1323 - Elul 23– Chabad history

00:00 Yemei Chabad is the twenty-third day of Elul, and this is in the year, uh, Taf Resh Sadik Zayin, which is, um, in 19, um, um, 1937. Uh, 1937, uh, is the passing of the great genius Rabbi, Reb Meir Shloime Yanovsky. He was the grandfather of the Rebbe. Um, he was the Rebbe's mother's father, and, uh, he was a outstanding scholar and a great genius in both in the revealed and the Hasidic parts of the Torah. His yahrzeit is on the twenty-third day of Elul. Um, he took over after the passing of his grandfather, who was the rav, the rabbi, of the city of Nikolaev, which was a very Jewish city at the time, and he became the, um, his-- uh, followed him, and he became the rabbi after his passing based on the special instruction by his grandfather, who said that his grandson should take over his, uh, place. Now, the Rebbe would honor his grandfather by saying Kaddish on the twenty-first-- twenty-third day of Elul. The Rebbe would say Kaddish because I guess that was the only really, um, survivor who would say Kaddish after his grandfather. Uh, the Rebbe related in, uh, talks when he would talk about his grandfather, and the Rebbe also spent a lot of summers in his youth. Uh, w-he would go with his, uh, with his mother back to her home into Nikolaev, and the, the Rebbe has a lot of, uh, given over a lot of stuff from those days during the year, throughout the years. Uh,

02:12 the Rebbe's related that after the wedding of his grandfather, uh, Reb Meir Shloime Yanovsky, um, he, uh, became, uh, of what is known as the people called the Yoshev. The Rositzers, meaning, uh, before they had an organized form of a kollel like we have today. Uh, a kollel today mostly, I mean, they use the word kollel for various different things, but the traditional meaning of the word kollel would mean that after one finished studies before he gets married, and after, uh, marriage, a person would continue to study for a year or two or five, whatever it is, they would go to the kollel. The kollel would be a name for people where they study after they get married. But in those days, there was no formal thing like that. They would call them Yoshev, they would call them Sitzers in Yiddish, meaning those who sit. What would happen is that after one would get married, they would go and spend several months or whatever it was, a year, half a year, a year, um, and they would travel to the Rebbe, and they would be with the Rebbe, and there they would spend time studying, etc. So the Rebbe related that the Rebbe Maharash specifically, that was again, the Rebbe Maharash was the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was the youngest of the seven sons of the Tzemach Tzedek, who was the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, who was a grandson of the Alter Rebbe, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yushner Zamen. So the Rebbe Maharash, he, his conduct

03:55 was in a very, very wealthy, and he, he, he lived, you know, like in a, uh, spent-- Everything was in a high class. Everything was very done in a, in a rich way, in a very, uh- Well, he married a rich girl, woman. Well, that doesn't say- The problem wasn't it. Uh, well, the truth is, it's not like other people had the ability to also. It's not so much how much money, it's just how they chose to live their lives. So he says that, for example, all the utensils, everything in the home and the use of the Rebbe Maharash was made out of gold. It was like a-- He had two golden watches, one from the right and one from the left. I'm assuming in the old days, they had like those watches with the chains, you know, connected. Like pocket watches. Pocket watches, one with the right, one left. I'm not sure exactly. Yeah. It just says here they had two golden, one from the right and one from the left. And they used to, uh, smoke these, uh, cigars or, or cigarettes, and that had a golden pipe. The pretty piece in the mouth was-- mouth was made out of gold. His, uh, they used to have these sniff, they used to sniff tabac, uh, so that's- Snuff. Tabac, the snuff. That tabac was also made out of gold. Uh, his carriage was covered with gold. His dress was beautiful garments. And even his stick, he used to walk with a stick, the,

05:35 uh, knob, the head of the stick was made out of gold. So he says, "When my grandfather came back to Nikolaev after staying with the Rebbe Maharash, and he related how the, uh, Rebbe lived in such a, uh, luxurious, somber, somber way, uh, conduct. So one of the people that was listening said to the Rebbe, said to my grandfather, 'Why does the Rebbe conduct himself in such...' In such a wide way, uh, it wouldn't it be better for the Rebbe to give the money for Tzedakah, and he should just be sufficient with eating, uh, just little bread and some water as the Jewish people in exile, you know. Just, uh, the why is he living such an extravaganza kind of a lifestyle? And, uh, my grandfather said in Yiddish, "Petach, Petach," meaning fool, fool, he was saying to him, to the guy who asked the question. He says, "Who do you think for whom was gold, was gold created in the world? Is gold for me, for you, or maybe it's for the goyim? It's for a tzadik like him. That's why gold is there in the world. I mean, this is sort of paraphrasing also what the Mishnah and the Talmud says, uh, that the world was not fit really to have gold. Gold was sort of an, an item that the world would not have, but it's made for the Beis HaMikdash. So the Mishkan, the sanctuary, and they used gold over there. That's why gold was created, and because of that, everybody

07:20 else has gold. In a similar way, he's saying to him that the gold is meant to be used for the, uh, people, for the tzadikim, for the righteous people, not for, for other people. Not for commoners. Yeah. Well, uh, the, um, Rebbe at one, uh, gathering explained a-at great length the meaning of his name. His name was Meir Shlomo, and the Rebbe said like this, "What does it mean, Meir Shlomo?" So he says like this, that in one hand, the Rebbe was talking about his grandfather, he said, Uh, he was like a, a very, uh, situation. He was like exalted, and he was a, uh, person which was beyond, you know, getting involved in the world, being a great intellectual, and being involved with one who was sitting at the Rebbe Maharash's, uh, study hall over there, the Oheiv. That meant that he was somebody who was in a way separated and beyond the commoners or beyond the people. But on the other hand, he was actually a rabbi in the city of Nikolaev, which meant that he needed to instruct the people and to give them advice because a rabbi did not only give rulings, but he would also advise people in business matters, and he would have to have dealings with the government. It was all a part, a part of the rabbi's job, these things. And yet he had the-- combined this greatness, this aloofness together with that down-to-earth connection. And he says, by the Rebbe, by, by his grandfather, Rebbe Meir

09:04 Shlomo, this was not a contradiction, but on the contrary, his greatness as being one of the sitters by the Rebbe Maharash continued throughout his lifetime, and his entire work with the city was based, and it was penetrated with that feeling of being a Oheiv, being by the Rebbe Maharash. He was able to bring it down into his level. So that, that is who the, uh, yahrtzeit is, Meir Shlomo Yanovsky is the grandfather of the Rebbe. And the Rebbe eventually used to say Kaddish on this day. And, uh, like I said, the, the Rebbe had very fond memories and had very, uh, special, um, uh, connections, relationship with his grandfather. I remember one time the Rebbe saying, uh, giving over by a, uh, a farbrengen that the, uh, he wasn't such a-- They were talking about the businessman. The Rebbe was talking about that his grandfather, I believe that that was the case, I heard it from the Rebbe, that he used to also, uh, deal with, before the Yom Tov, before Sukkot, he used to deal with esrogim, you know, sell lulav and esrog. And that was supposed to me-mean to supplement the rabbi's income. You know, rabbis in those days weren't on big salaries. Uh, they didn't, uh, make, uh, no, uh, big, big money. So they, um, would have other kinds of ways of making some-- helping them with the income. So one of the things rabbis would do, they would sell lulav and esrog, uh, for... I'm not sure the lulav, mainly

10:49 the esrog. So, um, and it was the tradition also. And I was-- I, as I was growing up, uh, we would always go to the rabbi and buy the esrog. And, uh, and you know, whatever the rabbi gave, that was the esrog, you know. You didn't question it. Didn't question it, then we'd just use it. That was part of the, of the income of the rabbi. So his grandfather, the Rebbe's grandfather, Meir Shlomo, used to also sell esrogim. But the Rebbe said he wasn't a, a real businessman. So when the person come in, comes in to buy an esrog, and he's already made his choice, he wants to get esrog, I guess he got a couple of choices. And his grandfather would say to him, "You sure you want this esrog? Uh, I mean, you know, it may have a, a spot over here." He, he was supposed to try to sell him the esrog, and he, he just did just the opposite. He sort of tried to fight for, talk him out of it. And you know, that was his parnasah. And still he tried to, uh... That was his way of, of dealing with the world. But the-these were, you know, a very, very special great tzadikim. And, um, so the day of his yahrtzeit is really very special and should be remem-remembered as-