earlier years, in the Yud's and the Chof's, the Rebbe would walk from his house whenever he came to 770 or went home from 770 to the house, he would walk, also at night. The later years after that, it stopped, and the Rebbe would always be taken by car, but except Friday night, obviously the Rebbe would walk home. And the seder was that whenever at night, for sure, when the Rebbe would have to walk home, there would always be two bachurim following behind. There was a ממונה, a bachur who was in charge, and he would ask different bachurim who were on the list, tonight is your turn to go, and another time it was somebody else's turn to go, and to wait for the Rebbe to leave 770, and then they would walk behind the Rebbe. When I was ממונה, I took it over from Rabbi Berel Lipsker, when he got married, he was in charge till then. He got married, he gave it over to me, so I became a ממונה, but by then already, the Rebbe would only walk home Friday night. So I would have a list of which bachurim are in the list, and every Friday night, I would tell them tonight is your time to go. They would wait in 770. We didn't know exactly when the Rebbe would go home. He didn't go home right after Maariv, he would go home much later. So you had to sit in 770 and wait and wait, and you see the Rebbe go out, the bachurim would follow behind.

When the bachurim would follow behind, they obviously were not too close to the Rebbe, they were far, they were behind, but in a way that they could see the Rebbe, and the Rebbe knew that they were following, obviously. And would go, and I remember the Rebbe would go, and when he would cross the street by President Street, he would cross the street on Brooklyn and President, and then he would turn right into President. When it came to President Street, when the Rebbe turned, the bachurim followed him, but when the Rebbe got closer to the house, the bachurim would stop. In other words, they wouldn't get too close, and they would watch from far the way the Rebbe would go up the steps and go into his house. The first thing the Rebbe would do always was, as soon as he went into his house, you could see he went over to the windows in the front. The windows had a window shade on them, each window had a window shade. And those that remember the windows from אמאל, when you had two parts to the window, so the top of the bottom part of the window had like a little hook that in order to lock it, you would have to turn it. So the Rebbe, the first thing he would do, he would walk into the house, walk straight over to the windows, the Rebbe himself, you could see his hand, he would put his hand behind the window shade, between the window shade and the glass, and he would make sure that that lock is locked on both windows. And he did it because he wanted to do it, but that was also a siman for the bachurim. The bachurim would wait till that happened, and when that happened, it was a siman that everything is okay, and the bachurim would leave. But it was the Rebbe himself who would, you could see that, that the Rebbe himself, his hand, put in the hand between the window shade and the window, and would make sure that it's locked.

What was spoken then, and I don't know where the מקור is at all, but what was spoken, that it says someplace in Kabbalah, in Arizal or from Zohar or something, I don't know where, but that's what they said, that the ענין of a baal habayit of a house is that at night he makes sure that the windows are locked or the doors are locked, something like that, that's part of being a baal habayit, that's what it says, and there must be kabbalistic reasons for it. I have no idea if this is right, but I heard this not now, I heard this those years when I did it. Before that, we heard that this is what it says. But regardless of whether this is the what it says or not, bepoal, this was the siman for the bachurim, when you saw the Rebbe's hand go in between the window shade and the glass, and you would see him make sure that it's locked. Now from far you couldn't see, maybe takeh it wasn't locked and the Rebbe locked it, or maybe it was locked and he just checked to make sure it's locked, I don't know, but this is what used to happen.