19 of Tamuz - Birth of the Raza in 5618

00:00 Speaker 1 Okay, so the nineteenth of Tammuz in the Chabad history. So first off, there's a couple of things. First off, it's the day that Reb Schneur Zalman Aren, that was his name, Schneur Zalman Aren. We'll see soon he got the name. He is known as the Razoh. He was the older son of the Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe, Rebbe Shmuel over here, right? He was the fourth Rebbe, Rebbe Shmuel. Rebbe Shmuel had two sons, one who became the Rebbe, which is Shalom Dov Ber, the Rebbe Rashab. But the Rebbe Rashab had an older brother whose name was Schneur Zalman Aren, Rebbe Schneur Zalman Aren. He was born on the nineteenth of Tammuz in the year Taf Reish Yud Ches. Uh, Taf Reish Yud Ches puts him, if today is, uh, like a hundred and fifty, about a hundred and fifty years ago, okay? Because today is, uh, Taf Reish-- Taf Shin Ayin Gimel. If it would be, um, um- Eighteen- ... uh, Nun, if it would be, uh- Eighteen- ... Samach Ches, it would have been... Okay, so- 1850s. Yeah. So approximately then, uh, uh, f-fifty-eight. Mm-hmm. I think it would be exactly, it would be 1858. '58. In 1858. Okay. So he was born, it was on a Thursday. They were reading at that time the section of Mattos in the Torah, and it was the nineteenth day of Tammuz in the year Taf Reish Yud Ches. Other places, they say he was born in the year Taf Reish Yud Tes, one days later, he says,

01:39 Speaker 1 but that's just some historical. And the reason he got the name of Schneur Zalman was because of his grandfather. Father. Right. Okay? That was his great-grandfather, okay? Because he was, uh, Rebbe Shmuel's son, and that goes back to great-grandfather. And he was also, in addition to his grandfather, he was also named Aren, Schneur Zalman Aren, because that was his mother's father. Uh, his mother's father, which means Rebbetsin Rivkah, Shmuel's wife's father, his name was Rebbe Aren Alexandro from the city of Shklov. So he had the name both Schneur Zalman and Aren. That's a good. So he brings down over here that the Tzemach Tzedek- Right ... that was his grandfather, he would have the tradition that at the time that they made the circumcision, the bris- Mm-hmm ... of his sons and his grandchildren, that he would also give them the name by their abbreviation. So in this case, his name was Schneur. His name was Zalman Aren, right? Or Schneur Zalman Aren. But he made the abbreviation, he called him RaZo, Reish Zayin Alef. Zayin stands for Zalman, and Alef for Aren, and Rebbe Zalman Aren, so. He just named him, the grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek called him the RaZo. The word RaZo in Aramaic, in the Zohar, it means a secret. You know, when something which is a hidden, something beyond the capacity of being able to understand is called a secret. As he said, the language of the Zohar, "Deroza Temira," that here there is, like, this hidden secret that is hidden

03:29 Speaker 1 in this child, meaning to say that he'll be a great- Great ... a great scholar, a great, great Tzadik, a great person. There'll be a lot hidden in this, in this person. Um, his mother, the RaZo's mother, the wife of Rebbe Shmuel, which was the Rebbetsin Rivkah, uh, she related while she was pregnant with him. So her father-in-law, which was Rebbe Nachman Mendel, the Tzemach Tzedek, told her that she is carrying a very elevated young man, a- Very special child ... special, special child. That she, that she told him. When he was merely three years old, the tradition in those days is that people would make a match for their children. Uh, they would come to some agreement even though they were very, very little. So the Tzemach Tzedek- Very young ... his grandfather, wanted to make a shidduch with his other granddaughter. That was the daughter of the Admur Maharin, Yisroel Noyach. He was a Rebbe, one of his son. He was in another group, but he became a Rebbe too. He wasn't the Rebbe of, of Chabad, so he had a daughter. So the Tzemach Tzedek wanted to make a match between his two grandchildren, between the Maharash's son, the older one, the RaZo- Right ... and his son, Maharin, uh, his daughter. But the Maharin is known, that was his son. So he was sort of worried, and he said to his, to his, uh, father, "Maybe this young man is not gonna be a learned, you know, maybe he's not gonna

05:09 Speaker 1 know how to study." He was, uh, concerned to make a shidduch. You know, he's gonna make a match over here with a young man. May not meet his standards. May not meet his standard. Right. So his father, the Tzemach Tzedek, told him, "Are you, what, are you kidding? He's not gonna know how to learn?" He says, "He'll know at least as much as you do. He may be even know more- More ... more than you." And it's a very known fact that the Maharin, that the, the, the, he was a great genius in both in the revealed and this, uh, and the Hasidic sections of the Torah. He told him he's gonna be at least like you. If not better. And not, not better. And so that's, uh, that's, um- So did the match take place? Uh, it doesn't-- It sounds as that it did not take place. Okay. Because it just says here that he wanted to, uh, but it doesn't say. So it does-- It seems like that it did not take, that it did not. No, we know it didn't take place, actually. Okay. We know that, uh- This is a very- No, I'm not sure. This is a very

06:10 Speaker 2 The practice that was very bad-

06:12 Speaker 1 Common

06:13 Speaker 2 ...it was very bad practice of marrying within the bloodline.

06:17 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. But-

06:18 Speaker 2 At least to go at least to a third cousin.

06:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, but the thing-

06:21 Speaker 2 And it's still practiced today amongst some groups, marrying cousins.

06:25 Speaker 1 But I, I think it had both, it had both results. You know, sometimes the genes actually, today as we know medically, I think, is it's not healthy to keep... You have to keep diluting it-

06:35 Speaker 2 Right

06:35 Speaker 1 ... amongst further away because if you have a bad gene and then that meets up with another bad gene from the same family, that can really be a cause for disaster from there. But on the other hand, it's sometimes those genes are so powerful that they create-

06:48 Speaker 2 They create a genius

06:49 Speaker 1 ... create geniuses.

06:49 Speaker 2 See, my experience, we had in the family two first cousins married.

06:54 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

06:54 Speaker 2 Okay? Um, when they come from... Well, the cousin came from Europe, and she was the cousin.

07:00 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

07:01 Speaker 2 No, she wasn't the cousin. He was the cousin. He was born here, and they came to America, and they fell in love with each other, and they got married.

07:08 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

07:08 Speaker 2 And in those days, you couldn't get married in Massachusetts. It was... I don't... Even to this day, it's not allowed. They had to go to New Hampshire.

07:16 Speaker 1 Really?

07:17 Speaker 2 They eloped.

07:17 Speaker 1 Nice.

07:18 Speaker 2 And what happened was they wound up with a son that died of can- brain cancer.

07:21 Speaker 1 Mm.

07:22 Speaker 2 The other daughter be- went a little crazy, and the other one became extremely, like you said, almost like a genius.

07:29 Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

07:29 Speaker 2 So, you know-

07:30 Speaker 1 It can go either direction. Yeah. But that was, but that was at least... That was certainly the practice in the olden days.

07:35 Speaker 2 You know I know that.

07:36 Speaker 1 Okay. Now we have-- Then we have the other thing that took place on the nineteenth day of Tammuz, uh, and that was... That took place in the year Taf Reish Mem. Uh, as we know already, that the previous Rebbe was born on Yud Beis Tammuz in Taf Reish Mem. So that would be, uh, you have to just deduct, uh, uh, 60, you know, to get the English date. So that would be 18, uh, 18, uh, ni- uh, 1890, that would be. Uh, let's see. Um-

08:15 Speaker 2 That's Yosef Yitzhak, right?

08:17 Speaker 1 That's Yosef Yitzhak, yes.

08:18 Speaker 2 So in fact, he was born around-

08:19 Speaker 1 No, no 1880. 1880. Let's just see. 1880 would be what? Uh, 80-

08:25 Speaker 2 Yeah

08:26 Speaker 1 ... 20 and the 40. Yeah, so it would be 1880. So 19th of Tammuz in 1880. But anyways, let's use the Hebrew date over here. So it was Taf Reish Mem. So it says like this: In that year, um, the Rebbe Maharash, that was his father.

08:45 Speaker 2 Right.

08:46 Speaker 1 Okay.

08:47 Speaker 2 Well, no. His father would have been Shalom Berez, right?

08:51 Speaker 1 No, no.

08:51 Speaker 2 We're talking about 1880 was this, was this one?

08:53 Speaker 1 Uh, we're talking about, yeah, his son.

08:56 Speaker 2 Right.

08:56 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. That, yeah, that's his son-

08:58 Speaker 2 Right

08:58 Speaker 1 ... Yosef Yitzhak. Okay. So that was the Rebbe Rashab's son, okay? Shalom Dov Ber's son.

09:05 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

09:06 Speaker 1 So, um, that is when his... In the year Taf Reish Mem, that is when actually his bris took place. 'Cause he was born on the 12th of Tammuz, and his bris took place eight days later-

09:17 Speaker 2 Right

09:17 Speaker 1 ... which was the 19th day of Tammuz. So it says during that year, in the year of Taf Reish Mem, the Rebbe Maharash, that would be his grandfather-

09:28 Speaker 2 Right

09:28 Speaker 1 ... he spent a lot of times in the city of Petersburg. And the reason is because there were a lot of pogroms going on at the time against the Jewish people in the Jewish settlements.

09:39 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

09:39 Speaker 1 And he was putting in efforts, uh, by the government people to try to stop them from-

09:46 Speaker 2 Right

09:46 Speaker 1 ... uh, preventing these pogroms against the Jews. When he came back from Petersburg, then he, um, he, he had the new grandson, the previous Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz, Yosef Yitzhak. He was born on the 12th day of Tammuz, as we already discussed. So the bris was on the 19th of Tammuz, and during the meal of the bris, the Rebbe Maharash, his grandfather, uh, was very elated. And he's very, uh... He, he gave some Hasidic discourses, and he related many different stories and he gave many songs. At the end of the meal, the Rebbe Maharash, that's the, uh, grandfather of the Rebbe-

10:37 Speaker 2 Right

10:37 Speaker 1 ... of the baby, he was sitting very deeply in his thoughts. And they sang the special song of the Alter Rebbe, known of the four, the four sections, the Dalet Babos. There is this very special song that you sing at special times. It's a very moving, and it's a very spiritual, uh, elevating song that is sung on special times. So he sang that particular song. But all the people that were there were just very trembling from the great, you know, deep, uh, with, with, with, with bitterness, with feeling emotional, uh, feeling that the Rebbe sang that song. And when he finished singing, he remained very deeply in thought and very, very serious. His face was very serious. And then he said the following. He said that the Jewish people in our country are currently facing a lot of troubles, and we need mercy from Hashem. You know, we need God's help to have mercy on us, to help us. So he says, "With God's help, I've done whatever is possible to do for the benefit of the community. I have plowed the ground. I've sown." In other words, through his efforts in Petersburg. Uh, now he says, "We need the blessing. Now we need Hashem Yisbarach, uh, to go ahead, who makes, uh, grows salvation." So to say that, you know, man can only do that much, make the vehicle. You know, it's like when you Uh, sow the ground and you, you plow the ground. You work very hard, but you still need the

12:21 Speaker 1 rain to come down from above to-

12:23 Speaker 2 Right. To, to grow

12:24 Speaker 1 ... so that all your work to make things grow. So this was sort of a metaphor saying that he did the physical things necessary by imploring and appealing to the governments-

12:34 Speaker 2 Right

12:34 Speaker 1 ... and they're doing what's necessary. So now we need Hashem who grows salvation, paraphrasing the verse.

12:41 Speaker 2 Right.

12:42 Speaker 1 But he says that actually the, his efforts and the activities of the Rebbe Maharash helped, were very beneficial, and the calm down, the, the, the, the, the, the pogroms and the people calmed down for a long time. It lasted, so those were the efforts that-

13:01 Speaker 2 Right

13:01 Speaker 1 ... that, that paid off.

13:02 Speaker 2 It did stop for quite a while.

13:04 Speaker 1 Right. And, um, the Rebbe related one time at a farbrengen, very good, fairly at the beginning when, in the, uh, uh, shortly after the, his father-in-law passed away, and the Rebbe at that time was, was... So the Rebbe said that during the Bris Mila, when they did the circumcision, which was in the 19th of Tammuz. So the previous Rebbe, Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak, he was crying a lot, as children do when, you know-

13:33 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, of course

13:33 Speaker 1 ... you make the cut. So the grandfather, his Rebbe, the Rebbe Maharash, said to the baby that was crying, "Why are you crying? When you will become older, you will be able to, you will relate." He says, "When you will, you will become." He didn't say what.

13:53 Speaker 2 Say Rebbe.

13:53 Speaker 1 He didn't say the word Rebbe. And he says, "You're gonna say Hasidus with clarity, with a clear language," he said. That was his blessing. Uh, this is, um, written by my father-in-law. He wrote it himself, but he didn't wanna write out the words, "You'll be a Rebbe," about himself.

14:12 Speaker 2 He left that to-

14:13 Speaker 1 Left that empty space. After you will be, he didn't say. So the Hasidim, I heard the Rebbe saying that what he told him is, "You're gonna be a Rebbe."

14:23 Speaker 2 Right.

14:23 Speaker 1 But the Rebbe didn't wanna write it.

14:25 Speaker 2 He whispered it in his ear, but wouldn't put it in writing.

14:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. Now he says, "Now I understand why there was an empty space."

14:30 Speaker 2 Space.

14:30 Speaker 1 And he didn't wanna say it about himself. But, um, that was something of the blessing of the Rebbe. Now, again, I don't know we're cannot interpret it, but the, when the Rebbe's crying a lot, we know that the Rebbe lives in a very, very difficult, the previous Rebbe. You know, there was a lot of crying at that time with all the-

14:49 Speaker 2 Well, actually-

14:50 Speaker 1 ... all the suffering from the, uh-

14:51 Speaker 2 He lived at the same time that my grandfather lived in Russia.

14:54 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

14:54 Speaker 2 So they experienced, born around the same year.

14:56 Speaker 1 Yeah.

14:57 Speaker 2 So experienced the same-

14:58 Speaker 1 The same.

14:59 Speaker 2 Yeah

14:59 Speaker 1 But being, being of, uh, religious nature and-

15:03 Speaker 2 Oh, was he, was he? Oh, yeah.

15:04 Speaker 1 Was he-

15:05 Speaker 2 Let me tell something. I think depending upon how they were brought up, some of them were religious and some of them were totally non-religious.

15:13 Speaker 1 Yeah, at that time. Yeah, but, uh, but, uh, but the point here is that, uh, it was a hard, hard for the Jewish people at a whole, and there was a lot of crying, I guess, involved. But he says, "You will say Hasidus with a very clear language."