A vort of the Rebbe for Hoshana Rabbah. In Zohar it says that on Hoshana Rabbah, that's when we have the real גמר חתימה טובה. Normally it's known that the גמר חתימה טובה is on Yom Kippur, but in Zohar it says really there is still a chance, and the real גמר חתימה טובה is on Hoshana Rabbah. Calls it פתקין טובין, and Yiddish, Yiddish is usually said as גוטע קוויטלאך. Hashem writes down good notes for us on Hoshana Rabbah cuz that's when there is the end of the דין. It's a kind of יום הדין, but it's a יום הדין with the גמר חתימה טובה. And that is why the minhag is that we do special things on Hoshana Rabbah. One of the things is we stay up specially at night and we say Tehillim after chatzot, and it's very important, because it's saying Tehillim for the גמר דין, that it should be a good גמר דין. We behave like a Yom Tov. After davenen in the morning, we eat a סעודת יום טוב, a regular סעודת יום טוב like we eat on Yom Tov and Shabbos. We wash, we have fish and we have פלייש like a regular Yom Tov. That's the מנהג ישראל. And it's all because that's the יום הדין.

But the Rebbe has an added vort here. The Rebbe says that the berachot that we could be ממשיך, that we could bring down on Hoshana Rabbah, is not just big berachot, but בלי גבול ברכות, unlimited, infinite berachot. And the Rebbe says that's hinted in the word Hoshana Rabbah. The simple meaning of Hoshana Rabbah is, it's when we say a lot of hoshanot. Because every day we say one paragraph of hoshanot, on Hoshana Rabbah we say all those that we said throughout the week plus more, so that's called Hoshana Rabbah, the big hoshana, a lot of hoshanot. But if you translate the simple meaning of the word, the word Hoshana Rabbah means a great help, a great yeshuah. Yeshuah means a salvation, a help, which is a berachah, and it means a great berachah. And the Rebbe explains what is the peshat great? The real meaning of great or big is when it's infinite, because as long as it's finite, it's limited, how could we call it great? How could we call it big? It's relative. Compared to something smaller it's big, but compared to something bigger it's small. When can we see, when can we say it in absolute term that it's big is when there is nothing bigger than that, and that is only when something that's infinite. So when we call the day Hoshana Rabbah, it means it's a day we can be ממשיך ישועות בלי גבול, unlimited, infinite amount of yeshuot. And that's why the behavior of keeping all the minhagim and all the things that we do on Hoshana Rabbah is very important.

So I want to add, to mention to everybody that it's very important to come to say Tehillim, because saying Tehillim is like saying Tehillim on Rosh Hashanah, like saying Tehillim on Yom Kippur, it's all for that special din. And we are sure that the Eibershter will give us a good year, He will give us gut kvitel, and the non-Lubavitcher world actually says when they see somebody on Hoshana Rabbah, they say a gut kvitel. And the Rebbe mentioned that by us it's not such a minhag, and nevertheless, the Rebbe himself said that lashon by the sichot that it should be a gut kvitel. Eibershter should write us down for the yeshuot, for the best yeshuot, the greatest yeshuot, and hopefully the biggest yeshuah, the yeshuah of the yeshuah from the galut with the coming of Moshiach b'karov mamash.