we're talking here about a פסוק where it says ויקראו בספר that says here that עזרא הסופר read בספר, \"ויברך עזרא את ה׳ אלקים הגדול\", that Ezra bentsht the Aibershter, so it says \"ה׳ אלקים הגדול\". So what's the פשט \"הגדול\"? So we had different פשטים in \"הגדול\". So one פשט is, he said before, \"הגדול\" means that he said the שם המפורש. שגידלו בשם המפורש, he made him big. So it says here, במערבא מתנו, in ארץ ישראל they learned הכי: רב גידל אמר, רב גידל said הגדול means שגידלו בשם המפורש. He made the Aibershter big by saying the שם המפורש. And רב מתנה אמר, רב מתנה said this is what he said: \"האל הגדול הגבור והנורא\". That Ezra said \"האל הגדול הגבור והנורא\". So by saying, since he said these three words on the Aibershter, that's why we call him קל הגדול. And הא דרב מתנה אתיא כרבי יהושע בן לוי. What Rav Matana said fits with Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. דאמר רבי יהושע בן לוי, רבי יהושע בן לוי said, למה נקרא שמם אנשי כנסת הגדולה? Why are these people starting from Ezra, Ezra, Nechemia, all these people of the all the way up to Shimon Hatzadik, why were they called אנשי כנסת הגדולה? In other words they had such a great title. כנסת הגדולה, the great כנסת הגדולה means the the great gathering, the great assembly. So

what's so great about them? שהחזירו עטרה ליושנה. They brought back the crown to the way it was. There was something that changed and they brought it back and that's their גדלות. What's the story? אתא משה, משה said \"האל הגדול הגבור והנורא\", the Aibershter which is big, strong, and awesome, fearful. אתא ירמיה, ירמיה said, אמר he said like this: עובדי כוכבים מרקדין בהיכלו, איה נוראותיו? How could we say \"הנורא\"? הנורא means that people are afraid of Him. Look, the goyim, Nebuchadnezzar with his people are dancing in the Beit Hamikdash, screaming in the Beit Hamikdash. They're not afraid of the Eibershter. So איה נוראותיו? How could you say the Eibershter is fearful? לא אמר נורא. So Jeremiah did not say, so we find pesukim where Jeremiah did not say נורא. Rashi says, in פרשת חנמאל it says \"עושה חסד לאלפים ומשלם עון אבות אל חיק בניהם אחריהם האל הגדול הגבור ה׳ צבאות\", he didn't say. אתא דניאל, Daniel came, ואמר he said עובדי כוכבים משתעבדין בבניו, the goyim are making the Yidden work, איה גבורותיו? Where is the Eibershter so strong? לא אמר גבור, he didn't say גבור. So there's another pasuk where it says in the tefillah that Daniel said and he didn't say the word גבור. אתו אינהו, came the Anshei Knesset Hagedolah. עכו״ם ומזלות.

Oh, I said I almost said עכו״ם. That's the first thing is that this all this עכו״ם, עובדי כוכבים ומזלות, עובדי כוכבים ומזלות is all from the censor, it's not the real word. The real word is goyim or or עובדי עבודה זרה, but they didn't want to, so they had to, when they printed the Shas, they printed this, they had to change it, so they printed that always עכו״ם, עובדי כוכבים ומזלות. Afilu in Tanya, so we look in and it says עכו״ם and it says in the back also say ערל or goy. So in the Rambam, the old Rambams it takeh says עכו״ם, the new Rambams it says goy, that a goy did this and this, but they couldn't do it those days. So that's why when you read it, I always read it עובד עבודה זרה or עכו״ם. Anyway, so he said that where is the גבורה, לא אמר גבור. אתו אינהו, came the אנשי כנסת הגדולה, ואמרו and they said, אדרבה, זו היא גבורתו! The great strength of the Eibershter is שכובש את כעסו! The goyim are in in His היכל, really what should a person have done if somebody is coming into my palace and this? Kick him out. He holds himself back, ונותן ארך אפים לרשעים, even to the רשעים he holds back from punishing them. That's the that's the גבורה of the Eibershter. ואלו הן נוראותיו, and what's the נוראות of the Eibershter that people are afraid? שאלמלי נוראותיו, if not that people are afraid of the אייבערשטער, אומה אחת, היכי יכולה להתקיים בין שבעים אומות? How could one nation be among the seventy, one sheep among seventy wolves? So the fact that we're existing shows that these people are afraid. So mimela they brought it back. Since they brought it back, so they were called Anshei Knesset Hagedolah. החזירו עטרה ליושנה. I

remember once a Shavuos the Rebbe spoke on this Gemara. So מ׳האט געקאכט. הן הן גבורותיו, אז דער אייבערשטער, the כח of the Eibershter, the כח, איז פאראן a כח הגילוי and a כח ההעלם. The כח ההעלם is stronger than the כח הגילוי, the צמצום. Beautiful he spoke. It was Shavuos? It was Shavuos. It was Shavuos. Why, you remember it? I've been there, I mean I've been there often. It was Shavuos, I think it was תשל״ח. Well, כ\"ד? כ\"ד or כ\"ה, I mean those those first years, those years. I think פטרבורגער יארן איז געווען גאר גוט דער רבי. Those were the years that I went steady. Ah. I got married in כ\"ז, so it's all then I got I went steady. What happened later? I got married. You got married? Like they say, you got married, bist kluger gevorn. Yeah, right. You moved you moved to Boro Park? No, I lived I lived in Crown Heights. I know, but then... I never missed a farbrengen, I went always always. But when I moved away, I lived in Boro Park. Iz geven shverer. Okay. I came often... What did you say, after a heart attack? After that I never missed one, never. Anyway, so the Rebbe spoke then, that Shabbos after that, he explained it ba'arichut. Protected because the nations are afraid, Hashem protects them. So he protects... Why does he protect them? He makes them afraid. He makes them afraid, instead of... yeah. פרעגט די גמרא, ורבנן היכי סמכא דעתייהו? The רבנן, meaning the first two that we said, ירמי' and דניאל, who took off הגבור and הנורא. How do they think to do this? ועקרו מה דאמר משה, משה said הקל הגדול הגבור והנורא, how are they going against that? אמר רבי יצחק בר אלעזר, the rabbis said, מתוך שיודעין בהקדוש ברוך הוא שאמיתי הוא, they knew the Eibershter is true, לפיכך לא כיזבו, they couldn't lie. If we didn't see the gevurah of the Eibershter, we didn't see the nora of the Eibershter, and we know the Eibershter is emet, how could we lie? Whole Gemara, the Rebbe explained according to Chassidus, because this is be'emet, in Chassidus it's a טיפער ענין. Punkt farkert, the Eibershter not... Giving kochos to kelipah, that's the biggest gevurah of the Eibershter. Anyway... So it was hidden, it was just concealed all this righteousness. So the gedlut of them is... Yeah, like... ...the gedlut of them is that they saw what's hidden. They were in a פרט greater than than ירמי' and דניאל. Right. That's what he called gedulah. Yeah.

Going back, it said in the משנה בנוגע the כהן גדול on Yom Kippur, that he would read the Torah and he would say מברך הוא שמונה ברכות. He would say eight brachot. Which eight brachot? תנו רבנן, the Rabbanan explains like this: על התורה, a ברכה על התורה, כדרך שמברכים בבית הכנסת, like you make a bracha when you get an aliyah' you make a ברכה על התורה, על העבודה, and על ההודאה. Avodah is we say in שמונה עשרה, רצה. And then על ההודאה is מודים. ועל מחילת העון, and we say the Aibershter is מוחל, סלח לנו. כתיקונה, that's like we say in regular. Then they add, על המקדש בפני עצמו, a special bracha that the Aibershter should protect the בית המקדש, על הכהנים בפני עצמם, a bracha for the כהנים, על ישראל בפני עצמם, special bracha for the ישראל, ועל שאר תפלה. And the rest of the tefillah. What's the שאר? תנו רבנן, שאר תפלה is this what they said: רנה, תחינה, בקשה, these are different words of davenen, לפניך, asking the אייבערשטער, על עמך ישראל שצריכים להושע, asking that the Aibershter needs to help the Yidden. וחותם, and he finished off, בשומע תפלה, ברוך אתה ה' שומע תפלה. ואחר כך, then, כל אחד ואחד מביא ספר תורה מביתו, and

everyone brought a Sefer Torah from his house, וקורא בו, and everyone starts reading, learning the Sefer Torah. Why did everyone bring his own Sefer Torah? כדי להראות חזותו לרבים, to show it to public. Everyone brought a made a Sefer Torah, and back then there is a mitzvat aseh to write a Sefer Torah, and it says, pasuk says, זה קלי ואנוהו, התנאה לפניו במצות, you have to write a nice Sefer Torah, so everyone came to show how he beautifies the Sefer Torah. Which was... And they didn't bring it on on Yom Kippur, because they couldn't carry, so they brought it to the בית המקדש ערב יום כיפור. I always think when it comes to these public things, where did they keep, where did everyone put the Sefer Torah, where did they hide it? Kept the Sefer Torah from from the day before, so crowded this and... Look at 770, no? Where would you put your hat in 770 when you come Shabbos? Now it's a half a hat, it's a missing half a hat. Go without a hat. You come without a hat, is this... But if you want to bring a Sefer Torah, what do you do with this? Same with the lulavim when they came, you can't imagine what went on there. Korban Pesach, what went on there, you bring a live animal with you. You'd think... I guess... That was a nes. That, the Mishnah says it was a nes. The tefillin were very tiny then, how big were the Sifrei Torah? עומדים צפופים. אבל עומדים צפופים. Oh, but it was packed. It's packed, yeah, good, but how did, how did they bring this stuff, where did they hold it, where did they hide it?

When they brought the Sifrei Torah, thousands of Yidden brought a Sefer Torah, each one a Sefer Torah before Yom Kippur and kept it there. Where did they keep it? Where were they held it? I don't know. You had cubbies. For all the thousands of Yidden? No, they didn't. They had cubbies for the, they had cubbies, the לשכות, they had לשכות for the, for the big תיקון, for all the different things for the בית המקדש. There's no place for personal, for outside to have a... What, you had a locker there? No lockers back then, no lockers. Who holds it? Then this other guy came to sell them... Yankel Lipsker says. Thought it was 770. Yeah, they got, look at that locker. Yeah, as if you know so, everyone had a locker? Can you say it again? What'd you say? No, I don't want to say it again. He asked to be said, that's it. Find out. Zog di Gemara vayter. I got it right here. Oh, all good. You got to catch it the first time. I don't have You snooze, you lose. Exactly. Didn't pick up. I hope, I hope not. הרואה כהן גדול כשהוא קורא, now the Kohen Gadol did all kinds of things. So he read the Torah, but it was in different areas of the בית המקדש. He read the Torah in one area, and the korban that he brought, the פר ושעיר הנשרפין, was in a different place. So anybody and people were there watching, whatever you could see. Certain things they couldn't see, but certain things you could see. So some people saw the כהן גדול כשהוא קורא, they saw him reading the Torah. But the person who had a good place to see the תורה אינו רואה פר ושעיר הנשרפין. Couldn't see when he was מקריב the פר ושעיר הנשרפין. הרואה פר ושעיר הנשרפין אינו רואה כהן גדול כשהוא קורא, couldn't see it. ולא מפני שאינן רשאין. שאינן רשאין, not because he couldn't you're not allowed to see both. It's impossible. If you had a good place here, you couldn't get a good place there. So what's the mashal of hakafos? By hakafos, if you had a place next to the Rebbe, you didn't you didn't have a place in the middle with the Rebbe the hakafot. If you had a place there, you couldn't see you couldn't be there. You can't be in both places at the same time. Not because you're not allowed. So the Gemara פשיטא. Well, obviously. The Gemara answers no. מהו דתימא, I would think the Reish Lakish, like Reish Lakish. דאמר ריש לקיש, ריש לקיש says אין מעבירין על המצוות, that you're not allowed to pass over a mitzvah. So, you're not allowed to pass over the mitzvah, so in this case, ומאי מצוה, what mitzvah are we talking about? ברוב עם הדרת מלך. That when you have a lot of people, the more you have people you have, the greater kavod for the Eibershter. So maybe they they weren't allowed to go, we thought he said the reason they didn't see both is because not because they weren't allowed. Well, obviously, why would we think you're not allowed? Why would you think you're not allowed to see both? So he says because we would have thought that there is a mitzvah of ברוב... ברוב עם הדרת מלך, וממילא, since there is ברוב עם הדרת מלך, so, so you should you should try to go to both places to be able to should be more people in both places. So קא משמע לן, that if you're not See, when is it ברוב עם הדרת מלך? If you're in a place and you're going to go away, let's say there's a lot of people davenening, and you leave, you're making it less. But lechatchilah, it doesn't say there's a ברוב עם you have to go there. Here also, there was no chiyuv to go, that's why it's it's not you're not עובר. So, is that considered a mitzvah to watch? No. We would think it's a mitzvah to be in every place. But to watch, to watch the כהן גדול do it. To be, yeah, to be Part of the mitzvah. Part of the mitzvah, yeah, it seems like it, to watch it, part of the mitzvah, yeah. Just by watching. I

remember when the Rebbe quoted this Gemara, I don't know if you remember the the start with מיהו יהודי, so the first Tisha B'Av, the Rebbe said that everybody should go to the shul on Tisha B'Av, and speak about מיהו יהודי. Should go to the shul, and on Tisha B'Av to speak. Then the Rebbe said that whoever is going to go, he'll give a dollar. It's before the dollars. It goes back, this is ל״א... אלול... wait, I'm thinking about dollars. So, I remember we went shul, I remember I went in the morning to a shul, I went later to another shul, I went to the ספרדישע שול. You were supposed to get two dollars. No, I didn't. מיהו יהודי in Yisrael? Yeah. מ׳האט געזאגט וואו מ׳איז געווען? דער רבי, דער רבי meant you should do. So, I remember I went to this other shul, I came over to the gabbai there, I don't remember who he was, and I asked him if I could speak in davenen, so he said no. Said no. I spoke anyways. מ׳איז נישט פארפאלען. He wasn't there, I ran over, they finished, the minyan finished, I gave a פאטש on the טיש, and I said דא ווייסט מען נישט אז ס׳איז א גזירה היום? Anyway, so the Rav stood during the... stood in, yes, so I had a גאנצע... and then came the Rav, came running, it was through. לאחר מעשה! Over! I spoke. And in and in the morning I went for a different shul, so then that afternoon, Tisha B'Av afternoon, the Rebbe stood by his door, and people went by, he gave everybody two things: a letter, he gave out a letter for Tisha B'Av, and a dollar. He gave everyone at that time. So there were some bochurim who went on מרכז שליחות, the middle of the summer. So when they heard about it, so they went in their places, in the cities where they were, they also went to the shul. And when they came back, they wrote to the Rebbe they also want a dollar. Because they were out. So the Rebbe answered, first of all, you guys got dollars, because before you went on מרכז שליחות, the Rebbe would send, gave $2, לזכות הרבים, etc. Number two, he wrote, look in the Gemara in Yoma, it says here that you can't be in both places at the same time. If you saw this, you didn't see this. He quoted this Gemara, he said הרואה כהן גדול... אבל לא מפני שאינן רשאין. Practically, he couldn't, so you have this zechut of being on מרכז שליחות, so you don't have this. You can't have both, you can't. So I remember he quoted this lashon of the Gemara, הרואה יומא דף... ס״ח... ע״א. ולא מפני ש... But what does the Rebbe tell you? You can't vote this way. It wasn't vote. He wanted the דעת הקהל, he wanted to be meorer the people, and memeila, they should make a tumul. The Rebbe America, Vos heyst! The Rebbe even made, the Rebbe called Rav Moshe Feinstein to make a big אסיפה in Boro Park. It didn't work, but it made a whole tumel. Rav Moshe Feinstein came with all the speakers, made a whole protest. Whatever happened. They didn't make protests here against things in Eretz Yisrael? Whatever happened, it's true, happened because there was a אודאי, and the reason why certain things were limited, אודאי, or could have been a million or five times worse, and the Rebbe I remember, I remember the name of the man who, Paldi, somebody was, what's his name? Yehuda Paldi, Yehuda Paldi. Yehuda Paldi. You know what his name is? His real name is Feldman. Oh, yeah? A a a באקאנטער, some משפחה of mine. Yeah? Well, that's, we can't change who's no longer alive. אבער ער האט זיך אריינגעלייגט אין דעם. ער האט זיך אריינגעלייגט אין דעם. The

Rebbe, do you remember, like him with the שטעקן? Like ער הינקט, you remember, he used to limp? Yeah. He came up for kos shel bracha once. Yeah. And the Rebbe told him to throw away the שטעקן. Really? Actually, I remember when, I was there. \"Throw away the שטעקן.\" And he walked away, he started laughing like a joke, the Rebbe makes like like a joke, and he walked away. And Reb Leibel Groner says \"The Rebbe said to throw away the שטעקן.\" He started laughing \"Throw away the שטעקן,\" and he like threw away the שטעקן. He shlepped away the שטעקן from him. And from that night he started walking. He didn't walk perfectly, but he walked. Yeah. Really? That, I heard about that story. Down on 770, what's what's what's the avenue? Yeah. He went into the Rebbe, to the Frierdiker Rebbe after the war. He also had these crutches, and the Rebbe told him \"Throw away the sticks.\" Yeah. He became a postman. Became a postman, had to walk a lot. Yeah, I mean he he he couldn't I I heard about the story, but I didn't know who who it was who it was of him. Really? Yeah. That's amazing. The Rebbe made a whole tumel then of מיהו יהודי, and they helped so much in so many ways. Otherwise, not only helped here also, so the Rebbe's tumel of מיהו יהודי was not against the Israeli government only. No, no. It was against the whole Reform, Reform, Reform gerut. Right, the gerut, yeah, the gerut, yeah. They were they were kashering people who were Sure making, now they had, you remember this, the Rebbe spoke punkt in the beginning that they had people coming out of Russia, so in Vienna they would stop, and all these goyim they would give them a certificate of this and, the Rebbe made such a whole such a tumel, and it stopped! The Rebbe took, the Rebbe then, they got people to write letters. Hundreds of thousands. Rav Teitz was involved with that in in Vienna in Austria. Oh, yeah? Yeah, they gave permission I remember the Rebbe's they made they they got petition of people signing in Eretz Yisrael. I think they got over a million signatures. And the Rebbe spoke then that the reason there are people dying in Eretz Yisrael by terrorist attacks, is because of they're not fixing מיהו יהודי. So people wrote to Golda Meir then, she was the Prime Minister. And she was so angry, she told somebody, I remember I heard then, she told somebody, that \"I'm getting letters, thousands, hundreds of thousands of letters blaming me for everything that's happening here. If the Lubavitcher Rebbe would come to Eretz Yisrael, I'd arrest him.\" That's how the Rebbe, yeah, it shows how much it took. Like a dictator. Yeah, well that is, leftist mentality, that is. Meanwhile she was an American girl. Right, yeah, right. See half of the Mincha, see half of the kohanim, half of what he does, and then go to third half of the the the whatever. Whatever you have you have, I guess, yeah. What is it considered that you fulfill the mitzvah? Part of a mitzvah, you're participating in that mitzvah, so if you take part in this, you have a chelek. Can't run from one thing to the next. You can't make it! You won't get there! It's crowded, people are there, people כאפ places from 6:00 in the morning! What do you think, people didn't, people, so it depends, some people had a feeling to hear the Torah, some people had a feeling to see the קרבנות, same thing, like some people would stand only by maftir, to hear the Rebbe say maftir, and hear the haftarah, and some people want to hear the Rebbe dancing. It's different

it's different inyanim. Maybe every year they went to a different spot. Yeah, it could be. And maybe they had מקומות קבועים like in 770. No, but that's the way you picture it. Yeah. And how do you think big the עזרה was? It wasn't big as 770! Then the I'm saying, that that's נשים. עזרת ישראל is, people could go, and that that's נשים. But okay, this you have to be in the עזרה. How could you see as far as he did the עבודה? So how many people had a chance to see it? You had a steady place by the farbrengen. I had a steady place by the farbrengen, yeah, yeah, yeah. By the table? Well, all the years I was, yeah, right in the front, mamash the first row by the table. The Rebbe's table was here, right, so Rabbi Yoel stood here, I stood next to him. Right, I saw you there, yeah, yeah.