16 Tishrei 5643 – The Rebbe Rashab Openly Accepted Leadership

00:00 So this is Yemei Chabad for the sixteenth day of Tishrei, which is the second day of Sukkos. And that was the day in which the Rebbe Rashab, Rebbe, Rebbe Rav Shalom Dov Ber, has openly, uh, accepted his, uh, leadership, became the Rebbe, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe. Um, ag- his son was the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, and the Rebbe was the son-in-law of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe. Uh, he accepted that leadership on the second day of Sukkos in the year Taf Reish Mem Gimel, and that's one hundred and thirty-one years ago. Um, the, um... There's a little bit of a discussion, um, whether what is the exact date of his leadership that he accepted the leadership. Um, see, the thing is that his father, the Rebbe Maharash, the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe, passed away at a very young age. Um, he passed away on the thirteenth day of Tishrei, um, and he was under fifty years old. His son, the Rebbe Rav Sha-Rashab, was very young at the time. He was in his early twenties. Uh, the Rebbe Rashab was born in the year Taf Reish Chaf Alef and, uh, on Chaf Cheshvan. And, um, be-- in the year of Taf Reish Mem Gimel, that's just, uh, twenty-two years later. It wasn't even a full year because this was in Nigun. His father passed away. So he was very young, number one. He also had an older brother who's known as Rav Zalman Aharon, the Razoh. So the, um, the Rebbe, the Rebbe Rashab, didn't really openly, uh,

02:01 become sort of Rebbe, uh, until later on. Uh, what happened was eventually, some ten years later or some eleven years later, after his father's passing, uh, he moved his seat where he used to sit all the time to the seat of his father, of, of the Rebbe. But for eleven years, basically, um, he, uh... That was on Rosh Hashanah in the year Taf Reish Nun Daled, is when he moved his seat. Uh, he was, at that time, was already thirty and, um, uh, thirty something years. But it's sort of, uh, some people assume that that was the time that he became Rebbe, is when he sat on his father's place where his father used to sit. However, the, uh, Rebbe in a, uh, talk explained that the actual, um, beginning of his leadership was actually on the second day of Sukkos when he was a young man, because that was the time when the, um, the Rebbe begin to say the first maamer, his first discourse, which began with the, uh, words of, "Keser yitnu lecha," they will give you-- they will crown you. And that was said by him when he was only, like I said before, only, uh, in his early twenties. And, um... But Rebbe, uh, says that that is actually when, uh, we count his starting his, uh, leadership. Uh, the Rebbe discussed about the, um, the idea of a king who leaves over a son, which would also require for that son to be anointed. Even though he is a

03:57 di-direct descendant, he is still anointed. And, um, the Rebbe explains that, um, the reason why a son of a king needs to be anointed as a king, you know, in the time when the Jewish people had a king, wasn't to make him a king. It's only to sort of remove any obstacles that may be. He is a king just by being the son of the king and doesn't need an anointment to make him a king as somebody who's becoming first a king. But his anointment is basically, as Rebbe explained, to remove any objections or any other things which may interfere. Um, and so the Rebbe therefore, uh, says that, um, uh, nowadays the anointment is really saying a maamer Chassidus, saying publicly a Chassidic discourse. The fact that the Rebbe Rashab said on the second day of Sukkos, this was right during the shiva. I mean, it was still seven days. There was no shiva because his father passed away on the thirteenth, so the shiva was, uh, pushed away because of the Yom Tov, but it was within the seven days. And the fact that he said on the second day of Sukkos of the year of Taf Reish Mem Gimel, when his father passed away, that establishes it as being the, uh, time of accepting the, uh, leadership. And the reason the Rebbe explains perhaps why he didn't really move his seat till many years later, um, Rebbe doesn't say because of age or anything like that, because he was perfectly qualified at

05:43 that time, uh, to be the leader of Chabad. But, uh, the Rebbe explains this because there was this older brother of his, so because he didn't wanna sort of, uh, maybe hurt his feelings or, uh, disrespect to his older brother, so that's why For a certain period of time, he continued to sit on his place that he always sat during his father's lifetime, and only after eleven years did he officially sort of change spots into that, uh, that place. Um, okay, so this is the second day of Sukkos, the sixteenth day of the month of Tishrei, which m-marks the revealed acceptance of the Rebbe Rashab, uh, of the leadership of becoming the fifth Lubavitch Rebbe. Chabad, on the sixteenth day of Tishrei, and this is in the year Taf Reish Samech Tes, so this is just, uh, a hundred and five years ago. Uh- 1907. Yeah. On the sixteenth day of Tishrei, that was the passing of the Rebbe Sholom Dovber from Ruzhyn. Not to mistake for the Rebbe Rashab of the Chabad Rebbe. Uh, this was the Rebbe of Sholom Dovber of Ruzhyn. Now, he was also, just like the Rebbe Rashab, the fifth Lubavitch Rebbe, was a grandson of the Tzemach Tzedek. He was also, this Rebbe Sholom Dovber was also a grandson of the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach Tzedek, as we said many times, had seven sons. Each one of his sons were great tzadikim, and each one became, uh, leaders in various different community. His youngest of his sons, the Rebbe

07:28 Maharash, became the one who took the place of the Rebbe, became the Chabad Rebbe after the passing of his father, the Tzemach Tzedek, and he remained in Lubavitch. The rest of the brothers eventually all, uh, left the, um, the Lubavitch, and the Rebbe Maharash was the Rebbe there. Now, the Rebbe Maharash, as we learned... I'm sorry. The Rebbe Maharash, as we learned earlier, named his son Rebbe Sholom Dovber. The reason is because the Tzemach Tzedek, uh, his father was named Rebbe Sholom Shachna, so they gave the name Sholom from his father's name, and his father-in-law's name was Dovber. So they combined the names of Sholom and Dovber to make the names of Sholom Dovber. So apparently, that he also had a Sholom... I mean, so we see he also had a Sholom Dovber, but they called him Sholom Dovber from Ruzhyn because he was a rabbi in a town, a city called Ruzhyn. He was the son of the Maharil, the Maharil of Kapust. He went, he became a Rebbe in the Kapust, and there is a, uh, uh, a s- a group of Hasidim known as the Kapuster Hasidim. They were a branch after the passing of the Tzemach Tzedek. As I said, the Maharash became the Lubavitch Rebbe in, uh, in, in Lubavitch, and the Maharil, uh, became the Rebbe of the Kapuster Hasidim. And his son was Sholom Dovber also, just like the Rebbe Maharash had a son Sholom Dovber, he had a son Sholom Dovber, the Maharil. And his yahrtzeit is

09:05 on Taf Reish Samech Tes on the sixteenth day of Tishrei. He says that after the Altemach Tzedek passed away, so he, uh, together with his father, moved to the city of Kapust. And then when his father passed away, he remained in Kapust, this, uh, Sholom Dovber, and he became a follower of his brother, 'cause the Maharil had a, uh, older son whose name, uh, was Sholom Zalman. So he became a follower of his brother who took over the leadership after their father, the Maharil, passed away. But after several years, he was appointed as a rabbi in the city of Ruzhyn, which is not too far from the city of Hameln. And after his brother passed away, who became the Rebbe of Kapust, who took over after his father, many of the Hasidim, uh, of his brother, uh, started to travel and accepted him as their Rebbe. So he became like the Kapuster Rebbe after his brother's passing. And his yahrtzeit is today. We'll continue