228 - Cheshvan 28 in Chabad History

00:00 To the Yemei Chabad for the twenty-eighth day of MarCheshvan, this is in the year Taf Reish Ayin Beis, terav. This is, uh, uh, one hundred and two years ago, is the yard site of a Hasid, uh, great Hasid. His name was Reb Michoel Berliner. Reb Michoel Berliner from the city of Nevil, and they used to call him Michoel the Alter, Michoel the old one. That's the name that he stuck to him. He was a mashpia. They call me that. Yeah. Michoel the young one. Uh, he was a mashpia in Lubavitch. A mashpia means a spiritual guide. You know, in the Hasidism doctrine, it has a lot of, uh, emphasis on one service to God in his emotional, not only, uh, very technical service or doing the laws, but also a spiritual and a, an emotional attachment to God. And Lubavitch and the Yeshivas, in addition to studying the Hasidism, they also had a teacher that used to teach the Hasidism, but they also had somebody who was called a spiritual guide, was called a mashpia. Like today, they would say as like a, lahavdil, a guidance counselor. But you had a person who would guide you in your spiritual growth. And this Reb Michoel Berliner was a mashpia, and he lives up to twenty-eighth of Cheshvan. Uh, he was a mashpia in the city of Lubavitch. Now, in the, uh, uh, Sichos Toras HaChaim, uh, the rebbe relates like this, that the, uh, Hasid, Reb Michoel Nevil-- Thank you. Yeah. The Hasid, Reb Michoel from

01:37 Nevil, were from those people who would walk by foot to the Tzemach Tzedek. You know, there were people by the third Lubavitch rebbe, Tzemach Tzedek, there were, I guess, there were different categories. There's those that would walk by foot. It was a special thing. They didn't, uh, use carriages or anything else. It was, uh, like when you says-- when you do Aliyah Leregel, when you go up for the holidays, you would go by foot. Uh, that was-- I mean, that's why it's called Shalosh Regalim, the three holidays, because people would come up to visit Yerushalayim. For these people to go to visit the rebbe was equivalent, and they walked by foot. Um, and he got his own training, this Reb Michoel, the Alter, Reb Michoel Berliner. He got his training from the Hasid, the very famous Hasid known by name, he was Reb Peretz Schein. And, um, for a certain period of his lifetime, this Reb Michoel, uh, he would, would work, he would make ovens. That was his, uh, livelihood. That's what it was job. And while he was working, he would always be talking about the Hasidic, uh, teaching. And when he got older, uh, he became a mashpia, a spiritual guide in the Yeshiva of Tomchei Tmimim, which was in the city of Lubavitch, which was founded by the Rebbe Rashab. He became the spiritual guide. He was one of the spiritual guides there, and he was very special in the fact with his true love, uh, of, of another-- of the

03:11 other people, of Jew, of his students, as we'll see in a minute. And he was also somebody who worked with himself a lot. You know, there's some people that just, you know, go through life, you know, let it go as it goes, you know, and they don't stop to pay too much attention. But there's a lot of people, not a lot of people, there's some people, I should say, who take life seriously, and they work with themselves. They work to refine their character. They work to refine their spiritual standing. They try. They don't just say, "It is what it is," but they actually... That's called the Ba'al HaAvoda. These people that work with themselves, they work hard, they labor to become better people, to grow stronger. For many years, this Reb Michoel, Michoel Berliner, Michoel the Alter, he was a mashpia in the city of Nevil. Nevil was a very famed Hasidic, uh, city with a lot of Hasidic, Chabad, Hasidic families over there, and, uh, he was a mashpia over there. But at one point, when he came into a visit in a private meeting with the Rebbe Rashab, the Rebbe asked him to remain in the city of Lubavitch, that he should become a mashpia, a spiritual guide in the Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim for the students over there. But the people of Nevil, they objected. They didn't they didn't wanna lose such a great, uh, individual. So, uh, they gathered all these people of the city, had a big meeting, and they wrote

04:36 a letter to the Rebbe, uh, stating to the Rebbe that they're asking him not to take away Reb Michoel, uh, from them. And the Rebbe Rashab answered them that the work of Reb Michoel in the Yeshiva Lubavitch is more important than what he does over there in Nevil. And I guess the Rebbe saw this is what he needs to do, and that's what he did. And this Reb Michoel, as said, was like exceptionally his care and his concern for every student of the Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim was beyond anything that I've ever, ever seen. He was, like, so dedicated, um, without boundaries, no limitation. And he also worked very hard to get them exemptions, so they don't have to go to the army, uh, uh, which was a, uh, whole challenge at the time to get them these exemptions. And he would travel, uh, distances to even save one individual student so that he should not have to go to the army. And you know, of course, going to the Russian army meant not only going to the army, but it meant giving up your Yiddishkeit, or at least, uh, you know, the level of a relig-religious, you know, experience that they could have in the yeshiva. Um, and he was like-- His dedication is he would see... You know, in those days, you know, people had very little. I mean, uh- Students that were walking around with torn shoes. If he saw somebody walking around with torn shoes, he would sometimes take off his own

06:09 shoes and give them to the student, and says, "Here, take these shoes." And, uh, it even happened one time, he was in the middle of reading the Shema. Now you know when you read the Shema, that's supposed to be total dedication to God. It's a very special prayer, and you're not allowed to interrupt at all. You're supposed to be totally, fully concentrated. But he was reading the Shema, and he noticed that a, uh, a boy was wearing ripped shoes. So he goes, and he writes, in the middle of the Shema, he goes and writes a note that he should-- after davening should go to the, uh, place where they kept the stuff, and he should take a pair of shoes from there, a new pair of shoes. And then the people asked him, "But how could you interrupt the middle of the, of the Shema? You're in the middle of davening Shema. You're not allowed to interrupt. It's a, a space. How could you write a note in there?" And he said, "Because the Shema, in the terms of the Kabbalah, is called... That's the unity of above. That's the perspective of real unity, how everything is Hashem. There's nothing besides Him." He said, "This is the true Yichud La, giving a bachur a pair of shoes who doesn't have, and he has ripped shoes. That's the highest level. It's not nothing else but that." Uh, at the end of his years when he didn't have any more strength to teach the students, so the

07:28 administration of the yeshiva wanted to, um, you know, get him off the payroll. They figured, uh, uh, that way, you know, save themselves some money, uh, uh, of his salary. Uh, but the Rebbe Rashab objected to this, and he says, "Just the presence of Rebbe Michoel in the yeshiva has a positive influence on the students. He should just hang around over there. That alone is already positive." And so Rebbe Michoel, he passed away at Motzei Shabbos Kodesh on the twenty-eighth day of Cheshvan in the year taf reish ayin beis. As said before, that's hundred and two years ago. And during the funeral, which took place in the following day, the Rebbe Rashab took place, and the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe was one of the people, uh, who carried the coffin, uh, up till the, uh, cemetery. And, um, uh, his yahrzeit is today. And this is just an example of one of the Hasidim dedication, and it's, it's no, no wonder the special feelings that was, uh, transmitted to the students of the yeshiva. And this, uh, special energy, uh, proved to later on, uh, to preserve and sustain the students in, in the face of all odds and against all, uh, all, all, all, all difficulties that they had to withstand. While you see that many other groups who were religious and very respectable groups, but in the face of, of all the tzoros that they had to face, they all either, uh, faded away or, uh, dissolved or left or... But nobody re-- actually

09:14 remained. But it was the Chabad yeshiva bachurim from Tomchei Temimim who had this kind of a training and had this kind of a, of a love for Torah and Hashem that persevered, and they remained. And that's how we have Chabad today. It withstood that test, and that gave it that special edge, I guess, that they had to overcome everything. And, uh, I guess that it still gives the, uh, energy to go out in all places and all difficulties and still go ahead and remain strong, remain, uh, faithful to the principles of Yiddishkeit, and still make a difference in the whole entire world.