15 of Sivan - On June 5 1927 the Rebbe Rayatz was arrested - תרפ"ז מאסר של אדמו"ר ריי"צ

00:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. So let's see. Make about over here for the fifteenth day of Sivan. Let's see. That was in the year . I know the year. It's nineteen twenty-seven. What I don't know is the... What? It was June fifth. Thirteenth. Okay. Uh, Ju-- What- Wait a minute. What's the year? It's t-- nineteen twenty-seven. Oh. Nineteen twenty-seven. It was a Tuesday. I know. Um- The fifteenth Sivan. No, it was actually-- that was actually Wednesday. That was actually Wednesday because it was after midnight already. So this was- What was the Hebrew year? Uh, six eighty-seven. Okay. Six eighty-seven. Okay. So the day can change. Okay. So- You said the fifteenth day, right? Right. So it was June the fifteenth. Came out the same. June the fifteenth. Oh, wow. So- Okay. So the previous rebbe, uh, he was imprisoned in a, a very scary and known-- it's known as the Prison of the Shpalernya, it's known. This was on, uh, on Tuesday, on the fourteenth of Sivan, before the, um, before, uh, the nighttime of the, uh, of Wednesday, the fifteenth of Sivan, nineteen twenty-seven. This was already... Now it was already twelve o'clock, midnight. Um, the previous rebbe has just finished, uh, seeing people for yechidas. Yechidas means a private meeting. This is considered like, uh, the ultimate, just like, um, uh, with the Jewish people when came Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol, the high priest, would go into the Kodesh HaKodashim, that is into the Holy of Holiest. So by Hasidim going into a private meeting to

01:53 Speaker 1 the rebbe, that is considered going into the Holy of Holies, being in the rebbe's study, being alone with the rebbe. That is sort of their, uh, climax, their highest point in a Hasid's, uh, connection to the rebbe. So the rebbe had just finished, um, seeing people for yechidas, um, in his home, which was in the street of Machovaya twenty-two in Leningrad. Okay? Uh, and this took place till about eleven o'clock that he saw different people. It was already, by the way, it was already a very tense and very difficult time. They were-- Rebbe had to move to Leningrad because of all the problems that he was having. This was a bigger city, so it was a little bit, uh, sort of easier to do what the rebbe was doing. But they had all kinds of spies and all kinds of, uh, agents that they would plant, and they would go back and report. And matter of fact, the biggest problem the Jews had were from the Jewish people themselves. There was the Yevsektsiya, which was a Jewish group that were part of the communists and, you know, and they were anti-religious, and to them, religion was something which was sort of not only outdated, but it was dangerous for the Jewish people. And they did whatever they could, uh, together with the communists. Of course, the communists, the Goyim, the non-Jews, they had no idea of the Jewish rituals or the Jewish practices, so they wouldn't know how to, uh, sort of crack down on

03:29 Speaker 1 the Jewish practices. But it was these Jewish people that some of them came from very religious families, the children of some very-- even some Hasidic families. And, you know, the children were so involved w- in their, uh, you know, their ideology that they would even go against their parents, and they would, you know, uh, slander them, and they would have them imprisoned. It was like a very, very scary time. So anyway, um, so he just finished seeing people and, uh, so the, so the rebbe davened at that point, he davened ma'ariv, and he was, um, you know, I guess exhausted and tired from a full day's, uh, long day's work. And after the davening, he washed, um, for, um, for his night meal, for supper basically, together with his family. So I guess they had a late supper, you know, at eleven, eleven, eleven o'clock. Yeah. Now, soon after, a few minutes after midnight, uh, there was a r- a ring in the bell of the door. The door opens up, and two men run in with a great, a great, a lot of force and a lot of noise into the dining room, and they say, "We are agents of the GU," that's the KGB, "and who is Schneerson? And show me who he is." And two people of the GU, that's again the KGB, were Nachmanson and Lulov. As you see, these were Jewish names. Nachmanson, which means the son of Nachman, and Lulov, you know, it's like the shake the lulav. So

05:03 Speaker 1 these were Jewish, uh, Jewish people. They were grandchildren from Hasidic families, and they had sort of deteriorated. They've gone down, all the way down to the lowest, to, to the lowest of levels to become agents of the G- KG- KGB. And while they were still speaking, so there is a whole group of armed men entered into the room after them. Very calmly and, and very clearly, the rebbe says to them, "I don't know which Schneerson you're looking, but if you came to somebody's home, it must be for sure that you know who lives in that home. So all of your extra scare tactics and the, all the, uh, noise that you're making are all extra. No reason to scream, no reason to yell." Um, and I am not afraid of the Gepehu. I will-- I wasn't afraid, and I will-- they will never scare me. The Rebbe's words that were said so coldly and so clearly without any emotion made a tremendous impact even on these men of stone, um, as the Rebbe refers to them. And at the first instance, their wings were clipped, sort of, and they looked at the Rebbe surprisingly, and there was a quiet that permeated the room. It took about an hour and a half they stayed in the Rebbe's r-room. They went from room to room. They made a complete search, but it was obvious that this wasn't what they-- they weren't-- they didn't come just to search the rooms. The intention was actually to take the Rebbe

07:07 Speaker 1 as a prisoner, to arrest the Rebbe and to go ahead and to, uh... It's already been already pre-concluded, uh, the, um, what they were going to do with the Rebbe. Well, God forbid, what they wanted to do. Before they took the Rebbe into the, uh, car, to the, uh, machine there, whatever they used there, to take him to the prison of Spalerna, the Rebbe said, "I demand from you that I have the right to put on tefillin and to daven. And if the law allows for it, they should permit me to give me food that will be prepared for me just through my family members." Just wanna make sure that it's kosher. He doesn't want anybody else. "You are able to," says Nachmanson, "to take your tefillin. You can take your books. You can take a pen, paper. I promise you very clearly, nobody is going to stop you from davening, from reading, from writing. Today, you're gonna be back home today because in the prison, they'll ask you a couple of questions, and you can go back home," he says. Uh, just the name-- This is all description of the previous Rebbe writing this. Just the name Spalerna, to say that name, would place a tremendous dread and fear on people. Once you took a person to that prison, to Spalerna, it was one of the two. Either he was already been judged and the ruling has already been set, or they still need to investigate the prisoner before they are going to, uh,

09:03 Speaker 1 decide. To this Shpalerka, the previous Rebbe was taken at, uh, at, uh, two twenty after AM. That's after midnight. And there is a whole long writeup that the Rebbe himself wrote and which appears in the, uh, Sefer of, uh, the Arrest and Liberation. Uh, there is various different books, uh, that are prints in, uh, in, um, in, in jail, whatever the... I forget the name of the book. A Prince in-

09:38 Speaker 2 Prison.

09:38 Speaker 1 Uh, what? The Prison Prison? What is the Prince in Prison? There's various different books that they have. The-- There's the, um, Sefer HaToldos, the, uh, story. There's-- In Likutey Deburim, there's a, some volumes that, uh, came out from the previous Rebbes, so they have it over there printed also. The Rebbe, uh, um, says that the connection to the fifteenth of Sivan, that was the beginning of the incarceration of the Rebbe. So he was imprisoned on the fifteenth of Sivan. And then on the twelfth day of Tammuz, uh, he was imprisoned through the twelfth day. Actually, the, uh, Gimmel Tammuz day let him go from the prison. He had to go to exile. On the twelfth day of Tammuz, he was actually totally freed. Uh, so he says that after, later on, it was revealed by Yut BeTammuz that during the incarceration, that is when the planting took place. So that through this planting, later on, there should be able to be, uh, a lot of growth eventually. Which means that sometimes the-- these difficulties, these challenges that the Rebbe faced was actually the sowing of a whole new era, which took place after the previous Rebbe was freed from the prison. You see that, uh, after a situation where a person goes through hardships, at the time that the hardship is there, it's kinda hard to see how that is, uh, beneficial or how the person is going to actually benefit from that hardship. But then later on, with time, if you are lucky, if

11:33 Speaker 1 Hashem helps, you are able to see that that limitation, that difficulty, that Mitzrayim, that, uh, uh, challenge that you had was actually the impetus, was actually the, uh, springboard for helping you go even to a much higher, a much greater place. Uh, so we know with the Alter Rebbe when he was imprisoned, uh, so it's said that the spreading of the Hasidic teaching and the learning was sort of as, as it was before, but it totally caught on fire, and it was like, uh, the masses- Turned into followers of the Alter Rebbe and started learning Chassidus and became involved in the teachings of Chassidus. So these difficulties always brought about, uh, in the end, even greater commitment and greater blessings. And in a sense, you know, in our own lives, the same thing is true. I mean, sometimes we get, uh, you know, we have a, a little bump in the road, so to speak, you know, you've... And, you know, and you sometime take that as a sign, okay, well, let me stop doing what I'm doing because it's too bumpy. But the contrary is true that, you know, you have to, you know, stay the course, hold on, hold on tight, and then when you can, you actually realize that you can even be stronger and do, and do better. And, um, it says that, uh, when Mashiach will come, it says, and, uh, uh, the Gemara says, so it says both the Tzadikim and the, uh, and the Reshaim and those who

13:19 Speaker 1 failed, they will all be crying because-- So it says why. Because the, uh, Tzadikim will say, "Wow," because the Yetzer Hara is gonna appear to them as such a mountain, uh, such a strong force, and they're gonna say, they're gonna cry out of joy. He said, "How were we able to conquer such a Yetzer Hara?" It was like, "How could we have done it?" And, you know, and they would be crying out of joy. And to the Reshaim, it is gonna come across, it's gonna come like a, like a, like a nothing. He says, "Why couldn't we, why couldn't we overcome it?" It was like, it was really not that difficult. So, you know, in the, in the end of the day, you know, a test, a nisayon is, is, is, is all that it is. It's, um, it's, it's brought down that, uh, even when we have a lot of times, uh, challenges... And the challenges comes in different forms, you know. I mean, sometimes there's a health issue that comes up, you know. You wonder, you know, look, you know, you can ask a question. Here we're trying to make a program, all of a sudden, we end up in the hospital. You know, I really wanted to be yesterday here. I wanted to see what's going on. I want to... You know, we prepared, we worked so hard, we cleaned this place and everything else. And then-- But... Oh, by the way, so it was, uh, divvy for a minute. So I

14:40 Speaker 1 was really thinking, I said, "Why did, why did Hashem-- The timing." It was, it was like we, we worked here till one, till twelve thirty AM. We worked here twelve thirty AM. We were here in shul together with Shmulie and me schlepping the chairs and dragging. You know, we were working the whole afternoon. And I was complaining to them. I said, "You know, I thought at age of sixty already, I wouldn't have to be doing those things." But I'm still doing the same thing that I used to do. And then, you know-

15:09 Speaker 3 Geen ha'arah.

15:10 Speaker 1 Geen ha'arah, yeah.

15:12 Speaker 4 You gotta, you gotta repeat this stuff.

15:13 Speaker 1 But I, then I, then I was thinking to myself. I said, "But this happened, so now it's already the climax." So we come home. We're all... We got most of it done, most of it set up. You know, and Shmulie was working and schlepping. And Shmulie was not his usual self because whenever-- He's always the schlepper and everything else. And I ask him, you know, to take the, put the chairs underneath there. It's hard for me to, to bend down. I said, "Shmulie." He says, "My hand hurts. I can't do it." This was unusual. You know, Shmulie never-- He's always the first one to run. He said his hands hurt, he can't do it. So I said, "Okay." So, you know, "Okay, so do them." And by the time we just came home, and, uh, you know, he, he likes when Sarah puts him to bed, so she's going to put him to bed. And then I, um... Then she says, "Guess what? I think you gotta take him to the emergency room." And she looked at his hand, and he was complaining that it hurts him. So she looked at his hand, she says, "And we called and then..." So I was thinking, the timing. Why just, you know, and I had to put together the schedule, everything else. I sent it through. I was working in the hospital at five in the morning.

16:22 Speaker 4 Yeah.

16:23 Speaker 1 I was working in the hospital. I put it, you know, put it together with the... So I'm saying, "Why?" And then I, then I realized, I think, you know, of course, you know, we don't know the ways of Hashem. And, you know, Baruch Hashem, we shouldn't complain. You know, we shouldn't have any tzoros. As they say, "Afku me midam." You know, that this should be the, the biggest problem. But then I thought to myself, the truth of the matter is that the energy and the talent and the devotion, the dedication, the commitment that Sarah had to this project was just unbelievable. You know, we, we helped, yes. We helped a lot, but we were just really helpers. I mean, she was the driving force, and she is the one that pushed it in. It-- Maybe we, we, we, we, we really were not supposed to be here. So not to take up any, to take away, you know, any of the credit because, you know, being here, maybe people would say, "Hey, you did something." You know, we would come here to collect some, you know, some kavod, some, some recognition. You know, we did something. This is, "Hey, you know, you know what? You taka, you helped and all that, but you really, it's not you that did it. You know, she's the one that did it. And she taka, she's the one that did, that did it, put the whole thing together, cleaned up this place, made sure, driving force." You know, and

17:35 Speaker 1 I'm not always the easiest customer either. I says, "Why are you doing this? We're too old. We're ready to retire." So, you know, I, you know, I'm not always, uh, such a willing-

17:45 Speaker 4 She's saying you're not cooperating, yes.

17:46 Speaker 1 She says no, no, no, no. I'm not... Yeah, she... She says, uh, I'm not such a willing camper all the time, so I don't go along as easy. But so I figured, then she said, "Okay, you know what? If you complain then, okay, it's not for you. You go and stay. You stay away from this and let her have the nazrach." And I heard taka that it was, Baruch Hashem, very, very beautiful. So that's-- These are all, these are all gifts. And you know, I think also what we have to realize in life, you know, a lot of times we choose to focus on I, I was talking on Shabbos, was sitting by the table by the bar mitzvah. I was sitting with one of the kids. Oh, he says, "I sees, I see all the problems." He says, "I see all the problems with marriage." He says, "I don't wanna get married," he says. You know, he says, "You know, I see, I see what's going on." So I said to him, "Look, you know, it's really a matter of what people choose to focus on." You know, of course, you know, there's-- If you have two people, and you have people from different worlds, of course we don't see-- people don't see things the same way. That's, that's natural. But the idea is, is... And there are sometimes, you know, there's disagreements, sometimes there's maybe even harsh words said, you know what I mean? That's-- But I say, when I was talking to

18:58 Speaker 1 this, this boy, he's telling me, I said to him, "By and large, if you don't focus on..." You know, most people, hopefully, you know, most of the time things work out, you know, decent, you know, or the way it should work out. So, you know, if you have some hard time, okay, so don't focus on those, on those difficulties. If you wanna just look at... And, uh, he mentioned, you know, that it says in the, in the, um, in the, uh, Ten Commandments that you shouldn't covet. You shouldn't lo tachmod. So it says, "Don't covet, uh, your friends, his wife and his donkey, his house," you know, whatever he has. And then the Torah says, "V'chol asher l'reiacha," and everything that your friend has. Why is the Torah saying again everything that he has? Already, already said all the details. Why? But you know what? It's like when you have a book, and you take out one page of a book, and you see, wow, this... You know, I wanna be, I wanna have that page of the book, you know, so. Say, "Hey, wait a minute," you know, "there's a whole book before. There's a lot of pages that come before. There's a lot of pages that come after." And you know, you, you just want that one thing. But you know, my son told me, he says, he says, "Look." He says, "You don't want anybody else's tzores." He says, "You want your own tzores." He says, "Don't-

20:17 Speaker 4 I take exception

20:18 Speaker 1 ... ask for anybody's tzores."

20:20 Speaker 4 I take exception to that.

20:22 Speaker 1 On the table, yeah. Which ones would you take?

20:23 Speaker 5 Thank you very much.

20:25 Speaker 1 Yeah, take mine. That's right. So-

20:27 Speaker 4 Your house could be worse.

20:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's right. So, you know.

20:30 Speaker 5 I was thinking maybe Hashem knew how much Sarah wanted this event. So chas veshalom what happened is she really waited till everything was all set up.

20:40 Speaker 1 Yeah. If you had- Well, she still, uh, she had to work, uh, very, very hard at the end. She didn't go to sleep for, for the, the-

20:47 Speaker 4 You know, we don't know-

20:48 Speaker 1 We don't know. We don't know really the ways of Hashem. You know, whatever. It's hard to explain. I'll just leave you with a story. Yeah, go ahead.

20:53 Speaker 4 After we-- After you left, and I went back to the room, and the kids went back to her. They went over there, and her mind was still going about the whole thing yesterday.

21:02 Speaker 1 I can't believe it.

21:03 Speaker 4 What I should have done. I miss-- I didn't do this, and I should have done that.

21:06 Speaker 5 But that's-

21:07 Speaker 1 She's al-- She's never happy.

21:08 Speaker 4 Yeah.

21:08 Speaker 1 She's never fully good. But, um, let me just leave you with this story, which maybe will demonstrate. I don't know how we got into that thing, but anyways, we'll leave it at this story. Uh, there was once, there's a story told about there was a, uh, uh, a prince who all of a sudden became, he became very sad, and he became depressed. And they couldn't-- They tried to cheer him up, do everything. You know, he wasn't missing anything. He had everything he needed. He had everything he wanted. And they couldn't understand. They couldn't figure out what's going on. Why is he so unhappy? But he was going deeper, deeper in this hopelessness, in these feelings of worthlessness and depression. He was like totally, totally... So they didn't know. So finally, there was some person that came there, and he said, "You know, I once read, uh, in a book in which it states that if you wear a shirt of a person that is really happy, then if you wear it for a week, you might become very happy." So he says, "We're gonna go ahead and find a shirt from a happy person and keep it on him." Well, nothing else works. So, you know, it sou-sounded a little bit, uh, uh, superstitious, but, you know. But okay, you know, let's try it. So now the agents of the king are going out to look for a happy person. So they, first thing they see is right outside of the palace, there's this four-car

22:31 Speaker 1 garage with this fancy, you know, lawn. Everything looks so pretty. Everything is groomed so beautifully. Okay, so they say, "This must be like a happy home." So they put their ear to the window over there, listening in. Oy gevalt. The wife is screaming and cursing, and the husband is yelling, and the kids are disrespectful. Ah. He says, "This is not a happy home. So let's go next." But make the, a short story long, they, they were been going from, uh, place to place. Every home there's, there's no... Finally, at the edge of the city, there's this half-dilapidated home over there. They, they figured, eh, you know, they have nothing, so what are they-- they can be happy. So, but they figured that they're already, might as well try it, you know, over here. So they come to them, and they're listening in to the, to the-- Shh. Elderly couple. The wife speaks so nicely to the husband, the husband to the wife, to the wife and everything. Seems such a pleasant, such a tranquil, beautiful home. It was just, ah, finally the search is over. We got it. They knock on the door, and the woman opens the door. She says, she says, "Yeah, how can I help you?" He says, "Look, you know, the king of-- The, the prince is sick, and he's depressed and everything else. We see, thank God, you have a happy home. Please give us a shirt so that we can try it on the king." She says to him,

23:52 Speaker 1 she says, "I know, I'd love to help you, but there's one problem." She says, "I don't own a shirt."

24:00 Speaker 5 Wow.

24:00 Speaker 1 So it's not that happiness. It's not all the everything else that gave them. It's the inner. It's the home happiness, which is, which is much greater. And, um, a lot of times, you know, our neshamah yearns for something, for meaning, for life, for spirituality, for something. And we try to compensate. We say, "Well, give a little more. Another Game Boy or another trick, another something." But it doesn't quite do it. It doesn't quench that thirst. The soul is looking for, for, for more. So when you come to shul, you come to daven, you, you learn, you make new friends, you, you, you, you do together, that's, that's where it's at. And that's where really, um, you know, you feel that, uh, somehow you're not alone in this world. You know, some-

24:49 Speaker 5 You're connected to another human being.

24:50 Speaker 1 Yeah. And there's people that you're together. There's-- It's a tremendous, uh, a tremendous support and a tremendous strength that we lend to each other. So, uh, okay. So gotta head out. I got a lot of, lot going on, on me today. So we'll leave it over here. Okay? And-

25:06 Speaker 5 Thank you very much.

25:07 Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Going back and forth. I'll be back here. Um, so this is Yemei Chabad for the, uh, 15th day of Sivan. This is in the year Taf Reish Samech Heh, just about, uh, over one hundred years, almost hundred and ten years ago. Okay. Okay? Um, that was the day that the, uh... It was a great Hasid who was known in short as the RashBaTS. That's the abbreviation. His name was Reb Shmuel Berl Scheftel. Um, and he was basically the teacher of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was his teacher. Uh, he was yet of the important Hasidim in the days of the Tzemach Tzedek by the end, the Rebbe Maharash and the Rebbe Rashab. So he was spanned through, uh, several Rebbes, uh, generations. And, um, and he was his, his teacher. He was the previous Rebbe's teacher. He came for the first time to Lubavitch in the year Taf Reish Ches. Uh, that's six hundred and eight. Um, so that was, um... He-- Apparently, he, he lived less than sixty years because he passed away Samech Heh, so that he was living like four fifty-eight, um, uh, whatever. But he went- Samech Heh, uh, Taf Reish Ches. Um, that was just fifty something years, a couple of fifty years or something. So, so he came to Lubavitch on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar, and, um, there's a... It's called a journal called the Hatamim, in which, uh, there is a description, uh, about the, uh, route that the

27:08 Speaker 1 RashBaTS took. He came from a very anti-Misnagid, uh, city, and the route that he took, how he got to Hasidus Chabad, and how he go-- go- got to the Tzemach Tzedek. The previous Rebbe writes, he says, "My teacher, the Hasid, Reb Shmuel Berl, so he says, "After, uh, having suffered tremendous spiritual pain and various different... He was rejected in various, uh, various situations, and he had a whole chain of, of, of pain and hunger and, uh, destitute." So at the end, he merited to have the great privilege and light of being very close and very, um... He was felt very special from the Rebbe Maharash, who really took him in very closely and in a very wondrous way. And he chose him, uh, that he's going to give his middle son, he's going to give him to educate. So he educated, he had the Rebbe, the previous Rebbe's father, the Rebbe Rashab, uh, while he was still young. Uh, so he, RashBaTS, was actually also teaching, I guess, the Rebbe Rashab. That's the father of the previous Rebbe. Uh, the Rebbe Maharash related to the RashBaTS, to Reb Shmuel Berl Scheftel, uh, very deep inner things, knowing that the RashBaTS, he was one of the distinguished of the students and the Hasidim of the Tzemach Tzedek, so he sort of confided in him, and he gave him over some very, uh, deep and inner things. Um, he was a person who really served Hashem very de-- with full dedication, and, uh, he was, like, totally

29:20 Speaker 1 devoted also to the Rebbe. He was like a Hasid before him. The Rebbe Rashab appointed the RashBaTS to be the, uh, educator and the guide of his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, of the Friddiker Rebbe, from the year Taf Reish Nun Daled. Uh, that's the Rebbe turned then fourteen years old. From the age of fourteen till Taf Reish Samech, till twenty. It was his, uh... The year Taf Reish Samech, he was appointed as the head mashpia, uh, that's the spiritual guide in the Yeshivat Tomchei Tmimim, and he served in that role until, until his passing. The previous Rebbe related that, "My father told me that your teacher, the RashBaTS, he has, uh, a tremendous ability, a talent, uh, to be able to take a student that he's teaching so that that tudent-- student itself will sort of turn himself into somebody who, uh, is going to, uh, be, um, uh, emotionally aroused and connected to Hashem." He had that ability to implant that. Uh, "I have to thank tremendously," the previous Rebbe writes, "to my teacher, the RashBaTS, that he sort of placed me in the right position. He positioned me properly, and during the eighteen months of education..." He prepared me so that I could become a proper vehicle to accept the directions from my father and the ways and the learning of Hasidism. On the fifteenth day of Sivan, he passed away. He was, uh, buried, uh, as he requested, within fifteen amah of the Ohel of the Tzemach Tzedek and the Rebbe Maharash.

31:30 Speaker 6 Mm.

31:31 Speaker 1 And, um, like he mentions here that there is the whole story about how he came to the, um... About how he came to the, um, to, to Tzemach Tzedek. He came to Lubavitch, even though he grew up in a non-Hasidic family, a non-Hasidic community, and how he made that transition. Now, the thing is also, uh, generally speaking, uh, these Hasidim were-- when they single out, we don't talk about so many Hasidim. We talk about just some Hasidim because these were exceptionally, uh-- played exceptionally roles within the Hasidic history and, um, and they had a, a, a, a total devotion to the Rebbe. It's, it's kind of, um, uh, hard to really imagine what it means, a, a devotion, a dedication from a Hasid to, to a Rebbe and the really totally devotion. You know, we are, um, I guess, uh, not used to that kind of a dedication, you know, to-- from one human being to another human being to a leader. This sounds like, um, you know, very, very, uh, very intense. But these Hasidim were as a real Hasid. Um, by the, uh, Hasidim, they always had a Rebbe. Uh, the, um, Litvish, the Misnagdim, or the non-Hasidic communities, they basically had a Rav, a teacher, a Rosh Yeshiva, a learned person. Uh, so it wasn't so much as a spiritual guide as he was more as a Halakhic figure. He was a, a brilliant person who was a scholar. He was more... But it wasn't that sort of soul connection. It wasn't

33:28 Speaker 1 the-- an intimate sort of, uh, relationship in service of Hashem and to, uh, one's soul. But it was more like a technical, like the Torah law. It was, uh, straight up. But I think that, um, the world has sort of, uh, realized, even the non-Hasidic world, that it's necessary to have somebody to lean on and especially when there's problems and when you have, uh, spiritual problems, when you have, um, you know, things that you need somebody's advice, or you need someone's moral support, you need the-- to, um, feel that you can sort of connect to someone. So I think that even in the non-Hasidic world, the Rosh Yeshivas and the leaders of the communities have sort of become like Rebbes. You know, they, they, they, uh, they sort of become more than just, you know, figures that are learned figures, but they become also, uh, similar to what the connection of a Hasid and Rebbe. But yet the Hasid and the Rebbe connection is a, is, is, is, is, is, is a very intense and very powerful, and I'm not sure if there's anything to com-- really to compare to that. Um, I, I mentioned, I think, that, um, the Rebbe himself, our Rebbe, was like the greatest Hasid of the previous Rebbe. Um, and when you see his total, uh, uh, subjugation, uh, then you can realize what it means to be a Hasid. You know, even just forget about what it means to be a Rebbe, what it mean a Hasid. You know,

35:09 Speaker 1 a Hasid to, to, to devote yourself, to give yourself over and, um... In the olden days, people were into spirituality. They wanted to, um, they wanted to be emotionally attached to Hashem. They were-- wanted to feel. Since today, we live in a, uh, fast food-

35:33 Speaker 6 Mm

35:33 Speaker 1 ... uh, generation. You know, everything comes quick. Snippets, real, you know, just the attention span lasts for a second, and then you're onto the next thing, and it's just we're not sort of programmed right now to even worry about our spirituality, you know. And we're just, you know, just let things go as they go, and they roll. You know, but it was different. I mean, and doesn't mean that it has to be like that, but it's just that's the general culture. I-- It's always, um... Even though the Jewish people, you know, have their own, you know, their own language and their own Yeshivas or their own shuls. But, you know, the general culture somehow creeps in through the windows, through the doors, you know. The ideas of, you know, we, we work, we interact, we, we read, we, we surf. Uh, you know, so you get the, uh, you get all the different ideas. It's very hard to, uh, stay, you know, on the, um... Even ideas, you know. The previous Rebbe used to say that people are very careful that it should be kosher, uh, so that the mood-- the food that they put into their mouth should be kosher so that it's-- should be proper food. So make sure that everything, there's a good hechsher and everything else. But it's... But they don't pay so much attention to food that comes into your brain, to your thoughts and your mind, that they should be kosher too.

37:06 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

37:06 Speaker 1 And unfortunately, there's a lot of ideas, you know, that people pick up and they don't even realize that they're picking them up. They may not be, may not be kosher, may not be in, I think, you know, the proper, proper thing. But anyways, so some of these Hasidim inspire us to devote to us that the, what it means to be a Hasid and what it means to be devoted. And notwithstanding the fact that it's been coming on 20 years since the Rebbe is no longer physical with us, but yet the Rebbe is still continues to lead and the Hasidim are still Hasidim of the Rebbe. So hopefully we're waiting for Mashiach to come so that we don't have to wait much longer. And, but it tells us that we should be dedicated and we should try to do, do what we can to fulfill the Rebbe's vision and the Rebbe's mission to bring Mashiach down. That's the, that's the bottom line. All right. Now, Yemei Chabad for the 16th day, actually it's the 15th day of Sivan. Another entry for the 15th day of Sivan. This is in year Tafresh Sadik Hey. Sadik Hey. I'm not sure why they put it in. Maybe because that was more, they figured it was a more important entry. So they put it in the 15th of Sivan in 1927. They put it in before the 15th of Sivan in, oh, what am I saying? Oh, I take that back. Of course, this is after. This is the second

38:42 Speaker 1 entry. This is the 15th. It's consistent. You know, the second entry is in Tafresh Sadik Hey. That's in 695. Okay. So that's No, that's in 30, 35. That's in 35. In, yeah. June 16th.

39:00 Speaker 7 Yeah.

39:00 Speaker 1 So that was on that day, the previous Rebbe moved to the city of Otwock in Poland, to the city of Otwock. In the year Tafresh Sadik Gimel, that's two years earlier. That's in 1933. The previous Rebbe moved from Riga. That's in Latvia. He moved from Riga, Latvia to Warsaw in Poland. And in the year Tafresh Sadik Hey, in 35, the previous Rebbe moved from Warsaw to Otwock, which was not that far. It's Suburb of Warsaw. Suburb of not far. And the previous Rebbe writes in one of his letters that on the 15th day of Sivan in Yutav Sadik Hey, and that was actually for medical reasons. I guess it says based on the advice of the doctors, I moved from Warsaw to Otwock. Now Yeah, what's going on? I'm going to just guess that probably the city maybe been polluted. Maybe it's been maybe outside in Otwock. Maybe it was a little bit more trees. And I mean, it's just my guess. Maybe it was more suburbia. Maybe it was a more better for the Rebbe's health reasons. I'm not sure why. Doesn't say that I was They had better doctors there. I'm going to assume that the doctors are in Warsaw. It was a bigger city. But in Otwock, it's known also that there were many Hasidim. See, originally, most of the Hasidim of the Rebbe came from Russia. And so there were like the In Poland, there was a lot of Polish Rebbes. There were Polish Hasidim, Polish Rebbe. They had a little

41:00 Speaker 1 It was a little different style than it was the Rebbe's style. But the It looks like the When the previous Rebbe moved to Warsaw and then later on to Otwock, he attracted a lot of the Polish Hasidim too. So matter of fact, some of the principal Hasidim in New York after the Rebbe came here were people that learned in Lubavitch Yeshiva in Otwock. They were all scholars. They were all, you know, very well versed. Matter of fact, the Rosh Yeshiva, when I went, he's probably passed away several years ago. I mean, many years ago already. He came also, you know, he was the main Rosh Yeshiva. He came He was also from Poland over there from Otwock. And the one who used to give the classes in the Tanya, you know, the Biran Tanya, Rabbi Weinberg and Rabbi Katz and Kotlarski. No, no, this is Yosef Weinberg. I mean, all of a sudden. And some of the Rabbi Tannenbaum, these were all Chabadniks that came from Otwock. It was from that time from Poland. So the Rebbe's move there was actually a reason for a lot, many other Polish Hasidim to come and join the Rebbe.