Ep. 66 // "Chabad Is All Of Ours" w/ R' Joey Rosenfeld

00:00 Speaker 1 I don't think the, the Nasi Chabad are restricted economy. They're all of ours. The Rebbe is all of ours, and the, the Rebbe Rayatz is all of ours, the Rebbe Rashab is all of ours. I can... And, and, and I, and, and there's also conversations beginning to take shape because there is this phenomenon of, you know, secondary ripple effects of the generations of Chabad. Something happened where there's no longer any path of Hasidus that doesn't utilize the light of Chabad Hasidus.

00:33 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 Bentzi Yafson, and I will be your host. Let's begin. Alrighty. We are here, we are here in Woodmere, New York, deep in Galus, uh, with the one and only Reb Joey or Rav Joey. How do you go by?

01:02 Speaker 1 Reb Joey.

01:03 Speaker 2 Reb Joey Rosenfeld. Uh, if you know, you know, and if you don't know, you, you will know.

01:08 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

01:09 Speaker 2 But, um, I, I came across Reb Joey online a few years ago. Um, I know many people who, who are very familiar with, with your writings. Your writings are certainly one of a kind. I think the first time was when you... When I-- The first time I saw your stuff was, I don't know if you still do it, where you do that you take, like, one concept, and then each, each, like, sniff of, uh, Torah Sabal Shem you have. You still do it?

01:34 Speaker 1 It's a book that's waiting to be published. Like-

01:36 Speaker 2 Like Purim, you have-

01:37 Speaker 1 Uh-huh

01:37 Speaker 2 ... Lubavitch, the Mar- um, you have-

01:40 Speaker 1 Maharal, Rav-

01:41 Speaker 2 Yeah

01:41 Speaker 1 ... Rav Kook.

01:42 Speaker 2 Yeah.

01:42 Speaker 1 Tzadok.

01:43 Speaker 2 Yes. So, um, I very, very pithy, um, t- very pithy, incisive kind of, uh, tweets or posts, and, um, yeah. And I've seen, I've seen mu-much since. I think we've also communicated sometimes online one way or another. But anyway, we're here now. And, um, I think, I think we begin with, uh, figuring out how is it that a good boy from Woodmere ends up with a beard longer than mine?

02:13 Speaker 1 Ay, so I'll give, uh, I'll give the short answer so that we can get to the, the main point-

02:18 Speaker 2 Sure

02:18 Speaker 1 ... of what we're speaking about. But as a grandchild of Satmar Hasidim from before the war, who went to Auschwitz and came out the other side somehow, some way intact with a broken faith, broken of the old system, and desire for... Sorry.

02:38 Speaker 2 Sure.

02:38 Speaker 1 And desire for... Shall I start the answer over?

02:41 Speaker 2 No, that's good.

02:41 Speaker 1 Okay.

02:41 Speaker 2 I understand.

02:42 Speaker 1 And so the Shoah always played a really central role in, um, in my development 'cause my father is a child of survivors. And we knew that we came from Satmar, and we knew that my Saba didn't necessarily have a, a positive view of the tzadikim that his family had been connected to or came from because of everything that had happened and how things went down, so to say. And so what we found ourselves in is the Modern Orthodox enclave, which was two generations after the Shoah. So there was the Shoah, there was Auschwitz, and then after coming out of that breaking, my Saba maintained a profound level of, of futuristic faith almost, where he maintained the depth of connectivity in spite of the fact that he was able to shed the external garments. My Saba wrote two books in Denver, Gemara L'Matchilim and Koach D'Hateirah Adif. And I always like to look at that as, you know, the response to cosmic tragedy of that kind is only to start again from the Aleph Beis, Gemara L'Matchilim, and also to realize that what Chazal and what the Torah wants to do for a person is make it better and make it easier, and not worse and not harder.

03:48 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

03:49 Speaker 1 Koach D'Hateirah Adif. And so my father was a s-student of his father, and ultimately went to YU and became a student of Rav Soloveitchik, and studied a lot of existentialism, which he felt that we should read as well when we went on our spiritual paths and our journeys. But I grew up in a Modern Orthodox enclave, also in the shadow of Rav Moshe Weinberger, who... So the revolution had already begun, where Modern Orthodoxy was beginning to receive Hasidus, which was very often the gift that the generation before their parents had carried with them and been destroyed and decimated. But in a Modern Orthodox development, there was a relationship to Halakha, to Torah, but there was still no depth of spirituality. There was still no access to Hasidus. I had heard of the Baal Shem Tov, but with no interest in it. Jam bands, music, The Doors, Jim Morrison was more interesting to me than reading about the history of tzadikim. But then, like any Modern Orthodox kid, or not any, but a privileged one, I went to Israel after high school and studied for two years. And I went to Or Yerushalayim, which is in Beit Meir, which is where Rav Joshe Freund says, "Daven Malcolm Mashiach wrote some of Tehillim." And I decided to-

05:02 Speaker 2 Beit Meir, the, the, the-

05:04 Speaker 1 The Moshav

05:04 Speaker 2 ... right outside. Oh, I've been there.

05:05 Speaker 1 Yeah, right outside. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful.

05:07 Speaker 2 Gorgeous. Yeah.

05:07 Speaker 1 It's a gorgeous, untouched place, and HaArei Yehuda are there, so I walked outside a lot, and I really connected to something. I connected to something my dad had sent me with Camus and Kafka and all of the existentialist literature that he thought I should go through also. And I learned how to learn Gemara a little bit, and I broke my head on Gemara. But I decided to, to take Torah and Judaism seriously. But then when I came back, I started learning the Maharal. And when I started learning the Maharal, something shifted, 'cause then I spent the next year learning Rav Hutner. Then the next year I spent learning Rav Tzadok. Then the next year I spent learning the Leshem. Then the next year I started learning Tanya, and then I found the Mitteler Rebbe. And once I met the Mitteler Rebbe and his writings, I found a profound familiarity. That's what I would say is the first point in which Hasidus grabbed me, is that it felt like my brain was being hijacked to the degree that how I felt was being expressed on these pages that were written so long ago, especially in the Mitteler Rebbe. I found a profound sense of familiarity.

06:08 Speaker 2 Can you, can you define what are like some, some general ideas or central ideas?

06:13 Speaker 1 Sure. So for the Mittler Rebbe, for the Mittler Rebbe, I had always been interested in kind of concealment. As a byproduct of a grandchild of the Holocaust, as someone who was interested in a certain type of music and was always experiencing a certain longing or also anxiety throughout my life. Anxiety is my earliest memory.

06:33 Speaker 2 Concealment of God?

06:34 Speaker 1 Concealment of, concealment of God, but not aware that that's what we were talking about, just concealment. There was something missing.

06:41 Speaker 2 Concealment of your parents, your spirit-

06:43 Speaker 1 No, but-

06:43 Speaker 2 Your, your parents?

06:44 Speaker 1 Those were some of the fears and its manifestation, but ultimately the general framework and the common denominator was that it was just an awareness of something missing.

06:52 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

06:52 Speaker 1 What was missing, I wasn't sure.

06:55 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

06:55 Speaker 1 But there was always a perpetual sense of a need for more and a craving for more, and the desire to find that more-ness, but also laziness or the disability to find it, so it was kind of just an unrequited longing.

07:08 Speaker 2 Hmm.

07:09 Speaker 1 Um, and I was a teenager, and there were books that like conveyed, and Catcher in the Rye, and all of the culture and the counterculture. I found myself in, in texts and in the history of the Grateful Dead and the history of poetry and all of those different zramim that held certain kind of sparks of familiarity, a textual encounter that I actually felt something. But then when I started learning the Mittler Rebbe, especially I think, I think I started with Kontras Ha'as Palus.

07:37 Speaker 2 Hmm.

07:37 Speaker 1 I started with Kontras Ha'as Palus, and what I remember reading a line from the Mittler Rebbe that he quotes his father, who's quoting his teacher, and he brings it down also in Shaar Hayichud, that "伊 אפשר להבין סראזי דערישא לעמכם ולעמיסם, אלא מי שיש לו המרה שחירה עטיס המושוש בו מן העורב הנקרא צברכנקייט, כמו שכתב במאמר חז"ל, אין מוסרין מרכבה אלא למי שליבה דוי בקרבו."

08:05 Speaker 2 Hmm.

08:06 Speaker 1 That he received in tradition that it's impossible to understand the depth and truth of Ma'amar Chassidus or Pnimias HaTorah unless a person has a certain tendency towards a melancholic spirit-

08:18 Speaker 2 Hmm

08:18 Speaker 1 ... which is referred to as tzibrukankeit, and this is in fact rooted in Chazal that say that you can't give the secrets of the chariot over to anybody other than one who is anxious. And so at that point I said, "Wait a second. Here w-we see that all of the inner states that I feel, which have all f-often seemed to be the opposite of a spiritual ideal," because one wants joy, and one wants faith, and one wants simplicity, and one doesn't want that tzibrukankeit-

08:45 Speaker 2 Hmm

08:45 Speaker 1 ... that sense of something missing. In the Mittler Rebbe, it was transformed into the very stone upon which a relationship to God and Torah and light can be revealed. And so later on did I discover that all I was encountering was the notion of binah, right, which is what the Mittler Rebbe was, but I saw it most pronounced in the language of the Mittler Rebbe, especially in Toras Chaim with Oras D'tovu B'kelim D'tikuin, and how Esav to a certain degree is higher than Yaakov, and the Mispaler is higher than the Mivareir. This shift, a, a complete overturning of the binary oppositions we typically orient ourselves to, which now makes us realize that, oh, absence is actually higher than presence.

09:26 Speaker 2 Hmm.

09:26 Speaker 1 And darkness is higher than light, and the kli is mushush in a place that's higher than the or.

09:30 Speaker 2 Right.

09:31 Speaker 1 And I fell into a real obsession with that type of mahalach.

09:34 Speaker 2 Fascinating. Fascinating. Um, I don't know if you heard this story, but I heard this story from someone, someone who heard it from, I think, I think I already quoted on the podcast, and I misquoted who said it, so I'm not even gonna try again. But the s- but the line I remember that there was a Hasid in Australia. This was the year after the Philip Rebbe passed away. So Hasidim were trying to get a handle on who this potential new Rebbe was gonna be, this, the son-in-law who up to that point had been quite reserved. And one Hasid in Australia told another Hasid that he's a Felechitzubrucheneid or Tzubruchene Felechied. Like, the, the definition of the Ramash was a, a, a broken, um, happy person, as poor of a translation as that is.

10:31 Speaker 1 It's both and at the same time.

10:32 Speaker 2 Right. No, but I don't know if Tzubruchen it can really be translated as broken and Felech as happy, but, you know, for, for the, as best as we can do in English.

10:40 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

10:41 Speaker 2 Um, so yes, there's, there's certainly something in that.

10:44 Speaker 1 Yeah. There's a deep, there's a deep... I mean, the Nazir, the main Talmud of Rav Kook identified, you know, Chabad Hasidus as part of the ancient path of almost a pessimistic approach.

10:55 Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, Hasidim Rishonim Hoyshon Shlach Hasmus Pal, and then that comes behamshoch to Eimus Pal and Elmitoch Kovod Reish.

11:01 Speaker 1 Kovod Reish.

11:02 Speaker 2 And yeah, I was just learn- I was just, uh, yesterday in, in, in, in the shul that I daven in, they asked me to give a shir in Likud Etara. So I said, "You know, let's, it's between Mechamar, let me do next week, Pal Escha that we just read." And that's what Pal Escha's about in the Likud Etara is about the, the, the Shem and Zayis.

11:18 Speaker 1 Hmm.

11:18 Speaker 2 You have to-

11:19 Speaker 1 You have to crush it

11:19 Speaker 2 ... you have to crush the Zayis to bring out the Shem, and, and that, and the, the author brings a beautiful, uh, thing from Rav Chaim Vital about, about, um, Lech- Le- um, Hoysoli Dimasi Lechayim Velaila, that the, there's a closeness that one finds precisely through the Dimasi. And the, the vart, the vart is a beautiful vart how some... t-to, to see, to see something that your eyes can't usually see, sometimes you can, you can only see that through tears. Like, the clearest vision is sometimes clouded by tears, right?

11:56 Speaker 1 And longing.

11:57 Speaker 2 Right. No, but, you know, the eyes, oh, we need to have clarity.

12:00 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

12:00 Speaker 2 We need to see.

12:01 Speaker 1 Right.

12:01 Speaker 2 You know, if you have twenty/twenty vision-

12:02 Speaker 1 Right

12:02 Speaker 2 ... then you see things. It's like, no, maybe not. Maybe if your tear, maybe if your eyes are misty with tears and they're blocked with, uh, uh, you know-

12:09 Speaker 1 Specifically 'cause the closer one comes to closing their eyes and realizing that I can't see anything, they come closer to seeing what they can't see, and I don't mean that I don't mean that to be a trick of language.

12:19 Speaker 2 Right.

12:19 Speaker 1 I mean it to be what the Rebbe Rashab describes as the apex of what we're capable of grasping, Right. Essential concealment.

12:26 Speaker 2 Right.

12:27 Speaker 1 Which means to say we have to really reorient our entire positioning of what it means to relate to ourselves, God, and the world. That there's a part of Chabad Hasidus clearer than anybody else, but it's expressed throughout most tzadikim, that there's a path where being human and owning the human condition, and engaging in it, and leaning into it, and being mitmoded with it, is the only path towards the highest level of experience. This is obviously expressed explicitly in the Tanya, which I really only came to understand after.

12:58 Speaker 2 Mm.

12:58 Speaker 1 This is basically what the Tanya is about.

12:59 Speaker 2 Which part?

13:00 Speaker 1 The, the ishafcha at the core of it. You know, to me, uh, the Perek Lamed Vav is ultimately the point in Sefer Shel Binim that highlights the true secret that the Alter Rebbe was coming to give us, which is that

13:21 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

13:21 Speaker 1 That's, that's where we are, and if that's where we're supposed to be, then I have to stop looking at it with eyes of mournful, post-traumatic eyes that say, "Oh, if only things were clear," and I have to say, "No, this is what Hashem wants, in whatever way a person has to grapple with it, and this is where I'm going to find him."

13:40 Speaker 2 Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. Uh, we, we could, we could dive down this rabbit hole-

13:49 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

13:49 Speaker 2 ... for a long time, but I d- I, I, I, I, I d- I don't wanna just get, uh, caught up in, in-

13:53 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

13:53 Speaker 2 ... in, uh-

13:55 Speaker 1 In the-

13:55 Speaker 2 In the-

13:55 Speaker 1 And we'll come back to this. This will be the-

13:57 Speaker 2 It'll come. It'll come back

13:57 Speaker 1 ... the, the-

13:57 Speaker 2 But, but I, but I, I, I wanna ask you, when you were, when you were starting to read this, starting to learn these things, how did, how did you relate to this, this, th- th- this Sefer? Was it another Sefer? Was there... What, what... Was it, was it just a, just an idea without... You know, you were in Israel at the time.

14:21 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

14:21 Speaker 2 Right? Lubavitch makes itself known in Israel for all, in all kinds of ways, and I'm sure you were aware of, of, of the different kinds of shapes and colors.

14:31 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

14:32 Speaker 2 Uh, primarily the yellow color, right?

14:34 Speaker 1 Right.

14:34 Speaker 2 And like, are you like, "Wait, there's this idea, but I'm just taking it as like a, as an academic?" Was it-

14:41 Speaker 1 So it's very interesting that there was a growing trend in the Torah of Eretz Yisrael, Rav Shagar, and all of these kind of postmodern approaches to spirituality, which are trying to retrieve the light of the Baal Shem Tov and the modern and postmodern sensibilities that are contained within them, that kept on bringing it back to the Alter Rebbe, kept on seeing the Alter Rebbe as really this final say. One line of the Alter Rebbe from the Kuntres Torah was enough to base an entire theory of language upon-

15:14 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

15:14 Speaker 1 ... for some of these tzadikim in, in that, in that world. And I began to see it as, okay, this is another zeraim of not Machshava Yisrael, but a way of thinking. And then I merited to have a Sefer cross my, my table, which was Rav Yoel Kahn's Musagim B'Toras Hachassidus.

15:32 Speaker 2 Sure.

15:32 Speaker 1 It was a two-volume set.

15:33 Speaker 2 Sure.

15:34 Speaker 1 And I still have mine at home, and I learnt that really well, and I learnt it very deeply. And that's for sure the first time that I, I began to feel that I had any tefisa on even the language-

15:45 Speaker 2 Mm

15:46 Speaker 1 ... that was being used. And I didn't come to understand the Yichudata, Yichudila from Kabbalists and then came to the Alter Rebbe. I learnt that language from Rav Yoel Kahn-

15:54 Speaker 2 Hmm

15:54 Speaker 1 ... and getting a general grasp of those perspectives. And so I began to see Lubavitch far more than a, a movement or a particular Hasidic lens, and a- another zeraim of thinking about Hashem and relating to Hashem.

16:12 Speaker 2 Right.

16:13 Speaker 1 This is because I'm a, um... We're an orphan generation, and there was a growth of these orphaned Mashpiim.

16:19 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

16:20 Speaker 1 In particular, the various tzadikim that popped up in our generation who were not necessarily connected to Chabad. They were, in fact, connected much more to Rebbe Nachman.

16:29 Speaker 2 For example?

16:29 Speaker 1 Like Rav Yitchak Meir Morgenstern, who I try and consider my tzadik and my rebbe, and I try and connect to him as much as I can. Rav Avraham Chait Tugir, the Belz Vavi Mishkan Evner, Rav Matel Zilber.

16:40 Speaker 2 So where did your rebbe come from? What's his story?

16:43 Speaker 1 So before we get to my rebbe, but I just... These four individuals, they were all teaching Hasidus in their own way. Some were Breslov, some were teaching, some were teaching Rizhin, but they were all utilizing the language of Chabad. They all had the full set of the Semach Sadek on their shelves. They all had the writings of the Rebbe Rashab on their shelves. They all had the writings of the Rebbe on their shelves, and the Kuntres Torah. There... Something happened where there's no longer any path of Hasidus that doesn't utilize the light of Chabad Hasidus. But by shifting it away of being a Chabad Hasid-

17:20 Speaker 2 Mm

17:20 Speaker 1 ... where that Hasidus now became part of a particularized curriculum, it became a life force of real potent baseline Hasidic thought that influences every other zeraim of Hasidus. You have us the Maggid of Mezritch, meaning without Hasidus Chabad, we don't have the Maggid.

17:38 Speaker 2 Right.

17:38 Speaker 1 And so it was the ability to use Chabad Hasidus without being a Chabad Hasid, but a Talmud of them.

17:43 Speaker 2 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 Bonialo, Torah Mesora, and Atzlathon, 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. It's very interesting, this idea that you said "the orphan generation." I think, I think, I think it's worth, worth-

18:43 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

18:43 Speaker 2 ... spending some time on, 'cause it doesn't sound like you mean that in a purely, uh, negative or downcast sense.

18:51 Speaker 1 No. No, God forbid. I think there was a breaking with the nepotism.

18:54 Speaker 2 All right.

18:55 Speaker 1 I think there was a breaking with the nepotism.

18:55 Speaker 2 I think you posted about it once, yeah.

18:57 Speaker 1 There's holy nepotism. Holy nepotism is, is something that we believe in, and we see how that happens, that the children of Tzadikim are sometimes very big Tzadikim.

19:06 Speaker 2 Right.

19:06 Speaker 1 We also know that as we get later and later into history, that's not always the case.

19:10 Speaker 2 Right.

19:10 Speaker 1 And family name alone is not enough to carry on the spiritual principle. Sometimes we see it worked very well, and sometimes we see that it works less. The orphan generation in the sense that in the wasteland of post-Shoah reality, there was the knowledge that Torah haChasidus needed to be revived even though the world of Chasidus may have been destroyed.

19:31 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

19:32 Speaker 1 And so the first person you had who did this was Rav Aharon Roth, who out of kind of the, the ashes of the Shoah, who was a mashpia, he wasn't a, a Chasidus Rebbe, but he became. He became one by dint of the, the Torah that he carried. Sholom, l'havdil, says that, like, if you wanna see anything interesting nowadays in the time that he was writing it, you could go to the two Avrahams, either Rav Avraham Yitzchok HaCohen Kook or Rav Aharon Roth in Me'asharim, because I think he saw in it a phenomenon that was new, which was the emergence of Chasidus really for the masses.

20:06 Speaker 2 This Rav, this Rav Aharon Roth-

20:09 Speaker 1 Yeah

20:09 Speaker 2 ... did he build a new school of Chasidim?

20:12 Speaker 1 Shomer Emunim.

20:13 Speaker 2 Shomer-

20:13 Speaker 1 Shomer Emunim Chasidus, but he gave us-

20:15 Speaker 2 But does he have, like, a group of Chasidim?

20:17 Speaker 1 Yeah, it was Toldos, Toldos Avraham, Toldos Avraham is, it comes from him.

20:20 Speaker 2 Toldos, Toldos Avraham.

20:21 Speaker 1 But he was, but what he gave in his writings more significantly than anything else, the Shomer Emunim, the Torah HaKodesh, was a collection of all of the Tzadikim together.

20:32 Speaker 2 Mm.

20:32 Speaker 1 Baal Shem Tov, and not only the Maggid derech, but the Toldos Yaakov Yosef derech, which you don't get-

20:37 Speaker 2 Mm

20:38 Speaker 1 ... when you only learn Chabad Chasidus. And quoting from the Bnei Yisaschar, and quoting from all of the Talmidim, and then you get to see similar language.

20:46 Speaker 2 Yeah, it's very interesting, this idea, because it's, it's... You, you phrase it as nepotism, um, but I think, I think even without... I mean, maybe it's the same thing, but, but there's, there's, there's, there, there, there's, there's just this fact of history that there needs to be reinvention from time to time. I don't know if that's what you... I don't know if that's what you meant.

21:14 Speaker 1 It is. Every revolution needs a revolution.

21:16 Speaker 2 Right.

21:17 Speaker 1 Every rev... Yitzchak was not carrying the message of Avraham Avinu-

21:22 Speaker 2 Right

21:22 Speaker 1 ... like Eliezer was. Eliezer was devarim umashke-

21:25 Speaker 2 Right

21:25 Speaker 1 ... from the wells of his master. Yitzchak was novelty. Yitzchak, and what's novelty? It's the capacity to maintain the inner kernel of what the previous generation had while innovating it enough to make it its own thing.

21:39 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah, so it does seem... Yeah, I grew up in a Lubavitch family. I consider myself a Lubavitch Hasid. Um, in a sense, I don't have that freedom that you, that it sounds like you have, um, to, to pick and choose or to kind of create your own, um, identity or your own diet, let's say. But, you know, the, I think there's a s- there's a strength and a weakness to it. On one hand, there's a, okay, I kind of know who I am or what I think or, like, like, what I, what I read or what I think is-

22:11 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

22:11 Speaker 2 ... important, but there's also a certain straitjacket to it, where it's like do... Is this really how I think, right? And, uh, is it, you know, do I really, is everything that... Am, am I just saying it because I have to say it or am I saying it because it's-

22:25 Speaker 1 Sure.

22:25 Speaker 2 Right? And so it, it comes almost back, may- maybe I'm a little bit oversimplifying it, but it comes to that kind of core question of modernity or maybe even post-modernity, which is, you know, tradition versus authenticity.

22:38 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

22:39 Speaker 2 Right? A- and, you know, the, the, the post-modernist or the existentialist will tell you, you know, "It's wonderful to have your categories and everything make sense," you know, or think that they make sense, but wait until it breaks, and then good luck, right? Better, better to acknowledge upfront that nothing makes sense, and the world's utter chaos, and, and just try to be as true as you possibly can, right?

23:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. The way you're describing it is, is very poignant, and I think that Eli Rubin ultimately, you know, is the one who really captures this territory and where there's a middle option, which is discontinuity and continuity at the same time, which is the secret of the Hamshacha.

23:20 Speaker 2 Right.

23:20 Speaker 1 When, but that's also returning to the pure textuality-

23:23 Speaker 2 Right

23:23 Speaker 1 ... of Hasidus Chabad as being indicative of the unfolding of its history, which is what Reb Eli does so beautifully.

23:29 Speaker 2 Yes.

23:30 Speaker 1 But, um, but I do think, I, I, I think that this happened to Hasidus. Chabad wasn't necessarily involved in it, but Reb Simcha Bunim of Peshischa came along, and, and he looked at the current stage of Hasidus, where everyone had become a Rebbe, and everyone had their palatial tishin when what was most devoid was any spirit. And Reb Simcha Bunim came along and created a revolution to the degree that they were almost excommunicated, and that gave birth to Kotsk, and that gave birth to Gur, and that gave birth to Alexander, and that gave birth to Polish Hasidus, and Izbica and Radzyn, which are markedly modern. And you would be amazed to find that as, as big of an impact as Hasidus Chabad has on this, not nascent movement, but of modern Orthodoxy that is retrieving the birthright of their relationship to Hasidus that hadn't survived the Shoah, right? Hasidus Chabad ostensibly survived the Shoah. Uh-

24:29 Speaker 2 Well-

24:29 Speaker 1 Even though you don't survive it, there was a, a shock absorber strong enough of the Rebbe Rayatz and the Lubavitch Rebbe to make it seem like there was a bridge.

24:37 Speaker 2 We were als- we were also not, we were also mostly in Russia.

24:40 Speaker 1 Exactly.

24:41 Speaker 2 Uh, there were, there were a lot of Hasidim who were killed by the Nazis, but-

24:44 Speaker 1 Right

24:44 Speaker 2 ... the majority were not.

24:45 Speaker 1 But after, after, after the desire for more comes in, and we discover this nature of Hasidus, Izbica and Radzyn has as much of a, an influence on kind of the modern, mistakenly referred to as neo-Hasidic perspective. It's not neo-Hasidus 'cause that's something else, but it's neo in the sense that it's retrieving something that was old and bringing it back-

25:10 Speaker 2 Right

25:11 Speaker 1 ... with freshness.

25:12 Speaker 2 So I guess the question then becomes, there's one thing to say that, that the, the implementation or the culture is stagnant, uh, is becoming as you said nepotistic or just, I, I think, I think just overall-

25:29 Speaker 1 Performative

25:29 Speaker 2 ... all, all performative, uh, you know, lazy, um, you know, a scab as opposed to healthy, healthy tissue. But the ideas, you would think they, like if ideas are true, then the ideas should be able to survive the test of time, right? So i- is there a need, like is there a need to, to, to, to, to create a revolution in ideas?

25:58 Speaker 1 A Chabad library is, on a certain level, one of the most astonishing things to encounter because we have, let's say, at least 20,000, if not more, maamarim. I might be overestimating. I said 100,000 the other time I made this point. But-

26:13 Speaker 2 Wow

26:13 Speaker 1 ... every maymer, and I'm not even talking about the, the books that the Rebbe wrote.

26:17 Speaker 2 A talmid who got, a talmid who got burnt dosas, I think you're probably close.

26:19 Speaker 1 I'm not even talking about the books.

26:21 Speaker 2 Yeah.

26:21 Speaker 1 The seforim that were meant to be read.

26:22 Speaker 2 Right.

26:22 Speaker 1 You could talk about the miracle of the notion of a book that's meant for an individual reader, which is a paradox that the Alter Rebbe introduced.

26:29 Speaker 2 Right.

26:30 Speaker 1 But the maamarim themselves, when I walk in and I see all of the nissim and all of the maamarim, either I'm gonna be overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of it-

26:39 Speaker 2 Mm

26:39 Speaker 1 ... because it's all saying something different, and I have to hold cup on all of this, and I might as well just read whatever my teachers tell me to read. Or I can look at it and say, "If the, if the nasi and the tzadik hador took the opportunity to access the Vayikas by way of public hisbodedut."

26:57 Speaker 2 Hmm. That's how you see a maymer?

26:59 Speaker 1 Uh, to a degree or not. I don't know the text. I, I, I think the textuality of it is very significant, but it's their process of reaching God through the maze of the Seder Stoshlist, typically from the bottom back up and then from the top back down based on the passuk and... So if that's, if they believe that it should be placed into the text, so those are no longer ideas that are read, but they are portals-

27:26 Speaker 2 Right

27:26 Speaker 1 ... to one degree or another. Like, if I want to experience godliness the way that the Rebbe Rashab revealed it to be a fundamentally real path of grasping godliness, why? 'Cause the tzadik said it at that moment, and it's congealed in his words for eternity. And when I'm reading those words, the purpose is to connect to God. The purpose is to trace these elements back, meaning to say the hisbodedut element of it, to think about it.

27:50 Speaker 2 Hmm.

27:50 Speaker 1 But for me, hisbodedut wasn't sitting there, you know, walking around with a tallis over my shoulder and pacing back and forth. Hisbodedut was trying to grapple with reality.

27:59 Speaker 2 Hmm.

27:59 Speaker 1 As an anxious person, as a person who's grappling with college, and so the need to translate the ideas within the maamarim and to live with them became, what does Sovet HaOlami mean for me? What does Ma'alot HaOlam mean for me? What does the Gevuros mean? What does Chesed mean? Meaning we have to break open the terms-

28:16 Speaker 2 Yeah

28:17 Speaker 1 ... and connect to them. So the terms themselves are not enough.

28:19 Speaker 2 Right.

28:19 Speaker 1 But the way in which we approach the severity and the depth of what these books convey to us is the impact they're gonna have on us.

28:26 Speaker 2 Yeah.

28:26 Speaker 1 That make sense?

28:26 Speaker 2 Yeah. I actually was just learning, uh, my new favorite Hemshich of, of the Friediker Rebbe, Tof Shin Alef. Um, it's a Pesach Hemshich, about 50, 60 pages.

28:37 Speaker 1 Hmm.

28:37 Speaker 2 And, you know, in general, the maamarim, this is f- this is from the first years of the Friediker Rebbe in America, and the maamarim of those years are very different, very, like, basic, you know, teaching, teaching, teaching newbies and m- and, you know, and, and m- or normies like they like to say today.

28:54 Speaker 1 Hmm.

28:55 Speaker 2 Um, and 30 pages or so, at least the first half of the Hemshich, is all about what hisbodedut is. And not to get carried away with the whole thing there, but just to your point, um, the way he touches hisbodedut is once you have understood the idea or you've kind of broken down the idea into its different segments and defined the idea the way your mind takes it in, hisbodedut is reviewing the idea and getting back to, did I under-- like did, did I understand it correctly? Did I get the foundation of the idea right?

29:29 Speaker 1 The core of it.

29:30 Speaker 2 The core of it.

29:31 Speaker 1 Not the details, the abstract. The core.

29:32 Speaker 2 No, that's the whole point.

29:33 Speaker 1 Right.

29:33 Speaker 2 The whole point is, the whole point is hisbodedut kind of challenges the hasaga and, and, and tries to f- reassert it-

29:40 Speaker 1 Hmm

29:40 Speaker 2 ... on a truer, on a truer foundation. So in many ways, that's what you just described, where there, there's taking an idea and say, "Okay, I think I understand what the maymer said, and I understand what the arguments were to this side, to this, and I kind of get the shape of it." But if I don't relate to it, if I don't, if I don't know what-

29:58 Speaker 1 Even that aside, to me, I don't care if I understand the complexity of the maymer. If I read one line in the maymer and it gives me an insight into the soul, so that line becomes the point at which I'm joining the stream of this Rebbe's expression of their aliyah.

30:13 Speaker 2 No, right.

30:14 Speaker 1 It's a technology.

30:14 Speaker 2 Right. But you said, you said that you wanted to, as a, as a young man-

30:18 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

30:18 Speaker 2 ... you wanted to translate the words-

30:19 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

30:19 Speaker 2 ... what does Sovet HaOlam mean?

30:20 Speaker 1 Right.

30:20 Speaker 2 And that is what hisbodedut is, is what I'm saying.

30:23 Speaker 1 Absolutely. Translation. It's Targum.

30:24 Speaker 2 Hisbodedut is, and, uh, I don't know what they did when they were carrying their tallisim. It's very possible they were doing the same thing.

30:30 Speaker 1 Same thing.

30:30 Speaker 2 It's very possible they were doing the same-

30:30 Speaker 1 They were, they were holy, and they were righteous, and they were the Hasidim HaRishonim.

30:34 Speaker 2 Yeah. Maybe, may-maybe, or maybe they just, maybe the artist made them look good. I don't know.

30:39 Speaker 1 This tzadik. But, but there's a piece that I'm, there's a piece that I'm missing in this, and I wanna, I wanna stress it. Louis Jacobs wrote a book, "The Seeker of Unity"-

30:48 Speaker 2 Okay. I think I've read it

30:48 Speaker 1 ... about Rav Aharon HaLevi.

30:49 Speaker 2 Okay.

30:51 Speaker 1 And Rav Aharon HaLevi, to me, like I said before, the talmidim of the Alter Rebbe and the Mittler Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek are as significant to me as the nissim, primarily because I'm not a, a Lubavitcher Hasid. So I can spend time learning Rav Philip Archer. And I can spend time learning the Ma'amarim of Reb Yitzchak Aizik Kammler. And I can spend time learning the Torah of Reb Aharon HaLevi, which is saying something different or a little bit more nuanced than what the typical descent of the Seder of Shtarlshles of the Nesiah Hador are doing, especially as it's translated. It's far more chaotic, it's far more Kabbalistic, it's far more emphasizing the selfhood of it all.

31:32 Speaker 2 Right.

31:32 Speaker 1 I mean, the entire library of Reb Aharon HaLevi's writings can theoretically be seen as a commentary on the 36th chapter in Tanya-

31:40 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

31:40 Speaker 1 ... of Diyur Betachtaynim, what it means to be a self.

31:43 Speaker 2 Mm.

31:44 Speaker 1 Without the running back to abstraction, there's a real lived experiential Torah at the heart of Chabad that I believe the Alter Rebbe reveals hidden, scattered without the Prakam of Tanya, embeds deeply in Chinuch Katan, which is the reality that we'll never get it right, and that's why we have to always hold what we think is right and what we know is wrong at the same time.

32:05 Speaker 2 Right.

32:07 Speaker 1 Gets expressed most potently in the last Ma'amar, which is Nefesh HaShfalah, which is where the Alter Rebbe at the end of his life basically said the only goal down here is to make Shalom in a place of lies, and to descend down in a place of Ta'anos Shel Sheker, the Diyur Betachtaynim. And then when you start learning the Mitler Rebbe in Sha'ar Yichud, exactly like you're talking about, the whole question is what's more important, the Klal or the Prat, the whole or the particular? And what he reveals there is the fundamental necessity that both have on one another.

32:34 Speaker 2 Mm.

32:34 Speaker 1 And so the Prat is suddenly this disintegration, this fragmentation, this self, the thing that I understand better than any of the Nesium, because I'm in that place.

32:42 Speaker 2 Yeah.

32:42 Speaker 1 And I live that way, and my, my surroundings are that way. So that severity when you find wisdom that was speaking about that place so beautifully, and ultimately revealing the redemptive quality of Malchus over Zer Anpin in the end of the day, and Eishes Chayil at Eres Payla, and all of those intense, potent, beautiful teachings that reveal that life is the opposite of what we thought, and the concealment is where we find God most, that was not only music to my ears, it was medicine.

33:10 Speaker 2 Mm.

33:10 Speaker 1 It was medicine. And, and because I came in with these issues or these problems and thought, the Ma'amarim of Chasidus became medicine.

33:18 Speaker 2 Yeah, look, uh, this is, this is very well accepted in Chabad as well. I don't know about in practice, but in concept, like, uh, you know, maybe Reb Aharon HaLevi is a little bit more controversial, but, uh, Reb Hillel Paricher is, is, is, uh, Plach Riman is his, or at least some of his forum is, is very famous in Lubavitchers. I don't know how, how much people learn it, but-

33:37 Speaker 1 But that's important-

33:37 Speaker 2 But the f-

33:38 Speaker 1 ... 'cause the curriculum-

33:39 Speaker 2 Yeah

33:39 Speaker 1 ... cut off a lot of this.

33:39 Speaker 2 No, but I'm saying it's not, it's... Like, it's not like it's, it's not like we're discouraged from learning it, but there is a story that's al- that's long been one of my favorites, at least on this topic, which is, uh, Reb Hillel Paricher, he was a Chassid of a number of the Rebbeims. I don't know which one, which Rebbe this was with, but he heard a Ma'amar, and afterwards he Chazut the Ma'amar, and the Rebbe or one of the Rebbe's children said, "No, that's not what the Rebbe's saying." He said, "No, but this is how I heard it."

34:03 Speaker 1 Right.

34:03 Speaker 2 "This part belongs to me."

34:04 Speaker 1 That's what matters.

34:05 Speaker 2 "This part belongs to me. Like, what the Rebbe said is for his Kasuvim, but this is what I heard."

34:08 Speaker 1 This is the most important point of all.

34:10 Speaker 2 Yes. And I, I, I, I... To me, this is, this, this is everything. And, and this in many ways becomes a massive source of tension in the Lubavitcher's experience, which is, do I have a right to an idea of my own? Or is my entire... Or, or, or am I... Like, what if I think differently than the Rebbe Olamos?

34:33 Speaker 1 So I love this question because I think that when you look at the writings of the Baal HaTanya and the Mitler Rebbe, at least in the books that were published, not Ma'amarim, what you find in the Hakdamus of the Mechabrim is that there's always the phrase, "Kol Chad Lefum Shiur Dilei," right?

34:50 Speaker 2 Right.

34:50 Speaker 1 Which is a riff on the Tikkunei Zohar, which on the Pasuk of Eishes Chayil at Eres Payla, which teaches us that, "No de Bashar Imbalo," that he will be known in the gates of town by dint of the greatness of his wife. But, "No de Bashur Dilei," he will be known, God will be known in accordance with the conjecture and the estimation of our own heart.

35:08 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

35:09 Speaker 1 That, "Achas Diber Aleichem Shnaim Zu Shamati," we don't have to come and rewrite the Ma'amar, God forbid, in order to value our interpretation-

35:20 Speaker 2 Mm

35:20 Speaker 1 ... which is our own singularity. Interpretation is interpreted through the f- particular frame of our interpretive devices, our mind, heart, body. And so it's about owning the singularity of the light that comes down in a Ma'amar or in the Sefer, but also owning my capacity to receive it in accordance with my own vessels. That's what the Baal HaTanya did in Sefer of Tanya. The Baal HaTanya couldn't continue with Yichidus, A, because it wasn't tenable, and B, because he cared. He cared about the people coming into the room, and there's just so much. And so the Baal HaTanya, the miracle, what he describes in Hakdamus Ha- Mechaber is that I'm giving you a book that will stand in the place of Yichidus, and as long as you knew me and you loved me and you love me, and the Meforshim all say that that's not dependent on face-to-face knowing. As long as you trust that I'm a source that's conveying wisdom from Harsinai.

36:10 Speaker 2 Achvi Ad Makir Kamina, yeah.

36:13 Speaker 1 Then, then you will receive these words in accordance with what you need to receive in them.

36:18 Speaker 2 Right.

36:18 Speaker 1 There's a story, my favorite story covers this, is that there's a story about there was a Chassid who came to the Baal HaTanya, and he said he had to go to whatever town it was for business. And the Baal HaTanya said, "Take the book, take Tanya, and just come and report back to me if anything strange takes place." So at the end of this Chassid's trip, he went to the theater, and after a show, the usher was cleaning the aisle, and he came and he looked at me and he said, "What's this book?" And he leafed through it and he said, "Hmm, very nice," and he walked away. This Chassid came back to the Alter Rebbe, and the Alter Rebbe said, "Nu, did anything happen?" And he didn't think of anything, and he said, "Anything?" And then he repeated, "Well, there was somebody who, who nodded at the book and said, 'Very nice.'" And apparently, the Baal HaTanya was malei simcha v'chedva as a result of that.

37:02 Speaker 2 Mm.

37:02 Speaker 1 And the story goes as follows: The Masorah in Chabad is that that was the Rosh of the Lamdavot Tzadikim of the generation. But then there's another addendum to the story that there's another way of understanding it, that no, the usher wasn't the Rosh HaL'ama dvat Tzadikim, he was the Rosh HaL'ama dvat Rash'aim.

37:19 Speaker 2 Hmm.

37:19 Speaker 1 And that the Alter Rebbe was happy because even the other side was acknowledging that his book was very good. The way I see that is that Tanya hijacks the self because it speaks to both parts of the self.

37:31 Speaker 2 Hmm.

37:32 Speaker 1 It speaks to both parts of you. It speaks to the Tzadik in you, it speaks to the Rasha in you.

37:35 Speaker 2 Right.

37:35 Speaker 1 And both parts have to be masked into the book.

37:39 Speaker 2 Yeah. Uh, going back to the physical assumption, 'cause that when you have the hanafah s'omer of the, of the, of the car- of the carbenimer, you need, you needed, you, they would sh- they would, they... I don't know what the English word is. Wh- when they would shake it, they would shake both the actual flour as well as the shells.

37:57 Speaker 1 Hmm.

37:58 Speaker 2 And, and Fiddiko explains, you have, it has to include both sides. It has to include also the klipa, also the shells of the, of, of, o- the, the, the psilus-

38:08 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

38:08 Speaker 2 ... the stuff that you wanna get rid of, that's also part of what you have to work with.

38:11 Speaker 1 Absolutely. But do you know where the problem is also, and this is another symptom, is that the separation between Kabbalah and Chassidus, that people like to quote the Rebbe Rashab on, that Kabbalah is a Perush on Chassidus.

38:23 Speaker 2 Right.

38:24 Speaker 1 So the misunderstanding of that, along with other general misunderstandings that came out at that same time, like that atzmus jisparach is graspable to some degree.

38:34 Speaker 2 Yeah.

38:34 Speaker 1 And that only halava y'benini and I can't be a tzadik also. These three elements convey the wrong idea of what Chassidus is. That if we cut Kabbalah off from Chassidus, Chassidus becomes something that's very close to Christian theology, God forbid, to the degree that it seems like a closed system that can be completed.

38:58 Speaker 2 Well, so, so, so what, uh, maybe we take a step back. What do you mean, what do you mean by that, and what do you mean by atzmus being graspable?

39:08 Speaker 1 So all of Chassidus is ultimately talking about our relationship with the essence of God.

39:14 Speaker 2 Right.

39:14 Speaker 1 But it's about what happens after the essence of God is concealed or undergoes a certain form of tzimtzum. Now, the highest level, the, the Tzimtzum Ritzonit, that original dlug, what the Lubavitcher Rebbe termed the Tzimtzum HaNavchi, or the w- the wondrous thing that took place before the beginning of anything, already dictates to us that all we are ever grasping is the essential expressions of godliness.

39:41 Speaker 2 Right.

39:41 Speaker 1 That whenever the tzadikim are using the lashonios of atzmus, it's always, at least up until, you know, the later generations, it's always with the additional phrasing of Shemo HaAtzmi or Ziv HaAtzmi or Or HaAtzmi. None of those things are the atzam of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

40:01 Speaker 2 Hmm.

40:02 Speaker 1 The atzam of Hakadosh Baruch Hu can only be grasped by way of Derech Hashlilas Hashlilah, Nimneh HaNimneos, as the Rambam, as the, as Ramash describes in the, the HaDronim, that there's no grasping God. Leis machshava tzvisa b'eikla. And even if it vas hu b'reusa d'liba-

40:19 Speaker 2 Right

40:19 Speaker 1 ... that doesn't mean you're grasping the essence. That just means you're coming more into an awareness that you can't grasp the essence. The notion of grasping the essence of godliness, grasping, I'm saying, is a very difficult idea to base any type of system around because what does that mean in terms of the recipient of that information? If I can grasp atzmus or the notion of atzmu- even the notion of grasping it is, is impossible to kind of get stuck into. But look, the question is not-

40:47 Speaker 2 Is this a problem if you can't grasp it, or it's a problem if you can?

40:50 Speaker 1 You can. If you say that you can, you're being magshimit, and you're turning it into an idol.

40:53 Speaker 2 So that's a problem.

40:54 Speaker 1 That's the, uh, the-

40:55 Speaker 2 So what, what's a-

40:55 Speaker 1 The problem, the problem is that people walk around nowadays-

40:58 Speaker 2 Right

40:58 Speaker 1 ... thinking that atzmus or the essence of God-

41:02 Speaker 2 Yeah

41:02 Speaker 1 ... is something that has been revealed and is graspable.

41:04 Speaker 2 Yeah, they, they, they have atzmus on speed dial.

41:06 Speaker 1 That's the problem.

41:07 Speaker 2 Yeah.

41:07 Speaker 1 Because atzmus only represents a placeholder-

41:11 Speaker 2 Right

41:11 Speaker 1 ... for that which we cannot grasp. Now, it's very important to note, we're not talking about the presence of God's infinitude or not. That's not what the conversation ever has been.

41:18 Speaker 2 Yeah.

41:18 Speaker 1 It's about graspability.

41:19 Speaker 2 No, that the Rebbe said that, that, that the simplest people have a handle on the presence of, of, of-

41:24 Speaker 1 On the presence of it

41:25 Speaker 2 ... God, yes, of, of atzmus, of the, the, the, the essence of God's presence. They have a handle on him being present, but not on what it is.

41:31 Speaker 1 Exactly.

41:32 Speaker 2 Yes.

41:32 Speaker 1 And there's been a shift, and what I understand it to be, although I don't know the history well enough, is that the mashpiyim after the fifth generation, and the Rebbe Rashab revealed more-

41:42 Speaker 2 Hmm

41:42 Speaker 1 ... than other generations. If you read the frightening words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe about Hemshich Ayin Beis.

41:46 Speaker 2 Right.

41:47 Speaker 1 I mean, he understood that there was something cosmic afoot in the publishing of these writings.

41:51 Speaker 2 Yes.

41:51 Speaker 1 And Samach Vav already begins to bring it out.

41:53 Speaker 2 Yes.

41:54 Speaker 1 But God forbid, heaven forbid for us to ever think that the Rebbe Rashab or the Lubavitcher Rebbe Z"L was claiming that the Jewish mind can grasp atzmus.

42:03 Speaker 2 Right.

42:03 Speaker 1 No matter how far we go, by definition, we have to assume that kidush Hasid lama al mikidush Hasechem. This comes out most and most explicitly in the Tzemach Tzedek in countless places, but nobody's learning it.

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43:45 Speaker 1 The mysti-... So, so good.

43:46 Speaker 2 That's what-

43:46 Speaker 1 So this is the second half of the answer.

43:47 Speaker 2 Yeah.

43:47 Speaker 1 So that's the problem with atzmus, right? What does Kabbalah teach us? Especially Kabbalah that's seen through the second iteration of the writings of the Ari z"l-

43:55 Speaker 2 Right

43:55 Speaker 1 ... which is Tzfat Kabbalah of Shalom Sharabi, is that it relativizes infinitude.

44:01 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

44:02 Speaker 1 And it ensures that really every level of grasp is deficient in relationship to that which is above it, whole in relationship to that which is below it, and both whole and broken in relationship to itself. We know this from language of Kabbalah, gar and vak.

44:18 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

44:18 Speaker 1 Or Atzilus and Briya, Yetzirah, and Assiah, these two perspectives.

44:22 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

44:22 Speaker 1 Now, every level of grasp that I have, I have to be simultaneously aware that there is now a new level of grasp that is above me.

44:30 Speaker 2 Right.

44:30 Speaker 1 So it's aliyos ain katz.

44:32 Speaker 2 Right.

44:33 Speaker 1 And that even when one were to come to the highest level of radla of radla, at the end of the day, all that reveals is the malchus that is above it, the shemo ha'atzmi or malchus de'ein sof, as the Ari z"l brings down. So if I am learning Chassidus without that protective device of erchin, of relativity, that no matter what level of kesar I grasp, all that is is the malchus of the lower world, ad infinitum, never grasping the essence, because to grasp the essence is heretical.

45:02 Speaker 2 Right.

45:02 Speaker 1 Because then either I'm susceptible to the essence or the essence is diminished to my capacity. So what Kabbalah does is it protects the hagshamas ha'devarim because it says even when you get to the top of these phrases, all that means is that you're now transplanting and abstracting the frame back to a level higher and higher and higher. Chassidus without Kabbalah, you just have the proper names, and then you're dealing with terminology and forgetting about the perpetual, the perpetual growth process and the infinite gradations of spiritual growth that must remain in front of the person at every moment.

45:36 Speaker 2 Very interesting. Very interesting.

45:38 Speaker 1 Do you hear the connection?

45:39 Speaker 2 I do hear the connection. I, I, I'll, I'll, I'll... Let me throw something at you. Tell me if, if, if I'm, if I'm understanding it. Um, there's, there's this idea that's spoken about in Basai Legani, which is bizbu zeytzers, that, uh, in the Fidikar, it was my remember Basai Legani, which was the last hemshach that he, that he printed before he passed away. It was actually printed on the day that he passed away. And in that hemshach, he speaks about bizbu zeytzers, the mashal of the king who's fighting a war, and that tzach is more-

46:10 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

46:10 Speaker 2 ... the, the deepest, the... And everything goes out the window, and even the things that were hidden are now revealed, right? He throws all the, the, the crown jewels, he throws into, into, into the war.

46:21 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

46:21 Speaker 2 He, he puts all his chips on the table. Um, so the, the nimshal is that in, in, in ein sof, there's the maaleh maaleh alim katz, and that also becomes... That's usually hidden, right? This ein sof that's, that's hidden, helem acher helem, and now it's also re-revealed.

46:40 Speaker 1 As helem.

46:40 Speaker 2 Right. So my question was always, what does that mean, right? It, it was always here, and now it's revealed as helem. Is what... Like, isn't that-

46:50 Speaker 1 Right

46:50 Speaker 2 ... a play on words? Like, and, and how does that fit into the mashal where it's actually put on the field if, if I still don't have access to it? So one, one, one, one way that I have of understanding it, uh, and I have no idea if this is correct, but this is how I understand it, is that up to a cer- up to a point when in times of peace, let's say, when there isn't a war, we operate in a, we operate where we, we operate in a, in a reality where there are, there are things that go, that, that, that are, there's a civilization, there's a system that, that is set up.

47:21 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

47:21 Speaker 2 And everyone knows that there's something that's underpinning it. We don't really know what that is or, or how that works, and we, that's by design because it's too much for people to handle. People need to focus on what's at hand with a sense of security-

47:33 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

47:33 Speaker 2 ... that's provided by something else-

47:35 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

47:35 Speaker 2 ... that's kind of vague and, and, and mysterious and, and hidden. In times of war, we don't have that luxury anymore, and that's what makes war so, so, so scary is that your very foundation is now under threat. And the same thing in the nimshal is that it feels to me like there was a time where Chassidus is more like you're talking about, where there's a part of Chassidus which is revealed, there's a avodas Hashem which is revealed, and atzmus is clearly off limits. There's a part of the Godhead, like the, like, like they like to say, that is, that is completely, that's none of your business. It's there, and it's a foundation. It's the golden Fort Knox, whether it exists or not, that is, the fact that you think it exists or the fact that you know it exists in this case underpins your entire avodas Hashem. At some point, at a time of war, you become aware of that as well. You, you no longer have the luxury of that being hidden. The problem, the risk that, that you run is, I think what you're discussing, where you begin to assume, "Well, if I know about it, that means that I understand it."

48:34 Speaker 1 Sure.

48:35 Speaker 2 Right?

48:35 Speaker 1 That's exactly right. That's the-

48:36 Speaker 2 Right. The hidden has become revealed. And no, no, that's not what it means. It means that the hidden is no longer separate from what's revealed.

48:43 Speaker 1 It's he'elem ha'atzmi being revealed, but it's continuing to conceal itself.

48:47 Speaker 2 Right.

48:47 Speaker 1 Look, I also have the benefit of having spent a lot of time reading the works of Elliot Wolfson-

48:52 Speaker 2 Right

48:52 Speaker 1 ... shlita, who, you know, who really gave me a language very much to understand these terms and conditions. But I, I think that what gets missed in this is the impact that it has on the psyche of the individual who's hearing these words and witnessing these ideas play out over time. Because if atzmus, let's say, is something that's graspable, so I'm identifying atzmus as perfection. So if I already have in my mind that that's something that's accessible, but I haven't thought about what that accessibility means, and yeah, if we all knew and all of the children knew that hasagah grasp really means the grasp of negative grasp, which is by way of negation, you touch it, so then okay, it wouldn't be such an issue. But because people are hearing these ideas, and very often it's around strong drink, and there's, you know, young men speaking to young men, and it's just kind of this brash encounter with ideas, so these ideas become cheapened.

49:50 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

49:51 Speaker 1 And then it trickles down into the lived experience. So then I'm walking around with this concept of perfection or the graspability of perfection. Now, if I have a notion of perfection or being able to become perfect or grasp perfection, instead of living with that very clear limit point that is so stressed in every one of the mamrim of Chassidus in the previous generations about he'elem ha'atzmi and lesh mafshavot yisrael klal, then psychologically, I'm now drawing into my middos the notion of, "Well, I could be perfect." Even if I'm not trying to do anything, I'm still, the language has an impact. And so when I start measuring myself with this foreign thought that I can be perfect because I can grasp perfection, so then I start looking at my symptoms or my behaviors as being no longer in the realm of what I should be doing, and I start covering them over, and I start hiding them, and I start ignoring them. And it leads to all sorts of kind of perfectionist tendencies and addictive tendencies of trying to reach some imagined place of self-perfection which is inaccessible. The most important thing is Nefesh Hashuvah, is, is the contrite spirit and the humble spirit and the Mariruskeit. That doesn't come from anything other than by recognizing that I am not God.

50:59 Speaker 3 Uh, I, I think what's important to note here that you're not just talking theoretically. You're, you're prac-

51:04 Speaker 1 Practically

51:04 Speaker 3 ... your work as a, as a therapist.

51:06 Speaker 1 Practically.

51:06 Speaker 3 You work with people-

51:06 Speaker 1 And where this is the root of all addiction. The root of all addiction is the belief in perfection.

51:10 Speaker 3 Right.

51:11 Speaker 1 And the pain that comes from its absence, and the failed attempts of recreating it by way of substance or idea.

51:17 Speaker 3 No, but you've seen people who have suffered as a result of this thought process.

51:20 Speaker 1 It's, it, I've seen people who have suffered as a result of this thought process. My exposure to people who have, quote unquote, "suffered" or been impacted by the reality of Chabad has been this thought process, but as reflected in kind of the cultural dimensions of it. You know, like second, third-generation children of Shluchim, let's say, where the notion of this all-imposing force of the Rebbe of Lubavitch and being cogs in a machine and soldiers in an army m- didn't cross, didn't cross the, the, the divide of the n- numerous traumas that populate what our generation can be called as a post-traumatic generation. And so there was more willingness to step away, and more willingness to kind of untether oneself from these demands of what Chabad Chassidus seems to impose, and what the language of atzmus impose, and what the, the w- direction of which they were related to the Rebbe was. And then what I've seen most potently is that after the Nesirah, after the severing, what a person comes back to when they start reading Rav Yehuda Paritcher's Bier on Shaar Yichud-

52:26 Speaker 3 One second. For those who don't understand, by, by Nesirah you mean after people basically throw it all away.

52:31 Speaker 1 Or, or when one gives themselves permission to step away from what's causing them pain.

52:36 Speaker 3 Basically to approach it the way you approached it at first.

52:39 Speaker 1 To first walk away from it, though.

52:40 Speaker 3 Right.

52:40 Speaker 1 A person can't do that. I'm, I'm, um, I, I thank Hashem very often that I was not born into an active Chassidic dynasty, because then I wouldn't be able to be connected to what I believe to be the Chassidus of our generation, which is the unification of all of the Zoharim.

52:55 Speaker 3 Right. No, that's so, so I'm saying i- i- the-

52:57 Speaker 1 Right, so you step away

52:58 Speaker 3 ... you have, you step away not with-

52:58 Speaker 1 You free yourself

52:59 Speaker 3 ... not with the intention of coming back, 'cause then it's-

53:01 Speaker 1 Right

53:01 Speaker 3 ... doesn't work. But you s-

53:02 Speaker 1 No

53:02 Speaker 3 ... by stepping away-

53:03 Speaker 1 You step away because you're not a l- you're no longer afraid of the lightning bolt.

53:06 Speaker 3 Right.

53:06 Speaker 1 And then when you realize that there's no lightning bolt coming, then you could say, "I could step away a little bit more."

53:10 Speaker 3 Right.

53:10 Speaker 1 And okay, so gig's up, you know? Nothing's gonna happen if I step away.

53:14 Speaker 3 Right.

53:15 Speaker 1 But then what does happen is the stepping away leads to alienation from self, and nowadays we have a slew of ways in which people are trying to discover themselves, and some get caught up in that. But more often than not, people will then go to a farbrengen-

53:27 Speaker 3 Right

53:27 Speaker 1 ... that might not be from an identifiable, you know, Chabad source, and they're talking in the language of the Alter Rebbe or what the Mitteler Rebbe's saying, and suddenly it's like, "Where has this been all my life?"

53:37 Speaker 3 Right.

53:37 Speaker 1 You know, "Where has Rav Yehuda Paritcher been? Where's Rav Aharon Halevi? Where was the teachings that it's only through my deep sense of selfhood and experience and my deficiency, not in a broken type of way, but from a human type of way, that that's where I encounter God the most?"

53:51 Speaker 3 Right.

53:51 Speaker 1 And people are thirsty for that.

53:52 Speaker 3 Right. So it's, it's a human thing that you are stressing here again and again, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's so important. It's so important. And yeah, there's, there, there's, you know, this is a question, uh, that, and a problem that we've come back time and again in this podcast in one way or another, where there are people, for example, who have experienced what you experienced. They walked away either from just Lubavitch, or sometimes they walk away from Yiddishkeit entirely, and that's when they rediscovered a connection on their own terms. And so then the question becomes, what do you want for your children? Do you want your children to go through the same thing? And, and so, like, this is, th- it's, it's, like, like for example, what are your kids, what are your kids gonna-

54:34 Speaker 1 It's a good question

54:34 Speaker 3 ... what are your kids gonna do? And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but, but-

54:37 Speaker 1 Right

54:37 Speaker 3 ... but like how... In many ways, this was the Lubavitch conundrum from the beginning. They, they spoke about the ma'amar of the gov- the govren over the govrena, that those who became as opposed to those who were born. But at the same time, what are you gonna do? You're gonna, you're gonna, you know.

54:52 Speaker 1 Mashiach afsal asher tzadikay ve'tiftu.

54:55 Speaker 3 Right.

54:55 Speaker 1 It's one of my favorite Maamarim from the Mitteler Rebbe.

54:57 Speaker 3 Yeah.

54:57 Speaker 1 Mashiach comes to restore the truly righteous in teshuva. It's a great question, but the more and more the generation receives its birthright of all of the tzadikim, even if it's through the particular lens of one tzadik. I'm, I'm very connected to one particular path, but my connection to one particular path enables me to draw in whatever path I so desire. I'm just no longer interested in reading postmodern philosophy or psychoanalytic theory 'cause I don't believe that the neshamah of the author is in the book, and it's not gonna provide me with the anxiety relief I need. But I think that we live at a time where there's a change underfoot, and there's a zeitgeist of spirituality that is drawing forth a collision between what I like to phrase as like the two remaining spiritual options, Chabad and Breslov. Which is that, my, my point here is that it's okay to have, like, this splitness. I, I grew up in a modern Orthodox community. I, I didn't become Haredi, but I'm no longer... Nor did I ever fundamentally identify with the, the, the full doctrine of modern Orthodoxy, Rav, Rav- Soloveitchik is, is a bedrock of my thinking, but Rav Solovei- the bedrock of Rav Soloveitchik's thinking is the Alter Rebbe, so-

56:06 Speaker 3 Right.

56:07 Speaker 1 You know, like you're not, th-this, th-these are not-

56:09 Speaker 3 Right. Good-

56:10 Speaker 1 These are not systems.

56:11 Speaker 3 Yeah, good luck staying pure.

56:13 Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the... Meaning there's a person, someone said to me the other day on a podcast, they said like, "I don't have, uh, for me, I have no, the Arizal had no impact on my life." I was like, "Wait, let's just trace whatever realm of Jewish influence you think you have-

56:26 Speaker 3 Right

56:26 Speaker 1 ... whether it's Tikkun Olam-

56:27 Speaker 3 Right.

56:27 Speaker 1 ... or whether it's Mussar or, you know, like-

56:30 Speaker 3 Right

56:30 Speaker 1 ... the Arizal i-is playing a pretty significant role in the development of-

56:33 Speaker 3 Yeah

56:34 Speaker 1 ... modern Jewish consciousness.

56:35 Speaker 3 Yeah.

56:36 Speaker 1 So my point is that to be mixed up-

56:39 Speaker 3 By the way, every, every, any person who reads Aleph Beis is deeply influenced by Kabbalah.

56:44 Speaker 1 Exactly.

56:44 Speaker 3 Right? The shapes of the letters are from the Beit Yosef who found them in a kuntras called "Birkshamar Alfabeisa" which are based on Kabbalah.

56:51 Speaker 1 Yeah, everything. It all comes into "Nahar Hayotz'mi Eden," and I think realizing this, like, what do you think you're talking about? You're talking about mystical Judaism.

57:00 Speaker 3 Right.

57:00 Speaker 1 Chasidus didn't come to reveal something that was novel. It came to reveal that which was always already there but hidden.

57:07 Speaker 3 But so, but let me-

57:08 Speaker 1 And so the question of sociologically and community-wise, meaning my point is that this is also having its impact on, on culture, meaning there's a whole enclave. If you look at the history of modern Orthodoxy of YU in the last twenty years, you do see a pretty profound impact in the world of teachings of Chasidus, Rav Moshe Weinberger shlit"a who I consider my rebbe to a certain degree, in, in many degrees, in all degrees. But he, he is perhaps one of the more successful iterations of drawing the lights of pre-war Chasidus into a post-war modernized perception.

57:45 Speaker 3 It's so fa-- It's so... You've said it so many times, and it's so interesting to me, um, partially because Lubavitch was in Russia, so the Holocaust is more on the periphery in terms of the... Even though the Fidiker was rescued by the Nazis, I don't know if you know the story, by the Nazis out of the Warsaw ghetto, but that's kind of, uh, uh, that's kind of forgotten or not spoken about.

58:05 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

58:05 Speaker 3 But the, the, the populace did not, and the Rebbe was also rescued out of Vichy France, but Lubavitch as a whole didn't go through the Holocaust.

58:12 Speaker 1 Forget the Holocaust, the Sugya of Sheyiras HaKelim.

58:14 Speaker 3 Right.

58:14 Speaker 1 A person doesn't need to know what the Holocaust is. Learn the Sugya of Sheyiras HaKelim through the writings of the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek, and you'll see that, oh, it's all formed around the post-traumatic response.

58:25 Speaker 3 No, I'm not arguing with you. My-- I'm just saying it's, it's fascinating to me how you, how you, how you bring it up, and in Lubavitch, the whole idea is continuity. Hold onto the past, hold onto the past. It's just, it's just a very interesting tension because, like I, I think we were speaking off air, like, as much as there, uh, there might be a truth to that, that you have to hold, hold, you know, hold tight and, and, and, and be very, very devo-devout to these ideas and these traditions, there, there's, it's clear to me that we haven't come to terms, that the Lubavi- Lubavitchers that I know have not come to terms with the fact that we live in a different reality than our grandparents. Forget even the fact that it's-

59:03 Speaker 1 They didn't write about it, the Admorim didn't write about Shemiras HaBris. It's kima, not present.

59:08 Speaker 3 Well, they actually, but yeah, but it-

59:09 Speaker 1 There's some places where it's addressed.

59:11 Speaker 3 No, the interesting thing is, from what I understand, is that that was, that was the first Yechidus every bocher had with the Rebbe Rashab.

59:16 Speaker 1 Okay. Oh, wow.

59:17 Speaker 3 Right?

59:17 Speaker 1 I didn't know that.

59:18 Speaker 3 That's, that's what I've, that's what I've heard. And, and, and, and it was something that was spoken about but not written about, and the Rebbe, I think, was the most emphatic in, in saying, "Just don't, don't thi-- like, don't, don't, don't address it. Just throw yourself into learning." But I, I'm not, not proficient enough on the Sugya, but-

59:36 Speaker 1 No, me neither

59:36 Speaker 3 ... but there's no question in my mind, I'm not even talking, I'm not even talking so much in spiritual levels, which are not really my e-- you know, like I, I don't get to dictate what Chasidus should say and shouldn't say, but even, I'm talking more cultural levels. Like, we don't live in the times of our grandparents. Like, you know, Lubavitch likes to see the split as before Gimmel Tammuz and after Gimmel Tammuz, and I ar-- I argue-

59:59 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. That's what I was looking for

59:59 Speaker 3 ... I, I, uh, yeah, and I argue that, I argue that the distance between my parents' generation, who were before Gimmel Tammuz, and their parents' generation is far, far wider, the distance is far wider over there than between my parents' generation and my generation, even though Gimmel Tammuz ha-

1:00:16 Speaker 1 It is.

1:00:16 Speaker 3 Right?

1:00:16 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

1:00:17 Speaker 3 Their parents' generation grew up in a different world, under completely different circumstances.

1:00:23 Speaker 1 The, the question that you were bringing up before also is that the ideal is not impacted by the real, meaning if something is fundamentally true-

1:00:30 Speaker 3 Right

1:00:30 Speaker 1 ... then it's reasonable to say, "Why should I care about the changing nature of time when I'm holding on to the innermost kernel of that which remains real?" And so I, I think that there's also in-embedded with this issue, and I understand it, but there's a lack of a, a cohesive and unified educational model of what Chasidus Chabad is saying. Now, this is not, God forbid, to, to come and deny the validity of anything that the Rebbe Rashab wrote. But if a person is not reading the Mitteler Rebbe, or if a person is not reading Ayin Beis or Samech Vav, or, or they're not learning Rav Aharon HaLevi or Shaar Hayichud with Rav Hillel's Biur, I, I can't imagine how Chasidus can have an impact on a person's day-to-day life, because a person has to realize that Chasidus is talking literally about finding ourselves down here in this place and a deep awareness of every nook and cranny of the, the spiritual process, and there's always a hyper-emphasis on unity of, of failing and growth, failing and growth. If a person is not giving themselves the, the medicine that is in their cupboard already, so, so then it's not a surprise that a person is going to feel sick and then begin looking elsewhere.

1:01:45 Speaker 3 Right. Yeah, if, uh, uh, no, I, I totally understand what you're saying. I, I mean, I, I totally resonate with what you're saying.

1:01:52 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:01:52 Speaker 3 Um, and I, and I've seen it myself growing up where this jump, this jumping over, like there's, there'll be so many times where people will be like, "Well-" Like a, a, a specific question in, in, in, in, in Chassidus about adarga natilus, which in many ways is more relatively graspable. Now, that's too complicated. The mayim seems to be like, you know, there's a whole pilpul here, but I'm much more comfortable talking about atzmus and dibatachtem.

1:02:18 Speaker 1 Right.

1:02:18 Speaker 3 And it's like, dude, some-something, something's g- something's happened.

1:02:21 Speaker 1 That's the division.

1:02:22 Speaker 3 Something's broken here-

1:02:23 Speaker 1 Yes

1:02:23 Speaker 3 ... if you're more comfortable with, with-

1:02:26 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:02:26 Speaker 3 ... with isn't graspable over the things that-

1:02:28 Speaker 1 This is exactly true because the thing that is graspable to us is the fact that, oh, I'm a human being. We grasp the process-

1:02:35 Speaker 3 Uh-huh

1:02:35 Speaker 1 ... which separates the beginning and the end, and instead what everyone's doing is reading the beginning and the end and saying like-

1:02:41 Speaker 3 Exactly

1:02:42 Speaker 1 ... oh.

1:02:42 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:02:42 Speaker 1 But the truth of the matter is that no, you can't reach the end, but by way of recognizing that you can't reach the end, you reach the end.

1:02:48 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:02:49 Speaker 1 They're missing the true emtza of Torah Chassidus, which is that it's both and at the same time, and every moment of thinking you've reached the end, you have to at the very same moment remember that no, but I haven't really reached it. It's a, a lov b'derech midosav.

1:03:03 Speaker 3 Right.

1:03:03 Speaker 1 I'm always... It's a, a mediated immediacy, meaning I'm never touching the real thing. The moment I touch the real thing, I've, I've, I've made it, I've made it something real and congealed.

1:03:15 Speaker 3 Yeah. It's, it's... I think I, I think I once put it that, you know, that there's the, the, the, the pilpul about malchus of atzilus is the mom and pop of the economy.

1:03:26 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:03:26 Speaker 3 Atzmus is like the cash advance bros, you know? Like the-

1:03:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, and it's k- and it has this, like-

1:03:30 Speaker 3 It's like, like the, the finance bros

1:03:31 Speaker 1 ... it's had an impact on everything

1:03:32 Speaker 3 And it's like there's the same way that the world basically, "Eh, what are, what are you gonna be? You're gonna be a schlepper that makes a few buck, you know, a few bucks here and there?" And it's like, no, but I, I like honest labor.

1:03:40 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:03:40 Speaker 3 You know, I don't want to, I don't want to speculate.

1:03:42 Speaker 1 We can't. We can't. We're missing the point. We're missing the point, and then we're gonna get stuck in this notion that Mashiach already came, and we have cousins that do that.

1:03:48 Speaker 3 Right.

1:03:49 Speaker 1 That's what I mean when we say we become, you know, the other side to the degree that if you take the perpetual relativism out of it, there's no point on the scale in which we grasp the essence of God. Never. Never ever.

1:04:02 Speaker 3 Right.

1:04:03 Speaker 1 We just stop being able to talk about what it might even mean. Now, is there a tzit- tzit- tzit of the awareness that it's always ever present? Avada. All of the, all of the things that any of the Admohrim or the Nasiyim wrote is true, but it must be understood in this context.

1:04:16 Speaker 3 So I wanted to, uh, I wanted to circle back-

1:04:19 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

1:04:19 Speaker 3 ... to something you said earlier, uh, 'cause I think this will cast your point, which is a very, very provocative point, in a positive light. I think you said it before we started the conversation.

1:04:28 Speaker 1 I hope I'm nothing too provocative, but...

1:04:30 Speaker 3 Uh, I like provocative. I mean, not, not... Well, thought-provoking.

1:04:33 Speaker 1 Sure.

1:04:34 Speaker 3 Not controversial.

1:04:35 Speaker 1 I come with, I mean, this is what my rebbe is, you know-

1:04:37 Speaker 3 No, no

1:04:37 Speaker 1 ... this is what Rav Itche Meir has always po-

1:04:39 Speaker 3 It-

1:04:39 Speaker 1 That's how I understand Rav Itche Meir.

1:04:40 Speaker 3 I don't, uh, y-- I don't think you're trying to stir the pot. Provo-

1:04:43 Speaker 1 I don't.

1:04:44 Speaker 3 Saying things that, you know, thought provoking, not in a, not in some kind of, um, uh, antagonistic way. At least I don't feel that way.

1:04:52 Speaker 1 No, Heaven forbid.

1:04:53 Speaker 3 Yeah. Um, so you, you were saying, you were saying earlier, um, this idea of Tziddik, that people tie up Tanya as like... And, and this, I, I don't know how it got through the co- the editors, the copy editors. Tanya is a book of the in-betweeners, or Tanya is a book of the average person. Like, no, it's not. It's, it's not like this kind of, um, book about compromise and settl- settling down. That's not what it's about, right? And you were talking about how-

1:05:25 Speaker 1 Right

1:05:25 Speaker 3 ... but by, I, I think you've spent a little bit, but talk about it more.

1:05:27 Speaker 1 There's an original, there's... Meaning the, the general perspective is that the Tzaddik is this metaphysical reality, so to say, that gets planted within each and every generation.

1:05:36 Speaker 3 Right.

1:05:36 Speaker 1 And, and that is true. Perek B is, is already, or Perek Gimel is already expressing to us our role in, you know, the grand body of Adam HaRishon and the Tzaddikim.

1:05:45 Speaker 3 Right.

1:05:46 Speaker 1 So the, the, the concept of Tzaddik as it was conveyed from the Baal Shem Tov and the Magid, that's, that's totally true there. But when it comes to people, when it comes to even the Nasi or the Rebbe, not, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking with definitions. I, I think that level of Tzaddik has to be understood in its human context, meaning to say imperfect.

1:06:09 Speaker 3 Right.

1:06:09 Speaker 1 That the Tzaddik is imperfect.

1:06:11 Speaker 3 Right.

1:06:11 Speaker 1 The most important thing about any Tzaddik is that they go to the bathroom.

1:06:15 Speaker 3 Right.

1:06:15 Speaker 1 That's the... No Tzaddik is perfect. The impossibility of perfection must be seared in, in front of our eyes to the degree that the reason that there are so many Tzaddikim throughout the generation is to fix this one mistaken notion that a Yid can become a Shtik El- that can become Elokus, which was what Osei Ish was. So we have to have so many Tzaddikim to come and remind us over and over that no Tzaddik can be perfect.

1:06:40 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:06:40 Speaker 1 Now, if I feel that the Tzaddik is operating at a level of perfection that is ontologically separate from me, perfect, perfect because of their self Mesirus Nefesh, perfect because of the effort they put in, that's fine. There's always people who do infinitely more than us.

1:06:54 Speaker 3 Right.

1:06:55 Speaker 1 That's fine. That's not the issue, 'cause that's not essentially perfect. That's just perfect in relationship to my level of imperfection. But to believe in an absolute static perfection of a mensch is to now do two things. It's A, to equate the Neshamah with God, which is what we spoke about before as grasping atzmus, 'cause if I could grasp it, I can be it.

1:07:15 Speaker 3 Right.

1:07:16 Speaker 1 There's an Issur on grasping atzmus, the Leshem says. Why? And the Rebbe had the Leshem on his shelf in his office. The Leshem says-

1:07:22 Speaker 3 Who, who's Leshem for those who-

1:07:23 Speaker 1 Rav Shalom, Rav Shlomo Alyashiv. He was an 18th century, um, 18th century Lithuanian mystic, kind of the final expression of the Kabbalah of the Gra, and not necessarily someone who had a deep relationship with Chassidus. Didn't engage in it, was not interested. He was a real Itvac. Rav Betzalel Oor wrote a book about Rav Pinchas Lintop, who was a Lubavitcher Chassid who engaged in his writings. But ultimately, the Rebbe had them on his shelf, which is very cool, and, and what he stresses is that we learn the lack of perfection from Moshe Rabbeinu.

1:08:02 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:08:03 Speaker 1 Why do we learn the lack of perfection of Moshe Rabbeinu? That he can't be-

1:08:06 Speaker 3 That

1:08:07 Speaker 1 Yeah, and that, and that, and that he wants to grasp the face, and sorry, you can't.

1:08:11 Speaker 3 Right.

1:08:11 Speaker 1 You can't grasp my essence.

1:08:12 Speaker 3 Right.

1:08:13 Speaker 1 And the Leshem says, "If we learned it from anybody else, then we would've claimed that their imperfection was symptomatic."

1:08:19 Speaker 3 Right.

1:08:20 Speaker 1 But by learning it about Moshe, the most perfect of all perfect human beings, what the Torah is telling us is that no, it is

1:08:31 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:08:31 Speaker 1 It is an embedded ontological law in the fabric and texture of reality that the creature cannot grasp the creator. And he says in a letter to someone who's trying to Right. And as Rav Philip Archer points out, Safen Shel Beininim is the bina. That means we're always struggling, fighting, processing. Sha'ar Yichud Ve'emunah is the chachmah. That's where everything is totally fine. And then Chinuch Katan, which is the secret of why I need to hold on to the wrong idea even when I graduate to the right idea, that's Keter. That holds both of them together. To phrase that differently, Sha- Sefer Shel Beininim tells me how I have to always, always try and be better. I'm a Beini. I'm always a Beini. Sha'ar Yichud Ve'emunah tells me, "No, you could be mevatel yourself to the Osis and to the light of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You're on the dark of a tzadik." Chachmah is the level of bitul where the Or Ein Sof is shorif. But so now we have a stira. What is it? Am I a perpetual Beini, or do I have access to a tzadik? Comes along Chinuch Katan that's wedged in the middle, and it says, "Chanoch l'naar al pi darko gam ki yazkin lo yasur mimenu." "Chanoch l'naar al pi darko," so the

1:10:49 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:10:52 Speaker 1 Meaning, teach the child the derech of bina. Teach them the derech of bina, that you always have to be struggling and you can never be perfect. Gam ki yazkin lo yasur mimenu, so that even when you reach the level of tzadik or Sha'ar Yichud Ve'emunah and you think you've, you've perfected it and you've reached this level of chachmah, you're still not gonna forget that you're a Beini. You're a Beini and a tzadik at the same time.

1:11:13 Speaker 3 Like, uh, Kadosh Baruch Hu-

1:11:15 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:11:16 Speaker 3 Kadosh Baruch Hu on a Beini.

1:11:17 Speaker 1 Right. To, to, to be, to, to be the tzadik that holds the light of the Beini 'cause without the Beini, the, the tzadik falls into the territory of tainu et t'midi v'ein hataiinu.

1:11:26 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:11:27 Speaker 1 And this comes out most in Samech Vav ul- and Lamed Vav in Tanya and Samech Vav from the Rebbe Rashab, but person has to read it clear and, and really-

1:11:36 Speaker 3 What, what comes out? Is that-

1:11:37 Speaker 1 That the taflis of the bria is the dirba tachuinim, that there's a yerida from sov hav kolamin-

1:11:41 Speaker 3 Right

1:11:42 Speaker 1 ... into memaleh kolamin, but the goal is not to go back from memaleh kolamin back into sov hav kolamin as if nothing changed, but you wanna draw the sov hav into the memaleh so that you now have a unity between above and below at once.

1:11:54 Speaker 3 Right. It, it's, it's... Look, that, that, that to me is the, the, the kind of the, the gambit of Chassidis is that we can trust ourselves with paradox.

1:12:04 Speaker 1 Yes. That's exactly right.

1:12:05 Speaker 3 Right? And-

1:12:06 Speaker 1 That's all I spoke about this weekend.

1:12:07 Speaker 3 And, and paradox... Oh, paradox, uh, the, the, I love that word. No, no. Paradox is very, is very, is very delicate-

1:12:13 Speaker 1 Delicate

1:12:13 Speaker 3 ... because paradox is like elastic in the sense that the second you lose the tension, it's gone.

1:12:18 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:12:19 Speaker 3 Right?

1:12:19 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:12:19 Speaker 3 It, it's, like it's, it, it, it's, it sounds cool and it, and it ex-exhilarates the mind, but at some point, if you-- it, it dema- it's the most demanding kind of thing. You have to hold two opposites at all times.

1:12:32 Speaker 1 But this is what the Alter Rebbe gives us, meaning-

1:12:33 Speaker 3 Right

1:12:34 Speaker 1 ... atzilus is the paradox.

1:12:36 Speaker 3 Right.

1:12:36 Speaker 1 In Iggaros Chaf, which all of the Talmidim wrote about.

1:12:39 Speaker 3 Right.

1:12:39 Speaker 1 It talks about Yeah.

1:12:42 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:12:42 Speaker 1 Where, where it's that

1:12:43 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:12:45 Speaker 1 In the world of atzilus, which is the interface between the realm of the infinite and the realm of the finite-

1:12:49 Speaker 3 Right

1:12:49 Speaker 1 ... it's, it's referred to as they're kelim there-

1:12:52 Speaker 3 Right

1:12:52 Speaker 1 ... but they're not, not elokus.

1:12:54 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:12:55 Speaker 1 Don't, God forbid, identify them as elokus because obviously they're not, 'cause they're not elokus. But the moment you say they're separate from elokus is the moment you're... So again, the only way to grapple with that is paradox, and the Alter Rebbe says that this is why it's called raz dehaemunah, the secret of faith. Faith is the kli that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us or the kesar, right? Because it's ratzon tainu ve'emunah. The kesar is what gives the person the ability to process and hold paradox.

1:13:25 Speaker 3 So how do you... Look, th-this stuff, this stuff is, is... I, I, I love this kind of thinking.

1:13:30 Speaker 1 But I think it's therapeutically the most healing form of thinking also.

1:13:33 Speaker 3 That, that's what I wanted to get to. That's what I wanted to get to. How do you, how do you think it's possible for... or is it possible for a Chassid who is less free to kind of take what he wants on his terms, you know, is it possible for that, for that person to, to, to maintain this balance that you're suggesting here? Is it, is it, is it possible?

1:13:59 Speaker 1 I, I think absolutely because each person lives up and downs. I'm not talking about experiencing downs that are, God forbid, going into deliberate places or, or doing something that's stepping out of the bounds of what one is comfortable with in order to search out new vistas. I mean, everybody has their taivas and every... But, uh, all a person has to do is take seriously what the books that are right in front of them are saying. I think it's a hundred percent viable. Unless there's a level of confidence that is so strong to take a Mitler Rebbe and sit with it in the Beit Midrash, we need to open our minds. I, I, I guess, let me rephrase my answer. I think that Rav Philip Archer, that, that quote that I said earlier about the Mitler Rebbe, that a person can only learn Pnimiyus HaTorah if they have this natural tzirurchinkeit within them, an awareness that things are imperfect, which is the fundamental antidote to the notion that things can be perfect. So it creates an urgency.

1:14:54 Speaker 3 Right.

1:14:54 Speaker 1 Rav Philip Archer from here was matir learning Pnimiyus HaTorah on Tisha B'Av and in Aveilus.

1:15:00 Speaker 3 But, but you, but you said, you said something off before-

1:15:03 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

1:15:03 Speaker 3 ... we started which was very interesting, which is that you don't learn the Rebbe's Torah directly because it seems like you wanna keep some kind of distance, some kind of objectivity or some kind of individuality.

1:15:14 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:15:14 Speaker 3 Somy question is, how do... I- are these two... Y- the, the idea, the upside of what you're describing-

1:15:22 Speaker 1 I'm still here

1:15:22 Speaker 3 ... the upside of what you're describing of, of having that independent thought and realizing the, y- you have to translate it for yourself, and you have to be there as a person is very powerful and very important. But, you know, even to put it in more practical terms, if the Rebbe Rashab hadn't, let's, let's say for argument's sake, turned the language to a more bold, less, less, um, less, l- less h-

1:15:49 Speaker 1 And the mashpiyim in that generation who took it, right?

1:15:51 Speaker 3 Yes. If he... Right. But it was a lot, it was a lot under his influence, too. The Tench Tumim was „Kol Yesd Shel Moshe Ve'et David." There was a time of war. Everything's very bold and, and, and very direct. If he hadn't done that, would he have been able to accomplish what he accomplished? Would Lubavitch have survived in Russia, right? And so there's, there's, there's these two things. I'm not, I'm not asking to, like, answer kind of-

1:16:10 Speaker 1 Those are great questions

1:16:11 Speaker 3 ... but my, my point, my point is, like, you, you... Let me put it this-

1:16:15 Speaker 1 "Shegiyos mi'yavan mei nastaras m'kene" meaning no, none of this is by mistake.

1:16:19 Speaker 3 No, but let's, so let me put it in simple terms. I'm not trying to-

1:16:21 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

1:16:21 Speaker 3 ... I'm not trying to ask you if you think the Rebbe Rashab was right for what he did. Uh, we're not... No. What, what I'm saying is, uh, you put a Hasid in front of a Rebbe, he is going to be b'tal in front, in front of that person. Even not on a sp- e- even not on a spiritual sense necessarily, you are, you are going to be swept away with the charisma of this tzadik. And you, it's very hard to look at the sun in the eye, look at the sun with your eyes and say, "The sun's imperfect." The bli- the light blinds you in the sense it, it blinds you of its own imperfections. You feel like it's perfect, right? And so the same, how can you have this army of Hasidim or this, for even not to be an army, how can you have a Hasid who's devoted to a Rebbe and still retain his individuality? Do you think it's possible? Can you look at the Rebbe, can you be a Hasid of the Rebbe and say that he's imperfect?

1:17:20 Speaker 1 I think a person has to.

1:17:22 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:17:22 Speaker 1 Not imperfect because of character traits.

1:17:24 Speaker 3 Right.

1:17:24 Speaker 1 Not imperfect because of behaviors, not imperfect because of hidden things, God forbid.

1:17:29 Speaker 3 Right.

1:17:29 Speaker 1 Not imperfect because the Torah wasn't clearly genius, not imperfect because he failed in some sort of mission, not imperfect because there was a mistake. Imperfect but due to the fact that he's a human being.

1:17:38 Speaker 3 Right. Right.

1:17:40 Speaker 1 That is a fundamental thing that we must acknowledge. If not, we've lost the script.

1:17:44 Speaker 3 Right. Yeah.

1:17:46 Speaker 1 If not, we've lost the script.

1:17:48 Speaker 3 Right.

1:17:48 Speaker 1 That's what I think.

1:17:49 Speaker 3 Yeah. I, I, I probably would add a little more spice to it. I don't know if you're, I don't know if you're being careful with it. I, I th- I think it's, it's, it's, it's... If you make it too philosophical or too, like, the way you're, the, like, that it's just, that he's not God, although, I mean, that, that in itself is already a step, right? Um, and that's, that, that's ultimately the whole idea of a hierarchy in, in Judaism, right? Is that-

1:18:10 Speaker 1 That's what the Baal Shem Tov came to teach

1:18:11 Speaker 3 ... the biggest person is the most botal to God.

1:18:14 Speaker 1 That's it.

1:18:14 Speaker 3 So, so the biggest person is the most not God.

1:18:16 Speaker 1 That's... Moshe, yeah. That's exactly right.

1:18:17 Speaker 3 Is the most not God. Like, he's a person who most realizes-

1:18:20 Speaker 1 This is the tzchok. This is the laughter. This is what the Baal HaTanya reveals at the end of his life, that the whole thing is to lie with the Hasidim, not lying in a gratuitous power-hungry way-

1:18:28 Speaker 3 Right

1:18:28 Speaker 1 ... but to lean into the lie that is reality and to deal with things on imperfect terms. "Gantz als iz bidieved."

1:18:34 Speaker 3 Right. No, but, like, the Melech by davening had to bow down, I think-

1:18:38 Speaker 1 A hundred percent

1:18:38 Speaker 3 ... the entire davening, right?

1:18:39 Speaker 1 A hundred percent.

1:18:40 Speaker 3 Because Melech, the, the highest person needs to be the most botal.

1:18:43 Speaker 1 So this is, this is what my Rebbe showed, meaning all Chabad is, is gradations of bital. That's the language of the spiritual process of Chabad. Binah is... Uh, well, Malchus is bital through Kabbalas Malchus Shamayim. Ze'irim is bital through ahava, yirah, and devekus. Binah is bital Hayes. Chochmah is bital b'metsius. Chesed is bital b'etzem. As he quotes from the Magid, quoting from the Rambam and the Ari, "The only place in which Godliness is going to reveal itself is bital." Chabad came to be magal azain on chochmah. Chochmah is the soif and the tachlis of what Chabad is revealing. I'm not saying that Binah is the tachlis. It's not true. For Rabbeinu, it might be a different process, but Binah is not the tachlis. There's always a return back to chochmah.

1:19:26 Speaker 3 Right.

1:19:27 Speaker 1 But it's with schlepping the whole process of Binah into it, which includes Binah within chochmah, meaning the bital is the main thing, but there's, we have to value the yesh mi she'oveid, that there's this... And, and that's experienced through limud itself, through Bier Halacha, through learning Gemara, through the work of eating, through the work of davening, through the, the work of the Nigun. Every ounce of this process that Chabad is giving to a person is a ratzo v'shov.

1:19:54 Speaker 3 Yeah. I, I, I, it, it will sound like we, like I, like I prepared this, but I didn't. That, that hemshich of Tov Shin Alef, it has a beautiful mashal of, uh, of when you plant a seed and the k'recha, k'reichatzmich in the ground, there's a k'reichatzmich a klali, k'reichatzmich a klali, the maimer, maimer l'kim tach she'aretz, and then there's the k'reichatzmich a prati for each and, each and everything that's growing. And he, he describes when the seed is, goes into the ground and has a rekoven and, and disintegrates into the soil, it pulls not only from the k'reichatzmich a prati, but also from the k'reichatzmich a klali. Through the k- through the k'reichatzmich a prati, it pulls also the k'reichatzmich a klali. All to say, as in the nimshal, through this, the spon nos is a rekoven. It's the idea that it's beginning to melt in your mind and find its language in your individuality. You pull not only from Binah, you b- you pull from chochmah as well.

1:20:50 Speaker 1 Schlepping from chochmah always.

1:20:51 Speaker 3 You, you, you pull from chochmah, and the chochmah becomes rejuvenated as well.

1:20:54 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:20:54 Speaker 3 Right?

1:20:55 Speaker 1 That's the tachlis.

1:20:55 Speaker 3 And, and, and, and, and, and so-

1:20:57 Speaker 1 That reveals Chesed

1:20:58 Speaker 3 ... the way you're teaching it, it sounds like, is that you cannot... Because You'll, you'll correct me if I'm wrong. It's not only about recognizing your individuality, it's also about appreciating the tzadik's individuality.

1:21:12 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:21:12 Speaker 3 Right?

1:21:13 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:21:13 Speaker 3 And, and if, if you miss that, it's not just, you know, are you too respectful, too disre- What you're saying is, is that if, if you... The moment you, the moment you distance a tzadik with this kind of on- what you said, ontological difference, that he's fundamentally perfect and you're fundamentally imperfect, you are, you are creating new categories that destroy the very tension that allows this paradox of chasidus to exist.

1:21:41 Speaker 1 And also, and then all you can say is halavaya beineni.

1:21:44 Speaker 3 Right. Well, that's a point. The-

1:21:45 Speaker 1 Right. Exactly

1:21:45 Speaker 3 ... and the beineni only exists because there's this tension of the tzadik.

1:21:49 Speaker 1 Because there's a tzadik, and then every ounce of shlichus-

1:21:51 Speaker 3 No, you. Right

1:21:51 Speaker 1 ... is, you know, I exist for the sake of the movement.

1:21:54 Speaker 3 Right.

1:21:54 Speaker 1 And, and that's good if you're a soldier, but it doesn't... You know, if you're a grandchild of a soldier who, you know, is not that, that comes a little bit, that becomes a little bit alienating. So I think it's an, uh, I think it's a fundamental... I think there's a, a fundamental need to return back to the origins of Toras HaChasidus in, in Chabad Chasidus, and to go back to your point about not learning the Rebbe. The ape- The, the, the goal is that with this wisdom, you could go and learn any ma'amar from the Lubavitcher Rebbe and see exactly what the Lubavitcher Rebbe is saying. The Lubavitcher Rebbe didn't make a mistake in what he was describing. He wasn't speaking of a level of revelation. My Rebbe has scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed at all of the makoros to see if such a thing is possible, but the overcome never comes.

1:22:35 Speaker 3 Right.

1:22:35 Speaker 1 Lubavitcher Rebbe was as, was as pristine and precise in his language, if not more-

1:22:40 Speaker 3 Right

1:22:40 Speaker 1 ... in the terms and conditions that he was using.

1:22:43 Speaker 3 Right. Yes. No, I-

1:22:45 Speaker 1 Meaning it's not... So, so with this knowledge, a person can then go and properly learn the Lubavitcher Rebbe's Torah without... You have to schlep all of the, the Doros HaChayavim.

1:22:54 Speaker 3 Well, it's, it's like coming to something in its seventh, in like the seventh... Starting a book from its seventh and final chapter and say, "Well, I read, I read the book. Everything seems to tie up nicely. There must have been... The story must be very... There must have been no story in the middle," right?

1:23:08 Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly.

1:23:08 Speaker 3 It was... They, the book begins with they lived, "They lived happily ever after," and it's like, "No, no, no. There was a whole story here," and you have to go through the story to appreciate where you're at now.

1:23:16 Speaker 1 And that's why we couldn't grapple, and that's maybe why Gimmel Tammuz was such a watershed moment. Because if you don't have the first six chapters of the importance of Shira and Simcha and his taalkos and his pastos and He'elem and Choshech, and even though the Rebbe touched on all of these sugyos, all of them, nevertheless, you don't necessarily know how to move forward once you feel like, "Well, I thought we reached the apex, but what? There's another level to get to?" And yeah, that's the way spiritual growth works.

1:23:43 Speaker 3 Right. Yeah. The, the, the first ma'amar of Basai Legani, Taf Shin Yud Alef, the Rebbe speaks about his taalkos of all the previous rebbeim as the ultimate catastrophe for each generation, but also the ultimate step in, in the unfolding of the purpose of, of Di Yugda Techraynim of this world, right?

1:24:02 Speaker 1 And I get it. There was nobody like the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

1:24:05 Speaker 3 Right.

1:24:05 Speaker 1 And there is nobody like the Lubavitcher Rebbe. And like I said, halavaya that Mashiach, im yirtze Hashem, he should come immediately, will reflect the middos of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

1:24:13 Speaker 3 Right.

1:24:13 Speaker 1 Or carry whatever it is from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. But I, I, I think that what Chasidus Chabad does for me most is allows me to be comfortable in the, in the movement of imperfection, the process of tohu, the process of the collision between the klal and the prat and the tzirach and kayit and the joy at the heart of tzirach and kayit and the oros d'tohu b'kelim d'tikkun and the surprise of the need for details and, and, and also the radical hishta'avus of it all, meaning every word of the tzadikim is providing us with, with ways of living in a world that feels so topsy-turvy.

1:24:48 Speaker 3 So let me, let me, let me wrap it up with a final question.

1:24:51 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:24:52 Speaker 3 I, I've gathered, I've, I've gathered a t- a, from you a tr- a tremendous respect for Chasidus Chabad and for the, for the Chasidus of the Rebbe, but with the caveat that you, you maintain a certain distance, right? Um, both, both, like, practically not learning directly the Rebbe's Torah, at least for now.

1:25:12 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:25:13 Speaker 3 And also, I, I, it, it seems i-i-identifying as well, like your, your, your, your, your Rebbe is Rabbi, Rabbi Morgan-

1:25:20 Speaker 1 Rav Yitzchok Meir. Yeah

1:25:20 Speaker 3 ... Rav Yitzchok Meir Morgenstern, although you said, like, he's your r- your, your-

1:25:25 Speaker 1 Rav Weinberger is my rebbe in terms of my-

1:25:27 Speaker 3 Rebbe, um, and then rebbe and then the Rebbe.

1:25:29 Speaker 1 That's tzadik.

1:25:29 Speaker 3 Right. So, and, and, and I understand what you say, the, the, the value that you, that you, that you see, and you said earlier that you feel lucky that you were born in, not in, not into a Lubavitch or Chasidis, Chasidic family.

1:25:43 Speaker 1 Or organized, you know? Yeah.

1:25:43 Speaker 3 Your, your own thing.

1:25:44 Speaker 1 Sat- Satmar, being born a Satmar before the war means you could choose.

1:25:48 Speaker 3 Yeah, I understand. But, you know, Satmar only began around then.

1:25:51 Speaker 1 Yeah. Meaning, like, we were very close with the Eylish, but there's-

1:25:54 Speaker 3 It's very d-

1:25:54 Speaker 1 ... a lot of Satmars in Breslov.

1:25:56 Speaker 3 Yeah, it was very different then. But, um, talk about kadem hatzimtzum and acharei hatzimtzum. But is there... You know, the podcast is Homesick for Lubavitch.

1:26:08 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:26:08 Speaker 3 Is there, is there something that you feel you're missing or something that you wish you had or you, something that you long for that you don't have because you don't have that kind of fixed or, or given identity?

1:26:22 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:26:25 Speaker 3 Is, is, is, is there, is there a lacking?

1:26:27 Speaker 1 I, I don't think... No, because I don't think the, the Nasi'ei Chabad are a restricted economy. They're all of ours. The Rebbe is all of ours, and the, the Rebbe Rayatz is all of ours. The Rebbe Rashab is all of ours. I can... And, and, and I, and, and there's also conversations beginning to take shape because there is this phenomenon of, you know, secondary ripple effects of the generations of Chabad, where there are Chabadsters coming to, you know, there's the hipster element of it, and there's a nuanced culture and a musical taste and kind of a whole new undercurrent of, uh, more m- a, a re-modernization.

1:27:03 Speaker 3 Right.

1:27:03 Speaker 1 Which is still maintaining the bond to Lubavitch and Chabad, but there's crossovers. Meaning my Rebbe utilizes every ma'amar of Chassidus Chabad. Everything is based on Ma'amrei Chassidus Chabad, and, and everything is drawn in Chabad, but what remains at the apex of it is the most fundamental tal of what Kabbalah and Breslov is ultimately coming to say that even though you reach the highest level, it's just the lowest rung on the next level ad infinitum. So I, I don't feel that I'm missing something because it's not my community, so I don't, you know, I don't wish I lived in Crown Heights. I don't wish that I had, you know, the, the fervor, the, the mesora. I love the, the respect. What I love so much is that you see people who are... You know, I've seen people who are close to Lubavitch Rebbe. You know, I was with Manis Friedman on the Shabbos once, and he was very silent the whole time. But, um, but you got the sense that he had witnessed greatness, that he had witnessed greatness. I, I, I wish I had the zechus of seeing the Rebbe. I had... I wish I had the zechus of... I know the zechus of going to the Ohel. You know, it's, uh... But I also know the zechus of seeing, like, the, the wife of the Rebbe Rashab's kever, even walking on. To me, that's, on a certain level, more astonishing 'cause the Rebbe Rashab lived, and he was a real person. So it gives

1:28:16 Speaker 1 me a kind of the ability to have a broader view without really feeling that I'm missing anything. Again, I might seem as someone who's bastardizing the, the, the chain of Lubavitch Hasidus, but I'm not claiming to hold the key to it. Um, but for me, it's a language, it's a medicinal language. It's a profoundly medicinal language, and it heals, and it offers insight, and it gives permission and validates nearly every thought that a person can have about God. Like, everything is part of it.

1:28:43 Speaker 3 And so I realize I did cut you off earlier, and I, uh, if, if, if I, if, if you remember the point that... 'Cause you were making a point about this being a more therapeutic language.

1:28:54 Speaker 1 It's owning our symptoms. It's once we get o- So many of our symptoms are there because we're uncomfortable with the reality of having symptoms, of being a human being. So by relinquishing the belief that I shouldn't feel like a human being and accepting the fact that I am a human being with my lived condition in the worlds of separation as it expresses itself as the post-traumatic results of the Shfirah and this and that, so then I can stop adding insult into injury and tend to the injury.

1:29:20 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:29:20 Speaker 1 Right? I can look at the chisar and I can figure out what can I do for this, and this is where I think the Lubavitch Rebbe is so daykan on every level. The only answer is the fist pump to do more. That's the only answer. But come to that place from a recognition of deficiency, which means that I'm not gonna complete myself with the mourness that I do.

1:29:35 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:29:35 Speaker 1 Still here in America, as someone who lives in Israel now, uh, or I don't know if this is video also, but-

1:29:41 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:29:41 Speaker 1 ... the avoda, the avoda of, the avoda of chutz la'aretz is Lubavitch Rebbe is this. For me, the avoda in Eretz Yisrael is more of a Breslover, is like this.

1:29:50 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:29:50 Speaker 1 'Cause it's not so mu- It's not about activism there. There's no you, you're, you're as, uh, you're there. You just have to focus in. And when the Tzemach Tzedek said, "Ma, Ma achei'et Yisrael du," you know, make it here, I, I, that's something I do wonder. I won- I would wonder what Lubavitch would look like had it made it to Eretz Yisrael or if the Rebbe is mamish just like the guardian of exile un- until Mashiach arrives.

1:30:11 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:30:12 Speaker 1 And that that's the self-sacrifice of the Nesi'im, that they didn't come to Eretz Yisrael.

1:30:16 Speaker 3 Right. So-

1:30:17 Speaker 1 When I see the picture of the Lubavitch Rebbe in Eretz Yisrael, it reminds me that redemption has not arrived yet. That's what I have to remember.

1:30:22 Speaker 3 The picture of the previous Rebbe, of the Rayatz?

1:30:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, the previous Rebbe. No, the, the, the last Lubavitch Rebbe, the seventh Lubavitch Rebbe, when you see his picture everywhere in Eretz Yisrael-

1:30:29 Speaker 3 Oh, you see his picture

1:30:30 Speaker 1 ... it's a reminder that even in Eretz Yisrael, where it feels like this menucha muchlatas that you have to cultivate, it's the opposite of menucha muchlatas, but menuch, menucha is the only tool there. So the seeing the picture of the Rebbe is a reminder that no, it's still you have to have the tnu'a of his chadshus betoch tainu katamidi. You have to have that desire to grow ad infinitum, even within the recognition that I'm fine just where I am.

1:30:54 Speaker 3 Fascinating. I just, just to, just to, just to, uh, put a fine point on it, it's fascinating how you see in this, um, like, uh, a willing to, to, to reckon with your brokenness and your deficiencies-

1:31:09 Speaker 1 By way of repair.

1:31:10 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:31:10 Speaker 1 By way of just go right there.

1:31:11 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:31:11 Speaker 1 Like the Chabad Chabad Rebbe.

1:31:12 Speaker 3 No, it's very, it's very interesting because in many ways in yeshiva we see it more, or in Lubavitch kind of, um, Lubavitch, Lubavitch speak.

1:31:21 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:31:22 Speaker 3 It's, you know, like the Chabad Chabad Rebbe, just jump o- jump over all of it and, and it could be they're both, they're both the same.

1:31:28 Speaker 1 I think it's the same thing. It's meaning-

1:31:29 Speaker 3 But it's all about-

1:31:29 Speaker 1 ... 'cause if you look at the symptom, it's too much, so the only thing to do is go right there.

1:31:32 Speaker 3 But it's all... But it, it's, it just, it just, it brings home what we've spoken about here, where you, you... The language can be true, that your, your argument is, has never been at any point that the language in this or that sefer is missing the point. You're not-

1:31:46 Speaker 1 No, not at all

1:31:46 Speaker 3 ... claiming that argument, right? God forbid. What you're saying, though, is that if you take that language without the context-

1:31:52 Speaker 1 Then we lose the s- then we lose it

1:31:53 Speaker 3 ... you, you lose the point.

1:31:54 Speaker 1 Then we lose it. And again, just to end, my, my, Rav Weinberger says that everything, everything that he's been able to do is because he once saw the Rebbe do that to him.

1:32:03 Speaker 3 Huh.

1:32:04 Speaker 1 You know, that's, uh, that, that, that koyach, meaning talk about somebody who had no limits-

1:32:11 Speaker 3 Right

1:32:11 Speaker 1 ... within the general shape of limitation that is being a human being.

1:32:15 Speaker 3 Right. So-

1:32:17 Speaker 1 It's a profound, we're, we're zoche to live in a generation where there's more and more coming out, and there's biographies of Yitzchak Isaac Huemler now, and they're republishing Rav Aharon HaLevi's writings, meaning, and they're publishing Kapust and Maggen Avos and all of the different iterations of Chassidus Chabad and Rav Levek, meaning I don't know, uh, this is for another conversation, but I don't know what people think about when they read Rav Levek's writings.

1:32:38 Speaker 3 The Rebbe's father.

1:32:39 Speaker 1 Yeah, the Rebbe's father, and then there's nobody who talks more about Gevurah and Tzimtzum and darkness and concealment and Kabbalah and Pratiyut as, as the Rebbe's father.

1:32:50 Speaker 3 Well, I, I don't think most people find his works too accessible, but, but-

1:32:54 Speaker 1 Some of the funnest

1:32:55 Speaker 3 ... you, you have fun with it.

1:32:56 Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, they're, they're... I mean, look, they're, they're, they're... Yeah, they're wondrous. They're won- but the Rebbe Rashab ultimately-

1:33:03 Speaker 3 No, the, the, the Rebbe, the Rebbe spoke about them with, with ultimate wonder

1:33:06 Speaker 1 All of them. For the Tzemach Tzedek also, my Rebbe said that a, a person who wants to really get the crux of the matter should learn Or Torah Cheilek Inyanim. Inyanim, the, from the Tzemach Tzedek, just to go through that and to see how the Tzemach Tzedek is masbir these inyanim, and in Derech Mitzvotecha. To learn Derech Mitzvotecha properly, to learn sha- you know, Shaar Mitzvot HaTefilah, Shoresh Mitzvot HaTefilah-

1:33:28 Speaker 3 Right

1:33:28 Speaker 1 ... and Shoresh Aman HaSeluchot properly, a person is, you know, you're good to go. You get every haftarah you need.

1:33:33 Speaker 3 Hmm. Fascinating.

1:33:35 Speaker 1 B'seder. This was a pleasure.

1:33:36 Speaker 3 Thank you. Thank you very much.

1:33:37 Speaker 1 Okay. B'ezrat Hashem.

1:33:38 Speaker 3 Thank you.

1:33:38 Speaker 1 Yeshivach.

1:33:38 Speaker 3 Thank you. The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Dror and Nadav Bachar, and is used with their permission.