The Rebbe's Tenaim

00:00 As we find ourselves in the sixth of Kislev, which is the anniversary of the Tenoyim, the engagement contract of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin in the year Taf Res Pey Tes, late nineteen twenty-eight. So we'll discuss here the events of this happening and a letter of the previous Rebbe to his daughter, the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, and a letter that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, the Rebbe's father, writes to his son and future daughter-in-law. The Tenoyim engagement contract is signed in the presence of a small group of people. This is what took place by the previous Rebbe in Ri-Riga, Latvia. In the year Taf Ches Chav Beis, nineteen sixty-two, while the Rebbe was speaking with Rabbi Shmuel Zalmanov, the Rebbe remarked, "At my Tenoyim, there was barely a minyan." The Tenoyim document reads, "Covenant and terms of agreement between these two sides. Party A, the Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, the previous Rebbe's son of the Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Ber, Rebbe Rashab, of righteous memory, representing his daughter, the praiseworthy bride, Miss Chaya Mushka. Party B, the Rabbi, Chassid, and well-known scholar, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, son of the Rabbi and Chassid, Baruch Schneer, of blessed memory, representing his son, the groom," referring to the Rebbe's name, Rabbi Menachem Mendel. "The wedding will take place, God willing, during the month of Kislev, Taf Res Pey Tes, in the city of Warsaw on Tuesday the fourteenth of the month. Guarantor on the groom's side, Rabbi Zalman Yitzchak Volsonok. Guarantor on the bride's side, Rabbi Eliyahu Chaim Artas. Signed this evening of

02:14 Monday, sixth of Kislev in Riga, five thousand six hundred and eighty-nine years since the creation. Witnesses, Mordechai, the son of Schneer Zalman Cheifetz the Shochet, and Yechezkel, son of Shmuel Fagen." The previous Rebbe writes a heartfelt letter to his daughter, the bride, who is in Warsaw with her mother, preparing for the wedding. "Mazel tov to you, my dear daughter. Mazel tov. Last night, we conducted the Tenoyim in an auspicious time in the presence of a few close friends. May Hashem Almighty grant that it be with good fortune in all aspects, materially and spiritually. And may the wedding take place in an auspicious time with great abundance and nachas in all details. May Hashem grant you the pure, clear, luminous wisdom to perceive the pure and pleasant truth as our great and holy forebears wish. May you merit that their blessing should come to you with great happiness. Amen. Amen. Amen." The Rebbe's father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, pens a letter to his son and future daughter-in-law, writes as follows: "Mazel tov, mazel tov, mazel tov to you, my son, the groom, and your intended, the praiseworthy bride, Chaya Mushka, on sealing the Tenoyim in an auspicious time. May Hashem grant that the wedding take place in an auspicious time with success and happiness, spiritually and materially." The Rebbe's father continues to explain the idea of Tenoyim according to Kabbalah, ending with a blessing expressing his yearning to see the soon-to-be couple. "May it be the will of our Father in Heaven, in the merit of our

04:06 forebears, the holy Rebbes, and may the eyes of your parents witness and ex-experience much nachas and pleasure from you, only eternal good, with a blessed generation of offspring in its fullest meaning."