Yemei Chabad -19 Kislev

00:00 Speaker 1 Today we're going to s-discuss the nineteenth day of Kislev. Uh, there's a lot of different various different things that took place in this date. And first we'll discuss on the year Taf Kuf Lamed Gimel. Um, now I don't have the book in front of me. I don't have the copy in front of me, but we will talk first about of the Maggid of Mezritch. Now, the Maggid of Mezritch, as we know, was the teacher of the Alter Rebbe, um, Schneur Zalman, the founder of Chabad. Uh, the Alter Rebbe, as we also have learned, um, was a, uh, a, a brilliant scholar, but you were able to see even at a very young age that, that he has, uh, phenomenal, uh, talent and, uh, ability and his intellectual ability at a young age, uh, was like beyond anything that they were expecting. And that was, that was a generation over there in which, um, you know, there were many, many great scholars, and there's... That was the, uh, the big thing in those days. People would, uh, devote their entire lives to the study of Torah, to expound the Torah. And so there were a lot of, there were a lot of geniuses, there were a lot of knowledgeable people, and there were a lot of great people. But yet, even in that environment, still the Alter Rebbe stood up and shined. And, um, it says the Alter Rebbe had to make a choice at one point when, uh, he matured enough to wanted to be

01:29 Speaker 1 on his own level. He was looking for somewhere to connect, uh, where he could, um, where he can further his own, uh, experiences, further his horizons. And at that time, there was a choice. You can either go to Vilna, which was the Goan over there, the Vilna Gaon. He was, you know, the authority, the greatest authority of, of that days. And we have many of the growers, many of his writings and the elucidations. He, he wrote a lot of very powerful footnotes, and he, he went through basically every part of the Torah, and he commented on each part of the Torah. He makes a lot of corrections. You find him in the Talmud, you find him in the, in the Midrash, you find him in the Chumash, you find him everywhere. He's just gone over. He sort of went through some of the basic texts, and he has put in some the code of Jewish law, everything. He's sort of left his mark on all the areas of the Torah, and that was the area of Vilna. But on the other side you had the Maggid of Mezritch, who was a student of the Baal Shem Tov. Now he, um, was, on the other hand, he was also a, a world-renowned genius and scholar. But in addition to the revealed part of the Torah, he also taught the, uh, mystical part of the Torah. And when the Alter Rebbe had to make the decision where to go, he said, "I already have somewhat of a

02:54 Speaker 1 knowledge in the open part of Torah." He was pretty accomplished in that. He says, "I wanna go and experience, uh, some of the mystical, the hidden part of the Torah." And that's why he chose to go to the Maggid of Mezritch. Now, you know, the, uh, Maggid of Mezritch wasn't as known as the, as the Gaon of Vilna and the Alter Rebbe being a great scholar. Uh, originally when he came there, he didn't see anything special. So he, he almost turned back home. He almost went away. He went there for a very little time. He couldn't tell right away, but, uh, he had prepared some questions, some, uh, ideas he wanted to ask. He wanted to test, sort of-- He wanted to make sure that he wants to take him as his rebbe. He wanted to see how he was gonna answer him. But then, of course, uh, as he was leaving and he asked and the Alter Rebbe and the Ma-Maggid of Mezritch, uh, uh, you know, conversed with him, he was totally blown away by the knowledge and the insight and the, uh, holiness of the Maggid of Mezritch. So as we learned earlier that the Alter Rebbe of a small age was already signed up in the Chevra Kadisha. Remember we talked about that his grandfather had to pay a certain amount of money for him to his bar mitzvah. I think this was at age of six we said. No, no, the age of five, I think, or six. I'm not

04:17 Speaker 1 sure exactly at what age. They took him in, into the group of the Chevra Kadisha, and then they, um, they, um... What they did was they-- When the, uh, Maggid of Mezritch, when he passed away, there was a, uh, a court case, uh, a Jewish court case between the Chevra Kadisha. Those were the regular people that are always taking care of the, uh, of the deceased. You know, to take care and make sure they get a proper burial. They make the Tahara. They prepare the body before the burial. And there was a-- In Torah, there was a, a court, it was a judgment, a Torah case between them and the students of the Maggid of Mezritch because the students, they wanted to be the ones that are gonna handle the body of the Maggid of Mezritch. His body. They, they, they felt that they have the right. They served him during his lifetime. They wanted to serve him on the, uh, also after his passing. And the Chevra Kadisha says that that belongs to them, that privilege, because they are, uh, they are the ones that, uh, take care of the people who, who pass on, pass on. So they ruled, the court, the Beth Din ruled, the, the, the Beth Din ruled that the Chevra Kadisha is, is, has the right to it because that's their job. However, they said anybody who is signed up to be part of the Chevra Kadisha, and I guess even though they weren't on the local Chevra Kadisha,

05:45 Speaker 1 but if they belong to a Chevra Kadisha, even elsewhere, so then they get to, uh, take care of the, uh, of the deceased. Being that the Alter Rebbe was signed up in the Chevra Kadisha, so the Alter Rebbe Was one of the people who got the, uh, special, you know, privilege to take care of the body of the Maggid of Mizrich. So then they threw a lottery, who's going to which part of the body, you know, to, to take care of that, and the Alter Rebbe got the head of the, of the, Reish Lakess and Paz it was very, uh... He-- So he got a very, you know, as we know that the Alter Rebbe was one of the younger students, or perhaps the youngest student of the, of the Maggid of Mizrich. But he loved the Alter Rebbe, and he hold him very special, very, very dear, so that also his son became, uh, havrusa, sort of a, a, a learning partner together with the Alter Rebbe. And whereas the Alter Rebbe would teach his son, uh, uh, the revealed part of the Torah, which was the Alter Rebbe's, uh, uh, specialty sort of. Then and the, uh, Rav Hamalach, he was called, The Angel, he would teach the Alter Rebbe, he would teach him the, um, um, Hasidus, the mys- the mystical part of the Torah, the hidden part, esoteric part of the Torah. And, um, and, you know, as we've learned that before, how the Alter Rebbe would take advantage and turn

07:10 Speaker 1 the clock to, to, to get some more time for the Hasidus, and he would change it on him. Um, the, uh, Maggid of Mizrich actually commissioned the Alter Rebbe to write the Shulchan Aruch. That's how we have the Shulchan Aruch today, is because it was the Alter Rebbe was told by his teacher, by the Maggid of Mizrich. The Maggid of Mizrich, uh, told the Alter Rebbe before his passing, he said to him that, um, um, that, uh, the, um, three days before a person passes on... Now, I'm not sure. He just told me generally. The person actually doesn't see materialism, he only sees the sp- spiritual of every item in this world, so that he sees the godliness, he sees the holiness in everything. Because every item in this world has its energy, which is a spiritual energy, which re-- gives it its survival, which, uh, is its energy and gives it bring to bring. But before you pass on, you get the ability to, to look beyond the, uh, the veil. You get to see the actual energy of each item. It's like saying instead of seeing the, uh, the motor work, you actually get to see the electricity. You get to see how, you know, the, the power behind it, uh, so to speak, . Um, the, um... And the Alter Rebbe shared with... I mean, about the Maggid of Mizrich shared with the Alter Rebbe some various insights with regards to the birth of a son, with regar- regards to first the

08:46 Speaker 1 night, the Shalom Zachar, the, the, the, uh, the, um... The Alter-- The Maggid of Mizrich was teaching the Alter Rebbe certain things about birth of a son. He was teaching him about, uh, the night before, telling him about various different things. And, and when the Maggid asked him, "How come you're not asking any of this?" And he told him, "Well, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're just flow. You're telling me, and I'm, uh, very, uh, very fortunate to be able to hear all these revelations," that the Maggid was teaching the, the, the Alter Rebbe. Now, uh, the Alter Rebbe, um, um, listened, uh, very attentively to, to the Maggid. And the Maggid told him that you're going to have a son. I guess what he was telling him is, he says, "You are going to have a son, and I want you to name your son after me." And that was the Mitteler Rebbe, whose name was Duber, was named after his teacher, after the Maggid of Mizrich. And basically, what it seems like from this, that the Alter Rebbe, uh, was told by the Mitt- by the Rebbe-

09:51 Speaker 2 Maggid

09:51 Speaker 1 ... by, by the Maggid how he should... He was sort of giving him all the instructions. In other words, because that's going to be sort of almost like a reincarnation or I'm not sure if we can use those terms, but the Mitteler Rebbe is going to be sort of his name, and he's going to be able to follow him. Yes, go ahead.

10:08 Speaker 2 So was the Alter Rebbe identified as the next Rebbe from a very young age? I mean, how, how-

10:17 Speaker 1 Okay. That's a, that, that's a good question. Um, a lot of these people, it seems, the first thing is... And they were all... Any of these people to be considered, or even for people to have a, an idea about them of being leaders, first thing is they needed to be totally brilliant scholars. So you couldn't just... Not anybody who just, you know, who, who, you know, who Google something on the internet and can give you over a, a Dvar Torah that he read somewhere is a scholar.

10:50 Speaker 2 I'm not the next one.

10:51 Speaker 1 What? What?

10:51 Speaker 2 I'm out.

10:52 Speaker 1 No, yeah. You know, today, if somebody knows how to speak, uh, can look up or can read, you know, some art scroll, uh, with the English translation, is already, uh, a figurehead and, you know. Because he figures, you know, the people around him know less than him, so, you know, what do they know? So it's become, unfortunately, the generation, there's... People are not educated in that field. And remember, you see, in other areas of education, things have moved on, and the sense is, you know, you go to school, you study different, uh, sciences, and it's constantly improved. It's built on the old, but you always... You don't go back to the original texts, you know. But in the Torah, there are certain barriers, you know. The first thing is you gotta talk Hebrew, and the second thing is you gotta be able to read the text, and you gotta go back to the original text. And so people that don't have that training, you know, they, they, they found they have like a, a barrier right before they start. So it has nothing to do with their intellect. It has nothing to do with their IQ. They may be very smart, but they just can't access the information. They don't have a means of accessing that information. So the first thing, you need to be able to access information. But again, we're talking about in a generation where people were geniuses, scholars, knowledgeable, and on top of that, they were holy people. They were real

12:20 Speaker 1 people. They were servants of God. They were religious. They were pious. They were, uh, servants of Hashem. You know, they were really doing what they were supposed to be doing. So in that area, just being a very knowledgeable wasn't enough, but that was the first criteria. Because if you're going to have a leader that you're going-- is going to guide you, the first thing you wanna know, that he knows what to guide you with. I mean, you're not gonna go to a doctor who, who just puts up a sign, "I'm a doctor there," and he doesn't really know medicine, hasn't studied medicine. You're gonna go to somebody who knows the medicine. That's why you want them to heal you. You're not going to go, and just anybody who knows how to speak nicely, who knows how to tell you even what you wanna hear from them, but you know. You're gonna go to somebody who can, who knows, who's knowledgeable. Now, to gain the knowledge of Torah, besides being brilliant, you gotta invest a lot of time. You gotta study, and you gotta study, you gotta work hard. If you work hard, and you study, and you're brilliant, and you're gifted, and God has blessed you with... And then you also are, uh, devoted to Hashem with your heart and your soul, and you're seriously, and you're pious, you're religious. But still, that level, there were many at the court of the Maggid of Mezritch. The Maggid of Mezritch had what he called, in Hebrew,

13:47 Speaker 1 called a havraya kadisha. That is, like, a holy group. Around those group were the most outstanding scholars of that generations. Notwithstanding the fact, the Rebbe Yo, Mivilna, the Gro, the Goan, he had his group of people. But then there was a whole group, a whole series of people that followed the Hasidic, you know, uh, principles. They went under the Maggid. They followed the Ba'al Shem Tov's vision and new insight or, uh, that, you know, excitement and enthusiasm in Torah. And but there was a whole bunch of them. It wasn't, like, uh, just the Alter Rebbe. So when you ask me, was the Alter Rebbe originally a leader? Not necessarily. But what happened was... First of all, we also have to realize, these people didn't look for leadership because leadership took a tremendous amount of responsibility. Leadership took away from the things that they loved most. They wanted to study. They want to expound. That was their love of their life. Giving them other responsibilities meant less time doing what they brought them close to, brought them to the level, and gave them the responsibility. Leadership, you know, required, you know, a lot of self-sacrifice and, but the awesome responsibility. So these leaders weren't running for office. They were running away from office. They were not looking for that, so it's not like- Those are the best leaders. And those are, those are the real leaders, right? Yeah. It's those that run that have a problem. You know, they don't even walk for office, they run

15:21 Speaker 1 for office, you know. So they're trying more. But that means that they're not really serious about the responsibility because if they're really serious about the responsibility, they say, "Oh, we're going. We wanna do service for..." It's not the service to the, to give back to the community what motivates them. It's the, you know, the ego, the, uh, the power, the, the, the, you know, whatever- The power ... motivates them to, to go ahead and, and, and, and go ahead then. But the Alter Rebbe, as well as all of the, uh, other f- group of, uh, students of the Maggid, at that time, they didn't call them Hasidim, they called them Talmidim. They called them the students of the Maggid. So the Maggid was the head, and then they were students of the Maggid. Now, again, like I said, if you read some of the scholarly works, blow away your mind. You know, some of these, not only the Alter Rebbes we know or some of the other scholars, they blow away your mind. You know, the depth and, you know, when you try to, to, to, to, to figure out and sit and understand, you, y- you see not only a, a, a endless amount of knowledge of knowing material, but also a depth, uh, an ability of a- analyzing things, an ability of, of, of, of being able to dig very, very deep, you know. Uh, i- it would... You know, if they were in the goyishe world, if they were in the secular

16:47 Speaker 1 world, these would be the Nobel Prize winners. These were the people that had the most brilliant minds, and they would be there, you know. But they did this, and they just did it, like, regularly. That was their thing. They studied, and they brought, uh, insight into the Torah. And after the passing... Yeah. S- sorry. In the Maggid of Mezritch, what was his lineage? Where did he come from again? I forget. That was... That, that's a good question. We didn't discuss that right now. But his, his claim to fame was that he was the, uh, student of the Ba'al Shem Tov, and he was the follower of the Ba'al Shem Tov. What happened was that immediately after the passing of the Ba'al Shem Tov, they, they had a thought that somebody else may, may take over the Ba'al Shem Tov's, uh, mantle after the Ba'al Shem Tov passed away. Uh, but then that didn't work out, so it went to the Maggid of Mezritch. Uh, we have to look in that part of the history. That's a separate part of the history. Then the Alter Rebbe followed him. Alter Rebbe followed, but it wasn't just the Alter Rebbe. In the middle. That's right. Yep. We've been talking in MeChabad 'cause we're on the Chabad branch of things. Right. So we, we basically start with the Alter Rebbe, and we go back to the Maggid and the Ba'al Shem Tov. But as you asked me, was the Alter Rebbe destined to be a leader? The Al-- The

18:04 Speaker 1 Maggid of Mezritch has made many overtures, and he has Commissioned the Alter Rebbe, he set him up as being the, uh, the leader. Now, I want you to also to realize that one of the hardships was not just regular responsibility. You had an entire religious community with a hierarchy which were opposed to the Hasidim. Being a leader of the Hasidim didn't just mean that you had to be a leader. It means that you had to take the wrath, and you had to take on all of your own brothers and sisters who didn't yet understand what you are about. It, it was like a, a, a job that nobody wanted, you know. Nobody would, would want such a job because can you imagine to feel, uh, other religious people will come and say, "Oh, you're, you're, you're not really Jewish. You're not really religious. You're, you're worshiping..." You know, we've, we've heard that even in Chabad today. We've heard there's some groups that will say about Chabad that, you know, they're idol worshipers. They, they, they will say that, you know. Some, some will say. Can you imagine what you feel if you have people working with other communities? My father, a blessed memory, used to tell me where he used to work. He used to work with even some other Hasidim who had a, a, an axe to grind against with Chabad about, you know, they didn't get along about, you know, it was a lot with the Satmars, you know, the Zionists and this

19:41 Speaker 1 and that. So, you know, the Rebbe, as we talked about, asked the girls to light Shabbos candles. So they came out with those... I'm not sure if you've ever seen them. They have those things that they distribute. They, they got betters. But in the olden days, they had those candles holders. So they would give them out. So they made them for cheap, so they could just hand them out so that the girls can light the Shabbos candles. But, you know, the Satmars, you know, or some other groups, they were opposed to this. You know, it wasn't their custom. And it wasn't opposed to it in a quiet way. So what happens? So they would make a-- they'd make a minyan over there by the, uh-- where they worked. So they'd make a minyan over there. So the minyan, they add up together. Chabad, Satmar, everybody, whoever was there. It was a shop. It was all from you. So they used to put-- When you daven, you put in two candles to-- before you daven. So you put in two candles. So it was a convenient way. Where do you put the candles? So they had those candle holders that they-- to give out. The Satmar would not daven with that minyan because the holders for the candles were of those that were made to give out for Mitzvah Neshek, to give out for Shabbos Kodesh. That was already Zionist. That was already, uh, treif. That was already extreme. So-- But you can't imagine what it

21:07 Speaker 1 feels like to be considered by your own kind, sort of religious, to tell you, you are not only religious, but you are, like, the worst thing for the religion, right? Now, to stand up against that takes a tremendous amount of courage. It takes tremendous amount of, of, of, of arch. So what happened, to answer your question. So the Alter Rebbe, plus the other students, they weren't looking for becoming leaders, but they were the older students. There was always the level of respect, and there was always a level of going up the older gets first. So some of the older students of the Maggid of Mezrich, after the passing of the Maggid of Mezrich, they were the ones that took over, and they sort of became the unofficial leaders. The Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe, calls them after the passing of the Maggid of his Rebbes, and that was Rabbi Mendel of Vitebsk, Far Herodok, Rabbi Avraham Kalisk. They were like the older students, and they were the ones that, uh, the Alter Rebbe sort of honored, and he accepted them, and he sort of calls himself their students. What happened was these people went and moved to Israel, and the Alter Rebbe, we learned that, the Alter Rebbe wanted to move to Israel with them. But they were begging him, and in the end, they finally-- the Alter Rebbe decided he's going back to undertake, and they gave him that section where it was infested with, with, uh, with the fortress of the Misnagdim, of the

22:45 Speaker 1 opponents of Hasidim. And they told him, "Well, this is the place you gotta work." You know, can you imagine? We know it was the Alter Rebbe, it was Rabbi Yitzhak of Bardichev, you know, some of the names that you hear of the great Rebbes. They had a lot of tsuris. As you see, the Alter Rebbe was imprisoned two times, and he had a lot to sus-- you know, a lot of troubles from the, from these people. But again, to-- in their defense, to their defense, one has to say that they meant well, but this was something new, and it was something not-- they haven't experienced this before, and they were worried. Maybe these people are, you know, some, some sort of a... You know, the Jewish people unfortunately had, at times, other groups that came, uh, later on to be non-Jewish groups that attached themselves to the Jewish people, and they took away a lot, a lot of Jews from the religion. So people were wary, people were afraid, people didn't know. They-- This was something new, something different. You can't blame them, in other words, was, w-- fully. But yet it was quite clear, and as we said, the Alter Rebbe tried desperately, and there were people, leaders, that were trying desperately to bring together the Gaon of Vilna together with the Alter Rebbe, trying to smooth things out, to show them. The Alter Rebbe said that he would go to, uh, the extremes just to try to prove the innocence and to try

24:16 Speaker 1 to show them that Chabad and the Rebbe's philosophy isn't at all against, you know, any traditional Judaism. On the contrary, and as we, as we know and we see, and there's no-- right now there's no question. There is-- Everything is very clear. So the Alter Rebbe reluctantly, after they left to Israel, reluctantly accepted and became the leader. Now, because the Alter Rebbe was not only brilliant, not only learned, and not only was he pious and holy and smart, everything else, but he was also had leadership qualities. He was able to attract tremendous amount of following, and the group of Hasidim, uh, sort of increased, uh, quadrupled and multiplied, and it, it just caught on fire, you know. So you had more and more people joining and becoming part of the Hasidis of the Alter Rebbe. Now, the Alter Rebbe had a certain style. That's why it is called the Hasidis Chabad. Notwithstanding, they all follow is the Basheftov. There is a certain style, and most of the style comes through in the particular Hasidic discourse in the, uh, uh, way of study and learning which the Alter Rebbe disseminated. Because after everything's said and done, the Alter Rebbe did various different things. He made a siddur, he made a mikvah, he made... He, he changed, and he did a lot, a lot of different things. But yet the most important thing that the Alter Rebbe kept on teaching was teaching Hasidis. That was the Hasidic philosophy and the Hasidic teachings. That has a certain style

26:02 Speaker 1 to it. That is considered the style of Chabad. That is the Chabad style of study and the Chabad style of learning the mystical parts of Torah. That style is not shared by other Hasidic groups. That was the style of the Alter Rebbe. Do they have the Tanya, the other Hasidic groups? They, they, uh, they will refer, they will study the Tanya, but that won't be their Bible. But to Chabad, that's our Torah Shebek Sav. That is our basis. To them, they have other, other things, but they study the Tanya, the- Tanya is the spiritual study ... is the book of the, of the mystical and the spiritual teaching of Chabad. And, uh, one of the things of the Tanya, of course, there's a lot to the Ta- Tanya has now five sections, and, you know, we're different, and we study all the time. And, you know, a lot of times it's a, it's a little bit over your head it seems a little bit because it doesn't-- it requires more than reading out aloud. That's just, like, the minimum, just to cover your grounds to have read it. But it, it, it requires a lot of in-depth and intense study. The first section of the Tanya, and the first, very first parts are a little bit easier because as we're going to start studying it over again, once your Tisketov comes around, which we start the cycle again, over there it really, uh, discusses mostly about how sh- one can overcome, uh, certain, uh, obstacles

27:31 Speaker 1 in serving God. One to overcome depression, one overcome feeling sad, one overcoming the battles of one's evil inclination. Again, it's not like reading a, a, a book. We're used to in the fast food generation, you know, just going in and getting a sandwich and eating it and getting satisfied. And if it takes anything more than that, we can't focus, and we can't stay tuned in. You know, everybody's running quick, quick, quick, quick. But this study requires some... If you really want, again, of course, you know, you try to take out a point here, there, and share it. But to really understand it, you gotta focus, you gotta study, you gotta spend time, and you gotta learn. But the Alter Rebbe explains basically the, the whole system, the way it works, you know, how-- what, what is going on with them, the battles that go on within us, how one can, uh, help himself, what one should do, how one can become a better person, how one can become a better Jew, how one can do... But that's, again, that requires a lot of study. And require-requires, I think more than study, it requi-it requires a desire. You know, I mean, the first step to finding a cure is, as it says, Yedias Hamakla, there's an expression, knowing the sickness is a half of a cure, you know. First you gotta want to be cured, you know. And then, then if you're really serious, people in the olden days at least had problems that we don't

29:03 Speaker 1 have today. It's not that we don't have those problems. Probably we don't care about those problems. When people have problems, it means they felt that if they had-- like if they, if they couldn't, like, feel anything in their heart to Hashem, to God, for them that was a problem. Uh, to us, it's not a problem. You know, we're happy if we, you know, we come to shawl, we're more than happy. You know, that's already quite, uh, quite an accomplishment. You know, as we did in today's Hayom Yom, we did that. He says, "In spiritual matters," he says, "one should always look somebody who is on a higher level and say, 'You know what? I'd like to be there.' You know, 'I'd like to get there.' On material matters, one should say, 'Look at somebody who has less than you,' and say, 'Thank God for what I have,' because there's somebody that has less than me." So you-- every good thing you gotta put in perspective. You gotta put everything, you know, where, where, where you're standing. But the Alter Rebbe, you have to know, was good, he was kind, he gave blessings to everybody. And same thing is about our Rebbe too. But the Rebbe mainly, what his main... You know, unfortunately, we're living in a generation in which people call the Rebbe to make an operation, they wanted to know whether they should start a business, they wanted to know how they're gonna be successful. But that-- those were secondary. That's not the primary

30:29 Speaker 1 function of a Rebbe. That became the... By default, I mean, that's the people who were, were around us that we gotta do that too. But the main focus, the primary job of a Rebbe is to be an inspirational guide to help people in their spiritual... uplift them, bring them closer to Hashem, which the Rebbe is doing through all of his shluchim. Now, also, you know, you gotta reach out to people. Now, if we didn't talk English, then you don't have an audience. So you gotta... And this is the key to Chabad, and I think maybe this is the distinction so people don't understand what's the distinction between Chabad- And some other movements in Judaism which also try to bring in the unaffiliated. Because in Chabad, we may bring the message in English and French, we bring it down in various different levels. We will use everything, but you know what? We don't change the message. The message remains the same. We're not changing anything. It is the language that we talk. It is the way we reach. We're gonna use anything that is used in the world, and technology to reach the people, to get them to pay attention, to, to grab their minds for a second so that they look at it. We'll use that. But what do we give you? We don't sell you something, uh, to-

31:54 Speaker 3 Different

31:54 Speaker 1 ... to, to give you. We sell you the same Torah. We don't sell you not one iota. We don't compromise. We don't tell you. We just bring it down to a level that you can sort of understand it, and you should-

32:08 Speaker 3 Right

32:08 Speaker 1 ... be able to appreciate it. Whereas the other organizations, they say, "Oh, we're gonna reach these people. We're gonna water it down. We're gonna lessen the requirements. We're going to, uh, say that you don't have to do anything." No, no, no. There's no such a thing. You have to... The, the, the requirements aren't watered down. If you can't have mixed seating, you can't... You're not gonna have mixed seating. "Well, oh, if I had mixed seating, I'm gonna have twenty thousand people in here because then they will-- you won't stereotype you. They won't say that you're..." Yeah, and okay, but you know what? If I'm gonna have mixed seating, then it's not gonna be the Torah. Then I'm giving you something else. I'm not going to give you something different. We stay strictly faithful to the original. We don't change the code of Jewish law. We don't change it. Times don't change it. What we change is the way the message is delivered. We change the delivery message, and we utilize everything. Now, that doesn't mean that there's an expectation that everybody can follow, everybody could follow or should follow, because it's, it's self-understood none of us have the same experience. You know, i- if somebody grows up in a, in an, an environment in which this is what they know, so of course, most likely is, hopefully, they're gonna follow that. But if somebody grows up in a totally different environment, and you grow up in totally ideas, how could one follow it? I mean,

33:34 Speaker 1 they didn't even know about it. I was teaching a class. I was talking about a soul and this. So there were people who were telling, some Russian people, Russian, Russian immigrant. They said, "We never heard about a soul. We never heard about... All we knew is Jewish is because in our passport it said that we're Jewish. That's the, that's the extent." But we had-- We-- "What does it mean?" We, we, we had no idea what it means, but how? It doesn't mean anything to them. Now, of course, how could you expect... And the same thing is, you know, people live their lives. They have certain ideas, and, you know, uh, you know, my wife mentioned to me yesterday, it was just, uh, funny. Uh, she mentioned to me yesterday, you know, that some of our children are not even our standard doesn't, uh, meet their... They have even a higher standard than, you know, they might. You know, Rabbi Velvel has a standard, and they don't even like that standard. So my wife is a little bit, she says to me, offended. You know, she says, "Oh, well, we're not..." I said, "Look at all these families who become religious and their children are religious. What do you think their parents feel like?" I say, "How do you think... The- these kids are basically telling their parents, 'Well, what you taught me isn't good enough, and you're, you're, you're all mistaken. I am the one that is going to teach you,' you know?" So she

34:49 Speaker 1 said, "Yeah, you're right." She said, "Okay. I buy it. You're right." I said, "Well, you know, this is just, this is just the way it is." But you know what? It's not that one is better than the other one. Each one is placed in a certain place because that's we were placed. I mean, we didn't choose what our life experience is going to be. We were placed in it. That really means that we don't... We're not expected to do different than what transpired with us. But the minute we get the opportunity, the minute we have the, the, the, the, the knowledge and the learning more, so we should grow. We should grow in our knowledge. We should grow in our experience. We should grow in our, you know, certainly translate it into action, day-to-day action. Going to shul, putting on the tefillin, lighting the Shabbos candles, doing more and more to try to do the better that you can. Now, with Hasidus, the Alter Rebbe said it became a little bit easier because as Rebbe said, you know, there is new, uh, sicknesses, there needs to be a little bit new medicines. Not to change the Torah, but the medicines that we use. Now, one is not gonna tell you, "Uh, you know what? Fifty years ago, they didn't have this medicine. They didn't have the cure. They lived without it. Now, science has figured out other cures. We're not gonna use it. We're not gonna use penicillin because they didn't use it." Hey, wait

36:23 Speaker 1 a minute. You know, why? You know, people didn't have the need as much as we have the need for antibiotics today because we have a lot more to deal with. So the point here is Hasidus gave us something more because we have a lot more meshugas. We have a lot more, we have a lot more craziness going on out there. We have a lot more to deal with that is pulling at us. So that Hasidus that the Alter Rebbe and the Rebbe's taught and the Rebbe's message, even when we go out there, that energizes, first of all, the young people, and they give them the message with that excitement, is able to reach and bring in that we couldn't do without it. So that's part of what... So that's a long answer to your short question. The Alter Rebbe gave us, uh, leadership that he didn't want to run for it, but it was given to him. And Hashem Appoints these leaders. We don't appoint them. Hashem appoints them. How old was he when he came to Plovdiv? He was a young man. I would think so, yeah. He was a young man. Um- So I'm sure he had- He was in his, he was in his, um- Talking about how old. He got married... No, he got married, chuppah, bedekah, vav, uh... He was in his late twenties, I think. You know, I couldn't tell you right now the dates. I gotta look it up. That's okay. I'm just gonna- But it was in

37:39 Speaker 1 his late twenties and- Another day, yeah ... but he functioned for many years. But everybody has- The Alter Rebbe ... the Alter Rebbe is in a category of his own. Even, even amongst, you know, the great giants of Judaism, even amongst other Hasidim, the Alter Rebbe is in a category of his own. He is, uh, on his flow of ideas, of new insights, bringing, you think, in his, his language, the way he wrote the Shulchan Aruch, in so many different areas, he's sort of in a category by himself, and he's, uh, respected by those who want to respect, of course. People that wanna deny, you know, people, uh... So you always find those, too. But, uh, in, in... People who are genuine looking will, will find. Okay. Okay. So after we had the, we had the Yut Kislev, the nineteenth day of Kislev, in the year taf kuf lamed gimmel. That was when the Magid of Mizrich, Dov Ber, remember we discussed this? Uh, he passed away. The English date would make it, uh, fifteenth of December in seventeen seventy-two. On that same date, on Yut Kislev... And now we gotta move forward, uh, several years. That is when the Alter Rebbe of Schneer Zamen, who was the student of the Magid of Mizrich, and this was in the year taf kuf nun tes, which is... Okay, that would make it the s- twenty-seventh of November in seventeen ninety-eight. Oh, really? Okay? Yeah. So that was the day the Alter Rebbe was freed from prison.

39:17 Speaker 1 But it's also the day which is considered the Rosh Hashanah for Hasidis. That is sort of the day in which, uh, it was recognized that spiritually, the Alter Rebbe's- Over in heaven ... uh, expansion and the way he treated Hasidis to teach it to the masses was okayed from above. Because this whole story of the Alter Rebbe being imprisoned and then being freed was not just a physical thing that somebody slandered him and then they got freed. It's-- It actually represented what was going on in Shamayim. It actually represented what spiritual matters. There was actually a criticism, and there was a thought in above that what the Alter Rebbe was doing was not correct. Because we know that the Kabbalah Hasidis was sort of- Yeah ... uh, taboo, so to say, for the, for the ordinary folks. It was only the Kabbalists that studied it. And the Alter Rebbe, you know, he, he was versed. I mean, just... There's, there's enormous amount of, of, of material. If you talk about besides the, uh, revealed part of the Torah, which is the Talmud and the Code of Jewish Law and all the commentators throughout the centuries, on top of that, to be well-versed also in the esoteric, in the Kabbalah, in the writings of the Arizal, the Pri Etz Chayim, the Pardes, the, the-- all the different... The Zohar and all the different works. It's just a-- it's a tremendous amount of material over there to study. Not only to study, to be well-versed in it

40:54 Speaker 1 and to really comprehend it, understand it. This is just, like, unheard of. But the Alter Rebbe took that knowledge, that experience that he learned, and was able to transmit it and interpret it in a way that was negligible, so that we can sort of also enjoy and get a little bit of a glimpse, I guess, of the Kabbalah as it has been modified through the Hasidic teachings of the Alter Rebbe. And that was something which was a question. Is the generation, is the time ripe for that? Should we really be doing this? Uh, because the fact that these secrets were disseminated, it sometimes ended up in perhaps in people's hands that shouldn't have studied it. It's like today, a lot of times, as we know, I don't know if you can give that example, but every information that you speak, uh, today is right away is broadcast on the internet, and it's known to the whole entire world. So like in the olden days, if there were a couple of Hasidim who wanted to sit together, and they were, uh, having a little talk, and maybe somebody would schmooze to the other one, and they would say expressions, you know, they would talk about certain things, and they would, in an emotional state or in a, perhaps in a sense of their feelings, they would say something about, about the Rebbe, talk about him in a very special way or say... So that was amongst Hasidim. That was like the feelings that they would express.

42:36 Speaker 1 But today, you know, everything you say is immediately picked up by the others. Somebody, uh, records you, and somebody puts it right on the... And then they, you know, people that don't understand, they take it out of context. They take it out of the way it was meant to be. And right away they say, "Oh, you know, look, look at what..." So all the teaching of Hasidim, the way the Alter Rebbe taught it, was also at the time it was a question whether that was, uh, the right time. So the imprisonment of the Alter Rebbe was sort of a sign of heaven that it was questionable. But the fact that he was released eventually, that was taken as a sign that he is doing the right thing. And they actually say That from after Petersburg, Petersburg is known as the place where they, uh, arrested him, and they brought him to, and where they investigated him. So after the, the Petersburg, it was, uh, a totally different and a much higher level than it was before, uh, before Petersburg. So... Yeah. Which part of his life did he write the Tanya? Um, that was already after Petersburg, I presume. That was already after. The pro-- the thing is like this, the Tanya originally wasn't written as one pamphlet. It was made out of pieces. It was first said, and then it was made out of pieces, and then it was put together, and it was published. Gotta take a look. It was published actually, um,

44:04 Speaker 1 I think we have to look on the Tanya and the date, but it was... It's somewhere around that time, approximately about that time it was published, it was published. No. No, that was later on. Uh, the Alter Rebbe writes in the Tanya that he was forced to publish. He wasn't going to publish the Tanya. He wrote that he, that he published the Tanya because people were making, uh, illegitimate... What? Does he keep the Tanya in his shtetl? No. People were, were, were making illegitimate, uh, copies, or they were doing-- they were intentionally forging it, so he had to write it down in a book. And, you know, so the Tanya was meant to keep away from, um, the people who were just too many people coming to the Alter Rebbe, and he couldn't physically handle-- meet everybody individually, as he writes in his introduction. So he needed to create a means to help people that they wanted to seek his advice and guidance. So in order to achieve that, he wrote it down, and he said, "Look, it's the best that we can do. It doesn't really substitute a face-to-face meeting, but under the circumstances that we can do." He also asked, you know, the people in all communities who have a better understanding to help those who understand it less, to teach them some of the principles. So-- but that was certainly around that time. I don't know exactly, uh, the dates on that. Um, but as far as the Alter Rebbe's imprisonment and

45:26 Speaker 1 then his freedom, I mean, of course, it was necessary at that time. At the end of the day, when Hashem brings about a certain revelation or a tzadik comes up with a seforim or with the books, it was because that generation needed it. As it was shown, uh, that the Alter Rebbe's, uh, work, impact, leadership changed and perhaps, uh, saved the entire, uh, Jewish community, and it gave them that extra, uh, strength and the extra, uh, ammunition that they needed to overcome. There's a famous story about one of the other, uh, students who had a criticism of the Alter Rebbe because he once saw that some of the pages were f-- in the, uh, not respectfully, they were sort of on the floor, and he was upset because the Alter Rebbe was revealing secrets of the Torah, and it sort of was disrespectful. And the Alter Rebbe sort of soothed him by giving him an example that, uh, the, um, uh, student of a, a child of a king was once very sick, and he couldn't take the medicine. And the only way that it can heal him was to take the, uh, precious stone which was in the crown and grind it up and mix it up with water. But the problem is, even that, the child couldn't drink, and you try to give it to the child, to the prince, and it would spill all over, all over. So they said, "What are we gonna do?" But they said, "Look, if a drop

46:53 Speaker 1 will go in the right place, it could spill. It could, it could go all over the place." So meaning even you have these things, maybe sometimes it ends up in the wrong place. It's not respectful. The, the, the, the seforim or the, the, the Hasidics was, was, was, was, was-- should be kept in a more sacred way. But it's all worth it because if it helped the child get better. And we're all God's children, and we're all need any medicine, any encouragement that we can to help us better. So the fact-- I mean, this is really, if you think, the guiding principle of the Rebbe and Chabad, that, you know, to send out, you know, like people to various different communities, a lot of times it brings about personal struggles for people to remain with their own level of, of, of, of Yiddishkeit and their own level of Yiras Shamayim because you go out to various different corners of the world, you know, and you don't have that support system like you had. And it's, it's amazing that Baruch Hashem, that all that connect and do the Rebbe's work, so they, they sort of stick it out. And they-- not only don't they compromise themselves, but they're able to impact the communities around them. But there is always a lot of, uh, a lot of questions about doing that. Your own children, where are you gonna educate them? How are you going to make sure that they have a proper chinuch, you know? And now

48:17 Speaker 1 they created, you know, various, you know, have online schools and different things for children who live who knows where in the furthest corners of the world with no, no Jews and no education, no nothing, and still they get some of quality, you know, what there is to offer. So... But yet it, it, it does involve some danger. That's why some other groups of Hasidims, they ch-choose to rather stick it out in their own communities and hopefully, uh, not allow the strange winds to blow in there. Because unfortunately, they find out that sooner or later they can't totally insulate themselves either. They can't really, uh, try to cut themselves off. And if they don't find the means to give their children the strength, you know, and we find the strength of Hasidics to give them that extra, you know, uh, empower them and give them that extra energy, sometimes when they're faced inevitably with some challenges, they don't know how to handle it because they're not been given that vitamins, that extra immunizations that protects you with everything. But again, I'm not saying that it is very clear one way or the other, but the Alter Rebbe's idea was that, you know, you give up a little bit of your own, even if your own Yiddishkeit, uh, again, according to Shulchan Aruch, not, uh, we don't compromise, but you put yourself in a little bit of danger, and you try to sort of, uh, get, uh, get them. Yeah. When you get a chance. What? When

49:56 Speaker 1 you get a chance. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can't insulate yourself from the rest of the world. You can't? I mean, some people say that you could, you know. But you just can't do it. Yeah. The first edition was in seventeen ninety-seven. The first part, but the total- Was later on. Yeah, it was later on ... fourteen. Yeah. So which is, which is, uh, which is actually, um, uh, uh, one year prior to, uh, to his being arrested, 'cause he was arrested in 1798, we said. He got out like 1801, right? No, no. It was just, it was just for, for 53 days. We're gonna see this minute. Okay, 53 days, that went over. It was a very, very short. But I mean, it's- it's- it's made a big deal of it, but it was not for a long time. And he was arrested again in Russia, right? Yeah, and those, those were actually... It actually corresponds to the 53 chapters of the Tanya. Oh, okay. That's why they have the 53 days- Oh, okay ... that he was imprisoned, because that was the question as we were speaking about. It was, uh, a question of the, whether he should be able to, uh, uh, do this work, to continue this work. But once it was decided, then they, uh, actually, uh... He went with full force. After Petersburg, he started much stronger and Chassidus sort of quadrupled and became, uh, a, a lot stronger than before. A lot- We learned earlier, he also moved, uh,

51:21 Speaker 1 to Liadi, he moved. Right. Okay? And then we learned that he had, at that time, a lot of more opportunities. A lot of Chassidim moved over there. A lot of more opportunities opened up for the Alter Rebbe. Yeah, what were you saying? I was gonna say, what-- Several of his arrests were n- were, were not political. It's because of the other groups- No ... that went to the government and said he was an activist and he was against the government. That's-- But they, the other groups were trying to get rid of the Alter Rebbe one way or the other. Yeah. And they did not, they did not stop, even by slandering and going to the government and getting the goyish, uh, uh- The government arrested him ... and they arrested him, but then they found out. Just like he supported- Based on them ... because he supported the czar, but he was giving money to, to, to the Ottoman Empire, so they said he was- Uh, exactly ... active while he was in, in... It wasn't time. That was under the czar. So it's- Exactly ... you know, it was so, it was... So it wasn't political, a lot of his arrests. No. No, it wasn't. They, uh, only, really it only to do that they tried to, uh, to do harm to the Alter Rebbe because they believed that the Alter Rebbe was doing harm to Yiddishkeit or these- Right ... people said that he was taking people away from the, uh, from the

52:36 Speaker 1 regular Orthodox Judaism, and he's- Right ... slapping them away and making them into Chassidim. So they figured that all means were now, uh, kosher. You can do anything. Just get, just get rid of him. Get rid of him. Just get rid of him. And they went, and that's what they thought. Now, when they brought the Alter Rebbe to Petersburg, originally, they put him into the secret chambers in the fortress, which is known as the Fortress of Peter-Pauli. And he was there more than seven weeks, which is 49 days, plus up to 53 days, he was sitting in that fortress. And in the first three weeks, he was under very strict, very serious guard, and he was in-- kept in rooms that were designed for people who rebelled against the government. Because one of the main accusations was, as Marty said, was that the Alter Rebbe gathers money and he sends them to the sultan in, in Turkey, to the Ottoman Empire at the time. But then later on, within the fortress, the Peter-Pauli Fortress, they moved him to a better place. During the entire stay of the Alter Rebbe in that fortress, there were various different groups, and they would sort of work through all the accusations. There was a whole, uh, letters and, uh, write-ups against what they had against Alter Rebbe, and the Alter Rebbe would, um, would, would answer them. And they wrote back, and then they would send away all these things back to the senate of the, um... And, um,

54:17 Speaker 1 the investigations was on the mainland. The midst of the Peter-Pauli, that fortress was surrounded by water, so they would take him with a boat all the time from the fortress back to the place where they would investigate him. And there's some beautiful stories told about how the Alter Rebbe wanted to once be in Machaneh Levana, and he didn't want the boat to be moving. He'd had it stop, you know, miraculously, till they all, they all recognized how the Alter Rebbe's holiness and the Alter Rebbe's strength and powers and spiritual standing. Um, the Alter Rebbe answered them very intellectually. So, and he said one of the hardest thing is to have to explain to people who are not familiar with the teaching of Kabbalah and Chassidus, to have to explain to them their minds, uh, you know, that they should be able to, to understand. You know, they're not used to this kind of, uh, teaching. So he explained to them everything, and it was finally, uh, declared on the 19th day of Kislev, um, that the, uh, Alter Rebbe was, uh, free. Now, the Alter Rebbe, as we're gonna see, there's-- the next day is also celebrated because when he went home from there, he ended up at a home where the Chassid lived, but downstairs there was actually living one of those who were opponents, the Misnagdim to the Chassidus. And the Alter Rebbe accidentally came into his house. And he went-- And he ha- he gave the Alter Rebbe a hard time as

55:42 Speaker 1 the Alter Rebbe was there. And so the total freedom isn't considered. By the time they realized the Alter Rebbe, they gathered, the Chassidim have gathered because they heard that the Alter Rebbe was being freed. There's a whole story, the Megillas Kislev. We have another opportunity to study it and, and, and hear about it. And the Alter Rebbe, um- Um, went and, um, and, uh, eventually by the time he left, it was already the next day. So we got a second day out of it, so we celebrated on the nineteenth and the twentieth of Kislev. Um, the Rebbe Rashab writes, this is from a letter, he tell-- asked the people they should get together on the nineteenth of Kislev, and he says, "You should be rejoicing. This is a joy of a festival that-- in which God has released, uh, and helped that the light and the, uh, life of our soul has been given to us," which means the Alter Rebbe and the Hasidis, this day is considered the Rosh Hashanah, the, uh, New Year for Hasidis. And the teachings of Hasidis that we have from the Rebbes, the New Year begins with Yud Tes Kislev, which is the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov of Blessed Memory. Is the Rashab the grandson of- He was, the Rebbe Rashab was the s-fifth in the lineage of the Rebbes. Mm. The fifth in the lineage of the Rebbes. Um, so he said that, uh, on the day of Yud Tes Kislev, he says there is a

57:10 Speaker 1 tremendous opportunity, the Rebbe Rashab writes, to connect and to, uh, nurture your soul, uh, in a very deep and inner way from all these special things. Now, Yud Tes Kislev is also a very, uh, a, a very special holiday, which has a lot of, uh, a lot of writings about it, but this is beyond now. I just wanna go on because there's a few more things that happened on Yud Tes Kislev. This is in Yud Tes Kislev, Taf Kuf Nun Tes. So it looks like on that same day that the Alter Rebbe was freed on the Yud Tes Kislev- Same year. No, on that day. Oh, the day. Okay. On that exact day, in Taf Kuf Nun Tes, that was the year that the, uh, a daughter was born to the Alter Rebbe. Oh. And her name was, uh, not to the Alter Rebbe, to the Mitler Rebbe. Mitler Rebbe. The Mitler Rebbe, his son gave birth, that's a granddaughter. Granddaughter. On that day, a granddaughter was born to the Alter Rebbe, on the day that he was freed. And matter of fact, uh, the Rebbetzin Menuchah Rochel, um, was, uh, when she was born, the Mud-- the, the Mitler Rebbe heard that, uh, that, that he had now that he has a daughter, he said, "Well, now we're gonna have Menuchah." Menuchah means we're gonna have relaxation, we're gonna have rest, because the Alter Rebbe was freed. So they actually called her Menuchah because of what the Mitler Rebbe said, and they also called

58:41 Speaker 1 her by the name Rochel. That was named at the youngest daughter that died of the-- Alter Rebbe had another daughter named Rochel. She died when she was young, and so she was named Menuchah and Rochel. So we've actually studied now, so the Alter Rebbe's, the, the, the Mitler Rebbe's, um, daughters, so we learned that one of them, uh, the daughter Chaya Mushka, became the wife of the Tzemach Tzedek, of Reb Menachem Mendel Tzemach Tzedek. And we also learned that another daughter of the Mitler Rebbe married the, uh, son of, uh, Chernobyl. We learned of, uh- Cherkassur, Cherkassur ... Cherkassur. Reb Yaakov Yisroel of Cherkass, who was the son of Reb Nachum Chernobyl, which, well, I mean, was, uh, Reb Mordechai Chernobyl, who was the son of Reb Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl, who was one of the Hasidim- One of the students of the Maggid ... of, of, of the Alter Rebbe and the Maggid. Right. He was ac- uh, of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid. He actually goes back all the ways, Reb Menachem Nachum, Nachum of Chernobyl goes back all the ways to the Baal Shem Tov, and later on from the Maggid. Right. So that was the second daughter. And now another daughter we're learning now, she, this Menuchah Rochel, she married, uh, uh, the Slonim. Uh, and she, and she, uh, there's a big Slonim family in Israel which comes from the Rebbetzin Menuchah Rochel, from the daughter of the Mitler Rebbe. So we learned now about three of the

1:00:13 Speaker 1 daughters of the Mitler Rebbe. And while she was very young... Yeah? Did she marry within the fam- uh, the- No, that she-- no, that it doesn't say. Just a talmid Yeah. Well, no, it was a very important, sure, but not a- Yeah, but I mean was it a- ... not a family member as far as I can see over here. Yeah. Okay. And she wa-- she wanted very much, she was-- she had a love for Israel. She wanted to move to Israel even while she was very young. Okay. And at one poi- at one point she got very, very sick. Yeah. No, of course, we have to understand in those days, you know, people got sick, it was not like today. Right. Not, not too much medicine and not too much, uh, things that they can do. And a lot of times it was like hopeless. And she got very, very sick, and the doctors already gave up on, uh, her life. And her father, the Mitler Rebbe, instructed that they should whisper into her ears and tell her that in his name that she's going to be healthy and she's going to merit to go up to the Holy Land. She's gonna merit to go up to Israel. And surprising, as soon as they did so, she became healthy. She became healthy. And actually in the year Taf Reish He, um, with the advice of her brother-in-law, the Tzemach Tzedek, as we said, the Tzemach Tzedek married another sister, her sister Chaya Mushka, this

1:01:32 Speaker 1 Menuchah Rochel's sister. She, together with her family, with the Yaakov Chaim Slonim, I think was his name, they together, the family all made Aliyah to Eretz Israel. When the Rebbetzin, uh, went into the Tzemach Tzedek, to her brother-in-law, Menuchah Rochel, to say goodbye, she sort of complained that she's afraid to travel now because of the rains. And the Rebbe says, "What's the problem? You can travel in between the drops of rain." Oh, sure. And from that day on till her last day, he said it never rains, never went a drop of rain- No, no, never touched it. Uh, she went between the drafts. Uh, the, um, the Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech together with family, they settled in the city of Hebron, and that was the beginning of the foundation of the Chabad presence in, in Hebron. We already learned also that the Rebbe Rashab eventually, many years later, sent a yeshiva over there. And then when the First World War broke out, they sent them back to, uh, to, to, to Russia. They sent-- Originally, they sent like ten students over there together with the, with the Rosh Yeshiva, the Mashpia, with the Mashpia they sent over there, with the spiritual guide, and then eventually they went back. Now we're gonna go weiter, a little further. Yeah? Kfar Chabad isn't in Hebron, is it? No, no. No. That's totally different. Oh, that's the Slonim one. Totally different. Um, now we're going to talk about in Yut Kislev in Taf Kuf Ayin Vav, which is December twenty-seven

1:03:11 Speaker 1 in eighteen fifteen. Okay. So then, um, that was the, that was the date that, um, the Reb Moshe. Reb Moshe was a son of the Alter Rebbe. He was the youngest son of the Alter Rebbe. This is a, a fascinating story what took place over here. If you look in the, like in the introduction of the Shulchan Aruch, which was published by the Alter Rebbe's sons, you find two names over there. Uh, the name of, uh, Chaim Avram, one son, and the Mitteler Rebbe, Dovid. The Tanya on the other hand, you do find also the third son, Reb Moshe. You find Reb Moshe too. Um, these were the three sons of the, of the Alter, Alter Rebbe. And, uh, on this day it was also a redemption that he was freed. He wasn't freed. He actually ran away as you're gonna see. Reb Moshe, the son of the Alter Rebbe, from the hands of the priests. He was actually kind of... There was a whole story that took place with Reb Moshe, the son of the Alter Rebbe, and this was, as I said, in the year Taf Kuf Ayin Vav, which is eighteen fifteen. So, um, Reb Moshe, the youngest son of the Alter Rebbe, he was born in the city of Lyozno in the year Taf Kuf Mem Daled. He had tremendous talent. He was, uh, uh, uh, just a great, um, abilities. And during the lifetime of the Alter Rebbe, he was able to recite exactly, use the language Alter Rebbe used,

1:04:58 Speaker 1 like a photographic memory. He could recite the, the teaching of the Alter Rebbe word for word exactly as the Alter Rebbe said it. And the Al-Alter Rebbe, Rashab, held him very dear, his son Reb Moshe. And what he would commonly say that with Hashem's kindness and with thanks to Hashem, this Moshe is such a talented guy. His, his abilities are so special that he's ten times greater than the namesake whose name he's carrying, because he was named after the father of Reb Baruch, Reb Moshe of Poznan, who was the grandfather of the Alter Rebbe, and that was a great genius. And he said that this son is ten times as powerful, as, as, as strong and more on a greater level than his grandfather. And he said that his phenomenal memory will never s-cease, and he was very s-special. Now we're going to read from what the Alter Rebbe-- what the Mi-- the previous Rebbe wrote with regards to the story of what happened with the priests over here, that he was freed. Um, so he says like this, "I know what I'm relating this because I've heard it from my grandmother." The Alter Rebbe-- The Mi-- the previous Rebbe is saying his grandmother, which is his father's mother, the Rebbe Rashab's mother, which was the Rebbetzin Rivka, the wife of the Rebbe Maharash, who heard this from her father-in-law, the Tzemach Tzedek. Um, and this was a, a, a, a, a, a spirit of zealots that entered into Reb Moshe, um, that took place.

1:06:55 Speaker 1 There was the governor, the one who was in charge, I'm not sure if the right word is governor, the Sar Ha-Mechos. He was the one in charge of the city of Mohyliv. He, uh, placed the Mitteler Rebbe and Reb Moshe in front of Alexander the First. So Alexander the First was there, and he sh-placed them. The, the governor of Mohyliv placed them at the time when Alexander visited in the city of Babinovich, which is close to Lubavitch. So when he came-- when the case, uh, the-- when the, uh, the-- Alexander the First, he visited the city of Babinovich, which was near Lubavitch, the governor of Mohyliv, uh, the-- of the city of Mohyliv, perhaps I'm just thinking that must be not too far from Lubavitch either or maybe they were under their jurisdiction. I'm not sure exactly. But he presented them, but not in an honorable way like he thought fitting. Reb Moshe thought that he didn't present to the king, to Alexander the First, he didn't present them in a proper, respectful way because he first presented to the king all the other groups of distinguished people. So in the presence of the chief priest, I don't know what they called him, the priest or whatever they called him, of the city of Smolensk, he rebuked the governor, and Rabbi Moshe spoke many different languages. So the, uh, the priest insulted Rabbi Moshe and also spoke derogatorily about the Torah. About the Torah, he spoke very derogatorily. So Rabbi Moshe answered him and gave

1:09:00 Speaker 1 him a real dig, a very sharp dig, and that turned into a religious debate which took place in the month of Cheshvan in Taf Kuf Ayin Vav. In the year Taf Kuf Ayin Vav. As we said, this is in the year of eighteen fifteen. They made a debate. Where the debate took place in a fortress in a non-Jewish pray-prayer place in the city of Yartseva, which was next to the city of Smolensk. And the chief priests were present of Smolensk and Ezion were there. The debate lasted for a month. And when Rabbi Moshe won the debate, they decided to move him to one of their, uh, uh, prayer places, one of the kenesias, in the play-- in the, uh, area of Kyiv or to the city of Vladimir inside Russia. They basically held him for a prisoner now, and they, they, they locked him up to take him over there. When the instruction came that they should move him to Vlad-Vladimir, so on the first day-- on the fourth day as they were taking him, and they had a very... Guarded him well. They had a very guard to make sure that he doesn't run away. There were, uh, armed, uh, armed people over there, and there were, uh, uh, army people, armed people. There were priests that were going along. So while they were sleeping in one of the vill-villages that was close to Moscow, they all fell asleep very deeply. And, and Rabbi Moshe ran away from them. And Hashem gave him the

1:11:10 Speaker 1 strength and the power. So notwithstanding the freezing weather and the snow, and the deep snow, uh, that was on the way, he ran, and he came to the city of Ariel, in which he met up with Rabbi Moshe Leib Jakobson. He hid him in his home for several days, and from there he left to the country of Volin. Uh, the day that he was saved, Rabbi Moshe, was on the night, uh, before the fifth, Wednesday night, on the thir-- the, the fifth day of the year, meaning Thursday, nineteenth day of Kislev in Taf Kuf Ayin Vav. The family members of Rabbi Moshe, they moved to Eretz Yisrael, Eretz HaKodesh, and he himself went to exile from the year Taf Kuf Ayin Vav until the year Taf Reish Lamed Ches. That was, uh, that was, uh, quite, um, you know, that's quite some time. From Taf Kuf Ayin Vav, um, this was already after the passing of his father. His father passed away in Taf Kuf Ayin Gimel. This whole story took place after the passing of his father because his father passed away Taf Kuf Ayin Gimel, and this was in Taf Kuf Ayin Vav. Um, but, um, he, he passed away, uh, Ayin Peh Tzadik, uh, in another, uh... He lived for another, you know, a long time afterwards, he lived. And, uh, he passed away in the city of Radomislia, which is in the, uh, area near Kyiv in the year Taf Reish Lamed Ches. And his, uh, interment and his burial place

1:13:14 Speaker 1 is over there in the city of Radomislia. So, uh, I guess that at the time of the Tanya, he was still in the, in the area because he was still together. That's why he wrote-- He comes in here as the, the, um, three of them signing here. Mm-hmm. He was- But at the time, what does it mean exactly that he went to exile? I'm not sure whether he ran away. So he went to- No ... a different district. That's usually what it was. No, it seems like from what it says here, again, I'm not-- I have to look up more the history, but what it says here is his family moved to Israel. It doesn't seem like he joined them. It is. He went there, yeah. It seems like he went to-- He seemed like he went to exile. And we're talking about, like I said, from Ayin Vav to Lamed Ches is, you know... I don't know what happened over there. There's Peh Vav, Tzadik Vav- But don't forget the- ... Kuf Vav, uh, Tez Ayin, uh, Kuf, Kuf, Kav, uh, Kav Vav, and, uh, Lamed Vav. That would make it fifty-two years afterwards. He lived for another fifty-two years after that story. So that was, was a long time. Doesn't seem like he got together with his family anymore, does it? But what it is in the different districts in the settlement there, because you said it was in Vo- in Vo-Vol- Volin, yeah ... Volin. Volin Gubernia, yeah. Gubernia, but there was,

1:14:37 Speaker 1 like, six other districts. Probably one governor didn't talk to the other governor, so he was in a different district, so they probably never caught up with him. Yeah. So not sure exactly. Okay. Now, so like I said, this was a, a long time later, fifty-two years later, that he passed after that, and he was-- So the Shohan Aruch, on the other hand, was authored later on. That was collected after the passing of the Alter Rebbe, and therefore, um, I guess he doesn't appear there. Maybe the, the, the, the, the Tanya, uh, was during the Alter lifetime, and he was there. He was a part of it. He was part of it. Yeah. So that's why he was part of it. That's why he comes here as three. But not all the editions. What do you mean? One-- It said in there one edition, one book- Yeah ... or the beginning of it was published before he went into prison. Yeah. And then he finished the rest of it when he came out, so maybe the son wasn't around at the second- Okay. Yeah. But this, this- ... publishing. Yeah, this introduction looks like it was one of the first, the very first time that they published it. Yeah, it said it. Yeah. But as we said before, um, this was, this was published before they arrested the Alter Rebbe. Right. So that's why Rebbe- Because, uh, yeah, the, the Tanya was published first. Uh, um- Well, they completed- But, uh, but then, yeah, no, then

1:15:56 Speaker 1 they added the different sections and the- Right. Right ... further on, later on. But that, that took place later on, you know?