Ep. 94 // "Talking the Unfathomable" w/ Rabbi Mendy Katz

00:00 Speaker 1 In our world, no. The, the, everything's, everything's still going as planned. The Rebbe's shiur's gonna come, and the Rebbe's still, you know, taking over the world till Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year two thousand and twenty-six. My name is Bentzi Offson, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. We are here in Surfside, or is it Bal Harbour?

00:54 Speaker 2 Surfside.

00:55 Speaker 1 Surfside. Uh, the Yiddin know the difference between the two. I'm a simple Jew, I do not. We're here in Surfside with Rabbi Mendy Katz, who's the director of programs at the Aleph Institute that is based in the shul here in Bal Harbour, not Surfside.

01:13 Speaker 2 No, that's also in Surfside.

01:14 Speaker 1 That's also Surfside. Ah, the whole thing's a sham.

01:16 Speaker 2 Yeah.

01:17 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah. So, uh, we'll get to some of the Aleph work, which, uh, I've done some work with Aleph in the-- over the years, and I got in tune a little bit what they do, uh, but we'll also, of course, cover your own story that led up to Aleph. Um, but before we do that, um, before we do that, first of all, thank you to my cousin Bentzi Shemtov for hosting this podcast in his home here. Um, thank you very much. And, uh, to everyone listening to the podcast, who enjoys this podcast, please like and subscribe on the various platforms. And for those who really like the podcast, please support the podcast at hflpodcast.com/donate. Okay. Okay. Rabbi Mendy, where do we begin? We begin with your... You grew up here in Florida, did you not?

02:12 Speaker 2 I did. I grew up in Miami Beach, born in Miami Beach, Florida, fifty-four years ago, and, um, that's a big part of my life, growing up in, uh, in Miami Beach. There was, uh... Grew up basically in yeshiva.

02:27 Speaker 1 In the yeshiva.

02:27 Speaker 2 In the yeshiva. My father brought me there, you know, regularly.

02:31 Speaker 1 What did your father do for a living?

02:32 Speaker 2 My father was a businessman. He was, uh, selling, uh, colored stones, but, uh, he was always involved in the Rebbe's, uh, yanim, and, uh, wherever he traveled, he was always doing, you know, bifteim and doing other things and bringing tefillin and later got involved in printing Tanyas, and he was involved, very involved with the Russians when they came in the '80s to Miami Beach and involved with them. We-- I used to go on bifteim with him, you know, on Lincoln Road Mall, putting on tefillin with the Russian taxi cab drivers when I was from five years old.

03:02 Speaker 1 So just bring the microphone a little bit closer. So your, your father, your fa-- So your father was a Lubavitcher.

03:09 Speaker 2 Yeah. My father was a Lubavitcher. His, you know, his great unc- his uncle became very close to the Frieda Rebbe, the Uncle Katz from Chicago, and his father as well, and, uh, so on, and he went to Lubavitch yeshivas, uh, you know, and he-

03:23 Speaker 1 Right. In those days in, in Florida, there weren't that many Lubavitchers, were there?

03:28 Speaker 2 No. Lubavitch was tiny then. There was very few Lubavitchers then. Um, when-- He came, you know, really early. I mean, I... He was there before, like, '68 or '69.

03:38 Speaker 1 Here in Miami?

03:39 Speaker 2 Yeah.

03:39 Speaker 1 So when, when did Rabbi Koref come here?

03:43 Speaker 2 I think around, around the same time.

03:45 Speaker 1 Really?

03:45 Speaker 2 Around the same time.

03:47 Speaker 1 What kind of Jewish community was here at all?

03:52 Speaker 2 I mean, when I, when I was growing up, it was already a little bigger. It wasn't, there wasn't the Lubavitch shul def-

03:57 Speaker 1 Forget about Lubavitch. Yiddish guys.

03:58 Speaker 2 Oh, Yiddish guys? It was just-

04:00 Speaker 1 What, what, what, what, what drew him here? Pardon my-

04:03 Speaker 2 Business, yeah.

04:04 Speaker 1 Yeah, but what was, like, what was the... You probably wanted to have his kids go to school or something, right?

04:09 Speaker 2 So when I, when I, when I was growing up, there was already Orlando Yeshiva. There already-

04:14 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

04:14 Speaker 2 There was already a school here. Um-

04:16 Speaker 1 So it's starting.

04:16 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, maybe it started after I was born. You know, I don't know exactly the years, but, uh, you know, I, I always had a Lubavitcher cheder, a school to go to.

04:25 Speaker 1 Right. So you've seen, you've seen Florida change quite a bit in your lifetime.

04:29 Speaker 2 Massive. Massive.

04:31 Speaker 1 Is it better this way or that way?

04:33 Speaker 2 I think it's better this way. Look, the more Jewish people, more Jewish infrastructure, more mitzvahs, more Chabad houses, beautiful.

04:39 Speaker 1 Fair enough.

04:40 Speaker 2 My wife would probably disagree, but-

04:42 Speaker 1 Oh, she's also from Florida?

04:43 Speaker 2 No, but she saw even just in the last, since we're married twenty-eight years, she already, she's also saw a m- massive change. I mean, when we moved to Bal Harbour, there was four or five chabadas.

04:52 Speaker 1 In the whole Bal Harbour?

04:53 Speaker 2 Yeah.

04:53 Speaker 1 And how many even? Also not that many compared to today.

04:57 Speaker 2 How many frum you mean?

04:58 Speaker 1 Yeah.

04:58 Speaker 2 Yeah. Very few. Much few. Yeah. It was mo-mostly non-frum or Baale some, you know, Baale Teshuva and-

05:05 Speaker 1 Right

05:06 Speaker 2 ... and now it's Chabad, uh, neighborhood.

05:09 Speaker 1 Right. Right. Yeah. Th-things have changed quite a bit, I'm sure. Um, so you, you, you, you went to the school here in, in, in Miami.

05:25 Speaker 2 Orlando Yeshiva, yeah.

05:26 Speaker 1 Orlando Yeshiva, and, and, and that led to what?

05:31 Speaker 2 Um, well, I went from Sifta, I went to LA for the first two years, and, um, got very involved with the shluchim there in LA at that time. It was Ber Huritz and Yossi Paltiel. It was a nice, good group of guys.

05:45 Speaker 1 Sure.

05:45 Speaker 2 Yossi Lehrman. And, um, you know, they, they got me more involved. I mean, I was already, you know, from a young kid already involved. I mean, my father brought me to Mi-- you know, to the Rebbe all the time, and I was at a kafes from, uh, from Lamed Heh. Uh, on every year and, uh, you know, it's not like a-

06:03 Speaker 1 Because of, because of the heart attack or just happens to be that-

06:06 Speaker 2 That was the first year-

06:07 Speaker 1 You were there

06:07 Speaker 2 ... that I remember at Kovos.

06:08 Speaker 1 You were there at, you were there at Lammas Ches?

06:09 Speaker 2 Yeah.

06:10 Speaker 1 Oh, okay.

06:10 Speaker 2 Yeah.

06:10 Speaker 1 So it wasn't because of it.

06:11 Speaker 2 No, no. Uh, that's the first year that I remember at Kovos is Lammas Ches. But, um-

06:15 Speaker 1 Your father would come every year.

06:16 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

06:17 Speaker 1 And he brought you along Lammas Ches.

06:19 Speaker 2 Yeah. And every year since then. And, uh, you know, I mean-

06:23 Speaker 1 Well-

06:23 Speaker 2 ... we, I grew up in a, in a very Lubavitch house. I mean, I went there every for bringing in a while. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't, uh... I mean, my father was very, very, uh... My father was not, you know, it wasn't a, a shlock Lubavitcher. He was a hesei Lubavitcher, you know. It was, uh, everything, every, every move he did, he, he, you know, he asked Rebbe, everything was what the Rebbe wanted.

06:42 Speaker 1 It's just very interesting to me. Um, like I don't know how much there is, how, how, how much, uh, how much road there is here to travel, but just to go a little bit down this, uh, down this direction. Um, this idea of like a Lubavitcher moving, he had to make a parnassa, right? The, the, the narrative that we have is Lubavitchers would, you know, they're in Karnitz, and then they went on shlichus to Eckvelt, right? 'Cause, you know, the same, similar, similar idea. They went somewhere where there wasn't much Yiddishkeit, but they were going on shlichus. Your father didn't have shlichus per se as, as the reason why he was moving to Florida. It was parnassa, which is, you know, more old school, you know, regular concerns, which is what motivated him throughout. I mean, why were there Krechmas in the middle of nowhere with a husband and wife, you know, serving meals to people in the forests of Russia? It's 'cause they had to make a parnassa, right?

07:39 Speaker 2 Right.

07:41 Speaker 1 And just that, that story of like, you know, Lubavitcher moves to Florida 'cause he has to make a living, and he feels like this is where he's gonna make a living, and he's just fighting that his kids have a connection and this family has a connection. And it's just very interesting. Like it's, you know, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's a real, it's a real story that hasn't been discussed that much. It's kind of taken a back seat to shlichus and that narrative of going to a town and conquer. And I'm not... Look, I grew up in that. I grew up in Hong Kong do- with my parents doing that exact thing. That, that, that, that thing exactly. But I think there's something else about, you know, people that, you know, they're there for business, but they're still-

08:24 Speaker 2 Yeah. My father, my father was like from... I mean, truth is a, there was a lot of other business people like that. Not necessarily did they live in other cities. But a lot of business people basically were very involved with whatever wanted them to do. Wherever they traveled, they were involved. And, and, and, um, you know, say Mendel Shante was always, you know, they've always had a shlichasim from, uh, Nema. And there's a lot of people out there. I think what maybe was unique that my father was not living in Karnitz, he was living in the city, so he was able to actually work with the shlichim and, and work with-- And he had, he had a lot of people, let's say, that he taught chasidus to or that he, you know, made a mishichasudeh for, you know, we-- There was no Lubavitcher shul there when we grew up in Miami Beach, so he's the dominant Beth Israel and-

09:07 Speaker 1 So the only Lubavitch presence was very core for the Hebrew-

09:10 Speaker 2 South Beach. In South Beach

09:10 Speaker 1 ... South Beach by the yeshiva.

09:11 Speaker 2 And we lived in Mid Beach, you know, in, in Miami Beach.

09:14 Speaker 1 So there was a shtiebel?

09:15 Speaker 2 We went to like the, like the-

09:16 Speaker 1 Oh, sure

09:17 Speaker 2 ... shul. Beth Israel was like a-

09:19 Speaker 1 Right

09:19 Speaker 2 ... you know.

09:19 Speaker 1 And a collection of the Frum Jews that-

09:21 Speaker 2 Like a Young Israel.

09:21 Speaker 1 Yeah.

09:21 Speaker 2 Based on like a Young Israel.

09:23 Speaker 1 Which there, there's few. Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, a boutique video production company that I have run for close to ten years. Today, Yuvala Media works with organizations all around the country, bringing their stories to life in a way that is both meaningful and memorable. Whether it's a video for a milestone dinner, an online fundraiser, or a building campaign, we begin each project with the same question: What does your audience need to know about you to feel more connected to your cause? Once we answer that question, we tailor-make a video that best addresses this need. Over the years, we have built a reputation for top-of-the-line visuals while also being responsive and reliable. As one of our clients put it, "A combination of technical excellence and real heart." If you are looking to make a video for an upcoming dinner, fundraiser, or building campaign, please reach out to us to schedule a fifteen-minute phone call to see if we can make something beautiful together. Email us at hello@yuvalamedia.com. Again, that is hello@yuvalamedia.com. A link can be found in the show notes. And now, back to the show. Yeah. But the, the... Yes, you're right that there were other businessmen, but my-- the point that I'm making is, is that, is that like the, the, the, the choice of, uh, you have to... You, you're going there for, you're going there for parnassa. You're going somewhere for parnassa, and you have to, you have to fight for, you have to fight for,

10:45 Speaker 1 for your kids' chinuch. You have to... W-what, what am I, what am I driving at? You know, the, the, this podcast officially is about Lubavitch identity, okay? What, what, what does that mean? It's an open question. Nobody really knows what it means or, or nobody knows what I, what... No-nobody, nobody believes me when I say what I think of what it means. But, um, you know, look, the, the core of it is, is that there's a... We, we come up with descriptions of this is what a Lubavitcher is. This is what a Lubavitcher looks like. This is what a Lubavitcher life is like, right? We-- And, and that's normal. Everybody does it. That's what identity is. Like you, you, you, you basically collect a group of people usually, right? Um, at least when we're using this meaning of identity, and you identify with other, with other people, that creates a group, and you take the general characteristics of that group, and that becomes an identity that you have, right? And for the, the identity of a Lubavitcher for-- does not usually include this aspect of a guy who doesn't live in Lubavitch community, right? I mean, one of the episodes we had was with, with, um, Rabbi Zeligson, who spoke about his father, Dr. Zeligson, whose, whose father, Dr. Zeligson, grew up with his father in Krakow. This is before the war. There are many Frum Jews there, but they were the only Lubavitchers. Like that, that, the, that of a Lubavitcher being-

12:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, it was continuing

12:18 Speaker 1 ... I'm now lost in my town. I'm davening in the Young Israel of my, of my neighborhood, and yeah, uh, my kids are going to go mitzvah, and then we're going to do different minhagim, we're gonna go to the Rebbe once a year. But like, you know, we're not gonna necessarily have all the bells and whistles and, and, you know, accoutrements of, of, of, of identity that you would have growing up in a Lubavitch neighborhood. That's what I'm driving at.

12:40 Speaker 2 Yeah. And I, and I think that that was something that really, um, you know, had a, a strong effect on me. I think that being there and watching my father, uh, you know, not being embarrassed and not, and not being... And being ready to proudly promote the Rebbe's teachings and, and the Rebbe's mitzvah and doing that, uh, kind of like I, I almost like I grew up on shlichus, so to speak, even though I didn't grow up on shlichus. Although my father actually became a shliach, by the way.

13:07 Speaker 1 Oh, he did?

13:08 Speaker 2 Yeah. And one, uh, one day he was at a farbrengen one Shabbos, and the Rebbe spoke about that everyone could be a shliach. You know, it doesn't make a difference if you're official, you know, that... You know, and he wrote in a sefer after Shabbos that he wants to be on shlichus. And, uh, and the Rebbe answered him, "You're already a shliach ."

13:24 Speaker 1 He was used to print Tanyas.

13:25 Speaker 2 He printed Tanyas, yeah, in, in, uh, in wherever he traveled. So he traveled to Africa and China, and so he printed in Beijing and Shanghai and in Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and, um, Sri Lanka. Bunch of Tanya Tanyas.

13:40 Speaker 1 Right. So s- so that was his... So wh- when you say he became a shliach, he didn't open up a Chabad House?

13:46 Speaker 2 No, but the, the, he was officially listed as a shliach and, you know, the Rebbe said he's a shliach so he's, you're on shlichus.

13:52 Speaker 1 Right.

13:52 Speaker 2 And from then on he was considered a shliach.

13:55 Speaker 1 Right.

13:55 Speaker 2 So. No, but he always, he always did... You know what I'm saying? He didn't open a Chabad House, but he had... He always was, like I said, he has always like was in the car about... He was working with all the Russians before Alex Kaller opened up a Russian center. He was like the only one dealing with maybe a R- Russian Hanukkah party or Purim.

14:10 Speaker 1 Why was he involved with the Russians?

14:11 Speaker 2 He just like, like I'm saying, he whatever there was a need. He always speak on, spoke on the radio before every yontif. Um, he just, he had his things that he did. He went, we went to every, the public schools and every, every, for L- uh, Sukkos and Purim. He just, he did it without... Before, even before he became a shliach. Before he was a shliach. The, he always did these things.

14:30 Speaker 1 Right. Very, very interesting. Very interesting. Look, I, I think, I mean, I, it's not, it's not a think, it's obvious that today this, this facet of Lubavitch existence, however you wanna call it, of, uh, people like to say the Lubavitch, whatever. I mean, I'm sure that comes, that that term comes from somewhere holy, but, you know, I, I think, I think in a way that's a sim- like a oversimplification.

14:59 Speaker 2 Oh.

14:59 Speaker 1 Or it's like a also, or in a way it's like a, some kind of demeaning term. Like it's, it's, you know, you're a Lubavitcher. You're a Lubavitcher and, and your life is... Like it, not everyone is gonna look the same. And it, and it's very interesting actually to see how each person, um, expresses it. And you don't have to agree with each person's way, but, uh-

15:19 Speaker 2 But that's the que- that's the, the age-old question, you know. What is a Lubavitcher? Is Lubavitcher wears a, uh, wears a kapote or is Lubavitcher the one that's Rambam three times, uh, three perakim Rambam or is Lubavitcher the goes on mitzvah? Who, who's the Lubavitcher and what's the Lubavitcher? I mean, there may be many, many L- people that, that, uh, you know, that do more mitzvah and they don't have a kapote or they, or they, you know, whatever. I mean, there's so many different variations of who is Lubavitcher and what is Lubavitcher? It's a very good question. I mean, there's a shliach that, that has a big beautiful Chabad House but doesn't learn three perakim Rambam. Is he, you know, who's more Lubavitch?

15:48 Speaker 1 The need, the need, the need to answer that question on an objective level is the first mistake. There is no, I, as far as I know, there is no, um, like actual definition of like this is what it looks like.

16:00 Speaker 2 Card-carrying member.

16:01 Speaker 1 Right. No. The card-carrying member, actually, I, I can understand. Maybe it's more of a joke, but like you could say there's certain criteria. Like if you don't, if you don't do this, then you're not even together. I mean, you could be a wonderful person-

16:13 Speaker 2 Right

16:13 Speaker 1 ... and a wonderful Jew, but like, like you, you cannot do the opposite of what the Rebbe instituted and say, "Oh, I, but I'm Lubav-" Like there are, there are rules. Um-

16:24 Speaker 2 So what, what are the rules? Do you have to learn Chassidus?

16:26 Speaker 1 There are... No. So look, I, I think... I mean, I think generally speaking what... Generally speaking, there is, there is some c- there are, there are some, there are some, there are some boundaries. But yes, I, I don't know exactly what those are, and I think the idea to make it objective is, is in a way the problem. Like, you know, uh, look, it's a, it's an interesting question because like when it comes to frumkeit, in many ways, halakhically, there are standards that are objective. Kashrut, Shabbos, you're either in or you're out. I mean, we're not talking here about how we should judge a fellow Jew who doesn't keep those standards.

16:59 Speaker 2 Right.

16:59 Speaker 1 It's a different story. But halakhically-

17:01 Speaker 2 What makes a person Frum?

17:02 Speaker 1 There's some homes that you're halakhically allowed to eat in and some that you're not. It's not like, you know, there, there is a black and white line there, you know. When it comes to being a Chassid, I, I don't know that it's the same thing. I know that there are some kannoim uh, maybe I'm making fun. There are some people who are sincere people who, who I think would contend that there are certain lines, but very often those lines are ones that they draw. They decided-

17:28 Speaker 2 Right

17:28 Speaker 1 ... pe- people decide that, that Rambam is, is the most important thing. Okay. But do you daven with him in Yom every day?

17:35 Speaker 2 Right. But being a Chassid, being... The Rebbe said how to be a Chassid. You have to learn his Torah, and you have to do what he wants you to do, right?

17:41 Speaker 1 That's a very general, that's a very general... So if I learn 15 minutes of Chassidus a day, and I go mitzvah once a month. And so some, some, some people say you go to Doyle. I, I think ultimately the beauty of Chassidus is that it's all about the person. It, it, it's a very individual, it's a very individual kind of thing, and, and the need to have an objective standard in many ways is a mistake. Now, I understand there are minhagim that are more objective. This is what Chassidim do and so on. But if we're talking about what Chassidim are and who they are- Like, the, the, there, there are so many people. You, you start talking to people, and there's so many shapes and flavors and, and different... And, and people with such powerful things to learn from and powerful things about them and things that they're very, very... That they're very committed to. And this person's more committed to this, this person's more committed to that.

18:38 Speaker 2 It's probably, uh, I mean, I think that's what's beautiful about Lubavitch. That's what... I think that's really what the Rebbe wanted. I think that was the Rebbe's message. That, that no one's treif or no one's pasul. That everyone is, that it's, everyone could contribute. You know, al efed ketzahalef. You know, that's, that's the Rebbe's approach. The Rebbe's approach was that everyone has what to contribute, everyone could grow. But the question is, what's the aspiration? What's the... What does the Rebbe want from us as a, as a... What does the Rebbe want from a chasid? What does the Rebbe want from a shliach? What does the Rebbe want from a Lubavitcher bachur, from a yungerman?

19:09 Speaker 1 I-

19:09 Speaker 2 The Rebbe, the Rebbe wants, the Rebbe wants you to learn chasidus. The Rebbe wants you to do mitzvot, and the Rebbe wants you to learn Rambam. The Rebbe wants you to... I mean, can't say the Rebbe wants you to go to the oil, but I'm saying in theory, the Rebbe would want, the Rebbe would want you to go to the oil.

19:20 Speaker 1 Why can't you say that?

19:22 Speaker 2 Uh, I don't know. The Rebbe wants you to go to the oil. I guess, um, that's the-

19:27 Speaker 1 Well, the Rebbe, well, the Rebbe-

19:28 Speaker 2 I don't know if the Rebbe wants you to go to the oil, the Rebbe needs you to go to the oil. I mean, the Rebbe, the Rebbe went to the oil, right? That you could say that. The Rebbe went to the oil. That was very important to the Rebbe. The Rebbe t-to s- Rebbe was... Every answer he gave was ask your altizen. You know, the Rebbe-

19:39 Speaker 1 Right

19:39 Speaker 2 ... the, the, that was... You can't separate that. If someone says, "You know, I'm, I'm, I really, um, I love the Rebbe and I really do, want to do what the Rebbe wants, and, and I, and I feel very connected to the Rebbe, but I don't wanna go to the oil." I don't, I don't know if that works.

19:54 Speaker 1 So here, here's what I would say. What I would say is that, again, the, the, the terminology of what does the Rebbe want from us, and, like, we have to come up with s-some kind of collective standard. I, I think in many ways that is... I'm not saying it's wrong, but I think that very often is what leads to the problems with the formula, right? 'Cause-

20:16 Speaker 2 Judging. Judging

20:17 Speaker 1 ... no, no, I'm not talking about judging. It's you're gonna have to basically y- write generalizations 'cause you're saying us. So now you have to come up with the general things. And so on one hand, you're gonna come up with things that n-not necessarily are universal, meaning it may be not everyone has to do these things or, like, as a bare minimum. And at the sa-- and on the other hand, you're also going to pick things that are, like, the common denominator, like basic things, right? So basic things that are, that not necessarily should even be universal. Like, you get the worst of both worlds, right? 'Cause you can't, you can't demand from every, every... To be a chasid, you have to be able to chazzar Maran Balpe. You're not gonna say that.

20:54 Speaker 2 Right. But what I'm, uh, so I wanna differentiate.

20:57 Speaker 1 So you're gonna, you're gonna-

20:57 Speaker 2 I wanna differentiate. There's everyone, everyone-

21:00 Speaker 1 Aspirationally

21:01 Speaker 2 ... right, aspirationally, people should aspire to do more.

21:04 Speaker 1 Of course.

21:04 Speaker 2 I mean, that's what the Rebbe wanted.

21:04 Speaker 1 No, I can-

21:05 Speaker 2 The Rebbe wanted everyone to challenge themselves.

21:06 Speaker 1 But why can't you-

21:07 Speaker 2 They should always challenge themselves to do more, no?

21:08 Speaker 1 So why can't you say, "What does the Rebbe want from me? What does chasidus want from me?"

21:12 Speaker 2 Uh, okay.

21:12 Speaker 1 And what it wants from me is going to be different than what it wants from someone else. Now, obviously, if you take that too far, everybody builds their own getshkel, right? And, like, makes their own religion, and that also doesn't hold. And, and, and identity crumbles when every person is doing their own thing and, and making it up as they go along. So I, I think it's a given. I think it's, uh, I think you need both. I think you need, on one hand, a f- and I think what f- comes first in many ways is you, you have to be, you have to be real to yourself, right? And, and this does make s- the Rebbe told this to people, all kinds of people, "You're my chasid if you, if you, if you, if you learn my Torah or if you wanna be a better... If every day you try to be a better Jew, you're my chasid." There are all kinds of things that, uh, you know, who told me? Um, Don Wolfe from Australia told me that, uh... You know, y-you know Don Wolfe? He's one of the, he was one of, uh, R-Rabbie Groner's, uh, um, important Baal Batim for many years, very involved in the Yeshiva College for, for, for many, many years. And, uh, he's an Australian boy. And he was telling me that one of his family members, one of his, one of... I forget exactly, but one of, one of his... He, his wife is, is, is

22:29 Speaker 1 I think a daughter or a granddaughter of, of Nachum Zongarevich. So there was a family member, another family member who was marrying a non-Lubavitcher. So the father of the girl, the Lubavitcher girl who was marrying this non-Lubavitcher, uh, spoke to the Rebbe about his feelings about, "My daughter's..." He said that he's not a Lubavitcher, but he learns and he davens and he, you know, he, he keeps... And I said, "No, and, and what exactly makes someone a Lubavitcher?" But, you know, these things are taken as like, uh, as like, as like, as like glech vartlach, like cute. I think they're very real. So I'm, uh, so just to go back to your father's story, I don't wanna get too far down this tangent. Like, I, I'm, I'm fascinated by these stories. I never met your father, but I'm fascinated by these stories of people who, you know, in those days, he's one of the only guys in Miami that's a Lubavitcher Baal Bus. Seems like he was kind of doing his own, like he was, he was living his life like on his own. He was beating his own path.

23:33 Speaker 2 Yeah.

23:34 Speaker 1 Um-

23:34 Speaker 2 I mean, it was, like I said, it was, uh, quite unique and had a strong impact on me. And um, I think it's a beautiful thing. I think that, you know, I, I try to, even though I'm officially a shliach, but I don't have a chabad house, I don't have a shul, and I try to emulate, you know, try to do, live my life that way too. I don't have to. I could do my job at Aleph and, and, and not be involved in anything else. And, and, and I still have the title shliach, and I, and I could, you know, sit and learn and daven and, and have a good day. But I choose to have a, try to have impact on others and to, whoever I meet, to, to influence in a, in a positive way, to learn chasidus or to put on tefillin or whatever it may be.

24:14 Speaker 1 Right.

24:14 Speaker 2 And I, and I learned that all from my father.

24:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful story. Beautiful story. So, so you, you're in Miami and you, um, and, uh, you say you're going to Sunset. You, oh, you already said you went to LA.

24:28 Speaker 2 Yeah.

24:29 Speaker 1 And then, uh-

24:30 Speaker 2 So the, so the Ba- again, the shluchim there were-

24:32 Speaker 1 You didn't wanna go straight to Carnets? Or you didn't wanna go?

24:35 Speaker 2 Well, uh, I didn't... That wasn't an option at 13 years old to go-

24:38 Speaker 1 All the way there? Just all the way there?

24:40 Speaker 2 I don't know. The pe- no one. They went to either Detroit or, or LA. It wasn't, there wasn't the-

24:43 Speaker 1 Is that what it was?

24:44 Speaker 2 I think so. Like Matty Korff went to Detroit and then, and, and I went to LA.

24:49 Speaker 1 You were-

24:49 Speaker 2 Chaim Shapiro, like they were-

24:50 Speaker 1 You were the two ma- You, you were Chaim Shapiro's age?

24:52 Speaker 2 Chaim Shapiro's age. Yeah. We both went.

24:53 Speaker 1 So where'd he go?

24:54 Speaker 2 And he went to Detroit.

24:55 Speaker 1 Uh-huh. Those were the two mesiftes.

24:57 Speaker 2 Yeah. It was mesifta. It was either LA-

24:58 Speaker 1 Detroit was more hardcore.

25:01 Speaker 2 Yeah.

25:01 Speaker 1 And LA is more your parents wanted to have a little bit of education as well.

25:06 Speaker 2 Yeah. My mother thought I was gonna go to English, even though I didn't go to English in... I went to Landow Yeshiva. We didn't go to, I didn't go to English, but, uh, she wanted me to learn English in ninth grade. And, um, I did that for about a month or two, and then I quit. So-

25:20 Speaker 1 Who was in charge of the school back then?

25:22 Speaker 2 Thayer, Rabbi Thayer.

25:23 Speaker 1 Rabbi Thayer, right.

25:24 Speaker 2 Yeah. So we used to, so we used to, uh, used to get us in trouble for, like, going to Fabregans. We would go to Fabregan, you know, we'd go to the Zal-

25:31 Speaker 1 Fabregans as well

25:31 Speaker 2 ... the Zalbach or Fabregan. We would end up in the, you know, we'd get a knox for going to Fabregan in the, at the, on Thursday night or whatever it may be. And, uh, but it was, it was, the, the, again, the shluchem were very influential, like, uh, schlepping us to the mikvah and the chasidus and doing... And they, they actually convinced me to go to Alter. So some, I, I was in LA 12, 19, and then I wrote into the rabbi, uh, asking for bracha to go to Alter, and the rabbi asked me if I should go. And I went to, like, uh, I think yeshivas Kaits summer, 19, and then it was, then I was in New York.

26:04 Speaker 1 Rabbi Hertz, Rabbi Hertz, so Rabbi Hertz is, uh, responsible for this?

26:09 Speaker 2 Those, those shluchem, Hertz, uh, uh, uh, Yossi Patil, Baruch Hertz, uh, Yossi Lerman. Uh, who else was there?

26:16 Speaker 1 Hmm. So what was it like to come to Kaits?

26:20 Speaker 2 So that was a little, like, you know, intimidating. Who are you? Who are you, chasidish? It's like-

26:25 Speaker 1 Well, it's, it's, it's a experience that every out-of-towner has when they encounter an Alter Rebbe for the first time.

26:30 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. They try to, try to, uh, scare you, stare you down.

26:35 Speaker 1 No, I just think that's how they are. I don't think they're trying to do anything. I think it's just-

26:40 Speaker 2 Yeah, but I-

26:40 Speaker 1 I think they literally don't understand that anything exists outside of their world.

26:45 Speaker 2 But, uh, no, it was great. We had, uh... It was amazing. The, uh-

26:48 Speaker 1 So you hear about mitzvah at this age already?

26:51 Speaker 2 I'm 14.

26:52 Speaker 1 Fourteen.

26:52 Speaker 2 Right? Or, yeah, 14.

26:55 Speaker 1 So you come to yeshivas Kaits, and you encounter these Alter Rebbes-

26:58 Speaker 2 Yeah

26:58 Speaker 1 ... who encounter you.

26:59 Speaker 2 Drinking, you know, just g- getting trashed every night and-

27:01 Speaker 1 Mamish?

27:02 Speaker 2 Sure.

27:03 Speaker 1 At fourteen years old?

27:03 Speaker 2 Fourteen years olds, we had, we had cases and cases. It was weird enough. It was a summer. There was, like, no one sober all summer.

27:09 Speaker 1 What was, what was that about?

27:11 Speaker 2 It was interesting, you know, 'cause, uh, you know, now I see, you know, how-

27:14 Speaker 1 It's not healthy.

27:15 Speaker 2 It's not healthy, but it's, it, it, it... I think it definitely had a major part in my life. I mean, in Alter, those years, we, we drank a lot.

27:23 Speaker 1 No, who's behind this?

27:25 Speaker 2 It, it was just-

27:25 Speaker 1 Was it the culture?

27:25 Speaker 2 ... kid. It was the culture, yeah. We just, we used to sit in basements and, and just say l'chaim and sing Nigunim, and it w- it wasn't, it wasn't, uh, drinking and partying. We weren't watching, you know. We were sitting, singing Nigunim. It was serious. It was real. We would, we would, we would fabreg, we would sing Nigunim, we would say l'chaim.

27:40 Speaker 1 So the adults-

27:42 Speaker 2 These were fourteen, fifteen year olds sitting in basements, Kaits, you know, twice, three times a week, getting trashed.

27:46 Speaker 1 No, wait, yeah, but the, one second. The adults are encouraging this?

27:50 Speaker 2 Adults? I don't know if the adults were so... Yeah, yeah. I mean, at, at official yeshiva fabregans, I mean, at that summer in, in yeshivas Kaits, I mean, the alco- alcohol was flowing, but everyone was under the table the whole summer.

28:04 Speaker 1 This year marks seventy-five years since Yutzfat and the first Basse Legani. If you're looking for an event that is memorable, meaningful, and affordable, let me recommend This World Is a Garden, a film and live concert production created by us here at Uvlah Media, inspired by Basse Legani, the first mimar the Rebbe said. If you're a regular here at HFL, you know that Basse Legani is something that we think about and talk about a lot. And in this production, we use the power of cinematic filmmaking and a live concert by a string quartet to bring the beauty of Basse Legani to your community and your audience in a way that they've never seen, heard, or experienced it before. The production has already been hosted by Chabad Houses around the country and has drawn wonderful reviews. Our package comes with everything that you need to put on the production, the film's original arrangements for string quartet, publicity materials, everything besides the string quartet, which we recommend that you hire locally to save on travel costs. To find out more about this production, please visit thisworldisagarden.com. Again, thisworldisagarden.com. And now, back to the show. Okay, so, so I wanna be fair here. First, like, I, it's, it's very easy to look back f- what is it now? Almost forty, yeah, forty years later and judge with our sophisticated, um, you know, uh, sensibilities and say, "What was wrong with these people?" And I understand. No, and I... No, no, what I'm saying is, is that I understand that

29:31 Speaker 1 forty years ago, people looked at, people looked at, um, you know, it, it was a different culture. There was a different milieu. The, you know, there was still that kind of, that overhang of Russia. There were these older chasidim from Russia, and then the, you know, I guess in their world, drinking was just a norm, a normative thing. And so it's easy to look back now and say, "Well, you guys were crazy," and, "How is this happening?" I guess you have to be fair that people then looked at the world differently and experienced the world differently than we do today.

30:03 Speaker 2 Definitely.

30:04 Speaker 1 The, the bigger question, I mean, not, not the bigger question. One question one could ask is, what was made of, um, like, the Rebbe didn't approve of this drinking?

30:14 Speaker 2 Yeah, that was interesting. I mean, I remember fabregans, uh, even I think it was either was, I don't know if it was summer in Chabad or summer in Chasida, Rebbe would scream with, it was screamed out. I, I could feel it now. I could hear, I could hear the Rebbe's voice. "Shikers is hebekh a Chabad." The Rebbe, the Rebbe spoke about a lot about, about-

30:29 Speaker 1 Summer fabregan

30:30 Speaker 2 ... yeah, summer fabregan. You know, the Rebbe spoke about four kavanot a lot, and, uh, and, and there were, there were, you know, to be hon- to be truthful and honest, there were mashpiyim that, that spoke against it. You know, opinion was always against it.

30:43 Speaker 1 Opinion was against the drinking?

30:44 Speaker 2 Yeah. Say that, that was saying.

30:47 Speaker 1 Right.

30:48 Speaker 2 But, uh, we were a little offthekech, you know.

30:51 Speaker 1 No, you're also teenage boys. Teenage boys like to drink.

30:53 Speaker 2 Right.

30:53 Speaker 1 It's just more tr- tr- you know. I mean, that, that's, that's ultimately what it is. You give te- you give teenage boys access to liquor-

31:01 Speaker 2 Now, now, now, now people have therapists, and we had mashgiach. Everyone has a different views, you know?

31:06 Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't... You think that's what it was?

31:08 Speaker 2 I think so. I think we were-

31:09 Speaker 1 Teenage, teenage-

31:09 Speaker 2 ... we were self, we were self-medicating a little

31:12 Speaker 1 Okay. I mean, you-- One second here. I think you're-

31:14 Speaker 2 A little

31:15 Speaker 1 ... maybe mixing Gemara Talmuds before Gemara Talmuds. What, what were you self-medicating from in the eighties exactly?

31:20 Speaker 2 No, not so. Okay, you're right. You're right. Not so much self-medicating, but-

31:22 Speaker 1 I think you're confusing the timeline a little bit.

31:25 Speaker 2 Yeah. Um-

31:26 Speaker 1 You give a teenag-

31:27 Speaker 2 It was an outlet. It was an outlet. I don't know about self-medicating. It was an outlet.

31:30 Speaker 1 You give a teenage boy, whether they're Lubavitch or not Lubavitch, whether they're from or not from Jewish, not Jewish, any teenage boy, you give them a room away from their parents where there's no parental or adult oversight or if I care, there's some adults who are encouraging it.

31:44 Speaker 2 Get out. To go out of your... Get out of your shell, you know? People, you know-

31:47 Speaker 1 That's not why. Guys like getting drunk. Of course they do.

31:50 Speaker 2 No, not that we... It wasn't like that.

31:51 Speaker 1 No?

31:51 Speaker 2 I'm telling you, it wasn't like that. We, we were serious bachur. We were learning. We were coming to Yeshivah Starim. We, we-

31:56 Speaker 1 Oh, so you thought you were, you were Moshe Chazan?

31:57 Speaker 2 And we, and we would learn and we would sing. Yeah, we would, we would sing Nigun and we would talk.

32:01 Speaker 1 But you didn't enjoy the feeling be-

32:03 Speaker 2 We learned to talk over a s- what the Rebbe talk... You don't understand that that, there were times every Shabbos, we, we felt that Moshiach was coming. The Rebbe said, told us Moshiach was coming. We, we were ready for Monday morning-

32:13 Speaker 1 So you need to be drunk for Moshiach to come?

32:15 Speaker 2 No, it was, it was some... It was, we were, we were, we were farbrengen. We were living it. We were-

32:19 Speaker 1 Oh

32:20 Speaker 2 ... it was something that was, uh, you know, we would-

32:22 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

32:22 Speaker 2 ... we would, we would, uh, it was, it was serious. There was no partying. It was no, it was, it was serious stuff.

32:28 Speaker 1 Right. Hmm. Yeah, look, I mean, I mean, first of all, I am not, I'm no saint when it comes to drinking or not drinking. It's not like I, I, I drink, I drink more than I should have when I was in Yeshivah as well. Um, you know, and, um, you know, maybe some people will get upset me for saying I'm not... I don't exactly subscribe to the extreme, um, alternative, which is to shut it down completely.

32:54 Speaker 2 Right.

32:55 Speaker 1 I mean, maybe at the age of t- you know, thirteen, fourteen, maybe, I don't know. I... It's interesting 'cause my father tells me that when he was in Yeshivah, he was at Morristown or something, and this was in the seventies, they had grape juice or wine by farbrengens.

33:10 Speaker 2 Yeah.

33:11 Speaker 1 Like, like, so I don't know, maybe he wasn't invited to where the cool bachur were farbrengen, but, like, the official Yeshivah farbrengens, like, Reb Meir would give them wine. So I guess things changed from time, you know, based on time and location. Some Yeshivas yes, some Yeshivas no. Some places yes, some places no. Um, but it's not like I'm not sitting here on some kind of pedestal and judging it. It's, it's, it's complicated. It's, it's complicated and I mean, really, it isn't complicated in the sense that the Rebbe said not to do it, but it's complicated because it's, it's still part of the Lubavitch way of experiencing. It, you're saying it here as well, like, the Rebbe's talking about Moshiach coming. How does a Lubavitcher, like, get into it? It's like, you farbrengen. You far-- How do you farbrengen? Well, obviously we farbrengen by taking a lot of mashke, and, like, that's just part of Lubavitch history, whether you like it or not. Yeah. I don't know.

34:11 Speaker 2 It was a, it was an amazing time to be in Crown Heights. I mean, the coming... I, I, I thank God that, that I arrived, you know, summer of Mem Zion and not later because Tisha Mem-Ches and Mem-Che... I mean, those years were, were, were unbelievable. I mean, to be... If anyone was in, in, in, is of seventy Tisha Mem-Ches knows that if you missed, you missed a Kapish Tisha Mem-Ches was crazy. I mean, it, it, it... The Rebbe was at his peak. The Rebbe was, like, conquering the world before, before Chabad Shabbat. Mem-Ches was, the Rebbe was like, you know, it was, uh, Shnas Habinyan, Shnas Hachol, and it was, it was just unbelievable. You can't, you can't describe the, the, the feeling of the Chabad pride and, and how the Rebbe's on top of the world, and Chabad's on top of the world, and it was, it was just, it was, it was so... We, we thought we could, we could do anything. We were, you know, there was nothing that could stop us. It was, it was an unbelievable feeling, unbelievable time.

35:04 Speaker 1 Right. So you've described, you've de- you've described the farbrengens in the basements, which doesn't really talk about con- it doesn't really s- point to conquering the world. What, what, what, what experience did you have that did point towards conquering the world? Like, what, what was that like?

35:20 Speaker 2 No, I mean, we would go, we, we were, again, fourteen-year-olds, fifteen-year-olds, we were going on, uh, taluchas every Shabbos to, to, to the Makokelis, and we were going on with Tzimmes on Friday, and we're going on Tzimmes on Motzei Shabbos, and we're, uh, giving out sichas. I used to go give out the, the, the Likutei in Borough Park and Flatbush, and we were giving, putting, giving out the Rebbe's mikvah klali. It was... They were, we were conquering the world. We were taking over. We were, you know, there was no, no, no, nothing stopping us. We're, there was no, no one we were afraid, like, or we needed, uh, we didn't have enough money for a tank or, or afraid to go on the, on, on Tzimmes route. It was like, there was nothing. We were on the top of the world. We were, we were the Rebbe's soldiers, and we were, we were, we were, we were conquering. We were, we were taking over. The Moshiach's coming al- every minute, you know. It was, it was, it was unbelievable. It was, it was a, it was a, it's such a euphoria, a... It was just like, uh, it was-

36:15 Speaker 1 Were you ever surprised by people, like on your Tzimmes route or other people that you met outside of this world that you were in, that, like, they didn't seem to know what was going on in your world?

36:33 Speaker 2 Um, I, I think first of all, at that time, a lot of people, the, the Rebbe knew, knew what was going on with the Rebbe. The Rebbe was on cable TV.

36:42 Speaker 1 Yeah, but they weren't-

36:42 Speaker 2 People would come for dollars. It was a big... It was, it wasn't like, uh, the Rebbe was in some basement in, you know, in, in Brown-Brown-Brownsville. I mean, there was, the Rebbe at, in Mem-Ches, the Rebbe was in the pinnacle. There was New York Times ads on a regular basis, full two-page ads in the, you know, there was the, the... The Rebbe was, it wasn't like people didn't, didn't exactly know what was going on. But yes, I mean, these other people were running with Tzimmes, and, and we were bring... We would bring them to dollars. The, that, it's a, it's a, it's a whole different world. You, you go, a fourteen-year-old kid goes on with Tzimmes And, and on Sunday, bring the guy to dollars. It was, it was, it, it was a whole... It, it-- I can't explain it to you. We, we... You know, when I, I go home to Taim a lot. I go home to Taim almost every Sunday. I go to Amateur Mall just for a couple hours and just put on the phone with people. Okay. So I'll, I'll... I have no problem putting on the phone with people. That's not a problem. But, but that... When we, when we were fourteen, fifteen year olds, we were, we were not coming to them and say, "Could you please put on the phone?" We were, we were transforming them. We were, we were telling them what the Rebbe said about if I'm bringing Shabbos. We were, we were... It was

37:45 Speaker 2 like, it was coming, it was oozing out of us. It wasn't something that we had to work on. It was, it was natural. It was like jumping out.

37:54 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. Right. Now, do... My question, my question is more, like, do you, do, do you ever, like, wonder, like, why is this person not getting... Why is, why does this person not know about what I know? Like, 'cause you're in this world that seems, like, very intense and, and very saturated. Like, it's, it's completely through and through, and then you're like, "Wait a second," like it's not matching in the world outside.

38:28 Speaker 2 Oh, you mean this is a real world out there, and this what's going on, it's like-

38:31 Speaker 1 Yeah

38:31 Speaker 2 ...the difference.

38:33 Speaker 1 Maybe.

38:33 Speaker 2 You know, for me, maybe growing up in Miami, maybe that, that I didn't have so much of that issue in coming from that different background. Maybe other people, like, from Crown Heights maybe had that. I, I've never had that, that, uh, that, that was never weird to me. I mean, again, maybe 'cause of my background.

38:48 Speaker 1 No, but you're talking here about, like, the world's changing. In your mind, in your world-

38:53 Speaker 2 Right

38:53 Speaker 1 ...everything's about to change. And then outside, you take a step out of Crown Heights, and all of a sudden it's a n- it's a normal day. Like, I was, I was, I was in, I was in Crown Heights a few weeks ago on Gilad Thomas. And I'm, I came back from the aisle on my way back to Philadelphia, and I see this Litvisher guy on a date with a girl in the bake house.

39:16 Speaker 2 In Crown Heights?

39:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. And like, you know, in a way, he picked the perfect date 'cause, like, like, no one's, no one's gonna pay any attention to him. But, like, in my mind, it was just like, like, in Crown Heights, for most of the amateurs, like, Gilad Thomas is a, is a day. You have to go to the aisle, whatever, like, it's a day.

39:33 Speaker 2 Right.

39:33 Speaker 1 And this guy, it's Tuesday. Uh, what was it this year? But whatever. You know what I mean.

39:39 Speaker 2 Right.

39:40 Speaker 1 Thursday.

39:41 Speaker 2 Uh, again, I, I don't, um... I don't know. Not, I'm not, uh... I don't remember something that, that was, like, bothering me. That, that, that was-

39:48 Speaker 1 Not about it. I'm just saying

39:49 Speaker 2 ...that dichotomy or that, that was like, uh, uh, I was thinking about... You know, it didn't... It wasn't something that crossed my mind. It wasn't... Again, we, we were, we were there. To us, we-- our job was to, to, to teach them what the Rebbe was saying. Our job was to tell them, "Shabbos coming."

40:03 Speaker 1 Right.

40:03 Speaker 2 Our job was to, you know, to put-- to get them to become, to, to start becoming more frum, and to bring them to dollars, and to-

40:09 Speaker 1 Right

40:09 Speaker 2 ...you know?

40:10 Speaker 1 Right. Right. I, I, no. I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not trying to, um... I'm not insisting that there was. If anything, you could say that, that, uh, that when you're so immersed in something, you're so immersed in a world, you don't even pay attention to, uh, people outside, you know, um-

40:30 Speaker 2 Mm. I mean, yeah-

40:31 Speaker 1 What, what, what, what did, what did they always say? Like, I need to target the, the-

40:35 Speaker 2 The-

40:35 Speaker 1 ...the, the flits, like, like, like the f-

40:37 Speaker 2 Yeah. Live, like, like power.

40:39 Speaker 1 Yeah, something like that. That when you're, you're, you can't be taking in and giving out at the same time.

40:45 Speaker 2 I didn't, I didn't see a contradiction. I didn't see an issue. It wasn't, it wasn't something that I, I picked up that there was a dichotomy or-

40:51 Speaker 1 Was there any point as, as, you know... You, you, you're speaking about the beginning of Memches, which is before the rebbetzin passed away, and then the rebbetzin passes away a few months later. And then the rebbe's at home for a year, and then he moves to his office. In your mind, was there any sense that things were not going so up and up like you had earlier?

41:16 Speaker 2 No. Uh, that... Listen, you could tell the difference between, again, Tisha-- just comparing Tisha Memches to Tisha Memtest. But in, in, in our world, no. The, the everything's, everyth- still going as planned. The rebbe's, uh, the shabbos gonna come, and the rebbe's still, you know, taking over the world. Uh, I mean, you see the rebbe's not, uh, uh, known enough. The rebbe's just getting, uh, weaker and, and, and just moving slower and, and, you know, you had, you know, one, uh, the rebbe was, uh, Matzo Pesach. The rebbe was, uh, they thought maybe rebbe wasn't well. He stopped Kesher Bracha right away, was just, I think it was wine-

41:53 Speaker 1 Matzo Pesach, Nunalev

41:55 Speaker 2 ...the wine was, was up. So there was these episodes, there was these things. But-

41:58 Speaker 1 Matzo Pesach, Nunalev, they, they stopped Kesher Bracha right away.

42:02 Speaker 2 Yeah.

42:02 Speaker 1 So there wasn't Kesher Bracha.

42:04 Speaker 2 About five people or whatever.

42:06 Speaker 1 Wow. I see. After, after all the rebbe, if it wasn't feeling well, so they stopped it.

42:09 Speaker 2 I don't remember which year it was. You're saying it's Nunalev. I'm-

42:11 Speaker 1 No, no. I'm a- I thought you said Nunalev.

42:13 Speaker 2 I'm not sure which year it was.

42:14 Speaker 1 It's one of the later years.

42:15 Speaker 2 No, no, Nunalev.

42:15 Speaker 1 No, no, Nunalev. Well, clearly it wasn't on base.

42:17 Speaker 2 Right. Could've been intense also. I don't know which year.

42:21 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

42:21 Speaker 2 One of those three years.

42:23 Speaker 1 I see.

42:24 Speaker 2 No. So you, I mean, you saw it. You were there. Listen-

42:26 Speaker 1 How did-

42:26 Speaker 2 We were there every Tefillah. We were there

42:28 Speaker 1 How did-

42:28 Speaker 2 ...Shacharis, Mincha, Maariv. We, we... You saw that the rebbe, the, the, it was voiced by farbrengen. You could hardly hear it then. Uh, the last, last couple years, you couldn't hear farbrengen Shabbos. It was-

42:36 Speaker 1 How does a Bochur process that? How do you process that?

42:40 Speaker 2 We, we didn't. We, we didn't think... No one... Till Chof Zayin or other, if... Unless you're a, I don't know. I, I... From my friends, at least the people, uh, I can't tell you from all, all the people. The, the core people, no one, in my opinion, thought about the rebbe other than being, uh, coming, share, share coming. I don't think there was one. Again, there's people that were a little less c- uh, connected, but I'm saying anyone who was in, in the, in the system that was, was coming to... Was learning, learning in, in yeshiva and was coming to the rebbe's davening and so on and so forth, was coming to the rebbe's farbrengens I don't think there's anyone that thought, "Oh, what's gonna be, you know, the, the Chassidishe Rebbe that was gonna pass away." Not a, not a, not a chance. That didn't enter our minds.

43:25 Speaker 1 Do you think that maybe the, the certainty of Moshiach coming was a way to, um, cope with the fact that the Rebbe-

43:35 Speaker 2 We didn't have to cope with it. We didn't, we didn't think about that. We didn't think of it in that, those terms, those-

43:40 Speaker 1 No, but I'm saying if you look back at it.

43:41 Speaker 2 Oh, look back at it? No. I think it was real. We really believed that Rebbe Moshiach was coming. We, we really believed it. It was real. It was very real.

43:49 Speaker 1 Right.

43:50 Speaker 2 Again, remember, the Rebbe said it every Shabbos by bringing it for, for... It could be a sicha, it could be the end of the sicha for t- forty minutes, the Rebbe was just talking about, uh, uh, the, just the brachos, just the, uh, Moshiach, you know, j- just forget about the re- the rest of the sicha, just the end of the sicha for thirty-five minutes, the Rebbe's just going on and on about just Moshiach coming, and on Shmaaya, Renus, Kerenu, just could go on for 20 minutes.

44:13 Speaker 1 Right.

44:13 Speaker 2 It was a, it was a building. It was like s- It was, you know, we, we lived. It came, the, the RaAD came out Motzei Shabbos, and the, and the techin Chatzos on Sunday, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, uh, you know, the Mugdi Kesich on Wednesday or whatever. It was, it was something we lived with. We was real.

44:28 Speaker 1 Right.

44:28 Speaker 2 We really lived with, with this belief, with everything the Rebbe said Shabbos was, was real. And, and we, we not just learned it, we did it. We did what the Rebbe asked us to do. We, we, we, we, we... You know, it was something that was... And, uh, you know, and when, uh, when Chabad happened, it was, it was very, uh, very challenging.

44:51 Speaker 1 You were there?

44:53 Speaker 2 I was actually on shlichus in Boston. We, um... So my s- Half my class went on shlichus ear- I went earlier. I went a year earlier, and the most of the, the rest of the cla- cla- the rest of the guys went la- after in Gimel, but I went in the Beis. We actually went on shlichus only Achav Gezrin. The day we arrived on shlichus, we found out, when we got to Boston, we found out the Rebbe gave out a koitz. It was like, our shlichus was, like, very unique. We had Nachum Greenwald as our Rosh Yeshiva. Uh, Rabbi Cement was the menaal of the Yeshiva. It was a very interesting shlichus, to say the least.

45:27 Speaker 1 How many, how many of, how many of you were there?

45:29 Speaker 2 Um, I think ten, ten guys. I don't know. Ten, 12 guys.

45:33 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

45:34 Speaker 2 Um, and, uh, when I heard the Rebbe had a stroke, I mean, no one knew what was going on, but I actually called, uh, a cousin of mine in Al Salah, told me what was going on. And, um, I, uh, I immediately wanted to, uh, leave to New York, but I didn't have a driver's license, and I had no way of getting to New York, and the flights were finished already. So I, I just-

45:53 Speaker 1 Why? So you found that at night?

45:55 Speaker 2 Yeah, it was already night, so I couldn't, I couldn't go to New York, but I, uh, jumped on a pla- on a 7:00 AM.

46:02 Speaker 1 On a plane, 7:00 AM?

46:03 Speaker 2 Yeah. Took the train to the friend-

46:05 Speaker 1 Your friends, your friends also?

46:06 Speaker 2 No. I left by myself.

46:08 Speaker 1 Uh-huh. And you ever went back to Boston?

46:13 Speaker 2 I only went back to Boston because my father forced me for, like, a week, and then I'd be done. So I went back. I think, um, I went... So when I left the, I left the Crown Heights, and, um, uh, Rabbi Cement said, "You're throwing out your... You left, you left without a meshulash, you know? You're thrown out of Yeshiva." So I said-

46:35 Speaker 1 Wait, that, that was his response?

46:36 Speaker 2 Yeah, "You left without a shulash."

46:38 Speaker 1 One second. How... He, he didn't acknowledge that maybe what you did was wrong, but he didn't understand-

46:44 Speaker 2 He said, "You're, I mean, you're le- You have to get a knas." He said, "So your knas is gonna be that you have to learn-"

46:49 Speaker 1 One second, one second, one second.

46:50 Speaker 2 Yeah.

46:51 Speaker 1 He, he, uh, when, uh-

46:53 Speaker 2 He called my, I think he called my father. I don't know. Somehow I got the thing that, that I'm, you know, I can't come back to Yeshiva. I left Yeshiva without permission.

46:59 Speaker 1 I'm not, I'm not trying to dig into Rabbi Cement.

47:00 Speaker 2 Yeah.

47:01 Speaker 1 I, I'm, I'm saying that there was, there wasn't an understanding of, of, like, in the Yeshiva, like, something had changed drastically and like he's treating it like you went for a wedding or a birthday party without a shulash.

47:17 Speaker 2 Uh, put it this way. Like I said, he didn't-- He said, "You can't come back to Yeshiva until you deal with this. You have to get a knas." He said my knas is to sit and learn in 770, and I have to get marked, and then for two weeks, or a week and a half, two weeks, then I could come back.

47:28 Speaker 1 You had no problem with that?

47:29 Speaker 2 I I was fine with that. I didn't wanna go back at all. My father forced me to go back. I went back for a week, and I said, "This is not for me. I'm done."

47:36 Speaker 1 Why? What did you think you were gonna get in Crown Heights?

47:39 Speaker 2 No, I was just like, "What's the point?" It was pointless.

47:42 Speaker 1 What's pointless?

47:46 Speaker 2 Um, I was, I was there to, to do the Rebbe shlichus. I mean, the Rebbe, the Rebbe's sick. The Rebbe's, the Rebbe doesn't have, uh, the Rebbe can't talk, the Rebbe can't walk, the Rebbe can't, uh... I'm gonna, uh, it's-

47:58 Speaker 1 So what are you gonna do? You're gonna stop everything? What are you doing in Crown Heights?

48:02 Speaker 2 I, I parked in Simcha.

48:03 Speaker 1 No, no, but I'm saying, you're saying it's pointless to be on shlichus. What, what's-

48:06 Speaker 2 I, we're gonna be awa-- The, the whole... I mean, how could I not be there? I mean, there was... I mean, I don't know. I, I just didn't know. There was nothing to do. There was, it was, it was like shut down.

48:16 Speaker 1 Okay. That makes more sense.

48:18 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I, I went af- after... I wanted to be there. I went, I mean, we, we went to the oil every night. We, we had to get mishmeres 24 hours a day. We were, you know, we're, um, you know, I ended up just-

48:29 Speaker 1 In Crown Heights, life didn't go on as normal. In Boston, life seems like they're trying to make as if it was going as normal.

48:33 Speaker 2 Crown, I think so, yeah. I mean, I, I don't know the whole Crown Heights. I know my life didn't go on as normal.

48:37 Speaker 1 No, the buffer in 770. Life was not going.

48:39 Speaker 2 Yeah, we, we were, we were, you know, it was, it was serious. I mean, we were sitting till then, and we were finding out what's going on and, and asking the, and finding out with the doctor and the nurse. I mean, I parked myself in the chutzah for two years. I mean, I, I was, uh, you know, I bought cigarettes for, for Moshe Klein and, uh, and Gavrishinsky.

48:54 Speaker 1 What does parking... Yeah, and?

48:56 Speaker 2 I was there. I was, whatever was going on, I, I, I, I was there, you know. I mean, I was, I learned Smicha actually in the same, those years.

49:03 Speaker 1 You were learning, you were actually learning while this was happening?

49:06 Speaker 2 Yeah. I learned Smicha. I mean, I was in 770.

49:08 Speaker 1 You were able to learn?

49:09 Speaker 2 I do. I didn't, uh... Again, I'm not talking about day one, but it was, goes on, you know. It's two years.

49:17 Speaker 1 Right. Right. You just wanted to be around.

49:20 Speaker 2 Yeah. Initially, I just felt I had to be there.

49:23 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

49:24 Speaker 2 And, um, and, uh, yeah, we were, I mean, it's, uh, it was-

49:29 Speaker 1 You thought you were gonna be of help, or you, you just thought that you have to be there?

49:32 Speaker 2 Um, again, I was, I think I was a little of help. I felt like I was of help just helping those that were helping, you know. Like I said, just even to go buy cigarettes for Gavrishinsky and Moshe Klein was just, uh, just make su- get, get them whatever, just in, just being there, just whatever I could, you know, be connected in somehow, some way.

49:49 Speaker 1 Right. Hmm. Yeah, so let me, let me back up for a second. You're saying that you, when you were a bachur in Yeshiva, you, in, in Alter, you used to go to every davening and every... What, what was, what was that-

50:03 Speaker 2 I mean, as much as we could and say that. I mean-

50:04 Speaker 1 What was that doing for you personally? What was that doing for you?

50:08 Speaker 2 We just, we, uh, just being in the Rebbe's presence. We wanted to be in the Rebbe's presence. I, we-

50:11 Speaker 1 Now, what did that give you? I, I'm not asking simply. I, um-

50:15 Speaker 2 I, we felt, I felt connected to the Rebbe. I felt that I, I, I just wanted to be, I just wanted to be in the Rebbe's presence. I just wanted to be way more dominant. I wanted to see, you know, I just wanted to, I wanted to be connected. I wanted to be closer to the Rebbe.

50:26 Speaker 1 No, so for example, like when I, when I was a kid, I liked to hang around my grandfather, but I also like he w- he'd give me attention, right? Like, that was part of the equation, like.

50:36 Speaker 2 The Rebbe gave us attention. The Rebbe ma-made with his hand. The Rebbe, uh-

50:40 Speaker 1 So was that part of it? You wanted, like... Uh, part of it was that the Rebbe would pa- would, would, would notice you?

50:48 Speaker 2 No one wanted to be noticed. It wasn't like that. It wasn't-

50:51 Speaker 1 No, I'm asking you

50:51 Speaker 2 ...to be noticed, but to, to, to, to connect, to lock eyes, to... I mean, if I bring him, you said l'chaim to the Rebbe, but, um, yeah, if the Rebbe made like this with the hand or he just, just, uh, uh, any, any sort of connection, just being in the Rebbe's presence. We wanted to be as many, m-many, as much time as possible spent with the Rebbe where-

51:10 Speaker 1 Why?

51:12 Speaker 2 It was like, he was like our, our everything. He was our father or-

51:16 Speaker 1 Yeah, but nobody wants to-

51:16 Speaker 2 Our-

51:16 Speaker 1 ...spend all the time with their father

51:18 Speaker 2 It was, the Rebbe-

51:18 Speaker 1 Unless their father's passed away

51:19 Speaker 2 ...the Rebbe was, the Rebbe was mesmerizing. The Rebbe was invigorating. The Rebbe was, was, uh, was, uh, our everything.

51:26 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

51:30 Speaker 2 We, we, every, every bocher felt like that, that the Rebbe's, that the Rebbe's talking to them, that the Rebbe wa- is encouraging them, the Rebbe... The Rebbe was, was, was very, it was, he, he, he, he w- we, we, every... I, I speak for myself at least. I mean, I felt that, that I, I'm connected to the Rebbe, that, that the Rebbe's encouraging me to go on mission, that Rebbe's saying l'chaim to me, the Rebbe's, Rebbe's giving, giving us, uh, marching orders, and, and we're, we're in his army. We're, we're, we're, uh... And if I could be in the Rebbe's army, that's, uh, what's, what's bigger than that? If I could, if I could be the Rebbe's soldier.

52:04 Speaker 1 Hmm. Hmm. So you... So after, after Choson Adar, you spend a couple years.

52:26 Speaker 2 Yeah, so I was in seven seventy. I learned, I, I got, I got, uh, I got officially into seven seventy. I don't know how. I don't know how that happened, if I left Shluchas and, and Rabbi Raskin took me in. I guess because I already he already sent me-

52:38 Speaker 1 But wait, wait

52:38 Speaker 2 ...to Rabbi Raskin to, to get to, for the knas. So maybe I was like already in, in his-

52:43 Speaker 1 So seven seventy was, was also life was going on as normal then? All was trying to function in a normal way? Like-

52:49 Speaker 2 Yes and no. Yes and no. I mean, officially, I mean, there wasn't like... They didn't close the yeshiva down. There was Seder, and there was, you know... But, uh, it was, it w- listen, the Challah was different then. I mean, I... Like I, even Alter then, you know, I, we, when, when, when I came to Alter, we didn't show up in Alter from Thursday Chassidis till Sunday Nigela.

53:11 Speaker 1 Why?

53:12 Speaker 2 'Cause we were just hanging out in seven seventy. We didn't, we didn't show up-

53:14 Speaker 1 There was no Seder?

53:16 Speaker 2 It was so, it was so different, you know. Uh, once a, once a year, you know-

53:20 Speaker 1 But what happened on Thursday?

53:22 Speaker 2 No, from Thursday night, we just moved in seven seventy. Why, why-

53:24 Speaker 1 Oh, you're saying Thursday night after Seder.

53:26 Speaker 2 Even, even sometimes we would skip Seder, Chassidis on Thursday night, you know. And, and-

53:29 Speaker 1 And what's going on Thursday?

53:30 Speaker 2 And we just sitting, learning in seven seventy. We'll instead of hang out or farbrengen, we just, we just-

53:34 Speaker 1 And, and Friday? Friday's with Friday.

53:35 Speaker 2 Friday, yeah, on Friday, we didn't show up to Seder.

53:37 Speaker 1 Friday's with Seder.

53:38 Speaker 2 Sorry, no, no Seder. No one showed up to Seder.

53:40 Speaker 1 Right.

53:41 Speaker 2 The Beis Midrash was empty.

53:42 Speaker 1 Right. And then Shabbos is a farbrengen.

53:44 Speaker 2 Shabbos, forget about it. Even though it was officially Seder, no one went to Seder. We were in seven-

53:47 Speaker 1 Why? Where would you go?

53:48 Speaker 2 We were in seven, seven seventy. We're gonna miss a ma'ariv? When we... What? Not, not a chance. I mean-

53:52 Speaker 1 Right. And then Sunday?

53:55 Speaker 2 No, Sunday, I guess, you know, either, either we... You sh- you know, you showed up either to Nigela or you showed up to Chassidis, whatever.

54:01 Speaker 1 Or, or you-

54:01 Speaker 2 I mean, it depends how m- how big you were into Shmiras HaStam, but I'm saying that-

54:04 Speaker 1 How big into you were Sunday

54:04 Speaker 2 ...it was no big deal if a guy didn't come to yeshiva from Thursday, uh, night Chassidis until S- Sunday Nigela. It wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like-

54:12 Speaker 1 Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

54:14 Speaker 2 But we weren't hanging out in Manhattan. We were, we were in seven seventy hanging out, learning and farbrengen. We're just without the rebbe. We were, you know, we... Like I said, you know, like Thursday night, we would go give out the liquor in Bar Park. And we just... It wasn't... It was a different world. We were in a different... It wasn't... It was a different system. It was a different time.

54:31 Speaker 1 Right. You think it was... Looking back, you think it was healthy what was going on then?

54:37 Speaker 2 Healthy? Again, you know, was it healthy that we were drinking at fourteen? I mean-

54:42 Speaker 1 I think that's obviously not healthy. I mean, I don't think that's, uh, up for debate.

54:46 Speaker 2 It, it, you know, there, there are different people get, get, uh, affected in different ways. And s-some people's, it's very, probably wasn't, wasn't good, and some people it was very good.

54:57 Speaker 1 Right.

54:58 Speaker 2 Everyone's different. Everyone, everyone's a different person. So some people, the fact that there, there was, there was no boundaries and the, and there was no Seder was probably a negative thing and, and maybe gave them too much freedom, which causes a bad thing. For some people, it was amazing.

55:11 Speaker 1 Right. Right. So you're saying you, you spent a lot of time in seven seventy?

55:18 Speaker 2 Yeah, just hanging out with Zalman the Shicker.

55:21 Speaker 1 Uh, this, this sounds very healthy. I, I don't know who Zalman the Shicker is.

55:25 Speaker 2 You don't know who Zalman the Shicker is?

55:26 Speaker 1 Maybe I do. Remind me.

55:28 Speaker 2 Zalman was a seer in seven seventy with his bottles, sat there and he just drank. Zalman the Shicker.

55:34 Speaker 1 Like, like an actual shicker?

55:36 Speaker 2 Zalman was a real shicker, yeah.

55:37 Speaker 1 From where? Like he-

55:37 Speaker 2 He was from Newark. Like he's, he's there hanging out in the bar, like in the sh- in the, in the, in the yeshiva in Newark from years ago, and he was like a songwriter, they say, that he made money from, like, songs that he would sing.

55:48 Speaker 1 And so-

55:48 Speaker 2 And he's just a sit... And sometimes he was sober for a month or two, but he-

55:52 Speaker 1 What does hanging... Uh, uh, and I ask this, I ask this with sincerity. What does hanging out with Zalman the Shicker have to do with bringing Moshiah? Uh, that's what I'm trying to understand here

56:00 Speaker 2 'Cause Zamana Sheker, I mean, we, we used to farbrengen with him, used to hang out with him. He used to say, he would say beautiful... He would say amazing stuff. I mean, it wasn't just sit with him-

56:08 Speaker 1 No, it sounds like, it sounds like a lot of fun

56:09 Speaker 2 We were learning. I'm saying we were learning. Uh, it wasn't just sitting there, uh, hanging out with Zamana Sheker. I'm saying it was one of the things we did was, was sit and talk to Zamana Sheker a little, you know?

56:17 Speaker 1 No, it sounds like a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but my question is what's that have to do with, with this era that you're talking to me about, about bringing Mashiach over here?

56:27 Speaker 2 Um, bringing Mashiach. No, Zamana Sheker has nothing to do with bringing Mashiach.

56:30 Speaker 1 Right.

56:30 Speaker 2 That was just, that was just hanging out.

56:32 Speaker 1 So actually, okay. I mean, look, at the end of the day, everybody's human, I understand. It was-

56:36 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, we were very human.

56:39 Speaker 1 Here, here's my question. My question is how much of this narrative of whether it's the Chaf's or the Lamed's or the Mem's, when people look back at time and they say, "In those days, this is what used to happen."

56:51 Speaker 2 Nostalgia.

56:53 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah, it's nostalgia, and it's also just this, this narrative building where, like, this is what we, you know-

56:59 Speaker 2 And-

56:59 Speaker 1 We were all enwrap- we were all wrapped up in Mashiach. Mashiach was coming. Like, that was our whole life.

57:05 Speaker 2 But does that-- Did anyone say otherwise? All the people that you interviewed did-

57:08 Speaker 1 No, no, I, I'm not, I'm not trying to disprove you. I'm, I'm just saying in general, like, but when you, when you dig deep, when you dig into the details and it's like, yeah, we used to sit with the-- we used to sit with Zamana Sheker, which is what happens in seven seventy today, like, you know, people just kind of doing stuff. Like, it's you know what I'm saying? Like the, like you, you, you pull the threads a little bit and maybe people will call this cynicism, but like but so it, I-I-I'll, I'll take a step back for a second. Whenever anybody, myself, I look back at last year. Let's say I, I make a heshebon, whether it's a heshebon on nefesh or I make a heshebon of business, whatever it is. I look back at the past year. I r- I have a narrative about the past year, which inevitably takes, whatever, a hundred data points from the whole year and constructs a story. That I was busy that month. That month was a great month. That week was a great week. That trip was a successful trip, and so on. I forget all the other stuff 'cause we don't remember everything.

58:11 Speaker 2 Right.

58:11 Speaker 1 So I forget, I forget the annoyances of the trip. I forget the ups and downs and the uncertainties and how I thought that month was terrible until I realized it was great. I forget all of that, and I come up with a more simplistic kind of narrative about what happened. And that was just a year ago. Forget about forty years ago, and forget about a decade, and forget about a decade that was experienced as, like, a collective whole.

58:31 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

58:32 Speaker 1 So, you know, you talk about, like, in the Mem's we were or in the Nun you were, like, super this, and, like, it was a time that, like, y-you can't imagine what it was like. But so a lot of what you're talking about-

58:44 Speaker 2 Listen

58:44 Speaker 1 ... I can imagine. I can imagine exactly what it was like to sit with Zamana Sheker.

58:48 Speaker 2 Yeah. Listen, every-everything till Chazaal and other, and a-- before and after i-is, is very different. There's, there's a fine line right there. So you wanna say that, that, uh, the Chaf's were, were just like Mem Chez and the Lamed? That could very be. It well be. I wasn't there. And, and it could be that that... And, and from the videos, it could be very to that, to the, to them it was the same way. And, and I'm not saying... I'm not putting it down in any way, shape, or form. And again, I wasn't there, and I, I just see the videos. And it could very well be, and that, that's a very, could be a very fair and true statement that every Bochur that was by the Rebbe, those years by the Rebbe were the best years, a hundred percent. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not... I'm, I'm happy to admit that. That, that's not the point. But to-- But I, I truly believe that, that being in the Rebbe's presence, if you were present, if that was what you wanted to do, if you, if you kochts from the Rebbe's farbrengen, and you were there, and you learnt it over, and you, and you really did what the Rebbe wanted, and, and you lived with the Rebbe, th-there's nothing like that.

59:47 Speaker 1 Yeah.

59:47 Speaker 2 Regardless of the year, whether it was Lamed or, or Mem Chez or whatever it was. There's no-- There's nothing, there was n-- there's nothing, no one could say that, you know, that in, in, in Samech, in, in Chabad, in Tof Shin Ayin, that no. There's nothing. There's nothing compares to that.

1:00:03 Speaker 1 No, I, I'm not trying to d-- I'm not trying to say that it's n- that it's nothing. I'm not trying to say it's nothing. I'm not even trying to say that it's not everything, like the way you're describing it. I mean, maybe I am. I-- What I'm trying to say is that we, you, we, we like we paint a picture of a certain, uh, kind of inspiration or, like, that time was different. I-- We, we felt different about things back then. And, and we do that all the time to ourselves. Like, how, how much of it is real and how much of it is just the way we remember it is all, is all I'm saying.

1:00:34 Speaker 2 I mean, to, to be honest with you, I think, I think-

1:00:36 Speaker 1 There's a difference, of course, the Rebbe was alive then and, and not today. Of course, there's a difference. I'm not trying to say that it's not a thing, but, but the way people experience the world-

1:00:46 Speaker 2 I think a person could now, even today, feel like that, that, that they're just in, in it the same way and just as dedicated and that, that they're definitely bringing Mashiach. I don't know if someone could have that same Emunah that Mashiach's coming right now like you had when the Rebbe was alive and, and the Rebbe says Mashiach's coming and so on. And it, it's just very hard to recreate that, that, uh, cer-- that, that, uh, atmosphere. But I think if a person's serious about, about doing what the Rebbe wants and is dedicated to the Rebbe's mission and, and to God, that the person could feel like this, have, have that same, uh, excitement about, about, about, you know, about Yiddishkeit and about Mashiach, about Chassidus and so on today. I mean, I don't think, I don't think it's impossible. I think it's... I, I... Again, it's maybe hard for people. I don't, I don't-- I can't relate to someone who didn't s-- you know, live with the Rebbe and, and be in that level. But again, everyone's different. I mean, I guess, you know, like I guess it's possible. I don't know.

1:01:46 Speaker 1 Yeah, everybody's different. How did you and your friends talk about the stroke?

1:01:53 Speaker 2 That, that was very, very challenging times. I mean, everyone, we were lost. I mean, it was like everything we believed in, everything that we knew was, was, was Was, or everything was, was all gone. It was all shattered. I mean, it was impossible. How... The Rebbe can't walk, the Rebbe can't talk, the Rebbe w- Uh, how does that... It doesn't even make sense. The Rebbe's Mashech, the Rebbe's... Or everything the Rebbe's, uh, it, it was, it was, was very, very confusing, very dark, very, um, very complicated.

1:02:19 Speaker 1 But were you confused together? Like, were you able to talk to each other? Was it one of those things where, like, like you're able-

1:02:24 Speaker 2 I don't think there was a lot of conversation, you know, clear, you know, maybe hints, but I don't think people spoke openly and said, "Okay, you know, what's gonna happen now?" I, I think people were quiet, kept it s- kept it-

1:02:36 Speaker 1 No, but even, like, to process, like, what it, what it, what happened. Forget about what's gonna happen next. Like, like would you, you would-- did you refer to it as a stroke with your friends?

1:02:45 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, I was there. I knew every, every, I knew-- I was there, and I knew unfortunately too much about what was really going on. You know, I was friends with Moshe Klein, and I, I, I, I had-

1:02:55 Speaker 1 Yeah, it was much worse on the inside than on the outside, so.

1:02:57 Speaker 2 I, I knew, uh, the, the bad and the ugly. I mean, I don't wanna get, I don't even wanna-

1:03:01 Speaker 1 No, we're not s-

1:03:02 Speaker 2 Repeat any of that. I don't think I could.

1:03:05 Speaker 1 No, this is not a podcast for, for dirty, for, for, for gossiping.

1:03:08 Speaker 2 No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about push the Rebbe's health.

1:03:10 Speaker 1 Oh, oh, oh.

1:03:11 Speaker 2 I'm not talking about the... No, I'm talking about the Rebbe's health situation. I'm talking about what, what the Rebbe went through from Chabad another, what physical, what, what, what, you know, the... I mean, I don't, again, I don't wanna talk about it.

1:03:21 Speaker 1 No, I, I'm not pressing you on that. I mean, look, a, a stroke is a terrible thing.

1:03:26 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, I mean, there was, there was a, you know, a v- it was a very, there was... If everyone knew what went on, again, not the Rebbe's care. I'm talking about what the Rebbe's physical health, what, what happened with the Rebbe day to day from Chabad another. The Rebbe... It's not, it's not, uh, not something that people could handle, I don't think.

1:03:51 Speaker 1 You think people can't handle it?

1:03:53 Speaker 2 It, uh, the, the truth of what went on there was not, yeah, it was not good.

1:03:59 Speaker 1 But what were people, what, what did people think was going on there?

1:04:02 Speaker 2 No one knew. No, who knew? No one, no one, till this day, really, most people don't know what was going on there. The, it was, it's not what people think. I mean, you get-

1:04:12 Speaker 1 But-

1:04:12 Speaker 2 You have an idea, but you don't know. I mean, you s-

1:04:14 Speaker 1 Right

1:04:14 Speaker 2 ... you only know what you s- you know. You only know that the Rebbe came out the first time on, on this date and, and, and, uh-

1:04:20 Speaker 1 Right

1:04:21 Speaker 2 ... you know, but you don't know what, what happened when the Rebbe was, wasn't coming out or why the Rebbe came out, or why he didn't come out, or when it c- you know, all these things were not known.

1:04:28 Speaker 1 Right.

1:04:28 Speaker 2 Or not known.

1:04:29 Speaker 1 And so some people knew about it, and most people didn't.

1:04:32 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:04:32 Speaker 1 That was the setup?

1:04:33 Speaker 2 I think so.

1:04:34 Speaker 1 And that was by design?

1:04:36 Speaker 2 Uh, by design was, I think they didn't want anyone. No one w- They didn't want anyone to know what was, was going on. There was a lot of, a lot of mis-

1:04:42 Speaker 1 Who's they?

1:04:42 Speaker 2 ... dis- disinformation, uh, maskiris, um, um, uh, go- I don't know.

1:04:47 Speaker 1 What do you think the motivation for that was?

1:04:50 Speaker 2 Um, so people shouldn't be, the, despondent, depressed. They shouldn't give up. They shouldn't, uh, they should stick with the program.

1:04:57 Speaker 1 So did you think-- so you being this bachur who's caught in this space where you know more than you're supposed to know, do you begin to sense that there's a messaging war going on and some people, like, like...

1:05:14 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, this is, this is where it started. This is where, you know, the, the break off from the Misrachistim, the anti-Misrachistim, like, you know, the Misrachistim wanna just make believe everything's hunky dory and everything's b- amazing and, and, uh, everything's beautiful. I mean, this is where it all began. This is where it begins the, the, the break, the, the, you know.

1:05:30 Speaker 1 No, but as individually, do you begin to, like... So, so you were, you were saying, okay, like this narrative of, of everything's great is I know it's not true, so I, I can't go with that. You're saying that's how you reacted to it?

1:05:42 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:05:44 Speaker 1 Oh.

1:05:45 Speaker 2 Especially as the time go- went on and it got worse and worse.

1:05:48 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:05:48 Speaker 2 And let's say after Chabad another, Nidalit, I mean, we all, the people that knew what was going on, at a certain point, we knew that it's not, you know, that it's much worse than, than this. Terrible, you know?

1:05:59 Speaker 1 How did you make sense then of, of the minus that people were getting then?

1:06:04 Speaker 2 After Chabad another, Nidalit?

1:06:05 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, but no-

1:06:05 Speaker 2 After Chabad another, Nidalit, there was not one minus.

1:06:07 Speaker 1 No, no, no, I know. Before.

1:06:11 Speaker 2 Again, there were times where the Rebbe, we saw the Rebbe. You could see the times where the Rebbe was, was very, very, uh, in, into it, you know. Uh, I'm not saying... Listen, there was good days and bad days. It wasn't all bad, or it wasn't all good. And I, I truly believe that the Rebbe did answer, you know, the Rebbe was, was, did give answers. I don't know, you know, if, if, uh, if some, some things were manipulated or not. Remember, the Rebbe couldn't speak, so you could, you know, it's not, it was pretty, if someone wanted to manipulate, it was not so hard to manipulate. I mean, if you get into all the manipulations, there was definitely-

1:06:43 Speaker 1 No

1:06:43 Speaker 2 ... a lot of manipulations. We're not gonna get into that. But, but did, did, did the Rebbe answer questions? The Rebbe, sure, the Rebbe answered questions. I mean, a hundred percent. Again, not every, not all the time was the Rebbe in that position to be able to answer questions, but the times that he was, he was, yeah.

1:06:57 Speaker 1 Yeah, 'cause you're painting a picture for me. Without getting into the, you know, the, the different sides and who's right and who's wrong, uh, you know, no need to relitigate these, the, these debates all over again unless you want to specifically.

1:07:10 Speaker 2 No.

1:07:10 Speaker 1 But, um, it's a picture of where basically, uh, reality is like completely, um, confused, and everybody has to like make sense of it on their own. You know, like is, is, is a minor actually a minor, right? Is, is, is, is, is, is what they're telling me actually what they're telling me? Like, like everything is, everything is so-

1:07:35 Speaker 2 I'll give, I'll give you an example, you know, you know, after, after, after Chabad another, Nidalit, and then you-

1:07:43 Speaker 1 For those listening, for those who are not familiar, I mean, some aren't, uh, Chabad, Chabad another, Nidalit was exactly two years after the first stroke. There was a second more severe stroke.

1:07:51 Speaker 2 Was basically a blowout. I mean-

1:07:54 Speaker 1 A, a more severe stroke

1:07:55 Speaker 2 ... that there, there was nothing left. That there was, it was knock, a knockout. I don't wanna say the words, but, you know, you know what I mean. There was, there was, it was, there was nothing going on after Chabad another, Nidalit.

1:08:04 Speaker 1 Right.

1:08:05 Speaker 2 And, you know, and at a certain point, they had the, the testing, and they did it, and they saw what was going on. It, it was a week later or whatever. And, and you know, those people-

1:08:13 Speaker 1 The Rebbe was in the hospital from Chof Zayin Adar to Nissan?

1:08:15 Speaker 2 Till he passed away.

1:08:16 Speaker 1 To the end?

1:08:16 Speaker 2 Till the month of Nissan.

1:08:16 Speaker 1 He never came back to 770 after that, right?

1:08:18 Speaker 2 No, no, no, no.

1:08:19 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:08:20 Speaker 2 There was-- came to, to the hospital I think a week before Chof Zayin Adar to Nissan or a couple days before. They've had a stroke in the hospital.

1:08:25 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

1:08:26 Speaker 2 Um, and, um, so people would come over to me and say, you know, "Oh, you know, it's gonna be good. Moshiach is coming," whatever. And I would look at them like they're crazy. I'd say, "Do, do you know what's going on? Do you... Are you out of your mind?" He said, "What do you mean? Moshiach could come. A miracle could happen." I said, "You have a miracle happen. 100% a miracle could happen, but, but, you know, bederech hateva that this is not... There's no... This is past miracle stage here right now." And so there was, you know, a different... You know, there was at a certain point, you know, there was, there was, um... Again, and then no one la-- It's not like at that point we said, "Okay, we're not, we're not frum anymore. We're not, we're not learning. We're not..." We kept on saying Tehillim, and we kept on doing. But, but when you know certain information, it's very hard to, to divorce yourself from that, that information. You can't, you can't go on and, and, and, you know, dance, you know? It's not, it's not dancing mode.

1:09:17 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, I mean, I would, I would just... I would imagine that their argument was that Moshiach was always something limayta min hateva. Right? So, so I mean-

1:09:26 Speaker 2 Right. That I said, "Of course Moshiach could come." But, but, but the, the Moshiach that we knew, that Moshiach's coming tomorrow because here we have a Moshiach right here, and, uh, it's ma- that, that, that-

1:09:35 Speaker 1 Uh-huh

1:09:35 Speaker 2 ... that, that's like ended, you know?

1:09:37 Speaker 1 Right. And that ended already with the first stroke?

1:09:41 Speaker 2 No, more Chof Zayin Adar. Remember, we all... We, we hope. We, we still believe that, you know-

1:09:46 Speaker 1 You believed from everything that you knew-

1:09:47 Speaker 2 Till Chof Zayin Adar, I think so.

1:09:50 Speaker 1 You believed that things-

1:09:50 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:09:50 Speaker 1 ... would turn around?

1:09:51 Speaker 2 Yeah. We hope-

1:09:52 Speaker 1 With every, with everything that you knew?

1:09:54 Speaker 2 I don't know if it was hold-- grabbing onto strings, but yes, we do-- we maybe we refused to not believe, you know?

1:10:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. 'Cause I remember I saw a video. I'm not gonna name any names. I saw a video, um, I saw a video of, uh, I think there was a farbrengen right after Chof Zayin Adar, nun beis, the first stroke. They had a, they had a farbrengen in 770.

1:10:15 Speaker 2 Wow.

1:10:15 Speaker 1 And they had Dr. Weiss come down and give, give an update of some kind of, of Rebbe's health.

1:10:23 Speaker 2 Zunt.

1:10:23 Speaker 1 Yeah. And one of the mashpiyim basically, like, tells Dr. Weiss, like, "Say these words." Like, "Rebbe's gonna be 100% okay. Like, say these words, exactly these words." And you can see that the doctor's like... First of all, he's like surrounded . It's kind of intense. You know, he's surrounded by people that are, like, demanding him say certain things, and but he's also a doctor, and like he, you know, has certain kind of like, "I have to be honest." And, like, he's trying to get himself out of the predicament. And, like, to me it's, it's like, why? Like, maybe this mashpia thinks that if a doctor says in 770 it's gonna be kveyach something limayleh, maybe? I don't know. But the more cynical and more obvious interpretation is that, like, there's a bunch of Bochurim here, and they need to hear X, Y, Z about the Rebbe's zunt. And, like, we all think it's gonna be basically a repeat of the heart attack. Which, which is ridiculous looking back. I mean, a stroke and a heart attack are two very, very different things. And the age-

1:11:23 Speaker 2 People do come back from strokes. And again, I'm not a doctor. I don't know what kind of stroke the Rebbe had. I don't know what they did right or wrong the couple, first couple of days. But, um, but people do. I mean, we see now people come-

1:11:33 Speaker 1 At, at that age, at that age, come on.

1:11:36 Speaker 2 You know, I, I mean-

1:11:37 Speaker 1 It's not a, it's not a heart attack.

1:11:39 Speaker 2 Right.

1:11:39 Speaker 1 That's, that's, that's my point. It's, it's like, you know... But I guess, I guess at that it's easy again to judge from a distance and say like, "Uh, these people were being extreme." But at the time, maybe they didn't know that, you know?

1:11:52 Speaker 2 I think most people were naive. Um, and even again, I knew a lot, and I still, I, I still, uh, we still... Even the people that were in the know really bel- hoped and prayed and believed that the Rebbe would have, of course, somehow be a miraculous re-recovery or, you know, the, the, the therapy, this, that, you know. We, we were grabbing onto strings. We were, "What should we do? Give up?" And, and, and you know, this was our whole life. We weren't giving up so fast.

1:12:17 Speaker 1 No, I, I... Look, the, the, the more I, the more I hear about it, the more I know about it, the more I understand it, okay? I mean, there's a part of me that, 'cause I, 'cause I kind of... I was born after it or I grew up after it, so yeah. Look, it's easy for me to write off the whole thing as crazy. "Well, you guys are all crazy." Um, but it's easy for me to say 'cause I don't have to unwind a lot of things that were there before. And yeah, the more I think about it, the more I hear about it, the more I understand it, for sure.

1:12:51 Speaker 2 I mean, the truth is that the fact that, that-

1:12:53 Speaker 1 If, if people would've been able to switch off so easily, then it would in a way be a bigger problem, right? Like-

1:13:00 Speaker 2 But I think it's a miracle. I think it's a miracle that, that, that, you know, the, the most of the people stayed with the program. I mean, for that, that trauma to, for that to happen to people, for, for, for people, you know, kid- Bochurim from, from thirteen to 19, whatever th-those age groups that you're in, you're... And the Rebbe, again, what was our, uh... We weren't, we weren't just, "Okay, we saw the Rebbe once a year." We were there twenty-four seven, and, and that was, we were... Again, we were, we felt like we were the Rebbe's soldiers. Not it, it was seriously, we really felt like the Rebbe was talking to us Shabbos, and we, and the Rebbe's with us on the side. And for, for, for that to happen and, and for most of the people to stay with the program and to go on and, and to wanna lead frum lives and, and go on shlichus and so on, I think it's a miracle.

1:13:47 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:13:47 Speaker 2 I, I don't think it's, I don't think it's, it's, it's... I mean, unfortunately, people did, did leave. And I, and I don't know the numbers, but I mean, right, most, ninety, 90% of the people, you know, stayed, stayed on course, which I think is, which is unbelievable testament.

1:14:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. How, how many years, how many years do you, do you, do you feel it took to begin to talk about it? Just, just... I'm talking simply about describing, like, what happened. Like, that the, you know, like you talk-- The way you're talking now about, you know, uh, th-this is, this is what was going on, even though we didn't wanna admit it at the time. Like, uh, you, it-- 'Cause to me what's so, what's so, it-- What's, what, what's so, what's so heavy for me to think about is that basically, and like you're describing one part of your life where everything is being shared with each other, right? You're sharing this, you know, the, the late mems, the farbrengens, what the Rebbe's talking about, the even zamn the shofar. Like, all the experiences are shared together. You can talk about it together, right? Like, the same way a, a couple that's getting along, they can talk, they can talk about... It's very easy to talk about the things that are enjoyable and easy, right? And so, and so it's like a virtuous cycle. Because things are good, you talk about it, and you share it with each other, and that keeps things going good.

1:15:15 Speaker 1 But then when things go bad, so you s-

1:15:17 Speaker 2 There is-

1:15:18 Speaker 1 You, you, you, you not only are suffering from the thing that's bad-

1:15:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. But-

1:15:21 Speaker 1 You are suffering on your own.

1:15:22 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:15:23 Speaker 1 You, you're not even sharing it with other people.

1:15:25 Speaker 2 W- w- most people, I think, did not, again, du- during those two years, did not talk about it.

1:15:29 Speaker 1 So that's what I'm asking. When did you start-

1:15:30 Speaker 2 It was very difficult. Um, it, it took a, it took a long time. I don't think, I don't, I don't think for four years. Four years. Again, me, myself, I can talk about myself. I don't think-

1:15:41 Speaker 1 But you're a group of people.

1:15:42 Speaker 2 I don't think, I don't think that we had discussions about this till years later. Years later. I, I, again, trying to think, uh, I don't know, now that, uh... Maybe four or five years later, we would-- I'd be able to, to ha- have a short conversation or a fabreig, talk to, boch-- you know, fabreig with bochurim about it. It was, it was a very difficult, uh, thing to talk about. So I, I, again, I don't even know, I don't even know if till today, you s- we've sat down with our, with our, our friends, our classmates, and just sat down and, and, and, and just go through that, like, in a, for a long period of time, like, to really work through that. Uh, I don't think it's happened till today.

1:16:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's 32 years later. You think it would be useful if it happened today or it's just-

1:16:33 Speaker 2 Nnn-

1:16:33 Speaker 1 ... not worth it?

1:16:34 Speaker 2 I don't think so. I don't know. I don't think what good could come from it. I don't think, I don't know what kind of good is gonna come from it.

1:16:40 Speaker 1 But I don't-

1:16:40 Speaker 2 There's no answers. I mean, it's not a, it's not a rosy picture. It's not a rosy end.

1:16:44 Speaker 1 No, but it's-

1:16:44 Speaker 2 I don't know, I don't know that there's anyone that could tell you that, oh, that the, uh,

1:16:52 Speaker 1 No, but not every... Yes, fair. Estalkus is a real... You s- you saw that I was... Spoke about estalkus in Basse de Gani. It's, it's, it's, it's not, it's not... There's no way to sugarcoat it. Um, even though in the moment I was trying to find the positive of it, and estalkus-

1:17:07 Speaker 2 Listen, it took, it took me many years to, to, to, uh, uh, appreciate that, you know, that, that, that there's actually something to look forward to. That, you know, that there's something that, that, uh, goes on. I mean, for, uh, right away, it was something like, you know, my life is over. I mean, there's no point, there's no point in anything. But-

1:17:24 Speaker 1 You're talking about Gemal Thomas.

1:17:26 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, uh, uh, it, it... But when I-

1:17:29 Speaker 1 Let's understand, how old were you?

1:17:31 Speaker 2 I was, um, Gemal Thomas?

1:17:34 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:17:34 Speaker 2 I was, like, 22. 20? 22? I don't know.

1:17:37 Speaker 1 You thought your life was over?

1:17:40 Speaker 2 Uh, again, though, even from Chof Tzadik Adar, I mean, how could, how could you want to live? I mean, it doesn't... Yeah. I don't... It immediately... I think maybe more Chof Tzadik Adar than Gemal Thomas 'cause I had two years to process it. And again, I knew what was going on.

1:17:55 Speaker 1 So Chof Tzadik, Chof Tzadik Adar, in a way, was harder for you?

1:17:56 Speaker 2 Yeah. Much harder.

1:17:58 Speaker 1 Huh.

1:18:00 Speaker 2 But Gemal Thomas, it was already processed. It was already, you know. It just happened that I started working for Aleph right before Gemal Thomas, like, right, um, Pesach time. Pesach, between Pesach and summer. So I was busy visiting prisons, and it was-

1:18:13 Speaker 1 Why, why, why did you take it up then?

1:18:16 Speaker 2 Because there was nothing going on. I mean, it was, uh, it was, you know, I learned Smicha, I finished, and then-

1:18:20 Speaker 1 No, but the, the... At Chof Tzadik Adar, you had left Shlichas to be-

1:18:24 Speaker 2 Oh, why did I take on? Uh, I mean, I still wanted to do what I ever wanted to do. I mean, and, and it just so happened. I didn't know. I mean, it was... You know, I was looking to do something. Shlichas actually interviewed, like, a couple other shluchim,

1:18:39 Speaker 1 You were m- you weren't married then yet.

1:18:40 Speaker 2 No, I was a bocher.

1:18:41 Speaker 1 Right.

1:18:42 Speaker 2 And, um, and I started visiting, I started visiting prisons, and, uh, that, that just, uh, talked to me, and it was, like, I saw the real need and the pain and the so on. And, um, I channeled my energy into that, and that, I think, you know, was a real- really helpful for me. But even that, it was difficult. I mean, it was difficult even between the pain of, of what, what I went through and, and, and just the pain of seeing people in prison was, was actually very, very difficult. I had to actually see a therapist.

1:19:08 Speaker 1 Really?

1:19:08 Speaker 2 It helped me.

1:19:08 Speaker 1 Back then?

1:19:09 Speaker 2 Back then. I mean, but I got lucky. I went to Dallas to visit. I went to visit prisons in Texas, and it was by Mendel DeRosky, and he had this guy in his shul, a guy named Sean Nash, who was just one of these guys that, that, uh, you know, walked you through it, and he, he helped me cope with the, just the dealing with all that, that stress and the anxiety, and he taught me how to deal with it.

1:19:26 Speaker 1 So he was the first person you spoke to about Chof Tzadik Adar?

1:19:29 Speaker 2 I don't know if I spoke more of Chof Tzadik Adar. I don't know if it was specifically about Chof Tzadik Adar or more about just, uh, the seeing the pain of people in prison and-

1:19:37 Speaker 1 Uh-huh

1:19:38 Speaker 2 ... dealing with it, how you can help that, they can-

1:19:40 Speaker 1 So you didn't speak about the other pain?

1:19:41 Speaker 2 I don't think so. No, not really.

1:19:44 Speaker 1 Yeah. That, that to me is, like, thinking about it. You said what, what, what good comes out of... Look, I can't tell you what good would come out of speaking to your friends. It's your pickle, not mine. I'm not gonna tell you how to deal with it, you know? Um, but the, the thing that's heaviest to me is just the fact that you're telling me that to this day, everybody's carrying around whatever burden it is all by themselves.

1:20:06 Speaker 2 I, I don't think that anyone really dealt with it pro-- I, I-

1:20:09 Speaker 1 So that's a good that comes out of it. I'm not, like, I'm not telling you what to do, but you're asking what good come out... What you're asking what kind of good come out of it. That's a good that come out of it. Not everything has to be a solution that we're gonna fix it. But, but talking... And also not talking the sake of talking and just getting it out. Although I think we say, we say in, uh, Yomi Yemo or whatever, Chazez talks about the dag- dagas, uh, dagas adam yasich v'cham, right?

1:20:31 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:20:32 Speaker 1 Right? There's something about-

1:20:32 Speaker 2 Dag v'lei v'yasich adam.

1:20:34 Speaker 1 Right. So I forget the exact expression, but there's something about sharing your concerns with another person. But, you know, talking for the sake of talking, but, but al- but part of that is, a big part of that is, is that you're not in this alone. Like, like there's someone else who, who's holding this like, like you are. And, and, you know, being alone in a way is the most terrifying thing. And I think in many ways, you know, I mean, in a way it kinda comes full circle to the beginning of the conversation, is that I think Being your s- being, being an individual

1:21:06 Speaker 2 If you talk about it, it could just, it just brings you to more, more suspense and more, more doubt and more-

1:21:11 Speaker 1 I'm not telling you what to do

1:21:12 Speaker 2 I, I, I don't-

1:21:12 Speaker 1 We ask you what good could come out of it.

1:21:14 Speaker 2 Right.

1:21:14 Speaker 1 I'm s- this is a good that could come out of it.

1:21:16 Speaker 2 I, it took, it took a, it took a, it took me very many years to, to, to get out of that, that mode where I'm just so confused and so lost, and I don't know what, what was, what was, what, you know, what was this... How is, how does w- how does this happen? This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't the plan. And, and, and to go-

1:21:30 Speaker 1 How did you get out of it?

1:21:32 Speaker 2 I, I found a mission. I found a purpose. I found a, I found a way to channel it into, into doing what the Rebbe wants.

1:21:39 Speaker 1 But you, you didn't find an answer.

1:21:41 Speaker 2 No, I don't have an answer. I, I mean, I, I think I, I believe my, I, the way I, I make peace with it is that the Rebbe, um, that the Rebbe gave, gave all he had. He gave it, put, put all the chips on the table. He pushed the envelope, and it didn't work. He, he tried to bring Moshiach, and he tried to do whatever he had to do, and he came up with every gimmick in the book, every, every try, anything he could try, whether it's, uh, seems, uh, uh, Sefer Torah for kids or, or it's, it's Ramam or it's this or that, uh, and screaming Yichi, and screaming, "Hinei Moshiach ba," whatever it may be, and it put all his everything, everything on there, and, and it, it didn't, didn't work.

1:22:21 Speaker 1 So then what's the point? What's the point of carrying on?

1:22:24 Speaker 2 We carry on. We, we, He gave it over to us. We have to bring Moshiach.

1:22:26 Speaker 1 Uh-huh. Right, so isn't that what he said?

1:22:30 Speaker 2 That's what he said.

1:22:31 Speaker 1 Isn't that what he said was gonna happen?

1:22:33 Speaker 2 Well, we didn't wanna believe it.

1:22:34 Speaker 1 Right. So it is according to plan.

1:22:39 Speaker 2 Uh, according to plan, but I mean, the plan, the plan, uh, one week he, he, he changed it. Every, every Shabbos was different.

1:22:46 Speaker 1 Fair, fair enough. Yeah, that, that's a point that's not discussed very often.

1:22:49 Speaker 2 Yes. That was, that was... But by the way, talk about, talk about, uh, trauma or talk about, like, a, a double life. What is it, what's it called? Uh, schizo or whatever. Every week we came back with another Yichi, not Yichi. Every... I promise you, every Shab-- every Sunday we came back to yeshiva. One week we scream Yichi, the next week we was like, "What do you mean? I was just screaming, 'Kan zei Yichi.'" You know, it was like, it was, we were, we were so confused, man. We were, we were so confused.

1:23:13 Speaker 1 Th-this is already in the good zeit in Yekdeia.

1:23:15 Speaker 2 Yeah, this is, this is already in the days before, before Kozano, before Kozano. Yeah, no, all before Kozano.

1:23:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, so I mean, like, to me, to me, like, peop- you know, people ask, "Well, what good comes out of talking about this topic?" And, you know, you, you, it, it, it opens up so many, so many boxes that have been closed and wrapped with, with tape and, and hazard, you know, the hazard tape and people... And, and, and, and I understand why, okay? 'Cause, 'cause it, it brings out so much, um, Agmas Nefesh, and it brings up Pirdei Levavos and disagreements and all kinds of things. And in many ways, I suppose it was a good, it's a good thing to, to stay away from that kind of nuclear material.

1:23:58 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:23:58 Speaker 1 Okay? But at the same time, what you end up having is a community of people who claim to be in the same boat, and everyone is living in their own world, which everyone always does, but here it's, like, taken to a whole 'nother level. Like, like, like, everybody's processing things in ways that, like... And, and, and you can't even talk about it, so you're, you're, you're, you, you, you are a comp... You, you have to deal with it all on your own. That's, that's like a double kind of, that's a double kind of, of, that's a double kind of pain. It's a, it's not just about pain, it's-

1:24:34 Speaker 2 Again, you know, I can't talk for other people, but for me, I've, I've been able to move on. Not move on, but been able to, to channel my... And, and not, and not be in that, that deer in headlights.

1:24:45 Speaker 1 Let's go somewhere.

1:24:45 Speaker 2 I'm not, I'm not a deer in headlights. And, and I don't see any reason. There's nothing good, no nothing good, no there's no purpose in going back and, and rehashing what happened or what could happen or why it happened and what-

1:24:56 Speaker 1 I'm not saying to rehash, but it, but, but it's, it's just being able to, to, to, to reconnect with each other. That's what I'm talking about.

1:25:04 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:25:05 Speaker 1 The goal is not to go back 30 years and see who was right and who was wrong, and if you're on this guy's team or that guy's team, and this guy was a schwanz, this guy... That, that, that's boring to me. Yeah, mamish boring. Like, who cares? Unless it... Like, most of it is, is completely irrelevant and just a waste of time. And I know, and, and, and, but, but-

1:25:22 Speaker 2 I know. We sit, we, our class gets together. We get together for a burial.

1:25:25 Speaker 1 So you're not talking about-

1:25:27 Speaker 2 No, but we don't, we, we don't feel, like, the need. I'm not gonna say, "Well, hear a vart there, a vart there." We don't feel the need to, to go back and, and-

1:25:33 Speaker 1 Every single one of you that I know, every single one of you that I know, I'm being a little bit, uh, f-f-- uh, being a little bit forward here, but every single one of you that I know expresses the need acutely. You say that you haven't spoken to, you have never spoken about it with each other. It's, it's something that you can't talk about to this day. I mean, that is the need. That is precisely the need. Again, I, I can't tell peop- like, it's, it's not my pickle.

1:25:59 Speaker 2 But you see the same, the same thing? The same, everyone says the same thing?

1:26:02 Speaker 1 Everybody, yeah. Every, yeah. E-everybody, everybody talks about the trauma of that, of that age group. Um, so look, I mean... And, and I also get feedback like that sometimes from, from where I sit, you know. This podcast, people will send me things, and I can see the different ages and the way people respond to things. So, you know, I, I can't tell you how to deal with your pickle and, you know, and then your people your age, and I, I didn't go through what you went through. So it's easy for me to sit on my, you know, perch and, and hack a chinook. But again, you know, just to bring the conversation full circle, you know, you talk about your father at the beginning. There... I, I, I romanticize individuality, like people doing things on their own, and you, you don't have to follow what everyone else is doing and find the truth within, and you don't have to everything based on, you know, uh, group thinking.

1:26:56 Speaker 2 You gotta be a Pinchas.

1:26:57 Speaker 1 Yeah, g- yeah, you know, be true to yourself. Find out who you are, and there's something great about that. But that is very different than being isolated and being forced into... You know, if you go to prisons, you visit people in prisons. Your father was not a prisoner. Your father was a, from what you're describing, he was a man who was very alive. The opposite of a prisoner is someone who's lonely in a different way, taken in a negative way. You're shut o- you're shut off from other people. You're not being yourself, you're being nothing because, because a part of you is completely locked off, right? And, and that, like, the Lubavitch went from... The Lubavitch that you described to me, forget about the years before, the years after. The, the kind of overview of your story is there's a bunch of years where you're together with your friends and, and the moments are moments that you can share. You come to farbrengen, I'm sure, with your friends, and you talk about, "Oh, Mem Ches, Mem Tes," and this and that. "Oh, you remember?" "Yeah, yeah, I remember." And am I describing it correctly? What?

1:27:54 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:27:54 Speaker 1 Okay.

1:27:55 Speaker 2 And then after that, just, uh, stops.

1:27:57 Speaker 1 It's black. It's a black hole.

1:27:58 Speaker 2 It's like the, it's like the resume. There's, like, 20 years missing.

1:28:00 Speaker 1 Okay. I'm not a therapist. I'm not big into therapy in general, but it's obvious to me that there is a u- there would be use in-

1:28:09 Speaker 2 Listen, what I, I, again, I'm not, uh... All I could tell you is that it, it's worked for me. Uh-

1:28:15 Speaker 1 I'm not saying that-

1:28:16 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, my, my, my-- it worked for my children. I have two, I have two, two children on shlichus and a, and a third child about to go on shlichus. So, so far it's working. You know, if, if it could be better, if I, if I were-

1:28:28 Speaker 1 No, no, that was my point. You're getting me wrong. I'm not saying you're broken. That's not-- I'm not diagnosing you. That's not my position. Not my position. I'm not telling you you're doing things right or wrong. You asked me, you, you said, "What would be the point of talking about this thing?"

1:28:40 Speaker 2 No, I hear-

1:28:41 Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying. That, that, that would be the point. That's why I do this podcast.

1:28:45 Speaker 2 Okay. I hear you.

1:28:46 Speaker 1 That's why I do it. Not for this specific thing, but I, I think people, people live in the world where they have... We have enough pekach as it is. We have enough shailas and sfeikas and, and, and things that bother us as it is. There's no need for everyone to run around thinking that they're the only person who has this pekel. There's no need for that. It, it only ma- Like, there, there, the pekach that the Aibishter gives us, and then there's the pekach that we give ourselves, right? The, the Aibishter gives us enough pekach. Like, we don't have to-

1:29:18 Speaker 2 No, listen. The, the, the, the, the question of, of what happened, you know. Like you just asked me, like, "What?" So what, you know, what happened? That, that question I've talked about a lot, about-

1:29:29 Speaker 1 Uh-huh

1:29:29 Speaker 2 ... you know, what went wrong. You know, how did, how did, how it was supposed to, it was, it was supposed to end with Mashiach coming, and it didn't end that way. That, that I've talked about a lot.

1:29:38 Speaker 1 Right, 'cause it's abstract.

1:29:41 Speaker 2 No, because I had to get over that. That was-

1:29:42 Speaker 1 Uh-huh

1:29:42 Speaker 2 ... a serious problem. And I mean, if you, if you were, if you, if you, uh, you're, like, stuck. You know, you're like, "What do you mean? Your whole life, you're... This is something that, that's supposed to happen. Mashiach has to come." What, what, you know, the Rebbe, uh, it's something that you had to do, I had to, I had to make peace with. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to do what I do.

1:30:00 Speaker 1 Right.

1:30:02 Speaker 2 Um, but I wanna, I wanna talk about one, one other thing is, um, you know, I had, as bochurim, we, we had very little conversation with the Rebbe, mostly. You know, uh, we didn't go, we didn't have yechidas anymore. It was, like, a very... You know, you got an answer. You didn't even talk to the Rebbe. I mean, when you went by, by, you know, if you had your mileles, you told, you asked the maskir to, to, to say to the Rebbe. You didn't have dare talk to the Rebbe.

1:30:24 Speaker 1 Did you, did you like that?

1:30:28 Speaker 2 Um, probably not. Probably I would've wanted to talk to the Rebbe more, but that was the way it was done. You-

1:30:33 Speaker 1 Okay

1:30:33 Speaker 2 ... that's what you did. You didn't... I mean, there was... Listen, you want to. You had such a fear, such an awe. There was no-

1:30:38 Speaker 1 Well, you just said-

1:30:38 Speaker 2 It wasn't-

1:30:39 Speaker 1 You said you would've liked to.

1:30:40 Speaker 2 In theory, but I'm saying in, in reality, you saw the Rebbe and you froze.

1:30:43 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

1:30:43 Speaker 2 You wouldn't even be able to get a word out edgewise when I... So I'll tell you the story. So the one, one of the only things, interactions I had with the Rebbe was, was, um, when the Rebbe gave out the chutzon, um, kaf cheshvan. And, uh, the Rebbe gave it out to only, uh, men over, boys over 12 and girls over 11. And, um, I was 15 at the time with hat and jacket and so on, and I went by the Rebbe, and the Rebbe asked, "She'noch tzeh ef?" You know, again, I was, I was, and I was, like, shaking. I couldn't even... I didn't know what to say, so they were gonna ask me. "Bi al dis?" I said, "Fifteen." So that was, like, that was, like, one of my only i-interesting interactions with the Rebbe, like I... So I took that as, as a sign that, uh, somehow a chutzon is, is, uh, connected to me. And I ever since then learned the chutzon every year, tried to learn the chutzon every year around kaf cheshvan. And, um, actually started, uh, sharing chutzdis that have going on for, like, 15 years or more from a chutzon. Like, I started learning chutzon, and then we went through, through Nat and started, and now we're all holding ayin aleph, like, every morning learning. So it's, it's something that, that was a very important part of my life, is that, that five seconds of the Rebbe, uh, asking me how, uh, she'noch tzeh ef in regards

1:31:57 Speaker 2 to a chutzon. And I took it, I took it seriously that, uh, it's something that, uh, that I have to be, you know, have to preach or, or walk the walk of, uh, making sure that, that, uh, I'm not, uh, not getting full of myself and not, uh, and making... Trying to not be involved in machlikais and so on and so forth. And I think that's a very, very important thing that, uh, if people-

1:32:19 Speaker 1 What's your favorite idea of a chutzon?

1:32:22 Speaker 2 My favorite idea of a chutzon?

1:32:24 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:32:26 Speaker 2 Um, just the, the, the point, the whole point of a chutzon, that, that it's not about, it's not about you, that it has to be... That, that it's about, it's about the... I think my favorite lines in chutzon is where the Rebbe says that how, how ego destroys the c- the cause, and that if you really cared about the cause, and, and then you wouldn't, you wouldn't allow the ego to, to destroy it. So people-

1:32:49 Speaker 1 Yeshes. It's only a yeshes.

1:32:50 Speaker 2 Yeah. They build... They, people destroy what other, what other people build. That that's, that, that that's the... When you s- and the Rebbe says that, the Rebbe Shaliach says that, that you... Proves to you that you don't really care about the cause, 'cause if you're destroying the cause, uh, and just because of your ego, that means that the, the cause is not important.

1:33:07 Speaker 1 Right.

1:33:08 Speaker 2 And I think that that's the, that's one of the, the most important things that, that, uh, that we have to do as, as, uh, Lubavitchers today is, is focus on the, focus on the goal. If anything diminishes the goal, then it can't be good. The same thing with the, you know, chi, not chi. The Rebbe wants, the Rebbe wants people to, to put on tefillin. The Rebbe wants people to believe in Mashiach. The Rebbe wants people to, to... It's, it's all about the cause. It's all about furthering the cause. If it doesn't further the cause, I don't care how good it makes, it makes you feel and how many good arguments you have. Look at the end, look at the end result. That's, that's the most important thing. Look at the end result. Don't, don't beat a... Don't, don't look to put someone down because, because, you know, for whatever stupid reason. If he's doing something good, maybe he's doing it, maybe you don't think he's doing it for the right reasons, but he's doing something good. So if someone's doing something good, build them up. Don't, don't p- don't pull them down. And I think that's, that's a, you know, very important lesson that I learnt from that, uh, little interaction.

1:34:11 Speaker 1 Beautiful. I think that's a, that's a right note to, to end this conversation or to begin the next one. But, but, uh, to take a pause for tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing, uh, the different parts, the, the good and the, the highs and the lows and everything in between. And, uh, and maybe, maybe, maybe this will be a schala to a larger conversation that will, that will be l'toeyles Harabon. Thank you very much.

1:34:39 Speaker 2 Thank you.

1:34:43 Speaker 1 The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Dror and Nadav Bahar, and is used with their permission.