The Melava Malka Dilema

00:00 As we find ourselves in the Yem HaBo'ir, the shining, unique, exceptional day of Yud Aleph Nissan, the Rebbe Zimeledes, we will relate a story that relates to Melaveh Malka, and as the calendar setting of this year, Yud Aleph Nissan began on Metzor Shabbos. The story is about the Sudas Melaveh Malka. A Yid from Eretz Yisroel relates that his grandfather, Rabbi Hazan, was very careful to eat the Melaveh Malka meal every Metzor Shabbos. It was on Shabbos Yud Shvat, Tov Shin Lamed Gimel, 1973, and he arrived in New York for a simcha, and he was by the Rebbe. During the Shabbos, he ran before the Fabregen to Rab Nochem Sternberg and made Kiddush Eretz Sudah, and immediately returned back to 770 and was able to have a seat at the Rebbe's Fabregen, which began at 1.30. After Mincha, it was the Sheva Brachos of a Chason. So after the Fabregen, they went to the Sudah of Sheva Brachos. So for this Yid, that was already the Sudah Shlishis. One was before the Fabregen, one was after the Fabregen. And since he had already made the calculation that he would not be able to do Melaveh Malka, so he cut a special piece of challah at the Sudah Shlishis, the third Sudah, for Melaveh Malka. After the Sudah Shlishis, they returned to 770 to Ma'arev. After Ma'arev, they went home, made Havdalah, and immediately returned to have a sitting place at the Fabregen, which took place Metzor Shabbos. As it was customary by the Rebbe, that when

02:14 Yud Shvat was Shabbos, there was a Fabregen at 1.30 in the afternoon, and the big Fabregen, which was also heard on a live hookup, was a Metzor Shabbos. So this person relates the following. My grandfather made a calculation. I am a guest, and a guest, after all, cannot drive the family crazy. I will not come at 1 or 2 a.m. after the Fabregen and ask my hosts to sit down for a Melaveh Malka meal. So he was bothered with a question. What does one do in such a case? My grandfather used to daven in Bnei Brak by the Machanovke Rebbe. There it was the custom that when there is a situation in which it is impossible to do Melaveh Malka, they cut a special challah at the Sudah Shlishis for the sake of Melaveh Malka. Now he arrived in 770, and they seated him on the platform behind the Rebbe. Next to him sat Rabbi Yaroslavsky, who is the Rav in Nachalas Ar-Chabad. So he asked him, tell me, what is the custom in Chabad in cases like these instances? Is there such a thing as by Machanovke that they cut a special challah at Sudah Shlishis for the sake of Melaveh Malka? Rabbi Yaroslavsky told him that he was unaware of this. In the middle of the Fabregen, the question arose in my grandfather's mind and began to irk him. As soon as he began thinking about it, the Rebbe in the middle of that seventh sicha during that Fabregen, and it also appears

04:08 in the Sichas Kedes, deviated from the subject he was up to and began to speak about Melaveh Malka. And the Rebbe said, Melaveh Malka, what is the matter of Melaveh Malka? One must specifically eat Melaveh Malka, and it is impossible to fulfill the obligation otherwise. And what he eats before Havdalah is not Melaveh Malka, since it is before Metzor Shabbos. The entire idea of Melaveh Malka is that it is specifically Melaveh Malka, escorting the Shabbos when it is leaving. It cannot be fulfilled in another way. The Rebbe elaborated on it and concluded the subject and returned to the topic where he was up to. My grandfather went out of his mind. Until then, he had never even handed a kvitel, a pidion, to anyone. He had no Rebbe. He was half a Rebbe on his own. He didn't consider himself a Rebbe, but he knew many Rebbes. He did not feel that there was someone to whom he can give a kvitel, someone he knew, someone who was a tzadik foundation of the world. When he saw that here the Rebbe read his mind, knew his thoughts, immediately the next day he sat down to write a pan, a kvitel to the Rebbe. From then on, he would write pidion nefesh letters to the Rebbe. Now, when he arrived in Eretz Yisrael, the Machanovke Rebbe asked him, nu, what did you see by the Lubavitcher Rebbe? And from then on, on every Shabbos of Yud Tes Kislev, or the Shabbos before Yud Tes Kislev, the

06:00 Machanovke Rebbe would announce that now stories would be told since Yud Tes Kislev is coming, and would ask my grandfather to stand up and tell the story of the one who knows thoughts.