להיכנס לפנימיות החסידות – הרב יוסי פלטיאל

00:00 Speaker 1 The people who worked in the Sichas told me that the Rebbe was, was a hard boss, that was very critical. The biggest criticism you get from the Rebbe and his Taita was miluli, that you wrote his words. Don't write my words, write my ideas. Why did I say it this way if it meant something else? The Rebbe wanted us to learn to understand it, and it's very important to me, is to get into the Rebbe's head. I, I, I am not trying to use my imagination. I'm not trying to be creative. Um, I wanna know what the Rebbe was thinking when he wrote a particular Maamar.

00:38 Speaker 2 Shalom Aleichem. I'm sitting here. I have the tremendous chus to be sitting here with Rabbi Yossi Paltiel. Um, Rabbi Paltiel is a mashpia. One of the, one of the beautiful things for-- that I appreciate is that it's not just a mashpia in the context of someone who knows a lot of Chassidus and gives a tremendous amount of shiurim, um, but actually still a mashpia teacher in the classroom. Uh, myself being a teacher in the classroom, I, I, I appreciate that. I know what that means, that it's, uh, it's a whole different level of teaching, uh, in the actual classroom as opposed to just giving shiurim and, and, and teaching about Chassidus to, to, uh, to a video. And, um, and I really, really thank you for making the time. Um, on a personal level, mentioned this to you before, um, I give shiurim, um, on my Magen every Sunday morning, and I'm gonna plug in, uh, the shiurim, Chassidus Explained on, on, uh, Spotify. And the regular listeners know that I'm constantly quoting you and, uh, 'cause I use your shiurim on, uh, Inside Chassidus to prepare. And I'm g- um, uh, I'm gonna ask you a few questions about, about that, about your style of, of shiurim, but it's definitely unique and it's amazing and it's my, it's my go-to. I'll listen to your shiurim to prepare a Maamar, and then if I have time and if I have a specific question or something I wanna see, then I'll look at, uh, other shiurim.

02:18 Speaker 2 So-

02:18 Speaker 1 So which Maamar did you learn?

02:20 Speaker 2 So far? Uh, Marchem, uh, close to fifty Maamar by now.

02:24 Speaker 1 The Rebbe's?

02:25 Speaker 2 Yeah. All, um, all the Rebbe's, almost all Molokets. Yeah.

02:29 Speaker 1 Wow.

02:29 Speaker 2 Every now and then a, a Belz Muger, but almost all Molokets.

02:31 Speaker 1 You know, we have more than half of the Rebbe's Maamarim. We probably have now a thousand Maamarim.

02:36 Speaker 2 On Inside Chassidus? Oh, you're saying, uh, even Belz Muger? Yeah, yeah.

02:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, the Rebbe has between fifteen and sixteen hundred Maamarim. One of our goals is to finish. We have more-- I think we have close to a thousand at this point.

02:47 Speaker 2 Wow.

02:48 Speaker 1 It's, it's, it's, it's a... Yeah.

02:49 Speaker 2 Yeah.

02:49 Speaker 1 It's, it's one of our great and exciting, uh, ambitions.

02:52 Speaker 2 You, you're going backwards from-

02:54 Speaker 1 From backwards and forwards. Yeah, so-

02:55 Speaker 2 Ah.

02:55 Speaker 1 So I'm holding Lamed Beis.

02:57 Speaker 2 From backwards?

02:58 Speaker 1 From the end.

02:59 Speaker 2 Okay.

02:59 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm gonna complete Yad Zion this year.

03:03 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

03:03 Speaker 1 And your cousin, you have a cousin, Wagner, who when, when your, when your uncle passed away, Rabbi Kive made a program to do Muger Maamarim.

03:12 Speaker 2 Right.

03:13 Speaker 1 So in addition to doing the Lamed Beis and the Yad Zion, I'm finishing Moloket Chelekei, so I have three Maamarim left.

03:20 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah.

03:20 Speaker 1 So-

03:21 Speaker 2 That's, uh, Project Moloket. Yeah.

03:22 Speaker 1 Yeah.

03:22 Speaker 2 That's, uh... There's a few I, that I, that I heard in the shiur that you've mentioned it, that you're doing.

03:27 Speaker 1 Yeah.

03:27 Speaker 2 You're record- rerecording a Maamar for Project Moloket. Um, so, so let, so l- before we get into the shiurim, and I have a few specific questions about that, let's back up to, um, to your story. However much you would wanna share and however much is negeah to this discussion about Chassidus. I guess yourself as a bachur, yourself as a ingerman learning Chassidus, what really made you click, um, with Chassidus? Who were the people that maybe helped you along that journey? However much you'd like to share.

04:04 Speaker 1 I, I don't think about it that much, honestly. Um, but there's no question it's my father's influence. Um, my father-- When I was growing up, my father was a professional. My father was not involved in Kollel. But he was-- he is, he was always a mashpia to everybody. Every free minute that he had was dedicated to helping people. And he, he's a serious avid. My father's a serious davener, and his world is Chassidus. My father's whole reality is to try to understand Chassidus. My father has a very, very unique approach to understanding Chassidus that sometimes drives you crazy and often awes you with his originality and his brilliance. Um, I would-- Th- I mean, there's no question that in terms of a choice where my path was gonna be, there's-- the greatest influence is my father. Of course, all of us are Chassidim of the Rebbe, and our whole lives are defined by service, right? That's what a Lubavitcher does. You find a way to give the Rebbe a little nachas. But why I chose this avenue, I would say the greatest influence in my life in terms of being passionate about Chassidus is my father. Are we... You know, my, my, you know, my father's zeide was a big Chassid, a big avid. My father always tells us, this is a sweet story. Um, my father was born in Moscow, in Russia. He did not have a mother. And, um, Anash didn't live in-- I mean, before the war, maybe there were Anash in

05:38 Speaker 1 Moscow. There was not a large community of Lubavitchers living in Moscow. And even the Lubavitchers who lived in Moscow lived in the suburbs. My grandfather lived in the center of Moscow, davening in the, in the chor shul, the choir shul. That was not the Lubavitcher shul. The Lubavitcher shul was Merin Roshe, and the Anash lived in the suburbs. Um, I'm not certain why. My grandfather had an official job. He worked for the Central Bank of Moscow, Russia. He was an accountant, and he did very well for himself. He was a from Yid I don't know how many people in 1930s and '40s took their children to shul in Moscow. He was out of his mind. Took-- He had three children, and he didn't have a wife. My father does not remember his mother. My father does not remember. His mother was named Didiche, Yisroel Neveler's daughter, passed away before his upsherin. So, um, and during the war, they also didn't go to Asia with the Anash. They didn't go to Samarkand. And my father went to Siberia because my grandfather figured that at least there won't be disease. Hunger they knew was gonna be, but at least there won't be disease, and he was right. Um, but my grandfather took his children to his shver, to his, to his, to his wife's father. It was Sol Neveler. And my father s-- I think he spent six months there. He was there for a Pesach. And as little as he was, I mean, my, my father

06:57 Speaker 1 left Russia when he was eight. His zeide had a very big impact on him in many ways. And one of the things my father always tells us is that he watched him daven. Sol Neveler was a, was a, was an incredible mind. Uh, the-- He was a gaon in nigleh. He was a gaon in Chassidus. He was a melamed of little kids. He was physically a very strong man. He probably slept very little. Uh, but he davened every day, like a Chassid, you know, for hours. He'd turn and face the wall and sway back and forth. My father was a little boy from Moscow. I don't even know if he knew how to read Hebrew at that point. I don't know how much Torah he learned in Russia. He went to cheder for a very little while in Tashkent. Um, but as a child, he watched his zeide daven. As a little boy, he said, "This is Emet." Um, I feel that it's one of the strongest anchors in my father's life. In other words, my father's simplicity of Emunah, I think has a lot to do with that, 'cause, uh, he's an intellectual, he's a smart man, and his life has been quite tumultuous. But I have this feeling that that clarity that he got from watching his zeide daven, uh, made it easier for him not to have to necessarily struggle with things that other people may have struggled with in terms of Emunah, in terms of figuring stuff out intellectually. So that's

08:32 Speaker 1 my father's influence on my life. Um, but I guess that's really more about the choice, you know, which direction I'm gonna go in. But the reality is, every person who grew up in our generation, especially from my gen-- I'm a little older than you. You know, you stood around the Rebbe, and you knew one thing: Everybody has to make a difference in the world. And of course, classically, typically, that's shlichus. This is a different kind of shlichus. It's a shlichus, but it's a different kind of shlichus. And, um, I don't think there was a question in my mind that this is what I was gonna do with my life. And, uh, the hashgacha yomim has led to giving me incredible opportunity. In other words, the way the cards fell, um, is perfect. It, it, you couldn't have written a better script, you know? Um, for the first fifty years of my married life, I was like a kol yungeh man. I, I learned Torah day and night. And then someone came along and offered to make me a website, and that became my life. Instead of c-- learning, I began to teach a lot. Our, our website is nineteen years old.

09:45 Speaker 2 Wow.

09:46 Speaker 1 And we have, um, we're in the neighborhood of fourteen thousand classes. It's an awful lot of classes on a lot of subjects. Maamarim, we have sichas, we have stories, we have hashkafah, we have Parsha, we have, uh, the Yamim Tovim. Um, we have all kinds of topics. It's, uh, it's a lot. And I, uh, I'm, I, I'm in a position where I get to choose how I teach and what I teach so that whatever I do, I'm able to feed my-- In other words, I don't repeat myself. I'm teaching always new materials, so I can find more stuff to put on the website.

10:14 Speaker 2 Okay.

10:16 Speaker 1 So I guess that's the background. And y- you learn, and then you teach. That's how it is. There's no magic.

10:26 Speaker 2 First of all, your-- if I could say for you, your website, insidechassidus.org, I think it probably is the website with the most concentration of Chassidus.

10:37 Speaker 1 In English.

10:38 Speaker 2 In Eng- in English for sure, and, uh, I wonder if maybe, uh, in general. You have Ohel Chassidus, which is a compilation of a lot of different people, different shuurim, but this is, uh... Yeah, there's definitely-- It's definitely a go-to, I know for myself. It's, uh, you could pretty much find almost any maamar from the Rebbe and even from other Rebbeim for that, uh... Yeah, so I, I could definitely, um, pu-- uh, do my part in publicizing it.

11:04 Speaker 1 Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. What I try to do, and it's very important to me, is to get into the Rebbe's head. I, I, I am not trying to use my imagination. I'm not trying to be creative. Um, I wanna know what the Rebbe was thinking when he wrote a particular maamar. Um, it's de- developed. When I was younger, I, uh, I... It, it's such a stupid word to use because it has no credibility. I, I was more-- I used my imagination more, you know, to come up with, you know, create your own pictures. But we understand so little of Chassidus, that we decide to be creative in Chassidus, we're stealing from our- ourselves the little bit of integrity that we could have. I- if we're gonna have integrity in Limud HaChassidus, we wanna know exactly what the Rebbe is saying. Even when we know exactly what the Rebbe is saying, we understand very little of Pnimat HaTorah. But at least it's ordered. At least it's not distorted. At least it's not recreating a Uh, an image which is disfigured. So when I learn a maim, it's, it's said in Breishit Rabbah Shital HaMuddah, you know, when you learn something, anything in Torah, your number one task is to understand what the author intended to say, not what that says. Now, there may be a secondary limud. Now, once I understand what the author is saying, so what does it mean to me? How can I pause other scenarios? You know, what's called the

12:39 Speaker 1 Chassidus Eirech Echav V'Naimek. But the first thing you wanna do when you learn anything is to know what the intent of the author was. This is true in Gemara. You learn a shtikel Gemara, you wanna know what Abaye and Rava meant, what Ravina and Ashi meant. Now, of course, there's-- You look in Tosfos, you see right away, out of every word, they create a whole new world. But you don't wanna get distracted. You wanna first understand the Gemara correctly. The, the, the, the Amoraim who wrote the Shas meant something. Now, there's so many layers of depth in what they meant, but at least you don't wanna distort it. When you finish understanding, then you learn a Tosfos, and Tosfos takes you on a journey. Tosfos is entitled to take you on a journey. Tosfos is Torah. And Tosfos does take you-- make a whole new journey out of a nuance in a shtikel Gemara. But if you allow Tosfos to steal from you the simple pshat in the Gemara, you don't even understand the Tosfos. And it's, it's, it's, it's crippled learning. It's not healthy learning. So for me, um, in the course of my learning, this is where I sort of came to. And I'm, I'm gonna say it, I guess, honestly, the Rebbe Rashab is my Melamed. Um, my life today is the Rebbe's Torah. There's my Modim. It's-- That's where I live. It's where I, uh, draw myself. We're, we're, we're Chassidim of the Rebbe. So if you're Chassidim of the Rebbe,

14:02 Speaker 1 you learn the Rebbe's Torah. The Rebbe's Torah is very interesting. I'd love to have a chance to try and illustrate the uniqueness about the Rebbe's Torah, the Rebbe's Modim. It's extremely complex and original, and it's pushing the borders. It's pushing the borders. The Rebbe's Torah is pushing the borders of, of, of Chassidus. In other words, the Rebbe Rashab paints a beautiful picture, and the Rebbe tears away the frame. He tears away the frame. He's always stretching in an extremely intense and challenging way, parchat intellectually. But when I was first married as a bocher, the Rebbe Rashab's my Modim. The Rebbe Rashab's my Modim are unique that they're extremely orderly, extremely streamlined in their language. All of my Modim sound the same. Even though he's copying texts from earlier Abeim, he was careful to adapt the text to his style. It's very streamlined. He, he-- Zalman Duchman in the Sefer L'Shem HaOzen. Zalman Duchman, I love his Sefer. His Sefer in way, in a certain way is the deepest of all the Maaseh B'echad. He's the only Chassid who does not only tell stories. He has Veltar, Chs- Ch- Ch-- Primistic Chassidish Veltar that he heard from his Zayde in Lubavitch. Zalman Duchman writes that the Rebbe Rashab said once, "What are the chilukos between my Chassidus and the Mitteler Rebbes? What's the difference between my Chassidus and the Mitteler Rebbes?" The Mitteler Rebbes Chassidus daf men lernen. Mine is gelernte. The Chassidus of the Mitteler Rebbe you have to learn. Mine was learnt, meaning the

15:33 Speaker 1 Rebbe Rashab Chassidus you could really read.

15:35 Speaker 3 Right.

15:36 Speaker 1 Torah you can't read. Torah you have to study. The Rebbe Rashab are very lucid. There's a clear order, and the order is so clear that he beckons you to find it. He, he's almost begging you to see the structure. It's obviously easier to do it in a single maimer than to do it in a hem shech. But once you see how organized he is, once you see how incredibly whole he is, the Rebbe Rashab starts a maimer, he's gonna finish it. He's gonna answer every question. Every digression, he's gonna regress back. The, the, the completion of circles by the Rebbe Rashab is, is absolute. The Friediker Rebbe starts a lot of things, doesn't finish them, and it, it really gets frustrating. The Rebbe Rashab's order, and-- Now, there are Maamerim that are not finished. There are hem shech that are not finished, and they, and they're very frustrating. But when he finishes whatever it is, the Tzemach Tsvov, eight hundred pages, it's finished. There's not a stone that didn't go unturned. He, he forces you to see his order, and, um, he wants you to think like him. He wants you to-- he wants you to approach a maimer with an order and a clarity to see the big picture. When I was younger, I, I would talk to my students a lot about when you learn anything, the first thing you wanna do is have a skeleton, and, and I have a great story. I, I worked in Ocean Parkway for a few years

17:01 Speaker 1 before the yeshiva moved to Crown Heights, and there was a Yid who lived in Flatbush who dropped those kids in Ocean Parkway, came to Crown Heights. And I was always looking for rides after Chassidus because I w-- didn't have the money for the taxis, and, um, I would often get a ride with him. He has the Chai Gallery on Kingston Avenue. He's a, he's a hushin artist. He's a Hungarian Jew, a Munkacs Yid. I think he's Munkacs. As this Yid, you walk into the store, he's sitting and saying Tehillim. You ever go into the art store? He's always saying Tehillim. If there's no one in the store, he says Tehillim. When you walk in, he stops saying Tehillim to talk to you. So I, I had time to get to know him, and we schmoozed. And he explained to me things about art. And one of the things he told me was that the great artists of Lubavitch are terrible. I'm not gonna say their names, but they're terrible. I mean, Handel Lieben was an exception, and Zalman Klein was an exception because they actually went to school. He said to me, "An artist..." I, I went through names of artists that we all think are terrific, some of their art hanging on these walls, and he, he said, "Eh." I said, "Why? It's so good." He says, "The first thing they teach you in art school is bone structure. When you make a face, first you make the skeleton. The skeletons are all the

18:15 Speaker 1 same." If you don't know the skeletal background of a face, you don't even see how disfigured it is. A trained artist looks at a painting and says, "This is a novice. He doesn't know what he's doing, uh, because he doesn't know how to create symmetry, order." And, uh, so I, I brought him pictures that I wanted him to scan like this. These pictures. These are his. This-- it's, it's the Rebbe Rashab you've never seen. He, he did this for me. The same artist who made this Felix Rebbe made this Rebbe Rashab. You can see it. Um, I brought him a different Rebbe Rashab, and he refused to scan it. I said, "But it, it's a great picture." He said, "It's terrible." I said, "Why is it terrible?" "The guy who made this knows how to make curves and shapes, but he doesn't understand the bone, the fa-- the background of the face. It's disfigured." And I begged him. I said, "I'll take it down." He took it, he took it to a bunch of artists. They said, So he made this for me instead.

19:09 Speaker 2 Wow.

19:10 Speaker 1 Um, th- he had the painting in the store, but he made the, the scan for me. Um, this, this picture is very interesting. A very deep photo if you look at it. I, I think you see the Rebbe Rashab's personality in this picture. Um, his sadness, his intensity, his avoida, his burden. Anyway, so he told me that to be an artist you have to know bone structure, then your art, your art is symmetrical. When you learn a Ma'amar, there's an outline. The outline was in the mind of the author, whether he wrote it down or he thought it, but there's an outline. You wanna know that outline, because if you know the outline, you're learning the Ma'amar correctly. You're learning the Ma'amar healthy. Do you understand everything? You'll never understand everything. But at least what you understand, you're understanding correctly because you're understanding according to the intent of the author. If you recreate the structure of the Ma'amar because you're lazy, or because you're in a rush, or because you didn't understand, you don't even know how disfigured the Ma'amar is because you don't have enough experience to see the flaws in your own analysis. And I would say many people learn Chassidus, and they know a lot of Chassidus, and they learn it wrong. I'm not saying always, but too often because they haven't taken the time to think what the Rebbe is thinking. And I think it's a very important thing to do. Um, and this is what I do. This is what

20:38 Speaker 1 I did. When I taught Ma'amar from the Rebbe Rashab for many years, that's what I did. Now I teach Ma'amar from the Rebbe predominantly, mostly. And I, I wouldn't give a class until I feel like I have a picture of the Ma'amar. I won't do it. Um, so I w-- I, I, you know, I read-- learn it once and twice and I learn it a few times till I start to reconstruct it. The Rebbe's Ma'amarim are particularly hard because they're not necessarily in order. The Rebbe's Ma'amarim are very deep. They're very, very original. But he doesn't make it easy for you. The Rebbe Rashab makes it very easy. The Rebbe, whatever the reasons are, when you, when you learn a Ma'amar of the Rebbe, it could be two lines that are really the target of the Ma'amar. If you miss those two lines, it sounds like he's repeating what the previous Rebbe was saying. If you know those two lines, it's an original Ma'amar, and it reconfigures the whole Ma'amar.

21:30 Speaker 2 Yeah.

21:30 Speaker 1 And your role-- Now, see, that's what's good about the Mogner Ma'amar. The Mogner Ma'amarim were flushed out. You understand?

21:37 Speaker 2 Right.

21:37 Speaker 1 The Rebbe edited the Ma'amar, but Rebbe Yoel prepared them. He flushed out the true intent of the Rebbe. A lot of times you look at the built-in Mogner, you look at the Mogner and say, "He made it up." He didn't. He just understands. The person who says he m- made it up is a parrot. The Rebbe didn't say these words. You have to know how to read a Ma'amar. You have to know how to find it. You know, I found something interesting. Often, listening to a tape opens your eyes because the, the intonation, how the Rebbe sings it. A Ma'amar it's like I listen to a tape and say, "Oh." And it becomes clear and it becomes simple.

22:14 Speaker 2 Okay.

22:14 Speaker 1 When something is correct, it's simple. In the lesson from the Rebbe, the secrets, glatt. If something is not simple, it's not something is in physics this way. If it's not elegant, it's wrong. If you learn a Ma'amar and it seems not beautiful, you, you didn't understand it. Now, maybe you didn't understand it because Hanukkah was written wrong. These are unedited transcripts. Or maybe you didn't understand it correctly because this word's missing. Maybe it's not correctly because you didn't spend enough time. But this is what I try to do. This is my-- I do it for myself, and that's what I teach my students because I want the Ma'amar to be honest. So I don't have a lot of original ideas. I try very much to, to find what the Ma'amar is saying, and is-- it, it's so much better. It's so much better because what the Rebbe has to say is better than anything I can create out of what the Rebbe is saying. And, uh, it's deeper, and it's simpler, and it opens your mind. So that's my story. Okay. So years ago, when I was v-- I, I remember when I did it. I really wish I'd done it years earlier. I-- For about five years, my chevrusa with my pencil never disappointed me, never came late, never complained when I came late. I learned almost all the Ma'amar of the Rebbe Rashab from the time I became a chassan till Gimel Tammuz. Till exactly Gimel Tammuz, then I stopped and I changed.

23:36 Speaker 1 So I learned the Ma'amar of the Rebbe. And, um, the Rebbe Rashab showed me the skeleton of a Ma'amar. He showed me the design of the Rebbe. Now, some Rebbeim are harder to find than others. The Reb Berish is harder to find. Um, the Mitteler Rebbe, it's not hard to find. It's just so vast that it's hard to keep track of, you know. But anytime you learn a Ma'amar of any Rebbe, you wanna get in his head. You wanna know what he was thinking when he wrote it. Um, and then you'll under-- whatever you'll understand, you'll understand it correctly.

24:08 Speaker 2 Right. First of all, you mentioned before you gave a mashal of, of, uh, when learning Gemara, you wanna know. So this is talking something that the Rebbe kochtin about the learning of the Kollel Gemara.

24:19 Speaker 1 Right.

24:19 Speaker 2 Sounds very similar to what you're saying, that they're like to understand the Kollem of, of Chassidus and then specifically of every given Rebbe. Um, w-- also-

24:30 Speaker 1 May I interrupt you?

24:30 Speaker 2 Yeah, sure.

24:41 Speaker 1 I'm not even sure what I wanna say, but it is true that every Rebbe has his own world of Chassidus. But Chassidus Chabad is one. Apatently on an intellectual level, on a scholarly level, all the Rebbeim are speaking the same thing. Each one develops a different aspect of it. Each one opens up a different aspect of it. You know, the Rebbe Rashab says in Torasholom, "Ich mezich mischtadel az alp vos ich dor is alp dem Rebbes." I try that everything I say should be the Rebbes. And all the Rabbeim, except our Rebbe, when they said the Rebbe, they meant the Alter Rebbe. The degree to which Chassidus Chabad is the Alter Rebbe will stagger you. The more you learn, the more you realize Chassidus Chabad is the Alter Rebbe's creation, and the Rabbeim are teaching that.

25:44 Speaker 4 Right.

25:45 Speaker 1 Every Rebbe is teaching the Alter Rebbe's Torah, teaching Chabad. Um, and there's an incredible loyalty. So yeah, it's true, each Rebbe has his own world, but each Rebbe is opening up another flower in the Alter Rebbe's garden. Uh, that's why they fit together so nicely, you know? It's like you can ask a kasha from any Rambam and any Rambam 'cause there's not gonna be any contradictions. You could ask a kasha from any Rebbe and any Rebbe because it fits together so nicely, 'cause it's one garden. I, I just needed to say that.

26:19 Speaker 4 Right. Shar-- shar shvi. Shar-

26:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, whatever.

26:22 Speaker 4 Saying each of the Rabbeim is a-

26:24 Speaker 1 Is a different-

26:25 Speaker 4 Yeah

26:25 Speaker 1 ... heichal, a different sha-

26:25 Speaker 4 Yeah

26:25 Speaker 1 ... right? But it's one-

26:26 Speaker 4 Right

26:26 Speaker 1 ... uh, one garden

26:27 Speaker 4 I'm saying one shar into the same, uh, garden, to the same place.

26:30 Speaker 1 I, I believe.

26:31 Speaker 4 Yes.

26:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

26:32 Speaker 4 Yeah. So I, I, I didn't mean to say specifically, like, uh, the Rebbe versus the previous Rabbeim. Um, I'm saying more about, in general, about understanding the klalim, like this, this Nekuda. I, I, I, I w- I would guess that's why you called your website Inside Chassidus. I think this is really what you do, is you, you give-

26:49 Speaker 1 I, I didn't give it the name, but-

26:50 Speaker 4 Oh, yeah

26:57 Speaker 1 ... it

26:57 Speaker 4 Right

27:04 Speaker 1 ... her vision was to make Inside Judaism, and then she would have Inside Negunum, and Inside Mishnah-

27:09 Speaker 4 Uh-huh

27:09 Speaker 1 ... and Inside Chassidus. The other branches of the tree, uh, withered for whatever reasons. Um, but Inside Chassidus is, uh, very much alive.

27:18 Speaker 4 Right. Um, so, so le- so let's say that, first of all, um, when you, when you teach the Maimar, you give a, a, a photocopy, a scan of your, of your-

27:29 Speaker 1 Notes

27:29 Speaker 4 ... notes, and you see the way you go through the Maimar and, you know, the way you underline and highlight and show the connections, you know. So can you give a little bit of a glimpse into that process of how, how you get the clarity in the Maimar? Exactly what you're describing. It's not just about learning the words, it's about understanding the, the, the insight. Um, what, what's, what's the process of how to do that? Uh, uh, especially, I mean, you know, not just to interrogate you, so to speak, but also for, you know, as a tip for someone who wants to try to start learning Chassidus a little bit better, a little bit more aichustig, and be able to do that. What would be the, the steps for that?

28:09 Speaker 1 Okay. Let me, let me say something as an introduction. This is one of my quotable quotes. I own this one, OC. Correlation is always simplification. One of the biggest mistakes people do is compare a Maimar to a Maimar.

28:24 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

28:25 Speaker 1 Real learning is not about comparing, it's about distinguishing. If they were saying the same thing, they would not be written twice. Your role when you're learning a Maimar is to make believe there is no other Chassidus, just this Maimar. Do not allow prior information to create a bias in your learning 'cause you can learn it wrong.

28:45 Speaker 4 Right.

28:47 Speaker 1 Um, the reason people do that is because... You know, I always find this, that people say ev- you know, "Nikla, there's so many sugyas. Chassidus, every Maimar is saying the same thing." Both of those statements are false. There's greater ahthes in Nikla than people realize, and there's greater detail and nuance. You can have four or five Maimarim written on the same pasuk with the same kashas, the same derashot, going in five different directions. You need to learn each Maimar by itself. If you're gonna start comparing and contrasting, it has to be after you're completed the journey. Let the Maimar be itself. It's not fair to the Maimar, it's not fair to you to compare it to another Maimar until you completely, um, graduated from understanding this Maimar as an entity unto... What I'll do when I'll pick up a Maimar, I'll just learn it through, and I'll scribble notes just to, you know, to create like subparagraph. That's what I do in my mind. And I will allow myself to not understand. I, I, I don't stop and say, "What does this mean?" I never do. I read it through from the beginning to the end. I, I learned the Maimar sometime for a very short time. I met a melech. The melech used to say that you have to learn a Maimar three times. The first time you have to familiarize yourself with the Maimar. The second time you have to learn the Maimar. And the third time you have to experience the Maimar.

30:04 Speaker 1 You have to feel the light of the Maimar. And I think that's-- I think it's quite accurate. I'm just not sure three times is enough. For the melech, three times is enough. So, so if you learn the Maimar through from beginning to the end, when you finish, you have an intuitive sense of what, what the Rebbe is trying to say. So then you ask yourself, "So how do I structure this?" What I do in my classes is I try to create rings in a Maimar, where the beginning and the end are connected. The second section from the beginning, and the second section and the beginning are connected. Um, it isn't always so orderly, especially the Rebbe's Maimar, but the Rebbe Rashab, it's always very orderly. But the Rebbe, sometimes you have to move things around. But you try to create a division of topics. Um, learning each topic by itself to feed the greater Maimar. But you can't do that until- You're sure you understand what the Rebbe is trying to say. And I mean it on a very simple level. I don't mean this in a very lofty, but I mean, mamash on a pshat level. What is this maamar trying to say? Right. We know how maamarim go. They go on pesukim, and they ask questions, and they go off on a tangent, which is mystical. You know, in the maamarim of the Rebbe, the Rebbe has a habit of starting the maamar with the avodah. No Rebbe does that. Every maamar Rebbe

31:29 Speaker 1 leaves the avodah for the end. The Rebbe uses the avodah as haskala. It's fascinating. The freaking paragraph is, "Ubevedtzah adom." He-- the Rebbe is using avodah to explain haskala. So you wanna know what he's thinking, and like I said before, it's extremely important not to presuppose. Do not decide this sounds like another maamar. Now, all maamarim are based on earlier maamarim, with rare exception. There are maamarim of the Rebbe that are original. Um, I don't know if there are maamarim of the Friediker Rebbe that are original. I mean, the Friediker Rebbe maamar, Yonason Eynets, who's a god. You know Yonason?

32:10 Speaker 4 Not personally, no.

32:10 Speaker 1 You should interview him.

32:11 Speaker 4 Okay.

32:11 Speaker 1 He's a god. He's a Chassidishe yid. He's a tzadik, a yid. His bekius is incredible. He found every single maamar of the Friediker Rebbe by the Rebbe Rashab.

32:20 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

32:21 Speaker 1 He's a master. He's one of the most biggest bekiim in Chassidus. He sees achdus. He sees from the Alter Rebbe to the Rebbe. He sees the whole picture. I, I have no idea how much is in his head. But he made a c-- a, a pamphlet. Every maamar, every single maamar of the Friediker Rebbe is based on the Rebbe Rashab's. And you know how it's based? He-- it's tzidkum. It's verbatim quotes. You, you-- I, I did it with many maamarim. You could see the Rebbe Rashab's original words. Sometimes he'll correct the grammar a little bit 'cause the Friediker Rebbe's grammar was perfect. The Rebbe Rashab's grammar was not necessarily. He takes it from the Devel Chulus or Dechulus, and then he adds Ois U'Keshut and builds a new maamar out of it. Um, most maamarim are built on earlier Rebbeim till the Alter Rebbe, but they're not repeating. They're not repeating. Even the same Rebbe will say the same maamar three times. They're often going in different directions. In the Muger maamarim, you'll sometimes see that where, where, where two maamarim, same Devarim Hazal and the same questions, and they go in two different directions. And this is why the Rebbe chose to, uh, to, to prepare them and have them be Muger because the two worlds, in Chassidus coming from one world, and when he-- when, when the maamarim are Muger, the maamar is flushed out. The thinking has been done for you. So I mean, the-

33:45 Speaker 4 Right

33:45 Speaker 1 ... sometimes they get very detailed and very involved. Because the Rebbe's maamarim are not written, but spoken, there's so many kvetches. There's so many nuances, and every nuance is another peyotek in a maamar. So maamar of the Rebbe become very difficult for this reason. Um, but the built-in Muger maamar, you have to figure it out for yourself. Your goal is to say, "What's the Rebbe trying to say that's unique?" And there are so many maamarim that look the same, they're not. And, and you want to identify it, and you wanna have clarity about it. So the first time you learn the maamar, you just wanna get a sense of the structure. Then you wanna organize it in your mind. In other words, I, I do this, and, uh, you know, I, I'm-- it's a sin. A lot of people say it's not the purest way to learn Chassidus. To me, the purest way to learn Chassidus is to understand. "Teyre Hiveluma Danitzodach." Um, so when I give my classes, as you know, I don't teach maamar in order.

34:38 Speaker 4 Right. Yeah.

34:38 Speaker 1 I'll often teach the maamar inside out. My goal is that it should be clear to you. In other words, when I learned that maamar, I then thought about it till I was able to sort of unwrap it and see the different parts of it. And then you learn each part by itself, so every part is very clear. And when the parts come together, it's a beautiful picture. It's an orderly picture.

35:05 Speaker 4 Yeah.

35:06 Speaker 1 Um, I, I, I think that was the Rebbe's intent. You know, there's Chevre who are very into Ois U'Rav. There's a whole movement of people who are very concerned with the Ois U'Rav. The Rebbe did not want us to be concerned with Ois U'Rav. Uh, the, the people who worked in Sichas told me that the Rebbe was, was a hard boss, that was very critical. The biggest criticism you get from the Rebbe on his Teyre was miluli. That you wrote his words. "Don't write my words, write my ideas. Why did I say it this way if it meant something else?" The Rebbe wanted us to learn Teyre and understand it, you know. You know, in the Sichas. Mechkoktsecha in the Sichas. Everyone's into the Sichas, yeah. But people like the, the Chassidishe Velt, there's Torah. Tifa, Tifa, Torah. With the Charedim and Farshnteyn, not just, uh, the, the, the Chassidishkeit is wonderful, but there's so much Torah. The Maamarim, the Sichas, the Rambam, and "Teyre Hiveluma Danitzodach." This is what-- th-this is my life, to learn and to show the, with, with Hashem's help, the clarity of the Rebbe's Teyre. Now, you know, I do Thursday night Sichas. I'm posting those also. They're incredible, the Sichas. They're not a lot of Nigleh. But I do the same thing. I try to-- what is the Rebbe trying to say in each Sicha? And I try to structure the classes in a way that that idea comes out clear. It's less important for me to read each

36:34 Speaker 1 word than to make sure that the point is clear. Now, you can go back and learn it yourself.

36:38 Speaker 4 Right. Okay. So first of all, you, um, going back, you started saying about the, the what's this maamar saying, not what you know from general Chassidus.

36:52 Speaker 1 Right.

36:52 Speaker 4 That-- So obviously, there, there's-- I, I think we all understand that obviously, you do need to sometimes have background knowledge to understand the maamar, but that's not, that's not really my question. My question is more- Um, e-even like we said, you said about Rabbi Yael writing the Maamar in, in Malchut, the way it's-- the way the Rebbe was maggia it. Um, l'chayim, like you said, you can look at the Bilti Mog or even listen to the tape of if it was a weekly farbrengen, and you see that it was, like, very different. And you said, like-

37:25 Speaker 1 Yeah, but sometimes listen to the tape and you hear in the intonation-

37:28 Speaker 4 Right, right

37:29 Speaker 1 ...what Rabbi Yael wrote.

37:30 Speaker 4 Right. Same, but what-

37:31 Speaker 1 The feel.

37:32 Speaker 4 Right. Like, in other words, you could pick up what the Rebbe was trying to focus on, what the Chiddush is.

37:36 Speaker 1 Right.

37:36 Speaker 4 Yeah. But, but you could see sometimes in Pashtas that Rab-- part of what Rabbi Yael did by making the Maamar, especially in later Halakim of Malchut, later years. So yeah, the, the Rabbi Yael was taking from, from other Maamarim or other sources.

37:51 Speaker 1 I, I, I really don't agree with you.

37:53 Speaker 4 No?

37:53 Speaker 1 No.

37:54 Speaker 4 You think it was all from that Maamar itself?

37:56 Speaker 1 Well, he-- Of course. First of all, the Maamarim are based on earlier Maamar.

38:02 Speaker 4 Right.

38:02 Speaker 1 So the Maamar on which the Maamar is based, the Rebbe wanted them to look at that.

38:06 Speaker 4 Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

38:06 Speaker 1 You know, one of the issues with the Hanahas is that when they write a Hanaha, they look at the source.

38:13 Speaker 4 Right.

38:13 Speaker 1 And when they're trying to figure out what the Rebbe is saying, they'll go to the Hanaha. And sometimes when they do that, they lose the Chiddush.

38:22 Speaker 4 Right. Because it becomes too-

38:22 Speaker 1 They make it all similar-

38:24 Speaker 4 Right

38:24 Speaker 1 ...to the source.

38:25 Speaker 4 Right.

38:26 Speaker 1 You know, uh, uh, Rabbi Yael didn't do that because at tifa shtaden, he used the body of the earlier Maamar to create the body of the existing Maamar. Rabbi Yael was an, a gon. I mean, his-- he was a real genius. If Rabbi Yael Kahn had been a Litvish Rosh Yeshiva, he would have been a godel, a mamish, a godel. He was so humble and so, uh, equal. He, he wasn't, he wasn't a couple of steps ahead of everybody else. He was a thousand steps. His neshamah came into this world to make sure that the Rebbe's Torah would be preserved. That Rebbe went to save the whole Jewish world. He had so much to do. He spoke, and a bocher preserved it all. But he understood. Rabbi Yael understood. And his mission was to flush out the Rebbe's avodah. Whatever body he uses, it's not-- He's not decorating the Maamar, no.

39:22 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

39:23 Speaker 1 He's, he's presenting the Maamar. I, I-- That's what I believe.

39:27 Speaker 4 Right.

39:28 Speaker 1 Uh, and the more you understand the Maamar, the more you see how he's doing it. You may not agree with him. You may think like he's hearing more in the Rebbe's words than you think the Rebbe said. But he's a bigger maven than you. He's a bigger maven than you. And the most important thing is he was on the ship from the first ride.

39:48 Speaker 4 Okay.

39:48 Speaker 1 He heard every single Maamar.

39:51 Speaker 4 Right.

39:51 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said the Torah in the earlier years clearer, in the later years, and often you will understand that if Rabbi Yael understood, the Rebbe was happy because we'll get it from him.

40:03 Speaker 4 Right. Sure.

40:05 Speaker 1 Um, so he-- the Rebbe trained him. The Rebbe taught him how to think, beklal, and how to think in the Rebbe's paradigm of Torah in a thousand ways. The Maamar is one area. You know, I have a Rosh Yeshiva who was a bocher when the Rebbe started saying He told me it was Greek. We didn't know how to-- we didn't know what to do with it. It was-- it-- we didn't understand what the Rebbe was trying to do. So we would argue about whether the Rebbe said this word or this word. Rabbi Yael understood from the first day. His m- his tafsir was incredible. He, he got what the Rebbe was trying to do. So we were arguing whether the Rebbe said this word or this word, and maybe guys had better memory than him. But he understood. Rav Sol told me, "The Rebbe made a chiddush in Masechta Nazir in Torah Shafei. He learned the whole Masechta to make the chiddush."

40:53 Speaker 4 Who? The Rebbe ma- learned the whole Masechta?

40:55 Speaker 1 Rabbi Yael.

40:55 Speaker 4 Oh, Rabbi-- oh, oh, okay.

40:58 Speaker 1 Just right of Sicha.

40:59 Speaker 4 Right.

41:00 Speaker 1 He learned the whole Masechta. He entered the fucking Kenen.

41:02 Speaker 4 Right. Uh-huh. Okay. So, uh, on that note, um, you mentioned about, I mean, the way you teach a Maamar, you teach often in out of order. And, uh, the way you explain in Shiurim is there's the, the Maamar and the Bier in the Maamar, which-

41:19 Speaker 1 Right

41:19 Speaker 4 ...I guess is not very-

41:19 Speaker 1 That version is from the Maamar, the BeKusha LePlet. The, the source of that expression, the Friediker Rebbe gave out two letters. One was called and one was called

41:31 Speaker 4 Right.

41:32 Speaker 1 I think it's but I'm not sure, where you have the whole story of Reb Yisroel LePlet, who was an extraordinary person. He's like an archetypical Hasid, you know. He was a Pashte Yid, but he was a very sincere and passionate person. So without telling the whole , the Alter Rebbe made him into a tzadik. He gave him avodah, but he was a simple person. He w-- he didn't get smart. He was a, he was a, he was a retail shopkeeper. He was a Pasht-- the Rebbe said he had a-- he had a head like a piece of wood. Maamar of the Alter Rebbe was shorter, and it was easier to follow. Then the Mitteler Rebbe becomes the Rebbe, and the Mitteler's Maamarim are a deluge. It's unbelievable. It's unreal. And Yungleit took to it like a fish to water. And the Mitteler Rebbe had a policy that if you wanted to stay in Lubavitch, you could stay as long as you want, but on the way home, you had to stop in every village and

42:26 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

42:26 Speaker 1 So they came to Lepler, a guy half his age. He sits there for two, three hours, and he delivers a Maamar with such passion, 'cause after fifteen minutes, he was completely bewildered. So he tells his wife, "I'm going to Lubavitch. I don't know when I'm coming back." He stayed six months in Lubavitch. And he went to the Mitteler Rebbe and he said, "I don't understand." And the expression that he used was, and that's what's in the Sicha, the Maamar that's my source.

42:53 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm. I'm seeing Sicha of Alter Rebbe's Maamar like that.

42:56 Speaker 1 So the-- right. You see, but Alter Rebbe's Maamar often were two, two Maamar.

42:59 Speaker 4 Right.

43:00 Speaker 1 There was a Maamar and then a Bier. But what he meant, what Kushya meant was, and I'm assuming that this was the language of the time. I don't think he created the terms. This was the language of the Alter Rebbe's Chassidim, that the Alter Rebbe's was a Maamar on a pasuk or a Maamar Chazal. Where he asks questions and he gives answers. The bridge between the questions and the answers is the Bier. The Bier is the digression into a and or whatever it is. So that's his expression, and every Maimon is structured that way. It's a Maimon de Bier. And again, by the Rebbe, oftentimes the Bier is the Avoda. He skips the whole Hashkafa , the Rebbe. Uh, he goes straight to the Avoda, and the Avoda is the Tifta Hashkafa. You have to learn how to learn it. You have to learn how to learn the Rebbe, but they're very beautiful, and there's so many of them, and there, there's so much detail. The Rebbe.

43:56 Speaker 4 So just a technical question, because, um, after hearing a lot of Shirim from you, when, when you say that, you know, like you teach it, uh, in, in that order, um, I'm curious. It's, uh, would-- If you were on the team of the Manichim, I mean, I don't even know if there was much of a team. Was-- It was basically just a Rebbe for the Mamarm.

44:15 Speaker 1 No, there was.

44:16 Speaker 4 There was-

44:16 Speaker 1 By the late Chafs, Rebbe had help. By the late Chafs, the Rebbe had-- Rebbe had help.

44:21 Speaker 4 But that wasn't even for... Oh, you're-

44:23 Speaker 1 And they wrote Hanaros.

44:24 Speaker 4 Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

44:25 Speaker 1 The first ten years, Rebbe wrote everything himself.

44:28 Speaker 4 Uh-huh.

44:28 Speaker 1 And then for a few years, it, it, it-- we're missing a lot because Rebbe didn't write everything and there was nobody doing it. I don't know the whole Hishtalshelus.

44:37 Speaker 4 Right.

44:38 Speaker 1 But by the mid-Chafs already, they were back and writing Hanaros, and, and, and at some point it became official that the Rebbe was not the only one who wrote Hanaros. So Rebbe was very involved. I mean, I, I'm too young for this, and I'm not smart enough for this, but the people who did the Maimonim, who did the Sichas, especially the more involved Sichas, they didn't budge with that Rebbe. You know, the Rebbe spoke a Hadran, so David Feldman walked him home, or whatever, walked around the park, and he talked him through the whole thing.

45:02 Speaker 4 Right.

45:02 Speaker 1 And now David has a golden pen. So he wrote it. But they-- And I'm sure but, uh, Rebbe is-

45:10 Speaker 4 Right. Now I'm curious, would, would you-- would you think that the Mamarm should be written-

45:15 Speaker 1 You need Achrayus

45:16 Speaker 4 ...it's a technical question obviously, but-

45:16 Speaker 1 You need Achrayus. You see, the good thing about me is that I don't have Achrayus. Meaning if I make a mistake, and you believe my mistake, and I misled you, I'm sorry, but it's not official Lubavitch. You know, when the Rebbe became a Rebbe, and he started to speak Torah, he insisted every page of every Maimon, every Seicher say,

45:45 Speaker 4 Okay.

45:47 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe used to make it very clear that as far as he was concerned, some of the Hanaros were terrible. They were not reliable. And he was very, very, um, well, over the top of his sense of inadequacy. It's, it's-- You can't trust a Hanacha unless it's edited. That w-- But the Rebbe didn't have time. Now, personally, I believe if, if Rebbe would not able to do it, the Rebbe would have found another way. He did trust Rebbe, but he still would say, and to this day, the members of the will not re-produce Torah from the Rebbe from the because they say, "How do you know we understood correctly?" But over time, you know, now every Seifer that comes after has a Kasher stamp on. It didn't.

46:38 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

46:39 Speaker 1 I remember in Mem Dalet, I think. But w- then it was called the Svadus.

46:43 Speaker 4 Right.

46:44 Speaker 1 So they used to give out-- I mean, the, the thing about the Hanaros Halacha was it was a-- it was, it was like a clock. It came out every week. Every Wednesday you had a Hanacha. It was, it was incredible. You know? There was Yiddish and Hebrew, and everybody has their particular like and dislike. But Hebrew, it was every week the Hanacha was ready. It w-- He never missed a week. He's a workhorse. So he printed the Svadim, and they put a Kasher stamp on. And the Rebbe made them put a sticker over it. I have the Svadim.

47:09 Speaker 4 Wow.

47:10 Speaker 1 With a sticker, because it's not . It's not... Then in the late Mems, early Nuns, I, I think the first thing that came out with a Kasher stamp from was the Rebbe Menachem and Yitzchak. They published-

47:24 Speaker 4 Right

47:25 Speaker 1 ...I think it's a five-volume set at this point of the Rebbe's Torah on his father's Torah. And when those Svadim came out, the Rebbe allowed them to put a Kasher seal. Now, every Seifer that comes out, Kasher means Achrayus. Kasher means Rebbe's Achrayus. You know?

47:38 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

47:39 Speaker 1 Rebbe used to sign his name on every Seifer in the olden days, and then there's something called . So if you are a Manich of the Rebbe's Torah, on the one hand, you wanna understand it, but on the other hand, you don't wanna misrepresent. So how do you do that? How do you know you understood correctly? Maybe you make a mistake. So there is a need to be loyal to the order of the Maimon, the way the Rebbe said it. Although, I mean, y-you wanna restructure. And they do. They do. The new Hanaros, they, they really try to make the Maimonim as readable and as orderly as possible. And even old Hanaros they did that. And sometimes I, I, I recently learned a Maimonim, and I prepared the sheet. Then I listened to the tape. I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. They moved stuff around." And I don't like when they move stuff around. I wanna move around myself. I don't want do it for me. Um, but I can do it because if I made a mistake, it's mine. They have an Achrayus.

48:36 Speaker 4 Right.

48:36 Speaker 1 They're working for the Rebbe, so I don't know the answer to that question. You know, if, if you would come to Rebbe and say, "Write up all the Maimonim the way you wrote the Maimonim," he would say, "How can you do that?" But you did it. The Rebbe edited it, and the Rebbe's Hagah was almost nothing.

48:52 Speaker 4 Right.

48:52 Speaker 1 So he would say, "If the Rebbe's Hagah, it's Torah." It's not-- Maybe it's my imagination.

48:56 Speaker 4 Wow.

48:58 Speaker 1 I, I good, but still the Rebbe's Hagah means that the way he understood it is correct, and otherwise... So like I said, I can afford to do it because I'm a private citizen, but people who have Achrayus, the balance between trying to make the Torah clear and be loyal to the original is it's difficult even when you're making it from a tape.

49:22 Speaker 4 Okay.

49:23 Speaker 1 And if, if you're talking about the Hanaros from Shabbos and Yom Tov, it's extra-- extremely difficult. It's a big zechus, it's unbelievable zechus to, to take the Rebbe's Torah and make it beautiful. It's a big zechus. It's such a kavod to the Rebbe.

49:39 Speaker 4 Right. What would you-- How would you say the-- I mean, you started mentioning a little bit before about the Chiddush of the Rebbe's Torah, on the Rebbe's Maimonim specifically, um, over the previous Rebbeim. Um, obviously, in terms of , like we know the Rebbe uses atzmus, um, a lot more than the previous Rebbeim. Um-

50:03 Speaker 1 And did it .

50:05 Speaker 4 Right.

50:06 Speaker 1 Compulsively, obsessively. Compulsively, obsessively. The whole-

50:15 Speaker 4 Right

50:15 Speaker 1 ... Chassidus has changed because of those anchors.

50:21 Speaker 4 So yeah, so I guess that's, that's, that's to your question.

50:23 Speaker 1 I, I, I believe Reb Yael would say, The Maamarim of the Rebbe are unique. You must understand, the Alter Rebbe spoke his Chassidus. And the Alter Rebbe's Torah is, is, it's mind-blowing. It's mind-blowing, Alter Rebbe. Um, and the Alter Rebbe was very, very particular about Lashon Hara.

50:48 Speaker 4 Yeah.

50:48 Speaker 1 He wanted the Manichaim to write what he said word for word. And, uh, the, the atrocious grammar in Maamar Chassidus is because of this. The Alter Rebbe spoke in Yiddish. They wrote Hebrew with Yiddish grammar 'cause in Y- Yiddish you would say, In Hebrew it's . When you translate from Hebrew to Yiddish, Yiddish Hebrew becomes Right? In Hebrew you say . In Yiddish you say . So remember the Rebbe is .

51:24 Speaker 4 Uh-huh.

51:24 Speaker 1 It's, it's just, it's not, it's not gr- it's terrible. It's gefela. The tag of the Alter Rebbe wrote himself, the diktukis And if you were not particular about Lashon Hara, the Alter Rebbe would not let you write Hanakas. I mean, you read the ReShimas, the big story with the was the Torah. He, he wrote Torah of the Alter Rebbe with his own understanding, and the Alter Rebbe said, "Lashon Hara." And what was his answer? It wasn't in Babel. The Mitteler Rebbe-- Alter Rebbe didn't answer him, but he, he wasn't the Mitteler Rebbe as great as he was. The Alter Rebbe was, was Menache him because of this.

51:58 Speaker 4 Mm.

51:59 Speaker 1 So Alter Rebbe was extremely particular. You should say his words exactly. Genoi. It's Maamarim Torah min Hashamaim. All the Rebbeim wrote their own Maamarim. So when, when a Rebbe writes his own Maamar, the, I, I f- there's a certain kind of containment when you write. The Rebbe spoke, and when a person speaks, especially the Rebbe, there are very, very often... What the Rebbe himself would say, Things come out that are outside of the order. They add another dimension to the, to the expanse of the Maamarim of the Rebbe, right? The Rebbe's saying a Maamar. He's teaching an idea. But he spoke it, and in speaking it, he will reference areas of Torah and Negiah. He will reference areas of Torah and Rambam that he happened to be talking about at the same time. It adds other layers to the Maamar. So the Maamar is the Maamar, but those other things become tentacles that take the Maamar in different directions. I, I think it's much more by the Rebbe than the other Rebbe because the Rebbeim r- didn't... We don't have from the earlier Rebbeim Hanakas. We have Maamar. They wrote it themselves. So when you write the Maamar yourself, you stay loyal to the, to the plan, to the, what do they call it? The, the layout. Yeah, there's a word for it. Um-

53:22 Speaker 4 Template? Format?

53:30 Speaker 1 The outline. The Rebbe also has an outline, but the Rebbe throws in things, and sometimes those little thrown in things are actually, are actually the Maamar. And you have to, you have to pick that up. So the Maamarim are very rich, they're very original, and there are so many areas of Chassidus that the Rebbe is claimish repeating from the earlier Rebbeim. But he's saying such different things. He's saying such original things. He's saying different things. He's saying different things. And, um, you have to notice. He's not making a mistake. I, I'll give you an example, yeah. If you learn Maamarim of the Rebbe Rashab, yeah, everybody knows him. Michna Rav, yeah. The highest level is Eved Poshet. And the Rebbe's Torah, Eved Neman. Eved Neman. Eved Neman, uh, at least in merit, was higher than Eved Poshet. You know why Eved Neman higher than Eved Poshet? Because Eved Neman is Man Malcha Rabbonon. What means Man Malcha Rabbonon? Man Malcha Rabbonon means if you're a Talmid Chacham, you are the Aibishter. Eved Melech, Melech is an association. Man Malcha Rabbonon, you are Malcha. Now, that's exactly the opposite of what the Samach Vov says. It's just one example, and there are thousands of examples.

54:45 Speaker 4 Yeah.

54:45 Speaker 1 The Rebbe takes familiar ideas and tells them to you through his paradigm, and it's a very, very broad paradigm. Intellectually broad. There's so many... There, there are foundations. is a foundation. is a foundation. Yeah, you said atmas. Those are foundations. But the breadth of the Torah, you know, just adding the Rambam to Chassidus the way the Rebbe did, it's, it's-- it just makes it-- it stretches it. It makes it bigger and broader, and it, it, it allows you to go to places that the Maamarim before don't have. And it's, it's rich if you flush it out, you know. I, I give you more examples where the Rebbe seems to be saying what the earlier Rebbeim are saying, and he's saying something quite different.

55:29 Speaker 4 Right. I think the question would be more than finding those examples, of understanding what the essoyes behind those examples are.

55:35 Speaker 1 Perhaps.

55:36 Speaker 4 Like, I, I think what you said about, um, Man Malchi Rabbonon, Eved Neman-

55:40 Speaker 1 Isn't that crazy?

55:42 Speaker 4 But in a way it fits with-- I mean, not in a way. It fits with . It fits with-

55:45 Speaker 1 But this fits with Torah. See, that's not . That's Torah of Nashei. That's another part of the Rebbe. That's another part of the Rebbe. That's the idea that Torah gets you to atmas. That's not , no

56:02 Speaker 4 With Chad HaTachnun, no? I'm not talking about the ma'aseh.

56:05 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no. Ma, Ma'akara Bonam means when you learn Torah, Betshina, Medaberes, Vestach, Atan, Lesheni, Mesechaken, Achar, Akeirei.

56:13 Speaker 4 Right.

56:14 Speaker 1 That when a person learns Torah, he's so one with the Abish, that in his words, in Abish's words, it's the opposite of the Nevei Tachtayim. It's Torah.

56:21 Speaker 4 Right. But I, I-

56:22 Speaker 1 It's Torah. It's, it's-- The Rebbe's world is co-

56:24 Speaker 4 Yeah

56:24 Speaker 1 ... is complex.

56:28 Speaker 4 Right. Meaning, besides for Torah, I, I would think that it's the element of where the tachnun is able to become the-- so connected to Torah that it's Chad Mamish.

56:40 Speaker 1 Okay, I'm not gonna debate-

56:41 Speaker 4 Whatever .

56:41 Speaker 1 You on this. But then you would say that-

56:43 Speaker 4 It's a sheer-

56:43 Speaker 1 ... it's Nevei Pashet more than Nevei Neeman.

56:45 Speaker 4 'Cause of the basic of the bittul.

56:46 Speaker 1 'Cause Pashet of the year, Kabbalah sell, Bittul.

56:48 Speaker 4 Right.

56:48 Speaker 1 It's a different spin.

56:49 Speaker 4 Right. Okay.

56:49 Speaker 1 It's a different spin.

56:50 Speaker 4 Yeah.

56:50 Speaker 1 It's a different spin.

56:51 Speaker 4 Right. Okay. Yeah. Not, not to get technical, right. Um, the-- Uh, if we could back it, uh, zoom out from the Rebbe's Ma'am specifically to Chassidis in general, obviously, we, you know, we could, we could stay focused on the Rebbe's Ma'am. What in, in-- What are the most important rules for someone to learn Chassidis and to appreciate the Chassidis that he's learning? In other words, um... And I mean, you-- Like I mentioned in the beginning, you teach in the classroom, you teach Bacharim also, besides for teaching, uh, people who are past the Yeshiva, official Yeshiva experience. And I think there's a massive difference in that.

57:32 Speaker 1 Of course.

57:33 Speaker 4 Um, but let's say-- Let, let's focus on, on, on Yungelite, on people out of Yeshiva, where it's a lot more they have to figure it out themselves. I'm not just talking about the learning of the Maimar, I'm talking about the-- to live the exper-- and experience Chassidis. When you're in Yeshiva, your Mashpia directs you, guides you, and you have to at one point figure it out by yourself. What-- So, so let's say you have a, you know, you have a Yungerman, and he's learning Chassidis and whatever Chveus he has. But for it not to remain just a seder of learning Chassidis certain time of day or certain time of the week, but to actually live the Chassidis. What are some basic, or f- or not basic, but what are fundamental rules how that transformation happens? How the Chassidis becomes from learnt to lived?

58:21 Speaker 1 That's not an-- That's not a simple question. First thing, I gotta plug Tanya. I have to plug Tanya. You're never allowed to stop learning Tanya. You have to learn it, and you have to learn it, and you have to learn it, and you have to learn it. You have to learn it till you don't only believe that Tanya's Tedesh of Chabad Chassidis, but that you understand that Tanya's Tedesh of Chassidis. The average person knows that Tanya's Tedesh of Chassidis because the Rebbe said so. They have no idea how. To them, Tanya is a little tiny book. It's a few little topics, and Chassidis is so vast. It's It's everything is in Tanya. And when you start to see all the Chassidis in Tanya, you begin to understand. Tanya, you have to learn Tanya. You have to learn Tanya. It's the anchor. It's the anchor on so many levels. Of course, most importantly is the anchor 'cause it's a Voida. Tanya is not giving you philosophical ideas. Tanya is teaching you. Tanya is challenging you. You know, the lesson in the Yaim Yaim. Chassidis is a Getliche Verstand. It weighs a mensch, we need it, it is, and we hope it can be the ribbon. No book does that like Tanya. Tanya is a Getliche Verstand. Weighs the, we need it, it is, and we hope it can be the ribbon. You know, so many people, especially the kids, the teenagers, they feel that Tanya is telling them they're bad. The Tanya is not telling you

1:00:09 Speaker 1 what you are. The Tanya is telling you who you could be. It's a challenge. And you're never allowed to stop learning Tanya. And too many guys give up on Tanya. "Yeah, I did it already." To me, you never finish with Tanya. My father told me that in the olden days when the crowd was smaller, now Baklau, the Rebbe Farbrengen less frequently. There was more Yechid. There was much busier with Yechid Farbrengen frequently. Nobody even knew if the Rebbe davened with the Minyan. He came to Shul Shabbes and Yom Tov. Yeah, Mincha, Ma'ariv, the Rebbe always davened with the Minyan. Shacharis, even the Shechades, the Rebbe davened Yechidus. He came Shabbes and Yom Tov and Chol HaMoed, yeah? But we didn't know if he was davening. He would turn the pages, he would do the Ois Shalom with Kisos Tisis. People say the Rebbe davened in his room.

1:00:49 Speaker 4 Oh.

1:00:50 Speaker 1 Or even Mareches. But I heard from many people, the Rebbe would sit with a Tanya and bletted, bletted, bletted, bletted, bletted, bletted. And the Minyan was holding Nishmas, and he'd quickly catch up. Bletteds. Always looking in Tanya. Always looking in Tanya. Your uncle, Rabbi Sharach Ezmenyomen, our teacher, had a little Tanya that the Rebbe gave him. He had it in his-- He probably s-- You learned in LA?

1:01:12 Speaker 4 Yeah, I was over back there.

1:01:13 Speaker 1 So do you remember his Tanya?

1:01:14 Speaker 4 I don't. When he went here, it's totally-

1:01:16 Speaker 1 I don't know. He had a little brown Tanya, and he, he was always obsessing over Tanya. Because he's a man of... He can't do anything Nishmat HaNefesh. It has to be. But Tanya, you have to learn Tanya. And this is very-- For a Balabat and Yungelite, it's enough to learn Tanya, believe me. Um, to learn my Moreh Chassidis. I mean, the real answer to the question, you have to have Chassidishe Farbrengen Ish. Y-y-y-- When you're asking the question, I'm not sure if you're asking the question on a scholar level or on a Voida level. In other words, you're asking the question in terms of the ideas resonating or in terms of possibly being a Chassid. We have to have Farbrengens, and Farbrengens have to be earnest. It's so easy for a Farbrengen to become relaxed. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing But it's a missed opportunity. And when you sit around and you eat food and you tell a story and you enjoy each other's company, that's also very valuable. But a farbrengen could be more meaningful if you use the opportunity to talk about what you're supposed to talk about at a farbrengen, which is yourself. You know, we talk about the Rebbe, which is very good, but we should talk about ourselves. Now, talking about yourself is not comfortable, but the point of talking about yourself at farbrengen is, uh, an opportunity for people to share their avodah struggles to grow, right? Somebody described farbrengen like Chassidish therapy. You sit together,

1:02:44 Speaker 1 you share your avodah. Chassidim in Mosels, they did. Real people, I mean, they didn't have large farbrengens. It was intimate farbrengens. People shared-- There's a-- Reb Mendel of Kotzk, they had-- Re Mendel, Re Mendel was obsessed with Abba Sisro. I don't need to tell you. It's homemade Abba Sisro. And Re Mendel talked about different Madregas in Abba Sisro, you know. I forgot how it goes. It's like the first Madrega in Abba Sisro is that you're prepared to share the most ugly parts of yourself with your friend, and you, and you're not afraid that it's gonna affect the friendship. The second thing Abba Sisro is that you're prepared to listen to whatever your friend is telling you, the worst thing, and it's not gonna affect your friendship. And the third one thing is that you wanna tell him your hisronus, and you keep quiet and let him tell you his. I'm, I'm not saying the word correctly, but you get the point. Chassidim shared in Yanapnimium. You know, we talk more than we ever talked, but we say nothing. Nobody talks about real things. It's, it's a disease. You ever tell the video of Mendel saying, "Madasa Tzamereid, yungeleit should talk to each other." People talk all the time about politics, about sports, about anything but themselves. And, you know, a farbrengen is an opportunity to talk in Yanapnimium, and you have to choose who joins the farbrengen. It takes one letz, one guy who's uncomfortable, and he starts telling stories because he doesn't want to

1:04:09 Speaker 1 talk about in Yanapnimium to ruin a farbrengen. Farbrengens are good for yungeleit. Get together with mazman, say l'chaim, and, and, and share, and sing a niggun, and be moved. And of course, the end of the farbrengen has to be a practical takeaway. And otherwise, it's sort of not efficient. It's not a waste of time, but it's not maximization of time. So I, I think the Rebbe was very in favor of farbrengens, extremely so, even though he knew that not all farbrengens looked like the Mittler Rebbe's chassidim in the cellar. You know what I'm saying? He was very, very in favor of chassidim sitting together. But farbrengens, farbrengens make chassidim. Farbrengens take ideas, and they cook it. It's, it's the kifsha. You know, you make a kli chares. It doesn't become a kilt. You put it into the kifsha, and the farbrengen is the kifsha. It bakes it. It makes the ideas true. You know, Lubavitch is about mesirut nefesh. It is. Lubavitch is about mesirut nefesh. You're born a Lubavitch, you grow up a Lubavitch, and you go through a stage of feeling like, "Why should I be mesirut nefesh? What about me?" And you sit in yeshiva, and you sit in yeshiva, and you have one farbrengen, a second, a hundred farbrengens, two hundred farbrengens. What those farbrengens are doing are branding the messages, the, the, the yesodois, the hashkafah, that a day of ashvi, our chassidus begins with being mekarev somebody else. If you want to bring yourself closer to Hashem, bring somebody

1:05:41 Speaker 1 else. The farbrengens do that. And it's not chidushim. It's the same thing over and over again. But it has to be a, a farbrengen that has, uh, substance. Yungeleit who are busy have to find the occasion to sit in a chassidish farbrengen or take a little ma'aseh. I knew a Yid, and there was a Nisn Heywood, alav ha-shalom. I knew him from Los Angeles. He lived in Kranheit with my neighbor, but I was a boy when he lived here. When he, uh, moved to-- I was at Ochanan as a boy in Lametes, Memba, Membeisa, and I came back as a shliach later. So I had opportunity. He's the tutor. He's the-- When our teacher didn't come, he was our substitute, and he farbrenged with us. So he told me a ma'aseh. He-- His family lived, I think, in Calgary, Canada, which is no place. And there were not a lot of Frum people around. And he was very close to Lubavitch. He was in Shanghai. So in Shanghai, you had the Lubavitch yeshiva, the Lublini yeshiva, the Mira yeshiva, and the Amshonov Rebbe. These were all very powerful influences. And then he met the Chazon Imrei Gedola after the Muhammad someplace. And, um, he chose the path of Lubavitch. But the-- all these influences were part of his journey. But he had to go home, and it was very lonely. In other words, he was single bochur. He went to his parents and his sisters, and he wanted to be in yeshiva. But he-- Well,

1:07:05 Speaker 1 I don't know what the reason was, but he was home for a while. It was very hard for him. Anyway, he visited Montreal, and his mashpia was Reb Peretz, Reb Peretz Mushkin, who was a, a gadol in Abba Sisro. Reb Peretz Mushkin was, uh, very important for, for, for-- not just for Lubavitch, for the whole Kehillah Charedim in Montreal after the Holocaust. Reb Peretz Mushkin was a torch. He was a beacon of light for so many Chassidim in the fifties and the sixties. They all were drawn to him. So Reb Peretz said to Rabbi Hayward, "Nisan, zoch stam ha'lchaim." So he says, "Medvemen. There's no one to talk to over here." So Reb Peretz said to him, "Navzaga ha'lchaim. If you drink alone, it makes you a shikit." You know, "Navzaga ha'lchaim. Val hinter a, a flesh of raven kem gezich nish bahalten." That was his expression. You can't hide behind a bottle of mashke. Now, to sit by yourself and drink, either you're a tzadik or you're part of a drunk. But the point was the farbrengen is a moment of honesty. And the farbrengen, we need farbrengens. We need farbrengens, and we need His in sp-- meaningful farbrengens. They don't have to be long, but they have to be, they have to be on some level avoiditic. You know, we're not comfortable talking about ourselves, but we need to get past that and talk about growth. Yiras Shamayim, Chinuch, Shalom Bayis, Middos Toivos, Aves Isro, Tzdasakah. Those are real topics. Limud HaTorah, Avedas

1:08:36 Speaker 1 Hatfilah for Balabatim in their own Madregah. And if we talk about it, we, we, we stand a chance of growing in those things. Is that an answer to your question?

1:08:47 Speaker 4 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Uh, both on Hascala and on, uh, Avodah, as you said.

1:08:51 Speaker 1 On the Hascala side, I'll give you a different answer. And I don't know if it's for everybody, honestly. I, I-- You know, you know, we, we hear the phenomenon called Shurim Hashav Vechol Nefesh. Everybody learns Chumash, everybody learns Tanya, everybody learns a Seudah in a Amud, right? A lot of people are learning, I don't know what it is, Daf Hayomi, Umda Hayomi, uh, there's division of Likutei Torah to finish it in three years, Yeshivan HaTalmid Chacham HaRach. Not everybody who has Shiurim has the kind of intellectual, uh, background and depth to master things. People learn, like learning a Sicha. It's beautiful. Uh, am I developing a, a, a worldview by learning Sichas? On an Avodah level, yeah. But on a Torah level, not everybody has the depth and the time and the memory to, to accrue knowledge in the kind of way that they become, for lack of words, an expert. They feel it, you know, what's called the Libe Chafetz. But for those who can, they must. And what it means, don't be a Nasher. Don't be a jack of all trades. You learn what you enjoy, period. You have to learn Chitas, you have to learn Amud, but you learn-- Don't-- For a Balabos who doesn't have that much time, if he wants the Torah to give him joy because the he has to learn the Torah and he has to understand it. And if you learn a little of this and a little of this and a little of this, you don't

1:10:22 Speaker 1 understand anything. If you immerse yourself in one area, whether it's Halacha or it's Nigla or it's Chassidus or it's even the S-- not even, the Likutei Sichos, it's, it's a dynamic world. It's a Lebdicah Velt, and it can become your world. But if you're trying to do everything, unless you're a genius, you're, you're, you're not doing anything. That's a different answer to a different question.

1:10:42 Speaker 4 Right. Sure. The-- Yeah, the question was about how to start living it, how to start, uh, how to start appreciating it.

1:10:49 Speaker 1 So learn one thing.

1:10:50 Speaker 4 Sure.

1:10:50 Speaker 1 Learn one area, you know. You wanna learn Mamad from the Rebbe Rashab, but learn it until the Mamad come to life. Learn one and another and another and revisit and revisit and... I, I feel like people who learn need to learn their own mind. You have to learn how to use your brain. No one-- What, what are the rules? How are you supposed to use your head? You learn how to use your mind from using your mind. Now, some people are naturally extremely gifted intellectually, and I think to a great extent it's 'cause you come from a background of intellectuals. In other words, smarter people are not better students necessarily. People who come from a background of learning, it's, it's almost in their genes. They just have a chush in how to approach learning, but a lot of people don't. And learning how to learn is hard because when you're on the outside looking in, you, you never really understand anything completely, and it frustrates you. I, I had a exchange with-- I have a boy that I'm close to, a teenager, and he's saying, "I'm going to school. Nobody has any questions. I don't understand anything." I said to him, "You know why? Because they don't care not to understand. You care to understand because you wanna make this into your panasa. And if you don't get it... So, so you-- What you don't understand, they don't understand. They just don't care not to understand because they're passing tests. You wanna understand." I said

1:12:08 Speaker 1 to him, "You keep doing it, and then one day the door will open." You, you, you push and you pu-- you, you don't understand, you don't understand, and then slowly you start to see how the Maimonides thinks, and you cross over to a place where you have an, a-an approach, a gisha, what they call knowing how to learn. It's, it's a wonderful moment, and then that grows, then, then you can learn. That's why you go to yeshiva . You go to yeshiva to learn how to learn so that when you don't have that much time, you can continue learning. But if you didn't learn in yeshiva and you don't know how to learn, and you become a Balabos, and now you wanna learn, which is wonderful, but it's very, very difficult to really master it at that point in your life. That's in the Maimonides.

1:12:51 Speaker 4 Right. Even though that's when you have more of the maturity .

1:12:54 Speaker 1 You're right, the chush, the interest.

1:12:55 Speaker 4 Correct. Yeah. They sh- really should go back to yeshiva then. Yeah. Um, so you mentioned before about the farbrengens being Chassidushe therapy, so I'm gonna obviously pick on that, uh, on that word, and that's, uh, that's a hot topic, of course. Um, and the, the conversation keeps on coming up again, you know, in the, in, in, in the, in people's talking and, you know, all the different, uh, things that come up in the world and, and enter, and enter our community. Um, all the different types of therapies and, and Limudei Chacham. And you always have... Okay, and then Chassidus comes into the picture, and then there's always the two camps. Camp number one of that, you know, the therapy is, is, is-- it does the job, and Chassidus doesn't do the job. And, and then, you know, so, like, I'm, I'm, I'm-- it would be nice if, uh, if Chassidus could, could help me with, uh, with my traumas and my problems, but it doesn't. So of course, I respect Chassidus, but I ne- I need to go to therapy. Um, and not only that, but, like, even, even, like, the there are some people that always try finding all the Shitas of therapy within Chassidus, but, like, that's almost like the, the, in a ap- apologetic way of, like, trying to, like, re-retain that belief of, "Oh, Torah must be holy and must be true, so let's try to find, uh, the, the point of this model of therapy in, in Chassidus." And, you

1:14:29 Speaker 4 know, and it gets very exciting when they, when they uncover that. But the point definitely is that, like, we need the therapy. We need the therapy. Chassidus maximum, maximum will be able to find those same L'shainus somewhere in a Maimonides and appreciate that, oh, the, they're Aveir Mente, but definitely it won't help me. And even now that I know where it is in Chassidus, it's still not gonna help me, and I need to go to therapy. And then camp number two is the opposite, that, uh, that, uh, that all these things are, are, you know, are Aveiras Aseh, uh, you know, in one extreme or even whatever. They're, they're, they're, they're, uh, they're a Shboias Chutzonios, and therefore you only need to learn Chassidus. Chassidus is the answer to all the questions, and, um, and everything is in Chassidus, and you have to learn it. And if you, if you didn't find the answers, then you're not learning it right. You're not learning it well enough. You're not learning it right. You have to go to Mashpia, et cetera, you know, whatever, however they're gonna explain it. But it sounds like both, both camps are, are either... In other words, there's this tension, this conflict between the therapy and the Chassidus. And either we're going to take the therapy side and maximum, you know, apologize and say that, like, Chassidus had it and said the same words, but it doesn't solve the problem. Or Farquhar that only Chassidus solves the problem and, uh, and, you

1:15:45 Speaker 4 know, and going to a therapist is, is trife. Um, it's, it's... You know, these are all massive discussions, massive debates, and I would love to hear your thoughts. Um, obviously not just as a, as an opinion, but as a, as a guide. You know, like, as a way that people could approach this.

1:16:05 Speaker 5 Well, first, it is an opinion. It's my opinion. I don't speak the truth necessarily. Y-you know, I wish we could go through this question by question, 'cause you maybe asked twenty questions just now. And if you remember each question separately, I would love to address each one individually. But I do wanna make one comment first. There's so many things that I need to say. Um, try not to interrupt me, but whatever I fail to go back to, raise it again. I was just curious, the people who say that you don't need therapy, just learn Chassidus. Do they say that when you have a broken leg?

1:16:41 Speaker 4 That's usually the retort. It's back.

1:16:43 Speaker 5 Do they say that when someone has a heart condition? The notion that the Ɣref u'hanefesh is injured in Ɣref u'haguf is sheker. The idea that there's no such thing as mental illness and that mental illness is a lack of Chassidus is like saying there's no such thing as physical illness. Now, were there people who were healed from Torah? Sure. The Baal Shem Tov. When the Baal Shem Tov was ill, Shevche HaBaal Shem Tov, they wanted to bring him a doctor, but they were afraid to approach him, 'cause who's gonna ask the Baal Shem Tov to bring him a doctor? A Zaddik shuas, yeah. So after Pesach, he became weaker. He never really got sick. He became weaker. His voice became a little bit high-pitched, hoarse. They put in a bell 'cause he couldn't-- He would call, they wouldn't hear him, and he became weaker and weaker. So they asked Rav Dovid Leikis, who's not really mentioned in Chabad, but he's Ɣgedoli HaBaal Shem Tov, to go into the Baal Shem Tov and suggest that the Baal Shem Tov should see a doctor. And the Baal Shem Tov said, "Dovid, du bist eych von di bizhaltn az ich hab a shayches az helche zakhn?" Y-you really? You think I need a, a, I need a doctor? You know, our Rebbeim did see doctors. But Lamashon, when the Rebbe Rashab was ill, and they offered to bring him a doctor. So he, he-- The Berditchever writes it. He made a funny face. Like, "Go ahead. You, you

1:18:04 Speaker 5 gonna bring a... Go ahead. It's not gonna make any difference, but you bring a doctor. You zunt a eyd." But there were Tzadikim, and I-- In the Litvisher world, the Ɣgedoli Zohar wouldn't see a doctor. Farvos? The Rap-- Torah health. Yeah, it's true. If you're that Madrega. But for the average person, you, you, you have a sick-- go to a doctor. Why? You know, I was having this conversation recently. It says in Zohar that Zman HaBayis, you got all seven Chochmas from Chochmat HaTorah. The world was so illuminated that you took from Torah all the Chochmas. Refuah and Teshuvah and, and the Cheshbon, whatever the seven Chochmas are. Now, it says in the Chassidus, it's not that way. You cannot take Refuah from Torah. You cannot take Teshuvah from Torah. You learn it from Chochmat HaChassidus. Why? Because there's a, there's a Helim in the Torah. So ideally, in principle, ultimately, but it's not practically true, to make believe that mental illness is somehow not real is not real. A person's ill, they need a doctor. I, I said this once in a recording, one of my Q&As, and I was really attacked. I was insulted and embarrassed in public for saying a bla-- a bad thing. I, I believe it's true. The Rebbe Rashab went to see Freud. We know that, right? Why do we know it? Why do we know it? Why do we know it? There was a, there was a reporter following him to Vienna? 'Cause the Friediker Rebbe repeats it

1:19:27 Speaker 5 in Likutey Torah. The Friediker Rebbe told the story to the Rebbe in private, and the Rebbe told the story publicly by farbrengen Tov Shelom Bays. Why? And now people have created stories about the Rebbe Rashab, which Aleyu Dubim Ulayah, it's disgusting what the so-called academics and truth-seekers have done from that Maaseh. Why do, why w-- why do we know to know that Rebbe Rashab went to see Freud? Why? It makes the Rebbe Rashab greater. It, it, it... To a lot of people, it's very disturbing. Now, I don't know the answer, but the Likutey Torah, the Friediker Rebbe tells the stories about the exchanges that he had, besides what he told the Rebbe, but the Likutey Torah. So I said in a recording, I'll say it again, I believe it. The Rebbeim revealed this to tell you if the Rebbe can go to a doctor, so can you. The Rebbe went to-- The Rebbe was ill, he went to a doctor. No one has, no one has any Apikis. The Rebbe doesn't need-- The Rebbe needed a doctor. When the Rebbe had his heart attack, Pesach, Tov Sheb'chol, he called in the doctors, and he told the doctors-- It's very fascinating. He says, "You did something for me that I couldn't do for myself." The meaning of those words was, "In my entire life, I tried to be self-sufficient, and I'm usually successful. Now, I needed you." In quotes. "Ich hab a gedarft." So you mainly said thank you. Um, and the same is with mental

1:20:52 Speaker 5 health. The Rebbeim revealed that the Rebbe Rashab struggled. The, the-- In the lashon, the Rebbe used the Ɣsire, the Hey Peh Chet Gimel. He was, he was depre-- He was sad. And he went to get help. We don't need to need... No, the only justification in my mind for revealing that story is that we should know that when a person has a mental illness, you can go to a doctor just like a broken leg. It's no different. And it, it disturbs me when people start to, to spin it as if something, something on resembling Shabbat, like, it's ridiculous. If, if, if you don't go to a doctor with a broken leg, then you shouldn't see a therapist. But if your leg is broken, or if you have a cholesterol problem, or you have a heart problem, or you have an eye problem, you go to a doctor, it's no different. It's an illness, and illnesses need to be cured, and you need experts. And in Galus, you cannot get rid of four from theta. That bridge which exists in this mana bias does not exist. You need to go to... There's no question about it. And it's-- People have to get over it. People have to get over it. You need a doctor, you go to a doctor. That's-- I think that's the first that needs to be said. But there's a second thing. The second thing is extremely, extremely important. Um, the, the-- I'm gonna say one thing and then a second thing. The

1:22:06 Speaker 5 second thing is what I really wanna say, but I'm gonna say the first thing first. There is this movement of people, particularly young people, who see psychology almost as a lifestyle. Psychology is not only healing, it's a way of seeing yourself. And to be very blunt, a person who makes psychology into a way of seeing yourself is saying, "I am forever sick," and that's messed up. Just like the chassid who says, um, "There's no such thing as mental illness. Tanya will cure you," and that's ridiculous. This is equally ridiculous, and it's, it's tragic, and it's sad. Um, but it's very... It's, it's, it's very, very... It's very, very preve-prevalent. Um, people feel like they're not heard. People feel like they're not understood. And it's true. It's true. But you're never allowed to define yourself by illness. You know, a cancer patient, the worst he can do is say, "I'm a cancer patient. I'm a person with cancer." A person with mental illness is not mentally ill. He's a person with a mental illness. Um, and for some reason, the secular world is into this, and it's trickling into our world. Um, I believe the reason for it is because psychology is the ultimate justification for self-absorption. There is nothing in the world that's gonna keep you focusing on yourself more than, "This bothers me, and this bothers me, and this bothers me, and this bothers me." And we like ourselves. What we don't appreciate is that it's literally a prison. A whole day I talk,

1:24:09 Speaker 5 "My rebbe said I shouldn't talk to myself. No, I don't care. I'm gonna be busy. I, I'm gonna heal. I'm gonna go to one therapist and a second therapist and a therapist. Until I heal, I can't think about my avoid, my Yiddish guy. I need to heal." And-- But you need to heal. It's from the need to heal. In other words, ideally, we should... I tell my students, therapists are like Kleenex. You blow your nose, you throw it in the garbage. If you have a lifelong relationship with a therapist, either you have a real mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disease, or the therapy is making you sick. You get over it. You heal. You don't keep going back to the podiatrist 'cause you broke your leg forty years ago. A lot of us have trauma. We're very sensitive. We're extremely sensitive. And I don't understand why. I, um, I have a, a theory that it says in my modem that in the end of Galus, we're gonna have extremely low goofies.

1:25:03 Speaker 6 Extremely what?

1:25:04 Speaker 5 Low goofies, bodies. They're so dense, there's just no way that we could, uh, penetrate the goof. So they gave us the Adelstein Ashamas. The Rebbe-- The Rebbe says in the Mind, based on Rebbe Rachab. I, I believe that that may explain it. We're so sensitive. Now, we attribute sensitivity to a lack of toughness. We're, we're very weak, but we're extremely, extremely sensitive. So we experience pain very acutely, and we all suffer from, from s- very little things affect us very deeply. We, we all, we, we all need to heal, but we all need to know that the point is to get healthy, not to stay sick. And to get healthy means my goal is that I shouldn't need my therapist anymore. That's my goal. I wanna be healthy. And to put it into language of Hasidus, I wanna stop thinking about me and think about what I need to do. That's-- It really is common sense. Freedom is getting over yourself, and so many of us are in this prison, and we don't even see, number one, how self-generating it is. You stay stuck in it. It's like a circle. You go around and around. And it's also very depressing. It's extremely... You, you're busy with yourself 'cause you feel like no one took care of you, and I'm gonna take care of me. So you get so busy healing, healing, healing, healing, healing. And oftentimes we, we sustain the illness to sustain the self-absorption. It, it, it imprisons us. It makes us smaller. "I

1:26:39 Speaker 5 can't do this, and I can't do this, and I can't do this, and I can't do this. I can't get married. Can't have kids." Why? "I'm busy with me." Now, if it's true, it's re-- If it's real, you, you need to heal. But every person needs to have an end game in psychotherapy, that I'm gonna stop seeing my therapist, not because I can't afford to pay him anymore, because I'm fixed. And you need to go into that with that mindset. And this has nothing-- This is not Hasidus' fault. This is the world's fault And somehow no one is allowed to say what I just said. What, what I just said is mean. It's bad, it's insensitive, but it happens to be true. And so many people get caught in this trap. I call it meism. They're just busy with themselves. Besides for the fact that from a perspective of Hasidism, it's, it's profoundly disgusting because Hasidim are supposed to get over themselves. It's so emotionally debilitating. We, we inhibit ourselves. We all are sensitive. We all have pain. We all need to heal, but we all need to have a goal of stopping to be busy with ourselves and be busy with our mission, which means we heal. That's point one. Now I'll give point two. Okay, I have a friend, a very Hasidic young man, I would say his name, but I don't have his permission, who's involved with some very, very prominent people in all kinds of fields for whatever reason. And he

1:28:09 Speaker 5 knows some therapists and social workers and people who are involved in mental health. And he's a staunch Lubavitcher. He's very proud of Lubavitch, and he's always defending the Rebbe, but he's so to speak out there. So he tells me that he met a man who read the Rebbe's letters. And he says to him, "You know, I find the Lubavitcher Rebbe to be most unempathetic." See, carefully. To say that the Lubavitcher Rebbe is most unempathetic is to forget the person. The Rebbe was all love. The Rebbe was so much love that he could afford to be tough. And if you read his letters and feel like he's insensitive, y-y-you, you, you don't know him. But, but why is this man saying that? Has the Rebbe ever met any person and said to him, "Yeah, ?" He gave everybody a kick in the pants. He pushed people always, and he was always action-driven. The Rebbe became a Rebbe with a generation of Jews who came out of the Holocaust. They're mental cases. What did the Rebbe tell them to do? Heal? The Rebbe told them live, get married, have children, buy a house, make a parnasah. These people were so knotted up. I mean, people say that it takes four-- you know, grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are Holocaust survivors. They're still getting out of the system. That first generation didn't do any healing. They survived. They just lived. Imagine the Rebbe had given them hugs and said, "Go into therapy." They would never have gotten married. Never.

1:29:57 Speaker 5 They would never have-- and would have been better for it? They wouldn't. You can't heal from something like that. You've gotta live. Now, I don't think the Rebbe has an attitude of, "I don't care about your mental health. Just go." I think the Rebbe understands that the best way to heal mental health is to, is to push yourself. It doesn't always work, and when it doesn't work, you need help. But too many of us are being held back by our need to heal. Because when you need to heal, you must heal. When life can heal you, you gotta live. And the sooner you cross over from needing to heal to living life and letting life heal you, the healthier you'll be and the happier you'll be. And if you don't allow yourself that door, you won't-- you're gonna remain your whole day stuck about yourself. Your whole life thinking about yourself in a small little world, and the justification is pain. And the pain is real, but the pain doesn't have to be a prison unless I make it one. And this is critical. Here's my approach, my understanding of it. Hasidism does not deal with illness. It deals with health. Hasidism teaches you how to live a positive, joyous faced-- faith-based existence where you draw strength from God to live a meaningful life. The more we engage in Hasidism, the more our mental health issues self-heal. The more we engage in mental health healing, the more we steal from ourselves the joy, the faith,

1:31:38 Speaker 5 the freedom, the energy, the expansiveness that religion gives us, that God gives us, that Torah gives us, that Hasidism gives us. The Rebbe made every Lubavitcher a bigger person by focusing on joy and faith. Now, we never wanna talk about Gimmel Tammuz, you know. Gimmel Tammuz didn't change a thing. You know, there are certain places where you see acutely the effect of Gimmel Tammuz. Practically speaking, I will say there's no place where you see the effect of Gimmel Tammuz more than it comes to shidduchim. The Rebbe made shidduchim so easy. But here's another example. The optimism and the positivity of Lubavitch is diminishing over time, and we're calling it health. We're calling it taking care of ourselves. We're calling it not ignoring our pain. And it-- there may be truth to that. But it's also true that as we put mental health first, which really means we put illness first, we're depriving ourselves of the joy of religion, the joy of life, the joy of God, the joy of Torah, the joy of Hasidism, and all the Rebbe stands for. The Rebbe gave it to the sickest people, people who are far more emotionally ill than we're. People who are not capable of feeling any emotion. People who couldn't hug their children, couldn't kiss their children because they were so wounded. And the Rebbe gave them a life by pushing them Now, it would-- i-- the more a Hasid you are, the mental problems don't necessarily go away, but the less you're defined by them.

1:33:20 Speaker 5 And, and I think this is the interface between psychology and Hasidus. Hasidus does not deal with illness, it deals with health. Psychology does not deal with health, it deals with illness. The worst sickness a person can have is see psychology as a way of life. Psychology as a way of life means my way of life is thinking about me every day. And to think about you every day, you think you're protecting yourself, you think you're defending yourself. You're creating a tiny castle for yourself, and it's a prison. It's a prison. It's a prison. And you don't s-even realize what you're doing to yourself. Go out of yourself. The greatest thing you can do for yourself, help somebody else. You'll f-- you'll heal. The more you help, the more you give, the more you live a positive life. The problems need to be addressed. I'm, I'm not one of those people, those that believe you shouldn't see a therapist if you need one. But unless you have a serious mental illness like schizophrenia, you do not need a lifelong psychologist. You don't. You need to address a problem, solve it, live your life. With simcha. And the more emunah we have, and the more simcha we have, the greater our control of that freedom we will enjoy. And unfortunately, it's become accepted to make illness our self-definition. In Lubavitch... In other words, Lubavitch is becoming sad. Lubavitch is allowing itself to say, "I'm allowed to be sad." And the Rebbe would never allow any Lubavitcher, "Yeah,

1:34:57 Speaker 5 yeah, you're allowed to be sad." The Rebbe wouldn't let Eli Videl be sad. Everybody has to be happy. Not easy. But-- and he's not just-- it's not religious. It's good psychology. It's good living. Get out of yourself. The Rebbe did-- So when you read his letters and you see him pushing people and pushing people, he is unempathetic. But what he's doing is he's, he's goal-oriented. "I have to teach you how to live. And to teach you how to live, I have to get you out of your head. Now, you're stuck in your head for good reasons, and I'm gonna force you out of your head." That's the Rebbe's-- Now, the Rebbe has authority. The Rebbe has credibility. In other words, we trust him. We don't-- we're not afraid he's gonna hurt us. When your Mashpia says, "Stop thinking about yourself," you say to your Mashpia, or you don't say it to your Mashpia, "You don't care about me." And you probably-- you may be right. When the Rebbe says to you, "Stop thinking about yourself," get it. You know he cares about you. That authority allows the Rebbe to push us more than anybody else can. Well, guess what? It's thirty-one years, thirty-one and a half years since Gimmel Tammuz. We need to hear that every day. We need to hear the Rebbe saying to us, "Get out of your head." Because your, your teacher, you don't trust the Mashpia. But the Rebbe, he's still the Rebbe. And if we're Lubavitch, the essence of Lubavitch

1:36:25 Speaker 5 is positivity, is simcha. And it's, it's so, uh, impacting on all of the areas of our life. It's not just Avodas Hashem. It's, it's psychology, it's mental health, it's physical health, it's relationships, it's courage, it's not being afraid, it's risk-taking, it's everything. But you have to be chassed for that. You have to have emunah. And, uh, a lot of us have given ourselves permission to be sad, which means to not be chassidim. And, uh, it, it's not good. I gave you more than you thought you were gonna get. Um, and I'm gonna get into a lot of trouble for this, but, uh, I, I, I think what I just told you, I believe. The point is, there are people who need help emotionally. We-- and, and on some level, all of us do. But most of us don't need to stay there. Don't. And too many of us are, and we blame it on the fact that people don't care about us. And they do care about us. They're just not gonna play the game. They don't want to allow us to become professional lifelong victims, which is a Minich America, just a custom of the land. And it's very foolish. Very-- it's very sad. People live such small lives because of fear. People don't get married, people don't have children. They have all this money, they work, they-- the only thing they do is make money, yeah? But they're so afraid of so many things, they put so many walls around themselves. Because they're

1:37:59 Speaker 5 afraid, they're protecting themselves. Protect-- you gotta live. Don't be a-- take a risk. Well, how can you take a risk? 'Cause I believe in Hashem, I believe in, in goodness, and it expresses itself in joy. You don't wanna get stuck in that prison. You don't wanna get stuck in that prison. Because one day you wake up and you realize, "You know, my life's pretty miserable, and I created it for me. Not my parents. I created it for me. I blamed it on my parents."

1:38:28 Speaker 4 So if I understand correctly, you're saying that if a person has a problem, they should go to a therapist, to whatever, to the, to the doctor, to a psychologist, so to speak, to address the problem. But chassidus is offering a more overarching solution that's not gribbling with the problem specifically, and that is as necessary, um, even concurrently, at the same time. Uh, like, not to ignore the specific issue that needs to be addressed, but not to turn that into the, like you said, into the way of life, but far k'ert to help-- to, to allow chassidus to help you shape your way of life, to, to give you that image of what-

1:39:15 Speaker 5 Of yourself.

1:39:16 Speaker 4 Right.

1:39:16 Speaker 5 Of who you are. My father spent every Sunday doing Shalabais. And there were times that we literally had to leave the house 'cause it was loud. Or he was sitting with couples. My mother said to me, like, "Mishtak, I said to Tatty, 'How do you do this?'" And he said to my mother, "Zon zeide zain gezunt, 'Cause I really believe that people could be helped." You have to believe that you can be healed. And that's the overarching point. I'm not a sick person. I'm a wonderful person. I have a problem. I don't wanna define myself by my problem. You go to the doctor 'cause of a broken leg. You're not a, you're not a broken leg, you're a person.

1:40:00 Speaker 4 Right.

1:40:00 Speaker 5 Mental illness is the same thing. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, but, uh, but sometimes pain does inhibit. Sometimes pain-- Sometimes you have to stop your life.It's true. No, it is true. Sometimes people, the pain is so acute. If people have been through abuse, that they literally need to get off the train for a while, and... But you don't wanna stay. You wanna, you wanna get back onto the train of life. And I'm not gonna say that it's always possible to be simcha as you're dealing with your s-struggles. Often it is. Probably in most cases it is, but some people have a lot of pain, and you can't ignore pain. And you need to go to a doctor, and the doctor's an uman, he's an expert, and you don't get that expertise from Hasidus. You just don't. Why? Because the bridge between Pnimis Hatora and the Chochmah V'Chitinus in Zman Hagalus is karov. You wanna learn Chochmah V'Chitinus and learn from a Chochmah V'Chitinus source. It's Klipa, but it's Refuah. Have a Rapi Rapi, you need to heal.

1:41:04 Speaker 7 Right. I, I once heard someone saying that in such a situation, when talking about an extreme situation where someone needs to actually work through a real problem, so if they're gonna learn Hasidus at the same time, um, and Hasidus cannot help with that issue, um, so the Hasidus will just-- I don't remember exactly how they said it, but, like, kinda get in the way or, like, d-distract. You know, let's say they're learning about, uh, you know, the power of their neshamah or, or simcha or whatever it is, and this is something-- And, and that would just distract from the ability to, to focus on the specifics of the problem, uh, which they're going to the doctor for. Would you ever say such a thing? Would you think that such a thing is true?

1:41:47 Speaker 5 I, I, I hear it. I would imagine that in acute cases it's probably true.

1:41:53 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

1:41:54 Speaker 5 You know, some people are so sick that there are a lot of things that they can't do. Um, but I think it's-- I don't, I, I don't know, but I can't imagine there's a lot of people like that.

1:42:03 Speaker 7 Right.

1:42:03 Speaker 5 What Hasidus gives a person who's going through trauma is hope, is light. Doesn't take away this trauma. It doesn't take away the need to work through the trauma, but it does give you a little more belief in the possibility that you can get past this, which is very, very necessary. Um, but maybe, I don't know.

1:42:23 Speaker 7 Yeah.

1:42:23 Speaker 5 Maybe, maybe some people's pain is so deep that they need to focus on illness exclusively. Maybe. But they should put on tefillin every day, and they should eat kosher. That's not gonna disturb their healing.

1:42:36 Speaker 7 Right. Okay. Um, if, uh, I always try to connect the two with time, lev im itzait, one of the Rebbe's marching orders. So we're heading to Lag BaOmer, um, and I think in the, in the con- in the context of conversations of Hasidus, Lag BaOmer could be celebrated a whole year as, uh, as the Rebbe tells us, S'matin Torah of, uh, Pnimis Hatora.

1:43:01 Speaker 5 Well, they state in, in, uh, in Samavov in Osfarteim.

1:43:05 Speaker 7 Right.

1:43:06 Speaker 5 The Rebbe says it Yutza's Kislev. But the Re-Rebbe Rashab says in Osfarteim that this is Matan Torah Pnimis Hatora. That's lamed gimel. After lamed bet in Sefer HaChochma, just like you have mem tes shari bina. Then comes Shulens for bina, nigale de Torah. So you have lamed bet in Sefer HaChochma. Then comes lamed gimel. That's what it says in Samavov.

1:43:24 Speaker 7 Oh, wow.

1:43:25 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:43:25 Speaker 7 Yeah. So wha-- So l-- what would be the message and approach to, for a Hasid to live with Lag BaOmer from, from-

1:43:36 Speaker 5 I'm gonna give you a thought. I mean, obviously there's so many thoughts. I'll give you a very interesting thought. I talk about this a lot, especially when I speak to what they call groups of Chabad Light. Tzadikim are holy people. They're very holy people. They live in a very pure world and a very intense world. Who's drawn to Tzadikim? Other Tzadikim. Regular people, the common around Tzadikim, Tzadikim make them very uncomfortable. They're not good enough. They feel judged, and they're so uptight. They're so intense. So you would envisage, you would imagine that Tzadikim would be surrounded by just other holy people. Average people, below average people, people that are going through religious struggles, what do they have to do with Tzadikim? They, they have nothing in common with them. And there's some truth to that, you know. Small Tzadikim, you know, medium Tzadikim, their reach, their sphere of influence is limited to people who live in their world. There's a funny phenomena. The greatest Tzadikim, the holiest Tzadikim, have an appeal to the biggest bum. They have appeal to the biggest Oisv. And nothing brings this forward more clearly than Lag BaOmer. Lag BaOmer's a party.

1:45:08 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:45:08 Speaker 5 For whom? For people who study Kabbalah? Yeah. But not only. Everybody has a kinship with Rashbi. Now, we never met him, right? Maybe if we'd meet him, we wouldn't like him so much. Maybe he wouldn't tolerate us. I think he wouldn't. You know, Rav Shimeon bar Yochai's name is a gvura name, yeah. That Yid's name is Yitzchak, it's right to the gvura name. There's a reason. These were deeply intense people, and yet somehow the biggest Tzadikim talk to everybody. Why? Because when you get this close to God, ohev ma she'ah ov, ohev. They love Hashem so much that they love what Hashem loves so much that there's no Yid who's not part of their Abba Yisrael paradigm. And people feel that love, and they're drawn to it, even if they're very, very, very bad models of what that particular Tzadik would want for them to be. One of the most extraordinary things about the Rebbe is the degree to which he judged and to which degree he didn't judge. At the same time, he was always critical, always demanding, and his love was so unconditional that everybody knew that it was impossible for the Rebbe to stop loving you. It just-- Y- it never crossed your mind. It couldn't be. Reb Shimon Bar Yochai is the same thing, and to me, that's Lag BaOmer. Lag BaOmer is a barbecue with people who don't keep Shabbos celebrating Reb Shimon Bar Yochai, singing Bar Yochai. They have no idea who he was and how he lived, and

1:46:38 Speaker 5 the intensity and the holiness and the, the insular nature. He was in a cave. But what did he give the world? He gave the world a fire of Elokus, which is so deep that it reaches so far that everybody owns a piece of it. In Poland, the Rebbes, Hasidish Rebbes, yeah. What was the sign of critical mass? How did you know that you were a big Rebbe, not a smaller Rebbe? That you had schutzim.

1:47:07 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:47:07 Speaker 5 A mom-and-pop Hasidis was small, but they were Elokei Yidden. People were not interested in doing what the Rebbe said, were not around the Rebbe. The biggest Rebbes had all kinds of people around them, and each one took something, you know. Nobody in the Hasidic world represents more the Baal Shem Tov himself and our Rebbe, no question about it. But-- And this is Lag BaOmer. Reb Shimon Bar Yochai's Kedusha and Reb Shimon Bar Yochai's access to the neshamah of every Yid reveals the Koach of Pnimis Hatora. Because he's so close to the Aibishter, no Jew is outside of his sphere, and he loves them, and the Jew feels it, and he-- it lifts him up. So it's a, it's a, it's a Yom Tov of his Kashrus. It's a Yom Tov of appreciating the, the unconditional nature of the Rebbe's love and the responsibility that we have. Not that the responsibility is gonna earn us that love. The love is unconditional. But what Chabad makes, that's a start, and we gotta make a difference in the world. Everybody, every one of us.

1:48:15 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm. Interesting. I'm saying, uh, it's-

1:48:19 Speaker 5 It's not what you were expecting.

1:48:20 Speaker 7 It wasn't what I was expecting.

1:48:21 Speaker 5 Well, that's why you came to me.

1:48:23 Speaker 7 But, but I could, but I could-- But it's-- it, it make-- Because the r- reason why it wasn't what I was expecting, 'cause I was thinking about Pnimis Hatora. But-

1:48:30 Speaker 5 This is Pnimis Hatora.

1:48:31 Speaker 7 Exactly. But in the Pnimis of Torah is, is a Yid. So, yeah.

1:48:36 Speaker 5 It obviously so.

1:48:37 Speaker 7 Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful.