First of all, לחיים, לחיים, and מזל טוב for the סיום. We know that the גמרא says that when you make a סיום on a מסכתא or something like רמב\"ם which is כולל כל התורה כולה, you have to make עביד יומא טבא לרבנן, you have to make a סעודה, it's a סעודת מצוה. So you could wish מזל טוב, and just like you finished this time the רמב\"ם, you should continue, learn more and more and more until the end of the רמב\"ם will come true, where the רמב\"ם says at the last two פרקים he talks about the coming of משיח, and he finishes off that משיח will come בימינו, כמים לים, מלאה הארץ דעה את ה' כמים לים מכסים, it should be בקרוב ממש, very, very soon. לחיים, לחיים. לחיים. As we heard that the סיום is taking place today which is ג' תמוז, and ג' תמוז is the רבי's יום ההילולא, and everything is השגחה פרטית, so it's a big, a big special day when we put the two together. Now, sometimes we find a ענין of אין מערבין שמחה בשמחה, that you can't mix two things. And one of the reasons is why אין מערבין שמחה בשמחה is because each one takes away from the other. And sometimes we find that there's certain things that they don't take away from each other, פארקערט, they strengthen each other. In this case, the סיום הרמב\"ם and ג' תמוז don't take away from each other. Each one is מחזק the other. Besides the fact that the רבי was the one that made the תקנה of learning רמב\"ם, so ג' תמוז which is the רבי's הילולא, and the אלטער רבי says in תניא that on the day of הילולא the whole מעשים טובים of somebody that he, of the צדיק that he did throughout his whole lifetime gets together, you could imagine how, kind of great קדושה there is. So the specialty of the רבי which is the בעל, the person who was מתקן רמב\"ם, goes together. And if we'll have a chance later to talk about it, the connection between the רבי and the רמב\"ם, and that's what the רבי is געקאכט in רמב\"ם. The אמת is, all חסידישע רבי'ס were known that they had a special, special חביבות to the רמב\"ם. בכלל, everyone has a חביבות to the רמב\"ם. How you can't say a פלפול in a דבר תורה without having a רמב\"ם! But by the רביים it was a special חביבות of the רמב\"ם, and we might get to that later if we would be able to. But the first thing is that we have to talk a little bit about the תקנה of the רבי of learning רמב\"ם, and I'm sure the people here heard probably a lot about it throughout all the years, and there's people here who learned the רמב\"ם, so they know the נקודה behind the specialty of learning the רמב\"ם. But as we heard before, it's כדאי always to repeat it again to be מחזק yourself what you accomplished by learning the רמב\"ם. We know the רמב\"ם wrote כל התורה כולה. The רמב\"ם wrote all the הלכות, not like the שולחן ערוך which only wrote about the הלכות that are נוגע בזמן הזה. The רמב\"ם wrote even the הלכות of לעתיד לבא, הלכות in the time of משיח, in the time of the בית המקדש. He wrote כל התורה כולה. And a person, it's said in הלכות תלמוד תורה, has to learn כל התורה כולה. And that's what the רמב\"ם has. The מדרש says: אין הגליות מתכנסות אלא בזכות המשניות. The גליות will be ingathered, to say the גאולה will come in the זכות of משניות. What's the מעלה of משניות דוקא? Because משניות is הלכה פסוקה. משניות is basically הלכה. In גמרא is big שקלא וטריא, all kinds of discussions. And בזכות of הלכה פסוקה, which הלכה is called the רצון ה', the זכות of learning the הלכות כמו שהם in משניות, that'll bring משיח. Now the רמב\"ם is similar. The רמב\"ם also. The רמב\"ם has more than משניות, but he has from the גמרא, from the תשובות הגאונים, הלכה, הלכות הלכות, as the רמב\"ם writes in his הקדמה, it's הלכות הלכות. So whatever the מדרש says that משיח will come בזכות המשניות, certainly that it'll be בזכות of the רמב\"ם. And we know the greatness of the רמב\"ם's ספר, the רמב\"ם has a הסכמה from somebody very, very great, even though if you open the רמב\"ם you don't see a הסכמה. Usually a ספר you open up, you see the הסכמה. We don't see a הסכמה of the, on the רמב\"ם. But in סדר הדורות, as the רב mentioned before, from the סדר הדורות he quotes that the רמב\"ם, if I remember correctly, wrote his ספר יד החזקה, משנה תורה, he wrote it, took him 10 years. When he finished, he fell asleep, and he opened his eyes, I don't know for sure if he saw it in a חלום, בחזיון, or he saw it live, he saw his father standing next to him. His father had passed away years before. He saw his father standing next to him, and next to his father was another person. And he asks his father, \"Who is that person?\" And his father said, \"It's משה רבינו.\" And he said משה רבינו came here, he heard you wrote a ספר, he wants to see it. So, he took the כתבים and he showed it to משה רבינו. Imagine, the רמב״ם shows כתבים to משה רבינו, and משה רבינו looked through it, and משה רבינו, I think there's one גירסא that he gave him a kiss on his forehead, but that's not every גירסא, and משה רבינו said to him, יישר כח, which means that משה רבינו gave the רמב״ם a הסכמה on his ספר. ומי לנו גדול ממשה רבינו? So, the רמב״ם ספר is the ספר that has the הלכות of כל התורה כולה. The מחבר himself, the רמב״ם himself, the קדושה of the רמב״ם is אין לשער ואין לתאר. We can't imagine. There were people at the time of the רמב״ם that did not know his גדלות and they had מחלוקת, but the people who knew the רמב״ם, the קדושה was so great that in קדיש, in the area of the רמב״ם, in קדיש, they used to say that בחייכון וביומיכון ובחיי דרבנא משה בן מימון. They mentioned him in the קדיש because his קדושה. We know that the רמב״ם has an interesting שיטה that there's no such thing as שדים. שדים don't exist. The רמב״ם writes it's all fake. It's no such thing as שדים. You know, all the מפרשים ask, how do you say such a thing when the גמרא is מלא about שדים? Not only that, they tell a story that some of the רבנים in his city wanted to prove to him that there are שדים. There was a haunted house, as they call it, in the end of town, which was full of שדים. So, they said to the רמב״ם, \"We're going to show you there are שדים.\" So, he said fine. So, they took him to the end of the city and guess what happened? When the רמב״ם came, they weren't there anymore. Because of the קדושה of the רמב״ם, זיינען זיי נתבטל געווארן. The קדושה of the רמב״ם. The רמב״ם's greatness is something unbelievable. There were גדולי ישראל that said that had the דור of the רמב״ם been זוכה for the coming of משיח, רמב״ם would be משיח. He actually came from מלכות בית דוד. He's from שבט יהודה, he's a descendant of דוד המלך. Came from רבינו הקדוש and from דוד המלך. So, this is the greatness of the רמב״ם. And the רמב״ם wrote his ספר, which is a ספר of הלכות, and the רמב״ם writes that he called the ספר משנה תורה. Why? Because it's second to the תורה. In the הקדמה he writes you could learn חומש and then learn רמב״ם, and you'll know all the הלכות. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why there was a מחלוקת against the רמב״ם. Some people טענה'ט that because of this, people will stop learning גמרא. And it wasn't true. We see that the רמב״ם ספר not only didn't take away from learning גמרא, it added חיזוק in learning גמרא. When you learn גמרא and then you look into the רמב״ם, and you see the רמב״ם פסק'ים and you see is a גאנצע שקלא וטריא, gives a סך עמקות in learning גמרא. Another thing that the רמב״ם did that people, that טענות, he changed the style. In גמרא, we know there's שקלא וטריא in גמרא, what the רמב״ם did, he, before the רמב״ם, if someone wants to פסק'נן the דין of הלכות שבת, he had to know גאנץ ש״ס. Because there is a מסכתא called שבת, but there are so many הלכות which are in עירובין, הלכות in פסחים, which have to do with שבת. So, you have to know everything. Plus, even if you know all the גמרות, but you have to come to a פסק הלכה. Sometimes the גמרא says הלכתא, but most time the גמרא doesn't. How do you know what's the הלכה? So, what the רמב״ם did, he clarified it. He made all הלכות שבת in, all the הלכות in הלכות שבת. Whether it's in שבת, מסכתא שבת, or in פסחים, or in ירושלמי, he put it all together and he brought it להלכה למעשה. So, some people, this was in the eyes of some גדולים, this looked like a little bit modern. He changed the style from the way the תורה was being learned before, and they thought that it'll take away from learning גמרא. לפועל, it's not that, the opposite. This brought מער לימוד התורה, and this brought down להלכה למעשה. So, the greatness of the רמב״ם is something that we don't have to discuss, but it's always כדאי when we're talking about the סיום הרמב״ם, and we're talking about continuing again and again and again learning רמב״ם, it's always good to review in your mind what the רמב״ם is and what his ספר is. Since the מנהג is that when it comes to a סיום, we have to talk really about ג׳ תמוז, but I think with this, it's a פארברענגען, a פארברענגען you have time, מ'רעדט און מ'רעדט ווייטער, so we'll get to it and see how ג׳ תמוז and the רמב״ם go together, and what ג׳ תמוז is, what the רבי is. But the מנהג is that by a סיום you say something which is נוגע to the סיום of what, whether it's a מסכתא or whatever you're learning. So, it's interesting just to say a ווארט from the רבי, very געשמאקע ווארט from the רבי on the סיום of the רמב״ם. רמב\"ם. I saw you had the papers before, the the end הלכות. Oh, here. And as you heard before, we have to מקשר the end of the ספר with the beginning. So the רמב\"ם says here, I'll read the words again, not because we heard a סיום already, but it'll be נוגע to the idea that I'm trying to bring out. ובאותו הזמן, when משיח will come, there will be no hunger, there will be no מלחמה, there'll be no jealousy, no competition, והטובה מושפעת הרבה. But then he says like this: ולא יהיה עסק כל העולם אלא לדעת את ה' בלבד. The occupation of the whole world will be only about knowing השם. ולפיכך, listen to these words, every word in the רמב\"ם is מדויק. ולפיכך יהיו ישראל חכמים גדולים. אידן will be big חכמים because they'll be learning so much. ויודעים דברים הסתומים, they will know the hidden things, וישיגו דעת בוראם כפי כח האדם, and they will be משיג, they will grasp the דעת of their Creator as much as a person could. So the רבי asks, what are these two ענינים that the רמב\"ם says? They will know דברים הסתומים, the hidden things. What are the hidden things? Doesn't say what it is. They'll know the hidden things, and the second thing, וישיגו דעת בוראם, and they will grasp the דעת of their Creator. Well, obviously the hidden things that we're talking about, לכאורה means the hidden things בנוגע להשם. So what are the two things that they're going to know, the hidden things and they're going to know the דעת בוראם, they're going to know the mind, the understanding, the דעה of their Creator, of the אויבערשטער, כפי כח האדם? Here he asks כפי כח אדם as much as a person can. On the first thing the רמב\"ם doesn't say ויודעים דברים הסתומים כפי כח האדם, they'll know the hidden things as much as a person could. He says they'll know the hidden things, and they're going to be משיג, they're going to grasp the דעת of the אויבערשטער כפי כח האדם, as much as a person can. So the רבי explains this very געשמאק. If you learn the beginning of the רמב\"ם, הלכות יסודי התורה, the first פרקים of the רמב\"ם, so there are two פרקים where the רמב\"ם goes into explaining the מעשה מרכבה. מעשה מרכבה means all the רוחניות'דיקע things that are going on למעלה. מעשה מרכבה in גמרא is referred to the פנימיות, the hidden secrets of the תורה, the secrets of the אויבערשטער, that's called מעשה מרכבה. And the רמב\"ם goes into two פרקים explaining the מעשה מרכבה. Then he goes into two פרקים explaining מעשה בראשית, the creation. And the רמב\"ם goes into explaining the depth of what's there in the בריאה, in the creation. And the purpose why it's important to know the depth of the creation, because then we see מה רבו מעשיך ה', מה גדלו מעשיך ה', we realize the greatness of the אויבערשטער'ס creation, that brings us to have connection to the אויבערשטער more. But the רמב\"ם divides there's two things: there is דעת, knowing מעשה מרכבה, and knowing מעשה the depth of מעשה בראשית. And it's interesting that when it comes to the writing of the מעשה מרכבה, the רמב\"ם writes that whatever I wrote is like a drop in the ocean. That's the לשון he writes: it's like a drop in the ocean, because there's much more to it, he only wrote two פרקים about it, so it's a drop in the ocean. When it comes to the end of the מעשה בראשית, when he explains the depth of the creation, the רמב\"ם finishes off by saying, everything I wrote is a drop in the bucket. Why does the רמב\"ם change? He wants to tell you that whatever he wrote is very little compared to what is there. So why by the מעשה מרכבה he says it's a drop in the ocean and by מעשה בראשית a drop in the bucket? The answer the רבי says is בעצם very simple. The world, the creation, is מוגבל, is limited. It's like a bucket that's a bucket is limited. What he wrote is a little bit of it, but a person can reach the depth of the complete מעשה בראשית. If you are you reach a high מדרגה you can understand everything in מעשה בראשית. But the מעשה מרכבה, that's something that's בלי גבול, and that's something you could never reach. And that's why the רמב\"ם gives the example it's a drop in the ocean. We know in גמרא the ocean is referred to as מים שאין להם סוף, has no end. It doesn't mean physically, בגשמיות the מים has an end, but when you look at it you don't see an end. So it's called מים שאין להם סוף, it's like אין סוף. So מעשה מרכבה is אין סוף, that's the אויבערשטער, what goes on by the אויבערשטער מצד די רוחניות ענינים. So the רמב\"ם says it's a drop in the ocean, cuz the ocean is מים שאין להם סוף. When it comes to מעשה בראשית, it's a drop in the bucket. It's טאקע whatever he wrote is a little bit, but the whole מעשה בראשית is like a bucket, it's יש לו סוף and you can reach it. This is what the רמב\"ם says at the end, when משיח will come and יידן will be חכמים גדולים, ולא יהיה עסק כל העולם אלא לדעת את ה' בלבד, they'll only know השם. So what's gonna happen? They're gonna know both. They're gonna understand the depth of the מעשה מרכבה and the depth of the מעשה בראשית. So that's what the רמב\"ם says, ויודעים דברים הסתומים, they're gonna know hidden things, because מעשה בראשית is hidden now. We don't know the depth of מעשה בראשית. The רמב\"ם explains a little bit what's behind it, but we don't know. But when משיח will come, they will know these hidden things. How how much will they know of it? Completely, because the whole מעשה בראשית is limited. And then he says, וישיגו דעת בוראם כפי כח האדם. They're also gonna understand דעת בוראם, which is the the אייבערשטער, the creator, not the creation. And that is בלי גבול, that's אין סוף. They'll know much more than we know now, but it'll also be כפי כח האדם, as much as a person could understand. So this is what the רמב\"ם says will happen when משיח will come, and that's what the רמב\"ם says these two לשונות, because it refers to what he said in the beginning, which is what a person should think about to understand the אייבערשטער. Because there is a מצוה in understanding the אייבערשטער. There's a מצוה, דע את אלקי אביך, you should know the God of your father, you should know. Interesting, if you look in the beginning of the רמב\"ם, and where we we connect the beginning the end to the beginning, the first הלכה, as we heard before from Rabbi Morozov, the רמב\"ם uses the לשון: יסוד היסודות ועמוד החכמות, the next word: לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון. The foundation of all foundations, the pillar of all חכמות, is to know that there is the first being. Interesting. We would expect the רמב\"ם to write, יסוד היסודות ועמוד החכמות להאמין שיש שם מצוי ראשון, to believe! We believe in the אייבערשטער! So the רמב\"ם should have written that the foundation of everything is to believe that there is אייבערשטער. That's not what the רמב\"ם writes. The רמב\"ם writes: לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון, to know. Which means we have to learn and try to understand. We have to understand as much as possible what the אייבערשטער is. We have to try to understand. אוודאי the יסוד always has to be אמונה, the יסוד is אמונה. But on top and after we have the אמונה, we know this is it, now we have to try to understand. וידעת היום והשבות אל לבבך, וידעת, you have to have ידיעה. And this is where חסידות comes in. What's חסידות? Especially חסידות חב\"ד. חב\"ד is חכמה, בינה, דעת. The whole נקודה of חסידות is to explain, to understand אחדות השם, the unity of השם, to understand what it means אין עוד מלבדו, that there is nothing but the אייבערשטער. But it's not something that's born from חסידות. The רמב\"ם says this: לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון. And you know what the רמב\"ם says? If you look פשוט למעשה הלכה, he goes through in the first five הלכות, he goes through certain פרטים בנוגע the אייבערשטער, and then he says at the end, in הלכה ו', beginning of הלכה ו': וידיעת דבר זה, he doesn't say אמונת דבר זה, וידיעת דבר זה, to know this, מצות עשה. It's a מצות עשה! Everyone knows it's a מצות עשה to put on תפילין, it's a מצות עשה to eat מצה on פסח. Who's not gonna do the מצות עשה, it's a מצות עשה? הא, אוודאי you gotta do it. The רמב\"ם says, וידיעת דבר זה מצות עשה, שנאמר: אנכי ה' אלקיך. So the רמב\"ם refers to it as a מצות עשה. All these six things are a מצות עשה. So it's a מצות עשה to learn and try to understand the ענין of אחדות השם, what it means that unity of השם, that אין עוד מלבדו, there's nothing but השם. We have to understand it. Even though, I know that people ask that at the end of פרק ד', the רמב\"ם writes that what he wrote before in מעשה מרכבה, מעשה בראשית is called the פרדס. Says ארבעה נכנסו לפרדס, there are four people who went into the garden. This is what it is, going into understanding the depth of מעשה מרכבה, מעשה בראשית, the spiritual things that are going on, that's called פרדס. And then the רמב\"ם writes something which seems to contradict what we just said, and the רמב\"ם writes that in the end of פרק ד' he writes: עניני ארבעה פרקים אלו הם שחכמים קוראים אותו פרדס, ואף על פי שגדולי... לא לכולם כח לידע, ואני אומר שאין ראוי לטייל בפרדס, it's not right to take a walk in this פרדס, פרדס means a garden, אלא מי שנתמלא כריסו לחם ובשר, unless you're first full of meat, bread and meat, and what is that? לידע האסור והמותר, כיוצא בהם משאר המצוות. Basically he says, you shouldn't be מטייל in the פרדס, you shouldn't take a walk in this פרדס that we're talking about here. You should first learn פשוט ההלכות, נגלה you should know, learn. Now this seems to contradict what I just said. But obviously, the רמב״ם is not going to contradict himself. The רמב״ם writes these הלכות, imagine, the רמב״ם writes these הלכות, and what does he call these הלכות? יסודי התורה. Imagine, he calls it the יסודי התורה! The foundation of תורה! So the foundation of תורה you shouldn't learn? Does that make any sense? And then he says יסוד היסודות, it's the יסוד of the יסודות! And then he פירוש is: וידיעת דבר זה מצות עשה. And then he says, \"No, no, don't do it, don't learn it.\" I just told you it's a מצות עשה, how does the רמב״ם say don't learn it? If you מדייק in the words of the רמב״ם, the רמב״ם writes here, אין ראוי לטייל בפרדס, to take a walk. What's that, taking a walk? Taking a walk is leisure. There are certain fundamental things which is not leisure, that's something that you have to have. And then there is extra. You take a walk is like you eat dessert, it's something extra after you're finished and you have everything you need, now you enjoy yourself, take a walk. That the רמב״ם says אין ראוי לטייל בפרדס. לטייל, why He should have said אין טוב להיכנס לפרדס. ארבעה נכנסו לפרדס, should have אין כדאי להיכנס. He says, אין ראוי לטייל בפרדס, to go extra. And believe me, as much as we learn, we're not מטייל yet. מטייל is a much higher מדרגה. When we learn, if you learn חסידות, and you learn the ביאורים that is brought down in חסידות to explain, to be מסביר in our שכל אנושי, in our פשוט קאפ, פארגראבטע קאפ, understand a little bit the truth of אין עוד מלבדו, what it means there is nothing but ה׳, that is part of this מצות עשה. When משיח will come, then the whole the whole it will be עסק כל העולם כולו אלא לדעת את ה׳ בלבד. They'll be learning these things, that will be the עיקר. The רמב״ם, רש״י says in שיר השירים on the פסוק ישקני מנשיקות פיהו, that לעתיד לבוא, when משיח will come, he will teach us טעמי תורה, the deeper reasons of the תורה, which means all the spiritual ענינים that's behind the תורה, that's what they will learn then. That will be the עיקר לימוד then. Now that's not עיקר לימוד, but we have to have it, that's and that's the יסוד היסודות is to know this. And this is a beginning, a beginning of the connection between learning רמב״ם, which teaches us this, and ג׳ תמוז. ג׳ תמוז, the רבי, which is brought more these ענינים of understanding in שכל, פשוט to understand the אמתקייט of the תורה and the אמתקייט of the אויבערשטער and the אמתקייט of a נשמה. As we all know, this is what the רבי is, ever was and the רבי is and gives this השפעה still, that is connected to what the רמב״ם writes in the beginning and at the end. And we know, the beginning is when you set down the tone, that's the יסוד of everything. The end, the גמרא says, הכל הולך אחר החיתום, נעוץ תחילתן בסופן וסופן בתחילתן, which basically the רמב״ם's, all the הלכות are sandwiched in, in this ענין of ידיעת דבר זה of אחדות ה׳ from the beginning and end. And we have to also, every time we learn, we also have to have this. And by the more we do this, this will be the best הכנה to the coming of משיח, when we will all be learning this in a much deeper way, but we have to have a little bit of preparation now too. And when we do that, this will hasten the coming of משיח, who will come בקרוב ממש. לחיים, לחיים. As was mentioning before, that it's ג׳ תמוז. ג׳ תמוז is the יומא דהילולא, the יארצייט of the רבי, and it's השגחה פרטית that the סיום הרמב״ם comes out in the day of the רבי's יארצייט. And I was telling somebody, the first סיום הרמב״ם, this is the 40th, the first סיום הרמב״ם was י״א ניסן, the day of the רבי's birthday. And this time, the סיום הרמב״ם is on the day of the רבי's יארצייט. And I said to them, so the first was the day of the רבי's birthday, and the last one is in the רבי's יארצייט. Why is it the last? Because משיח is coming soon, so this is the last one as far as that goes, no, this משיח coming. So it's very interesting that all connected to the רבי, cuz the רבי was the one that made the תקנה, and there's a lot of, we say, similarities between the רבי and the רמב״ם. First of all, in the גאונות, in the The גאונות and the למדות of the רבי, that anybody who is familiar a little bit with the רבי's תורה could see what kind of למדות, what kind of גאונות is there in the רבי's תורה. In all parts of תורה. Just like by the רמב״ם we see the גאונות in all parts of תורה, by the רבי we find all parts of תורה. The צדקות of the רבי is something like we said by the רמב״ם, the רמב״ם's צדקות was something unbelievable. In the צדקות of the רבי, those that are a little bit familiar with the רבי's סדר היום, just like that, would see what the רבי's ענין is, how much he was just איבערגעגעבן to כלל ישראל, and his own מציאות did not count. He was איבערגעגעבן completely to כלל ישראל, what כלל ישראל needs. And therefore because he is a רבי, רבי is ראשי תיבות ראש בני ישראל. The head feels every part of the body. ראש בני ישראל means when he feels every איד as part of him. Someone told me once there was a a איד, a חסידישער איד, not a ליובאוויטשער, who went into יחידות to the רבי for a ברכה for something. And before he walked out, the רבי asked him, \"Can you repeat a ווארט that your your רבי said lately? Just to hear a ווארט.\" So he said, \"Yeah. My רבי asked a קושיא: The גמרא says, אפילו פושעי ישראל מלאים מצות כרימון. Even the פושעי ישראל, the אידן who are not so good, פושעי ישראל, imagine the title פושעי ישראל, are full of מצות like a pomegranate is full of seeds. So my רבי asked, 'If they're פושעי ישראל, you call them פושעי ישראל, how could you say that they're full of מצות?'\" So the רבי tells him, \"I have the same קושיא, but my קושיא is: If they're full of מצות, why do you call them פושעי ישראל?\" It's a complete different פשט. The רבי was able to see in each person the depth of the person, the good that's in in every person. And not only to see it, but to to bring it out, to bring it out בגילוי. And the רבי cared about every single איד. And there are so many stories told how the רבי would send שלוחים just for one person. In other words, you could imagine a person like the רבי would be somebody who was involved in כלל ישראל matters. A lot of people, גדולי ישראל, involved in כלל ישראל matters. The רבי was involved in כלל ישראל matters, and at the same time involved in every יחיד, in every individual as as an individual. This is what a נשיא בישראל is. We just came from פרשת קרח. There's an interesting פשט from the רבי in פרשת קרח. משה רבינו told the ר״נ איש, the 250 people, they should bring קטורת. And then the פסוק says משה רבינו turned to the אויבערשטער and he said, \"ואל תפן אל מנחתם.\" Don't, he's asking the אויבערשטער not to turn to the קרבנות of the people. So רש״י says two פשטים. One פשט רש״י says is he meant the קטורת that they're bringing, please don't accept it. But then רש״י says another פשט. רש״י is like this: משה said, \"יודע אני, I know that each person has a share in the קרבן ציבור. Every day in the משכן and in the בית המקדש they would bring a קרבן ציבור. The קרבן תמיד was a קרבן ציבור, a קרבן that from the whole community. They took it from the fund that every איד put into the fund, became one fund, and they used to take the money from that fund as a קרבן ציבור and bring every day.\" So משה רבינו said to the אויבערשטער, these are the words that רש״י says: \"יודע אני, I know that every איד has a חלק in the קרבן ציבור. So קרח ועדתו also have a חלק in the קרבן ציבור. So the אויבערשטער, please, don't accept their חלק. Don't accept their share of the קרבן, don't accept it.\" So the רבי asked a שאלה: Why does רש״י use the strange לשון when he said, \"יודע אני\"? רש״י should have said, משה said every איד has a share in the קרבן ציבור, please don't accept their share. Why did he start off by saying, \"I know, יודע אני, I know that each one has a חלק in the קרבן ציבור\"? So the רבי says רש״י is answering an interesting שאלה. We know that when it comes to ציבור, when it comes to ציבור, almost like the יחיד gets נתבטל. There's no more יחיד. Every individual loses his individuality and becomes part of the ציבור. The ציבור is an entity for itself. אוודאי, to have a ציבור you have to have a lot of יחידים, but the יחיד loses his identity as a יחיד. Says in גמרא that if you gave something to the ציבור, מסרי לציבור יפה יפה, you have to give it up to the ציבור and give up your identity. So what did משה רבינו mean that, \"I know they have a share in the, everyone has a share in the קרבן ציבור, don't accept their share\"? לכאורה, they don't have a share in the קרבן ציבור. The קרבן ציבור is a new entity of a ציבור. The answer is like this: true, when you become part of the ציבור the יחיד loses his identity, but מצד משה רבינו, who's the נשיא ישראל, no matter what happens, the יחיד is important. The יחיד is important as a יחיד. That's why רש״י says, he said, \"יודע אני, me, as being the נשיא, I know from my perspective there's still, יחיד is still counts.\" Even though בעצם you would assume that the יחיד gets lost in the ציבור, but I'm telling you יודע אני from משה רבינו's side. Because this is the idea of משה רבינו. The idea of משה רבינו is the נשיא הדור, and not only from the דור as a whole, from every single איד. He is the one that cares about every single איד, and that's why he said יודע אני. And this is what a רבי is, and this is what we saw by the רבי. Every יחיד is נוגע, the whole ציבור is נוגע, and then every יחיד, when you went by dollars by the רבי, you felt that there's nothing in the world in the רבי's eyes but me. The רבי looked at you that those 30 seconds, or when you asked something the רבי, and there are so many stories how the רבי cared about every single איד. I just told one of the people who walked over to me, tell me a story. What should I tell? This story came to my mind. I heard this from Rabbi Gutnick, who lived in Australia, he was like the chief rabbi I think of Australia. The רבי wrote him a letter once he should travel to Tasmania. He didn't know why, you know, like stories from the בעל שם טוב, go some place, so he went to Tasmania. He didn't know why he's going, so he went around, met people, and he would find out eventually what the רבי sent him for. He met this girl who was amongst there are no פרומע אידן, there are no אידן כמעט בכלל, and it was almost that she was holding by a שמד'נע זאך, to convert to Christianity, because she had the peer pressure from the other people, but she didn't feel comfortable doing it. And this is what she told him. So she said she turned around and davened to the אויבערשטער, \"אויבערשטער, I heard that in every generation there is somebody who a person down here, a rabbi, I don't know what לשון she felt, that cares about every single איד. And if that's the, care about every single איד, should care about me too. So I want to see a sign that there is such a person that cares about me, and me as a איד, and as an individual girl, is important to the אויבערשטער. I want to see that. If I don't see it, then I'm giving up, I'm going to שמד זאך.\" And this rabbi tells him, \"I got a letter from the רבי, sitting in Brooklyn, to come here, obviously to come to you and show you that the רבי is in Brooklyn and he cares about you as an individual.\" He cares about כלל ישראל, the things that go on in ארץ ישראל, and the רבי געפירט מעשים for the טובה of the פיקוח נפש of אידן and the ענין of מיהו יהודי and מורא'דיגע זאכן, וועלט זאכן. But at the same time, the רבי did all kinds of things to show his care for every individual person. And when it comes to ג׳ תמוז, we have to strengthen our התקשרות to the רבי, because this is a day which is the רבי's day, and it's a day we have to strengthen our התקשרות to the רבי. So this is one of the things that we remember, that just like from the רבי's side he cares about the ציבור and he cares about the יחיד, we also have to connect ourselves and follow in the רבי's ways, aside being part of the ציבור, but also every individual has to feel that he has an אחריות to the רבי to do what the רבי wants. And even though it's after ג׳ תמוז, תשנ״ד, and בגשמיות the רבי is not here with us, טאקע בגשמיות he's not here, it's true, but it says in תניא from the זוהר that צדיקא דאסתלק אשתכח בכולהו עלמין יתיר מבחיוהי, a צדיק that's נפטר is in all the worlds more than before, even in עולם הזה הגשמי, in this world. So he's here more and his השפעה is more. It's interesting, it says in סדר עולם that there was some other event that took place on ג' תמוז. In ליובאוויטש, we know there's another event that the פריערדיקער רבי was freed from jail on ג' תמוז. He was sent to exile in קאסטראמא, and then י\"ב תמוז he was freed. But in סדר עולם it says that over 3,000 years ago, a very important historic event took place ג' תמוז, ג' תמוז. What was that event? יהושע stopped the sun. It says יהושע was at war, and it got started getting night, and you couldn't fight the war at night, so יהושע said, \"שמש בגבעון דום\", the sun should stop and not set in גבעון. And the sun did not set. The מחלוקת is in גמרא for how many hours it stayed, whether 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours that it it stayed and it didn't set. It's a רמז to us. It's a hint to us. A צדיק is called the sun. And the גמרא says, it says, \"וזרח השמש ובא השמש\", the גמרא says, when the sun sets of one צדיק, the sun of another צדיק rises. ביום שמת רבא נולד רב אשי, the day רבא passed away, רב אשי was born. And בכלל we find when one צדיק goes, there's another צדיק coming up. And that's hinted in the fact that it says the sun sets and the sun rises. And that's what happened by all the רביים. After the בעל שם טוב, the מעזריטשער מגיד took over. After the מעזריטשער מגיד, all the other תלמידי המגיד, and as far as חב\"ד is concerned, the אלטער רבי continued, and from the אלטער רבי to the מיטעלער רבי, מיטעלער רבי to the צמח צדק, and the צמח צדק to the רבי מהר\"ש, and the רבי מהר\"ש to the רבי רש\"ב, and then to the פריערדיקער רבי, and then it went to the רבי. So there was always the sun set. By the רבי, we see there is nobody who took over. So what's the פשט? The פשט is like ג' תמוז, \"שמש בגבעון דום\", it didn't set. Now, בגשמיות the רבי isn't here with us, but the השפעות of the רבי continue like before and even more than before. We find it by משה רבינו. When משה רבינו was alive, the מן came down in the זכות of משה רבינו. But when משה passed away, the מן stopped going down. So what did they eat if they didn't have the מן? He passed away ז' אדר. They weren't able to eat from the wheat, from the grain of ארץ ישראל, of ארץ כנען, till the second day of פסח, which is ט\"ז ניסן. So from ז' אדר till ט\"ז ניסן, what did they eat? So רש\"י says that the מן that fell on ז' אדר, which usually when the מן fell it was enough for one day, this time the מן lasted till they were able to have the food, which means even though it came down because of משה, and משה רבינו wasn't around anymore, but whatever was needed, the השפעה from משה רבינו continued. And since we know משיח is coming very soon, so the השפעה, so it's not for a long time, so the השפעה of the רבי is still coming on, going on. There is a ירושלמי, interesting ירושלמי, it says in ירושלמי a contradiction between two פסוקים. One פסוק says that שמשון הגבור was a שופט, was a judge for 20 years. Another פסוק says that שמשון הגבור was a שופט for 40 years. So ירושלמי says, \"How do the two פסוקים fit?\" And the answer is really he was a שופט for 20 years, and then he passed away. But since for another 20 years his influence was felt, it's called that he is there and he is called the שופט, even though he wasn't there. He wasn't alive anymore. It's called that this, he's the שופט. So we see the same thing here, and we see בנוגע the רבי, that if you see what goes on, we all know what goes, what ליובאוויטש does and the growth and how much the השפעה of the רבי is, סיי in the השפעה רוחני and סיי in the השפעה of גשמיות, פשוט in ברכות. People who go to the אוהל, there every day you have hundreds of stories of people who go to the אוהל, and they're helped ממש like it was before. We don't see the רבי. It's hard for a person to have a התקשרות when you don't see בגשמיות, but ברוחניות it's there. And ג' תמוז, which is a day that is called the הילולא, and the הילולא means a חתונה really, it means the special day of the רבי, this is a day that has to be מעורר within us the strength that we have to strengthen our התקשרות, which means to do what the רבי wants us to do, and to learn the תורה of the רבי. And by doing that, We connect ourselves to the רבי, and since the רבי is the ראש בני ישראל, the head, so through that, we get connected to the אויבערשטער in a stronger form, till very, very soon, משיח will come, and we will see the רבי again בגשמיות. לחיים, לחיים. Someone came over to me before and said, it's ג' תמוז, maybe you will say some stories of the רבי. Okay? You know the בעל שם טוב said that he wants that people should talk about him, not about his מופתים that he did, his miracles that he did, but about his יראת שמים. Because it says that to do a מופת in the eyes of the big חסידים was a small thing. That's not important. But they said בנוגע the מגיד, that some of the תלמידים of the מגיד said, ס'האט געוואלגערט מופתים אונטערן טיש ביים מגיד. מופתים were rolling under the table, no one even bent down, bothered to pick it up. Because that not was they were involved in. But nevertheless, a מופת is a מופת. And there's a letter from the רבי that he wrote to the פריערדיקער רבי that it's כדאי to tell מופתים, to tell stories, because it gives יראת שמים. In the generations before, people were in higher מדריגה. They would look more in the רוחניות of ענינים. But we're simple people, and therefore, if you see a מופת that is brings like, so to speak, גילוי אלקות, you see there is a צדיק that a צדיק has the כחות of the אויבערשטער, that gives a person a push to יראת שמים. So I was just thinking what might be There are stories of the רבי, מופתים, there are probably thousands upon thousands, you can't imagine. Every time by dollars, every time the רבי gave, for many years used to give out Sunday dollars, and probably every Sunday 5,000 people went by. There was at least a hundred מופתים every time. And there are stories, and some things Now sometimes people טענה when you have a מופת, it's made up stories. There are videos that you could see videos actually of the time people walked by the רבי and you see what the רבי says. And you see רוח הקדש, things that the רבי said, says. Actually this is not what I was saying, but I'm saying רוח הקדש just comes to my mind. I heard from הרב וואלפסאן, הרב וואלפסאן is here in Boro Park. He's one of the very, very חשוב'ע יידן, everyone who knows about him. He's probably the most respected ייד in in גאנץ New York. A very So he's א געהויבענע ייד, ממש א געהויבענע ייד. So I was speaking to him. He comes to Miami every year, so I get a chance to speak to him a lot. So he once told I asked him an outright question. I asked him, \"What made you become basically a חסיד of the רבי? What made you to become a חסיד?\" Because he always held of the רבי, but he became ממש, speaking to him, the biggest חסיד, with such התקשרות to the רבי. So he says he had many מופתים. But I said, \"So what clicked it?\" So he says, \"I'll tell you this. He had a מנהג, used to go every summer to ארץ ישראל for a few weeks. So one year he went to ירושלים, and he happened to stay in a place which was not which right next to a שול which was not used. It was like a חורבה. Not the famous חורבה, it was a, but it wasn't used. So it's פונקט when he went then, one of his אייניקלעך, I think, one of his grandchildren was sick. And it was on his heart, on his mind. So every night when he would say קריאת שמע שעל המטה, he would go to that that חורבה, no one was there, no one knew, and he would say קריאת שמע שעל המטה there. And he said since his אייניקל was sick, he it was very emotional for him, he would cry a lot. And the reason he went there, he didn't want anyone to see that he's crying, he didn't want his רעבעצין to see. So he went there. And he says when he said in קריאת שמע שעל המטה the פסוק, 'לב נשבר ונדכה אלקים לא תבזה,' that if you have a broken heart, השם doesn't embarrass it, doesn't push it away, he says for some reason he used to repeat the פסוק many times and cry a lot there. And cry a lot. And no one knew about it. Nobody. Not one person in the world. Because it bothered him. When he came when he came from ארץ ישראל, and he came back home, Sunday he went to the רבי for dollars, used to go pretty often, and the רבי gave him a dollar. Then he tells the רבי, 'A ברכה for my אייניקל.' And the רבי said to him something to this effect, I can't say the exact לשון, something this effect: 'When someone says, 'לב נשבר ונדכה' with great כוונה, the אויבערשטער helps.' Tells me he almost fainted. No one knew such No one knew that this was happening. Not even his wife, he said his רעבעצין did not know. He specially made sure that she shouldn't know, No one knew, and he says the רבי said it to him. So he says, this clicked, and he says this made him into a חסיד. And he told me other like little stories, not נוגע, but everything showed that the רבי special, you know, read his מחשבות, the רבי said things that had to be said which no one else knew. But this is something that ממש made it, made him into a חסיד because you saw so because you see a מופת, and you see the the the holiness that's there. So I want to say something that happened to us in Miami. People know about it because we wrote about it, but I can tell you here, I'm first hand, so it's good always to hear a story first hand. And there's the famous story בנוגע the hurricane Andrew. There was Miami is an area where hurricanes happen. Every year now actually, we just started the hurricane season. Some years it's worse, some things it's more. But this was when the רבי already had the stroke, it was right after the רבי had the stroke. And they were saying, and Andrew, you know, the hurricanes go by the alphabet, so Andrew is A, so the first hurricane of the season. And they predicted a coming a great a strong, very strong hurricane. And as the סדר is, first when they see it coming, they're not sure how it's gonna go, so then it's a hurricane watch. And as it gets closer and it's more coming to your area, it's called a hurricane warning. So the hurricane was coming and they said it's a three, you know it goes to a five, a three is probably 160 miles an hour winds or 150, then you have a four, a five is 170 or 180, it's ממש it's געפערלעך. So they said this is a three, and as it got closer they said it's a four. And there was there was evacuation, that you had to evacuate. And the police went around with microphones saying everyone has to evacuate because Miami Beach is going to be the place where the hurricane is going directly and it looks like it's coming straight to Miami Beach, and it's a four, and it's going to be deadly. We even heard on the radio they said that anybody who decides to stay, notify next of kin. That's how dangerous it is. So, I remember when the the day that they said that it's going to come that evening, I called 770, I called Rabbi Groner and I said, \"Go in to the רבי and tell the רבי what's happening.\" Actually, I didn't say, I left the שול, and I told my wife she should make the call. And I don't know why, she when she called, she told him to ask the רבי if we should leave. Because I didn't ask her to leave. Why can't we leave? It's not ארץ ישראל, you can't leave Miami, it's like a almost like, but not really, it's not ארץ ישראל, so you can leave if you want to. Why, what's the שאלה if you could leave? ארץ ישראל is an איסור to leave. But לפועל, that's what she said, and Rabbi Groner asked the רבי, \"Should they leave?\" And the רבי said, \"No.\" Like this, he couldn't talk already, he shook his head, \"No.\" In those days when the רבי couldn't talk, so you didn't know for sure, so they would ask the question both ways to make sure that they got the right answer. So he says to the רבי, \"Does that mean that the רבי wants them to stay?\" And the רבי shook his head like this. And he asked again, and the רבי, a few times, and the רבי was very clear, very strongly that no one should leave. When we got the message, everyone was wondering, how could that be? How could we not leave when they said clearly it's coming straight to Miami Beach? And anybody who is there in Miami Beach, וועלכע ייד איז נישט געווען אין Miami Beach? So when you're in Miami Beach, it's like an island. So on one side you have the ocean, on the other side you have the bay. And they said there will be a big surge and the water's gonna rise, and what's gonna happen is that the bay and the ocean are gonna meet and the whole Miami Beach will be underwater. And it's ממש that's most dangerous thing. But the רבי said not to leave. I remember there was even one lady said called me up, \"Did the רבי mean that we're going to survive?\" But I said, \"No, the רבי doesn't want us to suffer. If he meant not to leave, he meant not to leave because nothing is going to happen.\" But not to go into the details, it was when it came at night, the hurricane came. And I remember they announced that everybody, if anybody didn't leave, should go into a room without windows because what's going to happen is the hurricane is going to come and break the windows and the wind will come in and it'll take the roof off. ממש the dangerous. So we started listen hearing it and the windows it sounded like machine guns against the windows, that's how strong the winds were. We were listening to the radio. In middle of the radio they had a they said they were talking constantly reporting about the hurricane. And then it says, \"We have to make an interruption, we want to give you some news. There is a group of people here in Miami Beach called Lubavitchers, and they're not leaving, they didn't leave, because their rabbi in Brooklyn said not to leave.\" That didn't make any sense, but the רבי saw the map and he saw the cone, as they call it, how the the the hurricane's gonna come and he saw that it's not coming to us. So how, how could he say not to leave? But לפועל, lot of details to the story, but לפועל, when the hurricane passed, we went out. Nothing, I mean, a little bit of damage, a little bit. The people who left someplace else where the government said to leave, that's where the hurricane hit mostly. And people there, it wiped out whole a city called Miami City was wiped out. There was no more houses. People came to the streets later, they couldn't recognize where their house was. There was no They couldn't recognize the streets, that's how it was. It ממש the חורבן. At that time, it was the greatest natural disaster, as far as monetary things, in the history of the United States. I think later maybe something worse. I think it was $20 billion they said at that time. This goes back in 1991. But as far as anybody of us So all the people who left couldn't come back in because there was a curfew, whatever it is. And then, everybody heard it was in the newspapers here in New York, articles, that the ליובאוויטשער רבי, this is after his stroke, sitting in New York, is telling us what to do here, when the government says legally that this is something that is so dangerous, it went up to a five. So actually, when I called that day, I called to Rabbi Groner to speak to the רבי, in the afternoon, when they said it's a five, I called him again. And I said, \"Rabbi, please go in to the רבי again and tell the רבי that now it's going there's a five.\" So he went in again, and again the רבי said not to leave and he said to stay, like this he made. And then I called a third time when they got to even worse, he says, \"You know what? I myself am following the news and I myself went into the רבי a third time without you calling me.\" And the רבי said not to leave. So we thinking that this is ממש something unbelievable. Years before that, this was Hurricane Andrew, there was Hurricane David, which happened years before. This is many years before, that's D. So we I actually my family, we all left to a different place, but before I left, I wrote called up Rabbi Klein, and I told Rabbi Klein, please go into the רבי, write a צעטל that there's going to be a hurricane, ask for a ברכה. So when I got finally to the place we went to, I called him up and I said, \"נו, what happened?\" So he says, \"Yes, I went into the רבי. I wrote a צעטל writing that there is going to be a hurricane in Miami, and it's very dangerous.\" So in front of him, the רבי wrote down on the צעטל: כנראה מגזימים. It looks like they're exaggerating. The רבי sitting in Brooklyn in his room, and here the Hurricane Center, which is they're the scientists and they're telling you it's dangerous, and he says they're מגזימים. So Rabbi Klein tells me, so he told the רבי on the spot, but these are the words he used: \"אבער אנאש מיאמי האבן מורא.\" He told me because I told him we're all afraid, what's going to be. So he told the רבי that אנאש, the Lubavitchers in Miami, are afraid, after the רבי wrote this. And the רבי went, \"אח!\" And what happened? The place we were, we were the place that borrowed a television and we were watching the the the news, and the hurricane is coming, it's coming to Miami, to Miami. And all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, they say something, they don't know what happened or something, all of a sudden, it made a turn and it moved away. So we all said, \"אוודאי, the רבי made like that, he turned it away!\" Is it a question? The רבי turned it away! But this is something that people really then saw that, you know, as we say, יש צדיק בישראל, and there is a person, he's ממש, that this is a open open miracle that we say. But that's something that we see constantly. One of the the biggest miracles is what took place in Russia. The אידישקייט that stayed in Russia before the Iron Curtain fell with the מסירת נפש of אידן has a lot to do with the רבי. It was all because of the רבי's השפעה, that the רבי sent people there. The רבי had השפעה to the אידן there. I was in Russia. I was sent to Russia by just as a שליח through the from the רבי, through office. I went there. This goes back close to 40 years ago, when the communism was still, and I went underground. And there we were able to see the כח of the רבי, because there was a whole group of אידן there who בעלי מסירת נפש, that learned תורה and had שיעורים and did מצוות under the circumstances that you can't imagine. And it's all what gave them the חיזוק? The רבי. The רבי would write to them. Everything was hidden, everything was in code. The רבי would sign his name Uncle, and sometimes they would call the רבי Grandfather, But you could see how the people were, and they they all attributed, they said the only thing that gave them חיזוק is knowing that the רבי in America cares about them. And the רבי did, you can't imagine how many פארברענגענס there were that the רבי cried bitter tears for the Jews in Russia. Bitter tears. And whenever he spoke about it, asking the אייבערשטער that the אייבערשטער should make it easier for them to take them out. But I remember the way they the the the אידן behaved there, they everything was a נסיון, everything was מסירות נפש, every little thing מסירות נפש, it's all the כוחות of the רבי. I just give you an example: I came there for פורים, went with my wife, a second I went a second time with Rabbi Tennenhaus. So we went there for פורים. So פורים at night after the תענית, תענית אסתר, we went to have a פארברענגען in someone's house. In a big building, in someone's apartment. So there were people who went, so when we were going there, we made up that you shouldn't go everyone together, cause if a group comes in, every building on the bottom floor had a guard or somebody there, a man or a woman, watching, cause there in Russia by the communists everything you watched, wherever you went everyone is watching you! The the the you know Big Brother is watching, and it's כפשוטו, you could see it, פשוט everything every There's always people watching and any little thing that's not the way they want, right away they give over to the KGB. So we made up that we're going to go slowly, two people will walk into the building, five minutes later another two people, ten min- another two people, so the person downstairs shouldn't realize there's some gathering, because to have a gathering, that's the biggest עבירה, because then it's some kind of propaganda. So we finally got in, we sat down to פארברענג. It was after the תענית, after the fast day. I hadn't broke my fast yet and I didn't want to eat any of the food because I saw they didn't have much themselves, so why should I come from America and eat up their food? But משקה they had plenty. So I broke my fast with a glass of משקה. And I was speaking to them. In middle we hear a knock on the door. This room we were sitting was חדר לפנים מחדר, like a room within a room. There's a knock on the door, so the everyone became very nervous, including myself obviously, and the host, the one that was this was his apartment, got very nervous, walked out, closed the door, walked out, was very ממש became pale white, walks out, comes back in a few minutes later, and he turns to me, I mean the way we were able to speak someway, because they didn't speak English, not Russian, I didn't speak Russian, Hebrew a little bit. So he turns around to me, what he did was he took an empty glass from the table, took the bottle of משקה, filled up the glass, a glass like this, and he turns around to me and he says, זה בשביל להמתיק הדינים, to sweeten the judgment. What happened was this גויה, this אלטע גויה, she's as 80 years old, look, 85 years old, realized after all that there was some gathering here, so she went up the steps, and she came knocking on the door, \"What's going on here?\" And Stalin, ימח שמו, taught them that anything that you see that's suspicious, you gotta call the the police, call the KGB. So she was ready to call, so she came upstairs to find out. So what he did was he filled up a glass of משקה and was going to take it to her to calm her down. And he walks out with the glass, and five minutes later he walks back in with an empty glass. And he didn't drink it, she drank it, and he took the bottle and he tells me, he shows me the empty glass and he says, עוד לא נמתקו. It didn't do it, she is threatening to go to the KGB. So he took the bottle of משקה, filled up another glass, and he walked out, comes back in five minutes later, כבר נמתקו. This is how they lived the whole time. You couldn't, I mean I don't want to go into so many details, just one more little thing just to bring the way we we even talk, everything had to be in code. They used to send from America packages to Russia, and the people who got the packages, what was inside they would sell on the black market, and they could live from that for half a year, a year. Just then the digital watches you know came out, and they were ready to send it in a package, but they wanted to know how much ruble they could get for a watch like that, is it worth to send it, if they send something else. So they send along with us one of them to find out while we're in Russia how much they could get for the black market. And the question was 300 ruble or 400 ruble, which they could live a whole year on on 400 ruble. So we got there, we came to this house, anyway we gave it to this this person, יודא he's called, and we told him before we leave we'll need an answer. So before we left, we came back to the געטשע, ר' געטשע'ס house, and he called יודא. I couldn't call because all the phones were bugged, and therefore they would definitely hear a voice that's strange, they would make a טומל. So he calls him up and he says, \"יודא, נו, what's your answer for the question?\" He didn't say anything more. So he says to him, \"The answer is it's the ענין of חב\"ד.\" So he hangs up the phone and he says, \"The answer is 300 ruble.\" ח' ב' ד' - חכמה, בינה, דעת, חב\"ד, that's they didn't want to say anything about ruble, the moment you speak about money. So I say to ר' געטשע, he's the one that was... So I say, \"ר' געטשע, we learn in חסידות that sometimes דעת is considered like two.\" It says, see, you have in the תפילין, you have two שינ'ס on top, one with three, one on four. So על פי הלכה, what's the reason for a שי\"ן made of four, full cap of four lines? Because when it says the הלכה למשה מסיני that there should be three lines as a שי\"ן, so the שאלה is did it mean three lines or three spaces? In order to have three spaces, you have to have four lines. But על פי קבלה, it's because the מוח, the brain, which is תפילין, is כנגד חכמה, בינה, דעת. So it's three. But sometimes דעת is considered two, because דעת is the beginning somehow of the מדות, not to go into the kabbalistic explanation, חסידות. דעת is נחלק לשנים, it's divided into two because חסד and גבורה sometimes... So when he comes, hangs up the phone, and he says he told me it's the ענין of חב\"ד, so I, seeing it means three, I said, \"Maybe דעת, maybe he means four, because דעת is sometimes divided into two.\" So ר' געטשע says to me, \"Maybe.\" Picks up the phone, picks up, calls him again. Says, \"יודא, is דעת נחלק לשנים or not? What do you say? Do you think דעת is divided into two?\" So he says, \"No, דעת is not נחלק לשנים.\" Hangs up the phone, and he tells me, \"It's 300 ruble, not 400 ruble.\" But this is the way things were, and all that the reason that they were able to survive and learn תורה and everything what was מסירות נפש. I asked one of the people there, he used to arrange some שיעורים, I said, \"Aren't you afraid?\" He says, \"Yeah.\" \"And so so and so what? We shouldn't do it?\" But this כח they got, and that's what they were saying, that the כח, it started actually with the פריערדיקער רבי when left Russia, but then, and this goes... And even though this is what was the biggest enemy of the communists was חסידות, ליובאוויטש. A man there, ר' קלמן מיילך, told me that he used to also, he used to arrange certain things, so the KGB harassed him very much. They called him once, twice, they threatened him. And says, \"Finally, I got the guts to tell them, 'I don't know what you want from me. According to our constitution, the communist constitution, you're allowed to be religious. So I could be. What's the problem? What do you hear?'\" Guess what they answered him: \"Yeah, you're right. The problem with you is that you're a ליובאוויטשער.\" And they didn't say this in 1927 when they arrested the פריערדיקער רבי. This is talking in 1981. ליובאוויטש was their greatest enemy. Why? The philosophy of the communists was atheism. The philosophy was atheism, not believing in God. Which, by the way, I heard there, I heard a joke, one of the people there quietly told me a joke. Besides, he said the גימטריא of סמ\"ך סמ\"ך רי\"ש, what did he? Anyway, so a joke that there was in school, the teacher was teaching that there's no God. And the teacher picked up the piece of paper and said, \"Children, do you see piece of paper? There is a paper.\" Took a pencil, \"You see the pencil? Yes, there is a pencil. You see God?\" \"No, so there is no God.\" So one kid gets up, this is a joke they said, one kid gets up and turns to the class and says, \"Does anybody see the teacher's brains? No, the teacher has no brains.\" This was a very good answer. But their whole philosophy was to uproot אמונה in the אויבערשטער. The whole ענין of חסידות, of חב\"ד, is to implant the understanding of אין עוד מלבדו, that there is nothing but the אויבערשטער. But the truth is, if you speak to people, people say, \"For that you have to learn חסידות? You have to be a חסיד and learn... Who doesn't know? Everyone, we all believe in the אויבערשטער.\" So there's the famous story that ר' לוי יצחק בארדיטשעווער, ר' לוי יצחק בארדיטשעווער, after he got married, left his young wife and went for two years to מעזריטש to learn by the מעזריטשער מגיד. And his father-in-law was up in arms, was upset. And finally, after two years he comes back, and his father-in-law screaming, \"What did you go for? What?\" So I learned. What did you learn? What did you learn?\" says, \"I learned אז איך ווייס אז ס'דא א גאט אויף דער וועלט. Now I know that there is a God in the world.\" So he starts screaming to him, \"For that you had to go two years to מעזריטש?\" He calls in the Jewish maid, whatever her name was, אסתר, and he says, \"אסתר, who runs the world?\" First, \"ס'דא א גאט אויף דער וועלט. There's a God in the world.\" So he turns around to his son-in-law, he says, \"She didn't go for two years to מעזריטש, and she's also says ס'דא א גאט אויף דער וועלט.\" So he says, \"Yeah, זי זאגט און איך ווייס.\" She's saying it, we all say it. מ'דאוונט, like I said before, וידעת היום, דע את אלקי אביך, לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון, and this is what חסידות is all about, to אריינהאקן אין קאפ. You know what the גמרא says? The גמרא says that it's a possibility, a מאדנע זאך, a very strange thing, there's a possibility of גנבא אפום מחתרתא רחמנא קריא. Someone goes to steal, and as he's stealing, he דאוונס to השם that he should succeed. What kind of משוגענער is this guy? If he believes in השם, why is he stealing? And obviously he believes in השם. והא ראיה, he's דאוונינג to Him. And he doesn't believe in השם that השם is someplace in the רקיע השביעי, in the seventh heaven, there is השם there, because he דאוונס very quietly, wants no one to hear, so he believes השם could hear him. So he believes השם is standing right next to him. So why are you stealing? And if you're stealing, why are you דאוונינג to השם? This guy is a משוגענער. The answer is, it says in חסידות that there is such a thing called אמונה בבחינת מקיף, superficial, אויבנאויפיק, מקיף, which means you believe, but it's not real. When you see a policeman come, if he would see a policeman come, he would not steal, cause he knows the policeman is a real person, the handcuffs are real, and he's going to come and take him to jail. איי, the אייבערשטער is there? He believes in the אייבערשטער, but it's only belief. It's not real to him. That's what it is. That's why he could steal. He could דאווען to the אייבערשטער, believes in the אייבערשטער, but it's all בבחינת מקיף. And that's the problem. What has to happen is we have to have אמונה in the פנימיות. In the פנימיות means What does a פנימיות, it goes in. There's a פסוק that says ורעה אמונה. רעה אמונה means, not with an א, with an ע, רעה אמונה means pasture, eat אמונה. How do you eat אמונה? Ever heard of eating אמונה? אמונה is something we understand, we don't eat it. Eat food. Why do we compare אמונה to eating? Cause there is two things: there is לבושים, something on the outside, garments, and then you have food that you eat. You can have אמונה like a garment, it's outside. Garment is, yeah, it's a nice thing, but you could disguise yourself. You could put on a garment that doesn't belong to you. But food that you eat becomes part דמו ובשרו, becomes part of you. ורעה אמונה, you have to feed on אמונה, means it has to be real to you. As real as the גשמיות is, it has to be real to you that there is an אייבערשטער and אין עוד מלבדו, and there's nothing, and that's real. And they say in English, \"Seeing is believing.\" Not believing. Believe doesn't mean anything. I could believe, I could say I believe. But to really mean it, you have to know it, knowledge. And that's what חסידות is. And that's what חסידות is a complete opposite of what the Communism is is is to אויסרייסן the אמונה of the אייבערשטער. And חסידות חב״ד and כל חסידות, וחב״ד בפרט, comes to explain ענינים that when you come out learning, like now in חת״ת, many people I'm sure here learn חת״ת, is שער היחוד והאמונה where he talks about explaining the אחדות השם, what it means that there's nothing but השם. And it's real that way. It's not like it's just superficial, not I believe. That's real. This בכלל is the job of משה רבינו. It says that the job of משה רבינו, he's called in זהר רעיא מהימנא. רעיא מהימנא means רועה נאמן. Simple פשט means the trustworthy shepherd, a shepherd that you could trust. But חסידות טייטש is רועה נאמן means the shepherd of אמונה. What do you mean, a shepherd of אמונה? A shepherd makes sure that his flock eats. משה רבינו's job was to make sure that the אידן eat אמונה. What's the פשט eat אמונה? That the אמונה goes inside, becomes part of them. This is part of their life. This is real. And by the רבי, it's ג׳ תמוז, by the רבי, that's there's the biggest מופת that you could see what the רבי did. The רבי brought, instilled in the חסידים בפרט, in the whole world, what the רבי with the מבצעים trying to bring this אידישקייט and אייבערשטער as a fact, as a reality, as a reality. And whether the תורה is real and the מצות are real, and what it says in תורה is real, and the אייבערשטער is real, השם אלקים אמת. הוא אלוקים חיים. Someone told me that during the, I don't know if the Six-Day War or the יום כיפור War, there were, is it, some group of soldiers that were a few soldiers, and they were in a tank, and they saw the enemy coming with a lot of soldiers. And they were outnumbered without a question. They didn't know what to do. So one of them took out his תפילין and started putting on תפילין. As soon as he started putting on תפילין, they turned around, they started running away. When they ran away, they started chasing it, and they actually found, captured one of them, more than one, but one of them was the sergeant, the the head, whatever it is. And when they were interrogating him, they asked him, \"What made you guys run away? You saw that we are a few.\" So he said, \"What we saw was that there was somebody who put on some boxes with some straps, so we thought that this is some kind of new ammunition that you put on, so we got very scared and we ran away.\" Actually, the גמרא says this: וראו כל עמי הארץ כי שם ה׳ נקרא עליך ויראו ממך, that the people will see, the nations will see ה׳ on your face, and they'll be afraid. And the גמרא says, what does this refer to? אלו תפילין שבראש, the תפילין. This person who was involved called Rabbi Groner, the רבי's secretary, and said to give over to the רבי the story. And he told the story as is: that they saw the תפילין, they said, and they thought that this is a new ammunition, a kind of ammunition, and they got scared. The רבי got very serious, and the רבי said, \"What do you mean they thought this was ammunition? This is ammunition! If the גמרא says this is true, if the גמרא says it's this is true, that's no two ways about it, because תורת אמת.\" Like they used to say, well, the גמרא said, if אמונה is בבחינת מקיף, you could, you know, believe and not believe. But we hate to say we believe in the אייבערשטער, because the moment we say we believe in the אייבערשטער, know what that means? I believe like this, you could believe different, I mean, there's different opinions. We don't believe there's a אייבערשטער, we don't believe there's a אייבערשטער. We know there's a אייבערשטער! We know that the תורה is אמת! We know whatever it says in the תורה is אמת. And that's a fact, and that's the life the way we have to, and that's what the רבי did and is continuing to do through his שלוחים, continuing to do is to instill in the world. Why did the רבי start this whole thing with the seeing that even the גוים keep the שבע מצוות בני נח? Because it's part of הלכה, the רמב״ם. In the last, end of רמב״ם, he says that there's a הלכה that יידן have to see to that the גוים keep the שבע מצוות בני נח. This is all part of a הכנה to משיח. When משיח will come, what is going to happen when משיח will come? We all talk about משיח and the רמב״ם, at the end, the סיום הרמב״ם, all about משיח, משיח. What's going to happen when משיח will come? So the פסוק says, ונגלה כבוד ה׳ וראו כל בשר יחדו כי פי ה׳ דיבר. That the whole world will recognize ה׳, that's what it is. מלאה הארץ דעה את ה׳, the whole world will recognize ה׳. As a הכנה to that, as a preparation, we have to ourselves try to instill in ourselves more the recognition, which is to learn חסידות, and see to do it to others also. When a person prepares himself, let's say wants to go to a musical concert, and he wants to be ready to appreciate it, he's going to study music, he's not going to study art. And if he wants to go to recognize and appreciate an art exhibition, he's going to study art. If you want to be ready, הכנה to the time of משיח, when the revelation of ה׳ will be there, you've got to get ready with this, and that's what the רבי was working. The רבי טייטשט in the name of the פריערדיקער רבי, that it says that that you have to remember יציאת מצרים כל ימי חייך, כל ימי חייך להביא לימות המשיח. That means all your life you have to work on bringing משיח. And what is that? To instill in ourselves and in the world this recognition of the truth of ה׳. See, some people think that משיח, what's going to happen when משיח will come? We'll have a lot of food and we'll have a lot of money. You know, they say they once asked the אלטער רבי, \"When is משיח going to come?\" So he said, \"The משיח that everyone is waiting for is not going to come. The one that's going to come, no one's waiting for him.\" You know, they're waiting for the גשמיות, that that's not what it is. That's why some people, see, the רמב״ם פסקנ'ט, in in today's שיעור, and the רמב״ם says, כל מי שאינו מאמין בו, anybody who doesn't believe in משיח, או, or, is not waiting for him, is a כופר, not only in תנ״ך, but in תורת משה, in חומש. Because חומש says משיח will come. But what does the רמב״ם say? Who is it? Somebody doesn't believe in him, or, doesn't say \"and\", or doesn't wait for him. That means you could believe in him, but not wait for him. There are a lot of people who believe משיח will come, but I'm not waiting for him. If he'll come ten years later, it's נישט געפערלעך, I have ברוך ה׳ a nice house, and a nice car, and everything's fine, and I have a lot of money, and I have this, וואס איז שלעכט? Ah, משיח will come. They even make this a וועלטישע joke that they say that there's once עפעס א פשוטער איד that had a little farm and didn't make any money. Finally, he established, he bought a house and he bought a cow and he was ready to make a living. Comes home one day from שול, he says, עפעס, a rabbi came to שול and he spoke, and he said משיח is coming soon, and he's going to take us out from here and take us to ארץ ישראל. נעבעך, finally after 20 years we establish ourselves, and משיח is going to take us? So his wife says, \"Listen here, don't worry. השם protected us from המן and from פרעה and from this, He'll protect us from משיח, too.\" That's how some people think. Those people do believe, it's only when things are not so good. You know, they also, it's not time for jokes, but sometimes a joke brings out the point. There was once a guy who got a son-in-law, and he gave him נדן, he gave him a lot of dowry, and he advised him to take the dowry, the money, and invest it with a certain גביר, with a certain rich man who was very honest and he made... and the son-in-law said, \"No, I'm going to invest with somebody else. Another guy, not such a great גביר, but I'll...\" And his father-in-law said, \"Why? This, this, this guy is much richer, he'll make much more money.\" No, he said, \"No.\" And he invested with the second guy. Few weeks later, they found out that the first guy, the richer man, went bankrupt. So the father-in-law asks him, \"Obviously you had some inclination. You knew that, that's why you didn't want, because there was no other reason. How did you know? How'd you know he was going bankrupt?\" So he says, \"I happened to walk by when he was talking to a friend, and I happened to hear, I eavesdropped, and I heard him say, 'Ah, it's about time משיח comes.' I knew he's not doing well.\" Why would he want משיח to come? \"So I knew he's not doing...\" That's how by some people are. That's not what it is. We have to know that the תכלית of everything is to come to משיח, and so many years passed already, and the רבי said that we're ready now for משיח. It's just holding back a little bit, but soon. That's why I said before, this is the last סיום הרמב״ם, because the next one will be the time of משיח already, משיח is coming. But we have to, especially today, the סיום הרמב״ם, it talks about משיח, we have to try work on that, and knowing that if the תורה says so, איז דאס אמת, this is true. What you see other things, just to finish off with also once, and this חסידות teaches, teaches us. Someone told me he was once waiting here in New York for a bus stop, and it was snowing, yes, and he was waiting, a whole bunch of people waiting, and the bus didn't come. So he says he turns around to another איד and he says, \"You think the bus is going to come?\" נו, וואס ענטפערט א איד? הלוואי זאל משיח קומען אזוי שנעל ווי דער באס וועט קומען. הלוואי משיח should come as fast as the bus. So this guy said to him, \"I don't know what you're talking about. The bus, I don't know if it'll come. משיח is coming for sure! Says in the תורה, so משיח is coming for sure!\" So he looks at him and he says, \"Are you a ליובאוויטשער, by any chance?\" Anyway, with that, I'll finish. לחיים.