9 of Shvat - In 5730 the conclusion of the Torah to great Moshiach

00:00 Speaker 1 Let's talk about the Yemei Chabad on the ninth day of Shvat in the year Tosh"ach. Um, you know, a lot of times we talk about events and that we commemorate and we celebrate, but we talk to them-- we talk about them as distant events, you know, from a long time ago. But this event I experienced. I was there and I experienced it, you know, as we were discussing, it's very hard to describe the feelings, the way we felt at the time and, uh, towards the Rebbe, our excitement, our enthusiasm, our being privileged. We felt the luckiest people on earth to be connected, you know, with the Rebbe, to hear the Rebbe's teaching, to be in the Rebbe's presence, and it meant everything to us. And as we were talking about the, the way we would even find out a lot of times when there was a surprise get-together the Rebbe would bring. There was these beepers and the phone calls and the-- and then the hookups and the cables and the-- all the different kinds of, of communications not to miss even one word or one minute of the Rebbe's presence and how everybody would be running in the street as we found out about the Rebbe talking, and we didn't know about. We were in Yeshiva. And, you know, I, I was, uh, this time when this took place in the tenth Shvat, Tosh"ach, uh, that's the ninth day of Shvat in seven-- five thousand seven hundred and thirty. It is December fourteenth, nineteen

01:37 Speaker 1 sixty-nine. You were very young. I was thirteen years old at the time. Oh. Okay. Gives away my age. Yeah. Okay. So I was thirteen years old. I was thirteen years old at the time, and I actually was fully engaged. Matter of fact, uh, it's hard, it's impossible to really describe, but I have my brother who's two years older than myself. Our Yeshiva, where we learned, was just about a block away, a block and a half, half a block away, a block from our home where we lived. And for lunch, sometimes, you know, we'd go home, and then afterwards... So I'd walk with my brother together. Now, my brother, Baruch Hashem, he living, be well, and he's, uh-- but he's, uh, uh, very serious, and he's a very, um, uh, God-fearing, and he davens every day. Still does that, you know, after so many years. He's two years older than me. But he was also very serious as a student. I was a little bit more, you know, on the, uh, uh, side of, you know, running around a little bit. I wasn't that. No, I was a pretty good student also, not to knock myself, but I wasn't as serious as him. And then I remember on this particular date, and this was, as we said, in nineteen sixty-nine. Uh, on the day before this ninth of Shvat, I was walking with my brother to, to the Yeshiva at the time, and my brother says to me, you know, they called me Yiddish, they called

03:05 Speaker 1 me Hershel. He says, "Hershel, I wanna tell you, now is the time." He says, "Do Teshuvah." He says, "Repent." He says, "Because Mashiach is coming," he said. It's-- You know, that was-- he says. And I, you know, being the skeptic, I said to him, you know, to confess, I said, "And what happens if he doesn't come?" I said. You know, I mean, we're... "No, no," he says, "There is no question that for sure." But I said to him at the time, I said, "But if I'm gonna be so sure, and if he doesn't come, then I'll be very disappointed." He says, "No, no, no, don't worry about that." And, you know, he gave me a whole big explanation. But whatever the case was, we were on a, a very high level just saying the story, just to say. Because what happened was on that day, on the next, on the tenth of Shvat, which was one day later, was the twentieth yahrtzeit of the previous Lubavitch Rebbe's passing. He passed away in nineteen fifty, okay? And this is going to be twenty years later. Now, nineteen seventy, uh, I'm not sure, but it probably was the end. Probably this was, uh, you say nineteen sixty-nine, this must have been in nineteen seventy then. Doesn't really-- In the beginning. Which, which date was it? He said it was the following year would have been the twentieth then. No. That- Okay. That was, uh- The next day. Well, you know what it is. Twenty- It was fifty-seven

04:31 Speaker 1 thirty, but in the English it was December. December. But that, but that year could have been- Almost. Just about. Yeah, yeah. Could have been- That's right. Exactly. Yeah. So it was just right going in. Beginning of- Yeah. In fifty. Yeah. Then it was- It was right-- Okay, it was the end of December. Right. So it was nineteen... Okay. But it was twenty years later. And, um, actually what the Rebbe would do, uh, every year for the twenty years, there was a discourse, a minor that the previous Rebbe has published to actually commemorate his grandmother who passed away on the tenth day of Shvat, and that had twenty chapters in it. And every year after the passing of the previous Rebbe, the Rebbe would explain one chapter. And actually, all the chapters finished. And the Rebbe always considered the previous Rebbe continuously being, continuously being the Rebbe. So he published it, the Rebbe would explain that, and basically, the Rebbe finished explaining it. The Rebbe-- Actually, in one of the talks that the Rebbe gave, we talk about the leader of Shimshon, HaGibbor. You know, you ever heard Samson, the- Samson ... Samson the, the, the, the mighty, the strong. Right. So s- it says in one place in the... This is the Rebbe was speaking about it also during that time. Uh, in one place it says that Samson the Strong ruled the Jewish people for twenty years. Then in another place it says that he ruled for forty years. So- Twenty and forty ...

05:57 Speaker 1 twenty and forty, how does it come to twenty and forty? So it explains. Our sages explain what it means is that even twenty years after his passing, his leadership was still As current as it's considered that he was leader for the twenty years. And the build-up was that for twenty years, the Rebbe's leadership is still here, and now Mashiach has to come. And that was the-- that was sort of the, the build-up. But in any event, there was a, uh, a Torah that was completed on this day, on the ninth of Shevat in that year, in the year of Tosh Mamef. There was a Torah that was completed. Now, in the year, uh, in nineteen forty-two, and we went through that in earlier, during the, um, uh, uh, Yom Tov, uh, the, uh, the Rebbe announced that he has in mind to write a Torah, and with that Torah, they were going to go to greet Mashiach. So it was a special Torah, which is going to be done to greet Mashiach with that Torah. And, um, that was during some Simchas Torah and, uh, during that time that he announced that. And they actually began to write it that year in Tosh Beis. On the second day of Iyar, they began to write it at that time. However, for various different reasons, they never completed that Torah. The Torah remained... They started it. So they started it in nineteen forty-two, and they never, uh, they never finished it. So whatever, you know. But this

07:39 Speaker 1 was now, as it was coming up to twenty years after the previous Rebbe, uh, the Rebbe announced, uh, that he will, um... This was on the third day of Shevat that year, Shevat three. The Rebbe announced that he is going to complete writing the Sefer Torah in the next few days. And the Rebbe said, and this is quoting the Rebbe at that time, he says, "We-- It was important that we finish to write the Torah that my father-in-law, the Rebbe..." The Rebbe used to refer always, "My father-in-law, the Rebbe." That's the way the Rebbe used to refer to his father-in-law. He said, "My father and the Rebbe began to write, should be within the period of twenty years of his passing, as is brought down in the Jerusalem Talmud," that quoted before, with regards to Samson, that in one verse it says that he was a-- ruled for forty years, and another one it says he ruled for twenty years. And that teaches us that the Pelistim, those were the people that he beat, that were warring against the Jewish people, they were afraid for him for twenty years after his death, just as they were afraid for twenty years during his lifetime, it says. And therefore, so the Rebbe says that they're gonna have the siyum, the completion of the Torah reading, after midday on, uh, which is as close to the tenth of Shevat as possible, which came out on Shabbos, just as the year when the previous Rebbe passed away. He passed

09:15 Speaker 1 away, it was on a Shabbos. So this has to be on Friday. It has to take place Friday afternoon because Friday afternoon is almost Shabbos. But of course, you can't do it on Shabbos, so we'll do it Friday afternoon. So-- And this was so unusual for the Rebbe to make a get-together. Every Shabbos, everybody's busy preparing for Shabbos. Rebbe made a farbrengen, made a gathering together. And everybody-- And there's a lot of pictures over there. Now, this is somewhat that took place over there at the time that, uh, there was lots of speculation. You know what I mean? People were anticipating, you know, tremendous things, finishing the Sefer Torah to greet Mashiach. You know, this was a, a charge, as you can imagine, a time that, you know, was just amazing. And that time, um, after the-- was the, uh, they, they completed writing the Torah. What happened was-- The way it worked is, first of all, remember, this is already a very short Friday because we're talking about in the middle of the winter. It's a very short Friday, so two thirty in the afternoon is, is just an hour and a half, two hours away from Shabbos. I'm not sure exactly, but it's very short, very short before Shabbos. So two thirty, uh, Reb Eliyahu Simpson, he was the, um, uh, one of the attendants by the Frydiker Rebbe, a choizer, and he was one of the elder Hasidim. He was seen carrying the Sefer Torah. Also, my sister married his grandson, so

10:36 Speaker 1 that's also family, family relation over there. So he was carrying the Sefer Torah, and the Rebbe was walking behind him. He was walk-- carrying the Torah. The Rebbe's walking behind him, and the Rebbe had a box. Now, nobody knew what's in that box, and people were speculating, "What's in that box?" People had all kinds of silly ideas, you know. "What does the Rebbe have in the box?" Some people even thought that it is a shtreimel in there or so. You know. I'm just giving you over some of the silly, uh... But nobody, uh, nobody knew. It was, like, top secret. I mean, at least, I'm not sure, but to me, as a student, we didn't know. The Rebbe's carrying a box.

11:17 Speaker 2 He never carried a box.

11:18 Speaker 1 Ne-never carried a box. There's a big box that he's carrying. So afterwards, so what happens? Uh, the Rebbe sat down at his place. And you asked before, the Rebbe would have the big, uh, table, a huge table running across where he would sit at. And then there were lines and lines in front of him and all, all around, platforms erected, you know, for people to stand on, one on top of, one on top of the other. All, all, every space, vertically, horizontally, was taken Up and bottom. And you know, all the-- everything was taken. And so the Rebbe sat down, and they put down next to the Rebbe the Torah. They put down. And, um, also, I guess they-- I'm not sure if they put the box or what they would do with the bo-- I think the box, if I remember correctly, the box was placed on the table as well. I, I'm not sure. I think the box was placed on, on the table as well. And the Rebbe began-- gave a short talk about the connection between afternoon, Friday, Shabbos, Erev Shabbos, to the completion of Sefer Torah to greet Moshiach Tzikeinu. Afterwards, the Rebbe instructed another elder Hasid, his name was Shmuel Levitan. He was one of the Mashpi'im, and he was a, a very profound, a very intelli-- you know, a great Hasid, a very smart. He knows a lot of, uh, uh... His wife was left back. He was by himself. She was left back in Russia, and he

12:45 Speaker 1 was all by himself. And he was, uh-- He lived, he lived in actually for a while in seven seventy over there. It was his-- He had a room over there. It was many, uh, many stories about him, but that's another, another time. And, uh, the one thing the Rebbe said about him is that when he came out of, uh, prison, he, he came to the, uh, uh, to the Rebbe, and, uh, he, he couldn't remember, he said, how to say a bracha, uh, in the morning blessings, whether you say, um, um... It was either or . Of course, the word is , but he wasn't sure. But he said of all the happenings that happened in prison, when the Rebbe asked him, he didn't remember anything.

13:33 Speaker 2 Got it.

13:33 Speaker 1 The only thing he remembered is he wasn't sure how to say the bracha of, of, of, of the Birkat HaShachar. But in any event, um-

13:42 Speaker 2 What does that mean in English?

13:44 Speaker 1 One who gives the-- one who's tired. Uh-

13:46 Speaker 2 Oh, it's tired.

13:46 Speaker 1 But , yeah, and they could both mean, can mean tired, can mean tired. So he wasn't sure the Yud comes before the Ayin. But the Rebbe spoke about how he could only remember the one issue of all of his imprisonment. When the Rebbe asked him to say something, it was what the bracha is that's speaking about his greatness. But in any event, the Rebbe told him to say the twentieth, the Shmuel Levitan, the Rebbe told him to say the twentieth chapter of Tehillim verse for verse. Everybody said along. Everybody-- The Rebbe got up while they were saying. After they finished the psukim, the verses, the Rebbe sat back down in his place, and then they sang all the songs of all the Rebbes. In general, there's a tradition whenever you wanna sort of invite, uh, spiritually some of the people of the past to come, you sing a song that they authored or that is connected with them, and that's the way to bring them down. That's why by a chasuna, sometimes they sing all the different songs. And on special occasions, you know, the Rebbe would sing the songs of all the Rebbes. So the Rebbe sang the songs with-- they sang the songs of all the Rebbes. And then there was the sofer. His name was Shmarya Spector. He started to finish. He wrote the last words. After he, uh, finished writing, they announced the verses Va'ater Esav, and the Rebbe was honored with the first and last verse. And then representatives from

15:06 Speaker 1 the entire world were honored to give-- to say the verse for verse, all of the verses. Now, after they tied the Torah, they, uh, made the glila for the Torah, the Rebbe put on, now it came out from the box, it was a crown.

15:22 Speaker 2 That's what I thought.

15:23 Speaker 1 A beautiful crown. It was a Kesser Torah. They had a beautiful crown over there. And the crown, you have a lot of pe-pe-- uh, pictures. It was a gold, gold with a lot of gold in there.

15:32 Speaker 2 Gold. Oh.

15:32 Speaker 1 It's a very expensive, uh, crown.

15:34 Speaker 2 It's usually silver.

15:35 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe himself, you can see the pictures. There's a lot of pictures of that time. Rebbe putting on, Rebbe's face looks like in, like on fire . This is, uh... Um, and then the Rebbe took, took the Sefer Torah in his hands, and underneath the canopy, they led the, uh, Torah while they had lights burning to the Aron Kodesh. And after the bringing the Torah to the Aron Kodesh, the Rebbe went back to his place. He made the Bracha Shehecheyanu out loud. Shehecheyanu. He ate also a new fruit. I guess just to make sure according to all opinions, uh, ate a new fruit. And then the Rebbe said a Hasidic discourse, which began with the words to understand the idea of writing a Sefer Torah. And he completed with a shmo- with a s- a small, uh, sicha, a small talk after that. So again, this was like a, like an unbelievable, uh, really occurrence that happens like once in a lifetime. And if you are there, then you actually feel it. And it, it really felt very charged, and it lasted for, for a long time. So go ahead.

16:45 Speaker 2 That Torah was originally started to be written in Europe, nineteen twenty-two.

16:49 Speaker 1 No. No.

16:49 Speaker 2 No, it was in America. It was started to be written here.

16:50 Speaker 1 In America already. In America.

16:51 Speaker 2 Oh, okay.

16:52 Speaker 1 Actually, the Rebbe was-- the Rebbe, the previous Rebbe was very strongly-

16:55 Speaker 2 It came nineteen forty, yeah

16:56 Speaker 1 ... very strongly, uh, encouraging people to, uh, to turn to Hashem and repent and have people because the, the war was, was, was-- while it was going on terrible in, in, in, in, in, uh, in, in Europe, uh, we know there is something which is called the woes of Mashiach, the Chevei Mashiach. The previous Rebbe, uh, said that these tzoros, these troubles that the Jewish people are facing are the woes of Mashiach, and that Mashiach has to come after this. This is, like, so terrible that these are the woes of Mashiach. And he was trying to do and to awake people and to arouse people to do teshuva. I mean, it wasn't meant to happen yet at that time. You know, we're still waiting for it to happen. But the, the, the, the time and the, and the effort that the previous Rebbe put in into, uh, you know, taking this time and trying to get people to stay, hold on, and not to, and not to give up and not to throw in the towel and try to, uh, uh, maintain and strengthen Yiddishkeit, and it was a whole different story. You know, the American Jewry was also pretty much apathetic to a great extent of what's going on over there in Europe, and they weren't-- some they didn't know, and some they didn't wanna know, and it didn't affect them so much. I mean, the war, but-

18:18 Speaker 2 They didn't believe it was happening.

18:20 Speaker 1 Or they didn't believe or they weren't organized enough to, to, to, to go ahead and, and really do something about it.

18:27 Speaker 2 Well, there was this fellow named, um, uh, Hillel Kook. He was really-- He was the nephew of, of, you know, Kook, the first-

18:36 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

18:37 Speaker 2 He came to United States. He changed his name to more, I think, Peter Berg or something like that. Yes. You know the story? Yes.

18:43 Speaker 1 Yeah.

18:43 Speaker 2 The Bergman Society, the Bergman Group.

18:45 Speaker 1 Right.

18:45 Speaker 2 He had, uh, influence into the American government. Yeah, he tried to, like, uh, like, uh, Martin Luther King, a march to Washington. The only Jews he had to march with him to tell about the Holocaust-

18:58 Speaker 1 Were the Rabbis, were the Rabbi-- were the Rabbis. All the Rabbis.

19:01 Speaker 2 Yeah.

19:01 Speaker 1 All the Rabbis and-

19:02 Speaker 2 He couldn't get any, um, of more liberal Jews to march at all.

19:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. And it was-- it's, uh, it's very sad. I mean, I think that things have changed over the years now. I think there's more of awareness, and there's more of a conscience, uh, of world Jewry, you know. There-

19:15 Speaker 2 Yeah, I like what you said.

19:16 Speaker 1 Although, you know, there's so many-

19:18 Speaker 2 That's a rock, rock Jew

19:19 Speaker 1 ... Jews, li-liberals that are actually turning against, uh, the Jewish causes and against Israel.

19:24 Speaker 2 No, no, no.

19:25 Speaker 1 Okay. But okay. So that, that takes care of this. That was the tenth Shvat. And of course, the, the next entry is going to be about the tenth of Shvat, which was actually your site, uh, which we'll do next time.