1318 - Elul 18 – Chabad history

00:00 Uh, we'll discuss today the Yemei Chabad on the eighteenth day of Elul. Um, now, normally people associate two main events with the eighteenth day of Elul, but today we'll see that there's actually many more events that have this date as significant and significant occurrences that took place... Thank you very much. That took place on the day, on the day of, of the eighteenth day of Elul, on the day of Chayil. Usually, we associate this with the birthday of both the Baal Shem Tov and the birthday of the Alter Rebbe, which both took place on Chayil, as we will see. But there is also other items that took place in, uh, this day. It begins with, uh, Chay Elul, Shin Samach Tes. Um, that would place it, uh, close to or more than one thousand, uh, years ago. Um, I'm sorry, that's it. Uh, I'm totally wrong. That will place it, um... Today we're doing Taf Shin, so this will place it more than four hundred years ago. Uh, like, to be exact, it would place it four hundred and four years ago. On this day, the Maharal miPrague, uh, Yehuda Levi from Prague, he was the rabbi, a great, uh, great, great scholar, wrote many, uh, very important books about Torah, about, uh, Kabbalah, and about, uh, Yiddish. He also addressed a lot of philosophical, uh, matters of, uh, of Torah and, um, he was the actual grandfather, great, great, great grandfather of the Alter Rebbe. And he, the Maharal miPrague, he himself was a

02:05 descendant, and he took his lineage from the Gaonim who had their lineage traced back to David, King David, the son of Yishai. So that means they go all the ways back. They had the lineage all the ways back. And, uh, he was the great-grandfather, great-great-great-grandfather, as we'll see from the Alter Rebbe. The way it goes like this is, you have the Maharal miPrague. He had a son whose name was Reb Tzahal. Reb Tzahal had a son whose name was Reb Shmuel. Reb Shmuel had a son whose name was Reb Yehuda Leib. Reb Yehuda Leib had a son whose name was Reb Moshe. Reb Moshe had a son whose name was Reb Schneur Zalman. Reb Schneur Zalman had a son whose name was Baruch, Reb Baruch. So that's already the sixth generation that we're talking about from the Maharal miPrague, the sixth generation after him. And then finally, what we're talking now is the, um, Alter Rebbe, Reb Schneur Zalman, who was the seventh generation. So Reb Schneur Zalman was son after son after son, the Alter Rebbe, the seventh generation for the Maharal miPrague. So of course, now we also know the descendants of all the Lubavitcher Rebbes that come also as children from the Rebbes. They come all the ways from King David. We know that they're from the tribe of Yehuda, and they're from the dynasty of the king. Uh, the, the, uh, Maharal died. He was ninety-seven years old, and he's interned in the city of Prague. So again, his day of

03:49 passing of the Maharal miPrague was on the eighteenth day of Elul in the year Shin Samach Tes, which was four hundred and forty-four years ago. Now, then we have the next thing is on the eighteenth of Elul in the year Taf Nun Ches. Now, uh, Taf Nun Ches would place us, um, uh, also like four hundred, uh, four hundred years, uh, three hundred, uh, years, um, a little more than three hundred years ago, uh, uh, three hundred and, um, and, and five years ago, uh, because Taf Nun Ches, then you have to add... Today, we have to add the, uh, Shin, and, uh, so it's, it's, it's three hundred and something, uh, Ayin, Ayin Gimel, so it's, it's, it's three and something years. Now, the Baal Shem Tov's whole life was miraculous and Baal Shem Tov, uh, every aspect of him is like wondrous and wondrous. Not only did the Baal Shem Tov himself do wondrous things that are unimaginable, like miraculously beyond anything that we know today in nature, he was able to... That was his entire life was part of that. His actual birth and everything else that took place with his life was, as related, was like so out, so astonishing and so, uh, supernatural. So here it starts like this. The Baal Shem Tov was born on the eighteenth day in the year Taf Nun Ches, and, uh, his father was the great Tzadik. His name was Reb Eliezer, and his mother's name was Sarah, uh, the righteous woman, Sarah. And

05:47 that was on Monday, the eighth day of Elul in the year Taf Nun Ches, which is also spelled out Nachas. Nachas means pleasantness. It means, uh, joy or, uh, pride. So you have Nachas. So in the year Nachas, in the settlement known called Akko, that was the name of the place. And the entire birth and his childhood of the Ba'al Shem Tov has already been recorded in the book of the Ba'al Shem Tov. But here is a writing written by the Alter Rebbe with regards to the youth of the Ba'al Shem Tov that was only lately re-revealed. They just found it recently, and it has been printed in one of the journals that have been publishing some of the new findings about the Ba'al Shem Tov. And there's many details over here which are different somewhat in some ways than what we know until now. And the, uh, previous Rebbe writes with regards to that, uh, document, to that writing from the Alter Rebbe, that I've heard from my, uh, uh, father, uh, the Rebbe Rashab, in the name of the elder person that lived in Radomysl, that he was one of the people that would clean the books and the writings before Pesach by the Tzemach Tzedek. He would do the part of the cleaning job. And there were many writings over there. There were many, uh, sheets, and there were many letters that lie in a drawer. And there was one long, uh, note which was written with the handwrite of the Alter

07:34 Rebbe. And this is what was written over there from what he could remember. The elder Radomysl told over that this is what was written from the Alter Rebbe. The, the-- He related it. He says, "Generally in the Gemara we find a disagreement between the rabbis, between Rabbi Eliezer and the Chachamim, how old Avraham Avinu, Abraham our father, uh, peace unto him, how old he was when he recognized God. One says that he was three years old, and one holds that he was eighty-- forty-eight years old. But according to the Ba'al Shem Tov, everybody agrees that it was three years of age in which he recognized Hashem, the Ba'al Shem Tov. His father, Rabbi Eliezer, was one hundred years old, and his mother was ninety years old when there was a dream that came to him, to his father, that he will have a son who's going to light up the world." You imagine, like we have a very similar situation by Avraham and Sarah when they gave birth at hundred, and she was ninety. But over there, here... Over there, they were told at the age of hundred and nine the next year. But here they were actually got the dream when he was hundred years old and his wife was ninety years old. And he sanctified himself, and that's when the Ba'al Shem Tov was born. And the-- his birth was not natural as normal children are born, because when he was three months, he was already walking and talking, the Ba'al Shem Tov.

09:20 When he was only one year and a half, a year and a half years old, his father, Rabbi Eliezer, passed away. And before he died, his father told him that he should not fear any human, only fear Hashem himself. No human. When the yahrtzeit of his father, Rabbi Eliezer, which means one year later after that his father passed away, so that means that he was two and a half years at the time. If he was a year and a half when his father passed away, when he was two and a half, his mother, Sarah, passed away. And he would walk in the streets. He had a stick in his hands. And the people would support him. The people of the city supported him. He was an orphan, so they supported him. But he would not fear anything. He would go into the forest, etc. And at the night in which he turned three years old, when he completed three full years, it was a very dark and bleak night, and it was a pouring, gushing rain. He took the stick and he went to the forest. And the people said to him, "How could you go in such a dark, murky night? How could you go?" He said, "I'm not afraid of anything. I'm only afraid from Hashem himself." So when he came into the deep, in the forest, the depth of the forest, he saw there was a beautiful large home, and there was lots of light over there. So he entered one room

10:48 into the other room until he entered in a room which all the mockers, all the, uh, agents of the, uh, Samael, who is the Satan, the Satan, they were all sitting there. They were all, uh, gathered in that place. These were all evil. These forces of evil were there. And they said to him, "How aren't you afraid to enter here?" He says, "I'm not afraid of anything, only from HaKadosh Baruch Hu by himself I'm afraid." So they said to him in Yiddish, meaning, "Child, will you agree that God has neglected the land? He's left this, this earth. He's left it. He's separate now. He left the earth to the, to the evil forces." Ba'al Shem Tov said the verse, "Let all those that do evil be scattered, taken apart." And all of them totally vanished as if they never existed. Up to eighteen years, he was taught by who was from the, uh, came to him in a spiritual way, taught him from past. And then he merited to also be a student of Mashiach. When he was 13 years old, he taught him, that must be Achia Shiloni, taught him all the names of Hashem and all the secondary names, the nicknames, all the different secrets, besides one name which he didn't teach him. So the Bashemtov asked why, why didn't... So he answered him, because that name he also doesn't know, and that's been given over to the Samach Mem himself, to the Satan himself. He knows the name, and the reason why

12:47 he has the name, because he did not agree to destroy the Beit HaMikdash unless God gives him as a collateral that name. Because that is the name in which the redemption hinges upon. That is the name. So he started to occupy himself to take the name out. So they said to him from above, they said to the Bashemtov from above that many people tried to get that name, the name that will bring, name of Hashem that will bring redemption, but they got hurt. And he answered, "I'm not afraid of nothing. I'm only afraid from Hashem himself." Until he brought down the Samach Mem, the Satan himself. And the Samach Mem said to him, "You rotten protrude," meaning human being, "I have not been in this world until now but two times, during the time of the first destruction of the Beit HaMikdash and the second destruction. How do you have the audacity to bring me here?" So he says, "I'm not afraid of anything, only from Hashem himself." And he extracted what he swallowed from his mouth, what he knew, what he extracted from the mouth. So he took it out. In the end of that note that the Alter Rebbe writes, "All this I merited to hear from the Shem Bashemtov himself while I was awake." I guess there was different times, different ways the Alter Rebbe would hear from the Bashemtov. Sometimes he was sleeping and sometimes awake. But he testifies that this was when he was awake. And the previous Rebbe adds,

14:33 this elder of Rabbi Misel related that he wanted to take and, uh, try to copy this. He already prepared a piece of paper and a pen to write down from the note of the Alter Rebbe. But the... Um, because this was, he was cleaning in the Tzemach Tzedek's house, remember, the grandson. He was cleaning for Pesach over there. That's where the elder lived. So in entered the Maharil, the son of the Tzemach Tzedek, and told him, "Don't do that." Because once already Rabbi Hillel of Parich has, uh, written down, he copied what was written down, and that was burnt together with other writings of his. Also my father, the Tzemach Tzedek, will be very upset about this. So therefore, he did not write it down. But this is what he related from memory, from what he saw himself from the Alter Rebbe's writing. So the-- this is about the birth of the Bashemtov that took place on the eighteenth day of Elul. Now, during the Bashemtov's birth, as we said earlier, that he was able to study, uh, with Achia Shiloni, that he was able to study with him. And before it, uh, it quoted over here that, um, um, that he, uh, studied... We just mentioned it earlier, um, um, let's see here. It says here up till eighteen years he studied with Achia Shiloni. And over here it says that different, so I don't know. Here it says that on the eighteenth day of Elul in the year Taf Pei Dalet. So that

16:36 means the Bashemtov was then already twenty-six because he was born in, in Taf Nun Ches, and this was Taf Pei Dalet. He was twenty years old. The Bashemtov writes in a, a letter to his student, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef HaKohen, that when I turned twenty-six years old on the eighteenth of Elul in the year Taf Pei Dalet in the city of Ukup, that was the city where he was born, at midnight my teacher and my master, Achia Shiloni, appeared to me, and we started to study the section of Breishes, and he's telling him about ten years Achia Shiloni learned Bashemtov. He taught him the inner parts of Torah, the, uh, luminary of Torah, of the revealed and the Kabbalah, as they studied in the Gan Eden. That's how he taught it to him. But I don't know how to reconcile this. This is a little different because here he says that he was twenty-six years old. In the previous note, we say that it was up till the age of eighteen. But also on the age, on the... Another thing, on the eighteenth day of Elul in the year Taf Tzadik Dalet, um, that made the Alter Rebbe at that point, uh, thirty-six years old. Um, so then the Bashemtov at that age revealed, because nobody really knew of the Bashemtov and his powers and his specialty. Uh, so on the eighteenth day of Elul in the year Taf Tzadik Dalet, uh, the Alter Rebbe's, the Bashemtov says at that time from when he started to

18:14 learn with Achia Shiloni, that follows the previous, uh, statement that he started at the age of twenty-six Um, so from the time when he started to instruct him, to teach him, the Ba'al Shem Tov was forced by the instruction of his, and demand of his teacher, Achia Shloni, as the Ba'al Shem Tov, who is a miracle worker and reveals the secrets, the depth of Torah. The Ba'al Shem Tov writes in his letter, "When we completed the entire Torah, of the end of the Chumash, I was thirty-six years old, and that's when I became revealed." Six years, the Ba'al Shem Tov refused to reveal himself, and that's why he lost, he says, six years, uh, of his life because of that refusal to reveal himself. Um, it seems like he was meant to be revealed perhaps before ten years. He was meant to be revealed after four years. But it's interesting, but here it almost seems like it was when he finished and started the entire Torah is when the time came to be revealed. I can only assume that when he was only four years into learning with Achia Shloni, he was just in the middle of the section of the Torah, but still he was commanded to reveal. I mean, this is something that needs to be looked up. But the, uh, all the details of what took place over here is written in the Sefer HaTold of the Ba'al Shem Tov, Chelek Alef, Amed thirty-seven. Over there is elaborate the whole story about

19:44 the Ba'al Shem Tov. And we'll continue to also study about the birth of the Alter Rebbe in, uh, in later on. Of course, the eighteenth day of Elul is also the birthday of the Alter Rebbe, Shneur Zalman, the one who authored the Shulchan Aruch, the Tanya, and of course, is the founder of the Chabad movement. Um, and it's related that ten months passed after they got married. Their parents, Rav Shneur Zalman's parents, Reb Boruch and Rivka, those were the rebbetzin, his parents, mother and father, and they hadn't, uh, they weren't blessed yet with a child. She did not become pregnant. So Reb Boruch was very, uh, very upset. He was in a lot of, uh, a lot of pain, of course, with that. And when he, um, met with one of his friends, uh, the Chosid, Reb Yitzchak Shul, um, they made a decision that they're going to go and travel to the Ba'al Shem Tov. That was the Ba'al Shem Tov we, we... As we discussed, the Ba'al Shem Tov's birthday is also on the eighteenth day of Elul. Ba'al Shem Tov was revealed on the eighteenth day of Elul. The Ba'al Shem Tov's teacher started teaching him on the eighteenth day of Elul, as we discussed. So, uh, the Ba'al Shem Tov always used to have a custom that on the eighteenth day of Elul, which was his birthday, uh, he would make a, a meal. Today they call it a party, but he would make a, a seudah, he'd make a meal.

21:29 And during that meal, he would, uh, give over, uh, words of Torah. And during that meal, when they came to the Alter-- when the Boruch, Reb Boruch came to the Alter Rebbe, the Al- the Ba'al Shem Tov told hi- to Reb Boruch, "This time exactly you will have a son." Meaning a year from now, that was on the eighteenth day of Elul. So they basically told him that on the eighteenth day of Elul next year, you're going to have a son. This was in the year Taf Kuf Daled because the Alter Rebbe was born Taf Kuf He. So he promised them. And as we read yesterday, the Ba'al Shem Tov, his birth and his whole conduct was in a miraculous way. He knew and he was able to do things like totally, which is like the olden days, like with the prophets and things, like he would have, uh, tremendous powers in order to, um, do and to advise the people. So before Reb Boruch and the rebbetzin, Rivka, before they left the city of Medzhybizh... Medzhybizh was the city where the Ba'al Shem Tov, uh, dwelled. So they came into the Ba'al Shem Tov to say goodbye, to part with the Ba'al Shem Tov. And the rebbetzin, Rivka, she was very elated. She was in a very, uh, good feeling, says to the Ba'al Shem Tov, when Hashem was going to fulfill the holy blessing of the Ba'al Shem Tov, that we will have a healthy son, she will dedicate his life to the

23:17 study of Torah, to the service of Hashem, following the path that the teachings of the Ba'al Shem Tov. And she basically made the similar vow as we find in the Haftarah that we read in Rosh Hashanah, which Chana vowed, the mother of Shmuel HaNavi, she couldn't conceive, but that was a longer time. And then she promised that if God will give her a child, she would dedicate him to God. That came the prophet of Shmuel. And the Ba'al Shem Tov blessed them, and they were, of course, left very happy, very joyful. On the four-- on Wednesday, on the eighteenth day of Elul, in the year Taf Kuf He, so, um, that makes it, uh, two hundred and, uh, and, and sixty-seven years ago, two hundred sixty-seven years ago, uh, the, uh, Reb Boruch and Rebbetzin Rivka gave-- she gave birth to a son, and they called him Shneur Zalman. And he is named after his grandfather. Shneur Zalman was his father's father, which is, um, Reb Boruch's grandfather. And we had earlier mentioned the exact lineage. They went till the Maharal Mi Prague. Uh, that was, uh, a great rabbi. They had the exact son after son. And the Maharal Mi Prague went-- had the lineage up to King David, to the house of David. So they were descendants from King David all the way down, all the way down. On that day, on Hachaelul, on Tov Kuvhe, when the Baal Shem Tov returned from his immersion in the Mikvah, he was also in a

25:27 very elated, uh, spirits. It was very joyful. And all the students were surprised to see the Baal Shem Tov's joy was more than usual. But nobody had the chutzpah to ask, "What's going on? Why is the Rebbe so joyful?" And at that particular davening, the Baal Shem Tov led the services, and he used all festival kinds of tunes during his davening. And the most surprising thing was, the Baal Shem Tov did not say the Tachanan prayer on that day. So Tachanan is said when it's an ordinary day, but when we have a holiday, a festival, we don't say Tachanan. So it means that the Baal Shem Tov turned that day into a festival. And after the davening, the Baal Shem Tov invited his students for a Sudas Mitzvah, for a, a meal during a mitzvah, and he was in great joy. And within the meal, he said as follows. We see in the, uh, Chumash, it says that on the fourth day, Yom HaRavi, in the, uh, order of the creation, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, on Wednesday, it says, "B'yom HaRavi nital ha'ma'os," the luminaries, the sun and the moon were pla- Sweetener. Uh, sweetener. Sweetener? Yeah. Two. Two. Thank you. So on the Wednesday, it was, uh, the two luminaries were placed in the, in the sky. So he says, "On this Wednesday, in the, uh, order of Kumi Oidi..." Now, um, I'm going to assume that the words Kumi Oidi equal, uh, five hundred and five, which was Tov Kuvhe. It's, uh, five O

27:42 five. Um, uh, like today we're seven seven three. But that was, like I said, that was five O five. That was Tov Kuvhe. So he said that when we talk about... Thank you. Sure. When we talk about that the- Half. He says, when he says that on the, on Wednesday, the luminaries were placed, that was Wednesday. So he said that the new soul descended into the world. What does it mean, a new soul? 'Cause usually, we know there is the concept of reincarnation. That means that the souls that come down have already mostly been down already in various different times and in different bodies, and they're just a reincarnation, that they come down again. But to have a totally new soul, which has never been down, that's sort of very unique. That's something very special. So he says that a new soul came down to the world, which will illuminate the world with the teaching of Torah, of the revealed Torah, and the Hasidis. And that soul will have totally dedicated a self-sacrifice so that the pathway of Hasidis should continue with success and till the coming of Mashiach. Um, so this was as it relates to the birth of the Alter Rebbe. And then later on, we have another, uh, another date of the eighteenth of Elul, and that is three years later. We said this was Tov Kuvhe was born, but this is Tov Kuvhes, which is, uh, five O eight in the... That means three years later. We know by three years

29:46 you make the haircut, so it's also the day that the Alter Rebbe had his haircut. And the Baal Shem Tov himself gave the Alter Rebbe his haircut because when the father of the Alter Rebbe, Reb Boruch, went to visit during that year on Rosh Hashanah to the Baal Shem Tov for the high holidays, he related to the Baal Shem Tov that they decided to bring their son, Schneur Zalman, to the Baal Shem Tov on the eighteenth day of Elul that follows, which means almost a year later. So when they need to cut his hair and leave the payos, which is really the first recognition, the education of leaving the payos, look like a, like a Jewish child. And basically, he was asking permission from the Baal Shem Tov, which the Baal Shem Tov agreed, but on one condition, that he will immediately go back home after the process of share-- uh, cut, cutting. Shouldn't stay around. Go back home right away. Because the Baal Shem Tov did not want- That the Alter Rebbe should really get to be close with, with him, should know him. Because the Schneur Zalman, the Alter Rebbe, belonged to his student. He wanted him to learn from the Maggid of Mizrich. And the Baal Shem Tov added that the mother, uh, which is Rivka, the Rebbetzin Rivka, the mother of Schneur Zalman, and also the aunt, uh, the Dvora Leah, that's the, um, the, the, the, the, um, Schneur Zalman's aunt, uh, they should bring the child after Dabnik. And

31:51 as soon as they'll cut the hairs and they're going to leave the payos, they should go back home immediately. And on the fourth day of, that was again, of Yom HaRabi, that was again on the fourth day. Uh, the 18th of Elul, Tov Kuvches. So the Rabbonis, the Rebbetzin Rivka, together with her sister-in-law, the Rebbetzin Dvora Leah, they came together with Schneur Zalman, with the child, to Mezhibozh to the Baal Shem Tov. After the Baal Shem Tov, uh, did this education of leaving the payos and, uh, blessed him with the blessing of the Kohanim, Yorecha Shev Yishmerecha, he again instructed them to immediately go back home and not to discuss where they were. And he blessed them with a good year, with a safe trip. And the entire way, the child was asking, who is this Jew that cut his hair and leave this payach? And the mother told him, this was Zaydi. This was the, it was Zaydi. Zaydi did it. At that day, the Baal Shem Tov made a feast for all of his students. In the middle of this meal, he said a Torah which begins on the Ma'avar, on the statement of our sages, that Abraham was three years old when he recognized Hashem. It's a reference, an allusion to the fact that the Alter Rebbe was three years old at the time. And the Baal Shem Tov further said that the one, uh, who has the soul, uh, from Poland, I guess that was the place, today is three years

33:37 old. And at three years old, he recognized his creator. He will also need to work with Mesirut Nefesh, with self-sacrifice of Abraham Avinu, in order to reveal a new path in the understanding of the unity of Hashem to grasp and also in the divine providence. I just wanted to mention this, that before we mentioned that he says that the luminaries were, uh, were both, um, hung on the fourth day of, of the, of the week. That was on, on, uh, on, uh, on Wednesday. Because we said before, uh, that, um, it was Wednesday, but it was also on Chayelu. I mean, maybe, so that was a reference also to the fact that the, uh, Baal Shem Tov was also born on the day of Chayelu. Um, even though, and Baal Shem Tov was born, it was on a Monday, as we learned earlier. Uh, the, um, not sure whether What he said before, kumi ori kibra ori. Kumi ori means get up my light. This is actually a verse in Yeshaya in chapter 60, verse 1. And that was the portion that they read. It was Parshas Kisavoi, uh, when, uh, when he was born. Um, and, um, that's why he was referencing the seder, uh, kumi ori at the time that he was born. Okay. Finally, we also have on the 18th day of Elul in the year Tov Kuf Ayin Gimel. Um, if you, uh, this year, what are we up to? Tov Shin Ayin Gimel. So this is exactly 5773. And this

35:50 is five, uh, uh, not five seven, but five five seven three. So how many years from five five seven three? 200. Exactly. Interesting. Exactly 200 years ago, the Mitteler Rebbe, Rav Dov Ber, the son of the Alter Rebbe, they settled in the city of Lubavitch. So Lubavitch became exactly 200 years ago. That's when they settled the city of Lubavitch. Now, the Alter Rebbe passed away on the 24th day of Teves in the year Tov Kuf Ayin Gimel. That's 200 years ago. That's when he passed away. And following that, the Mitteler Rebbe, his son, they lived for several months in the city of Kremenchuk. That's in the Ukraine. And the Hasidim of, uh, the Rebbe, the Chabad Hasidim that lived in Ukraine, they asked, requested that the Mitteler Rebbe should remain in Ukraine for permanently. On the other hand, the Chabad Hasidim of Russia, uh, or White Russia, they sent, uh People to, uh, to the Mitteler Rebbe that he should settle amongst them. In the end, the Hasidim of, uh, Russia, they, uh, White Russia, they are the ones that, uh, were, uh, got their wish. And after Shavuos, the Mitteler Rebbe left Kremenchug, and he, uh, traveled towards White Russia. And on the second day, on Chai Elul, it was on, uh, Wednes- on Monday, Chai Elul, the Mitteler Rebbe, together with thousands of Hasidim, came to the city of Lubavitch, and he settled in the city of Lubavitch. That's how we come today, the-- That's why they gave the name Lubavitch. When he

38:02 came to Lubavitch, the Mitteler Rebbe traveled to an empty spot in which the homes that were there had burned two years earlier. And he said, "Fifty-eight years ago, when the Alter Rebbe was ten years old, and he learned by the great righteous person, Yosef, this was the synagogue that stood at this lot over there. When I prepared myself for this journey, my father told me," and he used to communicate with his father even after his father's passing. "My father told me, 'When I come to Lubavitch, I should place where I'm settling at this place.'" And he blessed the city, the settlement, uh, of, uh, where the leaders of Chabad have dwelt for long years and days and years. And that's how they settled in... But they had been in Lubavitch before. The Alter Rebbe has been there, as indicated over here. And we have in the Sefer HaZichronos from the, from the previous Rebbe, we have the history of how it was called Lubavitch. Lubavitch means love. It comes from the word love. Um, so why is it that such a small city like Lubavitch was chosen to become the metropolis, the headquarters of the Chabad kingdom? Uh, the previous Rebbe explains, and he says that this isn't in vain that the Lubavitch captures such an important, honorable place because the beginnings of the lives of those hidden tzadikim, and later on during the life of the Rebbes and the Hasidim Chabad, uh, this was all Lubavitch. Uh, Lubavitch, this was a very geogra-geographically, strategically

40:20 location. It was a very fitting place for people who were of great spirit. You can sort of, uh, isolate, separate yourself from the external world, and you are able to fully dedicate yourself to the Torah and the service of Hashem. Or you can begin life over there based on the principles, a new life when we are based on the principles of the, uh, ethical values of the teachings of our Torah. Lubavitch was always surrounded with large forests that also gave it a look of a isolated place, and it gave the s- people that lived there a feeling of, uh, hisbodidus, of being by himself, of to be able to, uh, reflect. It's sort of removed from the day-to-day noises of the world. That's how the city of Lubavitch became a point, a flashpoint to draw people that wanted to dig deeper in themselves and wanted to become close to Hashem in the fear of Hashem. It was for hundred and two years, approximately, that Lubavitch served as the place of four leaders, four generations of leaders of Chabad. The Mitteler Rebbe, the Rebbe Maharash, uh, I mean, the Mitteler Rebbe, Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash, and then the Rebbe Rashab until he moved to Rostov. And that served as the, uh, center for the Chabad Hasidus, for the hundreds of thousands of Hasidim throughout Russia and throughout the country. And one final thing on the Chai Elul in the year Taf Reish Nun Zayin. This goes almost a hundred years later, uh, not quite. This

42:36 is, um, uh, almost, uh, about a hundred and five years ago, uh, a hundred and, uh, and fifteen years ago. This was in the, uh, times of the Rebbe Rashab. They started the official study, uh, sessions in the Yeshivat Toldos Rebbeinu Lubavitch. As we said earlier, we learned that on the fifteenth day of Elul, they founded the-- Rebbe founded the yeshiva during the Sheva Brachos of the, uh, previous Rebbe in Taf Reish Nun Zayin, so on the fifteenth day of Elul. They actually started learning on the eighteenth day of Elul was founded, I think they started it in the Elul. And it reads out from a letter of the, of the previous Rebbe in which he writes that on the fifteenth day-- on the eighteenth day of Elul, eighteen can also be, um, spelled out, um, if you have the word tov. How much is tov? Tov is actually, um, uh, seventeen because... So on the seventeenth day of Elul, which was the day before the eighteenth, Porchat Elul. My father chose eighteen students to be the first students, and he has assigned the now v-very well-known Hasid, Reb Shmuel Green, Reb Shmuel Esterman from the city of Zhamchin. He gave them, put them in charge that he should teach them, uh, Hasidus Divrei Hayyim based on the order as my father has set up. On the eighteenth day of Elul, during the Sheva Brachos meal of my Sheva Brachos, that was the marriage of the previous Rebbe, my father said, "Today is the eighteenth

44:33 of Elul. This is the very special, clear, beautiful day in which the Alter Rebbe, uh, the, the, and the Baal Shem Tov were both born. This holy day, I am founding this yeshiva by the instruction and the blessing of our holy Rebbes. This is a yeshiva which will produce students that will have totally self-sacrifice for the study of Torah, for the service in the pathway as the Chabad Hasidim. I am hereby lighting these luminaries that the Baal Shem Tov, our teacher, and the Rebbeim, they have inherited, inherited to us so that the promise that was told to the Baal Shem Tov," he asked, "When is Mashiach gonna come?" He says, "When your wellsprings, the wellsprings of Baal Shem Tov will spread out to the outside, this will hasten the coming of Mashiach Tzidkeinu." So you can see that of all days probably of the year, um, there are a lot of very special days, especially the Hasidic calendar. But the day of Hay Elul itself seems to have the founding in various, with the Baal Shem Tov and with the Alter Rebbe and with the founding of the yeshiva. So you have a lot, a lot of things that happened on Hay Elul. Now, as you see, the Baal Shem Tov himself did not say Tachnun on that day that the Alter Rebbe was born. But in the Lubavitch traditions, you know, we have the holidays, the Hasidic holidays, which we don't say Tachnun. But Hay Elul is not one of those official days that

46:20 you don't say Tachnun in the, like, official, it's not said. And there's been some sort of a debate going on between, uh, you know, how one should do it and, you know, how the Rebbe did it and, um, you know, people that are, uh, would always try to find a chatan. You know, when there's a chatan over there, you don't say Tachnun anyways because in honor of the chasan. So it was kind of hard to know exactly. Uh, officially you do say Tachnun, but unofficially people tried or people don't say Tachnun. Again, I'm not here to rule about it. Uh? Did the Baal Shem Tov say Tachnun on Hay Elul that year? Doesn't say that. That's-- No. That would-- Then it would be easy. Yeah. 'Cause it's possibly that the Baal Shem Tov only didn't say Tachnun on that particular year in which he was born because then Shavuot came down, whether the... But that's been an ongoing debate, and, uh, we're not gonna resolve it over here. Yeah?