1 Yeah. So, so I know you wanted to get there, and I wanted to get there as well, but I, I, I, I, I think what your book does, I've heard that part before, and one of the... I didn't, I only spent very brief time with Reb Melach. One of the beautiful things about him, and I think why so many people loved him, was he exuded this optimism.

1:26:43 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:26:43 Speaker 1 Right? He, he-- You did not feel like this kind of, I don't know about nostalgia, but you didn't feel this kind of like, uh, regret or like this, like looking as, as a world is passing by, and oh my God, what's gonna be.

1:26:58 Speaker 3 Right.

1:26:58 Speaker 1 He, he, he, he believed in the Bachat HaOlam.

1:27:00 Speaker 3 He spoke a lot about history-