10 of Teves - Teves 10 in Chabad History

00:00 Today we'll talk about the Yemei Chabad for the tenth day of Teves. Of course, uh, Teves, the tenth day of Teves is also a fast day. Uh, that's, uh, one of the days that we fast for the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, for the destruction of the Temple. There are basically four fast days we s- we fast to commemorate the destruction. Uh, Tisha B'Av, and, uh, the seventeenth of Tammuz, and Tzom Gidalyah, the day after Rosh Hashanah, and then the tenth of Teves. But here we're talking about the days in Chabad as these days, uh, were in the Chabad history. Uh, on the tenth day of Teves, it's interesting, they made a wedding. That sounds, like, very interesting for them to make a, a wedding on the tenth day of Teves. I guess there's no, uh, there is, you know, after the fast, I guess, this time it was after the fast, or it was before the fast. I don't know what they mean by tenth day of Teves. Do they mean the night- Uh-huh ... before? This is- The fast of tenth of Teves does not begin until dawn. Yep. So that's-- So there's no problem. So must be when it says that the wedding was tenth of Teves, it must be it was done at the nighttime and not on the, um, not in the daytime, because I can hardly believe. I mean, they couldn't have a wedding or have a, a, a meal or anything else on, uh, the tenth day of

01:23 Teves. It was a fast day, so. This-- It had to be so. Unless we should say it was at the end of the tenth of Teves, that would make it eleventh of Teves, so it's not likely. So it must be the night of the tenth of Teves. This was the wedding date of-- This was Reb Shlomo Zalman, uh, of Kapust. He was the son of the Maharil, uh, Reb Yehuda Leib, the son of the Tzemach Tzedek. Tzemach Tzedek's one of the Tzemach Tzedek's son. His, uh, the Maharil, the Maharil Yehuda Leib, he ended up becoming a rebbe, uh, in the city of Kapust, and his son was Shlomo Zalman, uh, who married, uh, a daughter of a wealthy Hasid named Reb Yaakov-- Reb Leib Lore from Lepni. And the chasuna took place in Lubavitch with the, uh, where his father, I guess, and the grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, they all lived over there. And the Tzemach Tzedek, it is said, was in great, uh, joy, and during the wedding and during the sheva berachos, he, uh, gave over many, uh, Hasidic discourses and, um, um, it seemed like it was a very special time for him, that thing in Lubavitch. You know, just considering, you know, the, it was a kind of large family and all the simchas in a little shtetl. And then by the rebbe, you know, that was like-- I mean, the rebbes had quite large families. If you take a look, you know, they each one, the Mitler Rebbe had a

02:51 large family. Tzemach Tzedek had a large family. I mean, later on, not, but you know, they had, uh, you know, sev- several children and, uh, it was, um, I guess a lot going on. Okay, now we're gonna move ahead. This is something which actually I was, uh, I was also a witness to this. Uh, this is-- we're talking about now the tenth of Teves in the year Taf Shin Lamed Alef. Um, so this is, uh, uh, the four-- this is forty, um, not quite forty years ago. Uh, Lamed, um, Mem Nun Samech Ayin. So it's forty, forty, almost forty years ago. Um, so I was a young, I was a young man then, uh, and, um, that was the, the day that the, the Rebbetzin Nechama Dina, uh, the wife of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, um, uh, the mother of the Rebbetzin, of the, uh, uh, Chaya Mushka, the Rebbe's wife, and, uh, Chana the-- was married to Rabbi Gurary. They lived in seven seventy as well. And the Rebbetzin Nechama Dina, she lived, you know, they had an apartment upstairs in seven seventy. There was, there was like three floors. The Rebbe himself never lived in, in, in seven seventy, in that building, in, in the Lubavitch headquarters. Rebbe never lived over there. First, he lived in an apartment building on, uh, on Brooklyn Avenue, uh, and then later on, he lived in a private home on President Street in, uh, between Brooklyn and New York, uh, and, um, but he didn't live in

04:31 there. The Rebbe only had his office in the lower floor in seven seventy. The second floor and the third floor were-- The second floor was occupied by the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe. He lived there, there in seven seventy. And you know, that's the reason they also, one of the pluses they got seven seventy is it had an elevator. Even though it wasn't such a-- It was only three floors. Most three-floor houses don't have it. The alter-- The Rebbe needed to be able to, uh, use the elevator, so that's why they got that particular-- That's what it said, that, that, that the building. So the previous Rebbe was on the second floor. Rabbi Gurary and his, and his wife, they were on the third floor. And when the, uh, previous Rebbe passed away, his Rebbetzin, his wife, the Rebbetzin Nechama Dina, she continued to live in that apartment. That was her apartment. And, um, the Rebbe would, uh, eat all the, uh, holiday, uh, meals in the house of the previous Rebbe. So in other words, they would go to the in-laws. The Rebbe would go. The Rebbe's wife would come to her-- would go to her mother. So the meals always took place in the house. Now, you can imagine, uh, in the, uh, small dining room over there, and the Rebbe is there, and they would invite, you know, several, uh, people that were I guess more of the important people would go, but then there were a lot of students, and there was a

06:09 lot of Hasidim that wanted to see. And, uh, there are certain things that you can learn from the Rebbe, um, not by the official gathering in which the Rebbe speaks, but the Rebbe was a little bit more like by the table, so you can ask some questions, and some people would ask, some of the elder Hasidim would ask the Rebbe questions. Now, there were a lot of youngsters out there or who were very fervent Hasidim, and, you know, they wouldn't have the audacity to ask the Rebbe a question. You know, nobody would do that. So they would sort of instigate some of the elders, especially the Rebbe's brother-in-law. They'd prepare him with some questions, like they wanted to know, like, certain things, or they wanted to hear the Rebbe's view on certain things. They wanted to have-- They had some questions, they wanted the Rebbe's answers. So they would sort of give them the questions ahead of time, and then they would ask the Rebbe, and then you would find out the Rebbe's answers and the Rebbe's, uh, the Rebbe's view. But those, those were very special time that, you know, the Rebbe wasn't seen in public in a manner of eating at a table, a Shavuot table or things like that. That was unique, and it was, uh, very special to see. Now, of course, the Rebbe-- even while the Rebbe was eating there, there was always an empty chair by the previous Rebbe's seat. The Rebbe's ne- that was always there at the

07:26 table. So the, the Rebbe was sitting on the side, didn't see the-- didn't take, didn't take, you know, continue to, I guess, occupy the seat that he used to occupy before. Uh, the Rebbe, actually, his office, he didn't transition really from the time the previous Rebbe passed away. The Rebbe's office was there all the time, and, um, it just the Rebbe became the Rebbe, so that became-- People used to come to visit the Rebbe in his office. But that used to be his regular office even before the Rebbe became Rebbe. And the previous Rebbe would see people for meetings upstairs in his room. That's where he would take people for, for yechidas. But the Rebbe would, would-- His room was there, and then eventually, the Rebbe's room became, uh, the place where people would meet. You know, in the Hasidic lingo and in the feelings of Hasidim, you know, in the, um, in the, uh, holy temple, the Beis Hamikdash, there used to be basically, uh, three, um, three sections over there. There was the inner side, which is called the Holy of Holies, where the place where the ark was. That was called the Kodesh Hakedashim, the Holy of the Holies. Then there was the regular holy, which was the inside and where they had the table, the menorah, and the inner altar, the small one, the Mizbeach Hapanim. Um, and then they had the courtyard and where they had the main Mizbeach, the Mizbeach Achitzon. They had the, the fountain over there of

08:53 washing the hands, and all the service would take place with the sacrifices outside. So in a similar way, the Rebbe's room, that was known as the Kodesh Hakedashim. That was like the holiest, you know, meeting with the Rebbe. That was like in the holy. And the room ahead of it, before it was called the Gan Eden HaTachton, the lower level of Gan Eden. Gan Eden or Gan Eden of this world. It's like heaven in this world, and that was the place where Hasidim would prepare for, uh, for the Rebbe and, uh, to going in before they went into the Rebbe. But in any event, um, this took place until the year, uh, תשע"א, and, um, and the Rebbetzin then, uh, uh, passed away, uh, at that, uh, at that time, um- In the 1970s ... uh, yeah. This was in the first, yeah. And, uh, this was, uh, uh, ל"א, uh, was what? Uh, like I said, ל"א was, uh, yeah, yeah. '71, '71. '71. Yeah. Because you're this ten. Yeah. God would cut. Yeah. Um, that would be '31. Yeah. That's '31 in the Hebrew, right, '31. Um- '31 minus seventy-four. Hebrew is always gonna be sixty years ahead. So if we say, uh, '31, like in the Hebrew, if it's '31, then you gotta back off to get the English. You gotta go back, uh- No. Seven, seven ... you gotta go back sixty years, you gotta go back. So it would be '70 from a century before. Right. Right. Right. Or something

10:32 like that. But, um, the Rebbetzin actually, uh, the Rebbe's, uh, the, the, the Rebbetzin, the Nechama Dina, she, she would actually have a place in the women's section in Seven Seventy, uh, where she would sit. Uh, the Rebbe's wife rarely or ever, I'm not sure. Again, you have to have-- We have to ask those people that follow and know all these-- I'm just, uh, uh, just an average guy over there who didn't, uh, didn't really, uh, look after, uh, exactly what takes place or haven't read. And today everything is, is, is available that you can read that about it. But, um, uh, the Rebbe's, uh, wife was not a regular or rarely ever came to actual Seven Seventy to the, uh... I guess she didn't wanna be in the public eye and, uh, you know, they, they would give her bestowed honor and everything upon her, but I guess she didn't, she didn't want it, and she didn't, uh, she-- as much as she sort of gave up her husband to the comm-- to the public, but she didn't wanna be, uh, I dunno, give up or she didn't-- She was-- she wanted to stay in the private and, uh, stayed away. Uh, they did succeed to get a little here or there, but mostly she stayed qu- she stayed private. But so she didn't come to Shul, didn't have a regular seat in, in, in Seven-- But her, her mother, the wife of the previous Rebbe, did have a, a regular seat. There's some,

12:04 some... Forget about this, some miracle story about there was a, a fire in Seven Seventy one time in the women's section over there, and, and just her seat was sort of, uh, left. It was like a miraculous, you know, everything that, you know, there was like, uh, some, some, some miracle over there. But nevertheless, she, she's, um, also interned, right. You have, um, uh, over there, the cemetery, that she's interned together with her daughter, which is the Rebbe's wife, Chaya Mushka, and also with, um, the, um, wife of the Rebbe Rashab, which is their-- that's her mother-in-law. She's also her mother-in-law, and her-- and her-- and she and her daughter, they're all next to each other. There's three, there's three tombstones over there. They're all resting places next to each other in, in, in, in New York. And, um, um, and that wa-- And this was on the 10th day of Tevet. Yeah.